USA > New Hampshire > History of the Twelfth regiment, New Hampshire volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 32
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This was the end of competitive inspections, which, as might have been expected, resulted in more harm than good to the service, for no matter how fairly or ably managed, exact justice was impossible, and the unsuccessful competitors being both dissatisfied and discouraged the last end was almost certain to be worse than the first. No wise commander would seriously think of so foolish an attempt to improve the personnel of his army that was to remain for any time in active service.
Several of the Twelfth boys got furloughs for being found, by these inspections, best in the whole division, and the whole regiment was excused from duty two or three times for receiving the highest mark at the brigade inspections.
February 9, the regiment had the very unpleasant duty to perform of shooting one of its own members for desertion. Joseph Sharp, one of the substitutes of Company A, who joined the regiment at Point Lookout, and deserted at White House Landing on the night that the regiment encamped there on its way to Cold Harbor, upon this day ended his earthly career.
Soon after his desertion and safe escape to the North, he again enlisted for a big bounty, and soon found himself enrolled as a recruit in the Fifth Maryland, which, most unfortunately for him, was at that time in the same brigade as the Twelfth. He tried hard to escape recognition by his old comrades, but in a few days his near presence was discovered by one or two of them, which soon came to the knowledge of Colonel Barker.
Taking with him, Corp. Julius A. Davis, of Company A, from whom he had learned of the deserter's whereabouts, and who knew in just what company and tent of the Maryland regiment he could be found, if in his quarters, the Colonel quickly visited the commander of the Fifth Mary- land (who had just before refused to give up the culprit upon a written request) and demanded his man.
Seeing that to longer refuse would involve himself in trouble, the Maryland colonel apologized for his officious independence and sent an officer of his regiment along with Colonel Barker and Corporal Davis to hunt out the soldier who, though enrolled under and answering to a dif- ferent name. was believed to be no other than Joseph Sharp, as he called himself while present for duty in the Twelfth.
Davis. acting as guide, soon stopped in front of a tent which he pointed
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out to his followers as the quarters of the man they were hunting for, but he was not there. Colonel Barker's first thought was that the fellow had got a windward hint of his discovery, and taken another jump, more this time, however, for a longer lease of life than for another bounty. But upon further search, he was found in another tent, and recognized by the shepard colonel himself as one of his lost black sheep. For a while he persisted in avowing his innocence, declaring that he knew nothing about such a man as Joseph Sharp and that he never went by such a name. But when he found he was to be taken back to his old regiment, where he would be identified by every member of his company that was still in the ranks, he broke down completely and confessed the whole, exclaiming : "And now, Colonel, I suppose I shall soon be a dead man."
"Oh no! I guess not," replied the colonel, thinking then, in the kind- ness of his heart, that, if he would only show true repentance for the past, by a strict compliance with future duty, he would do all that he could to save him from so sad a fate. And the verdict of the court- martial of " guilty," would doubtless have been followed by a strong recommendation for mercy and final mitigation of the death sentence, had he not thrown away all chance or hope, by foolishly making a full confession, as the world will say - Heaven's record may read differently -owning that he had deserted several times before, and that when arrested he was actually making preparations to desert again, and get one more bounty before the end of the war.
HIe had deserted once too many then, and he saw, when too late, that although he had gained thousands of dollars, he must lose his own life as a penalty for the unlawful and dishonorable means he had employed.
By virtue of a reward offered by the War Department to any soldier who would give information that would lead to the apprehension and conviction of a deserter, Corporal Davis was entitled to a thirty days' furlough and thirty dollars in money. He received his furlough, but for some reason was never paid the money.
Some of the regiment, and especially the recruits, blamed Davis for informing against his comrade, with whom he had been intimate, even after Sharp was found by him in the Maryland regiment, and accused him of betraying a friendly confidant solely for selfish gain. But Davis, who is still living, gives a different version of the affair, and says he only answered to the inquiry made of him by Colonel Barker, who had learned from another that he (Davis) could tell him most about the missing man.
The particulars of the execution need not be given here, as they were about the same as written out in full in a previous chapter about the death of two other deserters from the Second New Hampshire.
It was the first and last visitation of the extreme penalty of the law upon any member of the Twelfth, by order of a court-martial, while in the service ; and he who suffered it gave evidence of true repentance,
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not only for which he was convicted, but for all that he had done that was wrong during his whole life. Ile forgave all, as he hoped to be for- given, and expressed the wish that his comrades and all others cognizant of his sad end might take warning therefrom, and die not, like him, an ignominious death.
The almost continuous grumble, rumble, and roar of our own and the enemy's artillery around and to the left of Petersburg, lessened somewhat as the autumn days shortened, and changed, as the leaves fell, from the constant to the recurrent.
Yet at frequent intervals during the whole winter the western breezes brought to our ears sounds of contending cannon - sometimes savagely loud and spasmodic, from the Petersburg front, and again, but less often, in lower pitch but greater volume, swelling into the wide-reverberating and long-resounding thunders of distant battle, where Trip-hammer Grant was still at work, away round on the enemy's right, pounding and pul- verizing the few remaining foundation stones of the Southern Confederacy.
There was but little for our artillerists to do north of the James, except to practice, when they got a chance, on the rebel rams and gunboats, and still less need of burning any coarse powder along the Bermuda front.
There were but few battery balls thrown by the right wing of the army after the capture of Fort Harrison, but many blank cartridges were ex- ploded at different times by our artillery when good news came in from the South and West, so that the enemy might know that our armies elsewhere were marching on from victory to victory. And these salutes, usually of an hundred guns each, were by no means a foolish waste of powder, for they did much to encourage our own troops, while, at the same time, they had a correspondingly disheartening effect upon the Confederate forces opposed to them.
But the roar of our saluting guns, for every important victory gained by other Federal armies in the field, gladdened some hearts that beat beneath the gray as well as the blue, for there were many still in arms against the Government, who, while they were too honorable to desert a sinking cause that they had once so earnestly espoused, yet were heartily sick of longer periling their lives in a useless attempt to establish it. And this was especially so with the more intelligent of the rebel army, for they more than half believed that their defeat would prove more bene- ficial to them and their posterity than their success.
Slowly but surely the besieged Confederacy was crumbling to pieces.
Lee's army was about all there was left of it ; for all its strongholds, except Richmond and Petersburg, had fallen, and Johnson's army was powerless to check the march of Sherman's victorious legions on their course northward to join the Army of the Potomac.
The South Side and Lynchburg railroads had been for some time the main lines of supply left to General Lee: and to hold these from the reaching grasp of Grant, he had been obliged to extend his lines south-
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westward until they extended from the Claiborne road, where it crosses Hatches's Run on his right, to White Oak Swamp, his extreme left - a distance of thirty-seven miles by the most direct route, and not reckoning anything for irregularities of the line of intrenchments, except the deflec- tions, of four miles each, along the courses of the James and Appomattox rivers.
Of the direct line, eight miles were north of the James, five between the rivers, and sixteen south of the Appomattox.
The following anecdote, whether true or false, quite well illustrates the situation and condition of the Southern cause at the beginning of the year 1865 :
Sometimes there would occur an interchange of jokes between the picket lines that would bring out sharp points of wit upon one side or the other, the Yankee, however, usually coming out ahead.
In one of these amusing contests that took place, about this time, between a "Fed-well" and a "corn-fed," as they were sometimes dis- tinguished, the former, after cunningly setting his trap by referring to the effective service that the rebels made against us by their frequent use of the Whitworth gun, suddenly and earnestly broke out as follows :
" But do you know, 'Johnny,' that we are not allowed to use long range guns on our side any longer?"
" No, nor you neither ; what you givin' us now, Yank?"
" Something solid and serious, and no joking : and I can tell you why, if you want to know."
" Well, let's have it then."
" Because your Confederacy is getting so thin that we are afraid of shooting . plumb' through it and killing our own men."
Thus it will be seen that before the earth in her orbit had reached the equinoctial point dividing the winter from the spring in the last year of the war, the Slave Confederacy had become but an empty shell of such transparent thinness that those outside could see, almost as well as those within, how nothing less than such a marvelous change of events as the most sanguine and devoted rebel could find neither ground to hope, nor faith to pray for, could save it from being crushed by the surrounding pressure of military power.
The Union soldiers saw the southern cross fast fading away as they kept their night watch around their camps, while to them the northern star beamed forth with constantly increasing brilliancy.
So sure were some of the men in the regiment, that a few more months, at the longest, would end the war, that, though seriously disabled, they refused to accept of a discharge when offered to them, because they wanted to see the end, and go home with the rest of the boys after the war was over.
With his lines constantly extending, and his army daily decreasing, Lee plainly saw that the only chance left for him was to escape, if possi-
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ble, by breaking through the Union line, and uniting with Johnston's army further south.
He could but fail in the attempt, and to remain where he was, only invited the same fate, without even the excuse of an effort to avoid it.
IIe therefore resolved to act upon the idea that " while there is life there is hope," however feeble the strength, and decided upon Fort Steadman as the point of attack.
General Gordon was selected to lead and direct the assaulting column, which, advancing under cover of darkness, took the fort before its defend- ers had time to recover from their surprise.
But the Union forces rushing to the rescue from the right and left, soon drove the rebels out and back, and Lee's last desperate effort before his final retreat proved, as he had feared, a failure.
Although the apparent and, as then supposed, real object of this attack was to paralyze Grant's right hand until the greatest part or the whole of the rebel forces could clude his grasp, it now appears from some Confed- erate papers and reports, that its main object was to compel Grant to so far withdraw his extreme left, as to allow Lee's army to quickly and quietly abandon their line of works in front of Petersburg and Rich- mond, and marching around our left flank, unite with Johnston and crush Sherman before Grant with his forces could prevent it.
This seems to have been a plan previously agreed upon by Jefferson Davis and General Lee as a last resort ; and Grant, apprehensive that something of the kind might be attempted by the Confederate leaders, kept signal and picket officers constantly upon the alert that no sign or indication of any change or movement in the enemy's lines should escape their notice.
But the attack upon Fort Steadman was all the evidence that the Fed- eral leader wanted to convince him that the hour of final action was at hand, and he immediately ordered General Ord, in command of the Army of the James, to take with him the First and Second Divisions of the Twenty-fourth Corps, one division (colored) of the Twenty-fifth Corps, with quite a large force of cavalry, and march at once with all possible secrecy and celerity, to join the Second Corps at the extreme left of the Union line, where they would be ready to fight or chase Lee, as occasion might require, in the anticipated effort of the rebel commander to save his army from capture.
This march of thirty-six miles was so quickly and quietly made, that the enemy knew nothing of it until several days after, when he found his right flank imperiled by the presence of troops that were supposed to be nearly forty miles away.
It was one of the most timely and successful movements ever made by the Army of the James, or any part of it.
But this movement of troops, though largely contributory to greater results than even hoped for, in so short a time, was nevertheless a very
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risky one, for it was made in the face and eyes of the whole of Long- street's corps that had been sent north of the James only a few days before to meet an attack, or take an advantage of the withdrawal of our troops, as indications from the greatest vigilance and closest inspection might dictate.
Had Longstreet known what General Weitzel, left in command of Ber- muda and Chapin's Farm, did - that little more than a picket line re- mained to hold the works protecting Grant's right wing - it would have been the Union instead of the Confederate right that would have suffered first, if not most.
It was because of this danger that every precaution was taken, both by the troops leaving and those remaining, to deceive the enemy until his right flank was imperiled by Grant's strongly reinforced left.
From this until the memorable morning of the eventful 3d of April, 1865, every officer and soldier, of both armies, felt sure that something unusually important was about to occur; and every member of the Twelfth as well as all the other soldiers of the Twenty-fourth Corps, left to hold the line nearest Richmond, was constantly on the qui vive, first fearing every moment an attack, and then expecting to attack themselves, but happily disappointed in both, as the enemy, ignorant of our weak- ness, did not molest us, and the last "onward to Richmond" was over deserted works, instead of the wounded and the dead.
Daily and almost hourly came the order : " Hold your men in readiness to move at any moment," and picket orders and duties were so rigidly exact- ing and constantly recurring on account of the importance of the situation and the scarcity of troops, that the men hardly got time to eat or sleep. Nothing like it had ever been required of them before, but they com- plained but little, except in a joking way, for every one plainly under- stood the necessity of his overwork and sleepless watchfulness, and had full faith in the final result.
CHAPTER XIV.
CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF RICHMOND.
.. I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," were the words with which General Grant closed his first dispatch to the War Department after six days of terrible but undecisive conflict with the enemy at the Wilderness and Spottsylvania. And although he did not " fight it out" upon that line at all, and it only lacked a month and one day of being a whole year from the time he first moved his army south- ward from the Rapidan before any part of it entered Richmond, except as prisoners of war, yet, with all his flanking and swinging, changing both his line and base of operations, his face was always toward his objective point, and his army, though often repulsed and sometimes, as at Cold Harbor and Petersburg, almost disheartened, listened in vain for an order to retreat. Such a word was nowhere to be found in his whole military vocabulary. Napoleon's "forward," as the only answer to his chief engineer, who had reported it impossible to advance further over the seemingly impassible barriers of the snow-clad Alps, was not prompted by a stronger will or more determined purpose than constantly and unwaveringly possessed the mind of General Grant from the 4th of May, 1864, when his army made its first advance toward the Confederate capital, to the 3d of April, 1865, when a portion of the same army chased the last armed rebel out of it.
As related in the preceding chapter, nothing now remained of the dying Confederacy but the closing scenes and the funeral ceremonies.
On the evening of April 2d, our musicians were kept busy until 9 o'clock or past, for the double purpose of holding Longstreet in our front as long as possible, and at the same time preventing him from making an attack, by inducing him to believe that there were three or four times as many troops in his front as there really were. But the sound of artillery away to the south-westward, at frequent intervals the day before, where Sheridan and Warren had already commenced the final struggle, and the nearer and louder sound of Ord's, Wright's, and Parks's guns in their early morning attack of the 2d upon the enemy's lines to the left and in front of Petersburg, had sent Longstreet in that direction many hours before the musical entertainment, intended for his delusion, had commenced.
General Weitzel was watching for signs all night, and one of his staff, climbing to the top of a signal tower near his headquarters, discovered a
.
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bright light, like the burning of a building of some kind, in what he thought to be the city of Richmond.
Just before this, and causing the observation, a deep, heavy sound was heard from the same direction, soon followed by two or three others resembling the first.
These reports were heard by many of the soldiers, beside those on picket, who, like their general, were too intensely interested in what was doing, or about to be done, to close their eyes in slumber. Among such were several officers and men of the Twelfth, who, while watching and listening, earnestly discussed the signs and sounds that had come to their eyes as well as ears -for they too had seen the light - and agreeing that the sounds were not the reports of either cannon or mortars, quickly and rightly concluded that the rebels were blowing up their gun-boats and arsenal preparatory to evacuation.
Soon everyone in camp was up, excitedly moving and eagerly ques- tioning, as if the long roll had been beaten.
Grant, anticipating Lee's movements, had ordered an assault upon the rebel works north of the James to be made by daylight the next morning, and all, from General Weitzel to private, were intensely interested to know whether they were again to face the shot and shell of an entrenched foe, or to have the double pleasure of avoiding danger and death, and marching unopposed over deserted lines of defense into the city that had so long defied their efforts to capture.
If the reader will here pause and reflect for a single moment, he can not but imagine strongly the feelings and hopes of the soldiers on that part of the Union line at this time.
Between what they still feared and what they were beginning to hope for, was the life-wide difference, in prospect, of the peace and pleasure of home, amid their kindred and native hills, and a sad and silent home, unnumbered and unknown, in a southern grave.
By 3 o'clock, from the reports of deserters and the story of an intelli- gent negro who came riding into our lines in a buggy, it became quite certain that Richmond was being evacuated, and as soon as fairly light our picket line was ordered forward.
The enemy's outer line of works was quickly reached and surmounted, but no rebels, armed or unarmed, were found, and silence, save when broken by the cheers of our men, alone remained to challenge their approach.
Captain Sargent and Lieutenant Bohonon were the officers in charge of the picket detail from the Twelfth, and the latter was the first man to mount the enemy's works, but scarcely sooner than Newell Davidson, of Company G, and others who were by his side or but just behind him.
After the picket line had passed the fortifications, all semblance of marching order was lost in a race for Richmond ; but who got there first will never be known, though many have claimed the honor.
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But let us forget the many years that have passed since that eventful morning, making it seem at times almost like a dream, and write a while in the present tense as if we were again there.
Richmond, the long sought and fought for, is at last within our grasp. The Sevastopol of the Confederacy has fallen, and but a single act remains to close the bloody drama of the great rebellion of 1861-5. The war-worn veterans, now plainly seeing what for long and weary months and years they had been patiently toiling and anxiously looking for-the near approaching end of their privations, hardships, and sufferings in the glorious consummation of the old flag triumphant over treason, and their country saved - grasp hands, or rush into each other's arms with smiles and tears of gladness, then throw high in air their caps, and give three long and loud resounding cheers, to be taken up and echoed and re-echoed along the lines from one command to another until the whole heavens are filled with shouts of gladness and cheers of victory.
Till life's last day will this day last, vivid and distinct in our memories. It makes the boys think of home and of the gladness that the glorious news will carry there ; and so they catch at the first opportunity to write letters to those nearest and dearest to their hearts.
Colonel Barker writes :
I am so overjoyed with this day's success of our arms, that I can hardly keep still enough to write. The rebels being so effectually whipped yesterday in the vicinity of Petersburg that they knew they could not hold Richmond. fled pre- cipitately last night. leaving their artillery, camp and garrison equipage, and most everything else to fall into our hands. Some of the light guns in the outer line of works were spiked, but all of the heavy ordnance was left uninjured. I do not know the number of guns that we have taken, but it is enough to say that they did not get many away.
Captain Sargent and Lieutenant Bohonon were on the picket line, and conse- quently among the first to enter the city. Captain Sargent, as he was passing Jetl. Davis's house, halted his command and ordered three groans for the arch traitor who, by the way, left last night. Before leaving the rebels set fire to some of the public buildings and storehouses, and a great part of the city was destroyed before our soldiers could arrest the progress of the flames. Shells and torpedoes have been exploding all day, and the sound has been much like a rag- ing battle. Thousands of people are homeless, and are, I assure you. objects of pity and sympathy.
The indignation of the citizens at the soldiers of their army for setting the city on fire is very great. They seem ready to own that they were secessionists, but are now loud in denouncing their leaders, and desire to return to their allegiance. I tell you the boys are gay. I never expect to see but two bigger days than this - one, when peace is declared, and the other. best of all. when we return to our homes. Colonel Ripley is now acting provost marshal of Richmond, but only by mistake. General Weitzel intended that General Donahoe should have that position. and sent for his brigade for provost duty ; but the orderly or staff officer simply delivered the order to General Devens to send a brigade, and in the excitement Devens sent up the first brigade.
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Sergeant Clarke, of Company G, while the regiment halts with its brigade a few moments on " Tree Hill," pencils off the following :
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