USA > New Hampshire > History of the Twelfth regiment, New Hampshire volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 9
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
This was looked upon by some of the soldiers as greatly in our favor, as under cover of it the troops could with greater security lay the pon- toon bridges and cross the river. But had they better understood the game that was being played by their commander they would have known that the fog, by screening the movements of this part of his army from the enemy's view, was liable to materially interfere with, if not entirely defeat his plans, instead of assisting him to carry them out ; for the main design of this movement on the left was to deceive, and not to surprise the enemy. For this reason his artillery continued active, with no other object - Brooks' division of the Sixth Corps having crossed the river before light and driven back the enemy's pickets - than to indicate to the ear of General Lee what could not be seen through his field-glass, that the Union commander was intending to renew the effort of Burnside, to drive him from his position by attacking his right and centre. But Hooker had no thought of following in the bloody footsteps of his unfor- tunate predecessor. His plans reached farther, and promised far better results. However befogged the enemy, as well as his own men, in trying to divine his intentions, in his own mind all was bright and clear.
When, in a few hours, the morning mist obeyed the "Sovereign King of Day " and retreated from the valley to the cloud-capped mountains, it uncovered to the anxious gaze of General Lee a large part of the Fed- eral army, massed on the opposite and lower banks of the river, and apparently making preparations to cross in force upon the bridges already constructed there, and turn his right flank.
Two divisions of the First Corps, with the Sixth waiting to follow, had already crossed the river, while the Third Corps under Sickles lay further back in reserve.
During this and the following day there was much marching and coun- termarching around and between the hills by infantry and artillery, and so manœuvered by General Sedgwick in command of this wing of the army, as to make it appear to the enemy that the whole army was con- centrating here, and that a general attack was about to be made.
This last was true, but the Confederate commander was watching in the wrong direction ; and, before he was aware of it, his left instead of his right flank was turned by General Hooker at the head of over forty thousand men at Chancellorsville.
Toward noon, General Whipple's division of the Third Corps moved about half a mile further down and nearer to the river. The day had been dark and cloudy, and the night coming in cold and wet, the men, in no happy mood, gathered around their camp fires and begun to discuss the situation and prospect of things.
Some of the nervo-sanguine temperament became impatient, and wanted to know what General Hooker was waiting for, and why he did not advance in force. And some ironically expressed the opinion that he had probably built two or three pontoon bridges, a la Burnside, to give
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
the enemy due notice that he was coming, and where he intended to cross the river. Later, as the rain increased, they feared it would be another stuck-in-the-mud tramp.
Others, more inclined to look upon the bright side, but equally in the dark, would banter their fault-finding comrades by telling them that "Old Joe" ought to have consulted them before he started, not only about the weather, but concerning his general plan of operations ; that they had better write " Uncle Abe " how things were going, or waiting to go, and petition the clerk of the weather for a dry time to get back to camp in, etc., etc.
While others still, more matter of fact and philosophic, would calmly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this and that plan of a cam- paign, and the relative probabilities of success should Hooker decide to adopt one or the other. They rightly concluded that the move to the left was nothing more than a feint, but were wholly unable to even conjecture when and where the real attack would be made.
The next morning all that were able, crawled out from under their water-soaked shelters, some pleasant and smiling, but most of them cold, crabbed, and cross ; and it was noticed, as they sat shivering around their slowly kindling fires, waiting for a dipper of hot coffee to warm them up, that the number of last night's grumblers had largely increased, while the jokes were less-though you could neither freeze nor drown out the irrepressible wit of some - and the reflective ones were silent.
Nothing, unless defeat, dampens the spirit of an army in the field like wet weather.
Slowly the morning hours pass, but the storm is over, and just as the welcome sun breaks through the scattering clouds - bright harbinger of the good news coming - a courier dashes into camp, and this is the glad tidings that he brings :
HD. QRS. ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, CAMP NEAR FALMOUTH, VA., April 30, 1863.
It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the commanding general announces to the army that the operations of the last three days have determined that our enemy must either ingloriously fly or come out from behind his defenses and give us battle on our own ground where certain destruction awaits him. The operations of the 5th, 11th, and 12th Corps have been a succession of splendid achievements.
By command of MAJ. GEN. HOOKER.
S. WILLIAMS, Asst. Adjt. Gen.
No sooner was this published to the Third Corps, by being read in front of every regiment, than such a shout went up with a cloud of caps and hats, that one who was there lifts his pen and listens, half thinking he can hear it now.
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
How quick and great the change !
"A moment ago 'twas a drear, dumb show," but now -
The doubting and pouting together are shouting " hurrah for ' Fighting Joe.'"
All was enthusiasm and excitement now among the troops, as they impatiently awaited the momentarily expected order to march. It came at I P. M., and soon the whole corps were on the road to United States Ford. For twelve long hours, or until I o'clock the next morning, without a single halt of more than a few moments at a time, the weary but cheerful soldiers continued their march, bivouacking at last near Hartwood Church, and having by this forced march of eighteen or twenty miles, over a circuitous valley route that hid them from the enemy, placed themselves some twelve or fourteen miles nearer to and within supporting distance of Hooker's right, which they were to reinforce, and where their potent presence was soon to be felt, as well as needed.
This was the first forced march the Twelfth had ever made. But the inspiring send-off it received, lasted way through, and kept up the cour- age of the men. Besides, it was confidently believed that the Army of the Potomac had at last got a leader who knew what to do, and was going to do it. And it is quite as necessary to have confidence in your leader as courage to follow him. Certainly neither was wanting now, and never was leader or led more sanguine of success, or more willing to fight for it. But in war, if nowhere else, "it is the unexpected that happens."
The afternoon had been quite warm, and many wished before night that their overcoats were with their woolen blankets, on the way to Nor- folk. And some, regardless of want or worth, forgetful of the night before and heedless of the nights to come, deliberately threw them away - to be picked up, perhaps, by other soldiers who had been without long enough to learn the need of them. or to lie until the army had passed, and then to be quickly gathered up by the close following citizens to be sent off to their relations and friends in the rebel army.
These ready finders of all our troops were foolish enough to throw away - although it was by no means always foolish to do so - were typical representatives of the "poor white trash" of the South in ante bellum days, and which are still to be found plenty in many of the south- ern states. An old horse or mule, sometimes, but oftener an old ox, a steer, or a cow, strangely tackled by means of an old harness or yoke, spliced together and tied up by ropes, strings, and pieces of twisted bark, to a primitive kind of a two-wheeled, nondescript kind of a cart, that no Yankee would care to make or imitate if he could, with an old man or woman or a young boy, and sometimes a girl for a driver and a cord or string of some kind tied to the bits or horns- as the animal motive power might belong to the equine or bovine order-for reins, and the pen- picture is by no means complete, but only a scratch-sketch of some of
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the picking-up teams of the stay-at-home natives that used to follow our armies on their marches through the South.
Many loads of " Uncle Sam's" dressing goods were picked up in this way, not only of overcoats, but of blankets, dress coats and vests ; and even of caps, boots, socks, shirts, and drawers, together with many other things of less worth, and the knapsack in which they had been carried, and all, that could be of any use to them, sent to help clothe the ill-clad soldiers of the rebel armies. And thus the clothing accounts of many of the Federal troops were often unwittingly duplicated for the benefit of the men they were fighting. From this source, and from what was robbed from our men who were taken prisoners, and stripped from the dead and wounded left on the field, the rebel soldiers received a large share of their clothing.
General Sickles, with his corps. being now within supporting distance, his troops were allowed to rest until II o'clock, when the bugle again sounds " Fall in," and soon they are crossing the Rappahannock at United States Ford.
Soon after crossing the river the column entered the woods, and word came back from the front to look out for the rebel cavalry that were re- ported close upon our flank.
Sound of distant picket firing could now be distinctly heard in the advance, and orders were given to load.
Just after this order was received, and while the men where executing it, there was a sharp and sudden crack of musketry, as it seemed, in the immediate front. For a moment it was thought that the rebel cavalry had opened upon us with their carbines, and some of the boys turned pale from fear for the first and last time through all the fighting and dan- ger that they were in during their whole service in the war. A company or two in the next regiment ahead had snapped caps to clear out their gun tubes before loading.
" Only this, and nothing more."
This little incident shows how the best of troops may sometimes be thrown into disorder by an unexpected attack, just as the Eleventh Corps was on the day following.
Orders were next given to regimental commanders to keep their com- pany files well closed up, ready to face, front or rear, into an unbroken line of battle at a moment's warning, as the enemy's cavalry was liable to charge upon the marching column and cut it in two, unless ready to receive them.
After marching two miles further. another halt was called, and the order given to unsling knapsacks, and stack them up in company files by the side of the road. One man from each company was left behind to guard them, and the regiment, now in fighting trim, excepting overcoats,
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again marches forward, while the increasing musketry, interspersed with artillery, sounds " nearer, clearer, deadlier, than before."
Soon is seen the smoke of the skirmish line -for it is little more than a skirmish as yet-and then the brigade is deployed in line of battle, ready for action.
The lieutenant-colonel rides along in front of the Twelfth, saying, " Don't be frightened, boys ; I never knew a battle to be fought when you expected it." This was done of course to strengthen the timid ones, if any such were there, but it had a quieting effect upon the nerves of all who believed, as most of them did, that the regiment would be engaged before dark. But Colonel Marsh proved as good a prophet as he was soldier ; for as evening approached the firing gradually died away, "and about IO o'clock," as writes one, " we marched back to our knapsacks."
Here, with the dead leaves upon the ground for a bed, and the green branches of the forest pines overhead for a covering, all slept, sound and undisturbed, through the night.
Early the next morning the men were aroused from their sylvan biv- ouac, and while awaiting the breakfast preparation of "Government Java," already simmering over the crackling fires, Lieutenant Elder Durgin, using a rotten pine stump for a pulpit, preached a five minutes sermon to the members of his company, and such others as quickly gathered round, telling them in his own earnest and impassioned style, that the day of duty and danger had come, and that they must shirk neither, but stand up and fight like men worthy to bear the name of " New Hampshire Mountaineers," and to prove themselves, on the com- ing field of battle, heroically true to their country and their God.
After transferring a liberal portion of their cooked rations from the full haversacks of " Uncle Sam" to the now quite empty, old-fashioned ones of their own that would hold the hot coffee that was now ready, thereby both lightening their load and increasing their strength to carry it, they strap on their knapsacks and return to the front. During the forenoon the regiment, moving with its brigade, marched up the plank road past the Chancellor House, halting and waiting at two or three places along the way, and near the hour of noon, filed off on a cross road, leading into the woods from a cleared elevation, now known as Hazel Grove.
While waiting here for further orders, and enjoying the refreshing coolness of the forest shade, no one suspected that, within less than half a mile of their pleasant and seemingly safe retreat from the mid-day sun, the advance of General Jackson's rebel troops, with muffled dippers and canteens, were silently but swiftly marching past our right flank, upon which, ere the setting sun, it was to fall like a thunder-bolt from a clear sky.
So near indeed were some of our men, who had gone further into the woods in search of water, that they were discovered by Jackson's flank- ers, and only saved from death or capture by fear the latter had of mak-
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ing known their near approach and thereby imperiling their own safety, and the ultimate success of the bold and hazardous movement of their determined leader.
The cursory picket firing of the morning, that for some time was anxiously listened to as prelusive of the expected battle, had gradually died away, until no sound of war was heard, and all was quiet along the silent course of the Rappahannock. But it was the storm-brewing calm. and the very air seemed tremulous with apprehension of coming danger.
While resting and waiting in the shade of the sweet-scented pines, and enjoying the rare opportunity of washing down their noon-day lunch with clear, cool water from a neighboring spring, the joke and laugh went round, and it seemed more like a school-boy's picnic, than a lucky hour's respite from the " rough and rugged ranks of war."
" This is too good to last," remarked one of the thoughtful ones, and it did not last, as will soon be seen ; for even while the boys were enjoy- ing their post prandial amusements, Colonel Potter, with the true in- stinct of an old soldier and Indian fighter, snuffed danger in the air, and taking a hint from one of the staff officers about the enemy's movements, went with him out beyond our troops, and putting his ear to the ground could distinctly hear the rumble of artillery passing by, and now and then the well known click of the wheel hubs against the shoulders of the axles.
This, with other information of like import, was soon communicated to General Hooker, and about the same time a part of the moving column was seen about two miles away, near the " Old Furnace."
About 12 o'clock General Sickles requested and obtained permission of General Hooker to advance with two divisions of his corps and intercept this column, and ascertain, if possible, whether that part of Lee's army was retreating, as some thought, from the direction of their march at the point where they could be seen, or whether it was circling round to attack our flank and rear.
General Whipple's division being selected by General Sickles as a part of his advancing force, the Twelfth Regiment was soon again beneath the sun's hot rays, trampling the dusty road in search of the enemy.
Smoke was seen rising in the distance, and the word came back from the front that the enemy was surely retreating, and burning his baggage to keep it trom falling into our hands.
This report was believed by many of the officers, as well as men, and even by General Hooker himself, as recorded by some of his corps com- manders.
Among the men of the ranks there was a division upon the question between the old and the new enlistments ; the latter beginning to hope that they would soon be in Richmond (as some of them were), while the former, who had served under Mcclellan and Pope, were less credulous, and did not believe that Lee or Jackson would run before they were hurt.
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History of the Twelfth Regiment
To the often repeated expressions of the more sanguine that " Hooker's got 'em "; "They conclude to ' ingloriously fly' rather than fight us on our own ground"; "The Johnnies don't like the relative situation of things as well as they did at Fredericksburg": "There is no stonc wall butting or stuck-in-the-mud nonsense this time," etc., etc., would be heard the ready rejoinders : " Never crow till you're out of the woods"; " We have heard enough of this kind of talk before"; "You'll find out before you know it (many a true word is spoken in jest) that ' Old Lee' is neither a fool nor a coward, and that his men can fight equally well whether behind a stone wall or pine trees "; " Go slow, Joe, and let your hair grow ; for don't you know that 'taint all so?"
But while sad experience had taught the volunteers of '61 not to expect an easy victory, yet remembering the prowess of their chief as shown in the battle of Williamsburg and other engagements on the Peninsula, and the laurels, yet green upon his brow, won on the bloody field of Antietam, they, in common with those who only knew him by reputation as " Fighting Joe," had full confidence that when an order to retreat, or an offer to surrender did come, as soon it must from one side or the other, it would not come from him.
In order to protect and cover his own flank while moving himself against the flank of the enemy, General Sickles, after marching a mile or more, ordered General Whipple to move his two remaining brigades -the other brigade, Berdan's sharpshooters, having already been de- tached to act as skirmishers and flankers- obliquely to the left of the road upon which he was advancing, so as to check any aggressive move- ment of the enemy from that direction.
Soon after leaving the road the two brigades were deployed in line of battle. Colonel Bowman's, of the Twelfth New Hampshire and Eighty- fourth Pennsylvania, forming the right in the order named. The One Hundred and Tenth Pennsylvania, of this brigade, had been left back to support a battery.
In this formation. preceded by a line of skirmishers, the division advanced down through a ravine, across a brook nearly waist deep, and then ascended a steep and rugged hill, the side of which was so densely covered with trees and bushes, entwined and interlaced with vines and briars, that it was almost impossible to keep a single file together, to say nothing about a line of battle.
Gaining the top, the line, if such it could now be called, was reformed, while Company C, of the Twelfth, was ordered to deploy as skirmishers and move obliquely to the right for a short distance. Finding no enemy, or signs of any in that direction, it soon returned, and the line, swinging to the left, moved rapidly down the opposite side of the hill into a meadow across which the rebel pickets were exchanging shots with our skirmishers.
The bullets soon multiply, as the rebel reserve comes up, into quite a horizontal shower, but so quickly do the men obey the order to lie down,
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
and so closely do they hug the ground at the edge of the meadow, that only one man of the regiment was seriously wounded. This was Hutch- ins, of Company I, who was hit in the elbow by trying to see the ** Johnnies " and avoid their fire at the same time.
This was the first time the regiment had come under musketry fire, although it had become well acquainted, if not too familiar, with solid shot and shell at Fredericksburg.
While waiting on the top of the hill for Company C to return from its reconnoissance, one of the non-commissioned staff of the Twelfth went forward to the skirmish line, where one of them, crouched behind a small boulder, was exchanging shots with a rebel sharpshooter across an inter- vening valley.
" Cover yourself, quick, if you don't want your comrades to do it for you," cried out the skirmisher as he noticed the approach of his visitor. But before the latter could fully comprehend the meaning of the warning words, to say nothing about time to obey them. there came a swift inter- preter in the shape of a Minie-ball that whispered in his left ear, and reminded him, just then, that he might be wanted back with his regiment. He did not wait for another reminder.
Just as " yon level sun " was sending the shadows of the forest trees across the meadow, there was a roar and crash of arms almost in the rear and seeming to come, as it really did, from the very place that the division had occupied but a few hours before. It was the first blast of the cyclone that swept the Eleventh Corps from its position on the right of the Union line like chaff from a threshing floor.
The solid columns of General Jackson's advance were now making too desperate and determined attacks upon the rear of our own army to allow further chasing after the rear guard of his, and the division was at once called back from its now dangerous position in front to meet a still greater danger in the opposite direction.
General Whipple now leads his command rapidly from the meadow back over the hill, and through the woods toward the clearing it had occupied at noon.
The Twelfth had not proceeded far when Colonel Marsh, learning that Companies F and G had been left, by order of Colonel Bowman, com- manding the brigade, down in the meadow to cover his retreat, came riding back and found, as he feared, that these two companies had been left, and were still waiting orders a half-mile or more in the rear, where in a few moments more they would be marching to the rear of the rebel army as prisoners of war.
Ordering the sergeant-major to run. as fast as he could, toward the front of the column and get orders from Colonel Bowman. or one of his staff, to take the companies off. Colonel Marsh rode back over the hill, and waited with them for a reply to his message. He was welcomed with almost tears of gladness by the men who expected every moment to be
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surrounded by the rebels who were already moving to cut off their retreat. Anxiously they waited, but not long, before they heard, as a voice from the clouds, the glad words that came down to them from the sergeant on the hill-top, " Bring them up." The sergeant-major, well nigh ex- hausted by his long, hard run (for he had done his best, fully realizing the critical condition of his comrades), sat down and rested as he waited to accompany the little rear guard that was coming.
Soon he heard the double-quick tramp, and then the labored breathing from their hurry up the hill, and the next moment he was gladly with them in their rapid march to catch up with the regiment.
This was the second time that Colonel Marsh had saved two companies of the regiment by his vigilance and resolution, - Company F being twice rescued by him - for which he deserves full credit.
The shadows of night were fast gathering, as Colonel Bowman's brig- ade emerged from the woods. The blaze of musketry and the flash of artillery at Hazel Grove and in the woods along the plank road beyond, plainly told, even if no sound had been heard, of the fierce struggle between the Blue and the Gray for its possession. The stampede of the Eleventh Corps, flying panic-stricken from the field, followed up by the desperate energy of Jackson's charging battalions, crazy with the excite- ment of the chase - for it had been, thus far, more of a chase than a fight - had carried fear and consternation into the ranks of the Union forces and threatened, at one time, the safety of the whole army. But the stubborn resistance of Berry's veterans of the Third Corps with the bayonet, and the heroic sacrifice of Major Keenan and his brave four hundred, who, with their sabres, cut their way through the rebel ranks to undying fame, had given time for Generals Sickles and Pleasanton, by the most energetic efforts, to get together and align a sufficient number of guns to check the hitherto resistless tide of Jackson's exultant legions.
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