The history of the Ninth New Jersey Veteran Vols. A record of its service from Sept. 13th, 1861, to July 12th, 1865, with a complete official roster, and sketches of prominent members, Part 31

Author: Drake, J. Madison (James Madison), 1837- cn
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Elizabeth, Journal Printing House
Number of Pages: 1056


USA > New Jersey > The history of the Ninth New Jersey Veteran Vols. A record of its service from Sept. 13th, 1861, to July 12th, 1865, with a complete official roster, and sketches of prominent members > Part 31


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49



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palisades of pine, four or five feet high, with the commodious A canvas for a roof. Jerome W. Woolery of K company, a young Marylander, was my comrade, and we made life- simply ideal for soldiers. John A. Price of K company, too, I think, was in charge of the battalion. He was a delightful young fellow, not over twenty-five, I should say, a thorough soldier and a charming companion. To my chagrin all military routine came to an end. There were no drills, the meagrest guard-mount, and of course no such thing as parade. Time hung heavy on our hands, or would have hung like lead on mine, if Price hadn't detailed me as despatch-bearer. This took me to Portsmouth every day with regimental, or rather detachment, reports for department headquarters. In this way I fell in with friends in New York regiments at Gettys Station, where the men and officers the previous winter had put up an immense rough building, which was used for a church, theatre and various other purposes. They were getting up a benefit performance for some object, I have forgotten what, and I was induced to take part. The play was " Maritana," if I remember rightly, and as I hadn't the faintest appearance of beard, I was cast for the role of the heroine ! Never was a play cast under more difficulty, or mounted with such exertions. I squandered, I think, sixty dollars in preparing gowns, which Woolery and I had to make, to the last stitch! I exhausted all the finery in the Norfolk and Portsmouth shops to supply my costumes, and I think to this day that the audience got more for their money than they ever did before or since. The house was packed. I'm sure there must have been three thousand soldiers in front ! Most of the players were Massachusetts men, with the very marked New England pronunciation of these regiments, which was always a subject of good-natured mirth among the Jerseymen and New Yorkers. Woolery was my dressing maid. I thought I should never get into the corsets, skirts, and what not ! The worst of it was, a group of young officers insisted on crowding the dressing-room to see that the audience was not cheated, as they jocularly said, by padded calves and the like ! Such a scene ; three thousand men singing and stamping impatiently in front ; scores in the


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A NOTABLE PERFORMANCE.


narrow passage ways behind the scenes, and other scores pretending to make love to the striplings undergoing the ignominy of begowning, furbelowing and powdering ! For we left nothing undone to keep up the illusion, nor could half the men in front be made to believe that Private K., Company H, Ninth New Jersey, was not really a hoydenish lass, giving her whole soul to the merry-making. The play went off fairly well; the Massachusetts boys enduring a good deal of guying over their broad a's and invariable misplacing of the r's. The heroine and hero were lustily called before the curtain-every act-the men rising in their seats to cheer, while you may be sure there was no end of facetious remarks on the comeliness of the heroine's arms, legs and bust ! My voice, at the time was just changing, and the unexpected gradations from a piping treble to a shrill bass, convulsed the audience with laughter. But the uproar of the evening came, when between the acts, I was presented as Senorita somebody, from Havana -- and danced a Castilian minuet with castanets ! I had not had a chance to rehearse with the orchestra, for it had not been able to reach Gettys Station until just before the curtain rang up. The result was simply ludicrous. In the dance I would be caught on one toe-just preparing for a spring and clash of the castanets when the music would halt, stop dead, a few pipes would sound from the horn and of course my pirouet was ruined. The men roared, they got up and stamped and danced and shouted with delight. I think they kept me an hour repeating that infernal dance, until my tarletan skirts and pink tights were wet with prespiration as a towel after a bath. All the Ninth's detachment were on hand, and, of course, cheered me lustily. There were profusions of bouquets of one sort or another, and when the play was through the colonel of one of the regiments came to the dressing-room with all the officers and offered us an engagement at Butler's headquarters. The young officers carried us off to their quarters and gave us a regal supper, the actors all the time in our stage toggery !


This Capanan life, however, came to a sudden end in March. The regiment arrived at Gettys Station one morning and we


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all tore down, about two miles, to welcome it. How splendid it looked, with the ranks full and the dark blue state flag at the head. When the station had been left behind and the men were at "route step," they broke into a song that used to be a favorite in those days. I only remember a few lines, for at that time its Bacchanalian suggestion rather shocked me :


"By sad mistake we lost Bull Run, By sad mistake we lost Bull Run, We all skedaddled to Washington, And we'll all drink stone blind, Johnny fill up the bowl.


" When Johnny comes marching home again, When Johnny comes marching home again, We'll give him a hearty welcome then, And we'll all drink stone blind, Johnny fill up the bowl.


"From Newport News we next did go, From Newport News we next did go, We took our leave on a French furlough, And we all drunk stone blind, Johnny fill up the bowl."


There were many more verses of equal inconsequence, but the air was lively and the effect joyous in the extreme, as the stalwart thousand swung along the black, marshy causeway, through the towering pines. The regiment came back com- plete, every company was full. Our first hardship, an order, that to this day rankles in my memory as a gross injustice, was the vacation of our carefully built stockades. We had not only built them with great pains, we had paid for lumber for flooring and what not, and had finished the walls with consid- erable art. Of course we knew that the arrangement of streets must shift us elsewhere, but we expected to take our property with us. The orders, however, were rigorous, not a peg should be touched. Hufty was in command-he made enemies that mortifying day who have never forgotten that bit of wanton disregard of a man's inherent sense of justice. Drilling and real soldiering was resumed with vigor. We had battalion drill, brigade drill, and, I think, division drill, at Gettys Station, where I saw for the first time ten thousand men


34I


A VISION OF WAR.


together and thought them fifty thousand. Every day rumors came thick and fast; Grant had come east and was to take command of the Army of the Potomac. We were one day to join him, the next to go to North Carolina, the next to march on Weldon. We were in perpetual suspense. At last, early in April, the inspiring word came, "ten days' rations and light marching order." The evicted fellows, that is, those of us who had been despoiled of our tents, exulted in the short tenure the evictors had of our comfortable quarters, and I think some of the boys, to make sure that there should be impartial justice, if we ever returned, set fire to the streets of stockades we had built and adorned. But now I was to see real war. I was in a fever of delight-the dragging march to Gettys Station, the slow journey on the cars to Portsmouth, I thought sufficient evi- dence to send Butler to a court-martial. But we were finally embarked on transports. Under the cover of night we steamed out into the creamy island channel. Every man was watching, breathless-would it be exile in North Carolina, would it be the glory of the march on Richinond ? For hours the vessel kept us in doubt-then, oh, what exultation, we headed up the Jamnes ! We could hear the laboring iron-clads, hear the music of the bells and the sonorous calls of the watch. Yes, we were going to share the glory of the Army of the Potomac. In this delicious certainty we piled down on the decks, almost two deep, and sank into tranquil sleep. Gold straps, silver eagles, even stars, glimmered in my brain for hours, until just as I was demanding the keys of Richmond from Jeff. Davis in person, with a corporal's guard to back me, I was startled by a dull jar ! I ran to the starboard side. The steamer was lying still ; every one was asleep about me. There wasn't a ship or iron- clad in sight. Hurrying to the other side, an enchanting sight made me forget iny disappointment. We were lying near the green shore of a lovely little cove-apple-blossoms, peach- blossoms, cherry-blossoms, all manner of exquisite vernal blooms covered the rolling land as far as I could see. The men were waked, planks run out, and in an hour or two we were making our coffee in this unexpected Arcadia. Then the rumor-monger had another plan ready. We were going to


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march up the south side of the James and cut off Lee's com- munications, while Grant came down from the Rapidan ! This commended itself to the strategists, and it was generally accepted as the meaning of our diversion. By eight o'clock, perhaps earlier, we were in line, Company H thrown out as skirmishers. Fancy my state of mind-not only in actual readiness for battle, but on the foremost line ! Never, I suppose, since war deluded man, was there such a happy, triumphant boy. I fairly flew over the soft-ploughed fields, iny gun well in hand, part of the time my bayonet even fixed to spear the rebels that I knew would give way when they saw how valiant the Ninth was! The birds sang in a perfect delirium of joy ; the trees glittered with dew, the blossoms filled the air with fragrance-the country seemed an agricultural Eden. A dozen times my comrades, half in jest, half in derision, shouted to me to moderate my ardor and to keep in line-but fancying I saw an enemy I made forward at the top of my speed, bound to have the first prisoner ! We had gone perhaps two iniles in this bouffe fashion when I saw the men right and left of me suddenly dropping flat in the furrows.


"Down, you damned fool," some one called out to me, and with the words a vicious z-zip-z-z-z-zip, sounded in my ears. The rebel skirmishers had opened on us. I was really too curious to see the enemy to lie down-nor was there any time ; in an instant our men had jumped to their feet, and we were all dashing forward at a run. Another company, K, I think, deployed behind us and advanced on the double quick. Firing then continued for two hours or more-but I must own I never caught sight of an enemy until the smoke from his gun revealed him. The trees, fences and irregularities of the ground pretty effectually concealed them. I think we had a dozen or more wounded, and there were evidences, as we pushed on, that the rebels had not escaped intact. It was about noon when we came up with the main body. They had a small wheezy piece of artillery, but we routed the line by a threat in the flank and an advance in front. Then there stood revealed to us, a pretty hamlet, buried under fragrant blossoms -- a sort of a plantation Concord-so peaceful and inviting that


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INTELLECTUAL PILFERERS.


all thought of war seemed a desecration. But even while the Ninth was preparing to march in, flames were seen issuing from a great square mansion, evidently the baronial dwelling of the place. Chattering darkies came out, skulking, imploring aid and countenance, while the men rushed on to stop the flames. The house was a rich planter's-Judge somebody-the name slips me. It had a well-stored library, and while most of the men were looting the kitchens, cellars and granaries-Sam Moore of Company K, with others, joined me in securing what books we could lay our hands on. The hamlet was Smithfield, and I never knew the object of the incursion, for having driven the rebels from the town we marched precipitately back, took the transport and to our unspeakable mortification found our- selves back in our old cantonments the next day. However, I was in one sense well pleased. I had hired a negro to carry a box of books, there must have been fifty volumes, Hollam's Constitutional History, . Cicero's Letters, and other works of equal value. They were picked up on the lawn, where the negroes had thrown them from the library windows. I and my comrades who made them spoil, had no doubt that they were fair prizes of victory, and we compared notes with great complacency when our treasures were ranged in our tents at camp. But alas! just as we were finishing boxes to pack them for home sending or safe keeping, came Sergeant Taylor with an order from division headquarters, commanding every book to be delivered up. They were to be returned to the judge, who, it seems, was a non-combatant, and therefore exempt from the predatory vicissitudes of intellectual pilferers.


After that expedition the camp strategists were silent for a while and there were no more rumors. About the last day of April, without a murmur of warning, we were ordered to be ready to march at an hour's notice. This time knapsacks were to be packed with heavy clothing and stored at Ports- mouth. At last we were going to have real war! Shelter tents-that is a square of coarse cotton, about twice the size of an ordinary hand towel, was given each man. These buttoned together and hung over a horizontal stick, about three feet from the ground, would accommodate two men, their feet, of


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course, extending outside, at least if their legs were long. My shelter tent covered every inch of me. We were now hurried- with an affectation of feverish energy to Portsmouth. Here we embarked on transports. One vessel, I think it was the "Mary Powell," if not, a steamer of her size, held every man of the regiment, which shows how we were packed. We had grown tired of conjectures and resolved now to wait old "cock eyes," as General Butler was called, designs, without worrying. We did, however, look longingly at the James as we passed toward the Rip Raps, but resigned ourselves to the fortunes of the sort of war made by political generals, when we found our- selves headed for the open sea. But no sooner had we rounded Fortress Monroe than a thrillingly, fascinating spectacle burst upon us. The water, as far as we could see, was alive with transports, tugs, gunboats-we were part of a great armada ! What could it mean? Burnside himself had not had such a fleet when he took Hatteras. As night fell the mystery deep- ened. The great host made swift head northwestward. Oh, now we knew. At last Stanton, secretary of war, had come to see that Mcclellan's way of taking Richmond was the only feasible one. We were going to Yorktown, a day's march from Richmond, that was evident! Sure enough, the next morning we were debarked on the sandy waste, made memor- able by English, French and American armies. There, in keeping with the fatality that marked everything Butler . undertook, we were sent to camp in a vale of infection. The water for cooking ran through the putrefying debris made during McClellan's siege. By day the sun beat down upon us, and at night the exhalations of the noisome soil shut us in like the vapory density of an English fog. Fortunately we were not held there long, or every man in the climatic eccen- tricities, or foul air, would have been in hospital. The evening of the day, I think it was, after landing, the Ninth took the advance towards Richmond. We were so elated, that a cavalry escort, starting with us, was left far in the rear. At the end of a day's march we were halted in a wilder- ness of low pines, and it was hinted that we had better make ourselves comfortable. This was a surprise-but no sooner was


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THE ENEMY SURPRISED.


the word given than we had our shelter tents up-soft beds of thin heath grass spread on the turfy ground, and all the languor of long leisure and contentment about us in no time. We remained here in an irritable state of conjecture a day and a night-if I recollect rightly-then under sudden orders, packed up and marched precipitately back to Yorktown-where we found the whole flotilla anchored. . We went aboard at night, steamed at full speed down to Fortress Monroe, and by noon the next day, the fourth of May, were far up the James river. Nobody dared believe the evidence of his own senses. We had been deluded so often, that the strategists dared not open


their mouths to invent coming movements. All that soft delicious May day we swept up the splendid river, the air balmy and fragrant, the shores an endless succession of exquisite lines and colors. For once, General Butler surprised the enemy instead of himself. We landed later in the afternoon at Ber- muda Hundred. In competent hands, our army, ten thousand or more, would have been before, even in, Richmond by noon the next day. The surprise was complete. The rebels had no idea of the blow, no notion of our numbers. Butler, however, for heaven only knows what reason, sent us into camp on the hot open heaths between the two rivers-dawdled there until the enemy were in a good defensive position, then made a tardy move upon Petersburg. Many and amusing were the judgments delivered on Butler. I have seen the general twice -once when he reviewed our division, or rather rode along the lines as we were on the point of setting out towards the rear of Petersburg. I would give a handsome penny to have the commander of the forces perpetuated in oil on canvas as the astonished eyes of ten thousand armed mien saw him that day. I don't remember the color of his horse, but it was fit for a Charles V in the beauty of its contour, the arched elegance of the neck and the richness of the trappings. It was a proverb in the department that whatever else old " cockeye" lacked in generalship, he was a bountiful provider. When other armies were on their uppers and the cooks' stores ran for weeks on "salt horse," "sow belly " and wormy " hard tack," we had soft bread, fresh meat and often a vegetable ration. Once


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again I saw him. It was at Chicago in 1884, when he had the matchless effrontery to appear before the democratic national convention to pose as a competitor for the presidential nomina- tion against Cleveland.


However, to go back to the Ninth. Near Petersburg all my battle longings were gratified. We had a week of real war. The enemy were within four miles of our camp when we were ordered to fall in, guns loaded and all the ammunition we could carry. It was toward four o'clock in the afternoon when the skirmishing ended in a roar of musketry directly in front of us. Then Heckman rode up; it was the first time I had seen him, as he was in command of a brigade and seldom came to the regiment. He sat well on a horse of great spirit, or it seemed spirited under his handling. He rode swiftly in front of the line, to the low brow of a hill, almost unattended. Here he examined the ground in front-the enemy entrenched on a high sweep of ground opposite, and then dashed farther on. He cantered back presently, meeting a group of the division staff near our right, talked with them a while and dashed still further to the right. Meanwhile the Ninth, in line of battle, was lying on the ground, the men flat on their breasts. Cannon had been firing in a semi-circle about us for an hour or more-the balls passing, however, far above us. Directly after Heckman's ride across our front, the rebels got better aim. A small barn, that divided Company H from the next to the right, was fairly riddled, and I saw the back of one man's head as clearly shaved off as if the stroke had been made with a scimetar. Much as I yearned for the "cold grim dice of the iron game," I didn't at all relish that appalling interval of waiting-when we could neither see our enemy nor fire at him. Presently Heckman dashed up to the right, said something to Colonel Zabriskie, then came the order, echoed in vigorous tones, " From right to left, forward." "Now for it," we all echoed ; so soon as we reached the brow of the hill we should be a splendid target. The colors were just at the left of Company H and very near me, as I stood, according to hieight, in the front rank. Jack Donnelly and Male DeCamp, I think his name was, fairly seemed to increase in stature as we emerged under a withiering


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SUPPORTING THE COLORS.


volley. Then a curious thing happened, and I tell this because the experience has been verified. In the twinkling of an eye my ardor for battle came to an icy pause ! The blood-curdling, venomous whiz-zip of the bullets as they hit or passed stunned my reasoning faculty. But most horrible of all, was the vicious, almost human malignity of the impact, as the lead penetrated the flesh of my comrades near me. The man at my right- Callahan, I think his name was-a gentle, amiable fellow, was struck square in the breast, pitching headlong under my feet with the exclamation, "My God !"


To say that I was trembling with terror is to state the fact very mildly, but, and here seems to me the whole secret of war --- shame, dread of my companions seeing or suspecting my panic, nerved me to such desperation that I really acted the part of the most fearless man there, for as we reached a briery ravine at the foot of the hill, above which the rebels were pouring down a concentrated fire of musketry, Donnelly stum- bled-the briers caught the silk folds of the flag-for a moment the standard seemed gone. I leaped for it just as Donnelly recovered himself, and I remember he turned on me, half laughing, half angry, crying out: "You'd better keep your place in the ranks or they'll put you in the guard-house." These may not have been the very words, but it is the sense of them. The dense growth of blackberry and other bushes, was, as I supposed, the only obstacle to our advance up the hill. Horrified at the slaughter going on where we were, I turned and asked to be let go forward the few intervening steps. I don't know whether the permission was given or not, but I ran to the briers. Then I saw there was a small stream of water, clear as crystal, running underneath. I shouted this out to Company H, and in a moment they were all down in the bushes. We were just a little better off here, or we thought we were, but the bullets poured through the thick tuft of briery hedge. I think I was the first over it, just as Lieutenant- Colonel Stewart came down ordering Captain Lawrence to push the company ahead. The balls were whizzing above our heads-plugging into the ground behind us. In sheer desperation I seized my musket as a lever and leaped the


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hedge of wild briers, ditch and all at the same spring. The company were across in one way or another, almost at the same moment, but my impression is that I was the first, for I - ran to aid Donnelly with the colors. It was a mere matter of doing something or turning tail-that's the only reason I dwell on this to me, whimsically amusing episode of my first experience in line of battle under close and continuous fire. Colonel Stewart, who had been an officer of company H, was present when this happened and saw it all, I think, for he took the trouble, an hour or more after, when the regiment was marching back to camp, to tell my captain, in the presence of the whole company, that he considered the regiment's youngest soldier, Keenan, as brave as the bravest in it. I wondered at the time what he would have thought if he had known that when I seemed absolutely fearless I had to hold my teeth pressed together, and iny eyes strictly in front, to keep my coward legs from running away with my sinking heart. I remember distinctly how like a fraud I felt, when scores of fellows from other companies, as well as H, came to me to apologize for aspersions they had hitherto made, judging me only from my boyishness and scrupulousness in attire. I remember one expression that set the whole company laughing, and poor Captain Lawrence louder than all. "That damned dominie of Company H's no chicken after all ; he fights like hell when he gets his north of Ireland up." This was from Company A, where I was, during my whole service, known as " the dominie of Company H." I hope this personal garrulity may not seem egotistic; I do not intend it so, for there were a thousand men in the Ninth, every man of them brave and kind and tender, who never shirked duty and never flinched under fire; of them much, a thousand fold more, might be told. I am striving to recreate the life we led, as my fresh, eager young eyes saw it ; and I take a kinsman's interest in his family-now going back, linking the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, and then running the eye of memory over the golden chain to select the links that will best show those who come after us some glimpse of our lives, our joys, our hopes, our fears, our thinking and acting-in short, the mind as well as


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FIGHTING BEFORE PETERSBURG.




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