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 32

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 32


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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


the body of the private soldier. It is then, I contend, the edu- cated, self-respecting man who makes the best soldier-not that his reason enables him to banish fear, on the contrary, he is more keenly alive to it ; but, the opinion of his comrades, his family, the world, these are what keep men from flying the self immolation demanded by the beast of. war.


During the murderous halt, while the regiment in column by division was sprawling in and up the two inclines of the sloping ravine, or hollow, rather, Heckman came dashing down to the left rear, the bullets falling like hail about him. He called out something in a trumpet tone, but the whiz of the missiles and the roar of the artillery drowned it for me. He rode calmly down to the rear columns, where he talked a few minutes. The reason I state this so explicitly is, because we were expecting to be ordered to charge-were so sure of it that many had fixed bayonets. But the order did not come. Heckinan passed onward, facing a murderous fusilade of artillery, as well as repeated volleys of shells. Then riding to the rear of the column he passed back up the whole line of the regiment, just in the rear, speaking alternately to one and another of the staff officers. We lay in this awkward position until dark, then withdrew to camp, very much astonished men, for we could tell by the cheers to our right that while we had been entertaining the rebels on the Appomattox flank, another force had turned their left wing across the Richmond plank road. It was that night we learned of Grant's advance into the wilderness, with an appalling rumor that he had met something like Hooker's fate. The rumor was confirmed a few days later, while we were in action, but luckily for Grant he had a Hancock to redeem his mischances instead of a Howard to aggravate them. This gave us some heart, and I remember the solemn discussion over the end of the campaign. We all believed that to us-the Army of the James-the glory of capturing Richmond was to fall.


Two or three days after the duel on the Appomattox we were marched westward in very nearly the same direction to the Richmond pike, thence through dense woods to the southward until we came to Arrowfield church. Here we were on ground


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that had been fiercely contested the day before, and I saw for the first time one of the most trying ordeals of war -- to a man of sensibility. Bodies were lying about the cleared ground denuded of all garments except the shirts. They were in every instance black as negroes and swollen beyond human semblance. I wondered then, and I wonder now, why they had not been buried the night before or in the morning. It was a ghastly, repulsive sight, one that prudent commanders would have spared men advancing under fire. The veterans of H company took the depressing spectacle philosophically, but it chilled the eager current in the young men's veins. That night I got an explanation of how the apparent inhumanity came to pass. We lay all night on the ground we had won foot by foot, our com- pany was on piquet. As night deepened there arose in front of us long, low moans. These, as the dew fell and the air grew chilly, swelled into a bedlam of shrieks and pleadings. I begged permission to go out and relieve the poor fellows, but the officer in command sternly forbade such a thing. The cries came from wounded rebels, left between the lines when the enemy were driven back. Had we gone to their aid we should have been slaughtered from ambush ; he even hinted that the cries were a . ruse to lure us within reach of the rebel piquets. But to this day I can hear those wretched cries, those inarticulate prayers for drink or food. Toward morning the cries grew fainter, I could even fancy I heard the final gurgle and I felt like a mur- derer. At Arrowfield church the rebels were in some force. We pushed on steadily in column, regiment front, until we reached a well-built board fence. Here the heaviest musketry fire I ever heard was poured into us for two hours. We were ordered to lie down and sent our volleys with great deliberation on our knees. The fence in front was four boards high, running east and west down a slope, in the centre of which we were holding on determinedly. In twenty minutes the pine boards were like strips of sieve, though, strange to say, we did not lose many men. One shot, however, deserves to be immortal- ized. Company H had a late recruit, Mike Hussy by name, whose brogue was the delight of all the neighboring companies. He was forever bragging of the splendor of the British army


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A CHALLENGE TO COMBAT.


and its invincibility. While we were lying in the sultry air under the pines, the place well filled with smoke, Mike got up with great ostentation to lessen the rebel forces by a well aimed" shot. He had barely raised his musket when the regiment, or at least those near enough, were convulsed by the smothered cry, in deep velvety brogue, "Oh ! I'm kilt entoirely, oh, howly modther ov Moses, I'm murdhered, so I am." This in a tone of reproach and surprise that would have set the very oxen in Limerick dancing with envy. He dropped on one knee and began feeling himself carefully, while a small stream of blood oozed down between his eyes. The man next to him, on examination, found that a bullet had hit him in the very centre of the forehead and dropped out. The ball had probably passed through the inch plank before striking poor Mike's head, but there was a roar from the one end of the line to the other, when it was known that Mike's head was like the negro's skin, impregnable to lead. He was carried to the hospital and many a month after we heard rare tales of Mike's telling how he had single-handed defended the whole regiment from a rebel charge and was hit in the head by a cannon ball, or he'd never have left the field. Mike served the country thereafter in hos- pital. We never saw him again. I hope he's still living, and I envy the neighbors who are honored with honest Mike's . narratives of the doings of the Ninth during his brief but glorious service in it.


What the Ninth did during the next few days is gone quite from my mind. All that I can recall distinctly is, that one Smalley, a pestiferous youth of the most grotesque build ever inflicted on a mortal, was egged on by some of the wags to challenge the dominie -- meaning me-to combat. I remember the scene as if it were yesterday. I was writing or trying to write under the meagre shelter of the "A" tent. Smalley for an hour pestered me by all sorts of drivel. for he was little more than a half wit, but his sallies were saluted with roars of de- risive approval by the men lying around, seeking any sort of diversion. At last, taking my reluctance to engage in a fisticuff with such a ridiculous looking creature as a sign of timidity, he began to throw pebbles at my paper as I wrote. I endured


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this some time, warning him that if I did get up I would make things warm for him. This was the cue the wags had been waiting for; they rallied Smalley for suffering such a threat from a small chap like the dominie. This emboldened Smalley, who finally flung a handful of gravel at me. I rose with immense deliberation, the word went round, and there were two hundred men grinning about us in two minutes. Smalley, now alarmed at the result of his temerity, would have skulked away, but the line of men held him. He was a head or more taller than I, but his legs seemed to begin just back of his ears and receded in a series of grotesque humps to his thighs, where they suddenly changed to broomsticks, so crooked and wabbly that he never could keep step in column, and always followed his file on a wild hop-skip-and-jump, like an electrified frog. Seiz- ing him by the nape of the neck, I swung him over my knee, and pulling out one of the stakes from the nearest tent I belabored him as fathers do unruly boys. His struggles and the windmill motion of his arms only added to my fury-I think I should have made marching impossible for him during that campaign, if Lieutenant Hawk had not suddenly appeared, aroused by the cheers and laughter. Sinalley thereafter treated me with the most distinguished consideration.


It was, I think, the fourteenth day of May that we broke up our first camp on the Hundred and advanced to the right, Rich- mondward. We passed the Richmond turnpike by noon and came to long lines of breastworks, defended at regular distances by redoubts. We were pushing along cautiously, and had got into a tangle of trees cut down to impede us. It was impossible to tell whether the works were empty or not. The skirmishers had reached the pit and still no signs of the enemy. I saw a way of discovery. There was an immense tree cut, about six feet from the ground. It lay with the cut end still fastened to the stump, with the branches toward us. I scrambled up these till the branches ended, and their balancing myself with my gun had got quite to the end, where I could get a view into the redoubt through the embrasure. Just as I raised my eye the muzzle of a gun was on it, a flash of fire, and then a ball whizzed past me-the same instant I lay sprawling on the


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UNDER FORT DARLING.


ground. I think the whole company saw that luckless feat of gymnastics, for there was no firing at the time-indeed, every one took it for granted that the rebels were not going to dispute the line ; we supposed they had all they could do to meet Grant on the north. Gilmore flanked them out of the works that night, and the next day we advanced to the line of Drewry's Bluff. At seven o'clock that evening, the fifteenth of May, Company H was sent about a mile outside the whole line, to a deserted farmstead on a sweeping hill that commanded a view for miles where the country was open. It was a dangerous place for a small force, and I think Captain Lawrence sent back to make known his exposed position. No relief was sent, but about ten o'clock I heard Colonel Stewart's voice, and then we were all happy, for we believed he would have help sent us. There was no moon-it was a sultry May night, the air heavy with odors released from the foliage by the heavy dew. The whole company had dropped silently on the grass about the mansion, which was compactly enclosed by a picket fence near the house, and about twenty yards to the front, or in the enemy's direction, by a pine board fence. Here, to the right, there was a spring house, and to the left there was a kitchen or some outbuilding of the sort. We dared not move about much, for the house was white, and our bodies against the surface would have given the rebels close at liand excellent marks to practice on. Stewart stood consulting with Lawrence a long time, then I heard him say :


"You must throw a piquet out to that fence, captain ; that's the first thing to be done." Lawrence seemed to demur, when Stewart said: "Let Keenan go with another good man." Lawrence turned to me and said in a hesitating sort of a way : "Keenan, you can take any one you like and go, but you must be careful, for I think the enemy are right at the fence." I was proud as a marshal of France selected by Napoleon for duty of moment, at Stewart's mentioning me, and I spoke up at once : "I'm ready-I'd like to have McCausland." I thought that in this choice I was giving that patriot a full half draught of my own cup of glory. But to my surprise and chagrin he flatly refused. He said that he had seen figures


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moving there ; that it was simply murder to send men into such a place. At this Lawrence, the gentlest and most patient of men, said very sternly : "A soldier's duty isn't to argue-go · at once, or you'll go to the rear under guard." That, as McCausland knew, meant death for disobedience of orders in presence of the enemy, and with a good deal of grumbling he adjusted his traps, and, imitating me, we crawled on our bellies toward the spot we were ordered to occupy. I expected every instant to have a volley poured into me almost point blank, but I was resolved I would get to the fence and I did. The dark- ness alone saved us, for we were no sooner there than we heard movements on the ground not ten feet from us. We dared not rise, we dared not move. McCausland crawled leftward till he had the small building I have mentioned between him and the enemy. But I held my post. How long I crouched there I can't say. I heard the company behind stumbling about among the garden plants, and even footsteps on the floors. But there were no lights. It must have been one o'clock and the darkness at its densest, when, raising my head, I distinctly saw outlined through the fence a solid line of horses. They seemed to have started from the earth, for I had heard no noise, no neighing, no jingling of spurs or accoutrements. In the same glance I saw a line of men just at the fence, with their hands on the top board, as if waiting a signal. In that one moment I saw that the only way to escape Libby, a bullet, or Anderson- ville, was to crawl backward to a tree about five feet from me and slightly to my left. Once there, I took aim low and fired. There was an agonized howl, a movement of the black mass and a volley poured into the black space about me. Half crawling, half on my knees, I reached the house, slid to the corner and repeated what I had seen to Captain Lawrence. But there was no need to report, volleys were poured in upon us in quick succession. We could tell by the reports that we were outnumbered, but our brisk fire and stout stand cautioned the enemy to move slowly. It was a miserable place to defend. The mass of fences and outhouses were in our way. It is true they concealed us from the enemy as well as hiding them from us. But men do not hold a place with confidence unless they


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know the character of the ground thoroughly. We didn't know the minute the horsemen would dash past, close in on us and hold us between two or three fires. We held the place ample time to give the main line warning. Had a company been sent. us, or better still, had the whole line advanced, we should have held the crest of the commanding ridge, and the sanguinary battle that followed would have opened the works of Richmond to us. But beyond putting the lines in a feeble sort of defence, the commander of the forces took no measures to secure victory. The cavalry did charge, we could hear them coming. I was just at the corner of the fence, we had all luckily got outside of the enclosure, when I heard whispered commands down the slope a little ways ahead. I called to Captain Lawrence, but he was not at hand; the dark mass could now be seen skirting the fence. Unless Captain Lawrence saw them or gave us the order to retreat we should be riddled or gobbled to a man. A bright idea flashed into my head. We were not more than a squad where I stood. If we could make the rebels believe that a whole regiment was at hand they'd be apt to treat us more respectfully, so in a high falsetto I shouted out : "Major, move four companies by the left flank and hold your ground till you hear from the right."


At this well-intentioned but ridiculous ruse, Captain Lawrence ran up, asking angrily who was venturing to give commands over his head ? The fellows were all laughing-Bobby Phillips loudest of all-and he good-naturedly made my peace, explain- ing that the "dominie" forgot for the moment that he wasn't yet commander-in-chief !


But we had little time for jokes or explanations-volleys now came from the house itself. It was plain we could do nothing. I don't know who gave the order to retreat, but by a common impulse, as the mass of rebels became clearly defined by the flashes of their own guns, we turned and ran toward the main line-a third of a mile behind us, in the edge of a thick wood. We had been in the same place the day before, and knew our own lines. Near me as we ran came Bobby Phillips, spluttering abuse of whoever had been responsible for putting us in such a splendid post only to let us lose it by lack of support. It was


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certainly the most fatuous piece of blundering of all that burlesque campaign. The hill we had quitted commanded the country for miles. It ran like a great plateau on the crest as far as the eye could see southward, and ended in Drewry's Bluff to the north. The rebels could not believe their good fortune, for we had been an hour or more in our lines and had raised a breastwork with our knives and bayonets, perhaps knee high, when a scathing fire from their skirmishers came trickling in. So soon as they settled where we were, however, they came on with yells, but we stopped them dead. Then halting for a while, just as the mists began to break away, a flash of artillery on the very hill we had held began to fire over their own lines into ours. This, however, did us-I mean the Ninth and its brigade and division-no particular damage ; the shells passed far over us to the rear and fell among the colored cavalry, routing them, I was told afterward, like geese. Then for hours the battle raged, face to face, almost hand to hand, for I could see the men I was firing at, within twenty feet of our line. I could hear every word said by the rebel officers as distinctly, indeed a good deal more distinctly, than I could hear our own. For that matter, there was no need of commands ; we had our guns ; we held our lines ; all we had to do was keep the enemy at bay or die. The woods were like most southern Virginia forests --- clusters of pine, with sparse growths of oak and chestnut-dense clumps of undergrowth, shutting out any general view of the raging swath of death, that flashed and roared and died away, only to crash forth in fierce volume at irregular intervals. The smoke became an atmosphere-thick, impenetrable-at moments burying us in darkness as dense as the mid-deeps of ocean ; then the wind, with a swirl, rising it, we could see our lines, still a girdle of smoky flame, holding the gradually thinning ranks together. I had fired all my ammunition-a hundred rounds-and a second instalment from a dead comrade's box. My gun, the second I had seized from a dead comrade, became so bot and twisted that I could no longer ram a ball down. I was stooping for another, when, casting my eyes just beyond to the left rear, where Colonel Zabriskie had stood calmly during the din of death, I saw him


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OUR HERO WOUNDED.


clasp his left wrist convulsively with his right hand, then reel against a tree. Some one ran to his aid-I think it was Colonel Stewart, but I am not positive, for I believe it, was at that moment that John Brown, the giant of our company, uttered a terrible čry and sank to the ground just behind me. I am not positive that this was the montent of Corporal Brown's death, but I recollect distinctly the dreadful groan and the space his body took up on the ground. I was forced to raise myself to get room to load. I had just fired, when everything came to an end-I had the most incredible experience. I knew that I was hit-fatally hit-for the ball had entered my head, just below the right temple. My first thought was, now I shall know the mystery that has baffled human reason. Now I shall know what death is. How long this fantastic train went on I don't know, but a nail-clad heel on my neck caused me to groan and a member of Company H called out, "The dominie isn't dead, take him back to the stretcher." Two recruits-young Hebrews-mere lads, picked me up; then for a time I was so blinded by blood I could not see, so worn out that I hardly realized what was going on, until, as the bearers pushed further from the musketry fire, they got under the shells, which were coming over both lines and exploding by dozens in the woods and fields. It was a long journey, and several times the terrified youths dropped me, but as the colored cavalry piquet held the rear lines, the boys were compelled to pick me up or return to the front. At the division hospital, as soon as I was examined the surgeon said briefly, " Bullet in skull-can't live-give him something to eat if he wants it!" After that I must have swooned from loss of blood, for when I realized where I was, Colonel Stewart was lying near me, a doctor at work on his leg. He was very gay under the operation, and catching sight of me, cried out, " Hello, Keenan, I thought they'd killed you !" He spoke to the surgeon in my behalf, I think, for I was presently favored with a more careful examination, and heard a slightly modified report as to the consequences of my wound. We both remained in this field hospital-in the open air, in fact, all that day, with hundreds of other wounded and dying. Toward evening we were laden in ambulances, taken to Bermuda


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Hundred, and transported thence to Hampton, near Fortress Monroe. After a week or ten days there I was forwarded to - David's Island, New York harbor, suffering the agonies of death in its worst form-through the crowding of the transport, the lack of nurses, the abominable food, and the motion of the ship. Finally, eighteen days after its entrance, the ball, a large buckshot, was pried backward out of the skull bone, just above the temple. My head was in a hideous state. The flesh was a mass of gangrene, and for two months there was an even thing -whether I should die or get another chance at glory !


As I am telling the story of the regiment and its doings as seen through a boy's eyes, I will not dwell on my irksome three months in the Newark hospital. It is enough to say that in September, after twenty applications to be sent back to the Ninth, I was finally started off on my way rejoicing, my head giving me little further trouble, though still bandaged. The regiment was in the lines at Petersburg, and thither I was sent. Never in all the history of war was there such slovenly, heartless mismanagement as marked the conduct of Grant's provosts and quartermasters. For two weeks I was detained in the convalescent camp, adjoining the rebel "bull pen," without shelter from the rain, shade from the sun or proper food for a man just recovering. If Andersonville were worse than the convalescent camp, within view of the Union head- quarters, then the rebel authorities must have been blind and deaf, as well as inhuman, for the curses and wails that arose from that awful shambles the weeks I lanquished there could have been heard for miles! A mere rough board partition divided us from the rebel prisoners, who like ourselves waded in the clayey soil, uncovered and half fed. Enlarged from this atrocious durance, I was sent by haphazard journeys along the Petersburg lines, until after ten days muddling and seeking the provost, found that the Ninth had been ordered to North Carolina ! There about the last of October, I finally again found myself with Company H and on duty.


But Company H was no longer the hundred stalwart fellows I had known. There were some recruits, but the roll call rarely was answered by more than fifty men. We missed most


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APPOINTED ASSISTANT POSTMASTER.


Bobby Phillips, John Brown and First Sergeant Taylor-Pullen was captain, Hawk first lieutenant, and, I believe, Taylor had been gazetted second. A corporal's chevron had been bestowed upon me almost immediately upon my return, and though it was not the glory my first eager dreams had filled ine with it relieved me from the camp drudgery I detested. Perhaps the most welcome figure in the camp was Ged Stout-" Stouty " he used to be called. He was a stocky, well-built, red-cheeked youth of perhaps twenty-three, the mail carrier. No sooner was the steamer or train in than the men turned out in helter- skelter groups, to size up the bag and conjecture by the bulk how far the precious contents would go around. At Carolina City the honor and glory fell to me of sharing my tent with this great personage. When he came in with his bag, and the whole regiment stood grouped in the street in front, I wouldn't have changed places with the commander of the department. The letters were dumped out on my bunk-on the gray blanket-and then we very deliberately sorted them out, putting each company's in a heap by itself. Stout was as solemn and reticent as the postmaster-general ; he never answered a word to the impatient demands of the fellows as they skylarked, chaffed and grudged us. He had grown very adept at deciphering the fantastically addressed missives, and I think I never saw him grin, except when he remarked my perplexity over an address which took him but a glance to assign to its proper heap. He was my tent mate till the regiment divided at Greensboro, and I have never seen or heard of him since. We passed an eventless winter on a high plateau overlooking Bogue Sound. This dull season was diversified with one famous expedition, to a neighboring island, the most miserable, muddy, purposeless escapade a sane body of men ever under- took. What we went for or what we did when we got there, I never knew, nor anybody else that I spoke to about it. We crossed the lower part of the Neuse river, penetrated a dismal swamp ten miles or more, got thoroughly worn out, and then marched back to camp.




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