USA > New York > History of the 121st New York State Infantry > Part 2
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We do not forget the life and services of the faithful Chaplain, John R. Adams, who remained with us after the return home of the 5th Maine. The death of this honored officer only increases our affection for them all. We love to let our memories run back to those days and call up in our minds those strong, sturdy Maine boys. By
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reason of their few months' previous service they were in a position to be very useful to us, as we, fresh from our homes, tried to get accustomed to a campaign life. We learned rapidly from them. They taught us just what a new regiment needed to know. We discarded our company cook, and they showed us how to do individual cooking, and how to adapt ourselves to the strange circum- stances. The marches were hard, we had some superfluous clothing, which they, in the most kindly and friendly manner advised us to throw away; but I always noticed a 5th Maine man wearing it the next day.
Time is much too short to speak further of the close relations of our two regiments, but there is one thing more I ought to mention, yet I blush when I speak of it. Our regiment came from home a cleanly lot of men, but a few days' asso- ciation with the 5th Maine, and we found that we had caught from them that pest of camp life, "the army Greyback." This was a great trial, and we wondered what to do; but here the noble, generous spirit of the 5th Maine showed itself. They showed us how to get rid of them, or at least to prevent their accumulation and increase.
The 5th Maine men were true and loyal, in every way, a credit to themselves and an honor to the brigade. All honor to such a brave regiment, and we feel proud and glad of our association with them."
A similar attachment developed in the Shenan- doah Valley between the Sixth Corps and the Cav- alry Corps which led Sheridan to ask for the Sixth Corps in beginning his operations in the final cam- paign against the defenses of Petersburgh.
In the advance of the army, to oppose Lee's in- vasion of Maryland, Col. Beckwith gives a vivid and somewhat amusing description of a physical prostration that he suffered.
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It may remind others of a similar experience, perhaps not with the same outcome. "The day we marched around Sugar Loaf Mountain we were the last division of our corps. The day was hot. Wherever the road was in the open, a cloud of dust obscured the moving columns from view. We had passed through scrubby pine patches that were on fire, which added to our discomfort. Along in the afternoon the road ran along and around the base of the mountain, a massive sugar loaf shaped prominence. I had felt more than ordi- narily well during the day, the perspiration flowed from my pores profusely. We were talking and joking as we moved along. Suddenly I felt a sort of faintness come over me, the perspiration stopped and I said to Benny West, who was march- ing beside me, 'I feel very strange.' He asked me what was the matter, and before I could answer him I felt the sky grow dark, the world whirl round, and conscious that I was going to fall I made a last effort to reach the road side, and lost track of surrounding events. When I regained my senses I found Rounds and Tarbell, of my company, beside me and myself wet from the liberal supply of water to my surface. After a short time I began to feel better, and soon got all right again, and we started to catch the regiment, which I reached before the other two that night, and I was subject to considerable criticism on the part of Rounds and Tarball, who kicked because, being left behind to take care of a dying man, he came to, got well, and beat them to the camp the same night."
In his quick recovery and immediate return to the regiment Comrade Beckwith was especially fortunate, for according to Col. Cronkite, by the first two days' march, "Many strong constitutions were wrecked, and many brave soldiers, stricken with fever and other diseases, lost their lives from exposure during the first week of service."
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LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHN S. KIDDER
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MAJOR GENERAL JOHN SEDGWICK, Commander of the 6th Corps; killed in battle at Spottsylvania in 1864.
HORATIO G. WRIGHT, Major General, Commanding 6th Corps from May 12, 1-64, to end of war.
CHAPTER III
A S the army advanced in Maryland, the mili- tary situation became more clearly defined. The Confederate army occupied the passes of the South Mountain range, that is the continuation north of the Potomac of the Blue Ridge and it became evident that to get at the main force of the enemy it would be necessary to wrest from him the passes of this range of mountains. To the Sixth Corps was assigned the attack upon Cramp- ton's Pass, the one farthest south and nearest Harper's Ferry. The head of the column was veered to the south, and passing through the village of Jefferson on the 14th of September, halted a short distance from the town. "Here the sound of cannon from the direction of South Mountain was heard by the men of the 121st. There was a feeling over us all, that a great battle was impend- ing. We knew from common report that Lee, with as great a force as he could muster, was not far away, and this conflict and the part we should take in it was thoroughly discussed as we hurried along. Of one thing we were determined, and that was, that no matter what occurred or in what position we might be placed, we would show the men of the other regiments of the brigade of what stuff we were made, and shame them for the gratuitous ridicule and abuse they had heaped upon us. At last the sound of cannon far off fell upon our ears and a rumor came down the line that the enemy held all the passes of the moun- tains we were approaching. The sound of cannon grew nearer and we seemed to quicken our steps;
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and reports kept coming back to us that the enemy was in force a few miles off. In our front, ex- tending as far as one could see, from right to left was a range of mountains, and between us and it, a considerable valley, and nestling at its farther side, near the base of the mountain, was a small village, its tall church spire standing out clear and white against the foliage of the mountain side. Far away to the right, where the sound of the can- non grew upon the ear, the smoke of the guns became distinct and visible, and the faint rattle of musketry was heard. Our road seemed descending the side of a considerable declivity. Very soon a cannon opened in our front, and it was said to be a 'Johnnie' battery and some of the men pointed out the position of the enemy on the mountain side. As we hurried down the side of the valley we could see a line of our troops filing off in the fields towards the village of Bur- kettsville; and farther up the side of the hill, a thin line of men, skirmishers, were moving towards the wooded slope of the mountain side. These were soon fired upon from the timber and returned the fire, and we could see for a short time the puffs of smoke from their rifles. A turn in the road hid them from our sight, but we were interested in another feature of the entertainment. The battery which we had seen on the mountain crest farther up, evidently had us in view, for in addition to its report we heard a strange sound, a whistling, sing- ing noise in the distance, and a solid shot flew over us and buried itself in the soft earth across the creek along side which we were now marching. Instantly many inquiries were made as to what it was, and all about it, and we were told that it was a shot from a Confederate battery fired at us, and that we were now under fire and within range of the enemy's guns, and might be struck
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at any moment or instant, with one of those pro- jectiles. One of our company said, 'Be gad, there couldn't be much harm in ut. It sung just like a little burrd.' A little farther along the road, one of General Slocum's staff officers came galloping along and rode up to the Colonel of the 96th Penn. and gave him some orders, and as we crossed the creek and halted, this regiment moved on quickly and passed us. We were front faced in line of battle, and moved forward a short distance and told to lie down, that we were in an enemy's country, and also told to keep out of sight and not expose ourselves to view, as the enemy were only a short distance in advance of us; and a battle would soon take place. We were also told that because of our being new troops, and undisciplined General Slocum had decided not to put us into battle unless it became necessary ; although Colonel Franchot had appealed to him, to let his regiment take the lead, make the charge and do anything that brave men could be asked to do. Where we were, we could see nothing. Troops were passing along in rear of us in a steady, unbroken column; and although there were guards posted in front of us to prevent our moving forward, a lot of us moved along with the column past the regiment, attracted by curiosity and the increasing magni- tude of the infantry fire. I went along with the troops in the road as far as the village. A few cannon shots were fired at the column but did no damage." (B.)
Of the part taken in this battle of Crampton's Pass by the brigade, General Bartlett's report is as follows: "My command after a march of nearly ten miles arrived opposite the village of Burketts- ville, and Crampton's Pass, about 12 M. with the 96th Penn. Volunteers as skirmishers. The enemy's pickets retired from the town, and he opened an
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artillery fire from two batteries upon my line of skirmishers. I was ordered by Major General Slocum to halt until he could move his troops and arrange the plan of an assault, that artillery was of no avail against it, and that nothing but a com- bined and vigorous assault of infantry would carry the mountain. It being decided that the attack should be made on the right flank of the road, leading over the mountain, I was ordered to lead the column under cover of the artillery fire, and as secretly as possible, to a large field near the base of the mountain, where the column of attack was to be formed, i. e., each brigade in two lines, at two hundred paces in the rear. About 4 o'clock P. M. I ordered forward the 27th N. Y. Volunteers to deploy as skirmishers, and upon their placing the interval ordered between the columns of at- tack and their line, I advanced at quick time the 5th Maine and the 16th N. Y. Volunteers. My line of skirmishers found the enemy at the foot of the mountain, safely lodged behind a strong stone wall. Their entire line, being now developed, ex- hibited a large force. The front line advanced rapidly and steadily to the front under a severe fire of artillery from the heights and musketry from behind the stone wall and the trees on the slope above it. Halting behind a rail fence about 300 yards from the enemy, the skirmishers were withdrawn and the battle commenced. By some mistake, more than a thousand yards intervened between the head of the column of General New- ton's Brigade and my own, and nothing but the most undaunted courage and steadiness on the part of the two regiments forming my line main- tained the fight until the arrival of the rest of the attacking column. On their arrival the 32d N. Y. Volunteers and the 18th N. Y. Volunteers were sent to report to me. The 5th Maine and the 16th N. Y.
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having expended their ammunition, I relieved them and formed them twenty paces in the rear. The N. J. Brigade now arrived on the left and commenced firing by the first line and the 96th Penn. having joined my command, and been placed by me on the extreme right, it became evi- dent to all that nothing but a united charge would dislodge the enemy and win the battle.
"A moment's consultation with General Torbert, commanding the New Jersey troops decided us to make the charge immediately at a double quick, and the order was passed along the line to cease firing, the command given to charge; and the whole line advanced with cheers, rushing over the intervening space to the stone wall and routing the enemy. The charge was maintained to the top of the moun- tain, up an almost perpendicular steep, over rocks and ledges, through the underbrush and timber until the crest overlooking the valley beyond was gained. The victory was decisive and complete, the routed enemy leaving arms, ammunition, knapsacks, haversacks and blankets in heaps by the roadside. I have the honor to report the cap- ture of one flag by the 16th N. Y. Volunteers.
"The action of my own regiments and of the 32d and 18th N. Y. Regiments, who were under my command, recommends them to the highest con- sideration of their general officers.
Very respectfully, (Signed) Jos. J. BARTLETT, Colonel Commanding Brigade."
The losses of the 16th N. Y. in this engagement, was twenty enlisted men killed and one officer, and forty enlisted men wounded. The unusual percentage of the killed to the wounded no doubt resulted from the fact that the enemy fired from above and their bullets took effect in the head and
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upper part of the body of any one who was hit. It is worthy of note that in this battle, General Upton (then Captain) was in command of the ar- tillery of the division. At the close of the battle the 121st was brought to the front and the task assigned them of hunting up straggling Rebels and guard duty. What the task of gathering up the wounded means, is vividly described in General N. M. Curtis' History of the 16th N. Y. in connec- tion with this battle. Lieut. Wilson Hopkins was in command of the ambulance corps of the Divi- sion and this was his first service in that capacity. He wrote of it thus. "Most of our wounded were brought to the hospital by dark. We began to col- lect the wounded Confederates then, who were found from the base of the mountain, increasing in number as we ascended, to the very top. We carried them to the field hospital till midnight.
"The surgeons, overcome by exhaustion, were un- able to care for more. We then collected all we could find and placed them in a group near the top of the mountain, gave them food and water, built fires to warm them, and I directed two Confeder- ates, found hiding behind the rocks and uninjured, to remain with their wounded comrades, attend to their wants and keep the fires burning. At sun- rise the next morning I went with my stretcher bearers to the camp I had made for the wounded Confederates and found the fires burned out, six of the forty dead; and learned that the two men I had placed in charge of them with direction to keep the fires burning, had, soon after I left them the night before, abandoned their charge and re- turned to the Confederate army encamped in the valley beyond. We carried the survivors to the hospital, leaving a detail to bury the dead. This was my first experience in gathering the wounded from a battlefield after it had been won. Many
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have visited such places and reported the sicken- ing sights, but I can not describe their ghastly realities. Later I became more familiar with such scenes, yet I can never forget that dreadful night. Its horrors overshadow all spectacles I witnessed on other battlefields, and the memory of what I saw there will remain with me to the end." The Union dead were usually sought out by their sur- viving comrades by regiments, and buried together in orderly manner, and their graves marked by headboards, upon which were inscribed the name, regiment and company of the person buried. The burial of the Confederate dead at Crampton Pass is thus described by Comrade Beckwith: "I went over the line and position occupied by the Rebels for a considerable distance and saw many of them lying on the field dead. Those I saw had not changed much from life, but they lay in all shapes and positions. Many were shot through the head. I came along to a burial detail. They had dug a long trench on the mountain side. The dead Rebels were carried to it and laid side by side until one tier was made, when another was piled on top until all the dead in the vicinity were gathered up, when the earth was put back over the mound."
During the first months of the war the care of the wounded was left entirely to regimental medi- cal officers. Each regiment was expected to gather up its severely wounded and take full care of them, until they were sent to general hospital. This plan did not work well, because in every battle some regiments suffered many casualties and others scarcely any. Consequently some medical officers would be overworked and others have nothing to do. On this account a reorganization had been made by which the medical force was consolidated in brigade, division and army corps, and thus the labor was more evenly distributed.
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The hospitals were likewise established so as to give first aid at the front, transport the sick and wounded forward by stages, until they arrived at the permanent General Hospitals for final treat- ment. After a battle over ground so rough and broken by woods and thickets as this, some of the dead would not be found, and some would be so far from the trenches dug, that they would be covered where they fell, ever so lightly. Passing over this field a few days after the battle, the writer to avoid a bend in the road, took a short cut up the side of the mountain, and in passing by a thicket disturbed a young hog, which had rooted through the dirt on such a grave and was devouring the flesh of the man buried there. It was the first experience he had of the horror of war and prepared him somewhat for the terrible sights that the battle of Antietam had left to chill the blood of the one who passed over it, soon after it had been fought.
The battle of Crampton's Pass was evidently that part of the Maryland campaign intended to relieve the siege of Harper's Ferry, but only two or three days before the victory there, made it necessary for the besieging troops to retire from their posi- tion on Bolivar Heights, as General Miles had cravenly surrendered. After the battle and victory of Crampton's Pass the 121st was left to guard the Pass and prisoners, and collect the arms and other munitions that had been left on the field. The rest of the Corps was ordered to follow the retreating enemy who were concentrating at Antietam, or Sharpsburgh.
On the morning of the 18th of September, Cap- tain R. P. Wilson, Asst. Adjt. Gen. of the brigade appeared with orders for the regiment to report as quickly as possible at Antietam. On that date the battle of Antietam was fought, and
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when the regiment arrived, it was detailed to col- lect and stack the arms on the field, on the day after the battle. Again quoting from the narrative of Comrade Beckwith, "We reached Antietam bat- tlefield on the 19th (of Sept.), and except some fighting at the river where Lee's army crossed, and an attempt by the Fifth Corps to capture the batteries covering the rear, resulting in the capture of four guns, the great conflict was over. The country around Sharpsburgh is admirably adapted to military operations and affords fine opportunity to maneuver troops under cover and near the front excepting cavalry, the ground being too broken for that arm of the service to operate successfully, and for that reason, I think, large masses of our infantry and the enemy's infantry came within easy range of musketry before opening fire, being concealed by the contour of the ground between them. The consequence was that those who used their arms most effectively and were the steadiest were the victors; and as a rule, our men in the open field were the victors. That the enemy suffered terribly from our fire may be gathered from the fact that for more than a mile I could have walked on their dead bodies, while in some places they lay in groups, and in others as many as fifteen lying in line close together. Mounted officers lay under their horses both dead. A great many dead horses were on the field. Near the church in the edge of the woods, by the sunken road and the edge of the cornfield, the conflict by its results seemed to have been the fiercest. All the dead presented a horrible spectacle, and it would have been im- possible to recognize a brother, they were so changed from life. The weather being extremely hot, the men, heated with passion, immediately after death, decomposed rapidly, gases formed, and the bodies swelled up to enormous propor-
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tions. For instance, the eyes would bulge out from their sockets and look more like small blad- ders. Many had burst, so great was the pressure upon their tissues. The remains of the horses looked even worse than those of the men, and for such carrion decent burial was impossible; and so rude cremation was resorted to, and in many cases the ashes of heroic men, dumb brutes and fence rails mingled in one heap; and in the far- off home of the dead hero no thought exists today, but that their loved one sleeps in some National Cemetery, to which his remains were removed from the field where he fell.
I must confess that I had very serious com- munion with myself in those days. I had before these battles and their real story, no conception of the vast number of soldiers engaged, or of the magnitude of the battles, and how small an aton one little chap like myself was in the great whole, and what a very small loss my taking off would be, in the general result. Everything seemed quite different to me from what it did when hearing the war speeches, and the deeds of valor enacted, at home; and as I thought of the vast number of dead I had seen lying unburied on the field, and the myriads of wounded men, I felt the awful horror of war upon me, and I again felt thankful that we had been permitted to see and know what we were coming to. The abandoning of the dead seemed horrible to me, and I hoped if it should be my fate to perish in battle, my comrades would give me decent burial.
"We saw on the battlefield the 13th N. Y. Vol. from our county, and a solemn and sad looking lot of men they were. They had been in the thickest and most fiercely contested part of the bat- tle, and had suffered a terrible loss, and many of the men who had fallen were well known to most
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of our fellows. Joe Rounds' brother, Armenius, had been reported mortally wounded. He after- ward recovered, although pierced through the body and leg with Rebel lead. Joe belonged to our com- pany and was a sergeant, and our visiting with the 34th and our surroundings cast a gloom over the regiment that was only removed by departure to other scenes and new experiences. One inci- dent I will relate in passing, connected with the battle, because of its pathetic side, and the thought that its like was experienced in many more homes, both sides of Mason and Dixie's line. In going over the battlefield picking up arms, we examined the bodies and baggage of many of the dead. A great many had plunder which they had gathered from the rich and loyal country through which they had passed. Some had Confederate money on them-in demand there as souvenirs. One dead Confederate officer, a general, lying near the cor- ner of the fence by the cornfield had the gold braid cut from his uniform. Away over on the right in the woods, I came across a body lying near a tree and partially supported by it. In the right hand was a daguerreotype of a woman and a child, and this Rebel soldier, his duty done, shot to death, had made his way to this spot, taken out the picture of his wife and child, and with his thoughts upon them in their far Southern home, alone, the pangs of death clouding his sight, giving them in his terrible anguish, the unfathomable love of a dying soldier. I did not take the daguerreotype, but some one did; for passing back that way I saw it was gone. Afterward I was sorry that I did not take it, because some day it might have gotten to the wife and child. Perhaps it did. I hope so."
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CHAPTER IV
"I WAS very glad when we left the vicinity of the battle of Antietam, for its horrors sickened me. We moved away and in the distance of a few miles in the direction we took, no appearances of battle were present. The country took on a peaceable look. We reached our destination in the neigh- borhood of Bakersville, also near Dam No. 4 on the Potomac River, along the bluff bank of which we picketed in our turn with the other regiments of our Brigade."
The encampment at Bakersville was protracted until the last day of October. During this period several important events occurred. First, the seeds of disease which had been sown in the bodies of officers and men by the overwork and exposure of the previous campaign began to bear fruit. No shelter tents had yet been provided for the men, and no hospital tents for the sick. Shacks and pens made of rails, and covered with straw and brush was all the shelter they had been able to obtain, and though such protection availed to ward off the heat of the sun, it utterly failed when rain came. Sickness increased, and death began to take its toll. The death of the first man in camp is thus described by the Adjutant's Clerk of the regi- ment, Charles W. Dean, in a letter to the Oneonta Herald, dated October 2d: "A man by the name of Helon Pearsons died last night of typhoid fever. He now lies back of the hospital tent covered with a blanket under the protection of a guard. The pioneers have made a board box and he is to be buried after battalion drill." Later he wrote, "The
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