USA > New York > History of the 121st New York State Infantry > Part 5
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ably discharged. Also later Captains Campbell and Ramsay and Lieutenants Story, Kieth and Van Horn. Asst. Surgeon Valentine was dismissed for' incompetency after trial by court martial. Cap- tain Angus Cameron died of typhoid fever, Major Olcott was promoted to Lieut. Colonel, and Lieut. Mather and Adjutant Arnold to Captains. Cleve- land J. Campbell of Cherry Valley was commis- sioned as Captain in the regiment, and Henry Upton as 2d Lieutenant. Lieut. Sternberg was pro- moted to Quartermaster, and 2d Lieutenants Cas- ler and Cronkite to 1st Lientenants. Lieut. Casler was transferred to Company E, that company be- ing without a commissioned officer present for duty. Sergeants A. C. Rice, Charles A. Butts, Thomas C. Adams, L. B. Paine, F. E. Ford, S. E. Pierce and G. R. Wheeler received Lieutenantcies. These changes had been made at different dates, the last being the resignation of Captain Douglas Campbell on April 28th from the hospital where he, for some time, had been under treatment for sick- ness.
Changes had also been made in the organization of the army. General Burnside at his own request had been relieved from command and General Hooker appointed in his stead. The Grand Divi-
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sion organization was abandoned and from that time the names of Generals Franklin and Sumner, no longer appear in connection with the Army of the Potomac. General Burnside quietly and pa- triotically resumed command of his old corps, and continued to do splendid service to the end of the . war. The old corps formation was restored, and General Hooker did excellent work in restoring the efficiency and morale of the army. General Smith was transferred to the Ninth Corps, and General Sedgwick promoted to the command of the Sixth Corps.
The letter by which President Lincoln trans- ferred the command from Burnside is one of his remarkable literary productions. It is easy to read between the lines his deep anxiety, his anxious solicitude, his fatherly sentiments toward the officers of the army, and his keen appreciation of the abilities and weaknesses of the different com- manders to whom he had to entrust the military affairs of the nation. The following is a copy of that letter.
EXECUTIVE MANSION
Washington, D. C., January 26, 1863.
Major General Hooker,
My Dear General,
I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this, by what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe that you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in your- self, which is a valuable, if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which within reason-
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able limits, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying, that both the army and the gov- ernment needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this but in spite of it that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain suc- cess can set up as dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictator- ship. The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all com- manders. I very much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criti- cizing the commander and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon if he were still alive, could get good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go on and give us victory.
Yours very truly, (Signed) ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
On a subsequent occasion, just before the spring campaign began, in an interview with General Hooker, General Couch being present, Lincoln ex- claimed twice in admonition to Hooker, "Put in all your men. Put in all your men." This ad- monition showed that the President had come to realize that the strategy which uses only part of an attacking force is not sound. It invites defeat of the whole force in the defeat of its parts suc- cessively.
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CHAPTER VI
THE CHANCELLORSVILLE CAMPAIGN
THE Army of the Potomac as reorganized under General Hooker consisted of seven corps, the First commanded by General John F. Reynolds; the Second, commanded by General D. N. Couch; the Third, commanded by General D. N. Sickles; the Fifth, commanded by General George G. Meade; the Sixth, commanded by General John Sedgwick; the Eleventh, commanded by Franz Siegel; and the Twelfth, commanded by General H. W. Slocum. All these were Major Generals and had won distinction in previous campaigns. It is safe to say that no army ever started out on a cam- paign better equipped, better officered, or in higher spirits than did the Army of the Potomac when, on April 27, 1863, it broke camp and began the Chancellorville campaign. General Hooker's order to move was couched in terms of absolute con- fidence. He was certain of sure and speedy vic- tory, so certain that when President Lincoln read it, he turned to those who were present and asked, "Why is the hen the wisest of all animals ?" and not receiving an answer, said "Because she does not cackle until after she has laid her egg."
In carrying out his plan, in order to deceive General Lee, Hooker ordered the First, Third and Sixth Corps to demonstrate on the left three miles below Fredericksburg, but not to bring on a gen- eral engagement. Meanwhile he, with the rest of the army, began the main operation on the right with the intention of fighting the enemy to the
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south and rear of Fredericksburg. The three corps were under the command of General Sedg- wick. Before daylight on the 29th of April the First division of the Sixth Corps under command of General Brooks crossed the river in pontoon boats and drove the enemy from the rifle pits near the river. A bridge was quickly thrown across and the First Corps was soon over and took position to the left of Brooks' division. The other two divisions of the Sixth Corps did not cross that day, but when the First and Third Corps were ordered to join the army on the right, they were ordered to cross and the corps was united, and left alone to hold the crossing and threaten the enemy hold- ing the heights behind the city. The sound of the fighting in the vicinity of Chancellorsville was heard by us.
Up to this point in the campaign, everything had gone prosperously. The enemy had evidently been taken by surprise, and deceived as to the in- tention of the movement. In supreme confidence of ultimate success Hooker ordered a message to be sent to the Sixth Corps expressing the surety of victory. The officer who prepared this message referred in it to the Divine favor in the success of the movement, but when it was read to General Hooker he turned to those present and said, "God Almighty can not keep the victory from me now." This was told to the writer only a few days after, by one who evidently knew what he was talking about. But before treating further of the general affairs of the movement let us turn to the more intimate story of the part so far taken by the brigade and the regiments in it.
The duty assigned to General Brooks, to cross the river in pontoons, was one that required cour- age and secrecy, or great loss would be suffered. Fortunately the night was foggy, and nothing could
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be seen from across the river. Every precaution was taken to avoid noise. Commands were given in a whisper, the muskets were left unloaded and without their bayonets. The teams drawing the pontoons were left out of hearing and the boats were brought down by hand and launched silently. As silently they were filled with soldiers, and rowed across the river rapidly. The first notice the pickets on the other side had of them, was when the boats grounded on the shore. Then a scattering fire was begun which caught those of us who were crossing in the second turn of the boats. It was not a pleasing sound to hear the bullets plumping into the water on all sides.
Those of the pickets captured said that a regi- ment had been in the trenches along the river bank all night and had just marched away when the crossing began. The writer was in the first boat of the second brigade that crossed, and on landing followed closely after Colonel Seaver, who pushed his way up the bank, and roughly commanded several men who were crouching under the brow of the slope, "Get out of the way of my men," and immediately upon reaching the top threw the ad- vance companies into skirmish formation, and sent us out after the retiring enemy as far as the edge of the cut made by Deep Run-the same ground we had occupied during the previous campaign.
The part taken by the 121st is best told by Com- rade Beckwith. "We crossed the Rappahannock at Deep Bottom, near the place of our former crossing, and the movement of troops on the op- posite side of the river from right to left made our position a mystery. We occupied some earth- works, and to our right and front there was con- siderable picket firing and a number of our men were hit by sharpshooters. The story went around that a woman would come out of a house near the
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Rebel picket line and expose her person to attract the attention of our men who as soon as they showed themselves above the rifle pits, would be fired on by the sharpshooters and often hit. This went on until an officer ordered the woman to be shot, which was done by our men, and the en- tertainment ended.
"On Saturday morning, May 3, 1863, long before daylight we moved forward a little to the left. As soon as it was light enough to see we moved forward across the Bowling Green Pike and under the shelter of a small stream flowing through it, grown up with large and small timber, in front of us a short distance, and we were put into posi- tion. Hexammer's Battery came galloping up, unlimbered in our front and began firing with con- siderable rapidity. A little way in front, I should think about a hundred and fifty yards, there was a line of little pits in which the enemy's skirmish line was posted and they at once began to annoy our batterymen who were busy firing at a Rebel battery some distance farther back. Colonel Up- ton, who was up by the guns, noticing this, came back to our company and called for some good shots, and soon had a squad firing at the puffs of smoke from the rifle pits. I remember Sam But- ton's being complimented for a good shot he made, which it was said quieted one grey-coated chap who had been especially troublesome, and had wounded one of our batterymen. On our left there did not seem to be any business going on, but on our right the musketry firing was lively and the spherical case shot, crashing through the heavy branches and foliage of the ravine, wounded several men on the right of our regiment. On the right across the ravine in the fields a heavy skir- mish line of ours came falling back rather rapidly, but in fair order, evidencing that there was plenty
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of opposition farther up than they had been. Farther along to the right and back of the city the batteries kept up a constant fire, and about eleven o'clock the cheering of our charging men, the heavy volley of musketry, dying away into a con- tinuous rattle, enlivened with a volley near the end followed by a sudden quiet, told us that our men had carried the lines and forts of the enemy upon the heights, and we could see our flags flying there and we cheered them heartily. In a little while we were ordered into ranks and marched toward the city along the Bowling Green Pike, where Spicer and Doxtater and Davis and Wilson were buried, and not a thought given that before the sun went down on that day many a living, breathing body of our number would be as inani- mate as they were, without the privilege of sepul- cher being given them by comrades and fellow soldiers."
The military exploit so briefly described was one of the most brilliant of the war. The sphere of operation was the same as that which saw the disastrous defeat of the assaulting force in the previous campaign. The same stone wall, the same steep ascent, the same redoubts and forts only strengthened, and the same determined re- sistance to be overcome. The movement was in compliance with an order from General Hooker received at 11 A. M., on May 2, ordering Sedgwick "to at once march on the Chancellorville road, and connect with the Major General commanding, to attack and destroy any force you may fall in with on the road; leave all trains behind except the pack mule train of small ammunition, and be in the vicinity of the General at daylight." The order was promptly obeyed so far as was possible. General Gibbons' division of the Second Corps, still under Sedgwick's command, was brought
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across the river and placed on the right. And at 3 P. M. when all was ready General Newton's division of the Sixth Corps advanced at double quick without firing or halting, drove the enemy from his first line of works, the famous stone wall, pressed forward to the crest of the heights and carried the works in rear of the rifle pits, captur- ing guns and prisoners. At the same time Gen- eral Howe on the left advanced and gained the crest in his front, also capturing guns and prisoners. Gibbons' division was sent in pursuit of the enemy retiring southward, with orders to hold the city.
Without delay the Sixth Corps advanced on the road to Chancellorsville, carrying a succession of heights without halting, until the vicinity of Salem church was reached. Here a larger force of the enemy was encountered, in strong position, on both flanks of the church, the church itself being occu- pied by sharpshooters for whom holes had been made in its walls from which they could fire as well as from the windows and doors. The enemy had been reinforced by troops from in front of Hooker, who at this time had abandoned all ag- gressive action, and had drawn back his advanced divisions to a defensive. position. This virtually left Sedgwick with the Sixth Corps to fight the enemy alone. To reach the position now occu- pied by the rest of the army he would have had to break through the main Rebel army. Line of battle was formed of two divisions, General Brooks on the left and General Newton on the right. Two attacks failed to dislodge the opposing forces, and reinforcements rapidly coming up to the opposing forces the battle was quickly turned into the de- fensive. A division was sent by Lee to reoccupy the Fredericksburg Heights, which compelled General Sedgwick to throw his corps into the form
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of a square, one side of which was filled by the Rappahannock River and the other three by the separate divisions of the corps. All day Monday was spent in resisting the fierce attacks of the enemy, and on Monday night the corps was safely withdrawn across the river at Banksford. The part which the Second Brigade took in this battle began after the first effort to carry the position had failed. The 16th and 121st N. Y. advanced in line until within musket range when it was found that a New Jersey regiment was in the immediate front of the 16th. It was ordered to move by the right flank across the road and advance against the enemy. This brought the New Jersey regiment between the 16th and the 121st, and when the New Jersey regiment gave way and the enemy advanced in pursuit, it resulted in the exposure of the left of the 16th and the right of the 121st to a raking flank fire. There were no troops to the right of the 16th, so that it was compelled to fall back to avoid being entirely cut off from the rest of the division. It suffered a grievous loss in killed, wounded and captured. It entered the fight with 30 officers and 380 men. It lost: 24 killed, 12 mortally wounded, 101 wounded, not mortally, and 17 captured.
It ought to be remembered to the credit of the 16th N. Y. that it entered this battle within a few days of the expiration of its term of service; that when it was proposed to send a commission to speak to the two-year regiments appealing to their patriotism, and urging them to enter their last fight with their former valor, Colonel Seaver re- fused to let anything be said to the 16th, on the ground that it was not necessary, that the 16th would do its whole duty to the last, without any special urging to do so. Their conduct in this battle showed that the Colonel had judged his men
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correctly. This, however, was not the case with all the two-year regiments. A portion of the 20th N. Y., under the leadership of a sergeant, refused to cross the river, and were courtmartialed and severely punished for mutiny. At its farthest ad- vance, the left of the 16th N. Y. was only the width of the road across from the church, and they suf- fered from the fire of the men in it, and the battery near it. On the following day the 16th sup- ported a battery with two companies on the skirmish line, and when the withdrawal was made in the evening, we of the two companies found ourselves at the extreme left of the line with orders to fall back gradually and hold the enemy in check. The writer was the man on the very end of the skirmish line, and when we got back to the plank road we were utterly bewildered. All our line and staff officers were gone, as was the case with the 27th N. Y. that was on our left, with the same orders and in the same perplexity. We stood a few moments in doubt when out of the darkness came the voice of our Colonel, Seaver, "Where are my men?" "Here we are," was our eager re- sponse. "Well, get out of this as quick as you can," and he set us the example by wheeling his horse and galloping off at full speed. The left of the line happened to be just at the junction of the plank road and the road that led to Bank's Ford, so that the order "Right face, file right, double quick" started us on the way to safety. But it was a fagged out company of grateful men who late in the evening fell utterly exhausted among their waiting comrades, until their turn came to cross the river in the early morning.
For the part that the 121st took in this cam- paign, Colonel Beckwith's account is both vivid and full. It is very fortunate for the friends of deceased members and survivors of the regiment,
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that he has written so fully of these important events in the history of the regiment.
He says, "When we reached the city evidences of the fierce nature of the struggle just ended were everywhere present. The street upon which we entered the city was the continuation of the Bowl- ing Green Pike, and along it the assaulting column formed. Forming on nearly the same spot as did French's division at the battle of Fredericks- burg, they charged over a portion of the same ground, defended by fully as good troops, in fact the flower of Lee's infantry and artillery. They carried everything before them and captured the heights and their defenders, and among the other batteries in the redoubt near Marye's mansion, cap- tured the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, the pride of the Confederate army. After a little halt in the street we moved on, filing to the left directly up the street and over the ground that the center of the assaulting column had passed over. At every step evidences of the deadliness of the enemy's fire accumulated and behind a ruined brick building, just on the outskirts of the city, a ghastly row of desperately wounded men had been gathered. Scattered at very frequent intervals from it, and until within a very few yards of Marye's Heights, hundreds of human forms dotted the ground. The ambulances were up and the stretcher bearers were bringing in the wounded. The dead were in every position, just as they had fallen. Reaching the redoubt occupied by men of different regiments that had participated in the assault, mostly men of the 6th Wisconsin and the 6th and 7th Maine, we heard the terrible ex- periences through which they had passed, and the struggle in the redoubt, for the guns. Looking from Marye's Heights toward the city any soldier standing behind the breastworks, as I did, would
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feel his ability to destroy any number of foes ad- vaneing against him and I wonder that any of that devoted column had escaped death; and I ceased thinking of the pride and exultation which the survivors manifested, to the exclusion of thought for their comrades lying silent in death on the bare slope over which they had safely passed. Many times since have I thought of that stirring scene and compared it in my mind with other conspicuous deeds of valor recorded in the annals of war, and always ended with the opinion that it was as stout-hearted and cool-headed a piece of work as ever was done.
All that I have described occurred in less time than I can tell about it. We moved over the ground without making any long halt. After moving up the road a little distance a battery in our front opened on us and a shot from it passed over us. A few minutes later the popping sound of mus- ketry in the distance attracted our attention and we could see our skirmish line pushing forward and the enemy's line opposing it, but falling back slowly. From here on we moved forward quite slowly, and at the next halt filed off from the road. Here we passed a staff officer whose horse had been wounded through the thick of his hind leg and the poor beast stood there with the blood spurting out at each pulsation of his heart. This officer stated that the enemy were deployed in line of battle ahead of us, that he had no earth- works and would not stand our advance in line of battle. We moved across the fields a long dis- tance in columns of fours and finally after getting up pretty close to our skirmish line, which did not seem to be pushing the Rebel skirmishers back very rapidly, we were put in line of battle and moved forward some distance by regimental front. The skirmishers in our front, a New Jersey regi-
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ment, with white canvas knapsacks, which I re- member distinctly, were strengthened by the picket reserve having deployed, and moved for- ward to them, and they immediately moved for- ward more boldly and pressed back the Rebels who were then sheltered by the woods. In our front the skirmish fire became steady and well sustained, and the tone of the Rebel bullets in- dicated that they were not a great way off. In a few moments the Jerseymen disappeared in the woods, and we moved up to the rail fence running along the woods. This we quickly, by orders, took down and laid flat. Glancing back I saw a regiment coming up in line of battle, the officer riding at its right being the Colonel of the 96th Penn. I judged it was that regiment. To the right I could see very little. Behind us there were no troops coming up, but General Bartlett and staff were a little way off. Captain Wilson, who was General Bartlett's A. A. General, and who for some reason had been nicknamed "The Spook," rode up to the right of our regiment on a gallop, which was his usual custom, and almost instantly we moved into the wood, which seemed to be mostly second growth and thickly grown up with underbrush of the oak variety. I can remember now a strange sort of quiet in the ranks. I had no idea, nor do I think any one near me had any premonition of any impending calamity. I was the extreme left man in the ranks of the regiment. Joe Rounds, I think, was the sergeant on the left of the company. We moved at an ordinary step forward into the woods perhaps seventy yards, with no sound ex- cept a growl from Eli Casler because some one had held a bush as he passed and let it fly back into his face.
The firing seemed to be coming to us, and reach- ing the distance I have named we came nearly
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up to our skirmish line and they commanded and received our admiration, for the plucky and per- sistent way in which they did their work. The officer commanding just in front of us was a brave man and understood his business thoroughly. He shouted to his men to move up and push forward on the right, and fired his revolver at something in front that I could not see. At that instant there was a yell of pain and Arthur Proctor, a young man from Mohawk, a little way up the line cried out that he was shot, and Herringshaw took hold of him and began to help him. A little farther off another was hit and we were immediately ordered to "fix bayonets and forward, double quick, charge," and we went forward on the run. What became of those skirmishers I could not see. I suppose they pushed their opponents as far as they could, and then lay down and let us charge over them. We moved forward on a run a dis- tance of not more than one hundred yards until we could see the clearing beyond the woods, when suddenly as if by magic, a line of men rose up and delivered their fire almost in our faces. The crash seemed terrific. I was paralyzed for an instant but continued to move on. Benny West who was next to me gave a terrible bound and pitched against me, shot dead. Hank King stuck his gun up against the side of my head, as I thought, and fired, and I pointed my gun at the men in front of me and fired, all the time moving forward and over a little ditch into the road. The men who were in the ditch and behind the brush fence through the gap in which I passed, jumped up and ran, some to their rear and some to ours. I loaded and fired up the road twice. Joe Rounds stood beside me doing the same. The fire from the enemy seemed to come from that direction, but it was so smoky that I could not see much. A
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