USA > New York > History of the One hundred and twenty-fourth regiment, N. Y. S. V. > Part 24
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J
SERGT. Robert Fairchild
66
G
James McGregor
I
Selah Brock G
Edward Oney
1
James M. Miller
G James T. Thitchener.
I
William L. Miller.
G Alexander Thompson
I
Jolin Ostrander.
G Samuel A White
J
Abraham Rapalje
66
G Jacob E. Smith.
K
Patrick Toohey
G
Egbert S. Puff.
K
2D LIEUT. JOHN R. HAYS
H
William W. Bailey
K
Van Keuren Crist
66
H William H. H. Wood.
K
Abram Hawley
H John O'Brien
K
John McCann
H
In order to complete the list of our losses, it is necessary to add the names of six others, after each of which the word deserter has been written. This I do with exceeding reluctance, not only on account of the black shadow which they cast over the names which precede them, for it is-though improbable-barely possible that one or more of the number may have been captured by the enemy, and have languished and died in some Southern prison pen ;- they are :
Jeremiah Hartnett.
Company A William Fosbury Company G
Samuel Lewis
C John Munhall.
G
James Ryan
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C | Robert Wilson.
I
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HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
CHAPTER XV.
ON TO RICHMOND .- IN THE WILDERNESS.
D URING the latter half of March and the month of April a radical reorganization of the Army of the Potomac was effected. The organization of veterans known as the First Corps ceased to exist, and the regiments which had composed it were attached to the Fifth Corps. The Third Corps, too, was broken up ; the division which French brought into it, after Gettysburg was assigned to the Sixth Corps, and the " Old Third " became henceforth a part of the Second Corps.
The first and second days of May were devoted by the sub- ordinate commanders to the making of a final and searching in- spection of their respective commands ; and on the afternoon of the third, six days' rations and fifty rounds of ammunition were issued to the troops. Just after dark that night marching orders reached us, in which the time for the starting of Birney's divis- ion was fixed at one hour before midnight. About nine o'clock our regiment was assembled, without arms, in front of Colonel Cummins' quarters, and Adjutant Van Houton read to it, by the light of a flickering candle, the following address, which had just been received :
" HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, May 3, 1864.
" SOLDIERS !- Again you are called upon to advance on the enemies of your country. The time and the occasion are deemed opportune by your commanding General to address you a few words of confidence and caution. You have been reorganized, strengthened, and fully equipped in every respect. You form a part of several armies of your country -- the whole under an able and distinguished general, who enjoys the confidence of the government, the people, and the army. Your movements being in coop- eration with others, it is of the utmost importance that no effort should be spared to make it successful.
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ON TO RICHMOND.
" Soldiers ! the eyes of the whole country are looking with anxious hope to the blow you are about to strike in the most sacred canse that ever called men to arms: Remember your homes, your wives and children ; and bear in mind that the sooner your enemies are overcome the sooner you will be returned to enjoy the benefits and blessings of peace. Bear with patience the hardships and sacrifices you will be called upon to endure. Have confidence in your officers and in each other. Keep your ranks ou the march and on the battle-field ; and let each man earnestly implore God's blessing, and endeavor, by his thoughts and actions, to render him- self worthy of the favor he seeks. With clear conscience and strong arms. actuated by a high sense of duty, fighting to preserve the government and the institutions handed down to us by our forefathers, if true to ourselves, victory, under God's blessing, most and will attend our efforts.
"GEORGE G. MEADE, Major-General Commanding. "S. WILLIAMS, Asst. Adjutant-General."
At eleven P. M. we struck tents, and just after midnight bade adieu, for the last time, to our camping grounds about Culpepper, and, in obedience to orders, moved silently forward through the gloom. Hour after hour we plodded on. Daylight came, the sun appeared, and at length, after a march of. full twenty miles, we reached the Rapidan at Ely's Ford, and crossed on pontoons to the southern shore. About a mile beyond the river an aide met us with the order, " File to the right and eat your breakfast without delay." It was now ten o'clock. At eleven we were moving forward again toward Chancellorsville, and at two P. M. bivouacked on the old battle field. Hancock had been ordered - to halt there and await the arrival of Meade's entire train, which is said to have consisted of four thousand wagons, all of which had been ordered to follow the Second corps across the river by way of Ely's Ford. This would seem to indicate that, unlike his predecessors, Grant had determined, under no circumstances, to return to the old camping grounds north of the Rapidan.
Our resting-place was in the woods-the same in which we had bivouacked on the afternoon of the first day of May, 1863. We .. were within a mile of the site of the old Third corps hospitals, in which, during the battle of Chancellorsville, nearly three thousand of Sickles' wounded, bleeding heroes were gathered. A quar- ter of a mile to our right ran that little stream, at the edge of the
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HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
woods, the shores of which, just a year and a day before, were moistened with the warm blood of nearly two hundred Sons of Orange, about fifty of whom, with their wounds healed to honor- able scars, were again on duty with the regiment. Many of these sought and received permission, during the afternoon, to go for water to this cool stream, in which they had bathed their wounds or laved their parched tongues ; but when they reached the spot they forgot their errand, for the ground was strewn with the bleached bones of their dead comrades.
Captain Murray, writing to his father that afternoon, says : " I have been over the old field-seen the place where I was wounded, the identical bog on which I was kneeling when I fell, and the place I was carried to by our boys. Our dead were but partially buried, and skulls and bones lay about in great profu- sion. I found a skull where Shawcross fell, with a hole in the _ forehead just where he was shot. Captain Crist found an India rubber blanket marked with the name of the first man who fell in his company. It made my heart sick to look over the ground. I inclose some flowers picked from the spot where my company stood in the fight, and the leaves from an old testament found at the same place."
The Confederate dead, it would seem, had all been decently buried very near where they had fallen. At one place in the woods, just in front of where the battle-line of the 124th had been, we found over a hundred graves. They were generally in rows of from three to ten each, under trees, from the trunks of which patches of bark had been blazed. On these blazed places the number of men buried there, and the company and regiment to which they belonged, was cut, and in many instances the names were given in full. We counted fifty-three graves marked " 23d North Carolina." This, it will be remembered, was one of the regiments led against us by that brave Confederate, Colonel David H. Christie.
We spent the night near these scenes of the first principal trial of our mettle as a regiment, and in many a letter written that afternoon there was inclosed a tiny wild flower, which the writer
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ON TO RICHIMOND.
believed had been nourished by soil enriched by his own blood, or by that of some friend and comrade who had there fought his last fight. It was a very easy matter to discover just where pools of blood had been, for those particular spots were marked by the greenest tufts of grass and brightest flowers to be found upon the field. During the evening Colonel Cummins sent out a burial party to gather up the human bones which lay strewn over that portion of the field on which the majority of the brave boys of our regiment had fallen, and to hide them in a deep grave, away from the gaze of curious human eyes.
The line of advance against Richmond chosen by General Grant led through the Wilderness-" a region interspersed with a few small farms, but whose poor, gravelly soil is otherwise covered, for a few miles, with a tangled forest of oak and shrub- bery. It was in this region that the fuel had been cut, ever since the days when Governor Spottiswoode, of the colony, first wrought the iron mines of the neighborhood, to supply the fur- naces. Hence arose the coppices which covered the larger part of the surface of the country, in which every stump had sent up two or three minor stems in place of the parent trunk removed by the axe of the woodman, and the undergrowth had availed it- self of the temporary flood of sunlight let in upon the soil to occupy it with an almost impenetrable thicket of dwarf oak, chin- capin, and whortleberry." *
Greeley refers to this weird region, with reference to Grant's campaign, in the following terms : " The Wilderness is a consid- erable tract of broken table-land, stretching southward from the Rapidan nearly to Spottsylvania Court House, seamed with ra- vines, and densely covered with dwarfish timber and bushes, diversified by very few clearings, but crossed by three or four good roads, the best of them centering on Fredericksburg, and by a multiplicity of narrow cart tracks, used in times of peace only by wood-cutters. (It is a mineral region, and its timber has been repeatedly swept off as fuel for miners.) In this tangled laby- rinth numbers, artillery, and cavalry are of small account; local
* See Prof. R. L. Dabney's " Life of Jackson," p. 60S.
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HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
knowledge, advantage of position, and command of roads, every- thing."
When Hancock's corps lay down to rest in the woods at Chancellorsville, the bulk of Lee's army was believed to be at Orange Court House, thirty miles away, with its most advanced brigades posted behind their strong works on the heights of Mine Run, which was twelve miles distant. Grant evidently hoped, by a sudden movement and rapid marching on the morrow, to get through if not miles beyond this gloomy region, before his adver- sary, taken unawares, should have time to bring forward a suffi- cient force with which to intercept, or even check him ; but he was not yet thoroughly acquainted with Lee and his army of northern Virginia.
While we slept that night the rebel chief, kept aware, as if by some magic agency, of the designs of the Union commanders, as well as of the movements of our troops, was making the neces- sary preparations to bring our army to bay and give it battle on ground of his choosing. He had determined to leave his elabo- rate works behind him; to assume a bold aggressive ; intercept and attempt to shut our army into the very centre of the wildest section of this most dismal region, where, being thoroughly acquainted with every wood road, and bridle-path, he could, with a few thousand troops, effectually block the main highways, leav- ing the bulk of his army free, to be hurried, unseen of his foes, hither and thither through the tangled and (to the Union army) apparently impenetrable forests ; and hurled in irresistible masses against Grant's moving columns, or the weak points in his half- formed lines. It is generally conceded, by those who are sup- posed to know most about it, that Lee had not the slightest doubt of his ability to again cause the Union army to take the back track, and that right speedily; but he had something to learn of that army's new commander.
In order to a better understanding of what is to follow, we will attempt to convey to the reader what we knew at the time referred to, and have since learned, regarding the " make up" and strength of these mighty armies, just entering on a campaign
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275
ON TO RICHMOND.
of which, as to the number, desperateness, and terrible carnage of the battles fought, no parallel is to be found in the annals of war.
Very few reliable official Confederate documents, concerning the details of this bloody campaign, have been allowed to reach the light. The surviving ex-officers of Lee's army seem to have entered into a compact to carry with them to their graves such facts as they are possessed of concerning the actual number engaged and losses sustained ; and to do their utmost to fasten upon the mind of every historian of the war, North and South, who comes to them for information, the impression that the army of Northern Virginia was weaker in numbers, during the first ten days of the great campaign of 1864, than at any other period of its existence. I venture the assertion that it will yet be proven, that it was never stronger.
The published statistics of both armies concerning the num- ber of men who actually took the field, with weapons in their hands, at the opening of this campaign, are either mere estimates, or else so warped, shrunken, or distored as to be wholly unreliable, and totally valueless to the reader who is seeking for the truth. Lee had under him three corps of infantry and one of cavalry, viz. :
FIRST CORPS. LIEUT .- GEN. LONGSTREET.
SECOND CORPS. LIEUT .- GEN. EWELL.
THIRD CORPS. LIEUT .- GEN. · A. P. HILL.
(Fifth Division-Major-General Keershaw.
Fourth Division -- Major-General Field.
Third Division-Major-General Pickett.
Second Division-Major-General Samuel Jones.
First Division-Major-General MeLaws.
Fourth Division-Brigadier-General Hay.
Third Division-Major-General E. Johnson.
Second Division-Major-General Rodes.
[ First Division-Major-General Earley.
( Fourth Division-Major-General Wilcox.
Third Division-Major General Heath.
Second Division-Major-General Anderson.
{ First Division-Major-General Breckenridge.
CAV. CORPS, MAJOR-GEN. STUART.
Third Division, - -
General Fitzhugh Lee.
Second Division,
( First Division, --- General Wade Hampton.
These sixteen divisions averaged four brigades each, and each brigade contained from three to eight regiments, and the regi- ments could not have averaged less than 350 men each. There
HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS. 276
batteries of light General Meade's army consisted of thirty-two brigades of paign opened, by the following named officers : which they were formed, were commanded, on the day the cam- artillery. These brigades, with the divisions and corps into infantry, nine brigades of cavalry, and - of which mustered from one to two hundred men .* were besides in this army upwards of seventy light batteries, each
SECOND CORPS.
MAJOR-GENERAL
W. S. HANCOCK.
SIXTH CORPS.
MAJOR-GENERAL
JOHN SEDGWICK.
Second Division -- Brig .- General G. W. Getty .....
Third Division-Brig .- General II. Prince .... i First Division-Brig .- General Charles Griffin ....
Second Division-Brig .- General J. C. Robinson ...
( First Brigade-Colonel --- Leonard. 2 Second Brigade-Brig .- General Henry Baxter. ( Third Brigade-Colonel Dennison.
Third Division-Brig .- General S. W. Crawford ....
Fourth Division-Brig .- General J. S. Wadsworth ..
First Brigade-Colonel W. MeCandlers. Second Brigade-Colonel J. W Fisher. First Brigade-Brig .- General L. Cutler. Second Brigade- Brig .- General .J. C. Rice. Third Brigade-Colonel Roy Stone. ( First Brigade-Colonel N. A. Miles. Second Brigade-Colonel T. A. Smythe. Third Brigade-Colonel R. Frank. Fourth Brigade-Colonel J. R. Brooke. ( First Brigade-Brig .- General A. S. Webb. Second Brigade-Brig .- General J. P. Owens. Third Brigade -Colonel S. S. Carroll.
First Division-Brig .- General T. C. Barlow ..
Second Division-Brig .- General John Gibbons ....
Third Division-Major-General D. B. Birney ...
[ First Brigade-Brig .- General J. H. H. Ward. Second Brigade-Brig .- General A. Hay.
First Brigade-Colonel -- 7 Second Brigade-Colonel Wm. R. Brewster.
of these regiments did not number over two hundred and fifty The brigades of infantry averaged six regiments cach. Many
Daniels, Gordon, Pegram, J. M. Jones, Q. II. Stuart, Stafford, and Walker. Hunter, Hoke, Mahone, Wofford, Jenkins, Brown, Perrin. Dales, Gregg, Milligan, * Among the Confederate brigade commanders were Brigadier-Generals Rosser,
1
CAVALRY CORPS. MAJOR-GENERAL
P. H SHERIDAN.
First Division-Brig-General Merrit
Second Division-Brig .- General Gregg.
Third Division-Brig .- General Wilson
( First Brigade. Second Brigade. ( Third Brigade.
[ Brig .- General Custer. Brig .- General Davies. Brig .- General Devins.
( First Brigade. Second Brigade. ( Third Brigade.
Brig .- General Merrill. Coronel Gill. Colonel -
First Division-Brig .- General II. G. Wright ......
( First Brigade. Second Brigade. ( Third Brigade. Colonel Colonel Colonel (First Brigade-Brig .- General A. T. A. Torbert. Second Brigade-Colonel E. Upton. Third Brigade- Colonel H. Burnham. Fourth Brigade-Brig .- General A. Shaler. [ First Bri ade-Brigader-Central F. Wheaton. Second Brigade- Colonel L. A. Grant. Third Brigade Brig .- General T. H. Naili. 1. Fourth Brigade-Brig .- General A. L. Eustis. S First Brigade-Brig .- General W. H. Morris. Second Brigade -- Brig .- General D. A. Russell. ( First Brigade-Brig .- General James Barnes. Second Brigade -- Brig .- General J. J. Bartlett. { Third Brigade-Brig .- General R. B. Ayres.
FIFTH CORPS. G. K. WAHREN.
MAJOR-GENERAL
Fourth Division-Brig .- General G. Mott .
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ÓN TO RICHMOND.
men for duty, and but few of them exceeded five hundred. The artillery force consisted of about eight thousand men, and the cavalry corps was twelve thousand strong.
Conceding that, in numbers, the veteran armies of the Poto- mac and Northern Virginia were about equal, Grant yet had with him Burnside's Ninth corps, which had reached the northern side of the Rapidan only two or three days before the campaign opened. This corps was composed of about equal numbers of veterans, untried negroes, and raw white recruits, and carried, it is said, full twenty thousand rifles. To that extent Grant's army certainly outnumbered Lee's.
At four A. M., on the 5th day of May, the Army of the Poto- mac was awakened from its slumbers. It had crossed the Rapi- dan without encountering any serious opposition, and had spent the night quietly resting on the northern outskirts of the Wilder- ness. The Second corps, as has already been stated, lay near the Chancellor farm. The Fifth corps had crossed at Germania Ford, and was at Old Wilderness Tavern, five miles west of Chancellorsville. The Sixth corps had crossed at Germania Ford after the Fifth, and bivouacked for the night on the southern banks of the river. Sheridan, with the cavalry divisions of Merrit and Gregg, was covering the front and flanks of the right column. Wilson had moved with, and was lying in advance of, the Second corps. Burnside had not yet crossed the river.
General Meade's " order of march " for the day, after direct- ing in detail the movements of the cavalry, which was charged with clearing the roads of the enemy's troopers, reads as follows :
"2d. Major-General Hancock, commanding Second corps, will move at five A. M. to Shady Grove Church, and extend his right toward the Fifth corps at Parker's store.
"3d. Major-General Warren, commanding Fifth corps, will move at five A. M. to Parker's store on the Orange Court-house plank road, and extend his right toward the Sixth corps at Old Wilderness Tavern.
"4th. Major-General Sedgwick, commanding the Sixth corps, will move to Old Wilderness Tavern, on the Orange Court-house pike, as soon as the road is clear."
Shady Grove church is situated on the southern outskirts of
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HISTORY OF THE 121TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
the most dense portion of the Wilderness, and about ten miles southward from Chancellorsville .. Parker's store is in a direct line, and about one-third of the way from Old Wilderness Tavern to Shady Grove church. Had Grant succeeded in posting his army on this line he would, while being several miles distant from, and facing the Confederates' line of works on Mine Run, (behind which he evidently believed the bulk of the Confederate army confronting him, was being concentrated) have held the Brock road, a passable highway through the dreaded Wilderness. And in a few hours he could have covered his front with a line of breastworks, which would have rendered it almost absolutely impossible for Lee to have prevented his passing the Union army, without serious loss, to the more open country about Spottsyl- vania.
Promptly at the hour designated (five A. M.) Meade's army. was in motion. Sedgwick moved briskly southward along the Stephensburgh plank road, and at seven o'clock the head of his column had reached and was massing in the woods, in rear of Warren's headquarters, which had not yet been moved from the vicinity of Old Wilderness Tavern. Warren had, meantime, pushed out and established his right, consisting chiefly of Griffin's division, about a mile down and across the Orange turnpike. The remainder of his corps, led by Crawford's division, was mov- ing cautiously to the left, along a narrow wood road, which led through a dense growth of underbrush toward Parker's store. This wood road was occasionally blocked by fallen trees which had to be removed, and before Crawford had proceeded a mile and a half he discovered, riding hastily back toward him, a small and partially disorganized body of Union cavalry, and soon learned that the enemy was not only in force at Parker's store, but was pushing a heavy and continuous column past it, in an easterly direction, along the Orange plank road. On receiving this information Crawford ordered a halt, and dispatched an aide back to Warren for orders.
At about the same time General Griffin, in attempting to ad- vance his videttes, became aware that he was confronted by a
1
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ON TO RICHMOND.
solid battle-line of Confederate infantry, and he forthwith sent a messenger to convey that fact to his corps commander.
Now it so happened that Griffin's messenger, who was the first to arrive at corps headquarters, found Warren engaged in conversation with General Sedgwick, and while he was delivering his message General Meade rode up. After a moment's reflec- tion Meade is said to have remarked, " They have left a division to fool us here while they concentrate and prepare a position to- ward the North Anna, and what I want is to prevent these fel- lows from getting back to Mine Run." A moment later Craw- ford's messenger reached the group. The news he brought changed the aspect of affairs very materially, and Warren was directed to draw in his left, concentrate on the pike, and " attack furiously whatever he could find in his front." Sedgwick was directed to make his way through the woods the best he could, with the divisions of Wright and Prince, and connect with and support Warren's right ; while Getty, with the remaining division of Sedgwick's corps, was hurried to the left with orders to seize the Orange plank, in front of where it is crossed by the Brock road, and hold it at all hazards until Hancock's corps could be intercepted in its march toward Shady Grove church, and brought up into line on the left.
At twelve M. the battle was opened by the impetuous advance of Griffin's division, which, with its centre following the pike, tore its way through the vines and brush on either side, and soon came up to and engaged what proved to be Johnson's division of Ewell's corps, with such terrific fury as to force it back, with heavy loss, for over a mile. But at that point Johnson was joined by the balance of Ewell's corps, which had just come up, and the Confederate line was formed on some high ground from which it could not, with the Union force at hand, be driven ; and Griffin, while heavily engaged in front, soon found it necessary to look after - his flanks. Somewhere off to his right Sedgwick was making his way through the tangled forest, but so slowly that he would not be up for hours. Wadsworth's division was to have come up on his left, but unfortunately had lost the direction, and had swung
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HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
around to such an extent that instead of coming into position as directed, it presently ran its left flank into the enemy's lines.
These facts were not unknown to the Confederate chiefs. Now was their time to strike, and they improved the opportunity. Volley after volley was hurled in rapid succession into Wads- worth's naked flank, and the gallant men of that division, hearing the thunder of battle echoing through the woods all about them, seeing nothing ten feet beyond their own ranks, and knowing only that they were being cut to pieces by concealed foes, be- came confused and fell back in disorder, with heavy loss. McCandless' brigade, of Crawford's division, fared no better, for having become isolated in the impenetrable woods, it was almost surrounded, and driven from the field with the loss of full one- third its numbers. At about the same time Ewell assumed the offensive, with the bulk of his corps, against Griffin, and suc- ceeded, after a desperate struggle, in which both sides lost heavily, in forcing the latter back, and wresting from him all the ground he had gained.
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