USA > New York > History of the One hundred and twenty-fourth regiment, N. Y. S. V. > Part 32
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After we were out of sight and hearing of every other vessel, our brave captain evidently reconsidered his rash determination, for he slackened his speed so that we seemed to be lying still. Presently a small tug with Generals Mott and de Trobriand on board came puffing up the river, like a man almost out of breath, and passing to the front, took the lead.
About half past four, just as the day commenced to break, we
364 HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
reached Deep Bottom and began to disembark. As soon as out three regiments could be formed on the shore a strong picket line was established, after which we stacked arms, and lay down on the grass to await the arrival of the balance of the corps.
At nine o'clock two of General de . Trobriand's regiments were, pursuant to orders from General Mott, deployed as skirmishers, and followed by a supporting force composed of the remaining 'regiments of the brigade, moved forward through the woods.
About a mile beyond the river our skirmishers were met by those of the enemy and the two lines soon became hotly engaged. But at the end of twenty minutes, the Confederates began to give ground and were slowly but steadily forced back into a strong line of earthworks on the brow of a commanding ridge. In front of these works our skirmishers were formed into a strong picket line, while our main body was massed in the woods a short dis- tance to the rear.
Presently, the 124th was ordered to advance to the support of a section of the 4th Maine battery which had taken position just behind the picket line, and opened on the enemy's works. Just as we reached these guns, a Confederate battery began to reply and a rather lively exchange of iron compliments ensued.
Our batterymen made some grand shots, causing clouds of dust to arise from the works in front, and sometimes apparently from right under the enemy's guns. These telling shots elicited from my men shouts of applause. Capt. Mapes especially became very much interested and walked up to the rear of one of the pieces . which the gunners were about to fire, with the evident intent of watching more closely than he could in rear of his company, the effect of the shell when it exploded ; but as the commander of the gunners shouted " Fire," I heard from the captain a cry indicating intense pain. A sharpshooter's rifle had sent a leaden " call to the hospital" through his thigh, splintering the bone. a piece of which, about the size of a minnie ball, was carried through the wound and clung to his pants just below the hole made in them by the exit of the bullet.
A few moments later Private Allen Owen of Co. A. was
IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG.
wounded severely, also in the thigh, and then Sergeant Samme! Rollings of the same company received a slight wound in the arm.
We were lying in the outer edge of a piece of woods. About noon the guns were withdrawn and we moved back in among the trees a short distance so as to be out of sight of the Confederate sharpshooters, and there spent the remainder of the day and fo !. lowing night.
Meantime Barlow had moved around the enemy's flank and attacked him in rear, and Birney with a portion of the Tenth Corps had assaulted his lines near the river ; but the delay of the morning had proved fatal to the success of these efforts, for the enemy was found to have been strongly reinforced at both points; and the assailants were forced to withdraw with considerable loss, and without accomplishing anything of consequence save the cap- ture of four guns by Birney's command.
On the morning of the 15th the 124th was ordered on picket. Our line extended across an open plain. During the day a Union gun-boat sent over a number of monstrous shells which were evidently aimed to reach the enemy, but came short of their in- tended destination just enough to fall on the plain along our line. They were almost as large as nail kegs and the noise they made was most hideous. Fortunately no member of 124th was killed, or permanently injured by them, but several had their feelings badly wounded. We could not only hear but could see them coming -- right at us every time -- and some of the boys who happened to be on their feet as one approached, were unable to remain erect, and of course became the laughing stock of those who had been so fortunate as to lie down before the heavy gun was fired.
We were relieved from picket duty at eight A. M. on the 16th, but had scarcely reached the main line when I was ordered to move with my command out to the left, and prolong the picket line in that direction. To get to the position indicated it became necessary to pass over a narrow strip of open ground which ran up to the enemy's works and was swept by one of his batteries. The moment the head of my regimental column reached this place
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HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
the enemy's guns opened furiously ; but their range was rather high, and by crouching very low, and passing over one at a time, we managed to get aeross it and 'deployed over the space I had been directed to cover without loss.
The greater part of this new picket line ran through the woods, and the men on the outposts were well protected by large trees ; but in front of that portion held by Companies G. and K. was a field of grain which, like the open space referred to above, ran up to the enemy's works. Presently a small body of Confed- erates crept forward through this grain and opened on our men, who, standing in the open field, became conspicuous targets. the foe meantime remaining entirely concealed.
At first I directed the men of these companies to lie down and return the fire the best they could in that position, but this shooting at random seemed like a useless waste of ammunition and I presently concluded to see what could be effected by ad- vancing a small force through the grain toward them. Selecting about a dozen men from the companies named I ordered them forward. Plunging into the grain which was higher than their heads, and firing as they advanced, they soon caught sight of, and brought down, two stalwart Confederates, whereupon the balance took to their heels and did not halt until they had climbed over and were safe behind their breastworks.
In this affair Lewis T. Shultz of Co. G. who had been pro- moted from the ranks to a sergeancy for marked bravery at the battle of the Wilderness, and Corporal David U. Quick of Co. K, behaved with conspicuous gallantry. They were both wounded just as they started, the sergeant in the hand and the corporal in the face and arm, but neither turned back until after the enemy had been routed; and even then the bullets from their guns were the last sent after the fleeing Confederates.
After this the day passed very quietly without anything of consequence transpiring along General Mott's front. But we heard during the afternoon heavy cannonading to our right, and subsequently learned that General Birney's troops had made a direct assault on the enemy's works about a mile distant, cap-
£
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IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG.
turing three battle flags and upwards of three hundred prisoners ; but had in the end been driven back with considerable loss. Also that a brigade from Barlow's division had been operating, with Grigg's cavalry, on the Charles City Cross Road, still farther away ; but without achieving any advantageous results for the Union cause, save the killing of the Confederate General Cham- bliss, and the disabling of a few of his followers.
The 124th was not relieved from this tour of picket duty until nine P. M. on the 17th. And at nine p. M. on the 18th Hancock's entire command was well on its way toward Petersburg again.
CASUALTIES OF 124TH IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG, JULY 30, 1864.
CORP. James H. Taylor, Co. F Wounded.
Private Giles Curran,
I.
Thomas Kincade, K.
Cornelius Hughes, G.
William H. Jackson. G ..
Patrick Flannery, A.
CASUALTIES AT DEEP BOTTOM, AUGUST 14 TO 16, 1864.
CAPT. WILLIAM E. MAPES, Co. B. Wounded.
SERGT. Samuel T. Rollings, A. 6 4
SERGT. Lewis T. Shultz, 66
G.
CORP. David U. Quick, K.
Private Allen Owen, A.
..
CHAPTER XIX.
IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG-BATTLE OF BOYDTON ROAD.
W E recrossed the Appomattox near Bermuda Hundred at half past eleven P. M. on the 18th of August, and con- tinued our return march at a moderate gait until daybreak, when the welcome order, " Halt half an hour for breakfast," was passed down the column. While the boys were boiling their coffee a severe storm, which had been brewing since midnight, " opened upon us." But promptly at the end of the allotted half hour the forward was sounded, and hurrying into line we resumed the march, plodding on through the continually deepening mud and drenching rain until midday, when we reached the main line in front of Petersburg. There we stacked arms behind a portion of the works which had been erected and occupied up to within a few days by troops of the Fifth Corps, but which were vacated on our arrival by a brigade of Burnside's men. Our new position was about three miles to the left of the one we had marched from on the 12th.
We had been on duty nearly every night as well as day for over a week, and were consequently thoroughly worn down. The rain continued to fall quite heavily and our tents were soon pitched. But the muddy ground was a most uninviting resting place and as the men could not well become any more thoroughly soaked than they were when we arrived, the greater part of the afternoon was devoted to collecting pine boughs for beds, and clean- ing up our camp ; for a regiment of' soldiers changing camp, like a family moving from one hired house to another, usually leave " a vast amount of filth scattered about the premises they vacate, and then say very hard things about the " dirty brutes " who have just left the place they are moving into.
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IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG.
It was unusually quiet along our front that afternoon, but about nine o'clock in the evening the guns, in two of the enemy's forts, were opened on our brigade camps and the works we were occupying. And they continued to hurl their shot and shell at regular intervals all night and the greater part of the following day ; making things very lively around General de Trobriand's headquarters where, during the night, two men who were on guard, and three horses, were wounded with pieces of shell.
The pickets, too, opening simultaneously with the artillery, kept up an incessant rattling all along the front, and a considera- ble number of stray bullets went whistling through the camp of the 124th ; but the only man of our number wounded on that oc- casion was little Jimmy Daniels of Co. C., who was hit in the leg. Some of their cannon balls too, must have landed in our camp, for on a soiled leaf of my journal, under date of Aug. 20th, 1864, I find the following entry, " A solid shot just struck the ground in front of my tent and spattered the mud on this leaf, and in my face, and all over iny best coat."
A few pages further on I come to this note-" That unfortu- nate best coat of mine is a total wreck. I rode over to the train this morning on my new mare to see Quartermaster Post, and came out of his tent laughing over some new joke of his ; and un- mindful of the fact that the seeesh brute was in the habit of acting badly when any one attempted to mount her, took the reins from a man who was holding her, and in a very careless manner placed my foot in the stirrup and gave a spring; but before I had fairly reached the saddle she reared, and with a desperate plunge which jerked one of the bridle reins from my hand and hurled the op- posite stirrup over her back, bounded off through the tall stumps which stood only a few feet apart, for before our arrival in front of Petersburg, all that section had been a vast forest. Having but one stirrup and one rein I was unable to guide the mad beast; and as she plunged around, first this way and then that, among the stumps, the prospect of having my brains dashed out against one of them became anything but agreeable. Presently I saw, just ahead, a strip of cleared ground, which had evidently
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HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
been a roadway, and remembering the old adage, discretion is the better part of valor, concluded to make a landing there re- gardless of appearances ; for I knew that a dozen or more Quar- termasters with their attendants were watching the result of my wild ride. The moment I passed the last row of stumps, I dropped the rein and sprang upward. Of course I did not sit down on the ground very gracefully, or as easily as usual, but I remained very quiet for a few seconds after I got there. When I picked myself up I discovered that my left wrist was sprained, and that I had very foolishly bitten my tongue. Lieutenant Post soon came up and began brushing my clothes. I swallowed the blood from my lacerated tongue and said not a word about my sprained wrist, for I prided myself on my superior horsemanship. Presently Post said to me in his dry way ' Colonel, I am afraid you have your coat on wrong side before. The buttons are in front but it is open behind.'"
Turning over a few more pages of my journal I read, "Another court-martial has been ordered, and as usual I am a member of it. It is only three days since the old court was dissolved. The new court held its first session to-day, in a large house near division headquarters. While there I met the gay and dashing General , who is evidently bent on being the best mounted officer in the corps. He offered me eight hundred dollars for my mare. He saw her at the review the other day ; and she did behave splendidly on that occasion. When I wheeled to salute the re- viewing officer, she gave her immense tail a graceful wave and followed the motion of my sabre with her bold head, raising her nostrils high in the air, and then dropping them down between her forelegs with a coquettish shake that tossed her long mane in a most airy manner ; as if she knew all about what was taking place and had resolved to outdo her rider. If I can get an even thousand dollars I think I will let her go." The next entry reads : " Have not only lost the sale of my mare, but have been ordered not to ride her on review again. General Meade reviewed us this afternoon and when I saluted the treacherous brute instead of performing her graceful antics made one of
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IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG.
her desperate plunges, right at a group of generals who had taken post to the left of Meade, and wheeling about, let go her hind feet, striking and I fear breaking the jaws of the horse of a grey- haired General whose name I did not learn. His poor docile beast when struck started back a few yards and sat down on his haunches pointing his trembling nose skyward like a superannuated setter dog that had just treed a possum ; and letting his rider slip gracelessly off behind, to the mingled amusement and annoyance of all who witnessed the occurrence. except the old General and myself. We received a double share of the annoyance without partaking in the slightest degree of the opposite feeling."
From the 20th of August to the 9th of September very little of general interest transpired in Mott's division, the troops of which were as usual kept busy building earthworks and doing picket duty.
An interesting private letter written in the camp of the 124th on the 28th of August contains the following. "The regiment is still in the trenches, and has been since the morning of the 19th. The opposing lines here are in such close proximity that it is no trouble to talk with the Johnnies from the main works. The picket lines in several places are not over fifty feet apart. At night a man is sent out several paces in front of each post. There is one place on our lines where the opposing sentinels can almost shake hands with each other. There is no picket firing at pres- ent along our front. a compromise having been effected between the pickets, by which our boys when not too closely watched by their officers, trade all sorts of Yankee notions for tobacco. The Johnnies have a queer way of talking. They either learned it from the darkeys, or else the darkeys learned from them. Our piekets are posted about one hundred feet apart and stand in pits about four feet deep and just large enough to hold two persons. Between the picket pits and main works is a line of abatis made of trees with the ends of the branches trimmed sharp, and point- "ing toward the enemy. These trees are placed side by side close together, and the buts are fastened in the ground very securely. Every company has one or more gopher holes or bombproofs,
372 HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
which are made by digging pits in the earth and covering them over with heavy logs and dirt. We don't particularly mind the shell from the enemy's forts for they usually pass over our camp, but occasionally a mortar battery which is located directly oppo- site opens, and for an hour or more pieces of iron fly about in a very careless manner. At such times we usually find it con- venient to step inside our bombproofs and fix them up a little, for you know we can't tell how soon we may have occasion to use them. You would enjoy sitting down behind our main works during one of our regular artillery duels ; I was on duty this morn- ing when one took place. The enemy opened the affair from his forts. The first shot was rather high and one of our men jumped up on the works and shouted, " Oh bosh ! Johnnies what is the use of shooting at the sun." Presently a shell struck and ex- ploded in our works scattering the dirt about at a great rate and endangering life and limb, whereupon some one raised up and shouted, " Bully for you ! now go for the sun once more, won't you ?" Quite a number of the Johnnies were standing on their works watching the effect of their shells, but when our battery opened you ought to have seen them drop, and after that both sides lay low until the circus was over. There is no musketry firing, but these artillery duels take place nearly every morning and evening, making it very uncomfortable for those of us who are used to a quiet life in the country. I wish I could give you a correct idea of the face of the earth about Petersburg, but that is impossible to me with a pen. I really believe it would cost at the present price of labor, a thousand dollars an acre to level and prepare the ground for agricultural purposes again. Immense furrows follow each other over a strip of ground nearly a mile wide, and the principal ones are about fifteen miles in length. I have seen a line of works that would reach from Newburgh to Cornwall and back " (10 miles) " built in a single night. This belt of earthworks is fringed with road pits which run back toward the rear, and are built in a zig-zag fashion, like rail fences at the north, with the dirt thrown up on the side toward the enemy. They have been made for the protection of all the trains,
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IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG.
but more particularly for that of the ammunition wagons which are sometimes obliged to come up to the works under fire. A secesh band is playing . Wait for the Wagon,' and ours will soon reply with ' The red, white, and blue,' or some other patriotic song."
On the evening of the sixth of June, I sat on our earthworks for over an hour watching shells pass through the air and fall into Petersburg. They were fired from two immense siege guns, called the twin-sisters which had been planted in an earthwork prepared especially for them off to the right and over two miles from the city. These guns were elevated so that one would sup- pose the shells they sent were fired from a mortar. They would mount up higher and yet higher, going slower and slower until they seemed to stand still up among the stars, and then slowly turning a quarter circle would begin their downward flight, mov- ing faster and faster until they exploded over or dropped into the city. These shells, in their passage up in the heavens and down to the earth again, were suggestive of huge darting fire-flies and when at the turning point seemed twinkling stars-the fire of the burning fuse appearing and disappearing at regular intervals.
The majority of the females whose homes were in Fredericks. burg had, it was said, gone to visit friends and relatives in other and safer places, or were camping with their children and slave attendants in the adjacent fields, out of range of Yankee cannon balls ; but not a few of the young women remained in the city showing their lovers how to be brave.
On returning to my quarters that evening I found awaiting my arrival, an order from General de Trobriand which directed me to hold the regiment in readiness to move to another camp as soon as it was dark enough to do so unobserved by the enemy.
We moved about midnight, but only from forty to fifty rods. The camp we moved into was much better supplied with bomb- proofs than the one we left.
On the 7th I received a letter from Major Murray, who was home on sick leave, stating that Robert A. Malone of Middletown, who had been engaged for several weeks raising a company of volunteers for the regiment, had eurolled sixty-eight men nearly
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HISTORY OF THE 124TH NEW YORK VOLUNTEERS.
every one of whom had seen service in other regiments. I wrote to Gov. Seymour that evening requesting that a captain's commis- sion be issued to Malone, and that a First Lieutenant's commis- sion be issued to John S. King, also of Middletown, who had as- sisted Capt. Malone in raising the company. They had both held commissions in another regiment and proved to be most efficient officers. The position of Second Lieutenant I reserved for Wood T. Ogden, the efficient orderly of K., with which company I pro- posed to incorporate the majority of Malone's men.
Small squads of convalescents now rejoined us almost daily. And I had since my return on the 4th of July received Lieuten- ant's commissions for Sergeants Jonathan Birdsall of A., Thomas Taft of C., and Ebenezer Holbert of D. Each of these had been assigned to the command of a company, but on the Sth of Septem- ber, there was yet one company for which I had no commissioned officer.
On the evening of the 9th, I received orders directing me to assemble iny regiment at half past twelve that night and hold it in readiness to support the 20th Ind., 99th Penn. and 2d U. S. S. S., in an attack " which is to be made," so reads the order " for the purpose of capturing the enemy's pickets and line of pits." A surprise was to be attempted, but if our movements were dis- covered a bold dash was to be made.
At one o'clock the attacking party crept out right on to the enemy's videttes before they were discovered, captured and hur- ried back to the main works over a hundred of them, and with but trifling loss established the Union line where that of the Confederates had been. But ten minutes later the work of death began in earnest, and the night was made hideous with discordant sounds. Every battery and fort for miles around began a furious cannonade, the pickets opened all along the lines on both sides of us, and three times the enemy in our front charged de Trobriand's line, determined to retake the lost ground. But they did not succeed, and at last gave up the task and established a new line nearer their earthworks. This attack was made at a point where the main lines were a considerable distance apart, and where the
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IN FRONT OF PETERSBURG.
enemy's pickets had been creeping out a few feet at a time until they occupied two-thirds of the intervening space. They had by this assault simply been forced to take up a new line in the proper place. That at least was the version of the result given by our gallant and punctilious French brigadier.
In the enemy's attempts to retake his lost line of picket pits, a large number were killed and wounded on both sides. Among the Union killed were Lieutenant-Colonel Mickel, com- manding officer of the 20th Ind., and Private George G. King, a member of Co. C. of the 124th, who had for several months past been on duty with the ambulance train. When a call was made for a stretcher on which to carry off Colonel Mickel, King rushed forward with one, through a perfect shower of bullets ; but was shot through the heart before he reached the Colonel's body. The regiments already named were the only Union troops called into action, and early the next morning I sent a detachment to bury our brave stretcher-bearer.
After this affair the picket firing was incessant and most des- perate for over a week. If a man raised his head, on either side a score of bullets were fired at it. The pickets could be relieved only at midnight and then were frequently obliged to crawl back and forth on their hands and knees. On the 12th Joseph Point of B. was severely .wounded in the head. On the 14th Corp. Chester Judson of HI. was shot through the brain, and on the 15th Martin Campbell of B. was killed in like manner.
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