USA > New York > Dutchess County > The "Dutchess county regiment" (150th regiment of New York state volunteer infantry) in the Civil War; > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
As soon as we began campaign work in the field it was reduced in numbers by sickness, and before reaching Virginia several were sent back to hospitals. Of these Smith and Lilly never returned to us. As with the regi- ment, the band's first experience of battle was at Gettys- burg. They did not all remain together here, for the members were detailed to different places.
On the first day-the second day of the battle-some were detailed as stretcher-bearers, and accompanied the regiment when it went to the relief of the Ist Minnesota, near Little Round Top, just at sun-down that day, and with that advance followed on over the ground which
180
THE DUTCHESS COUNTY REGIMENT.
had been so grimly held by that now historic regiment. It was the wounded from that regiment which they worked so late in carrying off the field that night, for our own regiment did not lose any men there. A group of the band men were so busy at that task that they did not know when the regiment was recalled to the right of the line, which was some time in the night.
At three in the morning the first of the enemy's shots just skimmed over them, sending them in hasty search for the regiment, which after a time they found, now supporting a battery near the Baltimore pike. Early in the forenoon of that day a field hospital, with Surgeon C. N. Campbell of our regiment in charge, was estab- lished at the old stone barn on the Baltimore pike, directly to the rear of where the regiment was engaged with the enemy, while another field hospital, under charge of First Assistant Surgeon S. G. Cook of our regiment, was established a little farther south, but equally near the brigade. Some of the band served in these hospitals, while some were detailed to the 12th Corps hospital some distance farther south.
Part of this service was rendered in going to the line of battle and assisting the wounded back to the hospitals, and on one occasion several of the band, by direction of the Colonel, gathered the dead of the regiment and laid them side by side some distance back of the breastworks. It is probable that Colonel Ketcham's thoughtfulness in having this done, even while the battle was raging, pre- vented any of our dead from being lost in the general confusion among so many dead.
Thus between field hospital service, and frequent trips to bring out the wounded from the line of battle, many
181
REGIMENTAL BAND.
of them were engaged until the regiment was withdrawn from that position, being replaced by other troops.
An incident of some interest in connection with this battle is the fact that on the morning after its close Edwin A. Davis, a member of the band, carved in the bark of a thrifty oak tree near the southern slope of Culp's Hill this inscription :
Co. A. 150 N. Y.
The tree stands near the marker which indicates the right of our regimental line when it held that position for five hours on July 3, 1863, and now, more than forty years afterward, the inscription still shows distinctly.
Now we again took up our routine of duties with the regiment until we reached Virginia, where we lost, for a time, several more members by sickness. The western journey and the Tennessee trampings followed, as related at length in other chapters of this volume, until we at last settled down for the winter at Normandy, Tennessee, where we were rejoined by some who had been sent to hospitals.
At both Resaca and New Hope Church (the latter being known at the time as the " Battle of Pumpkin Vine Creek ") the band was with the regiment when it entered the engagements, and did good service in carrying back the wounded. After the battle of New Hope Church some of us were detailed to assist in the field hospital near at hand, and as the hostilities continued we worked there about a week. Each day the ambulance train was sent with its loads of suffering humanity twenty miles back, to Kingston, to which point the railroad was then rebuilt.
182
THE DUTCHESS COUNTY REGIMENT.
At the end of a week the enemy had been routed from about there, and the ambulances were loaded with the last of the wounded that were still alive, that field hospi- tal having been broken up. On this last trip I was one of the detail to care for the wounded on the way, and almost the last sight that met my eyes as I left the deserted pine grove, was a pile, as high as the table, of legs and arms whose rightful owners never saw them again.
Throughout all the campaigns of the regiment the band continued to share its fortunes, and this outline account will give the reader something of an idea of the kind of services which it rendered, beside those of furnishing music, for in time of battle it was never required to fur- nish music.
Its members were, as a whole, faithful to their duties, and in addition to this performed much voluntary ser- vice which was not strictly required of them as duties. This was the more noteworthy, inasmuch as they served without that stimulus to extra effort which the others felt in the hope of a better position in reward for heroic ser- vice; they were on the payrolls as privates, without any possibility of receiving promotion.
CHAPTER XVIII. REMINISCENCES.
BY CHAPLAIN THOMAS E. VASSAR.
Records of the Old Diary-Cheers and Tears-Apples and Turkeys from Home-Regi- mental Debating Club -Dog of the Regiment- Campaigning- Battle Scenes both Ludicrous and Pathetic -Virginia Camps- Resignation and "All Hail."
I have diaries of 1862 and 1863, and they are fairly well preserved, but the entries are meagre, and as many of them are in pencil, they are naturally growing dim. Memory, however tenacious, cannot be implicitly de- pended on at the end of forty years, and so my contri- butions toward the history of the 150th must be limited, and may, in some particulars, prove to be inexact.
It must furthermore be remembered that my connec- tion with the regiment covered but a third of its existence, but if a few fragments from the memoranda or remem- brances of the past will help perpetuate the memory of old times and incidents I gladly say to my surviving com- rades, "Such as I have I give thee."
If any statement shall seem irrelevant, or incorrect, my former associates will charitably say, "Our old chaplain nods; his mind meanders, and he easily forgets."
I will quote occasionally from the old diaries. Under date of Saturday, October 11, 1862, this record appears :- "About dusk the 150th moved down Main Street,
184
THE DUTCHESS COUNTY REGIMENT.
Poughkeepsie, and amid cheers and tears, and waving of flags, took the steamer Oregon for New York."
No one in the ranks on that long-ago autumn evening has forgotten, or will forget, that starting for the front. Every part of Dutchess County was represented in the throngs that reached from Smith Street to the steamboat wharf. If the parting scenes of that night could be reproduced the picture would be highly prized.
"Monday, October 13th-Reached Baltimore at II o'clock P. M. Slept on the station platform the balance of the night." What a soft bed those depot planks made ! Maryland mud, such as we found later, was easier to lie in.
"Friday, November 7th-Woke up and found it snowing heavily; Camp Millington fairly buried by night. The boys went around shivering and asking,-' How is this for the Sunny South ?' "
" Thursday, November 1Ith-Mrs. Ketcham arrived in camp." A brief note this, but it announced the coming of a woman who, to many a member of the regiment, and especially the sick, was afterward as kind as a mother or an elder sister, and whom not a few still remember admiringly and gratefully.
"Sunday, November 16th-Dedicated our new meet- ing tent." This tent was purchased with money con- tributed by a dozen or more churches of Dutchess County. We had many excellent meetings in it 'till the severest weather of winter came, when we had to abandon it for warmer quarters. It was finally lost during the Gettys- burg campaign.
" Thanksgiving Day, November 27th -- Received eleven barrels of apples from home; one for cach company, and
185
REMINISCENCES.
one for the field and staff." These were sent us by a Mr. Potter, of LaGrange, if my memory is not at fault. The same thoughtful man sent the 128th New York Regiment a like token of regard and remembrance. I doubt if he ever fully knew of the gratitude and gladness inspired by his generous gift.
" Wednesday, December 31st-Regiment ordered to Adamstown, Md., to repel a reported invasion by the enemy."
We did not discover so much as a single "Johnny," but as we were near Harper's Ferry some of us got per- mission to visit that historic spot. In one small room of a very dilapidated hotel six beds were placed, and in those beds, between sheets that bore the imprint of many previous lodgers, a score or so were packed like sardines in a box.
. New Year's Day of 1863 was spent there in visiting famous localities. When we got back to Camp Belger we found that several boxes of turkeys had arrived from home. They had been intended for our Christmas dinner, but they were so late in getting to our cook-house and the mess-table that a rather ancient odor hung about the fowls, and their flavor was not absolutely fine. Turkeys however are such rare rations in camp that the indisputable evidences of their antiquity were overlooked.
" Wednesday, January 14, 1863-In our regimental debating club at night we discussed the question,-' Would it be wise to arm the negroes in our war?' Decided in the affirmative by an immense majority."
The above record from my diary indicates that the men of the 150th grappled with a tremendous problem before
186
THE DUTCHESS COUNTY REGIMENT.
Congress did, and that they settled it while the legisla- tors fought shy.
"Tuesday, January 20th-Had a number of Dutchess County guests at our camp to-day."
Among the number that I recall as visiting us at dif- ferent times were Benson J. Lossing, the historian; John Thompson, wife and daughter; John G. Parker; Mrs. H. C. Smith and son; the wife of Major Smith, with their son and daughter; the wife of Captain Broas; the wife of Lieutenant Underwood; the Misses Wickes, and others of Poughkeepsie; Colonel Rundall, Gail Borden and wife, Edward Gridley and the Misses Mygatt of Amenia; Orrin Wakeman of Millerton; the father of Lieutenant Titus, and the parents of Lieutenant S. V. R. Cruger. These names recur to me, but doubtless there were many more.
One funny incident occurs to me in connection with the visit of Mr. Parker. Among our men was one whom I will call "Billy B." although really he was not "Billy" anybody. Now "Billy" was not a total abstainer. In- deed, he never abstained if there was a chance to do the other thing. The day before Mr. Parker's visit "Billy" had spent a few hours in Baltimore, and having a few "'shin-plasters" in his pocket he came back to camp slightly elated, and "whooped 'er up" pretty loud. The conse- quence was that he slept that night on the downy pillows of the guard-house, and in the morning was set up on a barrel in camp to do penance.
Now "Billy" and Mr. Parker were old acquaintances, and naturally enough the offender did not care to have Mr. Parker see him mounted on such a pedestal. Long before Mr. Parker spied "Billy" he was spied by
187
REMINISCENCES.
"Billy," and as the visitor approached the unfortunate victim of his environment just threw the cape of his over- coat about his head, and Mr. Parker passed the curiously masked figure, unaware that it was his old friend and acquaintance who had thus so modestly veiled his face.
In my official capacity I was sometimes called upon to perform the ceremony at marriages, and the memory of one of these occasions clings to me as that of one of the comedies of the war, though it may well have been far from that character to those most interested.
One of our German boys became enamored with a rosy- cheeked Rosina, living in an alley of Baltimore. Early one morning he came for me to go down town with him and speak the words that should make the maiden fair a soldier's wife, and render her lover's joy complete. On reaching the rather unimposing residence of the bride she was nowhere to be found.
The minister and groom were ready, but the third party in the transaction was not to be seen, and very obviously this caused a serious hitch. "Mart," how- ever, was not to be thwarted in his purposes by such a trifling circumstance, so bidding the chaplain be seated he said, "You shust vait; I fin's her!" The "wait" seemed interminable, but before noon the pair appeared and were made one.
Then it was discovered that while the wedding cake was ready to be cut, the wine to wash it down had not been ordered. The newly made husband started out in quest of it, and during this second "still hunt" the parson thought it a favorable time to depart. Whether the cup that cheers finally got there the undersigned saith not,
188
THE DUTCHESS COUNTY REGIMENT.
but the fee surely didn't, and the job performed was ap- parently as short-lived as the sunshine of that April day.
When the regiment, sixty days later, marched for the last time down Madison Avenue, Rosina thought it a good time to dissolve the partnership. Soldiers were too uncertain supporters to tie to, and it was not best to risk any chances while available matrimonial timber was close at hand ;- so the young wife seemed to reason. I am not certain whether the husband marched up Main Street with the regiment in the summer of '65, but if he did the wife was evidently not with him.
From a missing woman to a missing brute may be con- sidered quite a leap, but do the boys remember that big brindle dog the regiment adopted in Baltimore, so curi- ously marked, and which, all over the camp, was such a pet? He was tattooed like a Modoc Indian, or the Ancient Mariner, and how he clung to the command and followed its fortunes! The last that I ever heard of him was during the second day's fight at Gettysburg. Did he fall among the dead men that littered those plains and slopes, and did his blood with theirs crimson the trampled sod? We never knew.
"Friday, June 26th-Marched through rain and mud to Poplar Springs. The distance was said to be twenty- seven miles. I never saw men so exhausted, and at inter- vals I put several of them on my horse and walked by the side. When shoes and stockings were pulled off at night I saw great strips and patches of skin come off the feet."
This brief extract from the diary gives a glimpse of the second day out from Baltimore, and what a picture it is of the regiment's introduction to service in the field !
189
REMINISCENCES.
"Sunday, June 28th-Very little like Sunday, though we did hold one brief service. All day the roads were one mass of moving men, and at night every hillside gleamed with camp-fires."
"Tuesday, June 30th-Joined the 12th Army Corps at Frederick City, and started with it for Gettysburg, making twenty miles before night."
That day's march was memorable. It lay along high- ways bordered with wheatfields and orchards exactly such as Whittier afterward pictured in his "Barbara Frietchie." On one of the hills where the regiment halted for a few moments Colonel Ketcham looked over the country and then, turning to the men nearest to him, said, " It would be hard to beat that in Dutchess County."
" Wednesday, July Ist-Made sixteen miles and got within eight miles of Gettysburg. As we were lying down for the night orders came to move at midnight."
An hour or more after midnight we fell into line, and silently as a company of shadows the men got into their places, with not a joke, not a laugh, and not a snatch of song. Word reached us that the fight had begun, that General Reynolds had been killed, our forces worsted, and that the whole Army of the Potomac was hurrying ยท to the field.
" Thursday, July 2nd-Halted near Round Top, and Little Round Top, at sunrise, meeting loads of half-crazed women and children escaping from their homes. We did not get into the battle until afternoon, when we were ordered to the support of the 3rd Corps, which was hard pushed."
Little Round Top was very quiet when we passed it in the early morning, but before sundown it belched flame like a veritable volcano.
190
THE DUTCHESS COUNTY REGIMENT.
Let me mention one humorous occurrence just here. Sometime in the early hours of the day, and before the action had become general, I was lying with the regiment in a wheat field. The grain had been cut, and with some of the sheaves for pillows we were talking or drowsing. All of a sudden there came screeching over our heads a shell that buried itself a rod or two away, and sent up earth and stone like a water-spout.
It was the enemy's salute to the 150th, and in its immediate vicinity there was such an exhibition of flutter- ing coat-tails as is rarely witnessed. It might be a bit of exaggeration to say that we made a quarter of a mile in a single minute, but the action was surely swift. We got more used to that sort of thing before night.
"Friday, July 3rd -- Got into battle early. I helped our surgeons to care for the wounded in an old stone barn on the Baltimore pike, and kept at it until night."
"Saturday, July 4th-Was busy during the forenoon in labelling our dead, and preparing them for burial. I was so tired at night that I fancy I could have slept right through a fight."
Connected with the Gettysburg battle are a number of details that abide in memory still, and it may be that a few of them are worth mentioning. Possibly they im- pressed me more than they would others because I saw no other important action, while many of the comrades witnessed and participated in engagements scarcely less famous. The first of the events is of a comic nature, and yet it happened during that terrific cannonade on the afternoon of the last day of the fight.
Standing in front of the old barn previously mentioned were a half dozen or more ambulances waiting to carry
191
REMINISCENCES.
the wounded away to hospitals beyond the battle lines. When the thundering and pounding of those two or three hundred cannons grew hot and heavy the ambulance drivers tried to get their teams away to a more sheltered spot. But anybody who has been used to the handling of a mule knows that it is the perversest animal-some men excepted-that travels.
Cries, blows, and curses did not stir the brutes an inch. They only laid back their long ears and vigorously em- ployed their heels. But when they got ready to go they went; and such a going! No circus antics were ever so mirth-provoking. Amid that terrific rain of death men roared with laughter as the ambulances went rattling down the hill in John Gilpin style.
Two or three days earlier than this I saw a rather hungry night. Some fellow who had not the fear of God before his eyes borrowed my haversack and forgot to return it. The said haversack had been filled with a loaf of bread, a bit of dried beef, and a dozen boiled eggs, which I had purchased of a kind German woman on the road. Of course when it was thus stocked it was something of a temptation, and another, who was perhaps hungrier, captured it when the owner was not on guard.
In this condition of affairs, and when my prospect of going to bed supperless was better than the prospect that some have of reaching heaven, I scented something like broiled chicken coming from the outskirts of the camp. Now the odor of broiled chicken is seldom disagreeable, but it is especially captivating when one's stomach is in danger of collapse. Starting out to investigate I found two or three of my good friends gathered about a fine looking fowl that they were putting where it would do
192
THE DUTCHESS COUNTY REGIMENT.
the most good, and they diabolically suggested that I should step up and have a bite.
They indignantly resented my insinuation that some- body beside the heir to my haversack had been breaking the eighth commandment. Steal a rooster! Not they ! They had borrowed this one from a farmer who had a lot to spare ! Just then it did take some pluck, or some- thing else, to say "No." If those tempters chance to read this story of their seductive solicitations I wish them to give me credit for the act of self-denial.
Here is a painful reminiscence; almost too harrowing perhaps to be mentioned, although it refers to times so far in the past. It belongs to that sultry sundown of July 2nd, and a peach orchard was the place.
Our regiment had been helping regain the ground and retake the guns which Sickles had lost during the after- noon. We were pushing over ground littered with the wounded, the dying and the dead, and my horse, not yet become accustomed to such sights, stopped short. Dis- mounting I tied him to a tree, proposing to follow on foot. Hardly was I out of the saddle than those nearest me, who were least injured, began their pitiful cries for help. "Water! Water! Chaplain; for God's sake!"
This was the cry on every side. Seeing a small house a fourth of a mile away I ran toward it, hoping to fill a few canteens and furnish some relief. I found a well there, but it was absolutely surrounded with wounded men, some of whom must evidently have crawled thither on their hands and knees. Some that could stand had so drained the well that what now came up was so thickened with mud as to be of the consistency of cream;
193
REMINISCENCES.
but even these nauseous driblets were clamored for with passionate agony.
I stood beside that same well in the summer of 1902, when Nature all around was robed in her fairest hues and forms, and very vividly stood out that summer night of thirty-nine years earlier, when the heavens were lit with trailing fire, the soil around drenched with blood, and the air rent with shrieks and groans.
On this hunt for water I lost my regiment, and did not find it again till nearly midnight. Here is another well- remembered incident, though I hardly know to what class it belongs.
Late in the afternoon of July 4th Charles E. Benton, Albert B. Reed, and perhaps some others with them, came to me, saying that they had found a dead soldier near a fence between Culp's Hill and the Baltimore pike, and did not know whether he was a member of our regi- ment or not. He was lying there all by himself, and they wished me to go and see him. Some thoughtful survivor had drawn a covering over the dead man's face to protect it from discoloration under the hot summer sun.
Turning the covering down we looked on a countenance utterly unknown, but singularly impressive in all its lines. Death had not marred a feature; if carved in marble they could hardly have been more fair. It was the ex- pression on the face however that fixed all our eyes. It was not triumph; that could be seen on other brows. It was not peace; one often sees that when death has done its work. There was no trace of earthly passion in the half-closed eyes, but there was such a smile as one would imagine might have been caught if a glimpse of some-
194
THE DUTCHESS COUNTY REGIMENT.
thing bright on beyond had gleamed on the dying vision as mortality was swallowed up in life.
Perhaps it is mere conjecture on my part, but I believed then, and I believe now, that our fellow-soldier glimpsed an opening heaven when his call came. Some will declare this all imagination, but those who stood over the dead man that Independence Day saw a look that was not of earth, and Mr. Benton evidently is referring to the same incident on page 56, in "As Seen From the Ranks." Why should anyone who has faith in immortality ques- tion my interpretation of this expression ?
At dusk Saturday evening I found that our regimental dead, and twice as many more of our brigade, yet lay unburied. I had gathered them up and labelled them early in the day. On reporting this to General Lock- wood he gave me a detail of twenty-one men, with a re- quest that I would superintend the interment. After a long hunt for picks and shovels we got at the job. The graves were dug in a bit of thinly-wooded ground, not far, I think, from where our regimental monument now stands. I am not positive as to the precise location, for in none of my later visits to Gettysburg have I been able to fix upon the spot.
It was so dark that we required light to do the work, and there was no way of getting it excepting by building a fire out of the dead twigs and branches; but the blaze drew on us an occasional shot from Confederate sharp- shooters. The gruesome and somewhat dangerous task was not finished until midnight. As the bodies had been lying out in the fierce summer heat from twenty-four to forty-eight hours their condition can be imagined; it need not be described.
195
REMINISCENCES.
When these and other bodies were removed to the National Cemetery the autumn following but two of the regimental dead that we buried were missing, and the head-board inscriptions I had so hastily penciled were all distinct enough to read. I lay down that night between two dying men, so utterly fagged out that I could hardly have tramped a mile further. I will quote a little more from the old diary. It is of the time when we were at or near Williamsport, Md.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.