USA > Pennsylvania > Adams County > Gettysburg > Address delivered at the dedication of monument of the 14th Conn. vols. at Gettysburg, Penn., July 3d, 1884 > Part 1
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
1
Ga
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00824 6156
ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
DEDICATION
F4 - onument of the 14th
Honn.
Dols.
AT<
Gettysburg, Penn., July 3d, 1884,
COMRADE H. S. STEVENS; >>WITH ~~
A DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT, &C.
ALSO, AN ACCOUNT OF THE
Trip of the 14th C. D. to Gettysburg, july 1-3, '84,
BY COMRADE J. W. KNOWLTON, Rec. Sec. of Regtl. Reunion.
MIDDLETOWN, CONN .: PELTON & KING, STEAM PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS. ISS4.
1+72101
-THE-
- -
14TH C. V.
GETTYSBURG
AT
1
D
1863-84
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012
http://archive.org/details/addressdelivere00stev
Photographed Dy Tipton,
Gettysburg, Pa.
14TH C. V. MONUMENT, GETTYSBURG, PA. CENTRE OF LONGSTREET'S ASSAULT, JULY 3d, 1868.
ADDRESS .*
MY COMRADES:
This is an hour of rarest satisfaction to you. You are where for months you have been longing to be, whither for years your thoughts have been tending-back on the spot where once you con- fronted the Rebellion's mightiest wave, and gazing over the fields where you passed to and fro in deadly peril, achieving for your regi- ment imperishable honor; and where you saw the tide of battle fluc- tuating during the most eventful engagements known in our country's history.
We are not now' to dwell upon the history of the battle of Gettys- burg or to estimate its effect upon either the effort of rebellion or our country's subsequent interests. He is foolish who shall attempt to do these in one address, and at this late day. Volumes have been written upon the battle and people have all at hand for examination; and the estimate universally put upon its effect leaves unnecessary any moralizing of ours now.
Our purpose is to recall your part in the great struggle here; your experience during the eventful campaign; something of the history of our grand old regiment whose record we are proud and jealous of; and to dedicate upon the spot where your valor and patriotism helped the country you had sworn to defend, even to the surrender of your lives, a pillar of remembrance that shall speak of you to your children and your countrymen when you have long been turned to dust. That our regiment is royally worthy of such honoring as we give it in our Memorial and our words to-day we heartily believe.
Facts and figures speak with a force incontrovertible. Here is one fact. The 14th Conn. lost, in proportion to its numbers and the length of its service, more men and endured more of the hardships of war than any other one of the several very noble and hard-fought
* Delivered at the anniversary of the hour of Longstreet's charge.
4
A BIT OF RECORD.
regiments that went forth from our State to aid in suppressing the Rebellion. Here are some figures. We have taken, for compari- son, statistics from authentic Reports concerning four of the Connec- ticut regiments in which losses were the greatest. In one of these the losses from killed in battle were 51 per cent of its whole number; in another 63 per ct .; in another 83. per ct., and in our regiment 11g per ct. The losses in killed and died in the service of these same regiments were, for the first mentioned 123 per ct .; for the second 14,2% per ct. ; for the third 15 per ct. ; and for our own 21] per ct. You perceive that the one approaching us nearest in losses shows for killed 81. per ct. against 11g in our regiment, and for full death losses 15 per ct. against 213 per ct. in ours.
Once our men thought the fate of the hardly used, ever serving and suffering 14th a cause for lamenting, but since the war they have regarded it as the ground of their title to the peculiar honor the soldier craves.
But these figures, taken as we have taken them, do not show for us, or for any other regiment, the true proportion of losses among the faithful, fighting portion of the regiment. In every regiment there were skulkers and deserters. These men did not share hard- ships and dangers with their comrades; were not where casualties occurred; and their number ought to be deducted when making an estimate. Our regiment counts a list of 469 deserters, only 92 of whom, about 9 per cent, were from our original number of 1, 015 men. Our record shows that our regiment received 697 recruits.
Our ranks were so depleted during the first year of service that the first fruits of the Draft in Connecticut were sent to us. The greater number were "bounty-jumpers" from New York, who rushed up to New Haven and sold themselves as substitutes, with the deliberate purpose of deserting at the first opportunity. And they prepared opportunities, so that of the first lot started for our camp a very large proportion never got beyond New York on their way to the front. Of the 697 recruits charged to our regiment, 377,1 or 54 per cent, deserted, making over So per cent of the whole number of deserters.
1 Comparatively few of the drafted men personally entered the service. From the above figures a suggestive question is started as to how much the country received of aid in suppressing the rebellion from other drafted men through their high-priced substitutes. It took a large force of good men from duty in the field to escort these to the front, and then but few of them could be kept there. Verily, the volunteer enlisted men and the good troops of the regular army saved the nation !
5
A BİT OF HISTORY-ENTERING THE FIELD.
Deducting, then, the number who fled when they ought to have stopped with you to share your perils and hardships, and proportion- ing the losses among those who faithfully continued and bore their part, our death rate reaches nearly 30 per cent. These figures are eloquent. Let the men of the 14th lay them up.
We cannot estimate our casualties of wounding. The regiment was in several great battles. In each one MANY fell wounded, some of them disabled for life. Many received wounds in each of several engagements; and in numerous instances individuals received two or more wounds in the same engagement. So that we put it as we have it on our tablet: " Wounded and disabled many hundreds."
Now, Comrades, shall we indulge in a bit of our history-your history? You well remember that bright August day when you broke camp at Hartford, and with no slight emotion felt that your true soldier life, with its unforeseen, eventful experiences, was about to open. You recall that march to the boat through the thronging crowds, among whom were many of your dearest friends, some of them in tears, cheering you on; and the pleasant sail down our noble river, where at every landing enthusiastic throngs greeted you with huzzas and artillery salutes, and shouted to you their blessings and God-speeds ! What a large regiment you were, and how buoyant and joyous your spirits ! Alas, for the change you should know ! Fresh in your memories is the arrival at Washington; that hurrying over the "Long-Bridge" to hold Arlington Heights; the long roll call at midnight and the hasty march to Fort Ethan Allen, where you held the rifle-pits and went on picket with your faces "toward the enemy." It was a time of great excitement, for the second Bull Run battles were in progress. The old troops had been hurried to the front, and Washington and the whole country were agitated. Just as you were getting comfortable, and were hoping to stay a while and drill and learn how to be soldiers, on one Sabbath, that 7th of Sep- tember,1 after all arrangements had been made for a sacred service such as you had been accustomed to at home, with a choir and our
1 On that day, Sept. 7, 1862, by an Order, the 14th, the 108th N. Y., and 130th Penn., all new regiments, were formed into a Brigade, con- stituting the 2d Brig. of the 3d Div. 2d Army Corps, and our com- mander, Col. Dwight Morris, was assigned to the command of the new organization, the command of the regiment falling to Lieut. Col. S. H. Perkins. Col. Morris commanded the Brigade in person until winter, when serious ill health compelled him to leave the camp. Subsequently, when there appeared no hope of his restoration to health, he reluctantly retired from the service.
6
THE FIRST CAMPAIGN-MARYLAND.
fine band to help, you were ordered to "be ready to march at a moment's notice." At 12 M. came the order "Fall in !" and soon you were tramping over "Chain-Bridge." As you had been ordered to leave your knapsacks in your camp, you supposed you were going on a reconnoisance only. Ah, me! The knapsacks, with all their treasures of home mementoes, pictures of loved ones, clothing and articles of convenience so sorely to be needed by you, were never again to be seen by most of you; and the reconnoissance ended, when ?- Two years and nine months thereafter-May 31, 1865 !
That night, at 12 o'clock, you bivouacked without tents, under the open sky, a little distance beyond Tennallytown.1 Campaigning had begun ! Then on through Rockville, Clarksburg, Hyattstown and Urbana you went in pursuit of Lee, reaching Frederick on Saturday afternoon. New to marching, most of you, during that week, suffered from chafing or heat, and many "fell out" from sun-
stroke or exhaustion. On Sabbath morning, with scant rations and sore feet, you started to climb the hills about Middletown, and in the afternoon were hurried forward as reinforcements to those fighting on South Mountain. You escaped the battle that day, but you bivouacked at midnight on the battle-field at the foot of the mountain, and when daylight came it revealed forms lying stark and lifeless around you-the first "killed in battle " you had ever seen. How suggestive to you of your own possible fate soon were those cold, mangled forms prone upon the earth, so still, with their glassy eyes fixed upon the sky ! That day you slowly worked your way through Turner's Gap, and many of you slipped aside at times to view the traces of the engagement of the preceding day, the unburied bodies of the slain, and the mortally wounded who in pain or delirium were wearing away the hours until blessed death should come to their relief.
We would like to tell you how very hungry the Field and Staff were, because "Uncle Samuel " was not prepared to sell us any rations and the Johnies had consumed every good thing by the way. We would like to describe the scene when, after a foraging party had brought in an immense loaf of bread, our pater-familias, seated on a great flat rock, with his famishing brood around him, broke and dis- pensed to us the precious morsels.
Through Boonesborough you went, then to Keedysville, where you
1 Among the recollections of that Sabbath afternoon march are the frequent calls to a certain disappointed individual, "Say, -, how soon shall we get to church ?"
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7
THE FIRST FIGHT-ANTIETAM.
passed the night, and the next forenoon had your first sensations of being under fire, as a rebel battery, out of our sight, at frequent intervals fired three guns, one of which threw its shell over among the ten thousand lying in our valley, every time taking a man. The. next day, the memorable 17th of September, you were early up and in line to hear firing away at right and left of you, and to be ordered forward to your own christening as real soldiers in bloody contest. You forded the Antietam with its cold waters waist deep. You rose the hill and entered the wood where the enemy's shell greeted you. You were formed in battle line with your brigade and ordered to charge over the open ground into the corn-field beyond. How spite- fully the sharp-shooters fired from the Rulette1 house at our left ! But Co. B. took care of those fellows. Then across the corn-field you charged, the first and second lines of your brigade being cut up by the concealed infantry in front to fall back through your ranks. J'ou pressed forward, receiving a withering fire, until ordered to fall back to the fence and "load and fire at will." Here you held your place, loading and firing with a will, until ordered away and to an- other position. An old friend, a General commanding New York troops on that field, said to me when I met him several years after the war : " How glad we were to see you new fellows that day ! You were so green you did not know when you were whipped. You did not retreat when you ought to, but your keeping the field saved us."2
1 The house of Mr. William Rulette divided Co. B. as the company swept past capturing the sharp-shooters. Mr. Rulette rushed out of the house, hatless and excited, shouting "Give it to them! Use any- thing you can find on my place, only drive them! drive them!" He gave the writer his name, with the above orthography, and stated that the rebels had allowed his family to pass to our lines the day before, but kept him a prisoner, fearing he might give our forces information. When he had said these things, he pushed hurriedly for the rear. And well he might, for the " hornets were stirring " in our vicinity.
" Gen. McClellan, in his Report of the battle, highly complimented our Brigade on its conduct and success. This compliment was won under circumstances eminently disadvantageous, and is valuable. Three new regiments, numbering more than 2,000 men, most of them but little drilled and having had no brigade drill, as they had been compelled to make a severe march on each of the ten days they had been brigaded, had to be formed in battle line under the shelling of the enemy and at once make a difficult charge. Our Brigade Commander. Col. Morris, had no opportunity to organize his staff, but taking as his Asst. Adj. Gen. Adjutant Ellis of the 14th, and obtaining two cavalry orderlies, directed the movement. That he should have been able, under the cir- cumstances, to form his lines and make such a successful charge, and that the men should have behaved so splendidly, is a matter of con- gratulation.
8
BOLIVAR HEIGHTS-LOUDON VALLEY.
Did the 14th ever know when it was whipped ? Our record shows that the 14th never lost a color, and that it furnished but few to feed that horrible monster1 which at Andersonville, Florence, Salisbury and Belle Isle, gave such glad and acceptable aid to Jeff. Davis and Lee. But the woes of that first bloody battle day ! Two of your captains and numbers of your comrades shot dead, and so many wounded ! The printed Report shows a total of killed and wounded 109; and of missing 28-137. Your Chaplain holds in his hand a list made by himself on the field that day and in our Division hos- pital shortly afterward, which contains the names of 119 whom he know to be killed or wounded. If there were 28 missing additional, our list of casualties is swelled to 147, and your Chaplain has never supposed his list to be a complete one. When you came out of that fight, my comrades, you were different men from what you were be- fore. You had received a taste of what was to be your customary experience for two and three-fourths years. A stay of four days in the vicinity of the battle-field, and then a hot and weary march to Harper's Ferry, and a fording" of the Potomac that laid many low with fever.
A stay of a few weeks on Bolivar Heights, ostensibly to recruit and resupply, but truly, as it proved, to lose at increasing ratio your men by camp sickness, 3 and when you started down Loudon Valley at evening, October 30th, you were glad to get away and be on the move. Through Snickersville, into Snicker's Gap and back again, by Berryville Gap, through Upperville, then Rector Town, where you lay in the snow two days, the 7th and Sth of November, and then on to near Warrenton, where "Little Mac" bade us farewell. Then,
1 "A recent report from the Committee on Invalid Pensions states that sixty thousand of the Union troops died in Confederate prisons or im- mediately after being released therefrom, and adds that the total number of killed or dying of wounds during the war was but seventy-eight thousand; that nearly as many deaths were caused by Confederate starvation as by bullets. The number of enlisted men who were killed or died of wounds in the service was one to twenty-eight, while the number of enlisted men who died while in prison was one in five."
2 Will the band forget their attempt to play " Jordan is a hard road to travel," and their verification of the sentiment when their feet touched the slippery stones of the river bed, and men and instruments " went a-fishing" ?
3 The bad quality of the water used for drinking, with other causes, induced a great amount of sickness, many cases being fatal. The shell- riddled houses on the plateau were utilized for hospitals, and when the regiment marched away, Asst. Surgeon F. A. Dudley was left in charge of the many sick who could not go with us.
9
BELLE PLAIN-FREDERICKSBURG.
Nov. 15th, passing through Warrenton's principal thoroughfare, our band giving the people our favorite "John Brown " as only the 14th band knew how to render it, you moved by way of Warrenton Junc- tion towards Fredericksburg, strong in the hope that our army would soon attack Lee and we be on our way to Richmond. But no; the battle was not to come off then, nor was the 14th to rest. Your fate was to be detached, with the brigade, to go to Belle Plain to perform the soldierly task of unloading barges freighted with food supplies for men and beasts of the army. Can you forget that nightmare like Belle Plain, with its tedious march, its first night of sleeping in corn fur- rows, and its first morn of awaking in pools of water which gave to many their death or discharge warrant?
Back again to Falmouth on the 6th of December, with the road all slush or mud and the air cold, to crouch down on the snow at night under the low evergreens, which would not permit the smoke from the slow-burning green wood to rise above your heads when you sat. Little sleep or warmth or comfort you had that night, my comrades. Yet this was only your "A. B. C. ! " Before you could get the ground well cleared and your huts begun, came the order, on the night of the 10th of December, to be "ready to move at 6 .A. M. to-morrow;" and at 6 o'clock on the morning of the 11th, while the light to show you the way was lacking, and the heavy booming of artillery and the volleys of musketry were sounding in your ears, you moved toward Fredericksburg. 1On the 12th you crossed the Rappahannock into the city, and on the 13th made, with your division, that fearful charge across the plain in the rear, to be mown down and torn in pieces by missiles from cannon2 manned by gunners who knew every foot of the ground, and by riflemen securely posted behind the stone wall and in the road at the foot of Marye's Heights. There were dis- abled our Field Officers, Lt. Col. Perkins and Maj. Clarke, 3 and there were wounded unto death the soldierly and excellent Gibbons, the
During the 11th the regiment awaited the completion of the pontoon bridges. At eight o'clock on the morning of the 12th we crossed, near the Lacy House, and lay that day and night along Caroline St., suffer- ing no casualties except the slight wounding of three men by the burst- ing of a shell.
? When Longstreet, before the attack, desired Capt. Alexander to find place for one more gun, his reply was: " Why, General, you cannot rake your head with a fine-tooth comb cleaner than I can comb that plateau with the artillery already in place."
3 These fine and very popular officers did not resume duty in the regi- ment again.
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10
FALMOUTH-CHANCELLORSVILLE.
brave Stanley, Comes, Canfield and others.1 Have the dreadful woundings of Fredericksburg been exceeded in any battle you have known? The horrible vision is in our eyes now ! We see the plain bestrewn with broken, gashed and gory corpses !- the porches and floors of our hospital buildings, all under fire, covered with men with faces cut away, eyes blasted, and feet, arms and legs torn off by shell, and others with bodies pierced cruelly by the subtle bullet !
Back again on the evening of the 15th to the old camp near Fal- mouth, to spend a gloomy winter doing picket duty along the Rap- pahannock, and losing men constantly from physical demoralization consequent upon unusual strain and exposure, and from mental depression resulting from these and from disappointment and the New-Englander's longing for home.2
Because of being at the right of the army you escaped, by a few hours, orders to march during the famous Burnside "stuck in the mud" campaign. You have some satisfaction yet in recalling the complacency with which you viewed from your camp the stranded mules, pontoon trains and wagons and other debris of that campaign decorating the muddy surfaces of the hillsides around you.
You were hardening, my comrades; and when the pleasant spring- time came and the order was to march to Chancellorsville, you went as to a pic-nic in that charming weather. But Chancellorsville had nothing for you except hardship and struggle, and a return with bitter disappointment after the loss of many of your best men.3
Then a downright pleasant camping, as it seemed to you, for you had given up all expectation of anything casy in your soldier life, with wholesome brigade drill under your new commander, the noble Smythe. But there was work preparing for you. The enemy was moving to get into Maryland and Pennsylvania. You were under arms early each morning, and for many days under orders to be ready to move at shortest notice; so, when the order came, at 9 P. M. on Sunday, June 14th, to strike tents, you were soon on your way north- ward. Your corps was the rear of the army, and it was no slight thing at that hot season to march and watch the enemy too. But the
1 The reported number of losses is 122; a much larger proportion of those engaged than at Antietam less than three months before.
? The attention our new Army Commander, General Hooker, gave to improving the quality and increasing the variety of the rations, and the granting of furloughs home to men in the ranks, did much to cheer the spirits of our men and improve the morale of the army.
8 Losses reported at 66 ;- a large proportion for the number of men engaged.
11
MOVING NORTHWARD.
march had its compensations in the change, the clean, new fields for camping, and sometimes the brooks for bathing when the dusty day's march was done. By Stafford Court House, Acquia Creek, Dum- fries, Wolf-Run Shoals and Fairfax Junction to famous Centreville, with its earth-works. Then across Bull Run, over the former battle- ground, whose ghastly reminders of the dreadful struggle there were still visible in so many places, to Gainesville, where in holding the place for strategic purposes you had needed rest from the 20th to the 25th of June. Away from Gainesville at 7 A. M. on the 25th, you passed Sudley Church and Mountain View, noted in last year's bat- tles, which sent their sounds to your inexperienced ears as you first stepped on Virginia's soil. You shuddered as you passed under those splendid oaks at Groveton and saw lying at their feet the scattered skulls and other bones of men-men who had been brought there by their comrades, or had crawled there, to die; or passed those shallow graves whose sod had parted midway adown their length, revealing forms in blue, with their country's initials "U. S." on their belts facing the sky and speaking for their faithful, heroic loyalty. Sadly suggestive were these of your own possible fate at any hour, but, hardened as you had become as veterans, though not hardened in heart, thank God ! you knew no hesitancy nor complaining. The next evening you crossed the Potomac, near Edward's Ferry, into Maryland, and the next bivouacked at the base of Sugar Loaf Moun- tain, so marked an object in your view the year before. The following day, June 28th, you struck at Urbana the road you marched over less than ten months previous, thus completing a circle which in the treading had been fraught with such eventful experience to you, and
encamped near Frederick. Here allow me to introduce an extract from a letter written at this date to a friend, to indicate the emotions felt at that time in language then prompted: "When we struck the main road at Urbana this noon, we completed a circle begun last September (13th). As we came through the place to-day, our band playing and colors flying, men marching in column by division, I could but contrast the two hundred or so men and the torn, worn, soiled colors and their shattered staffs, with the large, new regiment that a little more than nine months ago trod that same road with buoy- ant step and with bright, whole, unsoiled flags flying. In the circle trodden we have dropped many of our bravest and best men; have fought in three of the greatest and severest battles of the war; have passed through many dark, dismal, painful experiences, and have done our country what service she has asked of us. We are smaller,
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NEARING GETTYSBURG.
we are weaker, we are wiser, and may be sadder, but I hope we are as brave and as anxious to wipe out the Rebellion."
At Frederick you received intelligence of the replacement of Hooker1 by Meade as Commander of the Army, and were bidden obtain rations and make preparations for a long march. On Monday, the 29th, you broke camp at 8 o'clock, crossed the Monocacy by the covered bridge where you crossed it the September previous, moved past Frederick, struck the Baltimore pike, crossed the Monocacy again by wading, and went forward on a day's march, the longest you had yet known.2
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