USA > Rhode Island > Battery F, First Regiment Rhode Island Light Artillery in the Civil War, 1861-1865 > Part 9
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" Advancing slowly toward the outer works of Fort Darling, on the morning of the 14th, in connection with the One Hundred and Eighteenth New York
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Volunteers, we charged and captured the enemy's outer line of works, our right resting on the turn- pike. This position we held until the morning of the 16th, when the enemy charged upon our forces to our right and drove them, leaving our flank entirely exposed. Finding our right flank thus ex- posed, I ordered three companies to protect the flank, but it was found impossible to hold that position, therefore they fell back under cover of the woods."
Capt. George E. Ashby, commanding Battery E, Third New York Artillery, who was posted on the line at the same point with Battery F, and who lost three of his four guns, writes as follows in his report, under date of May 25, 1864:
"On Sunday, 15th, At night received orders to retire at dark and resume my position be- fore daybreak on Monday morning. Shortly after resuming my position on Monday morning, 16th, the enemy opened upon me with a heavy fire of artillery. I immediately replied with all my guns. Under cover of this fire and the heavy fog, a large force of the enemy advanced up the road and charged on the battery. At the same time their artillery ceased fir- ing, and, changing the direction of my pieces, I
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ordered them to be charged with canister, which was poured into the columns of the enemy. As they ad- vanced the first charge was repulsed, but they only retired behind the line of breastworks, from which they poured continuous volleys of musketry. The fog and smoke was so dense that they could not be seen, and their exact position was doubtful. Very soon they again charged. As long as the canister held out I used it, and when it gave out ordered per- cussion shell to be used. At this time I was struck in the head by part of a case-shot and carried to the rear. The chiefs of sections, Lieutenants Fuller and Mowers, used their guns until the enemy were in their midst and on the left flank of the battery. They then ordered them to be limbered to move off the ground ; only one was saved. The horses belong- ing to the others were shot down as they were driven up, the guns being deeply mired and the enemy close upon them. The men were ordered to save them- selves, which most did by retiring through the swamp or up the road in a shower of bullets. Lieutenant Ful- ler was shot through the arm and leg, but succeeded in escaping. I would remark that a verbal order from the commanding general for the battery to fall back,
E
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instead of being carried to the guns was carried by the orderly to the caissons, which were parked at the Halfway House, and thus the opportunity for retiring safely was lost."
- No mention of the Twelfth New Hampshire Vol- unteers in that battle can be found in the official re- ports of the War of the Rebellion as published by the United States government, but it is probably well known that the regiment was on the line. Its position was the left regiment of General Wistar's brigade, posted to the right of Battery F on the right of the turnpike.
Corp. Clovis Stone, who was on that morning gunner of the second piece of the battery, which was on the right of the artillery and nearest the Twelfth New Hampshire Volunteers, states as follows :
" Monday morning we were up bright and early. We went to the front and took our old position which we occupied on Saturday. It was so foggy that we could not see a man across the road, and when we got to firing our guns it was impossible to see anything except by their flashing. WVe had just got into posi- tion when the rebels opened on us. They shelled us for some time, blowing up a limber of ours, burning
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two of the horses very badly and scorching the driver. Then they let up with their artillery and charged on us. They came down with a yell, and we poured the canister to them and drove them back. They re- formed their lines and came down on us with an over- whelming force. Soon the order came for us to limber up and get out of there. When I got the piece limbered up and started off Lieutenant Simp- son told me to take the men down through the woods. I had not gone far when I remembered that I had left the handspike behind and I must go back and get it. When I started to return all the Union troops I could see was a company off to my right, and they were falling back. I could see them pick up wounded men and carry them along. I had not gone far when my feet caught in some briars or brush, and I fell flat on my face beside a tree that was lying on the ground. I thought I stood a poor chance in getting up. I also thought that if I lay there I would be taken prisoner, so I got up and started, hopping over trees and stumps, expecting that every step would be my last, for I could see the bark flying from the trees struck by rebel bullets. On my way back I saw Charles C. Vars a short distance from me falling
ארוכי החזר
I
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back. He was going towards the turnpike. I told him to keep off to the left (as we faced to the rear) but he went to the right and was captured."
From the official reports of the enemy is taken the following :
Gen. G. T. Beauregard wrote to General Bragg at 8.30 A. M, May 16th, " Our progress is very satisfac- factory. We hold well on the right and are pressing the enemy back in front of our centre, dis- abling and capturing some artillery."
Again on same day he telegraphed General Bragg : " Since my dispatch of 8.30 A. M., announcing the success of General Ransom on our left, General Hoke's division, supported by General Colquitt's re- serve, attacking the enemy in force on the right, has driven him back, capturing several field pieces and many prisoners."
General Beauregard's circular of instructions of battle, delivered to division commanders on the after- noon of the 15th, contains the following : "Major General Hoke's division, now in the trenches on the right of the position herein assigned to General Ransom (being in front of Wistar's and Burnham's brigades), will, at daylight, engage the enemy with a heavy line
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of skirmishers, and will hold the rest of his forces in hand ready to attack with vigor the enemy's line in his front as soon as he shall find it wavering before his skirmishers, or as soon as Ransom's line of battle shall have become fairly engaged with the enemy." .
Beauregard's report of June 10, 1864, of the Dru- ry's Bluff battle, has the following : "On the right Hoke had early advanced his skirmishers and opened with his artillery. The fog and other causes tempo- rarily delayed the advance of his line of battle. When he finally moved forward he soon became hotly engaged, and handled his command with judgment and energy. Hagood and Johnson were thrown for- ward with a section of Eshleman's Washington Artil- lery, and found a heavy force of the enemy, with six or eight pieces of artillery, occupying the salient of the outer line of works on the turnpike and his own defensive lines. Our artillery engaged at very short range, disabling some of the enemy's guns and blow- ing up two limbers. Another section of the same command opened from the right of the turnpike. They both held their positions, though with heavy loss, until their ammunition was spent, when they were relieved by an equal number of pieces from the
£
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reserve artillery under Major Owen. Hagood with great vigor and dash drove the enemy from the outer lines in his front, capturing a number of prisoners, and, in conjunction with Johnson, five pieces of artil- lery-three 20-pounder Parrotts and two fine Napo- leons. He then took position in the works, his left regiment being thrown forward by Hoke to connect with Ransom's right."
From Maj .- Gen. R. F. Hoke's report of operations. May 16th, dated May 25th, is taken the following :
" At the earliest dawn I ordered my entire artillery to open, and advanced the skirmishers of my whole front, and awaited the movement on my left for one hour before advancing my line of battle, thinking it would require this length of time to make the move, and knowing I must lose heavily by an advance upon the front, which it was the desire of the commanding general to avoid by the flank move.
" Owing to the dense fog I could see nothing of the movement of Major-General Ransom, and suppos- ing by this time the right of the enemy had been turned, I ordered forward the brigades of Hagood and Johnson, with one section of Lieutenant-Colonel Eshleman's artillery, and found the enemy still occu-
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pying our outer line of intrenchments in heavy force, supported by eight pieces of artillery, with a second line of entrenchments along the line of woods imme- diately in front of our outer line of works. After commencing the move I could not recede, and ordered an attack by these two brigades, which was hand- somely and gallantly done, which resulted in the cap- ture of five pieces of artillery by Hagood's brigade and a number of prisoners, besides killing and wounding many and also occupying the works."
From Brig .- Gen. Johnson Hagood's report, com- manding Hagood's Brigade South Carolina Volun- teers, dated May 22, 1864, the following is taken :
"My command occupied the left of our second or intermediate line, embracing Fort Stevens, and with its right on the turnpike. Shortly after General Ransom's division had engaged the enemy on my left, and while his advance was still parallel to my line, I was ordered to advance and drive the enemy from our outer line of works. This was happily ac- complished, under cover of the early daylight, with- out serious loss, the brigade capturing the battery of five pieces before referred to and several prisoners. My. men now occupied this outer line, a desultory ex-
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change of shots going on between it and the enemy's second line of works. . The battery captured consisted of three Napoleons and two 20-pounder Parrotts, fully equipped, and was turned over to Colo- nel Waddy, with a request that it be assigned to Cap- tain Owen, of the Washington Artillery, whose fire assisted us materially in its capture."
Col. R. H. Keeble, Twenty-third Tennessee In- fantry, under date of May 22, 1864, made an official report from which is taken the following :
" When the battle of the 16th commenced my or- ders from General Johnson were to move down the turnpike by the left flank until I reached the outer line of fortifications, when I would halt, front, and move forward in connection with General Ransom's division. Long before I reached the outer line of fortifications I discovered that the enemy were still occupying our works with a battery of seven pieces (Parrott guns) planted in the centre of the turnpike, a little beyond the fortifications. We, however, con- tinued to move forward under a perfect shower of grape, canister, and Minié balls, which swept up the turnpike. Reaching the trenches, line was immedi- ately formed confronting the enemy, and here com-
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menced and raged for two hours or two and a half, one of the most desperate actions in which I have ever been engaged. The enemy was in strong force under our trenches, and his battery above alluded to played upon us most furiously. With their battery in our front, their infantry in overwhelming numbers in our front and upon my flank and rear, the case seemed desperate to the last degree ; but by causing the rear rank of my regiment to face about. we thus met and fought them on all sides ; succeeded in driv- ing them off and holding our position ; silenced and captured their battery of seven pieces (Parrott guns). One of these pieces was brought to the rear by a de- tail from my own regiment. Some other brigade or command passed over the ground where the rest of it was left, and, I understand, claims to have captured it."
. Maj. W. M. Owen's book, In Camp and Battle with the Battalion Washington Artillery, contains the fol- lowing :
" At five A. M. on the morning of the 16th of May, our artillery opens fire all along the line. A heavy fog conceals our movements from the enemy's view. At 5.45 Hoke's division springs over the works and
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charges the enemy. Ransom, who had advanced upon the river road to strike the enemy's right under General Heckman, did so with spirit, and that Fed- eral general is brought in a prisoner. The first com- pany (four guns) under Captain Owen, is ordered to follow Hoke's division down the turnpike, where he engages a heavy battery of the enemy in front and apparently directly on the turnpike. The guns of the enemy fire high, and ours, having better range, soon pile up his horses and cripple his guns. Hagood's brigade now goes forward to the charge, and, advanc- ing directly upon the enemy's guns, captures them."
Two statements in General Wistar's report, refer- ring to Battery F, viz., that one gun was abandoned, and that it was sharpshooters who attacked the guns, it is intended to controvert by the above quotations. As to the first, each of the officers mentioned in that report have admitted in writing that there were a non-commissioned officer and some men of the bat- tery with the particular gun referred to ; as to the second, the official reports of Maj .- Gen. W. F. Smith, "that the enemy made furious assaults on my front, consisting of the brigades of Wistar and Burnham ;" of Brig. Gen. Hiram Burnham, that "the enemy 24
البنك الة
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made a furious attack with his infantry on the troops to the right of the pike ;" of Lieut-Col. M. B. Smith, commanding Eighth Connecticut Volun- teers, that "the enemy charged upon our forces to our right and drove them, leaving our flank entirely exposed," (this regiment was to the left of and with its right on the pike); of Capt. George E. Ashby, that " under cover of this fire and the heavy fog, a large force of the enemy advanced up the road and charged on the battery ;" also of Confederate General Beauregard that " General Hoke's division · attacking the enemy in force on the right (Union front) has driven him back, capturing several field pieces;" of Hoke that the brigades of Hagood and Johnson were ordered to make the attack ; of Hagood describing his advance and capture of the position with the artillery ; of Col. R. H. Keeble, Twenty-third Tennessee Infantry, whose command was a part of Johnson's brigade, describing the ad- vance of his command; and the extract from Major Owen's book, would seem to prove conclusively that instead of sharpshooters attacking the guns the force consisted of two brigades of infantry, viz., Hagood's and Johnson's.
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First Lieut. Thomas Simpson, who succeeded to the command of the battery after the capture of Captain Belger, writes the following account of the affair as he saw it and the attempts to secure an in- vestigation of the reports reflecting on the battery :
"My recollection of the Drury's Bluff affair is as follows : On the morning of the 16th of May we went into position about three o'clock in the same place occupied by us on the 14th. The enemy shortly after advanced, and we were soon hotly engaged. During a lull in the firing an order came from some- where for us to get out, but before it was executed Captain Belger ordered us back. Ashby's Battery of twenty-pounder Parrotts got in between the two pieces of our right section which I commanded. I remained most of the time with the right piece on the left of the Twelfth New Hampshire Infantry, and as the firing again became very hot, and the ground be- ing soft, our men became tired of running the gun forward after the recoil. I asked the captain of the left company of that regiment to lend me some men to assist ours, which he did. After continuous and hot firing for some time, the enemy having taken possession of the works in our immediate front, an
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order came for the batteries to retire ; but so many of Ashby's horses had been killed that it was found im- possible to execute the order by that battery, and my piece being on its right, in the slashing, was prevented from leaving.
"Seeing that it was impossible to save the gun I told the men to get to the rear as best they could and advised them to go through the slashing, working to the right so as to make the turnpike. I did this my- self, and found on the pike one of the guns of our battery with two horses shot, which the drivers were trying to unharness ; one or two more were shot while I was looking on, and the men finally abandoned the attempt to save the gun.
" I found the balance of the battery some little dis- tance down the pike, and, as Captain Belger did not appear, took command, and we fell back near our old camp. Two or three days after this I received a telegraphic order from General Butler, through Eighteenth Corps Headquarters, to report to him with the officer of my battery who was reported to have been concealed in a ditch during the fight of the 16th. Not knowing to whom the order referred, I took with me Lieutenants Smith and Adams. (Lieu-
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tenant Chase was chief of line of caissons that day, and not actively engaged.) Arriving at General But- ler's headquarters we were received by the general himself, who invited us to be seated until the arrival of some officers of the Twelfth New Hampshire In- fantry, for whom he had sent. They arrived in a short time, and the general read to us part of an official report in which our battery was referred to. This report stated that one of our officers was con- cealed in a ditch on the morning of the 16th, and that men of the Twelfth New Hampshire had worked one of the guns of our battery abandoned by the can- noneers. The officers were asked if they recognized any of us, and one of them stated he recognized me, as I had applied to him for men to assist in running my gun up after the recoil. Being asked if either of them (there were two) had seen an officer of the battery concealed in a ditch during the fight, they answered no, and gave the same answer to the question as to whether they had worked one of the guns after it had been abandoned. When asked by General Butler how they could conceive such a report could have orig- inated, one of them (the captain) said probably from the fact .of their men assisting mine.
£ ling lismet of iredes inet
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" General Butler said to me that it was too bad such a report had been made without any apparent foun- dation, and advised me to apply for a court of inquiry, and General Weitzel (our division commander that morning) who had heard all the conversation, offered me a clerk to make out the request at once. I told General Butler that if the request went through the military channels it would be a long time before the court could get at work. He replied that he would . waive the military channels in this case and would appoint the court at once. I accordingly went with General Weitzel to his tent, a clerk made out the papers, and I signed them and carried them to Gen- eral Butler for approval. Not finding him in, I left them on his table. -
"This request did eventually go through the mili- tary channels, and it was not until June 13th that the court was appointed.
" I saw Lieutenant Sabin, who was named as re- corder, a number of times, and urged him to get the court together, but it seemed no favorable opportun- ity occurred. Some time after I received official no- tice of the dissolution of the court."
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الخير
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE WORKS AT BERMUDA HUNDRED-THE ADVANCE ON PETERSBURG.
T HE Army of the James, after the disastrous affair of May 16th, retired to the lines at Bermuda Hundred, and immediately began to strengthen the position. Battery F, re-organized as a four-gun bat- tery, with First Lieut. Thomas Simpson in command, moved on the 17th of May to the left of the line and occupied a position near Port Walthall on the Appomattox River. The position of the Army of the James at this time led to the remark " bottled up " at Bermuda Hundred, which, it was said, was applied by General Grant, but he in his memoirs ac- credits it to General Barnard, his chief engineer.
The enemy apparently was not satisfied to leave the army " bottled up," for desperate attempts were made during the following days of May to carry the works. The first attempt was an assault upon the Tenth
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Corps, occupying the right of the line, made during the night of the 17th, and at the same time a force appeared on the opposite bank of the Appomattox River, threatening the left of the Eighteenth Corps.
Corp. Albert C. Leach.
The assault on the right was repulsed, and a few shots from the gunboat Commodore Perry dispersed the enemy on the left. Firing continued during the 18th and 19th, and early on the morning of the 20th the enemy again assaulted the right, this time with con- siderable success, forcing the Tenth Corps from a
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portion of its line, which was however retaken during the afternoon of the same day. In the early morning of the next day, Saturday, the 21st of May, the enemy assaulted furiously the works occupied by the Eight- eenth Corps, and were repulsed. During the engage- ment a caisson of the Seventh New York Battery was exploded by the enemy's fire. At ten o'clock at night of the same date, another and determined charge was made, but after a severe struggle the enemy was forced to retire with heavy loss. During these assaults Battery F did not become engaged, but was held in readiness for service at short notice.
Comparative quiet continued on the lines from the 22d to the 31st of May. On the 23d the enemy sent in a flag of truce for the purpose of burying the dead. On the 27th the infantry of the Eighteenth Corps and one division of the Tenth Corps were withdrawn and embarked for White House, under orders to march from that point to join the Army of the Potomac.
The severe engagements between the two armies during the latter days of May apparently caused. a certain feeling of respect for each other among the rank and file, which was not appreciated or approved 25
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by the Confederate commander, General Beauregard, as evidenced by Special Orders No. 15, dated May 29, 1864, in which occurs the following : "It having been reported to these headquarters that our pickets and skirmishers have allowed those of the enemy to advance to within very short distance of our lines, and that the pickets of the two lines are becoming too familiar, it is hereby ordered that no communication whatever should be held between our pickets and those of the enemy. The latter must be fired upon whenever they are seen within range of our guns ; This order is dictated by a stern mili- tary necessity, but even if this necessity did not exist, the commanding general still deeply de- plores the moral disgrace incurred by his troops in anything like voluntary or unnecessary association with the savage foes who are not only warring against us, but persecuting our women and children, and de- stroying private property. The hands of such a foe are unworthy the friendly or courteous touch of a Confederate soldier."
On the morning of the 31st of May the extreme left at Bermuda Hundred was again assaulted, the enemy repulsed, and about eleven o'clock same day
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the centre was attacked with considerable force. This assault. was also successfully met, but the enemy seemed determined to carry the lines, and at two o'clock on the morning of the Ist of June repeated the attempt, were repulsed, and again at ten o'clock at night they made an unsuccessful charge upon the centre. Battery F was not on the front line during these last assaults and consequently took no part in the engagement ; it was, however, under fire, being within range, and the officers and men were eye wit- nesses without the excitement of participants.
These night assaults were terribly grand. The flash from the fire of musketry and artillery lighting the scene like the lightning of a severe thunder storm, added to the noise and confusion of a battle, impressed one so forcibly as never to be forgotten.
Friday, June 3d, the battery was moved to a posi- tion in the earth-works on the left of the line near Port Walthall on the Appomattox River, where it re- mained until the night of the 14th of June. During this time occasional shots were fired into the enemy's lines by the battery, but no general engagement took place. The camp of the battery was in rear of the position occupied by the guns, and between the camp
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and the guns a signal tower one hundred and twenty- five feet high was erected. In addition to the use made of the tower by the Signal Corps, the eneniy selected it for a target, upon which they practiced daily. No damage was done the tower, but the shots passing by visited the battery camp so frequently that it became necessary to move out of the line of fire, which was done by taking a long "side step to the right" with the caissons, stable or picket line, and camp.
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