USA > Rhode Island > Memoirs of Rhode Island officers who were engaged in the service of their country during the great rebellion of the South. Illustrated with thirty-four portraits > Part 8
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VII.
THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC AGAIN.
The spring of 1864 opened with the indications of a vigorous campaign against the enemy. General Grant had been appointed, confirmed and com- missioned Lieutenant-General on the 2d of March, and, on the 12th of that month, was assigned to the command of all the armies of the United States. Order, vigor, a settled purpose and plan at once took the place of the feeble and unstable policy that had characterized General Halleck's administration of military affairs. Two grand campaigns were now inaugurated. One in the west under General Sherman, towards Atlanta, Savannah, Charleston, etc., and one in the east under the immediate direction of General Grant, towards Richmond. It was destined that General Burnside should take a prominent part in the latter enterprise.
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After a few weeks of quiet and repose in the midst of his friends, General Burnside, wishing for more active employment, submitted to the Secretary of War, a plan for the reorganization of the Ninth Corps, and for operations upon the coast of North Carolina. He desired to fill up the old regiments of the Ninth Corps, to recruit new regiments, and to raise one entire division of colored troops. With this force, advanced according to the original estimate to the number of fifty thousand men, he proposed to operate against Wil- mington and in the interior of North Carolina. The department was favor- able to the raising of colored troops, and the recruiting of the old regiments. But it was not disposed at first to allow the Ninth Corps to be moved to the east, or to favor the organization of new regiments. Operations against any point on the southern coast were to be made a subject of future consideration. Authority to go forward and fill up the Ninth Corps was given to General Burnside on the 29th of January, and for the next three months he was engaged, with all possible energy, in fitting and arranging his command for the field. In the course of his labors, he had occasion to visit the different New England states, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Ohio, and other states in the west. The legislatures of some of these states were in session, and General Burnside was made the recipient of many flattering testimonials of the public regard. By the middle of April, a great part of the work was done. The old regiments were enlarged, a few new regiments were added, and a division of colored troops was organized and equipped. The Ninth Corps numbered nearly twenty-five thousand men. Annapolis was desig- nated as the rendezvous, and thither were moved all the troops from the west and the east, which already belonged to the corps, and those which were to join its organization. On the 11th of April, General Burnside left his home in Providence for his last campaign. By the 22d, all the command was concentrated at Annapolis, and on the 23d, its movement commenced. Up to the last moment, it was supposed at Annapolis, that the troops were to go by sea, and many a curious eye scanned the harbor and the bay to seek the transports that were expected to convey them to their destination. But the troops marched,-their immediate destination being Alexandria. It soon became evident that the plan of a coast-wise expedition had been given up.
On the night of the 24th, the troops encamped on the Bladensburg road, about six miles distant from Washington. The greater part of the 25th was occupied in passing through Washington. The corps was organized in four divisions, three of white-one of colored troops. It passed down Fourteenth
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street, and marched in review before the President, General Burnside, and a number of eivil and military dignitaries. Multitudes of spectators thronged the streets, and greeted the column with enthusiastic cheers. The colored division, under General Ferrero, was the first body of colored troops that had marched through Washington, and it elieited many expressions of welcome and approval. Mr. Lincoln himself seemed highly gratified, and returned the cheers and plaudits of the passing soldiers with thankful and courteous acknowledgment. The corps crossed Long Bridge, and went into camp near Alexandria, where General Burnside made his head-quarters. From that time until the 1st of May, the corps engaged in guarding the Orange and Alex- andria Railroad, between Alexandria and the Rapidan. On the 27th of April, head-quarters were transferred to Warrenton Junction.
On the 3d of May, the army of the Potomac broke camp, and commenced that grand movement which was finally to crush the rebellion. On the 4th, the Ninth Corps was ordered to follow and reenforce. On the 5th, General Lee struck the army of the Potomac, while on the mareh through the Wil- derness, and for two days, a battle of tremendous fury on both sides was fought. General Burnside made a forced march, arrived on the field on the morning of the second day, and by his timely coming, enabled General Grant to strengthen his disordered lines. While on the march, General Burnside perceived, at no great distanee upon his right, clouds of dust betokening the movement of a large column of men. It was his old foe, General Longstreet, hurrying upon a parallel road to the aid of his commander, General Lee. On the next day, the rival commands came into collision. General Longstreet's forces were very severely handled, and their general badly wounded. On the 7th, General Lee fell back to an intrenched position around Spottsylvania Court House, followed closely by Generals Burnside and Hancock, who were engaged at intervals during that and the following day, while on the march. The battles of this first week culminated on the 10th, by a sustained and vigorous attack on the enemy's position, in which General Burnside's com- mand held the extreme left. The enemy lost, on this day, several guns and a thousand prisoners. The losses in killed and wounded on both sides were very heavy. No severer calamity befell the army of the Potomac, than the death of General John Sedgwick, a most admirable, brave and faithful soldier, and a genuine man. The Ninth Corps was called to mourn the death of General Thomas G. Stevenson, commander of the first division, who was killed on the morning of the 10th. He had belonged to the first North
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Carolina expedition, and had gradually won his promotion, from the command of a regiment to that of a division, by faithful and devoted service. He was an honorable, high-minded, and brave soldier, and his death was like the loss of a personal friend to his chief.
It is hardly within the province of this sketch to describe in detail the operations of General Grant in this stupendous campaign of the summer of 1864. Step by step, he pushed the enemy back, till he forced the rebel forces within the intrenchments of Richmond, crossed the James, and formally laid siege, with the army of the Potomac and that of the James, to both Peters- burg and the rebel capital. But all this was done not without bloodiest battles. On the 12th of May, the very sanguinary and hotly-contested battle of Spottsylvania Court House took place. The Ninth Corps bore, in this fight, a very conspicuous and honorable part. It was engaged from morning till night in different parts of the field. So gallant and desperate were the charges that it made, that, at one time, Colonel Griffin's brigade, of General Potter's division, had gained a foothold within the enemy's intrenchments, and came near to breaking his line and winning a decisive victory. Consid- erable ground was gained and held, but the enemy's second line of defence was too strong to be carried, and General Burnside was forced to be content with the advanced position which he had gallantly won. The results of the day's fighting all along the line were the capture of three thousand prisoners, eighteen pieces of artillery, many battle-flags, a large portion of the enemy's fortifications, and an advance from our line for a mile and a half. Second to none, in that glorious encounter, were the services of General Burnside and the gallant Ninth Corps. For the next few days there was an interval of comparative quiet in the operations. But on the 18th, the fighting was renewed, with considerable loss, but without decisive results. In the course of the battle, the Ninth Corps made a remarkably daring but an unsuccessful assault upon the enemy's position. General Lee was obstinate, and gave way only by being turned on the flank and pressed in front. But he was slowly pressed back, until, on the 23d, our army had reached the North Anna river. In this movement, in the skirmishing at the fords, and the crossing of the river, General Potter's division of the Ninth had borne itself in the most creditable manner, and had won for itself and its officers high encomium.
In these operations, General Burnside had perceived the difficulty of moving and fighting two independent commands. Up to this time, in this campaign, the Ninth Corps had been a separate organization from the army
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of the Potomac. It was, in fact, a distinct army. General Burnside had, indeed, always been ready to help his brother officers, by sending his divisions away for purposes of reenforcement-sometimes even denuding himself of a command to serve others. But he was under no orders but those of General Grant. He now wished to relieve the general commanding the army of the Potomac from all embarrassment, by consolidating the two commands. But how was this to be done ? Both General Burnside and his chief of staff, General Parke, outranked General Meade. If the two forces were joined, General Burnside would be the ranking officer. Accordingly Generals Burn- side and Parke voluntarily waived their rank, and at General Burnside's own suggestion, the Ninth Corps, on the 25th of May, was incorporated into the army of the Potomac, General Burnside acknowledging obedience to General Meade. By this act, General Burnside, for the sake of serving the country more effectually, voluntarily placed himself under the command of an inferior, as he had done once before in the case of General Pope. It was a deed of generosity of not common occurrence, and merits a particular commendation.
General Grant had hoped to make a rapid movement to the upper James above Richmond, eross and connect with General Butler's army of the James near Manchester. But General Butler had been unable to attain a higher point than Bermuda Hundred, and General Lee's strong positions and fortified lines forbade a movement by our right. General Grant decided to move by the left, and by the 31st of May, the army had crossed the Pamunkey, and occupied the country between the Chickahominy and Bethesda Church. General Burnside, with the Ninth Corps, held the extreme right of our line, as it was then established-his right partially refused, his left at Bethesda Church. Before wholly abandoning his attempt to cross the James above Richmond, General Grant decided to make one more assault upon the enemy's position. In moving the troops and properly disposing them, on the 1st and 2d of June, several severe skirmishes took place. But there was no general engagement until the 3d, when was fought the battle of Cold Harbor. In this severe fight the contest raged along the entire line-eight miles in length-from daylight until noon. The key of the enemy's position was a redoubt or earthwork opposite General Haneoek's corps, near Cold Har- bor. In the course of the morning, the two divisions under General Barlow and General Gibbon, of Hancock's corps, made a magnificent charge, which swept before our advancing troops all opposing forces. They gained the crest, they mounted the parapet, they held the very point, of all others,
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which would give us a complete victory. But the supports of these brave men were, for some reason, delayed. The advantage was lost. The divisions were driven out and back, and were forced to retire to our own lines under a murderous fire, from which they suffered severely. On the right, General Burnside-again opposed by General Longstreet's corps, supported by Gen- eral Ewell's-made several gallant advances, and gained considerable ground. The enemy was driven out of his rifle-pits, forced back upon his main line of defence, his artillery silenced, and several of his caissons destroyed. General Burnside had made the necessary dispositions for a final charge, which prom- ised a complete success, when, about noon, orders were received from General Meade, directing all offensive operations to cease. Brisk skirmishing contin- ued through the day, but night fell upon the two armies in the same relative positions as were held in the morning. At midnight on the 6th, the enemy made a severe attack upon the Ninth Corps, but was bravely and speedily repulsed. A second attack was made, with the same result, upon the 7th. The next few days were occupied in caring for the wounded, burying the dead, dismantling the railroad to West Point in the rear of our lines, and in preparation for a movement, which was soon developed into a change of base. General Grant gave up his plan of crossing the James above Richmond, and determined on throwing his entire army to the south side of the James, and attempting to carry Petersburg by assault or siege-as circunstances favored. On the night of the 12th, the movement commenced, and the great campaign north of the James river was over. In all the operations, the Ninth Corps had participated in a manner to reflect the highest honor upon all its officers and men, and especially so upon its brave and hopeful commander. No cam- paign during the war had been at all so severe upon human endurance and courage, as these last forty days of marching and fighting. To say that the Ninth Corps had done all that had been required of it-had always done it promptly and gallantly-is to speak sufficient praise for both the living and the dead. The loss of the corps in killed, wounded and missing during this time was not less than seven thousand five hundred men.
From the 12th to the 16th, the army was engaged in marching to its new position in front of Petersburg. It crossed the Chickahominy upon the bridges below White Oak Swamp, without material opposition from the enemy. Thence moving to the James river, it crossed on pontoon bridges, and marched at once to Petersburg. The Ninth Corps crossed just above Fort Powhattan, on the night of the 15th, and at ten A. M., on the 16th, the
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advance was in front of Petersburg. In the course of the next three hours, the corps was put in position for attack upon the extreme left. But, for some reason, no attack was ordered by General Meade, until six o'clock, P. M., and then but a slight demonstration was made, and the troops were soon in bivouac. During the night, preparations were made for a general assault, .and at daylight on the 17th, the Ninth Corps was alert and eager. The task assigned to General Potter's division by General Burnside, was, to carry the works in his front. Most nobly was the task performed. Griffin's brigade, supported by Curtin's, sprang away to the attack, burst like a tornado upon the enemy, and swept his works, capturing four guns, fifteen hundred small arms, six hundred men with their officers, and a stand of colors. The other corps did not take much part in this affair. The fighting was done mostly by the Ninth Corps, of which General Potter's division gained and held the most advanced position in our lines during the entire siege, and General Ledlie's made some important captures. From the position gained, General Burnside was to throw a few shells into the city itself. On the 18th, a more severe and sanguinary battle was fought, in which the entire army was engaged. The advance made by the Ninth on the day previous, which could not be repulsed, had forced the enemy to abandon his first line of works, and to retire to the second. Against this, the army beat in vam through the weary hours of the long June day. At the close of the contest, the only advantage gained was by General Willcox, who steadily pushed forward his division, supported by one brigade of General Potter's, and actually gained and held new ground, establishing the line of the corps within one hundred yards of the enemy's works, and well across the Norfolk railroad. It was a very creditable engagement on the part of the corps, which, on this occasion, was under the immediate direction of General Parke. In the course of the next day, General Ferrero's division of colored troops, which had been occupied in guarding trains and other similar duty, since the opening of the campaign, was brought up to the front, and again incorporated with its proper command.
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VIII.
THE PETERSBURG MINE.
General Grant had now become convinced that Petersburg and Richmond could not easily be taken by assault. The slower and surer operations of a siege were therefore resolved upon. Our lines were accordingly regularly laid out, trenches dug, and approaches arranged. Head-quarters were estab- lished at City Point, the army of the James held the lines north of the James, the army of the Potomac intrenched itself on the south. The enemy was harassed by frequent attacks, both from our right and left; our lines were gradually extended, and though General Lee made several desperate attempts to release himself, he soon found that he was held with a gripe which could not, by any possibility at his command, be released for an instant. To move out of his intrenchments was certain and speedy destruction. To stay and be besieged, was equally as certain, though the process was slower and longer. The rebellion was doomed. Its utter collapse was now only a question of . time. Our intrenched lines at Petersburg were very close to those of the enemy. Sharpshooters on either side were especially vigilant, and the expos- ure of any part of the person near the works was extremely hazardous. Skirmishing and artillery fire were almost incessant. The Ninth Corps occu- pied the salient of our works, and was distant about one hundred yards from a strong redoubt of the enemy, situated just below the erest of Cemetery Hill, which was the dominating point of the enemy's entire position at Petersburg.
Could some bold plan be devised by which this work and the crest of the hill in its rear might be made useless for the enemy's purposes, or might change hands altogether ? An officer in General Potter's division, who had looked over the whole ground with a professional eye, thought that there was a way by which so desirable a result could be attained. He conceived the plan of mining the enemy's redoubt, and blowing it and its contents into the air. The regiment which he commanded had come from the mining region of Pennsylvania; he was himself a practical miner; his soldiers had talked over the matter around their camp-fires, and he and they were anxious to undertake the work. It was Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Pleasants, and the forty-eighth Pennsylvania regiment, which he commanded at the time, to
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whom the credit is due of originating this bold project. Colonel Pleasants communicated with his division commander, General Potter; he in turn with General Burnside, who laid the subject before General Meade. That officer consulted his engineer, Major J. C. Duane, who gave an adverse opinion respecting the plan. It was not the right place to construct a mine. More- over, the whole plan was ridiculed as impracticable, and even impossible of execution. Nevertheless, General Meade, though professing to disapprove it, gave the enterprise his sanction, and authorized it to proceed. Colonel Pleasants and his men commenced work on the 25th of June, about meridian, and so vigorously did they conduct their labor, that by the 23d of July, a subterranean gallery of five hundred and ten feet in length, with two lateral galleries, one of thirty-seven the other of thirty-eight feet in length with eight magazines, had been constructed. The fact was reported at the head- quarters of the army.
Colonel Pleasants' account of his labors is very interesting. It seems that no general officer, except Generals Potter and Burnside, gave him any encouragement. He was obliged to carry out the earth in bread boxes, and to cut down bushes to strew over the newly excavated material, to prevent the suspicions of the enemy. He could not be allowed the use of the theo- dolite at head-quarters for his measurements, and was obliged to send to Washington for an instrument. He met in the course of the digging with considerable muddy and marshy ground. The excavation was ventilated by means of a tube made of old lumber picked up about the camps, or captured from saw mills beyond our lines. The timbers to prop the mine were all prepared outside, and put up in the interior by hand, without the sound of hammer and axe. The whole quantity of material taken out was eighteen thousand cubic feet. Four magazines were placed in each lateral gallery, exactly beneath the enemy's earthwork. It was supposed, at one time, that the enemy suspected the existence of the mine, but after listening intently, it was ascertained that the garrison' above was engaged upon its ordinary drill and labor, little imagining what was preparing immediately under their feet. The mine was tamped on the 27th and 28th of July, and on the 28th eight thousand pounds of powder were deposited in the magazines, and three fuses laid.
General Burnside's plan, as submitted to the commanding general, con- templated as many as six fuses and two wires, to ensure the explosion of the mine beyond question and without delay. But the fuse was furnished in
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pieces, and the only materials for splicing the ends together were some old blankets. No wires at all were furnished. It would almost seem to an ordi- nary observer, as though it had been determined at head-quarters, that the enterprise should fail, and that the adverse opinion, which had been given at the outset, should thus have its justification. Colonel Pleasants, in the face of all discouragements, persevered in the work, and at last reported it ready for explosion. Then General Meade seemed to have received some new light. For he then acknowledged, that he "had every reason to believe, that the explosion of the mine and the subsequent assault on the crest would be suc- cessful, and would be followed by results which would have consisted in the capture of the whole of the enemy's artillery, and a greater part of his infantry." What then was to hinder his approval of the plan of attack which General Burnside submitted, his assumption of the entire direction of the assault at the time of the explosion, and his reaping an abundant harvest of distinction and glory from the brilliant results which he anticipated?
To answer the above question, it is necessary to go back a little in the course of the narrative, and consider for a moment some transactions that occurred earlier in the month. General Grant had been desirous of making a second assault before settling down to the comparatively quiet operations of a siege. He had therefore addressed a note to General Meade upon the subject, some time in June, and General Meade, on his part, had asked the advice of his corps commanders. General Burnside, on the 3d of July, replied, that he thought it best to wait until the mine was completed, unless it was a question of changing the plan of operations, in which case he was in favor of an immediate assault. Then he added : "If the assault be made now, I think we have a fair chance of success, provided my corps can make the attack, and it is left to me to say when and how the other two corps shall come in to my support." General Meade at once took offence at this remark, and appeared to believe that General Burnside was reflecting upon his skill as the commanding general, and wished to assume a prerogative which did not belong to him. In his reply, July 4, General Meade declared that, in all offensive operations, he should "exercise the prerogative of" his "position to control and direct the same," and intimated that an "acceding" on his part to General Burnside's "conditions" "would not be consistent with" his "position as commanding general of the army." General Burnside, of course, imme- diately sent his disclaimer of any such ideas, feelings and motives, as General Meade had imputed to him-since they had existed nowhere but in the
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slightly suspicious imagination of the latter officer. The correspondence closed, but General Meade did not forget it. On a subsequent day, his punc- tiliousness became more painfully manifest, and was no small element in that combination of unfortunate circumstances, which changed an anticipated victory into a gloomy and deplorable defeat.
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