USA > Virginia > A brief history of the miltary career of Carpenter's battery, from its organization as a rifle company under the name of Alleghany Roughs to the ending of the war between the states > Part 2
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A BRIEF HISTORY
ance to those equally starved beasts of burden did actually keep alive many who otherwise would have perished from the intense cold and gnawing hunger of that unprecedented time. It is the truth purely and absolutely that a goodly part of that little army went three whole days and nights without a morsel to eat, our first breaking of the long and deadly fast being by means of that hard, dry corn allotted to our horses and mules.
Finally, on reaching Romney we found General Kelly and his army had incontinently flown, but we captured in his abandoned camps a inomentary plentitude of white Yankee beans, and it will not be a very great mental strain for anyone to imagine that we, in our genuine, heartfelt gratitude deemed that particular provender, at that particular time, angel cake, and their delicious concoction into soup was precious nectar and ambrosia. Before the war this deponent was so dainty and so small an eater that his good mother thought he was in a ruinous decline. But after he had associated with Stone- wall Jackson's wolfish army a few weeks, on the Loudoun Heights, at Harper's Ferry, his decline was in the nature of refusing nothing thereafter in the name and nature of food for man or beast, and that war-inspired appetite abides with him unto this day. That unparalleled marching and starving to Romney and return made our mother tongue lash General Jackson very bitterly, and it is an undis- puted fact that many a South Carolinian and Geor- ' gian fell and perished by the wayside in that cam- paign, but all that, with all it implied, belonged to the Stonewall curriculum, and its matriculates were thus made ready for the rigors and battle-scars of our four years of war, and I verily believe the glory won and worn thereby is ample compensation to
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the soldier of Stonewall Jackson's incomparable army. Yes, to have fought with that army, and to have shared in its splendid victories and gigantic achievements, gives us pride which we trust is as pardonable as it is glorious.
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A BRIEF HISTORY
CHAPTER V.
OUR FIRST ARTILLERY FIGHT.
On reaching the Virginia Valley again we made a long and tortuous march up the old pike, and were as speedily hurried down it again, in a tramp of 31 miles in one day, that we might make ready to meet the army of General Shields at Kernstown. There on March 23d, we had our first artillery fight, and there, with those little insignificant old 6-pounder Tredegar guns, Carpenter's Battery won distinction, which it maintained without decrease to the bitter end of our great war. Our first shot was witnessed, from a nearby position, by General Jackson, who upon seeing it crash through the door of an old barn crowded with Federal soldiers, and scatter them pell-mell to the four winds, passionately ex- claimed, "Good, good," greatly to the pride and joy of all present on that memorable occasion of our battery baptismn. From that position we con- tinued firing until the enemy was driven from our front, when we were advanced to the extreme left of our line, there at once becoming hotly engaged and doing fine execution throughout the action, until, just at nightfall, when overpowering num- bers in the act of capturing our entire little army of less than 3,000 all told, forced us to cease firing and make our escape to the rear, on the southern edge of that hotly contested battle field. There we halted and cooked our rations and fitfully slept until the dawning of another day, in doing which, right in the face of the enemy, and they declining to pursue us with their vastly superior numbers, our inflicting upon them such terrible loss, and hav- ing ourselves suffered so severely, has always been
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considered by every Confederate soldier who par- ticipated in that engagement a splendid victory for General Jackson, who so signally accomplished his purpose in detaining and holding so large an army of Union soldiers in the Valley, the release of which had been planned by, and was of so much import- ance to, the Washington authorities for the purpose of attacking Richmond.
As our company in the first battle of Manassas, then infantry, had so distinguished itself, without any previous experience in the use of its old army muskets and bayonets; so there, in that fierce and glorious little battle of Kernstown, as artillery, without ever before having fired a shot from our 6-pounder Tredegars, we won a proud and lasting name, and above all, the openly attested approval of that greatest of artillerists-Stonewall Jackson, in person.
But in all the desperate work, in close and long contested quarters, our battery suffered no loss in killed. Our guns, limbers, and caissons, however, and the clothing and accouterments of our cannon- eers liberally bore the marks and wounds of the frightful assault.
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A BRIEF HISTORY
CHAPTER VI.
THE MCDOWELL AND VALLEY CAMPAIGNS.
With only a short respite off again marched our little army up the Valley, and camped at White's Gap on top of the Blue Ridge, and on again by way of Mechum's River, on the Virginia Central R. R., and through Staunton to McDowell where, in a severe little encounter, we won another victory in short order. In this affair our battery was under hot fire, though not actually engaged. The enemy was driven to Franklin, in Pendleton County, where on Sunday, while engaged in divine service we were fired into with such vigor and precision as to compel our quitting worship to make ready for the Devil's work of killing people. Our worthy foes, however, practicing discretion in lieu of valor, de- camped before us again, and declining to continue the chase after them we started on the back track the following day for our old Valley of Virginia stamping ground, to meet General Banks at Win- chester, which was accomplished on May 25, 1862, resulting in his being driven into and out of that town after a stubborn resistance in a considerable battle, in which our company lost 2 killed and 5 wounded.
Pursuing him closely we rushed on with the old Stonewall Brigade, then commanded by General Charles Winder, of Maryland, than whom no cont- mander ever led it so well and effectually, of all its brigadiers, except the first-the inimitable, unap- proachable, original Stonewall Jackson.
On reaching Charles Town, in hot pursuit, our battery went through the main street of the town, ahead of any skirmish line or scouts of cavalry or
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infantry, firing by echelon straight and continu- ously through the town at the flying enemy, and the proof was given of our good and accurate shoot- ing in that we kept the line of the street and neither demolished nor marred any house or building on either side. That running fire of our gunners was kept up from one end of the town to the other, from where the Berryville pike intercepts it to the extreme northern limit. And while we were thus engaged in charging, and, we may say, winning a battle of our own independently of infantry or cav- alry help, to prove furthermore how Confederate artillery sometimes operated, it may be related here that while our battery was doing that independent fighting, our sister battery, the Rockbridge Artil- lery, commanded by Captain Poague, being then on the Berryville pike, actually captured and turned over to our old Stonewall Brigade a considerable little body of Yankee cavalry, which in the confu- sion of their general retreat had become isolated from its army command, and was thus made a prey of independently acting artillery.
Moving on down to Hall Town, near Harper's Ferry and Bolivar Heights, we were left in that vi- cinity to overawe General Banks by the maneuver- ing of our artillery, and the Stonewall Brigade, while General Jackson, with the main body of his small army hastened back up the valley to Stras- burg, upon which objective point Fremont's and Milroy's were converging to cut us off and prevent our escape to a farther and safer point up the val- ley. After about a day's encampment near Hall Town, we were informed that our battery and the old Stonewall Brigade were cut off entirely from General Jackson's main body, the army of General Milroy being then interposed between us. There-
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upon we began a hasty retreat, with dark forebod- ings of consequent and inevitable capture, or utter annihilation. But, lo ! our ever vigilant and al- ways resourceful commander was not to be caught napping. He summarily dislodging the over jub- ilant enemy, gave us an opportunity, eagerly cov- eted, to slip through the meshes, so effectually laid for us, and rejoin him with palpitating hearts and greatly fatigued underpinning, though again ready and eager to shout the Rebel yell.
So with General Milroy being driven hopelessly out of our pathway, and we being again safely re- united with our old commander, we were rushed hurriedly on up the valley to Harrisonburg, with General Fremont closely following, and General Shields moving rapidly up the parallel valley of Luray, to intercept and cut us off at Port Republic.
Ewell's Division was halted at Cross Keys while General Jackson hurried on to Port Republic to su- pervise our crossing the two branches of the Shen- andoah River there, a large covered bridge affording our only means of crossing the North Branch, and we having to improvise means to cross the South Branch, which was accomplished duly, as will pres- ently appear.
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OF CARPENTER'S BATTERY.
CHAPTER VII.
CROSS KEYS AND PORT REPUBLIC.
On the 7th of June, General Fremont attacked General Ewell's small army at Cross Keys when a severe battle raged, in which the Confederate arms were signally victorious, handsomely repulsing Fre- mont's much larger army, with heavy loss. The morning following, June 8th, General Shields, by forced marches, had the head of his column at Port Republic and began a bombardment of our camps resting on the north side still of the North Branch. This was a very unexpected onslaught, taking us entirely unawares while we were lolling lazily all over the grassy fields, and while our horses were leisurely grazing about with their harness on. But in very short order our artillery was made ready and the men alert for duty. Some confusion had ensued, in this altogether unexpected attack, but in double-quick time our battery and a portion of two other batteries were placed in position along the high river banks of the river front, commanding the south side, and we very soon silenced the guns of Shields' cavalry completely. In evidence of the suddenness of General Shields's attack upon us, and our unpreparedness at that moment, it is only nec- essary to state that their advance had actually cap- tured the bridge over the North River branch and had placed at its mouth an artillery guard, while his troops were in possession of the village of Port Republic, in which General Jackson personally was, between the two rivers, literally cut off from his army on the north side, though he daringly, or, as he would have said, providentially, escaped through the bridge, held then by the enemy, thus rejoining
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his command and ordering us to march at once to the south side of both branches of the river, to meet the main advancing army of General Shields, which was then rapidly endeavoring to concentrate in our front, to prevent our passage of the river, to the south side. When our entire army had passed over the North Branch, through the bridge, that means of passage was at once destroyed by fire, by order of General Jackson, to prevent General Fre- mont from following us closely and attacking our rear, and then improvising a pontoon bridge, by running wagons into the South Branch River, and stretching boards from one to another of these wag- ons entirely across the stream, our infantry was soon safely conveyed to the south side, and moved with dispatch down the river to confront General Shields's main body, which after a hot and bloody fight was completely routed with great loss. In the artillery duel from the north bank of the North Branch we suffered no casualties in our battery, but in the fierce fight on the south side with the main army of Shields, at very close quarters in the open wheat fields we were nearly demolished by an op- posing 6-gun battery located in an elevated charcoal pit, though our loss in wounded proved to be only 5 men and a number of horses, while our limbers and caissons were wofully besmattered with shells and the fateful minie balls. But had not General Hayes's Louisiana Brigade, by a flank movement through a tangled body of dense woods, captured that bravely commanded battery, which it so nobly did at a very dear cost of brave men, the loss in Carpenter's Battery would undoubtedly have been doubly as great as it was, in a very little longer continuance of that deadly fire. That splendid Louisiana Brigade, in rescuing us from our perilous
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position, suffered very severely itself from a con- tinuous, raking fire of grape and canister which tore and roared through that body of undergrowth like a cyclone, or the racket of the fiercest thunder devasting a forest of timber.
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A BRIEF HISTORY
CHAPTER VIII.
MARCH ON TO RICHMOND.
After this signal routing of General Shields's army, our army being again united, and ignoring for the time being Fremont and the rest of our Val- ley of Virginia foes we crossed over the Blue Ridge again at White's Gap and facing towards Richmond made that memorable march to the rear of General McClellan's right wing at Mechanicsville, and on to Gaines's farm where our battery again passed through a scathing fire on its victorious march.
On June 28th, it was placed in position as a tar- get for the enemy's batteries to play upon, while old Captain Mason, General Lee's pioneer was building the pole and timber bridge across the Chickahominy, over which our army was to pass in pursuit of McClellan's retreating troops. The story of the building of that memorable bridge be- ing worthy of repetition, I will retell it here. This Captain Mason, its builder, was so illiterate, it is said, as not to be able to read or write. He had been ordered by General Jackson the night before to call at headquarters for a plan or sketch of the bridge, which the army engineers would have com- pleted and ready for him at daylight in the morn- ing, so that the work might be executed accord- ingly at the shortest time possible. The great pio- neer calling promptly upon General Jackson at the appointed time, was asked if he had been shown and given the sketch. He replied, "Gineral Jack- son, I ain't seen no sketch, and don't know nothin' about no pictures, nor plans for that bridge, but that bridge is done, sir, and is ready, sir, and you can right now send your folks across on to it."
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Such a man was that pioneer Mason, and such work as that he continually did, as if by magic ; and we have always fully believed the truth of this story of the bridge as unimpeachable. Carpenter's Battery was placed just below that bridge building to draw the fire of the enemy's guns upon it while old Captain Mason proceeded with his work, from start to finish, without a "picture" to aid him in its construction. Indeed, and this is the self-same Captain Mason who cut a pathway through the dense undergrowth and forest shrubbery from the Wilderness to Spottsylvania Courthouse, in one night, for General Lee's entire army to pass through, which resulted in halting and thwarting the daring, dashing movement of Grant's army in its desperate attempt to turn General Lee's extreme right at that most critical point. The evidence is plain that men of the Mason type were essential to the success of the great commanders whom they thus enabled to achieve such victories.
When General Jackson's army had crossed the Chickahominy on that Aladdin constructed bridge of poles we pursued the retreating enemy on and on, with continual fighting to Malvern Hill, where in a general engagement our battery was hotly as- sailed for the greater part of the day, and suffered severely, losing in killed 2 and in wounded 7.
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CHAPTER IX.
BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN.
After that great victory of dethroning and driving General McClellan's magnificent army from its close proximity to Richmond back to the shelter of his gun boats at Harrison's Landing on the James River, with complete defeat and terrible loss, Gen- eral Jackson's Corps was quickly dispatched to meet the haughty army of the boastful Pope, which was intercepted and collided with at Cedar Mountain, not far distant from Culpeper Courthouse, on Au- gust 9, 1862. In that battle Carpenter's Battery again had another conspicuous test of its staying qualities and power of execution, its work there being so well performed as to win the lavish plau- dits of all the field officers who witnessed its ad- mirable execution on that occasion. That, indeed, was a costly battle to us, our fine and noble Captain Joseph Carpenter, who, as has been heretofore stated, was an educated artillerist, under General Jackson, at the Virginia Military Institute at the beginning of our gigantic Civil War, being there mortally wounded, while our loss in others wounded was considerable. This efficient officer's conspicu- ous services and great popularity as a battery com- mander endeared hin very greatly to our company, officers, and men alike, and his death occurring later was deplored beyond expression. There, too, in the midst of our booming pieces, within a few feet of the gun of which the writer hereof was gun- ner, that splendid and dashing commander of the Stonewall Brigade, General Charles B. Winder, was killed outright, a tremendous hole being torn in his side by a bursting shell, while our battalion
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commander, Colonel R. Snowden Andrews, was similarly wounded near the spot where General Winder fell, but Colonel Andrews was not fatally wounded, his life being spared to good old age. These two officers of General Jackson's great com- mand enjoyed the most enviable distinction for bravery and efficiency, and no officers ever led into battle their commands with finer results than did these two. Both of these honored men had in a marked degree the love and respect of Carpenter's Battery, which were as well deserved as they were gladly rendered. General Winder was killed almost instantly, his body being borne a short distance away by Colonel Andrews, myself, and one or two others, out of range of the withering musketry and cannon shots. Returning to my gun in a moment, it was but a like short time after his return from General Winder's side when Colonel Andrews re- ceived his desperate wound, tearing out his side to the full exposure of his internal structure, which necessitated ever after his wearing a large silver plate, covering his entire side until his death, which did not occur until about 1903. He was buried from the Episcopal church on Cathedral street, corner of Read, in Baltimore, quietly and unosten- tatiously, which sad obsequies it was my honored privilege to attend in witness of my high apprecia- tion of his fine ability as an officer and soldier of the righteous cause for which the true Confederate fought.
Only a little while before his death General An- drews gave the author of this brief history of Car- penter's Battery an autograph letter, which it is hoped it may not be considered amiss in him to produce here, in valuable added testimony to the well earned and widely given commendation of this
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company, from a source of which its every member living will be proud, and will highly prize. It is as follows :
"BALTIMORE, June 30, 1900. To C. A. FONERDEN, ESQ.,
Late of Carpenter's Battery:
I am glad to hear of your intention to inform the public of some of the services and the great gallantry of Carpenter's Battery. You owe it to the memory of your dead comrades ; to the survivors of that war for principle ; to the education of the present and future generations, to put on record the brilliant actions in which you participated with your brave companions.
I was proud of the Battalion of Artillery I commanded, and it is no reflection on any other company to say, yours had no superior, and I know no one more fitted than your- self to tell the story; and the subject is enough for any writer.
Remember me to your dear old Captain * Carpenter, when you write him. Yours truly and sincerely,
R. SNOWDEN ANDREWS."
* A brother of Joseph Carpenter, our captain, who died from the wound received at Cedar Mountain, whereupon John C. Carpenter, now living. became our captain, by promotion from Governor Letcher.
1.
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CHAPTER X.
SECOND MANASSAS BATTLE.
Our victory at Cedar Mountain, though costing dearly, was of magnificent proportions, but needing rest and rehabilitation we were moved back to Gor- donsville, from which point we were very soon for- warded to the Rapidan River and became engaged in a fight at St. James' Church above Kelly's Ford, where General Early's brigade had crossed, and which rose so rapidly behind him as to cause great anxiety, lest, being thus cut off, his command should be captured by Pope before any other por- tion of our army could cross over to his rescue. But our heavy and continuous artillery duel across the river upon the enemy probably prevented an attack upon him. In that duel our battery lost I killed and several wounded. Then moving on up the river we crossed it at an unused ford, ascending the opposite bank after a rough and tedious pas- sage, pulling our guns up with the aid of infantry, by the prolonges, and then moved as silently as pos- sible for a few miles, and at nightfall went into camp to prepare for our hurried march of the next day through Thoroughfare Gap, at almost double quick time until we reached Broad Creek. While at that stream, watering our horses, our captain discovered a battalion of Yankee cavalry almost in our very faces, and ordered into position, on the opposite side of the creek, our two 12-pounder Napoleon guns, double shotted with canister, by means of which summary persuasion, at the mo- ment of their thundering, the enemy fled in utter confusion, while our old Stonewall Brigade, as our rear support, was almost equally filled with conster-
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nation by the booming guns, not dreaming that the enemy was so close upon us, or, in fact, anywhere near that vicinity. Indeed, that old brigade of in- vincibles having but a moment before begun taking off their shoes and stockings, if this may be said of a very nearly sockless brigade, to wade the stream, was now seen to fly to our aid ; some with one sock off and some with one shoe on, and some again in all plights of preparation for wading. The scene was truly ludicrous, despite what might have been the impending peril had our cavalry foe been as. valiant as they ought to have been in meeting so small a force as one small battery. But the one volley of two shots was amply sufficient for their satisfaction in full ; and so we passed on, August 27, 1862, to take possession of Manassas Junction with its tremendous stores of army and hospital supplies, munitions and implements of war, almost beyond calculation, and of unspeakable value to us.
Then and there our battery availed itself of an exchange of guns, giving up our old worn pieces for two new and spanking 12-pounder Napoleons and two English steel 10-pounder Parrotts, replac- ing as well our old for new limber chests and cais- sons, while we caparisoned proudly our dear, brave old horses with bespangled harness and all needed accouterments. Thus speedily and unhin- dered equipping ourselves with all that new and costly plunder, and as much as we could get away with of commissary supplies, internally and exter- ually, only a little while elapsed before Taylor's Yankee brigade came pouncing upon us from the direction of Alexandria in the attempt to drive us away from all that immense and so highly coveted capture. How little did he know the hungry Con- federate soldier !
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Meantime other batteries had joined us, and a sufficient force of infantry to enable us not only to break the splendid and persistent attack of that valorous Taylor's Brigade and whatever other forces were with them, but to repulse them utterly into complete route, whereupon Carpenter's Battery was ordered to report to General Bradley T. Johnson back toward Thoroughfare Gap. The following day August 28th, we were in position on the right of General Jackson's line along an unfinished rail- road cut, and during the next day had frequent occasion to drive away, now a battery, and again infantry sharpshooters advancing upon that posi- tion. On the 29th, our work and experiences were much the same as on the preceding day, though at one time we were ordered to the left to assist in dispelling a fierce, determined effort to dislodge our forces from the famous deep cut where the action was tiger like for closeness and bloody ferocity. There we were in action at close quarters against both artillery and infantry, and had run the gaunt- let of a terrible rain of shot and shell to get there. One shot from an opposing gun wounded three of our drivers, taking both legs off one of them ; the hip muscles off another ; and giving the third man a bad flesh wound of the arm; at the same time killing or completely disabling the three horses on the driver's side and tearing off both wheels of the limber. In very short order our loss there was I man killed and 5 wounded. Then being ordered to our former position, a little later in the day a Yankee battery of six guns was pushed forward on a little knoll in close proximity where our battery was ordered to dislodge it. Maneuvering into po- sition through a most trying ordeal of rapid and well directed firing of the enemy's guns we unlim-
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