USA > Virginia > City of Portsmouth > City of Portsmouth > A record of events in Norfolk County, Virginia, from April 19th, 1861, to May 10th, 1862, with a history of the soldiers and sailors of Norfolk County, Norfolk City and Portsmouth, who served in the Confederate States army or navy > Part 12
USA > Virginia > City of Norfolk > City of Norfolk > A record of events in Norfolk County, Virginia, from April 19th, 1861, to May 10th, 1862, with a history of the soldiers and sailors of Norfolk County, Norfolk City and Portsmouth, who served in the Confederate States army or navy > Part 12
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From that time to the following June, it was hurried from place to place to head off raiding parties of the enemy, which were making their appearance at different points from Richmond to Goldsboro. On the 6th of October the brigade was sent by rail to Kinston, N. C., and on the 14th placed in very comfortable winter quarters near that town, but on the 1st of November it was moved back to Petersburg. On the 7th it was sent back to Weldon, and from there to Garysburg, arriving at 8 a. m. on the 8th. It remained there until the 11th, when it was carried back to Petersburg. On the 28th it started to rejoin the army of General Lee, then confronting General Meade at Mine Run, reached Hanover Junction the next day at 8 a. m. and went into camp. On the 10th of December it was again sent by rail to North Carolina and on the 13th went again into the camp of Oc- tober near Kinston.
On the 30th of January, 1864, the brigade moved on towards Newberne and on the 1st of February formed line of battle and had a small engagement with the enemy, driving in the pickets, &c., which was merely intended to employ the force there to pre- vent it from interfering with the movement of a portion of the army which was operating elsewhere. On the afternoon of the 2d the brigade broke camp for Kinston, and on the 13th took the cars for Petersburg, crossed James river on the 15th on a pontoon bridge above Drury's Bluff and camped in Henrico county two miles to the east of Richmond. In February two raiding parties of Federal cavalry started towards Richmond, one from the di- rection of Fortress Monroe, under General Wister, which got no further than Bottom's bridge, and the other under General Kil- patrick and Colonel Dahlgren, from General Meade's army on the Rapidan. On the 1st of March the 9th Regiment was marched to Bottom's bridge, thence to the Virginia Central railroad to head off Kilpatrick, who was operating there, but escaped, and at night to the Mechanicsville turnpike to try and head off Dahlgren, who
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had reached the vieinity of Richmond that afternoon about sun- down and had been attacked and defeated by the 3d Battalion of Virginia Reserves, under command of Senior Captain John A. McAnerny, and attached to the brigade of General Custis Lee, on the Westham plank road about three miles from the city. In this battalion was a company of boys from Richmond, whose ages ranged from sixteen to eighteen, under command of Captain Ed- ward Gay, and they displayed the courage of old veterans. The author saw one of them bringing in a Yankee prisoner, about twice his own size, whom he had captured, though himself suffer- ing from a wound in the arm.
Though this affair has no direct connection with the history of the 9th Regiment, but as it was of considerable importance in its results, though comparatively insignifieant in itself, and for this reason has been overlooked, or merely touched upon in the histo- ries of the war, the author asks the indulgence of the reader in giving his recollection of it as it appeared to him. He was at the time, temporarily with Company A, commanded by Captain John Manico, a gallant fellow from New Orleans, who came to Vir- ginia with the Washington Artillery and was wounded at Manas- sas, disabled and discharged.
On the 28th of February General Kilpatrick left General Meade's army on the Rapidan with between three and four thou- sand cavalrymen, for Richmond, to capture the city and release the Federal prisoners who were confined in Libby Prison and on Belle Isle.
At Spotsylvania Court House the force divided, and Colonel Dahlgren with five hundred picked men, pushed on towards the James river above Richmond, while the main body, under Kil- patrick, headed directly for the city, reaching the north side of it on the 1st of March. The interposition of Armistead's Brigade, of which the 9th Regiment formed a part, stopped his further progress in that direction, and he escaped down the peninsula to Fortress Monroe.
Dahlgren pursued his course towards James River, reached it near Goochland Court House, and then followed the course of the river towards Richmond, reaching the vicinity of the city, on the west, the same day, March 1st, that Kilpatrick had arrived, but later in the afternoon. A considerable force had by that time been collected around the eity for its defenec. News reached Richmond of the approach of Dahlgren's party and the 3d Bat- talion, Custis Lee's Brigade, was sent to meet it. The battalion left the city about 4 o'clock p. m. and marched rapidly ont the Westham plank road. The battalion was composed of seven or eight companies and had about four hundred men present in its ranks. The rain was pouring down in torrents, but the men were in the best of spirits, as if they were going to a frolie instead of a
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fight. First Lieutenant Morris, a brave young North Carolinian, 2d Sergeant John F. Mayer, of Norfolk, and another, were to- gether on the left of Company A. One of the trio remarked, " If our sweethearts were here now they might call us their rain dears." Sergeant Mayer said " Yes, and though it has scarcely been an hour since we left Richmond, we are already ' weterans."" Lientenant Morris did not want to get left on the play of words, and, remembering the day and month, and having his wits fresh- ened by stepping into a mud puddle over his shoe tops said he thought " This first march this year is the softest thing the battal- ion ever got into." This incident is recalled merely to illustrate the fine spirits which animated the battalion, from Captain Me Anerny down.
After marching about three miles the battalion met a cavalry- man on his way to the city, with a report, and he informed Cap- tain McAnerny that the enemy, in considerable force, had attacked our cavalry picket and it had fallen back to a position about a quarter of a mile in advance of where we then were. The eap- tain halted the battalion, gave orders to close up and load ; after which it moved forward again, the men joking as they marched. It was then about sundown.
Reaching the pieket, the battalion tiled to the right, in a field, and fronted to the advancing enemy, with the left resting on the road and the cavalry picket occupying the road. Captain MeAnerny threw out skirmishes and ordered a charge, telling the men to reserve their fire until he gave the order, and then to fire together. The enemy were advancing also, some mounted and some on foot, and in less than a minute the sharp cracking fire of the skirmishers began. These fell baek gradually or rather pansed for the main line to overtake them, when they took their places in the ranks. Captain MeAnerny halted the line so that the fire of his men could be delivered with more accuracy, and when the enemy's line had reached within about twenty yards gave the order to fire. That one volley settled the affair. Those of the enemy who were not killed or wounded, stood not upon the order of their going, but left at once. A second volley added speed to their retreat. A mounted section endeavored to turn the right of the battalion which was exposed in open field, but the rear rank of the right company faced to the rear and gave them such a well-directed volley that only one of them escaped. The battalion was armed with Austrian rifles, which were perhaps the best guns in the Confederate army. Those of Dahlgren's men who escaped made their way around to the north of Rich- mond, closely followed by the Confederates, and were stopped by a party of Home Guards in King and Queen county. An en- gagement ensned and Dahlgren was killed and the men with him were captured, On his body was found an order to his men to
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release the Federal prisoners on Belle Island, kill President Davis and other citizens of Richmond, and burn the city. He came near liberating the thousands of prisoners on Belle Isle, for be had gotten within less than two miles of them and there was nothing between him and them but the 3d battalion. Had that failed in its duty, the ten or twelve thousand prisoners might have been released, though the subsequent arrival of other troops would have been in time to have kept him out of the city.
Captain A. E. Wilson, of Portsmouth, was on duty in King and Queen county at the time of this affair and recovered from the prisoners about two bushels of silver plate which they had stolen from Virginia farm houses while on their raid.
The 9th Regiment remained in the vicinity of Richmond all the month of March. On the 23d there was a terrible storm and "the beautiful snow " fell to the depth of eighteen inches, and in April the bottom seemed to have dropped out of the Confed- crate commissary department. The men in the 9th had nothing to eat on the Sth or 9th. The next day, however, brought relief and rations.
On the 3d of May the brigade started to join General Lee's army on the Rapidan, and on the 5th had reached Taylorsville, on the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomae Railroad, when it was recalled in haste to Richmond to meet Butler's advance from Bermuda Hundreds, where he had landed with the corps of Gen- erals Gilmore and W. F. Smith, numbering some thirty thousand men. Arriving in Richmond by rail, the brigade was immedi- ately transported by steamer to Drury's Bluff and marched to the onter line of defences. On the Sth the brigade was drawn up in line of battle, the men about five feet apart and covering a space of three miles.
May 10th Armistead's Brigade and Gracie's Alabama Brigade formed an attenuated line of battle reaching from the Petersburg railroad to the river and advanced against the enemy to develop . his strength and position. Armistead's Brigade attacked two lines of battle of the enemy and pushed them baek for nearly a mile, when Gracie's Brigade having obliqued to the left, a large interval was created on the left of Armistead's Brigade, and as it was about to be flanked there by the increasing masses of the enemy, General Barton, who commanded it, ordered it to retire. In this battle the 9th Regiment captured a gun on the turnpike, but when the brigade fell back it was left behind, as there were no horses to bring it off. This affair served to keep General Butler quiet for a few days, and as Sheridan was then in the vi- cinity of Richmond on his gigantic raid with three cavalry divis- ions, Armistead's Brigade was moved from Drury's Bluff by steamer at 1 o'clock on the morning of the 12th to Richmond. Sheridan had repulsed Stuart's attack at Yellow Tavern and killed
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that great cavalry leader on the 11th, and on the 12th reached the outer defences of the city. At 9 a. m., on the 12th, Armi- stead's Brigade formed line of battle on the Mechanicsville turn- pike, and during the day was moved to the Meadow Bridge Road and back to the Mechanicsville turnpike and to the York River Railroad. Gracie's Alabama Brigade made an advance early in the afternoon to feel Sheridan's position and retired to wait for re-enforcements. These arrived later in the day and an advance was made by Gracie's, Armistead's and Hunton's Brigades, but Sheridan had moved off.
While Sheridan was on the Meadow Bridge Road an incident occurred which made a deep impression on the memory of the author. There was a farm house down the road about a quarter of a mile from the Confederate works and Sheridan had placed there a battery of field guns which was firing at the Confederate works, and a battery in the works across the road was replying. While this artillery duel was going on, a tall, elderly gentleman, carrying in his arms a two or three-year-old child and accompa- nied by two beautiful young ladies, one of whom was leading a little six or seven-year-old girl by the hand, came down the side of the road along a path inside the bordering fence, walking quietly to the Confederate lines. Upon reaching the works the men helped them over. They lived in the honse where Sheridan had placed his battery, and in coming along the side of the road paid no more attention to the shells which were flying past them than if they had been snow balls.
Sheridan effected his retreat in safety to the Pamunky river, where he rejoined General Grant, and, in the meantime, Butler having been encouraged to make another attempt to reach Rich- mond, advanced from Bermuda Hundreds. The brigade was moved to Drury's Bluff on the 15th, and the next day took part in what is known in history as the Battle of Drury's Bluff. It . resulted in a victory for the Confederates, and would have been more decisive still but for the failure of General Whiting to ad- vance with his division to attack the left and rear of the enemy, as ordered by General Beauregard. This failure on his part to attack, left open the line of retreat for the enemy, of which he availed himself and fell back within the fortifications at Bermuda Hundreds. In this battle the brigade was commanded by Colonel B. D. Fry, of the 13th Alabama Regiment, who was assigned to it by General Robert Ransom, under whose orders it was aeting. General Ransom preferred charges against General Barton for some fault he found with him in the action of the 10th and re- moved him from his command. A correspondence ensued in relation to the matter in which General Barton got the better of it, and every officer of the brigade signed a petition to the Sec- retary of War asking that he be re-instated. A court of inquiry
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was ordered, but its delays were so numerous that the war ended befor the matter was settled, and in the meantime General George H. Stewart was ordered to command it August 27th, 1864. Gen- eral Barton had been assigned to the brigade in 1863, after the death of General Armistead at Gettysburg.
General Barton, in his official report of the 10th of May, pays a high compliment to the 9th Regiment for their steadiness and good conduct on that occasion. On the 16th the battle was begun while a heavy fog was on the ground and Barton's Brigade was ordered to support Hoke's North Carolina Brigade, but owing to the fog Hoke's Brigade obliqned to the right and Barton's obliqued to the left, which brought the 9th Regiment under a very heavy and destructive fire of the enemy, to which they did not reply, thinking Hoke's Brigade was in their front. They were ordered to lie down, which they did, until a flanking force from the bri- gades turned the enemy's right and captured those in front of the 9th. The fog lifting at this time disclosed the fact that Hoke's Brigade had moved off to the right. The 9th Regiment pressed on to Bermuda Hundreds after the retreating Federals, and on 19th the brigade was ordered to join the main army, then near Spotsylvania Court House. It took steamer at Drury's Bluff and reached Richmond at midnight, where the whole brigade slept on the streets on the pavement. The next day they took the cars for Milford Station, where they debarked, pushed on, and camped within five miles of Spotsylvania Court House.
On the night of the 20th Grant moved off from Spotsylvania Court House, and Armistead's Brigade, now Stewart's, and again united with Pickett's Division, was marched towards Hanover Junction. The whole of the division had gotten together again. On the 24th the brigade was in line of battle on the North Anna river, and fronted the enemy in his unsuccessful effort to force a passage there, and remained in position until the 27th, when the army moved off to Cold Harbor, in consequence of another move- ment of General Grant to the left. On the 30th it was again drawn up in line of battle and had a heavy engagement on the picket line, and on the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th and 5th of June, was in line of battle at Cold Harbor waiting for an attack from the ene- my which never came. He made heavy assaults on 1st and 3d, upon other portions of the line and was repulsed easily, losing about thirteen thousand men in less than fifteen minutes.
On the 6th, Company G, 9th Regiment, was sent forward to try to establish a new picket line, but finding the ground occupied by a superior force of the enemy, fell back to the old line, and on the 16th the division crossed over James river on pontoons at Drury's Bluff, and at 3 p. m., while on the Richmond and Peters- burg turnpike near Chester Station, the head of the column, Stewart's.Brigade, was fired upon by the enemy, who proved to
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be Butler's forces, who had again started out from Bermuda Hundreds. Line of battle was formed immediately and the enemy were attacked and driven from a line of earthworks, the division spending the night in the captured works. On the 17th the at- tack was renewed and Butler was again driven back behind his entrenchments at Bermuda Hundreds, from which he did not again emerge during the war. Pickett's Division remained on the lines in front of Bermuda Hundreds until March 26th, 1865, when it was moved off to the extreme right of the army to check the advance of Sheridan's Cavalry. Three brigades of the divi- sion, Stewart's, Terry's and Corse's (Hunton's was somewhere else) struck Sheridan's command at Dinwiddie Court House and drove it before them. This was the 31st of March, and the next morning while they were fighting Sheridan in front, Warren'sand Humphrey's corps of Federal infantry, attacked them in flank and rear. The 9th Regiment was marched to the left and thrown in reverse to try to stop the flood and bore the brunt of Warren's charge. It stood its ground, however, until it was overwhelmed. The enemy came on faster than the men could load and fire, and most of the 9th Regiment being killed, wounded or surrounded, fell into the hands of the enemy. The colors of the 9th Regi- ment were bourne in this battle by George W. Barnes, of the Old Dominion Guard, Company K, and the regiment was in the form of a letter L, with one side fronting out from the left of the Confederate line of battle and the other fronting to the rear. Very few of the men escaped from Five Forks, and those who did, were caught in a similar trap at Saylor's Creek on the 6th.
While the 9th Regiment, which was taken from the centre of the brigade in line of battle, was hurrying to the left to try to stay the progress of Warren's and Humphrey's Corps, it passed the 56th North Carolina Regiment, of Ransom's Brigade, com- manded by Lieutenant-Colonel G. G. Luke, an old Portsmouth boy, and the Portsmouth companies in the 9th recognizing him, gave him a cheer, and George Barnes, the color-bearer, knowing as every other man in the line did, that the regiment was being sent as a sacrifice to give time to the others to escape, sang ont : " Here goes old Portsmouth, Colonel-good-bye!"
Swinton, in his Army of the Potomac, speaking of this effort to stop the movement of Warren's Corps upon Pickett's left and rear, says :
"Held as in a vice by the cavalry, which controlled their whole front and right, they now found a line of battle sweeping down on their rear. Thus placed, they did all that men may. Form- ing front both north and south, they met, with desperate valor, this double onset. * *
* * Yet, vital in all of its parts, what remained still continued the combat with unyielding metal. Parrying the thrusts of the cavalry from the front, this poor
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scratch of a force threw back its left in a new and short crotchet, so as to meet the advance of Warren."
Pickett's force of six thousand contended with twelve thousand cavalrymen under Sheridan and twenty-two thousand infantry in the two corps of Warren and Humphreys.
Nearly all of the men in the 9th who escaped at Five Forks were killed or captured at Saylor's Creek, and very few were left to surrender at Appomattox, except those who were with the wagons, or in the commissary or hospital departments, these being necessarily in the rear and not usually participating in the battles, escaped in the general destruction. The regiment was engaged in the following battles, besides numerous skirmishes and picket fights :
Seven Pines, June Ist, 1862, Malvern Hill, July 1st, 1862, Warrenton Springs, Ang. 28th, 1862.
Second Manassas, Ang. 30th, 1862,
Harper's Ferry, Sept. 14th, 1862,
Sharpsburg, Sept. 17th, 1862, Fredericksburg, Dec. 13th, '62,
Suffolk, April, 1863, Gettysburg, July 3d, 1863, Newberne, Feb. 4th, 1864, Drury's Bluff, May 10th, 1864, Drury's Bluff, May 16th, 1864, Chester Station, June 16th, '64, Dinwiddie Court House, March 31st, 1865, Five Forks, April 1st, 1865,
Saylor's Creek, April 6th, 1865.
It was engaged also in the numerous skirmishes, which might almost be ternied battles, at Hanover Court House, Cold Harbor and Turkey Ridge, from May 28th to June 13th, 1864, while General Lee was holding General Grant at bay, and had a num- ber of minor engagements with the enemy while on the line at Bermuda Hundreds. An amusing incident occurred while at this latter place. By a mutual understanding between the men on both sides, there had been an intermission of picket firing for several weeks, when, one day, a Federal soldier called out from his side, "Johnnie, look out to-morrow, there will be negro troops on picket." The answer went back, " All right, we'll fix them." The next day, sure enough, the negroes were observed holding the advanced line, and with a yell, they were charged by the Cenfed- erates. They scattered and ran as if an avenging angel was after them. Later, white troops were sent to the front, and the friendly feeling between the opposing pickets was restored. That was the last attempt to put negro pickets on that line.
Lieutenant-Colonel Phillips recovered from his wound received at Gettysburg, was promoted to Colonel, and commanded the regi- ment until the closing scenes on the retreat from Petersburg. Major Richardson, who was captured at Gettysburg, was not ex- changed. He was paroled just before the close of the war, but not having been exchanged, was not with the regiment in its closing struggles.
9
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MALVERN HILL.
The following is the official report of Lieutenant-Colonel James Gilliam, who commanded the 9th Regiment at the battle of Malvern Ilill. It will be remembered that only seven compa- nies of the regiment were present in that affair. Companies A, D and HI had been detached and placed in batteries in the forti- fications around Richmond :
FRAZIER'S FARM, NEAR RICHMOND, VA., July 2d, 1862.
SIR-I beg leave to submit the following report of the action of the 9th Virginia Regiment during the battle of July 1st :
On the morning of July 1st we left the Charles City road in pursuit of the enemy and arrived about 10 a. m. at this farm. We were first left to guard the road to prevent a flank movement of the enemy, and for two hours were exposed to a most appall- ing and incessant artillery fire, and, notwithstanding the terror of its rage, my officers and men behaved with great coolness and gallantry.
About 5 o'clock we were ordered to change our position and take post in rear of and to support an artillery battery, and, in about thirty minutes afterwards, were ordered to charge the ene- my's battery, supporting Cobb's Brigade, and it is but just to say that no regiment ever charged with more impetuosity. On they went with utmost speed amid the deadly fire of musketry and artillery. Having a force in our front interfering with our fire we, by an oblique to the right, came within good musket range of the opposing lines of the enemy and poured in upon them volley after volley until night closed the scene.
Where all behaved so well, the mention of individual acts might seem to be invidious, but justice demands that I should call your attention to the acts of Captain J. T. Kilby, Company I, who, amid the fire of the enemy, seized a flag of some regi- ment that had been broken and tried to rally its scattered rem nants and bring them against the foe, and while thus acting the- flag staff was shot from his hand. Of Captain James J. Phillips, who, after our color bearer was shot down and its guard scattered, preserved the colors of his regiment and saved it from the dishonor of leaving its colors on the field and restored them, still to wave in their proper place. Of Lieutenant James F. Crocker, Adju- tant of the 9th Regiment, who received several severe if not mortal wounds in bravely leading the regiment in front of its colors, encouraging the men by his bold and gallant bravery. And I might, indeed, mention every officer in the field as having done their duty nobly, not only in this fight, but in all the hard duty that we have had to undergo in the last thirty days.
In closing my report, it is with feelings of the deepest regret that we have to number among our fallen brave the names of
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Captain Dennis Vermillion, Company K, and Second Lieutenant C. M. Dozier of Company I. These brave and gallant officers fell bravely fighting for their homes and firesides, martyrs to vandal tyranny; but a grateful country will cherish their sacrifice and preserve their memory.
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