USA > Vermont > A history of the Tenth Regiment, Vermont Volunteers, with biographical sketches of the officers who fell in battle. And a complete roster of all the officers and men connected with it--showing all changes by promotion, death or resignation, during the military existence of the regiment > Part 3
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We had heard of the battle of Beverly Ford, on the Rappahannock, by General Pleasanton, on the fourth instant. We soon heard of Milroy's tardy and disastrous retreat from Winchester, on the fifteenth, and knew, with all the world, that the whole rebel army was far to the north of us. Now the advance of the Army of the Potomac from Falmouth, in pursuit, made its appearance at Edwards Ferry. Some of us went over there, and heard from the lips of the soldiers the stories of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Every man of the regiment, I doubt not, though measurably secure in the defences of Washington, and not called upon to en- dure the trials incident to operations in the field, longed to join the glorious army and go with his comrades to meet the invading foe." Willingly would they leave this place, dismiss this quiet, and march shoulder to shoulder with the men of that army who had done so much to deserve the gratitude of the nation. Those who had been our neigh- bors at home, now in other regiments from the State, had distinguished themselves in a score of battles, while we had been almost idle on the north bank of the Potomac, and had never yet smelt powder. There was no disgrace in all this, for we were soldiers of the Union and did what the Govern- ment required of us, but had the question, whether we
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would go with this army to its hardships and, we hoped, victories, been left for us to decide, we should have said go. But the question was not left for us to decide, nor were we long kept in suspense.
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CHAPTER III.
W E received orders from General Hooker, on the twenty-second of June, directing us to report at once at Harper's Ferry. We immediately prepared to march, and on the evening of the twenty-fourth moved away from Camp Heintzelman and this part of Maryland, forever.
The place had become endeared to us by many pleasant memories and some very agreeable associations. Many of the citizens came out to bid us farewell, and some, no doubt, to bid us fare-ill -glad to see the form of a Union soldier only in retreat, or in death. As we passed the house of one, Mr. Pleasant, a Quaker family, and of Mr. Trundel, a Roman Catholic family, old and young bid us tearful adieux. The doors and hearts of these families had ever been open to us. The Tenth Vermont, and members of other Union regiments, too, no doubt, were ever made wel- come, and while partaking of their hospitality and sharing their friendship, we forgot the privations of the camp. At the house of the former, the wife of one of our non-commis- sioned officers was a long time sick, and she died there. During the winter of our stay in that vicinity, Mr. Trundel died. In his sickness our surgeons often attended him, and were unremitting in their efforts to mitigate his sufferings, and there was nothing which the family would not do for us. To leave them was like parting with friends. They told us we should never return, for no regiment going up to Harper's Ferry, and so off to join the Army of the Poto- mac, had ever come back again, to remain. They told the
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truth. Whatever may be the changes we shall all meet in life, and whithersoever led by a mysterious and wise Providence, though many of their friends were naturally, once, our ene- mies, we shall all remember with gratitude the family of Jesse Trundel.
We reached Harper's Ferry on the morning of the twenty-sixth, and went into camp on Maryland Heights. We were halted for the first day upon a narrow plateau half way up the mountain, but were afterwards sent up near the summit, where the ground was so steep that we had to cling to the bushes to keep from rolling down. Here we lay four days, and it rained all the time.
Maryland Heights were very strongly fortified. There were two or three forts and several batteries of large guns ; one sat upon the summit, where, like a dog upon his mas- ter's doorstep, it guarded the country for miles around. The garrison consisted of the Sixth New York Heavy Artillery, One Hundred and Fifty-first New York, Tenth Vermont, Sixth Michigan, a part of the Fourteenth New Jersey, and detachments of regiments and fragments of batteries from the unfortunate command of General Milroy- in all per- haps ten thousand troops. Brigadier-General Tyler was in command, but was very soon superseded by Major-General French. While here, General Hooker came to Harper's Ferry, - just then, as he said, fighting the War Department eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and the rebels the other six. He wanted this force to join his army ; Halleck refused ; and just below, at Sandy Hook, General Hooker wrote to Halleck, asking to be relieved from the command of the Army of the Potomac.
The place was evacuated on the thirtieth of June. The forts were dismantled, and the ordnance stores sent to Washington. A magazine to one of the forts accidentally blew up, with a terrific explosion, scattering fragments of shell and the débris of the works far around. A large
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quantity of ammunition was destroyed, a score of men from the Sixth Maryland were killed ; some of them were skinned alive ; others were thrown with fearful velocity over the brow of the mountain, and hurled down the cliff's, masses of broken bones and bruised flesh. Pieces of flying timbers, iron and stone, came down among us, as we stood in col- umn, near enough to be shaken by the shock, and enveloped in the settling smoke and cinders. An hour later we were off to Frederick, and Maryland Heights were not occupied again during the war, except once by General Sigel a few hours for safety.
At Frederick we were brigaded with the Sixth New York Heavy Artillery, One Hundred and Fifty-first New York, and Fourteenth New Jersey, under command of General Morris, and attached to a division commanded by General French.
Next day (July 2d) we were detached temporarily and sent with the Tenth Massachusetts Battery and a battalion of the Fourteenth Massachusetts Infantry, all commanded by Colonel Jewett, to Monocacy Junction, to guard the rail- road bridge, while the rest of the brigade went to Boons- boro' Gap, and the army fought the Battle of Gettysburg.
On the fourth, we again joined the brigade at Cramp- ton's Gap, near South Mountain, whither they had come. We lay here three or four days, and a part of the regiment was detailed to guard a number of rebel prisoners and take them to Baltimore. These were a thousand or more, sick and wounded, with ambulances and baggage wagons, be- ing an escort sent from Gettysburg toward Richmond, and captured by Kilpatrick in Pennsylvania. Dirty looking men they were, the first live rebels we had seen. Some of them were badly wounded and in a dying condition. It was with a sort of grim pleasure that our men marched them off, such as could move, to the depot, where they put them aboard the cars with the sick and wounded, and took
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them to Baltimore. Whether they became interesting trav- eling companions or not, never transpired. Certain it was that the rebels presented our men, and even some of the officers, with lively tokens of their esteem, which they car- ried about their persons several days after their return to the army. One Irishman observed that these presents were " beautiful craturs."
On the eighth, Major-General French was assigned to the command of the Third Army Corps, late General Sickles's, and the troops taken from Harper's Ferry were attached to that corps as its Third Division, commanded by Brigadier-General Elliott. Our brigade was the first of this division, and Brigadier-General Morris its commander.
Prior to this, our regiment and the regiments with us had acted nearly as an independent command, and had thought ourselves capable of creating quite a ripple on the great tide of events which as yet we had not seen. Colonel Jewett commanded the brigade, and his staff was mostly made up of the Tenth Vermont officers. Now we were swallowed up in a vast army, and were only as a drop in the mighty wave that was to surge and roll on, until it swept Rebellion from the American Continent, and rocked the Union till it rested in peace. Let it rest forever.
To render our own movements more intelligible, and this record less pretentious, our history, from this point, must partake more of a general character, and the movements of those parts of the army with which our regiment was asso- ciated and by which affected, as well as the causes thereof, must be partially described.
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought on the first, second and third of July, 1863, while we lay at the Monocacy bridge. We therefore took no part in that terrible conflict, though we were actually guarding the left flank, or at least, important points on the left flank and in the rear of the army that did fight and win the battle. On the ninth we
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joined the Army of the Potomac, and marched with it as a part of one of its most efficient corps, seven miles towards the enemy ; next day, moved three miles further, or rather ten miles to get three, and encamped in line of battle near Boonsboro', a little to the north. Next morning, Sunday, July 12th, the troops were ordered to prepare for an imme- diate attack upon the enemy ; the order stated that the General commanding the army intended an attack. Some historians of the war declare that no general attack was ordered by General Meade after he left Gettysburg, until after Lee was over the river. This is not a history of the war, and will not presume to settle the question ; but certain it is that Colonel Jewett received an order such as has been above referred to, and the whole division advanced and maneuvered for more than two hours, and was then drawn back to a wheat field near the place we had taken up the night before.
We shuddered at the thought of commencing a battle on Sunday. Men said that no battle had proved successful to the attacking party when commenced on that day, in the whole experience of this army. Some who ought to know have affirmed that this is universally true, and that the whole history of military records is not sufficient to disprove this observation. At any rate, rough-speaking, irreligious men, who were not afraid to fight at any time, did not want a battle begun in earnest at a time the civilized nation deemed holy. We did not fight. The whole division lay in this field through the remainder of this day and the next. On the fourteenth we were put in line of battle again, three hundred yards in front of the camp, on the margin of a piece of woods, where we stood several hours, and then advanced hurriedly, past the enemy's deserted position, to within four miles of Williamsport. We stayed here only one night, and without yet seeing a rebel. They had all gone over the river. Of the splendid army that left Vir-
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ginia to invade Maryland and Pennsylvania with such high hopes and promises of victory and its spoils, forty-six thous- and were dead, wounded, or prisoners, and all except eight thousand of this number, wounded, which Lee had taken away, were thrust out of the contest beyond hope of return. The next day we had a cruel march from Williamsport to Sharpsburg. The distance may not be over fifteen miles, but we accomplished it in three or four hours. It was a terribly hot day-a kind of oppressive, sickly heat-to be- gin with, over muddy and slippery roads, and finally the sun came out, scorching, blinding hot. A large number of the men fell out by the way, overcome and exhausted ; many suffered from sunstroke, and some died in consequence. It is reported that twenty men thus died from the Third Corps. Our brigade came to a halt just beyond Sharps- burg, about two o'clock P. M., with scarcely a good-sized battalion. Some of the companies could not make a stack of muskets ; the rest were scattered by the way, under the shadow of fences, by the banks of some cool stream ; many suffering with blistered and galled feet, and others dying, half way back to Williamsport. The Sixth New York, taken from the fortifications at Harper's Ferry two weeks before, came into camp with only the color guard.
But we cannot follow this army and note its steps from day to day. We crossed the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers on the night of the seventeenth, passed over into the Loudon Valley, and marched by Snickersville, Lovetsville, Upperville, Union and Salem, to Warrenton. At Piedmont Station our regiment was detailed to guard an ammunition train, while the rest of the corps, all of which had been hastened on from Ashby's Gap, were sent up into Manas- sas Gap, where a rebel force had taken up a strong position, and, as was supposed, threatened to come down upon us. The First Division, General Birney's, pushed through the Gap and attacked ; but one brigade, General Spinola's, did
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all the fighting, while the rest did some maneuvering and looked on. We were a mile away, in plain view of the fight, guarding the train. On this detour our men and horses suffered terribly for want of food and forage. Some of the men were out of rations, and they offered the lucky comrade who had some a dollar a piece for hard tack. There never was a more destitute and barren place. We were near the village of Markham, on the Manassas Gap Railroad, but it was a perfect Horeb, with no prophet near to command the supplies we needed. Some of the men did confiscate a hive of bees-of bees indeed, for there was not honey enough to decently smear certain officers' faces, as they stumbled over them and dropped it on to their heads, while taking it to their quarters. It was a long time before Captain Platt, of Company F, was quite forgiven for making such a rumpus in camp that night, just because some care- less men set a hive of bees on his stomach. The field and staff mess at one moment seemed to be more favored than the children of Israel in the desert, when such an abundance of quails were driven into their camp. We obtained what appeared to be a fine fowl and some eggs, but the pur- chase turned out to be an old setting hen and her nest. After boiling her from the going down of the sun to the ris- ing thereof, she was too tough for breakfast.
It was now the twenty-third of July ; on the twenty-sixth we reached Warrenton, a beautiful old town, embowered amidst great arching elms; it must have been a thriving place before the war, but it is now somewhat dilapidated. We marched through the place with flags flying, and bands playing the "Star Spangled Banner " and " Yankee Doodle." The inhabitants that still remained, mostly a few old men, and women of all ages, looked sad and sorrowful, and were very poorly clad. Some young ladies, dressed in rusty black, no doubt for some brother or lover, looked the very picture of despair. Others with some cheap attempt at
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style in their dress, had an appearance of contempt and defiant scorn of Yankees that was really refreshing. The colored people danced to our music and sang for joy, shouting, "Massa Linkum's sojers hab cum agin. Old massa say all killed up to Gettumsburg. Golly ! guess 'nough left yet."
Two miles beyond the town we halted five days, pitched our tents in a pine wood, and rested joyfully in the shade. We had been marching in the hot sun, and the rains that seemed hot, every day since the battle of Gettysburg, pushing up into the mountain gaps expecting to fight the retreating rebels if they could possibly be overtaken. No man should say even at this day, that they were not pursued with the uttermost vigor and determination. True, along the mountain range, between the armies moving in parallel lines in the same direction, were many gaps, through which armies had passed; but because they were moving in the same direction, and making about the same time, rendered an attack from either side extremely difficult. As, for in- stance, at Manassas Gap, before referred to : a force of the enemy appeared there, and the third corps was sent to drive them out, while the whole army was halted two days. It turned out afterwards that a brigade of Ewell's men were holding the Gap so that we might not venture up and look through to see the rear guard of the rebel army hurrying past, which they were doing at this time. This gave Lee an opportunity to go round our right flank, which he did, and showed his dirty rebel rags in our front when we came to the Rappahannock. So much may be said of the com- plaint made against General Meade because he did not bring Lee to an engagement before he got behind a river. A river was not so bad as a range of mountains with diffi- cult passes. The time to have engaged Lee, after Gettys- burg, was at Williamsport. Our march now became less hurried ; hence the five days' halt just below Warrenton.
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Certainly we needed rest, and no doubt often thought of our quiet camps away on the Potomac.
But the summer campaign was at an end, and we had only stopped here while those whose business it was could look out a suitable defensive position to hold while the army gathered up its strength for another struggle in the fall.
On the first of August we moved away, and the Tenth took position at Rout's Hill, about two miles from the famous Sulphur Springs, and about the same distance from Bealton Station, on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. The army stretched from Sulphur Springs to Kelly's Ford, on the Rappahannock. Our duties were light. Detach- ments only were sent out to guard Fox's Ford, abreast of our part of the line. Here our men said that they fought one of the most sanguinary battles of the war - with mos- quitos ; but not one of these pestiferous creatures was heard in camp.
For five weeks we lay in this position. apparently idle, but the forces that create and strengthen armies were not idle. The sick and exhausted by long marches, and those slightly wounded in battle were all recovering. The convalescents in and around the hospitals at Washington and throughout the Free States, were crowded out by the wounded borne in from the field of Gettysburg, and sent to fill the ranks that that terrible conflict had decimated. Recruiting was act- ively going on in all the Northern States.
Colonel Jewett, Captains Hunt and Sheldon, Adjutant Lyman, and several enlisted men, left the regiment on the twenty-eighth of July, and were away more than two months, gathering those recruits in Vermont, and forward- ing them to the various regiments in the field. Large num- bers of officers belonging to other States were also away on this duty, many on sick leave, and some on leave of absence. Indeed, so many were away that Lieutenant-Colonels and Majors commanded brigades. Lieutenant-Colonel Henry,
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of the Tenth, commanded our brigade at this place for sev- eral days. The men were recovering from the effects of exhausting marches, exposure and short rations, gaining strength and increasing somewhat in numbers.
Here the regiment was paid off. The sutler came and immediately returned, for his stock was exhausted in an hour. The men drew clothing, overcoats and blankets, many of which had been thrown away or lost in the toil- some marches of July ; a supply of shoes was issued, and .such ordnance stores as were needed.
The sixth of August was special Thanksgiving Day, ' appointed by the President on account of the recent victories .at Gettysburg, Vicksburg and Port Hudson.
On the seventh of September, the Third Corps was reviewed by General Meade. All reviews are mere scenic displays. This was a splendid corps, and as such the exhi- bition was good. Our division made a striking appearance in contrast with some of the older ones. It was large, and most of the men had seen little service except marching and reviews. In their new blue uniforms and shining muskets, with full ranks and splendid drill, it was not strange that General French should have felt proud of us, or that some of the older soldiers, who had been put to harder work, should have called us " French's pets." None of the regi- ments of our brigade had yet fought a battle, although all of them had been a year in the field ; they had often been put in line of battle, with skirmishers thrown out-had as good as looked death in the face a score of times-but the order, stern as fate, advance, coupling with it death or victory, had never yet in those expectant moments been given. Hence our ranks were full. The Tenth had nearly nine hundred men, the One Hundred and Fifty-first New York as many more, the Fourteenth New Jersey eight hundred, and the Sixth New York must have had eleven hundred. A brigade in the field at that period of the war was considered large if
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it numbered two thousand men. Ours had near four thous- and. Other corps were also reviewed about this time. It all meant another onward movement, and it soon com- menced.
Our cavalry crossed the Rappahannock on the thir- teenth, and were immediately engaged by J. E. B. Stuart, whom they drove back and pushed over the Rapidan. On the fifteenth the rest of the army moved, and next night, no doubt, all slept between the two rivers, while the enemy lay just across the Rapidan. Our brigade, after marching three or four miles in the wrong direction, and wandering about half of the night, crossed at Freeman's Ford. Next day, after marching a short distance in column, we formed in line of battle, and so advanced three miles, when we halted, still preserving this formation, on the Springville and Culpepper pike, two miles southwest of Culpepper. We supposed that we were to stay here only till our position could be reconnoitered in front, and then move on or pre- pare for defence, as the case might be. It finally turned out to have been the purpose of General Meade to move over the Rapidan at once, and there offer battle, or follow the enemy should he decline. But while preparing to do so, the War Department ordered him to detach the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps, in order that they might be sent to Chattanooga, to aid General Rosecrans, who had just fought with partial ill success the battle of Chickamauga. This no doubt suspended the proposed advance, and we stayed here twenty-three days, were paid for the months of July and August, and put ourselves into comfortable shape, building shanties of boards, and fire-places of stones and sods, thinking possibly that we might spend the winter here. It was with remarkable facility that the men would build themselves a comfortable abode. There was a large barn near by, almost in the midst of our camp, and sev- eral smaller ones not far away, and they were all speedily
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torn down and constructed into walls, floors, and bunks for the soldier's cabins. Miraculously sudden would these barns, and even houses, disappear, when the men thought they had a right to them. Rail fences met with the same fate ; each man would take a rail, and the fence was gone. Many a time have we seen fifty rods vanish as quickly as one man could pick up a rail. Let an army corps halt in a forty-acre lot, enclosed with a wooden fence, and fifteen minutes later the rails would be in ashes and in embers, and twenty thousand men drinking coffee that had been cooked by the fire they had made.
On the tenth of October the troops were suddenly called to arms by the beating of the long roll, ordered out of their quarters and advanced in line of battle a mile in front of the camp. They were soon summoned back, however, and ordered to "pack up." We then moved about three miles to the south and left, marching very slowly and cau- tiously, and at dark bivouacked in the edge of a piece of woods. At nine o'clock same evening we were ordered out again, with instructions to move behind the line we had occupied for three weeks, but the order was soon suspended till four o'clock next morning. It turned out to be a retreat of the whole army, and we retraced our steps to Freeman's Ford, its rear guard. Parts of the division skirmished with the enemy while going doggedly back, and once or twice the whole corps was formed into line of battle, so close did the enemy follow upon our heels. Crossing the river, we passed near Warrenton, through Greenwich, down past Bristow Station, across the plains of Manassas up to the heights of Centreville. This retreat evidently was a race between the two armies for the position we gained first. It was taken for the most part deliberately. Only for one day did there seem to be a forced march; then we made thirty miles, moving at four o'clock in the morning and halting at twelve o'clock, midnight. At noon that day we
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found a detachment of the enemy near Warrenton, whom we drove out of the way after he had discharged several volleys into the head of our column. General French was riding along at the head of his troops, accompanied by his staff and some of his division commanders, when a party of rebel cavalry dashed up over a hill and fired into him, killing several of his orderlies and wounding others. Sleeper's Battery, Tenth Massachusetts, close at hand, and the Tenth Vermont, were ordered up at once, but we were not needed, for a few rounds from the battery soon dispersed them. The old General did not budge an inch, but sat on his horse when we passed him, brushing away the bullets with his hand as he would have brushed away flies, saying to us, " Shoot 'em, damn 'em, shoot 'em !"
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