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 7
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morning of the twenty-second, the line advanced some half a mile or so, and then began to intrench. The troops alternated between intrenching and skirmishing, nearly all day. The Eighty-seventh Pennsylvania came near being captured while on the skirmish line. It was flanked and partially enveloped, on account of the retiring of the line next to this. As it was, they lost about a dozen men, and it was only the promptness, and often-tried bravery of their heroic commander, Colonel Shawl, that saved the regiment from capture. At five o'clock P. M., the whole line was withdrawn to the position taken the previous night, owing to a reverse sustained by the Second Corps. But just before dark the Third Division advanced again, with the corps retaining the same formation as above described. The attack was to be made, however, by the First and Third Divisions, the Second following, to protect the left flank of the Third. The line faced, at first, nearly west, and advanced about one mile through heavy pine woods, grad- ually swinging to the right, so that when it halted it faced north-northwest, the left extending toward the Weldon Rail- road. When the Third Division halted, it was found that the First Division had not advanced as far, nor in the direc- tion intended, and consequently their skirmish line was partly in our rear. The Second Division moved by the flank, and finally formed on the left of the Third, bending its own left back towards the rear.
June twenty-third, the picket line was pushed out as far as the Weldon Railroad, and began to destroy the track. The work was little more than fairly begun, when the enemy attacked in heavy force the skirmish line and sharp- shooters or detachments sent out from the Vermont Brigade of the Second Division, and the Eighty-seventh Pennsylva- nia, of the Third, to protect the pioneers. But it appears that these detachments were not posted so as to afford sup- port to each other, or protection to themselves, in case they
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were attacked by a superior force. They were attacked by just this superior force, on the right and the left, over- whelmed in front and nearly enveloped, so that the alter- native of death or surrender was presented on so short a notice, that brave men would be likely to accept the latter. Many were killed, but more yielded themselves prisoners of war. The Eighty-seventh Pennsylvania lost, in killed and wounded, twenty-six men, and in prisoners, four officers and fifty-three men. The losses of the Vermont Brigade were heavier, as more were engaged.
The whole line now withdrew to the position taken up on the twenty-first, where we remained behind strong works until the twenty-ninth.
On the twenty-ninth, the Sixth Corps marched to Rheims Station, on the Weldon Railroad, moving along in the rear of the line of ranks until we came to the Jerusalem plank road, which we followed about a mile ; then turning off to the right, passing the cavalry pickets, we reached the station about eight o'clock the next morning, having halted for an hour or two during the night. The main body of the troops were deployed along the line of the road, in some places constructing works for the more suitable defence in case of an attack, while detachments tore up the track, burned the depot, and destroyed a large lot of railroad iron which had been left at the station. Same day we returned by the same route, reaching the Jerusalem road at ten o'clock P. M., having been gone thirty-six hours, and in- flicted a large amount of damage upon the enemy, and intercepted, temporarily, one main line of his communica- tion, without the loss of a man.
On the second of July, the corps returned to the left of the line and the same position we had occupied previous to the Weldon Railroad expedition.
On the sixth of July, the third division was detached from the Sixth Corps and the Army of the Potomac, and
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ordered to Harper's Ferry, to meet a rebel advance into Maryland under General Early. We were glad of any change, since no service could be more exhausting than the long campaigns we had already endured, and the almost constant fighting in which it had been our lot to share. For more than two months we had been engaged with this great army, in some of the most vigorous and persistent field operations known to modern warfare. For sixty-two days. and nights there had not been ten consecutive hours that we had been beyond the range of an enemy's rifle, and no time that we were not pressing nearer and nearer to his deadly line of defence ; and there was not an hour in all these sixty days that we did not hear either the rattle of musketry, or the roar of cannon, and usually while we were within their fatal range. In the steady advance from the Rapidan to Petersburg, there had been scarcely a day that some one did not fall from our ranks, and oftentimes scores yielded themselves willing sacrifices to the country's needs. Among the fallen were some of the bravest and best. Our brigade alone, had lost in killed, wounded and prisoners, over eight hundred men and officers, and less than forty were among the captured. We had now been in the vicinity of Petersburg seventeen days, moving from point to point, fighting, throwing up intrenchments, and marching as the emergency dictated -never idle. We had been on the sand-knolls, and the turfless pine plain of this region, long enough. Water fit to drink could not be ob- tained without difficulty ; the weather was oppressively hot and dry ; the wind blew like a monsoon, drifting sand into our eyes, sifting it through our clothes, and rubbing it into the pores of the skin. Hence we were eager for a change -nothing could be less acceptable than our present posi- tion-and we hailed the order to go back into Maryland, joyfully.
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CHAPTER V.
T HE division started at dawn on the sixth, marching fifteen miles, and reached City Point at ten o'clock, A. M., so completely covered with dust that we were mis- taken for a division of colored troops. At five P. M., all had embarked on transports, and were steaming down the James River. Nothing could be more grateful to tired men than this sort of transit, after our weary marches of the past two months, through swamps and rivers, pathless woods, and over dry, sandy roads, in the hottest part of the year, constantly fighting and intrenching, all the way from the Rapidan to the Appomattox. It was delightful rest, prayer- fully welcomed, to be borne and gently rocked upon the broad, strong bosom of the river, away from the clouds of dust and the thousand annoyances of the camp, where the cool, untainted breeze came up from the water, and fell upon us with no murmur of the battle. We passed For- tress Monroe at midnight, and arrived off Baltimore on the evening of the' seventh. At eight o'clock next morning, the First Brigade was at Monocacy Junction, and soon at Frederick City, where we reported to General Lew Wallace, who was in command of a small force of hundred days' men at this point.
In order to comprehend the situation, some reference to previous operations by the enemy will be necessary. The rebels had made their appearance at Martinsburg, about twenty thousand strong, on the third of July. Gen- eral Siegel, commanding temporarily in West Virginia, while General Hunter was getting his shattered forces out
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of the Kanawha Valley, immediately retreated to Harper's Ferry, abandoning to the enemy stores that possibly might have been saved, as they were greatly needed by Hunter's army. While General Siegel was perched upon Maryland Heights, Early moved by and around him, entirely out of harm's way, to Williamsport, and Hagerstown. A large part of Williamsport he burned ; he levied a contribution of twenty thousand dollars on the people of Hagerstown ; then he swept over the northern counties of Maryland, and up into the southern borders of Pennsylvania, making large drafts of cattle, horses, grain, and money. In four days he had ridden entirely around General Siegel, and on the seventh, a cavalry force of twelve hundred strong, under command of the rebel General Bradley Johnson, appeared between Middleton and Frederick. Colonel Clendenin went out to meet him, with four hundred, and of course was driven back, the rebels pursuing ; but here a small regiment of infantry, under command of Lieutenant- Colonel Griffin, united with Clendenin's cavalry, and in turn drove them back. Probably Johnson was willing to go away, as yet it seemed to be only his business to keep just near enough to the Union forces to learn of their movements and strength. On the eighth, a part of the force which Early had brought over the river, probably eighteen thousand, or at least fifteen thousand, encamped around Middleton. General Wallace was at Frederick, with twenty-six hundred infantry, mostly one hundred days' men, who had never seen a battle, and four hundred cav- alry. This force, with the First Brigade of Ricketts's (Third) Division of the Sixth Corps, and one regiment of the Second Brigade, were all that he had to confront this comparatively large army. The command under General Ricketts, then present, and all that took part in the battle on the morrow, embraced six veteran regiments, amounting, all told, to not more than eighteen hundred men. Hence
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there were less than five thousand to battle with more than three times their number.
Frederick is a beautiful interior town of Maryland, situated in the heart of Frederick County, forty miles west of Baltimore, and about the same distance north of Washington. The pikes running from these cities to Frederick, cross each other at right angles, in the centre of the town, and lead away, one to Sharpsburg on the north, and the other to Harper's Ferry on the west. On the east side of the town flows the Monocacy River, pushing its course exactly south, until it reaches a point three miles below, then it bends sharply to the right, and flows west, into the Potomac. To occupy and hold these pikes, were the gigantic tasks that Wallace set himself to perform. The first was easily done, but the last was of much vaster magnitude, and there were but few circumstances that would have justified its undertaking. Perhaps the near proximity of the rebels to Baltimore and Washington, and their defenceless condition, warranted the attempt to throw a small force across the intended track of a much superior force, and delay its advance as long as possible. Early, now satisfied with plunder, was probably intent upon capturing Washington, and if he could not do that, he was, doubtless, ready to compromise the matter, and allow his army to call upon their friends in Baltimore. It was not our wish to gratify his desire for conquest, nor were we quite willing to entertain the proposed compromise, at least not without a protest. Therefore Wallace did not retreat, and accept a running fight and exposure to destruction on the Washington pike, nor did he throw his whole strength upon the Baltimore pike, and so leave the enemy free to go to Washington. He properly made a stand on the Monoc- .acy, the only place to do so, between the enemy and his objective points. He manœuvred his troops around Fred- erick all the afternoon of the eighth, marching them off
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sometimes out of sight, and then returning with a part or the whole of them, in a direction that would give them the appearance of arriving as reinforcements. At night he silently withdrew his little force, placing it beyond the river -Ricketts's Division at Monocacy Junction and the hundred days' men at the stone bridge on the Baltimore pike, under command of General Tyler.
At eight o'clock the next morning, the enemy was on all the roads leading out of Frederick. Citizens came rushing furiously down to the Junction with such household effects as they could snatch away in their haste and carry off. Doctor Barr, Surgeon-in-Chief of the division, Surgeon Rutherford, and the Chaplain of the Tenth Vermont, hav- ing engaged breakfast the night before, at the hotel in Frederick, were now going leisurely up to fulfil their part of the contract, and had approached within one hundred and fifty yards of a squad of rebel cavalry, thinking they were our own ; we were soon undeceived, however, as the rebels gave us a volley from their carbines, at an uncomfortably short range. They were the first shots fired that morning. It was not the thing we had bargained for, and we ran. At this time some cavalry, going up the pike, were driven back, and our skirmish line, which was on the north bank of the river, posted along the railroad, in command of Lieutenant- Colonel Chandler, became immediately engaged. The bat- tle of Monocacy had commenced.
The main line of the division was formed, facing the river on the south bank, extending from the railroad across a low flat, running around out to a little ridge near the wooden bridge on the Washington pike. Our skirmishers held their line for an hour - in fact, until they were flanked on the left, and charged in front by a full line of battle. They then fell back to the south bank of the river, burning the bridge after them. This stopped the enemy's advance in front, though they kept at work with their batteries, shelling
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us unmercifully. In the meantime a heavy force crossed the river, at a ford two miles below the wooden bridge, and advanced by the Buckeystown road, on to our flank and rear, driving in the small squad of cavalry posted some distance to our left. The First Brigade was immediately disposed to meet this attack, forming a line at right angles with the first, and extending along the pike from the river towards the Buckeystown road, facing west, with the Tenth Vermont on the extreme left. At three o'clock P. M., the first line of the rebels attacked sharply our left and centre, trying to bend it back so as to gain the pike in our rear, but they were speedily repulsed. The second line immediately came on and fared no better, although the struggle was more protracted and bloody. The enemy now withdrew a pace, and again undertook to go around our left ; again our line was stretched out, this time so thin it seemed as if it must break of its own tension, struggling constantly, and endeavoring to hold the ground, until Col- onel Stanton, who had unaccountably halted at Monrovia, eight miles away, should arrive with the balance of the Second Brigade. But that officer did not come up, and we held on, six regiments against as many brigades, for eight long hours, with not a man in reserve. At five o'clock, the enemy advanced again in still heavier force, upon our whole front, and at the same time brought our line under an enfi- lading fire, by a new disposition of his batteries on the farther bank of the river. General Wallace now ordered a retreat by a cross road running north to the Baltimore pike. But General Ricketts was unwilling, and, it is said, refused to retreat until he received a written order to that effect. This line of retreat compelled us to take a direction parallel to our line of battle. The right succeeded in reach- ing it, and most of the troops had made good their escape, but the enemy pressing up, and crossing the river at and above the railroad bridge, came near cutting off the left,
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and did entirely cut off the Tenth Vermont, so that we were obliged to cross a ridge, under a racking fire from musket and cannon, through a piece of woods, which the same deadly missiles splintered around us, over a meadow, where the angry messengers still pursued us, and down to the rail- road, along which we finally escaped. That night we marched to New Market, where we rejoined the division. Next morning the whole command moved on to Ellicott's Mills, arriving there at two o'clock P. M. The Tenth Vermont was immediately sent to the Relay House, reach- ing our destination the same evening, with only sixty-nine men and a dozen officers fit for duty. But it is due to say that this reduction was caused very largely by the severity of the march from the Monocacy, and after a day's absence many reported missing rejoined the command.
Now as to the results of this battle: The inequality of numbers has been fairly stated-five thousand against fifteen thousand ; and the reader must judge how much the two thousand raw, undisciplined one hundred days' men, reduced the efficiency of the smaller force. We had one battery of six six-pound iron guns, Captain Alexander's, of Baltimore, and a small mountain howitzer, about as good as a pop- gun, which were miserably posted, and badly worked. The rebels had eighteen pieces of heavy Napoleons, in admirable position and skillfully handled. The only wonder is, that they did not crush us at once by weight of numbers and heavy metal, or swoop down and hawk us up instantly.
The losses in our division, were as follows : Officers - killed, thirteen ; wounded, twenty-five ; prisoners, one ; miss- ing three. Men-killed, ninety-three ; wounded, four hundred and eighty-one; prisoners, one hundred and eighty-three ; missing, three hundred and twenty-four, making a total loss of one thousand and twenty-five. These figures are taken from records made on the night following the battle, and without doubt a very large percentage of the missing returned
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to their respective commands; it is certainly known that many did who were at first reported "missing."
The rebel losses are not exactly known, although one fact may serve us, in something of an estimate. They left four hundred severely wounded in the hospital at Frederick, found there a few days after, when we reoccupied the place ; their slightly wounded could not have been less than that number, and their killed must have greatly exceeded ours, for the reason that their lines were twice or thrice as heavy, affording a surer target for our rifles.
The veterans of the Third Division have justly believed that another result followed this bloody engagement-a result commensurate with the sacrifices they made ; and it will certainly be pardonable, if one who had the honor to be identified with them, though in a capacity that partook of a nature eminently peaceful, should record their convictions and defend their claims. They believed that Washington was saved-perhaps from the torch and destruction-cer- tainly from assault, with the extreme probabilities of capture and temporary occupation, by their heroic struggles at the Monocacy, and the Tenth Vermont claims an equal share of the honor that shall be accredited to this Division. It has been said that Early, after the battle, had he pushed on by forced marches, might have captured Washington before any force sufficient to successfully resist him could have been interposed. The credit of having saved the Capital when it was threatened has been accorded to the Sixth Corps, mean- ing the two divisions that threw themselves into its defences on the twelfth. To be sure, these divisions were just in the "nick of time" to avert whatever catastrophe awaited it. Early having reached the city, or approached within a few miles of the White House, where the sharp crack of his rifles could be heard in the council-rooms of the President and at the War Department, had they not " hurried" from the landing to the point threatened, they would have been
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too late to have rendered the service most needed, as it was. Now, if it is readily conceded that the timely arrival and ever prompt and vigorous action of these divisions prevented the rebel assault, and drove him away, sorely punished for his audacity, what ought to be said of the other divisions of this corps, that encountered the invader, arrested him within three hours march of the city, and detained him thirty-six hours at an awful sacrifice of life, while he was pressing eagerly on to seize it, then unguarded, or at best, wretchedly defended? Bear in mind that the force defending, or that assumed to defend, the Capital up to this time, was extemporized for a mere show of resistance. The only force, therefore, that Early needed for one moment to fear, and that was only possible to have been interposed, was thrown in after these thirty-six hours detention. It is a sacrilegious hand that would undertake to pluck a feather from the plumes of these divisions, whose deeds are immor- tal, but Washington was saved, not on the twelfth of July, before the parapets of Fort Stevens, but on the ninth, when Ricketts's Division, encouraged and steadied by their brave commander, stretching out their lines "as thin as a blue ribbon," defied the solid battalions of the enemy, from eight o'clock in the morning until five in the evening, and bruised them so that they could not stir until the next day at sundown.
Nor was this a needless sacrifice, assuming that Wash- ington was in danger. General Wright, with the first and second divisions of his corps, reached the city on the morning of the twelfth. Early had arrived at Rockville the afternoon before, although a squad of his cavalry had approached even nearer, some time during the tenth. Like a prudent general, he did not choose to attack our works until they had been reconnoitered. The lateness of the hour, and the weariness of his troops at the time of his arrival, doubtless determined him to defer this until the
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morrow. The morning came, and he had begun slowly to feel his way up to Fort Stevens, when a heavy skirmish line, and finally a line of battle from the First Division, deployed in his front and forbade further progress. Unless, therefore, it can be shown that General Wright could have arrived some time before he did, it was necessary that Early be detained somewhere beyond striking distance of the Capital, or he would have had ample time to have tested the spirit and pluck of the clerks and government employés who alone manned the defences of Washington.
The officers and men of the Tenth Vermont have ever entertained sentiments of just pride for the part they took in this battle, which have been shared, no doubt, as they were equally entitled to praise, by other regiments of the division present. It would be unjust not to say that the stubborn resistance of these troops was in a large measure due to the personal presence and sterling bravery of General James B. Ricketts, their heroic commander, and Colonel Billy Truax, commanding the First Brigade.
After the retreat, the division, with the exception of the Tenth Vermont, was left at Ellicott's Mills. On the eleventh, they took cars for Baltimore. Our defeat had " set all the city in an uproar," but the presence of veterans somewhat reassured the inhabitants. The Ninth New York was detailed for duty in the forts, and the balance of the division encamped at Mount Clare Station and at Druid Hill Park until the fourteenth. This disposition was made to guard against any attack of Johnson's rebel cavalry, which had followed up our retreat. But he did not come nearer than Magnolia Station, on the Baltimore, Wilmington and Phila- delphia Railroad, where a detachment under Harry Gilmor burned the depot and the Gunpowder Bridge near by. Here that gallant gentleman, a specimen of Southern chivalry, stopped the morning train northward, and personally super- ntended the robbing of the passengers and the United
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States mail. Here Major-General Franklin was captured, but afterwards made his escape. It was said that some ladies (?), friends of the raider, went out to meet him, carrying provisions and wine, and pointing out those whom they knew to be sympathizers with the Union, for this brigand to rob. He also burned Governor Bradford's suburban residence. But this was to avenge the act of General Hunter in burning ex-Governor Letcher's house at Lexington, Virginia, who had issued a proclamation calling upon the citizens to bushwhack his men ; so was the burn- ing of Postmaster-General Blair's house, at Silver Springs. To make this retaliation complete, no doubt, Chambersburg was laid in ashes, and one-half of Williamsport. Who knows but the fierce attempt to burn New York, and the still more barbarous plot to introduce the plague, were born in the smouldering embers of Letcher's house?
On the fourteenth, the division took cars for Washington, and at night bivouacked just north of the railroad station under the shadow of the Capital. Next day continued the march through Georgetown, Tennallytown to Offut's Cross Roads and so on, while the other divisions of the Sixth Corps had gone in pursuit of Early. We were grandly cheered as we passed up Pennsylvania Avenue, escorted by many citizens eager to do us honor, far on our way, for the part we had taken in the defence of the city. Perhaps some officers will recollect the investment they made in a "square meal" at a French restaurant on the evening of our arrival from the Relay House. Ask them and they will tell you in regretful accents, "We do." On the sixteenth, this division forded the Potomac two miles below Edwards Ferry, and at night, wet and blistered. camped on the Leesburg pike, half a mile from Goose Creek. At Leesburg, next day, we overtook the Nineteenth Corps, just from Louisiana, and gushing with memories of Red River. Here we found Colonel, since General Thomas, and afterwards Lieutenant-
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