To this time the Regiment had practically lived by itself; it had known nothing of generals, and not much of army men, but the time had come when it was to be absorbed into the army as a drop into the ocean.
IT was yet early morning when we steamed over Harrison Bar, and saw evidences of the vicinity of the Army of the Potomac. We had previously met quite a number of steamboats bound down the river, apparently heavily loaded with passengers; and now, as the river widened out into a lake or bay, we came upon a large fleet of various kinds of crafts, freighted with ordnance, quartermaster’s and commissary stores, some at anchor in the river, and some hauled up to the left bank unloading their freight. The river banks were too high to enable us to see beyond, but all along them were men sitting or lying on the slopes, or bathing in the water. There were teams of mules driven down to drink, and wagoners using heavy whips and great oaths to persuade their beasts to draw the loaded wains up the rough tracks, cut diagonally into the faces of the bank.
As our steamer entered upon this stirring scene the musicians were ordered to the bows of the boat, and we moved on with our drums beating cheerily. We passed one long wharf, reaching out into the river, and thereabout saw a few tents and great pilesof stores on the shore; then pushing our reconnoissance up the river, saw the army signs gradually disappear from the banks, until at length opening a reach of the river we could see the gunboats, the slow booming of whose guns had been heard long before; and here a guard-boat hailed to warn us to go no farther.
Satisfied that the wharf, which we had passed, was the proper place for our landing, we turned and steamed slowly in that direction. Presently a boat put off from the bank with an officer who signalled for the steamer to stop, came alongside, and delivered to our Colonel a torn fragment of a second-hand and soiled envelope, on which, in pencil, was scrawled the following order, our first from the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac:—
“To commanding officer of troops on steamer. Land your men at once and move direct up the road, and report to me at my headquarters, where you will be stopped. Come up with arms and ammunition (40 or 60 cartridges each man).
“This order is from General McClellan.“F. J. PORTER, Brig. Gen.â€
In obedience to the order we hauled up to the wharf, and the men being already supplied with ammunition, but little time was lost in forming upon the pier. Leaving there a few men to unload and guard the baggage, we moved up to the shore.
It is General Trochu who writes, that upon approaching an army from the rear in time of battle,one always sees the same sights, conveying to one’s mind the idea of a disorderly mob, and the fear of a great disaster. Our approach to the Army of the Potomac was from the rear in time of battle, and our experience confirms Trochu.
At the head of the wharf a mass of men were striving to pass the guard, hoping to get away on the steamer which had brought us. Passing them, we looked for the road up which we were ordered to move “direct.†In every direction, and as far as we could see, the soil which twenty-four hours before had been covered with promising crops of almost ripened grain, was trodden into a deep clay mud,—so deep and so adhesive as, in several cases, to pull the boots and stockings from the soldiers’ feet, and so universal as to have obliterated every sign of the original road. Everywhere were swarms of men in uniform, tattered and spattered with mud, but with no perceptible organization, wading through the pasty ground. On and near the river bank were open boxes, barrels, casks, and bags of provision and forage, from which each man supplied himself without the forms of requisition, issue, or receipt. Everywhere too were mule-wagon teams struggling in the mire, and the air resounded with the oaths of the drivers, the creaking of the wagons, the voices of men shouting to each other, the bray of hungry mules, and the noise of bugle and drum calls, with an accompaniment of artillery firing on land and water.
To all these were added, when we appeared, shouts, not of hearty welcome and encouragement,such as we might naturally have expected from an overtasked army to its first reinforcement, but in derision of our clean dress and exact movements—warnings of terrible things awaiting us close at hand—questions as to how our patriotism was now—not one generous cheer.
Officers and men alike joined in this unseemly behavior, and even now when we know, as we did not then, the story of the terrible days of battle through which they had passed, and the sufferings that they had patiently endured, we cannot quite forgive their unmannerly reception of a recruiting force.
Through all this we succeeded in finding General Porter’s headquarters, and by his direction were guided to a position a mile or more distant, and placed in line of battle with other troops in face of a thick wood, and then learned that we were assigned to the brigade of General Charles Griffin, division of General Morell, in Fitz John Porter’s, afterward known as the Fifth army corps.
As soon as we were fairly in position our Colonel sought for the brigadier. The result was not exactly what his fancy may have painted. On a small heap of tolerably clean straw he found three or four officers stretched at full length, not very clean in appearance and evidently well nigh exhausted in condition. One of them, rather more piratical looking than the others, owned that he was General Griffin, and endeavored to exhibit some interest in the addition to his command, but it was very reluctantlythat he acceded to the request that he would show himself to the Regiment, in order that they might be able to recognize their brigade commander.
After a time however, the General mounted and rode to the head of our column of divisions. The Colonel ordered “attention†and the proper salute, and said: “Men, I want you to know and remember General Griffin, our Brigadier General.†Griffin’s address was perhaps the most elaborate he had ever made in public. “We’ve had a tough time men, and it is not over yet, but we have whaled them every time and can whale them again.â€
Our men, too well disciplined to cheer in the ranks, received the introduction and the speech, so far as was observed, in soldierly silence, but months afterward the General told that he heard a response from one man in the ranks who said, “Good God! is that fellow a general.†We all came to know him pretty well in time, and to like him too, and some of us to mourn deeply when he died of the fever in Texas, after the surrender.
The officers of our Field and Staff found in the edge of the wood just in front of the Regiment, a spot somewhat drier than the average, and occupied it, but not without opposition. A long and very muddy corporal was gently slumbering there, and on waking, recognized his disturbers by their clean apparel as new comers, and thought they might be raw. Pointing to an unexploded shell which lay near him on the ground, he calmly advised the officers not to stop there, as “a goodmany of them things had been dropping in all the morning.†His strategy proved unsuccessful, for he was ranked out of his comfortable quarters and told to join his regiment.
After all, the day passed without an engagement, and the sound of guns gradually died away, until near evening, when the Brigade was moved about two miles away and bivouacked in a wood of holly trees, the men making beds of green corn-stalks, and going to them singing and laughing.
After the excitement of the day all slept soundly, but before midnight the Colonel was aroused by an orderly to receive a circular order which stated that owing to certain movements of the enemy, commanding officers were to hold their commands on the alert. Not knowing what commanding officers were expected to do when they “held their commands on the alert,†the Colonel accompanied the General’s orderly to the headquarters of the 9th Massachusetts near by, and waited while its commander was aroused, and until he had perused the same order. Observing that after reading it the veteran quietly turned over and settled himself for a fresh nap, our Colonel returned to his repose, merely taking the precaution to have the horses saddled and bridled, by which bit of innocent faith in orders for alert, he lost the use of his saddle which had made an excellent pillow. The next day we received our baggage and moved out of the wood, pitching our camp in regulation shape.
I fear that the display of a full allowance of round Fremont tents may have caused some heart burningsamong our neighbors, who had nothing but shelter tents. It is certain that they were still inclined to scoff at our peculiarities, and already the demoralizing effect of the prevalent negligence was felt in our ranks, for one of our captains, always before rather distinguished for the nicety of his dress, soon appeared splashed with mud from head to foot, and when asked why he did not remove it, he pleaded that it was the uniform of the Army of the Potomac.
Whoever, without a vast preponderance of forces, makes war to capture Richmond, must have the James River for his base of supply and must be able to control Harrison Landing.
When the campaign of the Army of the Potomac began, the iron-clad Merrimac barred access to the James, and the Army, which by way of that River might, without delay or loss, have flanked Magruder back to Malvern Hill, landed at Harrison’s and operated on Richmond over a healthy and dry country, comparatively free from natural obstacles,—was compelled to resort to the narrow and tortuous Pamunkey, and to flounder among swamps and river crossings, always exposed to fight at disadvantage, and always weakened physically and mentally by the malaria of the marshes.
When, by the destruction of the Merrimac, the James was made available, the mind of General McClellan reverted to his original preference. For a long time he waited and stretched out his right wing to facilitate junction with McDowell, but when thelast hope of that aid had disappeared, he hastened to abandon the Pamunkey for the broader and safer James. The movement was actually in progress when Johnston attacked what was already the rear of McClellan’s column. During each day of that battle-week, the trains moved and the army fought, and every night the army abandoned the scene of a successful defence to close in upon the banks of the river, where alone they could hope for the supplies which they needed and the repose they had won.
The day before we joined, these rough and grimy troops had fought at Malvern perhaps the hardest of their fights, and had won the most complete of all their victories. And now they were again in communication with the North—in possessions of the very key to Richmond—holding Lee as it were by a cord from any movement North, and needing only the assistance of a tithe of the new levies to drive or flank him further south. But it pleased God that this should not be until years had passed away.
If there be on the face of the earth a place intended for breeding pestilence, the country about Harrison’s and Westover was ordained to that use. One of our officers who had travelled the wide world all over, declared that the climate resembled no place except Sierra Leone on the African coast. Its reputation as an unwholesome spot is established even among the natives of Virginia, and whoever desires any additional testimony, need only to apply to one who has sweltered there through July and August.
To the natural disadvantages of the locality, were now added those many sources of sickness which always accompany an army. The effect of the climate was not only debilitating to the body, but was enervating to the will, and negligence of proper precautions against camp diseases was added to all other predisposing causes in reducing the strength of the army.
The 32d, almost fresh from the sea air of New England, suffered undoubtedly more than those regiments which had been in some degree acclimated. Almost every officer and man was affected. For weeks over one-third of the command was on the sick list, and not less than a hundred and fifty men who then left the Regiment for hospital or on sick leave, never returned to our colors.
Such a mixture of moisture and drouth, of mud and dust, cannot be conceived. The air was filled at times with an impalpable dust which was actually a visible malaria. The marsh near our camp was beautiful to see, white with its vast numbers of plants like lilies which threw up great spikes of flowers, but the excess of perfume was so sickening as but little to be preferred to the odor of carrion, which came to us when the wind changed to the westward.
Men sickened and died in a day, and the whole Regiment lost its brisk military ways and degenerated very nearly to the shiftless, listless level of the rest of the army. Drills could not be kept up, parades were discontinued, and the attention of theofficers was concentrated upon the preservation of cleanliness in the camp, the improvement of the food, and the necessary duties. Here occurred the first death among our officers, for Lieutenant Nathaniel French, jr., died August 9th of the malarial fever.
Large details were made from the Regiment for guards, our reputation for that duty having become unpleasantly good. Eighty men and three officers were at one time serving as guards over the quartermaster’s stores, on the river bank. It was while they were there, that enterprising John Reb. brought some field pieces down to Coggins’ Point, just opposite to us on the James, and opened fire about midnight, first upon the shipping in the river, and afterward upon our camps.
Two of the officers of our detached party, after the freshness of the alarm had passed, were sitting in their shelter tent with their feet to the foe, watching as they would any pyrotechnic display, the flash of the guns, and the curves described by the burning fuses, when one of the guns was turned and discharged, as it seemed, directly at our friends, who, dodging at the same moment, struck their heads together and fell, each under the impression that the enemy’s shell had struck him.
It was on this occasion that Colonel Sawtelle, the officer in charge of the transportation—our quartermaster said he was the only regular officer within his experience who could do his duty and be civil too—emerged from his tent at the soundof firing and stood upon the bank gazing silently and sorrowfully upon his defenceless fleet, among which the shells were exploding merrily. Soon his silence broke into a shout to his superior, “Look here Ingalls, if this thing isn’t stopped pretty quick, the A. P. is a busted concern.â€
In the regimental camp a half mile away, the shelling did no serious damage, but produced some commotion. One of the officers complained that every time that he got comfortably settled for sleep, a shell would knock the pillow out from under his head; in emulation of which story, a sailor in D Company declared that he slept through the whole affair, but in the morning counted twenty-three solid shot piled up against his back, that hit but had not waked him.
Nearly two months had elapsed since we left Massachusetts with the promise that the four Companies required to complete our Regiment should be speedily recruited and forwarded, but we heard nothing of them. The home newspapers told of the 33d Regiment as being full, and of the 34th and 35th as in process of formation, but the 32d seemed to have been forgotten. The Lieutenant Colonel addressed a letter to the Governor upon the subject, and forwarded a copy of his letter to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. Within twenty-four hours an order was published in which, among others, was the name of our commanding officer as detailed on recruiting service. Upon application to Adjutant General Williams for anexplanation of the detail, he learned that the order meant that he was to go for those four companies, and leaving Captain Stephenson, who for a long time had been Acting Major, in command, the Colonel went to Massachusetts on recruiting duty, from which duty, to the best of his knowledge, he has to this day never been relieved.
He was barely gone before Company G reported, commanded by Captain Charles Bowers—Charles O. Shepard being First Lieutenant, and Edward T. Bouvé, Second Lieutenant. When we got far enough away from the depressing effect of that infamous climate, and attained sufficient animation to joke, we used to call this Company our second battalion.
There may occur no better place than this for a brief dissertation concerning the high and deep mysteries which hung about quartermastering.
When we were at the Fort, the officers—who, by regulation, were allowed a certain number of candles per month—expressed a very unanimous preference for kerosene lamps, which had then recently come in vogue. Lamps, wicks, and oil were benignantly supplied by the quartermaster at the Post, but at the end of a month that officer presented for approval and signature, requisitions and receipts for many candles. We dreamed of a nice job at court-martial on the Q. M., but soon learned that by a fiction of the department, no light was recognized other than that of candles, and receipts given for candles covered lamps, wicks, chimneys, and oil.
Whether the Quartermasters’ Department has yet discovered the use of petroleum, who can tell? Our Quartermaster Pearson never joined the Regiment after it left Massachusetts, but was detailed principally in charge of matters at the recruiting post and camp at Readville. Lieutenant Hoyt of B Company was detailed and served for several years as acting quartermaster. When he was detailed the term of his detail was of course problematical, and there was too much uncertainty, as he thought, to justify the investment required for the purchase of a horse; but he must ride. With that straightforwardness which comes from innocence and ignorance alike, a requisition was made upon the proper officer for a saddle and horse for the use of the quartermaster.
If we had stolen the military chest of the army no greater outcry could have been made; the application was rejected with contumely. For the next day or two Quartermaster Hoyt appeared to be absorbed in the study of the rules and regulations, articles of war, and circulars of his department. From this course of reading he emerged with unclouded brow and a new requisition. This time it was for an ambulance, a horse, and a harness, to which every battalion was entitled, and the articles required were promptly delivered. Two days later he returned the ambulance and harness as not wanted, and kept the horse, which was always ridden by the quartermaster; but was always known as the ambulance horse.
It is a little in advance of our main story, but it may as well be told here how Hoyt flanked the Division Quartermaster. When the regimental property was unloaded from the transport at Acquia Creek, and only the afternoon before we marched, it was found that one of our wagons was sick in a hind wheel, and as it was almost sure to break down if the wagon was loaded, our quartermaster endeavored to turn it in to the Division Quartermaster, and to obtain a sound wagon in its place. There were plenty of new wagons in the Division depot, but the officer was ugly and refused the exchange; when it was persistently urged, the superior grew wroth and vowed vows, and told our quartermaster that he wouldn’t get any wagon out of him, and that he might help himself if he could.
Hoyt did help himself that night by taking, under cover of the darkness, a sound wheel from a wagon in the Division train, and putting our rotten one in its place. There was a great row after we started next morning about the breaking down of a wagon, but our train was all right.
Not many days after our arrival at Harrison’s Landing, July 8th, President Lincoln visited and reviewed the army. Having faith—in some respects resembling a mustard seed—we believe that he reviewed the 32d. What we know is, that after waiting in position with the whole of our division, from four o’clock in the afternoon until nine o’clock in the evening, during the last three hours of which time we mourned our delayed suppers, and possiblyspoke evil of dignities, we saw in the uncertain moonlight a party of horsemen ride along our front, one of whom sat his horse like Andrew Jackson, and wore a stove-pipe hat, and then we were allowed to go to our camp and our rations.
Where there are no newspapers, rumors are always plenty, and the army abounded in rumors. One day it was reported that our corps was to cross the river and march on Petersburg; another day we were told the army was about to move on Richmond, and that we were to assault Fort Darling. General Hooker made a reconnoissance in the direction of Malvern, and it was immediately reported that he had penetrated the defences of Richmond.
For two weeks orders were received almost daily with regard to the removal of the sick, and the disposal of camp equipage and all extra baggage, and rumors grew more and more wild and contradictory. After the fearful ordeal of the malarial sickness, it is not surprising that the intimation that the army was about to enter upon a new campaign was hailed with something akin to delight, even by those who realized the dangers of battle, and the toil of more active service. At last the orders came for the movement, and it was not upon Petersburg, or Fort Darling, or Richmond, but toward Fort Monroe.
The orders found us ready and exceedingly willing to leave a spot crowded with sad and bitter experience, such as we can not even now recall without a thrill almost of horror.
The marches of the 32d Regiment might claim quite as much place, if not more, in its history,than the battles in which it took part, but they would hardly be as attractive to the reader. At all events the incidents of a march, exciting or not, stand a much better chance of accurate narration than those of a battle where haste may obscure the memory, and passion confuse the description.
In military campaigns as in civil life, patience and endurance will win as against courage andelan. The first are the qualities of highest value in marches, the second are those conspicuous in battle. And it may be safely said, that the qualities in soldiers which make good marching, are rarer than those which make good fighting. At least the troops which the General will prize the most are those which march the best:i. e., those in whom eitheresprit-du-corpsor discipline is strong enough to prevent straggling on toilsome marches. Those who marched in good form, and came into bivouac at night with full ranks were sure to be ready and available at the moment of battle, whether they fought well or not; and per contra, it was frequently observed that those regiments that straggled most upon the march, were conspicuous among the great army of “bummers†at the rear in the time of battle, and, if engaged with the enemy, were the first to break into rout and dismay.
Now as the 32d Massachusetts was on many occasions rather conspicuous for good solid marching, that fact should not be forgotten in its history.
On the morning of a march the question usually was, “Who has the advance to-day?†In a successionof days’ marching, the regiments took turns in leading, according to an established rule. Breakfast over, the bugle sounded, first at Division-headquarters, then at brigade, and last at each regiment, everybody fell into his place, and the bugle sounded again “forward.†After many halts and hitches, unless we happened to be at the head of the column, we finally swung into the regular marching gait. This was not fast, rarely exceeding three miles an hour and oftener two miles or thereabouts, including halts.
The manner and method of the march,—with its object there was seldom any disposition to meddle,—were often severely criticised both by men and officers. For instance, a day’s march of which the objective point might be quite distant, say 25 or 30 miles, would be begun before daylight, and then conducted in great part as though there was no fixed intention of going any where at all. This would be a ground for grumbling. Marching out of a comfortable camp at midnight, moving only a little way, and then halting and lying round without orders for hours, then moving again at day-break at a snail’s pace, without having broken our fast, and keeping on in this way until near noon, with no orders for halt and breakfast; and thus on through a whole livelong day of heat or dust, or it might be of snow or rains or chilling winds, until late in the afternoon; horses not fed or unsaddled, men with blankets and equipments on, flinging themselves on the ground at every wait as if in disgust. Herewas more ground for grumbling. At length late in the afternoon, when patience and strength were all but exhausted, we would strike into a pace of three miles or more an hour, which would be kept up hour after hour without a moment’s rest. Then would begin the straggling, men would throw away their overcoats and blankets as too burdensome to carry, although the loss might be bitterly regretted at the next bivouac, and would make their fires, rest and cook their coffee, under the very guns of the enemy, in defiance of danger of death or capture, and in spite of command or threats of court-martial. The regimental column would be reduced to the size of a company, and the men would be found strewed along the roadside, sick or used up, many not rejoining their companies until the bugles sounded “forward†on the following day. This style of marching was frequent in the earlier campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, but was afterwards much amended and improved upon. An excellent rule adopted at a later period was to march the column steadily for one hour, and then call a halt on the bugle for ten or fifteen minutes. But the important point of so ordering a march that the column should move rapidly during the cool hours of the morning and evening, halting for an hour or two at noon, was seldom reached. It is presumable that in many, perhaps in most cases, marches were made loitering and toilsome, (as above described,) by unavoidable and obvious causes. The insufficiency of the roads, there being but one, or their badcondition, crowding the way with cattle sometimes driven in the line of march; troops going to the rear with prisoners, or passing to the front; skirmishing with the enemy; difficult fords, or broken bridges, or the laying of pontoons; all these, or any of them, might cause delay. Or orders might require the troops to be hurried forward, and the march, too hastily begun, would be impeded by crowding or by the necessity of cavalry, artillery, or ammunition being sent forward.
To sketch a march is an exceedingly difficult thing because there is presented to the observer such a multitude of features, none of which can be slighted or left out; and these features are so varied, and present themselves in such endless succession and constantly changing interest, that the mind becomes confused.
On the occasion of our first march with the Army of the Potomac, the men, in the worst possible condition to support fatigue, weakened by sickness, softened by six weeks of inaction, and enervated by a debilitating climate, were marched out of camp at about midnight, then halted and kept in expectation of immediate departure for seven hours, then when the mid-summer sun had attained nearly its full heat, were put upon the route, and with no formal halt, but with much hesitation and frequent delay, were kept in the column fourteen weary hours.
At eleven o’clock at night, on the 15th, the Captain commanding reached the end of the day’s march on the left bank of the Chickahominy, and encampedwith less than thirty men, who alone had been able to keep up with the column. All night long the men came toiling in, and by the next daylight nearly all had again joined the command.
From this by easier marches, passing Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Big Bethel, we arrived August 19th at Newport News. Each day’s march showed better results—officers and men gaining in health and strength as they increased their distance from Westover, and when the first breeze came to them over the salt water, the refreshing sensation was quaintly declared to be like breathing ice cream.
An amusing incident is recalled of our start from Yorktown. We broke camp at 7 A. M., 18th August. The headquarters officers’ mess of our Regiment had been fortunate enough to confiscate a “muell†on the previous day; his temper proved to be not child-like nor yet bland. Upon this creature’s back was loaded the kit, consisting of pots, pans, kettles, plates, etc., etc., with whatever bread, sugar, and other rations were in stock. The whole affair was in charge of a darkey. The kit was packed in two large sacks, to be hung across the mule’s back, like panniers, and on top of these were piled a few bulky articles, camp-chairs, and such like nick-nacks. When fully loaded little was to be seen of “the insect,†except his ears and his legs. The darkey being discouraged in the legs had made up his mind, as soon as it could be done without being seen by the officers, to mount upon the top of this pyramid of pots and pans, and to have a ride.The mule, however, had other views. As the column filed off down the hill, rough with stumps, and ending in a morass, we looked back and saw Mr. Mule arguing and expostulating, mule-fashion, with Mr. Cuffy. At length, however, he apparently yielded to the superior forensic skill of the latter, and allowed himself to be mounted. Yet, as the sequel showed, there was a mental reservation. After wheeling round and round several times, as if to look the ground over thoroughly and examine this new question on all sides, the mule laid back his long ears, stretched his neck, and bolted straight down the hill. He stopped suddenly at the edge of the swamp, planted his fore-feet, raised his hindquarters, and sent the other contraband-of-war some distance into the swamp, while the kettles, and coffee, etc., of the headquarters mess strewed the ground in all directions. Thereafter it was remarked that that darkey invariably led that mule; also, that several little utensils, such as cups and saucers, were missing from the table of the mess.
AT Newport News the Regiment immediately embarked on the transport steamerBelviderefor Acquia Creek, thence by railroad it was forwarded to Stafford Court House, near Fredericksburg, and on the 22d of August encamped in a pleasant grove not far from Barnett’s Ford, on the upper Rappahannock, in which agreeable and comparatively salubrious locality we enjoyed a welcome rest of several days, but we were very hungry. Our position was at too great distance to receive regular supplies from Burnside at Acquia, and General Pope did not consider bases of supplies of any importance.
On Saturday, the 23d, distant firing was heard in the direction of the upper fords of the Rappahannock. On Tuesday, the 26th, one wagon came up for each regiment, and early on the 27th we moved along the river, past roads leading to Kemper’s and Kelly’s Fords, as far as Bealton, on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, then up the railroad track towards Manassas. The sound of artillery was often audible in advance.
This march was made through a country parched by the heat of a Southern mid-summer, the troopsalways enveloped in clouds of dust, the few wells and watering-places constantly in possession of a struggling crowd which barred out the weak who needed water most, and it cannot be a matter for surprise, but indeed it was a matter for grief, that hundreds of the soldiers fell exhausted by the wayside, to die in the fields, or in prison to suffer what was worse than death.
That evening we bivouacked near Warrenton Junction, in a large wood, the men as they came in throwing themselves upon the ground, hastening to get their needed sleep. The officers (who could not draw rations) felt the want of food even more than the men. The field and staff mess could offer only some wretched cakes of corn bread.
On the morning of the 28th, before many of us had fairly tasted sleep, we were aroused with orders to prepare for the march. The night was yet intensely dark and it was difficult to find the way out from the wood. The staff officers who, guided by our camp-fires, came to lead us out upon the road, a distance of three hundred yards—were obliged to acknowledge their inability to do so. At last a negro servant of the Surgeon, escorted by soldiers having lighted candles in the muzzles of their rifles, guided the Regiment and the brigade out of the wood to the roadway. Here we found the way blocked by a battery, and resort was had to torches, by whose light the men, in single file, picked their way through the obstructions. Then there was a long wait for Sykes’ division, and after his files hadflitted by like shadows in the darkness, there came a grey daylight through the fog, by which, with great trouble we were able to move slowly on our route, winding in and out among the wagons which also had been impeded by thick darkness. At length we moved pretty rapidly in the direction of Manassas, following the line of the railway. At Catlett’s a train of cars was seen which had been fired and partially destroyed; near by we passed a headquarters camp, said to have been General Pope’s, which had evidently been raided by the enemy. At intervals we could hear the sound of fighting, at the north and northeast, sometimes pretty near, and we were hurried forward as rapidly as possible. At Kettle Run we saw evidences of the battle which Hooker had fought there with Ewell’s corps, and saw many prisoners and wounded men. Here the fighting seemed to be northwest from us; as we crossed Broad Run, about sundown, it was nearly due north.
A day of hot sun and stifling dust was this 28th day of August; on every side were evidences that there had been heavy fighting. The railroad track had been torn up and its bridges destroyed, clearly by the rebels. The trains of wagons, the batteries, the troops of all arms that we passed or that passed us this day, were wonderful for number.
We encamped upon a large plain, a half mile beyond the Run, while the sound of artillery and musketry on our left was very distinctly heard.
At dawn next morning, Friday, August 29th, we marched toward Manassas Junction. Rapid andfierce fighting on our left, in the direction of Bull Run. At the Junction, what had been a long train of luggage cars, loaded with army equipments, clothing, and supplies, was found a heap of smouldering ruins, and the track and bridges had been destroyed and were yet burning. Looking to the north the smoke of battle could be plainly discerned, marked by white puffs of bursting shells, and the sound of artillery was faintly heard; a long line of dust extended from Thoroughfare Gap into and apparently beyond the field of battle.
After a brief halt on the heights of Manassas, we countermarched and took the road to Gainesville, which here is nearly parallel to the Manassas Gap Railroad; we passed McDowell’s corps, lying along the roadside a mile or so from the Junction. They cheered and told us to “go in†and said that they had enough of it, etc. All this time we had had no chance to eat or drink, and nobody seemed to understand our movements. The wildest rumors were afloat; now that Pope was cut off and captured—now that Jackson was surrounded, pressed by Siegel, and trying to escape by Aldie—now that there was a large force in our rear, and that we were cut off from Washington. Then, and this seemed true, that Lee or Longstreet was bringing up reinforcements to Jackson by Thoroughfare Gap, and that Siegel, or McDowell, or Banks, or somebody unknown, was trying to prevent this movement.
After passing McDowell’s men we marched rapidly, and when five and a half or six miles out fromManassas Junction, came to a bold elevation of cleared land, extending from the road to the railway, and on a line nearly parallel could see a long line of dust marking the line upon which the enemy was moving; and when there were openings in the wood, which for the most part masked the moving column, we could with a good glass see their artillery, infantry, and trains.
The cloud of dust which revealed the march of the enemy along our front was lost on the right, where it passed over a low wooded ridge, beyond which was seen the battle smoke. The guns could be heard only faintly by us in our high position, and must have been inaudible in the woods of the valley below.
Upon this hill we were deployed, and guns were brought up and placed in position. Our brigade (Griffin’s) started out on the right flank, moved over the railroad track and for some distance into the woods, with skirmishers thrown out in the front and on the flank, but finding no practicable way through the woods returned and drew up on the hill. Two or three regiments were deployed to the front as skirmishers and sent down the hill and across the valley, as if to feel of the enemy, whose column continued to pour down from Thoroughfare, turning to the northeast at a point about two miles away—at or near Gainesville.
Generals Porter and McDowell, with other generals and their staff, stood in a group; the infantry was closed in mass and the batteries ready foraction when, from a corn-field in the flank of the marching column in the valley, there suddenly curled a wreath of smoke, and then another and another. A round shot buried itself in the face of the hill, throwing up a cloud of dust; then one after the other two shells burst close to the general officers, killing two men of our brigade. Our own batteries promptly replied and silenced the guns in front, but they opened again further to the right with such a rake upon our infantry as to make it prudent to withdraw them to the cover of the ground. Evidently our General intended an attack, and everything was ready; but the remonstrances of Morell and Marshall prevailed upon Porter to countermand the order, and we finally bivouacked upon the hill.
On the 30th, before day-break, we took the road with orders to proceed to Centreville. Our brigade was to cover the rear in this movement, and of course was preceded in the march by the supply train of the corps. Before breakfast we had crossed Bull Run at Blackburn’s Ford. It seems that orders had been sent to change the destination of our corps, but the officer charged with their delivery having followed back the column until he reached the trains, gave orders to the quartermaster in charge of them to continue on to Centreville, and either did not know or entirely forgot that our Brigade was beyond the wagons; whence it happened that while the rest of our corps was in battle on the Gainesville road, we were waiting at Centreville, wondering where they were, hearing the roar of battle as it drewnearer and nearer to our hillside, and constantly expecting orders.
At about four o’clock we started for the field of battle. Almost immediately we came upon swarms of stragglers, who had left their ranks, and who were full of stories of regiments all cut up, as well as of their individual prowess. Then came crowds of wounded men, ambulances, wagons, empty caissons, until at last the road was fairly blocked with officers and men in no order, horses, wagons, and batteries. Men were running, panting, cursing, and some worn out and exhausted had thrown themselves upon the ground by the roadside utterly indifferent to their fate; and now we knew that this was the route of an exhausted army, and that our duty was to guard their rear.
Forcing our way through all, just as we came to the well-ordered but retreating lines, night came on; and although there were yet sounds of desultory firing, and occasional shot or shells plunging and exploding about us, the fight was over, and in the gloom of night we marched slowly back with the throng of troops to the heights of Centreville.
Next morning, Sunday, August 31st, 1862, it was raining hard. The scene of confusion about us beggars description, and everybody was hungry, wet, and dispirited. Before noon, however, order began to come out of chaos. Men found their colors, and regiments and brigades their appointed stations, and our Brigade moved out upon the Gainesville Pike to receive the first onset of the enemy.Our position was on the right of the turnpike, and the line extended north and east toward Fairfax, with a strong picket two or three hundred yards in front, and here we passed the afternoon in quiet.
All day Monday, September 1st, trains of ambulances, under flags of truce, were going out to the field of battle and returning loaded with wounded men. The weather continued cold and rainy, with a northeast wind. Toward evening the sound of fighting was heard in the direction of Chantilly. The men were wet to the skin, rations exhausted, no fires allowed. Surgeons coming in from the battle-field reported the enemy in great force a very short distance out on the turnpike, and on the old Warrenton Road, waiting the order to attack. The night was passed in misery; the hazard of our position forbade sleep, and comfort was impossible. The army had moved from Centreville, in our rear, and at 3 A. M. we drew in our pickets and moved quietly away.
Looking back as we left Centreville, we saw the enemy coming into the town in great numbers, but they made no attack. At Fairfax Court House we met large bodies of troops; thence, taking a northeast course, we passed Vienna, and toward evening struck the Leesburg Turnpike. Beyond Levinsville we were met by General McClellan, who was enthusiastically greeted by the troops, and at 11 P. M. we bivouacked at Langley’s, after a march of twenty-eight miles.
Wednesday, September 3d, we encamped on Miners Hill, near Falls Church, which was thelocality of Porter’s command previous to the Peninsula campaign.
Our active campaign with the army of Virginia comprised only ten days as almanacs count time, but these were days so full of excitement and of incident that memory recalls a whirl of occurrences and events, succeeding so rapidly one to another that it is with difficulty one can separate them. There are pictures, but they are changing with the rapidity of those of the kaleidoscope.
One scene constantly recurring, not only on this, but on many another march, presents to us again the array of sick or exhausted men, who strewed the route of the hurried columns—their pinched and worn faces—their eyes half closed, gazing into space—their bodies crouched or cramped with pain, supported against trees or fences, or lying prone upon the ground; the men almost always clinging to their rifles. “If one had told me yesterday,†said an officer on his first march with the army, “that I could pass one man so stricken, and not stop to aid or console him, I should have resented the charge as a slander, and already I have passed hundreds.†Many, many such, necessarily abandoned to their fate, crept into the woods and died. Under repeated orders, all men absent and not accounted for, should have been reported as deserters, but Captains were more merciful than the orders, and few were found to brand as ignominious the names of men who deserved rather to be canonized as martyrs.
Another memory is of a gallant Captain of artillery, whose battery marched just in advance of our Regiment—of an aide galloping back and wheeling to the Captain’s side to communicate an order—the quick question, “where?†a short answer, a note of a bugle, and the Captain dashes off to our left, followed by his battery—the thunderous rumble of caissons and gun-carriages dying away as they pass out of our sight over a swell of land. It is strange that as this scene is recalled where a fellow-soldier rushed to immediate death, a prominent feature of the picture is the vivid color of the mass of blue flowers which clothed the entire field through which his battery dashed away from our column.
Another turn of the mnemonic glass, and we see the country about Manassas trodden into a vast highway. Just there Stuart had captured a train laden with quartermaster’s stores, and the ground all about was strewn with broken cases and what had been their contents—new uniforms, underclothing, hats and shoes, from which men helped themselves at will, leaving the old where they found the new. Near by, on the railroad track, waited a long train loaded with sick and wounded—the cars packed full, and many lying on the top unsheltered in the sun.
Yet again, and we are in sight of Thoroughfare, and see the long lines of dust revealing the march of Lee’s army down towards us from the Gap, and we remember the applause we gave when the firstshell from Hazlitt’s parrot guns exploded exactly in a line of rebel infantry (scattering them as is rarely done except in cheap engravings), and how little we appreciated the like accuracy of aim by which an enemy’s shot killed two men in one of our own regiments.
And again there comes a mental photograph, date and locality indistinct, which represents nineteen officers gathered about a sumptuous repast, comprising three loaves of old bread, a fragment of cheese and a half canteen of water, almost as stale as the bread, and the careful watch of Field upon Staff and Staff upon Line, to see that only one swallow of water is taken by each in his turn.
And finally, we stand blocking the way to gaze upon a wrecked omnibus, inscribed—“Georgetown and Navy Yardâ€â€”one of many vehicles impressed in Washington and sent out as ambulances, and which, after reviving in us memories of civilization, was to become a trophy in the hands of the enemy.
WHEN the 32d Regiment left Massachusetts in May, the war fever was raging, and it was supposed that it would be the work but of a few days to recruit the four companies required to complete the Regiment, and it was clearly understood that the first recruits were to be assigned to us. But being out of sight we were indeed out of mind, and the pressure of officers interested in constructing new regiments constantly delayed our claims to consideration.
In two months over three thousand volunteers had been accepted, of whom only one hundred (our Company G) had been assigned to us. The rendezvous for the Eastern part of the State was the camp at Lynnfield, which was placed under the command of Colonel Maggi, of the 33d. His own regiment occupied the chief part of the camp, and the only entrance to it was through his regimental guard. Both he and his Lieutenant Colonel, a young and handsome officer named Underwood, had a quick eye for a promising recruit, and as the constantly arriving volunteers passed within thelines, the best were drafted into the 33d, and the remainder were passed into the command of Major Wilde, whose camp was just beyond.
Dr. Edward A. Wilde, afterward Colonel of the 35th Massachusetts, and yet later Brigadier General of Volunteers, was commissioned, July 24th, 1862, to fill the then vacant majority in the 32d, and had been temporarily placed in charge of the unattached volunteers at Lynnfield, three hundred of whom had been roughly fashioned into companies, and were to be assigned to us.
Upon Colonel Parker’s return to Massachusetts, Governor Andrew gave to our matters his willing attention. Upon inspection of the three companies, the Colonel thought that he could do better than to take Colonel Maggi’s rejected recruits, and they were accordingly transferred to the 35th.
At the urgent request of the authorities of Newton, supported by the Honorable J. Wiley Edmands, a company raised entirely in that town was regimented in the 32d. A company from Charlestown was made the basis of Company I, and taking a lesson from Colonel Maggi, whose regiment happily was now filled, a third company was organized at the camp by selecting from the town quotas the choicest material, and passing over the remainder to the 35th. We were able to accomplish this by the active aid of our Major Wilde. If the Major had known that he was to be the first Colonel of the 35th, that regiment might perhaps have been benefited, but the 32d undoubtedly owed to his want ofprophetic vision the fact that its 3d Battalion was composed of men in every respect equal to those of its First.
On the 2d of August the companies were detached from Major Wilde’s recruits and ordered to report to Colonel Parker, who at once moved them some eight hundred yards away, where they encamped in a charming spot, between the pond and the highway, until they should be provided with clothing, arms, and equipments.
The beauty and convenience of that camp has impressed its memory upon every soldier of the Battalion; but the proprietor of the land did not seem to be equally pleased with an arrangement to which very possibly his previous consent was not obtained; but if he expected to drive us away by removing the rope and bucket from the well near by, he was sadly disappointed. He presented to the Colonel a huge bill for the use of the premises, and for damages caused by the cutting down of a sapling elm, and the removal of a rod or two of stone wall. If he never collected it he should have been comforted by the fact that we never charged him for the construction of two good wells on the ground, and the stones of his fence may yet be found in the walls of those wells.
On the 6th Colonel Parker left to rejoin the regiment, leaving the Battalion to follow under Major Wilde, but the Major was promoted to the 35th, and it was not until the 20th that the three companies, commanded by the senior Captain (Moulton), leftLynnfield by railroad to Somerville, thence marching to Charlestown, where a generous entertainment had been provided for them by the citizens. That evening they left by the Providence Railroad—the entire route through the cities of Charlestown and Boston being one ovation. At Stonington they took the steamer, landing the next morning at Jersey City, and taking a train for Philadelphia. Through that good city they marched to the Cooper Refreshment Rooms, and being well fed and otherwise refreshed, moved thence to the Baltimore Station. It was well into the next day before they arrived in that town of doubtful loyalty, and it was morning on the 22d when they landed in Washington, and took up quarters at the railroad barracks.
While the commanding officer was endeavoring to find somebody to give him orders, several hours of liberty were allowed to the men, few of whom had ever seen Washington. It was not the quiet place that it had been when the right wing arrived there months before, but was again astir with signs of active war. The movement to effect a junction between the armies of Generals McClellan and Pope was in progress, and long trains of wagons were moving between Alexandria and the various depots of supplies, and ambulances loaded with sick and wounded streamed to and from the hospitals, while on the walks, men in uniforms, some brand new and some ragged and dirty, jostled each other; new recruits from the North—garrison men from the forts—stragglers and convalescents from the armies in the field.
If at the word hospital there is presented to the mind’s eye of the reader a spacious structure in stone or brick, covered with a dome and expanding into wings, all embosomed in a park-like enclosure, with verdant lawns shaded by trees and mottled with shrubbery, that reader did not go to muster in Virginia in ‘62. Provision thought to be ample had been made in Washington, by the construction in several unoccupied squares, of rows of detached wooden sheds, each of which was the ward of a hospital. Rough and unattractive as these appeared set down among the dusty streets, upon a plot of land from which every green thing was trodden out, their interiors were in fact models of neatness, and in some sort, of comfort. But the battles of the Peninsula had soon filled these, and when there were added to them the sick from McClellan’s army and the invalids from Pope’s, every available building was taken, and finally when within ten days, eight thousand patients were added from the James River, vacant house-lots were occupied, and for want of tents, awnings of sails or boards were laid over rough frames, and the passer-by could see the patients stretched upon the straw. The happy result of this, and other enforced experiments, was to prove that even these wretched makeshifts were better than close-walled houses, for hospital purposes.
On the 23d the Battalion marched over Long Bridge to the town of Alexandria—preferring at night the outside of the building designated to shelter them. The next day tents and wagons wereobtained, and on the 25th their first camp was made on the hillside, near the Seminary.
Everything in that neighborhood was in confusion. During the week that the command remained encamped, Franklin’s and Sumner’s corps arrived at Alexandria, and not only was the town crowded with soldiers, but the woods were full of them, and all the energies of the authorities were devoted to endeavors to supply them, and push them out to the rescue of General Pope’s army.
Considering that nobody, not even the General-in-chief, knew where Pope’s army was, it is not surprising that all the efforts made by officers to find our Regiment were fruitless; indeed it mattered little that they were, for the wagons were taken away for the pressing service of more experienced troops, who were unable to move for want of transportation.
At last, on the 3d of September, the locality of Porter’s Corps was ascertained, and the Battalion joined the rest of the Regiment. There was a striking contrast in the appearance of the old and new companies. The three new companies outnumbered all the other seven. The veterans looked with wonder upon the fresh northern faces and the bright new uniforms, while the recruits scanned with at least equal surprise the mud-stained, worn, and weary men who were to be their comrades. So long were the new platoons, that the detachment was christened “Moulton’s Brigade,†but the superiority of numbers was not long with them, andtwo weeks of campaigning amalgamated the command.
The three companies comprising our “3d Battalion†were—
Company H, recruited at the Lynnfield Camp, commanded by Captain Henry W. Moulton; its Lieutenants were John H. Whidden and Joseph W. Wheelwright.
Company I, recruited in Charlestown, Captain Hannibal D. Norton; Lieutenants, Chas. H. Hurd and Lucius H. Warren, since Brevet Brigadier-General.
Company K, recruited in Newton, Captain J. Cushing Edmands, afterwards Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General; Lieutenants, Ambrose Bancroft and John F. Boyd.
At Upton’s Hill the complete organization of the Regiment was published in the orders. The Lieutenant Colonel was promoted to be Colonel, Captain Prescott to be Lieutenant Colonel, and Captain Stephenson to be Major. The medical staff consisted of Z. Boylston Adams, Surgeon, with the rank of Major; William Lyman Faxon and W. H. Bigelow, Assistant Surgeons, ranking as First Lieutenants; W. T. M. Odiorne, Hospital Steward. The non-commissioned staff consisted of James P. Wade, Sergeant Major; James A. White, Quartermaster Sergeant; Charles E. Madden, Commissary Sergeant; and Freeman Field, Principal Musician.
Dr. Bigelow, Steward Odiorne, and Sergeant Madden, were new appointments. All the rest hadbeen with the Regiment through all its experience in the field.
No chaplain was ever commissioned in the 32d, no application having ever been made on the part of the line officers, to whom belonged the initiative, and none being desired, so far as was known by any officer or man.
In an army composed of men of many different religious beliefs, as was the case in ours, the chaplains should constitute a staff corps, its members proportioned as to faith, in some degree to the requirements of the army, so that from the headquarters of an army or corps details might be made of the proper men for any required duty. Attached to regimental headquarters, they were very generally utterly inefficient for good professionally. It was the rule with us that, when any of the sick were near death, the fact should be reported to the commanding officer, who was often the first to communicate the tidings, and who invariably enquired of the dying man if he desired the service of a chaplain. When this was desired, an orderly was sent with the compliments of the Colonel, to some chaplain near by, to ask his attendance. With only rare exceptions such services were cheerfully and promptly rendered.
The burial service was usually read by the commanding officer over the bodies of our dead; but in one case, where the man had been a Roman Catholic, it was thought better to ask the attendance of a chaplain of that faith. It happened that theorderly could not readily find one, and could find only one, and returned with the unusual reply that the chaplain could not come.
Upon further inquiry it appeared that the orderly had presented the message, with the compliments of the Colonel, to the chaplain, who was reposing after dinner. “Was he a good Catholic?†enquired the priest. The orderly assured him that he was. “My compliments to the Colonel, then, and tell him he can bury him. It is all right.†With which reply the messenger was compelled to return. Failing the orderly’s assurance of the man’s good and regular standing, of course the chaplain would have escaped the duty too.
In November, 1862, our camp hospital offered merely a canvas tent for shelter, and some straw spread upon the frosty ground for bedding. One of the patients, in view of approaching death, expressed to the Adjutant his wish to be baptized, and of course a messenger was sent forth to seek a chaplain, with the customary compliments, and to ask his attendance on a dying man.
A chaplain promptly appeared at our headquarters, was escorted to the hospital tent and left at the side of the sick man. Very soon after, the Colonel, meeting the reverend officer pacing thoughtfully in the open air, stopped and enquired as to the patient’s condition. Evidently considerably embarrassed, the chaplain said “you did not tell me that the man wanted baptism.†“Very true,†was the reply, “but why is that any difficulty?†“Because,†rejoined theclergyman, hesitatingly, “I am of the Baptist persuasion, and this is no case for immersion.â€
It was very awkward, but the Colonel, who had thought only of a chaplain as the proper officer for a present duty, apologized for his want of thought, thanked the gentleman, and said that he would try again, or if it became necessary, would himself administer the holy rite. The chaplain, however, requested a few minutes for reflection, at the end of which he decided to officiate himself and did so, first taking the precaution to enquire of the soldier whether he preferred immersion or sprinkling, the latter of which very naturally was elected.
UNTIL September 12th, our Division remained at Upton’s Hill, while the rest of the Army of the Potomac drew off into Maryland in observation of General Lee, concerning whose movements no definite information could for a time be obtained.
It was a favorite theory among the authorities in Washington that General Lee would lead McClellan off into Western Maryland, and then slip round into his rear and capture the aforesaid authorities. Of course 80,000 men do not slip about such a country very easily, and of course General Lee would never have dared to place his army between the forts of Washington and the Army of the Potomac; but even such absurd fears required consideration, and in addition to the artillery garrisons in the forts and the new levies inside the defences, Morell’s division was left for a time to watch the approaches to the Chain Bridge, which was the weakest point in the defences of the city.
During these days the various corps of the army whose organization a week before had been almost destroyed, were marching through the town in columns of platoons, with their drums beating andcolors flying, their array as fine as it would have been on parade before they had ever seen the enemy, and inspiring all who saw them to a happy augury of the result of the first Maryland campaign.
On the 11th, our Division received orders to join the army in the field with all possible speed, and on the 12th we folded our tents, and took the route in the track of our comrades. As usual the start was delayed until the sun was well up in the sky, and before we were out of the District of Columbia the heat had become oppressive, and the men, especially those of the new companies, were suffering greatly. Our route was from Upton’s Hill past Fort Corcoran, through Georgetown and Washington, and out by 7th street.
Early in the day came a circular order to be read at the head of each company denouncing the penalty of death, without trial, as the punishment for straggling, the utter absurdity of which was shown by the fact that before nightfall one-third of the men had fallen out of their ranks, the order to the contrary notwithstanding. The old soldiers, happily, (or unhappily) had learned that the bark of the orders was worse than their bite, but the new recruits had the impression, as yet, that orders meant what they said, and believed that the officers would shoot down all those who faltered; consequently, what between soldierly ambition and personal fear, the new men would struggle on until they could do so no longer. The day was burning hot, and the last hour before noon was chosen to give the commandone pull of three miles without rest; and when at last the bugle sounded “halt,†not less than fifty of our men fell exhausted, fainting or sunstruck, several of them raving with insane imaginings.
Although we tarried at this place for an hour or more, the Colonel assuming the responsibility to fall out with his entire command, it was found necessary at last to leave some twenty men who needed rest and care, the greater part of whom were finally discharged from hospitals disabled for service. Here, too, in order to lighten the march, a quantity of knapsacks and blankets were left stored in a barn, but before our teams could return for them the whole had been gobbled by stragglers.
It was after dark when at last we halted for the night, and the Adjutant’s returns showed that one of the new companies then numbered three officers and seven men, and another no officers and one man1present for duty. We bivouacked in columns of companies, and that one man executed under his own command the company right wheel, dressed his ranks, stacked his arm (by plunging the bayonet into the ground), called the roll, broke ranks, supped, and slept the sleep of the just.