CHAPTER VIII.
Relieved—March to Clinton—Great Heat—Deserting a Plantation—Return to Port Hudson—Assault on the 14th of June—Heavy Loss in the Thirty Eighth.
Relieved—March to Clinton—Great Heat—Deserting a Plantation—Return to Port Hudson—Assault on the 14th of June—Heavy Loss in the Thirty Eighth.
letter W
WHEN the regiment went to the front the second time, the men expected to be relieved in twenty-four hours; but the fourth day found them still there. On the evening of that day, they were relieved, and enjoyed another day’s rest in the woods. What followed may be learned from the following extract from a letter:—
“Saturday, June 6th, 5P. M.—We are now out of the din of battle which surrounds Port Hudson, and went to sleep last night, for the first time in twelve days, without the accompaniment of cannon and musketry. It appears that the rebels have been collecting a force at Clinton, about twenty or thirty miles from Port Hudson, and have recently defeated a portion of our cavalry, compelling them to retreat; and there was danger of our supply-trains being captured. Inconsequence of this, a force has been sent out, under command of Gen. Paine, to drive them off, or give them battle if they stand. We started early Friday morning; but several of the regiments took the wrong road, and we had to wait until they retraced their steps, and caught up with us. At noon, we halted for an hour or so, and then resumed our march; but, while we had been laying in front of Port Hudson, the sun had been climbing up in the heavens, and it was found that we could not march as we had done. Men began to fall, all through the line; and the hospital stretchers were soon filled with them, panting for breath. The whole force was at once taken into the woods, where it remained until six o’clock in the evening, when the march was resumed, and kept up till nine o’clock.... We started at six this morning, and marched till eleven, and have been in the shade since, near a swift-running bayou, which affords an excellent opportunity for bathing.”
At twelve o’clock, Saturday night, the command was again in motion, although few had obtained any sleep. “We nodded as we marched along, and were completely lost if we halted a moment.” Having marched to within eight miles of Clinton,the column halted, rested for a short time, and then faced about, and took the road back, the cavalry having gone ahead, and learned that the enemy had evacuated the town. We again quote from the letter:—
“Tuesday morning, June 9.—We are again back in the woods opposite Port Hudson, with the cannon booming around us; but first, I will tell you a little more about our Clinton expedition. Friday afternoon, while on picket, I had an opportunity of witnessing a scene quite common in Louisiana,—the desertion of a plantation by the whole body of slaves. Near the picket-post was a house, over which a guard had been placed, when we halted the day previous, to prevent plundering. The lady of the house, letting her temper get the better of her judgment, abused the guard, calling them bad names, and hoping the rebels would get the whole of them. The officer of the guard removed his men, and the household property began rapidly to decrease, when the lady repented, and the guard was restored. On the return from Clinton, we halted near the same place; and the house was again protected. There were about eight negro cabins on the plantation; and the inmates were preparing to leave the old home. Alltheir worldly possessions were spread out on the floors of the cabins, and they were selecting a little bundle of the most valuable; for people who travel with the Nineteenth Army Corps have to go in ‘light marching order.’ One man was too old and lame to go; and he wandered around among the busy emigrants, with a half-mournful, half-resigned look. ‘I’m sorry we’re all gwine to leab ye, Uncle Joe,’ said one of the men, looking up from his work; ‘but ye couldn’t stan’ de march.’—‘No; I can’t leab,’ said Uncle Joe, sadly, as he hobbled off to another cabin. At the door of the mansion, the mistress, who was so rampant yesterday, was selling eggs at a great price to Gen. Paine’s cooks.”
The march back to Port Hudson was not so fatiguing; and the regiment again took up a position in the woods, where it remained until the afternoon of the 13th of June, when it was removed to the edge of the woods, near the front, ready to take part in the grand assault which was announced to take place the next day. The army had not been idle since the charge on the 27th of May. Guns had been put in position along the whole line, and strong works erected to protect them; and roadways had been worked throughthe ravines, so that sharpshooters could approach within rifle-shot, under cover. But the work of the spade was too slow; and another assault was resolved upon. The order of advance was announced to the third division as follows: The Eighth New Hampshire and the Fourth Wisconsin to deploy as skirmishers; the Fourth Massachusetts, and five hundred picked men, to follow with hand-grenades; the Thirty First Massachusetts, with bags of cotton, to fill up the ditch; and then the three brigades of the third division, the third brigade in the advance. This programme was somewhat changed afterward. In regard to a charge so interesting to the regiment, an extract from a letter written two days after, will be allowed to tell the story:—
... “We were roused a little before midnight, and packed our blankets, which were to be left behind. Hot coffee was served out by the company cooks; and, with our haversacks and canteens filled, we moved silently to the front. Many regiments were forming on the edge of the woods; and we expected a short, sharp fight. Gen. Paine himself thought that we should be inside the works within half an hour, and gave orders that the wounded men were not to beremoved from the field till the battle was over. Crossing a bridge, which had been covered with cotton to deaden the sound, we marched down a road, enclosed by thick hedges, deployed as skirmishers on an open field, and laid down. The centre was kept in reserve, with orders to follow as the right and left advanced. There were two regiments in front of us, deployed, and lying down,—the Fourth Wisconsin and the Eighth New Hampshire, and also a detachment of men from other regiments, with hand-grenades, to throw over the breastworks. Just behind us was the Fifty Third Massachusetts. As soon as we laid down, our artillery opened fire on the fortifications, throwing the shot and shell over our heads; but some of the shells fell short, injuring our own men.
“After a brisk cannonading, Gen. Paine passed down the line in front, his form just visible in the gray of the morning, repeating to every ‘group,’ in a clear voice, ‘As soon as I have passed the line, the Fourth Wisconsin, the Eighth New Hampshire, and the grenadiers will go forward to the works.’ He had scarcely reached the left of the first line, when the Wisconsin boys sprang up with a loud cheer, and dashed through the openings in thehedge which screened our movements from the enemy. They were followed closely by the Eighth and by the grenadiers. Then the general passed down our line, saying to every company, ‘As soon as I give the word, the Thirty Eighth and Fifty Third will go forward.’ Soon the order came, ‘Forward Thirty Eighth and Fifty Third.’
“The first shout of our advance had been answered by a volley of musketry; and the cries of the wounded men told us what to expect. No one hesitated, however, and the two Massachusetts regiments pressed through the hedge. The distance to the works was farther than we had anticipated, and consisted of a succession of hills and ravines, blocked up with fallen trees, scrubby bushes, and brambles. As we passed the brow of every hill, we were exposed to a severe fire, and our men fell thick and fast; yet the regiment kept on, for the voice of Gen. Paine was heard, in spite of the roar of cannon and musketry, ‘Forward Thirty Eighth. Forward Fifty Third.’ Many of the officers had fallen; the nature of the ground rendered it impossible to keep a line, and the four advance regiments soon became completely mixed up. Still they moved forward until ordered to stop. A few of the Wisconsin men reached the fortifications, andwent over, where they were immediately captured; others of them, and many of the Eighth New Hampshire, were dead in the ditch beneath the works. The hand-grenades had been a complete failure, and had been thrown back by the enemy to make sad havoc in our own ranks. More than one third of the Thirty Eighth, and one quarter of the Fifty Third, lay wounded and dying, on the hills and in the ravines. The support did not come up; and that voice which had inspired the whole movement was no longer heard. Whatever chance of success there may have been at the outset, the fall of Gen. Paine destroyed it. And now, almost without officers, the men sought cover from the enemy’s rifles on the slopes of the hills, and returned the fire whenever an opportunity offered. The One Hundred and Thirty Third New York, with its brave colonel leading, made a gallant attempt to retrieve the disasters of the day; but the fall of Col. Currie, and the heavy fire poured into the regiment, caused it to seek shelter. The Thirty First Massachusetts had advanced some distance with the cotton-bags, with which they made breastworks, and held a position in front of the fortifications during the day, having over thirty men killed and wounded.”
Major Richardson, just returned from the hospital, and still suffering from illness, had been obliged to leave the field, and the command devolved upon Capt. Wyman, who, in turn, was partially disabled by a piece of shell, which shattered his sabre, and bruised his leg. Lieut. Holmes had been killed, and Lieuts. Spear, Russell of Co. F, Russell of Co. D, Bullard, and Jackson, were wounded. In all, ninety-one of the two hundred and fifty who formed in line that morning had been killed or wounded. All day, the regiment, scattered in groups over the field, remained beneath the scorching sun, suffering for water, and exposed to the fire from their own batteries in the rear, as well as from those of the enemy in front.
Water could only be procured from a few mud-holes in the ravines; and the paths leading to them were commanded by the rebel works, the numerous dead and wounded men in the vicinity telling how dangerous was the attempt to reach them. For a long time, Gen. Paine, who had been shot in the leg, remained behind a log, every attempt to carry him off the field being the signal for a volley from the enemy, who knew that some prominent officer must be the object of so much solicitude.
The stretcher corps were repeatedly fired upon.Two colored men had succeeded in getting to the extreme front with a stretcher, and were endeavoring to take off a fallen soldier (supposed, at the time, to belong to Co. I, of the Thirty Eighth), when they were fired upon, and both fell wounded. One of them tried to get away, and was again shot down; and, making a second attempt, received a third wound. But the longest day must have an end; and darkness at length kindly came, and hid from sight the terrible scenes of that sad Sunday. During the evening, the few remaining officers gathered the scattered groups together; and, about midnight, the regiment withdrew from the field, not, however, without a parting volley from the rebels, who heard the movement.
The day after the battle, attempts were made to recover the bodies of those who had fallen; but, as the rebels had command of the field, all of them could not be reached. Toward evening, members of Co. F succeeded, after a long search among the dead men, in finding the bodies of Sergt. Angell and Corp. Champney, and by torchlight laid them quietly to rest under the magnolias near their quarters, beside another of their comrades, Joseph A. Morris, whose body had been recovered early in the day.
It would swell our sketch to an unwieldy size to record the names and good qualities of all those fell on this day, or of the wounded who passed weary months on hospital beds. Those who saw them know how well they did their duty. In another place, will be found a full list of the casualties.