Chapter II: Part 2

And, when the Eleventh went on board the Cahawba again, this time in company with the 104th Pennsylvania instead of the 98th New York, and put to sea in company with a fleet of transports carrying our new division, we thought that Wilmington was our objective point. General Naglee, now the commander of the division our expedition consisted of, was on board the Cahawba with his staff, as was Colonel Davis, now again in command of our brigade, and his staff. We soon learned that we were bound for Port Royal, S.C., and that to capture Charleston was the object of our expedition.

But though we went on board the Cahawba the 20th day of January, it was not till the afternoon of the 29th that we put to sea. We arrived at Port Royal January 31st, and entering the harbor, found ourselves one of a large and growing fleet of transports and gunboats. The 3d of February we sailed up Port Royal Sound to Beaufort, where we landed that the Cahawba might be cleaned, then reembarked on it the next day and returned to Port Royal. We were not landed again for some days, and the warm Southern sun operating on men as crowded together as we were, without opportunity for exercise and proper cleanliness, was not conducive to good health. Sickness cropped out, ship fever prevailed to an alarming extent, and a number of the Eleventh died before the troops were landed at St. Helena Island, which they were on the 10th of February. Landing, our regiments went into camp, and winter as it was, we found it necessary to cover our tents with an awning of palmetto branches spread on a frame work of crotched uprights and cross sticks.

The health of the men improved rapidly. Their life was rather monotonous--drill, dress parades, reviews by Major-General Hunter and guard mountings taking up the time. The enemy was not near us, the labyrinth of rivers and waterways surrounding the nest of Islands known as Port Royal, enabling the light draught gunboats of the fleet to keep them on the inland, well out of our way.

Captain Stanwood of D had resigned before now, its First Sergeant, Brady, had been promoted to Second Lieutenant of Company G, and Second Lieutenant Butler, of Company H, was made First Lieutenant of D, and commanded the company.

The 4th day of April, the regiment, the 104th Pennsylvania, with General Naglee, Colonel Davis, and their staffs again reembarked on the old Cahawba, and the 5th sailed in a fleet for the North Edisto Inlet. Anchoring in that now crowded roadstead, we waited the success of the fleet's attack on Charleston, when the division was to land and march on that city. But the fleet found the forts guarding Charleston Harbor beyond their weight, so clearly so that as Admiral Ammen puts it, "even the common sailors knew that Charleston could not be taken without a protracted siege." The only thing left for us all to do, was to return to Port Royal, which we did the 10th of April, the old Cahawba leaving the swiftest of the fleet out of sight on the run, even sacrilegiously running by the "Flag Ship" of our transport squadron, and entering Port Royal while that seat of authority was still hull down.

It was our last cruise on the steamer Cahawba. Afflicted as it was with the third plague of Egypt, it had been our home for so many days, had borne us safely over such a stretch of water, in storm and calm, that we had a rough affection for the stout old transport; and for Mr. Davis, her second mate, too. We had heard the command from the wheel-house so often of "Stand by your anchor, Mr. Davis," and the hoarse return of that old mariner, "Ay, ay, Sir," that he seemed part of the ship itself. As the regiment came alongside in a small steamer to go on board the Cahawba, to take a part in this very expedition, and our men saw the head of the rough old sailor peering over the side of the Cahawba at them, what a yell of "Stand by your anchor, Mr. Davis," rang out of five hundred throats. I am sorry to have to state that instead of the orthodox reply to this nautical command, Mr. Davis only growled "There's that damned Eleventh Maine again." The Cahawba steamed up the Sound to Beaufort with us the 11th of April, where the regiment landed and went into camp.

Lieutenant Butler, who had been ill for a day or so, now grew worse rapidly. His disease proved to be a malignant fever. He died April 14th. We buried him in the cemetery in Beaufort, with the military honors due his rank. His grave was near that of another young officer, one who had died in the Mexican war, and whose body had been brought home to be buried. I remember that over the young South Carolinian's grave stood a monument representing the trunk of a young palmetto tree, its top broken off. Where Butler is buried I do not know, at his old home, I hope; and if he sleeps under the marble representation of a young, prematurely splintered pine tree, it is fitting. Young, handsome, intelligent, respected and admired by his men, cut down at his post in his years of high promise, wherever his grave is, it is that of a true son of our old Pine Tree State.

Our sojourn at Beaufort was a pleasant one. The town, though now sadly neglected, retained all its beauty of semi-tropical flowers and plants, and, under a beautiful sky, in an enervating climate, we took lazy comfort in our camp on the bank of the river. Besides a plentiful supply of regular rations, the men of D were here regaled with luscious blackberries. They grew abundantly in the neighborhood, and the negroes were delighted to exchange quantities of them for our broken victuals. We had a big Quartermaster's "fly" pitched for our company and a long table built down the center of the space it covered, with benches fitted on each side of it. And when the table was set for breakfast with bright tin dishes--the men's plates and cups--with a ration of good white bread by each plate that our own Prince Dunifer had baked for us at the post bakery, with hot coffee in the cups, and mess-pans filled with baked beans strewed along it, that table was a sight for a hungry soldier. And at dinner, with boiled beef and rice in place of the beans, it looked appetizing enough, too But at supper, with tea in place of the coffee, and with each plate well filled with ripe blackberries to eat with the white bread, and with dishes of brown army sugar to pass around among the sweet-toothed, it bordered on the luxurious. But where was the soldier that was ever satisfied with his rations? Not in Company D, anyway. Under the leadership of one or two past masters in the art, the men growled at even these rations until the cooks threatened to reduce themselves to the ranks. This would not do. The Articles of War didn't seem to cover the case, providing neither shooting nor hanging for this particular offense. When, lo, some one in authority had a bright thought. It was adopted, the cooks returned to the ranks, and the leaders in the grumbling mutiny, somewhat aghast, found themselves in charge of the cook house. They were told that such excellent critics of cookery must needs be good cooks, but the argument didn't hold good, though seemingly logical, for they proved not to be good cooks; nay, they were the worst ones D ever had. The men tried to swallow their discontent from very shame, but they could not swallow the victuals. The discontent became an uproar, with the result that the old cooks returned to the cook house, and if the men of D grumbled thereafter beyond the wide latitude military custom allows, they took good care to do so, as Corporal Annis used to smoke, with their heads under their blankets.

FERNANDINA, FLORIDA.

The fourth day of June the Eleventh went on board the steamer Boston and sailed for Fernandina, Fla., to relieve the 7th New Hampshire.

Fernandina, a city of two or three thousand inhabitants, is situated on the Cumberland Sound side of Amelia Island, a large island off the Florida coast particularly, though from Fernandina in sight of a southeastern bit of the State of Georgia.

For four months we garrisoned Amelia Island; those of the Eleventh that did not go from there to Morris Island with Lieutenant Sellmer of D, who took a detachment made up of men from Companies C, E, G and K, to the siege of Charleston, they manning the famous Swamp Angel battery. We that were left behind at Fernandina, excepting Companies A, stationed at the Railroad Bridge, and C, garrisoning Fort Clinch at the mouth of the harbor, were languidly occupied for these four months with our camp and picket duties, the picket one being the only duty at all arduous. This picket service was entirely confined to guarding the railroad that comes into Fernandina from across a bridgeable point of the sound. In fact, this was the only way the enemy could get at us except by boats, the road running through a series of the swamps, the south half of Amelia Island seeming to be formed of hummocks of comparatively dry ground. It was on some of these hummocks that our picket posts were stationed, on rises of ground in the middle of alligator and snake-invested swamps, where a breed of the most sanguinary mosquitoes imaginable filled the air at night to an extent that not only made it impossible for a man to sleep, but forced him to keep his already net-covered head in a thick smudge of smoke.

Admiral Ammen says that Amelia Island contributed so little to the purpose of the Confederates, that, though they fought for Port Royal, they made us a present of Amelia Island, evacuating it so thoroughly, Fort Clinch and all, that but a few rifle shots were fired from thickets on the fleet that captured it. Still, whether from pride or wholesome military caution I know not, still our commander would have it that we occupied a post of extreme danger, and that we were liable to be surprised and overwhelmed by a superior force at any time. And one night for some reason yet unknown to me, there came a general alarm, routing out all of our little army, even the peaceful camp guard being aroused from its slumbers and its sergeant ordered to fall his men in and follow the commander of the post. The commander led us to the road that runs from Fernandina to Old Town (once _the_ Fernandina itself), near Fort Clinch, and we followed him into the swamp that lies between the old and the new towns, a swamp that is an impassable jungle of trees and tangled grape vines, the haunt of alligators and snakes and the breeding place of the most blood-thirsty breed of mosquitoes I ever had fasten upon me, led us down into the head of the narrow corduroy road running across this swamp, and bade us stand there and hold the pass at all hazards, for all I now remember throwing out a few encouraging words about the fame of Thermopyle and the Immortal Three Hundred, then turned and rode away towards Fernandina, with his orderly dangling at his heels, leaving us in the midst of a dense and ever-thickening cloud of bayonet-billed mosquitoes.

The enemy? Suppose he was to land at Old Town, take Fort Clinch, and put Captain Nickels and its garrison to the sword, must we stand there and be eaten alive for a little thing like that? Not if we knew it. We forthwith resolved ourselves into a council of war, with the result that we marched ourselves to the high land overlooking the swamp, where the night breeze swept the pursuing mosquitoes back into their haunts. Then, after stationing a guard between us and Fernandina to prevent our alert commander from surprising us, we went into bivouac, confident that our danger did not lie towards Fort Clinch, for neither loyal nor rebel was yet so desperate as to tread that stretch of mosquito, alligator, snake-infested swamp road in the darkness of a moonless night. After some weeks spent on this, then isolated island, where a mail steamer from Port Royal put in only about once in three weeks, and no other vessel, except the gunboat cruising on the Cumberland Sound station, ever put in except when forced to by an extraordinary Atlantic gale, the Eleventh was relieved by the 97th Pennsylvania, and October 6th went on board the Boston again to proceed to Morris Island, that it might take part in the siege of Charleston.

MORRIS ISLAND.

Morris Island is but a strip of white sand on the Atlantic Ocean, at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. It runs north and south nearly, and is about four miles long. Its broad southerly end lying well out of the range of the enemy's fire, served as a camp-ground for troops not actively engaged in the siege and for headquarter and depot purposes. Narrowing as it approaches Sumter, till Fort Wagner completely barred all further progress at fairly high water, the island ends in a hooked projection known as Cummings' Point. It was on this point that Beauregard built Battery Gregg as long ago as when Sumter was forlornly garrisoned by Major Anderson.

From Cummings' Point it is but 1300 yards to Sumter, due northwest, and but four miles to Charleston City, looking about directly west across the bay, and is but about a mile and a half across to the batteries on Sullivan's Island, where Moultrie and its batteries lay beyond Sumter and to its east Sullivan's Island running about east for a short distance and then bearing rapidly towards the northeast, the north end of Morris pointing to about the western end of Sullivan's. To the west of the upper part of Morris Island, across a marshy tideway, through which flows Vincent Creek, James Island points a blunt end to Morris, the length of James forming the southern boundary line of Charleston Harbor. Outside of James, on the Atlantic, and separated from James by the Stono River, lies Folly Island, with Black Island wedged in between Folly, James and Morris.

When we reached Morris Island the tragedy of the siege was over, the whole of the island was in Union possession, and Wagner and Gregg were being rebuilt from the wreck occasioned by the terrible bombardment they had undergone, were being turned and armed to operate on the enemy's batteries on James and Sullivan's Islands, Sumter standing no longer as the chief, though still as an important factor in the problem of getting into Charleston, it having been battered from its aggressive symmetry into a silent, crumbling ruin. But from something like sentimental reasons it was still considered the central point of offense and defense, the rebel flag still flying defiantly over its ruined bastions, the garrison burrowing in bomb proofs that every shrieking shell of ours but added to the strength of, crumbling and tumbling the broken stone work in yet deeper depths above them. From these burrows they watched for night sallies from shore and fleet, and by the aid of the enfilading fire of the guns of James and Sullivan's Islands, succeeded in beating all off that were made upon them.

As the fatigue parties worked with shovel and spade in the sand of Fort Wagner and of Battery Gregg, the lookouts on the parapets would see a round cloud of white smoke fly into the air, from James Island perhaps. Then, with a cry of "James Island," they would leap from the parapets to cover, while the busy shovelers would scatter for shelter, instinctively taking cover under the sand walls next James Island till the projectile, shot or shell, from gun or mortar, had exploded and the fragments had buried themselves deep in the sand. Or, the cry might be "Sullivan," then the cover was sought for under the sand walls next that island. As soon as the danger was over, all rushed back to their work again. But sometimes this enfilading fire would become so vigorous a one as to force the men to quit work for a time and take shelter in the great bomb proofs and magazines, built of squared logs, banked and heaped with such depths of sand that even the fifteen-inch shells of the ironclads has failed to make any impression on them during their bombardment. All this time our own batteries on Morris Island were keeping up a steady fire upon Sumter and the other rebel fortifications, the fleet taking advantage of good weather to leave their stations outside the rebel line of fire to steam in and join in the roaring chorus.

Our regiment was encamped in the shelter of some sand hills about halfway down the island. From this camp details of men for fatigue duty were sent to the upper part of the island to take part in the fortification building going on there, D men with the rest. But in a short time a number of D were detailed to serve as artillerymen in Battery Chatfield, a work on Cummings' Point, and so many of D were in this detail that it may be said that the Company was on artillery service in the mortar battery of Chatfield, where, under Lieutenant Sellmer's practical tuition, they soon became able heavy artillerymen. The men of C, E, G and K, who had served with Lieutenant Sellmer in the Swamp Angel Battery, were in this detail also.

Our battery work was mainly directed against ruined Sumter. Day after day we trained the mortars on that crumbling fortress, sending their ten-inch shells high in the air to drop into Sumter and burst there. After a shot was fired it was watched by Lieutenant Sellmer through glasses, and its effect noted, whether it fell into the fort or outside of it, whether it burst in the air or after striking its objective point, the men at work in the magazine filling the flannel bags each charge of powder weighed out was enclosed in, receiving orders to put in more or less powder as the Lieutenant noted the effects of the shots, and those cutting the fuses receiving their orders to cut them shorter or longer from the same observations. As Lieutenant Sellmer observed the effects of the shots, Lieutenant Charles H. Foster of Company K, detailed to assist Lieutenant Sellmer, as he had in the Swamp Angel Battery, would note on a prepared form the results given him by Lieutenant Sellmer, so keeping a tabulated statement of each day's work during its progress, the number of shots fired and their individual results.

Sometimes these results were plain to all of us. A shot would fall into the fort and a whirl of flying fragments of stone or a leaping barbette caisson would tell us just where it had struck, and just what its effect was, and a few times we succeeded in our unceasing endeavor to bowl the rebel flag down. But to the credit of the garrison of Sumter, it must be said, that no sooner was it down than some brave fellow would mount to the parapet and set it flying again.

There is rarely any great loss of life through artillery firing. While the singing of minie balls has an ominous sound in the ears of the most hardened veteran, the roar of a battery, except at close quarters, when throwing grape and canister, is not very alarming to him. Why, at the great artillery duel of White Oak Swamp, in June, 1862, our loss, except in artillerymen, was slight, and the artillerymen killed and wounded were mostly picked off by the rebel sharpshooters, while General "Dick" Taylor, who commanded the Confederate troops immediately across the bridge, says that severe as was our fire, their loss from shells was but a small one. So, in all the wild uproar at the siege of Charleston, our loss from flying shells was ridiculously small, viewed from the standpoint of infantry engagements, the careful watch the outlooks kept from the parapets, the facility for shelter, and the promptness of the men in getting into safe places, saving many lives and limbs. But there were several narrow escapes, and some curious ones too. How shall we account for that of Lieutenant Foster, who after remaining comfortably seated for hours upon an empty ammunition box on the parapet of Chatfield, entirely ignoring the fast coming shots of the enemy, suddenly rose and stepped off the parapet, and just as he stepped off it, the box he had been seated on went into the air, struck by a piece of shell! And that of Private Darling, who, working at a mortar, suddenly stepped backwards just in time to save himself from being cut in two by the whistling copper bottom of a Brooks' rifle shell that went flying right across the spot he had just stood on. But it was not all so bloodless. One day, the 8th of December, a mortar shell struck the magazine of Chatfield in its weakest spot, and went crashing into it. For a moment we outside the magazine were panic stricken, expecting the immediate bursting of the shell and the blowing up of the magazine, in which we had many barrels of powder stored. But fortunately the shell was so surrounded with the tons of sand that poured into the magazine with it, that its bursting flame was completely smothered and did not touch a grain of our powder. We hastened to dig our buried men out, and found Corporal Albee, of C, killed by a piece of the shell, Private Kimball, of E, mortally wounded, and Sergeant Howard, of K, Corporal Bearce and Privates Maddox and Bragdon, of D, more or less severely injured.

We worked at our batteries during the day only, as a rule, returning to the regimental camp each night, leaving the batteries to be defended from any attempt of the enemy to occupy them by the heavy and light guns of direct fire, and by the infantry force that was marched up the island each night and ensconced in the bomb proofs of Wagner and Gregg. But such an attack never came, the Confederates contenting themselves with long range demonstrations, though frequently indulging in a heavy night shelling of our works, as if to cover a landing.

At these times the air would be full of artillery pyrotechnics, the flaring of bursting shells, and the sparkling arcs of mortar shells with their flaming fuses, described by an old writer as appearing in the night to be "fiery meteors with flaming tails, most beautifully brilliant." A fine exhibition for those out of range.

In December, reenlistments began from among the original men of the regiment, though they had a year yet to serve, proving to us that the government had settled down into the conviction that the war was far from being near its end. Many of D put their names on the reenlistment roll.

Later on, the 23d of January, 1864, D, with B, entered Fort Wagner as part of its garrison. It was really a sort of going into winter quarters--without the winter--for you could lie out of doors, under one blanket, in the nights of December and January, and sleep as comfortably as a soldier need to.

The siege of Charleston was really abandoned by now, and the troops that had been engaged in it were only held in hand until the time should come for them to go to Virginia to engage in graver operations.

Though regularly trained to use the thirty-two and the one-hundred pound Parrot guns Wagner was mainly armed with, we did not fire them often now except for range practice, or to send a shell now and then shrieking into Charleston. We usually aimed at the tall white steeple of St. Michael's Church, the most prominent object in the foreground of the city, and a most useful one to the Confederates, for a bright light kept burning at night from this steeple served as a guide to blockade runners. Getting the light within a certain range of one on Sumter and they could keep the channel and glide safely into the harbor. Not always, though. Early one foggy morning, that of February 2d, just after daybreak, a sentry called the attention of the sergeant of the guard to a patch of harder color in the soft atmospheric gray of the fog bank that lay between us and Sullivan's Island. A hasty inspection and a sudden lift of the fog showed us that there was a blockade runner fast ashore under Moultrie.

The alarm was quickly given, and in a few minutes a hundred-pound shell was whirling through the fog at the grounded blockade runner, the powerful impact of the shell serving to lift the fog enough to show us the lead colored vessel, with hundreds of men swarming in and out of it, engaged in a desperate attempt to unload freight before the Yankees should discover her presence. There was a wild scattering at the sound of the coming shell, the runner was left to serve us as a target, and we sent shell after shell into her until she was but a wreck.

Our Confederate friends would still favor us with a serenade of shot and shell in spite of our peaceful demeanor. And once or twice they did this so vigorously as to cause the commanding general to think they were really on the point of attacking us with infantry. Beauregard says that he made one of these night bombardments to give our commander just that idea to cover his own withdrawal of troops to Florida to General Finegan, about the time the battle of Olustee was fought in that state. Regiments of our troops would then come to Wagner to stand at the parapets all night, while we artillerymen worked the guns to keep down the enemy's fire. It was in one of these bombardments, that of Christmas night, that Private Laffin, of D, was so badly wounded, a piece of shell striking the bayonets of some stacked rifles, one of the pieces of shattered steel penetrating a leg.

This night our gunners paid particular attention to Charleston, I remember, throwing shells into that city until a large fire broke out in it, and then throwing shells at the glare of the fire. The men fighting the fire in the city, largely colored non-combatants probably, would succeed in getting the flames somewhat under control. We could see them lower and lessen, then they would suddenly flare up bright and red again, telling us that the screech of one of our going shells had driven the fire fighters to cover.

A "cruel war" it was, especially to non-combatants that circumstances of situation or greed placed in dangerous positions. Just think of the terror the enterprising sutler must have been in who had pitched a big tent outside of Fort Wagner that none of our boys having money need go without such delicacies as pickled pig's feet, canned condensed milk, ginger cakes, strong butter and slabby skim milk cheese, just think of the terror he must have been in when he would leave all these precious goods to destruction for the sake of his unexpectedly endangered person.

For a few days after his arrival he did a thriving business, then came one of the nights of heavy bombardment from James and Sullivan islands. In the morning the tent was still on the beach, but with certain suggestive looking holes in it. An investigation showed a medley of goods shattered and piled into a chaotic mass by invading shells, but the sutler was not to be found. He did not appear to us again, but it was said that he evacuated his bed and fled to the lower extremity of the island, as the first shell broke unceremoniously in upon his private apartment. That afternoon men came with an army wagon and carried away what Lieutenant Nel Norris would call the "debris" of boxes and barrels with what little remained of the stock of goods. That there was little besides shattered boxes and barrels to cart away, may be somewhat due to the fact that the men of D and B had been busily engaged during the forenoon in buying goods in the absence of their frightened owner.

At last the time came for leaving Morris Island. The reenlisted men had gone away on their veteran furlough, and finally D and B rejoined the regiment, which had been camping on Black Island since early in February. The Eleventh proceeded to Hilton Head, from where it sailed away with other troops the 21st day of April for a point on the York River, Virginia, from where our fleet had sailed a little more than a year before for the purpose of capturing Charleston. That the attempt had been a failure is to be attributed largely perhaps to the route of approach chosen. Beauregard says that there were three routes of attack from the sea, and that Morris Island was the worst of the three. He says that had we effected a lodgment on James Island instead, and have overcome the garrison there, as we did that of Morris Island, we had but to erect batteries within such easy distance of Charleston as to make it untenable, and as we would also be in the rear of their outer line of defense, they would have been obliged to evacuate Sumter, Moultrie and Wagner, and give up the city. That a similarly successful descent upon Sullivan's Island would have given the control of the inner harbor to the fire of our ironclads, with a similar result. But that when we had Morris Island, our occupation of it neither involved the evacuation of Sumter and the other forts, the destruction of the city by a direct fire, nor the control of Confederate movements in the inner harbor by the ironclad fleet. Be this as it may, beyond the destruction of Sumter, and the taking of Wagner, little had been accomplished, and we left Charleston and its defenses much as we had found them, the fleet riding outside the bar, the rebel flags still flying over Sumter, Sullivan's and James, Charleston still in the distance, now as exultantly defiant as it had been sullenly so in the height of the siege.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864.

The regiment arrived at Yorktown, Va., April 24th, and landing at Gloucester Point, on the opposite bank of the York River, went into camp. Here the reenlisted men rejoined the regiment from "veteran" furlough, bringing with them 176 stalwart recruits. These new recruits were distributed through the companies, and though almost without drill or preliminary discipline, they marched, fought, bled and died in the rough campaign of '64 as manfully as did the seasoned veterans they strove in their pride to emulate, both in bravery and endurance.

Yorktown was a very familiar spot to most of us. It stood just across the York River from our camp, on a high bluff-like shore, and still surrounded by the earthworks captured from Magruder, turned and strengthened by ourselves; grass-grown in the months that had passed since we sailed away from them.

The plains below the town, where the camps of our brigade had been, were now white with the tents of a part of the troops of the newly organized army of the James. This new military organization was composed of the Tenth Corps, drawn from the troops in South Carolina, consisting of three divisions, commanded by Generals Terry, Turner and Ames; the Eighteenth Corps of three divisions too, commanded by Generals Brooks, Weitzel and Hinks; and of a cavalry division commanded by General Kautz. These corps were commanded respectively by Major-Generals Q. A. Gillmore and W. F. "Baldy" Smith, the whole army by Major-General Benjamin F. Butler.

Our regiment was in the Third Brigade of Terry's Division. The other regiments of the brigade were the 24th Massachusetts, 10th Connecticut, and the 100th New York.

BERMUDA HUNDRED.

On the night of the 4th of May the transports the army had embarked on set sail for Fortress Monroe, and on the 5th moved up the James River, reaching Bermuda Hundred the afternoon of the 5th, and by morning of the 6th had disembarked. Bermuda Hundred is a peninsula, made by a sweep of the James River to the east and by its tributary, the Appomattox. It is at the mouth of the latter river, on its north bank, City Point lying opposite it on the south bank. Petersburgh is twelve miles up the Appomattox on its south bank, and Richmond twenty-three miles north of Petersburgh, directly connected by a railroad and turnpike.

On the morning of the 6th of May our disembarked forces advanced to the neck of the peninsula, about six miles from the landing. This neck is here about three miles across from river to river, two miles and a half beyond our halting point the railroad runs, the pike running between. The ground we took up was superficially intrenched at first, the plan not looking to a protracted stay there, but to an advance on the railroad and pike, the taking of Petersburgh and a march on Richmond and its southern communications. The force ready to oppose us was a small one, no larger than our brigade, and our army numbered some 30,000 men. But before vigorous steps were taken to capture Petersburgh, it had been reinforced by troops hurried forward from North Carolina by General Beauregard, our old opponent of the Department of the South, now in command of the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia. It was the head of this reinforcing column that successfully held Port Walthall Junction the 7th of May against a portion of our army. On the 9th we moved out to the front and destroyed the railroad between Swift Creek and Chester Station, a length of about six miles. On the 10th, the Confederate General, Ransom attacked this outlying force, but was repulsed. On the 12th we moved towards Richmond, Smith's corps on the right and ours on the left. We did not meet with any serious resistance this day. At night our line camped on Proctor's Creek. On the 14th we meet with more resistance. Smith found the works in his front too strong to be assaulted, but our corps moving to turn the enemy's right, resting on Wooldridge Hill, succeeding in forcing them to abandon their position there, and by night of the 15th we had driven them out of their whole outer line and into their interior one, and we were in position before Drury Bluff. But while we had been moving so slowly, Beauregard had been acting with such rapidity that he was now in the Drury's Bluff intrenchments with an army gathered from North Carolina and Richmond, and felt so strong that on the morning of the 16th he assumed the offensive, attacking Smith's right flank in the early morning, and capturing General Heckman and some hundreds of his brigade. Beauregard's plan miscarried somewhat, or he might have ended the career of the army of the James before it had fairly begun. He intended to get around our flank, while General Whiting should move out from Petersburgh with 5,000 men and attack our rear. His attack against Heckman was successful, but the other attacks on Smith's line failed, though the rebels captured four pieces of artillery, but his attacks on the line of our corps were all repulsed. Still we were pressed back, partly by the numerical force thrown against us and partly from our anxiety to cover our trains and keep our connections with Bermuda Hundred, where we had left but a small force. By night our army had given back until the rebels occupied their whole outer line again, but Whiting's force failing to advance, Beauregard could not press his advantage as he wished to, and before morning our whole force was safely behind the Bermuda Hundred intrenchments. The truth is that General Whiting was not a prohibitionist by any means, and this day of all days in his military career, he chose to exemplify that fact by getting drunk. Colonel Logan, of General Beauregard's staff, who took General Whiting written orders to move out the morning of the 16th, delivered them to him the night of the 15th, and was with General Whiting when on the morning of the 16th, beginning at daylight, he made his advance. Striking the Union picket line, his force was placed in line of battle, but made no advance during the day, in spite of Colonel Logan's expostulations and those of General D. H. Hill, "spending the day in arranging and rearranging his line," according to Colonel Logan, who does not doubt but had General Whiting followed his instructions the result would have been the capture of the entire force of General Butler.

Company D had not yet been actively engaged. It had been under fire a number of times though, quite enough to show the good stuff its new men were made of. It had taken an active part in tearing up the railroad, and had done a little long range skirmishing in which its only casualty was Private Annis, wounded on the 14th; but I think that the members of it who had been in the most serious danger were those on the picket line the night of the 13th.

The picket line of this night was in charge of Captain Mudgett. In running it he placed some of us before the open grounds in which stood the house before which Lieutenant Brannen, of Company I, was killed, and then by some devious piloting placed another line between us and our line of battle, a bit of duplication that was decidedly unpleasant to us of the outer picket line, for the Confederates were terribly uneasy that night, firing heavily all along their apparently very strong picket line, we replying, of course, but--_zip_, _zip_, in front of us was all very well, but where did the bullets that flew around us from the rear come from? The unpleasant fact speedily dawned on us that a picket line lay behind us firing too at the Confederate rifle flashes, as they supposed, but really at our own, so that we poor fellows were between two fires. To attempt to go back to expostulate with the pickets behind us was impossible, for the inevitable crashing through the underbrush between us and them would concentrate sure death upon the messenger. So all we could do then was to stay where we were, cease firing, and lay low. This last we did literally, lying flat on the ground while the bullets zipped viciously back and forth over us, one every now and then striking this or that side of a tree with a suggestive spat.

But Private Day would fire, to lie still and be shot at was contrary to his nature. Every once in a while his gun would bang from his position on the left of the line, giving the enemy in front and the line behind us a range by which to pelt us most dangerously. Again and again I had to go down the line and expostulate with John, but it was of no use, and at last I was forced to take my position with him and by sheer ill-temper keep him repressed, while he foamed with wrath at the idea of being compelled to lie still and silent to be shot at.

The night of the 15th our regiment took a position on the extreme left, where we threw up a sort of intrenchment in anticipation of an attack. But in the morning the heavy firing and the shouting told us that the other flank was the one attacked. We remained in our position a short time in the thick fog, hastily getting coffee boiling and the inner man strengthened for what seemed to be a coming day's work. Soon an order came for us to move to a position in support of the assailed line. As we moved rapidly along the line, we passed General Terry's headquarters, a small house, out of which the General rushed in his shirt-sleeves to admonish us to double quick "for God's sake." Then, striking a panting gait, we soon took position under a heavy fire.

Here we lay watching the give-and-take going on in front of us, expecting each minute to be obliged to fill a gap, but instead we were suddenly ordered to march rapidly to the rear and push down the pike toward Petersburgh till we should meet the supposed to be approaching Whiting.

And we did march rapidly. The fog was long gone, and the sun was beating down hot and strong. Men fell right and left, not bullet struck, but sun-struck. Caps were filled with green leaves, handkerchiefs were soaked in water and tied around swelling temples, but still it was "Forward," "Forward." The desperate pace seemed endless, but at last we were halted, formed in a strong skirmish line, and moved through woods till we reached a creek where we awaited the Confederate advance.

We could hear them talking and moving beyond the creek, but for reasons now known to you, they did not cross it. We remained in this position until night, then by a circuitous route, down one ravine and up another, under the piloting of Lieutenant Newcomb and Sergeant Payne we stole away, and soon found ourselves behind the outworks of Bermuda Hundred.

The 17th of May was passed by the men in necessary recuperation, and by the commanding officers in a rearrangement of lines, now looking to defense. That night the pickets at Warebottom Church reported a movement down the pike. The sound of trampling horses and the rattling of heavy wagons came clearly to their ears. It was conjectured that a wagon train was moving down the pike from Richmond to Petersburgh, and it was determined to attack it. Troops were hurried from the inner lines to the front, and the Eleventh was formed in line of battle and moved through the woods toward the pike. As it was a bright moonlight night, and the woods were fairly clear of underbrush, this movement was rapidly made, but suddenly, click, click, all along in front came the sound of cocking guns, and as our men threw themselves upon the ground, a crash of musketry came from a line of battle the Eleventh had almost run into. For an hour fierce firing was kept up by both sides, a battery of artillery on ours, placed near the church, adding not a little to the uproar by throwing shells over our heads. At last, when our ammunition had become exhausted, and while the men, their blood up, where clamoring for a fresh supply, orders came to fall back.

The wagon train proved to be Beauregard's trains and batteries moving down from Richmond, and well sheltered from us by a strong line of battle.

Of D, Private Carver received a severe flesh wound in this affair and Private George L. Butler was mortally wounded, the loss of the regiment numbering 26 men.

The 20th of May the enemy made a most determined but entirely unsuccessful attack on our outer line. We were not engaged, however. It was this day that the rebel General Walker was wounded and captured.

Only heavy skirmishing took place for some days after this, the night firing between pickets being especially continuous. During this comparative lull, and accounting for it partly, the enemy was building the Howlett House line, extending from the Howlett House Hill on the James to the Appomattox, by this line of intrenchments effecting the famous "bottling up process," and most effectually protecting their lines of communication between Richmond and Petersburgh.

As soon as General Grant learned of the futile result of Butler's movement, from which he had hoped so much, the destruction of Confederate communication with North Carolina, the investment of Richmond, and the consequent withdrawal of a large body of Lee's army from his own front, he directed that all the troops not actually needed to hold Bermuda Hundred be sent to him under command of General Smith. In consequence of this order, 16,000 of our army with 16 guns embarked the night of the 28th, and the 29th sailed for White House Landing on the York River, leaving a force of about 15,000 infantry and cavalry in the Bermuda Hundred intrenchments.

At about the same time General Lee ordered Beauregard to send him all the men he, too, could spare, which he did, retaining about 12,000 infantry and cavalry. There seems to have been a desire on the part of General Lee that still more of Beauregard's force be sent to him; even that Beauregard himself should go to him with all his available troops and take command of the right wing of Lee's army, leaving Petersburgh with a small force to take care of itself. But Beauregard was tenacious in his determination to hold his position on the south side of the James, and to keep his lines of intrenchments strongly manned. He argued that Butler's force was still large enough to endanger Petersburgh, even against the force he had retained, and it was to test this theory that he made the reconnoissance in force on the 2d of June which proved so disastrous to Company D.

The regiment went on picket duty the evening of June 1st, D taking position at Warebottom Church. The pickets had by this time settled into a state of armed neutrality, the more venturesome of them even trading in coffee and tobacco. Private Bridges, of D, was especially active in this sort of barter. He frequently went across the strip of ground that lay between the picket lines to drive lively trades with the enemy for tobacco, which was scarce with us, bartering coffee therefor, which was scarce with them.

Private Bridges, "Old Turk" as he was called, was a character. A half surly look in his eyes, something like that in those of a half tamed steer, caused him to receive the bucolic nick-name. He had ideas of his own about guns; the Springfield rifles we were armed with he despised. He wanted a gun that would carry a bullet to the spot he aimed at. Somewhere, at Gloucester Point I think, he got hold of a sporting rifle, a heavy, thick barreled, strongly grooved piece, and then the bother was to get suitable ammunition for it, our cartridges being much too large for its bore. After a deal of wandering through camps, he secured, through a good-natured cavalryman, a suitable cartridge for his gun, a carbine cartridge that fitted it perfectly. With a stock of these in his cartridge box he was ready for the enemy. Of course the carrying of this gun had to be winked at by his officers, and when he went on inspection, parade or guard duty he had to borrow a despised Springfield rifle from some one off duty to appear with, giving rise to a lately heard of story of his carrying two guns.

This evening of the 1st of June, Corporal Weymouth made himself the medium of exchange between the pickets.

He went towards the rebel picket line in the early evening and was met by one of their number whom he arranged to meet at the same spot in the early morning for the exchange of goods agreed upon.

The night was a moonless one, I remember, for, as we were not allowed fires, or to light matches on the outposts, when we wanted to learn the time of night we had to catch a fire-fly and make him crawl across the face of a watch, that when he flashed we might catch the positions of the hands. In the early part of the night the rebel batteries opened on our lines, firing most vigorously for a time, but as we did not reply they ceased firing after about one hour. It is probable that it was Beauregard's purpose to aggravate our batteries into replying that he might gather an idea of their positions and the number of their guns.

Morning came at last and the daylight broke. As soon as the light was strong enough to see clearly, Lieutenant Maxfield made a tour along the line of D, from right to left. He found Corporal Weymouth wide awake and in readiness to go out to meet his rebel friend when he should appear coming over the rebel works.

"There he is, Corporal," said some one as a form darted over the rebel line. "But he has a gun in his hand," Weymouth answered, and sure enough Lieutenant Maxfield saw that the man they were looking at had a gun in his hand, and that he was accompanied by a long line of other gray clad men, reaching out from his right and left, all with guns in their hands, too, and all moving swiftly toward our works.

In a moment the Lieutenant had shouted the alarm to his men, and as the sharp word of command rang out, every man, were he asleep or awake, sprang to his feet, every gun was to a cheek, and a rapid and effective fire was opened upon the now swiftly approaching enemy. So sure and cool were our men, far from being surprised, that in less than a minute the long line of the enemy in front of D was gone, those of them not fallen back to cover, lying on the ground dead or dying, the not too desperately wounded slowly crawling for spots sheltered from our fire.

The new rifle of Private Bridges was especially effective that morning every shot from it seeming to tell. His usually half closed eyes were wide open now and sparkling with joy. As he fired he would peer after his flying shot, and "I have hit him," he would triumphantly shout, and then proceed to reload his rifle with cool care. We were jubilant, for we had beaten the enemy off, but we speedily found that the pickets on our left had not been so fortunate. We could see them falling hastily back, and then over the open space before us that we had just cleared of one rebel skirmish line, a heavier one came rushing.

We fell back to a reserve pit on the run, entering it pell mell. Here we found Captain Lawrence and his company, H, and at his command a smart fire was opened on the pursuing enemy, driving them to cover. But unfortunately there was an unoccupied reserve pit to our rear and left that the enemy entered, and from which they poured a galling fire on our rear. Captain Lawrence, as commander of our little force, was ably assisted by Lieutenant Thompson of his own company, and by Lieutenant Maxfield, of D. These officers exposed themselves recklessly while urging the men to keep up their fire on the enemy in their front, not forgetting those in the reserve pit behind us.

Of course we could not stay where we were unless we proposed to go to Richmond before its evacuation. A hasty council of war was held by the officers, and it was agreed that the plan should be to fight desperately until a lull in the attack should give an opportunity to gain the woods behind us, then that we should break for it with a sudden and combined rush that would carry us right through the enemy of the reserve pit should they sally out as we ran by them, which we must, and within a few feet of them. The rebels in our front made several vain rushes at us. Once a sergeant of theirs led his men almost to the muzzles of the guns on the left, at a moment too, when the most of the guns there were uncharged. Corporal Weymouth was on the extreme left, "shoot that sergeant, Weymouth," was shrieked at him, and like lightning Weymouth's gun was pointing straight at the gallant rebel, and Weymouth's sharp eye was looking down the barrel as if to give the death stroke. Even rebel human nature probably fighting for a commission could not stand it, and the sergeant turned and fled, his men flying with him, not knowing that Weymouth's gun was as empty as a last year's bird's nest.

A movement of the rebels in our front that checked the fire of their men in the reserve pit indicated a sudden onslaught. The moment for retiring had come, "now, all together," said Lieutenant Maxfield, as he ran along to the left, "pour it into them when Captain Lawrence shouts 'fire,' and then run for the woods." "Fire," the order came, a crash of rifles answered it, and then we ran like deer for the sheltering timber.