Chapter VIII: Part 8

Suddenly, upon my left and behind me all was commotion. The Sixteenth Maine on our left fired volley after volley toward the front. My regiment, the Thirty-ninth Massachusetts, followed their lead. I threw myself upon my face until the fusilade had ceased. Then I lost no time in reaching the Regiment. I saw no wounded in our immediate front, but a number in butternut clothing crawled toward the Sixteenth Maine or lay prostrate in their front. One in particular, I remember, he was crawling upon his hands and knees toward the Sixteenth, while a large, red stream flowed from his throat as I had seen blood flow from the throat of a slaughtered pig.

I now saw that a wonderful change had occurred in front of the Thirty-ninth. A wide belt of the forest had disappeared. Three parallel lines of breastworks, with an abatis in their front, were undergoing construction along the Brock Road. Men without axes had felled large trees with hatchets, and saplings with knives. Bayonets instead of pickaxes had loosened the sun-baked Virginia clay and tin plates instead of shovels had transferred the soil. The trees, the saplings and the clay, under the direction of skilled mechanics and by the herculean efforts of determined and rapid workmen, had taken and were taking effective defensive shape. The moment the firing ceased the constructive, defensive work again began. I saw upon the Brock Road a mounted officer, riding and swinging his sword. I heard him say, "General Grant says, 'If you hold this place until night, the enemy must evacuate Petersburg and Richmond, is ours.'" I began to use my bayonet and tin plate with the rest in constructing breastworks, but the call for skirmishers soon came again and I went back to watch through the night and the following day for the first signs of another frontal attack, which happily did not come. Before we left this place I listened to the account of my messmate, George V. Shedd, who, as one of a squad, had passed on duty through a part of the woods where men wounded, dying and dead had been blistered, blackened and burned by ruthless forest fires.

I have learned since that on the morning of May 6th a Confederate engineer officer reported to General Longstreet that the extreme left of the Infantry of the Army and of the Second Corps was in the woods in front of the Brock Road and exposed. A flank attack by four Brigades was immediately made, following first the unfinished railroad bed where their march was practically unimpeded and then advancing north through the woods. Our men, who were cooking coffee, were completely surprised and routed, and this explains the confusion which prevailed along the Brock Road when we arrived a little later. The Brock Road was now almost in the grasp of Longstreet, who hoped to seize it and to "put the enemy back across the Rapidan before night." "Longstreet, followed by fresh Brigades at double-quick," began to follow up the victory when he and his staff were mistaken for Federal troops and fired upon by the Sixty-first Virginia of Mahone's Confederate Brigade. Longstreet was severely wounded. General Longstreet says, "I immediately made arrangements to follow up the successes gained and ordered an advance of all my troops for that purpose."

(Here the hand of our comrade ceased, for fatal illness came upon him ere his task was ended.--A. S. R.)

[Sidenote: MAY 7, '64]

One of the saddest features of the Wilderness struggle was the fire kindled by exploding shells and which raged unchecked over much of the fighting area, enveloping in its destroying embrace with equal fury the blue and the gray, whether living or dead, and we can never know how many among the missing were thus ushered into eternity. In Northern burial grounds, no unusual sight is that of a cenotaph or memorial to the memory of a departed soldier whose body was cremated or burned beyond recognition in the Wilderness. Save for the industry displayed in the building of rifle-pits, and the fruitless rebel assault on the Sixth Corps at our right, the night connecting the 6th and 7th of May was a quiet one; both sides were weary to the pitch of exhaustion, and both had learned that breastworks had wonderfully preserving qualities and, while Sheridan makes something of a stir at our left, as far away as Todd's Tavern, the day is relatively a peaceful one. Very likely the respective heads of the two great armies are taking inventories of their losses and gain, if any of the latter were observable. Both leaders had suffered sufficiently in the Wilderness, yet each one is perfectly willing that the other should attack, and when Grant's tentative skirmish line fails to draw the men in gray from their intrenchments, the Union commander knows that the time for him to continue his march towards Richmond has come. There appears to be a general agreement among those keeping diaries that the Thirty-ninth, with the other regiments of the brigade remained in or near the intrenchments till well along in the afternoon, when it was withdrawn, and in the rear had the privilege of preparing something to eat. Davis, in his story of the Thirteenth Massachusetts, says fresh meat rations were drawn and cooked and coffee was boiled, a most grateful relief, if only a brief one.

Of this day General Warren says that the army took up defensive positions and spent the time getting together the several commands which had been detached to defend parts of the field in the varying emergencies of the previous days' battles. Of himself he remarks that he had received, on the 6th, eighteen orders to send reinforcements to other parts of the line. It is nine o'clock in the evening of the 7th that the Fifth Corps takes up its line of march towards the left. Men of other corps are seen asleep as we pass by, and it is no craven thought for us to wish that we might slumber also, but "Forward" is the word. Lieutenant Schaff, more than forty years later to produce one of the most remarkable battle descriptions ever given, his story of the Wilderness, an officer on Warren's staff, says this of the scene:--

"Here comes the head of Warren's Corps with banners afloat. What calm serenity, what unquenchable spirit are in the battle-flags! On they go. Good-by, old fields, deep woods, and lonesome roads. And murmuring runs, Wilderness, and Caton, you too farewell. The head of Warren's column has reached the Brook Road and is turning South. At once the men catch what it means. Oh, the Old Army of the Potomac is not retreating, and, in the dusky light, as Grant and Meade pass by, they give them high, ringing cheers.

"Now we are passing Hancock's lines and never, never shall I forget the scene. Dimly visible, but almost within reach of our horses, the gallant men of the Second Corps are resting against the charred parapets, from which they hurled Field. Here and there is a weird little fire, groups of mounted officers stand undistinguishable in the darkness, and up in the towering tree tops of the thick woods beyond the intrenchments, tongues of yellow flame are pulsing from dead limbs, lapping the face of night. All, all is deathly still. We pass on, cross the unfinished railway, then Poplar Run and then up a shouldered hill. Our horses are walking slowly. We are in dismal pine woods, the habitation of thousands of whippoorwills uttering their desolate notes unceasingly. Now and then a sabre clanks and close behind us the men are toiling on.

"It is midnight. Tood's Tavern is two or three miles away. Deep, deep is the silence. Jehovah reigns; Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor are waiting for us and here The Wilderness ends."

SPOTTSYLVANIA

[Sidenote: MAY 7, '64]

Of this same day and evening, our own Colonel Peirson has also given a vivid picture; after quoting Grant's words to Colonel Theodore Wyman, sitting under a pine tree, on the 7th, "To-night Lee will be retreating south" he says, in his Loyal Legion paper:--

"Lee did retreat south, but only for the purpose of intercepting the onward movement of Grant, and he retreated so rapidly that we found him at Spottsylvania when we emerged from The Wilderness. Nightfall of the 7th saw our whole army on the march for Spottsylvania--Warren leading with Robinson's division by the most direct route, which was by the Brock Road, via Todd's Tavern,--leaving on the field all our dead and wounded Grant remarked that if Lee thought he was going to stop to bury his dead he was mistaken, but a few days later he sent a cavalry force back with ambulances, who succeeded in saving some of the wounded men.... The 7th was hot and dusty, and as it was necessary in order to clear the roads of trains by daylight, the movement was discovered by the enemy. The Fifth Corps in the advance, preceded by cavalry and followed by the Second Corps, took the Brock Road. The Sixth Corps moved by the Plank and Turnpike roads via Chancellorsville, preceded by the train, and followed by the Ninth Corps, who were the rear guard.... The Fifth Corps, led by Robinson's division, marched all night and about six on the morning of the 8th emerged from the wilderness near Todd's Tavern, and after marching a mile or two came up with our cavalry, who, as evidenced by several dead cavalrymen by the roadside, had recently been engaged with the enemy."

General F. A. Walker, in his history of the Second Corps, accounts for the presence of the Confederates at Spottsylvania on the arrival of the Union army in a very interesting manner. He says that Lee, convinced of the intention on Grant's part of moving towards Fredericksburg, ordered Anderson, who had succeeded to Longstreet's position, to move in the morning of the 8th to Spottsylvania. We remember that the whole battle section had been overrun with fire and that it was still burning when the orders came. Anxious to escape its unpleasant nearness, he determined to set out in the evening of the 7th and so make a night-march of the fifteen miles intervening. By what Southern pietists might call this Providential procedure on the part of the Confederate leader, he got there ahead of Warren.

Resuming Colonel Peirson's excellent paper bearing on this campaign, we find him recording as follows:--

"As soon as the cavalry got out of the way Robinson's division at once deployed, with Lyle's brigade on the left and leading, the Maryland brigade (Third) coming upon his right, and Baxter's brigade (Second) supporting still further on the right. In this way they advanced, driving the skirmishers before them by and beyond Alsop's house, and, reaching a wooded knoll, reformed the line, which had become somewhat disordered, casting off their knapsacks in order to move more quickly, and because the heat made them almost unsupportable. Pushing forward again, they came in sight of a part of a light battery of the enemy, which was firing down the Brock Road, and breaking into a run nearly captured the two guns, driving them well to the rear. The leading brigade had now advanced some two miles since its deployment, and had reached a heavily wooded rise of ground, where they halted for a moment to get breath and some alignment; and having run much of the distance, had left the rest of the division far behind. The men were very much blown, and many had fallen from the way from sunstroke and fatigue. General Warren here rode up and, saying to General Robinson that his orders were to go to Spottsylvania Court House, ordered him forward. Robinson asked for time to get up his other brigades, but after a few moments of waiting Warren became impatient, and General Robinson ordered an immediate charge upon the enemy's line, then in plain sight behind some rude breastworks, saying, 'We must drive them from there, or they will get some artillery in position.'

"The enemy's line was formed on a ridge across the Brock Road, near its junction with a road leading to the Block House, and was protected by an incomplete breastwork, with small pine-trees felled for abatis and a rail fence parallel with the line to the front. The enemy was hard at work finishing their breastworks. They were two brigades of Kershaw's division of Longstreet's corps.

[Sidenote: MAY 8, '64]

"Lyle's brigade, in which my regiment was, charged over 500 yards of open, badly gullied ground under a rapid fire from the enemy's muskets and from the artillery we had so nearly captured. The troops went over the rail fence, into the abatis, and up to within 30 feet of the works, getting shelter then from the hill and the felled pine trees. Here they lay to recover their wind, easily keeping down the fire of the enemy in their front, who fired hurriedly and aimlessly, and while waiting saw the Third Brigade (Marylanders) advancing gallantly across the field to their support. The latter, however, after getting halfway to the rebel works, broke under the enemy's fire from the right and retreated in confusion, General Robinson being shot in the knee while trying to rally them. The remaining brigade was too far to the right and rear to assist in this assault. Lyle's brigade, having rested these few minutes, started to go over the works, and would have gone over, but at this moment, discovering a fresh brigade of the enemy advancing in line of battle upon our left, I (a lieutenant-colonel, upon whom the command had devolved, so few were the men to reach this spot) reluctantly gave the order to retire, and the command fell back in some confusion, but reformed when clear of the flanking fire, and taking advantage of the accidents of ground checked the advance of the enemy. The sun was so hot, and the men so exhausted from the long run as well as from the five days and nights of fighting and marching, that this retreat, though disorderly, was exceedingly slow, and we lost heavily in consequence from the enemy's fire. My own experience was that, while wishing very much to run, I could only limp along, using my sword as a cane. My color-bearer (Cottrell) was shot by my side, and unheeding his appeal to save him, I could only pass the colors to the nearest man, and leave the brave fellow to die in a rebel prison. The flanking brigade of the enemy, which so nearly succeeded in surrounding us, was part of Longstreet's corps (now under command of General R. H. Anderson) and it was his line we had so nearly broken.... That Longstreet's corps had but just arrived at the line of our assault is evident from the incomplete nature of the breast works, and from the fact that they had no artillery in position. Had there been any support for the brigade which got up to the rebel works, the enemy's line would have been broken, and our army would have been between Lee's army and Richmond; but as we have seen the only supporting brigade was far behind, and the rest of the Fifth Corps not yet up....

"The delay in Robinson's movement caused by the cavalry was unfortunate, and gave rise to a good deal of feeling at the time. General Meade, who was always for giving the infantry a free foot, had sent orders to General Sheridan, on the night of the 7th, to have his cavalry out of the Brock Road, but Sheridan, not receiving them, obstructed the road with a brigade, and as the cavalry and infantry became unavoidably mixed up, this delayed the advance.... It is known that in an interview at this time, General Meade was very indignant with General Sheridan, until he learned from him personally that he had never received the orders to clear the road, when Meade frankly apologized for what must have been harsh censure. In this interview which was described to me by Colonel Theodore Lyman, who was present, General Sheridan, being much chagrined by the censure of his superior officer, stated there was no force worth speaking of in front of the advance of the Fifth Corps; but he seems to have withdrawn this view, when in his cooler moments he came to write his report. Perhaps the feeling which caused Warren's unjustifiable removal from the command of the Fifth Corps at Five Forks began here.... The advanced troops fell back to the line which had been taken up by the Fifth Corps, intrenched, and waited for the Sixth Corps to come up, which they did in the afternoon, going into position on Warren's left. Crawford's division of the Fifth Corps made an attack in the afternoon, but with little result beyond capturing some seventy prisoners and losing considerably in killed and wounded."

In the preceding pages General Peirson refers to the fact of the command of the Regiment devolving on himself; it might have been stated that Colonel Davis, a very large and stout man, though doing his best to lead his men whose pace was more than double-quick, was completely overcome by the heat and mounted upon one of the Rebel Battery horses, cut out by Milton F. Roberts of "C," was carried to the rear. Modesty no doubt influenced General Peirson not to state that he was, himself, hit by a portion of a buckshot-cartridge, three of the missiles lodging in his right arm or shoulder, his sword-cane giving place to the stalwart shoulders of Isaac H. Mitchell of "A." Two of the bits of lead were picked out by the surgeon, the other is there yet. The wound did not keep the resolute officer long from his post.

Here is the story as told by I. H. Mitchell, Company A, and transcribed by Channing Whittaker, Company B.:--

[Sidenote: MAY 8, '64]

"It must have been very near to where the Johnnies were that Lieutenant Colonel Peirson received three buck-shot in his right arm above the elbow, on May 8th, 1864. It was after we had been ordered to fall back that I first saw him after he was wounded. He was conscious, but perfectly helpless. He was trying to get back. I took him right upon my shoulder and carried him quite a distance into and part way through the woods, where we had formed line just before the last charge in which he was wounded. I had carried him 100 yards sure, and was still carrying him to the rear, when we met a man with a horse who was looking for some officer. I told him that I had got to have the horse to carry the Lieutenant Colonel. He did not object, because he could not find his man, and the bullets were whistling about pretty thick at that time. He then led the horse and I held the Lieutenant Colonel on his back, while I walked by his side. We followed the general direction of those who were going to the rear. I was not sure whether we were going in the right direction, and fearing that we might get into the hands of the Johnnies, I stopped, took him from the horse and carried him a little distance from the road into the woods. If I remember rightly, I made some coffee for him there waiting perhaps two hours, before we could get a stretcher for him. While we were there General Robinson was carried by. He had been wounded and he was saying things. In the meantime they had established a division hospital in the rear, and I then hailed some stretchers bearers, who took the Lieutenant Colonel there and I returned to my place in the Regiment. He came back to the Regiment very soon and was in our next fight."

As the day advanced the other corps came into their respective positions, the Second being massed at Todd's Tavern, protecting the rear of the army and the Ninth was at the extreme Union left, and there was more or less fighting along the whole line at some time in the day. A melancholy train was that made up of ambulances and baggage wagons which on the 8th set out for Fredericksburg, bearing 12,000 wounded men, thence via Belle Plain Landing and the Potomac to be distributed to the great hospitals of Washington and points further North. Sheridan and his troopers also received orders to set out upon their famous raid which would flank Lee's army, reach the outer defenses of Richmond, slay J. E. B. Stuart, the most remarkable cavalryman of the Confederacy, and leave a gruesome token of its venturesome trip by a trail of decaying horseflesh and freshly made graves for considerably more than a hundred and fifty miles. The magnitude of this adventure, which began Monday morning, May 9th, may be seen when we know that it comprised 10,000 horsemen, riding in fours and well closed up, yet constituting a column thirteen miles long requiring, according to a rebel authority, four hours at a brisk pace to pass a given point; what an eye opener such a force must have been to the Confederates at home, who had little notion of the resources of the North. Rejoining the Federal army at Chesterfield Station, on the 25th, its results were summed up in having deprived Lee's forces of their "Eyes and Ears" (cavalry) since all of the mounted rebels started in pursuit, as soon as the move was understood; it had damaged Lee's communications, liberated nearly four hundred Union prisoners, destroyed an immense quantity of supplies, killed the leader of his cavalry, saved the Union Government the subsistence of ten thousand horses and men for more than two weeks, perfected the morale of the cavalry corps and produced a moral effect of incalculable good to the Union cause.

Returning to the incident of the artillery referred to by Colonel Peirson in his paper, it is interesting to find the same affair recounted by one of the leading Confederates, General Fitzhugh Lee, in one of his war sketches. After alluding to the ubiquity of the cavalry and the work it had done in preparing the way for the arrival of R. H. Anderson's (Longstreet's) Corps, he says:--

[Sidenote: MAY 8, '64]

"Major James Breathed, commanding my horse artillery, remained behind and by my order placed a single gun in position on a little knoll. We knew the enemy's infantry was marching in column through a piece of woods, and the object was to fire upon the head of the column, as it debouched, to give the idea that a further advance would again be contested, and to compel them to develop a line of battle with skirmishers thrown out, etc. The delay which it was hoped to occasion by such demonstration was desirable. Under Major Breathed's personal superintendence shells were thrown, and burst exactly in the head of the column as it debouched. The desired effect was obtained; the leading troops were scattered, and it was only with some difficulty a line of battle with skirmishers in its front was formed to continue the advance. I was sitting on my horse near Breathed, and directed him to withdraw his gun, but he was so much elated with his success that he begged to be allowed to give the enemy some more rounds. He fired until their line got so close that you could hear them calling out: 'Surrender that gun, you rebel scoundrel.' Breathed's own horse had just been shot. The cannoneers jumped on their horses, expecting of course the gun to be captured, and retreated rapidly down the hill. Breathed was left alone. He limbered up the gun and jumped on the lead horse. It was shot from under him. Quick as lightning he drew his knife, cut the leaders out of the harness and sprang upon a swing or middle horse. It was also shot under him just as he was turning to get into the road. He then severed the harness of the swing horses, jumped upon one of the wheel horses, and again made a desperate attempt to save his gun. The ground was open between the piece and woods; the enemy had a full view of the exploit; and Breathed at last dashed off unharmed, miraculously escaping through a shower of bullets."

In confirmation of the foregoing, is the statement of Sergt. Wm. A. Mentzer, Company A, as follows: "After advancing about two and one-half miles we came to a piece of artillery on a knoll. While the Rebs fired at us, to our pleasure as well as surprise, they fired over our heads. We drove them from their position about half-a-mile, when they opened on us again. We in the front rank gave them a Yankee yell and charged for the gun. We shot one horse and drove away all the men but one, who dismounted, cut the traces of the dead horse, remounted in a hurry and got away with the gun just as we thought it was ours."

Battle scenes and incidents, we think, are indelibly impressed upon the memory. Sometimes they are; more often many of the prominent features disappear entirely, so that when the locality is revisited, difficulty is found in reconciling the past impressions with those of the present. Thus many of the Thirty-ninth who made that exhausting charge under fire, in the morning of the 8th of May, would find themselves at fault at many points, and would wonder at the changes in the face of nature, had they the opportunity to go over the route followed under such adverse circumstances. Channing Whittaker of "B," however, is sure he could recognize the spot where the Regiment reformed and momentarily rested; the place where Colonel Peirson and General Robinson were wounded; the road cut through the hill which Grant's army did not pass over on May 8th or 9th, the hillside on which he was wounded and where he spent the night after the fight; the point whence he saw three mounted Confederate Generals and where he saw Sergt. Major Conn, hacking away with his short Sergeant Major sword at a multitude of Confederates who had set upon him and finally carried him away captive and, above all, just where Breathed's rebel battery was dislodged.

[Sidenote: MAY 8, '64]

Of the exactions of this day, M. H. Mentzer, "A," says, "Many were exhausted but an officer begged us to cross over one field more. We had been advancing and under fire from early morning, but we started again, a very thin blue line, through a valley, up a rise, when a terrible hail of bullets met us; we lay down and hugged the dirt; a lull, and then distinctly from the enemy came the order, "Now rally ---- North Carolina and give them H--ll!" Over they came, taking many prisoners from our little line. I started to run as others did but tripped and fell headlong down the hill lying still until they had pushed our boys well back, when I crawled a short distance to cover, several shells bursting in my path as I got away. Out of the way, covered with sweat, dirt and ashes, for the cinders of the Wilderness were yet on us, I fell asleep, and remained here till about four o'clock in the afternoon. I fell in with a Natick boy, Company I, who had a bullet hole in his wrist; I washed out the wound, tore a piece from my shirt and bandaged it as well as I could, washed his face and hands, made some coffee to cheer him up and then took him to a hospital on the field. Then I set out to find my Brigade and Regiment and found them at twilight; my brother, Sergt. Mentzer, had reported me as dead with a bullet-hole through my forehead; those who saw me trip and plunge forward must have mixed me up with someone that looked like me. It was in the work of this forenoon that General Robinson was wounded and Jeff. Cottrell, of "A," Color Sergeant, was wounded and was carried part way off the field by Charles Goodwin, only to die at last in a rebel prison. My brother, Sergt. W. A. Mentzer, then took the colors and carried them until Major Tremlett reorganized the color-guard."

J. H. Burnham also of "A," recalls, "The march down the Brock Road with the Fifth Corps from the Wilderness, the night of the 7th of May, and our running into Longstreet's corps, then under General Anderson. The rebels were behind, hastily erected breast works and were ready for us. We advanced across an open field and suffered much from the rifle fire. When near the works, I was hit in the abdomen. Throwing down my gun, I made my way back across the field, over the dead and dying, and lay down under a tree in front of a house. As this was early in the morning of the 8th, I don't think there were many other wounded men there then, but later others came. Sometime in the forenoon, a lady came out of the house and asked me if I was badly hurt. She also said that she was from New Jersey. It seems as though she said the place was the Laurel Hill farm, though I understand it is known in history as the Alsop farm. The next day came the ambulances, tents and other outfit of the Fifth Corps. I should like to go there some day and have a look at the place where I expected to give up my life. I carried the ball in my body for months and have it now. I never rejoined the Regiment."

We owe much to Colonel Peirson's recollections of the service of the Regiment, but in this affair at Alsop's he fails to recount a story remembered by McDonald of "B," who says that in the company was a tall Scotchman, Hunter by name, much inclined to stoop and, for this reason was frequently enjoined by the critical Lieut. Colonel to take "the position of a soldier." In the advance of this trying Sunday, Robert was stooping as usual when a bullet went through his cap. When the ball was over and the opportunity came, Hunter sought the officer and, holding up his headgear, remarked, "Now, look at that; if I had ta'en the position of a so'ger, be G-d, that ball wud a gone thru' my heed." R. W. Hall of "F" recites an interesting experience of this 8th of May, "I had penetrated the abatis in front of the Rebs and was unable to extricate myself in time, when our boys fell back, and with about one hundred and fifty others was taken prisoner, but I never saw the inside of a rebel prison, as Sheridan in his great raid overtook us toward evening of the following day at Beaver Dam Station on the Virginia Central Railroad, where we were waiting. How plainly I can see General Custer and another cavalryman in the lead, when they dashed down the road as we were about to take the train for Richmond. Of course we had to keep up with the cavalry during the raid and to dodge the Rebs who, in small squads, contested the way. Their General Stuart was killed or mortally wounded, May 11th, at the Yellow Tavern, in a very hot fight. After several days' rapid marching, we came out at Malvern Hill, on the James. The gunboats took us for Rebs and gave us several shots. City Point, on the other side of the river, was not so very far away and thence we ex-prisoners took a transport for Alexandria, where we were re-equipped and sent to the front as guard for a supply-train of the Ninth Corps. When Nelson and I reported for duty the surprise we gave our comrades may be imagined."

[Sidenote: MAY 8, '64]

The 8th was a bloody day for the Thirty-ninth, the summary of losses revealing ninety-three killed, wounded and missing. Lieutenant Dusseault was wounded in the breast but an army button diverted the bullet. As he wrote in his diary, "I was within thirty feet of the enemy's works, and when I was hit, I was sure I was killed, as the force of the blow caused me to spin round and round like a top, and I fell to the ground. Finding I was not seriously hurt, I jumped up and joined in the retreat. When we got back, we found Captain W. C. Kinsley of Company K in tears; 'Look at my company!' he cried, 'Only seven men left out of eighty-seven!' But he was assured that the woods were full of our men and that his would be in shortly. It proved to be so. We were not called on for the rest of the day, and that night we obtained some sleep."

During the closing hours of the 8th, there was digging for the Fifth Corps and the early hours of the 9th found the hard worked soldiers still using the shovel; the night and the following day showing no less than three distinct efforts in this direction for the Thirty-ninth, a record in which the stories of the Sixteenth Maine and Thirteenth Massachusetts accord. Of the day itself and the new positions of the several corps, Colonel Peirson remarks, "The 9th was another hot and dusty day, and the Fifth and Sixth Corps occupied it in pressing the enemy and developing his position, seeking points of assault. The enemy were still passing down during the morning the Parker's Store Road, in dangerous proximity to our right and rear, and Hancock's Second Corps was at 10 a. m. moved into position on Warren's right, making lines of battle along the crest commanding the valley of the Po, the artillery shelling the rebel trains which were in sight, causing them to take a more sheltered road." The new position of the opposing forces might be stated, briefly: from the northwest to the southeast, a distance of two miles, were Hancock and his Second Corps at the right, next to Warren and the Fifth; then Sedgwick with the Sixth; and at the extreme Union left, Burnside and the Ninth Corps. At the rebel right was Hill's Corps, now under Early; the extreme left was held by Longstreet's men, under Anderson; and the intermediate distance, including the famous Salient, was occupied by Ewell's Corps.

The event of the 9th which emphasized it in the annals of the campaign was the death of Sedgwick, Commander of the Sixth Corps. Since the fall of Reynolds at Gettysburg, no similar misfortune had befallen the army of equal importance; universally respected, all but idolized by his own men, his very presence at any time was worth whole brigades to the cause he loved. "While standing behind an outer line of works, personally superintending and directing, as was his custom, the posting of a battery of artillery at an angle which he regarded of great importance, he was shot through the head by a rebel sharpshooter, and died instantly. Never had such a gloom rested upon the whole army on account of the death of one man as came over it when the heavy tidings passed along the lines that General Sedgwick was killed." He was Connecticut born, West Point, 1837, having as classmates, Hooker, E. D. Townsend, and Wm. H. French, late Commander of the Third Corps, all of the Union Army; while his rebel fellows included Braxton Bragg, Pemberton of Vicksburg fame, and one might wonder whether Jubal Early, over at the rebel right, had a twinge of sadness over the summary taking off of the man who, in earlier times, had stood by his side on the West Point parade ground. Born in 1813, Sedgwick was not yet fifty-one years old when sought by the enemy's bullet.

[Sidenote: MAY 9, '64]

Some of the besetments of army life and duty at this time are well set forth in the story that Lieutenant Dusseault, of Company H, tells of his efforts to replenish the supply of ammunition for the brigade: "That same night--and it was a dark one too--I was detailed to go back to the ordnance train for ammunition. I had sixty men from the five different regiments of our Brigade to help me. I was ordered to bring 25,000 rounds (twenty-five boxes). We had secured the requisite amount and were returning to the brigade in the thick darkness. As it took two men to carry a box, which was supported on a blanket between them, it was impossible to keep the men together, and as I did not know them, many of them dropped their burdens and ran away. When we got back to our camping place, we found that the brigade had moved on a mile and a half further. When I came to my superior officer, I had but seven boxes to deliver to him. Rousing from his sleep, he ordered me to go back immediately and secure the rest, and then turned over and went to sleep again. It had to be done and at about two or three o'clock in the morning I reported the second time, not with the lost boxes, but with enough others that had been obtained in a way which I will not stop to explain."

May 10th adds another day to the long battle list of 1864; while a part of the Spottsylvania encounter, it bears to those who had a part, the sub-title of "Laurel Hill," the location being in the same vicinity as that of Sunday's fight at Alsop's Farm, possibly somewhat further towards the south. While there was fighting along the entire line, of that portion of the same in which we are directly interested, Swinton, in his history of the Army of the Potomac, says:--

"The point against which the attack was designed to be made was a hill held by the enemy in front of Warren's line. This was perhaps the most formidable point along the enemy's whole front. Its densely wooded crest was crowned by earthworks, while the approach, which was swept by artillery and musketry fire, was rendered more difficult and hazardous by a heavy growth of low cedars, mostly dead, the long bayonet-like branches of which, interlaced and pointing in all directions, presented an almost impassable barrier to the advance of a line of battle. The attack of this position had already been essayed during the day by troops of the Second and Fifth Corps, and with most unpromising results. When Hancock's divisions joined the Fifth, an assault was made by the troops of both corps at five o'clock; but it met a bloody repulse. The men struggled bravely against an impossible task, and even entered the enemy's breastworks at one or two points; but they soon wavered and fell back in confusion and great slaughter. Notwithstanding the disastrous upshot of this assault, the experience of which had taught the troops that the work assigned them was really hopeless, a second assault was ordered, an hour after the failure of the first. The repulse of this was even more complete than that of the former effort. The loss in the two attacks was between five and six thousand, while it is doubtful whether the enemy lost as many hundreds. Among the killed was Brigadier General Rice[M] of the Fifth Corps, distinguished for his intrepid bearing on many fields."

This was the day, when at the left of the Fifth Corps a portion of the Sixth was more successful, yet even its fruits were not held. General Emory Upton of the First Division, Second Brigade, in a vigorous charge carried the enemy's first line of intrenchments, capturing nine hundred prisoners and several guns. This attack, however, was unsupported and the advantage could not be maintained, so that at nightfall Upton withdrew and the captured guns were left behind. General Meade ascribed the failure of the movement to the lack of expected support from Mott's Division of the Second Corps on his left. The reports of Generals Meade and Warren add nothing to the foregoing while Lieutenant Colonel Peirson particularizes as follows:--

[Sidenote: MAY 10, '64]

"The ground in front of the Laurel Hill position was swept by the enemy's artillery, and our men suffered severely from it. In our own Regiment, we lost several men, killed by the falling limbs of the huge pine trees cut off by the enemy's artillery fire. One of our men was pinned to the ground by one of these limbs, so near to the enemy's line, that, when we retreated, as we did upon receiving a terrific musketry fire at point blank range, he was the only one who saw that after the volley the enemy ran as fast as we did, but in the opposite direction. They soon returned, however, and captured the observer. At some points our troops even entered the breastworks, but the men though brave were easily discouraged, and the long continued strain and fatigue told upon their spirit; and while they would defend their position to the last, or retire in the face of heavy odds with the utmost coolness, the fact remains that the men of the Second and Fifth Corps were not as ambitious on the 10th, as they had been on the 6th and 8th of May."

While the Ninth Corps, General Burnside, did no severe fighting on the 10th, the day nevertheless was significant in Bay State records through the death of General Thomas G. Stevenson, commanding the First Division of that Corps. Born in Boston, February 3, 1836, he early displayed a bent for military matters and at the outbreak of the Rebellion commanded a battalion of militia in Boston harbor. At the head of the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry, he accompanied the Burnside Expedition to North Carolina, winning laurels everywhere. On the return of Burnside from the Southwest, Stevenson who already had won his star, was made commander as above and like Rice and Sedgwick is supposed to have been the victim of a sharpshooter.

While Colonel Peirson has given us a deal of information concerning the beginning of the Battle Summer, he says nothing of the fact that he had, himself, a narrow escape from death. Colonel Theodore Lyman, in his diary, writes of a visit made by himself and General Peirson to these scenes, and has this to offer on his observations:--

"A few hundred yards to the right of where this attack was made, we visited the patch of pine woods, where, on the 10th, Peirson's brigade again advanced to the attack. The brigade advanced to within about one hundred yards of the works, and then began firing in the thick woods, being exposed to a tremendous artillery enfilade, whose marks still remained in the fallen timber. Peirson said he ordered his men to cease firing, finding few balls coming the other way, but got an order from the brigade commander to open again. Then Peirson was knocked senseless by a shell."

Concerning the injury to Colonel Peirson, Lieut. Dusseault of "H" has this version:--

"On the 10th of May at Laurel Hill, our men were lying flat upon the ground, under the enfilading fire of artillery from the left and the direct fire of musketry from the front. As an officer of Company H, I had been trying to get up into the line a private of that company who was lying forty or fifty yards behind it. I had tired of exposing myself in the endeavor and had left him and taken my place in the line. At about that time, Lieutenant Colonel Peirson, who was walking back and forth, erect, as was his custom, saw him and went back to get him up into his place. I went back to help him. We had succeeded in getting him up to within eight or ten feet of the line. The Lieutenant Colonel who was within two feet of me, had his sword in his hand, both arms extended, and was leaning forward a little, when a piece of a shell came between his arms and his body, ripped out the breast of his coat, smashed his field glasses in their case, and jammed the hilt of his sword. He doubled up, fell forward on his head, and then over sideways. Colonel Davis, who was standing eight or ten feet in our rear, asked, 'Lieutenant, is he dead?' and I answered, 'Yes.' I called two men of my company and told them to take him to the rear. They turned him over upon his back, one taking hold of him near the head, and the other by the feet. When they commenced to raise him, his eyes began to blink and he answered the question which had been asked three or four minutes earlier by Colonel Davis, saying, 'No. I guess it isn't much.' He was sent back to the hospital and was very sick there, but he rejoined the Regiment on the 9th of June. Lieutenant Colonel Peirson was strictly a temperance man, but he carried a flask of brandy for emergencies, and he had requested some of the officers to give some to him if he should be hurt. It happened that the shell cut off the lower half of the flask and it fell in front of Private Richardson of Company A. A few drops remained in the flask which Richardson immediately drained, saying, 'They are throwing good brandy at us.'"

[Sidenote: MAY 10, '64]

Of this same event, one of the men of "A" writes, "One piece of shell wounded Colonel Peirson, ripping off a row of buttons from his coat. I picked them up and divided them with the boys. I have one left now. Salem Richardson got the bottom of the Colonel's brandy flask, which was shot away by the same bit of shell, and I wish you could have seen him empty it." The same incident is called up by S. H. Mitchell, also of Company A, whose members evidently were keeping their commander under observation. The flask was carried against an emergency, when it might be of great utility. It offered no resistance whatever to the Confederate missile but Comrade Richardson always averred that the coming of the drink was most opportune. From the story of the Sixteenth Maine, it is learned that this day the brigade was temporarily assigned to the First Division, General Cutler commanding. The Second brigade was placed in the Third Division, under Crawford, and the Third was made independent to report directly to General Warren, these changes being induced, supposedly, on account of the heavy losses and the wounding of the commanding officer, General Robinson.

Possibly the doings of the 11th can be described no better than by copying the record as made at the time by John S. Beck, "Rested all day to-day, if you can call it rest, for we were in a mudhole, out of the range of Rebel shells. Our brigade looks small; drew rations; raining hard, everything wet through, no blankets or shelter tents. I should have been sick were it not for the excitement of battle. Our position here looks dubious, as we have to fight the enemy behind concealed breastworks and in dense woods. To-night we lay down on the wet ground with an old, wet, woolen blanket which I picked up." Considering that this rain was the first since crossing the Rapidan, it really was a comfort even if it did make some, for the time, unpleasantly wet. The 11th is noteworthy from another fact, viz., that it is on this day that Grant telegraphs to Washington the prominent features of the campaign thus far, that reinforcements would be encouraging, and that he purposes "to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer."

Thursday, the 12th of May, is the day of the dread "Salient" or the "Bloody Angle" of Spottsylvania. Had our Regiment been with Barlow's men of the Second Corps, or with the Vermont Brigade of the Sixth, the mortality record of the Thirty-ninth might have been far different, though all participants in any portion of this bloody field have ever thought their losses severe enough. The vision of that First Division of the Second Corps, in the morning mists emerging from the woods at the Union left centre, and with determined rush, "a narrow front, but extending back as far as the eye could see," seeking the Confederate works, is one that memory needs no assistance in recalling. Through wonderful good fortune for us, the artillery of the enemy had been withdrawn and the guns which might have cut wide swaths through that disordered mass of blue, were hastening back, arriving just in time to be captured, the assault resulting in the capture of General Edward Johnson's Division of Ewell's Corps, including the commander, with twenty pieces of artillery and thirty stands of colors. But this did not end the day. So furious was the foe over the loss of men, munitions and position, that the struggle for reinstatement became possibly the fiercest and most deadly of the entire war. Once at least, the bayonet became a weapon of real contact. Here it was that the large oak tree was actually cut down by bullets from both sides. The ground, at the margin of the works, was covered with piles of the dead, and for twenty hours the battle raged, until the wearied rebels withdrew, unable to retake the lines lost in the morning.

In this rapid survey, no mention is made of the Sixth and Ninth Corps, but each one accomplished the task assigned, nor was the Fifth by any means idle. Inferring from the forces pressing upon Hancock in his endeavor to hold advantage of the early morning, that the enemy must be withdrawing his right and left to assist his centre, both Burnside and Warren were ordered forward. Warren obeying, advanced at something after nine o'clock, but was repulsed, "for Longstreet's corps was holding its intrenchments in force." Of this in his report, Warren says:

[Sidenote: MAY 12, '64]

"The enemy's direct and flank fire was too destructive. Lost very heavily. The enemy continuing to fire on the Second and Sixth Corps, I was compelled to withdraw Griffin's and Cutler's divisions (First and Fourth) and send them to the support where they again became engaged. My whole front was held by Crawford's Division (Third) and Kitching's and the Maryland Brigades, presenting a line of battle not as strong as a single line. The enemy made no serious attempt to force it. My divisions on the left were relieved during the night from their position, and returned to the right in the morning, having been kept awake nearly all the night, which was rainy."

A graphic picture of the work of the Brigade is painted by Adjutant Small of the Sixteenth Maine in his history of the Regiment, and a portion of it is reproduced here: