Part 6
It was pretty near night when the fight was over and the regiment got together, counted noses, and bivouacked a little ways back, in the woods. We began to realize then that we were mighty hungry. But luck came my way. Lym. Dickey brought in a prisoner that he got the drop on. Lym. and I hitched up together that night, made the best shelter we could with our pieces of tent, and took our rebel friend into the mess. Lym. and I had oceans of sugar and coffee, and that was about all. Our guest had a corn pone and a quantity of excellent bacon, but no coffee. So we pooled our issues, had a most enjoyable supper, and snuggled in together for a fairly comfortable night. In the morning we shook hands with him, said good bye, and Dickey turned him over as a prisoner.
The day after the fight I went out over the whole battlefield, and a dreadful sight it was. In an old Revolutionary rifle pit close to the edge of the timber, where our last rush struck the main line, it was a ghastly sight. In one spot seven bodies lay, literally, in a heap. They were apparently cut off from rapid retreat by the barracade of felled trees. Up half-way through the slashing I came into a path, hardly wide enough to be called a roadway, which had been opened up for some purpose. In this regiments of the Excelsior brigade had made their fight and had suffered heavy losses. In some spots I could have walked a considerable distance upon dead bodies. I followed this path out into the woods at the left, where the Jerseys fought; and beyond them, dead rebels scattered about. One of these had piled up a little cob-house screen of rails, which was about as much protection as a pasteboard box would have been. He was still there, prone on his breast, his gun thrust through between two rails, a finger on the trigger, and a little round hole in the top of his head.
The dead were lying in almost every conceivable position, sometimes absolutely grotesque if it were not so pitiful. Some apparently never changed the position of a muscle after they were struck—arms in position as if loading; some still clutching their piece in one hand and in the other the ramrod with the charge driven part way home. The rebels had some Indians in this fight—I saw at least two lying among the dead. The dead are not all buried yet, but are being covered up as fast as the details can get to them. I have quite a number of bullets I picked up, and buttons from the uniforms of dead rebels.
We will move on from here as soon as supplies come up, and will probably have more fighting before we reach Richmond. It was awfully rainy the day of the battle, but is sunny and beautiful now. I have tried to give you some idea of what a time we had. I had just time to write you the briefest sort of a note Wednesday morning. Did you get it? I begin to feel now as though we should get through before many months, for I know we are going to thrash them out before long.
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_LIV_
WILLIAMSBURG, VA., _May 11, 1862_.
We are now encamped on a large field just outside the city and close to William and Mary College. I have had a chance to look the city over a little, and find it a very homelike, cozy little burg. It is one of the oldest towns in the United States, with many nice buildings and ancient residences of the old Virginia gentry. The college is the oldest in America. Washington, Scott and many other famous men were educated here. On the college grounds is a rather badly-kept marble statue of Lord Berkley, one of the old colonial Governors of Virginia.
The women here are the most rabid of all secessionists—fairly venomous. Yesterday one of them, entirely unprovoked, hissed out to Gunnison, “You vile wretch!” “Gunny” kept thinking it over, and getting madder and madder, until today he stormed up to the house and demanded satisfaction of the head of the household. The old man regretted the unfortunate incident, and politely invited Gunnison to make the house his home while in town; and Gunnison came back to camp not quite determined whether he had won or lost.
Most of the public buildings here are being used as hospitals—full of wounded rebels. I suppose they enjoyed the parade of Yankees when our army passed through here—an almost uninterrupted stream of men for three days. The gayest sight was when a regiment of 1600 lancers went by. The rebs left a few cannon here, and in some places quantities of shells which they evidently could not take along with them. They also planted torpedoes in places, and a number of men were blown up. Some were discovered before they were stepped on, and it is said General McClellan has ordered that rebel prisoners be set to work digging them up.
We are having glorious weather, clear and sunny, with the birds singing merrily. And it seems rather nice to be in a city again, with signs of civilization, albeit slightly ancient and mildewed. We are very comfortably quartered now. The rebels left great numbers of big tents [the old conical “Sibleys”] which we appropriated; and with only three or four in a tent we are very far from being crowded. Yesterday afternoon George Slade and I took a walk down to a little place about two miles from here, called Cottage Creek. It is a delightful bit of a place, where peace reigns in the midst of war. Three or four little cottages, a picturesque old mill, with an ancient bridge over the creek, make up as pretty a stage setting as one would see in many a day.
Beginning tomorrow, we will have to drill two hours a day as long as we stay here. The general impression is that we will not be here many days—not longer than until the prisoners are sent to some safer place. The rebs left most of their wounded in our hands, and they have the same care as our own. I had a talk with one of them who was at Bull Run, and it was very interesting to hear him tell of the battle as he saw it. He belongs to a Virginia regiment, and when the war broke out was living near Alexandria. He says he has been at his home since the war. It was lucky for him he was not caught, as his life might have been the forfeit as a spy.
One of our “missing” men, of Co. G, was found in the brush yesterday, where he had crawled out of the fight and died.
I hear that a lot of our men who were taken at Bull Run have been exchanged and are at Fortress Monroe. Won’t we have a jubilee when they get back! [As a matter of fact, one at least of these prisoners—George C. Emerson of Company B—joined in season to take part in the fight, and was killed.]
Gen. Grover, who has displaced Naglee as commander of this brigade, has been appointed Military Governor of this district. I would like to look this region over at my leisure, for a distance of a dozen miles or so, it is so full of historic associations—Jamestown, Captain John Smith, Pocahontas, Powhattan, and various other distinguished residents of the long, long ago.
If it were not for home I think, on the whole, I should be quite well contented with army life. But I guess this affair will be settled up before long, and when sleighing-time comes in New Hampshire I will be there to help you enjoy it.
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_LV_
CAMP NEAR CUMBERLAND, VA., _May 19, 1862_.
Just where we are camped now I cannot tell, except that it is in the woods, within four miles of the enemy and nineteen from Richmond. We left our camp at Williamsburg last Thursday morning and got in here this afternoon. This is a heathenish country, swarming with unpleasant neighbors other than rebels. Day before yesterday when I aroused from a wayside nap, one of the little snakes—common here, but harmless—slid out from under me. I gave a yelp and killed him as if he had been a rattlesnake.
I thought I wrote you at the time about Solon Porter. He died at Camp Beaufort, some time before we left there, of apoplexy. He was sitting on his bunk, cracking a nut between his teeth, when he fell back, unconscious, and lived but a short time. I was not tenting with him at the time. He was the third of my Camp Sullivan tentmates to die.
This ink is simply awful, and Gunnison, who is writing out of the same bottle, is expressing his opinion very freely. That sprig of geranium you sent me was a fragrant reminder of home. I will inclose a sprig of cedar from a tree just in front of my tent. When I can I gather a quantity of these cedar branches for a bed.
A dear little baby rabbit just came running into this tent and we caught him. The little rascal’s confidence—if that was what led him here—was well placed. When I get through petting him I’ll take him out into the woods and turn him loose in the safest place I can find.
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_LVI_
WHITE OAK SWAMP, VA., _May 26, 1862_.
We are camped now some ways beyond Bottom Bridge, across the Chickahominy. We have had a pretty strenuous time of it for the past week or two, a good part of the time wallowing through swamps, and our grub supplies very irregular and uncertain. I have had very little to eat besides hard crackers. My first move when I get “out of the wilderness” will be to get a good square meal with all the fixings. In getting to this point, we have, a good part of the time, been literally ploughing through swamp mud. Sometimes, where the road ran through a
## particularly bad morass, the road was built up and retained by logs
along the side, upon which we picked our way after a fashion. But when one slipped or lost his balance it was a serious matter. And when we marched in the night-time it was a double terror. The night we arrived at Bottom Bridge, about midnight and dark as Egypt, I was absolutely cased in mud, and my gun as well, and I had to lie down as I was and wait for daylight to get down to the river for a cleanup.
We are now camped on a hill in the swamp [Poplar Hill,] in a nice clean field of clover. It is going to rain right away, but we have pitched our tent with extra care, have dug a good trench around it to carry the water off unless we have a flood. It rains very often, and the other day we had the fiercest hail storm I ever saw. The stones were very large and came down like cannon balls. I was out of camp and got behind a house, but was well pelted for all that.
When I read the new call for more troops I gave up all idea of a speedy return home. We expect a battle here before Richmond any day, but whether we will get into it or not depends on circumstances. Our camp strategists have got it figured out that we will be used to cut off the retreat of the rebel forces at Fort Darling.
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_LVII_
FAIR OAKS, NEAR RICHMOND, VA., _Sunday, June 15, 1562_.
It has been some time since I last wrote, and you are doubtless getting anxious. We are now camped on the battlefield of Fair Oaks. We were not in the battle, but were in line, with skirmishers thrown out and batteries posted, waiting for the attack that never came and listening to the rattle of musketry off to our right. We did not come here until the second day after the fight. Before we started all our baggage was sent to the rear, and with my knapsack went my writing materials. We are having rough duty now. Every third day the entire regiment goes on picket duty for twenty-four hours, which means, as a rule, not even a cat-nap in that time. I was just settling myself for a good sleep today, when the cry went up that our knapsacks had come; so I sorted mine out from the heap and set to work to write some letters.
We arrived here about three o’clock in the afternoon and immediately went on duty for twenty-four hours. It rained all night—a steady downpour—and the whole country was flooded. Coming up, we waded for considerable distances through ponds from ankle to knee deep. Here it was just mud and water. The trenches we would have jumped into in case of an attack were half filled with water. Even if it had been permitted, there was no chance to lie down—no chance for much of anything but to stand up and take it through the long hours of the night. I did manage to get a few slicks of cordwood together and cobbled up a roost that gave two or three of us a sort of perch out of the mud. Directly in front of me lay a dead horse and a dead rebel. Within a short distance were perhaps a hundred dead horses—all killed when the rebels made their rush on our batteries on the first day. These have about all been cleaned up now, by burning, wood being piled upon them and great bonfires made.
The battlefield presented one of the most horrible sights imaginable. Many bodies of men killed in the later stages of the battle were still unburied. Some were in shallow graves, but as a rule burial consisted merely in covering the bodies as they lay. The heavy rains, washing away the covering, had left many gruesome sights. I was an advanced picket the other night, my position being in the midst of several dirt piles, with enough in sight to show that each covered a dead rebel. That day Eugene Hazewell accidentally shot himself through the foot and had to have a toe taken off. We were posted so near the rebels that we could hear them talk. We had orders not to shoot wantonly at their pickets, and we understood they had similar instructions; but if so they disregarded them and took a shot at a Yankee whenever they could draw a bead on one.
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_LVIII_
FAIR OAKS, NEAR RICHMOND, VA., _June 22, 1862_.
Have been out with a work party all the forenoon, and go on picket at three in the afternoon, to remain twenty-four hours, and feel as if I was earning my salary. There can be no question but what we are putting in full time. We are virtually on duty every minute, for, even in camp, we are on the alert ready to turn out for a fight at any moment. Yesterday the rebels attempted to drive in our pickets, and the result was a very lively little skirmish, as our boys had not got quite ready to come in. A few days ago the Sixteenth Massachusetts made a reconnoissance, attacking the rebel pickets for the purpose of ascertaining their position and strength. It cost the Sixteenth four or five men killed and eighteen or twenty wounded. The Sixteenth has recently been attached to our brigade.
I am as well contented in the army as I could expect to be, but still look forward with pleasant anticipations to the time when I will be home again. I was talking with Frank Robinson today about the good times we would have in Manchester. [He was killed, two months later, at Bull Run.] I had a letter from a friend in Great Falls—one of my old school chums—and he had so much to say of the happy times in the old Manchester High School that I had to pinch myself to keep from getting homesick.
We are camped in a swamp, and yet water is one of the scarce articles. We have had no rain for several days, and the sun has dried up most of the surface water, so it is no easy matter to even fill our canteens.
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_LIX_
FAIR OAKS, NEAR RICHMOND, VA., _June 26, 1862_.
Since I last wrote you I have been in two lively fights—one last Monday and the other yesterday. Monday afternoon our pickets were ordered to advance and drive the rebel pickets as far as they could. Company I happened to be one of the companies on the advanced line, so in we went. It was a sneak-up, crawling through the thick swamp brush till we struck the rebel pickets. Jesse Dewey and I, crawling along together, had the luck to open the ball, and in one minute there was lively popping along a half mile front. The rebels had no call to make a very stiff fight—and they didn’t. Gen. Grover, mounted, with his upper works all that was visible above the bushes, directed the movements, and we rushed them back a long distance. Then their reserves came swarming in—and we got back. Our loss was very light. In Company I only one man wounded.
Yesterday the entire Division advanced over the same ground, and we had a mighty stiff fight [battle of Oak Grove.] We found the rebels in heavy force this time, and it was only after a hard and bloody fight that we drove them back over practically the same ground we had covered on Monday. Only one man was killed in my company—John Brown, a fat, hearty, round-faced, good-natured boy as ever lived. Company B had over twenty men killed or wounded out of forty-six that went into the fight. Gen. McClellan arrived on the field in the afternoon and complimented us very highly for our work during the day.
ON JAMES RIVER, _Wednesday, July 2, 1861_.
At last I have got a chance to finish my letter. Lots of things have happened since I commenced it. I have had no good rest for three days and two nights, so you can imagine the condition I am in. Sunday morning we marched away from Fair Oaks with three days’ rations in our haversacks. The way property and supplies were destroyed didn’t look good to us. The rebels followed closely, and a few miles back we went into line of battle, posted batteries, and were ready for them. There was a short and sharp fight a little ways to our right [Savage Station,] but we didn’t get into it. The rebels were repulsed, and we moved on again. Along in the night we got into bivouac in the dark, a great mass of troops, where we could see but little of our surroundings until daybreak. Then we soon studied it out that we were at a cross-roads, with an immense wagon train parked near by, and a heavy force to protect it. During the forenoon the troops were moved into position to meet any advance from the direction of Richmond. We were not attacked until the middle of the afternoon, and then a great battle was fought [Glendale or Charles City Cross Roads.] We whipped the rebels at every point. The Second Regiment was all over the field, generally in support of some battery or other regiment. We lost very few men. I was hit in the groin by a spent ball and crippled about as I would have been if a mule had kicked me. We were advancing up a slope, in line, to support a regiment that was breaking. I heard that bullet, and when it struck me it set me back out of the ranks and I thought I was shot through and through. I saw some of the boys look back sort of pityingly as the line went on. It did not take me long to find out that I was very far from being a dead man. There was a dent in my thick leather belt, but the bullet had not gone through. It had doubtless struck the ground and lost much of its force before it hit me. I was back in my place by the time the regiment reached the crest. But in a little while I was very lame, and it was only by great effort that I kept along with the regiment that day and the next.
That night and the next morning we moved on a few miles farther and took position on high ground not far from the James river. Here another great battle was fought [Malvern Hill.] The artillery firing was simply terrific, we having some of our gunboats in action. The rebels charged again and again, and were driven back every time with frightful losses. It was a terrible punishment we gave them. We were not actively engaged, and so lost no men.
I got in here this afternoon pretty well used up. It commenced to rain last night, the roads were in bad condition, and there were thousands upon thousands of stragglers. But aides were stationed to direct these as they poured out onto the flats, and the disorganization was quickly rectified. Don’t know when I’ll get a chance to send this. Go up and tell my folks.
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_LX_
CAMP NEAR THE JAMES RIVER, _Monday, July 8, 1862_.
Can write only a short letter now, and my old excuse will have to do duty again—“used up.” We are fortifying our position, and as there is a good chance of Johnny paying us a visit most any time, we are putting the house in order to entertain him. We work night and day on our intrenchments. We are camped in an open field, on a gentle slope along the crest of which run our rifle pits and earthworks. The weather is frightfully hot, and as a consequence the men feel very shiftless and lazy. I do, anyway, and judge the rest by their actions. Quite a number of our boys were taken prisoners in the retreat. Perk. Lane is probably among the number, as he was one of the sick sent back to Savage Station, and they were nearly all taken.
Eddie Dakin, the Captain’s waiter, is going home tomorrow, and I will intrust this letter to him, to be dropped in the Manchester or some other post office.
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[Illustration: BILL RAMSDELL]
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_LXI_
CAMP NEAR HARRISON’S LANDING, JAMES RIVER, VA., _July 11, 1862_.
Received a letter from you last night. I am writing under very unfavorable conditions, as it is a rainy day and mud and water reign supreme. Whenever it rains hard the water beats through the canvas like a fine sieve. If the wind happens to blow it is pretty sure, in addition, to beat into one end or the other of the shelter. The prospect now is that we shall lay in our present position for some time and have considerable leisure. If we do you can expect a letter from me pretty often.