The Sword and Gun 2

The Sword and Gun 2

About 5 P. M., a sudden turn in the river brings us in sight of the

chimneys of what once was the White House, from which the landing,

which is for the present to be our destination, takes its name. A few

more throbbing, restless pulsations of our propeller's wheel, and

its action grows fainter and slower as, amidst a crowd of steamers,

propellers, tug-boats, schooners, barges, scows, skiffs, and all

the crowd of craft incident to a base of supplies, we work our way

up to the landing. Again a few more revolutions of the wheel, a jar

and a crash accompanied by a few nautical expletives, and we grind

alongside of a sutler's barge, blundering down stream, without any

apparent directing power or any definite object in view; till at

length one of the never-resting, spiteful looking, ever-watchful

tug-boats darts out from some labyrinth of hulls, pounces on it and

drags it away, awkward and clumsy and apparently remonstrating and

resisting to the last, into its proper and designated mooring place.

Then a sudden cessation of the, to all appearance, endless jar and

throb of the screw, a tangled web of heaving-lines flying through the

air, a deafening roar as the pent up steam raises the valve and comes

tumbling out at the escape pipe and eddies and whirls about as if for

pure joy at its liberation from restraint; a few more double-shotted

nautical expletives, a vast amount of veering and hauling on heavy

hawsers and the transports are made fast and our voyage ended.

 

But, if the confusion on the river was great, that on the shore was

certainly, to all appearances, much greater. Mule drivers, addressing

their jaded teams by every soothing and endearing epithet in the well

stocked vocabulary of their class, and the mules replying in their

scarcely less intelligible, and much less profane, dialect; long

wagon trains, coming and going in every direction; colored laborers,

rolling barrels on to every bodies' toes, their own included, and

becoming the patient recipients of remarks objurgatory of their eyes

and limbs, therefor. Long lines of stretchers loaded with wounded

being carried on board two large hospital steamers, loading for

Washington; ambulances arriving from the front, with fresh cases;

orderlies, hot and dusty, riding, walking, or running in every

direction; clouds of dust and smoke, from camp fires and steamboats;

shouting, braying, swearing, yelling, (from the mules) whistling from

the steamboats, combined altogether to form a scene of noise and

confusion, to which the grand finale at the tower of Babel was, by

comparison, nothing but a quiet assemblage of sober and well behaved

mechanics. Threading our way, with no little difficulty, through this

motley assemblage, we at length gained a quiet and comparatively

secluded spot where we were, much to our relief, ordered to camp; and

this we, nothing loth, proceeded at once to do.

 

Here we remained, guarding prisoners and picketing along the line of

the Richmond railroad, till the 10th of June; here we, for the first

time, heard the sound of shotted guns, as the terrible battle of

the 3d of June surged and roared, nearly twenty miles away, in our

front. And all that night, and part of the 4th, the long trains of

ambulances, each bearing its ghastly load of bleeding and suffering

men, rolled through our camp, giving us our first insight into the

horrors of war, in which we were soon to take an active part. Here,

too, we had a first insight into the heroism and patience under

suffering of those who form our armies; numbers of slightly wounded,

or, who at least were not absolutely prevented from traveling by the

loss of limbs, came straggling through our camps, many only just able

to limp along; some with hands or arms bandaged; others with ugly

cuts on the head or face, their hair all matted and tangled, soaked

with blood and clogged with the dust of the road, hungry, thirsty,

weary and suffering, but uttering no complaints, and patient and

cheerful under it all.

 

And in the Depot Hospital at the landing we had an opportunity of

witnessing the heroic and charitable part the women of America were

taking in the war. No matter how ragged or dirty the sufferer,

how hideous or revolting the wound, alive in many instances with

maggots, and in every form of putrefaction and mortification; no

matter what nation or country the patient belonged to; woman's kind,

ministering hand was there, to wash the festering wound, to bathe the

toil-worn feet, to comb the matted locks, hold the cooling draught

to the parched lips, or to receive the last words that fell from

them e'er they were closed forever. And this without reward or hire,

or expectation of it, their only recompense the consciousness of

obeying the mandate that makes charity our duty, their only reward

the knowledge that they are aiding to maintain the government and

preserve the integrity of the stars and stripes.

 

But we linger too long around White House Landing and scenes, which,

though then novel and strange to us, have since become a part of

our every day life. On the 10th of June, we were dispatched from

the base as guard to a supply train, under charge of Capt. Alex.

Samuels, of the 5th Wisconsin, which was on its way to the front

at Cool Arbor, or Cold Harbor, as it is sometimes written. Much

dispute has been held, as to the orthography and derivation of the

name of this place, it being called indiscriminately Cool Arbor, Cold

Harbor, Cool Harbor, and Coal Harbor. The first would, however, seem

to be the most appropriate designation, as there is no Harbor, nor

any navigable stream to convert into one, within ten miles of the

place. I have been informed by a Virginian who is acquainted with the

locality, that the name originated as follows:

 

Cool Arbor, which is nothing more than a large farm house or tavern

on one of the main highways leading to Richmond, was originally built

by an Englishman, as a place of summer resort for the citizens of

that place, and named by him Cool Arbor, from its pleasant and shady

location. The proverbial (H)english disregard of the use of the

aspirate probably converted the second word of the name into Harbor,

and a broad provincial dialect would easily effect the transition

from Cool to Coal or Cold. Its claim to either title is now a poor

one, for trees and farm have both alike disappeared, and in the words

of the poet, "_perierunt etiam ruinæ_"--the very ruins are gone.

 

At this place we arrived in safety after a long and tedious march of

nearly twenty miles, along a heavy, sandy road plentifully bestrewn

with dead mules, wagons broken or stuck in the swamps, and abandoned,

and all the _debris_ usually to be seen on the line of communication

between a large army and its base. Our march was only marked by the

incidents common to such a trip; an overturned wagon now and then to

be righted, or a broken-down mule to be led to the roadside and shot;

a vexatious delay of perhaps half an hour, to make some repair to

harness or wheels, and then a forced march for a mile or two to catch

up with the rest of the train.

 

To any one that has never tried it, the task of guarding a wagon

train may, perhaps, be recommended as an amusement, on the score of

novelty, but we hardly think it is one that can be either pleasantly

or profitably followed up, as a steady trade.

 

On arriving at Cool Arbor we were assigned to the 1st Brigade, 3d

Division of the 9th, or Burnside's, Army Corps, temporarily attached

to the Army of the Potomac, though in reality belonging to no army

in particular, and better known amongst military men as "Burnside's

Traveling Menagerie," so called, not from the heterogeneous

collection composing it, but from the wandering nature of the service

it had been engaged in since its organization. Our Division Commander

was Brig. Gen. O. B. Willcox, of the regular army, since promoted to

be Brevet Major General, and our Brigade Commander, Brig. Gen. John

F. Hartranft, afterwards Major General of Volunteers, commanding the

Third Provisional Division of the 9th Army Corps.

 

On the morning of the 12th of June we were ordered from the position

we held on the flank, into the front line of works, where we had

the pleasure of listening to the music of shot and shell, and of

inspecting a rebel line of fortifications, for the first time.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II.

 

THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG.

 

 

On the evening of the 12th of June, just as we had settled ourselves

down, to pass, as best we might, our first night in the trenches, and

amid the roar of artillery and the uncouth yells of the combatants,

to snatch a few hours' much needed sleep, we received orders to pack

up and be ready to march an hour after sundown, to exercise the

utmost caution in our movements, and to allow no talking nor rattling

of arms, accoutrements or equipage to be heard, bayonets to be

unfixed and arms carried at the trail.

 

And it was so. Quietly and stealthily on that still June evening

the whole Army of the Potomac stole away from under the dark sombre

pine woods where it laid encamped, and commenced its flank march on

Petersburg. Our road, for the first ten or twelve miles, lay in the

direction of White House Landing, and, except that we kept to the

fields, the roads being occupied by our trains and artillery, was

almost a repetition of our route from the Landing to the front.

 

Just short of White House, however, we turned sharp to the right and

kept away for Baltimore and Kent Cross Roads and Charles City Court

House. At the last named place we were delayed some twelve hours by

the 2d Corps supply train failing to connect, thus affording us a

rest, which, however much it may have disconcerted the plans of the

Lieutenant General, was very acceptable to the men, on whom the long

and rapid marching was beginning to tell.

 

We resumed our march about an hour before sundown on the afternoon of

the 15th, and at dark were crossing the James River on the pontoons

laid over it at Harrison's Landing. Our course then lay along the

left bank of the river and parallel to it, leaving City Point on our

right and bringing us up to the front of the city of Petersburg,

about 4 o'clock on the afternoon of the 16th of June.

 

Our sufferings on this day's march, from heat, thirst and fatigue

combined, were severe in the extreme, but, to the credit of our

regiment, with the exception of one or two cases of sun stroke, not a

man fell out, or was missing when we arrived at our final destination.

 

We had hardly halted and commenced preparations for supper when we

were ordered to move on to support a charge about to be made by the

4th, or colored division, of our corps, and so marched about a mile

further, formed line of battle in a piece of pine woods and awaited

orders. But a short time had elapsed before a confused cheer, or

rather yell, in our front followed by a dropping fire of musketry

and a few rounds from the artillery told that the ball had opened

and that our turn might arrive any minute. The firing, however,

gradually died away without our services being required, and we

shortly learned that the sable gentry had been successful and had

carried the first line of the defences of Petersburg. Supposing that

our services would not be further required, we proceeded to prepare

our long deferred and much desired supper, but hardly had the scent

of the coffee--the great stand-by and panacea of the soldiery--become

perceptible to our expectant senses, before the unwelcome order came

for us again to move and hold the line of works the colored troops

had taken. With many a sigh, the tempting decoction of the Arabian

herb was consigned to the sacred soil of Virginia--in plain English

we threw away our coffee--and with many an insubordinate growl and

execration on the "exigencies of the service," we started for our

new scene of labors. A few solid shot and shell, and one or two

rounds of case and canister were pitched at us as we moved up to the works, which beyond creating some slight consternation, did no damage whatever, and, having occupied the old line of rebel works, we passed the night without molestation and in comparative peace.