BEFORE PETERSBURGH.
The brigade broke camp at Deep Bottom the 26th of August and marched to a position in the lines before Petersburgh, pitching the camp near the Jerusalem Plank Road. The routine of our duty as closely investing troops ran thus: one day of twenty-four hours we would be on the picket line in our front, placed along a run that intersected an exposed field, the enemy's picket line lying on the other side of the run. Here in the head-high holes some of our predecessors had dug, we shivered through the night, and broiled through the day, not daring to lift our heads above our rude earth-works until dark; firing and observing through the rude embrasures the banks of earth before our picket-holes were pierced with. When relieved, always at night, and just after dark, we would only fall back into the front line of works, (batteries connected by infantry parapets,) to remain there forty-eight hours. Then relieved by in-coming pickets we would fall back to our camp and remain until morning, the next day being spent on fatigue duty, strengthening the lines of works. Then after another twenty-four hours spent in camp we went on picket again. All this time in camp and out of it, we were under fire, the bullets of the enemy ever singing around our ears, whether we were on the picket line, the main one, the reserve one or in camp, an invested one lying behind a parapet and flanked with batteries of field pieces and gatling guns. And often in camp, in the night, a sudden commotion would take place, to tell that some poor fellow had been severely wounded or perhaps killed, while curling up to his tent-mate under their blankets. But we dreaded the picket line the most, especially the day hours of it, not on account of its danger, for it was a comparatively safe one, all knowing the danger of exposure and conforming to the necessity of keeping closely covered, but to lay for so many hours under a hot sun in a hole in the ground, with only "hard tack" and greasy boiled pork to eat, and the warm water of our—the night before filled—canteens to drink was very disagreeable. Then the certainty that a rush of the enemy meant death or imprisonment for all pickets on the line of attack was not a quieting one.
It was on this picket line that First-Sergeant Bassett was killed the night of the 15th of September. It was a bright, moonlight night, we had just relieved the 1st Maryland, our men crept forward, each squad well informed of its assigned position, and all suddenly hurried for their positions, getting under cover as speedily as possible, the relieved pickets stealing as quietly away for the main line. This was the method of relieving here, but this night some of the relieved pickets moved up the hill somewhat carelessly, their plates and cups clanking noisily and themselves visible in the bright moonlight, so drawing a sharp fire from the enemy's pickets, by which several of the careless fellows were wounded.
Sergeant Bassett was to enter the extreme left picket hole to be occupied by our regiment. Lieutenant Maxfield returned from leave, and commanding D again, was assisting in placing the line, and was in the picket hole when Sergeant Bassett came running to it, in a crouching position, just as the enemy opened fire on the careless Maryland men. Reaching it, Captain Maxfield says, the Sergeant thoughtlessly stood erect on the edge of the pit, while saying, "Well, boys, I'm here," then fell forward into the Lieutenant's arms, a bullet having pierced his throat. Sergeant Bassett was my friend and tent-mate as well as my comrade. Only the night before his death he had talked long of the soon coming end of his term of service, a service he considered already ended by the law of right, he having enlisted on the 7th day of September three years before. But the constituted authorities considered that the three years he had enlisted for must date from October 19th, the date of his muster into service. The point was acknowledged to be a debatable one and Bassett was told that it was his privilege to stay in camp if he chose not to expose himself to the chances of the front line. But Frank was too high spirited a man to split hairs with his honor; he was either a soldier or a civilian, and if held would be as a soldier and not as a prisoner, declaring that until he was free to go North he would be with D wherever its lot was cast. And with D our bright, brave, true-hearted comrade died, heaping the measure of his duty with his life. The tour of duty in the main line, although affording more liberty of movement, was a dangerous one, especially for those stationed in front of the "Elliott" salient of the Confederates. It was under this salient that the mine had been exploded in the dim of a July morning. From its protruding point hundreds of men had been hurled from sleep into eternity, and for its mutilated possession hundreds more had died. From this grim point of the Confederate line, the hillside before it rough with hillocks of bare earth and rugged with yawning chasms, the result of the explosion, the enemy kept up a sharp and almost continuous night fire, for it was so close to our line that pickets were not thrown out before it by either side. And on dark nights their artillery at this point of the line would be frequently fired to throw a flashing light over the rough ground between the lines of works. Our heavy artillery was not averse to trying its weight with the Confederates at any time. General Humphreys praises the proficiency attending the gunners of this branch of artillery service in silencing the fire of the batteries of the enemy. They had an especial fancy for every now and then opening just at sunrise with every gun they had a roaring, shrieking salute to his rising majesty. Sometimes they did it for practice, sometimes to disconcert and alarm the enemy, sometimes to jubilate over some advantage some one of our armies had somewhere gained. One morning at daybreak, when a detachment of the regiment, including D, was in the little horseshoe shaped outwork we had before "Fort Hell," a messenger came along the line to let us know that at sunrise all our heavy guns would open. I was awake and in charge of a line of guards along the line of D, while the rest of the men, tired with a sleepless night watch, were dozing and napping here and there, crouching, lying, leaning in all possible positions but an erect one, but every man with his rifle clutched by a hand. It was my duty to awaken them and acquaint them with the coming bombardment, but I thought it would be a good joke to let the roar of the guns do the awakening. In a few minutes it came, a sudden roaring of batteries and the shrieking and bursting of shells just as the first ray of sunlight flashed from the east. The men of D not awake, awoke promptly, every man after his nature, some plunging for the bomb-proof, some springing for the parapet, and some just jumping to their feet and whirling around and around during a minute or so of desperate bewilderment. The men who leaped to the parapet to repel any coming enemy thought it a very good joke indeed, the momentarily bewildered ones had seen better jokes, but the ones that plunged for the bomb-proof were loud in expressing their indignation at the severest joke of their experience. It was on this line that the informal election was held by the regiment, Lincoln or McClellan, and the only vote cast for McClellan in D was by stout old Private Maddox. When rallied on his "disloyal" choice, as many preferred patriots thought it, Maddox wrathfully shouted, "My grandfather was a democrat, my father was a democrat, and by the Almighty, I'll not go back on either of them." If his argument did not convince his questioners of the soundness of his logic, his blazing eyes and stalwart form gave it a respectful consideration.
Private Maddox was not a conventional thinker anyway. On Strawberry Plains when a bullet went zipping through his cap, instead of raising a loud thanksgiving for his narrow escape, just by the hair of his head, he boiled over with rage at the injury to his cap, vowing that if he could get his hands on the rebel who fired the damaging shot, he would whip him within an inch of his scoundrelly life.
The twenty-four hours passed in camp gave us time for necessary domestic labors—washing, mending, gun and equipment cleaning. Though still under fire, we were released from the necessity of bearing guns and accoutrements, for which reason these few hours were looked forward to as a sort of turning out to grass, and as gladly as any old horse ever scuttled out of harness to roll in the clover, did we strip off our galling belts to stretch ourselves and enjoy our short space of comparative liberty, those of us not so unfortunate as to lose it in some detail of fatigue or other detested duty. Thus time ran in the entrenchments before Petersburgh until the 24th of September, when we moved back to a distance from the line of fire, making a new camp and giving an opportunity for the commanding officers to gratify their passion for drills, they revelling, according to Captain Maxfield's diary, both the 26th and the 27th in Company and Battalion drills.