FROM BROWN'S GAP TO STAUNTON—FROM STAUNTON TO RICHMOND—COLD HARBOR—GENERAL LEE VISITS HIS SON IN THE BATTERY
I had exchanged my brother John as a bedfellow for Walter Packard. Walter was a droll fellow, rather given to arguing, and had a way of enraging his adversary while he kept cool, and, when it suited, could put on great dignity. Immediately following our battery, as we worked our way along a by-road through the foothills toward Brown's Gap, was Gen. Dick Taylor at the head of his Louisiana Brigade. Walter had mounted and was riding on a caisson, contrary to orders recently issued by Jackson. Taylor ordered him to get down. Walter turned around, and, looking coolly at him, said, with his usual sang-froid, "Who are you, and what the devil have you to do with my riding on a caisson?" Taylor seemed astounded for a moment, and then opened on poor Walter with a volley of oaths that our champion swearer, Irish Emmett, would have envied.
When we had gotten about half-way to the top of the mountain, I, with three others, was detailed to go back and bring Lieut. Cole Davis from the field. We were too tired for any thought but of ourselves, and retraced our steps, growling as we went. We had heard that Davis was mortally wounded, and was probably dead then. Suddenly, one hundred yards in front of us, we saw a man riding slowly toward us, sitting erect, with his plume flying. We said, "That's Davis or his ghost!" It was he, held on his horse by a man on each side. We walked on with him till dusk, but, finding he had assistants to spare, two of us overtook the battery. Davis was shot through the body, and suffering dreadfully, able to move only in an upright posture. He entirely recovered, however, and did gallant service until the close of the war.
Still photographed on my memory is the appearance of the body of one of the Second Virginia Regiment being hauled on our rear caisson. His head had been shot off, and over the headless trunk was fastened a white handkerchief, which served as a sort of guide in the darkness. Weary of plodding thus, Graham Montgomery and I left the road, a short distance from which we concluded to spend the night and be subject to no more orders. A drizzling rain was falling. Each having a gum-cloth, we spread one on the loose stones and the other over us, with our feet against a big tree, to keep from sliding down the mountainside. We were soon asleep, and when we awoke next morning we had slid into a heap close against the tree. To give an idea of the ready access we had to the enemy's stores. I had been the possessor of nine gum-blankets within the past three weeks, and no such article as a gum-blanket was ever manufactured in the South. Any soldier carrying a Confederate canteen was at once recognized as a new recruit, as it required but a short time to secure one of superior quality from a dead foeman on a battlefield.
Following the road up the mountain, we came across one of our guns which, by bad driving, had fallen over an embankment some forty feet. Two horses still hitched to it lay on their backs, one of which I recognized as Gregory's one-eyed dun which I had ridden foraging at Bridgewater. After my arrival on top of the mountain I was sent with a detail which recovered the gun and the two horses, both alive. Dandridge and Adams were driving the team when the gun went over. They saved themselves by jumping, and came near having a fight right there as to who was at fault, and for a long time afterward it was only necessary to refer to the matter to have a repetition of the quarrel.
After a day or two we countermarched toward Port Republic and went into camp a mile from Weir's cave, where we spent several days. Thence toward Staunton and camped near the town. Here we were told that we were to have a month's rest in consideration of our long-continued marching and fighting. Rest, indeed! We lost the three days we might have had for rest while there, preparing our camp for a month of ease. During our stay here my father paid us a visit, having ridden from Lexington to see his three sons. After having gotten ourselves comfortable, orders came to pack up and be ready to move. I had carried in my knapsack a pair of lady's shoes captured from Banks's plunder at Winchester. These I gave to a camp scavenger who came from the town for plunder.
Little did we dream of the marching and fighting that were in store for us. Jackson, having vanquished three armies in the Valley, was now ordered to Richmond with his "bloody brigades."
We left Staunton about the twentieth of June, crossed the Blue Ridge at Rockfish Gap, passed through Charlottesville, and were choked, day after day, by the red dust of the Piedmont region. In Louisa County we had rain and mud to contend with, thence through the low, flat lands of Hanover, bearing to the left after passing Ashland.
Our destination was now evident. The army around Richmond was waiting for Jackson to dislodge McClellan from the Chickahominy swamps, and our attack was to be made on his right flank. It seems that our powers of endurance had been over-estimated or the distance miscalculated, as the initiatory battle at Mechanicsville was fought by A. P. Hill without Jackson's aid. This was the first of the seven days' fighting around Richmond. We arrived in the neighborhood of Cold Harbor about two P. M. on June 27, and approached more and more nearly the preliminary cannonading, most of which was done by the enemy's guns. About three o'clock the musketry began, and soon thereafter the infantry of our brigade was halted in the road alongside of us, and, loading their guns, moved forward.
John M. Brown
(War-time portrait)
In a short time the fighting became furious, done almost entirely on our side with small arms, as few positions could be found for artillery. For two or three hours the noise of the battle remained almost stationary, accentuated at intervals by the shouting of the combatants, as ground was lost or won. It was here that General Lee said to General Jackson, "That fire is very heavy! Do you think your men can stand it?" The reply was, "They can stand almost anything; they can stand that!" We stood expecting every moment to be ordered in, as every effort was made by our officers to find a piece of open ground on which we could unlimber. By sundown the firing had gradually lessened and was farther from us, and when night came on the enemy had been driven from their fortifications and quiet was restored. The loss on our side was fearful. Among the killed was my cousin, James Allen, colonel of the Second Virginia Regiment.
While lying among the guns in park that night my rest was frequently disturbed by the antics of one of the battery horses suffering with an attack of "blind staggers," and floundering around in the darkness among the sleeping men.
Before leaving our place of bivouac the next morning, a visit from General Lee, attended by his full staff, to his son Robert, gave us our first opportunity of seeing this grand man. The interview between father and son is described by the latter in his "Recollections and Letters of Gen. Robert E. Lee," which I quote:
"The day after the battle of Cold Harbor, during the 'Seven Days' fighting around Richmond, was the first time I met my father after I had joined General Jackson. The tremendous work Stonewall's men had performed, including the rapid march from the Valley of Virginia, the short rations, the bad water, and the great heat, had begun to tell upon us, and I was pretty well worn out. On this particular morning my battery had not moved from its bivouac ground of the previous night, but was parked in an open field, all ready waiting orders. Most of the men were lying down, many sleeping, myself among the latter number. To get some shade and to be out of the way I had crawled under a caisson, and was busy making up many lost hours of rest. Suddenly I was rudely awakened by a comrade, prodding me with a sponge-staff as I had failed to be aroused by his call, and was told to get up and come out, that some one wished to see me. Half-awake I staggered out, and found myself face to face with General Lee and his staff. Their fresh uniforms, bright equipments, and well-groomed horses contrasted so forcibly with the war-worn appearance of our command that I was completely dazed. It took me a moment or two to realize what it all meant, but when I saw my father's loving eyes and smile it became clear to me that he had ridden by to see if I was safe and to ask how I was getting along. I remember well how curiously those with him gazed at me, and I am sure that it must have struck them as very odd that such a dirty, ragged, unkempt youth could have been the son of this grand-looking, victorious commander.
"I was introduced recently to a gentleman, now living in Washington, who, when he found out my name, said he had met me once before and that it was on this occasion. At that time he was a member of the Tenth Virginia Infantry, Jackson's division, and was camped near our battery. Seeing General Lee and staff approach, he, with others, drew near to have a look at them, and witnessed the meeting between father and son. He also said that he had often told of the incident as illustrating the peculiar composition of our army."
As we moved on over the battlefield that morning, the number of slain on both sides was fully in proportion to the magnitude of the conflict of the day preceding. In a piece of woods through which we passed, and through which the battle had surged back and forth, after careful observation I failed to find a tree the size of a man's body with less than a dozen bullet-marks on it within six feet of the ground, and many of them were scarred to the tops. Not even the small saplings had escaped, yet some of the men engaged had passed through the battle untouched. I was with my messmate, William Bolling, when he here discovered and recognized the dead body of his former school-teacher, Wood McDonald, of Winchester.
On the 28th we crossed the Chickahominy on Grapevine Bridge, the long approaches to which were made of poles, thence across the York River Railroad at Savage Station. As we moved along, fighting was almost constantly heard in advance of us, and rumors were rife that the trap was so set as to capture the bulk of McClellan's army. Near White Oak Swamp we reached another battlefield, and, after night, went into bivouac among the enemy's dead. About ten o'clock I, with several others, was detailed to go back with some wagons, to get a supply of captured ammunition. For four or five miles we jolted over corduroy roads, loaded our wagons, and got back to the battery just before dawn of the following morning. Scarcely had I stretched myself on the ground when the bugle sounded reveille, and even those who had spent the night undisturbed were with difficulty aroused from sleep. I remember seeing Captain Poague go to a prostrate form that did not respond to the summons, and call out, "Wake up, wake up!" But, seeing no sign of stirring, he used his foot to give it a shake, when he discovered he was trying to rouse a dead Yankee! Having been on duty all night I was being left unmolested to the last moment, when Joe Shaner came to me, as usual, and very quietly rolled up my blanket with his, to be carried on his off-horse. This was the battlefield of White Oak Swamp, fought on June 30. Along the march from Cold Harbor we had passed several Federal field-hospitals containing their sick, some of them in tents, some lying in bunks made of poles supported on upright forks. These and their old camps were infested with vermin—"war bugs," as we usually called them—which, with what we already had after two weeks of constant march, with neither time nor material for a change, made us exceedingly uncomfortable.