WITH McCLELLAN IN MARYLAND
The Barbara Fretchie Incident. The Battle of South Mountain. Death of General Reno. The Battle of Antietam. Clara Barton. President Lincoln visits the army. Visited a farmhouse very near a Confederate Camp.
On September 4th, we left our camp near Alexandria, marched to Washington, passed through the city and out into the northwest suburb, and went into camp.
We remained there until the 7th, when we started through Maryland, marching leisurely along making only a few miles a day through as beautiful a country as one could wish to see. The evening of the 12th at early dusk we filed into a great pasture on the east side of the Monocacy River and went into camp. Lights were beginning to glimmer across the river and we were told they were in the city of Frederick. Camp refuse lying about indicated that the field had been used as a camp ground for troops in the immediate past, and inquiry brought out the fact that some of Stonewall Jackson’s troops had camped on the identical field the night before. This was enough to set the brains of the wags in motion and one asked immediately what the result would be of mixing northern and southern gray-backs? Soon, however, coffee was served and drank and we lay down to sleep under a most beautiful Maryland sky.
The next morning we started and marched leisurely down to the river, crossed over it on an old wooden bridge and marched up into the city. There a halt was called and we lay in the street an hour or two. We had been there but a few minutes when the report was passed down the line that a loyal old woman lived on the street, who had a Union flag flying from a window and when ordered to take it down by the Rebels the day before, had refused to do so and it was shot down. Indeed, right opposite where Company K was resting, was the house, the flag still flying.
Soon after we learned of this incident, General Reno, accompanied by an aide, rode down. He stopped before the house, dismounted, and went in. He remained inside only a few minutes. As he came out an old lady accompanied him to the door. At the door they stopped for a moment, then, as he came away, she shut the door. General Reno mounted his horse and rode away.
Directly the order was given to move on; we marched through the town and headed toward the Shenandoah mountains, which in Maryland are no more than a high range of hills.
This account is what I remember of the Barbara Fretchie incident. Since the war I have learned that General Reno’s visit to Barbara Fretchie’s house was made for the purpose of purchasing the flag that had been shot down the day before. He did not receive it, however, Barbara being unwilling to part with the flag which had then become doubly sacred to her. She gave him another, however, which has since found its way to the Museum of the Loyal Legion in Boston.
As we marched along that afternoon we saw two Johnnies hanging from the branch of a tree in a pasture a few rods from the road. They had been executed for foraging by Stonewall Jackson’s orders. Toward night we went into camp near Middletown.
September 14. We remained in camp until afternoon. Artillery firing was heard off on the mountain late in the forenoon. About two o’clock we started for the front. As we approached the active part of the field we had an opportunity to see what a field hospital was like during an engagement. We were almost up to the firing line going in, when we came to a little elevation. Behind that hill a field hospital had been established. The wounded were lying there in large numbers and others were being constantly brought in. The surgeons were at work taking care of the wounded, examining, binding up, operating, etc. Near the tables I saw a pile of arms, hands, legs, feet, etc., which had been amputated. The bullets were coming over there pretty thick but they were nothing compared to the sights and sounds seen and heard in that field hospital. It was the first field hospital I had ever seen; I never saw one afterwards, and I thank God for that. We were halted there beside it for a minute or two, otherwise we should not have had so good a view of it. When the order came to go forward, I for one, was glad, and I think every man in the company was glad. Every man in the company I think, preferred to face bullets at the front and at short range, rather than stay back there, partially covered, under those conditions. During the one or two minutes we halted there, a little Michigan drummer boy was brought in. He was a manly little fellow, a little chap not more than fourteen or fifteen years old. One of his legs had been badly wounded. One of the boys asked him how it was going out at the front. He raised himself up on one elbow and said: “Well, the 17th is behaving very well.” The 17th (17th Michigan) made its reputation that day as a fighting regiment.
When we got up to the fighting line the Johnnies were falling back and we simply followed them up clear to the top of the range, and by six o’clock they had apparently withdrawn from our front. The fight in our part of the field was then over and our brigade was resting in a field at the top of the range in Foxes’ Gap. The road we were following over the range passed along on the right side of the field in which the brigade was resting. At the lower right corner the road made a right angle, turning to the left, passed along behind an old stone wall directly in front of us, at the lower edge of the field for a few rods, then turned to the right and went off down the west side of the mountain.
We had been resting there only a few minutes when we were opened fire on by some Johnnies from behind the wall in front of us. They were evidently a company of sharpshooters, who in their retreat had turned back, determined to look for an opportunity to get a crack at us. They had evidently come up that road until they reached the turn, there they formed themselves along behind the wall at the lower edge of the field, and opened fire. General Reno, his staff, and two or three other officers were sitting on their horses just to the rear of the brigade, which was massed there by regiment. General Reno was hit at that time and in that way, and died about eleven o’clock that night. There were not more than thirty or forty shots fired. A regiment back to the rear in a place where it could be handled better than we could in our massed state, moved around on to the Johnnies’ right flank and opened fire on them, killing and wounding a number, and the rest retreated.
About nine o’clock the morning of September 15th, we started down the west side of the mountain range, heading in the direction of Sharpsburg. As we clambered along down the hill, an incident occurred that amused us quite a little, we were meeting little bunches of prisoners that were being taken to the rear from time to time, they were in the main, stragglers that had been picked up by our cavalry. Glancing down a little side road we saw a squad of Johnnies approaching us, they were being followed by a mounted officer wearing the blue. We were soon able to see it was one of General Ferrero’s staff. This officer, we learned later, was an inveterate forager and as the general and his staff passed along down the hill a little while before us, the officer saw some distance from the main road a rather prosperous looking bunch of farm buildings, and thinking there was a good opportunity to do some foraging, rode over there. The piazza was on the back side of the house and as he rode around the house, there sat seven Johnnies on the piazza, their guns were all standing in one corner a little distance from them. He was tremendously startled as well as they, but he got his senses first, got his revolver out and got the drop on them before one of them moved. He then ordered them into line and marched them over to the main road, arriving there as our regiment was passing along. As we wended our way down the side of the mountain, the view we had below of the valley of the Antietam was of surpassing beauty; Sharpsburg across the valley was barely distinguishable; then to the right and to the left, up and down the valley as far as the eye could penetrate, stretched one of the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen. The next day we lay in camp a mile or two from the Antietam River all day. The morning of the 17th, the battle opened on the right in good earnest, but not until well into the forenoon did it begin in our front, we being on the extreme left. Then we were ordered forward to support a battery. As we lay there behind the hill on which the battery was located, I had an interesting adventure. A shell fired at the battery on the hill in front of us struck the ground, bounded and struck the ground just back of me, I being seated on my knapsack facing the rear; it plowed a hole under me from back to front and came out between my feet. The ground settled down into the trench, my knapsack and I going down with it. Well, that shell was given room as quickly as possible. I rolled over three or four times and the other boys who were sitting near did the same, but fortunately it did not burst and no one got more than a good start. A little later my brother Vertulan, assistant surgeon of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment, gave me a call.
About noon we were ordered in to take the Stone Bridge. Other troops had been hammering away at it for some hours but without success. We were moved down toward the river and opened fire on the Johnnies across a narrow valley on the other side. As we moved forward we came in sight of the bridge and the stream just below us. We stayed there in the open on the side hill sloping down toward the river quite a while, firing away. After a while we saw the fire of the Johnnies was slackening. Then we heard some troops down to our left cheering. From their position they could see the Johnnies were retreating better than we could. But as soon as we saw they were starting, we started too, and being much nearer we were easily the first to reach it. We crossed the bridge, turned to the right and marched up a little way and halted to wait for ammunition, we having only a few rounds left. For a while troops came across the bridge and poured past us by the thousand. After a while we moved up on to the high ground opposite the bridge. A dead Johnny, a sergeant was lying there on the ground. Harry Aldrich turned him over and got his portemonnaie out of his pocket. He opened it and found done up in a little piece of paper a number of five dollar gold pieces. A little later I came upon a man lying dead holding in his hand a photograph of a group of children. He had evidently found himself mortally wounded, had thought of his family at home and had taken that picture from his pocket to take a last look at the likeness of those he loved so dearly and had died with the picture in his hand. Toward night we advanced toward Sharpsburg and took a position on the brow of a ridge facing the high hill where Lee had his reserve artillery massed, and there we stayed until well into the evening. We soon fired away all but one of our cartridges, retaining that one against an emergency. The Confederate infantry was behind a stone wall part way down the hill from the artillery. One of the Johnnies killed behind that wall had my knapsack on his back. He had found it in the little grove beside the road near the Henry House Hill on the Bull Run battlefield, and carried it into Maryland.
The knapsack was found and identified by the man who painted the initials of my name, company, regiment and state on the side of it. He was a Company K man who was detailed in the hospital department. He found it in going over the field gathering up the wounded and burying the dead after the battle. It was there on that ridge that Lieutenant Holbrook was killed. He was knocked all to pieces by a cannon ball fired from one of the guns on the top of the hill. He lay about eight or ten feet to my right at the time.
A regiment came up during the afternoon and took up a position on our left and stayed there until they had fired away all their ammunition and then, without regard to us or to holding the line, retired. We had been ordered to hold that position until dark, ammunition or no ammunition, and we stayed there until well into the evening. We lost forty-five of the one hundred and fifty men of the regiment in that fight. After nightfall we withdrew, went down to the vicinity of the bridge, had coffee, and were supplied with ammunition.
During the evening an incident occurred, the effect of which was to last a long time. It was after we had drank our coffee and had received our ammunition late in the evening. An army nurse asked some of the boys to go with her and assist in getting some wounded men who were near some houses outside our picket line up along the Sharpsburg Road. The boys went, brought in the wounded men and took them to a hospital nearby, no one getting hit, although they did draw the Rebel fire. The work being finished and having been done in so fine a spirit, the nurse wished to know who the men were, and where they came from. Learning they were Massachusetts men and from her own Worcester County, she was quite affected and revealed her own identity—Clara Barton of Oxford. A few moments of friendly handshaking and this first meeting ended, only for a time, however, for later on she visited us at Pleasant Valley and vowed eternal friendship. After the war she became a member of the regimental association, was a regular attendant at the annual reunions and ever declared herself a comrade of the boys of the regiment.
We remained in camp over night not far from the bridge.
September 18. Early in the forenoon we were moved to our extreme left, were deployed and did outpost duty. At night we were marched back to the other side of the Antietam and went into camp in an apple orchard.
September 19. It was reported early in the morning that the Rebels had retreated. We soon formed line, crossed the river and moved over across the battlefield where there were a good many of our dead lying about. We moved along down to the Potomac where the Antietam empties into it. A few Johnnies were in sight on the other bank of the Potomac but disappeared when we opened fire on them.
During the next forenoon who should appear in camp unannounced, but General Burnside. He had ridden over from his headquarters, wherever they were, with a single orderly, and in his cardigan jacket; he “had selected a fine place for us to go into camp,” he said. We were ordered into line and followed him to our new camp ground. He stayed there a half an hour or an hour talking with the officers and men. He told us we could stay there a while and get rested, then rode away.
The reason for this act of kindness toward the old regiment by General Burnside I have never been able to fully account for. He may have known that General Reno regarded it with special favor and General Reno had just been killed at South Mountain. Brigade after brigade had been sent in to take the bridge at Antietam but it remained for the old 2d Brigade to accomplish the work. The 21st was the only New England regiment in the 2d Brigade, and he being a Rhode Island man, may have had something to do with it. At any rate, it made the boys feel mighty good to have the old general come over and show a personal interest in the regiment. The capture of the Stone Bridge by the old 2d Brigade deserves special mention for more reasons than one. One reason is the following: Charles Carlton Coffin, war correspondent of the Boston Journal, was an eye witness of the affair. He wrote home to his paper an account of the battle. In that account he spoke in such enthusiastic terms of the charge of the old 2d Brigade at the capture of the bridge that a special edition of the paper appeared a few days later containing it. In that article he declared, “The heroism of the assault upon the bridge by the three regiments was unsurpassed either on the Rebel or Union side, in the annals of the war.”
October 1. We moved down into Pleasant Valley and went into camp. We remained there until the 27th, resting, drilling, and being supplied with clothing, shoes, shelter tents, etc.
The 3d. President Lincoln visited the army and there was a grand review. A review at that time of the Army of the Potomac, just at the end of McClellan’s service with it, showing his great organizing ability at its best, was a spectacle of exceptional interest. The Army of the Potomac numbered at that time about 145,000 men. It moved in formation by company front, double quick time, regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade, division after division, army corps after army corps, infantry, cavalry and artillery, tramped, surged and poured past the reviewing party, at the head of which sat the President. It was a formidable spectacle and must have pleased Mr. Lincoln. The President, it must be conceded, made a peculiar impression as he sat on his horse, his long legs almost dangling on the ground, or curled up and locked under the horse’s body, his tall hat tipped back, among a lot of military men (every one a soldier from the ground up, and every one as trim a type as could be wished for) and sitting his horse as if a part of it. But when the troops had all marched past and the reviewing party rode away, they could not get away from him. Awkward as Mr. Lincoln looked, he was at home on his horse. He had a good horse and he stayed right with them to the end.
A few days later Clara Barton made us a visit. She brought her knitting with her and stayed all the afternoon. She hunted up the boys who had assisted her the evening after the battle. She went around among the officers and men chatting with them in the pleasantest way. Toward night we had a dress parade. She was made daughter of the regiment. She made a little speech and there was cemented a friendship begun under fire which was destined to last to the end of the lives of all participants.
October 27. Crossing the Potomac at Berlin we again entered Virginia marching as far as Lovettsville. The next day we were informed that the 9th Army Corps had become a part of the Army of the Potomac. In the middle of the afternoon of the 29th we left camp and marched until about sundown. As we passed a farmhouse late in the afternoon I noticed some boys from companies ahead of us jumping over the wall and getting cabbages from a patch right beside the road. I followed suit and got a good one. Later on as the head of the column turned into the field where we were to camp for the night, I noticed the major was demanding the cabbages from the boys ahead of us. I did not like the idea of being cheated out of mine, so I out with my big knife, halved it and gave one piece to Billy. We had no trouble in each of us concealing his half, but some one had to have some fun out of it, and as we passed, the major piped up, “I say, Tom, what are cabbages worth a pound?” The major, I think, took it as a slap at him instead of being a little fun among ourselves, for he looked as ugly as a meat axe at us, but he did not see any cabbages and we did have cabbage for supper. The next morning we broke camp early and marched along the east side of the Blue Ridge mountains as far as Vestal Gap. The following day, November 2d, we moved along up the valley as far as Snickers Gap, where we stayed two days.
November 4. Reports were flying around camp early in the morning that the Johnnies were pouring through Ashby’s Gap in force and that they meant fight. At nine o’clock we started for Ashby’s Gap, but on our arrival there, there was not a Johnnie in sight—another of those old-fashioned false reports. We moved on as far as Manassas Gap the 5th. All the way along as we approached we could hear the artillery at the gap. Our men occupied the east end and the Confederates the west end. Some one said the artillerymen were paying their respects to each other.
November 6. We moved back from the mountain range about ten miles to the town of Orleans. The next morning we started out and marched a few miles, then filed left, crossed a narrow field into a piece of woods and stacked arms. After sitting around a little while I started out to see if I could find a house and get something to eat a little out of the ordinary, for to be constantly eating hardtack and salt horse became a little monotonous after being indulged in month after month.
I passed along through a series of fields on high ground, then bearing a little to the right passed through a strip of wood from the farther side of which a ridge appeared a few rods out in the field. When I reached the top of the ridge, the looked-for-house appeared in sight a few rods down the other slope, and down to it I went. When I got within five or six rods of the house, a Johnnie came out and walked off down towards some wood on the farther side of the field. This opened my eyes, and then I saw for the first time that that wood down there was alive with Johnnies—not an ordinary picket post but a regiment, or a brigade was there. There were tents and camp-fires in large numbers. I must have been five or six rods from the house, and the wood where the Johnnies were, some eight or ten rods beyond, when I made this discovery, but this was no time to hesitate.
I walked down to the house and asked the woman if she had any corn-bread to sell. She said, “No, I have just sold the last I had to one of our men.” That “our men” showed me at once that she knew who I was. I stepped out into the yard, took a look around and sauntered back up over the hill again. When I got out of sight of the house I quickened my steps until I was a good distance from that camp.
November 8. A change of great importance has taken place in the army. General McClellan has been relieved of command of the “Army of the Potomac,” and General Burnside, the old commander of the 9th Army Corps, has been put in his place.
Here ends the Maryland campaign. We shall soon start on a campaign that will be known as the Fredericksburg campaign under General Burnside.