THE ARMY HORSE.
I have already stated that the horse was the sole reliance of the artillery and cavalry, and have given the reasons why the mule was a failure in either branch. I have also stated that the mule replaced him, for the most part, in the wagon-trains, six mules being substituted for four horses. I did not state that in the ambulance train the horses were retained because they were the steadier. But I wish now to refer more particularly to their conduct in action and on duty generally.
First, then, I will come directly to the point by saying that the horse was a hero in action. That horses under fire behaved far better than men did under a similar exposure would naturally be expected, for men knew what and whom to fear, whereas a horse, when hit by a bullet, if he could get loose, was fully as likely to run towards the enemy as from him. But not every horse would run or make a fuss when wounded. It depended partly upon the horse and partly upon the character and location of the wound. I have seen bullets buried in the neck or rump of steady-nerved horses without causing them to show more than a little temporary uneasiness. The best illustration of the fortitude of horse-flesh that I ever witnessed occurred on the 25th of August, 1864, at Ream’s Station on the Weldon Railroad. In this battle the fifty-seven or eight horses belonging to my company stood out in bold relief, a sightly target for the bullets of Rebel sharpshooters, who, from a woods and cornfield in our front, improved their opportunity to the full. Their object was to kill off our horses, and then, by charging, take the guns, if possible.
GENERAL HANCOCK AT REAM’S STATION, VA., AUGUST 25, 1864.
It was painfully interesting to note the manner in which our brave limber-horses—those which drew the guns—succumbed to the bullets of the enemy. They stood harnessed in teams of six. A peculiar dull thud indicated that the bullet had penetrated some fleshy part of the animal, sounding much as a pebble does when thrown into the mud. The result of such wounds was to make the horse start for a moment or so, but finally he would settle down as if it was something to be endured without making a fuss, and thus he would remain until struck again. I remember having had my eye on one horse at the very moment when a bullet entered his neck, but the wound had no other effect upon him than to make him shake his head as if pestered by a fly. Some of the horses would go down when hit by the first bullet and after lying quiet awhile would struggle to their feet again only to receive additional wounds. Just before the close of this battle, while our gallant General Hancock was riding along endeavoring by his own personal fearlessness to rally his retreating troops, his horse received a bullet in the neck, from the effects of which he fell forward, dismounting the general, and appearing as if dead. Believing such to be the case, Hancock mounted another horse; but within five minutes the fallen brute arose, shook himself, was at once remounted by the general, and survived the war many years.
When a bullet struck the bone of a horse’s leg in the lower part, it made a hollow snapping sound and took him off his feet. I saw one pole-horse shot thus, fracturing the bone. Down he went at once, but all encumbered as he was with harness and limber, he soon scrambled up and stood on three legs until a bullet hit him vitally. It seemed sad to see a single horse left standing, with his five companions all lying dead or dying around him, himself the object of a concentrated fire until the fatal shot finally laid him low. I saw one such brute struck by the seventh bullet before he fell for the last time. Several received as many as five bullets, and it was thought by some that they would average that number apiece. They were certainly very thoroughly riddled, and long before the serious fighting of the day occurred but two of the thirty-one nearest the enemy remained standing. These two had been struck but not vitally, and survived some time longer. We took but four of our fifty-seven horses from that ill-starred fray.
REAL “HORSE SENSE.”
But, aside from their wonderful heroism,—for I can find no better name for it,—they exhibited in many ways that sagacity for which the animal is famous. I have already referred to the readiness with which they responded to many of the bugle-calls used on drill. In the cavalry service they knew their places as well as did their riders, and it was a frequent occurrence to see a horse, when his rider had been dismounted by some means, resume his place in line or column without him, seemingly not wishing to be left behind. This quality was often illustrated when a poor, crippled, or generally used-up beast, which had been turned out to die, would attempt to hobble along in his misery and join a column as it passed.
Captain W. S. Davis, a member of General Griffin’s staff of the Fifth Corps, rode a horse which had the very singular but horse-sensible habit of sitting down on his haunches, like a dog, after his rider had dismounted. One morning he was missing, and nothing was seen of him for months; but one night, after the corps had encamped, some of the men, who knew the horse, in looking off towards the horizon, saw against the sky a silhouette of a horse sitting down. It was at once declared to be the missing brute, and Captain Davis, on being informed, recovered his eccentric but highly prized animal.
CHAPTER XVIII.
BREAKING CAMP.—ON THE MARCH.
“And now comes ‘boots and saddles!’ Oh! there’s hurrying to and fro,
And saddling up in busy haste—for what, we do not know.
Sometimes ’twas but a false alarm, sometimes it meant a fight;
Sometimes it came in daytime, and sometimes it came at night.”
The subject of this chapter is a very suggestive one to the old soldier. It covers a whole realm of experience which it would be nearly impossible to exhaust. But there is much in this as in other experiences which was common to all long-term veterans, and to this common experience more especially I shall address my attention.
From the descriptions which I have already given of the various kinds of shelter used by the soldiers it will be readily understood that they got the most comfortably settled in their winter-quarters, and that in a small way each hut became a miniature homestead, and for the time being possessed, to a certain extent, all the attractions of home. The bunk, the stools, and other furniture, the army bric-à-brac, whether captured or of home production, which adorned the rough tenement within and without, all came to have a value by association in the soldier’s thought, a value which was not fully computed till campaigning impended—that usually direful day, when marching orders came and the boys folded their tents and marched away. This sketch will relate something of army life as it was lived after marching orders were received.
When the general commanding an army had decided upon a plan of campaign, and the proper time came to put it in operation, he at once issued his orders to his subordinate commanders to have their commands ready to take their place in column at a given hour on a given day. These orders came down through the various corps, division, brigade, regimental, or battery headquarters to the rank and file, whose instructions given them on line would be to the effect that at the stated hour they were to be ready to start with three days’ rations in their haversacks (this was the usual quantity), the infantry to have forty rounds of ammunition in their cartridge-boxes. This latter quantity was very often exceeded. The Army of the Potomac went into the Wilderness having from eighty to a hundred rounds of ammunition to a man, stowed away in knapsacks, haversacks, or pockets, according to the space afforded, and six days’ rations similarly disposed of. When Hooker started on the Chancellorsville Campaign, eleven days’ rations were issued to the troops.
Sometimes marching orders came when least expected. I remember to have heard the long roll sounded one Saturday forenoon in the camp of the infantry that lay near us in the fall of ’63; it was October 10. Our guns were unlimbered for action just outside of camp where we had been lying several days utterly unsuspicious of danger. It was quite a surprise to us; and such Lee intended it to be, he having set out to put himself between our army and Washington. We were not attacked, but started to the rear a few hours afterwards.
Before the opening of the spring campaign a reasonable notice was generally given. There was one orderly from each brigade headquarters who almost infallibly brought marching orders. The men knew the nature of the tidings which he cantered up to regimental headquarters with under his belt. Very often they would good-naturedly rail at him as he rode into and out of camp, thus indicating their dislike of his errand; but the wise ones went directly to quarters and began to pack up.
PACKING UP.
When it was officially announced to the men on line at night that marching orders were received, and that at such an hour next morning tents would be struck and the men in place, equipped and provided as already stated, those men who had not already decided the question retired to their huts and took an account of stock in order to decide what to take and what to leave. As a soldier would lay out two articles on the bunk, of equally tender associations, one could seem to hear him murmur, with Gay,
“How happy could I be with either
Were t’other dear charmer away.”
as he endeavored to choose between them, knowing too well that both could not be taken. The “survival of the fittest” was the question, which received deeper and tenderer consideration here in one evening than Darwin has ever given it in the same time. Then, there was the overcoat and the woollen blanket which should be left? Perhaps he finally decided to try taking both along for a while. He will leave the dress-coat and wear the blouse. He has two changes of flannels. He will throw away those he has on, don a clean set and take a change with him. These flannels, by the way, if they were what he drew from the government stores, were often as rough to the skin as coarse sand-paper, which they somewhat resembled in color.
From the head of his bunk he takes a collection of old letters which have accumulated during the winter. These he looks over one by one and commits to the flames with a sigh. Many of them are letters from home; some are from acquaintances. Possibly he read the Waverly Magazine, and may have carried on a correspondence with one or more of the many young women who advertised in it for a “soldier correspondent, who must not be over twenty,” with all the virtues namable. There was no man in my company—from old Graylocks, of nearly sixty, down to the callow “chicken” of seventeen—but what felt qualified to fill such a bill, “just for the fun of it, you know.” The young woman was generally “eighteen, of prepossessing appearance, good education, and would exchange photographs if desired.”
An occasional letter from such a quarter would provoke a smile as the soldier glanced at its source and contents before committing it to the yawn of his army fireplace. This rather unpleasant task completed, he continues his researches and work of destruction. He tucks his little collection of photographs, which perhaps he has encased in rubber or leather, into an inside pocket, and disposes other small keepsakes about his person. If he intends to take his effects in a knapsack, he will at the start have put by more to carry than if he simply takes his blankets (rubber and woollen) rolled and slung over his shoulder. Late in the war this latter was the most common plan, as the same weight could be borne with less fatigue in that manner than in a knapsack, slung on the back.
I have assumed it to be evening or late afternoon when marching orders arrived, and have thus far related what the average soldier was wont to do immediately afterwards. There was a night ahead and the soldiers were wont to “make a night of it.” As a rule, there was little sleep to be had, the enforcement of the usual rules of camp being relaxed on such an occasion. Aside from the labor of personal packing and destroying, the rations were to be distributed, and each company had to fall into line, march to the cook-house, and receive their three or more days’ allowance of hardtack, pork, coffee, and sugar, all of which they must stow away, as compactly as possible, in the haversack or elsewhere if they wanted them. In the artillery, besides securing the rations, sacks of grain—usually oats—must be taken from the grain-pile and strapped on to the ammunition-chests for the horses; the axles must be greased, good spare horses selected to supply the vacancies in any teams where the horses were unfit for duty; the tents of regimental headquarters must be struck, likewise the cook-tents, and these, with officers’ baggage, must be put into the wagons which are to join the trains;—in brief, everything must be prepared for the march of the morrow.
After this routine of preparation was completed, camp-fires were lighted, and about them would gather the happy-go-lucky boys of the rank and file, whose merry din would speedily stir the blood of the men who had hoped for a few hours’ sleep before starting out on the morrow, to come out of their huts and join the jovial round; and soon they were as happy as the happiest, even if more reticent. As the fire died down and the soldiers drew closer about it, some comrade would go to his hut, and, with an armful of its furniture, the stools, closets, and tables I have spoken of, reillumine and enliven the scene and drive back the circle of bystanders again. The conversation, which, with the going down of the fire, was likely to take on a somewhat sober aspect, would again assume a more cheerful strain. For a time conjectures on the plan of the coming campaign would be exchanged. Volumes of wisdom concerning what ought to be done changed hands at these camp-fires, mingled with much “I told you so” about the last battle. Alexanders simply swarmed, so numerous were those who could solve the Gordian knot of success at sight. It must interest those strategists now, as they read history, to see how little they really knew of what was taking place.
WAITING FOR MARCHING ORDERS.
When this slight matter of the proper thing for the army to do was disposed of, some one would start a song, and then for an hour at least “John Brown’s Body,” “Marching Along,” “Red, White, and Blue,” “Rally ’round the Flag,” and other popular and familiar songs would ring out on the clear evening air, following along in quick succession, and sung with great earnestness and enthusiasm as the chorus was increased by additions from neighboring camp-fires, until tired Nature began to assert herself, when one by one the company would withdraw, each going to his hut for two or three hours’ rest, if possible, to partially prepare him for the toils of the morrow. Ah! is not that an all-wise provision of Providence which keeps the future a sealed book, placing it before us leaf by leaf only, as the present? For some of these very men, it may have been, whose voices rang out so merrily at that camp-fire, would lie cold and pale ere the week should close, in the solemn stillness of death.
But morning dawned all too soon for those who gave up most of the night to hilarity, and all were summoned forth at the call of the bugle or the drum, and at a time agreed upon The General was sounded.
The above is the General of infantry. That of the artillery was less often used and entirely different.
At this signal, every tent in a regiment was struck. It was quite an interesting sight to see several acres of canvas disappear in a moment, where before it had been the prominent feature in the landscape. As a fact, I believe the General was little used in the latter part of the war. For about two years, when the troops were sheltered by the Sibley, Wedge, and Wall tents, it was necessary to have them struck at an early hour, in order that they might be packed away in the wagon-train. But after the Shelter tent came into use, and each man was his own wagon, the General was seldom heard unless at the end of a long encampment; for, when marching orders came, each man understood that he must be ready at the hour appointed, even if his regiment waited another day before it left camp.
PLATE VI.
McIndoe Bros., Printers, Boston.
No more provoking incident of army life happened, I believe, than for a regiment to wait in camp long after the hour appointed to march. But such was the rule rather than the exception. Many a man’s hearth-stone was then desolate, for if the hour of departure was set for the morning, when morning came and the stockade was vacated, it often suffered demolition to increase the heat of the camp-fires, as previously noted. But as hour after hour wore on, and men still found themselves in camp with nothing to do and plenty of help, they began to wish that they had not been so hasty in breaking up housekeeping and tearing down their shanties, else they might resort to them and make their wait a little more endurable. Especially did they repent if rain came on as they lingered, or if night again overtook them there with their huts untenable, for it would have been the work of only a moment to re-cover them with the Shelter tents. Such waits and their consequences were severe tests to the patience of the men, and sometimes seemed to work more injury to their morals than the average army chaplain could repair in days.
But there is an end to all things earthly, this being no exception. The colors of corps headquarters borne at the heels of the corps commander, and followed by his staff, are at last seen moving into the road. The bugler of the division having the lead sounds the call Attention.
This call is the Attention of infantry at which the men, already in column, take their places, officers mount, and all await the next call, which is
At this signal the regiments take “right shoulder shift,” and the march begins. Let the reader, in imagination, take post by the roadside as the column goes by. Take a look at corps headquarters. The commander is a major-general. His staff comprises an assistant adjutant-general, an assistant inspector-general, a topographical engineer, a commissary of musters, a commissary of subsistence, a judge-advocate, several aides-de-camp—and perhaps other officers, of varying rank. Those mentioned usually ranked from colonel to captain. In the Union army, major-generals might command either a division, a corps, or an army, but in the Confederate service each army of importance was commanded by a lieutenant-general. Take a look at the corps headquarters flag. Feb. 7, 1863, General Hooker decreed the flags of corps headquarters to be a blue swallow-tail field bearing a white Maltese cross, having in the centre the number of the corps; but, so far as I can learn, this decree was never enforced in a single instance. Mr. James Beale, in his exceedingly valuable and unique volume, “The Union Flags at Gettysburg,” shows a nondescript cross on some of the headquarters flags, which some quartermaster may have intended as a compliance with Hooker’s order; but though true copies of originals they are monstrosities, which never could have had existence in a well ordered brain, and which have no warrant in heraldry or general orders as far as can be ascertained. When the army entered upon the Wilderness Campaign, each corps headquarters floated a blue swallow-tailed flag bearing its own particular emblem in white, in the centre of which was the figure designating the corps, in red.
Here comes the First Division. At the head rides its general commanding and staff. Behind him is the color-bearer, carrying the division flag. If you are familiar with the corps badges, you will not need to ask what corps or division it is. The men’s caps tell the story, but the flags are equally plain-spoken.
This flag is the first division color. It is rectangular in shape. The corps emblem is red in a white field; the second has the emblem white in a blue field; the third has the emblem blue in a white field. The divisions had the lead of the corps on the march by turns, changing each day.
But here comes another headquarters. The color-bearer carries a triangular flag. That is a brigade flag. May 12, 1863, General Hooker issued an order prescribing division flags of the pattern I have described, and also designated what the brigade flags should be. They were to be, first of all, triangular in shape; the brigades of the first division should bear the corps symbol in red in the centre of a white field, but, to distinguish them, the first brigade should have no other mark; the second should have a blue stripe next the staff, and the third a blue border four and one-half inches wide around the flag.
The brigades of the second division had the corps symbol in white in the centre of a blue field, with a red stripe next the staff to designate the second brigade, and a red border the third.
The third division had its brigades similarly designated, with the symbol blue, the field white, and the stripes red.
Whenever there was a fourth brigade, it was designated by a triangular block of color in each corner of the flag.
The chief quartermaster of the corps and the chief of artillery had each his appropriate flag, as designated in the color-plate, but the arrangement of the colors in the flag of the chief quartermasters differed in different corps.
This scheme of Hooker’s, for distinguishing corps, division, and brigade headquarters remained unchanged till the end of the war.
The brigades took turns in having the lead—or, as military men say, the right—of the division, and regiments had the right of brigades by turns.
There goes army headquarters yonder—the commanding general, with his numerous staff—making for the head of the column. His flag is the simple star-spangled banner. The stars and stripes were a common flag for army headquarters. It was General Meade’s headquarters flag till Grant came to the Army of the Potomac, who also used it for that purpose. This made it necessary for Meade to change, which he did, finally adopting a lilac-colored swallow-tail flag, about the size of the corps headquarters flags, having in the field a wreath enclosing an eagle, in gold.
You can easily count the regiments in column by their United States colors. A few of them, you will notice, have a battle-flag, bearing the names of the engagements in which they have participated. Some regiments used the national colors for a battle-flag, some the state colors. I think the volunteers did not adopt the idea early in the war. Originally battles were only inscribed on flags by authority of the secretary of war, that is, in the regular army. But the volunteers seemed to be a law unto themselves, and, while many flags in existence to-day bear names of battles inscribed by order of the commanding general, there are some with inscriptions of battles which the troops were hardly in hearing of. The Rebel battle-flag was a blue spangled saltier in a red field, and originated with General Joe Johnston after the first Bull Run.
You will have little difficulty in deciding where a regiment begins or ends. It begins with a field officer and ends with a mule. Originally it ended with several army wagons; but now that portion of regimental headquarters baggage which has not gone to the wagon-train is to be found stowed about the mule, that is led along by a contraband. Yes, the head, ears, and feet which you see are the only visible externals of a mule. He is “clothed upon” with the various materials necessary to prepare a “square meal” for the colonel and other headquarters officers. His trappings would, seemingly, fit out a small family in household goods of a kind. There is a mess-kettle, a fry-pan, mess-pans, tent-poles, a fly (canvas), a valise, a knapsack and haversack, a hamper on each side, a musket, and other matter which goes to make the burden at least twice the size of the animal. Four mules were regarded as having the carrying capacity of one army wagon. At the end of the brigade you will see two or three of these mules burdened with the belongings of brigade headquarters.
The mule had other company than the negro ofttimes. That man who seems to be flour and grease from head to heels, who needs no shelter nor rubber blanket because he is waterproof already, perhaps, inside and out, whose shabby, well-stuffed knapsack furnishes the complement to the mule’s lading, who shuffles along with “no style about him,” is the cook, perhaps, for the regiment, probably for headquarters, certainly not for Delmonico. It is singular, but none the less true, that if a man made a slovenly, indifferent soldier he was fully as likely to get a berth in the cook-house as to have any other fate befall him. This remark applies to men who drifted into the business of “army caterer” after trying other service, and not those who entered at once upon it.
Here comes a light battery at the rear of the division. Possibly it is to remain with this part of the corps for the campaign. Such was sometimes the case, but later a battery was often used anywhere within the limits of a corps that it could be of advantage. This battery has six brass Napoleons, 12-pounders. They are very destructive at short range. It is followed by a battery of steel guns. They are Parrots, three-inch rifles; best for long range, but good anywhere. Not so safe for close action, however, as the Napoleons.
Yonder you can see the Second Division moving across the fields, made up like the one just passed. It will close in upon the rear of this division farther up the road. What an interesting spectacle it presents, the bright sunlight glinting from the thousands of polished muskets, the moving masses of light and dark blue inching along over the uneven ground, the various flags streaming proudly in the air, marking off the separate brigades and regiments. The column is moving at a moderate pace. It takes some time for a corps to get under way. If we wait long enough, the Third Division, made up like the others, will pass by us, unless it has gone on a parallel road.
It is growing warmer. The column has now got straightened out, and for the last hour has moved forward quite rapidly. The road is evidently clear of all obstructions, but the heat and speed begin to tell on the men. Look at the ground which that brigade has just vacated after its brief halt for rest. It is strewn with blankets, overcoats, dress-coats, pantaloons, shirts—in fact, a little of everything from the outfit of the common soldier. As the Second Corps advanced into the Wilderness on the morning of May 4, 1864, I saw an area of an acre or more almost literally covered with the articles above named, many of them probably extras, but some of them the sole garment of their kind, left by the owners, who felt compelled, from the increasing weight of their load, to lighten it to the extent of parting with the blankets which they would need that very night for shelter. This lightening of the load began before the columns had been on the road an hour. A soldier who had been through the mill would not wait for a general halt to occur before parting with a portion of his load, if it oppressed him; but a recruit would hang to his until he bent over at an angle of 45° from a vertical, with his eyes staring, his lower jaw hanging, and his face dripping with moisture. If you were to follow the column after, say, the first two miles, you would find various articles scattered along at intervals by the roadside, where a soldier quietly stepped out of the ranks, sat down, unslung his knapsack or his blanket-roll, took out what he had decided to throw away, again equipped himself, and, thus relieved, hastened on to overtake the regiment. It did not take an army long to get into light marching order after it was once fairly on the road.
A FOOTSORE STRAGGLER.
I have been dealing with the first day out of settled camp. On subsequent days, of course the same programme would not be enacted. And, again, if a man clung to his effects till noon, he was likely to do so for the day, as after noon the thought of shelter for the night nerved him to hold on. But men would drop out in the afternoon of the first day for another reason. They blistered or chafed their feet and sat down at the first stream to bathe them, after which, if the weather admitted, they could be seen plodding along barefooted, their pantaloons rolled up a few inches, and their shoes dangling at the end of their musket-barrel.
Then, this very crossing of a stream often furnished an interesting scene in the march of the column. A river broad and deep would be spanned by a pontoon bridge, but the common creeks of the South were crossed by fording. Once in a while (in warm weather) the men would take off most of their clothing and carry it with their equipments across on their heads. It was no uncommon experience for them to ford streams waist-deep, even in cool weather. If the bottom was a treacherous one, and the current rapid, a line of cavalry-men was placed across the river just below the column to pick up such men as should lose their footing. Many were the mishaps of such a crossing, and, unless the enemy was at hand, the first thing to be done after reaching shore was to strip and wring out such clothing as needed it. With those who had slipped and fallen this meant all they had on and what was in their knapsack besides, but with most it included only trousers, drawers, and socks.
After the halt which allowed the soldiers time to perform this bit of laundry work had ended, and the column moved along, it was not an uncommon sight to see muskets used as clothes-lines, from which depended socks, shoes, here and there a shirt, perhaps a towel or handkerchief. But if the weather was cool the wash did not hang out in this way. When it became necessary to cross a stream in the night, huge fires were built on its banks, with a picket at hand, whose duty it was to keep them burning until daylight, or until the army had crossed. A greater number of mishaps occurred in fording by night than by day even then. During Meade’s retreat from Culpeper, in the fall of 1863,—it was the night of October 11,—my company forded the Rappahannock after dark, and went into camp a few rods away from the ford; and I remember what a jolly night the troops made of it when they came to this ford. At short intervals I was awakened from slumber by the laughter or cheers of the waders, as they made merry at the expense of some of their number, who came out after immersion using language which plainly indicated their disbelief in that kind of baptism. Here was the field for the tired, overloaded headquarters mule to display his obstinacy to a large and changing audience, by getting midway of the stream and refusing to budge. I can see the frenzied Ethiopian in charge, now, waist-deep in water, wild with despair at the situation, alternating reasoning with pulling and beating, while the brute lies down in the stream all encumbered with the baggage, the passing column jeering poor Sambo, and making the adjacent woodland echo with their loud guffaws at his helpless yet laughable condition.
“HEADQUARTERS” IN TROUBLE.
That was a noisy night, and it has always been a matter of wonder to me that we remained undisturbed, with the enemy less than three miles up the river, as General Birney, with whom we then were, has left on record. There was no stopping to wring out. But “close up!” was the order after crossing, and the dull rattle made by the equipments, the striking of the coffee dipper on the canteen or buckles, as the column glided along in the darkness, or the whipping-up of belated mule-teams, was heard until the gray of morning appeared.
The army on the march in a rain-storm presented some aspects not seen in fair weather. As soon as it began to rain, or just before, each man would remove his rubber blanket from his roll or knapsack, and put it over his shoulders, tying it in front. Some men used their shelter tent instead—a very poor substitute, however. But there was no fun in the marching business during the rain. It might settle the dust. It certainly settled about everything else. An order to go into camp while the rain was in progress was not much of an improvement, for the ground was wet, fence-rails were wet, one’s woollen blanket was likely also to be wet, hardtack in the haversack wet—in fact, nothing so abundant and out of place as water. I remember going into camp one night in particular, in Pleasant Valley, Md., on a side-hill during a drenching rain, such as mountain regions know, and lying down under a hastily pitched shelter, with the water coursing freely along beneath me. I was fresh as a soldier then, and this experience, seeming so dreadful then, made a strong impression. Such situations were too numerous afterwards to make note of even in memory.
Then, the horses! It made them ugly and vicious to stand in the pelting rain at the picket-rope. I think they preferred being in harness on the road. But they were likely to get subdued the next day, when sloughs and mire were the rule. If two corps took the same road after a storm, the worse for the hindermost, for it found deep ruts and mud-holes in abundance; and as it dragged forward it would come upon some piece of artillery or caisson in the mire to the hubs, doomed to stay, in spite of the shoutings and lashings of the drivers, the swearing of the officers, and the lifting and straining of mud-bedraggled cannoneers, until six more horses were added to extricate it. Anon the corps would arrive at a place utterly impassable, when down would go the fence by the roadside, if there was one, and out would go the column into the field skirting the road, returning again beyond the mire. At another slough, a staff officer might be found posted to direct the artillery where to make a safe passage.
THE FLANKERS.
Such places by night were generally lighted by fires built for that purpose. I remember such a spot in particular—a reminiscence of the Mine Run Campaign; I think it was the night of Dec. 4, 1863. My battery was then attached to the Third Division of the Third Corps. By the edge of the slough in question sat General J. B. Carr, the division commander, with a portion of his command near by, and, as a caisson went down in the mire, he called in his “Blue Diamonds” to lift it out, which they did right manfully. There was no turning into fields that night, for, while the roads were soft, the fields were softer, and worse travelling I believe the Army of the Potomac never saw, unless on the “Mud March.”
When the army was expecting to run against the enemy in its advance, flankers were thrown out on either side of the column. These flankers were a single file of soldiers, who marched along a few feet apart parallel to the column, and perhaps ten or twelve rods distant from it in open country, but not more than half that distance when it was marching through woods. In the event of an attack, the flankers on that side became the skirmish line in action.
It was an interesting sight to see a column break up when the order came to halt, whether for rest or other reason. It would melt in a moment, dividing to the right and left, and scattering to the sides of the road, where the men would sit down or lie down, lying back on their knapsacks if they had them, or stretching at full length on the ground. If the latter was wet or muddy, cannoneers sat on their carriages and limber-chests, while infantrymen would perhaps sit astride their muskets, if the halt was a short one. When the halt was expected to continue for some considerable time the troops of a corps or division were massed, that is, brought together in some large open tract of territory, when the muskets would be stacked, the equipments laid off, and each man rush for the “top rail” of the nearest fence, until not a rail remained. The coffee would soon begin to simmer, the pork to sputter in the flames, and, when the march was resumed, the men would start off refreshed with rest and rations.
A HALT.
But if the halt was for a few minutes only, and the marching had not been relieved by the regular rests usually allowed, the men stiffened up so much that, with their equipments on, they could hardly arise without assistance, and, goaded by their stiffened cords and tired muscles and swollen or chafed feet, made wry faces for the first few rods after the column started. In this manner they plodded on until ordered into camp for the night, or perhaps double-quicked into line of battle.
During that dismal night retreat of the Army of the Potomac from Chancellorsville, a little event occurred which showed what a choleric man General Meade was on occasion, and to what an exhausted bodily condition the rigors of a campaign often reduced men. While the general was sitting with General Warren at one of those camp-fires always found along the line of march after nightfall, a poor jaded, mud-bedraggled infantrymen came straggling and stumbling along the roadside, scarcely able, in his wet and wearied condition, to bear up under his burden of musket and equipments. As he staggered past the camp-fire, he struck, by the merest accident, against General Meade, who jumped immediately to his feet, drew his sabre, and made a lunge at the innocent offender, which sent him staggering to the ground. There he lay motionless, as if dead. At once Meade began to upbraid himself for his hasty temper, and seemed filled with remorse for what he had done. Whereat General Warren made efforts to calm his fears by telling him it was probably not as serious as he supposed, and thereupon began to make investigation of the nature of the injury done the prostrate veteran. To General Meade’s great gratification, it was found that while his sabre had cut through the man’s clothing, it had only grazed his side without drawing blood, but so completely worn out had the soldier become through the exactions of the recent campaign that matter dominated mind, and he lay in a double sense as if dust had returned to dust.
CHAPTER XIX.
ARMY WAGON-TRAINS.
“That every man who swears once drove a mule
Is not believed by any but a fool;
But whosoe’er drove mules and did not swear
Can be relied on for an honest prayer.”
Before giving a history of the wagon-trains which formed a part, and a necessary part, of every army, I will briefly refer to what was known as “Grant’s Military Railroad,” which was really a railroad built for the army, and used solely by it. When the Army of the Potomac appeared before Petersburg, City Point, on the James River, was made army headquarters and the “base of supplies,” that is, the place to which supplies were brought from the North, and from which they were distributed to the various portions of the army. The Lynchburg or Southside Railroad enters Petersburg from the west, and a short railroad, known as the City Point Railroad, connects it with City Point, ten miles eastward. The greater portion of this ten miles fell within the Union lines after our army appeared before Petersburg, and, as these lines were extended westward after the siege was determined upon, Grant conceived the plan of running a railroad inside our fortifications to save both time and mule-flesh in distributing supplies along the line. It was soon done. About five miles of the City Point road were used, from which the new road extended to the south-west, perhaps ten miles, striking the Weldon Railroad, which had been wrested from the enemy. Down this the trains ran three miles; then a new branch of about two miles more to the west took them to the left of the Union lines.
Of course, there were stations along this road at which supplies were left for those troops near by. These stations were named after different generals of the army. Meade and Patrick stations are two names which yet linger in my memory, near each of which my company was at some time located. The trains on this road were visible to the enemy for a time as they crossed an open plain in their trips, and brought upon themselves quite a lively shelling, resulting in no damage, I believe, but still making railroading so uncomfortable that a high embankment of earth was thrown up, which completely covered the engine and cars as they rolled along, and which still stands as a monument to the labors of the pick-and-shovel brigade. This railroad was what is known as a surface road, by which is meant that there were no cuts made, the track being laid on the natural surface of the ground. When a marsh was met with, instead of filling, the engineers built a trestling. The effect of such railroading to the eye was quite picturesque, as a train wound its serpentine course along the country, up hill and down dale, appearing much as if it had jumped the track, and was going across lots to its destination.
But the trains of the army were wagon-trains, and so little has been written about them in histories of the war that a limited sketch in this volume will have interest for many readers.
The trains belong to what is known in French as the matériel of the army, in distinction from the personnel, the men employed. In Roman history we frequently find the baggage-trains of the army alluded to as the impedimenta. The matériel, then, or impedimenta, of our armies has, very naturally, been ignored by the historian; for the personnel, the actors, are of so much more consequence, they have absorbed the interest of both writers and readers. I say the persons are of much more consequence, but I must not be understood as belittling the importance of the trains. An army without its varied supplies, which the trains care for and provide, would soon be neither useful nor ornamental. In fact, an army is like a piece of machinery, each part of which is indispensable to every other part.
A MULE DRIVER.
I presume every one of mature years has an idea of what army wagons look like. They were heavy, lumbering affairs at best, built for hard service, all, apparently, after the same pattern, each one having its tool-box in front, its feed trough behind, which, in camp, was placed lengthwise of the pole; its spare pole suspended at the side; its wooden bucket for water, and iron “slush-bucket” for grease, hanging from the hind axle; and its canvas cover, which when closely drawn in front and rear, as it always was on the march, made quite a satisfactory “close carriage.” As a pleasure carriage, however, they were not considered a success. When the Third Corps was wintering at Brandy Station in 1863-4 the concert troupe, which my company boasted was engaged to give a week of evening entertainments not far from Culpeper, in a large hexagonal stockade, which would seat six or seven hundred persons, and which had been erected for the purpose by one Lieutenant Lee, then on either General French’s or General Birney’s staff—I cannot now say which. To convey us thither over the intervening distance of four or five miles, as I now remember, we hired a mule-driver with his army wagon. More than twenty-three years have since elapsed, but those twelve or fourteen rides, after dark, across the rough country and frozen ground around Brandy Station were so thoroughly jolted into my memory that I shall never forget them. The seven dollars apiece per night which we received for our services was but a trifling compensation for the battering and mellowing we endured en route, and no more than paid for wear and tear. No harder vehicle can be found to take a ride in than an army wagon.
By some stroke of good luck, or, perhaps, good management, many of the regiments from New England took their transportation along with them. It consisted, in many cases, of twenty-five wagons, two for each company, and five for regimental headquarters. These were drawn at first by four horses, but afterwards by six mules. A light battery had three such wagons. They were designed to carry the baggage of the troops, and when a march was ordered they were filled with tents, stoves, kettles, pans, chairs, desks, trunks, valises, knapsacks, boards,—in fact, whatever conveniences had accumulated about the camps.
General Sherman, in his Memoirs (vol. i. p. 178), describes very graphically the troops he saw about Washington in ’61, as follows:—
“Their uniforms were as various as the states and cities from which they came; their arms were also of every pattern and calibre; and they were so loaded down with overcoats, haversacks, knapsacks, tents, and baggage, that it took from twenty-five to fifty wagons to move the camp of a regiment from one place to another, and some of the camps had bakeries and cooking establishments that would have done credit to Delmonico.”
General Sherman might have seen much the same situation near Washington even in ’62 and ’63. Every company in a regiment located in the defences of the capital city had one or more large cook-stoves with other appointments to match, and when they moved only a few miles they took all their lares and penates with them. This could then be done without detriment to the service. It was only when they attempted to carry everything along in active campaigning that trouble ensued.
In October, 1861, McClellan issued an order which contained the following provisions:—
“1. No soldiers shall ride in loaded baggage-wagons under any circumstances, nor in empty wagons unless by special instructions to that effect.
2. Knapsacks shall not be carried in the wagons except on the written recommendation of the surgeon, which shall be given in case of sickness.
3. Tent-floors shall not be transported in public wagons, and hereafter no lumber shall be issued for tent-floors except upon the recommendation of the medical director for hospital purposes.”
This order was issued before the corps were organized, while the wagons were yet with their regiments, and while the men yet had their big knapsacks, which they were always ready to ride with or toss into a wagon when the regiment moved. This was the time of transporting tent-floors, the luxurious fault-finding period before carpets, feather-beds, and roast beef had entirely lost their charm; when each man was, in his own way and belief, fully the size of a major-general; when the medical director of the army had time, unaided as yet by subordinates, to decide the question of tent-floors versus no tent-floors for individuals. Ah, the freshness and flavor of those early war days come back to me as I write—each day big with importance, as our letters, yet preserved to us, so faithfully record.
Not many months elapsed before it became apparent that the necessities of stern warfare would not permit and should not have so many of the equipments of civil life, when the shelter tent, already described, took the place of the larger varieties; when camp-fires superseded the stoves, and many other comfortable but unnecessary furnishings disappeared from the baggage. Not how little but how much could be dispensed with then became the question of the hour. The trains must be reduced in size, and they must be moved in a manner not to hamper the troops, if possible; but the war was more than half finished before they were brought into a satisfactory system of operation.
The greater number of the three-years regiments that arrived in Washington in 1861 brought no transportation of any kind. After McClellan assumed command, a depot of transportation was established at Perryville on the Susquehanna; by this is meant a station where wagons and ambulances were kept, and from which they were supplied.
From there Captain Sawtell, now colonel and brevet brigadier general U. S. A., fitted out regiments as rapidly as he could, giving each six wagons instead of twenty-five, one of which was for medical supplies. Some regiments, however, by influence or favor at court, got more than that. A few wagons were supplied from the quartermaster’s depot at Washington. A quartermaster is an officer whose duty it is to provide quarters, provisions, clothing, fuel, storage, and transportation for an army. The chief officer in the quartermaster’s department is known as the quartermaster-general. There was a chief quartermaster of the army, and a chief quartermaster to each corps and division; then, there were brigade and regimental quartermasters, and finally the quartermaster-sergeants, all attending in their appropriate spheres to the special duties of this department.
During the march of the army up the Peninsula in 1862, the fighting force advanced by brigades, each of which was followed by its long columns of transportation. But this plan was very unsatisfactory, for thereby the army was extended along forest paths over an immense extent of country, and great delays and difficulties ensued in keeping the column closed up; for such was the nature of the roads that after the first few wagons had passed over them they were rendered impassable in places for those behind. At least a quarter of each regiment was occupied in escorting its wagons, piled up with ammunition, provisions, tents, etc.; and long after the head of the column had settled in bivouac could be heard the loud shouting of the teamsters to their jaded and mire-bedraggled brutes, the clatter of wagon and artillery wheels, the lowing of the driven herds, the rattling of sabres, canteens, and other equipments, as the men strode along in the darkness, anxious to reach the spot selected for their uncertain quantity of rest.
At times in this campaign it was necessary for the wagon-trains to be massed and move together, but, for some reason, no order of march was issued, so that the most dire confusion ensued. A struggle for the lead would naturally set in, each division wanting it and fighting for it. Profanity, threats, and the flourishing of revolvers were sure to be prominent in the settling of the question, but the train which could run over the highest stumps and pull through the deepest mud-holes was likely to come out ahead.
The verdancy which remained after the first fall of the Union army at Bull Run was to be utterly overshadowed by the baptism of woe which was to follow in the Peninsular Campaign; and on arriving at Harrison’s Landing, on the James, McClellan issued the following order, which paved the way for better things:—
Allowance of Transportation, Tents, and Baggage.
Head-Quarters, Army of the Potomac.
Camp near Harrison’s Landing, Va., August 10, 1862.
General Orders,
No. 153.
I. The following allowance of wagons is authorized:
| For the Head-Quarters of an Army Corps | Four |
| ” ” a Division or Brigade | Three |
| For a Battery of Light Artillery, or Squadron of Cavalry | Three |
| For a full regiment of Infantry | Six |
This allowance will in no case be exceeded, but will be reduced to correspond as nearly as practicable with the number of officers and men actually present. All means of transportation in excess of the prescribed standard will be immediately turned in to the depot, with the exception of the authorized supply trains, which will be under the direction of the Chief Quartermasters of Corps. The Chief Quartermaster of this Army will direct the organization of the supply trains.
II. The Army must be prepared to bivouac when on marches away from the depots. The allowance of tents will therefore be immediately reduced to the following standard, and no other accommodations must be expected until a permanent depot is established:
For the Head-Quarters of an Army Corps, Division, or Brigade, one wall tent for the General Commanding, and one to every two officers of his staff.
To each full regiment, for the Colonel, Field and Staff officers, three wall tents.
For all other commissioned officers, one shelter tent each.
For every two non-commissioned officers, soldiers, officers’ servants, and camp followers, as far as they can be supplied, one shelter tent.
One hospital tent will be allowed for office purposes at Corps Head-Quarters, and one wall tent at Division and Brigade Head-Quarters.
All tents in excess of this allowance will be immediately turned in to the depots.
Tents of other patterns required to be exchanged for shelter tents will be turned in as soon as the latter can be obtained from the Quartermaster’s department. Under no circumstances will they be allowed to be carried when the Army moves.
III. The allowance of officers’ baggage will be limited to blankets, a small valise or carpet bag, and a reasonable mess-kit. All officers will at once reduce their baggage to this standard. The men will carry no baggage except blankets and shelter tents. The Chief Quartermaster will provide storage on the transports for the knapsacks of the men and for the officers’ surplus baggage.
IV. Hospital tents must not be diverted from their legitimate use, except for offices, as authorized in paragraph II.
V. The wagons allowed to a regiment or battery must carry nothing but forage for the teams, cooking utensils for the men, hospital stores, small rations, and officers’ baggage. One of the wagons allowed for a regiment will be used exclusively for hospital stores, under the direction of the regimental surgeon. The wagon for regimental Head-Quarters will carry grain for the officers’ horses. At least one and a half of the wagons allowed to a battery or squadron will carry grain.
VI. Hospital stores, ammunition, Quartermaster’s Stores, and subsistence stores in bulk will be transported in special trains.
VII. Commanding officers will be held responsible that the reduction above ordered, especially of officers’ baggage, is carried into effect at once, and Corps commanders are specially charged to see that this responsibility is enforced.
VIII. On all marches, Quartermasters will accompany and conduct their trains, under the orders of their commanding officers, so as never to obstruct the movement of troops.
IX. All Quartermasters and Commissaries of Subsistence will attend in person to the receipt and issue of supplies for their commands, and will keep themselves constantly informed of the situation of the depots, roads, etc.
By command of Major General McClellan:
S. WILLIAMS,
Assistant Adjutant General.
Official:
Aide-de-Camp.
This order quite distinctly shows some of the valuable lessons taught by that eventful campaign before Richmond, more especially the necessity of limiting the amount of camp equipage and the transportation to be used for that purpose. But it further outlines the beginnings of the Supply Trains, and to these I wish to direct special attention.
I have thus far only referred to the transportation provided for the camp equipage; but subsistence for man and beast must be taken along; clothing, to replace the wear and tear of service, must be provided; ammunition in quantity and variety must be at ready command; intrenching tools were indispensable in an active campaign,—all of which was most forcibly demonstrated on the Peninsula. Some effort, I believe, was made to establish these trains before that campaign began, but everything was confusion when compared with the system which was now inaugurated by Colonel (now General) Rufus Ingalls, when he became Chief Quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac. Through his persevering zeal, trains for the above purposes were organized. All strife for the lead on the march vanished, for every movement was governed by orders from army headquarters under the direction of the chief quartermaster. He prescribed the roads to be travelled over, which corps trains should lead and which should bring up the rear, where more than one took the same roads. All of the corps trains were massed before a march, and the chief quartermaster of some corps was selected and put in charge of this consolidated train. The other corps quartermasters had charge of their respective trains, each in turn having his division and brigade quartermasters, subject to his orders. “There never was a corps better organized than was the quartermaster’s corps with the Army of the Potomac in 1864,” says Grant in his Memoirs.
WAGON-TRAIN CROSSING THE RAPPAHANNOCK ON A PONTOON BRIDGE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
Let us see a little more clearly what a corps train included. I can do no better than to incorporate here the following order of General Meade:—
Head-Quarters, Army of the Potomac.
August 21, 1863.
General Orders,
No. 83.
In order that the amount of transportation in this Army shall not in any instance exceed the maximum allowance prescribed in General Order, No. 274, of August 7, 1863, from the War Department, and to further modify and reduce baggage and supply trains, heretofore authorized, the following allowances are established and will be strictly conformed to, viz.:
1. The following is the maximum amount of transportation to be allowed to this Army in the field:
To the Head-Quarters of an Army Corps, 2 wagons or 8 pack mules.
To the Head-Quarters of a Division or Brigade, 1 wagon or 5 pack mules.
To every three company officers, when detached or serving without wagons, 1 pack mule.
To every 12 company officers, when detached, 1 wagon or 4 pack mules.
To every 2 staff officers not attached to any Head-Quarters, 1 pack mule.
To every 10 staff officers serving similarly, 1 wagon or 4 pack mules.
The above will include transportation for all personal baggage, mess chests, cooking utensils, desks, papers, &c. The weight of officers’ baggage in the field, specified in the Army Regulations, will be reduced so as to bring it within the foregoing schedule. All excess of transportation now with Army Corps, Divisions, Brigades, and Regiments, or Batteries, over the allowances herein prescribed, will be immediately turned in to the Quartermaster’s Department, to be used in the trains.
Commanding officers of Corps, Divisions, &c., will immediately cause inspections to be made, and will be held responsible for the strict execution of this order.
Commissary stores and forage will be transported by the trains. Where these are not convenient of access, and where troops act in detachments, the Quartermaster’s Department will assign wagons or pack animals for that purpose; but the baggage of officers, or of troops, or camp equipage, will not be permitted to be carried in the wagons or on the pack animals so assigned. The assignment for transportation for ammunition, hospital stores, subsistence, and forage will be made in proportion to the amount ordered to be carried. The number of wagons is hereinafter prescribed.
The allowance of spring wagons and saddle horses for contingent wants, and of camp and garrison equipage, will remain as established by circular, dated July 17, 1863.
2. For each full regiment of infantry and cavalry, of 1000 men, for baggage, camp equipage, &c., 6 wagons.
For each regiment of infantry less than 700 men and more than 500 men, 5 wagons.
For each regiment of infantry less than 500 men and more than 300 men, 4 wagons.
For each regiment of infantry less than 300 men, 3 wagons.
3. For each battery of 4 and 6 guns—for personal baggage, mess chests, cooking utensils, desks, papers, &c., 1 and 2 wagons respectively.
For ammunition trains the number of wagons will be determined and assigned upon the following rules:
1st. Multiply each 12 pdr. gun by 122 and divide by 112.
2d. Multiply each rifle gun by 50 and divide by 140.
3d. For each 20 pdr. gun, 1½ wagons.
4th. For each siege gun, 2½ wagons.
5th. For the general supply train of reserve ammunition of 20 rounds to each gun in the Army, to be kept habitually with Artillery Reserve, 54 wagons.
For each battery, to carry its proportion of subsistence, forage, &c., 2 wagons.
4. The supply train for forage, subsistence, quartermaster’s stores, &c., to each 1000 men, cavalry and infantry, 7 wagons.
To every 1000 men, cavalry and infantry, for small arm ammunition, 5 wagons.
To each 1500 men, cavalry and infantry, for hospital supplies, 3 wagons.
To each Army Corps, except the Cavalry, for entrenching tools, &c., 6 wagons.
To each Corps Head-Quarters for the carrying of subsistence, forage and other stores not provided for herein, 3 wagons.
To each Division Head-Quarters for similar purpose as above, 2 wagons.
To each Brigade Head-Quarters for similar purpose as above, 1 wagon.
To each Brigade, cavalry and infantry, for commissary stores for sales to officers, 1 wagon.
To each Division, cavalry and infantry, for hauling forage for ambulance animals, portable forges, &c., 1 wagon.
To each Division, cavalry and infantry, for carrying armorer’s tools, parts of muskets, extra arms and accoutrements, 1 wagon.
It is expected that each ambulance, and each wagon, whether in the baggage, supply or ammunition train, will carry the necessary forage for its own team.
By command of Major General Meade:
S. WILLIAMS,
Assistant Adjutant General.
Official:
Ass’t Adj’t Gen’l.
As the transportation was reduced in quantity, the capacity of what remained was put to a severer test. For example, when the Army of the Potomac went into the Wilderness in 1864, each wagon was required to carry five days forage for its animals (600 pounds), and if its other freight was rations it might be six barrels of salt pork and four barrels of coffee, or ten barrels of sugar. Forty boxes of hardtack was a load, not so much because of its weight as because a wagon would hold no more. It even excluded the forage to carry this number. In the final campaign against Lee, Grant allowed for baggage and camp equipage three wagons to a regiment of over seven hundred men, two wagons to a regiment of less than seven hundred and more than three hundred, and one wagon to less than three hundred. One wagon was allowed to a field battery. But, notwithstanding the reductions ordered at different times, extra wagons were often smuggled along. One captain, in charge of a train, tells of keeping a wagon and six mules of his own more than orders allowed, and whenever the inspecting officer was announced as coming, the wagon, in charge of his man, Mike, was driven off under cover and not returned till the inspection was completed. This enabled him to take along quite a personal outfit for himself and friends. But his experience was not unique. There were many other “contraband” mule-teams smuggled along in the same way for the same object.
In leaving Chattanooga to advance into Georgia, General Sherman reduced his transportation to one baggage-wagon and one ambulance for a regiment, and a pack-horse or mule for the officers of each company. His supply trains were limited in their loads to food, ammunition, and clothing; and wall tents were forbidden to be taken along, barring one for each headquarters, the gallant old veteran setting the example, by taking only a tent-fly, which was pitched over saplings or fence rails. The general has recorded in his “Memoirs” that his orders were not strictly obeyed in this respect, Thomas being the most noted exception, who could not give up his tent, and “had a big wagon, which could be converted into an office, and this we used to call ‘Thomas’s circus.’” In starting on his “march to the sea,” Sherman issued Special Field Orders No. 120; paragraph 3 of this order reads as follows:—
“There will be no general train of supplies, but each corps will have its ammunition train and provision train distributed habitually as follows: Behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance; behind each brigade should follow a due proportion of ammunition-wagons, provision-wagons and ambulances. In case of danger each corps commander should change this order of march, by having his advance and rear brigades unencumbered by wheels. The separate columns will start habitually at 7 A.M., and make about fifteen miles per day, unless otherwise fixed in orders.”
I presume the allowance remained about the same for the Wilderness Campaign as that given in Orders No. 83. General Hancock says that he started into the Wilderness with 27,000 men. Now, using this fact in connection with the general order, a little rough reckoning will give an approximate idea of the size of the train of this corps. Without going into details, I may say that the total train of the Second Corps, not including the ambulances, could not have been far from 800 wagons, of which about 600 carried the various supplies, and the remainder the baggage—the camp equipage of the corps.
When the army was in settled camp, the supply trains went into park by themselves, but the baggage-wagons were retained with their corps, division, brigade, or regimental headquarters. When a march was ordered, however, these wagons waited only long enough to receive their freight of camp equipage, when away they went in charge of their respective quartermasters to join the corps supply train.
I have alluded to the strength of a single corps train. But the Second Corps comprised only about one-fifth of the Union army in the Wilderness, from which a little arithmetic will enable one to get a tolerably definite idea of the impedimenta of this one army, even after a great reduction in the original amount had been made. There were probably over 4000 wagons following the Army of the Potomac into the Wilderness. An idea of the ground such a train would cover may be obtained by knowing that a six-mule team took up on the road, say, forty feet, but of course they did not travel at close intervals. The nature of the country determined, in some degree, their distance apart. In going up or down hill a liberal allowance was made for balky or headstrong mules. Colonel Wilson, the chief commissary of the army, in an interesting article to the United Service magazine (1880), has stated that could the train which was requisite to accompany the army on the Wilderness Campaign have been extended in a straight line it would have spanned the distance between Washington and Richmond, being about one hundred and thirty miles. I presume this estimate includes the ambulance-train also. On the basis of three to a regiment, there must have been as many as one hundred and fifty to a corps. These, on ordinary marches, followed immediately in the rear of their respective divisions.
When General Sherman started for the sea, his army of sixty thousand men was accompanied by about twenty-five hundred wagons and six hundred ambulances. These were divided nearly equally between his four corps, each corps commander managing his own train. In this campaign the transportation had the roads, while the infantry plodded along by the roadside.
The supply trains, it will now be understood, were the travelling depot or reservoir from which the army replenished its needs. When these wagons were emptied, they were at once sent back to the base of supplies, to be reloaded with precisely the same kind of material as before; and empty wagons had always to leave the road clear for loaded ones. Unless under a pressure of circumstances, all issues except of ammunition were made at night. By this plan the animals of the supply consumed their forage at the base of supplies, and thus saved hauling it.
It was a welcome sight to the soldiers when rations drew low, or were exhausted, to see these wagons drive up to the lines. They were not impedimenta to the army just then.
COMMISSARY DEPOT AT CEDAR LEVEL.—FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
It has sometimes been thought that the wagon-train was a glorious refuge from the dangers and hard labors endured at the front, but such was not the case. It was one of the most wearing departments of the service. The officers in immediate charge were especially burdened with responsibility, as the statement above illustrates. They were charged to have their trains at a given point at or before a specified time. It must be there. There was no “if convenient” or “if possible” attached to the order. The troops must have their rations, or, more important still, the ammunition must be at hand in case of need. Sometimes they would accomplish the task assigned without difficulty, but it was the exception. Of course, they could not start until the army had got out of the way. Then, the roads, already cut up somewhat by the artillery, were soon rendered next to impassable by the moving trains. The quartermaster in charge of a train would be called upon to extricate a wagon here that was blocking the way, to supply the place of a worn-out horse or mule there; to have a stalled wagon unloaded and its contents distributed among other wagons; to keep the train well closed up; to keep the right road even by night, when, of necessity, much of their travelling was done. And if, with a series of such misfortunes befalling him, the quartermaster reached his destination a few hours late, his chances were very good for being roundly sworn at by his superior officers for his delinquency.
During the progress of the train, it may be said, the quartermaster would ease his nervous and troubled spirit by swearing at careless or unfortunate mule-drivers, who, in turn, would make the air blue with profanity addressed to their mules, individually or collectively, so that the anxiety to get through was felt by all the moving forces in the train. A large number of these drivers were civilians early in the war, but owing to the lack of subordination which many of them showed, their places were largely supplied later by enlisted men, upon whom Uncle Sam had his grip, and who could not resign or “swear back” without penalty.
The place of the trains on an advance was in the rear of the army; on the retreat, in front, as a rule. If they were passing through a dangerous section of country, they were attended by a guard, sometimes of infantry, sometimes cavalry. The strength of the guard varied with the nature of the danger expected. Sometimes a regiment, sometimes a brigade or division, was detailed from a corps for the duty. The nature of Sherman’s march was such that trains and troops went side by side, as already referred to. The colored division of the Ninth Corps served as train-guard for the transportation of the Army of the Potomac from the Rapidan to the James in 1864.
When ammunition was wanted by a battery or a regiment in the line of battle, a wagon was sent forward from the train to supply it, the train remaining at a safe distance in the rear. The nearness of the wagon’s approach was governed somewhat by the nature of the ground. If there was cover to screen it from the enemy, like a hill or a piece of woods, it would come pretty near, but if exposed it would keep farther away. When it was possible to do so, supplies both of subsistence and ammunition were brought up by night when the army was in line of battle, for, as I have said elsewhere, a mule-team or a mule-train under fire was a diverting spectacle to every one but the mule-drivers.
A MULE-TEAM UNDER FIRE.
One of the most striking reminiscences of the wagon-train which I remember relates to a scene enacted in the fall of ’63, in that campaign of manœuvres between Meade and Lee. My own corps (Third) reached Centreville Heights before sunset—in fact, was, I think, the first corps to arrive. At all events, we had anticipated the most of the trains. At that hour General Warren was having a lively row with the enemy at Bristoe Station, eight or nine miles away. As the twilight deepened, the flash of his artillery and the smoke of the conflict were distinctly visible in the horizon. The landscape between this stirring scene and our standpoint presented one of the most animated spectacles that I ever saw in the service. Its most attractive feature was the numerous wagon-trains, whose long lines, stretching away for miles over the open plain, were hastening forward to a place of refuge, all converging towards a common centre—the high ground lying along the hither side of Bull Run. The officers in charge of the trains, made somewhat nervous by the sounds of conflict reaching them from the rear, impatiently urged on the drivers, who, in turn, with lusty lungs uttered vigorous oaths at the mules, punctuated by blows or cracks of the black snake that equalled in volume the intonations of a rifle; and these jumped into their harnesses and took the wagons along over stumps and through gullies with as great alacrity as if the chief strain and responsibility of the campaign centred in themselves. An additional feature of animation was presented by the columns of infantry from the other corps, which alternated in the landscape with the lines of wagons, winding along into camp tired and footsore, but without apparent concern. I do not now remember any other time in my experience when so large a portion of the matériel and personnel of the army could have been covered by a single glance as I saw in the gathering twilight of that October afternoon.
The system of designating the troops by corps badges was extended to the transportation, and every wagon was marked on the side of the canvas covering with the corps badge, perhaps eighteen inches in diameter, and of the appropriate color to designate the division to which it belonged. In addition to this, the number of its division, brigade, and the nature of its contents, whether rations, forage, clothing, or ammunition,—and, if the latter, the kind, whether artillery or musket, and the calibre,—were plainly stencilled in large letters on the cover. All this and much more went to indicate as perfect organization in the trains as in the army itself, and to these men, who were usually farthest from the fray, for whom few words of appreciation have been uttered by distinguished writers on the war, I gladly put on record my humble opinion that the country is as much indebted as for the work of the soldiers in line. They acted well their part, and all honor to them for it.
A regular army officer, who had a large experience in charge of trains, has suggested that a bugler for each brigade or division train would have been a valuable auxiliary for starting or halting the trains, or for regulating the camp duties as in artillery and cavalry. It seems strange that so commendable a proposition was not thought of at the time.
THE “BULL TRAIN.”
In 1863, while the army was lying at Belle Plain after the memorable Mud March, large numbers of colored refugees came into camp. Every day saw some old cart or antiquated wagon, the relic of better days in the Old Dominion, unloading its freight of contrabands, who had thus made their entrance into the lines of Uncle Sam and Freedom. As a large number of these vehicles had accumulated near his headquarters, General Wadsworth, then commanding the first division of the First Corps, conceived the novel idea of forming a supply train of them, using as draft steers, to be selected from the corps cattle herd, and broken for that purpose. His plan, more in detail, was to load the carts at the base of supplies with what rations they would safely carry, despatch them to the troops wherever they might be, issue the rations, slaughter the oxen for fresh beef, and use the wagons for fuel to cook it. A very practical scheme, at first view, surely. A detail of mechanics was made to put the wagons in order, a requisition was drawn for yokes, and Captain Ford of a Wisconsin regiment, who had had experience in such work, was detailed to break in the steers to yoke and draft.
The captain spent all winter and the following spring in perfecting the “Bull Train,” as it was called. The first serious set-back the plan received resulted from feeding the steers with unsoaked hard bread, causing several of them to swell up and die; but the general was not yet ready to give up the idea, and so continued the organization. Chancellorsville battle came when all the trains remained in camp. But the day of trial was near. When the army started on the Gettysburg campaign, Captain Ford put his train in rear of the corps wagon-train, and started, with the inevitable result.
The mules and horses walked right away from the oxen, in spite of the goading and lashing and yelling of their drivers. By nightfall they were doomed to be two or three miles behind the main train—an easy prey for Mosby’s guerilla band. At last the labor of keeping it up and the anxiety for its safety were so intense that before the Potomac was reached the animals were returned to the herd, the supplies were transferred or issued, the wagons were burned, and the pet scheme of General Wadsworth was abandoned as impracticable.
Quite nearly akin to this Bull Train was the train organized by Grant after the battle of Port Gibson. His army was east of the Mississippi, his ammunition train was west of it. Wagon transportation for ammunition must be had. Provisions could be taken from the country. He says: “I directed, therefore, immediately on landing, that all the vehicles and draft animals, whether horses, mules, or oxen, in the vicinity should be collected and loaded to their capacity with ammunition. Quite a train was collected during the 30th, and a motley train it was. In it could be found fine carriages, loaded nearly to the top with boxes of cartridges that had been pitched in promiscuously, drawn by mules with plough-harness, straw collars, rope lines, etc.; long-coupled wagons with racks for carrying cotton-bales, drawn by oxen, and everything that could be found in the way of transportation on a plantation, either for use or pleasure.” [Vol. i., p. 488.]
Here is another incident which will well illustrate the trials of a train quartermaster. At the opening of the campaign in 1864, Wilson’s cavalry division joined the Army of the Potomac. Captain Ludington (now lieutenant-colonel, U. S. A.) was chief quartermaster of its supply train. It is a settled rule guiding the movement of trains that the cavalry supplies shall take precedence in a move, as the cavalry itself is wont to precede the rest of the army. Through some oversight of the chief quartermaster of the army, General Ingalls, the captain had received no order of march, and after waiting until the head of the infantry supply trains appeared, well understanding that his place was ahead of them on the march, he moved out of park into the road. At once he encountered the chief quartermaster of the corps train, and a hot and wordy contest ensued, in which vehement language found ready expression. While this dispute for place was at white heat, General Meade and his staff rode by, and saw the altercation in progress without halting to inquire into its cause. After he had passed some distance up the road, Meade sent back an aid, with his compliments, to ascertain what train that was struggling for the road, who was in charge of it, and with what it was loaded. Captain Ludington informed him that it was Wilson’s cavalry supply train, loaded with forage and rations. These facts the aid reported faithfully to Meade, who sent him back again to inquire particularly if that really was Wilson’s cavalry train. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, he again carried the same to General Meade, who immediately turned back in his tracks, and came furiously back to Ludington. Uttering a volley of oaths, he asked him what he meant by throwing all the trains into confusion. “You ought to have been out of here hours ago!” he continued. “I have a great mind to hang you to the nearest tree. You are not fit to be a quartermaster.” In this manner General Meade rated the innocent captain for a few moments, and then rode away. When he had gone, General Ingalls dropped back from the staff a moment, with a laugh at the interview, and, on learning the captain’s case, told him to remain where he was until he received an order from him. Thereupon Ludington withdrew to a house that stood not far away from the road, and, taking a seat on the veranda, entered into conversation with two young ladies who resided there. Soon after he had thus comfortably disposed himself, who should appear upon the highway but Sheridan, who was in command of all the cavalry with the army. On discovering the train at a standstill, he rode up and asked:—
“What train is this?”
“The supply train of Wilson’s Cavalry Division,” was the reply of a teamster.
“Who’s in charge of it?”
“Captain Ludington.”
“Where is he?”
“There he sits yonder, talking to those ladies.”
GENERAL MEADE AND THE QUARTERMASTER.
“Give him my compliments and tell him I want to see him,” said Sheridan, much wrought up at the situation, apparently thinking that the train was being delayed that its quartermaster might spend further time “in gentle dalliance” with the ladies. As soon as the captain approached, the general charged forward impetuously, as if he would ride the captain down, and, with one of those “terrible oaths” for which he was famous, demanded to know what he was there for, why he was not out at daylight, and on after his division. As Ludington attempted to explain, Sheridan cut him off by opening his battery of abuse again, threatening to have him shot for his incompetency and delay, and ordering him to take the road at once with his train. Having exhausted all the strong language in the vocabulary, he rode away, leaving the poor captain in a state of distress that can be only partially imagined. When he had finally got somewhat settled after this rough stirring-up, he took a review of the situation, and, having weighed the threatened hanging by General Meade, the request to await his orders from General Ingalls, the threatened shooting of General Sheridan, and the original order of General Wilson, which was to be on hand with the supplies at a certain specified time and place, Ludington decided to await orders from General Ingalls, and resumed the company of the ladies. At last the orders came, and the captain moved his train, spending the night on the road in the Wilderness, and when morning dawned had reached a creek over which it was necessary for him to throw a bridge before it could be crossed. So he set his teamsters at work to build a bridge. Hardly had they begun felling trees before up rode the chief quartermaster of the Sixth Corps train, anxious to cross. An agreement was entered into, however, that they should build the bridge together; and the corps quartermaster set his pioneers at work with Ludington’s men, and the bridge was soon finished. Recognizing the necessity for the cavalry train to take the lead, the corps quartermaster had assented that it should pass the bridge first when it was completed, and on the arrival of that moment the train was put in motion, but just then a prompt and determined chief quartermaster of a Sixth Corps division train, unaware of the understanding had between his superior, the corps quartermaster, and Captain Ludington, rode forward and insisted on crossing first. A struggle for precedence immediately set in. The contest waxed warm, and language more forcible than polite was waking the woodland echoes when who should appear on the scene again but General Meade. On seeing Ludington engaged as he saw him the day before, it aroused his wrath most unreasonably, and, riding up to him, he shouted, with an oath: “What! are you here again!” Then shaking his fist in his face, he continued: “I am sorry now that I did not hang you yesterday, as I threatened.” The captain, exhausted and out of patience with the trials which he had encountered, replied that he sincerely wished he had, and was sorry that he was not already dead. The arrival of the chief quartermaster of the Sixth Corps, at this time, ended the dispute for precedence, and Ludington went his way without further vexatious delays to overtake his cavalry division.
“OLD CRONIES”
CHAPTER XX.
ARMY ROAD AND BRIDGE BUILDERS.
“A line of black, which bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.”
Longfellow.
If there is one class of men in this country who more than all others should appreciate spacious and well graded highways, or ready means of transit from one section into another, that class is the veterans of the Union Army; for those among them who “hoofed it” from two to four years in Rebeldom travelled more miles across country in that period than they did on regularly constituted thoroughfares. Now through the woods, now over the open, then crossing a swamp, or wading a river of varying depth, here tearing away a fence obstructing the march, there filling a ditch with rails to smooth the passage of the artillery,—in fact, “short cuts” were so common and popular that the men endured the obstacles they often presented with the utmost good-nature, knowing that every rood of travel thus saved meant fewer foot-blisters and an earlier arrival in camp.
But there was a portion of the army which could not often indulge in short cuts, which must “find a way or make it,” or have it made for them by others; and as some time and much skill and labor were necessary in laying out and completing such a way in an efficient manner, a body of men was enlisted for the exclusive purpose of doing this kind of work. Such a body was the Engineer Corps, often called the Sappers and Miners of the army; but so little sapping and mining was done, and that little mainly by the fighting forces, I shall speak of this body of men as Engineers—the name which, I believe, they prefer.
In the Army of the Potomac this corps was composed of the Fifteenth and Fiftieth New York regiments of volunteers and a battalion of regulars comprising three companies. They started out with McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign, and from that time till the close of the war were identified with the movements of this army. These engineers went armed as infantry for purposes of self-defence only, for fighting was not their legitimate business, nor was it expected of them. There were emergencies in the history of the army when they were drawn up in line of battle. Such was the case with a part of them at least at Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness, but, so far as I can learn, they were never actively engaged.
CORDUROYING.
The engineers’ special duties were to make roads passable for the army by corduroying sloughs, building trestle bridges across small streams, laying pontoon bridges over rivers, and taking up the same, laying out and building fortifications, and slashing. Corduroying called at times for a large amount of labor, for Virginia mud was such a foe to rapid transit that miles upon miles of this sort of road had to be laid to keep ready communication between different portions of the army. Where the ground was miry, two stringers were laid longitudinally of the road, and on these the corduroy of logs, averaging, perhaps, four inches in diameter, was laid, and a cover of brush was sometimes spread upon it to prevent mules from thrusting their legs through. Where the surface was simply muddy, no stringers were used. It should be said here that by far the greater portion of this variety of work fell to fatigue details from the infantry, as did much more of the labor which came within the scope of the engineers’ duties; for the latter could not have accomplished one-fifth of the tasks devolved upon them in time. In fact, if I except the laying and taking-up of pontoon bridges, and the laying-out and superintending of the building of forts, there were none of the engineers’ duties which were not performed by the fighting force to a large extent. I state this not in detraction of the engineers, who always did well, but in justice to the infantry, who so often supplemented the many and trying duties of their own department with the accomplishments of the engineer corps. The quartermaster of the army had a large number of wagons loaded with intrenching tools with which to supply the troops when their services were required as engineers.
A TRESTLE BRIDGE, NO. 1.
The building of trestle bridges called for much labor from the engineers with the Army of the Potomac, for Virginia is gridironed with small streams. These, bear in mind, the troops could ford easily, but the heavily loaded trains must have bridges to cross on, or each ford would soon have been choked with mired teams. Sometimes the bridges built by the natives were still standing, but they had originally been put up for local travel only, not to endure the tramp and rack of moving armies and their thousands of tons of impedimenta; wherefore the engineers would take them in hand and strengthen them to the point of present efficiency. So well was much of this work done that it endures in places to-day as a monument to their thoroughness and fidelity, and a convenience to the natives of those sections.
A TRESTLE BRIDGE, NO. 2.
When a line of works was laid out through woods, much slashing, or felling of trees, was necessary in its front. This was especially necessary in front of forts and batteries. Much of this labor was done by the engineers. The trees were felled with their tops toward the enemy, leaving stumps about three feet high. The territory covered by these fallen trees was called the Slashes, hence Slashing. No large body of the enemy could safely attempt a passage through such an obstacle. It was a strong defence for a weak line of works.
The Gabions, being hollow cylinders of wicker-work without bottom, filled with earth, and placed on the earthworks; the Fascines, being bundles of small sticks bound at both ends and intermediate points, to aid in raising batteries, filling ditches, etc.; Chevaux-de-frise, a piece of timber traversed with wooden spikes, used especially as a defence against cavalry; the Abatis, a row of the large branches of trees, sharpened and laid close together, points outward, with the butts pinned to the ground; the Fraise, a defence of pointed sticks, fastened into the ground at such an incline as to bring the points breast-high;—all these were fashioned by the engineer corps, in vast numbers, when the army was besieging Petersburg in 1864.
A LARGE GABION.
FASCINES.
CHEVAUX-DE-FRISE.
But the crowning work of this corps, as it always seemed to me, the department of their labor for which, I believe, they will be the longest remembered, was that of ponton-bridge laying. The word ponton, or pontoon, is borrowed from both the Spanish and French languages, which, in turn, derive it from the parent Latin, pons, meaning a bridge, but it has now come to mean a boat, and the men who build such bridges are called by the French pontoniers. In fact, the system of ponton bridges in use during the Rebellion was copied, I believe, almost exactly from the French model.
The first ponton bridge which I recall in history was built by Xerxes, nearly twenty-four hundred years ago, across the Hellespont. It was over four thousand feet long. A violent storm broke it up, whereupon the Persian “got square” by throwing two pairs of shackles into the sea and ordering his men to give it three hundred strokes of a whip, while he addressed it in imperious language. Then he ordered all those persons who had been charged with the construction of the bridge to be beheaded. Immediately afterwards he had two other bridges built, “one for the army to pass over, and the other for the baggage and beasts of burden. He appointed workmen more able and expert than the former, who went about it in this manner. They placed three hundred and sixty vessels across, some of them having three banks of oars and others fifty oars apiece, with their sides turned towards the Euxine (Black) Sea; and on the side that faced the Ægean Sea they put three hundred and fourteen. They then cast large anchors into the water on both sides, in order to fix and secure all these vessels against the violence of the winds and the current of the water. On the east side they left three passages or vacant spaces, between the vessels, that there might be room for small boats to go and come easily, when there was occasion, to and from the Euxine Sea. After this, upon the land on both sides, they drove large piles into the earth, with huge rings fastened to them, to which were tied six vast cables, which went over each of the two bridges: two of which cables were made of hemp, and four of a sort of reeds called βιβλος, which were made use of in those times for the making of cordage. Those that were made of hemp must have been of an extraordinary strength and thickness since every cubit in length weighed a talent (42 pounds). The cables, laid over the whole extent of the vessels lengthwise, reached from one side to the other of the sea. When this part of the work was finished, quite over the vessels from side to side, and over the cables just described, they laid the trunks of trees cut for that purpose, and planks again over them, fastened and joined together to serve as a kind of floor or solid bottom; all which they covered over with earth, and added rails or battlements on each side that the horses and cattle might not be frightened at seeing the sea in their passage.”
ABATIS.
Compare this bridge of Xerxes with that hereinafter described, and note the points of similarity.
One of the earliest pontons used in the Rebellion was made of India-rubber. It was a sort of sack, shaped not unlike a torpedo, which had to be inflated before use. When thus inflated, two of these sacks were placed side by side, and on this buoyant foundation the bridge was laid. Their extreme lightness was a great advantage in transportation, but for some reason they were not used by the engineers of the Army of the Potomac. They were used in the western army, however, somewhat. General F. P. Blair’s division used them in the Vicksburg campaign of 1863.
THE FRAISE.
Another ponton which was adopted for bridge service may be described as a skeleton boat-frame, over which was stretched a cotton-canvas cover. This was a great improvement over the tin or copper-covered boat-frames, which had been thoroughly tested and condemned. It was the variety used by Sherman’s army almost exclusively. In starting for Savannah, he distributed his ponton trains among his four corps, giving to each about nine hundred feet of bridge material. These pontons were suitably hinged to form a wagon body, in which was carried the canvas cover, anchor, chains, and a due proportion of other bridge materials. This kind of bridge was used by the volunteer engineers of the Army of the Potomac. I recall two such bridges.
One spanned the Rapidan at Ely’s Ford, and was crossed by the Second Corps the night of May 3, 1864, when it entered upon the Wilderness campaign. The other was laid across the Po River, by the Fiftieth New York Engineers, seven days afterwards, and over this Hancock’s Veterans crossed—those, at least, who survived the battle of that eventful Tuesday—before nightfall.
But all of the long bridges, notably those crossing the Chickahominy, the James, the Appomattox, which now come to my mind, were supported by wooden boats of the French pattern. These were thirty-one feet long, two feet six inches deep, five feet four inches wide at the top, and four feet at the bottom. They tapered so little at the bows and sterns as to be nearly rectangular, and when afloat the gunwales were about horizontal, having little of the curve of the skiff.
A CANVAS PONTOON BOAT. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
The floor timbers of the bridge, known as Balks, were twenty-five and one-half feet long, and four and one-half inches square on the end. Five continuous lines of these were laid on the boats two feet ten inches apart.
The flooring of the bridge, called chesses, consisted of boards having a uniform length of fourteen feet, a width of twelve inches, and a thickness of one and a half inches.
To secure the chesses in place, side-rails of about the same dimensions as the balks were laid upon them over the outer balks, to which the rails were fastened by cords known as rack-lashings.
The distance between the centres of two boats in position is called a bay. The distance between the boats is thirteen feet ten inches. The distance between the side-rails is eleven feet, this being the width of the roadway.
AN ANGLE OF FORT HELL (SEDGWICK) SHOWING GABIONS, CHEVAUX-DE-FRISE, ABATIS AND FRAISE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
An abutment had to be constructed at either end of a bridge, which was generally done by settling a heavy timber horizontally in the ground, level with the top of the bridge, confining it there by stakes. A proper approach was then made to this, sometimes by grading, sometimes by corduroying, sometimes by cutting away the bank.
The boats, with all other bridge equipage, were carried upon wagons, which together were known as the Ponton Train. Each wagon was drawn by six mules. A single boat with its anchor and cable formed the entire load for one team. The balks were loaded on wagons by themselves, as were also the chesses, and the side-rails on others. This system facilitated the work of the pontoniers. In camp, the Ponton Train was located near army headquarters. On the march it would naturally be in rear of the army, unless its services were soon to be made use of. If, when the column had halted, we saw this train and its body-guard, the engineers, passing to the front, we at once concluded that there was “one wide river to cross,” and we might as well settle down for a while, cook some coffee, and take a nap.
In order to get a better idea of ponton-bridge laying, let us follow such a train to the river and note the various steps in the operation. If the enemy is not holding the opposite bank, the wagons are driven as near as practicable to the brink of the water, unloaded, and driven off out of the way. To avoid confusion and expedite the work, the corps is divided up into the abutment, boat, balk, lashing, chess, and side-rail parties. Each man, therefore, knows just what he has to do. The abutment party takes the initiative, by laying the abutment, and preparing the approaches as already described. Sometimes, when the shore was quite marshy, trestle work or a crib of logs was necessary in completing this duty, but, as the army rarely approached a river except over a recognized thoroughfare, such work was the exception.
While this party has been vigorously prosecuting its special labors, the boat party, six in number, have got a ponton afloat, manned it, and ridden to a point a proper distance above the line of the proposed bridge, dropped anchor, and, paying out cable, drop down alongside the abutment, and go ashore. The balk party are on hand with five balks, two men to each, and having placed these so that one end projects six inches beyond the outer gunwale of the boat, they make way for the lashing party, who lash them in place at proper intervals as indicated on the gunwales. The boat is then pushed into the stream the length of the balks, the hither ends of which are at once made fast to the abutment.
A WOODEN PONTOON BOAT. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
The chess party now step to the front and cover the balks with flooring to within one foot of the ponton. Meanwhile the boat-party has launched another ponton, dropped anchor in the proper place, and brought it alongside the first: the balk party, also ready with another bay of balks, lay them for the lashing party to make fast; the boat being then pushed off broadside-to as before, and the free end of the balks lashed so as to project six inches over the shore gunwale of the first boat. By this plan it may be seen that each balk and bay of balks completely spans two pontons. This gives the bridge a firm foundation. The chess party continue their operations, as before, to within a foot of the second boat. And now, when the third bay of the bridge is begun, the side-rail party appears, placing their rails on the chesses over the outside balks, to which they firmly lash them, the chesses being so constructed that the lashings pass between them for this purpose.
The foregoing operations are repeated bay after bay till the bridge reaches the farther shore, when the building of another abutment and its approaches completes the main part of the work. It then remains to scatter the roadway of the bridge with a light covering of hay, or straw, or sand, to protect it from wear, and, perhaps, some straightening here and tightening there may be necessary, but the work is now done, and all of the personnel and matériel may cross with perfect safety. No rapid movements are allowed, however, and man and beast must pass over at a walk. A guard of the engineers is posted at the abutment, ordering “Route step!” “Route step!” as the troops strike the bridge, and sentries, at intervals, repeat the caution further along. By keeping the cadence in crossing, the troops would subject the bridge to a much greater strain, and settle it deeper in the water. It was shown over and over again that nothing so tried the bridge as a column of infantry. The current idea is that the artillery and the trains must have given it the severest test, which was not the case.
In taking up a bridge, the order adopted was the reverse of that followed in laying it, beginning with the end next the enemy, and carrying the chess and balks back to the other shore by hand. The work was sometimes accelerated by weighing all anchors, and detaching the bridge from the further abutment, allow it to swing bodily around to the hither shore to be dismantled. One instance is remembered when this manœuvre was executed with exceeding despatch. It was after the army had recrossed the Rappahannock, following the battle of Chancellorsville. So nervous were the engineers lest the enemy should come upon them at their labors they did not even wait to pull up anchors, but cut every cable and cast loose, glad enough to see their flotilla on the retreat after the army, and more delighted still not to be attacked by the enemy during the operation,—so says one of their number.
One writer on the war speaks of the engineers as grasping “not the musket but the hammer,” a misleading remark, for not a nail is driven into the bridge at any point.
A PONTOON BRIDGE AT BELLE PLAIN, VA. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
When the Army of the Potomac retreated from before Richmond in 1862 it crossed the lower Chickahominy on a bridge of boats and rafts 1980 feet long. This was constructed by three separate working parties, employed at the same time, one engaged at each end and one in the centre. It was the longest bridge built in the war, of which I have any knowledge, save one, and that the bridge built across the James, below Wilcox’s Landing, in 1864. This latter was a remarkable achievement in ponton engineering. It was over two thousand feet long, and the channel boats were firmly anchored in thirteen fathoms of water. The engineers began it during the forenoon of June 14, and completed the task at midnight. It was built under the direction of General Benham for the passage of the wagon-trains and a part of the troops, while the rest crossed in steamers and ferry-boats.
But ponton bridges were not always laid without opposition or interference from the enemy. Perhaps they made the most stubborn contest to prevent the laying of the bridges across the Rappahannock before Fredericksburg in December, 1862.
The pontoniers had partially laid one bridge before daylight; but when dawn appeared the enemy’s sharpshooters, who had been posted in buildings on the opposite bank, opened so destructive a fire upon them that they were compelled to desist, and two subsequent attempts to continue the work, though desperately made, were likewise brought to naught by the deadly fire of Mississippi rifles. At last three regiments, the Seventh Michigan, and the Nineteenth and Twentieth Massachusetts, volunteered to cross the river, and drive the enemy out of cover, which they did most gallantly, though not without considerable loss. They crossed the river in ponton boats, charged up the steep bank opposite, drove out, or captured the Rebels holding the buildings, and in a short time the first ponton bridge was completed. Others were laid near by soon after. I think the engineers lost more men here—I mean now in actual combat—than in all their previous and subsequent service combined.
POPLAR GROVE CHURCH.
Ponton bridges were a source of great satisfaction to the soldiers. They were perfect marvels of stability and steadiness. No swaying motion was visible. To one passing across with a column of troops or wagons no motion was discernible. It seemed as safe and secure as mother earth, and the army walked them with the same serene confidence as if they were. I remember one night while my company was crossing the Appomattox on the bridge laid at Point of Rocks that D. Webster Atkinson, a cannoneer, who stood about six feet and a quarter in boots—dear fellow, he was afterwards mortally wounded at Hatcher’s Run,—being well-nigh asleep from the fatigue of the all-night march we were undergoing, walked off the bridge. Fortunately for him, he stepped—not into four or five fathoms of water, but—a ponton. As can readily be imagined, an unexpected step down of two feet and a half was quite an “eye-opener” to him, but, barring a little lameness, he suffered no harm.
The engineers, as a whole, led an enjoyable life of it in the service. Their labors were quite fatiguing while they lasted, it is true, but they were a privileged class when compared with the infantry. But they did well all that was required of them, and there was no finer body of men in the service.
The winter-quarters of the engineers were, perhaps, the most unique of any in the army. In erecting them they gave their mechanical skill full play. Some of their officers’ quarters were marvels of rustic design. The houses of one regiment in the winter of ’63-4 were fashioned out of the straight cedar, which, being undressed, gave the settlement a quaint but attractive and comfortable appearance.
Their streets were corduroyed, and they even boasted sidewalks of similar construction. Poplar Grove Church, erected by the Fiftieth New York Engineers, a few miles below Petersburg, in 1864, still stands, a monument to their skill in rustic design.
CHAPTER XXI.
TALKING FLAGS AND TORCHES.
“Ho! my comrades, see the signal
Waving through the sky;
Re-enforcements now appearing,
Victory is nigh.”
Yes, there were flags in the army which talked for the soldiers, and I cannot furnish a more entertaining chapter than one which will describe how they did it, when they did it, and what they did it for. True, all of the flags used in the service told stories of their own. What more eloquent than “Old Glory,” with its thirteen stripes, reminding us of our small beginning as a nation, its blue field, originally occupied by the cross of the English flag when Washington first gave it to the breeze in Cambridge, but replaced later by a cluster of stars, which keep a tally of the number of States in the Union! What wealth of history its subsequent career as the national emblem suggests, making it almost vocal with speech! The corps, division, and brigade flags, too, told a little story of their own, in a manner already described. But there were other flags, whose sole business it was to talk to one another, and the stories they told were immediately written down for the benefit of the soldiers or sailors. These flags were Signal flags, and the men who used them and made them talk were known in the service as the Signal Corps.
What was this corps for? Well, to answer that question at length would make quite a story, but, in brief, I may say that it was for the purpose of rapid and frequent communication between different portions of the land or naval forces. The army might be engaged with the enemy, on the march, or in camp, yet these signal men, with their flags, were serviceable in either situation, and in the former often especially so; but I will begin at the beginning, and present a brief sketch of the origin of the Signal Corps.
The system of signals used in both armies during the Rebellion originated with one man—Albert J. Myer, who was born in Newburg, N. Y. He entered the army as assistant surgeon in 1854, and, while on duty in New Mexico and vicinity, the desirability of some better method of rapid communication than that of a messenger impressed itself upon him. This conviction, strengthened by his previous lines of thought in the same direction, he finally wrought out in a system of motion telegraphy.[2]
[2] These facts are taken from a small pamphlet written by Lieutenant J. Willard Brown of West Medford, Mass., and issued by the Signal Corps Association. Other facts pertaining to signalling have been derived from “A Manual of Signals,” written by General Myer (Old Probabilities) himself, since the war.
Recognizing to some extent the value of his system, Congress created the position of Chief Signal Officer of the army, and Surgeon Myer was appointed by President Buchanan to fill it. Up to some time in 1863 Myer was not the Chief Signal Officer alone, but the only signal officer commissioned as such, all others then in the corps—and there were quite a number—being simply acting signal officers on detached service from various regiments.
One of the officers in the regular army, whom Surgeon Myer had instructed in signalling while in New Mexico, went over to the enemy when the war broke out and organized a corps for them.
From this small beginning of one man grew up the Signal Corps. As soon as the value of the idea had fairly penetrated the brains of those whose appreciation was needed to make it of practical value, details of men were made from the various regiments around Washington, and placed in camps of instruction to learn the use of the “Signal Kit,” so called. The chief article in this kit was a series of seven flags, varying from two feet to six feet square. Three of these flags, one six feet, one four feet, and one two feet square, were white, and had each a block of red in the centre one-third the dimensions of the flag; that is, a flag six feet square had a centre two feet square; two flags were black with white centres, and two were red with white centres. When the flags were in use, they were tied to a staff, whose length varied with the size of the flag to be used. If the distance to signal was great, or obstructions intervened, a long staff and a large flag were necessary; but the four-foot flag was the one in most common use.
It will be readily inferred that the language of these flags was to be addressed to the eye and not the ear. To make that language plain, then, they must be distinctly seen by the persons whom they addressed. This will explain why they were of different colors. In making signals, the color of flag to be used depended upon the color of background against which it was to appear. For example, a white flag, even with its red centre, could not be easily seen against the sky as a background. In such a situation a black flag was necessary. With green or dark-colored backgrounds the white flag was used, and in fact this was the flag of the signal service, having been used, in all probability, nine times out of every ten that signals were made.
Before the deaf and dumb could be taught to talk, certain motions were agreed upon to represent particular ideas, letters, and figures. In like manner, a key, or code, was constructed which interpreted the motions of the signal flag,—for it talked by motions,—and in accord with which the motions were made. Let me illustrate these motions by the accompanying cuts.
Plate 1 represents a member of the Signal Corps in position, holding the flag directly above his head, the staff vertical, and grasped by both hands. This is the position from which all the motions were made.
PLATE 1.
Plate 2 represents the flagman making the numeral “2” or the letter “i.” This was done by waving the flag to the right and instantly returning it to a vertical position. To make “1” the flag was waved to the left, and instantly returned as before. See plate 3. This the code translated as the letter “t” and the word “the.” “5” was made by waving the flag directly to the front, and returning at once to the vertical.
PLATE 2.
PLATE 3.
The signal code most commonly used included but two symbols, which made it simple to use. With these, not only could all the letters of the alphabet and the numerals be communicated, but an endless variety of syllables, words, phrases, and statements besides. As a matter of fact, however, it contained several thousand combinations of numerals with the significance of each combination attached to it. Let me illustrate still further by using the symbols “2” and “1.”
Let us suppose the flagman to make the signal for “1,” and follow it immediately with the motion for “2.” This would naturally be read as 12, which the code showed to mean O. Similarly, two consecutive waves to the right, or 22, represented the letter N. Three waves to the right and one to the left, or 2221, stood for the syllable tion. So by repeating the symbols and changing the combinations we might have, for example, 2122, meaning the enemy are advancing; or 1122, the cavalry have halted; or 12211, three guns in position; or 1112, two miles to the left,—all of which would appear in the code.
Let us join a signal party for the sake of observing the method of communicating a message. Such a party, if complete, was composed of three persons, viz., the signal officer (commissioned) in charge, with a telescope and field-glass; the flagman, with his kit, and an orderly to take charge of the horses, if the station was only temporary. The point selected from which to signal must be a commanding position, whether a mountain, a hill, a tree-top, or a house-top. The station having been attained, the flagman takes position, and the officer sweeps the horizon and intermediate territory with his telescope to discover another signal station, where a second officer and flagman are posted.
Having discovered such a station, the officer directs his man to “call” that station. This he does by signalling the number of the station (for each station had a number), repeating the same until his signal is seen and answered. It was the custom at stations to keep a man on the lookout, with the telescope, for signals, constantly. Having got the attention of the opposite station, the officer sends his message. The flagman was not supposed to know the import of the message which he waved out with his flag. The officer called the numerals, and the flagman responded with the required motions almost automatically, when well practised.
At the end of each word motion “5” was made once; at the end of a sentence “55”; and of a message “555.” There were a few words and syllables which were conveyed by a single motion of the flag; but, as a rule, the words had to be spelled out letter by letter, at least by beginners. Skilled signalists, however, used many abbreviations, and rarely found it necessary to spell out a word in full.
So much for the manner of sending a message. Now let us join the party at the station where the message is being received. There we simply find the officer sitting at his telescope reading the message being sent to him. Should he fail to understand any word, his own flagman signals an interruption, and asks a repetition of the message from the last word understood. Such occurrences were not frequent, however.
The services of the Signal Corps were just as needful and valuable by night as in daylight; but, as the flags could not then talk understandingly, Talking Torches were substituted for them. As a “point of reference” was needful, by which to interpret the torch signals made, the flagman lighted a “foot torch,” at which he stood firmly while he signalled with the “flying torch.” This latter was attached to a staff of the same length as the flagstaff, in fact, usually the flagstaff itself. These torches were of copper, and filled with turpentine. At the end of a message the flying torch was extinguished.
The rapidity with which messages were sent by experienced operators was something wonderful to the uneducated looker-on. An ordinary message of a few lines can be sent in ten minutes, and the rate of speed is much increased where officers have worked long together, and understand each other’s methods and abbreviations.
Signal messages have been sent twenty-eight miles: but that is exceptional. The conditions of the atmosphere and the location of stations were seldom favorable to such long-distance signalling. Ordinarily, messages were not sent more than six or seven miles, but there were exceptions. Here is a familiar but noted one:—
In the latter part of September, 1864, the Rebel army under Hood set out to destroy the railroad communications of Sherman, who was then at Atlanta. The latter soon learned that Allatoona was the objective point of the enemy. As it was only held by a small brigade, whereas the enemy was seen advancing upon it in much superior numbers, Sherman signalled a despatch from Vining’s Station to Kenesaw, and from Kenesaw to Allatoona, whence it was again signalled to Rome. It requested General Corse, who was at the latter place, to hurry back to the assistance of Allatoona. Meanwhile, Sherman was propelling the main body of his army in the same direction. On reaching Kenesaw, “the signal officer reported,” says Sherman, in his Memoirs, “that since daylight he had failed to obtain any answer to his call for Allatoona; but while I was with him he caught a faint glimpse of the tell-tale flag through an embrasure, and after much time he made out these letters
‘C’ ‘R’ ‘S’ ‘E’ ‘H’ ‘E’ ‘R’
and translated the message ‘Corse is here.’ It was a source of great relief, for it gave me the first assurance that General Corse had received his orders, and that the place was adequately garrisoned.”
General Corse has informed me that the distance between the two signal stations was about sixteen miles in an air line. Several other messages passed later between these stations, among them this one, which has been often referred to:—
Allatoona, Georgia, Oct. 6, 1864—2 P.M.
Captain L. M. Dayton, Aide-de-Camp:—
I am short a cheek-bone and an ear, but am able to whip all h—l yet. My losses are heavy. A force moving from Stilesboro to Kingston gives me some anxiety. Tell me where Sherman is.
John M. Corse, Brigadier-General.
The occasions which called the Signal Corps into activity were various, but they were most frequently employed in reporting the movements of troops, sometimes of the Union, sometimes of the enemy. They took post on elevated stations, whether a hill, a tall tree, or the top of a building. Any position from which they could command a broad view of the surrounding country was occupied for their purpose. If nature did not always provide a suitable place for lookout, art came to the rescue, and signal towers of considerable height were built for this class of workers, who, like the cavalry, were the “eyes” of the army if not the ears. I remember several of these towers which stood before Petersburg in 1864. They were of especial use there in observing the movements of troops within the enemy’s lines, as they stood, I should judge, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet high. Although these towers were erected somewhat to the rear of the Union main lines, and were a very open trestling, they were yet a conspicuous target for the enemy’s long-range guns and mortar-shells.
SIGNAL TREE-TOP.
Sometimes the nerve of the flagman was put to a very severe test, as he stood on the summit of one of these frail structures waving his flag, his situation too like that of Mahomet’s coffin, while the Whitworth bolts whistled sociably by him, saying, “Where is he? Where is he?” or, by another interpretation, “Which one? Which one?” Had one of these bolts hit a corner post of the lookout, the chances for the flagman and his lieutenant to reach the earth by a new route would have been favorable, although the engineers who built them claimed that with three posts cut away the tower would still stand. But, as a matter of fact, I believe no shot ever seriously injured one of the towers, though tons weight of iron must have been hurled at them. The roof of the Avery House, before Petersburg, was used for a signal station, and the shells of the enemy’s guns often tore through below much to the alarm of the signal men above.
Signalling was carried on during an engagement between different parts of the army. By calling for needed re-enforcements, or giving news of their approach, or requesting ammunition, or reporting movements of the enemy, or noting the effects of shelling,—in these and a hundred kindred ways the corps made their services invaluable to the troops. Sometimes signal officers on shore communicated with others on shipboard, and, in one instance, Lieutenant Brown told me that through the information he imparted to a gunboat off Suffolk, in 1863, regarding the effects of the shot which were thrown from it, General Longstreet had since written him that the fire was so accurate he was compelled to withdraw his troops. The signals were made from the tower of the Masonic Hall in Suffolk, whence they were taken up by another signal party on the river bluff, and thence communicated to the gunboat.
A SIGNAL TOWER BEFORE PETERSBURG, VA.
Not long since, General Sherman, in conversation, alluded to a correspondent of the New York “Herald” whom he had threatened to hang, declaring that had he done so his “death would have saved ten thousand lives.” The relation of this anecdote brings out another interesting phase of signal-corps operations. It seems that one of our signal officers had succeeded in reading the signal code of the enemy, and had communicated the same to his fellow-officers. With this code in their possession, the corps was enabled to furnish valuable information directly from Rebel headquarters, by reading the Rebel signals, continuing to do so during the Chattanooga and much of the Atlanta campaign, when the enemy’s signal flags were often plainly visible. Suddenly this source of information was completely cut off by the ambition of the correspondent to publish all the news, and the natural result was the enemy changed the code. This took place just before Sherman’s attack on Kenesaw Mountain (June, 1864), and it is to the hundreds slaughtered there that he probably refers. General Thomas was ordered to arrest the reporter, and have him hanged as a spy; but old “Pap” Thomas’ kind heart banished him to the north of the Ohio for the remainder of the war, instead.
When Sherman’s headquarters were at Big Shanty, there was a signal station located in his rear, on the roof of an old gin-house, and this signal officer, having the “key” to the enemy’s signals, reported to Sherman that he had translated this signal from Pine Mountain to Marietta,—“Send an ambulance for General Polk’s body,”—which was the first tidings received by our army that the fighting bishop had been slain. He was hit by a shell from a volley of artillery fired by order of General Sherman.
To the men in the other arms of the service, who saw this mysterious and almost continuous waving of flags, it seemed as if every motion was fraught with momentous import. “What could it all be about?” they would ask one another. A signal station was located, in ’61-2, on the top of what was known as the Town Hall (since burned) in Poolesville, Md., within a few rods of my company’s camp, and, to the best of my recollection, not an hour of daylight passed without more or less flag-waving from that point. This particular squad of men did not seem at all fraternal, but kept aloof, as if (so we thought) they feared they might, in an unguarded moment, impart some of the important secret information which had been received by them from the station at Sugar Loaf Mountain or Seneca. Since the war, I have learned that their apparently excited and energetic performances were, for the most part, only practice between stations for the purpose of acquiring familiarity with the code, and facility in using it.
It may be thought that the duties of the Signal Corps were always performed in positions where their personal safety was never imperilled. But such was far from the fact. At the battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864, a signal officer had climbed a tall pine-tree, for the purpose of directing the fire of a section of Union artillery, which was stationed at its foot, the country being so wooded and broken that the artillerists could not certainly see the position of the enemy. The officer had nailed a succession of cleats up the trunk, and was on the platform which he had made in the top of the tree, acting as signal officer, when the Rebels made a charge, capturing the two guns, and shot the officer dead at his post.
During the battle of Gettysburg, or, at least, while Sickles was contending at the Peach Orchard against odds, the signal men had their flags flying from Little Round Top; but when the day was lost, and Hood with his Texans pressed towards that important point, the signal officers folded their flags, and prepared to visit other and less dangerous scenes. At that moment, however, General Warren of the Fifth Corps appeared, and ordered them to keep their signals waving as if a host were immediately behind them, which they did.
From the important nature of the duties which they performed, the enemy could not look upon them with very tender regard, and this fact they made apparent on every opportunity. Here is an incident which, I think, has never been published:—
When General Nelson’s division arrived at Shiloh, Lieutenant Joseph Hinson, commanding the Signal Corps attached to it, crossed the Tennessee and reported to General Buell, after which he established a station on that side of the river, from which messages were sent having reference to the disposition of Nelson’s troops. The crowd of stragglers (presumably from Grant’s army) was so great as to continually obstruct his view, and in consequence he pressed into service a guard from among the stragglers themselves to keep his view clear, and placed his associate, Lieutenant Hart, in charge. Presently General Grant himself came riding up the bank, and, as luck would have it, came into Lieutenant Hinson’s line of vision. Catching sight of a cavalry boot, without stopping to see who was in it, in his impatience, Lieutenant Hart sang out: “Git out of the way there! Ain’t you got no sense?” Whereupon Grant very quietly apologized for his carelessness, and rode over to the side of General Buell. When the lieutenant found he had been addressing or “dressing” a major-general, his confusion can be imagined. (See [frontispiece]).
One more incident illustrating the utility of signalling will close the chapter:—
After arriving before Fort McAllister, General Sherman sent General Hazen down the right bank of the Ogeechee to take the fort by assault, and himself rode down the left bank to a rice plantation, where General Howard had established a signal station to overlook the river and watch for vessels. The station was built on the top of a rice-mill. From this point the fort was visible, three miles away. In due time a commotion in the fort indicated the approach of Hazen’s troops, and the signal officer discovered a signal flag about three miles above the fort, which he found was Hazen’s, the latter inquiring if Sherman was there. He was answered affirmatively, and informed that Sherman expected the fort to be carried before night. Finally Hazen signalled that he was ready, and was told to go ahead. Meanwhile, a small United States steamer had been descried coming up the river, and, noticing the party at the rice-mill, the following dialogue between signal flags ensued:—
“Who are you?”
“General Sherman.”
“Is Fort McAllister taken?”
“Not yet; but it will be in a minute.”
And in a few minutes it was taken, and the fact signalled to the naval officers on the boat, who were not in sight of the fort.