CAPTURED.
First Sergeant John Shannon, Company E.
Corporal Thomas W. D. Deane, Company G.
Privates George Thomas, Company A; Benjamin B. Brown, Company B; Daniel Whitmore, Company G; and John Moore, Jr., Company K.
Corporal Wright was promoted to Sergeant after this battle for his brave and meritorious conduct manifested during the engagement. Probably no event of the war excited so much discussion, and called forth so much bitterness of feeling among the officers of our army, as did this. The conduct of the First Division and its commander has been made the subject of the severest criticism. Henry Coppee, A. M., who wrote a book entitled “General Grant and his Campaigns,” in giving an account of this affair, uses this language: “But the attack must be instantaneous. What delays it? Ten minutes pass before Ledlie’s division, which had been selected by lot to lead the charge, has moved; when it does, led by the gallant General Bartlett, instead of complying with the order, it halts in the crater.” In another part of his book, he says: “The storming party was then thus organized. Ledlie’s division of white troops was to lead the assault, charge through the crater, and then seize the enemy’s works on Cemetery Hill.” As these and other statements, to which reference will be made, reflect great discredit upon the division, the author has deemed it important to quote from a carefully-written paper in his possession, prepared by one of the field-officers of the division, who took an active part in the battle.
“It will be seen that Coppee states that Ledlie’s division was ‘to charge through the crater and seize the rebel works on Cemetery Hill,’ but that, instead of complying with the order, the division ‘halts in the crater.’ Ledlie’s division had no such order. It was not a part of the plan of the battle for that division to advance after reaching the crater. The orders issued to the division were distinctly, ‘not to advance.’ General Bartlett’s First Brigade consisted of seven regiments. On the afternoon of the 29th of July, the seven regimental commanders assembled at brigade headquarters by direction of the General, and were then informed by him that the mine was to be fired the next morning; that Ledlie’s division had been selected by lot to lead the assault; that the division was to move forward immediately after the explosion and occupy the enemy’s front line of works; that the division would be promptly followed by another division of the corps, which would move beyond, ‘over the heads of Ledlie’s division, to be followed by the remaining divisions of the corps.’”
This statement comes, not only from a reliable source, but is very reasonable upon its face. In the nature of things, the leading division would necessarily be badly cut up in carrying out its part of the work; and after having secured the front line, it was reasonable to suppose—and, under the circumstances, its regimental officers were justified in supposing—that the other divisions in the corps would follow and finish the work. The other divisions, with the exception of the Fourth, followed, but they did not advance beyond the lines of the First Division. Remaining in the crater, they added to the confusion, and finally rendered any movement impossible.
Another historian, if such he may be called, has said that the assault upon the enemy’s lines “failed because it was led by the worst division in the army.” This writer could not have been familiar with the record of the brave men whose courage he thus flippantly assails. Among the troops of this division were the Twenty-first, Twenty-ninth, Thirty-fifth, Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-ninth Massachusetts regiments, Third Maryland, an old and excellent regiment, and the One Hundredth Pennsylvania. The Twenty-first regiment entered the service as early as August, 1861. It fought with Burnside in North Carolina, was engaged in the second battle of Bull Run, Chantilly, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and afterwards in East Tennessee. Its record is a very bright one. The Twenty-ninth regiment had served in nearly every department, and contained the oldest three years’ troops from New England. The Thirty-fifth regiment had been in the service since August, 1862, and was engaged at South Mountain and Antietam before it had been a month in the service, in both of which actions it had behaved with signal bravery. The Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-ninth regiments, though they had not been long in the service, were composed chiefly of veteran soldiers. The many silent mounds scattered all the way from the Wilderness to the James, beneath which repose their dead, tell more eloquently the story of their bravery and devotion, than can any words of praise. The One Hundredth Pennsylvania was a most superior regiment, and was the equal of any in the army. Many of the field-officers of the division were most gallant soldiers, while General Bartlett was without his superior in our army for courage and daring. To speak of such regiments and such officers as these as being the worst in our army, is wholly unjustifiable, and not susceptible of palliation or excuse.
The Committee of Congress, which made a patient examination into this unfortunate affair, closed their report with these words:—
“... Your Committee must say, that, in their opinion, the cause of the disastrous result of the assault of the 30th of July last, is mainly attributable to the fact, that the plans and suggestions of the general who had devoted his attention for so long a time to the subject, who had carried out to a successful completion the project of mining the enemy’s works, and who had carefully selected and drilled his troops for the purpose of securing whatever advantages might be attainable from the explosion of the mine, should have been so entirely disregarded by a general who had evinced no faith in the successful prosecution of the work, had aided it by no countenance or open approval, and had assumed the entire direction and control only when it was completed, and the time had come for reaping any advantages that might be derived from it.”[52]
The Committee, in the same report, pay a most deserved tribute to the white troops of the Ninth Corps, and speak as follows:—
“They are not behind any troops in the service in those qualities which have placed our volunteer troops before the world as equal, if not superior, to any known to modern warfare. The services performed by the Ninth Corps on many a well-fought battle-field, not only in this campaign, but in others, have been such as to prove that they are second to none in the service. Your Committee believe that any other troops exposed to the same influences, under the same circumstances, and for the same length of time, would have been similarly affected. No one, upon a careful consideration of all the circumstances, can be surprised that those influences should have produced the effects they did upon them.”[53]
If loss of life is any evidence of the bravery of a corps in battle, that of the Ninth on this occasion would seem to speak most eloquently in this regard. Its entire loss in killed was 52 officers and 376 men; wounded, 105 officers, 1,556 men; missing, many of whom were killed, 87 officers, 1,652 men.
On the evening after the mine affair, Colonel Barnes took command of the First Brigade, General Bartlett having been captured; and on the following day, the regiment moved to the rear, taking up its former position, Captain Willard D. Tripp being assigned to the command, and retaining it till the 14th of September.
The regiment was greatly reduced in numbers at this time, having scarcely men enough to form a full company; yet, during a large part of the time that followed, it was required to perform the same kind and amount of duty as other and larger regiments, being one day at the front in the rifle-pits, exposed to the deadly fire of the enemy’s sharpshooters, and the next in the rear, doing fatigue duty, and both night and day, whether at the rear or the front, under almost constant fire from the enemy’s lines.
Late in the afternoon of the 7th of August, the enemy opened a furious fire upon our entrenchments. The fire was particularly heavy on that part of our lines occupied by the Fourteenth New York Heavy Artillery, which was still commanded by Major Chipman. Great confusion ensued, and the troops were ordered to form in line of battle. The faithful Major, who was never missing in time of peril, hastened from his quarters to attend personally to the formation of his regiment; but while engaged in the performance of this duty, he was mortally wounded by the fragment of a large mortar-shell which exploded near him. From this time till eleven o’clock the next forenoon, he lingered, apparently unconscious, when life became extinct. His body was carefully embalmed and sent to his home in Sandwich, Mass., for burial, where it was received by a heart-broken wife and children, and many sorrowing neighbors and friends.
Major Charles Chipman was a true man and most gallant soldier. He possessed some advantage over the most of his fellow-officers in the Twenty-ninth Regiment, at the outset, by having had, during his earlier life, the benefits of the strict discipline and thorough training of the regular army, in which he had served as a Sergeant; at one time under Colonel Gardner, who, during the war, commanded the Confederate forces at Port Hudson. The esteem in which Major Chipman was held by his comrades found a fitting expression at a reunion of the survivors of the regiment, held at Plymouth, Mass., on the 14th of May, 1873, when the fine oil-portrait of this officer, which had constituted a part of the collection in the “Gallery of Fallen Heroes,” having been purchased by Sergeant Samuel C. Wright, was re-purchased by the Association, and by it presented to his widow and children, together with a kind and highly-appropriate letter from the President of the Association, as a token of the love and regard of his comrades.
During the night of the 14th of August, 1864, the Ninth Corps was relieved by the Eighteenth, and on the 15th, the Ninth moved to the left and relieved the Fifth Corps, the latter having moved out towards the Weldon Railroad. While remaining here (some five days), the regiment with its brigade was placed on the front line as skirmishers. There were no trenches or works of any kind, and the men were considerably exposed.
On the 19th, the whole division moved to the left to connect with the Fifth Corps, which was in position on the Weldon road. While the division was on the march, in the midst of a blinding rain-storm, the enemy dashed out of the woods at a place called Blick’s House, and began a fierce assault upon the right flank. For a short time it looked as though all would be lost. The fierceness of the assault, and the unfavorable situation of our troops, threatened a serious disaster. But our men had been too long accustomed to such scenes to be disconcerted or alarmed. The line was quickly formed, though under a terrible fire, and the enemy routed at every point. It was a great victory, apart from the good fighting of the men. The enemy were engaged in a secret, well-planned movement to cut off the Fifth Corps from the main body of our army; but the division, by its gallantry, wholly frustrated their plans.
Great praise was awarded the division for its conduct on this occasion. General Julius White, a fine officer, was in command, and manifested great skill in handling his troops. Colonel Joseph H. Barnes, who commanded the First Brigade in this battle, by his good conduct, earned promotion to Brevet Brigadier-General.[54]
An incident of the battle worthy of mention, is, the regiment captured one of the enemy’s captains, who fought the battalion at Great Bethel, June 10, 1861.
The regiment did not escape this battle without some loss. Sergeant Curtis S. Rand, Company A; Privates John B. Smithers, Company B; David A. Hoxie, Company D; William McGill and Edwin C. Bemis, Company H; and First Lieutenant George D. Williams, Company F, were wounded. Sergeant Rand had been a wagon-master during the most of his term; just before this battle, he requested permission to go into the ranks, saying that he was desirous of performing active service. Poor fellow! his wounds proved mortal, and he died a few days after the battle.
From this time till the 21st, everything remained in the same condition as at the close of the battle, except that our troops had entrenched themselves, the Ninth Corps “occupying the line extending from the Fifth Corps on the Weldon Railroad to the left of the Second Corps, near the Jerusalem plank road.”
The enemy had manifested great uneasiness ever since this ground had been occupied by our troops, and had more than once threatened an attack. On the 21st, he made a spirited assault upon our works, charging up to the breastworks several times in quick succession, but was repulsed with great slaughter. The regiment, though exposed to a severe enfilading fire, was not actively engaged in this battle.
The great losses sustained by the First Division, in the various battles in which it had engaged, rendered a reorganization of the corps necessary. The troops of this division were accordingly, on the first of September, merged with those of the Second and Third. The Twenty-ninth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Regiments, Third Maryland, One Hundredth Pennsylvania, and Fourteenth New York composed the Third Brigade of the First Division.
On the 10th of September, eighty-three recruits from Massachusetts reached our regiment.
On the 14th, Colonel Barnes was relieved from the command of the Brigade by the arrival of Colonel McLaughlin of the Fifty-seventh Regiment, and again assumed command of the Twenty-ninth Regiment, relieving Captain Willard D. Tripp, who had been in command since the battle of July 30.
On the 24th of September, an order was issued from the headquarters of the Ninth Corps, directing Brigadier-General Hartranft, commanding First Division, to garrison Fort Howard with one hundred and fifty men. On the same day, General Hartranft designated the “Twenty-ninth Regiment Massachusetts Veteran Volunteer Infantry ... as a permanent garrison to be placed in Fort Howard,” and Colonel N. B. McLaughlin, commanding the Third Brigade, was directed to “see that the camp of the regiment is placed in the immediate vicinity of the fort.”
For a period of nearly two weeks, the regiment was happily exempt from the hardships of the field; but the necessities of the service finally required its presence at the front, and on the 5th of October, it was ordered out of the fort, and on the same day rejoined its brigade on the front line at Poplar Grove Church.
On the 8th of October, there was a reconnoissance in force on the left of the army by the First Division, but the regiment, though engaged in the movement, was not under fire.
On the 9th, Colonel Barnes was mustered out of the service, very much against the wishes of his superior officers, who had learned to appreciate his many excellent soldierly qualities. But his motives for leaving the army were of the most honorable character. His commission as Captain bore date of the 27th of April, 1861. He had been in the service of the United States since the 18th of May, 1861. During a large part of this time, he had had the actual and responsible command of the regiment, and for much of the time that of a brigade.
In taking leave of this excellent officer, who was so long and so honorably connected with the regiment, we deem it but an act of simple justice to him and his comrades as well, to quote some of the kind words spoken of him by several officers of the Ninth Corps. In 1864, General N. B. McLaughlin said of him: “During his term of service, Lieutenant-Colonel Barnes commanded his regiment nearby two-thirds of the time, and commanded a brigade for nearly two months in the present campaign. I consider him a cool, reliable officer, courageous, and of good judgment and conduct, both in action and in camp, a fine disciplinarian, and capable of commanding either a regiment or brigade.”
Major-General Orlando B. Willcox said: “I consider Colonel Barnes a man of great coolness and gallantry, of considerable experience as a regimental and brigade commander, and every way qualified.” Major-General Parke, commanding the corps, also expressed his high appreciation of this officer in the following language: “I consider Colonel Barnes a most excellent soldier, and a very efficient commander. He is eminently qualified for command.”
The soldiers of the Twenty-ninth, though they sometimes fretted over the stern discipline of this officer, both loved and respected him. The same qualities that made him a good soldier have made him a good and useful citizen, and in the important civil office which he now holds, he displays the same good judgment and strong sense of duty which marked his career in the army.