(544) The following is an amusing episode of soldier life that will be appreciated by the boys generally, and some of them will no doubt remember it. In order that a better understanding of it may be had by others than soldiers it may be well to say that, as is well known by all soldiers who campaigned in the Valley of Virginia, the guerrilla Mosby was a dangerous enemy, and a terror to all soldiers disposed to straggle. Sheridan once remarked that Mosby was as good to keep up his, Sheridan's, stragglers as would have been a regiment for that purpose; Mosby was also something of a bugaboo, and a subject of jest among the soldiers.
(545) It was perhaps while we were at Camp Russell that one day a merchant tailor came into camp from Wheeling, to see the officers of the Twelfth with a view to taking orders for new uniforms. He wore a plug hat. Now when a stranger appeared in camp in citizens' dress, that fact was sufficient to excite in the minds of the soldiers a suggestion of a possible spy in the person of the stranger; and Mosby being an ever present bugbear in the minds of the soldiers, his name would naturally be associated with that of the stranger. So when the Wheeling man appeared on the streets of the camp wearing his plug hat, the boys raised a general yell of Mosby! Mosby! Mosby mingled with some remarks about the plug hat. Men can stand almost anything better than derision, especially when it comes from a great crowd; and quickly "catching on" to the fact that he, the Wheeling man, was the object of the noisy attention, he shot into an officer's tent and would not come out until he had exchanged his plug hat for a slouch hat, which some officer managed to get for him.
(546) The Twelfth marched from Camp Russell on the 24th to Stevenson's Depot, five miles northeast of Winchester. The railroad track had recently been relaid to that place. We remained here over three weeks. The duty at this place was heavy, our brigade having to unload all the cars which brought supplies to the army and do picket duty besides. On the 16th of December one hundred guns were fired at Camp Russell in honor of Gen. Thomas's victory the day before at Nashville. When we heard the firing at first we thought the enemy had attacked our forces at the front. But before long a dispatch came from Sheridan telling the reason of the firing. The next day another salute was fired at the front in honor of Gen. Thomas's victory in the second day's fighting at Nashville, and the fall of Savannah and its occupancy by Sherman.
(547) Before the middle of December, Early, having sent the bulk of his command to Lee, the last of the Sixth Corps had gone to the Army of the Potomac, and on the 19th the Third Brigade of our division took the cars at Stevenson's Depot for the Army of the James. Later the same day our brigade followed, having to ride in filthy cattle cars. Owing to a scarcity of cars some of the men had to ride on top of them, and, the weather being cold, they suffered considerably, especially those who rode on top of the cars. We got to Washington at eight o'clock A.M. the next day, the cars landing us at the wharf. The men would have been glad to see the city, but they were not permitted to do so. While we were waiting for a few hours to be marched on board a transport, some citizens standing about were, as was natural, making remarks about us. One fellow was overheard to volunteer the pleasant reminder concerning us, that "There are more of those fellows going to Grant's army than will ever get back." And this citizen's tone seemed to indicate that he exulted in the thought. May be, too, the wish was father to the thought.
(548) About 12 o'clock m. our regiment went aboard of the transports. A part of us went on a small craft called the Putnam. This vessel was soon on its way down the Potomac. As we passed down we got a view of Mount Vernon. About 10 P.M. we anchored for the night. We started at daylight the next morning, the 21st. We ran into the St. Mary's River at about 4 o'clock P.M. that day, and cast anchor on account of the high wind. We were now 100 miles from Washington. All the next day we were detained here by the high wind; and owing to some mismanagement we had not rations enough, and the men ran out of them.
(549) At daylight the 23rd our vessel weighed anchor and a run of ten miles brought us to Point Lookout at the mouth of the Potomac. We stopped here and drew three days' rations. Twelve thousand Rebel prisoners were confined here at that time. From this point we passed down the Chesapeake Bay, and some time in the night anchored near Fortress Monroe. We started up the James River early the next morning and arrived at City Point on the south side of the river, about dark. Changing boats here we ran up 20 miles farther, 80 miles from Fortress Monroe, and landed on the north side, near the Dutch Gap canal.
(550) Before the soldiers of the Twelfth went to Grant's army they had a somewhat exaggerated idea of the fierceness and fatality of the fighting there. They had some kind of a vague idea that, like the fly in the spider's parlor, in the story of the "Spider and the Fly," where they got into it once, there was an excellent chance of not getting out of it again alive. But in so great an army as Grant had naturally soldiers would be going to and from it all the time; and somewhere on the Potomac or Chesapeake Bay, we met a vessel with a number of soldiers aboard, going to the rear. When the returning soldiers were noticed Major Brown remarked in a kind of serio-comic way in an illusion to the supposed extreme unhealthiness of the service in Grant's army: "Well, I notice that some fellows at least are getting back from the army before Richmond alive!"
(551) The next morning (Christmas) after landing we got off the vessel and the other transport with the rest of the Twelfth having arrived, the regiment marched about four miles to where the other troops of our division were camped, and took the quarters temporarily vacated by Gen. Butler's troops, who had gone to attempt the capture of Fort Fisher. We remained in these quarters several days, during which there was nothing occurred worthy of mention except that the enemy kept throwing shells at short intervals at our men working at the Dutch Gap canal; and once when there was heavy cannonading toward Petersburg we were called out in line, the general in command on our side of the James apparently fearing an attack.
(552) On the 30th some of the troops that had been on the Fort Fisher expedition returned and we had to vacate our quarters and move some three miles farther to the right and put up winter quarters. The Fifty-fourth Pennsylvania, the Twenty-third Illinois and the Twelfth West Virginia, January 1st, 1865, were brigaded together and designated as the Second Brigade, Col. Curtis commanding. Our division was known as the Second or Independent Division, Twenty-fourth Corps, Col. T. M. Harris, afterward succeeded by Gen. John Turner, commanding the division; and Gen. John Gibbon commanded the corps.
(553) When the Twelfth was transferred to the Army of the James, Gen. Butler was in command of it, but having failed in his expedition against Fort Fisher, he was relieved and Gen. Ord was put in command of it, which consisted of two corps, the Twenty-fourth and the Twenty-fifth, the latter being colored troops. The Dutch Gap canal referred to was Gen. Butler's project. The object of the undertaking was to make a channel across a narrow neck of land, made by a long horse-shoe bend in the river, so as to enable our vessels to avoid obstructions in the bend, and pass up to Richmond. Of course, the enemy tried to prevent work at the canal and to this end, as before stated, firing shells at intervals at the workers (colored men) was kept up; but the work went on. The men dug holes in the side of the canal, which they called gopher holes. There was also a high lookout nearby from which a man kept a constant watch, and when the Rebels fired a shot he would cry out "Gopher hole!" and the "darks" would bounce into the holes and remain there until the shell exploded. Then they would come out and go to work again. It used to be great fun for the boys to watch the "darks" run for cover when the lookout man gave notice of a shot by the enemy. This working and shelling was kept up for perhaps a month after we had gone to the Army of the James. But the canal when it was completed as far as it could be under the circumstances, proved to be a failure, no considerable volume of water passing through it, at that time at least.