Reminiscences of an army nurse during the Civil War

by Adelaide W. Smith

As we passed close by the Onondaga and her companion nothing living could be seen on these fully manned monitors. They had closed down their steel decks while the shells struck, ricocheted and fell harmlessly into the water like great marbles, as we passed by. A few feet farther on was the barge where we had dined with our military escort and where busy hands had helped us into the boat. It was now as deserted as if never occupied, the men had fled for safety to the woods. As we neared the muddy bank one shell struck a few feet astern of our boat, sending up a column of water like a geyser; another passed close overhead with its uncanny blood-curdling shriek, and struck the shore just ahead of us, where it exploded, driving pieces of shell and mud in every direction.

On reaching the mud shore, it was almost impossible to mount the rough improvised dock or float. However, our escorts pushed and we climbed up, with no formalities, and without loss of time. At first I could not see my ambulance, but soon it came out of the woods with the frightened horses dashing down the hill. The driver as he turned, shouted, “I can’t stop, you must get in somehow!” Certainly it was “somehow” that our officers tumbled us into the rocking ambulance as it turned and dashed wildly back into the woods.

No word was spoken until the driver checked his mad race and we were out of range of the still falling shells, and could congratulate ourselves on our narrow escape. We reached camp at twilight, a little excited by our adventure, but quite the heroes of the day; and we resolved that it would be a long time before we again wandered out of camp.

Since writing the above experience I have found in General Butler’s autobiography, the only historical statement of that strategical attempt on the James River, and it confirms my memory. This work was considered of the greatest military importance then, and if accomplished as designed, it would, without doubt, have given to our navy and land forces the control of the river almost directly in front of Richmond. This would have shortened by several months the acute warfare by which hundreds of lives were sacrificed.

That it failed when all was prepared to blow out the bulk head, and admit our monitors through the canal, was due to the fact that the original Commander (Smith) was ordered elsewhere, and that the new Commander begged Commodore Ludlow not to open Dutch Gap because he feared that the enemies’ fleet would come down, and he did not know that he could sustain the attack, etc. This Commander was dismissed for cowardice later, when he took fright while the enemies’ fleet attempted to come down the river, and, without any attempt at defense, ordered the Potomac to make all speed, and only stopped when he knew that an accident to the Confederate vessels had prevented an assault on the United States Headquarters at City Point, which might have destroyed the camp and involved an entire change of base.

That one finds little allusion to this engineering attempt is doubtless due to the fact that most histories of that time were written by West Point officers, who gave few details outside their own personal experiences; and regard for the gallant volunteer service was seldom admitted and too often entirely ignored.

General Butler often fell under this ban, and he lost no opportunity, when possible, of publicly showing the superior education in tactics of the volunteer officers and men under his command during the war.

In this personal sketch I do not attempt to write history; but give only a few selections regarding the expectations then known to many in that locality of the James River. I have given only a few selections from “Butler.” These any one may verify, and in doing so will come across many other details of interest.

“Captain Melantha Smith, of the navy, assured me that it was impossible for his monitors, drawing sixteen feet of water, to get up further than Trent’s Reach. We made a reconnaissance to devise a plan by which he might ascend the James with his vessels, then lying at a point called Dutch Gap.

“Here is a peculiar formation, the river running up by Trent’s Reach, bends very sharply to the right and returns again, in an elongated horseshoe, so directly that while it has passed over a distance of over seven miles, the waters of the river at a depth of twenty-five feet, approach so nearly, that there is only about four hundred and twenty-five feet from the water on the other side across the neck at Dutch Gap to twenty-five feet of water on the lower side, so a canal wide and deep enough for our gunboats to get through, would require a cut less than four hundred feet long, sixteen feet deep, sixty feet wide at the bottom and ninety feet at the top.