It is another flank movement, and the men of Warren's Corps are moving to Burnside's left with orders to assault with that Corps at four o'clock in the morning of the 14th. Very likely the difficulties of this night, with its more than Egyptian darkness, had not been reckoned upon by the Commander and the appointed hour found the would-be assailants a long way from the point of expected advance. The route was past the Landrum House to the Ny River, which had to be waded, and beyond the route did not follow any road, traversing the fields, and a track was cut through the woods. Then came a fog, so dense that not even the fires built to light the way could be seen. Men exhausted by the difficulties of the move and previous exactions fell asleep all along the way. The new locality was quite unknown and by daylight when the expected attack was to take place, only Griffin with his First Division, having only twelve hundred "fagged-out men" had arrived. It was seven o'clock before General Cutler got thirteen hundred of his men together. Naturally the four o'clock charge was not made.
Wright and the Sixth Corps moved still further to the left, but had to do some fighting to get just the position wanted. All observers, whether of Regiment or Brigade, agree that the day was wet and comparatively quiet, though the enemy's shells passed harmlessly over the heads of the tired men, many of whom slept the sleep of utter exhaustion, the waking ones thankful that the fuses in said shells were long enough to keep up their hissing until a considerable distance beyond us before bursting. In the mutations of fighting and moving about, all the regular contents of knapsacks had disappeared, the most of the men retaining, in addition to canteen and haversack, rubber blankets only; besides, rations were scarce, yet men were content to rest without food, so trying had been the ordeal of the preceding ten days. After all, the average Yankee is ever anxious to know just where he is, and several entries of the 14th are to the effect that the Regiment is near the Fredericksburg turnpike, about eight miles from the city itself and, from a mile and a half to two miles from Spottsylvania Court House. With only the canopy of the sky as a covering, a large part of the Thirty-ninth slept through the night of the 14th-15th.
The 15th is Sunday, and just a week away from the sad experience of Alsop's farm. These men of the First Brigade are fast becoming hardened veterans, and they have the privilege of greeting as such the comrades who had been home on re-enlistment furloughs and who, this day, got back again. There are many comparisons between the spic-and-span attire of the just-returned, and the "of-the-earth, earthy" apparel of men who, for ten long days and nights have fought and marched, at intervals hugging muddy mother-earth, till all semblance of cleanliness has disappeared, and dress parades have faded out of the recollections of all concerned. Then too the ravages of the hotly contested field have torn great gaps in the erstwhile well-filled ranks so that only squads of men constitute what have been long company lines. Some boys remark on the quiet of Sunday and think it properly kept; three days' rations are drawn, including fresh beef, and, May 15, '64 with returning vitality and spirits, learning that the Eleventh Massachusetts Battery, in the Ninth Corps, is hard by, men of the Thirty-ninth make friendly visits to their acquaintances therein. Colonel Davis comes back to the Regiment to-day, looking much better than when he dropped out. Towards night, six o'clock, the troops are formed in line with expectation of an attack; four lines deep, our right rests on the top of a hill whence, as far as the eye can reach, armed men are seen awaiting the attack which is not made. It is a sight to remember!
Monday, the 16th, is also a quiet day for this campaign. Beginning foggy and damp, with the rising sun the mists clear away and it is very warm. On some sort of an alarm we are deployed, in line with the One Hundred and Seventh Pennsylvania, Colonel McCoy, that has just got back from its home trip on account of re-enlistment. On being recalled to our former station, we are set to work entrenching, introducing heavy timbers into our lines of works, three deep. About 9 p. m., we have to stop work, because the tools are needed elsewhere. Though there are showers in the evening, the moon finally shines through and, under her benign light, the Regiment sleeps. Nor does the record of the 17th differ essentially from that of yesterday. Foggy in the morning, then clearing and warm; picket or skirmish line duty for some and, about 4 p. m., our lines are moved to the right, nearer those of the Ninth Corps where there is more digging to render safe our position in case of attack. It is about this time that General Grant finds the army encumbered with an excess of artillery and, accordingly, sends back to Washington over a hundred guns; how the Johnnies would like to have some of these same weapons! All of them will come back again before the Petersburg siege is over.
Those who remember clearly the events of the 18th will agree that the most important one was the arrival, at 5 p. m., of the first mail since leaving camp at Mitchell's Station. What joy its contents gave those loyal hearts! Yet there were missives, in that coming of the postman, for faithful lovers whose eyes, many hours before, had closed in dreamless sleep, and in this life could never know how fondly they were remembered. The enemy, as if to make amends for continued quiet, began to shell the Ninth Corps just after our early breakfast, which we had soon after four o'clock. For some reason, General Warren wanted our Brigade nearer him, so at seven o'clock we were moved over towards the left and, under a shelling fire, lay till well along in the afternoon. Though there were six regiments in the Brigade it numbered, all told, less than a thousand men. About two o'clock, we returned to the right and, at eleven o'clock, reoccupied the works on which we had labored the night before. General Warren in his report for this day states that General Richard Coulter, commanding our Brigade, is severely wounded. This, too, is the day of the arrival at the Front of the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery from its long service in the defenses of Washington. It is assigned to the Second Brigade, Third Division, Second Corps, though at present it is with the Second Brigade of General Robert O. Tyler's Artillery Division.
For the greater part of the Potomac Army, the 19th is a quiet day, though the men in their breastworks notice some sort of change on their left. Of the day, General Warren says, "All our forces took up position on my left. This brought out General Ewell's Corps, who attempted to turn our right. He was repulsed, etc.... Rained in afternoon." Regimental note-takers remark on the drawing of rations, including fresh beef, and the fierce attack on their right, well along in the afternoon and of the fact that their friends in the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery had a severe experience.
The hot reception accorded the First Heavies is worthy of more than passing mention. Recruited to the maximum of such organizations, the Regiment was a wonder to the May 18, '64 men who had been long in the field, for it numbered about 1800 men, as large as two brigades of those who had been in the thickest of the fray. The Confederates of Ewell's command, desirous of ascertaining whether the Union forces were moving and, incidentally, to capture if possible a tempting wagon train, in the afternoon of the 19th, undertook to steal around the Union right, bearing down thus about 5 p. m. along the Fredericksburg Pike on the line of Federal supplies. Whatever the expectations of the enemy, the point of attack was by no means unguarded, and in history, the engagement is known as that of the Heavies, since not only were our First men there, but the First Heavy of Maine was in line, and the Second, Seventh and Eighth of New York as well. Swinton says that the artillerists had not been in battle before, but under fire they displayed an audacity surpassing even that of the experienced troops. "In these murderous wood-fights, the veterans had learned to employ all of the Indian devices that afford shelter to the person; but these green battalions, unused to this kind of shelter-craft, pushed boldly on, firing furiously. Their loss was heavy, but the honor of the enemy's repulse belongs to them." Excellent evidence of the sturdiness and steadiness of the men, with crossed cannon on their caps, is found in the words of an old Confederate, spoken in 1901 at the dedication of the regimental monument on the scene of the fight, known in the annals of the First as Harris Farm:
"I saw your men march on this field, not deployed, but like soldiers on parade, take aim and fire a volley straight from the shoulder. You seemed to me the biggest men I had ever seen. You were so near that I noticed that all wore clean shirts. There was the most perfect discipline and indifference to danger I ever saw. It was the talk of our men."
In Fox's book of Regimental Losses, he puts the killed and mortally wounded of our friends, in this engagement, as one hundred and twenty men.