Almost every day brings one or more deserters from the rebel ranks, men who are convinced that the game is really lost and can see no pleasure or profit in the "last ditch" idea. They are invariably hungry, ragged and dirty. On the 9th, Fred. Glines of "E," a Somerville boy, visits the hospital of the Ninth Corps and there meets Professor John P. Marshall, a respected instructor in Tufts College, a most pleasant meeting for both parties. He also records the blowing up of an ordnance boat, lying at the wharf in City Point, receiving fixed ammunition. The incident is an item in the history of the war, whereby there were a great loss of life and destruction of property. All told, the value of property destroyed mounted into the millions and the number of lives lost was between sixty and seventy; one hundred and thirty were wounded; some battles had a smaller record. At the time the explosion was ascribed to the careless handling of the ammunition cases.[O]
In the night of the 10th-11th there was a little artillery play in the direction of Fort Davis, but it proved to be harmless. The 12th marks the second anniversary of the muster-in of Company E, the first one in the Regiment. This day also saw a new movement of the Second Corps across the James River, another blow to be struck at Deep Bottom, if practicable. Evidently Generals Grant and Meade thought the quiet period had lasted long enough, besides the Lieutenant General thought that the rebels had sent off three of their divisions to reinforce Early in the valley. The truth was that only Kershaw's had gone, and all the others were right on the spot, ready to receive callers or boarders, it was all the same thing, and the expedition was not as productive of results as the projectors had desired.
One scribe, on the 13th, writes, "Got paid off," and elsewhere mention is made of the proximity of sutlers who are ready to settle old scores and also to sell for cash. Rumors of coming activity are current on the 14th and the next day, Monday, the Brigade marched out of the fort giving place to the First Division of the Ninth Corps, negro troops, and going back about two miles, we pitch camp and are evidently in reserve for some project. The heavens also are active and the long delayed rain comes in torrents for two hours in the afternoon. The troops which relieved us were the colored division of the Ninth Corps, under General Edward Ferrero, and of their appearance as we marched out, Beck of Company C remarks, "Who of the Thirty-ninth will ever forget the appearance of the colored troops sent to relieve us, as they lay about outside, half buried in yellow mud and water, as we filed out of the fort on that rainy morning? They had been marching Aug. 13, '64 all night in the darkness, rain and mud, and were so completely exhausted that sleep to them was the one great necessity, position and bed being secondary. We carefully stepped over their bodies and soon were beyond the sound of their snoring." A heavy detail is made on the 16th for work on Fort Sedgwick, but day work is impossible there on account of the nearness of Fort Mahone, or "Damnation," whose sharpshooters are regularly gunning for the "blues." The detail had hardly more than begun to work at 10 p. m. when the command came to cease from labors and to report to the Regiment at once. There the information is imparted that the corps will move at 3 p. m. of the coming day. On this next day, the 17th, when in line awaiting the expected "Forward" there comes the order to break ranks and encamp for the night. Concerning the movement against the Weldon Railroad, whole volumes have been written. It was a part of Grant's effort to cripple the resources of the rebel army that was being hemmed in gradually by the Union forces. The necessity of the move had been recognized from the first and it had been delayed, as already stated, principally by the departure of Sheridan and the Sixth Corps to the Shenandoah Valley. We have noted the activity of Hancock and his Second Corps, north of the James, made in the hope that it might cause the return of some of the Confederates who had gone to Early's relief, thereby enabling Sheridan to strike a heavier blow in his present command.
Incidentally, it seemed that troops had been withdrawn from the rebel right to strengthen those fighting Hancock and others, at the Confederate left, and Grant saw his opportunity to strike again for the Weldon track, and this is what he says in his Memoirs:—
"From our left, near the old line, it was about three miles to the Weldon Railroad. A division was ordered from the right of the Petersburg line to reinforce Warren, while a division was brought back from the north side of the James River to take its place. The road was very important to the enemy. The limits from which his supplies had been drawn were already very much contracted, and I knew that he must fight desperately to protect it. Warren carried the road though with heavy loss on both sides. He fortified his new position, and our trenches were then extended from the left of our main line to connect with his new one. Lee made repeated attempts to dislodge Warren's Corps, but without success and with heavy loss. As soon as Warren was fortified and reinforcement reached him, troops were sent south to destroy the bridges on the Weldon Railroad, and with such success that the enemy had to draw in wagons for a distance of about thirty miles all the supplies they thereafter got from that source. It was on the 21st that Lee seemed to have given up the Weldon Railroad as having been lost to him; but along about the 24th or 25th he made renewed attempts to recapture it. Again he failed, and with very heavy losses to him as compared with ours. On the night of the 20th, our troops on the north side of the James were withdrawn, and Hancock and Gregg were sent south to destroy the Weldon Railroad. They were attacked on the 25th, at Reams Station, and after desperate fighting a part of our line gave way, losing five pieces of artillery. But the Weldon Railroad never went out of our possession from the 18th of August to the close of the war."
The foregoing extract from the memoirs of the Lieutenant General has been made as an indication of his opinion of the magnitude of the work of August 18th in the progress of the war. The Army and Navy Journal of August 27th, after noting the extraordinary storm of the 15th, "Which swept away many tents and sutler's booths and filled the trenches with water" and the fierce cannonading on the 16th, also that of 1 a. m. of the 18th, lasting for two hours, has this to offer concerning the event which figures so largely in the annals of our Regiment:—
"At four o'clock, on the morning of Thursday, the 18th, and shortly after the heavy cannonading ceased, the Fifth Corps started from its camp (which was rather in reserve) with four days' rations, towards the Weldon Railroad. It took some time to get across the ground formerly held by the Second and Sixth Corps. Then the column marched towards Ream's Station, driving in easily the enemy's skirmishers, of whom a part were captured. Between seven and eight o'clock, the advance arrived at Six Mile Station, and busily setting to work, a mile of the track was Aug. 18, '64 torn up and burned, and the rails destroyed in the usual manner. The skirmishing up to this time had been very light, the enemy having obviously withdrawn to his left, and the whole move being made with hardly a show of opposition. While the First Division was tearing up the track, the others passed on towards Petersburg and after advancing two or three miles, took position so as to repel an expected attack from the enemy. They did not have long to wait. About noon, Walker's Virginia and Davis' Mississippi brigades came hurrying down the railroad. Ayres' Second Division was stationed at this point; the Third and Fourth Divisions, at his right; and the First on his left. The battle opened very promptly on the arrival of the enemy with sharp artillery firing. The enemy, a part of Hill's Corps, then rushed in with great impetuosity, falling with most force upon Hayes', Lyle's and Cutler's brigades, and succeeding in flanking a portion of our force, including Lyle's First Brigade, Crawford's Third Division, the latter brigade being brought forward under a severe enfilading fire. For two hours the firing was very hot, and as it was an open fight the losses were heavy. The main battle lasted till about three o'clock; but the skirmishing and cannonading continued till night, when both forces went to entrenching, the possession of the railroad still being left to our troops. Our loss is still somewhat uncertain, but it is somewhere from five hundred to one thousand. The Second and Third Divisions suffered most and the Thirty-ninth Massachusetts and the Fifteenth New York Heavy Artillery lost heavily. The enemy claims to have captured eight officers and one hundred and fifty men from us in this fight. The enemy's loss in killed and wounded was probably nearly equal to ours, but he lost few prisoners.
Headquarters at night were at the Six Mile House, so called from its distance from Petersburg. That night and all the next day our forces were busily engaged in strengthening our lines, and in endeavoring to connect the right of the new position with the left of our old line. But towards the evening of Friday the enemy came out in force and pushed in between the new entrenchment and the old ones, flanking the Fifth Corps and sweeping off about fifteen hundred prisoners. The Ninth Corps arriving on the field of battle, checked the enemy. Our loss was about three thousand men. Saturday was comparatively quiet, but on Sunday the enemy again furiously attacked us, and was repulsed with heavy loss. On Monday and Tuesday, there was occasional firing along the centre, but our lines were otherwise undisturbed. Our forces still hold the Weldon railroad, the capture and retention of which have cost a week of the hardest fighting of the campaign."
General Humphreys, in his "Virginia, Campaign of '64 and '65," has the following version of the story that specially touches our Division and Brigade:—