So far as our Regiment is concerned, affairs are very quiet, though the extended Union line towards the west affords opportunity for constant work, day and night, for every man, and the number in the Thirty-ninth is not very great, so large a portion of the survivors of the Regiment being involuntary boarders in the Confederacy. The fact that less than eleven months remain of the service for which the men enlisted causes not a few remarks as to the gradual approach of the day of release, though all must know that the future holds many possibilities of battles and other exposure. Ignorance in this case is surely bliss. The first third of October covers considerable activity on the Union right, where Darbytown Road wins a place in battle lists, and the cooler nights indicate the approach of another winter with its peculiar exactions. The first frost comes on the night of the 9th-10th. From the 8th to the 11th all sorts of firing have been common in the vicinity of Sedgwick or "Fort Hell" in local parlance, on the last named night the pyrotechny being especially brilliant, a Richmond paper stating that it was the heaviest mortar shelling of the siege, "The heavens being ablaze with brilliant meteors, ascending, descending and shooting athwart the horizon in almost countless numbers and unsurpassed beauty."
During these early October days, General S. W. Crawford is in command of the Fifth Corps and with it, accompanying the Ninth Corps, a reconnoisance in force is made on the 8th towards the Union left, possibly with an idea of extending our works even beyond Fort McRae. After a day of hard marching and constant skirmishing the troops returned, wearied enough, to their starting point; but General Grant is not satisfied, even yet, that he cannot reach the Southside Railroad. A little past the middle of the month, or on the 19th, comes the most unqualified report of victory in the Shenandoah Valley that the country has yet heard. It is the story of Cedar Creek, fought on the 19th, when differing from the dispatches after Winchester, just a month before, where Early was sent "whirling up the valley"; so nearly annihilated is the rebel army, it would be a very stiff breeze which could find anything left to whirl. The activities for this month, as far as the Fifth Corps is concerned, terminated with the joint move, on the 26th, of the Second, Fifth and Ninth Corps along with Gregg's Cavalry against the Southside Railroad, Oct. 26, '64 known as the Boydton Plank Road, some distance east of the railroad. Very full and explicit instructions had been issued to the designated troops, and the utmost care had been taken to insure the safety of the entrenchments during the movement. The Fifth Corps, or that part of it in the project, marched out on the Squirrel Level Road, in a southwesterly direction towards Hatcher's Run, a small stream rising near Sutherland Station on the Southside Road and flowing southeastwardly into Rowanty Creek, a tributary of the Nottoway River. The Lieutenant General was determined to leave no stone unturned to secure the longed-for source of Petersburg's supplies. The country itself revealed many of the Wilderness characteristics, there being no roads and no chances to move artillery. In this confusion, the right of the Second Corps, furthest west, was lost to the Fifth Corps, a fact which enabled the enemy to get in between the two corps and capture a considerable number of men, the Second Corps suffering more than the Fifth, one whole regiment being run in. The mix-up was not unlike that of the 18th of August, for rain set in and ammunition was scarce, our leaders were ignorant of the lay of the land which the enemy seemed to know perfectly; so the left flank movement ended with the return of the troops to their former positions. On this same 26th the Thirty-ninth moved to the left and garrisoned Fort Canahey.
A very good story of give and take is recorded of this week; at dusk in the evening of Thursday, the 27th, one hundred volunteers of the One Hundred and Forty-eighth Pennsylvania attacked the fort of the enemy which succeeded that blown up on the 30th of July, climbed the parapet, drove the occupants out and, for a brief period, were masters of the situation, this being a plan to hold the attention of the Confederates while the assault was progressing further to left, but the enemy rallying quickly drove the Federal force back with considerable loss on both sides. In return, Sunday night, the 30th, at about ten o'clock, the rebels "relieved the pickets" in front of Fort Davis where the Sixty-ninth and One Hundred and Eleventh New York were on picket duty, and managed to capture nearly four hundred men. So delighted were the Confederates with their success they proceeded to throw a strong column against the works which had been uncovered by the capture of the pickets, but the alarm had been given and the triumphant men in gray were met with a fire of musketry that sent them back in a hurry and, for a time, there was a merry firing bee along the entire line. For the nonce, honors between blue and gray were easy and regular, expected shooting was resumed.
Another and the last November for the Thirty-ninth begins and finds the remnant of the Regiment doing garrison duty under the command of Captain Nelson of Company A, and comparative quiet reigning along the extended battle line, now reaching from the north side of the James more than twenty miles to Hatcher's Run. Lieutenant Colonel Tremlett, so long absent from the Regiment, returns on Friday, the 4th, relieving Captain Nelson, who has led the organization since the capture of Major F. R. Kinsley at the Weldon Railroad. Barring considerable excitement on the 5th, near "Fort Hell," where lines were captured by the enemy and reversed only to be re-taken and restored, day and night fully sustaining the reputation of the locality, and efforts of like nature in front of Fort Steadman on the 9th, the game of life and death was played without special emphasis—just the steady, constant watchfulness of thousands of men unwilling to allow any act of their adversary to pass unnoticed. Tuesday, the 8th of November, brings the presidential election, and the triumphant re-election of Lincoln, all soldiers having the privilege of voting, a singular illustration of ways in a republic where, in becoming a soldier the man does not lose his citizenship.
The 24th was Thanksgiving Day in New England and many a prayer was offered for the men at the front and many expressions of love and recollection were speeded Nov. 24, '64 southward for the delectation of absent ones. Nearly thirty tons of turkeys were said to have been sent from the North to the armies, and this vast amount of food, accompanied by all sorts of other meats and luxuries, must have gone far towards furnishing forth at least one good old-fashioned dinner for many thousands of men. As a sort of godsend to the enemy, possibly that they, too, might be thankful, on the 19th, some forty or fifty head of cattle, escaping from our corrals, made for the Confederate works where they were received as enemies, yet later found a thoroughly warm reception. On the 26th, the Ninetieth Pennsylvania, having reached the end of its term of enlistment, started for Philadelphia. It had been in the same division with the Thirty-ninth from the time of our joining the First Corps and, for the larger part of the period, in the same brigade. Its good qualities we had learned to appreciate. An outgrowth of the Second Regiment, Pennsylvania militia, it had served, under Colonel Lyle,[T] in the Three Months' call and, again, for three years. Recruits and re-enlisted men were transferred to the Eleventh Pennsylvania and all that were left of the originals were off for home. Towards the end of the month summaries were prepared of the losses sustained by the Army of the Potomac in the campaign so relentlessly waged and, according to Surgeon Thos. A. McParlin, Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, from May 3rd to October 31st, the number of wounded amounted to 57,496, exclusive of the Eighteenth Corps while serving in this army, and he does not include the Ninth Corps at the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania Court House. According to data prepared by General Warren the killed and wounded in the Fifth Corps, during this same period, amounted to more than eleven thousand. The precautions taken to preserve life, and at the same time offering readiness to receive as well as make attacks, taxed the highest talents and ingenuity of engineers and soldiers. To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, were earthworks of the strongest character, though few cared to take the risk of prolonged observations. There were corduroy roads underground and covered ways of heavy trunks of trees under four or five feet of earth to prevent shells from reaching those beneath. Few men cared to be for any considerable time in these safety holes, the monotony and closeness being terrible.
Though the Army of the Potomac is nominally in winter quarters, this in no way prevents changes of location, the organization of raids and a degree of activity hitherto unknown among the veterans of one or more winter's experience, who are carefully watching rebels while, at Dec. 1, '64 the same time, keeping a careful reckoning on the time intervening before their muster-out. December comes in with a salute to the effect that it is the last one the Regiment will see in the field. On Thursday, the 1st, General Gregg leads a cavalry raid down the Weldon Railroad, starting before daylight, riding as far as Stony Creek, twenty-two miles below Petersburg, for the sake of destroying whatever stores may be collected there and to destroy also whatever advance may have been made in a proposed railroad connection between Stony Creek, the present terminus of the Weldon Railroad, and the Southside Road through a new track, laid down by way of the Dinwiddie and the Boydton Roads. With considerable adventure, this was successfully done and with a forty mile's ride, not to mention the fighting, to their credit, the expedition was back again at 11 p. m.
The early part of the month saw the return of the Sixth Army Corps from its experiences in the valley, and with the garlands of victory fresh upon it, the corps took its place along the Petersburg line. In July, when the Sixth started for Baltimore and Washington, the Union front extended only a little further than the Jerusalem Plank Road; now it is prolonged to Hatcher's Run, and every foot of the prolongation has cost effort and blood; eight miles of new frontage dearly won. Into this battle line Sheridan's "Foot Cavalry" settles as naturally as though it has been away only a day or two on a casual raid. What is left of Early's force has been back with Lee several weeks. Not satisfied with the cavalry demonstration of the 1st, General Warren is ordered to conduct a more formidable array on the 7th to the same region. The troops, Fifth Corps, Mott's Division of the Second Corps and a division of cavalry under Gregg, above 20,000 in number with twenty-two pieces of artillery, have been massed on both sides of the Jerusalem Road and after a cold night, in the face of a severe rain, are off. On the Nottoway River, they come to where Freeman's Bridge was formerly, twenty miles from Petersburg, and they cross the stream on a pontoon bridge. Next day (8th) the march southward is continued and at Jarratt's Station where the Weldon Railroad crosses the Nottoway, thirty miles from Petersburg, they burn the bridge, two hundred feet long, crossing the river. The railroad track is torn up in the effectual manner characteristic of the times and Thursday night is spent here. Friday (9th) the work of destruction continues down to Bellfield, twelve miles further along. Of course there is skirmishing with the enemy constantly, but he is not here in sufficient force to offer substantial resistance. The troops bivouac for the night at Three Creek, three miles this side of Bellfield. All the time the weather has been wretched, the constant rain rendering the roads almost impassable and, to crown all, this night (Friday) come snow and hail to add to the general discomfort. Saturday (10th) the expedition faces towards Petersburg, burning on the way back the buildings at Sussex Court House in retaliation, so said, for the shooting of some of our stragglers and here the army bivouacs; resuming the backward route the Nottoway was reached in the evening of the 11th and, on the 12th, the old quarters are struck by a very tired body of men; the net results being a march fifty miles long, three railroad bridges destroyed, fifteen miles of railroad track torn up and bent out of shape and a county court house burned.
No mention is made in the official report of the quantity of apple-jack which the curiously inclined Yankees sought and found and, to their own harm, imbibed. The section had not been overrun before, and consequently better stored farm houses were found than the men had been seeing of late and, notwithstanding the rigors of the campaign, possibly on account of them, they made merry with the seductive liquids made from innocent cider. The story was long current that one man, outside of fully three fingers of the booze, and growing correspondingly free with the dignitaries, slapped General Warren familiarly Dec. 10, '64 on the back, calling him "The little Corporal," a term which ever afterwards clung to the soldier himself. Canteens of the fiery stuff were carried back to camp for the benefit (?) of those who did not go. Had the weather been more propitious, it is possible that the expedition would have gone on twenty miles further to Weldon, on the Roanoke.
In the foregoing episode, the Thirty-ninth bore its part, having moved back to the rear line on the 5th and, at the start, taking the advance of the infantry. Just before reaching Halifax Road, the 8th, on indications of trouble ahead the Regiment was deployed and sent forward as skirmishers to hold the road. Having established a line of pickets, the Thirty-ninth stood by to guard the road while the main column passed on. Shortly after dark we followed the troops, overtaking them near Jarratt's Station, and there we took a hand in destroying the railroad. On the 9th we had a place at the extreme left of the corps, and picketed the front of the brigade, which was doing its best to make the road a hard one for the rebels to travel. At 6 p. m. we were withdrawn to Cross Roads, above Bellfield, one half going on picket, the other half into camp with the Brigade. In the movement backward, beginning on the 10th, we fetched up the rear and thus enjoyed frequent tilts with the close following cavalry of the enemy who, in spite of our best efforts, managed to capture any who straggled, in the number, our Regiment losing four men. On the 11th, starting before daylight, we crossed the Nottaway at four o'clock in the afternoon and at nine halted for the night. On the 12th, we were back again before Petersburg, having marched twelve miles. Encamping near the Jerusalem Plank Road, we were ordered to build huts for the winter and, following a week's work, we moved into our new quarters where, for about a month, we had almost easy times. At any rate we were not right under the fire of the enemy all of the time. We had to turn out at intervals on account of real or fancied dangers; drill and fatigue duties had their part and there were the regular details for guard and picket. Once we served as guard for a wagon train which went outside for bricks and boards, securing the same from a deserted house some five miles away.
It must be understood that absolute quiet in front of Petersburg was out of the question. The extended works were like a mammoth keyboard for an organ, whose dimensions transcended imagination and, seated thereat, all the gods and goddesses of War played music that rivaled the thunderbolts of Jove, now the low mutterings of distant lightning, anon rising to the fierce reverberations of an equinoxial as when, on the 19th of December, doubly shotted guns told the joy of the Union that Thomas had annihilated Hood at Nashville or, on the 26th, when Mars himself seemed to press those keys in token of the termination of the March to The Sea and that Savannah had fallen. Always catching up the refrain, the unterrified rebels, aided by their own warlike deities, hurled it back upon us, sometimes like an echo, immeasurable augmented, till veritably it seemed that the opposing lines, stretching away beyond human sight, could not have evoked a greater riot of sound had they been exits of Aetna and Stromboli. A topmost gallery seat in this magnificent theatre of war afforded, in the very mildest passages of Freedom's Oratorio, all the sound, melodious or otherwise, that the average human ear could appreciate.