The Fifth Army Corps crossed the river on a pontoon bridge at a place called Culpeper Mine Ford on the same day, all of the supply trains, except some ammunition wagons, remaining on the north side of the river. On the twenty-eighth it was discovered that a surprise was out of the question, the enemy having concentrated all their forces in a strong position on the west bank of Mine Run.
General Warren, who had commanded the Second Corps since General Hancock had been wounded at Gettysburg, was ordered to make the main attack on the morning of the thirtieth. He made an early examination of the enemy's works and had the moral courage to suspend General Meade's order to attack, sending him word to that effect. This brought General Meade to make a personal examination, after which he agreed with General Warren as to the hopelessness of the attempt. The men of the Second Corps realized that they were to attack a position as hopeless as that at Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg and knew that few would escape. The night before the attack was to be made each man wrote his name, company and regiment on a piece of paper and pinned it to his clothing.
On the same night I was sent across the river with a few supply wagons and reached the front early in the forenoon, when I issued the rations and rested a few hours. I had a good view of a part of the Rebel position, which appeared very formidable, in front of the Fifth Corps. On my return march in the afternoon a cold rain-storm came on, turning to sleet; then it became so cold that my saturated clothing was frozen stiff before I reached camp. The sufferings of the soldiers before the enemy was dreadful. The next day General Meade decided that the campaign was a failure and began to withdraw the army, which recrossed the Rapidan unmolested and, thanks to General Warren, without a useless slaughter, as in the Burnside campaign of the previous winter.
This ended active operations in the Army of the Potomac for 1863. The troops established winter camps; the Fifth Corps guarded and was encamped along the line of the Orange and Alexandria railroad, by brigades stationed at intervals from Fairfax to Brandy Station. The headquarters of my brigade were at Noakesville Station, a small place no longer on the map. Colonel Burbank, who commanded the brigade, and staff occupied a large farm-house situated a few hundred yards east of the little station on a hill. A small two-story out-house was assigned to the brigade commissary and quartermaster departments. A few regiments of the brigade were encamped in the immediate vicinity, where they made themselves comfortable in their winter huts. I rigged up a store-house and, together with the quartermaster sergeant and our assistants, used the little two-story house as an office and for our sleeping quarters. The house had a good roof, a fireplace and chimney. There was plenty of wood and we were warm and comfortable. My horse was stabled along with the brigade staff horses in one of the farm stables.
The commissary depot for the Fifth Corps was at Catlett's Station, about five miles from our camp. I was sent there once a week with a wagon-train to draw supplies for the brigade, and was always accompanied by an infantry escort, as there were guerrillas about. One morning as I was starting off with my train, Captain Samuel A. McKee, of my regiment, and Lieutenant Edwin E. Sellers, of the Tenth United States Infantry, who, with an orderly, were going to Catlett's Station, asked me to ride with them in advance of my train. They soon began to ride very fast and I found that my horse could not keep up with theirs; frequently they were out of sight and I was a quarter of a mile behind in the lonely woods. Then I thought of the guerrillas, but we arrived safely at the station. About a week later, April eleventh, 1864, Captain McKee, accompanied by an orderly, made the same journey and was shot dead on his way to Catlett's; his body was found lying on the road, stripped of his arms and valuables and most of his clothing. The orderly escaped.
About this time many brevet ranks were conferred on officers—the greater part of them for gallantry in the field; others for efficiency in various lines of duty; and some for no particular reason that anyone could discover. So generous was the War Department in distributing brevet ranks that they seemed to lose dignity and sometimes became a joke. The army mule was dubbed a "brevet horse" and the camp follower became a "brevet soldier." Some officers were advanced several grades above their lineal rank by supplementary brevets. It was no uncommon occurrence to find a lieutenant who was a brevet major or colonel; and I know of a few cases where first lieutenants held the honorary rank of brigadier-general.
Lieutenant Sinclair, the commissary officer, was an easygoing, very pleasant man, much liked by both officers and soldiers. He was a first lieutenant and brevet major—a very brave officer, who had the peculiar experience of being wounded in the same leg in three different engagements, but never very seriously—each time able to resume his duties after being discharged from the hospital. He remained in the service for some years after the war. Lieutenant Sinclair was a New Yorker. He had been with the Singer Sewing Machine Co. before the war.
During this winter and spring a large number of recruits joined the Army of the Potomac, among them many conscripts and substitutes, who as a class were not the equals of volunteers of 1861 and 1862. The armies needed still more men and on February first President Lincoln ordered a draft for five hundred thousand men to be held on March tenth, and another on March fifteenth for two hundred thousand more, to be held April fifteenth, 1864. Recruiting for the regular army almost ceased, owing to the large bounties paid for substitutes, and the fact that the enlistments among the volunteers were only for three years, or the duration of the war. I had a short furlough at this time and spent four days very pleasantly in Washington with comrades of my regiment, who had been detailed as clerks in the War Department or were employed as civilians after their discharge from the army.
On March twelfth, 1864, Lieutenant General U.S. Grant was made commander-in-chief of all the armies of the United States, deposing General Halleck, to the great satisfaction of many of the officers and the rank and file in the armies. General Grant visited the Army of the Potomac for a few days in March, consulting General Meade, its commander. Soon after many changes and consolidations were ordered. The five corps were reduced to three, viz: the Second, Fifth and Sixth, commanded respectively by Generals Hancock, Warren and Sedgwick. The Fifth Corps lost its old commander, that sterling old soldier, Major General George Sykes, who had commanded the regular brigade at the beginning of the war and had risen to the command of the Fifth Army Corps. We lost him with profound feelings of regret, which were only compensated by the confidence we had in Major General Gouverneur K. Warren, who had long been a brigade and division commander of the corps. Skeleton companies and regiments were consolidated, brigades and divisions were enlarged. All of the regular infantry soldiers who remained in the field at this time were placed in the First Brigade of the First Division of the Fifth Corps, along with four regiments of volunteers; the One Hundred and Fortieth and One Hundred and Forty-sixth New York and the Ninety-first and One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Pennsylvania, which when combined, out-numbered the regulars considerably. Brigadier-General Romeyn B. Ayres, an old regular artillery officer, commanded the brigade.
General Meade remained in the immediate command of the Army of the Potomac, now increased to ninety-nine thousand, four hundred and thirty-eight officers and enlisted men present for duty, equipped; while General Lee's army, composed of the corps of Longstreet, Ewell and Hill, with Stuart's cavalry, was estimated to number about sixty-two thousand.