February 13th. Private William G. Manter died in camp hospital. He was buried in the little graveyard near our camp.
March 1st. Sergt. George P. Carpenter and Private John Phillips died in company hospital to-day. They were comrades tried and true, and we sorely missed them.
As we lacked a sufficient number of men to fully man our battery, several soldiers were detached from the different regiments of the Vermont brigade and sent to us on the 16th of this month.
March 23d. At seven A. M. the battery received orders to proceed with the Vermont brigade to Union Mills, Va. On arriving there the right section was ordered on picket on the heights overlooking the fording place at Kettle Run Shoals, and a detail of men was also sent to man an iron clad car on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, to act as guard at the same place.
April 9th. A severe snow storm set in which continued through the day and night, and was particularly trying to our men on picket, and a disappointment to the hopes of the government. It was the severest storm (so the traditional “oldest inhabitant” said) that had visited that section of the country for several years.
CHAPTER III
Battles of Chancellorsville and Salem Heights—Battery H Ordered to Chantilly, and Afterwards to Fairfax Court House—Return to Camp Barry—Picket Duty at Fairfax Seminary—Moved to Vicinity of Fort Scott.
When Gen. Joseph Hooker was appointed to succeed Burnside in command of the Army of the Potomac, he made earnest efforts to raise its morale and increase its efficiency. In the meantime the inclement season and the bad roads prevented any forward movement before spring. On the 13th of April General Hooker commenced his campaign by sending a force of cavalry, with artillery, across the upper fords of the Rappahannock, and thence to the Rapidan, preparatory to a general advance of the army. A storm and bad roads delayed the latter movement until the 27th. On the morning of that day the Fifth, Eleventh, and the Twelfth Corps moved toward the upper fords, which they reached the next day, and crossed on the 29th. Thence they moved to the Rapidan, and crossed that stream at Germania Ford and another some eight or ten miles above its confluence with the Rappahannock. From this stream they advanced to the vicinity of Chancellorsville, a village consisting of a single house and out-buildings, and here three corps were massed on the 30th.
On the morning of the 1st of May four corps were there prepared for an advanced against the enemy. During the 2d and 3d of May occurred one of the hardest fought battles, of the war. The losses on both sides were severe. On the 3d and 4th of May, Sedgwick’s Corps of nearly twenty thousand, fought an almost independent battle at Salem Heights, near Fredericksburg, about fourteen miles from Hooker’s position. They fought with determined bravery, but were compelled by the presence of a superior force to fall back, and recrossed the river in good order. The main body of Hooker’s army safely recrossed the river on the evening of the 5th. When morning revealed to the enemy the movement, they seemed more content to have it take place, and made no attempt to hasten it. The Union army had fought three days with about one-third of its numbers against the massed forces of the enemy, and though forced to yield some ground had repulsed their desperate assaults, and then returned to its old camps having suffered large losses but not seriously weakened.
May 4th. At the time of the battle of Chancellorsville, General Abercrombie ordered the right section under command of Captain Hazard, in connection with the Twelfth Vermont regiment of our brigade, to Rappahannock Station for the purpose of guarding the river at this point. While stationed here Captain Hazard relates that a number of negroes came across the river one morning, and the next day Hon. John Minor Botts crossed and claimed them as his property. He talked with them quite a while and endeavored to induce them to return with him. This they declined to do. Mr. Botts claimed to be a Union man, and said he would go to President Lincoln for redress. He also threatened to use his influence to have his friend, the Hon. John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky (who was holding out as a Union man), espouse the cause of the Confederacy unless his (Botts’s) property was returned. His “boys,” as he called them, were soon scattered and were employed in the army or at the north, and were about as free as they were after the Emancipation Proclamation. As an instance of the financial situation of the Confederacy at that period of the Rebellion, Mr. Botts, who wore a pair of cowhide shoes at this time, said they cost him twenty-five dollars in Confederate money, in Richmond.