[XXVI.]
From the Wilderness the army moved parallel with Grant to Spotsylvania Court House, where we had some desperate fighting. My usual good luck followed me, and I came no nearer being hit than having a solid shot strike the place where my feet had been resting a moment before.
Baffling Grant completely at Cold Harbor, and forcing him to abandon the line on which he had promised to “fight it out if it took all summer,” we found ourselves, early in June, on our way to Petersburg, crossing the river at Drury’s Bluff. We had with us the divisions of Pickett and of Field, and were to move down the Turnpike towards Petersburg, to occupy the lines from which General Beauregard had withdrawn. This was on June 16th. It was a delightful day, and General Anderson and his staff rode on a considerable distance in advance of the troops. There was no more expectation of encountering the enemy than we should have of finding him in the streets of Charleston. When we neared Chester, however, a Major Smith, who was in haste to reach Petersburg, and had gone on ahead, came tearing back “bloody with spurring and fiery red with haste,” and without his hat. We were at a loss to understand what this meant, and he had not breath enough left to tell us at the moment. As soon as he could speak, he said that near the point where the railroad crossed the Turnpike he had seen the Yankees in the woods as thick as bees; and a party of them was then engaged in tearing up the line of railroad which formed the only means of communication between the Confederate capital and Petersburg. He was fired at, but his horse alone was hit; and it was a lucky escape for us. Had we jogged on very much farther we should have found ourselves in the hands of the enemy, who, it seems, had pushed up from Bermuda Hundreds, on finding that the lines in front of them had been vacated, and were about to make good their occupation of the railroad. We halted in the road until the leading regiment of our column came up, when it was deployed in the woods, and advanced until it struck the enemy. The next day an effort was made to recover our lost line; and on the 18th Pickett took it with a rush. Kershaw had gone on to Petersburg. There we had our head-quarters until near the end of June.
Petersburg had changed very much from the quiet, peaceful, drowsy looking city it was when I first knew it. But it was an agreeable place to be in, for one reason at least. During the Wilderness campaign our rations had been reduced to five ounces of bacon and twelve ounces of corn meal daily, and the country was so bare that no additions could be made to our scant fare. At Richmond and Petersburg there was little difficulty in obtaining provisions of every kind, the joke being, however, that housekeepers took their money to market in a basket and brought home in their pockets what they had bought for dinner.
The Petersburgers had accommodated themselves to the changed conditions with curious completeness. Shell frequently fell in or passed over the city, and it was no uncommon thing for old citizens, standing in the street discussing the prospects of the day, to step quietly around a corner until an approaching shell had passed by, and then resume their former place without even suspending their conversation. The basements of houses were used in many instances as bomb-proofs, the traverses being composed of mattresses and bedding.
From Petersburg we went back to the North side of the James River, and on July 28th captured a piece of artillery and some prisoners near the Long Bridge Road.
Early in August General Anderson was summoned to Richmond for consultation with President Davis and General Lee; and on August 7th we took the train for Mitchell Station, where Kershaw’s Division soon arrived, and three days later Fitz Lee’s Cavalry Division came up.
I should mention here that my friend Mr. Raines had suffered a terrible loss. The enemy made a raid through Sussex County and carried off a number of his negroes and nearly the whole of his horses and mules. Fortunately, the raiders feared that they might be cut off if they took the road by Belsches’ Mill-pond to the Plank-road, and they did not pass by Mr. Raines’ residence, which, therefore, was not destroyed. One of my riding horses which I valued very highly was carried off by the cavalry. Mr. Raines and his family were not at home at the time, having gone to Mechlenburg County, where his son-in-law, Dr. Wm. H. Jones, resided. While I was at Petersburg I became very unwell, and our Medical Director, Dr. Cullin, told me that there was only one prescription that he knew of that would cure me quickly, and that was a leave of absence. Leave for fifteen days was given me, and I started off in an ambulance to Sussex. When I reached there I found old Davie, the butler (a counterpart of our own Levy, although considerably older), in charge of the place, and the family absent. This did not daunt me, although I was sadly disappointed. I hired a buggy and went on to Mechlenburg. The plantation of Dr. Jones was near Boydton, and I remained there about two weeks. The family consisted then of Dr. Jones and his wife, the eldest daughter of Mr. Raines, and their little daughter Anna; with Miss Anna Raines and Miss Patty Raines, the daughters of my old friend; and Frank and Nat, his sons. Miss Pinkie Morton and Miss Hattie Morton, nieces of Dr. Jones, and his wards, were also there. The plantation was large and valuable, the principal crop made on it being tobacco of a fine quality. I found at the plantation a thoroughbred Belshazzar colt, which I had bought in Tennessee; a fancy looking cream-colored animal, with a long mane and tail, of which I expected great things. His career was brief, and not particularly glorious. When the Yankees made a raid through Boydton, after General Lee’s surrender, they visited Dr. Jones’ house and carried off my Belshazzar colt. He was loose in the pasture, and they had considerable difficulty in catching him, as he jumped over the fence whenever they got him in a corner. It was only by surrounding him that they caught him at last.
The conduct of the Yankees at Dr. Jones’ was infamous in the extreme. Mrs. Jones was on her death-bed, but the soldiers, after tying Dr. Jones and putting him under guard, forced themselves into her bed-room, and there in her presence broke open her bureau and carried off what valuables they could find. It was well that they did no worse.