Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer

by G. Moxley Sorrel

General Lee's ingenious and bold attempt did not result as he hoped. Grant could not be tempted that way. His business was at Petersburg and Richmond, and besides there were already enough of his troops in the Valley and covering Washington to answer for the safety of that capital. Our expedition was therefore soon terminated and came back to the James. The division had but two encounters in the Valley. One at Charlestown, a small affair, in which General Humphreys, commanding the Mississippi Brigade, was wounded. Another was at Front Royal, in which Wofford's brigade got caught in a bend of the river and was beaten off with loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners. A dear friend, Colonel Edward Stiles, Sixteenth Georgia Regiment, was killed.

I had chance, however, before marching, after a sharp night's ride, to pay a flying visit at their home to the good ladies Hamtrammock, who had cared for me wounded at Sharpsburg. They were as pleasant as ever and the hour seemed all too short. While in the Federal lines they had supplied themselves with all sorts of little things for soldiers in the field, as tokens of remembrance, and I had pressed on me a pair of fine gauntlets, which seemed about everything that I wanted at the moment.

On our way back to Lee the division (Kershaw's) suddenly came up with a Union regiment of cavalry foraging at the foot of the mountains. It was a surprise to the riders, and they at once took to their heels, pressing up on the side of the mountains for escape. We had nothing but food with us, and most of the mounted regiment got safely away in small parties. Two fully-equipped ambulances, however, could not follow the riders, and were overturned in a mountain gulley. One of them furnished me with an excellent mount. Two soldiers were going through its beautiful equipment, and coming among the medicines to a large vessel labeled "Spiritus frumenti" it was tossed aside with the rest of the pharmacopœia. But some one suggested that "Spiritus frumenti" might be another way of spelling whiskey—and then to see those fellows go for it!

While the commander and most of the troops of the First Corps were on the north side, the enemy's mines at Petersburg were "spring making." "The Crater" was a frightful affair, and should, it appears to me, have been prevented. We knew they were mining. Our shaft had been sunk and short galleries run out. Their working parties could be heard. Should we not have countermined actively and fought their men off in their own galleries? However, it was not done, and the "blow up," considered only barely possible, was upon us. When it came it was all that the enemy could wish. His plans were excellent, but miscarried by the conduct of one or more of his leading officers. The crater was at once filled with their men, many negroes among them—negroes who, as usual, primed with whiskey, had been pushed to the front and into the breach, but support failed them.

Then came the Confederates' great work of destroying these men and recovering their mutilated line. Mahone did brilliant service. His division of five brigades was thrown at the invaders, and with other forces seized the "hole," captured or killed the unfortunates in it, and the day was ours with the works and integrity of the line restored.

I had heard much of this remarkable fight from the Georgia Brigade (it had been very conspicuous in it) that I took command of some days after.

This amusing story was told me by one of its men. Exhausted in the crater fight, he sank wearily on a log for a short rest. It moved gently and an old-fashioned negro's voice came from the log-like darky, "Please, Marster, don't shoot; I'se doin' nuttin'." The rascal had doubtless been one of the first in the crater, wild with liquor; but the Southerner was merciful and sent him to the rear.

Of course the men on both sides behind the works, so close sometimes, got tired of "potting" at each other, and taking a rest became altogether too friendly. Firing would cease and individuals and small parties appear in front bartering and chaffing with the boys in blue.

Our tobacco was always good for coffee and a Northern paper. It got to be too familiar and led to desertions of our men. Their rations were of the poorest (one-half pound of bacon and three-quarters of a pound of cornmeal), their clothing and shoes worn and unfit for the field, and their work and duties of the hardest on our attenuated lines. Reliefs were few and far between. No wonder they sometimes weakened to better themselves, as they supposed, and stayed with the fat-jowled, well-clad, coddled-up masses opposite them. But we had to stop the desertions at any price, so at night steady, continuous musketry firing was ordered, sweeping the glacis in front of our entrenchments. It cost a lot of lead and powder, but did something in holding back the weaklings in our command.

The enemy, nothing loth, returned the fire, and were good enough to send plenty of their own lead. There was considerable to be gathered during the day, and this got my friend, Gen. E. P. Alexander, into trouble. He was a many-sided character—an engineer of the highest abilities, an artillerist of great distinction, a good reconnoitering officer and an enthusiastic sportsman besides. In the early days of the war I one day met him, mounted as usual on a very sorry, doubtful-looking beast, with a pair of enormous holsters on his saddle-horn. "And what have you there, Alexander?" I asked, thinking possibly of some good edibles. "These," he said, and drew out his long telescope for reconnaissance—a very powerful glass—and from the other an enormous old-fashioned horse-pistol of immense calibre, some tiny cubes of lead, cut from bullets, and a pinch or two of gunpowder. "Quail," he said, "are eating up this country and I like them. This old pistol gives me many a mess of birds." At Petersburg his only want for his private gunning was lead to melt into small shot, and gathering some (after working his big gun) he received an unexpected contribution—a bullet in his shoulder, hot from the enemy, which made him a very uncomfortable wound.