Three years in the Sixth Corps

by George T. Stevens

The Sixth corps went into camp on the right of the army, two miles from Brandy Station. We occupied land belonging to John Minor Botts. Mr. Botts boasted that he owned six hundred miles of fence when we came upon his possessions. He could not say that when we had been there a week! His fences were burned, and his forests cut down; and it was generally known that our chief quarter-master was paying him immense sums of money for the wood used by our army.

At the end of a week it became pretty evident that our stay at Brandy Station might be of considerable duration, possibly for the winter. Accordingly, the men proceeded once more to build houses for the winter; and never, since we had been in service, had they constructed so comfortable quarters as they now built. All about us were the rebel camps, in which they had vainly hoped to spend the winter; and these furnished timbers already hewn, fine stones ready for use in making chimneys, and hewn saplings ready prepared for bunks. The Sixth corps was encamped in a fine forest, which should have furnished not only great abundance of timber for use about the quarters, but for fuel for the winter; but owing to the wasteful manner in which the wood was at first used in building log fires in the open air, the forest melted away before the men had fairly concluded that there was any necessity for using it economically.

Preparations were hurried forward for another advance. The railroad, which had been destroyed by the rebels at the time of the raid to Centreville, from the Rappahannock to Bristoe Station, was to be rebuilt, and the bridge across the Rappahannock, which we had ourselves destroyed, was to be replaced, before the army could safely undertake another advance. It is one of the mysteries which people who have never been connected with a great army have greatest difficulty in comprehending, that an army advancing into such a country as we were now threatening, must have ample and easy communications with its base of supplies. Could such people for a moment realize the vast amount of material consumed by such an army as ours, the mystery might be solved. To attempt to advance into a desert country without first either providing a supply for many days, or opening ready communications with our base of supplies, would have been suicidal. General Sherman might lead his army through a fertile country, where the ravages of war had not appeared, and, by sweeping across a territory forty miles wide, collect abundant supplies for his men; but our army was now to march into a wilderness where even a regiment could not find subsistence. The newspapers at the north that condemned the delay at Brandy Station, and sneered at the idea that the army needed a base of supplies, simply exhibited their profound ignorance of the first principles of campaigning.

By the 25th the road was completed as far as Brandy Station, the bridge rebuilt, and a large amount of supplies brought up; and the army was ordered to move at an early hour on the 26th.

The hour for moving was assigned each corps, and the order in which it was to march, that no delay or confusion might occur. The Third corps was to start as soon as daylight, and the Sixth was to follow it.

Our Sixth corps was moving at sunrise, the hour designated, toward Brandy Station. Presently the head of the column halted in the midst of the camps of the Third corps, which were yet undisturbed. According to the order for marching, the Third corps was to precede the Sixth, and should have been out of camp before we arrived, but as yet not a tent was struck nor a wagon loaded, and most of the men were asleep in their quarters. The Sixth corps was obliged to halt and stand in the mud for hours, waiting for the delinquent corps to get out of the way. Here was the first blunder of the new campaign.

At length at eleven o'clock we moved again, taking the road to the Rapidan. Our march was slow and tedious, and instead of reaching the river at noon as was expected, and as General Meade's orders contemplated, the head of the Third corps only reached the river at Jacobs' Ford long after dark, and here again a delay was occasioned by a mistake of the engineers, who had not brought a sufficient number of boats to this point to complete the pontoon bridge; a part of the bridge had therefore to be extemporized out of poles.

The road for several miles was merely a narrow passage cut through the forest; a dense growth of stunted pines and tangled bushes, filling up the space between the trees of larger growth. Our corps moved along very slowly, halting for a moment, then advancing one or two rods, then standing still again for perhaps several minutes, and again moving forward for a few steps. This became very tedious. The men were faint and weary, and withal discouraged. They were neither advancing nor resting.

From one end of the column of the Sixth corps to the other, through the miles of forest the shout, coffee! coffee! passed from one regiment to another, until there could be heard nothing but the vociferous demand for coffee. At eleven o'clock at night the order "ten minutes rest for coffee," passed down the line and was received with shouts of approval. Instantly the roadside was illuminated with thousands of little fires, over which the soldiers were cooking their favorite beverage.

We crossed the Rapidan at Jacobs' Ford at midnight, leaving Upton's brigade on the north side as rear-guard, and in another hour the men had thrown themselves upon the ground without waiting to erect shelter tents, and were sleeping soundly notwithstanding the severity of the cold. The Fifth and First corps had crossed at Culpepper Ford and the Second corps at Germania Ford about noon, and were in the positions assigned them.