CHAPTER XVI.
THE WINTER AT FALMOUTH.
Camp at White Oak Church—"The mud march"—Return to camp—General Neill—General Hooker supersedes General Burnside—Burnside's magnanimity—General Hooker as a soldier—Reconstruction—The cavalry organized—Business departments renovated—The medical department—Ambulance system—Quartermasters' and commissary departments—Life in camp—Snowball battles—In the Seventy-seventh—The Light division—Review by General Hooker—General John Sedgwick—Scene at head-quarters—Review of the army by the President—Preparing for the campaign.
The men built huts, and made themselves as comfortable as they could, in their camp at White Oak Church, but disease spread rapidly, especially among the recruits. The regiments were crowded closely together on ground too low and wet for good camping ground, and the men, having never before erected winter quarters from shelter tents, were not so expert as they became in the succeeding winters; so they suffered from inconvenient quarters, as well as from the low ground and crowded camps.
Our army was now composed in large part, of the recruits sent from the north during the preceding summer and autumn, and thousands of these had never had any idea of fighting or of suffering the privations of army life. They had enlisted for the large bounties which were paid at that time, with the determination to leave the service as soon as their bounties were paid, and a favorable opportunity offered itself for escape. Desertions became alarmingly frequent; indeed, when a few weeks later General Hooker assumed command, there were more than eighty-four thousand absentees, with and without authority. The great number of desertions, we think, should be attributed to the fact that so large a proportion of the new recruits had enlisted for money, rather than to the demoralization of the army.
Notwithstanding the inconveniences to which the men were subjected, and the advance to midwinter, the weather was in our favor. The sun shone brightly, the days were warm and the roads dry. It became evident that General Burnside was determined not to allow the delightful weather and the excellent roads to pass unimproved. Indications of a general movement crowded upon us, and on the 20th of January came the order to march.
The whole army broke camp and moved toward Banks' Ford, two miles up the river from White Oak Church. On the march, an order from the commanding general was read to the troops, announcing to them that the auspicious moment had at length arrived when we were to reap the glorious fruits of our long toils. At five o'clock we halted in the thick woods at Banks' Ford, the point selected for crossing the river, and in a few minutes were quietly and comfortably bivouacked out of sight of rebels on the opposite side. Scarcely had we settled ourselves for a comfortable night's rest, when the clouds, which had been gathering since morning, broke in rain, and the delightful Indian summer gave way to the rainy winter of the south. All night long the rain poured, and all the next day. It was evident we had waited too long. But the commander was determined not to abandon his effort to outflank the enemy. By morning, the roads were so softened by the rain, that horses could not haul artillery or pontoons into position. Men took the place of horses. The whole Vermont brigade was detailed to drag the pontoons and guns to the river. All day long, working and tugging with the mud above their knees; here a hundred men pulling at a pontoon boat, there a party prying a cannon out of the mire with long levers, and still other parties laying strips of corduroy road. The Vermonters passed a disagreeable day.
General Burnside was not idle all this while. Riding from one point to another, now personally superintending the placing of a battery in position on the bank of the river, now encouraging the men who lugged at the boats and guns, and now selecting places to cut new roads, he passed the night and the day in fatiguing and anxious labor. As he rode through the camp of our division in the afternoon, with only two staff officers, himself and his horse completely covered with mud, the rim of his hat turned down to shed the rain, his face careworn with this unexpected disarrangement of his plans, we could but think that the soldier on foot, arm oppressed with the weight of knapsack, haversack and gun, bore an easy load compared with that of the commander of the army, who now saw departing his hopes of redeeming the prestige he had lost at Fredericksburgh.
Men were detailed from each of the regiments of the corps to return to Falmouth, a distance of five miles, to bring on their backs two days' rations; those brought by the men being nearly exhausted. But during the night it was determined to abandon the attempt to cross the river. The enemy, by this time fully aware of our intention, was prepared for us, and a crossing could only be made at great sacrifice, perhaps with defeat. So at sunrise in the morning we were on the road back to our old camp; this time for permanent winter quarters. All along the road lay a multitude of dead horses and mules, which had fallen in the tremendous but unavailing efforts of the day before. Artillery and wagons still stuck fast in the mud, and cannoniers and teamsters lifted and tugged with rails and with poles to raise the piece or the wagon from the mire.
The mud was deep, the day was gloomy and the men were discouraged. They straggled badly. Regiments were not to be distinguished. The whole column became an unorganized crowd, pressing toward the old camps. Tired and discouraged as were the men, they kept up their lively sallies and jokes, as though all was smooth work. Toward evening the troops of our corps arrived on their old ground, now to be our home until the opening of spring, and at once fell to work to restore to some degree of comfort that most desolate of scenes, an abandoned camp. Unfortunately, on leaving the place, little thinking that they were so soon to return, they had burned everything combustible, and thus a strip of board or a piece of timber could hardly be found within the limits of the corps. Nevertheless, comfortable quarters were soon erected, and the routine of drills and picket was resumed.