HEADQUARTERS, NEWPORT NEWS
CHAPTER LV
POPE’s CAMPAIGN
The military authorities having decided to throw Burnside’s troops up the Rappahannock to reinforce Pope, General Stevens sailed from Newport News on August 4, debarked at Acquia Creek on the 6th, and reached Fredericksburg the same day. Here two light batteries were added to the division, E, of the 2d United States artillery, under Lieutenant S.N. Benjamin, with four 20-pounder rifled Parrotts and the 8th Massachusetts battery, a new organization recently from home, enlisted for six months only. The division was divided into three brigades, the 8th Michigan and 50th Pennsylvania, under Colonel B. C. Christ, constituting the first brigade; the Roundheads and 46th New York, under Colonel Leasure, the second; and the Highlanders and 28th Massachusetts, under Colonel Addison Farnsworth, the third. Colonel Farnsworth was appointed colonel of the Highlanders by the governor of New York, and joined his regiment at Beaufort, but was absent on leave during the James Island campaign, at the close of which he returned to it. Lieutenant H.G. Heffron was appointed aide in place of Lieutenant Lyons.
Starting from Fredericksburg on the 13th, Generals Stevens’s and Reno’s divisions, eight thousand strong, the latter as ranking officer in command, stripped of all baggage except shelter tents, marched up the north bank of the Rappahannock, passing Bealton Station on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, crossed the river at Rappahannock Station, and joined Pope at Culpeper Court House on the 15th. General Stevens bivouacked three miles in front of that point, and on the following day was thrown forward to guard Raccoon Ford, on the Rapidan River, which he held with a strong detachment, placing his division a mile and a half back in support.
Pope’s bombastic orders, and his invitation to forage on the enemy, greatly increased straggling and relaxed discipline among his troops. General Stevens ordered roll-calls at every halt, and at the end of every day’s march; reports of stragglers made daily, and prompt and severe punishment inflicted upon such delinquents and upon plunderers, and sternly stopped the evil in its inception. The 46th New York, a German regiment, where even the commands at drill were given in German, loaded some of its supply-wagons with lager beer on leaving Fredericksburg, leaving behind a good part of their rations, having some vague notion of living off the country. General Stevens at once had all the lager thrown into the road, and the wagons sent back for the abandoned rations. The indignation of Colonel Rosa and his officers rose to such a pitch over this summary loss of their beloved beverage that they tendered their resignations in a body, with a grandiloquent letter from the colonel. But General Stevens emphatically assured them that they must remain and do their duty as soldiers during the campaign, and took no further notice of their insubordinate and unsoldierly action.
VIRGINIA—POTOMAC TO RAPIDAN RIVER
On the 9th, only a week before the arrival of the two divisions of the ninth corps, the severe fight of Cedar Mountain occurred between Banks’s corps and Jackson. The latter, although victor on the field by force of numbers, was so badly crippled that he withdrew behind the Rapidan the second day after the battle. Pope, on receiving these reinforcements, advanced to the line of that river, and General Stevens held his extreme left, a cavalry picket only watching Germanna Ford, the next below Raccoon. The army, officially known as the Army of Virginia, consisted of the corps of McDowell, Banks, and Sigel, and numbered forty thousand effective. The ninth corps troops added eight thousand more, and heavy reinforcements from the Army of the Potomac were on their way, so that, if Pope could only hold his ground a few days, both armies would be united in his advanced Position.