The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy

by Henry Martyn Kieffer

The next day we crossed the James in steamboats. There were thousands of men in blue all along both shores; some were crossing, some were already over, and others were awaiting their turn. By the middle of the forenoon we were all well over, and it has been said that, had we pushed on without delay, the story of the siege of Petersburg would have read quite differently. But we waited,—for provisions, I believe,—and during this halt the whole corps took a grand swim in the river. We marched off at three o'clock in the afternoon, over a dusty road and without fresh water, and reached the neighborhood of Petersburg at midnight, but did not get into position until after several days of hard fighting in the woods.

It would be impossible to give a clear and interesting account of the numerous engagements in which we took part around that long-beleaguered city, where for ten months the two great armies of the North and South sat down to watch and fight each other until the end came. For, after days and days of manœuvring and fighting, attack and sally, it became evident that Petersburg could not be carried by storm, and there was nothing for it but to sit down stubbornly, and, by cutting off all railroad supplies and communications, starve it into surrender.

It may be interesting, however, to tell something of the everyday life and experience of our soldiers during that great siege.

Finding a Wounded Picket in a Rifle-Pit.

Digging becomes almost an instinct with the experienced soldier. It is surprising how rapidly men in the field throw up fortifications, how the work progresses, and what immense results can be accomplished by a body of troops in a single night. Let two armies fight in the open field one evening—by the next morning both are strongly intrenched behind rifle-pits and breastworks, which it will cost either side much blood to storm and take. If spades and picks are at hand when there is need of fortifications, well; if not, bayonets, tin cups, plates, even jack-knives, are pressed into service until better tools arrive; and every man works like a beaver.

Thus it was that although throughout the 18th of June the fighting had been severe, yet, in spite of weariness and darkness, we set to work, and the morning found us behind breastworks; these we soon so enlarged and improved that they became well-nigh impregnable. At that part of the line where our regiment was stationed, we built solid works of great pine-logs, rolled up, log on log, seven feet high and banked with earth on the side toward the enemy, the whole being ten feet through at the base. On the inside of these breastworks we could walk about perfectly safe from the enemy's bullets, which usually went singing harmlessly over our heads.

On the outside of these works were further defences. First, there was the ditch made by throwing up the ground against the logs; then, farther out, about twenty or thirty yards away, was the abatis—a peculiar means of defence made by cutting off the tops and heavy limbs of trees, sharpening the ends, and planting them firmly in the ground in a long row, the sharpened ends pointing toward the enemy, the whole being so close and so compacted together with telegraph-wires everywhere twisted in, that it was impossible for a line of battle to get through it without being cut off to a man. Here and there, at intervals, were left gaps wide enough to admit a single man, and it was through these man-holes that the pickets passed out to their pits beyond.

Fifty yards in front of the abatis the pickets were stationed. When first the siege began, picketing was dangerous business. Both armies were bent on fight, and picketing meant simply sharpshooting. As a consequence, at first the pickets were posted only at night, so that from midnight to midnight the poor fellows lay in their rifle-pits under a broiling July sun, with no protection from the intolerable heat, excepting the scanty shade of a little pine-brush erected overhead, or in front of the pit as a screen. There the picket lay, flat on his face, picking off the enemy's men whenever he could catch sight of a head, or even so much as a hand; and right glad would he be if, when the long-awaited relief came at length, he had no wounds to show.