Hardtack and coffee

by John Davis Billings

The chess party now step to the front and cover the balks with flooring to within one foot of the ponton. Meanwhile the boat-party has launched another ponton, dropped anchor in the proper place, and brought it alongside the first: the balk party, also ready with another bay of balks, lay them for the lashing party to make fast; the boat being then pushed off broadside-to as before, and the free end of the balks lashed so as to project six inches over the shore gunwale of the first boat. By this plan it may be seen that each balk and bay of balks completely spans two pontons. This gives the bridge a firm foundation. The chess party continue their operations, as before, to within a foot of the second boat. And now, when the third bay of the bridge is begun, the side-rail party appears, placing their rails on the chesses over the outside balks, to which they firmly lash them, the chesses being so constructed that the lashings pass between them for this purpose.

The foregoing operations are repeated bay after bay till the bridge reaches the farther shore, when the building of another abutment and its approaches completes the main part of the work. It then remains to scatter the roadway of the bridge with a light covering of hay, or straw, or sand, to protect it from wear, and, perhaps, some straightening here and tightening there may be necessary, but the work is now done, and all of the personnel and matériel may cross with perfect safety. No rapid movements are allowed, however, and man and beast must pass over at a walk. A guard of the engineers is posted at the abutment, ordering “Route step!” “Route step!” as the troops strike the bridge, and sentries, at intervals, repeat the caution further along. By keeping the cadence in crossing, the troops would subject the bridge to a much greater strain, and settle it deeper in the water. It was shown over and over again that nothing so tried the bridge as a column of infantry. The current idea is that the artillery and the trains must have given it the severest test, which was not the case.

In taking up a bridge, the order adopted was the reverse of that followed in laying it, beginning with the end next the enemy, and carrying the chess and balks back to the other shore by hand. The work was sometimes accelerated by weighing all anchors, and detaching the bridge from the further abutment, allow it to swing bodily around to the hither shore to be dismantled. One instance is remembered when this manœuvre was executed with exceeding despatch. It was after the army had recrossed the Rappahannock, following the battle of Chancellorsville. So nervous were the engineers lest the enemy should come upon them at their labors they did not even wait to pull up anchors, but cut every cable and cast loose, glad enough to see their flotilla on the retreat after the army, and more delighted still not to be attacked by the enemy during the operation,—so says one of their number.

One writer on the war speaks of the engineers as grasping “not the musket but the hammer,” a misleading remark, for not a nail is driven into the bridge at any point.

A PONTOON BRIDGE AT BELLE PLAIN, VA. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

When the Army of the Potomac retreated from before Richmond in 1862 it crossed the lower Chickahominy on a bridge of boats and rafts 1980 feet long. This was constructed by three separate working parties, employed at the same time, one engaged at each end and one in the centre. It was the longest bridge built in the war, of which I have any knowledge, save one, and that the bridge built across the James, below Wilcox’s Landing, in 1864. This latter was a remarkable achievement in ponton engineering. It was over two thousand feet long, and the channel boats were firmly anchored in thirteen fathoms of water. The engineers began it during the forenoon of June 14, and completed the task at midnight. It was built under the direction of General Benham for the passage of the wagon-trains and a part of the troops, while the rest crossed in steamers and ferry-boats.

But ponton bridges were not always laid without opposition or interference from the enemy. Perhaps they made the most stubborn contest to prevent the laying of the bridges across the Rappahannock before Fredericksburg in December, 1862.