The Sword and Gun: A History of the 37th Wis. Volunteer Infantry

by R. C. Eden

The same evening the brigade was moved out on to the Boydton Plankroad where the men were allowed a brief rest after a week of duty, which had pretty well tired us all out, both officers and men. It is true that we had had little or no marching, and only one day's fighting, but the continual state of tension in which our nerves were kept all that time, and the want of rest, made us all glad of a respite from our labors.

We remained camped near the city till the 6th of the month, Col. Ely, commanding 2d brigade, 1st division, 9th army corps, being appointed Military Governor of the same, Brevet Major General Wilcox, commanding the district. We found the inhabitants, for the most part, orderly and well disposed, though a few cases of outrage towards our troops occurred which were as much deprecated and resented by the more orderly and well behaved portion of the community, as by us.

Petersburg is a remarkably neat and pretty city, situated on the Appomattox River, about ten miles above its confluence with the James at City Point. Before the war it contained somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty thousand inhabitants, though at the time of our occupation of it, its population scarcely numbered over fifteen thousand. It was originally a trading post, established by one Peters, for traffic with the Indians, and in process of time, and as the country became settled, became a place of trade for the settlers in the vicinity. The original town was located about where the cemetery at Blandford now stands, and for a time, was known as Peter's, afterwards as Pocahontas, this latter name being still given to a hamlet across the river, forming a suburb of the city. The name was finally changed to Petersburg which it retains to this day; it is situated principally in Dinwiddie county, and is the principal tobacco shipping point in the South. The neighboring counties of Prince George and Pocahontas, have a fertile, highly productive soil, raising corn, tobacco, sugar-cane and cotton as well as wheat, barley, oats and other cereals. It has railroad communications with Richmond, distant twenty-five miles, Burkesville sixty miles, Weldon, N. C., seventy-five miles, Norfolk and Suffolk sixty-three miles, and a short railroad also connects it with City Point, its port of entry, to which place there is easy access, from the coast, for vessels drawing fifteen feet of water.

There are several large cotton, flour, and lumber mills erected on the rapids of the Appomattox, which furnish an unequalled water power, as yet only partially developed, and a proper attention paid to which would largely increase the wealth and importance of the place. The streets are wide and straight, nicely ornamented with shade trees, and the public buildings, for the most part, well designed and well finished. In hotels the city is rather deficient, there being but one decent one, the Jarrett House, in the whole place. Sycamore street, the principal business street of the city, contains a few fine buildings and stores, and quite a number of handsome residences.

The stores were mostly closed on our arrival, and but few of them had much of a stock on hand, Confederate scrip having for a long time been quoted "low" and the supply scant. On the Saturday preceding the Monday on which we arrived in the city, flour had been sold at $1,400 a barrel, wood $50 a cord and other necessaries of life in proportion. The lower part of the city bore severe traces of the siege, hardly a house being unmarked by either shot or shell. The gas works were nearly torn to pieces, a long chimney, eighty-five feet in height, which had once formed part of the building, having been thrown down a short time before our arrival, after having received thirty-five shells through it in different places. The clock on the Town Hall had also been perforated by a three inch shell, though strange to say, the missile had not damaged the works in the least. Two bridges across the Appomattox and three large warehouses full of tobacco, had been set on fire and destroyed by the rebels when they evacuated. A fine strong bridge leading across the river, from the South Side railroad depot to the railway company's machine shop, had been loaded with two new locomotives and all the cars that could be placed on it, and then set fire to, cars and locomotives being thus precipitated into the river.

A large quantity of commissary stores, consisting of corn meal, bacon, coffee, (unroasted,) sugar and tobacco, was found in the rebel government warehouses and were afterwards issued to the destitute citizens, irrespective of color. Captain John Cooper, of the 5th Wisconsin, was appointed C. S., and the scene in his office, from daylight till dark, was a novel one.

Ladies of the first family type, clothed in deepest black, with a sullen, defiant look on their handsome faces, sometimes closely veiled; Africa, of all shades, from the genuine sable "mungo," with skin like polished ebony, and showing from between his extended gums a formidable array of ivory, to the graceful quadroon, hardly a shade darker, and very often a great deal handsomer than her late mistress, standing within a few feet of one another, all jubilant and triumphant, all rejoicing in their new found freedom, kind and polite to the boys in blue, their liberators, and obsequious, to a degree, to shoulder straps. Poor things, what their future may be, we know not, but they can never know a happier day in their lives, than when, there on the third of April, 1865, the fetters fell from their hands, as from Paul and Silas in prison, and they stood, for the first time in their lives, free men and women.

On the 6th of April, the 1st division, 9th army corps, was relieved from duty in Petersburg, and moved out on the line of the South Side Railroad, having its headquarters at Burkesville, and the corps being strung along the road from that place to Petersburg. The 37th moved out at daylight and camped about dark near Ford's Station, from whence they were afterwards removed to beyond Wellsville and in the neighborhood of Black's and White's, where they remained till after the surrender of Lee and Johnston and their armies, guarding the railroad and the farms and plantations adjoining, and administering, as far as our commissariat would permit, to the wants of the adjacent population.

Overrun and devastated by two contending armies, the once rich country, surrounding Petersburg and Richmond, is to-day a wilderness. Not only have the crops been swept off to supply the wants of the Confederate soldiers, but the cattle and horses have been also absorbed for the same purpose. Fences have been torn down and burnt, houses, sheds and barns stripped of their coverings to furnish huts for winter quarters, and the whole country converted into a scene of devastation and ruin. Deserters from both armies have formed bands of guerrillas for the purposes of plunder and pillage, men from the opposing armies having in some cases associated together for this purpose.