History of the Nineteenth Army Corps

by Richard B. Irwin

No regiment at Port Hudson approached the 8th New Hampshire in the number and severity of its losses, no brigade suffered so much as Paine's, to which this regiment belonged, and no division so much as Emory's, under the command of Paine. On this day, Fearing commanded the brigade, and later the division, and Lull having fallen in the previous assault, the regiment went into action 217 strong, led by Captain William M. Barrett; of this number, 122, or 56 per cent., were killed or wounded. On the 27th of May, out of 298 engaged, the regiment lost 124, or 41 per cent.

Next to the 8th New Hampshire on the fatal roll stands the 4th Wisconsin. This noble regiment, at all times an honor to the service and to its State, whence came so many splendid battalions, was a shining monument to the virtue of steady, conscientious work and strict discipline applied to good material. Bean had been instantly killed by a sharp-shooter on the 29th of May; the regiment went into action on the 14th of June 220 strong, commanded by Captain Webster P. Moore; of these, 140 fell, or 63 per cent. In the first assault, however, it had fared better, its losses numbering but 60.

The eccentric Currie, who came to the service from the British army, with the lustre of the Crimea still about him, rather brightened than dimmed by time and distance, fell severely wounded on the same fatal crest. He was struck down at the head of his regiment, boldly leading his men and urging them forward with the quaint cry of "Get on, lads!" so well known to English soldiers, yet so unfamiliar to all Americans as to draw many a smile, even in that grim moment, from those who heard it.

To the cannonade that preceded the assault and announced it to the enemy must be attributed not only the failure but a great part of the loss. The wearied Confederates were asleep behind the breastworks when the roar of the Union artillery broke the stillness of the morning, and gave them time to make ready. Such was their extremity that in Grover's front they burned their last caps in repelling the final assault, and, for the time, were able to replenish only from the pouches of the fallen.

Under cover of night all the wounded that were able to walk or crawl made their way to places of safety in the rear; while, disregarding the incessant fire of the sharp-shooters, heavy details and volunteer parties of stretcher-bearers, plying their melancholy trade, carried the wounded with gentle care to the hospitals and the dead swiftly to the long trenches. The proportion of killed and mortally wounded, already unusually heavy, was increased by the exposure and privations of the long day, while many, whom it was impossible to find or reach during the night, succumbed sooner or later during the next forty-eight hours. For although when, on the morning of the 15th, Banks sent a flag of truce asking leave to send in medical and hospital supplies for the comfort of the wounded of both armies, Gardner promptly assented, and in his reply called attention to the condition of the dead and wounded before the breastworks, yet it was not until the evening of the 16th that Banks could bring himself to ask for a suspension of hostilities for the relief of the suffering and the burial of the slain. But three days and two nights had already passed; most of the hurt, and these the most grievously, were already beyond the need of succor. The same thing had already occurred at Vicksburg.

The operations at Vicksburg and Port Hudson were so far alike in their character and objects that no just estimate of the events at either place can well be formed without considering what happened at the other. In this view it is instructive to observe that Grant assaulted the Confederate position at Vicksburg within a few hours after the arrival of his troops in front of the place, on the afternoon of the 19th of May, when two determined attacks were easily thrown off by the defenders, with a loss to their assailants of 942 men. On the 22d of May Grant delivered the second assault, in which about three fourths of his whole effective force of 43,000 of all arms were engaged. The full corps of Sherman and McPherson, comprising six divisions, were repulsed by four brigades of the garrison, numbering probably 13,000 effectives. In this second assault Grant's loss was 3,199. These are the reasons he gives for his decision to attack:

"Johnston was in my rear, only fifty miles away, with an army not much in inferior in numbers to the one I had with me, and I knew he was being reinforced. There was danger of his coming to the assistance of Pemberton, and, after all, he might defeat my anticipations of capturing the garrison, if, indeed, he did not prevent the capture of the city. The immediate capture of Vicksburg would save sending me the reinforcements which were so much wanted elsewhere, and would set free the army under me to drive Johnston from the State. But the first consideration of all was—the troops believed they could carry the works in their front, and they would not have worked so patiently in their trenches if they had not been allowed to try."

Having tried, he now "determined upon a regular siege—to 'outcamp the enemy,' as it were, and to incur no more losses. The experience of the 22d convinced officers and men that this was best, and they went to work on the defences and approaches with a will."(1)

It has also to be remembered, in any fair and candid consideration of the subject, that at this comparatively early period of the war even such bloody lessons as Fredericksburg had not sufficed to teach either the commanders or their followers on either side, Federal or Confederate, the full value, computed in time, of even a simple line of breastworks of low relief, or the cost in blood of any attempt to eliminate this value of time by carrying the works at a rush. Indeed, it may be doubted whether, from the beginning of the war to the end, this reasoning, in spite of all castigations that resulted from disregarding it, was ever fully impressed upon the generals of either army, although at last there came, it is true, a time when, as at Cold Harbor, the men had an opinion of their own, and chose to act upon it. It is also very questionable whether earthworks manned by so much as a line of skirmishers, prepared and determined to defend them, have ever been successfully assaulted save as the result of a surprise. Sedgwick's captures of the Rappanhannock redoubts and of Marye's Heights have indeed been cited as instances to the contrary, yet on closer consideration it is apparent that although in the former case the Confederates had been looking for an attack, they had given up all expectation of being called on to meet it that day, when, just at sunset, Russell fell suddenly upon them and finished the affair handsomely before they had time to recover. Marye's Heights, again, may be described as a moral surprise, for no Confederate officer or man that had witnessed the bloody repulse of Burnside's great army on the very same ground, but a few weeks before, could have expected to be called on so soon to meet the swift and triumphant onset of a single corps of that army. Moreover, Sedgwick's tactical arrangements were perfect.

The truth is, the insignificant appearance of a line of simple breastworks has almost always caused those general and staff-officers especially that viewed them through their field-glasses, with the diminishing power of a long perspective, to forget that an assault upon an enemy behind entrenchments is not so much a battle as a battue, where one side stands to shoot and the other goes out to be shot, or if he stops to shoot it is in plain sight of an almost invisible foe. European examples, as usual misapplied or misunderstood, have contributed largely to the persistency of this fatal illusion, and Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos have served but as incantations to confuse many a mind to which these sounding syllables were no more than names; ignorant, therefore, of the stern necessities that drove Wellington to these victories, forgetful of their fearful cost, and above all ignoring or forgetting the axiom, on which rests the whole art and science of military engineering—that the highest and stoutest of stone walls must yield at last to the smallest trench through which a man may creep unseen. Vast, indeed, is the difference between an assault upon a walled town, delivered as a last resort after crowning the glacis and opening wide the breach, and any conceivable movement, though bearing the same name, made as the first resort, against earthworks of the very kind whereby walled towns are taken, approached over ground unknown and perhaps obstructed.