The History of the Twenty-ninth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry / in the Late War of the Rebellion

by William H. Osborne

As usual, all this rage was utterly impotent, and indulged in as a sacred privilege. It operated something like a cushion, however, lessening the severity of impact with a hard surface; to use less elegant language, it “let them down easily.” The lesson of implicit obedience to orders—not unquestioning, for volunteer soldiers were never without their mental reservations as to the propriety of every military movement—had already, and long since, been thoroughly learned. On the 29th of November, when the weather was quite cold and cheerless, the Ninth Corps was ordered to march. The men little dreamed that they were going back to the old blood-stained trenches in front of Petersburg, where they had borne the heat of the summer, and faced the shells of a hundred mortars and as many cannon. Here, however, they soon found themselves, and as they moved along over the battle-field of the 17th of June, and among the graves of their brothers who died for their country there, more than one eye was wet with the tears of manly sorrow. The regiment was ordered to do duty as the garrison of Battery No. 11, a small ravelin covering about three-fourths of an acre, having embrasures for two guns, but no guns being mounted. About two hundred yards from this work was Battery No. 12, a large redoubt mounting four cohorns, garrisoned by a portion of the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery. On the right of Battery No. 11, one hundred and twenty-five yards distant, was Fort Stedman, held by the Fourteenth New York Heavy Artillery; and a little to the rear and left of Battery No. 11 was the Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Volunteers: while to the left of Battery No. 12, and between it and Fort Haskell, was the One Hundredth Pennsylvania Volunteers; and at the right of Fort Stedman, the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts Regiment.

The pickets of both armies were stationed in rifle-pits large enough to hold several men, midway between the respective lines, and these were approached by covered ways.

Though under fire much of the time, the men found opportunity to build quarters, and so far as protection from the cold was concerned, were quite comfortable during the winter. As in the winter of 1863, while the regiment was before Fredericksburg, the pickets of the two armies became friendly; but as these familiarities were strictly forbidden, they were never indulged in except at night.

The members of our regiment performed their full share of picket service, and, like all the rest of our troops, had frequent parleys with the Confederates. A member of the regiment has furnished the writer with a detailed statement of several of the interviews which took place on the picket line, from which it appears that this service was a source of more amusement than danger.

When everything was quiet, one of our men would call out, “Johnnies, have you got any tobacco?” “Yes Yanks; have you got any hard-tack?” was the common answer. “Meet you half-way,” says the Confederate. “All right; come on!” say our men. Then three or four men from each side would leave the pits, crawl out over the space between the two lines, shake hands, have an exchange of tobacco, hard-tack, and talk, crack jokes, and separate with the understanding, that, as soon as each party got back to the pits, they should commence firing, for the purpose of misleading their respective officers.

This state of things was finally discovered by the Confederate and Federal officers, and was terminated by strict orders forbidding the practice under severe penalties. But the practice, though not worthy to be encouraged, resulted in bringing about numerous desertions from the enemy’s camp.

The proclamation of General Grant, encouraging desertions among the Confederates, was, by means of these forbidden interviews, extensively circulated, and scarcely a night passed, during the months of January and February, which did not witness more or less of these desertions.

The Twenty-ninth had been very much reduced in numbers, having less than two hundred muskets; and yet, because of its long and conspicuous service, General Parke, commanding the corps, refused to consolidate it with some other larger Massachusetts regiment, and allowed it to retain a full list of field-officers, only one of whom, under the then existing rules of the War Department, could be mustered. Captain Willard D. Tripp, who had been commissioned as Lieutenant-Colonel, October 12, 1864, had been mustered out on the 13th of December, 1864, his term of service having expired. Captain Charles D. Browne was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, October 14, 1864; Captain Charles T. Richardson commissioned as Major, August 9, 1864, and mustered as such; and Captain Thomas William Clarke commissioned as Colonel, November 8, 1864. During the winter, Colonel Clarke was assigned to duty upon the staff of General Hartranft, commanding the division; Lieutenant-Colonel Browne made Inspector of the division; and Major Richardson had command of the regiment.

No event of particular significance occurred till the 25th of March, 1865. Long before daylight in the morning of this day, a large force of the enemy—afterwards learned to be the corps of General Gordon, supported by the division of General Bushrod Johnson—crossed the level plain between Fort Stedman and the Appomattox River, fully a quarter of a mile to the right of Battery No. 11, and the entire storming party effected a wide breach in the works, and moved directly upon Fort Stedman, entering the rear sally-port almost undiscovered. So complete was the surprise, that the fort was captured at once. Slight firing was heard from this direction by the garrison in Battery Eleven; whereupon Major Richardson caused the men to be aroused, but the firing was so slight, that when the regiment was ordered to “fall in,” the sentinel stationed on the top of the parapet called out that there was “no attack.” The men were not dismissed, however, and stood silently in line for some time, peering into the gray, frosty air of the morning, the Major taking a position on the top of the works, listening intently, and looking down into the ravine below, where he saw his trusty pickets standing quietly by their fires, apparently unaware of any disturbance on the main line. But the commanding officer soon became satisfied that there was an attack in the direction of Fort Stedman; the right curtain of Battery Eleven was re-enforced, and the bugler Pond having sounded the alarm, the garrison was wholly prepared to repel any attack. Up to this time, no general alarm had been sounded along the line, and no word from any source, indicating an attack, had been received by Major Richardson; much less that the line had been broken, or that any danger lurked in his rear. The regiment had remained in line of battle nearly thirty minutes, when suddenly the men in the right curtain commenced firing; they were ordered to cease, lest they should shoot our own pickets, who had begun to come in. The latter order had hardly been given, when some of our soldiers cried out, “The Johnnies are coming in at the rear sally-port!” This was the first positive information that the garrison had received of an attack; but the worst was revealed now,—the enemy had actually captured Fort Stedman, and though our pickets under Lieutenant Josselyn had not been disturbed, yet at least five hundred of Gordon’s and Johnson’s troops had suddenly appeared in our rear. These veteran soldiers of the Confederacy were destined, however, to meet with a stubborn resistance; a hand-to-hand encounter at once began; a Massachusetts battery stationed at the left joined in the desperate conflict, which, in the course of fifteen minutes, ended in the capture by our regiment of three hundred and fifty of the storming party, at least one hundred and fifty more than the whole number of the Twenty-ninth, and the temporary closing of the gap in this part of our lines.

During this encounter, the officers and men behaved with signal bravery. Captain Taylor was especially conspicuous, using a musket, and dealing powerful blows with its breech. Major Richardson, mingling with his men, was in the thickest of the fight, and received a terrible blow on the head from an enemy’s musket, sufficient to overcome an ordinary man; but he was not an ordinary man, and so far from quitting the fight, he kept on in the desperate struggle, cheering his men, and assuring them that the day was theirs.