Upon leaving the steamer, the regiment marched the distance of a mile from the wharf, into a fine grass-field near the wagon-road. By this time it was quite dark; the night was warm, and the men made few complaints at being compelled to sleep without tents. Just as they were going off into a sound sleep, some wag, whose love of fun was still active, cried out to the guard, “Put up the bars there, by the road; if you don’t, we shall all catch our death-colds before morning!” This was the signal for a hearty laugh, the merriment of the occasion being heightened by the actual putting up of the bars.
CHAPTER XVI.
March to the Front—Fair Oaks—Assigned to the Irish Brigade—Hard Service—Sharpshooting—The Affair of June 15, and Death of Brown—The Woodchopping Affair—Battle of Gaines’ Mill—The Retreat—Battles of Peach Orchard and Savage’s Station—Destruction of Stores—Burning of the Train of Cars.
On the morning of the 8th of June, the regiment was for the first time supplied with shelter-tents. These consisted of two pieces of cloth, each about six feet long and three and one-half feet wide, so made as to button together, the two parts overlapping and thus shedding water. One tent was issued to every two men, each man carrying his half in his knapsack. There were no ends to this slight covering, and hence the name shelter-tent. At about four o’clock in the afternoon of this day, the regiment started for the front, marching a distance of some seven miles on the Richmond and York River Railroad, halting at night, and going into camp on a slight elevation of ground near the track. After breakfast on the following morning, the march towards the front was resumed. The destination of the regiment was Fair Oaks, about seven miles from Richmond. Fair Oaks Mas the centre of the Union line, and was held by the corps of General Sumner. The march was performed on the railroad, a distance of about thirteen miles, and was accomplished by two o’clock in the afternoon. Upon reaching the lines, the regiment was halted in a piece of plowed ground, some thirty yards or more in front of the grove of graceful oaks that gave the place its name, and just on the edge of the forest in which were stationed our pickets.
This was the battle-ground of June 1, one of the severest battles of the campaign, the effects of which were still apparent. The trunks of the trees were literally filled with bullets, while the little white cottage then occupied by General Sumner was perforated with shots of various sizes. Many of the enemy’s dead in the adjacent forest were still unburied, and the sickening odors that came from it were almost unendurable. The regiment had some days before been ordered to join General Sumner’s corps, and on this day it was, by the following order, attached to Brigadier-General Thomas Francis Meagher’s brigade:—
“Headquarters Richardson’s Division, } “Camp at Fair Oaks, Va., June 9, 1862. }
“Special Order No. —.
“The Twenty-ninth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers is hereby assigned to the brigade of General Meagher.
“By command of Brigadier-General Richardson.
“John M. Nowell, A. A. G.”
This brigade was better known as the “Irish Brigade,” and was composed of the Sixty-third, Sixty-ninth, and Eighty-eighth New York regiments,—all Irish. The Brigade had fought gallantly at Fair Oaks on the first of June, where it had lost heavily; and the Sixty-ninth, now commanded by Colonel Robert Nugent,[29] a fine soldier, had distinguished itself at Bull Run. At the time of the assignment of the Twenty-ninth Regiment to this brigade, the latter was in need of recruitment, having lost a good many of its men by battle and disease; but it had been desired by its officers to fill up its depleted ranks by the addition of another Irish regiment. Although the Twenty-ninth was essentially an American regiment, very largely composed of and officered by men who were direct descendants of the early settlers of the Plymouth and Bay colonies,—one of its members, indeed, being a lineal descendant of Miles Standish,—yet it was cordially welcomed to the Brigade by its old officers and members.
The night of the 9th of June was cold and stormy; at sundown the men pitched their tents; but an order soon came directing that they be struck at once, as they had already been seen by the enemy, and had attracted his fire. The storm lasted all night, and the men were compelled to lie exposed to a pelting rain, upon a bed of mud. No rations were issued to the regiment till the night of the 10th, its members in the meantime being obliged to depend for food upon the generosity of the other regiments of the Brigade. The levelling effect of field life was curiously apparent here. It was an honor, but not a material advantage, to be an officer under these circumstances. The writer remembers seeing the lamented Major of the regiment sitting on his horse some time during the second day, at the front, wet to his skin, shivering from the cold, and asking and receiving from a more fortunate private, a drink of hot coffee from a very black-looking tin dipper.
The two armies were very near each other at this place, only a half-mile of woods intervening; and in these woods were the Union and Confederate pickets, stationed behind trees and logs; in some places the hostile lines being less than twenty yards apart. The nearness of the pickets to each other resulted in almost constant firing, which was very destructive, hardly an hour elapsing from sunrise to sunset without some poor soldier being borne from the forest reeking in blood, and not seldom pallid and lifeless. To add to the horrors of this life, the sharpshooters of the enemy, stationed in tall pines and in their rifle-pits, fired with almost unerring aim at every moving object; and at irregular intervals, during both night and day, the enemy’s batteries threw shot and shell into our lines.