THE TRENCHES BEFORE PETERSBURG. BURNSIDE’S MINE. “OUR
MINE.” THE FRESHET. PICKLED-TRIPE AND WATER-MELONS.
TO NEW BERNE. STEAMER FAWN.
From the 20th of June to the 25th of Aug., ‘64, the regiment was in the trenches before Petersburg. They were, of course, not all the time in the very front, where men were shot through the head for peering through the loopholes left for rifles; where they bartered coffee and tobacco in the morning and exchanged bullets all day; where the head-board along the works, meant to screen the riflemen when taking aim, was riddled like a sieve; where they threw hand-grenades and got them back whenever they failed to explode. Somewhat less than half the time, the regiment was at the rear, either in the comparative security of the camp, or in a sort of half-way Purgatory, whence it could help the skirmishers if pressed.
Such a life must have been full of incident, but the diarists fail to give it. Either the contempt bred upon the familiarity of veterans, or the difficulty of comfortable writing, make such diaries as I have seen very dull reading. Surgeon Whittier has been good enough to prepare a sketch of the regimental history during his connection with the 23rd. From this and other sources, I have been able to compile a tolerably connected history of the Regimental experiences for those parts, at least, of the last year when something was happening out of the monotonies routine of life in camp, or at the small outpost stallions.
The grim humor of the situation may, perhaps, excuse the narration of one incident. A clump of small trees, between the lines, interfered with our fire and afforded shelter to the enemy; a party was sent out, after dark, to chop them down. They forgot that the ear may learn what is veiled to the eye. The first blows of the axes drew the fire from the enemy’s skirmishers. Of course, this fire was speedily returned from our side, and the chopping party, between two fires, had need to look for shelter. What seemed, in the half-light, rifle-pits deserted by the enemy were close at hand. Our men jumped into them, and stayed there in safety till the firing. was over. But, another sense came into play. As they lay low to escape the whizzing bullets, their noses informed them that the rebels did not dig, nor use, those holes for rifle—pits. The situation was horrible, but the alternative was worse. After that, they could make no exceptions to the adage “any port in a storm “of lead.
About the 1st of July, Capt. Raymond of G,’ who, since we had lost Col. Chambers and Maj. Brewster was disabled by his wound, was, practically, tin command of the regiment, had another, and perhaps, the closest of his escapes from serious injury. I do not forget that the bullet which, hitting him in the head at Drury’s Bluff left him, for a time, unconscious, or the missile which passed just below his right armpit, grazing his thorax and arm, at Cold Harbor, came very near his life. This time the immediate disability was more lasting, and the remote effects have never disappeared.
A few feet to the rear of the trenches, where the men spent their tour of duty, a pit had been dug for the accommodation of the officers. It was square, a few feet deep, and had forked stakes at the corners to hold a sun-screen of green boughs. On the sides towards the enemy, logs rested against the corner-posts, a sort of revetment to holdup the earth thrown out in excavating. Two or three steps were cut in the stiff clay for easier access. Sitting on the bank near the stairs, and leaning against the log revetment, the Captain was reading a letter in fancied security. A shot or shell, from some rebel gun, plunged through the heaped earth, struck the log on which the Captain’s shoulders rested, and threw him against the sharp-angled abutment of the stairs, and so to the bottom of the pit, where it left him covered with a confusion of logs, clay and boughs.
Examination proved a rib broken, another bent and a third bruised. Reason enough with most men, for recourse to the hospital and sick leave. Not so thought Capt. Raymond, who submitted indeed to the bandaging, but insisted that he could not be spared, and that his cure would progress as well in the trenches as anywhere else.
With the 29th and 30th of July came the regiment’s share, which was very slight, in the fiasco of Burnside’s mine.
“We were not relieved this evening but left the pits. The skirmish line and second line of works only are still held. Most of the troops are moving towards the left of the line. A fort is to be blown up. About 1 A. M. we started for the right of the 5th corps, where we were ordered to lie down in line till called for. At 480 A.M., we needed no calling. When the fort blew up it jarred the ground, and every man on to his feet in a moment. I thought the ground under me was caving in. We were held in reserve at the second line. The fire was the hottest and heaviest I ever heard.
While waiting, in line of battle, for the momentarily expected order to advance, some distant rebel force began firing at the regiment. One of our men , a little shorter than Dr.Whittier and standing just in front of him, was hit and fell into the Doctor’s arms. When asked whether He was badly hurt he spat out a mouthful of blood, expletives, teeth and a bullet which had broken two teeth and stopped without further harm. The Doctor fully appreciates the good luck, for him, which kept that bullet from exploring among the arteries of his own neck.
5 Aug., ‘84. The date of what is sometimes called, by way of distinction “our mine.” The subjoined account from the New York Herald is a graphic account of the affair in a general way. Serge. Andrews oft A ‘adds some interesting detail and more minute topography.
H. Qr., 18th Corps. In the Field, 5 Aug, Mid.
“From numerous deserters, that have entered our lines within the last week, it had been discovered that the rebels were mining in several places on our front. We were, therefore, fully prepared, though somewhat surprised, when at about five o’clock yesterday afternoon, a mine blew up between our line and that of the enemy, the explosion being immediately succeeded by rapid arid successive volleys of musketry. The smoke front the explosion had hardly cleared away, when our men answered the rebel fire and drowned the rebel yell with their wild cheers of derision, at the failure of their mining operations. The enemy had, in all probability, intended to blow up a sap we had run out towards their line, and charge through the opening. They had, however, sadly miscalculated the distance. The explosion took place five rods in advance of the head of’ the sap. Not a particle of the debit was thrown into any portion of our lines, and the sharpshooters did not even think it necessary to abandon the sap. A mass of dirt, nearly 80 feet in diameter was thrown into the air to the height of nearly 100 feet. The enemy, seeing their mine a failure, satisfied themselves with rising behind their works and pouring in heavy musketry, mostly on Ames’s front. The losses on our side were hardly greater than on an ordinary day’s picket-firing.”
Our second line, at this point, was among trees on the rebel-ward slope of a hill. The intervening valley was crossed by a zigzag. The rebels were a few feet beyond the crest of the next hill, and our skirmishers in various pits and gopher-holes on its acclivity. A small log-house, on the line of our works, was well riddled with all manner of missiles, but, perhaps, added something to the security of two bomb-proofs, so called (holes for shelter from direct fire arid offering sonic protection from the flying bits of shells), near it. Here, for some days before the mine was sprung, the ear applied to the logs in the works, or, better still, to a ramrod thrust into the earth, could detect the sounds of digging. This part of the line, held by a small party representing three companies of the 23rd (and, of these, Co.F ‘by one Corporal, was separated from the rest of the regiment by lower ground, so swampy that it had been left unfortified, and, of course, unoccupied.
The mine was more directly opposite that part of the line held by the rest of the regiment. They were, in fact, running the sap which the rebels tried to blow up. Even here, although the shock of the explosion threw down the gabions upon the men at work in the sap, very little of the material thrown up by the mine fell, within our lines. Something, however, knocked Capt. Raymond over into the puddle at the bottom of our trench whence he scrambled up to direct the defense. Not till mouths afterwards did he learn, what puzzled him for the rest of the day, how one of his shoulders became so wet.
During most of the regiment’s duty in the trenches, Dr. Whittier kept up a hospital on a hill to the rear. Here men, too badly used-up for duty at the front, found rest in a good air and comparative safety and received better care than they could find in the crowded base hospitals. There were, usually, thirty or forty of them, but the individuals were constantly changing, as a few days treatment would generally put them in good trim and courage to return to their duty.
15 Aug., ‘64. The great shower, so disastrous in some parts of the line, occurred while the 23rd was in the front line. Here they suffered no greater harm than a thorough wetting, which, however, was more endurable in the open than in the bomb-proofs whose leaky roofs streaked them with yellow mud. The rain, moreover, filled the excavations, turning bomb-proofs to cisterns and zigzags to canals, thereby giving those who must move from place to place the choice whether to be drowned or shot. In one place, our boys got some satisfaction by helping the accumulated waters cut a new passage through a low place in the works and pour out upon the rebels, who, just there, occupied lower ground.
In the camp, or, more particularly, in the ravine in front of it, the damage was much greater. The protection afforded by the high, steep sides of the ravine from the direct fire of the enemy, was very enticing. Some regiments and some sutlers, failing to notice the marks of former freshet, or, lightly discounting the risks, had pitched their camps, mostly shelter-tents, and established their shops over most of these, shelters from the sun, made of green boughs laid on frames of poles, had been raised.
Even towards the hill-top, where the 23rd had its little camp, the rain was heavy enough to wash away all lighter articles and present to the men returning that night from their tour of duty in the !t pits “ a scene of wild confusion. He was lucky who could find even one corner of his shelter-tent still in sight and could thus rescue it from the overwhelming mud.
In the ravine, the water running from all the neighboring heights soon became a raging torrent. It swept away camps and shops like straws in a gutter. It rolled army wagons over and over before it. It swept away a section of the railroad bridge. Men, caught sleeping in their tents or hampered by the fall of the leafy shades, were helpless. Nor could those on the bank render much aid, for the torrent carried their luckless comrades away as fast as they could run along to their rescue. Some, who, after the first rush of the angry waters, ventured in to “save” the coveted goods of unlucky sutlers, found them-selves in a dilemma which was not without its danger. The current was still strong enough to make it impossible to climb the steep clay banks without help. Some ace counts assert a loss of 40 men. I do not learn that this included any one from the 23rd. It is said that a man, with difficulty saved from very imminent death by drowning, was immediately killed by a stray rebel bullet piercing his brain.
Speaking of sutlers some may recall that May brought up three barrels of pickled tripe.Captain Raymond‘s sampled “the article and arranged that the boys should have all they asked for, during three days, for twenty-five dollars. It was agreed that nothing should be paid if the tripe should be eaten before that time. Now two hundred hungry boys (in active service the stomach is always ready and its capacity seemingly unlimited) had no idea that the regimental fund should suffer if they could help it. When the race came off, May and the tripe were distanced. Again, one of the sutlers brought up one hundred and fifty water-melons. Some of the officers bought up the lot and distributed them. The boys found them a pleasant relaxation from the stern realities of war.CASUALTIES AT PETERSBURG.
KILLED.
Galletly, Fred. A., 5 Aug., ‘64, Private, Co. A.
Morrill, Geo. T., 29 July, ‘64, “ . ‘B.
Tripp, Wm. H, 16 Aug., ‘64, “ “D.
Barker, John A., 20 July, ‘64, Private, Co. I.
Saville, James R., “ “ “ “ “
Shattuck, ‘Wm. W., ‘‘ “ ‘‘ “ “ “
WOUNDED.
Raymond, J. w., Captain, Co. G.
Andrews, Wm. A, Sergeant, “A.
Cummings, Wm. C., 23 Aug., ‘64, “ “
Lake, Noah J., Private, “D.
Martin, Henry, 26 June, ‘64, “ “F.
Ayers, Jacob E., accid. 18 Aug., ‘64, “ “ G.
Early, Wm. F., 25 June, ‘64, “ “ “-
Grimes, Wm. H., 25 Aug., ‘64, “ “
Wentworth, Asa H., “ “I
Mylod, Warren M., 22 June, ‘64, “ “ “
PRISONERS.
Romeo, John, 30 July, ‘64, Private, Co. B.
Ellis, John, 24 Aug., ‘64, “ “G.
On the 25th of August the regiment was withdrawn from this front and marched across the Appomattox. As our boys toiled up the steep bank from the pontoon-bridge at Broadway Landing they found themselves in company with one hundred day men from Ohio, veterans of two weeks and no battles, in full growl against their quarter-master. Their worst grievance was that no butter had been issued to them since their enlistment. Being assured by our war worn wags that the 23rd Quarter-master issued butter regularly, they vent on their way breathing threats of vengeance on their lazy and inefficient commissary.
In a short time came the always welcome pay-day, but the men were compelled to splice their patience, already well stretched, because, forsooth, the paymaster, although ensconced in a bomb-proof while the regiment waited outside, insisted upon packing off to the rear and waiting till the rebel artillerists found some other target.
