| The manner in which orders are transmitted to the individual groups of an army might be compared to the motion that a boy gives to a row of bricks which he has set up on end within striking distance of each other. He pushes the first brick, and the impetus thus given is conveyed down the line in rapid succession, until each brick has responded to the movement. If the machine is well adjusted in all its parts, and the master mechanic, known as the commanding general, understands his business, he is able to run it so perfectly as to control the movements of brigades, divisions, and corps. In the early spring of 1862, when the Army of the Potomac was getting ready to move from Washington, the constant drill and discipline, the brightening of arms and polishing of buttons, and the exasperating fussiness on the part of company and regimental officers during inspections, conveyed to us a hint, as one of our comrades expressed it, that "some one higher in command was punching them to punch us." There was unusual activity upon the Potomac in front of our camp. Numerous steam tugs were pulling huge sailing vessels here and there, and large transports, loaded with soldiers, horses, bales of hay, and munitions for an army, swept majestically down the broad river. Every description of water conveyance, from a canal-boat to a huge three-decked steamboat, seemed to have been pressed into the service of the army. |
|
The general opinion among us was that at last we were on our way to make an end of the Confederacy. We gathered in little knots on the deck, here and there a party playing "penny ante"; others slept or dozed, but the majority smoked and discussed the probabilities of our destination, about which we really knew as little as the babes in the wood. That we were sailing down the Potomac was apparent.
The next day we arrived at Old Point Comfort, and looked with open-eyed wonder at Fortress Monroe, huge and frowning. Negroes were plentier than blackberries, and went about their work with an air of importance born of their new-found freedom. These were the "contrabands" for whom General Butler had recently invented that sobriquet. We pitched our tents amid the charred and blackened ruins of what had been the beautiful and aristocratic village of Hampton. The first thing I noticed about the ruins, unaccustomed as I was to Southern architecture, was the absence of cellars. The only building left standing of all the village was the massive old Episcopal church. Here Washington had worshiped, and its broad aisles had echoed to the footsteps of armed men during the Revolution. In the church-yard the tombs had been broken open. Many tombstones were broken and overthrown, and at the corner of the church a big hole showed that some one with a greater desire for possessing curiosities than reverence for ancient landmarks had been digging for the corner-stone and its buried mementos.
Along the shore which looks towards Fortress Monroe were landed artillery, baggage-wagons, pontoon trains and boats, and the level land back of this was crowded with the tents of the soldiers. Here and there were goups frying hard-tack and bacon. Near at hand was the irrepressible army mule, hitched to and eating out of pontoon boats; those who had eaten their ration of grain and hay were trying their teeth, with promise of success, in eating the boats. An army mule was hungrier than a soldier, and would eat anything, especially a pontoon boat or rubber blanket. The scene was a busy one. The red cap, white leggings, and baggy trousers of the Zouaves mingled with the blue uniforms and dark trimmings of the regular infantrymen, the short jackets and yellow trimmings of the cavalry, the red stripes of the artillery, and the dark blue with orange trimmings of the engineers; together with the ragged, many-colored costumes of the black laborers and teamsters, all busy at something. During our short stay here I made several excursions, extending two or three miles from the place, partly out of curiosity, and partly from the constant impression on a soldier's mind that his merits deserve something better to eat than the commissary furnishes. It seemed to me in all my army experience that nature delighted in creating wants and withholding supplies, and that rations were wanting in an inverse proportion to my capacity to consume them.
One morning we broke camp and went marching up the Peninsula. The roads were very poor and muddy with recent rains, and were crowded with the indescribable material of the vast army which was slowly creeping through the mud over the flat, wooded country. It was a bright day in April -- a perfect Virginia day; the grass was green beneath our feet, the buds of the trees were just unrolling into leaves under the warming sun of spring, and in the woods the birds were singing. The march was at first orderly, but under the unaccustomed burden of heavy equipments and knapsacks, and the warmth of the weather, the men straggled along the roads, mingling with the baggage-wagons, ambulances, and pontoon trains, in seeming confusion.
During our second day's march it rained, and the muddy roads, cut up and kneaded, as it were, by the teams preceding us, left them in a state of semi-liquid filth hardly possible to describe or imagine. When we arrived at Big Bethel the rain was coming down in sheets. A dozen houses of very ordinary character, scattered over an area of a third of a mile, constituted what was called the village. Just outside and west of the town was an insignificant building from which the town takes its name. It did not seem large enough or of sufficient consequence to give name to a village as small as Big Bethel. Before our arrival it had evidently been occupied as officers' barracks for the enemy, and looked very little like a church.
 | I visited one of the dwelling-houses just outside the fortifications (if the insignificant rifle-pits could be called such) for the purpose of obtaining something more palatable than hard-tack, salt beef, or pork, which, with coffee, were the marching rations. The woman of the house was communicative, and expressed her surprise at the great number of "Yanks who had come down to invade our soil." She said she had a son in the Confederate army, or, as she expressed it, "in our army," and then tearfully said she should tremble for her boy every time she heard of a battle. I expressed the opinion that we should go into Richmond without much fighting. "No!" said she, with the emphasis of conviction, "you uns wil1 drink hot blood before you uns get thar!" I inquired if she knew anything about the skirmish which took place at Big Bethel. She replied by saying, "Why, Major Winthrop died right in yer!" pointing to a small sleeping-room which opened from the main room in which we were. She added, "When you uns were fighting, Major Winthrop was way ahead and was shot; he was a brave man, but we have brave men too."
|
| While wandering about, I came to the house of a Mrs.T-- whose husband was said to be a captain in the Confederate service and a "fire-eating" secessionist. Here some of our men were put on guard for a short time, until relieved by guards from other parts of the army as they came up, whereupon we went on. A large, good-looking woman, about forty years old, who, I learned, was Mrs. T-- was crying profusely, and I could not induce her to tell me what about. One of the soldiers said her grief was caused by the fact that some of our men had helped themselve to the contents of cupboard and cellar. She was superintending the loading of an old farm wagon, into which she was putting a large family of colored people, with numerous bundles. The only white person on the load as it started away was the mistress, who sat amid her dark chattels in desolation and tears. Returning to the house after this exodus, I found letters, papers, and odds and ends of various kinds littering the floor, whether overturned in the haste of the mistress or by the | 
|
The drivers were usually expert and understood well the wayward, sportive natures of the creatures over whose destinies they presided. On our way to Yorktown our pontoon and baggage trains were sometimes blocked for miles, and the heaviest trains were often unloaded by the guard to facilitate their removal from the mud. Those wagons which were loaded with whisky were most lovingly, guarded, and when unloaded the barrels were often lightened before they were returned to the wagons. It did seem at times as if there were needless delays with the trains, partly due, no doubt, to fear of danger ahead. While I was guarding our pontoon trains after leaving Big Bethel, the teams stopped all along the line. Hurrying to the front, I found one of the leading teams badly mired, but not enough to justify the stopping of the whole train. The lazy colored driver was comfortably asleep in the saddle. "Get that team out of the mud!" I yelled, bringing him to his senses. He flourished his long whip, shouted his mule lingo at the team, and the mules pulled frantically, but not together. "Can't you make your mules pull together?" I inquired. "Dem mules pull right smart!" said the driver. Cocking and capping my unloaded musket, I brought it to the shoulder, and again commanded the driver, "Get that team out of the mud!" The negro rolled his eyes wildly and woke up all over. He first patted his saddle mule, spoke to each one, and then, flourishing his long whip with a crack like a pistol, shouted, "Go 'long dar! what I feed yo' fo'!" and the mule team left the slough in a very expeditious manner. Thereafter I had an unfailing argument, which, if but seldom used, was all the more potent. The teamsters of our army would have been much more efficient if they had been organized and uniformed as soldiers. Our light artillery was seldom seen stuck in the mud.
When procuring luxuries of eggs or milk we paid the people at first in silver, and they gave us local scrip in change; but we found on attempting to pay it out again that they were rather reluctant to receive it, even at that early stage in Confederate finance, and much preferred Yankee silver or notes.
We were near Battery No. I, not far from the York River. On it were mounted several two-hundred-pound guns, which commanded the enemy's water batteries. One day I was in a redoubt on the left, and saw General McClellan with the Prince de Joinville, examining the enemy's works through their field-glasses. They very soon drew the fire of the observant enemy, who opened with one of their heavy guns on the group, sending the first shot howling and hissing over and very close to their heads; another, quickly following it, struck in the parapet of the redoubt. The French prince, seemingly quite startled, jumped and glanced nervously around, while McClellan quietly knocked the ashes from his cigar. When I afterwards heard McClellan accused of cowardice, I knew the accusation was false.
Several of our war-vessels made their appearance in the York River, and occasionally threw a shot at the enemy's works; but most of them were kept busy at Hampton Roads, watching for the iron-clad Merrimac, which was still afloat. The firing from the enemy's lines was of little consequence, not amounting to over ten or twelve shots each day, a number of these being directed at the huge balloon which went up daily on a tour of inspection, from near General Fitz John Porter's headquarters. One day the balloon broke from its mooring of ropes and sailed majestically over the enemy's works; but fortunately for its occupants, it soon met a counter-current of air which returned it safe to our lines The month of April was a dreary one, much of the time rainy and uncomfortable. It was a common expectation among us that we were about to end the rebellion. One of my comrades wrote home to his father that we should probably finish up the war in season for him to be at home to teach the village school
|  |
Upon returning to camp I found rations being issued and preparations for pursuit being made, and that very afternoon we struck our tents and took up our lines of march, with our faces turned hopefully towards Richmond. A sergeant belonging to a neighboring regiment, whose acquaintance I had formed before Yorktown, jocosely remarked, as he passed me on the march, "I shall meet You on the road to glory!" Later, in looklng over the rude head-boards which were used to mark the soldier's graves near Williamsburg, I found his name.
There was much talk of buried torpedoes in front of the enemy's works, and it was rumored that one officer and several men had been blown to atoms by them; also that the officer in command had a force of Confederate prisoners at work removing them. We saw a number of sticks stuck in the ground both inside and outside the earthworks, with white rags attached, which were said to indicate the location of the buried torpedoes already discovered.
Williamsburg is twelve miles from Yorktown, but the women and children, of whom we were continually inquiring the distance, gave us very indefinite but characteristic replies. A comrade in Hooker's division gave me an account of his experiences about as follows: "Marching over the muddy road late in the afternoon, we found our farther advance prevented by a force which had preceded us, and we halted in the mud by the roadside just as it began to rain. About five o'clock we resumed our march by crossing over to the Hampton road, and did not halt till eleven in the evening, when we lay down in our blankets, bedraggled, wet, and tired, chewing hard-tack and the cud of reflection, the tenor of which was, "Why did we come for a soldier ?" Before daylight we were on the march, plodding in the rain through the mire. By daybreak we came out on the edge of the dense woods in front of Fort Magruder and its cordon of redoubts stretching across the Peninsula, which is here narrowed by the head-waters of two streams which empty into the York on the one hand and the James River on the other. Here we had an opportunity of viewing the situation while waiting for orders to attack. The main fort, called Magruder, was a strong earthwork with a bastioned front and a wide ditch. In front of this muddy-looking heap of dirt was a level plain, sprinkled plentifully with smaller earthworks; while between us and the level plain the dense forest, for a distance of a quarter of a mile, had been felled, thus forming a labyrinth of tangled abatis difficult to penetrate. A mile away lay the village of Williamsburg.
"We were soon sent out as skirmishers, with orders to advance as near the enemy's rifle pits as possible. They immediately opened fire upon us with heavy guns from the fort, while from their rifle-pits came a hum of bullets and crackle of musketry. Their heavy shot came crushing among the tangled abatis of fallen timber, and plowed up the dirt in our front, rebounding and tearing through the branches of the woods in our rear. The constant hissing of the bullets, with their sharp ping or bizz whispering around and sometimes into us, gave me a sickening feeling and a cold perspiration. I felt weak around my knees -- a sort of faintness and lack of strength in the joints of my legs, as if they would sink from under me. These symptoms did not decrease when several of my comrades were hit. The little rifle-pits in our front fairly blazed with musketry, and the continuous snap, snap, crack, crack was murderous. Seeing I was not killed at once, in spite of all the noise, my knees recovered from their unpleasant limpness, and my mind gradually regained its balance and composure. I never afterwards felt these disturbing influences to the same degree.
| "We slowly retired from stump to stump and from log to log, finally regaining the edge of the wood, and took our position near Webber's and Brumhall's batteries, which had just got into position on the right of the road, not over seven hundred yards from the hostile fort. While getting into position, several of the battery men were killed, as they immediately drew the artillery fire of the enemy, which opened with a noise and violence that astonished me. Our two batteries were admirably handled, throwing a number of shot and shell into the enemy's works, speedily silencing them, and by nine o'clock the field in our front, including the rifle-pits, was completely ‘cleaned out of artillery and infantry. Shortly afterwards we advanced along the edge of the wood to the left of Fort Magruder, and about eleven o'clock we saw emerging from the little ravine to the left of the fort a swarm of Confederates, who opened on us with a terrible and deadly fire. Then they charged upon us with their peculiar yell. We took all the advantage possible of the stumps and trees as we were pushed back, until we reached the edge of the wood again, |  A tempting breastwork |
‘The ‘Rebs forced us back by their charge, and our central lines were almost broken. The forces withdrawn from our right had taken the infantry support from our batteries, one of which, consisting of four guns, was captured. We were tired, wet, and exhausted when supports came up, and we were allowed to fall back from under the enemy's fire, but still in easy reach of the battle. I asked one of my comrades how he felt, and his reply was characteristic of the prevailing sentiment: ‘I should feel like a hero if I wasn't so blank wet' The bullets had cut queer antics among our men. A private who had a canteen of whisky when he went into the engagement, on endeavoring to take a drink found the canteen quite empty, as a bullet had tapped it for him. Another had a part of his thumbnail taken off. Another had a bullet pass into the toe of his boot, down between two toes, and out along the sole of his foot, without much injury. Another had a scalp wound from a bullet, which took off a strip of hair about three inches in length from the top of his head. Two of my regiment were killed outright and fourteen badly wounded, besides quite a number slightly injured. Thus I have chronicled my first day's fight, and I don't believe any of my regiment were ambitious to `chase the enemy any farther' just at present. Refreshed with hot coffee and hard-tack, we rested from the fight, well satisfied that we had done our duty. When morning dawned, with it came the intelligence that the enemy had abandoned their works in our front, and were again in full retreat, leaving their wounded in our hands."
After the engagement I went over the field in front of the enemy's fort. Advancing through the tangled mass of logs and stumps, I saw one of our men aiming over the branch of a fallen tree, which lay among the tangled abatis. I called to him, but he did not turn or move. Advancing nearer, I put my hand on his shoulder, looked in his face, and started back. He was dead! -- shot through the brain; and so suddenly had the end come that his rigid hand grasped his musket, and he still preserved the attitude of watchfulness -- literally occupying his post after death. At another place we came upon one of our men who had evidently died from wounds. Near one of his hands was a Testament, and on his breast lay an ambrotype picture of a group of children and another of a young woman. We searched in vain for his name. It was neither in his book nor upon his clothing; and, unknown, this private hero was buried on what was doubtless his first battle-field. The pictures were afterwards put on exhibition for identification.
The sixth of May was a beautiful morning, with birds singing among the thickets in which lay the dead. The next morning we marched through quaint, old-fashioned Williamsburg. The most substantial buildings of the town were those of William and Mary College, which were of brick. In most of the houses there were no signs of life; blinds and shutters were closed, but a white hand was occasionally seen through the blinds, showing that a woman was gazing stealthily at us. Occasionally a family of black people stood in the doorway, the women and children greeting us with senseless giggles, and in one instance waving their red handkerchiefs. I asked one of the black women where the white people were, and she replied, ‘Dey's done gone and run away.' We kindled fires from that almost inexhaustible source of supply, the Virginia fences, cooked our coffee, sang our songs, and smoked our pipes, thoughtless of the morrow. And we quarreled with nothing, except the pigs that wandered at will in field and wood, and which we occasionally converted into pork.
Near New Kent Court-House, a little settlement of two or three houses, we came upon several Confederate sick. One of them was full of fighting talk. I asked him what he was fighting for. He said he didn't know, except it be "not to get licked!" "I reckon you uns have got a powerful spite against we uns, and what's what you uns all come down to fight we uns for, and invade our soil!" I could not argue with a prisoner, and a sick man at that, on equal terms; so I replenished his canteen, and induced one of my comrades to give him some of his rations. From the number of interviews held at different times with our Confederate prisoners, I gathered the general impression that their private soldiers knew but very little about the causes of the war, but were fighting "not to get licked," which is so strong a feeling in human nature that I may say it will account for much hard fighting on both sides. In one of the little cabins surrounding the principal residence were a mulatto woman and her children. She was quite comely, and, with her children, was pretty well dressed. She was a bitter Yankee hater, and, we inferred, the domestic manager of the household. She declared that "the eolored people didn' want to be niggers for the Yanks!"
Our corps arrived at White House Landing, May 22, 1862, and here we found a large portion of our army, which was encamped on the wide, level plain between the wood-skirted road and the Pamunkey River, occupying tents of all descriptions. Another camp was located at Cumberland Landing, a few miles below White House. The first night of our arrival was a stormy and tempestuous one, and it was evident that an attack from the enemy was expected, as we received orders to lay upon our arms. The Pamunkey is navigable to this point, having sufficient depth, but is very narrow, in fact, so narrow that some of the larger steamers could not turn, for their stem and stern would reach either bank, except at selected places. The broad plain was crowded with tents, baggage-wagons, pontoon trains, and artillery, -- all the accompaniments of a vast army. Here some of the regiments who came out from home in a Zouave uniform changed their bright clothes for the regular army blue, and, as marching orders came with the sunrise, moved off the field, leaving windrows of old clothes on the plain.
Warren Lee Goss.
