Wednesday, 29th.—Heavy cannonading towards Grand Gulf.
April 2013
29th. Went out for oats. After breakfast started back to Somerset. Let our horses eat and then followed. Drake, Ritter, Bob and I stopped half way and got a cup of tea. Found reinforcements at S. Issued pork. No mail for me. “H,” “E,” and “M” ordered over the river. In the evening got my coat fixed—mended. Got my washing. Wrote to Fannie.
29th April (Wednesday).—Exhausted as I was, I managed to sleep wonderfully well last night. We breakfasted at a place called Hallettsville at 7 A.M., and changed carriages again.
Here we took in four more Confederate soldiers as outsiders, and we were now eighteen in all. Nowhere but in this country would such a thing be permitted.
Owing to the great top-weight, the coach swayed about like a ship in a heavy sea, and the escapes of a capsize were almost miraculous. It is said that at the end of a Texan journey the question asked is not, “Have you been upset?” but, “How many times have you been upset?”
The value of the negroes working in the fields was constantly appraised by my fellow-travellers; and it appeared that, in Texas, an able-bodied male fetched $2500, whilst a well-skilled seamstress was worth $3500.
Two of my companions served through the late severe campaign in New Mexico, but they considered forty-eight hours in a closely-packed stage a greater hardship than any of their military experiences.
We passed many cotton-fields and beautiful Indian corn, but much of the latter had been damaged by the hail.
I was told that one-third of the land formerly devoted to cotton is still sown with that article, the remainder being corn, &c[1]
We also passed through some very pretty country, full of fine post-oak and cotton trees, and we met many Mexican cotton-teams—some of the waggons with fourteen oxen or twelve mules, which were being cruelly ill-treated by their drivers.
We crossed several rivers with steep and difficult banks, and dined at a farmhouse at 2.30 P.M.
I have already discovered that, directly the bell rings, it is necessary to rush at one’s food and bolt it as quickly as possible, without any ceremony or delay, otherwise it all disappears, so rapacious and so voracious are the natives at their meals whilst travelling. Dinner, on such occasions, in no case lasts more than seven minutes.
We reached Columbus at 6 P.M., and got rid of half our passengers there. These Texan towns generally consist of one large plaça, with a well-built courthouse on one side and a hotel opposite, the other two sides being filled up with wooden stores. All their budding prosperity has been completely checked by the war; but every one anticipates a great immigration into Texas after the peace.
We crossed the Colorado river, and reached Alleyton, our destination, at 7 P.M.
This little wooden village has sprung into existence during the last three years, owing to its being the present terminus to the railroad. It was crammed full of travellers and cotton speculators; but, as an especial favour, the fat German and I were given a bed between us. I threw myself on the bed with my clothes on (bien entendu), and was fast asleep in five minutes. In the same room there were three other beds, each with two occupants.
The distance from San Antonio to Alleyton is 140 miles—time, forty-six hours.
[1] It is only in Texas that so much cotton is still grown.
Wednesday. 29th—Remained in Camp to-day; horses inspected. John R. left me to go to the command. Albright bunked with me to-night. I went up with him to Mr. Williams and got supper.
April 29th. Our company was ordered for guard duty to guard the railroad bridge over the Gunpowder River, on the Baltimore & Philadelphia Road. A very pleasant change and much enjoyed in the fine early spring weather. The fishing and sailing were fine. Many boats at that point we were allowed to use. Many attempts had been made to burn the bridge. It had to be kept well guarded. (It was later destroyed by rebel guerillas making a raid through Maryland.)
April 29.—This is the Bayou Courtableau,—a spot called Barre’s Landing, about eight miles from Opelousas, whence we marched last Sunday. We are glad of the change. Water could only be got at our Opelousas camp by going a respectable pedestrian journey. Moreover, at our first coming, creatures by the score fell victims to our hunger. Parts of the carcasses of these had been left, and were tainting the whole neighborhood. “We were not sorry, therefore, when the order came to march here, — a march we accomplished in a leisurely fashion, taking most of the day for it; mourning, some of us, that the day must go by without observance, like so many previous Sundays: but, on the whole, not an unhappy company; for we were rested now; and a night or two before, at dress-parade, we had heard Gen. Banks’s congratulatory order, which told us we had done something, — taken a large number of prisoners, beaten the enemy in three or four battles, destroyed several gun-boats and transports, &c.
Opelousas was a dreary little place, where we found vegetating a population of French Creoles, — old men, women, and children. The younger men are probably all in the rebel army. McGill and I, one day, got leave to walk about the streets. McGill was brought up in Canada, and his patois appeared to serve him as well with these Creoles as if he were in Quebec. Professions of loyalty were plenty enough; but we imagined they talked in a different strain a morning or two before, when the wreck of the rebel army came panting through, and the Texans took horses to escape to their own State.
My arrest was my most noteworthy adventure at Opelousas. It was the fourth or fifth day of our stay there. I was tired of lying with the lizards under the shelter-tent: so, as Bivins and two of the corporals were going off on a sugar expedition, I joined them. We went to the “Swayze Place,” where my companions had been before. They had given such accounts of its elegance as to arouse our interest. We made our way through a forest (killing a rattlesnake in our course), entered the plantation gate, passed through a rather squalid purlieu of negro huts, then came to the mansion itself, — a one-story dwelling, with neat veranda and some marks of taste, though house and surroundings lacked finish. The garden was a wreck; and through this we passed without hinderance, by the open door, into what had been elegantly furnished apartments. One had been a library; and the floor was strewn with a litter of valuable books. One had been a dining-room, at one side of which stood a handsomely carved sideboard. In the parlor was a rich piano, and other furniture in keeping, — all overturned, scattered, and marred. We went into bedrooms, where were handsome canopied beds, and heavy furniture of rosewood. In one was a large mirror, in which I caught sight of a very swarthy and travel-stained warrior, whom I should never have recognized.
I hurried out with an uncomfortable feeling. The pillage and destruction were due in part to our soldiers, in part to the negroes. It was discreditable and painful. At the sugar-house was sugar going to waste. My companions took what they could carry in their blankets, and I took from the deserted garden a handful of onions, — articles really necessary, short of rations as we were, and which we had been instructed we might take. Then we washed and filled our canteens from the broken bucket of the old well; then going forward, on our way back we met a company of men coming through the gate.
“Is it a picket, or what?” said we unsuspectingly; but, as they came up, they wheeled around us.
“Fall in as prisoners!” said the lieutenant in charge; and in we were forced to go, my companions with their sugar, and I with my fragrant burden.
First they marched us back, while they picked up cavalry-men and others prowling about as we had been. Then, with the arrested culprits, the guard set off through the woods for the camp.
We learned, in one way and another, that grave misdemeanors had been committed on the estate; that complaint had been made to Gen. Grover, and that the guard had been despatched at once to arrest all they could find. We passed the brigade in ignominious procession. What was to become of me? Word had gone back to my excellent parishioners at the North once before, that their minister and his comrades, when likely to go into danger, fortified their courage with doses of gunpowder and rum! Now he was arrested as a “merooder.” Would it not be the last of me?
We reached the general’s tent at last; the general, as is his habit, pacing thoughtfully up and down in front of it. “File right, file left; halt!” We are in the presence. One of the culprits was very distingue in a white shirt, — a “clean biled shirt,” in campaigning parlance. This, it seems, he had stolen.
“Tie the man that stole the shirt to the fence here. Take the others to your camp, and keep them without food or drink until further orders.”
On his heel again swings the general. “Right about, and forward!” to us.
In a dismal field we are left, with our feet in a ditch; the sun pouring down, and no shade. A bayonet, with a full-blown Paddy to manage it, blocks every avenue of escape. Toye and Stowell are hungry and wrathy; I am rueful; but Bivins makes light of his misfortunes. If the sergeant knew the words, I am sure he would repeat, “Stone-walls do not a prison make.” As it is, he sports with his chains, and, so to speak, makes his dungeon ring with derisive laughter. We are in our shirt-sleeves, and dread the cold as night approaches. Toward dusk, I catch sight of a friend, just within hail, who is summoned with loud shoutings, and sent off with a message to the colonel. In about an hour, enter the colonel, on horseback, into the circle of firelight where we are sitting. “Well, well! how is this?”
We tell him our story. We are ignorant of having broken any regulation. We are confined without judge or jury.
“Cannot you get us out? We want our hard tack; we want to go to bed.”
The colonel has made strong representations to the general, to no purpose.
“Culprits are generally the most moral and orderly” men in a regiment, according to their officers’ showing. At any rate, your men were in very bad company, and must stand it.”
All the colonel, even, can do, is to pass sympathy, as it were, through our dungeon-grate, and order over our blankets from the camp.
My friend who carried the message comes up again, when it is dark enough, and tips me the wink; and, while we engage apparently in indifferent conversation (to delude the vigilant guard), a cold chicken is slipped from his blouse under my vest, and a pile of hard bread secreted under the blanket. In this transaction, however, we are detected by Corporal Billy Mulligan, the amiable functionary in charge. He, however, stooping, whispers, —
“Only kape thim from the liftinant, an’ niver a word’ll I say.”
So we have a comfortable supper, in spite of Gen. Grover; then stretch ourselves across a furrow in the starlight. Morning does not bring us release, nor yet noon. Corporal Mulligan prophesies disgrace. Alluding to our badges as sergeants and corporals, it is, —
“Och, bys! but they’ll be afther takin’ thim stripes aff ye.”
In the afternoon, we rig up a little canopy to keep off the sun. A grand review takes place. The Fifty-second marches by, little Claypole carrying the flag; Company D looking across the field to see their captured comrades. We wave our coats and caps, like men wrecked on a desert island to a passing ship. Grosvenor has got-well, and waves back to us; so the others. At sundown, however, deliverance comes. Corporal Mulligan bids us an affectionate adieu.
“Be gorra! it’s not mesilf that wanted to hould ye.”
Gen. Grover vouchsafes no explanation of arrest or release. The dungeon yawns, and the oppressed go free.
Officers and men enjoy getting off sly jokes at me about my scrape; but, on the whole, I look back upon it with pleasure, as helping to round the cycle of my military experiences.
Wednesday, 29th—The teams all went back to the landing this morning for provisions and the boys cleaned up our camping ground. We have first-rate grub now, hard crackers, sowbelly, green tea, besides fresh beef every fifth day. We draw full rations every five days when in camp, and every three days when on the march. The boys live fine. I wrote a couple of letters today.
April 29 — Rained little last night, and this morning when we awoke a thick curtain of misty fog hung all around our spacious bed-chamber. We renewed our march early. At the lower end of Franklin we left the grade and took the Harrisonburg road, which is rough and bounds over hills and mountains. About a mile from Franklin we forded the South Branch where on the east side the mountain comes down and dips its foot in the limpid waters of the rolling river.
Franklin, the county seat of Pendleton County, is nestled amid green hills and wooded mountains that rise majestically from the banks of the South Branch. The little town is situated on the left bank of the South Branch, twenty-four miles below Monterey and forty miles above Moorefield. Right opposite Franklin a beautiful mountain rises gently from the river bank, and with regular wave-like swell lifts its wooded crest toward the eastern sky. It is heavily timbered, which carefully conceals all the rocky protuberances, and from the streets of Franklin the western side of the mountain looks like an extensive wall magnificently upholstered and decorated in various shades of green. Trout Run empties into the South Branch on the east side about one mile below Franklin, and near the ford we crossed to-day. The limpid little stream of pure mountain water drains some mountain dells and pasture lands that lie high and far above the level of the Branch, its waters being as clear as crystal and full of mountain trout. The last half mile of its course is through a rough gorge with shelvy sides, ornamented with mossy rocks, with here and there a bunch of mountain fern clinging to a scanty bed, all darkly shaded with spruce and pine and at places form a thick canopy a hundred feet above the rocky bed over which the turbulent little stream rushes wildly, lashing its laughing waters into snowy spray a thousand times, when, with a death song, it gently glides into the quieter embrace of the South Branch that winds away to the Potomac.
We marched hard all day over hills and mountains. Early in the day we crossed between the South Branch and South Fork a little mountain composed of knobby hills and rocky slopes, wooded ridges and grassy fields. Toward noon we arrived in the little mountain-environed valley of the South Fork, which is very narrow. The land along the little stream is of the first quality and produces abundant crops of corn and hay. We forded the South Fork some six or eight times and then struck into the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountain, and soon after we were winding up the side of the lofty Shenandoah. The road up the mountain is smooth and of an easy grade, but so crooked that at one place it appears like three parallel roads. When we were about halfway up the mountain a heavy thunder cloud that had been bombarding at long range for some little time opened on us, and for about thirty minutes the rain came pouring down in torrents and drenched us to dripping of the last stitch. Flash after flash of vivid lightning shot its fiery lances into the mountain sides close around us, and crashing peals of thunder made the rocky slopes tremble as the deep diapason roar rolled from cliff to cliff and leaped from peak to peak.
We are camped this evening at the eastern base of the Shenandoah Mountain, six miles from Rawley Springs.
Headquarters Engineer Brigade,
Camp near Falmouth, April 29, 1863.
Dear Father, — It is now 4.30 P.M., and we have finished five of our bridges. I will endeavor to give you a brief account of everything that has happened since yesterday morning. Yesterday was cloudy and rainy, towards afternoon and evening the weather growing very misty, much to our joy, as last night was the night selected to lay the bridges, two of which were to go down at Bank’s Ford; but these were afterwards shown and exposed to view merely to deceive the rebs, without any effort being made to lay them; three more were to be laid at Franklin’s old place of crossing, and two a mile and a half below Franklin’s old place. The weather was perfect, and could not have been better. A very thick fog hung over the earth, completely hiding every object a few yards distant. The boats were drawn by teams to within a mile of the intended crossing place. From here they were carried on poles to the river’s bank, there being 75 men to each boat. This was done in order to get near the enemy unheard, and take them if possible by surprise. At 10 P.M. last night we left our camp, and went to General Sedgwick’s headquarters, who had entire charge of the movements at the two lower crossings and who had the 1st, 3d and 6th Corps under his command. He and General Benham made their arrangements, and to assist General Benham, General Sedgwick sent an aide with him. While giving him some instructions a short time after, General Benham abused him shamefully without the slightest cause. Soon after he got himself into a scrape with General Brooks, and then with General Russell, whom he placed under arrest. I was asked by two officers, General Russell being one, whether General Benham was not drunk. I said he was not, as I knew he took wine only and not any liquors. Then, too, I was accustomed to his swearing, etc., and thought nothing of it. Pretty soon a captain came riding along on horseback, and General Benham opened on him, yelling out in a loud tone of voice and Goddamning him. This, too, right on the bank of the river and when he had just been cautioning every one to keep quiet. I said to the general, “Don’t call out so loud, sir, the enemy can hear you.” He still kept on, however. All this time he was lying flat on the ground, complaining of fatigue. He then sent me off to find a Captain Reese, and when I came back he was gone, having left directions for me to stay where his horse was. I did not see him then for some time, when he came back on a borrowed horse and reeling in his saddle. He said to me in a thick voice, “Go tell General Sedgwick that General Russell has disobeyed my orders,” and kept repeating it. I went off with the message to General S. During this last hour, everything had been going wrong. There was no one to attend to the matter and General B. confused and confounded everything. The enemy knew of our presence, and were signalling all along their line. And so it was until 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, when men were put into the pontoon boats and pushed over, several shots being exchanged, with a loss of six wounded for us. Our men went right over and drove the enemy. Meanwhile, I was on the go to General Sedgwick with any number of messages from General B. When I came back about 6 o’clock, I found General B. drunk as could be, with a bloody cut over his left eye, and the blood all over that side of his face and forming a disgusting sight altogether. He had fallen down and cut his face. Soon after he reeled in his saddle, and in trying to shake hands with General Pratt, he fell right off his horse on to the ground. I saw him do this. The soldiers picked him up, and he mounted again, and rode round among the men, swearing and trying to hurry matters, but only creating trouble and making himself the laughing-stock of the crowd. Finally three bridges were got across and then we started for the two lower bridges where an unsuccessful attempt had been made to cross in the morning. The general had got moderately sober by that time, and began to feel slightly ashamed of himself. I never in my life have been so mortified and ashamed as I was this morning. I shall leave his staff as soon as possible, and I don’t see how he can escape a court-martial and dismissal from the service. By sheer good luck we got the men across the river and built the bridges. General Benham’s being drunk delayed the laying of the bridges for four hours; his mismanagement all but ruined the whole plan. Every one there expected a disgraceful termination to the whole affair, and as I have said, good luck only saved us, for the rebels had two or three hours to prepare themselves, after we arrived on the ground, when they should have had but half an hour at the outside.
At the lower crossing, I witnessed one of the prettiest sights of the war. It was our men driving the rebs from their rifle-pits. Our men in rifle-pits opened a heavy fire on the enemy’s sharpshooters, and soon one man jumped out and ran, then another, and soon all along the line men could be seen running from houses, ditches and rifle-pits. Then our artillery would open and make the rascals scatter. I saw one round shot knock a rebel head over heels. Then, too, as the rebs ran from their hiding places, our men would yell and cheer and send a perfect storm of bullets after them. Soon our men rushed over in boats and ran up the bank and began popping away at the rifle-pits, houses, etc. Then came the grand skedaddle. From every imaginable place came a rebel running for dear life, with our men cheering at their heels and our artillery helping to kick them along. Out of one large rifle-pit, I saw 10 or 12 rebs taken prisoners. Out of another one, a White rag would be raised and waved. Out of this came three rebels. 100 prisoners were captured in all, and a prettier sight I never saw in all my life. It is all very pleasant to look on and see a fight when your side is whipping, and you are not under fire, but it is not so pleasant to be in it yourself. I think myself that this movement here is a feint, whilst four of our corps cross at Bank’s or United States Ford. However, all will be settled in a day or two, and at present everything looks bright for us.
I cannot imagine where General B. got his liquor. I think it must have been sherry wine which he had with him. He must have drunk it very quietly, as none of us saw him drinking. May I be saved from another such general!
April 29. — At 6 the first bridge was begun, and at 7 it was completed. About 8.30 we all started for the lower crossing, where we had been repulsed in our attempt at crossing. At 9 o’clock our men, protected by rifle-pits, opened a sharp fire on the enemy posted in their pits, and soon made them start from them, they leaving one by one. Our artillery then opened on them, and I saw one man knocked plump over by one of our solid shots. Whenever a rebel attempted to run from one pit to another, or showed himself in any way, our men would open on him, and if he was hit, a shout would be raised by every one. It was pleasant for us who were not under fire to see the devils knocked over. Soon a few boat-loads of men were thrown over the river. As soon as our men appeared on the opposite bank, there was a stampede of the rebels from all the rifle-pits and houses along the bank, and then there was a race, our men running and firing at the enemy as they went along. As we came to the different pits, our men would pull out the rebels, and send them over the river. From one pit a white rag was shown, and one of our men pulled three rebs out of it. Over a hundred prisoners were caught here. The bridges were laid here by 11 o’clock, the enemy shelling us towards 10 o’clock, but without any damage. At 12 o’clock, I reached camp, and immediately went to sleep, not having had any for twenty-four hours. In the morning, I was sent three different times to General Sedgwick: once with the message that General Russell had refused to obey General Benham’s orders; the second time, that General Russell had refused to obey General B.’s orders, and that he had put him under arrest; and the third time, to ascertain how many bridges General S. wished.
