The Diary of a Line Officer, Captain Augustus C. Brown, Co. H, 4th NY Heavy Artillery

Tuesday, May 24th.

It was comparatively quiet in our immediate front today, but there was heavy cannonading to our left, which is in the direction of Hanover Junction where the Second Corps is supposed to be. All hands took the opportunity to “police” themselves by taking a bath in the North Anna River. Our troops were reported to be in possession of the railroad this side of the Junction. We are picking up many straglers and deserters from the enemy who tell us all sorts of tales. Some say that they have nothing to eat; that all Lee’s men are tired of the war, and that whole brigades would come into our lines but for the fact that the men have been told that they would have to take the oath and serve for three years in our army. Others say that the “Johnies” have more than they can eat and will fight forever. All seem to have a great fear of negro soldiers, and the first Reb we captured in the Wilderness was perfectly wild until we assured him that “Burnside’s niggers” were really harmless unless stirred up with a sharp stick. The churches in this country have no steeples ; are entirely unpainted and stand many miles apart at cross-roads, looking very much like deserted country school houses at the north.

Monday, May 23d.

At 5 o’clock A. M. we joined the wagon train as a guard, and marched about twelve miles to Mt. Carmel Church, where we arrived at half-past eleven and were permitted to halt and boil our coffee. The Second Corps passed to our left and the Fifth Corps to our right, and with the latter Corps we crossed the North Anna River, and in a short time skirmishing commenced and a battle opened vigorously at about 5 o’clock, which lasted some two hours. We understand that Gen’l Hill’s rebel Corps is in our front. The night was spent digging rifle pits and getting our troops into position.

Sunday, May 22d.

At one o’clock in the morning we were ordered back over the road upon which we had advanced the day before, and after marching some distance were halted until 4 o’clock P. M., and then sent to Bowling Green, where we camped near Harrison’s stores. The distance traveled was not far from six miles, but why we were kept moving about in this way no one seemed to know.

Saturday, May 21st.

We broke camp list night and marched all night with the Fifth Corps batteries of Artillery, Co. H in the lead, passing through Guinia’s Station to-day, crossing the Mattapony River at Downer’s bridge and halting near a house in a cornfield. The men were thoroughly tired out and as hungry as bears, having had nothing to eat on the long march of twenty-five miles. While on the march I observed some horsemen in the distance, flitting about in the woods to our left and front, and suspecting that they might belong to the enemy, I halted the column and sent Corporal Richard E. Rhodes forward to reconnoiter. Rhodes was a splendid, plucky little fellow, and as he went straight for the woods I stood watching him with a good deal of anxiety, having prepared to throw the company into line and follow him in case of any hostile demonstration. Scarcely had he covered two-thirds of the distance when a single horseman rode out to meet him, and in a few moments he rejoined us and reported that the men we had seen belonged to a detachment of our own cavalry, sent out, without notice to us, to picket our line of march. Starting on again with lighter hearts if not more elastic steps, we reached the cornfield, stacked arms and lay down among the little corn-hills to rest.

Friday, May 20th.

At daylight this morning I was informed that Sergt. Lock “got” his sharpshooter last night, but that the man was of no use to himself or anybody else after the Sergeant’s attentions. Getting my little squad in line, we moved by the flank in rather “open order” through the woods and across the fields to the camp which we had left the day before, where I found that many of my men had preceded me during the night. Lynch was most demonstrative in his welcome, announcing in stentorian tones that the Captain was not “kilted after all.” Upon mustering the Company for roll-call, I found that we had suffered severely, Sergt. Judson A. Smith, Artificer Gould R. Benedict and privates Joseph Housel, Jr. and William R. Mead having been killed, and First Sergt. Theben, Corp. Harned and privates Abbey, Adams, Brockelbank, Butler, Bullock, Cole, Phelps, Allen R. Smith, Sanford and Lyke, wounded, while Sergt. David B. Jones and privates Asa Smith and Charles M. Struble were missing. The day was spent caring for the wounded, burying the dead, our own as well as those of the enemy, and throwing up a line of rifle-pits where we were engaged the day before. Trenches were dug in the light soil some six feet wide and two or three feet deep, and the dead were laid side by side with no winding sheets but overcoats or blankets, though occasionally an empty box which had contained Springfield rifles did duty as a coffin. Care was taken to cover the faces of the dead with the capes of their overcoats or with blankets, and where the name, company, regiment, division or corps could be ascertained, the information was written in pencil on a board or smoothly whittled piece of wood, which was driven into the earth at the man’s, head, and the grounds about the Harris House presented the appearance of a cemetery. I particularly noticed among the rebel dead a handsome boy of perhaps eighteen years, who, though clad in the dirty butternut-colored uniform of a private, showed every indication of gentle birth and refined home surroundings. His hands and feet were small and delicately moulded; his skin white and soft as a woman’s, and his hair, where not matted by the blood from a cruel wound in the forehead, was fair and wavy as silk, and as I thought of the desolate home somewhere in the South, thus robbed of its pride and its joy, and of the loving mother who would never know where her darling was laid, tears actually came to my eyes, and I turned away leaving the poor boy to find a resting place at the hands of a burial party of a not ungenerous foe.

Later in the day, as Sergeant Jones did not report to camp, I went out on the field and opened the heads of a number of graves where there were no names, or where the identification of the occupant on the boards or stakes was incomplete, but was unable to find his body.

We learned to-day that the force which attacked us yesterday was Gen’l Ewell’s Corps, and that the repulse which it met was a signal one.

Such was the battle of Pine Grove or Harris Farm as it was called, so far as I personally saw or had anything to do with it, but in Gen’l Meade’s congratulatory order on the result, our battalion was not even mentioned though it lost seventy-four men.

Thursday, May 19th.

We were moved toward the right and rear of the army to-day, where we started to make camp and began to receive rations, but soon Cos. D and K were sent out on picket on a line nearly at right angles with the right of the army, and running back diagonally almost to the Fredericksburg road. About four o’clock P. M. my company, H, was sent out to relieve Co. D, which held the extreme right of the picket line. On arriving on the ground I found the line formed very much like a fish hook, and began establishing my picket posts, that furthest to the left in an open field, being near the extreme right one of Capt. Gould’s Co. K. I put Lieut. Edmonston in charge of that end of the line and Lieut. Carpenter in charge of the center, and posted the remaining men in squads along toward the right and into some woods. While this disposition was being made, I heard some scattering shots down toward the left. Leaving First Sergt. Theben in charge of the detachment on the right, I ran across the curve of the fish hook through the woods towards the center of my line, but before I reached it I saw a rebel picket line advancing across an open field in our front, and just behind it two lines of battle closely massed, with flags flying and officers on horseback, emerging from the woods in the rear of the field, but with their flanks so masked in woods on either side of the field that I could not see how far they extended. It was a magnificent sight, for the lines moved as steadily as if on parade, and if ever I longed for a battery of artillery with guns shotted with grape and canister, and my own men behind those guns, it was then and there, for I do not think the lines were more than two or three hundred yards from where I stood. There was a piece of swampy ground in their front, which I knew would most likely break up their regular formation and delay them a little, but I feared that their left flank, which I could not see, might extend so far to their left that it would overlap my right and give me trouble in the rear. However, it was no time to hesitate, and I determined to withdraw the center of my line slowly, firing as we fell back, keeping in touch with Company K, and straightening out my fish hook as far to my right as I could, all in the hope that we might hold the “Johnnies” until troops attracted by the noise we made should come to our assistance. By the time I reached his position in the center, Lieut. Carpenter, who had taken in the situation, was deploying the picket posts into line, as Lieut. Edmonston was also doing on the left, and both had given the order to commence firing. Giving orders for a slow and stubborn withdrawal of the line, I ran over to the right and deployed that flank also, and on returning to the open field I found the enemy struggling through the swamp and our boys peppering them as fast as they could load and fire, some lying down and some firing from behind stumps or from any other point offering the slightest protection. Looking down to the left near an old house, I thought I saw one of our officers, a short and stout young fellow, being escorted toward the enemy’s lines by two rebel pickets, and I extended a mental farewell to Edmonston, but later in the day was rejoiced to find that I was mistaken in the identity of the prisoner. As we reached the woods in our rear we fought back from tree to tree, endeavoring to hold the charging lines in the open field as long as possible, and we actually did hold them for three-quarters of an hour.

The enemy returned our fire very sharply, and in the midst of the excitement a big yellow dog, belonging to some one in the regiment, came out on the field and began to snap at and run after the “zips” made by passing bullets, his ears and tail up, and his whole appearance indicating the intensest interest in his pursuit of the imaginary birds. Suddenly one of the “birds” took off the end of his tail and down went his ears and the rest of his tail, and with intermittent but emphatic “ki-yis”, he went to the rear like a yellow streak.

By the time we had fallen back into the timber it was getting late in the afternoon and the shadows were gathering in the woods. The left flank of the enemy had lapped my right, as I had feared it might, and meeting no resistance as they reached the Fredericksburg road, the Rebs were climbing into the wagons, a train of which was on the road bringing up supplies, and the teamsters, or many of them, having cut their teams loose, were rushing through the woods in all directions. How far the main rebel lines had advanced into the woods at that point I do not know, but just as I began to fear that Co. H was going to be surrounded, a force of Union troops, probably a regiment, came charging through the woods parallel with the line of battle and caused great confusion among my men. Fortunately the Colonel passed near me and inquired where he could best go in, and I wheeled him at once to the left, and in less than two minutes there was the noisiest kind of a mix-up. Almost immediately another line of battle passed through us on the double-quick, this one going in the right direction, and some of my own men joined this line and went in with it. Volley after volley was discharged by each side, and the fighting was kept up until darkness settled down, when the rebels quietly withdrew under cover of it. My “bodyguard,” Lynch followed me about in the woods while I was trying to collect my men after the charges through us had scattered them, and was incessantly calling my attention to the shots which were striking the trees or whistling by between them, and I was finally obliged to order him to the rear, though I could not but appreciate his kindly anxiety for my personal safety. After the firing ceased I got a few of my men together, and while looking around for a place where we could safely lie down and go to sleep, I came upon my Quartermaster Sergt. Elijah F. Lock, a quiet, determined fellow, with two or three other men standing under a large pine tree. Telling him to “fall in” I was about to pass on when he said, “Captain, there’s a rebel sharpshooter up this tree, and just before dark I saw him shoot a major off his horse while that officer’s line was passing under the tree, and I am going to get him.” Many sharpshooters had climbed trees as soon as the Rebs entered the woods, and when their troops were driven back these men were left on their perches and annoyed us not a little, so, telling Lock that he had my best wishes for his success, I passed on and with my squad was soon asleep in a convenient little hollow.

Wednesday, May 18th.

Our battalion was temporarily assigned to Col. J. Howard Kitching’s Brigade of the Reserve Artillery to-day, which lay along the Fredericksburg road, and at daylight we moved to join it, marching to a point near a house called the Harris House, I think. Very soon after our arrival artillery and musketry opened on the right of our army, and it was rumored that in a charge made by the Second Corps, a line of rifle-pits were taken and substantial earthworks unmasked behind them. We are all the time hearing about successful movements by the Second Corps. At night we counter-marched about five miles and camped near our last camp ground.

Tuesday, May 17th.

An order was received to-day reducing all batteries of artillery from six to four guns. The day was quiet, but from the dispositions being made it was apparent that a battle was anticipated. A rumor was current that the Rebs had four twenty-pound guns covering our front.

Monday, May 16th.

The day opened with a dense fog, but it cleared off about 9 o’clock and I visited an old house in our rear belonging to a man named Gaul, or some such name. Quiet all day.