Front matter (continued 2)

The wagon train proved to be Beauregard's trains and batteries moving down from Richmond, and well sheltered from us by a strong line of battle.

Of D, Private Carver received a severe flesh wound in this affair and Private George L. Butler was mortally wounded, the loss of the regiment numbering 26 men.

The 20th of May the enemy made a most determined but entirely unsuccessful attack on our outer line. We were not engaged, however. It was this day that the rebel General Walker was wounded and captured.

Only heavy skirmishing took place for some days after this, the night firing between pickets being especially continuous. During this comparative lull, and accounting for it partly, the enemy was building the Howlett House line, extending from the Howlett House Hill on the James to the Appomattox, by this line of intrenchments effecting the famous "bottling up process," and most effectually protecting their lines of communication between Richmond and Petersburgh.

As soon as General Grant learned of the futile result of Butler's movement, from which he had hoped so much, the destruction of Confederate communication with North Carolina, the investment of Richmond, and the consequent withdrawal of a large body of Lee's army from his own front, he directed that all the troops not actually needed to hold Bermuda Hundred be sent to him under command of General Smith. In consequence of this order, 16,000 of our army with 16 guns embarked the night of the 28th, and the 29th sailed for White House Landing on the York River, leaving a force of about 15,000 infantry and cavalry in the Bermuda Hundred intrenchments.

At about the same time General Lee ordered Beauregard to send him all the men he, too, could spare, which he did, retaining about 12,000 infantry and cavalry. There seems to have been a desire on the part of General Lee that still more of Beauregard's force be sent to him; even that Beauregard himself should go to him with all his available troops and take command of the right wing of Lee's army, leaving Petersburgh with a small force to take care of itself. But Beauregard was tenacious in his determination to hold his position on the south side of the James, and to keep his lines of intrenchments strongly manned. He argued that Butler's force was still large enough to endanger Petersburgh, even against the force he had retained, and it was to test this theory that he made the reconnoissance in force on the 2d of June which proved so disastrous to Company D.

The regiment went on picket duty the evening of June 1st, D taking position at Warebottom Church. The pickets had by this time settled into a state of armed neutrality, the more venturesome of them even trading in coffee and tobacco. Private Bridges, of D, was especially active in this sort of barter. He frequently went across the strip of ground that lay between the picket lines to drive lively trades with the enemy for tobacco, which was scarce with us, bartering coffee therefor, which was scarce with them.

Private Bridges, "Old Turk" as he was called, was a character. A half surly look in his eyes, something like that in those of a half tamed steer, caused him to receive the bucolic nick-name. He had ideas of his own about guns; the Springfield rifles we were armed with he despised. He wanted a gun that would carry a bullet to the spot he aimed at. Somewhere, at Gloucester Point I think, he got hold of a sporting rifle, a heavy, thick barreled, strongly grooved piece, and then the bother was to get suitable ammunition for it, our cartridges being much too large for its bore. After a deal of wandering through camps, he secured, through a good-natured cavalryman, a suitable cartridge for his gun, a carbine cartridge that fitted it perfectly. With a stock of these in his cartridge box he was ready for the enemy. Of course the carrying of this gun had to be winked at by his officers, and when he went on inspection, parade or guard duty he had to borrow a despised Springfield rifle from some one off duty to appear with, giving rise to a lately heard of story of his carrying two guns.

This evening of the 1st of June, Corporal Weymouth made himself the medium of exchange between the pickets.

He went towards the rebel picket line in the early evening and was met by one of their number whom he arranged to meet at the same spot in the early morning for the exchange of goods agreed upon.

The night was a moonless one, I remember, for, as we were not allowed fires, or to light matches on the outposts, when we wanted to learn the time of night we had to catch a fire-fly and make him crawl across the face of a watch, that when he flashed we might catch the positions of the hands. In the early part of the night the rebel batteries opened on our lines, firing most vigorously for a time, but as we did not reply they ceased firing after about one hour. It is probable that it was Beauregard's purpose to aggravate our batteries into replying that he might gather an idea of their positions and the number of their guns.

Morning came at last and the daylight broke. As soon as the light was strong enough to see clearly, Lieutenant Maxfield made a tour along the line of D, from right to left. He found Corporal Weymouth wide awake and in readiness to go out to meet his rebel friend when he should appear coming over the rebel works.

"There he is, Corporal," said some one as a form darted over the rebel line. "But he has a gun in his hand," Weymouth answered, and sure enough Lieutenant Maxfield saw that the man they were looking at had a gun in his hand, and that he was accompanied by a long line of other gray clad men, reaching out from his right and left, all with guns in their hands, too, and all moving swiftly toward our works.

In a moment the Lieutenant had shouted the alarm to his men, and as the sharp word of command rang out, every man, were he asleep or awake, sprang to his feet, every gun was to a cheek, and a rapid and effective fire was opened upon the now swiftly approaching enemy. So sure and cool were our men, far from being surprised, that in less than a minute the long line of the enemy in front of D was gone, those of them not fallen back to cover, lying on the ground dead or dying, the not too desperately wounded slowly crawling for spots sheltered from our fire.

The new rifle of Private Bridges was especially effective that morning every shot from it seeming to tell. His usually half closed eyes were wide open now and sparkling with joy. As he fired he would peer after his flying shot, and "I have hit him," he would triumphantly shout, and then proceed to reload his rifle with cool care. We were jubilant, for we had beaten the enemy off, but we speedily found that the pickets on our left had not been so fortunate. We could see them falling hastily back, and then over the open space before us that we had just cleared of one rebel skirmish line, a heavier one came rushing.

We fell back to a reserve pit on the run, entering it pell mell. Here we found Captain Lawrence and his company, H, and at his command a smart fire was opened on the pursuing enemy, driving them to cover. But unfortunately there was an unoccupied reserve pit to our rear and left that the enemy entered, and from which they poured a galling fire on our rear. Captain Lawrence, as commander of our little force, was ably assisted by Lieutenant Thompson of his own company, and by Lieutenant Maxfield, of D. These officers exposed themselves recklessly while urging the men to keep up their fire on the enemy in their front, not forgetting those in the reserve pit behind us.

Of course we could not stay where we were unless we proposed to go to Richmond before its evacuation. A hasty council of war was held by the officers, and it was agreed that the plan should be to fight desperately until a lull in the attack should give an opportunity to gain the woods behind us, then that we should break for it with a sudden and combined rush that would carry us right through the enemy of the reserve pit should they sally out as we ran by them, which we must, and within a few feet of them. The rebels in our front made several vain rushes at us. Once a sergeant of theirs led his men almost to the muzzles of the guns on the left, at a moment too, when the most of the guns there were uncharged. Corporal Weymouth was on the extreme left, "shoot that sergeant, Weymouth," was shrieked at him, and like lightning Weymouth's gun was pointing straight at the gallant rebel, and Weymouth's sharp eye was looking down the barrel as if to give the death stroke. Even rebel human nature probably fighting for a commission could not stand it, and the sergeant turned and fled, his men flying with him, not knowing that Weymouth's gun was as empty as a last year's bird's nest.

A movement of the rebels in our front that checked the fire of their men in the reserve pit indicated a sudden onslaught. The moment for retiring had come, "now, all together," said Lieutenant Maxfield, as he ran along to the left, "pour it into them when Captain Lawrence shouts 'fire, ' and then run for the woods." "Fire," the order came, a crash of rifles answered it, and then we ran like deer for the sheltering timber.

The enemy in the reserve pit was nonplussed for a moment, for it looked as if we were charging straight upon them, but catching the idea in a moment they arose and poured a sharp fire into us as we ran by. Within a minute those of us not killed, made prisoners, or too badly wounded to be carried off the field, had rejoined the Eleventh, which we found in line of battle not many rods in rear of the scene of our desperate defence.

Of D, Private Bridges was killed in the reserve pit, Sergeant Brady, Corporal Bailey, Privates Conforth, Moses E. Sherman, Smith, Dawe, Dyer and Bragdon were wounded, Captain Mudgett, Sergeant Blake, Privates Bryant, Kelley and Bolton were prisoners, Private Bolton having been too badly wounded to be taken from the field. Of these prisoners all were eventually exchanged and discharged, except Private Kelly, who died in Andersonville Prison.

We find it reported that of Company H, Privates Cumner and Rogers were killed, and that Lieutenant Thompson and Private Green were wounded. The loss of the Regiment for the day was 41 in killed, wounded and prisoners. Lieutenant-Colonel Spofford, who was in command of the Regiment, was mortally wounded before the line was broken and the command then devolved on Captain Hill, of K, shortly Major and then Lieutenant-Colonel, and from this day on the most conspicuous commanding officer the Regiment ever had.

The picket skirmishing that had died out to a large extent during the last week in May, became continuous again from this attack of June 2d. Our own Regiment when not on the picket line engaged in this desultory sort of warfare, was lying in line of battle behind the heavy inner works of Bermuda Hundred, consisting of strong redans, or batteries, connected by infantry parapets, all with stout abatis in front, and with slashings wherever possible, and from Beauregard's report, his men lay behind their somewhat similar works as anxiously as we did behind ours, both we and they in continual expectation of an assault. The truth is that both Butler and Beauregard were afraid that their long and thinly manned lines might be assaulted and carried at any moment, each knowing his own weakness full well, and magnifying the strength of his opponent.

Beauregard had the best ground for his fears. As the strongest numerically and occupying the inner and therefore the shorter lines of the opposing works, and with a strong fleet of gunboats in the river to fall back to the shelter of in case of disaster, the initiative belonged to us. And indeed a force did move out from our line the 9th of June to attack Petersburgh. General Gillmore with 3,000 infantry, accompanied by General Kautz with 1,500 cavalry, crossed the Appomattox on the ponton bridge at Port Walthall in the early morning. Gillmore moved out on the City Point Road, and Kautz moved to the left four or five miles to reach the Jerusalem Plank Road. Gillmore finding the works before him strong ones, and apparently well manned, did not attempt to assault them, returning to Bermuda Hundred that afternoon. Kautz attacked on the plank road with indifferent success at first, but finally flanked the enemy's line, forcing them out of their ranks, then marched on the city, but reinforcements coming to the enemy and Gillmore not supporting him, Kautz was forced to withdraw. But more formidable opposing forces than were those of Butler and Beauregard, forces commanded perhaps by greater chieftains than they, too, were now moving to the position of which Petersburgh was the central figure, now to become the most important position of the war.

Before the battle of Cold Harbor was fought by the Army of the Potomac and the portion of the Army of the James sent to Grant under General Smith, Grant had about given up all hope of breaking through Lee's defence on the north side of the James, and had planned, if this last effort failed, to move across the James to a position before Petersburgh, hoping to be able to move so unexpectedly to Lee as to effect the capture of Petersburgh, the turning of Beauregard's Bermuda Hundred line, and to cut off Confederate communication with North Carolina before Lee should realize Grant's object sufficiently to checkmate it by throwing the Army of Northern Virginia across the James and into the Confederate intrenchments at Bermuda Hundred and Petersburgh in time to save them. The part of the Army of the James under General Smith marched to White House, reembarked and sailed for Bermuda Hundred, arriving in the afternoon of June 14th. Smith's force crossed the Appomattox by the ponton bridge at Broadway Landing, two miles from Port Walthall and eight from Petersburgh. Assaulting the works they found in their front, they succeeded in carrying a long line of them. Divisions of the Army of the Potomac began to reach Smith's position that afternoon, crossing the James on a ponton bridge laid down from Wilcox Landing on the north side and Windmill Point on the south, just below City Point, but owing to the exhaustion of troops, missent orders, and various other causes, the success of the forenoon was not followed up, and the 16th and 17th were spent by our forces there in making assaults on the strong and, though mainly defended by artillery, still well defended rebel works. The results were varying during these two days, but without our gaining a position of sufficient strength to enable our columns to overcome the defence of the 18th, when Beauregard's small, almost exhausted and somewhat provisional army was heavily reenforced by Lee's veteran troops.

During this time we were holding the lines of Bermuda Hundred, in hourly expectation on the 16th and 17th of the Army of Northern Virginia assaulting us, it having to pass so near us in moving down the pike and the Richmond and Petersburgh to Beauregard's assistance, that it might easily hurl an assaulting column on our lines and breaking through the inadequate force with which we held them, assail Grant on the flank.

While Beauregard, thoroughly alive to Grant's real purposes through the stories of scouts and spies, and the sifted admissions of the prisoners he captured on the 15th, was showering telegrams on Lee and sending his aides with personal messages to Richmond, Lee was still on the north side of the James throwing out reconnoissances in every direction in search of Grant's real course. This delay of Lee forced Beauregard to hold his lines with a very small force against a constantly augmenting one. But these lines were formidable ones. A born engineer as well as an educated one, Beauregard had from sheer restlessness already entrenched every practicable position around Petersburgh, planting enfilading batteries on all commanding points, and generally had already planned and arranged the lines of works that, with little modification of position, held Petersburgh so long against our armies.

Knowing that the force in his front was steadily growing as divisions of the Army of the Potomac came on the ground and went into position, and that the 16th would be a day of trial to him, Beauregard the night of the 15th determined to abandon the Bermuda Hundred line, trusting to the coming of Lee's troops to regain them.

That night he withdrew the force that held the Bermuda Hundred lines, leaving only a mask of pickets, virtually abandoning his whole line from the Howlett House to the Appomattox. He says he had the guns and caissons of the Howlett House Battery removed and buried, the ground above them rearranged with sticks and leaves as not to arouse any suspicion, and that this prize remained safely hidden until the Confederates had regained their line.

The night of the 15th Lieutenant-Colonel Greely of the 10th Connecticut, which regiment was on picket at the Warebottom Church position, hearing movements on the rebel line, crept out and made up his mind from what he heard and saw that the rebels were moving away. Reporting his belief and his reasons for it to General Terry, that officer ordered a movement in the early morning of the 16th that resulted in the capture of the whole rebel line with their pickets and such troops as they had left there.

A force of one hundred day's men from Ohio had reported to General Butler, good material enough, but in the nature of things quite undisciplined, mere raw recruits, and without the veteran organization of officers and men that enabled our own new men to do such good work. These new troops were placed in the captured lines, while we held our own outer line just across the slashing dividing the two lines of intrenchments. They now held their position beautifully so long as they were not troubled by the Confederates, but along in the afternoon a commotion was visible among them, then a few came hurrying over the works they were in, then more and more, a confused firing was heard, then the "rebel yell" rose clear and shrill and the whole force of Ohio men came flocking over the works and across the slashing, a strong skirmish line of gray clothed soldiers moving after them—the van of Lee's army. The hundred day's men came tearing towards us at the top of their speed without order or orders so far as could be seen. We opened ranks to let them through, the scared white faced flock of sheep, one of them, I remember, holding up a hand from which the blood was trickling from a scratch probably made by a limb of a fallen tree of the slashing, lamentably crying "I'm wounded," "I'm wounded," while our men roared with laughter. What would have become of them—whether they would have stopped short of Ohio—I do not know, had not the 10th Connecticut, on reserve, deployed with fixed bayonets and fenced the mob back.

But we had no time for enjoyment of this part of the comedy. Closing up as the Ohio men passed through us, we turned so heavy a fire on the advancing lines of the enemy that they stopped, staggered, fell back and finally retired to their recaptured works.

At day-break of June 17th, General Osborn says that the Confederates assaulted the Union line in our front and were repulsed, but when they assaulted in the afternoon they broke through a portion of the line, driving it back.

Captain Maxfield's diary states that in the evening of the 17th, the Eleventh charged to support the left of the 24th Massachusetts, where some one-hundred day men had given way, our Ohio runaways again. It was in this charge that Corporal Bearce was wounded. And for the 18th this diary states that we had fallen back to the old line of rebel rifle pits, back of the church, and that either intentionally or by accident the rebels set fire to the recaptured church, and it was burnt to the ground.

The night of June 18th, after the corps of the Army of the Potomac had made a series of desperate and bloody assaults on the Confederate works at Petersburgh, works that military authorities agree should have been taken the 15th, could have been the 16th, might have been on the 17th, but that were impregnable for the time now that the lines of the Army of Northern Virginia were stretched behind them, General Grant, recognizing the futility of further direct efforts against Petersburgh, gave orders that all assaults should cease, and that the positions gained by the several corps close against the enemy's lines should be intrenched, and as General Humphreys says of the intrenchments threw up that night by this order, "the two opposing lines of works before Petersburgh remained substantially the same in position to the close of the war."

DEEP BOTTOM.

In the afternoon of the 20th of June, the Regiments of our brigade broke camp and marched to the James River, crossing it by ponton boats after dark, landing at Deep Bottom, on the north bank of Bailey's Creek, emptying into the James. The position so quietly taken was three miles east of the Howlett House Battery, and though four miles north of it by terra firma measurement, it was fifteen miles below it in the flow of the river, so crooked is the James at this point of its course. Deep Bottom was a well wooded bluff when we seized it, but 'twas bare enough before many days, so vigorously were axes plied by the men of our regiment, and while they were renewing their youth as axemen, fatigue parties from regiments more used to the spade were throwing up a strong line of works, batteries connected by infantry parapets and with outlying rifle pits, forming when completed and with gunboats anchored on the flanks, a practically impregnable "bridge head" for the ponton bridge now laid across from the south bank of the James to Deep Bottom.

We remained at Deep Bottom for several weeks, within easy reach of strong outlying works of the rebels, partly thrown up and strengthened after our arrival. Their main outer line on this side of the river, the Chapin's Bluff one, was about four miles northeast of Deep Bottom. The opposing lines at Deep Bottom were some distance apart, from half a mile to a mile, but portions of the picket lines were very near together, particularly in the extensive fields to the north of Deep Bottom. In the immediate front, looking east, there was a wide stretch of woods, a tongue of the woods that ran along both sides of Bailey's Creek from its wide mouth, a mouth of such uncommon depth as to give the position we held on its north shore the name of Deep Bottom. But without the animus of a momentarily expected attack, the picket of both sides were amicably disposed, meeting in a big corn patch in the open field to gather green corn and to barter. There used to be a story that some of them occasionally visited a secluded spot to indulge in friendly games of cards together, with coffee and tobacco for stakes.

An occurrence that will interest fatalists took place at Deep Bottom. A member of the 24th Massachusetts had deserted from that regiment to the enemy while the regiment was in North Carolina. It was undoubtedly his plan to take an early opportunity to desert from his new service to our lines again and get sent North out of the way of any possible casualty, for he took an early opportunity to get taken prisoner at Deep Bottom during one of our reconnoissances there, the Confederate regiment he had joined having been sent to Virginia and located before Deep Bottom. But, strange to say, the double deserter passed directly back into the arms of his old company of the 24th Massachusetts. A dramatic situation it must have been both to him and his old comrades. Recognized in a moment, he was imprisoned, tried and sentenced to be shot, and the sentence was carried out in the fields between our works and those of the Confederates.

Little of memorable moment took place for a time. Captain Maxfield's diary has these entries for the month following our arrival at Deep Bottom. For June 22d, that men of the 10th Connecticut had found a pot of gold. He does not record whether they did so at the end of a rainbow or not. For July 1st, that Brigadier General R. S. Foster took command of our brigade, and that Colonel Plaisted, who had been Brigade commander so far on the campaign, returned to the command of the Eleventh. For the 3d, that Captains Hill and Baldwin were mustered as Lieutenant-Colonel and Major respectively, and that Company A was sent across Bailey's Creek "to hold it." This entry argues a large liquid capacity for that company.

It was about this time that General Hill, then our Lieutenant-Colonel, had an adventure that would have been a misadventure but for his characteristic readiness. General Foster requested him to go out through the big corn field already told of, and learn what he could of the force of the rebels in our front, and to do it in his own way, having learned that as a daring, long-headed scout, General Hill was without a peer in our brigade. Taking a couple of orderlies with him, General Hill rode into the interior until he judged he was a mile from the river, not seeing any rebels yet, then he bore to the left to strike the river away above us, intending to ride down along the river bank to Deep Bottom. After riding for about a half mile towards the river, he suddenly rode into the rear of an undeployed rebel picket force of about twenty-five men. Clustering around him, their officer laughingly asked the General "where he was going." Personally the General felt very sure that he was going to Richmond, however much against his will, but putting on a bold face, he answered, "that he had rode out to get the news by exchanging papers with them." "This is pretty cool," said the rebel officer, "let me see your papers." Luckily the General had a copy of the New York Tribune, and one of the Philadelphia Inquirer in his pocket, and luckily too, a rebel sergeant here said "this is the same officer that sent us a paper the other day." This was so, the General, a week before, when officer of the day, having effected an exchange of papers with this sergeant through the medium of one of our men, when the sergeant must have taken a sharp look at the officer who moved so cooly along a dangerous picket line. "Well," said the good-natured rebel lieutenant, "I guess I will let you go, you look as though you were telling the truth. But I must say you took a good deal of pains to come so far, and to come in our rear, too." Our General with the guileless face answered "that he got lost in riding out, and was trying to find his way into camp when he rode up to them." Drifting into a general conversation with the officers and his men, each party covertly tried to learn a little something concerning the other's force on that side of the river, until the General, having learned all he wished to, embraced a good opportunity to make his adieus. As he rode away with his eager orderlies riding on his heels, the Confederate officer, on whom the real purpose of the General's mission had dawned, but who was too honorable to take back his given word, called out, "Remember this, you can't play at exchanging papers with me again." With this friendly warning from the "good fellow," as the General rightly calls him, ringing in their ears, the little Union party spurred its horses into a magnificent burst of speed that quickly took it out of all possible danger of having to obey a recall.

For July the 10th Captain Maxfield's diary states, that (among others) First Sergeant Bassett, of D, reported for duty from recruiting service in Maine, where he had been for some months. For the 12th, that an expedition from the 10th Connecticut went up the river and captured a lieutenant and fourteen men, besides burning a mill. For the 13th, that two prisoners were taken by a scouting party under Major Baldwin and Captain Nickels, and that some of D were in this party. Possibly it was this expedition that Private William Sherman, of D, shot the rebel "stone dead," as he declared, but while he was reloading his gun the supposed to be dead man jumped up and ran away regardless of Sherman's hilarious expostulations.

For the 14th, the diary states, that the rebels opened fire with a battery they had stationed in a ravine and that their shells killed "a horse and six men" on the gunboat Mendota. It would appear from this that there were veritable "horse marines" in our navy.

For the 21st, the diary states that our regiment moved across to Strawberry Plains, on the south bank of Bailey's Creek, and that we captured eleven prisoners, but that the enemy appeared in force and caused us to fall back into our intrenchments. For the 22d, that the regiment went to the Plains again, "we taking all we wished to," as the Captain modestly phrases it. For the 23d, that the regiment went to Strawberry Plains again, and met a strong force of the enemy, we losing two killed and four wounded, and that we remained that night on the ground we had taken during the day. For the 24th, that we were relieved by two regiments of the Nineteenth Corps, that Corps having just arrived from the Red River, and, by the way, its commander was our old brigade commander, General Emory. For the 25th, the diary tells us that the pickets of the Nineteenth Corps on the Plains were driven in, and that we were ordered out to retake the position they had lost. For the 26th, that we were still skirmishing on Strawberry Plains in an effort to retake the lost position, and that by night, when we had recovered it, we had lost one man killed and twenty-one wounded, and that we were relieved by the Tenth Connecticut that night. For the 27th, that the Second Corps crossed to the Plains early in the morning.

These operations of our regiment on Strawberry Plains in the last days of July were in connection with a movement planned against the enemy's left flank, resting on our side of the James, and directly in our front.

After the assaults of the 18th of June, the immediate attempts of Grant to overcome Lee were confined to flanking movements from the right and left, north and south of the James. The plan of the movement we were initiating was that Hancock should move to Deep Bottom with the Second Corps and two divisions of cavalry under Sheridan, and that the Second Corps should try and break through the rebel line near Chapin's Bluff, at about the spot we operated in the following October; then if the infantry succeeded in breaking the rebel line, the cavalry was to make a dash on Richmond, while Hancock should operate to prevent rebel reenforcements crossing from the south bank of the James by the ponton bridge they had laid down between Chapin's and Drury's Bluffs. And that if the dash on Richmond could not be made, then the railroad communications of the rebels on the north side should be destroyed as far as practicable. It was thought, too, that this movement, if unsuccessful in itself, might force the rebels to reinforce the north side so heavily as to cause such a reduction of their force holding the Petersburgh lines as to give a fair promise of success in the assault to be made when the mine in front of Burnside's Ninth Corps was sprung.

As a necessary preliminary to these movements, and to give the idea perhaps that the contemplated attack, which they could not help learning of the preparations for, through spies, prisoners and deserters, was a flanking one, by the way of Bailey's Creek, as, in fact, it finally became, the Eleventh crossed to Strawberry Plains, just on the other side of Bailey's Creek, having to cross the James twice to get there, once to the south side by the ponton bridge we held the head of, and then to the north side again by another ponton bridge laid down with its north side head debouching on the great cleared flat known as Strawberry Plains. Across the head of these Plains runs the River road, a connecting link of the system of roads leading into Richmond. Working our way up through the woods bordering Bailey's Creek, by night we had driven the enemy into his works guarding the road and outer lines, his main one lying on the Deep Bottom side of Bailey's Creek and running along that side of the Creek to Fussell's Mill at the head of the Creek, from which point his line was refused, as the military phrase is, that is it turned sharply back.

It was the position we had gained before this outer line that we turned over to the Nineteenth Corps and that they lost the 25th of July. The next day we pressed the enemy steadily back until we were lying close to their outer line, the gunboats firing sharply this day, throwing their heavy shells over our heads at the enemy's lines, the enemy replying as best they could with a battery of artillery they had brought down and stationed in the road. During the day a shell from a gunboat fell so unfortunately short as to fall just behind our right rifle pit, lightly scooped out pits, unconnected, each sheltering a half dozen men. It fell at just the most dangerous distance from our men, burst, and threw its fragments right among them, killing and wounding several.

During this night Hancock and Sheridan arrived with their troops. Halting their men on the other side of the river, they rode over to Deep Bottom and had a consultation with General Foster, who described to them what he had learned of the enemy's works in our front. Hancock then telegraphed to General Meade, his immediate superior, stating what had been told him, and doubting the advisability of assaulting so strong an intrenched line with the force at his command, and suggesting a flank movement by way of Strawberry Plains instead. General Meade coinciding with him in his opinion, Hancock moved his troops over the river to Strawberry Plains, and attacked soon after daylight on the 27th of July, the cavalry on his right.

General Miles moved to the front across the open field with a brigade in open order, charged and captured the enemy's battery, four 20-pound parrot guns, in a handsome manner. Then swinging to the right on its pivot, the position held by the Eleventh on the creek, the whole line moved out across the enemy's roads until it had invested his whole line, extending from our position on the creek to Fussell's Mill. The part of the infantry in the plan was now completed. The cavalry then proceeded to carry out the flanking operation it was charged with, but the rebels had been reinforced, four divisions of infantry and two of cavalry having come across the James and taken position in the works we were threatening, so that when Sheridan's cavalry moved out beyond Fussell's Mill they found the road barred by a heavy force of cavalry supported by infantry.

General Grant came across the river to the Plains that afternoon and made a personal observation of the rebel position, and deciding that not much could be done there, returned to his headquarters, from which he telegraphed General Meade that he did not wish Hancock to assault, but for him to hold his position for another day. For, though foiled in his attempt to make a dash on Richmond, Grant had learned that the reinforcements the rebels had hurried across the James had left their Petersburgh lines guarded by three infantry divisions only, while but one cavalry division remained on that side of the river, and now hoped by threatening demonstrations to keep the rebel force on the north side, out of the way of the column he was already forming to assault the Petersburgh lines. In obedience to Grant's wishes, Hancock and Sheridan spent another day in holding the heavy rebel force far from the scene of Grant's new hopes, hurrying back to Petersburgh with their troops the night of the 29th, to take part in the assault that was to follow the mine explosion set for the morning of July 30th. The explosion took place as planned, but for various reasons the results were as disastrous to the Union as to the Confederate army. Returning to our camp at Deep Bottom, we spent a few days in comparative quietude, while a new movement in which we were to take part was in process of evolution.

General Grant had received information that General Lee was strongly reenforcing Early, now operating in the Valley, and believed the reenforcements were so largely taken from the troops on the north side of the James as to give a chance for a more successful operation on that side of the river than our late one had been. The troops to be engaged in this second attempt were largely those engaged in the first, the Second Corps, part of the Tenth, and a cavalry force under General Gregg, all to be under Hancock's command. But instead of marching directly across the river as before, Hancock's corps was to embark on transports at City Point and move down the river in the afternoon, to give the Confederate spies the idea that it was going to the Valley, but under the cover of the night the transports were to run back to Deep Bottom, the troops were to disembark at Strawberry Plains, move rapidly in the morning, turn the enemy's line on Bailey's Creek, and push for Richmond. But through lack of proper landing places the second corps was not disembarked until eight o'clock instead of at daybreak.

The part of the Tenth Corps men in the programme was that we were to assault in our front, which we did promptly at daybreak, the Second Corps' historian stating that we opened fire at five o'clock.

The Eleventh held the part of the picket lines running through the woods in front of Deep Bottom the night before the 14th of August. Though so far from the river we pickets had a suspicion that something was on foot. The ponton bridge crossing to Strawberry Plains was muffled, yet we could distinctly hear the rumble of the artillery and the tramping of the horses of Gregg's cavalry division as they crossed it, and the screeching of steamboat whistles was too continuous for secrecy too, though necessary from the darkness of the night and the crowding of so many boats in the narrow channel. If we heard it, and our suspicions were aroused by it, then our contiguous friends, the enemy, whose pickets could hear it all as well as we could, must have been forewarned of what was coming in the morning.

But we of the Eleventh had no idea that we were to take the sharp initiative that we did. In the early morning of the 14th Colonel Plaisted rode up to the reserve of D and directed Lieutenant Norris to deploy the reserve, move out to the picket line and advance with it until he met the enemy, then to press forward and capture his exterior lines. (Lieutenant Grafton Norris, of Company F, was in detailed command of D, Lieutenant Maxfield having gone North on an overdue leave of absence). The movement directed by the Colonel was immediately proceeded with, and in less time than it takes to tell it we had moved out, and our skirmish line was moving rapidly through the woods and was on the enemy's pickets. We forced them back on their reserve, stationed behind a strong line of rifle pits, with partly open ground before them immediately in front of D's skirmishers. This line ran along the top of the reverse side of a dip of the ground, covering a wood road that ran directly down this dip before crossing their line. As the men of D reached this road in hot pursuit of the enemy, its inviting smoothness led them to converge on it, and, frantic now with anticipation, to charge the enemy's works without orders. Lieutenant Norris and Sergeant Young saw the danger and tried hard to prevent this movement, rushing among the men to drive them out of the road, but before they had an appreciable time to enforce their commands in a withering rifle fire of the enemy swept the road, killing and wounding several of our men. In spite of this severe check the officers held their men close up to the enemy's works, on which we opened an eager fire. For a time our line was kept back by the enemy, but suddenly the exertions of our men were rewarded, the rebel line beyond our company's left giving way just as the enemy in our front had ceased firing; and D took so quick an advantage of the opening that before the startled and momentarily confused enemy fairly knew what was happening we had mounted their works and were in possession of them.

We found that their slackened fire meant that they had not had their breakfasts any more than had we, and that they had relinquished firing in fancied security until they should have strengthened the inner man. Their untouched rations of freshly cooked bread, cooked in Dutch ovens after the peculiar Southern style, with the side of fat bacon left behind them, satisfied the sharp monitions of several Yankee appetites.

The enemy had retreated to the main line, from which they opened a sharp artillery fire on us. This line across a wide field was so very formidable in appearance that an assault was not ordered.

Of D, Privates Hall, Shepard and Stanley had been killed, Corporals Keene, Weymouth and Privates Samuel A. Bragdon, Collins, Wm. Sherman, Adelbert Stratton and Alfred C. Butler had been wounded; Weymouth mortally so. It is notable that Butler, an impetuous youth, fell close to the enemy's works, wounded in three places, and that his friend Bragdon received his mortal wound in a brave attempt to rescue him from his perilous position.

During the rest of the 14th we lay on the ground we had won, General Birney, our new Corps commander, having been ordered to suspend his operations on account of the delay attending the movements of the second corps. It was a terribly hot day in open ground, General Mott reporting that of two small regiments of his Second Corps division exposed to it 105 men were prostrated by the heat.

This intense heat may have had something to do with the slowness and weakness of the Second Corps assault, for it was not delivered until four o'clock, and then with but one brigade, others intended for the attacking column having become too demoralized to make it wise to push them forward. The only effect of this movement was to draw enough of the enemy from our front to enable part of our corps to capture a battery of four eight-inch howitzers.

The record states the night of the 14th the greater part of our Corps was marched to the vicinity of Fussell's Mills at the head of Bailey's Creek, and that the order for the 15th was that our Corps should find the enemy's left and attack Gregg's Cavalry covering our flank, but that General Birney took so wide a circuit that it was night before he found the enemy's left and took position.

As for the Eleventh, we seem to have been placed on the left for the 15th, near the pivot, for we moved but little. The recollection is that we lay along a road most of the day, sheltering ourselves from falling rain in the bordering woods as best we could. At night we went into bivouac in a handsome grove of trees, and our wagons coming up to deal out company rations, D had a company supper, First Sergeant Bassett having arrived with the cooks and the men who, for one reason or another other than sickness, had been left in camp when we went on picket.

The morning of the 16th broke clear and cloudless, too cloudless, for it was soon evident that the 16th was to be a day like the 14th, when the men of the Second Corps suffered so terribly in men and morale. The regiment was on the move very early in the day. In moving for position we were soon under an aggravating fire, marching and counter-marching with men dropping out wounded or killed, until we took position in a dense wood where we were somewhat sheltered by a bend of ground. Here a column for attack was formed, the 1st Maryland Cavalry dismounted, serving as infantry and temporarily attached to our brigade, on our right.

Anticipating the coming assault, the enemy had thrown a heavy skirmish line into a line of rifle pits running along enfilading points, to sweep the woods with a galling fire. It is very unpleasant to lie in action under such a fire and see comrades to your right and left struck by unseen foes. If a man has nerves they are soon in a quiver, and if he has not known he had any before, he learns that he is not made quite of iron after all. We found it so in the half hour we lay in this position and it was really a relief when scudding aids dismounted and darting through the woods from tree to tree brought the order to charge. Quickly we arose to our feet, and rushed forward with the wild cry which seems as necessary to a charging force as the breath with which they give it. Almost immediately we were subjected to the most severe fire we were ever under. No mere skirmish line this, but an outlying line of battle. The woods fairly rang with the screeching of the bullets; still we pushed on, when suddenly the 1st Maryland fell back, not directly back, but obliquing into our own now swaying line, and in another second in spite of the shouts of their maddened officers, the men of the two regiments were falling back in confused mass.

But the men of the Eleventh were not at all panic stricken. Getting themselves out of the line of fire they turned voluntarily, and shaking themselves clear of the dismounted cavalry, closed up their shattered line. In a minute they were ready to go in again, and as General Foster rode on the scene, galloping along the line of his brigade to make sure that his regiments were making ready for another rush, and rode up to the Eleventh calling out "Forward, Boys," we dashed ahead, and before the enemy could repeat the withering tactics of a few minutes before, had driven them headlong from their rifle pits and were pursuing them to their main intrenchments under a heavy fire poured on us from their main line, which ran along a ridge of ground covered by a wide slashing of heavy bodied trees, felled in all directions. In charging through it the men were somewhat protected by the heavy logs, and fortunately, too, the enemy must fire down hill, giving a tendency to over shooting, else not so many of us as did would have reached the crest of the hill. Before we did, many had tumbled headlong among the fallen logs, and how any of us reached it, few can tell, but we did, the rebels retiring with more rapidity than grace as we poured into their works.

Beyond the captured line we found a smooth field of perhaps a hundred and fifty yards in width, dipping into a wood bordered run. It was to this run that the enemy had withdrawn, and from it they kept up a rapid fire on us, our men returning it with the more spirit that we had found boxes of cartridges strewed along the enemy's side of the works, cartridges that fitted our guns perfectly, so furnishing us with a much needed supply of ammunition.

But the fire that annoyed us most was an enfilading one from across a run beyond the left flank of our regiment. Beyond this run, on higher ground than we occupied, the enemy had built works to sweep the front of the works we had just taken. From here, snugly ensconced behind a difficult run, and hid from us by a stout growth of trees, left standing to mask their position, they swept our flank with a terrible fire. Efforts were made to dislodge them by sending brigades down our front to charge the run, but the cross-fire the charging brigades were subjected to forced them to retreat to cover. Suddenly fierce yells from the rebel lines announced that they were receiving reenforcements. The position was becoming serious.

As Colonel Hill and Major Baldwin had been badly wounded the command of the Regiment devolved on Captain Merrill of Company I. Our men were falling rapidly and those left were exhausted by the efforts they had made under a blazing sun, yet when a thin line of the Second Corps moved out of the woods behind us and advanced as if to support us in a charge we were to make by way of our left on the aggravating work on that flank, our men raised a glad hurrah and gathered their energies for a mighty rush. But, alas, the Second Corps men could not endure the murderous sweep of the fire the alert enemy poured upon them from their flanking position, and quickly melted back into the timber.

Movements in our front indicated a gathering of Confederates for an assault. Anticipating it somewhat, and its result, of which there could be but one, the colors of the regiments were sent to the rear, and the word was passed along the line that when broken the regiments were to rally at the line of rifle pits we had taken in the morning, where the men would find their colors planted. Then came the roar and rush of the assault, a minute of fierce firing and yelling, and we were flying back to the sheltering woods, a storm of bullets whistling around us.

A citizen seeing how badly we were broken, our men fleeing into the woods without apparent formation or visible control, would have sworn that none of us would have stopped short of the James River, but I don't believe that a man of ours anyway went back a foot further than the captured rifle pits. There we gathered on our colors, every man in his place, and as the enemy came dashing through the woods after a supposed-to-be flying foe they quickly learned what it was that Paddy gave the drum. Of D, Private Hanscom was killed this day, and Privates Day, Googing, Leighton, McGraw, Bubier and White were wounded.

While these operations were going on, Gregg's cavalry, supported by General Miles with a brigade from the Second Corps, had moved up the Charles City road, driving the enemy's cavalry before them, until our cavalry had reached White Tavern, only seven miles from Richmond. Reenforcements reaching the Confederate cavalry, Gregg was in turn forced back upon Miles, both finally falling back to Deep Creek, a tributary of Deep Run, fighting as they retreated, holding one position until a portion of their men had taken a second one a half mile or so back of their advance one, then the advance line would fall back behind the new line and take up a position about half a mile or so further in the rear in their turn, all this time carrying their dead and wounded with them, the dead strapped across the led cavalry horses or in front of the troopers. Finally the hard pressed men reached the creek, behind which Gregg reestablished his line, Miles returning to Fussell's Mill to take position on the right flank of our corps. And Mott had been threatening the enemy along Bailey's Creek with a strong skirmish line to learn their force, finding their works strongly held everywhere.

General Birney, "Old Mass and Charge," proposed that we assault at five o'clock that afternoon, but the force the advance of his skirmish line developed made him abandon this idea. Besides, about then Gregg's line before Deep Creek was so strongly attacked as to compel him to cross the creek to the bank nearest us to sustain himself, it seeming clear enough that an advance would only bring us disaster. General Grant gave up the idea of pressing the movement further, determining though, as in July, that we must hold a threatening position for a few days longer to keep the heavy force of the enemy in our front while he launched a force from the other flank at the Weldon Road.

The night of the 16th we took position close to the enemy's works and began to throw up intrenchments. By morning, working in relays, we had a strong line of works thrown up right under the enemy's nose. Our position, that of the Eleventh, lay along the side of a steep hill, so that the battery crowning it could fire directly over our heads. Here we lay the 17th, so near the enemy that we could see into his works from the crest of the hill. The picket lines, really heavy skirmish ones, kept up a steady fire all along the line until in the afternoon of the 17th, when General Grant allowed a flag of truce to be sent out and a truce arranged to continue from four to six o'clock. Perhaps, springing from this truce, there was an almost voluntary cessation of firing between the pickets until a little after five o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, the 18th, when it broke out with a fury that indicated a pending assault on us.

The skylarking and frolic of the men ceased as the fire of the skirmishers increased in rapidity and volume, and every man went to his post sober and alert. Suddenly the battery behind us opened with a roar, our skirmishers came flying out of the woods and over our works, while behind them sounded the wild yell of a rebel charging column. As soon as our skirmishers were over our works, the herculean form of our Sergeant Young bringing up the rear, to be struck by a bullet as he leaped the parapet. As soon as they were out of the line of fire we opened a terrible fire, every man loading and firing for his life, but steadily, swiftly the heavy columns of the enemy poured from the woods, yelling and firing wildly, those behind pushing those in front, until it seemed as if the pandemonium of shrieking, rushing demons would roll over our works, by sheer weight of numbers, in spite of the fire mowing their front lines down. And just then, as if to complete our destruction, for to lose our line and be driven back into the tangled woods just at night, chased by a superior foe, far from a supporting column, meant the loss of our batteries and Andersonville for hundreds of us. Just then the 100th New York, on our right, broke and left their part of the works in spite of shrieking officers, General Foster himself dashing among them, yelling like a madman and brandishing his sword in a vain attempt to hold them. But the old 10th Connecticut had been held on reserve and was just rushing to the support of the Eleventh, and the men of the two regiments confident of each others support, strung along the gap like lightning until they had filled it after a manner, every man redoubling his efforts to hold the enemy, now surging at the rough abatis planted in the front of our hastily built line.

They had stood our terrible fire well until now, but they could not stand the cold steel we were ready to meet them with should they persist in crossing the works; they wavered, broke and fell back into the heavy woods between us.

That this was one of the most stubborn assaults of the war is shown by its lasting for twenty minutes, during which time General Walker of the Second Corps notes in his history of that corps, that the fire of musketry was tremendous.

Scarcely had we breathed ourselves, when word was passed that we were to retire at dark, and that we must do so very quietly, without noise or gun rattling, even the tin cups and plates of the men must be so placed in their haversacks as not to give out the monotonous clinking that usually tells that a line of troops is on the march. Then a little latter we stole through the dark woods, leaving Colonel Plaisted with a thousand men of various commands to cover our retreat to a new position. This change of position, or "contraction of the line" as the military historians call it, was rendered necessary to let Mott's division march away to Petersburgh to take the place of the Ninth Corps in the intrenchments there, so that Corps could support Warren's movement on the Weldon road. Nothing of interest took place in the remainder of the movement, and finally, after a few days spent in skirmishing and reconnoitering in the unrealized hope that a weak spot might be discovered in the enemy's line, we fell back to the river; the Second Corps and Gregg's cavalry went to Petersburgh, and we returned to our camp at Deep Bottom.

We had been away from it a week, a week of disaster to the regiment, and especially to D, for nineteen of the best men of the company had been killed or wounded during it—one half of its available duty members—and as its thin line filed into the familiar company street those that remained behind gave it a sober greeting, looking sadly for the many familiar faces they would never see again, it is no wonder the eyes of all were dimmed, or that emotional tenderhearted Sergeant Francis should break into tears of manly mourning. We slept the deep sleep of exhaustion in our rude canvas homes that night, but the next night, in the early darkness, the regiment was suddenly ordered to fall in and the men soon found themselves across the ponton bridge and on the road to Bermuda Hundred. Then it was whispered that we were on our way to take part in an assault to be made on the Howlett House Battery at daybreak. It is not strange that we were more surprised than gratified at this proof of confidence in our assaulting abilities, nor is it to be wondered at that the men murmured wrathfully at the idea of assaulting so strong an intrenched position as they knew the Howlett House one to be, armed with heavy guns, and always strongly supported. But for all their hopelessness they would have dashed forward none the less gallantly at the word of command, for they had seen too many dead men lately to fear death greatly, or to hope that if Richmond was to be taken they could long escape him; in short, had about adopted the philosophy of the old Confederate Colonel, who, in Magruder's desperate charge at Malvern Hill, was heard to shout to his shrinking men, "Forward men, Forward! Do you expect to live forever?" But we were not put to the test, for while we were yet en route a galloping aid brought us word that the idea of the assault had been abandoned, and we returned to our camp.

BEFORE PETERSBURGH.

The brigade broke camp at Deep Bottom the 26th of August and marched to a position in the lines before Petersburgh, pitching the camp near the Jerusalem Plank Road. The routine of our duty as closely investing troops ran thus: one day of twenty-four hours we would be on the picket line in our front, placed along a run that intersected an exposed field, the enemy's picket line lying on the other side of the run. Here in the head-high holes some of our predecessors had dug, we shivered through the night, and broiled through the day, not daring to lift our heads above our rude earth-works until dark; firing and observing through the rude embrasures the banks of earth before our picket-holes were pierced with. When relieved, always at night, and just after dark, we would only fall back into the front line of works, (batteries connected by infantry parapets,) to remain there forty-eight hours. Then relieved by in-coming pickets we would fall back to our camp and remain until morning, the next day being spent on fatigue duty, strengthening the lines of works. Then after another twenty-four hours spent in camp we went on picket again. All this time in camp and out of it, we were under fire, the bullets of the enemy ever singing around our ears, whether we were on the picket line, the main one, the reserve one or in camp, an invested one lying behind a parapet and flanked with batteries of field pieces and gatling guns. And often in camp, in the night, a sudden commotion would take place, to tell that some poor fellow had been severely wounded or perhaps killed, while curling up to his tent-mate under their blankets. But we dreaded the picket line the most, especially the day hours of it, not on account of its danger, for it was a comparatively safe one, all knowing the danger of exposure and conforming to the necessity of keeping closely covered, but to lay for so many hours under a hot sun in a hole in the ground, with only "hard tack" and greasy boiled pork to eat, and the warm water of our—the night before filled—canteens to drink was very disagreeable. Then the certainty that a rush of the enemy meant death or imprisonment for all pickets on the line of attack was not a quieting one.

It was on this picket line that First-Sergeant Bassett was killed the night of the 15th of September. It was a bright, moonlight night, we had just relieved the 1st Maryland, our men crept forward, each squad well informed of its assigned position, and all suddenly hurried for their positions, getting under cover as speedily as possible, the relieved pickets stealing as quietly away for the main line. This was the method of relieving here, but this night some of the relieved pickets moved up the hill somewhat carelessly, their plates and cups clanking noisily and themselves visible in the bright moonlight, so drawing a sharp fire from the enemy's pickets, by which several of the careless fellows were wounded.

Sergeant Bassett was to enter the extreme left picket hole to be occupied by our regiment. Lieutenant Maxfield returned from leave, and commanding D again, was assisting in placing the line, and was in the picket hole when Sergeant Bassett came running to it, in a crouching position, just as the enemy opened fire on the careless Maryland men. Reaching it, Captain Maxfield says, the Sergeant thoughtlessly stood erect on the edge of the pit, while saying, "Well, boys, I'm here," then fell forward into the Lieutenant's arms, a bullet having pierced his throat. Sergeant Bassett was my friend and tent-mate as well as my comrade. Only the night before his death he had talked long of the soon coming end of his term of service, a service he considered already ended by the law of right, he having enlisted on the 7th day of September three years before. But the constituted authorities considered that the three years he had enlisted for must date from October 19th, the date of his muster into service. The point was acknowledged to be a debatable one and Bassett was told that it was his privilege to stay in camp if he chose not to expose himself to the chances of the front line. But Frank was too high spirited a man to split hairs with his honor; he was either a soldier or a civilian, and if held would be as a soldier and not as a prisoner, declaring that until he was free to go North he would be with D wherever its lot was cast. And with D our bright, brave, true-hearted comrade died, heaping the measure of his duty with his life. The tour of duty in the main line, although affording more liberty of movement, was a dangerous one, especially for those stationed in front of the "Elliott" salient of the Confederates. It was under this salient that the mine had been exploded in the dim of a July morning. From its protruding point hundreds of men had been hurled from sleep into eternity, and for its mutilated possession hundreds more had died. From this grim point of the Confederate line, the hillside before it rough with hillocks of bare earth and rugged with yawning chasms, the result of the explosion, the enemy kept up a sharp and almost continuous night fire, for it was so close to our line that pickets were not thrown out before it by either side. And on dark nights their artillery at this point of the line would be frequently fired to throw a flashing light over the rough ground between the lines of works. Our heavy artillery was not averse to trying its weight with the Confederates at any time. General Humphreys praises the proficiency attending the gunners of this branch of artillery service in silencing the fire of the batteries of the enemy. They had an especial fancy for every now and then opening just at sunrise with every gun they had a roaring, shrieking salute to his rising majesty. Sometimes they did it for practice, sometimes to disconcert and alarm the enemy, sometimes to jubilate over some advantage some one of our armies had somewhere gained. One morning at daybreak, when a detachment of the regiment, including D, was in the little horseshoe shaped outwork we had before "Fort Hell," a messenger came along the line to let us know that at sunrise all our heavy guns would open. I was awake and in charge of a line of guards along the line of D, while the rest of the men, tired with a sleepless night watch, were dozing and napping here and there, crouching, lying, leaning in all possible positions but an erect one, but every man with his rifle clutched by a hand. It was my duty to awaken them and acquaint them with the coming bombardment, but I thought it would be a good joke to let the roar of the guns do the awakening. In a few minutes it came, a sudden roaring of batteries and the shrieking and bursting of shells just as the first ray of sunlight flashed from the east. The men of D not awake, awoke promptly, every man after his nature, some plunging for the bomb-proof, some springing for the parapet, and some just jumping to their feet and whirling around and around during a minute or so of desperate bewilderment. The men who leaped to the parapet to repel any coming enemy thought it a very good joke indeed, the momentarily bewildered ones had seen better jokes, but the ones that plunged for the bomb-proof were loud in expressing their indignation at the severest joke of their experience. It was on this line that the informal election was held by the regiment, Lincoln or McClellan, and the only vote cast for McClellan in D was by stout old Private Maddox. When rallied on his "disloyal" choice, as many preferred patriots thought it, Maddox wrathfully shouted, "My grandfather was a democrat, my father was a democrat, and by the Almighty, I'll not go back on either of them." If his argument did not convince his questioners of the soundness of his logic, his blazing eyes and stalwart form gave it a respectful consideration.

Private Maddox was not a conventional thinker anyway. On Strawberry Plains when a bullet went zipping through his cap, instead of raising a loud thanksgiving for his narrow escape, just by the hair of his head, he boiled over with rage at the injury to his cap, vowing that if he could get his hands on the rebel who fired the damaging shot, he would whip him within an inch of his scoundrelly life.

The twenty-four hours passed in camp gave us time for necessary domestic labors—washing, mending, gun and equipment cleaning. Though still under fire, we were released from the necessity of bearing guns and accoutrements, for which reason these few hours were looked forward to as a sort of turning out to grass, and as gladly as any old horse ever scuttled out of harness to roll in the clover, did we strip off our galling belts to stretch ourselves and enjoy our short space of comparative liberty, those of us not so unfortunate as to lose it in some detail of fatigue or other detested duty. Thus time ran in the entrenchments before Petersburgh until the 24th of September, when we moved back to a distance from the line of fire, making a new camp and giving an opportunity for the commanding officers to gratify their passion for drills, they revelling, according to Captain Maxfield's diary, both the 26th and the 27th in Company and Battalion drills.

THE NORTH SIDE OF THE JAMES.

In the afternoon of the 28th of September we left this camp and marched for Deep Bottom, arriving there in the early morning very tired and sleepy. This was a hard march, so hard a one that when the Second Corps made it on their return from Deep Bottom in August, General Hancock considered it a very exhausting night march for troops to make that were to attack in the morning. Night marches are particularly weary ones. The monotony of plodding through silent darkness, hour after hour, is as wearing to the men as is the distance.

It is rarely that a gleam of enjoyment illumines the dullness of such a march; but as we plodded along through the darkness of this night and were passing a half slumbering camp, the fires were low and the lights were few, a voice rang out from it calling, "What regiment's that?" At the answer "The Eleventh Maine," a wild yell came from the quiet camp, dark forms rising from it in groups and companies, to shout in stentorian volleys "Who stole the butter?" It was the 98th New York, the regiment that sailed in the old Cahawba with us from Yorktown to Morehead City, on which cruise the sutler of the 98th lost his never to be recovered tubs of butter, and the question now waking the echoes of the dark night was the one to which even a drum-head court-martial failed to find the answer. The expedition we were a part of was intended to surprise the Confederate works on the north side of the river, where they were known to be thinly guarded. It was hoped that our unexpected onslaught would not only force their covering lines, such as the works before Deep Bottom and along Bailey's Creek and the works centering on Fort Harrison, near Chapin's Bluff, but would enable us to get possession of Fort Gilmer, of their main line too, really the key to the position of Chapin's Bluff.

General Ord, now commanding the Eighteenth Corps, was in immediate command of the expedition, consisting of all of the Tenth and Eighteenth Corps that could be spared from the investing lines and of Kautz's cavalry division. Ord was to cross the river from his Bermuda Hundred front, crossing by a ponton bridge laid down at Aiken's in the darkness of the night, we were marching through, was to gain the Varina road, here abutting on the river, move up sharply in the early morning and assail the enemy, taking such works as he could, at all events was to prevent the enemy from crossing troops by the ponton bridge between Drury's and Chapin's Bluffs, to attack Birney's Tenth Corps. Birney's Tenth Corps was to cross the river at Deep Bottom in the early morning, gain the New Market and Darbytown roads—lying beyond the Varina road in the order named and running along the river and parallel with it—the infantry to move along the New Market road with Kautz's cavalry moving on their flank by the Darbytown road, the line to overrun the Confederate outworks before Deep Bottom and sweep forward towards Fort Gilmer's flank, while Ord attacked its front. We moved through Deep Bottom, crushed the light force found before it and moved rapidly up the New Market road, driving the enemy before us. Ord had followed the river road and attacked so strongly with Burnham's brigade as to carry all before him, capturing Fort Harrison with sixteen guns and a large number of prisoners. General Burnham was killed in the assault on the fort. General Ord then moved his forces to the right and left of Fort Harrison, capturing two batteries of three guns each. He then endeavored to sweep down from the captured intrenchments and take the works on the river bank that covered the enemy's ponton bridge, but the Confederate gunboats opening the attempt was unsuccessful.

General Ord was severely wounded in directing this movement, and General Heckman took command of the Eighteenth Corps, but scattered his brigades in the woods so that he could not concentrate them on Fort Gilmer until it had been so heavily reenforced that he was repulsed with a heavy loss. In the meantime, we of the Tenth Corps had captured the enemy's outworks lying across the New Market and Darbytown roads, and were making ready to move on his main line a little over a half mile to their rear. General Grant was now on the ground. Sending our division over to the Darbytown road, about a mile across from the New Market one, to support Kautz, he directed Birney to move forward with his other brigades. Then Ames' division and Brigadier-General William Birney's colored brigade moved on Fort Gilmer by the New Market road, but they were forced back by the grape and musketry when so close to the works that some of the colored brigade jumped into the ditch and tried to climb to the parapet of the fort by each other's shoulders. We of Terry's Division were now pushing through the captured works, Kautz on the right, all moving under a heavy fire and in momentary expectation that the assault on Gilmer would be successful, when we proposed to force our way into Richmond. So vigorously did we move forward that when the announcement of the failure of the assault reached us we were actually less than four miles from Richmond, and it required rapid movement and severe fighting on our part to get out of the precarious position our own sanguine advance had placed our inadequate force in. Rejoining our line, light works were thrown up in the night.

The next day was one of heavy skirmishing only, until the afternoon, when a heavy force of the enemy assaulted Fort Harrison and were beaten back three times before abandoning their attempt to recapture it. General Stannard who so gallantly held the fort for us, lost his arm in the second assault. While these north side operations where going on, General Meade was moving on the left, partly to keep reenforcements from the north side, where so much was hoped for, and partly to try to gain ground on that flank. The results of his movements were desultory, although rather in his favor. We held our now well intrenched position on the north side of the James with only heavy skirmishing, while threatening demonstrations were made by brigades of both sides from day to day, but without a real collision until the 7th of October. The right flank of our force on that side of the river—our brigade held the extreme infantry position on that flank—was covered by Kautz's cavalry. His position was across a swamp from us, on the Darbytown road at the Confederate line of intrenchments we captured the 29th of September. Here he had 1700 men and two batteries. So threatening was this position that two divisions of Confederates moved out the night of October 6th, and at sunrise of the 7th attacked on his front and his right flank. He could not stand up against such an attack as this, and in falling back through the swamp, by the narrow road crossing it, found the rebel cavalry there before him. Leaving them his eight guns, his men made desperate attempts to get under the wing of our division, scouting through the woods in flying groups. About as soon as the roar of the enemy's sudden attack on Kautz came to our ears the advance of his broken cavalry squadrons came dashing through the woods on our flank, riding recklessly through tearing brambles and matted copses. Almost immediately our division left its intrenchments at the double-quick for a position at about right angles to the one left, quickly forming front to intercept the enemy's advancing force, now closely following Kautz's flying men. But as the enemy swept through the woods he fell on the heavy skirmish line we had thrown out, and his immediate advance was halted until assaulting columns could be formed. At last his heavy columns were ready for the assault and his skirmishers began to press ours in an attempt to break them, their columns hoping to get close to our line under cover of an advancing skirmish line.

But our men were stubborn. I remember that Colonel Plaisted sent me with orders to Lieutenant Dunbar, in command of the skirmishers of our regiment. The fire was furious, and the lines lay close on each other, it was a murderous one, but neither Dunbar nor his men were inclined to yield an inch. "We can hold a line of battle" yelled one bold Yankee. But they couldn't, for when the roar of the assault came rolling through the dense woods in which the fight took place, we had to hold the fire of our line until the flying skirmishers should get behind us, in this way getting the shrieking, dingy lines of the enemy within short rifle range before we opened on them. The grey lines pressed forward through the hail storm of bullets our brigade was pouring on them, when suddenly from our left broke out the volley roar of the seven-shooters of the New Hampshire men. Seven volleys in one. Flesh and blood could not stand such a cyclone of lead; and they stopped, broke and fled, leaving the woods piled with their dead and dying. Just as our victory was assured, reenforcements came up the road on the double-quick, to protect our extreme right. Panting and exhausted as they were with their efforts to reach us in time to be of service, they had breath enough left to give hearty cheers for our stand-up victory. We are particularly proud of this victory, as we won it without the protecting works so necessary to break the headlong impetus of an assaulting force, and in beating off the enemy's heavy charging columns stood in about single rank, having to stretch our line to a length that would oppose any flanking movement the enemy might combine with his front attack. And curiously enough our right regiment, the 10th Connecticut, just lapped the enemy's lines. I can see the 10th now as it stood on our immediate right, every man of it fighting with impetuous vigor to protect our flank, even its Chaplain, Henry Clay Trumbull, vying with the rest of its officers in encouraging their men, not only by his words but by flourishing a most unclerical looking revolver. It was here that Chaplain Trumbull won the name of "Fighting Chaplain" and high honors as he has since won in his chosen calling as Editor of the Sunday School Times, I'll venture that he is prouder of the title he received from the rank and file on that day of mortal warfare than of any theological one his service in the spiritual army has brought him. In this affair of the New Market Road, of D, its Commander, Lieutenant Maxfield and Corporal Horace Whittier of the Color Guard, were wounded.

The 13th of October our regiment was part of a force that moved out on the Darbytown road on a reconnoissance in force. We found the enemy's works of the most formidable character and strongly held. A brigade of Ames' division assaulted a promising part of them, but was beaten back, and a movement of ours made in conjunction with that of Ames, failed, we falling back under a very heavy artillery and musketry fire. While we lay in the woods before these inhospitable works, this storm of war sweeping over us, the cooks of D, then John Day and Prince Dunifer, appeared with camp kettles filled with hot coffee, and persisted in serving it to the men in spite of the great danger they had to expose themselves to in doing so. Cook Day, always excited in action, was none the less so that he was running the risk he then was, and as some slow member of the company lying flat upon the ground would fumble for his tin cup as John stood over him, John's ire would boil till he would shout in that stentorian voice of his, "Hurry up, hurry; do you want me to be killed?" And so amusing was John's tribulations to Prince Dunifer, walking behind John to carry the reserve kettle, that he forgot all about his own danger in laughing at John. But neither John nor Prince ever shirked a duty or a danger—both good cooks and good fighters, John only excelling in the intensity with which he performed every duty, whether it was to cook, fight or to run away. Who is more worthy of honor than are these comrades? They followed our marching column day after day, loaded with kettles, spades and provisions, at every opportunity making hot coffee and taking it to the men on the line of skirmish or battle; at night preparing a fiery bean hole in which to bake their beans, standing guard all night if need be over the simmering delicacies, that in the morning their men might have something tangible for their belts to tighten over. And what welcome did a rushing reenforcement meet with at some desperate moment of a raging battle, equal to the one that used to greet old John Day as he came plunging through the woods to our hungry, shivering line on some gray morning, his broad shoulders sturdily bearing a yoke from which depended kettles of steaming coffee and smoking beans. Of D, Private Woodbury was the only man wounded on this expedition.

In the latter part of October, Grant pushed a strong force from the left towards the South Side Railroad. In connection with the movement we made one on the right.

Moving out at daylight of the 27th of October, we drove the enemy's pickets in on the Darbytown and the Charles City roads, and moved forward to threaten their works without intending to assault them. While we were maneuvering before the works, General Weitzel, in command of the Eighteenth Corps, was moving with that corps to turn the Confederate left flank by pushing through White Oak Swamp and taking possession of the unoccupied rebel works on the Williamsburgh and New Bridge roads; then was to move on Richmond. But General Longstreet, now in command of the Confederate forces on the north side of the James, anticipated the movements so effectually that Weitzel found the supposed-to-be unoccupied works so thoroughly occupied as to make his attack on them a complete failure, he losing heavily in both men and colors, each of his two attacking brigades losing three colors. About the hour of the afternoon that Weitzel met with this defeat, we were ordered to press our demonstrations and, if possible, to carry the works. The attempts made to carry out this order were unsuccessful. We had to lie on the ground in the rain that night to cover the retreat of Weitzel's men, who wearily plodded back through the rain, mud and darkness, not reaching a safe position in our rear until early morning. We then moved back into our own works. On the 29th of October our cavalry pickets were driven in from their position of observation on Johnson's farm, the position that Kautz was driven from on the 7th of the month. Anticipating an attack of the same sort as was the one we then repelled, our division moved out across the intervening swamp Kautz left his guns in. Reaching a position on the other side, we formed a strong skirmish line and charged the captured picket works, the enemy running from them as we neared them. Sergeant Brady of D was wounded as we entered the now recaptured works. This was the last engagement of the war on the north side of the James.

CHAPIN'S FARM.

The night of the 7th of October we bivouacked on the ground of Chapin's farm that we had fought for during the day, not thinking that we should remain in nearly the same position until the Spring campaign opened. But we did, first pitching our camp near the bivouac ground to move out from on expeditions into the enemy's country, finally building our winter quarters on the camp ground. But before the regiment went into winter quarters the three years service its original members yet remaining with the regiment had entered upon had ended, and the preparations for the mustering out of those of them who had not reenlisted were completed. And on the 2d day of November, after taking leave of their old comrades, these freed veterans marched away from the colors they had helped place in the front of many battles. Jubilant as they undoubtedly were, happy in anticipation of the coming meeting with loved ones, there was yet a visible tinge of sadness in their parting from the old comrades to remain and endure the hardships and privations they themselves would no more know. And those left behind with the colors, though they sped their parting comrades with hearty good will, could not help a faint heart sinking at the thought that perhaps before they could march away to their homes the fate of hundreds they had known might be theirs, and they too be lying in the shallow graves hurrying burying parties can only spare the time to give the dead of a battle field. But there was little time given the men remaining with the colors for sentimental considerations. The day after their comrades left for Maine, they in company with the 10th Connecticut, marched to Deep Bottom and sailed from there to Fortress Monroe, where a provisional division was forming to proceed to New York City for the purpose of keeping the peace there during the pending Presidential election. This division, consisting of the 11th Maine, the 6th, 7th and 10th Connecticut regiments, the 3d and 7th New Hampshire, the 13th Indiana, 112th New York, Battery M, of the 1st U.S. Artillery and other troops, was under the command of General Hawley, and sailed from Fortress Monroe the 4th of November, the Eleventh being one of the regiments on the steamer General Lyon.

Lieutenant Maxfield was in command of the Eleventh at this time, as he, a reenlisted veteran, was the ranking officer with the regiment, so many of its officers had been mustered out by the reason of the expiration of their terms of service, or were detached on headquarters service. Arriving in New York harbor the morning of the 6th of November, on the morning of the 7th the troops landed at Fort Richmond, on Staten Island, and went on board steamers which took them to points along the river front of New York City. The 11th Maine, 3d New Hampshire, 13th Indiana and 112th New York regiments and Battery M, of the 1st U.S. Artillery, went on board the ferryboat Westfield and proceeded to Pier 42, North River. The force lay there through the 8th (election day), the 9th and 10th, and until the 11th, when the authorities becoming satisfied that the knowledge of the short, sharp fate rioting mobs would meet with at the hands of the grim veterans on the river front, had secured a peaceful election period; the force returned to Fort Richmond, and after a couple of days spent in this stronghold, embarked the 14th (the Eleventh on the steamer North Point), and put to sea that night. Arriving at Fortress Monroe, the provisional division formation was discontinued and the regiments proceeded each to its own camp ground, the Eleventh reaching its camp ground on Chapin's Farm the 17th of November. In its camp, in charge of the guard left to care for the regimental baggage, the regiment found 201 recruits to be distributed through its skeleton companies. The strengthened Eleventh then proceeded to prepare its winter quarters. The personnel and the organization of the regiment of the winter of 1865 were largely changed from what they were when the regiment first landed at Bermuda Hundred. For the field and staff, it was now Colonel Hill instead of Colonel Plaisted, Lieutenant-Colonel Baldwin instead of Lieutenant-Colonel Spofford, Adjutant Fox had accepted a commission in a regiment destined for adventurous service among the Indians of the western frontier, and Chaplain Wells had gone to sow his pearls of truth in a less porcine parish, and its companies were about as completely changed. Take D for a fair example—Captain Mudgett was still a prisoner; First Lieutenant Sellmer, who had been on detached service at division headquarters for months, was promoted to the Captaincy of Company B; Second Lieutenant Maxfield, who had been made First Lieutenant of D when Lieutenant Sellmer was promoted, was now made Captain of H, a rapid promotion but fairly won by his conspicuous service in the campaign just ended, where he had shown marked executive ability as commanding officer of D since the 2d of June, when he took up the charge Captain Mudgett then laid down. Lieutenant Perkins, who joined the company in July as Second Lieutenant, had been promoted to First Lieutenant and was now the commanding officer of D. Of the Sergeants of D in May, Bassett was dead, Blake was yet a prisoner, Francis had been mustered out, Brady was First Lieutenant of Company I, and the only one remaining with the company was Young, now its Second Lieutenant, a deserved honor for the gallantry he had displayed in many engagements, and for the fidelity with which he had served the company as Acting First Sergeant in 1862, and again in 1863, and as Acting First Sergeant and First Sergeant in 1864. Of the Corporals and Privates making up the strength of D when it landed at Bermuda Hundred, some had been killed, many had died of wounds, many more were too disabled by wounds to reenter active service, and others had served their full three years and had been mustered out. Although the Eleventh Maine of the campaign of 1865 was largely different in material and organization from that of 1864, yet the work it did in the assault on Petersburgh and in the pursuit of Lee showed that the regiment was still worthy of its honored name. The changes were not confined to the regiment. A new brigade commander was given us in Colonel Dandy of the 100th New York, the ranking Colonel of the brigade now that Colonel Plaisted had resigned, General Foster had become division commander, and the corps was no longer the Tenth, but the Twenty-fourth, and in command of General Gibbon, formerly a division commander of the Second Corps, while the army of the James was now commanded by General Ord, formerly of the Eighteenth Corps, which corps was now the Twenty-fifth. The newly organized Twenty-fourth Army Corps was fortunate in its composition of veteran troops, and in its commander a West Pointer with a practical military experience since the opening of the war and always in positions of responsibility, till his bravery and his devotion to every duty devolving on him had won him the command of the corps. Though a strict disciplinarian, and a stern man at need, as we soon found, General Gibbon was a kindly man and with a bit of sentiment in his make-up, for when he selected a heart as a badge for our new corps he promulgated an order in which he said: "The symbol selected testifies our affectionate regard for all our brave comrades, alike the living and the dead, and our devotion to our sacred cause." True and well said, every word touching a sympathetic chord, and for this assurance that he was one with them in sympathy, hope and devotion, the hearts of his men went out to the General, and from then on he could look for unswerving fidelity from both officers and men. A happy beginning for the new corps; contributing no little to the brilliancy of its services in the short and glorious campaign of 1865, when it assaulted and carried strongly entrenched and strongly held positions, and marched day and night with a speed and endurance unequalled in the history of the war, until it flung itself across Lee's path and withstood the last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The winter of 1864-5 was passed by our men in the rude huts they erected of logs, boards and canvas, getting height by digging a few feet into the ground, sealing and flooring the sunken portion. These huts were heated by sheet iron stoves, and were fitted up with ingeniously contrived bunks and home-made furniture, so that the men were very comfortable in them; the officers were really no more so in their more commodious log houses with their chimneys fitted with fire places. The duties of the winter were the usual military ones of drill, fatigue, guard, and picket, supplemented by the carrying out of an order to have the troops in line of battle every morning at from shortly before daybreak until sunrise, that they might rush to the parapets and repel any attempted surprise by the enemy, who were doubtless standing in a shivering line behind their works as we were behind ours, both lines with an identical fear. The picket duty, always an uncomfortable one, was particularly so this winter from the extreme cold—a remarkable thing for a Virginia winter—but by keeping great log fires blazing on the reserve lines, and changing the outposts every hour, there was little suffering, no more than the men were willing to endure in consideration of the generous ration of whiskey served out to the relieved pickets as soon as they reached their camps. Winter passed and spring came, and with it the inspections and reviews that indicate impending movement to experienced troops. Finally our corps was reviewed by President Lincoln. It was the first and the last sight we had of our beloved President. And for his sake we will ever have a kind remembrance of the great field of dull green, with enveloping woods, that the review was held in, and of the long steel-tipped lines of troops, and of the gaily appareled cloud of officers galloping behind the plainly dressed man, with the rugged, seamed, but kindly face, whose long legs reached nearly to the ground from the rather short legged horse he was astride of, Mrs. Lincoln rolling along in a carriage behind the reviewing party.