Lost Brother: The Photographs of the 93rd New York, Part 3.

In the two previous posts, I examined the combat debut of the 93^rd New York and connected that story to some of the famous images taken by Timothy O’Sullivan in August 1863. In this post I intend to do more of the same. Here, we will see some images of a well-remembered casualty from the 93^rd.

 

On May 6, 1864, the 93^rd New York lost one of its most beloved officers, Captain Dennis Edwin Barnes, a 36-year-old lumber dealer from Schroom, Essex County, New York. Barnes inspired soldierly qualities among his men, and one veteran recalled years later, “Those who knew him best said that he seemed a stranger to fear, and was above all meanness so often shown by some in scrambling for position.”

Captain Barnes fell on the evening of May 6, as the battle seesawed up and down the Orange Plank Road. During the confused fighting, no one bothered to carry off his body. Lieutenant Waters W. Braman, who had recently served under Barnes in Company C, felt great remorse when he learned that Barnes’s body had been left behind. “There is my old Capt. (Barnes),” Braman wrote his fiancée, “who was killed in the fight of the second day. His company neither carried his body off the field or took the things from his pockets, and my company passed right over the body.” By the time anyone cared to collect Barnes’s personal items, wrote Braman, “the Rebels had stripped him of everything.”

Most distressing, Captain Barnes’s younger brother, Lieutenant Charles Talbot Barnes, had been wounded earlier in the day. The younger Barnes described his wounding and the last words he ever spoke to his brother:

I . . . was first struck by a ball hitting my tin cup and plate in my haversack, which made things jingle, but did not hurt me. It however was some time after this, near night, when another ball struck me squarely in front and I went down sure. When two of the men lifted me to my feet I could not stand without support. Seeing my sword sticking up in the clay a few feet in front, I undertook to step to or reach it and could not move my limbs, and I was assisted to it by the two men putting an arm over each of their shoulder, when I could move my feet by taking very short steps. I have often thought how singular it was that I should have asked to be helped to the sword instead of asking one of them to get and hand it to me. No doubt the ball stunned me, and the terrible pain might have turned my head for a few moments. I was borne to the rear in this position, my arms over their shoulders. One of the men was John McDermott; I forget who the other was. I had not gone but a few paces when my brother, Capt. Barnes, came to me and asked: ‘Are you hurt badly, Charles?’ I said both ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and he looked to find where the ball had struck me, and, in a practical way, examined me and returned to the company. This was the last time I ever saw that brave and noble brother.

As Lieutenant Barnes waited for an ambulance, he had bright hopes for victory. He remembered the unusual feeling of losing all sense of worry about the welfare of his brother:

After I had been borne to the rear and placed on a stretcher by the roadside, waiting for an ambulance, I could still hear the roar of musketry from our lines, and although as one half dead, I felt like cheering the brave men. I have since thought how different the feelings of one soldier for the safety of his brother soldier as compared with civil life. In this case, I remember when I fell it was a sense of great relief to think that my dear brother, Capt. Barnes, was still left to attend to and look after command. The thought or concern of his getting hurt was lost in my great anxiety and hope for gaining the day. That such a hope in victory should (as did with most of the soldiers) predominate over fear for self or hope for safety of near and dear friends, seems, to look back upon, as unnatural, and almost like a dream.

After the battle, Barnes’s widow tried to claim the body, even contacting more than one New York Congressman to secure a truce, but in the end, it did not matter. The Confederates buried Barnes’s earthly remains and they were never seen again.

 

This is Captain Dennis E. Barnes, who was killed on May 6, 1864. Can you find Barnes in the image below?

 

Timothy O'Sullivan took this image on or about August 4, 1863. It depicts the officers of the 93rd New York. If you didn't pick out Barnes, consult the key below. I've identified the officers.

 

Front Row (seated on ground, left to right): Captain Samuel McConihe, Quartermaster Sylvester Alvord

Middle Row (seated on chairs, left to right): 1^st Lieutenant William Bramhall, 1^st Lieutenant William Kincaid, 1^st Lieutenant Edson Fitch, Captain Henry P. Smith, Lt. Col. Benjamin C. Butler, 1^st Lieutenant Robert Robertson, Adjutant Haviland Gifford, 2^nd Lieutenant Robert L. Gray, Captain Dennis Barnes, Captain Nathan J. Johnson

Back Row (standing, left to right): Captain John Bailey, Captain William Randles, 2^nd Lieutenant George Bushnell, unknown, 1^st Lieutenant Francis Bailey, Captain William V. S. Beekman, 1^st Lieutenant Waters W. Braman, 2^nd Lieutenant Jay H. Northup, 2^nd Lieutenant William Ball, 1^st Lieutenant Silas S. Hubbell, 2^nd Lieutenant John J. Sherwood, Surgeon Strobridge Smith, 1^st Lieutenant Joseph Little, Sergeant-Major Wilbur Mosher

 

Here's a close-up of Captain Barnes. Thumbs up if you found him in the first look.

 

This is the only officer who I have been unable to identify. However, my guess is that it is Lt. Charles T. Barnes, the younger brother of the slain captain.

 

This is an identified image of Lt. Charles Barnes, who after being wounded at the Wilderness, bid a final goodbye to his older brother, Dennis.

 

 

 

A Few Minutes of Battle: The Photographs of the 93rd New York, Part 2.

In the last post, I introduced to you the 93^rd New York, a regiment photographed by Timothy O’Sullivan at Bealton Station in August 1863. Having served as headquarters guard for two years, the soldiers of the 93^rd experienced a bloodless war; however, that changed abruptly on May 5, 1864, when the regiment accompanied the Army of the Potomac into the Wilderness.

Undoubtedly, the officers in the 93^rd New York exhibited anxiety at their sudden change of duty. Although they expressed eagerness to get into the fight, some of them wondered what their first taste of battle would be like. Most of the officers knew the eyes of the brigade would be upon them. After all, their brigade, the 2^nd Brigade, 3^rd Division, 2^nd Corps, contained eight seasoned regiments, veterans of the Army of the Potomac’s most famous campaigns. Would the soft bread soldiers of the 93^rd be able to stomach the bloody fight that was sure to erupt?

At 11 o’clock, May 3, the 93^rd New York quietly broke up camp at Brandy Station and took up a line of march toward Ely’s Ford, a crossing point on the Rapidan River. After eating breakfast near the ford on May 4, the column reached Chancellorsville. A sense of urgency spread throughout the army; everyone was certain that battle was on the horizon.

The narrator of today’s tale is one of the officers who accompanied the 93^rd New York into the Wilderness, First Lieutenant William Leggett Bramhall, age twenty-four. Before the war, Bramhall was curator of the American Numismatic Society. An avid Republican, Bramhall designed many of the medals used by Abraham Lincoln’s “Wide Awakes” during the Election of 1860. (If you are a collector of political campaign medals, check out the work, as it may be of Bramhall’s design.)

Taking note of his new routine as a combat infantryman, Bramhall wrote to his brother describing the march across the Rapidan: “Our march was a rapid and fatiguing one with few and far between, and the day was hot and sultry from early morning until 3 1/2 o’clock p. m. . . . All were foot-sore and weary, especially our recruits, after the forced march of 27 miles, and our mess, like most others, drank our hot coffee with our ‘hard tack’ and fried ham, and then laid down to delicious sleep and pleasant dreams among the Rebel graves on the old Chancellorsville battle-field.”

The next morning, May 5, the 93^rd New York and the other regiments belonging to Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays’s brigade struck their tents, ate breakfast, and made haste for Todd’s Tavern, a crossroads west of Spotsylvania Court House. Bramhall continued, “The day was very warm and sultry, but our pace was rather accelerated than abated.” The bluecoats reached the tavern at noon, where they stopped for lunch. Suddenly, said Bramhall, “artillery and light musketry fire broke upon our ears.” Although the New Yorkers did not yet know it, the 5^th Corps had made contact with Confederates along the Orange Turnpike in the Wilderness. Soon, buglers blared the assembly. With their lunch interrupted, the New Yorkers strapped on their accoutrements and made haste yet again. Bramhall continued, “nearly half of the time ‘double-quicking,’ we continued for more than an hour, when we were finally halted in the Wilderness, where we rested for about ten minutes, and filled our canteens with the best water we could procure. Then commenced a terrific fire of musketry away off to the right, which rolled along to near our front in continued waves, and assured us that the fight had now commenced in earnest.”

After that, the soldiers of the 93^rd New York did not have long to wait. The regiment formed for battle on the north side of the Orange Plank Road, and together with Hays’s other regiments, it moved forward for half a mile through a thick growth of oak trees. Suddenly, a frightened Pennsylvania regiment belonging to Brig. Gen. Frank Wheaton’s 1^st Brigade, 2^nd Division, 6^th Corps, came barreling out of the woods, and “came running through our ranks in a manner too precipitate to call good order,” recalled Bramhall. Pushing through the routed Pennsylvanians, the New Yorkers passed over a ditch, then up a roll of ground, and met a terrific volley from the Confederates belonging to Colonel John M. Stone’s brigade. Bramhall wrote, “Though halted, we did not flinch, but replied vigorously, and gradually advanced, the enemy failing back, but halting to give us a volley as we came up to them each time. “

The battle burst upon the 93^rd New York like a torrent, with soldiers falling left and right. Bramhall wrote down some of disjointed memories of the battle:

One of the first to fall was Lieut. Gray, of Co. G. the ball passing directly through his head. He fell to the ground lifeless without a murmur. (He was slightly wounded by a spent ball a moment before, and after going to the rear a few steps, and finding the wound a trifling one, he returned.) One by one the men were pierced by the enemy’s bullets, either wounded or killed outright. Not a groan or cry escaped one of them, but in the calm possession of every faculty, they would turn to an officer and cooly say, ‘I am wounded,’ and then pass, or be carried to the rear. One instance I would mention, I saw a corporal in the ranks of my company wounded in the leg, while in the act of loading his  gun; he deliberately aimed his piece and fired, exclaiming ‘Take that,’ he then turned and said ‘Lieutenant, I am wounded and can do no more.’ He went to the field hospital and had his wound dressed, and soon after came back to the line, saying, ‘I must have another pop at the rascals.’ That corporal must be promoted.

It was not much longer until a bullet found Bramhall. A musket ball raked his scalp. “I felt the ball strike,” he recalled, “and the next I knew was, that, dizzy and weak, I raised myself off the ground and saw the blood spouting from my wound, and not a little ‘clot’ on the ground.” Bramhall staggered over to Captain Henry C. Newton, telling him that he had been hit. Newton replied, “Hurry to the rear and go low.” Bramhall wandered to the rear, barely able to stand up straight. When he came to the ditch that his regiment had crossed, he tumbled into it. Luckily, the sergeant-major came to his assistance and guided him to a field hospital stationed along the Orange Plank Road.  

An ambulance carried Bramhall to Fredericksburg, where he occupied a bare floor along with eleven other wounded officers from his regiment. In a few days, he received a transfer to the Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C. Bramhall returned to duty later that summer, but due to the effects of sunstroke, he left the regiment after the Battle of Deep Bottom. Bramhall mustered out in November, settled in Washington, where he became, at various times, a lawyer, a real estate broker, and a deputy collector of taxes. He died in 1902.

Bramhall’s description of the Battle of the Wilderness is quite exciting, and that, in its own right, makes it a valuable source. However, what I find interesting is that Bramhall, like the other officers of the 93^rd New York, waited expectantly to experience his first battle. He waited for two years, operating as headquarters guard, and during that time, he saw no heavy combat. Then, at his first battle, the Wilderness, he endured only a few whirlwind minutes of combat before a bullet knocked him out of the fight. It proves a truth: just a few minutes of Civil War combat was far more than anyone could ever want.

This is Lt. William Leggett Bramhall, the author of the letter that narrated the 93rd New York's first harrowing moments of battle.

This photograph shows the officers' mess of Company E. It is part of a stereo-image taken by O'Sullivan in August 1863. The officer seated in the foreground is Lt. Bramhall. The captain that Bramhall spoke to after he was wounded, Captain Henry Newton, is seated in front of the flag.

This is a postwar image of Bramhall.

This is 2nd Lt. Robert Liston Gray, the officer from Company G who died from a gunshot wound to the head.

“Adieu to Headquarters”: The Photographs of the 93rd New York, Part 1.

On the evening of August 1, the Army of the Potomac’s headquarters trudged into Bealton, a stopping point along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad located in Fauquier County. The next day, renowned photographer Timothy O’Sullivan stopped by to take images of the soldiers at rest. Specifically, he toured the bivouac of the 93^rd New York Volunteers, a headquarters guard regiment, which encamped at a dusty settlement called Germantown. One member of the 93^rd described Germantown as a village of “two houses,” lacking “society, and good water.”

Despite these poor accommodations, the soldiers of the 93^rd New York welcomed the photographer’s visit. Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin C. Butler called out nine of his ten companies (Company H was unavailable) and formed them up to have their pictures taken. Additionally, O’Sullivan took photographs of the company officers’ mess and the regimental field and staff. By the time he had finished, O’Sullivan had cataloged the regiment in a manner that had never been done for any other regiment attached to the Army of the Potomac. Nearly every member of the regiment had been captured on wet-plate, formally or informally.

It was an interesting moment for the 93^rd, considering the blood-letting in store for it. The 93^rd New York had been raised in the summer and autumn of 1861, but after two years of service, it had experienced a comparatively bloodless war. The regiment left Albany in March 1862 with 980 officers and men, but two months after reaching the front, it received an assignment to the Army of the Potomac’s headquarters guard. Although it was present for the Peninsula Campaign, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, it had suffered miniscule losses because it stayed safely behind the lines, operating as the army’s provost.

In April 1864, while the 93^rd New York sat quietly at Brandy Station, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade reassigned it to front line duty. (Specifically, Meade wanted to replace the 93^rd New York with a regiment he liked, the 114^th Pennsylvania.) On April 21, First Lieutenant Waters Whipple Braman wrote to his fiancée, informing her of the sudden change. Eager for a chance to fight, Braman explained, “The 93^rd are at last B-r-i-g-a-d-e-d, and those beautiful colors so long borne, and so galliantly at Hdqrs, are at last to pay a maiden call upon the rebellious sons of our respected Uncle. . . . Adieu to Hdqrs, Wall Tents, ‘soft bread,’ extra baggage and the kindred luxuries. Come ‘Hard-tack’ and whatever hardships are connected with a soldiers life. I am ready for it, and willing to do my duty and if ever I do come out of this war (of which I have not a doubt) I mean to have it said that I ever did my duty.”

After the reassignment, the 93^rd New York’s chance to bleed for the Union came swiftly. As part of the 2^nd Brigade, 3^rd Division, 2^nd Corps, the 93^rd New York took a brutal beating at the Battle of the Wilderness. Over the course of two days, May 5 and 6, 1864, the regiment lost 260 officers and men. From May 8 to May 19, it lost another forty-five at Spotsylvania Court House. At North Anna and Totopotomoy, from May 22 to May 31, it lost another thirty-seven. Finally, at Cold Harbor, it lost another five.

The shockingly high losses in the 93^rd New York appalled Captain Braman, who had been promoted during the campaign and transferred to the staff of Maj. Gen. David B. Birney. “I do not wish to boast,” he wrote his fiancée, Maggie Getty, “but the loss of three hundred officers and men and they name they bear in this Division is sufficient praise. But what can compensate for the loss of friends, that we have marched, tented, messed, and lived with for over two years[?]”

 

What indeed.

What follows are images of the companies photographed by O’Sullivan on or about August 4, 1863.



This is Company A. The officers seated in front are (left to right) 1^st Lieutenant Joseph Little, Captain William Randles, and 2^nd Lieutenant Oscar B. Ingraham. At the end of the Overland Campaign, Company A reported thirteen killed and mortally wounded, twenty-nine wounded, and two missing. All three officers in this photograph were wounded.

This is Company B. The only officer in this image is 2^nd Lieutenant George Bushnell, who can be seen reclining at left-center. As of June 14, 1864, Company B reported five killed and twenty wounded, included Bushnell.

This is Company C. The officers seated in front are (left to right) 1^st Lieutenant Waters W. Braman, Captain Dennis Barnes, and 1^st Lieutenant Joseph Little (who actually belonged to Company A). On June 14, it reported five killed (including Captain Barnes) and twenty-eight wounded.

This is Company D. The two officers seated in front are Captain Henry P. Smith (left) and 1^st Lieutenant Silas Hubbell (right). On June 14, Company D reported five killed and twenty wounded.

This is Company E. The officers seated in front are (left to right) 1^st Lieutenant William Leggett Bramhall, Captain Henry C. Newton, and 2^nd Lieutenant John J. Sherwood. On June 14, the company reported six killed, thirty-six wounded (including all three officers), and two missing.

This is Company F. The officers seated in front are (left to right) Captain John Bailey, 1^st Lieutenant Silas Hubbell (of Company D) and 1^st Lieutenant William Kincaid. On June 14, it reported Captain Bailey killed, fourteen wounded (including Kincaid), and one missing.

This is Company G. The officers in front are Captain William V. S. Beekman (seated left), 1^st Lieutenant Francis Bailey (reclining center), and 2^nd Lieutenant Robert Liston Gray (seated right). On June 14, the company reported six killed (including Gray), thirteen wounded (including Beekman and Bailey), and three missing.

 

This is Company I. The officers in front are (left to right) Captain Nathan J. Johnson, 2^nd Lieutenant Jay H. Northup, and 1^st Lieutenant Norman Eldridge. On June 14, it reported four killed (including Eldridge), twenty-two wounded, and six missing.

 

This is Company K. The officers in front are (left to right) Captain Samuel McConihe, 1^st Lieutenant Robert  Robertson, and 2^nd Lieutenant William Ball. On June 14, it reported one killed, one mortally wounded, and twenty-seven wounded.

 

Lt. Waters Whipple Braman of the 93rd New York was eager to leave the headquarters guard, that is, until he fought at the Wilderness.

 

A Dumb, Ugly Confederate

In the three previous posts, I examined the fighting at Rappahannock Station, a bloody engagement that occurred on November 7, 1863. That fight cost the bluecoats 419 casualties. It is important to remember that this was not the Army of the Potomac’s only engagement on that fateful day. Farther southeast, another Union column made its way south, advancing on Kelly’s Ford. After a short fight, the Union troops took possession of the river crossing, and both columns united at Brandy Station.

Not many accounts describe the battle action at Kelly’s Ford, but one incident is worth mentioning. It involves a Confederate prisoner taken into custody by the 3^rd Corps. According to the men who captured him, he was really dumb and really ugly.

Okay, you may be wondering why we should care about a dumb, ugly Confederate. Believe me, there is a point here. But first thing’s first. Here’s what happened.

At noon, November 7, the vanguard of the 3^rd Corps—Col. Regis de Trobriand’s brigade with three additional regiments attached to it—arrived at the north bank of the Rappahannock River. Two North Carolina regiments belonging to Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur’s brigade—the 2^nd and 30^th—sat sprawled on the low ground on the south bank. Eager to get his men across the river, Col. de Trobriand ordered his men to secure the crossing point. He deployed one regiment, the 2^nd U.S. Sharpshooters, as skirmishers atop the river bank’s high bluff. Arriving quietly, the Union riflemen ducked behind trees and cautiously observed their enemy. Looking down, they beheld an unobstructed view of the North Carolinians’ position. Sergeant James M. Matthews jotted what he saw in his diary, “Johnnys were scattered around permiscuously on the opposite side and horses and cattle [were] grazing as if no Yanks were near. . . . The enemy were seen playing cards and employing their leisure time in diverse ways along the line.”

Although the 2^nd U.S. Sharpshooters deployed in a timely manner, the other regiments from de Trobriand’s brigade did not. Eventually, after an hour’s delay, the Confederate pickets became alerted to the Sharpshooters’ presence. They scurried to their rifle pits and opened fire. For the next hour, the North Carolinians and the 2^nd U.S. Sharpshooters blazed away. Finally, at 3 P.M., de Trobriand sent in his assault troops. The 1^st U.S. Sharpshooters led the way, plunging into the river, followed by the 40^th New York, the 20^th Indiana, the 3^rd and 5^th Michigan, and the 110^th Pennsylvania. Taken in the flank, the two North Carolinian regiments gave way and fled.  However, a larger number of North Carolinians simply threw down their weapons and surrendered. Altogether, de Trobriand’s men captured about 290 Confederates.

Although he had seen most of his brigade ensnared, one dumb-struck North Carolinian refused to surrender. He was a skirmisher who had spent the first phase of the battle firing at the 2^nd U.S. Sharpshooters. Instead of fleeing for his life or throwing up his hands to surrender, this unnamed fellow ducked behind a small stump. Unfortunately, the stump did not provide him much cover. He crouched behind it, somewhat like a frightened ostrich, buttocks in the air, hoping the Union soldiers would not notice him.

From their lofty position, the Sharpshooters could see the cowering Confederate and believed that they could kill him in an instant. However, none of them wanted to spill more blood, so the U.S. Sharpshooters called to the North Carolinian, inviting him to surrender. They shouted to him many, many times, but each time, he refused to answer. One of the U.S. Sharpshooters, Private Wyman White, wrote, “We peppered the stump, trying to make the fellow understand that we could wing him, but he gave no sign that he saw the danger he was in. He would just move a little at times when our bullets hit the stump.” Eventually, the U.S. Sharpshooters reasoned that the man “had no brains,” which explained his unwillingness to comprehend his dire predicament.

Finally, one intrepid officer ended the charade. Adjutant Charles H. Foote stripped off all of his clothing and accoutrements—with the exception of his hat and pistol—and swam the river. Naked, Foote approached the cringing North Carolinian and convinced him to surrender. Exactly what Foote said is unknown, but whatever it was, he persuaded the frightened North Carolina soldier to throw in the towel. They swam back across the Rappahannock and the U.S. Sharpshooters gathered around, intent on interrogating their captive. Private White was not terribly impressed with what he saw, and he found some of the prisoner’s words disturbing. He wrote:

The boys collected around the prisoner and fired questions at him. He said he was from North Carolina and that he was drafted for the second time, having served in one campaign before. Then he was sent home for awhile to raise corn. But a few weeks previous they came for him again. The man was deformed in his lower limbs and one of his hands was badly out of shape. All that was not enough to keep him from serving Jeff Davis. The poor fellow’s legs below his knees were about four inches over the proper length. He was very tall and almost a skeleton, being one of the lankiest of southern lanks. With a grip on the skin on his neck, one might run around him once or twice without letting go. The fellow was about the color of a bacon rind and his hair was down to his shoulders. He was considerably frightened  but came out of his fright when he was served with coffee and hardtack by the boys. He was taken to the rear and probably sent north as an object lesson to the loyal people of that section, an inkling of the strength of the Southern Confederacy at the time.

White’s description of the dumb, ugly Confederate captured at Kelly’s Ford is interesting, and not merely because of its humorous (and somewhat mean-spirited) portrayal of the southern captive. I find it illuminating that the U.S. Sharpshooters crowded around the prisoner to learn his life story. The Union soldiers did not dismiss the North Carolinian as a waste of conversation. Indeed, Private White even found the man’s tale so interesting that he filled the pages of his diary with the lurid material quoted above. Further, White did not attribute the prisoner’s unpleasant appearance to substandard grooming or to poor eating habits. Instead, he blamed the Confederacy for taking the man him from his peaceful pursuits and then overusing and underfeeding him. To White, the prisoner’s ill-looks and apparent ignorance did not impose a censure upon the people of North Carolina, but it revealed “an object lesson” in the tyranny and desperation of the Confederate cause. In the end, White found it satisfying to blame the Confederate government for the prisoner’s stupidity and ugliness.

This is no surprise. It is often easier to blame the enemy government than to blame the individuals who fight for it. For soldiers, such an outlook makes war palatable.

"The lankiest of southern lanks."

This map by Robert Knox Sneden depicts the Union movements against Rappahannock Station and Kelly's Ford. Note the Confederate position on the southern bank of the Rappahannock--near the bottom of the map--where the ugly North Carolinian was found.

“Let the Enemy Waste their Ammunition in Killing You!”: The Army of the Potomac at Rappahannock Station, Part 3.

In the last two posts, I offered accounts from the Army of the Potomac’s 6^th Corps to describe the action at Rappahannock Station. For this one, I intend to rely on an account from an officer in the 5^th Corps. It describes an interesting situation, a death threat gone unfulfilled.

Although historians often remember the Battle of Rappahannock Station as a fight between the 6^th Corps and Maj. Gen. Jubal Early’s division, in fact, Union regiments from other corps supported the assault. As the 6^th Corps’ two brigades prepared for their epic attack, the 1^st Division, 5^th Corps, formed on their left and stretched a line of skirmishers across their front. To the immediate left of Col. Peter Ellmaker’s brigade, on the other side of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, sat one of those 5^th Corps regiments, the 118^th Pennsylvania. Captain Francis A. Donaldson commanded Company H. The moments before the battle captivated Donaldson. Taking time to look to his right, he beheld the awesome sight of Ellmaker’s brigade as it poised for its assault. On November 9, Donaldson wrote about what he saw:

It was an indescribable spectacle, grand, stirring, impressive, and from my position in the centre of two corps, I gazed upon a pageant such as was never before seen by me, and a sight never to be forgotten by any one who beheld it. Upon our right was Colonel Ellmaker’s brigade, 6^th Corps, in mass, and it appeared that the whole division was also heavily massed; certainly they were in several lines deep and close together. The burnished arms and every bit of metal on this splendid mass of men glistening in the nearly setting sunlight; the colors and lines so well dressed, and the faces of men aglow with excitement, the ceaseless riding back and forth of mounted officers giving final orders made the blood tingle in my veins with a sense of admiration at the picture. . . . Yet the glow [of the sun] was on them also, its golden rays sparkling on the mica dust covering their uniforms made them appear as though they were profusely powdered with gold dust. In fact the whole landscape was covered with a golden glory.

Although Donaldson briefly admired the golden grandeur of Union troops drawn for battle, his mind suddenly shifted to different sort of image, the memory of threat delivered by a violent, insubordinate soldier. The troublemaker was Private James Shields, age twenty-five, an Irish-born sailor, described by Donaldson as a “big brawny fellow.” Shields had a bad habit of drinking to excess. He often became drunk on Jamaica Ginger, his favorite liquor, drinking whole bottles of it in just a few minutes. Donaldson remembered that Shields, when sober, was “quiet and inoffensive, and being a handsome soldierly fellow would have made a name for himself.” But in liquor, he was “a veritable devil incarnate.” On October 17, 1863, just three weeks earlier, Shields had asked Donaldson if he could have permission to leave camp. Donaldson replied that he did not trust Shields, who had given him much trouble on account of his intemperance. When Shields walked away muttering that he would just leave camp anyhow, with or without permission, Donaldson rose from his seat and called back to Shields, warning him that if he did so, it would be his last offense, as Donaldson swore he would kill him.

Within an hour, a report arrived at Donaldson’s tent that Shields was roaring drunk, “disgracing the regt. by unseemly language and conduct.” Donaldson ordered Shields arrested and thrown in the guard house, but in the ensuing struggle, the Shields threw off his captors and grabbed a musket from the stack of arms. In haste, Donaldson arrived on the scene, grabbed a musket off the stack, and tried to club Shields with the butt. Donaldson wrote, “He was so very powerful that had he been sober he would have finished me in no time.” When he saw an opportunity, Donaldson swung the musket and clubbed Shields on the head, felling him with a sickening thump. Blood poured out of Shields’s motionless body and the regimental surgeon confirmed that Shields had suffered a skull fracture. For several hours, Donaldson endured the quiet abuse of his men, who accused him of being a black-hearted man-killer.

The next day, when passing the 5^th Corps ambulance train, Donaldson noticed that Shields had survived his wound. In fact, Shields appeared to be on the way to a full recovery. “He was perfectly sober and sane,” Donaldson wrote in his diary, “and his head was tied up in bandages.” Donaldson spoke a few words to Shields, not expressing any remorse for what happened—not for hitting him on the noggin, anyway—but instead Donaldson told Shields that he would do his best in future days to quell Shields’s bad habits, his intemperance and insubordination. This conversation did not please Shields, who, according to Donaldson, “made but one reply and that to the point—in the next battle he would remember me, a threat that gave me clear insight into his character.” Donaldson’s expression grew stormy, and he replied that he would keep Shields’s threat in mind should he return to duty. The angry captain sauntered off, not expecting to see Private Shields ever again, but he remarked in his diary, “At all events, come what may, I am glad he is alive.” Donaldson was happy not to have a fellow soldier’s blood on his hands.

As it happened, only twenty days later, Shields returned to duty and both he and Donaldson found themselves in line-of-battle at Rappahannock Station, calmly waiting for the order to advance. As captain, Donaldson occupied the far fight of his company, and Shields being the tallest man in the company, stood next to Donaldson. As the Union artillery thundered and as the stretcher-bearers took out their implements, Donaldson’s mind suddenly drifted away from the golden glow of the sun to the thought of Shields’s threat. In his diary, he remembered how he dealt with it:

Whatever made me think of his threat just then I cannot say, but I did, and I turned and looked at the fellow. He was as calm as a May morning, perfectly cool and rigid, in fact a splendid looking soldier. He appeared not to notice my scrutiny, so I said to him, ‘Shields, do you remember threatening me when I visited you in the hospital?’ I had drawn my pistol at the thought of him, and was deliberating what to do. He said he did. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘I think you will have enough to do in a few minutes to protect your own life without attempting mine. I could shoot you down like a dog if I chose to, and be justified in the act, but you are not worth the exertion. Let the enemy waste their ammunition in killing you, for I won’t!’ I then dismissed him from my thoughts as the word came to move forward.

Both Donaldson and Shields survived the fighting at Rappahannock Station, although their regiment was only lightly engaged. In December, Shields requested a transfer to another unit, and he went to the 5^th Massachusetts Battery. The next time Donaldson saw Shields, he was being punished by the officers in his new unit, who had lashed him, spread-eagle, to the spare wheel of one of the cannon, a painful, humiliating retribution often used by artillery units to discipline incorrigible soldiers. Apparently, this convinced Shields that he did not have what it took to be a soldier. In January 1864, Shields deserted. Authorities eventually captured him, tried him for desertion, and saddled him with a dishonorable discharge.

It is interesting to consider the thoughts that flitted across a Civil War soldier’s mind when he prepared for battle. In this case, there was something in the beautiful golden sunlight at Rappahannock Station that triggered Donaldson’s mind to remember the death threat that awaited him. I do wonder what, precisely, in the unholy melding of war and beauty made Donaldson think of Shields at that precise moment. In any event, he dealt with Shields’s threat in his own bold way, and by so doing, lived to tell the tale.

 

Captain Francis Adams Donaldson, Co. H, 118th Pennsylvania, fretted that one of his soldiers might kill him at Rappahannock Station.

Overwhelmed, But by a Smaller Force: The Army of the Potomac at Rappahannock Station, Part 2.

In the previous post, I examined the Union attack at Rappahannock Station from the perspective of an officer in the 6^th Maine, a regiment that formed part of Col. Peter Ellmaker’s brigade. In this post, a Union officer from the other brigade involved in the attack, Col. Emory Upton’s, shall narrate.

As dusk settled on a bright, cloudless day, November 7, 1863, Upton’s brigade formed up at the front-right of Brig. Gen. David A. Russell’s 1^st Division, 6^th Corps. Colonel Upton lined up his four regiments, the 5^th Maine and 121^st New York in the first line and the 95^th and 96^th Pennsylvania in the second. As the soldiers stood poised in golden twilight, they could see the successful charge of Ellmaker’s brigade occurring off to their left, carrying the earthworks held by Col. Archibald Godwin’s North Carolina brigade.

Soon, Col. Upton came galloping along the line, telling his soldiers that they must charge the earthworks in their front, which contained the infamous Louisiana Tiger Brigade from Stonewall Jackson’s old division. Captain Cleaveland J. Campbell of Company C, 121^st New York, remembered that when the news passed down the line, murmuring went up from the men. He wrote, “But the long line of rifle-pits is still filled with the famous (in southern hearts) Louisiana Tigers, carrying on their banners, the name of every battle field from West Point to Bristol, in which the Stonewall Division has taken part, for they were the pet brigade of the misguided enthusiast Jackson. They knew the ground thoroughly, until now they supposed themselves able to hold a position against twenty thousand men; almost total darkness has fallen upon the scene.” Indeed, the situation looked daunting. The two lead regiments contained only 568 officers and men. If they charged, they would have to overtake 1,400 Louisianans, all of them secure inside  the walls of a well-made fort.

At a distance of 275 yards from the Confederate line, Upton’s brigade loaded their muskets and changed their pace to the double-quick. One hundred and forty yards beyond that, the men unslung their knapsacks and fixed bayonets. They moved swiftly. In about five minutes, the two lead regiments, the 5^th Maine and 121^st New York, had taken the outer Confederate rifle pits without firing a shot, and wrote Captain Campbell, “thanks to the darkness with [only] slight loss.”

When it became clear that the Louisiana brigade intended to shift to its right and retake the earthworks lost by Godwin’s men, Upton decided it was time to attack. Turning to the soldiers of the 121^st New York, Upton shouted, “don’t fire a shot; if they fire at you, lie down; there are three lines of battle behind; let them march over you, and storm the works.” Captain Robert P. Wilson, of Upton’s staff called out, “Forward, every lover of his country.” Major Andrew E. Mather of the 121^st cried out, imploring the soldiers to remember the dead from a previous battle:  “Remember Salem Chapel!”

Thus encouraged, the two regiments surged across the last bit of deadly ground. They stormed the parapet, and much like Ellmaker’s brigade, found themselves amid swarms of angry rebels. Captain Campbell narrated the assault in a November 20, 1863, letter to the Cherry Valley Gazette:

This time they were crowded with the enemy, but confused by their recent change of front, supposing as they afterwards strongly expressed it, that ‘all hell was corning,’ and thinking that their only chance for mercy, lay in non-resistance to our over­whelming force, over fourteen hundred rebels surrendered to five hundred and  sixty-eight loyal men, and throwing down their arms begged for that quarter, which the Louisiana brigade is charged with having often refused to the unfortunate prisoners they have taken. The left of the 121^st was swung around to the river, cutting off all retreat, and nothing remained but to gather the spoils. They were even beyond expectation. As the result of less than an hour’s engagement, the 3d brigade had captured a fort, four pieces of artillery, a battle-flag, and many prisoners.

The trickiest part of the whole affair was getting the Louisianans to throw down their weapons and surrender. A few minutes earlier, Ellmaker’s brigade had penetrated Godwin’s line only to face a bloody hand-to-hand fight complete with stabbings and bludgeoning. The Louisianans put up considerably less resistance. The brigade commander, Brig. Gen. Harry Hays, fled as soon as Upton’s men entered the works. As Campbell humorously put it, “The rebel General Hayes, unfortunately escaped, having important business to transact on the other side of the river, just after the commencement of the attack.” The next senior officer, Colonel David P. Penn, lacked the stomach to put up a fight.  Col. Clark S. Edwards, commanding the 5^th  Maine, invited Penn to surrender. “In manner somewhat peremptory,” explained Campbell, Penn asked time for deliberation. Edwards refused his request. “Not a moment,” he said, and called up his provost guard to take Penn into custody whether he liked it or not. “Then here is my sword,” replied Penn, handing it to him. Edwards asked Penn if the other Louisianans were surrendered on account of their commander raising the white flag. Being as unhelpful as possible, Penn replied, “I am no longer in command. You must ask the new commanding officer.” In any event, Upton’s brigade captured the remainder. Campbell, who helped corral the Louisianans, wrote, “So each surrendered for himself, and very anxious each was to do it,—and very much mortified was each, the next morning, to learn that they—the invincibles—behind entrenchments, had surrendered to a force of less than half their number.”

Although effuse with praise for his regiment, his brigade, and for Col. Upton, Captain Campbell marveled at the unpredictability of the whole affair. Two small regiments had captured a brigade three times their size and with minimal losses. He opined:

There can scarcely be a question but that the two regiments were saved from annihilation by Col. Upton’s masterly handling of his small force, and by the skillful manner in which he conveyed to the enemy the idea that they were to be overwhelmed. No words of praise are too strong to be applied to the gallant men, who, that night, so distinguished themselves by their cool, determined courage. The loss so slight, (about two hundred in the 3d Brigade, and only sixty in the 2d,) in comparison with that, in so many hard-fought, but fruitless struggles, does not obscure the victory of the living with the blood of the dead. Those who survive will cherish the memory of that proud moment of their lives, and those who fell will be still more honored for having taken part in the glorious struggle in which they met their deaths.

More amazing, Upton’s men had spared their foe a grisly fate by convincing them to surrender. Indeed, a small force could, at times, be overwhelming.

 

Captain Cleaveland John Campbell commanded Company C, 121st New York Volunteers, at Rappahannock Station. He is shown here as colonel, 23rd U.S.C.T. 

 

Here is the Civil War Trust map from the previous post. You can see the assault by Upton's regiments along the west side of the map.

 

Colonel Clark S. Edwards, 5th Maine, negotiated the surrender of the Louisiana Brigade at Rappahannock Station.


 

 

“The Only Relief Seemed Our Continuous Yell”: The Army of the Potomac at Rappahannock Station, Part 1.

This post is about screaming, swearing, and killing. In battle, those things tend to go together. A Union officer from Maine tells us why. Here is his story.

On November 7, 1863, Adjutant Charles Amory Clark was having a rather bad day. In the morning, he was nearly captured by Mosby’s Rangers. At the time, Clark’s regiment was encamped at Warrenton, Virginia, and while there, a friend of his, Captain Solomon Wright Russell, Jr. of the brigade staff, wanted to visit a woman he was courting, Anna Ashton Dixon, who lived outside of town. Shortly after the two officers visited the Dixon farm, Mosby’s men showed up, catching them far from their regiment. Clark and Russell beat a hasty retreat, with Clark remembering, “We had a narrow escape from Moseby’s men, one of whom in a blue uniform, stood looking into our faces as we rode away.”

The day continued to get worse. Next, Clark’s horse was killed under him. After a thirteen-mile march from Warrenton to Rappahannock Station, his regiment, the 6^th Maine, deployed as skirmishers. While directing the skirmishers into the fray, carrying out the orders of Brig. Gen. David A. Russell, Clark was abruptly dismounted by a Confederate bullet and had to make his way back to the line on foot, “only too glad” to do so, he later wrote.

Finally, at dusk, Clark learned that high command wanted his brigade to spearhead an attack against a Confederate bridgehead at Rappahannock Station. About 2,000 Confederate soldiers from Maj. Gen. Jubal Early’s division sat entrenched on the north side of the Rappahannock River, defending a pontoon bridge, the only stable structure for miles in any direction capable of supporting the Army of the Potomac’s heavy equipment. The army commander, Major General George Meade, wanted to get across the river and reach Brandy Station. Some Union troops would have to clear the path and seize the bridge. It fell to two brigades, Col. Peter Ellmaker’s and Col. Emory Upton’s, to do it.  Clark knew that his no-good, very bad day was about the get plenty worse.

Adjutant Clark’s regiment, the 6^th Maine, formed the front rank of Ellmaker’s brigade, its left flank anchored along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. As the golden autumn sun began to set, the divisional commander, General Russell, rode along the line, causing the Maine soldiers to raise a cheer, all of them apparently eager to try their hand at besting Early’s rebels. Russell’s regimental commanders gave out specific instructions. The men were allowed to load their rifles before the charge but were not allowed to cap them. The officers told their men not to fire a shot until they had penetrated Early’s entrenchments. It was a chilling proposition. The bluecoats had to cross no-man’s-land by a single gallant rush, with no way to return fire. Although numbering only 321 officers and men, the Maine regiment’s cheer reverberated loudly. Clark recalled, “Probably so small a number of men never before made such an uproar.” After a short cannonade, General Russell sent the infantry forward.

Immediately, four Confederate artillery pieces began throwing projectiles into the tightly-packed Union brigade. Clark remembered the nail-biting moments of the 6^th Maine’s charge:

The fire which was opened upon us as we swept forward was simply terrific. It is impossible to describe it. The sensation with me was, that the air was so filled with bullets that it was heated to a high degree of temperature, and scalded my throat and lungs when inhaled. Men were seized with the wildest transports of rage and frenzy. We seemed to me marching against a blind, inscrutable force, which defied all of our efforts to reach it or grapple with it. The only relief seemed our continuous yell, which every man kept up until the fortifications in front of us were reached.

The men of the 6^th Maine broke over the Confederate earthworks like a crashing wave, followed closely by the regiment behind them, the 5^th Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the two regiments had lost their cohesion in crossing the field. Further, Confederate artillery and rifle fire had felled many bluecoats. The 6^th Maine lost thirty-eight killed and 101 wounded. To Clark, the situation looked dire: “We entered the enemy’s lines attenuated and scattered, a handful here and there, among swarms of the enemy.”

There was only one way to win this fight. The soldiers had to scream and curse loudly. Shrieking like a banshee, with sword drawn, Clark plunged his weapon through the bowels of a Confederate soldier. Everywhere, hand-to-hand combat became the order of the day; one soldier from the 6^th Maine stabbed two Confederate soldiers with his bayonet and brained another with the butt of his musket. Clark witnessed one terrible clubbing up close. As several Confederate soldiers moved to stab him, over the parapet emerged the gigantic form of one of the 6^th Maine’s sergeants. Although Clark never identified the man, he called him “the most devout Christian I have ever known. He was our ‘praying sergeant,’ and every night before he slept, no matter where he might be, or who might be present, he never failed to address the throne of grace in solemn and earnest prayer.” On this occasion, the religious sergeant forgot his Christianity and began skewering and braining Confederates left and right, punctuating his eviscerations with a host of epithets. As Clark described it, “he came up with an infuriated yell, and with profanity which was fierce and appalling, he aided with bayonet and clubbed musket in speedily dispersing the enemy around us.”

In all, the shock of the 6^th Maine’s charge did the trick. After only a few minutes—although it seemed like ages to Clark—the Confederate line gave way to a precipitous rout, with Early’s troops scrambling south across the pontoon bridge to safety. The other regiments from Ellmaker’s brigade, the 49^th Pennsylvania, the 119^th Pennsylvania, and the 5^th Wisconsin, added their weight to the assault, and in short order, Clark was beside himself with joy. Having experienced so much bad luck earlier in the day, he was surprised to see a Union victory occur so suddenly. He wondered, “Why they recoiled from their entrenchments none of us have ever been quite able to understand.”

But just as the shouts of battle died down, Clark’s bad luck caught up to him. As he was standing upon a rifle pit, a Confederate ball struck him on the left leg, rolling him off his perch. Stung by the sudden pain, he admitted that he fell to the bottom of the pit, “with a confused feeling of rage and utter helplessness.” Some soldiers from the 6^th Maine came to Clark’s assistance and placed him on a stretcher, but while being carried to the rear, they found Captain Russell, the officer that Clark had accompanied to the Dixon farm that morning, lying wounded. Clark insisted upon giving up his stretcher, telling the men to place Captain Russell on it instead. With another man to act as a crutch, Clark proposed to hobble his way to the field hospital. Clark survived his wound, although it led to his eventual discharge from the 6^th Maine in February 1864. He recovered and returned to the service as a brigade staff officer for Brig. Gen. Hiram Burnham. Clark died in 1913.

As of November 8, 1863, the day after the battle, Clark’s road to recovery was just beginning. But unlike the previous day, November 8 started auspiciously enough. While Clark was lying wounded in the field hospital, the Christian sergeant who had scattered the Confederates so vigorously during the battle came by to apologize. Apologize? Clark was confused. The sergeant was deeply contrite, he remembered, “[he] implored me to forget the awful frenzy that had taken possession of him when he fought the foe at such close quarters.” Affably, Clark accepted the apology, but he had to have known that the sergeant’s profanity was the right thing at the right time. Like the sergeant, Clark had also screamed and yelled during the attack. When faced with the awful task of killing Confederates face-to-face, loud obscenity was the only thing that got the 6^th Maine out of its sticky situation.



Lt. Charles Amory Clark, 6th Maine Volunteers, stabbed a Confederate with a sword at Rappahannock Station. He was shocked when his sergeant apologized for using an obscenity at the same battle.

 

 

This sketch by Alfred Waud depicts the Union troops from David Russell's 1st Division, 6th Corps, overrunning the Confederate earthworks. The scene is looking east. The river and pontoon bridge can be seen at right in the background.



 

This map from the Civil War Trust depicts the Union deployment at Rappahannock Station. Take note of Ellmaker's brigade along the west side of the railroad. The 6th Maine spearheaded that attack.

This Alfred Waud sketch depicts the aftermath of Rappahannock Station, Nov. 8, 1863. Note the Confederate earthworks in the background and the Union soldiers from Ellmaker's brigade parading around their captured battle flags.