Forty-eighth Regiment NYS Volunteers

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	In The War For The Union 1861-1865 by Abraham J. Palmer, D.D. written in 1881-1885 CHAPTER VIII (part 2) Army of the James -- April 23, to December 31, 1864
	(Part 1) Gloucester Point, Va. --The Tenth Army Corps --Grant --Butler --Gillmore --Turner --Barton --Strickland --Review of the Army of the James --May 5th, Bermuda Hundred --"Gillmore's Rifles" --May 7th, Battle of Chester Heights --May 12th, Fort Darling --May 16th, Drury's Bluff --The Battle in a Fog --Losses --Death of Captain Moser --Butler "bottled up" -- May 28th, leave Bermuda Hundred for Cold Harbor --The Army of the Potomac --Back from Prison -- June 1st to 13th, Battle of Cold Harbor --A Gallant Charge --Colonel Barton Wounded --Loss of the Colors -- Porch (Part 2)--Casualties --In the Rifle Pits --Grant's Change of Base --Covering the "Retreat" --Back to Bermuda Hundred --President Lincoln --Petersburg --Change of Corps Commanders --Gillmore --Brooks --Birney --Barton's Brigade --June 30th, an Assault Ordered --Barton's Caution --Picket Duty --Duty in the Trenches --July 30th, the Mine --The Explosion --The Assault --The Repulse --Colored Soldiers Again --A Fatal Delay --Death of Major Swartwout (Part 3) --Back to Bermuda Hundred --Deep Bottom --Strawberry Plains --August 16th, Death of Lieutenants Tantum and Sayres --Death of Captain D'Arcy --Back to Petersburg --Home after Three Years --Charge at New Market Heights --Fort Gilman --Death of General Birney --General Terry --Chapin's Farm --Winter Quarters --General Barton Resigns --The Twenty-fourth Corps --General Ord. .
	And now followed days of and days of fierce fighting, of charge and countercharge, of holding rifle-pits under the fatal fire of sharp-shooters, and of individual deeds of valor which the writer greatly regrets he has not space or time to note. "Baldy" Smith's forces from the Army of the James, veterans as they were from the South, and now for the first time merged into the great Army of the Potomac, were yet a distinct portion of it. They did the fiercest fighting at Cold Harbor, and won the only victories of the Union army there. Perhaps they remembered that they were fighting now under the eye and command of the greatest soldier of the war, and in association with an army which was immortal. The high honor was reserved for them to cover the movement of the Army of the Potomac to the left, when Grant's final great march by the flank transferred his army from the front of Richmond to the front of Petersburg. On June 2nd the Forty-eighth held a portion of the rebel line on the left of that which had been captured on the night of June 1st. That night Lieutenant Barrett was again wounded - a wound still more serious than that received at Wagner. The casualties of the regiment during the first twenty-four hours at Cold Harbor were five officers killed, four wounded, and eighty enlisted men killed, wounded, and missing. On June 3rd the regiment was moved from point to point along the Union lines; hard fighting was constantly in progress. On June 4th it was moved to a still more exposed position. On June 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th it was constantly in the rifle-pits, under a fire that never ceased night or day -- first on the right, then on the left, then at the front; everywhere it sustained its reputation for valor and efficiency. The ground between the lines of the contending armies was strewn with dead and dying soldiers of either side, but so incessant and so hot was the firing that it was certain death to attempt to reach them. The crash of artillery, the ceaseless rattle of musketry, the glare of flashing guns by night and day, the "yells" of the Confederates and the "cheers" of the Federals, were constantly heard. indeed it was a succession of battles -- none of them decisive. On the night off June 11th special precautions were ordered, from which the men at the front inferred something definite was now about to occur. The next day rumors were current that once more the Army of the Potomac was to change its base of operations. At dark that night, the Forty-eighth relieved the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania in the rifle pits on the left, and as they moved into the place assigned them they were informed that Burnside's Ninth corps had already gone and that "Baldy" Smith's forces from the Army of the James were to hold the lines until Meade's army should get away. The fear was not unwarranted that they were to be sacrificed for the salvation of the Army of the Potomac. The battle of Cold Harbor was the fiercest of that series of desperate encounters between Grant and Lee which began in the Wilderness. At Cold Harbor alone the National loss was reported as 13,153; the Confederate losses were much less, since they constantly fought behind intrenchments. Grant's entire losses from the time he started that campaign (May 4th) up to his crossing of the James River (June 12th) are estimated at the enormous figure of 60,000. Grant's great object had been the destruction or the dispersion of Lee's army at points north of Richmond. This, despite the terrible battles he had fought, he had failed to do. Yet he was not dismayed. He now conceived the bold project of throwing his army to the south side of the James by a grand flank movement, and in that manner cut off the chief sources of supply of Lee's army from the south and southwest, and thus compel its surrender. It is well known to history how he accomplished it. The withdrawal of a great army from the very front of the enemy is a most difficult task. It depends largely for its success upon the fidelity of the thin lines who are assigned to hold the rifle-pits to the last; and that is the precise work which we did at Cold Harbor, and so successfully, that the flank movement of the Army of the Potomac across the James is conceded to have been one of the most brilliant military achievements in history. At one o'clock in the morning of June 13th the men of the Forty-eighth in the advanced rifle-pits received orders to finally evacuate their works. Word was passed in whispers from man to man, and seven companies were safely withdrawn to the rear. There yet remained, however, three companies of the regiment, who were posted in the very advanced rifle-pits, and to withdraw them from the very front was a work of the greatest difficulty. Yet it was successfully accomplished that early morning, with the loss of but a few men, who were necessarily left behind and sacrificed for the safety of the rest, and the forces retired in good order to White House, where their transports awaited them. Nothing in the history of the war was finer than the holding of the lines at Cold Harbor during the change of base of Grant's army. It could only have been accomplished by veteran soldiers in the highest stages of discipline. On June 14th the regiment sailed from White House down the Pamunky River and up the James, and late in the afternoon of the 15th reached again its old intrenchments at Bermuda Hundred. It was early the next morning, while the boys were yet asleep on the ground, that the writer found himself once more in the midst of his old regiment. It was within one month and one day of a year since he had been separated from them -- that fiery night on the banks of Wagner. The change that had come to the regiment was better realized by him because of his long absence than by those who had been constantly present with it. The clean uniforms, the burnished guns, the shining buttons, the white gloves, and the fineries of war that had signaled our long stay at Fort Pulaski, and that the regiment had carried with it up to the very guns at Wagner, were now entirely gone. Hard usage, terrible campaigns, fatal battles, and tiresome marches had thinned its ranks and tarnished buttons and "scales," and destroyed their fine uniforms, but had *not* broken their loyal spirits. Such had been the changes in the *personnel* of the regiment, that I found myself well-nigh a stranger. In the former days the "Colonel's orderly" had known everybody, and the amateur actors of the Barton Dramatic Association had been known by all. Only a little group of those with whom I had been intimate remained. Very many of the men who had formerly been privates, like myself, had been promoted to commissioned officers. William J. Carlton, for instance, who had been third sergeant, was now Captain of Company D, and John M. Tantum, who had been orderly sergeant, was now first lieutenant, and commanded the company. Similar changes had occurred no doubt in every other company of the regiment. Great and important military movements now rapidly succeeded each other in our vicinity. On June 17th and 18th the Sixth and Eighteenth Corps were near us, while the Second, Fifth, and Ninth were on our left. In company with the whole army we marched toward Petersburg. The knowledge which the private soldier possessed of the movements of a great army was vague and indefinite. Many mistakes were made, and opportunities were allowed to pass unimproved, which cost the Republic dear, but of which we then had little knowledge, and which it is no part of a merely regimental historian to chronicle. On the afternoon of June 22nd President Lincoln, accompanied by General Butler and a glittering cavalcade, rode by our intrenchments. We greeted the immortal President with enthusiastic cheers. On June 23rd we finally reached position in the fortifications in front of Petersburg which we were destined to occupy for weeks; that position was in the immediate neighborhood of the Jerusalem Plank Road, and just to the left of where the fortifications crossed it. We were immediately on the right of Burnside's Ninth Corps. We were now confronted with Lee's entire army, behind formidable lines of redans, redoubts, and infantry parapets, with skillfully contrived outer defenses of abatis, stakes, and chevaux-de-frise. The lines extended nearly forty miles in length, from the left bank of the Appomattox, around to the western side of Petersburg, also to and across the James to the eastern side of Richmond. To menace that extended line required equally long and strong intrenchments, and these were immediately constructed. There was now a comparative lull in the sanguinary struggle which had signalized the preceding months. Was it not true that the temper of the Union armies had become inferior to what it formerly had been? It is true that many veterans remained; and yet the majority of our forces now consisted of raw troops, of inferior discipline and of a less exalted spirit that those who at the first outbreak of the war *volunteered* for the defense of the Republic. Conscription and vast bounties had been resorted to to replenish the thinned ranks of the loyal armies. The temper of the men, therefore, whom Grant commanded during the last year of the war, in the east, was not to be compared with that of those who had marched under McClellan two years before. Gillmore had been succeeded in the command of the Tenth Corps by Brigadier-General W. H. T. Brooks; he also retired from its command on July 15th, and on July 22nd Major-General David B. Birney became our corps commander. General Turner still commanded the Second Division, which cam to be known as the "Flying Division," because it was constantly detached from its corps and sent here and there as the exigencies of the service required. Colonel Barton continued to command the Second Brigade, and Lieutenant-Colonel Coan the Forty-eighth regiment. Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley W. Strickland had resigned; Captain Lockwood also had returned to civilian life. As finally adjusted, Barton's Brigade consisted of the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth New York, Seventy-sixth and Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania, and later the Two Hundred and Third Pennsylvania was added to it. Thus brigaded for ensuing months, the regiment was destined still to do noble service for the country. The fortifications in our immediate front at Petersburg were of the most formidable character, Forts Steadman and Sedgwick being particularly hot places: to the latter our men gave the name of "Fort Hell," when, not to be outdone, the rebels called the former "Fort Damnation." Perhaps they were not over-elegant names; neither were they mild and quiet places. On June 30th an advance was ordered upon the Confederate works on Cemetery Hill in our front. Barton's brigade was directed to assault the hill upon the right. So formidable was the rebel works, that it seemed like courting certain death to attempt to carry them by assault; nevertheless we were ordered out, and formed our lines in the woods in front of our fortifications. Delays, however, occurred, and finally, greatly to our relief, the order was recalled. Colonel Barton was subjected to some blame for the failure of the assault. His action was subjected to a critical examination, but upon stating his reasons he was thoroughly exonerated from all blame, and his course in the matter approved. Beyond a doubt his regard for the lives of his soldiers that day saved many of us from death. The fortifications which it was intended we should assault were subsequently proven to have been so powerful, that if we had ventured to advance against them we would have undoubtedly been destroyed. At that time our pickets were posted in lines of little rifle-pits, hastily dug among the trees in the woods in front of our works. But two men at a time were placed in these little holes, and so hot was the fire, that the reliefs were only made at night. Whoever ventured to stand up at a moment in the sight of the enemy, either in the rifle-pits or upon the fortifications, was sure to be picked off by sharp-shooters. Sometimes the boys would rig up a dummy upon a pole and lift it to the top of the parapet; it was sure to be riddled with bullets in a moment. The two personal friends with whom the writer shared a shelter tent in those days (Graham and Richman) were thus killed by sharp-shooters; Graham on June 29th, while trying to run to the rifle-pits with some coffee for the men; George W. Richman, the very next morning, while we were together and alone in a rifle-pit on picket. That terrible day, from the early morning till it grew dark at night, which the writer spent by the side of his dead friend in that rifle-pit, is still unforgotten. Throughout the hot month of July we continued too occupy our line of fortification before Petersburg, alternating forty-eight hours of duty at the front and forty-eight hours at the rear. But the rest in the rear was hardly less perilous than duty at the front. Our casualties in the Petersburg trenches were one officer and twenty men killed and wounded. About eight o'clock on the evening of July 29th the Second Division of the Tenth Corps was relieved from duty in its intrenchments by a part of the Eighteenth Corps, and ordered to join the forces of General Burnside in front of the position of the Ninth Corps, for the purposes of making the anticipated assault upon the enemy's works, upon the explosion of the famous Petersburg mine. At a point immediately in Burnside's front, within one hundred and fifty yards of his line, a Confederate fort, mounting six guns projected beyond their average line; four hundred yards in its rear was Cemetery Hill, crowned by a battery which commanded the city of Petersburg and indeed the most important of the Confederate works. In order to seize that crest, and thus at one blow capture Petersburg and command the rebel position, a most ingenious device had been resorted to. The Forty-eighth Pennsylvania of Burnside's corps was a regiment which had been enlisted from the mining regions of that State, and almost to a man they were practical miners. They undertook and successfully accomplished the mining of that rebel fort. At noon on June 25th, without proper tools and with but a few of the materials deemed requisite for such work, they commenced their gallery. They obtained planks by tearing down a rebel bridge; the dirt was carried away upon hand battles constructed out of cracker boxes; many difficulties were overcome; and on July 17th the main gallery 501 8/10 feet in length, was completed. The enemy had been warned that their works were being mined, and they began countermining. However, the work went on. The Forty-eighth Pennsylvania had sunk their galleries so deep that they were not discovered. Yet the men at work far underground plainly heard the enemy over their heads in the fort. They excavated two lateral galleries, one to the right, the other to the left, a little beyond and in rear of the rebel fort. The right lateral gallery was thirty-eight feet long, the left nearly as long. They were drained and timbered, and eight magazines were placed in position within them. The mine was charged on July 27th. The charge consisted of three hundred and twenty kegs of powder, each containing twenty-five pounds -- eight thousand pounds in all. That delicate work was accomplished between four o'clock in the afternoon and ten at night; the tamping was finished by six o'clock the next day. Great hopes were entertained of this remarkable device. It was believed that if that mine could be successfully exploded, and our forces could rush at once through the crater, they would find the enemy so demoralized that Lee's army would be at their mercy. On the night of the 29th a vast array of troops was assembled in Burnside's front as noiselessly as possible, ready for the assault in the early morning. Ledlie's division of the Ninth Corps was unfortunately chosen by lot for the perilous duty of leading the assault; other divisions formed in its rear. Our division moved to the position assigned to it during the night. It was in its place at 3.30 A. M., at which time it was expected that the explosion would occur, but the fuse failed. Lieutenant Jacob Douty of Company K, Forty-eighth Pennsylvania, and Sergeant Henry Reese of the same regiment, ventured into the gallery, detecting and removing the cause of the failure. At 4.45 A. M., they reapplied the match and slowly but surely the fuse burned its way to the mine. The whole army massed there together, momentarily expecting the explosion in their front, waited. They were moments of intense anxiety. The rebellion might be ended with this day if this explosion and assault were but successful. Suddenly the very earth on which we stood seemed to tremble; the fire had reached the magazines, and, with a mighty shock, followed by a rumbling like that of thunder, the whole Confederate fort in our front was lifted into the air. A dense mass of smoke covered it, and flying fragments flew everywhere. The entire work was demolished, and its garrison of three hundred men buried in its ruins. In a moment, as the smoke cleared away, we saw a vast crater where the fortification had been, one hundred and thirty-five feet in length, and some ninety-seven feet in width and thirty feet in depth. Instantly the Federal guns opened a heavy cannonade and bombardment for miles all along our lines. The dismayed Confederates only made a feeble response. The way was open to us -- the enemy was at our mercy. And now occurred the most lamentable failure and the most inexcusable of the whole war. Ledlie's division, which its commander should have led in person straight through the crater and on to the crest, went no further than the site of the ruined fort. Ledlie himself is said to have taken refuge in a bomb-proof. He was disgraced, and retired from the army from that day. The divisions of Potter and Wilcox followed him, but their way was blocked by Ledlie's halted columns. So great was the confusion of the enemy that even this was not yet fatal. The day could still have been redeemed by an immediate and general advance, but every moment was priceless. It was now determined to bring forward from the rear Ferrero's division of colored soldiers, and send them forward to storm the hill. The delay that occurred before they could be brought to the front was fatal. It was the old blunder of Fort Wagner repeated at Petersburg: not that the colored soldiers did not come forward bravely enough; but they were not in position at the proper moment, and the delay was fatal. The enemy were in a state of panic; aroused from their sleep in the trenches by the terrible explosion, it was a long time before their officers succeeded in rallying them. Beauregard claims ridiculously that it was done in less than five minutes, but even that should have been five minutes too late. The mine had exploded at fifteen minutes before five; it was half-past seven when Ferrero's colored division advanced to the breach. They were met by a deadly fire from the Confederates, who had now rallied and were back in their places behind their parapets, and they quickly broke and fled to the rear in confusion. A terrible fight now ensued among the struggling and disorganized masses of men in and about the crater; some of them forced their way into the ditch of the gorge-line, where they fought with the enemy hand to hand; others crept along the glacis of the exterior line and climbed over the parapet into the main trench. The rebels fought behind their traverses. But it was useless: the priceless moments had been wasted; the only hope of that day was a sudden, simultaneous, and overwhelming advance upon the demoralized enemy instantly after the explosion. The opportunity had now passed. At half-past nine General Grant in person rode up to the line, dismounted, "walked across the front, under a heavy fire, to a point where Burnside was watching the battle. He took in the situation at a glance, and perceiving that every chance of success was lost, at once exclaimed, 'These troops must be immediately withdrawn; it's a slaughter to leave them there.' " * (* Badeau's Military History of U. S. Grant, vol.ii p. 482) They were withdrawn with great difficulty, and under a most terrific fire, during the next few hours. The whole affair was most wretchedly managed throughout; only the explosion it self was a success. Our loss were estimated at 4400; the Confederate loss at not more than a thousand, including those who had been blown up with the fort. It was a disastrous failure, for which somebody was responsible. Though Turner's division did not move, strictly speaking, into the crater itself, it was so placed that it suffered from a most terrible fire through those hours. The loss of the Forty-eighth was two officers and twenty-seven men. Major Swartwout was killed; so were Lieutenant O'Brien and Orderly Sergeant MacDougall. Turner's division sustained a loss of over four hundred; for more than three hours they had stood firmly under a severe fire of musketry and artillery, in an isolated and perilous position.
	[continued in Part 3 ]