AN IMPORTANT MOVEMENT.

327

and pressed after the column to the James. So stealthy and successful was the movement, that no suspicion entered the mind of Gen'l Lee of our intention, until the morning revealed our deserted fields.

CHAPTER XVI.

SIEGE OF PETERSBURG.

AT nine o'clock, the evening of June 12th, the TwentySeventh Mass. quietly abandoned the position last noted at Cold Harbor, and made a forced march of twenty miles through suffocating dust, arriving at White-House Landing at six o'clock, the morning of the 13th. Here we lay down upon the grass under cover of the gunboats, enjoying refreshing and needed rest; when, late in the afternoon, we embarked

upon the steamer " Claymont." Stiff and sore from the march of the previous night, and worn by continuous service, the men threw themselves upon the deck and were soon unconscious of the heat of the sun, or the varied scenery through which they passed. During the march to WhiteHouse Landing, Peter Wilson was taken prisoner, but eluded the vigilance of his captors, and made his way to the Sixth Corps on their march to the James, and rejoined our regiment before Petersburg. The fleet rendezvoused at Yorktown till three A.M., the 14th, passed Fortress Monroe two hours later, Fort Powhattan, a relic of 1607, about three P.M.; and Harrison's Landing at five P M., arriving at Broadway Landing about nine P.M., where the troops immediately debarked.

The criticism that this change of base was a tacit admission of defeat, and that Gen'l Grant could have reached City Point without loss, instead of sacrificing eighty thousand men, while having the humanity of the argument, loses sight of the following material considerations: the necessity

CONFIDENCE RESTORED.

329

of re-establishing confidence in our arms; of crushing the esprit de corps, the numerical force, and the material resources of the enemy; and also that the movement now made was contemplated from the first. The Army of the Potomac, for more than a year, had gone into battle with a depressing doubt, rather than with the inspiration and expectation of victory. They were invincible against, but insufficient for victorious assault. In the field the armies. had met like two opposing seas, and in the recoil each had suffered so severely that at the most it could only be claimed "they had checked the enemy." The Confederates had unbounded confidence in their commanding general, and in spite of misfortunes, contemptuously left our army in its defences along the Rappahannock, and annually engaged in devastating raids in Pennsylvania and Maryland. They were equal to any sacrifice, and fearlessly coped with any force, with an enthusiasm seemingly beyond the reach of

our arms.

Before the battle of Cold Harbor, all this had been reversed. Invincibility and valor were now the animating spirits of the Union army, and while the rebel army fought fiercely, they refused a contest save with the greatest odds, or behind the strongest fortifications. Gen'l Grant's instructions to Gen'l Butler were also significant, as appears from his words, . ..the necessity of covering Washington makes it impossible to unite the forces at the beginning of any move. Should the enemy be forced into their intrenchments in Richmond, the Army of the Potomac would follow, and by means of transports, the two armies would become a unit." With Lee's original force around the city of Petersburg, we could not have secured or held a foothold before its fortifications. All was now changed, for, when trusting on shorter lines to strengthen threatened points, Lee detached a corps for the annual raid upon Maryland, he found his arm paralyzed and the attempted diver

sion futile. The confidence and numerical strength of the rebel army were destroyed, and though it was capable of effective defence, the struggle was continued, as Gen'l Lee admitted, only to improve the terms of surrender.

At two o'clock A.M. June 15th, the Twenty-Seventh Mass. Regt., with the Star Brigade, moved across the Appomattox River on pontons at Point of Rocks, the Twenty-Fifth Mass. in advance. Here the Eighteenth Corps united with Hincks' Colored and Kautz' Cavalry Divisions, the entire force being under command of Maj. Gen'l W. F. Smith, with Petersburg as its objective point. After some delay, Kautz' Cavalry moved to the left, well out to the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad; Hincks' Division to the Jordan Point turnpike, supported by Brooks' Second Division, Eighteenth Army Corps; while Martindale's First Division, with the Star Brigade at the front, followed the Appomattox or Petersburg turnpike. With this arrangement, the force advanced without opposition until about nine o'clock, when Martindale's Division encountered the enemy's pickets near the railroad crossing, and slowly drove them to their works. Our whole force was deployed and advanced in line of battle, each organization furnishing its own skirmishers. Martindale's right rested near the Appomattox River, followed in order by Brooks and Hincks, with Kautz' Cavalry at the left flank. We advanced through tangled thickets, swamps, ravines and open undulating fields, until a shell from the front warned us that we were approaching the rebel defences.

The Star Brigade was on the right of the City Point Railroad and the Twenty-Seventh Mass. upon the left of the turnpike, about two miles from Petersburg, whose spires were visible from our position. Cautiously advancing through a considerable thicket, we emerged into an open field, half a mile from and in full view of the enemy's works. On a bluff at the left was a fort commanding the

ARRIVAL BEFORE PETERSBURG, VA.

331

railroad, known to the enemy as Battery Five, which opened a fierce fire of shot, shell and canister upon us as we advanced. An hour later we moved at double-quick across a deep ditch into a position covered by a slight elevation with scattering timber, to avoid the enemy's fire, which had already inflicted a loss upon the Twenty-Seventh Mass. Regt. of eleven men severely wounded. Among the first wounded was Corp. H. H. Weiser, Company F, Westfield, whose arm was shattered by a cannon-ball near the shoulder, inflicting a mortal wound. The opposing works consisted of strong redans connected with Battery Five on the bluff by a line of rifle-pits. The field intervening was a low meadow cut by ditches and ravines, with the railroad piercing it at the left, and was completely covered by hostile guns. The position was naturally strong, and if defended by a determined force, could have been carried only by most desperate valor and frightful carnage. The enemy's centre and left were even stronger than in front of Martindale's Division.

The surroundings and defences were so entirely different from that indicated in information given Gen'l Smith, that it required considerable time to arrange our forces for assault. The distance intervening between the armies was such that infantry was yet unavailable, and the crossing of such a field so forbidding, that Gen'l Smith deemed it prudent to delay attack until the arrival of our artillery, which, unfortunately, did not reach us till about seven o'clock in the evening. The troops were forced to hold position, meantime, under a terrific fire from Battery Five, and a battery of Napoleon guns in the meadow on the banks of the Appomattox River, at our right, the latter enfilading our position.

During this delay narrated, Private H— of Company -, of our regiment, was sitting in the shade with his back to the enemy, about ten feet from where Gen'l Stan