The Gates of Light: Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

 

The Plains of the Wilderness

The Wilderness/Spottsylvania, 1864

 

“. . . in this wilderness they shall be consumed,

and there they shall die.”

Num. 14:35

 

In the early spring of 1864, the beginning of the fourth year of the Civil War, it was as if once again Athena had flown from High Olympus to interfere with the affairs of mortals.  From high in the sunlit southern sky she had cast a huge shadow over the beleaguered Confederacy.  It extended from the Rapidan River in northeastern Virginia, where the armies of Mead and Lee had returned after Gettysburg, nearly a thousand miles southwest across the great Mississippi into Indian Territory.  It reached north to the Missouri River and then south to New Orleans at the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Early on a cold, raw morning, the 8th of March, 1864, President Lincoln sat at a table sipping coffee and reading.  His companion that morning was the young soldier, of whom he had now grown extremely fond, Asa Prescott.  After a short time, the President turned to his friend.  “Asa,” he said, his care-ridden and deeply lined face lighting up with anticipation, “General Grant is due in Washington some time this morning.  I would like you to meet him at the station and give him any assistance he might desire in getting in at Willard’s Hotel.”

 

“Yes, I’ll most surely do that,” the young man replied.

 

Later in the morning, Asa was at the station as the train from the West pulled in.  A military man, accompanied by a boy of thirteen, attracted his attention.  Coming up to him on the platform, Asa inquired: “Are you General Grant?”

 

“Yes, I’m Grant,” the stranger replied in a soft, but clear and musical voice.  “And this is my son, Fred,” he added.

 

“I’m Asa Prescott.  The President asked me to meet you and accompany you to Willard’s.”

 

 

Asa met for the first time this newest general from the West.  Over the three years of the war, there had been other western generals whose efforts to bring victory to the Army of the Potomac had been smashed on the anvil of war.  He thought of Pope, under whom he had fought at Second Bull Run in late summer of ’62.  He seemed to hear again the vain words of that general, who had boasted that no longer would the eastern army turn its back on the enemy.  He recalled the overly-confident, yet overly-cautious, McClellan, fresh from his victory west of the Blue Ridge, whose timidity cost the Union forces a decisive victory at Antietam, where he had fought and been wounded.  Now once again a westerner had come east.  “Would it be any different?” Asa silently asked himself.  “Would this general, with his impressive victories at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, become another statistic in the cycle of Union defeat and disappointment or would he forge a different and brighter destiny for the Union cause?”

 

The three proceeded toward Pennsylvania Avenue, where Willard’s Hotel was located two blocks from the White House.  Asa now had opportunity to view the features of the man with whom he was walking and conversing.  The new general was slim of figure, five feet eight inches in height, somewhat stooped, and weighed, Asa judged, about a hundred and thirty-five pounds.  His eyes, which were expressive, were dark gray.  Whoever had designed the general’s features, Asa thought, must have been enamored with the geometrical figure of the square.  Grant’s jaw was square-shaped, as was his high, broad brow, which was creased with horizontal wrinkles.  When not talking, his lips formed a horizontal line.  His hair and beard, chestnut-brown in color, were closely and neatly trimmed.  He wore a tarnished and threadbare major-general’s uniform.  His rough jacket, which hung loosely from his rounded and stooped shoulders, did not fit him well.  He wore a high-crowned felt hat, perched level on his head.  He did not, Asa saw, walk in the military manner.  Rather, without keeping step with his companion, he shuffled his way along the walkway.  All in all, Asa concluded, this man was thoroughly unlike the “spit and polish” of the eastern military.  If it were the pretentious appearance of eastern generals that had caused the difficulties of the Army of the Potomac, certainly, if Grant were to fail, this would not be the cause.  And, Asa was beginning to think, beyond and underneath the plain, indeed shabby, appearance, there might very well be in this man the clear discernment of reality and the persistence of single-willed determination that could bring the war to a successful close.

 

Willard’s Hotel, operated by the brothers who gave it its name, was the fashionable hotel of the Capitol.  Upon coming to Washington to assume the presidency, Lincoln had stayed there.  In one of its rooms Julia Ward Howe had set new words to the old camp-meeting tune of the 12th Massachusetts and had endowed the nation with her memorable gift, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” now sung by countless soldiers marching to battle.  Hundreds of Union generals, many of high station, had checked in and out of the hotel over the last three years.

 

A busy desk clerk glanced from his work and saw, as a bystander later put it, a person with “a scrubby look . . . as if he was out of office and on half pay with nothing better to do than hang around the entry of Willard’s, cigar in mouth.”  The man at the registration counter inquired if he could get a room.  Asa, who was standing nearby, was now becoming quite fascinated with what was transpiring.  The clerk, really much too busy to attend to nondescript personages, but noticing that the applicant wore general’s stars, albeit tarnished, finally responded that he had a small room on the top floor.  “Will that do?” he hurriedly inquired.

 

“That will do quite well,” was the reply.

 

 

With his practiced flourish, the clerk whirled the register to the new guest.  The guest quickly signed the register and handed it to the clerk.  He started to resume his interrupted work, when, glancing at the register, his face turned pale and he appeared to go in shock.  The signature he read was: “U.S. Grant & Son‑-Galena, Illinois.”  A delightful chuckle fell from Asa’s lips, when he observed that the astonished and chagrined clerk immediately reassigned the general to a more appropriate room and rang the bell with such force that all the bellboys who heard it came running to assist the Hero of the West.

 

That evening the President gave a public reception at the White House.  It was held in the usual reception room, the “Blue Room.”  President Lincoln was in evening dress, and, Asa noted with amusement, shod with something other than his favorite bedroom slippers, which he invariably wore during the long days of his work at his office.  His shirt was at least a size too large around the neck.  He wore a broad tie, which was awkwardly tied and hung somewhat obliquely from his neck.  His ungainly form, his angular arms and legs, at times bordered upon the grotesque.  His small, gray eyes, his deeply lined face, expressed his deep sadness and burdensome responsibility.  He moved through the crowd, towering over those about him, and looked over their heads as if he were expecting someone.

 

Around 9:30 in the evening, Asa heard a sudden commotion near the entrance of the room.  General Grant had entered and was walking toward the President.  Asa reached the general’s side and conducted him to the Chief Executive.

 

“Why, here is General Grant!” the President exclaimed.  “Well, this is a great pleasure, I assure you.”  He then seized the general by the hand and shook it for several minutes with extreme cordiality.

 

Asa watched the occasion with great interest, for he realized that he was witnessing history in the making.  Here were two men from the West, from Illinois, so similar in their humble origins, meeting for the first time, now standing together to forge a new and fateful destiny for the nation.

 

Grant grasped the lapel of his coat with his right hand, bent his head slightly forward, and stood with eyes upturned so as to view the President.  Lincoln, who was eight inches taller, looked down with beaming countenance upon the general.  The two conversed for a short time, after which the President introduced the general to the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward.  The crowd, anxious to see the general, pressed around him, becoming somewhat unmanageable.  The President and the Secretary retired to a small drawing room, where, an hour later, Grant was able to make his way.  The three then spent some time in serious conversation.  At no time, however, did the President urge upon the general any detailed instructions as to the conduct of the war.  Lincoln had, at last, found his general and was content to leave the strategy of the war to Grant.

 

The following day, March 9, General Grant went to the White House to receive from the President’s hand the grade of Lieutenant-General.  Not since the days of Washington had a United States officer held that commission.  Three days later, the 12th, the general was officially placed in command of all the Union armies.  Henceforward he was the general-in-chief.

 

 

Grant’s plan, unlike those of former commanders, was to move all of the armies in concert so as to crush the rebellion throughout its length and breadth.  The Army of the Potomac, which would remain under Meade’s command, would move toward Richmond and confront Lee’s Army of Virginia.  Major-General William T. Sherman, in over-all command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, would strike Joseph E. Johnston’s army in northwest Georgia and move on Atlanta.  Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks, commanding the Department of the Gulf, would capture Shreveport, move back East on Mobile, and then join Sherman in his advance on Atlanta.  Major-General Franz Sigel, commander of The Army of the Shenandoah, was to march down the valley and destroy a section of railroad so as to deprive Lee of reinforcements from the valley.  Major-General Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James was directed to capture Petersburg and secure the railroads leading into it from the south.  Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside, with the Ninth Corps, was to support Meade’s Army of the Potomac.  This was Grant’s grand design to end the rebellion.

 

General Grant decided to establish his headquarters with Meade’s Army of the Potomac.  The army was located between the Rapidan and Rappahannock rivers, concentrated around Warren and Stevensburg.  Meade’s headquarters were near Brandy Station on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.  In late March, Grant established his headquarters at Culpeper, about six miles from Meade’s at Brandy Station.  The Confederate army was entrenched on the south bank of the Rapidan, along a twenty-mile line stretching from Barnett’s Ford, about five miles above the rail crossing at that river, down to Morton’s Ford.  Lee had his headquarters at Orange Court House.

 

 

On a late afternoon during the last week in April, three stalwart brothers sat around their campfire.  One of the brothers, Horace, was with the light artillery, but had come over from his battery that afternoon to the Second Corps encampment near Stevensburg.  The second brother, William, the infantryman, acted as host.  The Third Corps, in which William had served, had been discontinued under Grant’s reorganization of The Army of the Potomac.  William’s 1st Massachusetts Regiment, under the command of Colonel Napoleon B. McClaughlen, was now in the First Brigade (Colonel Robert McAllister), Fourth Division (Brigadier-General Gershom Mott) of the Second Corps, commanded by Major-General Winfield S. Hancock.  And the third member, Lewis, still with the 1st Maine cavalry, had ridden from his camp near Culpeper Court House.

 

After the three had assembled around the fire, there was considerable conversation about the future course of the war under Grant’s leadership.

 

“Have you seen Grant yet?” William asked.

 

“Yes,” Horace replied.  “He’s visited the artillery, and I have had the chance to see him.”

 

“Have you formed any opinion about him as yet?”

 

“I like him.  He doesn’t say much, but he’s a good listener.  He isn’t affected in any way.  He comes across as a soldier just as we are.  Yet you know that he is in charge, all business, and expects us to carry out his orders.”

 

“Well,” Lewis interjected, “I can tell you this.  Sheridan is really happy to see him in command.  Sheridan thinks that Grant will use us to fight, not merely guard wagon trains.”

 

“I’ve seen the general several times, since we’re near his headquarters,” William said.  “He’s determined, and I think that when he gets at Lee, he’ll hang on like a bull dog until he destroys his army.  He’s in charge of all the armies, and he’ll hit the Confederacy from every side until it’s over.”

 

“I hope that we’re close to the end,” Horace said.

 

 

The men soon lapsed into silence.  They were content merely to be together once again.  Each was absorbed in his own thought.  Yet, if it were possible for an observer to reach the privacy of individual solitude, that observer would know that these separate streams of thought flowed together in a common flood of memory, anticipation, and hope.  This was not the first time in the war that children of the family of John and Rhoda Prescott had gathered, far away from their home in Maine, on the desolate fields of battle.  The three, with Asa and Amanda, had met at Gettysburg at the occasion of the dedication of the cemetery.  And now, at a different place and time, these sons and brothers had once again felt the ever-present familial lure and, with no previous arrangement, had yielded to its haunting and mysterious summons to a last rendezvous before the storm of conflict again embroiled them.  They knew that with winter giving way to good weather their great Army of the Potomac, now nearly a hundred thousand strong, would soon move upon Lee’s Army.  Restless after being immobilized during the long winter, they looked with keen anticipation to the coming days of strenuous effort.  In their deepest of hearts, they nursed the hope, so long denied, that the great battle to come would be the final and successful struggle of the war.  It was time, long past time, to lay the bitter years of national agony in the tomb of the dead past, beyond all resurrection, and for the people of the land to unite in a homecoming of harmony.  Their work would be finished, then, these men who bore the terrible cost saw that afternoon in dream and vision, and they, too, would know once again the joy of home and hearth and loved ones.

 

By now the sun hung low in the western sky, soon to sink behind the high crests of the Blue Ridge.  Lewis, who was with the 1st regiment of Maine cavalry, was the first to break the enchantment of reverie.  He lifted his gaze from the fire before him and, slowly fastening his vision on the forest-clad range, now receiving the gentle rays of the dying sun, sighed and murmured softly, “Beyond those hills, beyond the vast plains, in the West where there is no land beyond which the sun sets‑-I wonder what’s there, what it is like.  When this war is over, if I live, I’m going to find out.”

 

“Yes,” Horace responded, “it’s inevitable.  The war has taken us out of the sanctuary of our settled East.  It will never be for us as it once was.  When it’s all over, the West, like a lovely siren, will entice us with its promise of larger fulfillment.  Some of you, with Lewis, will yield to its charm.  We will become separated.  But I’ll stay with the East.  I’m the eldest son.  Some day I’ll have to assume the role of patriarch of the family.  I’ll want to carry on the home and tradition in Maine.”

 

“Well, I don’t know,” William said.  “But it’s time to come out of it.  For now, at least, we’ve got a war to win.  When that’s done, we can then think about these things.”

 

“Leave it to you, William,” Horace put in, with a ring of laughter, “to jar us back to reality.  But anyway, if Dad were here, he’d be happy to see that some of his penchant for philosophical rumination had descended upon his sons and was alive and well even in wartime.”

 

This brought a fond remembrance of their so-different and so-distinctive father, whose way of thought and life had so powerfully influenced them.  As they looked at each other, they broke into soft laughter.  But it was the laughter of delight and affection, the tribute of action to reflection.

 

“Well, we’d better break up,” Lewis said, “I’ve got some distance to ride to reach Culpeper.  And it’ll take some time for Horace to get back to his battery.”

 

With that, the two‑-Horace and Lewis‑-bid a fond goodby to each other and to William, and set off for their own units.  William watched them leave, then, with a wave of hand, turned to his own task at day’s end.

 

 

On Monday, May 2, General Grant directed General Meade to put the army in motion at midnight the following day.  Meade’s chief of staff, Brigadier-General Andrew A. Humphreys, drew up the orders and issued them to the corps commanders, who in turn transmitted them down the line of command.

 

Tuesday, May 3, was a blustery, windy day.  Great clouds of dust filled the air, nearly blinding and choking the men.  That afternoon found Lewis and Ray once again riding side by side, heading southeast on the old road, built in Washington’s time, connecting Stevensburg with Fredericksburg.  They were

part of Sheridan’s second cavalry division commanded by Brigadier-General David Gregg, which constituted the vanguard of the Army of the Potomac on its march to battle.

 

“Well,” Lewis said, turning in the saddle to face Ray, “we’re stealing a march on old man Lee.”

 

“So far so good,” Ray remarked.  “I don’t think Stuart’s boys have spotted us yet.  But it won’t last.  Lee’s observers to our south on Clarke’s mountain will soon detect us.  Then, mark my word, Lee will set out after us.”

 

Toward evening a refreshing shower settled the dust raised by the hooves of the trotting horses.  The troopers reached a little hamlet, Richardsville, about two and a half miles from Ely’s ford on the Rapidan.  There the division went into bivouac for the night, drawn into the seclusion of a little vale bordered by forest, so as to escape detection by the enemy.

 

 

At about the time that Lewis was approaching Richardsville, William, with Hancock’s Second Corps, got the order to prepare six days’ rations, draw his fifty rounds of ammunition, and be ready to march by eleven o’clock that night.  At two o’clock that morning, now the 4th of May, Hancock’s superb Second Corps, twenty-seven thousand veterans of many fields, the elite of Union infantry, struck the same road taken earlier by the cavalry.

 

The men marched silently through the remainder of the night.  This time there was no talking or singing.  Instructions had been given for the men to move as quietly as possible, so as not to alert Confederate pickets.  Dawn finally broke, the morning star paled.  Then William and his companion of years of war, Joe Murphy, heard on their right the peaceful murmur of flowing waters and saw the river, which they were to cross, gleaming with the morning sun.  They were at Ely’s Ford.

 

The infantrymen halted at the river’s edge while the engineers worked feverishly to lay the pontoon bridge over the river.  William watched the operation with fascination.  He heard the sounds of an approaching horse, looked in the direction from which they came, and saw that Lewis was riding over to the column of waiting men.

 

“We’ve been here for some time, guarding the engineers while they work.  I’ve kept a lookout for you; I knew that you would be coming this way shortly. How is it with you?  Ready to get into action?  You’ll be going across in no  time now.”

 

 

“Yep, I’m all loaded up and ready to take the rebs on.  I’ve been here before, you know.  This time I hope that I fare better, and that the army fares better.  But I’ve been in this wilderness over there before, and I don’t want any more of it.”

 

“It’s not a place in which to have a fight.  I hope that Grant, wherever he’s headed, gets through it before Lee comes this way.  Well, I’ve got to get back.  We wish the best.  Stay on the alert.”

 

As soon as the bridge was laid, the troopers trotted over and took the road to the old battleground of Chancellorsville.  The infantry then went over, following the route of the cavalry.

 

William knew the road well.  He had traversed it before.  It threaded its way through stunted pines and scrubby oaks.  The sides of the road were covered with thick underbrush, in which intertwined the lower branches of the dwarfed trees.  So dense was the labyrinth that the sun hid its face from land and forest, merely sending flickering shadows through the sad and dreary landscape.  There were, however, illusive displays of beauty.  It was May, and the huckleberries were in full bloom.  Here and there along the roadway the dogwoods nodded their greeting, dipping their outspread and shelving branches as their gesture of welcome to the weary men.  There were wild violets in bloom, large and beautiful, their upper petals intermixed with velvet and brown.  On more than one occasion William stooped to pick a few and place them on his jacket.  The day grew warm, and the men began discarding their blankets, shelter tents, and clothing‑-anything that they could dispose of to lighten their load.

 

At mid-afternoon on that day, William’s regiment, the 1st Massachusetts, reached Chancellorsville and made camp for the night near the ground on which it had fought the previous year.

 

“We’re back again, William,” Joe sadly exclaimed.

 

“It’s unreal, Joe.  Does anything really change?  Look over there.”

There it was.  There were the earthworks behind which they had fought.  The tree limbs hung as they had when half shot off by the bullets.  Thousands of bullets, hundreds of cannon-balls, lay visible in the surrounding woods.  All about were scraps of iron, leather, old canteens, rags, and bloody clothes.  Skeletons, some whole and some dismembered, lay where they had fallen in last year’s battle.  Approaching closer, William pointed to a half-buried skull.  A forest bird had laid her three eggs in it.  It had now, in death, become a receptacle of life!

 

After the Second Corps had safely reached Chancellorsville, Gregg’s cavalry proceeded south on the old Furnace Road, over which Jackson had marched the previous year on his way to turn the Federal flank.  Lewis’ regiment patrolled the roads leading in from the southeast, where it was reported that Confederate cavalry were positioned.  He camped with his regiment that night at Todd’s Tavern, located at the junction of the Brock and Pamunkey roads.

 

The artillery reserve, which included the 9th Massachusetts light artillery, had also pulled out of camp at 2 A.M. that morning of the 4th of May.  Late that afternoon Horace accompanied his artillery piece over the river, into enemy territory, at Ely’s Ford.  At dark the artillery made camp about two miles beyond the ford, among some rifle pits.

 

 

This, the opening day of the campaign, had gone well for the Union army.  And the three brothers were now, once again, on disputed ground.

 

Down from the magnificent Blue Ridge, behind which lies the rich valley of the Shenandoah, there flow two rivers.  The larger of the two, the Rappahannock, strikes a southeast course and empties in the Chesapeake Bay.  The smaller stream, the Rapidan, flows mainly northeast and meets the Rappahannock a few miles northwest of Fredericksburg.  Orange Court House was located about thirty miles west of Fredericksburg.  The Wilderness began here and extended east to Fredericksburg, north to the two rivers, and south to Spottsylvania.  At this place it was about ten miles wide.  The primeval forests had been cut to furnish fuel for the iron furnaces, and, as a consequence, the area was covered by dense, almost impenetrable, forest of dwarfed and stunted trees and by thick underbrush.  The northern portion of the Wilderness, where the Federal forces were now in camp, was like a choppy sea, marked by row upon row of ridges and ravines.

 

An old stage road, the Orange Turnpike, ran through the entire length of the Wilderness.  After leaving Fredericksburg, it bore west until it reached the center of the Wilderness, where it crossed a small stream, Wilderness Run, and then angled slightly to the south of west and reached Orange Court House

 

some eighteen miles beyond.  In the earlier days, several taverns, now either gone or in disrepair, welcomed the weary travellers.

 

 

A few years before the war, a plank road was built a few miles south of, but paralleling, the old turnpike.  It was known as the Orange and Frederick Plank Road.  Germanna Ford Road extended southeast from Germanna Ford on the Rapidan, crossed the Brock Road, then intersected the Orange Plank Road just west of Wilderness Tavern, and finally joined the Orange Turnpike.  The Brock Road began at the Turnpike a short distance east of Wilderness Tavern and led southeast to Spottsylvania Court House.  Pamunkey Road paralleled the Orange Plank Road at a distance of about five miles south of the latter road.  Between them, for part of the distance on the east-west axis, was the Catharpin Road.  There were but a few small clearings in the Wilderness; only those at the Lacy Farm, Chancellorsville, and Parker’s store, permitted the use of artillery.

 

Grant’s idea was to move the Federal forces, after crossing the Rapidan, southwest along the two major turnpikes, force Lee out of his entrenchments on the south bank of that river, and attack him on open ground.  Had the infantry marched rapidly and steadily during the entire day of May 4, it had a good chance to reach Lee in the clear before confronting him in battle.  However, in order to give the wagon trains time to catch up with the infantry, Grant decided to halt the troops in the Wilderness for the night.

 

Lee, whose name was “audacious,” had other ideas.  He would foil Grant’s plan to flank him and fight him on ground unfavorable to the Federal army.  He would meet him in the Wilderness and force him to fight in an area where it was difficult, if not impossible, to see and maneuver and where artillery was practically useless.  Accordingly, on the morning of the 4th he began moving the Confederate army out of its entrenchments.  Ewell’s Second Corps took the Orange Turnpike and halted that night just west of Robertson’s Tavern.  Hill’s Third Corps moved on the Orange Plank Road and halted for the night a short distance west of Ewell.  Longstreet’s First Corps, Lee’s premier fighting unit, started from Gordonsville to join the other two corps.

 

Shortly before eight o’clock on the morning of May 5, the Battle of the Wilderness began in earnest, with Warren’s Fifth Corps’ attack on Ewell’s Second Corps.  At first the Confederates were thrust back, but shortly launched a counter-attack, which drove Warren’s forces back in confusion.  Ewell’s forces then entrenched at the point where they had launched their attack.

 

The night of May 4 had been hot and sultry, more like mid-summer than late spring.  William and Joe were roused from their fitful sleep by the sound of bugles resounding through the pine-scented morning air.

 

“Oh, I’m stiff and sore,” Joe groused.  “It’s all this marching that I’m not used to.”

 

“Likewise.  We’re somewhat out of shape, due to our long winter’s hibernation.  But another day or so of this and we’ll be our old marching selves again, I warrant you that.”

 

The two hastily sipped a tin of hot coffee and downed a couple of biscuits, got their rifles from the regimental stack, and fell into line of march.  At five o’clock they were once again on the way, this time in a southerly direction on a little road leading to Todd’s Tavern.

 

“Do you hear that?” William asked.  “There’s firing to our west.  I wouldn’t be surprised but what a part of our army has met up with the Johnnies.”

 

Joe made no comment, but merely nodded his head in assent.

 

 

The two men, burdened with their heavy load, plodded on in silence.  By now it was getting warmer, and the faces of the men were begrimed with sweat and dust.  At mid-morning, around nine o’clock, the troops reached Todd’s Tavern and stopped.  General Hancock had received a dispatch from Meade to halt the march and await further orders.

 

“We might as well get some rest,” Joe said.

 

Nodding assent, William readily complied with the suggestion, and the two found a grassy spot under a tree and, after getting a drink from a little rivulet nearby, stretched out to relax.  They lay by their arms, ready in the event of any appearance of the enemy.

 

At eleven o’clock, the order came for the Second Corps to move out the Brock Road, which the corps had reached at Todd’s Tavern, and march to its junction with the Orange Plank Road.  It was a fast-paced march in the heat of the day.  Around four o’clock William’s entire division, the Fourth Division commanded by Brigadier-General Gershom Mott, came up in a great cloud of dust and took its position along the Brock Road on the immediate left of Brigadier-General David Birney’s Third Division, which had arrived a short time earlier.  The First Brigade, under the command of Colonel Robert McAllister, which included the 1st Massachusetts, commanded by Colonel Napoleon McLaughlen, went into position between Birney’s division and Mott’s Second Brigade.

 

The Second Division, led by Brigadier-General George Getty, of Major-General John Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps, had been holding the intersection since morning with three of his brigades.  At 4:15 he hurled them forward on both sides of the Plank Road against Heth’s division of Hill’s Third Corps.

 

As soon as McAllister’s brigade reached its position, the colonel set his men to constructing fortifications.  William and Joe stacked their arms and, with others of their regiment, went to work.

 

“Here, you Maine boys,” Colonel McLaughlen shouted to William and Joe, “you’re at home in the great woods of Maine.  Take these axes and cut all the larger trees down you see, and do it quickly.  We’ve no time to lose.”

 

The two swung their axes furiously for an hour.  As the trees were felled, they were taken by other soldiers and piled on top of dead trees, rails, and mounds of earth, to form a passable breastwork.

 

The order was then given for the men to advance against the enemy.  The whole line immediately surged over the breastworks and pushed through the thick underbrush toward the Confederate’s line of battle.  William soon became separated from others of the regiment, due to the irregular terrain of hillocks and swamps covered by dwarfed trees and scrubby underbrush.  It was virtually impossible to see.  He moved forward cautiously, going around trees and creeping under bushes, until a hail of incoming bullets announced the fact that he was in contact with the enemy lines.  The Confederates were dug in and lying prone on a ridge, from which they fired volley after volley thrown against the men, with great loss.  All around him, William heard the thud of bullets striking human flesh, accompanied by cries of agony.  The forest gloom was intensified by the battle-smoke threading its wispy way through the dense growth.  William kept on, firing at the foe he could not see, but directing his fire breast-high toward the sound of enemy movement and fire.  He now knew that he was in a battle of invisibles against invisibles.

 

 

Finally the enemy fire became so devastating that the men, William included, were forced to fall back through the woods as best they could.  It was difficult work.  In some cases branches of trees tore off knapsacks and haversacks, knocked the men’s guns out of their hands, and even stripped them of their accoutrements.  William fared better than some, and reached the breastworks with a minimum of difficulty.

 

Heth’s men now moved forward on the Plank Road.  Hancock mounted three more massive assaults against Heth’s lines, with the continuing disadvantage of broken lines and loss of a sense of direction.  The fighting continued for about two hours.  The results, however, were indecisive.  When one side advanced, it lost the advantage while the other gained the advantage.  When darkness settled over the forest, adding to the melancholy of the scene of destruction and death, the two armies, as if by a mysterious common consent, laid down their arms for the night.  Out on the picket lines, however, men from both sides fired at each other when their positions were disclosed by the flashes of their guns.  The night wind rose and fanned the smoldering fires, scattered throughout the Wilderness, into flames.

 

 

At 10 A.M. on the morning of the first day of battle, the 5th of May, Horace was marching beside his field piece on the road, taken the previous day by Hancock’s Second Corps, toward Chancellorsville.   Around noon, Horace heard firing off to the right.

 

“Our boys must have run into Lee’s troops, Frank,” Horace commented to his companion, Frank Haynes.

 

“Yes, that appears to be so.  We got a start on Lee, but it didn’t take him long to realize what we are doing and he has evidently taken out after us.  I guess he has caught up with us.”

 

The men of the battery continued their march, the artillery firing increasing until about six o’clock that evening, when the battery passed the Chancellorsville house.

 

“The Second Corps is in this vicinity,” Horace  said, “and I’ll bet my bottom dollar that William is in the fight.  I do hope that he comes out of it alright.”

 

“Just look at the terrain over there.  Nothing but scrubby trees and thickets, hills and swampy bogs, no place at all in which to place artillery to help those poor men fighting there,” Frank remarked.

 

The battery had proceeded beyond Chancellorsville toward Fredericksburg when it was ordered, with other batteries of the artillery reserve, to turn around and head for Wilderness Church at the junction of the old Turnpike and the Orange Plank Road.  Since the battery might have to move at a moment’s notice, the horses remained in harness for the night.  Horace and Frank slept on the ground near their caisson.

 

 

At 2:20 that morning of May 5, the men of the 1st Maine cavalry, which had bivouacked during the night at Todd’s Tavern, were roused from their slumber.  An half an hour later, Lewis and Ray were in the saddle.  There had been reports that the main body of Confederate cavalry was camped a few miles south of Fredericksburg.  The 1st Maine, with another regiment, was sent out on the turnpike to find out.

 

The horses trotted at a rapid clip.  It was a clear, pleasant morning, and thus far no enemy had been sighted.

 

“So far,” Lewis exclaimed, “this expedition is more like a diversion than a reconnaissance.”

 

“It might change, however,” Ray replied.  “There are some rebels over there, but they’re slipping away into the brush.  I don’t think that they’ll give us any difficulty.”

 

On reaching the city, Colonel Gregg was informed that the Confederate cavalry had left the area and had gone west, circling below the armies, to join Lee.

 

“Well, boys,” the commander said, “there’s nothing to do but go back.  Anyway, we’ve gotten some exercise, for us and our mounts.”

 

By mid-afternoon, the 1st Maine was back at its starting point, Todd’s Tavern.  The regiment was held in reserve, in the event it were needed to support the 1st Brigade, which was engaged with enemy cavalry.  But the regiment was not called into action.  After a hearty supper, much appreciated after the day’s strenuous activity, Lewis and Ray rolled up in their blankets and, to the sad note of whippoorwills, soon fell asleep.

 

 

William, lying on the ground beside his weapon, had difficulty falling asleep.  Every muscle in his body ached as a result of the day’s battle.  Incessant firing from the picket lines hammered its rhythm of staccato into his very brain.  The piteous cries of the wounded of both armies, of men who could not be rescued from the creeping fires, rent his heart.  His lungs burned with the sulphurous battle-smoke pressed closely upon the land by the descending dew.  Yet relief came at last, and his tired eyes closed in the respite of fitful sleep.

 

He heard the sound, muffled by the cloak of slumbering woods, of horses’ hooves.  It came nearer, ever more distinct.  A gaunt figure on horseback slowly approached, wending his way painfully through the dense thickets.  The figure was that of a large, strongly built man of well over six feet in height.  For a uniform he wore a faded, threadbare coat.  A battered cap, pulled down over his eyes, covered his hair.  The left sleeve of his coat was pinned up, revealing the fact that his arm had been amputated.  He rode eerily on through the shadows of the star-lit forest until, still on his horse, he loomed over the prostrate soldier.  Sensing the mysterious presence, William woke with a start and stood up.  He saw the form bend down and, with piercing blue eyes, gaze with unremitting sternness into his face.

 

“A year ago, plus three days, I was killed by my own men not far from here.  Now I’ve left the restful shade of the trees and have crossed back over the river.”

 

“I know you.  I saw you then.  You’re Jackson!  What do you want?”

 

“I’m looking for my old soldiers of the Valley.  I must go to Lee’s assistance.  I thought I knew these roads through this wilderness.  But, it’s been such a long time since I’ve been here that I’m lost and can’t find my way.”

 

“These are not your soldiers.  We’re Hancock’s men, Union men.”

 

“Ah, yes, Hancock.  I knew him in the old army.  We called him ‘Hancock the Superb.’  All the more reason I must get to Lee quickly.”

 

“What do you want of me?” the dazed soldier asked of his spectral visitor.

 

“I got a glimpse of you then.  You tried to kill me.  Now you must take me to my old corps.  I will do what I did then.  I’ll turn this flank, now the left one, and defeat this army and save the South.  I will do it, and you will help me.”

 

“Ah, but you’re mistaken, General.  I won’t do it.  I won’t help you defeat our men.”

 

“You will, or I shall kill you, and your bones shall lie alongside the thousands who sleep the long sleep in this wilderness.”

 

With these words, the uncanny shade leaped furiously from his mount, and, with unsheathed sword, prepared to strike the unarmed soldier.

 

William awoke, bathed in sweat, and faced his antagonist.  Quickly reaching for his rifle, he took aim and fired point blank at the intruder.

 

“Now, this time I have killed you,” he shouted.  But there was no one there.  Only the night-mist.

 

“For God’s sake, William.  What on earth are you doing?  Have you lost your mind?” Joe asked, jumping up with his rifle in hand and prepared to fire.

 

“It was a dream.  I dreamed that Jackson had come back.  He knew that I tried to kill him.  It’s all this desolation, our being back at Chancellorsville, that has played on my mind.  Strange.  I’ve had enough of war.”

 

“So have I, but we’re still in it and tomorrow there’ll be another great battle.  So we’d better try to get some sleep.  We won’t get much, because it’s two o’clock in the morning.”

 

At 4:45 on the morning of May 6, the men of Ewell’s Second Corps poured out of their earthworks on the Turnpike and assaulted Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps, which constituted the extreme right wing of the Federal army.  They were unable to break the Union lines and were driven back.  Troops at the northern end of Sedgwick’s line attempted to drive the rebels out of their defenses, but failed in the attempt.  Seeing Sedgwick’s inability to budge the Confederates, Warren refused to commit his Fifth Corps troops, on Sedgwick’s left and on the south side of the Turnpike.  For the remainder of the day, the two great corps held Ewell in his defenses, so as to prevent him from assisting Hill farther south on the Orange Plank Road.

 

A few minutes before five o’clock, the men of the 1st Massachusetts were up and munching biscuits.  Precisely on the hour, the order was given to move out.  The regiment, on the extreme left of Hancock’s corps, was in the first line of attack.

 

William, with Joe beside him, bent as low as possible and walked stealthily through the brush.  The rising sun, in a clear sky, sent shafts of light through the deep shade of the Wilderness.  The tall grass crackled under  foot, permitting the unseen enemy to pour deadly minié balls into the ranks of the advancing men.

 

 

“Look over there at our left,” William said as he nudged Joe, “there’s nothing there.  If there are any rebels anywhere out there, they can pounce on us easily.”

 

In a few minutes, the Union skirmish line filtered back through the advancing infantry, and the men of the two armies became engaged in severe fighting.  The firing from both sides swelled to a deafening roar.  William could fire at a target only when sound or flash disclosed the near presence of the enemy.  The regimental line was now becoming ragged, but still it wound its serpentine way forward.  A rebel soldier came out of the thicket and, his hands in the air, cried, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot.”  He was but a lad.  William saw that he was thoroughly demoralized.  He held his fire.  “Come on through, come on through,” he yelled.  The lad came on through the lines, pausing a moment to grasp William’s hand in a gesture of gratitude.  For this Southerner the war was over.

 

Hill’s great Third Corps was now broken and streaming back west on the Orange Plank Road.  As he cautiously crept forward, William came upon a scene that, he knew, he would never forget.  Several wounded Union soldiers were facing him, propped up against clumps of underbrush and trees.  They had been placed there by the Confederates, who knew that the Union soldiers would not fire upon their own men, as a means of protecting their position.

 

Hancock’s Second Corps had pushed the Confederates back about a mile and a half.  It now paused to reform its lines and prepare for a decisive thrust at Hill’s corps.  But it was not to be.  Longstreet’s First Corps had come up and reinforced Hill’s men.  The combined forces enabled the Confederates to regain their position lost at sunrise.

 

The fighting had been furious and had gone on now for over five hours.  Around eleven o’clock that morning, a lull occurred in the fighting.  An eerie stillness fell over the Wilderness.  William stood with the butt of his rifle resting on the ground beside him.  He looked to his left, across where there was an unfinished railroad bed.  A mass of butternut-clad infantry emerged from the woods, crossed the unfinished railroad, and fell savagely upon the left, exposed flank of the 1st Massachusetts regiment.  William’s supply of ammunition was nearly exhausted.  He was virtually alone in the woods, for the regimental line had disintegrated into fragmented clusters of disoriented men.  To his front and now his back, the rattle of enemy musketry rose to a deafening roar.  He realized that the entire left wing of the Second Corps had been grievously flanked.  There was nothing for him to do but make his way, continuing to fight, back to the breastworks on the Brock Road, which he had helped build the day before.

 

Once the men of the regiment were brought together, they pitched in with others of the brigade, McAllister’s, and strengthened their fortifications.  More logs were obtained and piled higher in their front.

 

William and Joe were in position and manning their small area of the breastworks.  By this time it was a little past noon, an hour since the retreat.

 

“I wonder, William conjectured, “why the Confederates don’t come on up against us.  You would think that, with their great success in routing us, they would capitalize on their momentum and try to push off the road and shove us across the Rapidan.”

 

 

“I don’t know,” Joe replied.  “We’ve taken some prisoners from Kershaw’s division of Longstreet’s corps.  So there must be two rebel corps out there, Longstreet’s and Hill’s.  Why they aren’t coming on against us, I don’t understand.  They should have enough men to sweep us up.”

 

What the boys did not then know was that the nemesis of Chancellorsville had once again struck the southern cause.  Like Jackson the previous year, Longstreet had been mistakenly shot by his own men.  He was riding east on the Plank Road, arranging for a two-pronged attack on the Federal fortifications on the Brock Road, about a half mile ahead, and a second flank attack along the railway bed.  Confederate troops on the north side of the Plank Road, thinking that their troops on the south side were enemy, fired into them.  Before the firing could be stopped, Longstreet was shot through his neck and right shoulder.

 

It took the Confederates four additional hours to get in position to resume the attack.  At 4:15 that afternoon the assault came.  The woods and leaves in the distance were on fire, and immense clouds of smoke rose to the heavens.  William heard, as he had many times, the unearthly rebel yell rising over the sound of bugles.

 

“Here they come, Joe,” he shouted.  The two looked across the way and saw emerging from the impenetrable veil of smoke a line of battle rushing on a charge.  A terrific crash of rifle fire ran back and forth along the line of advancing men.

 

One line, a second, then a third line came up against the breastworks, only to be repulsed by the murderous fire of the Union defenders.  Then, in one final attempt, the mass of Confederate attackers rushed the breastworks.  William fired his Henry repeating rifle and exacted a heavy cost upon the brave southern boys.  The breastworks held.

 

Then it happened.  The wind shifted and carried the fire toward and into the Union defenses.  William and Joe, firing steadily, saw the fire catch on the logs behind which they stood.  In a few minutes the conflagration became so intense that many of the men broke and fell back.  The two Massachusetts men held on tenaciously, all-the-while hurling shell into the oncoming adversary, until they too had to fall back.  Then through the gap leaped men of one of the South’s finest brigades, planting its flag in the timber of the breastworks.

 

“If they can stand the heat, so can we,” William shouted.  He and others of the regiment, unwilling to give way to the rebels, rallied and rushed forward, firing, and drove the usurpers off their section of the parapet.  It was the same scene all along the gap: men charged on the double-quick, with fixed bayonets, and threw hundreds over into the ditches below.  Those who managed to escape ran back through the burning woods from which they had earlier come.  The trees were riddled and cut down with the hail of bullets, and confederate wounded and dead covered the ground.  The carnage was beyond description, and William, thankful that it was over and that the Union men had held, turned his gaze from the field of blood and death.

 

Of the three Prescott brothers, William bore the greater burden of the Battle of the Wilderness.  Horace’s 9th battery remained in harness during the two days of the battle, posted near Wilderness Church.  However, the 1st Maine cavalry was extremely active during the second day of the battle.

 

 

At Todd’s Tavern, the boys were up and in the saddle by three o’clock on the morning of the 6th.  The regiment’s duty consisted in protecting the wagon trains and making reconnaissances off to the left and south of Hancock’s lines, on the lookout for Longstreet’s men.  Just after sunrise, while the regiment was still at Todd’s Tavern, Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry made a demonstration upon the regiment.  Lewis, who happened to be near the brigade commander, Colonel Irvin Gregg, watched as the division commander, David Gregg‑-Irvin’s elder brother‑-directed his brother to send in the 1st Maine and “drive those people away.”  In a twinkling of an eye, Colonel Smith, ordered his regiment to charge.  With a shout, sabres drawn and flashing, the boys soon put the enemy to rout.

 

During the afternoon, the regiment was ordered to relieve a regiment of skirmishers on Hancock’s extreme left.  Lewis and Ray sheltered their mounts in the woods, and went on the skirmish line.  For awhile there was some desultory firing from both sides.  Then there came a lull.

 

“There’s nothing going on right now,” Ray remarked.  “I’m going to catch a few winks of sleep.”

 

Several of the men complied with the suggestion and fell asleep.  Yet the regiment that had been relieved called it a lively contest.  The boys would laugh about the designation in the years to come when they recalled the occasion of their strenuous effort.

 

One further Confederate attempt, which failed to achieve its objective, brought the Battle of the Wilderness to a close.  With little daylight remaining, Ewell made an effort to turn the Union right.  After some initial success, his attack was repulsed.

 

Then it was over.  The westering sun gave to the scudding clouds a ghostly yellowish hue.  Darkness soon fell, and with it a brisk night-wind rose, fanning the smoldering fires throughout the Wilderness into flames.  The moans of the wounded and dying sons of the blue and the gray became screams of terror.  Those who could do so, crawled into the picket lines of friend or foe.  Stretcher bearers and volunteers worked on in the night to save those whom they could reach.  Others had to be abandoned to the raging flames.  Groups of men huddled together, their cartridges and ammunition boxes catching fire and exploding, and stoically awaited their death.  The living of both armies, all reserves of strength exhausted, lay by their arms and found a refuge in the blessed forgetfulness of sleep.  The whippoorwill sounded its plaintive call over the wilderness of desolation.

 

The next morning, Saturday, the 7th of May, the two armies were ensconced in their breastworks, their lines about three-quarters of a mile apart.  Neither Grant nor Lee was willing to resume the offensive.

 

Early in the afternoon, William heard the rumble of artillery, indicating to him that the guns were being taken to the rear.  “It looks like another Chancellorsville, Joe.”

 

“I’m afraid so.  We may be heading soon for the Rapidan.  Once again, it appears that Lee has gotten the better of us.  I fear that it’s the same old story.”

 

But the men’s fears were soon assuaged.  About nine o’clock that evening, William saw a long line of infantry emerge out of the darkness.  They were the troops of Warren’s Fifth Corps.  They had moved out of their positions on the Orange Plank Road.  At the intersection of that road and the Brock Road, they had turned right and were headed, not east to the Rapidan, but somewhere south and to another battle with Lee’s army.

 

 

“There’s Grant,” William shouted in excitement.  A slightly stooped figure, dressed in a dusty battle uniform, was riding on his large black horse at the head of his staff.  The men who were marching on the road closed in around him and spoke with him as if he were one of them, while all up and down the line glad cheers rang through the dusky forest.  Pine knots were set ablaze and held high so as to light the surrounding area.  Then Hancock’s men, witness to the night drama, mingled their own shouts of triumph with those of the men on the road.  It had become a triumphal procession for the new commander, now leading his men on to Richmond.

 

Grant’s objective was Spottsylvania Court House, on the Brock Road about ten miles southeast of the Wilderness.  His aim was to interpose the Army of the Potomac between Lee and Richmond and, if possible, to attack and destroy the Confederate army on open terrain favorable to the Union forces.  But Lee, who had by now discerned Grant’s tenacity for the offensive, was determined to beat Grant to Spottsylvania and frustrate his intention.

 

The three Prescott brothers were again on the move.  At 7 o’clock that evening of May 7, Horace marched with his battery, the 9th Massachusetts, out of park at Laurel Grove, near the Chancellor House, on a little forest-bordered road that led south to join the Brock Road a few miles west of Spottsylvania.  The evening was extremely warm, and the dust from the wheels of the caissons and guns enveloped the men.  After an all-night march, the battery reached Piney Branch Church the next morning and went into camp.  Lewis, with the 1st Maine Cavalry, preceded Warren’s Fifth Corps, which led the infantry advance on the Brock Road, to block any Confederate movement against the right of the advance.  At daylight on the next morning, the 8th, William fell in line with his comrades of the 1st Massachusetts and, already tired and weary, took up his march toward Spottsylvania.  There were frequent halts, when the men fell asleep while seated on their knapsacks.  In a few moments they were called up to march a short distance farther, then ordered again to halt.  It went on this way until the troops reached Todd’s Tavern at 9 o’clock that morning.

 

 

Cartharpin Road leads southwest from Todd’s Tavern on the Brock Road.  On the morning of May 8, Gregg’s division of cavalry held the road in front of the tavern.  The troopers were dismounted and occupied a line of breastworks of rail fences, constructed the previous evening.  The 1st Maine was in the edge of some woods on the left of the road.  A large open field lay in front, and beyond this a fringe of thick woods.  Around mid-morning, while Lewis and Ray crouched behind their fortifications, their carbines grasped tightly, they saw a long line of rebels stride swiftly out of the woods and advance toward them.

 

“Hold your fire, men,” Colonel Smith shouted, “until the men get closer.”

 

Then the order came, “Fire!”  A concentrated fire from the deadly carbines tore through the ranks of the enemy.  Along with others of the regiment, Lewis and Ray, without being ordered to do so, leaped over their breastworks and, with a shout, hurled themselves against the rebel lines.  In a few minutes the enemy were thrown back and completely routed.  The regiment had won another victory, and would stitch on its flag the words, “Todd’s Tavern.”

 

 

After Lewis returned to the fortification, he heard the sound of marching infantry.  They were men of Hancock’s corps, which had reached Todd’s Tavern a little over an hour ago.  They had come to relieve the cavalry.  Lewis left his position and walked back to get his mount.  He saw, some distance to his left, a dust-begrimed infantryman wave his hand and heard a hearty “hallo.”  It was William.  Lewis waved his return salute.  Again, as had happened so often before, the brothers, caught up in the accident of war, had strangely and mysteriously met on a far field.

 

Early on the morning of May 7, the Confederate general, Lee, rode along his Wilderness lines and observed that the opposing Union lines were quiet.  The Federal army was gone!  Lee divined, however, that Grant had not retreated.  “He is not going to retreat,” Lee told his companion of the morning.  “He will move his army to Spottsylvania.”

 

That night the southern army moved out of its entrenchments and marched south and east, paralleling the Brock Road, in its effort to reach Spottsylvania before Grant’s army captured that strategic point.  Longstreet’s First Corps, now under the command of Major-General Richard H. Anderson, set out at 9 o’clock on a newly-cut road through the Wilderness, which would take the corps to the Catharpin Road and across the Po River to Spottsylvania.  His instructions were to give his men a few hours rest and sleep, then early the next morning proceed to his destination.  However, the fires in the Wilderness, as well as the deplorable condition of the road, made any halt impossible.  So Anderson pushed his men on through the night.  His corps crossed the Po and, just after daylight the next morning, the 9th, reached the Brock Road a mile and a half west of Spottsylvania.  The position was defended by Confederate cavalry, who were warding off Union cavalry.  Warren’s Fifth Corps was but a short distance away off to the west, rapidly coming up.  Anderson had his men move into the cavalry field works.  They then opened fire on the advancing corps and momentarily repulsed the Federals.  But it was sufficient.  By about one minute Grant had lost the race to Spottsylvania Court House!

 

 

During the day both armies continued to bring their forces up and to entrench.  The three-mile long Confederate entrenchment took the form of a giant A.  Its left, or western, side extended from the Po in a northeasterly direction, turned east at the point of the A, or the apex, then continued southwest to the Fredericksburg Road.  An horizontal line, the line across the A, about a half mile south of the apex and on an east-west axis, was constructed as a secondary defense.  The area between the secondary line and the apex came to be known as the “Salient,” or, later, as the “Bloody Angle.”                  Anderson held the left, or western, side of the Confederate line; Ewell, the Salient; and Early, replacing the ailing Hill, the right, or eastern, side.  The greater part of the line was protected by heavy woods and, where there were clearings, by abatis constructed from felled trees.  On the Union side, Warren’s Fifth Corps and Sedgwick’s Sixth Corps, on the Federal right, confronted Anderson; Hancock’s Second Corps faced the apex of the salient; the left of the Federal line was manned by Burnside’s Ninth Corps.

 

On that day of the 9th, and the next day, the 10th, Grant attempted to flank the Confederate left by sending three divisions of Hancock’s Second Corps south of the Po River.  The effort was unsuccessful, and the divisions were withdrawn north of the river.  Later in the day Warren’s Fifth Corps attacked the Confederate defenses at Laurel Hill, on the western side, but was thrown back.

 

At 4 o’clock on that same morning, May 10, William, with others of his regiment, left the line of works near Todd’s Tavern and marched toward Spottsylvania Court House.  The regiment, in concert with Mott’s brigade, formed in a column of masses near the Brown House, with orders to be ready to attack the enemy’s works at 5 P.M. that evening.

 

At that hour Colonel Emory Upton’s Second Brigade, First Division, Sixth Corps, now commanded by Major-General Horatio G. Wright, attacked the western face of the Confederate salient.  Mott’s division of Hancock’s Second Corps had orders to support the attack with an assault on the apex of the salient.  The first phase of the attack went well.  Upton’s forces rushed out of the woods, where they had been formed, and in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle overran the Confederate works.  But at this point the plans fell amiss.

 

Mott’s division was in formation on the open ground of the Brown House, three-quarters of a mile north of the apex of the salient.  At 5 P.M., the hour when Upton launched his attack, Colonel McAllister ordered his 1st Massachusetts regiment, on the first line of the advance, to move forward.  William, with Joe by his side as usual, went through the woods, firing and driving the enemy’s skirmishers back toward their fortified line.  The men stepped out of the woods into the open field.

 

“This doesn’t look promising,” William shouted as he and Joe, with others in the line, ran forward up the hill toward the Confederate works.  No sooner had he spoken than the enemy opened on the charging column with enfilading artillery fire.  The men to the rear of the first line began to fall back in confusion.  But the first line stood fast, refusing to be driven back.  However, McAllister soon realized that the men could not long hold their position, and ordered the regiment to fall back to the foot of the hill.  He threw out a line of pickets and massed his force as a reserve.  The men remained in position throughout the night.  The following day, the 11th, the regiment returned to the breastworks at the Brown House.

 

On the afternoon of that day General Hancock was ordered to move his three divisions to the vicinity of the Brown House, where Mott’s Fourth Division was posted, and be ready to assault the enemy’s lines at the apex of the salient at four o’clock the next morning.  It was to be a repeat of the attack on the 10th, but this time with an entire corps.  Burnside was to attack on the Union left with his Ninth Corps.  The remaining corps were to remain in their positions and be ready to take advantage of any opportunity that might become available to them.

 

There was a heavy fog during the hours before daybreak the next morning, May 12.  General Hancock waited until 4:35, when it was light enough to see, and ordered the assault.  For William and Joe, it was, at first, a repeat of the earlier attack two days earlier.  The men again moved out of the woods into the open ground, keeping an even pace in their column, and, when about half-way up the slope, broke into a run, dashed through the abatis, leaped over the trenches, and at last scaled the parapet.  But now it was different.  William knew that success would crown the Union effort.  For one thing, the men were not subjected to artillery fire.  Only two guns were in place in the salient, and these were immediately captured and turned on the swiftly retreating enemy.

 

As the men of the Second Corps worked their way farther into the interior of the salient, the 1st Massachusetts moved down the interior west wall of the enemy’s works, pushing the Confederates back to their second line of fortification.  William now engaged in the most intense and severe fighting of the war.  It began to rain, and the ground became extremely slippery.  The greater part of the fighting was hand-to-hand combat with the bayonet.  For three long and bloody hours, William fought desperately.  All around him, packed in a dense mob of 20,000 nearly insane men of Hancock’s corps, the ground was covered with the dead and wounded.  The Confederates were determined to recover the salient.  Brigadier-General John B. Gordon, Ewell’s Corps, who held the secondary line, then struck with relentless fury.  The results were devastating.  So closely packed were the Union soldiers, that they could not maneuver so as to return fire.  Blue-clad men fell by the hundreds.  William found himself caught up in a backward surge of men, intent on gaining the relative safety of the first-line entrenchments that they had earlier crossed.  By 8 o’clock that morning, all of the troops of the Second Corps were on the outer face of the works.

 

 

“There you are, Joe,” William cried in relief.  “We both made it through.  I did not think that I would come out alive.”

 

“It was close,” said his friend.

 

But there was no time for rest or conversation.  Until 3 o’clock the next morning, the men of the 1st Massachusetts fought on the outer line of the salient.  The rain continued to fall heavily, and the mud became virtually impassable.  Only the parapet separated the men of the two armies.  Soldiers in blue and gray leaped on the rampart and fired point-blank down into the seething mass of enemy, until they, too, joined the pageantry of death.  The muzzles of rifles were thrust through spaces in the log embankments and fired indiscriminately into the opposing ranks.  Then, as if by common consent, the firing ceased.  William, muddy, bloody, and begrimed with powder, fell exhausted on the sodden earth and slept by his arms.  Another day of carnage, the “Bloody Angle,” had passed into the annals of horror.

 

 

A few days earlier, the peppery cavalry commander, “Little Phil” Sheridan, had protested to Meade that the cavalry should function as an autonomous fighting unit, rather than merely as a detail to guard wagon trains.  Meade complained to Grant, telling him that Sheridan said that he could “whip Stuart out of his boots” if only Meade would turn him loose.  “Did Sheridan say that?” Grant asked.  Meade replied with a nod.  “Well, he generally knows what he’s talking about.  Let him start right out and do it.”

 

At daylight on May 9, Lewis and Ray were riding side by side, the 1st Maine part of the cavalry headed south on the Telegraph Road toward Richmond.  The corps camped that night at Beaver Dam Station on the south bank of the North Anna River.  There the troopers destroyed Lee’s advanced supply base.

 

The next morning, May 10, reveille was sounded in the form of shells from a rebel battery posted on the hills behind the column.  It was quickly silenced.  The men then made coffee and downed a quick breakfast.  When the march resumed, the 1st Maine took the advance.  In a little while, the advance came upon a small force of enemy posted in the rear of a rail fence on the brow of a hill.  The order to charge was given, and the enemy force fled over the top of the hill.  When the advance reached the top, the men saw a much larger force in line across a ravine about two hundred yards away.  Some of the men dismounted and, behind the protection of a rail fence, poured a lively fire upon the enemy.  Colonel Smith then ordered a portion of the regiment to charge.

 

Lewis and Ray swept forward down the hill and across the ravine, and it was not long until the Confederate cavalry turned and fled.  About this time, Lewis looked to his right and saw an astonishing sight.  There Ray was, his mount stuck fast a-straddle a small tree, into which he had run his horse, just after crossing the ravine.  Somewhat overcome with the excitement of it all, instead of backing his horse out of the entanglement, he spurred his horse and shouted, “Climb, damn you, Climb!”  Lewis could do nothing but break out in uproarious laughter.

 

“For crying out loud, Ray,” he shouted, “back him out.  Horses can’t climb trees.”  In any event, Ray soon solved his problem.  The solemnity of war was for a time lightened by the unusual equestrian circumstance.

 

 

The men continued their march south without further molestation.  The corps crossed the South Anna River at Ground Squirrel Bridge and went into camp for the night.  After a severe, but victorious, fight with Confederate cavalry, Sheridan’s men continued their advance toward Richmond.  At daylight of May 12, the 1st Maine regiment passed into the outer line of the Richmond defense, which had been captured by Brigadier-General George A. Custer’s brigade the previous evening.  There the men halted to make breakfast.

 

The morning culinary preparations, however, were soon brought to a halt.  The Confederates had set a trap for the Yankee cavalry.  The entire cavalry was now inside the outer wall of fortifications.  A deep ravine on the right and fortifications on the left blocked any egress in those directions.  In the front, Meadow Bridge, a mile-long bridge over a swamp, was strongly defended.  A large force appeared in the rear and blocked the way through which the regiment had just come.  The only way out was either to cross the bridge or take the back track.

 

Hardly had the boys of the 1st Maine dismounted and set to work fixing breakfast, when the order came to draw ammunition, mount, and be off.  Having time only to eat a hardtack “straight,” without coffee, the troopers took the road over which they had just come, and halted in rear of a battery that was firing on the advancing enemy.  Here the regiment remained in support of the battery.  For what seemed an age, Lewis sat on his horse, while enemy shells fell around him, sending up showers of rent earth over him.  The rain began to fall, and the thunder of heaven’s artillery mingled with that of the contending human forces.  The regiment was then marched to the bank of a ravine, dismounted, found protection behind a fence and a line of trees, and poured carbine fire into the enemy.  The men remained here until mid-afternoon, when it followed the cavalry across the bridge, now repaired, and out of the “trap.”  Sheridan had never considered a withdrawal.  Instead, he drove the enemy ahead of him and moved his men forward toward Mechanicsville, where the corps went into camp for the night.

 

A few days later, on the 14th, the cavalry reached Haxall’s Landing, on the James River.  On May 24, Sheridan’s command rejoined Meade’s Army of the Potomac.

 

 

While the 1st Maine was not involved in the affair, on May 13, the Confederate cavalry commander, “Jeb” Stuart, was mortally wounded at the battle of Yellow Tavern.

 

The 9th Massachusetts battery of light artillery, in which Horace served, did not see action during the Battle of Spottsylvania.  During the battle in the salient, May 12, the battery loaded ammunition on the caissons and took it to the front.

 

 

Mott’s Fourth Division of Hancock’s Second Corps had suffered extremely heavy losses in the actions at the angle on May 11 and 12.  It was therefore reduced to a brigade and on the 13th of May transferred to the Third Division, under the command of Major-General David Birney.  The 1st Massachusetts had served under Birney’s command at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, so the reassignment was well-received by the men of the regiment.

 

 

Under cover of darkness, on the 17th of May, Hancock moved his troops to the Confederate works in the salient, which, having been taken on the 12th, were now abandoned.  Grant’s design was to capture the new works at the base of the salient.  By daylight the next morning, Hancock’s corps, along with Wright’s Sixth Corps, was in position to open the attack.  Birney’s division was held in reserve.  The attack opened at 4 A.M.  With their artillery firing over their heads, the men reached the first line of Confederate defense.  They encountered severe artillery and musketry fire, which wrought great havoc in their ranks.  Still the men pressed forward and reached the edge of the abatis, when even heavier fire arrested their progress.  After several, fruitless attempts to penetrate the enemy line, the attack was called off.  At 10 o’clock, Hancock withdrew his troops and occupied the fortifications a short distance south of the Brown House.

 

William and Joe, eating their supper at their campfire, were engaged in the most serious conversation.  Their three-year enlistment would expire at the end of the month.  They had to decide whether to return with the regiment to Boston or re-enlist for the duration of the war.

 

“What do you intend to do, William,” Joe asked.  “We’ve reached a crossroad.  We can go home and enjoy its comforts or we can stay on and tough it out.  What do you think?”

 

“I’d like to go home.  Who wouldn’t, after what we’ve been through over these three years.  Bull Run, the Peninsula, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and now the Wilderness and Spottsylvania.  It’s quite a litany.  We’ve done our share and could go home with honor.”

 

“That’s so, William.  But, you know, I’d really like to see it through to the finish.”

 

“Yes, I’m thinking the same thing.  This little fellow, Grant, is not going to give up.  I’ll wager my bottom dollar that right now he’s figuring out how to sidle around Lee again and put us between him and Richmond.”

 

“If he does,” Joe responded, “he’ll probably take us to Richmond, or beyond, this time.  That’s what I think.”

 

“Well, what do you say, Joe?”  We’ve come this far, still alive and well; let’s stay in and see it through to the finish.  Wouldn’t it be exciting to be part of the end?  And it will come soon.  It won’t be long.  With what we’ve already done, we ought to be in on it.  So, shall we re-enlist?

 

They had made their fateful decision.  On the 21st of the month, they transferred to the 11th Massachusetts Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Porter D. Tripp.  The regiment was in the Fourth Brigade, led by Colonel William R. Brewster, in Birney’s Third Division of Hancock’s Second Corps.

 

On the same day, the reserve artillery was broken up and assigned to the several infantry corps.  The 9th Massachusetts, in which Horace served, was assigned to Wright’s Sixth Corps.

 

On May 20, Grant’s army abandoned its Spottsylvania trenches and marched to the southeast.  Grant’s second sidle around the right of Lee’s army had begun, again to place the Union army nearer to Richmond and between that city and the Army of Northern Virginia.

 

For William it was another all-night march.  The Second Corps pulled out just after dark, and late in the afternoon of the 21st arrived at Milford Station on the Fredericksburg Railroad.  The men crossed the Mattaponi River, entrenched, and then pitched their little dog-tents near the lovely wood-skirted stream.

 

 

On the morning of the 23rd, Hancock’s corps resumed its march.  The country through which William was now marching was unlike any that he had previously seen in Virginia.  It was untouched by war.  It was, William thought, a beautiful garden blooming in the midst of wilderness and desert.  Fields of hay and wheat covered the earth with carpets of rich green.  Herds of cattle grazed in great pastures enclosed by fences.  Sleek, well-groomed horses tossed their manes and galloped over the fields adjoining the path of the marching soldiers.  “I could lie down, sleep, and eat a week,” William said to himself.

 

“There’s Grant,” Joe said, drawing William from his reverie.  Sure enough, there Grant was, in his faded and mud-spattered uniform, perched on a rail car gnawing a ham bone.  The men waved and cheered.  Grant looked up and greeted the men with a wave of the bone, then resumed his meal.

 

“That is why the men take to him, William remarked.  “He’s the commander, yet he’s one of us.  It’s the mystique of the common man, yet a mystique that’s filled with greatness‑-but, a greatness that is not worn on the sleeve, or, for that matter, on a polished uniform.”

 

“Well, William,” Joe said, “you’ve got it right, as usual.  You’ve nailed it down‑-the quality about him that causes us to want to stick with his campaign to the end.”

 

The corps reached the North Anna River around noon.  Confederate pickets on the north side of the river were uncovered and driven across.  The men then went into camp, in readiness to cross the following day.

 

 

Warren’s Fifth Corps crossed the river farther up, at Jericho Mills, late in the afternoon of the same day, the 23rd.  Around 6 o’clock in the evening, the Confederates launched a vigorous attack.  It was soon repulsed, however, by the artillery.  The 9th Massachusetts Battery was posted on the top of a steep bluff, and immediately turned its guns on the enemy.  Horace worked his gun for over an hour.  Early in the firing, an officer rode out in front, shouting “Elevate your guns; you are firing into our own men.”  Captain Bigelow gave the order to elevate for 800 yards.  The battery was in range of musketry fire, and one man of the battery was killed while standing on the footboard, serving ammunition from the caisson.  The enemy’s fire continued all night, while the men lay in battery beside their posts.

 

The Union army faced a formidable Confederate line, in the shape of an inverted V, drawn up along the south bank of the North Anna.  The tip of the V cut the Union army in two separate wings.  General Grant soon realized that the Confederate fortifications were too strong to take and that his own isolated wings were in jeopardy, and accordingly decided to sidestep once again to the south and east.

 

The third sidle of the campaign proceeded with dispatch.  During the night of May 26, the army crossed to the north bank of the river.  The following morning, preceded by the cavalry, it resumed its southeasterly march and completed the crossing of the Pamunkey River by midnight of the 28th.  It then pushed west, and by nightfall of the 29th reached the north bank of Totopotomoy Creek, within ten miles of Richmond.

 

Once again Lee was entrenched and waiting for Grant to come up.  On the 28th, Lee had sent his cavalry to Haw’s Shop, on the north of Totopotomoy Creek, to learn the whereabouts of the Union infantry.  The result was the largest cavalry engagement since Brandy Station.  The 1st Maine was placed in position to support a battery.  During the first phase of the seven-hour fight, Lewis sat on his horse in a line drawn up a short distance from the battery.  This kind of duty, he thought, was more grievous than actual combat.  He could do nothing except sit on his horse and listen to the sounds of a battle he could not see and watch the shells of the enemy fall near him.  Later, the order was given to dismount and lie on the ground in front of his horse.  The battle raged on for four additional hours.  After it ceased, the regiment remained in position until 9 o’clock that evening, after which it returned to the Pamunkey and camped for the night.

 

Grant soon realized that the Confederate lines were too strong to assault.  He therefore chose to make another, the fourth, swing around the right of Lee’s army.  Again Grant found Lee strongly entrenched and waiting for him.  The Confederate line was formed on the north bank of the Chichahominy River at a place called Cold Harbor, an important junction of several roads leading into Richmond.

 

On the morning of June 2, Lewis and Ray, with their fellows of the 1st Maine, rode west to reconnoiter the enemy’s skirmish line.  The regiment found the enemy’s line posted on the top of a hill.  Given the order to charge, the men galloped up the hill and drove the enemy.  Just then an enemy battery opened on them from a larger hill off to the right.  Colonel Smith ordered his men to dismount and form a skirmish line.  Just before he was to dismount, a fragment of shell struck Lewis on the head.  He started to fall, unconscious, when Ray caught hold of him and laid him on the ground.  He was still unconscious, although, as Ray soon observed, his vital signs were strong.  Ray then brought his friend to the rear, where, later in the day, he was taken to the field hospital.  The wound was not as severe as first feared, and in a few days Lewis was back with his regiment.

 

On the 3rd of June, Grant attacked the enemy line with his entire army, three corps numbering 60,000 men.  The assault lasted just eight minutes.  In that small interval of time, the Federal ranks were decimated.  Not willing to give up, Grant instructed his corps commanders to attack on their own.  But the three commanders knew that this was nothing but suicide, and therefore, to carry out the order, had the men remain in their positions and fire upon the enemy.  At 1:30 in the afternoon, Grant suspended offensive operations.

 

The Federal army remained in its lines until June 12, when it again, for the fifth time in the campaign, skirted Lee’s right and headed for a crossing of the James River.  The Wilderness/Spottsylvania campaign was over.  Grant had failed to draw Lee out of his many lines of fortification where he could be destroyed.  But in a larger sense Grant had won.  From now on Lee’s only recourse was to withdraw within the Richmond defenses and defend the city, even the Confederacy, under the conditions of a siege.  And Lee knew what that meant, for he had earlier said to one of his corps commanders: “We must destroy this army of Grant’s before he gets to the James River.  If he gets there it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time.”

 

ROSTER OF THE ARMIES

 

WILDERNESS/SPOTSLVANIA, MAY 5-12, 1864

 

U.S. ARMY

Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant

 

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC

Major-General George C. Meade

 

Second Corps: Major-General Winfield S. Hancock

First Division: Brigadier-General Francis C. Barlow

Second Division: Brigadier-General John Gibbon

Third Division: Major-General David B Birney

 

Fourth Division: Brigadier-General Gershom Mott

First Brigade: Colonel Robert McAllister

1st Massachusetts: Colonel Napoleon B. McLaughlen

William Prescott

 

Fifth Corps: Major-General Gouverneur K. Warren

Sixth Corps: Major-General John Sedgwick

Ninth Corps: Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside

 

CAVALRY CORPS

Major-General Philip H. Sheridan

 

First Division: Brigadier-General Alfred T. A. Torbert

First Brigade: Brigadier-General George C. Custer

Second Brigade: Colonel Thomas C. Devin

Reserve Brigade: Brigadier-General Wesley Merritt

 

Second Division: Brigadier-General David McM. Gregg

First Brigade: Brigadier-General Henry E. Davies, Jr.

 

Second Brigade: Col. J. Irvin Gregg

1st Maine: Col. Charles H. Smith

Lewis Prescott

 

ARTILLERY: Brigadier-General Henry J. Hunt

Artillery Reserve: Colonel Henry S. Burton

 

Second Brigade: Major John A. Tompkins

Maine Light Artillery, 5th Battery: Captain Greenleaf T. Stevens

George Prescott

 

Third Brigade: Major Robert H. Fitzhugh

Massachusetts Light Artillery, 9th Battery: Captain John Bigelow

Horace Prescott

 

ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, CSA

 

General Robert E. Lee, Commanding

First Corps: Lieutenant General James Longstreet

Second Corps: Lieutenant-General Richard S. Ewell

Third Corps: Lieutenant-General Ambrose P. Hill

Cavalry Corps: Major-General J. E. B. Stuart

Valley District: Major-General Jubal A. Early

Artillery Corps: Brigadier-General W. N. Pendleton