So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West, And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best, Shouting the battle-cry of freedom. - Chorus. From reprints in Lyrics of Loyalty (edited by Frank Moore, New York, 1864), 78; American War Ballads and Lyrics (edited by George Cary Eggleston, New York, etc., [1889]), II, 160, 271, 275. 86. The Rough Side of Campaigning (1862) BY MAJOR WILDER DWIGHT Dwight, a member of a prominent Massachusetts family, is a good example of the young volunteer officers of good birth and college education who were numerous in both armies during the war. — Bibliography of the campaign: J. C. Ropes, Story of the Civil War, II, vii-xii; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 210. SCE CAMP NEAR EDINBURG, April 9, 1862. CENE, camp, snowing and raining, and blowing angrily; Time, Tuesday morning. The Major Second Massachusetts Regiment enters his tent, shaking the dripping oil-skin cap and India-rubber clothing. He discovers John, his John, surnamed Strong i' the arm, or Armstrong, digging a hole within the damp tent to receive some coals from the hickory fire that is trying to blaze without. John (loquitur). Sogering is queer business, sir. M. Yes, John. J. But it's hard, too, sir, on them that follers it. M. Yes, John. J. It's asy for them as sits to home, sir, by the fire, and talks about sogers and victories, very fine and asy like. It's little they know of the raal work, sir. J. 'T would n't be quite the same, sir, if they was out trying to warm theirselves at a hole in the ground, sir. M. No, John. Then the coals are brought on, and a feeble comfort is attained. The woods are heavy without with snow and ice. In the afternoon I visit the pickets, and spend a chilly and wearisome day. This morning is again like yesterday. — who has shown himself a trump in our recent exigencies, but who has certain eccentricities of manner and speech, came to breakfast this morning, rubbing his hands and saying, "You would n't hardly know that this was the South if you did n't keep looking on the map, would you? hey? What say?" M. Yes, John. here theirselves Since I wrote the above I have spent two hours in the hail-storm visiting pickets. This, then, is an invasion of the South, query? ... BIVOUAC NEAR NEW MARKET, Virginia, Raining from the East. Easter Sunday, April 20, 1862. . . . After a short halt at Mount Jackson, which is a town, and filled with evidences of Rebel occupation, such as large hospitals, one of them unfinished, we were ordered to march round to "turn the enemy's left." Our path was a rough one, through a river, over rocks, and through deep mud, on, on, on. We heard occasional cannonading over toward the centre, where Shields's force remained drawn up in line of battle, to await our tedious circuit. The day was long and hot; the artillery labored over the almost impassable road. I went on in advance, with some pioneers to aid a little by removing obstacles. As we passed through the little village of Forrestville, a party of young girls sang Dixie to us. . . . On we go. We have got round the enemy's position. It is dark; too late to ford the North Fork of the Shenandoah to rejoin the rest of the army, who have now entered New Market, which Ashby even has left. Tired and foot-sore, we lay down to sleep in the woods. Marching for eighteen hours, and such marching the bivouac, in the warm, pleasant night is a luxury. The next morning we start again, and ford the Shenandoah, and get on to the turnpike at New Market which we had left at Mount Jackson. The Shenandoah is swift, and up to one's middle. Fording is an exciting, amusing, long task. It is finished at last, and the brigade, led by our regiment, moves through the town of New Market to the saucy strains of Yankee Doodle. We move two miles beyond the town, and bivouac on a hillside. Our tents and baggage are all sixteen miles back, at Edinburg. It is late Friday evening before we get bivouacked. Many of the men are barefoot and without rations. Saturday morning it begins. early to rain, and ever since we have been dripping under this easterly storm. Aha! the clouds begin to break. I wish you a pleasant Easter Sunday. One thing at least we may hope for, that before another Easter day we may be at home again; for this Rebellion will die rapidly when we hit its vitals. They have not been hit yet, however. I wish you could look at our regiment under rude shelters of rails and straw, and dripping in this cold storm. Our shoes and clothing came up yesterday, and this morning we are giving them out. So we are not wholly helpless yet. . . . ... CAMP NEAR HARRISONBURG, April 26, 1862, Saturday. Rain! rain! rain! March! march! march! What a life! We marched fifteen miles yesterday, in mud and rain, to this point, and got into camp at night in reasonable comfort, but almost without rations, and now we are busy with the miserable interrogatory of what to eat? Such is our experience. Colonel Andrews is again on detached duty, and, for the past few days, I have been in command. It is impossible to exaggerate the difficulty of taking care of a regiment when the whole Quartermaster and Commissary Departments of the army corps are in such hopeless confusion and debility. No other army corps has the obstacles to contend against of this kind that we have. At Yorktown they have the sea, and the Western rivers bear supplies as well as gunboats. Here our wagons cannot bring supplies enough to last until they return from a second trip. We shall be driven to forage from the country; and I do not see any system adopted wise enough and prompt enough for that effort. But there is no use in croaking; we shall get out of the woods somehow, I suppose. Among other short supplies, we are wholly without newspapers since a week ago. What is the news? I hope McClellan is silencing his opponents by silencing the enemy's batteries. That's his best answer. [Mrs. E. A. W. Dwight], Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight (Boston, 1868), 230-241 passim. 87. On the Firing Line (1863) BY CORPORAL JAMES KENDALL HOSMER Hosmer, then a minister, now librarian in Minneapolis, served as a private and corporal in a Massachusetts regiment, and was one of the color-guard. After the war he became prominent as a college professor and author. The battle here described was a futile attack on Port Hudson. — Bibliography of the campaign: J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, IV, 319, note; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 210. WE [June 16, 1863.] W E have had a battle. Not quite a week ago, we began to hear of it. . . We knew nothing certain, however, until Saturday. (It is now Tuesday.) Toward the end of that afternoon, the explicit orders came. The assault was to be made the next morning, and our regiment was to have a share in it. We were not to go home without the baptism of fire and blood. Before dark, we were ordered into line, and stacked our arms. Each captain made a little speech. "No talking in the ranks; no flinching. Let every one see that his canteen is full, and that he has hard bread enough for a day. That is all you will carry beside gun and equipments." We left the guns in stack, polished, and ready to be caught on the instant; and lay down under the trees. At midnight came the cooks with coffee and warm food. Soon after came the order to move; then, slowly and with many halts, nearly four hundred strong, we took up our route along the wood-paths. Many other regiments were also in motion. The forest was full of Rembrandt pictures, a bright blaze under a tree, the faces and arms of soldiers all aglow about it; the wheel of an army-wagon, or the brass of a cannon, lit up; then the gloom of the wood, and the night shutting down about it. At length, it was daybreak. . . . We were now only screened from the rebel works by a thin hedge. Here the rifle-balls began to cut keen and sharp through the air about us; and the cannonade, as the east now began to redden, reached its height, a continual deafening uproar, hurling the air against one in great waves, till it felt almost like a wall of rubber, bounding and rebounding from the body, the great guns of the "Richmond," the siege-Parrotts, the smaller field-batteries; and, through all, the bursting of the shells within the rebel lines, and the keen, deadly whistle of well-aimed bullets. A few rods down the military road, the column paused. . . . The banks of the ravine rose on either side of the road in which we had halted: but just here the trench made a turn; and in front, at the distance of five or six hundred yards, we could plainly see the rebel rampart, red in the morning-light as with blood, and shrouded in white vapor along the edge as the sharpshooters behind kept up an incessant discharge. I believe I felt no sensation of fear, nor do I think those about me did. . . . ... . . We climb up the path. I go with my rifle between Wilson and Hardiker; keeping nearest the former, who carries the national flag. In a minute or two, the column has ascended, and is deploying in a long line, under the colonel's eye, on the open ground. The rebel engineers are most skilful fellows. Between us and the brown earth-heap which we are to try to gain to-day, the space is not wide; but it is cut up in every direction with ravines and gullies. These were covered, until the parapet was raised, with a heavy growth of timber; but now it has all been cut down, so that in every direction the fallen tops of large trees interlace, trunks block up every passage, and brambles are growing over the whole. It is out of the question to advance here in line of battle; it seems almost out of the question to advance in any order: but the Know that this whole space word is given, "Forward!" and on we go. is swept by a constant patter of balls: it is really a "leaden rain." We go crawling and stooping: but now and then before us rises in plain view the line of earth-works, smoky and sulphurous with volleys; while all about us fall the balls, now sending a lot of little splinters from a stump, now knocking the dead wood out of the old tree-trunk that is sheltering me, now driving up a cloud of dust from a little knoll, or cutting off the head of a weed just under the hand as with an invisible knife. . . . "Forward!" is the order. We all stoop; but the colonel does not stoop: he is as cool as he was in his tent last night, when I saw him drink iced lemonade. He turns now to examine the ground, then faces back again to direct the advance of this or that flank. Wilson springs on from cover to cover, and I follow close after him. It is hard work to get the flag along: it cannot be carried in the air; and we drag it and pass it from hand to hand among the brambles, much to the detriment of its folds. The line pauses a moment. Capt. Morton, who has risen from a sick-bed to be with his command, is coolly cautioning his company. The right wing is to remain in reserve, while the left pushes still farther forward. The major is out in front of us now. He stands upon a log which bridges a ravine, a plain mark for the sharpshooters, who overlook the position, not only from the parapet, but from the tall trees within the rebel works. Presently we move on again, through brambles and under charred trunks, tearing our way, and pulling after us the colors; creeping on our bellies across exposed ridges, where bullets hum and sing like stinging bees; and, right in plain view, the ridge of earth, its brow white with incessant volleys. . . ... Down into our little nook now come tumbling a crowd of disorganized, panting men. They are part of a New-York regiment, who, on the crest just over us, have been meeting with very severe loss. They say their dead and dying are heaped up there. We believe it; for we can hear them, they are so near: indeed, some of those who come tumbling down are wounded; some have their gun-stocks broken by shot, and the barrels bent, while they are unharmed. They are frightened and exhausted, and stop to recover themselves; but presently their officers come up, and order them forward again. From time to time, afterwards, wounded men crawl back from their position a few yards in front of where we are. ... . . . We begin to know that the attack has failed. . . . We know nothing certainly. There are rumors, thick as the rifle-balls, of this gen |