Reminiscences Of A Battle Field
Dublin Core
Title
Reminiscences Of A Battle Field
Subject
Civil War, Confederate, Lee, Grant
Creator
M. & W.
Source
http://addison.vt.edu/record=b1775388~S1
Publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Date
October 1876
Contributor
Natalie Richoux, Zak Risha
Rights
Permission to publish images from The Gray Jacket must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
Format
Text
Language
English
Type
Historical Non-Fiction
Identifier
LD5655.V8 L4, ser.1, v.2, no.3 (October 1876), p.2-3
Coverage
Hanover Town
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
As the traveler journeys from Richmond over the county road, known as the Hanover town road, he will pass in the county of Hanover, at a point about sixteen miles from Richmond and about four miles from Hanover Town, a small white washed wooden church, somewhat worse for age situated in the edge of a pine forest that once bordered a cultivated field, but now the field and forest only differ in that the pines in the field are younger and more numerous than those in the wood. On approaching the church the traveler will notice in the yard a small four cornored [sic] pen made by putting four cedar posts in the ground and nailin on rough plank. If he will approach and examine this pen he will find that it encloses a mound of earth about as long and double as wide as a single grave with no slab or board to tell its story. Should he stroll toward the church he will notice that on each side and in rear are excavations in the earth much resembling graves robbed of their occupants and they were carelessly refilled. He will be still more firmly convinced of this fact if he will look closely on the sides of the church, for there he will find, carved rudely in the weather boarding, at the end of many of these openings the name and regiment of some federal soldier and the date of his death in battle. If he be a stranger to such scenes as this and will enquire of some citizen living near he will learn than during the late war the ground whereon he stands was the scene of a cavalry fight and that the Federals having held the field buried their dead around the church and that after the war the Federal Government gathered them up to found national cemeteries. He will also be told that beneath the mound inclosed by the pen lies all the remains of the bones of twenty-seven brave and gallant Confederate cavalrymen twenty-five of whom were killed in the same fight and two in a later skirmish.
Yes Enon this quiet and unassuming Methodist Chnrch [sic] in the woods has now its place in history, and it happened on this wise. It will be remembered that the whole campaign of 1864 between Lee and Grant from the Rapid Ann to Petersburg consisted in one continual effort on Grant's part to turn Lee's right flank and on Lee's part to meet those efforts of Grants successfully. Thus it was that toward the latter part of May the two contending armies found themselves confronting each other at Hanover Junction near where the three rivers, the North Anna, the South Anna and Little River unite to form the Pamankey. Here it was that Lee hoped to strike Grant a decisive blow and he was heard to say more than once. "We must strike them, we must strike them," but, in the language of one of his aids, "unfortunately for us Lee was taken sick and Lee sick in his tent was not Lee in the field," and so it happened that while the army of Lee stood square in Grants front awaiting his advance, Grant determined to make another grand move to turn Lee's right flank. To accomplish this his army was quietly withdrawn from Lee's front and with Sheridan and his cavalry in front, marched rapidly down on the east or King William side of the Pamankey to the neighborhood of Hanover Town ferry so called because there existed higer [sic] in the early days of Virginia, a flourishing little town but now only a ferryman's shanty. On the morning of the 27th of May Sheridan crossed the river and finding only a small picket force in his front marched up the Hanover Town road to the cross road at Haw's Shop about one mile below Enon.
Having taken possession of this position he posted his pickets above Enon and put a large part of his cavalry in camp between the two places. Grant had now almost accomplished his object, the crossing of the Pamaukey were secure for his infantry and Sheridan was already within a short days march of Richmond, while Lee was almost two days march from the same place. But Lee was not to be caught naping [sic] if he, was sick, for on the morning of the 28th, Hamptons advance guard drove Sheridans pickets below Enon while hns dismounted men formed a line of battle across the road and awaited the enemies attack,
Hampton with his inferiority of numbers could not have chosen a better position to meet the host of Sheridan's. On his left ran a stream called the Southern Branch whose waters had been in former years used turn a mill but now the dam was broken and in place of the [unintelligible] log impassible march. On his right another stream ran within a few hundred yards of the road and at about a quarter of a mile it too was damed [sic] for a mill pond. This left only about half of a mile of available fighting ground lying on the water shed between these two streams along whose summit ran the Hanover Town road, and here Hampton had parted Wickham's Virginia Brigade supported by other Southern troops, among them some South Carolinians just from their native State where they had been performing coast guard duty and this was to be their first battle. On Wickham's left lay the command of Fitzhugh Lee party upon the heights overlooking the Southern Branch. Running from the church at right angles to the main road and up to the heights held by Fitz Lee is a rough narrow road leading to Hanover Court House about eight miles off. On the side of this road at a short distance from the church is the church spring, known as Enon Spring.
As might have been supposed the heaviest of the fighting was in Wickham's front in immediate proximity to the road and church. Here for four long hours the men, who two years previous had followed the brave and dashing Stuart along this same road,in his daring ride around McClellan, found themselves compelled to fight with muzzle loaders the best of Sheridan numbering from three to one and armed with the most improved breech loading carbines. Yes for four hours they held their post and dealt deadly blows on the regiments of the enemy as one after another of them would charge and then go to the rear to be relieved by fresh troops, while the infantry of Lee marched in safety to again confront Grant in his path to Richmond ; nor did they yield their post to the enemy until he had brought his infantry upon [unintelligible] Lee's flank and threatened to cut off his retreat. Hampton then slowly withdrew while Sheridan dared not follow him but remained satisfied to hold the dearly bought field. Dear indeed had been the price of blood paid by Sheridan for this privilege for the steady aim of the confederate told with striking force on the ranks of his northern enemies, their loss being estimated at least three times as great as the confederate force. To this day the bullet wounds in the forest trees testify to the difference between the aim of men fighting for their homes and those fighting simply for pay ; for on the side next the confederates a height of seven feet will cover a large majority of the wounds while on the opposite side they range from the ground up to the topmost branch.
Among the troops that suffered most on the confederate side was a company made up of some of South Carolina's best blood. Coming in as a reinforcement after the fight had begun and not being experienced in this mode of warfare, they gave one of their wild cheers which revealed their position to the enemy and attracted his fire. Later in the day when the retreat was ordered they, by some mistake did not receive their orders and were thus cut off and many of the company captured. After the fight was over and the ambulance corps of the enemy were gathering the wounded they come to one of those men mortally wounded in the head. One of their number , finding out that he was a South Carolinian,cheered his dying moments with oaths of abuse for being a citizen of that State which first dared to resist oppression by secession.
While such scenes as this were being enacted, scenes that make the blood run cold, we are happy to say there were some other deeds of a far more noble character, performed by our enemies. In the first charge of Hampton's advance guard a young confederate private was severely wounded in the leg and falling from his horse was captured by the enemy one of whom laid him carefully in a fence corner and put up rails to protect him from the tramping charges. As soon as practicable he was carried to the rear and left by request at the house of a neighbor where a few days after his wound was attended to by Hancock's chief surgeon in a most skillful manner, while a chaplain whose name and regiment I regret to have forgotten, more than once rode several miles to see him and to bring him delicacies from the Federal Hospital, nor shall the writer of this ever forget that it was to Gen. Merritt's gentlemanly appreciation of an act of politeness he [unintelligible] it that he was not carried in very delicate health to a Northern prison where he could have scarcely expected to return alive.
What queer places the God of battle choose for their feast of blood. Here were the citizens of the surrounding country had been want to gather Sabbath after Sabbath to prise in the most reverential manner by songs and prayers of the living God, and where each summer the ministers held their protracted meetings, and generation after generation come forward to the altar of prayer to confess their sins and besiieve, the rattle of small arms, the roar of artillery, the whistle of bullets, the shreaking of shells, and the groans of wounded and dying make awful the din of battle, where lovers were want, at recess to stroll to the sparkling spring and whisper words so soft and low that only themselves could hear, where the boys rode the horses of the congregation to the brook for the sweet privilege of racing them back, and where the parson walked with measured tread and discussed in solemn tones the propriety of continuing the meeting rush alternately the charging Federal and repulsing Confederate while in the interval each friendly tree shelters some soldier who sends his bullets whistling on their mission of death across this hallowed path. When the battle ceases the doors of the temple of God, that had so often opened to welcome in glad worshipers, are taken as litters to bear off the wounded and dead while the pews are taken, yes even the altar itself, to make rude cons for the dead and when night closes on the scene the church is left an empty hall a monument to testify to the unholy usages of war.
But if I continue to follow such trains of thought as these I shall tire the reader and take up too much of the GRAY JACKET'S valuable space I might say that here the Generalship of Custer was not by that of Wickham for it is reported that Custer here exposed himself more than usual and that he had a horse killed under him while so doing, Custer whose star has just gone down on the western plains in a blaze of glorious fame, and Wickham, what shall we say of him, he was a brave and trusted soldier and for this reason let us draw the curtain of silence over his after conduct, but if Custer were "Wickham, and Wickham Custer, would not the world say that their reward were more in accordance with justice?
After the war was over it was a sadly interesting spectacle to see farther from North and from South, going over the field of battle looking for a son, who had paid as the privilege of being a soldier, the forfeit of his life, and whose bones were partly mingling with the dust of his mother earth, truly. "In peace children bury their parents, in war parents bury their children." I remember the care of one father from South Carolina who first brought with him a young man who had been wounded by the same ball that killed his son, for he had to find his body entirely by circumstantial evidence. and being satisfied after going home and consulting with his family that he had found the body of his son, he next brought his wife him to the shallow grave and, O the fortitude of a mother ! She took the poor ghastly skull in her own hands to to be sure that the gold filling in the tooth was correct. What a weight of evidence a small circumstance sometimes has, and then
when she saw the button and his necktie, the only sound piece of clothing left, tied in a perfect bow just as her son had tied it on the morning of the battle, how sadly certain she was that these were the bones of her son. Poor mother, she had, when the war begun three sons and a beautiful home in Columbia; but now two sons had been sacrificed on the altar of her country and Sherman had leveled by fire her home to the earth. It was some consolation to carry his remains back to rest with those of his fathers in their own Palmetto State.
After the war was over a few of the neighbors, finding that the bones of the confederate already scattered would soon disappear entirely, got together and buried them in the church yard hoping that at some future day when the country prospered a monument however small, might be raised to mark their last resting place and deeds of valor. The burial party consisted of one old gentleman, whose son had been mortally wounded in the battle in sight of his home while acting as guide for Fitz Lee, and several old soldiers, One of this last number has passed away. He as a member of Richet's Division had stood with his demand at Five Fork where the men of Sheridan's cavalry had fallen before their foe as grass before the scythe ; yes he had survived the hardships, the privations and dangers of war, but the hardships of a disastrous peace proved too much for his constitution and a few weeks after he had been a member of this party paying the last duties of respect to his fellow comrads in arms, others were performing the same rights for him, were following his body over this same road where a few years before he with an honorable parole in his pocket had draged his weary toward his home. What a difference in the coming home then and now, then it brought joy to his parents hearts that their son was safe from the dangers of war, and his mother saw him a far off and met him long before he reached the door to welcome him with a mothers kiss while the father shook his hand quietly but gratefully for his son was safe and his stout arm would help to keep "the wolf from the door," but now the mother awed with grief could only look on the face of the dead and weep a fresh while a new mound by the side of the open grave told that that mother was a widow indeed and that the body of the son had truly come to rest with his fathers.
Cannot we gather from some of these incidents a moral ? May we not say that a christian gentleman in time of peace will be a christian gentleman in time of war, and that strange as it may seem, life is as uncertain in time of peace as it is in time of war.
The groans of the South Carolinian have long since ceased, his bones are mingling with those of his fated comrades, the din of battle is heard no more, but the groans of the soldiers friends in his native state and the dumb bodies of Custar and his men on the Western plains cry loudly to a voting people and a God of vengeance for deliverance from the oppressions of a tyranical government.
M&W
Yes Enon this quiet and unassuming Methodist Chnrch [sic] in the woods has now its place in history, and it happened on this wise. It will be remembered that the whole campaign of 1864 between Lee and Grant from the Rapid Ann to Petersburg consisted in one continual effort on Grant's part to turn Lee's right flank and on Lee's part to meet those efforts of Grants successfully. Thus it was that toward the latter part of May the two contending armies found themselves confronting each other at Hanover Junction near where the three rivers, the North Anna, the South Anna and Little River unite to form the Pamankey. Here it was that Lee hoped to strike Grant a decisive blow and he was heard to say more than once. "We must strike them, we must strike them," but, in the language of one of his aids, "unfortunately for us Lee was taken sick and Lee sick in his tent was not Lee in the field," and so it happened that while the army of Lee stood square in Grants front awaiting his advance, Grant determined to make another grand move to turn Lee's right flank. To accomplish this his army was quietly withdrawn from Lee's front and with Sheridan and his cavalry in front, marched rapidly down on the east or King William side of the Pamankey to the neighborhood of Hanover Town ferry so called because there existed higer [sic] in the early days of Virginia, a flourishing little town but now only a ferryman's shanty. On the morning of the 27th of May Sheridan crossed the river and finding only a small picket force in his front marched up the Hanover Town road to the cross road at Haw's Shop about one mile below Enon.
Having taken possession of this position he posted his pickets above Enon and put a large part of his cavalry in camp between the two places. Grant had now almost accomplished his object, the crossing of the Pamaukey were secure for his infantry and Sheridan was already within a short days march of Richmond, while Lee was almost two days march from the same place. But Lee was not to be caught naping [sic] if he, was sick, for on the morning of the 28th, Hamptons advance guard drove Sheridans pickets below Enon while hns dismounted men formed a line of battle across the road and awaited the enemies attack,
Hampton with his inferiority of numbers could not have chosen a better position to meet the host of Sheridan's. On his left ran a stream called the Southern Branch whose waters had been in former years used turn a mill but now the dam was broken and in place of the [unintelligible] log impassible march. On his right another stream ran within a few hundred yards of the road and at about a quarter of a mile it too was damed [sic] for a mill pond. This left only about half of a mile of available fighting ground lying on the water shed between these two streams along whose summit ran the Hanover Town road, and here Hampton had parted Wickham's Virginia Brigade supported by other Southern troops, among them some South Carolinians just from their native State where they had been performing coast guard duty and this was to be their first battle. On Wickham's left lay the command of Fitzhugh Lee party upon the heights overlooking the Southern Branch. Running from the church at right angles to the main road and up to the heights held by Fitz Lee is a rough narrow road leading to Hanover Court House about eight miles off. On the side of this road at a short distance from the church is the church spring, known as Enon Spring.
As might have been supposed the heaviest of the fighting was in Wickham's front in immediate proximity to the road and church. Here for four long hours the men, who two years previous had followed the brave and dashing Stuart along this same road,in his daring ride around McClellan, found themselves compelled to fight with muzzle loaders the best of Sheridan numbering from three to one and armed with the most improved breech loading carbines. Yes for four hours they held their post and dealt deadly blows on the regiments of the enemy as one after another of them would charge and then go to the rear to be relieved by fresh troops, while the infantry of Lee marched in safety to again confront Grant in his path to Richmond ; nor did they yield their post to the enemy until he had brought his infantry upon [unintelligible] Lee's flank and threatened to cut off his retreat. Hampton then slowly withdrew while Sheridan dared not follow him but remained satisfied to hold the dearly bought field. Dear indeed had been the price of blood paid by Sheridan for this privilege for the steady aim of the confederate told with striking force on the ranks of his northern enemies, their loss being estimated at least three times as great as the confederate force. To this day the bullet wounds in the forest trees testify to the difference between the aim of men fighting for their homes and those fighting simply for pay ; for on the side next the confederates a height of seven feet will cover a large majority of the wounds while on the opposite side they range from the ground up to the topmost branch.
Among the troops that suffered most on the confederate side was a company made up of some of South Carolina's best blood. Coming in as a reinforcement after the fight had begun and not being experienced in this mode of warfare, they gave one of their wild cheers which revealed their position to the enemy and attracted his fire. Later in the day when the retreat was ordered they, by some mistake did not receive their orders and were thus cut off and many of the company captured. After the fight was over and the ambulance corps of the enemy were gathering the wounded they come to one of those men mortally wounded in the head. One of their number , finding out that he was a South Carolinian,cheered his dying moments with oaths of abuse for being a citizen of that State which first dared to resist oppression by secession.
While such scenes as this were being enacted, scenes that make the blood run cold, we are happy to say there were some other deeds of a far more noble character, performed by our enemies. In the first charge of Hampton's advance guard a young confederate private was severely wounded in the leg and falling from his horse was captured by the enemy one of whom laid him carefully in a fence corner and put up rails to protect him from the tramping charges. As soon as practicable he was carried to the rear and left by request at the house of a neighbor where a few days after his wound was attended to by Hancock's chief surgeon in a most skillful manner, while a chaplain whose name and regiment I regret to have forgotten, more than once rode several miles to see him and to bring him delicacies from the Federal Hospital, nor shall the writer of this ever forget that it was to Gen. Merritt's gentlemanly appreciation of an act of politeness he [unintelligible] it that he was not carried in very delicate health to a Northern prison where he could have scarcely expected to return alive.
What queer places the God of battle choose for their feast of blood. Here were the citizens of the surrounding country had been want to gather Sabbath after Sabbath to prise in the most reverential manner by songs and prayers of the living God, and where each summer the ministers held their protracted meetings, and generation after generation come forward to the altar of prayer to confess their sins and besiieve, the rattle of small arms, the roar of artillery, the whistle of bullets, the shreaking of shells, and the groans of wounded and dying make awful the din of battle, where lovers were want, at recess to stroll to the sparkling spring and whisper words so soft and low that only themselves could hear, where the boys rode the horses of the congregation to the brook for the sweet privilege of racing them back, and where the parson walked with measured tread and discussed in solemn tones the propriety of continuing the meeting rush alternately the charging Federal and repulsing Confederate while in the interval each friendly tree shelters some soldier who sends his bullets whistling on their mission of death across this hallowed path. When the battle ceases the doors of the temple of God, that had so often opened to welcome in glad worshipers, are taken as litters to bear off the wounded and dead while the pews are taken, yes even the altar itself, to make rude cons for the dead and when night closes on the scene the church is left an empty hall a monument to testify to the unholy usages of war.
But if I continue to follow such trains of thought as these I shall tire the reader and take up too much of the GRAY JACKET'S valuable space I might say that here the Generalship of Custer was not by that of Wickham for it is reported that Custer here exposed himself more than usual and that he had a horse killed under him while so doing, Custer whose star has just gone down on the western plains in a blaze of glorious fame, and Wickham, what shall we say of him, he was a brave and trusted soldier and for this reason let us draw the curtain of silence over his after conduct, but if Custer were "Wickham, and Wickham Custer, would not the world say that their reward were more in accordance with justice?
After the war was over it was a sadly interesting spectacle to see farther from North and from South, going over the field of battle looking for a son, who had paid as the privilege of being a soldier, the forfeit of his life, and whose bones were partly mingling with the dust of his mother earth, truly. "In peace children bury their parents, in war parents bury their children." I remember the care of one father from South Carolina who first brought with him a young man who had been wounded by the same ball that killed his son, for he had to find his body entirely by circumstantial evidence. and being satisfied after going home and consulting with his family that he had found the body of his son, he next brought his wife him to the shallow grave and, O the fortitude of a mother ! She took the poor ghastly skull in her own hands to to be sure that the gold filling in the tooth was correct. What a weight of evidence a small circumstance sometimes has, and then
when she saw the button and his necktie, the only sound piece of clothing left, tied in a perfect bow just as her son had tied it on the morning of the battle, how sadly certain she was that these were the bones of her son. Poor mother, she had, when the war begun three sons and a beautiful home in Columbia; but now two sons had been sacrificed on the altar of her country and Sherman had leveled by fire her home to the earth. It was some consolation to carry his remains back to rest with those of his fathers in their own Palmetto State.
After the war was over a few of the neighbors, finding that the bones of the confederate already scattered would soon disappear entirely, got together and buried them in the church yard hoping that at some future day when the country prospered a monument however small, might be raised to mark their last resting place and deeds of valor. The burial party consisted of one old gentleman, whose son had been mortally wounded in the battle in sight of his home while acting as guide for Fitz Lee, and several old soldiers, One of this last number has passed away. He as a member of Richet's Division had stood with his demand at Five Fork where the men of Sheridan's cavalry had fallen before their foe as grass before the scythe ; yes he had survived the hardships, the privations and dangers of war, but the hardships of a disastrous peace proved too much for his constitution and a few weeks after he had been a member of this party paying the last duties of respect to his fellow comrads in arms, others were performing the same rights for him, were following his body over this same road where a few years before he with an honorable parole in his pocket had draged his weary toward his home. What a difference in the coming home then and now, then it brought joy to his parents hearts that their son was safe from the dangers of war, and his mother saw him a far off and met him long before he reached the door to welcome him with a mothers kiss while the father shook his hand quietly but gratefully for his son was safe and his stout arm would help to keep "the wolf from the door," but now the mother awed with grief could only look on the face of the dead and weep a fresh while a new mound by the side of the open grave told that that mother was a widow indeed and that the body of the son had truly come to rest with his fathers.
Cannot we gather from some of these incidents a moral ? May we not say that a christian gentleman in time of peace will be a christian gentleman in time of war, and that strange as it may seem, life is as uncertain in time of peace as it is in time of war.
The groans of the South Carolinian have long since ceased, his bones are mingling with those of his fated comrades, the din of battle is heard no more, but the groans of the soldiers friends in his native state and the dumb bodies of Custar and his men on the Western plains cry loudly to a voting people and a God of vengeance for deliverance from the oppressions of a tyranical government.
M&W