Field, camp, hospital and prison in the civil war, 1863-1865; Charles A. Humphreys, chaplain, Second Massachusetts cavalry volunteers

Foreword

T MAKE no apology for printing this tale of the last two years of the Civil War even though another and greater war is engrossing the attention of the whole world. This greater war will soon end, and, as God lives, will end ^. in the triumph of the right, and the nations will ^ then be ready to enforce peace if any one should (^ attempt to disturb it. My story will be in 00 line with that great consummation. I feel so strongly that when war is seen in its true colors, it will not only lose all its allurements, but will excite a keener appreciation of the blessings of peace, that I think I could do no better service in the cause of peace than to present, as I intend, an unvarnished tale of war's scenes and labors, its trials and exposures. I shall weave them, in a measure, about my own personal experiences, but only so far as is necessary to present the various phases of war in definite outline and living reality.

CHARLES A. HUMPHREYS.

CONDENSED SKETCH OF CONTENTS

War conditions in 1863 1-2

Camp life at Vienna, Virginia, in the winter of 1863-64. A Chaplain's experiences as postmaster and hospital visitor 3-10

Woman's help and inspiration in camp and hospital exemplified by Mrs. Josephine

Shaw Lowell 11-12

Difficulties in holding Sunday services for the

regiment 12-13

Services in the hospital more regular 14

The Chaplain's aims in his work I4~i9

The Chaplain prepares a deserter for execution. 19-22

Encouraging letter from Rev. James Walker,

D.D., ex-president of Harvard College . , 22-23

A scout after Mosby. Herman Melville, the

noted traveller, goes along with us . . , .• 24-34

Opening of spring campaign of 1864 34~37

The battles of the Wilderness 37~49

Appearance of the field a month after the battles, when Chaplain Humphreys assists in gathering the wounded who could bear

the journey to Washington 49~52

His wounded men inquire after Gen. William F.

Bartlett. Tribute to Bartlett 52-54 vi CONDENSED SKETCH OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Difficulties of the journey for the wounded to

Washington S4~S^

Sheridan's raid towards Richmond 59~69

Siege of Spottsylvania. Gallant charge by

General Hancock 7^>'77

Sheridan opens the way to Cold Harbor . . . 81-83

Battle of Cold Harbor. Chaplain Humphreys' younger brother is killed on the skirmish line 83-85

The loss in the final assault more than ten thousand in one hour. Losses in the month's battles over sixty thousand . . . 85-88

Change of base to City Point 89-91

General Butler's movement from Fortress

Monroe to Bermuda Hundred 9i~92

General Sigel's movement up the Shenandoah Valley defeated at Newmarket. General Hunter followed, and though successful at Piedmont failed at Lynchburg and retreated 92

General Early starts from Lynchburg for a raid

on Washington 92-93

Lowell's brigade ordered to watch the passes of the Blue Ridge. To this end Major Forbes is sent out with one hundred and fifty men, and is attacked at Aldie by Colonel Mosby and captured with fifty of his men. Major Forbes' heroic charge single-handed . . . 9^-99

Chaplain Humphreys is chased six miles by Colonel Mosby, but eludes him, and, returning to look after the wounded, is taken prisoner by a guerrilla and made to walk thirty miles to Mosby's headquarters at Rectortown 99-114

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All the prisoners are taken to Lynchburg and confined in a tobacco-warehouse. Sunday, July 17, 1864, Chaplain Humphreys, by request, conducts a religious service in the prison, and afterwards is sent to the guard-house for preaching patriotism. The sufferings of close confinement 1 14-123

Friday, July 22 d. The prisoners are packed in box cars and sent a six days' journey to Georgia. The prison stockade at Macon . 123-132

Of the sixteen hundred Union officers imprisoned at Macon, three hundred are sent to Charleston to be put under the fire of the Union guns 132-137

Chaplain Humphreys is there offered his freedom if he will go to Washington and urge on Lincoln an exchange of prisoners. But he declines and gives his reasons in an address to the prisoners during a religious service conducted by him at the request of General Stoneman I37~I39

Prison conditions in Charleston 1 40-144

September 2, 1864, All chaplains and surgeons are released on exchange. The joy of being again under the Union flag 144-145

Chaplain Humphreys at Hilton Head arranges for the exchange of his messmate, Lieutenant C. W. Amory, who was dangerously sick, and through General Saxton secures a slight change in the range of the Union guns so that they would not longer imperil the lives of the Union prisoners in Charleston 145-146 viil CONDENSED SKETCH OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Chaplain Humphreys finds personal friends at Morris Island in Col. A. S. Hartwell and Lieut. Col. C. B. Fox, and through their identification gets his back pay and takes a steamer September 13th for New York and reaches his home in Dorchester, September 17th 147-148

There and at Naushon he recruits his strength

and returns to the front October 13th. . 148

General Early's raid towards Washington, July 7, 1864. Colonel Lowell at Rockville with the Second Massachusetts Cavalry harasses his retreat 148-15 1

Early's second raid July 25th makes Grant resolve to clear the Shenandoah Valley, and he gives the task to General Sheridan, who delegates Colonel Lowell to lead the advance and gives him four regiments of Regular Cavalry to put with his own. Battle of the Opequan. The Confederates are sent whirling through Winchester. The Woodstock races — the most brilliant cavalry fight of the war 151-165

Battle of Cedar Creek. General Sheridan saves the day. Lowell's brilliant fighting and heroic death 1 65-1 81

The Chaplain's tribute of love and admiration to his Colonel — Charles Russell Lowell. He gets the sculptor Daniel C. French to mould a bust of him in Italian marble and has it placed in Memorial Hall, Cambridge, opposite the bust of General Bartlett by the same artist, and gets permission from

CONDENSED SKETCH OF CONTENTS ix

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James Russell Lowell to take from his Commemoration Ode the inscription under the bust . . 181-190

Loudon County — the field of Mosby's guerrilla bands — is laid waste. The terrible destructiveness of war 190-192

Winter camps in the Shenandoah. At Charlestown Chaplain Humphreys is entertained at breakfast by George Lafayette Washington, great-grand-nephew of the "Father of his Country" 192-194

December 19th to December 29th. General Torbert leads five thousand cavalry to Gordonsville in the hardest expedition of the whole war. Our sufferings from the extreme cold 194-203

The last great cavalry expedition of the war. Sheridan leads his ten thousand troopers up the Shenandoah, driving Early before him, and at Waynesboro captures sixteen hundred Confederates; then crosses the Blue Ridge and destroys the Virginia Central Railroad and the James River Canal, the chief sources of Lee's supplies at Richmond 203-216

The dangerous fording of the North Anna River. Chaplain Humphreys is forced to the bottom of the river by the mad struggles of the swimming horses 216-221

The column reaches White House Landing, March i8th, having lost four thousand horses by the exhaustions of the march. In six days their loss is replaced and Sheridan joins Grant at Petersburg 221-225

X CONDENSED SKETCH OF CONTENTS

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Lee's desperate situation after Sheridan's

cutting off his supplies 225-231

Infantry battle, March 31st, at Boydton Plank Road, in which Charles J. Mills, H. C. i860, is killed. Cavalry battle, March 31st, at Dinwiddie Court House. Sheridan's inspiring presence at the crisis of the battle. Lieut. Augustus L. Papanti — later the fashionable dancing-master of Boston — is wounded through both feet, and Chaplain Humphreys helps him off the field to the hospital 231-244

The Battle of Five Forks, April ist, strategically one of the best-fought battles of the war. Heroism of Lieut. Huntington F. Wolcott. Chaplain Humphreys helps a mortally wounded captain of the Fifth United States Cavalry off the field and cheers his last hours. Sheridan fights like a Viking, and, as at Cedar Creek, turns a panic into a victorious assault on Pickett's left flank. The trophies of the day were thirteen battle-flags and six thousand prisoners 244-256

Lee is forced out of Petersburg and Richmond. The cavalry begins to harry his retreat. Maj. William H. Forbes rejoins us April 4th. Davies' brigade scoops up nearly a thousand Confederates at Paine's Crossroads 257-267

Battle of Sailor's Creek. Custer's famous charge and the capture of Ewell's whole corps of more than nine thousand men 267-274

CONDENSED SKETCH OF CONTENTS xi

PAGE

The advance of Lee's retreating army approaching High Bridge over the Appomattox finds its way disputed by a single battalion of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry under Col. Francis Washburn of Worcester, who falls gallantly fighting in his third desperate charge 274-277

The suiferings of Lee's army for lack of provisions as told by Col. Robert Renshaw of Lee's staff to Chaplain Humphreys. . . . 277-278

Gen. A. A. Humphreys with the Second Corps saves the bridge over the Appomattox that Lee tries to burn after his retreating army had crossed. Lee asks Grant's terms of surrender, but continues his retreat. Sheridan seeks to check him at Appomattox and succeeds, capturing his supply trains. The last day of the war, April 9th. Lee's surrender and Grant's magnanimity. Their contrasted appearance as they parted . . 279-293

The shadow cast over our joy by the assassination of Lincoln 293-294

Tribute to Lincoln 294-296

Tribute L At Dedication of the Monument to the Citizen Soldiers of Dorchester who died for their Country 34^-358

Tribute H. On Memorial Day to all who had

died for their Country 359~363

Tribute HL At Dedication of Flags to the

Spirit of the Flag's Defenders 364-368

Appendix. More intimate views of a Chaplain's Life as revealed in his Diary and Home Letters 369-428

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The Latest Photograph of the Author . . . Frontispiece

Camp Scenes 3> 4? 7

Capt. Francis Washburn 275

Camp Quartette 303

Capt. J. Sewall Reed, Capt. Josiah S. Baldwin, Maj. William H. Forbes, Chaplain Charles A. Humphreys, Capt. Goodwin A. Stone.

Brevet Maj. Gen. William F. Bartlett 306

Private Walter Humphreys 308

Capt. Thomas B. Fox 315

Lieut. C. W. Amory 318

Gen. Charles R. Lowell 319

Lieut. Huntington Frothingham Wolcott 320

Lieut. Col. Caspar Crowninshield 322

Soldiers' Monument, Dorchester 341

FIELD, CAMP, HOSPITAL AND PRISON IN THE CIVIL WAR, 1863-1865 npHE Civil War had already raged two te- ^ dious years before the Union cause seemed so desperate that I could no longer keep from enlisting in its defence. It was difficult from the beginning to follow the pursuits of peace while so many were giving themselves to hard and perilous service in the field. But it had been easy to keep the ranks full till the year 1863, when a succession of defeats or fruitless victories checked voluntary enlistments, and compelled the government to resort to drafting. It was a time of great depression at the North. The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued under great complaints of an unconstitutional use of the war-powers of the government, and as yet it had not begun to give any effective aid to our arms. The disastrous defeat at Chancellorsville, May 1st and 2d, had caused a great reaction of opinion at the North towards compounding a peace. We had little or no sympathy from other nations in our struggle; and England — from whom we had a right to expect the most encouragement, especially after the cause of the Union was openly identified with the cause of freedom for the slave — not only turned to us the cold shoulder, but became quite demonstrative in its sympathy with the South. A month after the issuing of the Proclamation of Emancipation, the London Times said: "We hold the opinion that the cause of the South gallantly fighting against the cruel and desolating invasion of the North, is the cause of freedom." Two months later a prominent member of Parliament said publicly: "We cannot help seeing that while Abraham Lincoln is an incapable pretender, Jefferson Davis is a bold statesman. We may well wish to see the American States peacefully separate, we may well wish to see bloodshed cease and peace restored, but I contend — and I know that the majority of thinking men in England agree with me — that the best method towards that end will be the establishment of the complete independence of the Confederate States." It was a time when every one who loved his country and believed in its free institutions must do what he could to sustain its armies in the field; and, feeling that I might be of some service in the line of my chosen profession, I

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"s^D o > accepted, while I was yet in the Divinity School at Cambridge, the offer of a Chaplain's commission from Governor Andrew, and as soon as I could be ordained (Note i) joined the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, a regiment composed of two battalions recruited in Massachusetts, and one recruited in California chiefly of natives of Massachusetts. Our Colonel was Charles Russell Lowell of Cambridge, a graduate of Harvard in the Class of 1854. He was a nephew of the poet James Russell Lowell, and had already seen two years of service. As soon as he reached the field with his regiment of Massachusetts Cavalry, he was put in command of the brigade with which it was connected, leaving our men under the direct leadership of Lieut. Col. Caspar Crowninshield of Boston. When I joined the regiment in August, 1863, it was brigaded with the 13th and i6th New York Cavalry regiments, and was, with them, doing service as an outpost picket before Washington, guarding thirty or forty miles of its exposed front, and constantly harassed by guerrilla raids under the leadership of Col. John S. Mosby, who called his followers Partisan Rangers.

Our camp was at Vienna, about fifteen miles from Washington, and was surrounded with a heavy abatis of felled trees branching outwards to guard against sudden attacks of guerrillas. Here we spent the winter of '63 to '64, and made ourselves as comfortable as we could, with board floors in our wall-tents, and with brick fireplaces, and with chimneys made of mud and sticks (Note 2). Our chimneys were of necessity so shallow that on windy days the smoke would be forced in gusts down the flue into our tents, and I have often been driven out into the storm for self-preservation — though doubtless if I had stayed in I would have been preserved, but only as a smoked and dried specimen of suffering humanity. Still we had a great deal of satisfaction in our fireplaces, and when the nights were cold and clear, and the logs blazed brightly, our tents often resounded with laughter and song, and all went merry as a marriagebell (Note 3).

A Chaplain's duty is not prescribed by army regulations, except so far as to require him to hold service on the Sabbath when convenient, and to bury the dead. But there are many ways in which a Chaplain can make himself useful in camp, and by alluding to some of them I shall give an insight into the alleviations as well as the trials of camp life.

I felt it a pleasure as well as a duty to visit the men in their tents and to encourage them to come freely to mine. By the kindness of

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Ai£'I-'OH, Lh:xN(3A AND T1LDP>N FOUNDATIONS friends at home I had an excellent library of two hundred volumes, gathered largely by Rev. Henry W. Foote, H. C. 1858, among the attendants at King's Chapel (Note 4). These kept both officers and men in reading matter, and lightened the tedium of many a dull winter's day. Some lady friends — chief among whom was Mrs. John M. Forbes of Milton — knit several hundred cavalry mittens, especially adapted for holding the bridle rein, and I distributed them through the regiment, and they saved the men from many a bite of frost, and filled a want that the government did not supply. Mrs. Forbes, besides keeping her own fingers busy, kept six women knitting for the regiment. On January 12, 1864, I received from her forty pairs of cavalry mittens, and — without giving notice of their arrival — I gave them to any who came to my tent to inquire if I had "some of those warm mittens," and they were all gone before night. From the same bounty came knit caps to protect the head at night, and these I distributed to every officer in the regiment. And besides these gifts Mrs. Forbes' supplies of delicacies for the sick in our brigade hospital were unstinted.

Besides being thus the almoner of the overflowing charities of friends at home, the Chaplain could often serve the men by acquainting these same friends with the needs of the soldiers' families. Thus a word to Rev. Edward Everett Hale used to send at once his most efficient lady visitors to the homes of any of my men whose families in Boston needed aid. I could draw at sight on that rich bank of sympathy and helpfulness. And so elsewhere, the need had only to be spoken and the help was at hand. As we were very near to Washington, I could also send money home for the soldiers, and after pay-day I have sometimes taken to the oifice of the Adams Express Company in that city more than fifteen hundred dollars to be scattered in small sums among the soldiers' families. And oftentimes, when pay-day was delayed, the men would freely come to the Chaplain, and the loan of a few dollars would frequently relieve distress and always make the men more contented with their lot. I used to have several hundred dollars thus floating round in the regiment, and, though much of it got water-logged and sunk never to return, I felt that it had done good service.

There were so many Californians in my regiment who had a great admiration for Rev. Thomas Starr King and attributed to his patriotic devotion and eloquent appeals the keeping of California in the Union, that I ordered from Black — the best Boston photog-

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A very important labor that usually fell to the Chaplain was to be postmaster, to receive and distribute the mails, and to frank letters for any who could not prepay them. I also furnished, freely, paper and envelopes to any who applied for them, thinking it the best service I could do to encourage the men to keep up a frequent correspondence with their homes.

The Chaplain's ear became naturally a convenient receptacle for all sorts of complaints, chief among which were those that grew out of the chafing under the severities of military discipline. It was so hard for a freeman nourished in independence to submit absolutely to the will of another — perhaps no wiser than he; to make himself part of a machine without questioning any of its adaptations or uses! The Chaplain could often by words of counsel or explanation allay such discontent — which frequently in the weariness of camp life festers into insubordination.

And again the Chaplain kept always a kind of confessional, at which men might unburden their anxieties and doubts, and pour the story of their lives into sympathetic ears. These stories were often more entertaining than books, and stranger than fiction. Some told of hairbreadth escapes in fights with Indians on the border; others, of adventures among the wild islanders of the South Seas. There were trappers from the Rocky Mountains, who had had bears for pets; tall lumbermen from Maine, who had dared the foaming rapids and the raging torrent; old sailors, who had played with the sea-lion and sported with the storm; rough-bearded miners, who knew all the tricks of the gambler, and were familiar with the code of the duellist. One young man revealed to me this strange experience: He was born in Massachusetts, but before he was fifteen he thought he would shift for himself, and ran away and settled in Columbia, S.C., working in a gun-factory and joining a volunteer battery. When the war broke out — looking upon it as a kind of holiday frolic, and loving adventure— he followed his battery to Charleston, where his services were very much in demand as there were few skilful gunners among the Charlestonians. When it was known that the " Star of the West " was coming to bring supplies to Fort Sumter, he was recalled from his own to take charge of the Cummings Point battery, and trained the gun that made the ship lower its flag. This was the first time that the

United States flag had been lowered to a hostile shot since the War of 18 12, and, though Edward Rufliin of Virginia had been granted the privilege of discharging the gun, strange to tell, it was charged and trained by a Massachusetts man. He afterwards joined the Second South Carolina Infantry, and was ordered to Virginia, and helped to drive the Fourth Ohio out of the very place where we were then encamped. But when it came to meeting Massachusetts regiments and perhaps his own brothers in the fight, he felt the stronger drawing of the old home ties, and deserted and came within our lines at Alexandria and was now fighting under the old flag.

The recounting of these and like experiences was not only intensely interesting, but offered many opportunities for the expression of helpful sympathy and timely counsel.

But the most important of the Chaplain's duties were in the hospital. It was a delight here also to be the almoner of friends at home, and of the Sanitary Commission, and to distribute delicacies among the patients to relieve the dreary monotony of the regular rations. Some ladies at home, among whom again Mrs. J. M. Forbes was chief, kept me supplied with hollow circular pillows, stuffed with the soft gossamer threads of the milkweed, to relieve wounds and bed-sores. I had also a great variety of games and puzzles which were a great attraction to the convalescents (Note 5). My books were a constant delight to the patients, and in the severer cases of sickness I could often give comfort by reading myself. I was once reading Whittier's "Pipes at Lucknow" to a Scotchman named McFarland, a patient in the hospital, thinking to please him with a little of his native dialect, when he interrupted me with the exclamation, "I was there." Then he told me that he was one of Havelock's troops who carried relief to the besieged British garrison, and he had heard that "dearest of all music that the pipes at Lucknow played." Another patient wanted to read "Robinson Crusoe" because he himself had been on the island of Juan Fernandez, where the adventures of Alexander Selkirk are supposed to have furnished much of the material for the story of "Robinson Crusoe."

Of religious books, I furnished each patient with what he desired — thus distributing Catholic and Episcopal prayer-books and Methodist hymn-books, and supplying to Frenchmen, Italians, and Germans the New Testament in their native tongues. With the foreigners in the hospital I was greatly assisted by Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, the wife of my Colonel,

Charles Russell Lowell, the brigade commander, and sister of my classmate Robert Gould Shaw (Note 6). Mrs. Lowell was spending the winter in camp and visited the patients very frequently, and she delighted the Frenchmen, Italians, and Germans by conversing with them in their own languages, that so vividly recalled their early homes. Her presence in camp had a refining influence upon officers and men, and in the hospital, by her tender sympathies and beautiful bearing and sweet simplicity, she was like an angel visitant. She often assisted in writing letters for the disabled soldiers; and, when I sought to give comfort to the dying, her presence soothed the pangs of parting with a restful consciousness of woman's faithful watching and a mother's tender love.

"Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand and

faintly smiled: 'Was that pitying face his mother's? Did she watch

beside her child?' Every voiceless word with meaning her woman's heart

supplied, With her kiss upon his forehead, 'Mother!' murmured

he and died."

At such times I have felt most vividly what a delightful trait in woman's character is this love of serving others. What a blessing and joy was woman's nursing to the sick and wounded soldiers!

"Not wholly lost, O Father, is this evil world of ours; Upward through its blood and ashes spring afresh the

Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of battle Love and Pity send their

prayer.

And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air."

The chief of the specified duties of the Chaplain— to hold religious services — was the one it was hardest to fulfil, by reason of the difficulty of finding any convenient and comfortable place of meeting. I once succeeded in getting a hospital-tent for that purpose, and with the help of two of our men who had been carpenters I made some benches for the comfort of my audience, but before Sunday came the tent was moved away to be used for a court-martial, and I never recovered it. Once I took my colored servant and my little hatchet, and went out at nine o'clock Sunday morning, cleared away the underbrush from a small amphitheatre in a neighboring wood, and at ten o'clock the chief bugler sounded the church call at the camp and then again at the place of meeting. Somehow it did not seem strange, but the most natural place in which to worship. "The groves were God's first temples." The service was as follows: I. I repeated the sentence "The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him." II. After a few moments of silent prayer I repeated the first stanza of Watt's hymn " From all that dwell below the skies/* then led the singing of it to the tune "Old Hundred," in which all joined. III. Scripture reading — Matt. vii. 7-27. IV. Prayer. V. Address on three things that abide — ^Truth, Goodness, God. VI. Wesley's hymn "Love divine, all love excelling." VII. Benediction. The whole service took less than half an hour. The audience stood for the singing and benediction, but sat on the ground for the rest of the service.

All uncovered during the prayer and benediction. This was my first and last service in that place. The weather was never again such that I could use it. Then I resorted to a barn near the camp, the auditors sitting on the beams and floor, the band accompanying the singing, and the cattle filling in the pauses with their lowing. But even with the shelter of the barn it was often too cold for the band to play, and we were as likely to be out on a raid Sunday as other days. Still, with all these inconveniences and interruptions, the simple presence of the Chaplain made Sunday a little diff'erent from other days, and frequently the bugle-call to worship revived memories of the church bells at home. My three services on Sunday in the three wards of the brigade hospital were seldom Interrupted. As I finished each service it was very grateful to me to hear the "Thank you" gasped by the feeble patients on their various couches. It was a great joy to pour even one drop of comfort into the bitter cup that so many had to drain who threw In their lot with their country's peril. Sometimes besides the morning service in the barn and the three services in the hospital there was a regimental service at dress parade In the afternoon, and frequently a soldier's funeral added to the solemnity of the Sabbath hours. Union and Confederate were alike In their hospital treatment and their funeral honors, and I remember one mother of a Confederate coming to get some of the earth from his grave, vividly revealing that there were bleeding hearts and sacred devotions at the South as well as at the North. As to my work as a Chaplain, I find the fullest expression of it in a letter which I wrote from camp to Rev. Edward H. Hall, who had taken part In my ordination. This is the letter. It was returned to me after his death and more than fifty years after it was written, having been found among his cherished papers.

Cavalry Camp, Vienna, Va., April 28, '64.

Rev. Edward H. Hall:

Dear Friend, — Your very kind letter of Feb. 4th was received, and would have been answered promptly but that the disaster to my regiment in the skirmish at Drainesville broke up all my plans and took me to Dorchester with Mrs. Reed, wife of the captain who was killed. I have not felt like answering it till now, because I have been diffident as to my ability to relate to you any experience of interest. I am now compelled by the necessity of the time to write to you at once however poor my letter may be. For the armies are beginning to move, and we must be ready to move at a moment's notice, and I may not have another chance to write for a long time. Burnside's army corps passed through here yesterday on its way to Leesburg and the gaps in the Blue Ridge, and everything looks like active campaigning. God speed the right.