December 10,
1864
Miles, with the troops which had been sent to reinforce him,
maintained a threatening attitude near Hatcher's Run till afternoon, when he
was ordered to withdraw again to our lines. The enemy undertook to follow up a
little, but the rear guard faced about and drove them away. — There was I
seized with a fearful sleepy fit last night and went to bed; thus missing a
letter home to you. However, I have not before missed one in a very long time;
and, if I followed Duane's advice, I should miss much oftener. “Lyman,” says
this ancient campaigner, “you are foolish to write so much. Now I write only
once a week, so my letters are valued. You write every day, and probably Mrs.
Lyman puts them in her pocket and pays no attention to them.” Ah! I was
speaking of Miles, and had got him with all his forces, and put him inside the
works, all right. We had to pay farewell respects to Riddle, for his
resignation has been accepted and he goes to-morrow. For a long time he has
been in miserable health and, in warm weather, is seldom well enough for hard
duty. He has been twice wounded, at Antietam and on the Peninsula, and was
taken prisoner, but got away from Libby and arrived, after many hardships,
within our lines. He is a very good officer and quite a superior person, whom
we shall miss on our Staff. The kind-hearted Woolsey invited us all to take
oysters in his honor (for you must know that there is a log house where one may
have a “fancy roast,” “plain stew,” or “one fried,” just across the road). We
gathered in the greatest force, for oysters attracted, even if Riddle didn't,
and had a high festival. We had songs, whereof I sang several, with large
applause. “You don't drink,” said Duane, “but it don't make any difference,
because you look as if you had been drinking, and that's all that is
necessary.”
Before I finish this day I must go back to tell of the
beginning and progress of the Weldon road expedition. Last Wednesday, General
Warren, with his own Corps, Mott's division of the 2d Corps, and nearly the
whole of Gregg's division of cavalry, started in the morning and marched down
the Jerusalem plank road, striking across to the Nottoway River, at Freeman's
Bridge, a distance of from fifteen to seventeen miles. There a pontoon bridge
was thrown and the whole command got over before daybreak the next morning, the
advance getting that night to Sussex Court House. Meantime the enemy, getting
[wind] of the move, sent off A. P. Hill's Corps, that evening, twelve hours
after Warren. Hill went to Dinwiddie Court House, but what became of him
thereafter, I have not yet learned. Their place in the lines was taken, I
presume, by some of Early's men, who were nearly all come down from the valley
and are helping Lee now. On Thursday Warren continued his march and struck the
Weldon road, a little south of the Nottoway, in the afternoon, and immediately
went to destroying the track and burning the river bridge. The work went on
systematically: the line being halted on the road, the men stacked arms, and
went at the track. Sleepers were torn up, and these, with fence-rails, made
great bonfires, on which the rails were laid. Soon the iron would wax red-hot,
when the weight of the ends would bend the rails. Some of the men, however,
were so enthusiastic as to take rails and twist them round trees, which could
be done while the ends were cool and the middle hot. As soon as a brigade had
finished its work, it marched down to a new piece, passing the other men who
were destroying; and so they kept on till midnight, when they had got to
Jarrott's station and there halted. Next day, Friday, the column kept on, as
before, the cavalry preceding them, who, when they arrived at Meherrin Bridge,
found strong earthworks on the opposite side and some ten guns, which immediately
opened on them. . . .
This night was a very severe one, with its high wind and
snow, sleet and rain; but it was rendered tolerable by the big fires that the
soldiers lighted to heat rails with. General Warren did not deem proper to
cross the Meherrin, as it would take a day to flank the Rebels' works, and he
started with but six days' provisions. Next day, Saturday to wit, he began his
return march and the head of the column got as far as Sussex C.H. On this march
the people of the country had the bad judgment to “bushwhack” our troops: that
is, to kill any stragglers or small parties they could catch. This is against
the rules of war. I will not say it is surprising, because the stragglers of an
army always steal and plunder and exasperate the people. Colonel Sergeant told
me he himself saw five of our men shot and stripped nearly naked. The troops
were so enraged by such cases, that they fired every house on their march, and,
what made them worse, they found a great amount of apple-brandy in the country,
a liquor that readily intoxicates. The superior officers destroyed a great deal
of it, but the men got some and many were drunk. The people make this brandy on
account of its great price. It sells for $1500 a barrel. Colonel Wainwright
told me he found two tithing-bills in one house, one a year old, the other
recent; in the old one wheat was valued at $10 a bushel, in the recent, at $40,
showing that it has quadrupled in price within a year. It was on this day that
a cavalry reconnaissance that pushed out on the Vaughan road reported heavy
artillery firing in the direction of Jarrott's station. This made Grant so
uneasy that he directed aid to be sent Warren. Accordingly Potter, with 9000
men, marched that night, and arrived next morning at five A.M. at the Nottoway,
at Freeman's Bridge. A wretched march indeed! in slush and mud and a damp cold;
but his men followed on very well and arrived with little straggling, which
surprised me. .
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 293-6
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