June 3, 1864
We had very severe fighting this morning, all along the
lines. If you look on the map you may follow our lines. The line of battle
faced westerly, towards Gaines's Mill and Mechanicsville, with a corps covering
the right flank, and the left refused (a wing is “refused” when it is swung
back from the direction of the main line). In some sort this was the battle of
Gaines's Mill reversed. . . . The Rebel lines were about parallel with ours and
they were throwing up dirt as hard as they could. No country could be more
favorable for such work. The soldiers easily throw up the dirt so dry and sandy
with their tin plates, their hands, bits of board, or canteens split in two,
when shovels are scarce; while a few axes, in experienced hands, soon serve to
fell plenty of straight pines, that are all ready to be set up, as the inner
face of the breastwork. I can't say I heard with any great hope the order,
given last night, for a general assault at 4.30 the next morning! You see
Wright and Smith took their front line and drove them back Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday afternoon was twenty-four, and Friday morning would be thirty-six
hours, for them to bring up and entrench their whole army. If we could smash
them up, the Chickahominy lay behind them; but I had no more hope of it, after
Spotsylvania, than I had of taking Richmond in two days. Half-past four found
us at Kelly's, the Headquarters of General Wright; the brave General himself,
however, had gone to the front. At that moment the cannon opened, in various
directions, and the Rebels replied vigorously. There has been no fight of which
I have seen so little as this. The woods were so placed that the sound, even,
of the musketry was much kept away, and the fighting, though near us, was
completely shut from view. All the warfare for us was an occasional roundshot,
or shell, that would come about us from the Rebel batteries. In the direction
of the 18th Corps the crash of the musketry was very loud, but elsewhere,
scarcely to be noticed. . . . About five
we had a gleam of hope for our success. News came that Barlow had carried their
works and taken seventeen guns; and so he did; but it is one thing to get in,
another to stay in. His men advanced heroically and went over the breastworks
with a rush; but the enemy had reserves massed behind, well knowing that his
extreme right was seriously threatened. Before our supports could get up, their
forces were down on our men, while a heavy enfilade of canister was kept up
from flanking batteries. Barlow was driven out with heavy loss, and succeeded
in getting off only about 300 of the prisoners he took. Like good soldiers,
however, his men stopped and turned about, close to the works, and there entrenched
themselves. At six we got notice that Russell's division could not carry the
line in their front. Ricketts, however, on the right of the 6th Corps, got
their first line, and so did the 18th Corps on his right; but the 18th people
were forced back, and this left Ricketts a good deal exposed to enfilade; but
he held on. A singular thing about the whole attack, and one that demonstrated
the staunchness of the troops, was, that our men, when the fire was too hot for
them to advance and the works too strong, did not retreat as soldiers often do,
but lay down where some small ridge offered a little cover, and there staid, at
a distance from the enemy varying from forty to perhaps 250 yards. When it was
found that the lines could not be carried, General Meade issued orders to hold
the advanced position, all along, and to trench. The main fight lasted, I
suppose, some three hours, but there was sharp skirmishing and artillery firing
the whole day. The Rebels threw canister in large quantities, doing much
damage. . . .
In the afternoon came Wright and Hancock, with their Staff
officers, to consult with General Meade. They looked as pleasant as if they had
been out to dine, instead of standing all day with shells, bullets and canister
coming about them; for we now have a set of corps commanders who, in action,
go, as they say, where they “can see”; which means sitting calmly in places
where many people would be so scared they wouldn't know the left wing from the
right. Which reminds me of a ludicrous circumstance — there always is something
of the ludicrous mixed in every tragedy. Three or four vulgar and very
able-bodied civilians had got down to the army, in some way or other, and were
at our standpoint for a little while. Having come from the White House and
hearing little musketry, they concluded it would be quite safe to go further to
the front. “Come,” said one, in a flippant way, “let's go forward and see the
fun.” So off they trotted down the Gaines's Mill road. One of Wright's aides
said they came pretty soon, as far as where they were standing. All was quiet,
but these braves had hardly dismounted when the Rebel guns again opened and the
shells came with fearful precision over the spot! One gentleman, a fat man,
rushed wildly to his horse, convulsively clutched the mane and tumbled on the
saddle, galloping hotly off. But it so happened that two successive shells,
passing with their hideous scream, burst just behind his horse, giving him the
wings of panic! The other cit, quite paralyzed, lay down flat behind a ridge;
in a few minutes he looked up at a Staff officer and, with the cold sweat
rolling off him, exclaimed: “Oh! I wish they would stop! Don't you think, sir,
they will stop pretty soon?” What became of the third I know not; but they all “saw
the fun.” Not a thing did I have to do till six in the evening, when General
Meade told me to go to General Birney, ascertain his position and what he
thought of the force in his front; then keep on to Warren and ask him if he
could so close in his Corps to the left as to set Birney free to return to the
Second Corps. I found General Birney, with his usual thin, Puritanic face, very
calmly eating tapioca pudding as a finish to his frugal dinner. He remarked
drily that his man had selected that hollow as particularly safe; but, as half
a dozen shells had already plumped in there, he did not exactly believe the
theory a good one. I had a great mess finding General Warren.1 First
I went, by the road leading through the woods, to Bethesda Church. There were
his aides and his flag: but the General had “ridden out along the lines” —
confound that expression! That is the luck of a Headquarters aide. You say: “Is
the General here?” “No, sir, he has gone, I believe, along the line.” “Do you
know where?” “Well, Colonel, he did not say exactly; but, if you will follow
down the breastworks, I think you will find him.” (Delightful vision of a line
of two miles or so of breastworks with the infantry safely crouched behind, and
you perched on a horse, riding down, taking the chance of stray shot, canister,
and minié balls,
looking for a general who probably is not there.) The greatest piece of
coolness is when you are advised to make a short cut by the picket line! . . .
Warren looks care-worn. Some people say he is a selfish man,
but he is certainly the most tender-hearted of our commanders. Almost all
officers grow soon callous in the service; not unfeeling, only accustomed, and
unaffected by the suffering they see. But Warren feels it a great deal, and
that and the responsibility, and many things of course not going to suit him,
all tend to make him haggard. He said: “For thirty days now, it has been one
funeral procession, past me; and it is too much! To-day I saw a man burying a
comrade, and, within half an hour, he himself was brought in and buried beside
him. The men need some rest.”. . .
At nine at night the enemy made a fierce attack on a part of
Gibbon's division, and, for a time, the volleys of musketry and the booming of
the cannon were louder, in the still night, than the battle had been by day.
But that sort of thing has not done with the Rebels, since the brilliant attack
of Johnson, the second night of the Wilderness. This time they were repulsed
completely. It was then that our men called out: “Come on! Come on! Bring up
some more Johnnies! You haven't got enough!” . . .
To-night all the trenching tools were ordered up and the
lines were strengthened, and saps run out, so as to bring them still closer to
the opposing ones. And there the two armies slept, almost within an easy
stone-throw of each other; and the separating space ploughed by cannon-shot and
clotted with the dead bodies that neither side dared to bury! I think nothing
can give a greater idea of deathless tenacity of purpose, than the picture of
these two hosts, after a bloody and nearly continuous struggle of thirty days,
thus lying down to sleep, with their heads almost on each other's throats!
Possibly it has no parallel in history. So ended the great attack at Cool
Arbor. The losses were far greater for us than for the Rebels. From what I can
gather I doubt not we lost four or five to one. We gained nothing save a
knowledge of their position and the proof of the unflinching bravery of our
soldiers.2
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1 “This was Warren's great way, to go about,
looking thus after details and making ingenious plans; but it kept him from
generalities, and made it hard to find him, so that he finally came to trouble
as much by this as by anything else.” —Lyman's Journal.
2 “I do think there has been too much assaulting,
this campaign! After our lessons of failure and of success at Spotsylvania, we assault
here, after the enemy had had thirty-six hours to entrench, and that time will
cover them over their heads and give them slashings and traverses besides! The
best officers and men are liable, by their greater gallantry, to be first
disabled; and, of those that are left, the best become demoralized by the
failures, and the loss of good leaders; so that, very soon, the men will no
longer charge entrenchments and will only go forward when driven by their
officers.” — Lyman's Journal.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 143-8
