Our division had
quite an interesting sham-fight at Poolesville, four regiments of infantry,
three batteries, and Van Allen's cavalry partaking in it. We fired blank
cartridges. Van Allen's cavalry had several men injured in charging.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 27
While going to a
drill, through Poolesville, on trot, Corporal Burrows was thrown off the
limber-chest, and his leg broken by a wheel passing over him.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 27-8
Great artillery manœuvre.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 28
Batteries A and B
were ordered to report near Conrad's Ferry, where we arrived before sunrise, it
being only five miles from our camp. While going through the woods, orders were
given not to talk loud, the distance between us and the enemy being not more
than three miles at the time. The enemy's position, which was a fortified one,
consisting of two forts, called Beauregard and Johnson, had already been
reconnoitred from a balloon, the day before. At our arrival, we found General
Stone and Colonel Tompkins, with two companies of Van Allen's cavalry, two
companies of the Thirty-fourth New York, and two of the First Minnesota,
already there. We opened on the two forts, without much effect. Lieutenant
Perry was more successful, with his Parrott guns. The enemy could be seen
standing in squads by his artillery, yet no reply was made. By four o'clock we
all withdrew, except the Parrott guns of Battery B, doing picket duty. The old
members will remember, when returning to camp, Lieutenant Perry rode that
nigger down. Quiet up to Wednesday, December 18.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 28
The right section
went to Conrad's Ferry, but returned in the evening.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 28
Christmas. Our
officers presented the company with a barrel of beer.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 28
The project was
started to build huts for winter-quarters. Details were made every day, to cut
heavy timber, which was done for a week. But luckily, it failed completely, as
it would have taken at least four months to get ready, by the plan worked on.
Officers quarters had to be built first, then non-commissioned officers, and
last, the poor privates. In fact, a great nuisance in the army, is the illegal
using of soldiers for manual service for the benefit of comissioned officers,
which is altogether contrary to army regulations. It is revolting to the mind,
to see men, who perhaps never have been anything at home, make slaves of their
equals, just because they happen to be in command of them, and this, they give
the wrong name of discipline.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 29
Arrival of Battery
B, Pennsylvania artillery, coming from McCall's division, after having
participated in the battle of Drainesville.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 29
The centre section,
commanded by Lieutenant Jeffrey Hassard, relieved the section of Battery B, on
picket at Conrad's Ferry. Our detachment accidentally changed its position in
the battery—we were transferred to the centre section, being the fourth piece,
sixth detachment. We arrived at the ferry by one o'clock P. M., and took up our
quarters in a deserted nigger-shanty. Splendid view of the Potomac and Blue
Ridge Mountains. At night, the camp-fires of the rebels were visible.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 29
On picket, at
Conrad's Ferry. The rebel camp plainly to be seen. Infantry and cavalry
drilling outside the forts.
SOURCE: Theodore
Reichardt, Diary of Battery A, First Regiment Rhode Island Light
Artillery, p. 30
After building houses and making our camp pleasant and comfortable, we move from Goldsboro on the tenth of April and march towards Raleigh, North Carolina.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 303
On the twelfth we
arrive at Lowell, and while here we receive the first news of Lee's surrender
to General Grant. Sherman's grand army seems wild to-night. The pineries ring
for Grant and the Union. Victory has come at last, and the bronzed and stalwart
men who have tramped across a continent, make the air vocal with their happy
cheers. The morning of peace cometh; we already see its welcome light peering
from behind the curtains of war's long dark night.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 303
We enter Raleigh,
the capitol of North Carolina, pass through the city and go into camp one mile
from the outer works. To-day Companies A and K leave for headquarters to be
mounted. The dismounted portion of the regiment is now very small. Company H
and the three new companies, B, D and G, are the only ones now remaining to
plod their way on "terra firma;" but we all hope soon to be mounted;
especially old Company H, who, from past experience, know what virtue there is
in mules.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 303-4
This morning we are
ordered from our camp at three o'clock; it soon commences to rain very hard;
the old North Carolina clay roads soon become terrible. During the morning we
hear heavy cannonading, said to be along the front of Jeff. C. Davis'
Fourteenth Corps. We march hard all day, wading a good portion of the time in
mud and water, from knee to waist deep. Night coming on, we go into camp at
Morrisville on the North Carolina Railroad, having traveled twenty miles since
morning.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 304
This morning the
dismounted portion of the regiment receives orders to report to regimental
headquarters to be mounted. Oh! how welcome the news, notwithstanding we do
find the stock and the riding material somewhat on the decline; but anything to
ride is the word that goes forth now from Company H and the new companies.
Tonight, for the first time since we crossed the Ocmulgee river, November 19th,
1864, the Seventh Regiment is all together in camp.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 304
This morning
Sherman's great army bow their heads in mournful silence over the startling
news of the assassination. While we write we remember how we were made glad
when the news was read to us "Richmond has fallen!" "Lee has surrendered!"
Yes, we were made glad, for we knew then that the rebellion was dead, that the
war would soon end, and wild, loud and long were the shouts that rang through
the forests of North Carolina, in honor of those glorious events. But now we
find the army possessed of a different feeling: all seem down-cast and sad; a
veil of gloom hangs like a midnight curtain. And why this gloom? Why do the
tall dark pines seem to wail so mournfully as, tossed by the wind, they sway
hither and fro? Why this sorrow when the harbinger of peace seems so nigh? Ah,
our chief, our ruler, our friend, the Union's friend, the world's friend,
humanity's truest friend on earth, has been stricken down in the hour of his
greatest triumph by the cowardly hand of the assassin. We loved the good, the
noble, the merciful LINCOLN, who had led the millions of the western world
through so terrible a war with the end so nigh. But the great mission designed
for him by the Creator he has accomplished-the freedom of a chained race. May
we ever remember that Abraham Lincoln died a martyr to freedom, a martyr to
law, a martyr to right; and above all let us remember that the minions of
slavery slew him; slew him because he was the world's champion for the rights
of man; because he loved his country, and had a heart that went out to the
lonely cottage homes where the disconsolate widow and fatherless child sat weeping
for the loved and lost who had been swept away by war's dark wave; slew him
because he defied the world;
"While the thunders of War did rattle,
And the Soldiers fought the battle;"
slew him because his
democracy would not embrace the slaveholder's aristocracy; because his
democracy was too broad; because it breathed a spirit of love and compassion
towards earth's chained millions, and a spirit of hatred towards pampered
royalty and cruel tyranny. Although he is dead; although his name, spotless and
pure, has gone to the christian calendar, yet that liberty for which he died
still moves on, and will move on until every throne beneath the circle of the
sun shall have been shaken to its fall. Moving on where the Danube and the
Volga move; moving on where the south wind makes music along the Tiber's
winding way; it will move on until equal rights, the darling theme of Lincoln's
life, shall be established, and the clanking of chains forever silenced, for
the consummation of such an end is certain. God, not man, created men equal,
and deep laid in the solid foundation of God's eternal throne the great
principles of man's equality are established indestructible and immortal. When
that time comes, when liberty shall unfurl her beautiful banner of stars over the
crumbling tombs of empires, heaven and earth will rejoice and the generations
that follow will look back upon the past, (perhaps it will be a century or
more,) and say of Abraham Lincoln, he was the world's leading spirit for
freedom, truth and the rights of man, and the world's bitterest foe against
treason and imperialism.
The memory of
Lincoln, his model manhood, his exalted virtues, his heroic endeavors amid
darkness and disparagements; his sublime devotion to the cause he had espoused;
his love towards the Union army; his great sympathy for the widow and the
orphan boy whose father fell with Wadsworth and Sedgwick in the wilderness,
whose life blood made crimson Rappahannock's rippling waters, whose lamp of
life flickered out in Andersonville and Libby prisons as victims to a ferocious
tyranny; these all will be forever linked with the memory of the patriot
pilgrims, who, in years to come, will bow their heads in silent reverence
before the marble cenotaph that marks the place where the martyred champion
sleeps. May Americans ever love to applaud his virtues, for virtues he had as
pure as the driven snow. "Vivit post funera virtus": may the Illinois
soldiers tread lightly around his tomb; may the prairie winds ever chant
requiems to his memory, and may the great American people remember the day when
their leading light went out-when their brightest star went home to God.
The Seventh remained
in camp at Morrisville, until after the surrender of Johnson [sic], when we retraced our steps and
went into camp on Crab Creek, five miles from Raleigh.
On the 20th, prior
to leaving Morrisville, Colonel Rowett, who was wounded at Allatoona, returns
to the regiment. Never was a colonel's return to his regiment more welcome than
was Colonel Rowett, and as we approach him and take him by the hand we remember
Allatoona—remember how he fought there—remember how he fell! how he bled! how
he cheered his men on to victory. He now assumes command of his old 3d Brigade,
4th Division, 15th A. C. We remain quietly in camp on Crab Creek until the
29th, when Sherman's army break up their camp around Raleigh and take up the
line of march for Washington City. The Seventh being now mounted with the
exception of three new companies, we lead the advance of the 15th Corps. We
arrive at Petersburg on the 6th of May. Things around here tell very plainly
that war's mad machine has been at work here, leaving marks that will be seen a
century hence. We remain at Petersburg until the 9th, when we move towards
Richmond. We go into camp for the night near Fort Darling on the James river.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 307-8
On the morning of
the 10th we move towards Richmond. For some cause unknown we do not enter the
city, but are ordered into camp three miles from the bridge that spans the
James river. remain in camp here until the 14th, when Sherman's victorious army
enters Richmond. We pass Libby Prison, which seemed to send an appeal from her
dark recesses to Sherman's army to sweep the city from the earth. But Sherman
held the rein, and Richmond fell not a victim to their wrath. We pass on
through the city, moving on the road leading to Fredericksburg, where we arrive
and cross the Rappahannock on the 16th. Night coming on, we go into camp on the
banks of the Potomac. In the evening we look away in the distance and behold
its winding way. What a tale of blood could this river tell. But the story will
never be known until a book unscanned by mortal eyes shall be unfolded before
the assembled universe.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 308-9
On the 17th we
arrive at Alexandria and go into camp two miles from the city, and from or camp
we can behold the Union's capital this evening. The flag looks beautiful as we
see it waving in the wind from the old Capitol dome. It looks beautiful because
beneath it treason has fallen, and it tells us that the old Union still lives,
showing to the world the possibilities and capabilities of institutions based
on the voice of men echoing the voice of God.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 309
On the 20th we turn
over our stock, saddles and bridles to the A. Q. M., 4th Division. We part from
our mules this time without any regrets, inasmuch as we need them no more,
having finished our work in the south-land. But the Seventh will ever feel
grateful to Major General Logan for permitting them to retain their stock until
their arrival at Washington, thereby saving them from a long weary march.
SOURCE: abstracted
from Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois
Volunteer Infantry, p. 309
