Roster and Statistical Record of Company D, of the Eleventh Regiment Maine Infantry Volunteers

The enemy in the reserve pit was nonplussed for a moment, for it looked as if we were charging straight upon them, but catching the idea in a moment they arose and poured a sharp fire into us as we ran by. Within a minute those of us not killed, made prisoners, or too badly wounded to be carried off the field, had rejoined the Eleventh, which we found in line of battle not many rods in rear of the scene of our desperate defence.

Of D, Private Bridges was killed in the reserve pit, Sergeant Brady, Corporal Bailey, Privates Conforth, Moses E. Sherman, Smith, Dawe, Dyer and Bragdon were wounded, Captain Mudgett, Sergeant Blake, Privates Bryant, Kelley and Bolton were prisoners, Private Bolton having been too badly wounded to be taken from the field. Of these prisoners all were eventually exchanged and discharged, except Private Kelly, who died in Andersonville Prison.

We find it reported that of Company H, Privates Cumner and Rogers were killed, and that Lieutenant Thompson and Private Green were wounded. The loss of the Regiment for the day was 41 in killed, wounded and prisoners. Lieutenant-Colonel Spofford, who was in command of the Regiment, was mortally wounded before the line was broken and the command then devolved on Captain Hill, of K, shortly Major and then Lieutenant-Colonel, and from this day on the most conspicuous commanding officer the Regiment ever had.

The picket skirmishing that had died out to a large extent during the last week in May, became continuous again from this attack of June 2d. Our own Regiment when not on the picket line engaged in this desultory sort of warfare, was lying in line of battle behind the heavy inner works of Bermuda Hundred, consisting of strong redans, or batteries, connected by infantry parapets, all with stout abatis in front, and with slashings wherever possible, and from Beauregard's report, his men lay behind their somewhat similar works as anxiously as we did behind ours, both we and they in continual expectation of an assault. The truth is that both Butler and Beauregard were afraid that their long and thinly manned lines might be assaulted and carried at any moment, each knowing his own weakness full well, and magnifying the strength of his opponent.

Beauregard had the best ground for his fears. As the strongest numerically and occupying the inner and therefore the shorter lines of the opposing works, and with a strong fleet of gunboats in the river to fall back to the shelter of in case of disaster, the initiative belonged to us. And indeed a force did move out from our line the 9th of June to attack Petersburgh. General Gillmore with 3,000 infantry, accompanied by General Kautz with 1,500 cavalry, crossed the Appomattox on the ponton bridge at Port Walthall in the early morning. Gillmore moved out on the City Point Road, and Kautz moved to the left four or five miles to reach the Jerusalem Plank Road. Gillmore finding the works before him strong ones, and apparently well manned, did not attempt to assault them, returning to Bermuda Hundred that afternoon. Kautz attacked on the plank road with indifferent success at first, but finally flanked the enemy's line, forcing them out of their ranks, then marched on the city, but reinforcements coming to the enemy and Gillmore not supporting him, Kautz was forced to withdraw. But more formidable opposing forces than were those of Butler and Beauregard, forces commanded perhaps by greater chieftains than they, too, were now moving to the position of which Petersburgh was the central figure, now to become the most important position of the war.

Before the battle of Cold Harbor was fought by the Army of the Potomac and the portion of the Army of the James sent to Grant under General Smith, Grant had about given up all hope of breaking through Lee's defence on the north side of the James, and had planned, if this last effort failed, to move across the James to a position before Petersburgh, hoping to be able to move so unexpectedly to Lee as to effect the capture of Petersburgh, the turning of Beauregard's Bermuda Hundred line, and to cut off Confederate communication with North Carolina before Lee should realize Grant's object sufficiently to checkmate it by throwing the Army of Northern Virginia across the James and into the Confederate intrenchments at Bermuda Hundred and Petersburgh in time to save them. The part of the Army of the James under General Smith marched to White House, reembarked and sailed for Bermuda Hundred, arriving in the afternoon of June 14th. Smith's force crossed the Appomattox by the ponton bridge at Broadway Landing, two miles from Port Walthall and eight from Petersburgh. Assaulting the works they found in their front, they succeeded in carrying a long line of them. Divisions of the Army of the Potomac began to reach Smith's position that afternoon, crossing the James on a ponton bridge laid down from Wilcox Landing on the north side and Windmill Point on the south, just below City Point, but owing to the exhaustion of troops, missent orders, and various other causes, the success of the forenoon was not followed up, and the 16th and 17th were spent by our forces there in making assaults on the strong and, though mainly defended by artillery, still well defended rebel works. The results were varying during these two days, but without our gaining a position of sufficient strength to enable our columns to overcome the defence of the 18th, when Beauregard's small, almost exhausted and somewhat provisional army was heavily reenforced by Lee's veteran troops.

During this time we were holding the lines of Bermuda Hundred, in hourly expectation on the 16th and 17th of the Army of Northern Virginia assaulting us, it having to pass so near us in moving down the pike and the Richmond and Petersburgh to Beauregard's assistance, that it might easily hurl an assaulting column on our lines and breaking through the inadequate force with which we held them, assail Grant on the flank.

While Beauregard, thoroughly alive to Grant's real purposes through the stories of scouts and spies, and the sifted admissions of the prisoners he captured on the 15th, was showering telegrams on Lee and sending his aides with personal messages to Richmond, Lee was still on the north side of the James throwing out reconnoissances in every direction in search of Grant's real course. This delay of Lee forced Beauregard to hold his lines with a very small force against a constantly augmenting one. But these lines were formidable ones. A born engineer as well as an educated one, Beauregard had from sheer restlessness already entrenched every practicable position around Petersburgh, planting enfilading batteries on all commanding points, and generally had already planned and arranged the lines of works that, with little modification of position, held Petersburgh so long against our armies.

Knowing that the force in his front was steadily growing as divisions of the Army of the Potomac came on the ground and went into position, and that the 16th would be a day of trial to him, Beauregard the night of the 15th determined to abandon the Bermuda Hundred line, trusting to the coming of Lee's troops to regain them.

That night he withdrew the force that held the Bermuda Hundred lines, leaving only a mask of pickets, virtually abandoning his whole line from the Howlett House to the Appomattox. He says he had the guns and caissons of the Howlett House Battery removed and buried, the ground above them rearranged with sticks and leaves as not to arouse any suspicion, and that this prize remained safely hidden until the Confederates had regained their line.

The night of the 15th Lieutenant-Colonel Greely of the 10th Connecticut, which regiment was on picket at the Warebottom Church position, hearing movements on the rebel line, crept out and made up his mind from what he heard and saw that the rebels were moving away. Reporting his belief and his reasons for it to General Terry, that officer ordered a movement in the early morning of the 16th that resulted in the capture of the whole rebel line with their pickets and such troops as they had left there.

A force of one hundred day's men from Ohio had reported to General Butler, good material enough, but in the nature of things quite undisciplined, mere raw recruits, and without the veteran organization of officers and men that enabled our own new men to do such good work. These new troops were placed in the captured lines, while we held our own outer line just across the slashing dividing the two lines of intrenchments. They now held their position beautifully so long as they were not troubled by the Confederates, but along in the afternoon a commotion was visible among them, then a few came hurrying over the works they were in, then more and more, a confused firing was heard, then the "rebel yell" rose clear and shrill and the whole force of Ohio men came flocking over the works and across the slashing, a strong skirmish line of gray clothed soldiers moving after them – the van of Lee's army. The hundred day's men came tearing towards us at the top of their speed without order or orders so far as could be seen. We opened ranks to let them through, the scared white faced flock of sheep, one of them, I remember, holding up a hand from which the blood was trickling from a scratch probably made by a limb of a fallen tree of the slashing, lamentably crying "I'm wounded," "I'm wounded," while our men roared with laughter. What would have become of them – whether they would have stopped short of Ohio – I do not know, had not the 10th Connecticut, on reserve, deployed with fixed bayonets and fenced the mob back.

But we had no time for enjoyment of this part of the comedy. Closing up as the Ohio men passed through us, we turned so heavy a fire on the advancing lines of the enemy that they stopped, staggered, fell back and finally retired to their recaptured works.

At day-break of June 17th, General Osborn says that the Confederates assaulted the Union line in our front and were repulsed, but when they assaulted in the afternoon they broke through a portion of the line, driving it back.

Captain Maxfield's diary states that in the evening of the 17th, the Eleventh charged to support the left of the 24th Massachusetts, where some one-hundred day men had given way, our Ohio runaways again. It was in this charge that Corporal Bearce was wounded. And for the 18th this diary states that we had fallen back to the old line of rebel rifle pits, back of the church, and that either intentionally or by accident the rebels set fire to the recaptured church, and it was burnt to the ground.

The night of June 18th, after the corps of the Army of the Potomac had made a series of desperate and bloody assaults on the Confederate works at Petersburgh, works that military authorities agree should have been taken the 15th, could have been the 16th, might have been on the 17th, but that were impregnable for the time now that the lines of the Army of Northern Virginia were stretched behind them, General Grant, recognizing the futility of further direct efforts against Petersburgh, gave orders that all assaults should cease, and that the positions gained by the several corps close against the enemy's lines should be intrenched, and as General Humphreys says of the intrenchments threw up that night by this order, "the two opposing lines of works before Petersburgh remained substantially the same in position to the close of the war."

DEEP BOTTOM

In the afternoon of the 20th of June, the Regiments of our brigade broke camp and marched to the James River, crossing it by ponton boats after dark, landing at Deep Bottom, on the north bank of Bailey's Creek, emptying into the James. The position so quietly taken was three miles east of the Howlett House Battery, and though four miles north of it by terra firma measurement, it was fifteen miles below it in the flow of the river, so crooked is the James at this point of its course. Deep Bottom was a well wooded bluff when we seized it, but 'twas bare enough before many days, so vigorously were axes plied by the men of our regiment, and while they were renewing their youth as axemen, fatigue parties from regiments more used to the spade were throwing up a strong line of works, batteries connected by infantry parapets and with outlying rifle pits, forming when completed and with gunboats anchored on the flanks, a practically impregnable "bridge head" for the ponton bridge now laid across from the south bank of the James to Deep Bottom.

We remained at Deep Bottom for several weeks, within easy reach of strong outlying works of the rebels, partly thrown up and strengthened after our arrival. Their main outer line on this side of the river, the Chapin's Bluff one, was about four miles northeast of Deep Bottom. The opposing lines at Deep Bottom were some distance apart, from half a mile to a mile, but portions of the picket lines were very near together, particularly in the extensive fields to the north of Deep Bottom. In the immediate front, looking east, there was a wide stretch of woods, a tongue of the woods that ran along both sides of Bailey's Creek from its wide mouth, a mouth of such uncommon depth as to give the position we held on its north shore the name of Deep Bottom. But without the animus of a momentarily expected attack, the picket of both sides were amicably disposed, meeting in a big corn patch in the open field to gather green corn and to barter. There used to be a story that some of them occasionally visited a secluded spot to indulge in friendly games of cards together, with coffee and tobacco for stakes.

An occurrence that will interest fatalists took place at Deep Bottom. A member of the 24th Massachusetts had deserted from that regiment to the enemy while the regiment was in North Carolina. It was undoubtedly his plan to take an early opportunity to desert from his new service to our lines again and get sent North out of the way of any possible casualty, for he took an early opportunity to get taken prisoner at Deep Bottom during one of our reconnoissances there, the Confederate regiment he had joined having been sent to Virginia and located before Deep Bottom. But, strange to say, the double deserter passed directly back into the arms of his old company of the 24th Massachusetts. A dramatic situation it must have been both to him and his old comrades. Recognized in a moment, he was imprisoned, tried and sentenced to be shot, and the sentence was carried out in the fields between our works and those of the Confederates.

Little of memorable moment took place for a time. Captain Maxfield's diary has these entries for the month following our arrival at Deep Bottom. For June 22d, that men of the 10th Connecticut had found a pot of gold. He does not record whether they did so at the end of a rainbow or not. For July 1st, that Brigadier General R. S. Foster took command of our brigade, and that Colonel Plaisted, who had been Brigade commander so far on the campaign, returned to the command of the Eleventh. For the 3d, that Captains Hill and Baldwin were mustered as Lieutenant-Colonel and Major respectively, and that Company A was sent across Bailey's Creek "to hold it." This entry argues a large liquid capacity for that company.

It was about this time that General Hill, then our Lieutenant-Colonel, had an adventure that would have been a misadventure but for his characteristic readiness. General Foster requested him to go out through the big corn field already told of, and learn what he could of the force of the rebels in our front, and to do it in his own way, having learned that as a daring, long-headed scout, General Hill was without a peer in our brigade. Taking a couple of orderlies with him, General Hill rode into the interior until he judged he was a mile from the river, not seeing any rebels yet, then he bore to the left to strike the river away above us, intending to ride down along the river bank to Deep Bottom. After riding for about a half mile towards the river, he suddenly rode into the rear of an undeployed rebel picket force of about twenty-five men. Clustering around him, their officer laughingly asked the General "where he was going." Personally the General felt very sure that he was going to Richmond, however much against his will, but putting on a bold face, he answered, "that he had rode out to get the news by exchanging papers with them." "This is pretty cool," said the rebel officer, "let me see your papers." Luckily the General had a copy of the New York Tribune, and one of the Philadelphia Inquirer in his pocket, and luckily too, a rebel sergeant here said "this is the same officer that sent us a paper the other day." This was so, the General, a week before, when officer of the day, having effected an exchange of papers with this sergeant through the medium of one of our men, when the sergeant must have taken a sharp look at the officer who moved so cooly along a dangerous picket line. "Well," said the good-natured rebel lieutenant, "I guess I will let you go, you look as though you were telling the truth. But I must say you took a good deal of pains to come so far, and to come in our rear, too." Our General with the guileless face answered "that he got lost in riding out, and was trying to find his way into camp when he rode up to them." Drifting into a general conversation with the officers and his men, each party covertly tried to learn a little something concerning the other's force on that side of the river, until the General, having learned all he wished to, embraced a good opportunity to make his adieus. As he rode away with his eager orderlies riding on his heels, the Confederate officer, on whom the real purpose of the General's mission had dawned, but who was too honorable to take back his given word, called out, "Remember this, you can't play at exchanging papers with me again." With this friendly warning from the "good fellow," as the General rightly calls him, ringing in their ears, the little Union party spurred its horses into a magnificent burst of speed that quickly took it out of all possible danger of having to obey a recall.

For July the 10th Captain Maxfield's diary states, that (among others) First Sergeant Bassett, of D, reported for duty from recruiting service in Maine, where he had been for some months. For the 12th, that an expedition from the 10th Connecticut went up the river and captured a lieutenant and fourteen men, besides burning a mill. For the 13th, that two prisoners were taken by a scouting party under Major Baldwin and Captain Nickels, and that some of D were in this party. Possibly it was this expedition that Private William Sherman, of D, shot the rebel "stone dead," as he declared, but while he was reloading his gun the supposed to be dead man jumped up and ran away regardless of Sherman's hilarious expostulations.

For the 14th, the diary states, that the rebels opened fire with a battery they had stationed in a ravine and that their shells killed "a horse and six men" on the gunboat Mendota. It would appear from this that there were veritable "horse marines" in our navy.

For the 21st, the diary states that our regiment moved across to Strawberry Plains, on the south bank of Bailey's Creek, and that we captured eleven prisoners, but that the enemy appeared in force and caused us to fall back into our intrenchments. For the 22d, that the regiment went to the Plains again, "we taking all we wished to," as the Captain modestly phrases it. For the 23d, that the regiment went to Strawberry Plains again, and met a strong force of the enemy, we losing two killed and four wounded, and that we remained that night on the ground we had taken during the day. For the 24th, that we were relieved by two regiments of the Nineteenth Corps, that Corps having just arrived from the Red River, and, by the way, its commander was our old brigade commander, General Emory. For the 25th, the diary tells us that the pickets of the Nineteenth Corps on the Plains were driven in, and that we were ordered out to retake the position they had lost. For the 26th, that we were still skirmishing on Strawberry Plains in an effort to retake the lost position, and that by night, when we had recovered it, we had lost one man killed and twenty-one wounded, and that we were relieved by the Tenth Connecticut that night. For the 27th, that the Second Corps crossed to the Plains early in the morning.

These operations of our regiment on Strawberry Plains in the last days of July were in connection with a movement planned against the enemy's left flank, resting on our side of the James, and directly in our front.

After the assaults of the 18th of June, the immediate attempts of Grant to overcome Lee were confined to flanking movements from the right and left, north and south of the James. The plan of the movement we were initiating was that Hancock should move to Deep Bottom with the Second Corps and two divisions of cavalry under Sheridan, and that the Second Corps should try and break through the rebel line near Chapin's Bluff, at about the spot we operated in the following October; then if the infantry succeeded in breaking the rebel line, the cavalry was to make a dash on Richmond, while Hancock should operate to prevent rebel reenforcements crossing from the south bank of the James by the ponton bridge they had laid down between Chapin's and Drury's Bluffs. And that if the dash on Richmond could not be made, then the railroad communications of the rebels on the north side should be destroyed as far as practicable. It was thought, too, that this movement, if unsuccessful in itself, might force the rebels to reinforce the north side so heavily as to cause such a reduction of their force holding the Petersburgh lines as to give a fair promise of success in the assault to be made when the mine in front of Burnside's Ninth Corps was sprung.

As a necessary preliminary to these movements, and to give the idea perhaps that the contemplated attack, which they could not help learning of the preparations for, through spies, prisoners and deserters, was a flanking one, by the way of Bailey's Creek, as, in fact, it finally became, the Eleventh crossed to Strawberry Plains, just on the other side of Bailey's Creek, having to cross the James twice to get there, once to the south side by the ponton bridge we held the head of, and then to the north side again by another ponton bridge laid down with its north side head debouching on the great cleared flat known as Strawberry Plains. Across the head of these Plains runs the River road, a connecting link of the system of roads leading into Richmond. Working our way up through the woods bordering Bailey's Creek, by night we had driven the enemy into his works guarding the road and outer lines, his main one lying on the Deep Bottom side of Bailey's Creek and running along that side of the Creek to Fussell's Mill at the head of the Creek, from which point his line was refused, as the military phrase is, that is it turned sharply back.

It was the position we had gained before this outer line that we turned over to the Nineteenth Corps and that they lost the 25th of July. The next day we pressed the enemy steadily back until we were lying close to their outer line, the gunboats firing sharply this day, throwing their heavy shells over our heads at the enemy's lines, the enemy replying as best they could with a battery of artillery they had brought down and stationed in the road. During the day a shell from a gunboat fell so unfortunately short as to fall just behind our right rifle pit, lightly scooped out pits, unconnected, each sheltering a half dozen men. It fell at just the most dangerous distance from our men, burst, and threw its fragments right among them, killing and wounding several.

During this night Hancock and Sheridan arrived with their troops. Halting their men on the other side of the river, they rode over to Deep Bottom and had a consultation with General Foster, who described to them what he had learned of the enemy's works in our front. Hancock then telegraphed to General Meade, his immediate superior, stating what had been told him, and doubting the advisability of assaulting so strong an intrenched line with the force at his command, and suggesting a flank movement by way of Strawberry Plains instead. General Meade coinciding with him in his opinion, Hancock moved his troops over the river to Strawberry Plains, and attacked soon after daylight on the 27th of July, the cavalry on his right.

General Miles moved to the front across the open field with a brigade in open order, charged and captured the enemy's battery, four 20-pound parrot guns, in a handsome manner. Then swinging to the right on its pivot, the position held by the Eleventh on the creek, the whole line moved out across the enemy's roads until it had invested his whole line, extending from our position on the creek to Fussell's Mill. The part of the infantry in the plan was now completed. The cavalry then proceeded to carry out the flanking operation it was charged with, but the rebels had been reinforced, four divisions of infantry and two of cavalry having come across the James and taken position in the works we were threatening, so that when Sheridan's cavalry moved out beyond Fussell's Mill they found the road barred by a heavy force of cavalry supported by infantry.