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

The winter of 1864-5 was passed by our men in the rude huts they erected of logs, boards and canvas, getting height by digging a few feet into the ground, sealing and flooring the sunken portion. These huts were heated by sheet iron stoves, and were fitted up with ingeniously contrived bunks and home-made furniture, so that the men were very comfortable in them; the officers were really no more so in their more commodious log houses with their chimneys fitted with fire places. The duties of the winter were the usual military ones of drill, fatigue, guard, and picket, supplemented by the carrying out of an order to have the troops in line of battle every morning at from shortly before daybreak until sunrise, that they might rush to the parapets and repel any attempted surprise by the enemy, who were doubtless standing in a shivering line behind their works as we were behind ours, both lines with an identical fear. The picket duty, always an uncomfortable one, was particularly so this winter from the extreme cold – a remarkable thing for a Virginia winter – but by keeping great log fires blazing on the reserve lines, and changing the outposts every hour, there was little suffering, no more than the men were willing to endure in consideration of the generous ration of whiskey served out to the relieved pickets as soon as they reached their camps. Winter passed and spring came, and with it the inspections and reviews that indicate impending movement to experienced troops. Finally our corps was reviewed by President Lincoln. It was the first and the last sight we had of our beloved President. And for his sake we will ever have a kind remembrance of the great field of dull green, with enveloping woods, that the review was held in, and of the long steel-tipped lines of troops, and of the gaily appareled cloud of officers galloping behind the plainly dressed man, with the rugged, seamed, but kindly face, whose long legs reached nearly to the ground from the rather short legged horse he was astride of, Mrs. Lincoln rolling along in a carriage behind the reviewing party.

THE FALL OF PETERSBURGH

General Humphreys says that late in the winter of 1865, General Grant became aware that General Lee had determined to abandon Petersburgh and Richmond in the early spring and unite with General Johnston, then in front of General Sherman, in North Carolina. Briefly the Confederate plan was to evade Grant, crush Sherman, and then face Grant with a united and victorious army. But Grant thought it wise to take the initiative, drive Lee from his intrenchments before he was ready to leave them, and try to crush him before he could unite with Johnston. In response to an invitation from General Grant, General Sherman visited him at City Point, the 27th day of March, and they arranged that Sherman should suddenly move away from his works before Johnston, march northward, and either join Grant before Richmond, or if Lee was moving south – either of his own volition or because driven south – should head him off, and unite with Grant in decimating his forces before he could get aid from Johnston.

That very night, General Ord, in command of the Army of the James, moved from the north side of the James with two divisions of the Twenty-fourth Corps, one of the Twenty-fifth and his cavalry, making a forced march over terrible roads, in the dark, rainy night, and the stormy day succeeding it, we took position at a late hour of the 28th of March in the rear of the Second Corps at Hatcher's Run, having traveled thirty-six miles to do so. The morning of the 28th, General Sheridan had moved out with the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, and working to the left of our army, sought to reach the right and rear of that of the enemy. This movement was supported on the 29th by the Second and Fifth Corps, when we moved to the front to take the position vacated by the Second Corps. This movement to the left had the effect desired by General Grant, General Lee strongly reenforcing the force opposing Sheridan, having to weaken his lines before Petersburgh to do so. Sheridan pressed forward the 29th, the 30th, the 31st, the enemy growing in his front as he forced them backwards until April 1st, when with his cavalry force and the Fifth Corps he fought the battle of Five Forks, capturing Pickett, 4,500 men, 13 colors and 6 guns.

While the battle of Five Forks was raging, General Grant, from information brought him from Sheridan, pushed the Second Corps forward to carry the enemy's intrenchments, those to our left. Their attack failed. The order issued by Grant that night called for an assault in the early morning of the 2d of April, by the Sixth, the Ninth and so much of our corps as Ord had marched across the river. The Sixth Corps, on our immediate right (the Ninth Corps lying beyond it) was to break the enemy's line. Its formidable attack, calculated to carry any sort of work it might find before it, and howsoever defended, was made at daylight by its three divisions, formed by brigades with regimental front, and swept all before it, quickly beating down the enemy's sharp resistance and capturing a long line of three miles with many guns and prisoners. The Ninth Corps attacked at the same time, taking the works so familiar to us, on both sides of the Jerusalem Plank Road, but finding a line of works in the rear of those they captured, and strongly held by General Gordon's Corps, they made no further advance. The Eleventh had moved out to the front the 29th of March with the rest of its corps, when the Second Corps moved to the left. The night of the 29th the regiment lay in the woods before an outlying line of the enemy. The 30th it pressed forward with its division, driving the enemy into their works. The picket line of the regiment then thrown out before the part of their works in our front, becoming heavily engaged, company after company was sent to its reenforcement until the whole regiment was engaged. In its immediate front, just across a wide slashing, and sweeping our lines, was a rebel battery. Its fire became so distressing to our men, that they determined to silence it. Carefully concentrating their fire upon its guns mounted en barbette, it was not long before the battery's fire slackened, and was finally completely silenced, the gunners flatly refusing to man their guns in the face of the uninterrupted storm of bullets sweeping across the parapet. Night came on with the regiment in the same position it had occupied during the day. As it grew dark we fell back into the woods a few rods. Then a numerous fatigue party, made up from the regiments of the brigade, was sent out to throw up a line of intrenchments, a heavy picket line covering this fatigue work, with the regiments of the brigade some rods in the rear lying in line of battle behind their stacked guns. Towards morning the monotonous roll of picket firing that had been kept up during the night suddenly rose in volume on our immediate front, then the charging yell of a rebel line of battle brought every man of us to his feet. Well, within a minute the brands of the low burning bivouac fires were scattered to the right and left, that their flickering light might not serve the enemy to pour a volley into us by, (I can see Sergeant Keene jumping and kicking with characteristic promptness and vigor at the brands of a fire D had,) and we had seized our guns, set up an answering yell, and were rushing through the darkness at the oncoming enemy. At our yell the enemy, who had run over our pickets, expecting to surprise us, supposing our line of battle to be lying right behind the picket one, the momentum of their charge gone, their blow delivered in the air, our yell rising from an unexpected position, caused them to stand, irresolute and uncertain, for the brief moment we needed in which to reach the just thrown up works, works that the enemy was not aware of the existence of, and that the darkness prevented their seeing, and occupying the reverse side of as a cover against our counter charge, they halting within a rod or so of them. And before they could realize their exposed position, and in spite of the loudly expressed determination of our Brigade Commander, that they should not, the men of the Eleventh had opened so severe a fire on the dark mass of agitated figures that could be dimly seen against a background of lightening sky, that those of the enemy who did not throw themselves flat upon the ground to escape it, and remain so until daylight when they gave themselves up as prisoners, went fleeing through the darkness pursued by a storm of bullets, losing heavily in the progress of their escape. General Dandy did not remonstrate against the orders the officers of the Eleventh were giving their men to fire, out of regard for the Confederates, but in the confusion and darkness of the hour he had lost the position of his regiments, and was really confident that the mass of men in our front was composed of our own troops. To solve the question it was shouted to those men "What regiment is that?" "The Eleventh," was the answer. "The Eleventh what?" They would not answer the question. Could it be that it was really a part of our regiment in advance of us? We could not clearly see the length of a company, much less that of our regiment, so could not make sure by observing the length of our line that we were not behind a part of our own regiment. "Who's your Colonel?" cried a voice to them, "Colonel Davis," was the answer, and "Fire, Fire," rang out along our line, and the rolling volleys did their dreadful work. It was the Eleventh Mississippi that stood before us, and Colonel Davis, their Colonel was in command of the assaulting brigade. This was the morning of April 1st. We lay behind the new but already christened works that day, with a heavy and constantly engaged skirmish line before us. At night we went into position for the assault of the morning of the 2d, spending the night largely in listening to the tremendous roar of the cannon bombarding the Confederate lines, waiting in suspense until we should move forward at the signal – a cannon shot from a particular point – that should send the Sixth Corps men through the stubborn works before us. It was so dark a night that it was nearly 5 o'clock before the troops could see to move at all intelligently, and then they could see but a few yards before them. But at the cannon shot the massed brigades of the Sixth moved forward rapidly, broke the enemy's picket line, and poured over their main defenses. At this moment our own picket line, a heavy one, and reenforced by the brigade sharp shooters, picked men, commanded by Lieutenant Payne, all under command of Captain Maxfield, as brigade officer of the day, who the Captain had pressed forward during the night until they were close under the works in our front, at this movement they were ordered to charge, and regardless of the opposing numbers, dashed over the abatis and into the Confederate works, laying about them so vigorously that the enemy viewed them as part of an advancing line of battle, throwing down their rifles and surrendering in such numbers that Captain Maxfield seemed to be in command of a small section of the rebel army to the brigade as it moved over the works to his support. He had a most efficient coadjutor in caring for his prisoners, and separating them so far from their thrown down rifles as to remove any temptation they might have to pick them up again when they should realize how small a force they had surrendered to, for he had promptly appointed Sergeant Locke, of Company K, as his Provost. "Fall in here, the tallest on the right," shouted that active officer, "Now count off by twos," then it was "Right face, Forward March," and the unarmed Mississippians were swinging off with a firm, military stride, under a new commander.

Promptly making connection with the Sixth Corps advance, General Gibbon moved with them towards Petersburgh. By arrangement our corps took precedence of the Sixth after crossing the captured works, the Sixth forming on the right and left as a support. Our advance soon reached the Confederate works, advanced before their main inner line, here running up from the Appomattox and along Indian Town Creek. The advanced works we moved directly on were Forts Gregg and Whitworth. Our division was moved to the front and an assault made on these forts.

These forts, especially Gregg, made a desperate defense. General Gibbon says that the assault on this fort was "the most desperate one of the war." It was only taken by a determined bayonet dash led by Lieutenant Payne, of our regiment, who was the first man to leap into the fort and who owed his life to his skill with the use of the saber, a skill acquired as a trooper in Mexico, and in many desperate Indian fights during a term of service on the plains of the west. As Gregg fell, Whitworth was carried, and the first in it too were of the Eleventh, Companies A and B, that had been detached as skirmishers when the regiment crossed the Confederate works in the morning. These companies had driven the enemy's skirmishers through the fields between the enemy's lines of works, finally forcing them into a great area of log barracks flanking Whitworth, when the Confederates made it warm for our men in every way, they setting fire to the barracks, and fighting from street to street of the blazing structures. Finally the rebel skirmishers fell back into Whitworth, A and B then crowded closely to this work, returning its heavy fire with interest, until Turner's brigade of West Virginians moved forward to assault the fort, when the boys of these companies of the Eleventh darted forward at the head of the assaulting column, entering the fort by its sallyport, and the rebels were already throwing down their guns when Turner's men appeared on the scene. Nor were A and B yet satisfied. Anticipating an immediate assault on the enemy's inner and only remaining line of works, these companies pushed across the intervening fields and secured a skirmishing position on Indian Town Creek, where they remained for some time, anxiously looking for an advancing Union column, and fully determined to head it, and if possible be the first armed Yankees to enter the Cockade City. But General Humphreys says the Sixth Corps men were exhausted, having been under arms for eighteen hours now, and it was concluded not to attack further until the next morning. Up to the night of the 2d of April, of D, Privates Tehan, Mathews, Morrill, Ryan, Stratton and Watson were wounded, Privates Ryan and Watson mortally, and Sergeant Gowell, Privates Bickmore, Brien, Findel, Geary, Gibbs, Seavey, Simmonds and Stevens were taken prisoners. Of the prisoners Private Bickmore was wounded when captured. The prisoners from D were taken while on the picket line, when the Mississippians ran over it the morning of April 1st, and Private Peter Haegan would have been added to their list but for his shrewdly begging permission of his captor to be allowed to get the haversack Peter had left at the foot of a tree near the post he was surprised on. The good natured Mississippian allowed him to go the few feet only separating him and his provender bag, but Peter failed to return, preferring to throw himself upon the ground and crawl to the rear until he had reached our line.

THE PURSUIT AND THE SURRENDER

The morning of the 3d of April it was quickly known that Lee's army had escaped in the direction of Amelia Court House, and that his troops from both Richmond and Petersburgh were concentrating there. But his objective point was the question. Was he intending to move directly west towards Lynchburg, or southwest for Danville? In either case he must do so through Burkeville Junction, where the Southside and the Richmond and Danville railroads cross each other. Sheridan with his cavalry and the Fifth Corps, followed by Meade with the Second and Sixth Corps, pushed along the south side of the Appomattox River to keep in constant touch of Lee's movements and to strike the Danville road between its crossing the Appomattox at High Bridge and Burkeville Junction, while Ord with the troops of the Twenty-fourth Corps as a flying column, in the lightest possible marching order, should directly push for the Junction, moving along the Southside road, with the Ninth Corps following. We reached the Junction in the night of the 5th, having marched fifty-two miles since the morning of the 3d. And that night General Read, of General Ord's staff, moved towards High Bridge with a small force, his orders requiring him to seize and burn that bridge and those at Farmville, if possible. This by order of General Grant, and transmitted through Sheridan, then at about half-way between Burkeville Junction and Amelia Court House. The morning of the 6th, Ord was notified by Sheridan that Lee was apparently moving on the Junction. As soon as Grant was informed of this, he directed Ord to move to Rice Station, two-thirds of the way towards Farmville, when there we were directly in Lee's road were he pushing for either Lynchburg or Danville. At the same time messengers were hurried to overtake General Read before he should reach High Bridge, where the van of Lee's army already was, but it was too late to save the fated young officer from death, and his small command from almost annihilation. At Rice Station we found Longstreet's Command intrenched and ready for us, Longstreet quite willing to fight for the time Anderson, Ewell and Gordon needed to march by his rear with the wagon trains they were convoying from Amelia Court House. But as it was about night, we contented ourselves with taking position to attack from in the early morning. During this day, the 6th, Sheridan and Meade were constantly attacking Lee's army at every possible point, and successfully, too, for they captured Ewell and his entire command, together with one-half of Anderson's, a large part of Gordon's, and destroyed the greater part of the trains they were making such useless sacrifices for. Longstreet escaped us while we were sleeping before his intrenchments at Rice Station. Marching to Farmville he crossed to the north bank of the Appomattox, and in the morning, that of the 7th, began to move towards Lynchburg by the road leading through Appomattox Court House. He was followed by Gordon, and he by Mahone. Finding that Longstreet had stolen away, Ord moved on towards Farmville in pursuit, marching by the short cut wagon road Longstreet had gone over, instead of following the railroad to High Bridge. Wright was now following us with the Sixth Corps. All the bridges but one across the Appomattox had been destroyed by the rebels after crossing, and they were in the act of destroying that one, a wagon road bridge near High Bridge, when the Second Corps advance, under Barlow, reached it and saved it.

The Second Corps immediately crossed the Appomattox by this bridge, treading so closely on the heels of the Confederates that General Barlow overtook Gordon's Corps, attacked it and cut off a large part of the wagon train it was covering. So threatening was the Second Corps in its movements, that Lee was forced to halt his force and take a strong position on the crest of a long slope of ground that covered the stage and plank roads leading to Lynchburg. Here he threw up light intrenchments and put artillery in position. After riding along the ground taken up by Lee, General Meade ordered the Second Corps to attack, at the same time sending messengers to Ord to have our division and the Sixth Corps cross the river at Farmville, and help force Lee into a general engagement. But as there was no bridge remaining near us for us to cross by, nor could a fordable place be found, this order could not be obeyed. The Second Corps attack then, unsupported, was but a partial success, but enables General Humphreys, then in command of that Corps, to claim with reason that by the enforced detention due to the vigor and aggressiveness of the movement of the Second Corps, Lee lost the supplies awaiting him at Appomattox Station and gave time for Sheridan with his cavalry and Ord with the Fifth and Twenty-fourth Corps to put themselves across his path at Appomattox Court House. The Second and Sixth Corps pushed directly after Lee the morning of the 8th. He had moved in the night toward Lynchburg. These Corps kept up this direct pursuit until midnight, only halting after making a march of twenty-six miles. The morning of the 8th, the Twenty-fourth and the Fifth Corps pushed out from near Farmville, and accompanied by General Grant and staff, pushed towards Appomattox Court House by the shortest roads. All day long these Corps pressed forward, the men, although tired and footsore, requiring neither urging nor command to put forth every effort to head Lee off from Lynchburg, for all understood that it was Grant's purpose for us to march by Lee's army and head him off, while the Second and Sixth Corps should dog his heels and hamper his speed by forcing him to turn and defend himself at every opportunity they could get. It was a question of legs and endurance now. On and on our men plodded, none falling out until worn out. All were too tired even to raise a cheer in passing General Grant as he was sitting on a roadside log resting himself while enjoying a quiet smoke. And General Ord secured this tribute when, in response to the cries of "Coffee" that ran along the marching line he was riding by to reach the head of the column, he halted it as soon as he gained its advance, that the tired, hungry men might rest a bit while they cooked their coffee, every man his own, in his tin dipper set on one of the hastily lighted roadside fires. Ord was one of the general officers that knew the needs of men. "Get out of the road men," shouted one of his staff as they rode along through a line of men resting in the dusty road. "Stop Sir," said the gray old general sternly, "the men are tired, rein to the roadside and follow that." As the day passed we found ourselves on the track of Sheridan; prisoners, guns and trains of wagons captured by his vigorous advance, lined the roadside, encouraging our tired men to put forth every exertion. Darkness found us still pressing on and it was not until about daybreak that we halted for more than a few minutes rest at a time, the Fifth Corps plodding on at our heels in dogged determination to be there too. At about daylight we reached the vicinity of Appomattox Station, which Sheridan's Cavalry had reached a few hours before, and in time to capture a train of artillery and three trains of cars loaded with subsistence supplies for Lee's army. Our division halted near the captured cars, and details of our men set to work to divide the fat sides of Virginia bacon they were mainly loaded with, among their regiments, and tired, sleepy, but more hungry than either, we made coffee, greedily ate great slices of uncooked bacon with the few crackers of hard bread yet remaining in the haversacks, thinking it as appetizing and satisfying a meal as we had ever eaten. But we had not fairly wiped the bacon grease from our smacking lips when the roar of guns and the roll of musketry rose from the immediate front, telling us that our cavalry was heavily engaged. Falling in quickly at the sharp voiced orders transmitted from Gibbon down, the men were double quicked on the sound of battle. We soon came up with the retiring cavalry, Crook's and Custer's men stubbornly fighting Gordon's advancing infantry column. As we sped by them into the woods Gordon's men were pushing through, a voice shouted, "There's the Eleventh Maine," and a wild cheer rose from a body of cavalry on our right. It was the First Maryland, now mounted and serving in its own arm of the service. Inspired by this recognition and complimentary tribute, the Eleventh dashed vigorously forward and crossed the road Lee's army was now making its last advance on. The gray lines of Gordon's men were dashing forward as the cavalry fell back behind us, but as the swiftly deploying lines of battle of our division unrolled before them, and the long line of blue-clad men pressed forward to receive them, the last advance of the Army of Northern Virginia became a hasty retreat. Negotiations that had been going on between Grant and Lee by letter for two days were now resumed with the result that we all know of. But while the leaders were conferring, we of the opposing rank and file were not sitting down in the amity the histories of the war indicate we were. Blood was shed on the hills of Appomattox that day. As the column of Gordon fell back in the haste of consternation at the unexpected appearance of infantry in their path, we followed after it, and entering the wide field beyond which the Confederates were drawn up behind planted artillery, we were ordered by General Foster to press across it. Then, though unsupported, the Eleventh pushed forward, and finding its progress contested by the fire of a battery before it, broke into a yell and charged the guns. The swift advance was met not only by a sweep of grape and canister, but by the volley fire of a supporting line of battle. In the confusion the two right companies were separated from the left one, rejoining the regiment as it lay in a protecting declension of the open field before the battery it had sought to capture, grape, canister and bullets sweeping over it in appalling volume. Many of those remaining at the log houses the right companies of the regiment had occupied before rejoining the regiment were captured, the Confederate cavalry pushing forward and enveloping this advance position about the time the main body of the occupying companies abandoned it to rejoin the regiment. To make a short story of it, a number of the Eleventh were killed and wounded before the regiment got out of its untenable position before the battery, which it did by moving down one protecting ravine and up another that led nearly back to the position in the woods it had charged from. It was at the moment of retreat that private Moses E. Sherman, of D, was killed, struck dead at the feet of the First Sergeant of the company, Sergeant Keene, who would not believe his friend dead at first, nor would he leave the field until he was convinced that "Mustache" was dead. Poor little "Mustache!" ever cheerfully smiling, ever ready for lark or duty, more than liked by all of us, it seems hard indeed that one so able and willing to enjoy life, and to make life enjoyable for others, should lie dead on the last battlefield of the war. The lot of the Sherman boys was a hard one. Both original members of the company, both taken prisoners at Fair Oaks to endure the privations of Libby Prison together, both reenlisted, William to be mortally wounded at Deep Bottom in August, '64, and Moses to die in the last charge that our old company was called upon to participate in. Scarcely had the regiment reached a sheltered position, when companies A and B were thrown out as part of a skirmish line forming to cover an attack General Ord was preparing, and this skirmish line was moving swiftly across the field intervening between the battle lines when a galloping aid overtook it and announced Lee's surrender. Besides Private Sherman killed, Private Burns and Curtis of D were wounded in making the assault on the battery, which proved to be a liberal section of the celebrated Washington artillery. The formal surrender of the regiments of the Army of Northern Virginia was made to the Fifth and Twenty-fourth Corps, as they were the Corps that, out marching the Confederates, had closed the road of their retreat. We encamped on the battlefield during the progress of the surrender, and it was not until the men of the last regiment of Lee's Army had stacked arms, laid its ragged colors on the now useless bayonets, and marched mournfully away to ruined homes to begin the world over again, that we took up our line of march for Richmond, the last of the Corps of the Army of the Potomac preceding us by a few days.