Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

Owing to the swampy ground about the camp, there was much sickness in the regiment during the winter. Early in February, orders were received to march. On the 6th, it was in rifle-pits at Hatcher's Run, upon the extreme left of the Fifth Corps. At two o'clock, P.M., the division having taken the place of Crawford's, which had given way, Gen. Warren leading the brigade, a hot engagement followed, called the battle of Dabney's Mills, or Second Hatcher's Run.

Re-forming the lines as before the fight, the troops remained thus until the 11th, annoyed a great deal by the enemy's artillery. The regiment then moved to the Vaughan Road to protect the left flank of the extended army. Here it performed picket and other duty until the last of March.

The 25th, it started for Fort Stedman, where the Ninth Corps was attacked, but turned back to support the Second Corps in its assault on the enemy's right. At midnight it went to camp, where it remained until the commencement of the final campaign. March 29, the march was made to the vicinity of Dinwiddie Court. House; thence towards Boydtown Plank-road, near which the enemy was posted in strong force. Lines of battle were formed and a charge made, driving back the rebel ranks, with severe loss to them, followed by the pursuit of them until dark.

This was called the battle of Gravelly Run. The next day, the regiment relieved the skirmish line in front of the brigade, and about noon was ordered to advance, and feel the enemy. He was found to be strongly intrenched behind hastily built works, on which an impetuous and successful charge was made, only to be reversed two hours later, when the ammunition of our troops was exhausted.

The Confederate force then advanced on the main line, and were repulsed; and the Thirty-second was thrown out on the skirmish line, and occupied the just now contested works. Near dark it again felt of the enemy, and moved towards his second line of works over an open field under a cross-fire, but could not take them.

It was next on the left of the Fifth Corps; and six companies, under Capt. Lauriat, were deployed as skirmishers, while the rest remained with the corps until three o'clock in the morning, and then marched to assistance of Sheridan, hotly engaging the enemy. It moved, April 1, towards the Five Forks, and again was ordered to the front of the brigade-skirmishers, and helped in the conflicts and victories of that memorable day, whose setting sun

THE THIRTY-SECOND MUSTERED OUT.

355

shone on thousands of small-arms thickly strown by the fleeing rebels over the field that sealed the fate of Petersburg and Richmond, and ruined Lee's army of Northern Virginia.

Then South-side Railroad, Sutherland Station, Jettersville, Appomattox Court House, High Bridge, and Ramplin's Station, were soon passed in the wake of Lee's flying army.

April 9 was a fighting day, and one of peculiar and intense excitement over the report of Gen. Lee's negotiation for a surrender, which was at length confirmed. Then the welkin rang with shouts till the boys in blue were hoarse.

Stacking of arms, and the funeral-like processions of defeated rebels, were the next exciting scenes. The Thirty-second guarded the surrendered arms until the homeward march commenced, the 1st of May; pitching tents, on the 12th, upon the heights opposite Washington.

The 29th, the cars were taken for Boston, followed by refreshing welcomes at Philadelphia and Providence; and, July 4, the men were within sight of their homes for the first time in three "terrible years."

On the 6th, they were at Galloupe's Island; paid off and discharged July 11, 1865.

The regiment had done a noble work; and the appreciation of its services was expressed in the promotion of an unusually large number of officers.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THIRTY-THIRD, THIRTY-FOURTH, AND THIRTY-FIFTH

REGIMENTS.

Gen. Adin B. Underwood. His Puritan Ancestry. - Career. His Connection with the Thirty-third Regiment. — Gallant Services of the brave Commander and of his Command. - Col. Wells and the Thirty-fourth. - In Virginia. — Heroic Death of Col. Wells. Subsequent Movements of the Regiment. At Home. - The Gallant Officers and Services of the Thirty-fifth.- South Mountain and Antietam. — In Mississippi. — With the Potomac Army.- Mustered out.

[ocr errors]

GEN. A. B. UNDERWOOD AND THE THIRTY-THIRD REGIMENT.

A

DIN BALLOU UNDERWOOD was born in Milford, Mass., in the county of Worcester, May 19, 1828. His mother was Hannah Bond Cheney, whose ancestors came early to the colony.

His father was Orison Underwood, born in Barre, in the same county; a boot-manufacturer in business, who was for years in the State militia, and rose in it to the rank of brigadier-general. His ancestors were among the settlers of Watertown. Joseph and Thomas Underwood came to Hingham from England previous to 1637, and shortly removed to Watertown, where the descendants of Joseph remained for the rest of the century or more. Some of them removed to Holliston in the same county, and were living till near the close of last century at Holliston, when one of the ancestors of the subject of this sketch settled in Barre.

The family were bound by the ties of more than two hundred years to the institutions, the ideas, and the traditions of the Old Bay State; and, when war came, one of its scions claimed a share in the honor and the peril of their defence.

Adin Ballou Underwood was the first-born. Several brothers and sisters died in childhood; and only he and two brothers survived. He was kept constantly at school. One of his teachers was Mr. Train, afterward his law-partner. At the age of fifteen, he was sent to the University Grammar School at Providence, R.I., to fit for college; and, at the age of seventeen, entered Brown University in that State, at the head of which then was the late Rev. Dr. F. Wayland. In 1849, he graduated among the first in his class.

GEN. UNDERWOOD AND THE THIRTY-THIRD.

357

After a year or more spent in the counting-room, and in travel in his own country, he entered upon the study of the law in the office of Hon. Charles R. Train of Framingham, then at Cambridge Law School, and in the office of Judge B. F. Thomas, then of Worcester. A year from August, 1852, to August, 1853, he spent abroad, the summer months at Heidelberg, the winter months at Berlin, where he attended lectures on jurisprudence by some of the distinguished German writers on that science, and learned the mysteries of "student life in Germany;" making a pilgrimage in the vacation to the classic shrine of the scholar,-Italy.

Soon after his return, he was admitted to the bar in Worcester County, November, 1853. He began to practise in his native town but he soon fell into the current that flows always towards the metropolis; and in 1855 he removed to Boston, forming there a business connection with Mr. Train, his former schoolmaster and law instructor, which lasted till the one went to Congress, and the other into the army. He was successful in his profession, for a young man.

The day after Fort Sumter was fired upon, he turned the key in his office-door, and never entered it again for a client. Monday, the 15th of April, George H. Gordon, afterwards colonel of the Second Massachusetts Infantry, told him that Gov. Andrew had just said to him, "After we get off these three-months' men, I will send you next with a regiment:" and Gordon added, "Underwood, I shall rely upon you;" and he did. The regiment, which was numbered the Second Massachusetts, went with Gordon as its colonel, and Underwood as one of its captains; the first regiment mustered into the service in the State for the war. Capt. Underwood raised a company in Boston, and, with three other companies, those of Capts. Abbott, Coggswell, and Whitney, was mustered into service, May 18, 1861, for three years, the remaining six companies on the 23d of May following; from which service Capt. Underwood was not discharged until as Brevet Major-General, Sept. 1, 1865, to accept a position in the civil service of the Government on that day, which he still holds as Surveyor of Customs at the Port of Boston. The Second Regiment went into the field July 8, 1861, and joined Gen. Patterson's column.

In the march from Bunker Hill, Va., to Charlestown, the Second Massachusetts formed part of the rear-guard; and Capt. Underwood's company was detailed to support Capt. Tompkin's RhodeIsland battery at the rear of the column.

The Thirty-third Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was formed under the call for men which immediately followed Banks's retreat. A. C. Maggi, who had been lieutenant-colonel of the Twen ty-first Massachusetts, an Italian, educated as a soldier at home, one of Garibaldi's officers, was selected for its colonel; and Capt. Underwood, its lieutenant-colonel. Capt. Bates, of the Twelfth Massachusetts, was appointed its major; but he was soon made colonel of the Twelfth, and the regiment was left without a major. Orin Warren was regimental surgeon; and William S. Brown, his assistant. The Thirty-third had its pick of the recruits sent to the camp at Lynnfield, and left for Washington, Aug. 14. It remained encamped about Alexandria till the middle of October, constantly drilling, and making ready its men for the terrible struggles in store for it and for the whole army. At that time, it joined Gen. Sigel's Eleventh Corps, then lying at Fairfax Court House; marched with him through the mud of a Virginia December to Fredericksburg, where it arrived just as our army was coming back from that terrible slaughter; lay with the Army of the Potomac in winter-quarters at Falmouth, in full view of the frowning heights which had repulsed our columns, and so near the rebel lines upon the other river-bank, that they often gathered to hear its band at the evening parade. This band, which became renowned in the army, was carefully selected and formed at the organization of the regiment, made up in part of the former band of the Twelfth, and led by Israel Smith of New Bedford. It was well known in Sherman's army, and was always called by that general, "My band."

The Thirty-third, towards spring, was moved to near Stafford Court House; from which it started with the rest of the corps, to the command of which Gen. Howard had now been assigned, to participate in the battle of Chancellorsville on the 2d and 3d of May. Col. Maggi had resigned, and Lieut.-Col. Underwood had been made colonel. This regiment, and the whole of Gen. Barlow's brigade, to which it belonged, were detached on the first of those days to the support of a division of the Third Corps, in another part of the field, and did not share in the disaster that befell the rest of the Eleventh Corps on that day, or the blame that, whether rightfully or wrongfully, attached to it for being crushed, and then panic-struck, by triple its numbers, that fell suddenly upon its flank and rear.

At the great cavalry-fight at Beverly Ford, there were two brigades of infantry supports that contributed to the success of

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »