A paper read before the Commandery of the State of Massachusetts, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States
In April, 1863, just before the battle of Chancellorsville, I was ordered from Fort Monroe Arsenal to report to General Hooker, then in command of the Army of the Potomac, and from that time on, through the Gettysburg and Wilderness campaigns, I was at the Headquarters of the Army, or in charge of the ordnance depot till the siege of Petersburg had well begun. In this staff service I saw Hooker, Meade, Grant, Burnside, Sheridan, Warren, Hancock, and Sedgwick very often; the first three almost every day while they were in command; and all of them in action as well as off duty. At times, I heard their unconscious talk; and out of all these incidents, experiences, and observations, grew the impressions of them as soldiers and gentlemen which I now have.
Hooker was certainly the finest, most soldierly looking man of them all. Meade was without question one of the best, if not the best, commander the Army of the Potomac ever had. Of all of them he was the most scholarly, and had also the worst temper and the most blistering tongue. Grant was the only one of them all in whose presence the most obscure second lieutenant at Headquarters felt as much at ease as if among fellows of his own age. All the other commanders of the Army of the Potomac kept the atmosphere around them charged with the fussy electricity of military rank.
I carried orders, at one time and another, to and for them all while on the field, and have no question in my own mind that Sheridan was the only all-around corps commander we had; — and the impression is equally and firmly established in my mind that Burnside, although the most amiable of men, and a thorough gentleman, was by far the least endowed as a corps-commander. I had never seen him until the second day of the Wilderness, when I reported to him, — he was then at the head of the Ninth Corps, and was just coming on the field, — under orders to show his leading division the way to its position in the line of battle. In Grant's and in Meade's Memoirs there is abundant evidence to show their deep distrust of Burnside, and every young staff officer is apt to have his opinion of corps and division commanders colored by the prevailing opinion at his headquarters — which is sometimes right, and often wrong. But, right or wrong, I was always struck with his apparent indecision, and readily fell in with the rest of the staff in not being at all surprised that things went wrong on the morning he exploded the mine under the battery at Petersburg. On that occasion I had supplied all the powder, and waited for the explosion and witnessed it, with several of my friends of Meade's staff, from the parapet of a four and a half inch siege gun battery, where the whole of the fatal field sloped away before us in the sunshine.
That explosion took place on the 30th of July. On the ninth of August, a few weeks later, the Confederates blew up the ordnance depot under my charge at City Point, killing over two hundred, wounding many, and fearfully maiming others, besides destroying over $2,000,000 of property.
It is not a matter of any historic interest or value whatever, that I was playing "Seven-up" at the moment of the explosion, yet sometimes the bare facts of an event are most vividly realized and longest remembered through the small details that give them a real human interest. However this may be, on the morning of the explosion Captain, now Colonel, Evans of the regulars, came to my office just as I was leaving it to go down to the wharf. The house I occupied, a small one-story, broad hailed, frame building, stood on the bluff on the farther side of a little common, perhaps one hundred and fifty yards back from the wharf. Behind it was a garden.
The day was very hot, and knowing that my friend of the regulars was as dry as the rest of them that came down from the lines, I wished to show him the customary and most acceptable hospitality. I went to my demijohn and much to my surprise found it was empty. Evans must have looked especially despondent, for I said, "Come over to Grant's Headquarters; I know where I can get some," having in mind my friend Captain Mason of the 6th Regulars, who commanded Grant's escort. It was only a step, perhaps a hundred yards. When we reached the tent there we found ten or a dozen of Meade's and Grant's staff around a pail two-thirds full of claret punch. Among the rest was Captain, later Admiral, John Clitz of the United States Navy, one of the blithest hearted and most gallant men who ever trod a deck. His ship lay out in the river.
We had no sooner got there than Clitz, with whom I had a very exciting game the day before, challenged me, and with Billy Worth (now General Worth, who was most severely wounded at Santiago) for his partner, and Captain Hudson of Grant's staff for mine, we began the game on Captain Mason's bed. I can't be certain how the game would have come out, but I had just captured two tens with a queen, which in all probability would have made the game at least, when the explosion took place and a 12-lb. solid shot crashed across the bed into Mason's camp mess-chest. Of course there was a sudden stampede. As there was something falling or shells bursting at every instant, I looked up to see what was coming next. The sky looked as it does in the fall of heavy snow flakes. Just then a shell burst immediately over us. In an instant we were all running for dear life. Clitz was the oldest and had complained of rheumatism while we were playing, in fact he had asked me to get him some more claret punch, declaring that it hurt him to walk ; yet in the flight he was ahead of us all. Suddenly a piece of the shell came down over my left shoulder. I could have stepped on the hole it made in the ground, but it brought me to my senses, and I at once turned and made my way to the wharf.
From the top of the bluff there lay before me a staggering scene, a mass of overthrown buildings, their timbers tangled into almost impenetrable heaps. In the water were wrecked and sunken barges, while out among the shipping — where were many vessels of all sizes and kinds — there was hurrying back and forth on the decks to weigh anchor, for all seemed to think that something more would happen. I at once went down to the ruined building, a large frame structure six hundred feet long, under the charge of my Sergeant, Harris, an old regular and one of the gentlest and most faithful and honest men I ever knew. I could hear the cries of some of the men, and soon heard Corporal Bradley call out, "For God's sake. Captain, come and help me out." He was pinned down under some heavy timbers with one of his legs crushed. It was amputated, and I saw him after the war at West Troy, New York. Later, I found Sergeant Harris lying on his back dead, with the smiling expression of a sleeping child. I had his body sent back to Watervliet Arsenal, and there his gallant clay is lying. I have met men and soldiers of high rank and proud birth, but I do not believe I ever met Sergeant Harris's superior in the qualities that go to make a soldier and a man.
While engaged in this work the cry was started, "There it goes again!" On looking up I saw that the fire which had started on the wharf had just reached a small pile of ammunition, perhaps ten or fifteen boxes. Knowing, or at least thinking, that I could get to it before it could do any harm, I rushed in and with my army hat beat it out. The amusing part of this was, that an officer, a regular too by the way, was at my side when the cry was started, and when I had put out the fire and looked up, he was tearing up the bluff along with hundreds of others, all running as though they expected to be blown to atoms the next minute. All fear is ignorance; I knew how the ammunition was packed; if I hadn't I should in all probability have been with the rest of them, and possibly in the lead.
The boat or barge, on the deck of which the torpedo was placed, had on board some twenty or thirty thousand rounds of artillery ammunition and in the vicinity of seventy-five or one hundred thousand rounds of small-arms ammunition. Between it and the wharf was a canal boat filled with cavalry saddles and equipments turned in by Sheridan's cavalry a few days before on embarking for Washington, which was then threatened by General Early. The explosion sent those old cavalry saddles flying in every direction like so many big-winged bats. One of them struck and killed the lemonade man, the only authorized vendor of pop-syrups and lemonade at the depots. He had been with us some time, and was doing a thriving business under a tent-fly, surrounded by mule drivers, white and black, soldiers, civilians, and swarms of flies, when the saddle dashed through the crowd and hit him in the stomach. These details of his death were told me by Captain Randall, now General Randall, who was near by and saw the old saddle going through the crowd.
Among the flower beds of the garden behind my office one of my clerks fell, with a large piece of his skull torn off by the fuse of a shell that had burst over him. It was the most singular wound I ever saw, in this, that the substance of the brain apparently was not touched, but stood in place, a firm, white convoluted mass. We carried him back into the office from which he had fled when the projectiles that were hurled in every direction began to enter it.
While on these minor incidents, I may include that of the depot barber, a negro of the large, greasy, good-natured looking type. He joined us at Brandy Station, with an old and very dirty Sibley tent for a shop and an old and very dirty red plush chair, which he had brought out from Alexandria or Washington. He did a fine business with the teamsters. On this morning he had pitched his tent on the bluff near the tents of my colored employees, who, I'm inclined to think, kept him in rations and saw that he had transportation. We never saw anything of him or the chair after the explosion. I have sometimes wondered what was said and what became of that crowd and tent on the bluff. I imagine the barber was either shaving some one, in all probability a mule driver, who with eyes closed was in a blissful state of luxury, or he may have been cutting hair, or putting the last touches on to the lay of it with his brush, when he and his customer and "next" all went bowling out of, or remained wrapped up in, the old Sibley tent. That night, where it had stood lay twenty or thirty of my dead colored laborers in a row, for about dark a telegraph order came from Washington to report the names of all the dead. We gathered them together with the aid of a lantern, and then tried to check them off by the pay roll, but as we lifted one by one the coats or whatever covered their faces, to my surprise the foreman, a colored man by the name of Stephen from Baltimore, said, "I do not know him." The total number killed will never be known. Had the explosion occurred an hour earlier, just before the sailing of the Baltimore boat, when the wharf was crowded, the list of dead would have been of course much greater. There was a guard from some New York regiment detailed to keep all persons from going into the building or on board the boats. These were all killed. A musket was found standing upright in the road, buried to the second band, almost a half mile back from the wharf. I have always thought it must have been that of the sentinel on the deck of the barge, for it does not seem possible that any of the rifles in the storehouse could have attained a height such as this one must have reached to gain the necessary velocity to penetrate so deeply.
General Grant says somewhere in his Memoirs that "There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice." There were two striking incidents that morning differing widely in character, but both illustrating this truth. One was that of a Confederate who had been kept a prisoner at Headquarters for six or seven months, condemned to the Dry Tortugas, and who had been pardoned that morning, but who had reached the wharf too late for the boat. He then wandered about the d6pot, and we can imagine how light his heart was as he looked across the river to the rolling fields of his well-loved Virginia, thinking how soon he would reach his home, and of the welcome at the door. Someone saw him near the barge just before the explosion, and the next day his body was found three miles below City Point, drifting down the river. The other instance was that of a soldier of the Fourth Regulars, who was on guard on the river bank at the time of the explosion. Some of his comrades seeing the air filled with missiles told him to run and hide, but he refused to leave his post and fortunately escaped injury. This same man had been tried by court-martial some months previous and was sentenced to forfeit all his pay and allowance except one dollar per month during the remainder of his enlistment. A few days after the explosion he received notice that the fine was remitted for gallant conduct. Here were two examples — both, in the language of General Grant, "important events" in the lives of these two men — two men looking forward into the future with almost common experiences; both had been tried; both had been sentenced; both found their sentences revoked on the same day — but one of them drifted off down the James, and the other took his place with his colors and marched on with the rest to victory.
At first, in fact for months, I heard it said very often, that the explosion was the fault of "one of Schaff's niggers," who had let a percussion shell fall in his careless handling, but the true cause was not known till after the war was over, when there was found among the Confederate archives a drawing of the torpedo and the official report of the Confederate soldier. Captain Maxwell, who with great daring penetrated our lines with it.
The following is an extract from his report : —
"I left Richmond on the 26th of July, 1864, to operate with what was known as the 'horological' torpedo against the vessels of Federal forces navigating the James River. Mr. R. K. Dillard, since dead, was with me. He was well acquainted with the river, and would go anywhere I led, no matter what the danger might be. When we reached Isle of Wight county, on August 4, we heard that an immense supply of stores was being landed at City Point, and at once started for that place intending, if possible, to introduce our machine upon one of the vessels discharging their cargoes there.
"We reached City Point before daybreak on August 9, having travelled mostly by night, and crawled upon our knees to pass the picket lines. I had with me an ordinary candle box containing twelve pounds of gunpowder, procured at a country store. In the box was packed a small machine, my own invention, which was arranged by means of a lever to explode a cap at a time indicated by a dial.
"When we got within half a mile of City Point I told Dillard to remain behind while I went forward with my machine. I went out on the wharf cautiously, put my box dovro and took a seat on it, awaiting an opportune moment to get it aboard a vessel. There were two boats at the wharf loaded with ammunition and various stores for the Federal troops, while on the bank were buildings stored with supplies.
"I sat waiting until I saw the captain of the vessel nearest to me leave his boat. That was my opportunity. I picked up the box of powder and started for the boat. As I reached the edge of the wharf the sentry hailed me. He was a German and could not speak a word of English. He vociferated something at me in German, while I rejoined in broad Scotch. Finally by means of signs I induced him to let me approach the vessel. Just then a negro appeared at the side of the ship. I gave him the box and told him the captain said put it down below until he came. The man took it without question and carried it down while I went off a little distance.
"In an hour's time the explosion occurred. It was terrific. Its effect was communicated to the other vessel and also to the large building on the wharf, filled with stores, and all were destroyed utterly. I myself was terribly shocked by the explosion, but was not injured permanently. Dillard, my companion, was rendered deaf by the explosion, and never recovered from its effects.
"The scene, though terrific, was in some respects ludicrous. The air was filled with all sorts of munitions of war. Army saddles careered through the air as though playing leap-frog, while headless bodies, arms, legs, and heads of the unfortunate crew flew in fragments about in the smoke. The official report of the enemy was that fifty-eight men were killed and one hundred and twenty-six wounded, but I think that this estimate was too low. They also reported that property to the amount of four million dollars was destroyed.
"There is one thing only that I regret, and that is, according to the report of the enemy, a party of ladies was killed. Of course, we never intended anything of the kind, not being aware of their presence."
The torpedo was fired by clock-work. In view of its slight effect toward breaking or weakening Grant's hold on the already doomed Confederacy, it was nothing more than butchery, unjustifiable by the usages of civilized war, and severely repugnant to humanity.
It is needless to say, finally, that when I came to settle my accounts with the Ordnance Department for the millions of dollars' worth of stores I had received, what I could not find when I turned the depot over to my successor, I loaded on the barge or put into the storehouse, and let the explosion balance the books.
The following extract from a letter from Doctor R. B. Prescott, received after the foregoing was read before the Loyal Legion, is interesting in connection with it:
"It has always seemed almost miraculous that I was not among the victims. As it was I was knocked down by the concussion, and an officer with whom I had been conversing only a moment before was instantly killed, — torn all to pieces, in fact. In my mind's eye I have often seen that dreadful spectacle — that immense cone-shaped mass of flame and smoke rising seemingly hundreds of feet into the air, and filled with timbers, saddles, military stores of all kinds; and bodies of men and horses. It was a sight never to be forgotten. I might add, in conclusion, that I had the honor of capturing the official Confederate report of this transaction in Richmond and forwarding it to Washington with account of how it came into my possession."