Movement to Wells’s Farm—The Camp at Pegram’s Farm—Building of Winter Quarters—Ordered Back to Petersburg—Disappointment of the Men—The Regiment Occupies Battery No. 11—Friendly Relations Between the Pickets—Battle of Fort Stedman—The Regiment Makes a Gallant Fight—The Prisoners Sent to Libby—Closing Scenes Before Petersburg—The Regiment Enters the City—Duties Performed After the Battle—Death of Abraham Lincoln—Ordered to Alexandria, and from Thence to Georgetown—Provost Guard—The Grand Review—Regiment Goes to Tenallytown, Md.—Soldiers of the Thirty-fifth Massachusetts Assigned to the Twenty-ninth Regiment—Ordered to Massachusetts—Parade in New York—In Camp at Readville, Mass.—The Last Order—Discharged the Service—Closing Remarks.

The last chapter left the regiment at Poplar Grove Church. Here it remained till the 27th of October, when, very early in the morning, the Brigade advanced in line of battle to and a little beyond Wells’s Farm, halted for the night, and the next morning fell back to Pegram’s Farm, between the Squirrel Level and Vaughan roads, the regiment covering the latter movement as skirmishers.

It was supposed that the corps was to pass the winter at this place, and the regimental commanders were ordered to prepare winter quarters for their men. No duty which the soldier is required to perform is so pleasant as that of erecting a house to live in. Such orders after a fatiguing campaign, promising both comfort and rest, are peculiarly welcome, and always cheerfully obeyed. In this, as in every other similar instance, the soldiers worked with great zeal, manifesting much ingenuity in the construction and arrangement of their houses. The rude idea of the negroes of building a chimney with sticks and clay, was adopted by the men, with some improvements of their own, while each hut was provided with comfortable bunks, spacious fire-places, and shelves for their guns and clothing.

This was the first time in nearly two years that the regiment had even seen the prospect of winter quarters, and was the first time in many months that it had been out of the range of the enemy’s sharpshooters and picket-firing. The camp was very unlike the ones it had occupied in front of Richmond, or in Tennessee, but was upon a dry, sandy knoll, well supplied with good water, and in full sight of Fort Sampson, a strong redoubt, named after the brave Captain Sampson of the Twenty-first Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, who fell there in the battle of September 20, with the colors of his regiment in his own hands, gallantly leading his men in a charge. Though the camp was very pleasantly located, yet winter was near at hand, the trees had already lost their foliage, and the cool autumn winds found their way through the cracks and crevices of the humble huts of the soldiers, often reminding them of the necessity of applying a little more of the “sacred soil” of Virginia, if they would be wholly comfortable. Thus quartered, it was natural that they should compare their present lot with that which fell to them the winter before in East Tennessee, where cold, hunger, nakedness, and danger were daily experienced for a dreary succession of weeks and months. But the soldier’s fondest dreams of comfort are often rudely dispelled, and so these anticipations of ease and quiet were never fully realized; the men were scarcely ensconced in their winter homes, before they were ordered to leave them. Any one who has heard a soldier grumble, and has noted some of his expressions, can understand what was said by the men about this change of location. Captain Taylor, who was of a positive temperament, rose to the sublimity of the occasion by swearing that “he would never lift another handful of dirt as long as he remained in the army”; while some of the soldiers declared that the officers were “a mean set,” and were bent on ruining the health and destroying the comfort of the men as a mere pastime.

As usual, all this rage was utterly impotent, and indulged in as a sacred privilege. It operated something like a cushion, however, lessening the severity of impact with a hard surface; to use less elegant language, it “let them down easily.” The lesson of implicit obedience to orders—not unquestioning, for volunteer soldiers were never without their mental reservations as to the propriety of every military movement—had already, and long since, been thoroughly learned. On the 29th of November, when the weather was quite cold and cheerless, the Ninth Corps was ordered to march. The men little dreamed that they were going back to the old blood-stained trenches in front of Petersburg, where they had borne the heat of the summer, and faced the shells of a hundred mortars and as many cannon. Here, however, they soon found themselves, and as they moved along over the battle-field of the 17th of June, and among the graves of their brothers who died for their country there, more than one eye was wet with the tears of manly sorrow. The regiment was ordered to do duty as the garrison of Battery No. 11, a small ravelin covering about three-fourths of an acre, having embrasures for two guns, but no guns being mounted. About two hundred yards from this work was Battery No. 12, a large redoubt mounting four cohorns, garrisoned by a portion of the First Connecticut Heavy Artillery. On the right of Battery No. 11, one hundred and twenty-five yards distant, was Fort Stedman, held by the Fourteenth New York Heavy Artillery; and a little to the rear and left of Battery No. 11 was the Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Volunteers: while to the left of Battery No. 12, and between it and Fort Haskell, was the One Hundredth Pennsylvania Volunteers; and at the right of Fort Stedman, the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts Regiment.

The pickets of both armies were stationed in rifle-pits large enough to hold several men, midway between the respective lines, and these were approached by covered ways.

Though under fire much of the time, the men found opportunity to build quarters, and so far as protection from the cold was concerned, were quite comfortable during the winter. As in the winter of 1863, while the regiment was before Fredericksburg, the pickets of the two armies became friendly; but as these familiarities were strictly forbidden, they were never indulged in except at night.

The members of our regiment performed their full share of picket service, and, like all the rest of our troops, had frequent parleys with the Confederates. A member of the regiment has furnished the writer with a detailed statement of several of the interviews which took place on the picket line, from which it appears that this service was a source of more amusement than danger.

When everything was quiet, one of our men would call out, “Johnnies, have you got any tobacco?” “Yes Yanks; have you got any hard-tack?” was the common answer. “Meet you half-way,” says the Confederate. “All right; come on!” say our men. Then three or four men from each side would leave the pits, crawl out over the space between the two lines, shake hands, have an exchange of tobacco, hard-tack, and talk, crack jokes, and separate with the understanding, that, as soon as each party got back to the pits, they should commence firing, for the purpose of misleading their respective officers.

This state of things was finally discovered by the Confederate and Federal officers, and was terminated by strict orders forbidding the practice under severe penalties. But the practice, though not worthy to be encouraged, resulted in bringing about numerous desertions from the enemy’s camp.

The proclamation of General Grant, encouraging desertions among the Confederates, was, by means of these forbidden interviews, extensively circulated, and scarcely a night passed, during the months of January and February, which did not witness more or less of these desertions.

The Twenty-ninth had been very much reduced in numbers, having less than two hundred muskets; and yet, because of its long and conspicuous service, General Parke, commanding the corps, refused to consolidate it with some other larger Massachusetts regiment, and allowed it to retain a full list of field-officers, only one of whom, under the then existing rules of the War Department, could be mustered. Captain Willard D. Tripp, who had been commissioned as Lieutenant-Colonel, October 12, 1864, had been mustered out on the 13th of December, 1864, his term of service having expired. Captain Charles D. Browne was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, October 14, 1864; Captain Charles T. Richardson commissioned as Major, August 9, 1864, and mustered as such; and Captain Thomas William Clarke commissioned as Colonel, November 8, 1864. During the winter, Colonel Clarke was assigned to duty upon the staff of General Hartranft, commanding the division; Lieutenant-Colonel Browne made Inspector of the division; and Major Richardson had command of the regiment.

No event of particular significance occurred till the 25th of March, 1865. Long before daylight in the morning of this day, a large force of the enemy—afterwards learned to be the corps of General Gordon, supported by the division of General Bushrod Johnson—crossed the level plain between Fort Stedman and the Appomattox River, fully a quarter of a mile to the right of Battery No. 11, and the entire storming party effected a wide breach in the works, and moved directly upon Fort Stedman, entering the rear sally-port almost undiscovered. So complete was the surprise, that the fort was captured at once. Slight firing was heard from this direction by the garrison in Battery Eleven; whereupon Major Richardson caused the men to be aroused, but the firing was so slight, that when the regiment was ordered to “fall in,” the sentinel stationed on the top of the parapet called out that there was “no attack.” The men were not dismissed, however, and stood silently in line for some time, peering into the gray, frosty air of the morning, the Major taking a position on the top of the works, listening intently, and looking down into the ravine below, where he saw his trusty pickets standing quietly by their fires, apparently unaware of any disturbance on the main line. But the commanding officer soon became satisfied that there was an attack in the direction of Fort Stedman; the right curtain of Battery Eleven was re-enforced, and the bugler Pond having sounded the alarm, the garrison was wholly prepared to repel any attack. Up to this time, no general alarm had been sounded along the line, and no word from any source, indicating an attack, had been received by Major Richardson; much less that the line had been broken, or that any danger lurked in his rear. The regiment had remained in line of battle nearly thirty minutes, when suddenly the men in the right curtain commenced firing; they were ordered to cease, lest they should shoot our own pickets, who had begun to come in. The latter order had hardly been given, when some of our soldiers cried out, “The Johnnies are coming in at the rear sally-port!” This was the first positive information that the garrison had received of an attack; but the worst was revealed now,—the enemy had actually captured Fort Stedman, and though our pickets under Lieutenant Josselyn had not been disturbed, yet at least five hundred of Gordon’s and Johnson’s troops had suddenly appeared in our rear. These veteran soldiers of the Confederacy were destined, however, to meet with a stubborn resistance; a hand-to-hand encounter at once began; a Massachusetts battery stationed at the left joined in the desperate conflict, which, in the course of fifteen minutes, ended in the capture by our regiment of three hundred and fifty of the storming party, at least one hundred and fifty more than the whole number of the Twenty-ninth, and the temporary closing of the gap in this part of our lines.

During this encounter, the officers and men behaved with signal bravery. Captain Taylor was especially conspicuous, using a musket, and dealing powerful blows with its breech. Major Richardson, mingling with his men, was in the thickest of the fight, and received a terrible blow on the head from an enemy’s musket, sufficient to overcome an ordinary man; but he was not an ordinary man, and so far from quitting the fight, he kept on in the desperate struggle, cheering his men, and assuring them that the day was theirs.

The enemy now disappeared, the fort was cleared of the prisoners, and word sent to brigade headquarters of the state of affairs at the camp of the Twenty-ninth Regiment. General McLaughlin, commander of the Brigade, soon came up, with the Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Regiment as a re-enforcement, and was greatly surprised at the sight of so large a number of prisoners as he found standing in the rear of the fort. The General gave Major Gould, commanding the Fifty-ninth, imperative orders to assist the Twenty-ninth in holding the fort, and then, with his staff, rode over towards Fort Stedman; he had, probably, not been gone five minutes, before he and all his staff fell into the hands of the enemy. The best possible disposition was now made of what remained of the garrison (for it is true that some had been captured in the first assault and others had been killed and wounded) to resist the attack of the enemy, which he was now preparing to make, having collected his main assaulting column in a ravine in the rear of the battery. Major Gould was offered the command of the forces here, being the ranking officer, but declined; Major Richardson concluded to establish a strong picket line in the rear of the battery, and, with Captain Taylor, went personally to superintend the work. The enemy were already in sight, and firing soon began; on returning to the fort, to their great surprise these officers found the work nearly deserted, and saw in the dim light of the morning the command of Major Gould, and some of their own regiment, moving away down the ditch towards Fort Haskell, which was still held by our troops. During the brief absence of Major Richardson, Major Gould, who had discovered the approach of the enemy in his rear, gave orders to his men to “Leap the breastworks, and retreat between the rebel works and our own to Fort Haskell.”55 No resistance was now possible; in a few moments the enemy swarmed into the battery, and Major Richardson, Captain Taylor, and a number of their faithful men were captured. This was a cruel fate for these brave soldiers, who had striven so zealously to beat back the enemy; and had their example been followed by others who held equally responsible positions, the little fort would probably have not been lost.

By this time the alarm had spread far and near, and though it was scarcely light, yet the entire corps was under arms and in motion.

The left column of the enemy, passing down the line to Battery No. 9, drove the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts from the works. It next encountered the Second Michigan, and though the regiment was surprised, and some confusion followed, yet it soon rallied, and held its ground against the most determined efforts of the enemy. Re-enforcements arriving at this point, the enemy were repulsed, and fell back towards Fort Stedman, in which their right column was now huddled, having been checked in its further movements by our troops on that part of the line.

The Twenty-ninth rallied about this time, near brigade headquarters, where a regiment of General Hartranft’s command arrived; and the two regiments at once charged and occupied a line of works about one hundred yards in the rear of Battery Eleven, thus completely stopping the opening in that part of the line.

At about seven o’clock, an advance was ordered upon the enemy, in all directions. Battery Eleven was soon retaken by our men, Conrad Homan, the color-bearer of the Twenty-ninth, being the first man who entered the works; and for his distinguished gallantry on this occasion, was promoted to be First Lieutenant, and received one of the medals of honor voted by Congress. The only works now held by the enemy were Fort Stedman and Battery No. 10, which, shortly after eight o’clock, General Hartranft’s division was ordered to attack. The Two Hundred and Eleventh Pennsylvania, though composed wholly of raw troops, was chosen to lead the assault. A finer display of bravery was never witnessed in the army, than that of these untrained soldiers. With great impetuosity, they rushed upon the fort in the face of a blaze of musketry, and in a few minutes were masters of the situation. At the same instant other troops of the division stormed Battery No. 10, and captured it.

The retreat of the enemy was now cut off by the fire from our other works, and one thousand nine hundred and forty-nine of their number, of whom seventy-one were officers, nine stands of colors, and a large number of small arms, fell into our hands. And thus ended this brilliant and well-conceived movement of the enemy. It was, to a great extent, a fair offset to the mine affair, but the disadvantages under which our troops labored could never have been overcome, except by hard fighting and good generalship, which characterized our movements from the beginning.

The events of this terrible battle were mostly sad and distressing; but the affair was not without its ludicrous features. A soldier of Company C,56 who was captured in the early morning, made an involuntary exchange of hats with a Confederate officer. The soldier’s hat was nearly new, while that which he received from the officer was exceedingly shabby. The soldier broke away from the guard and ran into our lines, taking a gallant part in the charge just mentioned. While circulating among the captured enemy after the battle, he discovered the identical officer who had taken his hat from him. The soldier, in a very droll manner, approached the officer and said: “Well, Mister, if you please, I’ll take my hat now, and here’s yours back again, just as good, and no better, than when I took it about three hours ago.” The two again exchanged hats, and shaking hands “on it,” indulged in a hearty laugh.

The following-named soldiers of the regiment were killed in this action, which is known as the “Battle of Fort Stedman”: Company B, Edward J. O’Brien (he was terribly bayoneted in the breast and killed by one of the enemy, after he had been badly wounded, and was found in this mutilated condition after the battle); Company C, Sergeant C. Francis Harlow; Company E, First Lieutenant Nathaniel Burgess, Sergeant Orrin D. Holmes, William Klinker, and Ruter Moritz; Company F, Preserved Westgate; Company G, Nelson Cook, George E. Snow, and John Cronin.

Lieutenant Burgess of Plymouth had been promoted for his great bravery on the 17th of June. Orderly Sergeant Harlow was overpowered, and ordered to surrender; he replied with spirit that he would not, fired, and shot his antagonist; but another Confederate, standing near, seized his gun, and shot the courageous Harlow through the head. After the battle, the dead body of Harlow was found in the fort, lying upon that of a dead Confederate officer, from which fact it was inferred that Harlow shot the officer, and upon being himself killed, fell in the position in which he was found. One of the comrades, who witnessed this sad affair, states that the officer was one Captain Gordon, who led the assaulting party. The death of Burgess causes us to remark, inasmuch as he was the last officer in the regiment killed during its term of service, that the first and last officer in the regiment who fell in battle, were citizens of the historic old town of Plymouth.

Note.—The chief facts concerning this battle are somewhat in dispute; two or three distinct and conflicting accounts of it having been published. The version here given, so far as it relates to Battery Eleven, was furnished the writer by Major Chas. T. Richardson of Pawtucket, R. I.; the comments upon that officer, and Captain Taylor, being those of the author, based upon the statements of reliable persons.—Author.]

The real mettle of the officers and men of the regiment was fairly tested in this battle, and the result shows that they were among the bravest soldiers in the army. In the depressing adversities of the early morning, as well as in the success which followed later in the day, their courage was equally conspicuous. Stubborn and unflinching when the enemy burst upon them in greatly superior numbers, they were impetuous and daring while on the charge.

Captain Clarke, as Adjutant-General of the Brigade, led a large body of re-enforcements on the charge at six o’clock. Lieutenant-Colonel Browne, while carrying an order from the commander of the division, dashed on horseback directly through the lines of a Confederate regiment. Captain Pizer, Lieutenant Josselyn, Lieutenant McQuillan, and Lieutenant Scully, who were captured, all escaped, and fought with great gallantry in the latter part of the battle, and for their bravery were afterwards brevetted.

The captured of the regiment, who did not manage to escape, were carried to Petersburg, and confined in a small room till nine o’clock in the morning. They were then transferred to a large hall in the village, where they were all searched, and their overcoats taken from them. Towards noon they were marched from the hall, together with a number of other prisoners, to an open field on the outskirts of the town, and were kept there under guard till night, when they took the cars for Richmond. During the day it rained and snowed by turns, and the wind was cold and piercing, the poor soldiers, stripped of their overcoats, suffering intensely. No food was given them till about noon of the following day; and then nothing but a small quantity of bean soup, without any seasoning, brought to them in dirty iron kettles. The men were confined together in one room at the notorious Libby Prison; and, as further illustrating the barbarous nature of their treatment, it should be stated, that crowded into the same apartment, which was filthy in the extreme, alive with vermin, and poorly ventilated, were nearly two hundred other prisoners. The quantity and quality of the food dealt out to them was such as hardly to sustain life: the breakfast consisted of a small ration of smoked pork; for dinner they had bean soup; and at night a small loaf of bread, with water. All the food was of the most inferior quality; the meat especially, which frequently emitted a nauseating odor.

Happily, these men were not compelled to endure such privations for many days; but they were days of anxiety and suffering, as the author well knows from his own experience. The life of the wicked Rebellion was fast ebbing away; a few days before Lee’s surrender the men were released, and sent to the prison depot at Annapolis, Maryland, afterwards joining the regiment at Georgetown, District of Columbia.

After the repulse of the enemy on the 25th of March, and the recapture of our works, the regiment again occupied Battery No. 11, supported by the Fifty-seventh and Fifty-ninth Massachusetts regiments. The final movements of our army, which resulted in the surrender of General Lee, were close at hand. A state of feverish excitement prevailed among both armies in front of Petersburg. The enemy were disposed to be belligerent, and for nearly a week kept up a constant fire upon our lines.

On the 27th of March, General Sheridan began his grand movement on the left, and the whole army had orders to be ready to march at a moment’s notice.

On the 30th, General Parke, commanding the corps, was ordered to assault the enemy’s works in his front at four o’clock the next morning, but the order was subsequently countermanded by General Meade.

On the 1st of April, the order for an assault was renewed. At ten o’clock that night our artillery opened all along our line, and at the same time a heavy force of skirmishers was sent forward. General Griffin’s brigade captured the enemy’s picket line, opposite Forts Howard and Hayes, and a number of prisoners. During these movements our whole line was forming for the assault, which was made at about four o’clock in the morning of the 2d. The contest was a bloody one, but was very successful.

At the close of the day, during which the enemy made repeated attacks, General Parke was in possession of several hundred yards of the enemy’s lines, on each side of the Jerusalem Plank Road, including several formidable works. In the meantime a determined attack on the left had been made by the Sixth, Second, and parts of the Twenty-fifth corps, capturing a considerable number of prisoners.

During the battle on this part of the line, General A. P. Hill of the Confederate army was killed. He was one of the most distinguished officers of the long list of able and brilliant Southern Generals. The tragic account of his death, given by E. A. Pollard in his “Lost Cause,”57 is probably incorrect, and is of the same sensational character as much else that this pseudo historian has written.

The night of the 2d of April was passed by the Ninth Corps on its advanced line with heavy skirmishing, continuing till near midnight. The regiment did not become seriously engaged during the 1st and 2d of April, though it took part in the demonstrations which were made in front of Port Stedman.

At four o’clock in the morning of the 3d of April, all our troops were put in motion, no opposition was encountered, the enemy having deserted their lines. The Brigade was among the first to pass the Confederate works; the Third Maryland Regiment having the honor of being the first to enter the city of Petersburg. The Twenty-ninth, with other troops, soon followed, but at once passed out on the Richmond Stage and Chesterfield roads, where it was placed on picket.

From this time till the 5th, the regiment had its headquarters at a place called Violet Bank, a fine old Virginia plantation, the house of which had been long occupied by General Lee. “There were two pianos in the house, and for two days one would have thought that some impresario had his troupe there, in rehearsal of all the known, and some unknown, operas.” The regiment recrossed the Appomattox on the 5th, and, with its brigade, “was deployed across the country, from the river to the Boydton Road,” with headquarters at Roger A. Pryor’s, “preparing to advance and cover the reconstruction of the railroad, and to guard that and the Cox Road, as the army advanced.”

In the afternoon of the 6th, the regiment marched to Sutherlands, remaining there till midnight, and then moving out on the Cox Road to Beazeley’s. By short marches, made at different times, it finally proceeded to Wilson’s Station, “about twenty miles from Sutherlands, and at the junction of the Grubby and Cox roads.”

While remaining here, the men received the sad news of the death of Abraham Lincoln. Every soldier felt that he had lost a dear friend in the lamented chief magistrate, whose heart always beat with joy at their successes in the field, and sorrowed with the truest sorrow over their reverses and misfortunes. Of all the many true men who stood at the helm of the nation during the stormy days of the war, Abraham Lincoln was pre-eminently the soldier’s friend; he always frowned upon the harsh punishments inflicted by military law, and by his sympathy for the erring, saved from death many who had been thus doomed by the inexorable decrees of courts-martial.

On the 21st of April, the Ninth Corps was ordered to Washington, and the men bid good-by forever to these scenes of their strifes and sufferings. The regiment reached Alexandria on the 28th, and on the next day was ordered to Georgetown, where it was detached from the division and made provost guard at this place, and furnished all the details for General Willcox’s district headquarters.

On the 23d of May occurred the grand review in Washington. The Twenty-ninth was not permitted to participate in this triumphal march of our noble army, but as provost guard, was assigned to the duty, on this memorable day, of keeping the streets of Georgetown clear of obstructions, and of guarding the various “approaches to the route of the procession.” Several of the officers of the regiment, however, who were on staff duty, were in the column, and Colonel Clarke was intrusted with the formation of the First Division line, a duty that he performed with great ability and credit to himself and the State.

On the 7th of June, Colonel Clarke was relieved from duty as Assistant Adjutant-General of the division, and assumed the command of the regiment.

On the 9th, a large portion of the Thirty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment was transferred to the Twenty-ninth. These men were mostly Germans and Belgians, whose term of service did not expire before October 1, 1865. They were asked by their commanding general to which regiment they desired to be transferred. Much attached to their officers, they replied, that “they preferred to go where their officers could go with them.” By an arrangement made with the War Department, eleven officers were transferred with these men, and it speaks well for the regiment that these officers chose to be transferred to the Twenty-ninth. Both officers and men were superior soldiers, and the commanding officer of the Twenty-ninth, in his last report to the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, speaks of them in terms of high praise.

On this day, the regiment marched to Tenallytown, Md., remaining here till the 29th of July. The formalities of mustering the regiment out of the service were completed on the 29th of July, and on the same day it started for Massachusetts.

Upon its arrival in New York, it became the guest of the New England Association, as also did the Fifty-seventh Massachusetts Regiment, which left Washington at the same time. The Association asked the regiments to parade in the city. The request was granted, and Brevet Brigadier-General McLaughlin (Colonel of the Fifty-seventh) assuming command, marched the troops through Broadway, from the Battery to Union Square, and from the Square again to the Battery. The veterans were greeted with cheers everywhere on the line of their march, and at the close were met by General Burnside, who addressed them in a cordial manner.

At the conclusion of the parade, the Association invited the soldiers to partake of a dinner, at which were present, Major-General Joseph Hooker, the patriotic Colonel Howe, President of the Association, and the Rev. M. H. Smith (Burleigh). It has been said that this was the last parade of Union troops in New York City.

Taking the cars on the Connecticut Shore road, the regiment reached Massachusetts the next morning; but not having been paid or discharged the service, still further delay became necessary, and it was for this purpose ordered into camp at Readville.

It was wholly natural for soldiers who had been so long in the service as had the members of the Twenty-ninth, and were now, at the close of their protracted term, almost within sight and sound of their homes, to feel a disagreeable sense of restraint at being thus detained. They found some fault with this state of things, which they characterized as “the last crop of red tape”; but their soldierly instincts and self-respect kept them from the commission of any act which they or their friends will ever have occasion to regret. Their conduct was so exemplary under these perplexing circumstances, and this event in their career in every sense so historical, that their commanding officer was moved to address them upon the subject. This address was termed, “General Orders. No. 12,” and was the last order issued to the regiment from any source, or by any officer. As it is a well-written paper, alike touching and soldierly in its tone, and altogether a pleasing feature of the record of the regiment, we here give space for it:—

“General Orders, No. 12.

“Headquarters Twenty-ninth Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers, } “Readville, Mass., August 3, 1865. }

“You hold the musket for the last time. From May, 1861, to August, 1865, we are a part of the history of the Republic. The very number of the regiment was prophetic; for twenty-nine battles will be inscribed on the flag which we carry.

“To be soldiers who have never lost a color, have never left the field without orders, have always cheerfully performed the requirements of the service, is indeed a cause for pride. But of one thing we should be prouder yet! Few regiments have had so few desertions, so few dishonorable discharges, so little punishment, of all who have served the Republic in the last four years.

“During the past three days, your conduct has been deserving of all praise. In receiving their welcome home, no men could have proved themselves more worthy of the honors paid them. Trying as the delay has been, anxious as you all were to return to the Commonwealth, no single thing was done unbecoming the good soldier.

“Around you cluster the memories of the two great armies of the Republic: that which fought four long years for Richmond, and that which opened the Mississippi to the commerce of the Northwest.

“You hold in your hands the last muskets of the army of the Potomac,—the last muskets of the army of Sherman. Remember, then, the brilliant record which is yours; and remember hereafter not to tarnish it.”58

In concluding this narrative, which the writer fears has already been extended beyond the point which, in the estimation of a purely disinterested person, might be regarded as its proper limit, it seems essential to allude briefly, in review, to certain prominent and remarkable features of the record given in the foregoing pages. The seven companies of Captains Clarke, Wilson, Leach, Chipman, Doten, Chamberlain, and Barnes, were among the first in the country to enter the service for three years; while the regiment was among the last of all the volunteer forces to disband: serving, including the term of these original companies, a period of four years, two months, and twenty days, which is rather more than the whole period of the active hostilities of the war. During this time it served under thirty-one general officers, of more or less distinction, in three army corps, namely, the Second, Fifth, and Ninth; did duty in the States of Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee, and in the District of Columbia: while it carried its flags into fifteen States of the Union, travelling, in the course of fourteen months, a distance of four thousand two hundred and seventy-seven miles. Two of the companies participated in the first pitched battle of the Rebellion; and the regiment was engaged in one of the last battles of the war, which took place just seven days before the surrender of General Lee and his army. The regiment was, therefore, practically, present at the birth—it was also present at the death and funeral—of the Rebellion. It took part in the four great sieges of the war, namely, Richmond, 1862; Vicksburg, 1863; Knoxville, 1863; and Petersburg, 1864-5; was engaged in twenty-nine pitched battles, beside a large number of skirmishes, picket fights, and artillery duels. It is chiefly in connection with the battle record of the Twenty-ninth, that its surviving members have the greatest cause for feelings of profound gratitude; the comparatively small losses sustained by it in all these numerous encounters with the enemy forming, perhaps, the most remarkable feature of its entire career as a regiment. And what seems most singular, is the fact that this good fortune attended the regiment, with two or three exceptions, from the beginning to the close of its term. The time of its arrival at Gaines’ Mill, though it did not operate to prevent it from performing valuable service,—a service that aided in rescuing from destruction Porter’s troops,—alone saved it from the slaughter that covered that sanguinary field with several thousand wounded and dead.

At Antietam it chanced to be placed in a favorable position, while two other regiments of the same brigade, on its right and left, were nearly annihilated; at Fredericksburg it secured exemption from dreadful loss by a timely transfer to another corps of the army, made in the ordinary course of military changes, without the efforts of its officers, or the knowledge on the part of any one as to what results would follow.

Even a cursory glance at the records of some of our Massachusetts regiments which lost heavily in the war, will show that their losses were mainly the fruits of unfortunate positions, and, in some instances, that the major part of all their losses were sustained in a single battle, as was the case of several at Ball’s Bluffs, Antietam, and Gettysburg. While we have shown that this exemption of the regiment from heavy battle casualties was in the main the result of accident, yet, from the nature of things, it cannot be wholly so.

The death-lists of many new regiments were often largely increased by the mere inexperience of the troops, and the insane idea sometimes possessed by their officers, that recklessness and wanton exposure were evidence of valor.

The Twenty-ninth was long in the field; its soldiers, for the last three years of their term, were in every sense veterans, having learned, by actual experience, the many little arts and devices always employed by old soldiers to protect themselves while in perilous positions,—a knowledge that the Confederate officers imparted to their soldiers early in the war, and resulted in the saving of life, and the winning of more than one important victory over our armies. The romantic notion which for awhile possessed the soldiers, that it was unmilitary and unsoldierly to make any effort to be comfortable, or to shield themselves from the death-dealing minie, or the howling cannon-ball, soon gave place to more sensible ideas; and long before the close of the war, a rock, a fence, a log, a tree, or even a stump or bush, were often used with great effect for defensive purposes, and saved more than one soldier his life; while his cover, slight as it was, enabled him to fire with greater precision and coolness.

Notwithstanding the remarkable escape of the regiment in many battles, yet its list of the dead, as the reader will perceive, is by no means insignificant; and though but a small part, it yet constitutes a precious part, of the terrible price of human life which the Republic paid for its final victory over treason and rebellion.

A regiment of soldiers is in some respects like a family, having its own quarrels and jealousies, which family pride usually keeps hidden from the knowledge of the world, and which family sufferings and common interests finally cause, in a large measure, to be buried and forgotten.

To his comrades, the author, in closing, would say, let us all, as members of the same regiment, forever forget the petty bickerings and jealousies of the war, if they are not already forgotten; forgive with a generous spirit all who wronged us,—even those who fought against us in the field,—and turn our eyes upon the pleasant spectacle of a Republic and a nation rescued from anarchy and ruin, in part by our own efforts; and, finally, let us hope, that the record of our deeds as volunteer soldiers, saved, it may be, from forgetfulness by this printed volume,—humble as the deeds which it chronicles,—may in the years to come serve, as has that of our fathers of the Revolution, to keep bright and warm the fires of patriotism, and nourish a love for the nation’s flag, and the principles it symbolizes, that neither suffering nor danger can quench.