The following was on a yahoo group some time awhile bak and I had forgotten i had saved it.. Glad I did because it will remind me of what I have in store for me on my 15 mile march i doing for the carter house..
It is posted as It was posted there.
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Forced Marches
I am reading "A Volunteer's Adventures" by John William DeForest for about the eleventh time, and thought I'd share this passage with everyone.
This is his description of the running battles taking place in the Teche country just west of New Orleans in the Spring of 1863.
It is kind of long, and starts slow, but I think in light of our recent discussion of the distances covered my Civil War regiments, it might be of interest.
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"...During the night, also, the colonel in charge of the pickets, a greenhorn of some nine-months' regiment, distinguished himself by an exhibition of the minimum of native military genius. Early in the morning he reported to Weitzel that the enemy had vacated their position.
"How do you know?" demanded the startled general.
"I heard their artillery going off about two o'clock."
"Good God, sir! why didn't you inform me of it immediately?"
"Why, General, I thought you wanted them to clear out; and I didn't like to disturb you after such a hard days work.
Thus collapsed the plan by which we were to stick like a burr to the enemy and pitch into his rear whenever he should attempt to force his way through Grover. Sling blankets and shoulder arms was the order now, and we set off on our long chase to Alexandria. Mouton had gained five or six hours the start of us, and Texans on horseback can travel faster than Yankees on foot, so that, although we marched furiously that hot day, making twenty-four miles before nightfall, Grover had finished his battle long before we reached him. Unacquainted with the country and ordered to the wrong place, he had gone to the wrong place. He had posted himself on one of the two parallel roads, instead of where the two met in one, affording him a chance to fight decisively. The consequence was a sidelong battle, both sides suffering, but the enemy escaping.
Forward at full speed the next day and the day after, scurrying and popping of cavalry in the front, as our van skirmished with their rear. At times a great distant dust, showing how close we were upon the Rebel flight. It is a solemn and menacing phenomenon, the dust of a marching enemy, but more particularly so, of course, when it is advancing upon you. The smoke of burning cotton streaked the day, and the flare of it luridly starred the night; for even in his haste Mouton was determined that no fraction of the financial king should fall to the Yankees. Stragglers in grey and butternut dropped back among us with pacific waving of caps and handkerchiefs; for although we couldn't catch the Texan horsemen, we were marching the Louisiana infantry to tatters. It seemed like meeting old friends to come across fellows*of the Cresent regiment whom we had encountered six months before*at Labadieville, or Georgia Landing. Shouts of recognition took place, gayer on our side that theirs. They told us that their officers were driving the men on with drawn sabres, or the whole force would have gone to pieces under the exhaustion of the retreat. Mightily encouraged by these statements, we blistered our souls with renewed energy.
Oh, the horrors of marching of blistered feet! It is an incessant bastinado applied by one's own self, from morning to night. I do not mean a single blister, as big as a pea, but a series of blisters, each as large as a dollar, or, to judge by one's sensations, as large as a cartwheel. I have had them one under the other, on the heel, behind the heel, on the ball of the foot, on every toe, a network, a labyrinth, an archipelago of agony. Heat, hunger, thirst, and fatigue are nothing compared with this torment. When you stand, you seem to be on red-hot iron plates; when you walk, you make grimaces at every step. In the morning the whole regiment starts limping, and by noon the best soldiers become nearly mutinous with suffering. They snarl and swear at each other; they curse the general for ordering such marching; the curse the enemy for running away instead of fighting; they fling themselves down in the dust, refusing to move a step further. Fevered with fatigue and pain, they are actually not themselves. Meantime, the company officers, as sore-footed as anyone, must run about from straggler to straggler, coaxing, arguing, ordering, and perhaps using the flat of the sabre. Instead of marching in front of my company, I followed immediately in the rear, so that I could see and at once pounce upon everyone who fell out.
It was curious to note how cheerful everyone became if cannon in front told of the proximity of the enemy. We were ready to fight the bloodiest of combats rather than march a mile further. We filed into line of battle delighted, and then resumed our pursuit heartsick.
It will be asked, perhaps, whether I, an officer and claiming, of course, to be a patriot, preserved my staunchness under there trials. I must confess, and I do it without great shame, conscious of being no more than human, that in my inmost soul I was as insubordinate as the worst men were in speech and behavior. In my unspeakable heart I groaned and raved. I wished the bridges would break down- I wished the regiment would refuse to take another step- it seemed to me that I should have been silent in the face of mutiny. But nothing of all this passed my lips, and none could suspect it from my actions.
When we bivouacked at night came the severest trial. Our regiment was on the left of the brigade, and as we always slept*in line of battle, this threw us half a mile from the bayou, along which we marched, and which was our only source of water. It was necessary to order a squad of the blistered and bloody-footed men to bring water for the company's coffee. The first sergeant takes out his book and reads off the fatigue detail: "Corporal Smith, Privates Brown, Jones, Robinson, and Brown second, fall in with canteens to get water."
Now ensues a piteous groaning, pleading, and showing of bloody heels or blistered soles, on the parts of the most fagged or least manly of the victims of rotation in labor. The first sergeant feels that he has no discretion in the matter, and he knows, moreover, that the other men are fully as incapable of marching as these. He stands firm on his detail, and the opposition grumblingly yields. Slowly and sadly Messrs. Brown, Jones, Robinson, and Brown second take up canteens of the company, each backing six or eight, and limp away to the river, returning an hour later, wet, muddy, dragged out, and savage..."
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"If it had not been for the counter irritant of blistered feet, we should have heard a mutinous deal of grumbling on account of thirst. A man strapped up as a soldier is, and weighted with forty rounds of ammunition, knapsack, three days' rations, canteen containing three pints, and rifle, perspires profusely. I have seen the sweat standing on the wooly fibres of their flannel sacks like dew. To supply this waste of moisture they pour down the warm water of their canteens, and are soon begging for leave to fall our of the ranks in search of incredibly situated springs and rivulets. It will not do to accede to the request, for if one man goes, all have a right to go, and moreover, the absence would probably terminate in a course of foraging or pillaging. Mindful of his duty and the orders of his superiors, the captain grimly responds, "Keep your place, sir," and trudges sufferingly on cursing inwardly the heat, dust, the pace, and perhaps the orders. He knows that if his fellows are caught a mile to the rear wringing the necks of chickens, he may be sent after them; and in view of his blisters and the fifteen miles already marched and the indefinite*miles yet to go, he has no fancy for such an expedition..."
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And, this is a few days later...
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"The next day, bivouacked on rolling turf by the side of a lovely stream, we bathed and rested. Before dawn on the third morning, having as yet had less than less than ten hours' sleep since leaving Opelousas, I commenced the hardest day's work of my life. Starting lame, and improving from hour to hour, like foundered horses, we accomplished twenty-four miles by three in the afternoon. As usual, we had halted ten minutes in every hour, closing up, coming to a front, dressing the line, stacking arms, and dropping down by the side of the road to rest. The men had kept well together; such few as had fallen out had come up during the long pause which took place at three; and we were, so far, proud of our march and rather pleased at having done so much. But, this sentiment was based upon the expectation that we would presently go into bivouac. When, therefore, General Banks joined the column, and some one heard him say that we must reach Alexandria that night, and the horrible tale passed down along the line of stacks, our hearts were suddenly full of dispair and growling.
For the next ten miles it was a fight against nature. Every effort was made to cheer the men onward and beguile them from a sense of their miseries. The staggering drummers were forced beat the march for the staggering regiments. Some of the field officers dismounted and walked at the head of their commands. At one halt, Lieutenant Colonel Van Petten ran foot races in his big boots with a private, to make the soldiers laugh at the unusual buffoonery. Staff officers rode up and down the line, giving orders to yell and setting the example of uproar. The company officers carried the rifles of the tottering men, and hastened from straggler to straggler, cheering, ordering, threatening, but, I think, never striking; for no one could find it in his heart to maltreat poor fellows who were almost at the last gasp with pain and fatigue. We reeled, crawled, and almost rolled toward Alexandria. As night fell, the pace increased, and the whooping became continuous, and we seemed like a column of maniacs. But, in the last two miles, in the pitchy darkness between eight and nine of the evening, a silence of dispair descended upon us, and the regiment melted like frost in sunshine. I could not see who fell out of my company, and I did not care. My whole official sentiment of honor was concentrated, under the flame of intense physical suffering, into one little idea of getting myself to Alexandria with the colors, no matter who else dropped by the way. The few men remaining in the organization reeled on speechlessly. If they passed a dying artillery horse, they no longer shouted, with savage defiance, "Fresh Horses! bring on your horses!" They had stopped muttering curses against Banks and the Confederats- those two enemies. They were at the point, morally, of unspeakable desperation and, physically of mere movement in one direction, without a thought or a sentiment beyond what was necessary to put one foot before the other, and to lean toward Alexandria.
If the enemy had been there we could not have fought him nor run away from him. But, fortunately, there was no enemy within twenty miles of us, as there had been none from the hour we started. God alone knows why we marched thus; our commander has probably forgotten. We had nothing more to boast of than that we accomplished thirty-four miles in one day, and eighty-seven miles in the whole burst of seventy-six hours, to which Company D of the Twelfth Connecticut had added five miles by a nocturnal foraging expedition. About one third of the regiment stacked arms in the little wood where we bivouacked, and nearly all the remainder straggled in before morning. That night I was too tired to eat, and went contentedly to sleep without supper...
Longer and more rapid forced marches than this of ours have been made, but I am glad that I was not called upon to assist at the performance. We should not have suffered so much as we did, had it not been for the heat, which not only wore out our muscular forces, but greatly increased the blistering of our feet.
Perhaps it is worth while to mention that, after two or three days of repose, we were excessively proud of our thirty-four miles in a day, and were ready to march with any other brigade in the army for a wager."
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Just thought that was a pretty vivid description of the trials of making a forced march during the Civil War. I can't even imagine!
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Regards,
Steven
__________________ Steven Noel Cone Living Historian and Battlefield Preservationest "Silver Spring Mess" ; "Citizens of the Bonnie Blue" ; "46th Tn Inf. Co. K" SCV Camp 723 General Robert H. Hatton |
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