Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
the center of the Colored Troops Division’s line, brought his skirmishers forward
to make a continuous front. The entire movement occurred “without, so far as I can
learn, any orders,” Scofield reported, “and as the enemy rallied, offering a more
stubborn resistance, our skirmishers were strengthened. . . . The order was then
given to intrench and hold the ground gained. . . . Just at this time another portion
of the line advancing, permission was obtained to move forward and assault the
enemy’s works.” 70
For seven days, Union besiegers had trouble keeping each regiment’s
trenches in line with those of its neighbors so as not to expose the flanks to
enemy fire. If the lines were not adjusted, one regiment might find itself as
much as one hundred seventy yards closer to the Confederate trenches than its
neighbor. In the circumstances, the apparently spontaneous advance late on the
afternoon of 9 April may well have owed as much to officers’ desire to keep
their lines straight as to the attackers’ enthusiasm. “The skirmishers advanced
about 4 p.m., and it seems moved up . . . on account of an advance being made
by troops farther on the left,” the commander of the 50th USCI, in Scofield’s
brigade, reported:
The line advanced . . . , firing their pieces and cheering loudly. . . . I concluded
to follow the example of other regiments, as I had no orders, and at any rate I
could . . . advance to the support of my own skirmishers and hold the ground
they had so gallantly won. The companies were moved out . . . and marched up
to the first line of rebel rifle-pits from which our skirmishers had already driven
the enemy, and as the line was considerably broken by the heavy firing of the
enemy’s artillery and the fallen timber, it was halted and reformed. . . . I then
sent an officer to the rear to procure 100 spades and picks for the purpose of
intrenching. Before they arrived an officer came up and said that . . . we were to
advance no farther at present, but hold the ground we then had. About the time
the tools arrived, . . . the white troops on the left of the colored division opened
fire and commenced cheering, . . . and when they advanced . . . we ceased digging
and soon moved forward. 71
On the right of the Union line, Colonel Drew late in the afternoon ordered his
forward regiments, the 68th and 76th USCIs, to advance and clear the enemy’s
front line. “Before the work was fairly commenced,” he wrote, “I heard cheering
on my left and saw the skirmishers of [Pile’s brigade] advancing. I immediately
gave the command forward, and forward the entire command . . . swept with a
yell.” Officers of the 68th USCI understood that the regiment was to “advance
and drive the Johnnies from their rifle pits,” Colonel Densmore wrote; but when
the men saw the skirmishers advance, “all went forward with a cheer. . . . Our
boys had not gone more than [twenty-five yards] before the gray backs were on
a full skedaddle from their rifle pits.” While the skirmishers moved ahead, the
rest of the regiment occupied the line of outposts that the Confederates had just
70 OR, ser. 1, vol. 49, pt. 1, pp. 289, 291 (“without, so”); Scofield to Andrews, 1 Apr 1866
(“Spanish Fort”).
71 OR, ser. 1, vol. 49, pt. 1, pp. 286, 293–94 (quotation); Merriam Diary, 5 Apr 1865.