The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

84 THE MAINE BUGLE.
January 4th, 1894.
A week ago yesterday I went to Melrose and spent three or four hours with Comrade
Brown. We talked over the whole matter and he told me he had learned many
things about the charge he never knew before. I find he corroborates the story that
Col. Chaplin offered his sword to Gen. Mott or Gen. Birney after the battle saying
he should not need it any more, " There is my regiment lying in that field." But it
has been disputed by Capt. H. H. Shaw of Portland, who was on Gen. Mott's staff.
I will send with this, a book, " Frank Wilkenson's Recollections of a Private Soldier,"
an account of its graphic description of the march of the heavy artillery into Spott-
sylvania. It begins on page eighty-two and covers five pages. That description is
the best I have ever seen. The march was made by the Seventh and Eighth New
York Heavy Artillery, First Maine and First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery on May
17th, 1864. We marched from Belle Plains Landing to Falmouth, opposite Freder-
icksburg, crossed the Rappahannock river to and through Fredericksburg, and con-
tinued directly on to Spottsylvania, arriving there and going into bivouac about eleven
o'clock that night. We were held in reserve in the rear lines the next day. The
army moved to the left the nineteenth, and this brigade, or as it was called, Tyler's
Division of Heavy Artillery, remained expecting a wagon of ammunition and commissary
supplies from Fredericksburg. About four o'clock in the afternoon as we
were lying in the woods, our arms stacked near by, we suddenly heard not far away,
probably not over one hundred rods, the crack, crack, crack of the advancing skir-
mish line of rebel forces who had advanced to the wagons. We jumped into line,
took arms and were ordered forward, "right oblique, double quick, march," and in
this order the whole line advanced. We did not stop but passed the wagon train
just in our front, the rebel skirmishers falling back to the woods beyond the road.
We continued to advance till about seventy-five rods beyond the wood, through a field ;
we came up to their line of battle. Thus began our first battle. We fought over
two hours, many of us exposing ourselves unnecessarily; over half of the killed I
believe were shot through the head. We were relieved after expending all our ammu-
nition by one of the divisions of the Second Corps. We came off the field dripping
with sweat and after getting our supper were marched ali jut one and a half miles
away and went on picket in a low swampy place where we suffered severely with the
cold as we had lost our blankets; we had thrown them into a pile just before going
into the woods and placed a guard over tlum. We never saw them again. I have
always remembered the suff"erings of that night as it was very cold. I am satisfied by
what Comrade Brown says, that Col. Chaplin went in with his regiment and came out
on the left near the O. P. Hare house, offered his sword to Gen. Mott, then called
for his horse, and rode down and met me as before stated. Comrade Brown desires
the following corrections made: On page six, ninth line from boitoT strike out the
words, "And put us through the manuel of arms;" on page seven, fifth line from
bottom, change "Gen. Birney" to Gen. Mutt; on page eight, fourth line from top,
change "seventy-five men" to forty-nine. In your list of losses I fmd my name left
out. T was woui\ded April 6th, 1865, at Sailor's Creek—Co. B, Capt. Fred C. Low
and in Co. I, Lt. Albert White was wounded at the same time and place. I have the
photographs of all the officers of the regiment—one hundred and nmeteen—except
one, Lt. Whitmore, Third Maine Battery, which belonged to the regiment ten months
and twenty-five days.
Yours truly,
F. C. Low.