19

Mud, Mosby, and the Lights of Washington

 

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The lines of soldiers crossing back over the Rappahan­nock on the night of December 15 were not so long as they had been crossing in the other direction a few days before. When it came time for what was left of the Pennsylvania Reserves to move back over, the Bucktails and the Second Regiment were among the first outfits to cross. They were then pulled out of line and directed to guard the bridges.As regiment after regiment filed slowly over the bobbing bridges, the Bucktails dug rifle pits and prepared to spend another bleak night on the bank of the river in a drizzling rain. Shortly after the last soldier had marched across the bridges, the enemy pickets started shooting across the river. The First Rifles returned the fire, and for a time the two sides mixed it up in the dark drizzle. Along that part of the bank guarded by the Second, things were quieter, except for the shouts of the soldiers on both sides doing a bit of long distance fraternizing. The men of the Second and their opposite numbers across the stream had heckled each other for some time, when a Rebel across from the Bucktails shouted the suggestion that they, too, stop the useless firing and all get some rest. So as far as the two little Reserves regiments and their gray-clad adversaries were concerned, for the re­mainder of that night there was a truce along the Rappahannock.[1]

 

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The Pennsylvania soldiers had not even begun to recover from the drubbing they had taken. After the battle the Re­serves had finally been re-formed behind the Old Richmond Road. That night the battle-weary Bucktails slept on the same hard ground near the Rappahannock where they had bivouacked before the fighting. The next day there had been the sober work of burying the dead and bringing in the wounded who had to be left where they had fallen on that savage Saturday. White flags of truce gave protection to the men of both armies. The Confederates also had their doleful duty to perform.[2]

The Bucktails led the First Brigade casualty-wise at Fred­ericksburg. Captain McDonald believed that they started that day with 310 men. According to his estimate, when the First Rifles finally got back down the hill and back across the Old Richmond Road, their number had been reduced to one hundred. Quite a few must have straggled back later for these are the sad statistics which went into the records: killed, 19; wounded, 113; captured , or missing, 29.[3]

As the Reserves trudged along to a new camp site near Belle Plain on the Potomac a few miles from Falmouth, they could take some consolation in all their bitterness from the fact that their commander was proud of them in defeat. "My men behaved beautifully." That is how Meade summed it up in a letter to his wife. He added that all agreed that Fred­ericksburg was the "warmest work" the division had ever en­countered. Like the brigade commanders, the division chief thought it might have been different had his men been able to hold out until reinforcements could get up. If one account may be believed Meade was so mad at Birney for not sending support that the language of the Reserves' commander was enough to "almost make the stones creep." The exacting Reynolds did not share his friend Meade's enthusiasm over

 

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the performance of the Reserves. However, even Reynolds came through with somewhat qualified praise of the behavior of the Pennsylvania soldiers on that wooded Virginia hillside. Charles Frederick Taylor, young scholar from near Philadelphia, whom a bunch of backwoods lumbermen had chosen for their skipper, could be proud indeed. The corps commander in his report of the battle included Taylor's name in a verb select list of officers whose coolness and  judgment Reynolds had personally observed that day at Fred­ericksburg.[4]

The second year of the war was drawing to a close. As an­other Christmas away from their Pennsylvania homes ap­proached, the battle-battered Bucktails and all the other remnants of the Reserve Corps sorely needed the bracing which only rest and replacements could give. Meade, about to be promoted to corps command, would soon leave the di­vision which had helped him earn his advancement. The future commander of the Army of the Potomac would break out champagne, and his fellow officers would toast his suc­cess. Meanwhile, the Reserves would shiver in their huts and tents along the Potomac. But Meade's understandable happiness at promotion would be tinged with sincere regret over leaving the old division with which he had shared so much adversity. Before George Gordon Meade left to as­sume command of the Fifth Corps he would make another appeal to those who were running the war to do something about strengthening the Pennsylvania Reserves. Again Gov­ernor Curtin would do his best to bring this about. Again it would be to no avail.[5]

On the day after Christmas the Bucktails cooked three days' rations. That was the order. It looked like something

was going to happen before the end of the old year. But nothing did. Burnside, aggressive if nothing else had a new

 

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movement in mind. Before he could get it started, the machinations of intriguing subordinates made a trip to Washing. ton necessary. The commander had received preemptory orders from the nation's capital not to start anything new until the plan had been cleared by Washington. Burnside wanted to move the Army up the Rappahannock and cross it at one of the fords above Fredericksburg. In this manner he hoped to outflank Lee and force the evacuation of Fredericksburg

Burnside finally got approval of his plan, but the various topside echelons were much divided in opinion. Lincoln

favored an advance, but with no help from the fence-sitting  Halleck, did not know what to do. Burnside wanted to go up the left bank of the river and make a pontoon crossing. His immediate subordinates wanted no part of the plan. Five, sunny, early January days with dry hard roads passed by before the final futile effort of the hapless Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac got under way.[6]

The bright sunshine of the morning of January 20, 1863 gave way to clouds by afternoon. That evening, as the Northern Army went into bivouac after the first day of the new move up the Rappahannock, a little sprinkle started. It Continued all night long, and the next day it stepped up to a stead downpour. If the ill-fated commander of the Federal Army thought that his subordinate officers were not so co­operative as they could be in the up-river expedition, he certainly found out before the evening of the 21st that the elements were not. The Army of the Potomac was bogged down in a vast sea of mud.

Many soldiers wrote home about the "Mud March." It seemed to be a favorite topic. A boy from the Wilderness District added his description of the mess to all the other ac­counts which the boys in mud-caked blue were sending

 

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north for home consumption. Reminiscent of Camp Pier­pont days he wrote: "Nothing but mud, mud, mud ! Wagons buried in the mud, mules and horses wearied out lying dead and half dead, by the side of the road, teamsters in bad na­ture, swearing and tugging to get out of a mud-hole into a mud-hole . . . ."[7]

Finally, even Burnside had to admit it was all a dismal failure. The bedraggled Bucktails and all the other little mud-clogged outfits which made up the large Union force slogged back to their camps.

Back in the old camp near Belle Plain, two things happened to the Pennsylvania Reserves to ease their bitterness over the recent battle and their disgust over the "Mud March." They received four months' back pay, and on Janu­ary 27 a well-founded story started to make the rounds that all the old Reserves regiments were to go back to Washing­ton. To the tired-out sods who had marched so long and fought so hard, it began to look at long last as though those who were in charge of operating the great machine of war realized that certain little cogs had stood the strain about as long as they could without wearing out completely. Guarded optimism pervaded the camp of the Reserves.[8]

With a new division chief, Colonel Horatio G. Sickel, and under a new brigade commander, Colonel William Mc­Candless, the First Brigade boarded an old scow at Belle Plain the evening of February 6. A piece of ice stove a hole in the rickety old craft as it was being towed from shore by a steamboat. As fast as sailors, the soldiers clambered from scow to steamer just before the old tub sank to the bottom of  the river. The transport steamed into Alexandria the next morning . The Bucktails had been  among the unlucky ones who had had to shiver on deck t throughout the long, cold night. But that did not seem too bad now. To the soldiers fi1-

 

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ing off the boat across the Potomac opposite Washington, suddenly the war seemed far away .[9]

The departed Reserves would be missed by some soldiers at least in the Union Army now in winter quarters between the Potomac and Rappahannock. That as fighters they had won the high regard of other outfits is shown by what a pri­vate in the One Hundred Thirty-Sixth Pennsylvania had to say: "At last the Veteran Reserves have gone to Washington, and the "New Bucktails" have come down to take their place. How well they will fill it, to the extent of their num­bers, remains to be seen.[10]

 Much of Fairfax County, Virginia had become familiar to the Bucktails during the earlier months of their service. They had spent the previous winter at muddy Camp Pier­pont. They had fought their first fight at Dranesville in the northwestern corner of the county. After marching and counter-marching over quite an area of the country, it was from Alexandria that they had set forth for the real war not quite a year before. The three brigades of the Reserves di­vision were separated at Alexandria. The First Brigade was sent near Fairfax Station.

The Washington defense troops in the Fairfax area  were commanded by Brigadier General Edwin H. Stoughton. He was a young peasure-loving professional officer., whose army career, it would turn out, would soon be over. Things would have been rather quiet and dull along the Fairfax sector at the time the Bucktails arrived, except for one fact. The

famed Confederate guerrilla leader, John Singleton Mosby for some reason was just then concentrating his activities in the Fairfax area.  So the Bucktails found themselves drawing numerous patrol assignments out into the desolate war­ravaged countryside. Then there seemed to be more than necessary Picket duty to a done. In fact, the First Brigade

 

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gof itself worked up into a near-mutiny because a number of the men had to stand out on the lonely picket line for seven nights without a break. There was more snow than usual for the area that winter. When it was not snowing it seemed that it was raining. No doubt at times some of the men con­c udedthat they were no better off than if they had remained with the rest of the Army in snug winter quarters near Belle Plain.[11]

The Bucktails had been at Fairfax about a month when Partisan Mosby threw the Union camp into consternation. At two o'clock one March morning when General Stoughton was just beginning to sleep off the effects of a gay party, Mosby and his band splashed from out of the rainy darkness past the guards, and right into the bedroom of the surprised general. In addition to one brigadier general, the Confederates captured about thirty soldiers and fifty-eight horses. While the daring Ranger raid resulted in no considerable loss to the Union cause, it did pique the military pride and that of Washington officialdom. To have a general officer unceremoniously yanked out of his bed and made a Rebel prisoner was indeed cause for chagrin. Renewed efforts must be made to catch the enemy guerrilla who could thus cause so much embarrassment. [12]

A day or so after the Mosby incident the rumor spread around the Reserves' camp that the Bucktails were being sent back to Harrisburg. This was more than the other regi­ments could stand. When fort of the First Rifles were loaded into four wagons and driven off, derisive jeers from the other Reserves outfits constituted their -nly farewell. Such favoritism even the Wildcat Regiment did not deserve. As a matter of fact, the forty Bucktails, four from each com­pany, were not Harrisburg-bound. Someone a conceived a stratagem or catching the Gray Ghost. The four covered

 

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forage wagons soon picked up an all-too-light escort of First Rhode Island Cavalry. The little column was to appear to be a foraging party with a small cavalry escort. The four lightly-guarded wagons full of crack  marksmen from the mountains of Pennsylvania was the bait which was to be dangled in front of Ranger Mosby. Would he bite? Yes, he would. But he would see the trick before swallowin it.

On the second day out the cavalry, somewhat in advance of the caravan, ran into a Mosby party. The troopers imme­diately turned, hoping that the artisans would follow them back to the wagons. The Mosby men started to do exactly

that. However, as they got nearer, the Rebels, knowing full well that foraging was usually done with open wagons, be­

came suspicious and slowed their gait. The hidden Buck­tails, hearing the cavalry dashing back concluded that the time was ripe. Back went the curtains of each wagon and forty Sharps rifles blazed away. The Mosby party had become cautious in time. At the sound of the Bucktail volley, they wheeled their mounts  and galloped to safety.

The forty riflemen could only point to what ducks and chickens they could pilfer for their own consumption as an

accomplishment of the expedition. While the purpose was to get Mosby , the excursion had had to appear to be foraging.

This appearance was brought about in the best possible manner-by foraging. It is safe to assume that no Bucktail returned to camp entirely empty-handed.[13]

Mosby did not bother the Fairfax camp again. As the snow of. the winter gave way to spring rains, the old camp restive­ness appeared. Since they had left Camp Pierpont a year be­fore, the Bucktails had had little opportunity to indulge in any worldly pleasures. Needless to say, those who were so in­clined took advantage of the proximity of the Federal capital with all its attractions. A day or so in crowded Washington

 

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was a welcome change after all the long months of campaign­ing. The men were getting paid regularly, and an evening in one of the city's cheaper gambling houses was much more fun than a poker game in a leaky tent with a smoking chim­ney. When a pass could be obtained, a few hours at a Wash­ington bar was much better than sneaking a few hookers of "tanglefoot" smuggled into quarters from some rule-break­ing sutler.

War-time Washington had many allurements for the soldier on leave regardless of his tastes and desires. These varied from the Washington monument and the capitol, both unfinished, to Mr. Sinn's Variety Theatre, which fea­tured cheap prices, dirty jokes, and girls in scant costumes. The capital city always seemed to be full of soldiers. That being the case, it was always full of harlots.[14]

Among the better-known purveyors of feminine favors were the Light sisters, Kate, Anna, and Matilda. Their mother acted as "Madam." The Lights were a particularly quarrelsome outfit, and apparently ran afoul of the law even more frequently than others engaged in their ancient occupation. Chased by the police from place to place, by the time a group of ever-to-be-unnamed Bucktail's found out about them, the Light girls were ensconced just outside the D. C. boundary in a little shack near the Cliffbourne Hospital. It so happened that the night the Wildcats chose to visit Mrs.Light and her daughters was the same night picked by some boys of the Second District Regiment. As always, in incidents of this kind, the details are obscure and hazy. However, the boys from the Pennsylvania backwoods and the D. C. sol­diers got themselves into a rumpus over something that had to do with the sharing of the charms of three of Washington's most publicized prostitutes. The police came. The Lights

 

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had to move again. The two groups of soldiers went their separate ways.[15]

While the Reserves had an occasional opportunity for some fun that spring at Fairfax, their work on the whole was probably no easier than had they remained with the Army of the Potomac. They did however, miss the Battle of Chan­ce orsville. Hooker had replaced Burnside as top com.mander about the time the Reserves had left for Washing­ton. "Fighting Joe" had done a fine job in raising the morale of the discouraged soldiers. By the end of April, he had the Potomac Army in good fighting trim and spirit. His plan was to cross the Rappahannock at the fords above Fredericks­burg and outflank the Southern Army. His execution of this plan was started excellently. Then Hooker halted. Lee im­mediately grabbed the offensive. Jackson performed one of the most brilliant maneuvers of his career. Hooker was him- self outflanked .The Northern soldiers waded back across the Rappahannock in the rain after another defeat.

After First Bull Run the Bucktails had been disappointed because they had missed it. They never missed a battle in the east after that until Chancellorsville. Even their regimental historians, who understandably never overlooked an oppor­tunity to brag about them, wrote nothing to indicate that the regiment felt any pangs of disappointment over not be­ing at Chancellorsville. It was hardly to be expected that they would, in view of all they had learned about war be­tween the two missed battles.

By June the Bucktails were rested, refitted, and reorganized, but their numbers were increased only as some of the wounded or captured returned. Governor Curtin now had the necessary legislative authority to issue commissions. Taylor at last received the rank to which his command en­titled him. Edward A. Irvin, Company K, was made a lieu-

 

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tenant colonel for a short time before his Fredericksburg wounds forced him to resign. Then Alanson E. Niles, Com­pany E, who had been major, was raised to Irvin's rank and became second in command of the regiment. On June 3 General Samuel Wylie Crawford took over the command of the First and Third Brigades of the Reserves Corps. Colonel Sickel and the Second Brigade were detached for guard duty at Alexandria.

With the success of Southern arms running at floodtide, after Chancellorsville,Robert E. Lee planned another invasion of the North. In the Northern Army whose job it would be to oppose Lee, there were two former commanders of the Pennsylvania Reserves. Both of these former Re­serves officers were now corps commanders. Both Meade (Fifth Corps) and Reynolds (First Corps) wanted the Reserves. Meade would get them but not as a corps commander.[16]

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