28

An End to Fighting

 

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Guiney's Station, on the R. F. & P. Railroad, was just the first of a long list of strange place names which the Reserves would encounter during their last ten days. In a couple of days the Fifth Corps reached the North Anna River at a place known as Jericho Ford. There they waded across through chest-high water. Wherever the Northern Army sought to move it seemed that Lee had his soldiers there first. So it was at the North Anna. After a day or so south of the river, in the darkness of May 26, with roads heavy and slippery from recent rains, the Yankees crossed back again to the north bank for another try toward the left. Almost every day there was at least some fighting. A soldier of the Fifth Reserves observed on the 27th that it was the first day since May 5 that he had not heard the sound of cannon.[1]  Always edging east, the Federals finally got over the Pamun­key River, the stream formed by the joining of the North and South Anna. Phil Sheridan had his cavalry back from his not very successful Richmond raid, and he helped to clear the crossings.

Splashing out of the water, the blue-clad soldiers kept pushing south. Finally, in the twilight of May 30, the last day of their enlistment, the Reserves waited near a little church. Bethesda Church it was called. The entire Fifth Corps was in line of battle, awaiting an attack by Ewell's

 

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Southerners which they knew was bound to come. Two waves of gray soldiers had already been thrown back, their battle flags cut down by bullets. For a few moments the bat­teries had let up, and across the open ground in front of the Pennsylvania soldiers came another line of boys in butter­nut. Behind their hastily thrown up works the Bucktails watched the gallant charge. Not until they could see the hot, sweating faces of the determined Southerners did the First Rifles fire. Then their Spencers belched a sheet of flame in the growing darkness. The gray line faltered and folded up in front of them.

The Bucktails had fought their last battle. Tomorrow they would bury many of those boys whom they had shot down today. That night the Reserves stayed where they had fought. In the darkness all of the dead and wounded could not be cared for. These, Warren knew, the men would want to attend to before they left for home. So Crawford's soldiers tried to settle down for one last uneasy night on the battle­field.[2]

Scarcely six miles from this last battle line of the Penn­sylvania Reserves there was another line, now long aban­doned. Running along the bank of a little stream, one could see that it had been a stout line in its day when it had been occupied by some fresh, eager outfits, most of them under fire for the first time. One wonders if any of the Reserves that night along the Bethesda Church line were thinking about that other day and night two years before along the line of Beaver Dam Creek. Geographically those two lines, both dug out of the same Virginia dirt by the same Pennsylvania soldiers, were close. In all other ways they were widely sepa­rated.

May 31 had been somewhat arbitrarily selected as the date for the Reserves to leave. It was about the average date of

 

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expiration of the terms of service of the nine remaining regiments. In this way what was left of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps could leave Federal service in the same unique way it had entered-as a division. This was satisfac­tory to all the regiments which held high division pride and loyalty, except the Eighth. This outfit insisted upon leav­ing the middle of May when its term was up .[3]

In spite of the fact that the Pennsylvania soldiers had come near to mutiny just a few weeks before over the ques­tion of discharge, now that the time had arrived, many of them for one reason or another chose to stay in the Army. And 154 Bucktails were a part of this large group. Two new regiments, the One Hundred Ninetieth and the One Hun­dred Ninety-First, were formed from the men of the old Reserves. The Bucktails went into the One Hundred Nine­tieth.

The almost daily fighting since the Army had left the Wilderness had still further reduced the number in every little battle-weary outfit. While they were not all present for duty, the First Rifles had 471 on the rolls, including sixty-nine enlisted since 1861 whose terms had not yet ex­pired. Sixteen lay buried between Spotsylvania and Be­thesda Church. During this time sixty-six had been wounded, and four men were still missing.

Back in 1861, with considerable exaggeration, McClellan had used the word "brilliant" in describing the work of the then untried Reserves at Dranesville, their first encounter with the enemy. The little veteran division which it had long since become, at Bethesda Church, its last battle, came in for some commendation. Warren was not especially given to laudatory remarks. That night after the fighting he re­ported to General Meade how Crawford's men had beaten back a flank attack aimed at Griffin's Division. To their one-

 

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time chief, General Warren described the manner in which the Pennsylvania Reserves had performed that day as "hand­somely." This time they deserved the use of the adverb which found its way into few of G. K. Warren's reports [4]

The "brilliant" of the somewhat flamboyant McClellan and the "handsomely" of Warren, late army engineer, re­flect how the war had changed. In 1861 when a green brigade happened upon a little victory, thanks probably to well­placed guns, the nation was still expecting brilliance upon the battlefield. Three years later when the same soldiers turned in a better than average job for veterans, the realis­tic language of their corps chief described it as "hand­somely" done. By then no one wanted higher praise. Be­tween Dranesville and Bethesda Church the country had learned that brilliance is as rare in war as in peace. All that was hoped for by the summer of 1864 was the will to keep on fighting hard. That summer one "handsomely" was worth a score of "brilliant's" of the 1861 variety.

At dawn June 1 a long line of wagons started east along the road leading to White House. Many of the vehicles which jolted along the road south of the Pamunkey that morning were ambulances full of sick and wounded. The Army's base had been changed and no longer did the am­bulances make their daily trips toward Fredericksburg. With the train stretching out along the river were about six hundred tired-out Southern soldiers who had been captured as the two armies had side-stepped each other from Spotsyl­vania. Guarding the ragged Rebels were some of the Buck­tails and boys from the other Reserves regiments on the first leg of their journey home.

General Crawford had issued his farewell order. The day before the men who were leaving and those who were to stay on had said their goodbyes with the feeling which only

 

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three years of sharing adversity together can engender. Within three months nearly all the Reserves who were stay­ing behind to join the new One Hundred Ninetieth would be in Confederate prisons. Had the homeward-bound sol­diers known this, as they marched along the Pamunkey eat­ing the dust thrown up by what appeared to be a thousand wagons, leaving their comrades would have been sadder still.[5]

It was at White House that the Bucktails had landed when they entered the real war that other June day two years before. Now it would be from White House that they would leave it all behind. Down the crooked Pamunkey and the broader York the transport carried the soldiers out of Virginia where they had been so long.. By the evening of June 4 the men were back in Washington. The capital had long grown used to soldiers, and no one paid any particular attention to the column of bronzed veterans moving toward their quarters for the night. The next day in Baltimore it was different. As the twelve hundred Pennsylvania Reserves swung along over the cobblestones toward the Northern Central station, in the easy stride acquired by many miles of marching, the people cheered.[6]

Excitement filled the air in Harrisburg the morning of June 6, 1864. Excitement had pervaded the state capital just a year before when the gray army of Robert E. Lee had been so close. But now it was different. Gone was the fear of a year ago. This was to be a day of celebration. The Pennsylvania Reserves were coming home.

On Market Street, gayly decorated with flags and bunting, crowds jammed the sidewalks and spilled over into the street from the Susquehanna to the railroad station. Small boys, eager and active, old men, feeble and crotchety, maidens, comely and curious, matrons, anxious and solicitous-all

 

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had turned out to get a look at Pennsylvania's returning veterans. Over on Mulberry Street near the Northern Cen­tral tracks the throngs were even larger. About ten o'clock the bell in the tower of the red brick court house heralded the approach of the train, slowly puffing across the Susque­hanna bridge. The crowd moved with the cars, surging along toward the depot until it seemed that someone must surely be stomped under foot or crushed by the coaches. Before the train finally wheezed into the station every church bell in the capital city had joined the clanging atop the court house.

As the soldiers climbed out of the cars the people cheered themselves hoarse and factory whistles added to the tumult. Here and there in the multitude a soldier would find a friend, or perhaps a relative, he had not seen for a long time. As for the boys from the Wildcat District, they were still a long way from home. For them real reunions were yet sev­eral days away. In the meantime they would enjoy the re­ception activities with their downstate comrades in the city to which they had first come in that first springtime of the war.

Shortly before noon there started to boom out from Cap­itol Hill a salute of one hundred guns. Down Market Street marched the twelve hundred Pennsylvania Reserves, proud remnant of a proud division, this day marching past many Pennsylvanians who had come to share their pride. It would be quite a procession, with three bands and all Harrisburg and Pennsylvania officialdom taking part. At Front Street the parade wheeled right. At some place near the newly­purchased executive mansion it was the soldiers' turn to cheer. There, flanked by lesser luminaries of the Keystone State who were waiting to take their places in the proces­sion, was Governor Andy Curtin. The "soldiers' friend"

 

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was waiting to welcome back his own. As the soldiers rec­ognized the governor the air rang with the shouts of twelve hundred grateful veterans. While it went unreported, one may assume that in the midst of all the shouting, which an appreciative soldiery gave out with, there were not a few "wildcat yells." Curtin bowed a welcome to his men.[7]

According to one regimental historian, as the Pennsyl­vania soldiers marched from Front Street to the capitol, the cheering crowd tossed flowers "until the boys were literally covered with the richest floral offerings of June." Appropri­ately, the mayor made a flowery speech of welcome to the Reserves massed in front of the capitol portico. Governor Curtin was then introduced. This set the soldiers to cheer­ing lustily all over again. The governor's short address was somewhat of a hail and farewell, a welcome and at the same time a benediction to his favorite division. He made no pretense of modesty at the part he had played in the organ­ization of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps. He was proud of what he had done and he said so.

The ceremonies were concluded with a few speeches by some of the Reserve officers, including Colonel McCandless, not yet over his Spotsylvania wound. The battle-worn regi­mental flags were deposited at the capitol. Then for the last time the Bucktails marched to Camp Curtin.

Many thousand soldiers had passed through the old camp since the Reserves had left there. Volunteers, bounty men, substitutes, emergency men of the previous summer, other veterans on their way home-all had spent at least a day or so at Camp Curtin. The officers in charge informed the Re­serves that during their short stay, awaiting discharge, they would be subject to all camp regulations, including detail. The reaction of the veteran Bucktails to this bit of intelli­gence was exactly what one would expect from such an out-

 

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fit. Major Hartshorne had gone into the One Hundred Ninetieth, and Captain Hugh McDonald was the acting Bucktail skipper. McDonald was an ex-lumberman who had led Company G since its first Camp Curtin days. He promptly told the camp brass that his veterans were not do­ing any duty. They had been fighting a long time and were not going to perform any camp chores on their way home. McDonald was then informed that in view of his attitude it would be necessary to withhold rations from his men. Whereupon, the hard-bitten captain from the Wildcat Dis­trict remarked that his men had been without rations be­fore and had not starved; they still had their Spencers, and if the Bucktails had to scrounge for food, it would not be for the first time. McDonald "guessed they'd get along all right." Perhaps the Bucktail reputation had preceded the regiment. As it turned out, while the First Rifles were at Camp Curtin they did no duty, and what is more they drew rations regularly.[8]

One day General McCall came up from his West Chester home for one last look at the men whom he had led first to battle. The proud old soldier choked with emotion as he gave a little speech. This small band of veteran soldiers, with the smaller group who were still fighting, was all that was left of that fine, new division which McCall had watched fight so hard across that Virginia peninsula. These were the men who had been accused of panic. These were the men he had so stoutly defended. Frayser's Farm had been a sad day for George A. McCall. For him, and for the men, this re­union was also sad.

Came the day when the Bucktails, who had never been mustered into Federal service, were mustered out. Bidding their downstate comrades a soldier's farewell, little contin­gents of young men, grown much older in a few years,

 

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started back toward the Wildcat District of Pennsylvania.[9]

During the last three years the soldiers had crossed and re-crossed many rivers. Rivers played such an important part in the grim game of war. Traveling up the Susque­hanna, it seemed good to have left the Rappahannock and the Rapidan and all those other rivers far behind. Ahead of them, the men remembered, were such peaceful, familiar streams as the Conewango and the Cowanesque, the Tio­nesta and the Tioga.

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