Part 6

June 1st. We marched back into the woods and were there in support of a battery. It was very trying for us. The Rebs had a perfect range on us and several times a day they would throw those immense twelve-inch shells right into our midst. We could hear them coming for several seconds and we all stood close to the trees for protection. There must have been a large number killed that day. The next day there was a cessation of hostilities to bury the dead. At about seven o'clock the enemy made a terrible onslaught on our right but they were repulsed with heavy loss. We fell into our places expecting to be called into action but we were spared for once. We remained there until the 7th when Lieutenant-Colonel Weld came up from New Orleans and assumed command.

June 7th. We were ordered to the front to relieve the One Hundred and Fifty-ninth New York in the rifle-pits. We went out in the night as the enemy's sharpshooters rendered it very dangerous to go in the daytime. We had rifle pits dug about two hundred yards from the rifle-pits of the Rebs, and we had loop-holes made from which to fire. About one hundred yards back of us was planted one of our batteries and as they fired over our heads anyone might imagine what a deafening report rang in our ears. We boys got the range of the rifle-pits of "Mr. Secesh" opposite, perfectly, consequently they didn't dare show their heads. Though from their hiding place they annoyed us all day. After dark we usually held some conversation with the Rebs across the ravine. We would ask them if they wanted any soft bread. If they did we would put some in a mortar and send it over. They said they didn't care to have any sent that way and as we didn't have much to spare we didn't send any. Our bean soup and coffee and such other food as might be handy was sent out before daylight in the morning and after dark at night. We were here in this trench or pit for three long days and nights and one can imagine how we suffered from heat and thirst. We were relieved on the tenth by the One Hundred and Fifty-ninth New York. We returned to our old camp-ground June 11th between 12 and 1 A.M. A general assault was planned but owing to some misunderstanding the plan failed.

June 14th, Sunday. The day was an eventful one in the siege of Port Hudson, of which the Twenty-fifth Connecticut was engaged. We were under way at an early hour, for we formed the reserve in the attacking column. Colonel Birge was in command of the reserve. We were up at 3 A.M., had a little hard-tack and coffee and started under command of Captain Naughton at 4. Suddenly we heard a terrifying yell and the crash and roar of artillery and musketry. Soon the dead and wounded began to be brought in. All kinds of conflicting stories were circulated as to the success of our brave fellows. Very soon General Payne was wounded, and Colonel H. W. Birge assumed command, we forming the reserve. Soon we were ordered forward. On through the scene of our first day's fight, then down through a ravine, where a road had been cut. Here we halted at the foot of the hill where we formed in battle line and made another charge right up over the hill, exposed to a raking fire, as we went over the crest and down through the ravine before we could reach the breastworks. There we lost two lieutenants. A large number of men were killed or wounded. We arrived at the other side of the hill in great confusion. I shall never forget that horrible scene. There were parts of several regiments all mixed up together, entangled among fallen trees. But after getting straightened out, and the line once more formed, the order to charge was countermanded and we had to lay up there in that fearful hot sun all day. I was taken sick and had to rest for awhile but I soon got better and joined the regiment. At about 10 P.M. we were ordered down into the outer ditch of the breastworks. We were there but a short time, when we were ordered to the right to our old position in the rifle-pits, which we reached at midnight.

General Payne had been wounded in the leg in the forenoon, but we could not get up where he was to give him any aid, consequently he had to lay there in the burning sun till night, when he was brought away in safety. It was a scorching hot day and a number were sunstruck, some cases proving fatal. I was exhausted and had to lie down in the shade. It was a miserable Sunday scrape and ended like all the rest that had been started on a Sunday, disastrously. The loss of life was very great.

We were relieved at night by the Twenty-eighth Connecticut and returned once more to our old camp-ground, where, after the whizzing of the bullets and the cracking of firearms had died away, all was still but the groans that could be heard upon the bloody battlefield.

June 15th. The day after the second assault on Port Hudson, General Banks issued a call for volunteers "for a storming column of a thousand men to vindicate the Flag of the Union, and the memory of its defenders who had fallen. Let them come forward, every officer and soldier who shares its perils and its glory shall receive a medal fit to commemorate the first grand success of the campaign of 1863 for the freedom of the Mississippi River. His name will be placed upon the roll of honor." The next day, June 16, the order was promulgated and two days later, June 18, these "stormers," as they were called, were gathered into a camp by themselves and put into training calculated to promote physical strength and endurance. By every conceivable way they prepared themselves for the work that they were expected to do. These brave men knew that all the arrangements for their support had been made but the expected order did not come. They had had three or four dreadful experiences in charging earthworks and yet these men were willing to assault those same earthworks again.

June 26th. There has been considerable bombarding on account of the Rebels opening some big guns but I think they are doing very little damage. We heard today that the enemy had driven our army across the Potomac and that there was great excitement throughout the North. We hoped that the report was false. Last night I was detailed to go on picket being sent out to an outpost about a mile from the reserve. We stood by our arms most of the time during the night. There was brisk firing on our left most of the time.

June 27th. Came in from picket. Today we have been reviewed by Major-General Banks. He made a temperance speech to us. I think he must have thought that we were getting to be a pretty tough set of fellows. I don't see how he could have thought that, when we couldn't get very much that was intoxicating, only what quinine and whiskey Uncle Sam issued to us when we came off picket duty.

July 1st. There has been a reason for my not writing in my diary for a few days. We had been told that no soldiers' letters could be sent North and I put off writing in the hope that I could record the fall of Port Hudson, that Rebel stronghold. But still the siege drags slowly along. Our days were divided between rifle-pits and making assaults. The Rebs hold their rifle-pits and we advance ours or remain stationary.

Yesterday, the colored brigade carried a hill by storm and have held it, notwithstanding the great effort made by the Rebels to regain it.

Sunday, July 3rd. We attacked Port Hudson at two points, but were beaten back with great loss. The battle still rages and omnipotence still holds the scales in equal balance. This is the 25th day of the siege and we are still stuck outside the fortification. Last Sunday we made a general assault. We got inside three times but for want of support were driven back. Men were mowed down on our right and left. It was a wonder how I was preserved. I have been in four direct assaults on the breastworks, several skirmishes and yet not a scratch have I received.

Port Hudson, July 4th, (Independence Day). As will be seen, we had no idea of what was going on more than two hundred miles up the river at Vicksburg, or fifteen hundred miles at Gettysburg. At Vicksburg, General Grant was quietly smoking a cigar when he wrote a dispatch to be sent to Cairo to be telegraphed to the General-in-Chief at Washington: "The enemy surrendered this morning. The only terms allowed is their parole as prisoners of war." The same dispatch was sent to General Banks at Port Hudson. At Gettysburg the army of the Potomac had inflicted a terrible defeat on the army of Northern Virginia. I really believe this is the quietest Fourth of July I have ever spent. Verily, I don't believe there has been as much powder burnt here as in New York or Boston. I wouldn't wonder if Hartford, with its swarm of boys, could outstrip us. Every little while there's a bang, a boom and the bursting of a shell, for we must keep the besieged from falling asleep and stir them up occasionally. Now, the music is becoming lively, the gunboats and the batteries are pitching in and altogether we are giving them Hail Columbia to the tune of Yankee Doodle.

For the last few days we have been in a very enviable frame of mind, expecting every day to be ordered to participate in another assault. Yet the orders have not come and each night we have drawn a long breath and exclaimed one more day of grace. Well, so it is, but while we are getting uneasy for another fight we have a strong desire to avoid charging on the breastworks again. We've been in three, and some of us four, assaults on the Rebel fortifications and each time we have been driven back. The first of July, General Banks made us a great speech promising us that within three days we would be inside Port Hudson. But the three days have passed and those rascally Rebs still persist in keeping us outside. Although the fortifications could probably be stormed any day, yet why waste life when a few days will bring them to terms, as they are now reduced to mule-meat and a little corn. Deserters are coming in fast. One day as many as one hundred and fifty came in saying they couldn't stand mule-meat any longer. Now I am feeling sure that within a few days I shall be able to record the fall of Port Hudson. The Rebel cavalry are harassing our rear ranks continually. They made a dash day before yesterday from Clinton and Jackson, striking here and there and picked up some stragglers and foraging parties. A few days ago they dashed into Springfield Landing whence we draw our stores and ammunition, but our cavalry went after them so quick they found pressing business in other quarters.

On the other side of the Mississippi quite a force came down. They attacked Donaldsonville a few days ago demanding the surrender of the town. But the provost-marshal gathered his forces together, amounting to about two hundred, got inside his fortifications, and waited for them to come up. The contest was kept up from midnight till daylight, when the sudden appearance of a gunboat caused the Rebels to skedaddle, leaving about one hundred dead on the field, several hundred wounded and one hundred and twenty prisoners.

Now comes the great surprise of all. The confounded Rebs have got into Bayou Boeuf and destroyed or captured the whole of our division property stored there. Tents, baggage, knapsacks, company and regimental books are all gone. At this time we were all as poor as Job's turkey. Except for the rags that cover us, we haven't a thing. Were I where I could, I should like to write a letter to the Soldiers' Aid Society for some handkerchiefs, being reduced to the last shift, i. e., the flap of an old shirt picked up in a deserted mansion. Word comes from Colonel Bissell that he is slowly improving. We are hoping that we shall see him with us again soon. But I really believe his sickness saved his life, for it is doubtful if he would have come out alive from the charge the regiment made on the 27th of May. We are having some very hot weather. We are spending most of our time on picket duty and trying to keep cool. You would have laughed if you could have seen us at our meals wearing only shirt and drawers, while our comical colored boy, Adam, squatted down on the ground in front of us keeping the flies off. This Adam was a corker. Speaking of Mobile one day, he said: "Reckon you couldn't fool dis nigga much in dat town. Specks he was born and raised dar. Yah! yah! yah! Reckon he knows ebry hole dar from de liquor-shops to de meeting houses."

July 8th. The dispatch from General Grant, previously referred to, was received. The booming of big guns, the cheers and shouts of the Union soldiers and the strains of patriotic music informed the besieged that something had happened. They were not slow to find out the cause of the rejoicing. General Gardner sent a flag of truce to General Banks to know if the report that Vicksburg had surrendered was true and received in reply a copy of General Grant's dispatch. The garrison had done their duty with brave fortitude. The Union lines were already in some places up to their breastworks. Starvation was staring them in the face and taking everything into consideration about the only thing for General Gardner to do was to surrender. Should the expected charge have been made by the "stormers" it would have been a waste of life for they could not expect to hold their position.

The 8th was spent in arranging terms for the surrender of the fortress and on the 9th, the storming column led the advance as the victorious army marched into Port Hudson to put the Stars and Stripes in the place of the stars and bars.

President Lincoln's long-desired hope was realized and he could now say: "The Father of Waters again goes unmolested to the sea." The time of the nine-months' men was soon to expire and the Twenty-fifth Connecticut left very soon for New Orleans, but was detained at Donaldsonville for a few days.

About fifty years ago the people in the North were probably in a frenzy of excitement. We soldiers in the South had learned to take things cool. Vicksburg, the stumbling block, had fallen; Port Hudson had caved in; Lee and his army had gone to one eternal smash; Port Hudson had scarcely surrendered when we were called upon again to take the field. Those confounded Rebels didn't know how to stay whipped, and General Taylor, reinforced by General Magruder's Texicans, had again taken the field. They attacked us at Donaldsonville with a much larger force in proportion to ours but got soundly thrashed; we being strongly reinforced, came out to meet them and got whipped, and so the matter rested. The commanding officer of the brigade was flanked through carelessness and they had to fall back with a loss of two cannon. Our brigade was on the reserve. We fell in and rushed to the rescue but too late, for they were in full retreat. A new line was formed, the Twenty-fifth deployed as skirmishers and sent forward. After advancing quite a distance through the corn we were ordered back and our whole force fell back about half a mile, where we were still holding a strong position. The Rebels meanwhile had left and fortified at Labordieville, some twenty miles distant. The Twenty-fifth Connecticut regiment, after one of the most trying campaigns of the war, was about to take another sea voyage.

Here are a few verses which I have written on the siege of Port Hudson:

PORT HUDSON.

Well do I remember, how fifty years ago, Down on the banks of the Mississippi, We met the Southern foe, And faced a storm of shot and shell; That many a life was sacrificed Mid battle hell of smoke and flame On the field of Port Hudson.

Well do I remember, how those days, The gallant Third Brigade went Marching down into the woods Like men on dress parade; Though from the wood in front The foe their deadly missiles sent. Thinning our ranks Those days at Bloody Port Hudson.

How on the left the Connecticut Thirteenth engaged in desperate fight And left in front the Twenty-fifth was marshaled on the right; Side by side, New York and Maine for honors did contend, When Rebel yell and Yankee cheer was heard at Port Hudson.

And though we drove away the foe How dear was victory won, For when the din of battle ceased, The burning sun shone down upon the bloody field And shone on foe and friend, Who bravely met a soldier's fate, That day on the field of Port Hudson.

Now fifty years have gone, How soon they pass away, Since we did wear the army blue; And now we wear the gray, For time has turned our hair to gray, To show us near the end, And soon will none be left to Tell the tale of Port Hudson.

Were I to pledge those bygone days Oh this would be my toast: "Here's to the dear old Stars and Stripes, Our country's pride and boast; Here's to the Union Volunteers, Who did the flag defend, And here's to my old comrades Who fought at Port Hudson."

August 8th. It was a beautiful morning and we were in camp waiting for orders to start. We had orders to be ready to go on board the Steamer Thomas Scott at twelve o'clock. At two o'clock we were gliding down the old Mississippi. We stopped at New Orleans, took some horses aboard and started again at about six o'clock. Arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi at midnight. Here we waited for a pilot, took him on board and was off again.