Maryland Historical Magazine, 1918, Volume 13, Issue No. 1
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rV boo MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE PnBLISHED UNDER THE AUTHOKITY OP THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY VOLUME XIII BALTIMORE 1918 CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIII PAGE THE RETBEAT FEOM PETEESBTJBG TO APPOMATOX. Joseph Packard, 1 HON. DANIEI, DULANY, 1685-1753 (The Elder). Richard Henry Spencer, 20 COMMITTEE OF OBSEBVATION FOE ELIZABETH TOWN DISTBICT. From MSS. in possession of the Society, .... 28, 227 THE CAREOIX PAPEBS. From MSS. im possession of tfte Society, 54, 171, 24ft PBOCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, 77, 183 LIST OF MEMBEBS OF THE SOCIETY, 84 KILTY'S MANUSCRIPT TBAVESTY OF THE Iliad. H. L. Koopman, 103 CHIEF JUSTICE ROQEE B. TANEY; HIS CAREER AT THE FREDERICK BAR. Edward S. Delaplaine, 109 HON. DANIEL DULANY, 1722-1797 (The Younger). Richard Henry Spencer, 143 TANEY LETTERS. Frow MSS. in possession of the Society, - - 160 THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT AND SQUARES. McHenry Howard, 179 EARLY SETTLERS OF THE SITE OF HAVRE DE GRACE. William B. Marye, 197 PULASKI'S LEGION. Richard Henry Spencer, .... 214 THE SOUTH ATLANTIC STATES IN 1833, AS SEEN BY A NEW ENG- LANDER. Henry Barnard. Edited by Bernard C. Steiner, 267, 29 THE CROMWELL FAMILY. Francis B. Culver, .... 386 MAKYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE VOL. XIII. MARCH, 1918. No. 1. THE EETEEAT PROM PETEESBUKG TO APPOMATTOX —PEESONAL EECOLLECTIONS.* JOSEPH PACKARD, ESQ. I assure you, gentlemen, that it wasn't without reluctance that I accepted the invitation which Dr. Welch and Mr. Haman gave me to say something about my recollections of some of the military incidents of the Civil War. This stupendous war which is being waged now all over the world is so different in scale and in methods from our war, that it is almost, as I said to Dr. Welch, like comparing the Wars of the Eoses with our Civil War; and yet I took courage in remembering that, after all, it is the human element that counts and is of interest. You all know the wonderful talent that Dr. Gildexsleeve has exhibited in culling things that are pertinent wherever in his wide range he comes across them, and I remember in one of his essays he quotes a verse of Kipling, which I think illustrates what I am saying. Kipling is talking about the old biremes, the naval vessels of Eoman times, with their two banks of oars, with the thranites on the upper row, and the thalamites on the bottom row, and he says: "The thranites and the thalamites are pressures, low and high, And where three hundred blades bit white, the twin propellers fly; The god that hailed, the ship that sailed, are changed beyond recall, But the robust and brass-bound man, he has not changed at all." * Informal address, delivered at the University Club, Baltimore, Friday night, January 11, 1918 (stenographically reported). 1 2 MAEYLAND HISTOEICAL MAGAZINE. So, it is the human element that survives changes. I am not going to undertake to make any comparison of methods in the present war. I have, however, noticed statements in the papers that the carnage in the present war is much greater than it was in the Civil War. I am inclined to doubt that until we get the full evidence, because history shows that as weapons have advanced in destructiveness, the loss of life is less. In other words, where you have long-range weapons, one side or the other finds out sooner than formerly when it has to give up. At the battle of Waterloo, where they had muskets with a range of about a hundred yards, the losses were much heavier proportionately than in any battles of our Civil War, as far as I remember; and, when you go back to Eoman times, at the battle of Cannae, where Hannibal overthrew the Eoman legions, the Eoman casualties were ninety per cent, and all killed. There were no wounded in those times; it was fought to a finish. There was no occasion for a Medical Corps in those armies. There were 76,000 Eomans engaged in that battle; about 6,000 of them got away, and the remaining 70,000 were killed. So as to comparisons of casualties, I am inclined to wait for fuller information. ISTow, as the notice of this meeting states, these are personal recollections only of this retreat, and I am not going to discuss at all the movements of the armies, or the battles which they engaged in during the retreat, except as they came in my way. At that time, I wasn't in combatant service like my friend, Major Barton;1 I was with one of the supply trains—an ord- nance train—and you will see perhaps, before I get through, that in a military movement like that, even where people are engaged in that sort of capacity, their lives are not entirely without incident. A few words may be necessary to explain my situation at the time and my opportunities for observation. I had been for about two years in the Eockbridge battery attached to the 1 Major iRandolph Barton, a member of the Club, -who was present. He was formerly Adjutant General of the Stonewall Brigade. THE EETEEAT EEOM PETEESBtTBG TO APPOMATTOX. d brigade commanded by Jackson, and afterwards known as tke " Stonewall Brigade," as private and non-commissioned officer. In June of 1863, when I was somewhat disabled by rheumatism, I had been detailed to the Reserve Ordnance Train, which was then in charge of Captain Gamett,2 and shortly after that I was commissioned Acting Second Lieutenant by General Lee, under a power that he had. I had charge in that capacity of the whole detail of requisitions for stores and the issuing of them and matters of that sort. And so I continued with this Reserve Ordnance Train, when, in April, '64, the Chief of Ordnance in Richmond questioned the validity of my appointment and revoked it. After this I remained as a detailed man with the train, doing exactly the same duties, but with less pay, until I received a conimission as Lieutenant of Artillery for ordnance duty in January of '65. During that time, there had been another Captain in charge after Captain Gamett, and in October, '64, my friend, Captain Colston,3 who is here, came to the train and was put in charge. After I got the commission of Lieutenant, he was made Assistant to the Chief of Ordnance and Disbursing Officer, while I was put in charge of the Reserve Ordnance Train. I was then twenty-two years old. The Ordnance Reserve Department, as it was called, consisted of the Reserve Ordnance Train; of the Field Park, in charge of another officer, which had artificers such as blacksmiths, armor- ers, wheelwrights, and harnessmakers, who were competent to make any ordinary repairs to the cannon and small arms, and the whole had a Quartermaster to attend to the movement of the train. My train consisted of forty-four wagons, carrying, for the most part, artillery ammunition. In the case of the infantry, ammunition was carried in the wagons of the brigades or divisions, and our train was entirely devoted to artillery ammunition, with the exception of one wagon carrying mining stores and out-of-the-way things, and two or three that were kept for cavalry ammunition, so as to be able to serve the cavalry in an emergency. 2 Captain James M. Garnett, a deceased member of the Club. 'Captain Frederick M. Colston, a member of the Club. 4 MAETLAND HISTOEICAL MAGAZINE. In my train, there were, as I have said, forty-four wagons; there were twelve of the Field Park and four forage wagons, mating a train of sixty wagons in all; spread out on the road, it occupied nearly a half-mile of distance. In October, 1864, we were about half way between Peters- burg and Eichmond, and the animals of the train had been used in mounting the heavy guns, under the direction of Captain Colston, on the James River defenses. We had to use very large teams to move the guns; my recollection is that one of those guns that we succeeded finally in mounting weighed fifteen tons, and we had to have forty mules to move it on a sling-cart, or carry-log, as the country people call it, that had been made for the purpose. Late in the month of October, we moved to the camp which we occupied for nearly six months afterwards, about two and one-half miles north of Petersburg, between the Eichmond Turnpike and the Woodpecker Eoad, near Brander's Bridge, over Swift Creek; there we were established in permanent quarters. We built a large log storehouse, in which we stored all the ammunition that the train carried. Besides that, we had some piles of mortar shells. We did this in order to keep our wagons free to go to Eichmond. There was but one line of railroad between Eichmond and Petersburg, and like all the Southern railroads at that time, it was in very bad condition, and much overworked, and we therefore brought much ammunition down from Eichmond by wagon. Then our wagons would go back to Eichmond with any unexploded shells that the enemy fired at us, which were taken to the arsenal and reloaded and returned to the enemy with our compliments. There was a good deal of activity all the time going on around us. There was a huge blacksmith shop a short distance away that had been put up, which was full of blacksmiths drawn from the ranks, making horseshoes; and activities of that sort were going on all the winter.