An Echo Like the Wail of Departed Spirits: With the 16th Michigan at Gaines Mill

As he watched the remnants of the Army of the Potomac fall back after being defeated at the Battle of Gaines Mill on June 27, 1862, the confidence of Hospital Steward William L. Berry of the 16th Michigan in the generalship of George McClellan suffered its first blow.

“The thought came to my mind: what did all this mean? Was McClellan surprised and was the vast army that the government had been so carefully nursing for the past year suddenly to be put to rout and driven back? Was all the admirable plans to be defeated and was the enemy to still hold their sway? I pondered over it all night and could come to no reasonable conclusion why we should be so defeated and driven from the ground that we had held for so long a time. I’ll confess that for the first time, my confidence in McClellan was shaken but felt satisfied that all would turn out for the best,” the Canadian wrote home.

Hospital Steward Berry’s account of Gaines Mill first saw publication in the July 25, 1862, edition of the Ingersoll Chronicle, published in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, his hometown. Later in the war, Berry was commissioned as an assistant surgeon and wrote regularly to the Chronicle detailing the services of the 16th Michigan.

          During the Seven Days’ campaign, the 16th Michigan was part of Colonel Dan Butterfield’s Third Brigade of General George Morrell’s First Division of the 5th Army Corps, under General Fitz-John Porter.

 

"I sit in my tent and think but it seems like a horrid dream," William L. Berry wrote. "Hundreds of my companions gone, victims to the strife, never to return. I have but to step to the door and look at those that are still left and then the sad reality looms before me in its darkest form." 

Camp near James River, Virginia

July 5, 1862

          A week of horrors has just passed. Future historians will dwell upon the scenes of the past week as the most eventful and bloody since the christening of the western hemisphere. I sit in my tent and think but it seems like a horrid dream. Hundreds of my companions gone, victims to the strife, never more to return. I have but to step to the door and look at those that are still left and then the sad reality looms before me in its darkest form.

          I look to the next regiment and see but 150 guns stacked where there used to be 800 and again, I know it is not a dream. But the saddest of all is when I look for a dear friend and fear, too, he has fallen. What I have witnessed I hope and pray never to witness again. I will, in as plain a manner as possible, tell you what I have seen, so that you may judge what war is. I told you what I saw at West Point and Hanover Courthouse, but they are not to be compared to the struggle of the past few days.

 

          We had encamped in a most beautiful grove. Everything has been done to make ourselves comfortable as we all were of the opinion that our stay at this point should be extended into the summer. The third day of our stay here [June 26] was drawing to a close, the men lounging under the luxuriant foliage of the adjacent trees all satisfied that all was well. When to the utter surprise of all, we heard the first sergeant call the men to fall in with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, and three days’ rations. What could it mean? None could tell, but the order was quickly obeyed and in one hour from the time the order was read, the line was formed and under way.

          I stood by the road as they filed out and it was the last time that I saw half of them. I was not ordered off with them, so I, as well as others that were left in camp, supposed that they were but going on picket or fatigue duty and thought nothing about it, but during the night, the rumbling of the wheels of cannon could be continually heard while the clattering of horses feet galloping along the road kept up a continual noise but with the early morn, a different aspect of affairs presented itself. Before it was clearly light, I received an order to pack up all our hospital furniture, send the sick over the Chickahominy as quickly as possible, to get everything off in a half hour, and if I could not get all off in that time to be off myself without delay.

Major General Fitz-John Porter, commanding the 5th Army Corps during the Seven Days

          This order came from the brigade surgeon and had to be obeyed; but we worked with a will and before the time elapsed, we were off. But hardly had we got away from the spot before the shells from the enemy’s guns nearly reached the spot we were leaving. We put spurs and whips to our horses and were soon over the Chickahominy, disposing of the sick and stores as directed.

          I hastened back to the scene of conflict. I found everything in battle order, artillery placed upon commanding positions, ably supported by infantry, while the cavalry were disposed of as was proper. I found our regiment and brigade and after carefully viewing the position of our forces and knowing well the lay of the ground at that particular point, instantly became satisfied that we were in a critical position. Especially if the enemy was in force as strong as we supposed they would be and if they attempted to break through our lines. One advantage we had over them was our superior force of artillery, the mightiest arm of war.

          We waited with almost breathless anxiety for the commencement of the fight. We had not long to wait. The regiment was lying upon the ground for greater safety when suddenly a report was heard and with it a terrific screech from the left of our column. Upon hastening to the spot, we found that a shell from the enemy’s gun has burst upon three of our men, inflicting the most horrible and painful wounds. They were removed.

          All was now excitement, it being the first time that our regiment was ever under actual fire. Delay was now impossible. We knew their position, although hidden by a thick growth of Virginia pine, and our batteries began to belch forth their own hail with the utmost rapidity. It was returned with spirit and cannonading was kept up for upwards of two hours without intermission and strange to say, without much loss upon our side. One captain in our regiment was the only one that fell after that first shell; but at this point, things took a different turn.

The 16th Michigan held a position in the second line on the far left of the Union line during the sunset attacks by the Confederates at Gaines Mill. These assaults finally broke the Union line as Berry describes in his letter. 

          Musketry began to be heard on our left and our lookout, who was up in a thick tree, said that they were advancing by the left. Orders were instantly given for us to “left face, forward march” and we soon met them face to face. Shots were instantly exchanged. At this point, our regiment suffered heavily as about 50 fell at the first fire. We stood our ground for awhile but they succeeded in taking a battery of artillery from us by which we were so weakened that we were forced to retire, leaving our wounded.

          But the enemy’s success was only temporary; for we soon rallied and went up by the left flank and charged on them, succeeding in taking back our ground, although at a terrible loss of life. The fighting again became general, the cannons roaring, shells bursting in the air, balls whistling with their shrill music by to us to commit havoc upon those in our rear while the volleys of musketry sounded like the distant approach of a whirlwind, the echo like the wail of departed spirits singing a sad requiem to those just fallen.

          The enemy was in force much stronger than ours. They regularly relieved every 15 minutes while our men had to stand their ground amidst the most galling fire. They crowded us up and again we fell back, this time in regular order. We were now reinforced by what is called the Irish Brigade. General Porter rallied the men, formed them upon a color line, and back went our thinned ranks to battle against their unequal forces once more.

The men retained their courage. We now came up to them and poured in a volley. The order was given to “load and fire at will” but our general, seeing that the odds were against us, concluded to try once more. The order was given to charge. Every gun came to a shoulder and then to a charge, and way we went with a yell that ought to frighten old Nick. The enemy fled.

Colonel Thomas B.W. Stockton
16th Michigan
Prisoner of War

The general, seeing them fly and seeing the evening shades coming on, ordered us to retire. So, the order to about face was given. We gladly obeyed the order and retreated quickly across the Chickahominy, leaving the enemy in possession of the field and more than all, in possession of the wounded. The greatest loss we sustained was the loss of our gallant and brave Colonel [Thomas Baylis Whitmarsh] Stockton; he is a prisoner. Two captains fell, three were wounded, several lieutenants were killed and wounded, but a complete list you will doubtless see in the papers.

[Colonel Stockton’s horse was shot out from under him then he was captured. Stockton, an 1827 graduate of West Point, would be exchanged in August for Colonel Lewis Burwell Williams of the 1st Virginia, an 1855 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and former assistant instructor in tactics at V.M.I. Williams had been wounded and captured at Williamsburg on May 5, 1862.]

The thought came to my mind: what did all this mean? Was McClellan surprised and was the vast army that the government had been so carefully nursing for the past year suddenly to be put to rout and driven back? Was all the admirable plans to be defeated and was the enemy to still hold their sway? I pondered over it all night and could come to no reasonable conclusion why we should be so defeated and driven from the ground that we had held for so long a time. I’ll confess that for the first time, my confidence in McClellan was shaken but felt satisfied that all would turn out for the best.

At the approach of morning, I left the ground where I had laid all night and went to the bridge crossing the river. This I found strongly guarded and preparations made to destroy it. Suddenly, a loud report was heard and all communication over the Chickahominy was cut off. Things now looked more gloomy and mysterious than ever. All our forces were withdrawn from over the river, all our baggage train had been hurried away, all the commissary stores (of which there was a vast quantity) had been destroyed. Thousands of our wounded were in the hands of the enemy and everything looked as if we were about to make preparations for another fight or march, those who were left filling their haversacks with bread and getting the full amount of cartridges.

Union forces on the retreat. "Everybody looked gloomy and everybody supposed that all was wrong and that our army would be routed and broken up," Berry lamented. 

Everybody looked gloomy and everybody supposed that all was wrong and that our army would be routed and broken up. I passed along looking for our regiment from which I had strayed. I stopped a moment under the shade of a tree to rest. While there, a colonel came up and asked a question which I answered. We got into conversation and I asked him if things were not looking blue. He seemed astonished at the question. “Truly, do you not understand the move,” he asked. I told him it looked strange and would like to be informed.

He then asked me what good advantage it would be to stay where we were. I told him that it was close to a water communication with Washington and a good place for making an attack on the Rebel capitol. “Yes, that’s true, but is not the James River a better means of communications and a better base of operations than where we were?” That cleared my eyes. I saw the whole game in a moment and told him so and we parted, he to fall into the ranks and I to let you know it.

The 16th Michigan lost 49 killed, 116 wounded, and 55 missing at Gaines Mill, a total of 220. Major Norval E. Welch assumed command of the regiment after Colonel Stockton was captured.

To learn more about the Battle of Gaines' Mill, please check out these posts: 

With the Jasper Grays at Gaines Mill (16th Mississippi) 

Carrying the Colors of the 5th Texas at Gaines Mill 

Louder than the Bolts of Heaven: With the 1st Michigan at Gaines Mill 

A Promise Kept After Gaines Mill (1st Michigan)

More in the Wind Than We Bargained For: The Seven Days with the 3rd New Jersey

The Great Skedaddle: With Berdan's Sharpshooters During the Seven Days (1st U.S. Sharpshooters)

Source:

Letter from Hospital Steward William L. Berry, 16th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Ingersoll Chronicle (Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada), July 25, 1862, pg. 2

A complete transcription of all of Berry's letters to the Ingersoll Chronicle was published as A Canadian in the Army of the Potomac: The Letters of William L. Berry of the 16th Michigan published in 2024. Kim Crawford's regimental history of the 16th Michigan is also worth a perusal. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on t...
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true ...
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of h...
Read more

Arming the Union: Federal Contract Model 1861 Springfield Rifle Muskets

Image
A t the outset of the Civil War, the Federal government ran into a serious issue when the Confederacy occupied Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the home of one of the nation’s two armories, and carted the gun making equipment off to Richmond, Virginia. This left just the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts as the sole government-operated entity to produce longarms for the Union army.           But it quickly became apparent that production at Springfield would have to be supplemented, so the War Department pursued two tracks to increase the weapons supply. Agents were dispatched to Europe to purchase suitable weapons from England, France, Austria, Belgium, and Prussia. Over time, these agents acquired hundreds of thousands of European arms of different designs and origins that equipped Federal regiments in the first years of the war.           In the meantime, operations at the Springfiel...
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on se...
Read more

We Buried 110 Men in That Half Acre of Ground: A Buckeye Remembers Spotsylvania Courthouse

Image
I n the aftermath of the bloody fighting at Spotsylvania Courthouse, Lorenzo Barnhart of the 110th Ohio drew the unenviable task of burying the Federal dead. But as the area remained under fire of Confederate skirmishers, Barnhart and the other members of the Pioneer Corps had to do this grisly work at night while under fire.       " It was not very dark and we calculated a grave to hold as many of our dead comrades as we could and dug the grave about 6-15 feet and laid them crosswise," Barnhart wrote. " The Confederates had stripped them of their trousers, their white underclothes could be seen in the night, that way we found them laying around over a scope of ground about half an acre. Two pioneers would carry a man into the grave lay him down and then another on top and so on until that grave was full. We covered them with earth.  We buried 110 soldiers in that half acre of ground. We left many more unburied, we did not dare to undertake to get them as we wou...
Read more

Arming the Empire State: Arms Issues to New York Infantry Regiments in 1861

Image
     During the Civil War, the state of New York provided more than 400,000 men to the Union army, the highest number of soldiers of any state, and as can be imagined, the task of arming those hundreds of thousands of volunteers was a very difficult one. At the outbreak of hostilities, the state militia numbered 19,000 men but the state possessed only about 8,000 long arms nearly all of which were utilized to arm the eleven militia regiments which left the state in the earliest days of the war. The state dispatched an agent to England on April 24 th to purchase 25,000 Enfield pattern rifle muskets but upon his arrival, he found those weapons hard to find as Confederate agents had already been busy buying up the stock. Eventually, he was able to secure 19,000 Enfields at a cost of $335,000; these weapons arrived in bits and pieces over the next several months and were issued out soon after their arrival to newly formed regiments.  A perusal of the adjutant general’...
Read more

A Different Vista on the Civil War: An "Ohio" Marked Lorenz Rifle

Image
          While the focus of this blog has been almost exclusively on chronicling the services of Ohioans during the Civil War through their own words, once in a while it is worthwhile to look into object-based history to help further illuminate the times. Object-based history provides a different vista through which to view past events, by studying the manufacture, use, and history of the objects themselves. Today's post marks my first entry into studying the Civil War through its relics and objects. Unidentified Yankee private holding a Lorenz rifle and Colt revolver (Library of Congress)            I recently acquired an Ohio-marked M1854 Austrian-made .54 caliber Lorenz rifle from a longtime Civil War collector. When I decided to purchase the rifle, I knew little beyond the fact that I had come across dozens of references to this usually well-regarded longarm in my research over the years and it was one of the more att...
Read more

Cotton Burning on the Levee: A Civilian Witnesses the Federal Seizure of New Orleans

Image
F or one Ohio-born resident of New Orleans, the arrival of Admiral David Farragut’s fleet on April 25, 1862, marked a day of liberation. “Yesterday about half past 1 o’clock, the cry was raised that the Yankees were upon us,” wrote Louis M. Beyers in a letter to his mother. “I started toward the levee where the Federal vessels were said to be lying. Reaching the river, what a sight breaks upon my view. The steamboat William Morrison was one mass of flames. All the shipping was sending forth the most dense black smoke. The Mississippi , a ram which was nearly finished and which, if completed, would have demolished the whole fleet in one hour, floating slowly by with the smoke issuing from every opening and several other important like vessels in various parts of the river, all showing that the torch has been applied to them.” “Together with the thunder which came peal after peal gave a scene of the utmost grandeur. There proudly floating in the smoke and rain were the glorious old ...
Read more

Old Abe: The Magnificent War Eagle of the 8th Wisconsin

Image
       In September of 1861, Captain John E. Perkins and the Eau Claire Badgers went into Camp Randall, in Madison Wisconsin with an unusual company mascot: a fledging bald eagle who they soon named Old Abe.           Old Abe had been captured near the Flambeau River in Chippewa County, Wisconsin by Agemahmegezhig (Chief Sky), a member of the Chippewa tribe during sugar season in the spring of 1861.   “His captor cut down a large pine tree in which was the eagle’s nest and secured this one caught in spite of the screams and menaces of the parent birds,” Captain James H. Green of the 8 th Wisconsin later wrote. Daniel McCann of Eagle Point, Wisconsin soon purchased this fledgling eagle by trading a bushel of corn with the Chippewa. Captain Perkins was then in Eau Claire organizing a company and it was there that McCann sold the eagle to Perkins’ company for $2.50. Perkins, who was later killed at the battle of Farmi...
Read more