Today in History:

331 Series I Volume XLVI-I Serial 95 - Appomattox Campaign Part I

Page 331 Chapter LVIII. THE RICHMOND CAMPAIGN.

the honor to report that I received orders at 4.30 a.m. to send all the men with arms, except the pickets, to brigade headquarters, and immediately sent ninety men, the whole number in camp with arms, in charge of Captain Charles E. Brown, Company C, and First Lieutenant Wilbur H. Wilcox, Company D, who reported at Second Brigade headquarters at 4.50 a.m. and were assigned a position in an old fort beyond brigade headquarters and soon afterward occupied old rifle-pits, constructed about 400 yards southeast of Fort McGilvery and running at right angles with the main line, where they at once commenced firing upon the flank of the enemy's advancing line and kept up a brisk fire until the flank of the enemy's advancing line and kept up a brisk fire until the enemy was repulsed and our entire line reoccupied.

The casualties were two men very slightly wounded, and Captain Brown reports that all the men behaved very well and fired with great accuracy and effect.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

SAML. K. SCHWENK,

Major, Commanding Regiment.

Bvt. Major C. A. LOUNSBERRY,

Actg. Asst. Adjt. General, 2nd Brigadier, 1st Div., 9th Army Corps.


Numbers 144. Report of Bvt. Brigadier General Napoleon B. McLaughlen, Fifty-seventh Massachusetts Infantry, commanding Third Brigade, of operations March 25.

PAROLE CAMP,

Annapolis, Md., April 4, 1865.

MAJOR: I have the honor to report the part taken by me in the fight at Fort Stedman March 25, until captured, which occurred just before daylight.

On hearing the noise of the attack that morning, I awoke my staff and dispatched them to various parts of the line to get the troops under arms, and proceeded myself to to Fort Haskell, garrisoned by a battalion of the Fourteenth New York Heavy Artillery, whom I found on the alert and ready to resist an attack. I then turned down the line to the right, passing the One hundredth Pennsylvania Volunteers, who were already in their works, and Battery 12, finding everything right, and reached the mortar battery Numbers 11, in which were no guns, and which was occupied by the Twenty-ninth Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers. Here I found Major Richardson, of that regiment, who told me that the battery was in the enemy's hands, and that his command had just been driven from it. I at once sent orders to the Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Veteran Volunteers, the only regiment of my brigade not in the line of works, to report to me at double-quick, and to Battery 12 to turn their mortars on Battery 11, which was done, three shots being fired. On the arrival of the Fifty-ninth I put them into the work with fixed bayonets and recaptured it at once. Supposing that I had restored the only break in the line, I crossed the parapet into Fort Stedman on the right, and meeting some men coming over the curtains, whom in the darkness I supposed to be a part of the picket, I established them inside the work, giving directions with regard to position and firing, all of which were instantly obeyed. In a few minutes I saw a man crossing the parapet, whose uniform in the dawning light I recognized to be the enemy's, and


Page 331 Chapter LVIII. THE RICHMOND CAMPAIGN.