Today in History:

195 Series I Volume XLII-I Serial 87 - Richmond-Fort Fisher Part I

Page 195 Chapter LIV. THE RICHMOND CAMPAIGN.

enemy. The Second Corps withdrew slowly after 10 p.m. to the banks of Hatcher's Run, near Dabney's Mill, and bivouacked, resuming the march next day. It rained very hard during the night. The wounded reached Gurley's early in the morning, and by night of the 29th were in hospital at City Point. The hospital park at Gurley's was broken up, the property brought up from City Point, and the regular field hospitals re-established in their former sites behind the works south of Petersburg. During the movement to Hatcher's Run, part of General Miles' division, of the Second Corps, made a demonstration upon the rebel position in front of Petersburg.

Inspector T. R. Spencer reported that at Yellow Tavern (Warren's railroad station), October 28, 100 wounded were sent early in the morning, and afterward the following were dispatched by him from thence to City Point on the railroad: Ninth corps, white, 57; colored, 53; of which 30 were sick; Fifth Corps, white, 48; Second Corps, Second and Third Divisions, 253; Second Cavalry Division, 82; total, 593. About 25 officers (wounded) were sent to City Point. The depot hospital, City Point, reports reception of 639 wounded men, 40 sick and wounded officers on morning report of 29th. Its reports for the 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th are interesting to show the movements of sick and wounded on those days, attributable to the reconnaissance and operations about Hatcher's Run. No further incidents of interest occurred in October; the army returned and reoccupied the camps and former positions generally.

In November no movement of the army occurred. The aggregate number of wounded during the month admitted to the field hospitals was 293. They were sent in due time to the depot field hospital, Army of the Potomac, at City Point, Va. Investigation into the cause of sickness in the regiments of the Ninth Corps (One hundred and seventy-ninth, One hundred and eighty-sixth New York, and Thirty-first Maine), where typo-malarial fever was reported, developed the fact that the men "burrowed" to some extent, their camps were on low ground near a swamp, and the issue of vegetables had been neglected. In order to secure vegetables in that corps two pounds of coffee in each 100 rations were dropped, and in lieu of this sixty pounds of potatoes and seventeen pounds onions were furnished. Fine bath-houses existed in all the hospitals and in many of the regiments. Among those especially mentioned by the medical inspector for excellency were the Thirty-fifth Massachusetts, Third Maryland, Ninth New Hampshire, First, Second, and Eighth Michigan. The troops in reserve on approach of winter adopted a nearly uniform system of huts. When posted in the forts, shelter-tents and bomb-proofs were used; covered ways connected the forts in points exposed to sharpshooters. The bomb-proofs consisted of long trenches roofed over and covered in on the aspect facing the enemy by means of heavy logs protected by a thickness of two or three feet of earth and sand-bags. Generally no attempt was made to thatch or make them impenetrable to rain. Fire places were built, two or three to each bomb-proof, along the open rearward side, and sleeping bunks constructed in them. The huts were generally six by ten feet, not less than five feet and a half to the eaves, roofed by shelter-tents, and intended for four men, but as one or more were absent on detached duty at a time, a less number occupied them at night. The division hospitals in the field were well supplied with funds, but no adequate facilities existed for making purchases.


Page 195 Chapter LIV. THE RICHMOND CAMPAIGN.