Roster and Statistical Record of Company D, of the Eleventh Regiment Maine Infantry Volunteers. Maxfield Albert
commanded by Captain Libby of Company A, and went to the plantation of Sands Smith. We shall never forget the warlike picture of little Pete Neddo of Company A breaking the big kettles with a sledge hammer, or the poor old negro woman, whose son had run away a few months previous and had accompanied us as one of the guides of the expedition, at sight of the boy. She threw herself on her knees and with hands upraised, exclaimed "Is this Jesus Christ! Is it God Almighty!" Nor could we refrain from expressing the wish that this "cruel war" was over when we made prisoners of the old gentleman and the young men who had come to his house to spend the pleasant Sunday afternoon in the society of his lovely daughters. We returned to the gunboats soon after dark.
At 9 a.m. on the 24th, as we were about getting under way for our return, a farmer came in with a flag of truce, who said a supply train was passing at a short distance and could be easily captured. The force on the Putnam, consisting of Companies A, C and D, was landed, and under command of Captain S. H. Merrill of Company I, ordered to reconnoitre for one hour. We advanced about three miles, which brought us in sight of Matthews Court House, where there appeared to be a small force. After commencing our retreat we found we were pursued by a body of cavalry. Lieutenant F. M. Johnson and Corporal J. F. Keene of Company D, who allowed themselves to be separated from the command, were taken prisoners. We immediately returned to Yorktown, where we arrived about sundown.
No field officer of the Eleventh accompanied this expedition, it being under the command of Major Cunningham of the Fifty-second Pennsylvania Volunteers.
GLOUCESTER COURT HOUSE
Dec. 11, '62. The regiment left camp before sunrise, crossed the York River to Gloucester Point, and in company with the Fifty-second Pennsylvania, Fifty-sixth and One Hundredth New York, and Battery H, First New York Artillery, took up the line of march for Gloucester Court House, where we arrived at 4 p.m. We remained in the vicinity of the Court House, sending out foraging parties in different directions, who captured herds of cattle, sheep, mules and some fine horses. The cavalry, which led the advance from Gloucester Point, advanced to within a few miles of the Rappahannock. The expedition was commanded by General Henry M. Naglee, and was intended as a diversion in rear of the rebel army during the battle of Fredericksburg.
We commenced our retreat just after sunset on the 14th, and arrived in camp at 3.30 a.m. on the 15th, without the loss of a man, bringing our captured herds and the prisoners captured by the cavalry.
One of the incidents of this expedition occurred when a member of the Eleventh attempted to pay for certain articles of food at a house near the Court House. The occupant absolutely refused to accept greenbacks, but one of his comrades perceiving the dilemma, produced a bill on the Bank of Lyon's Kathairon, a patent medicine advertisement, which the lady readily received, supposing it to be genuine Confederate money.
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH
In December we began to hear rumors that our brigade was to take part in an expedition to the further South, and soon active preparations for a movement were going on around us. The sick were sent North, ammunition and other supplies were plentifully provided, transports began to swing at anchor in the bay, and the 26th of the month we of the Eleventh found ourselves sailing away on the old steamer Cahawba in company with the 98th New York, General Naglee and staff, and the brigade band, bound for Morehead City, where we arrived the first day of January, 1863.
We had a stormy passage, especially off Cape Hatteras. Here we saw the original Monitor in tow of the transport steamer Rhode-Island, passing closely enough to them towards night to see the heavy seas washing over the Monitor's low decks, to the evident discomfort of the bare-legged seamen. Before morning the Monitor had gone down, but her crew was saved by the Rhode-Island.
We landed at Morehead City and marched to Carolina City, a few miles away, where we went into camp. The term city as applied to these and other Southern places is usually mighty misleading. For example, Carolina City consists even now of little more than a railroad depot, and Morehead City is but a little larger.
Our brigade remained comfortably encamped at Carolina City for a few weeks, our idea being that we were intended to form part of a force to descend upon Wilmington.
And, when the Eleventh went on board the Cahawba again, this time in company with the 104th Pennsylvania instead of the 98th New York, and put to sea in company with a fleet of transports carrying our new division, we thought that Wilmington was our objective point. General Naglee, now the commander of the division our expedition consisted of, was on board the Cahawba with his staff, as was Colonel Davis, now again in command of our brigade, and his staff. We soon learned that we were bound for Port Royal, S.C., and that to capture Charleston was the object of our expedition.
But though we went on board the Cahawba the 20th day of January, it was not till the afternoon of the 29th that we put to sea. We arrived at Port Royal January 31st, and entering the harbor, found ourselves one of a large and growing fleet of transports and gunboats. The 3d of February we sailed up Port Royal Sound to Beaufort, where we landed that the Cahawba might be cleaned, then reembarked on it the next day and returned to Port Royal. We were not landed again for some days, and the warm Southern sun operating on men as crowded together as we were, without opportunity for exercise and proper cleanliness, was not conducive to good health. Sickness cropped out, ship fever prevailed to an alarming extent, and a number of the Eleventh died before the troops were landed at St. Helena Island, which they were on the 10th of February. Landing, our regiments went into camp, and winter as it was, we found it necessary to cover our tents with an awning of palmetto branches spread on a frame work of crotched uprights and cross sticks.
The health of the men improved rapidly. Their life was rather monotonous – drill, dress parades, reviews by Major-General Hunter and guard mountings taking up the time. The enemy was not near us, the labyrinth of rivers and waterways surrounding the nest of Islands known as Port Royal, enabling the light draught gunboats of the fleet to keep them on the inland, well out of our way.
Captain Stanwood of D had resigned before now, its First Sergeant, Brady, had been promoted to Second Lieutenant of Company G, and Second Lieutenant Butler, of Company H, was made First Lieutenant of D, and commanded the company.
The 4th day of April, the regiment, the 104th Pennsylvania, with General Naglee, Colonel Davis, and their staffs again reembarked on the old Cahawba, and the 5th sailed in a fleet for the North Edisto Inlet. Anchoring in that now crowded roadstead, we waited the success of the fleet's attack on Charleston, when the division was to land and march on that city. But the fleet found the forts guarding Charleston Harbor beyond their weight, so clearly so that as Admiral Ammen puts it, "even the common sailors knew that Charleston could not be taken without a protracted siege." The only thing left for us all to do, was to return to Port Royal, which we did the 10th of April, the old Cahawba leaving the swiftest of the fleet out of sight on the run, even sacrilegiously running by the "Flag Ship" of our transport squadron, and entering Port Royal while that seat of authority was still hull down.
It was our last cruise on the steamer Cahawba. Afflicted as it was with the third plague of Egypt, it had been our home for so many days, had borne us safely over such a stretch of water, in storm and calm, that we had a rough affection for the stout old transport; and for Mr. Davis, her second mate, too. We had heard the command from the wheel-house so often of "Stand by your anchor, Mr. Davis," and the hoarse return of that old mariner, "Ay, ay, Sir," that he seemed part of the ship itself. As the regiment came alongside in a small steamer to go on board the Cahawba, to take a part in this very expedition, and our men saw the head of the rough old sailor peering over the side of the Cahawba at them, what a yell of "Stand by your anchor, Mr. Davis," rang out of five hundred throats. I am sorry to have to state that instead of the orthodox reply to this nautical command, Mr. Davis only growled "There's that damned Eleventh Maine again." The Cahawba steamed up the Sound to Beaufort with us the 11th of April, where the regiment landed and went into camp.
Lieutenant Butler, who had been ill for a day or so, now grew worse rapidly. His disease proved to be a malignant fever. He died April 14th. We buried him in the cemetery in Beaufort, with the military honors due his rank. His grave was near that of another young officer, one who had died in the Mexican war, and whose body had been brought home to be buried. I remember that over the young South Carolinian's grave stood