Day 110. June 18, 1862.
110
another fight it will be the last of the 110th….
June Wensday 18. 1862
This is a pleasant morning. The sun came up quite bright. I was at home all day. It clouded up and rained some today. Mrs B came home this afternoon. She does not look so harty as when I left Home. Elmer has growen very much. It is quite cool this evenning. Some rain. I am again with my family to spend a few days
Note: By July, 200 will remain out of the original (1861) roughly 1,200 troops in the 11 companies of the 110th. By September, as Enoch writes below, the 110th is a ghost, with 122 total men. Right now, Ephraim believes it’s just for a few days, this visit.
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology 1809-1865 Volume III: 1861-1865 C. Percy Powell P. 122
“June 18, 1862: Telegraphs Gen. McClellan regarding transfer of 10,000 Confederate troops from Richmond to Shenandoah Valley: “If this be true, it is as good as a reinforcement to you of an equal force. I could better dispose of things if I could know about what day you can attack Richmond, and would be glad to be informed, if you think you can inform me with safety.”
Note: Narrator: It was not possible.
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War James M. McPherson P. 166
Studies of modern armies have shown that a unit is wrecked psychologically if it twice suffers casualties equivalent to one-third of its strength. Many regiments in the Army of the Potomac, having been constantly on the attack against an entrenched enemy, had gone beyond this breaking point by the time they reached Petersburg June 15-18, 1864. Some of them refused to obey orders to attack yet again. “Never has the Army of the Potomac been so demoralized as at this time,” wrote a New York artillery officer. “A sicker set of wretches you never saw,” wrote another New Yorker, a sergeant. “Our immense army has been wasted in battles and marches until it is now too weak to work with.” A captain in the 20th Massachusetts acknowledged that his men were “utterly unnerved and demoralized” by the events of the previous fifty-three days, “every day under fire, every night either digging or marching…. We, our brigade, have made fourteen charges upon the enemy’s breastworks, although at last no amount of urging, no heroic examples, no threats, or anything else, could get the line to stir one peg.”
Note: It is interesting how Ephraim does not write about his Regiment’s dramatically dwindling numbers, the 110th suicide, about all the others who have already abandoned his regiment and company. This bears repeating: he never once notes it. He does say in passing yesterday that he runs into men “formerly of the 110th Regt P.V.” But there is no “See? They left, too. It was terrible being there. We won’t win this war.” He underlined “spend a few days”; is Ephraim trying to convince himself that’s all the time he left VA. for? He could have easily been in Enoch’s place, or vice versa. How sad. Whatever the case, good call on leaving, Ephraim.
About a month from now, Enoch Baker will write again. It’s obvious things just keep getting worse & worse. (excerpt):
“Warrenton, Va. July 27, 1862
My Dear Wife,
I wish to let you know that we are on the march once more. I suppose what there is of us left will have another fight before long, as the rebels are at Culpepper which is 24 miles from where we are now.
Our Brigade is in the advance waiting for the others to come up, and as soon as they do, i suppose we will go at them again. The men generally in our Regt. are not in as good spirits as they was a few weeks ago. They think the government is using them a little rough. And, as we have not got 2 hundred (200) fighting in the Regt. to be pushed ahead when there is plenty of men at Washington, Alexandria and other places that have been out as long as we have and not been in a fight as yet, while our Regt. was in the fights at Hancock, Winchester, Luray and Port Republic besides several skirmishes with the rebels; the one at Gains Crossroads was as hard on our Regt. as a general battle, for there was five of our men killed at that place and others wounded. 1 Company of Cavalry sent our Regt. was all that was in the fight on our side.
We have not got any new men as yet, and if we get into another fight it will be the last of the 110th, for if any Regt. was to charge on us, our men would fight as hard as they could, but there would not be enough of them to save their colors, and as soon as you lose them, they disband the Regt. and put the men in any other that they see fit.
In your last letter you asked me to send you home some of my hair, but i have it cut so close to my head now that i would have to have it shaved off. A man out here has to take care of himself or the lice would carry him off.
There is a great controversy out here about the nigger-question at present. If they go to sending them out here to fight, they will get enough of it, for it will raise a rebellion in the army that all the Abolitionists this side of hell could not stop. The Southern people are rebels to the Government, but they are white, and God never intended a nigger to put white people down. If they would hang a few of the speculating and beading (?) politicians who are trying to make presidents instead of good generals, the war would soon be over without the help of niggers.”
Here is Enoch again:
“Alexandria, VA.
Sept. 4th, 1862
Note: OUCH.
My dear Wife,
I take pleasure in letting you know that i am still alive and unhurt. For the last 20 days and nights we have not been out of the hearing of cannon firing and during that time we have been with our regiment 5 different days and nights to the front of the field; the first was Slaughter Mountain where our Brigade went into the field with the band playing `Dixie’ and after going up within 30 yds. of the rebels cannon were ordered back by the Arch-traitor McDowel for fear we would take it.
The second tense time was at Rappahannock Station where we drove the Cavelry off and burnt the bridge and stores. The Third was at the Thouroufare Gap where 10 thousand of our men drove 60 thousand back who were coming to reinforce Jackson, but we were too soon for them and there first. It is a place like a Street through two mountains and whichever party would have got there first could easily keep the other off.
The 4th day was on Saturday last of Bull Run where in the front and center we stood our ground until one hour before dark when we were ordered back not knowing what for and in a few minutes the whole line was in confusion commencing on the left. We were told ‘n told not to fire as the men coming was our own men, but instead of that, it was the rebels who had out-flanked us and was cutting our own men down by hundreds. We rallied again at the hospital and after dark, so as to make a stand. The rebels came up within 10 yds. before we seen or heard them it was so dark, and such a noise. We hailed them to know who comes. They answered, “friends to the Union”!, and said they belonged to Sturgis’ Division. One of our Lieutenants went up to them and asked to see their Colors. That was the first we knew of they’re being the enemy. They fired and we returned it, but how ever one of us escaped is more than i can tell. Our men fell all ’round me before, ‘long side, and behind me. Still i got off without being hurt. i came very nigh being drowned crossing Bull run by being crowded off the ford so as to let the cannon cross. The last fight we were in was on Monday at Fairfax. There we whipped the rebels bad, but as they had a strong force behind, we could not follow them. Our regiment has lost about 80 men killed and wounded and prisoners.
No more at present. As soon as we get a little settled, i will write to you. My love to you.
E. T. Baker
I AM WELL”
And again:
“110th Pa. (Thoburn) September 9th, 1862
In Camp near Georgetown D.C.
My dear Wife
I take my pen in hand to let you know that i am well and hope that these few lines will find you and the children the same. i wrote to you as soon as i could after i got to Alexandria to let you know how i made out and i tell you it was hard enough. i came near being drowned in Bull’s Run on Saturday of the fight at that place. The Division we were in that day, General Ricket’s lost more men than any other. The 5th New York who were on the left of our Brigade lost 320 men within the space of 200 square yds.. On one part of the ground they lay so thick that we had to move them before we could get room to walk.
And you talk about seeing awful sights, there was some of them there and at Fairfax Station where we had to load the wounded in the cars. We staid at the Station on Thursday till the rebels were in sight and then set fire to everything we could that belongs to the government such as grub. They came so close on us that we had not time to bury the limbs that had been cut off the wounded in the depot but had to set it on fire and burn them.
Our regiment has suffered pretty severely again. We have lost about 80 in killed, wounded and missing, our Co. has had two killed and 5 missing who we cannot tell anything about whether they are killed or prisoners. i came off lucky, for right by our colors when most of our men fell was the place that our little Company was stationed. There was at least 20 killed within 50 yds. of where i lay and stand together as occasion required it, for when their shells came across they did not pay much respect to anyone. They must have taken us for gals, they kept saying `sis’ to us every few minutes and every now and then making our Brigade still smaller. i will give some account of how many there is in it now. In a full regiment there is 1040 officers and men. There is now in the 1st Virginia (West) regt. 140 men fit for duty, in the 110th 122 men fit for duty, in the 84th 119 men fit for duty; strength of Carroll’s Brigade 379 men and that is our full strength at present. There is men coming to our regt. and the 84th, unless the Govenor stops them, as i hear the rebels are in Pennsylvania. If they are, i suppose they will destroy everything before them. i hope they only go far enough for us to get in behind them, for the men swear that if they get at them in their own State they will not take any prisoners, and as they have raised the black flag before, we will keep them to it.
My dear Wife we have the promise of getting our money next week and if we do, i will not forget you. If we are here or anywhere that i can send you some by Express.
Answer this soon as you can direct to E. T. Baker Co. G 110th regt. P.V. Carroll’s Brigade, Georgetown D.C. or elsewhere
my love to you to Sarah A. Baker from E. T. Baker”
And another:
Arlington Heights, Va. (Opposite Washington) Sept. 21, 1862
My dear Wife,
This is the fourth letter that i wrote you since we got back from the Rapadan river and i have not as yet received any answer. The one i sent you from Georgetown i put in the post office myself and you must certainly have got it. All of the others in the company get their letters and you must direct it wrong or i would not get it. The proper way to direct a letter is:
E. T. Baker
Co. G 110th regt. P.V.
Carroll’s Brigade
Washington D.C. or Elsewhere
This letter takes the last stamp that i have and although we are laying opposite Washington, it would be easier for you to get this than it is for us and in camp you can not get one.
I have the diarrhia very bad for the last week back and it has made me so weak that i am hardly able to be about, otherwise i am well enough. i hope these lines will find you and the children well.
We had the promise of our money last week, but it did not come and there is no telling how when we will get it. When we do, if I am where i can send you some by Express, i will send it to you.
We have not had anything to do with the fight of this last few days. They have stopped us here as part of the force for the protection of Washington. We have charge of a breastworks running between 2 forts. It is a quater of a mile long and opposite to the Leesburg road. Our whole Brigade is here on the works and it would not make half a regiment.
I want you to answer this as soon as possible, as there is talk of our having to move again. Most of our men have been enlisted now 1 year and if they get paid here, most of them will go home whether they get a furlough or not, and for that reason i am afraid that we will not get our pay here. You might as well try to fly as to get a furlough here, and in fact no reasonable person would expect one at present. While the enemy are threatening the Capitol. Their pickets were within 8 miles of here on last Thursday night, but our Cavalry drove them back, but when there was a chance to let some of our men go home, they would not let them go, and there is a great many of them now if they get off, will never come back.
My love to you my dear Wife and children. Give my best respects to all inquiring friends. Tell them that I am pretty hearty and with the exception of the disentery i am well. No more at present. Write soon and don’t forget to put a stamp in the letter.
to – my dear Wife Sarah A. Baker
My love to you E.T. Baker
Another letter on 9/28, and another on 10/4, where he writes that Col. Lewis “is home and is going to see the governor for to get more men or else he will not stay with the Regt. if he gets them, I think there will be a chance for us to get home that have been out so long. If they pay us off here, there will be a great many of the boys that will run away for awhile. That is the reason that they are keeping the pay back, I think until they are ready to send us away.” The last letter (known of) he writes home is dated 11/12, though may encompass writing after that date in the same letter. He is owed four months pay, there’s zero coffee in camp, the men are starving, they’re sleeping on the hard ground snow, coats catch fire while they try to sleep by the fires, the extra clothing they’re given is too heavy to carry daily in their knapsacks, he wants his wife to write more, it’s rumored McClellan may get kicked out, Collis’ Zouaves passed through his area, there’s but one bottle of ink in the whole Reg’t & men have to say their words out loud, not use the bottle, & someone dictates it, the 110th is 9 miles off from a way to mail a letter in Warrenton, then he ends with, “I hope to get home to see you once more, but there is no telling how things will go.”
Note: To paraphrase Waskie’s facts at wesclark.com/jw/enoch_t_baker
Baker will die (in the 110th while battling Lee) by shot to the stomach not long after the above letter; it is probable Baker is in an unmarked grave at the edge of town. In a letter to an unknown party (Dear Sir, but likely a friend of the Baker family) dated January 4, 1863, Sgt. Thomas Bell, 110th Regt. P.V. Co. I, writes of Baker’s last moments: “I received your letter today. You ask me in your letter if E.T. Baker’s body could be got. i am sorry to tell you it can not be done. When he fell, i helped to carry him about a square of the field, then the Rebels made a charge into us and i had to leave go of him and get with the Regiment, then 4 men took hold of him and carried him into Fredericksburg where he died in about ten minutes after, the man that carried him did know the doctor, so no one can tell where he is burried. You spoke to me about that descriptive list and clothing; she must have that to get his pay and bounty. The things he had in his knapsack, i turned over to the captain and he deducted them from his clothing account; he did not say anything to me about his wife and children after he was wounded– he had no time. All that was said between me and him: “Baker, is there anything i can do for you, if i get out of this?” says he to me to try [to] get me off the field. i told him i would do all i could for him and then he told me to write to you. i wish i could get a furlough to come on a few days and then i could tell you the full particulars.” Sgt. Bell was also not long for the world: July 2, 1863 he was killed at Gettysburg. Baker’s wife Sarah had made a promise to Bell that should he be wounded, she would find where he was at & tend to him. It’s not clear from any record whether she recovered his body.
By late Fall, 1862, the 110th will get whittled down to less than 150 officers and men, a relic of its former self. Companies combine, & now there’s just 6, if they can even be termed companies, as ordinarily they contain 97 men plus 3 officers. Company D is no more now, folded into B. Waskie writes that a Co. H, men from Blair County, gets added to the 110th, plus “some scattered recruits.” And Col. Lewis? Gone. Left after Fredericksburg, resigning on 12/20/62. Col. Crowther takes over for him. And McClellan, of course, on November 5, gets gone. Lincoln has Halleck write the order relieving McClellan of command, so Burnside & Fitz-John Porter take over. Burnside, 38, who didn’t even want the position, & had already turned it down twice because “I told them what my views were with reference to my ability to exercise such a command… I was not competent to command such a large army as this.” His associates agreed; Darius Couch: “Those of us who were well acquainted with Burnside knew that he was a brave, loyal man, but we did not think that he had the military ability to command the Army of the Potomac.” At least he had two qualities over McClellan, no? See March 11 for more McClellan shenanigans, the account where he went up to bed instead of talking to the president who needed to talk about this war with him. See too April 3. Lincoln had told John Hay, “I preemptorily ordered him to advance…. He kept delaying on little pretexts of wanting this and that. I began to fear he was playing false– that he did not want to hurt the enemy. I saw how he could intercept the enemy on the way to Richmond. I determined to make that the test. If he let them get away I would remove him. He did so & I relieved him.” Lincoln, too had virtually no military experience: “battling mosquitoes during the Black Hawk war some 30 years before he took office,” according to James McPherson in 2008 at npr.org, “Lincoln Was A President ‘Tried By War’.
See wesclark.com/jw/enoch_t_baker for more about the aftermath of Baker’s death. Worthwhile reading!
Fighting for Defeat: Union Military Failure in the East, 1861-1865 Michael C. C. Adams P. 160 (1864)
“General Martindale, in a letter to General Butler, “there is very great discouragement over the North, great reluctance to recruiting, strong disposition for peace, and even among Republicans of long standing inclination for a change of rulers.’”
Shaun Usher https://lettersofnote.com/2012/01/30/to-my-old-master/
“To My Old Master
In 1864, after 32 long years in the service of his master, Jourdon Anderson and his wife, Amanda, escaped a life of slavery when Union Army soldiers freed them from the plantation on which they had been working so tirelessly. They grasped the opportunity with vigour, quickly moved to Ohio where Jourdon could find paid work with which to support his growing family, and didn’t look back. Then, a year later, shortly after the end of the Civil War, Jourdon received a desperate letter from Patrick Henry Anderson, the man who used to own him, in which he was asked to return to work on the plantation and rescue his ailing business.”
“Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
P.S.—Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson.”
Note: Since May 4, 1864, 65,000 Northern soldiers have been killed, wounded, or declared missing in Grant’s Overland Campaign. (Confederate casualties, some 35,000, constituted approximately the same percentage of their smaller force.) (Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference)
Note: Today General Morgan captures “American Gibraltar,” the Cumberland Gap, a passageway through the lower Appalachians. He keeps it until September when General Bragg grabs it back. General Burnside recaptures it in 1863.
she does not look so harty….
Army telegraph poles– trees stripped of bark and limbs– is how they get the news, & people gathered outside telegraph offices to get at the lists of the dead, even though many battles never made the paper, & names never showed up there, were misspelled, or reported wrong. Imagine standing in a crowd in front of that list tacked up. You read his name & it’s delivered like a piece of shrapnel to your gut. Your pupils fixed from the shock of it, tiny round black suns. Or the name never shows up, so no one knows. You hear nothing ever again & all you can do is stand by the door, look out your window then the years take on a single indeterminate shape like glue holding his photo to the album, if you even have one, that black backing, that matte. Album’s paper turns back into winter leaf, crumbles in your hand. In time, too, no one will remember his name, much less he was ever even in the war.
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