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William Schouler, A history of Massachusetts in the Civil War: Volume 2 1,234 1,234 Browse Search
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing) 423 423 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts in the Army and Navy during the war of 1861-1865, vol. 1, Mass. officers and men who died. 302 302 Browse Search
George P. Rowell and Company's American Newspaper Directory, containing accurate lists of all the newspapers and periodicals published in the United States and territories, and the dominion of Canada, and British Colonies of North America., together with a description of the towns and cities in which they are published. (ed. George P. Rowell and company) 282 282 Browse Search
William F. Fox, Lt. Col. U. S. V., Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865: A Treatise on the extent and nature of the mortuary losses in the Union regiments, with full and exhaustive statistics compiled from the official records on file in the state military bureaus and at Washington 181 181 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts in the Army and Navy during the war of 1861-1865, vol. 2 156 156 Browse Search
Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina (ed. Clement Anselm Evans) 148 148 Browse Search
Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 33. (ed. Reverend J. William Jones) 98 98 Browse Search
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts in the Army and Navy during the war of 1861-1865, vol. 1, Condensed history of regiments. 93 93 Browse Search
Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3. 88 88 Browse Search
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Browsing named entities in John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life. You can also browse the collection for 1864 AD or search for 1864 AD in all documents.

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John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 4 (search)
fter the manner of a cellar kitchen; but all of them were at best damp and unwholesome habitations — even where fireplaces were introduced, which they were in cool weather. For these reasons they were occupied only when the enemy was engaged in sending over his iron compliments in the shape of mortar-shells. For all other hostile missiles the breastworks were ample protection, and under their walls the men stretched their half-shelters and passed most of their time in the summer and fall of 1864, when their lot was cast in that part of the lines nearest the enemy in front of Petersburg. A mortar is a short, stout cannon designed to throw shells into fortifications. This is accomplished by elevating the muzzle a great deal. But the A 13-inch mortar. higher the elevation the greater the strain upon the gun. For this reason it is that they are made so short and thick. They can be elevated so as to drop a shell just inside a fort, whereas a cannon-ball would either strike it on t
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 8 (search)
ys from the ovens pierced the terrace where now the freestone pavement joins the grassy slope, and for months smoke poured out of these in dense black volumes. The greater part of the loaves supplied to the Army of the Potomac up to the summer of 1864 were baked in Washington, Alexandria, and at Fort Monroe, Virginia. The ovens at the latter place had a capacity of thirty thousand loaves a day. But even with all these sources worked to their uttermost, brigade commissaries were obliged to set it was never served out to my company more than three or four times, and then during a cold rainstorm or after unusually hard service. Captain N. D. Preston of the Tenth New York Cavalry, in describing Sheridan's raid to Richmond in the spring of 1864, recently, speaks of being instructed by his brigade commander to make a light issue of whiskey to the men of the brigade, and adds, the first and only regular issue of whiskey I ever made or know of being made to an enlisted man. But although h
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 9 (search)
eserter from the First Division of the Second Corps meet his end in the same way, down before Petersburg, in the summer of 1864. These were the only exhibitions of this sort that I ever witnessed, although there were others that took place not far from my camp. The artillery was brigaded by itself in 1864 and 1865, and artillerymen were not then compelled to attend executions which took place in the infantry. Here is a story of another deserter and spy, who was shot in or near Indianapolived again with the hope of diminishing the rapid rate at which desertions took place. Desertion was the most prevalent in 1864, when the town and city governments hired so many foreigners, who enlisted solely to get the large bounties paid, and thenenemy, that is, going from our army over to the enemy, and enlisting in his ranks to fight on that side. In the autumn of 1864--near Fort Welch, I think it was — I saw three military criminals hanged at the same moment, from the same gallows, for th
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 10 (search)
de the animals of the Army of the Potomac with water, as can be judged from the following figures: After Antietam McClellan had about thirty-eight thousand eight hundred horses and mules. When the army crossed the Rapidan into the Wilderness, in 1864, there were fifty-six thousand four hundred and ninety-nine horses and mules in it. Either of these is a large number to provide with water. But of course they were not all watered at the same pond or stream, since the army stretched across many miles of territory. In the summer of 1864, the problem of water-getting before Petersburg was quite a serious one for man and beast. No rain had fallen for several weeks, and the animals belonging to that part of the army which was at quite a remove from the James and Appomattox Rivers had to be ridden nearly two miles (such was the case in my own company, at least; perhaps others went further) for water, and then got only a warm, muddy, and stagnant fluid that had accumulated in some hollow.
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, X. Raw recruits. (search)
for they got hold of some of the crookedest sticks to make straight military men of that the country-or, rather, countries--produced. Not the least among the obstacles in the way of making good soldiers of them was the fact that the recruits of 1864-5, in particular, included many who could neither speak nor understand a word of English. In referring to the disastrous battle of Reams Station, not long since, the late General Hancock told me that the Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment had recein, for what they could not help — by being subjected to the knapsack drill, of which I have already spoken. It was a prudential circumstance that the war came to an end when it did, for the quality of the material that was sent to the army in 1864 and 1865 was for the most part of no credit or value to any arm of the service. The period of enlistments from promptings of patriotism had gone by, and the man who entered the army solely from mercenary motives was of little or no assistance to
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 14 (search)
y decimated corps, so that some of them were consolidated; as, for example, the First and Third Corps were merged in the Second, Fifth, and Sixth, in the spring of 1864. At about the same time the Eleventh and Twelfth were united to form the Twentieth. But enough of corps for the present. What I have stated will make more intelm the original in the minds of many veterans who wore them, and they are changed accordingly in the color-plate. The Sixth Corps wore a St. Andrew's cross till 1864, when it changed to the Greek cross figured in the plate. That this circular of Hooker's was not intended to be a dead letter was shown in an order issued from Weitzel, [Official.] Major-General Commanding. W. L. Goodrich, A. A. A. General. This corps was composed wholly of colored troops. In the late fall of 1864, Major-General W. S. Hancock resigned his command of the Second Corps to take charge of the First Veteran Corps, then organizing. The badge adopted originated wi
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 15 (search)
ere called; and many a Rebel was laid low by shrapnel or canister hurled through the muzzle of guns on which was plainly stamped Revere Copper Co., Canton, Mass. Plain smooth-bore Springfield muskets soon became Springfield rifles, and directly the process of rifling was applied to cannon of various calibres. Then, muzzle-loading rifles became breech-loading; and from a breech-loader for a single cartridge the capacity was increased, until some of the cavalry regiments that took the field in 1864 went equipped with Henry's sixteen-shooters, a breech-loading rifle, which the Rebels said the Yanks loaded in the morning and fired all day. I met at Chattanooga, Tenn., recently, Captain Fort, of the old First Georgia Regulars, a Confederate regiment of distinguished service. In referring to these repeating rifles, he said that his first encounter with them was near Olustee, Fla. While he was skirmishing with a Massachusetts regiment (the Fortieth), he found them hard to move, as they
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 16 (search)
als. In all seriousness, however, dealing only with the fact, without attempting to prove or deny justification for it, it is undoubtedly true that the mule-drivers, when duly aroused, could produce a deeper cerulean tint in the surrounding atmosphere than any other class of men in the service. The theory has been advanced that if all of these professional m. d.‘s in the trains of the Army of the Potomac could have been put into the trenches around Petersburg and Richmond, in the fall of 1864, and have been safely advanced to within ear-shot of the enemy, then, at a signal, set to swearing simultaneously at their level-worst, the Rebels would either have thrown down their arms and surrendered then and there, or have fled incontinently to the fastnesses of the Blue Ridge. There may have been devout mule-drivers in Sherman's army, but I never saw one east. They may have been pious on taking up this important work. They were certainly impious before laying it down. Nevertheless,
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 18 (search)
uty were not exempt from long clothing bills more than were those who were active at the front. I have in mind the heavy artillerymen who garrisoned the forts around Washington. They were in receipt of visits at all hours in the day from the most distinguished of military and civil guests, and on this account were not only obliged to be efficient in drill but showy on parade. Hence their clothing had always to be of the best. No patched or untidy garments were tolerated. In the spring of 1864, twenty-four thousand of these men were despatched as reenforcements to the Army of the In heavy marching order. Potomac, and a fine lot of men they were. They were soldiers, for the most part, who had enlisted early in the war, and, having had so safe — or, as the boys used to say, soft --and easy a time of it in the forts, had re-enlisted, only to be soon relieved of garrison duty and sent to the front as infantry. But while they were veterans in service in point of time, yet, so far as
John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life, chapter 20 (search)
they were not considered a success. When the Third Corps was wintering at Brandy Station in 1863-4 the concert troupe, which my company boasted was engaged to give a week of evening entertainmentsr was a corps better organized than was the quartermaster's corps with the Army of the Potomac in 1864, says Grant in his Memoirs. Let us see a little more clearly what a corps train included. I was put to a severer test. For example, when the Army of the Potomac went into the Wilderness in 1864, each wagon was required to carry five days forage for its animals (600 pounds), and if its other as trainguard for the transportation of the Army of the Potomac from the Rapidan to the James in 1864. When ammunition was wanted by a battery or a regiment in the line of battle, a wagon was senhich will well illustrate the trials of a train quartermaster. At the opening of the campaign in 1864, Wilson's cavalry division joined the Army of the Potomac. Captain Ludington (now lieutenantcolo-
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