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| View in the main Street of Hampton in 1864.1 |
December 11, 1864. |
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without justice.
During the remainder of his three months service, when he held command at Hampton, he bore the load of odium with suffering that almost dethroned his reason, but with the dignity of conscious innocence.
Then he entered the service for three years as a private soldier.
He arose quickly to the position of a commander of a regiment, and performed signal service in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
In one of the severe battles fought on the Virginia Peninsula, which we shall consider hereafter, he was chosen by General Richardson to perform most perilous duty in front of a heavy battery of the foe, then hurling a hundred shot a minute.
Whilst waving his sword, and shouting to his regiment, “At the double-quick!
Follow me!”
his right arm was torn from his shoulder by a 32-pound ball, that cut a man in two just behind him. Peirce was a gallant and faithful soldier during the whole war, and deserves the grateful thanks of his countrymen.
In contemplating the battle at Bethel in the light of contemporary and subsequent events, the historian is constrained to believe that the disaster on that day was chargeable more to a general eagerness to do, without experience in doing, than to any special shortcomings of individuals.
The writer visited the battle-ground at Great Bethel early in December, 1864, in company with the father of Lieutenant Greble and his friend (F. J. Dreer), who was with him when he bore home the lifeless body of his son. We arrived at Fortress Monroe on Sunday morning,
and after breakfasting at the Hygeian Restaurant, near the Baltimore wharf, we called on General Butler, who was then the commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina.
He was at his quarters in the fortress, and was preparing to sail on the memorable expedition against the forts at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, and the town of Wilmington, so famous as the chief port for blockade-runners.
We were invited by General Butler to accompany him, and gladly embraced the opportunity to become spectators of some of the most stirring scenes of the war. Whilst waiting two or three days for the expedition to sail, we visited the battle-ground at Big Bethel, the site of Hampton, and the hospitals and schools in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe.
1 this is a view from the main Street, looking northwest toward the old church, whose ruins are seen toward the left of the picture, in the back-ground. The three huts in front occupy the sites of the stores of Adler, Peake, and Armistead, merchants of Hampton. The one with the wood-sawyer in front was a barber's shop
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