on our hands, and while working with them during the hot weather in June I was prostrated by an attack of pleurisy, and was sent North on a hospital steamer, as my friends thought, to die. Somehow that fate was not to be mine, and early in September I was again on duty at Raleigh. General Schofield remained for a time in command there, but was soon succeeded by General Terry. He, in turn, was relieved, and General Ruger assigned to the command of the department. With this thorough officer I had always the most pleasant relations, and it was finally by his order, in November, 1865, that I was mustered out of service.

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

THE MINE RUN CAMPAIGN.

BY LIEUTENANT-COLONEL EDWIN C. MASON,

FOURTH U. S. INFANTRY, BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL U. S. VOLUNTEERS.

GENTLEMEN; COMPANIONS,-I speak with diffidence upon a military subject, for I have before me those who took an active and distinguished part in the mighty conflict that covered our land from the Susquehanna to the Gulf, from the shores of the Atlantic to the plains of Texas, with battle-fields, leaving on cities, towns, and villages, on mountain and plain, on plantation and farm, over an empire in extent of territory, scars from the iron heel of war which time has not yet effaced.

From the five thousand six hundred and seventyeight (5678) battles, skirmishes, and affairs borne upon the records of our War Department, and which go to make up the grand aggregate of the war of the Rebellion, I have selected as the subject of this paper one brief campaign of the Army of the Potomac,-that of Mine Run, November, 1863,-an operation that, as one writer justly observes, "deserved better success than it met," for the campaign was carefully planned, and especially in preparation for the attack on Decem

ber 30, the details were elaborated with a minuteness rarely observed in our armies.

I trust I may be able to interest you for a few moments as I briefly tell the story, and incidentally show how important events are made to hinge on trifles. A few remarks by way of preface: In midsummer of the year 1863 the Confederate government resolved upon an invasion of the Northern States. This resolution was born, doubtless, of that well-recognized military principle that to seize the opportune moment and take the offensive, carrying the war into your enemy's country, is at times the highest wisdom; for every success increases the confidence of the troops in themselves and their leaders, while the hope of rich spoil and abundant supplies is in itself a powerful incentive to the most vigorous action.

In the case of General Lee, his defensive attitude, maintained for almost a year, had grown very distasteful to the Southern people, who longed to see the war transferred to the "Yankee States," as they pleased to term them.

The experiment of invasion was tried and Gettysburg was the result. The close of that engagement found the Army of the Potomac in fine spirits, confident of its ability to strike a finishing blow to Lee's demoralized forces. This confidence was thoroughly felt and expressed in the Sixth Corps, in which I served, and when it was known that the swelling of the Potomac from recent storms had rendered the fords impracticable, and that Lee had been obliged to halt at Williamsport, pending the construction of a pontoon bridge, it seemed as though the fate of his army was sealed.

Being on duty as general officer of the day for the Sixth Corps on the 12th of July, immediately upon our arrival before the enemy's position I made a careful reconnoissance of his lines in our front in anticipation of the order to attack. It was apparent that considerable confusion existed in the enemy's corps, and that vigorous efforts were being made to increase the natural advantages of the ground for defence. The spade and pick were applied unceasingly during the 12th and 13th, and during those two days of inaction on our part redoubts and rifle-pits grew before our eyes. I have always thought that an attack on the 12th would have been successful.

It was one of the occasions, in my judgment, when it would have been well to have taken counsel, as Napoleon often did, of the enthusiasm and spirit of the soldiers in the ranks and lower grades of commissioned officers, for when the soldiers are anxious to attack and are confident of success the battle is half won. The bayonets in our army, above any other known to history, thought. A movement undertaken against the sober judgment of the soldiers generally miscarried; it was rare that one undertaken with their hearty approval did not in the end succeed. Cold Harbor on June 2, 1864, is an instance in point. For weeks the army had been hurled against formidable defences, and the awful aggregate of sixty thousand killed, wounded, and missing, in the series of engagements from the crossing of the Rapidan on the 5th of May to the passage of the James on the 12th of June, had almost been completed. There was no demoralization in the ranks, but the soldiers felt it was a useless waste of life to attempt again

to storm the works before which thousands of their comrades had gone down to death without seeing the foe or inflicting upon him appreciable loss. That morning, in less than forty minutes, thirteen thousand men had been killed and wounded in a fruitless assault on works rudely constructed but giving complete protection to the enemy, who, from under the "peep-log," as it was called, could deliver, with safety to himself, a deadly fire. So, when General Meade issued orders to renew the attack at a later hour that day, they were silently disobeyed. The appointed hour came but no man stirred, and, as a military writer of that period says, "The lines pronounced a silent but emphatic protest against further slaughter." This verdict was wisely accepted by General Grant, and his plans were changed. The high spirit with which the subsequent operations were carried on before Petersburg and Richmond, though scarcely less arduous than the Wilderness campaign, showed that Grant and his soldiers were in accord.

As the world knows, we did not fight at Williamsport, and Lee escaped. The subsequent operations during the remainder of July and the months of August, September, October, and November, I will not refer to, although the series of manoeuvres between the two armies, the numerous affairs between outposts during Lee's retreat to Culpeper, the attempt on the part of the Confederate commander to place himself between Meade and the Capital, foiled by Meade's generalship, and the return to the lines on the Rappahannock, are full of striking incidents. These movements were conducted through the most beautiful part of Virginia, the gentle undulations of the land giving opportu