Caption: Captain
Nathaniel Harris’ Sketch of the Petersburg Regiment’s Battle Flag
Credit: George
S. Bernard Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Dr. William Glenn Robertson, author of The
First Battle of Petersburg, thought The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil
War: A History of the 12th Virginia
Infantry from John Brown’s Hanging to Appomattox “especially useful
in delineating the hometown support system that sustained the regiment
throughout the war.” I thought that justified concentrating the material on the hometown support system into the form of an article.
Soldiers began referring to the 12thVirginia Infantry as “the Petersburg Regiment” as early as May 1861 because
most of the regiment’s companies haled from the Cockade City.[1] The 12th belonged to Mahone’s (later
Weisiger’s) brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia. The Petersburg Regiment was unusually
literate and its soldiers left a small library of diaries, letters and memoirs
which document many aspects of soldier life, including the system developed to
supplement their rations.
Living was easy for the 12th Virginia
Infantry’s men during garrison duty in Norfolk from April 1861 until May
1862. They daily drew as much beef,
coffee and sugar as they wanted. Once a
week they received a day’s worth of bacon, rice and molasses. Boxes of delicacies from home such as eggs and
pound cake supplemented their rations. “We
have fried ham & eggs every day for dinner,” wrote First Sgt. James Edward
“Eddie” Whitehorne of Greeneville County in the 12th’s Company F, the Huger
Grays.[2]
Messes employed cooks and dining room
servants. Most of the men could afford
to purchase their own provisions and scorn government issue.
Things changed after Norfolk’s evacuation
in early May 1862. “We could not get any
eatables and suffered more than we had done before,” recalled Sgt. James Eldred
Phillips of the 12th’s Company G, the Richmond Grays.[3] In July, after the fighting around Richmond, the
men lacked cooking utensils and mixed their flour in wagon buckets, baking it
on smooth rocks collected in the fields. They had a monotonous diet. “We do not get anything but salt bacon and
flour,” Sergeant Whitehorne groused. “I
would give anything on earth to get some vegetables.”[4]
Before July’s end, the situation improved
for most of the regiment. Commissioned
by the City of Petersburg, Capt. Nathaniel Harrison started making trips from
Petersburg to Mahone’s brigade driving a wagon loaded with “good things for the
boys,” recalled Sgt. George S. Bernard of the 12th’s second Company I, the
Meherrin Grays or “Herrings,” which replaced the Hargrave Blues in the spring
of 1862.[5]
The Commissioner’s full name was
probably Nathaniel Cole Harrison, who had a son, Pvt. William Henry Harrison,
in the 12th Virginia’s Company A, the Petersburg City Guard.[6]
Caption:
William Henry Harrison, probably the son of Petersburg's Commissioner
Credit: The
Progress-Index (Petersburg, Va.), April 30, 1961
Captain Harrison brought food and clothing
from citizens of Petersburg to their friends and relatives in Mahone’s brigade,
including soldiers who did not belong to Petersburg companies. The townspeople adopted the Norfolk Juniors,
the Petersburg Regiment’s Company H. Besides
any goods that Harrison might bring to individual Norfolk men from friends or
relatives in Petersburg, the Cockade City sent shipments of food and clothing
for the whole company. The Richmond
Grays fared at least as well. Less than
10 miles from their hometown, they could expect friends and relatives to
deliver packages in person as well as through a commissioner.
Commissioners from Brunswick and
Greensville counties also began making trips to the 12th. Greensville bought an ambulance which shuttled
back and forth between the county and Mahone’s brigade once a week, keeping the
Huger Grays and the Herrings well supplied with vegetables and fresh meat. First Lieutenant Joseph Richard Manson of the
Herrings received more fresh vegetables than he could eat and distributed the
surplus to his friends. Enough meat
arrived to feed the Herrings for two or three days at a time. “This enables the men to sell their rations
which helps out the poor soldier’s small pay and enables him to send some home
to his family,” wrote Manson.[7]
The regiment’s conscripts from
southwest Virginia fared poorly. Distance
prevented the commissioners of their counties from frequently visiting these
troops. “They look so dejected,” Lieutenant
Manson wrote. “You can tell one as far as you can see him. They are so troubled
that they become fit subjects for disease and so many of the poor fellows will
die in camp....”[8]
After the privations of the Maryland
Campaign, Captain Harrison arrived at the 12th’s camp near Fredericksburg on
December 22. He drove in with a wagon
piled high with boxes and bundles. “No
children...ever examined their stockings in the morning with greater glee and
frolic than did ‘the boys’ exhibit as they gathered around Mr. Harrison’s
wagon, listening for their names to be called out,” Pvt. Westwood A. Todd of
the Petersburg Riflemen, the 12th’s Company E, recalled.[9] Each box made someone’s heart glad. The wagon carried shoes, shirts, drawers,
socks and soap for the Petersburg men, the Norfolk troops and any soldiers of
the regiment’s three other companies whose relatives in Petersburg remembered
them. The extra clothing turned the tide
in the struggle against lice. The wagon also brought a heavy load of liquor for
the Petersburg men. They kept the
alcohol to themselves, guzzling it next day.
In the regiment’s camp near United States
Mine Ford in March 1863, the men went on short rations—a quarter pound of bacon
and a pound and a half of meal or flour. Boxes of food still arrived from friends and
relatives. One came for Sergeant John F.
Sale of the Norfolk Juniors in mid-March. Manson got something every time Harrison
reached the 12th’s camp. Greensville’s
commissioner, on the other hand, failed to satisfy at least one of his county’s
soldiers. “I dont see why Col S[pratley]
cant bring us boxes,” groused Sergeant Whitehorne. “Mr H[arrison] brought Billy Mitchell a bundle
of nic nacs. I tell you we did certainly enjoy it....”[10] Colonel Spratley may have been related to the
first of the 12th’s soldiers to see combat while a member of the regiment, Pvt.
William W. Spratley of the 12th’s first Company I, the Hargrave Blues. Spratley
helped man one of CSS Patrick Henry
guns in the battle of Hampton Roads.[11]
After Chancellorsville, the miserable Confederate
supply system would not permit Lee to subsist his army in northern Virginia
much longer. Petersburg and its adjacent
counties did their best to supplement the 12th’s short rations. Their
commissioners visited the army monthly and brought their men “car loads of
provisions &c,” wrote Whitehorne, who remained unhappy with Greensville’s
commissioner. “I haven't had enough to
eat since the battle,” he complained on May 13.[12] Six days had elapsed since his company’s last
mouthful of meal.
The countryside surrounding the regiment’s
camp lay destitute in December. “Our
prospects are very hard for a Christmas,” Sergeant Sale wrote on December 23.
“We can procure nothing scarcely here and what we can the most enormous prices
are charged for them.”[13]
But 10 wagons were rolling up from
Petersburg. They arrived on a very cold
Christmas Eve. Almost every soldier with
relatives in Petersburg received a bundle. The townspeople forwarded parcels smuggled
through enemy lines from Norfolk. Sale
received a package containing boots, a suit of clothes, a hat, underclothes,
socks, soap and thread, among other items. “Everything suited to a fraction fitting as if
they were made for me, as well as could-have been done had I been where they
were made,” he commented.[14]
The boxes for the Petersburg troops far
outdid the bundles for the other men and contained “anything you might name not
forgetting a liberal supply of Liquor,” wrote Sale.[15] The Petersburg soldiers did not wait for
Christmas but promptly got drunk.
On June 18, 1864, the regiment returned to Petersburg
and occupied its fortification two miles south of town. That night the soldiers enjoyed a barrel of coffee and
copious crackers sent by the townspeople.
Phillips, now a first lieutenant, recalled of June 19, “Eatibles was
being brought out all day.”[16]
Captain Harrison paid the regiment his
last recorded visit on June 24, riding out to Wilcox’s farm with what Sergeant Sale
termed “little extras.”[17] Local bakers occasionally came out to the
lines to peddle their pies. Most of
regiment’s men could go home for little extras.
Men from other cities or counties had the option of visiting friends or
relatives in the Cockade City.[18] With the Petersburg Regiment so close to its
hometown, it did not require a commissioner any longer.
COPYRIGHT JOHN HORN
[1] William Mahone to Francis H.
Smith, May 8, 18 61,
Preston Library, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia; James E.
Whitehorne to Sister, June
9, 18 61, James E. Whitehorne Papers, Library of Virginia (LV),
Richmond, Virginia; “Casualties In The Petersburg
Regiment, Correspondence of the Petersburg Express, ‘On the Wing,’ Below Richmond, June 2d, 1862,” Bird
Family Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia.
[2] Whitehorne to Sister, October 15, 18 61.
[3] James Eldred Phillips, “Sixth
Corporal,” James Eldred Phillips Papers, Virginia Historical Society (VHS),
Richmond, Virginia, 5.
[4] Whitehorne to Sister, July 15,
1862.
[5] George S. Bernard Notebook, George
S. Bernard Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 59.
[7] Letter, Joseph R. Manson to
Mother, August 9, 1862, The Lewis Leigh Collection—Book 41, #112, U. S. Army
Heritage Educational Center (AHEC), Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
[8] Joseph R. Manson to Mother, July
27, 1862, The Lewis Leigh Collection—Book 41, AHEC.
[9] Westwood A. Todd, “Reminiscences
of the War Between the States April 1861-July 1865,” Southern Historical Collection, 80.
[10] Whitehorne to Sister, April 14,
1863.
[12] Whitehorne to Sister, May 14,
1863.
[13] John F. Sale to Aunt, December 23,
1863, John F. Sale Papers, LV.
[14] Sale to Uncle, December 28, 1863.
[15] Ibid.
[17] John F. Sale Diary, June 24, 1864,
John F. Sale Papers.
[18] Sale to Aunt, December 25, 1864.
