University of Virginia Library

BATTLE OF WELDON ROAD.

About the middle of August, Grant threw a large part of his
force across the James at Deep Bottom and advanced towards
Richmond. It resulted in his repulse, but drew a large part of
our force from Petersburg and thus gave him an opportunity
to strike at the Weldon railroad within three miles of which his
left then rested. He obtained possession of a considerable portion
of it from Davis's farm near the city southward—suffering a loss
of a thousand men. On the 19th, Colquitt's and Clingman's
brigades, of Hoke's division, were detached to take part with
other troops in an effort to dislodge him. They failed of success,
though the operation resulted in inflicting heavy loss upon the
enemy, including the capture of three thousand prisoners. General
Clingman was wounded and never again rejoined his brigade.

The fight was to be renewed on the 20th, and on the night of
the 19th, about 9 o'clock, General Hagood received an order to

turn over his brigade in the trenches to the senior officer present,
and taking with him only his personal aide report to General
A. P. Hill to command a brigade from Bushrod Johnson's
division in the expected fight. Bushrod Johnson was holding the
lines next to Hoke, and he sent no organized brigade, but a regiment
from each brigade of his division. It seemed that his habit
was to keep one regiment from each of his brigades resting in
rear of the lines and he sent such as happened to be there at the
time. The regiments commenced arriving at the rendezvous near
the lead works when Hagood was to meet them about 11:30 p. m.,
and by 3 a. m. Hagood had effected a brigade organization with
them, appointing haphazard an acting staff and leaving their
names and those of his regimental commanders, for it was too
dark to see their faces, he reported to General Hill, who was
asleep in his ambulance near by. When General Hill learned the
heterogeneous character of the brigade sent him, he, much to
Hagood's relief, declined to receive it, and directed the regiments
returned to their division.

Nothing was done that day. The enemy were left to entrench
undisturbed across the coveted road. In the afternoon, Hagood's
own brigade was withdrawn from the trenches and marching
through Petersburg bivouacked beyond its southern limits to the
right of Battery 45.

But 59 officers and 681 men marched out of the trenches. Sixty-seven
days and nights in them, without relief, had shorn the
brigade of two-thirds of its numerical strength, and so debilitated
were the sickly and enfeebled remainder that they tired
badly in the short evening march. The brigade was itself only
in the unconquerable spirit of the remnant which still clung to
its banner. When General Hagood again in pursuance of his
directions reported to General Hill, he felt that justice to his
men required it, and he unhesitatingly asked and received the
promise that he should not be used in the next day's work, if it
could be avoided.

The change from the cramped and noisome trench to the freedom
of the bivouac, and the call upon the men for action, instead
of endurance, aroused their spirits wonderfully. And although
it rained all night, the fires of the brushwood crackled merrily,
and there was once more heard the light laugh, the ready joke,

and the busy hum of voices as the men prepared their suppers or
smoked their pipes stretched at length before the exhilarating
blaze.

At 2 a. m. (of the 21st of August) the brigade was aroused,
and, moving out at half-past three, followed the column destined
for the day's engagement. It still rained; and after a toilsome
march through mud and water, first down the Squirrel Level
road and then across toward the Poplar Spring Church, more or
less skirmishing going on all the time by the flankers on our left,
the brigade was directed to halt by the roadside and remain in
reserve, while the column passed on. It had now ceased raining,
and shortly afterwards, about a mile in front of us, the fire of
skirmishers was heard, and a heavy fire of artillery opened. The
men laid down and rested from the unwonted fatigue of the
march. The firing became more earnest in front; and in about
half an hour a courier from General Hill arrived and directed us
to hasten to the front and report to Major-General Mahone.

Proceeding by a short cut into the Vaughn road, under the
guidance of the courier, and up that toward Petersburg until
within six hundred yards of the Flowers' house, we turned across
the field to the right and proceeded towards the railroad, in the
vicinity of the Globe Tavern. A number of pieces were in position
in this field, shelling the railroad, and the enemy's batteries
in that direction, though not visible from woods intervening, were
replying vigorously. General Hagood moving in columns of
fours, passed at double quick across this field, suffering some
casualties from exploding shells; and as he reached its further
border, a major-general rode up to him announcing himself as
General Mahone. Then leading the column, he himself placed it
in position in line of battle along the edge of the wood and facing
the railroad. "Now," said he to Hagood, "you are upon the flank
and rear of the enemy. I have five brigades fighting them in
front and they are driving them. I want you to go in and press
them all you can." Some fifty yards within the woods the swamp
of a rivulet (or "branch") was to be seen; beyond nothing was
visible, and firing both of artillery and infantry was then going
on. General Mahone added, "when you have crossed the branch
swamp you will come upon a clearing in which some 300 yards
further is the enemy's line, and they are not entrenched." He
also urged promptness in the attack.

General Hagood immediately gave the order to advance, and
the men moving in line made their way across the swamp. Upon
arriving on the other side, we found ourselves in the clearing, but
the enemy still not visible. We were under a hill and they were
upon the open plateau sufficiently far beyond to prevent the
view. The advance of the brigade had, however, evidently
attracted attention from the fire drawn in our direction. The
line had been much broken in crossing the swamp, and Hagood
immediately pushed skirmishers up the hill for protection and
ordered one of his staff to accompany them and reconnoiter while
he gave his personal assistance to Captain Moloney, in getting the
line of battle rapidly reformed. He assisted the adjutant, instead
of himself going to reconnoiter, because from the report of a
courier, who had gone up the hill while the skirmishers were
forming, he thought there was some danger of being himself
assailed where he was and his men were so disorganized at the
moment as to be in no condition to repel an attack.

In a few minutes the brigade was formed, and the report coming
at the same time from the skirmishers that the enemy was
but a short distance ahead of them, and only in rifle pits, thus
confirming General Mahone's statement. Hagood, cautioning his
men to move only at a quick step till he himself gave the order
to charge, moved his brigade forward. He had dismounted, and,
placing himself in front of the center to steady the men and
repress excitement, moved backward in front of the line for a
short distance as if on a drill. Himself halting before reaching
the crest of the hill, the line passed and he followed with his
staff behind the right of the Twenty-first regiment. The Twenty-fifth
was on the left of the Twenty-first, and the other three regiments
on its right. As soon as the brigade became visible, ascending
the hill, a rapid fire was opened upon it, to which in reply
not a shot was fired, but moving forward steadily at quick time
with arms at "right shoulder shift," as we approached the line of
enemy's pits, they broke from them and fled. With one accord a
battle yell rang out along our line, and the men, as if by command,
broke into "double quick" in pursuit. At the same moment,
General Hagood discovered that the line in front of us had only
been an entrenched skirmish line, though so heavy as to have
deceived his skirmishers into the notion that it was a line of

battle; and that 250 yards beyond was a strongly entrenched line,
crowded with men and artillery, extending right and left as far
as he could see; and the five Confederate attacking brigades
nowhere visible. It also appeared to him that he was moving
upon a re-entering angle of the enemy's line. In this, however,
he was partially mistaken. An examination of the field after the
war (see diagram at p. 321) showed that the enemy's line crossing
the railroad from the east, at this time bent immediately southward,
and followed its course in a comparatively straight line at
some forty yards on its western side. Later in the siege their line
extended farther west, as shown in the Federal sketch at p. 306.
Then, recrossing the road at a point below where we struck it,
their line only bit out a piece sufficient, if he could hold and permanently
entrench, to prevent its further use by us. Immediately
to the right of where we struck their line, a small bastioned work
for field artillery was thrust forward, and our line of advance was
oblique to the enemy's general line and toward its junction with
the flank of this work. Thus, in fact, we were going into a
reentering made more by the vicious direction of our advance
than by the actual construction of the enemy's works. The flank
fire from the bastioned work we could not have avoided, but from
our oblique attack we had also more or less a flank fire from the
straight line, which was an infantry parapet of fully five feet
command with an exterior ditch eight or ten feet wide and
artillery at intervals. Perceiving at a glance the hopelessness
of assault under such circumstances, General Hagood stopping
himself, shouted again and again the command to halt; but the
crash and rattle of twelve or fifteen pieces of artillery, and probably
2,500 rifles, which had now opened upon us at close range,
drowned his voice and the fury of the battle was upon his men.
Moving forward with the steady tramp of the double quick, and
dressing upon their colors, these devoted men, intent only on
carrying the position before them, neither broke their alignment
until it was broken by the irregular impact upon the enemy's
works, nor stopped to fire their guns until their rush to obtain
the parapet was repelled.

When General Hagood saw his men thus rushing upon certain
destruction and his efforts to stop them unavailing, he felt that
if they were to perish he should share their fate; and with

Sketch taken on the ground in 1868:

A. Hagood's Brigade as put in position by Gen. Mahone

B. Across the swamp—advancing.

C. C. An enemy's works.

Moloney and Martin and Orderly Stoney, who were all of his
staff that were with him (Moffett and Mazyck were further back
in discharge of their respective duties as inspector and ordnance
officer), followed the advancing line. In fifty yards Lieutenant
Martin fell, shot in the knee; a few steps further and Captain
Moloney fell, shot through the head; and Hagood and Stoney
alone reached the works—the latter shot in the shoulder but not
disabled. The Twenty-fifth and Twenty-first regiments being on
the left from the oblique direction of the advance, first struck the
works; and while they struggled to get in, the other three regiments
swept on. When they reached the ditch, there was from
75 to 100 yards interval between the two divisions into which the
brigade had broken.

General Hagood was with Major Wilds, commanding the
Twenty-first, who was cheering on his men to renewed assault
(success being now their only hope of safety), when looking to
the right he saw a mounted Federal officer among the men on the
left portion of the brigade to the right, with a regimental color
in his hands, and a confusion and parleying immediately around
him that betokened approaching surrender. The fight was still
raging to Hagood's right and left; there was no cessation on our
part except in the squad just around this officer, and none whatever
that was perceptible on the part of the enemy. They had
pushed out from the right and left a line behind us to cut off our
retreat, and this officer (Captain Daly of General Cutler's staff)
had galloped out of a sally port, seized a color from the hands of
its bearer, and demanded a surrender. Some officers and men
surrendered, but were not carried in; others refused, but just
around him ceased fighting. General Hagood called to the men to
shoot him and fall back in retreat. They either did not hear him
or bewildered by the surrender of part of their number, failed to
obey. It was a critical moment and demanded instant and
decided action. In a few minutes the disposition to surrender
would have spread and the whole brigade have been lost.
Making his way across the intervening space as speedily as he
could, exposed to a regular fire by file from the enemy's line,
scarce thirty yards off, and calling to his men to fall back—which
they did not do—General Hagood approached the officer and
demanded the colors, and that he should go back within his own

lines, telling him he was free to do so. He commenced arguing
the hopelessness of further struggle, and pointed out the lines in
our rear. Hagood cut him short, and demanded a categorical
reply—yes, or no. Daly was a man of fine presence and sat with
loosened rein upon a noble-looking bay that stood with head and
tail erect and flashing eye and distended nostrils, quivering in
every limb with excitement, but not moving in his tracks. In
reply to his abrupt demand, the rider raised his head proudly
and decisively answered, "No!" Upon the word General Hagood
shot him through the body, and, as he reeled from the saddle
upon one side, sprang into it from the other, Orderly Stoney
seizing the flag from Daly's falling hands.

There was no thought of surrender now. The yell from the
brigade following the act and ringing out above the noise of
battle told their commander that they were once more in hand
and would go now wherever ordered—whether to the front or
rear.

Shouting to them to face about, Hagood led them at a run
against the line in his rear, Stoney holding aloft in the front the
recaptured flag which he had torn from its staff. This line
melted before our charge; but the fire was terrific after breaking
through it, until the shelter of the valley of the branch was
reached. Upon its margin a fragment from a schrapnel shell tore
open the loin of the horse upon which Hagood rode; and struggling,
as he fell, he kicked Lieutenant William Taylor of the
Seventh battalion upon the head, rendering him for the time so
confused that he had to be led from the field by one of his men.
This gallant young officer had a few days before rejoined his
command with an unhealed wound received at Drury's Bluff.

This ended the fighting for the possession of the Weldon Road.
The Confederate losses had been very insignificant, until today,
and now it was confined principally to our brigade. Grant had
lost 5,000 men, but he had the road. A few days afterwards,
Hancock with 8,000 men was dispatched southward from this
point to tear up the track. A. P. Hill and Hampton met and
defeated him at Ream's Station[31] with the loss of two field batteries
and between 2,500 and 3,000 men. Grant's men might have
adopted with some variation the burthen of Hood's "Song of

the Shirt"—"Ah, God! That roads should be so dear and flesh
and blood so cheap!"

A week afterwards, in a conversation in General Lee's presence,
General A. P. Hill stated to Hagood that on the morning of the
21st he was informed by his scouts as to the position and condition
of the enemy's works, believing that the point upon which
Hagood was sent was the left of their line, and that they had no
further works down the railroad. He also added that the haziness
of the morning prevented his ascertaining his error until
Hagood's attack developed it. General Mahone also said to General
Hagood that he shared the same misapprehension, but
insisted that if the other five brigades had attacked with the same
vigor that Hagood's did, we would have won. It seemed that
after driving the enemy's skirmish line from the pits, out of
which Hagood's men marched them, they stopped; and the heavy
fusillade which made Mahone think they were driving the enemy
was from a stationery line firing at long range.[32]

The frankness and freedom with which these two distinguished
officers took the blame of the blunder upon themselves greatly
relieved General Hagood, for he feared that this affair, in the misapprehension
to which it would be subjected, would be similar
to the assault of the 24th June at the City Point Road. It was,
however, generally correctly understood in the army, and apparently
not misunderstood by the public. Both Generals Lee and
Beauregard were on the field, and the latter next day sent Hagood
word through General Hoke that had it been in his power he
would have promoted him before leaving it. He also, through
his adjutant, called for a written report of the incident of the
flag. This was briefly written and forwarded. Some months
afterward, General Cooper, adjutant-general at Richmond, very
kindly sent to General Hagood an official copy of the endorsements
made on the report, then on file in his office. They were
as follows:

"Respectfully forwarded through General R. E. Lee to his Excellency,
President Davis, for his information. Such an act of gallantry, as herein
described, and of devotion to one's flag reflects the highest credit on the
officer who performs it, and it should be held up to the army as worthy of
imitation under similar circumstances. Brigadier-General Hagood is a
brave and meritorious officer, who had distinguished himself already at
Battery Wagner and Drury's Bluff, and participated actively in the battles
of Warbottam Church and Petersburg on the 16th and 17th June last. I
respectfully recommend him for promotion at the earliest opportunity.
Attention is also called to General Hagood's recommendation of his orderly,
Private J. D. Stoney, for a commission. I feel assured he is deserving of it.

"There are two modes of recognizing distinguished service—one by promotion,
the other by announcement in orders. See recommendation for the
private and note for the brigadier, whom I regard worthy of promotion
when it can be consistently done.

Stoney subsequently received from the President the commission
of second lieutenant in the Twenty-seventh regiment, and
did his duty as faithfully and gallantly as heretofore 'till the
close of the war. Captain Daly, though reported dead by the

Yankee newspaper army correspondent, was understood to have
survived and to have published in the New York Herald many
months afterward a card, among other things vindicatory of General
Hagood from the charge of murder which the Yankee papers
freely lavished upon him.[33]

General Hagood, valuing highly the approval of his superior
officers in the field, sought to make no use of the foregoing handsome
endorsements beyond leaving them in the war office, where
they were quietly pigeon-holed. Three months later, he and
many better men were overslaughed by the assignment to a
division command in the army of Northern Virginia of an officer
who had never previously been in battle. This it will be remembered
was at the close of the fourth year of the war!

After the repulse of his brigade, on the 21st of August, General
Hagood kept for some time a line of skirmishers on the field as
near as possible to the enemy's works, while the litter bearers
removed the wounded. Many poor fellows crawled within this
line and were thus rescued from captivity; one of them, Lieutenant
Harper, Twenty-fifth regiment, dragged himself from
near the enemy's works with a broken leg. He was never, however,
able again to resume duty with his company. Of the 59
officers and 681 men who went into the action in the brigade, only
18 officers and 274 men came out of it unhurt; being a total of
448 casualties—or about two-thirds of the force engaged. The
enemy claimed to have buried 211 dead, of which most were
Hagood's men. The character of the casualties was probably 120
killed, 125 wounded in our hand, and 203 captured, of which a
large part were also wounded.

In the Twenty-first regiment, Major Wilds, commanding, was
wounded and captured; Lieutenant Ford wounded and captured,
and Lieutenants Bowles, Easterling and Atkinson were captured.

In the Seventh battalion Lieutenants McKaskell, Kennedy,
Isbell and Douglass were killed; Captain Segars and Lieutenants
Tiller, Raley, King, Clyburn, Taylor, and Weston wounded, and
Captain Jones with Lieutenants Young, Gardner and Schley were
captured. Captain Jones commanded the battalion in the action.

In the Eleventh regiment, Lieutenant Minas was wounded, and
Lieutenants Morrison, Bowman and Tuten were captured. Lieutenant
Morrison commanded the regiment, which had scarcely the
strength of a company.

In the Twenty-fifth regiment, Captains Sellars and Gordon,
with Lieutenants Kennerly, Ross, Bethea and Evans were killed.
Captain McKerrall and Lieutenant Duke were captured. Sellars
commanded the regiment—mistake, Gordon ranked Sellars.

In the Twenty-seventh regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Blake and
Lieutenants Muckenfuss, Hendrix, McBeth and Hogan were captured.
Cadet Porcher was wounded. Colonel Gaillard commanded
his regiment and escaped unhurt.

Lieutenant Martin's wound in the leg proved more painful than
serious. In a couple of months he was again at his post as active
and efficient as ever in the discharge of his duty as aide-de-camp-Lieutenant
Cassidy, of the Eleventh regiment, was noted for his
gallantry; and in the ranks Sergeant Brothers, colorbearer of
the same regiment, deserves especial mention. He was sick in
hospital when the brigade left the trenches and hearing of the
probability of its engaging the enemy, applied for his discharge,
which the surgeon refused, on the ground that he was yet unfit
for duty. He deserted from the hospital, joined his regiment on
the march through Petersburg, and was shot down next day
while heroically doing his duty. He lost his leg and was placed
on the retired list. Many other noble men in the ranks perished
or survived that day whose deeds deserve mention; but it is
impossible to do justice to them all.

It was a heartrending sight to look along the line of the
brigade, as it mustered in the Vaughn road after the action, and
miss the familiar faces, without which it did not seem the same
command. It was now shrunk to the proportions of a small
battalion, yet so game and generous was the spirit of this body
of men that the writer believes this poor remnant could have
again been led into action that day with all the dash and gallantry
that marked their morning's work. And as the news of
the fiery ordeal, through which the brigade had passed, spread
through the hospitals and field infirmary, the sick and wounded,
who had not been present, sought their discharges, and pale and
weak voluntarily hastened to rejoin their comrades and share

their fate. In less than a week three hundred and thirty-nine
men (339) from the sick list returned to duty, one-half of whom
could not have stood a five-mile march. No wonder General
Hagood was sensitive to even a suspicion of recklessly wielding
a blade so highly tempered and uselessly hacking it against
impossibilities.

There were two men who fell upon this bloody field who had
done as much, each in his sphere, to give the character to the
brigade which it had exhibited as perhaps any other two men in
it—Moloney and Sellars. Captain Sellars had enlisted in the
First South Carolina Volunteers (Hagood's) in December, 1860,
and was made orderly sergeant of Captain Collier's company.
At the reorganization of the regiment, in April, 1862, he re-enlisted
in the same company, was elected its captain, and with it
joined the Twenty-fifth regiment, then being organized. He was
young, probably twenty-two, at the period of his untimely death
—of modest bearing, strict, yet just, as a disciplinarian, and
beloved by his men. In action he was cool, determined and
unflinching, and exhibited a capacity for higher command, which
he would assuredly have reached had a kinder fate spared his
valuable life. He always did his duty well; had more than once
distinguished himself; and had been recommended for promotion
to the vacant majority in his regiment. The place of such a man
could not well be filled.

Moloney—graduating with honor at a Northern college—
engaged for a year or two in mercantile pursuits at his home in
South Carolina. Then, having studied law and been admitted to
its practice, was in the West perfecting his arrangements for
establishing himself in Louisiana, when South Carolina seceded.
Returning, he joined the First South Carolina and was made its
adjutant. The foregoing Memoirs are the record of his services.
In every action narrated, he was engaged, and if his name is not
always mentioned, it is because the comment that must needs go
with it must become monotonous—he always did his duty well
and completely. His business habits, just mind, and accomplished
manner, made him invaluable in the office; and on the
field he had the quick intelligence and fertility of resource of the
born soldier. An incident on the 24th June illustrates his coolness.
He had been sent to carry an order, under very heavy fire,

and on his return, when some fifteen or twenty feet from the
officer who sent him, a shell from a Napoleon striking the earth
between them exploded at his feet, the fragments flying on. As
he emerged from the smoke which enveloped him, he quietly
announced, with a military salute, "Your order has been delivered."
Moloney was rather above the medium height, of slight
but active frame, and of an intellectual and refined countenance.
General Hagood was strongly attached to him, and in announcing
his death to his family wrote, ". . . Words are idle to express
the sympathy I feel for you in this great affliction. He was
almost a brother to me; and to the brigade his loss is irreparable.
With abilities far beyond his rank, he was assiduous and
thorough in the discharge of his duty; and that with a natural
urbanity which made him an universal favorite. One of the men,
when he learned his fate, seized my hand and leaning on my
horse's shoulder, wept uncontrollably. Wounded men, as they
were borne to the rear, with their bodies torn and their limbs
mangled, stopped their litter bearers to ask me after him, and
express their sorrow. Generous, courteous, brave and high-toned,
pure in thought and speech, ever mindful of the rights and
feelings of others, jealous of his own when he thought them
designedly infringed, he came up more fully to my idea of a
gentleman than any man I ever knew.

"Poor fellow! As we marched that morning from our wet and
comfortless bivouac, he told me that he had been dreaming all
night of his mother,—may God comfort her in her sorrow."