History of Detroit, a chronicle of its progress, its industries, its institutions, and the people of the fair City of the straits, / by Paul Leake ... [Vol. 3]

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HISTORY OF DETROIT

White Oak Swamp, Savage Station, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Chantilly,
Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, the Wilderness campaign, Cold Harbor and
Petersburg. During the battle of Antietam he was shot in the left side of
the neck, the bullet first passing through his blanket roll on his shoulder.
As a memento of this battle the Captain has in his posession a star from
Old Glory. In this engagment several of the color bearers were shot
down and the flag was in tatters. The Captain was in the act of reaching
for a star from the flag which was hanging by a thread, when the aforementioned bullet struck him. When he came to after receiving his injury he was clinching the bit of cloth in his hand.
In the siege of Petersburg the Captain was wounded in his right side
and in the right arm. He was sent to the hospital at Fort Schuyler, New
York, and after convalescing for six weeks he was able to proceed to the
front again. On the 11th of December, 1862, General Burnside commanding the Army of the Potomac, wished to cross the Rappahannock
river at two different points. At Fredericksburg, the engineers who
were laying the pontoon bridges were shot down so rapidly by the
Rebel sharpshooters that they refused to make further attempts to build
the bridges, with the result that the army was at a standstill. Colonel
Hall, commanding the brigade of which the Seventh Michigan was a
part, told General Burnside that he thought he had a regiment who would
volunteer to go across in boats and dislodge the sharpshooters so that the
engineers could continue their work. Accordingly the Seventh Regiment, of which Captain Spillane was drummer boy, crossed with a
frightful loss of men but succeeded in dispersing the rebel sharpshooters
and in capturing a number of them. The bridges were then constructed
and after the army had crossed the terrible battle of Fredericksburg took
place, concerning which the following extracts are here inserted, the
same being taken from "Michigan in the War," which was compiled
by John Robertson:
Dark rolled the Rappahannock's flood,
Michigan, my Michigan.
The tide was crimson with thy blood,
Michigan, my Michigan.
Although for us the day was lost
Yet it shall be our proudest boast
At Fredericksburg our Seventh crossed
Michigan, my Michigan.
At ten o'clock General Burnside gives the order: "Concentrate the
fire of all your guns on the city and batter it down!' You may believe
they were not loth to obey. In a few moments thirty-five batteries, one
hundred and seventy-nine guns, opened on the doomed city. It lasted
for upwards of an hour without intermission, fifty rounds being fired
from each gun.
The congregated generals were transfixed. Mingled satisfaction
and awe were upon every face. But what was tantalizing was, that
though a great deal could he heard, nothing could be seen, the city being still enveloped in fog and mist. Only a denser pillar of smoke
defining itself on the background of the fog indicated where the town
had been fired by our shells. Another and another column showed itself,
and we presently saw that at least a dozen houses must be on fire.
Towards noon the curtain rolled up and we saw that it was indeed
so. Fredericksburg was in conflagration. Tremendous though this
fire had been and terrific though its effect obviously on the town, it
had not accomplished the object intended. It was found by our gun