Captain Parlin in the Civil War, Chapter 6

                                                 Chapter 6.  
                 

                New Market Heights, Fort Harrison and Chaffin's Farm.  

    I knew Grant would make the fur fly when he started down through Virginia. 
                                                           General Sherman, after taking Altanta                                                                              
    
    As summer turned to autumn, General Butler conceived of yet another plan to take Richmond---  going straight up the north side of the James toward the capitol.  It was brilliant, but required timely execution.  Grant, thinking Lee would be forced to reinforce his lines around Mrs. Chaffin's farm against Butler's three-pronged attack planned for Thursday, September 29th, added another dimension:  he would order Meade’s Army of the Potomac to attack the railroad south of Petersburg.  Grant believed Lee must transfer troops from around the Dimmock Line to strengthen his northern defenses.  Fort Harrison  was at the southern end of the long line of Confederate fortifications protecting Richmond and was inland from the bluffs overlooking the James at Chaffin's farm.  From there the works ran eight miles to encircle Richmond. Butler intended to attack with Birney's Xth Corps and Ord’s  XVIIIth Corps (which contained the USCT.)  Capturing the concentrated force at Fort Harrison and lesser outposts between it and the river would give the Union forces strategic control of the James north of Petersburg and stop the flow of rebel river traffic to Richmond.  Butler was ordered by Grant to attack and take rebel positions at nearby New Market Heights, Fort Harrison and Chaffin's farm and head  north with two prongs of infantry to take Richmond itself, just eight miles away.  
      General Ord, who had replaced Baldy Smith, would take the left wing of the assault and storm Fort Harrison while General David Birney of the Xth Corps would take his divisions and part of one division, the 3rd including Captain Parlins 1st Brigade commanded by Colonel Holman, from the XVIIIth to attack heavily fortified New Market Heights which lay about a mile east of Fort Harrison.  Ord and his XVIIIth were to take Fort Harrison and move west a mile toward the river, capturing smaller fortifications along the way.  Once in control of the bluffs overlooking the river, he was to destroy bridges to prevent reinforcements from coming to the aid of the beleaguered rebels.  Afterward, Ord was to head north toward  Richmond on the Osborne Road, which ran parallel to the James. Birney, meanwhile, was to storm and capture New Market Heights, then move west to overrun fortifications on the main Confederate line northeast of Fort Harrison.  He would then march north to Richmond on the New Market Road.  At the same time, Kautz's Calvary (part of the XVIIIth) would gallup up the Darbytown Road northeast of New Market Road.                                                                              Grant’s purpose in the three-pronged assault was to “surprise and capture Richmond, if possible.”  It was an aggressive and dangerous plan and it’s not likely Grant felt it would reach Richmond.  Butler, after all, would be in command of the main thrust.   
    Grant had many options; Lee had few. September 2nd, the day that Sherman's victory at Atlanta was announced and wild celebrations broke out in the North, Lee complained to Davis in a letter that “we have no troops disposable to meet movements of the enemy or strike when opportunity presents, without taking them from the trenches and exposing some important point.”  [Price pg. 21.]  
    Furthermore, Grant knew that Butler's attack didn't need to fully succeed to give him additional advantage in the larger struggle. He was methodically wearing the South and its armies down.  Sherman's conquest of Atlanta and Farragut's decisive victory at the strategic port of Mobile had given the Union forces a surge of momentum.  Grant had the initiative and he believed Lee knew it. By the first week of  September it was clear the war had changed from a seemingly endless stalemate to one in which victory was imminent.                                                      More good news came the second and third week of September when Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah routed Confederate General Early's troops in that river's valley.  Sheridan had taken advantage of a weakened Early, the result of Lee commandeering some of his divisions for the defense of Petersburg and the capitol.  After routing Early at Winchester and Fisher's Mill, General Sheridan, in a march of several hundred miles, embarked on a campaign to ravage the occupants of the Shenandoah Valley by seizing livestock, destroying rail lines and burning every barn, mill, and factory the troops of the Army of the Shenandoah encountered.  The people of the Shenandoah Valley, Grant told Sheridan, ". . . should be informed that so long as an army can subsist among them recurrences of these raids must be expected, and we are determined to stop them at all hazards.” [Wiki, Sheridan]
    Grant's strategy of unmerciful warfare initiated four months before was bearing fruit. 
    It was late September of 1864. Lincoln was expected to defeat the Democratic peace candidate and former Union commander George McClellan in the presidential election, a development that further demoralized the South because only a month before Lincoln appeared vulnerable and McClellan's campaign was clearly sympathetic to the South.
    Between his return to duty in late August until the end of September, Captain Parlin was being rotated between the front at Petersburg, City Point and the depot at Harrison's Landing where he was again officer in charge of guard duty as described in the previous chapter.  Union soldiers were rotating in and out in three day shifts from the dangerous front lines around Petersburg.  There the men were subject to random bombardments and the lethal accuracy of rebel sharpshooters at any hour.  When it came time to prepare for a movement away from the maddening stalemate below Petersburg, they were elated.  (Crenshaw p. 27)  
    Early on September 29th, Butler's three-pronged attack on Confederate lines surrounding Richmond began.  Captain Parlin missed the early action because, as he reported: 

    We were aground in the river and so too late for the battle of New Market Heights and Fort Harrison or Chapin’s [Chaffin's]  Farm.

 
    The statement is puzzling.  All accounts and orders of battle published on what is known as the Third Battle of New Market Heights on September 29th show that Parlin's First Brigade (now under his former regimental commander, Colonel Holman) of the 3rd Division (now commanded by Brig. General Charles J. Paine) of the XVIIIth Corps was at New Market Heights early in the morning on October 29th.   Colonel Holman's First Brigade, which included Captain Parlin's company, as well as the 22nd and 37th regiments USCT , is shown in battle maps to be in support of the divisions who spearheaded the initial assualt of the 2nd and 3rd brigades  (commanded by Colonels Duncan and Draper) of the 3rd Division along with the 1st Division of the Xth.  One possible explanation was that Captain Parlin's Co E had been rotated out from the front at Petersburg and placed on guard duty at the depot at Harrison's Land six miles down river from City Point, itself ten miles or so from Chaffins Bluff.  When the time came to rejoin Hohman's 1st Brigade it couldn't get up the river on time because of the tide was too low.  
    At the Battle of New Market Heights in the early morning of September 29th, United States Colored Troops fought more heroically than in any battle of the war.  The assault was conducted almost entirely by Duncan's and Draper's brigades which suffered many casualties.   General Paine was later criticized for sending insufficient forces to storm the Confederate battlements on New Market Heights.  The initial assault was bloodily repulsed by Confederate artillery and musketry with heavy casualties to Duncan's Brigade which included the 4th and 6th regiments of the USCT.  
    It is said that “the ignorant officer is a murderer,” and several white officers could have been so charged on the foggy morning of September 29th.  The initial surge by Duncan's brigade of 750 men resulted in  387 casualities with the 4th Regiment losing 87% of its men.  The 6th lost 57%.   The carnage occurred because the black troops were ordered to storm a fortification manned by over 1800 men who took sport in killing black soldiers during what one characterized as a “coon fight.”  One soldier from Texas wrote: “. . . it was like flaunting a red flag before a bull.  No man in our brigade would have retreated from or surrendered to Niggers.  When they charged . . . the fun began.”  Several other brigades including Colonel Hohman's 1st (although not with Captain Parlin's company E) were held back from the initial assault.  Why Birney or Paine didn't order them to attack is not known, but it gave the enemy an enormous advantage.  Two rifles defending per each soldier storming the fort was a huge disadvantage no soldier should have had to endure.  According to historian James Price, the blame rests entirely on Third Division Commander Paine for deploying only one brigade in the assault.  
    After the repulse of the assault by Duncan's brigade, it fell upon Draper's Brigade consisting of the 5th , 36th and 38th Regiments of USCT  to storm the New Market line in a second attempt. As the line formed, the rebel troops swooped down on the wounded left in the field and killed some of them, looting their guns and ammunition.  The rebels were hardened veterans and included Bass's highly regarded Texas Brigade.  They despised black troops and were further angered by the Negro's battle cries “Remember Fort Pillow!” and “Give the Rebels No Quarter!”    
    The second assault began at 7:30 AM and quickly became bogged down like the first marching through the bodies of dead and wounded left from the first.  At one point they were pinned down by rifle fire and enfiladed artillery fire.  It took a heroic effort by Colonel Draper to rally his men as they began to waiver.  What happened then is best described by historian Price:  

        After what Draper called “thirty minutes of terrible suspense,” the officers under his command were able to rally their men and get them moving again.  With a shout that went up from one end of the line to the other, the black soldiers     stopped firing and lept to their feet. With their muskets in one hand, they began weaving their way through the slashing, high stepping over the logs and avoiding the tree stumps if at all possible.  After breaking through the fallen trunks, Draper's men     swarmed through the chevaux-de-frise, and with exultant cheers the column swept over the parapet and occupied the coveted prize.   

    As in the previous assault, the colored troops suffered heavy casualties.  In Duncan's assault, 68 were killed, 300 wounded, and 22 were missing in action.  Draper's assault resulted in 63 killed, 366 wounded and 23 missing in action.  By contrast, at the battle of Fort Wagner in South Carolina in 1863 depicted and made famous in the movie Glory, black troops and their white officers suffered 53 killed, 149 wounded and 52 missing in action.   
    Victory was theirs, but at high cost.  Success was achieved not because of overwhelming force but because Confederate General Gregg at Chaffin's farm had ordered the men defending New Market Heights to withdraw and reinforce the center of his line above Fort Harrison a mile away when he saw Ord preparing to attack there.    Draper's men captured a fort that had been largely abandoned.  And yet the valor and determination of the black troops on that Thursday morning in late September cannot be overstated.  Because of their heroic efforts more troops were awarded the Medal of Honor on this day than any day in history.  Most of them were black infantrymen.  Butler was so moved by their victory that he personally had medals minted for many of them.  Visiting the battlefield shortly after New Market Heights had been taken, he was shaken by the sight of the casualties, which nearly carpeted the field up to the rebel works.  He wrote to his wife:  

     . . . (the colored troops) suffered largely and some two hundred of them lay with their backs to the earth and the feet to the fore, with their sable faces made by death a ghastly tawny blue, with their expression of determination, which never dies out of brave men's faces who die instantly in a charge, forming a sad sight, which is burnt in my memory . . . I have not been so much  moved during this war as I was by that sight.   

With New Market Heights taken, Holman's brigade, which had sat mostly in reserve during the battle,— now joined by Parlin’s company E— marched from New Market Heights toward Fort Harrison.  Captain Parlin continues: 
    

    It was here however that the dread & horror of war came strongest up on me, for we met [the] wounded in its terrible forms and passed dead & dying, as we marched on to perhaps the same fate.
    Gen. Grant & staff passed us on their way to Fort Harrison, just captured on our left.
    Next at Fort Harrison just captured by our troops in which Gen. Burnham of Maine took a conspicuous part.  It was a brave feat.
    Imagine a charge from this spot to say the G.W. Howe house on Walnut Hill [in Natick] over very uneven ground.  Through a slashing of timber with the limbs jutting out to hold the storming party while about 15 cannon and large force of infantry spewed out death all the time.
    I found it difficult to take out a body of soldiers down the hill two days after and with no enemy to oppose.

    Grant inspected Fort Harrison between 10 and 11 AM on September 29th in the hours after Ord's troops had successfully stormed the works there. Captain Parlin had joined Holman's 1st Regiment, which had moved west from New Market Heights to re-join the 18th Corps at Fort Harrison after the successful assault.  The casualties the Captain saw were those who stormed Fort Harrison.  General Burnham's “conspicuous part” consisted of gallantly leading his men in a charge that morning against heavily-fortified works and dying for it.  He was shot in the abdomen while assisting his men in turning a captured Confederate cannon to fire on fleeing rebels. *
    The G. W. Howe house the Captain cites as a reference to illustrate the terrain was a noted landmark in Natick, which was known in the 19th century as the “City of Hills.”  Today the Walnut Hill School for the Arts is found there.    
    Ord's troops  endured concentrated artillery and musketry fire for several hours before their superior numbers overwhelmed Fort Harrison. Ord was himself wounded in a secondary assault later that morning as he attempted to move west toward the James and capture other smaller forts along the works.  Ord was another  general who felt it important to show fearlessness in front of his troops (although in this instance he stands accused of recklessness by Richard J. Sommers in his detailed account of this battle in his book Richmond Redeemed.)  He would often expose himself to fire and even thought that officers should wear red capes in battle to display courage in front of their troops.   
    To the east of Fort Harrison troops who had fought and won ground had difficulty in capitalizing on their initial success.  This was mostly owing to the ineptitude of Ord's second in  command, General Heckman, who botched his original orders and marched his troops to the wrong location, thus placing them in a poor position for attack. Grant believed initially that the quick capture of Fort Harrison portended further success, but he did not detect fast-developing problems.  Heckman's Second Division was to outflank the enemy’s defense, circle behind, and attack from the rear.  It would then fight toward Ord's First Division and from there move west along the fortification to the river.   But he failed miserably in his mission and the 18th Corps never reached the bluffs overlooking the river.
    One-legged Confederate General Ewell responded quickly and surely to the Yankee advance which had placed Richmond in imminent peril as evidenced by panic reported in the city.  Lee, at first hesitated to reinforce his troops at Chaffin's farm, suspecting an attack by Meade south of Petersburg, which came the next day, but he finally consented to send two divisions to aid Early in his initial defense and eventual counter-attack at Chaffin's farm.   
    Thursday, September 29th, 1864, ended with both sides in a state of confusion.  Lee was disturbed by the loss of Fort Harrison and long sections of line on both sides of it.  Although he remained in Petersburg in expectation of Meade's attack, in a panic he rashly ordered Ewell to launch an immediate counter-attack to retake Fort Harrison, although Ewell did not yet have sufficient troops to do that.  
    The most significant casualty of the day was General Ord, who, upon realizing that Heckman had failed to execute his mission to outflank and encircle the enemy and then join with Ord's troops to push the advantage, made a fateful decision.  In victory at Fort Harrison his First Division was in disarray, a not uncommon occurrence after a successful storming of a fort. Ord, impatient to continue according to plan, formed a small force, left the bulk of his division to hold Fort Harrison, and took off west for the river.  Shortly thereafter he was shot in the thigh by rebels who had regrouped at fortifications along the line in anticipation of a union advance in that direction.  Although no bones were broken, he nevertheless had to retire from the field.  Heckman, whose confusion was surpassed only by his incompetence, assumed command and any chance that day or the next for a significant breakthrough that might shorten the war was lost.  
    Late in the day Butler and Grant were still of the opinion that they might resume the offensive the next day, but also had expectations of  a  Confederate counter-attack.  By nightfall, the battlefield was quiet, except for sound of shovels moving earth and the cries of the wounded who could not be reached.  There would be no sleep for the battle-weary.  

     We worked hard turning the breastworks [at Fort Harrison] so as to be prepared for a rebel assault.  It came the next day.  Gen. Lee in person directed it, saying the fort must be attacked at all hazards.  Jeff Davis, too, was there and deserters reported him as saying that it “must be re-taken if it took all the troops of the Confederacy to do it”.  It was the most important works on their main line.  About noon they opened on us with every available gun from field batteries, Fort Morton & gun boats.  
    The din was fearful.  We built traverses to protect us.  Their gunboats took us in the left flank & a little to our rear with great 200-lb. shells that burst and flew in all directions, while the solid shot & shell pounded all along our front.  Their sharpshooters crawled into every nook & corner.  They killed our adjutant.
    All at once the cannonading ceased and they came.  Two splendid lines.  About 8000 men.  Marching as steadily as if on parade.  Flags flying, swords waving & flashing.  They threatened to sweep us all away.  
    I watched them & wondered how men without visible hesitation could push into the very jaws of death.
    Their direction would carry them a little to my left.  My men gave them lead as fast as they could load and fire but in  their direct front our troops were hard at work on their breastworks to the last minute.  
    Steadily they shoveled, piling the earth higher and higher before them, their flags unfurled and planted in the ground, while the battle cry of freedom, “rally round the flag boys” was taken up by the whole line.  On came the rebels up a nearer slope & dashing into double quick, yelling like demons.  They are within close range, when down go shovels and up come muskets and the awful work commences.  One unbroken blaze.  Continuous sound and crash of musketry.  Not broken shots but a steady roar. All with deliberate aim – not a random shot and that whole rebel line – both lines melted away as though the ground had swallowed them up.  Where they went I could not understand.
    The smoke blew away and hardly a solitary rebel in sight. One regiment of our troops had repeating rifles.  They made a second, a third and then a fourth charge with the same results.  Capt. Wm. Cutler [of Natick] was in this fight.                     There were 15 full rebel regiments in that first charge, counted by their flags.  Seven battle flags were captured by our troops.  One brigade – Clingman's – was virtually annihilated, either killed, wounded, or captured, flags and all.  One of the rebel lieutenants wounded & captured here was afterward my sole companion in a gangrene tent at Chesapeake Hospital.                                                                                                                                                                                          The eighteen hours between darkness and the rebel counter-attack must have been exhausting for Captain Parlin and his comrades.  The captured Confederate works were designed to repulse an attack from the south.  Now they had to be turned to repel an assault from the north, which meant a long night of excavation of trenches and reconstruction of earthworks for Union troops. Holman's First Brigade of the 1st, 22nd and 37th Regiments was initially put on the line to the left and west of Fort Burnham/Harrison with the two other brigades of Payne's 3rd Division.  Then, after excavating and mounding all night on the fort's left, the brigade was ordered—much to their “disgust” according to historian Richard J. Sommers-- to move to the right and north of the fort to shore up an attenuated section of the line there.  They were replaced on the left of the fort by General Stannard's three brigades, which had overrun the fort the day before.  As Holman's brigade were the freshest and it became clearer the counter-attack would focus just to the right or east of Fort Burnham/Harrison, or “a little to my left” as Captain Parlin says, this proved to be the correct decision.  Nevertheless, there were few rested troops on the line that morning after a night of shoveling and mounding to reorient the works in the opposite direction.
    Captain (later Colonel) William A. Cutler was a well-known resident of Natick who was wounded five times in combat during the war, including once at Gettysburg. He was very likely in the audience that night.  He had the distinction of inventing the modern figure 8 pattern for baseball covers.  He is mentioned in a Wikipedia entry on Natick: "The wound core for a more resilient baseball was developed by John W. Walcott and combined with the figure-eight stitching devised by Col. William A. Cutler. It was manufactured by the firm of H. Harwood & Sons in their factory built in 1858 – the first plant in the world for the manufacture of baseballs." In another article in a Natick newspaper on the 150th anniversary of Gettysburg, Cutler was described as a shoemaker before the war who had led a strike against the shoe manufacturers in Natick.  (Several Natick shoe manufacturers specialized in the production of brogans, the ankle boots worn by slaves before the war and by soldiers during the war.) 
    Captain Parlin's claim that President Jefferson Davis was at the scene of the battle is inaccurate.  History shows that Davis was in Alabama attempting to shore up the morale of his troops after the South's defeats at Mobile and Atlanta.   The Captain may have confused the battle at Fort Burnham/Harrison with the Battle of Fair Oaks and Darbytown Road in which he fought a month later.  
    Grant and Butler were uncertain what to do next.  Grant in a note to his officers suggested the possibility of an attack, but decided against it.   They had the achieved some success in taking two strongly fortified positions, even if their casualties were high. They concluded that simply building defenses until the situation became clearer would suffice.  Their men were tired and a counter-attack by rebels was a strong possibility. 
    Lee was agitated.  While important, the loss of ground was by no means a mortal wound and the simple, safe solution of building new earthworks opposite the lost front and waiting for another attack seemed inadequate.  He had been caught by surprise and unnerved by the offensive and it affected his judgement.  He rashly ordered a counter-attack.  His plan was intricate and depended on proper timing. Given the slow loss through death, wounding and retirement of some of his best men over the years, he asked too much.  He ordered the troops to form at their appointed locations and commenced a sustained bombardment to soften the strongholds that had been overrun the day before. Unfortunately for the southern troops, the artillery from both gunboats on the river undershot the fort and endangered the butternuts, while the field pieces directly in front of the fort overshot it  resulting in a huge cloud of smoke on a still day that made it impossible to see if their targets were being hit.   Fort Harrison, now re-named Fort Burnham after the fallen general from Maine, was largely undamaged.  But the shelling put the long blue line on notice that an assault was imminent.  
     Lee’s counterattack a day later called for two divisions to storm, from different directions, the lost ground occupied by the Yankees  Field would commit two brigades with one in reserve and sweep in from the northeast.  Hoke would commit three brigades with two in reserve to attack simultaneously from the northwest. In all, 8800 men were to attack a fortification containing barely 2000 bluecoats most of whom had been up all night mounding and trenching.  To the Confederate command, the plan looked promising.  
    Late Friday morning, September 30th, rebel troops marched into position.  Inside the fort, Stannard observed the approaching rebels with consternation.  His artillery, three Napoleon 12-pounders in the fort, had fired off all its available shells during the Secessionist barrage that began around 10 AM.  He ordered them out of the fort and sent for replacements.  They would not be replaced in time for the attack which came around 12:30.  He would have to rely solely on his infantry to do the job.   
    The simultaneous attack of two divisions was scheduled for 2 PM, but began early because General Tige Anderson’s Brigade of Georgians in Field's Division inexplicably charged before the order was given.  It proved to be a fatal error.  With his one brigade charging, Field had no choice but to order his other two brigades to join them.  Hoke, meanwhile, resisted ordering his two brigades to join the premature attack and chose to wait until the appointed time an hour later before committing them to the fight.  Without benefit of a double-barreled charge, the results for the butternuts were disastrous, as Captain Parlin notes.                                                                                                                                         

                    The battlefield at Fort Harrison on September 30, 1864
 
    Historian Sommers, in a dramatic recounting, captures the moment before  the battle was joined: 

        . . . As the bluecoats stood poised for action, yet not allowed to fire at the rapidly nearing foe, the tension mounted.  With both infantry and artillery now silent, the ominous quiet before the impending storm seemed almost oppressive.  The psychological pressure became too great for one Union soldier.  Suddenly, to relieve his pent up emotions, he sang out in deep rich tones that great old song of war, "The Battle Cry of Freedom.":                                                                                                                                        Yes we'll rally round the flag boys, we'll rally once again,
     Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom, 
     We will rally from the hillside, we'll gather from the plain
     Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.                                                                                                                                                                      At the thrilling sound, the color bearers unfurled and planted their banners, and the troops joined in to send the stirring chorus resounding down the lines: 
                                                                                                                    The Union forever, hurrah, boys, hurrah!
    Down with the traitor, up with the star,
    As we rally round the flag boys, rally once again, 
    Shouting the Battle Cry of Freedom.  

        As the attack was joined, Anderson's Georgians absorbed the first blast from bluecoat rifles.  Then the rest of Field’s Division joined in and was similarly greeted.  The piecemeal attack meant more Yankee bullets per Butternut.  Captain Parlin remembers the waves of soldiers assaulting the fort would disappear with each thunderous volley from the defenders.  An hour after Anderson men prematurely attacked, Hoke's Division dutifully entered the fray at the appointed hour and suffered the same fate.  The bluecoats' confidence grew with each repelled attack.  The company with repeating rifles was especially punishing on the grey infantrymen. They would continue to shoot even after the enemy was repulsed.  Sommers quotes an officer of the 118th New York:  "There was a fascination in using these rifles, and it was difficult to stop firing upon even the outlying wounded when the enemy retired."                                                      There were four assaults in this counter-attack and after an hour and a half, the result, a bitter and bloody defeat for the rebels, was abundantly clear.  Clingman's Brigade, now commanded by General McKethan, was decimated and then trapped.  Later that evening in the pouring rain, 200 of them would be taken prisoner.  The brigade started the day with 911 men; later that night only 383 remained to fight another day.  Union defenders inflicted five times as many casualties on the attackers as they sustained.  At considerable danger to himself, General Lee tried to rally the troops at one point, if for no other reason than to allow those trapped a chance to escape, but to no avail.  By the end of the day, captured rebel flags flew over Fort Burnham/Harrison in a display that mocked the vanquished.  The most  serious loss for Union forces was General Stannard, who was shot off his observation post and later had his right arm amputated, ending his days as a combat general.  
        This was the largest battle with the most casualties in which Captain Parlin fought.  He had the luck this time to be behind the fortifications and not storming them.  He would not be so lucky a month later.

                                                         ****  

*History shows that many generals in the Civil war were not averse to leading their men at the front of an attack or at the parapet in defending a fortification.  Many became casualties.  There is a list of them on the internet. 107 Union and Confederate Generals were either killed in action or mortally wounded during the Civil War.  Sheridan, who although not himself killed, gave voice to an attitude that was probably typical of most generals.  In remarks to Grant's aide Horace Porter after Porter had commented to Sheridan on his on having “exposed [himself] today in a manner hardly justifiable  on the part of a commander of such an important movement.” Sheridan replied: “I have never in my life taken my command into battle, and had the slightest desire to come out alive unless I won.”