Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsOcmulgee Men Do Awful Battle With "Dog-Taggers" At Cold Harbor
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
Young Henry Fussell, Private, CSA, brought home to Jacksonville, Georgia, about the only beautiful thing at Cold Harbor, Virginia, on that bloody occasion in June of 1864 - a hand-carved walking stick of exceptional quality. He was probably in a hurry to get home with it.
And in his hurry to end the War, General Grant knew nothing but to forge ahead, even at the expense of many lives. "I want to push on as rapidly as possible to save hard fighting. These terrible battles are very good things to read about for persons who lose no friends, but I am decidedly in favor of having as little of it as possible. The way to avoid it is to push forward." Sadly, he was to lose many men - either way. He was just losing them a lots faster this way. But maybe he was right - maybe this would bring the end quicker.
General Grant made up his mind to pursue Lee wherever he went. He told General Meade, "Wherever Lee goes, you will go also." Sometimes they regretted catching up with him - like at Cold Harbor.
And the Coffee and Telfair men were there. Some of them, anyway. John A. Coffee had been wounded at Chickamauga but had been elected Major the month before Cold Harbor. Mark Coffee probably was recuperating from his Wilderness wound of the month before. Duncan McCrimmon, John's brother, was wounded the same day (May 5, 1864) at the same place. It was a fiery thicket of suffering and death. And Duncan's brother, Robert, died the next month in Richmond.
The fighting these days of the War was desperate and intense. Each commander had a time of it in trying to keep up the morale of the men. Friends and brothers were falling by the thousands at the sides of the men remaining.
One Texas general trying to get his men up for fighting told them that the "eyes of General Lee are upon you." One Texan remembered, "Scarce had we moved a step when General Lee, in front of the whole command, raised himself in his stirrups, uncovered his grey hairs, and with an earnest voice exclaimed 'Texans always move them.'" The soldier went on to say that with the pronouncement of these words a yell went up that must have been heard for miles around. A courier next to the soldier, with tears running down his cheeks, said, "I would charge hell itself for that old man." We must remember that the object of this admiration was the same man who directed the Confederates at Gettysburg into a charge which was compared to the agony of those same lower regions of punishment. The grey hairs had been held in another light on that fateful day in Pennsylvania. General George Pickett had remarked, "That old gray-haired man had my division massacred." So we see, the resolve of war always has a tremendous cost. Even for General Lee.
And on the other side of the line at Cold Harbor, General Grant was calculating the odds and figuring out his strategy. Lee was doing the same.
As the armies toyed with each other, they "lurched in a brutal, clumsy lockstep toward Richmond." Lee exclaimed, "We must destroy this army of Grant's before he gets to the James (River). If he gets there, it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of time." We still see that "siege" is the uppermost fear in the mind of Lee. He was trying desperately to avoid getting in that no-win situation.
After the bugles blew wake-up at 4:30 A.M. that morning, the Confederates, in advantageous positions, could hardly be compelled to hold their fire. But when they did fire the scene was horrible. "The ground seemed to seethe - a boiling cauldron from the incessant pattering of shot which raised the dirt in geysers and spitting sand." One colonel's body was so riddled with bullets that he could only be identified by his brass officer's buttons.
One Union officer remarked that while going through camp the night before the battle, he found soldiers, he thought, repairing their battle shirts and jackets with needle and thread. That was not what they were doing. Knowing what they were in for, they were stitching pieces of paper with their name and home address on their clothing so their dead bodies could be delivered for decent burial! Someone said that this was probably the beginning of the now familiar "dog tag" worn by servicemen for identification purposes - many times postmortem.
One young soldier was seen carving a headboard for a grave. Upon closer inspection it was seen it was inscribed with his name and birthdate, with the death date blank. He remarked that he was just doing it for the "fun" of it. Sadly, the soldier's premonition became reality. They had to use that headboard for him. He fell dead in the Battle of Cold Harbor. Another soldier was found dead on the field after the battle. His blood-spattered diary had as its last entry, "June 3. Cold Harbor. I was killed."
The Northern soldiers fears were well founded. As they crossed the hostile terrain the Rebels waited and waited until their enemy was close at hand. Almost simultaneously the "slouch hats" rose as one and began delivering unbelievable fire power. Someone said it was all as bad as the musketry of The Wilderness and the artillery of Gettsyburg, super-added. Richmond reported that the racket of war vibrated the windows in buildings there. One report said that Grant lost from 5,600 to 7,000 men, most of them in the first eight minutes of the battle.
Northern commanders were distraught. One exclaimed that he would not send his men into charge like that again even if The Almighty ordered it.
Thousands lay dead and wounded on a field of five acres. General Grant wanted to tend to the wounded, but he did not want to raise a flag of truce. Before they could come to a cessation of hostilities, four days later only two wounded men were found. The others were dead or had crawled to safety during the night. The suffering and stench were so great that one soldier was seen slitting his own throat! He had decided that he had had enough.
As the smoke cleared, John H. Ryals of Telfair's Company B was found wounded. The Ryals men were dependable soldiers. We will hear more of them later.
And young Pvt. Henry Fussell tucked away his beautifully carved walking stick to carry to Jacksonville, if he survived the War. He did. Someone mentioned that I should list all his children. That is a good idea. The children of Henry Fussell (1845-1924) and Eliza Jones Fussell (1839-1924) were: (1) Emma (1867-1920) married Andrew J. Bowen. (2) Ida (1869-1952) married Albert Shappell. (3) William Clark (1872-1942) married Minnie Hulett. (4) Drucilla (1877-1902) married T.J. (Tad) Wells. (5) Henry Arthur married Telia Seigler. (6) Leonard (1875-1940) married Ella Day. He settled in Coffee County and is buried at Reedy Branch Baptist Church near Broxton.
"Cold Harbor," the walking stick burned with the house in 1937, but good times were still had at the Fussell place. Mrs. Vaunita Fussell Waldon, daughter of Clark and Minnie, said her mother on one occasion used Watkins liniment in the ice cream instead of Watkins Vanilla. They ate it anyway.
Credits:
Telfair History 1807-1987;
Telfair Soldiers In The Civil War by Robert H. (Bob) Swain;
the Henry Fussell Story by Vaunita Fussell Waldon;
The Civil War by Geoffrey Ward and Ric and Ken Burns;
various other sources.
