THE SIEGE OF SUFFOLK.
April 11-May 3, 1863.
General Longstreet was well aware that Suffolk was strongly garrisoned, and he did not open the attack upon it rashly. In order to make his undertaking thoroughly successful, he perceived that several preliminary movements were necessary, and he set about carefully executing them. The first of these was a manœuvre by which the Suffolk garrison might be materially weakened. Accordingly, General Hill was sent to attack Little Washington, North Carolina; a subject which has been elsewhere treated; and, as anticipated by the skillful rebel General, this movement against Little Washington made it necessary for General Peck to send a reinforcement to the assistance of the imperilled Union position. Three thousand men were ordered forward to aid General Foster in his defence of Little Washington.
General Longstreet had already collected several pontoon and siege trains at various convenient points, which were held in readiness for an immediate move as soon as it should be deemed necessary. Having been informed by his spies of the removal of three thousand of General Peck’s men, the rebel General instantly put his army in motion, and crossed the Blackwater on several bridges, with the divisions of Hood, French, Pickett, and Henderson, numbering in all thirty thousand men. This comparatively large army, moving forward in three distinct columns, was, by means of a forced march, placed in front of the Union camps in a few hours. The cavalry pickets, utterly surprised, were quietly captured by the rebels as they advanced. But here terminated the easy success which the rebel General had anticipated. General Peck had not been idle while Longstreet was making his preparations and watching for a good opportunity to advance. The Union General was aware of the movements of the rebel, and had fathomed his designs sufficiently well to be prepared for him. Besides which General Longstreet had frustrated one of his best laid plans; for at the moment that his troops captured the Union pickets, the trains containing the reinforcements for General Foster were about to be set in motion. The trains were delayed of course; and the three thousand men were retained to aid in the defence of Suffolk.
The enemy, making the best of their mistake, advanced boldly on the works, but found them strongly garrisoned and bristling with steel. It required but a few moments to convince them that their surprise was an utter failure; and that nothing remained for them but to fall back on their superior numbers, and capture the town, if at all, by hard fighting. The rebel General then directed his attention toward the Nansemond—in which were stationed several army gunboats, sent there by Admiral Lee—having first left a large force in front of the main defences of the town, to engage the Union troops and divert attention from the real rebel designs.
Again General Longstreet was disappointed in what he had regarded as a sure and easy success. The gunboats did not apparently, to him, present a formidable resistance; nor yet the two army gunboats, Smith Briggs, and West End, which were commanded by two youthful officers—Captain Rowe, and Captain Lee—whose skill and bravery put them on a level with veterans in the service. Strong batteries of the enemy engaged the gunboats at early dawn of the 12th of April, after having spent the entire night in constructing battery after battery; and although the frail boats were completely riddled, and their men were shot down so fast that the decks were strewn with the killed and wounded, the staunch little vessels, with their brave crews, obstinately refused to leave the river. The Nansemond, which was so small a stream that a moderately sized steamer could not turn round in it, was defended by this small flotilla against a force thirty thousand strong, eager and determined to cross, and having opposed to them six navy gunboats, two army gunboats, a force, in all numbering but five thousand men, to hold a line eight miles in length. Brigadier-General Getty, who had been entrusted with the arduous task of defending the Nansemond river, was eminently suited to defend it successfully. The Nansemond had the further disadvantage of being surrounded with various swamps and creeks, so that it was absolutely impossible for troops to pass, as reinforcements, from one point to another, without great loss of time. To remedy this inconvenience, General Getty had undertaken the construction of a military road several miles in length, which should include many bridges and long spaces of corduroy; and by extraordinary exertions the troops had completed this road in the space of three days.
While the enemy’s batteries were brought into play upon the gunboats, General Getty was putting into service all his skill as an artillerist. Aided by Colonel Dutton, who commanded the Third brigade, he at once began selecting positions for rifle-pits and batteries, which, on the next morning, were in working order, and thundered forth a storm of shell upon the astonished enemy. For several days this warfare continued, the rebels persistently endeavoring to gain a foothold on the shore, and being as persistently driven back by the Union fire from batteries, rifle-pits and gunboats. Not until the 18th day of the month did the rebels at all advance in their efforts: but on that day they succeeded in establishing on Hill’s Point, six miles from Suffolk, an earthwork which mounted five heavy rifled guns. Against this formidable work the Union fire was powerless; the missiles for the most part harmlessly burying themselves in its parapet, while from this strong position the enemy maintained a constant and destructive fire upon the National gunboats. Beneath this severe fire the Mount Washington grounded directly under the rebel guns, and her brave companions refused to leave her in such a strait. The Commodore Barney received fifty-eight holes in her hull and machinery; and while the gallant captain of the Mount Washington stood over the guns of his shattered vessel, still hoping to save her, a severe contest raged for six long hours. At last came the rising tide, and floated off the boats in safety.
Admiral Lee now ordered the gunboats out of the Upper Nansemond; and affairs began to wear a discouraging aspect. But already the dawn that succeeds the darkest hour was slowly breaking through its blackness, soon to shine forth in the noontide glory of success. It was proposed by Lieutenant Lansom to capture the Hill’s Point battery, and the proposal was received with favor by General Peck.
The following, which is an extract from a description by an eye-witness does not over-color this brilliant feat:
“Shortly before sunset the gunboats on the river, and the four rifled guns at and near battery Stevens, opened a terrific fire upon the rebel battery. Meantime, detachments from the Eighty-ninth New York Volunteers, Lieutenant-Colonel England, and the Eighth Connecticut, Colonel Ward, in all two hundred and eighty men, embarked on board the gunboat Stepping Stones, Lieutenant Lansom, at a point about a mile above the battery. Protected by the artillery fire, the gunboat boldly steamed down the river about two hundred yards above the rebel works, the shore at that point being an abrupt bluff. Immediately the troops disembarked, wading to their waists in water, ascended the bluff, and with loud cheers charged on the rear of the fort. Meantime, the gunboat’s crew had landed four boat howitzers, placed them in position, and opened on the fort. The enemy, taken completely by surprise, were only able to deliver two or three volleys of musketry, and fire one gun, when our troops entered the work, and captured the entire party of seven officers and one hundred and thirty men, with five brass guns, and a large supply of ammunition.”
The capture of this battery so alarmed the rebels that they at once turned all their attention to their own position, and the most earnest preparations were made in all haste to resist the terrible artillery fire of the Union batteries, which was now turned with all their strength against their front.
Perpetually on the look-out for any change in the plans or position of the enemy, General Peck was constantly sending out reconnoitering parties, who, getting into skirmishes with the enemy’s outposts, would drive them back to the rebel main line, and were then in turn forced back themselves by formidable numbers. The work of fortifying continued to go on during the whole three weeks of the siege; the labor of erecting batteries, building roads and bridges, and cutting timber, went briskly forward during the night, after days of severe fighting. Nothing could exceed, nor no praise do justice to the constant patience, courage, and devotion to duty manifested by the brave troops who defended Suffolk.
Rebel reinforcements began to arrive about the 20th of April, returning from their unsuccessful attack on Fort Washington. Day by day the enemy grew stronger. But no fear of defeat troubled the brave Unionists, nor did the thought of surrender occur to them.
By the 30th of April a rebel reinforcement, consisting of General D. H. Hill’s troops, and numbering ten thousand, arrived and joined the already strong army of General Longstreet; and such was Longstreet’s opinion of the town’s fortifications and inner strength, that notwithstanding his own very superior numbers, he began to feel that after all he would be compelled to forego his plan of capturing Suffolk. He would not retire, however, without a final effort; and new batteries were constantly constructed, but no sooner unmasked, than they were silenced by the deadly fire of the gunboats, and Parrotts from the Union works. Victory had spread her wings above the Union forces, and was waiting to fold them and settle down upon the National banner. General Longstreet was soon compelled to acknowledge his attack a failure; and the approaching conflict between the armies of Hooker and Lee (elsewhere described), gave him a good excuse for raising the siege of Suffolk.
On the 3rd of May General Longstreet drew off his men, and commenced his retreat. They were pursued by a strong Union force under General Getty and General Harland; the enemy was overtaken, and some sharp skirmishing took place between him and his pursuers, which was at length ended by darkness. Under cover of the night the rebels retreated.
The next day a rebel cavalry force, numbering four hundred, was encountered at Chuckatuck by small Union force, who routed them with musketry and artillery. A short distance from Hill’s Point, the rebels were encountered by another Union force under Colonel Dutton, and caused them considerable annoyance for the remainder of the day. At midnight on the 3rd of May, the Union troops under Corcoran, Dodge and Foster, started in pursuit of the flying rebels; but without any result except the capture of a few hundred stragglers. This ended the siege of Suffolk; during which the National loss was forty-four killed, two hundred and one wounded and fourteen missing. Four hundred rebel prisoners were captured in all; and the enemy had gained absolutely nothing, with a loss of one thousand five hundred men in killed wounded and prisoners; five guns, and a very large quantity of stores and small arms.