The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1866-01-27
Night Service on the SIGNAL Corns.

NABAb OoINASO Oh bii0 0lRlal OOTDB.
Ia correspondent in Garland, sends us the
following chapter from his "reminiscences of
army life.
Editor Press:
I'm the sixth of April 1855, the signal par
ty-of which the writer was a member-re-
ceived orders from the chief signal officer of
the Army of the Potomac, to proceed to Je-
tersville, station on the Richmond and Dam
vile railroad, to watch the movements of the
enemy.
Accordingly we established ourselves on a
stable near the depot about daylight. The
first that we saw, worthy of notice, was long
train of wagons moving in northwesterly dl-
rection on road leading to Deatonville,
small village about twelve miles from Durks-
vile Junction.
With this train there seemed to be fragments
of regiments, of both cavalry and infantry, to
all appearances in demoralized condition.
A courier was Immediately dispatched to Gen.
Sheridan, who was near by, and also another
to Gen. Meade, witha report of the fact. Sher-
idan Immediately dispatched the sdashing
Gustav with body of cavalry to head of
the column; and Gen. Meade directed the
second corps, under Gen. Humphreys, and the
fifth corps, under Gen. Chiffon, to operate upon
the rear and flank. The rest of the cavalry and
the six corps, under Gen. Wright, went to the
left along the railroad towards huntsville.
4
Gems. Grant and Meade remained at Jeters-
vile till night, when the former started off
towards huntsville, and the latter toward
Deatonvine. We received orders to remain
at Jetersville that night and the next day, to
communicate between Gen. Grant at Burks-
vile, and Gen. Meade who was about three
miles beyond Deatonville.
Gen. Grant sent his messages to us by tele-
graph, and we forwarded them to to Gen
Meade by signal The first part of the night
we were kept busy sending messages and re-
ceiving them.
At ten minutes past one o'clock, a mes
sage came from the telegraph Office. Our
torches were again Lit up and Headquarter
Station called. Our call was soon answered
and the message sent carefully through. Their
torch swung the call for repeat. "What can
that mean?" "Send it through again and
don't abreviate word" "There must be one
of those green signal officers at the glass;"
1--WE are all enlisted men on our station.)-
Again the message is sent through. Again
comes the call for repeat. What can 1t mean?
We had already occupied more than an hour
and were getting impatient.
The night was one of those foggy, damp,
disagreeable ones, so frequent in Virginia.
The frogs in the adjacent swamps kept up
continual croak. Birds of the night piped
their shrill and doleful songs, and our torches
sending forth their lurid glare, thickened the
gloom around us.
Again was the message sent through, again
came the call for repeat; and likewise fourth
time, when our torches went out for want of
turpentine.
A consultation was now held, and it was de-
cided that I should take man with me and
proceed to Headquarters with the dispatch as
rapidly as possible.
l Invested my horse of every incumbIance
save the bare saddle and bride, and mounted.
But now came dilemma.
What direction was to take? knew that
Gen. Meade must be somewhere in a north
easterly direction, and about ten miles off; but
the road knew nothing of, and the night was
of Egyptian darkness. struck out, however,
into the gloom, and, followed road which
After going about a mile we overlook wagon |
train, which we found, belonged to the sixth
corps and as we were not then aware that
that corps was with Sheridan we thought that
we must surely be right. On we went, urg-
ing our horses to their utmost speed, when we
suddenly came upon a railroad. This brought
us to full stop; for we knew that it must be
the road running to huntsville. -n
This would never do, for there was no COM
between Gen. Grant at B-and
Gen. Meade, except through our station at
Jetersville. Back we must turn. We keep
our "eyes open" for road branching off to-
wards our left, which might lead us where we
wanted to go; but in the darkness we saw
none.
Back to Jetersville again to take a new
start. We succeeded in finding road which
we thought must be the right one; but no,
half mile takes us to the end of it, A third
time we turn back, disheartened, discouraged.
We now concluded that there must be road
branching off from the one first taken, which
in the darkness we had overlooked, and accord
ingly we tried that again. 1t was now day
light, and took out the dispatch to see if I
could gain any information from it that might
be of use to us. .. ..,r
The dispatch ran as follows:
HUNTSVILLE, April I,
o'clock A. M.
To MAJ. GEN. MEADE:
Sheridan and Wright have struck the enc
my, capturing from ten to twelve thousand
men and LARGE number of GENERAL Officers