Chapter 7

Fortress Suffolk

In November 1862, the Legion set sail in twenty steamships of varying sizes and types carrying 100 to 200 men each. A Navy frigate accompanied the flotilla, lest it run into one of the Confederate privateers operating along the coast, generally south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Within a week, the motley armada sailed into Newport News, Virginia, about a dozen miles from Fort Monroe. The next day, November 12, General Corcoran carried out his reorganization plan and formally mustered his soldiers into the service of the United States.

He reassigned his officers to fit the new structure of the Corcoran Irish Brigade. John McMahon’s all-Buffalo 3rd regiment, depleted through desertion from an original 570 volunteers, counted 400 men who made the trip to Staten Island. For reasons known only to Corcoran, instead of keeping Buffalo men in a single regiment, he assigned two Buffalo companies to the 155th and three to the 164th. He made up the balance of the 155th with companies from New York City and Binghamton. The 3rd Regiment ceased to exist. Corcoran assigned New Yorker Colonel William McEvily to command the 155th and Colonel John McMahon the 164th.

Special Order No 14 November 20, 1862

Hereinafter the special regiments constituting the command known as Corcoran’s Irish Legion will be designated in the brigade organization in the following order:

The 69th Regt NYSNG – Col Murphy – 1st Regt of brigade

The 170th Regt NYS Vols – Col McDermott – 2nd Regt of brigade

The 164th Regt NYS Vols – Col McMahon – 3rd Regt of brigade

The Albany Regt NYS Vols – Col Bryan – 4th Regt of brigade

The 155th Regt NYS Vols – Col Mc Evily – 5th Regt of brigade

By Order of Brig Genl Corcoran

To avoid further rioting, Companies I and K were assigned to duty in and around the camp under First Lieutenant Worthington. They spent the next month working in Fort Monroe Hospital and doing clean up and maintenance on the fort. Once again, Pat was ready to break loose, but there was no place to go.

In a letter to his wife, Sergeant Tipping wrote on November 30:

Last night there was quite a fuss in the town. Two of our lads broke into a house and half-killed a man. Corcoran got wind of it and he came to me, wanting to know who they were. I knew them, but I was not going to tell him. He wondered why I did not shoot them down. The man that got beat was the boss carpenter for the General. He thought a great deal of him. Today, when we were at mess, one of them was caught. The Articles of War were read out for him. They think he will be shot. He is in confinement. He is one of the Buffalo boys. One thing is sure – he will be drummed out of the regiment with his head shaved and branded.

Tipping wrote on Christmas Day:

Well, Lizzie, I am glad to hear you got that small present I sent you.

The colonel gave all the boys – all the boys – a Christmas whiskey. They are all in the house now and half-drunk. There are 10 geese and 12 turkeys for every company in the Regt, so you see that we have quite a time of it.

On December 29, on orders from General Dix, General Corcoran set sail from Hampton Roads down the James River and up the Nansemond with 3,000 men. They would increase the Suffolk garrison to almost 13,000.

On January 2, 1863, as part of the fifteen-mile defense line around the Village of Suffolk, Company I was ordered to improve Fort Dix, one of seven forts composing Fortress Suffolk. The forts were the redoubts of Dix’s defense line connected by trenches and fortified with moats.

Soon after encamping in Suffolk, Tipping warned his squad that, quiet as it seemed, they needed to be alert. Rebel scouts were coming out from Fort Huger, fifty miles north on the Blackwater River. Two members of the brigade, who had arrived a week before them, had been taken prisoner by a rebel scouting party. He repeated again: “Stay on sharp lookout on picket duty.”

Pat hated building fortifications and told Tipping he’d rather be on picket duty any day. The days were wet and cold. Sibley tents were in short supply. There was no time to construct shacks, so the men spent miserable nights in pup tents. The ground was wet and cold. Only the lice were out crawling and looking for hair and warm clothes.

Once assigned picket duty, Pat found it just as boring as fatigue duty. Out of sight of Tipping, he sought out PM at his place of picket duty. Companies I and K generally served side by side. PM was less than 100 yards down line. On two occasions, they rambled through the countryside meeting local farmers. A few were Unionists and spent time conversing with them. Many loyalist farmers let them know they hated the very sight of them. These they passed by quickly. Pat didn’t talk to former Negro slaves, who had escaped their owners and attached themselves to the Union Army. He found them shy and almost impossible to understand. PM was more comfortable with coloreds and enjoyed listening to their stories of slave life.

Back in camp Pat was able to buy whisky on credit—the 155th had not yet been paid—from the regimental sutler. Alcohol was a relief from boredom. It made him feel good.

While on picket duty, Pat got into the habit of reaching into his pocket and tolling the beads of his rosary.

One day, in spite of his brother’s urging to remain at his post and alert, Pat went off over farm roads, pretending to himself that he was a regimental scout. Tipping was in the field inspecting his squad. When he found Pat absent, he sent him to the brig for three days and for punishment ordered him to clean latrines.

Pat despised this duty. After getting out of the brig, he remained faithfully on picket duty for the next week. Then he sauntered off, convinced he could avoid the brig by returning to his post in the late afternoon.

Tipping appeared at the picket line looking for Pat about mid-afternoon. “John, I’m goin’ to teach your brother once and for all. We need a party to take two teams of horses and haul logs from a mill out the Edenton Road. I’m detailin’ the two of you and four others to drag in a few hundred logs to where the engineers set their stakes. You supervise, but Pat is to hook up the logs and lead the team back to the fort. I’ll be there to deal with the mill owner and assure him he’ll be paid. Understood?”

Pat and John had managed teams of horses in day jobs they held in the Port of Buffalo. It just seemed to come naturally to both of them.

“We’re with you, George,” said John as he turned to search for his brother. He found Pat in their tent, suffering from a pounding headache after drinking a bad batch of corn liquor. With the rest of the squad, they headed down the Edenton Road in a parade of work gangs from Companies I and K.

Sergeant Tipping was there when Pat and John led two teams of horses into the mill yard. Piles of logs, eight feet long by ten to twelve inches wide, lay strewn about. Pat reached under his jacket for his flask and sneaked a long drag of whiskey. Within minutes, the gangs had two logs each chained behind the horses and started their way back to the earthworks.

Instead of leading the horses, Pat rode the logs while holding their reins. John walked 100 yards behind him. As Pat mastered the balance it took, he began to jump from log to log, yelling and attracting attention and drawing laughter from other soldiers as he passed. As they approached the defense line, Pat jumped from a log to the ground and bounced back on again. After a half dozen successful tries, the log turned beneath his feet. He lost his balance, causing the log to crash into the horses’ hind legs. The horses bolted and Pat was thrown sprawling against a tree.

Men rushed forward. Pat screamed that his back was hurt. Others chased after the team. One horse was being dragged by the other, a bone protruding from its lower leg. As the weight became too much the horse stopped, stomped, and threw its head in a circle, neighing loudly. Men turned away, gasping. As shock took hold of the poor animal, it grew quiet, letting out an occasional snort. Tipping put his rifle to its head and pulled the trigger. The shot resounded throughout the camp. He then turned toward Pat and swore at him, his face aflame in anger. “You stupid, goddamn bastard!” Another Company I man yelled at Pat: “You should be shot, you ignorant son of bitch,” and slapped Pat in the face. Other men shouted similar epithets. Reg O’Donnell, face brimming with anger, yelled, “Oh, leave Pat alone. He was just having some fun.” One or two others muttered similar statements. Bill Keefe walked up to O’Donnell, pushed him to the ground and drew his knife, before Tipping rushed into their midst and screamed at all of them: “What the hell is the matter with you men? Now shut up and get back to work or you’ll all spend the next three days cleaning latrines.” The men quickly went back to work without further words.

Tipping ordered two men, “Stand Pat up.” Pat groaned in agony. “Now join that gang fillin’ gabions. We’ll see how funny you can be when you’re shoving them in place.” For the next two hours, Pat hacked down saplings in a nearby swamp and dragged them in bundles to the earthworks, where three men wove them into baskets. When several were completed, Tipping, who had stood watching the whole time, ordered Pat to fill the baskets with mud and rock and wedge them against the logs to hold them in place.

As the men labored over the earthworks, they sweated and cursed profusely. A mix of snow and rain over the last week had turned the ground into four or five inches of clay mud. Pat moaned while filling the baskets. Every time he slacked off, Tipping prodded him in the back where it pained the most. “Well, wise guy, put your shoulder into that one,” he said, and Pat moaned even louder as he pushed a gabion against a wall of logs.

Led by First Lieutenant Worthington, Company I spread out in picket outposts of six men each, 50 yards apart, 500 yards north of Fort Dix. It was Friday, February 22, 1863, a cold, moonless night. Ice formed on puddles between patches of snow. The men wore their wool issue uniforms, but after remaining motionless for half an hour, teeth chattered and bodies shook. Tipping stationed six men near a farm road at the edge of woods, arrayed in a semicircle, so that each man was no more than five yards from the next.

The sergeant instructed his men, “Every so often, call to the next man. Make sure he’s awake. Rebel scoutin’ parties come through all the time. Local militia pick off the lone soldier, so keep your guns loaded, pointed down if it begins to rain. If you hear somethin’ strange, a branch or ice crack, call to me.” Tipping positioned himself just off the road.

The men took up their positions. John was five yards from Pat on his right. Late that night, he walked quietly over to his brother. “Pat, I think I just heard movement out west of us, maybe a quarter mile.” They listened carefully, but heard nothing and relaxed a bit.

A minute later, John was certain he heard the sound of rustling feet on frozen road in the distance, but he couldn’t see a thing. Without a moon, the night was black as a crow. When three deer came traipsing past, John breathed a sigh of relief.

Seconds later, they heard the crackling of tired feet on ice. John asked the man farthest left to alert Tipping, who came quickly.

“George, let’s move up a few feet. It may be deer, but I don’t think so.”

The two moved a few paces forward and stood silently for several seconds before the sound of feet breaking thin ice reached them.

“You’re right,” whispered Tipping. “They’re comin’ fast and there’s more than a few. Warn the other squads on the right. Make sure their muskets are loaded and triggers fully cocked. I’m runnin’ over to Sergeant Berrey’s squad to post them up. When they get closer, ask them to identify themselves.”

With that, Tipping ran across the road. When the rebel scouting party was some distance off, John, back in line, took a deep breath and yelled out, “Gentlemen, y’all identify yuhselves!”

The shuffling stopped. There was a pause and then a loud voice returned, “We all are the 71st Virginia Volunteers. Who are you?”

John did not hesitate. “We all are Suffolk militia.”

With some hesitation, the tramping restarted. John, standing behind a tree, pointed his gun at what he thought was the lead soldier and fired. The rebel squad halted and fired in John’s direction. The two sides exchanged shots and then ceased firing, hoping the enemy would fire again and give themselves away. An eerie blanket of suspense smothered the field.

John was not sure he heard anything move. He could see nothing. He knew the rebels could be crawling alongside the road and would soon rise and charge. He reloaded and fired a second shot to draw their fire and then lay behind the tree. Nothing. Two of John’s squad fired. Still nothing in return.

A voice boomed toward them from perhaps fifty yards away. “Lay down your arms and yuh won’t be killed. We got yuh two to one.”

The Confederate officer hoped he was facing a squad of green soldiers who had never fired a shot in battle before. They might surrender without a fight.

John sensed it was a bluff. “Come and get us, reb.” To his fellow soldiers, he muttered,

“Stay calm, boys. I’ll fire first and then you fire ten seconds apart.”

John heard a group of men get to their feet and start running toward them. The sound of running soldiers was a combination of feet hitting the ground and the jangle of gear on their backs. He fired. A volley of shots rang out from the other side of the road.

John yelled, “Fire! Fire!”

The rebels dropped to their knees or sprawled flat on the ground. They could see from the flashes that they were caught in a crossfire. The officer directed his men to run to the rear as fast as they could. The two Company I squads reloaded and got off two more rounds each before the sounds of running men faded in the dark.

Companies A and B from the 155th ran up to join Company I. The rebels disappeared in the night, but three wounded soldiers lay moaning alongside a crumpled sergeant, blood splattered all over his yellowish-brown jacket from a direct head wound. A half-dozen muskets lay strewn along the road. Blood in the snow indicated at least one other bullet had found its mark. Company I cheered. It was their first taste of battle. It was also their first sight of rebel soldiers, the dead sergeant graphically displaying why Union soldiers had nicknamed the Confederates “butternuts.”

All had a story to write home about. Captain McNally joined the men to learn exactly what had happened, for he had a report on the engagement he needed to file the next day. When they returned to camp at dawn after picket duty, Sergeant Tipping called a few members of his squad together and asked them how John had conducted himself. The squad, to a man, praised John for his calm and quick thinking.

Pat stood quietly off to the side during the discussion, beaming with pride. Like the other men, he felt that John was a man’s man and a soldier’s soldier. Whatever his brother told him, he would follow without hesitation.