Chapter 8

The Siege of Suffolk

In the days that followed, the companies of the 155th divided their time between twice-daily drills, fatigue duty building earthworks out of logs and soil, and picket duty. Fatigue duty was dull, often exhausting work, exposed to rain and snow. Many drank as much whiskey as they could buy, which, contrary to their beliefs, did nothing to relieve the frostbite many suffered. Drunk and unhappy soldiers brawled.

Tipping kept Pat under control by sending him with his brother to scout the surrounding area. On his first day out, after walking in silence a half mile in advance of their line, Pat said to his brother, “I like this scouting duty. It beats fatigue and picket duty or even just lying around our shed. But what are we supposed to be doin’? I see you writin’ notes on a map.”

“Well, brother, scouting is always about the enemy, where he is and how he’d use roads, crossroads, railroads, hills, woods, swamps . . . that kind of thing . . . or how we’d use them. Now, look at this map and the notes I’ve written on it.”

Pat studied the map for a few seconds, but the words John had written meant nothing to him.

John saw his blank stare and said, “Let’s sit over there and maybe I can explain it to you.”

The two rested against trees and drank from their canteens. Then John spread out the map on the ground.

“Our engineers prepared this map of the area north of the village of Suffolk. You see the different colored lines? The farm roads are green, the local roads red. Terrain features are marked and some labeled like this swamp over here. They use upside down Vs to show hills with the height of the hills marked just on top of the Vs. Why do you think they mark the height?”

“Because the highest hill could be the best point to see approachin’ soldiers.”

“Right you are, Pat. It could also be the best place to position artillery,” said John.

For the next two hours, the brothers walked narrow farm roads. “Pat, you take a turn adding the roads we discover to the map and draw on the map other features that might help an army attack or defend itself from attack.” Pat very dutifully followed his brother’s instructions.

On their way back to camp, Pat thought about what he had learned, but then asked his brother, “Where did you learn so much about scouting? You had the same training I did, almost nothing.”

“Oh, George decided I had some ability to scout, so he gave me a manual to read.”

“Where did you keep it? I never saw it,” said Pat. “

“I kept it under my bedroll in our tent. After I read it through, he took me out with an engineer and I listened to them as they studied their maps and made changes to them. The third time out, George told me I was ready to go alone and could pick someone to go with me. So I picked you.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. Thanks.”

“You catch on quickly, baby brother,” and he gave Pat a light shove on his chest.

Pat smiled and tapped his brother back on his right shoulder.

Life at Suffolk was mired in a three-month period of rain, snow, and ennui. A few men returned home on furlough and never came back. Morale sank. The men had not been paid since leaving Staten Island. Even worse, word came through letters from home that the promised bonus money was nowhere to be seen. Two more men disappeared. One, according to a letter from Tipping’s wife, had slipped back into Buffalo and was hiding in a shack on Times Beach.

Slogging around in snow, mud, and water led to painful sores and frostbite. John contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized for a week. At various times, half the regiment was off duty, sick in their shacks or in the hospital. Some were faking it. Many were not. Tuberculosis spread easily among them, since seven or eight men slept together in Sibley tents or in shacks. Two men died of it.

The most frequent complaint was boredom, which the men fought with cards around makeshift stoves in their quarters or songfests around campfires. Whiskey was distributed by the army itself and when it wasn’t, the men found other ways to get it. Fights broke out. Pistols were brandished and shot, but no one was seriously injured. The day game of choice was horseracing on the roads leading out of Suffolk.

Pat remained aloof from the tomfoolery, not because he didn’t want to join in, but because Tipping kept him at his side or sent him out on scout duty with his brother or an officer, looking for rebel movements.

In camp after reveille in late February, Captain McAnally singled out Sergeant Tipping and ordered him to lead a handpicked squad of men north to the Blackwater River. “George, General Peck is looking for information on Longstreet and his army, which our spies say is taking General Pryor’s place. Your job is to conduct a Virginia loyalist named Jacob Benjamin to Petersburg. He’ll go in and get whatever information he can, and then you get him back here, safe. The fewer men you take with you, the easier you can avoid being seen by rebel cavalry or militia.”

“I think I’ll take Pat and John Donohue and use them as forward scouts. They’re both like Indians in the woods when they need be,” said George.

“Take three more,” countered Captain McAnally, contradicting himself. “In a fight, five men can stage a pretty good delay while one man and the spy run off. But remember, your job is to avoid contact and to record movements of Confederate troops around Petersburg and the Blackwater. In the best scouting, not a single shot is fired.”

Tipping chose Billy Duffy and John Fitzpatrick to fill out his squad.

They spent the last night in camp around a fire with Jacob Benjamin, who had been a Unionist since before the war. Neighbors had burned out his home and barns and they tarred and dragged him through their Northern Virginia streets. He was eager to retaliate for the Union side.

Tipping decided to trade in their muskets for single shot carbines. The carbine was smaller and lighter than the .58 caliber musket rifle and loaded from the breech. He feared an ambush and wanted to avoid being overwhelmed without firing a shot.

Once underway, during daylight, the squad kept to the woods as planned. Pat and John took turns trudging 200 yards in front of the squad and then letting them catch up.

Three days later, Tipping’s party moved along the south bank of the Blackwater, mouths agape as they watched whole divisions approach the river from the other side. George said to his men, “Longstreet is gettin’ ready to cross the Blackwater with his whole corps.”

“What do we do, George?” asked John.

“We’re goin’ to turn around and move as fast as we can back to the fort. The General needs to know this.”

Later, at least thirty miles from Fortress Suffolk, Pat moved slowly out front, down a local road in the moonless night. He tripped and stumbled on a small branch and the crack resonated in the silence. A mounted militia group surrounded him before he could run into the woods. Pat immediately dropped his rifle and raised his hands into the air.

“O, what have we here? A Yankee boy, alone, or out front of more Yankees?”

“I’m alone,” Pat said, perhaps too quickly. He swallowed involuntarily. “Been to the Blackwater to see what gives.”

The militia leader, a large man, clubbed Pat across his back with his rifle. Pat staggered into a horse. Four other men jumped from their horses, stripped him of his knapsack, and probed his ribs and loins with the muzzles of their rifles.

“It befits yuh,” the leader said in a loud voice, “to be truthful, Yankee boy, or we’ll drag yuh at the end of a rope down the road a mile. Then we’ll see if your tongue will lie like a snake.”

Doubled over in pain and covering his chest and groin with his arms as best he could, Pat’s voice quaked. “I tell you, I’m alone, or my men would have fired on you by now.” The rest of the squad overheard the secesh leader and Pat.

The leader secured a rope around Pat’s arms and chest and looped it about his saddle horn. “We need more light now, don’t we?” he said. A second man threw a bucket of tar onto a small fire they had lit to warm themselves. The tar caught fire and he flipped it over Pat. Pat screamed in terror and pain as the tar burned his hands and face.

By the sudden illumination, George could clearly see Pat and the shadowy figures of four mounted men. He raised his gun and fired the carbine into the militia, as did the rest. All five horses reared up, neighed resoundingly, and galloped off. Pat was dragged 100 yards across a field until the rope jerked over his head, freeing him. He rolled into a shallow ditch and thrust his face into the water.

Pat yelled into the night and the squad rushed to his side. Tipping stood on a small rise and scanned the darkness, carbine reloaded and ready to fire. John and Billy cut off Pat’s jacket and pants and ran him into the woods. George pulled out a blanket from his knapsack and wrapped him in it. John gingerly patted his brother down, exploring arms, feet, and ribs for possible fractures. As far as he could tell, nothing was broken.

When George asked him how he felt, Pat answered excitedly three times, “Just burns, thanks to all of you.”

Pain surged from his burned hands and face. Dizzy from shock, he began to look around for his kepi cap.

John laughed, slapping him gently on the shoulder. “Are you drunk? We’ll never find it in the dark. Don’t worry! There’s more at Suffolk!”

“Boys, the secesh will be out with men and hounds to hunt us down. We’ll move into the woods, and at first light we’ll find a creek and take it east toward Suffolk,” said George. “Now, let’s see if we can put together a new suit for our Patrick, lads. Look into your sacks for spares. I’ve got some ointment.” John brought out a shirt and fresh socks; John Fitzpatrick offered a pair of pants, and Jacob, a jacket. George softly spread ointment over Pat’s hands and face.

Off they went into the woods to await sunrise. Pat lay on the ground moaning, his burns, back, ribs, and groin throbbing in pain. John pleaded with him to keep his voice down. As soon as they were able to see twenty yards in front of them, Tipping rose and started jogging. The others needed no urging to match his pace. Pat stumbled forward, his hands covering his mouth to stifle his moans. The group came to a shallow stream heading northeast and ran into it. The cold water soothed Pat’s burns and aches. He ran more easily. Tipping slowed his pace and they followed the stream for a mile or so.

In the distance, dogs bayed. The sound of the hounds and of a large group of riders grew nearer. Tipping ran toward a mass of cattails on the other side of the creek. He led his squad twenty feet into them and signaled ‘down’ into the cold water that rose halfway up the cattail stalks. The baying grew louder and nastier, then tapered off when the hounds and riders had passed. The scouting party waited but a minute, then climbed out of the creek soaking wet and shaking so badly they could not speak. They ran on stiff legs for a quarter mile or more, as much to restore body heat as to escape the hunting party, and then trudged through woods toward the rising sun.

Within a mile or so, the creek widened, becoming even more shallow. The men broke into a jog, running and jumping across water, slate, gravel, sand, and low banks.

Benjamin had a hard time keeping up. Twice Tipping called a rest to allow him to continue. After five hours of dodging across icy water, George ordered the shivering men to stop.

“I think we lost ‘em, but no doubt they’ll soon enough start runnin’ the creek bed. Let’s move into the woods 1,000 yards. We’ll eat, dry out, and head south. We have to get back as soon as possible and let General Peck know Longstreet will soon attack. Mary, Mother of God, if ever we needed your help, it’s now.”

The men made a small fire, ate rations, cleaned rifles, and turned in.

Tipping’s prayer appeared to be answered three days later, as he and his squad, out of provisions, exhausted and stumbling along for the last day, slipped into Suffolk and relayed the news that Longstreet was on his way.

Pat headed straight to the field hospital, where an orderly dressed his burnt hands, face, and torso. Every day, John removed the bandages, cleaned the burns, and redressed them with fresh oil and wrapping.

Both brothers tried to put a good face on his wounds.

Holding up his bandaged hands, Pat said glumly, “I’m a picture, ain’t I?”

John kidded him, “You look like one of those mummies from Egypt.”

“Don’t make me laugh! It hurts!”

At last, on April 6, the men of the 155th received their first pay and Pat used it to pay the sutler for whiskey he had previously bought, and to buy more.

On Monday, April 11, Longstreet’s army appeared outside Suffolk’s fortifications. Within minutes, 16,000 Federal troops manned their posts in Fortress Suffolk. Another 11,000 arrived that evening from coastal Virginia and immediately found themselves under siege.

The siege of Suffolk ended in early May. General Longstreet ordered a carefully planned and well-disguised retreat to start May 3 with the withdrawal of supply wagons. General Peck did not learn of the withdrawal until a day later. Union troops raced out the Edenton Road and other routes from Suffolk in time to make prisoners of 300 rebel stragglers, more casualties than the Union Army suffered throughout the siege.

While he held Peck’s army in Fortress Suffolk, Longstreet foraged sufficient food—1,300,000 pounds of bacon alone—to enable Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to invade the North. What they obtained around Suffolk sustained 75,000 men for a month during Lee’s campaign in Maryland and Pennsylvania, ending with his defeat at Gettysburg in July.