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[269]
him that were no more qualified than General Pierce, and I did not like to do these officers an apparent injustice.
Besides I did not deem the enterprise at all difficult.
Newport News was nearer Bethel, and my proposition was that the regiment there should start later than the two regiments from Camp Hamilton, and that at a well-known junction of the road they should meet, advance as fast as possible, capture Little Bethel, which could easily be done, and then all make an assault at daylight upon the entrenchments at Great Bethel.
To be sure of having the march properly timed, I ordered the signal to be given at Newport News.
There were four very small howitzers which were to be drawn by the men, for want of horses to take up larger guns.
With six of our men to one of the enemy I could not conceive how there could be any possibility of not marching at once over the works; and if the troops had marched steadily forward the rebels would not have stayed a minute.
Everything was utterly mismanaged.
When the troops got out four or five miles to the junction where the regiments were to meet, it being early dawn and the officers being very much scared, Colonel Bendix mistook the colonels and staff of the other regiment for a body of cavalry, and fired upon them.
The fire was returned; and by that performance we not only lost more men than were lost in the battle, but also ended all chance for a surprise.
The two regiments marched forward, the main force remaining behind.
Duryea took Little Bethel, which had been abandoned.
With two hundred rifle-men supporting Greble and his cannon, Duryea went forward with his Zouaves to a piece of timber, and opened fire in answer to the enemy's artillery.
Greble advanced his guns within three hundred yards of the enemy's battery.
He was pretty soon left by the Zouaves, who took shelter in the woods.
That was no harm, as nobody came out from the entrenchments to disturb him. He silenced one of the enemy's guns, and substantially all of them, when by the last discharge of a gun by the enemy he was instantly killed.
From that time there did not seem to be a head more than a cabbage head to undertake to do anything, except it might be Winthrop.
Greble held his position an hour and a half, while the main body of the troops stood about a half mile from his position
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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