[101]
After the failure of the assaults on Petersburg the Eighteenth Corps went into position in the trenches, and participated in the siege. It held the extreme right of the line, at which point the contending armies were nearest each other. The proximity of the enemy's pickets and the incessant firing occasioned large losses, daily, in killed and wounded.
On August 26th it was relieved by the Tenth Corps, and ordered within the defenses of Bermuda Hundred. In the latter part of September it was ordered to the north bank of the James, where, on the 29th, the First Division (Stannard's) participated in the brilliant and successful assault on Fort Harrison, at Chaffin's Farm. At this time, General Stannard commanded the First Division, General Brooks having resigned in July; General Paine had succeeded Hinks in command of the colored (Third) division; and while at Chaffin's Farm, General Weitzel, who had been acting as chief of staff to General Butler, succeeded Ord in command of the corps. The Eighteenth, under Weitzel, was also engaged at the battle of Fair Oaks, October 27, 1864, which was fought on the old battle field of 1862.
On December 3, 1864, the corps was ordered discontinued. The white troops of the Tenth and Eighteenth Corps were organized into one corps, designated as the Twenty-fourth; the colored troops belonging to the Tenth and Eighteenth were organized as another, which was designated the Twenty-fifth. The regiments of the Eighteenth were formed into a division of three brigades, which became Devens' (3d) Division of the Twenty-fourth Corps.
As the Eighteenth Corps was to remain in Virginia with the Army, it 13 difficult to understand what good season the War Department could have had for thus wiping out the honored name under which the corps had fought so long and well.
Nineteenth Corps.
- Baton Rouge -- Georgia Landing -- Bayou Teche -- Fort Bisland -- Irish Bend -- Plains' Store -- assault on Port Hudson, May 27th -- assault on Port Hudson, June 14th -- Port Hudson Trenches -- Thibodeaux -- Brashear City -- Donaldsonville -- Sabine Cross Roads -- Pleasant Hill -- Cane River -- Cloutierville -- Alexandria -- Mansura -- Yellow Bayou -- Atchafalaya -- Berry ville -- Opequon -- Fisher's Hill -- Cedar Creek.
Organized under General Order No. 5, dated at Washington, Jan. 5, 1863:--“By direction of the President, the troops in the Department of the Gulf will constitute the Nineteenth Army Corps, to date from December 14, 1862, and Mtajor-General N. P. Banks is assigned to the command.”
At this time the troops of the Nineteenth Corps were, for the most part, just arriving from the North on ocean transports, and some of the regiments which had been assigned to the corps had not landed at this date. There had been some Union troops in Louisiana since the occupation of New Orleans, one brigade of which, under command of General Thomas Williams, fought at Baton Rouge, August 5, 1862, making a gallant and successful defence against the attack of Breckenridge's Division. General Williams was killed in this battle. Another brigade, under General Weitzel, was engaged in a lot fight, October 27, 1862, at Georgia Landing (Labadiesville) in the LaFourche district.
Soon after the date of the order creating the Nineteenth Corps, an organization was effected. The returns for April, 1863, show four divisions, commanded respectively by Generals Augur, Sherman (Thos. W.), Emory and Grover. In addition, the corps command included seven unassigned regiments, stationed at Brashear City, Key West, Tortugas and West Florida; in all, 65 regiments of infantry, 19 batteries of light artillery, one regiment of heavy artillery, and 5 regiments of cavalry. It numbered, all told-present and absent--55,229; present, 44,832; present for duty, 35,670. Forty of these regiments had been organized in
