No. 164. Report of Major Ezra P. Gould, Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Infantry.1
HDQRS. FIFTY-NINTH MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS,
April 18, 1865.
SIR: In compliance with circular of 17th instant from brigade headquarters, I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the troops under my command.
During the week following the attack on Fort Stedman the utmost vigilance was required on our front, both to guard against any attack of the enemy and to discover and take immediate advantage of any signs of evacuation, and anything like rest was entirely out of the question, and throughout that week, therefore, the men of this command, even more than most others in the brigade, owing to our proximity to Fort Stedman, were ever sensitive to anything like an alarm, and were under arms in the trenches the greater part of every night. As early as 3 o’clock of Monday morning, the 3rd instant, the fires in the city and other signs indicated an evacuation and one of the sergeants was sent by me to discover the state of affairs in our front. He returned bringing word of the desertion ot the desertion ot the rebel works, and I immediately sent word of the same to brigade headquarters, and at 6 o’clock this regiment with the rest of the brigade entered the city. Since when we have been doing guard and picket duty around Petersburg and on the South Side Railroad.
No casualties have occurred and no captures of guns nor colors have been made during the time mentioned in circular.
EZRA P. GOULD,
Major, Fifty-ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, Commanding Regiment
Lieutenant M. STEWART,
Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, Third Brigade.
Source:
- The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Volume XLVI, Part 1 (Serial Number 95), p. 1052 ↩