No. 177. Report of Bvt. Major Charles A. Philips, Battery E, Massachusetts Light Artillery.1
HDQRS. BATTERY E, MASSACHUSETTS ARTILLERY,
April 5, 1865.
LIEUTENANT: I have the honor to make the following report of the part taken by this battery since the 30th of March:
The guns of the battery were in Fort Alexander Hays and remained there until the 3rd of April. In the forenoon of the 2nd of April in compliance with orders from General Tidball, I sent Second Lieutenant M. W. Page, with two detachments of cannoneers, to Fort Sedgwick, and from there they were ordered into the rebel battery, Numbers 27, across the Jerusalem plank road. This battery had been garrisoned by Battery B, Sumter Artillery, Georgia Volunteers, with six light 12-pounders. Besides the men from my battery, there were detachments from Battery C, First New York Artillery; B, First Pennsylvania Artillery, and Twenty-seventh New York Battery. The gorge of the battery being open, the men were exposed to a very severe fire from sharpshooters and from one 8-inch siege howitzers in Fort Virginia about 600 yards in our front,, as well as from several pieces of light artillery. These pieces were mostly silenced by noon. Lieutenant Page was wounded and obliged to leave the field about noon. We kept up a constant and apparently successful fire until night.
The behavior of the officers and men in the battery was excellent, I make especial mention of Privates Joseph burns and Thomas Jones. These two men were sent up with dinner for men at the guns. Upon reaching the front they volunteered for a charge upon Fort Mahone, and entered it among the first. They afterward returned to Battery 27 and helped work the guns. Private Joseph Burns was here severely wounded in the arm.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
CHAS. A. PHILLIPS,
Brevet Major, Commanding Battery E, Massachusetts Artillery.
Lieutenant HEASLEY,
Actg. Asst. Adjt. General, Artillery Brigadier Ninth Army Corps.
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. 1078 ↩