Stop 4 - Morning Attack Trail

Stop 4 – Trail head for the Morning Attack Trails

Ok, we are now located at Stop #4, on the auto tour, which is the trail head, for the Morning Attack Trails. Feel free to pick up a brochure from the brochure box behind me, which explains the trails in more detail. A walk, a short walk, 300 yards through a ravine behind me will take you to the 8th Vermont monument. Which is only one of three veteran placed monuments on the battlefield. If you don’t feel like taking that walk, proceed to the next video, which will explain the battle action that the 8th Vermont and the brigade to which they belonged found themselves in that morning. If you do take the walk to the monument itself, then watch the video when you actually reach the monument.

Click the link for an online version of the Morning Attack Trail brochure - https://www.nps.gov/cebe/planyourvisit/the-morning-attack-trails.htm

Stop 4 – 8th Vermont Monument

Ok, we are still at stop #4 here on the auto tour, but now we are actually standing at the 8th Vermont monument itself, which you see behind me. This monument was dedicated in 1885. It is only one of three veteran placed monuments on the battlefield. It was actually a gift from one of the surviving members of the regiment, Herbert Hill, who was just 18 years old at the time of the battle. The 8th Vermont belonged to a brigade of the 19th Corps, commanded by Col. Stephen Thomas, Thomas’s Brigade, so the 8th Vermont and three other regiments numbering just over 1,000 men were actually sent out here on the east side of the Valley Pike by the commander of the 19th Corps, General Emory, as a way to buy time, to slow the Confederate attack up, so that Gen. Emory could shift his battle lines and form a new line along the 19th Corps as we discussed at stop #3. So they arrive out here at this wood lot, this was a wood lot in 1864 as you see today, facing the same direction you are facing now, to our east. They arrive at the edge of the wood lot. The other three regiments of the brigade, forming just off to the right of the 8th Vermont, so they hold the left of the line. Just in time, facing a dense fog as the Confederate attack rolled towards them. Just towards their left, or over here, so to your left too, would be a division of the 8th Corps commanded by Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes. Unknown to them was an overwhelming Confederate force rolling towards them out of the fog. And just as they formed their line they were struck by this attack. The 8th Vermont numbered about 160 officers and men, so a small regiment. The brigade itself had been spread out so there was a gap between each regiment to cover more ground. Which meant that when the Confederates struck them, Col. Hayes’s division was already under assault so the fighting was raging up there to their left. And so now the Confederates attack the 8th Vermont. The other three regiments also come under attack. The regiment literally gets surrounded on three sides. The fighting lasts less than half an hour. They get nearly surrounded. Very quickly the focal point of the fighting will be the colors, the two flags of the regiment. Each regiment in the Civil War had two flags or the colors, a state flag and a national flag, and of course it would be a great honor to capture an enemy flag. A great dishonor to lose your flags. The Confederates saw those flags and immediately tried to capture them. So the focal point of the fighting became the possession of those flags. One member of the 8th Vermont who survived the fight, later recalled the struggle for the two colors of the regiment. He said, “Amid the tremendous excitement commenced to one of the most desperate and ugly hand to hand conflicts over the flags that has ever been recorded. Men seemed more like demons than human beings as they struck fiercely at each other with club muskets and bayonets.” The monument itself is made out of Vermont marble, and though looks like a simple design is actually very symbolic. You will notice it has three rough sides and one smooth side. It is symbolic in a number of ways. During the fighting itself that followed, again lasting less than a half an hour, the regiment loses 110 of its 160 officers and men, so over three quarters of its men. So the three rough sides represents the officers and men it lost. It also lost, right where we are standing, where the monument is located, three of its color bearers. So the three rough sides represents those three color bearers who lost their lives defending their flags. It also represents, those three rough sides, the fact that the regiment was surrounded on three sides during the struggle. Eventually realizing if they stayed much longer they would be completely surrounded, the commander of the regiment ordered the regiment to retreat in order to save itself. So they had to retreat through the same ravine they had come through to get to this location. And in falling back they literally had to run a gauntlet to survive trying to get out of the far side of the ravine. The entire brigade suffered similar losses. Suffering three quarters killed, wounded, or missing, by the time the brigade made its way back to the Valley Pike. In essence they bought themselves about a half an hour of time to try to slow the Confederates up so the rest of the 19th Corps could form that new battle line on the other side of the Valley Pike. In the end it didn’t matter as we have discussed in stop #3. The 19th Corps was defeated and pushed back towards Belle Grove. Which was the Union armies headquarters and the fighting at which we will discuss at our next stop, stop #5.