268

In March the First Maryland and Chesapeake Batteries were transferred to
the Maryland Line, then in winter quarters at Hanover Junction.

But their stay was destined to be of short duration, for when Grant began
his march through the Wilderness the following month the First was ordered to
join Breckinridge.

Nor was it long inactive. Slowly but surely Grant was nearing Richmond;

it is true it was by a circuitous route and at an awful sacrifice of human life.

The Army of Northern Virginia was assembling at Cold Harbor to administer
one more crushing blow to his vast hosts, and Breckinridge was there with it.
The enemy was uncomfortably near, and he called for Dement to throw his
battery to the front and hold him in check until he could form his line of battle.
The gallant Dement brought his battery up on the run, unlimbered, and in an
instant was pouring cannister into the ranks of the enemy. Breckinridge formed
his line to the right and left of the battery and proceeded to throw up his breast-
works. General Breckinridge afterward declared it to have been one of the
most beautiful movements he had ever witnessed.

In Grant's grand assault next morning, June 3, the First Maryland contrib-
uted its share to the general slaughter, its Napoleons firing nothing but cannister,
and before night set in over ten thousand Federal soldiers lay weltering in their
blood, while the loss of the Confederates was trifling.

The battery had also been engaged skirmishing heavily along the Totopotomoy
for two or three days prior to Cold Harbor.

When Grant moved from General Lee's front, the latter crossed the James,
and the First Maryland went into position near Wilcox's Run. After remaining
there some time it was placed in one of the fortifications near Petersburg.

On June 22cl Mahone's Division of the Third Corps moved out of the works
to attack the enemy's left. Lieutenant-Colonel Mclntosh, to whose battalion the
First Maryland had been transferred, accompanied him with Demerit's battery,
under Lieutenant Gale. The batteries on the line were directed to co-operate by a
combined fire upon the enemy's batteries and on his troops in the woods.

At the proper time Demerit's battery moved rapidly forward, took position
near the enemy's works, and opened, when the infantry, under cover of this fire
and of that from the batteries on the Confederate line, rushed forward and carried
the enemy's entrenchments, capturing a large number of prisoners and four pieces
of artillery.

Lieutenant Gale and the men of the battery were highly complimented for
their gallant behavior in this affair.

The First Maryland made a narrow escape at the explosion of Burnside's
mine. It was stationed in such close proximity to the mine that many of the men
of the battery were wounded by the falling debris. And then began one of the