The following is an account of the actions in which the Southeastern Coalition of Authentic Reeanactors company, portraying the 17th

Tennessee Infantry, Company D, were involved in during the recent 150th Anniversary Bermuda Hundred event. The event was hosted by Chesterfield County, Virginia and they were the perfect hosts; great planning, transportation, site preparation, amenities, etc. John Pagano, the reenactor coordinator, did an outstanding job. This account is written in a first person style and is an accurate accounting of what our company took part in during the weekend event. *Note the part of the narrative talking about the incident involving the negroe girl, was pre-scripted by all of those involved, and the young African American lady, Mia, provided a very powerful, educational teaching experience for all involved; it was an experience that all who witnessed her performance, will not soon forget. It provided a glimpse into an oft overlooked part of our country s history. Thanks for reading Pvt. K.D. Tiny Dawson

17th Tennessee Infantry, Company D After Action Report for actions taking place in the defense of Richmond, Near Drewry's Bluff, Bermuda Hundred Campaign, May, 1864 When we first got into the area, there was a small civilian area of refugees and a few negroes which had all been displaced due to the recent movements of the armies. There were even members of the U.S. Christian Commission and the U.S. Sanitary Commission that we were able to skirt past as we worked our way towards the Confederate main line. As we approached the works, which had been started by negroes pressed into service earlier in the war, we saw that we had a lot of work to do. General Butler's men had been making movements towards this area and we knew that it was going to be a real fight soon. Having left the Army of Tennessee behind and being fairly new to the Army of Northern Virginia, we boys of the 17th Tennessee were set up right at the end of this line of works on the army's left flank. We had a bit of a fish hook at the left end of our line. It came a powerful storm the first afternoon, which flooded the works already in place and made a quagmire of the clay. That didn't stop 'ole Tennessee though, we went right into fortifying the works after the rain let up. We found all kinds of stuff left behind by the previous occupants, like a jar of pickles, old bits of clothing, socks, cans of sardines, a couple of bottles of whiskey (which we didn't tell the officers about,) old bits and pieces of "couters," belt buckles, all sorts of stuff just lying about for the taking. We were split into work details, with some men setting up our secondary line of bivouacs, some men cooking, some men on wood details, some men on water details, some men out as pickets, and the rest of us fortifying the line. This shifted around throughout the night. The rain had let up about 7:45 in the evening and the clouds cleared out, so we were able to spend a relatively calm, but chilly night. We were up the next morning at 5:00 going about our normal camp routine, and we still had guys working on our section of line. We were elated to see a 3" ordinance rifle from the Washington Artillery pull into the redoubt to our right. When we formed up the brigade, it was with the 15th Virginia Infantry and the 30th Virginia Infantry, a pretty good bunch of fellows, although they were a dandy bunch of boys because they looked almost like the Yankees, as they had dark blue gray jackets and blue trousers for the most part. Our numbers ran about 350 rifles and a small group of cavalry scouts, with 2 artillery pieces in the immediate works, one 3 ordinance rifle and one 6 pounder. It sat up on a long ridgeline and was a formidable section of line for the Yankees to try and have to take.

We formed up, leaving the works held by the artillery and a company of men from the 30th Virginia, "itchin' for a fight" and boy did we run into a real hornet's nest. After pushing through some thick woods and undergrowth, we ended up on a road to our front, maybe 500 600 yards out. There we halted and sent our cavalry scouts and a line of skirmishers to our front to "skulk it out." All of a sudden, our skirmishers ran into what seemed like the whole Yankee army moving our way. We got into a pretty big "dust up" right then and there, with the lead flying so thick you felt like you could reach up and catch in buckets. Our unit, being on the far left of the line, was sent at the double quick, back along a road to our left to man the rifle pits out in front of our main line of works. We ran, in light marching order, our canteens, haversacks, and our couters all the way back, maybe a little over a 1/4 mile at the run and boy were we winded at the end, but as we fell back, we came upon the rifle pits and started reinforcing them right away. We sent out pickets, but the rest of us got busy pulling up logs and scooping the water and dirt out, trying to make them as defensible as possible. The rest of the brigade fell back to our right and we almost opened up on them, because they looked like Yankees, the only reason we didn't was because right before the order to fire, our officer saw the battle flag of the ANV troops. I don't think they know just how close they came to gettin' killed. You know, it's a good thing that their flag looks so different from our Hardee's flag, you know the white circle on a field of blue, for that's all that kept us from firing on them. As they fell back through our line of rifle pits, they began filing into the main works, leaving some of their men out in front to shore up their pits. We sat back and waited for the Yanks to come. Meanwhile the men in the main line kept digging in and strengthening the line. In short order, we could see why they had made such a "skeedaddle" back to the line, as there was a wall of blue coats to our immediate front. The artillery in our works opened up on them and the boys let 'em have the 'ole rebel yell, which even sent a chill up my spine, it was so spirited. That didn't stop the blue wave though and they kept 'a comin'. We opened up on them after they had come down the hill across from us. They had to cross a stream in the bottom, where we had felled all kinds of trees to our immediate front, and they were having a tough go at it. We opened up on them and let them have it, they fell in droves, I'm not sure if it was us or they were just falling over our "abatis" to our front, but many a blue belly to our front didn't get back up. Finally, we had too much pressure on our front and we were ordered to fall back to our main line of works, as we filed in through the opening in the line, the rest of the brigade was opening up with a murderous volley fire and the Yankees were dropping all across the front. They couldn't even get anywhere near our lines, the fire was just so hot, this went on for about 5 minutes and their lines just seemed to whither away. The Yankees couldn't take the heat, so they called a retreat and fell back across the stream to the top of the ridge opposing us and started digging in. Our artillery kept up a harassing fire on them for a while, finally being content to let them lick their wounds. They had tried to swallow us up, but found us a "chokey mouthful!" Eventually, the Yanks sent over an officer with an escort under a flag of truce for a parlay. We all held our fire and word came back that we were not to fire on the Yankees as they had asked for a ceasefire to send out details to retrieve their dead and wounded. None of their troops were to be moving around the field with weapons. We heard them digging in, as we could hear the picks and shovels, the felling of trees and such. It was obvious to us that they planned on staying to fight, so we did the same. At this time, there were hundreds of civilians that had been caught up in all of this, that were escorted through the lines, many of whom had questions for the men. There were men, (who I couldn't figure why they weren't in the army) women, children, negroes, and many others that just wanted to know about what they had just witnessed. We also got issued a bunch of rations at this time so we were detailed half on the line, the other half, back to the rear to get our rations. Then we swapped off, but I couldn't believe my eyes, we never got such rations like this in Tennessee. We got a lean slab of bacon, weighing in at about a pound and a half, all kinds of corn meal, sugar, chicory coffee, vinegar, candles, and soap. Man what a haul. This hiatus went on for about 2 - 3 hours, during which time, we repaired the battle damage to our lines, heavily reinforcing them, as we went along. They were an impressive set of

works, including a trench parapet which we could stand upright in and not be seen over the works, a firing step, reinforced earthwork walls with logs and bracing, as well as a firing slit and thick head log to protect us when firing. We had placed extra boxes of ammunition along the parapet, as well as set up our individual fighting position along the wall where we were to man the line. We had a very defensible position. Our secondary lines for cooking, sleeping, and just getting off the line, and such was back about 40 yards, laid out along a large downed tree. It was during this time that we were detailed back behind our lines to cut down trees for bracing and shoring up our lines, when all of a sudden we were called to form up the brigade, leaving a minimal amount of men to hold the main line. When by God, we were ordered to leave the main line off to our right and try to take the Yankees before they could get their line fortified. It was an insane idea, and we couldn't figure after seeing what we had done to the Yankees that very morning, why we would go right back out across the same terrain to try to take them on....., it turned out just as we thought, a disaster! We ended up on the far left of the line again, and were up against the strongest point of the Yankee line, and we suffered scores of casualties. They poured down a murderous fire on us, I reckon as payback for the whippin' that we gave them that morning. Our boys fell in rows, until we were finally ordered back. Some of the boys that had been wounded were taken prisoner and even a few of the lightly wounded had acted like they were dead to be able to get back up and make a run for our lines. Some of them made it back into our works, but we lost a lot of good men, for nothing. Later that evening a contraband girl came along the road wanting to trade for food, and our officers ordered her searched. She had some carrots and some molasses cookies, but she had no papers. She did have some kind of map, as well as some silver and such. She was taken over and questioned by the officers and tied up to a tree, you ain't never heard such squallin' in all your life, she was yelling and moaning out, singing spirituals and all sorts of racket. Some of the boys from Starr's Battery down the trench a ways, even came over with $20 dollars in gold to try to buy her out of the treatment she was getting, as our officers had her tied to a big oak tree with a knotted rope, under guard with fixed bayonet. Most of the boys in the company didn't like the way she was being treated, but she should have known better than to come pryin' around the lines looking for information to trade back to the Yankees. Right after that an old deaf mute refugee came up the road, pulling an old goat wagon with an 'ole red tick hound tied to it. He bought her off the officers for $40 gold, God only knows where he got such money, but the officers didn't bat an eye and got rid of her before the brigade officers found her in camp. Shortly we sent out pickets and manned the line rotating fellows back to the rear to sleep after their watch. There was a lot of firing between the pickets of the 2 Virginia regiments to our right, as they probed around trying to exploit any weakness in the lines. The pickets and the units to our immediate front must have had too much fighting for the day and it was a fairly quiet night, thank God. The restful night wasn't to last though, for right at first light, the hushed order was passed down the line to form the brigade up quickly and as quiet as possible, no drums or bugles. The previous night, the 30th Virginia off to our right had found a break in the Yankee picket line, and we were going over to make them pay for their oversight. The 15th Virginia went out through our portion of the lines to create a diversionary assault, when they got in position, we moved out to our right, and got ready to make a push on the Union left flank. All of a sudden the artillery opened up a murderous bombardment and the 15th went in under the cover of the artillery, they had just engaged the enemy, when the brigade scouts came back and reported that the Yankees were shifting troops from our front to face the assault, as they must have thought that was our whole force making the push. Hushed orders were passed up the line to get ready to move out and you could feel the tension in the air. The boys of the 15th Virginia were really giving them blue bellies hell, when we were ordered to move forward. As we broke through the undergrowth, I saw we were about 40 yards from their main line, and there were no pickets out front, save for a few. When the brigade broke through, we were close enough to see the fear of God in their eyes, they were as wide as saucers, we had caught them nappin'. The brigade let loose a loud rebel yell and loosed a volley, causing horrendous casualties. We reloaded quickly and began laying down a murderous fire on them. Their men were

dropping like flies, we had come out right on their flank and we rolled forward upon them like a wave crashing on a rocky shore. We were getting a little tangled up in their "abatis" but that didn't slow down the rate of fire. There were orders being yelled about and lots of confusion, thats when our color sergeant went down and was killed outright. Several of the boys were wounded, but we rolled them Yankees up like a wet blanket. We were on them faster than they knew what hit them, as a matter of fact, I don't think they really ever knew what hit them. Our part of the action didn't last much more than 3 - 4 minutes. They were running for all they was worth, we took a whole mess of prisoners and pushed them completely out of their works. Fellows was grabbing up everything they could, such as rifles, "couters", overcoats, shelter tents, ponchos, muckets, you name it, them blue bellies left it all. We even had us some real Yankee coffee for a change, there was muckets and coffee boilers full up, they even had sugar and all kinds of rations cooked up and ready for us. We rounded up the prisoners and started to head back when the Colonel of the brigade stopped us. He called the whole brigade to attention and recognized the 'ole 17 th Tennessee for their strong willed fighting spirit, and told us he was sure glad we was fighting for us and not the blue bellies, to which we got 3 cheers from the brigade.