There had not been time to assign to us posts in the trenches and we
had, in fact, not even been placed in position. We were more nearly in
marching order than any other troops available and it was therefore the
divisions of the 19th army corps that were selected to be hurried up to
Washington. To these were added two divisions of the 6th corps.
Colonel Wisewell, commanding the defences of the city, realised the
nature of his problem. He had got to hold the lines of Washington, cost
what it might, until the arrival of the troops from Grant. He took the
bold step of placing on the picket line that night every man within
reach, or at least every loyal man within reach (for plenty of the men
in Washington were looking and hoping for the success of the South). The
instructions usually given to pickets were in this instance reversed.
The men were ordered, in place of keeping their positions hidden and of
maintaining absolute quiet, to move from post to post along the whole
line, and they were also ordered, without any reference to the saving of
ammunition, to shoot off their carbines on the least possible pretext
and without pretext. The armories were then beginning to send to the
front Sharp's repeating carbines. The invention of breech-loading rifles
came too late to be of service to the infantry on either side, but
during the last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry were armed
with Sharp's breech-loaders.
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