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Updated: May 8, 2025
Weitzel, retaining his old brigade, became the second in command in Augur's division. In making up the brigades the regiments were so selected and combined as to mingle the veterans with the raw levies, and to furnish, in right of seniority, the more capable and experienced of the colonels as brigade commanders.
To one unacquainted with the history of this question and of those times it must seem strange indeed to read the emphatic words in which a soldier so loyal and, in the best sense, so subordinate as Weitzel, declared his unwillingness to command these troops, and to reflect that in a little more than two years he was destined to accept with alacrity the command of a whole army corps of black men, and at last to ride in triumph at their head into the very capital of the Confederacy.
Ord, with three divisions of infantry and Mackenzie's cavalry, was to move in advance on the night of the 27th, from the north side of the James River and take his place on our extreme left, thirty miles away. He left Weitzel with the rest of the Army of the James to hold Bermuda Hundred and the north of the James River.
On both sides the men were enfeebled by malaria and exposure; yet the Confederates had left their sick behind, while the Union force included convalescents that came out of the hospital to take part in the battle. "There were not 1,200," said Weitzel after the battle, "who could have marched five miles. None of our men had been in battle; very few had been under fire."
He met President Lincoln, and helped to escort him through the streets lined with the black people whom he had set free. Later, Carleton saw and talked with Generals Weitzel and Devens in the capitol, shaking hands also with Admiral Farragut. From the top of the capitol building, he reflected on the fall of Secession.
Arriving at Ship Island on the 20th of March, he formally assumed the command of the Department of the Gulf, announcing Major George C. Strong as Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Godfrey Weitzel as Chief Engineer, and Surgeon Thomas Hewson Bache as Medical Director.
The Confederates were found to be in some force in front of Pattersonville, with their cavalry pickets advanced to within a mile of Weitzel's front. As soon as Weitzel had completed his crossing, and released the boats, Emory followed him. The four brigades bivouacked in front of the landing-place that night.
The Sachem hauled down her colors and hoisted the white flag at the fore, and after bravely continuing the fight for twenty minutes longer the Clifton followed suit. The place where the Clifton grounded was fairly in range of the beach where Weitzel was expected to land his troops.
The hour may have been about ten o'clock. Grover, Paine, and Weitzel listened in vain for any sounds of musketry on their left to indicate that either Augur or Sherman was at work, yet no sound came from that quarter save the steady pounding of the Union artillery.
General Weitzel, to whom the city was surrendered, taking up his headquarters in the house lately occupied by Jefferson Davis, promptly set about the work of relief; organizing efficient resistance to the fire, which, up to this time, seems scarcely to have been attempted; issuing rations to the poor, who had been relentlessly exposed to starvation by the action of the rebel Congress; and restoring order and personal authority.
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