A biographical history of Fremont and Mills Counties, Iowa, Part 28

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 752


USA > Iowa > Mills County > A biographical history of Fremont and Mills Counties, Iowa > Part 28
USA > Iowa > Fremont County > A biographical history of Fremont and Mills Counties, Iowa > Part 28


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


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upon he should fall back to the post. But since you 'retreated' to the front instead of to the rear, I will not look into the matter any further."


A few days after the battle of Shiloh the Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Six- teenth lowa regiments were organized into a brigade which was placed under the com- mand of General M. M. Crocker, of Iowa, who continued in that capacity till he was placed in command of a division later on. It was known ever after as the "lowa Bri- gade," or "Crocker's Brigade," and as thus organized it continued till it was mustered out after the war. The siege of Corinth lasted nearly a month and every hour, day and night, was one of danger and death. Soon after the capture of Corinth Cor- poral Stone was promoted to the posi- tion of orderly sergeant, and a little later to that of second lieutenant. He was thence- forth in all the marches, skirmishes, sieges and battles of his regiment and brigade. Among these operations were embraced the campaigns and movements of General Grant to clear the enemy from that country; the march to Bolivar: the engagements near there; the return to Corinth, the march to luka and return; the battle of Corinth ; the march to Grand Junction from Corinth ; the maneuvers and skirmishes on the Hatchee; the march to Memphis, Tennessee: the minor actions and marches in southwestern Tennessee and northern Mississippi: the march down through Mississippi toward Vicksburg, until the capture of Holly Springs in the rear, thus compelling Grant to return and change his whole campaign against Vicksburg: the trip by steam-boat from Memphis to points opposite Vicksburg, in preparation for that great campaign : the


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occupancy of Young's Point, opposite Vicks- burg; the return up the river to Lake Prov- idence; going back to Milliken's bend; the march to Grand Gulf, below the city; the investment and siege of Vicksburg, where danger and death were ever present ; the de- fense on Black river, under General Sher- man, of the rear of Grant's army, which was then threatened by a Confederate army un- der General Joseph E. Johnston, afterward the great Confederate leader against Sher- man in the Atlanta campaign ; and the march from Vicksburg to Monroe, on the Washita river toward Texas, the most exhausting and terrible march the brigade ever made and on a fruitless and useless errand. For two months, including this march, Lieuten- ant Stone was acting adjutant of the regi- ment. He also took part in the march under Sherman from Vicksburg eastward to Me- ridian to break the communications of Gen- eral Bragg, who was commanding a large Confederate army near Chattanooga; the march from Clifton, Tennessee. where Lieu - tenant Stone was appointed aid-de-camp on the brigade staff, in April and May, 186.4, by way of Huntsville, Alabama, to join Sher- man at Acworth in the Atlanta campaign : the battle of Kenesaw Mountain; the innu- merable minor conflicts of this great cam- paign and the desperate engagements near Nickajack creek, on the 4th and 5th of July, 1864.


On the morning of the fourth of July, Colonel W. W. Belknap, of the Fifteenth Iowa, received orders to take his own regi- ment, the Sixteenth Iowa, and two guns of the First Minnesota Battery, move out to the right and front and find a certain road, pre- paratory to a move by the Army of the Ten- nessee against the enemy. Lieutenant Stone


of the brigade staff was assigned to him to act as staff officer in this movement. Colo- nel Belknap had a high opinion of Lieuten- ant Stone's character and military ability, and on learning of his candidacy for attor- ney general twenty-four years later, wrote. him the following letter :


WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 4, 1888. HON. JOHN Y. STONE, Council Bluffs, Iowa.


My Dear Stone : The days of August, as well as those of July, 1864, twenty-four years ago, near and around Atlanta, were about as hot in temperature as these and hotter, too, in another way. These summer days, July 4th and 5th, remind me of Nickajack creek, of July 20th, 21st, 22d, and 28th; of those fields and woods around Atlanta ; and of the August days of that fearful siege when the whole line was a skirmish line and every sound seemed to speak of death.


I have lately seen mention made many times of your candidacy for the attorney generalship of Iowa, and this has taken me back to those days of 1864. when, on the staff of Colonel Hall, who commanded the Third Brigade of the Fourth Division, and of myself when I became a brigadier gen- eral in the Seventeenth Corps, you did your work well. So many years have passed since the war that we can hardly realize now, ourselves, how constant, how danger- ous and how exacting the work of an aid- de-camp was. You certainly fulfilled your duties to the letter. Your career as a pri- vate and non-commissioned officer in Com- pany F, of the Fifteenth, had won you credit and promotion to a second lieutenancy, and, had I needed any proof of your courage, ability, and real daring. I would have found it fully on that 4th day of July, 1864, when we advanced from Camp 173 with the Fif- teenth Iowa. a section of the First Minne- sota Battery under Lieutenant Hedrick, and the Sixteenth Iowa, "to find," as my order said, "the road to the bridge over Nickajack


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creek, on the way to Turner's Ferry, on the Chattahoochee." On we went, with no guide and only a rough map made on my knee, with pencil, which is now before me. and all I knew was that I was to find "Widow Mitchell's Farm" and "file left to. wards the creek." We did find the farm. and we did turn to the left, and had in a few moments all the necessary salutes for the glorious 4th, which we could desire. We had there as sharp a fight for the numbers engaged as I ever care to be in. Colonel Hledrick, with the advance, did gallant serv- ice. You were with him, and were with myself. when needed. In fact you were everywhere in that sharp action, and you slowed good judgment, original and true ideas as to the then unknown position of the enemy, and bravery under a hidden, and hence most dangerous and harassing. fire, which impressed me most thoroughly. In a minute or two we had many casualties. But our brave fellows drove them over a mile, and within a day or two we found that our detachment had engaged a large portion of the Rebel army. The heavy ar- tillery pounding which we received from the Fort near Turner's Ferry soon afterward showed that our fight in which you took so gallant and prominent part, had developed a larger force there than our division and corps commander had thought of. Of this fight I wrote a report, giving you due credit. In the hurry of campaign movements I kept no copy. The original was never found and no report has been published. I regret this extremely. for it deserved full record. However, I do not hesitate to say that offi- cers and men all behaved with great gallantry and did some of their best work in a few moments.


I have enlarged on this fight, my dear Stone, because you were nearer me there than usual, and I saw you "go in" with most nTanly courage and do your work well.


In the subsequent movements of the brig- ade, from Atlanta to Savannah, and to the 1


time of your muster out, you were always , at the front, and always faithful.


I am sure that in civil lite as Well as military you will stay at the "front." and that you will always, wherever you are, do credit to the Fifteenth lowa, and to the place where you began your law stu lies, "in the field." with the headquarters of the lowa Brigade of the Seventeenth Corps.


Very truly yours, W. W. BELKNAP.


At one time in this engagement Lieuten- ant Stone, sitting on his horse at an expesel point, was, with a field glass, trying to de- tect the position of a concealed portion of the enemy, when two shells from Conieder- ate guns exploded almost simultane ady within a few feet of him. He was enveloped in a cloud of smoke and his comrades who witnessed the scene supposed he was torn to pieces; but when the smoke was blown away he was continuing his investigations as before and both he and his horse were unhurt.


Later in the day of that Fourth of July. the other two regiments of the brigade came to the assistance of the Fifteenth and Six- teenth, when Colonel Hall became the senior officer and took command. But these were not enough, and the balance of the division came up as reinforcements. The lowa bri- gade, however, maintained the front. and during the following day pressed forward to the Nickajack, capturing two lines of en- trenchments on the route: and late in the afternoon of the 5th seized the line of the creek under a heavy artillery fire from forts a half mile in front. When this important line was taken the brigade commander sent Lieutenant Stone, as an aid de cump on his staff, to make a verbal report of the facts to


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General Walter Q. Gresham, the division commander, who was some distance in the rear. General Gresham, whose staff officers were all absent on various duties on the field, sent Lieutenant Stone to repeat the report to General Blair, the corps commander. General Blair was a mile or more in the rear, on the top of a small mountain where he could observe many of the operations on the field. Here Lieutenant Stone made the report briefly to General Blair, but there were present Major General James B. Mc- Pherson, the commander of the army of the Tennessee, and Major General John A. Logan, whose corps, the fifteenth, was then coming up. General McPherson asked Lieutenant Stone many questions about the topography of the ground. the depth and tortuousness of the creek and the like. After taking the line above mentioned that portion of the army went into camp. The head- quarters of the brigade consisted of a tent fly and a mess chest, and were located a hun- dred yards behind a low ridge. Three- quarters of a mile in front and beyond the creek was a long high ridge on which the enemy were entrenched and along which they had posted twenty or thirty pieces of artil- lery in forts. On the low ridge in front of the brigade headquarters was posted the Tenth Ohio Battery, commanded by Lieu- tenant Budlong. One evening about sun- down, soon after the events above narrated. this whole line of Confederate artillery opened a terrific fire of solid shot and shell on this devoted Ohio battery, and. of course, the headquarters, being in line just in the rear of the battery, caught the full force of the fire. The fury of the bombardment for a quarter of an hour was never surpassed by an equal number of guns. The six guns


under the intrepid Budlong contributed their share. This was the "heavy artillery pound- ing" referred to in General Belknap's letter above quoted.


Shortly afterward, being outflanked 011 their left by General Schofield's Army of the Ohio, the Confederate army retreated across the Chattahoochee river, soon followed by Sherman's army. In this movement the Seventeenth Corps marched rapidly to the left and crossed the river at Roswell's While Hooker was fighting the battle of Peach Tree Creek on the 20th, on the south side of the river, the Iowa brigade was mak- ing a strong diversion on his left and front to hold the enemy from re-enforcing the command fighting him. In taking position to aid this purpose, part of the brigade was at the crest of a ridge, and across a narrow valley to the left the balance of the brigade was placed, after separating from the main body in the woods at the head of the valley. This valley was at least two hundred yards wide and was so exposed to the enemy en- trenched on an eminence that it was not thought advisable to fill the gap at that time. After Lieutenant Stone had shown the part of the brigade on the left its proper position, it became necessary for him to go as quickly as possible to the ridge on the right to make a report. He could not go across the valley without great danger, and he could not make the long circuit in the rear without losing too much time. He decided to chance the run across the valley, four or five hun- dred yards from the enemy's entrenchment. Putting his horse at full speed he dashed into the valley in the open field. Hundreds of shots were fired at him as he made the run, but at the close he waved his cap at the enemy and entered unharmed behind the


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ridge. The Confederates, no doubt glad of his escape, raised a tremendous shout of admiration. A minute or two after this, as Lieutenant Stone was going to General Gresham to report to him the condition of matters on the left. he found that officer near the top of the ridge dangerously wounded. Colonel Hall then took command of the division and Colonel Shane of the Thirteenth lowa assumed command of the brigade. That night the ridge and the val- ley were entrenched and the gap occupied, and General Giles A. Smith assumed com- mand of the division. On the 21st General eral Force's brigade was ordered to press forward on the left and take a strong posi- tion. The Iowa brigade was ordered to charge the works in their front, to hold the enemy there and keep them from re-enforc- ing against General Force. The brigade moved forward in splendid style, but. as was expected, were repulsed, with a heavy loss. The charge and return occupied twen- ty-seven minutes. It was one of those sacri- fices that sometimes have to be made in war to help other points of the line, and in this instance the Iowa boys held the enemy to their entrenchments till General Force ac- complished the work assigned to him. In the charge Lieutenant Stone's horse was shot and had to be abandoned. The bri- gade then resumed its position behind the works on the ridge and in the valley. Dur ing the night of the 21st the brigade moved further to the left and entrenched.


On July 22, one of the most savage kat- tles of the war was fought in front of At- lanta. The Towa brigade formed the ex- treme left of the Sevententh Corps. There was a gap of a half a mile between it and Dodge's Corps coming up on its left.


Through this gap the Confederate division under Hardie entered and charged the rear of the division to which the lowa brigade belonged. Here the heroic and talented Mc- Pherson was mortally wounded and died. ITis last act in life was to receive a drink of water from the hand of private George D. Reynolds, of the Fifteenth lowa, who himself was severely wounded. For this brave and kindly act, done in the face of a charging, yelling column of the en- emy, private Reynolds afterward received a gold medal of honor in the presence of the army corps. The brigade had only gone into the position late the night be- fore. Attacked in the rear the lowa regi- ments jumped over their own works and desperately resisted. No sooner would they repel assailants from one side than they would be charged by a large force on the other. Seven times these heroic Iowa boys jumped over the entrenchments to repel charges from the other side. Many Con- federates charged squarely up against the works and were seized by the lowa men and dragged over. The enemy made heroic as- saults. The Confederate Colonel Lampley, of the Forty-fifth Alabama, rode up against the line of earthworks, sword in hand and wounded, animating his men. He was seized by the collar by Colonel W. W. Bel- knap of the Fifteenth Iowa, pulled off his horse and dragged over the works. As this Confederate officer came up he was war- ing a white handkerchief in his left hand. Colonel Belknap, supposing it to be a flag of truce and a confession of surrender, ordered his men to cease firing. By the side of the Alabamian's horse was a boy about six- teen years old. Colonel Lampley pointed his sword at Colonel Belknap, who was a large


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man with a full, long red beard-a man who would attract attention anywhere-and or- (tered the boy to "shoot that officer." The boy instantly fired at the Union colonel, but missed him. After pulling the Alabama officer over the works Belknap seized the boy by his hair and with his saber in his hand said to him: "If you were not such a brave little rascal I would chop your head off." Then turning to the Confederate colonel said, "What do you mean by ordering your men to shoot me when I have ordered my men to stop firing out of respect to your flag of truce?" The Confederate then noticed for the first time the significance of his white handkerchief, and immediately explained that he was waving his handkerchief in lead- ing up his men, and in his excitement had not thought of its being a sign of asking a truce. He apologized handsomely for his mistake, expressing the most profound re- gret, and seemed to be more sorrowful over it than over his dreadful wound, which Bel- knap had not observed till then. The battle was desperate and often hand to hand. Lieutenant Stone was in the midst of it, per- forming the difficult and dangerous duties of his position, and was a witness of the above incident of the battle.


At the beginning of the battle Lieutenant Stone had borrowed the horse of Lieutenant Safely of the Eleventh Iowa, who com- manded the relief and ambulance corps. Some time after the battle began and when the ammunition was running low, Colonel Hall sent Lieutenant Stone some distance away to order an ammunition wagon. On his return the spreading columns of the enemy in the rear very nearly captured him and the precious wagon, but by a quick dash to the right he brought the wagon through to the


needy soldiers; but the borrowed horse was killed before the act was accomplished. Thenceforth during the battle Lieutenant Stone performed his duties on another bor- rowed horse, and, as General Belknap truly says in his letter, no duties are more con- stant, more exacting or more perilous in bat- tle than those of an aid-de-camp on the bri- gade or division staff. All that long after- noon the battle raged. After it was over Colonel Hall, in his report to his supe- rior officer, expressed the highest apprecia- tion of Lieutenant Stone's help, conduct and services in the awful struggle. The Iowa brigade went in fourteen hundred strong and came out eight hundred. Though the command won a splendid vic- tory, it lost-for a little while-some ground in the progress of the battle by moving to the right for a better position for defense. In doing this the headquarters of the brigade commander fell, for a time, within the Con- federate lines. Colonel Hall had bought a bottle of champagne at St. Louis, which he kept in the chest, with the frequently avowed intention of drinking when Atlanta fell. The day following the battle a flag of truce came in from the Confederate general in front of that part of the line for permission to get the Confederate dead within our lines to bury them. The request was acceded to and Lieutenant Stone, as member of the staff, was one of the officers sent to supervise the affair. A strip of ground between the two lines, one hundred feet wide, was established with a Confederate guard along their side and a federal guard along the Union side. The dead of each side were brought in by the other and deposited here to be received. In this strip Lieutenant Stone met General Govan of the Confederate army, who had


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commanded one of the brigades that had charged the lowa brigade so fiercely the day before. In the conversation of an hour they had there during the pendency of the truce they talked about the battle. General Govan told Lieutenant Stone that he had captured some officer's headquarters the day before and had found a bottle of champagne in the mess chest. Lieutenant Stone then told him Colonel Hall had been keeping that wine to drink when the city of Atlanta was captured. The Confederate general smiled and politely said he regretted that the colonel must be disappointed, for he and his staff had drank the champagne the night before. The cham - pagne was not all the Confederates got in the brief space of time they were in posses- sion of the headquarters. AAn officer's sixty- dollar overcoat, which Lieutenant Stone had bought in St. Louis, was taken, though it was in July and the weather was very warm. The mess chest remained, but its contents were gone. But we cannot follow these events in detail. Six days later another se- vere battle was fought by the survivors on the right of the line, known as the battle of the 28th of July, or Ezra Church, under the eye of Major General O. O. Howard, who had taken command of the Army of the Tennessee some days after the death of General McPherson.


Thenceforth the siege of Atlanta pro- gresed, the Iowa brigade doing its full share. In the latter part of August, Sherman swung the left of his army, which included the bri- gade, far around to his right toward Jones- boro and thus forced Hood with his army out of Atlanta. The brigade had short rest. I. a very few weeks the indomitable Hood was marching around and in the rear of Sherman. The Union army followed, but could not


overtake him .. The pursuit of Hood was attended by many annoyances. Among them was a serious one in Snake Creek Gap, in the mountains near Resaca. The gap is a gorge or very small valley, with but little more than enough room for the wagon road. On each side was heavy timber. Through the whole length of the twelve or thirteen miles, the Confederates, after passing through had felled large trees across the . narrow roadway. It took a long time for a large force to clear them out. Before start- ing on that pursuit General Sherman had is- sued a stringent order limiting wagon trans- portation, and prohibiting from the trains all carriages, buggies, carts and wagons picked up along the line. On the day the gap was being cleared of trees, General Sherman was sitting on a log beside the road near the head of the lowa brigade, which had stopped, waiting on the work in front. There was a train of army wagons also wait- ing ahead of the brigade. General Sherman, on looking ahead, saw a small country wagon drawn by a pair of broken down horses, with a cow tied behind it, and a soldier servant in charge of it. General Sherman had the man brought to him and demanded to know whose wagon that was. He was told that it belonged to a colonel of the Sixteenth Army Corps, all of whose per- sonal luggage and camp equipment were in the wagon. General Sherman then said to the man, "I'll have you shot." Then turning to Belknap the general said loudly, "General Belknap. I want you to put this man in charge of your provost guard and have him shot to-morrow morning at sun-up." Gen- eral Belknap scrutinized Sherman's face long and well with a very earnest and serious countenance before he caught the correct ex-


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pression. The man suffered great mental agony all that night, but was turned loose very happy at sun-up. After giving this order to General Belknap, General Sherman told the soldiers near by to "go through" the wagon and take everything they wanted and to destroy the rest. In less than a minute there was a Sixteenth Corps colonel without baggage and without camp equi- page. General Sherman was an iron dis. ciplinarian, and he could make people very unhappy at times, but he possessed a kind and generous heart. Though he loved his officers and men he sometimes chastened them.


Leaving Hood to be attended to by Gen- eral Thomas at Nashville, Sherman slowly returned to Atlanta, tearing up the railroads as he went. He then destroyed the city, so it could not be used as a base of supplies for a pursuing army, and started on his ever memorable march to the sea. His army ate all the food that was in a belt of fifty miles to Savannah, Georgia, and destroyed all the railroads in that area. The march was comparatively easy and in the main agree- able. There was little fighting on the route, but as the command approached the city of Savannah many men were killed or horribly mangled, or both, by torpedoes buried near the surface in the roads, railroads and paths, and at all places where men were likely to march. The Iowa men had never met this kind of warfare before. General Sherman, who was with them at the time of the events about to be stated, was in a towering rage. He told General Blair, who .commanded the Seventeenth Corps, that he might put a number of prisoners equal to the number of Union soldiers thus killed or mangled into the station building on the railroad east


of Savannah and burn them. Blair, of course, would not have executed the order, and General Sherman's rage gradually re- laxed. But the next morning it rose again. The Iowa brigade was in front, marching toward the city preceded by the First Ala- bama Union Cavalry, or a portion of it. The road was wide and smooth. All of a sudden there was an explosion beneath the adjutant of this cavalry regiment whose horse was killed and the officer's leg torn off by the fragments of a torpedo shell. Sherman was just ahead of this Iowa brigade He moved up to the scene of the catastrophe, followed by the Iowa command. He was white with rage and horror. Just then a woman, vicious and ferocious, came out of a good farm house near by and tauntingly exclaimed to Sherman, "I could have told you that tor- pedo was there; my husband helped put it in there last night, and there are more of them." General Sherman then ordered up a lot of prisoners from the rear of the brig- ade and, ordering the soldiers to get a proper distance away. directed the prisoners with picks and spades to find the other torpedoes. They protested and then refused. The general ordered that a platoon of soldiers be brought out to fire upon them. They then yielded and began scratching with their fingers in a most delicate and careful manner, to find the torpedoes barely below the surface of the road. They found four, each being about eighteen inches long and eight inches in diameter with a percussion or friction fuse barely beneath the dust in the road. When a horse with an iron shoe, or a man with a solid tack-heel shoe stepped upon it there was alinost sure to be an explosion carrying death to those near by. The wicked and exulting woman




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