USA > Illinois > Ninety-Second Illinois Volunteers > Part 10
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
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orders of General Crittenden, driving the enemy easily, and the advance reached the mouth of the creek just before dark, and found Colonel Wilder already crossing. The Regiment camped nine miles north of Chattanooga, in the Chicamauga valley, on a grape plantation. Forage was abundant for the animals ; and the huge wine cellars in the ample barn contained abundance of the purest and best Catawba wine. There were many temperance men in the Regiment, who did not try the wine; but there were also many men who did try it, and the camp was a jolly one. On the next morning, the tenth, with forage bags full of forage, and canteens full of Catawba, the Ninety-Second was preparing to march back through Chattanooga, and report to General Rose- crans, when Colonel Wilder ordered the Regiment to march with the brigade, which it did, on the road to Ringgold, and camped with Wilder's brigade at Greyville, where a Rebel mail was captured, and merry times had at the brigade head-quarters, reading the' letters of the Rebel soldiers to their families and sweethearts. During the night, Colonel Wilder received orders to send the Ninety-Second to report to General Rosecrans, at Lafayette; and the Regiment pushed out at daylight, in advance of the brigade, and soon struck the Rebel pickets, and, about a a mile north of Ringgold, found the enemy in force. The Regi- ment was dismounted, and formed in line of battle on the edge of a field, the enemy forming a line mounted, at the same time, on the opposite side of the field. The Ninety-Second had scarcely formed, when the enmy's line, about five hundred strong, moved out at walk, and, entering a depression in the field, were lost to sight; they soon came in sight again, and broke into a trot, and then a charge : but they were hotly received, the entire Regiment ยท fighting coolly, and the three Spencer companies greatly aided in pouring in a fire the enemy could not stand ; and they wavered. broke, and retreated, leaving thirteen of their dead upon the field. Only four were wounded in the Ninety-Second, all of Company F: Sergeant Harvey Ferrin, Corporal Eben C. Winslow, private George E. Marl, and private Frederick Petermier, whose horse was killed, his gun-stock shattered into fragments, and he caught a flattened Rebel bullet in his wallet. In an instant, there was a yell from a Rebel reinforcing column that had come up from Ringgold, and the line we had turned back reformed, and, re- inforced, commenced a second charge. Just at this instant, Colonel Wilder came up, with Captain Lilly, of the brigade bat- tery, and two guns, and Lilly unlimbered under the enemy's fire,
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and sent his shell screaming up the road. Lilly was a dashing soldier, and a splendid artilleryist, and his shots were always sent to the right spot. Hardly had the reverberation of his first two shots died away, when he heard two answering shots, but no shell, came toward us. The charging Rebel column halted. Lilly worked his guns lively, for five or six rounds, and the answering shots came regularly, but it was evident that no one was firing at us. Wilder ordered the Regiment forward, and for- ward it went, Wilder himself in the middle of the road, on the skirmish line, revolver in hand, and telling the boys both sides of the road: " Dress on me, boys." But Wilder and Companies F and E, in the advance, pushed so rapidly that the Regiment on foot could not keep up, and it was mounted and pushed after the advance, but did not come up to it until Ringgold was reached, where we learned that General Van Cleve, with his division of infantry, had approached Ringgold, on the Rossville road, and it was his guns we had heard. Forrest made lively time through Ringgold Gap, and narrowly escaped capture with one of his brigades. Anticipating that the road to Lafayette was held by the enemy, a scout was sent out, and soon returned with the information that the road was held by the gray-coats in strong force. A quantity of corn in bags was captured at the depot in Ringgold, and with two feeds in forage sacks, the Ninety-Second again lett the brigade, and took the road to Rossville. When a few miles from Ringgold, and just as the advance was descending a wooded hill, considerable commotion was observed in the val. ley below. With a glass a Union wagon train was seen going into camp: and on a road south of the wagon train, running at right angles with the road the Ninety-Second was marching on, was observed a considerable column of Rebel cavalry. The citizens said there were seven hundred Rebels. The artillery was unlim- bered and placed in position, and the Regiment dismounted ; when the Rebels, with a yell, charged on the camp of the unsus. pecting Yankee teamsters. The Rebels did not anticipate the reception the Ninety-Second gave them ; and as our artillery and musketry opened, they turned about and left, without capturing a wagon, or firing more than a few pistol shots at the Ninety. Second. Captain Hawk, with two companies, followed the Rebels about two miles. The march was resumed; and along the road were found, every now and then, a Rebel soldier claim. ing to be a deserter from Bragg's army; and, by orders from General Rosecrans, they were not arrested, but told to go on their
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way home. It was apparent to every soldier in the Ninety. Second that these straggling Rebels were spies, and not deserters ; they were clean, well clad, in good health, and, in general intelli- gence, the brightest soldiers of the rank and file of the Rebel army. Such men are not often deserters ; it is the ill-clad, unwell, down-hearted, home-sick men who desert their colors. But orders were orders; and these straggling Rebels were left unmo- lested, to watch the movements of the Union troops on every road; and they must have been terribly puzzled to understand the marching and countermarching of the columns they looked upon. The infatuation of a Union General, who, by published orders, invited his enemy to fill his camp with spies, has ever remained a mystery. The Regiment camped at Rossville after dark. The Colonel, confident that General Rosecrans was not in Lafayette, sent an officer, at daybreak the next morning, to learn if Rose- crans was in Chattanooga, and waited until nine o'clock; and. receiving no information, the Ninety-Second took the Lafayette road, from Rossville south, and struck the Rebel picket, which fell back, without fighting, at Gordon's Mill, about one o'clock P. M. The advance was halted at the Mill, and horses fed from a cornfield, and a feed of corn put into forage bags; and as the Regiment was preparing to move forward, an orderly, from General Rosecrans, rode up with orders to the Colonel to send his Regiment to the foot of Lookout Mountain, on the Summer- town road, and report in person for further orders to General Rosecrans, in Chattanooga; it thereby becoming apparent that the Regiment could not report to him in Lafayette. Before the Regiment could take the road, it was filled with a division of infantry marching south, that found its journey southward in. peded by a heavy force of Rebel infantry, just beyond Gordon's Mill; so strong, indeed, that no troops under Rosecrans ever marched any farther south on that road. . As soon as the road was cleared of the infantry division, the Ninety-Second retraced its march to Rossville, and on to the foot of Lookout Mountain. The Colonel rapidly rode to Chattanooga, and was ordered by General Rosecrans to open communication with General George H. Thomas, somewhere on the top of Lookout Mountain, south of Chattanooga. An hour before sundown, the Colonel returned. and the men dismounted, and, leading their horses, began the toilsome ascent of Lookout Mountain, the head of the column reaching the summit near dark. . \ storm had come up, and 'he rain poured down in torrents. The Regiment on the mountain
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top was enveloped in the clouds, that seemed to sweep the very ground. A guide was pressed into service, and leaving a squad of men belonging to Company K, as a courier post at Summer. town, the Regiment pushed along down the top of the mountain in the storm and darkness, establishing frequent courier stations with the men of Company K, until all of that company were on such duty, and then with the men of Company C, exhausting that company also. It was a tedious march; the storm, con- tinuous, and the darkness so thick it could be felt; the animals and men weary, and many of the men would fall asleep upon their horses. It was a rough road, and the artillery was contin- ually falling in rear. The head of the column would halt; and when the artillery closed up in rear, the Commander of the Artillery would cry out, " Artillery closed up;" and it would be taken up by the officers along the line, until the head of the col- umn was informed, when it would push along, feeling its way in the darkness. During these halts, many of the exhausted men laid down by the road-side: and when the column started, their horses would keep their places in the ranks; but it was so dark that their companions could not tell whether the horses had riders or not, until they found the saddles empty in the morning. At three A. M., the picket of General Thomas halted the column. The Regiment went into bivouac : and the Colonel. accompanied by Major Lawver, proceeded to General Thomas's head-quarters to deliver his dispatches, which he accomplished at four o'clock A. M. on September twelfth, and by six o'clock A. M. of that day, had returned a letter twenty-five miles over the courier line, and placed it in the hands of General Rosecrans, at Chattanooga. At nine A. M., the exhausted men were roused ; and an hour after. ward, the Regiment moved down off from Lookout Mountain to the east, by Cooper's Gap, leaving Companies K and C on cou- rier duty, and they did not join the Regiment again until long after the battle of Chicamauga. Details were sent out for forage, and the Regiment rested at the foot of Cooper's Gap. On the thirteenth, the Regiment moved farther into the valley, and camped at Pond Spring. On the fourteenth, the Ninety-Second moved at daylight, with orders to scout along the north-west side of the Chicamauga River. and open communication with Gene- ral Crittenden at Crawfish Springs, and inform General Critten. den of the position of the Union troops. Every road and path crossing the Chicamauga was found picketed by the Rebel pickets; reached Crawfish Springs at eleven o'clock, and came
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very near being fired upon by the Union infantry there encamped, who insisted that the Rebels had been seen a little while before on the road by which the Regiment approached; learned that Crittenden had marched toward Lookout Mountain ; rested half an hour, and fed our animals. A strong scouting party was sent back to Pond Spring, by the road just marched over, and the Regiment followed on the road Crittenden had taken. The scouting party found the Rebel videttes occupying the same sta- tions as before, at every crossing and path over the Chicamauga, and the woods full of Rebel soldiers, claiming to be deserters from the Rebel army, which they depicted as in full retreat. Orders were obeyed, and they were not molested. Three roads were found over which Bragg's forces had moved from Chatta- nooga, evidencing the fact that he had deployed his army south and east of the Chicamauga. If in full retreat, with the abundant leisure at Bragg's disposal, his columns would not move by di- visions over unfrequented roads, leading nowhere except into the dense forests south and east of the Chicamauga. Crittenden's command was found, while it was halting for a rest, at about two o'clock P. M. The Colonel had been directed to explain to Gene- ral Crittenden the position of the Union troops, and did so; and informed him that every road and path across the Chicamauga was held by the enemy. General Crittenden very testily replied that there was no enemy between him and Lafayette. He found out for himself afterward, and to his cost. The Regiment re- turned to Pond Spring, and the result of the scout was officially reported. During the night, the Colonel was ordered to deliver a sealed letter to General Crittenden, from General Rosecrans, and he detailed a Corporal and four men to carry it; the Corporal found General Crittenden's head-quarters, at four o'clock A. M. on the fifteenth, but at first, was refused permission to deliver his dispatch, as General Crittenden had ordered that his slumbers must not be disturbed. But the Corporal persisted, and delivered his letter to the General in person while Crittenden was lying in bed; and, by insisting upon it, received from him a written receipt for the package, which was returned to the Colonel. During the fifteenth and sixteenth, the Regiment lay in camp at Pond Spring, sending scouting parties, as ordered, in every direction, except across the Chicamauga. That was a locality not comfortable to scout in; and it appeared as if there was no anxiety to learn any. thing about its topography, or who occupied it. Just at dark, on the sixteenth, General Rosecrans and staff rode by the camp, and
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there soon came an order to the Colonel to report to General Rose- crans, at the head-quarters of General Reynolds, and the Colonel did so, when General Rosecrans demanded to know why his dispatch to General Crittenden, on the evening of the fourteenth, had not been promptly delivered; and he was informed that it was promptly delivered at Crittenden's head-quarters before daylight the next morning, and Crittenden's receipt was handed to General Rosecrans. He then sent for the Corporal who delivered it, and inquired of him all the particulars, as to where and at what time his orders to Crittenden were delivered. The Colonel detailed all the information the Regiment had obtained scouting. Generals Rosecrans, Thomas, McCook, Reynolds, Baird and others were present. The Colonel expressed it as his opinion that Bragg was in force in the immediate front, when McCook, even more testily than Crittenden had before done, replied that there was no enemny to amount to anything between them and Lafayette; that he could march his command into Lafayette without the loss of five men. Alas, for McCook! he learned for himself, too, afterward, and not wholly to the credit of his sagacity or generalship. General Thomas quietly, but very persistently and patiently, inquired about the topography of the country the Ninety-Second had scouted over, the roads and bridges across the Chicamauga, and listened silently and attentively to the detail of all that the Ninety-Second had learned regarding the country or the enemy. On the morn- ing of the seventeenth, Company E, Captain Van Buskirk, was . ordered to report to General J. B. Turchin, whose brigade made a reconnoissance to the foot of Pidgeon Mountain, at Dug Gap, where he found the enemy in strong force, and fought desperately all day. The Regiment was ordered out also, and spent the day in scouting around the flanks of Turchin's command, finding a considerable body of Rebel cavalry on his right flank. While Company E was holding the valley road, on Turchin's right, a heavy column of dust was observed approaching from the south. McCook was expected from that direction; and, after barricading the road, not desiring to fire into our troops, Corporal Henry Schlosser, of Company E, of Forreston, was sent up the road waiv .. ing his handkerchief. He was taken prisoner, and died in Ander- sonville-grave 2,585. While taking back the horses, private Charles H. Giles, of Company E, of Baileyville, was instantly killed. The enemy charged the barricade held by Company E, but did not take it. John Evans, private Company E, of Polo, was wounded. At sundown the fighting ceased, and the Regiment
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went into camp on the old ground at Pond Spring. Charles H. Giles was the first man killed in the Regiment. He was buried that night near Pond Spring, by the light of fat pine torches, with appropriate ceremonies by the Chaplain. On the eighteenth, the . Regiment remained in camp most of the day. The men had noth- ing to eat except green corn, and the animals nothing at all. A few scouting parties were sent out. At two P. M., learning that the brigade train was a few miles up the valley, the Regiment marched to the train and drew three days' rations and one day's forage, and returned to camp at Pond Spring. At daylight, on September nineteenth, the Regiment was in the saddle, and marched slowly with the infantry columns on the road toward Gordon's and Chattanooga. At eight o'clock, the artillery and musketry firing by a portion of Thomas's corps became heavy and continuous. About ten o'clock A. M. the Ninety-Second was ordered into line near Widow Glenn's house, where General Rose- crans made his head-quarters. A soldier writes: " A man came along and asked, ' What regiment is this in line here?' I answered, ' The Ninety-Second Illinois, Wilder's Brigade.' 'That is good,' said the man. I turned and looked at him, and saw the buttons in groups of three on his coat, his shoulder-straps being hidden by a common cavalry overcoat. When he says, looking at the men coming out of the woods in front of the Regiment, 'What men are those coming up there?' I said, 'I am told that is Hazen's Brigade.' He then inquired rapidly, ' What does it mean? Where is that fighting? How long has it been going on? What troop> are engaged? How far is that from here? What does that dust mean? What does it mean?' To these questions I answered as promptly and definitely as I knew how, for I saw I was in the presence of the General commanding. He gave directions to his men to open the road in the rear, and to establish his head-quarters at the house, and immediately up went a field telegraph line." In a few minutes General Rosecrans ordered the Regiment to throw down the fence in its front and on the farther side of the field, which was done, and the Regiment remained there about an hour, when orders came from General Reynolds to move farther toward the left, and the Regiment mounted and galloped up the road a mile or more, and found General Reynolds, who ordered it into a thick piece of woods. The men dismounted and held their horses, and stray bullets from the Rebels rattled over the Regiment, cut- ting the leaves on the trees. After some time the Regiment was ordered to cross to the west side of the road, and go beyond a hill,
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and hitch the horses in the woods, out of danger, and return dis- mounted, General Reynolds saying that all his troops were hotly engaged, and that the Ninety-Second was his only reserve. The Regiment soon dismounted, hitched their horses to the trees, and marched back to General Reynolds, who was found on a hill having himself crossed to the west side of the road, and the Ninety- Second was directed to reinforce King's brigade of Reynolds' di- vision, and the Regiment marched down the hill, and just before crossing the road at the foot of the hill the troops of King's brig- ade came out of the woods beyond, in disorder and retreating. General Reynolds ordered the Ninety-Second to return to the top of the hill and form in line. The order was executed with difficulty under the straggling fire of the enemy, the men obeying orders and falling into line while the soldiers of King's broken brigade, in full retreat, poured through the Regiment and by its flanks, pur- sued by the gray-coated Rebels. The Ninety-Second poured into the enemy a heavy fire, which halted the Rebel advance at the edge of the timber at the farther side of the open field and across the road; but they kept up a light fire for a little while, from the timber, and then they came out in a long line of battle, stretching far beyond both flanks of the Ninety-Second, and again the cool fire of the Regiment, and a battery of artillery on its left, sent the enemy in their immediate front back to the cover of the timber across the road; but the flanks were being enveloped, and the Ninety-Second could not alone repulse the yelling gray-coats, who had just broken the line of King's entire brigade, and, flushed with victory, were pressing forward their steady line of battle, and the Ninety-Second was ordered to fall back to the horses and mount. It was but the work of a moment, and the Regiment was soon be- vond the range of the Rebel infantry. The loss in this engage. inent was: In Company A, Lieutenant William Cox, wounded ; Sergeant Legrand M. Cox, severely wounded. In Company B. Sergeant William F. Campbell, wounded; private John D. Mc- Sherry, killed; private James J. Guthrie, wounded ; private Edgar S. Lent, wounded. Company C, private James T. Halleck, killed. Company D, private Charles J. Reed, killed: private Jacob M. Snyder, wounded. Company E, private John Donohue, mortally wounded; private Coates L. Wilson, mortally wounded ; private John J. Thompson, severely wounded; private Jacob Sellers, killed. Company G, Lieutenant William McCammons, severely wounded ; private James Foreman, wounded ; Corporal Joseph B. Train, wounded; private Ernest Koller, wounded; private Nathan
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Corning, killed. Company H, Sergeant Roster J. Preston, killed ; Sergeant John M. Hendricks, severely wounded; private William S. Harlin, mortally wounded; private Cyrus Eyster, wounded. Company I, Sergeant William H. Price, wounded ; Corporal James A. Colehour, wounded; Corporal James A. Bigger, killed.
There were many horses lost, not by Rebel shot, however, but taken by the straggling infantry, while the Ninety-Second was absent from them. The Regiment never dismounted after that, without leaving a guard with their horses. Once out of range of the enemy, the query arose of what to do. The Regiment was without orders, and many troops were streaming off toward Chat- tanooga; but the Ninety-Second was not demoralized by its effort to retrieve the disaster to King's brigade, although it was a fruit- less effort, and the Regiment had met with loss. The Regi- ment sought the left flank of the troops of the enemy that had broken through the Union lines, in the gap left when King's brigade was pushed back, found it, passed by it, and in its rear, and found Wilder's brigade, and went into line of battle on Wil- der's left, filling a part of the very gap made by the Union repulse, where the Regiment lay in line of battle all night, listening to the agonizing cries of the wounded calling for water ; and, before daylight, on the twentieth, was stretched out in line of battle on horseback, to hold Wilder's brigade front, while the balance of the brigade went back a mile or more, and formed in line on the right of McCook's corps, on a range of hills. When it grew light, the enemy was seen along the front, and there was a little skirmishing, but the firing gradually ceased, and the Rebels ven- tured out into the open field in our front, to pick up their wounded. The men of the Ninety-Second saw them carrying them back, and had no heart to fire upon them while engaged in such a work. Wilder had been charged by the gray-coats several times, over that open field, the day before, and his Spencers had punished them severely. Wilder's brigade was invincible; it never failed to repulse a charge, and never was repulsed when charging. Not long after sunrise, a heavy column of Rebel troops, in column of regiments, was observed passing by the left flank of the Ninety-Second, moving very slowly, making not a sound, unaccompanied by an officer on horseback, and frequently halting, as the light skirmish line in front of them would halt. Information was sent to MeCook, who irritably denied the truth- fulness of the information. Little by little, the gray-coated soldiers of the enemy, and, as silently as darkness, crept along.
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It was said to be Longstreet's corps. Their skirmish line was but lightly engaged; but the heavy column of the enemy, some- times dropping down on the ground, concealed in the corn-field, or by the thick underbrush, slowly, steadily pushed toward Mc- Cook's left. Lieutenant Colonel Sheets, of the Ninety-Second, was sent to see McCook in person, and saw him, detailing to him the information, and was most abruptly and ungraciously received by McCook. The Ninety-Second could make no impression by attacking such a dense mass of the enemy; nor could it do so without positive disobedience to orders, by leaving the position it was assigned to hold. The Rebel column was far off on its left flank, and had far passed it, and McCook was again informed of the coming avalanche, but he would not heed the information, or do what he might easily have done,-push out a few regiments of his own troops, and demonstrate the truthfulness, or otherwise, of the information repeatedly sent him. Hours passed by, and then that quiet, creeping, heavy column of Rebel regiments sprang upon the left of McCook's corps with a yell, and with irresistible force. Although McCook had been repeatedly informed of the approach of that column of the enemy in such overwhelming power, it was a perfect surprise to him. In less than ten minutes his left was irretrievably lost, and the amazed and astonished General looked on helplessly, his corps broken into fragments, and floating off from the battle-field in detachments and squads, like flecks of foam upon a stream. The eight companies of the Ninety-Second, on horseback, were scattered out in a thin line, covering a brigade front, the men only in talking distance of each other, and were the only advanced troops. in front of McCook, and were really in front of the right of his corpse; and the charge of that column was the signal for the whole Rebel line to advance, and the Ninety-Second had to fall back rapidly, to avoid being enveloped, and it joined Wilder's brigade, that was on the right of McCook. Colonel Wilder, from the hills McCook had occu- pied, saw the long column of Rebel regiments, and instantly conceived the bold idea of charging through the very center of the' Rebel column, taking it in flank, and pushing for Thomas, on the left. He was just the man to have led such a desperate charge. He had five regiments, and a splendid battery, four regiments armed with the Spencer Repeating Rifle, and the Ninety-Second, with three companies of Spencers. He intended to forni two regiments front in line of battle, with opening for the battery, a regiment on each flank in column, and the Ninety-Second
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