USA > Illinois > Ninety-Second Illinois Volunteers > Part 17
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At one P. M., of the sixteenth, the command marched to Burnt Hickory, and camped after dark; the enemy on all the roads, forage scarce, and not safe for less than twenty or thirty to go out foraging. Burnt Hickory is like most of the towns in the South, found on the map-a cross-roads post-office, only one old log house. Many years before, considerable gold had been found in the vicinity. Captain Schermerhorn, of Company G, on the morning of the seventeenth, took a wash-pan, and went down to the spring, and, washing out a single pan of earth, he procured several beautiful specimens of gold, one specimen as large as a bird shot. Schermerhorn was an old California miner, and said it would prove rich diggings, if every pan of earth would turn out as well. Moved at one P. M., and camped on Raccoon Creek, near Stitesboro. Forage was plenty along the creek. On the eighteenth, Major Woodcock returned, and assumed com- mand of the Regiment. Lay in camp all day. Sent a detail to Van Wert in the night, with orders to go into the town rapidly at daylight, and capture any Rebels they might find there; and the detail captured two Rebel infantrymen, and brought them to camp. Marched, at eleven A. M., through Burnt Hickory, and camped at Dallas, marching thirty miles. Marched early, Ninety- Second in advance, and skirmished lightly with the eneiny. Sent scouting parties in all directions ; a scouting party, from Company B, captured three Rebels, on the Villa Rica Road. A party, from
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Company A, went to Flint Hill Church, and learned that Ross's Rebel brigade had crossed there the night previous. On the twen- ty-first, the Regiment marched early, through Dallas and near to Stitesboro, and camped on the Van Wert Road. Captain Scher- merhorn, of Company G, with a detail of thirty men, went to Van Wert, but found only a few scouts of the Rebel cavalry. Lay in camp, on Widow Polk's plantation, until the twenty- seventh, no organized force of the Rebels near us, but the woods full of scouting parties, familiar with ever by-path, and all the citizens ready to give them any information; concealed in the woods, within gun-shot of the road, they would fire a volley, and then scatter and elude us. On the twenty-fifth, the boys cornered a squad, and captured them, and also their horses. On the twenty- sixth, a Rebel crawled close up to Adam Countryman, of Com- pany F, and killed him at the first fire, while acting as a vidette picket within a short distance of Brigade head-quarters. Two other posts were attacked. Command saddled up, but not a Rebel could be seen. Marched, early on the twenty-seventh, through Burnt Hickory, and across the Pumpkinvine Creek, and bivouaced. Marched early to Marietta, and went into camp, with transportation and tents. Forage was scarce, and heavy details, with wagons, went twenty miles for corn, and skirmished with the Rebel scouting parties. On the thirtieth of October, Captain Matthew Van Buskirk, of Company E, having been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, took command of the Ninety-Second. Forage and rations were received by rail, and hundreds of horses were turned over to Kilpatrick's cavalry, which was all the mounted force that was to accompany Sherman, on his March to the Sea. The horses were very poor, sore-backed, and scarcely able to carry an empty saddle ; but Kilpatrick said: "Take them, boys, and you'll have a chance to trade horses with some rich old planter in a few days." The time was spent in fitting up the command for a long campaign.
On November fourth, the Division was reorganized, the Nine- ty-Second being in the Second Brigade of Kilpatrick's cavalry, Lieutenant Colonel Van Buskirk commanding the Regiment, and Colonel Atkins the Brigade. The following officers, belonging to the Ninety-Second, were detailed for staff duty on the staff of Colonel Atkins, the Brigade Commander: Captain Horace J. Smith, of Company B, Acting Assistant Adjutant General of the Brigade: Captain J. L. Spear, of Company E, Acting Commis. sary of Subsistence of the Brigade; Lieutenant C. B. Bowles, of
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Company H, Acting Quartermaster of the Brigade; Lieutenant George R. Skinner, of Company D, Acting Inspector General ot the Brigade. They were brave, faithful and competent officers, and Colonel Atkins frequently expressed himself as greatly in- debted to them for the harmony and efficiency of his command. Lieutenant Norman Lewis, of Company C, was detailed for staff duty on the staff of General Kilpatrick, and acted as Division Ordnance Officer ; and he never failed to have the Division prop- erly supplied with arms and ammunition. On the fifth, the Reg. iment was inspected and paid. A vote in the Regiment showed the Ninety-Second almost unanimous for the re-election of Lin- coln; it was useless-Illinois soldiers at the front had no voice in the election of the President. Captain Taggart, of the Ninety- Third Illinois, visited his acquaintances in the Ninety-Second. On the sixth, it was cold and rainy, and the Chaplain held service in the large house used as Regimental and Brigade head-quarters. On the tenth, the men were told to write letters home, for that night would leave the last mail northward; the troops were al- ready tearing up and utterly destroying the railroad south of Mari- etta. On the eleventh, eight bushwhackers, or Rebel scouts, were cornered and captured. In the evening, General Kilpatrick gave a party to the officers of his Division. On the twelfth, the last train of cars left Marietta, for the North, at noon, and the railroad was at once torn up, and the rails heated in the center and twisted around the telegraph poles and shade trees. The Military Insti- tute, just south of Marietta, was burned up. It was expected the command would march on the morning of the thirteenth, and the boys, bound to burn up everything, burned their bunks and camp trumpery; but the order was countermanded, and the men again pitched tents. At eleven A. M., the Cavalry Division of General Kilpatrick was reviewed in the open fields north of Marietta, by General Sherman. Black clouds of smoke rolled upward from the burning town, and General Sherman, looking at it, said: " Kil- patrick, somebody is burning up that town." Kilpatrick gazed at the rising columns of smoke, and replied: " Oh, no, General, there are only a few fires." Long columns of infantry were streaming southward all the afternoon. On the morning of the fourteenth of November, 1864, began the grand march from the mountains to the sea. The Ninety-Second was in the saddle promptly, and moved out at seven A. M., on the Sandtown Road, the town of Marietta still burning-at once the commencement and the symbol of the destruction the army was destined to leave
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in its track on its long march. The Regiment crossed the Chat- tahoochee, on the pontoons, five miles below Vinings, and biv. ouaced three miles south-west of Atlanta. There was some amusement in Company A over a stubborn donkey that Lieuten- ant Cox was attempting to make a pack animal of. Cox became disgusted, and court-martialed the contrary donkey, and dismissed him from the service in disgrace. Marched at seven A. M., mak- ing twenty miles, and camping three miles north-west of Jones- boro. The Colonel sent two companies into Jonesboro, that cap- tured a squad of prisoners, several horses, considerable corn, and camp equipage of the enemy. Marched at sunrise, through Jones- boro, and all of the town not before destroyed by fire was burned up, except a house at the south part of the town, where several ladies sat upon the porch, looking at the troops march by. Against the side of the house they had pinned up a Free Mason's apron, and its talismanic power protected the house and the property surrounding it. At Lovejoy's, the First Brigade, which was lead- ing, charged the Rebels behind the old Rebel earthworks erected by Hood's army, just previous to the fall of Atlanta, making a brilliant charge, and capturing two pieces of artillery. The Sec. ond Brigade then took the advance, and five miles below Love- joy's ran into the Rebels again, and the Tenth Ohio charged them, capturing thirty privates and three Rebel officers. The command moved a few miles eastward, and camped. Marched at seven A. M., through a beautiful country ; the citizens said that a brigade of Rebel cavalry was ahead of us, but they did not contest the road with us. The enemy was said to be concentrating at Macon. Many horses and mules were brought in by the scouting parties. Marched at seven A. M .; fed at Newmarket at noon, and took two hours' rest. Marched to Ocmulgee Mills, and camped at nine P. M. On the nineteenth of October, inarched at one A. M .; raining hard, and as dark as a pocket ; crossed the Oc- mulgee on the pontoons, at Planters' Factory, where two hun- dred girls were employed making cotton cloth for the Rebel army. Great fires were kept blazing on both banks of the river to light up the bridge. The light was so bright that it reflected the fac- tory, and trees upon the banks, and the crossing columns of troops in the water as clearly and distinctly as if the river had been a mirror.
Possibly some of our readers would like to know what a pontoon is. Imagine a frame-work of a little boat, made very lightly, with narrow strips of well seasoned timber, the boat about
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three feet deep, twelve feet long, and four feet wide; under and over the sides and ends of this light frame-work is stretched heavy duck canvas, or sail cloth, forming the bottom and sides of the boat. That is a pontoon boat. Placed in a line across a river side by side, the boats held in their places by an anchor for each boat cast in the river some distance above the line of boats, and along from boat to boat placed stringers of light timber, and over them a floor of light pine boards, and that is a pontoon bridge. Ready workmen will lay one in an hour across a river hundreds of feet wide. The cavalry cross two by two, each trooper dismounted and leading his horse. The artillery, eight horses to a gun, sink the boats to within a few inches of the top, the bridge rising behind the gun as it goes from boat to bont. Those not familiar with them might think the frail little boats of cloth not strong enough ; but all of Sherman's army crossed, upon them, all the great rivers on the long march. As soon as the troops are over, the bridge is taken up, the boards and wood-work carefully packed on wagons, the canvas cloth dried by huge fires, rolled up, and transported to the next river.
Ocmulgee Mills and Planters' Factory were, of course, con- sumed by fire. Sherman had no use for the factory or mills, and did not wish the one to continue making cloth to clothe the Reb- els, or the other to grind grain to feed them. After crossing the Ocmulgee, the command marched ten miles, passing to the ad vance of the infantry, fed animals and cooked breakfast. Kilpat. rick, with the First Brigade, mnoved to Clinton, by the river road : Atkins's Brigade marched on a circle, passing through Monte. cello and Hillsboro, making forty miles, over very bad roads, and reached Clinton after dark, where six Rebels were captured, and a quantity of Rebel stores, and plenty of forage for the animals. already in sacks for shipment to the Rebel army. About eleven A. M., on the twentieth, moved toward Macon, Atkins's Brigade leading, the Ninety-Second holding the advance. The Rebel pickets were soon struck, and, about three miles out, the enemy was found in considerable force, being Crews's brigade of Rebe! cavalry. Captain Becker, of Company I, with a battalion, dis mounted, passed through the woods to within a short distance of the enemy. The Rebels were preparing to charge, and a cavalry regiment galloped " forward into line" to meet it; but the charg. ing column of Rebels did not come far. Starting with a yell, the Rebels rushed out of their rail barricade, and came toward Cap. tain Becker, with his battalion of Spencers concealed in the brush.
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when the Captain ordered the boys to fire, and the head of the Rebel column was surprised and halted; and it was now our turn to charge, and the Tenth Ohio Cavalry started for the enemy with a shout and flashing sabres; and then the entire brigade of gray- coats, like frightened birds, scattered, in confusion, through the woods and fields, in terror and dismay. Five dead Confederates, and six wounded ones, were the effect of Captain Becker's Spen- cer Rifles. The command did not scatter out to follow after Crews's brigade, which had separated like a flushed covy of par- tridges, every one for himself, but kept on down the road toward Macon, no enemy impeding, until the railroad and Walnut Creek were reached, two miles east of Macon, where a Rebel picket was found. The Ninety-Second was dismounted, and drove the enemy from the creek, and crossed over, and up the hill, driving the enemy from the hill beyond. Our artillery opened, and the Rebel artillery immediately responded. The Tenth Ohio Cavairy was ordered to charge again, and did so, and drove Howell Cobb's division of Georgia militia from their line of earthen breastworks, and, for a few moments, the Tenth Ohio held the Rebel iine, and nine pieces of artillery the enemy had abandoned; but, behind the Georgia militia, protected by another line of earthworks, were older and steadier troops, who advanced on the Tenth Ohio, and that regiment fell back and crossed the creek, the Ninety-Second covering the movement. The balance of the Divison was on the railroad, tearing up the track, and the Ninety-Second held the enemy until dark, and until the Division had withdrawn on the Clinton Road, when the Regiment also fell back two miles, and bivouaced, still holding the front. The cavalry had demonstrated so strongly upon Macon, that the enemy was effectually deceived, and massed all his cavalry and available forces, to guard that point, and the cutting of the railroad cast of Macon gave Sher- man's columns an open road, uninterrupted by any of the enemy's troops, as Sherman's army swung off to the south-cast, toward Louisville, Georgia. Many of our troops were wounded, espe- cially by the Rebel shell, for their nine pieces of artillery kept up an incessant fire until dark, our guns replying. The poor wounded men were loaded into the ambulances.
In this march we had no hospitals, in the rear, where our wounded might be sent; no supplies and nurses from the Sani- tary Commission were available; no furloughs could be granted to the wounded to return home for treatment-they had to remain with us, and day by day the heavily-loaded ambulances wound
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. along the rough roads as the column marched. A large house was taken as a hospital for the night, where the surgeons per- formed many amputations. It had rained hard all the afternoon, and the rain continued all night. During the night, the Brigade was ordered to fall back to the Clinton and Macon and Milledge. ville and Macon cross-roads, and barricade and hold that point, while the army made the turn and the infantry wagon trains passed. The Ninety-Second was ordered to erect strong barri- cades, and hold the enemy until the other regiments and battery had reached the new point, and were ready for attack. After the Brigade was in position, orders were sent to Lieutenant Colonel Van Buskirk, commanding the Ninety-Second, to withdraw. He was a vigilant and gallant soldier, and knew when to act upon his own responsibility, and he replied that the enemy had been feel- ing his position very strongly, and he thought they would soon attack him in force, and he wished to give the enemy a repulse before he withdrew. In a short time, the enemy came on in force, charging the Ninety-Second. Captain Lyman Preston, of Company D, and Captain William B. Mayer, of Company F, with their companies, were out in front of the barricade on picket, and so sudden and determined was the attack of the eneiny, that the officers and men of those companies had not time to get inside of the barricade, but threw themselves down close to it on the outside, while the Regiment fired over them from behind the barricade. The overcoat capes of many of the boys on the out- side of the barricade showed marks of the enemy's sabres. It is worthy of remark, that this was the first time that the Ninety- Second pickets were ever driven in. The enemy charged in three columns, at the sound of the bugle; one regiment of the enemy dismounted, swung around the left flank of the Ninety-Second, 60 as to give a fire from the rear; and two heavy cavalry columns, one down the main road directly in front of the barricade, and one down an old road, on the right flank of the Regiment. Lieu- tenant Colonel Van Buskirk, a cool, brave officer, urged the men to keep quiet, and let the enemy come on. And on they carne, until the Ninety-Second had their two mounted columns in good range, when the Regiment opened a cool, steady and terrible fire with their Spencer decimating Repeating Rifles. Noenemy ever did live long within range of those guns, in the hands of the Ninety-Second men; and that enemy, although he had carefully prepared his plans, and felt sure of his game, could not, and did not, long withstand the quickly successive volleys poured
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into him by the Regiment. With heavy loss, after bravely fight- ing, and coming close up to the barricade, the two columns of Rebel cavalry fell back in confusion; and then the Ninety-Second gave its attention to the regiment of dismounted Rebels, who had passed into the rear, expecting to gobble up the Ninety-Second when their cavalry columns had put it to flight. But the Rebel programme did not work; it was not the Ninety-Second, but the Rebel cavalry, which had been put to flight, and the dismounted Rebels were themselves in danger of being gobbled up: but they made double-quick time out of the range of those terrible repeat- ing rifles, so coolly and bravely handled by the Ninety-Second men. A Rebel prisoner, afterward captured, reported the Rebel loss in this repulse to be sixty-five killed and wounded. And then the Regiment slowly and leisurely fell back to the Brigade ; but so complete had been the repulse of the enemy, that he did not follow. All day and all night, while the infantry and wagon trains went by, Atkins's Brigade lay guarding the "elbow," as the army swung around, and not a wheel of all the vast transporta- tion trains of Sherman's army was injured. The enemy felt lightly the picket lines, but made no attack; the repulse the Ninety-Second had given them made them exceedingly careful and cautious. The Brigade moved early next day, and lay in rear of the infantry, while Wolcott repulsed a severe attack of Howell Cobb's troops, who had come out of Macon and attacked Wolcott desperately in his entrenchments. Marched three miles, on No- vember twenty-third, and camped amidst plenty of forage.
During this march, Sherman's troops lived almost entirely upon the country, subsisting both animals and mnen upon the forage and provisions gathered up as the army marched. Heavy details were made daily, to gather provisions, who would gene- rally return at night, well loaded down with ducks, geese, hams, bacon, sweet potatoes, turkeys, chickens, eggs, and everything the country afforded. Some of the men so detailed, loved the adventure, and, not returning to camp, kept along in advance ot the columns, and they scon became to be known as " Sherman's bummers." Bummers they were, brave to recklessness; and, while insensible to discipline, they were by no means wholly bad. They were constantly furnishing valuable information, and, like all the army, burned up everything they could find that fire would consume. The twenty-third was very cold, so cold that ice was formed on the pools of water. A soldier, in his diary under this date, writes: "Cold to-day ; but, with all the exposure, the men
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do not take cold; you will scarcely hear a man in the Division cough, although they sleep in the open air, with no shelter at all, unless it rains, and then their shelters are rudely and imperfectly constructed, and the soldiers nearly always get wet."
On the morning of November twenty-fourth, IS64, the Cav. alry Division marched early, crossing from the right to the left flank of the army. The danger was now to be apprehended from the left flank, and it might be possible that troops from Rich- mond would make some demonstration against Sherman's columns. The cavalry had deceived the enemy, by demonstrat. ing strongly against Forsyth and Macon on the right flank, and it inust now deceive him again, by demonstrating strongly on Augusta, on the left flank. There was also another object in view-to rescue, if possible, the Union soldiers confined in the Rebel prison pen at Millen. The head of the Division reached Milledgeville at noon. Kilpatrick had supposed that he would be first into the capital of Georgia; but the irrepressible " bummers" had occupied the capital for two days. When the "bummers" approached Milledgeville, the Legislature was in session, and such a skedaddling was never before seen. The members left on French leave, leaving their books, papers, and documents lying on the tables in the halls of the House and Senate, and the "bum- mers" entered, passed a resolution declaring themselves members of the Legislature of Georgia, organized by electing a Speaker and Clerk for both branches of the Legislature, and then they passed a bill repealing the Ordinance of Secession, and bringing Georgia back again into the Union! A jolly crowd were the " bummers." The command passed through Milledgeville, a dilapidated old town, like nearly all of the towns in the South, with every sign of dry rot and decay, and with no signs of life or energy. It looked as if it had been in a Rip Van Winkle sleep for a century. Five miles east of Milledgeville, the command crossed the Oconee River, and bivouaced at twelve o'clock at night.
On the twenty-fifth, marched at sunrise. The inen of the Ninety-Second declared that, after getting into camp at twelve o'clock at night, being " blowed up" by those noisy bugles, an hour before daylight next morning, was worse than being " blowed up" by the " old man" at home. But the bugles rang out beautifully, clear as bells, first from Division head-quarters, quickly repeated at Brigade head-quarters, and quickly again at the head-quarters of the regiments, and still again at the head,
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quarters of the companies, until all was ringing merrily with the bugle notes; and then the fires began to gleam everywhere, like the gas-lights of a great city-ah! there was much of the beauti- ful in the life of a soldier, but the soldiers themselves had but little time to enjoy it. It was a beautiful day, and, with no enemy in front or rear, the command marched rapidly. Heavy details were made to hunt for horses. Hundreds of the finest animals had been taken to the swamps and hid. The negroes, always our faithful allies and friends-among the faithless always faithful- gave our parties the minutest information of the hiding-places of the horses, and hundreds of animals were found. The men would find them hitched in the woods, far away from any house; locked up in the sinoke-houses; carefully hid away in the cellars; and, in more than one instance, the favorite family nags and valua- ble saddle horses had been led into the parlors, and matron and maiden would tearfully beg that their houses might not be ran- sacked. But a Ninety-Second man could scent a fine horse a long way off, especially if he could have a conversation with Uncle Bob in the yard, or Dinah in the kitchen, and locks on sta- ble, smoke-house, cellar or parlor door, did not long keep him from the coveted prize. The only trouble was that the captured animals were soft from the want of service, and without shoes, and could not well endure the fatigue of the march. The com- mand traveled about thirty-five miles, and camped amidst plenty. Marched early on the twenty-sixth. Captain Day, of the Tenth- Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, serving on General Kilpatrick's staff, with a special detail, moved before daylight, and, by a brilliant dash, completely surprised the Rebels guarding the large bridge over the Ogeechee, at Ogeechee Shoals, and saved the bridge. It was most gallantly done, and Captain Day deserved great credit. The mills and factory at Ogeechee Shoals were consumed by fire. No enemy, to amount to anything, during the day. Marched thirty-five. miles, and camped at dark. During the night, the First brigade, in rear, was desperately attacked; but it had barri- cades, and held the enemy, until daylight of the twenty-seventh of November.
The command was badly incumbered with the hundreds of captured horses; and, with an enemy pressing our rear, they were too great a nuisance to be endured. Orders were received to turn over to the Brigade Quartermaster all led animals. The Ninety- Second turned over many horses under this order, and, before daylight, they were slaughtered at Brigade head-quarters; four
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