USA > Illinois > Ninety-Second Illinois Volunteers > Part 19
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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
A soldier, on the evening of that day, writing to his wife, in his letter, said: " I will give you a description of the fight of Waynesboro, and how our line of battle was formed. The Sec. ond Brigade, commanded by Colonel Atkins, of our Regiment. did all the fighting, until after we drove the enemy, Wheeler's and Wade Hampton's cavalry, into the town of Waynesboro. The Ninety-Second took the center on foot, and the other four regiment- of our Brigade were on the right and left Hanks, the
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battery of rifled guns with the Ninety-Second, and our horses fol- lowing in rear; the First brigade of our Cavalry Division still farther in rear, in column on the road, and then came General Baird's division of infantry in column. The cavalry cominand was nearly all in sight at one time; it was a splendid sight to see -both armies drawn up in sight of each other in battle array, ten thousand mounted men. I have read of such sights, but never saw one.before." The Ninety-Second, after Kilpatrick had com - manded the Brigade to halt, was permitted to rest, and cook breakfast. The First brigade followed the enemy out beyond Waynesboro, on the Augusta Road, skirmishing lightly with the Rebels, but the enemy made no stand in force. Our burial par- ties, it was said, buried one hundred and eighteen of the enemy. The Ninety-Second lost seventeen, killed and wounded. George W. Downs, of Company I, and Jesse Robinson, of Company K. were instantly killed while bravely fighting. In the very com- mencement of the engagement, Captain J. M. Schermerhorn, of Company G, was knocked down by a musket ball, but his life was saved by the handle of his pistol in his breast coat pocket ; the pis- tol handle was broken completely off. Corporal David Scott, of Company D, familiarly known as " Gedee," color-bearer for the Brigade Commander, while waving the Brigade colors, and cheering on the men, a brave, good soldier, was struck in the fore- head by a Rebel inusket ball, and instantly killed. It was close up to the second barricade of the Rebels, and the Brigade Order- lies dismounted to save the colors, when the Brigade color-bearer fell dead from his horse; but a Rebel Major lind come out of the barricade, and seized the flag-staff, when Hiram F. Hayward, of Company I, one of the Brigade Orderlies, seized the other end of the flag-staff; the Rebel Major was in front of his own line of battle, and his men could not fire at Hayward without danger of killing their own Major. Hayward had his navy revolver in his hand, and the Rebel Major only his sword; and Hayward drew bead with his revolver on the Major, and demanded his surrender. and not only saved the Brigade colors, but brought in the Rebel Major as a prisoner.
We had now feinted sufficiently on AAugusta, and Sherman's army, stretching from the Ogeechee to the Savannah River, and with both flanks protected by those streams, less than twenty niiles apart at Savannah, swept onward toward that doomed city. The Brigade took up its line of march, the Ninety-Second in ad- vance, toward Savannah, and camped that night at Alexander, on
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the plantation of Mr. Sapp. Details from the Ninety-Second were sent to all the bridges over Briar Creek, on our left flank, and the bridges were burned. Old Mr. Sapp was sick, but young Mr. Sapp was exceedingly polite, talkative and affable. The Brigade head-quarters wagon was not yet up, and young Mr. Sapp yolun- teered to get up supper for the Brigade Commander and staff, and they soon sat down to a smoking hot supper of sweet potatoes, corn bread and ham. He had no knifes and forks; he said the Yankee soldiers had taken them all-but pocket-knives and fingers served in lieu of his missing cutlery. After supper, one of the Rebel prisoners asked Mr. Sapp to give him a pair of pantaloons, in exchange for the blue ones the Rebel prisoner had on, as the prisoner was afraid the Yankee soldiers might kill him on ac- count of his wearing the United States uniform. He said he was an acquaintance of Mr. Sapp, one of his poor neighbors, a private in Wheeler's cavalry ; but Mr. Sapp would not make the exchange. Some of the Yankee soldiers, sympathizing with the Johnny in blue pantaloons, took the responsibility of helping him to the pantaloons and hat worn by Mr. Sapp. The Yankee soldiers made quick work with the homes of rich Rebel planters, but, to their everlasting honor be it said, they were always kind to their prisoners and to the poor. Many a time might have been seen some poor old lady, weeping by the roadside, made happy by the hams and sweet potatoes the Yankee soldiers would give her, or by an apronful of Confederate money. Mr. Sapp pretended to be" mourning the death of one of his favorite little negro boys, Jack, by name, and any one could see his freshly-made grave in the garden, with its little wooden head-board, marked "Jack." The grief of Mr. Sapp was quite inconsolable. But the Yankee sol- diers did not think Mr. Sapp would bury a little darkey in his garden, among the graves of his family and ancestors, and, thrust- ing their sabres into the newly-made grave, they discovered that it was very shallow : and, opening the grave, they found it con tained a barrel of sugar, his missing knives and forks, silverware. and even diamond rings. Poor little Jack proved to be a valuable little darkey, and the Southern newspapers had an opportunity to publish that Sherman's vandals did not respect even the burial places of the dead.
The Regiment marched early, on the fifth of December. The day was beautiful-like June, in Illinois-the birds singing in the trees and the cattle grazing in the fields. The bridges over the streams were all destroyed, and the roads barricaded by fallen
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timber. A soldier, in his diary, writes: "The enemy evidently intends to dispute our passage and give us a fight ; but if we do not march along over this road there will be some heavy fighting done, for our Generals do not propose that the enemy shall dic- tate what roads we shall march on in the dominions rightly be- longing to our venerable Uncle Samuel." During the day can- nonading was heard at regular intervals, of about fifteen minutes, like the low rumble of distant thunder. The citizens said it was the heavy cannon at Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, more than a hundred miles away on an air line. Marched early on the sixth, through a flat, sandy and swampy country, the principal productions of which were rice, alligators and negroes. The ne- groes being the most profitable, the whites had devoted their prin- cipal attention to that production. On the plantation on which the Regiment encamped at night was a negro overseer, and the negroes said that he was more severe upon them than any white man they had ever had for a driver. We were covering the Fourteenth Army Corps; the other brigade, with Kilpatrick, had gone to cover the right flank of the army. The Rebel cavalry were following us up, but they did not dash into us very hard : still, the cavalrymen were being shot every day on that long march, and the ambulances were loaded down with the wounded men. Marched early on the seventh. It had rained during the night, and it rained all day, and the swamps became almost impassable. We were marching south, along the right bank of the Savannah River, the infantry in advance, our Brigade follow- ing, and the Rebel cavalry following us. On the river, the enemy had a little steamer, with a heavy piece of artillery on it, prob- ably a 32-pounder, with which he occasionally shelled the Yan- kees; it made a terrific noise, but did little or no damage. . 1 soldier, this day, in his diary, writes: " We are now marching close to the Savannah River, the boundary line between Georgia and South Carolina, the State that was the hot-bed of treason, the . author of all the Nation's troubles. It would please us boys to travel in that State, and, undoubtedly, we shall pay them a visit some day in the future. "Uncle Billy' is 'on the rampage,' and if he don't . go through' South Carolina, it will be because the war shall end before he ' gets a good ready.'"
On the eighth of December, the command marched, at two o'clock in the morning. The Ninth Ohio Cavalry held the rear . and soon after daylight, the enemy showed considerable spirit and dash, attacking constantly the rear guard. The country was
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generally level and sandy, with little streams crossing the road frequently, and emptying into the Savannah River. These streams always had a swamp on both sides of them, filled with a dense growth of black gum, and other trees that grow in swampy places, covered with parasites. Neither animals nor wheels could get through the swamps, except upon the corduroy roads. The pioneers would cut large trees nearly off, and, when our rear guard had passed, they were felled into the road, upon the narrow corduroy, to impede the enemy following. About noon, the command crossed one of these swamps, and found the infantry bivouacing, waiting for the building of the bridge over Ebenezer Creek. An officer of the Ninety-Second writes in an old manuscript: "The enemy were pressing the Ninth Ohio hard, and at this swamp we must stop them. The cavalry bri- gade was deployed on the right of the road, facing the rear, and covering the swamp, while a brigade of General Baird's infantry was deployed on the other side of the road. The entrance to the swamp was more abrupt than usual, giving us a good opportunity to barricade the road. The Ninth Ohio held them finely, while the brigade deployed and made preparations. I was with the Ninth Ohio, riding with Colonel Hamilton; and, hearing a yell like the Johnnies always set up when they charge, I looked and saw a long column coming in on a road to our left, so as to cut off about half of the Ninth Ohio, including Colonel Hamilton and myself; but, fortunately, a Corpora! and six Ninety-Second men, with their repeating rifles, were picketing that road. The enemy was charging in column of fours; I could see the column plainly, and could hear the Rebel officers urging on their men. But the Corporal, with his six men, pumped bullets into the head of that column so rapidly that they halted it, and held the road until the Ninth Ohio had passed the swamp, and the road over the corduroy had been barricaded with fallen trees. The enemy dismounted, and with a long line attempted to cross the swamp on our right, but were repulsed by Atkins's Brigade; they then made a like attempt on our left, but were repulsed by one of Baird's brigades of infantry. They then held a steady line on one side of the swamp, and we on the other. After dark, we pushed our skirmish line out into the swamp, and the enemy did the same; and while relieving our skirmish line during the night, great caution had to be observed, to avoid relieving the Rebel skirmishers instead of our own. It was very dark, and the skir- mishers were behind trees, not more than twenty or thirty paces
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apart, and they avoided the tedium of watching on the skirmish line by chaffering each other. The Rebels said they would drown the whole pack of Sherman's thieves in the swamps about Savan- nah, and our men replied that Savannah would be in our posses- sion within three days. I sat down by a fire, under a tree in the middle of the road, a little distance in rear of our line of battle : and it was all quiet during the evening, except occasional skir- mish firing. About twelve o'clock at night, General Baird's division of infantry withdrew, to cross Ebenezer Creek : and, as the head of an infantry brigade came into the road where, by the fire, I was sitting, a couple of rifled shell went screaming and richocheting up the road, close by the fire. Two more shots were fired, and then the Rebels ran their artillery to the rear. The boys called to them to keep their guns there a little while, and they would come over and get them ; and the Rebels replied, ' Go to -. ' But we did not want to go." Another officer, in his diary, wrote on the evening of this day: " I am sitting by a camp-fire, writing on my knees, and the boys are spinning their varns, and telling each other their big lies. The negroes come into our lines by hundreds, but we cannot do anything for them. They are of all sizes, all ages, all sexes, and all colors, from the whitest white to coal black ; women of all ages, and little children, all barefooted. and with scarcely clothing enough to cover them. We ask them, ' Where are you going?' and they answer, 'With you all.' They are objects of pity. All have their ideas of free- dom. They say they knew we would come, and that their masters had told them that we would kill them, but that 'Old Massa and Missus couldn't fool us in dat way.'" At three o'clock, on the morning of December ninth, the cavalry brigade followed the infantry over the creek, the Ninety-Second covering the rear. Four companies of the Regiment were detailed to guard the pioneers while they were destroying the bridge, and barricading the road through the swamp. An officer with the detail writes in his diary: " No sleep last night. We have crossed Ebenezer Creek. Three companies besides ours are here, guarding the pioneers while they destroy the bridge, and obstruct the road through the swamp. (I fell asleep while writing the above, and took a nap.) Last night, about twelve o'clock, the Rebels opened their artillery on us ; it created quite a commotion. Their shell fell among us, but did no damage. The Rebel gun- boats threw shell yesterday into the road, near where we are now. I have no prospect of any breakfast yet, but I am not very hun-
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gry. What this day will bring forth I cannot tell, but I do not think we will be troubled with the enemy to-day. We have de- stroyed the bridge, and obstructed the road through the swamp. Nine o'clock A. M. Two of Company I men have just been shot near the bridge; one man, of Company A, was wounded, the same ball killing a soldier back of him. I have been watching a sight that will never pass from my memory. There have been hundreds of negroes, men, women, and children, following our army. Last night, on the other side of the bridge, at the edge of the swamp, they were all turned out by the guards, and not per- mitted to pass, by the order of General Jeff. C. Davis, command- ing the Fourteenth Army Corps, and the command crossed, and the bridge was destroyed, leaving all the negroes on the other side. At this present writing, the negroes are crossing ; some swim- ming, and some crossing on rafts. The Rebels came up and fired into them; and such another time I never want to witness. They are as afraid of the Rebels as they would be of wild beasts, for the negroes know that it will be death, or worse, for them to fall into the hands of the Rebels, after leaving with the Yankees. Some of them jumped into the water, and others crawled under the bank on the other side, the women and children screaming piteously at the top of their voices. Some of the children were drowned. They are getting across as fast as possible, and I think most of them will succeed; but they are most pitiable looking objects, when they get over, and out of range of the Rebels. Most of them have on very little clothing, and every thread of that wet; and here they stand around the fires, shivering with the cold, and the poor women and children crying as if their hearts would break. And what is all this for? It is for freedom ; they are periling their lives for freedom, and it seems to me that any people who run such risks are entitled to freedom. For my part, I never believed it policy to let them follow our army at all; for an army on the march has enough to do to take care of itself, without being encumbered with such a helpless lot of non- combatants. I do not believe there is any one in this army to blame for their leaving their homes; but, as they have been al- lowed to come along part of the way, unmolested, I believe it is a burning shame and disgrace, and inhuman to leave them to struggle in thirty feet of water for their lives; for they prefer sinking in the water to returning to slavery."
About ten o'clock A. M., the Brigade was ordered to join Kil- patrick, and marched immediately to the Georgia Central Rail-
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way, and encamped. The same officer of the Ninety-Second again writes in his diary: "Since writing the foregoing, we have marched in a south-easterly direction; what the distance is I do not know. I must say a little more about the negroes I spoke of this morning. When the Rebels fired and killed the men at the bridge, they made the negroes all go back that had not got over Ebenezer Creek. One negro woman fell in with us three days ago. She said she would go with us or perish. She had then a small child. I saw her this morning, on this side of the creek ; she had lost her child, but how, I do not know. She herself crossed the creek by swimming. I saw a negro man and woman on this side of the creek, who had crossed by swimming, and their little boy was drowned, and the mother was crying as though her heart would break. I believe her boy was as dear to her moth- er's heart as if she and her child had been white. The sights I this morning witnessed I cannot get out of my mind. Supper is ready ; it is eleven o'clock, and I will close for this day." An- other officer of the Ninety-Second writes: " All the way through Georgia we found the negroes our friends, ready to give us any information or assistance in their power. It was useless for old master to hide his horses and mules, for Sambo would tell us at once where they were. It did no good to empty the smoke-house and bury the meat, for the slave that did the work was always ready to point out the exact spot of its burial. If the corn was carried away into the swamps and hid, as, indeed, it often was, it did no good, for some slave was ready to tell us where it was. Stopping at a house, one day, while the men of the Ninety-Sec- ond were getting the corn from the well-filled crib close by, I heard one of the men asking the women where their meal was. The white women said they had none, but an old negro woman, pointing to a swamp, said: 'Ole Massa out dar, wid all de meat and meal dar is.' The men went to find it. I heard the report of a Spencer rifle, and by and by the men came back, loaded down with hams and corn-meal. One of the men rode up to me and said : 'I found the old man in the swamp, with lots of hams and meal, on a pile of loose cotton, and when we came in sight he set the cotton on fire and ran-but iny Spencer halted him.' The young ladies, who had just informed me that they had no father, listened to the soldier, and, in concert and in tears, cried out: 'Father is killed.' At the sight of their grief I could not repress my own tears, and regretted that the soldier had not let the old man escape. While the white people were so intensely
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bitter in their feelings toward the hated Yankees that they would burn up their food rather than permit it to fall into our hands-a thing proper enough to be done by the regular troops of the Rebel armv, but not proper for citizens and women -- the negroes, on the contrary, hailed our coming with great joy, as if the promised day of jubilee had arrived. Many a time I have seen the negro men and women standing by the roadside, weeping and laughing al- ternately, and shouting : 'Bress de Lord, you all's come at las. I'se always knowed de good Lord would heah my prayah, and send de Yankees down heah.' It may be that the Lord of Heaven did hear the prayers of the humble black people of the South, and sent the victorious Stars and Stripes, emblem of liberty in deed and in truth to them, the faithful friends of the Yankees, waiting patiently and praying fervently for their coming. Did one of the Union prisoners escape from the horrible prison pen at Ander- sonville, and, fixing his eye on the North star, which had filled the hopes of many a fugitive slave flying from bondage, traveling by night and by stealth through that hostile country, tracked by bloodhounds, as the fugitive slave had been tracked, wish for a friend, or for food, or for shelter, the flying Union soldier knew that the humble cabin of the black slave would safely furnish it all to him. During the long march through Georgia, the negroes had everywhere been our faithful friends and allies, and, literally in thousands, were following our armies out of bondage; and, had the Union Generals been heartily in favor of negro troops, they might have organized whole brigades and divisions on this march. Before daylight, this morning, the ninth of December, the Fourteenthi Army Corps, commanded by General Jeff. C. Davis, crossed Ebenezer Creek; and, by the order of General Davis, a guard was stationed at the bridge that would not permit a negro man, woman or child to cross. Poor, simple people, they thought it was because the whites must cross first, and they quietly and patiently waited by the roadside, filling the woods at daylight as far as the eye could sec, never dreaming that they were to be entirely debarred the privilege of crossing, nor did they know it until the pioneers were tearing away the bridge after the last white soldier had crossed. Left, cruelly left, to the bitter mercies of the infuriated enemy following us! And the negroes were the ouly class of people we had found on our long march who were our faithful, fast friends; a simple-minded, God-fearing people, who had wrestled in secret prayer, beseeching the God of battles that victory inight be with our army, and now they are cut off
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and left behind. And then such a wild panic as seized them ; such bitter, heartrending cries of despair; such pitiful, beseeching entreaties to be permitted to cross, I never before witnessed or list- ened to. They ran wildly up and down the stream ; many plunged in and struggled through, and many sank beneath the dark waters to rise no more. And those people our friends. Let the 'iron pen of history' write the comment on this action of a Union Gen- eral." During the ninth of December, we marched through a country settled long before the Revolutionary war. We passed one old church erected in 1769, that had been used as a hospital by the soldiers of the Revolution.
Marched early, on the tenth of December, and camped at three P. M., nine miles from Savannah, covering the Seventeenth Ar- my Corps, commanded by General Frank P. Blair. It rained during the night, and the weather grew cold. Marched at eight A. M., on the eleventh of December, and camped within six miles of Savannah, the infantry cannonading the Rebel works. There was no forage for animals, and the cattle that had been driven along with the army, and killed for beef, were so poor and weak that they had to be held up to be knocked down; and the meat was so dry the men could not fry or broil it ; and when boiled, it was as tough and almost as innutritious as leather. A soldier, in his diary, writes: " I have just divided my last hard-tack with some starving little children." On the tenth, lay all day in rear of the Seventeenth Army Corps. On the eighteenth, the Brigade marched at nine A. M., and, at one point, ran the gauntlet of the Rebel artillery and riflemen in a Rebel fort. Marched twenty miles, crossing the Ogeechee, at King's Bridge, and camping after dark, on Clay's plantation, near Fort McAllister. Hazen's division of infantry had taken Fort McAllister during the after- noon. The negroes said that Clay had, in his rice plantation, nine thousand nine hundred and twenty acres of land ; he had two hundred able-bodied slaves, and his negro quarters made quite a village. Near the house was an extensive rice mill, which Clay instructed his slaves to burn, if the Yankees came near ; they did so, and the Yankees burned up everything else that would burn. By the fall of Fort McAllister, communication was opened with the Yankee fleet lying in Ossabaw Sound, and General Kil- patrick visited one of the Yankee gun-boats. Rice in the straw was all the forage the animals had, and the men had little or nothing. One of the Brigade Orderlies had captured a turkey, and the Colonel commanding the Brigade was calculating on a
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feast for supper ; but when his cook turned his back a moment to tell the Colonel that supper was ready, some hungry soldier gob- bled the roasted gobbler, and the Brigade Commander went supperless to bed. By daylight next morning, the Yankee fleet, loaded with rations, was at King's Bridge.
While Sherman was taking steps to reduce Savannah, the cav- alry had to be subsisted upon the country; and the Division marched early, on the fourteenth of December, to Midway Church, nine miles from Sunbury, and camped amidst abund- ance of forage for animals, and plenty of hams, sweet potatoes, turkeys, chickens, etc., for the men. Midway Church was guarded from spoilation, as was also the grave-yard close by, which was walled in with a heavy brick fence, built before the Revolutionary War, the brick having been brought from England. It was a sombre place. Great live oak trees, covered with long hanging Spanish moss, stood, like mourning sentinels, above the tombs. Graves were found with inscriptions a hundred and fifty, years old. A soldier of the Ninety-Second, in his diary, writes: "Our Commander has placed a guard over the church and grounds, to see that nothing is injured. The people here pay a great deal of attention to their dead, and to their religion. Their slaves get one pint of salt, and four pecks of corn, in a month, to eat, and nothing else. Who says they are not a Chris- tian people?" On the fifteenth, the command lay in camp. A soldier writes in his diary: " To-day we obtained permission. and organized a party, to go to the Atlantic coast. Sunbury, at the head of St. Catharine's Sound, is where we went, and, for the first time in my life, I saw the salt water. I rode my horse into it, but he did not drink it. I bathed in the salt water; gathered and ate oysters; and saw, in the distance, a United States man-of- war, and a gun-boat of our blockading squadron. Sunbury is one of the oldest settled towns in the State of Georgia. During the Revolution, the British captured and destroyed it, and marched from Sunbury to Savannah. At that time, this country was all settled up; many of the lands that were tilled then are now fine forest», with trees from ten to sixteen inches in diameter. We visited old Fort Sunbury ; it was once a strong fort. There was one 64-pounder, and one 12-pound gun, lying in the fort." The Division marched at six P. M., the Ninety-Second in rear of everything. The roads were badly cut up. Camped late. Marched at ten A. M., on the sixteenth, to King's Bridge, and went into permanent camp, in the pine woods bordering the Ogeechee,
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