USA > Illinois > Ninety-Second Illinois Volunteers > Part 6
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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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in the evening, room enough to stand erect, arms, and belts, and cartridge boxes, on racks around the center pole, the floor covered with clean straw, the cheerful fire blazing, and the men laying around on their blankets, with bayonets stuck into the ground for candle-sticks; some of the men reading, some writing letters home, some playing chess, or backgammon, or whist. But it was fatal to health. The men were packed in the tents like herrings in a box. At night, when the tent flap was closed, and the fire had gone out, the warm, ascending breath from the sleeping sol- diers struck the ice-cold cotton cloth, wet with dew and perfectly air-tight, and back to the bottom of the tent would go the car- bonic acid to be breathed over and over again, and poison the sleepers with disease. The Colonel directed the openings in the top of the tents to be always kept open, in order to give ventila- tion; but that made the tent cold, and the soldiers would close them up, and shut off every chance of fresh air. Removing the earth and lowering the bottom of the tents were prohibited in orders, but not in fact. Wood was brought from the wood-lots in the surrounding country. Lieutenant Cox was detailed to go out some six miles on the Stanford pike, with fifteen army wagons and a squad of men, to chop wood. He was told that he would find a large house on the right of the pike, with a large gate cov- ered by an arch, and to turn in there. He was not, as he ought to have been, particularly instructed to go to the wood-lot a half mile in rear of the house. He found the gate and turned in, and his wood-choppers fell to work cutting down the beautiful oaks adorning the lawn in front of the mansion. The matron was amazed to see her lawn trees fall before the axes of the Yankee vandals, and hastily despatched a servant to inform the Colonel, and beg him to take wood from the woods, and not from the door-yard. Orders were sent to the Lieutenant, but they reached him too late; his wagons were loaded with wood from the finest shade trees on the lawn. It was an accident; but as the owner ยท was supposed to be a Rebel, no one seriously mourned over it. On the twenty-fourth, Captain Dunham, of Company F, topo. graphical officer on General Baird's staff, was out examining and mapping the country, with a party of six men, and they were fired upon by a squad of roving Johnnies. Christmas was cele- brated by a cessation of all ordinary camp duties; n.any of the officers and men were invited out to dine by the Union ladies of Danville. Rank never counted for anything in the Ninety- Second, except on duty. A single company had twenty mem-
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bers who were graduates of high institutions of learning. Many private soldiers of the Regiment had polished manners in the drawing-room, and could hold their own in conversation with the best blue bloods of Kentucky. They were always welcome to the residence of the Reverend Doctor Breckenridge, and he never took any note of rank in his visitors. Many of the members of the Regiment were members of churches, in regular standing at home, and they especially were welcomed heartily in their calls on Dr. Breckenridge. They did not leave their religion at home when they went into the army ; they " kept the faith," and, by the example of their daily walk and conversation, testified to the beauty of true Christianity. The afternoon was celebrated in camp by a grand game of town-ball. It rained during the night.
The next morning, the entire command at Danville, under the command of General Gordon Granger, who had come from Lexington to win glory, started on the tramp after John Morgan's dashing Rebel rovers, who were supposed to be marching on Lebanon. The Regiment marched at seven o'clock in the morn- ing on the Lebanon pike; the cold, winter rain poured in torrents ; John Morgan and his Rebel raiders were mounted on fleet steeds, and so was General Gordon Granger and his gorgeous staff ; on and on through the pouring rain the division marched, with never a. halt for rest, and the Ninety-Second kept its place in the col- umn. Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, . twelve o'clock, and one o'clock passed, and no halt for breath: the weak men were falling down by sheer exhaustion ; the ambu- lances already overloaded, and the column kept on, leaving the exhausted men by the roadside, in a storm of rain and sleet that froze as it fell. The medical officers came to the head of the Regiment, and begged the Colonel to halt for a little while, to , give the exhausted men a chance to rally. But on and on the Regiment swept. The Colonel, as well as Gordon Granger, was on horseback. It is not very hard work to ride a fine horse, booted and spurred, even in a storm, with rubber poncho and leggins, and meerschaum pipe. That is the way the Colonel was fixed. Again and again the medical officers begged for only a short halt, just a breathing spell, but the Colonel said, "
- it, I have no order to halt." Colonel Cochran, of the 14th Kentucky, was commanding the brigade; his regiment were old soldiers, accustomed to the march ; his was among the regiments that garrisoned Cumberland Gap, and had astonished the mein- bers of the Ninety-Second when they came, ragged and dust-
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covered, weary and foot-sore, to Covington, Kentucky. On and on, through the storm, the black stallion of the Colonel kept his course, and the Regiment tried hard to keep up. Never a man fell out that could take one step more. But, by and by, in the middle of the afternoon, when the Colonel, by some sort of an accident, happened to look back, and see how few of his Regi- ment were staggering along behind him, he ordered a halt. Never was a Colonel more heartily " cussed," and he deserved it too. The Army Regulations provide for frequent rests on the march, and the men of the Ninety-Second had probably read the Army Regulations oftener than the Colonel, and just at that mo- ment they would have liked to have heard the Colonel explain the violation of the United States Army Regulations on that march. But the word "halt" was no sooner called than a staff officer of Colonel Cochran came riding back, with an order to the Colonel to " close up." If the Colonel of the Ninety-Second ever swore at anybody, he let fly a few hard words at that statt officer. But there is a sort of impression prevailing among some of the members of the Ninety-Second, confined strictly to those who always were in hospital, or on detached duty, and who never served with the command, that the Colonel never knew how to swear. There was a break in the column. After a short rest, the Ninety-Second resumed the march. After that, there were occasional breathing spells. It was almost dark, when the head of the Regiment reached the brick house where Colonel Cochran and General Granger had established head-quarters, and the Ninety-Second was ordered into a plowed field, where the men sank, at every step, over their ankles, in. the mud; and just as the men were closing up, preparatory to the order to stack arms, Colonel Cochran came out of the house, and said to the Colonel that no rails must be burned, the wagons must be unloaded, and details made to go to the wood-lot, a mile away, on the hill, and get fuel. The balance of the division was camped all around, and . not a fence had vet been touched. The Colonel was sitting on his horse, and as the Regiment closed up and stacked arms, while Colonel Cochran was still standing in hearing, he said : " Men of the Ninety-Second, do you see those rail fences? Cook your suppers with them." There was silence for a little while ; and Colonel Cochran said to the Colonel, "This farm belongs to a Union man; I shall have to report you to General Granger." "All right; tell General Granger that my men are not responsi- ble; I assume all of the responsibility." The Ninety-Second
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" went for" those rails, and so did the whole division. They were only waiting for an example, and the Ninety-Second furnished it; but the men had to work lively to get rails enough to cook their suppers. The Regiment lay encamped not far from Lebanon. At twelve o'clock, the Regiment was called up, with orders to push out, at three o'clock A. M., to Lebanon, in advance of the division; but the order was countermanded, and the Regiment did not march until seven A. M., when it returned to Danville, with the balance of the division. When the Regiment marched from Danville, the barrels and cracker boxes used for chimneys, and the boards for tent floors, bunks, and walks through the grounds, had been burned up. When the Regiment camped in Danville, on the same ground they had left, the Colonel formed the line, and congratulated the men of the Regiment that they had again returned to their old camp, and the boards, cracker boxes, barrels, and everything else they had gathered with so much pains to make camp-life comfortable, were still at their ser- vice. The men saw the point, and sorrowfully went into camp, minus straw, barrels, cracker-boxes, board floors, bunks, walks. and everything else that fire could consume. The next morning, the sick-call took nearly all the Regiment that was left. Dr. Winston had charge of the largest building, used as a hospital for the Ninety-Second at Danville, and every nook and corner was filled, after this senseless and heedless march. Never did physi- cians attend the sick more faithfully than did Doctors Winston, Helm, and Stephenson, and the faithful " Daughters of the Regiment;" but the skill of man was not able to stay the hand of death. This march, so utterly futile, and wholly without results, cost the Regiment fifty lives. Ninc out of ten of the graduates of West Point do not possess as much common sense as the most illiterate eighth corporal of volunteers, and Gordon Granger was not the tenth exception. If he had comfortable quarters, plenty of wine, and other enjoyments. he apparently cared very little for the comfort of the men in his command.
The next day was Sabbath; but the men were too weary for preaching or dress parade, which were seldom omitted on Sunday.
On the thirtieth, Major Bohn, of the Ninety-Second, with Company , and five companies from the other regiments, and a battery of artillery, went to Hickman Bridge, over the Kentucky River, fifteen miles north of Danville, to guard the bridge from being burned by John Morgan's Rebel cavalry, and marched in a cold rain-storm, and did not return until the third of January.
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During the year 1862, the Regiment marched seven hundred and seventy miles.
January first, 1863, was a bright, sunny day. It was cele. brated by big dinners and various sports in camp. The Colonel was serenaded, and said he wished the Ninety-Second could be mounted and sent after Morgan. On the fifth, good news from General Rosecrans, at Stone River, made the camp lively with cheers. On the eighth, the Regiment was paid up to October 31, 1862. On the tenth, some of the line officers celebrated their first pay-day by buying cigars and apples for the men of their com- panies. On Sunday, the eleventh, there was no preaching in camp; Chaplain O. D. W. White had resigned on account of ill- ness. Many citizens from Illinois were visiting camp. Hon. Joshua White and Capt. H. Weld, of Ogle County, were in Danville on the twelfth. On the thirteenth, camp was moved about a mile to new grounds and the Regiment went into camp in a blinding snow-storm. Colonel J. C. Cochran, of the 14th Kentucky, having resigned, Colonel Atkins assumed command of the brigade, and Lieutenant Colonel Sheets of the Regiment. The snow was four inches deep, and heavy details were made to chop wood for the various hospitals. A soldier writes in his diary, on the eighteenth: "I heard Colonel Atkins repremanding a Kentucky teamster to-day for abusing his mules. Said the Colo- nel, ' My man, you ought to use discretion when you are driving mules.' The Kentuckian didn't know what . discretion' was, and artlessly replied: 'I would, Colonel, but I hain't got any.'" The soldier was not punished. On the twenty-first, Captain William Stouffer, of Company C, died of typhoid fever. He was a generous-hearted, noble man, and the Regiment deeply felt his loss. Lieutenant Hawk, of Company C, was promoted to be Captain, and Second Lieutenant Norman Lewis promoted to First Lieutenant, and Sergeant George P. Sutton promoted to Second Lieutenant; Lieutenant E. F. Bauder, of Company B, having re- . signed, on the recommendation of Captain William W. Den- nis, and with the advice and consent of all the field and staff offi- cers, Miles B. Light, of Company D, was promoted to be Second Lieutenant of Company B. Some weeks afterward, Captain Wilber W. Dennis resigned, leaving Company B without its com- pliment of officers; when Lieutenant Horace J. Smith, of Com- pany K, was commissioned Captain of Company B. The men. of Company B were very justly indignant at the promotion of men in other companies to command them. There was plenty
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of good material for officers in Company B; but the field officers of the Regiment did not learn of the excellent qualities of many of the members of Company B until afterward. The promotions for Company B were made with the best of motives ; and the men of that company, while feeling the sting, conducted themselves like the splendid soldiers they were, and yielded obedience to their new officers. They soon learned to respect and love their new Captain, Horace J. Smith, who was promoted against his own wishes. He did not seek the place, but he filled it ably. The weather was fine on the twenty-fourth, and Colonel Sheets had the Regiment out on battalion drill for the first time in a month. On Sunday, orders came to march ; and on Monday, the Regiment, with the brigade, marched at six A. M., on the Har- rodsburg pike, passing through Harrodsburg about noon, and marched seventeen miles and camped. The next day, the Regi- nient marched through rain and snow, and camped three miles north of Lawrenceburg. Marched at daylight on the twenty- eighth, the ground covered with snow; passed through Clayville, and about eight miles south of Frankfort: made sixteen miles, and camped at three o'clock P. M. Marched at day- light, passing through Shelbyville, sixteen miles, and camped. Marched early and camped at two P. M., three miles south of Louisville, Kentucky, on the Shelbyville pike. On the thirty-first of January, the Regiment marched through Louisville, in col- umu of platoons, and while passing the Gault House, a Kentuck. ian stepped in between the platoons and grabbed hold of a col- ored servant marching there, when a soldier clubbed his musket and tapped the Kentuckian ou his skull, letting out his brains. Not a word was spoken, not a soldier broke step, but the Regi- inent moved steadily along. The Sheriff of Louisville, with a hundred special policemen, stood upon the sidewalk. They intended to have taken the colored servants out of the Regiment. The quiet but effective reception given to the man who made the first attempt, deterred the other .. The Regiment marched to the Ohio River, and embarked on the steamers Tempest and Arizonia. The work of embarkation was not a slight one: the wagons were all taken apart, and stowed away between decks. It was not till late the next day, that the brigade was all aboard. Mrs. Colonel Sheets, Mrs. Captain Woodcock. Mrs. Major Bohn. Mrs. Dr. Helm, and many citizens from Ogle, Stephenson, and Carroll Counties, visited the Regiment. The 14th Ken- tucky Infantry, Colonel Cochran's old regiment, was detached,
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and remained in " loyal Kentucky." The Colonel of the Ninety. Second was complimented with more suits for stealing negroes. Gordon Granger ordered every colored man to be left in Ken- tucky, and the police were ready to nab any colored man they could. The order of Granger was, by most of the line officers, thought to mean negroes who had no right to accompany the troops, and not to refer to officers' servants regularly employed, and very few negroes left the Ninety-Second on account of Granger's order. At eleven o'clock P. M., as the moon rose, the fleet of six steamers, carrying Colonel Atkins' brigade, quietly dropped down the Ohio River, every one in the Ninety-Second happy at the thought of getting outside of " loyal Kentucky."
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CHAPTER III.
DOWN THE OHIO-UP THE CUMBERLAND-FORT DONELSON- NASHVILLE-RESOLUTIONS-MARCH TO FRANKLIN-OF- FERING BATTLE TO VAN DORN-BRENTWOOD-BACK TO FRANKLIN-THE NEW CHAPLAIN-MARCH TO TRIUNE- FORREST'S ATTACK ON TRIUNE-SHELBYVILLE-THE COLO- NEL'S APPLICATION TO BE DETACHED FROM THE RESERVE CORPS-WARTRACE-THE REGIMENT MOUNTED, AND AS- SIGNED TO WILDER'S BRIGADE OF MOUNTED INFANTRY- CAMPING AT DECHERD.
A steamboat journey on the Ohio River is generally antici- pated with pleasure. In summer time, a cabin passage in a floating palace down the Ohio, surrounded with genial com- panions, and books, and music ; sweeping by inlands, and forests, and farms; noting the eager crowds, who come and go at every landing,-forms, together, a journey full of pleasure and enjoyment. The moving of troops by steamer in mid winter, is altogether a different thing. It is not very hard for the officers, who are comfortably quartered in the cabins and staterooms, but the men suffer. All of the available space below hatches is filled by taking the wagons and ambulances apart, and packing them, with everything movable, as closely as possible; if there is any space left it is assigned to a company as "quarters," where the men can spread their blankets and pack themselves in as closely as the living cargoes of African slaves were once transported. On the bows, in front of the boilers, the artillery is " parked," with the artillery horses tied to the railing as thick as they can stand, while all the available space on the boiler deck is used for the officers' horses and mules of the transportation trains. The men are quartered all over the vessel, from the texas to the va- cant space under the boilers, wherever a soldier can lie down without being trampled by a mule or a horse. By orders of the Brigade Commander, the officers were directed to put the sick accompanying the Regiment into the unoccupied staterooms, and
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at night to cover the cabin floors with the weakest men, to whom commanders of companies were to furnish written permits, and in the day time to fill the cabins by reliefs; no well soldier to be permitted to remain longer than an hour at one time, but to make room for those outside. It was very cold on the morning of February second, 1863, as the boats bearing the Regiment steamed downed the Ohio. To sleep in the open air was out of the question, and to keep warm in the cutting wind and piercing storm required constant exercise. Shortly after daylight, a landing was made upon an island, and the men went ashore to cook three days' rations. As soon as the cooking was over, the journey was continued down the river. At night the steamers coaled at Evansville. The weather continued very cold and windy. A soldier, in his diary, writes under date of February third : "This morning was so cold that the boys suffered greatly ; not a shoulder-strap was to be seen outside of the cabin until late in the morning, and then the gay officer would shiver and run in again, like a rat runs into a hole when a cat makes an unsuccessful leap at him." At five o'clock P. M., the boats landed at Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland River, where the artillery-firing at Fort Donelson was heard. Here the brigade was to await the arrival of the corps; but the rumble of artillery at Fort Donelson beckoned the brigade on; and without orders, except from the Brigade Commander, the six steamers continued up the Cumberland, running slowly, and at eight o'clock the next morning were within a few miles of the Fort. There was no firing heard; it was evident that the battle was ended ; but how it had ended was not known. Caution had to be observed; if the Rebels held the Fort, it would not do to steam up to the landing. Horsemen were observed in the woods on the right bank of the river, and the steamers landed. The Ninety-Second was quickly on shore, and deployed in line of battle. Men were sent to a house some distance up the river, and information obtained that our forces still held the Fort, and that the enemy had retired from the conflict. The Regiment returned to the boats, and the brigade steamed up the river, reaching Fort Donelson at eleven o'clock. The Rebel Generals Forrest and Wheeler, with about eight thousand men, had, at one o'clock P. M. of the day before, made a desperate assault upon nine companies of the S3d Illinois Volunteers, and Company C, 20 Illinois Artillery, under Colonel A. C. Harding, and kept up the battle till half-past eight P. M., when the Rebels withdrew, with a loss of eight hundred
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killed and wounded. The ground around the little village of Dover was strewn with the dead, lying as they fell ; and for the first time, the soldiers of the Ninety-Second looked upon the horror of a battlefield after the carnage was ended. Not quite a year before, the Commander of the Brigade was there as Captain of Company A, 11th Illinois Volunteers ; and, after dinner, accom- panied by some of the members of his staff, he rode out to the long grave of the 11th Illinois, nearly two miles from the land- ing ; and while they sat upon their horses, with uncovered heads, by the grave of the Eleventh, in a light snow-storm, such as had prevailed at the time when the men who lay buried there had fallen a year before, the rear guard of Wheeler and Forrest's Rebel cavalry sent a few leaden messages over the party. It was a remarkable incident that an officer of the 11th Regiment, almost a year after the first battle of Fort Donelson, on returning to the battle-field, should find the ground covered with the freshly slain unburied dead, and by the grave of his slain comrades in the battle of nearly a year before, should listen to the rattle of Rebel musketry. The next day the steamers lay at the landing, without disembarking the troops, awaiting the arrival of General Gran- ger's corps, which came up during the day and night; and the next day at noon, the entire fleet, of about sixty steamers, con- voyed by several gun-boats, resumed the march to Nashville. Before reaching Clarksville, where the iron railroad bridge had been destroyed, leaving portions of the iron-work hanging to the piers and into the river, somewhat obstructing the passage, Lieu- tenant A. M. York, of the Ninety-Second, heard the Captain of the steamer Tempest, in conversation with one of his pilots, pre- dicting a disaster at the bridge; and the Lieutenant believed that it was the intention of the captain and pilot, who were Rebel sympathizers, deliberately to wreck the steamer Tempest, and the steamer Arizonia lashed to its side, on which the Ninety- Second was being transported. He was therefore directed, by the Brigade Commander, to take a file of soldiers, let them load their guns, place the same pilot at the wheel, and the captain by the pilot-house, and inform them that, if any accident happened at the Clarksville Bridge, he was directed to shoot them bothi. Lieutenant York did as he was commanded, and there was no accident. The fleet of steamers and gun-boats moved slowly, and did not arrive at Nashville until nearly night on the seventh of February. The Regiment had marched eighty miles by land from Danville, Kentucky, to Louisville, Kentucky, and four
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hundred and twenty miles by steamer, and occupied, in the march from the morning of January twenty-sixth to the evening of February seventh, thirteen days, at an immense expense to the Government for steamboats and gun-boats, and the additional expense of creating much sickness among the men and animals, by their exposure to winter travel by steamers. From Danville to Nashville, over good roads, it is but one hundred and seventy miles; and in the same length of time, by easy marches of less than fourteen miles a day, the command could have been placed in Nashville, with the health of the men improved by the march, and hundreds of thousands of dollars saved to the Government. A volunteer corporal would have marched the command directly from Danville to Nashville; and why it was not done, is one of those things which are not explainable by the ordinary rules of common sense. The next day, Sabbath, the Regiment disein- barked, marched through the city of Nashville, and three miles south, on the Franklin pike, and went into camp in an old field, where the mud was horrible in rainy weather, and it rained nearly all of the time the Regiment remained there. On the fourteenth, Lieutenant John Gishwiller, of Company G, resigned on account of disability. On the sixteenth, Lieutenant Crowell, of Com- pany B, resigned, and Sergeant Henry C. Cooling was promoted to First Lieutenant. On the seventeenth, the entire Regiment went into the woods to chop fire-wood, the rails being " ousga- sphield." A large mail, from "God's country," came to the Regi- ment. On the twenty-first, Colonel John Coburn's brigade marched to Franklin. February twenty-second, the forts about Nashville fired cannon in honor of the memory of Washington. Captain James Brice, of Company H, resigned on account of illness, and Lieutenant John F. Nelson was promoted to Captain. William McCammons, Sergeant of Company G, was promoted to Lieutenant. On the twenty-fourth, the weather was beautiful, and there was a review and inspection. On the twenty-fifth, it rained; the tents were getting old and leaky: the Lieutenant, Colonel, and Major, " tenting together on the old camp ground," were wet as drowned rats in their quarters. On the twenty-sixth, news was received in camp, that Congress had authorized Presi- dent Lincoln to call out additional troop -. The papers from the North, received in camp, and eagerly read, had kept the members of the Regiment fully informed regarding the opposition made to the war by the peace-sneaks at home; and on this day, a meeting was held by the commissioned officers of the Ninety-Second.
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