USA > Illinois > Ninety-Second Illinois Volunteers > Part 7
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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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Captain Albert Woodcock, of Company K, was called to the Chair, and Lieutenant George R. Skinner, of Company D, Act- ing Adjutant of the Regiment, was elected Secretary. On motion, the following named officers were elected as a committee to 'draft resolutions, setting forth the views of the officers and members of the Regiment upon the policy of the Administration, and the conduct of the copperheads and traitors at the North :- Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin F. Sheets; Captains Lyman Pres- ton, Mathew Van Buskirk, Egbert T. E. Becker, John M. Scher- merhorn, John F. Nelson, Robert M. A. Hawk, Horace J. Smith, Harvey M. Timms, and Lieutenant Horace C. Scoville, who reported the following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted by the officers; and, upon being read to each company upon its company parade ground, were adopted, with but three dissenting voices in the entire Regiment :
" CAMP OF THE NINETY-SECOND ILLINOIS VOLUNTEERS, ) " Near Nashville, Tenn., February 26th, 1863. i
" WHEREAS, We, the officers and members of the Ninety- Second Regiment Illinois Volunteers, have left our homes, our farms, our work-shops, and all our peaceful avocations, and have taken up arms in the defense of our country, now threatened by tyrannical and treacherous foes, who are endeavoring to rend in twain our once peaceful and happy nation ; and
" WHEREAS, Certain unprincipled individuals and factions have arisen at the North, who, by words and by acts, are daily aiding and giving comfort to our enemies, by bitterly opposing our Chief Executive, by clogging the wheels of legislation, by encouraging our enemies, by discouraging our friends, and, in general, using every effort to oppose any and all measures, whether Executive, Legislative, or Judicial, which look to the speedy and happy termination of the present Rebellion ; therefore,
" Resolved, 1. That we, as a Regiment, and as individuals, hold all such persons in the light of enemies-enemies to our cause-enemies to our country-and justly deserving the condem - nation of all true and loval citizens.
" Resolved, 2. That any person who will not, in this hour of his country's trial and peril, lend every nerve, use every effort, and, lastly, sacrifice his very life, if needs be, on his country's altar, is undeserving the friendship and support of the members of the Ninety-Second Regiment of Illinois Volunteers.
" Resolved, 3. That words cannot express the bitter conteinpt
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and detestation, in which we hold traitors to this Govern- ment-the best the sun ever shone upon-wherever they may be found, and under whatever name they may assume to hide their hellish purposes.
" Resolved, +. That we are opposed to all seeret organizations. organized for any political purpose, believing it to be an unmanly way of gaining political power, subversive of Constitutional Liberty, and in which injustice may be done, as witness the past.
" Resolved, 5. That a traitor has no rights which this Gov. ernment is bound to respect, no matter where he resides; that copperheads at the North are but a revised edition of traitors at the South, and that we most earnestly request our friends at home to mark them for future reference-shoot them, if need be, and write over their graves, 'Here lies a cowardly traitor to his country, rejected of God, and despised of honest men.'
" Resolved, 6. That we fully and unequivocally endorse the Administration (Emancipation Proclamation included), in any and all efforts to suppress this unholy Rebellion, and are deter. mined that ' Butternuts,' either North or South, be brought to speedy justice, 'that hemp be not created in vain, and that fire and brimstone be not defrauded.'
" Resolved, 7. That we heartily endorse the acts of Hon. Richard Yates, our Governor, and return him our sincere thanks for his noble efforts in behalf of Illinois soldiers.
" ALBERT WOODCOCK, Chairman.
"GEORGE R. SKINNER, Secretary."
On the twenty-eighth of February, the Regiment was mus- tered for pay. On the first of March, all the regiments in the brigade having adopted resolutions of a similar import to those adopted by the Ninety-Second, a brigade dress parade was held in the afternoon : after which each regiment was formed in col umm doubled on the center, and the brigade closed in mass; when Colonel Atkins, the Brigade Commander, made the men and officers an address, which he had previously been invited to do. There was cheering for Governors Yates, of Illinois, Todd. of Ohio, and Morton, of Indiana, and for President Lincoln and the old flag.
Artillery-firing was heard on the fifth of March, in the direc- tion of Franklin. Orders soon came to be ready at a moment's notice to march in light marching order, and the command was ready at eleven A. M., and patiently waited, while the roar of
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artillery was almost continuous until six P. M., when cars came, and the Regiment, with the brigade, piled into and on top of the cattle cars. In an old letter written by a soldier, and dated at Franklin, March sixth, we find the following: "We left our camp near Nashville, last evening at six P. M., for this point, by rail, in light marching order, leaving tents, horses, knapsacks, baggage, and everything else, except one day's ' hardtack', and arms and ammunition, behind. The miserable old cars and crazy engine were just five hours in getting us here, a distance of seventeen miles. Our brigade had the good fortune to be dumped down into a muddy corn-field, with no wood, shelter, or anything, and the men and officers lay down in the cold mud, with a blanket for cover, and the wind and rain pelting us from eleven o'clock P. M. until daylight. In military parlance this is called 'bivou- acing.' Call it what you please, our boys think it pretty rough, but stand it unmurmeringly. All day long we have been stand- ing in the muddy corn-field, with no shelter, and the rain pouring down heavily. Only think of eight thousand men packed into close quarters in a corn-field in the pelting rain, and their con- tinuous tramping, and, my word for it, there will be some inud. Yesterday Colonel Coburn's brigade, about twenty-five hundred strong, all that were fit for duty, were sent out toward Spring Hill, and left all day unsupported, fighting about eighteen thou- sand Rebels under Van Dorn, Forrest, and Wheeler. Coburn's brigade made a gallant fight; but, surrounded and left alone, with such terrible odds against them, were at last compelled to surren- der, only a few making their escape, and returning to Franklin. Some one blundered, and it was not Coburn." The rain con- tinued without ceasing: but in the afternoon of the sixth, the tents and baggage of the Regiment came up, and the nien were more comfortable. The troops' at Franklin held the right of Rosecrans' army. We were twenty-one miles south of Nash- ville, and eighteen west of Murfreesboro. Orders came to the Regiment to keep constantly on hand three days' cooked rations. Franklin was a Rebel town : and it was reported in camtp that the Rebel citizens had sent word to Van Dorn, Wheeler, and Forrest. to come into Franklin for supper on the sixth. But the Rebel Generals did not like the company that had forced itself upon the people of Franklin, and did not accept of the invitation of the citizens to take supper in that town. On the seventh, the rail- road bridge across the Harpeth River was completed. On the eighth, many troops, cavalry and infantry, including Sheridan's
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division, arrived and reported to General Gordon Granger. On the ninth, all of the troops at Franklin, under the command of Gordon Granger, marched southward on the Columbia pike, the cavalry skirmishing lightly with the enemy, who fell back before our advance, and the Regiment bivouaced one and a half miles south of Spring Hill ; moved the next day at noon to Rutherford Creek, seven miles south of Spring Hill, and went into camp after dark. Remained in camp all the next day, the Rebels ap- pearing in considerable force about noon, on the opposite side of the creek, and, for an hour, shelled the Regiment, without doing any injury. Our brigade battery shelled a column of the enemy's cavalry marching on the other side of the stream. It cleared up at noon. The cavalry followed the enemy to Duck River, at Columbia. Duck River was at flood tide with heavy rains, and no bridge, and the independent corporals of volunteers, who did their own thinking, never doubted that Gordon Granger, who commanded a column three times the force of the enemy north of the river, by energetic work, might have compelled the enemy to accept battle, and have killed, drowned or captured the entire Rebel force. Moved back to Franklin the next morning, Gene- ral Sheridan's division taking the lead, his corps of trumpeters making the echoes ring as he marched out. His troops marched like quarter horses, and inade no halt until they reached camp at Franklin, and the Ninety-Second bowled along nineteen miles in six hours, without a halt, keeping up with the column. The troops wondered why in the world Granger was in such a hurry to get back to Franklin, when he had uselessly consumed so much time in inarching out. Just before reaching Franklin, a squad of Rebel cavalry fired on the rear guard, and the Regiment was halted, and put into line of battle : but the enemy not appear- ing in force, the Regiment crossed the Harpeth, and went into camp. Oscar Taylor, Esq., of Freeport, the law-partner of the Colonel of the Ninety-Second, and brother of the Chief Quar- termaster of the Army of the Cumberland, visited the Regiment. The next day the order to keep three days' cooked rations on hand was renewed. On the fourteenth, the troops of Franklin were reviewed by General Gordon Granger. On Sunday, the ' fifteenth, the Regiment listened to a sermon by a private soldier of Company E; and a soldier, in his diary, writes: "I would give more to hear him preach, although he get- but thirteen dol- lars per month, than I would to hear Chaplain White, who gets a hundred dollars a month." Contrabands had been at work
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building a fort on the north side of the Harpeth ; but, by order of General Granger, heavy details of soldiers were made for that purpose. On the seventeenth, a line guard was put around the Regiment, to the great disgust of the inen. A few unruly sol- diers made it necessary to guard the entire Regiment. Heavy siege guns were mounted on the fort at Franklin. Lieutenant David B. Colehour, of Company I, died in hospital at Nashville. He was an excellent officer, and his loss was deeply felt by his comrades. On the twentieth, the Regiment, an hour before day- light, marched over the Harpeth to the south of the town of Franklin, and remained thirty hours on picket, the picket line extending entirely around the town, from river bank above to river bank below. An hour before daylight the next morning, another regiment marched out to the reserve post, at an old cot- ton gin and press south of the town, so that there were two full regiments on picket at daylight : after daylight the Ninety-Second returned to camp. On Sunday, the twenty-second, Company A received large boxes of good things to eat and to wear from home. Sergeant Samuel L. Bailey, of Company H, was promoted to Lieutenant. There was brigade dress parade. On Monday morning, the pickets were fired on, and the Regiment was in line an hour before daylight. The first regimental drill since leaving Nashville took place. On the twenty-fifth, firing was heard in the direction of Nashville before daylight, and the Regiment was soon in line of battle, with faces toward home. And there they stood in the peach orchard, listening to an occasional gun at Brentwood, eight miles away, until long after daylight, when orders came to march. From an old letter written by a soldier of the Ninety-Second, we extract the following: " There we waited until the cavalry, under command of Brigadier General Green Clay Smith, of Kentucky, took the road-didn't the bu- gles blow though, and didn't they go helter skelter out on the pike, with sabers jingling! After the capture of Colonel Co- burn, at Spring Hill, the debris of his brigade, convalescents, teamsters, etc., about three hundred men, had been sent to Brent- wood, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Bloodgood, of the end Wisconsin, and had not been there many days, when Van Dorn sent a column of cavalry from Spring Hill, crossing the Harpeth on the Granny White pike road west of Franklin, and made an attack on Brentwood just before daylight; and Lieuten. ant Colonel Bloodgood surrendered without losing a man, or scarcely firing a shot. A few of his men, in a stockade at a rail-
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road bridge, held out until Van Dorn planted his artillery and fired a few shots, when they surrendered also. It was while the Rebel artillery was firing that the Regiment got into line of battle at Franklin. General Green Clay Smith and his chargers found a Rebel picket at Hollow Tree Gap, and fooled around waiting until the infantry came up from Franklin, and until Van Dorn's column, with all their prisoners and plunder, was well on its way to Spring Hill by the road it came. And then, when the Rebel picket at Hollow Tree Gap had voluntarily retired, the cavalry followed up their rear guard, skirmishing occasionally ; and the Kentucky newspapers had glowing accounts of how General Green Clay Smith drove Van Dorn back to his camp. Our boys said that Van Dorn had found the muster rolls ot Coburn's brigade, and had come back after the balance of the command; they got it all, slick and clean, by the second capture at Brentwood. Now, the Granny White pike crosses the Harpeth not far west of Franklin ; and why in the d-I General Gordon Granger did not send a portion of his corps of infantry to inter- cept Van Dorn on his return to Spring Hill, is one of those things which no private soldier of volunteers can ever find out." The Ninety-Second did not march farther than Hollow Tree Gap, when it returned to Franklin, and went into camp. By command of General Granger, the troops at Franklin were or- dered into line of battle, each morning an hour before daylight, to stand shivering in the fog from the Harpeth, until after sun- rise. On the afternoon of the twentr-seventh, Lieutenant Colo- nel Sheets received orders to be ready to march in fifteen minutes. The Ninety-Second was promptly in line, and inarched at five o'clock P. M. to Brentwood, reaching there after dark, and bivouaced in the rain. The Colonel of the Ninety-Second was in command of the troops, having with him the Ninety-Second, the 96th Illinois Volunteers, the 6th Kentucky Volunteer Cav- alry, and 9th Ohio Battery of Artillery. The next morning, the Regiment, and all of the command, went into camp in a grove near a railroad bridge which they were to guard, and, on the next morning, commenced fortifying, the cavalry regiment doing scouting duty. A strong little fort was built for the artillery on the brow of the bill, and a trench large enough to hold two regi- ments was dug around it, in zig-zag shape, six feet wide, and six feet deep, with benches of earth left each side for the troops to stand on while firing. Timber was cut, and out of the limbs was formed chevaux-de-frise: that is, the limbs were sharpened at
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the points, and placed thickly, points outward, around the trench and fort, and staked fast, so that a charging column could not get easily over, or through them, or remove them, without axes. The bodies of the trees were laid along the trench on both sides, elevated on skids, so that the troops in the' trench could fire through the opening under the logs, and have their heads pro- tected from the enemy's fire by them. The ground was chosen on the apex of a knoll; and, by cutting down the trees on a gen- tleman's lawn, and felling the trees in his orchard, which was, of course, done, a clean sweep for musketry was obtained all around. It was an unique idea; no such work was treated of in any military book; but it was inspected by Captain Merrill, Chief Engineer of the Army of the Cumberland, and pro- nounced by him to be one of the strongest works that could have been as easily constructed on that ground. Major John C. Smith, a gallant soldier of the 96th Illinois Volunteers, had general charge of the construction of the little fort and trench. All of the able-bodied contrabands in the vicinity were pressed into service, and heavy details made on the command for the work. One white man was pressed into the service also, Dr. William Mayfield, a finely educated, gentlemanly appearing little fellow, who practiced medicine in that neighborhood. The Doctor, on March 30th, visited the head-quarters of the Colonel command- ing, and requested a permit to pass the guards, night or day, on " professional duty." A permit was prepared for him, but he was requested to sign a written statement that he was, and would remain, a loyal citizen, and, under penalty of death, would not give information to the enemy. The . Doctor blandly remarked that he could not sign it, for the reason that he was a Rebel. " What!" said the Colonel, "do you come here into my head- quarters, and insist on a permit to pass my lines, night or day, and tell me that you are a Rebel? Guard, take this Rebel to Major Smith, and tell him to put the fellow at work in the trenches." The guard did not need a second order. Side by side with his own slaves the little fellow dug and delved until, after a day or two, Major Smith reported him ill, and obtained permis- sion to relieve him. The soldiers, and the darkies, enjoyed it considerably more than did the little Rebel Doctor. The boys would have their sport, and always enjoyed getting some laugh on the officers. They found in the vicinity a little, old jackass, and dressed him up in officers' uniform, with the hugest pair of shoulder-straps ever seen, and paraded him through the camps,
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to the delight of every one, for the officers good-naturedly joined in the laugh, although it was at their expense. On the fifth of April, there was a scare in camp, and the pickets were doubled; the enemy were reported to be marching in strong force to attack the camp. How the boys did want them to come on, just to be able to show them that surrendering, without fighting, was not what the Ninety-Second enlisted for. The command was ready for them, and that is just the reason why they did not come. Troops that are vigilant, and always ready for battle, are seldom gobbled up. For a nation, the surest guarantee of peace is to be ready for war; for an outpost of an army, the surest guarantee that there will be no fighting to do, is to be ready to accept battle at any moment. The cavalry regiment was sent out, and found parties of the enemy, who did not press on toward the command, but retreated. On the eighth of April, General Morgan, with a „ division of infantry, arrived from Nashville at Brentwood, and. on thirty minutes' notice, at five o'clock P. M., the command took up the line of march on its return to Franklin, arriving after dark ; and was up in line of battle at three in the morning of the ninth, in accordance with Granger's order. On the tenth, at about ten o'clock A. M., Van Dorn's cavalry, having been in- formed that Franklin was evacuated-the information probably being based upon the fact that Sheridan's division had returned to the vicinity of Murfresboro-made a furious attack upon the +oth Ohio Infantry, of Atkins' Brigade, which was doing picket duty south of Franklin. Of course, the Ninety-Second was in line of battle very quickly. Van Dorn's troops charged the cav- atry outposts on the three roads leading south from Franklin, and chased them in on a dead run, all at the same time. The 40th Ohio did not leave their posts: but the officers and men of that entire regiment made but little impression on the charging Rebel columns that swept by while the 40th Ohio emptied their muskets at them ; then the soldiers of the 40th Ohio took to the gardens, buildings, and outhouses; while the charging Rebel columns swarmed down into the village of Franklin, one Rebel even crossing the pontoon bridge to the north of the river Harpeth, and others being killed at the bridge on the south side. The Rebels soon learned that their information in regard to the evacu- ation of Franklin was a mistake, and that Granger's entire corps still held it; and then they charged out again, a little more rapidly than they had come in, while the 40th Ohio gave them a hearty salute as they passed back toward Spring Hill. The Hoth lost
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but two killed and seven wounded, while nineteen dead Rebels lay close by their line, all killed with their musketry, and there must have been a large number of Rebels wounded. The hills and woods south of Franklin swarmed with Van Dorn's grey- coats; and the heavy siege artillery, at the fort on the north side of the Harpeth, sent shells over the 40th Ohio, and screaming on beyond. The newspapers reported one hundred and fifty killed and wounded in Van Dorn's command, probably a high estimate. The cavalry of Green Clay Smith followed the Rebels again on their return to Spring Hill. The dead Rebels near the pickets of the 40th Ohio had canteens, with whisky and powder mixed in them; and whether or not they were inspired by draughts from their canteens, they certainly made a most wreckless and dashing charge into Franklin and out again. On the eleventh, a large number of Rebel wounded were picked up in the woods south of the town, and taken to the hospitals. On the twelfth, the Ninety - Second again did picket duty south of Franklin. Gordon Gran- ger camped his corps north of the Harpeth, and daily sent a regiment to encircle the town on the south, and a regiment to reinforce it at three A. M., so as to have two regiments there at daylight each morning. When Major General Schofield was falling back in front of Hood's Rebel army, and made a stand at Franklin, and repulsed Hood's fiery attack, Schofield made his line of battle where the line of the reserve pickets of the Ninety- Second was this day; that is, south of Franklin, encircling the town from river bank to river bank. On the fifteenth of April, the Ninety-Second was made happy by receiving four months' pay. Pay day was always looked forward to most anxiously in the army ; many of the men had families at home, and needed the trifling amount of their stipulated monthly pay to keep the wolf from their home firesides during their absence. There is too much machinery in the United States Army; the Pay- master's Department ought to be abolished, and Regimental Quartermasters instructed to pay the men promptly every monthi. If not desirable for Regimental Quartermaster- to carry the coin or currency with them on campaigns, payments might be made in drafts on the money centers of the country, adding five mills on a dollar for every hundred miles, from place of drawing draft to place of payment; such drafts, in the hands of the soldier, would be worth the full amount of his monthly pay anywhere. The laborer is worthy of his hire, and then he would have it when due him. On the seventeenth of April, orders from brigade
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head-quarters were issued to detail men from each company to cook coffee, when the command went into line of battle before daylight, and furnish each man in line a cup full of hot coffee as soon as possible. Malaria lurks in the fog that rests upon the earth just before sunrise, and coffee is an antidote to malaria. Lieutenant Colonel Sheets had already disobeyed the orders of Gordon Granger, to stand silently in battle-line, and had assisted the circulation of the blood of the inen in the Ninety-Second, by rapid exercise in the manual of arms, and even by double-quick marching; but, with every precaution, the men could not stand it, and were rapidly going into hospital; it was ouly a sad conso- lation to know that the percentage in the Ninety-Second of sick men was much lower than in any other regiment. On the eighteenth, Second Lieutenant Horace C. Scoville, of Company K, was promoted to First Lieutenant, and Sergeant Peleg R. Walker, of Company K, was promoted to Second Lieutenant. On the twentieth, there was target practice by the Regiment, and Company A, with the smallest number of men, hit the target the most times. On the twenty-second, the Regiment turned over the bell tents drawn at Cincinnatit, and drew "dog tents." It was the greatest possible improvement upon the old manner of sheltering the men-far better for their health, and gave greater mobility to the army, as it cut down the transportation trains eleven wagons and sixty-six mules to every regiment. They were simply strips of tent-cloth, about six and a half feet long, by three feet wide, with button-holes on one edge, and buttons on the other, one issued to each man, and to be carried by him on the march, and two buttoned together formed the " tent" of two soldiers. The men regarded them with extreme aversion, and there were serious threatenings of mutiny when they were issued. A soldier of the Ninety-Second, writing from Franklin in a letter home, says: " The 'dog-kennels' have been introduced into our Regiment ; and now, in place of the sixty-five or seventy tents used by us for the last eight months, we have one of these rags for each man. Shelter tent is, however, a misnomer: there is no shelter about it, but precisely the opposite. Have you ever seen one? No. Well, I can introduce you to the modus ope- randi of making one. Rob your bed of a sheet, if you have one (and if you have, it is more than I have had for some time, if not longer); and now, while speaking of sheets, it is enough to put a soldier to feeling bad not to have any, for there is a charm in that word sheets; yes, there is. But to go on and tell you how
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