USA > Illinois > The story of the Fifty-fifth regiment Illinois volunteer infantry in the civil war, 1861-1865 > Part 17
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You will believe me, I have no likes or dislikes to gratify in respect of the regiment ; strict and impartial justice is the only rule which has governed me, and the only safe one which can govern us in military matters. My pride and hopes have been centered in the two regiments, the 42d and 55th. My more intimate relations with the 55th gives me the interest in it which a man feels for his family ; the men are of the better classes, and have families of respectability at home, and are worth all the care, attention and protection they can get.
As I said before, this whole movement proceeds on the supposition that my promotion will follow the recommendation of the commanding general. This, of course, I know is very problematical ; I have not sought it, nor have I a friend living whom I have ever allowed to propose it. I have no ambition or care for it. I objected to my assignment to my present command, preferring greatly to stay immediately with my regiment and men, and avoid the responsibility of so large a command. If my promotion is not realized, of course the question of my successor will not come up while I live or remain in the service. Pray pardon me for troubling you with so long a letter ; I do not do it often, and I wished to put the matter before you circuinstantially as it is.
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
We have this evening received marching orders for Wednesday morning ; one regiment from each (three) division is to be designated by the division commander, to remain as a garrison at Memphis. The rest of the army moves with 200 rounds and five days' rations. We have in Memphis about 30,000 men ; Gen. Lauman commands one division, Denver and Morgan L. Smith the others. Sherman returned this even- ing from an interview with Grant, at Columbus, but I have not seen him, and am not advised of the precise direction of our march. We are to take the field again, and I may not live or return ever to express to you, governor, what is the universal sentiment of the great army of Illinois ; the high respect we cherish for your administration of the military affairs of the state, since we have been involved in this dreadful struggle. Your self-sacrificing devotion to the cause, your zeal and interest in the confort, welfare and honor of your troops, have excited the admiration, and assured to you the grateful affection of the army. We have no political predilections -- no party attachments, which veil or qualify these senti- ments ; if the voice of the army in the field could be heard, it would be such an expression of confidence and affection as would compensate you for all your labors, responsibilities, and vexations. I meet no inen so proud of their state as the soldiers of Illinois.
With great respect, I remain very truly,
Your obedient servant,
DAVID STUART.
RICHARD YATES, Governor, etc.
Every instinct of justice would lead any one at all con- versant with the affairs of the Fifty-fifth to indignantly repel the statements contained in the foregoing scurrilous letter; yet it is unnecessary to do so at great length. Since the colonel of that regiment did so report the officers to their own Governor, and thereby make his report an official docu- ment in the archives of their own state, some attention must be paid to it. It should be remembered that these officers, so glibly vilified, were his own selections, and frequently so designated to the injustice of others entitled by rank to the place. The captains embraced in the tirade included such men as Slattery, Augustine, Schleich, Black and Shaw. Among the lieutenants shine out such names as Andress, Augustine, Porter, Whipple, Aagesen, Brown, McAuley, Lawrence and Kendrick. Several of these afterwards com- manded the regiment, and did it better than he who slandered them. Some died on the field of battle and are remembered by all who survive them with love and reverence. Besides these, there were dozens of non-commissioned officers and
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THE OFFICERS VINDICATED.
men in the ranks who would not suffer by comparison with the field officers of 1862.
When Stuart for his own ends compliments the rank and file, he indulged in the luxury of telling the exact truth. It is a pity, however, that his admiration for them exhausted itself in a rhetorical essay to the Governor, while we are left to look in vain for honorable mention in reports and sugges- tions for their reward in way of promotion, medals or brevets. It is strange, too, that from among men so meritorious, he who made and unmade officers at will should have such poor luck in the selection of subordinates. It also "passeth human understanding" how an organization could become so preeminently well drilled with only such worthless officers to do it. The regiment did not, as predicted, "in sixty days go to obscurity," after the then lieutenant-colonel was displaced; but, under officers of its own selection, including some pro- nounced so worthless, bravely faced the overhanging flames of Kenesaw, did glorious work all around Atlanta, and finally marched to the sea, then to Washington, and swept down from Capitol Hill past the wise men of the nation, with its own Army of the Tennessee.
If there be those who shrink from what is said above because it seems to speak harshly of those who are dead, let them recall that the history of the Fifty-fifth is largely the history of the dead. If the author of these slanders is not alive to modify them, neither are poor Augustine, Schleich It Porter alive to defend themselves from the charges. This Weiter was a voluntary contribution from its author to the public records of his state. It was meant to have an effect, and did have an effect. It deceived the great war governor of Illinois, and did rank injustice to many men who lived blamelessly and died heroically. There are other letters on file from the same source, as bad or worse. All these are proper material, and may at any time be assimilated by the historian. There is something due, also, to the living as well as to the dead. This should be a work to tell the truth, not to suppress it. It appears to be a plain duty, as it certainly is a pleasure, to vindicate both the living and the dead from the Sanders of either, where the good fame of the Fifty-fifth is 12
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
at stake, and strict truth justifies the effort. It is esteemed a high privilege on this the first opportunity, to tell to the public that the line officers of our regiment were not men whose highest ambition was to "have a slip-shod, easy-going time," and were not persons actuated by a "vanity and selfish- ness" that made them "insensible to the better and more generous sentiments of our nature."
This brings the incidents of this narrative to the closing days of the pleasant encampment in the suburbs of Memphis.
CHAPTER IV.
TALLAHATCHIE .- CHICKASAW BAYOU .- ARKANSAS POST.
0 N the morning of November 26th, 1862, the beautiful camp of the Fifty-fifth at Memphis was dismantled. The cosy and even luxurious quarters had to be abandoned for such cheer as could be found in a winter campaign in the wilds of Mississippi. The Sibley tents, in use since first Udlung the field, and now ragged, colored with smoke, and weather-beaten, were replaced by the shelter tent. This latter consisted of a strip of tow cloth about four feet wide and six feet long, issued to each man, which, when folded up, made a small roll of cloth weighing but a pound or two. By tuning two of these sheets together a strip was obtained wile enough, when stretched over sticks, to form a low, Lønnel-like structure, under which two men could crowd and De recumbent during a night or storm. They were univer- willy: known in the expressive vocabulary of the army, as " det tents." As for cooking utensils, not much was expected 4: that practical stage of the war. Every effort of very able generals at the head of affairs in the department, and the sadly wit and ingenuity of the soldiers themselves, turned toward "flying light." Each one on a march had slung somniewhere about his person an old oyster or fruit can, tin cup or pail, which during the day's tramp dangled melodi- vadly behind, but when a halt came was the sole dependence for cooking purposes. Rations were generally issued for three days' supply to the men, and for field purposes con- usted of smoked side-meat, hard-tack, coffee, sugar, salt and
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
pepper. Of course these were supplemented by whatever else could be obtained from the country, which was often- times nothing, if in the rear of the column. In quantity, as well as variety, all rations were subjected to fluctuations, according to the exigencies of the campaign.
The usual procedure adopted by the soldiers was to asso- ciate in groups of two or more, as suited their taste, and all rations would be pooled. Of course little bags had been provided long before, frequently consisting of an old stock- ing, for the purpose of holding salt, coffee, sugar, pepper and the like, so that they would not become mixed before the proper time. These parcels, with other impedimenta, were apportioned among chums as they saw fit, and put in the haversacks to be carried. Occasionally a man noted for his good nature and endurance, like Jack Berlin, would sling to his kit a frying-pan, coffee-pot or Dutch oven, to be used in common with his friends. Any halt would be followed by the instant building of innumerable small fires, and the cup or little pail would be filled with water from the canteen, or an adjacent water-course, and in an incredibly short time each would be supplied with strong coffee. The hard-tack and smoked meat were always ready for engorgement, without additional preparation. To the above method there was at least one exception, in the person of Heme Harris, otherwise "Tobunkus," of Company I, who upon receiving his three days' rations proceeded to cat them up, then and there, and after performing this phenominal act of deglutition, would pass the next three days in a state of semi-somnolence nearly resembling that of a boa constrictor. In transporting blan- kets, wearing apparel, three days' rations, camp equipage, water, gun, sixty rounds of ammunition, and shelter, each soldier was his own baggage-wagon.
For war purposes, the volunteer became on the march a pack-mule, a fighting machine, and at intervals an intelligent thinker and talker upon the strategy of campaigns, prospects of foreign intervention, and the policy of the government. When occasion demanded he built bridges, repaired railroads, ran engines or steamboats, printed newspapers, cut cord- wood, killed men, or stole, chickens; and did all these things
I81
TALLAHATCHIE CAMPAIGN.
well. Clearly the "kid-glove" era of the war was a thing of the past, and each one in his own way had determined to make life a burden to the people of the South who brought it on. The first and most apparent result was, that the con- temptuous and defiant derision of "Yankees" instantly ceased, and gave place to a tearful wish that the war would end upon any terms. The contraband had no pecuniary value in the camps, neither could he be eaten; but the rebels called him live stock, and his stout arms could build breastworks and raise corn, so there was ample satisfaction and justification for seducing him away from the alleged patriarchal and legal owner.
About noon of the pleasant November day referred to, Morgan L. Smith's division of Sherman's army marched due cast from Memphis to Germantown, and stopped at the latter place during the night. The whole movement was an ad- vance toward Vicksburg from the interior, and Sherman's forces formed the extreme right. Morgan L. Smith's detour to the east, before turning south, was simply intended to relieve the roads toward the Tallahatchie of unnecessary crowding. On the morning of the 27th the division turned south, and after marching ten miles the Fifty-fifth bivouacked in a cotton-field, where the "dog tents" were erected for the first time. The next day fifteen miles were traversed, and a corn-field afforded the stopping place for the night. Just before dark a good-sized hog made an unfortunate break from the brush, and was bayoneted instantly by the men. It was expected that the march would soon end for the day, but in point of fact it continued for about three miles further. Nevertheless, the bleeding sacrifice, weighing at least two hundred pounds, was carried along somehow in the ranks, and arrived at camp with the men. It is believed that the imagination of a moderately intelligent reader can supply all additional details required to account for the final disposition of the captured property.
After a march of five miles on the next day, the high ridges skirting the valley of Pigeon Roost Creek were reached. It was known that the main column of Grant's army was keeping abreast some miles to the left, and that all parts of
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
the army were converging toward Holly Springs and the Tallahatchie River, the line of rebel occupation. Occasion- ally the distant firing of cannon echoed through the great valleys and reverberated over the high ridges of the country. General Smith's column deployed on the high ground over- looking Pigcon Roost Creek, in line of battle, and there was an air of approaching conflict in the various preparations in sightw While the Fifty-fifth lay stretched through the woods in battle order, on that warm autumn day, the chaplain made his appearance. Indeed, he was never far in the rear if there was a semblance of danger. Decming the occasion a proper one, and no movements for the time interfering, he inaugu- rated an impromptu meeting. His exhortation was a flaming war speech, bristling with eloquent, patriotic and religious sentiments. There was no cant about it; it breathed the feeling and inspiration of a genuine christian soldier. His hymns were such soul-stirring lyrics as the "Battle Cry of Freedom," and sung in fervid concert they swelled out over the valley in noble pathos. The scene was worthy of the Covenanters, and was incited by a broader purpose, if not more conscientious zeal. The enemy drew back, however, and the patriots pursued their way to Chulahoma and en- camped for the night, to be drenched by a heavy rainfall. Sherman's column had gained a day's march on the right, and the next day the Fifty-fifth and Eighth Missouri were drawn out to make a reconnoissance to the Tallahatchic, and the return to Chulahoma the same night completed a march of twenty-two miles for the day.
On December 2d, Sherman's whole line proceeded to the borders of the Tallahatchie, pelted the whole day by a driv- ing, cold rain-storm, and Stuart's brigade encamped at Wyatt, a squalid village. The next three days were employed, wet and disagreeable as they were, in erecting a bridge across the river under the immediate direction of Lieutenant-Colonel Malmborg. On the 5th the river was crossed, and after pass- ing some extensive, unfinished and abandoned earthworks, the brigade bivouacked in a pleasant woodland, just at the borders of the valley. The One-hundred-and-twenty-seventh and One-hundred-and-sixteenth Illinois and Eighty-third
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SHIFTING RESPONSIBILITIES.
Indiana, all splendid new regiments of the brigade, kept well up in this their first march. They came a year later into the service than the rest of the brigade, had been paid an addi- tional bounty, and started overburdened with baggage, as all new troops did. They had thrown away their burdens, lain in the fence corners, and been unmercifully chaffed as is usual, and perhaps salutary, in such cases. Of course the old troops stole from them at will, marched them as hard as pos- sible, bedeviled them in every way, and then consoled them with the cry that it "took a bounty before and a draft behind" to force them into service at all. They soon became veterans and famous regiments, and when the time came they put other raw troops through the same rough process of initiation. Actual battle soon gave the regiments of 1862 a chance to offer the "blood atonement," and then they belonged to the great brotherhood of veterans,
As soon as arms were stacked at the new camping place the veterans scattered over the country in pursuit of plunder. This was against orders, as it was desired to do the foraging systematically by detail. While a patrol of the One-hundred- and-twenty-seventh Illinois was ranging the region to arrest the marauders, they came across Jim Watkins of the Fifty- fifth, who had just made a capture suited to his grotesque ambition. It was a basket-full of fine china-ware. He was taken in charge, and as a matter of course gave a false name and regiment, and, as all thieves did, claimed to belong to the Eighth Missouri. A single guard was detailed to takc Jin: to camp and deliver him to the provost-marshal. On the way he got the gun of his captor, shifted the burden of the plunder and the offence, and turned the guileless recruit over to the headquarters guard as a villain of the deepest dye, and escaped to his own comrades, leaving the patrol to explain matters.
Any quantity of fresh meat and corn meal was obtained, but salt was so scarce as to be finally unobtainable, and many meals which would otherwise have been luxuries, were insipid and almost uneatable for the want of it. Enormous log camp-fires were built at night, and officers and soldiers gath- ered around to listen to some noted story-teller. Quarter-
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
master Janes took occasion to perpetrate his favorite joke about the man going to mill, upon Commissary-Sergeant Fisher, and shouts of happy laughter rang through the woods. These nights presented a pretty picture, when the flames blazed out among the trees and fitfully lighted up the gloom. Its red glare made plain the faces of the grim sol- diers who lay and lounged close around, and blending into the darkness, flickered among the bright bayonets stacked in long rows at the rear.
At noon of December 10th, Morgan L. Smith's division, with General Sherman in person, turned again toward Mem- phis, which point was reached by hard marching on December 13th. As shortly appeared, this movement was for the purpose of adding Smith's division to the formidable expedition intended to capture Vicksburg, by way of the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. On the march just described, Colonel David Stuart received notice of his appointment by the President as brigadier-general, to which position he had been warmly recommended by General Sherman, Governor Yates and others. So far as known, his promotion excited no opposition in his own regiment, except at the hands of the chaplain and Captain and Lieutenant Augustine, who forwarded a protest, setting forth his unfitness and charging him with disloyalty. As to the latter disqualification no actual proof exists. It should be remembered, however, that the army was righteously sensitive about its leaders' hob- nobbing with the disloyal citizens. This, Stuart had been injudicious enough to persist in, but his conduct in this respect can be accounted for by ascribing it to motives quite different, and though not especially commendable, less hurt- ful to the cause. The chaplain was satisfied with nothing less than whole-souled single-minded patriotism, and Stuart's conduct did not by any means reach that high standard. He had, too, a certain recklessness of speech, and frequently made foolish statements which, literally interpreted, justified the charge, but it is not believed that the crime of actual sympathy with rebellion can fairly be sustained by evidence. As is now well known, this promotion resulted soon in Stuart's complete discomfiture through the failure of the
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DIVISION TRAIN CAPTURED.
Senate to confirm his appointment. When that took place, the contest in which he sought with his brilliant talents to win success, seems to have been given up, and a defeated and deeply disappointed man, he dropped into obscurity. It is probable that social causes existing in Chicago, and having powerful ramifications in the state of New York, mainly caused his rejection by the United States Senate.
Upon the return to Memphis, learning of the petition for the promotion of Sanger and Black, the late colonel, then general and soon to be Mr. Stuart, forwarded another urgent letter to Governor Yates, asking for the promotion of the lieutenant-colonel, and making the point that he was first in the line of promotion. This seems to have been a new revelation, for he had never observed that rule himself, except by accident. This anxiety for the immediate receipt of commissions for the colonel and major, seems also to have been a new-born zeal, for he had never asked for the com- mission of a line officer, and had persistently refused to deliver those voluntarily sent him by the Governor. The missive sent at this time pronounces Captains Chandler and Heffernan to be "by far the best officers in the regiment," and reiterates the sweeping abuse of the former letter as to all of the others.
When the Fifty-fifth arrived at the beautiful camp aban- doned on November 26th, it was found occupied by other troops, and the shelter tents were erected upon a bare slope further toward the river. Everything betokened the con . centration of a large army and a speedy movement. The regiment was mustered and received pay for July and August. It was at this time that extra muster rolls were obtained to send to the Governor for commissions, as before stated. One day nearly all the mule teams of the division were sent into the country toward Wolf River for wood. They were without an escort, and had with them only a few men detailed to load wood, and without arms. A company of guerillas swooped down upon them, and without a single casualty captured all the men and mules, and abandoning the wagons mounted the prisoners upon the animals and struck for the interior. At Germantown they paroled the
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
men, who returned the next day crest-fallen enough. A sweeping impressment supplied the place of the missing animals in a few hours. Such matters do not get into military reports, because they are evidences of carelessness-hence the above loss of fifty or sixty thousand dollars' worth of property, when the detail of a single company from the fifteen or twenty thousand men present would have prevented it- is not related in the reports of the war.
On Sunday, December 20th, the Fifty-fifth went carly in the day to the steamboat landing, and on board the fine transport Westmoreland, which was also headquarters for the brigade commander and staff. The day was spent in loading baggage and getting on board the men too drunk to exercise locomotion. This last unpleasant duty was attended to by Captain Shaw, who narrowly escaped serious stabbing at the hands of a reckless character. The next morning Helena, Arkansas, was passed, and the fleet pulled up at Friars Point until the next day. The troops were taken on shore, and some uncertain attempts made at battalion drill, which were intended as exercise, and the transports were meantime thoroughly policed. At this place the large division of Gen- eral Steele joined the command, and by an order soon issued became the First division of the celebrated Fifteenth Army Corps-the division to which the Fifty-fifth was attached retaining the title of Second division, a name entitled to imperishable honors. Indeed, the order creating corps organizations had already been issued at Washington, but did not reach this portion of the afflicted republic until after the battle of Arkansas Post. About noon, December 22d, the Planet, having on board the Eighth Missouri, closely followed by the Westmoreland with the Fifty-fifth, swung loose from the river bank and started down stream.
Here again there stretched out before the beholder one of those grand military panoramas never seen except upon the great inland waters. The swift flowing and majestic Missis- sippi was again troubled by the restless throbs of a great fleet, bound upon a historic errand; a mighty array of men that kept restlessly pounding along its forest-covered shores, until the river itself flowed "unvexed to the sea." To that
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DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI.
end these sturdy men of the Northwest, under leaders they had helped teach in the art of war, waded swamps, climbed rugged hills, dug trenches, stormed breastworks and fought the battles of a campaign now gloriously conspicuous in the history of the world. They so wrought that the Confederacy, like the vail of the temple, was rent in twain, and from thence they turned toward other and distant fields of conquest. They carried into use all the existing arts of war, discovered new principles and invented new theories and applied them to the practical purpose of saving a great republic; and when they had done, they left the Union safe and the science of war enriched by a multitude of valuable discoveries.
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