USA > Illinois > The story of the Fifty-fifth regiment Illinois volunteer infantry in the civil war, 1861-1865 > Part 25
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
On the first day of September, Major Tilden paid the reg- iment, and a few days later, recognizing the commercial opportunity, a sutler arrived with the usual miscellaneous assortment of goods, in the interest of Shreves and Andrews of Fulton county, Illinois. September 14th the regiment went across the Big Black upon a foraging expedition, but met with no noteworthy adventures, and because of the in- tense heat of the day failed to find this picnic-to-order par- ticularly enjoyable. September 19th Governor Yates visited the camp and was received with the honors due to his high station. On the twenty-second, in the afternoon, our summer quarters were abandoned, and we moved to the railroad bridge over the Big Black to take the place of some troops of General Osterhaus's division, which had been ordered up the Mississippi. Here we laid out a new camp in an open feld near the railroad. Not far away was an extensive en- campment of colored refugees, wards of the government. Of this motley aggregation of dusky humanity, just emergent from the condition of marketable chattels, Captain Shaw was made provost-marshal-an honor he evidently did not crave, but bore with his customary quiet dignity. On the twenty-fifth again marching orders came, and two days later the regiment moved to Vicksburg, fifteen miles distant, with all its camp property.
This march was through a doubly-desolated land. Every
270
FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
corn and cotton field was smothered with rank weeds; houses were windowless and chimneys often houseless, where but five months before rich planters led easy lives of luxury, the envied of the land. Now the proud wives and daughters of these men, little better clad than their former slaves, were perhaps fain to receive their daily bread, doled out by an U. S. commissary.
Arriving at the steamboat landing, we found the Ohio Belle assigned to the regiment and began embarkation. We learned that our division, then under command of Brigadier- General Giles A. Smith, together with the Fourth Division, under Brigadier-General Corse, were ordered to re-enforce the Army of the Cumberland which General Bragg, having driven with a superior force from Chickamauga, had caged: in Chattanooga, and was now taming by a process of slow starvation. The next day was spent in loading the fleet and making a tour of the city, which most of the regiment had never before seen save from the swamp camps at Young's Point. The old bastions, rifle-pits and siege works had all been leveled, and a much shorter interior line of forts was in process of construction, suitable for the occupation of a small garrison. Rank vegetation had already concealed many of the wounds of the siege in the rear of the city; but the graves in the "Valley of Death," the shattered roofs in the town, the countless little caves in the slopes of the hills, and the heaps of rubbish and unsightly debris of abandoned camps, were eloquent of the bloody: work of May and June.
Twenty-five years have run away since the stirring events occurred which the pen has tried to faintly outline in this and the preceding chapter. The veteran revisiting Vicks- burg, however familiar he may have been with localities, will vainly strive to recognize many of them in the changed face of nature. The city itself stands upon its hundred hills as of old; but it is another city than that so obstinately defended by Pemberton's army. The Mississippi no longer rolls a turbid current at its feet; only a sleepy bayou stag- nates in the old channel, and commerce has retreated for its landing three miles to the south. Young's Point is unrecog-
271
THE UNKNOWN DEAD.
nizable; the region about Chickasaw Bayou is a tangled wilderness; the nobly wooded hills have been long robbed of their timber, and the Graveyard Road is no thoroughfare. Upon the bluff just above the city, where the right of the Fifteenth Corps rested on the river, is the beautiful National Cemetery. Among its army of the great majority, these five only of nearly forty belonging to the Fifty-fifth, who laid down their lives for their country in the region round about, have memorials inscribed with their names; and but one of these fell before the bastions of Vicksburg.
LEVI T. HILL, Co. A. Sergt. KELLOGG, Co. E. GEORGE W. BONE, Co. F. H. LENHART, Co. A. J. LIGHTFOOT, Co. E.
The many others lie among the "unknown" or sleep in forgotten graves. No, not forgotten; even though undis- tinguished by verbose epitaph or pretentious marble. Their patriot blood was not shed in vain. Their lives offered in willing sacrifice, and the lives of such as they, are the conse- crated foundation of the nation regenerate- the very corner- stone of the new republic. For it was the self-sacrificing manhood of the rank and file, borne upon the resistless tide of national feeling, that in spite of narrow politics, vacilla- ting strategy and sanguinary generalship, overwhelmed the desperate rebellion. The true heroes of the war were not those whose eulogies were loudest proclaimed, nor those at the passing of whose catafalques city streets were draped in black; but the humble volunteers of the ranks, in whose souls the flame of patriotism burned bright and pure, without taint of ambitious self-seeking; who, albeit hopeless of reap- ing renown or rising to exalted place, and always facing the probability that the last of earth to them would be a name- less grave, yet abandoned ease, possessions, home, youthful aspirations, love, to protect for posterity the constitution which our fathers had built at great cost.
"These died that we might claim a soil unstained Save by the blood of heroes; their bequests, A realm unsevered and a race unchained. Has purer blood through Norman veins come down From the rough knights that clutched the Saxon crown, Than warmed the pulses in these faithful breasts ?"
-
?
CHAPTER VII.
THE CHATTANOOGA AND KNOXVILLE CAMPAIGNS.
S SEPTEMBER 29th, bidding a glad good-bye to Vicksburg, we began the journey up the Mississippi, from frequent repetition familiarly irksome to us all. That night and the next day the boat halted at Greenville, while a supply of wood was collected in the rain. The consumption of fucl had been so enormous everywhere along the river, and the interruption of the wood-chopper's industry so general, that it had become necessary to haul fence-rails or other fuel from some distance to the shore, for the use of transports. This labor frequently consumed as much time as the real journey. Our advance was but slow, partly on this account ond partly because of the very low stage of the river. Reaching Helena on the night of the second of October, we halted to secure a supply of coal. Continuing on our way the next morning, the boat struck hard and fast upon a sand- bar about twelve miles below Memphis, and we worked ineffectually hour after hour to get released from it, until the steamboat Metropolitan came to our assistance, and pulled us off in time to reach Memphis after dark on the fourth. In the morning the regiment marched out to the site of its camp of 1862, near the fair grounds, and set up tents. Two days were now given us wherein to rest and renew our ac- quaintance with the city. We found a year had changed Memphis from a half-deserted town in which the spirit of rebellion was insolently rampant, to a busy, prosperous mart
3
273
PURSUING CAVALRY.
where Northern capital and Northern men throve apace in trade, although it must be confessed not always by purely patriotic or wholly honorable methods. The over-anxiety of the government to relieve the cotton market had opened the way to much illegitimate commerce, and "the Israelites spoiled the Egyptians" without much consideration for Mo- saic or the United States laws.
On the eighth we began our long eastward journey. Marching from camp at break of day, the regiment found at the station a long train of box-cars loaded with army stores. Mounting upon the tops of these at ten in the forenoon, we left Memphis, the paradise of Jew sutler and Gentile siren, behind us. Our first day's travel, however, was brief, ending at Moscow because of a break in the track beyond. The rebel cavalry, well led, active and bold, were scouring the whole region bordering the railroad between Memphis and Tuscumbia; the population left in this territory was for the most part bitterly hostile, and the problem of keeping over one hundred miles of track in good working order was a serious one indeed. Not only had every bridge and culvert to be carefully watched and protected, but single rails were often removed at night and concealed. Trains were there- fore compelled to utilize daylight only, and to run slowly at that. By a singular accident the regiment temporarily lost its colors during this trip. The flag, carelessly displayed on the top of the car, got caught in an overhanging telegraph wire, and was torn from the color-bearer's grasp. Fortu- nately it was recovered and forwarded to us the next morning. We proceeded on the train to LaGrange during the afternoon of the ninth, and went into bivouac about a mile beyond the village, where we remained until Sunday, the eleventh.
On the morning of that day we were temporarily attached to General Sweeny's command of the Sixteenth Corps, and set out in pursuit of a force of rebel cavalry reported to be a day's journey south. We marched until dusk, when news came of General Chalmers' assault upon Colliersville, where he nearly captured General Sherman and staff, and we hur- riedly marched back six miles and went into bivouac. Octo- ber 12th, being about eighteen miles from the railroad, we 18
-
274
FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
learned of Chalmers' defeat, and turned south towards Holly Springs, marching until about noon, when ne halted at Hud- sonville. The next day we made a reconnaissance south for about eight miles, returning to Hudsonville for the night. October 14th we proceeded through Holly Springs and about ten miles beyond. A year before we had visited this locality for the first time, and remembered it as a beautiful town, with numerous tasteful residences, evidently the abode of cultured and wealthy people; while the region round about abounded in signs of prosperity. Now the whole face of nature seemed changed. The place was a slovenly ruin, and the fenceless fields far and wide were barren wastes. On the fifteenth and sixteenth we turned through Chulahoma, and by way of Byhalia marched to Colliersville. The next day we mounted a train for Corinth, and on the eighteenth reached Iuka. Here the regiment was assigned to the First brigade, com- manded by General Giles A. Smith, a change altogether agreeable to us. Here, too, we received Springfield muskets in exchange for our heavy but trusty Dresden rifles.
The regiment was detailed to unload the stores from the cars upon the army train. A car was discovered partly filled with sutler's goods, which the owner had managed to smug- gle along in direct contravention of General Sherman's orders. As this stock in trade had no place in the military trains, the boys in unloading began to distribute it where they thought it would do the most good. While the sutter was profanely remonstrating and trying to secure his property, General Sherman chanced along, and to him the angry man appealed for help. He received a characteristic response: "Neither you nor your goods have any rights here. My or- ders were that only army stores should be shipped in these cars. You have stolen transportation belonging to these men, while they have had to make a forced march. You are served just right." The general rode off, while the welkin rang with cheers, and the crest-fallen sutler retired to figure up his profit and loss account, and make out his claim upon government.
Our six-days' scout in pursuit of cavalry, from the fatigue and constant exposure in a malarial region, had caused an
275
CHEROKEE STATION.
alarming amount of intermittent fever among the men. The daily cases of "chills" were counted by the score, and several seriously ill were left behind at Iuka. Among these were Captains Shaw and Brink. The former recovered, and joined us after three months of fever and slow convalescence; the latter died there, October 31st. Even among the stalwart groups of soldiers in the Fifty-fifth, Vincent E. Brink was a striking figure, and his upright, vigorous physique was fitly matched by moral worth and noble qualities of heart. Be- fore he received his first commission he bore the colors of the regiment.
On the twentieth we marched as rear guard behind the division train sixteen miles to Cherokee Station, just across the Alabama line, reaching it after ten o'clock at night. In advance we found the troops of Generals Osterhaus and John E. Smith encamped. At this station Francis P. Fisher re- ceived his commission as first-lieutenant and adjutant, was mustered in and entered upon the multifarious duties of that difficult and responsible position, for which he had peculiar qualifications by reason of his superior education and busi- ness experience. October 21st opened with rain and fog, and a proposed advance was delayed until eight o'clock. Soon after that hour General Osterhaus moving forward en- countered the Confederate forces under General S. D. Lee. The rebel cavalry appeared clad in blue overcoats and suc- ceeded in getting near enough unsuspected to make a fierce charge upon the van, causing some confusion and heavy loss in one or two regiments. A sharp fight lasting an hour en- sued. Here were brought prominently into view at the rear, where we lay in reserve, the pitiful sights and sounds of the feld-hospital :- the operating-table never long without its pallid occupant ;-- the sufferings that could find no alleviation until the death agony ended them ;- the surgeons with hands and arms stained with gore, looking like so many butchers. Horrors that in the rage of the battle's front pass almost unpitied, at the improvised camp of the medical corps in the rear are too distressing for the most hardened to look upon unmoved. The enemy soon gave way, but the onward move- ment was at an end for that day.
----
276
FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
We remained at the railroad station until the twenty-sixth, when General Blair, who was in command of the three divis- ions present, ordered an advance. Our brigade started at five in the morning and formned the right flank of the battle-line. The enemy were found in force near at hand and resisted with artillery, but were slowly pressed back until late in the afternoon when they made a determined stand behind Little Bear Creek, about five miles west of Tuscumbia, holding a strong position, and we went into bivouac for the night con- fronting them. The next morning our brigade, with that of General Lightburn, were pushed out upon the left flank of the Confederates who retired precipitately after a short skir- mish, a few well-aimed shots from our twenty-pounder rified Parrotts adding to the hot haste of their departure. The country we were entering is pleasantly diversified by rounded hills, well wooded and watered, fertile and altogether attract- ive. Its farms and villages had a home-like look, suggestive of peaceful prosperity, pastoral and slumbrous. About noon we marched into Tuscumbia to find it nearly deserted, its numerous stores stripped of goods, its hotels inhospitably closed, and its neat white residences left in charge of a few women and boys or decrepid old men, who with sullen stolid- ity watched our entrance. On the twenty-eighth we moved back to the Chickasaw bottoms about sixteen miles, when we learned that General Sherman had resolved to cease further attempts to repair and use the railroad, and had determined upon a forced march on the north side of the Tennessee River.
October twenty-ninth carly in the morning the long roll summoned the troops into line and we were marched out from our camps about Cherokee Station two or three miles, to find that the rebel cavalry had made a dash upon the out- posts, probably to ascertain the Union position. On the thirtieth we set out in a pouring rain with the army train for Chickasaw Landing, fifteen miles distant, but the mules floundered about in the deep mire of the country roads, the wagons frequently stuck fast and had to be pried and lifted out of the sloughs, so that we did not reach the river bank until nine o'clock at night of the thirty-first. There we re-
:
277
A FORCED MARCH.
mained in such shelter as we could set up until November 2d, when we were conveyed by the Masonic Gem, used as a ferry-boat, across the Tennessee, and marched eight miles eastward to Gravelly Springs. The next day we proceeded seventeen miles, passing through Cypress Mills and Florence, and halting for the night within a mile of the last-named place. On the fourth, by a sixteen mile inarch, we reached Blue Water Creek, the way lying through the rich valley lands whose residents were bitter Secessionists and made little secret of the fact. November 5th we advanced fifteen miles to Anderson Creek, a persistent drizzle adding discom- fort and difficulties to the miry roadways.
The Elk River, which the van of the army encountered near Rogersville, was found only passable by ferry, and to avoid delay the column was turned to the north in search of a bridge. We took up the line of march regularly at half- past seven each morning, halted about noon for an hour or Jess wherever we chanced to be, and bivouacked near some crystal stream when the day's journey ended. Often when the roads were heavy and the way grew long -- when weary feet began to drag and sorely tried spirits lost their elasticity -- when the usual merry chat, banter, quip and laughter dicd away, and morose silence brooded over the marching column -then Fred Ebersold or Dorsey Andress would strike up "Tobias and Tobunkus," "Doctor Eisenbarth," or other jolly catch. -- German or English, it was all one to them -- and the jovial singers of Company I would chime in with the chorus. Or the chaplain, with full, melodious voice, would start somc familiar hyn, and Companies A and F, with others here and there, would join until the echoes woke among all the hills and woods around. And if thus hunger and thirst, cold and fatigue were not wholly charmed away, at least every heart and every step grew lighter, and the slow miles were more easily put behind us.
November 6th we marched fifteen miles in spite of a heavy rain, reaching Little Shoal Creek. The Fifty-fifth, sent out on picket upon a steep hillside, made an important capture of fifty or more rebellious pigs, after a brief but spirited skir- mish. This fresh meat acceptably cked out the half rations
1
-
278
FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
of hard-bread. On the seventh an advance of sixteen miles was made, the noon lunch and siesta being taken at Pulaski. On the eighth, sixteen miles more of our long journey were counted as passed, our course being directly cast through Bradshaw, and our night's camp upon a rocky ridge. The next day we made but nine miles, crossing Buchanan's Creek about noon. The following day, passing through Fayette- ville, we crossed the Elk River upon a fine stone bridge of six arches, and thence marched about five miles, bending our steps south again, although the direct route to our destina- tion lay to the cast through Decherd. This circuitous course was taken to avoid the mountainous roads and to strike a re- gion more likely to furnish forage for the animals. The two other divisions followed the railway line to the eastward. November uth our road lay through damp woodlands, then sombre-hued and depressing, for the glowing crimsons and purples which lately clothed the trees had mostly fluttered down and been woven by wind and rain into a russet-brown carpet beneath, already becoming mildewed and redolent of decay. The bridges were numerous and often insufficient for the safe passage of artillery, requiring to be repaired or strengthened, and causing vexatious delays; but we made fifteen miles. During the twelfth we made better progress, covering eighteen miles. About three in the afternoon we crossed the Alabama line, and our camp that night was south of Newmarket. The next day we increased our advance to twenty miles, reaching Paint Rock on the Memphis and Charleston railway.
We were among the picturesque foot-hills of the Cumber- land range-a veritable wilderness of unspoiled nature; but soldiers with blistering feet are rarely inspired with any sen- timental glamour about their pathway, however romantic; and empty stomachs joined with weariness of body are not conducive to enthusiastic appreciation of impressive scenery. The rations had become wofully deficient, and the incessant toil of the march began to wear upon men and animals. The route here turned to the eastward again. We had made a detour of over one hundred miles to reach a point but fifty miles away by the direct road, because of the unbridged Elk
2
279
A FORCED MARCH.
River. Following the railway, we marched on the fourteenth to Larkinsville, sixteen miles distant, and encamped near a considerable stream that comes to the light of day only to disappear, a "Lost Creek" forever, passing within a few hun- dred yards into subterranean concealment. Sunday, the fifteenth, we reached Bellefonte, an advance of fifteen miles. We moved on to Stevenson, a village of sutlers, at the junc- tion of the Nashville and Charleston railroads, through swampy woodlands, on the sixteenth, a distance of sixteen miles, and thence to Bridgeport, ten miles, on the seven- teenth.
At this point, where the Charleston railway crosses the Tennessee, was the secondary base of supplies for the Army of the Cumberland. Here the military stores, after a journey of five hundred miles over a single line of railroad, had to be transferred to wagons and hauled by mules over a wretched round-about mountain road, sixty miles to Chattanooga. As the path in some places lay beside the river, the south bank of which was occupied by the rebels, sharp-shooters con- stantly annoyed, and even interrupted, this difficult transpor- tation. Thousands of dead animals and broken wagons lay along the roadside, and with all diligence possible not more than half-rations for the men could be conveyed in this way. The artillery horses perished for want of food, or became too weak to move the guns. October 23d the reticent, iron- jawed conqueror of Vicksburg had entered Chattanooga upon crutches. In a week's time the army was receiving full ra- tions by the river and a shorter road on its south bank, snatched from the Confederates' grasp. By this route we were to enter the field of military operations, the great gate- way between East Tennessee and Georgia, thirty miles distant.
Having obtained much needed clothing and food, we con- tinued progress on the nineteenth. crossing the Tennessee upon pontoon bridges, and bivouacked that night at White- side Station, thirteen miles in advance. Our noon rest was at a little stream which flows from the mouth of Nickajack Cave. The Confederate authorities for a time had manufac- tured saltpetre here, and the remains of their lixiviating
1
28c
FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
works were yet to be seen. At this place we heard the booming of the artillery in Chattanooga. The next day, travelling through a rough mountain region, rich in bitumi- nous coal, we came to the base of Lookout Mountain and in sight of the enemy's pickets. The battle-ground of Wau- hatchie was passed, where on October 28th and 29th, How- ard's and Geary's men defeated in a night attack the superior forces of Longstreet, and ensured the permanency of the "new cracker line," which made it possible to hold Chat- tanooga. Near by were the elaborate camps of the Eastern troops, who had followed Hooker from the bloody fields of Virginia -- as we had come from the conquered citadel of Vicksburg-to relieve from siege the Army of the Cumber- land.
There was invariably a lively sharpening of wits when the free and easy Western men chanced to come in contact with the "brass-mounted" troops of the Potomac. We pretended to sympathize deeply with our compatriots from beyond the Alleghanies, in their grievous separation from good society and the luxuries to which they had been wonted. We volun- teered our condolence because they could no longer draw from the quartermaster rye straw for their beds and Day & Martin's blacking for their brogans. We expressed our earn- est hope that they might not be compelled to cat their hard- tack without butter. We said to each other, with simulated admiration, "What elegant corpses they'll make in those good clothes!" We prided ourselves upon not having a su- perfluity about us, not an ounce of weight that did not mean business -- the business of the campaign. While the knap- sack was light and clothes were of minor consequence, the gun and its proper accessories were always in perfect order and readiness, and the powder kept dry.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.