USA > Indiana > Reunion of the 9th regiment Indiana vet. vol. infantry association, 1892-1904 > Part 1
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ENEALOGY 73.74 N2ING, 892-1904
M. L
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01479 4314
E
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012
http://archive.org/details/reunionof9threg189204unit
REUNION OF THE
9TH INDIANA VETERANS VOLUNTEER INFANTRY ASSOCIATION
INCLUDING ANNUAL REUNIONS AND PROCEEDINGS 9 THROUGH 18
1892 - 1904
"A Grateful Nation will ever Weave Victors' Chaplets for her Braves."
Welcome ! Comrades,
TO THE
9th ANNUAL REUNION . OF THE.
NO
Veteran Infantry Association
TO BE HELD AT
RENSSELAER, INDIANA,
August 30th and| 31st, 1892
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
Maj. J. B. MIL.ROY,
Hon. D. B. MCCONNELL, P. M. BENJAMIN, Monticello,
٥٠٠ -
A. S. MCCORMICK, LaFayette,
Capt. AMASA JOHNSON, Plymouth,
Corresponding Sec'y, ALEX. I .. WHITEHALL, 308 Inter Ocean Bldg., Chicago, IlI. Recording Sec'y, Capt. D. B. CREVISION, South Bend, Ind. Treasurer, JOHN BANTA, Logansport, Iuf. f. 071
79 10557 2
2068839
NINTH REUNION
OF THE
INTH REGIMENT
INDIANA ::
Vet, Vol. Infantry
1
ASSOCIATION
-HELD AT ~~
RENSSELAER, . INDIANA
August 30th and 31st, 1892.
BARLOW-SINCLAIR PRINTING CO., CHICAGO.
-
Ko
Invitation.
DEAR COMRADE :-
You are most cordially invited and in fact earnestly urged to meet with dear old comrades once more in Annual Reunion to be held at Rensselaer, li Tuesday and Wednesday, August 30th and 31st.
A most generous welcome is promised us by our comrades of Co. G., and 1. citizens of Rensselaer. Let us remember that Jasper County gave us our first .. mental commander, the gallant Col. Robt. H. Milroy, afterwards a Major Gen by merited promotion, and rally at the home town of our brave leader in the e .: days of the war, and at the firesides of our worthy comrades of Co. G., and el their gracious welcome and have a right Royal Reunion of the old regiment o more, while the Supreme Commander suffers us to respond to the old time bu call of the dear old Ninth Indiana.
Arrangements have been made for excursion rates over the Monon Route, . free entertainment will be furnished to a large number of our comrades in the | pitable homes of citizens of Rensselaer, and a low rate will be secured at hotels those who prefer to stop at hotels.
Comrades: this may be your last chance to respond to. the Regimental I Call this side of Heaven, and don't fail to be there to answer "present."
Yours fraternally,
ALEX. L. WHITEHALL,
Cor. Sec'y 9th Ind. Vet. Inf y A.
Programme.
FIRST DAY.
FORENOON.
Comrades and their wives and children will report upon their arrival at the Hall of Rensselaer G. A. R. Post for enrollment and assignment to quarters, after which they will be at liberty until assembly at 2 P. M.
AFTERNOON.
Regiment will assemble at the Rensselaer Opera House at the sounding of the As- sembly Call by Regimental Bugler, John Lathrope, at 2 P. M.
2:10 P. M .- Call to order by the President. Invocation by Rev. T. F. Drake, State Chaplain Sons of Veterans. Vocal Music.
Welcome address by Hon. E. P. Hammond of Rensselaer.
Music by Rensselaer Cornet Band.
Response by the President of the Ninth Vet. Association, Major John B. Milroy, of Delphi.
Music.
Reports of officers and general business. Music by Band.
4:00 P. M .- Recess,
6:00 P. M .- Evening, Pic-Nic Supper in Grove at Court House, participated in by Ninth Regiment and the comrades of other regiments, and patriotic citi- zens. An old-fashioned out-door supper and reception in the shady grove.
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7:30 P. M .- Campfire at Rensselaer Opera House. Col. John H. Gould will open the Campfire with a short speech entitled "Hoosier Heroes," after which the exercises will be under direction of the President or such toast- master as he may detail, and the evening will be devoted to short speeches, singing war songs by the Glee Club and audience, Solos and Quar- tettes by Glee Club, Recitations, and Musical Selections rendered by the Rensselaer String Band and Cornet Band. To conclude with Taps by John Lathrope, Chief Bugler.
SECOND DAY.
8:30 A. M .- Roll call of members of the Association and additions and corrections to Roll of Survivors and the Roll of Honor, etc.
9:00 A. M .- Election of officers for ensuing year Fixing time and place of next meeting. Unfinished business.
10 A. M. - Regimental Sketch by Capt. S. P. Hodsden, "Ninth Ind. from Battle of Nashville to muster out at Camp Stanley, Texas.
II A. M .- Historical Address by Capt. Amasa Johnson, and short speeches from comrades, stories and incidents.
Adjournment at either 12 M. or 3 P. M. as association may at the time determine.
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Our History.
Philippi, Laurel Hill, Carrick's Ford,
Green Brier, Alleghany
Shiloh, Corinth (siege,)
Danville, Perryville,
Stone River, Woodbury, Chickamauga,
Lookout Mountain, Mission Rid Tunnel Hill, Buzzard Roost, Rocky Face, Resaca, Adairsville,
Cassville, New Hope Church, Picketts Mill, Pine Mountain, Kenesaw Mount. Marietta, Smyrna Camp Ground, Chatahoochie River,
Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta (siege,)
Jonesboro, Lovejoy Stat
Columbia, Franklin, Naslıville,
IN FOLLOWING SOUTHERN STATES:
West Virginia,
Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Mississi]
Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Arkansaw, Louisiana, Texas.
Information.
COMRADES :- It gives us pleasure to announce that the courteous managen of the Monon Route have extended to us the favor of an excursion rate of one & one third fare for the round trip from Hammond and Michigan City on the non Lafayette and Delphi on the south, and all intermediate stations between the . points during our Reunion to Rensselaer. Apply to your agent for an excur : ticket good from 29th of August till night of Sept. Ist.
Our comrades of the local Committee have been untiring in their efforts to n .. this reunion one of our most successful ones, and free entertainment for at least . hundred old soldiers and members of their family, is now assured in the hospital homes of Rensselaer citizens. Hotel rates will be reduced to 75c and $1 a day, a those wishing to stop at a hotel will get good accommodations at low cost, and t Pic Nic Supper in the grove on the first day, will be a most enjoyable affair, ... enable the comrades of the Ninth to mingle with very many Jasper County . soldiers, soldier chums, citizens, and their families, and have a good time socially
Comrades: bear in mind that as soon as you strike the Monon between any the points above named, you can. procure an excursion ticket. A full turnout is : much desired by the officers of the Association, and the good people of Renssel." who extend to the old Ninth a generous and hospitable welcome.
7
NINTH ANNUAL REUNION
-OF THE --
. Ninth Regt. Indiana Vet. Vol. Inf'y
Association,
HILD AT
RENSSELAER, INDIANA.
Aug. 30 and 31, 1892.
Many of the Veterans of the Ninth Indiana had a desire to hold a meeting of the Veteran Association at Rensselaer, the home of their first Regimental Commander-the late Major General Robert H. Milroy, and the home also of many members of Co. G of the Ninth. For some reason, but few members of Co. G ever attended former reunions of the regiment, and fewer still joined the Veteran Association; hence it was arranged at the reunion at Logansport last summer to "move on Co. G at Rensselaer in '92, and if possible capture the entire Company."
Pursuant to this plan the old Vets from the other nine Companies rallied at Rensselaer the morning of August 30th in pretty good force, and quietly went into camp for two days in the best homes of some of Rensselaer's first families. Ex-soldiers, patriotic citizens vied with each other in taking the old Vets in. That excellent recruting service was done is amply evidenced by the new membership roll of the Association.
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The forenoon of the 30th was as usual mainly spent in greeting the Comrades at the incoming trains and escorting them to the G. A. R. Hall, and there assigning them to comfortable quarters. Comrades Ezra L. Clark and Sam H. Howe and other resident Comrades and G. A. R. men busied themselves in placing the visitors in the homes of the open-hearted ex-soldiers and citizens who had volun- teered to entertain them.
After dinner had been dispatched the Veterans and their wives assembled for the exercises of the
AFTERNOON.
Bugler John W. Jackson sounded the assembly from the verandah of the Opera House promptly at 2 P. M. The Veterans and their families and friends repaired to the Opera House and secured seats while the Rensselaer Cornet Band played a couple of National airs.
Major John B. Milroy, the President of the Veteran Association, was introduced by Secretary Whitehall, and in the midst of hearty applause advanced to the front of the stage and announced that the afternoons exercises would be inaugurated with an invocation to the Supreme Com- mander, by Rev. T. F. Drake, State Chaplain of the Sons of Veterans. The reverened gentleman delivered a very im- pressive prayer, in which he thanked "God for the presence of so many of the battle-scarred veterans of the Ninth Indiana, one of the faithful loyal organizations sent out by Indiana to ,do battle for the Union and our homes, and especially thanked the Father for the lasting and honorable peace brought to our people and posterity through the heroic action and manly sacrifices of these Veterans and their Comrades, dead or living, made over a quarter of a century ago, and for the many great blessings that in the past quarter of a century have come to our reunited people, since the soldiers laid down their arms. God bless them one and all for what they did and dared and suffered, under the stars and stripes to preserve liberty and National unity. Our Heavenly Father, make them feel that as they
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now look upon the dear old flag with its added stars, that their heroic patriotism and grand loyalty has borne good fruit. Bless them and their families and soothe the suffer- ings of those who suffer wounds or disease as a result of their grand service for Union, Freedom, the right, and their and our beloved land of Liberty. Give them health, Oh Lord, to share the comforts of this life by them so richly and deservedly earned in the darkest hour of their nation's greatest peril, and may they live long to meet in these blessed reunions to strengthen anew the ties of brotherhood that were cemented on the battle-fields of this Republic from '61 to '65. Bless the President of these United States and all in authority, and help them to maintain spotless the fame of our fair land presented to us by the sacrifices and blood of these veterans and men like them, and preserve our beneficent institutions of our dear land, and eventually bring us to a home in Heaven."
Following the invocation the Rensselaer Cornet Band rendered a patriotic selection, and an address of welcome was then made in the language following, by Jasper county's honored and representative citizen soldier, COL. EDWIN P. HAMMOND:
"Comrades of Ninth Indiana Volunteers; I feel myself highly honored in being assigned the pleasant duty of ex- tending to you words of welcome, in behalf of the citizens of Jasper county, We feel it, indeed, to be a great honor that you have selected this as the place for your present reunion. . The Ninth Indiana holds a warm place in the af- fections of our people. Your first Colonel, afterwards, Major General, Milroy, than whom a more brave or patriotic man never drew a sword, was for years an honored citizen of this community. Your second Colonel, Gideon C. Moody, now a distinguished citizen of North Dakota, and recently one of its Senators in Congress, was at the beginning of the war a resident of this county, and its representative in the State Legislature. Company G of your regiment was composed almost exclusively of Jasper county boys. Our people there-
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fore had a personal as well as a patriotic interest in your regiment, and when we learned that you were to honor us with your presence at this time, we determined, if possible, to make the occasion pleasant for you as well as ourselves.
No regiment has a more glorious record than yours. Of the one hundred nnd fifty regiments this State sent to the war, only two, the 7th and 8th, were mustered into the service before the Ninth, and their muster in preceded it only three days. It was the first Indiana regiment to leave the State and enter rebel territory. The first man of the war on the Union side who fell in battle, Wm. T. Girard, killed at Laurel Hill, Va., July 7, 1861, was a member of Company G of your regiment. The regiment maintained its organiza- tion from the commencement of the war until its final muster out, which was more than three months after the close of the war, being in the service four and one-half years. Yours was a fighting regiment. You held no easy places in the rear. You did not act as provost guards of fancy Generals, who planned and fought battles far distant from their headquarters. On the contrary, your position was ever at the front, on the most advanced line, ready to encounter the enemy's outposts, and to assail his works. You knew what it was to charge, and to receive the charge of the bayonet. You became accustomed to the skirmish line and to the deadly conflict of battle, wliere contending armies strove for victory. The rattle of musketry, the booming of cannon, the explosion of shells, and the screams of the wounded and dying, became familiar sounds to your ears. You fought with the enemy in eleven States, you met him in over thirty engagements, and in the cam- paign against Atlanta, you were for one hundred days and nights almost constantly under the enemy's fire. I well remember your timely assistance at the battle of Chica- mauga. You were in that engagement two days and lost terribly, but the occasion to which I refer was towards evening of the second day. The 87th Indiana, to which I belonged, with 6,500 troops under Gen. Thomas, held a posi- tion on Horse Shoe Ridge. We were confronted by over
5
half of Bragg's rebel army, which made repeated and most desperate charges to dislodge us from our position, Had they been successful, it is believed our army would have been quite or totally destroyed. Our men, knowing the peril of the situation and supreme importance of holding our position, fought with a bravery, determination and des- peration scarcely, if ever, equalled in the annals of warfare. Our ammunition became almost exhausted and the means of supply were too far distant to be available. As a comrade fell, unheedful of his fate, those near him made haste to avail themselves of his remaining cartridges. In fact many of the men were entirely without ammunition, but with fixed bayonets, they stood on the crest of that ridge resolved that the enemy should never pass it, except over their dead bodies. Column after column of the rebel hordes were hurled against us, coming with murderous fire and with yells of anticipated victory. Each time they were driven back with frightful loss. But they would come again and again, each time approaching nearer and nearer, and with renewed determination, to drive us from our position. Just as they were within a few yards of our line and when victory seemed almost within their grasp, the Ninth Indiana, which had been detached from its own brigade, came to our assistance. It took position on the right of the 87th, and with a good supply of amunition, did most effective work. New confidence was inspired into our troops, and in this timely aid enabled us to hold the position until dark, when the rebels abandoned the attack. The enemy's loss in the afternoon of the second day of the battle of Chicamauga, in their attacks on Horse Shoe Ridge, was, in killed and wounded, 8,000 men, being one-half of their entire loss in the two days' battle.
I have to repeat that the Ninth Indiana was em- phatically a fighting regiment. There were over two thous- and regiments in the Union army. Of these, three hundred gained the distinction over all others of being fighting regiments. Among these three hundred, the Ninth Indiana is not only numbered, but stands well up to the front.
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Your terrible losses, both in battle and from disease, attest the severity of your engagements and the extreme hardships of your campaigns. One hundred and thirty-one of your number were killed or died from wounds received in battle, and two hundred and twenty-two died from disease, making your total death loss 353.
I have not been able to ascertain the aggregate number of your wounded, who survived their injuries. At Shiloh, your wounded numbered 153, at Stone River 87, and at Chicamauga 91; total wounded in those three battles 231. You lost in killed in those three engagements 41. If the same percentage of the killed to the wounded obtained in other battles, your wounded during the war, who survived their injuries, could not have been less than 600, making your whole loss of killed in battle, of deaths from disease, and of wounded who survived their injuries, about 950. This out of a total enrollment, from the beginning to the close of your service, of only 1,766 officers and enlisted men, shows a frightful loss. Over half of the number ever borne upon your muster rolls were killed, died from disease or received disabling wounds. And yet, after all, it is the mystery of mysteries how any of you escaped. How any man could escape from the storms of shot, shell and canister which you encountered at Shiloh, Stone River and Chica- mauga, seems a miracle quite as strange as any recorded in holy writ. The accidental discharge of an old musket or the explosion of an old anvil at a Fourth of July celebration is almost sure to be attended with mournful consequences. But when contending arinies, as at Shiloh, Stone River and Chicamauga, drawn up in solid ranks, meet each other face to face and pour into each other showers of deadly missiles, the wonder is not that so many, but that far greater num- bers are not killed. Talk about a grateful country, which but for these sacrifices would to-day be wiped from the map of the world, paying too much for pensions! There is not a man in the world, unactuated by patriotism, unless he desired to suicide, who would go and stay where, and per-
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form what you did, at any one of the battles mentioned, for this globe, if it were made of solid gold.
Beneficent as our government has been, beyond every precedent in history, it never has paid and never can pay its soldiery, who risked and imperiled everything they had in the world, even life itself, in defense of the stars and stripes.
You will on this occasion recur to many pleasant remi- niscences of your services. With all the sadness of war written in blood and in widows' and orphans' tears, there was much of it after all to remember with pleasure. The soldier was no hypochondriac. He made the best of life. He met the exgiencies of the day without fear and accepted its fate without a murmur. He was undismayed by trials and difficulties which, viewed in retrospect, appear to have been beyond human endurance. Yet he was cheerful, find- ing a sunny side and points for pleasanty in every changing scene, from the quiet camp to the hard fought battle. He did not look backward. He kept his head erect, he was not afraid to die. The soldier became a man of enlarged views. His services gave him knowledge of the world and of men. He learned to know the enemy better and to look at him from a different standpoint than that from which as a citizen he had viewed him. The blood thirsty anathemas hurled out against the rebels which he heard before leaving home, were forgotten. He came to know that war, terrible in its mildest form, had been stripped of the savagery and brutality of ancient times and was now conducted upon principles consonant with the advanced civilization of the day. He knew that the killing of an enemy, except in honorable war- fare, was a crime against the laws of God and of men. Many instances of this beneficent humanity came under my observation, as I am quite sure they did under yours. While we were in front of Atlanta our works and those of the enemy not being more than one hundred yards apart, midway between the two, in front of our brigade, was a spring of clean, cold water. Sometimes the fire from the musketry and batteries of one side would open up on the
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other, which would be responded to with equal fierceness, and this would continue until the side which commenced the firing ceased. In these encounters few casualties to the men occurred on account of their protection behind their works. During the cessation of hostilities, men, few at a time from each side, repaired to the spring in the ravine for water, and there held friendly conversation with each other, our men trading the rebels coffee for tobacco. During this time also, the men of both sides sat, stood and walked on top of their respective works in full view of the opposing force without fear of danger. When we received orders to commence firing, our men called to the rebels, "Get behind your works, Johnnies, for we are going to commence shoot- ing," and so, too, when the rebels received like orders, they called to us, "Get behind your works, Yanks, for we are going to commence firing," and not a gun would be dis- charged until this order was obeyed; and you may be sure that it was an order that was obeyed with great alacrity. And as soon as the firing ceased, the men of both armies resumed their exposed and friendly attitude towards each other. Now, if a man on either side had disregarded this accommodation, and during the tacit truce had fired upon a man on the other side in his exposed condition, it would have been such a shocking spectacle of humanity, as I doubt not, would have called for severe and summary punishment at the hands of his own comrades. But no such instance of barbarity occurred.
Yes, indeed, the Union soldiers learned to know the enemy better. While condemming his course, he could not help admiring his endurance, zeal and bravery. He knew that the rebels were guilty of treason and by the laws of our country deserved death, but he knew also that it did not appear so to the rank and file of the rebel army. Hood's ragged, hungry, barefoot soldiers, living upon sorghum cane and acorns, and fighting with entire unconsciousness of the meaning of the word fear; Pat Cleburne riding his skeleton horse twenty paces ahead of his lines right up to the mouths
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of our guns-such men could not be despised. We hated their treason but respected their bravery. When a man will die for an idea, we may hate it as much as we will, but we cannot help admiring the man. To say that the rebels fought with a bravery never excelled, not only states an un- questioned truth, but states a fact which adds to the laurels of the Union victory. To have whipped a pusillanamous set of ragamuffins, numerous as they may have been, would have given no credit to our arms, but conquering the men whom we did conquer must forever remain the greatest of military achievements. There is no discount upon the courage of American soldiery, and their common heritage, belonging alike to both armies, must forever remain the pride of every American citizen. Let us hope that, if its exercise should unfortunately ever again be called for, it may be turned against a common enemy and never again employed in fratricidal strife.
But you have not assembled to-day to listen to long speeches. You meet to keep alive and to renew the friend- ships formed in the army; to entertain yourselves with remi- niscences in which you bore a personal part. The memory of those days is most sacred. As the years go by those memories become more dear, and your feelings to each other more and more tender. You accomplished a great work. Never was sword drawn in a more sacred cause than that for which the Union soldier fought. You saved your coun- try. These words have a meaning greater than we can comprehend. We are beginning slightly to understand their meaning. When we were in the army we did not know for how much we were fighting. Had we known it then even as well as now, it would have given us greater courage in defeat and greater joy in victory. But looking back over twenty-seven years, and witnessing the wonderful prosperity of our country during that time, we begin to realize the magnitude of the cause for which we fought. When you went to the army in 1861, eleven states had, as they claimed, withdrawn from the Union, had set up another government,
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and had raised another flag. Then four and one half millions of human beings were in bondage. You brought those states back to their lawful allegiance. You destroyed that flag, so that to-day it only remains an emblem of the lost cause of treason. Once the proud banner under which a half million of men in arms defied the power of the Nation, it is now so fallen and disgraced that it dare not in any part of the republic be brought to light without causing a patri- otic storm of indignation to sweep from one end of the coun- try to the other. The three and one-half millions of bonds- men were made free and elevated to citizenship. The pros- perity of our conntry is unsurpassed in the history of the world. We have more intelligence, more liberty, better laws, better homes and the people are better clothed and fed than any other people on the globe. For all this we are indebted to the valor and patriotism of the soldiers of 1861 to 1865. Nay, more, the force of our example is felt everywhere. Every government in Europe is becoming more liberal. The rights of the people are being extended; and I firmly believe the time is not far distant when republican govern- ment will everywhere take the place of monarchy and kingly rule.
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