USA > Indiana > Annual reunion of the 36th Indiana volunteers: 4th-5th, 1887-1888, 7th-14th, 1890-1897 > Part 7
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a pig, turkey or chicken, or Jo Crews wanted a goose, to pray the Lord to send you after it. (Applause and laughter).
I recollect upon one oceasion when we were lying in camp down among the oak trees on the march from Nashville to Shiloh-we were there two or three days -- I was officer of the day while we lay in that camp. At the headquarters of the guard on arrival there at night I discovered that there was a great flock of turkeys up in the cherry trees, or pear trees-I did not look at the trees particularly, I know they were trees-but I did look particularly at the turkeys. It occurred to me that I ought to be a little soeial ; the boys in the guard quarters went to praying, and I went out on social duty. I entered that old two-story log house and engaged the old gentleman and the old lady in conversation about three-quarters of an hour. After the boys had been praying for a little while for the Lord to send them after those turkeys, they scud up those trees and I heard them take every turkey down from the. limbs. I don't know whether Gen. Grose got any of those turkeys or not, but I know I feasted well on them next day.
But I will tell you a eireumstanee that did happen the next day. After being re- lieved in the morning, on my way to my quarters, I passed the tent of Lieutenant- Colonel Carey. His negro servant had successfully prayed and the Lord had sent him out after some sweet potatoes, and he eame in loaded with them. Well, they were beauties. Going down toward my quarters, looking up toward the direction of head- quarters, I saw Col. Grose come out of his tent and walk in Col. Gross's peeuliar style, which I would know anywhere in the world even by the foot-fall if I could not see him, directly to my tent. When I came up to him he said : "Captain, Jaeobs is on his ear ; he is eursing the 36th Indianians as a set of thieves, and I am tired of this thing, and I am going to probe into it."
" Colonel," said I, " go down through my quarters and if you catch my men guilty of thievery, punish them to the extent of your ability." He turned and went down the quarters. As he left the tent, I remember looking through my tent, and I saw the boys come out of the first Sibley tent on the line, and they formed a eirele, and looking particularly I saw a fine shoat that would weigh about 100 to 135, and he was rather a beauty for that country. They closed in, con- tracting the eirele, and I saw that hog shoot through the tent-door of that Sibley tent. Col. Grose went down the line and entered that Sibley tent. Thinks I, " Boys, he's got you." After a little while he eame out of that tent and went on down the line ; then eame up the line of the next company. As he passed down the line of the third com- pany, one of the boys eame out of No. 1. Sibley tent and brought me as beautiful a ham as I ever saw in the South and laid it down on my table. (Laughter).
I said : " Jaek, you go up and tell Col. Carey's nigger to bring those sweet pota- toes down that I saw there this morning, and Col. Carey's nigger and you will cook those sweet potatoes and that ham for dinner." Jaek went up and brought down the other nigger and the sweet potatoes.
After awhile I went up to Col. Carey's headquarters, and he said: "Somebody has stolen my sweet potatoes ! '
" They have ?" said I.
" Yes," said he.
Said I, "Colonel, you come down to my tent for dinner; I have got one of the nicest hams there you ever saw, and that will supply the place of the sweet potatoes. But don't you tell Grose anything about it. Grose isn't in it."
Carey said: " Well, Captain, as I have no sweet potatoes, I will help you eat your ham."
So he came down to dinner, and Jack and that other nigger put that cooked ham and those sweet potatoes on the table, and Carey and I filled ourselves up with fresh ham and sweet potatoes, and talked about Col. Grose and Jake Hamlin. (Laughter).
(Turning to Gen. Grose). You never knew that before, Colonel. I thought it was a pity for you to die without knowing that.
I only want to talk a moment longer, boys, because you have to stand. I eannot stand, and consequently, I am seated, because I always take my seat with me, but unfortunately you have not brought yours. I want to say I am glad to look you in the faee again. If there is a body of men in all this broad land that fills all the place in my heart, it is the men that compose the immortal 36th Indiana Regiment, ( Applause). I love you all, I care not what your faults may be,-for some men of the 36th Indiana had faults. But with all those faults I love you, and you are enshrined in my heart,
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and no day has ever passed over my head since I severed my relations with the 36th Indiana some twenty odd days after the battle of Stone River, to this present day, but what I have thought along the line of that grand regiment and called hundreds of you in my mind by name. I do not know that I shall ever meet yon and look into your faces again; but, comrades, I think of the roll calls that you answered to in company quarters from Camp Murphy all the way down along the line. You were prompt to fall in and answer. When the summons comes for us to hand in our resignations here and to stand in line over beyond the stream that we shall ford as we did Duck River- and it may be as cold as that stream was-on the other bank I want to hear you re- spond to your names in that roll-call, " Here !" all along the line; and I trust in God that in all the time of that land beyond we shall hold a reunion and camp fire that shall never end. (Applause).
Comrade W. H. Farmer addressed the assemblage as follows :
Comrades :
I am glad to meet you. I live in Christian county, Missouri, down in the lower part of the county. I have been there since the fall of 1866. I was one of the first men that enlisted in Company A. I was wounded by an accidental shot just west of the depot right here the day our company arrived. I recovered in time to join the com- pany at Jeffersonville.
I am glad to meet you all. I should be very glad if I could make you a speech, but I am not in the habit of that, and of course it is of no use to undertake anything I cannot do. I want to see you all before I leave here and talk with you individually.
Captain J. H. McClung spoke as follows :
Comrades of the 36th:
I want to say to you comrades what I can conscientiously and with knowledge of the hospitality which we shall receive at Liberty. There is no place in the State of Indiana at which the old 36th could receive a more hearty welcome, a more generous entertainment than in the town of Liberty. That little county, only 10 by 12, ten miles across and twelve miles long, sent three companies into the Union army : Com- pany G of the 36th, one in the 9th Indiana and one in the 69th Indiana; and also a company that afterwards went into the 16th Indiana, was in the West Virginia cam- paign under Major Bennett who was then captain of the company, the first company that went out from Union county, the 15th indiana. Afterwards the company was transferred, I believe to the 16th Indiana-such as re-enlisted. I can say that, know- ing what I do of the people and the comrades of Liberty.
Now, I wanted to say something in regard to matters that concern us greatly, vastly, as citizens as well as soldiers. I might say that I had hardly expected to be at this re-union. I was on a sick bed during the months of July and August, in fact have only been up about two weeks. I, however, am regaining my strength rapidly. I hope to regain it sufficiently to be well enough to be at the next re-union. I had written a few thoughts in regard to the present administration of affairs so vitally concerning us as citizens, as I say, and one thing particularly that is of far-reaching importance in its consequence to us as old comrades.
I am glad again to meet with you to extend and to receive a comrade's greeting. Recently from a sick bed I had hardly expected to meet with you on this occasion, but my improvement has been rapid and while I am getting well I hope to get well enough for the next reunion a year hence. There are many things at the present time con- nected with the present administration of our government that vitally concern us as 'citizens. and one thing particularly that is of far-reaching importance in its conse- quences to ns as old soldiers-to the men who bore the burden of the battle and gave some of the best years of their lives to maintain and perpetuate " a government by the people and for the people." I refer of course to the administration of the Pension De- partment under the orders and rulings of Hoke Smith, a son of a Confederate veteran, who could not better express his hatred for the men who marched through his State, "from Atlanta to the sea," under the folds of the flag that represents liberty to every in- habitant of the land, black or white, although that flag is an object of hatred to these Georgia Smiths. Now, I am not a pensioner-have never asked to have my name in-
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scribed on that roll of honor, because I am perhaps entitled to nothing under any law . yet framed, never having been wounded or contracted disease while in the service. But I am nevertheless in favor of all the pension laws we now have-and some more, though this point I have not now the time to explain or elucidate. I wish to express my utter detestation of the contemptible, unjust and outrageous treatment accorded to thousands of deserving comrades who have been granted by law a few paltry dollars for standing in the storm of shot and shell and receiving in their bodies wounds which they must carry to their graves, or for disease contracted by exposure night and day to all sorts of weather in a climate to which they were unaccustomed.
For these, comrades, and for the honor and integrity of the heroes who have pitched their tents on the shores of eternity, we ought all to plead-for living comrades that they may receive the treatment that their names and their services may not be belittled by cowardly traitors who by an awful calamity are temporarily called to administer the affairs of this great Nation. By Hokey, comrades, we ought to have the courage to declare " by the eternal " that such conditions shall not exist and the valor to see that they do not continue.
Comrade William L. Gibbs said :
Comrades :
There is a good deal more satisfaction in hearing boys talk than there is in hearing somebody make a speech ; and I would like to get you boys to talking more. Now, I had the impression before I came here that I could talk all day to the 36th boys, but when I get up here and look from here at yon I do not seem to see any. I see a lot of old pelters that do not look like the same crowd I expected to talk to. They are not boys anymore. I have to take a peep into their countenances to discover them-they are changed-and I have to draw on my imagination a good deal to make out that you fellows are 36th Indiana boys. You have grown old, grown decrepit. And then I begin to look a little closer at home and feel my own pulse and look in the mirror, and I find out that I cannot throw any stones, that I have gone the same way. Bnt there is something about it that is grand, after all, boys, isn't there, a reunion of soldiers, a reunion of a regiment. What is it that makes men come together from their distant homes to a reunion of a regiment. Very often we have men at a reunion of a regiment that have come a thousand or fifteen hundred miles from their homes. What is it ? There is something very peculiar about it. There is an attachment there that each one of us feels, whether we make a speech or expect to make a talk in camp fire or not. When we meet out on the corners or in the room or anywhere, then you can hardly call us down ; the chairman always has his hands full to get us still. . We are ready to make speeches then. There is a comradeship there. We bring it all np again, we live over those times, and we feel good. Yes, we feel grand over it, because it brings up a line of associations not only that touch the hearts because of love and friendship, but it brings up a line of associations that call to mind those who are not here today, who did not come back with us from the South ; it calls up the names of those men who were buried on the battle field or on their burying grounds all through the South. That touches us on another side of our nature. We recall again the suffering that men en- dured during that time. That touches us again at another point. And we recall that feeling of friendship, that confidence and trust in one another that was so necessary, -- absolutely necessary-to the successful company or regiment. And that touches us again. So, comrades, we are touched in the very best part of our being. That is what calls us together. There is no appeal nrade in this camp fire or in this regimental reunion of this or any other regiment-there is no appeal that strikes men from any side that is not honorable and just and holy and good. It touches them on the very best side, it stirs them clear up from the bottom of their hearts. Therefore there is something that calls us two, three, four, five or six hundred miles. Why, my whole family take an interest in this reunion. They say, " Why, yes, go." I begin to say that business matters are crowding, but the wife says, " No, go. You know how you will always regret it if you don't go." The boys say, " Yes, you must go." The wite told me last Sunday, when I was debating the matter whether to go or not, " Why, don't you know last fall before you went you were feeling poorly, you were complain- ing ; and you went down there and it acted like a tonic, and you were better for it. " Really," she said, " I want you to go ; you will feel better for it." And I feel that I
am better for it. I know that I shall feel better to go back home and think it is on that I have been here and met you, and if I had not come I should have pret tied it all winter. I told you when we were at Farmland last year that I was 250 or 270 miles from there, and that was as near as I could expect a reunion to come; that I was coming every year if I could, because I realized the fact that it would not be many years until we would not have any reunion ; it would not be many years until we conld hold a reunion of the few that were left in a very small room, and I could not endure to look over the register and find there was a comrade there that I had not m t. Every reunion that I have assembled with you I have shaken hands with some one that I had not met since we were discharged in 1864. I cannot afford it. There is some- thing that helps me; there is something that stirs up the very best in me; there i- something that makes me cling to you in such a way that I think it is good for nis own self. I cannot afford to miss it. There is something in it, boys, and we must not allow business ties and other ties to break in upon it. AH your families, I know, are like mine. They are interested in it. I brought up from a baby a boy who was nineteen
years old two years ago. He went with me tora neighboring station where I was to take the train to go to the reunion when you were at Hagerstown. After he had got me to the station, a telegram came for me calling me back to attend a funeral, as I am a minister. He said, " Unele Will, you are not going to do it." " Why," I said, " 1 shall have to go to attend the funeral" That yomis man sat there and eriod about it. He said, " Uncle Will, if you don't just deny some of these things, you will never get to see your comrades. You want to go; it is something you have looked forward to all summer; you have talked about it and thought about it, and now you are going to allow it to go by." I said, " Will, that is my call; my duty calls me there as my duty called me in the army. I attended to it then, and this duty cells me now." This boy tried to convince me that my duty lay the other way, that it was iny duty to go, and I came very near doing it, and afterward I regretted that he did not convince me of it right then. I am going to gor down into this part of Indians when ver Ican to shake hands with you, and look into your faces. Every time I come I realize that it may be the last time for some of ns, and I want to be here; I want to meet you when you are here; and I think that you feel just the same as I do. I feel that you are just as gliud to meet me as I am to meet you. There is that common feeling of fellowship about it, that we cannot afford to miss.
Not only here today do we meet Beth Indiana men, bot over bere is a 6th Chio man, a boy that grew up in the same town with nie, that went through our brigade with us. What a joy there is in meeting and shaking hands with those comrades!
So we are here stirred right from the very best part in us. We are here because we feel that we are among true men; feel that we live trusted these men, know what they were and therefore know what they are today. We are proud, as our General expressed it, that so many of the Both Indiana proved themselves good citizens, good men, who are worthy to live in any community and take a high place; and we are glad that so few did the other.
Boys, I am glad to meet you. You always make me talk when I come gong you. probably because I will. Now I would a good deal rather some of you fellows talked. If you have got anything to say that hits at me, why, I am not afraid, just say it: but I want to hear you boys make your expressivas. You say you are not used to speaking. Those fellows always make the best speeches, and when we who are somewhat used to speaking get the floor, we are loath to leave it. So I will quit.
Comrade C. E. Brown, of Company G, SOth Illinois Regiment, remarked: Gentlemen :
I am not of the 36th Indiana. I was invited to be with you. I came a good ways, not to see General Grose not the heroes of the 36th, but to see " Undle Billy and the boys." As I am one of Uncle Billy's orphans as we were called in the brigade, and 1. D. Streight's horse thieves, I am glad to meet with von. I would like to shake you by the hand. I could not speak a word when I shook hands with the good General yester- day ; the tears ran down my cheeks. But I want to say now. I am glad to be with you. I would not have come all these miles, if it did not touch my heart to meet with you, each and every one of you.
I am not used to public speaking, but I desire simply to express my joy at being
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with you. The sentiments that have been expressed here were put in hot language out in Nebraska, at a reunion at Grand Island, a week ago. There is going to be a great change there. We are not as bad as our sister State, Kansas. We stood in line, and Kansas will be along with us next time.
Comrade Dorsey Lennin, being called out, said :
Gentlemen :
I am not a member of the 36th Indiana, but of the 24th Ohio. But, as my name is carried in the 36th Indiana, I want to take all the 36th Indiana boys by the hand. I am already in General Grose's report. I was a boy then. I saved the colors in the battle of Chickamanga. I don't know that I would have done it if I had been older ; but I would do it today. I am proud that I was counted in the 24th Ohio. I am get- ting to be an old man now, but I thank God today that I lived from 1861 to 1865. This has been the grandest week of my life. It is the first reunion I have attended. I have met comrades this week that I had not seen for thirty years, and I tell you it has been a grand reunion for me, and I have resolved that as long as I live I shall attend all the reunions of the Grand Army. I want to be found ever loyal to the old flag, and if she ever falls down I will go and get her. And I am training up my sons to be just like their father, ready, when the flag is trailed in the dust to go and pick it up and carry it to victory.
General Wm. Grose addressed the meeting as follows:
Comrades :
I want to say that at Chickamauga I had an orderly from the 24th Ohio, his name I had forgotten. I got orders from the corps commander, General Thomas, to retire my command. We were holding our front, and had been holding it, and could have held it. But they had given the order on the right and on the left. After we had be- gun retiring, there was a branch of our battery away to the left a little isolated that I was afraid had not received the order to retire. I said: "Will any orderly volunteer to go back from this line and see that they get the order?" The enemy's shots were fly- ing thick. This little orderly from the 24th Ohio said: "General, I will do it," and away he went on his horse. I sat upon my horse waiting for his return, almost with my heart in my mouth, for I was fearful he would be lost. But he went and found the battery had got the order through another quarter and had retired at a little different route and had got out of the way of the enemy; and directly I saw him coming with his horse at full speed, the little bushes being cut around him with the artillery as he came. He came through safe. He was one of the gallant young boys-quite a young man.
There is another little incident I want to call your attention to, that I think you would like to hear about. Captain Woodard, who was captain of Company C would have been with us, but he is an invalid at home. He would have enjoyed our fellow- ship and friendship if he could have been here. He is advanced in years and feeble. His daughter is here.
I am glad to meet you here. It is a pleasure to meet you at every annual period, and if I am living and able to do so, I will join you at Liberty, Union county, next year. We are going down. Our mortality has not been large, though, during the past year. It has been small compared with many others. There has been no calamity upon us in any way. Let us take good care of ourselves and live as long as we can ; but particularly, when the roll-call comes, let us feel clear at heart that we can meet whatever is assigned to us. That is the duty of all at all times. I will repeat to you what I have said before. Nothing does me so inch good when I meet you in these annual reunions as that I see in your countenances that you are acting like men. You are not debasing yourselves ; you are not destroying yourselves. Now I want to read to you a few sentences of what I have written and printed. It will conclude all I wish to say to you.
Referring to some of the services of our regiment we may say, that on the 3d of May 1864, the regiment, with the army, moved forward from Blue Springs upon the remarkable Atlanta campaign of four months' duration, one hundred days under fire, to Tunnel Hill, Rocky Face; first with another regiment of the brigade to enter Dalton,
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close upon the enemy, thence to the bloody conflict at Resaca, Austanoola River, Adairs- ville, Cassville, Etawah, Pumpkinvine Creek, Pine Mountain, Marietta, Chattahoochee River, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, and around the Gate City to the Macon railroad and Jonesboro, in the center of the great State of Georgia, and the heart strength, and where lay the vital power of the Confederacy, where on the 3d of September, after this long. continuons battle, wherein it had assisted in driving the enemy from every strong- hold, for one hundred and fifty miles, over rivers and mountains, naturally strong military positions, including the noted Gate City, it was announced to your regiment : "Time out! Cease firing. You have served your country well during these long years of toil and danger." We would not say that you served better than any other regi- 'ment, but can safely say that none served better than the 36th Indiana volunteers.
The regiment, including 122 recruits, numbered in the aggregate 1,144 officers and enlisted men. From Shiloh to Jonesboro the loss is shown to be, in killed, wounded and missing, 486. This does not include those who died from other causes, of whom there were several.
At the reunion of the regiment in 1800, there were present 154 and letters from four others, and in 1891-2 a few less, with less favorable times for the meetings. The pres- ent reunion has to the present registered 182 and will probably reach 200. We con- clude from the foregoing, and other information, that there are yet surviving members of the regiment, over 300. The beauties in meeting these ex-soldiers and comrades, are to find them apparently thoughtful, sensible, sober members of society and worthy, use- ful citizens.
Will these soldiers and comrades ever forget each other, or fail to remember the wonderful spring time of 1861? Certainly none who felt its wondrous thrill. A day that inspired that era was well to be remembered for a life time. Our ears tingle yet with the sound of Sumner's cannon. How the wide land kindled with the flame of zeal, and the watchword rang out from sea to sea, "The Union Forever," We have no apologies to make for having rallied around our country's flag at the call of the.patriot Lincoln, nor for the long and perilous marches under command of Thomas, Sherman, Sheridan or Grant. We are not ashamed today of the canse that started us on these campaigns which cost the Nation so dear, whose bloody path crossed the width of a dozen warlike States and whose dark memories are perpetuated in half a million free- men's graves. The Union Soldier did his part and we remain willing to defend it.
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