USA > Indiana > Greene County > Biographical memoirs of Greene County, Ind. : with reminiscences of pioneer days, Volume I > Part 2
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Soon after it went to Kentucky and went into camp at Calhoun, where it remained until February 12, 1862,
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GREENE COUNTY, INDIANA.
when it entered upon its march to Fort Donelson, partici- pated in that engagement on the 13th and 14th and lost in killed twelve, wounded fifty-two, and missing four. Later it marched to Fort Henry, and in the latter part of March was transported to Pittsburg Landing. En- gaged two days at Shiloh and lost in killed twenty-two, wounded one hundred and ten, missing ten.
After this engagement it was assigned to the Fourth Division of the Army of Ohio, under command of Gen- eral Nelson, and marched toward Cornet, and partici- pated in the siege of that place.
After the siege was raised, it moved with Buell's army through northern Mississippi and Alabama into Tennes- see. In September the regiment fell back to Louisville with Buell's army, and after Bragg was driven out of Kentucky it returned to Nashville. Its next battle was at Stone River on the 31st day of December, 1862, and January 1 and 2, 1863, where it lost in killed five, and wounded forty-six. On the 19th and 20th of September it was engaged in the battle of Chicka- mauga, under command of Colonel John T. Smith, sus- taining a loss of five killed and sixty-six wounded.
The regiment then crossed the Tennessee river and encamped at Bridgeport. While here, on the Ist day of January, 1864, the regiment reinlisted, and in February proceeded to Indianapolis on veteran furlough.
In the Atlanta campaign the regiment was in the
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Fourth Corps and participated in many battles and skirmishes. After the capture of Atlanta it followed Hood's army to Pulaski, Tennessee, still in the Fourth Corps, and on the 15th day of December, 1864, par- pated in the battle of Nashville, where it sustained a loss of ten killed and thirty-three wounded. After the battle it followed the enemy as far as Huntsville, Alabama, and returned to Nashville, where it remained until after the close of the war. In June and July, 1865, the regiment moved with its corps to New Orleans, and joining Sheri- dan's army was transported to Texas, forming part of the army of observations until December 8th, when it was mustered out of service.
The engagements in which any of the regiment were killed or mortally wounded were Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Resaca, Stone River, Chickamauga, Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, Pine Mountain, Chattahoochee, Marietta, Jonesborough, Atlanta Campaign, and Nashville. The regiment was present at Fort Henry, Perryville, Hoover's Gap, Smyrna Station, Franklin and many other smaller engagements.
The number of reported killed are one hundred and twenty, wounded three hundred and twelve. The proba- bilities are that a considerable number of those reported as missing in battle were killed. The regiment is classed as one of Fox's fighting regiments.
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GREENE COUNTY, INDIANA.
FORTY-THIRD INDIANA REGIMENT.
On the 29th day of August, 1861, Company C, Forty-third Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, was organized 'with Elijah Edington, captain; Henry Roach, a Mexican war soldier, as first lieutenant, and Joseph A. Burcham as second lieutenant.
The regiment was organized at Terre Haute on the 27th day of September, 1861, with George K. Steele, as colonel. Soon thereafter it moved to Spotts- ville, Kentucky, and from thence to Calhoun, where it re- mained in camp until the latter part of February, 1862.
It was then transferred to Missouri and attached to General Pope's army, engaging in the siege of New Madrid, and Island No. 10. It was afterwards detailed on duty with Commodore Foote's gun-boat fleet in the reduction of Fort Pillow, serving sixty-nine days in that campaign.
This regiment was the first Union regiment to land in the city of Memphis, and with the Forty-sixth Indiana, constituted the entire garrison, holding that place for two weeks, until reinforced.
In July it was ordered up White River in Arkansas, and subsequently to Helena. In December it marched to Grenada, Mississippi, with Howe's expedition, and on its return to Helena accompanied the expedition to Yazoo Pass.
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At the battle of Helena, on the 4th day of July, 1863, the regiment was especially distinguished, alone supporting a battery that was three times charged by the enemy, repulsing each attack, and finally capturing a full rebel regiment larger in point of numbers than its own strength. The gallantry of the regiment on this occasion was to a great extent over-shadowed by the sur- render of Vicksburg on the same day, and the resting on the laurels of Gettysburg after three days of heavy battle. The regiment took part in General Steele's cam- paign of Little Rock, and aided in the capture of that place. On the Ist of January, 1864, the regiment re- enlisted at Little Rock, the veterans remustered num- bering about four hundred. In March it moved with the expedition of General Steele from Little Rock, which was intended to co-operate with Bank's Red River expedi- tion, and was in the battles at Elkins Ford, Jenkins Ferry, Camden and Marks Mills, near Saline River. At the latter place on the 30th of April the brigade to which it was attached, while guarding a train of four hundred wagons returning from Camden to Pine Bluffs, was furi- ously attacked by about six thousand of Marmaduke's cavalry. The Forty-third lost nearly two hundred in killed, wounded and missing in this engagement. Among the captured were one hundred and four of the re-enlisted veterans. After its return to Little Rock the regiment proceeded to Indiana, on veteran furlough, reaching In-
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dianapolis on the 10th of June. Upon its arrival the regiment volunteered to go to Frankfort, Kentucky, then threatened by Morgan's cavalry, and remained there until the Confederate forces left central Kentucky. On its return the regiment had a skirmish with Jesse's guerillas near Eminence, Kentucky.
Upon the expiration of its veteran furlough, the regiment was detailed to guard Confederate prisoners, at Camp Morton, and remained on that duty until the close of the war.
FIFTY-NINTH REGIMENT.
In December, 1861, Company E, Fifty-ninth Regi- ment, was organized, and Aden G. Cavins was commis- sioned captain; Benjamin S. Brookshire, first lieutenant ; Merritt C. Taylor, second lieutenant. About the same time Company D was organized with Russell A. Belden captain, Andrew J. Mason first lieutenant, and later Gib- son C. Brandon second lieutenant.
Later Captain Cavins was promoted to major of the Ninety-seventh Indiana Regiment, and Lieutenant Osbon was commissioned captain of Company E.
The regiment was mustered into the service for three years on the IIth of February, 1862, at Gosport, In- diana, with Jesse I. Alexander as colonel.
On February 13th the regiment was ordered
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to New Albany. On the 18th it left on transports for Cairo, and arrived there on the 20th, and on the following day embarked for Commerce, Missouri, and was the first regiment to report to General Pope for duty with the Army of the Mississippi. It was among the first regiments to enter New Madrid, and took possession of Fort Thompson at that place. On the 7th of April it crossed the Mississippi River and assisted in the capture of five thousand prisoners at Tiptonville. It returned to New Madrid on April 10th, embarked and proceeded with the fleet to Fort Pillow. It returned to New Madrid and thence to Hamburg, Tennessee, by transport.
From the 24th of April to May 29th the regiment was engaged in most of the skirmishes and reconnaissances during the march to the siege of Corinth, and after the enemy evacuated the city the regiment followed to Booneville, and then returned to the locality of Corinth. During the summer the regiment went on several expeditions, and returned to Corinth, and was engaged on the 3d and 4th of October in the battle of Corinth, and after the defeat of the enemy joined in the pursuit to the Hatchie River, and again returned to Corinth on the 10th of October.
The regiment was nearly always on a march or a fight. On the 2d of November it marched to Grand junction, thence to Davis Mills and Moscow, thence to Cold Water, Holly Springs, Oxford, Yocan River, thence
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back to Oxford, thence to Lumpkin Mill, thence in front of the rebel fortifications at Vicksburg, where on the 22d of May, 1863, the regiment participated in the assault, sustaining a loss of one hundred and twenty-six killed and wounded. The regiment at the time was in the Seventeenth Corps, General F. P. Blair commanding, and with it marched up the Yazoo River to Satartia, re- turning to its old position on the 4th of June, where it. remained until the surrender on the 4th of July, 1863.
The regiment remained at Vicksburg until Septem- ber 13th, when it embarked on transport and went to Helena, where it remained until the 28th of September, and then embarked for Mempliis. On the 5th of October went by rail to Corinth, thence to Glendale. On the 19th of October started for Chattanooga, and arrived there in time to take part in the grand victory of Missionary Ridge. On the 17th of December, began its return to 'Bridgeport, Alabama, where the regiment was transferred to the Fifteenth Army Corps, under command of General John A. Logan. On the 23d of December it started for Huntsville, Alabama, and while there the regiment re-enlisted as a veteran organization on the Ist day of January, 1864. After going home on veteran furlough the regiment returned to Huntsville on the 2d of April. Thence in June to Kingston, Georgia, where it joined Sherman's army, on its march to Atlanta. After several expeditions, one of which was in East Lawrence, after
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Wheeler's cavalry, on the 14th of November, it moved towards Atlanta, and shared the honors, dangers and vic- tories of Sherman's grand march to the sea, and finally participated in the grand review at Washington. The regiment was mustered out of service at Louisville, Ken- tucky, on the 17th day of July, 1865. It traveled by rail three thousand and seven hundred miles, by water four ' thousand six hundred and eighteen miles, and by land five thousand three hundred and five miles.
SEVENTY-FIRST REGIMENT, OR. SIXTH CAVALRY.
In August, 1862, Company H, Seventy-first Regi- ment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, was organized, and John J. Starnes was commissioned captain, John T. Owen, first lieutenant, and H. D. Watts, second lieu- tenant.
The regiment was organized at Terre Haute, and on the 18th day of August, 1862, it was mustered into service with Melville D. Topping as lieutenant colonel. Before the regiment was drilled, before they received their promised bounty, and before they were required by law to leave the state, at the request of Governor Morton, every man volunteered to go to Kentucky, which state was then being invaded by a large Confederate force. The regiment, with a few other troops, met an overwhelming
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force at Richmond, Kentucky, on the 30th of August, where Lieutenant Colonel Topping and Major Conkling were killed, the regiment sustaining a loss of two hundred and fifteen killed and wounded, and three hundred and forty-seven prisoners. Two hundred and twenty-five escaped. The prisoners were immediately parolled and returned to Terre Haute. After they were exchanged four hundred of them were sent in December, 1862, to Muldraugh Hill, Kentucky, to guard the railroad, and on the 28th day of December were attacked by a force of four thousand men under General John H. Morgan, and after fighting an hour and a half were captured and . paroled. They then returned to Indianapolis, where they remained until August 26, 1863.
On the 22d day of February, 1863, the regiment was authorized to be changed into cavalry, and became the Sixth Regiment, Indiana Cavalry. In October, 1863, the regiment was sent to East Tennessee and was engaged in the siege of Knoxville and active operations against General Longstreet, losing many men killed and wound- ed. In the spring of 1864 it was ordered to Mt. Sterling, and afterwards to Nicholsonville. On the 29th of April it left for Georgia and on the 11th of May joined Sher- man's army, then in front of Dalton, and was assigned to the cavalry corps of the Army of Ohio, under General Stoneman. In the Atlanta campaign, they participated in all of the cavalry operations, and were engaged at
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Tunnel Hill, Red Clay, Resaca, Cassville, Kenesaw Mountain and other engagements. The regiment aided in the capture of Altoona Pass, and was the first to take possession of and raise the flag on Lost Mountain. On the 27th of July it started with Stoneman on his raid to Macon, Georgia, and in that expedition lost one hun- dred and sixty-six men in killed, wounded and captured. On the 28th day of August it left Marietta and returned to Nashville.
On September 25th it left Nashville with Croxton's cavalry to assist in repelling the invasion of middle Ten- nessee by General Forrest. This expedition was command- ed by General Loval H. Rousseau, the same officer who was captain of the Mexican war company, raised in Greene county. The expedition lasted twenty days and resulted in the defeat of General Forrest at Pulaski, Ten- nessee, on September 27th, and his pursuit to Florence and Waterloo, in Alabama. At Pulaski the regiment lost twenty-three men in killed and wounded. On the Ist of November it started by rail to Dalton, Georgia, and on the 26th returned to Nashville; on the 15th and 16th of December it participated in the battle in front of Nashville and followed in pursuit of Hood's retreating army. It returned to Nashville on the Ist of April, 1865, and moved to Pulaski, with the Second Brigade, Sixth Division Cavalry Corps, Military Division of Mississippi. On the 17th of June
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part of the regiment was mustered out at Pulaski, Ten- nessee, and on the-27th of June the recruits were con- solidated with the recruits of the Fifth Cavalry, and they were designated as the Sixth Cavalry, and served under Colonel Cortland C. Matson in middle Tennessee until the 15th of September, 1865, and was mustered out of service at Murfreesboro.
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NINETY-SEVENTH REGIMENT.
The Ninety-seventh Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, was organized in the seventh congressional dis- trict in August, 1862, with Robert F. Catterson as lieu- tenant colonel. The regiment was largely made up in Greene county. Aden G. Cavins was commissioned major and later lieutenant colonel and colonel. The following companies were made up in Greene county : Company A, A. J. Axtell, captain; Nathaniel Crane, first lieutenant ; John Catron, second lieutenant; Company E, Thomas Flinn, captain; Joseph T. Oliphant, first lieu- tenant ; Elijah Mitchell, second lieutenant; Company C, John W. Carmichael, captain; Jacob E. Fletcher, first lieutenant ; William F. Jerrall, second lieutenant ; Com- pany G, Jolin Fields, captain ; William Hatfield, first lieu- tenant ; Henry Gastineau, second lieutenant; and part of Company I, and part of Company F.
The regiment was mustered in the service September 20, 1862, at Terre Haute.
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On November 9th it was ordered to Memphis, Ten- nessee, and was assigned to the Third Brigade, First Di- vision, Seventeenth Army Corps, and marched on several expeditions and finally went into winter quarters at La- grange, Tennessee. In June, 1863, it was ordered to Vicksburg and joined Sherman's army. After the sur- render of Vicksburg it pushed on to Jackson, Mississippi. The advance reached Jackson on the 9th of July, and there was constant skirmishing until the 16th.
The regiment returned to Black River, and after tearing up many miles of railroad went to Vicksburg, and thence by boat to Memphis. In October the regi- ment joined the army near Chattanooga Creek and en- gaged in the battle at Chattanooga on the 25th of No- vember, and at Missionary Ridge. They followed the retreating army to near Ringgold, and there were ordered to east Tennessee to relieve General Burnside.
After the retreat of Longstreet from east Tennessee they returned with the corps to Scottsboro, Alabama, and remained until the Atlanta campaign in May, 1864. At this time the regiment was in the Third Brigade, Fourth Division, Fifteenth Army Corps, under command of General John A. Logan. It moved to Resaca and en- gaged in battle on the 14th and 15th.
On the 27th it engaged the enemy at Dallas; on June Ist at the battle of New Hope Church; on the 15th at Big Shanty ; on the 27th at Kenesaw Mountain,
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where the regiment lost in killed and wounded seventy out of three hundred engaged. It was engaged in the entire battle of Atlanta, and on July 22d captured the Fifth Tennessee Confederate regiment, that being the regiment that killed General McPherson. It was engaged at Ezra Chapel on July 28th, and later at the battle of Jonesboro. On the Ist of September it reached Lovejoy, and on the 3d of October engaged the enemy in pursuit of Hood. On the 12th of November it started on the march to the sea. On the 29th of November it engaged the enemy at Griswoldville, Georgia; on the 8th of De- cember engaging the enemy at Little Oghuchu River; on December 21st it entered Savannah, and was present at the capture of Columbia, South Carolina, on the 15th day of February, 1865; on the 25th day of March it was at the battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, thence moved to Goldsboro, thence to Richmond, Virginia, thence to Washington City, and was on the grand parade and re- view. It was mustered out of service on the 9th day of June, 1865, at Washington City.
The regiment sustained losses of forty-six killed, one hundred and forty-six wounded, one hundred and forty-nine died of disease. It marched three thousand miles, lost three color bearers in assault on 15th and 27th of June, 1864.
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ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEENTH REGIMENT.
The One Hundred and Fifteenth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, was organized at Indianapolis, and mustered into the service for six months on the 17th day of August, 1863, Colonel John R. Mahan commanding. Company A was recruited in Greene county, with Spen- cer L. Bryan captain ; Merritt C. Taylor, first lieutenant, and Addison C. Sanders, second lieutenant. The regi- ment left Indianapolis September 16th, and proceeded through Kentucky to Nicholsonville. On September 24th it moved to Cumberland Gap, passing through Crab Or- chard, and reached Cumberland Gap on October 3d. On the 6th it marched southward, passing through Tazewell and across Clinch River, Clinch Mountain, and Holsten River, and entered Morristown on the 8th. On the roth it reached Blue Spring, where it met the enemy and drove them for fifteen miles. Then the regiment moved to Greenville. On November 6th it marched to Ball's Gap, where it suffered greatly from the want of food and clotl :- ing, so much so that the brigade to which they belonged has since been called "the Persimmon Brigade," on ac- count of the command living largely upon persimmons for a part of the time. During the winter of 1863 and 1864 until their term of service expired, they were in the moun- tains of east Tennessee, marching almost shoeless over rough roads, and endured many hardships. The regi-
GREENE COUNTY, INDIANA. 39
ment was mustered out of service in February, 1864.
This was the last organized company formed in Greene county. Before this time many of the boys of the county had gone into other regiments, and after this time some went as recruits to the regiments already formed, some as substitutes for drafted men, and some were allured into other counties on account of the local bounties offered.
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GREENE COUNTY SIXTY-NINE YEARS AGO.
BY HENRY BAKER.
Sixty-nine years ago, October 20, 1839, the parents of the writer, with their family of an even half dozen boys, came in wagons from Niagara county, New York, by way of Indianapolis, to Greene county, Indiana.
The state was only twenty-three years old, new and wild, and Indianapolis was less than twenty years old, with a population of less than two thousand; the first state house was then new and was the pride of all the state.
Sixty-nine years ago was eight years before the first railroad was built in the state, and thirty years be- fore the first railroad was built in Greene county. How vast the difference! The first telegraph line in the county was in 1870. Prior to that date all messages had to go and come by the old horseback mail routes, through the dense woods and wild prairies, as best the way could be found from one point to another, since all the roads went the nearest way and on the best ground, regardless of lines, and all rivers and small streams had to be ferried or forded. Costly bridges have long since taken the place of cheap ferry boats and puncheon bridges.
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GREENE COUNTY, INDIANA.
Sixty-nine years ago the entrance price of what was known as congress land was one dollar and a quar- ter per acre, and what was known as canal land two dol- lars and fifty cents an acre, and swamp land was twelve and one-half cents per acre; there were thousands of acres of the latter in Greene county that no one wanted at any price. This same land, after ditching and tiling, is now the best land in the county. At the date re- ferred to not one-half of the land in the county had been entered, and not one-tenth part had been fenced for cul- tivation.
Land was cheap and there were thousands of acres of the best land in the county on the market waiting for buyers. It is notable that the last entries of land was the best land in the county, and this also held good in most all parts of the state. Labor was cheap, and the average farm hand could get only about five or six dol- lars a month, working from ten to twelve hours a day, in clearing and plowing among the trees and stumps, a thing that but few farmers have to do now, all of which was hard work in the strictest sense of the term, and he who saved his hard earnings could have at the end of the year money enough laid by to enter forty acres of congress land and some to spare at five dollars a month, and many a young man in this way secured a farm that made him and his chosen life partner a pleasant home and a good living in their old age. Most all of the tim-
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
bered land was covered with the finest saw timber known in the history of the state, the best of which, at saw-mill prices, was only about fifty cents a hundred feet, and with but few buyers. Now, the same grade is worth five or six dollars a hundred feet. Not sixty years ago the biggest and best poplar, white-oak and walnut trees would sell from one to two dollars a tree, according to the locality; they would now be worth twenty-five or fifty dollars a tree.
Most of the houses in the county were log houses and required but little lumber in the building, and many were built without any kind of lumber in the construc- tion, some without nails or glass. The old-time puncheon floors and clapboard doors were common, and were a great saving in the lumber in the log cabin homes of the early settlers. All the first houses of the early settlers were built in this way for many years, as the nearest place to get lumber was at Vincennes, Terre Haute, or Indian- apolis, and until waterpower saw-mills sprung up on the creeks, early in the twenties, the first of which was the grist and saw-mill of Colonel Levi Fellows on Plummer creek in Plummer township, now Taylor township, that supplied the lumber for the country for many miles around and also made the meal and flour, doing away with the hominy block, the hand mills and horse mills that cracked the corn from which "dodger" and pone bread were made.
A good horse or a good yoke of oxen would sell for
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about twenty-five dollars each. Oxen were then used for heavy hauling more than horses. Two horses or two yoke of oxen would pay the price of forty acres of con- gress land, or four hundred and fifty acres of swamp land. Who wouldn't wish for the prices and times of sixty or seventy years ago, when a very little money had to go a long way? When the average farmer's tax for a whole year was about five or six dollars-not one- twentieth part of what it is now? And this was when men were honest and grafting was scarcely known.
In the spring of 1861 the writer entered the last forty-acre tract of canal land at two dollars and fifty cents an acre in Fair Play township, and the first year's tax was ninety-three cents, and the cry was hard times.
Sixty-nine years ago there were only two mail routes in the country and those were horseback routes, and only once a week. One was from Sullivan to Bedford, the other from Washington to Point Commerce, both by way of Bloomfield. What pay the mail carrier and post- master received is not known to the writer; it is not likely that any of them got to be immensely rich. So meager was the pay of the postoffices that postmasters had to be almost drafted into service. The postage on a single letter as twenty-five cents. The writer has a few let- ters bearing the date of 1839 that have the mark of twenty-five cents, which he is keeping as a relic of olden times. There were no stamps or envelopes in use at that
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