USA > Indiana > New history of the 99th Indiana Infantry : containing official reports, anecdotes, incidents, biographies and complete rolls > Part 17
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It used to be said of General Logan that he could give more reasons why an order should not have been issued to him and at the same time execute that order better than any general in the army. He sometimes criticised but he never failed to execute.
It was the pleasure of the author to go over the works on Sherman Heights at Mission. Ridge, three years ago, with Comrade Daniel Summers, of Company I, and we found the whole line of works from those we made on the right clear around to those made by Light- burn's brigade on the left, almost as perfect as the day they were made. They have not been interfered with in any way and if preserved, will remain as they were for a hundred years or more.
The soldiers, if they had any regard for their chap- lain, always delighted to get a joke on him, and even to this day when a soldier tells you a funny incident on an officer, you may know at once that he has a high respect for him, for it is a fact that soldiers never laugh at, or about, officers they did not like. One night, at Fort Fow- ler, the chaplain was at the hospital until late, and had just gone to sleep and did not hear the alarm,-the beat- ing of the long roll,-and so, while all the rest went to the fort, he remained peacefully sleeping in the large tent outside. The alarm was found to have been caused by a sentinel shooting at a prowling cow, instead of a confederate, and all went back to their quarters and found the chaplain asleep. The colonel, half waking him, said, "Chaplain, there has been an alarm, you ought to have gone to the fort; you will get killed some night
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if you stay here." They tell it that the chaplain mut- tered a reply, "I don't care a d-n if I do, I am going to have some sleep." Now, the fact is, this is all true, ex- cept the "damn," but putting that in made a good story on the chaplain, and though he has heard the story told a good many times by members of the old regiment, he has never had the nerve to deny it.
The soldiers used to be great on geographical puns. A comrade complained about getting up one morning when a Company A man said to him, "Get up! and don't have that Snake Creek Gap on your Rocky Face, for if you do have a Crawfish Spring in your step, you've got to Rome to New Hope church to-day; get up!" A member of Company F, from the Wabash bottom, said of some of the poor soil in the hills of Georgia, "One would have to fertilize it to make brick of it."
The aggression and terriffic charges made by the con- federates and their slaughter on the 20th, 22d and 28th of July, at Atlanta, caused many of his subordinates to regard the tactics of General Hood as a failure. During the'close contact of the two armies after the 28th, there was at times some chaffing between the pickets, and on one occasion the following is said to be the exact colloquy: A Yankee picket called out, "Well Johnny, how many of you are left?" To this a Confederate replied, "Oh! about enough for one more killing."
A confederate soldier at Vicksburg was very hungry, but he refused to eat horse flesh, saying, "I shall have the night-mare if I do." "Try mule meat, then," said a comrade. "Then when I snore you'll say I'm braying."
A. F. Spaulding, of Company I, a musician, in a note, says:
"The worst place I was ever in was on May 15, 1864. After our regiment moved around to the right and took our place in line at Re- sacca, we were on the northwest side of the Ostanaula river, in plain sight of the town and the enemy. Our skirmish line had ad- vanced across an old "deadening," the regiment, in battle line,
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were on a hill overlooking the whole field. We could see the rebel skirmishers as they dodged from tree to tree, advancing their lines. As our skirmish line advanced we saw Frank Trainer, of Company F, badly wounded, shot through the shoulders, and he lay in a kind of a road exposed to the reb's fire all the time, and it was the hottest and wickedest skirmishing our boys were ever in. It was our turn with the stretchers, Paul Dodge, Alonzo Thorn, Wesley Davis and myself. From the time we left our works we were under fire from the rebel skirmish line and also from sharpshooters. Oh! it was awful how the bullets did hiss and strike around us when we got to where poor Frank was. Davis rolled him over and we got him on the stretcher. As we started back a Missouri captain in charge of the skirmish line called out, 'Who in h-1 sent you out here in such a d-d hot place after a dead man?' We said nothing but got back as soon as we could. I wonder where Frank Trainer is now, I never knew what become of him."
Comrade Breyfogle, of Company C, writes me:
"On the pursuit of Hood, Tom and Will Martin, Sylvester De- vall, Nicholas Beaver, James Vanover and myself, were sent out on a foraging expedition to a place called Center, on the Coosa river, when we encountered a body of rebel cavalry. It seemed that we were all gone, sure. Our only chance was to jump into the Coosa river which we did, and by doing our best we all got away except James Vanover. Poor fellow, he had to go to prison, but when he was exchanged was lost on the Sultana. It was a close call. I often wonder if those comrades are alive." [William Martin died in 1885, Sylvester Devall in 1892 .- Author].
Captain John C. Nelson of the 70th Ohio, who mus- tered out the regiment at Washington, is now and has been for many years an attorney-at-law in Logansport, Indiana.
Lieutenant John C. Parks still has the last star that was on the old flag, and a small piece of each color of the flag, and the fringe and tassel. Some pieces of the old flag are fastened upon the new flags which belong to the regimental association.
The musicians who were the "stretcher corps" in time of battle saw many sad scenes that others did not. One of them, A. F. Spaulding, in a letter says:
"One of the saddest things I saw was at Fort McAlister. My brother, Will, and myself were helping to gather up the wounded, and off in a clump of bushes we heard some one moaning, and on
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going there found a young rebel soldier shot through the lungs and dying. By him was his little brother not more than twelve years of age, and he was trying to raise him up. The dying man said. 'Oh, Johnny, don't! let me die just as I am.' He lived but a short time. We learned that the family lived not far from there and the little brother had been there a few days paying his soldier brother a visit, and as it was the fortune of war to see him die. The little fellow appeared heartbroken."
One of the saddest days that ever came to our country was the day that our brave captain, Lincoln, lay dead on the deck of the ship of state. The crew were mute and silent, but the wave of speechless agony that swept across their hearts was of the kind that overwhelms with the black flag of despair. O, sad, sad day!
The death of Gen. James B. McPherson, on July 22, at Atlanta was a source of great sorrow to all the men of the Army of the Tennessee. He was a brave and gallant officer only thirty-six years of age and had distinguished himself in many ways, having the true soldierly instincts that betoken military genius and success.
Colonel Berkey, under date of May 10, 1900, writes me:
"I wish to call attention to May 28th in front of Dallas. I had charge of the division skirmish line, with companies of 48th Illinois, 70th Ohio and two companies of the 99th and others. While on the skirmish line and within 100 feet cf the enemy, Captain Homan, of Colonel Oliver's staff, came near and called me and said, 'It was Colonel Oliver's orders that I should advance the skirmish line as far as I could.' I said if they went any further they would be cut to pieces, and he said, 'That was the orders and must be obeyed.' I advanced the line at once, but the firing was so heavy the 70th Ohio and 48th Illinois gave way and Companies A and B were flanked and the consequence was that Company B lost twenty-nine men killed, wounded and missing. The captain of Company B said that five men came up to me and ordered me to surrender, but that I suc- ceeded in getting away from them. I then ordered Companies A and B to fall back to the main line. On my way back I carried one of Company B's men on my shoulders. I mention this because it was thought by some that I had advanced the line on my own account, which is absolutely without foundation. During a lull in the fight- ing on July 28th, about 2 p. m., Captain Philips, of Colonel Oliver's staff, came up and said it was Colonel Oliver's order that the regi-
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ment should make an "open charge." I told him the regiment was ready if he gave the order. We charged out into the open field and fired every time we got a chance at the rebels. I found that we were alone, no other regiment in the brigade had gone with us, and both flanks of my regiment were exposed. I then ordered the regiment to, capture what men they could and get back into the works. We took back with us five commissioned officers and fifty-five men."
The burial of a soldier is one of the sad tasks of his comrades. When in camp it was always attended with more formality than after a battle, and in camp we could usually get a plain coffin. His shroud was his martial suit of blue, for how better could a soldier rest than with his soldier outfit upon him. He was borne from his quarters to the grave by four of his comrades, usually his messmates, the body preceded by the regimental band, and there are few echoes that wake the air with more doleful melody than the "dead march" as its minor cadences come from the roll of the muffled drums. Even yet its mournful symphonies seem to stir my heart, as I remember how it affected me as some loved comrade was borne to the grave. Following the band at the head of the coffin came the chaplain, and behind the coffin came the comrades of the departed one, often as devoutly sin- cere mourners as ever dropped their tears upon the cold and silent clay. Arriving at the grave the body is lowered into the tomb, when the chaplain with a few words of scripture, usually the twenty-third Psalm, be- gins a short address based upon the promises of God that inspire hope, pointing out the fact that God was too wise to err, to good to be unkind, and that out of all the sorrows of earth man should come to joy at last, that death is only the way by which we come into life eternal. A few words in regard to the life and character of the deceased, a verse or two of some familiar hymn, usually "Jesus Lover of My Soul," is sung, when the chaplain closes with a prayer, especially remembering the loved ones far away, who will sorrow so heavily when they hear that their soldier boy is numbered with the unreturning braves and will never come to his home again. The firing squad then fire three rounds over the grave and
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the company go back to take up the duties of life again, feeling in their hearts that the flag of their conntry is more dear to them because another comrade has died in its service. Many who died under the flag died also under the cross, and these two great symbols were to them the tokens of the great fact that the flag blesses man, while the cross saves him.
Lieutenant-Colonel W. V. Powell sends me the fol- lowing correction of account on page 106:
"Since examining the matter more fully I think I must be mis- taken about our firing on the rebel flag. All the rest of the account is true. The three companies, I, G and H, not only protected the flank of the 99th, but, as I believe, saved the 15th Michigan from capture.
The Indiana regiments in our division and their offi- cers became well known to us. The 12th Indiana, Colonel Reuben Williams was one of them. He was made briga- dier-general at the close of the war and is still living at Warsaw, Indiana, engaged in his old business of editing a newspaper. The author has met him and his regiment in their reunions a number of times and always had a de- lightful time. The 97th Indiana, Colonel R. C. Catter- son, was another. He was also made a brigadier-gen- eral and lived at St. Cloud, Minnesota, the last report I had of him. The 100th Indiana, Colonel Albert Heath was another. Of Colonel Heath I know nothing.
Not far from Elk river, Tennessee, the regiment halted at a cross roads, one-half on each side of the crossing road. When the order was given at the head of the column, it was not carried across the road so that only one-half of the regiment started. The adjutant being with the rear half soon discovered how it was and rode forward, saying, "Colonel, halt for a short time, half of the regiment has been left behind." The order to halt was given when the file leader of Company A shook himself like a horse and remarked, "Well, I thought the load pulled a darned sight easier than be- fore." The conceit that he was the lead horse of a team,
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was so ludicrous that it caused a hearty laugh and liv- ened up the weary marchers very greatly.
The capture of Atlanta was the greatest military cam- paign of the war. When Sherman's hosts invested Atlanta they were virtually 474 miles from their base of supplies, it being 186 miles from Louisville to Nashville, 151 miles from Nashville to Chattanooga and 137 miles from there to Atlanta. All the way from Louisville to Atlanta a majority of the population was hostile to his purpose and spies upon his line of communications. Perhaps the best tribute of the genius of Sherman was that of a confederate soldier when told that a tunnel had been blown up on Sherman's line, said, "That will make no difference, for he carries duplicate tunnels and bridges with him anyway."
Comrade A. E. Maxson, of Company F, sends the fol- lowing:
"After Atlanta fell, General Sherman ordered all citizens to go south and leave the city, saying in reply to the protest of the Confed- erate authorities, that after Vicksburg fell we fed their citizens at great expense while they were fighting us, now he proposed that they should care for their own people. East Point was selected as the place of exchange and 100 men of the Fourth Division of the Fif- teenth Corps was selected, one from each company in the 99th of which I was one, all under command of Captain Walker as a guard to preserve order. We met the same number of Confederates at East Point and made a joint camp, they on the south, and we on the north of town. We had good tents and plenty to eat, while they had no tents and poor grub, and our camp was soon a place of attraction to the Johnnies, many of whom took advantage of it to desert to our lines. One night'while on picket, I gave the opposing picket in- structions how to desert next day which he did. There was a spring that supplied both camps with water and there we could tell the Johnnies that the war was about over and they better quit, a thing a good many of them did. Long trains of cars and wagons arrived daily with old men, women and children, who were leaving their homes with their all in a little bundle they could carry with them. It was sad but some of the women were quite jovial. A party of women came to the spring while I was there for water, one of whom finely dressed in silk, was quite lame. I gave them water and asked the cause, to which she replied, "You uns throwed a lamp post an' it struck so near to me that I jumped and sprained my
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ankle." The lamp post was one of our long pointed shells. The boys in our battery gave me $85 in good Confederate money and I bought seventeen plugs of tobacco for them with it. It took about eight days to get all through, and the last thing was to exchange 1,000 prisoners. The contrast was very great-the Confederate pris- oners we turned over were in good condition and had plenty of ra- tions, the Union prisoners were bareheaded, barefooted, with only such clothing as they could make from grain sacks. They each had a piece of corn bread about two inches square, and said it was a day's ration. I went to my tent, got a box of crackers and threw it across the guard line It broke open and the crackers scattered, but the starved boys tumbled over each other in trying to pick them up. How happy they were to think they were so near home and plenty again. After spending ten days with the men we had been fighting for four months, we returned to our command near Atlanta."
The march of Sherman and his hosts from Atlanta to the sea was such a daring and brilliant achievement in the eyes of the onlooking world that it has in some meas- ure obscured the march of that same army through the Carolinas in the winter of 1865. If the Carolina march had been made first, it would have been the great event, for while the 99th marched over 400 miles on the Atlanta to Savannah tramp, they marched from February 1st to the surrender of General Johnston in North Carolina over 500 miles, or 513 miles to be exact, and the difficul- ties in the way of rivers, swamps and bad roads was far greater on the latter than on the former march. It is the first time a great deed is done that gives it the place of eminence and fame, but the soldiers who made the Georgia march and the Carolina march will tell you that in hardships, in trials and difficulties overcome, the Carolina march was much the greatest. The fact is that the poets and orators have selected the autumn picnic for their theme to the neglect of the dismal winter tramp.
One of the first things for every soldier on going into camp was to begin to sing, no matter whether he had been accustomed to sing or not. Song afforded a vent for exuberant patriotism, and no philosopher can ever compute the influence of song in the preservation of the union. The compulsory surrender on the part of the
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south of such patriotic songs as "The Star-Spangled Banner," "E. Pluribus Unum," "The Red, White and Blue," and others of like character was a source of great weakness to them as they were of strength to the union cause. The original secessionists of South Carolina had a very pretty song, "The Bonnie Blue Flag," but the chorus, "That bears the single star," made it inappro- priate as soon as the confederacy was born and put more stars upon it. They parodied it with the "Stars and Bars," but the yankees did the same by the parody, "Hurrah, for the brave old flag, that bears the thirty- four stars."
When the 99th entered the service public sentiment had advanced to the point that made song of "Old John Brown," a great favorite, and every soldier who could sing at all would come in on the chorus of "Glory, glory, hallelujah," with an unction and a vim that was exhiler- ating and uplifting, if not melodious in harmony. If one will analyize the first verse of that song as sung by the army in 1862-3, he will find that there is a sentiment that is plain and easy to be understood, and at the same time appealing to the loftiest flight of the imagination. The statement
"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the tomb, But his soul goes marching on,"
was an embodiment of sentiment in such form as to appeal to all hearts, the dull, plodding lethargist could grasp it and the fanciful sanguineist could expand it into the realm of poetry and see the spirit of the im- mortal Brown leading to the extinction of slavery the armed hosts of the union.
The other verses, as sung at the time, were more ex- pressive than poetical. The one
"We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree, As we go marching on,"
was only the outgrowth of the first in the expression of what the army would do under the inspiration of the hero of Ossowatamie. In the nature of the case it must be a "sour apple tree" for no other kind would do, and
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when the soldiers sang it, whether the meter required it or not, the emphasis was always on the word sour, and the voice was prolonged a little and the mouth assumed the shape that would be produced by eating a sour apple, and as I look back at it now it is rather astonishing how the hanging of Jeff Davis and the sour apple tree were so closely and so appropriately bound together.
The third verse had in it more of pathos to me than any of the others. The words
"His pet lambs will meet him on the way, As his soul goes marching on,"
were born of the tradition that he stooped and kissed a negro child while on the way to the gallows. The old phophecy in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, "He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young," coupled with the fact that nearly all his life John Brown had been a shepherd, and that he would shield the slave mothers and their little ones, always came before me when I heard the verse sung and the sentiment always caused the soul to vibrate with tenderness and tears.
Many other words have been written to this melody, but none to me the equal of the three lines, or verses, if you choose to call them such, for such they are by repe- tition, until Julia Ward Howe wrote the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
This was undoubtedly the greatest hymn born of the war. It is a great hymn because it links the ages in a song. It is great in simplicity and strength. The story of Eden and the sacrifice of Calvary swing into the mel- ody with the sweep of the destiny of the ages. I can- not forbear quoting them here:
"I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel, As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal, Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.
"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on."
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The hymn was but the expression of that great wave of justice that swept over the hearts of the people of the nation that led to the proclamation of emancipation by President Lincoln. On signing it he wrote, "Upon this act I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." It was the up- lifting of the nation to the level of the hymn. May the nation always remain on that high plane of justice and judgment.
While calling on General Sherman at Des Moines, Iowa, in company with a party of Grand Army men in 1884, I said to him in a sort of tentative way, for he was being much talked of at the time for president, "I think, General, that march to the sea ought to make a man president of the United States." He looked at me with a quizzical smile on his face and said, "Young man, do you know there have been twenty presidents of this country and only one march to the sea?" We saw the point, and turning his hand to the few scattering locks left on his head, he remarked, "The time was when you gentlemen could pull the wool over my eyes when you were hiding chickens, but you can't do it now with talks of president." After a pleasant evening we bade him good-night, and I never saw him alive again.
A comrade writing, in allusion to the old days, wants to know "what trumps is going to be ?" In response the chaplain would say, it will not be clubs, for clubs are used to fight with, and our fighting is all over; it will not be diamonds, for we are all too poor to wear any; it will not be spades, for spades are used to dig graves with, and we are not going to die yet; so it will be hearts, for it is with our hearts that we love our comrades, and so from this time forth with all the 99th men hearts will be trumps.
The years have gone but the soldiers love to live over again the days of trial, of battle and march, of camp and field, the days when they took an even chance with death for their country.
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