USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. I > Part 34
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
hills, lost themselves in tangled wildernesses, and at the best were full of logs, stumps and stones. Battery and wagons creaked and groancd after the toiling beasts of draught; count- less times they stuck fast in the mud, obliging the men to throw down their knapsacks and put their shoulders to the wheel. At night no tents were pitched, and sleep round the log fires was short. When the moon went down and the woods grew dark, the bugle called the tired sleepers to their feet and to the march. The way now gradually grew smooth and open, progress became rapid, and at dawn the beautiful town of Huntsville, the key to the coveted railroad, lay sleeping and defenceless before their eyes. Captain Simon- son placed his battery in position on a convenient eminence, while the infantry and cavalry continued their swift and silent march. Suddenly the stillness of early day was broken by a steam whistle and the roar of a rapidly moving train. At the sight of the Federal force, crowding on steam, the train rushed off at the highest speed, easily distancing a party of cavalry which, with singular simplicity, started in pursuit. Simon- son's guns were brought to bear upon the road, and another train, with one hundred and fifty-nine passengers, was cap- tured before it was under full headway.
Colonel Turchin now hastened into the town. Three horsemen, boldly galloping in advance, found a large number of Rebel soldiers sleeping about a train, and captured one hundred and seventy of them, including a Major, six Cap- tains and three Lieutenants. The citizens of Huntsville, roused from slumber by the clatter of horses and the cries of soldiers, rushed to their windows and doors, and stood in speechless dismay as they beheld in their streets the Stars and Stripes, and the blue uniform of the North.
The Thirty-Seventh Indiana immediately occupied the city as guard, and Colonel Gazlay, who, in March, succeeded Colonel Hazzard in command of the regiment, was made Provost Marshal.
By this sudden and unexpected stroke, General Mitchell captured not only the enemy's chief military road, but a con- siderable amount of artillery, and seventeen locomotives, with a great number of passenger and freight trains. Making
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MARCH OF THE FORTY-SECOND.
immediate use of his rolling stock, he took possession in less than five days of nearly one hundred and forty miles of the road, extending his force to Stevenson on the East and to Tuscumbia on the West. At Decatur he captured the entire camp equipage of a regiment. His guns, when fired at Tus- cumbia, were distinctly heard by Halleck's army on the field of Shiloh. Seldom has so great an enterprise been accom- plished with so little expense of time, suffering or life. Not a single life was lost.
While Mitchell's advance was thus proudly established in Huntsville, and along the railroad, the Forty-Second Indiana which formed his rear and guarded his communications. was still far behind. Its movements may be best related in the words of Major Shanklin, extracted from private letters:
" We left Nashville March 18th, on the turnpike leading to Franklin. After three or four miles we were overtaken by an order from General Buell to turn back and join General Mitchell's division, on the Murfreesboro turnpike. We met an Ohio regiment from Mitchell's division going over to take our place in Crittenden's. Both regiments were greatly dis- pleased. Our regiment likes Crittenden; he is the most modest, unassuming, perfect gentleman you can find; retiring, kind, conscientious, with a high sense of honor. He said as he pressed my hand, 'God bless you!' He had already parted with an entire brigade which had been with him all the winter, and to part with us was adding the last straw to the camel's back. All felt sad at leaving our pleasant acquaintances in the brigade, and going among entire stran- gers. The only consolation was the prospect of being under Dumont, but now we hear that he is ordered to Nashville to command a division on the way to that place. We marched about seventeen miles a day, being one day behind the bal- ance of Mitchell's division. The roads are magnificent; the country is beautiful. Cedars grow in great abundance. The soil is very rich. Clear streams, rushing over stone or gravelly beds, abound. On each side of the road farms which were once fine, but now are abandoned to stubble and weeds, reach acres and acres. Some of the residences and grounds have been adorned and cultivated to the highest degree. Away
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
off in the distance I could see the blue hills, which, I think, must be spurs of the Cumberland, with the blue haze of spring gathering around them.
"The Union sentiment in Nashville improved greatly while we were there, but along the road we saw very little. The people have fled, frightened by lies about our devastation. Occasionally negroes come to us for protection, and I, for one, never intend to force them to go back. An old black woman came into camp the other day with pies to sell, old fashioned turn-overs, which made me think of my boyish days. One of the men asked her if there was any poison in her pies. 'No, indeed, Massa,' said she; 'there is no pison in dem pies. I knows de kind of soldiers to pison.' Coming along the road we met a man on horseback, who inquired if we had seen his two runaway niggers. We told him there was a couple of stray negroes among our men somewhere. We were halted at the time for a rest, and he passed along down the regiment, which was standing on the slope of a hill; espying the negroes he made them come out, and drove them at a full run up the hill, urging his horse fairly on them, and cursing and hooting after them, striking at them as they went. Will you believe it? We all stood there and saw him do it without lifting a finger. It was a brutal affair, yet there we stood, each waiting for the other to interfere. No one but Colonel Jones really had the right to stop him. He scemed to have forgotten his Republicanism, and the man was allowed to drive and ride down the panting negroes right past us. The last I saw of him he was, after having driven them some distance ahead, tying their hands behind them to lead them to their homes (?) again. I felt ashamed of myself after they had passed, and do not think I shall ever see any member of the human family treated so brutally again withoutinterfering. As the regiment moved off after the flying negroes the band struck up 'Yankee Doodle.' I thought how old Robinson would talk if he had witnessed or should hear of the scene. 'Jones!' he would say, then rubbing his nose a minute or two he would repeat, 'Jones, umph! Denby, umph! Shanklin umph! Nice men; oh, yes, nice men!' We are camped about a mile from Murfreesboro, in a beautiful place, cedar
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CAMP AT WAR-TRACE.
all around, a swift, clear, little stream in front. Very cold and a little snow. Perhaps we shall have to remain here two weeks, until the bridge, burnt by the Rebels, is rebuilt."
April 13th, the Forty-Second was at Shelbyville, from which place Major Shanklin writes:
"At last I have been in a battle, not large, but an exceed- ingly desperate and bloody contest, where the killed and wounded, in proportion to the numbers engaged, fall but little, if any, short of the great battles lately fought. One week ago to-morrow General Mitchell ordered three regiments of our brigade, under Colonel Lytle, to march, and our regi- ment to remain behind, part at this place to guard Govern- ment stores, to be forwarded to his division by the Rilla road, and the balance at a little place called War-Trace. The object in occupying War-Trace was to guard two bridges, about three miles apart, on the railroad, which, if destroyed, would endanger the transmission of supplies.
" The General ordered that two hundred, under a field officer, should guard the bridges, and Colonel Jones deputized me with four companies, I, K, B and C, amounting to one hundred and ninety-seven men, to go to War-Trace which is- about eight miles from Shelbyville. We started on Monday, and arrived about nine P. M., the roads being exceedingly rough and stony. War-Trace has three or four hundred in- habitants. We encamped between the bridges half-way, and sent out men to guard each bridge, so that my force in camp was not one hundred and twenty-five. The first three days were delightful. We found good Union citizens, who kept us supplied with fresh butter, eggs, bread and turkeys, and
at the cheapest figures. We were on a high piece of ground, covered with large timber, but open and clear of brush. Right: in front ran a swift creek, called the War-Trace, from a tradi- tion that the Indians traced their way along its banks in early times, when on the war-path, to attack the whites at Nash- ville. The ground descends a little towards the creek, then abruptly and with rocky banks twenty feet or more perpen- dicularly to the water's edge, making it impossible for a man to ascend. A road runs on the left of the position to the creek, and is cut out so that a bridge is thrown over the
27
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
stream. On the left of the road, going to the creek, is a large field. We were encamped on the right of the road, in an open woods extending far back to the right for a mile or more. It is a wild spot, well suited for guerilla fighting. I pick- eted my camp as carefully as possible, but having no cavalry could send out no scouts. Thursday night, about midnight, I was roused by a sentinel, who told me that a man wanted to speak to me immediately. I struck a light, and John Douglass, a good Union man, who lives in the neighborhood, entered the tent. He stated that four or five hundred Rebel cavalry had encamped near his house, only four miles from our camp, that he had seen their fires, and that a faithful, intelligent negro had been close to the camp and estimated their numbers. I rose and dressed myself, aroused the men, had them load their guns and retire sleeping on their arms, sent out Captain McIntyre with Douglass to reconnoiter, and roused the officers. We all sat round a camp-fire and passed away the small hours. After a while I heard through the darkness a sentinel challenge, 'Who comes there?' and the answer, 'Friends.' Who should appear but Captains Atchi- son, Cooper and one or two others. The down train had run off the track between War-Trace and Shelbyville, and they had come out to see if we knew why. They said that Colonel Denby had sentout Sanders and his company on horses as scouts, and that the men we had taken for Rebel cavalry were undoubtedly our own scouts. I thought it might be true; still I sat up and watched. The officers one by one went back to bed, and finally, about four, I went to bed. Cooper and the rest of our visitors went back to Shel- byville. I took off my clothes and put on my double-wrapper, fearing no danger whatever. I was partly awakened at day- light by reveille, and by hearing the boys, as usual, call ' Turn out,' ' Turn out.' Suddenly the noise seemed to grow louder, and I head a shout, 'They are coming, boys! They are coming"' and at the same time the crack of the sentinel's gun in the rear of my tent. The confusion grew rapidly. Isprang out of bed, pulled on my pantaloons, and ran out in my stocking feet. 'The bullets pierced my tent in more than forty places. I turned to see which way they were coming, and
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FIGHT AT WAR-TRACE.
saw their whole line not fifty yards off, running at full speed towards our tents, (officers' tents are always in the rear of an encampment.) I had a pistol in each hand, fired immediately at them, and running down to the quarters of the men I shouted for them to fall in. They ran out, some not more than half dressed, others not more than half awake, nearly all more or less bewildered. I shouted to the men to fall in behind some timber, which a cavalry company that had left us had cut down to protect themselves. They rapidly took their places and began firing. I then began to feel assured. 'The men brought their guns to bear with accuracy, and the effect was tremendous. The horses of the enemy became frantic. Three men were almost instantly killed, and many were wounded. Seeing their disorder, I, together with all the officers, who acted most manfully, urged our men forward. They advanced, cheering and shouting, from tree to tree, keeping up an almost incessant fire. The Rebels rallied, fighting close. After about thirty minutes they gave way, retreating in every direction. Our loss was four killed, five dangerously, thirty severely and slightly wounded. The attacking party said along the road, as we afterwards heard, that we were fifteen hundred strong, that they had killed one hundred and lost thirteen, besides many wounded. We knew of seven of their men being dead. It was a complete sur- prise, they having noiselessly let down the fences and got between our pickets and camp. My long wrapper with its fancy figures and red lining made me very conspicuous. One man says I looked forty feet high, and was the object of fre- quent shots, especially when coming from my tent between the two parties. One soldier says that I called to him as he was standing by a tree, and told him to shoot the man that was firing at me. I sent to Jones next day, and he to Dumont, for reinforcements, but there were none to spare, and Jones ordered me back to Shelbyville. I am very proud, from the bottom of my heart, of the noble conduct of the men."
After Major Shanklin fell back to Shelbyville, Mitchell ordered the entire regiment to repair to War-Trace, where it remained until the last of April, when it moved to Fayette-
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ville, about thirty miles from Huntsville. May 1st the Major writes from Fayetteville:
"This is one of the meanest secession holes in Tennessee. It seems that the only way effectually to stop guerrilla fight- ing is to hang all we catch and to burn the towns where the outrages are committed. I am struck with the utter desola- tion which hangs over the place. If a plague had visited the town it could not be more deserted or desolate. Every house is closed. Very few people are to be seen, and they look dark and gloomy. You can have no idea of how the towns look. It is not like a Sunday in our Northern towns, as some newspaper correspondents says. It is as though some fearful and terrible calamity had swept over this once happy land, leaving blight and desolation at every hearth and over every home. The dreadful horrors of war are visible on every hand. It was the same way at Murfreesboro, and even at Shelbyville, the people there not knowing but affairs might take a turn, and bring the secession army on them again.
" This county has sent two thousand into the army. One whole regiment, lacking a few, from this county was taken at Fort Donelson, and the men are now prisoners in Indian- apolis, Chicago and Columbus. Every day increases the intensity of the hatred felt by the people towards us. Every dead soldier brought home rouses a tenfold deeper hate against the Northern army.
" Yesterday there was a report in town that the Rebel General Johnston in Virginia had killed and captured fifty- seven thousand of our troops, that General McClellan had been cut- in two by a cannon ball, and his remains were at Richmond; that sixty thousand (they always get up their stories by thousands) of Halleck's army had been killed by Beauregard, and any number wounded and taken prisoner. Strange to say, many actually believe these foolish and absurd stories. I think more lies, and bigger ones, have been told in the South since this rebellion broke out than were ever told before since the creation of the world. It was by this extravagant lying that secession got its start, and having got the habit established the people find it impossible to quit."
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A WORD TO THE WISE.
Before closing the extracts from Major Shanklin's letters, the following passage, although not bearing on the war, may be introduced for the suggestion it contains on a subject which is of equal general interest:
"I long to see my dear little boy grow up to be a pure- minded, honorable man, a true gentleman. I know you will teach him all the little politenesses of life in your own gentle way. I should rather have him a finished, accomplished gen- tleman than what people usually call great or brilliant. These brilliant men generally have about them some way that is unpleasant, sometimes disagreeable. I think that the even- ness of temper and gentleness of manner which characterize , the true gentleman will, in the long run, accomplish more in the world than the showy brilliancy which all young men invariably strive after. There must be a new era in the manners and morals of this country. Our national misfor- tunes will humble us, and if they will only have the effect of destroying the 'Young America' spirit which has been so general over the land, they will accomplish one great good at least. The arrogance and vain boasting with which our people have been in the habit of treating other nations have gradually led us to be arrogant and boastful in private life, and now, that we can no longer be so arrogant to other nations, it may be that we shall become less so among ourselves."
The Forty-Second left Fayetteville at nine o'clock on the morning of May 29th, and reached Huntsville at nine the next morning, just a month after the Thirty-Seventh entered the town.
General Mitchell, who delighted to honor his soldiers, lost no time, after his division was established along the railroad, in making known his esteem and gratitude. The Govern- ment returned thanks to General Mitchell, and made him a Major General, and his command an independent corps, but sent him no reinforcements, while the enemy began to con- front him, to threaten the whole length of his line, and by way of Bridgeport and Chattanooga to menace both his rear and his communications with Nashville. His right, under Colonel Turchin, found the position at Tuscumbia untenable, and fell back, fighting all the way, to Decatur. Crossing the
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river here, Turchin burned the bridge, a railroad structure, behind him, and pursued the remainder of his retreat undis- turbed to Huntsville. Shortly after his retreat he was ordered to occupy Athens, where he came near falling into disgrace on account of depredations on Rebel property committed by his troops.
Hitherto the most scrupulous respect for propriety and law had controlled the intercourse of the soldiers with the citizens of Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. The long marches had been performed not only without any general devastation, but without injury to property, except in extremely rare cases. Exorbitant prices had been paid for food. Runaway slaves had been denied the refuge they sought, and returned to their claimants. Cabins, corn-cribs, hay-stacks had been strictly guarded. Hot secessionists laughed to see their flying property driven back to them, and sneered while they arrogantly requested protection for their orchards and their granaries.
Especially was this punctilious care for the enemy's pro- perty exacted by General Buell. His soldiers sometimes actually stood on guard before the houses of men who sat in doorways and cursed them. General Halleck and General Grant were little less strict in their requirements.
Even this picture, however, has its bright side. Near McClernand's encampment, at Pittsburg Landing, was a poor widow's house, before which guards marched day and night. It might be policy, it might be timidity, or it might be preju- dice which gloved the iron hand of power in its intercourse with citizen foes, but it was only beneficence which embraced . with a protecting arm the fatherless and the widow, imitating as far as it went in this direction the divine source of right- eous government.
General Mitchell's troops were kept so constantly employed that they seldom violated strict military law, except when exasperated beyond human endurance. And this was the case with the soldiers at Athens. They were fired upon from the houses, pelted with dirt by boys in the streets, mocked and spit upon by the women. Their retaliation went no further than the destruction of property, and if they were not justi- frable they were, at least, excusable. So seemed to think the
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THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.
Government, for while the court to which Colonel Turchin's acts were submitted, reprimanded him, the Administration at Washington made him Brigadier General.
April 29th General Mitchell surprised Bridgeport, and after a sharp engagement with the small part of the Rebel force, which, in spite of the surprise, made a stand, he took posses- sion of the only remaining bridge between Florence and Chattanooga.
His campaign was now ended. He occupied Huntsville in security, with the railroad extending from one end to the other of his lines. The Tennessee river lay in his front, and on its further side was all the enemy he anticipated. He reported to the Secretary of War: "All of Alabama north of the 'Tennessee floats no flag but that of the Union."
During the month of May General Mitchell sent out numerous expeditions against small bodies of Confederate cavalry, and several warm skirmishes took place.
When General Buell's army marched towards the South, General Negley's brigade was left behind, as was first stated, for the protection of Nashville, a work which required sleep- less vigilance and the exertion of military power in almost every direction. Under the orders of General Mitchell, Gen- eral Negley advanced with his force to Columbia, where he found five thousand sick of Buell's army. Disposing of these by placing a few in comfortable houses, and sending the greater number back to Nashville, he divided his troops among eight or ten different points, which it was important to guard. The Thirty-Eighth Indiana was sent to Shelby- ville, from which place it made frequent and rapid marches to intercept John Morgan's guerrillas. But infantry soldiers are at great disadvantage in pursuit of cavalry, and run as it might the Thirty-Eighth could never catch John Morgan.
On the 8th of May General Negley concentrated at Pulaski nearly all his forces, in order to surprise large troops of Rebel cavalry, which were collecting at Rogersville. On the 13th he left Pulaski, and marched twelve miles. Encamping a few hours, the troops then made a forced march of twenty-one miles in six hours. They surprised the Rebel pickets, but not succeeding in capturing them, the alarm was given and
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the enemy escaped. General Negley with his cavalry pursued to the river, but was obliged to content himself with destroy- ing all the water-craft he could lay his hands on, with arrest- ing all the manufacturers of cotton and woolen goods near Florence, and all the iron founders who had been working for the supply of the Confederate army; with exacting from them heavy bonds and their promise not to sell anything to the enemies of the Federal Government, and with levying taxes upon prominent secessionists to remunerate Union citizens for the losses they had been made to sustain by the enemy. The expedition was notafter all a failure, and General Mitchell did not by any means consider it such. He warmly thanked General Negley and the troops engaged with him.
General Negley had hardly returned to Columbia, when the gathering of Confederate cavalry before McMinnville became so alarming that he asked to be allowed to make a demonstration before Chattanooga, on the principle of carry- ing the war into Africa. He was confident that such a demonstration would collect at that point not only the troops in front of MeMinnville, but many of the guerrilla parties in middle Tennessee, and even General Kirby Smith with the force which was then holding Cumberland Gap.
He was right. Pushing forward hastily from Columbia he passed through Pulaski, Fayetteville and Winchester, where he dispersed a small force of the enemy and captured a few prisoners, and he reached the mountains in time to sur- prise General Adams' Rebel cavalry, with which he had a hand to hand fight, in a narrow lane, over broken ground. At Jasper the safety of his flanks was endangered, and he placed Colonel Sill's brigade at Shell Mound to protect his right, and a regiment at Battle Creek to guard his left and rear. He then ordered Turchin's brigade, which, with nearly all his division, Mitchell had placed at his disposal, to advance by one road on Chattanooga, and another brigade by another road. The attack was made on the 7th, and consisted prin- cipally of a heavy cannonade, lasting an hour and a half. The enemy was driven from his guns, three of which were seriously injured.
On the same night Kirby Smith, with five thousand men,
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FURTHER EFFORTS GIVEN UP.
arrived in Chattanooga from Cumberland Gap. General Negley had an equal force, and might have been successful in a continued attack, but "taking into consideration the exposed condition of both front and rear of our line to Pitts- burg Landing, the long line of communication over a hardly passable road, the liability of a rise in the streams, the limited supplies and the fact that the expedition had accomplished all he expected it to do," he determined to retire.
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