USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. I > Part 36
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March 11th, with five days' provisions, and without tents;
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427
A RECONNOISSANCE.
and wagons, a reconnoitring party of seven hundred and fifty, in which were included parts of two companies of the Forty-Ninth, started over the mountains by way of Big Creek Gap. General Carter was in command, and the second officer in rank was Lieutent-Colonel Keigwin, of the Forty- Ninth. The troops clambered among the rocks all night of the 13th, at daybreak attacked a camp of three hundred of the enemy, and took tents, horses, mules, wagons and twenty prisoners. Moving on to Jacksonborough, only thirty-seven miles from Knoxville, and to Fincastle, they at each place repeated the attack, and each time with a like result.
On this expedition the troops which belonged to the Six- teenth Ohio and the Forty-Ninth Indiana went close to the Gap. "And I saw," writes an officer of the Forty-Ninth to his wife, "for the first time a Rebel army,-men pretending to be Americans,-in arms against their country. About five hundred marched out of their camp to their works, and of all the ragamuffins I ever saw that crowd would take the pre- mium.
"In company with General Carter and ten or twelve others I went so close to their works that I could hear them talk, and by the aid of a glass could distinguish every marked feature, even the stars on their accursed flag, count their cannon, and carefully examine their entire fortifications. Their works were full of men, as busy as ants in a sand-pile.
"After we had spent the entire afternoon in leisurely exam- ining their fortifications, we dropped back three-quarters of a mile and bivouacked on a small oak ridge, in full view from the Gap. We could plainly see their watch-fires, and our boys soundly slept, with four thousand Rebels within four miles.
"Many of the Rebels are undisciplined troops, lately enlisted, and poorly armed. Their cannon are small, not by any means equalling ours. The position they occupy could be made very strong, but I don't think it is impregnable to men actuated as ours are.
"The Union men of the adjoining counties in Tennessee are still flocking to our army; nearly two thousand five hun- dred have joined since we came here."
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
The reconnoissance was so successful that it was deter- mined to make a direct attack upon the fortifications, and on the 21st of March nearly three thousand troops left the ford for that purpose. In skirmishing the Rebels were driven back, but no impression was made on the fortifications by a fierce cannonade, and the attempt was abandoned.
In April the Forty-Ninth was greatly reduced by sickness, which owed its origin to hardship, and which was increased in severity by the want of sanitary stores, damaged bacon and hard-tack, being, for a time, on account of distance from the base of supplies, almost the only articles of food furnished to either camp or hospital. Colonel Ray, after failing in repeated efforts to obtain means for the amelioration of suf- fering, almost in despair reported to Governor Morton that he had three hundred and sixty on the sick list, with the pros- pect of a continued increase in the number for the want of necessaries. The following reply was immediately received:
" Colonel Ray-The Governor will send you a good lot of supplies, and two additional surgeons, immediately, via Lex- ington. Never hesitate to call on us for any assistance. It will be promptly given.
W. R. HOLLOWAY, Private Secretary.
The supplies came without delay, and were received with a gratitude which cannot be described. The kindly remem- brance of home friends seemed to repay the sufferers for every hardship. But upwards of seventy of the regiment were with the dead, where there is no more a reward, and no more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun.
Governor Morton requested General Buell to order the regiment to some healthier point, where more and better care could be taken of the sick, and the convalescent could more rapidly recruit. But General Buell refused. Governor Morton then applied to Secretary Stanton, who refused to allow a removal of the entire regiment, but gave permission to General Morgan to do what he chose with the sick. Colo- nel Ray then made his representations directly to General Morgan, and received an order for their removal to Lexington, whither they were conveyed without delay in Government wagons.
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EAST TENNESSEE AT LAST.
The regiment numbered for duty at this time about two hundred men, and was almost constantly on duty until April 30th, when camp duties ceased for a time, and a third movement was made against Cumberland Gap. The attempt was again a failure.
This same month the Thirty-Third arrived, men, horses and mules together dragging artillery and wagons. The Thirty- Third was nine hundred strong, and in fine order. Other reinforcements were received, but General Morgan delayed until June before he made a decided forward movement. He then advanced in co-operation with General Mitchell's expe- dition against Chattanooga.
Starting on the 12th, the division wound its difficult way eighteen miles west to Roger's Gap, and hoisted cannon and wagons, by means of pulleys and ropes and strong arms, over the rocks and down to Powell's Valley on the other side. It was night when the work was achieved, the moon had set, and darkness hid all the landscape, but the Tennesseeans in imagination saw their homes, and wept with joy. They were doomed to one more disappointment. Just as they were ready to advance to the pass and give the finishing stroke to their work, they were ordered, by a dispatch from General Buell, to retrace their steps, not only to the river, but back to Williamsburg, Kentucky, and there encamp. Again the heavy guns were lifted over the precipitous steeps; again the men climbed after them, and toiled all day along the mountain side to hear at evening an order bidding them to turn and scale the rocks once more.
The pass was abandoned. General Mitchell's advance to Chattanooga, and the movement of Morgan's division, which was said to be thirty thousand strong, convinced the Confed- erates they were about to be shut up in the mountain. As they were supplied with only a small amount of food and ammunition, and a siege could but result in their starvation or their surrender, they hastily departed.
The tidings of the retreat of the Confederates, and of the approach of the Union troops, spread far and wide through the valleys of the region, and before the pass was reached the division was met by throngs of anxious and joyful country
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
people. The Tennessee soldiers left the ranks and dropped their guns to clasp hands to which they had long been stran- gers, to take in their arms prattling children who had forgotten them, and to comfort their fearful and trembling friends with the hope that peace was at hand. They sat down on the rocks to tell of their escape, of their trials among strangers, of their hospital life, of their home-sickness, and their anxieties, and to ask what had been the shelter of the family when the old cabin was burned, what the clothing when the web was stolen from the loom, and what the food when the plough and the harrow were broken, and the grain was fired in the field. Such meetings do not come in many lives, nor are they repeated in any.
But there were wistful eyes which scanned the ranks in vain. No answering glance met theirs. Death had dealt hard with the refugees. Many who had proudly joined the Union army, and had looked forward to the moment of return with an unspeakable longing, were lying now in their silent graves far beyond the shadow of the mountains,
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431
KANAWHA VALLEY.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INDIANA TROOPS IN VIRGINIA.
LEAVING the South and the Southwest, where Indiana soldiers in the prairies of Missouri, in the wilds of Arkansas, on the bluffs of the Father of Waters, among the hills of Mississippi, in the towns of Northern Alabama, on the moun- tains of Tennessee, and along the railroads and navigable streams of the recovered territory, guarded their hard won acquisitions, it is now necessary to return to our troops in Virginia.
After the removal of the Ninth, Fifteenth and Seventeenth regiments to Kentucky, there remained in the Old Dominion the Seventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Sixteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, and Twenty-Seventh Indiana infantry regiments, with three bodies of cavalry, two of which were independent companies, Bracken's cavalry and Stewart's cavalry. During several months the latter was separated from all other Indiana troops, and engaged in scouting in the neighborhood of Clarksburg, and skirmishing and reconnoi- tring in the Kanawha Valley.
The summer and fall of 1861 were as active and almost as eventful in the Kanawha Valley as in the Laurel and Cheat mountains. While General Garnet fortified himself on Laurel Hill, General Wise sought to obtain a hold on the west side of the Gauley, and was saved from the defeat which demolished the army of the former only by superior agility. In August he was chagrined by receiving the assist- ance of General Floyd, who outranked him. While it accorded with his own, he submitted to the will of his supe- rior, but he demurred when Floyd, having fortified the cliffs of the Gauley at Carnifax Ferry, and arranged to attack the rear of the Union troops, under General Cox, on the Kana- wha, ordered him to advance with reinforcements. He saw
432
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
no reason for abandoning plans he had himself made for attaining the same object, until he failed in their execution. It was then too late to reinforce Floyd, and he retreated thirty miles, to the Sewell, fortified the top of the mountain, and, with open reference to the enemy, but a covert allusion to his rival, called his position Camp Defiance. It was well for the Union force that the independence or the combative- ness of Henry A. Wise asserted itself so decidedly at this particular juncture.
General Rosecrans, shortly after entering upon his duties as commander of the Army of Occupation in West Virginia, and of the department of the Ohio, established himself in Clarksburg, from which point he could communicate with both the Cheat mountains and the Kanawha Valley. When General Cox, who was in the Valley, became hard pressed, Floyd and Wise with superior numbers both upon him, General Rosecrans determined to take the field. Accordingly he set out the last day of August, with about ten thousand men. His army made an imposing appearance, stretching over mountain and through defile, yet the country people con- stantly expressed apprehension for its safety, asserting that it would be easy for a small force from some secure point to give it a decisive check. The General was frequently the recipient of advice, which, though bestowed with simplicity, was received with attention. An old woman shouted from her cabin door, "You'd better take care, Floyd's in a mighty strong, ugly place." Her earnestness excited a smile, but these warnings were all regarded, and the march was made with extreme caution. Skirmishers were constantly on the alert, and among them none were more lively and thorough than Stewart's cavalry, which, since its arrival at Clarksburg, had been called the escort or body-guard of the General.
From the top of a hill which commanded the little town of Summersville, the cavalrymen obtained their first glimpse of a Rebel force, which had been hovering about since the advance commenced. They gave chase, but with no other result than the capture of two militiamen wearing the Rebel uniform of that region, a green hunting-shirt and a hat with the odd decoration of a strip of white cloth. The prisoners
433
CARNIFAX FERRY.
would give no information except that General Floyd's posi- tion was invulnerable.
The road was now so narrow, the mountains so rough, steep and densely wooded, that the cavalry scouts found their work exceedingly difficult. At last they discovered and reported the enemy strongly posted on cliffs which overhung the Gauley, and which were covered in front and on both flanks by a tangled and apparently inaccessible woods. Gen- eral Rosecrans immediately sent out a strong reconnoitring party, with directions to avoid an engagement. The recon- noissance, however, resulted in a severe action, which continued until night, more than four hours. The troops had marched seventeen miles since morning, and they sank to rest in a state of exhaustion which would have been utter, but for the expectation of assaulting the fortifications on the morrow.
In the morning no opposition was met, the camp was found deserted, and the remains of a slight log bridge hanging over the wild torrent of the Gauley betrayed the means by which General Floyd had escaped. Rosecrans attempted no pursuit until two weeks had elapsed.
Meantime General Lee, baffled on the Cheat mountains, removed to Mount Sewell, increasing the number of troops at that point to twenty thousand. He extended the breast- works four miles, and strengthened the position until it was invulnerable to any force which Rosecrans could bring, then reckoning on the rashness which had led to the attack on the fortifications at Carnifax Ferry he quietly waited. But the Union General did not play into his hands as he expected. Rosecrans watched the bristling mountain during a period of nearly two weeks; his scouts meanwhile penetrating and scour- ing woods and gullies, without discovering a weak point in the fortifications, or even meeting with a stray party of Rebel troops. When satisfied of Lee's determination to remain within his works, he retired, and fortified himself on the Kanawha, three miles above the Gauley. Floyd, Lee and Wise having gone to Richmond and left him in command, followed, and confronted him from an opposite bluff. Here again both combatants, now about equal in number, and within intrenchments of equal strength, remained stationary,
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
each daring the other to make the first move. General Floyd's position commanded the road used by the Union teamsters, and enabled him at one time to cut off supplies, but with this exception neither party, during several weeks, gained an advantage.
General Rosecrans at length perceived some indications of a retreat on the part of the enemy, and resolved to flank and surprise him. Unfortunately he suffered a defeat, never- theless the attempt hastened the withdrawal of the Confederate force, and in consequence closed, for the present, operations in the Kanawha regions.
In October Captain Stewart resigned, and was succeeded by Lieutenant Kirtley, who was superseded in March by Lieutenant Sharra. Meantime the company was included in the First cavalry, Colonel Baker, and made company I of that regiment, Bracken's Rangers becoming at the same time company K. When General Rosecrans was removed to the West the two companies became the cavalry escort of Gen- eral Fremont.
The Twelfth and Sixteenth regiments of Indiana volun- teers were the first that left the State for a longer term than three months. Their term of enlistment was one year, but they were in the service at that time nearly fourteen months.
The nucleus of the Twelfth consisted of two companies, which were raised in Fort Wayne, one by Captain Link and the other by Captain Humphrey, who afterwards became Colonel Link and Lieutenant-Colonel Humphrey of the reg- iment. Both of these gentlemen had served in the Mexican war, Colonel Link as Major. The regiment was organized early in May, put under the command of John M. Wallace, and stationed on the Ohio river for the purpose of stopping boats suspected of being laden with ammunition and stores for the South. It remained in that vicinity until the battle of Bull Run, when it was ordered to Harper's Ferry. The last of July it encamped a few days at Sandy Hook, where a change was made in its officers. Colonel John M. Wallace was appointed paymaster, and called to Washington, and Lieutenant-Colonel Link was commissioned Colonel. The regiment was then assigned to the brigade of General Aber-
435
THE TWELFTH.
crombie, an old, experienced military man, and to the column of General Banks.
During the first months, which are generally the most severe on the health of troops, the Twelfth was in remarkably good condition, owing in a great measure to the considerate attention of Colonel Link. He was always careful to select a cheerful, healthy location for a camping ground, and was in the habit of personally inspecting the condition of his men in addition to the regular examination given by the inspector. As the regiment was principally made up of young men from the higher walks of life, who were ambitious to excel in every respect, they paid great attention to their tents and camps, as also to personal cleanliness and neatness. One young soldier in writing home says:
"Mother, how I wish you could see us at evening, (it was summer, and they were in proximity to the pines;) we have laid out our camp in streets, and brought young pine trees and planted them in straight rows before our tent doors. When the lights are burning at evening, and the beholder stands on an eminence, and sees the long rows of white tents with the light shining through the green pines, it is a very lovely sight. We shall not, probably, stay here long, but this care for the beautiful makes our men forget their hardships; and home-sickness, that bane of soldier life, is comparatively banished."
Five or six months were spent in marching and counter- marching after the fleet-footed Virginians. It was the fortune of the Twelfth to be continually preparing for an attack on the enemy, and to be always disappointed by his escape. In its pursuits it took possession of a number of towns in Mary- land which were afterwards retaken by the enemy, The first winter quarters, or, rather, headquarters, were at Antietam, or Sharpsburg, Abercrombie's brigade being stretched out thirty miles along the Potomac as picket-guard. The soldiers still look upon that cold first winter of picket duty, lying almost in sight of Stonewall Jackson, while all was quiet along the Potomac, as hard service. They were continually .skirmishing with Jackson from February until they were mustered out of the service. During this time sickness made
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
sad inroads in the regiment; and in the various skirmishes many men were captured and confined in that horrid prison at Richmond, where they suffered for long, weary months, as thousands of their countrymen suffered afterwards. One of the number was Captain Reuben Williams, who at a later date became Colonel of the regiment.
The Colonel of the Sixteenth Indiana regiment, Pleasant A. Hackleman, was a fair example of American patriotism. His energies were devoted to a profession which had also his affections, and in which he achieved unusual success. Life gave him all that he could wish, business prosperity, social happiness, the desire to do good, and the means wherewith to accomplish the desire, home and love and troops of friends. He had, moreover, reached an age at which the most active no longer disdain their ease. Yet, when he was convinced that the army needed his services, he turned away from busi- ness, friends and home, and patiently accepted the duties and hardships of the camp, the march and the field.
The regiment left Richmond, Indiana, July 23d. It was the first to march through Baltimore after the massacre of the Massachusetts troops in that city. In August it was placed in Abercrombie's brigade of Banks' division, and its history until the expiration of its term of service is almost identical with that of the Twelfth.
Some satirical artist has painted a picture which he calls "All quiet on the Potomac." A placid moon shines upon the placid river, and on a row of graves, which form the fore- ground. A solitary picket, whose shadow falls athwart the low mounds, is the only living thing in the scene. Imagina- tion involuntarily adds another, and the eye, in obedience to the suspicion, searches a thicket and endeavors to peer behind the black trunks of the trees for a hidden enemy.
In this picture may be read much of the history of the Sixteenth and Twelfth, and of all the regiments which were in Virginia.
Indiana can never forget the men who, on the sentinel's nightly beat, trod the narrow and treacherous line between the hostile armies, their manly hearts the only bulwarks of our country,-of home and happiness and law.
-
Engay Viene & Co.
BRET MAJ GEN. JEFFERSON C. DAVIS.
437
NINETEENTH AND TWENTY-SEVENTH.
The nineteenth regiment, on its organization, was placed under the command of Solomon Meredith, who is known as one of the tallest men in Indiana, and as a remarkably suc- cessful aspirant for agricultural honors. The regiment left Indianopolis August 5th, and went into camp on Kalorama Heights, near Washington, August 9th. It was temporarily placed in the brigade of General Smith, and immediately afterwards was engaged in the protection of a topographical party, which reconnoitered the ground near Lewinsville. A cavalry force of Confederate soldiers, about fifty in number, was driven from Lewinsville at ten o'clock in the morning, and parties of Union soldiers were stationed on all the roads to watch the enemy. The engineers performed their work, and the force, with the exception of one squad from the Third Vermont and another from the Nineteenth Indiana, was concentrated and formed to return to the encampments when a large body of the enemy, whose approach had been announced by the Vermont and Indiana pickets, opened a rapid cannonade. A Union battery, which formed partof the brigade, replied, and was well supported by the infantry. The firing continued an hour, the advanced pickets suffering all the loss that was sustained. The Nineteenth lost one man killed, two wounded and three captured. All the troops behaved well, and were complimented by the commanding General.
The last of September the Nineteenth was brigaded with three Wisconsin regimenrs, under the comand of General King. In October the brigade occupied a position on Arlington Heighis, near Fort Graig, where it remained during the winter.
The Colonel of the Twenty-Seventh regiment was Silas Colgrove, a prominent lawyer, a highly esteemed citizen of Winchester, and a former member of the Legislature. The regement was organized in Indianapolis in August, and went to Washington City in September. In Octoberit wasremoved to the division of General Banks, which was called the Army of the Shenandoah, and was placed in General Gordon's brigade. During the greater part of the winter it was in comfortable quarters near Frederick City, Maryland.
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438
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
On the 10th of June, 1861, a general order was issued from the Adjutant General's office of the State of Indiana, pro- viding for the formation of a regiment of cavalry, under the militia law of the State, in the counties bordering on the Ohio river, of which proposed organization Conrad Baker, of Vanderburg county, was appointed Colonel, and Scott Carter, of Switzerland county, Lieutenant-Colonel. On the 24th of the same month it was provided in orders that this regiment should be organized for the United States service for three years, unless sooner discharged. In pursuance of authority granted by the orders referred to, six companies rendezvoused at North Madison, and were mustered into the United States service on the 22d day of August, 1861, and placed under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Carter, forming a part of the First cavalry.
Having received orders to proceed to Washington City, the six companies embarked on board of steamboats at Mad- ison on the 25th of August, with their horses, which were the private property of the men composing the command, but without equipments or arms. They reached Wheeling on the 28th, and disembarked. They remained two days, and then started on a march to Pittsburg. They were feted and feasted at every town, village and camp along the route, and had a glorious time, notwithstanding the fatigue and incon- venience of a "bare-back ride." From Pittsburg they pro- ceeded by rail to Washington, which was reached on the 5th of September. They remained in camp in the suburbs of the city until the 1st of November, (having in the meantime been equipped and partially armed,) when the battalion was ordered to report to General Sickles at Camp Good Hope, located between Washington and Bladensburg. They remained at this point until the 15th of October, when, being assigned to the division of General Hooker, the command marched to Budd's Ferry on the Potomac, and went into camp. The regimental headquarters remained there during the winter.
On the 21st of October, 1861, these six companies were assigned to the Third cavalry, Forty-Fifth regiment, of which regiment Lieutenant-Colonel Carter was made Colonel, and
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