The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II, Part 4

Author: [Merrill, Catharine] 1824-1900
Publication date: 1866
Publisher: Indianapolis : Merrill and company
Number of Pages: 868

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French, moving up in three lines, in the face of artillery, encountered skirmishers, drove them before him, and pressed into a group of houses on Rulet's farm. Coming upon the enemy in force, posted in an orchard and a cornfield, in ditches and on hillsides, he was subjected to a terrible fire. Conflagration added its roar and smoke to the din of battle. A barn was set on fire by shells. A dwelling house was kindled by Rebel sharpshooters. French's second line was thrown into confusion by the advance of a heavy column toward its left. At this moment a command from Sumner to press the enemy with all his force, in order to relieve Sedgwick, compelled French to order his third line round to his left. Kimball, whose brigade formed the third line, led the Fourteenth Indiana forward and planted it on his right, while his staff brought up and posted the remaining regi- ments, one of which (the One Hundred and Thirty-Second Pensylvania, consisting of nine months' men,) had never had a dress parade and had never been under fire. But one in- dividual in the regiment had previously been in battle, and he was so well satisfied with his experience as anxiously to desire to withdraw from the present field. To this raw regi- ment Kimball especially devoted himself. Throughout the battle he remained on his horse in front. His men (though as the balls fell thick around him, they exhorted him to go back, shouting: "You ain't wanted here!" "You'll get hurt!" "Stay back, General, we'll stay here!") were en-

THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.

couraged by his presence to submit to almost intolerable fire. Moreover, had he sought shelter in the rear, curses would have followed him from those who now sincerely begged him to take care of himself.

When French's progress was checked he still maintained his ground, under orders from the Commander-in-Chief to hold his position to the last extremity. But at length his right, entirely exposed by its separation from Sedgwick, was forced back. His left stoutly maintained its ground, under a mur- derous fire from D. H. Hill's command, which lay compara- tively sheltered in the sunken road and in the large cornfield behind it. During two hours Kimball was unsupported on either flank. His ammunition failed, but his men stripped sup- plies from their dead and wounded comrades. The enemy advanced on his left with three regiments. He instantly ex- tended his left wing and gave the flanking force a sharp re- pulse. He repulsed with great slaughter a heavy assault on his centre. He then ordered a charge, which drove the enemy out of his ditches and to the middle of his cornfield, with the loss of three hundred prisoners and several stands of colors. Again Hill's command returned, gaining a cornfield on Kim- ball's right. Again it was effectually met, the Fourteenthi Indiana and the Seventh Ohio rapidly changing front. Wielding his force as if it were a mallet, Hill threw it for- ward once more. Happily Franklin, just arrived from Cramp- ton's Pass, encountered it and hurled it back to its starting- point and beyond to the Dunker church. Franklin halted and formed his force in column of assault, but as he was moving out to attack the heavy line behind the church he received orders to risk no further movement, simply to hold his position.

From eleven to one the battle on the right and centre was little more than an artillery duel in which nearly two hun- dred guns were engaged. From one to three there was almost a cessation of firing, over the whole field. About four in the afternoon Jackson moved toward the ridge near Poffenberger's under cover of artillery, but he found Federal batteries so strongly posted and so well advanced toward the Potomac, that he withdrew.

MCCLELLAN'S REFLECTION AND IRRESOLUTION.

General McClellan's plan of battle was to attack the ene- my's right only when matters on our right looked favorable, consequently it was not until Hooker's corps had ceased fighting and Mansfield and Sumner were engaged, that Burn- side received orders to advance. The bridge behind which he lay was twelve feet wide, one hundred and fifty feet long, and is commanded by an almost precipitous bank one hun- dred feet high. Sharpshooters were hidden among the wil- lows on the edge of the stream, half way up the bank in the excavations of a limestone quarry, and behind a stone wall on the top of the bank, where were also four cannon. A semi-circle of batteries swept the space from the Sharpsburg heights to the bluffs of the Antietam.

After repeated trials, in which his troops seemed to melt away like snow, Burnside gained the bridge. Ile formed under fire and advanced against the heights, carried the Sharpsburg ridge and gained a battery, though, as the strug- gle continued, and the enemy was reinforced, only to lose both. Repeatedly he sent for reinforcements, but the Com- mander-in-Chief could not summon resolution to order his reserves to the front. Burnside at last fell back to the bridge where he fought until night. The troops slept on their arms in line of battle, gunners beside their guns, officers with their swords buckled on, and cavalrymen with their horses sad- dled and ready for instant use.

Night brought reflection and irresolution to General Mc- Clellan. In vain Burnside assured him that with five thou- sand fresh troops he was willing to commence the attack in the morning, and Franklin pointed out a position near the Dunker church, which could readily be gained, and which, if merely held, without any advance, would uncover the whole left of the enemy and drive him from the wood. In vain they urged that the ground was now well understood, and a sec- ond day's fight could scarcely result otherwise than in a vic- tory. McClellan was palsied by the weight of responsibility. He was the bulwark of Washington, Baltimore and Phila- delphia. If he were beaten all was lost.

General Lee, as might be imagined, was not tormented by ·

vacillation. With one fifth of his men barefoot, one half in

THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.

rags, and all of them half famished, with no supplies and no reinforcements; with two Brigadier Generals killed, one Major General and six Brigadiers wounded, with his dead soldiers lying in rows and heaps on his eentre, his right and his left; with the uncertain Potomac in his rear, and a great and increasing army in his front, speedy escape could be his only thought.

Thursday before the sun rose all was ready in the Union army for battle. Hour after hour passed. Noon came and went. The sun set. At dusk orders were given to be ready for battle in the morning. McClellan had received reinforce- ments to the number of about fourteen thousand, and he felt strong enough to make an attack.

Friday-unlucky day-it became known that Lee had safely crossed the river. The Army of the Potomac was overwhelmed with disappointment. No man was so dull as not to see the consequences of Lee's cseape; long days of marching, long nights on the ground and in the saddle, skir- mishing, indecisive battles, prison for some and death for some, the joys of home, the sweets of peace, three days ago so near, put off indefinitely.

The losses in the Union army in the battle of Antietam made an aggregate of twelve thousand five hundred men. The Confederate loss is not definitely known. The Federal officers who rode over the field the day after the battle thought it greatly outnumbered the Union loss. Captain Noyes, an officer on Doubleday's staff, asserts as the result of his own observation, and of that of old, experienced offi- cers, that "our late foes seemed to outnumber our dead four to one." John Mc Vey, of the Third Indiana cavalry, writes in a private letter: "I have been over the battlefield, and I never want to see another. Their loss in killed is three times as much as ours." McClellan reports: "About twenty- seven hundred of the enemy's dead were counted and buried on the field of Antietam. A portion of their dead had pre- viously been buried by the enemy." Taking Mcclellan's statement as a basis, and reckoning the usual proportion of five wounded to one killed, the Confederate loss in killed and wounded amounts to over thirteen thousand five hundred.

RELATIVE STRENGTH OF THE TWO ARMIES.

Uncertainty also prevails in regard to the numbers en- gaged. McClellan had eighty-seven thousand on the field. Lee had between forty and ninety thousand; probably, as he had lost greatly by straggling, he had not many more than the lower number. His position, taken in connection with McClellan's mode of attack, gave him a vast advantage in the conflict. Both armies fought with unsurpassed courage, one impelled by desperation, the other inspired by hope.

Kimball's brigade, which had never yet been in a defeat, did its most glorious work on the field of Antietam, and well earned the proud appellation bestowed by General Sumner, "Gibralter Brigade." In four hours of desperate fighting, not a man faltered nor left the ranks. Even the bearers of wounded, sent to the rear, quickly returned to their places in line. General French, in his report, says: " With an unsurpassed ardor this gallant brigade, sweeping over all obstacles, crowned the crest of the hills on our left and right. General Kimball fought the enemy on the front and either flank with such desperate courage and determina- tion as to permit the arrival of reinforcements, which reached the field three hours after my division had sustained the conflict." Of thirteen hundred and fifty-six men who went upon the field in Kimball's command, six hundred and thirty- nine were killed and wounded.

The Fourteenth Indiana, under Colonel Harrow, went into the fight with three hundred and twenty men, and came out with one hundred and forty. Lieutenants Lundy and Bostwick were killed; Lieutenant Ballenger was mortally wounded; Captain Coons, acting Lieutenant Colonel, and Captain Cavins, acting Major, were also wounded.

The Nineteenth Indiana was equally distinguished. It suffered even more. It lost one hundred and six out of two hundred and fifteen officers and men. Lieutenant Colonel Bachman was an officer of rare ability and excellence. He was only twenty-two years old. But "that life is long which answers life's great ends."

The following passage, from a letter written by General McClellan to Governor Morton, bears unasked testimony to the efficiency of the Nineteenth: "Glorious as has been the

THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.

record of Indiana in this war, you will pardon me for saying that the career of the Nineteenth Indiana has been such as to add still higher lustre to the reputation of your State. I have watched this regiment, with its Wisconsin comrades, in the hottest fire and in the most dangerous positions, and I am glad to say there is no better regiment in this nor in any other army."

The Twenty-Seventh Indiana lost two hundred and nine out of about four hundred. Among its killed was Lieuten- ant Vanorsdall. Among its wounded were Captains Wil- coxen and Kop, Lieutenants Lee, Gilmore, Balsley, and McKahin. Kop, Gilmore, and Lee died of their wounds. Colonel Colgrove was slightly wounded, but he remained on the field in command of the brigade.

The Third Cavalry, with Pleasonton's division, held the centre of the line of battle in support of three batteries of horse artillery, and remained in this position during the day, exposed to heavy artillery fire, but not brought to close quarters with the enemy.

Somewhat later, but in reference to its action in the Mary- land campaign, as well as subsequently, General Pleasonton wrote to Governor Morton, in regard to the Third, in the following language: "I have the honor to call your atten- tion to the excellent service performed by the Third Indiana cavalry. Indiana should be proud of its Third regiment of cavalry, for the services it has rendered have been most arduous, constant and important."

The Seventh was not called into action until Jackson's attempt, in the afternoon, to take the ridge on Hooker's right, and was not then under musketry fire. Its loss was entirely in wounded, four in number; nevertheless, it was in so exhausted a condition as to excite inquiry. Dr. New, the Surgeon, made the following explanation to the Medical Director: "I think I hazard nothing in saying that our reg- iment has done more labor and more marching, and has un- dergone more privation and exposure than any regiment now in this division. For more than seventeen months many of the men have been on almost constant duty, frequently for several days at a time, and living almost exclusively on what

THE DEAD AND DYING.

they could gather from the country through which they passed. During the first quarter of this year-in January, February, and March-the regiment was without tents thirty-five days. Twelve days at one time in February, the coldest weather of the winter, we were on the mountain tops of Virginia, without tents, or proper food, or clothing. During the month of June we marched nearly four hundred miles, on short rations and with many of our men barefoot."

Frank Good, a private in the Seventh, in a letter of the same date to his father, writes: "I was about marched to death. We have but few of our old boys with us at present. They are about all played out. Company F has but one commissioned officer and but one or two non-commissioned. Other companies are the same way."

Several days were spent in burying the dead, which, strangely swollen and discolored, made Antietam a most horrible battle ground. In five hundred feet of the lane, which was carried by French and Richardson, more than two hundred Rebel dead lay. At the point first occupied by Kimball, the bodies were so numerous that they seemed to have fallen in line of battle. In the corn field into which Kimball charged, and round the little church where Mans- field's corps fought, the ground was black with corpses.

Many thousand wounded occupied barns, sheds, farm houses, churches and shelter tents, from the Potomac up to Hagerstown, and over South mountain to Frederick; while hundreds of ambulances daily bore northward their "precious freight of patriotic pain." Whether a wounded soldier was in blue or gray, (Lee left nearly all his wounded,) he received an equal surgical aid, an equal kindness. Pain and pity leveled distinctions. In some of the grave yards near the little hospitals, rebels and patriots were laid side by side. They whose blood had been so hot, whose hearts had beaten so high, who had fought so bravely and so bitterly, were wrapped together in the terrible hush and chill of death.

In the main hospital grave yard of Antietam a monument has been erected, bearing the following inscription : "THE LAND THAT IS NOT WORTH OUR DEATH IS NOT WORTII LIV- ING FOR."

THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE POTOMAC, AND ONWARD TO THE RAPPAHANNOCK.

I turned my eye, and as I turned surveyed A mournful vison ! The Sisyphian shade ;

With many a weary step, and many a groan, Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone;

The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,

Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground. -Pope's Odyssey.

After the battle of Antietam the influx of recruits was so great, and supplies were brought in so rapidly, by means of the railroad, that greatest engine of modern warfare, as it is aptly termed, that before the lapse of a month the army of the Potomac was one hundred and twenty-three thousand strong, had risen again from overwhelming disappointment, and was in all respects fitted for renewed action. Neverthe- less, influenced by a dread that Lee's army outnumbered his own, and that it was being reinforced from Richmond and probably from Kentucky, McClellan determined to make no general movement unless the enemy should attempt to cross the river into Maryland, or should commit some other egre- gious error.

As might be supposed this determination, rather the inac- tion which it occasioned, was regarded with exceeding and general disfavor ; and served to depress and discourage, rather than to rest and refresh the army. The latter had been so near a victory, Lec's retreat was so plainly a bare escape, that every soldier was impatient to finish the work. Roads were smooth and dry, streams were low, the days were mild, the nights were clear, and altogether it was the finest march- ing weather of the year. Moreover the mountains, in the gorgeous glories of autumn, foretold the approach of winter. The experience of the veteran, equally with the enthusiasm

"ALL QUIET ON THE POTOMAC."

of the recruit, urged to immediate and rapid action. The sight of piekets in gray along the opposite bank of the Poto- mac was tantalizing. The renewal of the bulletin: "All quiet on the Potomac," was exasperating. The troops could enjoy nothing, and could look forward to nothing but instruc- tions to move. They slept each night in expectation of being aroused to march. They rose each morning in the hope of an advance, and sat around all day awaiting orders. In the restless state of mind which the eager desire for an onward movement produced, athletic games afforded no pleas- ure, and study offered no charm. As newspapers, except the New York Herald, did not find their way to the army, and entertaining books were not at hand, thousands of good soldiers wiled away both time and morals at a stone or a stump, which served as a gambling table.

Citizens were not less disquieted. The resurrection of Me Clellan had been patiently witnessed; the victory of South Mountain had been delightedly applauded; midnight bells had triumphantly announced the battle of Antietam; but submission, and satisfaction, and hope, were all clouded and shrouded by the escape of Lee, and the prospect of winter quarters again on the Potomac. The Cabinet advised action. The President remonstrated, entreated, and at last, although not until many weeks had passed, issued peremptory orders. He visited summary judgment on a member of Mcclellan's staff, an Indianian, for indicating a sinister purpose in delay :

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, September 26, 1862.

"Major John J. Key :-

"SIR :- I am informed that in answer to the question, ' Why was not the Rebel army bagged immediately after the battle near Sharpsburg?' propounded to you by Major Levi C. Turner, Judge Advocate, &e., you answered: 'That is not the game. The object is, that neither army shall get much advantage of the other; that both shall be kept in the field till they are exhausted, when we will make a compro- mise and save slavery.' I shall be very happy if you will, within twenty-four hours from the date of this, prove to me,

THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.

by Major Turner, that you did not, either literally or in sub- stance, make the answer stated.

" Yours,

A. LINCOLN."

The letter was followed by an interview, in which Major Turner said: "I asked the question, ' Why we did not bag them after the battle of Sharpsburg?' Major Key's reply was: 'That was not the game; that we should tire the Rebels out and ourselves; that that was the only way the Union could be preserved, we come together fraternally and slavery be saved.'" Major Key did not attempt to controvert the statement of Major Turner, but claimed to be in favor of the Union. The President remarked that if there was a "game," even among Union men, to have our army not take an advantage of the enemy when it could, it was his object to break up that game. He endorsed the following on an account of the examination:

" In my view it is wholly inadmissible for any gentleman holding a military commission from the United States to utter such sentiments as Major Key is within proved to have done. Therefore, let Major John J. Key be forthwith dis- missed from the military service of the United States.

"A. LINCOLN."

During all this goading forward on the one hand, and holding back on the other, foreign diplomatists speculated and philosophized on the weakness of republics, though one more keen-sighted than most Europeans, laid the blame where it belonged, saying: "No living being so ardently prays for rain as does McClellan."

September 22d President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring that "On the first day of January, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State, or any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, and thenceforward, and forever free."

It was the directing of the surgeon's knife to the sore spot. The tainted flesh quivered. The surging currents in the body politic grew hot and cold. There were men who be- lieved that the removal of an ulcer, whose roots were so

LINCOLN VISITS THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

strong, and penetrating, and poisonous, would destroy life; and there were men who regarded the evil as a virtue, or at least as an ornament. The disloyalty of these was embold- ened; the loyalty of those was chilled.

McClellan gave the President a haughty and unwilling obedience, and, by insinuations of general dissatisfaction and danger of mutiny, fanned the fires of discontent.

On the first of October Mr. Lincoln visited the army, going through the different encampments, reviewing the troops, and passing over the battle fields. The genial smile, the kindly manner, the "little story," were ready as of old; yet the cloud of care, which for a few days had lifted, was again on his worn face. He was the gravest, saddest man of the hundred thousand on the banks of the Potomac.

It was the day after his return to Washington that he exerted his authority as Commander-in-Chief, and issued a peremptory order for immediate advance, either to battle or in pursuit. However, he softened the abruptness, and per- haps weakened the force of the order, by a letter of explana- tion and remonstrance. He wrote:

"I say try! If we never try, we never shall succeed. If he (the enemy) make a stand at Winchester, moving neither north nor south, I would fight him there, on the idea that if we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of commu- nication to us, we never can when we bear the wastage of going to him. This proposition is a simple truth, and is too important to be lost sight of for a moment. As we must beat him somewhere, or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier near us than far away. If we cannot beat the enemy where he now is, we never can-he again being within the intrenchments of Richmond."

A few days later the President reiterated his order, warmly expressing his regret that all the good weather should be wasted in inactivity. Still MeClellan dawdled. When one corps of infantry was shod, another was barefoot. By the time he had a cavalry troop booted and spurred and ready to ride, its horses were dying with distemper. Absolute necessity for delay always existed.

Within certain limits the army was not inactive. A strict

THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.

watch was kept along the Potomac; scouting parties were frequently engaged in skirmishes; and it was sometimes necessary to send considerable bodies after raiding forces of the enemy.

On the evening of the 17th of September, and on the 20th, 27th and 29th of the same month, the cavalry made unsuccessful efforts to cross the river at the Shepherdstown ford. On the morning of October 1st, Pleasonton, with seven hundred men, the Third Indiana, under Major Chap- man, included, succeeded in crossing the river and in driving the enemy's pickets and cavalry through Shepherdstown toward the south. Cavalry and artillery, drawn up in the centre of Martinsburg, checked his progress, but soon fled. He entered the town over two bridges, which the Rebels had partially destroyed, but which, it is said, the Martinsburg ladies repaired when they heard of the approach of Union troops.

Pleasonton remained in Martinsburg from half past two until five, when, having seen nothing more of the enemy, he set out to return. At this the Rebels reappeared, started in pursuit in a headlong gallop, and, in spite of a section of artillery which guarded the rear of the Union cavalry, fol- lowed within five miles of Shepherdstown. Here, in a severe skirmish, Pleasonton took nine prisoners. He brought off from Martinsburg, at their request, twenty-four Union citizens and nine young Marylanders who had been im- pressed in Lee's army.

On the same day General Kimball, with his brigade, the Sixth United States cavalry, and a small force of artillery, went to Leesburg. He captured one hundred and twenty- two prisoners and returned to Harper's Ferry.

October 11th, Pleasonton's cavalry left Sharpsburg, and Robinson's brigade of infantry left Arlington Heights-the one to intercept, the other to pursue General Stuart, who, with a cavalry force of eighteen hundred men and four guns, had crossed the Potomac, on the 10th, between Williamsport and Hancock, and was hastening round the rear of the Union army.

This raid, or rather the pursuit, was mockingly described

REBEL IRONICAL DISPATCHES.

in a series of pretended telegrams published in the Rich- mond Enquirer, and purporting to be from the Commander- in-Chief of the Army of the Potomac:

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The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II, Part 4

Author: [Merrill, Catharine] 1824-1900 Publication date: 1866 Publisher: Indianapolis : Merrill and company Number of Pages: 868

Author: [Merrill, Catharine] 1824-1900
Publication date: 1866
Publisher: Indianapolis : Merrill and company
Number of Pages: 868