USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 59
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695
"NOT LOST IF VALOR CAN AVAIL."
with the turnpike, and by its mere advance constantly flanked the Federal forces thrown against the point of attack. The Nineteenth corps stood long and well against the fearful odds, as the ground, thickly strewed with friends and foes, after- wards attested. At length, when nearly surrounded, and when bullets whistled almost as thick from flank and rear as from front, all gave way at onee, and went flying back across the turnpike and off toward the right flank of the army, fol- lowed by the Rebels, not in line, but like those they pursued, in a confused swarm. The Eighteenth here lost thirty-two men taken prisoners, so long and stubbornly did it hold its ground. The trenches emptied their contents, commencing on the left, and the troops occupying them followed the oth- ers toward the right, while the Rebels poured over the works. At the ravine dividing the Nineteenth corps from the Sixth, a desperate stand was made to stop the advance of the Rebel host, now fairly mad with sucecss. The old heroes of the Nineteenth might have stood their ground had they not been again flanked and compelled to choose between flight and captivity. The Sixth corps in the meantime had struck tents and loaded wagons, which were sent away on a by-road to the rear, while many of the wagons belonging to the Eighth and Nineteenth, having gone to the turnpike, were there fal- len upon and captured. Drawn up in good order, the Sixth stood ready, a human wall to bar the progress of the fierce rabble still eoming on. It was a grand thing to see-those long, steady lines of men, each of whom seemed braced with an iron soul. Unheeding the excited thousands flying past them, they kept their eyes fixed on the scene in front, and awaited their own part in the dreadful drama of the day. After their first onset, the Rebels, both officers and men, in constantly increasing disorder, began to struggle for plunder in the captured camps, so that the force in front of the Sixth corps was muel diminished. These veterans stood long and well, but again was repeated the flanking process. The ad- vancing Rebels reached the left of the Sixth corps, which then gave way, hurrying after the Eighth and Nineteenth. By the exertion of their officers, these had been now, to a great extent, reformed and placed in position across the line
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
of retreat. Whole regiments of cavalry, scattered about with drawn sabres, compelled the fugitives to join their commands in the newly formed line. The cavalry bands, discoursing martial airs, sought to infuse new spirit into the defcated troops, and not all in vain, for many, whom threats and drawn swords had failed to induce to join again in the seemingly hopeless resistance, were cheered and called to duty by the familiar strains of the "Star Spangled Banner."
The new position was held only a short time, but having now retired beyond the right of the Rebel line, by the advance of which they had so often been flanked, our forces fell back with less precipitation. The pursuit also lagged, the Rebels being scattered over the deserted camps, and utterly disor- ganized.
Many times during the morning was heard in Union ranks the anxious inquiry, " Where is Sheridan?" for the army did not at first know of his absence, and it had not long been known, when he appeared on the field. If the army had been whipped, that he had not, his manner showed. He was greeted by shouts and joyful welcome as he galloped here and there, examining the situation, and as he shouted mer- rily, "Face the other way, boys! We are going back to our camps! We are going to lick them out of their boots!"
Little time sufficed to turn the tide. With the infantry in the centre and the cavalry on the flanks, advance began, slowly and steadily at first-rapidly, but still steadily, as the Rebels began to fall back. When the mounted squadrons, the best cavalry in the world, came down with impetuous charge upon their flanks, the Rebels broke and fled. With well preserved lines our forces swept on over the field, now covered with the dead and wounded men and horses of both armies, and before dark they had regained and passed their despoiled camps. Here, in every hollow and every nook, lay heaps of wounded, feebly sheltering themselves from the storm of battle.
Soon after our army had been routed, less than an hour after the first charge of the Rebels, the camps were overrun by hundreds of women from the neighboring village of Stras- burg. Laying aside the natural pity of their sex, they taunted
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"THE CAMPS ARE GAINED, THE FIELD REWON."
the helpless, mangled men in blue, asking the dying "if they would ever steal apple butter again," and the maimed for life "if they would ever burn another barn," and never offering a drop of water, or making an effort to find a cooling shade. At night our infantry discontinued the pursuit, but the cav- alry, breaking through the rear guard, pushed on through the darkness among the confused Rebels, capturing wagons, ar- tillery and prisoners in great numbers.
The Third Indiana captured two pieces of artillery, and four stands of colors. Twenty-four of our guns, all that had been captured in the morning, were recaptured, with twenty- three Rebel guns in addition. The enemy, after a short halt at Fisher's Hill, continued the flight during the night, while the Federal army, faint and famished, rested on the field it had lost and won the same day.
It would be difficult to describe the part taken by a single regiment in the great battle.' The Eighteenth, displaying its accustomed discipline and bravery, fought all day, and out of three hundred men who entered the ranks in the morning, lost eighty-nine in killed, wounded and captured. The sec- ond day after the battle the army returned and occupied its old camps as before. But all was not the same. There was scarcely a mess that had not lost a man, and many a mess answered not at all to the call of its number. It was indeed a saddening sight, the old weather-browned veterans sitting silent and apart through the hazy autumn afternoons, think- ing of comrades with whom they had so often shared their blankets and their rations, with whom they had stood on the lonely picket post, by whose sides they had marched and fought, but who now lay on the field, or in the dreaded hos- pital, or were being hurried into a captivity whose name had become a synonym for death. Wistfully they looked round upon the heaps of newly turned earth, scattered in groups all over the field, and wondered when would the cruel war be over.
Among the fatally wounded were Major Williams and Lieutenant Colonel Charles. The former was struck by a shell, which burst at his feet, tearing off one leg and horribly mangling the other. He lay on the field, where he fell, all
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
through the scorching day and almost freezing night, stripped nearly naked by the plundering Rebel stragglers, and suffer- ing a thousand deaths from his undressed wounds. Having been removed to the hospital at Winchester, he died there a few days afterward, lamented by all as a brave man and an excellent officer. He entered the service as Captain of Com- pany I, from Franklin, where he had been in the practice of law, and where he left a family to mourn his early loss.
Colonel Charles was wounded by a rifle-shot through the breast, and was, with the greatest difficulty, saved from fall- ing into the hands of the enemy. He was accompanied by his brother, who, though not an enlisted soldier, had fought by his side, and who now took him to the home of their parents in Illinois, where, on the tenth of November, four days after his arrival, he died.
Colonel Charles was born in White county, Illinois, in June, 1829. His education was completed at Bloomington, Indiana. In 1860 he removed to Bloomington, and engaged in the practice of law. When the Rebellion broke out he entered the first company of that place as an enlisted man. On the organization of the Eighteenth he was commissioned as Captain of Company H. His health was never good, and was still further impaired by the severe service upon which his regiment immediately entered. Yet so great was his en- ergy, and so firm his purpose, that he performed the most trying duties, and endured the severest hardships, frequently to be completely prostrated when the exigency was past. During the Vicksburg campaign his bravery rendered him conspicuous. His gallant conduct at Port Gibson was men- tioned in general orders, and, though not the ranking Cap- tain, he was elected by the officers of the regiment to the vacant Lieutenant Colonelcy. His disease, a bronchial affec- tion, had been constantly progressing, and during the cam- paign in the Shenandoah valley he quite lost the power of speaking above a whisper. Yet though a proper subject of the tenderest care of home, he would not, at such a time, leave his post of duty. As might be expected of a man so brave, he possessed the tenderest and noblest impulses. The soldier knew him as his constant friend, and when he fell in
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699
END OF SHENANDOAH CAMPAIGN.
the last battle of the campaign, and in the last in which his regiment fought, felt that though a weary sufferer had gone to an honorable rest, yet a generous and brave comrade was forever lost. After the battle of Cedar Creek the Eighteenth was commanded by Captain James B. Black.
On the twenty-seventh of October Shunk's brigade was detailed as escort for the train conveying supplies from Mar- tinsburg to the army, the country lying between being in- fested by Mosby's cavalry. At Martinsburg the Eighteenth was rejoined by Colonel Washburn, who immediately after the election in Indiana hastened back to his post, anxious to participate with his regiment in the glorious campaign. He relieved Captain Black, but was now placed in charge of the Fourth brigade, when the command of the Eighteenth de- volved on the senior officer, Captain Ben. H. Robinson. On returning from the second march to the railroad, the army had fallen back to Kernstown, four miles, in front of Win- chester. The Rebels, under Early, had again come down the valley, and the cavalry of the two armies had all day been skirmishing. Another general engagement was cx- pected, and in view of it Washburn's brigade was relieved from escort duty, and placed, with its division, in line of bat- tle. All night and all the next day the infantry constructed breastworks, and felled the timber in front of them, while the cavalry still skirmished with the enemy. The Rebel infantry forces crossed Cedar creek, and came down as far as Middle- town, but seeing the preparation to receive them, they wisely concluded not to risk another engagement with the troops by whom they had already been three times severely punished, and again withdrew from the valley. Winter was now ap- proaching, and as soon as they had been relieved of the im- mediate presence of the enemy, the Union forces began the crection of winter quarters.
Captain Black, who, on the death of Major Williams, was commissioned Major, and who, on the death of Colonel Charles, was made Lieutenant Colonel, now assumed com- mand of the Eighteenth.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER XL.
ATLANTA.
"For every stripe of stainless huc, And every star in the field of blue, Ten thousand of the brave and true Have laid them down and died."
The Atlanta campaign was a running fight, extending over several parallel ranges of the Alleghanies, one hundred and thirty-eight miles, and continuing through the hot months of the year, May, June, July and August, one hundred and twenty-four days. The mountain region of Georgia was one of the most valuable and valued portions of the Confed- eracy, certainly not for its wonderful mixture of the wild and the gentle in natural scenery, nor for its healthful and delicious climate, but for its practical uses, necessity having forced the supercilious South to a certain degree of esteem for labor. Yankee and German minds were induced to apply themselves to the task of relieving the rocks of their burden of ore, and of turning to account the ice cold springs and crystal streams. Numerous manufactories, transform- ing iron into rails, and into military weapons and implements, weaving cloth, sewing caps and pegging shoes, indicated satisfactory and indeed surprising success. The culminating point of industry and enterprise was Atlanta, called the "Gate City," from its position south of the southern verge of the mountains, between the highlands and the lowlands, and at the intersection of several important railroads. At- lanta flourished by the war, which in turn owed much to Atlanta. Early in 1863, the Gate City was strongly forti- fied, apparently with reference to its importance, rather than to necessity, for its position, defied, if it did not forbid ap-
701
CONCENTRATION OF SHERMAN'S FORCES.
proach from the north. 'The first of its natural lines of de- fence is the wide, deep and swift Chattahoochie, not eight miles distant, with its tributaries, Nancy's and Peach Tree creeks. Ten or twelve miles further north is the rugged range, of which the double-headed Kenesaw is the central and loftiest mountain. The Etowah mountains and the Etowah river, the broad Oostanaula, with its forming branches, the Conasauga and Coosawattie, and the precipi- tous cliffs of Rocky Face ridge, with unbroken stretches of ancient forest, and gorges choked with tangled vegetation, complete the enumeration. The slender railway, running through narrow passes and long tunnels, on costly bridges, and, where the land is comparatively level, between parallel streams, is the only line which connects Atlanta to Chatta- nooga. The roads of the region are few and bad.
Seven months had elapsed since Rosecrans crossed the Tennessee, and more than five months had passed since the battles of Lookout and Mission Ridge, when Sherman or- ganized and concentrated his army for the Atlanta cam- paign. He united the armies of the Cumberland, the Ten- nessee and the Ohio, drawing them from east and west and central Tennessee; from Mississippi and Alabama; and calling to the front troops which, though long in the service, had, as yet, been employed in guarding railroads, and volun- teers who were but recently enrolled. All told, his forces numbered ninety-eight thousand and a few hundred men. The three armies, though united, retained their form and designation, and were under the command respectively of Thomas, McPherson and Schofield. Six corps were present at the outset,-Howard's, Palmer's, Hooker's, Logan's and Dodge's, and the single corps which comprised the Army of the Ohio. The army included sixteen infantry divisions, un- der Stanley, Newton and Wood; Baird, Johnson and Davis; Geary, Butterfield and Williams; Osterhaus, Wood and Harrow; Hovey, Cox and Judah; and three cavalry divisions under Kilpatrick, Stoneman and Garrard. M'Cook had part in the campaign at a later date. Judah was superseded by Hascall shortly after the march began. Hovey's division consisted entirely of Indiana regiments, straight from home
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
and excessively tired by a march of twenty days, during which they had carried guns, clothing, blankets and rations.
The Confederate army was nearly sixty thousand strong, in three corps, under Hardee, Hood and Polk, with ten thou- sand cavalry under Wheeler. General Johnston was Com- mander-in-Chief. It was behind Rocky Face ridge, in and around Dalton, with an outpost on Tunnell Hill, twenty miles from Chattanooga.
The Army of the Cumberland being the most powerful, and the best appointed portion of the triple force, formed the centre of Sherman's advance. The Army of the Tennessee was the right at the start, but it was swung from one flank to the other so frequently, and with such facility, that it came to be called the Whip-Lash. Each regiment was limited to one wagon. Officers and privates carried their blankets, and nothing else except rations. The greatness of the enterprise, the inspiration of numbers, the beauty of the scenery and the charming spring weather exhilarated the troops, and they set out in high spirits. Yet the campaign had hardly opened before they were perceptibly impressed with its severity. Many who had been careless of religious services, now attentively received the chaplain's teachings.
On the sixth of May, the pickets saw the enemy's pickets without coming in contact with them. The next day there was slight skirmishing on Tunnel Hill, and in the little val- ley at the foot of Rocky Face. The only pass, Buzzard Roost gap, was triply defended, being overflowed by the damming of a little stream, half choked with abatis, and commanded by artillery. Howard, Hooker and Palmer cleared the way to the base with a strong skirmish line, and began the ascent, the troops pulling themselves up by means of roots and bushes, and finding shelter behind trees and shelving rocks from stones, balls and bullets which were cast from points above them. Schofield was on the left, with Hovey's di- vision on his left. He captured a conical elevation which was surrounded by strong works and surmounted by heavy cannon. Harker made a vigorous but unsuccessful assault. Whitaker, with a portion of the Eighty-Fourth, under Major Boyd, deployed in his front, also unsuccessfully assaulted,
703
ROCKY FACE GAINED.
after gaining an advanced position by climbing. Wagner gained a height in his front. The Eighty-Sixth skirmished thirty hours without relief, advancing within a few yards of the top, and so close to the Rebels as to invite an exchange of remarks. "What corps is that down there?" cried a sol- dier in gray. "The Fourth!" replied a man in blue. "That's a lie," rejoined the other, "the Fourth corps would have been on the ridge by this time." "What regiment are you?" "Eighty-Sixth Indiana." "You charged Mission Ridge, didn't you? If we had been there instead of the Arkansas troops, you never would have reached the top." He inter- rupted his frank expression of opinion by shouting, "Look out! Here comes a stone!"
On the twelfth, Whitaker's brigade had the picket line very near the enemy's works. Father Cooney, who never omitted evening prayer, generally calling his men around him by a little bell, this evening went along the line of the Thirty- Fifth and whispered, "It is time for prayer. Follow me." The men obeyed, leaving their arms against the slight breast- works, and hastening from both flanks to the centre. The alternate recitation of prayer by pastor and flock, attracted the enemy's fire, which, however, proved harmless.
The fighting on Rocky Face was not at any time heavy. " In comparison with what we went through afterwards," an officer in Howard's corps said, "our stay there was only a picnic. The Rebels amused themselves by inviting us up to the top, and we in turn invited them down. They never threw a stone without giving us warning."
On the twelfth, Howard suddenly found his front clear. He pressed on, leaving nearly a thousand killed and wounded, belonging chiefly to the divisions of Geary, Wood and New- ton. The Ninth, deployed in skirmish line, was the first reg- iment to enter Dalton, and among the foremost in pursuit of the enemy's rear, as it retired, over the direct and easy road, eighteen miles, to Resaca.
A flanking movement against Resaca had occasioned the sudden backing out of the enemy. While Thomas and Schofield pressed up Rocky Face, McPherson, with Garrard's cavalry, made a rapid and circuitous march through Ship
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
Gap, Villanow and Snake Creek gap, surprising and putting to flight a brigade of Rebel cavalry, and appeared directly in front of Resaca, though, as the place was more strongly for- tified than he had expected, only to return to the west end of Snake Creek gap. Being joined by Hooker, Palmer and Schofield, after they had made an inconceivable hard march, McPherson deployed again through the hills toward Resaca, cavalry skirmishing in advance. The enemy was admirably posted behind lines of rifle pits, and strong field fortifications, running across the peninsula, at the head of which Resaca is situated, and close round the town, his right, under Hardee, protected by the Conasauga, his left, under Polk, resting on the Oostauaula, and his left centre, under Hood, covered by a small branch of the latter river. Under fierce skirmishing, Sherman formed his lines close to the hostile lines. Scho- field on the left, McPherson on the right and Thomas in the centre. On the afternoon of Friday, the thirteenth, McPher- son moved out in beautiful order, down a hill, across grain fields, through a belt of woods and into a low flat, under a murderous fire from the further bank of a narrow, deep stream. He was compelled to fall back into the shelter of the woods, where he formed a new line, with Harrow's division on his left. Major Johnson, of the One Hundredth, commanded the heavy skirmish line of Williams' brigade, of which the Twelfth and One Hundredth regiments formed the left and right flanks. The Twelfth suffered severely. By noon of the next day, in spite of the enemy's warm and steady oppo- sition, Sherman's line was formed from right to left in the fol- lowing order: Dodge, Logan, Palmer, Hooker, Schofield and Howard. Chiefly the left and left centre were engaged.
Palmer's corps, in an attempt to advance, drew upon itself at the first movement, a terrible artillery fire, nevertheless, it plunged forward through the creek, with its thick border of undergrowth and tangled vines, and into a valley which was full of ditches. It was forced back. Schofield gained ground, each brigade pushing forward with its utmost strength. Manson's brigade, with the Sixty-Third, under Colonel Stiles, in the front line, charged across open ground more than a half mile, under a terrific fire, and took a portion of the
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RESACA ASSAULTED.
works. Major Patterson and Lieutenant Swank were killed, and one hundred and ten others of the Sixty-Third alone fell. Howard, after severe loss, gained a point in the enemy's outer line. Wagner's brigade was not engaged, except that his skirmishers, becoming separated from the command, threw themselves into the brunt of the battle. Two companies of the Fortieth and Fifty-Seventh, with three companies from other regiments, formed the skirmish line.
The Eighteenth battery, now under Captain Beck, was masked, and the cavalry supporting it, was dismounted and concealed in the woods, when, at three o'clock, Rebel cavalry moving toward Schofield's left, came within two hundred yards of the position. The cavalrymen rose, the artillerymeu double-shotted their guns, and they poured out a stream of bullet and ball. The Rebels fled, pursued by the Second Iu- diana, Lieutenant Hill commanding. Shortly after, they impetuously returned, massing solid columns against Stan- ley's division. They drove it in confusion, and seemed on the point of destroying it, but were checked by Simonson's battery and held, until Hooker, moving from the right, came to the rescue. The moment the enemy retired, Hooker, springing from his horse, impulsively shook hands with every man in the battery, saying, "You are heroes, every one of you!"
Meantime, Logan's corps and part of Dodge's, succeeded in getting over the creek, which they had approached the previous day, and which Palmer had crossed in advancing and recrossed in retreating. They took a line of rifle pits, and Logan repulsed a heavy and desperate assault. Fight- ing continued until ten at night, and ceased with the Fed- eral lines nowhere permanently forced back, and on the right and centre advanced to commanding positions.
Sunday morning, the fifteenth, under cover of heavy skirm- ishing, Hooker's corps massed on the extreme left, to assault two fortified hills which seemed to form the key to the en- cmy's position. A little after one in the afternoon, Butter- field, with his division in five lines, the Seventieth in the front line, and closely supported by Geary and Williams,
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
who in turn were supported by Hovey, charged through the projecting works of a lunette, having a fearful fight within its wall, and pushed on beyond the main line of the enemy; but staggered by an enfilading Rebel fire and a fire on the rear from their comrades, who did not understand their posi- tion, the troops fell back to the ground immediately outside the lunette. To advance was for a time impossible. It was scarcely possible to maintain the footing already gained. Nevertheless, Butterfield clung to the point, and after dark succeeded in effecting a breach and in taking possession of the lunette, in which he captured four twelve pounders. He took also the flags of two regiments and more than two hundred prisoners. Meantime the supporting divisions were scarcely less warmly engaged. Williams halted within four hundred yards of the enemy's works, and Colonel Colgrove, his extreme right, advanced with his regiment, receiving and returning a deadly fire as he moved. When the lines drew near, the Twenty-Seventh darted forward, broke the Rebel ranks, and drove them back to their works, capturing fifty or sixty prisoners, and the colors of an Alabama regiment. Lieutenant Chapin was killed, and Lieutenants Stephenson and Bloss were wounded. Hovey's division, while support- ing Hooker's left, made a brilliant charge on the enemy, moving on the double-quick and with loud huzzas through a hailstorm of lead.
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