USA > New York > Dutchess County > Address delivered Wednesday, 28th November, 1866 : in Feller's Hall, Madalin, township of Red Hook, Duchess Co., N.Y. > Part 4
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The last individual to be especially referred to, de- serves a particular mention, if for no other reason than because he went out a private, and returned as first lieutenant, commanding his (color) company (C) in the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth regiment. His rank dates from 19th December, 1863. His first commission of second lieutenant was conferred for good conduct before Port Hudson, in June anfi July of the preceding year. He had been mnade sergeant a few days after the organization of his regiment.
In the Spring of 1864, the One Hundred and Twenty- eighth formed part of that ill-planned and ill-starred expedition under BANKS, suggested or prescribed by
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the ever blundering HALLECK. Destined to capture Shreveport, disperse KIRBY SMITH's Trans-Mississippi army, recover Texas, and gather a boundless booty of cotton, it resulted in calamities which fell the most severely on the least deserving of them-the rank and file of the sacrificed troops.
Although the One Hundred and Twenty-eightli covered itself with glory, none of its laurels were re- served for the subject of this notice. While his com . rades were fighting, he was tasting the bitterest fruits . of captivity among the most barbarous of the Rebel barbarians. His experience is worthy of narration and attention.
Near Alexandria. Lieutenant JOHN H. HAGAR-de- tached to superintend the loading of a steamer with the Sonthern staple: inasmuch, as was remarked, PORTER "' had cotton on the brain "-was taken pris- oner, 28th March, 1864. The incidents of his cap- tivity are too interesting for omission, since they afford reliable testimony of what onr Northern inen suffered when they were exposed, without means of resist- ance, to the tender mercies of the wicked, those devils in human form. the border Rebels. What is more, his story is corroborated in the main by the narrative of a cousin of the speaker, WILLIAM R. WHITMARSH, Marion, Marion County, Ohio. First Sergeant. Ninety-sixth Ohio Volunteers, who also belonged to BANKS'S Expedition. and was captured at Mansfield. 8th April, 1864, and likewise was carried into Texas.
After his capture, Lieutenant HAGAR was marched. to Homer. in Northern Louisiana, and kept in close con- finement for about one month in a log jail eighteen feet squ re inside surrounded by guards, and daily threatened with all the deviltry of treatment. for which the chivalry were so famous. Thence he was transferred to Shreveport,* on the Upper Red River, theobjective of BANKS's campaign, which, through their general's bInadering. the privates never reached except as ill treated prisoners. On his way thither Lieu- tenant HAGAR was marched 56 miles in 35 hours. 'on two and a half rations, under a guard of cavalry. On reaching the prison door he was so completely ex- hansted that he not only could not stand. but fell upon the threshold. At this place he was confined. · together with 180 rank and file, in a single room, so densely crowded that all could not lie down at one time .. . His food e ch day consisted of but one ration. This comprised a. small piece of corn bread abont the size of the palm of a man's hand, and three ounces of rotten pork.
From Shreveport, Lieutenant HAGAR, together with
* Third Annual Report of Bureau Military Statistic-, 1866. Page 412.
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other Union prisoners, were goaded on about 110 miles to Camp Ford, in Tyler Township, Smith County,* in Northeastern Texas. Here he was kept for about five months. up to October 3d, 1864. He was exchanged about the time that his + omrades had harvested their laurels in the Shenandoah Valley.
The journey from Shreveport to Camp Ford, 110 iniles, was performed in five days, under a guard of semi-barbarous Texan cavalry. These forced marches were made on such rations that it is hard to under- stand how the prisoners maintained sufficient strength to crawl along. Each man received per day two ounces of poor bacon, and six ounces of the coarsest corn meal, cob and grain ground up together.
Each of the Texan mounted guards carried his larriat (a long cord with a noose ) hung at his saddle- bow, and ready for use. If a Union prisoner gave out and fell, too weak to walk, a Texan Ranger would throw this larriat over him, so that the noose would catch him around the waist or neck, and try and force him on his feet. If unable to totter on, the Texan savage would drag him along the ground. HAGAR often saw Union prisoners killed in this way. Not one man recovered or survived who was treated in this barbarous manner. President JOHNSON is said to have stated that, upon one occasion, the Rebels got him down, choked him until he opened his mouth. and then squirted tobacco juice down his throat. Painful and disgusting as such treatment must have been, it was merciful and decent to that which North- ern men experienced, systematically, from their guards. as ferocious as the wildest Indians.
On this march, while passing a settlement. Lieu- tenant HAGAR saw a comrade, faint with fatigne and worn down with fever, step desperately out of the ranks, pass through a little gate, and enter a front yard, with a guard following him, and a lot of half wild dogs barking and snapping around him At th- door stood a woman with a broomstick in her hand. To this female devil he addressed his petition for some- thing to eat to save him from utter starvation, stating how long he had been sick. and how very sick he had been.
Under similar circumstances MUNGO PARK, the celebrated African traveler, dropped by the wayside in the midst of a district, inhabited by a race whom white men are accustomed to style the most savage negroes. Was he left there to perish ? No! Negro women found bim, nursed him, nourished him, and sent him away cured and reinvigorated.
Let us see how a Texan white farmer's wife . will
* Third Ann. Report Bureau of Military Statistics, 1866. Ps. 413-'17.
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compare with a negress in the state of nature To our Northern brother's piteons appeal the she-fury replied : "Get away from my house you d --- d Yankee brute; I would not give you a mouthful to eat if you were lying starving at my feet." With this, simultaneously, she struck at him with her broom . and set her dogs, less ferocious than she was, at the poor, famished. exhausted, fever-stricken Northerner. There are men in this town. indeed- they are to be talked with every day-who justify and excuse the Rebels. They are willing to vote with them, and vote against their Northern brethren, and, 'doubtless. would fight, side by side with the Rebels, against them if they had the opportunity. There are rich men at the North feel so-educated men. and they have misled others, well to do and sen- sible in their business. into holding the same wicked opinions. With such experience before us, if they have not a hell in their bosoms. there must be a hell hereafter.
The poor p isoner alluded to, was forced back into the ranks and dragged along.
At Camp Ford the prisoners were somewhat better treated. They re eived at times a little poor beef, but the rations were never sufficient to satisfy a hearty man. A small man could manage to exist ; a large man was always half starved. If any one attempted to escape his treatment was brutal after his capture.
The speaker's cousin. a fine. brave fellow. enlisted at the commencement of the war. at Marion, Marion County. Ohio, in the Ninety-sixth Ohio Volunteers. He is brother-in-law to a gentleman, THOMAS STREAT- FIELD CLARKSON, residing only a few miles from Madalin He did not want a commission, but tor per- sistent gallantry, especially at the siege of Vicks- burg, he rose to be First Sergeant of his company. Like Lieutenant HAGAR. he was captured in the Red River Expedition. near Mansfield .. on or about the 8th April, 1864. He, too, was carried into Texas, and con- fined in a prison camp, or corral in that State. He made his . scape. and got away sixty miles. was hunted with bloodhounds, taken. dragged back, and upon his arrival at the prison. was tied up by the thumbs for forty-eight hours. This is a terrible punishment, especially for such a heavy man as he is, weighing in full health near 200 pounds. Those who escaped with him and were brought back. in addition to being tied up bv the thumbs, were flogged like dogs. Sergeant WHITMARSH does not say that he was flogged. A proud man does not like to admit that he has suffered su h an indignity.
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Through these three reg ments, and through its
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townsmen scattered over 47 to 50 regiments, Red Hook became and continu d to be connected with the war in every section of the country. * *: * *
Subsequently the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth formed part of the disastrons Red River expedition. It belonged to EMORY's famous Nineteenth Corps and GROVER's distinguished fighting First Division. This. corps and this division saved the Army, and on various occasions, where ofhier regiments were compelled to give way, the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth re- trieved the fate of the day.
While fighting on the Red River the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth found a memorial of Red Hook re- plete with recollections of the past, and auguries.for the future.
Some years ago, a friend of the speaker, the Rev. THOMAS Scorr BACON. founded a Protestant Episco- pal Church in the old. bigoted Roman Catholic town of Natchitoches, an advance-guard of progress in the midst of moral and religions stagnation. This Mr. BACON, a true Union patriot; was forced by the Rebels to abandon his home, and his plantation near Alexandria. was ruined. He then acted as chaplain in our Navy. and when the steam frigate Richmond passed the batteries of Port Hudson, batteries which destroyed her consort. the Mississippi, he stood beside her captain on the bridge between the paddle-boxes, amid that rain of ball and shell, to set an example and to show that a Christian pastor was as willing to risk his life as any soldier or sailor for his country.
Prior to the war, the speaker sent ont a beautiful and costly bell for Mr. BAcox's recently completed church. When BEAUREGARD called upon the Southern people . to give him all their bells, from church to planta- tion bells. to meit into can ion, this Northern bell was one of the few which was not transferred from God's service to the devil's service. Well may the term devil's service be used. for if ever the devil had a cause upon earth it was the cause of the Rebels, and they performed his service consistently and are at it, still, as far as they are able.
This bell rang our boys into Natchitoches. GEORGE F. SIMMoNs saw it there. It rang out a joyful peal when the Stars and Stripes were hoisted. over that eminently Rebel place. And although it witnessed our disastrous retreat, it continued to hang in its tower to ring out another joyful peal-that peal which announced the universal triumph of the Union arms. Hereafter it should be deemed sacred, for no bell has ever survived greater perils at the hands of sacriligeous men.
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While the service of the 20th N. Y. S. M. was confined to the operations of the Army of the Potomac. discharg- ing in the latter part of its term the vexatious but most necessary duties of the provost guard, the 128th and the 150th moved in orbits far more eccentric and extensive.
Of these three Regiments the 20th had undoubt- edly a larger share of the hardest fighting during the war ; tho 128th had a proportionate share in the suf- fering and exposure ; while for the 150th was re- served a Benjamin's portion of that exercise in whose judicious application, Marshal SAXE > aid, lies the secret of success. His words were that the victory depends rather upon the soldiers' legs than upon the soldiers' arms. In this part of the soldier's duty, marching, the palm must be certainly conceded to the 150th. since, after participating in the decisive battle at the East, Gettysburg-a bloody, startling. first appear- a ce for them - they were transferred to GRANT. Then, under SHERMAN, they fought their way, by months of almost uninterrupted skirmish and battle. to Atlanta, and, thence, made that march, pre-eminent, among all famous marches, which carried " Old Glory" with forbearance through Georgia, into Savannah ; and thence, with fire and sword, through South Carolina, the birthplace of Secession, winding up their tramp or circuit of between 1.500 and 2 000 miles with their triumphant procession through Washington. * * *
The history of the first. the Twentieth. is the his- tory of the Army of the Potomac. In part of 1861 and 1862 it was under Colonel GEORGE W. PRATT, mortally wounded at Bull Run, second. Among the killed were 5 privates. Company B, from Madalin. and 3 wounded from the neighborhood. Subsequently it was commaded by Colonel, now Brevet Brigadier- General. THEODORE B. GATES, whom his men looked up to as a father. General GATES testifies that " this . (his) regiment was a model of discipline and good con- duct, as orderly in camp as it was brave and efficient in battle." - Gener | PATRICK. af erwards Provost Marshal-General of the Army of the Potomac, who had it in his brigade in 1862. was never satisfied until he got it back under him after he had been transferred to a more extensive, difficult and influential sphere His opinion of it was as high, if not higher. than that of its immediate commander. "Nine color-bearers (2d Ann, Rep. Bur. Mil. Stat., 1865, p. 165) fell ønder its National Flag at the second Bull Run, and/ the regi- ment lost 35 killed and 232 wounded, in the campaign of 1862. while fighting under these colors." Under McDOWELL, MCCLELLAN, POPK. BURNSIDE, HOOKER,
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MEADE, and GRANT it was present in almost every battle fought by the Army of the Potomac.
They participated in the operations which reopened and kept open the road to Washington n the Spring of 1861. and in the taming of rebellious and blood- stained Baltimore. This was one of the boldest feats of audacity which the annals of war record. They garrisoned beleaguered Washington and did their duty . gloriously in the first disastrous conflict of Bul Run- disastrous because it was accepted as a defea by a general who, neither at that time nor any future time, showed that he was capable of making himself the possessor of his soldiers' confidence. A general who cannot win the affections of his subordinates and in- spire them with a saving faith in his ability is not the general to accomplish great things either for his coun- try's glory or his own reputation, however high a rank he may hold as a strategist or as a tactician. Still in justice it must be said that few plans of operations were more ably conceived than those which emanated from the brain and pen of General McDOWELL in July, 1861. His subsequent and subordinate movements, however, were so faulty, and his troops so badly handled that the boastful aggressive which was to carry " Old Glory " on and into Richmond, terminated
# The regiment left Kingston, N. Y., October 28, 1861 ; was attached to WADSWORTH's brigade, McDOWELL's division; and, during the Winter of 1861-2, lay at Upton's Hill, Va. There appears to be no Annual Report which is accessible for 1861. This egiment advanced to Centreville with the Army of the Potomac March 10, 1862 ; returned to Upton's Hill March 16th : left Bailey's Cross Roads, April 4th, under General PATRICK; reached Falmouth, April 19th, being the 2d brigade to arrive ; crossed the Rappahannock May 18th, and was the first and only brigade which at that time entered Fredericksburg, and was picketed on the beigh s in sight of the enemy ; started by the overland route for Richmond May 26th, but when eight miles out was ordered to the Shenandoah Valley af er "STONEWALL" JACKSON ; from Haymarket returned to Falmouth, via Warrenton. arriving on the 24th of June ; crossed to Fredericksburg with the 21st New York Volunteers, July 28th, and established a chain of sentinels entirely around the city, cutting off its communication with the surrounding. country ; marched for Culpepper, August 9th, to join PopE on the Rapilan ; retreated from the Rapidan, August 19th; engaged at Norman's Ford on the Rappahannock August 21st, loss ten killed and wounded; at Sulphur Springs August 26th, loss six wounded ; marched for Centreville August 27th. Our division ( KING's), 6 000 strong, engazed the enemy under "STONEWALL" JACKSON, 30th August, at Manassas, second Bull Run, where the regiment lost 248 killed, wounded and captured out of 420 engaged ; returned to Cetreville, and, in DOUBLEDAY's division. just on KEARNY's right, engaged at Chantilly September 1st, loss sixteen killed and wounded out of ninety ; returned to Unton's Hill September 2d ; marched into Maryland September 7th, and engaged at South Mountain, withont loss ; and also at Antietam, loss forty-seven killed and wou ded out of 127 engaged : cros-ed into Virginia October 30th, and marched towarIs Fredericksburg ; took part in the battle of 13th and 14th and 15th of December. January 9 1863, the brigade to which it belonged was detailed as Provost Guard of the Army of the Potomac, and continued on that duty at Aquia Creek, Va. For full and fur- ther details of the " Movements, Service and Discipline " of his reg- iment, during the years 1862-'3-'4-'5, until mustered out, see APPEN- DIX.
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in a rout which, although more partial than was rep- resented at the time by prejudiced writers, was sufficiently complete to convert that advance to an assured victory into a humiliating retreat back within those defences thrown up for the preservation of our capital.
The representatives of our town upon that occasion were not among the flying thousands, and one of theni, Assistant Surgeon FREDERIC DE PEYSTER, Junr., saw the last shots fired which repulsed the pursuing enemy, and only retired in obedience to imperative orders.
Our gallant boys were with the " unready " McCLEL- LAN in the Peninsula and shared in all the labors, privations, and dangers which-had it depended upon the valor and fortitude of the Northern soldiers and not upon the incapacity of their commander-would have carried the Stars and Stripes triumphantly into Richmond.
At Antietam, " the corps commanders' battle." the first acknowledged ch. ck upon the victorious on-march of the famous Army of Northern Virginia, our fellow- townsmen bore their part in the burthen and heat of that decisive day. Again, at Gettysburg, that ' soldiers' battle," that turning point at the East- parallel »s a crisis to ROSECRANS's great victory at Stone River, at the West-a green regiment from our Senatorial District, in which this town bad numerous representatives, baptized its young eagle in the min- gled blood of its victorious brethren and the discountited foe. Gettysburg may well be styled the " soldiers' battle." since it cannot justly be conceded to the strategy or grand tactics-antecedent to the conflict, or during its three days' continuance-of either the supreme commander of the Army of the Potomac, or ary of its prominent leaders. That the desperate in- vasion of Northern soil by that vaunted Army of Northern Virginia, which claimed to hav conquered so brilliantly ac Chancellorsville, was arrested ; that Pennsylvania was delivered ; that the omnipotent LEE was hurled 's ack with disastrous losses across the Poto- mac ; was due remotely and in some degree to the ad- mirable organization of HOOKER, but immediately and almost entirely to the patrioti m and moral energy of those Northern masses which had followed up the Rebels with the strid :s of a giant. and after overcoming every labor and privation, primary vicissitudes which a soldier is called upon to endure, had consummated their glorious work with their valor -- a quality which the great professor of the military art pronounced as but secondary to those properties which test the for- titude and moral strength of an army.
Some persons who have Not given a close a tention to the subject have stigmatized the battle of Chan
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cellorsville as a defeat. It was indeed a reverse for our arms, and, in some points of view, a disaster. In many respects, however, it was equivalent to a victory. because, although our loss was great. we inflicted x still greater loss upon the Rebels .* Their loss they could not afford to suffer, particulary the loss of STONEWALL JACKSON. That alone was equivalent to a depletion of 10,000 men. Even as at Shiloh, the matured brain of the Rebel military power was par- alyzed in the death of ALBERT SYDNEY JOHNSTON, even so at Chancellorsville, its right arm was lopped off in the fall of STONEWALL JACKSON.
The soldiers of the Army of the Potomac were not disheartened by the failure, the reverse or defeat, whatever the crities may be pleased to term it, of 28th April to 6th May. 1863. They neither lost heart nor had their pluck been diminished by it. HOOKER's con- fidence in himself and in his soldiers was as great after as before the battle. He showed it by repeating almost word for word the ideas embodied in that general order issued by the indomitable BLUCHER --- that Prussi in hero cast in the same mould as HOOKER. after his parallel reverse in June, 1815. The conclud- ing words of this order strikingly and characteristic- ally manifested the confidence of the general in his patriotic troops. It was issued to the Prussian Army on the morning after the bloody conflict at Ligny. which, in results. might be said to correspond with HOOKER's failure in the Wilderness. " I shall imme- diately lead you (again) against the enemy ; we shall beat him because it is our duty to do so.'
Both Generals were justified in their conclusions. The Army of the Potomac-our brothers in the 20th N. Y. S. M., in the 150th N. Y. V .. in the Ist N. Y. Light Artillery. in every regimen wherein they were to be found-proved this. Yes, as GREELEY remarks with so much truth. " Whatever his faults, HOOKER was loved and trusted by his soldi rs, who knew less of MEADE, and head less faith in him. Had that army been pulled, it would have voted to fight the impend- ing battle under HOOKER without the aid of FRENCH's 11,000 men, rather than under MEADE with that re- enforcement."
Oh, what a spectacle of invincible determination did our Northern brethren in arms present at Gettys- burg. Philosophy and freedom of thought which had found shelter under the Stars and Stripes. now repaid their debt. How magnificent in its impregnability of
* Examine Monograph (5 copies printed) " CHANCELLORSVILIK AND ITS RESULTS," or " Major-General JOSEPH HOOKER In command of the Army of the Potomac," by ANCHOR (Brevet Major-General J. WATTS DE PRYSTER), etc., etc., N. Y., 1865, particularly pages 11, 12, 13, etc.
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moral strength that long curved line of " boys in blue " crowned the heights of Gettysburg, cropping out like granite ridges along the crest of a mountain range. The hills themselves were not more firmly rooted than the loyal lines. Their physical vigor-unshaka- ble as it proved-was not as dangerous to the enemy as the determination of their souls to conquer, there, or die. The Rebels' shouts sounded on the distant ear, like the ominous roar of breakers driven by the tempest, bursting in thundering shocks upon the shore. Like waves, following in quick succession, the Rebel lines of attack appeared to roll upon or opposing loyal ranks. The curling smoke resembled the foam and spray thrown up by the mighty billows as they dash themselves to pieces on the granit, ledges and beetling crags of an iron-bound coast. For three days long that storm continued to. rage with a violence un- equalled in the four years war. Our devoted lines of battle seemed almost swallowed up, at times, in the tumultuous onset of the desperate Rebel hosts. In vain, however, did LEE's maddened masses chafe and fret away their strength against the impregnable barriers of the sons of freedom. The Army of the Potomac stood proudly unmoved and invincible in this the supreme crisis of the nation. They could not be shaken ; they conquered, for every regiment stood based upon the sacred principle of honor, discipline and duty, and the brigades and divisions were cemented together by the ties of patriotism and the impulse of national glory. Our yeomanry soldiers set up the pillars of the Union on the field of Saratoga, 1777. Our Northern army re- stablished those col- unins again. and immutably, on the heights of Gettys- burg, 1863.
About the same time another regiment from . ur Senatorial District, 128th, was playing a notable part on war's checker-board upon the banks of the . " father of waters," where it lost its respected and lamented Colonel. He was one of those rare men who, like LUCULLUS and other Romans, left the forum for the camp, and-ma like manner, but in a smaller de- gree and upon a much more circumscribed space- displayed an aptitude for military command. He dis- tinguis ed himself as much in his sphere as a sagacious .organizer and strict disciplinarian in the camp as he showed himself an able commander and brave soldier in the field. One company of this regiment was re-
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