Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 124

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

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As I stepped out on the pavement my neighbor did the same. He, too, was off for the war. At each of our adjoining chamber- windows stood a solitary female. Neither could see the other though not ten feet apart, . a house dividing wall intervening. Sadness and merriment were personified. Tears be- dewed and apprehension elongated the face of the one. Laughter dimpled and shortened the face of the other. The one thought of

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her protector as going forth to encounter the terrors of battle; visions of wounds and death were before her. The other thought of hers with only a prospect of a little season of rural refreshment on the Kentucky hills, to return in safety with an appetite ravenous as a wolf's for freshly dug pink-eyes and Beresford's choice cuts.

We joined our regiment at the landing. This expanse of acres was crowded with armed citizens in companies and regiments. Two or three of our frail, egg-shell river steamers, converted into gun-boats, were re- ceiving from drays bales of hay for bulwarks. The pontoon was a moving panorama of newly made warriors, and wagons of muni- tions hastening southward. Back of the plain of Covington and Newport rose the softly rounded hills ; beyond these were our bloodthirsty foe. Our officers tried to manœuvre our regiment. They were too ignorant to manœuvre themselves; it was like handling a rope of sand. But in my absence they had somehow managed to get that long line of men arranged into platoons. Then as I took my place the drums beat, fifes squeaked, and we crossed the pontoon. The people of Covington filled their doorways and windows to gaze at the passing pageant. To my fancy they looked scowlingly. No cheers, no smiles greeted us. It was a staring silence. The rebel army had been largely recruited from the town.

March ! march ! march ! We struck the hills. The way up seemed interminable. The boiling September sun poured upon us like a furnace. The road was as an ash heap. Clouds of limestone dust whitened us like millers, filling our nostrils and throats with impalpable powder. The cry went up, Water ! water ! Little or none was to be had. The unusual excitement and exertion told upon me. Years before, I had, bearing my knapsack, performed pedestrian tours of thousands of miles. Had twice walked across New York, once from the Hudson to the lake; in the hottest of summer had footed it from Richmond to Lynchburg. No forty or fifty miles a day had ever wilted me like this march of only four. But my muscles had been relaxed by years of con- tinuous office labor .. I had been on my feet on guard-duty all night.

Near the top of the hills, some 500 feet above the Ohio level, our regiment halted, when our officers galloped ahead. We broke ranks and lay down under the wayside fence. Five minutes elapsed. Back cantered the cortege. "Fall into line ! fall into line ! Quick, men !" was the cry. They rode among us. Our colonel exclaimed, "You are now going into battle ! The enemy are advancing ! You will receive sixty rounds of cartridges ! Do your duty, men ! do your duty !" I fancied it a ruse to test our conrage, and so experienced a sense of shame.

I looked upon the men around me. Not a word was spoken; not one smiled. No visible emotion of any kind appeared, only

weary faces, dirty, sweaty, and blowsy with the burning heat.

I dropped my cartridges into my haver- sack along with my food. Our captain, in his musical, pleasant voice, gave us instruc- tions, though he had never studied war. "Gentlemen ! these cartridges are peculiar ; you put the ball in first and the powder on top !" Some one whispered in his ear. "Gentlemen," he again exclaimed, with a significant scowl and shake of his head, "I was mistaken ; you must put the powder in first and the ball on top !"" We did so. We had elected Billy captain, for he was genial and of a good family.

We again shuffled upward. Suddenly as the drawing of a curtain, a fine, open, rolling country with undulating ravines burst upon us. Two or three farm mansions with half concealing foliage and corn-fields appeared in the distance ; beyond, a mile away, the fringed line of a forest ; above, a cloudless sky and a noon-day sun. The road we were on penetrated these woods. In these were concealed the unknown thousands of our war- experienced foe.

On the summit of the hills we had so laboriously gained, defending the approach by the road, ran our line of earth-works. On our right was Fort Mitchell ; to our left, for hundreds of yards, rifle-pits. The fort and pits were filled with armed citizens, and a regiment or two of green soldiers in their new suits. Vociferous cheers greeted our appearing. "How are you, H. ? " struck my attention. It was the cheerful voice of a tall, slender gentleman in glasses, who did my legal business, John W. Herron.

Turning off to the left into the fields in front of these, and away beyond, we halted an hour or so in line of battle, the nearest regi- ment to the enemy. We waited in expecta- tion of an attack, too exhausted to fight, or, perhaps, even to run. Thence we moved back into an orchard, behind a rail-fence, on rather low ground ; our left, and the extreme left of all our forces, resting on a farm-house. Our pioneers went to work strengthening our permanent position, cutting down brush and small trees, and piling them against the fence. Here, we were in plain view, a mile in front, of the ominous forest. When night came on, in caution, our camp-fires were ex- tinguished. We slept on hay in the open air, with our loaded muskets by our sides, and our guards and pickets doubled.

At 4 o'clock reveille sounded and we were up in line. I then enjoyed what I had not before seen in years-the first coming on of morning in the country. Most of the day we were in line of battle behind the fence. Regiments to the right of us, and more in the rifle-pits farther on, and beyond, it seemed a mile to the right, the artillerists in Fort Mitchell-all those on hills above us also stood waiting for the enemy. Constant picket firing was going on in front. The rebels were feeling our lines. Pop ! pop ! pop ! one-two-three, then half a dozen in quick succession, followed by a lull with

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intervals of three or four minutes, broken perhaps by a solitary pop. Again continuous pops, like a feu-de-joie, with another lull, and so on through the long hours. Some of our men were wounded, and others, it was reported, killed. With the naked eye we caught occasional glimpses of the skirmishers in a corn-field near the woods. With a glass a man hy my side said he saw the butter- nut-colored garments of the foe.

Toward evening a furious thunder-storm drove us to our tents of blankets and brush- wood bowers. It wet us through and de- stroyed the cartridges in our cotton haver- sacks. Just as the storm was closing, a tremendous fusilade on our right, and the cries of our officers, "The enemy are upon us; turn out ! turn out!" brought us to the fence again. The rebels, we thought, had surprised us and would be dashing down in a moment with their cavalry through the orchard in our rear. Several of our com- panies fired off their muskets in that direc- tion, and to the manifest danger of a line of our own sentinels. It was a false alarm, and arose in the 110th Ohio, camped on the hill to our right.

You may ask what my sensations were as I thus stood, back to the fence, with uplifted musket in expectant attitude ? To be honest, my teeth chattered uncontrollably. I never boasted of courage. Drenched to the marrow by the cold rain, I was shivering before the alarm, and so I reasoned in this way-" Our men are all raw, our officers in the same doughy condition. We are armed with the old, con- demned Belgian rifle. Not one in ten can be discharged. All my reading in history has ground the fact into me, that militia, situated like us, are worthless when attacked by veterans. An hundred experienced cavalry- men dashing down with drawn sabres, revolv- ers and secesh yells will scatter us in a twinkling. When the others run, and I know they will, I won't. I'll drop beside this fence, simulate death, and open an eye to the culminating circumstances." I was not aching for a fight. Ambitious youths going in on their muscles, alas ! are apt to come out on their backs.

Unlike Norvel, I could not say :

"I had heard of battles and longed To follow to the field some warlike chap."

When at school I never fought excepting when my pugnacity was aroused on seeing large boys tyrannize over small ones. I never slew anything larger than a cat, which had scratched me, and at this, as soon as done, I child-like, as child I was, repenting, sat down and cried. I am soft-hearted as my uncle Toby with the fly-"Go, poor devil! the world is large enough for both you and me." To pit my valuable life against one of these low Southern whites-half animals, fierce as hyenas, degraded as serfs-appeared a mani- fest incongruity. It never seemed so plain before. It was tackling the beast in the only point where he was strong.

Some things were revealed to me by this soldier life. The alarming rumors current. The restraints upon one's liberty, imprisoned within the lines of the regiment. The sensa- tion of being ordered around by small men in high places, and not admirable in any. The waste of war, piles of bread, water- soaked by rain into worthless pulp. The vacuity of mind from the want of business for continuous thought. The picturesque attitudes of scores of men sleeping on heaps of straw ; seen by the uncertain light of night. The importance of an officer's horse beyond that of a common soldier, shown by the refusal of hay on which to sleep on the night of our arrival, because the colonel's beast wanted it. Didn't our good mother earth furnish a bed ?

In our company were three of us-Wil- liam J. Flagg, Samuel Davis and myself, not relatives in any way-who, in a New England city, distant nearly a thousand miles, had, over thirty years before, been school-mates. It illustrated a peculiar phase of American habits. We had some odd characters. Our fifer, a short, spare-built, wan-faced man, had been in the British army-had seen ser- vice in Afghanistan, the other side of the globe. Another, a German lieutenant, had experience of war in our country-was at Shiloh. He was imaginative. I talked with him in the night. To my query of the prob- ability of a night attack, he replied, "Yes, the secesh always attack in that way." Past midnight as he was going the rounds of the pickets as officer of the guard, he said he saw crouching in the shadow of a ravine a large body of rebels. He ran to headquarters and aroused our colonel and staff ; but when they arrived at the seeing point, lo ! the foe had vanished. A fat, gray-headed captain with protuberant abdomen came to me soon after our arrival and with an impressive countenance discoursed of the perils of our position. In this I quite agreed with him. Then putting his hand to his stomach and giving his head a turn to one side, after the usual manner of invalids in detailing their woes, he uttered in lugubrious tones-" I am very sick ; the march over has been too much for me ; I feel a severe attack of my old com- plaint, cholera morbus, coming on." After this I missed him. He had got a permit from the surgeon and returned home to be nursed. Our medical man, Dr. Dandridge, was old Virginia born ; and I had, notwithstanding his generous qualities, suspected him of secesh sympathies. I wish to be charitable, but I must say this confirmed my suspicion ; it was evident he wished to get the fighting men out of the way !

Saturday afternoon, the 13th, we began our return march. The militia were no longer needed, for the rebels had fallen back, and thousands of regular soldiers had been pour- ing into the city and spreading over the hills. Our return was an ovation. The landing was black with men, women and children. We recrossed the pontoon amid cheers and the boom of cannon. Here, on the safe side

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of the river, the sick captain, now recovered, joined his regiment. With freshly shaven face, spotless collar and bright uniform, he appeared like a bandbox soldier among dust- covered warriors. Escaping our perils, he shared our glories, as, with drawn sword, he strutted through street after street amid cheers of the multitude, smiles of admiring women, and waving of 'kerchiefs. Weary

and dirt-begrimed, we were, in a tedious, circuitous march, duly shown off by our offi- cers to all their lady acquaintances, until night came to our relief, kindly covered us with her mantle, and stopped the tomfoolery. The lambs led forth to slaughter thus returned safely to their folds, because the butcher hadn't come.

It is now known that Kirby Smith was never ordered to attack Cincinnati, but only to demonstrate; and about this very time the advance of Buell seemed to Bragg so menacing that he made haste to order Smith back to his support. The force that approached so near the city at no time comprised 12,000 men and were under the immediate command of General Heath. In speaking of this event after the war, Kirby Smith said that at one time he could " have very easily entered Cincinnati with his troops, but all h-Il could not have got them out again."

MORGAN'S RAID.

Morgan's raid in July of the next year was the next event to arouse an excite- ment in the city. He came within a few miles and slipped around it in the night. The details of the raid are given elsewhere. After the battle of Buffington Island the prisoners, amounting to about 700 men, were brought to the city in steamers. The privates were sent from here to Indianapolis. The officers, about 70 in number, were landed at the foot of Main street from the steamer Starlight, and marched up the street under a strong guard to the city prison on Ninth street. The people had regarded them in the light of horse-thieves, and greatly rejoicing at their capture, as they passed along, in places expressed their contempt by howls and cat-cries. No other bodies of prisoners brought to the city during the war were otherwise than respectfully received. Indeed the only word of disre- spect we heard towards any of them came from a little boy and of our own family. It was early morning when in our residence on East Fifth street, near Pike, we were attracted by sounds in the street. Rushing to the door our eyes were greeted by the sight of a body of say 200 unarmed men dressed in gray, with about a third of their number in blue on each side with muskets in hand, and the whole mass were on a run in the middle of the street hurrying to the depot of the Little Miami Railroad en route for Camp Chase. At this sight the little one at my side called out, " Rebel traitors-rebel traitors !" Curious to know the effect of so much war time education he was receiving had upon the same young mind we about then inquired : "Would you like to be a soldier?" "No, sir; not one of the kind that go to war." "Why not ?" "Because, I should expect to get killed."

Morgan and a number of his officers were confined in the State Prison at Columbus, from whence the great raider made his escape on the night of the 27th of November. The following particulars of the flight were detailed in a Rich- mond paper :

" It had been previously determined that, on reaching the outer walls, the parties should separate, Morgan and Hines together, and the others to shape their course for them- selves. Thus they parted. Hines and the General proceeded at once to the depot to purchase their tickets for Cincinnati. But, lo ! where was the money ? The inventive Hines had only to touch the magical wand of his ingenuity to be supplied. While in prison he had taken the precaution, after

planning his escape, to write to a lady friend in a peculiar cypher, which when handed to the authorities, to read through openly, con- tained nothing contraband, but which, on the young lady receiving, she, according to in- structions, sent him some books, in the back of one of which she concealed some " green- backs," and across the inside wrote her name to indicate the place where the money was deposited. The books came safe to hand, and Hines was flush. Going boldly up to

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the ticket office, while Morgan modestly stood back and adjusted a pair of green goggles over his eyes, which one of the men, having weak eyes, had worn in prison.

They took their seats in the cars without suspicion. How their hearts beat until the locomotive whistled to start! Slowly the wheels turn, and they are off. The cars were due in Cincinnati at 7 o'clock A. M. At Xenia they were detained one hour. What keen anguish of suspense did they not suf- fer ! They knew at 5 o'clock A. M. the con- victs would be called, and that their escape would then be discovered, when it would be telegraphed in every direction ; consequently the guards would be ready to greet them on their arrival. They were rapidly nearing the city of abolition hogdom. It was a cool, rainy morning. Just as the train entered

the suburbs, about half a mile from the depot, the escaped prisoners went out on the platform and put on the brakes, checking the cars sufficiently to let them jump off. Hines jumped off first, and fell, considerably stunned. Morgan followed, unhurt. They immediately made for the river. Here they found a boy with a skiff, who had just ferried across some ladies from the Kentucky side. They dared not turn their heads for fear of seeing the guards coming. "Hines," whis- pered the General, "look and see if any- body is coming." The boy was told they wanted to cross, but he desired to wait for more passengers. The General told him he was in a hurry, and promised to pay double fare. The skiff shot .out into the stream- they soon reached the Kentucky shore, and breathed-free."

THE CINCINNATI NEWSPAPERS IN THE WAR TIMES.

The press of the city sprang into an importance never before experienced. Extras were being continually issued, and the newsboys persistent everywhere filled the air with their cries, "all about the battle." Not only in the city, but the carriers penetrated to the armies in front to sell their wares. Colonel Crafts Wright, in writing a description for the Gazette of the battle of Fort Donaldson, said : "Sunday morning we were ordered to advance on the trenches of the enemy. While standing there a new cry was heard-a carrier came along crying, 'Cin- cinnati Commercial, Gazette and Times,' and as I sat upon my horse, bought them and read the news from home, and this too within an hour after the fort had sur- rendered."

The colonel had been a room-mate and class-mate with Jefferson Davis, and through life remained a personal friend, though not agreeing in politics ; this was not to be expected from one of the proprietors of the Cincinnati Gazette.

The press had correspondents everywhere, and these were untiring in gathering the news from the " front." In the early stages of the war every skirmish was published and magnified, and little minor matters detailed that later on were not noticed, as anecdotes of individual heroism, descriptions of the appearance of the dead and wounded, illustrating the savagery of war.

The city being so close upon the border found its business in diverting its in- dustries to prosecution of the war. After a short period of stagnation there were but few idle people, and when it was seen that the war had come to stay, there was no scarcity of money and the entire community were prospering. Among the peculiar industries of the time was the putting up of stationery in large en- velopes called "paper packages." The amount of letter-writing between the soldiers and their friends at home was enormous. These packages were peddled everywhere, alike in town, country and camps, at a cost of about a dime each, and consisted of envelopes, paper, pencil, pens, holder and ink ; most of the station- ery was miserable. Soldiers' letters went postage free.

The city was often alive with troops through the war period. Regiments came from every State. At first they were looked upon with interest and pride. Fa- miliarity changed this. Then came sad scenes. One was the bringing in of the wounded from the battle-fields. After Donaldson and Shiloh the physicians and nurses, notably the Sisters of Charity, went down from the city and large numbers were brought here by boat and taken to the hospitals in ambulances. Just at the edge of a winter's evening we saw a line of ambulances filled with the sufferers. They had stopped before an improvised hospital, that had been a business building on Fourth street, near Main, and were being carried in on stretchers or in the arms of others. Among them were some wounded prisoners, who received equally good

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treatment with the others. On the bloody field of Moskwa, Napoleon, as he stooped over the Russian wounded and ordered relief, said, " After battle we are no longer enemies."

We asked one of the medical men, a personal friend, Dr. George Mendenhall, President of the Sanitary Commission, who had come up the river with them from Donaldson, if he had, while ministering to their wounds, talked with them. " No," said that good man, " I felt so indignant when I reflected what a miser- able business they had been engaged in that I had no stomach for social inter- course." Personally, we think it instructive to get at the bottom thought of all sorts of people in religion, business, politics and war-and even in wedlock, which, alas, often results in the same. It often teaches charity for what is wrong- doing. In a deserted rebel camp, Laurel Hill, Western Virginia, was found " a love letter,"in which was expressed the bottom thought of at least one poor seces- sionist : " I sa agen, dear Melindy, weer fitin for our libertis to do gest as we pleas, and we will fit for them so long as GODDLEMITY gives us breth."

The hospitals were sacred places to the ladies of the city who were alive in ministering to the wants of the soldier boys; and to the latter they seemed angelie. One very great occupation was writing letters at the dictation of the suffering and often dying soldiers to their loved ones at home. A melanchol yduty, but purifying and ennobling, as they often found among the most humble of these men the choicest of spirits, the most noble of natures, and could but feel as they saw them sinking away into their last sleep, it would be to awake again in ethereal brightness to be appreciated in the higher immortality.

A Soldier's Funeral awakens different emotions from that of any other. If he be an officer high in rank no pageant can be so affecting as the funeral procession. Cincin- nati had several such. One was that of General Wm. H. Lytle, the poet soldier killed at Chickamauga, and was most imposing. The entire city seemed anxious to pay their last tribute to the illustrious dead. The honses were draped in mourning, the bells tolled, and the flags hung at half-mast. The procession passed through Fourth street, a long line of military with reversed arms moved slowly and solemnly along, the band playing a dirge. The horse of the General, according to military custom, was led by a military servant, with a pair of cavalry boots hanging from the empty saddle. On each side of the sarcophagus marched a gnard of honor, officers high in rank and attired in their full parade uniforms; tall, showy, splendid-looking men. It was evening ere they reached Spring Grove, the moon silver- ing that repository of the dead as they en- tered its imposing gateway.

Regiments Returning from service in the field often looked war-worn and in ragged condition. After the Union defeat at Rich mond we saw two Indiana regiments which had surrendered and the men then paroled, marching through Third street, en route for Indianapolis. They had left that city only a few weeks before, newly formed troops, and had passed through ours for Kentucky, in high spirits and excellent condition. On their return they were in a deplorable state, ragged, dirty with the dust of the roads, and many of them bare-footed. The enemy must have largely robbed them of their clothing and shoes. The city at the time was destitute

of troops ; but few persons were on the street to look upon this sad, forlorn, woc-begone- looking body of young men. Kirby Smith had taken out their starch. We felt they ought to have been received with open arms, but no one was around to help brighten their spirits. The few who saw them gazed in staring silence. Another dilapidated-looking body we saw, and in 1864, was the Fifth Ohio. After three years of bloody and heroic ser- vice they had been reduced to little more than a company and were drawn up in line on Third street before the Quarter-master's department to draw new clothing. It was quite a contrast to that same regiment as we saw it just after the fall of Sumter marching down Sycamore street 1,000 strong, attired in red-flannel shirts and aglow with patriotic ardor. Their brave Colonel, J. H. Patrick, had been killed only a few weeks before down in Dalton, Georgia, while gallantly lead- ing a charge. The heroic band were home on furlough.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 124

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006