USA > Ohio > In the 50th Ohio serving Uncle Sam : memoirs of one who wore the blue > Part 6
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I cannot give the date we left Nashville, as I have no letters or memorandum to refer to that throws any light on it. I only can say we left there sometime towards the end of October.
"Fort Boil, No. 1, Glasgow, Ky., Oct. 30, 1863.
"Well, we are back at Glasgow again. I have just come in off of picket and as it rained all night I had a wet time of it. but that's nothing when a fellow gets used to it.
I would rather be a soldier fighting for the honor of the old flag, as every American boy ought to, than to be a cowardly but- ternut and set around the fire and toast my shins those stormy nights. It seems to me if they had the courage of their con- viction, it would look more honorable on their part, but, no, they stay at home and shake their fists in their pockets and backbite
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us fellows who are out here trying to protect their homes. Shame on them !
"We have here with us the Thirty-seventh Kentucky mounted infantry and the Sixth Michigan battery. Part of the Thirty- seventh Kentucky was captured here the last of September, but they are all paroled and here with us again. There are only five companies of the Fiftieth Ohio here at the present; three com- panies are at Galatin, between here and Nashville, and one on Nolin Creek, near Elizabethtown. There are plenty of Rebels in this part of the country, and they may make a break on us some of these mornings. Well, if they do, we will give them the best we got in the shop ; that's all we can do.
"I am in very good health except for a bad cold that has bothered me for a few days, but it has about passed off now, un- less I take a fresh one by getting so wet last night."
Glasgow, Barren County, Ky., November 17, 1863.
"You ask me how I am enjoying myself. In answer I will say that I am enjoying myself as well as a soldier can expect. I have plenty to eat and plenty to wear; good quarters to stay in and plenty of good friends ; of course, my surroundings are not quite as pleasant as they would be at home ; that could not be ex- pected under the circumstances, but I just say that I have no com- plaint to bring against any one in the regiment. That you may judge of the friendly feeling toward me, let me inform you that I have not had a word of dispute with any officer or private in my mess, company or regiment since I enlisted. I would not say that I am clear of faults, not by any means, but I try to treat every one with courtesy, and obey my officers promptly ; in short, I practice the Golden Rule, and, by so doing, I have won the confidence and respect of my officers and comrades.
"We have built very neat quarters here. We first put up the frames and weather-boarded them, and for a roof, we use our shelter tents ; that makes a very comfortable house; there are six men in my tent, and we have a small sheet iron stove, and when we all get in there and have a good fire we are as cozy as you please.
"I wish we could stay here for the winter, but I think that is rather doubtful from the present outlook, as matters appear to be very unsettled here at present; the grapevine "Telaliegraph" line is kept hot these days with all sorts of rumors. There was a rumor the other day that there was a band of rebels near town; a detail of scouts went out but returned without seeing any Rebs.
"About 12 o'clock yesterday a report came in that the Rebs had captured two of our battery wagons that were out after forage, but like the other rumors, it proved to be a fake. So it goes. 'Rebels, Rebels, Rebels,' is the cry, but so far, they have failed to materialize. I believe I came as near seeing Rebs last Sunday night as some of the others have. I had three men with me on picket on the Bowling Green road. About 10 o'clock in
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the evening four horsemen approached the outpost. He called out : 'Halt,' to them, and they wheeled their horses, and rode away on the jump. The sentry should have fired on them, but failed to do so. There was a lane leading off the main road past an old slaughter house, two or three hundred yards in the rear of the reserve post, and we kept hearing horses passing through the lane, so I posted a man about half way from the reserve to the lane, with orders to find out if possible what they were up to. Pretty soon I heard the tramp of a horse in the lane once more, and the voice of my sentry sung out, 'Halt, halt, halt, who goes there,' and then that old musket of his spoke out loud and clear, and the fire spouted from the muzzle; it seemed to me a hundred feet, and maybe that horse did not get up and go. The guard reported that there was a man on the horse, but he must have shot too high, as I don't think he touched horse or man. How- ever, we were not disturbed after that. All remained quiet, but before that, there were all kinds of noises around us. Now, I think, they were Rebels trying to sneak up and capture us, but finding us wide awake they gave it up as a bad job. When daylight came I went over into the lane and, althought the ground was frozen, I could see the marks that horse made in his efforts to get away when that old musket cracked. You may be sure .there was no sleeping done by any of us that night at our post.
While we were at Glasgow we received orders that when we turned out to roll call in the mornings we should come out under arms. Of course, that included the commissioned officers, as well as the privates. All went well for a while, although some of the chronic grumblers found fault with the order and thought it was unnecessary.
"One morning the commanding officer of Company "K" came out without his sword. One of our boys (a young German), took notice of it immediately and began to curse and swear that it was as much the duty of the officer to turn out with his sword on as it was for us to turn out with our guns, and as he was not particular to speak in a low tone the officer heard him, and after they had exchanged a few angry words with each other the officer handed the writer a rope and ordered him to take the comrade up to the flag staff and tie him up. In the meantime, a report had been taken to Colonel Strickland's headquarters by one of the comrade's friends, and just as the writer had completed tying the comrade, Adjutant Crowley appeared on the scene with an open knife and cut the comrade loose and told him to go to his quarters. I reported to my commanding officer what had taken place and he started out for Strickland's headquarters in a hurry, but he must have received a cool reception as that closed the incident."
I will add here that several years after the war, this same comrade came to visit me in Kentucky, and I was greatly surprised to see what a mighty change had taken place in him. He could talk on any subject you might bring up fluently and interestingly.
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He had become a strict member of the German Methodist Church, and I believe he sometimes does a little preaching for them. He told me that he gave his wife the credit of bringing about the great reformation in him.
"Glasgow, December 6, 1863.
"I am still in good health and spirits. Guard duty is rather heavy on us at the present time, as the Thirty-seventh Kentucky Regiment are most all engaged in scouting. They are mounted infantry. Hence they use them the same as cavalry. They bring in prisoners every day. The Rebel General Hamilton is hovering around here all the time, and now we hear that John Morgan has escaped and that he passed within eight miles of here yes- terday, and that Hamilton was to meet him with four or five hundred men and escort him to Tennessee.
"All is very quiet in camp today as it is Sunday. Labor and drill are put aside. The sky is cloudless and the sun shines very pleasant and warm for December.
"I was on picket the entire night, and a well-dressed gentle- man came up to my outpost and wanted to pass into Glasgow. Said he was a doctor and lived in town. Now, I had orders to let no one in or out without a pass, but I generally use my own judgment in such matters, and told such a straight story that I passed him on into town. I have studied about it since. Perhaps it was John Morgan. He was a dark-complected, good-looking man ; well-dressed and appeared to be much of a gentleman. I have never heard anything of him since, but if I had it to do over again he would remain at my post until some one higher in the ranks than I would pass him along.
"We have the Sixth Michigan Battery with us here. They are a fine body of men, and our boys and the battery boys get along very nicely together. I love to watch them drill. Some- times they go out in the field and drill the same as infantry, and when they move off in two ranks they keep perfect step, and it interests me very much as I take great delight in watching well-drilled troops go through the different military movements. There is only about half of the Fiftieth here. I do not know positive where the others are, but have heard they were at Louis- ville."
Nothing worthy of note took place while we were at Glasgow. Colonel Strickland had us roused out two or three times at night to test the Thirty-seventh Kentucky and the Fiftieth Ohio to see how-quickly he could get us all in line, and into the fort in case we were attacked. Company drill, batallion drill and picketing the different roads was the routine for the Fiftieth boys, while a portion of the Thirty-seventh Kentucky boys were continually on the scout. I would have enjoyed a trip to Mamouth Cave
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while here, but was not permitted that pleasure. I was told it was only nine miles from Glasgow.
So the uneventful days passed by until the 14th of December rolled round, when we again received marching orders.
CHAPTER X.
March to Columbia and Somerset-The Cold New Year's- Trip Over the Cumberland Mountains.
Marching orders. What! leave our pleasant quarters where we had such high hopes we would be permitted to pass the winter ? "Yes," says the orderly sergeant. "Company 'K' be ready to move in the morning at 7 o'clock." So on the morning of the 15th of December we shouldered our knapsacks and swung out into the road that led to Columbia, Ky., and soon the pretty little town of Glasgow was left in our rear. We were sorry, of course, to leave our cozy quarters, for we had become quite at- tached to them, but when we saw our dear old flag once more un- furled to the breeze and saw the December sun kissing her billowy folds, while the band played our old favorite air of "Rally round the flag, boys," we moved off with a firm step determined to cheerfully go where ever duty called us.
Our attention was called to various interesting scenes along the line of march, and soon our comfortable camp that we had left at Glasgow was forgotten.
At intervals, we would pass some rich old Kentucky Colonel's residence and there would be a crowd of wooly heads at the side of the road to see us pass ; they would be all ages from the little one in arms to the old, white-haired mamma, or the old, gray- haired patriarch. They would roll up the whites of their eyes and show their ivorys, as the boys would call to them to take off their hats. Hats, did I say? Well, they may have once borne that name, but now it would puzzle one to find a name that would fit them. Some were crownless ; some were rimless ; some had been made of wool, and others of straw, but they all had that woe-begone appearance, as though they had passed through a Kansas cyclone, or rather a Kansas cyclone had passed through them, but nevertheless, these poor darkies would jerk them off,
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and stand with their wooly heads uncovered, while the boys in blue were marching by. Very few white folks were to be seen. While a goodly number of them had joined the South, another goodly number of them had joined the North, and when they met on the field of battle, it was Greek meeting Greek. Kentuck- ians made good soldiers and they were fighters as both the North and South can bear witness.
Nothing of interest happened to us on this march. That is, nothing worthy of making a note of.
I make a few extracts here from a letter I wrote after reach- ing Columbia.
"Columbia, Ky., December 22, 1863.
"I suppose you will be somewhat surprised to hear that we are at Columbia again, but nevertheless it is true.
"We left Glasgow on the morning of the 15th, and after a rather hard march, we arrived here on the morning of the 17th. The Fiftieth is all together once more. Four companies that had been guarding rebel prisoners to Rock Island, Ill., joined us today. The Third Kentucky Battery and a batallion of the Thirteenth Kentucky Cavalry are here also. Little did we think when we left .this place one year ago today that we would be back here in one year, but such is the fact.
. We are camped one mile west of the town; twenty-four men of Company "K" are down in the town as provost guards. I hear we will leave here in a few days again and march to Somer- set, Ky. Well, there is only two more days till Christmas. I would love to be home and eat dinner with you all that day, but, of course, that is not possible. But I shall think of you all and whisper :
" 'Do they miss me at home, do they miss me,
It would be an assurance most dear
To know at this moment some loved one
Were saying, 'I wish he were here,'
To feel that the group at the fireside Were thinking of me as I roam.
Ah! Yes! "Twould be joy beyond measure To know that they miss me at home.'
"I will write again in a few days and let you know where I am. I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year."
The next evening after our arrival at Columbia, Sergeant Sam Lousy proposed to me that we would go out to some of the farmers, and get supper. Of course, I did not refuse. I was not built that way. After going perhaps a mile from camp, we called at a house and were met by two ladies, a mother and daughter. The sergeant politely asked them if they could prepare supper for us ; they answered him in the affirmative, and we were invited into
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the house and given seats by the fire, and the ladies went to work to prepare the meal. The young lady, it appeared, was pretty well educated, and had taught school some little. It did not take us long to learn from their talk (and by the way, they were both well blessed with the gift of gab), that their sympathy were all on the side of those that wore the gray, and that they had no particular use for those that were clothed with the regulation blue ; they called down anything but blessings on the heads of those Yankee vandals that had robbed them of their sheep, hogs and chickens. We agreed with them, and said such doings were all wrong, and that the scamps ought to be punished for treating the citizens that way. Seeing that we sided with them, they were encouraged to come down still heavier on those awful "Yanks," and Lousy and I pitied the poor fellows wherever they were that evening, for we felt sure their ears were burning like fire. We were innocent as babes, of course. At last, the ladies announced that our supper was ready ; they took us out into a newly built log kitchen, that had never been chinked yet, and there were cracks between the logs that a large Newfoundland dog could have jumped through and never touched a hair. In this well ventilated dining room, we sat down to a fairly good supper, but Green- land's Icy Mountains! how cold it was in that room. It would have been warmer out doors entirely ; there was a cold wind blow- ing, and the way it did whistle through those cracks was something fierce; the cold shivers played hide and seek up and down our spinal columns and our teeth would have rattled together had we not kept them otherwise employed, and, to tell the truth, we were glad when the meal was ended. Lousy asked the lady what the charges were, and was told that it was fifty cents for the two; he presented a five dollar bill, railroad money, but the lady said she could not change it. "Well," says Lousy, "What are we to do, that is all we have," but on second thought, says he, "If you will send your colored boy to camp with us, we will get the bill changed and send your fifty cents back by the boy." But this she refused to do as Lousy well knew she would, for I suppose she surmised if she sent the boy to our camp, that would be the last she would see of him and very likely it would have been, but Lousy still had another proposition up his sleeve, which he now brought forth: "Lady," he says with one of his blandest smiles, "You prepare breakfast for us in the morning and we will be here about sunrise and then we will have the change, and
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pay for the four meals." The madam said that would be satis- factory, and we bid them good evening and departed. The ladies may be waiting breakfast for Lousy and me yet for aught I know, as we never went back to see. It was one of Sergeant Lousy's Yankee tricks from start to finish for the five dollar bill was no good.
We might have paid them if they had not been so bitter against the Yankees, and then to cap the climax, they tried to freeze us to death, while we were eating, so we called it a square deal. It is safe to say that was not the first or the last meal Sergeant Lousy got on the strength of that five dollar bill.
The favorite drink around Columbia at this time was the fa- mous Kentucky "Apple Jack."
We remained here until Christmas morning, when we once more broke camp and started towards Somerset, which is near Burnside point on the Cumberland River.
"Camp near Somerset, Ky., December 30, 1863.
"Well, what I told you all in my letter from Columbia proved true. We left Columbia on Christmas morning and it was said we marched about 24 miles. We passed through a wild country that day; we never saw more than three or four houses on the way. It was rather a dull Christmas for us youngsters. We camped at night in a piece of woods. On the morning of the 26th we resumed our march. Did not make quite as many miles as we did on Christmas. Camped at night in some tobacco sheds and barns, the owners kindly granting us that privilege. Re- suming our march on the 27th, we had to wade Fishing Creek, the water coming up nearly to our armpits, while the clouds above us were sending down on our heads a regular downpour, but after crossing, we went into the salt works and camped for the night. Building large fires, we soon got our clothing dry. The owner of the works being a rebel, we confiscated all his hogs and also a large barrel of sauerkraut. On the 28th, we reached here and are camped about half a mile west of the town.
This was a pretty hard march on us, because it rained so much while we were on the road. One evening we camped in an open field while on the march from Glasgow to Columbia, and there came up a heavy thunder shower. A comrade and I saw it coming, and we grabbed up our harness and went to a nearby barn, and made our bed in an ox stall, and, oh! what a nice sleep we had. We came into camp the next morning as dry as you please, while the boys in camp looked like drowned rats.
On the way here, we passed the battle field of Mill Springs, where Zollycoffer was killed. I saw the graves of eighteen soldiers that were killed there. Six of the Ninth Ohio and twelve of the Second Minnesota. The graves were fixed up very nicely.
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"We had inspection today and Colonel Strickland rode out in front of us and made us a short speech. Among other things he told us, we had been ordered to Knoxville, Tennessee, so, therefore, he said we had ten days' march before us, and over the Cumberland Mountains at that, so likely the next time you hear from me I will be in Knoxville.
"Well, if I keep my health as good as it is now, I think I will get through all right. The old year is drawing to a close. Soon the last page in the history of 1863 will be written, and a new history will be commenced on a clean and spotless page. dated at the top, January 1, 1864. How long will it be before its beautiful clean pages will be blotted with accounts of wicked crimes and misery. It may be the historian will have to record on that first bright new page, the history of a bloody battle, who can tell? We cannot read the future, but judging the future by the past, we can safely say that the history of 1864 will not have many pages but what will be darkly stained by the record of cruel and bloody war, and will the close of 1864 see the close of the war? Alas! who can tell? But . let us hope it may. I will write you again as soon as I can."
This march from Columbia to Somerset was pretty hard on us, as it rained a good portion of the time we were on the road.
A rather ludricous incident happened at the crossing of Fish- ing Creek. It was raining in torrents at the time, and we were all wet to the skin-all except comrade Jack Culp, whom I have had occasion to mention once before. Jack had by some means- managed to get hold of an umbrella and had kept himself tolerable dry until we reached the creek. You may imagine what a figure old Jack cut wading the water almost to his arms carrying an umbrella over his head to keep himself dry. The sight struck us all as so ridiculous that the whole regiment whooped and yelled, but it made no difference to old Jack. He still clung to his um- brella. The incident had its good results, as it almost made us forget the bitterness of wading the deep and chilling waters.
Another incident that I remember happened here which came near being a sad one.
One of Company "D" boys, I think it was, after wading the creek lay his musket down against a large flat rock that was lean- ing against the bank near the fence, and sat down on the rock himself for the purpose of emptying the water out of his shoes and wringing out his socks. As he sat down his musket slipped down the rock in such a maner as to pull back the hammer and cause the weapon to be discharged, the ball passing through
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the tail of his blouse, almost grazing his body and passed very close to his head.
The young fellow was badly frightened, and his face will never be whiter when he lays cold in death than it was at that moment. It is true as the old lady said, "A gun is dangerous without lock, stock or barrel," and a man cannot be too careful when he is handling one.
We were encamped here at Somerset, New Year's Day, the second New Year's for us since we entered the serice and the day that has gone down in history as the "Cold New Year's" 1864. I don't think I shall ever forget it while I live and keep my right mind, for it was certainly the coldest day that I ever experienced. There was a great deal of suffering that day in the army. Many of the boys got their feet, hands and ears frozen, but I do not remember that any of the boys at Somerset suffered that way.
Comrade Blizzard and I thought we would try to find a warmer climate than the camp, so we left camp and started out into the country to find a house. I do not know why we did not go into town, but perhaps we were afraid of the patrols. Well, after going about a mile we came to a house, but as it was near one of our picket posts, the guards had possession and were firing up with fence rails or anything else that would burn to keep the women and children from freezing. There were several children, and the poor things were blue with cold, for all the boys were firing up pretty strong.
Blizzard and I stopped awhile with them and .could have stopped there that night, but we decided to get out and give the women and children a better chance at the fire. We saw no men about except the soldier boys, so we returned to camp and found that a number of our boys had gone down into a large hollow at the mouth of a cave, where there was an old log building, and had built a huge fire and were going to remain there for the night and had left word in camp for us to follow them should we return from our trip in the country. It did not take us long to locate them, and we also found that comrade Jack Culp had been out foraging, and had brought in a sheep so we had mutton for supper, and as the wind could not strike us down in there, we passed the night fairly well.
The boys that remained in camp had huge log heap fires and managed to keep from freezing.
We remained at Somerset until about the third of January,
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drew ten days' rations and moved down to Burnside Point, crossed over the Cumberland River and went into camp in a pine thicket or grove. I remember yet that the trees were covered with ice and snow. How they glittered when the wintry sun would shine out! The coating of ice that clung to the pine branches sparkled in the sunbeams like diamond jewels. It was indeed a beautiful winter scene, and one I could have enjoyed had my surroundings been different. That is, had the country been at peace and I could have been there simply as a peaceable citizen, studying the beauty of nature, for if one wants to study the beauty of nature, he must see it in the grasp of winter, as well as in the balmy summer. Must see it when hoar frost' has painted the landscape as well as when the flowers are sparkling ยท with the dewdrops of June.
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