USA > Ohio > The Forty-first Ohio veteran volunteer infantry in the war of rebellion. 1861-1865 > Part 10
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The voyage down the Mississippi went on at onee. The At- lantic was detached from the fleet at Memphis, as she carried freight and passengers for various points below. On the afternoon of the 24th, the boat reached New Orleans, and the Forty-first was marched to Camp Chalmet, seven miles south of the city, remaining there about two weeks. Here the lost arms and aecoutrements of the men were replaced. July 7th, the regiment embarked on a steamer for Indianola, Texas, and that place was reached on the 11th. On the 13th, the regiment marched for Green Lake, moving in the night time to escape the scorching sun of the daylight hours.
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This place in Southern Texas is in the cattle raising country, and there were few inhabitants besides the herdsmen. There was little to do, with opportunity to indulge in hunting and fishing, with now and then the shooting of a twenty-two-foot alligator. But the regi- ment suffered much from the intermittent fever known as "bone break fever."
On the 11th of September, the regiment marched for San An- tonio. The first day of this march was, perhaps, the severest the regiment ever encountered. The sun was intensely hot, and the men fainted and fell out by the score. A flood of rain fell about 10 o'clock, and the dry prairie was turned into sheets of water. On the 23d, the regiment went into camp seven miles from San Antonio, where it remained until the 25th of October, when it was ordered to Galveston. A march was made to Alleton, where rail- road transportation was obtained to Galveston, which city was reached on the night of November 2d. On the 5th, the regiment embarked for New Orleans. The Texas affair was over, and the troops were being withdrawn for discharge.
About the middle of November the Forty-first reached Colum- bus, and on the 26th of the month was mustered out of service. It had been in service four years and one month, and had borne on its rolls about 1,500 men from first to last.
A brief recapitulation: The Forty-first took part in the battle of Shiloh; in the campaign and slight fighting about Corinth; in the Kentucky campaign after Bragg, but was not engaged at Perryville: in the pursuit over the Wildcat Mountains; in the battle of Stone River; in the Tullahoma campaign; in the Chickamauga campaign and battle; in the Brown's Ferry, Orchard Knob and Mission Ridge engagements about Chattanooga ; in the East Tennessee expedition to relieve Knoxville; in the Atlanta campaign, leading in the sever- est battle of that campaign; in the campaign after Hood, to Nash- ville, and in the victorious battle at that place, and in the toilsome pursuit of Hood afterward; and passed the last months of its service in Texas. In all this time and service, says Hazen in his "Narra- tive of Military Service," the regiment "never failed to respond to every call, and never failed to punish an enemy who attacked it."
EPHRAIM S. HOLLOWAY.
Lieut. Col. 41st O. V. V. I .; Col. 41st O. V. V. I. appointed, not mustered, war having ended.)
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CHAPTER XIX.
THE CAMP FIRE.
One of the notable personal incidents in the life of the Forty- first was the capture of W. A. Fetterly, of I company, and his es- cape from Andersonville. Fetterly was a very successful forager, and had many adventures while engaged in hunting up supplies from the country for the headquarters mess. When he returned empty-handed, there was nothing in the region roundabout. But he went out once too often, and was caught and taken to Anderson- ville. The story of that prison pen has been often told, and when Fetterly returned from it he was a living example of its terrors of hunger. He was thin and hollow-eyed, weak and worn-almost a wreck. But he had had strength enough to make his escape. He eluded pursuit by keeping to the bed of a stream for a long distance, thius destroying the scent for the dogs. He came to the regiment while it was lying at Atlanta. A native brought Fetterly into camp in a wagon; the native sitting in front and driving, while Fetterly sat behind, with a cavalryman's carbine across his knees. It was the persuasiveness of the carbine that made the native willing.
Perhaps the unluckiest man in the regiment was private Theo- dore Hawley, of G company. He made his way alone to the front and joined the regiment at Savannah the day before the Shiloh battle. In his first two battles, he was wounded before firing a shot, and each time was condemned to a long spell in hospitals and con- valescent camps. He joined the regiment from the second of these enforced absences, on the day of the crossing of Peach Tree Creek, near Atlanta. The regiment crossed at dusk, and during the night threw up a strong earthwork. It was Hawley's first experience in this work, and he was very proud of the work in front of his com- pany. When the gray dawn came, he was on the parapet, smooth- 8
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ing the surface and tamping it down. A sergeant called to him to come down, as the enemy's pickets would soon be firing. The warning was a moment too late, for as the sergeant spoke, a rifle ball came whizzing by, and took off the fingers of one of Hawley's hands. He jumped down behind the works, and tears rolled down his cheeks as he exclaimed that he was ruined for the army at last. and had not fired a shot for the flag. He had fought his way to the regiment when he joined it first; twice he had fought his way back to it through convalescent camps and provost guards; and this was the end of it all.
The command against leaving ranks in the march was so con- stantly repeated that it became like a worn out song. "No falling out for water" was the common form. When the men for the Brown's Ferry expedition were getting into the toppling pontoons. one of the wags of the regiment called out, "No falling out for water." This is one from Col. Wiley's store of humorous inci- dents.
Among the first to come into prominence as wags was Lieut. Harry Jones, of E company. If he ever had a serious moment, it was not discovered. In the quarters at Camp Dennison, one eve- ning when Col. Hazen was absent, Jones organized an entertain- ment that was as full of fun as he could pack it. But it was also productive of noise that could be heard far beyond the limits of the regiment's quarters. When the officer of the day appeared, all was still and decorous as a Quaker meeting, and Jones was trying to torture his face into a serious expression. He looked incredulous when the officer of the day spoke of the tumult that was raging in those quarters a moment before; and finally, with much gravity. Jones called the officer whose quarters were next in line, and asked. "Captain, did you hear any noise about here a few minutes ago?"
At Rocky Face Ridge one night, the regiment lay in a wood directly under the precipitous face of the ridge. In the morning. the men were cautioned to put out fires at daylight, that the enemy : fire might not be drawn by smoke rising above the tree tops. One of the messes had a little colored boy who was its boast because he
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never failed to come up with his coffee. He was on hand that morning, and after he had served his mess, he started to make a pot of coffee for himself. He was squatting down blowing the fire to boil his coffee, when a Confederate bullet struck the tin pot, scattered the fire in all directions, and passed between the little darkey's legs. He sprang up, and with a single word, "Zip!" started straight to the rear on a run. He could be seen for three quarters of a mile, still at full speed, and he may be going yet, for he never returned to the regiment.
Brevet honors were slow in reaching the Western armies; it was said that all the hospital stewards in the East had been brev- etted before any came as far west as Tennessee. A batch came at last, and the army being within reach of Nashville, the favored officers were soon seen in new uniforms. Possibly they seemed more numerous because none had been seen before; and some thought the business a little overdone. This was no doubt the opinion of a teamster who was heard one day swearing at his mules as "Brevet horses."
After the fall of Atlanta, there was an order to forage the coun- try, and the Forty-first one day sent out a regular detail. One of the men was a private of K company whose rations were always short. Three or four miles out, this man was missed, but when the detail was returning toward evening, he was found in a fence corner, with the remains of a half-grown pig beside a fire. He had been there the better part of the day, and he was so full of fresh pork, roasted on his bayonet, that he could scarcely get up off the ground. His sergeant watched him struggling to his feet, and asked what ailed him. He pointed to the half-eaten pig and said faintly, "Makes me svell up like a leetle bup." For once his rations had held out.
While the Forty-first held the front line at Stone River, a cais- son of Cotterell's battery, just to the left of the regiment, was blown up by a shell from the enemy. It was a tremendous affair in noise and appearance, but the injury to the men was surprisingly small. Cotterell's battery always had a warm place with the Forty-first.
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Perhaps nothing in the history of the regiment spoke more or better for the general faithfulness of the men, than their prompt return from veteran furlough. They simply shut their eyes to all the enjoyments of home, and went cheerfully back to the Southern wildernesses. It proved that they went to even harder service than they had known before.
The large men of the regiment were mostly in A, B and F companies, though H had some, and also I. Perhaps E had most men of medium and small stature, but it was a very hardy company. It came, more largely than the other companies, from the city.
Only one detail for guard service in the rear ever fell to the Forty-first. That was at Columbia on the Hood campaign, when it was sent across the river to look after the trains of the army and the roads on the left, while the main body was in position on the front. This one experience of the rear of an army was enough. At this time the ground occupied by trains and guard was overrun by the black refugees who were trying to get back with the army. believing that the Yankees were being driven off by Mas' Hood. never to return. These people had no lofty ideas of freedom, but they were drawn to the Union side as the needle to the pole. Born and raised in that country, they hesitated not a moment to cast in their fortunes with the strangers who had come down there to fight their former masters. No lures were held out by the national forces, as none were possible; the refugees were kindly treated, but they were much in the way, and the army had no desire to encourage their congregating about its rear. A very large part of the refu- gees was made up of women, many of the men having been taken off into the Southern service with their masters.
A number of negro servants were with the regiment from first to last. With regimental headquarters was Thomason, a barber in Cleveland before the war. When the army moved from Louisville to Camp Wickliff, Thomason somehow fell in rear and was arrested and jailed in Louisville as a fugitive slave. It cost some trouble. but he was rescued and went on with the regiment. Another head- quarter servant, a fairly intelligent fellow, was taken North from
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Louisville by an officer going home, in the days before emancipa- tion, and when negroes were closely watched. This man was told of the hazard, and provided with food that he might keep in hiding on the steamer from Louisville to Cincinnati. However he may have regarded freedom in the North, he could not keep himself out of sight on the steamer, but boldly presented himself at the servants' table for meals. He had a narrow escape from being put ashore in Kentucky for return to Louisville as a fugitive. Still another headquarters servant was captured at the Chattahoochie river. He was with his master in the Southern army; but he transferred his allegiance without demonstration of any kind, and made a most useful servant for many a day. Some of the company messes at different times had negro cooks. Often they were faithful and ven- turesome in coming up to the front when the regiment was facing the enemy; and almost without exception they were useful and convenient.
The only association the regiment ever had with colored troops was at the battle of Nashville. What happened there has been told elsewhere. Several officers of the Forty-first were given colored commands, and served with them with credit; but so far as this regiment had opportunity to observe, the previous condition of the negro was too great an obstacle to his armed service. At Nash- ville, for instance, there was little doubt that the Confederate fight had extra vigor when it was directed against Steadman's colored regiments. Their presence introduced an element of bitterness that would have been otherwise lacking.
Of all food supplies found in the country, the most valuable and most palatable was the hog. Chickens were too few to go around, but on several occasions stores of hams were captured'and made a welcome relief from the army ration of bacon. A half- grown pig will go farther than a flock of hens, and as a rule will be better enjoyed. Of vegetables, the principal was the small red sweet-potato, very small and not very sweet. The men got tired of these long before the war ended.
The association of the Forty-first with other troops was not greatly varied, though there were several changes of brigade or-
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ganization. This regiment remained to the last the representative and nucleus of the original organization at Camp Wickliff in the winter of 1861-62-the Nineteenth brigade, Army of the Ohio. Other regiments came and went, but the Forty-first remained; and, save for the short interval between Atlanta and the Nashville fight, the brigade was always commanded by an officer from the Forty-first. This would not have happened so, had the regular succession to command been left undisturbed when Gen. Hazen was transferred to the Army of the Tennessee. The command of the brigade should at that time have fallen to Col. O. H. Payne, of the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Ohio. His resignation while Col. Post was in command, left the brigade to fall to Lieut. Col. Kimberly when Post was wounded in the Nashville battle; and this command con- tinued until the end of the fighting period.
The regiments longest associated with the Forty-first in brig- ade organization were the Ninth Indiana and the Sixth Kentucky. Neither Col. Suman, of the Ninth, nor Col. Whitaker, of the Sixth, was able to get along with Hazen except with some friction. No trouble of this kind was found with the lieutenant-colonel of either of these regiments. Col. Payne, of the One Hundred and Twenty- fourth, of course had no difficulty in keeping on pleasant terms with the brigade commander. No more had Col. Berry, of the Fifth Kentucky; Col. Langdon, of the First Ohio; Col. Foy, of the Twenty-third Kentucky; Col. Bowman, of the Ninety-third Ohio, and some others who at different times were in Hazen's brigade. Perhaps the Ninety-third Ohio, next to the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth, was the regiment with which the Forty-first was in closest association. These two regiments formed one of the bat- talions of the brigade, with the First Ohio, during the Atlanta cam- paign. Their fortunes were therefore the same during that long and tedious struggle: and certainly the Forty-first never found occa- sion to complain of its companion regiments in any duty. Berry's Fifth Kentucky is remembered as an active and efficient command. and Col. Foy, of the Twenty-third Kentucky, had the respect of all in his command of his brave regiment. Payne's One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Ohio, coming from the section in which the Forty-
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first was raised, was like its own people to that regiment. These regiments were closest in sympathy of all that served in the brigade at any time. The Seventy-first Ohio and the Twenty-seventh Ken- tucky were hardly long enough in the command to become well acquainted.
As to association with commanders above the brigade, the reg- iment's first experience was not pleasant. Something of Nelson, the division commander, has already been said. A fairly illustra- tive incident may be given here. Col. Hazen was absent from Camp Wickliff when the order came to move, and the brigade rightfully belonged to one of the two Indiana colonels, Fitch and Slack. But Nelson had a quarrel-all his own-with both of these officers, and would recognize neither as in command in Hazen's absence. So the division general sent for the brigade adjutant, who found him sitting in his big Sibley tent, coatless and stretched in a chair before the fire. None of the customary civilities were offered to the adjutant, who stood patiently while Nelson framed this verbal command: "I want you to put three days' cooked ra- tions in haversacks, and have Hazen's brigade on the road at 6 o'clock in the morning, to wait my august arrival, sir!" The adju- tant asked if Col. Slack was in command, and was met with a storm of denial wild enough to blow a man out of the tent. After Nelson, the division fell to Wm. Sooy Smith for a brief spell, and then to Gen. Palmer. Smith's command was too short to leave any lasting impression. Palmer led the division at Stone River and Chicka- mauga. He was always popular with his command. The men not only had confidence in his soldierly ability, but they were attracted by his unpretentious, kindly manner, and his evident consideration for the welfare and comfort of the whole command. He had no favorites and showed no partialities-a man from the people and still of the people, a fine type of the American soldier. As to his military qualities, it has already been said in this book that he was one of the very few men without a West Point education who main- tained themselves creditably in the higher commands of the army. All the men of that division hold John M. Palmer in affectionate remembrance.
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Gen. Thomas J. Wood commanded the division on the Atlanta campaign and thereafter to the end of the fighting service. He was a regular army officer, but thoroughly appreciative of the volunteer soldiery-a careful, considerate man, knowing well his duty and looking constantly to proper discipline, yet always kind. He held the unquestioning confidence of his men, in all regards, and he had a soldierly pride in his division which prompted him to untiring care for it. When, on the Atlanta campaign, he thought his divi- sion was too often called on for service that others might share, he did not hesitate to protest in its behalf. His men thought no divi- sion of the army had a better commander, and few as good a one. It was easy for him to get the best service his men were capable of.
Above the grade of division general, the regiment was under Crittenden, the typical, courtly, but unfortunate Kentuckian-re- membered yet with kindly feeling. Then came, for a brief season, Gordon Granger, too short a stay to become well acquainted. Next Gen. O. O. Howard, well known by reputation before he came to the West. But association with a corps commander is remote at best, and leaves no such vivid recollections as are called up by the name of the division general. There was nothing but good feeling toward Gen. Howard-a conscientious soldier, a kind and courteous gentleman. The last of the corps commanders, Gen. D. S. Stanley, has already been spoken of in the narrative of the Atlanta and Nashville campaigns. Nobody in the Forty-first ques- tioned his ability as a general, but all felt that his unfortunate quar- rel with Hazen was also unfortunate for the regiment and the brig- ade. Except at Nashville, the Forty-first had no fighting under his command.
Coming finally to the army commanders, it is to be said that the men believed in Buell, were uncertain and a little fearful of Rosecrans, and idolized Thomas. Grant and Sherman were far- ther away, and were known almost wholly by reputation. It was generally believed in the regiment that Grant's army was surprised at Shiloh, and would have fared badly the second day, but for Buell; but nobody believed the absurd newspaper stories about Grant after the battle. Between Sherman and Thomas, in any position, the
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choice would always be the latter with the men who served under both. It was known that Thomas did not favor the assault at Kennesaw mountain, and it went to his credit with the soldiers. The story went about that the Kennesaw fight was to show the enemy that the Union troops would assault fortified lines. Thomas thought such a demonstration unnecessary; yet when the time came, he did not hesitate to assault the strongly intrenched lines at Nashville. In both instances, the event sustained his judgment; he made a grand success of his assault, while that at Kennesaw was a costly failure. No proof was needed that the troops who had swept the enemy off Mission Ridge would attack fortifications on occasion.
One of the persistent faults of army commanders, following the traditions of the military art, was in the maintenance of secrecy about movements-this at all times, not alone when some critical enterprise was afoot, demanding great care that it be kept from any possibility of disclosure to the enemy. This habit of secrecy is a survival from the ancient system, and, whatever may have been in its favor some centuries ago and with an unintelligent soldiery, it was distinctly hurtful on several occasions during the war. A good illustration was afforded by the actions at and before Mission Ridge. The Orchard Knob fight might have been over much sooner than it was, and at less loss, if the purpose of the movement had been made known, at least to regimental commanders, before it was started. But there were no orders, and the Forty-first and Ninety-third were held for some minutes under fire, to no purpose. Had Col. Wiley been directed to drive in the Confederate pickets and their reserves, he would have made shorter work of it. But when the skirmishers had developed a heavy force in front, whose position and strength could not be determined except by attack, no regimental commander could know whether it was the general's intention to bring on an engagement. The same thing occurred when the troops were ordered to take the rifle pits at the foot of Mission Ridge, with no orders further, and found that they could neither remain at that point nor retreat from it without great loss. It would probably be found throughout all the armies, as it was in
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the experience of the Forty-first, that the most effective service was obtained when the orders were specific and the purpose of the movement was made known. With such troops as were in the Union armies, the better they are informed as to what is expected of them, and the resistance likely to be encountered, the better they will perform. Examples proving this are afforded by the Brown's Ferry affair and the battle of Pickett's Mills.
From first to last, the regiment traveled a great deal by steam- boat. First, was the voyage up the Ohio river to Gallipolis, and the trip from that place to Louisville. Next the voyage down the Ohio and up the Cumberland to Nashville. Then came the voyage down from East Tennessee on veteran furlough; and last, the long voyage down the Mississippi to New Orleans and from there to Texas. None of these were pleasure trips, or productive of enjoy- ment in any way. The most uncomfortable railroad travel, per- haps, was the short ride from Chattanooga to Athens, on the Hood campaign to Nashville.
There were several bright spots in the commissary line, by unusual supplies from the country. The most notable of these was the camp near Reynolds Station while rebuilding the railroad just before Bragg's Kentucky campaign. The Confederate colonel's plantation afforded more luxuries than were found in any other place. The East Tennessee march, though a hard one in many ways, brought some good feeding from the country. The long Atlanta campaign yielded little in this way. Of actual and pro- longed hunger, the only experience was at Chattanooga after the Chickamauga battle. The thirst on the second day of that battle was worse than any hunger. There was some of this, not so severe, in the Kentucky campaign.
The dead of the Forty-first lie in graves that stretch from Ohio to Texas. The places where the greater numbers are buried are: Shiloh, 40: Murfreesboro, 36; Chattanooga, 87; Nashville, 36. Four are buried in the Andersonville prison grounds. Those given above are mainly men killed in action or died of wounds. Many were buried at Louisville and other points, from hospitals. Thirty-seven who were killed in action at Pickett's Mills, or died of wounds re-
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