USA > Ohio > The history of Fuller's Ohio brigade, 1861-1865; its great march, with roster, portraits, battle maps and biographies > Part 12
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On May 29th, over five thousand prisoners arrived from Vicksburg on steamboats and were sent up the river to Indianapolis, Indiana, and Fort
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
Delaware, under guard of a detail of four hundred men from the Ohio Brigade. At Memphis, a great deal of camp and picket duty was performed by the regiments, the camp guards were doubled and several at- tacks were repulsed, at Nonconnah Creek, out on the Hernando and Pigeon Roost Roads, and again at McGee Station, on the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Several flags of truce were received at the outposts and strict orders were given in regard to allowing them to approach our lines.
June 4th, the rebel General Chalmers' spies reported that Fuller's Ohio Brigade was at Memphis, and gave a consolidated report of all forces there.
June 6th, the anniversary of the occupation of Memphis by Federal troops was celebrated by military and civic parades. Eloquent and patriotic speeches were made by noted speakers. The United States flag was dis- played all over the city and the citizens turned out en masse. July 4th was passed by the Brigade on picket.
July 6th, the news was received by General Hurlburt, commanding at Memphis, and read before each regiment at dress parade, that Vicksburg and the rebel army numbering twenty-eight thousand men, under General Pemberton had been surrendered to General Grant on July 4th. This great victory caused much excitement and rejoicing among the soldiers. They swung their hats high in the air and yelled with delight. The citizens ran out from their houses to ask the cause of the cheering. The Mississippi River was now unobstructed by hostile forces, to the Gulf of Mexico.
On July 16th and 17th the other army corps were arriving by transports at Memphis from Vicksburg and passing out on the Corinth Road, building railroads. Most of the men were yellow and emaciated from long service in the river swamps. The Twenty-sixth Illinois when passing, cheered loudly for the Ohio Brigade, in honor of the former victory at New Madrid, at which time they were a part of E. S. Payne's Fourth Division. Thou- sands of the citizens of Memphis took the oath of allegiance and those who heretofore had been afraid to show themselves as Unionists, were now outspoken for the old flag.
On September 3rd, 1863, Fuller's Ohio Brigade became the Third Bri- gade and was assigned to the Fifth Division, Sixteenth Army Corps.
October 15th, 1863, a rebel scout reported to General W. H. Jackson at Lexington, Mississippi : "Every organization in Memphis and at different points, including the Twenty-seventh, Thirty-ninth, Forty-third and Sixty- third Ohio Regiments, are under marching orders."
Part of the time that the Brigade occupied the city of Memphis, Colonel Swayne of the Forty-third Ohio held the position of Provost Marshall. The command of that regiment then devolved upon Lieutenant-Colonel Herrick.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MARCH TO PROSPECT, TENNESSEE.
For over a week the Ohio Brigade had been under orders to move and on October 18th they marched out of Memphis on the Germantown and Pocohontas Roads, with General Sherman's Army of the Tennessee. They were now enroute on a four hundred mile march to Chattanooga to the relief of the Army of the Cumberland. Arriving at Corinth on the 24th, the men of the Brigade pitched their little shelter tents for a night's rest. i ne next stops were at Clear Creek, Iuka Springs, Jacinto, and East Port on the west bank of the Tennessee River.
From Iuka, they were the advance brigade, and moved from eighteen to twenty-five miles a day. They encamped at night from six to ten miles in advance of the main column. All this march was over familiar ground, awakening memories of former battlefields, camps and former eventful days.
The river at this point has a rapid current and winds in graceful curves around the hills, and the water so clear and deep, gladdened the soldiers who were fatigued by the march. The great water-way furnished them with abundance of water to drink, to put in their canteens, to bathe in, and to wash their clothes in. The country about there was mountainous, very rough and thickly wooded. At night the camp fires of twenty thousand men, on the hills and in the valleys, illuminated the sky for miles around and made a most beautiful sight. Union scouts reported at this time that all of Wheeler's, Lee's and Forrest's cavalry were then between Tuscumbia and Decatur.
On November 4th the transports "Anglo Saxon" and "Nashville" and the ferry boat "Blue Bird" ferried the troops across to the east bank of the river with the gunboat "Lexington" and two others assisting. Encamped here along the Tennessee River. a week of rain was experienced. and during these dreary days the soldiers were most uncomfortable, especially those on picket duty, who stood out in front, silent and alone.
The country was so wild and sparsely settled that very little foraging could be done. Yet the soldiers that went out for wild turkey and deer, usually brought back mutton. On November 6th, when the men of the four regiments were at work washing their clothing in the river. they were in- terrupted and ordered to march. On the 8th they arrived at Otterdale Factory, where a large number of Union people lived. The place was a collection of log houses situated between high hills.
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On November 10th, a march of twenty miles was made with a camp at Chicken Creek, where the barns were found filled with wheat, and the fields with ripened corn, and where all the plantations contained plenty of stock.
On November 11th, the Brigade passed through the town of Pulaski, Tennessee, and camped at Bradshaw Creek.
On November 12th, they camped on the plantation belonging to the Honorable Thomas J. Brown, son-in-law of General Gideon Pillow of the Confederate Army. Many slaves followed Sherman's Army and were fed on army rations.
PULASKI, TENNESSEE, NOVEMBER 11TH, 1863.
Colonel J. W. Fuller, Commanding Brigade:
You will move with your brigade to Prospect on the Nashville and Decatur Roads, fifteen miles from this place and go into camp and guard the railroad from Elk River to Athens, Alabama, and set heavy details at work repairing that portion which was burned and destroyed, especially Elk River bridge. Your division will be unloaded and sent here to go to Colum- bia for supplies. In the mean time you will sieze any mills and set them running. All destruction of property is prohibited.
G. M. DODGE, Brigadier-General, Commanding the Left Wing, Sixteenth Army Corps.
On November 13th, the Brigade camped near the town of Prospect, Tennessee, which was on a hill at whose foot ran a stream of pure spring water. Earthworks were thrown up and the trestle work over the Elk River, which had been destroyed by the enemy, was rebuilt.
This march from Memphis which occupied twenty-six days, with the exception of a week of rain, was one of the most pleasant made by the Brigade, for the reason that during most of the time, the weather was cool with many days of sunshine and a crisp atmosphere. The numerous moun- tain streams along the way supplied the soldiers with abundance of good water. At night communication was kept up between the marching columns by 'fire rockets.
CHAPTER XIX.
RE-ENLISTMENTS OF THE REGIMENTS-TRIP TO OHIO AND RETURN.
At Prospect, Tennessee, during the last days of December, 1863, the Twenty-seventh, Thirty-ninth, Forty-third and Sixty-third Ohio Regiments of Fuller's Ohio Brigade, almost unanimously re-enlisted into the United States service as Veteran Volunteers, for three years longer or until the close of the war. They were all well-trained and seasoned soldiers. Those who re-enlisted were given a veteran furlough of thirty days. The detach- ment which did not re-enlist remained in camp under command of Captain Feeney; Twenty-seventh Ohio, Lieutenant Edward Gibson ; Thirty-ninth, Captain John V. Drake; Forty-third, Captain Joel A. Dewey ; Sixty-third, Lieutenant Jacob S. Antrim.
The official records of the War of the Rebellion show that the largest number of men in Ohio regiments, who re-enlisted for three years longer, or during the war and became veterans in the winter of 1863-4, were in Fuller's Ohio Brigade, viz: Thirty-ninth Ohio, 534; Sixty-third Ohio, 455; Twenty-seventh Ohio, 437; Forty-third Ohio, 436.
On December 31st, leaving their camp and garrison equipage in charge of the men who did not re-enlist, the veterans started for Ohio. After a march of eighteen miles, they camped out at Pulaski, Tennessee, sleeping at night in negro shanties and barns. The weather was very cold.
On January 1st, 1864, march was made twenty-one miles on the Nash- ville and Elkhorn Pike Road, and a camp made at the "Church of the Se- ceeders" denomination. On the 2nd, the command marched fifteen miles and made a camp on a hill near Columbia. On the 3rd, they were conveyed thirty miles on cars to Nashville and at dark went on board the steamer "Nightingale" on the Cumberland River. The Forty-third and the Sixty- third Ohio took box cars to Louisville. The boat steamed down the river on the morning of the 4th, made a landing at Clarksville and "tied up" at Fort Donaldson. On the 5th, they arrived at Smithland, Kentucky, and at Cairo, the men having been badly crowded on the boats. After arriving at Cincin- nati, on the 9th, by the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, supper was served at the 5th Street bazar by the ladies of the Sanitary Commission, and dinner the next day by the ladies of the Methodist Church, at the 6th Street market house. After this the men scattered to their homes in different parts of the country.
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
On February 17th at the expiration of furlough, the men of the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth had rendezvoused at Camp Dennison, the Forty-third and the Sixty-third at Columbus, Ohio, where each squad that arrived was greeted with hearty cheers and hand-shakings. At all hours of the night the boys got out of their bunks to receive their comrades, re- turning to duty. They were taken on cars to Cincinnati and on the Steamer "Bostonia" down the Ohio River to Louisville, then on cars again to Nash- ville where they arrived on the 19th and remained in barracks for five days. While in Nashville many of the soldiers took this opportunity to visit the tomb of the tenth president of the United States. James Knox Polk, located in the front yard of his former residence. The Capitol buildings were of interest.
On the 24th, the men left Nashville by train, but the engine broke down about thirty miles out, and march was made to Prospect, Tennessee, over a pike road which was smooth and level, yet so hard that it lamed the marching soldiers. Upon arrival there on the 26th, the Ohio Brigade was assigned to the Fourth Division of the Sixteenth Army Corps. A flood had washed away the railroad bridge and a force of men had to be put to work to re-build it and to make pontoons for bridging the rivers. The sol- diers also operated both saw and grist mills. Fuller's Ohio Brigade was ordered to the junction below Athens, Alabama, near where the com- mon road bridge crosses the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, in a com- manding position. They put up an earthwork, repaired the dirt road that led through the swamp, examined the sloughs, to see if they were navigable into Limestone Creek, and kept sharp watch of the rebels over the Tennessee River, taking all the rations with them that they could. General Dodge reported that cars would be running the next day to the river.
CHAPTER XX.
THE CAPTURE OF DECATUR, ALABAMA.
On March 6th, after being relieved by the Seventh Iowa Infantry, the Brigade commenced the march for the capture of Decatur, Alabama. Many of the teams were mired in the roads along the bottom-lands of the Tennes- see River, wagon tongues broke, and were replaced by the teamsters with new ones cut from trees. No amount of cursing and lashing the poor mules could make them budge the wagons one inch, the soldiers had to dig the wheels out with shovels and pry and lift all day. When night closed, the tired men went into camp by the side of the road in the woods.
On the 7th, the men marched through the village of Athens, then on, for sixteen miles to Decatur Junction, Alabama. Orders were received to be ready to march at three o'clock in the morning, to build no fires, and to make no noise. On the morning of the 8th the Brigade moved steadily on in silence to the Tennessee River. The early hours of day was foggy and dark and the road ran through a swamp for a distance of three miles. Pon- toon boats had been brought by train from Nashville, and were ready for use at the bank of the river. Other boats had been built by the Sixty-third Ohio during the week previous.
In breathless anxiety the men passed over the river in these pontoon boats. Nothing could be heard while crossing but the dipping of the oars which the men pulled with all their strength. The fog was so dense that no objects could be distinguished. When they landed on the south bank of the river, they moved in battle line upon the town, which they captured to- gether with a few prisoners. The loss on both sides was very small. The men camped above the railroad bridge, carrying their tents and equipage on their backs a distance of one mile from the river. The horses, wagons and artillery were brought over in boats.
The Ohio Brigade crossing this river would appear something like the picture of Washington crossing the Delaware in 1776. Details of men were put immediately to work building forts and earthworks, toiling night and day. They made gabbions and faciens of saplings, filled them with sand and piled the earth around them. Many rumors and reports of attacks were received and on the 23rd the men had a scare when General Roady's Cavalry made an attack and General Polk's Confederate Division threatened the place. General Dodge ordered that the enemy must be whipped with the force we had.
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
CHANGES IN FULLER'S OILIO BRIGADE-NEW ASSIGNMENTS OF REGIMENTS.
On April 1st General Sherman, General Smith, General McPherson, and General Dodge visited and inspected the fortifications and troops at Decatur. Colonel Fuller was promoted to Brigadier-General. The regi- ments of Fuller's Ohio Brigade were re-assigned, and the Twenty-seventh, Lieutenant-Colonel Mendall Churchill; the Thirty-ninth, Colonel E. F. Noyes ; the Sixty-fourth Illinois, Colonel I. Morrell, and 18th Missouri, Captain H. F. Partenheimer, constituted the First Brigade, commanded by General John W. Fuller. The Forty-third, Colonel Wager Swayne ; and the Sixty-third Ohio, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles E. Brown; the Twenty-fifth Wisconsin, M. Montgomery ; and the Thirty-fifth New Jersey, Colonel J. J. Cladeck, formed the Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel John W. Sprague The above light regiments were assigned to the Fourth Division, commanded by Brigadier-General James C. Veatch. The left wing of the Sixteenth Army Corps was commanded by Major-General G. M. Dodge. Thus the Twenty-seventh, Thirty-ninth, Forty-third and Sixty-third Ohio Regiments remained in close proximity, friendship and co-operation in march and in battle until the close of the war.
THE OHIO BRIGADE CROSSING THE TENNESSEE RIVER AT DECATUR, ALA., In Pontoon Boats, Capturing the Town. March 8th, 1864.
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DRUM CORPS OF THIE 43d OHIO, 1863.
Upper Line-David Auld, Milt Wells, John Couch, Stewart Roberts, John Schick, Ed Stein, Frank Lagsdon, Wm. Meek. Lower Line-Demas Auld, Low Sehram, Wm. Stull, Ham Heatherington, Jerry Stull.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE MARCH TO CHATTANOOGA. GENERAL GRANT'S PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.
On Sunday, May 1st, 1864. the Fourth Division under command of General Veatch was assembled at six o'clock in the morning, and the march from Decatur, Alabama, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, began. Each regiment in readiness for battle at this time averaged in numbers, in ranks, about 600 men. Each man carried forty rounds of ammunition and twenty rounds per man were carried in wagons. Each man carried three days' rations in his haversack and one day's rations per man was carried in wagons. One wagon for personal baggage and two ambulances for the sick were assigned for the use of the eight regiments. Fuller's Brigade marched in advance on the first day. The sky was cloudy and the roads muddy, yet the Division covered a distance of seventeen miles, and in the afternoon encamped in the woods, near a stream of good water. May 2nd after a march of eleven miles, camp was made on the east side of the town of Huntsville, Alabama. The location was in a fertile valley, amid beautiful mountain scenery.
On May 3rd a march of eighteen miles was made. On the 4th a march of six miles was made to Wood Station where the Division boarded freight cars. At the same time a large number of trains loaded with soldiers from the North, East and West, were passing, all going toward Chattanooga. The Division finally arrived in Chattanooga, through Lookout Valley on the 4th, and bivouacked one-half mile from Lookout Mountain and near the Tennessee River. The troops lay on the ground at night, many without blankets. On May 5th in the valley and about the Cliffs of Lookout Moun- tain were gathered 100,000 men, all under command of General W. T. Sherman. All the future was wrapped in doubt and uncertainty. Two Armies and two Corps ( the Army of the Tennessee, and the Army of the Ohio and the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps) had come together from distant fields and joined the Army of the Cumberland, each with separate histories, yet bound by one common cause :- The union of our country and the per- petuation of the government of our inheritance.
In the spring of 1864, General Grant who had just been appointed Com- mander-in-Chief, inaugurated a plan of campaign for all the armies in the field to act on a common plan, converging at a common center. Grant im- pressed upon his army commanders that active and continued operations of all troops that could be brought into the field regardless of season or weather were necessary for a steady termination of the war, that the
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THE ANACONDA PLAN.
superior strength and recourses of the north were more than neutralized by the great advantage of the Confederates in their interior lines through a friendly country which required little or no force to guard. While the Union forces were operating in a hostile country, their lines of supplies had to be guarded by a force larger than that operating in the field. Hereto- fore the various armies in the field, the Potomac, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee had acted independently, a condition which had enabled the enemy to re-enforce each point of attack by drawing troops from all points of inactivity. Therefore he planned to move all the armies at once. (A plan similar to that outlined by General Scott at the beginning of hostilities).
Sherman's Army now covered a front of territory from Vicksburg to Chattanooga and Knoxville, beside guarding railroad transportation in the rear. Sherman announced to his troops that Georgia contained a million inhabitants and that if they could live, the soldiers should not starve, that beef and salt were all that were absolutely necessary for life, and that parched corn once fed General Jackson's Army on that very ground.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CAMPAIGN THROUGH NORTHERN GEORGIA FOR THE POSSESSION OF ATLANTA.
From Chattanooga on April 1st, 1864, General Sherman wrote General Grant as follows: "We are now to act on a common center and it looks like enlightened warfare. From me you shall have thorough and hearty co-operation. I will not let side issues draw me off from your main plans, in which I am to knock Joe Johnston and do as much damage to the re- courses of the enemy as possible. I am pushing stores to the front and completing the army organization on the line of the Tennessee.
Each of the armies will guard by detachments of its own, its rear communication. Schofield of the Army of Ohio, leaving a select garrison at Knoxville, with twelve thousand men, will drop down to the Hiawassee and march against Johnston's Confederate right, by the old Federal Road. Stoneman, now in Kentucky organizing cavalry forces, will operate with Schofield on his left. Thomas ( Army of the Cumberland) will have forty- five thousand men of all arms, and move straight against Johnston, fighting him continuously. McPherson will have nine divisions of the Army of the Tennessee, nearly thirty thousand of the best men in America. If Johnston falls behind the Coosa, then McPherson will push for Rome, Georgia, and if Johnston falls behind the Chattahoochee River, then Mc- Pherson will cross over and join Thomas. I will feign to the right but will pass to the left and act against Atlanta, or its eastern communications, ac- cording to developed facts. McPherson has no cavalry, but I have taken Gerrard's Division, six thousand strong to operate on McPherson's right rear. If the enemy interrupts our communications, I will be absolved from all obligations to subsist on our own recourses, and will feel perfectly jus- tified in taking whatever we can find.
McPherson is to carry in wagons, twenty days' rations, and to rely on the depot at Ringold for the renewal of his bread. Beeves are to be driven on hoof to the front. The commissary department is alive to the im- portance of the matter of supplies. It is estimated that one hundred and forty-five cars per day will give a day's supply and a day's accumulation. The distance from Louisville to Nashville, is one hundred and eighty-five miles ; from Nashville to Chattanooga, one hundred and fifty-one: from Chattanooga to Atlanta, one hundred and seventy-three miles, all single track road. The army is to be converted into a mobile machine, willing and able to start at a moment's notice, and to subsist on the scantiest food.
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CAMPAIGN FOR ATLANTA.
To reap absolute success might involve the necessity of dropping all wagons and to subsist on the chance food which the country was known to contain."
On Thursday, May 5th. 1864, the Fourth Division, left wing Sixteenth Army Corps, marched forward through Russellville, camping at night on the rocky battle field of Chicamauga, on the very ground where General Thomas with the left wing of the Army of the Cumberland, held the enemy in check, during that battle. Evidences of war's destruction were to be seen on every hand; graves of soldiers, trees broken down by cannon balls, or cut into shreds by musketry fire.
On the 6th the Division advanced and camped on the south side of Chickamauga Creek, near Lee & Gordon's Mills. In order to secure Ship's Gap that night, General McPherson sent on most of the troops of Fuller's and Sprague's Brigades-a force of two thousand men, with a de- tachment of the Forty-third Ohio under Captain D. H. Williams in ad- vance. By the same order, General Dodge's entire command moved via Villinow, to Ship's Gap on the next day.
On the 7th, the Division moved forward and camp was made near Nick- a-jack Mountain Gap. General Dodge reported to General McPherson that Colonel Sprague's Brigade was in possession of the Gap and the crossroads leading to La Fayette. On the same day the left of Sherman's Army moved in force against Tunnel Hill. The gorge through which the railroad passed, was called Buzzard Roost, and the range of mountains which presented sharp palisade faces, was known as Rocky Face. Mill Creek which formed the gorge had been damned up, making an irregular lake, which filled the road and obstructed it. The enemy's batteries crowned the cliffs on either side, making the position very strong. The Confederates had been there six months fortifying it to the maximum.
On the 8th, the Fourth Division moved forward and camped ten miles north of Resaca, Georgia. On the 9th, the head of the column entered Snake Creek Gap. At every rumor of attack, the men formed lines of bat- tle on the rough hill sides. This forming and reforming occurred many times while passing through the defile, until the column arrived at a point within one mile of Resaca, at the further debouch of the Gap. The Fourth Division nearly succeeded in reaching the bridge over the Oostanaula River. A Confederate Cavalry Brigade, which came up, hastily retreated north toward Dalton, and doubtless carried to the rebel commander the first inti- mation that a heavy force of Infantry and Artillery was in his rear and within a short distance of his railroad. Our army was jubilant. The Army of the Tennessee had startled the rebel army in its fancied security. At five o'clock, the Fourth Division gained a position on a range of hills
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE
overlooking the town, and began skirmishing with the enemy. From this position the field artillery could reach the railroad bridge across the Oostanaula River. The enemy replied with artillery and attempted to drive away the attacking forces, repeating his sallies several times and extending them late into the night. But in every instance, he was repulsed with heavy loss.
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