USA > Ohio > The history of Fuller's Ohio brigade, 1861-1865; its great march, with roster, portraits, battle maps and biographies > Part 24
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On the 17th, we marched a distance of twenty miles without rations. camping that night at Midway Church. On the following day a march of eighteen miles was made and on the 19th, twelve miles. On the 20th, the return march was commenced and on the 21st, we reached our former camp near the city of Savannah.
The first mail, which had accumulated since our departure from Atlanta, came up to the army by steamer to King's Bridge on the 16th. Several thirty-two pound parrots were obtained from the fleet and placed in position near enough to reach the center of the city with their fire.
255
THE UNION ARMY OCCUPIES SAVANNAH.
.
Accompanying General Sherman's demand for the surrender of Savannah, was a copy of Hood's demand for the surrender of Resaca, on September 12'tlı.
About this time, December 15th and 16th, the great battle of Nashville was fought, in which General Thomas ruined Hood's Army. This brilliant victory, with ours, the capture of Savannah, made a complete whole.
General Hardee crossed the Savannah River in retreat by a pontoon bridge, carrying off his men and light artillery, blowing up his Iron Clads and Navy Yard, but leaving for us an immense amount of public and private property.
Our skirmishers had detected the absence of the enemy and had occupied his lines simultaneously along his whole front. In the Savannah River were found many torpedoes and log piers filled with cobble ctone and other obstructions to navigation. A blockade runner came into Savannah after we were in full possession and the master did not discover his mistake till he came ashore to visit the custom house. His vessel fell a prize to our navy. Here the march to the sea terminated.
THE CAPTURE AND OCCUPATION OF SAVANNAH.
"Then sang we a song for our Chieftain That echoed o'er river and lea ; And the stars on our banners shone brightly, When Sherman marched down to the sea."
On the morning of December 21st, Savannah was occupied by the Union Army. The material of war captured, was of great value. There were by actual count over two hundred and fifty siege or heavy sea-coast guns with ammunition supplies of all kinds, besides over thirty thousand bales of cotton, worth at one time, one dollar a pound, also a string of forts from Savannah around to Fort McAllister.
On December 22nd. 1864, General Sherman sent the following message to the President of the United States. It was conveyed by boat to Fortress Monroe and thence by telegraph to Washington. It was received by Mr. Lincoln on Christmas eve and then transmitted to every part of the North so that on Christmas day the people were rejoicing at the news.
Savannah, Georgia, December 22nd, 1864.
To his Excellency President Lincoln, Washington, D. C .:
I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.
W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.
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256
FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
Property captured and destroyed, negroes freed, prisoners captured by the Army of the Tennessee in Northern Georgia and Central Georgia, from: October 4th to December 31st, 1864.
Negroes set free
3000
Prisoners captured
666
Escaped Federal prisoners
49
Bales of cotton burned
3523
Subsistence captured, beef, sugar and coffee govern- ment cost at Louisville $283,202
Command started from Atlanta with head of cattle. ..
1000
Took up as captured cattle 10500-11500
9000
Horses captured
931
Mules captured
1850
Corn, pounds
4,500,000
Fodder, pounds
4,500,000
Miles of railroad destroyed.
191
Our loss during the march in killed and wounded and
missing was, Right Wing, Fifteenth and Seven- teenth Corps 666
Left Wing. Fourteenth and Twentieth Corps.
439
233
Cavalry Division Total 1338
Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant in a letter to Major-General W. T. ( Confidential)
Sherman said in part :
Headquarters of the Armies of the United States, December 18th, 1864.
My dear General :
I have just received and read, I need not tell you with how much grati- fication, your letter to General Halleck. I congratulate you and the brave officers and men under your command on the successful termination of your most brilliant campaign. I never had a doubt of the result. When apprehensions for your safety were expressed by the President, I assured him with the army you had and you in command of it, there was no danger, but that you would strike bottom on salt water some place.
U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General.
Many Southern people implored Sherman to take his army through South Carolina and make them feel the utmost severities of war. Charles- ton was now compared to a desolate wreck, hardly worth the time to starve it out, however much importance might be attached to it, politically and historically.
The city of Savannah and surrounding country was made a military post adapted for future military uses. The Chief Engineer, Captain Poc was ordered to dismantle and destroy all forts not to be retained for our use. Only two newspapers were allowed to be published and the editors and proprietors were held to the strictest accountability for any libelous
Consumed on trip Balance on hand.
2500
257
SITUATION OF SAVANNAH.
publication, mischief matter, premature news, or exaggerated statements, upon the acts of the constituted authorities.
The rebel officers and newspapers had represented the conduct of the men of the Union Army as simply infamous, that we respected neither age nor sex and perpetrated all manner of outrages on the inhabitants. They knew that these reports were exaggerated in the extreme but they assented to these false publications, to arouse the drooping energies of the people of the South. They had reported us harassed, defeated and fleeing to the coast. Thousands who had been deceived by these lies, that we had been whipped, now realized the truth and their faith in Jeff Davis was much shaken. The recent march through Georgia had a wonderful effect upon the people. They now felt the hard hand of war and they had no appetite for a repetition of the experience.
The bulk of the inhabitants of Savannah chose to remain. The wives of the rebel Generals Stuart J. W. Smith, and General A. P. Stuart as well as the brother-in-law of General Hardee and many others went to General Sherman for protection. During our stay, the ladies attended the guard mountings, parades and reviews and to hear the music of our bands.
On December 24th, the First Division marched through Savannah in review by General Sherman to a camp three miles east of the city. The men had marched a distance of three hundred and fifty miles from Atlanta, having traversed eighteen of the most populous and wealthy counties in Central Georgia. The city of Savannah is situated along the Savannah River on a plateau of sand about forty feet above the level of the sea. It had the appearance of an old town from the ancient style of architecture of its houses, but the place was beautiful because of a fine sea view, and because of the handsome groves and parks filled with shade trees, among which were the majestic willow leaf, live oak, covered with gray and funeral moss. Many of the residences had spacious yards filled with flowers and shrubbery of exquisite beauty. Near the public buildings was a fine monu- ment erected to the memory of Count Pulaski who was killed in the assault upon the city by the Americans in 1779, at the time it was held by the English.
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CHAPTER XXVII.
GENERAL ORDER NUMBER 3.
War Department, January 14th, 1865.
The following resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives is published to the Army.
PUBLIC RESOLUTION NUMBER 4.
Joint resolution tendering the thanks of the people and of Congres. to Major-General William T. Sherman, and the officers and soldiers of hi- command, for their gallant conduct in their late brilliant movement through Georgia.
Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled; that the thanks of the people and of Congress of the United States are due and are hereby ten- dered to Major-General William T. Sherman, and through him to the officers and soldiers under his command, for their gallant good conduct in their late campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta and the triumphal march through Georgia to Savannah, terminating in the capture and occupation oi that city ; and that the President cause a copy of this joint resolution to be engrossed and forwarded to Major-General Sherman.
Approved January 10th, 1865.
By order of the Secretary of War. W. A. NICHOLS, Adjutant-General.
The First Division remained in Savannah until January 3rd, 1865. living on one quarter rations. On the above named date. it was assembled for the Campaign of the Carolinas. The regiments marched over a smooth level road, macadamized with ocean shell, to Fort Thunderbolt and embarked on transports. Most of the troops of the First Brigade, includ- ing General Howard and staff, on Commodore Dalgreen's despatch boat "Harvest Moon." The Second Brigade on steamers "S. R. Spaulding. Canonicus and Fannie." Unbroken silence prevailed in the great array of troops ; not a voice was heard as they massed in ranks on the bluff to look at the vessels. Only the notes of a solitary bugle came from their midst. The sight of the great ocean and the fighting ships of our navy had been a new sight to thousands of Sherman's Army who were born and reared west of the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River.
It took more than a week to convey all of the Seventeenth Army Corps from Fort Thunderbolt, near Savannah, down the Savannah River. past the forts of the harbor, around Hilton Head into the Atlantic Ocean and Port Royal Sound and to disembark them at Beaufort Island. South Carolina. Most of the First Division, however, arrived the next day at ten o'clock in the evening. many of the soldiers suffered from sea sickness and said they would rather march a thousand miles over the worst roads in the south than to spend another night on the ocean.
258 .
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Many Northern people were living in Beaufort at this time. When they saw Sherman's Army they remarked that his troops had seen long and hard service, their uniforms were so soiled and worn, and that the officers and privates were dressed so much alike they were unable to dis- tinguish one from the other.
January 5th the Twentieth Corps had two divisions over the Savannah River above the City effecting a lodgement in South Carolina. The people of South Carolina and the rebel soldiers seemed to have an undue fear of our western men, and like children, they had invented graphic stories of our prowess in Georgia. It seemed that their wonderful energy displayed during the war was beginning to yield to the slow and more certain industry and discipline of our Northern troops. Taunting messages had come to us when in Georgia to the effect that when we should reach South Carolina, we would find a people who would fight us to the bitter end. daring us to come over. Our men could not be restrained as they had been in Georgia.
The heavy winter rains began in January, rendering the roads execrable. The rivers became swollen and filled their many channels, overflowing the vast rice fields and low lands. The flood swept away the pontoon bridges at Savannah and came near drowning some of the troops of John E. Smith's Division of the Fifteenth Corps, with several heavy trains of wagons that were en route from Savannah to Pocotaligo by the old cause- way. The nights became bitter cold and the men suffered severely except when in a position to build fires.
There is a story told of one man who habitually got drunk on the picket line when liquor could be obtained. But he was a good soldier and was 'usually let off easy. One night, the officer of the guard stumbled against him. The officer told him to go back to his quarters and report to his company. The answer was "Who are you?" The officer disguising his voice said that his name was Paul. "Oh, Paul." said the man, "Say, did you ever get an answer to your letter to the Ephesians?"
Headquarters First Division Seventeenth Army Corps, Beaufort, South Carolina, January 9th, 1865. SPECIAL ORDER NUMBER 179.
A General Court Martial is hereby appointed to convene at these head- quarters on the 10th day of January, 1865, at ten o'clock in the morning,
259
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260
FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
or as soon thereafter as is practicable, for the trial of such prisoners as ma be brought before it.
DETAIL FOR THE COURT.
Lieutenant-Col. Joseph H. Carleton. Thirty-second Wisconsin Vol. Ini
Major Horace Park. Forty-third Ohio Vol. Inf.
Captain David Gillispie. Tenth Illinois Vol. Inf.
Captain H. D. Farquharson.
Twenty-fifth Wisconsin Vol. Inf.
Captain Irvin Eckles. Thirty-second Wisconsin Vol. Im
Captain Charles H. Smith Twenty-seventh Ohio Vol. Inf.
First Lieutenant John F. Jones Eighteenth Missouri Vol. Inf.
Second Lieutenant S. S. Snellbarker Forty-third Ohio Vol. Inf.
Captain James Freeman. Thirty-second Wisconsin Vol. Ini
Captain James Freeman, Thirty-second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry will act as judge advocate of the court.
No other omcers than those named can be assembled without manifest injury to the service.
By order of MAJOR-GENERAL J. A. MOWER. CHARLES CHRISTENSON, LT. A. D. C. AND A. A. A. C.
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1
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE CAMPAIGN THROUGH THE CAROLINAS, WHIPPY SWAMP, POCOTALIGO, RIVERS BRIDGE, NORTH AND SOUTH EDISTO RIVER ; CAPTURE OF
COLUMBIA ; CHARLESTON EVACUATED ; CHERAW, FAYETTE- VILLE, BENTONVILLE, GOLDSBORO.
By the 10th of January, 1865, after eleven days waiting for supplies. in a low and marshy camp, near the fortifications at Reanfort Sonth Carolina, the First Division marched ten miles out to the Coosaw River. The road was straight and level through swampy country, covered with a thick growth of pine timber. After stacking arms, the soldiers, who were very thirsty, rushed to the river, for the tide was up and the water looked clear. They filled their cups in which they had put coffee and placed them over the fire to boil. After seating themselves upon the ground ready to enjoy their rations, they found that they had made their coffee of salt water.
On January 15th, the First Division crossed the river between the island and main land on a pontoon bridge and camped at Pocotaligo Station in a rice field on the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, forty miles distant from Charleston and twenty-five miles from Beaufort. Three lines of fortifications were captured by marching through swamps upon the enemy's Hanks. These fortifications and the third line at the Pocotaligo defences were defended by Hampton's Legion, Wheeler's Cavalry and some other Confederate troops.
On January 16th the Twenty-seventh Ohio with a train of twenty-five wagons and six mule teams, went to higher ground, as far as Hayward Plantation for forage. A soldier and a colored man came into our lines, having been chased by the enemy whom they reported in our front. Skir- mishers were deployed and a line of battle was formed. Two companies were posted behind Dr. Hayward's fine residence. The enemy gave way and retreated at our approach, which was on the double-quick, with a yell and a volley of musketry. The wagons were now filled with corn and ilder and the command returned to camp. Lieutenant-Colonel I. N. Gilruth was in command of the expedition and Captain Charles H. Smith was acting Major.
It was now winter and the wet season had set in. It rained for days. The roads and swamps were filled with water. All the country between Beaufort and Pocotaligo is alluvial soil, cut up by an infinite number of
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261
-09
262
263
FIGHTING THROUGH SWAMPS.
salt water sloughs, and fresh water creeks, easily susceptible to defence. Near this alluvial soil came the sandy pine land which connected with firm ground extending inland.
On January 19th, the First Division began marching at six o'clock in the morning and filed off into the swamps and woods for the purpose of flanking the enemy and their earthworks and forts. After three miles of march through mud and water up to their knees, they arrived at the Sal- kehatchie River. The river was so swollen by the rains that it could not be crossed by wading. The men had to wade slowly back through the swamps to the camp on the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. General Beauregard assumed command of Hardee's troops at Charleston, including Wheeler's and Hampton's Cavalry, numbering 40,000 men with Pocotaligo as a line of defence. On January 25th, Colonel Milton Montgomery assumed command of the Second Brigade. First Division.
The Army was now well started for its grand move through the Carolinas and Virginia, to join General Grant at Richmond. Sherman's Army flushed with success was a most confident body of men and they felt their power. On January 27th, part of the Division marched to Cuthert's Landing on the Coosaw River and remained there five days, doing fatigue duty, unloading transports freighted with government stores and rations. The weather was cold and the ground was freezing. The return march was made during the night.
By the 1st of February the whole of the Army of the Tennessee was near Pocotaligo waiting for the left wing, which was delayed by the flood of the Salkehatchie River. Its great overflow of water presented a most formidable obstacle, but Mower's Division (First) of the Seventeenth Corps was kept active, seemingly with the intention of crossing over in the direction of Charleston and thus keep up the delusion that the city was our immediate objective.
The right wing moved up the Salkehatchie River. The Seventeenth Corps was on the right, and the First Division on the right of the Corps following the west bank of the river, to River's Bridge, where it appeared before the rebel position. The Fifteenth Corps moved to Beaufort Bridge, Kilpatrick's Cavalry by way of Barnwell, to bring them into communication with the Fifteenth Corps.
The enemy cut away all the bridges and at once abandoned the whole line of the Salkehatchie. General Howard tells the story that when the Seventeenth Corps was about five miles from Midway Station, he began deploying his leading division so as to be ready for battle. While sitting on his horse, the general saw a man coming down the road, riding as hard as he could, and as he approached, Howard recognized him as one of his own foragers mounted on a horse, with a rope bridle and a blanket for a
264
FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE
saddle. As he rode nearer. he called out. "Hurry up, General! We have got the railroad!" General Howard said, "And so while we generals were proceeding deliberately to prepare for serious battle, a parcel of our for- agers had actually captured the South Carolina Railroad, a line of vital importance."
The army moved forward and broke up the railroad to a point where it crossed the Cambahee River and then turned for Columbia.
On February 1st, the First Division advanced all day as skirmishers on the Broxton Bridge Road, the enemy retreating from one rail pile t. another as fast as they could build them. On February 2nd, the Division marched ten miles and made a camp on an island in the swamp. The wagons could not keep closed up with the column during the march. so they came up late. The bridges had all been burned by the enemy. On February 3rd, the Union troops moved slowly all day with stops every mile or so to flank the enemy from rail pile to rail pile. The rebels finally fell back into their main works on the west bank of the Salkehatchie River. The men of the First Division. in line of battle, waded up to their waists in freezing cold water and mud, to within one hundred yards of the enemy's works. The loss in the First Division was one hundred and twenty-five killed and wounded.
At River's Bridge, the situation was such that the men had to double- quick across a wagon road. now knee deep with water, while the enemy's artillery raked the whole distance with shot and shell. Colonel Wager Swayne of the Forty-third Ohio was wounded at this place by a piece of shell. He was carried off the field on a stretcher a long distance back to the hospital at Pocotaligo, where his leg was amputated. Thus a brave and competent leader was lost to the service. The day after the fall of Colonel Swayne, the Forty-third Ohio received a baptism of fire in a charge upon a battery which commanded the bridge and causeway approach- ing it. Down this narrow causeway, the regiment rushed amid a storm of shot and shell compelling the rebels to withdraw the battery and uncover the crossing. The Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio Regiments were the first to find a way to cross the river and took possession of the opposite bank.
On February 4th, the First Division was engaged in tearing down buildings and cutting down large trees to make a road through the swamp to the right of the enemy's line, and also for the purpose of bridging the river. At five o'clock in the evening, the First and Second Brigades of the First Division, charged the enemy's works on the right flank, at River's Bridge, capturing the works with one hundred prisoners from the Thirty- second and Forty-third Georgia. The Union loss was one hundred killed and wounded. The water in the streams was so high, that it was necessary
265
OUR ARMY IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
to build fifteen bridges for the troops to cross, in a distance of less than one mile. On February 15th, the First Division moved into line and built works for defences, and camped near the river.
Our men had the idea that South Carolina was the cause of all our troubles. They knew that South Carolina had been the first to fire upon our flag at Fort Sumpter, and her people had been in great haste to pre- cipitate the country into a civil war. A squad of soldiers having come into possession of a large map of the United States, they laid it out upon the ground, and with an ax, chopped out the state of South Carolina, this action being taken in view of the fact that South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, and the soldiers claiming that this part of the country was not worth fighting for. Indeed it was a miserable country. The soil was sandy and poor. The houses need for habitation were small and built of logs, rough split staves were used for shingles, wooden pegs for nails, there were no doors neither sash nor glass in the windows, and- there were no plastered inside walls.
FIRST DIVISION 17th A. C. IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA SWAMPS. February, 1865.
1
266
FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE.
On February 6th, a march was made on the Midway Road, eleven miles. On February 7th, commencing at noon, we marched twelve mile- and camped at Little Salkehatchie River, near the town of Midway on the Charleston and Augusta Railroad and built a line of earthwork defences. On February 8th, we destroyed railroad. On the 9th, we marched ten miles to South Edisto River. After cutting a road through the swamp, in deep water and in the pitch darkness of night, we went into camp and remained until midnight in our wet clothing. The enemy burned the bridge, evacuated their fort on the north side of the river, and at four o'clock in the morning, the pontoons being finished, the First Division passed over, but the men had to wade through the overflowed bottoms on the other side, waist deep, fastening their cartridge boxes around their necks, to keep their powder dry.
Scarcely anything could be more trying to the men than their wading in the dark, through the deep, cold water, stumbling at every step with their clothing frozen stiff. Their zeal and skill in obtaining the passage of the river, the difficulties of the ground, the mud, the water, swamps, deep creeks and ditches, which they had overcome to get at the enemy, and their quiet and soldierly conduct afterward, was eminently praiseworthy.
Circular letter from Major-General Howard.
Near River's Bridge, South Carolina, February 5th, 1865.
Sir : Allow me to congratulate you on the success achieved by your command in breaking the line of the Salkehatchie. The enemy chose a position of incomparable strength and met us at every crossing with defiant boldness. Your First Division under Major-General Mower, First Brigade under General Fuller, Second Brigade under Colonel Tillson, with almost incredible celerity cleared Whippy Swamp; with its deep water, through which the men waded above the knee, with its seven burned bridges and its roads filled with felled trees. They skirmished successfully with the enemy, made a reconnaissance to Broxton's Bridge, forcing the enemy to destroy it and to defend the causeway, then drove back the enemy's cavalry and reached River's Bridge so quickly as to arrest and effectually prevent their destruction. This same Division under the same indomitable leader- ship, in one day made two infantry roadways through the swamp, a mile and a half in extent and demonstrated strongly on the enemy's fortified front, completely turned his position and planted itself firmly on the eastern shore of the indescribably ugly Salkehatchie, and this wide and troublesome swamp. All this was done in the face of canister and shell in a sharp, obstinate musketry fire from behind works. The immediate fruits of the victory are the abandonment by the enemy of Broxton's and Buford's Bridges, the opening up of the country beyond and its supplies, placing hors-de-combat, some two hundred of the enemy, and the gain of moral effect over hint produced by the wonderful vigor and boldness of our men in overcoming apparently unsurmountable obstacles. Every soldier who has fallen is a precious sacrifice that must give us pain, and the loss we suffer
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