USA > Ohio > The history of Fuller's Ohio brigade, 1861-1865; its great march, with roster, portraits, battle maps and biographies > Part 3
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The command bivouacked at Ellis Creek. The men marched twenty- two miles on the 18th and were off at two o'clock on the morning of the 19th. At daylight, the sound of heavy guns was heard at Lexing- ton. Arriving about noon, opposite that place, information was re- ceived from scouts that the enemy had possession of Lexington, and was moving across the river with three thousand infantry and artillery. Gen- eral Sturgess formed his small force in battle line, passed the word that "Lyon" was to be the battle cry, and then moved rapidly (seven miles in one hour) through deep bottom lands and corn fields, encountering the enemy's pickets and a Confederate Regiment, losing a few men, and cap- turing several prisoners. He then marched them to Richmond, where the exhausted sold ers rested upon their knapsacks, in the streets. At Rich- mond, many wounded rebels were brought in.
The march was resumed in the afternoon, and the men arrived at Camden Hill at sundown, burning with thirst, owing to heat, dust and rapid marching, having covered a distance, that day, of twenty-six miles. They rushed into the Missouri River for water and after filling their canteens, and slacking their thirst, bivouacked witliout food or shelter.
They (Sturgess' Command) started at two o'clock in the morning amidst a storm of rain, thunder and lightning, marching all day and covering a distance of thirty-three miles. Their clothing, blankets and ac- cutrements were soaked with water. Physically, the men were "used up." It was their first great march. They had travelled one hundred and ten miles in four days, averaging twenty-seven miles a day. Bivouacking in a field near Liberty, Missouri, they fell into a deep sleep. During the night. two soldiers of the Thirty ninth Ohio, who had thrown away their blankets
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE
on the march, crept over to the sleeping forms of two men in the Twenty- seventh Ohio, and after removing the blankets that covered them, actually rolled them off the blankets they lay on, without awakening them.
A story is told by the soldiers, that the enemy's cavalry scouts following this column as it ascended a hill, saw the large, highly-polished brass instruments carried by the members of the Twenty-seventh Ohio Regimental Band. The scouts retreated immediately and reported to Gen- eral Price that the Yankees had a full battery of brass cannon and could not be attacked.
On September 21st, after a general cleaning of guns, accoutrements and clothing, the command marched to Liberty Landing on the Missouri River and embarked on the steamer "A. Majors" for Kansas City. After landing there, by some unaccountable neglect, they were left to bivouack on the levee, amid the debris of the river, and with only the muddy water of that stream to drink.
BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, MISSOURI
37
MARCH TO THE RELIEF OF LEXINGTON.
While ascending the river, the pilot ran the boat on a sand bar and Colonel Fuller immediately put him under guard until the boat moved off.
No railroads entered Kansas City at the time, so that all outside com- munication was by river. It was a great distributing point for army sup- plies. A sand-bag fort occupied the high bluff which commanded the passage of the river.
The two regiments (Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth) moved on the following day to the open fields near the town, remaining a few days, and then into store houses on the main street. They were instructed and drilled continuously in maneuvering and the use of arms. There were drills for commissioned officers and squad and regimental drills, commenc- ing often at five in the morning and ending with dress parade at six in the evening. The nien became very proncient and the discipline was equal to that of any soldiers in the world. Yet it is a remarkable fact that very little of this drill could be made useful in actual warfare. Most of the practice was for the soldier of the past. Skillful soldiers are made by being pitted against the enemy; there they learn unheard-of things. They find ways to use stumps, trees, rocks, earth. hills and valleys, to protect themselves, while inflicting all possible damage to the enemy. Showy uni- forms are thrown away, their clothing becomes stained the color of the earth upon which they sleep, a shade least liable to be a mark for the enemy.
Captain Minken, Sergeants Thomas Morgan, E. B. Temple, John Toms and Corporal William E. More published a paper while the regiments re- mamed in Kansas City, from which we copy the following. so important to the soldier :
"What we chiefly dread in war is rifle balls, or saber cuts, or bayonet thrusts, or bomb shells, or over fatigue in marching, but the vital statistics of war prove that there is another great agent of destruction that is far more potent than any or all of these and that is disease."
October 16th, re-enforcements of Kansas troops, Indian scouts and Mexican teamsters arrived under command of General James Lane, includ- ing also the Seventh Kansas Cavalry known to the Brigade as the "Kansas Jay Hawkers," with whom they served in many later campaigns.
The clothing furnished by the government in refitting men for active service was good but many misfits occured. Shoes were too large, and blonses and trousers were often baggy.
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CHAPTER V.
THE MARCH TO SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI.
On October 16th, the Brigade with the whole command under General Sturgess, marched to join General Fremont's forces at Springfield, in south- west Missouri, moving from the wooded bottom lands of the Missouri River to the rolling prairies and plantations of corn, cotton and tobacco, over the counties of Jackson, Cass, Johnson, Henry, St. Clair and Polk, and through the towns of Pleasant Hill, Oseola, Bolivar and Greenfield. The Brigade crossed seven rivers enroute, some of which the men waded during the night, with the water and air at the freezing point. The Osage, a large and deep river, was crossed on a scow drawn over by ropes.
The soldiers were often supplied by the settlers with corn pone cakes which had been baked in skillets over red-hot coals. The boys added mo- lasses and the cake was considered a luxury.
This country was known in early geography as the eastern end of the great American dessert. However, there was no dessert. It was a plateau or tableland over which the wind swept and chilled our soldiers to the marrow.
The two Regiments arrived at Greenfield on October 27th, raised the Union flag over the Court House, and on the 30th, late in the afternoon, after being reviewed by General Sturgess and double-quicked through the streets for several hours, received urgent orders to join Fremont. They marched all night and the following day, arrived in Springfield just at dusk, with bands playing and flags flying. They were hungry and thirsty and covered with dust, and they had waded three small rivers during the night. They marched forty-five miles during the twenty-four hours and a total distance of two hundred and thirty miles in fourteen days, subsisting on scanty rations of pork and cornmeal. Soldiers from their camps lined the roadway and greeted the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio with up- roars of delight, exclaiming. "Here come the regulars." This was a compli- ment to the fine marching and discipline. On noticing the Ohio banners, cheers were given for the "twin Buckeye regiments."
Fremont's army now numbered about fifty thousand men, all gathered in a great camp of white tents. Here was heard near by and in the distance, the martial sound of bugle call, of fife and drum, and the music of bands. This and the artillery salutes to the flag at sunrise and sunset seemed to the minds of the Ohio soldiers who had just marched out of the wilderness, magical and inspiring, and it filled them with patriotic emotions.
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MARCH TO SPRINGFIELD.
Camp was made on the grounds where Major Zagoni of Fremont's staff led a bold movement with two hundred and fifty horsemen and de- feated a thousand rebel recruits of Price's Army. While here the regi- ments were sent on a march of twelve miles to Wilson's Creek to bury the dead left after the battle. The work of interment was done as humanely as possible, but was difficult on account of the rocky and irregular surface of the battle field.
Many Unionists living in this section of the country gave the soldiers a warm greeting. While crossing the prairies, each company when about to camp and pitch tents, marched four abreast, making a circle and tramp- ing down the grass. It is wonderful how proficient the soldiers became in putting up their tents, "striking" them (taking them down) and loading them into wagons neatly and quickly.
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CHAPTER VI.
THE TERRITORY IN POSSESSION OF THE UNION ARMIES.
The situation of all the armies at this time (last days of September, 1861,) was in part as follows: The United States was in possession of Fortress Monroe and the adjacent waters of the sound, also from a point a few miles south of Washington, D. C., through Harper's Ferry, Mary- land, through West Virginia, just south of the Ohio River, then in Ken- tucky near the Dick and Kentucky Rivers to the Ohio River near Paducah !. from Cairo, Illinois, along the Mississippi River to points a finde south of St. Louis, thence west to Kansas City and south to Springfield, Missouri. The Missouri River was a Federal highway from its source to its mouth. Nearly the whole territory south of the above line was controlled by the so- called Confederacy.
The Army of the Potomac in the east under Mcclellan was inactive though organized in the midst of loyal advisors and surroundings, under the eyes of the President. Missouri, a border state, had represented all the evils of bitter civil strife. Military operations had to be initiated in the midst of revolutionary conditions and a rebellious people, where all laws were set at defiance. "The consummation of General Lyon's well-conserved campaign and Frank Blair's statesmanship had made it impossible for Mis- souri to secede or contribute any more men or material to the south." Gen- eral Fremont had sent officers into the states of Tennessee and Kentucky, within the Confederate lines to observe and ascertain the strength of the enemy, who upon returning, had brought important information concerning the position of the enemy. He had ordered General Grant to Cairo to take possession of Paducah, to hold the mouths of the Cumberland and Tennes- see Rivers which were threatened by the enemy, to take command of south- east Missouri, and had laid plans for operations on the Mississippi River with gunboats, which he had ordered built.
On November 4th. General Mckinstry inspected and reviewed the First Brigade and First Division, to which the Twenty-seventh and Thirty- ninth had been assigned at Springfield.
The general routine of duty until the 9th of November, 1861, con- sisted principally of roll call, drill four times each day and dress parade. The army was on half rations, for the train of thousands of wagons failed to supply rations in sufficient quantities.
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CHAPTER VII.
THE RETROGRADE MOVEMENT OF THE ARMY.
On the 2nd of November, General Fremont was relieved of command of the Army of the Northwest. The government thought he had not filled the high expectations which his opportunities merited. The dis- aster of the battle of Springfield and the death of Lyon, to whom loyal Missouri owed so much, turned censure sharply upon Fremont, whose short- comings as a commander had been noticed. General Hunter now assumed command. He failed to realize that the Army could live on the country, but unfortunately moved his army back to their base of supplice on the railroads at Sedalia, necessitating a march of one hundred and twenty-five miles. The Confederate General Price's Army followed and occupied Springfield, consuming all subsistence raised in that country, especially that belonging to the Union people.
While camped near Springfield, Missouri, Colonel Fuller, command- ing the Twenty-seventh Ohio Regiment, was so reduced by sickness that he could not be moved and was left in the hospital when our army moved to Sedalia. All the sick in the hospital fell into the hands of the Confed- erates. They were very kind to General Fuller, General Price himself be- stowing much personal attention upon him. As soon as General Fuller could be moved with safety, he was sent into the Union lines.
Part of the retrograde march was over dusty roads, made so by great numbers of wagons and the tramping of thousands of men. The soldiers became so covered with dust, that they were hardly recognizable. About the 15th of November, the weather turned cold and there was much rain. The men carrying their knapsacks suffered a great deal from toil and hardship. The Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth camped at Georgetown, situated in a rolling country, then moved three miles to a new camp at Sedalia, which was at the time the western terminus of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.
Sedalia, a frontier town, was situated on a flat and swampy prairie, where the small population lived in cheaply constructed houses, without other foundation than blocks of wood. The Thirty-ninth Ohio went into camp at Syracuse. The low, wet camp at Sedalia was soon cut up by the wheels of the artillery, commissary, and ammunition wagons, and became a quagmire, causing such a great amount of sickness among the soldiers that the surgeons became alarmed. Large numbers of men were sent to the hospitals, which at this time were poorly managed.
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MAP OF
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OPERATIONS IN
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MISSOURI, 1861.
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OPERATIONS IN MISSOURI, 1861 AND 1862. Marches of the 27th and 39th O. V. I.
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43
RETROGRADE MOVEMENT OF ARMY.
The men were furnished large Fremont tents, yet they suffered from the severe weather and exposure during the heavy falls of snow. While standing on picket or on camp guard, a great many had their hands, ears or feet frozen. Details of axemen were sent to the woods for fuel. Some- times large trees were cut down, trimmed and then hauled by six mule wagon teams over the frozen ground, a distance of two miles. Log-heap fires were kept burning in the company streets, around which the soldiers would stand and by turning around and around, could keep warm on one side of their bodies, all of the time. The regimental sutler sold his goods at very high prices. but supplies of home-cooked meats, bread and apple butter, brought in wagons and corn baskets by the farmers were bought much cheaper. It was at Sedalia that the soldiers received their first green- backs issued by the government in payment for their services.
On November 19th, General Halleck assumed command of the Depart- ment of the Northwest, the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio Regi- ments being attached to the First Brigade, First Division. On December 12th, these two regiments were assembled to march with a scouting force. composed of cavalry, artillery and infantry. under command of General John Pope. The troops were supplied with two days' rations, forty rounds of cartridges and extra ammunition in wagons. By forced marches, they covered fourteen miles, the first day, and thirty-five miles on the second day, then went into a camp on a prairie.
The weather was very cold and the ground was frozen hard, no tents could be pitched. The men slept on prairie brush and corn fodder. It was here that a bushwhacker who had been captured, while attempting to break through the guard, was shot.
On the 15th, near Warrensburg, a wagon train was captured. contain- ing supplies for Price's Army. On the 18th, the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio Regiments, after marching northeasterly, some distance went into camp, but at eight o'clock in the evening, the long roll was sounded, and they were hurriedly formed in ranks and marched forward three miles to Blackwater River. The regiments halted and formed ranks in open order and thirteen hundred rebel prisoners composing General McGoffin's. command were marched in between our two lines, and were guarded back to Sedalia. The distance covered by our troops during this scout, was one hundred miles.
While out scouting on this expedition, sixty-two men belonging to the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio Regiments were taken prisoners and made to take an oath not to take up arms against the Southern Con- federacy. They were released on parole, sent to Benton Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri, and from there to Kansas City, where they were mus- tered out of the service of the United States by order of General Halleck.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GREAT WINTER MARCH TO ST. LOUIS. ADVANCE UPON NEW MADRID AND ISLAND TEN. Special Order Number 18. HEADQUARTERS, DISTRICT OF CENTRAL MISSOURI,
OTTERVILLE, JANUARY 29TH, 1862.
The following movements of troops will be made. First, the Iowa Fifth, the Illinois Forty-seventh, five companies of the Ohio Thirty-ninth and the Eleventh Ohio Battery will march from Syracuse and LaMine to Boonville, Missouri, where Colonel W. H. Worthington will take command and make immediate arrangements to cross the Missouri River with his whole torce. Second. the Nebraska First, the Ohio Twenty-seventh, and three companies of Fourth Regular Cavalry, the companies of regular Infantry, and one of the Batteries of the Missouri Light Artillery, at Sedalia, to be designated by Colonel Steel, and Eighth Iowa Volunteers, will take up the line of march immediately for Jefferson City. Third. the nine companies of Merrill's Horse will immediately proceed to Brownsville,
By order of GENERAL JOHN POPE, Commanding.
On February 3rd, 1862, the order to move was brought to the regi- ment by the Sergeant-Major, and the great march to St. Louis began. Then far and near was heard throughout the camps the sound of drums and bugle calls to assemble. And so with light hearts and heavy knap- sacks, with filled canteens and haversacks, with guns slung over shoulders, with forty rounds of ammunition in the cartridge boxes, our boys trudged away at a good gate, over the snow and rough and frozen roads. Stakes could not be driven to tie the ropes which held up the tents, so that no tents could be used. With the change in the weather, the snow turned to slush. and the roads were so deep with mud that they were almost impassable. The black mud stuck like tar to the shoes of the marching men. Small lakes were formed in the road by the melting snow, and squads of men would scatter and tramp through the fields, or walk on the ties of the rail- road. At night, the men built great fires and dried their wet clothing. Some cut corn stalks and put them by the fire to dry and on this bed lay down to sleep, wrapped in blankets, some on tents spread on the ground or on beds made of brush, while others remained in groups shivering around the fire. One cold night, in an open corn field, two boy soldiers routed an old sow and a litter of pigs from a hole she had made in the ground for protection against the inclemency of the weather. They crept into the hole for warmth and she returned many times during the night, squealing and grunting as if appealing to their humanity.
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WINTER MARCH TO ST. LOUIS.
The last day of the march was over a plank road, a distance of twenty- five miles into St. Louis, which was covered in ten hours. It was the only dry shod marching that was experienced in the whole trip, and was accom- panied by comparatively little fatigue. Many times on the trip, the soldiers exclaim, "From mud we came, to mud we return."
Part of the army crossed the Missouri river at Boonville, and part at Jefferson City, and followed the route by way of Otterville, Columbia, Dan- ville and St. Charles, much of the way over a hilly country.
This march was a severe one and will never be forgotten by the par- ticipants. The men were compelled frequently to pull the ordinance and supply wagons over the hills by hand. The march consumed seventeen days' time and covered a distance of two hundred and thirty miles. At St. Louis, the glad news was received of the victory at Fort Donaldson. The detached companies joined the command here.
The regiments expected after the hardships of the march, to remain in more comfortable quarters at Camp Benton barracks to rest, but to their dismay, they were ordered aboard steamers upon which they were conveyed down the Mississippi to Commerce, Missouri, arriving there on the 23rd. The river was at a flood, the land was overflowed, the United States bar- racks at Fort Holt, Kentucky, and Birds Point, Missouri, were afloat and at Cairo, Illinois, the inhabitants were moving from their dwellings through the streets in boats. The strong, muddy current of the river carried away every movable thing, houses, trees, fences, and wreckage of all kinds, and swept them rapidly down stream.
The steamers which conveyed the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio regiments down the Mississippi River, were crowded and carried a cargo of munitions of war that fully tested their capacities. But the three days' rest afforded the men by this trip of one hundred miles on the river, compensated in a measure for their close quarters and poor accommo- dations.
At the debarkation of the regiments at Commerce, Missouri, forty miles above Cairo, all ambulances, army wagons and artillery were taken off the boat in pieces and were regeared, put together and the wagons reloaded with supplies. The regiments moved back from the river two miles and pitched their tents in the woods. The army of the North-west was here merged with part of the Army of the Mississippi.
On February 25th. 1862, at Commerce, Missouri, the Forty-third Ohio and the Sixty-third Ohio Regiments were joined with the Twenty- seventh and Thirty-ninth. The four regiments composed Fuller's Ohio Brigade ( First). On the 22nd, the Brigade was assigned to General Schuy-
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE
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ler Hamilton's First Division, in General John Pope's Army of the Missis- sippi. For four years following, these regiments supported each other with heroic devotion, on many bloody battle fields.
COL. WAGER SWAYNE. 43d O. V. V. I. . MAJ. W. R. THRALL. Surgeon 27th O. V. V. I.
COL. JOHN W. FULLER. 27th O. V. I. COL. EDW. F. NOYES. 39th O. V. V. I.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CAPTURE OF NEW MADRID AND ISLAND TEN.
On February 28th, the Brigade commenced a march of fifty miles, through low swampy lands, where the cottonwood and cypress trees and the mistletoe grew in great profusion, and into the gloom of the "sunk country" to New Madrid. New Madrid was effected by the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812. At that time the earth rolled in waves, opened with loud explosions, formed lakes and crevasses, and drained the Mississippi River, submerging the land. The boasts of the rebel Generais Foik, Filiow.
43d AND 63d O. V. I. STARTING FOR NEW MADRID, MO. March, 1862. From Si Clegg.
27th AND 39th O. V. I. "FOLLOWING." In Need of Supplies.
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FULLER'S OHIO BRIGADE
and Thompson, that they would capture Cairo and St. Louis, were frus- trated by the occupancy of this territory. At the crossing of the Bird's Point Railroad, there was a skirmish with Jeff Thompson's Cavalry, a small force of the enemy's command was captured by our advance, together with three one pounder guns, breach loaders, each drawn by a mule. This was termed by our young soldiers the "jackass battery," and Lieutenant Zenn said: "The mule seems as glad to see the Yankees as the colored people are."
In the movement upon New Madrid, the Forty-third and Sixty-third led in the advance of the Twenty-seventh and Thirty-ninth Ohio on the first day. The sandy roads and heavy knapsacks, made the men feel keenly their first lessons in real soldiering, and many knapsacks were unloaded.
:
CHARGE THROUGH CORNFIELD. New Madrid, Mo., March 6th, 1862.
49
CAPTURE OF NEW MADRID AND ISLAND TEN.
On reaching the enemy's outpost, on the afternoon of March 3rd, with the Twenty-seventh in advance, muskets were loaded, and the regiments which were deployed as skirmishers advanced. Hogs were feeding on the corn- fields, shells were bursting overhead and in the rear, filling the air with sizzling missiles, then striking the ground with a thud, One of the soldiers picked up an unexploded shell and carried it to a fire. The shell exploded and tore him to pieces.
On March 3rd, the Ohio Brigade in advance, arrived at New Madrid, halting in a corn field, half a mile from town. The Confederates fired from their gun boats on the Mississippi River and also from their fort on the river bank at Madrid Landing. Toward night, the Brigade fell back a short distance, to a camp in the woods. Temporarily, the First (Demi) Brigade with the Twenty-seventh under command of Colonel Tohn W Fuller and the Thirty-ninth under command of Major Edward F. Noys was commanded by Colonel John Groesbeck. The Second Brigade with the Forty-third under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Wager Swayne, and the Sixty-third under command of John W. Sprague, was commanded by Colonel J. L. Kirby Smith. March 4th. General D. S. Stanley assumed command of the First Division.
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