USA > Ohio > The story of the Sherman brigade. The camp, the march, the bivouac, the battle; and how "the boys" lived and died during four years of active field service > Part 4
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40
AWAY TO THE RENDEZVOUS.
[October,
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puted question of fact over which the loafers wrangled for the next fortnight was, how many blows I really struck the old man, and whether I didn't really try to kill him ! The truth is that I neither struck hin nor struck at him during the melee.
"After getting my scalp washed and my head dressed, I trav- eled on to my next appointment at Sewellsville, where my arrival caused quite a sensation. Mr. Brown was on hand. The news of the Fairview figlit had spread like wildfire, and we had a rousing meeting. I appeared on the scene with my bloody headgear and made a stirring appeal, the effect of which was magical. Brown called for volunteers and they came with a rush that kept him busy until midnight. Next day we held a meeting at London- derry, where we met with like success. The day following we were at Milnersville, where a delegation from Fairview, with drum, fife and flag, met us. So we went from place to place, day after day, until the close of the week, when we counted tlie full quota of volunteers."
The ambitious young officers, while during the day exercis- ing their prowess as "fishers of men," sat up nights studying Hardee's Tactics. Each afternoon they would muster their squads and steer them through the streets or charge around on the village common, eliciting the admiration of the fair sex and spreading the war-fever among the young fellows of the town and the region round about. Each nebulous company, as soon as it had reached the minimum of sixty men, was furnished trans- portation to Mansfield and went into camp. The departure of a company from home was a scene that moved the stoutest hearts. There were tears and loving embraces and oft-repeated farewells, mingled with uproarious shouts and cheers. Parents, wives and sisters looked only upon the dark and gloomy side of the future. Those who went forth at the call of duty, full of hope, ambition and enthusiasm, saw but the bright pictures of fancy; leaf by leaf would be unfolded to them all that is dreadful and abhorrent in war!
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1861.]
CHAPTER II.
THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION.
TRANSFORMING RECRUITS INTO SOLDIERS-LIFE AT CAMP BUCKING- HAM-OUR "REGULAR" OFFICERS-FORSYTH. HARKER, GRANGER, BRADLEY AND MCLAUGHLIN-FIRST OFFICIAL ROSTER OF THE BRIGADE-MUSTERED IN-THE SIBLEY "CIRCUS" TENT-WAGON- LOADS OF "SOFT BREAD"-OUR MILITARY OUTFIT-"LEFT! LEFT ! LEFT !"-LEARNING THE TACTICS-GUARD DUTY AND THE GUARD- HOUSE-THE ORDERLY SERGEANT-GUNS AND HORSES FOR THE BATTERY-YOUNGSTERS IN THE RANKS-A CONSUMING DESIRE TO GO TO "THE FRONT"-COLONEL SHERMAN'S FAREWELL ORDER.
T T HERE was much honorable rivalry among the recruiting officers to secure the required number of men and reach camp, as the companies would be lettered, beginning at A, in each regiment, in the order of their arrival, and the company officers would take corresponding rank. If there was one thing that an officer liked better than anything else it was "rank." . Captain Alexander McIlvaine, of Mansfield, was the first to report with the requisite number, and his company was duly christened A, of the Sixty-fourth. Captain James B. Brown, of Marion, brought in Company B, and all the others followed in succession. In the Sixty-fifth Captain Alexander Cassil, of Mount Vernon, went to the head of the class, being the first to report. Captain Henry Camp was close at his heels with Com- pany B, raised in Stark and Columbiana counties. Other com- panies came trailing in until K was reached.
By the middle of November both regiments were fully organized and were duly mustered into the service of the United
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COLONEL FORSYTH'S MISFIT.
[October,
States. Squads of recruits were daily arriving for the various companies, tlie desire being universal to fill them to the maxi- mum of one hundred men each. A few reached this figure while others fell a little short, so that each regiment took the field with about nine hundred men. Meanwhile the battery and the squad- ron were augmenting their rolls and were mustered in soon after the infantry, the battery being the last to complete its organi- zation.
Colonel Sherman was successful in securing offi- cers of military education and experience to command the various bodies of volun- teers. For colonel of the Sixty-fourth Captain James W. Forsyth, of the Eight- eenth United States Infant- ry, was selected. He was a graduate of West Point and had served some years in the regular army. Al- though a gentleman of high soldierly attainments, he proved to be, in the com- mand of a regiment of vol- unteers, what President Lin- coln once described as "a 1 round peg in a square hole" -he didn't exactly fit. Ex- DAVID B LEITER, CAPTAIN, SIXTY-FOURTIL. ceedingly strict in discipline, he was lacking in the patience and for- bearance necessary to be exercised during the process of transforni- ing nine hundred " green"officers and men into soldiers. He seemed to think they ought to know it all before they had even a chance to learn. His administration created considerable friction in the regiment. It was a clear case of incompatibility and it caused little regret when, a few weeks after he was commissioned, a di- vorce was granted by the governor of Ohio, with the consent of the war department. Captain Forsyth was assigned to duty in the
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COLONEL CHARLES G. HARKER.
1861.]
staff department of the army, in which capacity he rendered ef- ficient and valuable service during the whole of the war, reaching the rank of brevet brigadier-general ..
The colonel of the Sixty-fifth was Captain Charles G. Harker, Fifteenth United States Infantry. This is a name held in affec- tionate remembrance by every member of the brigade-by which is meant not only the Sherman Brigade but the larger one, includ- ing the Sherman, which he so long and ably commanded in the field until he fell at Kennesaw. He was indeed a knightly sol- dier. We can scarcely think or speak of him .without moistened eyes, as we recall his gallant bearing, his flashing eye, his manly · virtues and his dauntless courage, conspicuous upon so many well-fought fields. He belonged to the whole brigade, at the head of which he rode for more than two years ; but we of the Sixty- fifth may be pardoned for claiming him as especially our own, and for the pride we feel in having belonged to the regiment that bore his name first upon its roster. We were not pleased with him at the beginning. Like all "regulars" he was a rigid dis- ciplinarian. It seemed to us that he "put on the screws" too tightly, and for a time the raw material out of which he was trying to make a regiment of soldiers was exceedingly restive under his strict enforcement of the "Regulations." He bore down hard upon some of the officers who were a little slow in learning the tactics, or who were inclined to laxity in the management of their men. They thought him a martinet, who had been im- ported from New Jersey-as though there could not be found in Ohio a man good enough to command the regiment. But in a few months this feeling wholly disappeared. We all found that he knew better than we. After his first test in battle we thought there was no man like Harker. Our affection for him grew stronger with each passing month, up to the day when, at the age of twenty-nine, a brigadier-general, he sealed with his life his devotion to his country. Colonel Harker graduated from West Point in 1858 and had served two years on the frontier before the breaking out of the war.
Sergeant Cullen Bradley, of the Second United States Artil- lery, was commissioned captain of the battery. He was a native of the South, having been born in North Carolina and reared in
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BRADLEY AND M'LAUGHLIN.
[November,
Tennessee, his home being at Lebanon. He enlisted in the regular army in 1846 and had served in the artillery continuously for fifteen years, attaining the highest non-commissioned rank, that of first sergeant. His long experience proved invaluable, and it was largely due to his discipline and instruction that the Sixth Ohio won a name second to no other battery in the Army of the Cumberland.
For the cavalry squadron-but a fraction of a regiment -- the highest official grade allowed was that of major. To this posi- tion was commissioned William McLaughlin, of Mansfield. He was well advanced in years, but his ardent patriotism induced him to enter the field. He was not without military experience, having served through the war with Mexico. He was a man of rough exterior, high personal courage and indomitable will, in every way equipped for an independent command. The hard- ships and privations of active service proved too much for his physical endurance, and six months after leaving Ohio he died, on the bank of the Big Sandy, in Kentucky. His body was re- moved to Mansfield and buried with the honors of war.
With the exception of the colonels, the field officers of the regiments were elected by the company officers. Of the Sixty- fourth, Isaac Gass, of Mansfield, was chosen lieutenant-colonel, and John J. Williams, of Marion, major. In the Sixty-fifth, the choice for lieutenant-colonel fell upon Daniel French, of Millers- burg, and that for major upon James Olds, of Mount Gilead. Colonel French was a veteran of the Mexican war. At the com- pletion of the organization the official roster of the brigade was as follows:
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SIXTY-FOURTH OHIO INFANTRY. 1
COLONEL-James W Forsyth.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL-Isaac Gass. MAJOR-John J. Williams.
ADJUTANT-Wilbur F. Sanders.
QUARTERMASTER-Lorenzo D. Myers.
SURGEON-Henry O. Mack.
ASSISTANT SURGEON-Hugh P. Anderson. CHAPLAIN-A. R. Brown.
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THE OFFICIAL ROSTER.
1861.]
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Company A -- Captain, Alexander McIlvaine ; first lieutenant, · Michael Keiser ; second lieutenant, Samuel M. Wolff.
Company B -- Captain, James B. Brown; first lieutenant, David A. Scott; second lieutenant, Bryant Grafton.
Company C -- Captain, Robert C. Brown; first lieutenant, Aaron S. Campbell; second lieutenant, Cyrus Y. Freeman.
Company D-Captain, William W. Smith; first lieutenant, Cornelius C. White; second lieutenant, Isaac F. Biggerstaff.
Company E-Captain, Samuel L. Coulter; first lieutenant, Warner Young ; second lieutenant, Chauncey Woodruff.
Company F-Captain, John H. Finfrock; first lieutenant, Simeon B. Conn; second lieutenant, Norman K. Brown.
Company G-Captain, Samuel Neeper; first lieutenant, Au- gustus M. Goldwood; second lieutenant, John L. Smith.
Company H-Captain, Charles R. Lord ; first lieutenant, Tip S. Marvin; second lieutenant, William McDowell.
Company I-Captain, Turenne C. Meyer; first lieutenant, Marcus T. Meyer ; second lienteant, Thomas McGill.
Company K-Captain, Joseph B. Sweet; first lieutenant, Ebenezer B. Finley ; second lieutenant, William O. Sarr.
COLONEL-Charles G. Harker. 1 SIXTY-FIFTH OHIO INFANTRY.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL-Daniel French.
MAJOR -- James Olds.
ADJUTANT-Horace H. Justice.
QUARTERMASTER-William M. Farrar.
SURGEON-John G. Kyle.
ASSISTANT SURGEON-John C. Gill.
CHAPLAIN -- Andrew Burns.
Company A-Captain, Alexander Cassil; first lieutenant, Albert Ellis; second lieutenant, Jacob Hammond.
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Company B-Captain, Henry Camp; first lieutenant, David G. Swaim; second lieutenant, Johnston Armstrong.
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Company C -- Captain, Edward L. Austin; first lieutenant, Samuel L. Bowlby ; second lieutenant, Frank B. Hunt.
Company D -- Captain, John C. Baxter; first lieutenant, Da- vid H. Rowland; second lieutenant, John T. Hyatt.
Company E-Captain, Horatio N. Whitbeck ; first lieutenant, Thomas Powell; second lieutenant, George N. Huckins.
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BATTERY AND SQUADRON.
[November,
Company F-Captain, Richard M. Voorhis; first lieutenant, Nahum L. Williams; second lieutenant, Jasper P. Brady.
Company G-Captain, Orlow Smith; first lieutenant, Clark S. Gregg ; second lieutenant, Charles O. Tannehill.
Company H-Captain, Samuel C. Brown; first lieutenant, Francis H. Graham ; second lieutenant, Samuel McKinnie.
Company I-Captain, Jacob Christofel; first lieutenant, Lu- cien B. Eatou ; second lieutenant, Andrew Howenstine.
Company K-Captain, Joshua S. Preble; first lieutenant, Joseph M. Randall; second lieutenant, John M. Palmer.
SIXTH OHIO BATTERY.
CAPTAIN -- Cullen Bradley.
FIRST LIEUTENANTS-Oliver H. P. Ayres, James P. Mc- Elroy.
SECOND LIEUTENANTS-Aaron P. Baldwin, Edwin S. Fer- guson.
MCLAUGHLIN'S SQUADRON.
MAJOR-William McLaughlin.
Company A-Captain, Gaylord McFall; first lieutenant, Samuel Fisher ; second lieutenant, Enoch Smith.
Company B-Captain, Samuel R. Buckmaster; first lieuten- ant, Benjamin B. Lake; second lieutenant, Herman Allen.
The long list of non-commissioned officers is not given here, as many changes occurred within a short time, and all are shown in the roster, in the latter part of this volume. The sergeants and corporals of each company were chosen by its officers and appointed by the colonel of the regiment. There was a good deal of scrambling for these positions, for in those days even the chevrons of a corporal were considered an overwhelming honor. A sergeant was a bigger man than was a brigadier-general two or three years later.
There was in Company E, of the Sixty-fifth, a man named John F. Kuss. He pronounced it "Koos," but of course all the boys called him "Cuss." He liad served in the German army and was a fine-looking, soldierly fellow. He lived near Berea, and at the time the non-commissioned officers of the company were selected he was at home on a five-days' furlough. When he
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1861.]
SURPRISE OF CORPORAL KUSS.
returned to camp he was well-nigh overpowered to find that he .. had been appointed a corporal.
"Ven I coom back," said he, "all der poys cry 'Corporal Kuss! Corporal Kuss!' and I nix fer stay dill Captain Vitbeck, he told me. He made me der corporal ven I vas no here!"
Nearly all sections of the state were represented in the Sher- man Brigade. Of the Sixty-fourth, Companies A, C, E, and H were recruited chiefly in Richland county; Companies B and D in Marion ; Company Fin Van Wert; Company G in Summit; Company I in Stark and Wayne ; Company K in Craw- ford. Of the Sixty-fifth, Company A was raised in Knox county ; Company B in Stark and Columbiana: Company C in Richland; Company D in Morrow; Company E in Cuyahoga, Lorain and Stark ; Company F in Holmes and Coshocton ; Company G in Ashland and Erie; Company H in Guernsey ; Company I in Ashland and Cuyahoga ; Company K in Hancock. The Sixth Battery was recruited chiefly in Summit, Richland and Tuscarawas, with a few from other counties. The Squadron was raised in Richland, Holmes and adjacent counties.
It may be justly said that nowhere in the army could be found a finer body of men. The average age was about twenty- three. In the ranks were scores of men of the highest intelligence and having an academic or collegiate education. They were from town and country, representing almost every trade, profession and vocation in life. Many of them relinquished lucrative and honor- able positions to engage in the mighty struggle for the perpetuity of the government.
Having been mustered into the service with impressive ceremonies, we began to feel like soldiers, upon whom rested the burden of saving the country. We got down immediately to army regulations, surrounded by all the "pomp and circumstance of war." The camp was under the command of Major Robert S. Granger, of the Fifth United States Infantry. He had been sur- rendered by General Twiggs in Texas, at the outbreak of hostilities, and was on parole, which for the time disqualified him for active service. He was of slender build, with a big blonde mustache. He was held up to us as a model of soldierly perfec- tion. How straight he carried himself as hie strode with stately
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THE SIBLEY TENT.
[November,
steppings about the camp! We used to wonder that he didn't fall over backward. But he was a polished gentleman and we have none but kindly recollections of him. He served with dis- tinction during the war and for many years thereafter. He was then placed upon the retired list of the regular army, and died in 1894.
We were quartered in great Sibley tents. As we now re- member them, after our later experience with the "pup" tents, they were big enough for a circus. When pitched they were conical in shape, about sixteen feet in diameter at the base, and twelve or fourteen feet in height from the ground to the peak. The Sibley was supported by a center pole, the lower end resting upon a tripod four or five feet high, the three legs of which sprawled out in as many directions. We had six tents to a com- pany, each being the habitation of from fifteen to eighteen men. The soldiers slept with their feet focused at the center, their bodies radiating toward the circumference like the spokes of a wheel. The tripod was a nuisance, always in the way. One night a member of our mess, coming in after a "trick" of guard duty, stumbled against the tripod, kicked out one of the feet, and the tent came down flat upon the sleeping patriots. The scram- bling and yelling and objurgations, in two or three languages, that followed, aroused half the camp. It awakened the colonel and he sent an orderly to Company E to see what was the cause of the riot. The pole of the tent struck one of the boys on the head and raised a lump that he carried for a week. This was the first casualty in the company. Most of the squads furnished their tents with small sheet-iron stoves, by which the keen and nipping air of November and December was tempered to the shorn lambs. An abundance of straw was supplied, and each man had one or two extra blankets or quilts, brought from home; so that we lived more comfortably while at Camp Buckingham than at any other time or place during the ensuing four years.
Food was plenty and generally wholesome. True, the culi- nary work of some of the green company cooks was a little "off." They scorched the bean soup, or miade the coffee too weak or too strong; but they were sufficiently punished for their short- comings by the maledictions of the company. Fresh "soft
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MAJOR GRANGER KNEW BEANS.
1861.]
bread" from the Mansfield bakeries was hauled to camp each day by 'the wagon load. We did not then know that such a thing as "hard" tack" had ever been devised by man. If there was any lack in the daily menu, it was more than supplied by the generous hos- pitality of the good people who dwelt in the region round about. They hauled in loads of vegetables, milk, poultry and fruit, while every railway train brought, from homes more remote, boxes and parcels of "goodies" to tickle our yet fastidious palates. We lived as in a land flowing with milk and honey. If any one had at that time set before us one of those indescribable "lay- outs" that two or three years later we were glad and thankful to have for dinner or supper, and told us to eat it, we would have exclaimed indignantly, as Hazael said to Elisha: "Is thy ser- vant a dog that he should do this thing?" But we hadn't then the faintest conception of what soldiering was.
One evening, when the troops had been but a few days in camp, Colonel Sherman and Major Granger went together from one company to another on a tour of observation. They noticed a soldier in the act of removing from the fire a kettle of beans Pausing for a moment, Major Granger inspected the contents of the kettle.
"Those beans are not co ked enough !" he said, quietly.
"D' ye s'pose I don't know how to cook beans?" said the soldier, snappishly. He had not yet come to a realization of the chasm of rank that yawned between him and shoulder-straps, and in his mind he questioned the jurisdiction of the major over his culinary operations-in other words, it wasn't any of Granger's business.
Some officers would have taught the recruit a lesson by send- ing him to the guard-house to spend the night as a punishment for his impertinence, but the major did nothing of the kind. He only said, in his gentlest tones:
"My good man, you will understand beans better by the time you have eaten as many of them in the army as I have. Never try to cook beans in a hurry; they should be thoroughly done. These are not fit to eat. If you will let them cook over a slow fire till morning you will find them excellent. You will have to learn all these things, just as I did."
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ARMS, AND LEARNING TO USE THEM.
[November
No doubt the soldier profited by this good advice, and in the fullness of time came to "know beans," raw or cooked.
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We were duly fitted out with knapsacks, canteens, haver- sacks, etc. and the boys spent a good deal of their leisure time in getting the hang of these curious things-as they seemed to us. We felt, however, that we would be of no earthly account as soldiers until we had got hold of something to shoot with. Our consuming impatience was satisfied about two weeks after we reached camp by the arrival of sundry boxes containing our arms and accouterments. Each man was given a brand-new Spring- field rifled musket, with shining bayonet and the other accessories. This began to look like business. We felt proud indeed as we strapped on our cartridge-boxes, and, with our muskets at a "right shoulder shift," paraded the streets of our canvas city. We wanted to go to the front-to stand not upon' the order of our going but go at once. We thought that as soon as we got there it wouldn't take long to wind up the rebellion.
We began to drill, four times each day, as soon as we entered camp. The officers went to school each evening to be instructed by the colonel, and they in turn taught us-or tried to. All had everything to learn. Officers and men were zealous in their work and no doubt we got on as well as the average. There was here and there one who was a year or two in learning which was his left foot and which his right. Day after day, in squads and com- panies, we faced and marched and countermarched and charged around with an energy that gave bright promise of future use- fulness. Everywhere could be heard the "Left! Left ! Left !"' of the orderlies. After the muskets came we applied ourselves with dill- gence to mastering the manual of arms. We considered ourselves about ready to graduate when we could "order arms" withont pulverizing the toes of the next man, or our own, fix and nnfix bayonets without stabbing somebody, and march without kicking the calves of our file-leaders or the shins of those behind us. The two "regular" colonels and Major Granger circulated freely during the hours of drill, with frequent words of commendation or suggestion.
Some of the men were more apt than others in learning how to drill. Those who were slow to learn took comfort from the fact
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1861.]
DEAR OLD CAPTAIN CHRISTOFEL.
51
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that some of the officers, too, did not keep up with the procession. Members of the Sixty-fifth found no little amusement in observ- ing Captain Christofel when drilling Company I. Often he could not think of the proper commands and he would substitute his own. One day he wanted the company to "mark time" and he gave the order "Stop.and tread a little!" He thought he would try a wheel and told the men to "Circle 'round this way !"' Many of his original answers to Colonel Harker's questions at the even- ing "school" were highly entertaining to his brother officers.
Colonel Sherman was ubiquitous about the camp, giving his personal atten- tion to the condition and needs of the men. If any- thing was lacking he spared no effort until it was sup- plied. He more than re- deemed the promise made in his first published an- nouncement, that the men should have, without dimi- nution, everything to which they were entitled. He greatly endeared himself to the soldiers by his efforts in their behalf. It is safe to say that at no camp in Ohio were the men more comfort- able or better cared for than at Camp Buckingham.
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LUCIEN B. EATON.
CAPTAIN, SIXTY-FIFTH.
We were as strictly held to the performance of guard duty as . though there had been a million rebels surrounding the camp. Before posting his men the officer of the guard would deliver an impressive lecture, reading from the "articles of war" that hair- lifting paragraph which fixes death as the penalty for sleeping on post. If I should live to the age of Methuselah I could not for- get my first night on guard. It rained persistently and copiously from dark till dawn and the air was extremely raw and cold.
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GUARD DUTY AND THE GUARD HOUSE.
[November,
Drenched to the skin, with shivering linibs and chattering teeth, I paced to and fro on my "beat," feeling that I was serving my country with a vengeance. Each two hours on duty seemed as long as an average week. A hundred other fellows were my companions in misery. There was no danger of anybody going to sleep on post that night.
There was a tent used as a "guard-house," which was rarely without half a dozen or more inmates who were doing penance for their misdeeds. Not all the members of the Sherman Brigade had been "born again." They were all human, prone to err, and in some of them the "old Adam" was exceedingly active. The chaplain of each regiment had a big job on his hands. The most frequent breach of discipline was "running the guards" after darl. to spend the evening in town. Often some of the transgressors returned in a condition of hilarity that was sure to land them in the guard-house; where they were held in confinement, usually for twenty-four hours. The guard-house, in one form or another, stayed with us till the end of the war. Our chaplains did not preach enough to have any perceptible regenerating effect. In fact, they didn't do much of anything except draw their pay.
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