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 8
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After each wagon passed the soldiers tried to repair the damaged places, by re-laying the logs and shoveling on a little earth, but the next one that came was pretty sure to go down. If it didn't there it would break through in some new place. Often a mule would sink all the way to his body, and then the men would get levers and ropes and pry and pull him out, as he floun- dered and kicked and splashed the mud in every direction. Some- times a mule would get discouraged and just lie down in the deep- est mud he could find. After much unbuckling of harness and persuasive effort he would be turned up on his feet and another start would be made. Now and then a harness would break, and as soon as mended in one place would give way in another.
So it went on, through the closing hours of that drizzly Jan- uary day. The leading wagon of the train had not advanced a mile from the top of the hill, and all along in front of the dreary camp others were hopelessly bemired, the wheels sunk to abysmal depths. Next morning the exercises were resumed, and all day
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A TAX ON PROFANITY.
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the soldiers pried and lifted and yelled and pelted the mules with sticks and stones, advancing the train scarcely more than a mile. Several times wagons went down so deep in the chaos of timbers and water and mud as to be absolutely immovable, and they had to be unloaded before they could be extricated. At dark we returned to camp, wet to the skin, and our clothing splashed from head to foot with mud. We were convinced that our road was a failure. We didn't think such things were part of a soldier's business, anyway.
I feel moved to say that the picture I have given is not in the slightest degree overdrawn. In proof of this, if my own word be considered not sufficient, I call to the witness stand any or all who spent those two wretched weeks at Hall's Gap, even the memory of which is like a nightmare. No language can go beyond the reality of our actual experience.
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In the "Articles of War," then and now governing the United States army, it is provided (Articles 2 and 3) that "any non-commissioned officer or soldier who shall use any profane oath or execration shall forfeit one-sixth of a dollar," with other pen- alties, "for each offence." Just why they drew so fine a point as to fix the price of a good satisfying "swear" at "one-sixth of a dollar"-sixteen and two-thirds cents-passeth all understanding, but it is there, in black and white, as anyone may see. It is not laid down whether payment must be made in gold or greenbacks. Adherence to the gold standard would, in those days, have made it much more expensive. No doubt there were times, however, when a man would have thought it cheap at any price. In the case of commissioned officers this luxury came higher, as the tur- pitude of the offence was considered greater. The Article pro- vides that every officer so offending "shall forfeit and pay for each and every such offence, one dollar." It would appear that the United States government made a mistake in permitting these reg- ulations to fall into what Grover Cleveland would call "innocuous desuetude." Had they been rigorously enforced from 1861 to 1865 the government would not have found it necessary to borrow money and issue bonds. Its income from this source would have enabled it to pay all the expenses of the war as it went along and it would have had "money to burn" besides; there wouldn't have
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THERE WAS GREAT REJOICING.
February,
been any national debt. Stimulated by our wonderful corduroy road at Hall's Gap the mule-drivers would have contributed mil- lions to the national treasury. It might be suggested to some of the survivors of the Sherman Brigade that it is not yet too late to pay up their arrears on this account, in accordance with the Articles of War, and augment the "conscience fund" in the United States treasury.
We worked away for a week longer, after our wrestle with the wagon-train, repairing the breaks as best we could and ex- tending the corduroy in all about six miles from camp. It took half the day to march there and back. Every day an increasing number of sick were sent down the hill to Stanford. The com. panies were smaller at roll-call on each succeeding morning. It seemed that Kentucy had welcomed us with not "bloody" but muddy "hands to hospitable graves."
On the morning of February 8th we turned out as usual, and shouldering axes and shovels started for the scene of our daily toil. We had not gone more than a mile when a messenger came riding out with orders for us to break camp and march im- mediately. When the nature of the order was made known the woods rang again and again with cheers, Our destination, what- ever it might be, was a matter of perfect indifference to us. We didn't care a rush-although that is not exactly the word the boys used-where we were going, only so that we might get away from Hall's Gap. We felt very much as General Sherman did once about a company of cavalry that was in his way a good deal and did not move fast enough to suit him. He summoned the cap- tain of the company and ordered him to gallop.
"But where shall we gallop, General?" said the captain.
"Just gallop! Gallop anywhere, but, d-n it, gallop!"
We just wanted to march-march anywhere. The work of preparation was rushed with extraordinary alacrity. Invalids flung away their blue mass pills and went to pulling up tent pins with the greatest vigor, inducing the belief that some of them had been "playing off" on the doctors. In an hour nothing but the debris of the camp remained. There was quick response to the drum as we formed for the last time along that awful road. We were rejoiced to learn that we were not to flounder through the
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IT WAS AS BAD AS A BATTLE.
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mud toward Somerset. We turned our toes the other way and started down the hill with nimble feet, cheering and singing "Out of the Wilderness" with tremendous effect.
As we passed through Stanford scores of the boys waved farewells at us from the doors and windows of the hospitals. Poor fellows! Many of them we never saw again. We left there from the three regiments more than four hundred men, of whom a hundred died within the ensuing three months, and fully half of the remainder never rejoined their regiments. They were discharged, utterly broken in health. Our two weeks' stay at Hall's Gap cost us as many men, who died or were disabled by disease, as we lost at either Stone River or Chickamauga. Among those who died soon after we left, was First Lieutenant Horace H. Justice, adjutant of the Sixty-fifth. He was a young officer of great promise, prompt and efficient in the discharge of his duties, whose soldierly instincts and personal virtues had greatly endeared him to his brother officers of the regiment.
CHAPTER VII.
PREPARING TO ADVANCE.
BACK TO LEBANON -- BY RAIL TO MUNFORDVILLE-A CORNFIELD CAMP -- A FEW DAYS OF DRILL-FIRST VISIT FROM A PAYMASTER- WE DRAW FINANCIAL RATIONS IN GOLD-AN "OFFICERS' DRILL"- THE SIXTH DIVISION ORGANIZED.
F ROM Stanford we retraced our steps to Lebanon. The march thither was without feature of special interest. On the second day Colonel Harker rejoined us, and was most cordially greeted. The reason for Colonel Harker's three weeks absence soon became known to the regiment. It appeared
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COLONEL HARKER STAYED WITH US.
[February,
that up to that time the authorities at Washington had not con- sented that Harker be detached from his regiment in the regular army to become the permanent commander of the Sixty-fifth Ohio. The secretary of war strenuously opposed the detachment of reg- ular officers to command volunteer regiments. It was only by the greatest effort that Senator Sherman had secured the services of Captain Forsyth and Captain Harker to organize and drill the troops at Camp Buckingham.
When our campaigning in Kentucky began it had not yet been fully determined , whether either of these offi- cers would continue with his regiment. The question regarding Forsyth solved itself, as has heretofore been told. Harker's absence, while we were at Hall's Gap, was in consequence of an order which he had re- ceived to report back to his regiment-the Fifteenth United States infantry-for duty. The officers of the Sixty-fifth had already learned to know and appre- ciate his worth, and they united in an earnest appeal CHAUNCEY WOODRUFF. ADJUTANT, SIXTY-FOURTH. for his retention as its colo- nel. This request, strong- ly indorsed by General Wood and General Buell, was granted and Harker's position as colonel of the Sixty-fifth was made permanent. The result of the controversy gave no less pleasure and satisfaction to the of- ficers and men of the regiment than to Harker, himself.
At Danville the Sixty-fourthi was introduced to a new colo- nel-John Ferguson-who had been commissioned by Governor Tod to the vacancy created by the resignation of Colonel Forsyth, At first there was some feeling because the vacancy had not been
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JIM MILLS AND THE MULE.
1862.]
filled in the usual way, by promotion within the regiment, which would have advanced six or eight persons one rung higher on the ladder of military name and fame. The "soreness" soon dis- appeared, for Colonel Ferguson, like Absalom of old, "stole the hearts" of his soldiers. He was a man of fine presence and mili- tary ability of a high order, and was a most excellent officer. He had a singularly resonant voice for command We all remember his "At-ten-tion! Bat-tal-ion!"' every syllable as clear as the stroke of a bell. Now, in the case of Colonel Harker we came to learn that when he shouted: "_shun! -yun!" he meant "Attention ! Battalion!" but he threw all his force into the last syllable of each word and the others were never in the faintest degree audible.
The first night after leaving Stanford James P. Mills, of Company E, Sixty-fifth, while on guard, shot and killed one of that company's mules, which had broken loose and was tramping around in the darkness just outside the line. Mills thought it was a rebel, or something, that was approaching him. He chal- lenged, but there was no reply. As soon as he could dimly see the object he fired, hitting the mule squarely between the eyes. There were a few farewell kicks and that mule was forever at rest. Bumbaugh had but five mules to drive during the last two days of the marclı.
We reached Lebanon at noon on February 1Ith. The after- noon was chiefly devoted to vaccination. Two or three cases of small-pox had appeared in the brigade and every officer and man was ordered to report to the surgeons for examination. All whose arms did not show marks of recent vaccination were required to have the operation performed. It "worked" on a large number, and a few days later sore arms were numerous. This was a good foundation for a plea to be excused from drill and other duty, and the boys played it for all it was worth, just as long as it would last.
Our stay at Lebanon was brief. That evening an order was read on parade, stating that our destination was Green river, and directing us to be ready to move the following day, with two days' cooked rations. Reveille aroused us at four in the morning. and at six we were ready to go. We did not get off, however,
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IN A CORNFIELD AT MUNFORDVILLE.
[February,
till noon. The weather was exceedingly raw and cold, and we spent the time shivering around the fires. We were to go by cars, and marching a mile to the railroad we waited five hours longer, with blue faces and chattering teeth. It was nearly dark when we were informed that our train was ready. In order to make it as inconvenient as possible the train had been stopped upon a high embankment. After a deal of scrambling and climbing and "boost- ing" one another we were stowed away within and upon the roofs of ordinary freight cars. Fully a third of the men were compelled to ride on the top of the train, and suffered keenly from the cold, to say nothing of the smoke and cinders. Sleep to them was wholly impossible. We reached Lebanon Junction at ten o'clock, and rolled southward on the Louisville and Nashville railroad.
At two in the morning we halted at Munfordville. After unloading ourselves and our baggage we were tumbled promis- cuously into a cornfield for the remainder of the night. We lay down on beds of cornstalks and slept soundly till the sun was shining full in our faces. The ground was laid out in camp style and we pitched our tents half a mile from Green river. A large force had gathered at this point for an advance upon Nashville. There were camps everywhere-infantry, artillery and cavalry. Tents covered every field and hill for miles. The army was esti- mated at forty thousand, and more were arriving daily. The troops were drilling constantly. The greatest activity and bustle prevailed on every hand. General Mitchel, with twelve thousand men, made a forward movement toward Bowling Green the day of our arrival, and it was understood that the whole army would soon follow, in conjunction with the operations of General Grant on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. The bridge over Green river was a superb structure of iron, resting upon massive piers nearly a hundred feet high. The enemy partially destroyed it, by blowing down one of the piers, but as soon as our forces obtained possession the gap was speedily filled with a substantial trestle, built by the First Michigan Engineers and Mechanics. A large force was engaged in repairing the railroad beyond the river Here we saw for the first time the graves of men killed in battle- twelve or fifteen of the Thirty-second Indiana, who fell in an en- gagement at this point a few days before.
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1862.]
OUR STAY AT GREEN RIVER.
We remained ten days at Green river. We began to drill the morning after our arrival, and kept it up whenever the weather would permit. Our rations were good and abundant. The health of the regiments was better than at any time since we left Ohio. We had scarcely more than half as many in our ranks as when we marched so gayly out of Camp Buckingham two months be- fore. But those who had safely weathered Louisville and Bards- town and Hall's Gap were composed of good timber, physically speaking, and were now generally in fine condition of health and spirits. True, there were some very wet and dismal days at Green river. Our cornfield was decidedly too muddy for comfort. So many troops were there ahead of us that we "got left " entirely on straw and everything else needed for camp use. We were obliged to resort to some desperate shifts to keep ourselves at all com- fortable. But even this was a paradise when compared with Hall's Gap, and not a murmur was heard.
While here we first NAHUM L. WILLIAMS, CAPTAIN, SIXTY-FIFTH. Killed at Kennesaw, June 27th, 1864. made the acquaintance of one of those officials who were always welcomed with enthusiasmi-a paymaster. We had been in the service nearly four months. We had heard there were such functionaries as paymasters, and had begun to wonder whether we had not been entirely forgotten. The generally small amounts of money the men had brought from home were long ) since exhausted. On the 20th a bustling and pompous stranger appeared in camp. His clean uniform and shining brass buttons were ample proof that he had never spent a fortnight (7)
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WE GET PAID-AND IN GOLD.
[February,
building corduroy road. He moved about with that air of im- portance always assumed by a man who pays out money to his fellow nien. The long roll was beaten and the regiments were ordered to be mustered for pay. After due observance of pre- scribed forms the welcome lucre was dispensed to one company after another, the ceremony occupying a day for each regiment. All were paid from date of enlistment to December 31st. Eachı officer and man received his stipend in gold-
"Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Heavy to get and light to hold,"
as Tom Hood wrote about the seductive metal. We jingled the "yellow boys" in our pockets and felt like millionaires. They had indeed been "heavy to get," in view of the hard work we had done to earn them. The boys also found them "light to hold," for they didn't last a great while. That was the first and only gold we saw in the army, for we were not again paid in money that chinked. After that we had greenbacks, with frac- tional currency, or " shinplasters," for small change-little bits of paper, good for five, ten, twenty-five or fifty cents each, very handy for poker and "chuck-a-luck." .This paper money depre- ciated in value, lower and lower, until the end of the war came in sight, when it went up. For more than two years it was worth less than fifty cents on the dollar, gold standard, but it was con- sidered "good enough for the soldiers." At any rate they had to take it and were glad to get it.
Most of the men sent home from Munfordville part of their money; others, within the next few days, kindly let their com- rades have theirs, as the result of certain mysterious operations with pieces of pasteboard, covered on one side with curious pic- tures of men and women, and spots of various shapes. Pay day was devoted wholly to financial business. We were excused from drill and a number improved the opportunity to explore a large cave not far from the camp. By the light of candles and torches they wandered about through a labyrinth of subterranean passages.
Two days after our arrival there was a great blowing of bugles and beating of drums. Early one morning McCook's en- tire division started for " the front," and all the rest of the troops
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SAMUEL L. COULTER, LIEUTENANT-COLONEL, SIXTY-FOURTH,
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EVERYBODY CHEERED.
[February,
. turned out to see it off. The long column, with its bands and banners, presented an imposing spectacle as it filed out upon the railroad and across the bridge. Thousands of voices united in prodigious cheers, that were taken up again and again, by the moving column and by the vast crowd of spectators.
"We'll be there in time !" shouted one of the latter, alluding to the universal belief that a general battle would soon occur near Bowling Green.
At all ordinary times and places the soldiers were permitted to cheer to their hearts' content. It was only suppressed when it would be a breach of military decorum, or when engaged in move- ments requiring silence, in the immediate presence of the enemy. Cheering always had a good effect upon the spirits of the soldiers, and had a tendency, according to its vigor and volume, to dis- courage the enemy, if within hearing. So, through all the weeks and months and years, the boys cheered and shouted and yelled whenever anything occurred to afford an excuse. Nor did it take much to do this. The starting of a rabbit from its cover would set a whole division to yelling like lunatics. One regiment would cheer because another did, without knowing, or caring what it was for.
There was great enthusiasm through the canips at Green river, and with good reason, on the ISth. The regiments were called into line and dispatches were read conveying the informa- tion that Grant had captured Fort Donelson, with thirteen thou- sand prisoners ; that Bowling Green had been evacuated and was occupied by Mitchel : and in the east Burnside had gained a bril- liant victory at Roanoke Island, capturing three thousand prison- ers. The soldiers threw their caps in the air and cheered till they were hoarse. No such broadside of good news had been fired since the war began. Our only cause of grief appeared to lie in the fear that there wouldn't be any rebels left for us to capture; that the war was about over and we would soon be ignobly march- ing home, without having seen a fight. What would we say in after years, to our children and our children's children, when they should climb upon our knees and ask us how many rebels .we killed in the great war? We would have to give it up! We might tell them that we built six miles of the most atrocious cor-
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OFFICERS ON DRILL.
1862.]
·
duroy road that mortal eye ever saw or foot of mule ever trod, but that would hardly suffice to make us heroes. It is true that this apprehension, more or less malignant, prevailed quite generally that night through our camp, and was the subject of frequent con- . versations. Many expressed regrets, which I have no doubt were sincere, that we were not going to have any chance to smell pow- der in a state of combustion.
One day we had a novel drill. The officers and non-commis- sioned officers were formed into a company, somewhat after the plan of the com- pany which Artemas Ward proposed to raise, consisting wholly of brigadier-gen- erals. The officers acted as sergeants and corporals and the "non-commish" as privates. The colonel was the captain, and the lieuten- ant-colonel and major the lieutenants. This imposing body was exercised for two hours in the manual of arms and the various move- ments of company and skir- mish drill. It was noticed that the officers handled their guns as awkwardly as anybody else.
WILLIAM H. MASSEY, ADJUTANT, SIXTY-FIFTH. Mortally wounded at Stone River, December 31st, 1862.
Washington's birthday -February 22d-was celebrated by a national salute of thirty-four guns at noon, by a battery near our camp. An order was read announcing the organization of the Sixth division, Army of the Ohio, the Twentieth being one of its brigades. General Wood rose to the command of the division and Colonel Harker was des- ignated to command our brigade. At this time Colonel Harker was personally superintending the relaying of a pontoon bridge across Green river, it having been broken by a freshet. He suc,
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[February,
A JOKE ON THOMPSON.
ceeded in restoring the bridge, but the water rose again rapidly, and on the night of the 22nd fifty men of the Sixty-fifth were on duty at the bridge the entire night, to prevent the lodgment of driftwood against the pontoons. All effortswere unavailing. how- ever, and toward morning the bridge gave way near the center, the sections swinging around to either shore.
Company A, of the Sixty-fourth, was detailed as provost guard at division headquarters, in the discharge of which duty it continued for several months, Captain McIlvaine serving as pro- vost marshal. In the following year this position, on the staff of General Wood, was filled by Captain Keiser, of that company. At Chattanooga, in September, 1863, the latter suffered the frac- ture of a leg by the fall of his horse, which long disabled hin and from the effects of which he never wholly recovered.
One day while at Green river, a prank was played upon Cor- poral Isaac N. Thompson, of Company E, Sixty-fourth, which for a long time furnished much amusement to his comrades. Thompson was fully up to the average of the boys in his sus- ceptibility to the charms of the gentle sex, and took a prominent part in the frequent debates in the company in regard to.the relative attractiveness of the girls at home in Ohio, with many of whom one or another of the boys was in correspondence. It appears that one of the girls had unconsciously struck Thompson, and hit him hard, but their acquaintance was not sufficient to justify him in opening up a line of communication by mail, much as he desired to do so. A conspiracy was hatched by Robert McFar- land, John Hersh and Lieutenant Chauncey Woodruff, of his company. Hersh, who was an expert penman, wrote a letter to Thompson, counterfeiting a lady's hand, and appended the name of the girl in question. The missive was couched in tender phrase, setting forth the admiration and regard she felt for him and expressing the hope that a correspondence might be mutually agreeable. They "doctored " an envelope to give it the appear- ance of having come directly through from Ohio, doing this so skillfully that none but a critical eye would detect the fraud. When the mail arrived they put the letter with those for Company E, and it was duly delivered to Thompson. The latter opened it, glanced at the signature, and his heart, presumably, gave a great
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bound as he went off by himself and sat down to read it. The shot hit the bull's-eye; Thompson was a "goner." He answered it immediately. What he wrote we do not know, nor is it any of our business, but there can be no doubt that the person who re- ceived it was a very much surprised young lady. Thompson thought so when her reply reached him; it almost made his hair stand on end. Of course Hersh and Woodruff and McFarland couldn't keep the story and Thompson's burden of army life was rendered doubly grievous by the nagging of his comrades. All of which illustrates the means resorted to by the soldiers to make "fun" for themselves.
CHAPTER VIII.
OVER THE "KNOBS."
WE CROSS GREEN RIVER - OUR CAMP STRUCK BY A CYCLONE-DEL- UGED BY RAIN- THE PIKE IMPASSABLE-WE TAKE TO THE HILLS - THREE DAYS OF TUGGING AND YELLING - DISASTER TO THE BAKERY ON WHEELS - KENTUCKY PIES - WE REACH BOWLING GREEN.
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