USA > Pennsylvania > History of the Fifteenth Pennsylvania volunteer cavalry which was recruited and known as the Anderson cavalry in the rebellion of 1861-1865; > Part 26
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Just there we met the head of the wagon train coming up from the valley, and as the road was narrow we had to wait until they passed before we could go down. They were driving as fast as
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they could and were considerably excited, and on inquiry they told us that Wheeler's cavalry was in the valley. Captain Mc- Allister discredited the story, and said, "I will go down and drive them out ;" so we went down to the Robinson house. Company G occupied the large house where the road we went down inter- sected with one leading from the head of the Sequatchie River on down to the Bridgeport road, several miles down. Captain Mc- Allister and Lieutenant Lingle occupied a small house just across the road. We parked the train about 100 yards below, in a field. We had, I think, twenty-five wagons and 150 mules.
Turner, Kincaid and I slept in a wagon. After supper we went to the house to talk to the boys, and while there one of the citizens from up the valley sent a colored man to Captain McAllister and told him that Wheeler was camped four miles above, and he told me the same story.
My comrades and I were anxious to get a mess of sweet pota- toes, and got out earlier than the boys at the house. We rode up to the house, and there another colored man met us, and said that his mistress had sent him down to tell us to get out of the valley ; that told of their loyalty.
Lieutenant Lingle made a remark about the pickets, when Cap- tain McAllister said he had called them in to get their breakfast. My two comrades and I went on out the road leading up the valley, about 200 yards, into the edge of the woods, and on the bank and a dozen paces to the right stood a darkey cabin. We rode up to the door and asked where there was a sweet-potato patch. The old mammy said, "I done had some in de garden, but fo' de Lawd, de soger boys ober to de house done got them all." Just then the advance of Wheeler's cavalry came around the bend of the road, less than 100 yards from us. I raised my carbine, and the officer in command called out, "Don't shoot!" The car- bine, a Sharp, had been in an open wagon the day before, and the cartridge was wet and missed fire. I told Kincaid to get out of that, for he was mounted on a mule. I then fired my pistol and they fired at us. There were only five on the advance. I saw the head of the column just as Turner and I broke for the rear, and when we got to the house there was lively work among the boys getting ready to leave before the rebels got there. Fortunately, as I afterward learned, the rebels stopped to inquire of the old
Capture of Our Wagon Train in Sequatchic. 305
woman at the cabin about our strength. She, in blissful ignor- ance, magnified it to such an extent that they advanced slowly, and by that time the most of our men had mounted and began firing. I finally got the cartridge out of my carbine by striking the butt on the pommel of my saddle. John Crum, lately deceased, gave me a package of cartridges. By that time all the boys except Henry Sayres and Jack Pugh had mounted. Pugh had led his horse in between the picket fence and the house, and had to back him past the gate to get him out, and by that time the road up the valley was full of Johnnies. The officers were commanding them to close up briskly. Firing was going on from both sides. Just then one of their men dismounted about forty yards from us, laid his long gun on the fence, blazed away and then threw down the fence. They began to pour through the gap to cut us off, and then our boys broke for the mountain.
I had held back for Pugh, and just as he mounted a Johnnie rode around the house and called out to halt. Pugh yelled out to "go to h -! I have been there." I believe he had been a prisoner at Belle Isle. The company had now quite a start on us. One man was a couple of lengths from me and Pugh was far to the rear. The Johnnie beat us to the fence, but, thank the Lord ! it was about the best stake-and-rider fence I ever saw down South. They yelled out, "Halt, you d-d Yankees !" But we did not stop. There must have been twenty-five or thirty of them. They fired, but never hit man or horse. We dashed to Company G, about seventy-five yards farther on. They were in a bunch, and Lieuten- ant Lingle commanded the men to scatter out, as he said that the rebels would concentrate their fire and kill some of us. We obeyed at once. Just then comrade Over's horse was shot in the neck, and he barely got off before the horse fell dead. Jim took his . bridle, halter and saddlebags off, cut the girth of the saddle, gave liis saber and other things to some of the company, shouldered his carbine and footed it up the mountain. A short time after, as we were going up the mountain, a detachment made a dash after us, but we turned around and drove them down again. We then filed off to the left, threw down a fence, went into a corn field and watched them burn our train. We turned sorrowfully toward Chattanooga, arriving in due time, much disheartened. Henry Sayres was captured and paroled with the teamsters.
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I dreamed of the capture of our train the night after Sergeant Yerkes detailed me to go with it. I saw the scene of our attack, where we halted in a bunch, heard Lieutenant Lingle give the command to scatter out and saw him as plainly as I ever did. Then imagine my surprise in the morning when I met him at the pontoon bridge. The dream was repeated just as vividly the fol- lowing night. I told the boys about it, but they did not believe it would come true, but the second morning I saw it fulfilled. This was the only dream I ever had that came true.
SEQUATCHIE.
CAPT. WM. F. COLTON, COMPANY A, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH.
T HAT to every evil that comes to us there is a blessing at- tached was exemplified when General Wheeler burned up our wagons in Sequatchie Valley, October 2, 1863, and the Regiment was sent over there a few days later to see how lie did it. Chattanooga when we left it was just entering on its star- vation campaign, with only quarter rations for the infantry, and a good deal less than that for the horses. Sequatchie was rich, every other field was a corn field, and thousands of hogs and many cattle covered her hills and valleys. Poultry and potatoes could be had with the usual hunt for them, and while our comrades of the infantry suffered and were hungry in Chattanooga, we in Sequatchie were surfeited with the good things to eat, and would have grown fat if Colonel Palmer had only allowed us to get lazy, but that was not his way. Our horses enjoyed it, too. Ever since the Chickamauga fight their food had been doled out to them in lessening quantities, so that soft pine boards got to be a luxury to them. The wagons that went out after forage soon exhausted the nearby country, and longer trips had to be made, and this caused "Sequatchie" to be discovered by us.
It was a long valley, of about seventy miles, between the Cum- berland Mountains and the Walden Ridge. The upper end, where the two came together, was poor, but lower down the land was richer and the valley wider, and neither army had foraged it much until we got there. Where we first struck it was not over thirty- five miles from Chattanooga, but Walden's Ridge had to be climbed, and that was as high and as difficult to get over as were the Cum- berland Mountains, and when the bad weather set in the old roads were soon made impassable and new ones had to be found, so that before we left, it was a trip of sixty miles.
The point where we first struck it was at Sam Robinson's plan- tation, and we halted in an orchard while the men got their break-
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fast and fed the horses. "Feed each horse only seven ears of corn" was the order issued, lest overfeeding should "founder" them. But the corn field was right alongside of us, and the hungry looks of the dumb brutes, after they had eaten their seven ears, cobs and all, induced nearly everyone to keep on feed- ing until each horse had enough. The record was made by "Imhoff," an old troop horse belonging to Captain Clark, who ate forty-five large ears, half of them cobs and all.
The principal town in the lower valley was Dunlap. It wasn't much of a town and greatly in need of repairs and paint, but pride of home cropped out here, just as it does in ancestral mansions, for when one of our men spoke slightingly of it to an old citizen, he replied, "Well, I've seen it pretty lively. I've seen seven dead men lying around the polls on election day."
The Regiment was worked hard here. A very large territory was covered by our pickets, so that every third day there came on a tour of picket duty. We gathered up cattle for the army in Chattanooga, and impressed ox teams to do our own hauling, but this was only for a few days, as regular army teams were soon as- signed us. We had to send to Bridgeport, Ala., for rations, and that was a four-day trip. Every few days several wagons of corn were sent over to Chattanooga to the escort companies at head- quarters. Those companies soon joined us, but we still continued to send corn and cattle there. A guerrilla Captain, named Carter, came down on us one night and picked up three men of one of our outlying posts. This was another blessing in disguise, for our pickets were drawn nearer into camp, and it took less men to do the work.
In a little over a month we had exhausted all the corn in this end of the valley, and moved camp to Cedar Grove, about four miles above Pikeville, near Jim Worthington's plantation. The picket work here was not so heavy, but hauling rations from Bridgeport and corn to Chattanooga still continued, and that work was greater than ever. The Bridgeport depot ran short once and . we had no salt for a week. This was the greatest hardship that ever came to us. Those who have never experienced it can- not realize the craving when deprived of it. It is a neces- sity, and had it been possible for either the North or South to destroy the stock of it which the other had, the clamor for the
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war to cease would have been so great that forty-eight hours would have brought it to a close.
Just about this time we were joined by the Tenth Ohio Cavalry, under Major McCurdy. They were under our Colonel's orders, and kept with us all through the East Tennessee campaign. They were a great help in the hard work we had to do.
General Grant, having relieved Chattanooga, at once turned his attention to relieving Burnside at Knoxville, and after the battle of Missionary Ridge, November 25, 1863, orders were received by us to march to that place. Only about two-thirds of the Regiment went, as only those who had good horses were taken. There was no time to wait and gather up the different details of the Regiment, which were strung out all along the roads to Chatta- nooga and to Bridgeport, Ala. This left about 125 men in camp in Sequatchie Valley under command of Captain DeWitt; other officers being Kramer, Kirk, Lloyd, Logan and Dr. Say. Adjutant Colton joined on December 13th, on his return from sick leave.
Carter's gang of guerrillas again put in an appearance, and then, a short time after, we caught one of them, a Captain Jim Fraley. After due trial he was found guilty and hung the following Sum- mer, at Nashville.
The victory at Chattanooga had relieved us from sending for- age, rations and cattle to that place, as it opened up the railroad and made our work much lighter. Now we had only to do a little picketing, and about once a week send a detail to Bridgeport for supplies. The men rather liked that duty, although the trip took about a week and the roads were bad, for when the rations were drawn it was always found that the amount received was greater than what the requisitions called for, and the excess was divided among the train guards. The country was filled with deserters from the Tennessee and Kentucky regiments in the Confederate service. They gave no trouble. They only wanted to get home and be good citizens.
Now that our work was lighter our thoughts turned to pleasure, and a party was given, December 14th, by some of our officers at Squire Tullas' house. The preliminaries were easily arranged. A call was made on some lady in the neighborhood, no letter of introduction being necessary, and the invitation given was always
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accepted. The soldier always offered a horse to ride, as the lady's horse had generally been stolen. The music was furnished by two colored men, who accompanied the violin with singing. The principal tune was "Sallie Gal," but no one ever got the words.
About II o'clock came supper-ham, chicken, wild turkey, veni- son and pure coffee; then on again with the dance. Plain cotillions were all they knew, with plenty of "jigs" in them, and lots of exercise. Toward daylight, or, as one young lady expressed it, "The night's near dead, I can see the mountain," the party broke up, the girls were taken to their homes and we went to camp.
Along in December, Col. Tom Harrison, a cousin of our late President, joined us with his regiment, the Thirty-ninth Indiana, and took command. He was an easy-going, splendid fellow, and we liked him for a commanding officer, as he never ordered us about.
The Indianians soon had the party fever, and on December 24th got up one at Colonel Bridgeman's, in Pikeville. It had some singular features. As they had very few ladies and a great many soldiers, the chances for a dance were sold at one dollar each, and the purchaser was given a ticket with the number of the dance he bought. From the number of tickets sold, it would have taken two days to have filled all engagements. The party was a success only from a financial standpoint. A small party of the Fif- teenth, not exactly satisfied with their chances for a dance, smug- gled some of the nicest of the girls away and finished the party at Judge Frazer's house, in Pikeville.
Relaxation of discipline and not sufficient work to keep the men busy soon breeds trouble. In every regiment there is a certain proportion of poor soldiers who continue to get out of all hard campaigning, and many others are mischievous just for the sake of the fun they got out of it. The orders were strict that no apple whisky or peach brandy should be sold to the men, but these could not always be carried out. At one time one of our men arranged with a mountaineer to trade his revolver for a canteen of peach brandy, and appointed a certain place outside the camp to make the exchange on the following day. When they met, the soldier, to show the citizen that his revolver was good, fired several shots. At this signal his messmate appeared on the scene, fully armed, and arrested them both. He started to take them to camp, but the citi-
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zen begged so hard to get off, on account of his family, that he was allowed to go, but the brandy was confiscated.
On January 4, 1864, with sixty-five men, we joined an expedi- tion, under Colonel Harrison, to Sparta, about thirty-five miles to the westward, across the Cumberland Mountain, and arrived there at daylight the next morning, in bitter cold weather. The purpose of the expedition was to break up a bad gang of guer- rillas and bushwhackers, under Champ Ferguson, in that neigh- borhood. The job was quite well done, two of the marauders being killed, several wounded and sixteen captured. On the 6th, our detachment, under Captain DeWitt, returned to Cedar Grove, but the writer was detailed at Sparta until the 12th, as Provost Marshal.
'On the way back we saw deer and wild turkeys, and supped on venison and turkey that night. A settler on the mountain said that in two years he had shot thirty deer and 300 wild turkeys.
On February 7, 1864, our camp was broken up, and our detach- ment of about 200 men, under command of the Adjutant, went up Paine's Trail to the top of Waldon's Ridge, and on the even- ing of the IIth met the balance of the Regiment in camp near Missionary Ridge. They had seen hard service in their East Tennessee campaign, and liad earned a rest in which to recuperate.
MAJOR WARD'S CHARLIE.
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SERG. JACOB KITZMILLER, COMPANY E, GETTYSBURG, PA.
C HARLIE'S home, near Tenth Street and Washington Ave- nue, Philadelphia, could not have been attractive to him, for at an age when most boys keep close to it, Charlie started to see the world. He must have been attracted by the neat and officerlike uniform which some of our boys wore, for he joined himself to a squad which was leaving Eleventh and Market Streets depot, and turned up in our camp at Carlisle at our organi- zation.
He did not seem more than ten or eleven years old, and small at that. He was not handsome, for one eye was crossed and there was a squint in the other, and his whole face was freckled. He was not attractive in any way, but was good-natured, good-man- nered and had a pleasant smile on his face at all times.
There was something in him that suited Major Ward, for he took him under his protection, so that he became known to all the Regiment as "Major Ward's Charlie."
He stayed with the Regiment on its trip west to the Army of the Cumberland, and went down to the battle of Stone River. He was with the wagon train when Wheeler captured it, and stayed with the enemy for several days, but was not of sufficient impor- tance to be carried off with them. He loafed around the house where Major Ward lay wounded till the Major's death, and then made his way to Nashville, where the Regiment was. Whether the surroundings there were not to his taste, or whether he had an at- tack of homesickness does not appear, but he went home to his folks in Philadelphia. This did not suit him either, for, getting in with some soldiers of the Ninth Corps, he kept with them to Vicks- burg, and was there all through the siege and capture of that place.
It was a puzzle how he got around so much. He paid no rail- road fares, as he had no money, and didn't care to have any.
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That good-natured smile of his was all the capital he needed for his travels, for everyone either pitied or liked the urchin, and had no cross word for him. We saw no more of him until in Novem- ber, 1863, when we were encamped in Sequatchie Valley, at Sam Robinson's plantation, and here he visited us once more, coming up with our wagons from Bridgeport, Ala., where they had gone for stores. He only stayed a week or so, and then passed over to Chattanooga, and that is the last we saw of him.
WAR'S VARIED DUTIES.
HOWARD A. BUZBY, COMPANY E, GERMANTOWN, PHILA.
T HE writer's stay in Sequatchie Valley was very brief, ex- tending only over one month. It was no credit to him nor to those who spent a certain night with him, and I then thought it would be as well to keep this adventure from the public eye. Those who were in the conspiracy called at his tent in the early morning of that night, and were astounded to find him gone, and upon asking Lewis, "Where is Howard?" the only answer was, "He has gone." "And where?" they cried. "He has gone, and that is all I am at liberty to tell you," replied Lewis. The con- spirators were struck dumb, and moved around like men in a dream, repeating to themselves, "He has gone," and now, as these men have grown old, I consider it my duty to tell them where I had gone. I think the Fifteenth should know this, and it should take its proper place in the book.
When we arrived in the valley we discovered that Wheeler had reached there before us. He heard of our coming and had gone. I was going to write "left," but he did not leave anything but earth and water, and a wagon train about five or six miles long, burned to ashes. This was a very humiliating sight to see, for in these wagons was the hard-tack and sides of swine with which to feed our army at Chattanooga. The writer felt very angry at this, and was glad they had gone, for in his rage he would have killed some of them, sure. Our leader found that they had re- crossed the Tennessee River and were inside the lines of Bragg's army, and the time had not yet arrived for the Fifteenth to cap- ture Bragg and his army. As night follows day and the day was near its close, the men and horses being nearly exhausted, our leader, whose eye was ever open to the preservation of the , horses in the command, began to look about for a place to camp. A suitable spot was found higher up in the valley, where troops had never been before-a land flowing with milk and honey, swine,
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turkey gobblers, etc. The Fifteenth, who always had an eye for the good things of this world and a scent like hounds, were drawn up in line before entering the camp. Our leader, with his experi- enced eye, saw mischief in the men's eyes. He knew they were hungry. Some of them, without judgment, licked their chops in . anticipation of the good feed they would have; so he had the Adjutant read in a loud voice that any member of the Regiment detected in foraging on the citizens would be put on extra duty and about everything else except discharged from the army. They seldom discharge privates from the army until their time is up or the war is over. It is only the officers they fire out once in a while.
Lewis and I had our dog tent rigged and our horses tied up for the night. I know this was rightly done, as I did it myself, while Lewis gathered wood for the fire, and pounded the coffee with the end of his pistol barrel in a couple of dirty tin cups. When I came from the lariat rope, after attending to the wants of Camel- back and Bill, he had the tin cups on the fire and two thin slices of swine on a stick, parboiling or smoking them, as he had more smoke than fire. His eyes showed it, the sniffing of his nose proved it and the taste of his cooking was double proof, for I believe if you had eaten one of the burnt embers of the fire it could not have been more seasoned with smoke. But we ate, knowing that after a famine comes a feast, and vice versa. After wiping off our mouths with a handful of leaves or grass, we began spreading our blankets for the night.
The talk during these proceedings was concerning our horses- "Camelback" and "Bill." Both of them had a good deal of tour- ing around on Chickamauga's bloody field, up and down Lookout Mountain's steep sides, and for the last three or four weeks we had hardly been off their backs, and now we were in hopes we would have a chance to bring them around to be festive colts once more. We were now stretched at full length on mother earth. We had said the little prayer our mothers taught us when we were little boys. We were little boys no more, and so said the prayer very quietly to ourselves, for fear somebody would hear us and think we were weak.
These little jobs being done, we were about to drop off into a sweet slumber-soldiers seldom dream. Only those dream who
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go to banquets or eat too much supper. How could a person dream who had only a cracker and a little coffee for supper? All of a sudden a soldier crawled in upon us, whom we both recognized as a member of Company M. In a low voice he communicated to me a deep-laid plot, for he knew Lewis was a Christian who had no taste for plots. As Company M was reconnoitering a mile or so from camp, they found that one or two citizens had built a high fence, and inside of the fence had corraled at least twenty or thirty swine. He and - (I will not mention their names, as it has just occurred to me that one of them now speaks at Friends' Meet- ing and another is a prominent minister in the Episcopalian Church) were armed with an axe which they had just got from a barn nearby, and we also had our sabers. There was to be no noise about the bloody deed which was to be committed that night. Everything was to be done decently and in order, with no one to cry out, "Did you hear a noise?" I believe I would not have been one of them if the visitor had not mentioned that a creek of fine running water was nearby, where we could wash our hands and all traces of the deed away. Lewis expostulated and urged me not to go, but the yearning for fresh pork was strong within me, and soon, with six comrades of Company M, we were stealing over fences and through the fields to the place where something that was alive would soon be dead.
As we passed the guards and pickets we were honest with them and they with us. We promised them a piece of the hog and they promised us to keep quiet. As I recall that night I can almost feel my flesh creep. The owl screeched, the cricket chirped and the moon seemed larger, now glaring its full light on us, now bobbing in behind a cloud and leaving us in darkness. The others seemed to enjoy the thing, for they had been talking about nothing eise ever since they had passed this pen of animals which the Jew doesn't eat and the Gentile does.
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