USA > Wisconsin > Brown County > History of Brown County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 29
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"Our money at that time had also reached its lowest value and was quoted at $2.92 for $1 in gold. Rations were short with our army on the commencement of their trip after they had cut loose from their river communications, and Brigadier General Walter Q. Gresham being hungry, offered a soldier $5 in gold for one of his crackers. 'Oh no,' said the soldier, 'you have a horse to ride while I have to walk. I'd rather have my cracker than your $5 in gold!'
"In our regiment we had several American Indians and young men whose ancestors had the pure blood of the royal American Indian in their veins. Six thousand loyal American Indians were driven out of their homes in the Indian territory by the Confederates and located around Neosha Falls, Kansas, where most of their young men enlisted in the northern army. They were splendid marksmen and being brave and courageous they made the best of soldiers. General Grant was so impressed by the genial manner, the imperial dignity and the all-round efficiency of an educated young American Indian by the name of Parker that he finally made him his private secretary with the rank of brigadier general, and it was this General Parker who drew up the final capitula- tion papers at Appomatox which General Lee signed when he surrendered his army to General Grant. General Parker's statue in wax is shown at the Eden Musee in New York City every day with the group representing General Grant and General Lee with all their general officers at the Appomatox surrender, and although General Parker's complexion was very dark he always prided himself upon the fact that he belonged to one of the first families of America whose ancestors had come over before the Mayflower. Christopher Columbus, or the Viking ships. Parker was a fine musician and made many friends by his accom- plishments in this particular line.
"In one of our flanking movements, just before the battle of Jonesborough, Georgia, we advanced through the open country and supplied ourselves with a goodly amount of vegetables, fruit, etc., which looked very good to a lot of soldiers who had been cooped up behind military fortifications all summer, liv- ing on salt pork and hard bread-bread so hard sometimes that we had to use a rock to break it, our teeth scarcely making an impression on the crackers that some of the contractors furnished. In our mess each one of us had to take his turn in cooking, and on this particular night it was my turn to cook. So I built a large fire and put on my big mess kettle for coffee and another for stew com- posed of all the varieties of food captured during the day, by the members of our mess. We were down in a wooded valley, the enemy were on the elevated ground on the other side of a small river. As soon as they saw the smoke of our fires coming up through the forest, they trained their cannon upon us and for an hour and a half they shelled the forest where we had camped for the night. I jumped behind one of the big trees and every now and then reached out to stir my soup. It gradually became very thick and soggy with the stones, sticks, leaves and earth plowed up by the shot and shell from the enemy. One of the first solid shot fired by them tore up the ground very near us, and look- ing in that direction I saw my young friend Morris Seeley, now living at Reeds- burg, Wisconsin, who had been lying on the ground reading a letter from home, nearly buried alive with the earth that had been overturned by the shot. Find-
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ing that he was not seriously hurt. I laughed at his predicament, but he said, 'Never mind. my boy, you'll get your share before the fun is over.' and sure enough I did, for after the cannonading stopped and I called the mess for sup- per. my coffee kettle was missing, having been smashed to pieces by a shell, that put my fire out, and my soup was so thick with foreign substances that we could slice it with knives, but it was nevertheless palatable to hungry soldiers, and they ate it all up.
"Another day, when we were down at Lumpkins Mills, Mississippi, I was sent out to get something to eat as we had been on very short rations and were half starved. I found some cornmeal and a barrel of sorghum syrup, I also found a jug full of linseed oil which I emptied and then filled with the syrup. Just as I had finished doing this the picket came rushing up and told us the enemy's cavalry were coming down the road and that we must scoot if we didn't want to be taken prisoners. So we scooted-through the cane fields and over to a friendly forest and then by a roundabout route returned to camp where we soon had a banquet prepared of corn meal mush, sorghum molasses and coffee made out of pease. The soldiers ate up all the food with apparent relish, but they never forgave me for the linseed oil incident.
"At another time, when the regiment was making a forced march, travelling sometimes 35 and 40 miles in a day, for a week at a stretch, we would get very footsore, weary and lame, and naturally very cross. One of the drummer boys on duty with the officer of the guard was ordered to get the regiment up at 4 a. m. the next morning, but he mistook the hands of the watch at 1.20 midnight and read the time as five minutes after four. So he jumped up and beat the Revielle, rousing the whole regiment up to get their coffee and hard tack and start out on the road. After marching for hours in the dark, the mistake was discovered and the poor sleepy drummer boy was the centre of a running fire of curses for the balance of the day.
"When our three years service was expiring. nearly all of the regiment reenlisted for another three years or during the war. Our first furlough was then given to us, 30 days inside of our own state. On our trip up the river from Vicksburg we had a pleasant ride on the large steamboat Grand Republic but at Cairo the weather became very cold and as we had all been packed into freight cars for a 300-mile trip, we had an unhappy time of it before we got to Chi- cago. There, the ladies had heard of our coming and had prepared a splendid hot supper for us. As we marched into the hall and saw the steam rising from the delicious food and the beautiful young ladies all in pink and white, ready to wait upon us, it looked too good to be true and we felt as if life were worth living after all, despite our rough experiences without anything but frozen food for the past 48 hours.
"When we got up to Green Bay we marched up to another banquet hall and were met by the mayor of the city who made a short speech of welcome home. Hardly had he finished his speech, when I heard my dear sister Jessie's musical voice from a window above, calling out: 'Willie, break ranks and come up here.' I lost no time in getting up those stairs and soon found my dear old mother and my sisters and brothers and other friends, and stich a banquet ! Green Bay was noted for her banquets but this was the climax of all her for- mer successes in that line. And despite all they had heard of our privations,
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I am sure that they were all astonished at the ravenous way in which we really did dispose of the good things that they had prepared for us.
"After the great battle of Atlanta, under a flag of truce, a large force was sent out from each army to bury the dead. The loss of the enemy were reported at 8,500 and our loss as 3.500. Our regiment lost 209, mostly killed and wounded, and all of the regiments of our brigade suffered severely as they were defend- ing the key to the position in that great battle of Atlanta. Our splendid Gen- eral McPherson was killed, Generals Dodge, Force and Gresham were wounded and many other distinguished officers and men were killed and wounded on both sides, causing grief and mourning from one end of the country to the other.
"At one time during the battle of the Twenty-first, when I was looking for the body of my old classmate at school, Henry Keeler, who had been killed in the charge, Captain Wheelock of our Green Bay Company reprimanded me for exposing myself to the fire of the enemy's sharpshooters. But soon after, when he saw me coming back, assisting my young friend Clem Boughton, who had been mortally wounded, our big captain, who weighed over two hundred pounds, came up to me and said, 'Billy, forget what I said a short time ago-I take it all back.'
"The Union guards of Green Bay covered themselves with glory in that terrific fight and Brown county, Wisconsin, can be proud of the work done by her representatives on that well-fought field. General Hardie reported that General Cleburn, the hardest fighter that we met in the south, had told him that this battle of the Twenty-first, (in which the Green Bay boys held the position of honor in the front line next to the colors), was the severest and bitterest fight of his life.
"Our regimental flag, while carrying which seven color bearers were shot in this engagement, is now kept in the flag room of General Grant's tomb on Riverside drive. in New York City, among the dozen or more battle flags that belonged to the General's original corps with which he fought and gained so many victories.
"On the battle monument at Vicksburg the names of all the Green Bay boys of the Twelfth Wisconsin are placed in bronze, with all other soldiers from Wisconsin who served in that brilliant campaign, and none of them have been forgotten by the good old state from which they hailed."
Letter from Col. George E. Bryant, commander of the Twelfth Wisconsin Veteran Volunteers.
"MADISON, Wis., Sept. 30. 1892.
"Secretary and Members of the Twelfth Wisconsin Veteran Volunteers:
"MY DEAR BOYS :- The Twelfth Wisconsin was composed of the flower of the flock from the best families of the state of Wisconsin. It was a grand regi- ment, second to none, and I loved them dearly. In all their hard service they never disgraced themselves or their commander.
"Their confidence in their officers and in themselves was something sublime, touching elbows when the shock of battle was fierce and when the march was long. Their soldierly bearing was observed and favorably com- mented upon by all in the fray as well as upon parade. Their marches were long from the wild prairie of the west where the wild buffalo furnished us with food. The regiment never turned back until they reached the dashing waves of Vol 1-15
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the Atlantic where General Sherman entrusted a detail of our regiment to carry the news of the capture of Savannah to the United States fleet outside, after a siege by the navy of over three years.
"Many of our brave company went down in battle, many succumbed to the fatal fevers of the south. As soldiers, the Twelfth had no superiors, and in competition with other regiments for prizes they nearly always won. As citi- zens, since the war they have stood with the best people in the land in making the prosperity we now enjoy. Slowly but surely the gray hair, wrinkled brow and faltering footsteps come on apace, but their hearts are still young when they review the history they helped to make when they fought with Grant and Sher- man and McPherson and Logan for the preservation of our country and the honor of the flag. I remain, Your comrade and friend,
"GEORGE E. BRYANT, "Commander Regiment."
Letter from Gen. M. F. Force, when judge of the superior court, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 6, 1884.
"Mr. N. D. Brown, Twelfth Wisconsin Veteran Volunteers:
"DEAR SIR :- Your letter about the charge of the First Brigade in the battle of Atlanta was mislaid and I am late in answering, for which please pardon.
"Our brigade, of which your regiment was such an important factor, carried Bald Hill on the morning of July 21, 1864 by assault, no other troops assaulting. The Iowa brigade next in line on our right made a demonstration by charging part way up the hill and then returning to their position in line at the foot of the hill. The Twelfth and Sixteenth Wisconsin made our front line in the assault and I went up with it. The Twentieth, Thirtieth and Thirty-first Illi- nois formed the second line and Captain Walker, the adjutant general of the brigade went up with it. Colonel Bryant, being the senior colonel with the Twelfth, hield the right of the line next the battery.
"Just before the charge I rode slowly before your regiment and told them I wanted them to do their best in this affair today. The men looked at me with such a bright, determined glance that I felt no doubt of their success in that splendid charge in which they captured the key to the position in the great battle of Atlanta that followed next day in which so many lives were lost.
"The solid traverses thrown up by the Twelfth on the night of the 2Ist, aided most materially in holding the hill the next day when we were at- tacked on three sides. Having served all through the war I saw much hard fighting and many brilliant campaigns, but I have never seen nor read the record in any military book that would surpass the splendid work your regiment did in those two days, and particularly the charge on the morning of the 21st when you moved up the steep sides of the hill under the murderous fire of Cleburn's men, leaving the ground strewn with your dead and wounded as you advanced, then steadily closing on your colors and sweeping everything before you, every part of your line keeping up as if in parade. I am, very truly yours,
"GEN. M. F. FORCE,
"Late commander of the First Brigade."
To E. W. Arndt, one of our Green Bay boys. Letter from Gen. M. D. Leg- gett, after whom the name of Bald Hill was changed to Leggett's Hill and who was commander of our division.
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"CLEVELAND, OHIO, June 14, 1892. "E. W. Arndt, Secretary of the Twelfth Wisconsin Regiment.
"MY DEAR SIR :- I have neglected to write to you until the last minute, hoping that I might be with you at the reunion on the 15th and 16th, but as we leave on the 21st for a trip to Europe, I find that my business affairs will occupy every minute of my time up to the hour we leave. I regret this exceedingly for nothing would give me more pleasure than to meet the officers and men of the gallant old Twelfth Wisconsin on this occasion.
"I never can forget their magnificent service on the 21st and 22d of July, 1864. when under the leadership of their gallant Colonel Bryant they so magni- ficently charged the Bald Hill near Atlanta in the very face of a destructive fire, and captured that stronghold from Gen. Patrick Cleburn, the hardest fighter in the southern Confederacy. In his report to his superior officer, Cleburn says of this affair: 'It was the most intense fighting and bitterest fight of my life.' The next day Cleburn, with the Texans and Arkansans, made the first assault upon us from the rear. Smarting under his defeat of the previous day, he was determined to wipe out the stigma of his defeat by recapturing the hill from the men who took it from him, but he was repulsed with dreadful loss to his division. But in his assault he killed our glorious McPherson, captured Gen- eral Scott, the commander of my second brigade, and severely wounded by a bullet through the head, Gen. M. F. Force, commander of my First Brigade.
"Your Colonel Bryant was the ranking colonel of the brigade so I notified him to assume command of the First Brigade. I remained with your brigade during the next two charges and became satisfied that the First Brigade would still retain its wonderful successful prestige under its new commander. Colonel Bryant commanded the brigade as steadily and wisely as if he had been a brigade commander for years.
"In all the great battles of the world there is no record of more splendid work done than by your regiment and the balance of the First Brigade in those two days of intense fighting, surrounded as you were by the enemy on three sides of you and fighting like demons. The other regiments in the brigade learned to re- pose the same confidence in Col. Bryant that they had in their idolized General Force, their previous commander. No division of the Union army saw more hard service and more hard fighting than your grand old Third Division of the Seventeenth Corps, Army of the Tennessee. It was never driven from a posi- tion it was ordered to hold, it never attempted to take a position from the enemy and failed, and was never defeated in its many hard battles, even in one cam- paign where they fought over ten battles and were under fire night and day for two months.
"These are facts of history which the survivors of your regiment and all the other regiments in your division may well remember with pride.
"My most earnest greeting to all the survivors of the old Twelfth Wisconsin Veteran Volunteers Infantry Regiment. Sincerely yours,
"M. D. LEGGETT, "Major General in Command of your Third Division."
(References for Chapter XIX: Bay City Press, 1860-62; Love, Wisconsin in Civil War; Adjutant General's Report, 1865; Curtis R. Merrill, MS. Papers ; Henry Smith; Robert R. Campbell; William R. Mitchell; Wisconsin Women in the War; Henshaw Sanitary Commission.)
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CHAPTER XX
THE GREAT FIRES OF 1871-IRON FURNACES-DAIRYING
The summer of 1871 will ever be a memorable one in northeastern Wisconsin. The winter preceding was comparatively without snow and this was the first calamity to the northern lumbermen, as they were unable to secure their usual stock of logs. An unusually wet spring was prophesied but the prophecy was not fulfilled, and June and July failed to bring a compensating amount of rain. The swamps, usually covered with from one to two feet of water, became so dry that no water was visible and one could readily walk over the surface.
The want of water began to be keenly felt. The northern extension of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway from Fort Howard to Menominee was being built, and in the location of railroad camps the most difficult thing to find was a site where water was plenty. The railroad embankments were like hot ash- heaps into which the feet would sink at every step, and the swamps that had been considered the greatest obstacles to the cheap construction of the road proved the best working ground.
The Green Bay Advocate of October 5, 1871, gives these items :
"George R. Cook came in from his mill in the town of Howard, on Monday, pretty well used up from fighting fire all day Sunday and Sunday night. His mill and boarding house caught fire several times, but by great exertions the fire had been extinguished.
"Oscar Gray's mill in the town of Pittsfield had a narrow escape. He came in on Saturday night for extra hose to take out to the mill, and he and his men workel day and night to save the property. Some of the men had their eyebrows singed and their hair burned, so close was the conflict.
"On the Big Suamico, a large lot of logs in the bed of the river, amounting to over 130,000 feet, have been burned. They belonged to Lamb, Watson & Company, and Mr. Tremble.
"East of here, the mills over which there has been the hardest struggle, are Woodruff's and Sanford's. Woodruff's mill was reported on fire twice, Sunday. At the charcoal kilns of the Green Bay furnace, three miles from here, 1,200 cords of wood have been burned.
"A large force of men have been engaged for some days in fighting the fire just west of Mr. Elmore's residence in Fort Howard.
"In this city, (Green Bay), this morning the smoke is more dense than at any time before ; the air is suffocating and is filled with flakes of ashes. On the bay, the steamers have to navigate by compass, and blow their fog horns, the shores being invisible."
Navigation was impeded by the heavy pall of smoke that hung over the water all that season. In the city of Green Bay and borough of Fort Howard, there was a continued fearful apprehension of danger. All were suffering more or less from
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the effect of the dense smoke upon their lungs and eyes. By day, flakes of white ashes were seen continually falling in the streets like snow. Now and then, if the wind blew high, partially burned leaves would fall. More than once the flames entered the limits of the city of Green Bay and of Fort Howard, snatching here and there a fence, a hay stack or a pile of cord-wood.
The whole burned district in Wisconsin takes in Brown county, at the head of the bay, and most of the country, say fifty miles west and seventy miles north on the west, and nearly the whole peninsula on the east to Lake Michigan. It also took in a strip, ten to twenty miles wide, on the Fox river, between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay. The fire raged in this section, more or less, for two months. It is estimated that, about a third of the standing timber was killed by fire. Up to the time of the great tornado on the 8th, settlers generally had been able to save their buildings and crops, but lost heavily in fences, bridges, culverts, corduroy roads, and all wood property. It is uncertain when or where the tornado first formed which was to put the finish upon this already desolated region. It is uncertain whether one tornado formed near the lower waters of the bay and there split, one-half rushing up its eastern shore and the other up its western bank. As it passed over the peaty swamps and marshes, gases were generated which it threw before it in great balls of fire. The forward move- ment of the wind was not rapid, but its rotary motion was so fearful that great trees were uprooted and twisted like twigs; houses and barns were swept away like toys.
No two give a like description of the great tornado as it smote and devoured the villages. It seemed as if "the fiery fiends of hell had been loosened," says one "It came in great sheeted flames from heaven," says another. "There was a pitiless rain of fire and sand." "The atmosphere was all afire." Some speak of "great balls of fire unrolling and shooting forth in streams." The fire leaped over roofs and trees and ignited whole streets at once. No one could stand before the blast. It was a race with death, above, behind and before them.
George W. Watson, who with Willard Lamb, owned mills at New Franken and Ilumboldt, thus describes in "Sketches of the Great Fires," compiled by Frank Tilton, of the Advocate, the tornado of the night of October 8, 1871. "We went to the house and were about to sit down to supper when one of the watch- men came running in and told us that the whole country south of the mill was on fire, about one mile distant, and that it was coming at a rapid rate directly toward the place. I told him that there would not be any danger of fire from that direction as the whole country had recently been burned over and that the fire could not run a second time over the same ground. The fire was absolutely coming at a frightful rate over the same ground that had previously burned over. It seemed as though every tree in the woods was on fire. The wind com- menced to rise, and the fire spread from tree to tree in some instances twenty and thirty rods in advance of the fire on the ground. It seemed as though the heavens were on fire.
"Although the loss of life was greater on the west shore of the bay, the actual suffering was not as great as on the east shore. On the west shore were large settlements spared, to which the survivors could flee, and daily means of communication with the city of Green Bay. On the east shore there were no large places, the burned region being more a farming country, and the means
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of communication with the outside world very limited. Houses, barns, cattle, horses, crops, wagons and household goods were swept away and the survivors of the population were turned out upon a desolate blackened waste, without food or shelter and no means of escape.
"The line of fire on the east side of Green Bay and the Fox river commenced in the town of Morrison, and extended northeasterly, following nearly the line of the peninsula of Door county for a distance of sixty miles in length by from six to twelve miles in width. It touched the town of Wrightstown and swept through Glenmore, Rockland, Depere, Bellevue, Preble, Eaton, Humboldt and the town of Green Bay. The largest settlements destroyed in this track of fire were New Franken, Walhein, Robinsonville, Harris' Pier, . Thyry Daems and Dyckesville. Scarce a farm over the whole extent named escaped the loss of fences ; and hay, cord-wood, railroad ties, tanbark, telegraph poles and cedar posts were swept away. Thirty-nine buildings were burned in the town of Humboldt, and sixty-eight in Green Bay township, and in the towns of Green Bay, Casco and Red River, 1,128 persons were rendered destitute. The losses in property on this line of fire could not have been less than $2,000,000. The deso- lation was almost complete. If a building escaped it was an exception to the general rule. Green Bay city was really saved by the exertions of the people of Bellevue town, who worked all that wild night and checked the progress of the flames northward.
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