USA > Wisconsin > History of the First Wisconsin Battery Light Artillery > Part 10
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One night as we lay in our tents-bell tents, the finest tent outfit we ever drew, but like the Indian's venison, they "lasted quick"-a soldier under the influence amused us by trying to explain language used to the satisfaction of a sober comrade. "Now. Charlie. I said that to the crowd. and you ain't a crowd, are you, Charlie?" Charlie allowed that he was, at least, an integral portion of that assemblage. "No. you ain't a crowd, Charlie. What I mean by a crowd, is a damned ornery crowd." The tents were lost in our first Vicksburg campaign
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and we never thereafter drew a tent for the rank and file. A few turned up after Chickasaw, but were left at Milliken's Bend.
Of one episode in this campaign through the wilderness Comrade Paddock writes:
"I shall never forget what a time we had at Proctor. We reached there just before night, got into line of battle on the hill overlooking the town, which seemed to be all on fire, but proved to be only the flouring mill. When we moved on our Battery went by piece from the left front into column. When the right section, which was in the rear, reached the bed of the Kentucky River, which was almost dry, we were halted and stayed there till after dark. During our stay some of the rubber buckets we used with the guns went away, got into a distillery and came back chuck full; but it soon evaporated and greatly revived the spirits of the boys, so much so that some were nearly overpowered. What a time I had to get little Peterson on his mule. That night everybody was jolly, and Bill Pink rode up the hill astride the trail of the gun. Right section went on picket opposite town that night. I had to forage for the teams again. The next day I took your team and rode it until the night before we reached Gray- son. About 8 o'clock we were settled down for the night, as we supposed; the men had lain down here and there and were asleep almost as soon as they touched the ground, for sleep was in big demand, more precious than gold and very scarce, as well as food, with us on that trip. I was on guard. We were to stand two hours each, so all would get some sleep. Just as I had called my relief and before he had taken his post an orderly rushed up to me and shouted, 'Where is your Cap- tain ?' Before I had time to answer he said, 'Wake him up, quick.' I was not long in arousing him, as he slept but a few steps away. The orderly said, 'Cap., hitch up as quick as God will let you; we are attacked in front.' Cap. shouted to Jerome, 'Boots and saddles.' Before Jerome was half onto his feet, boots and saddles was rushing out of the mouth of that old bugle by the dozen, and before the last notes had died away the leather was going on those mules at double quick, which was a characteristic of the old 1st Wisconsin Battery. D. C. rushed forward and mounted his mule and I took my place at the gun. The worst of all was I had captured a tough old gander that night just after halting and had him boiling when we pulled out and had to eat him half cooked. It was tire- some on the jaws, but I was goose hungry and could stand a little fatigue."
Gabe Armstrong replies: "Paddock is badly off when he says we struck Proctor in the evening. It was about 9 o'clock in the morning, and instead of one gander we had three; nice
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ones they were, too. I heard that some of the boys used the soup to write with instead of ink. About all I remember after that was getting my canteen filled with the applejack, and think the balance of our squad had theirs filled also. We were then on the hill above town. The next thing I remember was waking up near the river side, a big colored gentleman being the only living object in sight on that side of the river. I can testify that when I caught up with the Battery they looked fully as tough as I felt. Another thing will ever linger in my memory: the march on top of that mountain without water, but every canteen with more or less corn juice in it.
"Paddock also speaks of the big grist mill being burned. Well, Don, don't you remember the mill was run with a sweep and one-horse mule attached ?"
Cameron testifies as follows :
"I'll make a clean breast. Not having recovered from diph- theria of the previous Spring. I was able only to set the buckles, hitch the traces and climb into the saddle after Free- man, Paddock, or some other good cannoneer had thrown the leathers on to my mule; and my stomach was 'out of whack.' Gunner Kimball, Sergeant McConnell, or some Christian can- noneer, brought a cupful of the stuff to me. It was colorless, pungent of smell, and very, very searching, and they called it applejack. I surrounded a swallow, but my stomach wouldn't have it that way and repudiated. throwing up everything but my hope for the hereafter. Thus, 'I was the only sober man in the Battery.'
"That move out of Proctor, on the Kentucky River, where the extra cannoneers were strapped on the caissons. I've heard 87 men, not counting the buglers, tell that story, and somewhere in the recital, preface, body, or finis, they'd weave in that gauzy legend, 'Every one was drunk but me.' Long ago I came to believe the story of the other 86. That gander. I may have induced Comrade Paddock to sample a green per- simmon. but I owed it to him. He got his features moulded into their usual classic form before the setting of the sun, but the piece of that tough old gander that he brought to me lay on my stomach for two days to the exclusion of all else but an hourly nightmare. One is vividly remembered as of that long- legged Paddock clothed in a scowl and white feathers, stalking through camp and planting his army brogan on the pit of my stomach.
"Years thereafter I was one evening sitting on the edge of the platform in front of a store in a frontier town, about sun- set, when the muzzle of a gun was pushed along my shoulder from the rear, past my right ear. Slowly turning my head I followed the barrel along with my eye up to the stock, along the stock to-Paddock. And thanked my stars that it wasn't a leg of that old gander he was holding out."
CHAPTER VIII.
KANAWHA.
"Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield."
O CTOBER 13, 1862, Major-General Jacob D. Cox, fresh from the field of Antietam, where he won his second star, was assigned to command the District of Western Virginia. Major-General Horatio G. Wright, commanding the Department of the Ohio, shook out the Tennessee troops, all under General Spear-the 33d Indiana, 14th Kentucky, 9th Ohio Battery and others-ordering them to Covington. The balance of the Old Seventh Division was dubbed the Cumber- land Division and ordered to join Cox in the Kanawha.
We had passed out from the Army of the Ohio, General Buell, into the Department of the Ohio, General Wright, and were never again a part of the Army of the Ohio nor of the Department of the Ohio. Neither did we again serve with the 14th, 33d, or the Tennessee troops. Never again to hear the cherry chirp of young "Bob" Johnson crying "Press for- ward men, press forward. Stand aside, boys, and let my poke- gunts get at 'em."
On October 27th, with new horses, equipments and clothes, but empty pockets-for the expected Paymaster failed to con- nect -- we struck out up the north bank of the Ohio River from Gallipolis. Anderson had left us, while Webster was left behind as Ordnance Officer and Inspector for Spear's Brigade. Foster was Chief of Artillery and Kimball commanded the Battery. The early morning was fine and our hearts were light. What was our ultimate destination? Our faces were to the eastward. Were we eventually to become a part of the Army of the Potomac to do battle with "Lee's Miserables"? With true Western habit of sizing a man up by what he ac- complished, unbiased by popular hero worship, we were dis- trustful of McClellan and wondered at his long halt at Antie- tam's field, and wanted none of him.
We camped amid a cold rain within sight of Grant's birth- place and lunched off hardtack and raw salt pork. Having for months lived on bacon for our salt meat, the pork was elegant. Many of us here ate it for the first time raw.
Crossing the river we skirted the village of Point Pleasant and moved up the right bank of the Kanawha. Now, the rail- road having been built down the left bank, the villages are all on that side. The sections were separated the second day and
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the right was mixed up with the 54th Ohio, and at Buffalo, where the mountains, or ridge of the same name, impinges on the valley, the retiring rebels made a stand, and the boys with skull caps bearing long red tassels and wearing zouave jackets went into line and the crack of the rifles was soon on. It was here many of us learned to distinguish between the report of a gun pointed at us and a gun pointed away from us. The in- fantry debouched from the road; we ran forward, unlimbered, and at the second round the rebs decamped.
The next day, at Red House, they made a slight stand and the entire Battery went into action.
After our experience in Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee this valley seemed broad and the finest spot we had struck on earth. Charlie Hewitt, who afterwards went up there with intentions of locating, reports it as narrow and confined. The large farm tobacco houses, wherein the crop was drying, were new to us, and the boys filled feed sacks with the leaf and spent many evenings stemming, twisting it into rolls and then twist- ing it on itself in the form of the old-fashioned "nut cakes" our mothers used to make. After drying, it was good smoking, and months after many a boy between pay-days was glad to get a twist of "sixty-two." Bill Pink had three or four bushels of it and was no niggard in relieving a distressed comrade.
Holloween night we camped near the headquarters of Gen- eral Cox, who, by the way, was gorgeous in dress and equip- ments and wore two stars. ' "Giggerdier Brindle Command- ing." Back of the house was a line of bee-gums, a chain of sen- tries encircling the whole, to guard "the Presence." Eph re- marked that honey was "turrible good." Dick Richards, Summy and Cameron got together and Dick said if Eri and Don would take care of the sentries he would get a gum. Eri and Don moved on the sentries. Don proposed to inveigle 'em into partnership, but they were a new regiment and all recruits had anexaggerated conscientiousness about orders, responsibil- ity and discipline. They struck the beat where two sentries met and Eri posed as a veteran of several campaigns and soon had them breathless over his vivid recital of the fight at Shiloh. Whether Grant was on Summy's staff, or Summy on Grant's staff, or whether he commanded until Grant got up late in the forenoon is not now quite clear; but Dick, who was a powerful fellow, crossed the beat, seized a gum, and setting it upside down on his head walked off into the gloom. Summy re- marked, "Continued in our next," and the pair sauntered off towards an infantry camp; thence joined Dick in the feast. While we were feasting that infantry camp was visited by a Sergeant and guard, searching for a stolen bee-gum. Cameron asked Dick how he dare pick up a bee hive that way and Dick replied, "Huh! Bees crawl up in the dark."
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On the river we, most of us, saw for the first time the old- fashioned keel-boats, and men walking them out from under foot, up stream.
The next rebel stand was at Glen Elk Point, and the next at the crossing of Elk River, but we soon brushed them away, and rebuilding the bridge, which they had destroyed, crossed over into Charleston, formerly and now the Capital. For years the Capital see-sawed between this place and Wheeling.
Halting here until near sundown, "Joseph, the old soldier," headed a foraging party, and in the suburbs, meeting a young woman, he accosted her in his usual genial and characteristic style. She immediately began a plaint as to the conduct of some of the boys in blue, but halted in her recital with the query, "But, are you an officer ?" "U-m-m," replied Milligan, with a jerk of his head towards the halted column, "I've got considerable to say over there. Go on. lady." "But, are you an officer?" "U-m-m, I've got considerable to say over yon- der."
Passing through Charleston that evening on our march out, a finely dressed young lady at a front gate was asked by Cam- eron if she wasn't glad to see us boys, and received a disdainful answer that she preferred seeing the others. Just then a squad of prisoners hove in sight, coming from the front under guard, and Carlie, pointing to them remarked, "Have, then, thy wish."
The weather was fine and the roads superb and we skimmed along 25, 35 miles a day. Through Malden, Webster, Cannel- ton, Edgewater, Twenty-One Mile Landing, Fourteen-Mile Landing, Kanawha Falls, Gauley River and above to the bridge. As we entered the little towns the rebels were just leaving them, and, notably at Maldren and Webster, the young ladies would stand at the doors and windows waving small United States flags. Some even would come hurrying out drag- ging the flags from out among their draperies, where they had carried them concealed for weeks.
A few days' halt at the junction of the Gauley, and the Cum- berland Division turned towards Cincinnati, which the Bat- tery reached partly by march and partly on the powerful tow Webster and a barge lashed alongside for the stock.
The campaign was one of the pleasant episodes of our bat- tery life, with the loss of one horse, killed.
DOWN THE RIVER.
About the 10th of November the command of General Mor- gan was ordered to report at Cincinnati for the purpose of preparing for an expedition down the Mississippi River. The Tennessee troops were ordered to Nashville and from thence
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sent to East Tennessee, thus being severed from our command, never again to be united with us.
General Morgan was determined to have a battery of 20- pounder guns and at once decided to arm the 1st Wisconsin Battery with them, which was done on its arrival, about the 21st of the month. The Battery also received a lot of new horses and other supplies as well as a payment while stopping in the city.
On the afternoon of the 29th of November the Battery was loaded on the steamboat Westmoreland and on the morning of the 28th the horses were also loaded and we sailed toward "Dixie." Just before we started, however, there was an excit- ing episode occurred on the levee, which at one time bid fair to delay us for a time. As the line that held us to the shore was about to be cast off a dray was rapidly driven to the wharf conveying a quantity of liquors for the bar of the boat. Cap- tain Foster demurred at its going on the boat, but the captain of the boat said they were a part of his supplies and that the boat could not go without them; whereupon Captain Foster told him that if that liquor went on board of that craft his men and battery would come off. The result was that the dray carried whiskey both ways and the boat carried none at all.
We arrived at Memphis on the 6th of December and went into camp at the Fair Grounds, about two miles from the busi- ness center of the town. Here we found the 16th and 42d Ohio and the 22d Kentucky Regiments, which had preceded us a few days. The people of Memphis were the most intensely "secesh" of any we had yet met in our army experience. The ladies were especially so, and did not attempt to conceal their contempt for the Union cause or its supporters. They would not associate with the wives of Union officers who had accom- panied their husbands to that place, nor vet treat them civilly when they met by chance. Mrs. Foster had accompanied the Captain from Cincinnati and found rooms in a hotel in the city, but she could not remain there because of the treatment toward her of the Southern ladies stopping at the house. She then found a home in a private house near the camp.
Captain Foster again instituted battery drill, and there was need for it, too, if we expected to maintain our standing and reputation for efficiency in that line. We had been so situated for several months that we could not drill with horses and had become somewhat rusty; then, there were the recruits to be instructed in the manual of the piece as well as in foot and battery maneuver. It was while here that the second serious accident occurred in the Battery, which mutilated and perma- nently maimed one of the best men of the company. The man was John C. Malbon and his injury was the result of a prema- ture discharge of a piece while firing blank cartridges in a
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JOHN CASTLES.
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drill for speed. One arm was taken off and he lost one eye. A purse of $200 was made up in the Battery and left with him when we started down the river from that point. Lieu- tenant Kimball went to Wisconsin on recruiting service before we left Memphis.
We were now to be in a department or army corps under command of General W. T. Sherman, who was concentrating a force for a descent upon Vicksburg in conjunction with and under the general supervision of General Grant. There were four divisions, commanded respectively as follows: The 1st, by General A. J. Smith; the 2d, by Morgan L. Smith; the 3d, by George W. Morgan; the 4th, by General Frederick Steele. General Sherman had not then reached the degree of popu- larity that he afterwards attained, but his presence was inspir- ing to the troops there gathering, notwithstanding the slan- derous reports concerning his sanity that had recently been circulated. As he rode among the soldiers, speaking encourag- ing words to them or giving directions to his subordinates, we could but feel that if he was "crazy" it would be a good thing if the Government would hunt up some more of the same kind and put them in command of troops in the field. A fleet of river boats was assembled from St. Louis, Cairo and other points, which was convoyed by Admiral Porter and his gunboats. On the 19th of December, the troops being embarked, we steamed down the river. One section of the Battery, with Cap- tain Foster, was on the steamer Empress, which was General Morgan's headquarters, while the balance was on the steamer War Eagle, with the 49th Indiana Regiment, Colonel John Kegwin. The fleet was led by one or two gunboats, and was maneuvered by divisions, brigades, etc., as if it was an army on foot, and it was a magnificent sight to see it as it wended its way down the Mississippi, cach boat following its file leader and preserving equal distances as nearly as possible. The fleet only ran during daylight, tying up at night. As there were no wood vards or cord-wood along the river, and as they were dependent upon wood for fuel, it was necessary to forage for it; but as men and axes were plenty and rails and log buildings not at all scarce along the route, that problem was soon solved.
Near Friar's Point, some few miles below Helena, a trans- port was fired into by guerrillas, whereupon some of our forces landed and burned the buildings in that vicinity. The next night the boat just ahead of the War Eagle was fired upon from the bank. Here, too, troops were sent on shore and the buildings in the vicinity burned and some cattle and mules secured. A few miles below this place we tied to the bank for the night at a plantation landing where there were several buildings and a large persimmon grove. The officials
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were willing that the men should have the persimmons, but not that they should burn the buildings, as no one in that vicinity had attempted to annoy us. Colonel Kegwin, of the 49th Indiana, and Lieutenant Webster, of the Battery, were commissioned to see that the said buildings were protected. They were on shore among the men to see that they confined their depredations to the persimmons until the last one was gathered and the men had all gone on board and presumably to their rest, when the Colonel suggested that as there were no men ashore to do any harm they might as well all go and turn in as to remain up any longer. Webster was agreed, so they, too, went on board, but they had scarcely retired to their state- rooms before the whole surroundings were lighted up with lurid flames issuing from the buildings they had spent the greater part of the night in watching and guarding. Those Indiana and Wisconsin boys were at war to hurt the enemy wherever they could. If any inquiry was ever instituted to find out who the guilty parties were we never heard of it.
Another evening, while the boat was taking on wood, some of the boys were on shore and discovered a "rick" of sweet potatoes in a yard near the landing. They could not think of leaving without some of those tubers, but how were they to carry them on board? A method was soon devised, however, by emptying the corn from the sacks in which it had been received, upon the deck of the boat, and using them to carry the potatoes in. By this means and by the help of the Indiana boys, which was freely given, something like a hundred bushels were brought on board and safely stored away where they would do the most good. It is very likely that the number of bushels thus taken have been increased several fold and the proper claim presented for them long before this.
There was, of course, a well stocked bar on the boat, but it was kept closed by order of the army officers. The bottles of champagne, wine and other "goods" were to be seen arranged on the shelves, through the transom over the outside of the bar. This transom was kept open most of the time, but it was too high for anyone to reach over. By standing on a stool a man could see the bottles readily, but they could not reach them. One of the boys-was it Riffenberg ?- rigged a "der- rick" by the use of which he lifted the coveted articles from their places and brought them within the reach of the hand. This was done by using a string on the end of a stick some three feet long, with a running noose in the loose end, which noose was thrown over the necks of the bottles, hauled tight and the "goods" safely transferred to the army for sanitary purposes. The barkeeper knew that his goods were taken, but did not know how or by whom.
A member of the 114th Ohio writes of going down from
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Memphis to Chickasaw on the same boat with Foster's Battery, and tells of how men of the two organizations got away with a sutler's stock, but thinks the Battery got the major portion of the plunder, which, of course, sounds reasonable. It took about three regiments to preserve the "balance of trade" as against the Argus-fingered Battery. He further says that the blame was finally laid at the door of the boat's crew. In this we can see the fine Italian hand of Obe Lindsey, Joe Milligan et al. Had it been absolutely necessary, Obediah and Joseph- the "old soldier"-single-handed could have convinced the sutler that he must have robbed himself in his sleep or in a fit of aberration. Devereaux was an excellent witness in a case of this kind. He would throw an increased French idiom into his American and look graver and more innocent than & picture of the Virgin, and give evidence without a flaw. Heck- man, in this line, was a most accomplished and convincing diplomat. In arguing on the negative once with a sutler who had lost a large portion of his stock and entertained a belief that Hewitt and Heckman were of the raiding party, Heck- man first proved an alibi for himself, then descanted on the sterling quality of honesty inherent in Hewitt, called attention to his general air of integrity and ingenuous countenance, and closed his peroration by extending his hand towards Hewitt and saying, "Why, my dear Christian friend, look at him ; had he been of, or with, any such party you wouldn't have had a damned can left."
You ask me whence this prize I hold. It was not given, nor found, nor sold.
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CHAPTER IX.
"The ragged gaps in the walls of blue,
Where the iron surge rolled heavily through,
Which De Courcey builds with a breath again As he cleaves the din with his, 'Close up, men."'
O N the 26th of December the fleet entered the mouth of the Yazoo River, which flows into the Mississippi a few miles above Vicksburg, and moved up that stream some 12 miles to Johnson's plantation and disembarked. For a description of the place of debarking we will quote from the Memoirs of General Sherman, based upon reports written by him at the time, or soon after the event happened :
"The place of our disembarkation was in fact an island, separated from the high bluff known as Walnut Hills, upon which the town of Vicksburg stands, by a broad and shallow bayou-evidently an old channel of the Yazoo. On our right was another wide bayou, known as Old River; and on the left still another, much narrower, but too deep to be forded, known as Chickasaw Bayou. All the island was densely wooded, except Johnson's plantation immediately on the bank of the Yazoo, and a series of old cotton fields along the Chickasaw Bayou. There was a road from Johnson's plantation directly to Vicksburg, but it crossed numerous bayous and deep swamps by bridges, which had been destroyed; and this road debouched on level ground at the foot of the Vicksburg bluff, opposite strong forts, well prepared and defended by heavy artillery. On this road I directed General A. J. Smith's di- vision, not so much by way of direct attack as a diversion and threat.
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