USA > Wisconsin > History of the First Wisconsin Battery Light Artillery > Part 17
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- glad to see you." For our own division had guarded our rear while we fought 47 days with Hovey and Carr. On the 7th Osterhaus did run into the advance of Joe Johnston's forces, sharp skirmishing ensued, we were brought up, and knowing Johnston, felt that we had a fight on hand.
Breaking from the line in the trenches at Vicksburg into column on the different roads, divisions and even brigades be- came somewhat intermingled and we found ourselves greeting troops from Virginia and Maryland, New York and Penn- sylvania. Burnside's corps, under Parke, came in on our left and Sherman's 15th Corps away beyond them. We of the 13th Corps were given the right, and, as usual, when this Army of the Tennessee was massed, opened the fighting. If we had our proper place on the left, it was left in front; if swung over to the right, it was right in front. To any old vet smiling at this assertion we simply point to the list of killed and wounded as in comparison with our brothers in other corps from the time Morgan's division, the nucleus of the 13th Corps in its finality, struck the enemy at Chickasaw Bayou, until we were sent to the Department of the Gulf, in fulfilment of Grant's promise to Banks to send him "as efficient and brave a corps as there is in the armnies." The killed and wounded in this short, or Jackson, campaign, were: 15th Corps. 80; 9th Corps, 291; 13th Corps, 751.
We had formed acquaintance with these, our Eastern breth- ren, during the siege and watched them a little curiously as they ranged up alongside us in the field. We found him an American citizen, and a glorious fellow in a fight, but with a difference. He seemed to lack our faith in the result. Our infantry's sole personal baggage was a blanket rolled up in a "gum." He carried a knapsack that was magnificent to behold. He had a different profanity, grave and earnest, lack- ing spice, not so peculiar, robust, or laugh provoking. His discipline was better, but his march lacked that rollicking swing when on the road. His "Big Medicine" was Mcclellan, fortifications and lines of retreat, none of which entered into our philosophy, and when we about-faced and went for Joe Johnston, regardless of the art of war as taught in books, he was complacently incredulous and we are not sure that he didn't slate the fruition as a scratch.
The battlefields of our May campaign presented a curiously variegated aspect where groves and woods stood in line of fire, the living green dotted with the gray dead where bullet and shell had shattered twig and branch. "Look yonder, boys; that's the hill-we held."" "Here's where we went into line." "Didn't we get it hot over there?" "Right up yonder we cap. tured that battery. all but one gun; damn 'em, they got away with that." "In this hole Charlie died, and over there he
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killed that rebel sergeant." "Lord, but didn't we fight our way down to this creek, and didn't we drink that hot day?" were expressions heard all along the route. And all the long days, under the trees, and in the fence corners lay men who had dropped in line or staggered out of the column overcome by heat. And through the vibrating day the skirmish line would become a line of battle, the enemy pressed from vantage point to point beyond and the wounded brought back and laid with their sunstruck comrades. As the wagons were emptied of rations, forage and ammunition, these future "pen- sion frauds" were loaded in and sent back to Vicksburg.
No man could move a skirmish line faster than General Osterhaus, and he steadily pressed the enemy, first using a "jackass battery," that we had never before met, then Lam- phere's guns would break in with a hoarser growl to be joined later, if the enemy stood stubbornly, with the deeper threnody from our own blackthroated darlings. Mrs. Lamphere rode with her husband, and often come not back until after the skirmishing was quite brisk. She never came to the rear until after the cavalry came back. Our comrades from the East on this trip learned what Generals Hooker and Howard did not learn until way late in the Atlanta campaign: that a heavy skirmish line was far better in most field fights than several lines of men. This sitting idly in the rear, moving up in column and halting, while fighting was going on in front, was new experience to ns. Not that we were particu- larly "fierce for a fight," as Hewitt would remark, but it was conducive of a certain nervous impatience; keyed us up without benefit of the safety valve of rushing up into bat- tery, and gave these battle-hardened cannoneers occasion to pass nerve-rasping remarks. A past master, 33d degree expert in this badinage was Freeman, whose Christian name was Almeron-and at times we were forced to believe it the only thing Christian about him. "Huh! mighty fierce this morn- ing, aint you? Better burn a little powder," he would taunt Jack Grubb.
Whereas at one time we could pass a shell between the smokestacks of a boat, close over the heads of our infantry or into the embrasure of a casemate, we now wanted our in- fantry entirely away from our front. After a lanyard was pulled no one could predict the course of a shell. The center section in filling chests had gotten a new "Rodman" shell, built in two sections with a band of soft lead joining the parts. The impact of the gas generated by the burning cartridge would close the sections, thus forcing the lead into the worn- out rifling and giving it the proper rotary. As Heckman re- marked, they "had the percentage" on the other four guns, which were using the Schenkle shell. Their effective bursting
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power was not so great, as the pointed section only burst, and that in fewer pieces. Yet if the center boys got the two- pound butt home on to a Johnnie's stomach and the lead band wound around his comrade's neck, Eph considered the latter properly decorated.
At Bolton the sheeted rain came down with the night, and all level lands were flooded. We were bivouacked in a wooded demesne, with the plantation house filled by officers and staff, and kept a huge fire of fence rails burning in a cotton field, bordering the stately grove. Bathing facilities had, for a long time, been extremely limited, so off came the purple and fine linen from a score or more of men, the raiment tucked into dry corners under tarpaulins, in wagons or caisson chests, and they took their bath standing, running, leaping and dancing. New York's living pictures or posing for the Alto- gether is not in it.
THE INVESTMENT.
On July 9th we came in contact with their line of battle outside the works, west of Jackson, and crowded them back until dark. At daylight of the 10th the pounding began early, but we got in a few shells only, when they retired behind their works, and the Battery moved up and halted in column in the road at the foot of the slope, the crest of which was in fine view from their fortifications, and, what concerned us, they had the range and elevation. The weather being so hot, move- ments were slow, and we awaited adjustment of the line and a place to be found for us. The jackass battery fell to our rear, and Lamphere's Battery to the right front opened up a heated argument with the Johnnies. Soon an aid came back, and Lieutenant Hackett's section with their lead-banded shells was sent forward by Lieutenant Nutting, who was still in command. As the center section obliqued to the right and went into battery at the crest they got it hot, and returned in kind, but the only casualty was a stunning blow on the head received by Cy Chapman. A shell struck a plow, raised . it in the air, and in its passage Cy's head and the plow came in collision, completely stunning him. Chapman had faced shell, shrapnel, canister. Whistling Dick, bullets, and rail- road iron, but drew the line on plows.
In response to Colonel Kegwin, commanding brigade, the right section guns pulled up the hill and flanked left, leaving all the caissons and the left section guns behind, but taking some of their cannoneers, all gun squads being deficient in numbers. Going into battery in a burr-oak grove on the crest of the hill. in plain sight of the enemy, behind elaborate for- tifications, we opened with short fuze before even our skirmish line was up. They soon came up. however, preserving inter- vals, and exchanging rifle shots with the rebs and passed to
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our front down the hill. Scarcely had the smoke of our burst- ing shells and the dust by the explosion leaped up, when a storin of bursting shells and hurtling iron from four 20-pound Parrotts, two siege guns and one light piece broke upon us; and well the rebels handled their guns. All sounds in the gamut of projectiles were rung in our ears while, with our unserviceable guns, we put up a grim but discouraged fight. We were in light working costume, all jackets discarded, and the acorns thrashed from the trees, the gravel stones torn from the ground and the rough, outer bark skinned from the oaks stung like whips; while the ping of the bullet, the shriek of the shell, the scream of the broken iron, the hiss of the canister from the shrapnel and the bursting shell mingled with the crashing boughs and falling branches, punctuated by the shriek of a wounded man or the scream of a frightened horse, seemed like pandemonium broke loose. Our detailed infantrymen received a majority of the severe hurts, and that any man came alive out of that "fire-proof, gilt-edged hell" to this day remains a wonder equalled only by the unsolved problem of why any man should stay in there. Heckman acting as number six for the right of right, while the driver brought him the shells to fix and thereafter carried them to the gun, was whipped by the falling branches and skinned by the flying bark of the trees behind which he was fixing shells, and took refuge behind another tree upon his first shelter becoming so decimated as to be no longer a defense. The first driver to reach the abandoned tree with a shell supposed him to be blown entirely out of existence, and let out an inquir- ing wail that was answered by Heckman's cheery shout from the other haven. Murray's kneecap was torn off, a shell struck under the axle of the left of the right, which went in on the right, and burst close to -Dan Ledyard's head as it rose, giving him his death, although he fought on and did not die until long afterward. Deveraux acted as number six for this gun, and as he was reaching up to close the lid a shell closed it for him, cutting a segment out of the upper edge,. and wounding his hand with flying copper. The guns and carriages were struck in numerous places, and equipment cut and battered. but not disabled. There was scarcely a man in the section whose clothing was not cut. The wonder is how any man or horse came out alive. Over all the turmoil Win- field Scott's voice rang out in tones of encouragement and defiance. Osterhaus rode up to Kegwin, at a house to our right, and exclaimed: "Colonel, you will ruin my Battery. Order them out." An Aid. a Captain, rode to the low fence just outside the line of fire, waved his sword and wildly jesticu- lated. evidently having no consuming desire to thrust him- self into the heat of the controversy. Lieutenant Nutting,
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WM. HOLMES MERRITT.
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commanding the Battery, rode over for a translation of his sign language, and riding back quietly told us to limber to the rear and move out. As we limbered up and were swinging around a shell cut a hind and the opposite forefoot from the near wheeler, borrowed from Crocker, and horse and Jack Viets went plunging down. While the connoneers were as- sisting to drop the animal out, another shell came through the struggling group and took off the other forefoot, not in- juring a man. For once, Aylmer had enough; but remember the odds and our worn guns. Afterwards we learned that our fire dismounted a siege gun and killed three of the gun squad. Their 20-pounder shells were English make and all lathe turned.
Through all this splintery fire incidents occurred that were absurd and laughable. Heckman's spring into the air as a large section of rough bark landed on his lumbar region, and the emphasis with which he informed us that it hurt. The ex- pression on Viets' speaking countenance as he returned to the tree behind which he stood, after turning to offer to relieve a driver acting as number five, and finding the point of a shell protruding through about the height of his nose. Jack quietly slid to the ground, keeping his eye on the glistening point. Hewitt, as number one, saw smoke issuing from under Jack Grubb's thumbstall, at the vent, and withdrawing the sponge with a jerk, reversed the rammer head, described a moulinet with the staff, and amid the din remarked : "See here, my joskin. If you-well damn my skin, I'll tell you,-you thumb that vent."
We retired under the hill. A return to shoot the wounded wheeler found him on his stumps trying to follow. In an hour the cry went up the enemy was charging, and the right gun was rushed up to the left of the white house, but for- tunately just as a half dozen guns began their work on it, General Osterhaus came up and sent it back. His opportune arrival saved gun and gun squad from annihilation. The in- fantry crept nearer and kept down the rebel gunners, and re- lieved the strain on us and we threw a few shells from our position during the day, and the line was perfected for a charge.
The experience gained by his unsuccessful assault on Wal- nut Hill at the Chickasaw Bayou fight, and his experience under Grant against Vicksburg, May 19 and 22, taught Sher- man not to uselessly sacrifice men, so we now began regular approaches and Jackson was not added to the roll of Walnut Hill. Malvern Hill. Vicksburg, Kenesaw and Spotsylvania.
On the 11th the right section was shook out and sent to Hovey, who was farther away to the right. The next day the center, under Hackett, was sent farther to the right, beyond
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the railroad, while Nutting, in charge of the left, stayed with our own division, near their first position, for a few days. Johnston put up a stubborn defense, of which species of war he was a master, but our lines drew closer and were extended day by day. The center and left had plenty of fighting, close up, while the right went behind an earthwork beside the railroad and played long-taw with a few brass pieces near the depot. General Lauman in moving to the right became entangled with the enemy, charged, and his brigade was badly cut up. For his implied disobedience of orders he was relieved of his command and sent home to die of a broken heart. We believed the dis- aster the result of General Ord's incapacity. The other guns were finally thrown over to the right, beyond the railroad, and were subjected to some nasty sharpshooting fire. The days were hot and close and the effluvia from the dead of Lauman's brigade in their shallow graves to our front mingled with the powder stench of continuous firing was sickening in the ex- treme.
On the 17th unusual activity in Jackson led us to anticipate the evacuation that took place that night, and on the morrow they were gone, leaving very little but the city and their wounded and sick behind. We marched in, and again our flag waved over the capitol of Mississippi. Johnston's retreating column was pressed for two days, but we did not leave our works. We have often been asked why we did not keep right on into the heart of the Confederacy, fighting our way to Rosecrans, or any other desirable point. Roasting ears were plentiful, and the fat of the land was ours for the taking. The answer is, Halleck, the marplot; and, there is a limit to human endurance.
As a summing up of this campaign, and to indicate one of the very many such expeditions, showing what manner of men constituted the old Battery, aside from regular duty, we add a sketch by one of the party who struck out from the lines around Jackson, July 18th, early in the morning, in ignorance that the city had been evacuated by Johnston and his army.
Early one morning during the siege of Jackson five of us struck out in a southwesterly direction to spy out the fatness of the land and to gather some of it. Three were in the sad- dle and two in the light wagon belonging to the officers. After passing the pickets we assumed regular scout order, a vidette in advance, the two in the saddle at a hundred yards interval, and the wagon a hundred yards in the rear with instructions to turn and go while the three mounted stood off any rebel scout into which we might run. Cameron first took the ad- vance and to this day remembers the start he got and the alacrity with which he pulled up and vanked his .44 upon turning a sharp bend and sighting a group of Johnnies close
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in front under a tree. They turned out to be a squad of pris- oners paroled at Vicksburg, returning to their homes. After a short confab with them we took in two or three convalescents and their "sucker trunks," giving them a lift on the road, re- minding the others that to furnish any scouting party infor- mation of us would be a violation of their paroles. During the day we ran on to many such groups and gave many a sick Johnny a lift ; but always the sight gave the vidette a start.
The plantations were all magnificent, with large houses and extensive negro quarters. The first one visited found the quarters buzzing like a hive about to swarm. The negroes were washing their clothing and packing their bed- ding preparatory to a hegira. The folks at the big house had fled, leaving a sick governess alone, attended by a colored girl, who was waving over her a peacock feather brush. The governess claimed to be from the North, but had not the air of a Northern woman and might not have been as sick as circumstances indicated. We apologized for the intrusion into her chamber, politely asked if we could be of any assistance, and backed out. In one room lay a dying John- ny from the Vicksburg garrison. A search of the premises and a cross-question of the niggers revealed no edibles in sight. Probably the "man and brother" had harvested and secreted all these upon the evacuation of the premises by the whites. We had left the Mississippi Springs road and were pushing by private roads and across fields toward the Gallatin road, often having to unhitch and lift the wagon. A gray-wooled "uncle" informed us in confidence that we were mightly likely to get into trouble out here; that "about three miles over dah, lived
Mr. who was at home, and that he said he could whip any three Yankees." His brother-in-law, who had been fight- ing Yankees in Virginia, had just got back, and was anxious to run up against some of the Western Yankees. The rebel picket post was about three miles toward Pearl River. A short consultation developed that Hewitt and Burke had a desire to gratify the longings of the brother-in-law and incidentally demonstrate just how many Yankees the proprietor could assimilate for dinner. Neither Hewitt nor Burke were men who went out of their way to seek trouble, but when it came in the shape of a "defi" were extremely stubborn in the matter of gratifying the seeker. With the old nigger on a mule for guide we struck off through plantation roads and came up in rear of the quarters, and all dismounting hitched the horses, drew our .44's and, scattering, advanced in open order, while the nigger lit out for home. Our friends had decamped the night before, and we wandered through parlor. bedroom and hall of a finely-furnished mansion; taking a book from the library and "Beauregard's March" and "Manassas Quickstep" from the
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music rack on the piano as a memento. Coming out we found Green shaking the lock on the large smokehouse. Gathering around, Hewitt began to figure on a match or a petard to blow it open, while Burke thought a .44 bullet would do the business and was proceeding to execute when a woman's voice at our shoulder remarked "Don't break the lock; I'll open it." In- voluntarily raising our hats we fell back and she unlocked the door. Pointing to a stack of bacon, she remarked that there was good sidemeat. "good enough for our boys, and good enough for you." Hewitt cast his eyes up aloft and suggested that "Them hams up there look pretty good." Hams it was, and we mounted and drew off.
Pushing along a plantation road bearing off towards the rebel picket post, we sighted another house, the owner of which we had been informed was at home and hungry for Yankee gore, and we knew we must be near the rebel lines. Coming up we dismounted in a peach orchard, and hitching to some stunted fig trees we advanced on the place in correct form, with guns loosened and ready to hand. Coming from different points as we advanced, our feet struck the steps of the veranda, or "gallery," in unison, not knowing what might leap out, although we had reconnoitered for horses belonging to any rebel scout. Mounting the veranda we halted, undecided, and rapped on the floor. A very much-frightened young lady ap- peared and falteringly asked us to be seated on the veranda chairs. She was followed by another very-much-frightened lady somewhat older and the rear was brought up by a decid- edly vinegarish-looking lady on the shady side of 45, who stood in fear of no live man. Hewitt in a diplomatic manner skirmished for points. We all know the peculiar manner of his speech when extra-diplomatically inclined, and the ladies became less frightened. looking into his honest blue eye, and finally seated themselves. We had casually arranged ourselves so that a man faced every point of approach, from inside and out.
One asked if we were "our soldiers, or the others," and we smilingly confessed that probably they would class us as the others, but didn't think they need fear us. Presently out came a young nephew and a cousin, paroled at Vicksburg. Burke gimleted his eyes on a large demijohn standing near and the chief spokeswoman asked us to have some wine. We did, but it was a homemade variety and not very searching, and they had the nigger who helped us to wine bring out a basket of peaches and apples. Madam with the vixen phiz had to chip in that one of their-scouting parties was down here yesterday and it was about time they came down now, but when Hewitt rejoined. "Let me say to you. lady-I wish to remark, madam -Why, I'll tell you, ladies, if any butternut sons of-ahem-
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if any of your men come down while we are here, you'll see the prettiest little fight that was ever put up in old Mississippi." That closed her remarks in that particular field. No doubt those boys now in their grizzled age go back curiously to the impressions given and received on the veranda of the Missis- sippi mansion in the hour's chat with those ladies, in the third year of the war, who had never before met a Northern soldier. Had the gore-loving master appeared we probably would have helped ourselves to what we wanted and rode away. As it was, after being informed that they wanted "good" money, "not your money," we negotiated chickens at $18 per dozen, etc. We had "good" money in galore, from town and county cur- rency printed on common book paper, to fine Confederate-or Richmond-money struck off in the North and worn in our boots a day to give it age. They presented us a sack of peaches, bade us a more or less cordial farewell, and we loaded our pur- chases and rode away.
Swinging around the Gallatin road to throw them off the scent in case a messenger should be dispatched for a rebel scout to raid us. we stopped at the house of the morning and found the negroes just burving the rebel soldier, who had meanwhile died. By his parole we learned that he was a Ser- geant of a Georgia regiment. We picked up the rough coffin which the negroes had made and carried him to his grave under a liveoak, lowered him down and looked one at the other for a sign, and the dead man looked up at us from the grave. Where now is the prayer for the living and the hope for the hereafter? Cameron took out a "soldier's prayer book" and read the last rites for the dead while the negroes stood respect- fully about. Hewitt raised his head and nodded to a gray- haired darky and he reverently put up a prayer for the dead and a petition for the universal God to care for us, that wet the eyelashes and raised a lump in the throat of everyone. Penciling his name and service on a board, we left it for his grave and rode in silence away.
Reaching camp at sundown, in an hour we were discussing fried chicken, pone, peaches and milk and our "dash up the canyon"-and learned that Jackson was evacuated.
In a similar raid, a year thereafter, down in Louisiana, the Johnnies gobbled wagon, horses and driver, but not until it had toted a heap of plunder.
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