USA > Wisconsin > History of the First Wisconsin Battery Light Artillery > Part 6
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On the 29th it was reported that the rebels were coming in force to give us battle, and we remained up all night to receive them, but they did not materialize. It turned out afterward that they were in their camp that night watching for and ex- pecting us.
On the 5th of June orders were issued for a forward move- ment once more. to be made on the following day. The road from the Ford nearly to the Gap was blocked with fallen trees and rocks and a feint made to plant a battery near the rebels, while we were to take another direction toward Big Creek Gap, some 25 or 30 miles east from Cumberland Gap. The rebels had a small force at Big Creek Gap, and we also a similar force near them. The road to the latter place was but little used, and that not for heavy loads, and the rebels did not think we would attempt to haul artillery over it.
The order of march was: Mundy's Cavalry, Garrard's 3d Kentucky Infantry and the "Hog-Eve Battery" under Lieu- tenant Webster. Next came the 26th Brigade, composed of
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the 16th and 42d Ohio, 22d Kentucky and 1st Wisconsin Bat- tery, under De Coursey.
On the 6th, as the division was ready to move, news was re- ceived of the capture of arms and prisoners by General Pope. A copy of the order conveying the news was sent to each com- mand to be read to the troops. The men of the siege battery were called to the front to hear the order read, leaving some of the teams alone. As the reading was finished the men cheered lustily. This frightened the horses and some of them started on the run. Lieutenant Webster saw the first movement of the teams and attempted by voice and jesture to call the attention of the men to the horses, but they mistook his efforts to mean a continuation of the cheering. As a result one team and car- riage was mired in a swampy place and a tongue broken out of another carriage.
The damage was repaired, so we made about two miles that evening and bivouacked for the night.
The next morning began one of the hardest and most difficult marches of the war for the distance. AAfter following the Big Creek Gap road for a few miles it was abandoned for a rocky trail over the mountain to Rodger's Gap, supposed to be acces- sible only to pedestrians. cattle and horses. The siege (alias "Hog-Eye") battery, with its train of 16 wagons loaded with ammunition, was the first to cross the mountain. There were 12 horses to each of the 30-pounder and eight to each of the 20-pounder guns and the two caissons belonging to the latter, while each wagon was drawn by the regulation six mules. The heavier guns weighed about 3,500 pounds and the lighter ones about 1,500. As difficult roads were anticipated Lieutenant Webster had secured and provided ropes and tackle for use in emergencies. It was fortunate that he had done so, for those heavy guns would not have been gotten over that pass without them. The road was difficult enough before the "pass" was reached, but nothing to what that last five miles developed, two miles of which was comparatively level.
So utterly improbable did it appear to the rebels that the Yankees would try to cross the mountain at this point that they did not deem it necessary to picket it. Some of the descents were made with both wheels locked and a cable to the axle with a turn around a tree, and they would then go down too rapidly for assured safety. At other places the ascent would be so steep and tortuous that but one or at most two spans of horses could get foothold to pull at once. At such times blocks and tackle were used with horses hitched to the "fall" of the same. The smaller guns of the batteries were assisted by the infantry and cannoneers.
The people living along the route we had come since leaving the Ford were Union people and they were overjoyed at seeing
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us. One old man who had come four miles to see the cannon remarked after inspecting the heavy guns:
"I will now go home feeling quite independent." It was the first cannon he had ever seen. The siege train descended the mountain on the southern side on the afternoon of June 10th and camped near a large spring which came out of the side of the mountain.
The 1st Wisconsin Battery began the ascent at sundown on the 11th. The lead and swing teams from the left half bat- tery were transferred to the right half-10 horses to a gun, with a dozen cannoneers, more or less, at the wheels of a gun or caisson. Upon reaching the summit all the teams except the wheel horses were taken back to help the left half battery.
By this time the stock had become so exhausted that 14 horses had to be put before each carriage and the infantry were required to assist. No one who worked that night will ever forget it, nor the full eclipse of the moon. Locking both hind wheels by running a handspike through the wheels across the breech of the gun, we went sliding and bumping down the mountain to a magnificent spring at the head of a canyon de- bouching into Powell's Valley.
Some rebel scouts were watching us from the south side of the valley, but as the road down the mountain was wholly hid- den from view by a dense growth of timber they could not ascertain or judge as to the size or composition of our force. The rebel General Stevenson occupied Cumberland Gap, 18 miles east. with a force of 6,000. Barton was in Big Valley with 4.000 and 8,000 more were encamped at Clinton, about 35 miles away. General Morgan had expected General Mitchell or General Nagley, or both, to cooperate with him, but now re- ceived a dispatch from the latter, dated June 9th, saying that no assistance could be sent from that quarter. Morgan's in- structions did not allow of his proceeding farther with his unaided column of less than 10.000 men.
In the meantime a Lieutenant and the Veterinary Surgeon of the 9th Ohio Battery who'd ventured in the edge of the val- ley had been surprised by a squad of rebel cavalry and the Sur- gron taken prisoner. the Lieutenant escaping by flight through a shower of bullets. A squadron of rebel cavalry had also been fired into by our pickets. The army was at once put in a posi- tion for defense. The siege guns were given a commanding position, and a proper distribution made of the light guns, but no enemy came.
As there was to be no cooperation and General Morgan had gone as far as his instructions would permit, he decided upon a retrograde movement. Therefore, the next noon, after arriv- ing in Powell's Valley, the siege battery and train was started back over the mountain. The commissary train had not
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arrived and a messenger was dispatched turning that back toward Williamsburg. Ky. The army, therefore, started on the retreat with less than one day's rations in a country pro- ducing nothing for man or beast, the commissary train miles in the advance making better time than the army itself. It took until 10 p. m. to get the siege battery up the mountain, when it rested for the night. At sunrise the following morn- ing it was on the road and had marched some seven or eight miles when it was ordered to bivouac and wait further orders. In the meantime the 1st Wisconsin Battery proceeded to climb the mountain and reached the summit exhausted, hungry and thirsty. A mimic spring was discovered which relieved our thirst and a wagon loaded with flour came up from the Ken- tucky side, which furnished material for the unsalted dough we were soon baking on hot stones. While halting here on the summit General Morgan received a dispatch from Gen. Buell, dated June 11th, saying that he could not reinforce him and that "he would have to depend upon his own ability to beat the force opposed." Construing this as a permission to act on his own discretion, while it was probably meant he must extricate himself as best he could from his perilous position, Morgan called a council composed of Carter, Carr and DeCoursey, who disapproved of his plan to assume the defensive instead of re- treating on the Ford. But Morgan persisted, dispatched a courier to Spears, who crossed at Big Creek Gap with his Ten- nessee brigade, to close up, and slid down the mountain again. We had been constantly descending or ascending the mountain on the Tennessee side for two or three days, and as the timber was so dense nothing could be seen of our movements. while the wagons and artillery bumping over the stones could be plainly heard, they concluded we must have a tremendous army and that we must be 30,000 strong.
The siege battery was the only train that had marched down the mountain in retreat. There was not a pound of meat or a bit of bread in the command. We had a few beans and a little coffee. A foraging party found a little corn. Lieutenant Web- ster went out some eight miles and procured two days' rations of hard bread and bacon. Men and teams were nearly worn out. In the evening we received orders to recross the moun- tain again, and notwithstanding the men knew that it would require the hardest kind of work they cheered until they were hoarse at the news. The siege battery started early the next morning and marched to the foot of the mountain, where it halted to shoe horses and repair harness, etc. That evening General Absalom Baird, who was in command of a brigade which had come up and camped near, asked for right of way in the morning for his brigade, as he feared the heavy guns would delay the column if they were in advance. Lieutenant Web-
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ster told him that the road was open to him if he chose to be in time to take it before the Battery was ready to march. But the "Hog-Eyes" were up and on the road before daylight in the morning and kept out of General Baird's way all day. Lieutenant Webster reported to Captain Foster at 9 a. m. When the Captain saw him he exclaimed, "Great God; what brought you here?" "My horse," replied the Lieutenant. "But what is the matter? You are the last man I had expected to see at this time of day. I supposed you were on the mountain or the other side climbing the hill," said the Captain. But when Webster told him that the whole train was all down the mountain and that he was awaiting further orders the Captain was the most surprised man in that army. A tireder, more worn out and thoroughly "fagged" lot of men, horses and mules than were found in that siege train on that bright Sun- day morning are seldom, if ever, seen. Men would lie on the ground and fall to sleep at once. Horses would lie down before the harness could be taken off. We had been 10 days ơn less than six days' rations and all the time at the hardest and most tiresome labor. Of the 75 large, splendid horses that left the Ford 10 days before not a dozen were ever of any use afterward, not a man but had worn or worked off from five to 10 pounds of his own weight in the time. It was a surprise to all, and particularly to old campaigners, that we should have succeeded in crossing the mountain at that place with those heavy guns once, to say nothing of doing it three times within as many days.
Mention is thus made of the siege battery, as it was a sort of an annex to the 1st Wisconsin Battery, and was so closely allied to it that the history of one must necessarily be the his- tory of both.
Soon after leaving the Ford the siege battery camped on the premises of a Union man. Every precaution possible was taken to protect property, particularly growing crops. As the Bat- tery was about to move the said Union man came hurriedly to Lieutenant Webster and said that his horses had broken into his corn and completely ruined the crop, and demanded a voucher therefor so he could collect damages from the Gov- ernment. Investigation showed that one horse had reached over the fence and destroyed three hills of corn-no more. That man did not get a voucher. It is quite probable, however, that he or his heirs have a large claim against the Government for supplies and damages.
The 16th and 42d Ohio Regiments, followed by the 1st Wisconsin and the siege batteries, led the column on the morn- ing of the 18th. It was expected we would meet the enemy about eight miles from Roger's Gap, where they had planted a battery of four guns with a view of impeding our progress
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toward Cumberland Gap. But as we approached the enemy vanished, leaving their camp fires still burning and part of their tents standing. At every crossroad and lane, and at every farm house people were gathered to see the Union Army. Just before we reached the rebel camp referred to above we passed an aged couple standing by the roadside gazing at us with open-eyed wonder and surprise.
One of the boys asked the old gentleman where the rebels were. "Jest ahead," was the answer. "Yes," said the old lady, "and they will keep ahead. too."
At the junction of the Tazewell road, on a large, flat stone, was the legend: "Follow light artillery. Follow Fourth Ala- bama." We did follow and met them more than once, and in a month less than a year got their last gun.
As we neared the Gap we could see the enemy's tents still standing, but there were no men to be seen by the aid of powerful glasses. But we steadily and cautiously advanced and entered the Gap about 4 p. m. and took peaceable posses- sion, having captured that stronghold without the loss of a man or the firing of a gun.
The 1st Wisconsin Battery climbed to the crest of the Gap and fired a salute of blank cartridges, and camped in a natural amphitheater on the Kentucky side, which was our headquar- ters for three months.
They had left their tents standing and nearly all their cook- ing utensils, commissary stores, extra clothing, bedding, etc., and five pieces of heavy ordnance, but the tents were cut in shreds so that they were entirely useless: the utensils were broken in pieces and the bedding torn and strewn around.
Their commissary building. containing large quantities of stores, was still burning. flour was scattered over the ground and lard poured in the dirt. Officers had. in some instances, left their mess chests and in others their private baggage. A cistern 10 feet in diameter and 15 feet deep was found full of flour, bacon and lard. The barrels containing flour and lard were broken before they were thrown in. By leav- ing other soldiers to look after the big knives and other souvenirs, the Battery succeeded in finding a barrel or two of flour and several sides of bacon which were in good condition, and the men were soon engaged in cooking cakes mixed with cold water and fried in grease. They were not what would be considered strictly digestible, or "angel food." although it may to the present generation be a wonder that we did not die just then and be transferred into angels from the eating of the same -but they seemed to "fill a long felt want." and to close an "aching void."
Cumberland Gap was a strongly fortified place. and if the rebels had remained therein we could not have dislodged them
JAS. B. DAVIDSON.
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by assault without a very much larger force than we had, and then only at an immense sacrifice of life. But they evidently feared a siege and starvation, so the post was abandoned.
From unfinished letters found in the abandoned quarters we learned that the idea of an easy victory for the South was not universal with its soldiers, for some of them expressed but small hopes of whipping ns in open fight, but thought they might worry us down and bankrupt our Government by main- taining a large army to chase them over the country. They learned, however, that the Yankees could stand tramping as well as they could.
On the north side of the gap was a high and somewhat abrupt point, rising some 1,300 feet above the road at its highest elevation. On this mountain point the rebels had mounted, in a small bastion, one 24 and one 32-pounder gun. Previous to their evacuation, however, they had de- stroyed the wheels to their carriages and then threw the guns down the face of the mountain, where they lay among the brush, timber and rocks, some 500 feet from the embrasures which they had formerly occupied. The hill was steep, so much so that a man could not make its ascent without clinging to the brush which grew there. Aside from this, the surface was thickly strewn with stone of all sizes, both "fast" and "rolling." It was the desire of General Morgan that those guns be put back in the fort, and that they might be used in firing a salute upon the approaching Fourth of July. With this end in view he conferred with Captain Foster, his Chief of Artillery, the Captain telling him that if anyone could get them back Lieu- tenant Webster could do it. The latter was sent for and directed by General Morgan to examine the guns and grounds and to report upon the matter. The examination was made and the Lieutenant reported that he thought he could pull them back in the fort in about two days to each gun. The General issued an order directing the Lieutenant to call for a detail of as many men as might be needed and to proceed with the work at once. He was also given an order on the Quartermaster for all tools, lines, etc., that should be needed.
The Lieutenant declined calling for the proffered detail of men, preferring to take volunteers from the 1st Wisconsin Bat- tery. On the next morning early the Lieutenant, with 30 men from the Battery, loaded with the necessary equipments, started for the mountain to begin the work.
At 3 p. m. the same day the Lieutenant reported to General Morgan the largest gun, weighing over 3.000 pounds. in its place in the fort. The General was surprised and said there certainly must be some mistake, as it was utterly impossible to have accomplished the work in so short a time. He said we must have gone to the wrong place; but when the Lieutenant
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stepped to the door and pointed to the fort, in which the gun could be seen with a glass, the General was profuse in his praises of the efficiency of the men who had accomplished so much. The Lieutenant now called for a detachment of 50 men to put the other gun in place. He was furnished with a detail from one of the Tennessee regiments in charge of a commissioned officer.
It took one and one-half days to put the lighter gun back over smoother and less precipitous ground.
The difference was in the tact and qualification of the men. The Tennesseeans were willing and strong, but they did not know so well how to take hold. The work was accomplished, however, to the satisfaction of the General and the National celebration was not postponed because of the failure to get those guns in position for firing.
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CHAPTER VI.
"He clasps the crag with hooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands. He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls."
H EADQUARTERS were established at the old tavern, the Staff was scattered in tents, the Quartermaster took pos- session of the store and our blacksmith, Hi Carter, with an assistant, seized upon the blacksmith shop and tools, and re- shod the stock. Obe Lindsay afterward relieved Carter. Lieu- tenant Webster was sent high up on the Virginia side with his heavy guns and fortified at the base of the Pinnacle, while our guns were mounted in the Gap, facing southward, or distrib- uted where they would do the most good. The caissons were parked in the amphitheater and a company of infantry, sut- lers, photographers and camp followers camped near them. Springs spouted, gurgled or flowed in every direction. One spring on the Virginia side turned the wheel of a grist mill a hundred feet from its issuance. Picket posts were established far out on all roads and on the summit of the mountain at either side. The stock was taken down to the meadows daily to graze and the drivers returned at night with blackberries, peaches and apples. Quartermaster Sergeant Crocker, in charge of our five mule wagons, made trips to Stanford, Nich- olasville, Danville and Richmond for corn and forage, while Joe Millegan, ably assisted by Lindsay, scoured the vicinity for any subsistence that the inhabitants could spare, they being the judges. Expeditions were sent out in all directions to the south and eastward. In the amphitheater stood the large, square witness stone marking the junction of the three States, and a champion of Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky would sit in each State and play a game of cards on the flat top for State supremacy. The bills of the old State banks of wild cat times, long defunct, and the lithographed advertisements from around the bottles of Mexican mustang and pain killer linament passed current with the unlettered mountaineers in exchange for milk, biscuits and berries. A cup of browned coffee or salt was pref- erable to cash. As the silver disappeared bills were cut in two or four pieces and passed, pioneer of the later fractional cur- rency.
The telegraph wire was brought over and General Morgan calling upon the War Department for the most competent engi- neer obtainable, Lieutenant Craighill was sent, and he imme- diately laid out elaborate fortifications which were necessarily extensive. The then Lieutenant is now General Craighill, and
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at the head of the Engineer Corps of the Army. The brave, simple mountaineers of that region have been sketched a hun- dred times in a hundred places. The women much admired our ruddy, husky cannoneers and suggested a return to settle in that region after the heated argument with our rebellious brethren was a closed incident, and for aught we know the stock of the old Battery leavens that segment of humanity today. As illustrative of the simplicity of the people. McElroy. editor of . The National Tribune, who served down in East Tennessee, tells of a woman coming into camp one day with her daughter looking for the daughter's husband. Being conducted to Stark- weather's tent and stating her errand, said they lived about seven miles up in the mountains and that her daughter married one of his soldiers about a fortnight previous. "Who married them," asked the General. "Why, one of your Chaplains." "Where ?" "At our house." "Why, no Chaplain would be up there." "Yes he was. I know he was a Chaplain, because he had two stripes on his arm." The General ordered a parade, took mother and daughter along the line, and if the brevet husband could have been identified there would have been a sure enough wedding, if not a shooting.
Upon one occasion as an officer and men approaching a large farm house to ascertain if the place afforded any forage, they were met at the door by an elderly woman whose cheeks were blanched with fear and whose voice was tremulous from emo- tion, while she implored them to spare her daughters. "Do what you please with me," she said, wringing her hands and dropping on her knees. "but spare, oh, spare my daughters." It was an appeal that would have touched the stoniest heart, and yet, to us, seemed so unnecessary and so uncalled for that it approachd the ridiculous, and was made to appear quite so, when one of the Battery boys replied: "To h-Il with your daughters; got any buttermilk?" Upon being assured that she and her household, including her daughters, were as safe in person and personal effects as if they were surrounded by an army of personal friends and relatives. she gladly produced what the house afforded in the line of food and "buttermilk." for which she was paid in good and lawful money of the United States of America.
One or more of our guns accompanied the reconnoissances into Virginia and Tennessee, where we drove back the ad- vanced forces of Sam JJones and Humphrey Marshall in the one, and Colonel Rains the advance of Kirby Smith in the other State.
Early in July Captain Foster, who had been too ill for duty for some days, went to Lexington. Ky .. for rest, recuperation and treatment, where he remained for several weeks, leaving Lieutenant Anderson in command of the Battery.
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About the 20th of July Lieutenant Nutting, who had recently received his commission as Second Lieutenant, vice Cameron, resigned, started for La Crosse to recruit for the Battery.
Four wagons and teams from the Battery were sent out at one time after forage and were not heard from for fourteen days. It was, of course, thought they had been captured by the enemy, but such was not the case. They never saw a rebel in arms while they were gone. Joseph, "the old soldier," alias Millegan, was in command of the expedition, and he always said he could see just as well when he stood off a little ways from danger. But the adventures he had to relate of their "going up Goose and coming down Stinking Creeks" would rival the stories of Marco Polo or Munchausen.
Comrade Houser writes: "Your sketches of our life at the Gap brings back vivid recollections of our stay, and getting out, and other incidents, such as the boys prefixing the M. D. to their names, and buying commissary, when brought before Gen. eral Morgan, who explained, or tried to, what the M. D. stood for; but the boys would not accept it that way, and convinced the old General it stood for mule driver, and right they were, for they had been driving mules for many days. Another time old Dr. Hobbins sent me with an order for some beef to make beef tea for the sick. The butcher refused to kill a beef unless ordered from headquarters, which he soon received, remarking he would have to charge it to the Battery. I informed the gen- tleman it made no difference about the charges, so we got the meat, for the boys never went back on the rations. The old Doctor left us ignobly when he found the rebel lines closing around us. and subsequently demanded of Captain Foster some $SO for the few old duds he left, and threatened to report it to headquarters if the shekels were not forthcoming."
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