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MUSK ETS ANDMEDICINE

ARMY LIFE IN THE SIXTIES

B Y

CHARLES BENEULYN JOHNSON; M.D.

R ight I note. m ost m ight y souv a rine.

Tha t a l l this famous ant ique history .

O f some th’abundance of an idle b raine

Wil l j udged be. and p ainted forgery .

!

E DM UN D SPE N SE R .

PHILADELPH IAF. A DAVIS CO MPANY ,

PUBLI SHERS

ENGL I SH D EPOT

STA NLEY PH ILL IPS, LONDON

1 91 7

COPYR IGHT . 1 91 7

F. A . DAVIS COMPANY

Copy right, Great B ritain. A l l Rights Rese rved

Philade lphia. Pa. . U . 3. A .

Press o f F. A . Davis Company1 914-1 6 Cherry S tree t

T O MY COMRADES WHO WO RE THE BLU E,A ND TO O THER FR IENDS ,

SOME O F WHOM WORE THE GRAY ,

TH I S B O O K I S DED I CATED .

PR EFA C E .

IT was the fortune of the author of this. volume to live

in one of the Great Eras in the history of this Country

an Era that brought on the public stage an exceptional

number of Able Statesmen, Eminen t Soldiers, D is

tinguished Leaders—and Abraham Lincoln .

It was, furthermore, the author’

s fortune to bear a

humble part in the Greatest Event of that Great Era ;and of some things pertaining thereto he ventures to

speak in the followingC . B . J .

Champaign, I l linois.

CONTENT S.

CHAPTERI .—BREAKING-OUT OF THE CIVI L WA R

I I .—THE CIVIL WA R,SEEN FROM A QU I ET NEIGHBOR

HOODI I I . S Ix HUNDRED T HOUSAND MORE”

IV.-FROM CORNFIELD TO CAMP

V.—FROM CAMP To ENEMY ’S COUNTRY

VI .—IN AND A BOU T MEMPH IS , TENN . , DURING THE

VII .—T H E VICK SBURG CAMPA IGNVIII . —O UR FIRST BATTLEIX .—ATTACK ON VICKSBURG FROM THE SOUTH AND

EASTX .—ASSAULT AND S IEGE OF THE CONFEDERATE STRONGHOLD

XI .—RUNN ING THE VICKSBURG BATTERIESXII .—PERSONNEL OF O UR HOSPITAL STAFFXML—EQUIPMENT, WORK AND SOME ATTACHES OF OUR

REGIMENTAL HOSPITALXIV.

—O UR MOST EFFICIENT COOK AND How I U NDIDH IM

XV.—FROM VICKSBURG To NEW ORLEAN S

XVI .—SOLDIERING ON BAYOU TECHE

XVII .—FROM THE TECHE To TEXASXVIII .—SOME OF THE MORE PREVALENT D ISEASESXIX .

—T HE AUTHOR BECOMES AN INVALIDXX .

—ON THE M ISSISSIPPI IN 1864XXL—AUNT TILDA

8 Contents .

CHAPTER PAGEXXI I—How THE SOLDIERS R ECEIVED THEIR MONEY AND

How SOME OF THEM GOT R I D OF IT 197

XXIII .—SOME EVENTS IN 1864-5—POLITIC S AND WAR 201

XXIV.—T HE MOBILE CAMPAIGN—1865 212

XXV.—FALL OF MOBILE AND THE BEGINN ING OF THE END . 225

XXVI .—A CONFEDERATE MAIL-BAG AND A GLIMPSE ATSOME OF ITS CONTENTS

XXVII .—SURRENDER OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMIESXXVIII . -DISBANDING THE ARMIES

IL LU ST RAT IONS.

FACING PAGEIn the Trenches, 1861 -5 Fron tisp ieceThomas W . Hynes, D .D . , a Cleri cal Patriot in the Sixties 32

Pocahontas Flag ; Real “O ld Glory ”40

General Gran t as he looked during the Vicksburg Campaign . 64

U. S . Army Hospital Steamer “D. A . JIanuary”

72

Interior of Hospital Boat. Cots made up for reception of

Captain Wm. M . Colby, 130th I ll inois Volunteers. Mortal lyWounded at Vicksburg, M ay 22, 1863

Ma jor George W. Kennard, late Commander of the steamer“Horizon,” which ran the V icksburg batteries on the

n ight of Apri l 22, 1863Charles B . Johnson, age 21 , Hospital Steward, 130th I l l inois

Infantry VolunteersCivi l War Hospital KnapsacksSome Civi l War M issi lesHospita l AmbulanceArmy Wagon fitted up for carrying woundedCivi l War body louse, or “grayback” (Pediculus Vestimenti)

From p icture taken in war time.

Lieutenant—Colonel John B . Reid, 130th I l l inois In fan tryVolunteers

Aunt T i ldaSpringfiel d Musket, ma de in America, and one of whi ch the

author carried through the Mobile Campaign in the

Spring of 1865 240

Hospital Steward’s Chevrons, worn by author in Civi l War

Med ical Service ; and kind o f Bottle from which he

d ispensed quin inePrivate J . W. January, who amputated his own feet

C H A PT E R I .

2B REA K ING O U T OF T H E C IVIL WA R .

There is a sound of thunder afar,Storm in the South that darkens the day ,Storm of battle and thunder of war

—T ENNY SON .

T H E winter of 1860-1 was a period o f anxious solici

tude to the people of the Northern States, for in the

most literal sense , no man knew what an hour would

bring forth . Just before Christmas South Carolina

seceded from the Un ion , and in this rash act,she was

a litt l e later fo llowed by Georgia,Alabama, Mississippi ,

Florida,Louisiana and Texas. In heavy headlin es the

papers announced these facts, and, in addition,detailed

the seemingly arrogant methods and inflammatory

speeches of Secession leaders.

Although I was but seventeen years of age, these proceedings shocked my f eelings ; for, as a schoolboy

,I

had been thri lled by the story of the Revolution and of

the sacrifices made by our Patriot Fathers to fina llyestablish the Federal Un ion . Furthermore, my mind hadbeen thoroughly imbued with the noble words of Webster

,in which he pleaded for the permanence and per

petuity of that Un ion . What I felt,however, was

doubtless experienced by thousands o f boys north of the

Ohio River,and not a few farther south , who later

yielded up thei r lives as a sacrifice to this sentiment .

Un favorable as was the w inter of 1860- 1 for study, in

consequence of the perturbed state of the country, I

( 1 1 )

1 2 Muskets and Medicine.

nevertheless put in my time attending our village school ,and, at its close , crossed its threshold for the last time

as a pupil .

O ur little vi llage,which bore the distinction of having

been named after a famed Indian maiden ,1 watched with

intense interest the even ts of the day . O ur location was

nearly twenty mi les from the nearest rai lway station , and

hither a mai l-boy wen t one day w ith out-going mai l-mat

ter,and returned next day with letters and papers for the

Vi llagers.

A s the time for the mai l-boy’

s arrival approached men

and boys gathered on the porch- front of the postoffice,and, as pati ently as possible, awaited his coming. Mean

time, many anxious eyes would watch the road Upon

which he would come .Wil l1 his much-prized burden ,

papers con tain ing the latest n ew s.

I f al l w ent well, the much- looked- for ma il-boy would,in due time , come in sight, and, seeing the waiting crow d,urge his already jaded horse to a j ogging trot . Beforethe boy could have time to dismoun t, one of the two or

three daily papers taken in the village would be seized

upon by someone who would moun t a box or barrel andread aloud the latest new s to the anx ious listeners.

AS the spring of 1861 , approached much was said

about the critical situation of Major Anderson at Fort

Moultrie ; about the firing upon the steamship S tar ofthe West

,by South Carolinians in Charleston Harbor ;

about the right and feasibility of coercion by the Na

tional Government,etc . Final ly, when Major Anderson

evacuated Fort Moultrie and occupied Fort Sumter, all

eyes w ere concentrated on him and his gallant littl e

band of so ldiers.

1 Pocahontas, Bond County, I l l inois.

For t Sumter Falls .1 3

O ne day , near the middle o f April, the mail-boy came

with a larger-than—usual supply of papers, and these in

extra heavy headl ines had the' words ! “Fort SumterFalls”

;“Hero ic Defense of the Garrison “Thirty- Six

Hours o f Terrific Bombardment ! ” Then followed sev

eral column s giving detai ls of the who l e drama tic affai r,the gallan t defense of the noble Commandan t and his

devoted followers .

Very naturally,Major Anderson became the hero of

the hour, and the papers were filled with eulogisticnotices and ful l details of his individual history . About

this time I inquired o f one much o lder and much wiserthan mysel f, who, in his j udgment, would lead the Un ion

Armies and be the bright, Shin ing light o f the war . The

answer was,

“Maj or Anderson , undoubtedly.

”

At this time Captain U . S . Grant was fi lling a men ialplace in his father’s leather store, at Galena, Ill . , doubtless absolutely ignorant o f his latent mi litary gen ius, and,in his wildest dreams

,not cogni zan t of the great career

immediately before him.

A s to Major Anderson , he was speedily made a

B rigadier-General and given an importan t command inKentucky, but from fail ing hea lth, later retired fromactive service, and soon passed out of public notice .Immediately upon the fal l of Fort Sumter

,Presiden t

Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand volun

teers, and I recal l my amazemen t at what seemed to methe largeness of this call . A s I recalled American history, the reasons for this state o f mind were not far toseek ! The combined army, French and American ,

at theSiege o f Yorktown , aggregated on ly sixteen thousand .

Yet this army was the largest and. in every way , themost complete of any immediate!y under Washing ton

’

s


command during the who le eight years of the Revolu

tionary War, and compelled the surrender of Lord Corn

wal lis in ten days’

t ime,and thus virtually conquered the

Independence o f the Ameri can Colon ies.

Furthermo re, in 1847 General Scott, with onl y eleventhousand men , overcame every obstacle, triumphantlyentered the City o f Mexico, and thus ended the war withour Southern n eighbor .B ut the War o f the Great Rebellion had continued

only a few months when Lincoln found urgent need formany more soldiers

,and was severely criticised for not

making his first cal l much larger. T hat cal l,by the way ,

was for volun teers to serve three months, as the beli ef

at first prevailed that the war would last on ly a short

time, and conquering the enemy would be merely “a

breakfast-spell,” to use a phrase o f that period .

The Free States, n ineteen in number,responded pat

riotically , and filled their several quotas w ith commend

able promptness. Not so the fi fteen Slave States. Even

Delaware,the smal lest and most northerly of Slave

States,responded through its Governor by saying that !

“There is no organ ized mi litia in the State, and no law

authorizing such organ ization .

”

A reply that indicatedindiff eren ce, i f not worse .Through its Governor, Claiborne F. Jackson ,

Mis

souri,another Slave State

,pronounced !

“The ca ll i llegal,unconstitutional and revolutionary

its objects to be inhuman and diabolical, and would not

be compli ed with by Missouri .

Kentucky was a border Slave State and there sentiment was divided, nevertheless

,Governor Magofiin re

sponded to the President’s call by saying Kentucky“would furn ish no troops for the wicked purpose of sub

A t a Farmhouse in 1 861 . 1 5

duing the South. Vain words ! A s time went by thou

sands and thousands of brave Kentuckians volunteered

for thiSIvery“wicked purpose,” andmany of these sealed

their devotion to the Un ion of their fathers by finding

a grave in the far South .

Bond County, Ill . , the place o f my nativity,promptly

en listed two companies in response to the call of RichardYates, our noble war Governor. A s I was but seven

teen years of age, and at that time the one ma le member

of the family, I did not volunteer, but instead passed

the spring and summer of 186 1 peacefully following theplow.

At the same farmhouse in the early spring were fiveyoung men and boys, ranging in age from seventeen to

tw enty-five years,and certainly a j olly, light-hearted,

merry company of young,vigorous, thoughtless human

ity . T wo of the number,Cha rley and Ted

,were

bright,clear -skinned

,good-natured young Englishmen

,

with just enough brogue in thei r speech to make one

listen. more intently . Charley, the younger brother, badblack eyes

,played the violin skill fully, was brim full of

fun and was the li fe, wag and jolliest member of a jolly“bunch .

” Jack,a thi rd member, was noted for good

nature and dry wit .

Although we all followed the plow from sun-up ti llsun-down ,

”

seldom were we too ti red to assemble on theback porch of evenings after supper

,crack jokes, sin-g

merry songs and listen while Charley played on his vio linsuch old-time pieces as

“B ufi’a lo Girls

,

” Fisher’sHornpipe,

” “Buy a Broom,

” “Arkansaw Traveler,” etc.

Sometimes on these occasions, with the two or three

girls about the house,a dance would be improvised in

the kitchen .

1 6 M nskets and Medicine.

A S time went by each o f these five young men j oined

the army,and a bri ef summary of their subsequent his

tory may not be uninteresting as i llustrative o f war’sfortunes.

Charley, the wag, wit and merriest one, was killed at

Belmont, Mo . ,November 7

,1 861

,Grant’s first battle,

shot through the head with a musket ball . Jack en listedin the fal l of 1861 , and about that time said to me

,

“Well, I guess it’

s all right,kase a feller’

l n ever die ti ll

his time comes anyhow . Poor Jack, his time came atAtlanta in the late summer o f 1864, when a bul let passedthrough his n eck

,killing him instantly.

A four th member of the farmhouse group,whose

name I do not now recall, in July, 1863, at Jackson ,

Miss ,had his leg torn off near the body and died from

Shock and hemorrhage .“Ted

,

” brother to Charley, en listed at the first cal l in

1861 , and four years later was mustered out, much theworse for his experi ence, physically.

The fi fth and last of the five w ent through three yearsat the fron t, and is yet alive. Three taken and two left !

Truly, war reaps a terrible harvest .

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do in order to save the Union . This battle occurredalmost precisely seven months after the secession o f

South Carolina,the event which first “fired the Southern

heart” ; and during the whole of 186 1 it is, perhaps, nottoo much to say that in all that pe rtains to preparedness,the South was fully that many months in advance of theNorth .

In conversation with a Southern sympathizer, late in

the summer of 1861 , I remember urging in excuse for a

recen t Union defeat that our forces were greatly out

numbered .

“Y es,

”

he replied,just as they always have been and

are always l ikely to be in the future . ”

During the first months of the Civi l War the people

of the West were greatly interested in the progress ofevents in Missouri . General Fremont had command ofthe Department o f Missouri during most of the summerof 1861 , and as he started in with considerable reputa

tion , the people naturally believed he would accomplishmuch and develop into one of the great Civi l War leaders. B ut while i t was not perhaps whol ly Fremont’sfault

, yet he fell short of achi eving what was expect ed .

August 10, 1861 , was fought the Battle of Wilson ’

s

Creek,near Springfield, Mo .

,where our forces attacked

and greatly demoraliz ed the enemy, who outnumbered usthree to one. But the Union cause that day sustained

what,at the time , seemed an i rreparable loss in the death

o f Gen eral Lyon , the Commander . After General Lyon’

s

death the Federal s fell back, first to Springfield and later

to Rolla, Mo. General Sigel, upon whom the commanddevolved, gained great reputation for the masterly man

ner in which he brought his littl e army from where it

was so grea tly outnumbered, and in danger of capture .

General Lyon’

s Death. 1 9

General Lyon ’

s death was very much deplored all over

the loyal North. In his person he seem ed to combine

quali ti es so much needed at that time, qualiti es that were

clearly lacking in certain ones in high places. His

energy ,sagacity and promptness made him a great

favorite in the West,where his deeds gave promise of

a bri llian t future, had his li fe been spared . He first

came in the “lime- light” May 10, 1861 , when , as Captain

Lyon o f the Regular Army, he promptly seiz ed Camp

Jackson at St . Louis, and thus early saved the contiguouscoun try to the Union .

Emboldened by success at other points, secession in

Missouri proposed to make its nest, so to speak, at Camp

Jackson , within the corporate limits of St . Louis ; and inthis n est, early in May, 1861 , whole broods of Con fed

crate soldiers were going through the incubation process.

But the Con federate Commandant, General Frost, whopossessed on ly the sagacity of a fledgling

,made a sort of

May-day merry-making of dri lling, and here came thecity nabobs in their coaches, ladies in carriages, others inbuggies, men on horseback and hundreds afoot.O ne day a fat lady in a buggy, unaccompan ied, drove

leisurely all about the camp apparently unconcerned, butfrom under “

her” bonnet looked the eagle eyes of Cap

tain Nathan iel Lyon of the Un ited States Army, whocarefully took in the whole si tuation,

Shortly afterwards,a body of armed soldiers was

marched out to Camp Jackson , halted in f ron t of i t,

when their commander,Captain Lyon ,

demanded and

promptly received the surrender of the Con federatecamp with its twelve hun dred embryo soldiers.

This bold a nd sagacious act caused great rejoicingthroughout the West, but especially in such parts of

20 Muskets and Medicine.

Illinois as were tributary to St . Louis. T he newspapersof the day were fi lled with accounts of the affai r

,and

Captain Lyon at once came into prominence . But hiscareer o f glory was doomed to be short

, as. he fell precisely three mon ths later at Wilson

’

s Creek .

Our little county,as elsewhere stated

,furnished two

compan ies of three months’ men at the first cal l in Apri l,

186 1 ; these, before their time had fully expired, came

home on furlough, preparatory to entering the threeyears’

service for which period they had re- en l isted .

Those from our commun ity came walking in from the

rail road station one bright June mo rn ing, dressed in theirfresh

,new un i forms ! Coats o f dark or navy blue, w ith

bright brass buttons, pants light blue, neat caps with long

visors,and their blankets o f gray woo len ,

n eatly rolled

and thrown gracefully over thei r shoulders. Thus seen ,

“soldiering” looked especially inviting to me

, a boy not

yet eighteen .

During the summer o f 1861 a man came along and

hired out upon the farm where I was working . He

stated that he was from n ear Springfi eld, Mo ., where he

had owned a well- stocked farm,but that the country

being overrun by the contending armies everything hadbeen “

st ripped off , and he was glad to get away . His

fami ly had gone to some relatives in Indiana, while he

sought to earn a l i ttle mon ey by hard work . He was the

first Un ion refugee I had seen up to that time .

The Battl e o f Bull Run in the East, and Wilson ’

s

Creek in the West, were the principal engagements dur

ing the summer of 1861 . I remember anxiously watch

ing the papers during the summer and autumn of that

year,instinctively hoping to read o f the Con federates

Fa ll of For t Donelson . 21

being overwhelmed by our forces. But my hopes werenot gratified .

T he winter of 1861 -2 I spent in a remote and sparsely

settled section,seven mi les from a postoflice, where

papers a week old were not consi dered stale . Not ti lllong after it was fought, January 1 9, 1862, Mill Spring,General Thomas’s fi rst battl e, was I privileged to read

an account of the whole matter . Here the Con federateforces were beaten and put to flight, General Zol licoffer

ki lled, (thei r lines penetrated and broken at Bowl ingGreen .

Even in this early period every neighborhood had one

or more representatives in the army, and during the winter I remember serving upon several occasions as amanuensis to some of my friends, who were poor penmen ,

answering letters from soldiers at the f ront .

Towards night, one dreary

,foggy day in February,

1862, the boom of cannon was heard away off to the

southw est . Next day it was learn ed that a grea t victoryhad been won . That Fort Donelson

,on the Tennessee

River, had fal len . Fi fteen thousand Con federates werereported captured

,with al l their arms and accoutrements.

The cannonading heard proved to be the firing of a

National sa lute at St . Louis,more than forty mi l es dis

tant . Meeting a man next day, who had seen the papersand read an accoun t of the whole affair, I inquired thename of the Un ion Commander .

The answer was ! “General Gran t .“Grant ! Gran t ! ” said I . Never heard of him. Who

is he ! What’s his rank ! Where’s he from ! ”

“Don’t know just who he is,”

was the reply, exceptthat he is a Brigadi er-General and is from Illinois.

”

22 M a shets and Medicine.

I remember feeling a Shade of disappointment at thetime that an entirely new and unknown man should all

at once come into such prominence and,so to speak,

eclipse men with fami l iar names.

Fort Donelson surrendered February 14, 1862, and i tmust have been the evening o f February 1 7 that thesalute was heard . It is unusual for cannonading to beheard forty mil es and more distant

, but the damp, heavyatmosphere of the time, together w ith the level prai ri e,over which the SOq wave traversed, had much to dowith the long distan ce reached .

In singular contrast to this experience was that at

Perryv i lle,October 8, 1862, when , in the a fternoon ,

a

severe and bloody battle was fought by M cCook’

s Corpso f the Army of the Ohio

, two and one~hal f mi les f romthe headquarters of the Commander, but he, notwith

standing , fai led to hear the sound of the battl e.

In an arti cle on the Battle of Shiloh,General Buell

expresses surprise that the Commander of the army

General Grant— Should unwittingly permit the foe to

approach with a large force, encamp over n ight withinone and one—hal f miles of his l ines and n ext morn ingattack with a large army ! Not stranger is i t, than that another Commander should remain quietly at his headquarters for a whol e afternoon in blissful ignorance of the

fact that one wing of his army was engaged in peri lousbattle but two and one-hal f miles distan t ! But that the

latter ci rcumstance happened Buell himsel f testifies, and

off ers in explanation the peculiar configuration of thecountry and the preval en ce of a strong wind from his

headquarters toward the corps engaged . War , as well as

peace, has its anomalies.

Genera l M cC lellan . 23

,In the autumn o f 1861 the people began to be im

patient w ith what was deemed the n eedless inactivity o f

the Army of the Potomac under M cClellan , and concerning him and that organ ization the phrase ! “All quiet on

the Potomac,

” first used as an expressive indication o f

no demonstration by eithe r f ri end or foe in Virgin ia,

came, as the period of inaction lengthened, to have a

satirical meaning.

M cClellan,soon after Bul l Run , was call ed to the

command of the Army of the Potomac, and for a time

seemed very popular with the people, and w as soon

fami liarly called “Little M ac,

”

and a Short time a fter,

the Napoleon of the War . But as the winter drewnear and the Army of the Potomac made no demonstration,

many began to question M cC lellan’

s fitness for high

command, and some even made the remark that he wasthe

“biggest man never to have done anything on record .

”

His mos t excellent service in Western Virginia in July,186 1 , was for the time forgotten or ignored, and his

great ability as an organizer was not yet understood .

In April , 1862, in theWest, all eyes were concen tratedupon the Army of the Tenn essee at Pitt sburg Landing,on the Tennessee River. Here, on Apri l 6, 1862, Gran tcame near being overwhelmed, and for a time passedunder a shadow of public distrust as dark and fore

boding as the previous two month’

s—after the fall ofForts Henry and Donelson—sunshine of popular ap

proval and confidence had been warm and cheering .

The 6th of April, 1862, made memorable to me by the

death of a relative,is remembered

“

as a typica l Apri l day—now a cloud, now a shower, now sunshine, a l ittlewind

,a li ttle warm and a little mud, but pleasan t withal

and ful l of the promise of spring. Littl e did we of the


North know when the sun went down that quiet Sabbath

evening through what peri l one o f our grea t armi es hadpassed .

In the same secluded,sparsely-sett led section, seven

mi l es from a postoflice, where I spen t the winter o f

1 86 1 -2,I also spent the spring and summer of 1862 fol

lowing the plow, contentedly farming and dreaming of

the college li fe, which I hoped was n ear at hand .

About this time, too ,I first saw a nationa l bank note .

The man who had several five and ten d‘

ollar bills of

this species said they were legal-tenders. Their bright,crisp appearance and artistic workman ship were in striking con trast with the State bank—

“wildcat”—curren cy, upto that period

,the on ly paper money in circulation . This

State bank money was o f such uncertain value that many

of the old-fashion ed, but sturdy people,refused to re

ceive i t in paymen t o f dues,and insisted upon having

only gold and si lver. Consequently paper money natur

ally held a lower place in the public esteem than hard

money , the people’

s name for gold and si lver coin .

T he National currency soon ban ished from circulation

the State currency . Gold and Si lver disappeared fromCi rculation in 1862

,and fractional paper money was

issued by the Governmen t of fi fty, tw enty-five, ten ,five

and even three cents va lue.

In the region where I was the dai ly n ew spaper wasalmost never seen , and even a good weekly but seldom .

However, the n eighborhood was by no means deprived

of news,as a citizen

,whom we will cal l Jones, amply

supplied the place of a loca l paper . This man Jones was

of middle age and medium size, of rough-strong bui ld,had coarse red hai r, never wor e whiskers

,but seldom

shaved oftener than on ce in a fortn ight, hence his face

26 Mnskets and Medicine.

no further time, but at once began un loading his latest

batch of war news.

“Hain ’t heered -bout the big fight on the‘

T enisy ,’ I

reckon ! That Gin’

rl that hop’

d (helped ) the gunboatstake them ai r forts down thar

,whar they ketched so

many sojers—D onels’

n and Henery,b

’

lieve they call’

em. I forgit his name— O yes, Grant . Well, he’

s got‘

whurp’

d’

(mean ing whipped) mighty bad, him and his

army—got lhis’

n all cut up and lots o f ’

em tuck pris’

ner .

“Some’s sayin ’ they reckon he must ’

a’ been in l icker to

gi t ‘

whurp’

d’ tha t away. They fit two whole days, and

i f it hadn’t ben for them air gunboats helpin’

,him and

his whole army ben tuck pris’

ner, shore. They are sayin ’

‘Pears l ike Grant’s aw ful lucky gittin ’

hop’

d from gun

“The first time he fit at a place cal led Bell sumthin ’

(Belmont ) , they ( the gun-boats) got him out, then theydone most o f the fightin

’ at Hen ery, and I reckon lots

of i t at D onels’

n and this last time they saved his bacon ,

shore . ’

Pon my soul,b

’

lieve the South’s goin’ to win,

though.

Not long after Shiloh,Island No. 10, in the Mis

sissippi, with a goodly number of prisoners, surrenderedto Genera l Pope. This

,in the West, was at the time

taken as a sort of offset to our failure at Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh .

Ea rly that spring I remember reading of the now

world-renowned engagement between the little National

M onitor and the huge Con federate iron-clad M errimac.

This engagement in Hampton Roads revolution ized naval

warfare,and forever did away with unarmored wooden

vessels.

Some New Terms. 27

T he name M onitor,which w as a fterward used in a

generic sense and applied to all vessels bui lt a fter the

same gen eral pattern o f the one whi ch so successfully

encountered the M errirnac,at first sounded strangely,

but by and by became fami l iar enough.

T he war among other things,brought into general use

a whole brood of peculiar and un fami liar words. The

first word of this kind to attract attention was secession,

corrupted by many into secesh. Coercion,as applied to

compelling the return of seceded States, was another

new term . Con traband was first used by General Butler

when referring to slaves who had come within his lines.

This was an unusual ly hard word at first, but soon be

came famil iar when whol e clouds of contrabands ( slaves)sought freedom under the protection of our armies.

R efugee was a term applied to suc h white people as

favored the Union cause, fled from the South,and

sought sa fety and protection within our l ines. Copperhead was a term used to designate such as open ly

opposed the war and yet had their homes in the North.

B ut while one, who open ly opposed the war, was. calleda copperhead

,one who violently opposed it was called

a Secesh.

After the battl e of Pittsburg Landing an immense

Un ion army,under General Hall eck

,concentrated in that

vicin ity for the advance on Corinth . Pope’

s forces hadbeen ordered thither, and Buell ’s and Gran t’s armi es

were there already. Hal l eck divided his grand army ofover one hundred thousand effective men into right andl eft wings

,center and reserve

,commanded respectively

by Pope,Buell

,Thomas and

“ McC lernand. Poor Grant,under a cloud after Shiloh

, was nominal ly second in

comman d, but was really a sort of supernumerary .


T he attention of the who l e country was concentrated

upon this fine army as it slowly besieged Corinth and

attempted to bag General Beauregard . B ut one n ight,

M ay 30, 1862, he qui etly evacuated, and either destroyedor carried away everything of value .The whole sto ry was well told at the time by a cut in

H arper's Weekly , whi ch represented in one picture ahuge hand (Hal leck

’

s army) closed , al l but the indexfinger, which was reaching to seize a flea (Beauregard

’

s

army) , at rest on a plane surface . Just opposite wasanother pi cture which represented the big index-fingerin contact with the plane surface, but the flea (Beant egard ’

s a rmy) was in the air, having, true to its nature,

j umped .

CHAPTER I I I .

S IX HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE .—AUTHOR

ENLI STS.

Form ! Form ! Form ! Rifilemen !

Ready, be ready to meet the storm !Rifilemen ! Rifllemen ! Riflemen form ! ”

—TENNYSON .

ABOUT the l st of April, 1862, the Army o f the Potomac

,under General M cClellan ,

began the Peninsular

campaign , slowly approaching from Fortress Monroe

towards Richmond. A month was consumed in the Siege

o f Yorktown ; six weeks pa ssed in the sickly swamps of

the Chickahominy,after which M cClellan changed his

base to the James River, and then followed the Seven

Days’ Battles near Richmond, namely, Mechan i csville,

June 26 ; Gaines’ Mills, June 27 and 28 ; Savage

’

s Sta

tion, June 29 ; Peach Orchard, June 29 ; White O akSwamp

,June 30, and Malvern Hill, July 1 . July 2 the

Army of the Potomac ret reated to Harrison ’

s Landing,on the James River

,and thus had been accomplished the

“chang e O f base .

” This costly and humiliating repulseOf McClellan was a sore disappointmen t to the North

,

but knowing the Nation’

s power, the President issued a

cal l in the last days of July for vo lunteers,which, a l i ttl e later, was increased toLike most others I had“ all along been greatly inter

ested in the war’s progress, but fifteen month ’

s continu

ance of the conflict had,in a degree , removed the keen

edge o f that interest,and I, all the while, conso l ed mysel f

with the idea that there was no,n eed for me to become

(29)


i dentified with t-he confl ict in any way personally . The

previous winter I had been teaching and putting in

leisure moments preparing for college . My studies I

tried to prosecute, in a way , whi le farming during the

spring and early summer of 1862, my zea l at times l eading me in hot days

,whil e my horse was resting, to use

the freshly turned-up earth as a sort of make-shi ft board

upon which, with a sti ck, I marked out for demonstration certain propositions in geometry.

From the foregoing it will be seen that my dreams

were all o f the Hal ls of Learning and not of the Temple

Of Mars,not of fields o-f strife and blood . These per

sonal matters are mentioned because it is beli eved thatmany thousands o f young men ,

up to this period, hadaspirations like my own and bore a simi lar relation tothe war

, and most of these enl isted and thousands of

them sa crificed thei r lives on their country’

s altar .

O ne day early in August, 1862, having followed theplow till noon ,

I came in from the field to dinner and

found at the house a relative who had just arrived withthe in forma tion that a war meeting was to be held then ext day at Pocahontas

,my home village, ten mi l es dis

tan t, and that the day previous a war meeting had beenheld at Greenville

,Ill .

,our county seat, and at which

many o f my old friends and schoolmates had enlisted .

Join ing the army' is not un like measles,whooping

cough and even sma llpox,for it

’

s catching. Learn ing

that A .,B . C. and D . had volunteered, I henceforth saw

“the light, and straightway reso lved to en list in mycountry’

s service, much as it would mar all my well- lai d

plans. With this intent uppermost in my mind I at

tended the war meeting at Pocahon tas, August 9, 1862,which was held in the shade of a white oak grove .

The Author Volun teers . 31

There was a good attendance and much earnestness

man i fested . T he exercises consisted of mart ial music,singing of patriotic songs and several eloquen t speeches.

O ne o f the speakers was a ruddy- faced, good- lookingEnglishman ,

whose earnestness and eloquent words

made a lasting impression on my mind . He began byreading in a most impressive manner a poem, then j ustpublished and beginning“We are coming Father Abraham, six hundred thousand more,From Al leghany’s rugged heights, from M ississippi’s w inding

shore”

These lines are quoted from memory andmay be inaccurate

,but it is believed they are substan tially correct .

When through reading,the speaker said !

“A s most of you know, I am an Englishman ; not a

drop save Eng lish blood courses in my veins, and n ear

to my heart is the memory of dear, merry Old England.

Her green,peaceful fields

,her happy homes, her thri fty

sons, her broad-chested, manly men ; and her rosy

cheeked, healthy women ; wives, sisters, mothers, sweethearts can never

,never be forgotten . B ut much as I

love Old England,and proud as I am of the power and

fa i r name of my native land,I am, today, an Ameri can

citizen , and’as such

,should the English Government see

fit to interven e and take up arms in favor of the; South ,I will shoulder my musket and fight against her as long

as there is breath in my body .

The impassioned address of the eloquent Englishman

was intently listened to and hearti ly cheered by the audience .

Amid these surroundings and under these patrioticinfluences I gave my name to an enrolling Officer, and


for three years thereafter saw service in the Union

Army—service that,though humble

,did not end ti ll the

last en emy had surren-derediand our National Flag waspermitted to float in peace over every foot of the late

eleven Seceded States— eleven Seceded States that comprised the Southern Con federacy

,and whose people had

desperately striven to take eleven Stars from the Flag

of our common Country,and with them form the “Stars

and Bars,” the emblem of a proposed new government,

whose chi ef come r-stone was avowed to be human

slavery, but

Though the mi l ls of God grind slow ly, y et they grind exceeding smal l,

Though w ith patience He stands waiting, w ith exactness He

grinds all .”

At this period the war had been in progress a little lessthan sixteen months

,and regarding the propriety and

j ustness o f the conflict,there were three classes, and of

these the first included all members of the Republican

Party who had elected Abraham Lincoln to the Presi

deney,and who ,

to a man , favored a vigorous prosecu

tion of t he war .

'

A second class was vaci llating, now favoring the warand now hesi tating

,i f not, indeed, obj ecting to its fur

ther prosecution .

A third class opposed President Lincoln in every move

he made, and became so bitter and so Obnoxious that they

were not inaptly called “Copperheads,”

the name of acertain snake whose bite was especially po isonous , and

whose method of attack was cowardly and vicious.

“

A s time went by, the party favoring a vigorous prose

cution o f the war received a very large accession from

A Clerica l Pa triot . 33

certain patriotic men who came to be known as War

Democrat-s,”

a hyphena ted term that was especially popular with Un ion men in the early sixties.

A s to the final outcome,a few people seemed , from

the beginn ing,to have implicit faith in ultimate triumph,

but the great majority were submerged in a sea of doubt

and perplexity .

O n July. 4, 1861 , I attended a Fourth of July celebration at Greenville, our county seat

,and listened to a

most eloquent and patriotic address from a prominentclergyman . Very naturally the theme of the speaker was

the war,upon which the country was j ust en tering. He

handled his subj ect in a masterly mann er, and I shallnever forget his closing, words ! Crowned with a halo

o f glory, the Nation reun i ted wil l finally come out of

this fiery ordea l, grander, nobler,stronger than ever

before. ”

These words were,so to speak, burned into my

memory, for they were wonderfully impressive and

seemed to carry with them great weight and an indefinable sense of digni ty and foreknowledge. Yet

, in

those trying days when every one was at sea, and clarityo f view was vouchsafed to few ,

i f any , the propheticwords of the reveren d speaker seemed all but impossibleo f fulfillment . How ever, those were st i rring times, andmen

’

s minds underwent prompt and radical changes.

The patrioti c and manly course of many leading

Democrats, notably Senator Douglas,in supporting the

Union , and standing by President Lincoln in his eff ortsto preserve the integrity of the Nationa l Governmen t,had much to do in making staunch Union ists of

“

manywho

, up to that time, had openly opposed the course of3


the Administration at Washington ,or hesitated in giving

it their allegiance .

The eloquent speaker referred to above was ReverendThomas W . Hynes, of Greenville, Ill . , who was born inKentucky and lived there til l he was fi fteen years of age,when he came North. He was a forceful speaker, with

a rich, sonorous voice, and a suave, dign ified gentleman,

who, in his bearing and every-day life, represented thehighest type o f the true Christian gen tleman .

Having been born and reared in a slave-environmenthe knew the wrongs and evils of the slave system

,and

when,in the fi fties

, the attempt was made to contam inate

the free prairies of Kansas with slave labor, Reverend

Mr. Hynes was a mod-est, but integral pa rt of the grea tupheaval north of the Ohio River that finally engulfedthe threaten ing movement on the part of the ultra Southern leaders.

His three sons were in the Union Army, and one of

them fell at Vicksburg, where he now fi lls a soldier’shonored grave .

Among those who l eft thei r homes in the South on

accoun t of thei r dislike to slavery and came to the western wilderness in Illinois, whil e i t was yet a

was my grandfather, Charles Johnson , who raised a la

family, and when the Civi l War came on not one of

descendants, who was of sui table age and physi callyfai led to en list

,and one of them gave up his li fe

Chickamauga .

But what was true of these two patriots was truethousands and thousands of Southern-born men

I ll ino is,Indiana and Ohio

,among whom Abraham L

Some Embryo Soldiers. 35

adamant for the integrity of th e Federal Government .Indeed, the part borne by these stalwart Un ion ists o f

Southern birth and descen t was so weighty tha t i t reallyturned the scales and, in the final reckon ing

,made the

preservation of the Un ion possible . What a theme for

a volume would the work of these men afford ! Thesestalwarts loved the sunny Southland, but they loved the

Un ion more. Among the last-named were GeneralsScott

,Thomas, Logan, Hurlburt, Commodore Fa rragut

and scores of other great Civi l War leaders.

Under Lincoln ’

s cal l for volunteers in July and

August, 1862, two full companies were enlisted in myli tt l e native County of Band“, which came to be noted forits patriotism. During the month of August and early

days of September these volunteers rendezvoused at

Greenville,our County Seat, a qui et old- time village

o f about fi fteen hundred inhabitan ts, and tw enty mi les

distant from the nea rest rai lway station . Here we were

billeted, or qua rtered, at the two village taverns.

Very many of the two hundred young men composing

these two compan ies were fine,stalwart fellows

,whose

bronzed faces show ed the heal thy traces of the sun’

s rays

under which they had followed the plow during the cultivating season

,then just over ; though when I en listed

I let go the handles of the plow and l eft it sticking in

the furrow . Most of us were under tw enty-fiveyears o fage

— a great many,indeed

,under tw enty— and a jolly,

rolli cking bunch we were,but

,almost to a man , all were

staunch, of sterling worth, and were members of the bestfami lies in the county . O ne n ight a number of us wen tout in the coun try two or three miles

,if I remember cor

rectly , in quest of watermelons, but whether or not wefound them, I do not now recall, but one experience of


that summer n ight I shal l never forget, We took withus a supply o f cigars for those who were alreadysmokers , and those who were not yet smokers

,alike.

Those of us who had not before learned to smoke had

become impressed with the idea that we never couldbecome rea l, true soldiers ti ll we added this last to our

list o f accomplishments. Once before I had~

tri ed tosmoke, but my efforts ended in a severe attack o f vomi t

ing . This n ight,however

,notw i thstanding my former

failure, I resolved to make one more heroic effort toacquire the smoking habit, but, much to my dismay and

chagrin,soon after inhaling the smoke o f about hal f a

cigar I was seized’ with a violent attack of sick stomachand vomi ting which made me so weak that I was hardlyable to get back to our stopping place . This apparen t

fai lure o f fifty—odd yea rs ago I have lOng since come toregard as one of the decidedly fortunate occurrences of

my li fe, for i t kept me from acquiring a costly and. questionable habit .

At the village taverns,beds for all could

,of course,

not be had, consequently we sl ept on lounges, benches,carpets

,bare floors ; indeed, on almost any smooth sur

face that was under shelter . It goes without

that we a ll had fine appetities, the demands of

severely taxed the tavern larders.

SO passed the rema inder of August and the earlyof September

,when one day an order came for us to

rendezvous at Belleville,I ll .

, a sma ll city, forty mi lesaway.

O ne moon l ess n ight in August,a little time before we

left Greenville, our comp-any was drawn up in front of

the Court House to receive a beautiful flag,from the women whose husbands, brothers,

A Flag is Given Us .37

sw eethea rt s w ere soon to see service at the front. Two

or three tallow candl es furnished a flickering uncertainlight

,under whose dim rays a Miss Smith

,a beauti ful

young woman,mounted the Court House steps, and in

a few well chosen words, spoken in a sw eet voice,pre

sented the flag. John B . Reid,then the Captain o f the

company in which I had en listed, responded briefly and

appropriately.

The flag was made of fine silk and most beauti ful w ereits seven stripes of red, six of snowy white and delica te

field o f blue, studded with thirty-four immaculate stars,representing as many States, although eleven of these

were making war upon this flag and all it stood for .After the fai r young maiden had spoken her few

words and the captain had responded, the flag was um

furled three rousing cheers were given , and every mansi lently

! resolved,i f need be

,to give his l i fe for the pre

servation of this noble emblem .

This flag we took with us when we wen t to the

enemy’

s country, but un fortunately, during our variousma rches and transfers f rom one to another locality

,i t

was misplaced, and never a fterward found . Thus i t

cam e about that not one of us was given opportunity to“die for its preservation .

”

In this same month of August,1862

,another beauti ful

Bon d County flag, the handiwork of the w ives, sisters,mothers and sweetheart-s of the new ly-en listed men , was

made at Pocahontas,my native village

, and by one of itsfair ma idens

,Miss Sarah Green ,

presented to an organ ization that later became Company E

,130th Illinois

Infan try Volunteers. In due time this Pocahontas flagwas carried to the enemy’

s country,and by his bullets its

fo lds were more than once pierced during the Siege of


Vicksburg . The war over,the flag was returned to the

people from whence it came, and is today a highly cher

ished relic in the care of J, W . Miles, a Civil War

veteran o f Pocahontas.

Most certain ly this shot-pierced, home-made flag, old

and tattered by more than a hal f century’

s history, iswell and unquestionably entitl ed to be called “O ldGlory.

”

T he Pocahontas flag is on ly one of many, many thou

sands, that were given to outgoing volunteers by patriotic

women whose prayers and hopes followed thei r loved

ones wheresoever duty cal led them . But, sad to say , the

great majority O f the flags O f this class are f rom one

cause or another, no longer in existence ; hen ce, the possessors o f the Pocahontas “O ld Glory” have reason to

cong ratulate themselves over their exceptiona l good for

tun-e.

To the non-military reader it may be well to say that

the State furn ished every n ewly-organ ized regiment a

flag which became its recogn i zed standard . In review,

on parade, on all public occas ions and in battle, this flagwas un furled, and borne at the head of the regimen t by

the color-bearer . In the event the flag was lost or de

stroyed, the State, as promptly as possible, furnishedanother one.

Finally,when the term of service ended and the regi

ment was mustered out, its flag reverted to the State, andwas supposed to be ever after cared for .

Thus i t will be seen that regimental flags are in a classto themselves, and, as such, cannot be claimed by individ

nals nor by commun ities.


I f I remember correctly, these two lines were a sort

of refrain at the end of each verse,and the words,

“must

fal l,”

sounded to me especially doleful—so doleful that

I could not enter into the cheery character that it wasintended the gathering should assume, and, at its close,t he words, must fall , rang in my ears ti ll I felt almost

sure I was destined to die on some Southern battlefi eld .

However,next morning’s sunshine dissipated al l my

gloomy forebodings and my boyish vigor and innate optimism caused me to take a cheerful view of the future

a view that time has justified, for , since that social gath

ering in the Court House, fifty - four long years have run

thei r course, and o f those assembled On that August

night,I am one of the few l eft to tell the story .

Miss White’s solo, doleful las it seemed, was not with

out its good eff ect, for even the most thoughtless among

us was made to think seriously o f the new and danger

ous duties upon which we were about to enter.

A s elsewhere noted, an order had been received fromthe State Capital at Springfield, di recting the two Bond

County companies to rendezvous at Bell eville, Ill . , about

forty mi l es away and not far from St . Louis,

A s the time for departure drew near,every man visited

his home, made his fina l arrangements,said farewell to

his friends,and then joined his comrades at Greenville .

B ut sad and tearful w as this farew ell,as father,

mother, brother , sister,wi fe , or sw eetheart

,took the

parting one by the hand, non e know ing how soon he

would fall in the frightful death-harvest a great devas

tating war was every hour reaping.

At the appointed time friends, neighbors and relatives

came with farm wagons and, early one beauti ful Septem

Pocahontas Flag ; Real Old Glory .

(See page 37 )

First Home- leaving .41

ber morn ing, the- vehicles w ere loaded with hearty speci

mens of young manhood, all ideal cannon- food,”

and

the journey over a dusty road to the nearest rai lway station

,tw enty mi les away at Carlyle, was begun .

Three or four mi les on the road was a hi ll where we,for some cause , halted for a time . From here I remem

ber taking a look at the Court House , about which we

had been dri lling for several w eeks, and whose friendly

roo f had sheltered us from rain and sun alike, and as

its familiar out lin e loomed up in the morn ing’

s sun I

wondered i f I should ever again look upon it .

About noon we reached Carlyle, on what was then

known as the Ohio Mississippi Rail road, now the

Baltimore Ohio Rai lway, and soon a west-bound train

came in and we all w ent aboa rd. A nd will .the readerbelieve it

,to many o f us this experi ence was absolutely

new,for I

,in common with most of my comrades, had

never before been. inside a rai lway coach ! T o satisfy

any reader who may be in a wondering mood , l et it be

sa id that a ha l f century ago railways were very muchfewer, and rai lway travel vastly less, than now .

After going west on the train for about tw enty-fivemi l es‘ we got O ff, d-etrained as we say today, at O

’

Fallon

and marched in a southwesterly direction ti ll we came

to Belleville,seven mi les distan t . T he afternoon was

hot, the roads dusty, and I remember suff ering much discomfort from a pai r Of tight-fitting shoes I had boughtthe day previous. Before we reached Bell evi lle my dis

comfort amounted to almost torture, and for this reason

I look back upon this ini tial march o f on ly seven mi l esas one o f the hardest and most uncomfortable I wasca lled upon to make during my whol e three years

’

service .

42'

Muskets and Medicine.

Ar rived at Bellevi lle,we were directed to the Fai r

Grounds wher e, under the board roofs of horse and cat

tle stalls, we found quarters. A n abundance o f clean ,

bright straw had been provided, upon which the blanketsan d quilts were spread, which last we had brought fromour homes, and thus we arranged for our first night’ssleep in the new career be fore us. The grounds wer einclosed with a high

,tight fence

,and within were groves

o f shade trees and green ,thri fty grass . T he September

weather was delightful , and the novel ty of the new situa

tion and way of l iving was most en joyable .

However,there was one drawback ; meals were taken

at the several boa rding houses in the city,and as these

were substantial ly al l run by Germans,Bellevill e being

largely populated with people O f that national i ty, thetaste and fumes of garlic se emed to permeate every articl e of food on the table. It was, of course, in all the

mea ts,in many of the vegetables ; but every man would

have taken oath that it was in the bread and butter, if

indeed,not in the coff ee and sugar as well .

Strange as i t may seem to the more advan ced san i

tarians of today,we all suff ered from severe colds not

long a fter we began sl eeping out, and the exposure in

curred in this way was assigned as the cause .

At the end o f about ten days we were ordered to Camp

Butler,near Springfield. We boa rded a train for St.

Louis, and arriving there,wen t by steamboat to Alton ,

I ll .,and here, sometime after nightfal l, we cl imbed on

coa l cars,entrained

,and found seats on boards which

were put across from side to side . We found the ri deanything but pleasant, those si tting near the outer edgeseemed in constant danger o f falling overboard, and the

We Arrive at Camp Butler .43

smoke, cinder-s and sparks were tormen ting in the ex

treme .Some time in the wee-smal l hours we arrived at

Springfield and got off,detrained

,at the Alton Chi

cago Rai lway station . Meant ime,a dri zzling rain began

to fall, and the men found shelter as best they could .

With a compan ion I found this in the Open vestibule o f

a church a little south o f the station . Next morn ing we

got breakfast at one of the cheaper hotels,and this was

destined to be one Of our very last meals eaten fromdishes placed on a white tablecloth .

During the forenoon several of us visited the home Of

President Lincoln and picked some flowers from thefront yard“ and sent them home in l etters.

Near noon time we boarded a train on the WabashRailway for Camp Butler, seven mi les east of Springfield . O n this tra in was Major Gen eral John C . Fre

mont, in full uni form, and we all took a good look at

him,as he was the first Officer of high rank we had seen .

He was a man o f medium stature,and wore rather light

sandy whiskers. This last was a surprise to me, forwhen he was candidate for Presiden t in 1856 he wasrepresen ted as heavily whiskered, so heavily, indeed, that

he won the sobriquet of “Wooly Horse . ”

Arrived at Camp Butler we detrained and passed

through a gate n ear the railway, guarded by a uni

formed so ldier with a gun in his hands, and entered anenclosure of about forty acres, surrounded by a high,tight board fence . Along two sides of this enclosure

were rows of long, narrow buildings, which were knownas barracks. At one end was the offi ce o f the Post Commandant

,and nearby

,the Commissa ry and Quartermas

ter’s Department . At the other end was. the Hospital,


Guard-House, Sutl er’

s Store, etc . In the cen ter was a.

large open space, used as a dri ll-ground . In the middle

of the rear end, as at the fron t,was a large gate for

teams to pass through, and beside it a smal ler one,for

the egress and ingress of the men ; both were guardedby an armed soldier, and no one could go out without apass signed by the Post Commandant .A company was assigned to “each of the long, narrow

bui ldings,whi ch we soon l earn ed to fami liarly ca ll bar

racks. This had at one end a kitchen and store- roomsand at the other end two or three sma l l apartments forthe oflicers. Through the cen ter of the main room ran

a long table made of rough boards,and from which all

ate. At the sides of this ma in room were box - like strue

tur es, open in front, having ti ers of boards upon. whi ch

two men slept side by side . These’

we cal led bunks.

Thus i t was that our long, narrow barracks were not

un like a sleeping—car and din ing-car combined . The

barracks w ere made of rough boards put on“up

-and

down ,

” with no ceiling overhead save the shingle roof,and windows and doors were few,

purposely, to save

space .

Here began the crude,coarse fare of soldi er li fe . R a

tions in abundance and of essential good quality were

supplied,but thei r prepa ration lacked the skilled

,delica te

hand o f woman ; but of this more herea fter.Not long after reaching CM p Butler I was attacked

with ague,and for this the Post Surgeon very properly

prescr ibed quin ine . The hospi tal steward gave me six

powders of tha t drug, put up in as many papers, and, asthe bitter taste of quin ine was especially repugnant tome, I cast about for some mean s to overcome this

, and

in the end coul d think of no better plan than the one I


story might have had a diff erent ending, and I might notbe here to tell it ; or I might be wearing a certain crossabdomen slash, so to speak, fami liar to modern surgeons .

But as things were, in that autumn day in 1862, mycase was diagnosed colic

,or, in plain English,

“belly

ache,

”

an old-time,old- fashion ed, honest disease that

appendectomists have nearly, or quite, crowded out of

the category of human ailments.

Doubtless, my trouble was due to an attack of acute

indigestion , in turn due to too many amateur cooks

(among whom I had been one) in our barrack kitchen .

A s said before, we received an abundance of good

rations, but we did not know how to cook them. Eachday two men were detailed from the company to do dutyin the kitchen. These, the first day , served as assistan tsto two other men who but the day previous were them

selves assistants, and with the ripe experience gained inone day

’

s apprenticeship, were now full-fledged cooks,and capable of instructing the un initiated .

Littl e wonder is i t that, with these constant changes inthe kitchen

,the food was at n early al l times i ll pre

pared, and chance too o ften an important factor in the

results obtained . Fo-r i llustration,meat which was placed

in the oven to roast, from the presence of too much fatturn ed out a fry , and beef put in the kettl e to boi l, from

the absence o f water at a critical stage, would be baked

instead, i f indeed it was not hopelessly burned .

Potatoes were almost never properly cooked, even

when apparently well done, a raw core would frequently

be found in the cen ter. Coff ee was,at times, on ly a

l ittle stronger than water, at others i t was like lye .B ut rice, white beans and dri ed apples gave the ama

teur cooks the most trouble . In cooking these the novice

Amateur Cooking . 47

would invariably fi ll the camp kettl e,a large sheet- i ron

vessel,holding two or more gallons, with one of t hese

articles,and then pour inwater! and set i t over the fire .

In a littl e time the bean s or dried apples would begin to

swel l and run over the sides o f the vessel ; meantime, thenew cook would dip out the contents and put them in

another vessel ; the swelling process continued,the dip

ping proceeded, till a second vessel was as full as the

first, and there seemed to be enough for two or three

companies instead of only one.

Good cook stoves and serviceable utensi ls were furnished by the Government

,in addition to rations in

abundance and of exceptiona l quality. The lame factor

was in the food’s preparation . Had it been possible forthe Government to have suppli ed newly- en l isted com

panics with good cooks ti ll others could have beentrained, an untold amoun t of si ckn ess would have beenprevented, and many graves would have remained un

fi lled, not to speak of the many thousands who were discharged from the service by reason of ailments due toi l l-prepared food .

CHA PTER V

FROM CAMP TO T H E ENEM Y’s COUNTRY .

The flags of war l ike storm-birds fly ,

T he charging trumpets b low ;Yet rol ls no thunder in the sky ,

No earthquake strikes below .

”

—WH ITT IER.

A s most of us were from the farms where we hadbeen us ed to absolute freedom,

the confinement imposed

on us at Camp Butl er soon became very monotonous andirksome . Indeed

,i t seemed little short of being confined

in prison . To reli eve the monotony we occasiona lly

secured a pass f rom the Post Commandan t and visi ted

the wo rld outsi de the enclosure , Once or twice we wen tto Springfield, at other times we spent some hours in then earby woods, and at others we roamed over and throughlthe fields of growing corn .

In the autumn of 1862 a great many newly-en listedmen were s en t to Camp Butle r for dri l l and organization ; and these came in squads, compan ies and evenregiments

,always

,however

,una rmed, undri ll ed and not

uni formed . In these men a few days’ time worked a

wonderful tran sformation . O ne regimen t in particularI recall as presenting the most motley appearan ce imagin

able. Brown j eans was the prevailing dress, but everyconceivable cut of coa t and style of hat could be seen ,

and all , from colonel down , were slouchy in atti re, and

awkward and ungainly in manner and appearance . A

few weeks later the same body o f men marched out of

Camp Butler to take the ca rs on the Wabash Rai lway at

(48)

Life in the Barracks .49

the front gate Of the enclosure bound for the front and

the firing- line ; but , what a change ! Every man was

dressed in a new w ell-fitting uni form ,had on his shoulder

a bright new musket tha t glistened in the sun light, and

moved with firm,elasti c step . The Whole regimen t

marched with ma chine- like precision , and kept step with

the ry thmic stra ins of the band at its head .

In front of the Post Commandant’s headquarters at

Camp Butler was a flagpole, upon which early eachmorn ing was run up the Stars and Stripes

,that were

taken down again when n ight approached . Here,also,

was a cannon that was fired every n ight at sunset and

every morn ing at sunrise .To keep the men from climbing over the fen ce a chain

o f guard-s was posted next to it all around . These were

armed with old army muskets of the Harper’s Ferrypattern ,

that were utterly harml ess,a ll being in some

way defective . But armed with one o f these,given the

countersign and put on his“beat,

” perhaps, between a

hickory tree and a white oak stump,the new soldi er fe lt

all the dignity of his position by day and the full weight

of his responsibi lities at night . At this period wordsfrom the Eastern army were most in favor for countersign

, such as“Burnside,

” “Kearney,

” “Hooker,

” “Chick

ahominy ,” “Potomac

,

” “R appahannock, etc .

After n ight the guard allowed no one to approachwithout chal lenge

,when ,

if the part y purported to be afri end, he was required to whisper the coun tersign overthe musket’s lengt h with bayonet attached .

Before regimental organization had been perfected I ,with‘ two comrades

,procured a furlough to visit home

for a few days . We arrived by rai l w ithin twen ty mi lesof our destination at 9 P .M . Time was limited, so i t was

4


resolved to foot i t home that very night. After walkingabout five hours, the home of one o f the party in the

country was reached , and to save time and get to sleepas soon as possible

,i t was decided to sl ip in the house

quietly and go to bed at once. Accordingly, guided by

the comrade whose fami ly occupied the house,all were

soon disposed of, and being exceedingly w eary, quickly

went to sleep . I occupi ed the front of one bed and one

of my comrades the back. All slept late, and at the

breakfast table the next morning the lady of the house ,a ma tronly woman , said to me

“Didn ’t know I kissed you awhi le ago, did you !

Well,

”

she continued,“I went into the spare room and

first thing I saw was soldier’s clothes, and on the pillow

I saw a face which I thought was my Fielding’

s , and you

better beli eve I gave i t one good kiss. But I don ’t care,i t was a soldier

,any way !

”

Blessed be the memo ry of her patrioti c heart ; beforethe war ended

,four of her sons lost thei r l ives in their

country’s service . Not many sacrificed so much ; aye,few gave so much to sustain the Nation ’

s life,°

even in

those t roublous times, when sacrifice and patriotic gi ftswere so common . After a few days spen t most pleas

antly at home I returned to my company at Camp Butler .Newly- formed regiments of men were outside

, and al l

about the enclosure at Camp Butler, encamped in tents.

After staying in the barracks about two months I re

member being detai led for guard duty one beauti ful

Sabbath day . Guard duty necessitated a soldi er’s absencefrom his quarters for twenty- four hours, though he

would actually be on his beat with musket in hand but

one-third of the time, two hours out of every six . The

time referred to,my two hours for duty ,

came just be

A Teuton Drill-master . 51

fore daylight Monday morning. Looking through thefence about sunrise, where a regiment was encamped j ustoutside, several groups were seen ea ting breakfast, andthese were not composed wholly of men ,

but were madeup of women , girls and chi ldren. as well . Looking closer,i t was seen that they were eating fri ed chicken ,

turkey,

cake,pie

,freshly-baked bread and good butter, biscuit

and doughnuts. By this time the man on the n ext beathad joined me

,and the eff ect the scene had upon the

two so ldiers within the enclosure can . n ever be appre

ciated by the reader who has not had a simi lar experience. The wives, sisters and children of these more fortunate so ldiers had ev idently come to spend a seasonwith their f riends, and had brought such eatables as theyknew would be appreciated, for the time had thus literal ly transferred home-l i fe to camp .

Late in October,ten compan i es

,including the one to

which I belonged“

, were mustered into the Un ited Statesservice as the l 30th Illino is Infantry Volunteers. The

afternoon was cold and raw , and t he ceremony was not

en joyed. Next morn ing was bright and warm,and the

newly- formed regiment was formed in lin e,when the

Colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel and Major each made ashort speech .

The new organization was at once put under a Dutchdrillmaster, a short, little fellow,

with a red face, sandy

moustache and goatee ! He wore a cap, a blue blouseand a sword that dragged the lower end of its scabbardon the ground . He gave his commands in quick, nervous,b roken English ! “Temyan

,

’

Pitalyan ! Fa’rd March ! By

Goompanies, Right’Veel ! ” (Attention Battalion ! For

ward March ! By Compani es,Right Wheel ! ) When the

evolutions of the green regiment were faulty,i t was


amusing to hear the scolding in broken English from the

dri llmaster .Pretty soon the regiment received its arms, Austrian

rifled-muskets ; these, with cartridge box es conta ining theammuni tion ,

canteens in which to carry water,haver

sacks (pouches made of heavy cotton goods for rations) ,knapsacks and blankets, fully equipped the command .

Furthermore, each man received his un i form o f regulation blue . Not long after the regiment became fully

equipped orders came for i t to report at Memphis, Tenn .

O ne cold rainy evening the cars were taken on the

Wabash Railway at our f ront gate, and after a cheerl ess

ride,St. Louis was rea ched, whe re transportation down

the river was procured on the steamboat General R ober tA llen

,the meanest old hulk afloat .

The trip was exceedingly tedious, water in the riverwas at a low stage, and the old boat frequen tly ran

aground, but with the help of spars put upon either side

the bow , and hoisting apparatus, always managed toagain get underway.

O ne evening the boat ti ed up on the Arkansas shore ;i t being a section said to be in fested by bands of armedrebels, n ight navigation was deemed peri lous. The regiment was marched ashore, where nothing was found savea rude log structure, sai d to have been used before thewar as a store.The region was heavily timbered

,with also a dense

growth o f underbrush,but much o f i t had a strange

appearance, nearly everything being yet in lea f . Beingin the en emy’s country, a strong picket-guard was thrownout . The w ri ter’s company, with another

, was detailedon this duty . The men were marched out the distance

of a mi l e from the regiment,broken up in squads of

CHAPTER V I .

IN AND ABOUT MEMPH I S DURING T H E WINTEROF 1862-3.

Before the battle joins afarThe field y et gl itters w ith the pomp of war .

FORT PILLOW, in the Mississippi , was evacuated Jun e

4,1862, after which the Nationa l fleet dropped down the

river, and at early dawn June 6, under Commodore

‘Davis, attacked the Con federate floti lla lying in front of

Memphis,Tenn .

T he result was a complete Union victory . O f theeight vessels composing the Con federate fleet, three were

destroyed, four captured, and only one, the Van D arn,

escaped . During the engagement the bluff at Memphis

was lined with spectators. At 1 1 A .M . the city sur

rendered, and was taken possession of by two in fantry

regiments accompanying the Nationa l fleet. Six mon thsafter this event the regiment to which I belonged arrived

at the Memphis steamboat landing after n ight, as alreadydetai led .

Next day our regiment went ashore and marched

through the streets that in. places were ve ry muddy fromrecent rain- fal l . Now and then a house was passed

,from

which welcome was extended by a waving handkerchiefin the hands of a woman . Most o f the femal e sex ,

how

ever, seemed ready to extend anything but a w elcome tothe

“hordes from the North.

Camp w as formed on the outskirts of the city in a

beautiful beech grove tha t w as in every w ay pleasan tly

(54)

A“Turn-out.

”

55

located . Here tents were put up, huts built by some, and

about two weeks o f beauti ful Novembe r wea ther spentmost pleasantly. A lin e o f guards encircled the camp

at n ight to break the men in and en force discipline as

much as anything,perhaps. O n this duty one of the men

accidentally discharged his piece and the bu l let passed

through his foot . This was the first gunshot wound in

the history of the regiment,Upon leaving the ba rracks at Camp Butler each com

pany broke up into messes,composed of from eight to

fifteen men , who drew thei r rations in common and did

their cooking together.Nearly every day our regiment went out on dress

parade, a term that, to the non-mi litary reader, n eeds

explanation . T o participate in this, each. man ,be fore

falling in ranks, was requi red to have his un i form in

good order,his accoutrements in neat trim

,his gun and

metal li c appendages bright, then our regiment in linemarched to some conven ient level

,open space, and wen t

through the manual o f arms,and, so to speak, displayed

itsel f to the very best advantage .O ne day our regiment selected for. its place of parade

an Open space near a public highway, paral lel with and

facing which,i t was drawn up. Some mil itary exercises

had j ust been gon e through and the men were standingeasi ly at parade-rest

,when a turn-out passed along the

road within a few feet of them that was new to Northern eyes, but afterward frequently seen in the South during war times.

A n old dilapidated fami ly carriage that looked as

though i t might have seen service since the Revolutionary period, drawn by a large

,dark-colored, raw -boned

horse, only a skeleton in fact, and a little, old, mouse


colored donkey ; upon these w er e shreds of old harness,attached to whi ch were some shabby old reli cs of si lvermoun ting. Moun ted on the box, with rope lines in his

hands,was an old gray-hai red darky, who sat upright and

dign ified,an old and very high plug hat on his head, and

his person attired in the antiqua ted remains of a coach

man’

s livery . Within the carriage was a man and

woman . The whole outfit was so ridiculous to Northe rn

eyes that a hearty laugh wen t along the line, followed

by a shout that was participated in by a thousand voices.

At this period but few negroes lived in rural sections

of the North, and most of these had comparatively regular features, but it was soon observed that very manyof their brethren of the South had receding foreheads,immense mouths, exceeding ly thick l ip-s, and flat

,shape

less noses.

After remaining about two weeks in camp, orders cameone day to occupy Fort Pi ckering

,just below the city .

Like nearly al l localities for any time occupied by troops,unless extraordinary precautions are taken ,

this post was

fi lthy and repulsive in, the extreme . Meantime snow fell,

cold weather came on,and some most unpleasan t days

were passed, and, to make matters worse, the hea lth of

many began to fa il .

O ur mess numbering about eight persons, occupied a

Sibley tent not far f rom the river bank . A Sibley tentis round at the base, having in its middle a center pole,toward which the canvas slopes ‘

from every di rection,

forming a perfect cone. The location o f this tent on the

high bluff next the river gave the wind ful l sweep, andthe swaying of the canvas and flapping of the ropes wasanything but pleasant

,especially

, at n ight .

Merry B ut on a Serious Errand.57

Fort Pickering was at this period surrounded by earthworks with cannon al l along at proper intervals. At the

date of occupancy the works were constantly being

strengthened by the use of the spade and shovel . Most

of this work was done by negroes, who wer e fed and

paid by the Governmen t.After a time came an order for our regiment to dopatrol duty in the city . This necessitated the breakingup o f the regiment into squads

,who,

for the time, found

quart ers and did duty in various parts of the city . The

company to which I belonged found quarters in a largebrick block 1 not far from the river, In this bui lding were

holes made by cannon shot,thrown during the naval

engagement the 6th o f Jun e previous.

Various were the dut i es performed ; at one time it wasguarding a steamboat at the wha rf ; at another, goods at

the levee ; again ,it was standing in the rain some dark

night at some cheerless corner, for what, no one couldsay ; then ,

maybe,w ith an officer and a number of men,

i t was a tramp, begun after bedtime, to the suburbs, all

quietly ; a sort of scouting expedition that always endedin weary legs and good appetites for breakfast .

About this time General Sherman organized,at M em

phis, an army to advance on Vicksburg, and the wharfwas lined with steamboats loading with provisions, mun itions of war

, and a little later, men . O ne day a grea tmany boats loaded with soldiers left the landing and

steamed down the river . 1 11 was known to all that therewas to be a fight

,and I remember looking at the many

men tha t crowded the decks of these steamers as the

bells ran-

g, signaling the engineers to put on steam,when

1 Brad ley Block .


the wheels began slow ly turn ing, lashing and churn ing

the water n earby ; the boats gently swung round withtheir prows down stream,

then getting out in to the main

channel,a full head of steam was turned on ; that

heaving sound, characteristic of a boat under ful l headway , began ; and the men raised their hats and cheered

w i ldly and long.

They seemed more bent on a pleasure excursion than

to give battle and meet a det ermined and powerful foe.

I remember looking at them in this jolly moo d, and won

dering how many of the merry ones would soon find a

grave on a battlefield, and what number would return

maimed and wounded . Not very long was i t when wordcame that Sherman had been repulsed at Vicksburg, andin a little while after

,whole boat loads o f wounded sol

diers came up from below .

About the middle of January, 1 863, a comrade of mine,a warm friend

,was taken seriously sick and had to be

removed to our regimental hospital . That he might have

special care and be made as comfortable as possible, Iaccompan ied him thither and remained with him somew eeks, ti ll his f riends came from the North'

and took himhome to die.

Becoming acquainted with the surgeons in charge andliking them, and not caring for the irregular and mixedduti es of a soldi er left about the city, I was induced torema in and become a regular hospital attache . The

bu i lding occupied was a double frame structure, havinga partition from front to rear through the center, withno doors of communi cation . It was two stories high, andupstai rs and down had wide porches the whole width ofthe bui lding. O n either side of the partition were tworooms, one in front and one in rear, and a hallway with

A Discouraging Outlook .59

a flight o f stai rs that led to the second story, arrangedprecisely like the lower. O ne side of the partition , with its

four rooms, was occupied by the s ick—each room formed

a separate ward, and for three mon ths during the winter

of 1862-3 these apartmen ts were literal ly crowded w iththe sick from my regiment . T he other side of the partition; was occupied for offi ces and used as storage- rooms.

Back o f the main building and adjo in ing thereto was along

,low structure used as a ki tchen and dining-room .

There was a great dea l of sickness and many deathsthis winter. T he most fatal disease was measles. Qui te

a proportion o f the new ly- en listed men had n ever hadmeasles

, and among this class that disease played havoc .

A number of great strapping fellows were soon attacked

with it, some of whom die-d

,others became perman ent

invalids and were discharged, and a few lost thei r voices

or had defective eyesight or hearing. So much for theravages o f a disease in the army that in civi l l i fe is con

sidered a comparatively mild malady .

Perhaps no period o f l ike duration w as more discouraging to the Un ion cause than the w inter o f 1862-3. The

Army o f the Potomac, unde r Burnside, had met with

terrible disaster at Fredericksburg, Va . ,December 13

,

1862 ; Sherman had been repulsed with severe loss thesame month at Vicksburg

, and December 31 , the last dayof the year, and January 1 , 1 863, was fought the bloodybattl e of Stone’s River, or Murfreesboro, between theUn ion forces under General Rosecrans and the Con fedcrates under General Bragg, either side losing in killedand wounded eight to ten thousand men, and neitherwinn ing decisive v i ctory .

A n unusua l amount o f serious si ckness prevai ledthroughout the armies that w inter . O ne reason p ossibly,


was the great amount of rain fal l, parti cularly in thewestern and southwestern field of operations. Another

was the very large accession of new troops. For six

months after en listment a new regiment has to pass

through a sort of winnowing process, in which the chaff ,so to speak

,is separated from the wheat ; when the

weaklings, the soft

,tender

, susceptible ones, either die,or

,becoming unfit for duty, are discharged , leaving the

command w ith a lot o f tri ed men , as it were—a veritable“survival of the fittest .Anyway

,the winter of 1862-3 was one of peculiar

discouragement to Union people . Nearly al l w ith whom

I came in contact at this period,most o f whom were

soldiers,seemed to feel this. In and about Memphis

sickness of a serious character prevai led among thetroops all winter .The regimen tal hospital was on one o f thema in streets

,

and from its front window s several times dai ly cou ld beseen a slowly-moving ambulan ce within which was a pin e

coffin contain ing the dead body of a soldier, preceded bya mi litary band playing a dirge, and followed by a squado f soldiers with reversed arms. Further on in the suburbs was the soldiers’ burying ground .

Erysipelas prevailed as an epidemic, and many suf

fered terribly from this disease . When it attacked theface, its favorite site, the features were horribly swollenand distorted, the eyes closed, and when all was paintedover with iodine, a frequent loca l remedy, the sufferer

’

s

countenan ce was as inhuman - like as can be imagined .

Erysipelas, measles, rheumatism,ty phoid fever, dy sen

tery and other fatal troubles carri ed off many men dur

ing the winter . For a time scarce a day passed but oneor more men died at our regimental hospital . A s one


the wards n eatly dressed, with her hair combed smoothly

down over her face,as was then the fashion , and a pleas

ant smi l e lighting up her countenance, she seemed a

veritable angel of mercy ; and her mere presence broughtup visions of those near and dear in the far-off Northlan-d. To one i t was

,maybe

,a loving mother . To an

other,a kindly sister ; to yet another, a fai thful wi fe ;

and,perhaps, to one more, it was a devoted sweetheart .

B ut always the presence o f gen tle, kindly, tender woman

hood. Should the reader be of the mascul in e gender,and disposed to ti re of womankind, l et him get ri d of allher sex ; ban ish them from his presence for, say , a period

o f six months. Then ,i f at the end of that time his heart

does not fai rly l eap at the mere sight of a woman ’

s

ski rts, his experi ence w i l l be far diff erent from whatmine has been .

O ne n ight in February a poor soldier in the deliriumof typhoid fever

,during the temporary absence of the

atten dant, got up from his cot,sl ipped out of the door

and, on the return of the nur se,could be found nowhere

in the bui lding . Next day he was heard of at his com

pany quarters in a distant part of the city,to whi ch he

had made his way in the dead of n ight,through six

inches of snow with the delirium of a burning fever uponhim.

About the middle of February signs of spring beganto show themselves in that gen ial cl imate . Grass became

green , peach trees blossomed, bees came out and birdscame around . Sitting on the upper front porch one dayand looking toward the river

,not many rods away, two

or three gunboats were seen to approach the little village

of Hopedale,2 j ust Opposite Memphis, on the Arkansas

2 Now West Memphis.

“Poor H opedale.

”63

shore ; they did not land, but pretty soon turn ed away

and took position in the middle of the river, from which

point a number of shel ls w ere thrown into the village

an-d soon Hopedale was in flames. It seemed this place

had been a sort of rallying point for gueri llas, bushwhackers and other i rregu la r Con federate soldiers and

to stop their incursions Hopedale had been ordered

burned, a fter, o f course, first warn ing the inhabi tants.

All this I remember reading in a Memphis dai ly o f the

time, and an editorial upon i t closed with the words

“Poor Hopedal e”—war’s fortunes for the time convertedit into a H opeless-dale.

Not far from t he Arkansas shore, in the river, werethe spars and rigging of the sunken General B eauregard,a Con federate vessel lost in the naval battle before

Memphis in June, 1862.

A s the beauti ful weather of spring approached , inl eisure hours most en joyable walks were taken about the

city. Nowhere was the soft spring air more pleasure

giving than in a little park near the business part of thecity—name forgotten . In this was a statue of General

Jackson,having engraved upon the marble pedestal the

hero’s well-known words ! “The Federal Union—it must

and shall be preserved ! ” This patriotic sentiment wastoo much for the eyes o f some miserable vandal , and theword “Federal ” had been obliterated with a chisel or

other sharp tool .I remember frequent atten dan ce at an Episcopal

Church in the city. The pastor had but one eye , and

was a very plain man in appearance,but was an able

preacher, Here I first saw General J . B . M cPherson .

His division was at the time encamped near the city, andhe improved the opportun ity for attendance at a church


which is said to be a favorite denomination with regular

army offi cers. His handsome person , graceful carriageand afl

’able mann

-ers are well remembered .

In the early part o f the winter a great many troopswere encamped about the city . Most o f these were latermoved to the vicin ity of Vicksburg. While Sherman was

making a di rect a ttack on Vicksburg by the river inDecember

,1862

,Grant was moving a cc-operating force

through the interior, but the capture of his supplies at

Holly Springs,December 29, caused an abandonmen t of

the cc—operating enterprise . Gran t was seriously cen

sured at the time by many in his own department, and Iremember vigorously defending him at this period f romthe charges of drunkenness, incompetency, etc. , made by

a fellow soldier . It turned out that the abandonment o f

the line intended to be occupied by the cc-operating col

umn was fortunate, as the subsequent flooded condition

of the streams would have made the escape of the com

mand next to impossible .

About the time Grant withdrew from this l ine there

was much f ea r of an attack at Memphis from the Con

federates. O ne day a comrade came running into quarters saying General Bragg was just without the city with'

an army o f ten thousand men,and had demanded its

surrender . I was at that time in the ranks, and, like

n early all soldiers, often played at cards for pastime . At

this very jun cture I had in my breast pocket a long-used

pack of cards, and, of course, they were dirty and much

soiled . O ne of the first things I did was to remove

these,for how would it sound should I fa ll in battle to

have it said ! “In his breast pocket was found”—not the

Bible his mother handed him upon l eaving home and

General Gran t as he looked dur ing theV icksburg Campaign .

(S ee page 68)

—“B ut a Deck of Cards.

”65

bade him always carry in his knapsack, nor yet the picture o f his aflianced but a deck of cards.

”

Well,the cards were removed, but I didn

’t fall ; didn’t,

indeed,have a chance to, for General Bragg didn

’t come

near, nor ask the surrender of the city.

CHA PTER V I I .

THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN .

With mortal heat each other must pursue ;What wounds, what slaughter shal l ensue.

DRYDEN.

VICKSBURG was called the '

Gibraltar of the West. It

was certain ly the greatest stronghold on the Mississippi

River, and after the fall of the defenses above and the

capture of Forts St . Phillip and Jackson , near the mouth ,with the consequent fal l o f New Orleans, Vicksburg became the key to the further obstruction of the river bythe Confederates. After the failure of Sherman ’

s attackin 1862, a rendezvous for troops was made at Milliken

’

s

Bend,L a. ,

twenty mi les above Vicksburg .

After the non-success of various plans for the captureo f the coveted stronghold , Grant, in the spring of 1863,resolved to get position on the river below by marchinghis army across the pen insula, in Louisiana, opposi te

Vicksburg, formed by an abrupt bend in the Mississipp i .For this expedition preparations were begun in March .

Toward the latter part of this month my regiment wasordered aboard a boat for Vicksburg. Getting all readyand loaded consumed a whole day , and as n ight drewnear a severe snowstorm came up . The boat got underway about midn ight . Next morning the storm had sub

sided and the sun came out warm and bright.O n the way several gunboats were passed and always

spoken to as they patrolled the river, and knew points

where passing vessels were most liable to be fired into by

guerrillas. The sai lors on the gunboats always seemed

(66)


of his height, and was, moreover, a l ittle stoop- shoul

dered . He wore a short,stubby

, slightly reddish-brown

beard, and his whole appearance was modest and unas

suming.

From the lips of the late Reverend W . G . Pierce, who

served as Chaplain of the 77th I llinois In fan try, I hadthe fol low ing ! In the fall of 1862 Grant’s army was in

camp for a time, and the chaplains of a certain division

were desirous of holding a series of religious meetings,but the weather was cool and the men did not like to sit

out in the open during services. Nearby was a typicalSouthern meeting-house

,

”

but un fortunately for thoseinterested, i t was occupi ed by General Gran t for his

headquarters. I f that building could only be procured,the meetings could be held . In the con ference that washeld some one suggested that General Grant was very

obliging and maybe could be induced to let the building

be used as desi red,and finally it was arranged that

Chaplain Pierce should“ call on General Gran t and make

known the wishes of the religious people in the division .

With a good deal of trepidation the errand was undertaken

,and when its obj ect was made known to Gen eral

Gran t he very obligingly said ! “Why , y es, Chaplain , you

can j ust as well have this bui lding as not ; and as for ourthings in here now , we can move them to a large tent wehave . ” General Rawlins

,General Gran t’s chie f-of—staff,

overheard the conversation,and when he realized what

was about to be done began making the ai r blue withoaths ; and, meantime , pai d his peculiar respects to

the division chaplains as on ly he could do . With a quietsmi le General Grant said ! Never mind

,Chaplain

,we

keep Raw lins here to do our swearing.

” Then reachingfor pen and paper he wrote an order directing that the

A Chaplain’

s Story .69

church be vacated, and that i t be put at the service of

the chaplains. o f the division .

1

In our Hospita l department a large ten t had been putup, and in this, upon co ts, the sick were made as com

fortable as possible . O ne thing they certain ly had inabundance was fresh air . The water used came from

the Mississippi , which at the time was very high, and

there was so much sediment that a bucket dipped in the

current would be fi lled with water which , after standingfor a time, would have more than an inch of “

settlings”

in the bottom. But the natives insisted MississippiRiver

water was healthy, and a fter sedimentation i t was cer

tainly pl easant to drink .

Pretty soon after the review came an order to move—“marching orders. T he si ck were directed to be all

taken to a hospital boat, by which they would be takenup the river . Accordingly, they were put in ambulancesand taken to the place designated .

I have several times made use of the word ambulance

this, to the reader whose memory does not reach ba ck toCivil War t ime, may need explanation . An ambulance

,

then ,is simply a light vehicle on springs with a shal low

bed and a strong canvas cover overhead . The ba ck endgate worked on hinges at the bottom,

so i t co uld be instantly let down and the very sick

,or badly in j ured

,

slipped out,and not lifted over avoidable obstructions.

(See pages 133,A s before said, the sick w ere put into ambulances, such

as were abl e sitting on their rolled up blankets, those verysick lying upon thei rs, spread out . A train of ambu

1 This anecdote has never before been in print and its truthcan be vouched for .

- C . B . J .


lances, loaded with sick,made a dreary procession , but

at the head o f one of these it was my duty to lead the

way to a hospital boat, named,if my memory serves

me well,the D . A . January . Each sick man , when taken

aboard, had his name checked . The name, rank, com

pany, regiment, brigade, etc . , were given carefully to the

authorities on the boat.

After the sick were aboard and made com fortable, Itook occasion to look about the boat and was much

pleased . Although I had frequently visi ted the well-kept

general hospitals of Memphis, never had I seen all ar

rangemen ts for the sick so comfortable and convenient .Then the constant moving o f the boat

,insuring con tinu

ous change o f ai r,could not fail to be specially ben eficial .

About the middle of Apri l the whole command broke

camp and started on the march . O ur regiment wasbrigaded with five or six others, and had been assigned

to General A . J . Smith ’

s Division o f the ThirteenthArmy Corps .

A brigade was made up of from three to six or seven

regimen ts ; a division o f from two to four or fivebrigades

,and an army corps of f rom two to five divi

sions.

Every regiment had two or three ambulances to carrythe sick or disabled, several wagons to haul the tents and

other camp equipage . A s the war progressed, however,and the men gained experienc e in the field

, the amount

of baggage was reduced to a min imum, and every man

found it to his advantage to get along with the l east pos

sible in the way o f clothing whi le in the field .

T o each brigade was attached a battery . These, when

complete, had six cannon and six caissons—ammun i tionwagon s— to each of which were attached six horses. It

On the March. 7 1

w i ll be thus seen that a division , with its men marching

in not very close ranks, its ambulances, wagons, batteries,etc. , necessari ly occupied a good deal of space when on

the road . But, in addition ,there was always a train of

wagons besides, containing provisions, ammun ition and

n ecessary extra suppli es.

To get this long line of men ,wagons, batteries, etc ,

in

proper order and in motion was no little task, and o ften

consumed no little time and necessitated many fal se

starts and sudden halts. To al l this,how ever

,the men

soon became accustomed, and in a little whi le made gooduse of every halt by taking all the rest thus afforded ,Most of the section of coun try traversed was low , and

the roa ds, when not overflown ,were either quite muddy

or else very rough. Indeed,in many places roads had

to be made and bri dges built ; frequently, however, theroad ran along the top of the levee, as before stated .

The first day’

s march took the command to Richmond,L a.

,a sma l l town n early west of Vicksburg, and the n ext

to Holmes’ plantation, a large tract of land belonging to

General Holmes o f the Con federate Army. Here a stop

of several days was made, and from a letter written by

me Sunday,April 1 9

,the fo llowing extract is made !

“There are a great many fine plantations through here ;indeed, through this part of the country there is nothingelse but fine ones. Most of these have from thirty tofifty negro houses (quarters) on them . The planterusually lives in a one—story house with porches all aroundit. The plantations

,though

, are mostly deserted, on ly afew negroes remain ing . It has been on ly three or fourweeks since the fi rst Federal troops came in here . O ne

month ago the Secesh thought they were entirely sa fehere, but they were mistaken .


Corn (April 19) is six inches high and has been

plowed once ; the forest is as green as i t will be this year ;roses and nearly all flowers are in full bloom.

“We are now encamped on a plantation own ed by a

man named Holmes—now a General in the Secesh Army.

This place contains n ine hundred acres, and is the smal l

est o f four belonging to Holmes . He also owns four

steamboats on the Mississi ppi River. On this plantation

is a fine mi ll . Down here they have cotton-gins, gristand sawmi lls all unden one roof . ”

The n ight of Apri l 1 6,1863

,the six gunboats, B enton,

L ouisville,L afayette, M ound City and Carondolet, and

the three transports, Forest Queen, Silver Wave and

Henry Clay , ran by the,

Vicksburg batteri es—ran the

blockade,as we put it . The transports w ere loaded with

army stores ; their boilers were protected with cottonbal es and bales of hay , and each had in tow one or more

barges loaded with coal . Every vessel was struck a num

ber of times, but none, save the H enry Clay , received

vital in jury .

Regarding this occurrence the fo llowing extract istaken from a letter of Apri l 19, 1863, a lso written at

Holmes’ plantation ,about twenty mi les west of Vicks

burg !“We are to march again in a few days ; are go ing toCarthage, which is on the river below Vicksburg, Most

of the heavy things, such as large tents, commissarystores, etc .

, were taken aboard transports to be conveyeddown the river . These

,of course

,had to run the block

ade at Vicksburg, and this they did last Thursday night

(Apri l There were six gunboats and three t ransports. We heard the firing very distinctly . O ne t ransport was burned .

U. S . Army Hospital Steamer D . A . January . (FromMed ical and Surgical H istory of the Civi l War . )

Interior of Hospital Boat . Cots made-up for

reception of patients.

(See page 70)


a drizzling rain began falling,but the men manched along

as merry as could be,singing, whistl ing and cracking

jokes. B ut,after a time, the pitchy darkness, w etting

rain and ro-ugh roads took the merriment out of everyone, and the march was continued till about 1 or 2o’clock A .M . ,

when our regiment was ha lted by the sideof a rai l fence

,and in a little time I was sl eeping sw eetly

on two fence rai ls for , perhaps, two hours and a half ,when some coff ee was hastily made and drank, and the

ma rch resumed at daylight. It sti ll rained, and the roadswere horrible

,but the march was kept u-

p all day , while

the weather continued cloudy and rain fell at intervals.

The country passed through was uninviting, and the badroads and unpleasant day make the memory of this timeanything but pleasan t. Wagons and artillery stalled, andhorses and mules mi red down , and all had to be pulled

and lifted out by hand .

Night at last came, and I remember feeling too ti red

even to sleep . Coff ee was made and plenty of this drank ,and in a short time ren ewed strength seemed to come .With the coff ee was eaten hard bread and salt pork .

T he pork was cut in thin slices, one of which was put

on the end of a sharp-pointed stick and toasted . When

one had marched all day this was eaten with relish, as

was the hard bread that,in camp

, was most unpal atable .

The ground was wet and thoroughly saturated w ith

water, and to meet this condition of things, l ittle boughs

were broken off the trees and thrown on the ground

upon these, rubber and woo len blankets were spread, andthe sw eetest sl eep imaginable obtained .

The sun came out bright and warm next day , and for

a long distance the road lay along the west bank of Lake

St . Joseph , a most beautiful sheet of water, said to have

The“Sunny South.

”75

been once the bed of the Mississippi . Upon the borders

of this lake were several handsome residences. Two of

unusual elegan ce are in pa rticular cal led to mind ; onebelonged to a Dr . Bowie, and was furn ished in most

elaborate style . This, as well as the other fine residences,was vacated by the owner . The Bowie house was

burned, some weeks later

,about the time Sherman ’

s

corps came through that region .

Along the lake’s western bank the road wound in frontof most delightful homes, whi le its eastern shore was

overhung by noble forest trees, and these had long festoons of moss han ging gracefully from their boughs.

Many flowers,shrubs and trees were seen with which

Northern eyes were un fami l iar ; these gave the r egion a

hal f tropica l appea ran ce . In this delightful spot, with

the air soft,ba lmy and filled with the fragrance of

flowers,birds singing

,and so much to please the senses,

I thought I never had looked upon so much o f blooming,sunny

,delicious

,glorious nature . It was, indeed, a per

feet specimen o f the Sunny South—a real little paradise, and as such was, no doubt, regarded by its wealthyresidents, who only a few weeks before felt as secure

from invasion as the residen ts of the North .

The region being in a great degree isolated, in a low

level section of country tha t had to be‘

protected fromoverflow by levees was, particularly in a season remarkable for high water

,deemed safe from all invasion ,

i fnot

, indeed, proof aga inst it . But the persistent Granthad decreed it otherw ise, and now long and formidablecolumns of energetic and hardy Northerners were making their way through the very heart of this enchan tingcountry.

7 6 Mashets and Medicine.

So impenetrable was the locality deemed by the Con

federates that Pemberton ,i t was sa id, to the last per

sisted in the belief that the. movement was not in force

and was on ly a feint, and intended as a diversion froma serious attack on Vicksburg from some other qua rter.The 29th of Apri l the Mississippi was reached at HardTimes Landing, n ear ly opposite Grand Gulf . Just below

the latter place is De Shroon’

s plan tation ,and thither the

column marched after a short stop at Hard Times. Theline led in sight o f Grand Gul f, into which our gunboatswere seen throw ing shells ; the firing was very deliberate,and at the time was not responded to by the Con fedcrates. The navy, however, failed to reduce the works.

About troops , belonging to the ThirteenthCorps, had gone aboa rd transports at New Carthage,some twenty or thirty mi les above . A landing place for

these was sought above Grand Gul f , on the Mississippiside

,but none being foun d

,they debarked at Hard Times

after n ightfall, and qui etly marched across the pen insula,

on the Louisiana shore, opposite the rebel strongho ld .

Mean time,the navy engaged the Con federate batteri es,

dur ing which the loaded tran sports ran by. My regiment was encamped a few miles below , and the can

nonading made a terrific noise . Whether it came from

the heavy cal iber of the gun s engag ed or from the

peculiar state of atmosphere , I cannot say , but never did

the terrific din of cannonading strike my ears with such

force . Every shot,too

,seemed to have a peculiar ring

ing sound that was piercing in its effects upon the organs

o f hearing. A s befor e stated,my regiment encamped the

n ight of the 29th o f April at De Shroon ’

s plantation ,

below Grand Gul f, on the river .

Crossing the Mississippi. 77

Very early on the morn ing o f April 30 the gunboats

and transports, both al ive with soldiers, were seen on

the river. These moved over towards the Mississippi

shore, and I remember almost shuddering with fear lest

they would be fired into from the adjoining hills. Theboats all moved down the river about six mi les and

landed at Bruinsburg.

The Hospital department of our regimen t did not go

aboard a boat ti ll n ear nightfal l,and having been in

formed that al l would remain on board over n ight,and

feeling much fatigued, I , besi de a compan ion , stretchedmysel f upon two cotton bal es lying si de by side and slept

sweetly till early dawn ,when i t was found that the boat,

having dropped down the river during the night, was thentied up at Bruinsburg. Word was received to join our

regiment at once,then in l ine upon the shore and ready

to march inland, where it was said a battle was alreadyin progress.

CHA PTER V I I I .

O UR FIRST B A TT L E .

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife ;T he mom the marshaling in arms

—BYRON .

WH ILE the fleet o f gunboats under Commodore Porterat Gran d Gul f, below Vicksburg, engaged the enemy, andM cClearnand

’

s corps was seeking a landing n earby, uponthe same date, Apri l 29, 1863, Sherman debarked ten

regiments above Vicksburg on Yazoo River at Haines’

Bluff, as i f to attack the latter place, while at the same

time it was bombarded by eight gunboats.

The whol e demonstration at Haines’ Bluff, however,was on ly a feint intended to con fuse the enemy and

divert his attention from the real point of atack at Grand

Gulf .

The Thirteen th Corps eff ected a landing at Bruinsburg, Miss ,

April 30,and early on the mo rning of

'

M ay

1 met most of Grand Gul f Garrison (Con federate) under General Bow en

,seven mil es in land from B ruinsburg

and within five miles of Port Gibson , the most importanttown in that vicin ity and located on Bayou Pierre . T he

Federals were upon the southern side of this stream. To

reach them the Grand Gul f Garrison had to cross thebayou and, as the water in the stream was at the time

high, they were obliged to go to the only bridge in thevicin ity

,namely

,the one at Port Gibson ,

but much out

of thei r way.

It had been the hope of the Federals to secure pos

session o f this bridge before the arrival of the Con fed

(78)

We Lose Our Cash. 79

crates ; and i t was the hope of the latter to meet the invading column at or very near the landing place

,Bruins

burg.

B ut neither side had its wish gratified ; the Con fedcrates reached the bridge at Port Gibson , crossed upon

it, and pushed five miles beyond toward the river, whenthei r further course was interrupted by the Federals inforce on high ground . So much for what immediatelypreceded the battl e of Port Gibson . A s narrated in theprevious chapter, the n ight of Apri l 30 I had slept besidea companion aboard a river boat upon two bales of cotton , and at early dawn ,

next morn ing, went ashore withthis compan ion and j oined our regiment, then falling inl ine two or three hundred yar ds distant . I had just

reached our regiment when, putting my hand in mypocket, I found that three or four dol lars in money, al lI had, was gone . I spoke of my misfortune, and t e

ceived a lecture fromWigton ,my compan ion of the night

previous, and some twenty-five or thirty years my senior .“Just like you,

”

he began ;“always losing something.

Your carelessness will be the ruin of you yet . I’

m

thinkin’ you’ll lose your head one of these days.

”

A s the firing from the battle, then in progress a fewmi les away, could already be heard, the last and greatestacciden t was not at all an impossibi l ity.

However,as the command was in the heart of the

enemy’s coun try and was j ust on the point of cu tting

loose from its base of Suppli es, I felt as though I couldnot give up my lost money without making an effort tofind i t. Lea rn ing that a few momen ts wou ld elapse

before the command would start, I ran ba ck to the boat,made my way to the bales of cotton ,

and turn ing themabout, had stooped over and was looking aroun d care


fully,thinking maybe the pocketbook had slipped from

my pocket , when a voice just behind was heard cal lingmy name

, and asking !

Have you found you-r pocketbook ! I declare, mine’

s

Looking up, who did I see but Wigton ,my comrade

o f the night previous, who only a moment before was

chi ding me for my i ll- fortune and negligence . It wasclear now that! someone had stolen both pocketbooks

whi le thei r owners s lept .

T he joke on Wigton ,how ever

,was too good to keep ,

and i t was many a day be fore his compan ions let him

hear th e last of it . Poor Wigton ; his beard was quitegray

,and, for one in active service, he was quite old, but

he was a brave, true soldier, andwhen last seen was verylame and hobbling about on crutches with a prospect ofremain ing so from a wound received in the Red RiverExpedition in the spring of 1864.

Just before starting on the march each man receivedin his canteen a little whiskey. The regiment had neverbeen in battl e, and whether this was given to supply themwith extra courage or whether it was thought the enforced march about to be entered upon required the useof stimulan ts, is not known . But whatever the int en tionmay have been ,

no good came from the whiskey, and

before night several in our regiment were foolishly drunk .

When all was ready we started off at a brisk pace to

ward the rising sun ,j ust visibl e through the tree tops,

For two miles the road ran through the river bottom ,

then up a long hill of red clay,next by qui et farm

houses and cultivated fields, through pretty wooded

groves and up quiet lanes, al l bearing the ma rks of peace,


and then the command turned to the left of the mainroad

,passed forward through corn fields, and, at last,

halted a l ittle way from the top of, and partly down a

hill,in a field of growing corn .

At this time the fi ring on this part of the field wasdesultory

,bullet s whistling past all the while, but no

volleys were fired . Two hundred yards in front of ourregimen t was a branch and beyond was a cane-brakeand thick timber . We were resting quietly, facing thecan e-brake

,when al l at once without warning, a vol ley

of bullets struck the ground all about us, but, st range

to say , on ly one man was wounded, and he, in the hand,but slightly. Although the volley did so l ittle execution

the men were much excited and wanted to fire in return,

but this was forbidden by the offi cers.

At this juncture some one from the top of the hillcried out !

“Shell the woods, and in less time than i t

takes to tel l it our brigade battery was brought to the

top o f the hill and was soon throwing grape and cannis

ter over the heads of our regiment into the dense timber

A s soon as the battery ceased firing the wounded manwas turned over to me to be taken back to our first aid

station under the charge of First Assistan t Surgeon

David Wilkins , and loca ted j ust back of the firing- lin e.

Proceeding on this errand, I reached the top of the hil l

f rom which our br igade battery, the Chicago Mercaniti le

,for a few moments shelled the woods in our

f ront,when a long came three mounted officers, who

proved to be General Grant, Commander of the Army ofthe Tenn essee ; General John A . M cClernand, Corn

mander of the Thirteent h Army Corps, of whi ch wewere an integral part ; and General John A . Logan in

A Swearing Genera l . 83

command o f a division in the Seventeenth Army Corps,and now known as the

“Prince of Vo lun teer Soldiers.

”

No sooner had these officers reached the rear of theMercanti le Battery than General Logan raised in his

stirrups, and in a clarion voice demanded“Who in the h—l and d— nation ordered that batteryto fire on that timber ! My division is over there, and

by I ’l l hold somebody respon sible for this ! ”

No one gave answer to General Io gan’

s red-hot in

qui ry, and in a momen t he, General M cClern-and and

General Grant, r ode out of sight . After properly dispos

ing of the wounded man I turned about to return to thefront and came upon the dead body of an arti llerymanwho had fal len in the very spot I had occupied a moment

before. Passing on ,I found my regiment had advan ced,

and going forward over a' hill,a bullet struck a young

sycamo re not far from my head . Later, we learned that

Con federate sharp-shooters took position in trees, wherethey were protected by the foliage, and picked off

any o f our men who came in sight, and, doubtless, one

of these drew a bead on me as I was crossing the browof the hill .

Advancing, I came upon a regiment par t of the way

down hill, and in their front shells from the enemy’scannon were falling

,and could be seen coming through

the air . The sun was getting low ,and I had not yet

reached my regimen t when I came upon four men carrying a stretcher upon which was Captain W . H . Johnson 1

of our regiment, who had received an ugly flesh woundin the gluteal region f rom a cannister Shot. The party

1 Captain W . H . Johnson, Company H, 139th I l l inois Infan tryVolunteers.


was con ducted to a fa rm-house,wher e the woun ded man

was m-ade comfortable, and later reached his regiment atVicksburg

,meant ime making a good recovery from his

inj ury .

The coun try all about Grand Gul f, Miss, . is hilly and

broken up into ravines and ho llow s. A little west ofPort Gibson the road to the river divi des, and two roadways, for a number of miles, follow along two lines ofridges.

Upon either of these roads General Bowen ,in com

mand of the Con federate forces, took position five miles

from Port Gibson the n ight o f April 30,1863. Here he

encountered the Federals M ay 1 , was driven back w i th

considerable loss, and just before n ight made a stand

with a sma l l part of his force two mil es from Port Gibson ,while his main army retreated . During the n ight of

May 1 the last Con federate withdrew beyond Bayou

Pierre,and the bri dge behind was burn ed .

T he same n ight the Federals slept on their arms,wi th

orders to renew the confl ict early in the morn ing. Whenmorn ing came

,however

,it was found there was no

en emy near .

T he n ight of May 1 , 1863, is as indelibly impressed onmy memory as the previous day’

s ba ttl e . Through the

day the excitement,the novelty of being for the first

time under fire,the many strange an d interesting things

inciden t to ba ttle , made the whole experi ence rather

pleasurable than otherwise . But night brought anything

but pleasurable experi ences. A s before stated, the knap

sacks, blankets and all o f the kind had been left behind.

A nd as the n ights in the South, even in the warmest

weather,are cool, much discom fort was expe rienced for

wan t o f something in the way of covering. A rubber

“Glory” from a I A .M . Viewpoint. 85

blanket was shared with a companion ,but this seemed to

catch all the dew and moisture there was in the atmos

phere, and from its surface was‘

absorbed by one’s cloth

ing .

~Under the circumstances sleep was bro-ken,and in

wakeful hours my mind natural ly dwelt upon the horriblein the previous day’s history . Thoughts something as

follows had free course through my brain“Well

, our regiment for six months ha s been wanting

to be in a battle, and now it’

s been in one, and not a hard

one either ; but there is probably not a man but next time

wil l cheerfully take some other fellow ’

s word for it and

stay out himsel f, if he can do so honorably. Then thosedead fellows were lying besi de the road just like they

were slaughtered hogs or sheep ! A nd besides, how

pit eously the wounded moaned, and how horrible theirpoor ma imed limbs and gaping wounds looked . There

may be lots of glory in war, but i t isn’t so radian t nor

very apparen t at about 1 o’clock the next morn ing after

a ba ttle . ”

How ever, the morn ing’s sun o f M ay 2 came up warm,

bright and beautiful ; some strong coff ee was taken , when

word came in tha t the Con federates were badly defeated

the day before, and had all reti red f rom our front ; and

that we w ere to follow immediately. At this time a

young Con federate so ldier turn ed up, but from just

where no one kn ew . O ne o f our surgeons, however,tapped him on the shoulder, saying !

“You are my pris

oner. ” He,l ike Barkis, was

“w ill in , and was at once

turned over to the proper authori ti es.

All fell in line and were soon on the road to Port Gib

son . A little way along the route,the place where the

Con federates made thei r last stand was seen ; this wasat the top of a hill . By the roadside, near a pil e of


rails, lay a dead Con federate , He seemed to have been

a tall,lanky fellow

, a typ ical specimen , and though theweather was as warm as June in the North, there wasyet on his head a heavy fur cap . A little farther on ,

under a mulberry tree, lay the body o f a good- looking

young Con fede rate . He was rotund in figure,and had

on wha t seemed to be a new suit of gray j eans. Already

the blue flies were hovering about the‘

dead body ; but hislate en emies

,thus soon becoming fami liar with viol ent

forms o f !death, complacen tly gathered mulberri es f romthe tree above him . Most of the Confederate dead w ere

sai d to have been coll ect ed be fore the retreat and buried

in a ravine . Those seen were wha t fell from the few

left behind to cover the retreat . Thus, a few scattereddead Federal soldiers by the roadside were seen when

coming upon the battlefield eighteen hours before, and

now severa l Con federate dead, fal len by the wayside,were come upon when l eaving the field of stri fe— a few

fal ling rain- drops precede a thunder shower, and some

scattering rain-drops aga in betoken its close .About 9 o’clock Port Gibson was reached and found

to be a pretty little town . Over two or three houses red

flags w ere flying,thus indica ting that the buildings w ere

occupied as hospitals. At the door of one of these an

attaché was met who seemed friendly and talkative . B e

ing an enl isted Con federate soldier, he was an enthu

siastic Southerner, and said“No

, you n ever will take Vicksburg in the world . It

will turn out just like your O n to Richmond. T he South

w i ll gain her independence, and Southern Illinois and

Southern Indiana will yet become a part o f the Con

federacy .

A n En thusiastic Confederate.

His notions about Indiana and I llinois w ere evidently

obta ined at a very early period in the war , and badly

needed readjustment . When asked i f he thought failure

to subdue the South would be for want of valor in the

Federal soldiers, he answ ered !“Not in you ,

men , you are from the West, and West

ern soldiers will fight,but East ern so ldi ers won ’t . ”

Here was another notion obtain-ed early in the war

( concern ing Eastern so ldiers) that sorely needed revision .

This man was dressed in j eans of the prescribed gray

hue, he talked quite int elligen tly, and di-d not have the

Southern accent, but among other things,hooted de

risively at Lincoln’

s Emancipation Proclamation as

utterly futile,so far as any eff ect itwould have in free

ing the slave .The Federals

,at once

,set about extemporizing a

bridge across the bayou ; this was completed so that many

crossed that n ight and my regiment early next morn ing,when the lin e o f march was taken up in a general northern course f rom Port Gibson . This, the 3d of May , was

a beautiful Sabbath day , and many pleasant home- like

places were passed . Grant’s gain ing the battle of PortGibson and afterward promptly pushing his columns into

the interior, turned the Con federate works at Grand Gul fand caused thei r evacuation . These were promptly taken

possession of by our troops and made the base upon the

Mississippi side of the river instead of Bruinsburg.

Two or three days after leaving Port Gibson rationsgave out

, and the army was di rected to live off thecountry . The region was w ell- stocked with corn

,bacon

,

sheep, chicken s, turkeys, honey, etc. The corn was in

cribs, from which i t was taken ,shelled and carri ed to the

horse-mills, one of which was on nearly every plantation

,


where it was gro und into mea l . Every Southern er re

gards ‘his home incomplete w ithout a large and w ell

filled smoke-house . This is a rough outbuilding, consist

ing usual ly o f one room and gen erally without a floor,A s soon as cold weather comes it brings to the Southerner hog-kill ing time , w hen,

from ten to thi rty hogs are

butchered,the number depending on the size of the fam

i ly and thri ft of its head . The pork is first “salted

down ”

in brine and,after soaking for a time, hung up

to drip in the smoke-house . After a littl e while i t is

thoroughly smoked by ha ving under it for days a smothered fire made o f hickory . A fter going through this

process the meat becomes bacon, and in. the preparation

of the latter the Southerner has no equa l . H am taken

from his smoke—house is matchl ess in taste and quality .

Many smoke-houses were found fi lled with bacon ; others

were discovered that bore mar ks o f a hasty removal of

contents to some less conspicuous place for safe keeping.

O ften the mea t was buried or put in some reti red spot

in the woods, but, through a darky or some such means,

its hiding-place wa s in nearly al l instances sought out by

the persisten t Northerner s.

Home-made bacon was a favorite meat with the sol

diers, and for a time they en joy ed with it com bread,made from the freshly ground corn ! meal of the country .

Lamb,turkey

,chi cken and honey, for a

'

season ,made the

bill o f fare seem perfect . B ut the principal trouble of

subsisting an army off a country in this way is the great

improvidence o f the soldiers. There is mo re wasted than

eaten . How ever,for more than two weeks in M ay , 1 863,

Gran t’s a rmy, of from thirty to forty thousand men

,

lived bounti ful ly off the region east and southeast of

Vicksburg.

CHA PTER IX .

ATTACK ON VICK SBURG FROM T H E SOUTHAND EAST .

The neighb’

ring plains w ith arms are covered o’

er ;

T he vale an iron harvest seems to yield

IT had been Gran t’s intention,upon securing a foot

hold below Vicksburg,to detach part o f his command

and send it to Gen eral Ban ks at Port Hudson , whichplace the last-mentioned officer was about to besiege .But l earn ing that ten days would elapse before Banks

would be ready to commence active operations in the

vicinity of Port Hudson ,andimeeting with such gra ti fy

ing success at the battle o f Port Gibson ,with the couse

quen t evac uation of Grand Gul f, Grant resolved to pushfor the interior and threaten Vicksburg from the east

and southeast .

About the m iddle of May , 1863, General Joseph E .

Johnston came to Jackson,Miss ,

the State capital ,established his headqua rters there, and assumed generalcommand in the department . Johnston had under his

immediate command ten to fi fteen thousand troops. To

prevent the junction of these with the force under Pemberton at Vicksburg, became an immediate obj ect with

Grant. T he Seven teenth Corps,under General J . B .

McPherson , and Fi fteenth , under General W . T . Sherman ,

had follow ed the Thirteenth Corps fromMilliken ’

s

Ben d before the 10th of May, and were with Grant,southeast of Vicksburg.

(90)

“Glorious Bird ! ”

91

The second week in May the battle of Raymond wasfought

,twenty mil es west o f Jackson, between troops of

the Seventeenth Corps, mainly Logan

’

s Division,and

some of General Johnston ’

s command ; the latter were

defeated and returned to Jackson ,which place was soon

a fter attacked by Sherman ,and the troops defending it,

under Gen eral Johnston,beaten and driven North. All

this time the Thirteen th Co rps was hugging the eastern

bank o f the Big Black River. M cClernand,with the

Thi rteenth Corps, was thus on the left, M cPherson. in

the center, and Sherman on the right, all facing thenorth .

From the 3d o f M ay , when our regiment left PortGibson,

ti ll about the 13th o f that month, the part of thearmy we were with, General A . J . Smith’

s Division of

the Thi rteenth Corps,moved in a general northerly

course . Willow Springs, Rocky Springs, Cayuga and

Mount Auburn were several ly occupied,and among other

streams crossed were Big Sandy, Five Mile Creek and

Fourteen Mile Creek . At Cayuga the command, our

division ,halted for a day or two. It was now dry and

dusty,the immediate vicin ity was devoid of streams

,and

the on ly water avai lable was dipped from stagnant ponds,after the green scum covering them had been pushedaside . While here, towards the mi ddle of a hot sultryday , a division marched by on the dusty road, n ear whichSmith ’

s Division was en camped . Among the movingtroops was a Wisconsin regimen t which had a pet eagle .A perch was made for him upon a thin board cut in theform of a shield ; to this he was chained, and all was

bo rn e upon the shoul der o f a soldier . A s before said,the day was hot

,the roads were dusty, and the eagle,

with drooping feathers and a gen eral crestfallen appear


ance,looked anything but the Proud Bird he is sup

posed to be . Wonderful stori es concern ing the eag le

were,however, in circulation . Among other things it

was sa id that in time of ba ttle , when he was alwaysloosen ed

,he would soar above the men

,flap his wings,

hover about and scream w ith delight . The Wisconsin

regiment that had this “emblem of its country” becamenoted as the Eagle Regimen t,

”

At Auburn,Genera l Frank P. Blair’s Division joined

Smi th’s . Frank P . Blai r, before the war , was a prominent and vigorous opponent o f slavery

,and lived at St.

Louis,Mo. In the hardly-contested slavery discussions

that preceded the war many free—soi l speeches wer e madeby him

,and full reports o f these frequently appeared in

the M issouriD emocrat,the on ly paper of any prom inence

published in St . Louis that Opposed slavery . Blai r en

tered the army and proved a most effi cient officer .

Whi l e at Auburn word was received o f Hooker’s defeat—the Army of the Potomac—at Chancellorsville, the2d and 3d of M ay , 1 863.

O ur immedi ate command— Smi th’

s Division—movednorthward

,and about the 13th or 14th o f M ay crossed

Fourteen Mile Creek and en camped over night somemiles no rth of this stream . It was at the time under

stood that the en emy was not far off— in fact,they were

in force but five miles away,at Edward’

s Station ,on the

Vicksburg Jackson Rai l road .

All this. time the line o fmarch had l ed in a northerlydi rection , but early the next morn ing

,after encamping

north of Fourteen Mile Creek,the division faced about,

recrossed that stream, and final ly took a road eastwardfor Raymond . This place was reached late in the even

ing, and our regimen t went into camp some littl e dis


The Thirteen th Corps pursued them early on the

morning of the 1 7th of May , and before noon came upon

thei r fortifications on the Big Black River, where the

rai lway bridge crosses that stream. With the Hospital

departmen t I was behind with the trains. These movedvery deliberately . Early in the morn ing a house was

passed that had been riddled through and through with

cannon bal ls.

Before noon Edward’

s Station was reached, and at the

Con federate Hospital the writer’s attention was cal led to

a young Con federate who,i t was said, had his heart on

the “wrong side . ” There was probably some en largement that .made the heartbeat appear to the right o f the

cen ter of the chest . At noon- time rest and dinner were

taken under some trees in a pasture, and whi le here a

Confederate paper was seen whi ch told what terrible

losses the invaders had sustain ed,and how they were

soon to be hurl ed back and sent flying to their homes !After a time the road was again taken ,

and pretty soon

a cot was passed at the side of the road upon which wasa dying ofi‘icer . Before Black River Bridge was reached

the advance had skirmished with the enemy, and in thisaffai r the ofiicer, who was the Colonel of the Tw entythird Iowa

,if my memory serves me well, received a

mortal wound, He was lying on his back unconsciousand deadly pale

,and upon his brow was the clam-my

swea t of death. Towards n ight a stop was made, and,with some comrades, I sl ept near the front gate of a

farmhouse ; nearby lay the dead body of a Con federatesoldier who fell in a ski rmish earlier in the day . His

body lay there al l n ight . Next morn ing the march wasaga in resumed . The whol e line of the route, particularly

that of the day previous, was strewn at the roadside with

Battle of B lack River Bridge. 95

the guns,knapsacks

,can teens, broken wagons and extra

garmen ts of the Confederates. These were especiallynumerous between the Champion ’

s Hill battle ground andEdward’s Station .

Pretty early on the mo rning o f May 18 the bluffs ofBlack River were reached

,and the remains of the burned

railroad bridg e came in sight . A little later my regimen t was found inside of the Con federate works cap

tured the day previous. I soon had from my comrades,who had been participants in the battle o f Black River

Bridge, a full accoun t of the whole aff air. It was almosta bloodless victory. A bayou circles around to the east

from Black River at the railroad bridge,forming a sort

of horseshoe,one-hal f to three-quarters o f a mile in

extent ; just w ithin this the Con federates, with cotton

bales from the neighboring plantation , had extemporized

breastworks. These were well mann ed , and at . con

venient intervals cannon were planted . Upon the hills,just west of the river

,the Con federates were in force .

Lawler,with his brigade, charged the left flank o f the

Rebel line,when the whole o f the enemy either sur

rendered or sought safety in flight . Seventeen hundred

prisoners were taken ,many of whom, when the charge

was first made,became panic- stri cken ,

tore out li ttle

bunches of cotton from the ba l es in the breastworks and

hoisted these upon the points o-f thei r bayo-n ets in token

of surrender .

I spent some time in visiting theworks lately occupied

by the Con federates ; they seemed strong,and the who-le

position was very similar to that occupied by the Fed

erals eighteen months later at Franklin , Tenn , where

the furious charges o f Hood’s forces were made unsuc


cessfully and with such terribl e loss, upon Schofield, the

Un ion Commander.Having lost, since the l st day of M ay , 1863, the bat

tles of Port Gibson ,Raymond , Jackson , Champion

’

s Hill

and Black River Br idge, all in the vicin ity of Vicksburg,the Con federates

,on the 1 7th of the same month, retired

within the works o f tha t strongho ld .

A s soon as the position at Black River was lost, the

bridge at that poin t was burn ed, T he Pioneer Corps,however, fell to work most en ergetical ly, and by 10

o’clock of M ay 18

,a temporary bridge was ready for

use. Eighteen guns were captured at Black River .Many o f these were handsome and fin ished in a most

beauti ful manner . Several had painted upon them in

gilt le tters names o f popular Con federate officers, but

qualified with the word lady. Thus there was the “Lady

Davis,” “Lady Price,

” “Lady Beauregard,

” etc .

Before noon nearly the whol e command was across

the B ig Black River and headed for Vicksburg, ten ortwelve mi les distant . The way was, for the most part,l ined with farmhouses.

The Thirte enth Corps bore to the lef t and,at n ight

fal l,was within about four mi les o f the w orks that en

circled Vicksburg . Orders w ere given to make fires on ly

in the ravines,with which the region was well suppli ed .

Early next morning the whole command advanced .

A s the Con federates had, so far, been defeated and had

in the last engagemen t yielded what seemed a strongposition with so li ttl e resistance , the opin ion came to

prevai l throughout the Federal Army that Vicksburgwould yield without further resistance. Filled with thisidea the Union forces confidently approached the out

works of Vicksburg on the morn ing o f M ay 19, but


couple of mi les ; since 8 o’clock there had been firing

,

and this grew heavi er and hea vier as the day advanced.

A s yet,how ever

,there was but little in the immediate

front,but nearly all was to the right . Sherman , with

the Fi fteenth Corps, was on the extreme right, McPher

son ( Seventeenth Corps) was in the center, and Mc

C lernand (Thi rteenth Corps) was on the left .At noon the firing to the right became very heavy, the

musketry was incessan t, and this was very frequentlypunctuated w ith the boom o f cannon . Gradual ly the

incessant report o f musket ry and frequen t boom of

cannon crept round to the left, an-d in the afternoon thewho le l ine was engaged . Toward evening the ambulan ces commenced coming in loaded w i th the wounded .

These poor fel lows had to be li fted ca reful ly f rom the

ambulances and laid around upon the ground till the

surgeon-s could examine and care for their in juries. Two

or three operating tables had been extemporized with

boa rds ; at each of these surgeons were soon busi ly at

work amputating legs and a rms,probing wounds and

otherw ise operating upon the in jured . The grea t ma

jority of in juri es came from musket bal ls, a few camefrom pieces of shell

, and occasiona lly one from a grapeshot .

Nearly all were perforating wounds,though occasion

ally only a bruise was found , and this usua lly came froma piece of shell . Where bones of the extremiti es were

se riously injured amputations were n ea rly always re

sorted to . In the case of the arm,how ever, especial ly

between the shoulder and elbow,i f the joints were not

invo lved, the woun d was en larged and the ragged endso f bones pared off smoo thly

,the arm put in a splint, and

i f the case resul ted fortuna tely, fibrous tissue first and

Torn,Wounded, Mang led . 99

later a bony structure took the place of the original hardbone . This operation was cal led a resection, All sorts

of wounds were encoun tered . O ne poor fellow was shot

in the face in such a way that the whole lower jaw was

taken off ; the wound, how ever, was not necessarily fatal .

A bullet passed through a man’

s skull and into the

brain cavity ; for days he . lived,wal ked about and waited

largely upon himsel f . He seemed dazed, how ever, from

the first , and a fter awhi le became stupid, helpless and

died . Some that were brought in were so severely in

j ured that there was no hop e of do ing anything for thei r

recovery ; such cases, if there seemed to be much suf

fering, were made as comfor table as possible and laid

upon the ground, and the att ention of the surgeons given

to those whose in juries were likely to receive benefit .O ne poor fellow was shot somewhere in the base of the

brain and,when taken out of the ambulance, one side of

his face was in convul sions . His case was deemed hope

less,and he was pla ced upon the ground . All night and

ti ll noon nex t day the convulsions continued ; one eyewas in constant motion ,

and the muscles of the same side

of the face j erked and twitched in horrible contortion s.

B ut at last death came to his relief .

All w ere kept busy till away in the n ight caring for thewounded . Blankets! w ere spread upon the ground underthe trees, and upon these

, side by side,the in jured ones

were laid . Toward mo rn ing others o f the wounded were

brought in tha t cou ld not be reached ti l l n ightfall protected the rescuing parti es from the bullets of the enemy.

The next day , May 20, was occupi ed in perfect ing thecare of the in j ured . Many operations were of too delicate a character to be performed after night ; these w eremade the morn ing following. Sometimes in the army

,


however, very delicate operations were, from necessi ty,perfo rmed a fter night . In the medica l supplies w ere lit

tl e wax candles that gave a pretty light, free from smoke

and withou t much dripping, as from tallow candles.

When working after n ight a number o f these were

lighted and held for the convenience of the operator .

T he night after the battle of Champion’

s Hill I remem

ber coming upon some surgeons who were amputating

at the shoulder- joint the arm o f a poor fellow who had

been wounded near the shoul der, Just as I came up the

surgeons were turn ing the bone out of its socket and ad

justing the flaps. This operation , in the a rmy, was con

sidered a very critical one,and was not o ften performed

when other means would avai l .

At the f ron t the lines were advanced as n ear as pos

sible to the enemy’s works,and at n ight the spade was

used freely, thus making rifle-pits to secure protection

from the enemy’

s bul lets. The casualti es w ere com

paratively few on the 20th and 2 1 st of May ; yet

throughout both these days wounded men were fromtime to time brought in from the front .Meantime preparations for the care o f the wounded

were made on a much more extended scal e . When the

trees in the yard fai led to give shelter f rom sunshin e by

day and dew at n ight,limbs heavily laden with l eaves,

cut f rom the timber nea rby were lai d upon poles that

rested upon others set in the ground. Whi le engaged in

this work a cannon bal l came whizzing through the airand buri ed itsel f in the ground in the center o f the yard .

O ne o f the men , curious to see what character of misslei t was

, got a shovel and excavated the ball . It provedto be a con ical steel bal l about two and one-ha l f inches

through and seven or eight inches long.

CHA PTER X .

ASSAULT AND S IEGE or T H E CONFEDERATESTRONGHOLD .

Their’s not to make rep ly,Their’s not to reason why ,

Their’s but to do and die.”

—TENNYSON.

AT 2 P .M . ,M ay 19, an assault w as made on the Con

federate works at Vicksburg. This assault was unsuc

cessful, so far as capturing the stronghold was concern ed,but resulted in giving the Federals an advanced position ,

which position was made secure by the use o f the spade

the succeeding n ight . Believing that the Con federates

would not hold out against another determined assault, a

second one was ordered at 10 A .M .,May 22. This was

opened by a terrific cannonacl'e from al l the Federal batteries follow ing this was an incessant rattle of musketry .

It was known at the hospital this charge was to be

made, and the constant boom of cannon and continual

roll of musketry firing after 10 in the forenoon all knewwou ld soon bring in a frightful harvest of mangled and

wounded . The slain would, of course, for the time at

least, be l eft on the field . About 2 P .M . through the

trees was seen a long train o f ambulances approaching,all heavily loaded with mang l ed human i ty. Upon reach

ing the hospital groun ds two or three ambulances w ere

backed up at once, and the wounded li fted or assisted

out . One o f the first tha t I assisted in. taking f rom the

ambulance was a tal l, sl ender man,who had received a

terribl e wound in the top of his head ; a minn ie bal l had,

(1 02)

Falling in to the Final Sleep.1 03

so to Speak,plow ed its way through the Skull, making a

ragged, gaping wound , exposing the brain for three or

four inches. He lived but a moment after removal from

the ambulance.

T he captain 1 of the company in which I en listed was

in another ambulance, mortally wounded, with a bullet

in his brain . He lived a day or two in an unconsciousstupor— a comatose state— as the doctors say . B ut the

ma jority of the wounded were boys, young ,brave

,daring

fellow s, too o ften rash,andmeeting death, or next to it,

o ftentimes from needl ess exposur e .O ne n ice young fellow o f eighteen the writer can never

forget . He had been wounded in the bowels, and was

sitting at the root o f a large tree , resting his head against

its trunk . His name was Banks, and knowing me well,he recogn iz ed me, and cal ling me by name

,said ! “

Ah,

I’

m badly wounded .

” Already his l ips w ere ashy pal e,a clammy sweat was upon his face, and from the wound

in his abdomen a long knuckle o f intest ine was protruding. A few hours more and young Banks was resting in

the sleep o f death. No danger f rom enemy’

s bulletsnow ; the poor, senseless clay, which a little time be forehad been the dwelling-place of joyous young li fe, nothing coul d harm more . By the quiet form sat the father,sad and heart-broken , himsel f a soldier, but the balance

of his term of service would seem lonely and tedious.

Arms and legs of many in the ambulances were hanging useless and lying powerless by the sides of theirowners, and soon the surgeons at several tables w ere keptbusy removing mangled and useless limbs. A s on allsuch occasions when there were a great many wounded

1 Capta in Wil l iam M . Colby, l30th I l l inois In fantry Volunteers.


on hand at one time, but litt l e was done for the mortallyin jured

, save to lay them in a comparatively comfortableposition ; those having mangled limbs and broken bones

were first attended,whi le those with unextensive

,simple

flesh wounds w ere passed by till more serious cases w erelooked after . Judgment, however , in this direction was

not always unerring, and I remember one man, with what

seemed a slight wound of the foot, who was rather persistent in asking immediate atten tion ; but the number ofdangling limbs and gaping woun ds cal ling for immediatecare seemed to justi fy the surgeons in putting him off

for a time . His case was attended to in due course, and

later he was sen t up the river to a large Memphis hos

pita l , where , some weeks subsequent ly, he was in fected

w ith hospital gangrene , and died from its effect s. O fcourse

,the delay in dressing his wound weeks before had

nothing to do with the untoward resul t, but it did bringsharp criticism upon the surgeons.

All the af ternoon and till' late at night on May 22 di d

the surgeons work with the wounded ; amputating limbs,removing bal ls, cleaning and washing wounds, riddingthem of broken pieces of bone

,bandaging them up and

puttin-g them in the best Shape possible.

'

A few werebruised from stroke o f Spen t ball or piece of shell

,and

recovered in a few days. Long lines of wounded now

occupied the shaded places, in the yard, and to attend to

the wants of these kept al l busy, Carboli c aci d and otherdisin fectants were at that time no t in use, and all woun dswere at first treated with simple water dressings. O ldmuslin cloth or lint was saturated with cold water andappli ed to all f resh wounds. AS soon as these began tosupurate, simple cerate

, a mild, soothing ointment

, con

sisting of two parts of fresh lard and one of whi te wax,

A n Unusual Wound.1 05

was applied . In most bullet wounds, the bal l in entering

the body carried before it l ittl e pieces o f the clothing,l eather of the belt or cartridge box, tin of the can teens

or any such substance first struck by the missi le . In

nearly al l instances these foreign substances w ere discharged! in the form of little dark- colored bits of debris .

Every day the wounds w ere washed and freshly

dressed . B ut, as the weather was warm, many wounds

became in fested with maggots. This looked horrible, butwas not deemed specially detrimental . Two or three

days’ extra work was made by the large numbe r o f

wounded, resul ting f rom the assault of May 22 . After

this there was a constan t accession of wounded men at

the hospital,but on ly a few at a time.

O ne man received a wound from some sort of a largemissile tha t made an extensive opening at the place of

ent rance,the fleshy part o f the thigh, in which it buri ed

itself deeply and coul d not be rea ched . In a day or two

the limb all about the wound began to assume a green ish

yellow hue, and later the man di ed . Cutting into the

wound after death revealed the presence of a copper-tap,more than an inch across, from a shell .

About a week after the siege began a young man f roman Ohio regiment died from a wound, resulting from his

own imprudence . The first day o f the investment, whilehis regiment was drawn up in line, three or four mil esfrom the enemy’

s works, there being some delay in the

advance, the young man got some loose powder,ran i t

a long in a little trail, covered this with dust and tried tofire i t . A s it did not ignite he was stooping over withhis face close to the ground when the charge took fire .His face was badly burn ed

,and later was attacked with

erysipelas, from which death resulted . This seemed an


inglorious way O f yielding up one’s l i fe when the oppor

tunities for dying gloriously for one’

s country w ere so

plenti ful and ready at hand .

A s soon as commun i ca tion by the Yazoo2 was Opened

up with the No rth, supplies in great abundance came in

for the sick . In the way o f eatables for the hospitalwere delicacies o f various kinds, f rui ts, mild home-madewines

,etc. Clothing for the sick and wounded was fur

nished in full quanti ti es. This, for the most part, consisted o f cotton garmen ts for underwea r, shirts

,night

shirts,drawers, gowns, etc ,

nearly all of bleachedmuslin .

Cotton goods were at the time expensive in the ma rket,from the fact tha t the supply Of the raw ma terial by theSouth was stopped for the period during whi ch the warcontinued .

Nearly al l these things were dona ted by indivi dualsand commun ities. Very many

“

o f the garments had thename Of the donor stamped upon them w ith sten ci l plate .

Qui te a number O f the articl es seen by the writer had thename, now forgotten, O f a lady w ith postoffice addressat Jan esville,Wis.

The assault O f M ay 22 conv inced all, Offi cers and men

alike, that Vicksburg was much more securely intrenched

than had been supposed, and that the only way to capture

i t would be by s iege . Accordingly all made up thei r

minds to await the result patien tly,but O f the final fal l

o f the stronghold no one entertained a doubt . Indeed ,O f ultimate triumph every man seemed from the start tohave ful l confidence .

2 The Yazoo River empt ies in to the M ississippi just aboveV icksburg, consequently boats could enter its mouth and run up

stream to our troops.


sought to attack Grant’s rear on the line of the Big

Black River .3 Grant,who by this time was receiving

re-en forcemen ts from the North, was ful ly on the alert,and con fronted Johns ton with ample fo rce to keep the

latter at a safe distance from the Operations against

Vicksburg .

Meanwhile,all sorts O f stories were in ci rculation

nearly all favorable, however, to the Federals. At one

time it was rumored Port Hudson , some three hundred

miles down the river, had capitula-ted to General Banks ;

at another, that the Con federates could no t hold out

long er ; again , that Richmond w as taken , and then that

Washington had been captured! by Lee .O f nights the morta r boats from the river shelled

Vicksburg, and sometimes,wi th one or more comrades,

I would go out upon a high hi l l in fron t of the hospital

from when ce the bombardmen t coul d be seen . The mor

tar boats were,perhaps, eight miles distant, and first a

flash would be seen ,then the discharge O f the mortar

,

n ex t a streak Of fi re,followed by a burn ing fuse ; this

would rise away up in the ai r and finally descend, and,j ust before rea ching the ground another flash

,the explo

sion o f the shell,broke upon the vision . Some time

elapsed after the flash was seen before the report couldbe heard . The shells thrown by these mortar boats w ereO f one and two hundred pounds cal iber

,and al l through

the siege were thrown at regular intervals during then ight-time.

One cannon , belonging to the Con federates, receivedthe appellation Of “Whistling Dick .

” The ball from i t

3 T he Big Black R iver runs in a southwesterly d irect ion ,is

some twelve mi les east O f Vicksburg, and a considerable distancebelow that stronghold, empt ies into the M ississipp i .

Vicksburg Surrenders .1 09

passed through the air w ith a pecul iar whistl ing noise

that could be heard by all on the southwestern aspect o f

the works. It was a fine breech—loading rifled cannon OfEnglish manu facture .Toward the latter part of June rumors Of the impend

ing fall o f Vicksburg pervaded the command, and later,as the Nationa l ann iversary drew nea r

,it was said a most

determined assault would be made on the 4th O f July.

Fina lly,prepa rations for this w ere in progress w hen , on

the 3d Of July, word cam-e that the Con federates had

al ready made propositions looking toward a surrender,and next day , the 4th O f July, Vicksburg, after with

standing a siege of forty- six days, capitulated .

T he command, though long expecting this event, was

almost wild with joy . Some surprise was, however, feltthat the Con federates should have yielded on the day

they did ; the belie f prevai led that they had, in some

way , gained an inkling of the intended assault and

felt as though they could not withstand another determied effort on the part O f the Federals. Up to date this

was the most importan t success o f the war . T he num

ber o f men captured exceeded with a vast quan

tity of sma l l arms, cannon ,heavy ordnance and muni

tions O f all kinds. Indeed, more men capitulated at

Vi cksburg than were taken in one body at any othertime during the war .

A day or two after I procured a pass and visited the

city . It was al ive with soldiers O f both armies, All uponfri endly relations, swapping yarn-s

,telling experi ences,

trading curiosit i es, as i f hosti le words, much l ess shotand shell

,had n ever passed between them . O ne tall

young Con federate approached me and wan-ted to ex

change a two—dollar Con federate note for the same

1 1 0 Muskets and Medicine.

amount in Un ited States currency ; he sai d, by way O f

explanation,that he would, in a few days, be going home

over in Louisiana on his parol e and wanted the “greenback”

money to show his folks. This was, most prob

ably, not true ; Con federate money was wholly valueless

in the Union l ines, and the Un ited States currency wasdoubtless wan ted for immediate use.

T he various places o f interest about the city were

visited . T he several roads passing from the city, upon

reaching the bluff , had roadways cut through this. In

many places these cuts were twen ty and thi rty feet deep,and the walls of red clay perpendicul ar, or n early SO .

But the clay compos ing these walls was of Such tenacitythat washings never occurred, and the sides of the cuts

remained as durable as i f bui lt Of stone.

From the sides O f these wa lls O f clay caves were cutin which for security some Of the citizen s passed much

O f their time . I visited several O f these caves,and found

two or three O f t hem ca rpeted and n eatly furn ished .

Many places w ere seen where the immense shells f rom

the mortar fleet struck the earth . When these failed toexplode a great round hol e was made in the ground, andin case O f explosion a fter striking the ground, a large

excavation was the result.The great guns along the river f ron t— the Columbiads

O f 9 1 1 and 13 inch caliber— w ere visited. It wasthese that blockaded the river and ma de the passing o f

even heavily-armored vessels hazardous. Some of the

Con federate soldiers belonging to the in fantry wereabout one of these huge guns

, and one Of them sai dwithin ear- Shot !

“I ’ll bet this ’ere Old cannon ’

5 ki ll ed many a blue-belly.

Passing out toward the outworks a Con federate regi


had thus been marked . This was near the Jackson di rt

road,wher e the Con federates had an enfilading fire and

used it to most deadly advan tage .Immediately upon the fal l o f Vicksburg, an expedition

was started against General Joe Johnston who,during

the si ege,had

‘ been threaten ing Grant f rom the rear and

on the line of the B ig Black River . Under a broilingJuly sun the Union so ldi ers took up the line of ma rch

and fo llowed the Confederates under Johnston to Jack

son,Miss ,

to which,for a time, they laid si ege . Finally,

how ever, rea lizing that! he was outnumbered,General

Johnston evacuated his works at Jackson and permittedthe Federals to take possession for a secon d time within

two mon ths.

Meanwhile,with the regimental surgeon I was assigned

to duty at the Thirteen th Corps Hospita l , which was inthe n ear vicin ity of a farmhouse

,though the sick and

wounded were in ten ts and everything needed for thei r

comfort and care was on a much more commodioussca l e than had been possibl e at the Division Hospital,where I was on duty during the whole forty-five davs o fthe si ege . O ne peculiar method o f prescribing was invogue here ! A number of favo rite prescriptions for

sundry diseases wer e put up in quantity and each givena number ; consequen tly, instead of having to w ri te outa prescription and having i t put up separately the surgeonhad but to designate a given number

, and in short orderthe patient would have the desi red remedy.

During this period I, f rom time to time, secured a passand visited Vicksburg, whi ch was gradua lly settling down

to the new order o f things. The Wha rf at the river front,very soon after the Federal occupation

, assumed a busyaspect . Steamboats with all needed supplies came down

A Remarkable A dventure.1 1 3

the river,I came near saying, in fleets. Many visitors

came from the North, some to see friends in the army,some to see the newly- captured stronghold, some to look

up new fields for trade and speculation, and some came

on the sadmission of, if possible , finding the bit o f earththat hid from view the remains o f fallen loved ones.

General Logan,who commanded Within the limits of

Vicksburg after its surrender, had his headquarters inthe Court House, whi ch, from its location on a high hi ll ,was a conspicuous obj ect. Over the dome of the CourtHouse floated the flag o f the 45th I llinois In fantry

Volunteers,an organ i za tion that was given the advance

when General Logan ’

s Division entered Vicksburg afterits surrender and too-k possession . The 45th Illinois

was thus hono red because its members, many of whomwere miners

,had

,during the si ege

,performed a great

dea l of duty of an exceptionally hazardous nature.Toward the end of the siege , J . W . Spurr, Compan y

B,145th Illinois In fantry Volunteers, became the hero

of a most remarkable adventure . He, somehow,man

aged to get possession of an old Con federate un i form

and going to the Mississippi River at the extreme left ofour l ines went in the water during a heavy rainstormafter night and swam north

,past the pickets of both

f ri end and foe. Then , Upon going ashore he at once

went to some Con federates who w ere gathered about acampfire and engaged them in conversation . Later he

left them and wen t to a house and asked for something

to eat which was refused in consequence o f the fact that,at that particular time

,eatables in Vicksburg were at a

very high premium. Finally,however

,w i th the per

suasive influence o f a five-dollar bill both food and lodging for the time being were secur ed .

s


Young Spurr’s hostess was an Irish woman , who w as

found to be a Union sympathizer, and who proved herfidelity by warn ing her guest that he was being watched .

Consequently, after spending three days in the beleaguered city the da ring adven turer, after n ight, found hisway to the river’s bank south of the city, went in the

water and swam and floa ted down past the pickets of foeand fri end alike

,and upon rea ching the Union lin es was

promptly arrested, but upon establishing his i dentity wasas promptly released .

It is,perhaps

,not too much to say that this feat had

few , i f indeed any , paral lels in either army during thewhole period of the Civil War’s four years’ history.

That an eighteen-year-old boy , on his own intiative and

impelled by nothing save curiosi ty and innate dare-devi ltry, should plan , undertake and successfully execute such

ahazardous feat as that of young Spurr, is hard to bel ieve . A s to credibil ity

,however

,the reader can rest

assured that the above is absolutely true,and can be

verified by) the best of evidence . J . W . Spurr,the hero

o f the adventure, is a well-preserved veteran , and has his

home in Rock Island,Ill .


protected w ith thr ee hundred bal es of cotton ,and she

was armed with both heavy and light pieces of artillery,a full complemen t o f rifles, pistols and cutlasses, and,

beside her crew,had aboa rd tw enty-six soldiers.

Lying under the Vicksburg batteries was a Con fed

e t ate transport,The City of Vicksburg, whose destruc

tion was named as one of Ellet’

s first errands. Early in

the morn ing of February 2,1863

,the Queen of theWest

passed round the bend, and under a ful l head of steam,

made for the Con federate vessel tied to the wharf in

fron t of the city, for which she was named . The strong

beak o f the Queen struck the City of Vicksburg withterrific force, but the great proj ection o f the guards o f

the latter protected her hull and prevented the infliction

of vi ta l in j ury. Meantime,the current swept the stern

o f the Queen aroun d so that she came alongside thetransport, when a ful l broadside of turpentin e balls wasdischarged into the City of Vicksburg. B ut as the fire

from the Con federates had, meanwhile, grown warm and

had al ready set on fire bales of cotton upon the Queen,this vessel continued on down the river while the burn ingbales were thrown overboa rd before the flames did otherdamage .The Queen had the good fortune to destroy on thisexpedition three Con federate transports, but runn ingshort of fuel in about a week

, she returned up the river .From the fleet above

,a ba rge of coal was set afloat one

evening that reached the Queen in safety .

O n the l 0th of February Colonel Ellet again starteddown the river

,taking with him as tender

, the D e S oto,

a smal l vessel captured by the soldiers on the Louisiana

side of the river just below Vicksburg. This vessel had

formerly been used as a ferryboat between De Soto, the

Running the Batteries .1 1 7

terminus of the Vicksburg Shreveport Railroad, and

Vicksburg. T he Red River was entered and a sma ll

steamboat, the E ra

,captur ed from the Con federates.

Further up this stream was a smal l Con federate work,Fort Taylor ; this the Queen design ed to destroy, but hadthe misfortune to run aground when w i th in point-blank

range of the enemy’

s guns, and in such a position as torender her own cannon unavailable. Under the circumstances there seemed nothing left for Ellet and his men

but to abandon the Queen and endeavor to float down on

cotton bal es to the D e S oto, one mi le below . This was

successfully don e,but the D e S oto

,f rom some accident

to her steering apparatus, became unmanageable, and hadto be abandon ed and blown up .

Mean time,all hands had gone aboa rd the captured

vessel , the E ra, but as she was in a damaged condition ,

poor progress was made against the rapid current of the

Mississippi, when that river was reached . But all haste

possibl e was made, as i t was known the swift and pow er

ful Con federate gunboat Webb was on ly sixty mi les up

Red River, and would probably pursue . There was no

fuel available but wet cypress wood and ears of corn , and

consequently poor time was made . A vessel was now

descried which proved to be the powerful Federal gun

boat I ndianola . The latter came alongside the E ra,fur

nishing her w ith fuel and other necessa ries. Meantime, a

vessel hove in sight from below,that turn ed out to be

the Con federate gunboat Webb in pursui t o f the E ra .

The latter was dispatched up the river and the I ndianola

gave chase to the Webb,but this vessel evaded her pur

suer.

The I ndianola had run the Vicksburg batteries the

n ight of February 13. At the appointed time all lights


were turned down , and w ith no motion from her wheels,she dri fted down in the darkness with the current andalmost touched the levee at Vicksburg. Lights wereburn ing al l over the city, men were passing all about anda chain of guards w ere on duty n ext the water’s edge .All these w ere talking, and the sound of their voices wasplain ly heard on the Indianola . Presen tly, how ever, a

so ldier on duty n ea r a lighted fire saw a dark,moving

ma ss on the water and discha rg ed his piece ; this wasfo llow ed by many musket shots, and the I ndianola, now

putting on steam,became a target for the gunn ers beside

the heavy Columbiads at the edge of the bluff . She,

how ever,received but little damage

,and passed on down

the river, and rescued the E ra, as before narrated . After

this the mouth o f the Red River was reached, and thisstream ascended for a time, when i t was l earned the

Queen of the West had undergone repairs at the hands

o f the Con federates and might be expected down at any

time . A s the latter vessel , with the Webb, would be

more than a ma tch for the Indianola,this gunboat turn ed

about,ran down to the mouth of Red River

,and from

thence up the Mississ ippi to (the mouth o f the Big Black

River . The last-mention ed stream i t was designed to

enter and ascend as far as the Vicksburg Jackson Rai l

way B ridge, which structure it was the intention to

destroy .

Toward n ight of February 24 two vessels approachedfrom below , which proved to be the Con federate gunboat

Webb,and ram, Queen of the West. The Indianola re

treated up the river to near New Carthage, when she

turned about to attack her antagonists. The Con federatevessels contrived to ram the Indianola a number of

times,til l she was reduced to a sinking condition and


Indianola . Two mon ths later the Queen of the West

was blown up to obviate fal ling into Federal hands, andabout the time the Con federacy was going to pieces in

Apri l, 1865, the Webb, loaded with cotton , ran out of

Red River,then ce down the Mississippi , past several

gunboats and even past New O rl ean s, but being at lastintercepted by the B rooklyn, ran ashore and was set on

fire

The daring of this adventure of the Webb excitedmuch interest at the time in General Canby’s department .About the middle o f March, 1863, Commodore Farra

gu t succeeded in passing the Port Hudson batteries withtwo of his vessels, and about a week later communicatedf rom just below Vicksburg w ith Commodore Porter’s

fleet just above. Needing some re-en forcemen ts in the

way o f vessels,Farragut asked for

'

some f rom the fleet

of Porter . Early on the morn ing o f March 25, Colonel

Charles R . Ellet, with the Switzerland, and Lieutenant

Colo-nel John . A . Ellet, with the L ancaster, ran the Vicks

burg batteries . T he Switzerland was destroyed, but

most o f her crew escaped on cotton bales. T he L ancas

ter succeeded in passing,but in a much damaged condi

tion .

The passage of the Vicksburg batteries by a fleet of

gunboats and transports the n ight of Apri l 16, and by

another the n ight o f April 22, has been elsewhere re

ferred to. The success of these attempts greatly facili

tated the carrying out o f Grant’

s plans in his operations

aga inst Vicksburg. Indeed,in nearly all General Grant

’

s

important battles and campaigns in the West he leaned

heavily upon the navy , and i t ever gave him cheerful and

timely support,

Major George W . Kennard,late Commander o f the steamer

Horizon ,

”

which ran the V icksburg batteries on the night ofApril 4 2

, 1863.

(gee page 1 21 )


A t dayl ight, the H orizon had passed the battery, it firing seven

teen rounds, none doing any damage except the last, which struckthe wheel rudder. larboard side, damaging it considerab ly. Whenout O f range O f Warrenton Battery, the H orizon came up w iththe A ng lo

-S axon, took her in tow , and floated down w ithinsignal ing d istance of New Carthage, and having given the propersignals, cut loose from the A ng lo

-Saxon, which was then takenin tow by steamer Silver Wave, sent out from New Carthage.The H orizon then steamed up and reported to General J . A .

M cC lernand, at New Carthage.The on ly casualty on board the H orizon w as Private (George)

M cE lvain ,Company B , Twen ty-third Ind iana, sl ightly wounded

in the head.I am pleased to say that, while we were under fire, every man

was at his post, do ing his duty . Each is deserving cred it forcoolness and good conduct . I take great p leasure in recommendmg to y ou for favor the names of Lieutenan t James D . VernayE leventh I l l inois In fan try, Lieutenant Jesse Roberds, Twen tyfirst I l l ino is In fanty , Nathan Col l ins, Second Ind iana Cavalry,and James H . Cuers, Twenty-third Indiana In fantry, each of

whom stood at his post and d ischarged his duties whi le underfire w ith a coolness and courage which deserves much praise.

P i lots Co l l ins and Curts, and P. Vancil , Thirty-first I l l inois Infantry , mate, are each of them experienced river men, and are

also trusty and rel iable.I am, very respectful ly, your obed ient servant,

G. W. KENNARD,Captain Twentieth I l l inois, Command ing Steamer Horizon .

COL. CLARK B . LAGOW, Command ing Fleet.

CHA PTER X I I .

PERSONNEL OF O U R HOSPITAL STAFF .

In the multitude of counselors there is safety .

SOLOM AN .

By med icine may l i fe be prolonged,Yet death w i l l seize the doctor.”

-SHAKESPEARE .

T H E in fantry Civil War regiment was made up of

ten compan ies o f about a hundred men each, so that the

larger organ ization contained about one thousand men .

However,most of the new ly- formed regimen ts totaled

about n in e hundred . O ne Colonel, one Lieutenan t-Co l

onel and one Major made up the field ofl‘icers ; and the

Quartermaster,Chaplain ,

Adjutant,Surgeon ,

First A s

sistant Surgeon and Second Assistan t Surgeon comprised

the staff offi cers. T he Surgeon had the rank o f Major,and to designate this wore a gold leaf on either shoulder

strap . T he First Assistant Surgeon ranked as Captain ,

and had four bars on either shoulder strap . The Second

Assistant Surgeon had the rank o f First Lieutenant, andwore two bars on his shoulder straps.

Our Regimental Surgeon,Dr . L . K . Wilcox, came to

us from Warsaw,Ill . , then an importan t Mississippi

River town , where he practised his profession . He wasan Irishman

,small in stature

,with a red face, reddish

hair and sandy moustache . He was about thi rty-five

years of age , a graduate of Missouri Medica l College,now identified with Washington Un iversity, where hehad for a classmate, and which he took pride in telling,the celebrated Rosa Bonheur, later the distinguished

(1 23)


painter of anima ls,It was long be fore the day of co

education of the sexes, consequently, i t was very much

out of the usual to have a woman in attendan ce upon

medical lectures.

Dr . Wilcox,notwithstanding his in ferior stature, was

dign ified ; had a good deal‘ of executive ability and man

aged his departmen t w i th no l ittl e skill . He w as, fur

thermore, an eminently practical man,

and operated with

a considerable degree of dexterity.

He was a lways nea tly dressed,was an inveterate

smoker, and had a ve ry ful l under lip, which not infre

quently assumed a sort of pouting aspect , and which Ican close my eyes and see as plain ly as i f the protuberantmember was before me

,although i t was fifty

-three years

ago tha t i t was first photographed on the tablets of mymemory .

Dr . Wilcox was a devout Catholic, and always crossed

himself before partaking o f food . He did this so

adroitly,how ever

,that the un in itiated were none the

wiser .

Dr . David Wilkins was our First Assistant Surgeon .

His home was in Greenville,Bond County

,Ill . , where he

left a grow ing family and a good practice to serve his

country . He was'

a graduate of the Medical Departmento f the Un iversi ty of Michigan ,

was about forty years of

age, and was better versed in his profession than most

physicians of that day . He was of the average height,but was Slender and

,consequently

,looked taller than he

really was. Dr . Wilkins was a quiet,modest man who

had li ttle to say . He, how ever, commanded the respect

o f al l, andhis friends always thought he Should have hada position of full surgeon . In the fal l of 1863

,after giv

ing us most excellent service, he resigned from our regi


bilitated condition of your system. A nd so on, from

patien t to patient,and from day to day this

“cann ed”

(pro fessional ! ) opinion was made to do service .A s said above

, the Surgeon , First Assistant Surgeonand Second Assistan t Surgeon ,

had respect ively, the ranko f Major

,Captain and First Lieutenant, were commis

sioned by the Governor of the State and were hence

known as commissioned officers. All officers below a

second lieutenan t received warrants sign ed by the Col

onel,and were hence called non-commissioned officers.

One o f the highest ranking non-commissioned officers

was the Hospital Steward, who with the Sergeant-Major,Commissary-Sergeant and Quartermaster-Sergean t com

prised the non-commissioned staff of the regimen t .While our surgeons w ere fully up to the average in

ability and attainm en ts,yet they had n ever so much as

seen a hypodermic syringe, a fever thermometer or a

trained nurse ; for the very good and sufficient reason

that none of these were in existence . A nd that they hadn ever so much as heard of an X-ray machine or a bloodpressure apparatus , goes without the saying, for the com

ing of these was, as yet, many years in the future. But,notwithstanding these limitations “th ere were giants inthose days.

” There were such interna lists as Austin

Flint,of New York ; George B . Wood, of Philadelphia ;

N . S . Davis, of Chicago, and others of equa l note—greatteachers, all of them. A nd there w ere such surgeons asValen tine Mott

,of New York ; S . D . Gross

,of Philadel

phia ; Moses Gunn , o f Detroit ; Dan iel Brainard, of Chicago ; Reuben D . Mussey

,of Cincinnati ; John T . Hod

gen , of St . Louis, and others o f their kind . A nd all ofwhom had taught the medical men

,who

,w i th their

regiments,were at the front . Y et

,not one o f these able

A Studen t of Medicine.1 27

men knew anything o f the germ theory of diseases, and,perhaps, had never so much as heard of the term bac

teriology ,

These facts being true,what wonder is i t that the

Civi l War Regimental Surgeon knew nothing of asepsis

and antisepsis, and that he was total ly ignorant of the

true na ture of in fection and! devoid of knowledge to pre

vent its spread ! T -rue,Joseph Lister

,then at Edinburgh,

Scotland,was do ing pioneer work in the field o f asepsis

and antisepsis, but his efforts had, as yet, been given . no

recogn ition. True, Pasteur had begun his era-making

work in demonstrating the fact that germs were the trueseeds of disease, and were ever and incessantly active in

its spread, but the world had not’

yet heard; and of those

who did hear,the most .did not heed.

Our first Hospital Steward was James M . Miller,of

Greenville , Ill . , where he had served an apprenti ceshipin his father’s drug store

,and where he now resides and;

has the reputation of being the wea lthiest man in his

county ; A s Ward Master o f the Regimental Hospital Iserved a sort of apprenti ceship un der Hospital Steward

‘

Miller,and later, when he saw fit to become a comm is

sioned oflicer in a colored regiment,I succeeded to his

position . This was not because I was as well qua lifiedfor the place as I Should have been ,

but because I wasthe best fitted for i t of anyon e who was available. I

had had a little Latin,a little chemistry

,a little physi cs,

a little higher ma thematics before joining the army,and

very Shortly after I entered I began fami liari zing mysel fwith drugs and chemicals, and with such other duties as

might fall to the lot of a hospital attache . Indeed,I

studied so ha rd that sometimes things became con fusedin my mind. A condition not always any too safe to


work under,as my experience with our cook, as narrated

in another chapter,will Show .

1

We had a few medical books, among which I reca l l

Pareria’

s Materia Medi ca ,” “Mendenhall’s Vade Me

cum,

” a work on chemistry ; Parishes’ Pharmacy

,

”

and“Gray’

s Ana tomy,” then a new work just out . T he

i llustrations in Gray were a very great improvement onall that had gone before

,and consequently this work

took, and long held, a high place among medi cal publica

tions.

B ut few as

.

were the books and many as were the

handicaps,I,then and there

,began the study of medi

cine, and, on the whole, I never before or since passedany happier days, and I really worked and studied withno little enthusiasm.

1 See Chapter XIV.

CHA PTER X I I I

EQUIPMEN T, WORK, AND SOME ATTACHES OF

O U R REGIMENTAL HOSPITA L .

A mighty arsenal to subdue d isease,O f var ious names, whereof I mention theseLancets and bougies, great and l ittle squirt,Rhubarb and senna, snakeroot, thoroughwort

—OLIVER WENDELL HOLM ES .

IN the field the Regimenta l Hospital department was

allowed two small tents for the officers,medicines

,etel ;

another small tent for the kitchen department and sup

plies, and a larger one for the sick. This last, known as

the hospita l tent, was about fourteen feet square and wascapable o f contain ing eight cots w i th as man y patien ts.

In the field we almost never had sheets and white pil

low cases, but made use of army blankets that were made

of the coarsest,roughest fiber imaginable . In wa rm

weather the wal ls of the tent were raised, which madeit much more pleasan t for the occupants.

However, the policy that obtained was to send those

who were not l ikely to recover quickly to the base hos

pitals, though this was not always to the pati en t’s bestinterests

,for these larger hospitals were oftentimes cen

ters o f in f ection of one kind or another,especially of

hospital gangrene, which seldom attacked the woundedin the field .

During a campaign our stock of medicines was neces

sarily limited to standard remedies,among which could

be named opium,morphine

,Dover’s powder, quinine ,

rhubarb, Rochell e salts, Epsom salts, castor oil, sugar of

9 (1 29)


l ead,tann in

,sulphate of copper, sulphate O f zinc, cam

phor,tincture of opium,

tincture o f i ron, tincture Opii,camphorata, syrup of squi lls, simple syrup, alcohol,whiskey, brandy, port wine, Sher ry wine, etc . Upon

go ing into camp, where we were likely to remain a few

days, these articles were unpacked and put on temporaryshelves made from box- lids ; and

, on the other hand,when marching orders came, the medicines were again

packed in boxes, the bottles protected from breaking byold papers, etc.Practical ly all the medicines were administered in

powder form or in the liquid state . Tablets had not yet

come into use, and pills w er e very far from being as

plenti ful as they are today. The result was that mostpowders were sti rred in water and sw allow ed . In the

cas e of such medicine as quin ine, Dover’

s powder, tann in ,

etc , the dos-e,thus prepared, was a bitter one. The bro

mides, sul fonal, trional and similar soporifices and seda

tiv es, had not come in use, and asafetida, valerian and

opium and its derivatives were about al l the Civil War

surgeon had to relieve nervousness and induce Sleep .

Among the surgical supplies were chloroform,ether

,

brandy,aromatic spi rits o f ammon ia, ban dages, adhesive

plaster,n eedl es

,S ilk thread for ligatures, etc. There

were, also, amputating cases well supplied with catlins,artery forceps

,bone forceps, scalpels, scissors, bul let

probes, a tourn iquet, etc. B ut while all the instrumentswere washed in water and wiped dry to keep from rusting, such an idea as making them aseptic never entered

the head of the most advanced surgeon .

There was an emergency case, about the size of a sol

dier’s kn apsack, and,indeed

,intended to be carri ed on

an atten-dant’s back l ike a knapsack . In this emergency


rifled musket,etc . These bullets weighed an ounce or

more, and the guns from whi ch they were fired would

kil l a man nearly a mi le away, and that they produced

large,ugly wounds goes w ithout saying.

When a minn ie ba l l struck a bone i t almost never

fai led to f racture and Shatter the contiguous bony struc

ture, and i t was rarely that on ly a round perforation ,the

S ize of the bullet, resulted . When a joint was the partthe bullet struck the results were especially serious in

CivilWar days. O f course,the same was true o f wounds

of the'

abdomen and head, though to a much greater de

gree . Indeed, recovery f rom wounds o f the abdomen

and brain almost n ever occurred . O ne o f the prime ob

jects of the CivilWar surgeonwas to remove the missi le,and, in doing this, he practical ly never fai led to in fect

the part w ith his dirty han ds and instrumen ts.

When Captain William M . Colby o f my company wasbrought from the firing

- line to our Division Hospital he

was in a comatose state f rom a bullet that had penetratedhis brain through the upper portion of the occipital

bone . The first thing our surgeon did was to run his

index finger its full l ength into the wound ; and this w ith

out even ordinary washing. Next he introduced a dirty

bullet probe . The pati en t die-d a day or two later . ( Seepage These facts are narrated to Show the frightful handicap Civi l War surgery was under from a lack

of knowledge of asepsis and antisepsis ; and i t is needless

to say that no reflection is intended to be made on our

surgeon,for he was making use o f the very best lights

o f his day ,dangerous as some of these w ere.

Elsewhere ( see page 99 ) I spoke o f a soldier in theDivision Hospital who had a bul let wound in his brain

and who walked about for days in a hal f-dazed condi

Shell,Sword and Shot Wounds . 1 33

tion, and who got maggots in his wound, The poor fel

low fina lly died , notwithstanding the efforts na ture put

forth for his recovery. Could these efforts have beensupplemented by modern surgery no doubt the man ’

s li fe

could have been saved .

I think wounds from bull et-s were five times as fre

quent as those from al l other sources. Shell woundswere next in frequency, and then came those f rom grape

and can ister . I never saw a wound from a bayonet

thrust, and but one made by a sword in the hands of an

enemy. In another chapter a reference is made to aman who received a deep wound in the upper part of

his thigh,which

,after some days, proved fatal . Not long

a fter the wound was received the parts began to assume

a green ish tinge and this became of a deeper hue, and

when after death the parts were cut down upon, a cop

per tap from an exploding shell was found to be the uglymissi le which had inflicted the in j ury that, in the end,

proved fatal .

Where so many men are grouped together accidents ofgreater or less gravity are liable to occur . O n the whole

,

however, our regimen t was fortunate . We lost two or

three by drown ing and one by a steamboat explosion , as

elsewhere narrated ( see pages 142 and I can recall but

three who received acciden tal bullet wounds. O ne o f

these w as a pistol Shot of smal l ca l iber (see pages 55,and the other was from one of the Springfi eld guns

that was supposed not to be loaded . Looking back, I canbut regard our record in this direction as especiallyfortunate, when the handling of so many loaded gunsthrough so long a period is taken in to account .T he on ly light vehicl e in the regimen t was our hospital

ambulance, al ready referred to as a four—wheeled vehicle


with bed on springs and covered with strong ducking.

The rear end-gate opened with hinges at its lower partfor the convenience of putting in and taking out very

sick or severely inj ured pa tients. T he driver of our

hospital ambulance was a soldier by the name of Throgmorton

,who knew his business, and attended to it . He

was an expert horseman ,and kept the pai r of bays under

his car e well-groomed and properly, attended to in. everyway . They were

,to a degree, spiri ted

,and when the

occasion cal led for it, were good stepper s. Besides serving its purpose in conveying sick and wounded

,our am

bulance proved use ful as a sort of family carriage, uponseveral occasions taking certain of us well ones “here

For service about the hospital men were detai led fromthe regiment to serve in the several capacities of nurses,cooks, and ambulance drivers etc . Service of this kindwas known as

“special duty, and not a few came to

have no little aptness in their new duties. Especially was

this true o f the men who cared for the Sick, some of

whom developed quite a little insight into disease, and

were frequen tly able to make tolerable diagnoses and

prognoses. Our cook came to be of so much consequencethat he has been given a chapter to himsel f, whi ch ap

pears elsewhere . ( See next chapter . )


fellow, but was , nevertheless , a good- f eeler, and not

un con scious of his super ior experience and worldly wis

dom . Upon occasions he would strike a dramatic atti

tude,and w i th a butcher kn i fe in lieu of a sword , would

exclaim,

“A horse ! A‘ horse ! My kingdom for a horse !At other times he would assume an especial ly sober,serious mi en , and repeat from Hamlet,

“To be or not to

be,that is the question .

”

But,notwithstanding his worldly experience and other

accomplishmen ts,Tom was very practical and was an all

around good cook, and kept his utensi ls as’ clean as soap

and water coul d make them . Indeed,our chi ef surgeon

was wont to say ,“Tom is as nice as a woman .

”

We had a litt l e tent in which was kept the mess- chest

and other things cul inary in character, which, of course,included our rations and such other arti cl es of di et as

we might, upon certain for tunate occasions,have the

good luck to procure . Our plates and cups were of tin ,

l ikew ise our spoons, and these, with two-pronged forksand i ron case kn ives, made up our table ware . We had

one tin vessel for making coff ee and another for tea,and,

in addition,a due Supply of pans

,kettles for cock

ing meat, making soup and cooking potatoes and fresh

vegetables, on the rare occasions when these could be

But, notwithstanding the Simpl ici ty and plainness o f

our culinary applian ces,T om always “

set the table”

n ea tly and, considering surroundings, attractively, on theOpened—up-and-spread-Out top o f the mess- chest, and for

each one who sat down was a clean tin plate and at its

left a clean kn i fe an-d fork, and at its right a clean tin

cup, for with T om,Order was Heaven ’

s first law .

”

Our. food was substan tial, but our menu was, so to speak,

Civil War Hospital Knapsacks. (From Med ical andSurgical H isto ry O f the Civi l War . )

Some Civi l War M issi les. (From Med ical and SurgicalH istory o f the Civi l War . )

(S ee page 1 31 )


make one for him. However, when i t came to delivering the goods, I felt a little

“shaky” and uncertain, for

I recalled that one o f! the ingredients was either sodii et

potassiitartras, or antimoniiet potassiitartras, but which

was which, I could not, for the li fe of me, remember .

A s we were about to break up and start on the marchour few reference books were all packed up, and further

than this, there happened to be no doctor near at handto put me right . A s i t was

,I gave the matter the benefit

o f a doubt, and, of course, got in the wrong ingredient,

namely,antimonii et postassii tartras. In plain English,

tartar emeti c. When the mixture was prepared it wasnoticed that it was somewhat lacking in “Siz,

” but Torn

gulped it all down like a good patient .In a little whi le he complained of feeling sorter

squeamish” about the stomach, and later he vomited .

Then he vomi ted and purged violently, and developed aseemingly ty pical case of cholera morbus. Poor T om

was white as a sheet and limp as a rag. Fortunately, oneof the regimental surgeons had returned, and in due timethe patien t was made relatively comfortable

,but it was

two or three days before he recovered his wonted

strength . However, his attack o f“biliousness”

w as cerfainly cured !

The surgeon who attended Tom suspected there hadbeen some mistake and said so to me aside.

‘

I fessed up ”

and made a “cl ean breast” of the matter, but Tom

seemed satisfied with the diagnosis of “ cholera mo rbus.

”

A s for me, I certainly got a practical demonstration of

the diff erence between tartar emetic and Rochelle salts,which I shal l never forget

,but the demonstration was

hard on poor Tom.

CHAPTER XV .

FROM VICKSBURG TO NEW ORLEANS .

The war’s whole art each private sold ier knows,A nd w ith a gen

’

ral’

s love of conquest glow s.

-ADDISON.

T H E campaign of less than three months’ duration that

ended w ith the fall of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863, was the

most bri llian t and successful of the war, and in many

respects one Of the most remarkable achievements in

modern mi litary history.

Grant,when he landed at B ruinsburg, Miss , j ust be

low Grand Gulf, and some seventy mi l es below Vicksburg, had but twenty thousand men immediately with

him. Yet,with this sma l l force he advanced boldly into

the heart of the en emy’

s country, and, by so doing, put

Vicksburg and a hosti l e army of sixty thousand men

between his own l ittle army and the North . True, Gran treceived an accession of from ten to twen ty thousand

men as the cammign progressed , but mea ntime GeneralJoseph E . Johnston, one of the best of Con federate com

manders, had assumed con trol of the territory threatened,and w i th headquarters at Jackson, Miss , was harrassingthe invading army from the east and northeast, while at

the same time Pemberton was striving to do likewisefrom the west and northwest .A jun ct ion of these forces immediately north of Grant

would , perhaps, have been fatal to the campaign , and

very likely have seriously compromised the safety Of theFederal army . But this j unction Grant prevented by

prompt and decisive movements. McPherson ,the sec

(1 39)


ond w eek in M ay , met and defeated a portion of John

ston’

s army at Raymond, Miss , eighteen mi les east ofJackson

,and two or three days later, portions of the Pif

teenth and Seventeenth Corps defeated Johnston and

drove him from his base at Jackson ,Miss. Then facing

about to the west Grant met Pemberton with a large

Con federate force in a strong posi tion at Champion ’

s

Hill,M ay 1 6. T he posi tion was well chosen , and was

about half-way between Jackson and Vicksburg, and j ust

south of the railway that connected the two places.

However,the Con federates w ere overwhelmingly de

feated,and the two days follow ing driven w i thin their

a lmost impregnable defenses at Vicksburg, where , fortyfive days later, more than thi rty thousand surrendered asprisone rs of war . Nearly as many more had been lost

during the campa ign from Pemberton ’

s army in killed,

wounded,prison ers and desertions.

Sho rtly after Vicksburg surrendered the Confederate

forces,six or eight thousand in number

,at Port Hudson

,

three hundred miles further south on the Mississippi

River,capitulated .

T he fal l o f Vicksburg with the consequen t control of

the Mississippi River by the Federals, greatly disheartened the Con federate leaders and tended to convince the

masses in the South o-f the hopelessness of their cause .

To use an expression o f the time, Gran t by taking Vicks

burg had “cut the Con federacy in two .

”

Every so ldier in the army of the Tennessee was espe

cially proud of the great achievement, and long before

the campaign closed became very fond of Grant and

thoroughly impressed with the . i dea that he was the

ablest of Un ion generals.


army, three months before, had trudged through mudandmire

In my leisure momen ts I prosecuted my medica l stud

ies,but sometimes lay idly upon my cot and looked out

upon the great river as it swept by “unvexed” to the sea .

O ften great logs and large trees floated by in the free

current, and now and then‘

a dead horse or mule,and

occasionally the dead body of a‘ man . B ut so cheap had

human life become as the war progressed, that an un

known body floating by excited but littl e comment. So

the time went by,not unpleasan tly, but few were sick

and these were made quite comfortable in the large hos

pital tent on the river bank,At the wharf in front of Vicksburg were always a

number o f steamboats engag ed in receiving and discharging ca rgoes. About 10 A .M . one day a terrific explosionwas heard in the direction of Vicksburg, and looking

toward the steamboa t landing, an immense column of

smoke and debris of all kinds was seen rising in the ai r ;in a momen t this spread out and looked precisely like a

huge mushroom . It was at once con jectured tha t a

steamboat had blown up, and as a detai l of men had been

made from our regimen t that mo rn ing for duty at the

wharf, our surgeon at once ca lled for the ambulance, and

in this we drove rapidly to the scene of the accident, and

upon arriving there found that a steamboat loaded with

ammun ition had blown up . Part of the ammun i tion con

sist ed o f concussion shel ls. A case of these,it was sup

posed, had fallen through the gangway from the deck of

the steamer to the bottom o f the hold, when an explosionfol lowed that immediately involved all the ammun ition

on the boat.

A Steamboat Explosion . 1 43

Upon the wha rf several dead bodies were seen lying

upon the pavement, and al l around were pieces of the boatand debris of all kinds that at the moment of explos ion

had been thrown in every direction . A number werekilled outright

,some were seriously wounded, others

mortally so, and several on the boat were blown out in

the river and afterwards swam ashore, and“

thus escaped

with thei r lives. O ne man from our regiment was instantly killed, and, although some eight or ten from the

same organ ization w ere assisting in handling the am

muni tion,all but the one happened at the moment to be

on shore,and thus escaped .

Toward the latter part of August came orders for theThi rteenth Corps to go to New Orleans. Our regimen t

embarked on an excellent river boat, and made the tripmost pleasantly to the place designated

, and went into

camp at Carrollton , a suburb of New Orleans.

O ne day the troops were reviewed by Gen erals Banksand Grant . Toward evening of this day word was re

ceived that General Gran-t had been thrown from his

horse and killed . This news to the Thirteenth Corps wasespecially unpleasant

,but fortunately for the country

,

Grant w as not fatally in j ured .

The monotony of camp li fe at Carrollton was, in part,relieved by frequen t visi ts to the city of New Orleanswith which there was convenient rai lway connect ion .

Those in command were len i en t in this di rection ,and

hence passes were easi ly procured .

While here I witnessed a mi litary execution . A colored soldi er , in an altercation ,

had killed a comrade, was

tri ed by court-martial and sentenced to be shot . At thetime appointed

,in the presence o f many troops in line

upon an open field, the condemned man , supported by a


colored min ister on either side, walked with tottering

steps to the pla ce of execution ; here he was seated and

bound in a chai r,beside which stood an open coffin .

Meantime,a fi le of so ldiers w ith guns lightly charged

took their places in his front, and at the word o f com

mand drew up thei r pieces, took aim and fired with fatalresults to the crimina l . This was the on ly mi l itary

execution I was cogn i zan t o f during my more than three

years’

servi ce in the army .

About the middle of September the regimen tal hospital tents were moved a short distance and put up under

some graceful live oak trees. These have beauti ful foli

age, and f requently, near the ground, divide into several

branches that are spreading in charact er .T he month of September was passed quietly and lazily

in camp ; rumors,however

,w ere ri fe of what was going

to be done . Early in October our regiment was orderedto take a boat for Algiers

,about ten mi les down the river.

This order was obeyed one beauti ful Sabbath day, on

the calm even ing o f which the regiment found itsel f atthe wharf o f the place designated

CHA PTER XV I .

SOLDIERING ON BAYOU TECHE—EVANGELINE’SCOUNTRY .

On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur and St.Martin .

There the long-wandering bride shal l be gi ven again to her

bridegroom,

There the long-absen t pastor regain his flock and his sheepfold .Beauti ful is the land w ith its forests and frui t-trees ;Under the feet a garden O f flowers, and the bluest of heavensBending above, and resting its dome on the wal ls O f the forest,They who dwel l there have named it the Eden of Louisiana.

”

—LoNGFELLow’

s EVANGELINE .

BEFORE the war what was known as the New O rl eans,Opelousas 81 Western Railroad was completed from A l

giers, on the Mississippi opposite New Orleans, to Brashear City, eighty miles west of the former place . The

railway was proj ected further west, however, through arich and beauti ful section lying on Bayou Teche, known

as the Teche country . Here, from all the fertile landstributary to Bayou Teche, was produced vast quantities

of sugar, til l the breaking out of the war paralyzed thisindustry . From the inception o f the Rebellion till the

beginning of 1863,this fertil e region was held by the

Con federates.

About the middle of January,1863

,General Weitzel

led an expedition from B rashear City into the Techecountry

,He was accompan i ed by a squadron Of gun

boats under Commodore Buchanan . Near Pattersonv il le

the bayou was obstructed by torpedoes, a sunken steam

boat and an earthwork,Fort E island j ust above was the

1 0 (1 45)


Con federate gunboat J . A . Cotton . A sharp fight ensued,

in which Commodore Buchanan lost his l i fe, a bal l from

a Con federate sharp—shoot er having passed through hishead. But

'

the in fantry got in the rear of the Con fed

crate works and these were soon abandoned . The fol

lowing n ight the Con federate gunboat Cotton was de

set ted and set on fire . With this success the expedition

of General Weitzel returned to Brashear City.

About Apri l 10, 1863, another expedition was sen t upBayou Teche . General Richard“ Taylor, a son of Presi

dent Zachariah Taylor,was in command O f the Confed

erate forces. He made a stand at Fort E island, but General Emory engaged his atten tion in front while GeneralGrover was striving to get in his rear. T he Federal sfailed to capture the Con federates

,but caused them to

abandon the Teche country so hasti ly that they were com

pelled to set fire to several transports laden with stores

at New Iberia, on Bayou Teche, and also to an unfin ished

gunboa t. Apri l 20,General Banks entered Opelousas

and General Taylor retreated beyond Vermill ion Bayou,Later General Banks occupied Alexandria, and from

there advanced tol Port Hudson ,which place he invested

about May 24, 1863, and six weeks afterwards, captured .

Our regiment, having reached Algiers, opposi te New

Orleans, by steamboat, debarked October 4, 1863, and

took the car-s for Brashear City on the New Orleans,Opelousas Western Railroad . The train was made up

Of open flat ca rs,and

,when in motion over a rough road

way , much care had to be exercised lest some of the men

should fall overboa rd . The start was made early in themorn ing. The country traversed was covered with interminable swamps, bayous, lagoons and sluggish creeks. It

was heavily timber ed, and for most of the way seemed


however, are two good angels tha t n ever desert a soldi eron the march .

The region was very level and the land wonderfullyfertile, the soil being a deep ri ch black loam. T he

cypress fences described above enclosed vast sugar plantations. Along the bayou

,at no great distan ce apart,

were great sugar mi lls. Many of these were built o fbri ck, and with their costly fixtures and extensive ap

paratus and machinery, must each have involved an outlay O f hundreds Of thousands of dollars. But being bui lt

on the banks of the bayou, the sugar made was conveyed

to market with the least possible expense. T he bayou

was narrow in many places, too narrow for a boat to

turn aroun d, and as there were no hills next to i t on

either side, i t seemed much like a great ditch .

At one time, on the march, the road led through alight growth of timber and receded quite a distance from

Bayou Teche and wound about and continued aw ay from

i t for some hours, so that the direction in which this

water course lay was forgo tten . All at once, happen ing

to look towards the north through some stunted trees,my eyes fell upon a steamboat moving slowly westward .

It looked for all the world like it was being propelled onland through the timber. The water in the bayou wasso little below the surface level of the coun try, and thestream being very narrow

,all helped to make the boat

seem to be moving on dry land instead O f on th e water .Here was an instance o f a boa t seeming so much and

the water so littl e ; on the great Mississippi , however,with which our regiment had already so much to do,

the water appeared vast and immense while the boat

dwarfed into a mere speck in comparison .

“Brother Arrayed Against Brother .

1 49

The scene of General Weitzel’

s and CommodoreBuchanan ’

s fight in the January previous and Of Gen

eral Emory’

s about the middle Of Apri l, were passedbefore reaching Franklin . Here was seen the wreck of

the burned Con federate gunboat Cotton . By the way ,Commodore Buchanan, who lost his li fe here on boardthe Calhoun and whose first name was M cK ean

,was an

Officer on board the Congress, destroyed in Hampton

Roads in March, 1862, by the Con federate M errimac,

commanded by an own brother, Franklin Buchanan, of

the Southern Navy . Thus, in the great Civi l War wasbrother pitted against brother in deadly st ri fe .

Franklin,a considerable town on the bayou,

was

reached, and here the command stopped for a time, but,

after a little,several regimen ts, including ours, were

pushed on to New Iberia ,another important place on the

Teche. Nearly al l the inhabitan ts were French , and

many o f them could not speak English ; the latter factwas true O f the negroes as well, and it was amusing to

hear them talking in a foreign tongue . A black face hadso long been associated with “

negro talk that this de

parture was curious and interesting .

The well-to—do people lived in quaint many-gabled, Old

houses. Some of them,before the war, were very

wealthy . These French were genuine creol es.

The October days spent at New Iberia were delightfulin the extreme—soft hazy weather . The foraging par

ties brought in plenty o f honey,sw eet potatoes

,chickens

and turkeys,whi le mi lk in abundance was procured of

the inhabitants. Pecans were found in plenty and

oranges were ripen ing in the orchards. It was certain ly adelightful region . Indeed, it was Evangeline

’

s country,of which it could truly be said

1 50 Mashets and Medicine.

Here no w in ter congeals our b lood l ike the rivers ;Here no stony ground provokes the w rath O f the farmer,Smoothly the plow share runs through the soi l, as a keelthrough the water.

A l l the year round the orange—groves are in blossom, and

grass growsMore in a single n ight than in a whole Canad ian summer.” 1

A printing press was found complete ; this was takenpossession of by some O f the newspaper men in our regiment, and

,upon the plain sides o f some Old pieces of

wall-paper found in an abandoned store, a new periodical was started, cal led the

“Unconditiona l Surrender

Gran t. ” O f course,but few numbers were issued, but

those proved to be o f great interest to the soldiers.

From the foregoing it wil l be seen that we had printersin our regiment . Indeed, in the Un ion ! Army every tradeand ca lling was represented, and i f the need arose mencould be found to repair anything

,from a watch up to a

locomotive, and to make anything from a hoe handle to

a turn ing- lathe .

Here the medical department fitted up a church for a.

hospital ; and in doing this the pews were taken out and

cots put in where they had been .

A cavalry brigade had advanced to Vermi ll ion Bayouand had an engagemen t with the enemy, in which quite

a number were wounded,and i t was for the reception O f

these that we were making preparations. Among the

things prepared were coff ee and tea, soup, mi lk-punch ,toddies

,etc. These preparations were made in the after

noon ,but the ambulance train did not get in ti ll after

night. Upon its arrival the wounded were all transferredto the cots in the church, nearly al l of which were fill ed,

1 From Longfel low ’

s Evangeline.

CHAPTER XV I I .

FROM T HE TECHE TO TEXAS .“We made an exped ition,

We met a host andquel led it—PEACOCK.

DURING the latter par-t O f the year 1863 a great manycolored troops were en l isted (see page At this

period the enrollment and organi zation of these were

especially active in the Departmen t of the Gul f . The colo

'

red soldiers were invariably put under white officers.

The latter came mostly from the ranks of regiments thathad seen active service . But to secure a commission in

this service some consi derable knowledge of mi litarytactics was requi red

,and the aspiran t had to pass a pretty

rigid examina tion before a board O f experts. The fever

for shoulder straps became quite prevalent, and many anambitious young man who saw no open ing for promotionin his own regiment

,began to brush up his tacti cs and

then went be fore the examiners and later secured a commission in the

“Corps d’

A frique.

” While at New O r

l eans quite a number left our regiment in this way , and

later at New Iberia, in October and November, otherswent in the same manner . Thus a number of the bestmen were lost to the regiment .

Towards the end of October quite an ex citement wascreated by a rumor that the post O f New Iberia woul d beattacked , T he Con federate-S w ere known to be in forceat Vermi l lion Bayou

, some eighteen or twen ty mi l es west,and detachments O f cavalry were constantly watching

their movements.

-New Iberia, being SO near the enemy,

( 1 52)

“Here

’

s Your D—d Rebels ! ”1 53

was in danger, and to strengthen i t as much as possible

an extended line of rifle pits was made, and the citizensof New Iberia were made to work on them.

Our cavalry surrounded and captu red a small body of

the enemy’

s cavalry. The Confederates were brought inone morn ing, and many of those composing the force atNew Iberia went out to the road as they passed. Theprisoners were disarmed and put upon their horses, but

the reins of each one Of the latter were held by a Unioncavalryman , well armed and mount ed, who rode at theSide of the prison er. O ne Of the captur ed caval rymen ,

as soon as he came in sight, noticing the throng of bluecoats that had come out to the road, began yelling at thetop of his voiceHere’s your d—d rebels ! Here’s your d—d rebels ! ”

Never was there a squad of men gotten together,Union or Con federates, but had its loud—mouthed mem

ber, some“smart ali ck” whose tongue at al l times seemed

loose and who never lacked for word nor occasion to

speak .

There were but few sick in the hospital, but“si ck call

was, o f course, held daily . About 9 each morn ing twomusicians with drum and fife came to the surgeon ’

s tent

and played a peculiar strain that all soon came to recogn iz e as “

sick call . ” Immediately upon hearing this theindisposed from each company, came to the surgeon ’

s

tent, where they were examined, prescribed for and excused from duty

,i f

, in the j udgmen t o f the surgeon ,their

ailmen ts meri ted it . In the army men vari ed greatly

regarding their infirmities. Some were always complaining, always on the sick list, and yet upon exam inationbut little in the way o f ailment could be found . Otherswer e non-committal and wen t on duty as long as they


were able to stand on thei r feet, and stayed away from

the hospital and care o f the surgeon as long as possible .

A few were malingerers, and sought to“play -ofi

Csick,

”

as i t was phrased in the army . But this class were nearly

always detected by the surgeons, and very often by theirOfficers. They were held in con tempt by all

,as a class.

Sometimes the surgeons erred on the other si de, however

,and put men on duty who were really ai ling ; this

mistake was un fortunate, but is not always avoidabl ewhen some are constantly try ing to Shirk duty by assuming indisposition .

The great amoun t Of sickness from which the regiment

suff ered during the win ter o f 1862-3, whi l e on duty at

Memphis, Tenn ,has before been spoken O f . ( See page

59. But, as soon as the field was taken at the beginn ing Of the Vicksburg campaign in A pri l

,1863

,the

health of the organ ization became excellent and sub

stantial ly remained so till the war closed . Soldi ers inactive campaign duty are healthier and happier thanwhen comparatively idle . It was strange some one in

high authority did not issue some such order as the following ! “Keep your men busy, keep them busy fighting

the enemy if possible, but, at any rate, keep them busy !”

Under Gran t, however, such an order would have beenuseless, as he always had his men doing something , and

at the same time gave his enemy matters enough to look

after. It was said above that a soldier on active duty is

healthier and happier. Activi ty, too ,en forces discipline ;

it gives no time for the brooding of discontent, home

si ckness and a spiri t of insubordination .

For a part o f the time the hospital department wasquartered in a house

,but in November the regimen t

moved its. location ,and then all, including the hospital ,


we marched ba ck along the Teche to Brashear City andwent from there by rai l to Algiers, opposite New O r

leans, when a Gul f steamer was taken for Texas.

Here be fore us was a new experience, salt water. Thesteame r left for Algiers Landing one forenoon and atn ight salt water was reached . Very few of the men had

ever been on this before, and the experience was, to mostof them

,anything but agreeable, For the greater part of

the time I was on the upper deck, and hence had plenty

O f fresh air, at least. But'

down in the hold where themen were

,the second day out was the most repulsive spot

I ever cast eyes upon .

The sa ilors, in passing about and seeing the men so

si ck,vomit ing in every direction

,j ust grinned

,as i t was

all to them a great joke . De Crow’

s Point, Tex . , i t

turned out, was the destina tion of the regimen t . Arrived

in sight O f this place the steamer anchored, as there wasno wharf , . and the vessels called lighters—o i very light

draft—could not come alongside to receive the con ten tsof the steamer

, the sea was so rough .

In this state Of things the vessel lay there and rolledand pitched, teetered, as one of the men said . Othervessels loaded with troops were in a corresponding si tua

tion ,and to see these pitch and rol l in the rough sea was

a Sight . Fina lly, after a day or two,the sea calmed down

a little, and a vessel with much difficulty came alongside,was lashed to ours, and, a fter awhil e, all got ashore w ith

out acciden t .

O n the sandy beach themen Soon Set up thei r tents and

got their things in these ; meantime the sun came out

brightly, the ai r was bracing, and all passed from the

recent depression to a state bordering on exhilaration ,

which last was attributed to the great amount O f “bile”

vomi ted up during the attacks o f sea-sickness.

CHAPTER XV I I I .

SOME OF THE MORE PREVALENT D ISEASES .

A s man, perhaps, the moment O f his breath,Receives the lurking pr inciple of deathThe young d isease, that must subdue at length,Grows w i th his grow th, and strengthens w ith his strength.

—POPE.

O NE of the most serious diseases which the Civil Warsoldier had to encounter was typhoid fever, the true nature of which was no t understoodin that period by even

t hemost advanced in the medi cal pro fession . Bad waterand bad san itation were, no doubt, the chief factors inthe

’

spread of this disease . The bowel discharges, whichwe now know contain tri llions O f typhoid germs, readyto infect al l with whom they come in contact , were carelessly handl ed and disposed of in a haphazard fashion .

A s I look back and real ize how I was exposed to the

typho i d con tagion, and how associates of my own age

were likewise exposed , I can but wonder at the good fortune Of many Of us in escaping unharmed . We really,though, of course, unwitting ly, faced as much danger asone of the great battles would have exposed us to. My

regiment,the l 3oth Illinois In fantry Volunteers, saw a

good deal Of active service at the fron t, and yet Company F, in which I en listed, lost as many from typhoidas in battle . A s I recal l i t

,seven Of my comrades in this

company were killed in. battle, or died from wounds ; and,

on the spur of the moment,I can count as many who ,

in

this organ ization , succumbed to“dusky typhoid .

” '

A nd,

(1 57)


sad to say , some O f these typhoid victims were amongthe very best young men we had,

Harlow M . Street , as noted in another place (see pagewas my best friend, and when he was stricken I

nursed him,ca red for him in every way

,and I now

know that in so doing, I recklessly exposed mysel f tothe danger Of in fection . In the end my f riend died and

all regretted his loss, for he was especial ly promising, butstrange to say the Obligation I was under o f going to our

regimental hospital and caring for him, changed the

whole trend O f my subsequent life. SO big w ith future

events are sometimes the most trivial circumstances.

Another serious loss in our company was. that O f a

young man by the name o f Wood, who was stricken at

Memphis. He was the son o f a Presbyterian min ister,was well educa ted, refined, handsome and had beforehim an exceptionally bright future . H is father came

down the river on a boat and arrived just a short time

after his son had pa ssed to the“Great Beyond,

”

and

never shal l I forget the expression on the paren t’s face

when he learned Of his bereavement.Another serious loss Company F susta ined was when

Second ‘Lieutenant Charles Ives died from typhoid . Hewas attacked about the time we started on the Vicksburg

campaign , and for a time tried to accompany us on the

ma rch. The last time I saw him he was‘

in ful l mi litary

dress,had on al l his accoutremen ts

,including sword and

gauntl ets, but it was plain ly apparent that he was a veryseriously sickman . Later he died whi le we were in thethick of the Vicksburg Siege, and in which he, a goodsoldi er, had been ambitious to bea r a good soldier’s part .But fate had decreed otherwise, and one more w ell educated

, capable young man was not permitted to brave the


where in great numbers, in warm weather, the won-deris we were not all infected ; for there was nothing to pre

vent them f rom coming di rect from the bow el dischargesto our food .

Another serious disease in war-times was measl es ( seepage and w ith us substantially every soldier thatescaped this ai lment in childhood was stricken with itduring that trying winter ( 1862 tha t

.

we spent in

Memphis. A number from my company were attackedwith this disease and several di ed . Among these were

two great strapping fellows, who , from their height, ai

ways stood at the head of the company . They were morethan six feet tall, well proportioned and soldierly in thei r

appearance and bearing. Another young man near myage, and of whom I was fond, died of this disease,

Recen tly it was! my privilege to pay a visi t to the National Cemetery at Memphis

,and upon the head stones

of a number o f my comrades, beside whose graves Istood, I could, with too much truth have added,

“Diedof measles.

”

O f those who did not di e, some were le ft partial lydeaf, some could not speak above a whisper, and the

sight of others was seriously compromised .

SO many died of measl es, so many were maimed by

that disease that I used to say that i f I were enlistingCivil War soldiers I would rej ect all that had not had

this aff ection in childhood .

But, by all Odds the most prevalen t army diseases werethose in which bowel-movements were unduly frequen t

and which occurred in four forms,namely ! Acute diar

rhea, chron i c diarrhea, acute dysentery and chroni c dy sentery . Sa id Dr. Joseph Janiver Woodward, SurgeonUn ited States Army, and one of the highest authori ti es

Diarrhea and Dysentery .1 6 1

on Civil War medicine ! These disorders occurred morefrequently and produced more si ckness and mortal ity

than any other form of disease . They made their

appearance at the very beginning of the war, not in

frequently prevai ling in new regiments before their or

ganization was complete,and, although as a rule com

paratively mi ld at first,were not long in acquiring a

formidable character. Soon no army could move“

w ith

out l eaving behind it a host of victims. They crowded

the ambulance trains,the rai lroad cars, the st eamboats.

In the general hospitals they were more numerous thanthe si ck from all other diseases, and rival ed the woundedin multitude. They abounded in convalescent camps,and formed a large proportion of those discharged fromthe service for disability. T he ma jority o f our men who

were so unfortunate as to fall in the hands O f the enemy

suff ered from these aff ections. Final ly, for many months

after the war ended, and after the greater portion of our

troops had returned to their homes, deaths from chron i cdiarrhea and chroni c dysent ery contracted in the service ,con tinued to be O f frequent occurrence among them.

”

Almost no soldier escaped an attack of diarrhea or

dysentery in some form and at some time during his

term Of service ; and some had a number of separateattacks . In all, the Civil War surgeons reported morethan cases ; and of these more than diedof the disease . A s Dr . Woodward says, the victims of

these bowel troubles w ere in evidence almost everywherein war-time . AS they did not take to thei r beds till thevery last, they could be seen as walking-shadows aboutcamp, among the ten ts, or in the corridors Of the greathospitals. Cases of acute dy sentery were very muchfewer than cases Of acute diarrhea , and, of course, vastly

1 1


more fatal . Likewise cases of well-marked chroni c dy sentery were corresponding ly few er than those of chronicdiarrhea and relatively very much more likely to end in

death.

Not a few of the cases were so near the border-line

that separates diarrhea from dysentery that the diagnos

tician was puzzled upon which side to place them ; con

sequently dysenteric-diarrhea came to be the term appliedto these hard-to—define cases.

Some o f the Civil War pathologists, after examin ingnot a few intestines from pati en ts dead from chroni cdiarrhea and chronic dysentery, came to the conclusionthat all the more serious cases Of chron i c diarrhea werereally dysen teric in. character . But the army surgeon inthe field evidently thought diff erently

,for, in round num.

bers, they reported cases O f chron ic diarrhea withdeaths

,and pati ents with chronic dy sen

fery, 4000 of whom died .

While individual cases O f the chron ic mal ady diff ered

in certain particulars, they were al l alike in two, namely,looseness Of the bowels and emaciation . Emaciation wasa constant symptom in spite of the fact that many of thepatien ts had good appetites and ate hearti ly when theywere permi tt ed to do so ; for ca reful dieting was one O f

the things that the doctor always insisted on . However,these diseases were notoriously littl e amenable to treatment especially in the way Of medication . Nevertheless,a host of remedies were tried, such as Opium

,Dover

’

s

powder, ipecac, rhubarb, nitrate O f si lver, sulphate of

copper, calomel and astringents of various kinds.

In my regiment I can recal l but one man who di ed

with acute dysente ry . He belonged to my company and

was our patient at the hospital . We were in the Teche


corpse . Every one said it was a case of self-murder .But anyone who had been affli cted as was this man,

and

knew the terrible cravings attending it, would be slow to

pronounce such a verdict. True, substantially all the

food swal lowed passed off th rough the bow els undi

gested,but this fact was the very reasonl the piti ful

pati en t was the vi ctim o f an ungovernable appetite,whi ch

last was rea lly the voice o f nature striving to satisfy its

needs.

Chron ic diarrhea was one of the inheri tances f romarmy li fe that a great many Civ i l War soldi ers carried

home with them at the end o f the great four-yea rs strug

gle, and from this trouble thousands died many months

after the last shot was fired . Further than this, manythousands were sorely inconven ienced, and at times had

thei r lives made miserable from the same cause . The

great majori ty of these tried to go about their dai lyaffai rs. O n the farm some of them,

in the shop others,at the counter or desk yet others. This one may be a

young lawyer,that one a physician ,

and the other pos

sibly preached the gospel of the low ly Nazarene . B ut ,

whatsoever the calling, and wheresoever the local ity, each

and al l were working under a handicap ; for not one of

them could tell what moment nature would sound an

urgent call to evacuate the bow els. O ne might be plead

ing at the bar, another might be min istering to the wantsof a suff ering pa tient

, and yet another might be in the

pulpit invoking the blessing of the Father o f us all, when

nature,insist ent nature

,gave a ca ll that had to be heeded .

Many,many times this call came with such suddenness

and such insistence that nature’s checks were overwhelmed

,the sphincter ani for the momen t refused to

“Graybacks.

”1 65

perform its function , and the victim’

s linen would be

so iled .

No one who suff ered from army diarrhea but hadthis last experience many, many times. Indeed, some

soldiers were so troubled in this way that, like babes, theywere compelled to wear diapers. After suffering foryea rs from this aff ection many seemingly recovered,

but

at best this was at the expense of scar-tissue, greater orless in amount, in both the colon and lower intestineand this scarred surface was a most importan t contributing cause to the atonic constipation that always attended

the so-cal led recoveri es from chronic diarrhea. Hemor

rhoids, more or less aggravated in character, was anotherafter-eff ect that invar iably followed this disease .

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to refer to thatsoldier pest, the body louse, or, as i t was fami liarlyca ll ed, the

“gray-back.

” This insect is about one- eighth

o f an inch in l ength and is o f a dirty grayish color, henceits name . It has three legs extending from either sideof the body with hairy claw- like extremi ti es. This re

pulsive pest is l iable to in fest the human body under conditions whi ch render bathing and a change of under

clothing hard to attain . Such conditions obtain whensoldiens are on long

,hard' campaign s, or in prison life,

when or where,from necessity ,

the needs of the bodytoo o ften receive only the barest attention .

Body lice were not infrequently discussed in the earlyperiod of my en listment before conditions were encount~

ered which made their immediate presence an unpleasant

rea lity . O ne day when this pestiferous insect was under

consideration one voluntee r, a number o f years older

than most of us, after listen ing for a time, spoke up with

no little show o f authority, and said ! “I haint afeard‘ o’

1 66 Mnskets and Medicine.

no‘gray-backs

,

’ ka ze I know how to git shet o f urn . I ’lljist go to the drug store an

’

get a bit of angwintnm aboutthe size o f the end o f my l ittle finger an ’ then I ’ll jistrub a l i ttle 0 ’

this a long the inside of the seams of myshirt an’ drawers

, an’

that’

l kill off the hul l bilin of um,

n its an’ all . ”

Later,after I came to make a study of medicin e, I

discovered that this man ’

s angwintnm was our well

known unguentum hydrargy ri, or mercurial ointment, acapital gerrnicide and insect ext erminator, as every physician knows.

In active campaign ing everyone was liable to be infested with these repulsive pests

,but nearly all would

embrace the fir st opportun i ty to get ri d of them by one

means or another,hence cam e the saying ! “It is no dis

grace to get‘gray-backs

,

’

but i t is a disgrace to keepthem.

The th Wisconsin , after a period of strenuous

service in the field,went in camp near Memphis, Tenn ,

and its Commandant, Colonel B finding his clothes old

and much the worse for wear promptly purchased aspick, span new uni form

, and arrayed in this he, a littlelater

,joined some convivial army friends in a dinner at

the Gayosa Hotel . During the meal a brother officer’sattention was arrested in a way that caused him to ask

of his newly uni formed fr iend the following“Colonel, what

’

s that crawling on the lapel of your

Colonel B . cast his eyes down , and recogni zing the culpri t

,deliberately picked it up in his fingers

,put it through

and under his shirt front, and addressing it, said“Go back there, d—n you

,where you belong.

Civi l War body louse, or grayback (Pediculus Ves ti

men ti) . From picture taken in w ar time.

(S ee page 1 65)

CHAPTER X I X .

T H E AUTHOR B ECOM ES AN INVALID .

It is not the same aff air to feel d iseases and to remove them.

Ovu) .

Is there no balm in Gilead ! Is there no physician there ! ”—JEREM 1AH .

FOR nearly a year after my enl istment I enjoyed excellent heal th in the ma in,

but towards the end of the

Vi cksburg campaign I was attacked with an acute bow eltrouble .

At first I thought little of this and trusted to my vigorous constitution and usual fine hea lth to bring me out al lright . But the trouble persisted and

‘

resisted the usualremedies. Finally, I resorted to heroic measures whenI followed the suggestion of one of the surgeons whosaid he had known such cases to be aborted by the use

‘

of large doses of ipeca-c. Accordingly,I went to the

cook, got a pint of warm water, put a hal f teaspoon ful

of powdered ipeeac in this and awaited results. In due

time I became very sick at the stomach and vomited vio

lently . Meantime, I drank freely of warm water,but

this and all the other stomach contents came up and muchstraining followed .

Final ly, my upheavings came to an end, but for a time

I was weak and limp as the classical dishrag. For two

or three days following this experi ence I thought mysel fbetter, but, in the end, there was no improvemen t .In bowel troubles, accompanied with frequent evacua

tions, our surgeons were in the habit of prescribing one

of the very few pills we carried in stock and which was

(1 67)


composed o f two grains of camphor and one o f opium.

They also prescribed such astringents as acetate of l ead,tann in

,kino

,etc . All of these things I had used without

any permanent benefit. Doubtless, the Mississippi River

water,whi ch we used for drinking and cooking

, was not

good for me, but I did not learn this till later.

From Vicksburg, as elsewhere related— for to makemy inval id experien ce clear some repetition will be meces

sary—we went !to New Orleans by boat, and after remaining in that vicin ity for a time, crossed the river toAlgiers, where we took a train for Brashear City, on

Berwick B ay . Arrived at our first destination, we

marched up Bayou Teche and spent the rema inder of thefall months in the beauti ful Teche country . Meanwhile,my trouble was growing worse instead of better, and

final ly developed into a well-marked case of chroni c

Towards the last of November orders came for us toreturn to New Orleans, where wei were to take a vesselthat would convey us down the river

,out o f it s mouth,

and across the Gul f of Mexico to De Crow ’

s Point, on

Matagorda Bay, Tex, To reach Brashear City we hadto march overland

,and I was so weak that, for the first

and only time in my l i fe, I got in our ambulance and

rode . At Brashear City we took a train and, in due time,w ere at Algiers, opposite New O rleans. It was supposed

we were going to Texas to enter upon an active cam

paign , and under these circumstances my medical adviserthought it best that I should rema in behind and enter aconvalescent camp . I decided to take his advice, and

upon reaching Algiers I took such of my eff ects as I

would most need andwent to a large n ea rby convalescent

camp . I found hundreds of soldiers, all in greater or


recovering my thing s I rolled mysel f in blankets and

slep t ti ll morning.

A s time passed I grew thinn er and thinner , and, mean

whi le, my appetite reached out and w idened in its crav

ings for numerous arti cles of food ; for chron i c diarrheapresents the strange anomaly of a pat i ent becoming

weaker and weaker whi l e his appetite becomes stronger

and stronger . B ut,notw ithstanding my food cravings, I

tri ed, in a way , to be careful in my diet . In our frontwere the sal t waters o f Matagorda Bay ; in our rear

,for

miles and mi les, was a sandy desert ; consequently therewere no inhabitants from whom could be procured such

articles as mi lk,eggs

,butter and other a rticles of home

di et . A s it was, I used a great deal of bee f soup, thoughat times this seemed to aggravate my trouble . I madefree use of toast, but, as may be in ferred , we had no

butter for this . Speaking o f butter,the Sutler some

times had this on sale . But such butter as it was ! Fromits taste and smell one might think i t some that was

brought over with the Pilgrim Fathers. I had all the

tea and coff ee I cared for (made from the brackishwater) , but, of course, cream for these was out of the

question,though at the hospita l we, sometimes, had a

supply of condensed milk, which was not a bad substitute .O ne day one of our surgeons was walking along the

water’s edg e when he came across a fish that was yetbleeding from a wound infli cted, in all probability, bythe revolving wheel of a steamer; As the fish appearedeatable it was picked up and brought to T om Ralph, our

always competent and resourceful cook, who, at once,put it over the fire and cooked it .In due time we had baked fish for dinner, and a more

savory dish I never ate. A s said before, I, in a measure,

I Yield to Temptation .1 7 1

kept my ravenous appetite under control . A most im

portan t influence in enabling me to do this w as the con

stant presence of my associates,as a certain sense of

shame served to hold me back from overindulgence .However, one day my craving passed all bounds, when

I found myself at the Sutler’s tent where I ordered a

glass o f cider and o ther things“to match . To pa ra

phrase on Daniel Webster’s words it was another case

of,

“Sink or swim ! Live or die ! Survive or perish ! ” Iwas

,ben t on having one more square meal . No one not

circumstan ced as I was can have the faintest conception

of the rea l satisfaction and en joyment that food and

drink procured that day at the Sutler’s ten t afforded me.

Af ter I had fin ished eating I turned about and had gonebut a few steps when whom should I meet but Tom, our

fai thful cook . I felt as mean and as consci en ce- smitten

as i f I had stolen something, and was fearful Torn had

seen me partaking of the“forbidden fruit,” as it were .

But I had the wisdom to say nothing,and a s T om said

nothing, I do not, to this day, know whether he knew of

my dietary transgression . However,fortunately

,I ex

perienced no immediate il l results from my i ll-advisedindulgence .

Not long a fter we went into camp on De Crow’

s Pointthe holidays came, but we were in no condition to cele

brate them. However, T om, w ith his usual resourcefulness, ski rmished round

,made a pie w ith dried apples,

sprinkled some sugar on toast, gave the beef an extraturn , and when all things were considered, we had arespectable army Christmas dinner.The brackish water that we were compell ed to use

went well enough in our soup and answered the purposein cooking meat, but it was horrible to drink and worse


than execrable for making tea and coff ee . Tea and

coff ee, i t will be remembered, were two articles that mymedical adviser directed me to use.

Very soon after the coming in o f the New Year, 1864,I and my fri ends came to realize that i t was uphill worktrying to regain my health on army rations and ami d

unsan itary conditions, and consequently, a furlough wasprocured for me to go to my home in Illinois for a sea

son,and try what my mother

’

s cooking and tender care

would do for me.

With my furlough and transportation in my pocket I

boa rded a steamer at the landing bound for New O r

leans. The sun was shin ing brightly when we got under

way , and the sea was as smooth as glass, and a beautifulgreen in color . There were other soldi ers on board goinghome on furlough, and with one of the most agreeableof these I became acquainted, and when n ight came wespread our blankets down on the deck and lay down upon

them side by side . Our coats and overcoats we foldedup and put under our heads for pi llows. My compan ionkept on his shoes

,but, to rest my f eet , I took mine off

and put them at my head under my folded coats. It wasa clear n ight, the stars above us appeared like mil lions o fdiamonds, and the sea ai r was like ozone in its purity .

But we were both fa tigued and soon stars, sea air andall other surroundings w ere forgotten in sound sleep,from which we did not awaken till daylight. I felt muchrefreshed and,

sitting up,I reached for my shoes and

they were not to be found where I had placed them,

under my“pillow ! ” Getting up, I looked under the

blankets that had served us for a bed, but the shoes were

nowhere to be found . Persuading my compan ion to re

ma in “in bed” awhil e longer

,I got him '

to t ake off his


wondered why his litt l e country store required s uch frequent purchases from these various cities ; but at last

the truth came out why he,visited these places. His

home was some fifteen mil es from the railway,and at

certain interval s he would have his man hurriedly drivehim to the station where he would boa rd a train for, say ,Cin cinnati , and upon reaching that place he would at oncehave a “high old time” drinking

,and all the rest that

goes with it. His spree over, he would shave, bathe, put

on clean linen and take a train for home , where he would

arrive as fresh and sunny as a spring mo rning, for he

was as gen ial and pleasant a man as one wou ld meet in

a month’

s travel . In the most literal sense, this manl ived two lives ; he was a veri table Dr . Jeky l and Mr .Hyde when Robert Louis Stevenson 1 was in his swad

dling clothes. Living off the rai lway,with no telegraph,

and remote from l ines of travel made this double li feeasier to carry on . But in the end it was known to all

who cared to loo-k into the matt er.A s one of this man ’

s Sunday-school scholars I had all

along been loath to believe the stori es that were in circulation relative to him

,but after meeting him on the

boat in a drunken fi t,there was no longer room to ques

tion the matter . D o-ubtless he was what we today. ca ll a

periodic,and about so often the craving for l iquor came

upon him,and there seemed nothing to do but grati fy it .

He was , however, too proud and had too much respectfor his fami ly to indulge his appetite at home.

Upon meeting him on the boat he tried to talk a little ,but, real izing his condition ,

he excused himsel f by saying

he had an errand in the city that he must attend to at

1 Author of Dr. Jeky l and Mr. Hyde.

Home on Sick- leave.1 75

once, and this done he would return and go up the riverw ith me. Having said this, he left the boat and did not

return,and I ma de the trip North w i thout him. The

next time I saw him I was a guest at his home, and when

bedtime came no minister o f the gospel coul d have con

ducted family worship with more dignity and proprietythan he .Arrived at Cairo

,I took an Illinois Central train for

Central ia,where I was due to change ca rs for Vandal ia

on the other l ine of the road . A t Centralia I sat down

to the first civi lized meal I had eaten in fi fteen months ;and a white table cloth, in lieu of rough boards (whichwe wer e sometimes so fortunate as to have ) , clean whiteplates

,teacups and saucers

,and bright kn ives and forks,

in the place of tin plates, tin cups and rusty knives, madean impression on me such as no one but a soldier canreal ize . In due time I arrived at Vandal ia, where I tookthe hack for Greenville

,twenty mi l es west and not then

on a rai l road, Although in Janua ry, the day was not

cold and the ride not over fatiguing.

Arrived home,my mother, brother and sist ers were

delighted to see me, but must have been shocked at myappearance, so thin and wan had I become . I at onceset about the business of) trying. to get better.My mother’s cooking seemed little short of a godsend,

and I certa in ly was in a state of mind to appreciate newmilk

,fresh eggs and sweet butter. Boiled mi lk, soft

cooked eggs,toast, tea and coffee comprised my staple

diet,and, having my mother prepare these for me, was

a great satisfaction .

From time to time I consulted a physician ,took his

medicine and tried to ca rry out his directions. For

tunately , the days of my ravenous appetite had gone by.


Slowly, very, very slowly I began to improve. But it

was not un l ike a man walking up a slippery hill,for to

day I would be better and tomorrow not so well again .

I would gain a little, and then seem to lose . But,for

tunately , in the long run my really vigorous constitut ion

served me a good part, and a s weeks passed by I could

see that I was gaining.

A s I began to improve I grew restless, because I wasaway from my regiment . Indeed, I was in a position to

sympathize with a caged bi rd. For, however hard it wasfor a lad to in the beginn ing relinquish his plans in civi lli fe and join the army

,and however. camp li fe may at

first have gone against the grain, after a time associations were formed and ties created that made one’s regimen t seem his real and on ly proper place . Indeed, onefelt an interest in his regiment not un like that in his family , though, o f course , i t was of a different kind . This

interest in on e’s command produced an indescribablefeeling and a burn ing desi re to be with one’s organ iza

tion and share its fortunes, whether good or bad.

By and by came inklings of a campaign which the

Army o f the Gul f,in which my regimen t was an integral

part, was about to enter upon in the int erior of Lo uisianaand up the Red River .

Towards the end of April, 1864, came the report thatthis campa ig n had ended disastrously, and that many o f

my regiment had‘ been killed

,wounded and captured !

O ne who has not been situated as I then was can, in any

sense,real ize my sensations when this report reached me.

Like the above-named caged bird, beating at the bars ofits cage

,I bera ted the fortune that had driven me to,

and kept me at my home where I could not sha re the

fortune of my comrades, bad as this proved to be in the


pa rti cipant, barring acciden ts,I should have been taken

prisoner and thus afforded the opportunity of ‘

seeing the

inside” o f what we then styled “The Grea t Rebellion,

”

and then l iberated al ong w i th my associates,and per

mitted to return to my duti es in the regimen tal medepartment .

B ut to go back to my inval idism which I was

tient ly try ing to endure, and if possible overcome,

home in Illinois. A s said before, I was n

mented with a ravenous appetite , and consequently I h

little trouble in st icking close to the prescribed diet of

mi lk, soft-cooked eggs, toast, etc. With the coming of

the warm spring months I real ized that I was makingsubstantial progress on the road toward relative recovery .

I was gaining in strength and flesh,and one day felt

strong enough to mount a horse and ri de several mi les

to the farmhouse of Captain Denny Donn el l, of my com

pany, who was promoted to the captaincy of Company F,

after the death of Captain Colby, who, i t will be remem

bered, was mortal ly woun ded at Vicksburg. I arrived atthe Capta in Donn ell home a little be fore noon on a beau

ti ful M ay day and gladly accepted an invi tation to stay

to dinner. And at this dinner, now fifty- two yea rs in

the past, I yet reca l l most excell en t home-made bread,freshly churn ed, sweet butter, and plen ty of what w e to

day ca ll“whol e” sw eet milk of the very best qual ity.

Doubtless , my ri de had made me hungry, but , anyway, I

ate heartily and was none the worse for i t .Although four months had gone by since I had seen

Captain Donnell,yet his wi fe was grea tly interested in

meeting someone who had seen and talked w ith him sinceshe had. She was a noble woman

,had a number o f

children,and was managing these and the farm besides.

A Soldier ’

s Wife.1 79

A s we talked about her husband,the tea rs welled up, and

these at first she tri ed to hide , but her woman’

s hear t

was more . tender than her will was s trong, and in the

end tears suffused her cheeks. Veri ly, in war-time the

women,no less than the men,

have their burdens to bear

and,at times, to al l but stagger under.

A s said before, soon after getting home I consulted a

physi cian and, for a time, took his medicine , but after

awhi le,not seeing any pronoun ced improvement, stopped

taking it . I had the usual experience of friends and old

ladi es coming in and suggesting various cure-ails.

O ne day I met an officer who had resigned from the

a rmy on account of a severe attack of chroni c diarrheaand who alleged that he w as cured by using very freely

a decoction made of a certa in herb which he describedin such a way that I thought I could iden ti fy it . A ny

way , in sea rch of it I made long walks about the coun try,

but I could not satisfy mysel f that I had found the plan t

with the a lleged heal ing properti es, Fin-al ly, I decided togive the matter the benefi t of a doubt and made and

drank decoctions of various w eeds, all of which I sur

vived and, meantime, slowly improved , as said before .

Here I will digress and anticipate enough to say that

I had this disease,in all

,no less than six years. True

,I

recovered a fai r degree of strength and my normalweight, but when feeling the best, I realized that this

a i lmen t, like the sword o f Damocles, was ever hanging

over me. In other words,I was never free f rom a pos

sible a cute man i festation of the trouble ; for the fires of

disease had not been en ti rely put out, so to speak, and

were yet smouldering,ready to kindl e and start up after

any imprudence or unusual exposure .


During the winter o f 1866-7 , more than a year afterthe Civi l War , I attended my fi rst course of lectures at

A nn Arbor,Mich . , and then and there my old enemy at

times houn ded me ; and upon occasions this bounding wasespecially annoying and embarrassing. A littl e error in

diet ; an unusual exposure of some kind was almost sureto bring on an attack .

In the spring of 1868 I went to St . Louis,near which

city I lived, to take a summer course in medicine . I wasfortunate in being given the pr ivilege of dissecting a fine

cadaver, free of cha rge, through the kindness of tha taccomplished surgeon

,Dr. John T. Hodgen ,

then in the

flower of his career, and who was especially kind and

helpful to me in various other ways. O ne of the

younger M cDowells gave special demonstrations in ana t

omy , which I also had the privi lege of attending. I

also was permi tted to follow the best surgeons and

internalists through the wards o f the hospitals. But myold enemy again hounded me, the Mississ ippi River water

acted on my system like a purgative, and my old trouble

bemme so aggravated that I was obliged to leave the

city, notwithstanding the except ional opportun ities I

real ized I was leaving behind me. Later, I began thepractice o f medicine

,and had been thus engaged for

some time be fore the attacks o f my old army troubleceased to annoy me. But, even then the disease left

behind certain permanen t disabiliti es which I w i ll nothere detail .

This much I have thought proper to refer to that thereader

, who has come on the stage in the gen erationsince the Civil War may know that, even the more for

tunate, who participated in that great struggle, came out


the wood across the gang-plank and on the boat. Thiswork was often accompan ied by a rhythmi cal chant fromthe throats of the dusky toi lers. When a due quantity

o f wood had been secured the bell would ring for all to

come on board, the gang-plank would be haul ed in and

the tinkle of a small bel l nea r the engine would be the

signa l for the vessel to again get underway.

The river was fu ll, the banks wer e low and l ined with

trees,many o f them overhanging the water and clothed

in a new dress of rich green . After a time a seri es of

long whistl es would noti fy us that the boat was to make

a landing at some li ttle river town where freight was tobe put off and some taken on . Ar rived at the landing a

great hawser would be thrown ashore and made fast to

a tree or strong post,then the gang-plank would be put

out, and over this woul d go the always stalwart and everhappy deck hands, black as night, most of them.

Not in frequently we would come to a gunboat, when

we would st0p while some of its crew came to us in a

yaw l, and maybe come aboard for a few moments’

con

.sultation with the captain ; for guerri llas and bands of

Con federates were a constant menace to navigation,and

the river was patro lled from St . Louis to its mouth by

a rmored vessels, and more than hal f the steamboats wemet showed where they had been perforated by rifle or

cannon shot . ( See pageWhen we had passed to the south of Memphis I was

sitting hal f unconsciously on the cabin deck, w ith sev

eral compan ions,toward the forward part o f the vessel,

when , on the Mississippi shore, a man was seen to

approach the water’s edge and ra ise a gun to his shoulderand fire in our direction . We w ere near the middle o f

the river and the bullet struck the water not far from

“Home Again .

”1 83

the boat . Some of those about me,thinking that maybe

there were more rifllemen to spring up, became a little

excited . O ne o f these,a large burly naval officer, ran

and took refuge behind a cotton ba l e . Here,it is proper

to say , that every Mississippi steamboat in war-time pro

tected al l its decks with piles of cotton bales. But it

turned out that the man who fired the musket was our

solitary foeman, i f foe he was, for no one knew his

motive .While I knew that my regiment was at some point on

the river I did not know j ust where . Finally at someplace we landed well down the Mississippi I learned that

it was at Baton Rouge,whi ch place was reached about

midnight n ear the middle of June ; and,although the

n ight w as dark and all about strange,i t was with a glad

hea rt tha t I stepped upon the wharf and ascertainedfrom some soldiers on guard that my regiment was

encamped about a hal f mi l e away. Following the direc

tions given me and walking for a time, I saw through

the gloom the shadowy outline of tents, and among thesefound first my regiment and then its medical departmen t,where, w ith my knapsa ck for a pi llow and blanket forcover

,was soon fast asleep .

Early next morn ing I was up to receive the greetings

o f friends. A nd w ill the reader believe me when I saythat I now felt really at home again , and for the first

time since leaving my regimen t, five months before , was

happy and content . Doubtless,part of this feeling was

due to my much improved heal th.

While many of our men had been captured,a consid

crable nucl eus was l eft, and in the ranks and among theofficers I came across not a few of my old fri ends and

acquaintan ces. I found my individual department not a


little down -at-the-heel, i f I may so speak,and I soon

got busy setting things to rights and getting in the barness again .

Not long a fter my return a number of the regimentalofficers came to us who had been captured at Mansfield

,

but w ere so fortunate as to secure paroles. Among

these was our Lieutenant Colon el John B . Reid, who wasshot through the lungs and was first reported ki lled, but,fortunately, made a good recovery, served ti l l the warended and returned to Greenville

,Ill .

,where he recently

died of old age,He was one of the bravest and best

offi cers in our regiment, and had the esteem and respectof all.

CHA PTER XX .

O N T H E M ISSISSIPPI IN 1864.

War’s a bra in -sp litting, w ind-p ipe sl i tting, ar tUn less her cause by right is sanctified.”

—BYRON .

Tents,guidons, bannerole are moved afar,

Rising elsewhere as rises a morn ing-star.—E . C . STEDM AN .

BATON ROUGE seemed quite a pleasant place, though

its State House was in ruins, having been burned in the

exigencies of war and left with some of its bare bri ckwalls standing. Just north of the town was the Arsenalenclosed with earthworks and well protected by artille ry.

In this the Post Quartermaster had his offi ce and sup

plies, and hither I was wont to cometo get the hospital

It was Baton Rouge’s fortun e to be twice in the handsof the Con federates and twice in the possession of the

Federals. The Con federates occupied it from the out

break of the war till the Federals took possession of it

shortly after Farragut captured New O rleans in thespring of 1 862 . General Williams

,with several thousand

troops, was stationed here, and in the summer of 1862

there was So much serious sickness that the ranks w erevery much thinn ed . Learn ing of this

,General John C.

Brecken ridge attacked the Federals in strong force,August 5

,1862. General Williams could ral ly but

twenty-five hundred men for the de fense, almost pre

cisely one-hal f the strength of the Con federates, who

attacked with great vigor . Maine, Vermont, Connecticut,

(1 85)


Massachusetts, Michigan ,Wisconsin and Indiana were

represented in General Williams’ littl e army,but so

many men were sick that the regimen ts engaged hadbeen reduced to mere Skeletons. The Indiana regimen t

lost al l its field Of ficers,and General Williams, putting

himself at its head,sai d ! “Boys, I will lead you,

”

and,

suiting the action to the word, was received w i th hea rtycheers

,but a momen t later received a rifle ba l l in the

breast and di ed instantly. T he Con federates were re

pulsed, but nevertheless, Baton Rouge was a littl e laterevacua ted by the Federals.

In December, 1862, the Capitol Ci ty was again taken

possession of by Un ion troops, and never afterwardspassed from thei r control .

Our camp was delightfully located and, al though i t

was mid- summer,yet the weather was en joyable and as

moderate as could be w ished for . Somewhere we founda book on games

,and somehow it occured to us to learn

to play chess. At one of the Baton Rouge stores w e

found a set o f chess made out of bone, and that, I think,the dealer proposed to sell us for three do llars and a

hal f . We real ized that i t was a case of robbery, but aswe wanted the chess

,we “chipped in ”

and the covetedchessmen were ours. At the game we spen t hours and

hours,and in the end became average players. Among

those in the regiment who played with us was a privateby the name o f Hunt, who had very black hair, very

black eyes and very long black whiskers . He had a high

forehead and unusually good features ; indeed, he waswhat woul d

,today

,be termed a typica l “high-brow .

” Ican see him yet in a brown study over a contemplated

chess-move,his long whiskers w rapped about one hand

and his fine eyes alight with the purpose he had in mind .


After the war had been in progress a year or two

the San itary Commission was organ ized . This organ iza

tion had the support of wealthy and prominen t people

throughout the North, and was the means O f relievingmuch suff ering among the soldiers. It supplied cotton

shirts and gowns for the Sick. The reader should bearin mind that the war had almost destroyed the cultiva

tion o f cotton in the Southern States, and what was

raised could not be disposed of,consequent ly cotton

goods were at a premium. (See page At home

women were paying 50 cents a yard for their cal ico

dresses, and esteemed themselves well atti red when

arrayed in one. The San itary Commission supplied the

hospitals with loaf sugar, home made wines, preserves,soda crackers

, etc , al l of which were delicaci es comparedwith army rations. Further than this, the San itary Com

miss ion did qui te a little in the way of supplying the

so ldiers with reading matter . Harpe! s M onthly ,The

A tlantic, Harper's Weekly and Frank L eslie’

s Weekly

were some of the periodicals,and the S tandard, A dvo

cate,H erald and Observer were some of the papers fur

nished ; and, al though they were all back numbers,yet

they were greatly appreciated and read with avidity .

To the soldi er of literary tastes the scarcity of readingmatter was one o f his greatest privations

,and to procure

even a modicum in this di rection was always a task. A n

odd volume was sometimes picked up—today, it would

possibly be in a deserted house ; next week some gemin. the literary way. would maybe be found in the hands

of a soldier who lacked appreciation and who was readyto part with it “

for a song.

”The book, when read, wa s

apt to be put in the hands Of a friend, who would scan

its pages and pass it on to an appreciative comrade who

Some Literary M orsels . 1 89

would do l ikew ise . Throwing about camp and appar

en tly uncared for, I found a fine copy of Byron and

another of Shakespeare , which I rescued, read and haveyet in my possession . I f the owner of the library, fromwhich I fear they w ere at first purloined, will come for

ward and i den-tify property, I shall be glad to surrenderthe volumes, though they have now been in my libraryfor more than fi fty years.

At one time during the Siege of Vicksburg ColonelNathan iel Niles, of my regiment, was indisposed and

came to the hospi ta l to recuperate for a few days. He

was a man of rare culture and educa tion . A little whilebefore I had somewhere picked up an elementary workon chemistry and was studying it as best I could

’

, as i twas di rectly in. my line of work .

This work fel l into the hands of Colonel Ni les, whoread it from beginn ing to end with avidity . At home,where reading matter was in plenty

,the chances are he

would have scarcely glanced at a work on so dry a subj cet as chemistry . But “circumstances alter cases” is an

old adage no l ess true in literary matters than elsewhere .

CHA PTER XX I .

AUNT TILDA .

The only reason we don’t see good things everywhere is because we haven ’t good eyes.

”

SELECTED.True wit is nature

‘

to advan tage dressed.—POPE.

O UR first acquaintance w ith Aunt Tilda, a n egro

woman, and as we learned later, a typica l Southern

“Mammy,” began when she came to our regimental camp

to secure any washing or mending the men might care to

have her do. In due time her quaint talk and original

ways made her an object of interest to the more appre

ciative among us, and, consequently, when we received

marching orders and moved camp Aunt Tilda moved

with us, and thus , in a way , came to be a sort of fixtureinour regiment . A little old tent was given her. for the

time being,and when in camp this was put up imme

diately behind the ofiicers’ quarters. In this tent she

sl ept, had her few belongings, and about it did her cook

ing and washing. In addition to washing and mending

for the men she made and sold to them sundry eatables,among which were such staples as johnnycake and com

pone.In stature, Aunt Tilda was inclined to be husky, her

face was round as the full moon , as black as n ight, and

this last was emphasized by the gleam of her teeth and

the glint o f the whites o f her big eyes. Her head was,at al l times, properly turbaned with a red bandanna

(1 90)


hankercher dat yung Mastah Henry dun giv’ huh fa de

birfday .

“D en de preachah an

’

all de qual i ty folks kem to dobig house an ’ helt de biggus fun ’

l I eber dun seed . Dey

dun dig de grave in de famn berr in ’ groun’ back 0’ de

auchid, an’ when de clods fal l on de elab-boad’

s dat covah

de cawfin ,Mastah Shelby ’ring he han ’

s an’

moan like

he sho’

gwine to be daid. But Mistis Shelby, she jist’

cry an ’

w ipe ’way huh teahs wid de hankercher dat yung

Mastah Henry dun giv’ huh .

“Pooty soon aftah yung Mastah Hen ry’

s fun’

l de

toomstone man dun kem! to de big house an’ Mastah

Shelby dun tole de man what he want him do. D en, one

day , deman kem back wid a toomstone white as de snow

in de wintah,an

’ what had at de top a weepin’ willah an ’

undah a big swo’

d jist’ lack yung Mastah Hen ry dun

gwine an ’

whup’

d de whol e wuld.

“Yung Mastah Jeems Shelby, he’

low he mus’ j ine de

black hoss calvry dat he dun read’

bout in all de papahs.

Mastah Shelby,he say no

,an

’ Mistis Shelby, she say no,

but yung Mastah Jeems was hand in he hai d, so he dun

put he saddle on de blackus hos on de place,load he

faddah’

s hoss pisti l an’ rid ’

way to j ine de black hoss

calvry in ole Virginy dat he dun bin read’

n’bout in all

he papahs.

“Poah Mastah Jeems, nobudy dun seen hide nah ha—ah

o’ him since he dun rid ’way on de black hoos, an’ wid

de hoss pistil in one 0’ he han ’

s an’ de bridle rein in de

uddah. Mastah Shelby ’qui red ’bout him eberywhere,

pu-t’

vertismints in all de papahs, but nobuddy seed him

an’

nobuddy hud -bout him no place . Poah yung Mastah

Jeems,he jis

’

dun gwine aw f de yuth lack he de thinnis’

ah .

War’

s Harvest . 1 93

Yu ng Mastah Nels Shelby, he dun gwine an’

Jine too .

D en he dun gwine an’

got tuck prisn-er, an’ Mastah an

’

Mistis not heah from dey son fah long, long time an’

den dey b’

leebe he daid . But one day , when dey dun

gwine an ’ guess he sho’ daid

,Mastah Nels dun an

’ walk

right in fru de do ’

. A n’ Mastah Shelby, he laugh an

’

ho llah, an’

Mistis Shelby, she j its! smi le an’ kiss yung

But poah Mastah Nels, he 1 13’ a shaddah, an

’ he dun

tolt al l we’

uns he dun got de febahs in de pris’

n an’ de

Yanky doctahs dey guess he sho’ die . D en he furgit hetse

’

f . D en bime’

m by he fine he se’

f agin,an

’ he so pow’

ful weak he caint tu’

n obah in de baid . D en he dun

gwine’n git little

‘

bettah an’ when de C ’

mishnur kem hedun gwine an

’ git exchang’

. D en he dun tuck de steamkyahs an

’

retch’

d de stashun neah de big house,an

’

a

man he tuch ’

m in he buggy an’

cay’

d’

m to he faddah’

s

gate.“But poah Mastah Nels, he lack he muddah

’

s cookin’

so well he dun gwine an’

et so much he got a’lapse o’

de febahs, de doctah say . D en he lose he se’

f an’

nebah

fine he se’

f, but jis

’

gwine’

n breav he las’ bref .“D en all de quali ty kem an

’ dey dun gwine’

n havenuddah big fun ’

l, an

’

d-

ey put poah yung Mastah Nelsin de grave side 0 ’

he brudd-ah. A n’ Matsah Shelby

,he

dun gwine’

n gits nuddah white toomstone wid a brokeaw f weepin

’ willah at de top an’

a big muskit at de bottum, jis

’ lack he dun gwine an’

shoot al l de Y ankis.

“Den de Yankis kem to Mastah Shelby’s and tuck all

he hosses, druv aw f de cattul, kilt all he hawgs an’ cotch

all de chickuns. D en’bout de nex wick de Corn fed’

ts

kem an’ tuck wha t de Y ankis l ef’ . D en. dey kep

’

see

sawin’ lack ; fust de Yankis den de Corn fed’

ts, an’

at las’

1 3


dah was Jis’

lef’ de chimblys ob de big house an ’ de bodis

ob de big pines, Y es,c hi le

,when de sojah

’

s was all gon ean

’ de bun ’in was all dun gon e out,dese was all dere

was l ef ’ stan in ’

, an’

sho’

s yu’

s bawn dem chimblys an’

dem white tree-bodis look jis’ lack dey was han ’ts an

’

Wid de chilluns al l daid an ’ de stalk al l kilt and’ run ’d

aw f, an’

wid de big house,de bawns an

’ de qua’

tah's all

bun ’d down,Mastah an

’

. Mistis Shelby seed dere wasnuffin lef

’

fur um to do but to cross de ribbah an’ go

down to Texas, whah dah was no fitin’

an’ whah Mastah

had a bruddah. But Mastah an’

Mistis’low ’d dey was

dat poah dey would have to leave all de niggahs but jis’

Calline, de cook, an’ Uncle Jonas

,de butlah.

”

O ne day , a fter recoun ting some of the above,Aunt

Tilda ’

s feelings got the better of her, and a fter cryingfor a time she wiped her eyes on her dress skirt and

spoke substantially as follows !“

Jis’ to cawnsidah ! D em Shelby chilluns all daid ! De

big house,de bawns, de gin,

dequa’

tahs’~s all in ashes !

A n’ poah Mastah an

’ Mistis Shelby dun gwine ’way downin Texas whah I sho’

ueber seed um eny moah !“D em Shelby chilluns, dat

’

s al l dun gwine’

n to deygraves was jis

’

lak dey was de same as mine . Yung

Mastah Hen ry was jis’

six weeks yungah dan myN

’

polyun ; an’ yung Mastah Jeems was l ess’n a yeah

oldah dan my Ce’

sah ; an’ yung Mastah Nels was bawn

on de same day wid my P’laski . D em Shelby chillums

dey all dun gw ine an ’

suck des yere ole black bres’

s jislack dey was my own , an

’ lack de blood in da’ah bodis

was de sam e as de blood dat run fru my vains. A n’

when dey gits a l ittle biggah dey plays wid my boys jis’

lack dey was all bruddahs. A n’

nun o’

dem cay’

d who


Aunt Tilda was full of wise sayings, so full, indeed,

that sometimes she seemed a sort o f black fema le ZE sop .

I cannot recall half o f her sage utterances, but the fol

lowing is the substance o f some of them !

“What did de good Lawd gib us two yurs fur an’

jis’

one tung ef’twan t to lis’

n tw iet an ’

speak jis’ onet

“When yu’

s wastin’ time

,chi le, yu

’

s jis’

nachilly

wastin’ what yo’

deah li fe’

s made out ’n .

”

“Honey,ef yu keeps on a steppin

’

an’ a goin’

yu mos’

al ’us sho’ gits up de hi ll , sometime .

”

“Sometimes yu bettah hole yo’ han ’

s an’ give yo’ haid

a chanct . ”

“De roostah do a heaps o’ crowin’

,but de hen sho

’

lays de aig.

”

“Chile,doan nobah be huntin’ trouble, kase heaps 0

’

it’

s sho’

to fine yu.

”

“Mastah Shelby was always ’fear

’

d de cri cks was

gwine to rise an ’

spile de craps an’

drown de stalk,but

Mistis Shelby say she did’

n b’lebe in crossin’ cri cks tillyu gits n igh to um

,an

’

she sho’

w a’n t gwine to pestahhuh mine wid si ch unsuh’

tn mattahs nohow .

”

“Somehow de niggahs on de plantashun lack oldMistisbetten ’d dey did old Mastah .

”

CHAPTER XX I I .

T H E SOLDIERS RECEIVED THEIR MONEY, ANDHow SOME OF THEM GO T R ID OF IT .

T H E PAYMASTER AND T H E SUTLER.

I f money goe before, al l ways do lie open .

—SHAKESPE ARE.A fool and his money are soon parted.

—OLD ADAGE.

AT intervals,var ious in duration ,

we were visited by

the paymaster, who paid us what was coming from the

Government . A paymaster had the rank of Majo r in theregular army . To us in the field he always came with

his“strong box ” conveyed in an ambulance, or army

wagon, and well guarded by a troop of cavalry withloaded carbin es in thei r hands. Reaching a particular

regiment he would go over the amoun t due each man ,

as reported by the Adjutant, and, if this was found correct

, the specified sum would be put in a pay envelopethen the men would be formed in line, and when the

name of a given soldier was ca ll ed he would step forward and receive his money, whi ch was always in cur

reney or greenbacks.

” Even smal l f ractiona l amountswere pai d in paper mon ey, as n ei ther gold, si lver

,nor

even copper was in ci rculation .

T he paymaster always had on a bright, new un i form,

his linen was immaculate , and his boots never failed to

be glossy black . In al l this he presented a striking con

trast to the other officers in active service in the field .

(1 97)


The more thrifty among the so ldi ers sent,by far

, the

greater p art o f thei r pay home . In most instances thiswas don e through express compan ies which follow ed usin the field

,and were new institutions to practical ly all

of us. T he prudent soldi er, i f so disposed, had oppor

tunity to lay by substantially al l his wages, which, in the

early part o-f the war, was for the private so ldier $ 13

per mon th,but later wa s advanced to $16. The ration

furn ished by the Government was ample, and so was the

clothing allowed each man . Indeed, some of the mo re

thrifty did not use all that was allowed in this way , andconsequently received commutation in the way of small ,but by no means, intan gible amounts o f money.

A s sa id above, a few men sent thei r pay home to

almost the last cent . In con trast to these of the more

thri fty there was a pitiful minority who had squandered

their last fa rthing in a few hours a fter being paid off .

How ! Some of them in gambling with cards, some of

them at dice,and others by indulging in what was ca lled

“chuck-a- luck This last was a game of chance, with

the chan ces very greatly again-st the poor soldier victim

ou the outside.Not a few blew-in all they had received from the

paymaster at the Sutl er ’

s tent. The Sutler was the

recogn ized regimen ta l merchant . After securing the con

sent of the commanding officer the Sutler proceeded to

lay in a stock of such things as he thought the men wouldneed in the field

, and in amoun t about what could be

loaded in a wagon .

His stock included such articles as tobacco, cigars,l emons

,oranges

,apples, candy, raisins, soda crackers,

cakes, canned fruits of various“kinds

,loaf sugar, mack

erel,salt fish,

ba con ,ginger ale

,

“

pop and other “soft”


‘

who was in every regimen-t, in every company, and in

deed, in practica lly every squad . A nd no sooner had this“come-easy-go-easy” specimen received his pay than he

forthw ith went to the Sutler’

s tent and proceeded to get“outside” a good deal that

,for the man ’

s good,had far

better have been l eft on the shelves.

But not on ly would these “easy-goers get rid of theirmoney

,but often times the stufi

’ they ate would make

them sick . Indeed, in every regiment more than one

death could primari ly be att ributed to certain arti cles inthe Sutler’s tent .

Aunt T i lda .

(See page 1 96)


B ut very soon af ter the Opponents of the wa r had as

sembled in convention ,and by resolutions declared the

war a failure,the Union forces met w ith a seri es of bril

lian t successes. Commodore Farragut secured a w on-der

ful victory over the Con federates at Mobile B ay . A t

lanta was captured by Sherman , and Sheridan completely

ann ihi lated the hitherto successful Rebel forces of the

Shenandoah Valley . These victories added immensely toLincoln ’

s chances o ff success.

Much in terest was felt in the outcome of the elect ion

among the soldiers. The various platforms, letters o f

acceptan ce, etc . , were read and discussed . Most of the

men ,however

,favored Lincoln ’

s re-election . A s soon as

General Fremon t saw that his candidacy could do noth

ing save divide the war party, he promptly w ithdrew

his name, and this narrowed the race down to a contestbetw een Lin coln and McC lellan .

M cClellan’

s fo llowers were called Pea ce Men”

and a

Peace at A ny Price Party,” while those who supported

the war ma intained that durable peace could come on ly

from a vigorous prosecution o f the war til l the last enemy

of the Government laid down his musket .

Ea rly in November the election came off and proper

agents came to our division camp from the States o f Iowa ,

Wiscons in and Ohio to take the votes of troops from

these commonw eal ths. But the Legislature of Illinoishad decreed that it was i ll egal for soldiers to vote when

in the field, hen ce Illino is soldi ers were den i ed the privilege o f casting thei r bal lots. I had just passed mytwenty-first birthday

,and having long been an admirer

o f Lincoln,felt great disappointment in not having an

opportun ity to vote for him.

Presiden tial E lection,1 864.

203

Lincoln ’

s majori ty over McC lellan was overwhelming

and gave him ten times as many votes in the Electoral

College as his competitor received .

I accompan ied the command upon one of th e expedi

tion s to the Atchafalaya, spoken o f in the last chapter .

T he twen ty odd miles traversed was through a coun trythat had been stripped of everything in the way of eat

ables. The banks of the Atchafa laya were reached, butthe stream was not crossed . A few stray shots passed

between the Confederates upon one side of the stream

and the Federals upon the other . Here several days

w ere spent,and, the time hanging heavy, a rude set of

chess were cut out of wood and many games en joyed .

Among the forces was a regiment of so—cal led Mexican caval ry . This organization h ad been made up n ext

the Mexican frontier, and the men were nearly all small

in stature and had swarthy complexions. They w ereexpert horsemen ,

however,and could throw the lasso

with much skill .

Toward the end o f November the command was

moved to the mouth o f White River, much further upthe Mississippi . Here we found the troops that hadpreceded us had bui lt small shacks of boards they hadprocured somewhere in the v i cini ty . Some of theseshacks our men appropriated and others they bui lt outof such ma teria l as could be picked up. All o f these

were covered by a piece of heavy duck cloth that eachman carried in his knapsack . This was made with strongbuttons and well-made buttonholes along its four sides,and was in dimens ions about three by seven feet . Two

of these pieces, buttoned together, made a good roo f for

a small hut or shack which,by reason of its lack of

height and closeness to the ground, was cal l ed a“dog


tent . Upon ent ering one of these ten ts the soldier hadalways to do so on his kn ees, and keep the sitting orhorizontal position while inside . However, these

“dog

tents” that came in use the second year o f the war serveda most useful purpose

,and as a piece of it was always in

the soldi er’s knapsack,it never fai led to be avai lable

when most needed .

While encamped at the mouth of White River I built

a shack about seven feet squa re, covered it with two

pieces of“dog

-tent,”

had a door in one end and bui lt a

chimn ey made of clay and sticks at the other . The clay

I made into a kind o f mortar with which I plastered the

sticks that were,so to speak, the skeleton o f my chimney.

When completed I kept a cheerful wood fire burning inthe chimney, which, as the weather was quite frosty, was

most comfortable and en j oyable, especially of even-ings.

When tired o f si tting, the height of my shack permitt ed

me to stand in its center and, in a sense, stretch mysel f

out . The doorway was just wide enough to enter, andat its one side was my cot, upon which I slept ; at the

other our medi cine chest, a table, ext emporized from a

box , and two camp chairs. Every morn ing the bugler

came to my shack door and sounded the sick ca ll ( see

page and follow ing this came the surgeon and

suchmen as w ere complain ing from one or another cause .

In al l my three years o f army service I do not remem

ber to have'

been more pleasantly “fixed-up

” than in this

shack at the mouth of White River . But, alas ! hardlyhad I put the cup to my lips when i t was dashed to the

ground,for

,I had but littl e more than got settl ed in my

cosy quarters than an order came for us to go to New

Orleans .


created non-comm issioned officers at the time of the

organ i zation of their respective commands to be likewise

mustered out o f the servi ce . But all non-commiss ioned

ofiicers who had been made such since the organi zation

o f their regimen ts and were foun d supernumerary, should

be reduced to the ran-ks. T o say the l east, this order was

very un j ust . For, as a very general rul e the soldi er who

was promoted after entering the service,received this

advance because he merited it . O n the other han d,the

officer who was made such at the beginn ing had yet to

prove his fitness for the place he occupied .

A s I had gone out a private with a gun in my handsand had later been promoted to hospital steward ; and,furthermore, as the hospital steward of the 77th Illinois,was such at the organ i zation o f his regiment and as

,in

addition,he elected to remain in the service, I was de

elat ed supernumerary, and consequently there was noth

ing for me but to remove the chevron s from my coatsleeves, lay aside my spatula, pick up my musket for thesecond time and resume my place in the ranks as a

private soldier .That this was humi liating to a proud, spirited, am

bitious boy, goes without the saying. However, I ac

cepted the situation as cheerfully as possible and,

meantime,resolved to meet every situation man fully and

discharge every duty conscien tiously.

The con solidated organ ization,now known as the 77th

Illino is In fantry, was a thousand strong, and was put on

patrol duty in New O rleans . We had our quarters in a

New Orleans cotton press, and had opportuni ty to make

our selves quite comfortable . At 4 o’clock,every a fter

noon,we went to an open space wi thout the cotton press

for dress parade . A nd on this every man was required

A Thousand Veterans .207

to appear with shoes well blacked, clothes neatly brushed ,hai r well combed, a white paper col lar and stock on! the

neck, all metal appendag es, as cartridge box , belt, etc . ,polished and burn ished like go ld and si lver, the gun well

cleaned and its metal parts bright and glisten ing,With this “getting-up,

” with white gloves on every

man ’

s hands, with everyone in his place and so ldi erly in

bearing,and with every movement rhythmical and ac

curate as clock-work, a thousand men on dress parade

made a pleasing and en joyable display, and never fai l edto attract many visitors and on lookers.

A s elsewhere noted, we were first armed with Austrian\rifledmuskets, made in Austria, but these proving unsat

isfactory we were later supplied with Enfield muskets

of English manufacture ; and finally these were disca rded

for the Springfield musket,made in Springfield, Mass ,

which, like its predecessors, was a muzzle- loader and

single-shoot er, but a superior weapon in every way . The

Springfi eld musket (made in America ) , eventually super

seded all other firearms in in fantry regiments ; and,by

reason of its efficiency, i t is no exaggeration to say that

one mi llion Union veterans,armed with this weapon ,

were a paramoun t factor in finally putting down “The

Great Rebellion of 1 861 In making this statement

the author means no reflection upon the several otherarms of the mi litary servi ce

,each of which fought

valiantly, and made every needed sacrifice to uphold and

sustain the Un ion .

In the new organ ization I was assigned to Company G,

commanded by Captain Rouse,an exceptiona lly fine

young offi cer, who took great pride

‘

in dri lling and dis

ciplining his company. We practiced the Zouave drill

frequen tly,and final ly

, on account of the high stand


ing Of Captain Rouse and his company, we were chosenas headqua rters’ guard for the Commander of the Divi

sion,Gen eral Benton . This service lighten ed our duties

in some particulars and gave us certain pr ivi leges besides.

Our Division Commander,General Benton , was a fat ,

shapeless man ,who i ll became his un i form and official

regal ia, and from what we saw and heard we came torealize that he liked and drank a good deal of whiskey.

How ever, he was good to his men , was liked by them,

and never asked a man to incur a danger that he himsel f was not ready and willing to face .

While a private soldier in Company G,77th Illinois,

I had for a messma te and close fri end Samuel Henry,l 30th I llino is In fantry

, several years my senior, and whohad the following un ique history !Some years befo re the breaking out of the Civil War

he, with other members of his father’

s family, emigratedto the then new State of Texas for the general purposeo f farming and sheep- raising. In the spring o f 1861 the

war came on ,and every man of fit physical condition and

suitable age was expected to en list in the Con-federate

service .

Young Henry was of northern birth and ancestry, andwas, moreover, a pronoun ced Un ion man . However, he

was“wise in his generation , and consequently kept his

own counsel, but, meantime, did a great deal of l isteningand no li ttle thinking. Fina l ly

,after most of his friends

and associates had volunteered he real ized that the timehad come for action and the carrying out of the plans hehad in mind

,namely

,making an effort to get inside the

Un ion lines and ultimately join ing his friends and relatives in Illinois. According ly, putting on a new suit of

j eans, fi lling his saddle-bags with a change of linen and


Meanwhi le,Hood’

s army, having pract ical ly annihi

lated itsel f in its several a ttacks on General Thomas,there seemed little eff ective fo rce left to the enemy save

what was under Gen eral L ee at Richmond and Peters

burg .

However, Mobile,A la . , was st rongly fortified and yet

esteemed an importan t asset to the Southerners, and

early in March an expedition was organized in the De

partment of the Gulf to move against and, if possible ,capture this st ronghold

, one o f the last of the Confed

cracy, whi ch almost precisely four years before in thissame State of Alabama, was with high hopes and flyingcolors launched on its stormy career.A s an integral part of the Army of the Gul f, now

commanded by Gene ral E . R . S . Canby, our superb regimen t o f a thousand veterans , was ordered to bea r a partin the contemplated attack on Mobile . Obeying theseorders, early one morn ing in March

,we began making

preparations for embarking on a vessel at the New O r

leans Levee, and about 3 P .M . we were aboa rd .

We were all very tired, and as yet had not eaten our

dinn ers. Our meat rations, for convenience, wer e thatday dried herring, and of this I ate very heartily . A s

n ight approached the vessel moved away from the wharf

and headed down stream. Meanwhile, we un rolled our

blankets,and upon. these stretched our tired, weary limbs ;

in a littl e while al l were sleeping soundly. The next

morn ing we struck the salt water of the Gul f of Mexico ,

and the vessel began‘

to pitch and roll . A nd soon

how seasi ck we all come to be ! A nd that we “heaved

Jonah” and! gave back to the sea those precious herringthat we had eaten of so hearti ly goes without thesaying . A nd how long afterwards did the taste and

Herring and Seasickness . 21 1

flavor of those little stomach-disturbers remain with us !

A nd who of us that ate herr ing on that March day , morethan a half century in the past, has ever had the hardihood to so much as taste one since !

The gul f was very rough,and as said be fore, the vessel

rolled and pitched violently . To my way o f thinkingnothing is less attractive than sal t water travel

,and the

grandeur, beauty and poetry of old ocean is in very large

Two or three days after leaving the wharf at New

Orleans land was dimly sighted, certain obj ects wereindistinctly seen

,First a mound, that proved to be a

fort,then a flag on a pole, next tents, a camp, wagons,horses, and, lastly, men . A nd final ly, we an chored atFort Morgan,

si tuated on Mobile Point,‘A la.

CHA P TER XX IV .

T H E MOBILE CAMPAIGN— 1865.

The arms are fair,When the inten t for bearing them is just.

—SHAKESPEARE .

FORT MORGAN,situated on Mobile Point

,guarded the

na rrow entrance to Mobile B ay . Directly opposi te, twomiles distant in a northerly di rection ,

Fort Gaines, uponDauphin Island, with frown ing guns, assisted in this duty.

The ma in channel,however

, was nea r Fort Morgan, and

was obstructed to hosti le vessels with piles driven in thesand and torpedoes planted plentifully in the waters.

Early in August,1864

,Admi ral Farragut, with four

teen wooden vessels and four i ron-dad‘s, resolved to at

tack the Con federates. Near Fort Morgan the latter hada small fleet under Commodore Franklin Buchanan . In

the Con federate fleet was a powerful vessel , the ram

Tennessee. The 5th of August Gen eral Granger landeda body o f troops on Dauphin Islan d and invested For tGaines.

Early on the mo rning of August 6, Admiral Farragutattacked Fort Morgan and the Con federate floti lla . Soon

a fter the engagement began,the Tecumseh

,a fine iron

clad, struck a torpedo and almost instantly sunk, ca rry

ing to the bottom of the bay all but tw enty-one out of a

crew o f one hundred men . The other vessels of the

Federal fleet kept r ight on ,however, and ran past Fort

Morgan and the torpedoes. A little later the ram T en

nessee bo re down upon the fleet,but was soon over

powered and captured .

(21 2)


mysel f, who for many months had been doing lighter

duties, marching with a knapsack, gun , accoutrements andother etc. , was especially hard on me, unseason ed as I

was. The result was that, in the afternoon , I was nearly

exhausted and fagged out, but I kept al l to mysel f andsecretly resolved to keep going ti l l I fell in my tracks, i f

the worst came to the worst . At last the day’

s ma rchended and we went into camp, and I experien ced inex

pressible reli ef when I had stacked my gun and taken off

my knapsack and accoutrements. I ate heartily o f the

toasted bacon,

“sow-bel ly,

”

the boys called it, and“hard

tack, a name they had bestowed on our army hardcrackers ; and,

in addition ; drank freely of strong coff ee ,and felt much refreshed . My feet were sore and tender ,and fi lling my canteen w ith cold water I poured this on

my feet freely, rubbed and bathed them the best I couldand then roll ed up in my blanket; and sl ept .

Early next morn ing when we were awakened I foundI was all over sore and stiff , but there was nothing to do

but undertake and,if possible, go through wit-h ano ther

day’

s duties. I to ld no one o f my feelings, and after

marching awhile my soreness and stiffness, in part , was

reli eved,but in the afternoon I was again very much

fatigued,and once or twice it seemed as though I could

not go any further ; but further I went , and further Ikept on going , till w e went into camp at the end of the

second day’

s march, and like the evening before, I was

inexpressibly relieved when I had the much appreciated

privi l ege of laying down my gun and unstrapp-ing my

knapsack and accoutrements. T he next day I managed

to worry through a little easier . The next was easi er

sti ll,and finally I came to be so inured to ma rching w ith

a soldier’s complete outfit that I could stand up by, and!

A“Tenderfoot” K eeps at I t. 2 1 5

go as far and as fast as the best o f them. But, as was

sai d above, no one was ever the w iser by reason of know

ing o f my experience whil e literal ly a tend'erfoot” and

when going through the needed “seasoning” process.

We made magnificent camp fires with the pin e knots

that abounded everywhere,and as a result of burn ing

this kind of fuel our faces were covered with smut,smoke and grime, al l o f whi ch was made adheren t by theresin inherent in yellow pine

,and in consequence wash

ing one’

s face and hands came to be a most strenuousundertaking.

A s we passed through the continuous pin e forests we

came upon what are known as“ turpentine orchards.

”

Cup-shaped notches had been chopped in the trunks o f

the larger trees and these had been filled with resin . O ne

n ight someone set fi re to one resin-filled excavation and

the flames extended to others all about, and soon a great

fire enveloped the forest al l about, and which we left in

our rear as we ma rched to a camp further on and well

out o f the burning area .

Not long. after reaching soi l in which sand was not

the principal ingredien t, rain fel l in torrents, and in

consequence the roads became almost impassable for

wagons and artillery. In some instances when the teams

stalled they w ere tempora ri ly detached,long ropes at

tached to the wagons and pi eces of artillery, and upon

these scores of strong men exerted their full strength ,and often succeeded when the mules

,which had preceded

them,had fai led . But in many places “corduroy” roads

had to be made . A “corduroy” road is made by puttingdown many poles, side by si de, and as close together asthey can be placed .


In extri ca'ting the mired wagons and sta lled pieces Of

art i llery no one worked ha rd er than General Benton Hepulled off his coa t rolled up his sl eeves and helped

“with

might and main . Seeing their Division Commander

thus employed,the boys greeted him with rousing cheers

and were more than ever determined to meet man fullyall obstacles and overcome them i f possibl e.

O ne day a wide, sha llow stream was encountered, when

the men were halted,ordered to remove shoes and stock

ings, roll thei r pan ts high and wade . When the Oppositebank was reached every man dri ed his feet and legs inthe best way possibl e, put on his shoes and stockings, andresumed the march.

The advan ce of the column,after some days’ progress,

met and ski rmished with the enemy. Toward the latterpart Of the month of Marc-h

,Span ish Fort, east of

Mobile, was reached . This was one o f the keys to themi l i tary situation at Mobile

,and was laid siege to by the

Federals the last days o f March . The Federal gunboatshel d the water fron t of Span ish Fort and cut off oom

munication with Mobile . NO effort at assault was madeby the Federals

,and the approaches were guarded with

rifle pits ; hen ce, the loss O f li fe was inconsiderable .The night of Apri l 8 Span ish Fort was evacua ted . In

a Mobile paper O f that same date was found‘ the fol lowing letter entitled !

A LETTER UNDER FIRE .

ON PICKET, SPAN ISH FORT, APRIL 4, 1865.

MESSRS . EDITORS z—W ith po'

w der-burned face and a soreshoulder from the backward movemen t of my rifle, I have con

cluded to rest a l ittle, and whi le resting I w il l amuse mysel f bydropping y ou a l ine. B ut, stop right here, I w i l l take a chewO f tobacco

,for I have p lenty and O f the finest article, and I did


The Yankee’s ammun ition is bad, of the shoddy-contract sort,so that very few of the shel ls explode. Our arti l lerists use on lyCon federate powder to send back their own projecti les.

“Whi le we wri te at 10 o’clock P .M ., an occasional gun is heard .

From the same column the following is also excerpted

BRAVE BOYS.

The fol low ing letter received by Major General Mauryfrom a student at Spring Hill College cannot be readwi th indiff erence by f riend or foe o f the cause o f Con

federate independen ce . This is what General Gran t

would cal l ‘robbing the cradle to recruit our armies

SPRINGH ILL COLLEGE, MARCH 27 , 1865.

MA J . GEN . D. H . MAU RY,DEAR S IR —A t the request of a great many of my fellow

students, I w ri te to y ou on a very serious subject—that is aboutjoin ing the army for the defense of Mobile.

“The President wil l not let us go w i thout we consider ourselves

expel led ; so we w ish y ou to send out one of your aids and muster us in the service.

“There wil l be about forty that w i l l go . We are al l O f' age,

strong and healthy and can fight as good as any man . Now,

General , we wan t your assistance ; if we do not receive i t soonwe w i l l be compel led to go and be expel led. So we do not thinky ou could help from assisting us.

“Please help us immed iately.“A STUDENT or SPRINGH ILL COLLEGE .

At the time the Thi rteenth Army Corps was advancingup the eastern shore of Mobile B ay— joined by the Six

teen th Corps at the mouth of Fish River- to engage in

the investment and siege o f Span ish Fort , a co-operatingcolumn

,led by Gen eral Francis Steele

,moved from Pen

sacola, Fla ,and attacked Fort Blakely, ten mi les north

east O f Mobile, on the Tensaw River .

A Neoer - to-be—forgotten Sunday .21 9

A s soon as Spanish Fort fell into our hands the troops

engaged in the investment o f this place were ordered toBlakely

,about ten mi les northeast and to the right . The

march was begun near noon O f Apri l About ha l f the

distance had been accomplished when a terrific cannonadeand musketry fire was heard at the front . Under the

inspi ration Of this sound the column moved faster, butby and by the firing ceased, and word cam-e back tha t

Blakely had been carried by assault .

This was a sultry Sabbath afternoon ,and the very day

that Lee surrendered at Appomattox, April 9, 1865,though the latter event was not known to the Union

forces about Mobile ti ll some days later .

Toward night the command went into camp n ear

Blakely,in a grove of pine trees. Early next morn ing

the scene Of the previous day’s battle was visited . At

both Spanish Fort and Blakely the Con federates had

plan ted torpedoes about the approaches to thei r works.

Working parties were removing these, as their locationwas pointed out by Con federate prisoners.

It was sa id that several o f our men , the day previous,had trodden Upon these terrible instrumen ts of death andw ere blown to atom-s. In most instances percussionshells were placed just beneath the surface of the

ground in such a manner that the tread of an unwaryfoot would cause instant explosion . For a hal f mile or

more the timber about Blakely had been felled, with the

tops o f the trees pointing from the works, and with theirsharpened ext remities the bran ches stood ready to greatly

impede the advance o f an attacking force . But through

these and amidst a shower of shot, shell, canister and

bullets, the Federals made their way to and over the Con

f ederate works.

220 Mashets and Medicine.

T he principal,par t of the assault had been borne by a

division o f colored troops belonging to General Steele’s

command . These men,i t was reported on every hand,

bore themselves most gallantly.

Passing into Blakely early on the morn ing of April 10,it having been surrendered at 5 P .M . the day previous, an

opportunity was given to see things pretty much as the

Con federates had left them, O ne thing that interestedme greatly was some captured haversacks containing“Johnny’

s” rations. The meat was such as our men

would never have tasted unl ess reduced to the verge O f

starvation,and the bread seemed indescribably poor, and

o f such character as a Northe rn farmer would hardlyfeed to his hogs. It seemed to have been made from

meal of whi ch more than hal f was bran,and after being

made into sma l l pones— “dodger s” — had been apparently

cooked in the ashes and given about the appearan ce thattwo or three days’

sun- drying would bestow . That men

would consen t to live on such food,and with sca rcely

any pay , dai ly encounter the vicissitudes of army li fe,and, when occasion called

,cheerfully risk their l ives in

battle,is a high tribute to Southern hardihood, pluck and

courage .

Most Of the dead O f both armies had already been disposed of , but the body of one man is especially remem

bered . He was a Texan captain ,tall and slender in per

son , w ith long black hair and whiskers. His clothingwas much better than that worn by most persons in the

Con federate army, and i t is remembered that he had on

his feet n-eat , clean cotton socks that seemed to besimi lar to what were known as

“Bri tish hose .

” The

probability is that the clothes he had on were nearly allo f British manufacture

,and had been secured when


The Texan was the last dead Con federate seen upon

a battl efield by me. The first was seen two years beforeon the battlefield of Port Gibson in the Vicksburg cam

paign . He, l ike the Texan ,was tal l and spare, and thus

far seemed a typical Southerner, but he was atti red in

the coarsest of the crude dress o f the Southern army, and

nothing about him gave any evidence o f w eal th or re

finement . But both lay where they fell on a fi eld of

batt le taken possession of by the enemy, and their li feless

bodies were viewed by many of the then detested Y an

kees. Both gave thei r lives in a hopel ess cause, and

both' would have seemed to have died in vain— but , as tothe latter

,maybe no t ; and, just as there are some po isons

that nothing sho rt of fire and furnace heat will destroy,so with the hates and passions engendered by Slavery andsecession—nothing save battle, blood and death cou ld

wipe them out.

Much praise was bestowed upon the colored division

who bore the brunt o f the assault the day previous. Thea fternoon of April 10 I visited the colored troops and

conversed with some of them. They were very proud o fthei r achi evemen t, and seemed ready to fight the whole

Southern Confederacy i f the opportunity was only giventhem.

O ne fellow was seen with. a bul let hole through one

cheek,but no trace Of the bul let could be seen elsewhere .

I asked of the sufferer how he coul d be aff ected in

this way ; a bu llet hol e th rough one cheek, but no teeth

knocked out, and no woun d elsewhere about the face .“D ay

!ball come in at my monf , sah,

”

said Sam-bo .

But how did it get through your mouth w i thout in

juring your teeth and lips ! ” was asked .

“I hadmy mouf op’

n,

”

was answ ered .

Sambo’

s Mon th Was Open .223

Why did you have it open !”

was further asked .

O,I was jist hollerin

’ Fort Piller at um,

”

sa i d Sambo .

This,it seemed

, was their battl e-cry, and was the

means of saving this darkey from a great dea l an ugli er

and more serious wound .

Fort Pillow,it will be remembered,

was the scene of

an indiscriminate ma ssacre of colored t roops by GeneralForrest in the spring of 1864.

A litt le while before the war closed the Southernerstried to enlist negroes in thei r armies, and for this purpose a bill

.

was passed by the Con federate Congress at

Richmond . A copy o f this in a Con federate paper is

now in my possession , and some O f its provisions are

interesting.

T he first clause provides ! That in order to provide

additional forces to repel invasion ,maintain the rightful

possessions of the Con federate States, secure thei r inde

pendence and preserve their institutions, the Presiden t

be and is hereby authori zed to ask for and accept from

the owners of slaves the serv i ces of such able-bodiednegro men as he may deem expedient, for and duringthe war, to perform mil itary duty in whatever capacityhe may di rect .

”

The last clause provides ! Tha t nothing in this act

shall be construed to autho rize a change in the relationswhich the said S laves Shall bear to thei r owners,

”

etc etc .

In the same paper is a message from Jeff erson Davisto the Con federate Cong ress, dated March. 18

,1865

,in

which occurs the fo llowing reference to the “Negro Bill“The bill for employing negroes as so ldiers ha s not yet

reached me,though the printed journal of your proceed

ings informs me O f its passage. Much benefi t is antici

pated from this measure, though far less than would have


resulted from its adoption at an earlier date so as to

afford time for their organi zation and instruction duringthe winter months.

”

A s might have been con jectured, the colored men didnot flock to a standard that was the emblem of a people

bent on the perpetua l enslavement of the African race inAmerica .


began,and are growing mo re and more so every hour

the fight continues. At the rate of progress the Yanksare making over the bay a gal lant and experienced Confederate officer says it will take them j ust five years andthree months to take Mobile . By that time we may in

dulge the hope that‘Something will turn up .

’

T he even ing of April l l , the writer, with his company,crossed over to Mobile and that n ight Sl ept in a vacanthouse near the bay . A few feet in front was a huge

cannon with a pyrami d of cannon balls by its side .Nearby was a magazine contain ing Shells and other ex

plosive ammunition,looking much like an out-door cellar .

T he grass over this and al l about the cannon was greenand beauti ful

, and a few feet in front were the waters

O f the bay,The Con federates had retreated up the Mobile and

Alabama Rivers, and up the former stream the Thir

teenth Corps was at once ordered, following for a timethe Mobile Ohio Rail road . In passing about Mobil e

the great strength of its defenses was rema rked even byour common soldiers, and had the Con federates had suffi

cien t men to man the works they woul d have been almostimpregnable against direct assault. O ne of the ablestengineers in the Con federate army sai d Mobi le was the

best fortified place in the South .

At Whistler, a little station on the Mobile Ohio

Railroad, a few mi l es from Mobi le,quite a lively skirm

ish was had with the enemy’s caval ry . This was the lastengagement the Thirteenth Corps participated in, and is

further claimed to have been one of the last ba tt l es Ofthe war .

Rumors now began to be circulated that Lee had been

defeated and Richmond captured . But these were not

Comfor t and“Hoe-cake.

”227

confirmed . Meantime, the army moved up the coun try

some fifty miles north of Mobile . The march was, for

the most part, through a thinly populated region with

on ly now and then a farm house.

O ne day the ma rch led over heavy roads, and all day

long through a cold, dri zzling rain . Towards n ight thecommand halted

,and I, with some compan ions, found

comfortable quarters before the fire of a rude n egro

cabin , and ate with much relish the corn hoe-cake” pre

pared at its hearth by a colored Aunty.

Ah,youthful comrade O f that day , now grown to old

age, and, maybe , the possessor of ample fortune, and,

perhaps, the favored one O f a choice circle of fr iends !Do marble steps leading through wide doorway and

stately hall , to spacious. rooms with velvet carpets, richlyupholstered furniture and fresco ed ceiling, pervadedthroughout—even in mid-winter—with a summer tem

perature, seem hal f as inviting as did that rude thresholdand rough li ttle low door through which you that daycould not enter without bowing your head ! O r doesluxurious food, prepared with special aim to tempt and

tickle the pa late, and eaten from daintiest china upon thefinest and whitest table linen

,give you hal f the pleasure

you that day had from Aunty’s hoe—cake, eaten uponthe plain boa rd table beside her simple hearth !About a week after leaving Mobile the command re

ceived Official notice O f the fall Of Richmond and sur

render oi Lee . All were,of course, rejoiced, know ing

the war would soon end.

For two or three days the army camped nea r the resi

dence o f M rs. Godbow ,the mother of General Earl Van

Dorn ’

s wife ; i t was a plain two—story frame house,painted whi te . General Van Dorn had been conspicuous


in the Con federate service,but during the second year of

the war had a personal difficulty w ith Doctor Peters, ofTennessee

,by whom he was ki lled . His wife was living

in the quiet lonely region ,retired from the world, appar

ently with no compan ion save her mother .Whi le encamped at this place the n ews O f Lincoln ’

s

assassination was received . It was terrible n ews to the

soldiers, and the first impulse of every man seemed a

desi re to in some way avenge the President’s death. A nd

had the enemy been in our immediate front in battle

array there is no question but at this period the Union

soldiers would have fought with unusual determination ;but the Confederacy was crumbling to pieces, and shoot

ing enemi es Of the Govern-men t was soon to be a thingof the past.

The command fina l ly went into camp immediately on

the bank of Tombigbee River, at a place called Mackin

tosh Bluff . Here a tall flag -

pole, eighty feet high, was

erected, and all Seemed to have a good time . T he war

was substan tially over,and no more hard campaigns be

ing in prospect, there seemed nothing to do but wai t until

such time as the Government should see fit to muster usout

A few of the better-disposed people seemed willing torenew their allegiance to the Government, and over such

the army extended its protection ,furn ishing, when de

si red, guards for their property . Upon two or three

occasions I went upon this service , and my guard duty

at one house is well remembered . T he people w ere well

to—do, but, like very many Southern ers, l ived in! a large

log house, the main part o f which consisted of two large,

square rooms, w ith a large open space betw een ,and a


To mbigbee River was high and the current was veryswift . Several old canoes and rickety, boats were at the

water’s e dge, and in these excursions were sometimesmade to the opposite shore, hal f a mi le distant, in search

o f mulberries. O ne day , w ith a compan ion , I had crossed

the river in one of these frai l boat'

s, and was gathering

mulberries from a tree on the farther Shore when therewas seen coming down the river a fleet Of vessels. A s

the Federals had no steamboats on the river, those insight were looked upon with suspicion . It was soon dis

covered tha t they w ere gunboats, but not O f the FederalNavy . They passed nearby and an chored a littl e fartherdown in the middle o f the river. This was the remnan to f a Con federate fleet that had retreated up the riverupon the fall of Mobile,O n return ing we passed very near these vessels, butthose on boa rd seemed as quiet and orderly as i f attend

ing a funeral . Pretty soon a whole fleet of transportshove in Sight, and it was learned that these, with the gunboa ts and all other Con federate property of a mi litarycharacter, had a few days previous been surrendered byGeneral Richard Taylor

,the Con federate Department

Commander, to General Canby, representing the Un itedStates Government .

CHA PTER XXV I .

A CONFEDERATE MA IL-BAG AND A GLIMPSE ATSOME OF ITS CONTENTS .

A letter, timely w rit, is a rivet to the chain of affection ;A nd a letter untimely delayed, is as rust to the sol der.”

—TUPPER.K ind messages, that pass from land to land ;K ind letters, that betray the hearts deep history.”

—LONGFELLOW.

JUST before the cessation of hosti liti es a Con-federate

mail-sack, heavi ly laden with letters, papers, etc . , was

captured north of Mobile . This, some time in May, was

emptied near where the writer’s company was encamped .

The conten ts were a con fused mass of papers, torn

envelopes and open letters,all having been hurri edly

examined at division headquarters. Very many of the

l etters were so poorly wri tten as to be almost unintelli

gible ; others showed good penmanship and education ,

refinement and culture in the writers. All were wri tten

upon the thin , poor, shoddy paper O f Con federate manu

facture. Several very crude wood cuts were found thathad been forwarded as valentines to certain members ofthe fai r sex by thei r admi rers. O ne o f these, now in the

wri ter’s possession, was printed on the shoddiest kind ofpaper by George Dunn Company

,publishers, Rich

mond, Va ., and j ust below a rude cut of a fema le with

low -necked dress,Short sl eeves, flow ing skirts, wide

flounces and capacious hoop Skirt,is a stanza

, the last

words of whi ch are ! “Ah,let me still survive , and burn

in Cupid’s flames,but let me burn alive .

”


The following is deemed o f suffi ci ent interest to give

in fullNEAR AUGU STA, GA MARCH 2, 1865.

UNKNOWN FRIENDBeing confined to our tents today in order to have some pastime, M r . Kennedy, of Fi fty-fifth Tennessee Regimen t, Quarle’sBrigade, proposed the names of several young ladies of his ac

qua in tance. T he names were al l put on str ips of paper and thenin a hat ; each one had to draw per bal lot, and the name he drewhe w as to w rite to that lady. Among eight names I drew yours,and in d ischarging the obl igation resting on me y ou wil l excuseme for my presumption . I w i l l refer y ou to Mr. Kennedy, whois a friend of yours and also a particular friend of mine, forparticulars relat ing to me.

In doing justice to you, I w i l l state that I am quite a youngman and an Alabamian by birth ; have been soldiering for fouryears ; have passed through many dangers, seen and unseen , and

by the kindness of an overrul ing Providen ce I am stil l spareda monument of God’

s mercy. I hope to l ive to see this cruelwar Over, and that I may then find some loving and confiding

compan ion and w ith her gl ide smoothly down the stream of

time han d in han d, un til I reach the Val ley of Death ; even thenI hope to have so l ived that I can then launch out upon the uh

known future and r ide safely into port. I have no news thatw i l l in terest y ou. We are here in Camp of D irection awai t ingorders. I think w e w il l not try to get w ith our comman d, whoare at or in vicin ity of Columbia, S . C . , but go to Montgomery,Sel ina or Mobile. I f we come to Mobile I w i l l be happy to formyour acquain tan ce.

I f Mr. Kennedy 1 8 w ith me I w i l l try and do SO . Hop ing thaty ou w i l l not think hard of this, but write in answer, I remainyour Sincere but unknown friend.

JAM ES A. MCCAULY .

First Alabama Regiment,Company “D,

”

Quarle’

s BrigadeArmy Tennessee.

This letter has now been in the writer'

s possession

fifty-one Years. He has read it many times, and always

with renewed interest, and i t has never fai led to bring


of the battle of Frankl in, Tenn , whi ch was fought two or threew eeks ago . It must have been an aw ful fight . Our soldierscharged their l ine of breastworks and succeeded in captur ingthem. I t was a great slaughter and almost a drawn battle. We

cla im a victory, but lost from five to eight thousand men . Oh!

how many O f our brave, true sold iers sacrificed their l ives on

their country’s altar that day ! How many fond hopes and an

ticipations and loved ones met their doom and now lie buried inthe cold soi l of Tennessee ! IS it not aw ful to think of !A nd when those they loved, O ff in d istant States, hear of theirdeaths how sad their hearts w i l l be ! We lost several good Generals whose p laces can hardly be fi l led . T he Fifteenth Mississipp i went into the fight w ith two hundred and twen ty men and

lost seven ty. Lor ing'

s D ivision that day lost seven hundred men ;it is said the loss of l ine and field officers was great .I heard from Cousin B ob not long S ince. He was wel l and in

fine sp irits ; he said they got but very l i ttle to eat, that they wouldkil l a hog and never clean the hair O ff , and they would get theirrations of meat w ith the hair on and cook it on a stick. He

would make his bread on his O i l c loth and bake it on a fencerail . He had been in several fights since I heard from him.

Wel l, mother, the Yankees have been pretty close to us. Theyhave been up on the rai lroad as far as Pol lard ; they destroyedthe track for some d istance and then left. There was aboutfour hundred whi te men and five hundred negroes. GovernorWatts has cal led out the mi l itia to drive them back .Yankee General Sherman has evacuated Atlanta and gone in

the interior O f the State ; he has been to M iledgeville and sev

eral other towns. No one can imagine what he intends doing ;the papers say that he is soon to be surrounded and captured .I hope so, but fear he is too w ide awake to be caught in a trap .T he mean Old wretch ! I w ish he would be caught and hung tothe first l imb . Oh ! that I was a man ; I would be w i l l ing tosacrifice everything on earth and go and fight for my coun try.I dai ly w ish tha t I was a man .

How I w ish I cou ld see you al l and be happy once again on

earth. D O y ou hear from grandma often ! How does she and

Aunt Vicky get al ong w i th the Yankees ! Where is Howardnow—in the army ! Give my love to aunty and the girls. How

“0 ,That I Was a M an !

”

235

is M rs. Jul ia Murphy ! My love to her . I suppose y ou wouldl ike tO '

hear something O f the family. Al l are w el l ; the chi ldrengrow fast ; they w i l l soon be large enough to go to school . Hal lis SO much l ike our fami ly in every respect ; he is a smart, sw eetchi ld, and SO are all the rest. How do y ou expect to spend yourChristmas ! I hope p leasantly. I expect to see no p leasure at

al l . It w i l l be a very dul l one here. Dear mother, do w rite Oftento me, and make Beckie w ri te, too, and tel l me everything concern ing y ou all. I wil l c lose for this time. I w i l l look anxiouslyfor a letter from you .

Good—by e, dear mother ; bel ieve me your loving chi ld,VICTORIA NIXON .

On one margin of the letter was wri tten the followingDon’t n ever send another letter to M—k, as they gen

eral ly open them al l at that Offi ce . Sen d them hereafter

to Lowndes—now,be certa in to do it . ”

Fellow participitants in the Mobil e campaign,that let

ter of M rs. Victoria Nixon is wonderful ly human , isn’t

i t ! A nd when in the long ago you were firing at thosefel lows over there so recklessly, did it not occur to youthatithey had homes,

‘

fri ends and loving kindred j ust as

you had, all ,o f whom were as nea r and dear to them as

yours to you ! War is a horri d thing at best, and! themen who are ki lled and wounded are far from being itsOn ly and real ly worst suff erers.

I f M rs. Victoria Nixon is yet alive and should these

pages by any fortuna te chance come un der her eyes, Itrust She w i ll accept the very best wishes of the author,her erstwhile enemy ; and to her family o f littl e folks offi fty

-one years ago, i f al ive today, gray-haired men and

women , a most cordial greet ing is ext ended .

CHA PTER XXV I I .

SURRENDER OF T H E CON FEDERATE ARM IESINC IDENTS ATTENDING T H E CLOSE OF T H E

LAST CAMPAIGN .

There is a tear for all that die,A mourner o

’

er th'

e humblest grave.

—BYR0N .

AT the open ing of the spring campaign in 1865,the

four ma in armies of the Con federates w ere ! Army o f

Northern Virgin ia ,under General Robert E . Lee, oc

cupied in the def ense o f Richmond and Peter sburg ;Army of th e Tennessee, under General Joseph E . John

ston ,con fronting Sherman in the Carolinas ; Army of

the Trans-Mississippi,under General E . Kirby Smith,

with headquarters at Shreveport, L a . ,and Army of A la

bama,under General Richard Taylor, principal ly at

Mobile,Ala.

The Army Of Northern Virgin ia surrendered April 9

to General Grant at Appomattox ; the Army of the T ennessee surrendered to Gen eral Sherman April 26 . The

Army of the Tran s-Mississippi , having had pretty much

its own way in Texas and Western Louisiana since

Banks’ Red River campa ign,one year before, was ex

ceedingly loath to yield to the Government of the Un ited

States,and upon the l t O f Apri l its commander issued

an address to his soldiers contain ing these words ! “With

you rests the hopes of our Nation ( the Con federacy ) ,and upon your action depends the fate of our people .

Stand by your colors, maintain your discipline, be the

(236)

238 Mashets and Medicine.

and some of them w ere from Lee’s army and had got

thus far on thei r journey homeward .

At last all were aboard and started down the river forMobile . T he last hosti le movement having been made

against the enemy, and with no more in prospect, camea new sensation— the long, cruel war had at last ended .

Those who have reached mature age Since war-time canhave no adequate realization o f the long days of bloody

battle,anxiety and anguish

,t ha t lengthened out into

w eeks,months and years, from . April

,1861

,ti ll April,

1865.

T he trip to Mobile was qui ckly made. The river wasfull and the current sw i ft ; the banks were, for the mostpart

,covered with unbroken forest

,some O f the larger

trees overhanging the water’s edge . All! the trees o f the

forest were covered w i th long gray moss that droppedfrom t he boughs and fell over the foliage in a graceful

mann er, light, a iry and beauti ful as lace work .

After reaching Mobile the division w ent into campabout three mi les from the city upon the hills. My com

pany was encamped in the yard o f one O f the brothersname forgotten— before referred to as one of the ownersOf the S outhern R epublic

,and who had grown ri ch be

fore the war in the Af rican slave trade . The house wasa large

, square, plain structure, but pleasan t and home-3

like.

While all active mi litary service was at an end, therewere yet forma l camp duties to perform ; among these

was guard duty. However, in this all soon grew lax,

and the writer more than once about this period remembers waking f rom sound sl eep the party whom he was torelieve. Two hours in the middle of n ight at some lone

spot drags along very slowly . When on guard under

Capture of Jefferson Davis .239

such circumstances the writer more than once resortedto counting. After learn ing by trial how many could becounted in a given time

,it was readily ascertained, by

approximation,Of course

,the number that would be

counted in two hours ; then upon mounting guard the

counting of this number was resolutely entered upon and

kept at til l accomplished, at about which time the ap

proach O f the relief gave notice that the two hours had

expired . This simple expedient, by fixing the mind upon

the accomplishmen t of a certain Obj ect, served to hastenthe flight O f time .

Some O f these lone nights, when on guard, the on ly

living thing seemed to be the Southern mocking-bird .

Sometimes the Singer would make his presence knownin some thick bush nearby in a burst O f song that in suc

cession mimi cked every bird o f the forest .

While encamped at this place papers were received

con tain ing a full account of the capture of Jeff erson

Davis. This occurred May 10, 1865, at I rwinsville, Ga .

The captors were a body o f men under Colonel Pritchard,of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry . The capture of the

President of the Southern Confederacy at the time of itsoccurren ce occasioned much rejoicing, and removed the

last vestige o f Southern resistan ce .O ne day, with two or three compan ions, I went blackberrying in a heavily-timbered section ,

two or three mi lesfrom camp , situated in a low region of country in which

were severa l swamps and bayous.

After a time,while picking some berries and moving

about in quest o f o thers, I became separated f rom mycompan ions. Mean time the sun became obscured byheavy clouds

,it began to thunder and threaten rain ,

whilein almost every direct ion could be heard the deep bellow


ing O f alligators. They seemed nearby,and thei r un

earthly noise was not cal culated to add to the cheerful

ness of one alone in a heavy,strange forest in an enemy’

s

country and with a terrific storm approaching . For

tunately , how ever, the storm passed around and I soon

found my way out of the timber, and in due time reached

camp with a good supply of n ice berries .

Speaking o f alligators, the wri ter recalls an experi

ence with what was supposed to be one in the earlySpring of 1863, while marching across the pen insula

opposite Vicksburg, when upon the campaign against that

strongho ld . T he command; had hal ted for a day or two

at Holmes’ plantation , and w ith a compan ion I set out

for a hun t . The whole region nearly was more or less

under water,and we were obliged to make our way for

the most part upon a levee that led along the banks O f

a bayou . Pretty soon we saw what was thought to be

an alligator sticking his head out of the water . We both

had amiy muskets that carried a large minni e bal l . O ne

of us took aim and fired very deliberately, but m-ade no

impression upon the obj ect aimed at , but as al ligators arenotoriously non- impressionable to bullets

,nothing was

thought Of this, an-d another shot was fired . About thistime the al ligator” j erked his head under water, butsoon put it out again,

and this operation he repeated at

short intervals. Mean time Shot a fter shot was fired,and

at last one knocked O ff a large piece of bark from the

end of a gray, wea ther-beaten log that lay in. the streamin such a position that while one end was imbedded inthe mud the other pro j ected up stream and just came to

the surface, upon which i t rose and fell wi th the curren t .T his, techn ica l ly called by boatmen a

“sawy er,

”was

Explosion of Ammunition .241

what we had taken for an al ligator’s head and fired at

so many times.

O ne day I was si tting upon the fen ce around the house

n ear which my company was encamped, when , all at once,a terrific explosion was heard that seemed to be right athand . The first thought was that the Brigade Batteryhad

,unn oticed, taken position nearby and discharged sev

eral pieces simultaneously,but turn ing. my eyes toward

Mobile I saw rising there that great column of smoke

characteristic o f an explosion . The smoke mounted up

in a dark, thick mass and then spread out like an im

mense umbrella or mushroom,and through it could be

seen broken timbers and debris of all kinds flying 1n

every direction . A lthough three mi les from Mobile,

quite a concussion was felt,and glass was cracked in the

windows of the houses near camp .

It was supposed a steamer at the wharf had blownup

,but later came word that an immense amount of

ammun ition surrendered by the Con federates, shipped in

by rai l and stored in a large warehouse in Mobile, had

exploded . A number were killed,and the shock in the

city was almost l ike an earthquake, breaking window s

tearing doors from their hinges all over ci ty.

CHA PT ER XXV I I I .

DISBAND ING T H E ARM IES .

Grim-visaged war has smoothed his w rink led front .SHAKESPEARE .

ENLI STING,equipping, drilling and disciplin ing an

army is a long, laborious and tedious process, as one can

readily see who gives the matter thought . Disbandingan army

, which in cludes satisfactori ly settling with and

mustering out each individual composing that army, isnot SO difficult a process

,but yet is one that takes time

and involves much labor.Pretty soon after the surrender of the Con federate

armies under Generals L ee and Joseph E . Johnston ,

orders were issued from Washington for mustering out

o f the service all troops whose terms “of enlistment

expi red before a certain date .In the case o f the 77th I llinois, to which I then be

longed, and which,i t wi ll be recalled

,comprised the

origina l 77th organi zation consolidated with the original

l 3oth Illinois, the term Of en listment o-f the first named

expired some little time before that Of the last named ;consequen tly the troops composing the Old 77th were

mustered out , and we o f the Old 1 30th Illinois were re

organ i zed and became the 130th Illinois Battalion , and

as such remained in the servi ce a time longer.

This reorgan i zation restored me to my Old position o f‘hospital steward, not a l ittle to my own satisfaction and

to that o f my friends as well, who, I flatt ered mysel f,real ized that during my six months in the ranks,

(242)


O ne day in August an order came for the battalion!

to

report at New Orleans, to be mustered out . A boat was

taken at Mobile one afternoon and the trip made by wayo f Mississippi Sound, Grant

’

s Pass and Lake Ponchar

train .

Lake Port, n ear New Orleans, was reached the middl eo f the forenoon next day . At the landing a one- legged

soldier from Lee’s army hobbled off the boat with crutchand cane. He hadgiven four yea rs. of service, for what !A nd now ,

crippled,penn i less, and perhaps homeless, he

returned to his native city to drag out the remnant o f a

l i fe worse than ruined by a war original ly brought on bya few in his native South

,with whom he had neither

interest nor sympathy.

Some days were spent at New Orleans making out themuster rolls

,turn ing over Governmen t property, etc .

By and by, all being in readiness, passage up the riverwas secured on a most excellent river boat, and upon thisthe battalion embarked . The trip was delightful, and

many places passed with which the command had everyreason to be fami liar . Among these were Baton Rouge,Morganza Ben d

,Grand Gul f , Vicksburg, Milliken

’

s

Bend, Memphis, etc . , each‘

o f which brought to mindpast experience in camp and field .

Near Memphis, one morning, a man in one of the com

panies was missing, and no trace of him could be foundon the boat . The vessel had not been nea r shore since

the even ing previous, when the missing man’

s comrades

saw him al ive and well .

Upon the cabin deck of the boa t w ere cots upon whichwere several sick men ; one of these was delirious with

typhoid fever, and one night

,when the nurse ’s back was

Our Last River Trip.245

turned,jumped over the railing and was lost in the dark,

seething waters of the Mississippi .

O ne evening just after nightfa l l the l ights o f Cai rocame in sight

,and produced a strange thril l in the hearts

o f the little band o f Illinoisans aboard, who, three years

before,had come by that city on thei r way to the enemy

’

s

country,but with what fortune they were to return no

one could say . Every man was thri lled with delight ashe stepped from the boat at Cai ro and once more trod

upon the soi l of his own beloved State that had sent to

the front so many of its brave sons, and given to the

Nation a Lincoln and a Grant. Seldom does i t fall to

the lot of one commonwealth to contribute so much tothe country’s weal .Next day , toward evening , a stock train was boarded

and the trip to Camp Butler started upon . Y es,we

gladly entrained on cars that were, to a greater or lessdegree, yet foul from the shipping of cattle

,hogs and!

horses. This,in strange con trast to the Pullmans in

which the Span ish War Soldiers went to the front, and

l ikewise the troops of today,who are go ing to and from

the Mexican border . But with us circumstances werediff er en t ; so long and so much had we been on the marchthat transportation of any kind and in any sort of a con

veyance whatsoever, even befouled stock cars,seemed

little short of a luxury .

The next mom-ing after entrain ing found us approaching central Illinois, and from almost every farmhouse an ddwelling those within were waving from door or w indowsome article of textile character. Some of these werehandkerch-iefs

,but tow els

,pillow Slips, and, indeed, al

most anything that hand could be laid upon was vigorously waved . O ne German woman , from an upstai rs


window,with no l ittle energy, flaunted what our so ldiers

declared was her red flannel skirt ! But it all meanthearty welcome, and so we gladly received i t .Camp Butler was reached in the afternoon , and as its

gates were entered wha t memories crowded upon the

mind ! Three years before, out of this enclosure,marched an organization a thousand strong ; today it

returns a little band of two hundred . Where are the

eight hundred missing ! Some O f them have but recently

come from the enemy’

s prison pens and will yet reachtheir f ri ends in safety . Many

,very many

,found graves

beside the great river in Tennessee, Louisiana and

Mississippi,and others l i e not far distant from the sea

in Texas and Alabama . Many more have in the pastthree years been discha rged as no longer fit for serviceand returned to their homes maimed in body and brokendown with disease .Not long after reaching Camp Butler a letter was re

ceived from the commandant at Vicksburg, stating thatthe dead body of a man was rescued from the river there,upon whose person was foun d letters and papers thatidentified him as the so ldier who disappeared from thevessel SO sudden ly one night while coming up the Mississippi. The letter stated further that there was a bullethole through the man ’

s head . Thus the mystery thickened rather than otherwise

, as there was supposed to beno one on the boa t who would commi t murder

,and,

besides, a shot fired would certainly have attracted atten

tion . This was the last death in the command previousto dismemberment .

Some days were occupied at Camp Butler before thefinal scene in the last act in the drama of war was eu

acted . About the middle O f September, one a fternoon ,


now got out of bed, lit the gas, and found not a few bed

bugs crawling over our pillows and sheets.

In our three years’

service at the front we had en

countered Alabama alligators,stood our ground against

Louisiana mosquitoes, and faced a val ian t enemy on

many battlefields, but f rom the presence of these North

ern pests we made a prompt and hasty retreat . In an

endeavor to make the best of circumstances we rolled upour coa ts and putting them under our heads, in lieu O f

pillows, passed the rema inder of the n ight on the floor .

A s soon as daylight came we gathered up our belong

ings and left the room in possession of its original occu

pants, whose prior claim to occupancy we unhesitatingly

conceded to be stronger than ours.

After breakfast we took a train on the Alton Chi

cago Railway for St . Louis, and on the way I found

plenty o f time for thought and reflection . I soon found

mysel f in a mood to say with the poet, I am pleasedand yet I am sad

”—pleased because the war was over,and the great object for which i t was waged, namely, the

preservation Of the Un ion,attained ; sad

,because the

associations o f three long years with their unique experiences, were broken forever.In due time we reached I llinoistown (now East St .

L ouis.) and crossed the Mississippi on a ferryboat, foras yet the great river had not been spanned by a bridge .

We spent the night at the Plan ter’s Hotel,and next

morning we looked about thecity and made some mecessary purchases. I bought a citizen ’

s sui t for $30, which

today could be had for about,a thi rd O f that amount.

In the a fternoon we recrossed the Mississipp i River toI llinoistown

, where we took an east-bound train for

Carlyle, Ill . Arriving there at the close o f a beauti ful

Home—A nd the End.249

September day I recalled the fact that on another beautiful September day , almost precisely three years be fore,I had boarded a west-bound train to start on my armyca reer that was now to become as a closed book .

The night was passed at the li ttl e town hotel, three of

us occupying the same room,and undisturbed by un in

vited and annoying bed fellows,we all Sl ept soundly.

Next morning we took the hack for Greenvill e, twenty

mi les in land, and at that time without railway connec

tion . We had a long,dusty drive, but finally reached our

destination and foun d Greenville to be the same quiet

town in which,three years before

,we

,as embryo sol

diers, had dri lled on its commons, marched through itsdusty streets, and counter-marched over its board sidewalks.

APPENDIX.

SOM E FA CT S PERTA IN ING T O C IVIL WAR MED I C INE .

T H E total number of soldiers in the Un ion Army wastwo million three hundred and thirty-five thousand n in e

hundred and forty-n ine O f these fifty -n ine

thousand eight hundred and sixty were killed

in battle,two hun dred and eighty thousand and fortywounded

, of whom forty-nine thousand two

hundred and five died of thei r in j uries, makinga total of one hundred and n ine thousand and sixty-five

deaths among Union !soldiers due to the

enemy’s missil es.

1

About one shot wound in; five proved immediatelyfatal . However, to this rule there were exceptions, themost remarkable one of which, perhaps, occurred at FortDonelson , where the 4th Mississippi (Con federate) sus

tained a loss of 40 ki lled and only 8 wounded .

The relative area presented by various parts of the

body has been calculated with some degree of accuracy,and for the head, face and neck is believed to be

1 I t has been estimated that the Confederates sustained a lossof fifty

-one thousand four hundred and twenty-fivekil led and two hundred and twenty-seven thousand eight hundredand seventy-one wounded. Al lowing that the fatal ityamong the Con federate wounded would not be less than that ofthe Federals, the number dying from injuries received in battleshould be about forty-one thousand Thus the Confederate total fatal it ies would in round numbers aggregaten inety-two thousand

(250)

252 Civil War Medicine.

recovered . Other than this group of sixty- four casesthere were not a few shot wounds of the stomach that

proved almost immediately fatal on the battlefield .

There were three thousand seven hundred and seven

teen (37 1 7 ) pen etrating wounds of the abdomen , and of

these more than 92 per cent . were fata l . In cases where

the smal l intestin e was involved death almost invariablyresulted . O n the other han d

,quite a few recoveries fol

lowed severe wounds of the large intestine .

CHARACTER OF M rssn ns.

In one hundred and forty-one thousand n ine hundredand sixty ,

~one wounds in which the characterof the missile was ascertained this was found to have

been fired from a rifle, musket , carbine, pistol or revolver ;in other words

,from a small arm, in more than 90 per

cent . of cases. So that fully n ine-ten ths of Civil War

in j uri es were inflicted by the man with a gun in his

hands.

Furthermore, the great ma j ori ty of this class of in

j uries were made with the minn i e bal l, which was elongated, or conoidal in shape

,pointed at one end

,convex

at the other and weighed more than an ounce. In firing

the convex ext remity next‘ the pow der expanded, filled

the rifle grooves and thus the bullet received a rotarymotion that greatly increased its velocity and power o f

execution . From the Springfield musket, that practicallydisplaced a ll others in the last years of the Civil War

,a

bullet would sometimes kill a man at the distance of amile . When going at full velocity the ball would usua llymake a round hol e near its own size in passing througha bone. O n the other hand

,when to a degr ee spent,

Base Hospita ls .253

any bony structure impinged aga inst would be, to a

greater o r less degree, shattered .

Fourteen thousand and two wounds wereknown to have been produced by missiles such as grape

Shot,can ister

, solid Sho t and fragments of shell, all fired

from cannon ,ranging in cal iber f rom six-pound field

guns to two hundred-pound Columbiads.

Nine hundred and twenty- two (922) wounds weremade with bayonet or sabre, which goes to show that

there was relatively little hand—to—hand fighting in the

Civil War,and even the cavalry punished the enemy for

the most part with bul lets from carbines, revolvers and

pistols.

BASE HOSPITALS .

The Civi l War had not long been in progress whenurgent need was felt for hospitals more permanent thanthose in tents. T o meet this want churches

,school

houses,co lleges, hotels, depots, store buildings, ware

houses, private dwellings, and even sheds and barns wereutilized .

Finally, as the war continued and time brought an

immense an-d wholly un looked- for harvest of sick and

wounded, many hospital s were built in eligible loca lities.

These were, for the most part, one or two-story frame

structures,constructed on the pavilion plan .

Washington City and its environments had the largestnumber o f mi litary hospitals

,and Philadelphia came

next . These ranged in size from an offi cer’s hospitalin Beaufort, S . C . , w ith tw enty beds, to the Satterl ee inPhiladelphia, with a capacity of more than thi rty-fivehundred beds. The Satterlee

,moreover

,en joyed the


advantage of having on its visi ting staff some of the

ablest Philadelphia physicians and surgeons.

Some of these base hospitals were as far North as theCity of Detroit

,Mich . some as far

'

South as St . Augustine

,Fla .

,and among others located in the South, the

City of Memphis, on the Mississippi, had no less than

sev en commodious structures for the care of the Sick andwounded .

From first to last during the Civil War there w ere

more than two hundred mi li tary hospitals of the charac

ter above described,and their combined bed- capacity

aggregated many thousands.

T he regimen tal field hospitals were the principal

feeders of the base hospitals. From their regimenta lsurgeons the si ck and wounded received attention ti l lorders came to go on the march

,when, in ambulances,

the patients would be conveyed to a hospital boat, in case

one was n ear, or a railway train . On the rivers and

navigable bodies of water steam vessels were convertedinto hospital boats, and these rendered admi rable servicein transporting patients. Furthermore

,in land rai lway

trains were Special ly fitted up for the same purpose . In

many cases, however, the ordinary box-car, in which a

quantity of clean straw or hay was spread, was made totransport the wounded . After the Battl e of Gettysburg,in July, 1863, fi fteen thousand wounded were in this wayca rried to hospitals in Harrisburg

,York, Baltimore,

Phi ladelphia,etc.

EXCISION .

In four thousand six hundred and fifty-six (4656)

cases the operat ion of excision was performed for shotwounds'in the continuity of the long bones or in the joint


famous Confederate Gen eral, died very suddenly from aShot-wound of the popliteal artery, received on the 6th

day of April, 1862, at the battl e of Pittsburg Landing .

‘

ANESTHETICS .

Whi le i t was not possible to obtain exact figures,yet

i t was ascertained that in the field and in the variousmi litary hospitals, anesthesia was produced in no less

than eighty thousand instances. Chloroform

was the favori te anesthet i c with the Civil War surgeon,

principal ly f rom the fact that it acted promptly and the

patient recovered qui ckly from its eff ects, which wer e

seldom other than agr eeable . It was the anestheti c usedin fully 75 per cent . of cases. Ether was used in aboutone case in ten , and a mixture of chloroform and ether

in one case in fi fte en .

Thirty-seven deaths resul ted after chloroform inhalation and four followed the use of ether.

TETANUS .

There were five hundred and five (505) cases of

tetanus,a very small proportion

,when it is recalled that

two hundred and forty-six thousand seven hundred and

tw elve in j uries were infl ict ed on Un ion sol

diers by fire-arms. In other words, tetanus occurred as

a complication on ly about twice in one thousand woun ds.

GANGRENE .

During the Civil War there were two thousand six

hundred and forty-two (2642) cases of gangrene which,

from its prevalence in hospitals, was called‘ “hospital ”

Pr ivate J . W . January, who amputated his own feet .


old pocket kn ife and cut through the decaying flesh and

severed tendon s. The feet w ere un jointed,leaving the

bon es protruding without a covering o f flesh for fiveinches. ( See picture taken three months after release . )

“At the close of the war I was taken by the Rebs toour l ines at Wilmington ,

N . C . ,in. April

,1865

, and, whenweighed

,learned that I had been reduced1 from 165

pounds (my weight when captured) to forty-five pounds.

Everyon e o f the Un ion surgeon s. who saw me then sai d

that I could not l ive ; but , contrary to this bel ief, I did,and improved . Six weeks a fter release

,whi l e on a boat

en route to New York, the bones o f my right limb broke

off at the end of the flesh . Six weeks later, whi le in the

hospital on David’

s Island, those of my l eft'

becomen ecrosed and broke off similarly . O ne year after myrelease I was able to sit up in bed, and was discharged .

Twelve years after my release my limbs had healed over,and

, strange to relate, no amputation had ever been performed on them save the one I made in prison . There

is no record of any case in the world simi lar to mine .”

It is only proper to add that Private J . W . Januaryfinally attained much vigor

,marri ed

,and became the

father o f three children . Later he removed to SouthDakota

,where he died a few years since .

PYEM IA .

What was diagnosed! to be pyemia occurred in two

thousand eight hundred and forty-seven (2847 ) casesfo llowing woun ds, and among these only seventy-one

recovered.

MORBIDITY .

In the Un ion Army the en listed men suffered from six

mi ll ion twenty-n ine thousand five hundred and sixty- four

Disease Classification .259

disease attacks, a li ttle less than three per

man . A nd of these two hundred and one thousand seven

hundred and sixty-n ine died, and two hundred

and eighty-five thousan d five hundred and forty-five

w ere discharged from the service on account

o f disability . Thus of the men en listed in the Un ion

armies more than one in five was lost to the service by

reason o f disea se, and one in every eleven was destined

to die from a like cause .

D ISEASE CLASSIFICATION .

In the Civi l War era Dr . Farr’

S system of classifica

tion was the one most in favor .Class 1 , under this system

,embraced zymotic diseases

and included most ohwhat we today term the in fectiousmaladies.

Class 2 included con sti tutiona l diseases, and some of

the individual ai lmen ts embraced w ere gout, acute and

chron i c rheumatism,con sumption

,scro fula, etc . Koch’

s

era -making work was as yet n early twenty years in the

future, consequently the in fectious nature of tuberculosiswas unknown .

Class 3 embraced parisitic diseases, as itch, of whichmore than thi rty- two thousand cases were reported ; tapeworm, intestinal worms, etc.Class 4 embraced al l local diseases

,including some that

we today know to be in fectious,

Class 5 embraced wounds,accidents and in juries.

D IARRHEA AND DYSENTERY .

By far themost preval ent disease in the CivilWar was

that embraced under diarrhea and dysentery, and whi ch


g ives a total of one million five hundred and eighty-five

thousand one hundred and n inety-six cases,about one- fourth o f the total o f disease attacks from al l

causes. O f those suff ering from diarrhea and dysenteryforty - four thousand five hundred and eightdied . Thus i t will be seen that bow el diseases were re

sponsibl e for considerably more than one-fifth of the

deaths that occurred in the Civil War .

O f those discharged from the service,diarrhea was

assign ed as the causa tive disease in sixteen thousand onehundred and eighty-five cases, and dysentery inone thousand two hundred and four making a

total o f eighteen thousand three hundred and eighty-fivecases with bow el diseases.

MALARIAL FEVER .

Next to bowel diseases malarial fever furn ished thelargest number o f cases, and o f these this diseaseafforded one million one hundred and sixty-three thousand eight hundred and fourteen with four

thousand and fifty-nine (4059 ) deaths, a mortality of

about one in one hundred and forty attacks.

Five types of malarial fever were recogn ized,namely

,

quotidian,intermi tten t

,tertian-inte rmi ttent

,quartan-in

termittent, remittent fever and congestive fever . O f theintermi ttent vari eties o f ma larial f ever there were eight

hundred and sixty-three thousan d six hundred and fifty

one cases ; of the remi ttent type two hundredand eighty-six thousand four hundred and ninety (286,490) cases ; and of the congestive form thi rteen thousand

six hun dred and seventy-three cases. In the

cases diagnosed as simple intermittents there were nine


whi ch thirty- two thousand one hun dred and tw elve (32,1 12) terminated fatally .

There were seventy-five thousand three hundred and

Sixt y- eight cases O f typhoid fever w ith twenty

seven thousand and fifty—six deaths

, or a l ittle

more than one fatal termination in every three attacked .

O f typhus fever there were two thousan d five hundred

and one (2501 ) cases reported, with eight hundred and

fi fty (850) deaths, almost precisely one fatal case in

three .

Cases reported as continued fever numbered eleven

thousand eight hundred and n inety-eight at

tended with a fatal i ty of one hundred and forty-sevenabout one death in seventy-five.

Fr om the above it w i ll be seen that typhoid and typhus

fever were very serious diseases in the days of the Civil

War,while the cases reported as simple con tinued fever

were in comparison very mi ld .

D ISEASES OF THE RESPIRATORY ORGANS .

Diseases of the respi ratory organs were very preval en tamong the soldiers

, and among these acute bronchitis

afforded no less than one hundred and S ixty- eight thousand seven hundred and fi fty cases

,w i th a

mo rtality of only six hundred and eighty or about

one death in two hun dred and seventy-five show

ing that the disease was certain ly very mil d. O f pneu

mon ia S ixty-one thousand two hundred and twocases w ere reported with a mortality of fourteen thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight or more

than one death in four.

Fevers . 263

There were reported thirty-one thousan d eight hundredand fifty

-two cases o f pleurisy w ith on ly five

hundred and n inety (590) deaths. Doubtless a greatmany cases reported as pleurisy w ere neuralgic in char

acter and wholly unattended with inflammation of the

plural membrane .

ERUPTIVE FEVERS .

Among erupt ive fevers measles headed the list withS ixty-seven thousand seven hundred and sixty- three (67763) cases, follow ed by four thousand two hundred and

forty-six (4246) deaths, or a little less than one in six

teen .

There were twelve thousand two hundred and thirtysix cases o f smallpox with a mortali ty of fourthousand sev en hundred and seventeen a l ittle

more than one in three. Thus it wi ll be seen that in the

Civil War smallpox, typhoid fever and ty phus fever eachhad about the same death rate .

DIGESTIVE ORGANS .

Among the a ilmen ts recorded under those o f the

digestive organs are n ine thousand six hundred and three

(9603) cases of inflamma tion o f the stomach w ith fourhundred and eighty-n ine (489 ) deaths ; five thousand

seven hundred and two ( 5702) cases o f inflammation o f

the bowels with n ine hundred and forty (940) deaths ;one thousand two hundred and n inety- four ( 1 294) caseso f inflammation o f peritoneum w ith five hun dred and

thirty ( 530) deaths ; eleven thousan d one hundred an d

tw en ty cases o f acute inflammation of the liver

with two hundred and forty- two (242) deaths ; and eight


thousand two hundred and sixty (8260) cases of chron icinflammation o f the liver, with two hundred and two

(202 ) deaths.

Thus we have a total o f thi rty-five thousand n ine hundred and sixty -one cases O f inflamma tory trou

bles in the abdomina l cavity, w ith two thousand fourhundred and fou r (2404) deaths, or less than one

in fifteen .

Roughly speaking, Of the total o f disease attacks from

which Civi l War soldiers suff ered about one in one hun

dred and seven ty ( 1 70) was from inflammation Of the

l iver, stomach

,bowels or peritoneum,

A nd from the

same trouble resulted about one death in eighty (80) ofthe grand total o f fatal ities.

’

RHEUMATISM .

O ne hundred and forty-five thousand five hundred andfi fty

-one cases O f rheumatism w ere reportedwith only two hundred and eighty- three (283) deaths, orabout one in five hundred . O f chron i c rheumatism therew ere one hundred and n in e thousand one hundred and

eighty-seven cases,with one hundred and

ninety-two ( 192) deaths, or about one in six hundred .

TUBERCULOSIS .

Thi rteen thousand four hundred and n inety-n ine ( 13,499 ) cases of pulmonary con sumption were tabu

lated, with five thousand'

three hundred and eighty- six

( 5386) deaths. These figures show a morta lity o f on lyabou t 40 per cent . However, the remain ing eight thousand one hundred and thi rteen (81 13) cases were doubt

l ess discharged On surgeon ’

s certificate,andmost of them

I N D E X .

Acciden tal deaths, 133w ounds, 55, 73, 133Accoutremen ts, 52Activity, best for sold iers, 154A dmin

l

i

ggation of medic ines,

Lincoln’

s, 13, 14, 17 , 21 , 23,24, 25, 32, 33, 34, 35, 141 ,202, 203

A dvenit

l

i

ze, a remarkable, 1 13,

African slave- traders, 237A fr icans, native, 237Agu e, 44, 45A labama, 1 1 , 210, 21 1 , 233, 246,

248army of, 237River, 226secession of , 1 1Algier s, L a. , 144, 156, 168A l l igators, 75, 239, 240A l ton ,

I l l . , 42Ambulpéi

fe, 69, 98, 104, 133,

Ammun ition , exp losion O f, 241Amputations, 255Anderson , Gen . Robert, 12, 13“Andy over” in battle, 217Anesthetics, 258Anglo-Saxon , 121 , 12A nn Arbor, 188An tietam, 39

An t isepsis, lack O f, 10, 105,

122, 131

Append ix, 250Appetite, a sold ier’s, 57, 74,

147, 163Ar kansas, 52, 63Army, Con federate, 223, 224en l istment in

, 31 , 32o f Gul f

,1 76, 210

O f Tennessee, 82, 1 15

Army organ ization , 70Arterial hemorrhage, 205, 206Asepsis, w an t O f, 104, 105, 121

127 , 131Assassination , Lincoln’

s, 228Assault, a dead ly, 102by colored troops, 222, 223Atchafalaya R iver, 203Auburn , M iss , 92Aun t T i lda, 190, 196

Banks, Gen . N . P . , 90, 108, 176,1 77, 201

young, a victim, 103, 146Barry, Dr. , 125Base hosp i tals, 253, 254Baton Rouge, L a . ,

183

Battery, 70, 82Battle, our first , 76, 87Bayou Pierre, 56, 78, 84Bayou, Teche, 162, 168Beauregard , Gen . , 28

(gunboat ) , 63Bedbugs, 247, 248B edfel low s, unwelcome, 247,

248

Beehive, a sold ier’s, 181Bel levil le, I l l . , 36, 40, 41 , 42Ben ton , 72

Gen . , 208, 216

Berw ick B ay , 168Big Black River, 91 , 95, 96,

108, 1 12

Black R iver Bridge, 94, 95, 96Bla ir, Gen . Frank P 92

Blockade, Vicksburg, 72, 73,121 , 1 22

Body l ice, 165, 166Bolus, a b itter, 44, 45Bond County, 12, 15, 20, 35, 39,

40

268 Index .

Bonheur, Rosa,1 22

Books, med ical , 128Bow ie, Dr. , 75residence, 75Bragg, Gen . , 59, 64, 65Brainard, Dr. Dan iel , 126Brasher City, 146, 147 , 156, 168“Brave Boys, 39, 2 18Breakfast, a tempting, 51B recke

l

n

Sgidge, Gen . John C . ,

Brigade, 70Brooklyn ,

120

Bruinsburg, M iss , 77, 139Buchanan , Commodore, Frank,

77 , 212Buchanan , Commodore, Mc

Kean ,149

Buel l , Gen . , 22, 27Bul l Run

,Battle of , 17, 20, 23

Bul let in brain , 99, 103, 131132

Bul let wounds, 133Bul lets, Civil War , 252, 253Burial of the dead , 60, 107 , 1 1 1of a sold ier, 163Burnside, Gen . , 59

Cairo,1 75, 181 , 187, 245

a sold ier’s beehive, 181Calhoun , 149

Camp Butler, 42, 53, 245, 246Camp Jackson ,

19

E . R . S . , 210, 230,

Cannonading, heavy, 20, 76Capital

,State, 40, 41

Captai

gé 1a dead, Texas, 220,

Capture of Camp Jackson ,19

Captur1

e

6

c

$my friends, 167, 168,

Cards and cards, 64, 65Carlyle, I l l 41 , 247Carondolet, 72Carr

,Gen . , 93

Carrol lton , L a. ,143

Carthage, New , 72, 73, 76, 122Cavalry, Mexican , 203Caves at Vicksburg, 1 10

Celebration , July 4, 1861 , 33Centra l ia, I l l . , 1 75Champ ion H i l l , Battle O f, 92,

93, 94, 96, 100Chancel lorsvil le, Batt le o f

, 92Character O f missi les, 252, 253of vo lun teers, 35Chess, 186, 187Chicago merchantile battery, 82Chicamauga, 34“Chuck-a- luck,” 198Church, Episcopal, 63, 64Christmas d inner, 1 7 1Civi l War med ic ine

,250, 265

Civil ization , 1 75Classification of d isease, 219Clergy man , an eloquent

, 33, 34Clothing, 49, 198Coercion , 12, 27Coff ee, 74, 76, 84, 214

-

po t, extemporized , 147Colby ,

1ggpt. Wm. H . , 103, 102,

Cook, our hospital , 133, 1381 70, 1 7 1

Cooking, Civil War , 46, 47,136, 137 , 147 , 214, 234

Cooks, amateur, 46 ,47

Colored troops, 141 , 152Columbiads, 1 10, 18Comrade, a sick, 58

federacy, 32, 85, 120, 140,209, 222

Con federate, a fallen , 94a thri fty

,109, 1 10

a w i l l ing captive, 85an enthusiastic, 86, 87dead, 109, 1 10, 220, 221doctors, 1 77first one en coun tered, 81money, 109, 1 10Con federates, 53, 78, 79, 93, 96,

108, 109, 1 10, 182, 185,201 , 202, 203, 205, 209,212, 213, 217, 218, 219,220, 221 , 222, 226, 228,230, 231 , 237

Con federates, embryo, 19, 21Congress, 149a patriot ic, 17

270 I ndex .

Fevers, eruptive, 262F ire, our “first baptism”

of, 82

Firewood, expensive, 147First battle, 78“First b lood, 81Flag, Pocahon tas, 37, 38presentation of , 36, 37of 45th 1 11 1 13Regimental , 38Fl int, Dr. Aust in , 126Foeman , a sin le, 182Food, 46, 47, 8 88, 137, 149Foraging, 87, 88, 89, 149“Forb idden fruit,” 17 1Forest Queen , 72Fort B island, 145, 146Blakely, 218, 219Donelson, 21 , 22, 23, 24, 26,

250

Gaines, 212Henry, 23, 26Huger, 225Morgan ,

21 1, 212, 213

Moultrie, 12Pickerin 56, 57P i l low , 54, 223Tracy, 225Fourth M ichigan Cavalry, 239Frank Lesl ies, 188Frankl in , L a . ,

149

Fredericksburg, 59Freemon t, Gen . ,

18, 43, 201 , 202French people, 149Frost, Gen . ,

19Furlough home, 172

Game to the last, 225, 226Gangrene, 256, 257 , 258“Garden -sass

,

”187

Garl ic, 42Germans, 42General , a swear ing, 62, 82, 83Georgia, secession of, 1 1 , 209,

239

Gibral tar of the West, 66Gold, 24G rand

8§iul f

,M iss , 76, 78, 84,

Granger, Gen . Gordon, 213

Grant, Gen . U . S . , 13, 21 , 22, 27,64, 67, 82, 83, 87, 108,1 15, 139, 140, 143

,201 ,

221an original story O f, 68first seen , 67Green , M iss Sarah, 37Greenbacks, 24Greenvi lle, I l l . , 33, 35, 36, 37,

39, 40, 1 75, 184, 249Gross, Dr . S . D . , 1 26Grover, General , 146Guard

239W, 49, 50, 57, 228, 238,

Gulf , Army o f, 176Gul f of Mexico, 168, 210Gunboat, “dummy,” 1 19, 120Gunboats, 26, 67, 72Gunn, Dr. Moses, 126

Ha ines’ . B luff , 78Hal leck, Gen . , 27Hampton Roads, 26Hard t imes land ing, 76“Hard-tack,” 74, 147, 214Harper’s Monthly, 188Weekly, 28, 188Hemorrhage, 255, 256Henry Clay, 72enry , Samuel, 208, 209erald, 188

Herrin

zg1 1and seasickness, .210,

H iaw atha, 73“H igh-old-times, 1 74Hodgen ,

Dr. John T . , 126, 180“Hoe- cake,” 220, 227, 234

“Hog ,

”

w ith hair on , 234Hol idays, 1 7 1Hol ly Springs, Miss , 64Holmes, General , 7 1Holmes

’ plantation , 7 1“Home Again ,

”183

Home, President Lincoln’

s, 43on furlough, 1 72Hood, Gen . J . B . , 95, 210Hooker, Gen . Joe, 92Hopedale, Ark . , 63Hospita l boat, 70cook, 135, 138

Index.

Hospital corps, 1 12d iv iso-n

, 97 , 1 12in a church, 150in field, 69, 77, 89, 129, 144,

R . R. tra ins, 254regirgsental at Memphis, 60,

serv ice, my first, 58, 134steward, 206, 243Hospitals, base, 253, 254Hovey, General, 93Hovey’s d ivision , 93Human l i fe cheap, 142Hunt, Lawrentia, a comrade,

Hurlburt, Gen . Stephen A . , 35Hynes, Rev . T . W. , 33, 34

I ll inois, 13, 20, 34, 121 , 1 72, 184,202, 205, 206, 207, 208,209

I IinOistown , 248I l lusion, an

, 240Ind iana, 34Indianola, 1 17, 1 19In fect ion , 104, 105, 127, 131Injusti ce, an, 206Instrur

l

r

ge

l

nts, surgical, 97, 130,

Inval id, I become an , 167Inval id ism, ted ious, 1 78Iowa, 94, 202I rwinsville, Ga . , 239Island No . 10, 10, 26Ives, Lieut. Charles, 158

Jackson , camp , capture O f, 18Gengal Andrew , statue of,

Governor Claiborn P ., 14M iss. 90

D, 96, 1 12

January, D . 70J imps, Jabez ,

A

195Johnny’S rat ion s, 220Johnson , Capta in W . H . , 83, 84Charles, 34John ston , Gen . Joe E 90, 91 ,

107, 1 12, 201 , 236, 242

27 1

Joke, good one on a comrade,79, 80

“

Jonezs

g”

a newsy character,

Joy of meeting comrades, 183July 4

,1861 , 33

Kansas, 34K enn

gil, Major George W. ,

Kennedy, M r . , 232Ken tucky, 14Knapsack, med ical , 130, 131

Lady Beauregard, 96Davis, 96Pr i ce, 96

Lake Port, La . , 205Ponchartrain , 205St . Joseph, L a. , 74, 75

Lafayette, 72Lan caster, 120Law ler, Gen . , 95Lecture, I receive a, 79Lee, Gen . , 201 , 210, 221 , 227,

236, 242“Legal-tender,” 24Letter under fire, 216, 217Let ters, Con federate, 216, 217,

231 , 235Life, active, best for soldiers,

154human , cheap, 142Lincoln , Pres , 13, 14, 17, 21 ,

23, 24, .25, 32, 33, 34, 35,141 , 202, 203

Lincoln ’

s Emancipation Proclamation , 87, 195

Lister, Dr. Joseph, 127“Little M ac,

”

23

Logan , Gen . John A . ,35, 82, 83

Lou isiana, 237, 246, 248creoles, 148secession O f , 1 1

Louisville, 72Lyons, General, 18, 19

Macintosh Bluff , 228Maggots, 105M ago ffin ,

Governor, 14

272 I ndex .

Mail igsswar-time, 1 1 , 12, 231 ,

Ma i lbag, Con federate, 231 , 235Mal inger ing, 154M ansfi

l

e

g

lg, La. , 1 76, 177, 178,

“March to the Sea, the, 209Matagorda B ay , 160, 1 70Matron , our hosp ita l , 61 , 62Mattress O f cane, 107M cB urney

’

s Po in t, 45M cCauly , James A . , 232, 233M cC lellan, Gen . Geo . B . , 23,

29, 39, 201 , 202, 203

McClernand, Gen . J . A . , 27, 82,83, 98, 1 12

McPherson, Gen . J . B 63, 90,91 , 98

Measles, 59, 160Mechan i cs in regimen t, 150Med i ca l books, 128knapsack, 130, 131stud ies, 142, 243Med icine, the wrong, 170, 17 1Med ic ines, 97, 129, 130Memphis, naval batt le of, 54Tenn , 52, 65, 70, 125, 135,

158, 160, 182Merr imac, 149Messmate, a worthy, 208, 209M ichigan Un iversi ty, 124M i les, J . W. , 38M i l l Spring, batt le of, 21M i l ler, James M . , 127M i l l iken ’

s Ben d, La ., 66, 67, 121M i lk

,bitter, 89

M inn ie bal ls, 131 , 132M ississipp i, 77, 143, 246floti l la

,1 15

R iver, 42, 52, 53, 76, 77, 146,147, 148, 246

secession of, 1 1M issi les, character of, 252, 253M issing, 246M issour i, 14med ica l col lege, 123war in ,

18Mobile, 210, 213, 216, 225, 226,

527,229, 230, 232, 233,

Mobi le B ay , 213, 225Poin t, 21 1 , 212Moderator, 150Money, Con federate, 109, 1 10hard, 24paper, 24Mon itor and Merrimac, 26, 27Morb id ity, 258, 259Morganza Bend

, L a., 187Mott, Dr . Valen tine, 126Moultrie, Fort, 12Moun d City, 72Mouth

zzo3pen opportunely, 222,

Mur fresboro, battle of, 59Musi c, O ld- time, 15Musket, Austrian r ifled, 52,

131 , 132, 207Enfield, 131 , 132, 207Springfield, 131 , 132, 207, 252Mussey, Dr. Reuben 126

Natches, M iss , 1 15Navy, Con federate, 230, 237Federal, 76

“Negro-Bil l ,” 223Negroes, 141 , 152, 182, 223, 224New Iber ia, La . , 146, 155, 1 72New Orleans, 143, 1 52, 155, 156,

1 72, 1 73, 185, 205, 209,210, 21 1

New words, a swarm of , 27News, sad, 61w ar, 12, 176, 1 78N ight, after battle, 84, 85N i les, Colonel Nathan iel , 189N ixon, M rs. Victoria, 235Offi cers, commissioned, 126field, 123in colored regiments, 141 , 152l ine

, 123non - commissioned, 126staff , 123Ohio, 35, 105, 202army of, 22

“O ld G lory, 38One hundred and thirt ieth

I l l inois, 37, 51 , 76, 77, 80,95, 157, 205, 209, 242,

274 Index.

Scared,182

Schoo l , last days in , 12Scott, Gen . Winfield, 14, 35Seasick, 1 56, 210, 21 1Secession ,

1 1 , 27Seven days’ battle, 29Seventy-seventh I l l inois, 68

,

205, 206, 207, 208, 209,

Sharp shooters, 83Shelby’s, 190, 195“Shel l

, an empty,”Shel l w ounds, 133Shenandoah Va l ley, 202Sheridan , Gen . , 202Sheridan , Gen . P . H . , 237Sherman , Gen . Wm . T . , 57, 66,

90, 98, 101 , 202, 209, 234,236

Shi loh, battle O f, 22, 27Shoeless, 1 72, 1 73“Showed fight

,221 , 222

Shreveport, L a . , 177, 237Sibley ten t, a, 56“Sick-cal l,” 153S ickness, 47, 58, 59, 60, 61 , 62Siegel , Gen . Franz, 18Sigler, Dr. Wm. F . , 125Silier , 24Silver wave, 72“Six hundred thousand more,

29, 31 , 35S lave States, 14, 15

- traders, A frican , 237Slavery, 32, 91 , 95, 224, 237S leep , too tired for , 74the sw eetest, 74Smith, Gen . E . Kirby

, 237Gen . A . J. , 70, 91M iss Mol l ie, 37Smi th’

s plan tation , 73Sold ier, a serious, 40d ies on boat, 53d isappears mysteriously, 245executed , 143experts, 150l i fe at Camp Butler, 43, 52w ounded acciden tal ly, 55, 73So ld iers, become officers, 206colored, 141 , 152

Sold iers first seen , 20So ld iers’

hea l th, 125Sold iers’ meetings, 68sol i loquy, a, 85

Some1gi

ptured Confederates,

Some stray shots, 203South Carol ina, secession of,

1 1 , 12, 18

South Mounta in , battle of, 39Southern desperation , 223, 224hospital ity , 228, 229pluck, 220Republ ic, 237, 238sympathisers, 18Southerners in earnest, 17in the Northland, 34, 35Span ish Port, 216, 219, 225, 233Spectators, many, 54Spring, approach of, 63Springfield

,I l l . , 40, 41

musket, 206, 207Spurr, J . W. , 1 13, 1 14Staff , commissioned, 126non - comm issioned, 126Standard , 188Star of the West, 1 19State capital , order from, 40States, free, 14slave, 14Steamboat burned, 187death on , 53exp losion ,

142, 143“on wheels,” 149

S teambgg

ts, protected, 73, 182,

loaded w ith sold iers, 57, 58Steele, Gen . Francis, 218, 225St. Louis, M o. , 20, 42, 52, 92,

136, 1 73, 182“Stray Shots,” 123Street, Harlow , 58, 158S trong

l

h

oc

éld, a Con federate, 96,

Sugar-mi l ls, 148Sunday, a never-to-be- forgot

ten , 219“Sunny South, 75Suppl ies, Con federate, 1 15

Index.275

Surgeon ,F irst A ssistan t, 123,

126, 131

Major , 44, 123, 126Second Assistant, 123, 126Surgery, Civi l War ,“Survival O f the fi ttest, 60Sutler, 170, 1 7 1 , 198, 200Sweari

gnsg , and sw earing, 68, 82,

Swett , our landlord, 107Swett’s plantat ion, 97, 107Sw i tzerland , 120Sword o f Damocles, 179Sword wounds, 133

T arrand, Commodore, 237Tavern ,

at the vi l lage, 36Taylor, Gen . Richard, 146, 230,

Techelg‘fls

ountry , 145, 156, 162,

Tecumseh, 212

Ted ious inval id ism, 1 78“Tenderfoot” a, 213, 214, 215finan cial, 198, 200Tennessee, 53, 66, 212, 228, 246army of , 1 13depar tmen t o f , 141Tensaw River

,225

Tetanus, 256Teuton dri l l-master, 51 , 52Texas, 1 13, 156, 168, 169, 194secession of, 1 1 , 156, 168, 237,

Thanksgiving, 155Thieves, victim of, 79, 172, 173

’

Thirteenth Corps, 70, 76, 82,90, 91 , 94, 96, 98,213, 226

Thirteenth Corps and HOS

p ital , 1 12Thoma

é

s

l,

0Gen . Geo. H . , 209,

Thri l l , a, 245T ime that tried men

’

s souls, 59Tombigbee R iver, 228, 230Torpedoes, 212, 219Transports ( see Steamboats) .

Troops, cal l for 29colored, 141 , 152, 222

Troops, colored, assaul t by,222, 223

first cal l for, 13new

,48, 50

Truce, 1 1 1Tuberculosis, 61 , 264, 265Turpen tine emulsion ,

159orchards, 215Twentieth I l l inois, 121 , 122Typhoid fever, 62, 137, 138,

139,244, 245

U n con dit ion a l SurrenderGran t,” 150

Un i forms, first, 49, 52Unusual cases, 251 , 252“Ups and Downs,” 242, 243

Vandal , a, 63Vandal ia, I l l . , 1 75, 181Van Dorn , 54Gen . Earl , 227, 228Vermil l ion Bayou, 150, 152V icksburg, 34, 57, 58, 59, 64,

84, 86, 89campa ign , review of, 139ordered to vicin ity of, 66siege of, 96, 109surrender O f, 109

Victoria N ixon , M rs , 235V isitors, Northern , 1 13Volumes, some stray, 188, 189Vo lunteers, character of , 35Vote, not a l lowed to, 202

War , Civil, breaking out of, 13War Democrats, 20, 33new s, 12, 1 76, 178progress O f, 1 7, 30War’s harvest, 16, 191 , 193Warrenton ,

M iss ,101

Watts, Governor, 234Webb, 1 17, 1 18, 1 19, 121Webster

,Dan iel , 1 1 , 1 7 1

Weitsel, Gen . , 145, 146 , 149Wel come home, 245, 246Whistle, a long one, 53Whistler, 226Whi te R iver, 203M iss Lucy, 30

276 Index.

Whi te,Samuel, 163

Wi fe, a sold ier’s, 163, 1 78, 179Wilcox, Dr. L. K . ,

123“Wildcat” money, 24Wilkins

,Dr. David, 82, 124

Will iams, Gen . , 185Wilson’

s Creek, battle of, 20Wisconsin. 91 , 92. 202 Yankee, a shrewd, 208,Womanhood, 61 , 62Wood, Dr. George B . , 126, 159

y

fifio

fififgsém 106 161

Wood, young, vict im O f ty

phoid, 158Woodwar d, Dr. J . Janvier, 160, -Ze1gler, Dr. , 177

161 Zol l icoffer, Gen . , 21

Zouave dri ll, 207, 208

Wounds, acc identa l, 55, 73, 133bayonet, 133pecul iar, 99, 105, 106Shel l

,133

sword, 133treatment O f, 104, 105

muskets and medicine - forgotten books · co nt ent s. chapter i. —breaking-out of the civil w a...

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