A Narrative of Service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry Part 5

In December a general order was issued from the War Department, providing for the reenlistment of veteran regiments. It provided for a liberal bounty for all who reenlisted as veterans after two years'

service; but it offered what was a greater temptation than anything else, the chance to go home for thirty days as a regiment, with the opportunity to recruit up to the full standard. I explained to my Company all the advantages of this arrangement. Their term of service would not expire until the end of June. By that time the fighting would probably be well over with. By reenlisting now they would secure the bounty, the thirty days furlough, and the honorable record of veteran soldiers, and it would be possible to preserve our organization from the beginning to the end of the war.

Just about this time I was called away from camp to Tullahoma, to sit on the court martial of Colonel E. L. Price of the One Hundred Forty-Fifth New York Regiment, on charges of misbehaviour in battle. When the court adjourned over the Christmas holidays and I returned to my Regiment, I was informed by my First Sergeant that the men of my Company had been talking over the matter of reenlisting, and that more than three-fourths of them were ready to do so if I would stay with them. The contagion spread. By Christmas all but two of the officers, and 240 out of 300 enlisted men present with the Regiment, had, in the language of the day, "veteranized."

On Christmas this surviving remnant of the thousand men of the Third, who had so gayly left the State two-and-a-half years before, started on their return. It was a beautiful day, and for us one of perfect happiness. We were going home with a record that none could surpa.s.s and few commands could equal. We were the first regiment from Wisconsin, and I believe the first in the army, to reenlist.

At Madison the arms were stored, and the men scattered to their homes to enjoy their thirty-days' furlough. I was just in time to take part in a New Year's dance, and go home in the morning on the coldest day ever known in Wisconsin.

The month of January, 1864, which we spent in Wisconsin, was a season of continuous festivities. The only drawback was the extreme cold, which to us who had just come from the South, seemed more severe than it had ever been before. Everyone seemed to be determined to give the returned soldiers the best time of their lives. Some of the croakers thought it too gay for people who were engaged in a death struggle for the life of the Nation. Those of us, however, who had been at the front, were disposed to be merry while we could, and leave the future to care for itself. Recruiting was going on all the time. Our veterans proved the best recruiting officers in the State. They brought in their brothers and cousins, schoolmates and friends, so that when we were ready to return once more to the south, we had added 300 men to our rolls, picked from the very flower of Wisconsin's citizenry.

On February 2 the veterans of the Regiment a.s.sembled at Madison. On the 4th we were again on our way south, and reached Tullahoma the night of the 9th. On the 12th we started out for Fayetteville, the seat of Lincoln County, Tennessee, where we arrived at noon on the following day. On our way we pa.s.sed through Lynchburg, where there was pointed out to us the house, or rather the ruins of the house, which was said to have been the birthplace of Davy Crockett. At Mulberry, a little farther on, I met a middle-aged citizen who said that he had never known what a United States flag looked like until he had seen one carried by our soldiers in this war.

_Reorganizing Lincoln County_

Lincoln County was one of the richest, as well as the most violent of Secession counties in Tennessee. Its people boasted that it had cast 2,500 votes for Secession, and not one for the Union; the few Union men in the county had not dared to go to the polls. A few months previous to our coming a small detachment of Northern troops had been captured there by guerrillas. The prisoners had been taken to the bank of the Elk River and three of them deliberately murdered. A fourth had only escaped by leaping into the river and swimming off in the confusion. When he had reported the matter to headquarters, Colonel Ketcham of the One Hundred Fiftieth New York had been sent to collect an a.s.sessment of $30,000 from the citizens of the county for the benefit of the families of the murdered soldiers.

Our mission in Lincoln County was to hunt down the guerrillas who infested it, and to care for the refugees from Chattanooga and other places in the rear of the army, who had lost their means of gaining a livelihood. We supported the refugees by forced levies of corn and bacon from the wealthy planters of the vicinity, while our mounted force soon disposed of the guerrillas, capturing a number and frightening the rest out of the county. We had a novel way of administering justice. For instance, about two months after our arrival a number of these young offenders, whose parents lived in the vicinity and were substantial farmers, stole from a citizen mules valued at $400. The Colonel immediately a.s.sessed the amount on the fathers, and with the money thus collected paid for the mules. That was our policy all through--to make the wealthy Confederates pay for the damage done by their lawless colleagues. And this method had a good effect, for it soon put an end to the thievery.

Shortly after we arrived, our mounted men captured a Confederate officer named Boone, a grandson of the famous Daniel. On him was found a list of all the guerrillas in the county. When I examined him, he told me that he had been sent to muster these fellows into the Confederate army; but his plans were spoiled. Instead he went to Johnson's Island, a prisoner, and his little memorandum book remained in my possession.

Among the names on the list were those of two Miller boys, whose mother and sister lived in town. The Captain of our mounted men, and several other officers, boarded with the family, for the people in Fayetteville were usually glad to take in Union officers as boarders, in order that they might secure from our rations the otherwise un.o.btainable luxuries of sugar and coffee. Several days after the capture of Boone's list, the Captain brought in both of the young Millers as prisoners. They were forwarded to Corps headquarters at Tullahoma. The elder, instead of being sent North as a prisoner of war, was tried by court martial and sentenced to be hanged in the public square of Fayetteville. That did not suit some of us; so we found means to send Mrs. Miller to Shelbyville, where she secured Judge Cooper, a well-known Unionist and former member of Congress, to go to Washington, and lay the case before President Lincoln. It was well known that no death sentence was ever executed with the President's consent, if there was any reasonable excuse for avoiding it. His usual magnanimity did not fail in this case, and the boy was sent North as an ordinary prisoner of war.

When the President's amnesty proclamation was issued, we were given the duty of reorganizing Lincoln County under its provisions. I was appointed provost marshal, and in that position administered oaths of allegiance to several thousand repentant and unrepentant Secessionists.

When the election was held, returns were made to me, and by me tabulated, and sent to the military governor at Nashville. Commissions were then issued by him to the officials who had been elected, so that when we left, the county was ready to resume civil government.

In administering the oath of allegiance, the demand for blanks was so great that the ordinary sources could not furnish a sufficient supply.

It was necessary, therefore, for me to open a printing office. So I took possession of an old printing establishment, and set several men to work. The press was broken down and the type badly "pi'd"; but we soon had the machinery repaired, and by combining the stock of three printing offices, secured sufficient type to run our establishment with success.

In addition to these other duties, I had to listen to everyone in the county who sought redress for a grievance of any kind. Some had had horses taken by our army, or by bushwhackers; some had been robbed of money or other valuables; some wanted permits to carry firearms, which were of course never granted; and others needed a.s.sistance from the Government to keep from starving. One man came with a case parallel to that of the woman who wanted a "pa.s.s to raise geese." He wanted a "pa.s.s to raise a crup." I told him to go on and raise his crop, or do whatever he pleased, so long as he remained loyal to the Government. He said his neighbors had told him he could not raise a crop without a permit from the Federals, and that every man who took the oath of allegiance was branded in the forehead with the letters "U. S."

One day a woman came to me, who said she had heard that we paid $10,000 to the widows of men killed by guerrillas. I explained to her that we had done that only for the widows of three Union soldiers. I told her, however, that if she could give me any information about where the guerrillas could be found, we would capture and punish them. She said she did not know, but that she had heard some shots in the woods. She had not seen her man since, and she was sure they had killed him. After parleying awhile she started out of the door. But before she went out, she turned and called back to me, "That ai'nt the wust of 't; they stole my old mare, too!"

When we first arrived at Fayetteville not a person was to be seen on the streets, although before the war it had been a place of 2,000 inhabitants. There was not a vestige of any kind of business left in the town. Even the stores and taverns were vacant. The people soon made their appearance, however, when they found that we had come to stay, and before very long we had established the most friendly relations with them. By the time we were ready to leave, almost every family in town had its friends among the soldiers. They were very sociable, and always seemed glad to have the Federal officers call on them. The young ladies would sing and play the piano beautifully, and make things quite homelike for us after the routine of the day's work. Twenty years later, while pa.s.sing through Fayetteville on my way to Atlanta, I received courtesies from a citizen who only knew me by reputation as one of the officers of the Third Wisconsin.

It was curious to see what a difference slavery had made in the social life of these people. Everywhere work was considered disgraceful for a white man, and as only the occupation of the "n.i.g.g.e.r." In order to succeed socially, it was necessary to own slaves. The idea of hiring labor, or of being rich without negroes, was apparently incomprehensible. And in fact it was true that all of the people who had obtained any sort of success, intellectually or otherwise, had owned slaves.

Most of the men who resided in the vicinity had served in the Confederate army. Some had been discharged on account of wounds or sickness, while others, and probably most of them, had deserted when they became sure that the fight was hopeless.

My office was a common resort for these people after they had taken the oath of amnesty. They would sit around by the hour, and spin their yarns about the Confederate service. The recent deserters had to be sent to headquarters at Tullahoma for examination; and as we could communicate only with a strong escort, I would sometimes have half a dozen of them paroled to report to me daily until I could arrange to send on a party.

In all my dealings with these people, I found scarcely any who really desired the success of the Union cause. There were plenty of them, probably the majority, who thought the Confederacy a failure, and wished to get back into the Union on the best possible terms; but they still clung to their old ideas. However, that did not interfere with our friendship and the good time that we had while we were there. And when the day at length came when we were obliged to leave, I think that they really were, as they professed to be, sorry at our going. And well they might be, for the regiment of Tennessee Union Cavalry, that occupied the town after we left, proceeded at once to kill several of the most prominent men who had not taken the amnesty oath, and at least one who had.

On the morning of April 28, 1864, we said farewell to our Fayetteville friends and started out on the campaign which a year later was to end at Raleigh, North Carolina, with the surrender of Johnston's army and the end of the war. With us was a company of Tennessee Union Cavalry, commanded by Captain Brixey, which had been sent to Lincoln County to hunt bushwhackers. On leaving Fayetteville they had taken a horse belonging to Judge Chilcote, a prominent citizen, who had been of much a.s.sistance to me in the provost marshal's office in restoring civil government, and who had at the election been chosen county clerk. The Judge followed us, and asked to have his horse restored. Colonel Hawley of our Regiment at once compelled Captain Brixey to give it up. He did so with apparent reluctance, and then secretly sent a number of his men over a by-road to intercept the Judge on his return and kill him. This cowardly deed accomplished, the men rejoined their command. Brixey then pushed on ahead to Tullahoma, and on the next day left for the mountains of East Tennessee. The murder was reported to us that night.

The Colonel sent back Captain Gardner with his mounted men to investigate, but the murderers had fled as soon as their deed became known, and nothing more could be done. After this outrage, Brixey never dared to rejoin our army. Some time later he was killed by Confederates in northwestern Georgia.

During our stay at Fayetteville our Corps and the old Eleventh of the Army of the Potomac were consolidated, and became known as the Twentieth Corps of the Army of the c.u.mberland. The command was given to General Hooker. Our portion of the army would very much have preferred General H. W. Sloc.u.m, who was sent to Vicksburg. In the reorganization we became the Second Brigade of the First Division, with General Thomas H. Ruger commanding the Brigade and General A. S. Williams commanding the Division. At the suggestion of the officers of the Eleventh Corps, our old badge, the five-pointed star, was retained as the badge of the new corps.

_Opening of the Atlanta Campaign_

Our Regiment reached Tullahoma on April 30, to find that the rest of our Brigade had already gone to the front. We started out on the next day to join them, and on May 4 crossed the Tennessee River at Bridgeport. On the 7th we pa.s.sed over the battle-field of Chickamauga, where signs of the conflict were still everywhere in evidence. On the night of the 8th we crossed the mountains by way of Nickajack Pa.s.s, and joined our Brigade at daylight the next morning. This pa.s.sage over the mountains was interesting. The night was extremely dark and perfectly quiet. The men in charge of the wagon train had placed lighted candles on the rocks along the road, at intervals of about a hundred feet, in order to guide themselves and those who came after. These were still flickering when we came along.

Our march to Atlanta was now well under way. The enemy continually fell back, and in most cases without offering serious resistance. The three armies of General Sherman, marching in parallel lines, seemed to be able to carry everything before them. On the 10th we again crossed the mountains at Snake Creek Gap, going into camp on the other side until the 13th. On the night of the 10th we were visited by a tremendous wind and rain storm, which blew down our tents, and raised the water in the creek so high that we had to move our camp or be drowned. At about this time, also, an order was read to the troops announcing the great success of the Army of the Potomac in the opening battles of the final campaign against Richmond.

On the 14th we were moved to the extreme left to support General Howard, who was there engaged with the enemy. We arrived at about sundown, just as the Confederates were driving in a brigade of the Fourth Corps and threatening to capture a battery of artillery. As we moved forward in line of battle, ready to receive the advancing enemy, General Williams called out to the fleeing soldiers of the Fourth Corps to get back out of the way, for he had a division there from the Army of the Potomac that would protect them. All of which goes to show that even major-generals are human, and when they get a chance like to exult over their rivals. We checked the advance of the enemy without much trouble.

At about noon on the 15th, General b.u.t.terfield, with our Third Division, moved forward to attack an earthwork and a four-gun battery, which the enemy held in his front. We moved forward on the left to support him; and encountering little opposition at first, advanced somewhat farther than the Third Division. We took position in the edge of a woods, where we made use of a rail fence and some logs to build a breastwork in antic.i.p.ation of an attack, which the skirmish firing in front warned us was coming. We soon had sight of the advancing enemy. A few volleys from us, however, and they broke and ran. In a short time they again came up, with a new line. We disposed of that almost as quickly as the first. A third time they repeated the attempt, and again we beat them back.

Now came the order to pursue. My Company, and the companies on my right, moved forward about two hundred yards in the woods. Suddenly we found that we were on the flank of a Brigade that was still stubbornly fighting with troops of the Twenty-Third Corps and the left companies of our Regiment. They were in a peach orchard, the nearest of them not fifty yards away. I hastily wheeled my Company, and Company H to the left, and opened fire. At such short range, and in such a crowd, every shot must have counted. The Confederates did not wait for much, but skedaddled as fast as their legs could carry them.

Just as the last of them were disappearing from sight, I saw a man in Confederate uniform come running toward my Company, hatless, but with gun in hand. I supposed that he was coming in to give himself up. He came within twenty yards of us, then apparently noticed for the first time that we were Yankees. He immediately started to run back. I called to him to surrender, but it only increased his speed. Finding that he did not stop, two of my men fired at him, and both hit him. He fell dead almost instantly upon the field. I went forward then and examined him.

He was a mere boy, not over twenty years of age. In his pocket we found his order, not two weeks old, from the conscript officer of his district, notifying him to join the army. I have seen fields of battle in front of our Regiment, covered over with the dead, without experiencing the pang of regret that I felt for this poor lad who, scarcely out from home, and too frightened and confused to know what to do, thus sadly met his fate.

The loss of our Regiment in this fight was one killed and thirty-one wounded. Many of the wounded subsequently died, among them Reverend John M. Springer, the Chaplain of the Regiment. When drafted in 1863, he had been a Methodist minister in Monroe, Wisconsin. Believing this to be a call of duty he had refused to allow his church to secure a subst.i.tute, and had reported at Madison for service. When our Regiment was about to leave Wisconsin for the front, after the veteran furlough, we officers had been introduced to him in the Executive Chamber at the Capitol, where we had a.s.sembled on the invitation of the Governor. When sent for, Springer had been found doing sentinel duty before the gate of Camp Randall. We had elected him Chaplain, and he had joined us at Fayetteville as soon as he could secure his discharge as a private. On the morning of the battle, when the prospects seemed good for a lively fight, he had come to me and asked for a musket and some ammunition, for he did not wish to be lurking in the rear while we were in danger at the front. At my suggestion, he had previously posted himself in the tactics, so I now told him to take the place of a Lieutenant in my Company. He was the first man hit, and died in the hospital a few days later.

By a strange coincidence, our picket found on the field in our front the dead body of the Chaplain of the Georgia Regiment with which we had been engaged. We were told by some of the wounded prisoners that he had been shot in coming up to recover the body of his son, a captain in the Regiment, who had been killed early in the fight.

In this battle, for the first time in my experience, Confederate soldiers who might have escaped came in and gave themselves up as prisoners. I think as many as forty did this. They were all thoroughly discouraged, and the same feeling seems to have run through their whole army, for they were more quickly and easily beaten than I had ever seen them before.

It was understood on our part that in order to give the Army of the Tennessee time to get below Resaca and cut off their retreat, we were not to push the attack against the enemy. They were too quick for us, however; the next morning they had abandoned Resaca, leaving behind them six heavy guns and large quant.i.ties of provisions and ammunition.

On the 19th we came up to them again at Ca.s.sville, where we drove them into their entrenched lines and occupied the town. We expected a fight in the morning, but once more they were gone, this time across the Etowah River. After a rest of four days at Ca.s.sville, we again went forward, crossing the Etowah on a pontoon bridge without resistance.

On the 25th we had nearly reached Dallas when we were turned back to a.s.sist General Geary, who had encountered a division of Hood's Corps, entrenched on the Marietta road to our left, at a place called New Hope Church. On our arrival we found that Geary's Division had already pushed back the enemy's skirmishers until the latter were thought to be in their main line of works, from which position we were ordered to drive them. The country was heavily timbered, and underbrush so obscured the view that it was impossible to see in any direction more than a few rods. When we came within sight of the enemy we found that a six-gun battery was posted a little in front of their line of infantry. The latter awaited us behind a breastwork, evidently hastily constructed of logs and earth, nevertheless affording fairly good shelter. As soon as we came within range, the battery opened on us with round shot and sh.e.l.l; then, as we came nearer, with grape and canister. But we pushed steadily on until we were less than sixty yards from them, when we halted; for we had lost so many men, and had become so disorganized in the march through the timber and brush that the impetus of our charge was gone. The regiments on both sides of us had already done the same.

We sheltered ourselves as well as we could, behind trees and fallen timber, and opened fire on their battery, receiving a hot fire in return from their infantry. We succeeded, however, in driving off the Confederate gunners, and prevented the cannon from being worked for the remainder of the day.

_Wounded and in Hospital_

When we had first come within range of the grape-shot, my scabbard had been struck and cut in two at a point just below where I grasped it with my left hand. Later, when my men had sheltered themselves and had commenced firing, I was again struck. I was at the time resting on one knee in a position where I could watch the battery, and direct our fire upon it, for I was determined that the enemy should not have an opportunity to take it away so long as we had a chance to capture it. My attention had just been called to something on the left, when a bullet struck the front of my cap, cutting the figure "3" out of the bugle, and glancing from the bone, cut a gash across my forehead. For a time I lost all interest in that battle. When I regained my feet, Colonel Hawley, who was standing near, told me to get back to the hospital. I succeeded in finding my way to a small ravine that we had crossed, thinking as I got back of the line, that there were a thousand bullets flying, to every one nearer the front. At the small brook in the ravine, I tried to wash off the blood which was blinding me, but had such poor success that I concluded to follow the Colonel's advice and have the wound dressed. I considered it not much of a clip, and thought that in three days at the most I would be back with my company. It was about two months before I rejoined, and a good many years before I entirely recovered.

On my way back to the hospital, I met in succession General Williams who commanded the Division, General Hooker who commanded the Corps, General Thomas who commanded the Army of the c.u.mberland, and General Sherman who commanded the Department. Each stopped and asked if I was much hurt--when I told that it was only a scratch, they were eager for information as to the situation at the front. I explained that we had driven the artillerymen from their guns, but that the infantry in their breastworks had been too much for us. Then each kindly told me to go to the hospital.

At the hospital I found Dr. Conley, our Regimental Surgeon, who dressed my wound and gave me a blanket to lie down on. I got away to one side and tried to sleep, but the Doctor disturbed me so often to look at my wound that this was impossible. I finally lost all patience with him and ordered him to let me alone; but he afterwards explained that he feared I would go to sleep and wake up in the next world.

This fight is known in the North as the Battle of Dallas, or the Battle of Pumpkinvine Creek, and in the South as the Battle of New Hope Church.

In the engagement, our Regiment lost eighteen men killed and ninety-two wounded. This loss was quite unevenly distributed among the companies.