Daring and Suffering Part 1

Daring and Suffering.

by William Pittenger.

PREFACE.

The following work is a narration of facts. My only desire is to give a clear and connected record of what will ever be regarded as a most remarkable episode in the history of the Great Rebellion.

The style of the book demands an apology. It was begun in sickness induced by the privations of rebel prisons, and completed amidst the fatigue and excitement of the most glorious campaign which has yet crowned our arms. Under these circ.u.mstances, there must be many faults of expression, which a generous reader will readily pardon.

To the many kind friends who sympathized with me during the weary interval when my fate was considered hopeless, as well as those who rejoiced with me on my return, I can only tender my most sincere thanks.

Myself and comrades are greatly indebted to the President and Secretary Stanton for their generous recognition of our services, and the munificent rewards bestowed upon us. To them, and to Judge Holt, Major-General Hitchc.o.c.k, and James C. Wetmore, Ohio State Military Agent, we take this opportunity of expressing our heartfelt obligations.

Another to whom I am indebted is Dr. R. T. Trall of New York. At his beautiful "Hygiean Home," on the mountain side, near Wernersville, Berks county, Pennsylvania, I regained my lost health. For his kindness, and that of his skillful a.s.sistants, Drs. Gla.s.s and Fairchild, I will ever be deeply grateful. It was with regret, woven with many pleasant memories, that I left their hospitable home when recovered health and duty called me again to the field.

To my early friend, Rev. Alexander Clark, Editor of the "School Visitor," I am still more deeply indebted. His literary experience was freely placed at my service, and when discouraged in the preparation of my story, which was to me an arduous undertaking, his words of hope and cheer stimulated me to renewed efforts. But for aid derived from his sympathy and advice, I would have probably abandoned my task. May he be fully rewarded!

There are a host of others whose good offices will always be kindly remembered. Among them are W. R. Allison of the "Steubenville Herald," Dr. John McCook, also of Steubenville, Dr. George McCook of Pittsburgh, Rev. William B. Watkins, A. M., Dr. John Mills, and many others. Thanks to them all!

WILLIAM PITTENGER.

Army of the c.u.mberland, August, 1863.

INTRODUCTION.

While our absent brothers are battling on the field, it is becoming that the friends at home should be eager for the minutest particulars of the camp-life, courage and endurance of the dear boys far away; for to the loyal lover of his country every soldier is a brother.

The narrative related on the following pages is one of extraordinary "daring and suffering," and will excite an interest in the public mind such as has rarely, if ever, arisen from any personal adventures recorded on the page of history.

William Pittenger, the oldest of a numerous family, was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, January 31st, 1840. His father, Thomas Pittenger, is a farmer, and trains his children in the solid experiences of manual labor. His mother is from a thinking familyhood of people, many of whom are well known in Eastern Ohio as pioneers in social and moral progress-the Mills's. William learned to love his country about as early as he learned to love his own mother; for his first lessons were loyalty and liberty, syllabled by a mother's lips. Even before the boy could read, he knew in outline the history of our nation's trials and triumphs, from the days of Bunker Hill, forward to the pa.s.sing events of the latest newspaper chronicling,-all of which facts were nightly canva.s.sed around the cabin-hearth.

Although he was an adept in all branches of learning, yet, in school days, as now, young Pittenger had two favorite studies; and they happened to be the very ones in the prosecution of which his teachers could aid him scarcely at all-History and Astronomy. But, in the face of discouragement, with the aid only of accidental helps, and by the candle-light and the star-light after the sunny hours had been toiled away, he pressed patiently and perseveringly forward in his own chosen methods, until he became an accurate historian, and a practical astronomer. At the age of seventeen, he manufactured, for the most part with his own hands, a reflecting telescope, which his friends came from near and far to see, and gaze through, at the wonderful worlds unthought-of before.

The ambitions of farm-life were not sufficient to occupy the head and hands of this searcher for knowledge. To explore the fields of the firmament with his telescope, gave him intenser pleasure than the most faithful farmer ever realized from furrowing his fields in the dewiest spring mornings. To follow the footsteps of heroes through the world's annals, as they struggled up through conflicts to glorious liberty, thrilled him with a livelier enthusiasm than ever sprang from the music of marching harvesters. While other young men of his age and neighborhood idled their rainy days and winter nights in trifling diversions, there was one who preferred the higher joy of communion with Humboldt in his "Cosmos," Macaulay in his "England," Irving in his "Columbus," or Burritt in his "Geography of the Heavens."

Owing to this decided preference for science and literature, the father found it advisable to indulge his son in the desire to enter a field more consonant with his wishes. He accordingly qualified himself, by close study at home, and without a tutor, for the profession of teaching. In this honorable avocation he labored with industry and promise, until he felt constrained by love of country to quit the desk and the children, for the tent and the hosts of armed men.

During his career as teacher, he was, for awhile, a.s.sociated with the writer in the publication of the School Visitor, then issued at Cleveland, Ohio. The enterprise was, at that time, (1857-8,) to the great outer world, an unnoticed and insignificant one; yet to those whose little all was enlisted in the mission of a Day School paper, it was, indeed, something that lay close upon their hearts. That was a cheerless, friendless time in the history of the little Visitor, to at least two inexperienced adventurers in the literary world. But these were hidden trials, and shall be unwritten still.

The never-forgotten teachings of his mother, together with the unconscious tuition resulting from observation and experience, made Pittenger an early and constant friend of freedom. Any mind imbued with an admiration of G.o.d's marches in the Heavens as an Omnipotent Creator, and inspired by a contemplation of G.o.d's finger in History as a merciful Deliverer, will rise to the high level of universal love to man, and will comprehend the broad equality of Gospel liberty and republican brotherhood. Let a man be educated, head and heart, and he will love freedom, and demand freedom, and "dare and suffer" for freedom, not for himself only, but for all the oppressed of the whole earth.

Reader, you may draw lines. You may profess a conservative Christianity that would theologize the very grace out of the command, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." You may ignore this Christ-like precept, and adopt something more fashionable and aristocratic; but if you do, you entertain in your heart treason, both to your Father in heaven and to your brother on earth. This law of love is revealed to lowly men. It cuts down through crowns and creeds and chains, and rests as a blessed benediction on sufferers and slaves. This is the inspiration that brings victory to our arms, and deals death to destroyers. This was the spirit that prompted our young hero to stand forth, one of the very first from his native county, a soldier for right and righteousness, the moment the Sumter cry rang up the valley of his Ohio home.

When Pittinger became a volunteer, it was for the suppression of the Rebellion with all its belongings,-and if its overthrow should tumble slavery, with its clanking fetters and howling hounds, to the uttermost destruction, he would grasp his gun the firmer for the hope, and thank G.o.d for the prospect, the test, and the toil! He enlisted as a soldier for his country, ready to march anywhere, strike with any weapon, endure any fatigue, or share any sorrow. He went out not merely an armored warrior, to ward off attacks, not to strike off obnoxious top-growths; but to "lay the ax at the root of the tree," and to pierce the very heart of the monster iniquity.

In three days after the receipt of the startling intelligence that the Stars and Stripes had been fired upon by rebels in arms, Pittenger was on his way to the Capital as a private soldier in the Second Ohio Regiment of volunteers. He fought bravely on the disastrous 21st of July, in the battle of Bull Run, while many of his comrades fell bleeding at his side. For his calm, heroic conduct throughout that memorable day of peril and panic, he received the highest praise from every officer of his regiment. Although thus a sharer of war's sternest conflicts during the three months' campaign, he was ready to re-enlist immediately, when his country called for a longer service; and after a few days' rest beneath the old homestead roof, he was again on his way with the same regiment to the seat of war in the Southwest.

During the fall and winter he saw severe service on the "dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground." No soldiers ever endured so many midnight marches more patiently, or manifested more self-sacrificing devotion to country, through rains and storms, and wintry desolations, than the n.o.ble Ohio Second, under the command of Colonel Harris, through the campaign in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

In December, the regiment was transferred to the Division commanded by the lamented General Mitchel, then encamped at Louisville. From this point, the army pressed forward victoriously through Elizabethtown, Bowling Green, Nashville, and Murfreesboro', until the old banner floated in the Tennessee breezes at Shelbyville. While here, the daring expedition to penetrate the heart of the Confederacy was organized, of which party Pittenger was one of the most enthusiastic and determined.

From the day the brave fellows departed over the Southern hills on their adventurous journey, a veil was dropped which hid them from sight of friends for many weary months-and some of them for ever! No tidings came in answer to all the beseeching thought-questionings that followed their mysterious pathway "beyond the lines."

Vague rumors were current around the camp-fires and home-circles that the whole party had been executed. Friends began to despair. Strangers began to inquire as if for missing friends. A universal sympathy prevailed in their behalf, and whole communities were excited to the wildest fervor on account of the lost adventurers. The widely-read letters from the Steubenville Herald's army correspondent were missed, for Pittenger wrote no more. The family were in an agony of suspense for the silent, absent son and brother. His ever faithful friend, Chaplain Gaddis, of the Ohio Second, made an effort to go, under a flag of truce, in search of the party, but was dissuaded by the commanding officers from so hopeless an undertaking. The summer pa.s.sed, and yet no tidings came. The autumn came with its melancholy,-and uncertain rumors, like withered, fallen leaves, were again afloat about the camps and the firesides. The dreary winter came, and still the hearts of the most hopeful were chilled with disappointment. The father began to think of William as dead,-the mother to talk of her darling as one who had lived,-the children to speak of their elder brother as one they should never see any more until all the lost loved ones meet in the better land. The writer was even solicited by a mutual friend to preach the funeral sermon of one whose memory was still dear, but whom none of us ever hoped to see again on earth.

But our Father in heaven was kinder than we thought. Our prayers had been heard! As our fervent pet.i.tions winged up from family altars to the ear of the Infinite Lover, the guardian angels winged afar downward through battle alarms, and ministered to him for whom we besought protection. When the bright spring days came smiling over the earth, a message came from the hand of the missing one, brighter and sunnier to our hearts than the April sunlight on the hills! Soon the story was told, and we all thanked G.o.d for the merciful deliverance of him for whom we prayed, and who had found, even in a dismal prison-cell, the Pearl of great price! The one we loved returned home a witness of the Spirit that came to him as a Comforter in his dreariest loneliness, and is already a minister of the precious Gospel that gladdened him in the time of his tribulation.

And now the reader shall know all about the tedious delay and the long silence, from the pen of him who survives to tell the story.

We commend to all who peruse this narrative an interesting volume, ent.i.tled "Beyond the Lines," another sad rehearsal of terror in rebel prisons and Southern swamps, in other portions of the Confederacy-the experience of Rev. Capt. J. J. Geer, now one of Lieutenant Pittenger's a.s.sociate-advocates for liberty in the pulpit, as he was recently a brother-bondman in the land of tyranny and death. A. C.

Philadelphia, September 15, 1863.

DARING AND SUFFERING.

CHAPTER I.

Sad Retrospective-Object of the Book-Military Situation in the Southwest-Disaster and Energy of the Rebels-Necessity for a Secret Expedition-A Proposition to Buell and Mitchel-An Attempt and Failure-Return of Adventurers-Second Expedition-Writer Volunteers-Andrews, the Leader-Parting from the Regiment-On the Way-Perplexities-The Writer Cur-tailed!

It is painful for me to write the adventures of the last year. As I compose my mind to the task, there arises before me the memory of days of suffering, and nights of sleepless apprehension-days and nights that, in their black monotony, seemed well nigh eternal. And the sorrow, too, which I felt on that terrible day, when my companions, whom common dangers and common sufferings had made as brothers to me, were dragged away to an ignominious death that I expected soon to share-all comes before me in the vividness of present reality, and I almost shrink back and lay down the pen. But I believe it to be a duty to give to the public the details of the great railroad adventure, which created such an excitement in the South, and which Judge Holt p.r.o.nounced to be the most romantic episode of the war, both on account of the intrinsic interest involved, and still more because of the light it throws on the manners and feelings of the Southern people, and their conduct during the rebellion.

With this view, I have decided to give a detailed history of the expedition, its failure, and the subsequent imprisonment and fate of all of the members of the party. In doing this, I will have the aid of the survivors of the expedition-fourteen in all-and hope to give a narrative that will combine the strictest truth with all the interest of a romance.

In order to understand why the destruction of the Georgia State Railroad was of so much consequence, I will refer to the situation of affairs in the Southwest, in the opening of the spring of 1862.

The year commenced very auspiciously for our arms. Fort Donelson had fallen, after a desperate contest, and nearly all its garrison were taken prisoners. The scattered remains of the rebel army, under Johnston, had retreated precipitately from Kentucky, which had indeed been to them "the dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground." Columbus and Nashville were evacuated, and fell into our hands. Island No. 10 was invested, and the Tennessee river groaned beneath a mighty army afloat, the same that had conquered Donelson, under its popular leader, General Grant, and which, it was fondly hoped, would strike far away into the center of the rebel States. Throughout the North, men talked of the war as done, and speculated as to the terms of a peace that was soon to come.

But the end was not yet. The rebel leaders, who had embarked their all in this cause, and had pictured to themselves a magnificent slaveholding empire, stretching away from the Potomac to the Sierra Madre, in Mexico, and swallowing up all tropical America in one mighty nation, devoted to the interests of cotton and slavery alone, over which they should reign, were not yet satisfied to relinquish their cause as desperate, and abandon their glorious dreams. With a wonderful energy that must command our admiration, though it be only of the kind that is accorded to Satan as pictured in "Paradise Lost," they pa.s.sed the conscription law, abandoned the posts they still held on the frontier, and concentrated their forces on a shorter line of defence.

The eastern part of this line extended from Richmond, through Lynchburg, to East Tennessee. In the west, it was represented by the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, extending from Memphis, through Corinth, Huntsville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, to Charleston. Here they poured forward their new levies, and began to prepare for another desperate contest.

The unaccountable inertness of the Eastern army of the Union, under McClellan, gave them time to strengthen their defences, and reinforce their army, which had dwindled to a very low ebb during the winter. But while the commander of the East was planning strategy that, by the slowness of its development, if by nothing worse, was destined to dim the l.u.s.tre of the Union triumphs, and lose the results of a year of war, the West was in motion. Down the Mississippi swept our invincible fleet, with an army on sh.o.r.e to second its operations. Up the Tennessee steamed Grant's victorious army, and Buell, with forty thousand men, was marching across the State of Tennessee, to reach the same point. My own division, under the lamented General O. M. Mitchel, was also marching across the State, but in a different direction, having Chattanooga as its ultimate aim, while Morgan, with another strong force, many of whom were refugees from East Tennessee, lay before c.u.mberland Gap, ready to strike through that fastness to Knoxville, and thus reach the very heart of rebellion.

To meet these powerful forces, whose destination he could not altogether foresee, Beauregard, who commanded in the west, concentrated his main army at Corinth, with smaller detachments scattered along the railroad to Chattanooga. The railroads on which he relied for supplies and reinforcements, as well as for communication with the eastern portion of rebeldom, formed an irregular parallelogram, of which the northern side extended from Memphis to Chattanooga, the eastern from Chattanooga to Atlanta, the southern from Atlanta to Jackson, Mississippi, and the western, by a network of roads, from Jackson to Memphis. The great East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, which has not inaptly been called "the backbone of the rebellion," intersected this parallelogram at Chattanooga. Thus it will be seen that to destroy the northern and eastern sides of this parallelogram isolated Beauregard, and left East Tennessee, which was then almost stripped of troops, to fall easily before General Morgan.

So important was this destruction of communication deemed by those in power, that it was at first intended to reach both sides, and destroy them by armies; but the distance was so great that the design of destroying it in this manner was abandoned.

However, just at this time, J. J. Andrews, who was a secret agent of the United States, and had repeatedly visited every part of the South, proposed another method of accomplishing the same object, by means of a secret military expedition, to burn the bridges on the road, and thus interrupt communication long enough for the accomplishment of the schemes which were expected to give rebellion in the southwest its death-blow. He first made the proposition to General Buell, who did not, for some reason, approve of it. Afterwards he repeated it to General Mitchel, who received it with more favor.

Our division was at this time lying at Murfreesboro', repairing some bridges that had been destroyed, preparatory to an onward march further into the interior. All at once, eight men were detailed from our regiment-four of them from my own company. No one knew anything of their object or destination, and numberless were the conjectures that were afloat concerning them. Some supposed they had gone home to arrest deserters; others, that they were deserters themselves. But this last idea was contradicted by the fact that they were seen in close and apparently confidential communication with the officers just before their departure, as well as by the character of the men themselves, who were among the boldest and bravest of the regiment. Many supposed that they were sent into the enemy's country as spies; but the idea of sending such a number of spies from the privates in the ranks was so obviously absurd, that I did not seriously consider it. However, I was not long to remain in uncertainty, for an officer, who was an intimate friend of mine, revealed the secret to me. The enterprise was so grand and so audacious, that it instantly charmed my imagination, and I at once went to Colonel L. A. Harris, of the Second Ohio, and asked, as a favor from him, that if any detail was made for another expedition of the same kind, I should be placed on it.

Soon after, one of the party, from Company C, returned, and reported that he had ventured as far as Chattanooga, and there had met a Confederate soldier who recognized him as belonging to the Union army; and while, for the sake of old friendship, he hesitated to denounce him to the authorities, yet advised him to return, which he immediately did, and arrived safely in camp in a few days. He would give no details that might embarra.s.s his companions, who were still pressing their way onward into the Confederacy.

A short time after this, all the party came back, and I received full details of their trip to the center of rebeldom. They had proceeded in citizens' dress, on foot and unsuspected, to Chattanooga; there had taken the cars for Atlanta, where they arrived in safety. Here they expected to meet a Georgia engineer, who had been running on the State road for some time, and, with his a.s.sistance, intended to seize the pa.s.senger train, at breakfast, and run through to our lines, burning all the bridges in their rear. For several days they waited for him, but he came not. They afterwards learned that he had been pressed to run troops to Beauregard, who was then concentrating every available man at Corinth, in antic.i.p.ation of the great battle which afterwards took place. Thus foiled, and having no man among them capable of running an engine, they abandoned the enterprise for that time, and quietly stole back to our lines. Had an engineer then been along, they would, in all probability, have been successful, as the obstacles which afterward defeated us did not then exist.

Our camp had been moved onward from Murfreesboro' to Shelbyville, which is a beautiful little city, situated on Duck river. We camped above the town, in a delightful meadow.

It was Sabbath, the 6th of April, and the earliness of the clime made the birds sing, and the fields bloom with more than the brilliancy of May in our own northern land. Deeply is the quiet of that Sabbath, with the green beauty of the warm spring landscape, pictured on my mind! An impression, I know not what, made me devote the day to writing letters to my friends. It was well I did so, for long and weary months pa.s.sed ere I was permitted to write to them again.

But while the day was pa.s.sing in such sweet repose with us, it was far different in another army; that was the day on which Grant was surprised by Beauregard, and only saved from destruction by the a.s.sistance of the gunboats. This, however, we did not learn for several days after.