The Citizen-Soldier Part 17

5. I ride over the battle-field. In one place a caisson and five horses are lying, the latter killed in harness, and all fallen together.

Nationals and Confederates, young, middle-aged, and old, are scattered over the woods and fields for miles. Poor Wright, of my old company, lay at the barricade in the woods which we stormed on the night of the last day. Many others lay about him. Further on we find men with their legs shot off; one with brains scooped out with a cannon ball; another with half a face gone; another with entrails protruding; young Winnegard, of the Third, has one foot off and both legs pierced by grape at the thighs; another boy lies with his hands clasped above his head, indicating that his last words were a prayer. Many Confederate sharpshooters lay behind stumps, rails, and logs, shot in the head. A young boy, dressed in the Confederate uniform, lies with his face turned to the sky, and looks as if he might be sleeping. Poor boy! what thoughts of home, mother, death, and eternity, commingled in his brain as the life-blood ebbed away! Many wounded horses are limping over the field. One mule, I heard of, had a leg blown off on the first day's battle; next morning it was on the spot where first wounded; at night it was still standing there, not having moved an inch all day, patiently suffering, it knew not why nor for what. How many poor men moaned through the cold nights in the thick woods, where the first day's battle occurred, calling in vain to man for help, and finally making their last solemn pet.i.tion to G.o.d!

In the evening I met Rousseau, McCook, and Crittenden. They had been imbibing freely. Rousseau insisted upon my turning back and going with them to his quarters. Crittenden was the merriest of the party. On the way he sang, in a voice far from melodious, a pastorial ditty with which childhood is familiar:

"Mary had a little lamb, His fleece was white as snow, And every-where that Mary went The lamb was sure to go."

Evidently the lion had left the chieftain's heart, and the lamb had entered and taken possession.

McCook complimented me by saying that my brigade fought well. He should know, for he sat behind it at the commencement of the second a.s.sault of the enemy in the cedars, on the first day; but very soon thereafter disappeared. Just when he left, and why he did so, I do not know.

At Rousseau's we found a large number of staff and line officers. The demijohn was introduced, and all paid their respects to it. The ludicrous incidents, of which there are more or less even in battles, of the last five days, were referred to, and much merriment prevailed.

6. The army is being reorganized, and we are busily engaged repairing the damages sustained in the battle.

Visited the hospitals, and, so far as possible, looked after the wounded of my brigade. To-morrow the chaplains will endeavor to hunt them all up, and report their whereabouts and condition.

7. I was called upon late in the evening to make a report of the operations of my brigade immediately, as General Rousseau intends to leave for Louisville in the morning. It is impossible to collect the information necessary in the short time allowed me. One of my regimental commanders, Colonel Foreman, was killed; another, Colonel Humphrey, was wounded, and is in hospital; another, Lieutenant-Colonel Shanklin, was captured, and is absent; but I gathered up hastily what facts I could obtain as to the casualties in the several regiments, and wrote my report in the few minutes which remained for me to do so, and sent it in. I have not had an opportunity to do justice either to my brigade or myself.

13. Move in the direction of Columbia, on a reconnoitering expedition.

My brigade stops at Salem, and the cavalry pushes on.

14. Have been exposed to a drenching rain for thirty hours. The men are cold, hungry, and mutinous.

15. Ordered back to Murfreesboro, and march thither in a storm of snow and sleet. It is decidedly the coldest day we have experienced since last winter.

I find two numbers of Harper's Weekly on my return. They abound in war stories. The two heroes, of whom I read to-night, received saber cuts on the face and head, obtained leave of absence, returned home, and married forthwith. Saber cuts are very rare in the Army of the c.u.mberland, and if young officers were compelled to defer entering into wedlock until they got wounds of this kind, there would be precious few soldiers married. Bullet wounds are common enough; but the hand-to-hand encounters, knightly contests of swords, the cleaving of head-pieces and shattering of spears, are not incidents of modern warfare.

The long rain has completely saturated the ground. The floor of my tent is muddy; but my bed will be dry, and as I have not had my clothes off for three days, I look forward to a comfortable night's rest.

The picture in Harper, of "Christmas Eve," will bring tears to the eyes of many a poor fellow shivering over the camp-fire in this winter season. The children in the crib, the stockings in which Santa Claus deposits his treasures, recall the pleasantest night of the year.

Speaking of Christmas reminds me of the mistletoe bough. Mistletoe abounds here. Old, leafless trees are covered and green with it. It was in blossom a week or two ago, if we may call its white wax-like berries blossoms. They are known as Christmas blossoms. The vine takes root in the bark--in any crack, hole, or crevice of the tree--and continues green all winter. The berries grow in cl.u.s.ters.

16. I have as guests Mr. and Mrs. Johnson House, my old neighbors. They have come from their quiet home in Ohio to look over a battle-field, and I take pleasure in showing them the points of interest. Mr. House, with great frankness, tells me, in the presence of my staff, that he had been afraid I was not qualified for the high position I hold, and that I was getting along too fast; but he now feels satisfied that I am capable and worthy, and would be well pleased to see me again promoted. I introduced my friends to Lieutenant Van Pelt, of Loomis' battery, and Mr. House asked: "Lieutenant, will these guns shoot with any kind of decision?" "Precision," I suggested. "Yes," Van Pelt replied, "they will throw a ball pretty close to the mark."

17. Dr. Peck tells me that the wounded of the Third are doing well, and all comfortably quartered. He is an excellent physician and surgeon, and the boys are well pleased with him.

FEBRUARY, 1863.

3. This has been the coldest day of the season in this lat.i.tude. The ground is frozen hard. I made the round of the picket line after dinner, and was thoroughly chilled. Visited the hospital this evening. Young Willets, of the Third, whom I thought getting along well before I left for home, died two days before my return. Benedict is dead, and Glenn, poor fellow, will go next. His leg is in a sling, and he is compelled to lie in one position all the time. Mortification has set in, and he can not last more than a day or two. Murfreesboro is one great hospital, filled with Nationals and Confederates.

4. At noon cannonading began on our left and front, and continued with intervals until sunset. I have heard no explanation of the firing, but think it probable our troops started up the Shelbyville road to reconnoiter, discovered the enemy, and a small fight ensued.

5. It is said the enemy came within six miles of Murfreesboro yesterday, and attacked a forage train.

The weather has been somewhat undecided, and far from agreeable.

6. A lot of rebel papers, dated January 31st, have been brought in.

They contain many extracts clipped from the Northern Democratic press, and the Southern soul is jubilant over the fact that a large party in Ohio and Indiana denounce President Lincoln. The rebels infer from this that the war must end soon, and the independence of the Southern States be acknowledged. Our friends at home should not give aid and comfort to the enemy. They may excite hopes which, in time, they will themselves be compelled to help crush.

7. Few of the men who started home when I did have returned. The General is becoming excited on the subject of absentees. From General Thomas'

corps alone there are sixteen thousand men absent, sick, pretending to be sick, or otherwise. Of my brigade there are sixteen hundred men present for duty, and over thirteen hundred absent--nearly one-half away. The condition of other brigades is similar. If a man once gets away, either into hospital or on detached duty, it is almost impossible to get him back again to his regiment. A false excuse, backed up by the false statement of a family physician, has. .h.i.therto been accepted; but hereafter, I am told, it will not be. Uncle Sam can not much longer stand the drain upon his finances which these malingerers occasion, and his reputation suffers also, for he can not do with fifty thousand men what it requires one hundred thousand to accomplish.

People may say Rosecrans had at the battle of Murfreesboro nearly one hundred regiments. A regiment should contain a thousand men; in a hundred regiments, therefore, there should have been one hundred thousand men. With this force he should have swallowed Bragg; but they must understand that the largest of these regiments did not contain over five hundred men fit for duty, and very many not over three hundred. The men in hospital, the skulkers at home, and the skedaddlers here, count only on the muster and pay-rolls; our friends at home should remember, therefore, that when they take a soldier by the hand who should be with his regiment, and say to him, "Poor fellow, you have seen hard times enough, stay a little longer, the army will not miss you," that some other poor fellow, too brave and manly to shirk, shivers through the long winter hours at his own post, and then through other long hours at the post of the absentee, thus doing double duty; and they should bear in mind, also, that in battle this same poor fellow has to fight for two, and that battles are lost, the war prolonged, and the National arms often disgraced, by reason of the absence of the men whom they encourage to remain at home a day or two longer. If every Northern soldier able to do duty would do it, Rosecrans could sweep to Mobile in ninety days; but with this skeleton of an army, we rest in doubt and idleness. There is a screw loose somewhere.

10. Fortifications are being constructed. My men are working on them.

Just now I heard the whistle of a locomotive, on the opposite side of the river. This is the first intimation we have had of the completion of the road to this point. The bridge will be finished in a day or two, and then the trains will arrive and depart from Murfreesboro regularly.

11. Called at Colonel Wilder's quarters, and while there met General J.

J. Reynolds. He made a brief allusion to the Stalnaker times. On my return to camp, I stopped for a few minutes at Department head-quarters to see Garfield. General Rosecrans came into the room; but, as I was dressed in citizens' clothes, did not at first recognize me. Garfield said: "General Rosecrans, Colonel Beatty." The General took me by the hand, turned my face to the light, and said he did not have a fair view of me before. "Well," he continued, "you are a general now, are you?" I told him I was not sure yet, and he said: "Is it uncertainty or modesty that makes you doubt?" "Uncertainty." "Well," he replied, "you and Sam Beatty have both been recommended. I guess it will be all right." He invited me to remain for supper, but I declined.

16. To-day I rode over the battle-field, starting at the river and following the enemy's line off to their left, then crossing over on to the right of our line, and following it to the left. For miles through the woods evidences of the terrible conflict meet one at every step.

Trees peppered with bullet and buckshot, and now and then one cut down by cannon ball; unexploded sh.e.l.l, solid shot, dead horses, broken caissons, haversacks, old shoes, hats, fragments of muskets, and unused cartridges, are to be seen every-where. In an open s.p.a.ce in the oak woods is a long strip of fresh earth, in which forty-one sticks are standing, with intervals between them of perhaps a foot. Here forty-one poor fellows lie under the fresh earth, with nothing but the forty-one little sticks above to mark the spot. Just beyond this are twenty-five sticks, to indicate the last resting-place of twenty-five brave men; and so we found these graves in the woods, meadows, corn-fields, cotton-fields, every-where. We stumbled on one grave in a solitary spot in the thick cedars, where the sunshine never penetrates. At the head of the little mound of fresh earth a round stick was standing, and on the top of this was an old felt hat; the hat still doing duty over the head, if not on the head, of the dead soldier who lay there. The rain and sun and growing vegetation of one summer will render it impossible to find these graves. The gra.s.s will cover the fresh earth, the sticks will either rot or become displaced, and then there will be nothing to indicate that--

"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre."

17. The army is turning its attention to politics somewhat. Generals and colonels are ventilating their opinions through the press. I think their letters may have good effect upon the people at home, and prevent them from discouraging the army and crippling the Administration. Surely the effort now being put forth by a great party in the North to convince the troops in the field that this is an unjust war, an abolition or n.i.g.g.e.r war, must have a tendency to injure the army, and, if persisted in, may finally ruin it.

19. Work on the fortifications still continues. This is to be a depot of supplies, and there are provisions enough already here to subsist the army for a month. Now that the c.u.mberland is high, and the railroads in running order, any amount of supplies may be brought through.

Expeditions go out occasionally to different parts of the country, and slight affairs occur, which are magnified into serious engagements; but really nothing of any importance has transpired since we obtained possession of Murfreesboro. A day or two ago we had an account of an expedition into the enemy's country by the One Hundred and Twenty-third Illinois, Colonel Monroe commanding. According to this veracious report, the Colonel had a severe fight, killed a large number of the enemy, and captured three hundred stand of arms; but the truth is, that he did not take time to count the rebel dead, and the arms taken were one hundred old muskets found in a house by the roadside.

The expeditions sent out to capture John Morgan have all been failures.

His own knowledge of the country is thorough, and besides, he has in his command men from every neighborhood, who know not only every road and cow-path in the locality, but every man, woman, and child. The people serve him also, by advising him of all our movements. They guide him to our detachments when they are weak, and warn him away from them when strong. Were the rebel army in Ohio, and as bitterly hated by the people of that State as the Nationals are by those of Kentucky and Tennessee, it would be an easy matter indeed to hang upon the skirts of that army, pick up stragglers, burn bridges, attack wagon trains, and now and then pounce down on an outlying picket and take it in.

20. Colonel Lytle, my old brigade commander, called on me to-day. He informed me that he had not been a.s.signed yet. I inferred from this that he thought it utterly impossible for one so distinguished as himself to come down to a regiment. His own regiment, the Tenth Ohio, is here, and nominally a part of my brigade, although it has not acted with it since Rosecrans a.s.sumed command of the Army of the c.u.mberland. Under Lieutenant-Colonel Burke, it is doing guard duty at Department head-quarters.

MARCH, 1863.

1. There is talk of consolidation at Washington. This is a sensible idea, and should be carried into effect at once. There are too many officers and too few men. The regiments should be consolidated, and kept full by conscription, if it can not be done otherwise. The best officers should be retained, and the others sent home to stand their chances of the draft.

A major of the Fifteenth Kentucky sent in his resignation a few days ago, a.s.signing as a reason for so doing that the object of the war was now the elevation of the negro. The concluding paragraph of his letter was in these words: "The service can not possibly suffer by my resignation." The doc.u.ment pa.s.sed through my hands on its way to Department head-quarters, and I indorsed it as follows:

"Major H. F. Kalfus, Fifteenth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, being 'painfully and reluctantly convinced' that the party in power is disposed to elevate the negro, desires to quit the service. I trust he will be allowed to do so, and cheerfully certify to the correctness of one statement which he makes herein, to-wit: The service can not possibly suffer by his resignation."

General Rosecrans has just sent me an order to arrest the Major, and send him under guard to the Provost-Marshal General. The arrest will be made in a few minutes, and may create some excitement among our Kentucky friends.

3. The fortifications are progressing. The men work four hours each day in the trenches. The remainder of the time they spend pretty much as they see fit.