The History of Company A, Second Illinois Cavalry Part 8

About the last of January we embarked for Lake Port Louisiana, from whence we returned to Baton Rouge, where we remained until March, 1865.

We then took boat for New Orleans and camped in Carlton until the latter part of March. From New Orleans we went upon the Mobile Expedition by way of Barancas, Florida. I did not go directly with the regiment, having been detailed to the Quartermaster's Department which went upon a later boat. When I arrived at Barancas I found that my company had gone to Fort Blakely. It was considered unsafe for us to follow without an escort, and we were ordered to remain at the former place. While there, we received the news of Lee's surrender. Everybody was elated and appeared to be walking upon air. The guns at the navy-yard belched forth national salutes and these in turn were answered by the battle-ships. All were drunk with joy. About ten o'clock the next day, in the midst of our rejoicing, an officer rode into camp and stopped to speak to the men. A large and joyous group at once gathered to hear more of the good news. The officer spoke in a low tone. The men looked eager but there were no cheers. A hush fell over the crowd. Then words--almost whispered--pa.s.sed from man to man: "_Lincoln has been a.s.sa.s.sinated!_" It was a staggering, benumbing, crushing blow. The men were dazed; they could not talk. Tears were everywhere--tears and silence. The grief of the men was indescribable.

But the silence was of short duration. A fool in Company B, apparently in a spirit of bravado, said that he was "glad of it." Instantly the pent up wrath of the men burst out. There was a rush to quarters for arms. An officer, seeing the situation, placed an armed guard around the man. The guard was soon doubled and the offender rushed to a boat at the water front followed by about fifty men with drawn revolvers.

The man was taken to Fort McCrea for safety, where he was court-martialed and sent to the Dry Tortugas to be discharged in disgrace. This was only one of numberless instances of a similar nature which occurred at the time.

In a short time we marched across the country to Fort Blakely, from whence we were transported by boat to Mobile and went into camp near the Mobile and Ohio Railroad about four miles east of the town, where we remained for some days. Our regiment was at Columbus, Mississippi.

Orders had been sent from there to Colonel Bush to forward the regimental mail and two hundred outfits of clothing. I was acting as clerk to the Regimental Quartermaster and was detailed by the Colonel to take the mail and stores to the regiment. My orders were to report to the Quartermaster in Mobile at three o'clock P.M., for a pa.s.s and instructions. In order to provide for the care of my horse, I left camp about ten o'clock and was in the eastern part of the city. My attention was attracted for a moment to an officer who was making his rounds and was being saluted by a guard near by, when a blinding flash occurred which caused my horse to rear so that I stood upon my toes in the stirrups. For an instant my strength seemed to leave me and I almost fell from the horse as he came down. Looking up, I saw an immense blaze which seemed to be a mile high, followed by great rolling cotton-like ma.s.ses of clouds which flaked off into sheets. Debris of all descriptions, mingled with some human bodies, soon began to drop back to the earth. The Confederate magazine with five hundred tons of ammunition had exploded. It was a wonderful and appalling sight. The depot was blown to pieces, cotton sheds were destroyed and all of the gla.s.s in the city was broken. The Battle House, the largest hotel in the city, was wrecked and every dish in it broken. Great fissures and rents were everywhere seen in the streets and walls.

The stores, which I was to have taken away that evening, had been loaded and stood upon the street, but the wagon was overturned and all of the cases crushed.

As I rode along the street I met Captain Fred Pike of the Forty-Sixth Illinois. One of his legs had been cut by falling slate from a roof and he was hopping along by the side of a building. I dismounted and gave him my horse to go to camp.

On the following evening I started to Columbus with the supplies. The regiment had broken camp before my arrival and I met the command at Artesia, twelve miles from Columbus, where I delivered the mail but was obliged to go on to Columbus to turn over the supplies. I then returned to Mobile and there embarked for New Orleans where I was temporarily stationed at regimental headquarters at Carlton, a short distance above the city.

A day or two after my arrival, as I lay in my blankets under an orange tree, I was aroused just before daylight and gradually realized that somebody was shaking me. It proved to be Daniel Shaw, one of our company from Mount Morris, Illinois, who had been captured upon the Red River Expedition, about a year previous and confined in that horrible corral at Tyler, Texas. He hugged me frantically and wept like an hysterical child. It was a long time before he could speak; and then, amid tears and sobs he told a most harrowing and revolting story of the inconceivably brutal treatment to which he had been subjected. The prisoners were confined in an open corral or field without any shelter or protection whatever. Their food consisted of offal and discarded portions from the cattle and sheep slaughtered by their captors, who appropriated the edible parts for their own use. The most was eaten raw or in the form of a stew. The story was too revolting for repet.i.tion.

The poor fellow was a mere skeleton and in a most wretched condition.

Had he not been one of the most hardy men in the regiment, he could not have survived. His experience was but another proof that "War is h.e.l.l."

From New Orleans we took steamer for Vicksburg but before we arrived at Baton Rouge, our boat took fire three times, which caused much delay.

We reached our destination, however, about the tenth of June, where we joined our regiment and after a day or two, took pa.s.sage on the "Superior," General Logan's old headquarters boat, for Shreveport, Louisiana. Under a general order, all companies having less than the full quota of men were required to consolidate with others. In compliance with this order our company was merged with Company E, while another took the letter A. It was the fault of the Colonel, who could have graded us fairly had he been so disposed. Although greatly dissatisfied, we were obliged to accept the situation as well as to endure other and more trying things. The men had received no pay since March and were dest.i.tute and discouraged. Under these conditions we were not in a mood to see others enjoy privileges which were denied to us.

We spent the Fourth of July at Shreveport; our only food being "salt-horse," "hard-tack" and coffee. Some of the officers failed to appreciate the condition of the men and seemed to think that it afforded no reason why they should not have a good time and good things themselves. In harmony with this view, Colonel Mizner, of the Third Michigan, who was in command of the Brigade, prepared to give a sumptuous banquet in an old church which he occupied as headquarters and which was also the office of the Brigade Quartermaster by whom I was employed. Those who were compelled to confine their diet to salt-horse and hard-tack were not in sympathy with the spread and not averse to having it known. Through the concerted action of several hundred apparently inanimate oyster-cans belonging to our regiment, the Third Michigan and the Fourth Wisconsin, those innocent receptacles seemed to become suddenly endowed with life, became mysteriously filled with powder and succeeded in burying themselves in a kind of under-ground cordon around that church. The first course had scarcely been served and the banqueters were just enjoying their whiskey and other appetizers, when the cans registered a protest. The opening of the ground around that sanctuary was suggestive of the resurrection morn. The officers rushed out of the room in the wildest confusion.

Persistent inquiry failed to develop the cause. After fruitless efforts they went back to finish their collation and had barely begun to taste the good things again, when the cans once more showed their cantankerousness. Pandemonium broke loose with ten times more din than ever. The banquet was called off and the officers ordered to their respective companies to "preserve order." It had its effect. The men were as demure as monks in a monastery. While perfect order was preserved by them, an astonishing amount of disorder was still "preserved" in the oyster-cans and the preserves--like all preserves subjected to too much warmth--continued to "work." From that time on, all through the night, the mysterious process went on. The hint was effectual. There were no more officer's banquets in the presence of the ill-fed and dissatisfied men.

On the ninth of July, 1865, we left Shreveport and took up our long and tiresome march of six hundred miles to San Antonio, Texas. Through Louisiana it was not especially trying; but when we reached Texas and were obliged to travel over barren wastes, frequently as far as sixty miles without finding a drop of water, it seemed unendurable. A tropical mid-summer sun burned its way through the sky and onto the dusty, treeless plains until the heat-waves quivered upon the horizon like a blast from a furnace. Horses and men suffered intensely. One stretch of about one hundred miles east of Austin was especially trying. It was a continuous test of endurance from the time we left Shreveport until we arrived at San Antonio, thirty days later. During the march, small towns were sometimes pa.s.sed where Confederate companies turned over their arms to our command.

Upon our arrival at San Antonio, there appeared to be nothing to do but to wait. Aside from inspection and drills, the men idled in camp until they became so discontented and homesick that many deserted. Most of these were fine men and good soldiers but poor loafers. n.o.body blamed them. All realized that the war was over and were looking for discharge. Instead of that we had been sent hundreds of miles over a barren waste to the frontier under most trying and discouraging conditions. Why was all this senseless wandering? We did not know. We were not aware that secret history was being made and that we were instrumental, as a result of these apparently meaningless acts, in saving the nation a second time. We did not know that our country was upon the verge of a foreign war, and that Napoleon the Third, anxious to regain the Louisiana Territory, which the First Emperor in his dire need had sold to us for a song, had been making elaborate preparations for war; and, believing our people to be exhausted, as they appeared to be, by one of the greatest conflicts of history and torn by internal strife, would be unable to make more than a feeble defence, had chosen this moment to strike. We did not know that our government was then undergoing one of the most trying ordeals of its existence. Later developments showed that the sudden mobilization on the frontier of an army of tried veterans, ready if necessary, to fight another war, made the foreigners gasp. France and Austria and Maximillian quietly subsided and the map of the United States required no revision.

About the tenth of November, 1865, the order came to muster out the Second and Tenth Illinois and the Fourth Wisconsin Cavalry. It was the signal for a jubilation. The yells of ten thousand Indians would have been "audible silence" compared to the noise made by those four regiments. The Tenth Illinois sutler rolled out four barrels of whiskey and broke in the heads. Tin cups, camp-kettles, canteens and every liquid holding thing was used for its distribution. How many were drunk I know not. Men indulged who never tasted the stuff before; and, strange to say, the whole thing took the form of a good natured frolic.

Horse-play, clownish tricks, songs, practical jokes--all were taken as a part of the fun. Had we realized what we had been there for, we might have been heard in France.

Instead of sleeping in tents, the men had previously procured raw cow-hides which they made into hammocks and stretched in the trees.

Each cow-hide served as a hammock for two and some trees would have five or six in a tier. As the boys became tired of celebrating they would slip off to bed; but they could not escape the watchfulness of the others who would wait until they could get a tree full, when some sly rascal would climb the tree, cut the thongs and the whole combination would come down in a heap; the victims apparently enjoying the joke as much as the jokers. I have never seen drunken men retain their good nature as they did on that occasion.

On the 24th of November, 1865, we were mustered out. I remained in Texas to aid in settling up the Quartermaster's accounts but was obliged to return North on account of a severe attack of ague and arrived at Roch.e.l.le on the 21st of March, 1866.

In the meantime, there had been a general exodus of soldiers from the South to their northern homes and the transportation lines, particularly the river steamers, were crowded with them. The feeling among those who represented the lost-cause, was intensely bitter and no Union soldier was safe anywhere in the South. A secret organization known as "The Knights of the Golden Circle," was charged as being responsible for many a.s.sa.s.sinations and other outrages. It was significant of conditions, that boiler explosions and other "accidents"

occurred to a number of river steamers--all upon homeward voyages and all loaded with discharged Union soldiers. The most appalling of these was probably that of the "Sultana" which was lost at a point about fifty miles above Memphis on its pa.s.sage up the Mississippi. While in midstream the boiler exploded--caused, it was believed by an explosive secretly placed in the fuel--and nearly all of the pa.s.sengers, numbering about fifteen hundred, mostly discharged soldiers, were drowned.

Among the victims of the disaster was J. A. b.u.t.terfield of Company A, whose home was in Oregon, Illinois. b.u.t.terfield had just been admitted to practice at the Oregon Bar, when the war broke out. He enlisted at the organization of the Company in Oregon, was present at the first election of officers and served earnestly and faithfully during the term of his three years enlistment, after which he was appointed as chief citizen clerk for a Division Quartermaster at a considerable salary. At the close of the war he resigned his position and started home with the intention of announcing his candidacy for Sheriff of Ogle County. His body was never recovered. It was known that he had a large sum of money in his possession which would have been a great aid to the dependent mother and sister whom he left behind. b.u.t.terfield was a brave and manly soldier and a general favorite with the members of his company.

Bitter as was the feeling against the Northern soldiers, it did not approach in vindictiveness and malignant hatred, that which existed against Southern men who fought upon the Union side. There were two Southerners in our company: John S. Elder and James Neiley whose experiences were typical of those of thousands throughout the South.

Elder was a native of Tennessee. About three years before the war he migrated with his parents to Denton County, Texas. His father was a staunch supporter of the Union and did not hesitate to announce his principles. His att.i.tude was well known in the community where he lived and as partizan feeling increased, he became a marked man. At the outbreak of hostilities, he was called to Austin and was never afterwards seen by his friends. While there was no proof as to the cause of his mysterious disappearance, circ.u.mstances pointed to but one conclusion. To his family, no proof was necessary: they _knew_ what had happened. Shortly after the father's loss, John, an only son, was forced into the Confederate service. He was discreet and bided his time. At the battle of Prairie Grove, he escaped, made his way into the Union lines and succeeded in reaching St. Louis. This was shortly after the battle at Holly Springs, at which a portion of the Second Illinois Cavalry gained wide distinction by refusing to surrender to greatly superior numbers. Elder was looking for a chance to fight by the side of fighting men. Seeing in the St. Louis papers a graphic account of the Holly Springs incident, he immediately embarked for Memphis in the hope of finding the regiment. He was too late however and went on to the vicinity of Vicksburg where he was informed that Company A was with General Logan at Lake Providence. Arriving at the latter place, he presented himself to Captain Hotaling with whom he had a long conference. Hotaling was strongly impressed by Elder's bearing and words and the conference resulted in his immediate enlistment. The new recruit proved to be a valuable acquisition. He was a skillful horseman, an unerring shot, always cheerful and courteous, ready to perform the most arduous duty and, withal, fearless.

Shortly after his enlistment the company started upon the campaign in the rear of Vicksburg. Elder was wounded at the Battle of Port Gibson during the first day of the campaign but went on with the command and partic.i.p.ated in every hardship and engagement until the surrender of Vicksburg. He was with the company in all of its campaigning in Louisiana and was one of the twenty-two who re-enlisted at New Iberia.

Debarred from his home, he was adopted by the veterans of the company as a "war orphan"; and, when veteran furloughs were granted, accompanied his comrades to the North where he was the subject of universal sympathy and generous hospitality.

Elder returned with his friends to the front and remained a valiant, fearless fighter to the end. During the last fight in which the company was engaged, which occurred at Fort Blakely, a charge was made upon the Confederate works. The latter were protected by an abatis in which torpedoes were placed and so connected by wires that an abnormal tension upon a wire would cause an explosion. Elder was mounted upon a fine horse which ran against one of these wires directly over a torpedo. The explosion which followed tore the horse into shreds, but, owing to the intervention of its body, did not kill but only served to stun the rider who soon recovered from the shock.

When the regiment was mustered out at San Antonio, Texas, Elder wished to go home and visit his mother; but upon the advice of friends and some old citizens of San Antonio, he gave it up as involving too great a risk and accompanied his comrades to Roch.e.l.le, where he remained until the following spring when his anxiety to see his mother caused him to return to Texas. It was a fatal step. As soon as his presence became known, a party of ex-Confederates a.s.sembled at night, surrounded the mother's house, captured the son, hanged him to a tree and riddled the body with bullets.

James Neiley who was reared in western Louisiana had a similar experience. He found his way into the Union lines during the Red River Expedition, and upon the return of General Banks' Army, enlisted in Company A. Neiley was quite young but proved himself an excellent and faithful soldier, was liked and respected by all of his comrades, and served with credit to the end of the war when he went to Roch.e.l.le with the others. In the following year he returned with Elder and went to his home near Alexandria, Louisiana, where he had been about a week when he met with the same dreadful fate that had been meted out to his friend.

And so perished two manly souls--victims to the terrible aftermath of war. Can there be compensation for such unspeakable atrocities which take the best and leave the worst? It may be; but this is a grist for "the mills of the G.o.ds" to grind.

And now--my tale is told. My sole excuse for telling it is that others, who might have done it have not made the attempt, and but few are left.

I offer no apology for its crudities, imperfections or omissions. I am confident that our Company engaged in not less than a hundred skirmishes and encounters of which I have made no mention. The s.p.a.ce which should have been allotted to it in the Red River Expedition is almost a blank. My silence as to many individual deeds of valor and self-sacrifice has not been intentional. I would gladly have called the roll and enumerated them one by one, for it would have been a roll of honor of which all might be justly proud.

The worth of my story, if it has worth, lies in what it has preserved to the world as worthy. If it be interesting at all, it is because it has been done as a work of love in an attempt to do justice to, and to preserve some faint memory of a handful of men who were typical of that great host--some of whom gave all--and all of whom risked all, for a cause which has struggled towards the light since the first man gazed longingly and reverently at the stars.

In the outcome of the great struggle, both sides won an equal victory, our friends, as the liberators of a race, our foes as the liberated from a degrading curse; a success and a defeat which made victor and vanquished alike the beneficiaries of a great inheritance; an inheritance, sanctified by a higher hope and a broader love; an inheritance founded in the conviction of the regal souls of the past that that for which man has so long wrought amid travail and pain and joy and woe and sighs and tears and blood, "shall not perish from the earth," but that this nation shall be its sponsor and its incarnation and may say to all the lands of the earth, "Right is eternal; it must and shall reign; 'Your people shall be my people.'"

"Here shall a realm rise Mighty in manhood."

It has not fully arisen yet and many watchers are losing faith in view of the subtle and dangerous perils which now beset it. Those causing them may triumph for a time but they are sowers of dragon's teeth which will rise up as armed men to their defeat. The universe is not a blunder; there is a power in it which makes for right; and the finger wielded by that power, has always pointed and still points--to the Morning Star.

"Truth forever on the scaffold,--Wrong forever on the throne,-- Yet that scaffold sways the future,--and beyond the dim Unknown Standeth G.o.d within the shadow,--keeping watch upon His own."

COLONEL SILAS n.o.bLE.

Colonel Silas n.o.ble was born in Great Barrington, Ma.s.sachusetts, on February 19th, 1808. But little is known of his early history, further than that he read law, and at the age of twenty-six, was admitted to practice in his native town. In the following year he moved to Towanda, Pennsylvania, where he continued the practice of his profession until 1841, when he emigrated to Dixon, Illinois, then a frontier town known as Dixon's Ferry. In 1846 he was elected State Senator and served one term. In 1853 he established a private bank in Dixon known as "S. n.o.ble & Co." In connection with this business he continued the practice of law until the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1861. When the second call for troops was made by President Lincoln Mr. n.o.ble offered his services to Governor Yates, by whom he was appointed Colonel of the Second Illinois Cavalry, and on July 21st, 1861, was mustered into service.

Colonel n.o.ble was a warm personal friend of President Lincoln, who often visited him at his home and with whom he practiced his profession. At the time of Lincoln's inauguration the Colonel accompanied him on his trip from Springfield to Washington.

Colonel n.o.ble remained with the main body of the Regiment, which made an expedition with General C. F. Smith towards Fort Henry; and it was upon the information thus obtained that the campaign was decided upon which ultimately led to the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson.

The regiment was engaged in many scouting expeditions and other movements under the leadership of its first commander, but took part in no important battles. On one occasion, with 350 men, Colonel n.o.ble took the advance of a recognizance in force from Bolivar to La Grange, Tennessee, and obtained much valuable information. He was mustered out of the service on February 16th, 1863, shortly after which he met with a severe accident from which he never fully recovered. Four years later, on February 3rd, 1867, he died at his home in Dixon, Illinois, from an acute attack of pneumonia. Colonel n.o.ble had a wide acquaintance and was highly honored in his home community and by all who knew him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIEUTENANT COLONEL HARVEY HOGG]

LIEUTENANT COLONEL HARVEY HOGG.

Harvey Hogg was a native of Tennessee, having been born at Carthage, Smith County, in that state on September 14th, 1833. His parents were of Scotch descent. The mother died when he was about three years of age. Afterwards, the father remarried. He lived but a short time, however, and died in 1840, leaving Harvey and a half-brother, Grant A.

Hogg, in charge of the widow. The boy was carefully reared by his step-mother and given the best schooling available, preparatory to a college course. He took the lead in his cla.s.s at Emory and Henry College, Virginia, where he won a prize-medal for oratory and was afterwards graduated at the law-school at Lebanon as valedictorian of his cla.s.s.

He was married at Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1855, and in a short time removed to Bloomington, Illinois, where he was admitted to the Bar and soon obtained a recognized standing as a young lawyer of ability and promise. For several years he held the position of City Attorney and was, later, elected Prosecuting Attorney for that judicial district, which position he filled with honor, ability and dignity.

As a native of Tennessee, Colonel Hogg inherited slaves, but was opposed to the inst.i.tution. As a student in one of the Virginia colleges, he chose as the subject of a thesis, "The Evils of Slavery."