War Stories for my Grandchildren

"The parts of your letters about our Alice were the most interesting to me. The dear little darling, how I would love to see her walk. Don't let her forget her papa."

How my dream recalled one of Campbell's war poems with which I was so familiar in college, "The Soldier's Dream": —

"The bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered."

In another letter from Jefferson City I write: —

"You say in your letter received to-day that you are so glad we did not go to Kentucky, because they are going to have fighting there. We were very much disappointed in not being ordered to that very place, and just because there was to be fighting there, and we might aid our brethren in Kentucky. If our Government is worth anything it is worth defending and to maintain it thousands of our lives would be a cheap price. We must all look at it in this light, and do our duty fearlessly."

A further extract from the same letter: —

"We have had considerable trouble in having our guards learn their duty as sentinels. This week one of our sentinels was found asleep on his post. We sentenced him to be shot, at a court-martial, but recommended him to clemency; at the same time privately having the colonel understand it was merely formal to make the soldiers more careful hereafter.

"So yesterday at dress parade the regiment was thrown into a hollow square, the prisoner brought out and sentence pronounced with great gravity, making to all who did not understand it a very solemn scene. The prisoner was remanded to confinement to await execution. This morning the members of the companies all cast lots to decide who should be in the unfortunate squad to shoot him. The ten men who drew the black beans were brought up before headquarters this morning and notified that to-morrow morning at daylight they would have a terrible duty to discharge, without telling them what it was, they readily imagining it.

"To-day the young man was suffering greatly, but he would not tell where his father or family are, for fear we should write them about it. He says his father told him if he died in battle he would be satisfied, but never to disgrace himself. And he promised that if we would only release him, he would give a good account of himself on the battlefield. He will be released in the morning, and we won't have any sleepy sentinels soon again."

Five days later I write from Georgetown: —

"We left Jefferson City Monday morning and came up to Lamine River, fifty miles, where we joined the Eighth and Twenty-fourth Indiana, and Colonel Veatch took command. Tuesday morning we heard there were seven thousand rebels near here [Georgetown]. The colonels of the other regiments wanted Veatch to stay at Lamine, but Colonel Morgan and I urged him on, knowing that we were equal to two to one, or even three, on the prairie with our long-range guns. It was greatly through our urging that Colonel Veatch decided to go forward. We were anxious to have a pure Hoosier fight with the rebels, and were glad of the prospect. We left at 3 P.M., all of us expecting to meet seven thousand at night or in the morning. It was a race, we supposed, for the possession of Georgetown, and by ten o'clock at night we passed over the seventeen miles with our whole force, and entered the town peaceably, without disturbing a citizen from sleep, and slept in the court-house yard. It was our first march on foot and a hard one, but we made it finely. The last two miles were very trying on the men. The only way we kept them up was by riding down the lines and telling the men it was only over the hill to the enemy, and we would have them certain. But no enemy was near, none nearer than Lexington. I don't know how I will feel on the battlefield, but as yet I have no fear of going into a fight.

"We are at last settled after hard marching, rainy weather, and various hardships. I have been in the saddle nearly all the time for four days. Yesterday I stationed the picket guards, and it took about forty miles' riding, but I am standing it well. It is just what I need. I enjoy it finely, eat largely, and have no dyspepsia [a trouble at home].

"Near to our camp is a neat little cottage all furnished with everything, nice beds, furniture and carpets, dining-room and kitchen furniture complete. It is the house of a young lawyer, who was married this spring, was a secessionist, was taken prisoner, took the oath of loyalty, violated it, and is now in the rebel army, and subject to be shot if he is ever caught. His wife has fled to her father's. Colonel Veatch has established his brigade headquarters in his house, and we are living in style. I am writing at his desk, using his paper."

While in Georgetown I gave this picture of the country: —

"For the first time we are really in the enemy's country, and are seeing the effects of secession and some of the terrible results of war. As we passed through the villages on our march here, the houses were nearly all deserted, the doors closed, and very few persons to be found. A sign of dreariness rested on everything. And when we arrived here at Georgetown, the county seat and numbers about a thousand people, at least one half of the houses were vacant, the stores closed, and business suspended.

"Georgetown has seen several reverses since the rebellion broke out, being several times in possession of both rebel and Federal troops. When the rebels came in, the Union men fled the country or took to the woods and slept among the bushes. Many women so exposed on the cold, damp ground lost their lives by the exposure. I took dinner a day or two ago with a gentleman, a citizen here, who formerly lived at Mount Vernon [near Evansville]. He had his store broken open in broad daylight by a company of the rebel army, and fifteen hundred dollars' worth of his goods carried away, while he was a refugee in the woods. Many men have lost their all.

"Such outrages have naturally enough begotten a spirit of revenge among Union men, and those of them of more violent passions and lesser principles have retaliated, until one wrong begetting another has brought on a spirit of bitterness and enmity among the people which is truly deplorable. I never want to see such a state of society again. The dregs of the population are uppermost, and the honest and innocent suffer. Surely it is a holy mission of ours to give peace, and safety, and law to this country. This part of the State is the most beautiful farming country I ever saw, and certainly it needs peace. Here truly 'only man is vile.'"

In another letter from Georgetown, I report: —

"As to the enemy I don't know anything that is definite. We have a report this evening that they are only twenty-six miles away, but we have had them right on us so often before, that I hardly believe any reports we hear about them. But we try to keep prepared, our men sleep on their arms, and we station our pickets out five or ten miles."

As already noticed, the first payment to our regiment was made in gold coin, but the second one is noticed from Georgetown as follows: "I sent you by the Paymaster to be expressed from St. Louis $150 in Treasury Notes. I suppose the Treasury Notes are good, but when you can get them changed into gold I would do it, to lay by for later use."

This suggests that I had early anticipated the coming depreciation of Government paper currency, and in later remittances I repeated this injunction, so that when I retired from the army my wife had as her savings from my pay a considerable sum in gold, which she converted into "greenbacks" at the rate of two dollars and fifty cents for one dollar gold.

In her letters more than once my wife writes of the alarm created among her neighbors for fear the rebel forces would capture Evansville, our home. In a letter, October 13, I wrote her: —

"You say in some of your letters that the people were packing up to leave Evansville when the rebels come. I do not believe they will ever reach there, but if they should come I would not, if I were you, leave your home or pack up. Your valuables you might put into a place of security, but they will not injure peaceable and discreet women at least."

In a letter of October 15, I report a movement of our brigade to Otterville: —

"We have come here to go into Major-General Pope's division of Frémont's army in Davis's brigade. How long we will remain here is uncertain, but I guess only a few days, when we shall go south in search of Price.

"The bad weather has made a large number of our men sick, and two or three hundred were left behind. General Davis put me in charge of them with orders to get wagons and bring them forward. The sick department of our army is the most unpleasant, the most troublesome, and the most neglected in the whole service. I would rather at any time encounter the dangers of the battlefield than the hospital and receive the treatment of privates. It is a shame to humanity and our Government that it is so much neglected, at least here."

A few days later I wrote: —

"I have no time to write you a letter. I am doing most of the business of the regiment, both of the colonels being sick. All of our brigade left this morning in the forward movement except our regiment, which was left behind for three reasons – the brigade took all our wagons, we had so large a number of sick, and a regiment was to be left to forward supplies. We will leave as soon as we get transportation.

"Aleck [my brother, regimental quartermaster] has been promoted to post quartermaster of General Pope's division, and will be stationed at Otterville, charged with the duty of drawing from St. Louis and forwarding supplies to the division, a very responsible position, and earned by his attention to his duties."

Three days later I wrote: —

"The health of our regiment has been very bad. It is almost unfit for duty. We could only turn out two hundred for company drill, and could hardly march five hundred to-morrow. Diarrhœa, chills and fever, and measles are prevalent. Our officers are almost all laid up. Colonel Morgan has gone to a private house to recruit for a few days. Aleck and I have been the only officers at headquarters who have been entirely fit for duty for several days."

Notwithstanding the condition of the regiment it became necessary for me to run down to St. Louis by rail to bring forward our supply of winter clothing, blankets, etc., and my wife met me there for a day. I am answering her first letter after her return to Evansville, October 23: —

"I am sorry to have you write so despondingly, or rather was sorry to know you felt so lonely (I always want you to write just as you feel). But it was natural that you should feel badly after our separation, for I know what my own feelings were. I trust you are more hopeful and cheerful now. You must remember it is all for the best. I would be with you in our comfortable home, enjoying all the happiness which you and my dear and kind friends could bestow upon me, if I could. But it is impossible. I should be a miserable coward to stay at home in ease and luxury at such a time of national calamity and need."

I wrote again two days later, showing that I had a clear vision of the result of Frémont's grand march to destroy Price: —

"I hardly think we can get off before the first of next week, but it doesn't make much difference to us. We will hardly have a battle at any rate, and will only march down into the lower part of the State to winter, or drag our weary way back again. If this expedition is not a Moscow defeat, I shall be highly gratified. But you must not be alarmed about me. The officer who has a horse to ride and comfortably equipped will be well situated, but it is the poor foot soldier who has to suffer."

I at last chronicle our departure: —

"I have only a moment to write you that we are just about marching to the South. I am very busy, both the colonels and quartermaster being sick. I am colonel, quartermaster, and almost everything else. My health is very good. I see you are secretary of the Ladies Soldiers' Aid Society. You can't do too much for the soldiers, but their greatest need is in the hospitals, good nurses, good cooks, clean shirts, sheets, and kind treatment. If I am to die in the army, I want it to be on the battlefield, never in the miserable hospitals."

The following presents not an unusual phase of soldiering, but new to me: —

"About this hour (3 A.M.) more than two months ago [the day the regiment left Evansville] my good wife was up to give me a good breakfast and bid me good-bye, and I ought to be able to write her a short letter at the same hour.

"We left Otterville day before yesterday with all our regiment that could march, with a train of fifty wagons. We had unbroken, balky horses, and have had a hard time with the train. Our division is fifty miles below Warsaw, and about out of provisions, and we have to use great haste to get them forward. To expedite matters I have taken personal command of the provision train and have been working hard at it. Sometimes it takes us two hours to get over one hill, then two hours to get through one mud-hole. I am not much of a wagoner, as you know, but I have the authority and the knack of getting a good deal of work out of the men. I have two good wagon-masters along with me. I take their advice, and then assume to know all about it with the drivers. You ought to see me preside over the difficulties of a hill or a mud-hole. When a wagon gets stalled, I just get off my horse and put my shoulder to it. The men work twice as hard when I help them. We got along pretty well to-day and reached our camp long before dark. This morning we have two heavy hills before us, and are up at three o'clock to have the horses fed and ready for a move as soon as it is light. Breakfast is announced and we must be ready to be off soon. If I get through with the provisions in good time it will be equal to a small victory for our division of the army. I am well and hearty; this kind of work makes me fat."

The culmination of this campaign is noted in a letter of November 7: —

"I have only time to write you a note to let you know we are safe in Springfield, without a fight or loss of life. When we reached Warsaw we received our orders from General Pope to come to Springfield by forced marches with all possible rapidity, as the enemy were advancing upon us in force. So for four days we marched twenty miles every day, which was something unusual for any army, but our men stood it very well, and are now much better for the exercise.

"When we arrived here we learned that Price was seventy miles away from us and that there never was any danger. Officers speak very disparagingly of Frémont. The indications are that we will march back again in a few days. 'Up the hill and down again.'"

Sometime before the next letter was written from Warsaw, November 14, on the march "down the hill," we had heard of the removal of General Frémont: —

"Our Missouri campaign has been a very barren affair. It may suit a fellow who likes long walks and heavy marching, but there has not been much of war in it. The only time there was to my mind any prospect of a fight was at Georgetown. If Price had ever intended to fight, it was his best chance. We have been chasing him all through the southern part of the State on long and forced marches, wearing out our troops, and spending immense sums of money, and Price keeping fifty miles away from us all the time, and he is now clear over into Arkansas. The Springfield campaign is over at least, and Frémont's reputation and our soldiers' feet have been the sufferers. However popular Frémont may be his military glory is ended.

"Our Colonel Veatch I regard as a man of unusual good judgment and has been an ardent friend of Frémont, and yet says his removal was just and needed, and such is almost the unanimous opinion of officers here. Tell father if he has not become reconciled to the removal, a personal knowledge of matters at St. Louis and here would satisfy him."

My youngest brother, Willie, was eight years old at this time, and I make frequent references to him in my letters. From Syracuse I wrote November 18: —

"We arrived here yesterday from our march of two hundred and fifty miles. We left Otterville on October 29 and arrived here yesterday the 17th, having had only one day of rest during the whole journey. If I had time I would write Willie a letter (but you can tell him) of our march, what a long line our division made, troops and trains of near three miles, what a time the poor soldiers had with sore feet, how we sat around big blazing camp-fires, how we got up before daylight and ate our breakfast on a log, and were marching before the sun was up, and give him a list of all the towns we passed through so he can find them on the map I sent him. About these I can give him the details when I come home. But this is only the least exciting of the soldier's life stories. We can't come home till I can tell him something about our experience on the battlefield, which we have not yet had."

A week later I write still from the same place, expressing great impatience that we are kept in Missouri, and the desire on the part of myself and the men to be ordered into Kentucky, but I add: "I am beginning to understand that the army is one vast machine, and the mass of us need not trouble ourselves about our future, as our generals will determine that. We have only to do our duty and execute their commands." But I caution my wife if we are ordered to Kentucky: "You must not flatter yourself that, if I get nearer home, I will have a much better opportunity of paying a visit to the dear ones there."

Then I entered upon a topic which seemed to be a familiar one in my letters, about home: —