Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

I n the aftermath of the Federal victory at Fort Donelson, thousands of Confederate prisoners of war were sent north to camps in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Lieutenant Farley Bisett of the 74th Ohio was tasked with guarding the group of Confederate officers sent to Camp Chase near Columbus, Ohio. " They were a hard-looking set. Some of them might be good looking men if they had clothes to dress themselves with, but they are very badly clothed. They all appear to think that if they get back, they will let the rebellion take its own course and have nothing to do with it," he noted. More importantly, he also took the names and regiments of quite a few of these officers and recorded them for posterity.            Lieutenant Bisett’s letter first appeared in the March 4, 1862, edition of the Zanesville Daily Courier.

  Book signing event for Hell by the Acre at Stones River National Battlefield in December 2024 Let’s take a moment to review 2025 on Dan Masters’ Civil War Chronicles. 2025 marked another busy year on the blog with 116 new posts. The year also saw the publication of two new books: Faces of Stones River and Echoes of Brice’s Crossroads . The blog passed the 1,000-post mark early in the year (at 1,071 now) and traffic has continued to show steady and (at times) remarkable growth. The blog’s focus remains centered on telling the story of the common soldier in the Civil War, North and South. I’m excited to share new discoveries with you. The process of research and study remains a treasured part of my day and I thank all of you for enjoying it along with me. To help ring in 2026, let’s revisit the top 20 posts of 2025:   Top 10 Cotton Burning on the Levee: A Civilian Witnesses the Federal Seizure of New Orleans   A Captured Sword and Lost Story of the Battle o...

S ent out on picket on the night of December 31, 1862, Private Ulysses Greene of the 64 th Ohio recorded the scenes that greeted him upon the moon-swept battlefield of Stones River. “By the pale light of the moon, we could see that every ditch and gulley was filled with mangled corpses of men who had that morning entered the fight in the pride of their strength and in the enjoyment of health. The field was covered with the debris of the fight- guns, swords, broken down gun carriages, and dismounted cannons, all in one promiscuous wreck and ruin. I could dwell longer on this dreadful scene but you are doubtless tired already of so long an epistle,” he wrote.           Private Greene’s missive first saw publication in the February 6, 1863, edition of the Bucyrus Journal . During the Stones River, the 64 th Ohio was part of Colonel Charles G. Harker’s brigade along with the 51 st Indiana, 73 rd Indiana, 13 th Michigan, 65 th Ohio, and ...

N ighttime attacks were rare during the Civil War but on the night of Monday, December 29, 1862, Colonel Charles G. Harker’s brigade of the Army of the Cumberland received just such a directive and the consequences proved a near disaster.           Colonel Michael Shoemaker of the 13 th Michigan was part of Harker’s attack and recalled the night as one of a missed opportunity. “I have always been of the opinion that if our advance had not been stopped by order of our own superior officers, we would have surprised the enemy before they could have formed their ranks and would have driven them from their position,” he wrote in 1878. “This would have left Murfreesboro open to us without further fighting or opposition. The Confederates would have retreated to the Tennessee River without giving us battle.”           Colonel Shoemaker’s description of the events of December 29, 1862, is derived from ...

F or First Lieutenant Edwin Nicar, serving as aide-de-camp on the brigade staff of General George D. Wagner, General Rosecrans surprise appearance at brigade headquarters in Chattanooga on the afternoon of September 20, 1863, was indelibly etched in his memory. “The fugitives streamed back towards and into Chattanooga and by 4 p.m. on the 20 th we knew, or rather believed, that our army was beaten,” he wrote. “Rosecrans himself with a single staff officer arrived at our headquarters about the hour mentioned looking as white as a sheet and had to be helped from his horse. His staff officer, Captain Drouillard, gave us to understand that all was lost but cautioned secrecy.” The following passages about the Chickamauga campaign come from Captain Nicar’s memoir of the war published just as the U.S. was about to enter World War I and published in the pages of the South Bend Tribune . His story picks up in late August 1863 as Wagner’s brigade is marching towards Chattanooga:

I n the winter of 1883, Bryon Dunn, editor of the Maryville Republican newspaper and formerly a private in the 9 th Indiana Infantry during the Civil War, decided to publish a series of articles containing his reminiscences of the Atlanta campaign. Eventually, that series would grow to 33 articles in length, drawing heavily from a diary that he kept while in the service. Among the more interesting articles recalls his experiences during the Battle of Pickett’s Mill which was fought May 27, 1864. Private Dunn had developed a fever a few days prior to the   Pickett’s Mill fight and was essentially knocked out of action. “We were on the battlefield of May 25 th where the dead lay thick scattered through the woods,” he noted. “We were ordered to build works but I grew so sick that I had to go to the rear and lie down. All I know is that I lay there all day, deathly sick. The roar of battle had no impression on me and I didn’t know or care what was going on around me Dr. Gillmore vi...