Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

W riting to his sister Flora in far-off Wisconsin, Private Herbert Smalley of the 7 th Ohio reported how well soldiering agreed with him; as a matter of fact, he bragged that he had “the most agreeable bunk in the regiment.”           “I wish you could be here beside me a moment, looking over my portfolio at the motley crowd who are scoffing their allowance of hard bread,” he noted. “The different portions of the glove are pretty well represented here in our bunk. We have a downeast Yankee, several Germans, a Welshman, a Swiss, three Englishmen, an Irishman, a Californian, and three Buckeyes. I think we have the most agreeable bunk in the regiment. We have three farmers, one rolling mill man, one furnace man, one file cutter, one tailor, one watchmaker, one second-hand theater actor, one sailor, one fisherman, one brakeman, one jack-of-all-trades, and one printer besides one candidate for the lunatic asylum. Don’t you think we have quite a...

F irst impressions often make lasting impressions, and for Sergeant Charles Evans of the 12th Connecticut, the first impression made by the citizens of New Orleans boils down to one word: surly. One example of this was when his regiment disembarked on the afternoon of May 2, 1862, the 12th Connecticut being among the first Union troops to occupy the city.  “Late in the afternoon of May 2 nd , we were ordered to land in the midst of thousands of secessionist soldiers and citizens,” he wrote his brother back home in Connecticut. “As each company descended from the ship to the dock, they were brought to a front and ordered to load which gave the Rebels to understand what they had to deal with in case of a street fight. And we confidently expected it. The bitterness exhibited by the vast gathering boded nothing else. The women were more insulting than the men owing, I suppose, to the worldwide reputation of gallantry on the part of Yankee soldiers. The taunts were intolerable and onl...

C aptured along with 72 other Federal officers at the Battle of Thompson's Station, Tennessee on March 5, 1863, Lieutenant Colonel James M. Henderson of the 33rd Indiana described the officers' long journey to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia.       " At Tullahoma, we were treated by Bragg the worst of any prisoners taken since the beginning of the war," Henderson complained. "Wet and cold, we were stripped of overcoats, oil blankets, canteens, and leggings, and the whole 73 officers were crowded into a small room with no fire, no room to lay down, and we had to nest in like hogs to keep from freezing. Next morning, we were thrown into a train of cattle cars and sent to Chattanooga, nearly freezing along the way. At Chattanooga, we got better treatment. From there we came on day by day till we got to Richmond, making 15 days in all. At some of our stopping places we got good treatment, at others, bad." Lieutenant Colonel Henderson’s letter, written to hi...

W riting five months after the events of Thompson's Station, First Lieutenant Henry M. Brown of the 19th Michigan recalled bitterly the impact that botched engagement had on his regiment. To be sure, nearly the entire regiment was captured in this forgotten battle that took place March 5, 1863 south of Franklin, Tennessee.      " We have lost in all ways as a result of the affair about 200 men, every one of whom was sound and healthy when we left our camp at Franklin," he stated. " Our regiment, out of 488 officers and men, lost 34 killed (including three who were mortally wounded and died soon after the battle) and 79 wounded, making a total loss of killed and wounded of 113 men."       He blamed the cowardice of the 18th Ohio Battery for his regiment's ill fortunes. After falling back from their initial position, Brown observed  " our artillery got ready to march and very soon moved off at a rapid rate towards Franklin and we saw no more of them...

W riting to his sister in Michigan, Sergeant William F. Hall of the 1st Colorado spoke of the thrill and terror he experienced when charging the Confederate guns at Apache Canyon in New Mexico Territory on March 26, 1862, one of the preliminary engagements of the larger Battle of Glorieta Pass.         " I have been where rifle balls fell like hail, where man met man in deadly strife, and where all the evil passions of a man’s nature were aroused and some of the nobler ones, also," he began. " Captain Cook took the lead and gave the command to charge. I was at the left of my section- you should have seen us as we flew up that canyon like a whirlwind and fell on to their forces like a thunderbolt. But many a fellow fell to rise no more before we had passed half through the raking fire. We had passed through or over two-thirds of the distance and I still remained unharmed although the bullets flew like hail about me. Some passed through my overcoat which was held ...

I n his battery’s first action of the war at Scarey Creek, in western Virginia, gunner Philip D. Green of Cotter’s Independent Battery of Ohio Light Artillery witnessed the gruesome sight of one of his comrades losing both legs shot off by a cannon ball.           “He was engaged in handing ammunition from the caissons when he was shot,” Green related in a letter written to his brother Oliver Green of Pipestone, Michigan. “The force of the ball that struck him was so great that it threw me violently upon the ground but did not hurt me much. As he fell, he said, “Oh boys, I am gone!” He lived for seven days, enduring terrible agony. His lower limbs were taken from his body as evenly as with a knife; the right leg near the thigh and the left at the knee.”           Green’s letter, the first I’ve yet seen from a soldier in Cotter’s battery at Scarey Creek, first saw publication in the August 21, 1...