Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

T he week after the Battle of Antietam, two Pennsylvanians, Ephraim B. McCrum and Henry C. Dern, both editors and proprietors of the Altoona Tribune , journeyed south into Maryland. Their intentions were to visit the camps of their local regiments, touch base with the boys, and to report back on their findings. “We were told by those who had preceded us that we obtained a sight of the tail end only,” they stated. “If that be so, we have no desire to see the whole animal.”           The pair first went to Hagerstown, and on Tuesday morning September 23, 1862, they secured a wagon and set out for Sharpsburg. “Nothing worthy of special attention attracted our attention until we ascended a hill about two miles this side of the battlefield,” they wrote. “Here our olfactory organs informed us very perceptibly that we were in the region of decaying animal matter. On every rise of ground thereafter we were greeted with the same stench, yet we could see no marks of the battle. Thus, we passed

I n the days following the defeat at Chancellorsville, the soldiers of the Third Division of the 11 th Corps were horrified to see their good names besmirched in the newspapers. “Every newspaper that fell into our hands told the world a frightful story of the unexampled misconduct of the 11 th Corps,” remembered Major General Carl Schurz, commanding the division. “How the ‘cowardly Dutchmen’ of that corps had thrown down their arms and fled at the first fire of the enemy, had led in the disgraceful flight without firing a shot, and how these cowardly ‘Dutch’ had overrun the whole battlefield and came near stampeding other brigades or divisions. I was thunderstruck.”           Another soldier who was “thunderstruck” was one of Schurz’s brigade commanders, Brigadier General Alexander Schimmelfennig. In this extraordinary letter to General Schurz, Schimmelfennig insisted that the truth be heard and justice obtained for his men. “The officers and men of this brigade of your division,

I n the bitter fighting near the Peach Orchard and Wheatfield at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863,  John Garden of the 62nd Pennsylvania recalled that at times the combat became hand to hand.       " Again that “yell” which was heard so often at Chancellorsville commenced and made us grasp our pieces with firmer grips.," Garden commented. “Attention,” and “forward” passed along the line and we advanced across the wheat field and formed behind a stone wall. We were hardly posted behind the wall before the word was passed that we were flanked on the right of our brigade which we soon found to be too true for the bullets commenced flying in among us from the right. We remained in our position until the order came “about face” when we walked out in good order, contending with the enemy both in front and rear, they having nearly surrounded us.  For a time, it was a hand-to-hand engagement, muskets were clubbed, and pistols and sabers were used in the scuffle. Our regiment lost one of it

I t’s easy to think that our ancestors during the Civil War rarely enjoyed an opportunity for fun, but Private Jonathan Kinsel’s description of how his regiment enjoyed their New Year’s holiday in coastal South Carolina shows otherwise. “Taking everything into consideration, we enjoyed quite a pleasant time,” he wrote. “The performance was entertaining and the ale, cider, cakes, and apples which our ever-thoughtful colonel purchased for the occasion were refreshing. The wheelbarrow race also caused great merriment. The competitors were blindfolded and placed directly in line with a certain point, the one coming nearest the goal being the victor. The fun consisted in their deviation at every imaginable angle from a straight line, trotting soberly along, each under the pleasing impression that he was making a straight line for the mark. Of course, the one farthest out of the way was greeted with peals of derisive laughter and encouraged to renewed diligence by assurances of success.”

A s Captain Frederick Garternicht’s company of the 84 th Illinois arrived on the outskirts of Murfreesboro on the evening of December 29, 1862, he witnessed the destruction of a brick home along the Nashville Pike near the Two-Mile Marker. Confederate engineers intended to destroy some outbuildings to clear lanes of fire for Confederate artillery, but the flames spread to the main residence which was soon engulfed. “In front of us were some buildings burning,” Garternicht recalled. “It began to get dark and we advanced towards them but were ordered to halt 200 paces distant. A fine brick building took fire just as we halted [the Cowan House] and it was a grand sight, but we all felt bad when a few buckets of water would have extinguished the flames. To stand within 200 paces of a nice, big building and see it burn down- see the flames progress from window to window until their fiery tongues enveloped the entire edifice in one common conflagration.” The resulting wreckage became an i

F or one Confederate soldier, the sheer intensity and violence of combat during the Battle of Iuka changed his opinion on the war.           “There was one continuous roar of small arms while grape and canister howled in fearful concert above our heads and through our ranks,” he commented in a letter to the Jackson Mississippian newspaper. “The troops against which we were contending were Western men, the battery manned by Ohio troops who fought bravely and well. I know this: that the events of that evening have considerably increased my appetite for peace and if the Yankees will not shoot us anymore, I shall be perfectly satisfied to let them alone.”           This letter, written by an unknown soldier serving in the 40th Mississippi, provides a frank and candid Confederate eyewitness view of Iuka and was included in Volume 5 of the Rebellion Record .