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Memories From a Cot Bed: A Word From Lyman B. Foster of the 26th Ohio

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I n the run-up to the Presidential election of 1872, a disabled Union veteran named Lyman B. Foster, formerly of the 26 th Ohio, wrote a letter to the Chicago Inter Ocean recalling a few tidbits of his wartime services buried within what amounted to a political letter. During the war, Foster was the “bullet magnet” of the 26 th Ohio as he was wounded on four separate occasions: Stones River, Missionary Ridge, Kennesaw, and finally at Franklin where he was permanently disabled. I particularly enjoyed how he recalled the strong bonds of friendship that existed between his regiment and the 100 th Illinois. “The two regiments fought side by side in so many battles that it resulted in a strong attachment. Each sympathized with the other in its joys and sorrows,” Foster noted. “I have not forgotten how keenly the 26 th felt the loss of the brave colonel of the 100 th Illinois at Chickamauga [Colonel Frederick Bartleson]. I still hold in pleasant memory the manifestations of sympathy ...
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Huckster Wagons, Raspberry-Ade Saloons, and His Accidental Excellency: The Dedication of Antietam National Cemetery

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W riting from Sharpsburg, Maryland on September 18, 1867, the correspondent of the Summit County Beacon fairly hissed with derision at what he considered the botched dedication of the Antietam National Cemetery.           “The Antietam dedication was pronounced a grand failure, like everything else with which Andy’s Johnson’s name has been connected,” he offered. “Everything connected with the performance was in a jumble, there being no programme, no order, no police, no managers. For six hours that vast multitude swung around in the hot sun, patiently waiting for the coming cargo of human depravity from the city of Washington. Andy Johnson was the butt end of ridicule and jests all day long. I heard not a respectable word spoken of his accidental Excellency.”           This scathing article, written for a Republican newspaper that clearly was not in Johnson’s camp, paints a dim picture of the...
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Thrice Wounded at Antietam: One Soldier’s Story

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The 30th Ohio monument at Antietam is close to where Private Thaddeus Fleck was wounded three times during the fighting on the evening of September 17, 1862. The regiment suffered 80 casualties including 49 wounded.  T haddeus S. Fleck of Marysville, Ohio died on February 5, 1885, at the age of just 41. At the outbreak of the Rebellion, he was scarcely 18 years of age and was working as a carpenter when he enlisted as a private in Co. E of the 30 th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. “He participated with his regiment in all the campaigns and battles in which it was engaged until the Battle of Antietam, including Carnifex Ferry, Centreville, South Mountain, and many skirmishes,” his obituary noted. “At the Battle of Antietam, the regiment lost heavily. Fourteen balls from the enemy pierced their colors and two color sergeants were killed. Thaddeus was wounded at Antietam on September 17, 1862, in three different parts of his body. First the left hand, then in the face, and the last shot i...
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We Find the Blood Stains Whenever We Scrub: Dunker Church in 1884

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T ouring the western edge of the Antietam battlefield in October 1884, George Alfred Townsend of the New York Tribune newspaper received a tour of Dunker Church from the local sexton. “The sexton woman, who has built a log house just by the Dunker Church, brought the key and opened the door,” he wrote. “Within is the pulpitless plainness of Dunker meetings, a long table for the preacher and three seats facing it. All of the furniture is of yellow pine planed smooth and the plain square room with one end door and one side door is hardly 30 feet square. ‘We come to the blood stains whenever we scrub,” said the woman.           “The Dunker Church is one of many in that section of the country. The Dunkers settled on the headwaters of Antietam Creek in Pennsylvania, where their chief place is Waynesboro, now one of the most growing towns in the Cumberland Valley and approaching Hagerstown in importance. This is 25 miles above the battlefield, wh...
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Behind the Lines at Fort Donelson

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L eft at the landing when his regiment (the 2 nd Iowa) went to the front, Private Daniel McWorkman had a front row seat to the gunboat attack at Fort Donelson and witnessed its grisly aftermath.           “As the boats drifted by me, I could see that they had it pretty hot,” he wrote in a letter to his wife. “Their decks were covered with splinters, the flag staff of one had been shot away. When they landed I went down to them. They had lost several men. One man had been torn to shreds and I saw them pick up pieces of flesh as big as my two hands and throw them into the river. One man had both arms shot off.”           McWorkman’s letter first saw publication in the February 28, 1862, edition of the Keosauqua Republican .
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A Fixed Shooting Contest: Tales of the 23rd Ohio

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S hortly after mustering into service in June 1861, the men of the 23 rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry received their allotment of firearms. It was a mixed bag: Companies A and B, being the flank companies, received the highly prized Enfield rifles; two more companies received Springfield rifles; the balance received old flintlock muskets dating from the Revolutionary War that had been converted to percussion. The men of Company E flat out refused to accept them.           Despite pleadings from their company officers and threats from the colonel branding the company as mutineers and threatening to have them shot, the stalwart men of Co. E refused to take up these antique arms. Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Matthews and Major Rutherford B. Hayes, old college buddies from Kenyon, cooked up a shooting contest between the crack shots of Co. E armed with the antique muskets and six crack shots from Co. A armed with Enfields. "Of course, the muskets c...
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You Must Use Your Steel: With the 22nd Michigan on Horseshoe Ridge

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C aptain John Atkinson of the 22 nd Michigan missed the Battle of Chickamauga by two days; it might have saved his life. Writing a week after the engagement, he informed the homefolks of the tragedy that had befallen his regiment on the second day of the battle atop Horseshoe Ridge and especially noted the devastation of the color guard.           “The color sergeant Philo G. Durkee was shot through the breast and face and fell dead the first round. Corporal Stansell of the color guard from Co. H grasped the colors but had scarcely raised them when a bullet passed through his head, killing him instantly. Corporal Vincent of Co. C lifted the colors and a moment after received a ball in the thigh, wounding him severely. He was carried to the rear. First Sergeant William F. Atkinson took the colors, handing them to Sergeant Kendell of Co. C who carried them the rest of the day and had them when the regiment went into the last charge,” he wrot...
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