Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

I llinois gunner Thaddeus Hulaniski, writing his mother after the Battle of Hatchie Bridge, described the intense moment when he nearly lost his life. "The enemy knew the position of the bridge which we had to cross and kept up a perfect shower of shot, shell, and canister, together with the musketry and thunder of artillery- a scene awful and sublime,” he said. “All our forces were engaged here except two batteries. Here our gun axle was cracked, disabling the gun and a shot sent into our limber chest which contains ammunition. I was standing by the side of it, that being my position. The shot broke two shells inside but luckily did not explode otherwise I would not be here to write this letter.” Private Hulaniski’s description of the fight at Hatchie River/Davis Bridge first saw publication in the October 27, 1862, edition of the Daily Gate City published in Keokuk, Iowa.

Colonel Daniel McCook of the 52nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, "Colonel Dan" to his troops, fell at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia on June 27, 1864 while leading his brigade in a charge upon the Confederate works.  W hen on August 21, 1862, I joined Captain James Taylor Holmes company en route to Camp Dennison, Ohio, it was on the condition that 7 members already enrolled must be rejected by physical examination or join other companies. To explain to those who have grown up since the close of the war, as well as to refresh the memories of those we became identified and part of the 300,000 more of 1862, I will state that if a volunteer chosen to select his associates in an Ohio company or regiment there were qualifications other than patriotism precedent to being sworn into the army.           I recall one experience of my attending a war meeting in an old log Methodist meeting house, dimly lighted with tallow-dip candles held in place by tin r...

O n April 11, 1862, Federal forces under the command of Brigadier General Ormsby M. Mitchel captured Huntsville, Alabama in a surprise move upon the vital Memphis & Charleston Railroad. Troopers from the 4 th Ohio Cavalry galloped into town at dawn, quickly seizing the post office and railroad depot. Among the papers of the telegraph office, they discovered a dispatch from General P.G.T. Beauregard dated from two days before at Corinth, Mississippi. Upon receiving this dispatch, General Mitchel’s staff set to work deciphering the document. “It is a simple and easy cipher which required General Mitchel and his aides about 20 minutes to translate,” a reporter from the Cincinnati Gazette noted. But how did they actually crack the code? And why was this seemingly important document sitting on a desk in Huntsville? This article explores those questions. 

C orporal Henry Gage of the 96th Illinois recalled the dramatic moment on the morning of November 25, 1863 as the members of the 8th Kentucky raised their flag atop Lookout Mountain.      "Before daybreak, the brigade started to scale the wall and the 8 th  Kentucky of our brigade swung the first flag over the “spur” and old Whitaker was close behind to swing his hat. Boys yell some when they make a successful charge but that noise that rose from the side of that mountain that time was as artillery to small arms. The shout from our lines to Hooker’s men who crossed to help us and was caught up on the other side of the mountain and so died away in the distance. Now that we had the mountain, our regiment and the 8 th  Kentucky came up to hold it and the rest of the brigade went on. We did not lose many in the scrape," he noted.           The following letter, published in the December 19, 1863, edition of the Waukegan...

I n 1896, Illinois veteran John Wiesman visited Atlanta and wrote of his disappointment at the degradation of the battlefield and the "disgraceful" monument to his fallen army commander General James B. McPherson.      " In walking over the field, I found only one bullet but the natives have quite a stock of relics on hand and are disposing of them at a fair price. I was surprised to find nailed high up to a pine tree where General McPherson fell, a sign reading “Gen. John B. McPherson, killed July 22, ’64.” How or by whom such a blunder was made I cannot understand. One would suppose that anyone who was in the least familiar with the history of the late war and our generals, especially one so prominent as our beloved McPherson, would know it was James B. and not John B.  The monument erected where General McPherson is a disgrace to our government. It is a condemned cannon enclosed by a cast iron rail fence about the size of a hen coop. That is all that marks the sac...

C rippled by a lame foot, Lieutenant Benjamin Blandy of the 25th Ohio missed out of his regiment's fight on Chinn Ridge at Second Bull Run but watched the events unfold from the regimental hospital wagons.     " Our regiment was on the left flank and our brigade was ordered out to support a battery. Nearly all our forces were stationed away on its right. The enemy concentrated his entire force on the left (the weakest point) and hurled them against us like a thunderbolt. They marched up like mad men, not at a charge, but marched up in solid column without firing a shot. As fast as one regiment was mowed down like grass by the scythe, another stepped up in his place. I know that our brigade killed and wounded more than their own number, but the Rebels still advanced with their heads down and took the flag from the color sergeant of the 73 rd  Ohio. At such conduct, our boys became panic-stricken and fled," he wrote.          ...