Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

T he 14 th Wisconsin conducted four charges on the second day of Shiloh fighting for possession of a Confederate battery. It was after the fourth charge that Lieutenant Absalom Smith was struck down by a shell.             “We fought for about two hours when I was struck by a piece of shell, knocked down, and had to be helped off the field,” he wrote. “The missile struck me in the left side, tearing my clothing and paralyzing my side. It proved not to be as dangerous as first apprehended. Before I received this, I made several narrow escapes; one ball passed through my coat sleeve and when I mounted a captured cannon to rally my men, another ball took off my cap cover.”             The following account of Shiloh, penned by Lieutenant Smith, first saw publication in the May 24, 1862, edition of the Milwaukee Morning Sentinel . The letter was written to his brother Rev. J.C....

Rain. Impassable Roads. Endless Mud. Victory.       Private William F. Stegamiller of Co. C wrote the following letter to the editors of the Aurora Journal in July 1863 giving a fine account of the Tullahoma campaign. Like most regiments in the Army of the Cumberland, the 37 th Indiana’s part was largely confined to marching and surviving in the endless rain and mud as the army moved south.            Private Stegamiller’s letter first appeared in the July 30, 1863, edition of the Aurora Journal . Unfortunately, he would not survive the war, being killed in action the following May at the Battle of Pickett’s Mill in northern Georgia.  Regimental colors of the 37th Indiana Volunteer Infantry  Decherd Station, Tennessee July 17, 1863           Permit a soldier of the 37 th Indiana of the Army of the Cumberland to make a few statements as to what has occur...

A fter a long winter of relative inactivity, the war in the Kanawha Valley of western Virginia opened with a bang in May 1862 with a series of engagements at Giles Courthouse, Princeton, Charleston, and Lewisburg. Sergeant Major Phocian Way of the 11 th Ohio missed all of the action, tasked with guarding stores at Raleigh. But the stern realities of war rolled into town on the evening of May 26.           “Last evening, 63 of the men wounded at Princeton were brought here in ambulances and placed in the courthouse which has been fitted up as a hospital,” he wrote to the editors of the Clinton Republican . “I saw the poor fellows as they were carried into the building. Some had one leg shot off, some were minus an arm, and others exhibited ghastly saber cuts. One of them, Lieutenant Bluher of the 37 th Ohio, had his leg amputated and it is feared that he will not survive the operation. The sight of these suffering men brought me fully to r...

C harging the Confederate works at Fort Donelson on the afternoon of February 15, 1862, Andrew Nichols of the 2nd Iowa recalled the intensely personal nature of combat. "The enemy did not fire a shot until we got within about 50 yards," he wrote. "As for me, I held my head as low as possible and ran my best for they were shooting high until I got within about 10 feet of the ditch. I saw a man stick his gun under the log as they had laid logs on top of the breastworks with just room to shoot under. I saw him just about to shoot; I thought I was just about as sure of him as if I was inside so I blazed away at him. He went out of sight and I jumped into the ditch and loaded. When I got loaded and over there was a good many ahead of me.  The first shot I got inside was at a fellow in butternut clothes who slipped out from behind a tree about 30 yards off and was going to shoot at one of our boys. I was just about to pull when another one stepped out to shoot over his shoulde...

A setting sun silhouetted the charging Confederates as they broke the first line of Federals at Pleasant Hill on the evening of April 9, 1864. Chaplain Francis Evans of the 35th Iowa observed their approach from the second line and marveled at the response of his fellow Iowans.     " While the Rebels were charging up the field and the troops in our second line were sitting and lying on the ground waiting for orders, a shell from a Rebel gun struck Peter Harrison of Co. A on the head, knocking one side of it entirely off, and then passed through the breast of Captain Henry Blanck of the same company, killing them both instantly," Evans wrote. " The Rebels continued to advance until within about 200 yards of our main line when our boys, receiving orders to charge, sprang up with a wild cheer and poured into the Rebels such a deadly volley that they paused in their defiant advance to anticipated triumph and began gradually to fall back. Our brave boys advanced rapidly upon...

W atching the sun set after the first day of Shiloh, Sergeant Harold White of the 11 th Iowa “commenced musing over the affairs of the day and you may well suppose my musings were not of a very agreeable character. The prospect was most decidedly blue- not the bright cerulean tings of the summer sky, but a dark, despairing, deplorable blue.”           “That we were whipped was certain. That on the morrow we should all be taken prisoners was more than probable. Nothing but the appearance of Buell could save us from utter destruction. Fortunately, Buell was near at hand and all night long we could hear the constant splashing of the steamboat wheels as regiment after regiment was brought over the stream. During the night, as if nature was disposed to add to the general gloom, a furious storm came on, which continued for several hours.”           Sergeant White’s detailed recounting of his regimen...