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At Buckner's Side at Fort Donelson

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F ollowing the publication of General Lew Wallace's article about Fort Donelson in Century Magazine , Morton M. Casseday, the son of deceased Confederate officer Alexander Casseday who had served as assistant inspector general on General Simon B. Buckner's staff, shared the following private letters from his father giving his perspective of that historic engagement.      Morton wrote as an introduction, "Among the earlier war papers of the Century Magazine was one from General [Lew] Wallace, describing the battle of Fort Donelson. It was then that it occurred to me that the contemporary letters of my father, Major Alex Casseday, who was an officer of General S.B. Buckner’s staff [assistant inspector general], could at least furnish an interesting account of the policy and conduct of one of the Confederate leaders in that memorable contest. Major Casseday was familiar with the proceedings of the councils of the general officers at Donelson and led the 14 th Mississippi w...
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Riding with Morgan on His Great Raid Through Indiana and Ohio

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M icah C. Saufley, a Confederate veteran who served in the 6 th Kentucky Cavalry and rode with John Morgan, wrote the following letter to his daughter on Christmas day, 1906 giving his reminiscences of Morgan’s raid through Indiana and Ohio and his capture shortly after Buffington Island. It was shared at a United Daughters of the Confederacy meeting in Knoxville on January 16, 1907, and subsequently published in the Knoxville Sentinel .
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Capturing the Flag of the 16th Michigan at Gaines Mill

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In the late 1890s, the survivors of the 16 th Michigan endeavored to recover a set of regimental colors that the regiment had lost in battle more than 30 years prior during the Battle of Gaines Mill, Va. The effort resulted in a number of articles published in both Confederate Veteran and local newspapers which provided both Blue and Gray perspectives of how the colors were captured on the evening of June 27, 1862.
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It is Awful, Indeed: A Hoosier Remembers Stones River

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A month after the events of Stones River, Lieutenant David Franklin Embree of the 42 nd Indiana remained haunted by the death of one of his comrades.           In response to a question from his sister about how men feel in battle, Embree related this grisly tale. “The ball came obliquely from the left and front, passing several feet in front of me. It seemed that I could hear it singing almost from the time it left its bed in the Rebel’s gun. As it came swiftly I knew where it was going by the sound. Suddenly, I heard the same ball go crash against something and I knew by the sound that it had burst a human skull,” he wrote. “I barely had time to look around to my right and then I saw Sergeant Chauncey Glassmith quivering and dying. This happened when we were not very hotly engaged and when our men were not firing else I could not have heard the singing of the bullet. Every one of us could not refrain from casting a glance at the dying...
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Fighting for the Gun: Four Charges at Shiloh with the 14th Wisconsin

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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....
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The 37th Indiana and the Muddy March to Tullahoma

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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...
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Fully Realizing the Stern Realities of War: Opening the 1862 campaign in western Virginia

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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...
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