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General McPherson’s Monument a Disgrace: Atlanta Battlefield in 1896

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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...
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Hurled Against Us Like a Thunderbolt: 25th Ohio at Second Bull Run

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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.          ...
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A Lead Miner at Fort Henry

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O n the evening of February 4, 1862, Lieutenant Colonel Jasper Maltby of the 45 th Illinois gathered the commissioned officers of his regiment together to give them a pep talk. After more than two months of service at Camp Washburne, Camp Douglas, and Cairo, there was finally the prospect that the regiment would see action on the morrow. Ten miles south of them lay Fort Henry on the Tennessee River.           “He said that we were about to meet the enemy and he expected that everyone would do his whole duty,” recalled Second Lieutenant Henry H. Boyce of Co. I. “He also said that by placing our trust in the God of battles and our good guns we would surely conquer. We would assist in making the future history of our country and he wanted it to be such a history as our children should not be ashamed to read.”           Duly encouraged, the regiment marched out on February 6 th as they heard the ...
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The 49th Indiana and the Raid on Big Creek Gap

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I n the days after the Federal victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, the western armies pushed south along the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, eventually taking over control of much of middle Tennessee. But in eastern Kentucky, Union forces were also on the move and their sights were on Cumberland Gap.           To that end, in early March 1862 General Samuel Carter directed a demonstration made at Big Creek Gap to draw Confederate forces away from Cumberland Gap and assigned the task to his brother, Colonel James Carter leading the 2 nd East Tennessee, along with a portion of the 49 th Indiana. The expedition across the mountains proved a trying affair for the troops as remembered by Lieutenant Colonel James Keigwin of the 49 th Indiana.           “After three days’ hard marching over muddy roads, we arrived at the foot of Little Cumberland Mountain late in the evening. An hour was allowe...
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On the Hills of McDowell

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A fter spending a frigid winter in the mountains of western Virginia, the 32nd Ohio along with the army under the command of General Robert Milroy moved east towards the Shenandoah Valley and ended up clashing with Stonewall Jackson's forces at the Battle of McDowell on May 8, 1862. Sergeant Major Cyrus A. Stevens of the regiment recorded his impressions of that engagement in the following letter which  first appeared in the May 24, 1862, edition of the Zanesville Daily Courier .
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A Cavalryman’s View of the Disaster at Hartsville

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T he Battle of Hartsville, Tennessee, fought December 7, 1862, proved an embarrassing defeat of General Rosecrans in the days leading up to the Stones River campaign. Among the participants in this engagement was Second Lieutenant Edward H. Green of Co. E of the 11 th Kentucky Cavalry. The cavalry did not play a prominent role in the battle but Green tried to rally the faltering 108 th Ohio Infantry before the command surrendered. Green numbered among the lucky ones who escaped from Hartsville but that action led to rumblings of cowardice that made their way into the press. The following lengthy account of Hartsville is essentially a defense of Green’s actions during the engagement. He must have been convincing as General Joseph Reynolds placed Green in charge of his escort shortly after Hartsville.           Lieutenant Green’s letter was featured on the first page of the February 5, 1863, edition of the Aurora Journal in which they sa...
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A Week Filled with Anxiety, Labor, Danger, and Death: The 51st Pennsylvania at the Battle of Camden

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L ooking back on the Battle of Camden, North Carolina, Captain J. Merrill Linn of the 51st Pennsylvania remembered the entire expedition that led to the engagement as a "week filled with anxiety, labor, danger, and death." The regiment had been marching for hours when suddenly a Confederate cannon opened fire on their column.       "Bang goes a cannon and a 6-lb round ball struck about 50 yards to the left of the road we were on and went bounding and rolling past," he wrote. "We halted. Then came another which struck in the midst of us in the road but hit no one. We were ordered to get over into the field to the right which we did and the regiment entered a wood. Meantime, one of our pieces was unlimbered and answered. The Rebels kept our range and followed is with round shot, shell, and canister. We turned to the left to get on their flank. We were ready to drop from exhaustion and many laid down as if they were dead."  Captain J. Merrill Linn's lette...
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