Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

T o Lieutenant William H.H. Isgrigg of the 4th Indiana Cavalry, the blunders of McCook's cavalry raid in July 1864 occurred after the cavalrymen had completed a round of destruction, then waited around for hours before moving on to their next mission. The excessive delays gave the Confederate forces time to gather their troops and eventually corner the Federal horsemen. By July 30th, they were well and truly trapped.      "W e attempted to go around them but were only led into a trap where some of the hardest cavalry fighting of the war took place," he wrote. "Up to this time, I had not lost a man but here I lost eight men captured on the first charge. In a few minutes afterwards, they charged our pack train and I lost four more men.  In this charge, they cut off our brigade entirely from our force. We made several charges to gain the command, but finding it useless, we had to give up that part of the work and look for some way to get out of the country and to keep f...

M oses Farnsworth, a former infantryman with the 15th Illinois, joined the crew of the ironclad gunboat U.S.S. Benton in the spring of 1862 as part of the deck force. What he saw in the aftermath of the Battle of Memphis underscores that service in the brown water Navy was just as bloody as fighting upon land.       Describing the C.S.S. Beauregard, he wrote "the steam from the boilers scalded four poor firemen in a most shocking manner. One who went on board immediately after the fight says the spectacle afforded by these sufferers exceeded anything he ever saw before and was enough to tear the most unfeeling heart. They implored him to give them relief, but all the relief which could be afforded was produced by the application of flour, sprinkled very lightly upon them. So completely had the steam penetrated the flesh that it hung in shreds upon their bones, the least touch or motion causing it to fall off entirely! As we passed her, she was sinking rapidly w...

W hen the Ohio National Guard was federalized in May 1864, it was done with the understanding that the men would be utilized as rear area troops, performing garrison and guard duty and by so doing, freeing up veteran troops who would be sent to the front. Little did they know that some of the Guardsmen would go to the front, too. But that was the case with the 134 th Ohio.           Raised from the guard companies of Champaign, Shelby, and Hancock Counties, the 134 th Ohio originally was deployed at Cumberland, Maryland guarding the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. But in early June, the regiment received orders to move to Washington and from there, sailed to Bermuda Hundred in Virginia. On the night of June 16 th , a portion of the regiment was sent to the front as pickets and the following day found themselves in a hot fight near Port Walthall.           “During the whole day, we had to fight...

I t was noon on July 22, 1864. Quartermaster Sergeant Charles Wiles of the 78th Ohio was well behind the lines with the divisional wagon train, or so he thought.       " At noon while our teams were corralled in the rear of our brigade, we were somewhat surprised at the appearance of a battery taking position on a hill just above us and the forming of a line of battle by a detachment of the 16 th   Corps," Wiles observed. "The sight was really beautiful, but foreboding of a fight, the character and approach of which we as yet knew nothing about.  We were at once on the alert with everything in the wagons awaiting orders from our brigade quartermaster to move out. Five minutes had scarcely elapsed when we were ordered to move; the whips cracked sharply over the mule’s backs and we were moving hastily to the rear (if any there was) while the above mentioned battery started throwing its deadly missiles among the ranks of the advancing Rebels."   ...

I t is rare thing that an actor becomes a witness to an event that changed the course of a nation’s life, but on the evening of April 14, 1865, Philadelphia-born actor Harry Hawk had the stage to himself at Ford’s Theater, until President Lincoln’s assassin fell upon the stage and brandished a knife. "I was playing Asa Trenchard in Our American Cousin ; the “old lady” of the theater had just gone off the stage and I was answering her exit speech when I heard the fatal shot fired,” Hawk wrote to his father shortly afterwards. “I turned, looked up to the President’s box, and heard a man exclaim, “Sic semper tyrannis!” I saw him jump from the box, seize the flag on the staff and drop to the stage. He slipped when he gained the stage but got upon his feet in a moment and brandished a large knife saying, “The South shall be free!” He turned his face in the direction I stood and I recognized him as John Wilkes Booth. He ran towards me and I, seeing the knife, thought I was the one he ...

C orporal Samuel Van Horne of the 77 th Illinois spoke the sentiments of many of his comrades in the ranks when he found the generalship of Generals Nathaniel Banks and William B. Franklin lacking in the spring of 1864. Thinking specifically of the Battle of Sabine Crossroads, Van Horne opined “I don’t suppose you will ever get a true account of the affair as it was so miserably managed all through. Generals Banks and Franklin will never have it published. It seems to me that any private in the ranks would have done better. I tell you it was poorly managed and there is not a soldier in this department but will (or do rather) curse Generals Banks and Franklin.” Such sentiments are understandable when Van Horne shares that of the 460 men of his regiment who went into action at Sabine Crossroads, only 160 came out and many of them (himself included) were wounded. His account of the battle first saw publication in the May 16, 1864, edition of the Zanesville Daily Courier .