Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

W riting five months after the events of Thompson's Station, First Lieutenant Henry M. Brown of the 19th Michigan recalled bitterly the impact that botched engagement had on his regiment. To be sure, nearly the entire regiment was captured in this forgotten battle that took place March 5, 1863 south of Franklin, Tennessee.      " We have lost in all ways as a result of the affair about 200 men, every one of whom was sound and healthy when we left our camp at Franklin," he stated. " Our regiment, out of 488 officers and men, lost 34 killed (including three who were mortally wounded and died soon after the battle) and 79 wounded, making a total loss of killed and wounded of 113 men."       He blamed the cowardice of the 18th Ohio Battery for his regiment's ill fortunes. After falling back from their initial position, Brown observed  " our artillery got ready to march and very soon moved off at a rapid rate towards Franklin and we saw no more of them...

W riting to his sister in Michigan, Sergeant William F. Hall of the 1st Colorado spoke of the thrill and terror he experienced when charging the Confederate guns at Apache Canyon in New Mexico Territory on March 26, 1862, one of the preliminary engagements of the larger Battle of Glorieta Pass.         " I have been where rifle balls fell like hail, where man met man in deadly strife, and where all the evil passions of a man’s nature were aroused and some of the nobler ones, also," he began. " Captain Cook took the lead and gave the command to charge. I was at the left of my section- you should have seen us as we flew up that canyon like a whirlwind and fell on to their forces like a thunderbolt. But many a fellow fell to rise no more before we had passed half through the raking fire. We had passed through or over two-thirds of the distance and I still remained unharmed although the bullets flew like hail about me. Some passed through my overcoat which was held ...

I n his battery’s first action of the war at Scarey Creek, in western Virginia, gunner Philip D. Green of Cotter’s Independent Battery of Ohio Light Artillery witnessed the gruesome sight of one of his comrades losing both legs shot off by a cannon ball.           “He was engaged in handing ammunition from the caissons when he was shot,” Green related in a letter written to his brother Oliver Green of Pipestone, Michigan. “The force of the ball that struck him was so great that it threw me violently upon the ground but did not hurt me much. As he fell, he said, “Oh boys, I am gone!” He lived for seven days, enduring terrible agony. His lower limbs were taken from his body as evenly as with a knife; the right leg near the thigh and the left at the knee.”           Green’s letter, the first I’ve yet seen from a soldier in Cotter’s battery at Scarey Creek, first saw publication in the August 21, 1...

F or nearly four years, the mantra of the Army of the Potomac was “On to Richmond!” In early April 1865, that long cherished goal was finally accomplished and First Lieutenant James Morris of the 4 th New Jersey Battery was on hand to witness the historic occasion.           “At early daybreak a dense cloud of smoke was observed hanging over the city and when we came in sight of the city, the scene was terribly grand,” he recorded. “I thought at first that Lee was trying to play Moscow on us. Great clouds of fire and smoke were rolling up from a score of buildings in the heart of the city. The arsenal was on fire and the immense quantity of shells stored therein were bursting continually, scattering destruction and death among the terrified women and children whose homes were in flames.”           “One of our bands struck up “Yankee Doodle” and when a young lady was asked by an office how she ...

B y the spring of 1863, the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation in changing Union war aims proved a stark dividing line among Northerners. Peace Democrats, increasingly displeased with the heavy losses on the battlefield, grew particularly vocal in opposition to the war. Those sentiments even drove a wedge between comrades in arms as is shown by the following correspondence.           Arthur Truman served as a private for about a year in Co. B of the 74 th Ohio Volunteer Infantry before he received a discharge on a surgeon’s certificate of disability in December 1862. He returned home to Spring Valley, Ohio and soon put his anti-war sentiments on paper in a letter written to a comrade in Co. B, William Zellers. Truman’s letter, expressing his opposition to emancipation and to blacks in general, raised quite a ruckus amongst his comrades in arms, two of whom wrote letters back to Truman sharing their astonishment.    ...

W hile Admiral David Farragut steamed into legend in Mobile Bay, Surgeon Thomas S. Yard of the humble steamer U.S.S. John P. Jackson recorded his vessel’s contribution to reducing nearby Fort Powell which guarded the Mississippi Sound entrance to Mobile Bay. “The Jackson , Conemaugh , Estella , Stockdale , and the tug Narcissus have all day been shelling Fort Powell,” he said. “They replied very briskly. We cannot get near enough to drive them from their guns but no doubt the admiral will send one of the monitors from inside to knock Fort Powell into pie and thus the communication between New Orleans and Mobile will be established without going by Fort Morgan. The monitor with double turrets came down to Fort Powell and, going very close to the fort, opened on it with their 11-inch guns. The fort returned the fire but only occasionally as their guns are all outside of the bombproof where they run for protection and it is only when they can catch the monitor turning around that they ...