Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

T he war was in its closing days, but at 1 p.m. on March 31, 1865, in Goldsboro, North Carolina, the soldiers of Sherman’s army witnessed the military execution of Private James Preble of the 12 th New York Cavalry, convicted of the rape of three local women.  On the afternoon of March 16, 1865, Preble got drunk and belligerent, raped one woman, and tried to rape two others. He was promptly arrested and  just two weeks later, he was scheduled for execution.  The wheels of military justice moved quickly in those days.  The 24-year-old resident of Buffalo had served in the war since the outset, first with the 12 th  New York Infantry in the 90-days service, then with the 49 th  New York Infantry where he  had fought with McClellan on the Peninsula and during the Seven Days’ Battles, Crampton’s Gap and Antietam before being discharged at White Oak Church for disability in January 1863.  Preble returned home to Buffalo where he enlisted that fall in ...

Raw recruits of Co. K of the 11th Ohio Volunteer Infantry at Camp Dennison, Ohio during the early days of the war. Lieutenant Wesley Gorsuch stands at left, followed by Private Francis M. Eidson, an unknown soldier at center, then Joseph W. Frizell (later lieutenant colonel of the 11th and colonel of the 94th Ohio), and finally Dr. Squire Dickey in civilian dress on the right. These citizen soldiers would first see action at Hawk's Nest in western Virginia on August 20, 1861 before going on to see action in numerous battles in western Virginia, Antietam, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge. (Liljenquist Collection- Library of Congress)  F ew regiments had a more picturesque introduction to combat during the Civil War than the 11 th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. It was August 20, 1861, when the new regiment first came to grips with the Confederates 900 feet above New River in a minor scrap known as the action at Hawk’s Nest in the mountains of western Virginia. “This is a most romantic ...

I recently completed work indexing the Marysville Tribune , a Republican newspaper printed in the county seat of Union County in the center of the state. Edited throughout the war by J.H. Shearer, the Tribune,, calling itself a "family newspapers devoted to politics, literature, the arts, sciences, and interests of Union County," took a pro-Lincoln Administration stance from pillar to post and as such welcomed soldiers letters in its pages.       As per usual, the goal of indexing one of these newspapers is to identify all of the soldiers’ letters that reside within and lay those discoveries out in such a fashion that they can easily be retrieved and used by fellow researchers and historians. To accomplish that, I’ve reviewed each edition published from mid-April 1861 to the end of May 1865. The hunt was certainly worth the effort. The wartime Marysville Tribune featured a total of 297 letters and articles with the preponderance of the letters written by so...

A fter nearly three years of service with the Army of the Potomac, Corporal James Alexander of the 126th Ohio was sensitive to the charge that his army " never did any hard fighting and never gained the victories the southwestern armies has." But he pointed with pride to his army's fighting at Petersburg on April 2, 1865 to counter that charge.       " Early on the morning of the 2 nd  of April, the division commanded by General Truman Seymour was taken out in front of our works and massed in the form of a letter V for the purpose of assaulting the enemy’s works," Alexander wrote. "About 150 men of the 126 th  Ohio (the remainder being on picket) and the 6 th  Maryland formed the advance or assaulting column. Preparatory to the signal for advance, and while laying in line of battle, imagine the feelings that stole over us and imagine the blood work assigned us to do. In a moment, the recollections of mother, heaven, home sweet home, and all its dear in...

A fter crossing the Tennessee River on September 1, 1863, one of the first obstacles that the 14th Army Corps had to overcome was climbing Sand Mountain. The real challenge lay in getting the army's artillery and wagons over the steep slopes, and as remembered by one soldier in Battery G of the 1st Ohio Light Artillery, everyone, even the divisional commanders, put their shoulders to the wheel.       " It being a hard mountain to climb, we doubled teams, putting 12 horses to a piece and then, with only the aide of the brave Third Brigade posted along up the hillside and the sweet music, with the immediate presence of General Negley with coat off and sleeves rolled up, could we have gained the top," he wrote. "To descend is not so difficult, but much worse on our gun carriages. Passing down over steep rocks with wheels locked, it is a very easy matter to crush them to pieces which is often done."      This account, written by a member of Battery G under...

I n the aftermath of the bloody fighting at Spotsylvania Courthouse, Lorenzo Barnhart of the 110th Ohio drew the unenviable task of burying the Federal dead. But as the area remained under fire of Confederate skirmishers, Barnhart and the other members of the Pioneer Corps had to do this grisly work at night while under fire.       " It was not very dark and we calculated a grave to hold as many of our dead comrades as we could and dug the grave about 6-15 feet and laid them crosswise," Barnhart wrote. " The Confederates had stripped them of their trousers, their white underclothes could be seen in the night, that way we found them laying around over a scope of ground about half an acre. Two pioneers would carry a man into the grave lay him down and then another on top and so on until that grave was full. We covered them with earth.  We buried 110 soldiers in that half acre of ground. We left many more unburied, we did not dare to undertake to get them as we wou...

T he buzz of activity on the morning of June 27, 1864, convinced Captain Aaron Robinson of the 121 st Ohio “that work of more than usual importance was in prospect for us. Generals Thomas, Palmer, and Davis along with brigade commanders were observed consulting together and inspecting the ground in a significant manner. We had a vague idea that somewhere about a half mile in front concealed by a belt of woods was the Rebel line of fortifications, and we were expected to charge and carry those works. We did not then know of its strength nor of its strategic importance. The sequel shows how we succeeded.” The regiment, part of Colonel John G. Mitchell’s brigade, soon advanced as the second line of an en echelon formation against what became known as the Dead Angle, an abrupt turn in the Confederate lines manned by Tennesseans from General Alfred Vaughan's and George Maney’s brigades. The Federals approached within 40 yards of the Confederate fortifications when a blizzard of lead ...

C olor Sergeant Jerry Hollinshead of the 68th Ohio had much to be proud of as he wrote from outside Vicksburg on May 26, 1863. " Within the 30 days since we left our old camp, we have marched 200 miles and fought five battles, whipping the Rebels every time," he reported home. " We whipped them at Jackson (the state capitol) in two hours and the next day started for Vicksburg where we found the enemy in great force at Champion Hills; this is where I got wounded slightly on my left side, but still I kept the old flag of our country waving."       But the Confederate garrison, now hemmed into Vicksburg by thousands of Federal troops, remained a dangerous opponent as Hollinshead discovered. " The Rebels sent a flag of truce for four hours. It was fun. We all threw down our guns on both sides and talked as friendly as anyone could, and today we are shooting at each other. It looks so queer to be shaking hands with each other and now shooting at each other. I saw so...

     Among the first Federals to re-occupy Norfolk, Virginia in May 1862 was Lewis Abel of the U.S. Marine Corps.       Writing to his parents from "one of the hottest secesh holes in the Confederacy," Abel graphically described the destruction of the nearby Gosport Navy Yard. " We found the navy yard all destroyed, the different workshops were all burned with the exception of the foundries and the officers’ quarters. Most of the machinery was saved as they had taken it all out, packed it up, and marked it to be sent to Charlotte, North Carolina, but our troops pressed them so vigorously that they were compelled to abandon everything in order to make their own escape, " he wrote.      Lewis Abel's letters were regularly shared by his parents with the editors of the Weekly Lancaster Gazette of Lancaster, Ohio. (His last name was variously spelled as Abel or Ebel.) This letter originally appeared in the June 12, 1862 edition. Letters from ...

  I n the midst of war, one can find beauty as Private Charles James of the 1st Ohio Battery described from his camp at Pack's Ferry in western Virginia in June 1862. His battery had spent the past few weeks marching up and down through the region as Federal forces tried to fend off Humphrey Marshall's offensive but finally had settled into camp along New River with spring fully sprung.       " When I look back on the few weeks when we left Beckley and contrast the aspect of nature with the present, I am forced to exclaim what a change!  Then every appearance seemed unpleasant. The weather was cold and chilly, black winter hung over us like a dark dismal cloud and hid from our view the latent beauties of nature. But the farther we went south towards Dixie’s fair land, the more like lovely spring everything appeared. When we got to East River, everything assumed a vernal appearance. Flowers were in full bloom; the gardens full of early vegetables, and as tim...

I n the aftermath of the Federal victory at Arkansas Post in January 1863, First Lieutenant Daniel Webster of the 1st Wisconsin Battery sarcastically shared the antics of the phony brave "beats" among his comrades.       " A great many men lost their legs at the first fire or what is just the same thing (the use of them), but singularly and strangely enough regained them again as soon as the firing had ceased and were the first men among the Rebels after they had surrendered," he noted. "But you should hear them talk of their feats and exploits. Some of them amused themselves by dexterously extracting the fuse from the Rebel shells as they passed by which prevented their exploding; others would stop them with a handspike as if playing at ball.  Others held up quarter sections of hard bread to stop the enemy’s bullets and one more expert than the balance (there is always one smart one in every crowd) would catch bullets in his mouth and when it was full, would s...

S o much about war comes down to timing, the 37 th Indiana at Chickamauga providing a prime example. The regiment saw action on both days of the battle and in some of the hottest sectors of the fight including near Brotherton’s farm on the 19 th and Snodgrass Hill on the 20 th but suffered only 11 casualties before General Negley ordered them to Rossville around noon on the 20 th , essentially marching them out of the battle. “Thus, it is in war,” remarked regimental historian George H. Puntenney. “Sometimes we plunge into danger when we little expect it and sometimes when we think we are marching into the jaws of death, the battle lifts and no one is hurt.” The campaign certainly started with its fair share of dangers as the Hoosiers, part of Colonel William Sirwell’s Third Brigade of General James S. Negley’s division of the 14 th Army Corps, narrowly escaped destruction at Davis’s Crossroads  on September 11 th . The brigade under then Colonel John F. Miller had fought mag...

L eonard Beck of the 4 th Michigan Cavalry only saw action on the first few days of the Stones River campaign before being sent back to Nashville on December 29 th guarding a group of 58 Confederate prisoners of war. What he saw along Nashville Pike upon arriving at Murfreesboro in early January filled him with horror.           “While the battle was progressing in front of Murfreesboro, a considerable force of Rebels got in our rear and committed many atrocious deeds,” he related. “Negroes employed by the government as teamsters were ruthlessly murdered and their bodies thrown into the ditches bordering on the pike. Whole wagon trains were burned and the road strewn with dead mules, horses, Negroes, etc. LaVergne is supposed to have been the principal point where the Rebels committed these depredations and as a retaliation, our forces burned the principal buildings of the town.”           Pr...

Barked up twice during Breckinridge's assault on January 2, 1863, Lieutenant Hannibal Paine of the 26th Tennessee counted himself as lucky to be alive as he related in a letter to his sister written a week later.       " I was afraid in the retreat that they would get many of us prisoners, still, they got but few," he wrote. "I really thought your humble servant as the boys say would go up the spout. We had to march back for half a mile through an open cornfield and many were so exhausted that they could not go faster than a slow walk. The enemy all the while was pouring in a murderous fire of shells, grape, canister, shot, and Minie balls upon our retreating column. I thought once I was so exhausted that I would not be able to get back across the field but I staggered slowly on and reached the woods on the other side when our forces railed and held the enemy in check."      Lieutenant Paine's letter is part of the extensive regimental files collection...

C orporal Maurice J. Williams served two years in Co. G of the 36 th Indiana and during that time kept a detailed daily diary recording his memorable wartime services with the Army of the Cumberland. Williams’ writing is straightforward and honest without much of the flowery literary comment that was so fashionable at the time, and is compelling reading if for that reason alone. Of interest is the section of the diary detailing the campaign and Battle of Stones River which occurred in late December 1862 into the new year.  Williams’ account has special significance because the 36 th Indiana not only took part in the fighting in the cedars and along the Nashville Pike on December 31 st , but also battled against General John C. Breckinridge’s assault on the afternoon of January 2 nd , two of the most poignant and crucial engagements within the battle. By the end of the fight, all three of the officers in Williams’ company had been killed or wounded, along with three enlisted men...