Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

A t the end of chapter 3 of Hell by the Acre , I tell the story of the military executions that took place at Murfreesboro on December 26, 1862. Three soldiers and one civilian were slated for execution that day, most famously, that of Private Asa Lewis of the 6 th Kentucky whose execution became a cause celebre within the Orphan Brigade. The story of the second soldier, Edward P. Norman of the 28 th Alabama, was also described in the book “while the final deserter from the 24 th Tennessee received a reprieve from Bragg just as he was about to be executed.” It was not until recently that I learned the story of how this Tennessean was saved at the last possible moment by the intrepid efforts of a Confederate enrolling officer. A total of three executions took place in Murfreesboro on December 26, 1862. The first was a civilian spy named Gray who was hung near the railroad depot. The military executions took place in an open field south of town where just a few weeks before Presiden...

B y the time the 51st Illinois arrived on the field of Chickamauga on the afternoon of September 19, 1863, the battle had already been raging for hours and, at least in the part of the field the regiment arrived upon, the battle seemed to be going against the Army of the Cumberland. As a matter of fact, the Confederates had just overrun the 8th Indiana Battery.  "We were surprised to see the enemy in such force, but as we were ordered to advance and take back the battery, there was no time lost in thinking the matter over," stated Orderly Sergeant Charles Strickland of Co. G. "The 22 nd  and 42 nd  Illinois regiments were ordered to advance and as the brave veterans moved steadily forward, we could see the enemy unfurl their battle flags and cheer after cheer filled the air with repeated echoes which was followed by their shells which came screaming through the air. The distance was not half a mile and as they advanced, the enemy fired with great rapidity."   ...

P ositioned in the left center of the Federal line at the Battle of Franklin, Colonel John Casement's brigade bore some of the heaviest attacks of the engagement. Captain James S. Putnam, serving on Colonel Casement's staff as acting assistant adjutant general, wrote three letters home to his wife in Illinois describing his experiences.  "The enemy formed under cover of a wood and advanced in columns driving in our front line without firing," he wrote. "As soon as they had all got inside our works and when the enemy was within 200 yards, we opened a murderous fire of musketry, grape, and canister that from the batteries plowed at various points along the lines.  Still, they continued to advance till in many places they actually reached our works. At the 23 rd   Indiana Battery, they came right into the embrasures and were knocked down by the men with the spikes of the guns. The 104 th   Ohio, a regiment of the First Brigade placed on our right, gave way at one ti...

F or Corporal Walter B. Smith of the 3 rd Georgia Infantry Battalion, the ending of the fighting at Stones River replaced the horrors of combat with a perhaps unexpected menace: a band of roving hogs. His brigade had gone into bivouac in the cedar forest and as “the fighting now ceased for the day on the part of our division we soon found that we had a far different enemy to contend with- a drove of wild hogs had commenced to devour the dead and wounded,” Smith recalled in 1902. “They seemed perfectly crazed by the taste of human flesh. The writer saw several fighting over the arms and entrails of the dead. The wounded and dead were soon gathered up and it was necessary to put guards around them with fixed bayonets in order to keep off the hogs.” Confederate burial details started work that night, in part to get the bodies underground before the hogs could get at them as Smith observed. Corporal Smith’s gritty memoir of Stones River first saw publication in the June 15, 1902, edit...

S ergeant Frank Rew of the 3 rd Vermont served with the Army of the Potomac from its beginnings through Appomattox, but his first harsh introduction to combat didn’t arrive in a large battle but in a fierce skirmish that took place on the siege lines of Yorktown in April 1862.           Four companies of the 3 rd Vermont were tasked with crossing the Warwick River at Dam No. 1 and seizing the Confederate rifle pits beyond which their commanders thought had been abandoned. They were quickly disabused of the notion. “The creek is about six rods wide and into it the brave fellows dashed, some sinking to the waist and others to the arm pits which of course wet much of our ammunition," Sergeant Rew recalled. "When about midway, the Rebels poured in a blinding volley upon them, mowing them down like grass, but on rushed the rest in the face of 3,000 enemy riflemen and dashing up the bank drove a whole regiment from their first rifle pit. The od...

A fter waiting all afternoon to go into action at Sabine Crossroads, Dan Dickinson and the 2nd Massachusetts Light Artillery were quickly overwhelmed once the action began.      " At every discharge, terrible gateways were made in their ranks and the shells we plunged into their midst scattered death and destruction far and wide," he wrote. " Their bullets swept the hill upon which we were posted in perfect showers but happily they aimed too low and none on our piece were killed, though two men were mortally wounded and eight of ten cannoneers were wounded. I am one of the lucky two who were not wounded though how I escaped is a miracle and a great wonder to me. One ball went through my pants at the knee, another struck my belt but did not penetrate. We brought our limber forward when there was no longer any hope of support or succor coming to aid us, limbering our gun when the Rebels were only 75 feet or so from our cannon. Five of the six horses attached to the limber ...

N early three weeks after the Battle of Mobile Bay, Lieutenant Edward N. Kellogg of the U.S. Navy stood outside Fort Morgan as part of the contingent of Federal officers chosen to accept the surrender of Fort Morgan. It proved an impressive ceremony. "At 2 o’clock that afternoon most of the naval and army officers landed at the fort to witness the raising of the old flag over the stronghold that has kept us so long at bay,” he wrote. “The Rebel troops, 560 in number, were marched out and stacked arms, and equal number of our own marched down in front of the line, the band playing “Hail Columbia,” the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and “Yankee Doodle” among other patriotic airs till they were abreast when they halted and faced the graybacks at a distance of ten feet. The American colors were now run up on the flagstaff and the Rebel flag hauled down. The band again struck up, the whole fleet fired a salute, the vessels in succession according to rank and a battery of two field pieces on...

D isabled by a shot that blew her starboard boiler, the U.S. steamer Oneida drifted helplessly in Mobile Bay as the Rebel ironclad Tennessee slowly steamed around her stern then let loose with a devastating broadside. “Three men were killed in my division and six wounded, but I escaped unscathed although covered with a shower of splinters and the brains of my unfortunate Marine bespattered my face,” Lieutenant Edward N, Kellogg wrote to his father. “Three of our men had their heads shot off and the pieces of skull bones flying around actually wounded seven or eight men. The shell that took off the captain’s arm took off the head of a Marine at my 11-inch gun and wounded both captains of the gun as well as the first loader, besides slightly wounded several others by scattering around fragments of bones which are now buried so deep in the brackets as makes it impossible to get them out but by cutting the wood.” Lieutenant Kellogg’s letter, written two days after the Battle of Mobil...

C omparisons of who was the best soldier in either army during the Civil War have long served as conversational fodder for many an armchair historian, but Captain James Kincannon of the 41 st Mississippi staked such a claim for one of his soldiers, Alfred J. Worsham. Worsham as he was called was hardly an imposing physical specimen: “He was box-ankled, knock-kneed, angular, and disjointed all over. He could not stand up straight and was never in line in the company’s formation during the entire term of his service. His energy was wonderful, his will indomitable, his courage superb, and his powers of endurance supernatural. He was never on the sick list, was always at roll call, never shirked any duty, and did more extra service than all the rest of the brigade put together. He was never idle, slept but little, and was always ready to volunteer for any hazardous work that was wanted. He was truly a wonderful man and seemed to have been made purposely for the place which he filled in ...

O ne of the most important roles played by cavalry during a battle was to serve as provost guards, providing security behind the lines by stemming the flow of men from the battle line. Sergeant Willard Burnap of the 2 nd Iowa Cavalry told how his company prevented a rout at the Battle of Corinth in October 1862. “We received orders to station ourselves in the rear of the line of battle and stop all soldiers and officers from going to the rear unless they were wounded or belonged to the medical staff,” he wrote. “This is one of the most important positions that can be assigned to a company on the battlefield. We were scarcely in line when the 80 th Ohio regiment, broken, demoralized, and panic-stricken, came rushing back like frightened sheep. Other regiments, missing their support and knowing the danger when their line was broken, seemed ready to follow. That regiment must be stopped or the day is lost! I was nearest to them and putting the spurs to my horse was soon among them. In...

F iling this one under the category of "I wish I had this when I wrote Hell by the Acre ..."       Writing nearly 50 years after the Battle of Stones River, Private Edward A. Smith of Co. A, 29th Mississippi recalled the intensity of the fighting as his regiment approached the northern end of the cedar forest around midday on December 31, 1862.       "Our brigade  had driven the Federals slowly but steadily through what is known in the history of the battle as the cedar grove. When the Federals reached the back side, they found a field 500 yards wife which, with the leaden hail we were throwing at them, they knew it was death to cross. Their officers got them halted and they turned on us with the fierceness of a lion at bay.  They had no idea of going further and we had an idea that they must go further and there we stood 125 yards apart belching death at each other with all our might. In the meantime, Lieutenant Wilkins called my attent...

R ichard Shatswell joined the 15 th Illinois in January 1864 when the regiment was home on veteran’s furlough. He was an unusual recruit- the 47-year-old Massachusetts native was twice the age of the average Union soldier. Leaving behind a farm in Waukegan, Illinois, he joined the 15 th Illinois along with his son George and soon was on the road to join Sherman’s army in northern Georgia. The regiment’s first assignment was guarding Allatoona Pass. They could hear the guns of the front in the distance but relative quiet allowed the men to focus on improving the defenses and their living quarters.   “We are encamped on a very high hill which commands the pass through these hills,” he wrote. “We have little huts built in the side of the mountain about eight- or nine-feet square. Three or four men sleep together. Our huts are made of good, planed boards and if you would like to know where we got our lumber, I would refer you to the frame of a large flouring mill and dwelling house...

C orporal Charles Willey of the 122nd Ohio sustained the second and third of his four wartime wounds when his regiment charged the Confederate line during the last day of the Battle of the Wilderness. Located on the far right of the Union line, the Ohioans charged the works held by John Pegram's Virginia brigade.      " On the morning of the 6 th  our brigade made a charge on the Rebel works," he stated. "They held their fire until we were about 100 yards from them. When they opened on us, such a sight I  never  want to see again. It seemed as if every other man had fallen, either killed or wounded. It was terrible to see the brave boys falling on every side. I had fired but a few shots when a ball came through my haversack, striking me on the hip. I first thought I was badly wounded but I found I was only bruised. In a short time, another ball struck me on the left leg just above the knee and about two inches from the wound I received at Winchester. The ba...

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 .

O n June 1, 1864, General Samuel Sturgis led an expedition totaling about 10,000 men in northern Mississippi. His force consisted of twelve infantry regiments, ten cavalry regiments (or portions of regiments) and six batteries (or sections of batteries). The march lasted ten days before the resulting Battle of Brice’s Crossroads sent Sturgis’s column tumbling back towards Memphis in defeat. A frequent question asked by students of the battle centers around the types of arms carried by the boys in Blue during this campaign. Early in the war, state governments, scrambling to gather whatever arms they could secure, sent their troops off to war carrying a mixture of domestic smoothbores, converted rifled muskets, and any European arms that state agents could procure ahead of their Federal (and Confederate) competitors. By the summer of 1864, those days were long gone and the Federal ordnance department had made great strides in standardizing small arms for the infantry. The following l...

A mong the more extraordinary incidents of the Battle of Crossroads was the artillery charge by Captain John W. Morton and his battery. The 21-year-old, General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s chief of artillery, recalled the charge in a letter to his father a few days after the engagement.           “About 1 o’clock, everything, artillery and all, was ordered to charge,” he noted. “Our line moved promptly with a deafening shout and hail of bullets and balls which told terribly upon the enemy which broke their lines and put them in perfect confusion and rout. I charged with the batteries nine times. Once I had two pieces a little in advance of the others and with them in a charge was 20 or 30 yards in advance of our line when we drove the enemy. Just before we captured their wagons, they made a desperate stand and with their reserves concentrated, charged our right flank which gave way and fell back upon the two right pieces of my battery. The en...

A s his two-gun section of the 7 th Wisconsin Battery rolled towards Brice’s Crossroads, Mississippi on the afternoon of June 10, 1864, Private Isaac Denny grew perplexed at General Sturgis’s troop deployments. “Sturgis evidently was unaware of the presence in great force for he kept his trains moving to the front, even after the battle opened,” Denny noted in a letter to his brother back home in Wisconsin. “The wagons and ambulances were jammed right in among us and it looked to me as if he intended to charge the enemy with his supply train. After we had fought five hours and the retreat was ordered, upon going a few rods we found that the damned supply train was still there. A regular stampede ensued. The roads were so blockaded that we were obliged to take to the fields. We started with both of our guns but got stuck in the mud and abandoned one of them.” Federal artillery accounts of Brice’s Crossroads are rare as hens’ teeth, so it is with pleasure that I share Private Denny’...

T he 144th Ohio Infantry, a hundred days' regiment, arrived in Maryland in May 1864 and was promptly dispatched in detachments across the state. While Grant and the Army of the Potomac and Lee's Army of Northern Virginia hammered away at each other, Co. F found itself with light duties and time on their hands at the little town of Annapolis Junction.      " Our duties are light, and at their leisure the boys have reconnoitered the surrounding country on private account, and been rewarded by the discovery of the abundance of cherries and mulberries-of which we are welcome to all we choose to pick," recalled Private Henry S. Chapin. "The consequence is that some of our company keep up a continual skirmishing with the cherry trees and up to the present time the advantage has invariably been in our favor that we have all the fruit we can eat-which, by the way, is no small amount. There is also any quantity of blackberries and huckleberries within easy range of our ca...

"I am now seated on the lap of mother earth, my left knee serving the purpose of a writing desk under the artistically constructed roof of what is in the army usually denominated a shebang," began one soldier of the 83rd Indiana in describing the night of June 21, 1864.  "I am seated in a shebang where on the whole I am rather comfortable everything considered and quite secure from the rain which at present is falling thick and fast and pattering musically- a regular rub-a-dub-dub on everything around me. And this has been its practice with brief intervals during the present month scarcely a day going by without more or less rain. This under the most favorable circumstances makes soldiering disagreeable and especially so on an active campaign when tents are bygone luxuries and one has to cook, eat, and sleep out of doors."       The misery would reach new heights a few days later when the 83rd Indiana took part in the assault on Kennesaw Mountain, a day " ...

S herman Hendrick of Battery C, 1 st Ohio Light Artillery had fought as part of the Army of the Cumberland since its inception. But at Bentonville, North Carolina in March 1865, he saw something he had rarely seen on a battlefield: the 14 th Corps running away from a fight.           “Soon after our arrival, we heard a great uproar towards the front and saw pack mules, baggage wagons, and part of a battery coming back in great disorder,” he recalled. “Our advancing brigades had been flanked by an overwhelming force and came back in awful confusion. The command was given, “Right wheel into battery!” At 3:15 p.m., we were in good shape for callers. We were no sooner in position than the 14 th Corps brigade came running through our line, one captain crying out, “Lee’s whole army is after us! Run for your lives, boys, run!” The 14 th Corps boys were not in the habit of running away from a fight, so we knew that there must be something ahead...

G eneral Ulysses S. Grant recalled in his Memoirs how “when it was first proposed to run the blockade at Vicksburg with river steamers [in April 1863], there were but two captains or masters who were willing to accompany their vessels and but one crew. Volunteers were called for from the army who had had experience in any capacity navigating the western rivers. Captains, pilots, mates, engineers, and deck hands enough presented themselves to take five times the number of vessels we were moving through this dangerous ordeal. All but two of the steamers was commanded by volunteers and all but one so manned.” The only vessel with an all-civilian crew was the steamboat Forest Queen under the command of Captain Daniel Conway. As the fleet tried to drift past Vicksburg, alert Confederate gunners discovered them and after lighting a house on the opposite side of the river afire, pounded the fleet with shell after shell. Billy Blanker, clerk aboard the Forest Queen , proudly gave the follo...

R iding into Gettysburg on June 30, 1863, one trooper of the 3rd Indiana Cavalry of Colonel William Gamble's brigade of Buford's cavalry division remembered how the townspeople greeted his regiment with cheers and songs.       " As we passed through the city, we were gladly welcomed by the inhabitants who flocked in numbers to behold the advance of our troops," he wrote. " The farther we advanced the denser the throng became and when about half the length of the street was passed, a large number of young ladies had congregated and greeted us with the soul-inspiring air, “The Star Spangled Banner.” Another square further and the “Red, White, and Blue” rang merrily from a hundred fair singers. Just as the termination of the street was reached, when every nerve was strained in preparation for the charge, hundreds of voices blended sweetly in their earnest tones and “The Union Forever” inspired the men to the highest degree of patriotism."     The following day...

A s General John Pope’s Army of Virginia prepared to fight the Battle of Cedar Mountain, the men of the 7 th Indiana delighted in the exploits of one of their comrades.           Captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Port Republic, Sergeant Harry Fisk was imprisoned in a barn with dozens of other Federals that night when he saw something that didn’t belong: the captured colors of the 29 th Ohio. “During the night, the thought entered Harry’s head that they had no right to that flag, so suiting actions to his thoughts, he waited until all got quiet,” Captain Alexander Pattison recalled. “Then he tore the flag from the staff and sewed it up between the cloth and linen of his jacket and cut up the staff with his pocketknife. The next morning, great inquiry was made for the flag. The commander of the guard offered $30 for its recovery but no one knew anything about it. The next day, the prisoners were taken on to Lynchburg where they hav...

P ositioned on the far right of the Union assault on Missionary Ridge, Private William Van Horne of the 2nd Ohio described the elation of victory as the men of his brigade overwhelmed the Confederate line with but slight loss.     " I do not think that I ever heard as much noise in my life as there was that night," Van Horne wrote to his parents. "We cheered every general and everybody else. I do not believe I felt in better spirits that I ever did before and hallowed so much that my throat was sore and I believe everyone else’s was the same. Our regiment only lost one or two men wounded. I do not know how so many of us escaped for the bullets were flying so thick that you could almost see them. There was almost no end of shells flying all around us but striking very few."     During the Chattanooga campaign, the 2nd Ohio was Under General William P. Carlin's command of the First Brigade, First Division, 14th Army Corps. Following the losses at Chickamauga, the ...

W riting to his wife back home in Ohio, Lieutenant Frank Hardy of the 94th Ohio described the unofficial truce that had developed between the Confederate and Federal pickets outside of Chattanooga by mid-November 1863.     " At the point where we do picket duty, there is a creek between the two picket lines and they stand within speaking distance of each other and for the most part within plain sight of each other so as to make a first-rate mark to shoot at," he wrote. "But neither side manifests any disposition to molest the other. On the contrary, they seem to be generally disposed to be friendly towards each other, so much so that one can hardly realize that the two parties are at war with each other."      The following letter, written ten days before the Battle of Missionary Ridge, appears on the blog courtesy of Dale Niesen.

P osted at the edge of Walden’s Ridge at the beginning of September 1863, one soldier of the 97 th Ohio described how his brigade held Chattanooga under observation and stirred up the Confederates in town.           “Occasionally our brigade, encamped in the valley, is sent down near town, to stir up the monster and make him show his teeth,” he wrote. “When it becomes known that they are going to do so, the edge of the cliff is lined with spectators. The firing can be distinctly seen but too distant to observe the effects of the shots.”           The key objective of General George Wagner’s brigade was to demonstrate against Chattanooga, trying to convince Braxton Bragg that General Rosecrans’ army would try crossing the Tennessee River north of town. The distraction worked, allowing Rosecrans to cross most of his army downstream of town and setting in motion what would become the Battle of Ch...

A ssigned as the pioneer troops for General John Logan’s division of the 17 th Army Corps, Co. C of the 78 th Ohio found ample opportunity for employment during the siege of Vicksburg. Whether it was digging gun emplacements or rifle pits, the company proved to be a valuable addition to the division but as the siege dragged into June, its commander Lieutenant Alexander Scales received increasingly challenging assignments that taxed his company’s penchant for Yankee ingenuity.           Among the more extraordinary inventions that Scales and his men developed was a rolling sharpshooter’s wagon, armored with cotton bales that the men called a ‘land gunboat.’ A few weeks later, being pelted by hand thrown Confederate hand grenades, the redoubtable Scales decided to first develop levers to loft grenades in return. But that experiment failed which led Scales to decide to make wooden mortars.         ...

U pon arriving at Gettysburg on Friday, July 10, 1863 with a U.S. Christian Commission delegation from Philadelphia, Reverend W.D. Siegfried’s first task was to escort a mother to find her son’s grave on the battlefield. “We had some little idea of the locality of it given by a comrade of the fallen soldier,” he noted. “After traveling on foot over the battlefield some 6 miles, we came upon a cluster of graves of men from the 72 nd Pennsylvania regiment which suffered terribly. The undaunted mother stood weeping while I read the names of those buried there, marked on rough boards placed at the head of the grave. At last, the name of her son met my eye. I could scarcely pronounce it. But when she heard it- oh, what an expression of grief!” Reverend Siegfried would spend the rest of the day assisting at the 11 th Corps hospital and recorded his impressions of aftermath of Gettysburg in this extraordinary letter which first appeared in the July 18, 1863, edition of the Zanesville Da...

T he 78th Ohio, part of General Lew Wallace's division, was engaged throughout the second day of the Battle of Shiloh, but had the good fortune to lose only one man killed and nine men wounded. The death of the one man, however, haunted the survivors.     The soldier was Private James A. Morton of Co. C, and his death could be laid at the feet of curiosity overcoming good judgement. The regiment lay prone while under artillery fire but Morton, in battle for the first time, wanted to get a better view of the action. He would pay for that decision with his life.      " About noon, we found we were within 200 yards of a Rebel battery and the colonel told us to lie down and well he did so for of all the horrible firing of shell, grape, and canister, those hell hounds opened on us beat all," remembered Private James Bellinger. "Pretty soon I heard someone sing out 'Jim!  Jim Morton's hurt!'  I jumped up and called Darius who was just on my right as the ball...

L ying in battery on the north side of Corinth during the fight on October 4, 1862, Sergeant Charles Van Horn of Battery K, 1 st Missouri Light Artillery witnessed the grand Confederate assault that spread out before him “like a huge wedge in front of our battery and spread from right to left in a complete line of battle and advanced upon us on the double quick all the time. 24 pieces of artillery were pouring shot and shell into them which made great holes in their ranks but on they came, paying no attention to our artillery.”           “When they were within 50 yards of our battery, I was struck by a musket ball in the left breast, the same ball passing through my left arm and splintering it so badly that I had to have it amputated the same day, although I did not say so in my other letter,” he informed his parents. Sergeant Van Horn’s account of the Battle of Corinth first saw publication in the October 28, 1862, edition of the Zanesv...

F or one Ohio-born resident of New Orleans, the arrival of Admiral David Farragut’s fleet on April 25, 1862, marked a day of liberation. “Yesterday about half past 1 o’clock, the cry was raised that the Yankees were upon us,” wrote Louis M. Beyers in a letter to his mother. “I started toward the levee where the Federal vessels were said to be lying. Reaching the river, what a sight breaks upon my view. The steamboat William Morrison was one mass of flames. All the shipping was sending forth the most dense black smoke. The Mississippi , a ram which was nearly finished and which, if completed, would have demolished the whole fleet in one hour, floating slowly by with the smoke issuing from every opening and several other important like vessels in various parts of the river, all showing that the torch has been applied to them.” “Together with the thunder which came peal after peal gave a scene of the utmost grandeur. There proudly floating in the smoke and rain were the glorious old ...

U ntil the fall of 1863, only a total of three Pennsylvania infantry regiments were assigned to the Army of the Cumberland, the 77 th , 78 th , and 79 th . All three of these regiments arrived in the western theater in the fall of 1861 as part of Brigadier General James S. Negley’s brigade.       In the following article written for the Pittsburgh Dispatch newspaper, General Negley explained how he procured authority to raise the brigade, how it was formed, and how it came to be assigned to the western theater. Among the notables who make appearances in General Negley’s narrative include Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Curtin, Simon Cameron, Winfield Scott, William Tecumseh Sherman, and even President Abraham Lincoln.

W riting a short letter to his parents a week after the Battle of Chickamauga, Private Sherman Hendrick of Battery C, 1st Ohio Light Artillery reported that he had been wounded but assured them he could "kick around quite lively.  I am wounded in the right shoulder and carry the bullet there as a memento, but don’t let it keep you awake at night for it don’t hurt me much."     Long after the war, Hendrick assembled a much longer article for the National Tribune giving a history of his battery's service at Chickamauga which is reproduced below along with his wartime letter. The battery photos appear courtesy of Larry Stevens' Ohio in the War website , the images originally belonging to an album owned by Sergeant Theodore Stoughton who figures prominently in Sherman Hendrick's narrative.  Corporal Sherman Hendrick, Battery C, 1st Ohio Volunteer Light Artillery was just 20 years old when he joined the battery September 9, 1861. Wounded in the right shoulder at Chick...

O n the 5 th of May, 1862 at Williamsburg, Virginia the 5 th North Carolina met the 5 th Wisconsin upon the battlefield for the first time. At (you guessed it) 5 o'clock that evening, the Wisconsin troops, part of General Winfield Scott Hancock’s brigade, fought a stubborn delaying action against a daring counterattack staged by the 5 th North Carolina and 24 th Virginia under the command of General Jubal Early.  In the ensuing struggle in which Hancock said of his opponents, "they should have immortality inscribed on their banners,” the two Confederate regiments nearly broke the Federal line and suffered heavily; the 5 th North Carolina lost more than 300 men including its colors while the 24 th Virginia lost more than 180. General Early was also wounded in this assault. Today’s post features a pair of eyewitness accounts of this engagement- one from Private Thomas Wagener of Co. A of the 5 th Wisconsin and a second written primarily by Captain James MacRae of the...

L ewis F. Stratton was born on February 6, 1841, to Timothy and Mary Stratton on the Stratton family farm in Jefferson Twp., Jay Co., Indiana. He was the fifth of eight children and came of age with all the trials and tribulations of life in the Indiana frontier, being educated in the local public schools. He became a farmer and helped run the family farm until the Civil War broke out in April 1861.       His older brother Isaac N. Stratton immediately answered the call for volunteers and joined Co. C, 39 th Indiana Infantry in August 1861 and went on to a distinguished career as a soldier, mustering out as Captain of Co. I, 8 th Indiana Veteran Cavalry. The following August, Lewis’ oldest brother Stephen  joined the 89 th Indiana Infantry as a Corporal but died at Fort Pickering in Memphis, Tennessee from disease in the summer of 1863. At the time he enlisted in October 1864, Lewis was living in Deer Creek Twp., Cass Co., Indiana working as a farm laborer....