Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

" Lively and interesting times."      Private Thomas J. Maxwell of the 42nd Illinois appeared to be channeling the English penchant for understatement when writing about his regiment's experiences in the Battle of Stones River. The 42nd Illinois, part of Colonel George W. Roberts' brigade, took part in some the most ferocious fighting of the battle and Maxwell understandably took pride in how his regiment conducted itself.       " Do not think that we did not do our part," he wrote his uncle in Ohio. "I know that we fought five to one and could that number in front, but when they gave way on both flanks, it is rather more than we profess to be able to stand. The 42 nd  routed a brigade in the morning and could have driven them into the Gulf if others had done their part. We made three charges through the day and drove them every time."     Private Maxwell's letter first appeared in the February 6, 1863, edition of the Delaware Gazette p...

R olling into combat for the first time on the afternoon of August 9, 1862, at Cedar Mountain, First Lieutenant Lucius Haynes of the 4 th Maine Battery noted how the wounding of one of the men inspired the men of the battery in the fight.           “We had not fired but three shots before Abel Davis of New Portland fell, wounded in the leg,” he wrote. “But this did not intimidate, it rather incited our boys to renewed valor. Now the firing of the enemy becomes indeed terrific; a perfect storm of shell and solid shot pours in upon us from the front and right, coming apparently from six different Rebel batteries. We replied with spirit and undoubted effect. Every man stood bravely at his post- the officers working hand-to-hand with the men, taking the places of those who had so nobly fallen at the posts. We had never been under fire before, but I think it can be said of our Maine artillery not the first time under fire, that it did honor to ...

I n September 1862, the new recruits of the 20 th Maine endured their first wartime march during the Maryland Campaign and “a hard one it was” remembered Sergeant Edward Simonton. “We marched our march last Friday and hard one it was, at the rate of 20 miles a day, under a scorching sun, loaded down with gun, ammunition, rations and blankets- leaving our knapsacks behind,” he wrote. “Hard bread and coffee was our only food-blankets our only shelter at night. The old regiments said it was the hardest march they ever had. I felt ready to drop once or twice, but the idea that we were in pursuit of old Stonewall nerved me up to new effort and urged me onward.”           The 20 th Maine, mustered into service on August 29, 1862, at Camp Mason, near Portland, Maine, had sailed from Boston to Alexandria, Virginia aboard the steamer Merrimack along with the 36 th Massachusetts. Upon arrival on September 6, the regiment camped at the Washingto...

A s the thundering sounds of the battles of South Mountain and Antietam echoed in the dim distance, Lieutenant Henry Ayres of the 5 th Wisconsin Infantry, lying sick at a convalescent camp in Baltimore, called it “slow torture. We felt like the leviathan of old that smelt the battle afar off and wished to be in it.”           " Convalescent I am informed means a wreck- the leavings of a body that fever, diarrhea, wounds, and army surgeons have seen fit to let remain," he continued. "Some 800 non-commissioned officers and privates with about 40 commissioned officers make up this camp. The men are from all parts of the army and of every branch of the service; cavalry, artillery, and infantry all mixed up together. The convalescents went under the name and style of the “Cripple Brigade.”           Lieutenant Ayres’ description of life at the Fort Henry convalescent camp first appeared in the October 2, 1862, edition...

A fter losing a third of his command in the short span of 15 minutes on the first day of Chickamauga, Major Charles M. Hammond of the 100th Illinois was eager that the homefolks got the story right.      " I noticed in your issue of September 23 rd  a slight account of the fight of Saturday afternoon the 19 th  and in relation to Davis’s division rescuing the 8 th  Indiana Battery and discovered a slight mistake," he commented to the editors of the Wilmington Independent . After describing how the brigade arrived on the field, he wrote "   At that moment, troops from Davis’s division came rushing through our lines and a battery from the same division, I think (though have not been able to ascertain positively) ran over us, killing one man and wounding several others. In the meantime, the Rebels were pouring in upon us a raking fire which was returned with interest. At this moment, General [Thomas J.] Wood rode up and ordered the 100 th  to charge,...

F ollowing the Federal victory at Mill Springs, Private William Ruby of the 10 th Indiana observed the mad scramble for souvenirs amongst his peers. He proudly reported securing one of the best prizes: a Confederate flag that belonged to a company in the 16 th Alabama. “We gave them such an ungodly scare in the fight that they left their wagons, tents, trunks, horses, saddles, clothes, guns, pistols, ammunition of all kinds, cannons and in fact everything imaginable,” he wrote to his father. “A person could not form the least idea of the scene which followed. There is hardly anyone but what had a relic or trophy to keep in remembrance of the ever-to-be remembered 19 th of January. I captured a splendid banner belonging to the Marion County, Alabama Guards. I will present it to old Tippecanoe County, together with another one captured by Johnny Mackessey of our company. I also got a flute worth about $30, a silver watch, a splendid pistol and case worth about $30. I have several ni...

A t the Battle of Stones River, Lieutenant Noah Webster Yoder could lay sole claim to being the premier bullet magnet of the Army of the Cumberland. The Ohioan no doubt must have felt snake bit at the battle as the 25-year-old former country doctor sustained no less than eight wounds in a manner of minutes when his 51 st Ohio vainly tried to stop Breckinridge’s attack on the afternoon of January 2, 1863.           Lieutenant Yoder’s story, copied from a family history of the Hostetler family, is given as follows: He educated himself, taught school, studied medicine and practiced till the war of 1861, when he entered the army as Lieutenant of Co. G, 51 st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He engaged in many battles and skirmishes in Kentucky and Tennessee. At the battle of Stones River through some mistaken order of his superior officers his regiment was ordered to advance over the brow of the hill and hold the position at all hazards. The Rebel...

A fter gathering the bodies of his slain comrades, murdered at the hands of Bloody Bill Anderson and his band of guerillas outside the town of Centralia, Missouri in September 1864, one Iowa captain resolved to seek revenge for the deaths of his men.           “I arrived on the ground the morning after the massacre and received a detailed account of it from an eyewitness,” he wrote to a friend in Illinois. “I had a small detail to look after the murdered men of our own regiment, as it was known that seven of them had been on the train. I was not long in finding them, but in an awfully mangled condition. The butchers had thrown some of them across the track and compelled the engineer to run a construction train over them. There were two men from my own company among the slain and I found one of them with nine bullet holes in him and his throat cut. The other one had three bullets and his throat cut. Now talk of peace with such a race, will y...

O n Sunday night, April 13, 1862, Lieutenant Benjamin H. Ober of the 77 th Pennsylvania witnessed one of the saddest sights of his short military career: the arrival of the steamboat Minnehaha at Louisville, Kentucky carrying a boatload of wounded soldiers from the Shiloh battlefield. He climbed aboard eagerly seeking news of his comrades.           “I walked through the cabins and looked into every suffering face, fearing at every step to meet the gaze of a wounded comrade with whom I had been so long associated and with whom I enjoyed so many pleasures and endured so many hardships,” he wrote. “But there were no familiar faces there. It is impossible to describe the sufferings of many of the poor fellows. Some of them were writhing and twisting, rolling over on their hard couches and uttering piteous groans that made the heart ache. Others less severely wounded seemed cheerful and happy and very ready to communicate all they knew about ...

S urveying the carnage wrought by his battery during the reduction of Fort Hindman, Arkansas in January 1863, Private Everett Hudson of the Chicago Mercantile Battery came away with a harsh education in the horrors of war.           “Such a sight as met my eyes when I first gained the top of the pits I can never forget,” he wrote a week later. “Here and there lay dead and wounded Rebels in all conceivable forms. Some lay with a head off, some a leg, others an arm, and some mangled all to pieces. Inside the casements, our shells had burst and hit the gunners on the head and spattered the brains all over the walls. Pieces of shells weighing 15-20 lbs. were found imbedded in the solid walls inside, showing that our shells were terribly destructive.”           The carnage was not one-sided. Hudson witnessed a Confederate shell that detonated among a nearby group of Federal soldiers. “The ball cut m...

W ounded during the fighting in the Round Forest at Stones River, Private Almon Stuart of the 9th Indiana recalled the desperate plight of the Federal army on the first day of the battle, and the part his regiment played in turning the tide.       "For a time Wednesday, it seemed as if our defeat was inevitable," recalled Private Almon Stuart of the 9th Indiana Infantry.  "But the left wing, that portion of the army in which the old 9 th   Indiana is, held its own; nay more, they drove back a portion of the Rebel force and saved our army from destruction changing what seemed for a time certain defeat into a great and glorious victory . It should be called the Battle of Cottonfields for it was fought over not only woods, meadows, and cornfields, but also over three cotton fields, in all of which the cotton was ungathered."      Private Stuart's vivid description of the Battle of Stones River first appeared in the February 5, 1863, edition of t...

L et’s take a moment to review 2024 on Dan Masters’ Civil War Chronicles.        2024 marked another very busy year with 157 new blog posts, up from 114 last year. The year also saw the publication of two new books, Echoes of Battle Volume 2 and my new campaign study Hell by the Acre: A Narrative History of the Stones River Campaign .        The blog is currently at 955 posts and is fast approaching 1,000 post mark; will probably reach that sometime this spring. Blog traffic continues at a very impressive pace for which I am very grateful.        The blog’s focus remains centered on telling the story of the common soldier in the Civil War, North and South. Over the past year, I devoted more page space to telling some of the stories of our Civil War veterans who received the Medal of Honor but the western theater remains my prime focus. I’m excited to share new discoveries with you. The process of research and study remai...

O rdered across the Rappahannock after the conclusion of the Battle of Chancellorsville, Surgeon John W. Rawlins of the 88 th Pennsylvania might have expected a grim task ahead of him. What surprised the Pennsylvanian was the courtesy and kindness with which he was treated by his Confederate hosts.           Arriving at the field hospital set up at Salem Church, Surgeon Rawlins recalled the warm friendships that soon developed with his counterparts in gray. “During our stay of four days and four nights at this church and in its vicinity, we had a great many Rebel visitors from the generals down with whom we freely expressed opinions, discussing politics and the war freely,” he wrote. “We were treated with much courtesy and invariably with politeness. We had the pleasure of meeting surgeons from Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Virginia, some of whom had been college mates of ours in Philadelphia, and others were well acquainted...