Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

B y the time the gunboat U.S.S. Mound City made it down the Red River in May 1864, the ironclad had to dump much of its armor and 13 guns to get through the low waters. Reading the following letters from Engineer John Harnett, his determination and simple faith in success come through strongly, as well as a sense of the surreal.       A prime example is his description of how the Mound City got over the falls of the river at Bailey's Dam. "The fall was eight feet; the break just large enough for the boats to pass through," he said. "As ours was the first boat over the falls, we were the first ordered over the dam. We went out into the stream and got a good start and headed all right, put 150 lbs of steam to her, and down she went, burying herself completely and striking the rocky bottom with such great violence that she immediately stopped. Our rudder unshipped and the water roared over us in a perfect torrent. Had we not taken the precaution to close and batten al...

W orking in the darkened engine room of the gunboat U.S.S. Mound City , Engineer John M. Hartnett recalled the experience as his gunboat ran the batteries at Vicksburg on the night of April 16-17, 1863. “For about 30 minutes there was a constant stream of shot whizzing and shells screeching over and around us, mostly over,” he noted. “No person that has never been under fire of batteries can have any idea of the charming sensation produced by these shells. My position, of course, was in the engine room as it was of all the other engineers so that in case should be killed or disabled, another could take his place. We were obliged to handle the engine in the dark as no lights were allowed on the ship, which made it very disagreeable for us as we could not see anything that was going on outside but could hear distinctly the shots as they passed and those that struck us.”           Engineer Hartnett’s account of running the batteries at Vicks...

A s experienced in the 3rd Vermont, the fighting at Spotsylvania Courthouse ranked among the closest fighting of their war.       "It was a hand-to-hand contest," recalled Lieutenant Frank Rew. "Our brigade, in fact our division, fought 8 hours with only a rifle pit between them and the enemy. Each party would point their guns over the breastworks and fire down at random much of the time for every man that rose to fire was sure to die. Very many here were killed with the bayonet and clubbed musket and each party would throw stones and rails over upon the heads of their opponents. One man showed me a bayonet he wrenched from a Rebel gun as it was thrust over to be fired."           Frank Rew regularly sent missives back to his parents in Illinois throughout the war starting with his regiment’s first engagements outside Yorktown, Virginia in April 1862 which was featured recently on the blog. This account of Spotsylvania C...

P ulled from guard duty at Camp Bradford in Maryland on July 4, 1864, Private Charles Wise and 99 of his comrades of the 159th Ohio were detailed act as mounted infantry to help fend off Jubal Early's invasion of the state.       By July 9th, the detachment found itself on the far right of the Union line at the Battle of Monocacy opened. " The Johnnies formed their skirmishers in line and we did the same. Our company was ordered to advance and formed our line of skirmishers which we occupied until 4 o’clock in the afternoon when were ordered away from our posts by the captain. When we came upon the road, we found ourselves surrounded on all sides by the Johnnies and were cut off from the rest of the command. We knew not what to do, so the captain said, ‘Boys, let’s get out of here.’ We made a charge up the pike and went through the Johnnies and their fire all right and safely without harm.  We retreated down the pike on the way to Baltimore. We were ordered to c...

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...