Chapter IV: Part 4

Now in the first place the streets were laid out, which streets were the parade grounds of the several companies, where they were formed and marched to the regimental parade ground. The stumps, when we camped in the woods, were carefully dug out of these streets, and the same nicely graded and ditched. Then at the left-hand side looking toward the regimental parade ground the quarters of the messes were erected. This I know will seem very commonplace to the old comrade, but you will bear with me, as I am speaking to-day to many Sons of Veterans and others, that were too young to be with us in this experience. The poles were then cut long enough to cover with two pieces of shelter tent, then laid up, notched at the corners to bring them down quite close, laid up high enough so the soldier could stand upright comfortably. The ends or gables were cobbed up to the peak, or fixed up with the extra tents, poles were fastened on with bark or withes, and the tents make the roof. Then the cracks were stopped with mud. A stick or stone chimney is built in the back end. Two bunks are made, one on either side, with crotches driven into the ground, and small poles laid lengthwise and covered with pine boughs and the U. S. army blanket make the bed. Gun-racks are made above each bunk for two muskets and two sets of accouterments. An extra blanket is hung up for a door, and the house is furnished by the inventive genius of the mess. The bunks during the daytime furnish upholstered seats. This house answers for kitchen, dining room, and dormitory, and a healthier home does not stand in the city of Cleveland. One of the best features of the whole business is, they were not liable to sale under execution, or foreclosure, neither for delinquent taxes. This house I have described was one of a large city our division built at Dandridge. Please note how long they were suffered to enjoy the fruits of their ingenuity and industry.

If I were called upon to organize an army that should accomplish the greatest warlike good (if the word _good_ can be used in connection with the word _war_), I would start, in our experience as soldiers, where we left off. The government should never build quarters for soldiers, they should build their own. The government should never furnish any transportation for well soldiers, and instead of staying in camp, I would have them move from place to place, thereby avoiding the disease that camps breed. The sooner the soldier becomes self-sustaining, within a certain limit, the better for themselves and the service.

January 16th Colonel Pickands came to my quarters and said he had a soft snap for me; said that I had never had a detail, that I had stayed right with the regiment since we took the field, and he was only too glad to confer this favor. I thanked the genial commander, though I had no desire to leave the Mice in that way; and had but very little confidence in what he said he heard from headquarters, "that we would probably stay where we were for three months." About ten o'clock a. m. the detail was ready, consisting of 149 men. The order was to march to New Market and guard the division stores. We went through a fairly good country, and along in the afternoon we met General Sheridan and staff. He was riding that same black horse that afterward "carried him into the fray from Winchester, twenty miles away." He asked a number of questions. The first was, if I had heard any firing in the direction of Dandridge? This question showed the true instinct of the great general; that he was always looking out for a battle, and had he been in command of the union forces in east Tennessee, the country would have been electrified by the news of a signal victory won, instead of a disastrous retreat from Dandridge, whereby so many of our poor boys were captured, and carried to Andersonville and death. Soon after we bade good-bye to Sheridan and staff one of the Mice, and he must have been one of the kind known as _ground mice_, found an apple-hole, and before I was aware of what was going on, the Mice were all busy digging out apples. The owner came out and protested; said he was a union man, had been from the start, and his property should be protected. I agreed in all he said, and by the time his protest was fully entered his apples had been transferred to the capacious haversacks of the Mice. Of course I was to blame. I should not have suffered the Mice to gnaw and destroy this good man's apples; but what, I ask you, could I do with 149 men that had not seen or tasted an apple since the fall of 1862? I offered to give him a voucher for the apples, and told him if he was as good a union man as he claimed to be the commissary department at Knoxville would pay him. But he seemed to know what the voucher was worth better than I and declined the same; we marched on to New Market, arriving there after dark, having marched twenty-three miles since ten o'clock.

I soon found nice quarters for my men in the abandoned houses of the village, and my mess arrangements having been broken up, I engaged boarding with an old lady that had two sons in the union army. This was one of the worst battered towns I had seen in the south. The sentiment was about equally divided between union and rebel, and the town had been badly plundered by both sides. The stores were at the station on the railroad, and after relieving the men on duty with a detail of my men, had supper, and being very tired, the old lady showed me a room, and I went to bed between nice white sheets, the first time in more than twelve months. Visions of feather beds, soft bread, pies and cakes, no marching, no picket guard, haunted me until 3 o'clock the next morning, when I was awakened by a loud rapping at my door; on getting out I saw the yellow stripes of a cavalry orderly. He very politely handed me an order directing me to march my detail back to Strawberry Plains, as the army was falling back from Dandridge. I got out to the quarters of the men as soon as I could, aroused the orderly sergeant and the men, called in the guards at the station, and started back on the railway track for the point to which we had been ordered. And that ended the "_soft snap_."

The winter quarters the Mice had built, the city one day old, was abandoned, and the brigade, wearied out by marching in the deepest mud I ever saw, slept that night under the stars at Strawberry Plains. What became of the stores at New Market I never knew, and why we were ordered back I never knew. All I know about the matter is that Uncle Billy had gone north to meet Grant at Cincinnati, and General Sheridan was not in command.

We lost more men on the retreat from Dandridge than would have been lost in a battle with Longstreet, and we had men enough to have whipped him and driven him out of the state. But "the grand army of occupation" was permitted to do no fighting, and so we wallowed around in the mud of east Tennessee.

In a few days we marched down to Knoxville and below to a place named in honor of one of America's greatest poets, I guess; in any event, it had the poetical name of Lenore, and if not _loved_, it certainly seemed _lost_. It may have been found since the war, but it was certainly _lost Lenore_ when we were there.

I suppose no part of the south suffered so much in the way of partisan warfare as east Tennessee. This part of the state owned very few slaves, and the inhabitants were largely true to the union cause. Of course, the wealthy portion of the people were slaveholders, and they were rebels to a man, and middle Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and some portions of North Carolina were intensely rebel, and thus you will understand that east Tennessee was surrounded by a disloyal population. Then, again, the Tennessee valley was the principal gateway from Richmond to the southwest and, until the occupation of Knoxville by General Burnside, this valley was continually being overrun by rebel troops of all sorts, from infantry to mounted bushwhackers. The disloyal, when the rebel army was present, informed on their loyal neighbors, and the old men, the women, and the children had to seek safety in the woods, ravines, and caves of the mountains, only to see their dear old homes in flames behind them. Even the learned and respected Judge Baxter, afterwards appointed judge of the United States circuit court, who, before the war, had a fine residence and lucrative practice in the city of Knoxville, was compelled to "lie out in the bush," as they call it, for three months at one time, to save his life; and yet with most remarkable magnanimity, through Judge Baxter's influence, not an acre of rebel land or a rebel home was confiscated in the whole of east Tennessee. While we were in one of the many camps about Knoxville, the two regiments commanded by the Brownlow brothers, James and John, veteranized, and under the order of the government were granted thirty days' leave of absence. I happened to be present at the time they disbanded. One of these brothers made a speech to the two regiments. I don't remember which one, but I never can forget one thing he said: "Take your arms with you; you will not be wanted here for thirty days. Go home and avenge the death of your fathers and brothers." This speech was received by these hardy mountaineers as a license, as it was intended to be, for murder and the desolating torch. Not a night from that time on for thirty days but the heavens were aglare with the flames of rebel homes, and the number of murders committed will never be known "until the sea gives up its dead." But never did the horrors of Indian massacre compare with east Tennessee for deeds of murder and fiendish, remorseless cruelty from 1861 to 1865.

Then on the 17th moved back in the rain and mud, and went into camp; and then on the 23d moved forward again, found no enemy and then back to camp, having marched that day in the rain and mud twenty-eight miles. Then on the 24th we struck tents and marched twelve miles beyond Knoxville to Strawberry Plains again. Then we were up and off to New Market. Then the next day marched to Morristown, eighteen miles from New Market, and occupied the abandoned quarters built by Longstreet's men. Stayed in this camp until March 2d, 1864, and then marched back to New Market. This marching and counter marching is of no particular interest of itself, but I give it to you to show how we put in the time. Of all the campaigning we ever did this of east Tennessee was the most purposeless, seemingly profitless, and dismal. The most of the time we were hard up for rations, and were compelled to forage on a people as friendly as any in Ohio, and that had been robbed by both armies. I never can forget the time we lay at Clinch Mountain Gap, when it was so cold that we had to build log-heaps in front of our tents to keep from freezing, that Colonel Pickands sent Lieutenant Stedman with a file of men and a wagon to try and find something to eat. I was at headquarters when he returned at night. The colonel, with that usual smile, said: "Lieutenant, what success to-day?" Stedman answered: "Nothing." "Why?" remarked the colonel. Stedman replied, with an oath so terrific that I am sure it was heard in Heaven (and which I hope the recording angel has blotted out, and I know he has if he has attended strictly to business), "that he would be —— —— before he would rob women and children." When the recording angel became acquainted with the noble Stedman, fresh from the bloody field of New Hope Church, I am sure the accounts were properly adjusted.

Well, this must end my recollections of the very celebrated march from Chattanooga to Knoxville and the winter campaign of east Tennessee.

General Longstreet finally went back to the army of northern Virginia, not that he was in any danger from us, but simply because he became tired of the scenery and wanted a change, I suppose.

Nothing in history is grander than the relief of Knoxville; nothing tamer and more devoid of sense than the balance of the campaign. Yet we can draw from it all this useful lesson, that those brave spirits, the noble men that endured the march and campaign, had a patriotism and endurance that nothing of storm, of cold, of hunger, of sickness, of bad management could dampen. And though many of that band sleep in southern graves, yet many lived to bring back the stars and stripes in triumph from the greatest conflict of modern times and to see the rebellious states restored to a peaceful and happy union.

_LIEUTENANT CHARLES M. STEADMAN._

_Killed at Pickett's Mills, Georgia. May 27th, 1864._
]

THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.

The spring of 1864 opened with millions of anxious patriots looking in the direction of our armies.

General Grant had virtually been made commander in chief of all the union forces, with personal direction of the Army of the Potomac.

Every lover of his country had come to understand that the policy of conquering rebel territory and guarding rebel property would never crush out rebellion.

The military policy of General Grant, of making the objective point of campaigns _the rebel armies_, met the good sense and received the hearty approval of the patriotic people of the United States.

Some raised the cry of "butcher," but every thoughtful man that knew the desperate intentions, the bravery, the skill, and the strong defensive positions occupied by the rebel armies, knew that their destruction meant severe marches, terribly destructive battles, thousands of brave men killed, and vastly more wounded and maimed for life; but in the face of all these mighty sacrifices, that the poverty of language will not enable us to describe, the patriotic people of the north said, "We will sustain the army at all hazards," and the armies responded, "Let us set forward."

It is a well-known fact that in the winter of 1864, at the Burnett House in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, the two greatest generals developed by the war, Grant and Sherman, met in counsel. Sherman, while a line officer in the regular army, had become most thoroughly acquainted with the topography of the state of Georgia, and it was at this consultation that the campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta and the grand march "from Atlanta to the sea" were developed and determined upon. It was at this consultation that Sherman said, "The confederacy is a shell and I can march an army through it." It was at this consultation that Grant said, "If you undertake it, I will hold Lee and his armies, that they give you no trouble." At the end of this meeting each of the great commanders repaired to his respective scene of action to carry forward the purposes determined on thereat.

The first of May, 1864, found assembled in the vicinity of Chattanooga, and as far south as Ringgold, Ga., the forces with which General Sherman proposed to crush the shell of the rebellion. It consisted of the Army of the Cumberland, General George H. Thomas in command; the Army of the Tennessee, under the especial command of General McPherson; the 23d Corps, commanded by General Schofield; the 20th Army Corps, still in command of the hero of Lookout mountain, "Fighting Joe Hooker," as he was often called in army circles, and also a brigade of regulars. Then as able lieutenants in command of corps and divisions, Sherman had Logan, Blair, Sickels, Stanley, Wood, Slocum, Osterhaus, and many others, _all fighting officers_. Sheridan, at that time, had been transferred to the Army of the Potomac by the especial order of General Grant, who witnessed General Sheridan's heroic conduct at Missionary Ridge.

I suppose very few of the people of the north ever had anything like a correct idea of the magnitude of the work undertaken by General Sherman in the campaign of Atlanta. The distance from Louisville to Nashville is stated to be one hundred and eighty-five miles, and from Nashville to Chattanooga it is said to be one hundred and fifty-one miles, and from Nashville to Bridgeport on the Tennessee river, two hundred and eleven miles. This long line of railway from Louisville to Chattanooga, and from Nashville to Bridgeport, Ala., five hundred and forty-seven miles, had to be guarded by military force every mile. For it must be remembered that while the state of Kentucky never went out of the Union and was ostensibly a loyal state, nevertheless, it required more soldiers to look after its disloyal citizens than she furnished to the cause of the Union, not for one moment forgetting that the state of Kentucky furnished some as brave and loyal soldiers as ever sprung a rammer and some as valiant officers as ever drew a saber. Notwithstanding, she had a large population in the aggregate that engaged in that disreputable kind of warfare known as _bushwhacking_, and very many that did not were ever ready to furnish aid and comfort to our enemy. Again, no portion of Tennessee, save east Tennessee, laid any claim to anything but intense love of the southern confederacy. Blockhouses had to be constructed every few miles of this route and a vast number of soldiers employed in keeping open this line of communications. Nashville was the grand base of supplies, where had been accumulated for many months all kinds of army stores, and from this base General Sherman had to draw supplies of rations, ammunition, and clothing for his campaign in Georgia; while the route from Nashville to Louisville must be kept open to renew the supplies at the base, as well as to send the sick and wounded to the northern hospitals.

It is almost needless for me to state before this intelligent audience that the genius of General Sherman was entirely equal to the emergency. And while the oddities and comical features of great men will usually be better remembered than any others, those of us that participated in that memorable campaign will remember well that no precautionary matter was overlooked by the ever watchful general. If what he really meant by "light marching order" was so difficult to understand that a cavalryman construed it to mean "necktie and a pair of spurs," he was no less exacting of himself and staff and many a night on this campaign he bivouacked as would a picket on an outpost. The thoroughness of his preparation was the sequel of his success. Knowing very well that overrunning rebel territory did not make loyal citizens of its inhabitants, he took the precaution to have his engineers make drawings of every wooden bridge between Louisville and Chattanooga, and between Nashville and Bridgeport. Nor was this all. He had his corps of mechanics construct duplicate bridges for the entire line south of Nashville. He was not satisfied only with his precautions to guard and care for his line of communications to his base of supplies, but he in some manner procured plans of the bridges from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and had bridges constructed and loaded on flat cars ready for use at any time when wanted. It was perfectly astounding the perfect order and dispatch with which he reconstructed the railroads as his campaign progressed, and with such celerity did his engineer corps perform its duty that after the bridge was burned by the rebel rear guards the same would be rebuilt, and the screams of the locomotive would mingle with the rattle of the musketry of the skirmishers just across the river, always reminding us that Uncle Billy's railroad was in good working order and that our "cracker line" was secure. But the vigilance of his preparation was not satisfied with being able to keep up his railroad lines—he had the finest pontoon corps that was ever organized.

Each man was drilled in the movements necessary to put down a pontoon bridge or remove one from the water and replace the same on the wagons as efficiently as an infantryman in the manual of arms or a cannoneer in the handling of a fieldpiece. It was a sight that seemed the perfection of celerity to witness his pontoon corps put down a bridge, and every line of march was thoroughly equipped in this particular.

But what I have heretofore described were not all the obstacles in the way of the making of the Atlanta campaign a success. While we were beyond the Tennessee mountains, while we had crossed the Tennessee river, the country from Ringgold to the south bank of the Chattahoochee river was naturally most admirable defensive ground. Every few miles were high ridges and small mountain ranges remarkably well adapted for defensive military positions; added to this the enemy had no rear that required guarding, had no hostile population to watch and distrust, had the most accurate information as to streams and roads, had swarms of volunteer spies to inform him of our every movement, and finally, had an army of slaves to do his intrenching ready to his hand and use when he was ready to fall back to a new position. This, all this, and more than I have time to describe, must be considered if we would thoroughly comprehend the military magnitude of the Atlanta campaign.

When General Sherman was ready to commence the forward movement, there must have been assembled from Chattanooga to Ringgold between eighty and one hundred thousand men, and on the third day of May, 1864, just as the magnolias were beginning to open their fragrant blossoms to the south wind, and the mocking birds were beginning to make the woods vocal with their songs, our division struck tents and commenced the march southward, and the evening of the fourth found us two and one-half miles from Ringgold confronting the enemy's pickets. From this time until the ninth we made short marches southward, skirmishing with the rebels each day. On the ninth our brigade was composed of the 124th O. V. I., the 41st O. V. I. the 93d O. V. I., the 9th I. V. I., and the 6th Ky. V. I. The brigade was commanded by General William B. Hazen and we had moved as far toward Dalton as a position known locally as Buzzard's Roost, a pass in the White Oak mountains. Here we found the rebels in position, the pass strongly fortified and commanded by a number of heavy guns.

At this position our brigade had an order to charge the mountain at the left of the pass, which order was executed, and we came within two hundred yards of the top of the mountain, where we found it broken off into palisades thirty feet in height. These palisades we had no means of ascending and so the charge ended. Our regiment lost three men killed and ten wounded. This movement was afterwards explained as a demonstration to deceive the enemy, but some of us will always think that we were the ones that were deceived. There was heavy firing on the right of the pass and in the direction of Snake Creek Gap, where a portion of Hooker's Corps fought a severe battle, the 29th O. V. I. losing very heavily. While in this position (Buzzard's Roost) we were terribly annoyed by sharpshooters posted above the palisades, the bugler of the 93d being killed.

All things considered, this position was properly named, and had Dore been there he could, without doubt, within the wilds of that mountain, have found some new illustrations for Dante's Inferno.

Early in the morning of the 13th we found the rebels had abandoned their position, and a party of us, while waiting for orders to move, managed to climb to the top of the mountain. Here we had a splendid view of the scenery of northern Georgia. Away to the north we could see old Lookout towering up, while beyond we could distinctly trace Waldron's and other ridges of the Cumberlands. To the south and west one range of hills after another, with an occasional mountain, as far as the eye could reach, showing us that our way was one of difficulty as well as danger.

About two p. m. we fell into line, marched into and through the pass, and had time to examine the strength of the abandoned rebel works. These works were evidently constructed with the hope that our commander would undertake to force the pass. That afternoon we marched through Dalton, a small village situated near an unbroken forest of pine, a kind from which the inhabitants make turpentine. The country seemed very poor, and from what we could see of the inhabitants we were forced to come to the same conclusion as to them.

The next day, May 14th, we struck the enemy in position at Resaca, and we immediately charged and drove him inside of his works, while our brigade occupied the line of a ridge running from near an angle of the rebel works and within a stone's throw of them. In this charge our young Colonel Payne, then in command of the regiment, just having returned recovered from a very dangerous wound received at Chickamauga that nearly cost him his life, showed consummate bravery, riding his horse in the charge across an open field in a perfect storm of bullets.

It was nearly dusk when we came into position, and before we took the ridge that finally formed our line, had some severe fighting. We had the opportunity of seeing a counter charge against General Willich's brigade on our right. The rebels came at Willich in fine shape, just as he was coming into position, but it seemed they had no real good appetite for an open field fight and got back into their works in the order of "every one for himself." That night we threw up intrenchments on this line and the next morning the enemy still confronted us.

We had orders early in the day that we should be required to charge the enemy's position in our front. In our immediate front there is a deep ravine, and the rebel works ran across this at right angles to our line. Whenever we charged from our works our right flank was exposed to the fire from the rebel intrenchments. At about two p. m. the charge was ordered and our line moved out over our intrenchments. No sooner was it exposed to the flank fire from the enemy behind the works than it went to pieces. Most of the men got back in as good shape as did the rebels that charged on Willich. Some of our regiment got into a position where they could not return with any safety, and stayed out and came in under the cover of darkness. Later in the afternoon the 20th Corps made two or three attempts to break the rebel line, but each time failing, and when the morning of the sixteenth dawned the enemy had abandoned his works and put the little river called Coosa between himself and us.

What good results the battle of Resaca may have had on the campaign I cannot say, but it is certain the enemy was forced back by some movement made by General Sherman on his flanks that would compel him to fight outside of his works. We took a number of prisoners at this position, and our regiment lost quite severely. We marched through the town and found it all knocked into splinters by the shelling it had suffered during the two days' battle. We crossed the river and marched about five miles to the southward that night.

The experience of one day did not vary much from that of another. The seventeenth we marched through a county town called Calhoun, county seat of Gordon county. It was march and skirmish every day. This is a better country than any other we had seen in northern Georgia, but desolation was written all over it after we passed. At almost every plantation we came to the rebels made a stand and the mansion house a fortress from which to fire at our skirmishers, and when we drove them out the house almost invariably took fire, and at all times of day and night the heavens were lurid with the flames of rebel homes. The country from Resaca to the Etowah river was the most absolutely desolated of any that we ever left behind us.

Between Cartersville and Adairsville I picked up a muster roll of a company of an Alabama regiment that had written thereon eighty-four names. Until I found this roll I was not aware the Roman Catholic church was so strong in the south. The four commissioned officers signed the roll by their signatures, but the enlisted men each _put the sign of the cross_ in the place of the signature. On this march one of the boys found a copy of the debates of the Georgia convention, held in the winter of 1860-61, at which the state resolved to go out of the Union.

It contained the speech of Alexander H. Stevens, made in the convention, in which he warned the delegates of the deluge of blood and fire that would be poured down on their fair state by the invading armies of the north. It seemed almost prophetic to us who read this speech in the light of those blazing southern homes, and it also seemed that we were the ones he saw in his prophetic vision. Of course, all the prophetic power he had was the keen intellectual force he possessed, and whether he believed his own prophesies or not, he was afterward chosen vice president of the confederate states and served as such during the life of the rebellion. This book was carried along for days, hoping to save it as a relic of this memorable campaign, but the time comes in the experience of every soldier when a pocketknife seems a burden, and this book, containing all the venom of the southern fire-eaters, couched in language not only learned and chaste in style, but eloquent in diction, had to be thrown away. Stevens, alone, tried to stem the tide of secession, "but it was the voice of a drowning man in the midst of the breakers."

With marching and skirmishing every day the time wore away, and May 23d found us on the north bank of the Etowah, a fine river that comes down from northeastern Georgia, the valley of which seemed very fertile and productive. This river we crossed on one of Sherman's lightning bridges and struck out over what is known, locally, as the burnt hickory district, across the ridges of the Allatoona mountains in the direction of Dallas. Here Hooker's Corps had a heavy battle, but our corps was not engaged.

The next position taken by the enemy was known as Dallas, though the battles along the position were known by different names. I should say before passing that we were now in what (before the discovery of gold in California) was known as the gold region of Georgia. Our boys brought in from time to time, while in this position, some beautiful specimens of gold bearing and crystallized quartz, but I suppose they had to be thrown away to lighten the burden of the soldier when the time comes that one has to give thought and close attention to be able to put one leg before the other. This seems hardly probable to my young friends here to-day, so full of health and activity, but how many times have we heard the dear boys say, "Captain, _I cannot take another step to save my life_." Often we would pull out of the road and go into camp near some clear mountain stream, and you would see the boys pulling off their shoes and stockings and holding their blistered feet in the cool water by the half-hour, before making any preparations for supper or sleep. But what pen will ever be able enough, what tongue will be eloquent enough, to portray the trials and sufferings of the march and battlefield, to say nothing of sickness, death and wounds.

May 26th our corps found the enemy in position at what was known as Dallas. That night the rebels attacked General Logan's Corps and were badly repulsed. This was the only serious night attack I ever knew in all my army experience. All have known more or less firing at night, but this was the first and only charging column that I ever knew to be sent off at night. There seems to be too much uncertainty about it to favor nocturnal battles.

Early the twenty-seventh we were on the move, my company on the skirmish line. About ten o'clock we heard that our beloved major, James B. Hampson, who was on staff duty with General Wood, commanding division, was killed. This was very sad news, indeed, as the major was idolized by the regiment, and we all recognized the fact that he had done so much to make soldiers of us. He was one of the most intelligent, soldierly and brave officers in the 4th Army Corps. One thing was a little strange, the major always insisted that he would be killed in the service. Early in the war the major was a member of the Cleveland Grays, and belonged to that splendid organization for many years before. He was, without doubt, the best drilled man in the 3d Division.

It seemed to be the object of General Sherman to put the 4th Corps in on the left, find the right flank of the enemy, "catch it in air," if possible, bring on a general engagement, destroy the rebel army, and thereby end the campaign. It was the fortune of Company B, which I commanded, to be ordered to the skirmish line, with other portions of the brigade, and which line in front of our division was in command of Major Williston, of the 41st O. V. I. Very many times that day we moved to the front, but always found the enemy in very strong works, and then we would withdraw and move by the left flank still further to the left. Late in the afternoon we came near the Pumpkinvine creek, and found the rebels without works. This fact was immediately reported to division headquarters. We drove the rebel skirmish line back on his line of battle. Colonel Payne sent me an order to force the skirmish line well to the front, and word was sent back that we were fighting the main line of the enemy, not one hundred feet away. The rebel line was on the top of a ridge that runs along the valley of the creek, and is naturally a very strong position. Soon the brigade came up and charged the hill, but was unable to go beyond our skirmishers. Later on General Howard put in General Wm. H. Gibson's brigade, the general leading the charge on foot. Never did I see men show more courage than did Gibson's brigade in this charge, but all was unavailing. The rebels reinforced their line with General Pat. Cleburne's division, and thereby far outnumbered the men we had engaged in the action. Had an entire division been put in between our left and Pumpkinvine creek mill pond, early in the afternoon, I believe the result would have been different. As it was a brigade was fought at a time, on a very short line where the hill was steepest, and the enemy's position the most unassailable. The result was that our brigade was the worst cut up of all the battles in which we were engaged. We fought in this position until dark, and then what was left of the two brigades, that had been put into this slaughter pen, withdrew to the other side of the valley. I have said that my company was on the skirmish line and opened the battle, and fought with the main line when the same came up. About four o'clock in the afternoon I went over to the left of the line to see how the battle was progressing in that quarter, and met Lieutenant Stedman where an old road comes winding down the hill. I made some inquiry as to how the boys were getting on, and he told me Adam Waters had been killed. Adam Waters was one of the best men of our company. He also informed me that a great many others of the company and regiment were badly wounded. He said: "Captain, we can hold this position until reinforcements come up, can we not?" I replied, "I think so, but what we want is to carry this hill." I was facing up the hill, and he stood with his face toward me, and so near that I could have laid my hand on his shoulder. All at once a great stream of blood spouted from his left breast. He gave me one look, as much as to say "my time has come," and sank in my arms, dead. I moved his body out of the road, and folded his arms across his breast. I took his watch and memorandum book, and laid his new and beautiful saber on his body, marked the tree under which he laid with my knife, so I could find the spot again, and amid the thunders of battle I left him reposing on the loving breast of mother earth, while sadly I left for another part of the field. There on that lone hillside was sacrificed one of the very few absolutely brave men I ever knew. I moved over to the right of the line, and there I saw Captain John Irving, sitting up, his body reclining against the body of a small sapling, smoking his pipe, his face as white as the driven snow. I said: "Captain are you wounded?" "Yes, it is all day with me," he replied. I asked him where he was wounded, he pointed to his right groin. I learned from him that Lieutenant Colonel Pickands and Captain Wm. Wilson were also wounded. Captain John Irving died at the hospital at Chattanooga some weeks afterward. I think the 124th O. V. I. never had a line officer that was held in higher respect, for his great bravery, soldierly conduct, as well as social qualities, than Captain John Irving.

_CAPTAIN JOHN B. IRWIN._
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It was now quite dark, and the firing had ceased all along the line. The few men that came out of the battle together gathered around Colonel Payne. He was all alone. His gallant major had been killed early in the day, and his lieutenant colonel had been dangerously wounded. Of course, we had hopes that many more would come in during the night, as we were withdrawn from the field in squads, and without any word of command that all could hear, and the men were coming in all night.

The night was very dark, and I proposed to Sergeant Orson Vanderhoef of our company, that if he and two others would volunteer to go with me we would go over to the hillside and bring off the body of Lieutenant Stedman. Ort. was made of the best of stuff, and with two others, as good, we started. Never saw I such a scene before. The old dead pine trees standing on the ridge had taken fire from the bursting shells and cast a weird and gloomy light over the battlefield. When we came to the old road we followed it up and soon came to the tree under which the body of the dead lieutenant lay. Some one had taken his saber that I so much wanted to send home to his only child, at that time a small boy, but we searched in vain for it. I never can forget the terrible sounds that filled our ears. When the wounded men discovered that some one was there they began such piteous appeals for help. "For God's sake can't you give me a drop of water?" "Can't you help me off the field, so I may not be captured?" The memory of that dread scene haunts me still, and I suppose will as long as I can turn in fond recollection to those brave men that were so ruthlessly sacrificed at the battle of New Hope Church. Would it not be the proper thing for General O. Howard (between his prayers) to explain why he left that hillside with its great number of wounded men to fall into the hands of a merciless enemy, when a good skirmish line could have held it, at least until the wounded could have been removed? I would not have propounded this inquiry had I not seen some of his war articles in a popular magazine. But I must return to my sad story. I said to Sergeant Vanderhoef that he and I would take the shoulders, and the others might divide the balance of the burden, as Ort. and I were a little the more muscular of the party. We had just stooped down to raise the body of our loved comrade when there rang out the silvery notes of a bugle, so clear and soft one might have mistaken it for some night bird's call. Ort. said: "Captain, what's that?" I said: "I guess that is some artillery call. It is certainly not an infantry call." Ort. said: "By G—d, it's the _rebel forward_, I've heard it many a time on picket, and we'd better be getting out of here pretty G—d d—d quick." Just at this instant a rebel skirmisher stepped into the old road, and the blaze of his musket went away past where we stood. I whispered to separate instantly, and away we went down the hill. The firing had now become general all along the line, telling the story only too plainly that the field, with all of its wealth of dead and wounded comrades, had been abandoned to the tender mercies of one of the most cruel enemies that ever fought a battle. Common humanity would have dictated that a fresh line should have been established on that field, and maintained there until the last wounded union soldier had been tenderly borne back to the field hospital. The only reason the rebels charged over that battlefield that night was because they knew no line of union skirmishers was there to oppose them, and they could plunder the brave dead and wounded without danger of molestation.

As soon as one was away from the light of the burning pines it was so dark one could not see a hand before him, and the first thing that I realized I was up to my neck in Picket's mill pond; but, being a Baptist, that did not astonish me to any alarming extent. I groped around in the darkness not knowing whether my wandering steps were bearing me into our lines or the rebels'. At length, about three o'clock a. m., I came upon a group of men and asked who they were. One replied they were General Howard and staff. I told them my name, rank, company and regiment, as well as brigade and division, and asked for directions. None of them could give any and I was about to leave when it occurred to me that was the corps commandant, and I, as an officer, had a duty to perform. I addressed the general, begging his pardon for the intrusion, and told him that I had been driven off the battlefield, and that there was not so much as a union picket between our lines and the rebels. You might have supposed that he thanked me for the information, and that he would have said "that he would have the matter looked into," but on the contrary his reply was: "There is not a word of truth in your story, sir. Go away from here, this is my headquarters." I went immediately away reflecting how it was possible for a man to be such a devout Christian and a corps commander, and still be so little of a gentleman.

When I found the regiment they were intrenching, and I worked with them until daylight, when we found our works faced to the rear. We soon put out a skirmish line, reformed our works, and this battle under the different names of Picket's Mills, Pumpkinvine creek and New Hope Church, was the last engagement in which our brigade took part on the rebel position known as Dallas.

In this battle of New Hope Church, just described in the poor way that a line officer has of seeing such a conflict, our regiment lost very heavily in officers and men. I see by a note I made at the time that the brigade in this action lost five hundred and sixty men. We remained in this position for a number of days, skirmishing and fighting, somewhere, almost constantly. It was at this position that we had the benefit of a lesson and example from the regular brigade. On this line the regulars joined us on the left. The rebel skirmish line ran along by the edge of a wood, while from our line to theirs the ground was open and comparatively level. To avoid losing men, we put our skirmishers out before daylight in the morning, avoiding any formal "guard mounting," and relieved them after dark at night. The regulars took the _regular regulation way_. At nine o'clock every morning they had "guard mounting," omitting no formality of the same. The rebel skirmish line, safe in their pits, firing into them all the time. The new line going out under fire, and the relieved one coming back under the same conditions. This occurred every morning as long as we remained in this position. I am not certain whether this fact ever came to the knowledge of the general officers or not, but the fact became so notorious that the men from all along our brigade were in the habit of coming in behind our works to witness the "_regular guard mounting_." They used to lose from two to five men every morning. The boys used to call it the "regular slaughter pen."

We remained in this position until the fifth of June, when we found that Sherman's flanking process had done its work and the rebels had abandoned their position, and we moved to the left to within three miles of Ackworth. From this time until we again struck the rebel position, the twenty-second of June, it was march, skirmish and intrench. This gave us but little rest, and the boys were looking haggard and careworn. This constant skirmishing, this no place of safety, this constant alarm, and night work on intrenchments, seemed to fatigue and wear out men more than fighting hard battles, followed by security and rest.

We had now pushed our line as far south as Marietta, a beautiful town, situated just north of the Chattahoochee river, and just south of Kennesaw mountain. This country of central Georgia is somewhat peculiar in its formation. There are no distinct mountain ranges south of the Allatoonas, but here and there a beautiful little mountain rises all alone above the surrounding country, that seems very much like table- land, though not level enough to bear that appellation. Among these solitary mountains, the names of which I remember, are Pine, where the rebel general, Bishop Polk, was killed before we reached our present position, Kennesaw mountain, Lost mountain and Stone mountain. All these little mountains were taken advantage of, as defensive positions, by the enemy; and here at Marietta the rebel line ran over the north side of Kennesaw, making an admirable position for its right flank. Here we forced our way very close to the enemy's works and in some places our works approached theirs to within two hundred feet, so that neither army could have a skirmish line beyond its works. When we were coming into this close position, the rebels made a charge and were repulsed with great slaughter; and their dead lay there unburied until after they abandoned this line. Some of us went over this portion of the line, and it was with difficulty that we picked our way among the rebel dead. I never saw the dead lie thicker, save at Chickamauga; and it took a strong man to stand the terrible stench that arose from that field in this almost tropical climate. I think this position of the enemy was the strongest of any we had encountered, and for the benefit of those that were not there I will describe these rebel works and defenses. In the first place there was the timber, the trees were felled and the tops turned outward, the small branches all trimmed off and the large ones sharpened. These trees, so trimmed, were placed contiguously to each other, and the buts staked down with heavy stakes driven deep into the ground. This first line of rebel defenses was about shoulder high to an ordinary man, and could only be cleared away by axmen. Their second line was constructed in this wise: A ditch was dug about four feet deep, pine poles from three to four inches in diameter were cut and sharpened to a point, set about four inches apart at an angle of about forty-five degrees, facing outward, and coming up about breast high. This ditch was filled with earth, and tamped solidly, then near the ground these sharpened stakes were woven together with withes. A more formidable defense could hardly be invented. Their third line of defense required more labor. They cut pine logs about twelve inches in diameter, and bored them through the center at right angles, with three inch augers; these holes were filled with pine poles six feet long sharpened at each end, and driven through the log just halfway. These logs were halved together and pinned, and the splices wrapped with telegraph wire, thus making a continuous line. This defense is what the French call _Chevauxdefrise_, and is just as formidable one side up as the other, and cannot be gotten over without axmen. Finally, the rifle pits, with head-logs thereon, leaving a space of about three inches, through which an infantryman could aim and fire in comparative safety, the head-logs fully protecting the head above the line of sight. These defenses were placed and constructed about fifteen rods apart, and all within the deadly range of the Enfield rifle with which our mother country had armed the confederacy; and a more accurate, longer range muzzle-loader was never invented. A portion of the enemy's line, with defenses just as I have described above, General Sherman tried to carry by assault the twenty-seventh day of June, and lost three thousand men in fifteen minutes, General Newton making the assault with the first division of the 4th corps. Our brigade was in position to support the assaulting columns and we saw the disastrous charge, but the charge failing we were not put in. Here the brave young General Harker was killed, while leading one of the assaulting columns. That the charge would fail was inevitable. A single line of battle of the enemy, armed as they were, inside of such defenses, could repulse any mass of men that could be sent against them. It would require a man without a musket and accouterments, armed with a good ax, from five to ten minutes to cut through these three outer lines of defenses, and the idea of assaulting such a position without first having these defenses cleared away, was entirely preposterous. It would have cost the killing or wounding of one thousand axmen to have cleared the way for a regimental front to charge. After the terrible disaster of the twenty-seventh of June, 1864, General Sherman came out in a long general order, which was in fact a very weak excuse for this disastrous blunder, and winding up in substance as follows: "My soldiers must learn that they must charge in all places, and that we cannot depend at all times upon flank movements."