Reminiscences of Parmenas Taylor Turnley

Front matter

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CHAPTER II. Pages 26 to 47

Work at Farm and Mills. Trip to West Point. Incidents and experiences. Arrival at the Academy. Roommates. Sleeping on the Shelf. Discouraged at not being proficient in the course to enter ; appointment extended to the next year. At Kinsley’s Preparatory School.

CHAPTER III. Pages 47 to 66

Winter at Kinsley’s. Entered Academy, page 50. The corps of cadets. List of Classmates, page 53. The Duel that did not come off, page 55. Final examination, page 60. Return home to Tennessee. The changes at the old Home, pages 64-66 and 19.

CHAPTER IV. Pages 66 to 95

Joined regiment at New v Voyage to Brazos Island.

To Monterey. Back to Camargc Thence to Montemorelos. Thence to Tampico. Lieutenant Richey’s murder, page 79. From Tampico to Lobos Island; thence to Vera Cruz. The landing and siege. Grandeur of the bombardment. Com¬ ments. rages 83 to 95.

CHAPTER V. Pages 95 to 127

Sickness. Voyage to New Orleans with Lieutenant Fred Myers. Thence to Cincinnati for recruits. Return to Vera Cruz late in October. Went to camp with recruits, took yellow fever; slow recovery, page 98. January, 1848, left for City of Mexico, page 99; arrived January 23d. Left for Cuernavaca ; thence to Felia’s Hacienda. Mrs. Felia and little daughters, pages 100 to

103. Return co city. Drills. Final start for the coast, pages

104, 105. Comments. March to Vera Cruz. Stop at Perote. Fearful trip with Lieutenant Thomas I. Jackson to the Cofre, pages 108 to 113. Arrival at Vera Cruz. Voyage to New ('cleans; thence to East Pascagoula Camp. Discharge of War’s men. Thence back to Texas. San Antonio. Austin. Thence to the Rio Grande. Lieutenant Critten’s resignation ; his death in Cuba, page 114. Selected site for post called Fort Duncan, or Eagle Pass, page 116. Escort to train to El Paso, page 117. Incidents of return to Fort Duncan. Thence to Fort McIntosh. Thence to establish a post on the Llano River, page 121. De¬ tailed for recruiting service. Trip; thence to New Oileans, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina to New York ; to Chi¬ cago, pages 121 to 123. Restful life in Chicago, page 124, and comment: Society there. Marriage, pages 126, 127.

CHAPTER VI. Pages 127 to 158

Portable cottages Harney’s Sioux Expedition—with steamers up river to Fort Pierre. Incidents. Indian Council. CHAPTER VII. Pages 158 to 184. Dreary life at Fort Pierre. Meeting wife on a late steamer. Incidents. Long Indian council ended. Comments. Howe’s court-martial in tents near Sioux City, page 177. Return to Fort Pierre. Vacating same for a new site now called Fort Randall. Work at that place aDd incidents till January, 1857, page 184.

CHAPTER VIII Pages 184 to 205

From Fort Randall down river on ice to Sioux City. Fearful storms. Thence to St. Louis and Chicago.

CHAPTER IX. Pages 205 to 227

To Washington. Back to Chicago. To Fort Brown, Texas. Life at Fort Brown. Met wife and children at New Orleans, despite Twiggs’ meanness. Early in 1858 ordered to Leaven¬ worth. Trip with family to Philadelphia. Incidents Arrival at Fort Leavenworth. Over the plains to Fort Bridger.

CHAPTER X. Pages 227 to 260

Short stay at Ft. Bridger—ordered to Johnston’s headquarters in Salt Lake Valley. Mormonism, pages 233 to 240. Work at Camp Floyd. Sale of mules and wagons. Dinner party at Johnston’s, page 248, page 254 leave Utah for home—arrive in December.

CHAPTER XI. Pages 261 to 268

Interview with President-elect Lincoln at his home in Springfield. Incidents. On to Louisville.

CHAPTER XII. Pages 268 to 307

Interview with John Bell and Zollecoffer in Nashville. Visit to Brownlow in Knoxville. At my father’s home, Dandridge. Called on by many people—yielded to solicitations to make a public address. Address in full, with letters.

CHAPTER XIII. Pages 307 to 329

On to Washington. Speech at Greenville. Meeting General Scott in Washington, “ Andy” Johnson, and others. Return to Chicago by way of New York—met Burnside. In April left Chicago for Washington—was stopped at Harrisburg to erect shelters and kitchens—finally, went on to Philadelphia. Leave of absence abrogated. To duty at Annapolis. July reported to Fremont in New York. Letters from father and father-inlaw. Comments.

CHAPTER XIV. Pages 329 to 353

Comments on letters. Fremont’s surroundings at Astor House. Reported for duty at St. Louis—confusion at that depot. Fremont’s headquarters on Chauteau Avenue—his lack of method—disregard of regulations. Comments and incidents.

CHAPTER XV. Pages 353 to 385

From St. Louis to Cairo. Supplied Grant transportation to take the field. Thrilling experiences at Cairo. Spies and detectives. Grant shows his cloven foot.

CHAPTER XVI. Pages 385 to 409

Sick leave—travel East. General Charles P. Stone’s imprison¬ ment—my visit to Lincoln and Stanton in his behalf. Got extension of leave—sailed for Europe—hasty trip on the conti¬ nent—back home in September. Retired from service—gath¬ ered sisters and families from Arkansas to a home in Indiana— lastly father from prison at Knoxville, Tennessee. Burnside’s cruelty. The sufferings of father and other prisoners in Knox¬ ville, and father’s wanderings. Comments on certain characters in East Tennessee.

CHAPTER XVII. Pages 409 to the end

Sent on special duty to Denver although retired. Afflicted with carbuncles. Resigned. Trip home with wife and two children 500 miles in midwinter to Atchison. Settled in St. Louis, pages 425 to 439. Some remarks as to relative efficiency of general officers in Federal and Confederate Armies. Final settlement of all accounts. Discovered I was not even on the retired list— efforts to get on it and failures. Duplicity of high public officers—a parting salute to their vileness.

Introduction

T HEEE seems to be in the human heart instinctive desire to preserve one's race and name coeval with man’s advent on earth, and is shared alike by the barbarian and the civilized! Ambition animates a large portion ; while hope, we may suppose, lingers in the minds of the remainder! Things real as well as imaginary flash up to the mind as possibilities ;and we travel on with mind and hopes sustained and accelerated by—what may be — and too often fail to utilize what is, and what has been! It is said there is nothing new under the sun? This must mean that what is has been before and shall recur in the future? The desire and ambition to excel others in the race of earthly existence, and to stand pre-eminent is, and always will be, the potent force to move men to great action ; and this too, quite regardless of any moral phase of means to an end! Success alone really succeeds! and absolute, visible, tangible force is the Archimedean lever that conquers, and at the same time becomes the corner-stone of all kinds of human government, since the world began! Therefore it is that the art of destroying life by war opens the widest field for success, and the creating of heroes; and will always be the chief factor in founding and controlling human governments!

Mankind are worshipers of idols ; the more enlightened preferring the man hero, rather than the dumb stock and stone! It is war that creates heroes! therefore the masses crave war! A few people here and there, at different epochs and periods, in sentimental moods of despondency, or of occasional religious fervor, may decry the strong arm of the sword, and advocate tribunes of arbitration; but such advocacy will never prevail ; and such peaceful trib¬ une will ever be the iridescent dream of the imagination! No human government was ever established, save by abso¬ lute physical force—nor one ever maintained except by the exercise of that force. We, of these United States, never tire of boasting of our tin-warlike popular government, forgetting for a moment that our boasted government was created in blood and slaughter ; and that it has been maintained in deeper seas of bloodshed, and loss of life and destruction of material wealth, than all other nations of the earth have expended during our century of existence! The period is rapidly approaching when military force, on a colossal scale, will be invoked to determine and settle the disputes between contending political parties and factions in our government; and to suppress the corrupting ele¬ ments and rottenness now fast accumulating! The power of concentrated wealth must and will rule nations and peoples, in the future as in the past! To this end the heterogeneous masses of the American Republic, gathered from all parts of the earth and called the populace, who are tickled, for the time being, with the appellation of sover¬ eigns ; and exercising for a brief period the shadowy fiction, called vox populi —which in turn is the basis for that other fiction, Vojce of God —will be set aside and kept in bounds by the strong arm of power, while superiors will maintain human government commensurate with the intelligence of the superior elements!

The scramble for spoils of office is a barrier to good government by the populace. Equally erroneous is another feature of our American Republic, which is the boasted contention that State and Church are separate and distinct, and shall be kept so—that politics and religion have nothing in common! This is not true ; never was, and never will be! No government formed by men since the world began was based on any other foun¬ dation than some kind of religion! The most savage and barbarous tribes on earth have no conception of govern¬ ment, save as a religion! Equally so, do all higher civili¬ zations merge, finally, its aims, efforts and motives, in the religious sentiment dominant among them. The weaker sects will be subdued, and the one stronger prevail! Every political party works under the inspiration of a religion — and all so-called political campaigns in a popular govern¬ ment are in fact religious contentions—and religions campaigns! Even as I write this Introduction, and the autumn leaves are falling silently on my grassy lawn, Har¬ rison and Cleveland are before the people for the presi¬ dency ; both parties being managed and commanded by political religionists, with a deep and pious fervor in the heart of every leader, determined to down his opponent.

The moral turpitude of motive has no place in the action. One party’s religion is its politics, while the other party’s politics is its religion; and in both parties, the incentive is a craving for power and the spoils of office as the chief object of government! The republican’s political religion forces him to detest and abhor the democrat’s religion, and vice versa! I am aware some will call this merely political differences ; but, as I have said, it is religious differences, all the same—and these contentions must of necessity terminate in armed conflict, the same as have been since human government began on earth. Bullets and not ballots must be the final arbiter! Religion is a sentiment eternal in the human heart, and shapes men’s conduct in the establishment and control of human gov¬ ernment. The earliest record we have of government among men is the alleged record of the alleged Moses! Whether Moses and the record were realities or mere fic¬ tions, it is of little moment, since the narrative, in the light of thousands of years experience and observation, demonstrates that absolute power will rule independent of all imaginary moral features! Moses found no difficulty in obtaining orders from Deity to put to death all other tribes and peoples who presumed to offer resistance! His example has been followed closely ever since! Even our modern Moses, Brigham Young, of Utah, held frequent council with Deity in Emigration Canon, in Salt Lake Valley, and received orders from Deity to exterminate his male enemies ; and, like the first Moses, to parcel out the virgins among his people! All this was right at the times and places ; because, power must rule on earth as Deity of infinite power rules throughout the universe. The earthly Moses, of back date, created his Deity or his God to suit his purposes; so, also, our modern Moses (Brigham Young) managed to meet a Deity or a God in Emigration Canon, in Utah, altogether in accord to his desires and plans. (How simple the thing seems when we look at it in its true light!)

JErnest Seymour TTuvnleg, Deceased august, 1891, in bis 17tb v?ear of age.

Preface

W HEN only a stripling boy, devoted to the monotonous drudgery of farm and field, the feeding and care of hogs and cattle, I was much given to carving my name and the date on the bark of large beech trees (very numerous on the premises!, with my cheap Barlow knife ; and from that I went further and appropriated a half filled business journal (no longer used) to the use of recording incidents, events and happenings, personal to myself. For what purpose I did this, I could hardly have explained, but no doubt it was largely from curiosity. I continued this practice, of recording personal items, as I grew in years and observation, and when twenty years of age I was tempted to review the same and to eliminate the three-fourths of juvenile surplusage and arrange in proper order the remaining fourth of the more salient incidents in a connected manuscript for my amusement and better information. This work I did at spare hours, extending through several years, and the effect was to lead me to keeping an improved diary for the future. Finally, when genius and skill produced the type-printing machine, I proved my appreciation of the invention by contributing many dollars to various and sundry estimable young women who had mastered the art of using it, by which means I had put into type print the accumulated entries culled from numerous diaries, of all kinds and sizes, from the pocket memoranda to the quarto, and the same is piled upon my dusty bookshelves in what I call my den, where I write and think and smoke my cherished eob-pipe !

Not until a year or two ago did it enter my mind to do more than leave this manuscript for my children’s disposition. My only son, Ernest Seymour, when home from college during the Christmas holidays, 1890, read over some of the type manuscript, became greatly interested in the nar¬ rative, and then said, “I do wish you would have this printed in a book." When he returned for the summer vacation, June, 1891, he repeated his desire for the book, adding, “ We cannot all have and use this single manu¬ script." The boy’s point was well taken. I thought the matter over and told him I would do as he requested, and would probably have the book ready about the time he would finish college, say, during the World’s Fair in Chi¬ cago, May, 1893. This was early in July, 1891. Little did he or I, then dream of what was to come to us both in a few short weeks. He went to bed Friday night, August 14th with a high fever, which soon developed into malig¬ nant typhoid, of which he breathed his last in his father’s arms at 1:20 p. m. Monday, August 24th, 1891, in his 17th year of age. (See Appendix No. 1.) This sudden ending of his young life gave him rest. It may be he is the gainer! Not so with me. However, I have tried to reconcile my mind to the inevitable, and as a loving reminder of the erst-while robust, vigorous and most genial and promising boy, I hereby carry out the promise I made him, and in memory of my dear deceased son, I print the manuscript in book form, only for personal friends and family. There is little in it of much interest to any others than my immediate family, my relatives, college mates and personal friends; although many others may find food for reflection, and possiby discover some words of interest touching personal traits of character of some who are mentioned or alluded to in the following pages, but always with feelings of friendship and presented in a true garb. The reader may smile at an occasional pessimistic utterance, as possibly meant for a joke or a bit of extravagance, but will also remember that many a truth is spoken as if in jest!

As I write these last finishing lines. I am sitting in the tower attic of my Ilormazo* at Highland Park, elevated more than a hundred feet above the turbulent waters of Lake Michigan, close to the unceasing roar and noise of the rolling breakers pitching over each other, as if in haste to strike the shore, all in full view from my windows; the blue waters dazzling in the clear sunlight of a lovely November day. Nature could scarce present a more charming view, than meets my eyes at this moment; but still there ever comes to my mind, the sad and unanswer¬ able question, “ Why should my son of 16 in the bloom and vigor of youth, sink to death in arms three score and ten? Why not / have expired in his arms? Is it possible he accomplished his work at 16, while I am still behind with mine past 70?”

Parmenas Taylor Turnley.

Highland Park, November, 1892.

* “ Hormazo "—Lawn and garden.

REMINISCENCES FROM DIARY.