As seen from the ranks; a boy in the Civil War

Front matter

A BOY IN THE CIVIL WAR

BY

Charles E. Benton

Preface

THIS is not a history in any sense, and it can hardly be called a story of the war, which was the greatest war of the age. There have been many wars of longer duration, and there have been slaughterings of weaker races by stronger ones; but this was, from the first, a death grapple between two civilizations represented by branches of the same dominant race, and for four long years the echoes of the picket's rifle never ceased. The desperate and heroic character of the contest is attested by the high proportion of casualties in both armies, which were far in excess of those of any modem European war.

As those who took part in it are fast passing away, I am minded to sketch at random a few recollections of events which came under my own observation and touched my own experience, believing that the impressions which events make upon any personality

VI

PREFACE have a certain value in themselves. In these sketches I have had constantly in mind that large portion of the public — and may it ever grow larger — who have never witnessed scenes of war, and have written for them rather than for veterans, aiming to present in a series of pen pictures the drama of the civil war as seen from the ranks.

Contents

Preface

PAGE

V

I

The Dutchess County Regiment — Enlistment — Night Ride to Poughkeepsie — The Mustering Camp — Enthusiasm — A Regimental Band — Departure.

From Camp to Field ....

A Winter in Baltimore — City Camp and Field Camp — Short Rations — Fun and Hardship — A Forced March — Echoes of Battle.

III. Gettysburg

Approaching the Conflict — Meeting the Wounded — On the Field — Entering the, Battle — "How Does a Battle Look?" — Work of the Stretcher- Bearers — Opening of the Third Day's Battle — Recovering a Position — Holding Culp's Hill against " Stonewall " Jackson's Veterans.

vii viii CONTENTS

IV. Page

The Crisis Battle of the War . . 37 Pickett's Grand Charge — Daring Courage of the South Breaks against the Firmness of the North — What might have Happened — Hope of Republics.

V

Emotions in Battle — Quality of Courage — Gettysburg the Greatest Battle, both in Importance and in Loss of Life — Greatest Regimental Losses Known to History.

VL

From Pennsylvania to the Potomac . 54 Aftermath of the Strife— The Price of Valor — Acres of Dead Men — Phenomena of Death in Battle — Repulsive Appearance of the Battlefield — A Forced March — Again Facing the Enemy.

vn.

Scenery of Western Maryland — Interviewing a Scout — Enemy Escaped — Whose the Fault — Night March in Storm and Darkness — Harper's Ferry.

VIII.

Virginia ....... 74

Entering Confederate Territory — Snicker's Gap, with Feasts of Blackberries — Distant View of the Shenandoah Valley — Sickness in Camp — Coincidence — The Gravestone of a Northern Girl Stops the Bullet Aimed at a Northern Soldier.

CONTENTS IX

IX.

PAGE

From Virginia to Alabama . . .88 Forward to the Rapidan — A Military Execution, and how it was Conducted — Moved to the Western Army — Incidents on the Way — Guarding Railroad in Tennessee — Topography of the State.

X.

A Winter in Tennessee . . -99

The Country was then New — Characteristics of the Natives — Did n't Know the Flag — Leaves from an Old Magazine — The Regiment Makes its Own Bread — Interviewing Confederate Prisoners.

XI.

Over the Cumberland Mountains . no

The Imp in the Attic — Leaving the Winter Camp — Hardening to the Work — Last Camp in Middle Tennessee — Climbing the Mountain Range — Rivalry of Regiments — Nick- a- jack Cave and its Blood-Curdling Traditions.

XII.

Old Battlefields . . . . .124 Lookout Mountain and its Surroundings — Gateway of the Confederacy — Battles and Battlefields of the Previous Year — River of Death — ' ' Fighting Joe " Hooker — General Sherman, then and afterward — What is Meant by "Flanking."

CONTENTS

XIII.

Battle of Resaca ..... 134 Grtiesome Preparations — Battle Scene like a Play Set on the Stage — Assault by Colonel (afterward President) Harrison — Our Regiment Engaged — Enemy Repulsed — Confederate Chaplain Slain, with his Sons — Removing the Wounded — Confederate Field Hospital — Bridge Building Hastened.

XIV.

The Mystic Chords of Memory . . 146 Memories Revived by Old Letters — The Sanitary and Christian Commissions — "Uncle John" Vassar, the Army Missionary — Captain Cruger Wounded — The New Chaplain Wished to See a Battle — " Sherman's Method" — The Recruit and the General — Confederate Letter.

XV.

The Battle of New Hope Church . 158

Mind-Readers and Coming Events — Popular Misapprehensions — Battles are Fought by the Rank and File — Field Hospitals — Pathetic Scenes — Rebuilding — Advancing — Pursuing.

XVI.

With the Ambulances — Caring for the Wounded on the Way — Hardships for the Sick — Temporary Stopping- Place Becomes an All-Summer's Hospital.

CONTENTS xi

XVII.

PAGE

Hospital Experiences .... i8o Peculiarities of the Patients — One who Lost Half his Blood and All his Conceit — Gratitude of the Wounded — High Rate of Mortality — Theory and Practice in Medicine — Confederate Patients.

XVIII.

Hospital Experiences (continued) . 189

A Day's Duties — Curious Wounds — A Cheerful Patient — Commonness of Death — Walt Whitman's Hospital Pictures — A Berrying Excursion — Murders by Guerillas — Return to the Regiment.

XIX.

Atlanta 199

Sketch of City Mansion — Death of a Member of the Band — Mystery and Adventure of his Life — A Foraging Tour — Voting for President — Amusements of an Army — Amateur Theatrical Company.

XX.

Evacuation of Atlanta — The City in Flames — The March Begun — Stone Mountain — Destroying Railroads — Immensity of an Army — Refreshing Change of Diet — Crowds of Slaves.

xii CONTENTS

XXL

PAGE

"Sherman's Bummers" — Writer Joins the Foraging Party — An Antique of the Race Course — Capture of Milledgeville — A Calaboose, a Church, and a Liberty Pole — Investigating a Prison- Pen.

XXIL

A Song by the Camp- Fire, and what Followed — A Strayed Premonition — How Railroads were Destroyed — Capturing a Steamboat — In Front of Savannah — Rice Plantations — Lumber for Winter Quarters.

XXIII.

Capture of Savannah and Invasion of

South Carolina .... 248

Army Suffering with Hunger — Enemy's Prudent Retreat — Unparalleled Campaign — Journalistic Enterprise — Crossing the Savannah into South Carolina — Cold Weather again — Skilful Manoeuvring — General Kilpatrick's Adventure.

XXIV.

Tramping AND Fighting in the Carolinas 262 The Burning of Columbia — Explosion in Cheraw — Turpentine Factory in Flames — Battle of Averysborough — '' Animis Opibusque Parati" — A Little Panic soon Ended — Bentonville, the Last Battle.

CONTENTS xiii

XXV.

PAGE

Surrender of Lee and Johnston — Rejoicing Interrupted — Lincoln and Seward — Through Richmond and over Old Battlefields — A Vast Bivouac of the Dead — Washington in Mourning, but Exultant and Rejoicing — The Grand Review.

XXVI.

The Home-coming 287

A Brief Review of the War — Regiment again at Poughkeepsie — Only a Fragment of the Original Membership Join in the Home- Coming — An Honorable Record — Dutchess County Welcomes its Veterans.

Chapter I

The Dutchess County Regiment — EnHstment — Night Ride to Poughkeepsie — The Mustering Camp — Enthusiasm — A Regimental Band — Departure.

A MILITARY company is passing with its band. The rhythm of its marching quickstep sways the air with the free insistence with which the waltzer swings his partner through the movements of the dance. The swing and step of the company is so perfect that unconsciously one accepts it as part and parcel of the music. Neither would be complete without the other, but combined they exert a power to coerce, by association, the memory and imagination in the reproduction of past experiences. In no other way, by no other approach, can Memory's players so quickly assemble on the stage and set thereon the play of past events, as through the sense of hearing. . I stand on the curbstone, jostled and pushed by the throng, but among them marches a silent host seen only by myself. My eyes close and I seem to be part of the passing procession: I am one of the band, marching on the right of the front rank, and with the instrument pressed to my lips it is I who am playing a brave march down the street. I am marching, still playing, through Baltimore; I am toiling on through a rich farming country, over trampled fields of wheat, to a blood-washed battlefield; I am rejoicing in health, then wasted in sickness; I am abounding in plenty, and again suffering with hunger.

Scenes throng in upon me with a rapidity that forbids enumeration, but suddenly my eyes open and there is the company still marching and myself still standing on the curbstone. How the music has tricked me! Those events were more than a third of a century ago, and the nineteenth century was then in its strength of middle life. These are mere play soldiers, boys who wax their mustaches and play soldier in time of peace. But stop again! my own lip was innocent of beard of any kind, waxed or un waxed, when I put my name on the enrolment, a signature which meant so much. The men of this military company who look so young to me now, average much older than the rank and file of the army of the Union did in the '60 's. That was essentially an army of men in experience, yet a majority of them were but boys in years.

The question of human rights is always vitally connected with political questions, and at the time of which I write it presented itself in a form seemingly much less trivial than it has since. When it finally culminated in a crisis in which the issue was nothing less than national life or death, a wave of patriotic fervor, sometimes deprecatingly referred to as "the war fever," swept over the land. This torrent of feeling was at its flood in 1862, when, at the suggestion of Benson J. Lossing, the historian, there was organized in Poughkeepsie what was known as "The Dutchess County Regiment," afterward officially styled the 150th New York State Volunteers,

The camp was on a certain rocky hillside of Poughkeepsie, and there may still be seen, once a year at the time of the annual reunion, a few gray-haired men who walk out there, look at the place thoughtfully, and then turn back to the city.

Naturally most of the work of organizing was done by those who planned to be commissioned as the regiment's officers, and there was much good-natured rivalry in trying to fill the companies, for until the minimum number was reached no officer could receive his commission. The company in which I had promised to enroll completed its number under the stimulus of this rivalry. When it was learned one Sunday that a certain other company was nearly completed, and expected to be entered and its officers commissioned on the Monday following, there was more than one Paul Revere who rode to distant points in the county where recruiting was going on, or rather where work was being done with that in view.

In my own town, Henry Gridley, soon afterward commissioned ist Lieutenant of Company A, notified all who had promised to enlist with him, and we were soon started on our thirty-mile ride across the county.

There were plenty who volunteered teams and wagons to carry us thither ; in fact more were offered than were needed, and some there were who drove along with us to see the outcome of the rivalry. I remember that we stopped at midnight at the residence of the Examining Surgeon to pass the necessary physical examination, and then resumed our ride. We reached Poughkeepsie some time before daylight in the early days of September. We had accomplished our purpose in having our company the first one to be filled to the minimum number required, and were designated "Company A," while our officers were duly commissioned before any other company officers of the regiment, and hence were the senior line officers.

The quarters of the camp were of the rudest description, — floorless sheds having three tiers of bunks which were expected to accommodate two or three persons in each bunk. But our hearts were very young and fresh then. Probably • three fourths of the regiment were from farming communities, and in accordance with the customs of the time they were accustomed to sleep in unwarmed apartments the winter through. But more than all it was the exaltation of the time and events which made us look upon this and other trivial hardships of camp life (which were no real hardships in fact) as a sort of military picnic.

As several hundred men were already assembled in the camp there was some attempt at military routine, the most noteworthy at that time being what was termed — by courtesy perhaps — the " Dress Parade." This was attempted at the close of each day on a level field at the foot of the hill, and at the proper moment in the ceremony an old cannon on the hill boomed a loud report. This was called the "sunset gun," and upon the instant the flag, which had been waving all day on the flagstaff, suddenly slackened its halyards and came down, "upon the run."

Day after day this performance was watched most critically by a crowd of interested spectators, and it was tacitly understood that our ability to bring the war to a successful issue depended mainly upon the success the color-sergeant had in making the flag run down at the exact moment the cannon was fired. Our ideas of what constituted military efficiency were very crude, and so were the drills and dress parades, but as I now think of it I wonder we did so well.

Yet it was no doubt partly accounted for by the fact that the War Department had loaned us an officer of the regular army, one Captain Smith, as military instructor of the officers in the details of camp and the rudiments of military organization.

There was, as I have intimated, a great deal of patriotic feeling at that time, and of the most undeniable genuineness too. Besides great numbers of the sons of well-to-do families, there were some who left positions yielding good salaries and enlisted as privates, the pay being thirteen dollars per month. But it was a sort of a fad with us then, and in fact all through the war, never to mention this motive in camp save in jest. Whoever arrogated the highest and purest motives, and announced that he enlisted because he loved his country, was sure to become a target for the shafts of ridicule. Even a year or two later, when of a midnight we would be making some forced march in the rain, nothing would bring such a burst of cheerfulness as when a luckless private, happening to fall in a slough and not forgetting the sublime American genius for humor, would shout, " Hurrah for the Union." Yet the sentiment we all ridiculed was genuine and strong, and continued so throughout the war.

For the present we were rolHcking in the novelty of our new Hfe. We were called in the morning by a drum concert, and other tunes by the same orchestra summoned us to our meals and to our duties of various kinds, not forgetting the "sick call" for those who had eaten too much watermelon. The war, though within a day's journey, still seemed in the distance, and the probability that we should soon be engaged in its conflicts and hardships, while fully known, seemed hardly to be realized. Just how it was that the mirage of enthusiasm in which we lived and moved managed to make the future look so bright, when in all reason we had nothing to look forward to but hardship and danger for all, and death for many, is something I do not yet fully understand.

It must be remembered that the summer just passed had been a most disheartening one for our cause, at least as far as the Army of the Potomac was concerned, and that was the army on which all in the East seemed to keep their eyes fixed. The summer's campaign had ended by the Confederate invasion of Maryland and the battle of Antietam, in which more Hves were lost in one day than in one day of any other battle of the war. Its result might have been a great victory for us, but it was not.

It was fought, September 17, 1862, between McClellan, commanding the Army of the Potomac, and General Lee of the Confederate forces, who, as I have said, had invaded Maryland. Accounts of the losses are much at variance, but the best authorities estimate that nearly or quite twenty-four thousand men were killed or wounded in the two armies between sunrise and four o'clock in the afternoon on that fatal day. At its close the Confederates still held a part of their position. On the following morning Lee sent a remarkable request to McClellan; he requested that he might have "a day in which to bury his dead," which was granted, and then he employed the time so obtained to escape safely with his army across the Potomac, leaving his dead unburied. Mc- Clellan had sixteen thousand fresh troops which had not been brought into action, and to grant such a request when victory was within his grasp cannot be explained in any way which is creditable to him.

I can but think now that the tremendous enthusiasm which waxed and grew in the North under these most discouraging circumstances was the most hopeful sign of a race that would not be disheartened, but rose to the occasion with a spirit that meant far more than the actors themselves understood.

Our camp in Poughkeepsie was the star attraction of the year and drew immense crowds, for every recruit's friends and his friends' friends came once, and some of them many times to visit us. But the monotonous "Right dress" and "Front face" had hardly become an old story before it was rumored in camp that we should start soon. Meantime a band had been formed by detailing from the ranks such as had played in some band at home, and I was included in the detail. In its first assembling that band was something of a medley in its composition, and its music at first was far from being perfectly harmonious. Still, our music was as good for music as the regiment's drill was for drill, and as time passed the spirit of organization which dominates everything in military life perfected both the regiment and its band for the respective parts they were to act.

October ii, 1862, there was the final cere-

THE MAKING OF THE SOLDIER II

mony by which we were mustered into the United States service, and we jovially called ourselves "Uncle Sam's boys." Then we bade the camp good-by and marched down to the Main Street landing, where the boat was in waiting.

It was a time of tense feeling, never witnessed by those regiments whose members were from widely separated localities. As we passed through the streets they were thronged to our elbows, and I doubt not every one of all the crowds had one or more friends in the ranks. The excitement was manifested in diverse ways. Some shouted and hurrahed, while others gave way to tears, and through this ecstacy of farewell we marched aboard the steamboat, which soon swung into the river and headed for New York.

Thus began an experience which for some lasted a few months, and for others to the close of the war.

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Chapter II

A Winter in Baltimore — City Camp and Field Camp — Short Rations — Fun and Hardship — A Forced March — Echoes of Battle.

IN the southern part of the city of Baltimore was an old estate which had formerly belonged to the Stuart family. On this property was located an army hospital known as "Stuart Hospital." But my principal interest in the locality was in an adjoining camp known as "Camp Millington," for this was our first halt after leaving Camp Dutchess. Just at the time of our arrival one of the family, Gen. J. E. B. Stuart of the Confederate cavalry, commonly mentioned by his nickname, "Jeb" Stuart, was engaged in a raid across Maryland into Pennsylvania, and the camp was tenanted only by empty tents and the guards walking their beats, for the regiments which had been there had gone to assist in repelHng the invasion. They soon returned, however, hungry and tired, and resumed camp routine. Before long these first tenants of Camp MilHngton were placed on board transports and taken to New Orleans. In time we also were moved to another camp. Camp Belger, and as cold weather came on we were furnished lumber and the regiment built barracks for winter quarters.

These were built in a grove of beautiful oaks near Druid Hill Park, and were in the form of one long two-story building which occupied three sides of a hollow square. This square thus enclosed had the trees suitably thinned out and the stumps cleared away, and then became our parade ground. The central part of the barracks formed the officers' quarters, and several of them sent for their families and instituted housekeeping with a degree of comfort. The wings were fitted into quarters for the enlisted men, each company having a section to itself, the upper story having three tiers of bunks, while on the first floor was a kitchen and mess hall, the latter being provided with tables and benches. At this permanent camp our cooking was done by company cooks, but never in the field, for there each one cooked for himself.

At one end of the long building which constituted the barracks was the guard-house, where offenders against discipline were confined for longer or shorter terms for minor offences. At the other end was the band quarters, and as no cook was assigned to us we joined in hiring a man, an escaped slave. Besides the moderate wages paid him we did a sort of missionary work by teaching him to read and write. He made really rapid progress, which may have been accounted for, partly at least, by the fact that there were sixteen teachers to one pupil.

Some Northern people who visited the camp during the winter gave him an opportunity to go North and hire out for good wages, but not a step would he move in that direction. He had a wife within the Confederate lines and he was waiting — waiting — in hopes.

Besides the long building of which I have spoken there were several smaller ones to accommodate the quartermaster's stores and the sutler.

Now surely our lines had fallen in pleasant places, for we were well provisioned and comfortably housed in a large city abounding in amusements. Great attention was given to drill, and with the command " Order arms ' ' a thousand muskets would smite the ground with a single thud. Yet curiously erfough, while it was known that the one desideratum in battle w^s to hit the enemy, very little attention was given to target practice. The art of war was still new to our officers, and it was the show drill that was most highly prized ; but we were to graduate from a dearer school.

As the winter wore away the regiment was assigned to guard duty in various parts of the city, and it began to look as if we might be kept there during our whole term, until Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in the following summer put an end to all such speculation, and one sultry day in June we hurriedly packed the few things we could carry into our knapsacks, and bidding the pleasant camp good-by, began the life of real soldiers.

Sudden and strange was the transition from camp to field. The knapsacks, haversacks and canteens, to which we were so unaccustomed, galled and tired us exceedingly, and when we went into our first camp at nightfall we lay down and drew the little tents over us, too tired to try to learn how to pitch them. We were on a side-hill so steep that it gave me a sensation of being dragged down by the heels, and as I dropped off to sleep I seemed to be falling off a precipice. In the night I was awakened by a pouring rain which beat in my face, but I pulled my cap over it and again dropped asleep. In the morning I abandoned my blanket and tent, for they, like my clothing, were soaked with water and seemed too heavy to carry; but I replaced them later with similar articles which I picked up on the battlefield of Gettysburg. We were each given a loaf of bread for the day's ration, and then resumed the march.

In these later wars we read of ' ' company cooks," and "details for providing wood and water," but these are all luxurious inventions of a luxurious age. As far as we were concerned, from the beginning to the end of our campaigns we never had "cooks," but every one cooked for himself when there was anything to be cooked; and not only that, but we also had to find fuel and water, each for himself, and it was sometimes necessary to finish a hard day by going a mile or more after these indispensable articles. Even utensils for cooking we had to find as best we could, for the government only furnished a tin plate and cup with a knife and fork to each. It was common for us to piece out our supply of kitchen furniture by using tin cans which, with their contents, had cost at the sutler's a thirteenth of a month's wages each.

The sutler's store was an institution provided for in the organization of the army, though I think the sutler was not regularly enlisted in the service. He kept a sort of department store which accompanied the regiment most of the time, both at camp and in the field. In our city camp, where everything was easily obtained at regular stores, he was permitted to keep lager beer, and it formed the bulk of his trade. By some curious reasoning this was supposed to have an influence towards temperance, and perhaps it did, for if the boys went to the saloons or worse places to have a convivial time they were likely to encounter still more adverse influences.

But in the field drink could not be included in the sutler's stock of goods, which was carried in a large canvas-topped wagon that was permitted a place in the line of army wagons.

It was then that his prices became exorbitant; but on the whole the sutler must be accounted a blessing. Who cares if condensed milk was a dollar a can and pickles a dollar a bottle? The goods were better to us than the dollars were — when we had them. The sutler's trade was usually active for about a week after we had received two or three months' pay, and after that it dropped nearly to zero.

It was customary for the men to combine in groups of two or three, according to their affinities, and thus secure a liti le of the benefits of division of labor in the domestic arrangements of the field. Each man carried a piece of tent about five feet square, and when two of these were buttoned together, the middle drawn over a ridge-pole three feet from the ground, and the ends pinned to the ground, it covered a space about five feet by seven. This slight shelter was known technically as a "shelter tent," but was usually spoken of as a "pup tent." It secured neither warmth nor privacy, but it was a long way better than nothing to sleep under when it rained, and the sticks and pins did not have to be carried; they could be provided as needed.

FROM CAMP TO FIELD I9

I give these details to show how sudden the change was from camp to field, but it must not be supposed that our spirits were utterly downcast by these physical discomforts. Buoyant youth carries an elixir as exhaustless as the widow's cruse and more potent than the doctor's pellets; the gift of humor, which never failed of finding an outlet. I recall a trivial incident of the second day after leaving Baltimore which will illustrate the point.

A farmer had seated himself on the fence to see us pass. Possibly some one in the First Maryland had recognized him and called him by name, "Hello, Bill!" That was enough: every mother's son when passing him shouted, " Hello, Bill!" like a battle-cry, and long before the brigade had all passed his face had become petrified in a mingled expression that would have made the fortune of a sculptor who could have successfully reproduced it. Such little incidents, having the least trace of fun or humor in them, are immensely relished by tired men on the march and have a positively refreshing effect.

This brigade, now on its way to join the Army of the Potomac, was under command of Brigadier General Lockwood, of the regular army. He usually rode at the head of the column with his staff and orderlies, and accompanying them was always a mounted man carrying a small flag of peculiar shape and design. This was the "headquarters flag,'* and wherever that flag was, was the headquarters of the brigade.