Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1913 — WAR REMINISCENCES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WAR REMINISCENCES

ACROSS THE CATAWBA RIVER Sixty-Ninth Ohio Regiment Had; Rough Time Negotiating Stream— Hot Skirmish With Enemy. Comrade Sfmuel Bright a few week* ago wrote about “the night we crossed the Catawba,” and said that whoever was there would remember it. I remember; I was there. The Second brigade, First division, Fourteenth corps, were there nearly a week before we were able to cross. Owing to the heavy rains, our brigade had charge of the pontoons belonging to the left wing of the army. Our regiment, the Sixty-ninth Ohio, did not do much of the work On the bridge; that was done by the Fifty-eighth Indiana, and Twenty-third and Nineteenth Michigan, writes O. P. Paulding of Santa Maria, Cal., in the National Tribune. We had no cable that would hold the pontoons, so we put down trees and trimmed off the tops and left the limbs sticking out about a foot or more. To these logs we tied stones and ropes, and took them out in the stream above the place' where the bridge was to be placed, and dropped them into the stream, where they served as anchors —at least some of them did. Some failed to stick on the bottom, and the least pull would move them. We were much hampered from the want of rope; we used all the stay chains on the wagons. We finally got enough to stick and hold the pontoon* bo the army could cross. The bridge broke several times, but finally all had crossed except our regiment. Just before the bridge was taken up we were sent out on the skirmish line. There were only about 90 of us on the Johnny side of the rivey. We were strung along in squads of from two to ten over a front of a third of a mite, and one-half a mile back from the river. The adjutant general of the division, Capt. Smith, of whom it can be well said there never was a better man. Inspected the line and gave each man a word of cheer. Did we need ItT Well, yes. While the captain was talking to toe two of us, who were behind an old fireplace, we could see Butler's brigade of cavalry, with part of Wheeler’s and Hampton’s troops, form in line not over three-quarters of a mile from us. They sent out a line of not less than 300 men as skirmishers. There were ?two small ravines between us and the enemy, and soon we saw the enemy disappear in the farthest ravine, but Only for a minute;

then they ran to the second ravine. After waiting awhile'on they came. We fired on them, and they went back to the ravine, but soon they came again.. They got ..the second fire, but kept on coming. A part of our line fell back to where it was not so open. We held our new position, and exchanged shots with them for quite awhile. A part of the rebs got into two small log houses and used them as works, but Battery C, First Illinois, from across the river, soon scattered the logs and rebs. Firing ceased about nine o’clock, and we spent the rest.of the time badgering our foe, till at midnight the bugle blew the assembly. Never did it sound quite so ssmet. After waiting some ten minutes every man for himself stole away quietly to the river, where we found the ponton boats. Some of them moved along the bank in charge of one man each, without oars or poles. We got ip to the boats, stripped off our shoes and coats .and pulled out into the streams, usftig our gun stocks as paddles. It was a perilous ride. I was in the boat farthest upstream, and we landed 160 yards below where the lantern was placed to guard us. Several of the boats came near going over the falls, and had they done so all would have been lost Our only casualty was Sergeant Tom Adams of Compay A, shot through the right arm. The crossing was made at Rocky Mt P. 0.