Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 282, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1913 — AROUND THE CAMP FIRE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AROUND THE CAMP FIRE

GRIM SIGHT AT JONESBORO* Dead Soldier Grasps Gun in Rlghti Hand and Sapling In Other — Killed as He, Made Spring. , I was a member of Company I, Flfty-i first Ohio, and will mention an in’ci-i dent of the Eighteenth United States! that come to my personal knowledge-! It was in the flanking movement Gen-j eral Sherman made when before At-i lanta In the closing days of August,; 1864, writes L. B. Kinsey of Dana,; lowa, In the National Tribune. Whenj sending the Twentieth corps back to* the bridge across the Chattahoochee! he swung loose with the rest of hisl army, and, passing to the west of} Atlanta, first struck and tore up the* railroad leading from East Point tor West Point. Then with a left wheel 1 he reached for the Macon railroad,i with the Army of the Tennessee on* the extreme right. The Fourth corps,; to which my regiment belonged, struck: the Macon railroad at Rough and! Ready Station about the same time* the Army of the Tennessee butted up| against Jonesboro. We remained all night at Rough and' Ready, passing the night In erecting; a small works across the railroad to! firmly hold it. The next morning womarched down the track towards* Jonesboro, tearing up the railroad, burning the ties and twisting the redhot rails as Sherman’s army well! knew how to do. We had left the* small earthworks we had built during the night fully manned, and wo stepped out lively for Jonesboro with, a “Hurry—hurry!” from our officers, or we would be too late to belp gobble Hardee, who, we were told, ooH cupled that place. It was near sundown ere we got Into position to make the charge upon the right flank of Hardee, and so late before those on our left were into position that the charge was made without them. The next morning, in going over the ground charged over by the troops farther to our right, and which, by the way, was the ground over which the Eighteenth United States charged, I saw a member of that regiment standing with his gun carried at a trail arms In his right hand and with his left hand grasping a small sapling, which he had evidently grasped to help him spring over the rebel works directly In his front. He had been killed Instantly just as he stooped to make the spring, and remained ip that position, the butt of bis musket on the ground held in his right hand and his left grasping the sapling.