Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1886 — WAR ANNALS. [ARTICLE]

WAR ANNALS.

Old Soldiers of Both Armies Fighting Their Battles Over Again. ; '/ - ' r —~‘ Aneedotes of the Bettie-field, the Weary March, and the Cheerful Camp-fire. G. A. R. The following account of the organization, taken from the Chicago Inter Ocean, will be interesting to many: The order of the Grand Army of the Republic was organized in the State of Illinois early in the year 1866. To Dr. B. EStephenson, of Springfield, 111., belongs the hopor of suggesting the formation of this union of veteran soldiers, and of launching the organization into existence. The object of the combination was to afford assistance to disabled and unemployed soldiers. Dr. Stephenson had been a surgeon in a volunteer regiment during the war, and was firmly convinced that an organization of the returned'volunteers, for mutual benefit, was imperatively'needed. A ritual was drafted under his supervision, and the first post of the new order was formed at Decatur, 111. Other posts were soon mustered throughout Illinois and contiguous States, and the first department (State) convention was held at Springfield, 111., July 12 fc 1866. General John M. Palmer was there elected Department Commander. October 31, 1866, Dr. Stephen.son, As Provisional Commander-in-chief, sent out an order to all the posts then formed, calling for the first national convention of the Grand Army of the Republic. This was held in Indianapolis, Ind., on November 20 following, and representatives were present from the States of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, lowa, Kentucky, Indiana, and the District of Columbia. General S. A. Hurlbut was elected Commander-in-chief. During the year 1867 the order spread rapidly. The various States completed their work of department organization, and posts were formed in all the large towns and in many counties. The second national encampment, meeting at Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 15, 1868, found the order in a most promising condition. In 1868 the first observance of May 30 as Memorial Day, by the Grand Army, was ordered. May 11, 1870, this date was fixed upon for annual observance by an article adopted as a part of the rules and regulations of the order. Unfortunately, during the warmly contested political campaign of 1868, the idea that the army was intended as a political organization gained currency, with the result of injuring the order greatly. A heavy decrease of membership followed, causing almost a total disruption of the order in the West. In May, 1869, a change in the ritual was made, providing for three grades of membership, but this met with little favor,* and in 1871 all sections providing for degrees of ranks among members were stricken from the rules of the order. At the same time a rule was adopted prohibiting the use of the organization for any partisan' purpose whatever, a principle which has ever since been strictly adhered to. Following is the record of the national encampments of the Grand Army of the Republic held thus far, with the names ’of the Commanders-in-Chief ■ - ► •" 1. Indianapolis, Ind., Nov 3, 1866; S. A. Hurlbut, Illinois. 2. Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 15,1868; John A. Logan, Illinois. - 3. Cincinnati, Ohio, May 12, 1869; John A. Logan, Illinois. 4. Washington, May 11, 1870; John A. Logan, Illinois. 5. Boston, Mass., May 10, 1871; A. E. Burnside, Rhode Island. 6. Cleveland, Ohio, May 8, 1872; A. E. Burnside, Rhode Island. 7. N§w Haven, Conn., .May 14, 1873; Charles Devens, JnfeMassachusetts. 8. Harrisburg, Pa., May 13,1874; Charles Devens, Jr., Massachusetts. 9. Chicago, 111., May 12, 1875; John F. Hartranft, Pennsylvania, 10. Philadelphia, Pa., June 30, 1876; John F. Hartranft, Pennsylvania. 11. Providence, R. 1., June 26, 1877; John C. Robinson, New York. 12. Springfield, Mass., June 4, 1878; John C. Robinson, New York. 13. Albany, N. Y., June 17, 1879; William Earnshaw, Ohio. 14. Dayton, Ohio, June 8, 1880; Louis Wagner, Pennsylvania. 15. Indianapolis, Ind., June 15, 1881; George S. Merrill, Massachusetts. 16. Baltimore, Md., June 21,1882; Paul Van Der Voort, Nebraska. 17. Denver, Col., July 25, 1883; Robert B. Beatte, Pennsylvania. 18. Minneapolis, Minn., July 23, 1884; John S. Kountz, Ohio. 19. Portland, Me., June 24, 1885; S. S. Burdett, Washington. There were in the Grand Army of the Republic, March 13, 1885, 5,026 posts and 269,694 members in good standing. Grant and Shiloh. I don’t know any two names that will catch the eye quicker than the above, and, perhaps, there are few headings that would as certainly secure my article a reading. I have in mind to write of some wonderful escapes I have read about, and thought I would write “what I know about” some others. I knew at the time of the battle of Shiloh of sei era! soldiers who had balls glanced off them by memorandum books, etc., in their pockets, but at this date I can name but one case, that of Curtis J. JdneS, Company I, Fourtebnth Illinois Infantry, who was struck on the belt plate, and thought for a while that-he was “kilt entirely.” It was as close a cull as he wanted, and so he did not refuse the next chance to take Command of six mules, and neither would I had 1 been as good a teamster ns he. But like thousands of others who did good service, he has never expected to receive even so small a notice as this. But this record would be incomplete without mention of his two brothers< and old Father J ess e J. Jones, all in the sendee. Benjamin F was one of those who, failing to get into an Illinois regiment, joined the Second Missouri Cavalry, and served out his term. But now, my trusty pen, it is hairbreadth escapes we are after, and we have one to narrate that will tax your rarest powers, and if you were in the hands of a Philadelphia lawyer perhaps you might make up Vour case. It happened in this wise; On the bright and charming Sunday morning of April 6, 1862, when the reveille aroused us, from our unbroken slumber, there was nothing to indicate the murderous slaughter that was so soon to begin. We of Hurlburt’s division were camped in reserve, perhaps two miles from the scene of the first attack-- We _were cleaning and nibbing up for our usual Sunday inspection, when the rattle of musketry was heard in the distance, and soon, like a rushing tornado, the fearful roar extended for miles along -our line. To describe the emotions one feels in such an hour is beyond my ability. The long and ominous roll of the drums, the clarion voioes of Colonel Hall and Lieutenant Colonel Camm, with the order,

“Fall in, Fourteenth Regiment!” might cause a thrill in a heart of stone. I had just been placed on guard over the comyissary'istores. What should I do? I dare not leave imy'post, but how could I stand there and see the boys march off to flory and leave me idling. “Colonel, may go?” was answered, '‘Stay where you are;” and an appeal to several of the boys to change places with me was equally a failure. But in an h6ur I was “relieved” in a manner I hadn’t looked for. First, a dozen or more of the boys, with bleeding wounds and shattered limbs, came back to camp. ‘ And what was more shocking to me was a dozen more, who had no good cause for their return to camp, and then came Colonel Camm. “Fall in, boys! we’ll give ’em all we’ve got;" and there were few who copld withstand the order of Colonel Camm. Alid here was my opportunity, although I had missed the “hornet’s nest,” and the whirlpool of death, all around me; and to this day I can not dispel the feeling that if I had been there I would be there yet; and herein was my narrow escape, for the first onset of that fearful contest was the most horrible experience of my life. r Our line had in the meantime sustained the Shock again, had retired and reformed, and when we fell in with it the regiment sedmed but a company. Bnt we had enough to do keeping the enemy in check, retiring slowly, until just before night, when we had formed the solidest line of the day. There was a furious dash upon our left, which was easily repulsed witn the aid of the gunboats and heavy artillery, and then we laid down in line to rest till the morning. A good rain during the night did not add to our comfort, but it was a godsend to our wounded comrades. Little cared we for what should come next, and never was sleep more refreshing, although we awoke to find ourselves besmeared with mud. A printed list of names of the little band that thus slept in line is one of the few relics that remain to us of that eventful day.— J. W. Covington, in Chicago Ledger. Capturing a Mule. During Sherman’s march to the sea we all got marching enough. We got very tired of the everlasting up one hillside, down another, and crossing narrow valleys, or mayhap following some stream for a day or more. It seemed as if the world was growing larger in that part, and we were following the largest part. At Cowpens I became possessed of what is called a war-halter —a simple affair, made of rope. Soon after three of us set out to see what we could “find.” We found a plantation, but that was not movable property; but in a pen stood a nice, hon-est-looking mule. Now my halter comes in use. I began to skirmish with that mule. He surrendered so soon that I supposed I had found a prize, and determined to ride into camp. No trudging on foot hereafter—l owned a mule. With a little aid from my comrades I mounted, taking with me my knapsack, haversack, canteen, cartridge-box, and sixty rounds, and slinging my musket over my shoulder was ready to march. Muley was not ready. He seldom is ready. I was not much surprised, having seen mules before; I proceeded to administer boot-heels as spurs, when, it seemed to me, there was an explosion of mule. I went heavenward, likewise gun, canteen, knapsack, haversack, and cartridge box. I never knew how far I went up nor how much time I was up. I know I went up and that I came back down to earth the shortest way. I did not “light” on the mule. I did not again mount the mule. Upon reflection I concluded that I did not want to make either that upward or downward journey again. Indeed, I may as well confess that my desire to ride that mule had departed. I looked upon marching in Sherman’s army as a healthy exercise. That mule stood there like “the boy on the burning deck." He looked sleepy, innocent, happy, unimaginative, kindly, honest, friendly, as if he didn’t mean it and wouldn’t again. I quoted Patrick Henry at him: “Trust it not, sir! Suffer not yourself to be betrayed by a kiss.” Just then that mule sounded the surgeon’s call —did. you ever hear it? It sounded like the song of a fog horn. I waited not for the surgeon, but started after my regiment. In due time my comrades followed, working that mule into camp. One was ahead pulling at the halter; the other persuaded from the rear. They earned all he brought them from the Quartermaster.—l Fm. Trott, in Chicago Ledger. • Taken Prisoner. The stories of war cannot all be of victory or of lucky escapes. There are many and various sorts of successes and a corresponding many failures. I write you of an occasion which has to rank amoug the events which had been ordered differently had we been able to see the result from the beginning. We were in South Carolina, on a river with a big name, waiting for the pontoons to be laid, and a mile of swamp to be corduroyed so we could move our guns. For two or three days we had been lying thus, and handy, near-by forage was getting scarce. In consequence a detail was made from the first division of one hundred men, and we were mounted on such pack mules and old horses as we could find, and set out in high glee, happy as boys “out of school” at the chance of a ride. Ten miles were got over ere we found ’ supplies—flour, meal and hams. We were appropriating these, getting dinner and generally hurrying things, when our pickets were driven in by a brigade of Confederate cavalry. We were in no good shape to fight them, hence undertook running. We soon found the ford in their hands, and that our only chance lay in swimming the river, each on his own hook. It did seem as if my mule would never get there —he was too slow, in spite of all I could Jo. A Johnny was after me individually. He had emptied his revolver when I lit off the mule, leaped the fence and made for the stream, In I went and to the bottom—found it deep, and there left my gun. When I got up to daylight again there was my red-headed, one-eyed Johnny pointing his musket at me, and ordering me in out of the wet. I answered affirmatively—providing I could. How I wished just then that he was blind in both eyes. I surrendered in the river. As soon as I was out my money and watch were confiscated, and then we swapped clothing, his trade not mine. He took my hat for his. minus rim and running up,,to. a peak, and my other clothing and shoes, giving me a pair an inch too short, from which I cut away the fronts, so that my toes could have room outside. I was no dude when rigged in his garments. During this time two of our boys had drowned, and one had got away and gone to camp. The remgihmgtniniyrseven jwerc prisoners. and were shipped to Libby Prison as soon as convenient. There is neither fun, romance, nor glory in being tt ken prisoner. Wm. Shepherd. Chaplain's Rooster. One day while in pursuit of a lot of bushwhackers in Southern Missouri we chanced to march by a farm house near the road, and bn the fence stood a large specimen of the Dominique variety of rooster. He was ‘- •_ - —--Jt . ———Trjr--1— •

just in the act of flapping his wings and - crowing, when a leng, lean, hnngryMooking private from on Illinois regiment stepped forth and exclaimed,, “I say, b-boys, I’ll bet that rooster is rank s-secesh! ” and raising his shooting iron he cut off the tall rooster in tho midst of its “' hoop-te-do-do-o 1” Chaplain C who chanced to be riding past, tqrned toward him in holy horror. “Who shot that chickenhe howled--I*l uh-shot it,” returned the Illinois man. "You did, eh? Didn’t you know, sir, that you did very wrong? Very wrong, indeed. ~i hope, sir, that you will never be guilty of another such act. Such work should be stopped at once. So, then, my man, you thought you would forage a little, did you?” “N-no, sir," stuttered the culprit, ‘1 was jjust a kick-kick-cuttin’ off the sup-pl-iesof Old Mum-Marmaduke down here!” The boys all laughed, and the man who stuttered was just beginning to congratulate himself on his escape, when up rode Capt. P ,of his own company. Taking in the situation at a glance, he exclaimed, with assumed fierceness, but with a wink at some of the boys behind the Chaplain’s back: “Hey, there! Been foraging, eh? Look here, sir; don’t you know you have no right to that rooster? Don’t you know that ministers of the gospel, have an undisputed claim on all yellow-legged chickens? There, sir; you may pick up that chicken and double-quick with it around to the chaplain’s tent.” The chaplain was greatly scandalized at the idea of partaking of stolen provender; but, nevertheless, tradition saith that deep in the stilly night there was a sound of revelry in his tent, and the tell-tale chicken bones were lying around loose the next day, silently bearing witness to the ungodliness of the army chaplain. - Phil Queer. A Broken Door-Bell. Hudson Taylor, who at that time kept a book store in Washington, and who was a warm friend of Secretary Stanton, says: “The morning after the assassination of Lincoln it Was stated in newspaper articles that two gentlemen who were walking leisurely along near Mr. Stanton’s house at eight o’clock the night of the tragedy, the hour fixed for the attack on Seward and Johnson, saw a tall man with a high hat hurry off Stanton’s stoop, and though they remarked it as singular, gave it only a passing notice. The next morning, when I made my usual call on Stanton, he said, after reading the article referred to: ‘I was tired out last night and went home early, and was in the back room playing with the children when those gentlemen saw the man hurry off my stoop. If the door-bell had rung, it would have been answered and the mah admitted, and I, no doubt, would have been attacked, but the bell wire was broken a day or two before, and though we had endeavored to have it repaired, the bell-hanger had put us off because of a pressure of orders.’ When I went back to my store after this interview with Mr. Stanton,” said Mr. Taylor, “I mentioned the matter to one of my clerks, who exclaimed, quickly: ‘That is so, I know, because at seven o’clock last night I went to Air. Stanton’s house with a book and pulled and pulled the bell-knob, but got no response. I stepped into the vestibule, and looking up saw the broken bell-wire and reaching" up pulled it, when the butler answered and asked: “How did you ring that bell?” and expressed surprise, and added: “It has been broken a day or two and has annoyed us much.’” We all agreed, including Mr. Stanton,” said Mr. Taylor, “that if that bell-wire had been in working Order Mr. Stanton would have been assassinated, for the man had evidently pulled on the bell-knob several times, and getting no response became frightened and fled.” Telling Moves. In 1863, when General Thomas was holding Knoxville and Chattanooga against the combined hosts of the Confederacy, and was being reduced to the last resource for. rations, occurred some of the most brilliant generalship of the war. First—General Thomas is worthy of all praise for holding on. Second—General Sherman is worthy of great praise for his tremendous exertions made in marching from Memphis to relieve Thomas. While passing upon this march between Lookout Mountain and the river, he saw a lines of picket fires on the opposite side of the river, one and a quarter miles in length. He went into camp just above on a small creek. : At sundown the next day a pontoon bridge began to form, numbering forty boats. Each boat carried" forty men. As fast as launched they moved down out of the way. Perfect silence was maintained. The enemy’s lights shone across the river and yet they allowed our boats to drop down and land their freight right in their midst and call upon them to surrender without arms in their hands—a night surprise. Not a gun was fired on either side, so complete was the surprise. But such yelling as we did when running up the bank must have given them the idea that we were sixteen thousand instead of sixteen hundred men. Another camp back among the hills was surrounded and taken in like manner the same night—an entire corps of Confederates without firing a gun. We learned later that their pickets saw the fleet, but supposed it a Yankee pontoon bridge that had broken loose and was floating down. Its floating was a sad joke on them. Reuben P. Reed. Soldiers’ Home, Leavenworth, Kan. Raising Dogs on a Pole. My individual war experience was not varied by great battles, but I wasin actual war and camp life. ' Your correspondents seem to have touched about every phase of camp life except dog-killing, and to-have left that to me. While lying in camp near Louisa Court House, Virginia, we were greatly pestered by the canines—hungry fellows—regular camp followers for the crumbs. The boys used to shoot them, and I told them that we were in greater danger from their bullets intended for dogs than from the Johnnies and those intended for the Johnnies—l tried the bayonet, but that did not seem to work. They would yell, and run, and yell, and that was all the good it did. They staid in camp.. Finally I bethought me of a spring pole, something after the style of a rabbit trap. This trap worked like a charm, and when it raised a dog it was with a slip-noose which soon eased his pain and made sure work. A little Irishman (old, but small), would run up and whack them after they were caught, saying, “Ah, but didn't he cry New Yorrick. New Yorrick, now.” Finally an old Johnnie came to me and said: “My little boy just loves you YanHe would fight for you any day, he likes you so well, and now won’t you spare him one have killed six of them. I Will d taribe the one we want you to save,” and he did then and there proceed to describe the little dog which he wanted ns to save, and we saved that dog because the little boy liked us so well. I only raised eighteen dogs on that pole, and it was a short stay we wade and rather a poor season for Virginia dogs. That is the way to raise dogs. It saves powder.

A COMRADE.