Matters and things moved on smoothly, the old routine of guard duty,
dress parade and all the regular business of camp life, including half
rations, being faithfully kept. We now come to a matter which happened
while we were at the Ford, which for a short time made things very
lively and animated in the camp of the 125th. The Tennessee is a wide
stream, and anything going on on the opposite side, can not be seen very
distinctly with the naked eye. But to many of us, on the afternoon of
the day to which we have reference, could be seen objects moving on the
hill side across the river. These objects proved to be rebels, that side
of the river was in their possession then, but what they were doing we
could not ascertain, and so at last we ceased to pay any attention to
them. The day passed as others had done, and when night came we retired
to our beds to dream of home and loved ones. The night passed quietly,
but just as the first streak of gray appeared in the east on the morning
of Nov. 16th, 1863, we were awakened by the boom of cannon, and the
whistling of shells, and the crashing of shot through, around and above
us. We were not long in turning out of our tents. "What was the matter?"
"Where were they?" was asked on all sides. The long roll was beat, and
the voices of the officers giving command resounded through the camp.
The regiment was thrown into dire confusion and the majority of them
followed in the wake of the pay-master over the ridge. We soon found out
where the shots came from. The objects we had seen the day before across
the river had been rebels engaged in putting a battery in position in
order to shell our camp, and as soon as daylight came, they opened up
the entertainment. And a beautiful mark they had to shoot at, as the
regiment lay on ground sloping to the river and nothing intervened
between us and them but the broad bosom of the Tennessee. The pay-master
and his clerk were with us at the time, and in his wake had come Charley
Pratt, our sutler, to collect from the boys sundry bills they were owing
him. These gentlemen, of course, were non-combatants, and as soon as
they could, conveniently, took to flight over the ridge in our rear,
where they took position, resolved, as they afterward said, to hold
their ground at all hazards. But as regarded their toilet they were
sadly deficient, and as they disappeared over the ridge, their shirt
tails were fluttering in the breeze, looking in the distance like flags
of truce. The whole affair lasted but a few moments, our third Wisconsin
battery opened on the rebels and at the third round drove them away,
having blown up a caisson for them as we could plainly see by the smoke.
There were many narrow escapes with us; one solid shot found a resting
place in one of the boy's bunks, and others went crashing through the
tents, but without doing any more damage than tearing them to pieces.
But we were called upon to mourn the loss of one of our number, the
chaplain. As was evident, he had arisen from his bed and was in the act
of tieing his shoe, when a solid shot came crashing through his tent,
tearing off half of his head, killing him instantly. This sad event cast
a deep gloom over the regiment. Chaplain Saunders was a good man, and
was respected by all the boys, a quiet unassuming gentleman. He had won
our respect and confidence, and we mourned his death. We sent his body
north for burial, feeling that we had lost a good man. And such is the
fate of war. Sitting here at home in peace and security, with my little
baby girl playing by my side, and watching me as I write, asking me
questions and striving in her childish way to attract my attention, my
mind wanders back to the banks of the Tennessee. And as memory brings up
the recollection of those times, and the events which followed, of the
brave boys whom we used to meet, and with them hold daily converse, now
sleeping in their southern graves beneath the soughing of the pines, the
tears came to our eyes and we throw down the pen, we can write no more
to-day.
We were not much longer to enjoy this _otium cum dignitate_, however.
The iron was in the furnace, and would soon be ready for the stroke of
the general's hammer. The enemy at this time, as we have before said,
were posted on the heights of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain.
Their cavalry was swarming in our rear and on our flanks, and our army
represented a giant, resting from his labors, but to rise at last and
with the stroke of a thunderbolt scatter his enemies like chaff. And now
we come to the battle of Missionary Ridge. On the night of the 23rd of
November, Sherman, with three divisions of his army, which had arrived
at Chattanooga on the 15th of November, from Vicksburg, Miss.,
strengthened by Davis' division of Palmer's corps, of which division we
now formed a part, and which had been stationed along the north bank of
the Tennessee, convenient to where the crossing was to be effected, was
ready for operations. At an hour sufficiently early to secure the south
bank of the river, just below the mouth of South Chickamauga Creek, by
dawn of day, the pontoons in the North Chickamauga, which our brigade
had been guarding, were loaded with thirty armed men each, who floated
quietly past the enemy's pickets, landed and captured all but one of the
guard, twenty in number, before the enemy was aware of the presence of a
foe. The steamboat "Dunbar," with a barge in tow, after having finished
ferrying across the river the horses procured from Sherman, with which
to move Thomas' artillery, was sent up from Chattanooga to aid in
crossing artillery and troops, and by day light of the morning of the
24th of November, eight thousand men were on the south side of the
Tennessee and fortified in rifle trenches. This movement, so admirably
executed, put the whole of Sherman's army in position for the great
battle that was now to begin.
[Illustration]