ground by inch until the rebels withdrew. A great many of our boys
bit the dust that day. It was a very severe fight for the time it
lasted, just a few hours. It was estimated that the loss was 500
killed and wounded. Such was rebel General Johnston's fighting
tactics on a retreat. He punished his pursuers very severely. General
John Newton had charge of our division in the absence of General
Sheridan. It was thought at one time during the fight that our side
would have to give way, and an order came from headquarters to the
surgeons in the field to move their wounded a certain distance to
the rear. There were four rebel bullets dropped on my blanket while
I lay there. We moved to where there were a lot of small houses and
a large mansion. In going along the turnpike road the rebel bullets
and cannon balls came fast and lively. This was the trying moment.
It was desperate, as I could plainly hear, and very well understood
the situation. The brave boys began coming in wounded thick and fast,
as the battle raged on. But at last victory was ours. The battle was
won; but a high price was paid for it; the loss of life, limb, health
and blood. I remember in going to the rear, as ordered, a Union
captain was with us. He had his nose shot off, or all but a part of
the skin near his forehead, which was holding it from falling. It
was swinging on his face like the pendulum of a clock. The rebels
sent a cannon ball down the road. As it passed by, this captain
turned around, and, with much emphasis, said, "You rebel sons of
guns, I hope you will get your belly full before night," and at that
instant a rebel bullet took him right in the abdomen and went through
his body. He fell dead where he spoke the words. We arrived at our
new hospital off the battlefield. Dr. Hasse placed me in a chair on
the porch and ran a probe down in my neck.
"Ah, Ford," he said, "the bullet has passed downwards; it is in your
chest; perhaps I can find it," and I began to faint away. He pulled
out his probe and turned around his canteen, placed it in my mouth
and told me to take a swallow. I took hold of the canteen and held it
until I had three good swallows.
The doctor took the canteen and said, "Do you think you can stand it
now?"
"Yes, doctor, probe away now all you mind to." And he did, and said
it was no use in punishing me. He could not locate the bullet, and
even if he did, it could not be removed without loss of life; it may
never injure me, but he could not tell now what the result might be
in the future.
I was assigned to a place to lie down on the floor. I soon fell
asleep, and when I awoke my neck, face and breast seemed to be one
thickness. Well, I thought I would get up, but no, my head would not
rise by my will. I thought if I just had somebody to lift my head for
me I would be all right, when, seemingly by instinct, my right hand
raised and caught myself by the hair of my head, and I was on my feet.
An order came to the surgeons to send the wounded to Chattanooga.
All who were shot in the legs and not able to walk would be carried
in ambulances to Resaca and there take the train for Chattanooga. I
came under the order of able to walk, as the meaning of that term is
applied in cases of emergency, where transportation is limited, as it
was in that case. We struck out, a lot of us that had to walk, but
soon commenced trudging along according to our strength, until there
were hardly two together. Every stream I would cross I would dip my
head in the water and then fill my old Kossuth hat full and put it on
my head. Arriving at Calhoun early in the afternoon, I stopped at
the first house. There were two rebel ladies standing on the porch
looking at the wounded as they passed by. I was very weak and wanted
some milk, as I could not eat or chew anything, my mouth being nearly
closed. By a great many signs and mutterings I succeeded in getting
one to understand what I wanted, but she said they had no milk; that
there was a Union woman in the next block over there that had two or
three cows and she most always had some milk.
"You got hit, did you?" she asked. "Well, we don't like to see
you'uns get hurt, but we do like to see you'uns get licked. You'uns
killed my true love when you went by here the other day. He stayed
behind his command to bid me good-bye and to have a little talk, when
you Yankees came onto him and three others of our boys. They ran into
the brush down there," pointing in the direction that she wanted me
to know, "and there you killed my true love."
I listened very attentively, with my eyes fixed on a picture that she
wore on her breast. I recognized the picture and muttered out to her
as best I could that if she thought so much of her true love she
ought to see about it and have him buried. He was lying down there
a little ways from the turnpike road, swelled up as big as a two
hundred pounder.
The circumstances concerning my knowledge of this incident are: Those
four rebels ran from the brush to a small log-house about fifteen or
twenty rods from the road where we were marching, and were firing
from their hiding place. A squad was sent out there and surrounded
the little log-house. This true love escaped by jumping through the
window, and was shot and killed. The other three were taken prisoners.
I made my way to the Union woman in the next block. I saw a dozen
wounded men go into the house. Thinks I to myself, "There is no
chance there for me to get any milk," but before I reached the house
they came out again, and I went in. She was a fine, clever-looking
woman, with three little girl children. I made known my wants.
"Yes," she said, "I have plenty of milk for you, although I have been
refusing it all day; so many came together that the little I had
would do them no good." At the same time she poured the milk out
into a cooking utensil and placed it on the stove and said, "As you
came alone I have plenty for you; and indeed you need it more than
any one who has come in here to-day."
She broke some round crackers into the milk, inquired about my wound,
said it smelled bad, took off the bandage, washed it and dressed it
with new linen and threw my old bandages out doors. By this time my
milk and crackers were cooked. As I could not chew or open my mouth
to take in coarse food, she fixed it so it was thin, like gruel;
cooled it sufficiently, spread a table cloth on part of the table
where I sat, and I felt just ninety-nine per cent. better than when I
first entered that house. Her cheerfulness and willingness to do good
made me feel so much better that I could not express it by words. I
drew that food through my teeth with such force that it did not take
a very great length of time to put it where it was much needed for a
nourishment.
I will say right here when you found a Union man or woman in the
Southern States, you found them as loyal and as true as steel. I was
now ready to go on my journey to Resaca. The train was to leave
there at 8 o'clock. Before I left Adairsville hospital I changed a
$5 bill and gave half of it to a comrade of mine, John Howard, who
was shot in the elbow. Twenty-six pieces of bone were taken out of
his elbow. Dr. Hasse wanted to cut it off, but Howard said he would
rather die with it on than live with it off. The doctor thought
possibly that he might save it. The weather was very warm. Gangrene
set in. His arm was cut off three times, and the poor fellow, after
a long season of suffering, went to the other shore. Changing the $5
bill, which was all the money I had, left me with two dollars and a
half in fifty cent shinplasters, as we called that kind of money.
In bidding good-bye to my good Union woman, with tears in my eyes I
offered her all the money I had. She would not take any. She said
it did her so much good to do something for a Union soldier that
she only wished she could do more. I took her address and bade her
good-bye. Her three little girls followed me out to the gate leading
on the sidewalk, and I slipped fifty cents apiece in their little
hands. I felt so much better, and my heart was so filled up with
the kindness that I received from that good Union woman in the very
heart of the Confederate States, that if I had had it I could have
given those little ones one hundred dollars apiece as willingly as I
gave them fifty cents each. That woman saved my life, for gangrene
was beginning to show itself, and I never could have reached Resaca
without that nourishment and the cleansing of my wound. I reached
Resaca just as the train was pulling out, grabbed hold of the side
door of the last box-car and the boys pulled me in while the train
was moving quite fast.
It commenced raining very hard and the night was as dark as pitch.
Our train jogged along at the rate such trains usually do. We came to
an up-grade, when all at once there came a crash and a smash. I was
in the hindmost end of the rear car and was jerked up to the front
end in a shorter time than you could say Jack Robinson. A trainload
of new recruits was coming to the front, the cars being full inside
and many on top. The engineer should have stopped at the station
and switched until the train with the wounded went by. He paid no
attention to the signal and went right ahead to the top of a grade,
where he pulled the throttle of his engine wide open and let her
go. Jumping off his engine, he made his escape. He was a rebel, and
took advantage of his first opportunity to apply his vengeance. It
was a terrible sight to look at. Many of the wounded were killed and
some of the new recruits and many were disabled. It took till late
next day to get fixed up for our destination. There I lost my diary,
with the address of that good Union woman that did so much for me at
Calhoun, Georgia.
After I recruited up some, and others the same as myself, who were
supposed not to be fit for duty within a certain time, we were sent
farther north to make room for new-comers. I was sent to New Albany,
Indiana, where I remained two weeks, when a general order was issued
that all not fit for duty inside of sixty days should be sent to
their respective state hospitals. An examination was made by the
surgeon in charge, and I was sent to Madison, Wisconsin. After I was
a few weeks in Madison I called on Governor J. T. Lewis in regard to
my commission. It was then the tenth in order on file in his office,
but he would give me one then and there. There were vacancies in
my company. I refused to take it. There were others higher in rank
than I, and I did not want to jump over them; and, in fact, we came
home without a commissioned officer, an orderly sergeant in command
of the company, John N. Keifer, who received his commission dated
back, as captain, as brave a boy as ever lived to draw saber. Ed.
Blake, a corporal in my company, carried a commission in his pocket
that he received from the Governor, but never reported for duty as an
officer. Such was the honor the old boys had for each other in rank.
I stayed in Madison about two months and could have had my discharge
given me by Surgeon-General Swift, medical director of the Western
Department, with headquarters at Milwaukee, but would not take it. I
wanted to go back and take my chances of coming home with the rest of
the boys. I had the use of my limbs all right and could shoot, but
had to be very careful how I bit the cartridge. There were six pieces
of bone taken from my left lower jaw, and it hurt very much to bite
off the cartridge.
My memory now takes me back to my regiment, with which I was in
several battles after my four months' absence on account of my wound.
And now this brings me to the last battle of Nashville, December 15th
and 16th, 1864. We fought the rebel General Hood, who had followed
us from Franklin and fortified himself in our front, near Nashville.
We marched out to them and made the attack. They held us back. We
were relieved by a brigade of colored troops. While we were cooking
something to eat the colored troops made a charge on the rebel works
and got as far, or to a distance where the rebels had fallen trees
towards us, as an obstruction to our advancement. There the colored
brigade fired one volley and then lay down. The rebels peppered it
to them so thick and fast, they even stood up on their breastworks
and took aim at that black cloud, as they called them. We were
marched down there again, in double-quick time, the rebels shouting
and shooting and waving their hats like so many demons. When they
saw us coming for them right through and over the colored troops and
tree branches they ceased firing and had their arms stacked when we
climbed their breastworks, took off their hats and surrendered,
saying, "Hello, Jack; hello, Tom; hello, Jim. Say, Yanks, never send
a black cloud to take our breastworks. We were retreating when we saw
them coming. When some one said, 'It's a black cloud, boys; let's
every man stand fast; never be taken prisoners or surrender to them
darkies, or give them our breastworks while there is a man of us left
alive.'"
And then we commenced shaking hands with each other. There were some
of them who were nearly barefooted, with pants ripped nearly up to
their knees; tall, fine-looking, good-hearted fellows, from Georgia.
This ended the battles of the war, so far as we were concerned, and
old Pap. Thomas drank the health of the old Army of the Cumberland.
We stayed around Nashville for some time, got our discharge, and, on
the 10th day of June, 1865, broke ranks in Milwaukee. I bought a suit
of citizen's clothes for $85 that could be bought to-day for $25.
There was a strong Fenian movement in Milwaukee just about that time,
with the object in view of taking Canada. I happened in to Melm's, a
saloon where the new Pabst building now stands, if my memory serves
me right, and I think it does. There was a big crowd of men in there
talking war, Fenians and Canada, all feeling good. Of course, I had a
say about the war and other topics of conversation that were sprung
into discussion as well as anybody else had, and seemed to interest
some of my hearers. They wanted me to get up on a round table near
by. There were two or three rows of tables in there. I would not get
up on the table. I was taken hold of and placed on the table. Well, I
talked a little while, and then came down to war matters. I said the
Battle of Stone River lasted seven days and it cost this government
nine millions of dollars a day, and asked, "What would we do if we
didn't have a government to back us? Do you think we could carry on
a war by some one of us having a few dollars in our pockets? Foolish
idea; that is your predicament, gentlemen." Of course, that was
disparaging the movement, but I did not intend it for that particular
purpose. I was simply telling the truth as well as I knew how, when
somebody hit me. I jumped off the table, lost my hat in the row and
never found it.
I went to Illinois to work as a farm hand for $1 a day for every day
in the year, wet or dry, hail, rain or sunshine, board and washing
free, and with what money I had saved up, bought a piece of land at
twenty dollars per acre, with a mortgage of $1,500 on it, payable in
gold coin, but it was paid off with the greenback dollar. I lived on
that farm for twenty-six years and brought it to a very high state of
cultivation. I sold it out seven years ago, at one hundred dollars
per acre, the first $100 acre land that was ever sold in my township,
and came to Milwaukee, the scene of my boyhood days. I have been a
delegate to state and county conventions and held offices of trust in
the township where I lived; but, commander and comrades, I can say to
you, with candor, that I never saw an assembly of men that act more
gentlemanly with each other, and that I felt more proud of, and that
I felt more at home with than I do with the members of E. B. Wolcott
Post.
PULPIT AND PRESS.
An Argument in Favor of the Power of the Press as Compared with that
of the Clergy.
Delivered at Phenix School House, Towanda Township, Ill., February 8,
1877, by Thomas J. Ford.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen and Honorable Judges: In choosing
a side on the question before you I am influenced by nothing save
conviction, and, in saying what little I do, to show that the press
has more influence than the pulpit, I am not guided by a desire to
detract from the merits of the pulpit, but simply by a wish to have
the press estimated at its proper value. In discussing the question
we must seek effects, and, by comparing them, arrive at a correct
decision. And right here I wish, honorable judges, ladies and
gentlemen, that you would remember that all examples of times past
are not fair ones. When we consider that preaching has been practiced
from the earliest ages, even from before the time of Christ, the
great Preacher, down through the Middle Ages, when there was no such
thing as printing even, and that printing itself was invented as
late as 1441, while the press, as we now know it, is a product of
the latter part of the present century, all examples of the power of
the pulpit, therefore, that are taken from olden times are unfair,
and the question must be considered as it is framed, "Which has the
most influence at the present time?" And even now your decision must
be arrived at by cool, patient investigation, and you must set down
Bible banging and pulpit shouting at their proper worth and estimate
the influence of the press, which acts like the still small voice of
conscience, at its real value; you must bring scales, more delicate
than Fairbanks cattle scales, and be prepared to weigh small pigs
one by one as carefully as your Christmas beeves, for you may be
assured if we bring enough of them the sum of their weights will be
greater than that of the monster cattle. Here is where the advocates
of the pulpit have the advantage. Anyone can see the effect of the
conversion of a sinner or the result of a revival, but to measure the
silent influence of the paper requires greater judgment. The most
casual observer can see the dust of the threshing machine, but the
man must be right there who sees the number of bushels threshed. So,
gentlemen, if the sum of all the influence of the press outweighs the
influence of the pulpit, then must you decide for the press.
They may point you to revival preaching and show you how Moody
converts his thousands; but you must consider how much he is helped
by Sankey and the daily papers that create a kind of spiritual
atmosphere about him, because a force acts at an instant of time. You
must not infer that its effect is greater than if it acts through
ages. Constant dropping wears the rock, and mechanics teaches us
that a force creates the same result, whether acting in a moment or
at length. You may burn a cord of wood in the open air, but because
its blaze is seen the farthest you must not infer that it has a
greater effect than if burned in the furnace that makes the steam
that grinds your daily bread. In England, where the pulpit has an
influence in temporal as well as spiritual affairs, they speak of the
third estate of the kingdom, and enumerate those estates or classes
of men, such as the lawyers, the Parliament, the clergy, the crown.
They call the houses of Parliament the two estates, and the third
is not the clergy or even the crown, but the press. There the whole
kingdom bows before the utterances of the London Times, which is
called the Thunderer. The papers there influence finance, legislation
and the policy of the government. The press there is recognized as
having more influence than the pulpit or the clergy, and, why? Go
with me to our own legislature, and you will see the reason, and you
will see also how much the press has to do with the laws that govern
us. You will see before each member his pile of newspapers, and can
notice how eagerly he scans the columns to see words of commendation
or condemnation. You can see how much he is influenced by his
little home papers in his votes and speeches. Some years ago the
financial editor of the London Times was indicted and removed from
his position because he wrote articles that influenced the money
markets. It shook the money centers when corruption was shown in a
newspaper editor, but it scarcely causes a ripple of excitement when
a minister is corrupt. The church itself concedes the power of the
press and supports them accordingly. In simple numbers it is plain
that the papers have the greatest power.
If you consider how each man's thoughts and actions are controlled by
what he reads you must say that the influence of the press is greater
than the pulpit. It has been well said that the pen is mightier than
the sword, and it might be added or the pulpit either.
Ladies and Gentlemen, there is another argument worthy of your
attention, and it is a well-settled fact that the eye assists the
mind in remembering anything. Can you say that the words of the
preacher have the same effect on the memory as the printed page?
Test it yourself, gentlemen; let any one read a book aloud and see
who has the freshest recollection of the subject--he who reads it or
he who simply hears it read. I think that not even the affirmative
will contend that the hearer understands the matter as well as
the reader, and, this point conceded, it must follow that as the
press has the greatest audience it has more influence. More money
is spent for papers than for preachers. Now, ladies and gentlemen
and honorable judges, in the argument of this, as in the discussion
of all other questions, we can arrive at no final decision. It is
not like telling which of two small objects weighs the most, but as
though you were to attempt to tell which of two sections of land
had the most black soil in it. Each one must at least decide for
himself, and yet there are some clear and strong facts from which
we can form a judgment, and from those facts that I have given you
I am constrained to say that the press has more influence than the
pulpit. Look how universal is the force that the press exerts from
the highest to the lowest far and wide. Where is the family in McLean
County that does not see and read the weekly paper? There is no one
here who cannot tell of scores of families that scarcely ever see the
inside of church. What was it that passed the pension bill? Nothing
but the united voice of the press speaking the will of the people
educated by the press. Go into Congress or any of your legislatures
and you will see papers read and quoted; and the papers actually
dictate legislation. Look at the amount invested in newspapers and
in churches in the United States. It is fixed by the last census at
three hundred and fifty millions of dollars. And the amount paid to
preachers will run it up to five hundred millions invested directly
for the pulpit, and this, too, is aside from the amount invested in
seminaries. The amount invested in newspapers does not reach half
this sum, yet the number of people reached by the papers is immensely
greater than that reached by the pulpit. Let us come down to familiar
instances. The Pantagraph, for instance, has a circulation of 13,700
papers per week. Each paper is read by five persons and you have
an audience of sixty-eight thousand persons reached every week by
the Bloomington Pantagraph. The sum invested in the First Methodist
Church is more than is invested in The Pantagraph, but it would be
idle to say the influence exerted by the preacher in that church is
equal to the influence exerted by The Pantagraph. Each issue of the
daily contains as much and each issue of the weekly four times as
much as he gives to his hearers each Sunday. And so it is all over
the land. Clearly, then, for the money invested the press has the
greatest influence. Suppose as much money were invested in papers as
there is in churches. Would not the effects be wonderful? What is
printed in the papers may be read time and again, what is uttered
from the pulpit may be heard only once, and then lost forever. It is
not reasonable to suppose that the pulpit has as much influence as
the press. What is it that influences legislation, the pulpit or the
press? Undoubtedly the press. Did you ever hear of a congressman or
legislator quoting a preacher in support of a measure? Never. Yet
the law is something that affects each individual. Did you ever hear
of the pulpit controlling the market? Never. Yet this is what the
press is doing daily. What was it that brought the rebellion upon us?
Nothing but the continual howling of the Southern press. In war, in
peace, in money matters, in everything and everywhere, the press has
the greatest influence. Educate by the press, bring pure, good, sound
papers into your family, and be assured you are throwing around them
the greatest protection. Elevate the standard of the press, and may
there always be a fearless, independent press in our land that will
not hesitate to apply the goad to those in high places.