PREPARATIONS--WE MOVE NORTH BY RAILROAD--DETAILS
OF THE RIDE--MARCH FROM THE RAILROAD--NIGHT ON THE
FROZEN GROUND--FEELINGS AND CONDUCT OF THE SOLDIERS
TOWARD THE CITIZENS--NIGHT AT MARTINSBURG--MARCH TO
MEXICO--CHARACTER OF THE CITIZENS--BAD CONDUCT OF
CERTAIN OF THE MEN--WHAT THE MAJOR "DID ABOUT IT"--HIS
SPEECH--ITS EFFECT--AN EXCESS OF QUININE AND LACK OF
BREAD--RETURN MARCH TO MARTINSBURG--THE NEW YEAR--MARCH
TO WELLSVILLE--SICKNESS--CONDUCT AND CHARACTER OF
SURGEON EDWARDS--FORAGING AND PLUNDERING--MOVEMENT OF
TROOPS TO THE FRONT--ANXIETY TO GO WITH THEM--FORT
DONELSON--DISCONTENT AT BEING LEFT IN THE REAR--TRIAL
AND RELEASE OF COL. WILLIAMS--HE ASSUMES COMMAND AND
BEGINS REFORM--MARCHING ORDERS.
General Sherman issued an order that Christmas should be observed in
all respects as the Sabbath. But the Third Iowa could not comply with
it. It was with us a day of preparation, tumult and glee. We expected
to move that day. The order had been read at dress parade the
previous night, that we would be ready to move at a moment's notice
with forty rounds of ammunition. But we were delayed on account of
transportation which had not been issued to us. Those who were unable
to march on account of sickness were left in the barracks we had
occupied under charge of our assistant surgeon, Dr. Cool.
At 7 A. M. on the 26th, our regiment marched to the railroad depot.
Major Stone was in command Col. Scott having been detailed on a
military commission. We waited in the cold till about noon for our
baggage wagons to be brought up and loaded on the train. We had
no rations in our haversacks; for when we left the barracks we
had nothing to cook. Finally, to the great joy of all, the train
moved out, and three o'clock in the afternoon found us opposite St.
Charles. After many delays, seasoned with jokes, curses and cries of
"_bread_," we succeeded in getting across the Missouri and aboard
another train of cars and off. It was worthy of note, that for the
first time but one in our experience as military railroaders, we
were transported in passenger cars. For the consolation of the inner
man, we drew from our quartermaster fifteen loaves of bread to the
company, but no "small fishes." With these we appeased our stomachs,
outraged by famine since Christmas noon. At length night came, and
we could no longer enjoy looking at the scenery through which we
were passing: so we hitched ourselves together as best we could (for
the cars were crowded to their utmost capacity), and went to sleep.
Whenever we awoke, until late in the morning, we could feel the
unsteady motion of the carriages. Morn broke upon us at Warrenton. It
was not a little amusing to view the scene which daylight ushered in.
Some were sleeping on the seats, some between the seats, some in the
aisles; lying on top of each other for pillows; horizontal, inclined
and vertical; sometimes the head highest, sometimes the heels. Loud
were the barkings of incipient consumptives; hoarse the groans of
those whose hunger was not yet appeased, and dire the vengeance
denounced against the bridge-burners who had put us to all this
hardship.
The scenery through which we passed was lovely, even in the gray
shroud of winter.
At 10 A. M. we arrived at Florence, and had scarcely finished our
breakfasts, when six companies, R, E, F, H, I and K, were ordered to
get ready to march. The remaining four companies were left to guard
the place, considered an important one; for it was the farthest point
northward from St. Charles to which the cars could run, the track
being injured and the wires cut beyond it.
We, the battalion that marched, were joined by a company of German
cavalry of the 1st Regiment Missouri Reserve Corps, and immediately
moved toward the west. A march of three miles brought us to the town
of Danville, from which a small column of Union troops, commanded
by Brig. Gen. Henderson of the State Militia, had marched an hour
previous. We followed him, but by a shorter and less traveled road.
The snow which had fallen some days previous, was not yet melted
away in the timber, through which, most of the way, our road led us.
Night found us marching on. The sky was clear and the stars sparkled
brilliantly above us. The keen air quickly congealed the running
snow, and rendered the hills so slippery that it was not without much
difficulty and danger that the wagons could follow us.
We camped for the night on a meadow, bordering on a small stream of
excellent water and surrounded on all sides by timber. It was ten
o'clock before the wagons got up, and we then discovered that our
quartermaster had no bread for us. By some means the supply which
had been furnished for us had been left behind. The quartermaster of
course had to shoulder the blame. We cooked a scanty supply of bacon,
rice and coffee, and slept in battle line away from our camp-fires,
fearing a surprise. Our bed was the frozen ground; our tents the sky.
Our thin woolen blankets furnished little protection against the
keen air. We lay on our backs, and, if our heads were not smothered
in our blankets, watched the stars, but doubtless with different
emotions from those of the devout old Chaldean shepherds; and when we
slept, we dreamed of--Heaven knows what. Some were at Valley Forge;
one retreated all night from Moscow; and many fled to their warm
firesides at home.
As morning streaked the east, we shook the stupor of our cold slumber
from our limbs, and tried to dispel the gloom from our minds. Some of
us had actually been sleeping on four inches of snow. Our breakfast,
the same fare as our previous supper, afforded us little cheer. At
half past seven o'clock we were again on the move. We marched slowly,
doubtless, in order that our bread wagons which were coming could
overtake us. In this we were disappointed.
We camped on a beautiful meadow, having made but nine miles. The
Major had some hogs killed for our benefit; but this was not the
only kind of fresh meat seen in our camp that night. The feeling in
our ranks toward the citizens of this section was one of extreme
bitterness. We believed that they were guilty, at least in part,
of the depredations which had rendered our presence among them
necessary. To take up arms against us; to hide in the brush and
shoot down our stragglers; to crawl up under cover of night and
assassinate our pickets; to prowl about the country in guerrilla
bands, and attack our small detachments; to burn railroad bridges
and cut telegraph wires; to act as spies for the enemy; to give him
shelter, food and cheer; and then, if captured in arms, to claim the
rights of a prisoner of war; if without arms, to claim protection as
a non-combatant, or, what is still worse, as a Union man; such we
knew from experience to be the character of a large portion of the
disloyal citizens of Missouri.
A soldier admires open enemies if they are brave. There is nothing
that he despises as he despises such enemies as these. "Hang them
if they act as spies or bridge-burners. Subsist our armies upon
them. Confiscate their property and put it to the use of war. A
war waged against such traitors ought to support itself. Give us
such a leader as Jim Lane. Nothing short of his policy would do. We
never would end the war until we showed traitors that we considered
treason a crime." Such sentiments were canvassed freely in our ranks
and found no contradictors. But we were only soldiers. We could not
shape the policy of the Government in reference to the traitors.
We were to execute the will of the commanding general. We could
not take a chicken from the premises of an enemy in arms, without
violating orders from our superiors. It is a correct maxim, that
soldiers should not plunder. It is likewise a correct maxim that
an army should not suffer from hunger while marching through the
country of men who by acts of treason have forfeited all right to
the protection of the Government. We reasoned that the commanding
general should authorize impressments of food for our use when we
needed it as we did then. At all events we ought not to suffer from
hunger, and if food could not be obtained properly, _it must at
least be obtained_. Such was the reasoning which prompted the little
nocturnal expeditions which went out from our camp, in spite of the
active measures of the Major to prevent them, and which resulted in
supplying some of the necessities we lacked.
The following day, December 29th, was clear and beautiful. We waited
for the rear wagons till about noon; but they did not arrive and we
took up the march. The ground thawed, and before night, the mud was
deep and the march difficult. We camped for the night on a broad
prairie near Martinsburg Station on the North Missouri Railroad. We
obtained water by cutting holes through the ice of a pond which rests
against the railway embankment and supplies a tank. The ice was about
three inches thick. Most of us pitched tents and pulled grass and
made beds. About 7 P. M. we were rejoiced at the appearance of the
long expected bread wagons.
December 30th broke soft and balmy, the wind blowing from the south.
At ten o'clock we heard dull sounds upon the wind as of a distant
conflict of arms. It was not imagination. Every one heard them, and
we were all curiosity to know their meaning. Soon after, a number of
scouts arrived from Mexico with orders to Major Stone to hurry on to
that place. They at the same time brought reports of an engagement in
that vicinity. We moved without delay. The column kept the railroad
track till within about three miles of Mexico, when it took a wagon
road to the left. The mud was deep, and wagons several times stalled
and men had to be detailed to lift them out. These accidents caused
temporary delays, so that we did not reach Mexico till 9 P. M. We
found here a force under Brig. Gen. Schofield, of the State troops.
Gen. Henderson had just left in pursuit of the enemy. Of the cause of
the firing we had heard, we could learn nothing. It might have been a
skirmish. It was more likely a detachment discharging their pieces to
get the loads out of them.
Our battalion was quartered in a large vacant building. We found the
inhabitants of the place intensely disloyal. A newspaper had just
been issued at the printing office, one side of which was belabored
over with treasonable articles and extracts. This being completed,
the editor had fled on the approach of the Union troops, leaving the
typos to complete the paper, which they did, accommodating the other
side to the views of the new comers. Their unionism was sickeningly
submissive.
During the night and the following morning, a number of excesses were
committed by members of our regiment, among which was breaking into
a liquor shop owned by a secessionist, and emptying seven barrels of
that delectable article into a ditch.
This affair being committed in the presence of a large number of
citizens, greatly and justly incensed the Major, who called out the
battalion, had roll-call in all the companies; when he mounted a box,
and made a speech, in which he denounced such conduct, accusing us of
having prostituted ourselves "and disgraced our State," and reproving
us in unpleasant terms for having railed at our surgeon for giving us
too much quinine, and at our quartermaster for giving us too little
bread. He did not fail, however, to compliment us as having "stood
before the enemy where fire and earthquake led the charge." After
sundry similar compliments, denunciations and threats, he dismissed
us, and allowed us to go to our quarters. Whatever apparent reason
there might have been for this performance, it totally failed in
producing a good effect upon the regiment. The men went away with the
opinion that to make a boisterous speech in the streets of a public
town, and to humiliate his men in the face of their enemies, did not
become a military chieftain. Those who had not been guilty of any
offenses felt the wrong most keenly.
It is true that whenever a halt had been ordered on the march hither,
our quartermaster had been assailed with cries of "bread," our
surgeon with cries of "quinine." In this respect we were undoubtedly
"demoralized." But were these men abusing their superiors without a
cause, or were they replying to abuse? The quartermaster furnished
transportation for vinegar, beans and two negro servants, articles
which are of no use to any army on the march, and the surgeon hauled
his own private effects in the ambulances, while men marched in the
ranks carrying heavy knapsacks and shaking with the ague. It is
better to suffer abuse than to be insubordinate; but men do not
always properly appreciate this doctrine; and to correct his conduct
belongs first to his officer, then to the soldier.
At 4 P. M. General Schofield placed himself at the head of our
battalion, and we moved back in the direction whence we had come.
The troops took the railroad track. For the first three miles our
route lay through timber, and then we reached a level stretch of
prairie ten or twelve miles wide, the rank, dry grass affording
an opportunity of setting a prairie fire, such as we had so often
seen on our own prairies of Iowa. It was a temptation which we
could not resist. Before eight o'clock the whole vault of night
was illuminated. Lines of flame extended as far as the gaze could
reach, sending up immense columns of red smoke. The clouds blazed
like a sea of fire, and shed upon us a strange red light, which made
our march almost as plain as day. We moved at a rapid rate, making
but one or two short halts, and these in consequence of the wagons
sticking in the mud. No one gave out; there was no straggling.
Only a few sick men got aboard the wagons. General Schofield was
surprised at the endurance of the men. He asked Major Stone if his
men generally marched as well; and when the Major told him they did,
he complimented them highly.
At 10 P. M. we reached Martinsburg, a distance of thirteen miles
from Mexico, where we halted to pass the remainder of the night. We
got our baggage unloaded, made our beds on the wet ground, covered
ourselves with blankets and tents and tried to sleep. But the wind
shifted to the northwest, and blew so hard that all our covering
availed us little.
The New Year dawned with a sky overcast with gloomy clouds and with a
boisterous northwest wind. The world without us corresponded exactly
with the world within us. All was gloom. A few New Year's greetings
were exchanged, and many fond thoughts went back to the happy
firesides we had exchanged for the cheerless camp fires, the days of
hunger and fatigue, the weary marches and watches, and the fearful
chances of war.
In the middle of the day we moved five miles further to Wellsville,
where General Schofield established his headquarters.
We took quarters in the vacant buildings and the first night slept on
the cold floors, as crowded as though we had been in cattle cars on
the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad. That night, or rather the next
morning at two o'clock, three companies of our regiment, and one of
the cavalry, went ten or twelve miles into the country expecting to
surprise a company of guerrillas, but did not find them.
Our quarters were crowded and inadequate; but we accommodated
ourselves to them cheerfully. The exposures of the past week had
reduced many to the sick list. Surgeon Edwards treated our sick
outrageously. I firmly believe that more than one good soldier died
for no other reason than his neglect. Those in his hospital he left
without food and proper nursing for twenty-four hours at a time. He
absolutely refused to hear the complaints of twenty men reported on
one sick list, declaring that they were malingerers, that it was
impossible for such a number to be sick. Two or three of these men
were coughing blood; others had raging fevers.
It affords me especial pleasure to do this man justice. He was one of
the most learned and skillful physicians of our State. His physical
endurance, and capability of long exertion was such as few men
possess; and yet, save when in some particular freak of good humor,
he seemed to give his attentions most grudgingly, and to take a
fiendish delight in abusing sick men of which we can scarcely believe
human nature capable. If he survives this war it will be to receive
the heartfelt execrations of those of my comrades who survive it.
For some time this part of our regiment remained _in statu quo_ at
Wellsville. The other battalion of it still remained at Florence
under Captain Herron. The monotony of our situation at Wellsville
was relieved by bringing in from the surrounding country various
classes of persons as prisoners: sympathizers, bridge-burners,
bushwhackers, blatant traitors and members of Price's old State
Guard. Whatever excesses we may have committed with or without excuse
upon citizen enemies, when they were in our power, we treated them
with the respect due to prisoners of war. At one time our guard house
contained upwards of twenty prisoners, citizens and soldiers. They
were disposed of in various ways. Some were sent to St. Louis for
trial. Some were transferred to Alton. Most were released on giving
bonds to the United States.
For the first time since being in Missouri, we subsisted our animals
entirely upon forage taken from disloyal citizens. For this purpose,
foraging parties went out nearly every day. Notwithstanding the
stringent orders under which their commanders were placed, they were
generally the occasion for carrying off whatever the soldier could
find that would suit his appetite better than bacon and pilot bread.
I never heard, however, of any outrages being committed in houses,
the operations being seldom extended beyond the poultry yard, pig sty
and potato bin.
On the 23d of January, all of our regiment was moved west, and
distributed along the railroad at four different places; Mexico,
Allen, Sturgis and Huntsville. Everything now went well. Our
quarters, surroundings and duties were most pleasant. We were in the
midst of civilization and social cheer. The Union had many friends in
Missouri, and they entertained us generously. We were again seeing
the halcyon days of a soldier's life; but we did not know it. We
wanted glory. When Grant moved up the Tennessee we wanted to be with
him. Many troops went from Missouri to reinforce him; but we were
left behind. Fort Henry was taken, and we were not there. But the
land forces had won no laurels in that operation. We hoped that we
might be sent to take part in the reduction of Fort Donelson. But
no. Train after train went past us loaded with troops from General
Hunter's department, all going to reinforce Grant; but still we were
left behind. Curtis was moving; Grant was moving; Buell was moving;
McClellan was moving; Burnside was moving. The army was advancing at
all points, and we were left behind, guarding railroads and keeping
down guerrillas. At length Fort Donelson fell. A thrill of joy
electrified the nation. A universal burst of praise went up for the
gallant men who there had fought so well. General Halleck telegraphed
to Governor Kirkwood, "The 2d Iowa have proved themselves the bravest
of the brave." And yet we were doing garrison duty in the rear. What
had we done to merit less than these comrades of ours? Had we failed
our country in the hour of trial? Had we done so little, suffered so
little, and complained so much? Since Ft. Donelson, all the little
battles of the war were forgotten. Blue Mills had dwindled into an
insignificant affair. When we read the glowing accounts of these
three days of battle, we almost ceased to be proud of it ourselves.
A soldier would rather die than be behind in honor. We begged for a
chance. We had no fears for the rest. At length we began to despair.
We feared it was the intention of the commanding general to keep us
behind always. We began to be ashamed of ourselves. We were ashamed
to date our letters from Missouri. We would have blushed to look our
friends in the face; for who thought of us now?
Meanwhile the trial of Colonel Williams was taking place at St.
Louis. Witnesses went and came. It was protracted from day to day.
Among the enlisted men of the regiment, the feeling was still strong
and bitter against him. Finally it was announced that he would be
released. It was without much disappointment; for we had watched the
developments of the trial, and expected this event. At length it was
reported that he would join us, and that we should then be taken to
the front. We rejoiced.
On the 25th of February, Colonel Williams arrived at regimental
headquarters, Mexico, Missouri. Companies F and K were stationed
here. The latter received him with some courtesy; the former with
marked disdain. The memories of Chariton bridge still rankled in
their bosoms. Nevertheless, we were disposed to be hopeful. We hoped
that his long arrest had furnished an opportunity for meditation and
repentance, and that he would be more careful of his conduct now.
This was the case. Before his arrival we did every thing slackly. We
almost began to forget that we were soldiers. The first thing he did
was to enforce discipline. He instituted regular roll-calls, drills
twice a day, and daily dress parades. He did nothing that we could
complain of, although we watched him with the eyes of cynics. Day
by day our former prejudices against him began to wear away. Almost
imperceptibly those hitherto antagonistic elements, the colonel and
his men, began to harmonize. Colonel Williams was a wiser officer,
and we were better soldiers.
On the 3d of March, it was announced, amid great rejoicing, that we
would leave for the south as soon as transportation should arrive to
take us away.