We leave Missouri and go South--The prisoners of Donelson--The taking
of New Madrid--"Kindly bury this unfortunate officer"--Quaker guns
at Shiloh--The killing of the colonel.
It was a trifling incident, this capture, compared with the dreadful
things I have referred to as going on in Missouri that memorable first
year of the Civil War. A great volume would not contain the record of
them all. The first dead men I saw while in the army were eight Missouri
farmers murdered by guerrillas and left lying in the hot sun and dust at
the roadside. The sight moved me as no great battle ever did afterward.
One half of the male population of Missouri was trying to kill the other
half. They were not opponents from different far-off sections fighting,
but near neighbors, and nothing seemed too awful or too cruel for them
to do. How I pitied the women and children who lived in the State in
those awful days!
General Sherman's designation of war as "hell" found more confirmation
in the dreadful raids, outrages, and murders by Quantrell's guerrillas
in Missouri than in the bloodiest battles of the four years' conflict.
Now for months my regiment, with others, had chased up and down, and all
over that unhappy old State of Missouri, trying to capture and punish
these bands of murderers. On the old steamboat _War Eagle_, too, we
paddled for weeks along the "Muddy Missouri" River, landing every here
and there to have a little brush with guerrillas who had fired on our
boat from the banks or from secret recesses in the woods. It was rare
that we could catch them or have a real fight. Their kind of war meant
ambuscades and murder.
At last an end came to this dreadful guerrilla-chasing business in
Missouri so far as we were concerned, anyway. We were to stop running
after Price's ubiquitous army too. We were no longer to be the victims
of ambuscades and night riding murderers.
The glad news came to my regiment that we were to be transferred to the
South, where the real war was.
One morning we left the cold and snow, where we had lived and shivered
in thin tents all the winter, left the thankless duty of patrolling
railroads in the storm at midnight, and marched in the direction of St.
Louis. A long, cold, miserable march it was too, hurrying in the daytime
and freezing in our bivouacs in the snow and woods at night. Many a man
we left to sicken and die at some farmhouse by the roadside. Our
destination was New Madrid, where we were to be a part of Pope's army in
the siege and capture of that town.
As we were about to embark on boats at St. Louis we beheld in the snow
and storm many steamers anchored out in the pitiless waters of the
Mississippi River. These vessels were loaded with shivering thousands in
gray and brown uniforms, the prisoners whom General Grant had captured
at the battle of Fort Donelson. There were twelve or fifteen thousand of
them. Seeing this host of prisoners made us feel that at last the Union
army had a general, although we had scarcely heard of U. S. Grant
before. This army of prisoners taken in battle was his introduction to
the world.
Shortly we were before New Madrid, and the siege conducted by General
Pope commenced. The town was defended by strong forts and many cannon,
but its speedy capture by us helped to open up the Mississippi River. It
was a new experience to us, to have cannonballs come rolling right into
our camp occasionally. Yet few men were injured by them. We were in more
danger when a fool officer one day took our brigade of infantry down
through a cornfield to assault a gunboat that lay in a creek close by.
The Rebel commander had expected us, and had his grape shot and his hot
water hose, and such things all ready for us. We went out of that
cornfield faster than we went in. This was real war, the thing my
regiment had been so longing for, in place of chasing murderers and
guerrillas in Missouri.
We entered New Madrid one morning before daylight. The enemy had left in
awful haste. I recall finding a dead Rebel officer, lying on a table in
his tent, in full uniform. He had been killed by one of our shells. A
candle burned beside him, and his cold hands closed on a pencil note
that said, "Kindly bury this unfortunate officer." His breakfast waited
on a table in the tent, showing how unexpected was his taking off.
Our victory was a great one for the nation, and it put two stars on the
shoulder straps of General Pope. It made him, too, commander of the
Eastern army.
A comrade in Company A of my regiment had been wounded a few days before
and had died in the enemy's hands. I now found his grave. At its head
stood a board with this curious inscription: "This man says he was a
private in the Fifth Iowa Regiment. He was killed while trying to attend
to other people's business."
Our command was now hurried to the Shiloh battlefield, of course too
late to be of any use. But we took part in the long, wonderful, and
ridiculous siege of Corinth, under Halleck, when our great army was held
back by red tape, martinets, and the fear of a lot of wooden guns that
sat on top of the enemy's breastworks, while that enemy, with all his
men, and with all his guns, and bag and baggage, was escaping to the
south. Our deeds were no credit to anybody, though here and there we had
a little fight.
One incident of great importance, however, happened to my regiment here.
It was the death of our colonel. One night when he was going the rounds
of the picket lines out in the woods he was shot dead by one of our own
men. The sentinel who did the killing declared that Rebels had been
slipping up to his post all night, and when he would hail with "Who goes
there?" they would fire at him and run into the darkness. He resolved to
stand behind a tree the next time and fire without hailing. By some
accident Colonel Worthington and his adjutant were approaching this
sentinel from the direction of the enemy. Suddenly the sentinel held his
gun around the tree and fired. The bullet struck the colonel in the
forehead, killing him instantly. As he fell from his horse the adjutant
sprang to the ground and cried, "Who shot the officer of the day?" "I
fired," exclaimed the sentinel, and he then told of his experiences of
the night. He was arrested, tried, and acquitted. Yet there were many
among us who believed that the colonel had been intentionally murdered.
He was one of the most competent colonels in the army, but among his
soldiers he was fearfully unpopular. He was, however, a splendid
disciplinarian, but this was something the volunteers did not want. In
their minds the colonel had been only a petty tyrant, and not even
wholly loyal. With a different disposition he certainly would have been
a distinguished soldier. He was one of the most military-looking men in
the whole army, but friends he had none. More than once his life had
been threatened by soldiers who regarded themselves as having been
treated badly by him.
His body was brought into camp the next morning and lay in his tent in
state. He was given a military funeral, and the horse that was bearing
him when he was killed was led behind his coffin.
After his death numbers of the men of the regiment were indignant, when
they found among his papers warrants and commissions intended by the
governor for them, commissions that had never been delivered. Their
promotions had never come about. Now they knew why.
Worthington was succeeded by Colonel C. L. Matthies, one of the
bravest, best, and most loved commanders of our army. Later Matthies was
made a general, and at the close of the war died of wounds received in
battle.
Although I was quartermaster sergeant of the regiment, I was always
careful that this should not keep me away from the command when enduring
hard marches or when engagements were coming on. When in camp I kept my
rifle in one of the ammunition wagons (of several of which I had
charge), but if the alarm sounded my rifle was on my shoulder and I was
the private soldier in the ranks of the company. I deserved no special
credit for this. I was only doing my duty. We had muzzle-loading Whitney
rifles and bayonets. The equipment and rations we carried in weight
would have been a respectable load for a mule.