"I intended to have written you a long letter last night in reply to
your good one received yesterday afternoon, but I had no heart to
write. The terrible and disastrous calamity to our army has made me
sick. A thousand times rather would I have given my life and left you
a widow and my darling child fatherless than that this defeat should
have happened. I think I shall go to Indianapolis to-morrow to urge my
immediate appointment in our new regiment. I want to help retrieve our
lost fortune. I have no fear of our ultimate triumph."
When the President's second call for volunteers was issued, a movement
was at once set on foot to organize a regiment at Evansville, my home,
and the Governor of the State had intimated his intention to appoint
me major of this new regiment. On August 9 my appointment as major was
made. The next day I sent my wife's brother, Alexander, to Glendale,
near Cincinnati, where she was visiting her mother, to notify her of
the event and give her details of the situation. He bore her a letter
in which I wrote: "Zan [Alexander] will explain the cause of his
coming. I want to be with my wife as much as I can before I go, so you
must hurry home _as fast as you can_.... While you are a loving wife,
remember to be a _brave woman_ and your husband will love you the more."
I had gone to Glendale some time before to talk over with my wife my
intention to enter the army, and she had given her consent; but when
the time came for me to take the final step she seemed to hesitate and
draw back. It was a terrible trial to contemplate, her solitary lot
with her little babe and I away in the army. In answer to her letter
I wrote: "You seem in your last letter to be about to withdraw your
consent to let me go. That was the special reason of my late visit to
Glendale, and I thought it was agreed. I have a very honorable and, to
me, very flattering position, and in some degree removed from danger;
and of course I shall, for the love I bear my wife and child, be as
careful of my life as my duty will permit. The President has called for
four hundred thousand men, and of that number it is my duty to be one.
I regard this as important a war as that of the Revolution, the issue
is the life and maintenance of the Government, and I would be ashamed
of myself, and my children should be ashamed of me in after years, if
I declined so honorable a position as that tendered me. Be of good
courage."
In response to my call she came at once to Evansville, and soon entered
into the spirit of my work in organizing and outfitting the regiment,
and, as will be seen later in these pages, she remained to the close of
my service my faithful and devoted supporter.
II
THE MISSOURI CAMPAIGN
The organization at Evansville became the Twenty-fifth Indiana
Infantry Regiment of Volunteers. On August 22, thirteen days after its
official staff was appointed, the regiment was ordered to St. Louis,
Missouri. It was a notable farewell the citizens of Evansville and the
surrounding country gave the regiment on its departure. The deportment
of my wife I refer to in one of my first letters to her from St. Louis.
I copy it at some length because it reflects the sentiments of hundreds
of thousands of other soldiers:--
"I felt proud of you as my wife and loved you the more for the manner
in which you acted on the departure of our regiment from Evansville.
While I know that no wife loves her husband more than you do me, yet
you could let me go off, for how long you know not, to brave the
dangers of the battlefield, because I thought it my duty, without a
murmur or reproach or entreaty. And now that I am away, I hope you will
be the true woman still. You know that our separation is not harder
for you to bear, surrounded by home and all its comforts, your darling
child and dear mother, than it is for me deprived of all these. You
must be hopeful and cheerful. I am here because duty prompts me, and
you would be ashamed of me if I were not here.
"I will try to do all I can to preserve my health and so far protect
myself from dangers as my duty and honor will permit. You must remember
that there are tens of thousands of wives who bear the same lot as you
do. It would make me very unhappy to know that you were disheartened
and lamenting my absence and exposure to danger; and, on the contrary,
it would lighten my trials to know that you were bearing it like a
brave, true-hearted woman. I know you are my devoted wife, and I know
you will act your part nobly."
Our regiment was ordered to St. Louis because the State of Missouri
was in a critical condition and in danger of being swept onto the side
of the rebellion. St. Louis had been placed on the side of the Union
by the daring and promptness of Frank P. Blair and General Lyon, the
commander of the arsenal and barracks, in the seizure of the rebel Camp
Jackson, and dispersion of the State Guards stationed in the city.
But before our arrival the Union forces had met with a disastrous
repulse at Wilson Creek, and General Lyon killed, one of the most
promising of the Union generals. Soon after we reached St. Louis, the
Confederate General Price captured Lexington, took the entire Union
force prisoners, and was overrunning the greater portion of the State.
General Frémont had been assigned to the command of the Department, and
troops were being rushed forward to enable him to clear the State of
rebels.
The Twenty-fifth Indiana remained at Benton Barracks, St. Louis, for
three weeks, while Frémont was organizing his army to drive General
Price and his forces out of the State. How we occupied our time is in
part shown by my letters. James C. Veatch, the colonel of our regiment,
was appointed largely because of the service he had rendered in the
campaign for the election of Lincoln, but it proved a good appointment.
The lieutenant-colonel, William H. Morgan, had seen some service with
the three months' volunteers and as a member of a military company had
acquired some knowledge of drill and tactics. He was the only person in
our regiment of 1047 officers and men who knew anything about military
affairs.