"I had been back from the army just long enough with my wife and little
darlings to appreciate how much I had missed during the three years
gone, and I do believe when I get home this time I shall be able to
conclude that I have discharged my duty to my country and done my
share of the fighting, and that I have also a duty to discharge to my
family, which I have sadly neglected for the three years past; and I
hope that for the rest of my life I shall devote myself to them. Major
Hynes was saying to me the other day that you had acted so nobly during
my absence he thought I owed it to you and my children when I was out
of the service this time to stay at home. But I take so much interest
in the war and am so thoroughly satisfied with the correctness of the
principles for which it is being prosecuted, that I must confess I do
not like to leave the army, when all of our experienced officers and
men are so badly needed, but I hope I will be able to see my duty clear
to stay at home. I trust my influence and efforts there will not be
entirely useless."
I wrote fully to my wife of the plans of my Kentucky friends and my
brother, and from my letters it appears they met with her decided
disapproval. On August 20 I wrote: "I was sorry on my return from
Knoxville and read your letters and saw how you felt about my going
into the service again, that I had written George on the subject." And
again I wrote: "I was sorry to know from your letter that my letter
in which I had said something about reëntering the service had given
you any pain or solicitude, as I did not design that it should do so.
I never yet have entered the service or left home except with your
consent or approval, and I will not do it in the future. As I have
written heretofore, I think I have served my country long enough to
serve my family awhile; and I hope nothing will occur to prevent my
early return to my home."
Some fear was entertained that the efforts of the Confederate cavalry
to break up the railroad connections would detain our regiment in
Tennessee beyond the term of enlistment, but no such untoward event
occurred. The One Hundred and Thirty-sixth left Murfreesboro on
August 25 under my command, passed through Louisville the next day,
and the day following took the cars at New Albany for Indianapolis.
The citizens of Bloomington, the seat of Indiana University where the
"Foster boys" had received their education, having notice that the
regiment would pass their town about noon, entertained them with a
hurried but sumptuous dinner. We found a warm supper awaiting us and
were comfortably quartered at Indianapolis in barracks, where we
spent one week waiting to be paid off and mustered out of the service.
During this time we took part in a review by Governor Morton of six
thousand troops gathered at the Capital of the State, and in this and
our regimental parades we were enabled with much pride to exhibit our
accomplishments in soldiery.
In the introduction to the compilation of these letters I described
myself in entering the service as a peace man, as having no desire for
military glory, having no special fitness for the life of a soldier,
and entertaining a horror of war. The reader of these letters must
have noted the gradual development of a taste for or satisfaction
with the service. Even at the outset in Missouri, in describing in
glowing colors the exposure to the climate and the hard marching, I
manifest a certain enthusiasm for my success as a wagon-master, or for
my prospective work of an architect of the log-hut winter quarters.
I early mastered the tactics, army regulations, and camp régime, and
often wrote of my interest in the drill and regimental and brigade
exercises. I refer to the gallant charges of our regiment and brigade
at Donelson, and speak of some parts of the bloody battle of Shiloh as
"grand beyond description." I hardly had words sufficient to describe
the deliverance by our army of the Union citizens of East Tennessee.
My intercourse with my comrades, superior and inferior officers and
men, is noticed as in all respects agreeable. When I entered the army
I was not robust, having too long led a student and office life, but
during my entire service I enjoyed almost uninterrupted good health,
the letters constantly speaking of how the outdoor life and the most
active campaigning best agreed with me. So that it has been seen that
while at the end of three years of army service I was rejoiced to go
back to my home, to my wife and little ones, an offer to reënter the
army was quite a temptation to me.
But my life in the army did not alter the views I had formed in my
college life of the horror and futility of war, but rather strengthened
and confirmed them. I witnessed the sad effects of the conflict in
dividing and embittering brothers of the same blood, the ravages of the
battlefield and the hospital, the valuable lives lost and the widows
and orphans, the enormous expenditure of money, and the great war debt
and pensions to be paid by a coming generation. All these evils might
have been avoided by a peaceful adjustment of the questions which
were settled by the armed conflict. The emancipation of the slaves by
purchase would have been many times less than the cost of the war in
money, without counting the saving of the lives lost, the widows and
orphans, and the bitterness engendered. There is a certain glamour
about warfare which attracts the participant, but it is fictitious and
unchristian. I pray God that our country may be delivered from its
horrors in the future.