great roots of a very large tree. His breast was bare, and the blood
was slowly oozing out of a wound in his lungs.
“I am dying,” he said, “can’t somebody pray?” Both men were weeping.
If he was not a brother, he was a friend; I answered promptly, “I can
pray.” I knelt there on the damp ground, and taking one of his hands
in my own, I asked in simple words the heavenly Father to forgive
and bless. He responded to each petition. I kept on praying till he
said, “The way is light now, I do not fear.” There was a little gasp,
a shiver, and all was still. As I knelt there I closed his eyes and
said,--
“He is dead.”
“Yes,” they answered with a sob.
“He is dead, and this is all we can do. We will report the case, and
have the grave marked.” And we turned away and left him there. An hour
afterwards I returned that way. It was a most impressive sight to see a
dead man sitting there so calmly and peacefully, with eyes closed, dead
and cold. When I passed that way again, they had taken him away.
The country can never pay those who went out and heroically defended
the flag. Such scenes as these bring gray hairs before their time to
those who looked on. What must it have been to those in the midst of
the fight?
JOHNNIE CLEM.
THE DRUMMER BOY OF SHILOH AND THE BOY HERO OF CHICKAMAUGA, CHATTANOOGA.
Johnnie Clem, who lived at Newark, Ohio, was perhaps the youngest and
smallest recruit in the Union Army. The army historian, Lossing, says
that he was probably the youngest person who ever bore arms in battle.
He was born at Newark, Ohio, Aug. 13, 1851, and his full name was John
Winton Clem. He was of German-French descent, and the family spell the
name Klem, and not Clem. His sister Lizzie, who is now Mrs. Adams, and
lives on the Granville road near Newark, gives the following statement
to a visitor:--
It being Sunday, May 24, 1861, and the rebellion in progress, Johnnie
said at dinner table,--
“Father, I’d like mighty well to be a drummer boy. Can’t I go into the
Union army?”
“Tut! my boy, what nonsense! You are not ten years old,” was the
father’s reply; and he thought no more about it. When he disappeared,
he had no thought that he had gone into the service. That afternoon
Johnnie took charge of his sister Lizzie, seven years old, and
his little brother Lewis, five years old, and took them to the
Sunday-school room, and left them there.
As Johnnie did not return, the father and step-mother were greatly
distressed, fearing he had gone to the canal and gone in for a swim,
for he was an expert swimmer, and had been drowned. They searched far
and near to find him, and had the water drawn from the head of the
canal that they might find his body, but all in vain. Several weeks
past before they heard from him, and then they got word through a woman
living at Mount Vernon, who had been a neighbor to them at Newark, that
Johnnie had been there, and that she had sent him home in care of the
conductor.
It seems that Johnnie moved on the sympathies of the conductor, who
took him on to Columbus, where he joined the Twenty-fourth Ohio
Regiment; but ascertaining that an uncle was in that regiment, he left
it and joined the Twenty-second Michigan.
He was an expert drummer; and being a bright, cheerful little fellow,
he soon won his way into the confidence and affection of officers and
men.
He was in many battles; at Shiloh, Perryville, Murfreesboro,
Chattanooga, Chickamauga, Nashville, and Kenesaw, and in other
engagements in which the Army of the Cumberland took part.
When he entered the army, being too young to be mustered in, he went
with the regiment, the Twenty-second Michigan, as a volunteer, until
the battle of Shiloh.
When he was beating the long roll at the battle of Shiloh, a piece of
shell struck his drum and sent it flying in fragments. He was after
that called “Johnnie Shiloh.”
He was afterwards mustered in, and served also as a marker, and with
his little musket so served on the battle-field of Chattanooga. At
the close of that bloody day, the brigade in which he was, being
partly surrounded by rebels, was retreating, when he, being unable
to fall back as fast as the rest of the line, was singled out by a
rebel colonel who rode up to him with the summons, “Scoundrel, halt!
Surrender, you ---- little Yankee!”
Johnnie halted, and brought his gun into position as though he was
about to surrender, thus throwing the colonel off his guard. In another
moment the gun was cocked, fired, and the colonel fell dead from his
horse.
His regiment was pursued, and a volley was fired at that moment, and
Johnnie fell as though he had been killed, and lay there on the field
until it was dark enough for him to slip away unnoticed. At Chickamauga
he was struck with a fragment of a shell in the hip. He was taken
prisoner with others while detailed to bring up a supply train from
Bridgeport, Ala.
He fared hard as a prisoner. His sister, Mrs. Adams, says, “The rebels
stripped him of everything--his clothes, his shoes, his little gun--an
ordinary musket, I suppose, cut short--and his little cap. He said he
did not care about anything but his cap; he did want to save that,
and it hurt him sorely to part with it, for it had three bullet holes
through it.” When exchanged he was given a furlough and sent home for a
week. He was weak and emaciated from starvation, and his clothes were a
bundle of rags. He had been absent about two years in the army, and was
at that time in his twelfth year.
I did not meet him at Shiloh, but became acquainted with him at
Chattanooga, when he was in the hospital there, and saw him frequently
when he was on General Thomas’s staff.
He was a fair and beautiful child then, about twelve years old, but
very small of his age. He was at that time only about thirty inches
high and weighed about sixty pounds.
At Atlanta, while in the act of delivering a despatch from General
Thomas to General Logan, a ball struck the head of his pony obliquely,
killing him, and wounding his little rider in the right ear.
For his heroic conduct, he was made a sergeant, and his name placed on
the Roll of Honor, and he was attached to Headquarters of the Army of
the Cumberland.
Shortly afterwards he received from Nettie M. Chase, the daughter of
Chief Justice Chase, a silver medal inscribed:--
SERGEANT JOHNNIE CLEM,
TWENTY-SECOND MICHIGAN VOLUNTEER INFANTRY,
FROM N. M. C.
which he worthily wears as a badge of honor on his left breast with
other medals.
When the war was over, General Thomas advised him to study and make
a man of himself. He studied at West Point, but on account of his
size he could not enter as a cadet. In 1890 he weighed one hundred
and five pounds and was only five feet high. His wife, Annita, the
daughter of General Wm. H. French, U.S.A., is also small and delicate,
weighing about seventy pounds. General Grant commissioned him as a
lieutenant. He is now captain of the twenty-fourth U.S. Infantry, and
is stationed at Columbus, Ohio, and holds the important office of depot
quartermaster and commissary.
He has one son living, who is very like him, only he will be larger.
From recent correspondence he seems to be the same kindly,
great-hearted Johnnie as when I first met him at Chattanooga, Tenn.
ARMY TRICKS.
There were many tricks played on the officers, just for the fun of the
thing, during the war, especially if the troops remained long at any
one camping-place.
In one of the many camps of the Union soldiers, an odd trick was
played off on the surgeon and chaplain of a regiment noted for its
merry-making.
The troops were camped by a small stream, over which was a narrow,
rickety bridge.
Just across from the camp was a log cabin, in which lived an old woman
alone.
The woman paid no attention to the soldiers, but went about her daily
duties as though unconscious of their presence.
One day some of the boys passed the cabin, and hurrying over the
rickety bridge, came running into the camp with the message, “The old
woman in the cabin is dying!” The chaplain and surgeon were notified.
“Chaplain, hurry over quick! The old woman is dying!”
The chaplain hurried over the rickety bridge as rapidly as possible;
the surgeon soon followed. As the chaplain came round to the open door
he saw at a glance that it was a trick, and he passed on around the
house, so as to allow the surgeon to come on and bear a full share of
the joke.
The woman _was dyeing_. She _was over a kettle of butternut juice
dyeing a lot of yarn_.
When the two came back over the bridge the whole camp was in a roar of
laughter over the joke.
But what could be done? The men had reported a truth--the woman _was_
dyeing; so there was no redress.
GENERAL GRANT’S KINDNESS.
One morning during the war, coming down on the packet boat that plied
between Cairo, Ill., and Columbus, Ky., I noticed a woman weeping as
though her heart would break. Her calico dress and coarse blanket-shawl
betokened abject poverty, and her face was hidden; and she sobbed out
her anguish in a coarse bandanna handkerchief.
Laying my hand gently on her shoulder, I said,--
“My dear woman, what is the matter?”
“It’s my boy I’m crying about; he’s awful sick down in Tennessee, and
he has writ for me to come down an’ nus him up, but the men as keeps
the passes at Cairo says I can’t go.
“They say there’s plenty to take care uv my boy, and maybe there is;
but I reckon that his muther what took care uv him when he was a baby
could do it better nor any of them.
“My boy wus a very smart boy. You never seen a smarter boy nor a better
boy than mine wuz. Well, if they won’t let me go down on the railroad
I reckon I can walk. My boy’s sick an’ I’m bound to go. They tried to
skeer me by tellin’ me the guards would arrest me if I tried to get
through the lines. But I can dodge the guards, an’ creep under the
lines. Anyway, I s’pose them guards ar’ human cre’turs, an’ if I tell
’em my boy is a solger, an’ awful sick, an’ wants his mother to come
down an’ nus him, they’ll let me go through.”
“Have you his letter with you?”
“Yes, I have.”
And out of the depth of a capacious pocket she drew forth a package,
and carefully unrolling it, she handed me a letter. It was short, but
full of tender pathos. The boy was sick and homesick, and wanted his
mother. Among other things, he said:--
“You could nus me better than the boys. I hain’t got no apertite and
can’t eat nothin’; the boys hain’t much on cookin’, but you could cook
something that I could eat, and maybe I’d get well.”
Satisfied that she was a true woman, and not a spy, I said:--
“General Grant, the highest officer in the army, is on this boat. He
can give you a pass; he was sitting here by this table a few minutes
ago; as he has left his paper and writing material there, he will
no doubt return in a few minutes. Go to him and show him your boy’s
letter, and ask him for a pass. He will give it to you.”
She was almost dismayed at the thought of speaking to such a great man.
When the General came in and took a seat at the table, I whispered to
her,--
“Now go,--don’t be afraid.”
The meeting of the two was a picture for an artist.
With sun-bonnet pushed back, and her coarse shawl drawn closely about
her, she timidly approached him, holding out the letter.
General Grant looked up kindly.
“Are you Gineral Grant?” she questioned.
“Yes.”
“Well, my boy’s awful sick down in Tennessee, an’ he’s writ me this
letter to cum an’ nus him up; but them men at Cairo what gives passes
said I might be a spy, and they wouldn’t give me a pass.
“But, Gineral, I hain’t no spy; I’m a good Union woman as ever lived;
and there’s a lady here as allowed that if I’d ask you maybe you’d give
me a pass.”
In the meantime, General Grant had looked over the letter and
scrutinized the woman, and handing the letter back to her, he said,
“Yes, I’ll give you a pass; what is your name?”
The woman gave her name; but she was so delighted that she talked all
the while he was writing the pass:--
“It’s awful unhandy for me to leave home now, cos I hain’t nobody
to take care of nothing. Bill Spence’s wife, she agreed to milk the
cow, but I had a beautiful pig, and I had to turn that out to root for
itself, and I’m awful feared that it will get lost while I’m gone. But
I told Mis’ Spence that I’d ruther risk the pig than to risk my boy,
for he’s an awful good boy, Gineral.”
“This pass will take you down and bring you back,” said General Grant,
handing her the precious document.
“How much do you s’pose it’ll cost me to go down?”
“It will cost you nothing, madam; the pass will take you free.”
“Don’t they charge nuthen on them roads?”
“They will not charge you. A mother who has given her son to the
government, the government can afford to carry free.”
Just then I got her attention and beckoned her away.
“I’m very much obliged to you, Gineral,” she said, and made an
old-fashioned courtesy.
Years afterward, while he was an occupant of the White House, and I
was there on a friendly visit, I reminded him of the circumstance,
which he had almost forgotten, and expressed the hope that the boy had
recovered, and that she had found her pig on her return. He smiled, and
said,--
“I always let the mothers pass if their boys were sick, and they
seemed to be good loyal women.”
I had noticed that General Grant did not judge by appearance or dress.
Often the lady in her silks was turned back, while a woman arrayed in
calico would go through the lines.
ARMY LIFE AT HELENA, ARKANSAS.
Helena, Arkansas, was an important military station in 1862-63. In
December, 1862, General Sherman, with his great fleet of boats and an
army of twenty or thirty thousand men, moved from that point down the
Mississippi River upon Vicksburg. There was nothing in the place of
itself that made it a desirable camping-ground for troops, other than
that it was an advance station far down into the enemy’s country, and
commanded considerable important territory. The soldiers called it a
“God-forsaken place.”
It was named after the daughter of the founder of the town, Helena;
but the soldiers suggested that the name ought to be spelled with one
syllable and two l’s.
Along the river front the land was very low and subject to overflows,
but was protected by a high embankment, which effectually shut out
the flood tides of the Mississippi River. Just back of the town was a
great green cypress swamp, that was crossed by a corduroy road--a road
made of large round logs fastened together at each end. Back of the
swamp rose high bluffs of yellow clay. They were unsightly and very
precipitous; in most places perpendicular. Their uneven sides were
seamed and wrinkled by the floods and storms of ages, and looked like a
line of forts.
It is easy to imagine the discomfort of such a camping place. During
the winter and spring the streets of the town were miry and almost
impassable.
In December, 1862, I reached Helena with a heavy lot of hospital
supplies. I sent a message to my friend, General Cyrus Bussey, who
was Assistant-Secretary of the Interior during President Harrison’s
administration, but who was then in command, requesting an ambulance,
that I might visit the several hospitals. He sent me a note, saying
that it would be impossible to get about in an ambulance, but that if I
wished he would send me an army wagon. Of course I accepted the offer.
A big wagon, with four good strong mules attached, was sent me. A
camp-chair was put in for my use; and Chaplain P. P. Ingalls offered to
accompany me, and took a seat with the driver on a board which had been
placed across the wagon bed. We started down the principal street of
the town, towards the steamboat-landing; but we had not gone far till
the team began to mire. The mules made a desperate struggle to get out,
and the driver tried to turn them towards the sidewalk; but the more
they struggled the deeper they sank into the black mire of the street.
The mules were in up to their sides, and the wagon had sunk down almost
to the bed.
Immediately a crowd of soldiers gathered on the board sidewalk. They
had been through many a miry place, and knew just what to do. Boards
from the near fence and rails were brought, and soon the space was
bridged between the struggling mules and the board sidewalk. The mules
were soon detached from the wagon, poles and rails were used to pry
them out, and ropes were put about them, and they were pulled by main
force to the sidewalk.
As the boards on which the men stood sank down in the mud, other boards
were brought and laid on top of them, and many willing hands made the
work of rescue possible. The last mule to be rescued was up to his
sides in the mire.
It seemed almost impossible to get a rail down under him, or to get
ropes about him, so as to help him; but at last, covered with black mud
and almost exhausted, he stood on the board sidewalk. Chaplain Ingalls
and myself were then rescued, the wagon was abandoned, and a board put
up, “NO BOTTOM,” to warn others.
A TERRIBLE STORM AT CHATTANOOGA.
HOW THE MEN IN THE HOSPITAL TENTS WERE SAVED FROM FREEZING.
On the night of Dec. 31, 1863, a fearful storm swept over the Southern
States, extending from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Coast.
I was at Chattanooga at the time. The tempest came down upon us like
an Arctic hurricane. It beat and tore around the cliffs of Lookout
Mountain and down its gorges, levelling trees, and freezing the
life-currents in every unprotected living thing. Many of the guards on
duty in the army that night froze to death. General Russell A. Alger,
who was in front of the enemy in the Eastern Army that night, tells
of his ride along the picket-line. As the position of his forces was
a dangerous one, he desired to assure himself that the guards were at
their posts of duty.
At one point, where the lines of the two armies came close together,
and the danger was especially great, a trusty soldier had been posted.
As General Alger approached that point, he was surprised at not being
halted, and he felt sure that the guard was asleep.
“Why do you not challenge me, sir?” he demanded. There was no response.
Taking the man by the shoulder, General Alger was shocked to find him
dead. Standing against a tree, facing the enemy, that terrible night,
with eyes and ears on the strain, intent on doing his duty well, he had
frozen to death.
At Chattanooga there was great suffering from scarcity of food, and
clothing, and lack of proper protection. The railroad had been repaired
to Bridgeport only; and it was necessary to haul all the supplies
of that great army from Bridgeport to Chattanooga, a distance of
twenty-eight miles, and over a rough, stony mountain road. The army
had marched over this road to Mission Ridge and Chickamauga, and their
shoes had been cut to pieces on the sharp rocks. Many of the men were
almost barefooted. They were two hundred and thirty-six miles inland
from their base of supplies. Every bridge had been destroyed, and every
foot of the long line of railroad had to be guarded.
Those of us who ventured to travel over that dangerous route had to
take the chances, both of obstructions on the track, and volleys
of musketry from ambuscades. When the storm fell upon the army at
Chattanooga the troops lacked both food and clothing.
At the foot of Lookout Mountain, there was a large “field hospital,” at
which were quartered the men who were most severely wounded and sick.
The men were sheltered by large tents, and lay on cots. There were no
floors in these tents, and no arrangements for heating them.
Mrs. Jeremiah Porter of Chicago, a dear little saint, who is now in
heaven, had gone to Chattanooga with me; and we were together at the
rooms of the Christian Commission when the storm burst upon the place
in its terrible fury. Amid the raging of the tempest, which made every
timber in the old frame building creak, and threatened to tear away
the roof that covered us, our first thought was of the men in the
field hospital, who were exposed to its fury. Night, as it was, it was
decided that we should go to their relief. While the delegates were
getting out the horses and ambulances, everything that would be likely
to add to the comfort of the patients was collected from the stores on
hand. It was about daybreak when we started.
The way was lined with dead mules and horses frozen to death.
Half-starved and unsheltered they could not live in such a storm. The
muddy roads were now frozen. The wind was in our faces, and the two
miles we had to travel seemed a long journey.
When we reached the hospital our worst fears were realized. Many of the
tents had been blown down upon the faces of the helpless men. Against
the fierce northern blasts, which threatened to tear the tents into
tatters, the attendants were striving to right them. But the force was
small compared to the work which needed to be done. To leeward of the
camp, three great log fires were blazing and crackling furiously.
Mother Bickerdyke, a grand old army nurse, who did heroic service in
the hospitals from the beginning until the close of the war, was there,
and giving directions with the clearness and force of a sea-captain in
a storm. Orders were imposed on all of us before we were out of the
ambulance. “Come on, Lawrence, with your men, and help get up these
tents. Mrs. Wittenmyer, you and Mrs. Porter get sticks and pry out
rocks, and heat them here in these fires and put them about the men to
keep them from freezing.”
We all went to work at once. No one stood upon the order of his going.
With such sticks as we could pick up it was hard to pry out the rocks,
but we were willing and we succeeded. One delegate had brought a lot
of reading-matter with him; and we utilized them as wrappers for the
hot rocks, which we carried in our arms to the cots, creeping under
the flapping canvas when the tents were down, and putting them around
the men the best we could, and speaking at the time words of cheer
which they so much needed. I thank God that because of the heroic
and timely efforts which were made, not one man froze to death in
the tents that day. The great log fires, we learned later, had been
built from a part of a fort surrendered by the Confederates. Mother
Bickerdyke, not finding suitable wood for fires which could withstand a
tempest, suggested to the surgeon, that such timbers as they could get
out of the two forts be used for that purpose. But as the forts were
government property, the surgeon refused to touch them without an order.
Military headquarters were two miles away, and the tempest was raging.
Mother Bickerdyke rose to the emergency as usual. “Come on, boys,” said
she; “we’ll soon have the timbers out of the old fort. What possible
use can Uncle Sam put them to?”
The surgeon warned her that it would be his duty to report the matter
to the proper authorities. “That’s all right, doctor; but in the
meantime we’ll have the fires going.” Of course nothing was ever done
about it. We toiled all day. As the tents were raised we carried great
pans and kettles full of live coals into the tents, and emptied them
on the ground to temper the keen air, which seemed to pierce to the
marrow. I had brought up the river, with great difficulty, a special
store of supplies, transporting them in a small boat, through the
special kindness of General John A. Logan, who had detailed the boat
for that purpose. Among the supplies was the largest lot of good
woollen home-knit socks I had ever seen together. Many sacks of them
had been pitched into the ambulance that morning; and as we went
through the tents we examined the feet of the men to see if they were
frozen. We put socks on the feet that were bare, and kept the hot
bowlders moving back and forth to aid all. Many of the men had on good
socks which had been sent to them by mail; but the feet of many were
bare. I shall never forget the stone-bruised feet on which we put warm
woollen socks that day.
At last the work was well-nigh done. The wind had abated, the tents
were up, and our supplies were nearly all distributed. We had reached
the last tent, and the last two men in the tent. I turned to the last
sack to draw out two pairs of stockings for the two men before us, but
there was only one pair in the sack. “O Mrs. Porter, what shall I do?
There are two men, and only one pair of socks!” I exclaimed in despair.