 Chapter 4 of the Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sue Anderson The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, by Leander Stillwell Chapter 4 Some Incidents of the Battle of Shiloh There were many little incidents at Shiloh that came under my personal observation that I did not mention in the foregoing sketch. The matter of space was important, so I passed them over. But that consideration does not arise now, and as I am writing this for you, I will say something here about several things that I think may be of some interest. I distinctly remember my first shot at Shiloh. It was fired when we were in our first position, as described in my account of the battle. I think that when the boys saw the enemy advancing they began firing of their own motion without waiting for orders. At least I don't remember hearing any. I was in the front rank, but didn't fire. I preferred to wait for a good opportunity when I could take deliberate aim at some individual foe. But when the regiment fired, the Confederates halted and began firing also, and the fronts of both lines were at once shrouded in smoke. I had my gun at a ready, and was trying to peer under the smoke in order to get a sight of our enemies. Suddenly I heard someone in a highly excited tone calling to me from just in my rear. Still well! Shoot! Shoot! Why don't you shoot? I looked around, and saw that this command was being given by Bob Wilder, our second lieutenant, who was in his place just a few steps to the rear. He was a young man, about twenty-five years old, and was fairly wild with excitement, jumping up and down like a hen on a hot griddle. My lieutenant said I can't see anything to shoot at. Shoot! Shoot! Anyhow! All right, I responded, if you say shoot, shoot it is. And bringing my gun to my shoulder, I aimed low in the direction of the enemy and blazed away through the smoke. I have always doubted if this my first shot did any execution, but there's no telling. However, the lieutenant was clearly right. Our adversaries were in our front in easy range, and it was our duty to aim low, fire in their general direction, and let fate do the rest. But at the time the idea to me was ridiculous that one should blindly shoot into a cloud of smoke without having a bead on the object to be shot at. I had shot squirrels and rabbits at other small game in the big woods adjacent to our backwards home, from the time I was big enough to carry a gun. In fact, I began when I was too small to shoot offhand, but had to fire from a rest, any convenient stump, log, or forked bush. The gun I used was a little old percussion lock rifle, with a long barrel, carrying a bullet which weighed about sixty to the pound. We boys had to furnish our own ammunition, lead which we molded into bullets, gun caps, and powder. Our principal source of revenue whereby we got money to buy ammunition was hazelnuts, which we would gather, shuck, and sell at five cents a quart. And the work incident to the gathering and shucking of a quart of hazelnuts was a decidedly tedious job, but it made us economical in the use of our ordnance stores, so we would never throw away a shot carelessly or unnecessarily. And it was a standing rule never to shoot a squirrel anywhere except in the head, save as a last resort, when circumstances compelled one to fire at some other part of the body of the little animal. And so I thought, at the beginning of my military career, that I should use the same care and circumspection in firing an old musket when on the line of battle, that I had exercised in hunting squirrels, but I learned better in about the first five minutes of the battle of Shiloh. However, in every action I was in, when the opportunity was afforded, I took careful and deliberate aim, but many a time the surroundings were such that the only thing to do was to hold low and fire through the smoke in the direction of the enemy. I will say here that the extent of wild shooting done in battle, especially by raw troops, is astonishing, and rather hard to understand. When we fell back to our second line at Shiloh, I heard an incessant humming sound, a way up above our heads, like the flight of a swarm of bees. In my ignorance I at first hardly knew what that meant, but it presently dawned on me that the noise was caused by bullets singing through the air, from twenty to a hundred feet over our heads. And after the battle I noticed that the big trees in our camp, just in the rear of our second line, were thickly pockmarked by musket-balls at a distance of fully a hundred feet from the ground. And yet we were separated from the Confederates only by a little narrow field and the intervening ground was perfectly level. But the fact is those boys were fully as green as we were, and doubtless as much excited. The Confederate Army at Shiloh was composed of soldiers, the great majority of whom went under fire there for the first time, and I reckoned they were as nervous and badly scared as we were. I shall never forget how awfully I felt on scene for the first time a man killed in battle. This occurred on our second position, above mentioned. Our line of battle here was somewhat irregular and the men had become mixed up. The trees and stumps were thick, and we availed ourselves of their protection whenever possible. I had a tree, it was embarrassingly small, but better than none. I took to a log later, but there was a man just on my right behind a tree of generous proportions, and I somewhat envied him. He was actively engaged in loading and firing, and was standing up to the work well when I last saw him alive, but all at once there he was lying on his back at the foot of his tree, with one leg doubled under him, motionless and stone dead. He probably had been hit square in the head while aiming or peeking around the tree. I stared at his body, perfectly horrified. Only a few seconds ago that man was alive and well, and now he was lying on the ground, done for, for ever. The event came nearer completely upsetting me than anything else that occurred during the entire battle, but I got used to such incidents in the course of the day. After rallying at our third position we were moved a short distance to the rear, and formed in line at right angles to the road from our camp to the landing. While standing there I casually noticed a large wall tent at the side of the road, a few steps to my rear. It was closed up and nobody stirring around it. Suddenly I heard right over our heads a frightful swish, and followed by a loud crash in this tent. Looking around I saw a big gaping hole in the wall of the tent, and on the other side got a glimpse of the cause of the disturbance, a big cannon-ball ricocheting down the ridge and hunting further mischief, and at the same moment of time the front flaps of the tent were frantically thrown open and out popped a fellow in citizens' clothes. He had a Hebrew visage, his face was as white as a dead man's, and his eyes were sticking out like a crawfish's. He started down the road toward the landing at probably the fastest gate he had ever made in his life, his coattails streaming behind him and the boys yelling at him. We proceeded to investigate the interior of that tent at once, and found that it was a settler's establishment and crammed with settler goods. The panic-struck individual who had just vacated it was, of course, the proprietor. He had adopted ostrich tactics, had buttoned himself up in the tent, and was in there, keeping as still as a mouse, thinking perhaps that, as he could see nobody, nobody could see him. That cannon-ball must have been a rude surprise. In order to have plenty of hand romance, we tore down the tent at once, and then proceeded to appropriate the contents. There were barrels of apples, baloney sausages, cheeses, canned oysters, and sardines, and lots of other truck. I was filling my haversack with baloney when Colonel Fry wrote up to me and said, My son, will you please give me a link of that sausage? Under the circumstances I reckon I must have been feeling somewhat impudent and reckless, so I answered rather saucily. Certainly, Colonel, we are closing out this morning below cost, and I thrust into his hands two or three big links of baloney. There was a faint trace of a grin on the old man's face as he took the preventer, and he began gnawing at once on one of the hunks, while the others he stowed away in his equipments. I suspected from this incident that the Colonel had had no breakfast that morning, which perhaps may have been the case. Soon after this I made another deal. There were some cavalry in line close by us, and one of them called out to me, Partner, give me some of them apples. You bet, said I, and quickly filling my cap with the fruit handed it to him. He emptied the apples into his haversack, took a silver dime from his pocket and proffered it to me, saying, Here! Keep your money, don't want it, was my response. But he threw the coin at my feet, and I picked it up and put it in my pocket. It came agreeably handy later. Jack Medford of my company came up to me with a most complacent look on his face and patting his haversack, said, Lee, I just now got a whole lot of paper and envelopes, and am fixing for writing home about this battle. Seems to me, Jack, I suggested, you'd better unload that stuff and get something to eat. Don't worry about writing home about the battle till it's done fought. Jack's countenance changed, he muttered, Wrecking your right, Lee, and when next I saw him his haversack was bulging with bologna and cheese. All this time the battle was raging furiously on our right, and occasionally a cannonball flying high when screaming over our heads. Walter Scott, in The Lady of the Lake, in describing an incident in the battle of Beale, Audun, speaks of the unearthly screaming and yelling that occurred, sounding, as if all the fiends from heaven that fell had peeled the banner cry of hell. That comparison leaves much for the imagination. But, speaking from experience, I will say that of all the blood-curdling sounds I ever heard, the worst is the terrific scream of a cannonball or shell passing close over one's head, especially that kind with the cavity in the base that sucks in air. At least they sounded that way until I got used to them. As a matter of fact, artillery in my time was not near as dangerous as musketry. It was noisy, but didn't kill often unless at close range and firing grape and canister. As stated in the preceding sketch, sometime during the forenoon the regiment was sent to the support of a battery and remained there for some hours. The most trying situation in battle is one where you have to life flat on the ground under fire, more or less, and without any opportunity to return it. The constant strain on the nerves is almost intolerable. So it was with feelings of grim but heartfelt relief that we finally heard the Colonel command, attention battalion. Our turn had come at last. We sprang to our feet with alacrity and were soon in motion, marching by the flank diagonally towards the left from whence for some hours had been proceeding heavy firing. We had not gone far before I saw something which hardly had an inspiring effect. We were marching along an old grass-grown country road with a rail fence on the right which enclosed a sort of woods pasture and with a dense forest on our left. When I saw a soldier on our left slowly making his way to the rear, he had been struck a sort of glancing shot on the left side of his face and the skin and flesh of his cheek were hanging in shreds. His face and neck were covered with blood, and he was a frightful sight. Yet he seemed to be perfectly cool and composed and wasn't taking on a bit. As he came opposite my company he looked up at us and said, Give them hell, boys, they've spoiled my beauty. It was manifest that he was not exaggerating. When we were thrown into line on our new position and began firing I was in the front rank and my rear rank man was Philip Potter, a young Irishman who was some years my senior. When he fired his first shot he came very near putting me out of action. I think that the muzzle of his gun could not have been more than two or three inches from my right ear. The shock of the report almost deafened me at the time and my neck and right cheek were peppered with powder grains which remained there for years until finally absorbed in the system. I turned to Phil in a fury exclaiming, What in the hell and damnation do you mean? Just then down went the man on my right with a sharp cry and, followed by the one on the left, both apparently severely wounded. The thought of my shocking conduct in thus indulging in wicked profanity at such a time flashed upon me and I almost held my breath expecting summary punishment on the spot. But nothing of the kind happened and according to history Washington swore a good deal worse at the Battle of Monmouth and Potter was more careful thereafter. Poor Phil, on December 7, 1864, while fighting on the skirmish line near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and just a few paces to my left he was mortally wounded by a gunshot in the bowels and died in the hospital a few days later. He was a Catholic and in his last hours was almost frantic because no priest was at hand to grant him absolution. Right after we began firing on this line I noticed directly in my front and not more than two hundred yards away a large Confederate flag flapping defiantly in the breeze. The smoke was too dense to enable me to see the bearer but the banner was distinctly visible. It looked hateful to me and I wanted to see it come down. So I held on it, let my gun slowly fall until I thought the sights were about on a waistline and then fired. I peered eagerly under the smoke to see the effect of my shot but the blame thing was still flying. I fired three or four more shots on the same line as the first but with no apparent results. I then concluded that the bearer was probably squatted behind a stump or something and that it was useless to waste ammunition on him. Diagonally to my left, perhaps two hundred fifty yards away, the Confederate line of battle was in plain sight. It was in the open, in the edge of an old field with woods to the rear. It afforded a splendid mark. Even the ramrods could be seen flashing in the air as the men, while in the act of loading, drew and returned the rammers. Thereupon I began firing at the enemy on that part of the line and the balance of the contents of my cartridge-box went in that direction. It was impossible to tell if any of my shots took effect but after the battle I went to the spot and looked over the ground. The Confederate dead lay there thick and I wondered, as I looked at them, if I had killed any of those poor fellows. Of course I didn't know and am glad now that I didn't. And I will say here that I do not now have any conclusive knowledge that during my entire term of service I ever killed or even wounded a single man. It is more than probable that some of my shots were fatal, but I don't know it, and am thankful for the ignorance. You see, after all, the common soldiers of the Confederate armies were American boys just like us and conscientiously believed that they were right. Had they been soldiers of a foreign nation, Spaniards for instance, I might feel differently. When we went in on the above-mentioned position, old Captain Reddish took his place in the ranks and fought like a common soldier. He had picked up the musket of some dead or wounded man and filled his pockets with cartridges and gun caps, and so was well provided with ammunition. He unbuckled his sword from the belt and laid it in the scabbard at his feet and proceeded to give his undivided attention to the enemy. I can now see the old man in my mind's eye as he stood in the ranks, loading and firing, his blue-gray eyes flashing, and his face lighted up with the flame of battle. Colonel Fry happened to be near us at one time, and I heard old Captain John yell at him, Engine-fighting, Colonel, just like Engine-fighting. When we finally retired, the Captain shouldered his musket and trotted off with the rest of us, oblivious of his cheese-knife, as he called it, lefted line on the ground and never saw it again. There was a battery of light artillery on this line, about a quarter of a mile to our right, on a slight elevation of the ground. It was right flush up with the infantry line of battle, and oh, how those artillerymen handled their guns! It seemed to me that there was the roar of a cannon from that battery about every other second. When ramming cartridge I sometimes glanced in that direction, the men were big fellows, stripped to the waist, their white skins flashing in the sunlight, and they were working like I have seen men doing when fighting a big fire in the woods, I fairly gloated over the fire of that battery. Give it to them, my sons of thunder, I would say to myself, knock the everlasting stuff in out of them. And, as I ascertained after the battle, they did do frightful execution. In consideration of the fact that, nowadays, as you know, I refuse to even kill a chicken, some of the above expressions may sound rather strange. But the fact is, a soldier on the fighting line is possessed by the demon of destruction. He wants to kill, and the more of his adversaries he can see killed, the more intense his gratification. General Grant somewhere in his memoirs expresses the idea, only in milder language than mine, when he says, while a battle is raging, one can see his enemy mowed down by the thousand or the ten thousand with great composure. The regiment bivouacked for the night on the bluff, not far from the historic log-house. Rain set in about dark, and not wanting to lie in the water, I hunted around and found a little brush-pile, evidently made by some man from a sapling he had cut down and trimmed up some time past when the leaves were on the trees. I made a sort of pillow out of my gun, cartridge-box, haversack, and canteen, and stretched myself out on the brush-pile, tired to death, and rather discouraged over the events of the day. The main body of Buell's men, the army of the Ohio, soon after dark began ascending the bluff at a point a little above the landing, and forming in line in the darkness a short distance beyond. I have a shadowy impression that this lasted the greater part of the night. Their regimental bands played continuously, and it seemed to me that they all played the tune of The Girl I Left Behind Me, and the rain drizzled down while every fifteen minutes one of the big navy-guns roared and sent a ponderous shell shrieking up the ravine above in the direction of the enemy. To this day, whenever I hear an instrumental band playing The Girl I Left Behind Me, there come to me the memories of that gloomy, Sunday night at Pittsburgh landing. I again hear the ceaseless patter of the rain, the dull, heavy tread of Buell's marching columns, the thunderous roar of the navy-guns, the demonical scream of the projectile, and, mingled with it all, the sweet, plaintive music of that old song. We had an army version of it I have never seen in print, altogether different from the original ballad. The last stanza of this army production was as follows. If I ever get through this war, and a rebel ball don't find me, I'll shape my course by the northern star, to the girl I left behind me. I have said elsewhere that the regiment was not engaged on Monday. We remained all that day at the place where we bivouacked Sunday night. The ends of the staffs of our regimental flags were driven in the ground, the banners flapping idly in the breeze, while the men sat or lay around with their guns in their hands or lying by them, their cartridge-boxes buckled on, and all ready to fall in line at the tap of the drum. But for some reason I never knew we were not called on. Our division commander, General B. M. Prentice, and our brigade commander, Colonel Madison Miller, were both captured on Sunday with the bulk of Prentice's division, so I reckon we were sort of lost children. But we were not alone. There were also other regiments of Grant's Command which were held in reserve, and did not fire a shot on Monday. After the battle I roamed around over the field, the most of the following two days, looking at what was to be seen, the fearful sights apparent on a bloody battlefield simply cannot be described in all their horror. They must be seen in order to be fully realized, as Byron somewhere in Don Juan truly says, Mortality, thou hast thy monthly bills, thy plagues, thy famines, thy physicians, yet tick like the death watch within our ears, the ills past, present, and to come, but all may yield to the true portrait of one battlefield. There was a small clearing on the battlefield called the Peach Orchard Field. It was of irregular shape and about fifteen or twenty acres in extent, as I remember. However, I cannot now be sure as to the exact size. It got its name probably from the fact that there were on it a few scraggie peach trees. The Union troops on Sunday had a strong line in the woods just north of the field, and the Confederates made four successive charges across this open space on our line, all of which were repulsed with frightful slaughter. I walked all over this piece of ground the day after the close of the battle and before the dead had been buried. It is the simple tooth to say that this space was literally covered with the Confederate dead, and one could have walked all over it on their bodies. Still Grant, in substance, makes the same statement in his memoirs. It was a fearful sight. But not far from the Peach Orchard Field in a westerly direction was a still more gruesome spectacle. Some of our forces were in line on an old grass-grown country road that ran through thick woods. The wheels of wagons running for many years right in the same roots had cut through the turf so that the surface of the road was somewhat lower than the adjacent ground. To men firing on their knees, this afforded a slight natural breastwork, which was substantial protection. In front of this position, in addition to the large timber, was a dense growth of small underbrush, post-oak and the like, which had not yet shed their leaves, and the ground was also covered with layers of dead leaves. There was desperate fighting at this point, and during its progress exploding shells set the woods on fire, the clothing of the dead Confederates lying in these woods caught fire, and their bodies were burned to a crisp. I have read somewhere that some wounded men were burned to death, but I doubt that. I walked all over the ground looking at these poor fellows and scrutinized them carefully to see the nature of their hurts, and they had evidently been shot dead or expired in a few seconds after being struck. But in any event the sight was horrible. I will not go into details but leave it to your imagination. I noticed at other places on the field the bodies of two Confederate soldiers whose appearances I shall never forget. They presented a remarkable contrast of death in battle. One was a full-grown man, seemingly about thirty years of age, with sandy reddish hair and a scrubby beard and mustache of the same color. He had been firing from behind a tree, had exposed his head, and had been struck square in the forehead by a musket-ball, killed instantly, and had dropped at the foot of the tree in a heap. He was in the act of biting a cartridge when struck. His teeth were still fastened on the paper extremity while his right hand clutched the bullet end. His teeth were long and snaggy and discolored by tobacco juice. As just stated, he had been struck dead seemingly instantaneously. His eyes were wide open and gleaming with satanic fury. His transition from life to death had been immediate, with the result that there was indelibly stamped on his face all the furious rage and lust of battle. He was an ill-looking fellow, and all in all was not an agreeable object to contemplate. The other was a far different case. He was lying on his sloping ridge where the Confederates had charged a battery and had suffered fearfully. He was a mere boy, not over eighteen, with regular features, light brown hair, blue eyes, and, generally speaking, was strikingly handsome. He had been struck on his right leg above the knee, about midway the thigh by a cannonball which had cut off the limb except a small strip of skin. He was lying on his back at full length, his right arm straight up in the air, rigid as a stake, and his fist tightly clenched. His eyes were wide open, but their expression was calm and natural. The shock and the loss of blood doubtless brought death to his relief in a short time. As I stood looking at the unfortunate boy, I thought of how some poor mother's heart would be well nigh broken when she heard of the sad, untimely fate of her darling son. But before the war was over, doubtless thousands of similar cases occurred in both the Union and Confederate armies. I believe I will here speak of a notion of mine to be considered for whatever you may think it worth. As you know, I am not a religious man in the theological sense of the term, having never belonged to a church in my life, have just tried to the best of my ability to act according to the Golden Rule and let it go at that. But from my earliest youth I have had a peculiar reverence for Sunday. I hunted much with a gun when a boy, and so did the people generally of my neighborhood. Small game in that backwards region was very plentiful, and even deer were not uncommon. Well it was a settled conviction with us primitive people that if one went hunting on Sunday he would not only have bad luck in that regard that day, but also all the rest of the week. So when the Confederates began the battle on Sunday, I would keep thinking throughout its entire progress, you fellows started this on Sunday and you'll get licked. I admit that there were a few occasions when things looked so awful bad that I became discouraged, but I quickly rallied, and my Sunday superstition, or whatever it may be called, was justified in the end. In addition to Shiloh, the battles of New Orleans in 1815, Merleau and Bull Run were fought on a Sunday, and in each case the attacking party was signally defeated. These results may have been mere coincidences, but I don't think so. I have read somewhere an authentic statement that President Lincoln entertained this same belief, and always was opposed to aggressive movements on Sundays by the Union troops. The wildest possible rumors got into circulation at home about some of the results of the battle. I have now lying before me an old letter from my father of date, April 19, in answer to mine, which I will mention later, giving him the first definite intelligence about our regiment and the neighborhood boys. Among other things he said, we have had it here that Fry's regiment was all captured that was not killed, pretty much all given up as lost, that Beauregard had run you all down a steep place into the Tennessee river, that Captain Reddish had his arm shot off, that Enoch Wallace was also wounded, and here followed the names of some others who, the same as Reddish and Wallace, hadn't received even a scratch. My letter to my father mentioned above was dated April 10, and received by him on the 18th. It was brief, occupying only about four pages of the small, sleazy note paper that we bought in those days of the Suttlers. I don't remember why I didn't write sooner, but it was probably because no mail boat left the landing until about that time. The old mail-hack ordinarily arrived at the Otter Creek Post Office from the outside world an hour or so before sundown, and the evening my letter came, the little post office and general store was crowded with people intensely anxious to hear from their boys or other relatives of the 61st Illinois. The distribution of letters in that office in those times was a proceeding of much simplicity. The old clerk who attended to that would call out in a stentorian tone the name of the addressee of each letter, who, if present, would respond here, and then the letter would be given a dexterous flip and went flying to him across the room. But on this occasion there were no letters from the regiment until just at the last, the clerk called my father's name, J. O. Stillwell, and again, still louder, but there was no response. Whereupon the clerk held the letter at arm's length and carefully scrutinized the address, well, he said finally this is from Jerry Stillwell's boy in the 61st, so I reckon he's not killed anyhow. A murmur of excitement went through the room at this, and the people crowded up to get a glimpse of even the handwriting of the address. Yes, that's from Jerry's boy, sure, said several. Thereupon William Noble and Joseph Beaman, who were old friends of fathers, begged the postmaster to give them the letter and they would go straight out to Stillwell's with it and have him read it, and then they would come right back with the news. Everybody seconded the request, the postmaster acceded and handed one of them the letter. They rushed out, unfastened their horses, and left in a gallop for Stillwell's two miles away on the south side of Otter Creek out in the woods. As they dashed up to the little old log cabin they saw my father out near the barn, the one with the letter waved at a loft, calling at the top of his voice, letter from your boy Jerry. My mother heard this and she came running from the house, trembling with excitement. The letter was at once opened and read, and the terrible reports which to that time had prevailed about the fate of Fry's regiment vanished in the air. It's true it contains some sad news, but nothing to be compared with the frightful accounts which had been rife in the neighborhood. I have that old letter in my possession now. Soon after the battle Governor Richard Yates of Illinois, Governor Louis P. Harvey of Wisconsin and many other civilians, came down from the north to look after the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers of their respective states. The sixteenth Wisconsin infantry was camped next to us, and I learned one afternoon that Governor Harvey was to make a speech that evening after Dress Parade, and I went over to hear him. The Wisconsin Regiment did not turn out in military formation, just gathered around him in a dense group under a grove of trees. The Governor sat on a horse while making his speech. He wore a large, broad-brimmed hat, his coat was buttoned to the chin, and he had big, buckskin gauntlets on his hands. He was a fine-looking man, heavy-set, and about forty-two years old. His remarks were not lengthy, but were patriotic and eloquent. I remember especially how he complimented the Wisconsin soldiers for their good conduct in battle that their state was proud of them, and that he, as Governor, intended to look after them, and care for them to the very best of his ability as long as he was in office, and that when the time came for him to relinquish that trust he would still remember them with interest and the deepest affection. His massive frame heaved with the intensity of his feelings as he spoke, and he impressed me as being absolutely sincere in all that he said, but he little-noon or apprehended the sad and lamentable fate then pending over him. Only a few evenings later, as he was crossing the gang-plank between two steam-boats at the landing, in some manner he fell from the plank and was sucked under the boats by the current and drowned. Some days later a negro found his body lodged against some drift near our side of the river, and he brought it in his old cart inside our lines. From papers on the body and other evidence it was conclusively identified as that of Governor Harvey. The remains were shipped back to Wisconsin, where they were given a largely attended and impressive funeral. The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sue Anderson The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 The Siege of Corinth, in Camp at Owl Creek, April and May, 1862 A few days after the battle General H. W. Hallock came down from St. Louis and assumed command of the Union forces in the field near Pittsburgh landing, then assumed thereafter began the so-called Siege of Corinth. We mighty near dug up all the country within eight or ten miles of that place, in the progress of this movement, in the construction of forts, long lines of breast-works, and such like. Hallock was a book-soldier, and had a high reputation during the war as a profound strategist and great military genius in general. In fact, in my opinion, and which I think is sustained by history, he was a humbug and a fraud. His ideas seemed to be that our war should be conducted strictly in accordance with the methods of the old Napoleonic Wars of Europe, which in the main were not at all adapted to our time and conditions. Moreover, he seemed to be totally deficient in sound, practical, common sense. Soon after the Confederates evacuated Corinth, he was transferred to Washington to serve in a sort of advisory capacity and spent the balance of the war period in a swivel chair in an office. He never was in a battle, and never heard a gun fired, except distant cannonading during the Corinth business, and maybe at Washington in the summer of 1864. During the operations against Corinth the Sixty-First made some short marches, and was shifted around from time to time to different places. About the middle of May we were sent to a point on Owl Creek in the right rear of the main army. Our duty there was to guard against any possible attack from that direction, and our main employment was throwing up breast-works and standing picket, and all this time the sick list was frightfully large. The chief trouble was our old enemy Camp Diarrhea, but there were also other types of diseases, malaria and the like. As before stated the boys had not learned how to cook nor to take proper care of themselves, and to this ignorance can be attributed much of the sickness. And the weather was rainy, the camps were muddy and gloomy, and about this time many of the boys had homesickness bad. A genuine case of downright homesickness is most depressing. I had some touches of it myself so I can speak from experience. The poor fellows would sit around in their tents and whine and talk about home and what good things they would have there to eat and kindred subjects, until apparently they lost every spark of energy. I kept away from such cases, all I could, for their talk was demoralizing. But one rainy day while in camp at Owl Creek I was in our big, civilly tent when some of the boys got well started on their pet topics. It was a dismal day. The rain was pattering down on the tent and dripping from the leaves of the big oak trees in the camp. While inside the tent everything was damp and moldy and didn't smell good either. Jim says one, I wish I could just be down on Coon Creek today and take dinner with old Bill Williams. I'll tell you what I'd have. First a big slice of fried ham with plenty of rich brown gravy with them light fluffy hot biscuits that Bill's wife could cook so well. Then I'd want some big baked Irish taters, red hot and all mealy. And then, yes Jack interrupted Jim. I've added old Bill's lots of times and wouldn't I like to be with you? You know, old Bill always masked fed the hogs he put up for his own eating. They just fattened on hickory nuts and big white and burroke acorns. And he'd smoke his meat with hickory wood smoke in. Oh, that meat was just so sweet and nutty-like. Why, the meat of corn fed hogs was nowhere in comparison. Yes, Jim, continued Jack. And then I'd want with the biscuits and taters plenty of that rich, yaller butter that Bill's wife made herself with her own hands. And then you know Bill always had lots of honey. And I'd spread honey and butter on one of them biscuits and—and don't you remember, Jack chimed in Jim, the mince pies Bill's wife could make. They were just stuffed with raisins and all manner of goodies, and—but here I left the tent in disgust. I wanted to say, oh, hell, as I went out, but refrained. The poor fellows were feeling bad enough anyhow, and it wouldn't have helped matters to make sarcastic remarks. But I preferred the shelter of a big tree and enduring the rain that filtered through the leaves rather than listen to this distracting talk of Jack and Jim about the flesh-pots of old Bill Williams. But while on the subject I believe I'll tell you about a royal dinner I had myself while the regiment was near Pittsburgh landing, it was a few days after the battle, while we were still at our old camp. I was detailed as corporal to take six men and go to the landing and load three or four of our regimental wagons with army rations for our regiment. We reached the landing about ten o'clock, reported to the proper officer, who showed us our stuff, and we went to piling it into the wagons. It consisted of big slabs of fat-side bacon, sow-belly, boxes of hard-tack, sacks of rice, beans, coffee, sugar, and soap and candles. I had an idea that I ought to help in the work and was trying to do so, although so weak from illness that it required some effort to walk straight. But a big, black-haired, black-bearded Irishman, Owen McGrath, of my company, one of the squad, objected. He laid a big hand kindly on my shoulder and said, Corporal, yes, it's not strong enough for this work, and yes, don't have to do it, either. Just give me the authority to superintendent and you go sit down. I guess you're right, McGrath, I answered. And then, in a louder tone, for the benefit of the detail, McGrath, you see to the loading of the grub, I am feeling a little out of sorts, which was true, and I believe I'll take a rest. McGrath was about thirty years old and a splendid soldier. He had served a term in the British Army in the old country and was fully on to his present job. I will tell another little story about him later. I sat down in the shade a short distance from my squad with my back against some big sacks full of something. Suddenly I detected a pungent, most agreeable smell. It came from onions in the sack behind me. I took out my pocket-knife and stealthily made a hole in that sack and abstracted two big ones and slipped them into my haversack. My conscience didn't trouble me a bit over the matter. I reckoned those onions were hospital goods, but I thought I needed some just as much as anybody in the hospital, which was probably correct. I had asked Captain Reddish that morning if, when the wagons were loaded, I could send them on to camp and return at my leisure in the evening and the kind-hearted old man had given a cheerful consent. So, when the teams were ready to start back, I told McGrath to take charge and to see that the stuff was delivered to our quartermaster or the commissary sergeant. And then I shifted for myself, planning for the good dinner that was in prospect. There were many steamboats lying at the landing. I selected one that looked inviting, went on board, and sauntered half to the cook's quarters. It was near dinner time and the grub dispenser was in the act of taking from his oven a number of nice cakes of cornbread. I sidled up to him and displayed the dime the cavalrymen had given me for those apples, asked him in a discreetly low tone if he would let me have a cake of cornbread. He gave me a friendly grin, pushed a cake towards me, I slipped it in my haversack and handed him the dime. Now I was fixed. I went ashore and down the river for a short distance to a spring I knew of that bubbled from the ground near the foot of a big beech tree. It did not take long to build a little fire and make coffee in my oyster can of a quartz capacity with a wire bale attachment. Then a slice of saubella was toasted on a stick, the outer skin of the onions removed, and dinner was ready. Talk about your gastronomic feasts. I doubt if ever in my life I enjoyed a meal better than this one under that old beech by the Tennessee river. The onions were big red ones and fearfully strong, but my system craved them so much that I just chomped them down as if they were apples, and every crumb of the cornbread was eaten too. Dinner over I felt better and roamed around the rest of the afternoon, sightseeing, and didn't get back to camp till nearly sundown. By the way, that spring and that beech tree are there yet, or were in October 1914 when I visited the Shiloh battlefield. I hunted them up on this occasion and laid down on the ground and took a long, big drink out of the spring for the sake of old times. Taking up again the thread of our life in camp at Owl Creek, I will say that when there I was for a while in bad physical condition and nearly all in. One day I accidentally overheard two intelligent boys of my company talking about me, and one said, There still well ain't sent north pretty soon, he's going to make a die of it, to which the other assented. That scared me good and sent me to thinking. I had no use for the hospital, wouldn't go there, and abominated the idea of taking medicine. But I was so bad off I was not marked for duty, my time was all my own, so I concluded to get out of camp as much as possible and take long walks in the big woods. I found a place down on the creek between two picket posts where it was easy to sneak through and get out into the country, and I proceeded to take advantage of it. It was where a big tree had fallen across the stream, making a sort of natural bridge. And I run the line there many a time. It was delightful to get out into the clean, grand old woods and away from the mud and filth and bad smells of the camp, and my health began to improve. On some of these rambles, Frank Gates, a corporal of my company, was my companion. He was my senior a few years, a lively fellow with a streak of humor in him, and was good company. One day, on one of our jaunts, we came to a little old log house near the foot of a densely timbered ridge. There was nobody at home saved some women and children, and one of the women was engaged on an old-fashioned churn, churning butter. Mulberries were ripe, and there was a large tree in the yard fairly black with the ripe fruit. We asked the women if we could eat some of the berries, and they gave a cheerful consent. Thereupon Frank and I climbed the tree and proceeded to help ourselves. The berries were big, dead ripe, and tasted mighty good, and we just stuffed ourselves until we could hold no more. The churning was finished by the time we descended from the tree, and we asked for some buttermilk. The women gave us a gore dipper and told us to help ourselves, which we did, and drank copiously and greedily. We then resumed our stroll. But before long we were seized with most horrible pains in our stomachs. We laid down on the ground and rolled over and over in agony. It was a hot day. We had been walking rapidly, and it is probable that the mulberries and the buttermilk were in a state of insurrection. But Frank didn't think so. As he rolled over the ground with his hands on his bulging stomach he exclaimed to me, Leigh by dash, I believe them dash, secess women have poisoned us. At the time I hardly knew what to think. But relief came at last, I will omit the details. When able to navigate we started back to camp, almost as weak and helpless as a brace of sick kittens. After that I stood clear of any sort of combination of berries and buttermilk. Soon after this Frank and I had another adventure outside the picket lines, but of an amusing nature only. We came to an old log-house where, as usual at this time and locality, the only occupants were women and children. The family consisted of the middle-aged mother, a tall, slab-sided, long-legged girl, seemingly sixteen or seventeen years old, and some little children. Their surname was Ledbetter, which I have always remembered by reason of the incident I will mention. The house was a typical pioneer cabin, with a punch and floor which was uneven, dirty, and splotched with grease. The girl was barefooted and wearing a dirty white sort of cotton gown of the modern mother-hubbard type that looked a good deal like a big gunny sack. From what came under my observation later it can safely be stated that it was the only garment she had on. She really was not bad looking, only dirty and mighty slouchy. We wanted some butter and asked the matron if she had any she could sell us. She replied that they were just going to churn and if we'd wait until that was done she could furnish us a little. We waited, and when the job was finished handed the girl a pint tin cup we had brought along which she proceeded to fill with the butter. As she walked toward us to hand over the cup her bare feet slipped on a grease spot on the floor, and down she went on her back with her gown distinctly elevated and a prodigal display of limbs. At the same time the cup fell from her grasp and the contents rolled out on the dirty floor like melted lard. The girl arose to a sitting posture, surveyed the wreck, then laid down on one side and exploded with laughter and kicked. About this time her mother appeared on the scene. Why, Sal, led better she exclaimed, you dirty slut, get a spoon and scrape that butter right up. Sal rose cow-fashioned to her feet, still giggling over the mishap and the butter was duly scraped up, restored to the cup and this time safely delivered. We paid for the dairy product and left. But I told Frank I wanted none of it in mind. Frank responded in substance that it was all right every man had to eat his peck of dirt in his lifetime anyway and the incident was closed. I never again saw nor heard of the led better family from that day but have often wondered what finally became of poor Sal. While we were at Owl Creek the medical authorities of the Army put in operation a method for the prevention and cure of malaria that was highly popular with some of the boys. It consisted of a gill of whiskey largely compounded with quinine and was given to each man before breakfast. I drank my first jigger as it was called and then quit. It was too intensely bitter for my taste and I would secretly slip my allowance to John Barton or Frank Burnham who would have drunk it, I reckon, if it had been one half aqua fortis. I happened to be mixed up in an incident rather mortifying to me when the first whiskey rations were brought to the regimental hospital in our camp for use in the above manner. The quartermaster came to Captain Reddish and handed him a requisition for two camp kettle-fulls of whiskey and told him to give it to two non-commissioned officers of his company who were strictly temperate and absolutely reliable and order them to go to the division commissary headquarters, get the whiskey, bring it to camp and deliver it to him, the quartermaster. Captain Reddish selected for this delicate duty Corporal Tim Gates, a brother of Frank above mention, and myself. Tim was about ten years my senior, a tall, slim fellow, and somewhat addicted to stuttering when he became nervous or excited. Well, we each procured a big camp kettle, went and got the whiskey, and started back with it to camp. On the way we passed through a space where a large number of army wagons were parked, and when we were in about the middle of the park were then out of sight of everybody. Here Tim stopped, looked carefully around to see if the coast was clear, and then said, Still, well, let's take a swig. All right, I responded. Whereupon Tim poised his camp kettle on a wagon-hub, inclined the brim to his lips, and took a most copious draught, and I followed suit. When we started on, and it was lucky for me at any rate that we didn't have far to go, I hadn't previously, during my army career, taken a swallow of whiskey since one time at Camp Carrollton. I was weak and feeble, and this big drink of the stuff went through my veins like electricity, its effects were felt almost instantly, and by the time we reached camp and had delivered the whiskey, I was feeling a good deal like a wild Indian on the warpath. I wanted to yell, to get my musket and shoot, especially at something that, when hit, would jingle. A looking glass, an eight-day clock, or a boat's chandelier, or something similar. But it suddenly occurred to me that I was drunk, and liable to forever disgrace myself and everybody at home, too. I had just enough sense left to know that the thing to do was to get out of camp at once, so I struck for the woods. In passing the tent of my squad, I caught a glimpse of Tim therein. He had thrown his cap and jacket on the ground, rolled up his sleeves, and was fiercely challenging another fellow to then and there settle an old-time grudge by the ordeal of battle. I didn't tarry but hurried on the best I could, finally got into a secluded patch of brush and tumbled down. I came to my senses along late in the evening with a splitting headache and feeling awful, generally, but reasonably sober. And such was the conduct when trusted with whiskey of the two non-commissioned officers of Company D., men who were strictly temperate and absolutely reliable. But Tim had no trouble about his break. I suppose he gave some plausible explanation, and as for me, I had lived up to the standard so far as the public knew, and maintained a profound silence in regard to the episode. Tim and I in private conversation or otherwise both carefully avoided the subject until the time came when we could talk and laugh about it without any danger of tarnishing our escutcheons. In the meantime, the alleged siege of Corinth was proceeding in the leisurely manner that characterized the progress of a suit in chancery under the ancient equity methods. From our camp on Owl Creek we could hear, from time to time, sporadic outbursts of cannonating, but we became so accustomed to it that the artillery practice ceased to excite any special attention. The Confederates began quietly evacuating the place during the last days of May, completed the operation on the thirtieth of the month, and on the evening of that day our troops marched into the town unopposed. CHAPTER VI of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861, 1865 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861, 1865 by Leander Stillwell, Chapter 6, Bethel, Jackson, June and July, 1862 Soon after our occupation of Corinth a change in the position of our forces took place, and all the command at Owl Creek was transferred to Bethel, a small station on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, some twenty or twenty-five miles to the northwest. We left Owl Creek on the morning of June 6th, and arrived at Bethel about dark the same evening. Thanks to my repeated long walks in the woods outside of our lines, I was in pretty fair health at this time, but still somewhat weak and shaky. On the morning we took up the line of March, while waiting for the fall-in call, I was seated at the foot of a big tree in camp, with my knapsack packed at my side. Enoch Wallace came to me and said, Stillwell, are you going to try to carry your knapsack? I answered that I reckoned I had to, that I had asked Henry King, our company teamster, to let me put it in his wagon, and he wouldn't, said he already had too big a load. Enoch said nothing more, but stood silently looking down at me a few seconds, then picked up my knapsack and threw it into our wagon, which was close by, saying to King, as he did so, haul that knapsack. And it was hauled. I shall never forget this act of kindness on the part of Enoch. It would have been impossible for me to have made the march carrying the knapsack. The day was hot, and much of the road was over sandy land, and through long stretches of blackjack barons that excluded every breath of a breeze. The men suffered much on the march, and fell out by scores. When we stacked arms at Bethel that evening, there were only four men of Company D in line, just enough to make one stack of guns. But my gun was in the stack. There was no earthly necessity for making this march in one day. We were simply changing stations. The Confederate Army of that region was down in Mississippi, a hundred miles or so away, and there were no arm foes in our vicinity, excepting some skulking bands of gorillas. Prior to this our regiment had made no marches, except little short movements during the siege of Corinth, none of which exceeded two or three miles. And nearly all the men were weak and debilitated by reason of the prevailing type of illness, and in no condition, whatever, to be cracked through twenty miles or more on a hot day. We should have marched only about ten miles the first day, with a halt of about ten minutes every hour to let the men rest a little and get their wind. Had that course been pursued, we would have reached our destination in good shape, with the ranks full and the men would have benefited by the march. As it was, it probably caused the death of some and the permanent disabling of more. The trouble at that time was the total want of experience on the part of most of our officers of all grades, combined with an amazing lack of common sense by some of high authority. I am not blaming any of our regimental officers for this foolish, forced march, for it amounted to that. The responsibility rested higher up. Our stay at Bethel was brief and uneventful. However, I shall always remember the place on account of a piece of news that came to me while we were there, and which for a time nearly broke me all up. It will be necessary to go back some years in order to explain it. I began attending the Old Stone Schoolhouse at Otter Creek when I was about eight years old. One of my schoolmates was a remarkably pretty little girl, with blue eyes and auburn hair, nearly my own age. We kept about the same place in our studies, and were generally in the same classes. I always liked her, and by the time I was about fifteen years old was head over heels in love. She was far above me in the social scale of the neighborhood. Her folks lived in a frame house on the other side of the creek, and were well to do for that time and locality. My people lived in a log cabin, on a little farm in the broken country that extended from the south bank of Otter Creek to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. But notwithstanding the difference in our respective social and financial positions, I knew she had a liking for me, and our mutual relations became quite tender and interesting. Then the war came along. I enlisted and went south. We had no correspondence after I left home. I was just too deplorably bashful to attempt it, and on general principles didn't have sense enough to properly carry on a proceeding of that nature. It may be that here was where I fell down. But I thought about her every day, and had many boyish daydreams of the future in which she was the prominent figure. Soon after our arrival at Bethel I received a letter from home. I hurriedly opened it anxious as usual to hear from the folks, and sitting down at the foot of a tree began reading it. All went well to nearly the clothes when I read these fatal words. Billy Crane and Lucy Archer got married last week. The above names are fictitious, but the bride was my girl. I can't explain my feelings. If you ever have had such an experience you will understand. I stole a hurried glance around to see if anybody was observing my demeanor, then thrust the letter into my jacket pocket and walked away. Not far from our camp was a stretch of swampy land, thickly set with big cypress trees, and I bent my steps in that direction. Entering the forest I saw this occluded spot, sat down on an old log, and read and reread that heartbreaking piece of intelligence. There was no mistaking the words. They were plain, laconic, and nothing ambiguous about them. And to intensify the bitterness of the draught, it may be set down here that the groom was a doddish young squirt, a clerk in a country store, who lacked the pluck to go for a soldier, but had stayed at home to count eggs and measure calico. In my opinion he was not worthy of the girl, and I was amazed that she had taken him for a husband. I remember well some of my thoughts as I sat, with bitterness in my heart, alone among those gloomy cypresses. I wanted a great big battle to come off at once with the 61st Illinois right in front that we might run out of cartridges, and the order would be given to fix bayonets and charge. Like major Simon Suggs in depicting the horrors of an apprehended Indian war, I wanted to see blood flow in a great gulgan torrent like the Talapusa River. Well, it was simply a case of pure, intensely ardent boy love, and I was hit, hard, but survived, and now I heartily congratulate myself on the fact that this youthful shipwreck ultimately resulted in my obtaining for wife the very best woman, excepting only my mother, that I ever knew in my life. I never again met my youthful flame to speak to her, and saw her only once and then at a distance, some years after the close of the war when I was back in Illinois on a visit to my parents. Several years ago her husband died, and in the course of time she married again, this time a man I never knew, and the last I heard of or concerning her, she and her second husband were living somewhere in one of the Rocky Mountain States. For a short time after the evacuation of Corinth, Pittsburgh landing continued to be our base of supplies, and commissary stores were wagon from there to the various places where our troops were stationed, and it happened, while the regiment was at Bethel, that I was one of a party of about a hundred men detailed to serve as guards for a wagon-train destined for the landing, and return to Bethel with army rations. There was at the landing at this time serving as guards for the government's stores a regiment of infantry. There were only a few of them visible, and they looked pale and emaciated and much like dead men on their feet. I asked one of them what regiment was stationed there, and he told me it was the fourteenth Wisconsin infantry. This was the one I had seen at Benton Barracks, and admired so much on account of the splendid appearance of the men. I mentioned this to the soldier, and expressed to him my surprise to now see them in such bad shape. He went on to tell me that the men had suffered fearfully from the change of climate, the water, and their altered conditions in general, that they had nearly all been prostrated by Camp Diarrhea, and at that time they were not more than a hundred men in the regiment fit for duty, and even those were not much better than the shadows of their former selves. And judging from the few men that were visible, the soldier told the plane unvarnished truth. Our regiment and the fourteenth Wisconsin soon drifted apart, and I never saw it again. But as a matter of history, I will say that it made an excellent and distinguished record during the war. On June 16th our brigade left Bethel for Jackson, Tennessee, a town on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and about thirty-five or forty miles by the dirt road northwest of Bethel. On this march, like the preceding one, I did not carry my knapsack. It was about this time that most of the boys adopted the blanket-roll system. Our knapsacks were awkward, cumbersome things, with a combination of straps and buckles that shaved the shoulders and back, and greatly augmented heat and general discomfort. So we would fold in our blankets an extra shirt with a few other light articles, roll the blanket tight, double it over, and tie the two ends together, then throw the blanket over one shoulder with the tied ends under the opposite arm, and the arrangement was complete. We had learned by this time the necessity of reducing our personal baggage to the lightest possible limit. We had left Camp Carrollton with great bulging knapsacks stuffed with all sorts of plunder, much of which was utterly useless to soldiers in the field. But we soon got rid of all that. And my recollection is that after the Bethel march the great majority of the men would, in some way, went on a march, temporarily lay aside their knapsacks and use the blanket-roll. The exceptions to that method, in the main, were the soldiers of foreign birth, especially the Germans. They carried theirs to the last on all occasions, with everything in them that the army regulations would permit, and usually something more. Jackson, our objective point on this march, was the county seat of Madison County, and a portion of our line of march was through the south part of the county. This region had a singular interest for me, the nature of which I will now state. Among the few books we had at home was an old paper-covered copy with horrible woodcuts, of a production entitled The Life and Adventures of John A. Murrell, the Great Western Land Pirate by Virgil A. Stewart. It was full of accounts of cold, blooded, depraved murders and other vicious, unlawful doings. My father had known in his younger days a good deal of Murrell by reputation, which was probably the moving cause for his purchase of the book. When a little chap I frequently read it, and it possessed for me a sort of weird, uncanny fascination, Murrell's home and the theatre of many of his evil deeds during the year 1834, and for some time previously, was in this county of Madison, and as we trudged along the road on this march I scanned all the surroundings with deep interest and close attention. Much of the country was rough and broken and densely wooded, with high ridges and deep ravines between them. With the aid of a lively imagination, many places I noticed seemed like fitting localities for acts of violence and crime. I have in my possession now, but many years ago, a duplicate of that old copy of Murrell we had at home. I sometimes look into it, but it no longer possesses for me the interest it did in my boyhood days. On this march I was a participant in an incident which was somewhat amusing, and also a little bit irritating. Shortly before noon of the first day Jack Medford of my company and myself concluded we would straggle and try to get a country dinner, availing ourselves of the first favorable opportunity we slipped from the ranks and struck out. We followed an old country road that ran substantially parallel to the main road on which the column was marching, and soon came to a nice-looking, old log-house standing in a grove of big native trees. The only people at the house were two middle-aged women and some children. We asked the women if we could have some dinner, saying that we would pay for it. They gave an affirmative answer, but their tone was not cordial, and they looked daggers. Dinner was just about prepared, and when already we were invited, with evident coolness, to take seats at the table. We had a splendid meal consisting of cornbread, new Irish potatoes, boiled bacon and greens, butter and buttermilk. Compared with sour belly and hard-tack, it was a feast. Dinner over we assayed to pay therefore. Their charge was something less than a dollar for both of us, but we had not the exact change. The smallest denomination of money either of us had was a dollar greenback, and the women said they had no money at all to make change. Thereupon we proffered them the entire dollar. They looked at it as scants and asked if we had any southern or confederate money. We said we had not that this was the only kind of money we had. They continued to look exceedingly sour, and finally remarked that they were unwilling to accept any kind of money except southern. We urged them to accept the bill, told them it was United States money, and that it would pass readily in any place in the south occupied by our soldiers. But no, they were obdurate and declined the greenback with unmistakable scorn. Of course we kept our temper, it never would have done to be saucy or rude after getting such a good dinner, but for my part I felt considerably vexed. There was nothing left to do except thank them heartily for their kindness and depart. From their standpoint their course in the matter was actuated by the highest and most unselfish patriotism, but naturally we couldn't look at it in that light. I will say here, with malice towards none and with charity for all, that in my entire sojourn in the south during the war the women were found to be more intensely bitter and malignant against the old government of the United States, and the national cause in general, than were the men. Their attitude is probably another illustration of the truth of Kipling saying, the female of the species is more deadly than the male. We arrived at Jackson on the evening of June 17th, and went into camp on the outskirts of the town, in a beautiful grove of tall young oaks. The site was neither too shady nor too sunny, and all things considered I think it was about the nicest camping-ground the regiment had during its entire service. We settled down here to a daily round of battalion drill, being the first of that character as I now remember we had so far had. A battalion drill is simply one where the various companies are handled as a regimental unit and are put through regimental evolutions. Battalion drill at first was frequently very embarrassing to some commanding officers of companies. The regimental commander would give a command, indicating in general terms the movement desired, and it was then the duty of a company commander to see to the details of the movement that his company should make, and give the proper orders. Well sometimes he would be badly stumped, and ludicrous bobbles would be the result. As for the men in the ranks, battalion drill was as simple as any other, for we only had to obey specific commands, which indicated exactly what we were to do. To form square and antique disposition against cavalry was a movement that was especially trying to some company officers, but so far as forming square was concerned, all our drill on that feature was time thrown away. In actual battle we never made that disposition a single time, and the same is true of several other labored and intricate movements prescribed in the tactics and which we were industriously put through, but it was good exercise and all went in the day's work. While thus amusing ourselves at battalion drill suddenly came marching orders and which required immediate execution, tents were forthwith struck, rolled and tied, and loaded in the wagons, with all other camp and garrison equipage. Our knapsacks were packed with all our effects, since special instructions had been given on that matter. Curiosity was the qui-viv to know where we were going, but apart from the fact that we were to be transported on the cars, apparently nobody knew whither we were bound. Colonel Frye was absent, sick, and Major Orr was then in command of the regiment. He was a fine officer and, with all, a very sensible man, and I doubt if anyone in the regiment except himself had reliable knowledge as to our ultimate destination. As soon as our marching preparations were complete, which did not take long, the bugle sounded, fall in, and the regiment formed in line on the parade-ground. In my mind's eye I can now see Major Orr in our front, on his horse, his blanket strapped behind his saddle, smoking his little briar root pipe, and looking as cool and unconcerned as if we were only going a few miles for a change of camp. Our entire brigade fell in, and so far as we could see or learn, all of the division at Jackson, then under the command of General John A. McClemmond, was doing likewise. Well, we stood there in line at ordered arms and waited. We expected every moment to hear the orders which would put us in motion, but they were never given. Finally we were ordered to stack arms and break ranks, but were cautioned to hold ourselves in readiness to fall in at the tap of the drum, but the day wore on and nothing was done until late in the evening when the summons came. We rushed to the gun stacks and took arms. The Major had a brief talk with the company officers, and then, to our great surprise, the companies were marched back to their dismantled camps, and after being instructed to stay close there, too, were dismissed. This state of affairs lasted for at least two days and then collapsed. We were told that the orders had been countermanded. We unloaded our tents, pitched them again on the old sites, and resumed battalion drill. It was then gossiped around among the boys that we actually had been under marching orders for Virginia to reinforce the Army of the Potomac. Personally I looked on that as mere camp talk and put no confidence in it and never found out until about fifteen years later that this rumor was a fact. I learned it in this wise. About nine years after the close of the war, Congress passed an act providing for the publication in book form of all the records, reports, correspondence, and the like of both the Union and Confederate armies. Under this law about one hundred and thirty large volumes were published containing the matter above stated. When the law was passed I managed to arrange to procure a set of these records, and they were sent to me from Washington as fast as printed. And from one of these volumes I ascertained that on June 28, 1862, E. M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, had telegraph General Halleck, who was then in command of the Western armies, as follows, Quote, it is absolutely necessary for you immediately to detach twenty-five thousand of your force and send it by the nearest and quickest route by way of Baltimore and Washington to Richmond. This is rendered imperative by a serious reverse suffered by General McClellan before Richmond yesterday, the full extent of which is not known, end quote. Rebellion records, Series I, Vol. 16, Part II, Pages 69 and 70. In obedience to the above, General Halleck wired General McClellan on June 30 as follows, quotes, you will collect as rapidly as possible all the infantry regiments of your division and take advantage of every train to transport them to Columbus, Kentucky, and thence to Washington City, end quote. But that same day, June 30, a telegram was sent by President Lincoln to General Halleck, which operated to revoke the foregoing order of Stanton's, and so the 61st Illinois never became a part of the Army of the Potomac, and for which I am very thankful. That army was composed of brave men, and they fought long and well. But in my opinion, and which I think is sustained by history, they never had a competent commander until they got U.S. Grant. So, up to the coming of Grant, their record in the main was a series of bloody disasters, and their few victories, like Antietam and Gettysburg, were not properly and energetically followed up as they should have been, and hence were largely barren of adequate results. Considering these things I have always somehow felt it in my bones that if Mr. Lincoln had not sent the brief telegram above mentioned, I would now be sleeping in some, probably, unmarked and unknown grave a way back in Old Virginia. While at Jackson an incident occurred while I was on Pickett, in which Owen McGrath, the big Irishman I have previously mentioned, played an interesting part. As corporal, I had three men under me, McGrath being one, and the others were a couple of big, burly young fellows belonging to Company A. Our post was on the railroad a mile or two from the outskirts of Jackson, and where the Pickett line for some distance ran practically parallel with the railroad. The spot at this post where the Pickett stood went on guard was at the top of a bank on the summit of a slight elevation, just at the edge of a deep and narrow railroad cut. A bunch of gorillas had recently been operating in that locality and making mischief on a small scale, and our orders were to be vigilant and on the alert, especially at night. McGrath was on duty from six to eight in the evening, and on the latter hour I notified one of the Company A. Men that his turn had come. The weather was bad, a high wind was blowing, accompanied by a drizzling rain, and all signs pretended a stormy night. The Company A. fellow buckled on his cartridge-box, picked up his musket, and gave a scowling glance at the surroundings. Then, with much profanity, he declared he wasn't going to stand up on that bank, he was going down into the cut, for he could have some shelter from the wind and rain. I told him that would never do, that there he could see nothing in our front and might as well not be on guard at all, but he loudly announced his intention to stick to his purpose. The other Company A. Men, chimed in and with many expletives, declared that Bill was right, that he intended to stand in the cut, too, when his time came, that he didn't believe there was a sesh within a hundred miles of us anyway and so on. I was sorely troubled and didn't know what to do. They were big, bulking fellows, and either could have just smashed me with one hand tied behind him. McGrath had been intently listening to the conversation, and saying nothing. But as matters were evidently nearing a crisis, he now took a hand. Walking up to the man who was to relieve him, he laid the forefinger of his right hand on the fellow's breast, and, looking him square in the eyes, spoke thus. It's the orders of the corporal that the sentries stand here, indicating, and the corporal's orders will be obeyed. Do you mind that now? I had stepped to the side of McGrath while he was talking to give him my moral support, at least, and fixed my eyes on the mutineer. He looked at us in silence, a second or two, and then, with some muttering about the corporal being awful particular, finally said he could stand it if the rest could, assumed his post at the top of the bank, and the matter was ended. The storm blew over before midnight, and the weather cleared up. In the morning we had a satisfying soldier breakfast, and when relieved at nine o'clock marched back to camp with the others of the old guard, all in good humor, and with peace and harmony prevailing. But I always felt profoundly grateful to grand old McGrath for his staunch support on the foregoing occasion. Without it I don't know what could have been done. CHAPTER VII. OF THE STORY OF A COMMON SOLDIER OF ARMY LIFE IN THE CIVIL WAR. 1861. 1865. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sue Anderson. THE STORY OF A COMMON SOLDIER OF ARMY LIFE IN THE CIVIL WAR. 1861. 1865. By Leander Stillwell. CHAPTER VII. BELIEVER. July, August, and September, 1862. On July 17th, our brigade, then under the command of General L. F. Ross, left Jackson, for Believer, Tennessee, a town about 28 miles southwest of Jackson, on what was then called the Mississippi Central Railroad. Here I will observe that the sketch of the regiment before mentioned in the Illinois Adjutant General's reports is wrong as to the date of our departure from Jackson. It is inferrable from the statement in the reports that the time was June 17, which really was the date of our arrival there from Bethel. We started from Jackson at about four o'clock in the morning, but marched only about eight miles when we were brought to an abrupt halt caused by the breaking down under the weight of a cannon and its carriage of an ancient Tennessee bridge over a little stream. The nature of the crossing was such that the bridge simply had to be rebuilt and made strong enough to sustain the artillery and army wagons, and it took the balance of the day to do it. We therefore bevel-acked at the point where we stopped until the next morning. Soon after the halt a hard rain began falling and lasted all afternoon. We had no shelter and just had to take it and let it rain, but it was the middle of the summer, the weather was hot, and the boys stood around, some crowing like chickens and others quacking like ducks, and really seemed to rather enjoy the situation. About the only drawback resulting from our being caught out in the summer rains was the fact that the water would rust our muskets. In our time we were required to keep all their metal parts except the buttplate as bright and shining as new silver dollars. I have put in many an hour working on my gun with an old rag and powdered dirt, and a corn cob or a pine stick, polishing the barrel, the bands, lock plate and trigger guard until they were fit to pass inspection. The inside of the barrel we would keep clean by the use of a greased wiper and plenty of hot water. In doing this we would ordinarily with our screwdrivers take the gun to pieces and remove from the stock all metallic parts. I never had any head for machinery of any kind, but from sheer necessity did acquire enough of the faculty to take apart and put together an army musket. And that is about the full extent of my ability in that line. We soon learned to take care of our pieces in a rain by thoroughly greasing them with a piece of bacon which would largely prevent rust from striking in. We resumed our march to Belivar early in the morning of the eighteenth. Our route was practically parallel with the railroad crossing it occasionally. At one of these crossings late in the afternoon and when only five or six miles from Belivar, I straggled again and took to the railroad. I soon fell in with three company seaboys who had done likewise. We concluded we would endeavor to get a country supper, and with that in view an hour or so before sundown went to a nice-looking farmhouse not far from the railroad and made our wants known to the occupants. We had selected for our spokesman the oldest of our bunch, a soldier perhaps twenty-five years old named Alec Cope. He was something over six feet tall and about as gaunt as a sandhill crane. He was barefooted and his feet in color and general appearance looked a good deal like the flappers of an alligator. His entire garb on this occasion consisted of an old wool hat and his government shirt and drawers. The latter garment, like the cutty-sark of which Nanny, in Tamashander, in longitude was sorely scanty, coming only a little below his knees, and both abeliments would have been much improved by a thorough washing. But in the duty assigned him he acquitted himself well with the people of the house, and they very cheerfully said they would prepare us a supper. They seemingly were well to do, as several colored men and women were about the premises, who of course were slaves. Soon were audible the death squawks of chickens in the barnyard, which we heard with much satisfaction. In due time supper was announced, and we seated ourselves at the table. And what a banquet we had! Fried chicken, nice hot biscuits, butter, butter milk, honey, think of that! Preserved peaches, fresh cucumber pickles, and so forth. And a colored house girl moved back and forth behind us, keeping off the flies with a big peacock feather brush. Alec Cope sat opposite me, and when the girl was performing that office for him the situation looked so intensely ludicrous that I wanted to scream. Supper over we paid the bill, which was quite reasonable, and went on our way rejoicing, and reached Bolivar soon after dark, about the same time the regiment did. But it will now be set down that this was the last occasion that I straggled on a march. A day or so after arriving at Bolivar the word came to me in some way, I think from Enoch Wallace, that our first lieutenant, Dan Keely, had spoken disapprovingly of my conduct in that regard. He was a young man about twenty-five years old, of education and refinement, and all things considered the best company officer we had. I was much attached to him, and I know that he liked me. Well, I learned that he had said in substance that a non-commissioned officer should set a good example to the men in all things, and that he hadn't expected of still well that he would desert the ranks on a march. That settled the matter. My conduct had simply been thoughtless, without any shirking intentions, but I then realized that it was wrong, and as already stated, straggled no more. We went into camp at Bolivar a little south of the town, in a grove of scattered big oak trees. A few days after our arrival, a good-sized body of Confederate cavalry, under the command of General Frank C. Armstrong, moved up from the south and began operating near Bolivar in vicinity. Our force there was comparatively small, and, according to history, we were, for a time, in considerable danger of being gobbled up, but of that we common soldiers knew nothing. Large details were at once put to work throwing up breast-works, while the men not on that duty were kept in line of battle, or with their guns in-stack on the line, and strictly cautioned to remain close at hand and ready to fall in at the tap of a drum. This state of things continued for some days, then the trouble would seemingly blow over, and later would break out again. While we were thus on the ragged edge and expecting a battle almost any hour, a little incident occurred which somehow made on me a deep and peculiar impression. To explain it fully, I must go back to our first days at Pittsburgh Landing. A day or two after our arrival there, Lieutenant Keely said to me that the regimental color guard to consist of a sergeant in eight corporals was being formed, that Company D had been called on for a corporal for that duty, and that I should report to Major Orr for instructions. Naturally I felt quite proud over this, and, forthwith, reported to the Major at his tent and stated my business. He looked at me in silence and closely for a few seconds, and then remarked, in substance, that I could go to my quarters and, if needed, would be notified later. This puzzled me somewhat, but I supposed it would come out all right in due time. There was a corporal in our Company to whom I will give a fictitious name and call him Sam Cobb. He was a big fine-looking fellow, and somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years old. And an hour or two after my dismissal by Major Orr, I heard Sam loudly proclaiming, with many fierce oaths, to a little group of Company D boys that he had been promoted, that he was a color corporal by dash. This announcement was accompanied by sundry vociferous statements in regard to Major Orr knowing exactly the kind of men to get to guard the colors of the regiment in time of battle, and so on and so on. I heard all this with mortification and bitterness of spirit. The reason now dawned on me why I had been rejected. I was only a boy, rather small for my age, and at this time feeble in appearance. Major Orr quite properly wanted strong, stalwart, fine-looking men for the color guard. A little reflection convinced me that he was right and could not be blamed for his action. But he found out later, in this particular case at least, that something more than a fine appearance was required to make a soldier. Only two or three days after Sam's promotion came the Battle of Shiloh, and at the very first volley the regiment received, he threw down his gun and ran like a whipped curb. The straps and buckles of his cartridge box were new and stiff, so he didn't take the time to release them in the ordinary way, but whipped out his jackknife and cut them as he ran. I did not see this personally, but was told it by boys who did. We saw no more of Sam until after the battle, when he sneaked into camp with a fantastic story of getting separated from the regiment in a fallback movement, that he then joined another, fought both days, and performed prodigies of valor. But there were too many that saw the manner of his alleged separation for his story ever to be believed. I will now return to the Belivar incident. While the Confederates were operating in the vicinity of this place, as above mentioned, the Fall Inn call was sounded one evening after dark, and the regiment promptly formed in line on the parade ground. We remained there an hour or so, when finally the command was given to stack arms, and the men were dismissed with orders to hold themselves in readiness to form in line on the parade grounds at a moment's warning. As I was walking back to our company quarters, Sam Cobb stepped up to me and took me to one side, under the shadow of a tall oak tree. It was a bright moonlight night, with some big fleecy clouds in the sky. Still well, asked Sam, do you think we are going to have a fight? I don't know, Sam, I answered, but it looks very much like it. I reckon General Ross is not going out to hunt a fight. He prefers to stay here, protect the government's stores, and fight on the defensive. If our cavalry can stand the revs off, then maybe they will let us alone. But if our cavalry are driven in, then look out. Sam held his head down and said nothing. As above stated, he was a grown man, and I was only a boy. But the thing that was troubling him was a parent from his demeanor, and I felt sorry for him. I laid my hand kindly on his shoulder and said, And Sam, if we should have a fight, now try old fellow and do better than you did before. He looked up quickly. At that instant the moon passed from behind a big cloud and shone through a rift in the branches of the tree, full in his face, which was as pale as death. And he said, in a broken voice, Still well, I'll run, I just know I'll run, by God I can't help it. I deeply pitted the poor fellow, and talked to him a few minutes in the kindest manner possible, trying to reason him out of that sort of a feeling. But his case was hopeless. He was a genial, kind hearted man, but simply a constitutional coward. And he doubtless told the truth when he said he couldn't help it. In the very next fight we were in he verified his prediction. I may say something about that further on. Since leaving Camp Carrollton, Company D had lost two sergeants, one by death from sickness, the other by discharge for disability. So while we were at Bolivar these vacancies were filled by appointments made by Major Orr, who was then commanding the regiment. In accordance with the custom in such matters, the appointments were announced in orders which were read on dress parade. As I now write, it is a little over fifty-four years since this event took place, but even now my heart beats faster as the fact is recalled that, as the adjutant read the list, there came the name, Corporal Leander Stillwell, Company D, to be fourth sergeant. In the early part of August 1862, while our regiment was at Bolivar, I cast my first vote, which was an illegal one, as then I was not quite nineteen years old. The circumstances connected with my voting are not lengthy, so the story will be told. In the fall of 1861 the voters of the State of Illinois elected delegates to a constitutional convention to frame and submit to the people a new constitution. A majority of the delegates so elected were Democrats, so they prepared a constitution in accordance with their political views. It therefore became a party measure. The Democrats supporting and the Republicans opposing it. By virtue of some legal enactment, all Illinois soldiers in the field, who were lawful voters, were authorized to vote on the question of the adoption of the proposed constitution. And so on the day before indicated the election for this purpose was held in our regiment. An election board was duly appointed, consisting of commissioned officers of the regiment. They fixed up under a big tree some hard-tack boxes to serve for a table, and the proceedings began. I had no intention of voting as I knew I had not the legal right. But Enoch Wallace came to me and suggested that I go up and vote. When I said I was not old enough, he simply laughed and took me by the arm and marched me to the voting place. The manner of voting was by word of mouth. The soldier gave his name and stated that he was for or against the constitution, as the case might be, and his vote was recorded. I voted against and started away, no questions being asked me as to my age. But before getting out of hearing, I heard one of the boards say, somewhat sara voce. That's a mighty young-looking voter. Captain Illry of Company C, also on the board, responded carelessly in the same tone. Oh, well, it's all right, he's a damn good soldier. That remark puffed me away up, and almost made me feel as if I had grown maybe three feet or more in as many seconds, and needed only a fierce mustache to be a match for one of Napoleon's old guard. And my vote was not the same as Illry's, either, as he was a Democrat and supporting the new constitution. When the regiment was recruited it was Democratic by a large majority, but under the enlightening experiences of the war it had become Republican, and out of a total vote of about 250, it gave a majority against the new constitution of 25. The final result was that the proposed constitution was beaten by the home vote alone, which gave something over 16,000 majority against it. Consequently, the soldier vote, although heavily against the measure, cut no figure, as it was not needed, and my illegal exercise of the right of suffrage, did neither good nor harm, and the incident has long since been barred by the statute of limitations. During the latter part of July and throughout August and September things were lively and exciting at Bolivar, and in that region generally. There was a sort of feeling of trouble in the air most of the time. General Grant was in command in this military district, and he has stated in his memoirs that the most anxious period of the war to him was practically during the time above stated. But we common soldiers were not troubled with any such feeling. We were devoid of all responsibility except simply to look out for and take care of ourselves and do our duty to the best of our ability. And speaking for myself, I will say that this condition was one that was very full of comfort. We had no planning nor thinking to do, and the world could just wag as it willed.