Read Ebook: With Fire and Sword by Byers S H M Samuel Hawkins Marshall

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"My time has probably come now," I said to myself, and with a little bit of disgust I thought of the utter uselessness of being killed there without even firing a shot in self-defense. The suspense, the anxiety, was indeed becoming fearfully intense. Soon General Grant quietly climbed upon his horse, looked at us once, and as quietly rode away. Then the colonel came along the line with a word to each officer. As he came near me he called me from the ranks and said: "I want you to act as sergeant-major of the regiment in this battle." I was surprised, but indeed very proud of this mark of confidence in me. "Hurry to the left," he continued. "Order the men to fix bayonets--quick!" I ran as told, shouting at the top of my voice, "Fix bayonets! fix bayonets!" I was not quite to the left, when I heard other voices yelling, "Forward! quick! double quick! forward!" and the line was already on the run toward the Rebels. I kept up my shouting, "Fix bayonets!" for by some blunder the order had not been given in time, and now the men were trying to get their bayonets in place while running. We were met in a minute by a storm of bullets from the wood, but the lines in blue kept steadily on, as would a storm of wind and cloud moving among the tree-tops. Now we met almost whole companies of wounded, defeated men from the other division, hurrying by us, and they held up their bleeding and mangled hands to show us they had not been cowards. They had lost twelve hundred men on the spot we were about to occupy. Some of them were laughing even, and yelling at us: "Wade in and give them hell." We were wading in faster than I am telling the story.

On the edge of a low ridge we saw a solid wall of men in gray, their muskets at their shoulders blazing into our faces and their batteries of artillery roaring as if it were the end of the world. Bravely they stood there. They seemed little over a hundred yards away. There was no charging further by our line. We halted, the two lines stood still, and for over an hour we loaded our guns and killed each other as fast as we could. The firing and the noise were simply appalling. Now, I was not scared. The first shot I fired seemed to take all my fear away and gave me courage enough to calmly load my musket at the muzzle and fire it forty times. Others, with more cartridges, fired possibly oftener still. Some of the regiments in that bloody line were resupplied with cartridges from the boxes of the dead. In a moment I saw Captain Lindsey throw up his arms, spring upward and fall dead in his tracks. Corporal McCully was struck in the face by a shell. The blood covered him all over, but he kept on firing. Lieutenant Darling dropped dead, and other officers near me fell wounded.

I could not see far to left or right, the smoke of battle was covering everything. I saw bodies of our men lying near me without knowing who they were, though some of them were my messmates in the morning. The Rebels in front we could not see at all. We simply fired at their lines by guess, and occasionally the blaze of their guns showed exactly where they stood. They kept their line like a wall of fire. When I fired my first shot I had resolved to aim at somebody or something as long as I could see, and a dozen times I tried to bring down an officer I dimly saw on a gray horse before me. Pretty soon a musket ball struck me fair in the breast. "I am dead, now," I said, almost aloud. It felt as if someone had struck me with a club. I stepped back a few paces and sat down on a log to finish up with the world. Other wounded men were there, covered with blood, and some were lying by me dead. I spoke to no one. It would have been useless; thunder could scarcely have been heard at that moment. My emotions I have almost forgotten. I remember only that something said to me, "It is honorable to die so." I had not a thought of friends, or of home, or of religion. The stupendous things going on around me filled my mind. On getting my breath a little I found I was not hurt at all,--simply stunned; the obliquely-fired bullet had struck the heavy leather of my cartridge belt and glanced away. I picked up my gun, stepped back into the line of battle, and in a moment was shot through the hand. The wound did not hurt; I was too excited for that.

The awful roar of battle now grew more terrific, if possible. I wonder that a man on either side was left alive. Biting the ends off my cartridges, my mouth was filled with gunpowder; the thirst was intolerable. Every soldier's face was black as a negro's, and, with some, blood from wounds trickled down over the blackness, giving them a horrible look. Once a boy from another part of the line to our left ran up to me crying out: "My regiment is gone! what shall I do?"

There was now a little moment's lull in the howling noise; something was going on. "Blaze away right here," I said to the boy, and he commenced firing like a veteran. Then I heard one of our own line cry, "My God, they're flanking us!" I looked to where the boy had come from. His regiment had indeed given way. The Rebels had poured through the gap and were already firing into our rear and yelling to us to surrender. In a moment we would be surrounded. It was surrender or try to get back past them. I ran like a racehorse,--so did the left of the regiment, amid a storm of bullets and yells and curses. I saved my musket, anyway. I think all did that,--but that half-mile race through a hot Mississippi sun, with bullets and cannonballs plowing the fields behind us, will never be forgotten. My lungs seemed to be burning up. Once I saw our regimental flag lying by a log, the color-bearer wounded or dead. I cried to a comrade flying near me, "Duncan Teter, it is a shame--the Fifth Iowa running."

Only the day before Teter had been reduced to the ranks for some offense or another. He picked up the flag and with a great oath dared me to stop and defend it. For a moment we two tried to rally to the flag the men who were running by. We might as well have yelled to a Kansas cyclone. Then Captain John Tait, rushing by, saw us, stopped, and, recognizing the brave deed of Corporal Teter, promoted him on the spot. But the oncoming storm was irresistible, and, carrying the flag, we all again hurried rearward. We had scarcely passed the spot where I had seen Grant mount his horse before the charge when a whole line of Union cannon, loaded to the muzzle with grape-shot and canister, opened on the howling mob that was pursuing us. The Rebels instantly halted, and now again it seemed our turn. A few minutes rest for breath and our re-formed lines once more dashed into the woods. In half an hour the battle of Champion Hills was won, and the victorious Union army was shortly in a position to compel the surrender of the key to the Mississippi River. Grant's crown of immortality was won, and the jewel that shone most brightly in it was set there by the blood of the men of Champion Hills. Had that important battle failed, Grant's army, not Pemberton's, would have become prisoners of war. Where then would have been Vicksburg, Spotsylvania, Richmond, Appomattox?

Six thousand blue- and gray-coated men were lying there in the woods, dead or wounded, when the last gun of Champion Hills was fired. Some of the trees on the battlefield were tall magnolias, and many of their limbs were shot away. The trees were in full bloom, their beautiful blossoms contrasting with the horrible scene of battle. Besides killing and wounding three thousand of the enemy, we had also captured thirty cannon and three thousand prisoners.

When the troops went off into the road to start in pursuit of the flying enemy, I searched over the battlefield for my best friend, poor Captain Poag, with whom I had talked of our Northern homes only the night before. He lay dead among the leaves, a bullet hole in his forehead. Somebody buried him, but I never saw his grave. Another friend I found dying. He begged me only to place him against a tree, and with leaves to shut the burning sun away from his face. While I was doing this I heard the groaning of a Rebel officer, who lay helpless in a little ditch. He called to me to lift him out, as he was shot through both thighs, and suffering terribly. "Yes," I said, "as soon as I get my friend here arranged a little comfortably." His reply was pathetic. "Yes, that's right; help your own first." I had not meant it so. I instantly got to him and, with the aid of a comrade, pulled him out of the ditch. He thanked me and told me he was a lieutenant colonel, and had been shot while riding in front of the spot where he lay. I eased his position as best I could, but all that night, with many another wounded soldier, blue and gray, he was left on the desolate battlefield.

Now I realized how terrible the fire had been about us,--for some comrades counted two hundred bullet marks on a single oak tree within a few feet of where the left of the regiment had stood loading and firing that awful hour and a half. Most of the bullets had been fired too high, else we had all been killed. Near by lay the remains of a Rebel battery. Every horse and most of the cannoneers lay dead in a heap, the caissons and the gun carriages torn to pieces by our artillery. Never in any battle had I seen such a picture of complete annihilation of men, animals, and material as was the wreck of this battery, once the pride of some Southern town--its young men, the loved ones of Southern homes, lying there dead among their horses. That was war!

Some weeks after this battle, and after Vicksburg had been won, my regiment was marched in pursuit of Joe Johnston, and we recrossed this same battlefield. We reached it in the night and bivouacked on the very spot where we had fought. It was a strange happening. Our sensations were very unusual, for we realized that all about us there in the woods were the graves of our buried comrades and the still unburied bones of many of our foes. Save an occasional hooting owl the woods were sad and silent. Before we lay down in the leaves to sleep the glee club of Company B sang that plaintive song, "We're Tenting To-night on the Old Camp Ground." Never was a song sung under sadder circumstances. All the night a terrible odor filled the bivouac. When daylight came one of the boys came to our company and said, "Go over to that hollow, and you will see hell." Some of us went. We looked but once. Dante himself never conjured anything so horrible as the reality before us. After the battle the Rebels in their haste had tossed hundreds of their dead into this little ravine and slightly covered them over with earth, but the rains had come, and the earth was washed away, and there stood or lay hundreds of half-decayed corpses. Some were grinning skeletons, some were headless, some armless, some had their clothes torn away, and some were mangled by dogs and wolves. The horror of that spectacle followed us for weeks. That, too, was war!

I have written this random but true sketch of personal recollections of a severe battle because it may help young men who are anxious for adventure and war, as I was, to first realize what war really is. My experiences probably were the same as hundreds of others in that same battle. I only tell of what was nearest me. A third of my comrades who entered this fight were lost. Other Iowa and other Western regiments suffered equally or more. General Hovey's division had a third of its number slain. I have been in what history pronounces greater battles than Champion Hills, but only once did I ever see two lines of blue and gray stand close together and fire into each other's faces for an hour and a half. I think the courage of the private soldiers, standing in that line of fire for that awful hour and a half, gave us Vicksburg, made Grant immortal as a soldier, and helped to save this country.

"DEAR GENERAL: Lawler's brigade stormed the enemy's works a few minutes since; carried them, capturing from two thousand to three thousand prisoners, ten guns, so far as heard from, and probably more will be found. The enemy have fired both bridges. A. J. Smith captured ten guns this morning, with teams, men, and ammunition. I send you a note from Colonel Wright.

"Yours, "U. S. GRANT, M. G.

"TO MAJOR GENERAL SHERMAN."

Assaults on the walls of Vicksburg--Logan in battle--An army mule--A promotion under the guns of Vicksburg--A storm of iron hail at Vicksburg--The Vicksburg clock--The town surrenders--The glad news--Reading my first order to the regiment--My regiment put on guard in the captured city--Eight days' furlough in four years of war.

The next morning my regiment crossed the pontoon bridge over the Big Black and marched eight miles further toward Vicksburg. Now we knew we were getting close to the Richmond of the West. As we crossed the Black River we gazed with curiosity at the half-burned bridge from which so many unfortunates had been hurled into the water by our artillery the day before. After Lawler's charge thousands had tried to get over the stream by the trestle-work and bridge, or by swimming. General Osterhaus, seeing the fugitives from a high point where he stood, cried out to his batteries: "Now, men, is the time to give them hell." Twenty cannon instantly hurled their iron missiles at the bridge, and the flying soldiers fell to the ground or into the foaming river, almost by hundreds. "Lost at Black River," was the only message that ever reached the home of many a Southern soldier of that day.

On the 19th, at two o'clock, a terrible assault was made by the army on the walls of Vicksburg. My own regiment, still in McPherson's corps, lay close to the Jackson wagon road and under a tremendous thundering of the enemy's artillery. We suffered little, however. Once I was ordered to help some men build sheds of brush for the wounded. This was in a ravine behind us. In an hour the work was done, and as I crept up the slope to get forward to my regiment again I heard the loud voice of some officer on horseback. It was General John A. Logan. The enemy's artillery was sweeping the field at this point, but I could still hear Logan's voice above the battle, cheering a number of soldiers that were near. "We have taken this fort and we have taken that," he cried in tones that were simply stentorian. "We are giving them hell everywhere." He was in full uniform, his long black hair swept his shoulders, his eyes flashed fire, he seemed the incarnation of the reckless, fearless soldier. He must have thought cannonballs would not hurt him. For five minutes, perhaps, I stood in a little dip in the ground, comparatively protected, while he rode up and down under a storm of cannonballs, calling at the top of his warrior's voice. I expected every moment to see him drop from his horse, but nothing happened, and I went on to the line where all our men were closely hugging the ground. Soon I, too, was stretched on the ground, making myself as thin as I could.

On the 20th we advanced still closer to the frowning works. It was only a thousand yards to the forts of Vicksburg. We moved up in the darkness that night. I think no one knew how close we were being taken to the enemy. We lay down in line of battle and in the night our line was moved a little. When daylight came my regiment was no little astonished to find that we were on an open place in full view of the enemy. A comrade and I rose from the ground and commenced our toilet, by pouring water into each other's hands from our canteens. Almost at that moment the Rebels had caught sight of our men lying there in long lines so close to them, and instantly commenced throwing shells at us. My friend and I left our morning toilet uncompleted and, seizing our rifles, we all stood in line waiting. We could see the flags of the enemy above the forts distinctly. With a glass the gunners could be seen at their guns, hurling shot and shell at us. We were in a perilous and helpless position. We were also very tired and hungry, for we had had nothing whatever to eat. But here we stayed, and by the next morning our skirmishers had advanced so close to the Vicksburg forts that the Rebel gunners could reach us but little. Our gunboats too, down in the river now commenced hurling mighty bombs and balls into the city.

On the morning of the 22d of May all the batteries of the army and the big guns of the river fleet bombarded the city for an hour, and under the fog and the smoke of the battle the infantry advanced to assault the works. It was a perilous undertaking. The day was fearfully hot; the forts, ten feet high, were many and powerful; the ditches in front of them were seven feet deep. That made seventeen feet to climb in the face of musketry. In battle line, my regiment ran down into the ravines in front and then up the opposite slope to the smoking breastwork.

The colonel had ordered me to fasten two ammunition boxes across a mule and follow the regiment into the assault. I was to lead my mule. A soldier with a bush was to beat him from behind, so as to hurry him over an exposed bit of ground at our front. The moment my mule appeared in full sight of the enemy the bullets commenced whizzing past us. The mule, true to his ancestral instinct, commenced pulling backward. Yelling and pounding and pulling helped none at all. Two or three bullets struck the boxes on his back, and before we had pulled him half across he braced himself, held his ears back, and stood stock still. That moment the bridle came off. My assistant dodged back to our rifle pit and I hurried down to the ravine in front. The mule, too, as luck would have it, also ran now,--ran down into the ravine beside me, right where he was wanted. I tied him to a little bush and, awful as the situation about me was, I almost laughed to see the antics of that animal's ears as the bullets whizzed past him.

My regiment was all lying against the hill close up to the fort. In front of them was the ditch seven feet deep, beyond them an armed fort ten feet high, emitting a constant blaze of cannon and musketry. The sun was broiling hot. I crept along the line of the regiment and gave ammunition to every company; then I crept back a little to where my mule was still alive and his ears still at their antics. Lying there in the line beside the boys, roasting in the sun and suffering from the musketry in front, was our brave Colonel Boomer, leading the brigade. He asked me once what I was doing, and, when I told him, he gave me some compliments in a kind, but sad, low tone. Now I saw a company of men creep by me, dragging little ladders in their hands. They were to make a rush and throw these ladders across the ditch of the forts for the assaulters to cross on. They were all volunteers for a work that seemed sure death. I looked in each hero's face as he passed me, knowing almost that he would be dead in a few minutes. Scarcely a dozen of them returned alive. My regiment, with the rest of the assaulters, was simply being shot to pieces without a hope of getting into the forts. We fell back under the smoke of the battle as best we could, only to be led into an assault at another point. McClernand had sent Grant word that he had taken a fort on our left. He wanted help to hold it.

Our division, now led by Quimby, was double quicked to the next place of assault. I saved my mule. Again I strapped two ammunition boxes over his back and followed the regiment. This time I did not risk my mule so close in the battle, but took all the cartridges I could carry in my arms and went to the left of the regiment. Once I saw a body lying on the grass by me, with a handkerchief over the face. I went up and looked. It was our own Colonel Boomer, who had spoken so kindly to me in the morning. A useless charge had already been made by the brigade and he, with many brave men, was dead. Some of my own company lay dead there too. One of them had come from Iowa and joined his brother in the company that very morning. All the assaulting of the 22d of May and all the sacrifice of life had been for nothing. Vicksburg was not taken.

Now commenced the regular siege of the city. We hid ourselves behind ridges, in hollows, and in holes in the ground, as best we could. Communication with our gunboats on the Yazoo was opened, and we had plenty to eat and ammunition enough to bombard a dozen cities. Then the bombardment commenced indeed, and lasted to the end, forty-four days. We often threw three hundred cannonballs and shells a day into the city. The whole Rebel army was also hidden in holes and hollows. All the people of Vicksburg lived in caves at the sides of the hills or along the bluffs of the river. Their homes now were like swallows' nests, with small entrances in the face of hills and bluffs and big, dug-out chambers inside. It was a strange life. With the eternal hail of cannon over them day and night, and starvation a familiar figure to them, it must have been a horrible one.

Now we advanced our rifle pits and trenches and mines close up to the Rebel forts, though our main lines lay in the ravines and on the ridge a few hundred feet farther back. As for me, when not looking after the ammunition, a trifling duty now, I was in the trenches with the others.

One morning when out there at the front among our riflemen, who were forever blazing day and night at every Rebel fort and rifle pit, I noticed our good Colonel Matthies creeping along the trench to where I was. He had a package of brown paper in his hand. Imagine my surprise and pride to have him come to me and say: "Sergeant, this officer's sash is yours." Then he announced my appointment as adjutant of the regiment. He had been made a general now, and would soon leave for his new command. This sash was one that he had worn and honored on many a battlefield. Is it any wonder that now, after the long and perilous years, it is preserved by me as a souvenir of honor? Soon after, I went to a sutler's store on the Yazoo River to buy a sword and uniform. In those days swords were not given to officers by committees in dress coats, until they had been earned. This little trip to get my sword almost cost me my life. My path to the river, six miles away, lay partly along a ridge and partly close to an empty Rebel fort. This fort showed scarcely any signs of having ever been used. I stayed all night with the sutler, whom I knew very well, and at noon on a hot day started, on my big yellow government horse, to go back to my regiment. My sword was buckled on me and my new uniform was tied in a bundle on my saddle-bow. It was too hot to ride fast, and my horse almost slept as he slowly carried me close by the seemingly abandoned fort. Suddenly there was a crash and a whole volley of musketry rattled about my ears. My poor horse fell dead. It was a quick awakening, but I managed to pull my bundle from the saddle-bow and to escape into a ravine where our own troops lay. There I learned that the fort had been occupied by the Rebels in the night, while I was with the sutler. It was a close call for me. One of the boys declared he could save my saddle and bridle. "Take them as a present," I said, "if you can get them." He crept up to where my dead horse lay, and as he rose to his feet to undo the saddle another volley from the fort hastened him to the ravine. I laughed. "If your saddle and bridle were made of gold and silver," he shouted at me as he ran back, "I wouldn't try it again."

Slowly and without perceptible advance the siege went on. The little battery that my regiment had saved at Iuka was still with us and behind some breastworks at our immediate right. It was no uncommon thing to see even Grant himself come along and stop and watch Captain Sears' guns knock the dirt up from some fort in front of us. One day this battery wounded a man who was running between two Rebel breastworks. The enemy tried to secure his body, but every soul that showed himself for an instant was shot by our riflemen. For half an hour this shooting over one poor man's body was kept up, until it seemed that a battle was taking place.

Now our lines were so close together that our pickets often had a cup of coffee or a chew of tobacco with the Rebel pickets at night. Drummer Bain, of my company, had a brother among the soldiers inside Vicksburg. One night he met him at the picket line, and together they walked all through the beleagured town. But such things were dangerous business and had to be kept very quiet. The weather was now very warm and fine, some of the nights clear moonlight, and when the guns had stopped their roaring many a time in the quiet night we heard the bell clock on the Vicksburg Court House measuring out the hours. It is said that this clock never stopped for an instant in all the siege, nor under the hundred cannon that rained iron hail into the town. At night, too, the big mortars from our fleet some miles from us tossed mighty bombs into the air, that sailed like blazing comets and fell at last among the people hidden in their caves.

One day Governor Kirkwood of Iowa visited our regiment and made a speech to us in a hollow back of our line. We cheered, and the Rebels, hearing us and knowing we must be assembled in masses, hurled a hundred cannonballs and shells over our heads, yet I think few were hurt. This was the 3d of June. Every night that we lay there on the line we went to sleep fearing to be waked by an attack from the army of Rebels under Johnston, now assembled at our rear. This was the force we most feared, not the army we had penned up in Vicksburg. Nevertheless, the batteries in front of us gave us enough to do to prevent any ennui on our part. On the 15th of June the enemy got one big gun in a position to rake from our left the ravine in which my regiment was lying. We all stuck close to our little caves on the ridge side, and few got hurt. In the meantime we were working day and night putting more breastworks in front of us, though we were now but four hundred yards away from the Rebel lines. Here, as many times elsewhere, I copy from my diary. "Last night, the 16th, the major of our regiment, Marshall, took two hundred men and worked all night digging new ditches and building breastworks. It was rainy and muddy. The Rebels heard us at the work and in the darkness slipped up and captured a few men. Some of the enemy, however, also got taken in. This is the kind of work that is going on every night until daybreak, and then we fire bullets all the day into the enemy's lines, to prevent their repairing their forts. The cannonading and the rifle shooting never cease. The roar is simply incessant, and yet when off duty we sleep like newborn babes.

"All the region we are in is hills and ravines, brush and cane-brake, with here and there a little cotton field. Nature defends Vicksburg more than a dozen armies could. She has built scores of positions around the town strong as anything at Sevastapol."

The rumors kept coming of a purposed attack on our rear. On the 20th of June, at four o'clock in the morning, all the cannon on Grant's lines and all the cannon on the gunboats opened fire on the town and thundered at it for six mortal hours. They must have been awful hours for the people inside. No such cannonading ever took place on the continent before or since. We private soldiers did not know the exact object of this fearful bombardment. The Rebels probably lay in battle line, expecting an assault, and must have suffered greatly.

In the night of the 22d of June, at midnight, rumors again came of a great Rebel army marching on our rear. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and my regiment, together with whole divisions of the army, received orders to hurry back toward Black River, where cavalry skirmishing had taken place. No battle came on, but for two days we lay in line of battle, or else built breastworks for defense.

On the 3d of July, as we were bivouacked in a little wood, news came that the whole Rebel army in Vicksburg had prepared to surrender the next day, the Nation's jubilee day. Instantly the regiment was ordered to fall in. I had no little pride in reading to the men the dispatch from General Grant announcing the great news. It was the first order I had ever read to the regiment as its adjutant, and its great importance gratified me much. The whole command acted as if they were drunken or had suddenly lost their minds. Privates and officers shook hands and laughed and wept, while majors and colonels turned somersaults on the grass. It was indeed a great moment to us all. Twenty-seven thousand men, with twenty-four generals and one hundred and eighty cannon, was a great capture. We all knew we had made history on that day.

Now the whole Rebel army passed out along the roads where we lay. I sat on a rail fence near our bivouac and watched the host go by. The officers all looked depressed, but the soldiers seemed glad the suspense and danger were over and that now they could have enough to eat. Our regiment freely divided with them all we had.

"After a few days pursuit of Johnston's army at our rear , my regiment is ordered into Vicksburg. We pass in over the breastworks that had been so terrible to us a few days before. Looking at them, I wonder at our hardihood in assaulting them. It would be hard to climb through these ditches and into these forts even were no cannon and no deadly muskets behind them.

"My regiment is put on duty as a city guard. It now seems strange enough to be guarding the very town and the very forts we had so recently been assaulting. There are other troops here, but the Fifth Iowa is the guard proper. We find the town badly battered up, with terrible signs of war everywhere. There, too, were the graves of the dead and brave defenders. If wrong, they still had been brave men." Years afterward, a shaft was put up to their memory, and on it I read these words:

"We care not whence they came, Dear in their lifeless clay, Whether unknown, or known to fame, Their cause and country's still the same, They died, and they wore the gray."

The weather continued hot while we were there guarding the town, and the place was very sickly; many citizens and very many colored soldiers died. It was pitiable to see how little people cared, even our own soldiers, whether these poor negro soldiers died or lived. Our own regiment suffered little, yet on July 28 seventy were in the hospital. We camped at Randolph and Locust streets, and spite of the mercury's being 100 degrees in the shade, had pleasant soldier times. I mounted the guard every morning and then spent most of the day reading to the colonel, who was sick.

In September I secured a leave of absence to go North. For the only time during the four years' war I visited my home. I was there but eight days, half of my time having been lost by the steamer I was on sticking on sandbars.

I saw strange sights in the North in those few days--women and children and old men reaping the fields; home guards training at every village; cripples and hospitals everywhere. Yet in spite of war prosperity was blessing the North.

Sherman's army floats across the Tennessee River at midnight--Washington at the Delaware nothing compared to this--We assault Missionary Ridge--An awful battle--My capture.

On my return from my home to my regiment I found it had been transported to Memphis, where, as a part of General Sherman's army corps, we were now to make a forced march to relieve Rosecrans' army at Chattanooga. Chickamauga had been lost. The Union army lying under Lookout Mountain was starving and its destruction almost certain. We made now the march of four hundred miles from the Tennessee River, at Florence, in twenty days, without incident. On the 22d of November, 1863, we beheld the heights of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.

November 23, 1863, and the great battle of Chattanooga was about to begin. The victorious Rebel army, seventy-five thousand strong, lay intrenched along the heights of Missionary Ridge and on top of Lookout Mountain. My regiment was in Sherman's corps that had just hurried across from Memphis. We had marched twenty miles a day. Now this corps was to form the left of Grant's forces, cross a deep river in the darkness, and assault the nearly inaccessible position of Bragg's army. That night we lay in bivouac in the woods close by the Tennessee River. We very well knew that 116 rude pontoon boats had been built for us and were lying hidden in a creek near by. We had almost no rations for the army. As for the horses and mules, they had already starved to death by the thousands, and were lying around everywhere. Rosecran's army had been virtually besieged, and was about to starve or surrender when Grant came on to the ground and took command. When Sherman's corps got up it was decided to stake all on a great battle. If defeated, we should probably all be lost. All the men in Sherman's corps who were to make the first great assault realized that, and they realized also the danger we were now to encounter by attempting to cross that rapid river in the night.

Midnight came and all were still awake, though quiet in the bivouac. At two o'clock we heard some quiet splashing in the water. It was the sound of muffled oars. The boats had come for us. Every man seized his rifle, for we knew what was coming next. "Quietly, boys, fall in quietly," said the captains. Spades were handed to many of us. We did not ask for what, as we knew too well. Quietly, two by two, we slipped down to the water's edge and stepped into the rude flatboats that waited there. "Be prompt as you can, boys; there's room for thirty in a boat," said a tall man in a long waterproof coat who stood on the bank near us in the darkness. Few of us had ever before heard the voice of our beloved commander. Sherman's kind words gave us all cheer, and his personal presence, his sharing the danger we were about to undertake, gave us confidence.

In a quarter of an hour a thousand of us were out in the middle of the river afloat in the darkness. Silent we sat there, our rifles and our spades across our knees. There was no sound but the swashing of the water against the boats. We had strange feelings, the chief of which was probably the thought: Would the enemy on the opposite bank fire into us and drown us all? Every moment we expected a flash of musketry or a roar of cannon. We did not know that a ruse had been played on the pickets on the other side; that a boatload of our soldiers had crossed farther up and in the darkness caught every one of them without firing a shot. One only got away. Who knew how soon all of Braggs' army might be alarmed and upon us?

In half an hour we were out on the opposite bank and creeping along through the thicket, a spade in one hand a rifle in the other. What might happen any moment we knew not. Where was that escaped picket? And where was Braggs' army? Instantly we formed in line of battle and commenced digging holes for ourselves. We worked like beavers, turn about; no spade was idle for one moment. Daylight found us there, two thousand strong, with rifle pits a mile in length. Other brigades got over the river, pontoons soon were down; still other troops, whole divisions, were across, and forty cannon were massed close to the crossing to protect us. What a sight was that for General Bragg, when he woke up that morning at his headquarters' perch, on top of Missionary Ridge! All that day we maneuvered under heavy cannonading and drove the enemy from hill to hill at our front. Some of the troops did heavy fighting, but the Rebels only fell back to their great position on the Ridge.

That night my regiment stood picket at the front. The ground was cold and wet, none of us slept a wink, and we were almost freezing and starving. We had not slept, indeed, for a hundred hours. It had been one vast strain, and now a battle was coming on. All that night we who were on the picket line could hear the Rebel field batteries taking position on Missionary Ridge, to fight us on the morrow. The morning of the 25th dawned clear and beautiful. Instantly whole divisions of troops commenced slaughtering each other for the possession of single hills and spurs. At times the battle in front of Sherman was a hand to hand encounter. My own brigade was so close that the Rebels even threw stones down upon us. Over to the far right Hooker's men were in possession of Lookout Mountain, and were breaking in on the enemy's left flank.

It was two o'clock when our division, my own regiment with it, received orders from Sherman to fix bayonets and join in the assault on Missionary Ridge. General J. E. Smith led the division, and General Matthies, our former colonel, led the brigade. We had to charge over the open, and by this time all the cannon in the Rebel army were brought to bear on the field we had to cross. We emerged from a little wood, and at that moment the storm of shot and shell became terrific. In front of us was a rail fence, and, being in direct line of fire, its splinters and fragments flew in every direction. "Jump the fence, men! tear it down!" cried the colonel. Never did men get over a fence more quickly. Our distance was nearly half a mile to the Rebel position.

We started on a charge, running across the open fields. I had heard the roaring of heavy battle before, but never such a shrieking of cannonballs and bursting of shell as met us on that charge. We could see the enemy working their guns, while in plain view other batteries galloped up, unlimbered, and let loose at us. Behind us our own batteries were firing at the enemy over our heads, till the storm and roar became horrible. It sounded as if the end of the world had come. Halfway over we had to leap a ditch, perhaps six feet wide and nearly as many deep. Some of our regiment fell into this ditch and could not get out, a few tumbled in intentionally and stayed there. I saw this, and ran back and ordered them to get out, called them cowards, threatened them with my revolver; they did not move. Again I hurried on with the line. All of the officers were screaming at the top of their voices; I, too, screamed, trying to make the men hear. "Steady! steady! bear to the right! keep in line! Don't fire! don't fire!" was yelled till we all were hoarse and till the awful thunder of the cannon made all commands unheard and useless.

In ten minutes, possibly, we were across the field and at the beginning of the ascent of the Ridge. Instantly the blaze of Rebel musketry was in our faces, and we began firing in return. It helped little, the foe was so hidden behind logs and stones and little breastworks. Still we charged, and climbed a fence in front of us and fired and charged again. Then the order was given to lie down and continue firing. That moment someone cried, "Look to the tunnel! They're coming through the tunnel." Sure enough, through a railway tunnel in the mountain the gray-coats were coming by hundreds. They were flanking us completely.

"Stop them!" cried our colonel to those of us at the right. "Push them back." It was but the work of a few moments for four companies to rise to their feet and run to the tunnel's mouth, firing as they ran. Too late! an enfilading fire was soon cutting them to pieces. "Shall I run over there too?" I said to the colonel. We were both kneeling on the ground close to the regimental flag. He assented. When I rose to my feet and started it seemed as if even the blades of grass were being struck by bullets. As I ran over I passed many of my comrades stretched out in death, and some were screaming in agony. For a few minutes the whole brigade faltered and gave way.

Colonel Matthies, our brigade commander, was sitting against a tree, shot in the head. Instantly it seemed as if a whole Rebel army was concentrated on that single spot. For a few moments I lay down on the grass, hoping the storm would pass over and leave me. Lieutenant Miller, at my side, was screaming in agony. He was shot through the hips. I begged him to try to be still; he could not. Now, as a second line of the enemy was upon us, and the first one was returning, shooting men as they found them, I rose to my feet and surrendered. "Come out of that sword," shrieked a big Georgian, with a terrible oath. Another grabbed at my revolver and bellowed at me "to get up the hill quicker than hell." It was time, for our own batteries were pouring a fearful fire on the very spot where we stood. I took a blanket from a dead comrade near me, and at the point of the bayonet I was hurried up the mountain. We passed lines of infantry in rifle pits and batteries that were pouring a hail of shells into our exposed columns. Once I glanced back, and--glorious sight!--I saw lines of bluecoats at our right and center, storming up the ridge.

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