John R. Kinnear

“ There was a great caravan of negroes hanging on the rear of our column when it arrived in Milledgeville, like a sable cloud in the sky before a thunder storm or tornado. They thought it was freedom now or never, and would follow whether or no. It was really a ludicrous sight to see them trudging on after the army in promiscuous style and divers manner. Some in buggies of the most costly and glittering manufacture; some on horseback, the horses old and blind, and others on foot; all following up in right jolly mood, bound for the Elysium of ease and freedom. ”

“ The soldier does not seem to feel pangs of sorrow when arms clash the loudest; he does not see danger and suffering and ghastly sights until all is over and quiet restored. Those who are unacquainted with the mental condition of the soldier in time of battle, wonder and ask why it is that those whom he knows so intimately are wounded and many times killed by his side without knowing the nature of their wounds or the circumstances of their death. ”

“ The boys now set to work building shanties for their comfort, as it was probable the command would make its winter-quarters there. They would fell trees, chop off large cuts and split them into slabs. Out of these rough slabs snug shanties were made, and to put on the finishing touch, fire-places were built in them. When cold, keen winds blew fierce without, the soldier sat comfortable within, and soon our North Chickamauga camp became a semi-paradise—a home in the woods. It was here the brigade suffered so much from hunger; famine was our ghost, it haunted us by day and by night. ”

“ So long as our minds can retrace the past, and so long as our hearts are capable of a generous emotion, will we continue to hold in sacred remembrance, the noble and generous-hearted people of Pittsburgh.
Every one anticipated a hearty welcome at Chicago, inasmuch as it had been extended elsewhere on the route; but we were cruelly and sadly disappointed. No one met the regiment at the depot even to tell it where to go. ”

“ On the morning of the 5th, Johnston had fallen back to another line of entrenchments on the north side of the Chattahoochie, our lines advancing as usual until they came upon him. We were now in sight of the Gate City, its steeples and spires appearing in the distance. For the first time we beheld the object of our toils and marches, every heart rejoicing to behold the doomed Atlanta. General Sherman was not content, however, until every vestige of the Confederate army was upon the south side of the Chattahoochie. ”

“ Here ends the Knoxville campaign, and the Eighty-sixth back in its old camp on the North Chickamauga. This campaign consumed twenty-five days of the severest marching and suffering that ever soldiers experienced. Many returned barefooted and threadbare, in the chill month of December, leaving bloody tracks on the frozen ground. This march may be fairly numbered among the hardest of our hardships. No men ever bore up under so many ills with more fortitude than did the men in this arduous and difficult campaign to the relief of the besieged and almost subjugated Knoxville. ”

“ While descending a ridge in closed ranks, the light from the burning building was reflected from every face, presenting a multitude of bright, pleasing countenances, and as all else was dark, nothing could be seen but a moving field of shining faces. Our brigade was not generally engaged in the battle just recited, the Eighty-sixth and the 85th Illinois being the only regiments brought into action, though the rest were in close reserve. ”

“ On the morning of the 24th our division marched through Milledgeville, and passing on through Sandersville, crossed the Ogechee river and Rocky Comfort creek into Louisville, a county seat town, where it remained several days to let the right wing of the army come up on a line. Milledgeville is beautifully situated in the paradise portion of Georgia, the country around being rich, and on the whole, level and fertile. The city itself is laid off with much good taste, the streets being wide and handsome, and the buildings sparsely built along them. ”

“ Even as the leaves wither and fall, so must man, and we were made sad in contemplating the fearful, bloody past.
The division crossed the Chattahoochie river in the forenoon of the 15th, and arrived in Atlanta in time to draw clothing, provisions, etc., preparatory to the uncertain actions of the morrow. Atlanta on this occasion seemed to be swallowed up in flames. Bright, lurid lights were seen springing up in every quarter. It seemed that the once proud and defiant city was bidding earth farewell! "But what is now to be done?" every one asks. "Has Sherman gone crazy, sure enough?" ”

“ But we were patient; we reconnoitered—we watched their flanks—we studied the ground—and in three days we had Johnston and his whole army pinned; he retired, and we did not give him a chance of stopping until he had put the Chattahoochie between us and him. That is a lesson to you. Temporary defeat is nothing when a man is determined to succeed. You are not conquered—you never can be conquered when the mind is clear and determined in its purpose; you must succeed—no temporary defeat can cause failure. ”

“ They gape with wonder when we tell them we break our ground with two horses, plow our corn with a plow on which we can ride; that one man can tend forty acres and raise forty bushels to the acre. When we tell them about our reapers, our vast fields of wheat, oats, etc., etc., they gape, and wonder what we do with it all. If we tell them about our large prairies, rich soil and productive land, they wonder why they had not heard of that before.
Their principal diet is corn bread, meat and negro beans. These nigger beans, by the way, are not so bad, just the thing for the soldier ”

“ There is oftentimes more horror in the idea and dread of battle than in the thing itself. The soldier becomes so accustomed to human butchery that it loses many, very many, of its horrors.
After battle, when the clash of arms has ceased, is when the soldier's sympathy is tried. The solicitations of the maimed and dying raise a feeling of commiseration in the most obdurate heart ”

“ How varied the fortunes of war; to-day the city is impenetrable, to-morrow it has fallen! Poor, proud Atlanta reveled, rejoiced and wept the same day!
After the siege of Atlanta was abandoned it was not long until our division, under General J. D. Morgan, arrived in the vicinity of Jonesboro, about twenty-two miles south of Atlanta. At this place, on the 1st of September, and at five o'clock p.m., our division was formed for a charge: the 2nd brigade on the right, the 3rd brigade in the centre, and the 1st brigade on the left, and advanced to the attack in two lines of battle. ”

“ Bright visions of a future welcome at Peoria rose up before the minds of all—for there we would be met by the joys of our long absent friends, and the kind hospitality of the noble and generous-hearted ladies of the Women's National League—ladies who justly deserve our hearty thanks for their humane and loyal efforts to cheer and aid us in the field and at home. ”

“ It is, as it were, a swath mown in the deep pine forest—the labor of a poor ignorant being, who, like the parrot, can talk and palaver with simple unmeaningness, but ignorant of the world beyond a radius of ten miles. The people, for the most part, break up their ground with one horse or ox, as the case may be, their plows being suited to the purpose. ”

“ Sherman had previously proposed to General Grant to destroy the railway from Atlanta to Chattanooga, and strike out through Georgia.
"By attempting to hold the roads," he wrote, "we will lose a thousand men monthly, and will gain no result." And again, "Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me. Instead of being on the defensive I would be on the offensive. Instead of guessing at what he means, he would have to guess at my plans. I prefer to march through Georgia, smashing things, to the sea." ”

“ You are hardly conscious of any suffering around you. Excitement has borne you off so that you never think to look and see who is on your right or left, or whose spirit is winging its flight from the body over which you are walking. ”

“ Letters are the soldier's tonic. They will strengthen and restore when army grub and other restoratives, duly proportioned, wholly fail. The blues and all kinds of contagious diseases to which mortals are heir, caused by idleness and the lack of proper diversion of the mind, are soon uprooted by a good interesting letter from a fellow's most affectionate. Give soldiers full rations and regular mail, then there can nowhere be found a more rational set of men than they. But letters are sometimes like our crackers and pork, unfit for use. ”

“ The troops stood from behind their works in full view of the enemy, looking on in silent amazement, enjoying in their hearts the sublime grandeur of the scene. Finally, a locomotive was run up to the base of the mountain, when behold, a masked battery opened on it in all its fury, the engine immediately reversing its steam and running back.
On the night of the 20th and 21st, the rebels constructed several strong forts on the summit of the Kenesaw, from whence they annoyed our position a great deal. ”

“ On the occasion of this grand review of Sherman's army, a certain New York paper, the Independent, paid our division a very high compliment. It said:
"The finest looking set of men in either army—they were also said to be the best drilled—was the 2nd division of the 14th Corps, composed of Western troops, and commanded by General James D. Morgan, of Quincy, Illinois, one of the bravest of the brave, the idol of his soldiers, and called by them 'Our Jimmy Morgan.'"
But as for the soldiers themselves, grand pageantry in the line of reviews had "played out." ”

“ One soldier would crowd together thirty or forty of them, and march around them at right-shoulder-shift arms, keeping them at work pounding rice with mortar and pestle. Great ricks of this precious produce, in every way resembling oats, were stacked on each plantation, and from ten to twenty thousand bushels in a single stackyard. Our army made use of it in various ways, much of it being threshed and hulled, and then used by the soldiers, but a greater part fed to mules. ”