G. W. Lewis

“ How many of those that left Camp Cleveland with us—just one year before—now "sleep the sleep that knows not breaking." What a change in our regiment. Our ranks have been thinned, but our effectiveness has been increased. We have been tried in all the sad experiences of war. Patriotism brought to our ranks very many never calculated, either physically or mentally, to make soldiers. Their intentions were high and noble, and they failed by no fault of theirs; their final discharge was a mercy to them, and a blessing to us. Many came home and abandoned army service forever. ”

“ It is the dreadful waiting that is more terrible than the shock of battle. When once within the storm of the leaden hail the soldier seems to rise to a higher plane of life; and while his comrades fall around him, the din of battle in his ears, the groans of the wounded and dying, the shouts of defiance of the enemy, and encouragement of his comrades are ringing out on every hand, he feels as much the master of the storm of battle as the eagle of the storm cloud. ”

“ The skirmish lines kept up a constant fire until after midnight, marking their positions by the continuous blaze of the musketry. Two lines of musketry running up the steep sides of a mountain in plain view, and constantly belching forth their tongues of flame, is a sight most inspiring, and seen only once in a lifetime.
That night the rebels abandoned Lookout, and the next morning we greeted the grand old stars and stripes floating proudly from the summit of that mountain peak, in place of the traitorous emblem that we had been compelled to gaze upon, in disgust, for so many long sad weeks. ”

“ No men no matter how brave, could stand outside of works the deadly impetuosity of such a charge.
I had seen many noble looking men before; I have seen many since, but have never seen any such men in appearance, as composed that charging column that relieved us that dismal afternoon at Chickamauga. Had every division of the Army of the Cumberland been handled and fought as General Johnson's division was that afternoon, the historian would write Chickamauga a victory, instead of a defeat. ”

“ No sound can awake them to glory again." More than twenty-seven years have passed since that heroic struggle on the steep mountain side of Missionary Ridge. The blue and the gray sleep side by side in the National Cemetery at its base. Chattanooga, then a small war-battered village, has grown, by northern capital and northern industry, to be an important iron manufacturing city. The Tennessee runs its bright and winding way around the proud Lookout, but no rebel yell pollutes the air, and no rebel rag defies the national authority, but all is peace and order, industry and law. ”

“ A single line of battle of the enemy, armed as they were, inside of such defenses, could repulse any mass of men that could be sent against them. It would require a man without a musket and accouterments, armed with a good ax, from five to ten minutes to cut through these three outer lines of defenses, and the idea of assaulting such a position without first having these defenses cleared away, was entirely preposterous. It would have cost the killing or wounding of one thousand axmen to have cleared the way for a regimental front to charge. ”

“ And never did sundown hang his somber curtain over a more grateful body of men than those that remained of the Army of the Cumberland. Just as the sun began to cast the long shadows to the eastward our brigade was retired to the west for about half a mile, still in order of battle; but any one could discern that a general retreat was to be commenced as soon as the friendly darkness should cover us from the view of the enemy. While in this position we heard cheers from what seemed to be a great body of men, and the rumor was at once out that General Burnside had reinforced us from Knoxville. ”

“ Hardly a citizen was to be seen on the streets, and not a salute nor a shout welcomed us to this one of the most treasonable cities of the confederacy. We now, for the first time, realized that we were in the land of the rebellion. We moved that evening out to Overton Heights on the Franklin pike, and went into camp on the very spot where the same regiment, as veteran soldiers, on the sixteenth day of December, 1864, scattered the last of Hood's infantry on the memorable field of Nashville. ”

“ I suffer no man, no old soldier, to stand before me in my admiration for the services rendered our country by that grand old hero, General W. T. Sherman, but in military life, like civil life, a man may be very valuable and great in one direction, and of very little value in another. ”

“ Well, this must end my recollections of the very celebrated march from Chattanooga to Knoxville and the winter campaign of east Tennessee.
General Longstreet finally went back to the army of northern Virginia, not that he was in any danger from us, but simply because he became tired of the scenery and wanted a change, I suppose.
Nothing in history is grander than the relief of Knoxville; nothing tamer and more devoid of sense than the balance of the campaign. ”

“ The ridge in our front is eight hundred feet above the level of the Tennessee; in some places almost perpendicular, but in our front not so abrupt, but so steep that the ascent was difficult to one without arms and accoutrements. On rushed the gallant army; on rushed the gallant regiment. Every soldier had all the ardor of a Phil. Sheridan. No opportunity to return the galling fire. Comrades falling at every step, but at last the summit is gained. The enemy completely routed. The guns of the rebels turned. Plenty of ammunition found, but no friction primers. ”

“ O, could we feel the breaking hearts of wife, mother, father, sister, brother, and affianced, when the shouting was over, when the headlines of the great victory had become familiar, when the congratulatory orders and proclamations had been issued and read, and the cold, sad news had been conveyed to each home that claimed a loved one lost in that great victory—then, and only then, could we know and feel the real horrors of war. Then, I am sure, all those that love war and delight in the clash of arms would lift their voices for peace—lasting peace. ”

“ The sun had just hid his face behind the rocky sides of the Lookout when the order was given to "strike tents," and each regiment was quietly but speedily formed in marching order, and all that night long we marched to the right, to be nearer McCook when the time should come when the foe, long followed and hunted, should hunt us in return.
Any one who has not had the experience cannot have any notion of the absolutely disgusting weariness of a night march in the presence of the enemy. To march in column, day or night, is much more fatiguing than to march singly ”

“ It was no uncommon thing to find two or more dead soldiers, murdered in an unsavory locality known as Smoky Row, every morning, and the original inhabitants of the city were none too good to murder a union soldier if they found him in a condition not to be able to take care of himself. If there ever was a city that should have been disposed of as Atlanta and Columbia were, that city was Nashville. But things were getting ripe for action. Every day troops in squads, detachments and regiments, were coming in by river and by rail. ”

“ It was march and skirmish every day. This is a better country than any other we had seen in northern Georgia, but desolation was written all over it after we passed. At almost every plantation we came to the rebels made a stand and the mansion house a fortress from which to fire at our skirmishers, and when we drove them out the house almost invariably took fire, and at all times of day and night the heavens were lurid with the flames of rebel homes. The country from Resaca to the Etowah river was the most absolutely desolated of any that we ever left behind us. ”

“ Of all the campaigning we ever did this of east Tennessee was the most purposeless, seemingly profitless, and dismal. The most of the time we were hard up for rations, and were compelled to forage on a people as friendly as any in Ohio, and that had been robbed by both armies. I never can forget the time we lay at Clinch Mountain Gap, when it was so cold that we had to build log-heaps in front of our tents to keep from freezing, that Colonel Pickands sent Lieutenant Stedman with a file of men and a wagon to try and find something to eat. ”

“ Hooker has found more difficulties in pushing his column to the right of the ridge and in the direction of Rossville, than had been anticipated, and as the sun was slowly sinking toward the crest of Waldron's Ridge the cannon belched forth from Fort Wood.
Every soldier of the 124th was instantly in position, and as the silvery notes of the bugle sounded the forward, and breaking the awful silence after the cannon's reverberations had ceased, the 124th, with clutched muskets, rushed forth to the charge of death. ”

“ The corps to our left had fallen back to nearly at right angles with our line, and we could plainly see the wounded men being borne back or slowly straggling to the rear. There are times in the life of almost anyone when the circumstances with which he is surrounded are burned into his memory as though graven with a pen of fire. So on this occasion, although the enemy had been badly beaten in our front, we saw our line of battle momentarily crumbling away on our left. ”

“ Company B received a detail to furnish twenty-five men for picket duty, which was filled with healthy men, and quite a number of sick men in camp, and the number ailing in the regiment was far from being inconsiderable. But we found the next day that this movement toward Columbia did not mean anything, and we were ordered back to Franklin, which was only a march of seventeen miles, but we came into camp that night as stiff and sore as foundered horses. We had no battle, we had lost no men, but take it all in all, we were the better soldiers for the experience we had gained. ”

“ All felt that this Sabbath day would decide the fate of the army, as well as determine the result of 64the campaign, for good or ill, to the cause of the Union. Early in the morning we were ordered to construct such works along our line as the material at hand would admit of, for at that time in the war we had not learned the value of the pick and shovel. It is wonderful what men can do when in extremity, or when their own safety or that of the cause for which they battle, requires the exercise of ingenuity or industry. ”

“ Those not familiar may be interested in a brief description of the field where the battle of Franklin was fought. The Harpeth river makes quite a sharp bend to the north, and the formerly very rich village, built very compactly, occupies the most of the room in the bend. Here, before the war, was the home of many rich cotton planters, for as you all will remember, this is the heart of the cotton growing belt of Tennessee. The turnpike running from the southern part of the state, through Pulaski, Columbia, and on to Nashville, ran through about the center of Franklin. ”

“ That if armies are to be destroyed, the quicker it can be accomplished, the more precious lives saved. Great and decisive battles, with all their untold horrors, are angels of mercy compared to the small battle, the skirmish, where a few are lost and nothing accomplished. ”

“ But war has its sad features, even for an enemy as dishonorable and as thoroughly hated as were the rebels. The beautiful village of Franklin was riddled with shot and shell. The great cotton field to the south was thickly covered with the graves of the confederate soldiers. ”

“ It is a well-known fact that in the winter of 1864, at the Burnett House in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, the two greatest generals developed by the war, Grant and Sherman, met in counsel. Sherman, while a line officer in the regular army, had become most thoroughly acquainted with the topography of the state of Georgia, and it was at this consultation that the campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta and the grand march "from Atlanta to the sea" were developed and determined upon. It was at this consultation that Sherman said, "The confederacy is a shell and I can march an army through it." ”

“ At the order to charge we moved on in fine form until we came near the works, when the rebels opened on us with canister that momentarily checked our advance. The colored infantry on our left seemed to receive the most of the rebel fire, as Stedman's division was in such a position that as soon as they came in range they were enfiladed for more than three hundred yards of their line, and consequently they suffered much more severely than our brigade. I never saw more heroic conduct shown on the field of battle than was exhibited by this body of men so recently slaves. ”

“ Every piece of leather, every piece of brass and steel, was burnished as bright as time could make it. Never saw I the old regiment turn out in such fine shape. All the remnants of the old bands we had were revived, as far as possible. New sheepskin was in great demand. I cannot now tell whether the wheezy old band that General Hazen had at Manchester was in existence at that time, or whether it had been sacrificed for the good of the service and given harps, as it should have been, long before. The column for review was formed in divisions of regiments, that is, two companies to the division. ”

“ The typhoid fever and camp diarrhœa became alarmingly common. Our men sickened and were sent to the general hospital at Nashville, where very many died, and many were discharged, as unfit for further military duty. Not any one of the hard fought battles of our campaigns so depleted our ranks as our stay at Franklin. The water was of the limestone formation, and did not seem to agree with those that were comparatively well, much less those that were sick. I think that every old soldier will agree with me that the march, while more fatiguing, is more healthful than the camp. ”

“ Forrest was a raider, but in no sense a fighter. Schofield had not more than twenty thousand men, all told, some of which were on duty with the train. But twenty thousand old veterans, as my old soldier friends will bear me witness here to-day, are hard to go out and get, especially, if you come straight up to the front door, and this Corporal Hood, in a very gentlemanly manner, did.
Hood formed his charging column in three lines, extending across the old cotton field from east to west; his right reaching the river, his left resting on the pike. ”