Walking In His Shoes

 

Walking In His Shoes

December 28, 2019

Great grandfather George Dodge fought in the Civil War with the Union's Army of the West along the Tennessee River.  When he was about 83 years old, he wrote about his experiences -- mostly about the battle at Shiloh.  Over the years, Pat and I have visited many Civil War battle sites but I could not remember where Shiloh was located,  So, I searched and found that Shiloh was located along the Tennessee River near the southern border of Mississippi.  I figured that we could drive there in only about a day and a half, so why not make Grandpa's experiences more real by actually walking in his footsteps on the battlefield.

It proved to be a very moving experience.  It was fun to find places where Great-grandpa Holmes had been, but the horror of that war came alive from the stories and photos that we found there.  It was depressing, but essential history for me.  Human flesh has little defense against the grape-shot of cannons.

We started our tour at the crossroads of Corinth, Mississippi -- where two major railroads that supplied Confederate forces crossed.  If Union forces could capture this site, they could shut down much of Confederate supplies.  So, it was one of the major targets of the Union forces as they sought to divide the Southern States by taking control of the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers.

Corinth MS Cross train track

At the start of the war in 1862, most of the roads in this part of the world were not in good shape.  They were mostly unpaved and could become very muddy when it rained.  So, the best way for an army to travel was by train or by boats on rivers.

Here is his story:
 
"Thus we continued employing ourselves in perfecting each his company, while our Col. was very busy in perfecting and organizing his regiment, until about the 15th of November. Then orders came to break camp and start for the seat of war. We packed our wagons, each Co. had one with six mules as a Co. team, and what a lot of stuff for a Co. to take into the field. Each man would have taken a trunk, but as it was there was all that could be packed in the wagon up to the top of the hoops. However, as we moved off the regiment of about 1200 men, with all the company teams, the commissary, quartermaster and hospital teams, we made a big show that called the attention of the citizens all the way to Cairo, where we arrived the latter part of November, and went into camp.

Soon after establishing our camp our arms arrived and each company received its quota. Now each man had one horse and equipments, one Sharp's carbine, one Colts navy pistol and one cavalry sabre.

Our camp finally established, each company commander commenced drilling his company. Thus we continued drilling and completing the organization of the regiment until somewhere about the middle of January, when we were ordered to embark on steamboats. To us subalterns 'twas a mystery where we were going. Various opinions were expressed, but no one knew of course. My company was ordered aboard the large steamer “Memphis." Almost the whole regiment was stored away on this boat, and still there was room for more. The boat finally received its load, the lines were cast off and we were on our way down the river. We soon got into the Mississippi river, the boat was headed down stream and now we thought we were on the way to the seat of war truly. Running down stream about ten or twelve miles, the expedition, now numbering in all about ten thousand men, landed.

If we were in the dark as to our destination before we embarked, we were the next day and subsequent days in the dark as to the object of this display of so large a force so near the enemy without so much as showing ourselves to him. Well, here or hereabouts we floundered around through the mud, and, like a famous king, marched up the hill and then marched down again.

My wife had been making me a visit and had been with us in camp some week or more when we left Cairo. Uncertain as to how long we might be gone, she stayed in camp, thinking our trip would last only a dav or two. But when we had been gone five or six days and a prospect of further stay, I jumped on a boat, went up to Cairo, on to camp, bundled my wife up, put her on the cars and bid her good-bye. She headed for home and I headed down the river to my company.

After marching and counter-marching around through Kentucky, once so near Columbus that we could hear them hallooing and wondering what we were there for. We were ordered aboard the boats and steamed back to Cairo. The above expedition was under the command of Brig. Gen. John A. McClumand. During this expedition on our way we were exposed to very bad weather, snow which thawed nearly as fast as it fell made the roads almost impassable. Cold, wet feet and constantly in the saddle finally brought back an old trouble that had afflicted me when in the U. S. Dragoons, and when we got back to Cairo I was hardly able to walk for a day or two, but after a few days I fully recovered. About this time Col. Dickey said to me, “You take a trip up home for a few days, 'twill do you good. I will arrange it with Gen. Grant." Accordingly I called at Gen. Grant's headquarters. The General took me by the hand and said. "Ah, this is Capt. Dodge. Your leave of absence is all prepared. The Adj. Gen. will hand it to you." So I made a short trip up home, only four or five days.
 

On my return 1 found everything lively. Our regiment had started on through Kentucky, leaving about 170 of us under the command of Major Bowman. The next day after I got back the balance of the regiment broke camp, went aboard the boat and steamed up the Ohio River to the Cumberland, thence up to Ft. Donaldson. Here we disembarked and started for the Rebel works. On our way we witnessed the naval battle between our gun boats and the Rebel batteries. This was on Friday, Feb. 13th; on Sunday, the 15th, occurred the surrender of the Rebel force, consisting of about 15.000 prisoners, with everything pertaining to the Rebel army at that place.

Immediately after the surrender our regiment went into camp at Randolph forges, the great Tennessee iron works, where we found large quantities of forage for our teams. We remained here two or three weeks, when orders came to send our sick and disabled, together with all captured horses and other supplied not needed here, by steamboats to Cairo and at the same time hold ourselves in readiness to move for the Tennessee river. Accordingly the next day we saddled up and loaded up and started across the hills to take boats for Pittsburg Landing, where we arrived in due time. It was a grand sight, said to be about eighty or ninety boats following one after another. Each boat had its military commander. It fell to my lot to be assigned to the last one, so 1 could see what was in advance. Arrived at our destination, we were under the immediate command of Gen. Sherman, to whom I was introduced by my immediate senior, Ma j. Bowman, an old acquaintance of Gen. Sherman and an attorney at law who had been attorney for Sherman and Turner, while bankers in San Francisco, Cal. I had a number of interviews with Gen. Sherman and was delighted with his social qualities, and was particularly impressed with what I considered his eminent qualities as a soldier. Subsequently I found nothing in his career as a commander to induce me to alter my opinion of him as a man. a soldier or a loyal citizen.

And now I come to one of the most intense, hotly contested and most destructive engagements in which the two armies engaged during the war. How to describe it is a question; to give an adequate idea would take whole volumes. I can only give my impressions, and they must be crude of course. Our regiment that had started with Gen. Hurlburt's division, the evening before the battle exchanged, the 5th Ohio Cavalry was sent from Sherman’s division to Hurlburt's and our regiment sent to Sherman, so that the morning of the 5th of April found us with General Sherman out at the extreme front and quite near to him. It was Sunday morning, bright, sunny and warm and everything quiet, if you except the crack of a gun now and then, such as is always the case with an army in the field. Not long, however, did this quiet continue, for I had hardly swallowed a cup of coffee and a heavy biscuit when from a hill nearby came Rebel cannon shot. We were saddled up and mounted in less time than it takes to tell it and were ordered to the rear, where we with other regiments of cavalry remained all day. Now at this long time since that eventful day my mind, or my brain seems to be thronged almost to suffocation with the contemplation of that eventful day. I can hardly separate one event from another, what with terrible anxiety, the awful strain on my nerves, together with the fact that we were being forced back towards the river inch by inch, every rod of the way hotly contested, and the fearful roar of musketry interspersed with the roar of cannon. Still as I recall the same it fills my brain almost to bursting. So this the first day passed, and at evening found us forced back fearfully near to our boats, and a sorry looking army it was.

That night I sat on a log with nothing over me but a thin rubber poncho to keep out one of the heaviest falls of rain I ever braved, the water actually ran down in streams. There I sat the long night watching the shells sent into the Rebel ranks by our gun-boat, and you may believe a fervent prayer went up with each one of them. I am told that the fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much. I do not attribute the success of each of those shells to my unrighteous self, but nevertheless those shells kept the Rebels stirred up wonderfully, so they admitted afterwards.

Battle of Shiloh

The next morning, the 7th. dawned like its predecessor, bright and balmy, as though the awful carnage of the day before was all blotted out, as if it had never occurred and that the armies had only stopped long enough to take breath. I had hardly eaten a hard-tack and drank a cup of coffee when Col. Dickey rode up and said. "I come with orders from Gen. Grant that you hike a file of men and go down to the river and drive all stragglers up to his headquarters." I rode down to the river bank, which was bluff and in many places overhung with roots of large trees. I found the bank literally black with soldiers, or blue, for they all wore the blue that their Uncle Sam had furnished them. I found it hard to start them, but finally I drove them all out and up the bluffs, where they were sent, some to their own regiments and some, whose regiments had been utterly annihilated as organizations, were assigned to other regiments."

Tennessee River Bank where Grandpa Dodge rounded up stragglers

By this time Gen. Buell had arrived, the whole army put in motion, and now our side took the offensive. Soon we had the Rebels on the move. They fought hard to hold the ground occupied by us the day before, but we made it too hot for them and they gave way until about the middle of the afternoon, when not over one hundred rods from where I was I saw the last of them disappear in the woods. Thus I have given my meager description of the battle of Shiloh, to me two of the awfulest days of my life. And now comes the gathering together of that terribly mangled and disrupted army. Although we had conquered and driven the enemy from the field, we had done it sustaining fearful loss. That battlefield of five miles long by three or four miles wide was strewn with the dead and dying and was a sickening sight.

Two days after the fight, as I was sitting in my tent just in the toe of the evening, the front of my tent opened and Dr. Gamble stepped in. Oh my, it seemed to me that I had never seen so acceptable a face as his. He was there as a contract surgeon. By him I heard from home and that all were well.

Now commenced that scurrilous attempt to ruin one of the greatest generals of modern times. Halleck came and took Grant's place, virtually laying him on the shelf, and for a time our Western armies were subject to all the pulling and hauling that had made the Eastern army of no account. Our march to Corinth was begun, making three or four miles a day and then throwing up breastworks. This state of things continued up to about the 20th of June, when near Corinth, Miss., my trouble (piles) became so troublesome as to keep me out of the saddle most of the time. I finally sent in my resignation, 'twas accepted and I bid the army goodbye and started for home, where I arrived in due time.

I afterwards had somewhat to do with raising a company which I took to and joined the 14th Cavalry at Peoria. Col. Capron, who had seen somewhat of military life, was raising the regiment. He was, or seemed to be, quite anxious that I should go with him and as he offered me the first Major's berth I took nearly a full company to the regiment and, while attending to my duties in command of the camp and not suspecting treachery, a number of aspirants for places in the regiment went to Springfield and there managed to throw myself overboard and nearly the same with Col. Capron. So I threw up the sponge, disgusted, and came home to stay.

1 am now 82 1/4 years old, yet my memory of those stirring and event-fill days seems as vivid as when they occurred. A thousand incidents occurred during those times, trivial of themselves, many of which might prove of interest to the hearer or reader, but to break into the bundle and attempt to select one from the others would finally find the selected pile too big, so I thought best to take them as they came to my mind and save time and paper.

Table of Contents:  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6813612681836200616/3382423676443906063?hl=en