born 2 Apr 1842 in Woodburn, Macoupin, IL"My gggrandfather, W R Eddington, Civil War Veteran who served in Company A, 97th IL Infantry, used to dress in his uniform and attend Veteran's Day services as late as 1935. He died in January 1936 at the age of 94. Maybe there are some around that still remember him." -- Mark Strohbeck
Picture courtesy of Mark Strohbeck, great-great-grandson of William R. Eddington, all rights reserved.
William R. Eddington's Memoirs were transcribed from mimeograph copies of the typewritten Memoirs of William R. Eddington by Carl, Christopher, Ron, and Mark Strohbeck. Contributed for use at Macoupin ILGenWeb with Copyright reserved 2000 by Carl, Christopher, Ron, and Mark Strohbeck.
Presented To Earl Strohbeck from W. R. Eddington
I, W. R. Eddington, was born April 2, 1842, at Woodburn, Illinois in Bunker Hill Township, Macoupin County, and when I was about eighteen months old, my parents moved to a farm just across the line into Brighton Township. They took me along without consulting me in the matter, and I don't remember now if I wanted to go or not. Anyway, I did not like to see them go alone so I went along with them just for company, for I knew they would get lonesome without me. You see I was boss in those days – or, I thought I was - but I have learned a good deal since that time and that part of it was all a dream.
Well we finally got settled down and I began to grow up. One day when I was about three years old, my Mother went to visit one of our neighbors and she took me along. When she was not watching me I slipped out of doors, and started to view the landscape o'er on an expedition all my own. The first thing that took my fancy was a pretty white box setting out under a tree. I thought I would go and examine it, and when I got there I found a lot of bugs running in and out of it through a small hole near the bottom. It was such a pretty sight to see them run in and out through that little hole, but soon they slacked up a little, and I decided I would hurry them up a bit. I picked up a little stick, and stuck it in the hole and punched it, and lo and behold, they came out in swarms, and I soon found out that every bug had a sting in its tail and they sure made good use of it on me. They taught me a lesson I remember to this day, and that is, never meddle with other folks business if you don't want to get yourself stung and don't ever punch a stick in a hive of bees.
Now I will give you a history of my dancing. When I was about eight years old, my Father and about a dozen of his associates concluded they would have a dance and blowout at one of the neighbors. It was a one-room log cabin 16 x 20 feet and about a mile from our home.
Everything was put out of doors and the room cleared for action. They had several gallons of whiskey. My Father went, and I asked if I could go with him. He said "Yes," and Mother said "No", but I went anyway. The dance began by each taking a good size drink out of the jug. The usual manner of taking it in those days--each helping themselves out of the little brown jug. They danced awhile, and then stopped to take another drink. It went on this way until about midnight and they were now all drunk. They got into disputes and went to swearing, fighting, yelling, and a free-for-all fight set in, which scared me almost to death. It was after midnight and dark as pitch, but I set out for home and I believe I ran every step of the way home. That was my first and last dance, and if I live to be a thousand years old, I will never go to another dance unless I am forced to do so.
After this my career was about the same as any other average child until I was about ten years old. My Father was a drunkard. He had an old gentle horse on which he would put a saddle, take a sack, put a gallon jug in the sack and tie the sack to the pommel of the saddle and send me to a little town about two miles distance to buy whiskey for him. In those days every grocery store and street corner sold whiskey. The price was from 20 to 25c per gallon. I would get my jug filled and take it back home to my Father. Then he would begin drinking and never stop until he was drunk. I have seen him many, many times when he would not draw a sober breath for two weeks at a time, and when he was in this condition he was very abusive and cruel to his family. I have seen him take a gun and try to shoot my Mother and shoot the candle light out. I have seen him many times take a butcher knife and get after my Mother and drive her out doors, where she had to hide out in the brush all night to keep away from him. This I have seen many times over.
I am not an educated man, as I never had the opportunity to go to school. There were no school houses or free schools here until I was fourteen years old. We had three months school each year, the parents paying the tuition. The school was held in a room rented from a private family each year changing to a different family. I was six years old when I first went to school and went five terms to this kind of a school. The sixth year, I went to a public school and got a six months period and in 1856 the first public school was built in our neighborhood. I then got three six month terms. That is all the schooling I ever got, but when I was nineteen years old, in the winter of 61 and '62, I taught a six months school in the new school house.
My Father died January 14, 1855, at the age of forty-three. He drank himself to death, but I had a good Mother. She lived to be in her eight-second year and died on April 2, 1896. There were nine children, three girls and six boys. They are all dead but me. None of them ever lived to be very old and the oldest one was only fifty years when he died.
When I was about thirteen years old I made the trip from my home to Springfield, Illinois, in a two-horse spring wagon. That is now seventy-nine years ago last March. For long distances on the way, there was not a house and the wild prairie grass was higher than a man's head and full of wild prairie chickens, with millions of wild pigeons, geese, ducks, brants, cranes, and pelicans flying overhead. And as we went into the city of Springfield there were but a few stores and business places. The State House had not been built at that time. We went through the city and west about seven miles to a farm house occupied by a family named Davis. Now I expect you are anxious to know the secret of this trip. Well, if I don't tell you, you will never know what it is, for there is not a soul alive today that knows anything about it. Well, I won't keep you in suspense any longer but I will give you the true facts in the case. I had a cousin living here who was a nice good young man, pretty well fixed financially. He operated a threshing machine. He started here and worked north as the season advanced. Finally he found himself in Springfield, and he found still more than that--he found a farmhouse with three nice young ladies in it. As his whole object seemed to be to capture one of them, he came back to Springfield again after the threshing season ended and he married the girl of his choice. It was a case of love at first sight and they turned out to be a very happy couple. After they were married her folks gave her some things, among which were three cows and a calf. I came out here with him to drive the team back while he drove the cows. We made the distance of about eighty miles all right.
The Civil War broke out in April 1861, when the slave states seceded from the Union and formed a separate Government called the Confederate States of America. They fired on the Union Flag at Fort Sumpter at Charleston, South Carolina, which started the Civil War, which lasted four years.
I wanted to enlist in the army but my Mother was not willing and as I was not of age, I could not get in without her consent so I waited until the second year, when President Lincoln issued a Proclamation calling for 600,000 more men. The war had been going bad for the Union up to that time so my Mother told me if I still wanted to go in the army I might do so.
Early on the morning of August 7, 1862, I with four of the neighbor boys left our homes and went to Bunker Hill, Illinois, and took a train for Gillespie Illinois, where they were making up a Company for the war. There we signed the roll for a three-year enlistment in the U. S. Army. We slept that night in a boxcar loaded with wheat. The next morning we were put on a train and headed toward Springfield. We got Sibley tents the same day. There was a hole in the top to let the smoke out. They were big round tents, about eight feet high and were supposed to hold about fifteen men each. We had to get a man from another Regiment to show us how to put them up. That night we slept in our tents, our heads to the outside, our feet toward the center, on the ground without blankets.
The next day we drew blankets and uniforms. Then we were sent out to clear off a place to drill and parade. Then we were sent out to drill five hours each day and dress parade in the evening. This parade is for the purpose of letting the Officers see if every man has his uniform clean and his buttons and equipment bright and shiny, and to hear what Regimental orders are to be given for the next day.
On September 8, 1862, we were drawn up in two ranks about three steps apart and inspected by the ministering officer to see if we were fit for the service. I was the first man to be examined. After he had gone all over me carefully, he started for the next man but turned around and came back to me again and said, "How are your eyes?" I told him I could not see anything but the light with my right eye. He said, "Step to the rear." I stepped back behind the rank and he went on inspecting the others. While he was doing that I walked back to the other end of the rank and: stepped up in the line again - on the left and when he came to me the second time he went all over me again. He said, "You will do, you pass." He never asked about my eyes. So he mustered us into the U. S. Service for three years or during the war. That meant if the war closed before three years was up, we would be sent home when the war closed.
We drew our guns and stayed at Camp Butler drilling until about October 20th, when we were put on cars. My first guard duty while we were at Camp Butler, was guarding a large covered wooden railroad bridge which spans the Sangamon River. I was to see that no one crossed there unless they had a permit from Commanding Officer of Camp Butler and also to prevent anyone from trying to set it on fire.
Company A had an election for officers, and I was elected as Fifth Sergeant of the Company. We were put on cars on the Chicago and Alton R. R. and started for Alton. When we got there they concluded the train was too long and they divided it and ran it in two sections. They started us out on the C. C. St. L. R. R., now called the Big Four Railroad. We went through to Terre Haute, Indiana, and as we rolled along over the great prairies of Illinois for miles and miles, there was not a house to be seen--nothing but a- great ocean of wild prairie grass waving in the wind higher than a man's head. We passed on through Indianapolis to Cincinnati, Ohio. It was night when we got there and they dumped us off the cars in a lumberyard and we did not sleep on the ground that night for each one of us helped ourselves to a board and slept on that.
There was a Pontoon Bridge across the Ohio River here. It was built by stretching a long rope across the river and fastening each end securely to the banks. A lot of skiffs or small boats are tied to the front end of them to this rope and a joist or timber is laid from one boat to the next one until it reaches all the way across the river. Then boards are laid across those joists which makes a floor for the bridge and the whole structure is anchored down to the bottom of the river with heavy iron anchors and the bridge is ready for use.
The next morning we crossed over the Ohio River on the bridge, which rocked like a cradle, to a little town called Covington in Kentucky.
The Rebels had gotten within about twenty miles of Cincinnati on the Kentucky side of the river before we arrived, and when we got there they retreated south. After staying at Covington a short time, we started after them. At a town called Cynthiana, about 25 miles from Covington, there had been a fight a few days before and the houses were all full of bullet holes.
On this march we had a snowstorm. We marched all day and when night came we scraped the snow away with our feet, threw our blankets down on the ground, and footsore and weary we piled down on them, too weary to eat, and tried to get a little rest for the long march ahead of us on the morrow. When we got up in the morning our blankets were frozen solid to the ground. We pulled them loose, rolled them up and strapped them on our knapsacks and after drinking a cup of coffee and feeling more dead than alive; we started again on our long march to Nicholsville, Kentucky, seven miles from Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.
We stayed here about two weeks to see what course the Rebels were going to take.
They kept on going south and we started on our backward march to Louisville, Kentucky by the way of Paris, Lexington, Frankfort and the blue grass region to Louisville, Kentucky, where we arrived about December 1, 1862. It was raining hard when we got to Louisville and we went into camp near the State Fairgrounds, which were surrounded by a high board fence. As soon as we broke ranks, we went after the fence, and in about fifteen minutes we had the whole fence stripped.
Every man got a board to sleep on that night. We needed them for it was mid- winter and we were all as wet as drowned rats. We had to drive the geese out of their swimming holes and drink the water and sometimes we could not get anything to drink for long spells at a time. We stayed here until December 20th and by that time there were a good many soldiers here as we were collecting an army together to attack Vicksburg. On December 20, 1862, all the forces here were put on steamboats and sent down the Ohio River to Cairo, Illinois. We had a good deal trouble getting down the river. The water was low, end every once in a while the boat would stick fast on a sand bar. We would take long poles and stick one end out in the sand bar in front of the boat and lean the other end back against the top of the boat, make it fast there. When the engines would start it would push the boat forward and as the poles straightened up, that would raise the front end of the boat up enough so it would go over the sand bar. We proceeded down the Mississippi River, more boats joining us at Cairo and Memphis, Tennessee. When we got our forces all together we had a fleet of 102 boats loaded with men, horses, cannons, ammunition, provisions, and eighteen or twenty gun boats.
It was rumored that the Rebels were going to attack our fleet below Memphis, so we were all put off the boats on Christmas Day 1862 and formed in line of battle along the levee. We stayed there all day waiting for an attack, but none came so we went back on the boats again and proceeded down the River to the mouth of the Yazoo River. We went up that river to Chickasaw Bayou, one of the defenses of Vicksburg on the north. The hills are over a hundred feet high in some places, and along on the top of those hills the Rebels had their big guns planted and their breastworks and rifle pits built, while down where we were, all was water and swamps. The weather was terrible cold and we could not have a bit of fire. I thought I would freeze to death. We had a good spring here where we got our water to drink, but the Rebels put poison in it and killed some of our men.
We fought here from December 26, 1862 to January 2, 1863, but we could not do anything with them. Our bullets would go right over their heads as they stood in their rifle pits. This was our first battle and we got licked, rather discouraging, you will say and I guess you are about right, but we are going to do better next time.
On the night of January 2, 1863, we went back on our boats again. The boat a were out in the Yazoo River, seven miles away, so we had a seven mile march before we could get on them. The Rebels found out that we were leaving and they began shooting shells at us before we reached our boats. We pulled out and left them, but we are going back later and there will be a different story to tell next time.
Well we got on our boats again and headed toward the Mississippi River. Again we went up the river to the mouth of the White River, then we went up the White River about twenty-five miles. There we came to the chute that connects the White and the Arkansas Rivers together. We crossed through this chute into the Arkansas River. We went up that river about seventy-five miles and we came to a place Called Arkansas post. Here the Rebels had built a big fort end heavy breastworks and long rifle pits and they were well fixed to put up a strong fight.
We arrived here on January 10, 1863. We disembarked from our boats about two miles down the river from the fort and that night we moved the troops around through timber and brush to surround the fort. The weather was cold and the ground was low and swampy. We were wet up to our knees and as we could not have any fire or move about, we suffered greatly from the cold while standing in line waiting for daylight to come, for well we knew that on the morrow, many would sleep beneath the sod. The morning of January 11th opened up bright and fair. It was about eleven o'clock by the time we got the fort entirely surrounded, our batteries up, and our men in position and we got the order to advance. Our forward movements were met by a hurricane of bombs, grape, canister, shrapnel shot, and thousands of musket balls. We got the order to lie down. We fell flat on our faces and began to crawl forward toward them, lying on our breast and shooting and then rolling over on our backs and passing the butt of our guns down between our feet and loading our guns as we lay on our backs. We then shoved the guns forward, rolled back on our breast to shoot and always creeping a little closer toward them.
While lying on our breasts the man lying next to me on my left, was struck by a ball which took the top out of the second button on his coat, cut the third one off and went through all his clothing and lodged against his breast bone without breaking the skin. I heard the ball hit him and reached over and tore his clothes open. The ball fell to the ground. He picked it up and put it in his pocket with the remark, "I am going to take that ball home." We kept up this mode of fighting until about two o'clock in the afternoon. We had got within about forty yards of the Fort when the order was given to fix bayonets and charge. We jumped up; put on our bayonets and away we went on the run, over the ditch, over their breast works and right in amongst them. They threw down their guns and put up their hands. The battle was fought, the victory won, and for the present, the shooting was done.
In the charge the man next to me had the first finger of his hand shot off and the ball passed so close to my right ear and it stung me so bad that I thought my ear was shot off. I slapped my hand over it but found no blood and I still have my ear. We captured about 5000 prisoners and all their cannons and guns and munitions of war of every kind. They had a lot of new Enfield Rifles, which had been smuggled to them from England. The boxes had never been opened and as some of our guns were not very good, we broke open the boxes and armed ourselves with new Enfield Rifles-- leaving our old guns in place of them as the new guns were much superior to the guns which we had.
We gathered the prisoners up and put them on the boats and sent them to Alton, Illinois, where they were put in the Old State Penitentiary and kept there as prisoners of war for about two years. Next we gathered up the wounded for both sides and put them on hospital boats to send them to hospitals to be cared for by the doctors and surgeons. Many of them had to have their legs or arms cut off, or their bodies probed to find lodged bullets.
Such is the horrors of war.
Next we gathered up the dead of both sides, placing them in different places according to which side they belonged to. The Rebels we buried with their heads next to the Rebel Fort and their feet to the south toward the Arkansas River. We dug a long trench about six feet wide and three or four feet deep, laid them in, and covered them up with dirt. Our men we took out about a mile in the woods northwest of the Rebel Fort. We dug a separate grave for each one, placed the bodies in the graves and spread a rubber blanket over them and filled the graves up with dirt.
The day after the battle, which was January 12, 1863, it began to rain and kept up continuously for about thirty-six hours. That night the wind turned to the northwest and we had a real old blizzard with about eight inches of snow. Our pants legs were frozen stiff and we were actually freezing. We got axes and cut down trees and cut them off into logs and put them in great piles and set them on fire. We stood around them, burning on one side and freezing on the other. The fires melted the snow and with so many men tramping around, the mud was soon over our shoe tops. We did not have a bit of any kind of shelter or sleep since getting off the boats on the evening of the tenth and until the fourteenth we were as wet as drowned rats.
I made survey of the battlefield on the same day the battle was fought. Now if you will give me your attention for a few moments I will show you what I saw on this field. This was my second battle, but it was the first time I had a chance to survey the field after the battle. I started at the Fort and followed the Rebel breastworks west. The first man I came to was lying on his back and I thought he was asleep, I went up to him and felt of him and found he was dead. I could not see any marks on him, I took hold of his shoulder and rolled him up on his side and then I saw that the whole back of his head was shot away. It was hollowed out just like a gourd. The face was not touched.
I went on a number of men that had been shot. The next man I stopped to examine was lying on his back, but his feet were standing up in front of him in a long legged pair of boots. The legs were cut off just above the top of the boots and they were both standing up just like he was still standing on them.
I still went on seeing other men who had been shot. Pretty soon I cane to another scene which I stopped to examine. A man had been hit in the breast by a big shell and all that was left of him was a few fragments scattered around except for one string of intestines which was still attached to what had once been the body. The other end had been thrown out over the breastworks and was hanging on the top of a little bush about six feet high and about ten feet from the place where the body lay.
I went on to where the Rebels had parked all their extra munitions of war, horses, mules, wagons, ambulances, cannons, ammunition, hardtack, meat and everything. That was all torn to pieces and mixed, all together, not one whole piece. The gunboats had looted their parking place and threw their big shells into the park.
A few days before we captured the place, the Rebels ran a boat down to the Mississippi River and captured our mail boat. We got our letters mixed up in the wreckage at the rebel park and a good many of the boys found their own letters from home to them and read them here. We gathered up all the wreckage and burned everything we couldn't use and destroyed all the breastworks. When this was done, we went back on our boats again.
On January 20, 1863, we went back on our boats and went down the Arkansas River to the Mississippi; we went down that river to Young's Point, about five miles due west of the city of Vicksburg. On this trip down the river we had to go ashore twice to cut cordwood and carry it aboard to make fire to run the boats with. There were no coal mines in that country in those days, and the wood yards had all been closed up by the Rebels. That is how we worked our passage up and down the river.
On the 22nd of January 1863, we were put to work digging a canal across Young's Point. It was about one and one- fourth miles long and we worked at it until March 6th. The object of the canal was to make a channel wide enough and deep enough so that boats could pass from one bend to the other and get below Vicksburg without running by the batteries the Rebels had built along in front of Vicksburg which extended for about fifteen miles along the river front. We worked almost two months at the job. We had it all done except opening up the ends to let the water in and let it out when the Rebels cut the levee above us and let the water run all in the woods behind us. It rained almost all the time and the river rose rapidly and that night ran over the bank and filled our canal full. If we had had one day more we would have been all right. We had to move back up the river to Millikens Bend, twenty-five miles away before we could find ground to camp on. When the last of us got away from Young's Point, there was not a bit of ground to be seen and the water was running over our shoes as we stood on the levee. All the time we worked on the canal the Rebels had one gun they called 'Whistling Dick' that would shoot big shells on us. Sometimes it would knock our staging, wheelbarrows and planks all over the place. We would sit down under the bank until they got in a better humor and then we would get up and go to work again. There was so much mud that the wagon got mired down and could not get out. They had to be unhitched and the men dragged out the six mules with roped and then dragged out the wagon in the same manner.
While we worked on that canal almost one-half of the men were sick and could not work. They were dying every day like mice and no wonder, just throwing their blankets down in the mud and lying down in it. All the shelter we had was a piece of canvas 4 x 6 feet square through which the rain would sift through like a screen.
When the river went down our canal was as full of sand as it was when we began to dig it. Then General Grant decided to run the boats down the river and pass the batteries at Vicksburg. He took a gunboat and a steamboat and tied the two together--placing the gunboat next to the Rebel batteries and the steamboat on the opposite side. He made seven pairs of boats like this. He loaded all of the boats full of army supplies, horses, ammunition, hard tack, bacon and other things. Then he called for volunteers from the army to run the boats by the batteries, which extended for about fifteen miles down the river. The crew of the boats refused to go. There were so many volunteers from the army offered to go that he could not take them. He sent them back to their company. Then he called for volunteers from General John A. Logan's Division of Sherman's Corps and he got all he needed.
One dark night they towed out in the middle of the river above Vicksburg without fire or lights. They drifted down the river and passed safely by the Rebel batteries at Vicksburg and all the damage was one horse head shot off and three men slightly wounded. None were killed. They piled bales all along the sides of the boat for the protection of the men. On one of the boats (The Henry Clay) the cotton caught fire and burned to the water's edge, but the men and the cargo were saved. The great experiment of getting the boats below Vicksburg had been solved after months of other plans had all failed.
We had to have the boats below Vicksburg so that we could get across the river below. It was impossible to capture the city from the north and west on account of the high bluffs and the fortifications. Consequently we had to cross to the east side of the river to attack it from the east. And by getting the boats below we had the means wherewith to cross. The rebels had the river blocked again at Grand Gulf about 25 miles below Vicksburg. After the Navy had bombarded it a night and a day without success, Grant ran his fleet of boats by the batteries at that place without loss or damage and landed at a small town called Hardtimes in Mississippi.
On the morning of April 15th 1863, the army at Milliken's bend, Mississippi, broke camp and started on their long march, about 20 miles down the west side of the river to the little town called Hardtimes, where we found our boats. We marched most of the time, day and night, with about one hour's stop at noon and midnight to make some coffee and eat some hardtack and sowbelly. We would stop occasionally for about 15 minutes to rest and snatch a little sleep. We stopped one day and night to rest at a place called Perkin's Plantation. On this march, it rained about half the time, and everywhere was water, mud, and slush. Sometimes we could not get water enough on our marches, but this time we got more than we could drink and we did not have any place to put the surplus.
We finally arrived at Hardtimes on April 30th, 1863, and it had been hard times all the way from April 15th when we started, to April 30th when we got there. There was nothing soft about it but the mud. As soon as we arrived here they ran the boats up the bank. The 13th Army corps started out in the lead. That is the corps to which I belong and we stayed in the lead. They drove us on the boat just as if we were a flock of sheep until there was not standing room for one more man. They ran the boat across to the east bank of the river, then they hustled us off the boat in short order. Then they went back for another load and so on until the whole army was landed on the east bank of the Mississippi River at a little town called Bruinsburg. We had expected to go much farther down the river before crossing, but General Grant met another colored man and he told him there were 2 good roads leading out from Bruinsburg to the near Vicksburg so we took this route.
Before we crossed the river we got orders to leave everything at Hardtimes but our guns and our blankets. When the 13th Corps were all across the river it was about 9pm. We were formed in line of battle and given 5 day's rations of hardtack and sow belly, and we did not get anything more for 20 days. At this place the high bluffs were about 7 miles back from the river and at some places were about 100 feet high. There wasn't a wagon road cut through these hills wide enough for 4 men to go up elbow to elbow. When our boats got past the rebel batteries at grand gulf, the rebels left this place and went out and formed a line of battle along the high ridge crossing the wagon road. They expected to sweep us off as we went up through the deep cut through the hills.
We started on the march from Bruinsburg about 9:30 P. M. and got to the hills about 6 A. M. and found the rebels waiting for us in the dark. We rushed up through the cut and gained the pressing rebels back and as fast as our Regiments would come up, one would file right and the next would file left and each one would run along behind the line already there until they got to the end of it. They would step up in the line thus attending the battle line very rapidly.
The rebels did not hurt us bad in the cut as it was dark and their marksman ship was not very good as they shot too high. This is called the battle of Port Gibson and lasted from one o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock that night without a stop. We had no breakfast, no dinner, and no supper. We drove them back about ten miles that day, took a good many of them prisoner, and captured all the cannon they had but one, and that we found the next day on the road with a broken axle. This battle was fought May 1st, 1863, near Port Gibson, Mississippi. I think that this day was the hardest day's work for me that I ever experienced in my life. Our regiment was on the reserve line that day and we were double-quacked or ran from point to point back and forth and wherever our line was wavering or giving back, we were rushed in to help them hold the line. When darkness came I felt more dead than alive and I had not had a bite to eat for 24 hours.
The next morning at daybreak, the rebels fell back to Port Gibson (during the night) Crossed over Bayou Pierre and then burned the bridge. We had to lay over the next day and build a temporary bridge before we could get across the bayou. The rebels fell back and we followed them until the 8th of May when we were ordered forward to Baldwin's Ferry on the Big Black River to see that the rebels did not come from Vicksburg, cross the Black River and get into the rear of our army. The rain poured down all the time we were there, 2 days and 2 nights. The river is not more than 60 or 75 yards wide and there was a whole brigade of rebels on the other side of the river, and only one regiment of us. We did not have a bit of shelter of any kind, except a rubber blanket and did not dare to loosen a shoestring or belt. We were there 48 hours before we re relieved, as the man that was sent the day before could not find us.
The rebels called "Yank, have you got any coffee?" We answered "Yes, Johnny", so they said "Bring us over some and we will give you a paper". The yank pulled off his clothes, put some coffee in a paper, took it between his teeth and swam across the river with it, and when he came back, he had a paper in his mouth that had been printed in Vicksburg. The rebels called us yanks and we called them Johnnys.
Well, we got orders to move and follow up the army, which had gotten quite a distance ahead of us, so we started out and caught up with them. They had gone into camp close to a big warehouse filled with bales of cotton. We were wet to the skin, for every little branch and stream was full and overflowing with water and we had to wade through them. Sometimes we had to hold our guns and cartridge boxes up over our heads to keep our powder dry. Four of us concluded that we would have something to sleep on that night to keep us out of the mud so we went to the warehouse and pulled out a bale of cotton. We cut it in two and each of us took half and we piled down on that and slept like logs till morning - concluding it was no use to sleep in the mud even if cotton was worth a dollar a pound. We got up in the morning feeling fresh and fine and of course we thought that this feeling was caused by sleeping in such a high-priced bed.
General Sherman's Corps, the 16th Army Corps took the lead and we took second place. Our rations were running low, and we stripped the bark from slippery elm trees, eating them as we marched along. The day before I managed to steal an ear of corn from the horses, which helped to prolong my existence. Sherman's Corps fought a battle at Raymond, Mississippi, just s short distance in our front. Sherman went straight north about 30 miles to Jacon, Mississippi. There is a road leading off from Raymond in a northwesterly direction for about 10 miles to a place called Edward station. There is a road and also a railroad called the Jackson and Vicksburg Railroad that runs alongside Edward station. The wagon road from Jackson and the one from Raymond unite at this place forming a "V". We took the Raymond road. They opened fire on us and we replied promptly and the battle was on and raged with all its fury until dark. We would drive the rebels back and then they would turn their whole force on us and drive us back. They could not leave the point where the roads come together as Sherman was coming down from Jackson on that road and he might get in behind them and cut them off from getting back into Vicksburg. So the battle went on till about 2pm when we heard Sherman's guns roaring over on the other road and from that time until night we forced them back gradually toward Vicksburg then taking many prisoners and capturing a lot of their cannons.
As we were making a charge we ran through a bee farm where there were a lot of beehives. I kicked one of them and grabbed out a big chunk of honey and ate it as I ran. It made me sick and to this day I can't eat honey.
The battle of Champion hill was fought on May 16th, 1863 on Mrs. Champion's farm near Edward Station, Mississippi. The Lord was good to us that night. Just before dark a bunch of hogs ran through the company and we got one for company A so we had something to eat. This was the 16th day on 5 day's rations and we were beginning to feel a bit slim. I have Mrs. Champion's picture.
That night the rebels fell back about 7 miles to the Black River Bridge where they built more fortifications on the east side of Black river. Where they built the railroad bridge over the river, they had to go way back to start so the grade would not be too steep. It was a very long bridge built up on trestle work with a plank floor laid on it for wagons. When the rebels fell back they left about 5000 of their men down on the east side of the river. The rest of them crossed over to the west side and burned the bridge. We followed up and May 17th the battle of Black River Bridge was fought. We captured about 5000 prisoners, 17 cannons, and all their army equipment. Before the fighting began our regiment was sent down to the left to come up the rear to prevent any of them from escaping. Pretty soon the 60th Tennessee came down with their guns and their flag flying and when they saw us they threw down their guns, handed their flag over and surrendered. The 97th Illinois captured the 60th Tennessee. They were sent to Camp Butler as prisoners of war. A good many of them died there and are buried in the cemetery there.
We killed so many of the rebel's horses at Champion hill that we could not move near all their cannons, so today we sent back horses and got them. We had to build a temporary bridge to cross the river on and gather up the rebel arms and the wreckage of the battle and burned it. May 19th, 1863 we crossed the Black River bridge. We had gotten no rations and were getting pretty close to the end of endurance but I got a handful of blackberries. We got within gunshot of the defenses of Vicksburg and the rebels poured shot and shell into us. The man next to me on my left was killed. He was shot through the breast with grapeshot. We were moving forward slowly when my second lieutenant next in front of me was killed, shot through the head with a musket ball. We kept moving on slowly and the man next to me was knocked down by the wind from a cannon ball but he was not seriously hurt. Night came to stop the slaughter for a short while. We had nothing to eat that night. We threw our blankets down on the blood soaked ground and laid down for a nap. We were ordered to fall back on our advanced position to a hollow where we had some protection from the shot and shell that the rebels were hurling on us like a hailstorm.
On May 20th, 1863 we drew 5 days rations. The first we had drawn since the 30th of April. We lay there for 2 days resting and getting ready for the great charge. We brought up guns and placed batteries in position, and got ammunition for all the different branches of service. In all the battles that we fought before we got to Vicksburg we lost 1072 men and the rebels lost 1042.
Early in the morning of May 22nd 1863 the great charge of Vicksburg took place. Everything was a hustle and bustle, officers hurrying to and fro, men falling in line and drums and bugles sounding. Finally regiments began to take their places in the long line and about 9:30 am the order to advance was given. Every man was ordered to go over the rebel works. We all pushed forward and were met by a rebel hurricane of shot and shell, grape, canister, shrapnel, solid shot, bomb shells, and tons of musket balls. Many of our men got into rebel forts but were killed or driven out. The rebels had the inside of the circle and we had the outside. They could reinforce quicker than we could but we stuck to it until far into the night. In the morning when we started out my Captain was ordered to take charge of the skirmish line. That is the thin line that goes ahead of the main line of charges. My second Lieutenant was killed 2 days before, consequently I had only one commissioned officer and he was next to me on my left. At about ten O'clock in the morning they shot him right through the right shoulder. I was the orderly Sergeant and next in command and had to take command of the company. It must have been about midnight when everything got so still and we were so close to the rebels we could hear them talking. I began to investigate and went to the right and could not find anyone. Then I began to realize that I was all alone there with my company. I did not know what to do. I knew that it was my duty to wait for orders. I waited for quite a while but no orders came so I made up my mind that something was wrong. I whispered to the boys to follow me and we went back about three quarters of a mile and there I found our regiment. The Colonel asked me why I did not bring my company out when I got orders. I said, "Beg your pardon, Colonel, I never got any orders." "I sent a man to you." he said. "He never came" I replied. "Alright, place your company in line," he answered.
On the 23rd of May 1863 we began siege operations by digging in rifle pits, throwing up breastworks, and placing batteries in position. As we had a great many men killed and wounded right around the rebel forts in the charge the day before, General Grant requested a flag of truce from General Pemberton, the commander of the rebels, to bury our dead. As he refused, our dead and wounded men lay for four days on the parapets of the rebel forts. By that time the stench became so bad, the rebels could not stay in their forts any longer so Pemberton sent a flag of truce out to General Grant requesting him to come and bury and gave him 2 hours to do it in. When we got to them such a horrible sight as met the eye is difficult to describe. They were covered with flies and literally eaten up by maggots. We buried them as best we could in the short time we had to do it in and the shooting began again. The battle raged in all its fury day and night for 47 days and nights without a stop. We dug tunnels under their forts and placed powder in them and blew them up. In one instance the blowing up of Fort hill a dog and a colored man were blown over into our lines. The dog was killed and the black man was scared so bad he was almost white. I met a woman about 20 years ago who nursed that man back to life. She told me he got well.
In making our breastworks we would dig our ditch about four feet wide and run them parallel with the Rebel line of works for miles in length. Our line of battle was about fifteen miles long. We would dig down about three feet, then dig the top of the bank next to the Rebels down about one foot and back far enough to make a comfortable seat, then we would take bags and fill them full of dirt (these we called sand bags). We would lay these bags along on top--end to end--of the loose dirt we had piled up out of the ditch we dug. As we laid up the first tier of bags we left about two inch spaces between each end of the bags. Now we would lay another tier of bags on top of this one and this would leave a small hole through which we could put our guns. We would lay more bags on top of these until we had them away over our heads so that we were entirely hid from the Rebels. Now we would get a small stick, sharpen one end of it and split the other end and put a small tin case looking glass in the split. (Most of the boys carried them) We would then sit with our backs toward the Rebels and our guns stuck in the holes behind us, the muzzles pointed toward the Rebels, stuck in the holes behind us, the guns cocked and our thumbs on the triggers. We would take the stick with the looking glass in it and stick it in the bank if front of us, lining it up with the barrel of the gun leveled at the top of the Rebel breastworks and watch in the glass in front of us. Whenever anything came across the gun in the glass we would pull the trigger. There were three men in the ditch for each hole - One to shoot, one to load, and one to sleep. We each took two hours at a time for each job. The shooter would shoot, then pass his empty gun down and the loader would pass him up a loaded one. At night we would keep up the fire promiscuously. This business went on day and night. One night I had to leave my hole to draw rations for the men. Another man took my place and the Rebels shot through the hole and killed him. And another time when I had to draw rations, I was away back from the firing line in a hollow. I was asking one of the men to go with me and help get the rations. He was standing with his face toward the Rebels and I with my back to them. There was a big elm tree behind him. It had a large limb on the side next to him. A musket ball whizzed over our heads, struck this limb, ran to the tree, glanced back and hit his leg from behind and came through the leg and lodged just under the skin on the kneecap. I heard the ball hit him and I grabbed him and held him up until the surgeon, who was close by, came and ripped his pant leg up and was the ball on his knee. The skin was not broken. The surgeon slit the skin and out dropped the ball. After this I went back up to the firing line expecting to get my old place and there was no room for me. I walked along the ditch until I came to the place where a new ditch had been made the night before running at right angles to the old ditch. This ditch was not yet completed, but I did not know that. I went along down the new ditch a short distance then I stepped up close to the bank, raised and looked over to the north where I could see the Rebel work. I had hardly got straightened up when a ball came right down the ditch and just missed my back. I got down from there and went back up the ditch the same way from which I had come, but could not find any good place to work. I had thought that ball was just a stray one so I went back there again and looked over, and another ball came and twenty paces out I saw a pile of fresh dirt. I knew well what that meant. It is what is called a skirmish pit. He had crept out there last night in the darkness from the Rebel works and dug him out a pit and now he was one of their sharpshooters. I went back up to the old place where my boys were and told them what I had found. He had gotten close enough to see the holes in our breastworks and that is how it happened that the man who took my place the night before was killed. I told the boys that could get range on the top of the pile of dirt to do so and I would go back and draw his fire again and back I went to the same place. I took a cap and placed it on my gun and raised it up very slowly and just as soon as it was up to the top of the breastworks here came the third shot. He missed the cap by a fraction. The boys all let fly at him and we never got another shot from that pit. I think the boys taught him a lesson he never forgot. In running forward we zigzagged our line of trenches to get nearer to the Rebel line to start a new line of breastwork. As we went down hill, the Rebels could shoot right in on us. Something had to be done about it and so we got a lot of sticks about one inch in diameter and six feet long. We would draw a circle in the ground then sharpen one end of the stick and drive them in the ground around that circle about three or four inches apart. Then we would get small twigs, grapevines or small branches of trees and weave them in around these poles to keep them together. We would then fill it full of cotton and tramp it down solid. We would then push it over on its side and make a roller of it. Now when we were digging down hill toward the Rebels, we would place this roller across the end of our ditch, which is about three feet deep. We would dig down under the roller and roll it forward. As we progressed, we took a long pole and put one end on the ground and the other end against the roller so that the Rebels could not knock it away with their cannons. The boys called this thing a "Gabion". I don't know if they got that name all right or not, but in answered the purpose. We kept on going until we got up in the big ditch, which surrounds the Rebel Forts. Then they threw hand grenades down on us. We found them to be bad roommates. We could not live with them, so when they throw one down, we would grab it and throw it back in the Fort and they would explode every time just as they went over the parapet. We fed them on their own medicine and they did not like it any better than we did. We called for more, but they would not throw any. On July 3rd about 3 P. M. General Bowen and Colonel Montgomery came out with a flag of truce from General Pemberton to talk terms of surrender to General Grant. He refused to talk to them, but he told them if General Pemberton wished to confer with him, he would meet him. They went back and General Pemberton and another officer came out and they talked together for quite awhile. General Grant's conditions were unconditional surrender and he told them if they did not put up the white flag by 9 A. M. July 4th and come outside of their works, stack their arms, and return back inside their works, he would act accordingly. At 9 A. M. July 4th, 1863, Vicksburg with all its garrison army, all supplies and munitions of war were surrendered by General J. C. Pemberton, C. S. A., to General U. S. Grant, U. S. A. A division of Union troops were sent into the city to take charge and the Stars and Stripes were raised over the courthouse. After these preliminaries were gone through with, the prisoners were allowed to come out and mingle all together with the Union forces.
Many of them had not had a bite to eat for forty-eight hours. We opened our haversacks and gave them everything we had - even to the last hardtack. They had eaten their last mule and did not have one left. They even ate all the rats they could-catch. We felt pretty dirty and lousy too, as we had not had a clean stick of anything to put on for more than six weeks. We covered with graybacks, as we had not had any chance to clean up for the last 2 1/2 months, not even to pick them off. Sometimes we were not able to get water enough to wash our faces for two weeks at a time. At other times some of our trenches did not have outlets and when it rained we had to take our caps and bail the water out with them so we could stay in them. We were a miserable looking set. I doubt if our own mothers would have recognized us if they saw us then. We captured and paroled over 31,000 prisoners at Vicksburg besides those that we killed.
We got marching orders again to start at 4 AM July 5th, for Jackson, Mississippi, forty miles east of Vicksburg. The weather was awful hot, 100 or more in the shade. The dust was about four inches deep, all cut up by Cavalry and artillery horses, wagons, cannons, and men. We filled our canteens with water when we started. They held three pints each. We had to make twenty miles before we could get any more. There was not much wind, but dust rose up between the ranks of men so bad it was almost suffocating. Nearing the creek where we expected to find water, we went into camp in the creek bottom, which was planted in corn and ridged up with a one-horse plow and ready to tassel out. We camped for the night in this cornfield but only five of Company A was here. The balance of them were lying along the roadside famished for want of water, overcome with the heat and dust. They could go no farther until they rested and cooled off and when they did get here all the water they found was a few little holes covered with green scum about an inch thick and you could smell it long before you got to it. It was but little better than a hog wallow. The boys began to come into camp. They were too near worn out to eat anything. They just threw down their knapsacks and lay down. We had a big rain here in the morning, which filled the creek to overflowing. The water ran in the cornfield where the boys were lying. We got a drink of good water again, and it settled the dust, which made our march the day before so uncomfortable.
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