William R. Eddington - Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

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.

MY CIVIL WAR MEMOIRS AND OTHER REMINISCENCES

We arrived at Jackson, Mississippi, July 17, 1863, and went in to the fight. We were tired, foot-sore and weary. The rain we had at our last camp did not reach here and it was dry and hot and dusty. We had to go two miles back to a creek to get our water to drink and when we got there we found nothing but mud holes covered with a green scum about one inch thick. We brushed the scum aside, the water was about the color of coffee with half milk in it and smelled worse than a rotten potato. We had to detail men to take all the canteens they could carry and go back to the creek and get water and bring it up to the men that were doing the fighting. We fought here until the night of the 17th of July. Our Cavalry was across Pearl River, both above and below the city and in another day we would have had them entirely surrounded, but that night they pulled out and left. We got a good many prisoners, but the most of them got away. The Rebels set the city of Jackson on fire in about a dozen places before they left. What Confederate supplies they had there, they destroyed to keep us from getting them. The city was on fire in so many places, and what with the water mains, fire-fighting apparatus pump and everything destroyed by our shells, there was only one way left to put the fire out, and that was to tear down the buildings ahead of the fire. The citizens seemed to be paralyzed, and incapable of doing anything, and well they might be for shot and shell had been pouring into the city for the last seven days. We got orders to make a detail of men from each company to go up and help put the fire out. The boys went to work and the more they worked, the worse the fire got. Someone would always throw a fiery board far enough to reach another house, thus causing the fire to start again. So they sent the boys all back to their companies and left the fire to burn itself out with what help the citizens could give. I saw the biggest portion of the city of Jackson, Mississippi burned up.

We started back for Vicksburg, where we arrived on July 20, 1863. On this Vicksburg campaign we marched 265 miles, fought sixty-five days hard fighting with forty-seven nights thrown in for good measure, and never stopped long enough in all that time to clean up or kill the graybacks, or wash our clothes. When our things were brought up to us that we left at Hardtimes, my sword was among the missing. Now if the fellow that took it should ever see this and should get conscience stricken and return it to me, I will forgive him. Say Mister, there is a chance for you to get to Heaven yet. We camped down on the levee at Vicksburg. I was sick, worn out from the long campaign and exposure for about three weeks and couldn't do my duty. The doctor wanted to send me to the Hospital, but I begged off and let me stay in camp. The Second Sergeant took my duty and I was able to pick off the graybacks. They loaded shot and shell down on the levee on the steamer Black Hawk. They had a few more boxes to load when a man accidentally let a box drop off his shoulder, and the shells exploded and blew the vessel all to pieces and it sank there. There were five or six men on board when it went down, and nothing was ever seen of them again except some bloody water that came up. I was then within about twenty feet of it when it blew up, but I did not get hurt.

We went on the boat down to Bayou Sara on an observation expedition. We got off the boat and started north up in the country (This was in the state of Louisiana). It was night and a rooster crowed, and as it was against the soldier's rules to let a rooster crow twice, some of the boys took him in for fear of, breaking the rule. They intended to have a chicken supper. As we marched along we met ran old colored man with a pretty little bloodhound trotting along at his heels. I asked him if he would let me have the pup and told him I would give him hardtack for him. We finally made the trade. He took the hardtack and I picked up the pup and carried him into camp.

Toward morning we came to a fine plantation. There was a nice drove of shoats. We stopped and made preparations into the butcher business. We found a large iron kettle - they used them in those days to make sugar in and it was very large. We made a fire, put some water in the kettle, three or four of the pigs, singed the hair off, cut them in pieces and put them in the kettle and sat down to take it easy until it was cooked. We did not have long to wait. We heard a big noise up the road and here the Rebels came yelling and we pulled out for our boat. The Rebels got the pork, but the boys stuck to the chicken, took him back to Baton Rouge, and made chicken soup of him.

From here we went to Carrolton, La. We stayed here about two weeks resting and cleaning, washing, and killing graybacks. We next went to Algiers, across the river from New Orleans. On the 3rd of October 1863, we took the cars and went out to Brashear City on Bayou Teche. There we were put on a boat and sent up to a small town called New Iberia. Our Regiment was detailed to stay at this place and guard the supplies for the army that was fighting at Franklin about seven miles farther up the Bayou. Each man had a board, so we drove some stakes in the ground, put some cross pieces on the stakes and laid our board on that to keep us up off the ground. The boat had come up the Bayou loaded with army supplies.

We got orders to march. The men all want to packing their knapsacks, rolling up their blankets and tearing up their bunks. I was the Orderly Sergeant and I asked them what they were doing. They said they were getting ready to march. It was night and the weather was cold. It was the 31st of October 1863. I told them to lie down and get a good night's sleep for they would not get any the next night and anyway it would be noon the next day before we got the boat unloaded and our own things aboard. They stood around quite awhile, and they got cold and tore up their bunks and made a fire of them and stood around them until they had burned up all their own boards, then they came to me and wanted mine. I refused but they came back again and wanted me to get up to give them my board. I told them to go away and let me alone and that if them came back again and wanted my board, I would report them to the Officer, and they would get a march to the guard house. They knew what that meant, and after that I had peace.

About noon the next day, we got on the boat and went down Bayou Teche about seventy-five miles to a town called Brashear City. There was a railroad running from here to Algiers across the river from New Orleans. We got off the boat and the train that we should have taken took the 54th Indiana Regiment, and was gone, also bound for Algiers. Now this train was run by a Rebel engineer. They put a man in the cab along with him to see that he did not play any trick. When he got to a right sharp curve and a thick growth of timber, he told the guard the engine was broke, and he would have to go down under it to fix it. So he went down under the engine and out on the other side in the timber and darkness. The guard did not go down under with him, so this train was left standing here on the track without any light or signal of any kind being placed out as a warning. Now back to Brashear City again. The train that was to take our Regiment to Algiers arrived and the 97th Illinois Regiment was loaded on the cars. Some were boxcars but there were five flat cars without any sides on them. On one of these our Company A was put and as soon as I got them on board they threw down their blankets and stretched out and went to sleep. There was not room enough on the car for me to lie down so I sat on the corner of the car with my feet tucked under me. We had a long heavy train of box cars behind us loaded with army supplies, horses, prisoners, and other provisions, and as this was the first day of November the wind was rather cold. I pulled my blanket up over my head to keep the wind off. The country along this road was mostly flat and low and there was quite a ditch on each side where they got the dirt to make the roadbed. The ditches were now about full of water. It was midnight and as dark as five black cats and a ton of coal thrown in for good measure.

We started for Algiers. We were flying through the air and just as a little streak of day began to show in the east, a mighty crash and roar threw my head forward. I jerked the blanket off my head, looked toward the engine, and everything looked like fire. I dropped my feet over the side of the car, put my hands down on the car, and sprang off, and as I did so I called, "Jump off boys, jump off!" I landed in the ditch on my head in about three feet of water. How I got out of the ditch I will never know. The last thing that I can remember was calling to the boys to jump off. When I found myself, I was standing about twenty paces away from the wreck, but I had turned around and was looking right toward it. I did not realize for quite awhile that I had been in the water, but I began to get cold and then I felt my clothes and I found they were as wet as a drowned rat. The car turned up on edge and the corner of the car that I was on missed the end of the ties and buried itself about a foot and a half in the ground, so you can see if I had stayed there you would not be reading this today. I had slept the night before, consequently I was awake on the train. I looked from where I stood and on the other side of the track and about the same distance away from it as I was stood another man that was the engineer of our train. He jumped three car lengths before I did. We were the only ones that jumped. The car that we were on, in turning the corner, caught another car, which prevented it from falling down flat. If it had not been for that, I would have been the only man of Company A to escape.

Well, we all went to work to got the dead and wounded out, clear the wreck, and repair the track so that another train could come and get us. After we had got that done, I thought I would see if I could find my cap. I went back along the ditch looking carefully along the bank for some sign. I saw a place where it looked like something had been scratching in the grass. I stooped down to examine it and on the inside of the bank just above the water line I saw my knee prints in the mud. There was a stick about six feet long lying close by. I picked up the stick and went to feeling around and pretty soon I felt something. I slid the stick up after the bank and when it got up, there was my cap. I had the pole in it and the head was covered with Mud. Now it is evident that I went into that ditch with force enough to stick the cap in the mud, and if the water had not been there, it is possible I might have broken my neck. But that was not the cap that I wear now.

In the wreck we had thirteen killed and sixty-six hurt so badly that the most of them died in a short time and I don't know of any that did not have some hurt or bruise. I escaped with a stiff joint on my left thumb. That is the only mark I have to show for my Civil War service.

On the back end of the train that stood on the track were two box cars loaded with sugar. When our engine hit them, it made the sugar free, so a lot of us boys thought it would be a nice thing to have all the sugar we could eat at once, so we went after it. We filled ourselves with every bit we could hold and filled our haversacks to overflowing for the next day. We soon became very anxious to give up what we had stored away for that day and by the time we got that done, we were vary sure we would never need any more, so we got busy and cleaned out our haversacks. I ate so much it almost killed me. Now if you ever think you want to do anything like that, don't do it, and this advice comes from one that knows. That happened more than seventy years ago, and I can't use sugar to this day.

Our train came and we proceeded to Algiers. On November 3rd, we crossed the Mississippi River and entered New Orleans to do provost guard duty relieving the Regiment there who were being sent to the front for active work. The 97th Illinois was so badly torn up by losing so many men in the railroad wreck that it remained here until we got recruits from the north to fill its ranks.

We went into quarters at the Provost Marshall's Office at 48 Barrome Street. Captain Pickering of the 24th Massachusetts was Provo Marshall. We were quartered upstairs in a two-story building, which overlooked a pen surrounded by a high board fence. The boards stood on their ends, and in this pen we kept prisoners, mostly of our own men who had been picked up for not having a pass to be in the city of New Orleans or any other crime they may have committed. They were held here until the Provo Marshall could try their cases and decided what to do with them. Sometimes we had a lot of them and sometimes not so many, but we always had some. One time we had trouble with the prisoners. They were getting whiskey in some way and getting drunk, but how they were doing it we could not imagine. I was the Orderly Sergeant for the Provo Marshall. Whenever the boys wanted to go out in the city they had to have a pass signed by the Marshall. One day he called me to him and said to me, "Orderly, I want you to find out who is bringing that liquor to those prisoners." I answered, "Your Honor, I have been trying to do so, but as yet I have been unable to succeed." "Well," he said, "You investigate this matter and find out." Well, I watched every day for awhile to see who got passes and I noticed that a certain man who went out always took his gun with him. One day he went down the street, and after he had gone I went out and went around the block the other way. When I got to the corner, I saw him step to the side of a house, and I saw him stretch his arm out and put his hand against the house, then turn and walk away, but he did not have his gun. He walked around in the street awhile, looking in the show windows, then he crossed back over the street and went to the house where I had seen him before, stretched out his arm against the house and turned around and walked away with his gun. He went back up the street, passed the office and around the corner of the prison pen. I crossed over to the other side of the street so that I could see right down the street where he was standing. He had his gun barrel stuck through the fence and the prisoners on the inside were catching the liquor in their tin cups as it trickled from the gun. As each one got as much as he wanted, he would shove up the muzzle and the flow would start again. Then I went back up to my quarters. After a while he came up and put his gun away. I did not say anything to him but I told the Marshall what I had seen. He told me to send him in. I told him he was wanted in the office. He went in, but what took place, I don't know. The Provo called me again and he told me to detail two men with guns and bayonets on, have them fill his knapsack full of bricks, strap it on him and march him up and down Barronne Street for six hours. We were never troubled any more with drunken prisoners.

One day we were sent down to Camp Chalmette, seven miles down the river from New Orleans, to dedicate it as a National Cemetery for the interment of Union Soldiers of the Civil War. There was music, singing, and dancing on the boat and band music and speech making at the cemetery. We returned to New Orleans after the ceremony.

We had to march out to Lake Ponchartrain, which is about seven miles north of the city, about once every week to capture smugglers - people that were engaged in sending things across the lake to the Rebels. We would capture them, bring them back to the city and put them in the pen.

One day I went out and walked over the battlefield of New Orleans where the Americans gave the British a licking in the War of 1812. The American line of breastworks was plainly visible even then, and there was one old cannon lying there but it was lying on the ground and the carriage was gone. The old gun looked like it could be made to work yet.

On March 4, 1864, Governor Michael Hahn, of Louisiana, was inaugurated as the first Governor of that state after the war, and our Regiment took part in the inauguration ceremony. It was performed by a very brilliant display of gold braid and shoulder straps, with bands of music, drum and fife corps.

On the 23rd of March we had a grand review of our Regiment. Governor Richard Yates, who was visiting the Illinois soldiers in this department reviewed and inspected us. It was a grand treat for a good many of us, for we had not seen anyone from God's Country for so long a time that it cheered us all wonderfully to see him and to hear a few kind words from him, and his sympathy which he had for the welfare of his soldiers.

In December 1863, we got a lot of recruits which filled up our ranks considerably and the Recruiting that was going on at this time throughout the country strengthened our armies greatly. We then went on an expedition to Morganzabend, a big bend in the Mississippi River and went into camp there. We stayed here quite awhile, and our business was to gather up cattle to supply the army with beef. The whole Regiment had to march once a week back into the country twelve miles to Atchafalaya Bayou. The Cavalry and Cowboys would swim their horses across the Bayou, which was about fifty yards wide, then go around and gather up a drove of cattle. They would lasso the one that seemed to be the leader. They would lead him and all the rest would follow with a little help from the drivers. The cowboys would pull the leader in the water, and the drivers would force the cattle in and they would follow the leader and all swim across the stream. When we got them to the camp, we would make a pen with fence rails and put a partition across the center. We put all the cattle in one of these pens, and after we had them two or three days with nothing to eat, we would, throw down the partition fence leaving four rails up, and all the cattle that could not get over that would be killed and the meat would be issued to the soldiers. If we got too many at a time, they would die on our hands, as we had nothing to feed them on. This was how we got meat for the army week after week for some time, one day we went out and there were some Rebels there. We got in a mix-up with them and they killed one of our men. Some of those big Texas steers had horns that measured about six feet from tip to tip.

We were sent from here by boats to Dauphine Island, Alabama. On this trip we had to subsist mostly on what the boys called flapjacks. We had but one stove on the boat and one pan for the whole Regiment to cook on and we were getting flour now instead of hard tack. We would take a pan, put some water in it, then stir in flour enough to make a stiff batter about one inch thick, set it on the stove end let it stay long enough so that the mixture wouldn't run. Then we'd turn it over and treat the other side the same way and the flapjack is ready for use, but we needed a spoon to eat it with. That is the way we lived for two weeks at one time, but even that was a whole lot better than nothing, and I have tried both ways.

Now to illustrate to you what I can do along that line. The boys told me it was my time to cook. I could not cook and told them so, but the answer I got was, "No back talk, do as you are told." That settled it, so I got busy and got a camp kettle that held about four gallons of water. I filled it about half full, made a fire, and set the kettle on. I put about two pounds of rice in it and stirred up my fire. I soon had things going fine. The whole thing was boiling now like a house on fire. Pretty soon I saw the kettle was getting fuller all the time and it wasn't long until it actually did run over. I did not care so much for the rice, but I was afraid that it would put my fire out. I did not have a thing to put it in, and I thought of my rubber blanket. I got it and my tin cup, spread the blanket on the ground, and went to bailing it out of the kettle on to the blanket. The faster it boiled, the faster I bailed and when the rice in the kettle was cooked, had more on the blanket than I had in the kettle. But at the same time I had come out ahead, for I had saved my reputation as not being a cook and I had saved the rice, which was quite a saving. There was enough cooked rice for a mess and there was enough half-cooked rice for another mess the next day. Now this is not a joke. I assure you this is a true story of my experience in cooking rice and now I am going to leave this cooking business to the ladies where it belongs for they know more about it in five minutes than I do in a lifetime.

We found ourselves now on Dauphine Island, a small Island in Mobile Bay, where oysters are plentiful and fat. We went out after the tide went out and picked them up by the bushel and the beauty of it is, they are ready to eat as soon as you catch them. All you need is a knife - just give the shell a knock, pry the shell open, scoop the oyster in your mouth. You don't even have to swallow him. He is so slippery, he will just slide down your throat without any effort on your part. There did not seem to be anybody living on this island, at least that I could see I guess that is why the oysters were so plentiful. We had to leave the land of oysters as we had to get on the boats to go up the Pascagoula River in Mississippi. We went on the steamboats and went in Mississippi Sound. The water was rough, and the boats were rocking as if they would go to the bottom. The Rebels had driven piles across the mouth of the Pascagoula River and it was blockaded so that our boats could not enter. The engineer succeeded in cutting off the piles at the mouth of the Pascagoula River and our boat's got over the obstruction.

Our main force disembarked about five miles before we reached a town called East Pascagoula and went in camp here. But our Regiment went on up to the city and went into camp and when we got established our Colonel issued an order that we should not take any boards from the piles of lumber that lay all about us on every side. "Or if you do," he said, "Don't let me see you do it." There were millions of feet of lumber here, and after the Colonel had issued his order, he went in his tent, closed the flap over the doorway, and stayed there. When he did finally come out, the boys were all pretty well fixed and they were not lying down in the-mud either. He looked around but said nothing. We were in the midst of a great pine forest that lay in the valley of the East Pascagoula River. It is not a large river, but it runs through a large valley of pine timber and cane brakes. Our business here was to load this vast pile of lumber on steamboats and send it down the river to Mobile for government work wherever it was needed. So we got busy and went to work at what looked like a never-ending job, but we knew that all things come to an end sometime and this did too. Our pay had been advanced up from twelve to sixteen cents and it was quite an encouragement for us to keep going. Besides if we were not at this, we would be at a much more disgusting job, but one that needs to be done worse than his one. That is killing gray-backs before they can eat us up. They never stop to rest, day or night. They are very active. They seem built that way.

With Christmas drawing night, the Colonel wanted us to decorate the camp and his headquarters so it would look nice Christmas. He liked to see nice things and every man's buttons, bright and buttoned all the way up to the top regardless of weather conditions. We went out to the cane brake and cut a lot of cane. Some of it was about twenty feet tall and 1 1/2 inches thick at the butt. We carried it to the camp, made a great pile in front of the Colonel's tent, made wreaths, and hung them around in different places. We made arches over the company street. We had everything spic and span for a Christmas Day social celebration and everyone was feeling gay and happy when about nine o'clock Christmas Eve, here came the Rebels down from the north. As there was only one Regiment of our men here, we had to fall back on our reserves. The Rebels destroyed our camp and everything in it, and cheated us out of our celebration also, but we got the lumber and a fair exchange is no robbery.

Our whole force stayed here until the first of February 1865, then we proceeded by boats to Barancas, Florida where there was an old fort. There is no town here but there was a lighthouse over one hundred feet high. It was situated on the north bank of Santarosa Sound and right across south of this fort is Santarosa Island, which contains another fort called Fort Picens, which the Rebels tried a good many times to capture during the war but never succeeded in doing so. We kept a guard stationed all the time on the top of this lighthouse tower while we were here. There was another old Fort here, about a mile north of Barancas. It must have been very old for large trees were, standing all around about it, which evidently must have grown up since it was abandoned. The sand here was just as white as snow, and to look at the sand dunes at a distance they look like great piles of snow.

On March 20, 1865, we left Barancas and went north through Pensacola, Florida and at Black Swamp and then crossed this swamp. We had to build a road out of poles, called a corduroy road. There was about seven miles of it all grown up with small pine trees and the water was all the way from a few inches to three feet in depth. We cut the trees off at the top of the water. We cut off a log about ten feet long, and then we would float it to the place where we wanted to build the road, sink it down and put a man on each end of it to keep it from floating away. We would keep on this way until we had about ten feet of road laid down, and then would take a pole about ten feet long and lay it cross-wise on the end of those we had already laid down. Then we would cut forked sticks and drive them in the ground on all four corners. Now we had one section ten feet square of road built. We kept this up until we got to the other side of the swamp. We had to keep a man on each end of the pole while we were building it for two reasons, one to keep the pole from floating away, and the other to tell where to put the next pole. After we got our train over this swamp, we struck a few places where it was so bad our teams would mire down and could not get out. Then we would unhitch them, tie ropes to them, and drag them and the rest of the train through in this same way. The Rebels opposed our march and attacked us with Cavalry. We had a small squad of Cavalry, but not enough to match them. They were shooting and skirmishing all the time. As soon as we got near to them, they fell back, then our Cavalry went after them. It was a running fight all day. Some dead horses, saddles, blankets and other, articles of equipment were scattered along the sides of the road.

We headed for a small town named Pollard, up in Alabama. The Escambia runs near that town. It is about one hundred yards wide with a swift current. There were two bridges across this river here and when we got the Rebels back near the river, we rushed them so hard, they crowded on the wagon bridge so fast the bridge broke down with them and many men and horses were drowned. The railroad bridge they burned before. The bridge was built of trestle work, and in burning it had burned off only one side, and the other rail was still there and extended all the way over the river. Now we had to get across that river in some way to accomplish the object for which we had come so far and worked so hard. We were almost in sight of the town where our journey would end. Someone yelled, "Come on boys, let's crawl the rail." We made a rush for the bridge and about 2000 of us, all the force we had, crawled the Escambia River on that one railroad iron. We fell in line and started on our march to Pollard, Alabama, which lay about two miles away. Here there was a railroad running from Montgomery, Alabama, to Mobile. We put our forces around Mobile and in order to prevent reinforcements being sent down from Montgomery to Mobile it was absolutely necessary that this road be destroyed. That was our business here. We formed our men in twos and marched them along one side of the track. The rank next to the track was number one, and the other one was number two. The first man stopped at, the first tie to be lifted, then as the others pass along each man stopped at every other tie, and when all the men were ready, they stooped down and got ahold of his tie. At the command they 1ifted it up and with a mighty shove they turned the track upside down and the fall broke the rail loose from the ties. Then we went back to work and picked up the ties and built them in square pens like hog pens. We made them about three feet high. Then we took two ties and laid one on top of the other across the center of the pen. We took the iron rails and balanced them on top of those last ties we put on, filled the pens full of anything we could find that would burn, set them on fire and before the ends of the rails would be on the ground the rails were ruined. Our work done, we moved on. We ran out of rations and had nothing to eat. We found a mill and sent out teams and wagons to gather corn. We started the mill and stayed here two days grinding cornmeal for the army.

We moved on and arrived at Fort Blakely, Alabama, April 2, 1865. The fort was already partly surrounded by other troops and some breastworks were built and rifle pits dug. We took our place and went to sharpshooting. Fort Blakely was situated on the East bank of Mobile Bay, four or five miles southeast of the city. There was no town here but there was a strong fort with breastworks and rifle pits stretching out for a mile or more. In front of these works was a wide and deep ditch. A wire was stretched about one foot from the ground so as to catch our feet when we tried to jump over the ditch. Between out line and the Rebels was a quarter of a mile of ground all planted full of torpedoes over which we had to pass to get to them. We continued our operations of digging rifle pits until April 9, when we found the first torpedo. We dug one out last night but it did not explode. My company had three men shot by the Rebel sharpshooters.

We had to change our tactics. Last night the Rebels came out in front of my company and dug out a skirmish pit within about twenty yards of our line and put three sharpshooters in it. There was so much firing all night long that we did not hear them at work and the firing has been kept up very brisk all day and a good many of the men on both sides have been sent to their last long sleep.

The time came for the great charge to be made and well we knew that many of us would never see the light of another day for our eyelids may be closed in death. We came to the hour that try men's souls and although it is now more than sixty-nine years ago since this happened, as I go back and call to memory those scenes over again. The tears are running down over my cheeks so fast they blind my eyes and I have to stop and wipe them away. Softhearted, you may say. Yes, but I have seen so much that it would melt the heart of one made of stone.

About five o'clock April 9, 1865, the drums sounded the long roll which is the signal for everyone to fall in line. We had just got our coffee for supper. We sat down in our tents, grabbed our guns and fell in line and they rushed us up in front and into the rifle pits. In a few minutes we got orders to charge. As we got out of the rifle pits the Captain at Company D struck a torpedo. It blew his leg off below the knee and sent it up in the air about fifty feet high, and my Captain who stood next to me on my right was shot through the left shoulder. I and two of my boys made for the skirmish pit. There was a Rebel Major and two privates in it. The privates jumped out and ran back toward the Rebel line but the major stayed and kept on shooting. We jumped down on top of him. We picked him up and threw him out of the hole and told him to go to the rear. He started to go but turned around as if to come back, but our Colonel caught him by the coat collar and forced him to the rear. Just then another of my boys came along and just as he got to the bank of the pit they shot him through the body at the belt line and he fell down in the pit right on top of me. I jerked out my knife, cut his belt in two and let his cartridge box off and I went on. All this happened in less than three minutes time. I had not gone far when a man next to me on my left stepped on a torpedo with his left foot. It blew his left leg off below the knee his right leg off above the knee and passed up between his head and mine, and never touched me. I grabbed him as he fell but I could not hold him. We went on and when we were within about twenty yards of their works, they poured a volley into us, which riddled our flag, cut the staff off about two feet from the top. We went on through that withering flame of fire, which greeted us from the Rebel guns. We went over the ditch, over their breastworks and jumped down in the rifle pits right on top of them, too close to shoot them, too close to stick them with our bayonets, but we could still use the butts of our guns. We ordered them to throw their guns outside the breastworks. They did so and we gathered them up in groups and put guards around them until we could get things straightened out. Our color bearer was killed on the breastworks. He had taken the flag staff out of the leather socket in the belt that goes around the waist and was holding it in his hands. He was shot right through the body while standing on the Rebel breastworks and as he fell forward the flagstaff stuck in the ground. The Rebels grabbed for one of the color guards got it first and our flag didn't touch the ground and the Rebels didn't get it either. I went to work trying to got my Company A together which was quite a task for it was now dark and there were so many men all mixed together by the time I got it was about midnight. I had forty men when we went in the charge. The battle itself lasted about twenty minutes and now I could find only twenty-six of my men. I reported to my officer, Second Lieutenant, the only officer Company A had. The others had been killed or wounded. He said to me, "Orderly, you will have to go back over the battlefield tonight and see if our men have all been picked up." Now he had been in a good many battles and knew well enough that the stretcher bearer corps always picked up the dead and wounded just as fast as we drove the enemy back. In this case we had made a clean sweep so at first I thought I would not obey the order. But on second thought I knew that would not do, for he would have me court-martialed, and I would be shot for disobeying orders. I knew it was almost certain death if I went. There was about one chance in a thousand that I might escape the torpedoes, but I made up my mind that I would go. There was no moon and it was dark as pitch. I struck out expecting every step would be my last, but I got to the other side of them all right. I went to where the field hospital was located in a hollow under a tree. I found twelve of my boys there, but one was missing. I saw the Orderly Sergeant of Company G and he told me where he was lying. He pointed east about fifty yards. He was shot through the body with a musket ball. He was dead so I went down to the tent where I left my coffee and hardtack. I sat down on the ground and ate some hardtack. I sat there for about twenty minutes before I could make up my mind to make another trip across the torpedoes, but I finally started. I went a few steps when the thought flashed to my mind the Officer might think I had not been out to the hospital. So I went back to my tent, took my canteen and haversack, and hung them over my shoulder and started again over the torpedoes. The same kind providence that shielded me in so many close calls was still with me. I made my report to the Officer. He looked at me and said, "I guess that is all right." Then he said, "Did you have your supper?" I answered, "Yes." Then he said, "I wish I had some, I'm awfully hungry." And I thought to myself, 'If you want it, do like I did, go and get it.' Company A lost fourteen men out of forty, a little more than one- third of their number in about twenty minutes. This battle was fought after the war was ever and was the last battle of the Civil War. General Lee surrendered all the Confederate forces to General Grant about one P. M. and this battle was fought about five P. M., April 9, 1865 at Blakely, Alabama. Our work was done here, but we remained until the fifteenth. We captured 15,000 prisoners with all their guns and war equipment of every kind, even their commissary whiskey. Some of our boys imbibed a little too freely of the latter thereby losing their heads and running over the torpedoes. They lost their lives after the war was over. On April 15 we were put on boats and sent across Mobile Bay and went in camp near the city of Mobile. The main part of the army went to Selma, Alabama, but the boat that our Regiment usually rode on had sprung a leak and we were sent over to Mobile to wait until we could get another boat. They put us on the boat and we were bound for Selma, Alabama. We went up the Mobile River to the junction of the Tombigby and Alabama Rivers where they unite to form the Mobile River. I saw lots of alligators and one black squirrel. It is the only black squirrel I ever saw in my life. He was just where the Tombigby and Alabama Rivers come together. He was up in a tree and seemed to be eating nuts. The alligator's upper jaw works instead of the lower one, and when he opened his upper jaw it stands right straight up and their tongue looks red. They lay around in the swamp and bayous on old logs or under the banks in streams. They hold their mouths open, and in the daytime the flies will gather on their tongues. Snap goes Mr. Alligator, and Mr. Fly is in the trap. At night they catch mosquitoes the same way. You can always hear their jaws snapping. Now we have to leave the subject and move on. We took to the Alabama River. Every once in a while we saw a dead horse lying along the bank. General Wilson took Selma sometime ago with a Cavalry force. The river was very high at that time and Wilson pressed the Rebel Cavalry so hard they tried to swim their horses across the river and many of the men and horses were drowned. As we went up the river we saw them every once in a while. Some of them were hanging in the forks of the trees, We were sent to Selma, Alabama to head off Jeff Davis, the Rebel President, who was headed this way. The Rebels had a cannon factory here. Wilson burned it down when he captured this place and there were many large guns lying here in all the different stages of construction before the shop was burnt down. From here we made a surprise expedition to Cahauba, Alabama, about twenty-five miles down the Alabama River. Here we gathered up a lot of horses and mules and all of the boys that liked tobacco laid in a good supply as tobacco was very plentiful here at that time. My officer and I went to a large plantation house to see if we could get some dinner. There was a lady sitting close by the door and the officer asked if we could get something to eat. She said, "No, you can't get anything to eat here," and also said that she prayed that God would strike every Yankee dead before they got off her place. The Officer said, "Yes, Madam, but you know the prayers of the wicked availeth nothing." Then he turned to a colored boy and said to him, "Do you know where the hams are," and he answered "Yes, Massa." He told him to get one right quick. He struck out and pretty soon he came back with a nice ham. He told him to get half a dozen eggs and away he went and soon returned with the eggs. Then he asked him if he could cook. He answered, "Yes," and the Officer said to him, "Get busy now and do it quick. Fry some ham and eggs for we are in a hurry." He got some bread and we sat down and ate a good dinner while the old lady kept on with her threats about what she hoped the Lord would do to the Yankees. We paid no attention to her and when we were done eating, we got up and thanked her for the meal and told her we hoped we might have the pleasure of meeting her again sometime. We departed in peace. From here we went to Marion, Alabama, hoping to capture Jeff Davis and a lively skirmish took place. We burned the junction depot returned to Cahouba, then to Selma, Alabama on the 12th day of May 1865. We were sent back to the city of Mobile, Alabama, and went into camp about one mile north of Mobile. We remained here about two weeks. The Government gathered up all the Rebel gunpowder and stored it in a large cottonward house in the northern part of the city of Mobile. While that was being done, the Rebels of the city were busy digging an under-ground tunnel from another house and running it under the house where the powder was stored. They put powder in there with a fuse to it and touched it off and the explosion that followed wrecked the north half of Mobile, leaving not a building standing in that part of the city, and thus I saw the city of Mobile, Alabama blown up. We were put on an ocean-going steamer and sent down Mobile Bay to the Gulf of Mexico and across the Gulf to Galveston, Texas where we landed June 29, 1865. We went into camp on the outskirts of the city. Now my Company A had but one commissioned officer and he got married to a southern lady before we came down here and he, brought his wife along with him. The Government will not allow women to stay in the camp so he went about a half a mile away from the camp, rented a room and he and his wife lived there. The army regulations say that there must be at least one officer in camp with the men. It was my duty to report his absence from the company to the Colonel, but I did not want to do that so I walked that extra half-mile every morning to get him to sign my morning report rather than make trouble for him. He treated me very nice. It was just the time of the year when figs were ripe and every morning when I would take my report to him, he would always give me a little paper sack full of nice ripe figs. We never mentioned the conditions under which we were laboring to each other, but we understood the situation all right. All is well that ends well. The city of Galveston is situated on an Island of the same name. It is said there is but one well that supplies fresh water, the others being salty. At this time the city depended on wooden cisterns built on the ground for its drinking water supply. At this time it was said there was not a milk cow on the Island, but there were whole herds of milk goats and sometimes some of the boys were known to have had goat milk for breakfast. The seashore here was beautiful. It was almost as hard as rock and a person could wade out about a quarter of a mile before getting below your depth. It was great fun to wade as far as one could and when the tide came in, it would throw you right out on the shore, but watch out if it is going the other way. July 29, 1865, we were mustered out of the U. S. Service. We had roll with every man's name in the company on them and we mustered out, the Officer calling each man's name and signing his name letter for letter as it was on the roll. The roll was then given to the Company Commander. We were now out of the service, but we had to go to Camp Butler, Illinois, to get our pay and discharge. We got aboard the ship that was to take us to New Orleans. We started on our journey at the entrance of the harbor. There was a large buoy to mark the place where the channel is it the shape of a steam engine boiler. It is made of iron and airtight so that it floats on the top of the water, and was anchored to the bottom with a long chain - the links of which were made of three-fourths inch iron and attached to a heavy anchor at the bottom. We had to change pilots at this buoy, consequently they kept a small sailboat at this point with an extra pilot and one man on board. The wind was blowing a stiff breeze and just as we passed this buoy, the pilot boat came straight toward us. We would have hit it right in the middle, but our Pilot turned the helm sharply and threw the stern of the boat around so the propeller caught in the chain of the buoy. The chain being so large, it took them about a half a day to cut it in two, but we finally got started on our way again. The weather got cloudy and they lost their reckoning. Finally we ran across a small schooner and got the latitude and longitude and they told us what point of compass to run on to find the mouth of the Mississippi River. A storm came up and the vessel caught fire down in the coal bunkers. We were quartered on the upper deck. As soon as they hollered fire, all of our boys ran down below. I was the only one that did not. There was a large cover made of wood called the hatch cover. I went and stood on that as I knew if the ship went down that would float. I was scared worse than I ever was in any battle, but pretty soon they said the fire was out and we found the river and landed in New Orleans at night. During the war, the city of New Orleans made script for money. It was good in the city but nowhere else. When we left New Orleans I had fifty dollars of this script and I asked my Officer for a pass to go down town and get it changed. He had orders not to give any passes, but under the circumstances if I wanted to run the risk of being picked up by the patrols he said it would be all right with him. So I started out and had not gone very far when I met the Patrols. They asked me for my pass, I told them what my business was and they told me to go around the block and pointed in the direction and I got to the store where I had got the script. I showed it to them and told them I was, going home and could not use it and I wanted to exchange it for greenbacks. They agreed to take the script and give me other money for it, I went out of the store and started down the street and had not gone very far when I met a boy about ten or twelve years old. "Hello, Mr. can you tell me where Bullshead is?" he asked. (That was where our boats were). "Yes, come along with me, I am going up there," I answered. I started to go and he said, "It's not down that way as I just came from there." I said, "Let's cross over to the next street as I know where I an over there." We went and sure enough the boy was right. We both found our boats.

We had to transfer from the ship to a river steamboat. We got a one-horse dray. We got our things off the ship and piled them on the dray and they were pretty high. The street was paved with cobblestones and as the dray passed one box of hardtack fell off. I ran up and pitched it back on. As I gave it a swing it hit my pocket in which I had a ladies small gold watch. It bent the case and broke the watch. I repaired it and it ran all right. I had paid fifty dollars for it a short time before. My daughter now has the watch. (July 24th, 1934).

We started up the Mississippi and got to Illinois Town, now called East St. Louis, August 16, 1865. We left the boat and took a train on the C. & A. Railroad for Springfield, Illinois. We stopped one hour at Alton, Illinois. Many of the boys lived there and in the surrounding country. We got to Springfield at night. They dumped us off in a lumberyard so we didn't sleep on the ground but borrowed a board from the good man and returned it in the morning. The next morning our Colonel got a train and we went about seven miles east to Camp Butler. We were now back where we started, but instead of bringing the one hundred we took away from here, we brought back thirty-five. August 19, 1865, we were paid off and got our discharges. We started for home arriving there midnight August 19, 1865, having been gone three years and twelve days.

This is my record:

I never drank a glass of any kind of liquor in my life. I have never used tobacco in any shape, form or fashion, I never played a game of cards. I never learned nor don't know the name of one card from another. I never played a game of dice or chuckaluck. Never played a game of baseball, football or basketball. Never bet or gambled in any way. Never was inside of a theater or hospital. Never slept in a bed during the Civil War for more than three years. I never go to prizefights or horse races. I never danced. Have not drunk tea or coffee for fifty-six years. I have not used honey or sugar for more than sixty years. I use as a beverage water with a glass of milk occasionally. My policy is to love and serve God to the very best of my ability. To love my neighbor as well as I do myself and to do unto others as I would like them to do unto me. This is the only road there is to true happiness in the world and the life that is to come hereafter. In politics I am a Republican. I have voted seventeen times for President and always for a Republican. I believe in freedom and liberty and this is something we get but very little of under a Democratic Administration. The war of their party rebellion took the lives of 640,000 of the boys of the north and it never can be known how many Mothers died from worry and broken hearts against that party's great rebellion against liberty and freedom.

Now I think this is the longest article ever written by a ninety-two year old Civil War Veteran. It has approximately 22,100 words.

Lieutenant W. R. Eddington Co, A. 97th Reg. Illinois Volunteer Infantry R. F. D. 1, Box 51 Brighton, Illinois