Part 3

"It is now between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, and I am writing you while you are sleeping with our little darling near you,--if she hasn't waked you up! You may wonder why I am writing you at this late hour. Well, I'm 'officer of the day' for the Barracks, and a part of my duty is to make 'the grand rounds' of the guards at least once _after twelve o'clock at night_. Rather than get a half sleep and be waked up, I prefer to sit up and write my wife till the time comes.

"We were very agreeably surprised this morning to have _Captain_ Willie [my brother] step in on us, as we were not looking for him. I am very glad he came. We will try to make it a pleasant visit to him, and he will be much company for us. As I am 'officer of the day,' I took him around with me as my 'orderly'! When I visited the different guard-houses and sentinel-posts, he was very much interested in seeing the guards 'turn out' and the other military civilities. It has been very cold to-day, but both the infantry and cavalry were out for the afternoon drills of battalions and brigades. Willie stood out in the cold wind to see the maneuvers as long as he could.

"We have had a very pleasant evening at our quarters to-night. At dress parade Colonel Morgan invited all the officers over to take supper with us. They came, about thirty of them, about seven o'clock, and at eight we had supper. We had oysters fried, oysters stewed, oysters raw, and oyster patties, with their accompaniments, followed by meats, pickled pig's-feet and salad, and topped off with pound cake and champagne wine. You would hardly approve of the wine part, but we could scarcely do less at a soldiers' supper. Very few would have stopped at that. Then those who smoked devoted themselves to a plentiful supply of cigars.

"In our regimental brass band there is a fine string band. I wish you could hear it, as I know with your love of music you would enjoy it very much. It gave us music all the evening. The officers got up a 'stag dance' and enjoyed it greatly. Then we had some first-rate songs, and wound up the evening by the officers presenting Dr. Walker [our regimental surgeon], in an _appropriate_(!) _speech by the major_, a beautiful medical staff sword, belt, gold tassel, and green silk sash, in token of a most faithful discharge of his onerous duties."

About this time I reply to a letter from my wife, regarding some domestic matters, as follows:--

"I was somewhat affected and a little amused at the account you give of your household and financial troubles. You must not let a little gas bill of fourteen dollars worry your life out of you. It is possible it was a little exorbitant, but none to hurt. I don't want you to worry yourself about these business matters. Where there are any troubles you will find your mother and father safe and willing advisers. I know that you are careful and prudent in your family expenses. I never thought you spent a cent unnecessarily. I don't want you to be thinking you are spending too much money; I just want you to get all you want to eat or wear.

"When I left home I got you a good house to live in, and I want you to live in it in proper style and comfort. If I was at home you know I would have broiled quails, stewed rabbits, roast turkeys, venison, all varieties of oysters, and all kinds of good things for the table, and there is no reason why 'a lone, lorn' wife should starve just because her husband has gone off to the war. If I was at home I would have two or three gas burners going to your one, if I wanted the light; and there is no reason why my wife should grope around in the dark for fear of a gas bill at the end of the month. I know you are not extravagant and therefore there is no danger of useless expenditure, and no occasion for troubling yourself on that account. I have no fear but that you will save all the money you can conveniently with your family wants. I am drawing pretty good pay, and therefore can afford to keep my family in good circumstances."

Frequent reference in my letters is made to the way in which the Sabbath is spent in camp. In one of my letters I express the hope that "I will not lose or forget my Christian standing. I want to come home as good a Christian at least as when I left, though the temptations to evil and bad habits are very great."

Here is a description of one while at Benton Barracks:--

"Another Sabbath day has nearly passed, but before I go to sleep I must write you at least a short letter. To-day has been a quiet and rather profitable Sabbath, at least more so than most of those which I spend in camp. In the forenoon Willie and I went to the First Presbyterian Church, expecting to hear Dr. Nelson, but after we were in and well seated, who should I see going up into the pulpit with Dr. Nelson but Mr. ----, the Home Missionary agent who preached at Evansville last year, you will probably remember him. And he gave us the very same sermon to-day that he did then _verbatim_. The text was the same--'The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid,' etc. Having heard it before, I was not much interested in it, so that my visit to the city through the mud was not a very pleasant or profitable one.

"But this afternoon I read the 'Evangelist' [the Presbyterian Church paper] all through, reading almost every article, and it generally interests me, occupying most of the afternoon. This evening I read several chapters in the Bible, the 60th of Isaiah, 1st, 2d, and 3d of John, and my favorite chapters, the 14th, 15th, and 16th of John, and others. I also read two of the little books you sent us in the Soldier's Library. So you see the day has not been an entirely profitless one, but how much more pleasantly I could have spent it at home with my dear wife and child! But when I come back the Sabbaths will be the more pleasant and sacred with you, and we shall have an added pleasure in teaching our little darling holy hymns and holy truths."

I had occasion often in my letters to thank the folks at home for the useful things and dainties they were frequently sending to camp. The correspondence shows that I was not bashful in making our wants known, as, for instance, this extract:--

"You have written me several times asking what I wanted. Well, really, we don't want much of anything but our wives and families, as we are living very comfortably; but if you want to send us a present you might send us a box or two of eatables. Say you bake us one of your good jelly cakes, and mother try her hand on one of her first-quality fruit cakes, and Eliza and Cassie [my sister and sister-in-law] see what they can do on a lady cake or something of that kind. And then, if you have in any of the various Foster families any extra supply of fruits, or preserves, or jellies, or tomatoes, or such like, you might send them by way of ballast."

In one of my last letters from Benton Barracks I gave this account of the Sunday inspection:--

"This forenoon I was busy at the Barracks. Every Sunday morning when it is pleasant weather we have a general inspection. The troops turn out in the best clothes they have, with shoes cleaned and blacked, knapsacks packed and on their backs, guns brightened up, and looking as well as they can. They are inspected by companies. Then the sleeping-quarters, dining-room, and kitchen are visited to see that they are kept in good order, etc. This inspection is sometimes made by the general. When not made by him, it is made by the field officers. Colonel Veatch and I made the inspection this morning, and it kept us busy till near noon."

Our marching orders came finally as recorded in my last letter written from St. Louis at the Barracks:--

"We have been anticipating marching orders for several days, but have at last received them. Orders came out from General Halleck this evening that 'The Twenty-fifth Indiana would prepare to march to Cairo.' The exact date of our departure is not definitely known, but it may be early to-morrow. It is quite cold, but we can stand it as well as any of this army. We are very willing to leave the Barracks and get into the field, and especially as we are going down the river and most likely will be sent to Paducah or Smithland. Barracks life doesn't agree with me near so well as active work."

III THE BATTLE OF FORT DONELSON

Greatly to our relief the Twenty-fifth Indiana was surely out of Missouri, with the prospect of active campaigning in Kentucky or Tennessee. Although we had orders to take a steamer for Cairo on January 30, we did not get away from St. Louis till February 2. On the steamer I wrote my wife in a tone which indicated that I was taking a more serious view of our future than I had in Missouri:--

"It may be that when we get to Cairo we shall find orders sending us up to Smithland, but wherever we go you will have abundant rumors of army movements and great battles fought. I trust you will not be unnecessarily alarmed or solicitous. I will write you as often as I can, keeping you as well posted as possible, but I expect I shall only be able to write you at considerable intervals.... We will both pray our Heavenly Father to be my guard and protector, and return me safely to my home and dear family again. Let us have faith, and hope for the best."

On the 6th of February I write again from Cairo: "We are quartered here in the barracks, in the muddiest place imaginable. No one who has not been in Cairo knows what mud is. How long we shall remain here is altogether uncertain."

My next letter was written the 9th on a steamer going up the Tennessee River:--

"We seem fated to make or commence all our marches on the Sabbath. How often do I long for the enjoyment of one of our home Sabbaths. We were ordered to go aboard the steamboat at nine o'clock Saturday morning, so we had the men up before day to cook two days' rations and were packed up all ready to leave. But we did not go until noon to-day and we should be at Fort Henry to-morrow forenoon. We have six hundred barrels of powder on board, which makes traveling a little dangerous, but shall be at Paducah in an hour or two, where it will be unloaded. Our orders are to 'join General Grant,' so I suppose we will be with the army as it goes forward into Tennessee and South to victory.

"I am just in the locality I have been wanting to be all during the war, and I have only to do my duty like a soldier and a man. You must not be unduly solicitous about my welfare, or pay much attention to the rumors by telegraph, as they are at first always uncertain and generally erroneous. If our regiment is in an engagement, I will see that a carrier is sent to the first place to get the news home. So that if you do not hear you can be satisfied that _all is right_. You will remember me in your thoughts and prayers always, and have faith that all will be well."

This was the last letter I was able to write home until after the battle of Fort Donelson. On the 10th our regiment reached Fort Henry on the Tennessee River which had been captured by General Grant only four days before our arrival. On the 12th we marched over to the vicinity of Fort Donelson with the rest of General Grant's army, eleven miles from Fort Henry, and situated on the west side of the Cumberland River. We were a part of the division commanded by General Charles F. Smith, and which occupied the extreme left of General Grant's army. That army, when it went into camp on the evening of February 12, covered the entire front of the Confederate forces. From our encampment the rebel line of rifle-pits and fortifications could be seen, we occupying one series of ridges and the enemy those confronting ours.

The fighting began on the morning of the 13th, our picket lines being pressed toward the enemy's front, mainly to develop their position. In view of the eagerness of my own account in my letters, I quote the part of the official report of Colonel Veatch, which relates to the operations of the Twenty-fifth Indiana on the 13th:--

"At 10 o'clock A.M. we moved forward in line of battle to the top of the hill which was between us and the enemy's breastworks. Here I received orders to fix bayonets and charge the rebels, and, if possible, drive them from their works. The timber was so thick that we could only see here and there a part of the rebel works, but could form no idea of their range or extent.... At the foot of the hill the enemy poured on us a terrible fire of musketry, grape and canister, and a few shells. The rebel breastworks were now in plain view on the top of the hill. The heavy timber on the hillside had been felled, proving a dense mass of brush and logs. Through and over these obstacles our men advanced against the enemy's fire with perfect coolness and steadiness, never halting for a moment until they received your order. After a halt of a few minutes they then advanced within a short distance of the enemy's breastworks where the fire from a six-pound field-piece and twelve-pound howitzer on our right was so destructive that it became necessary to halt and direct the men to lie down to save us from very heavy loss.

"After remaining under a very heavy fire for two hours and fifteen minutes, with no opportunity to return the fire to advantage, the enemy being almost entirely hid, and seeing no movement indicating a further advance from any part of the line, I asked permission to withdraw my regiment. In retiring, owing to the nature of the ground and our exposed position, the men were thrown into slight confusion, but they rallied promptly at the foot of the hill, and remained in that position until night, when we moved back, as directed, to the ground we occupied in the morning. We lost in this action fourteen killed and sixty-one wounded."

On the 14th the battle was continued almost entirely by our naval forces, the army taking no part except the pickets and sharp-shooters. It was General Grant's hope that the gunboats would be able to silence the Confederate water batteries and pass up the Cumberland, and thus cut off reinforcements to the enemy, but in this they failed and were forced to retire.

In view of this situation it was the intention of Grant to establish a siege of the fortifications and await reinforcements. But on the morning of the 15th our right wing under General McClernand was attacked in force, the enemy coming out of their intrenchments with the apparent intention of cutting their way through our line and abandoning the fort. McClernand being hard-pressed, General Lew Wallace's division went to his assistance, and the battle raged in that direction with great intensity all the forenoon. We lay upon our arms in line of battle, ready and impatient to take part in the contest, listening to the roar of battle in the distance. General Smith, our division commander, about three o'clock in the afternoon received orders to advance upon the enemy in our front, and immediately our attacking force was formed by Lauman's brigade, in column of regiments, consisting of the Twenty-fifth Indiana, and three Iowa regiments, General Smith himself leading the attack.

It was a martial sight, this column of regiments advancing down into the ravine and ascending the hill on which were located the enemy's fortifications, struggling through the abatis of fallen timber, with the bullets whistling thick among our ranks. But it was an event of only a few minutes; our column, never halting, was soon in front of the intrenchments, when the enemy broke and fled, and the day was won. Colonel Veatch says in his report that the skirmishers of the Twenty-fifth Indiana were among the first, if not the very first, to enter the fortifications.

General Grant, in his account of this charge, says: "The outer line of rifle-pits was passed, and the night of the 15th General Smith, with much of his division, bivouacked within the line of the enemy. _There was now no doubt but that the Confederates must surrender or be captured the next day._" It was an inspiring sight for us, as we ascended the hill, the general on his white horse, hat in hand, waving us forward into the enemy's lines. He was the hero of the battle. On the 19th General Halleck telegraphed to Washington: "Smith, by his coolness and bravery at Fort Donelson, when the battle was against us, turned the tide and carried the enemy's outworks." General Sherman, in his "Memoirs," has this to say of the capture of Fort Donelson: "He [General Charles F. Smith] was a very handsome and soldierly man, of great experience, and at Donelson had acted with so much personal bravery that to him may be attributed the success of the assault."

Although this charge of our brigade, the last fighting of the battle, was the decisive event which brought about the surrender, it was attended with little bloodshed. The charge was so rapid and the enemy's fire so unsteady, that we entered the intrenchments with little loss of life. More men were killed and wounded in the fight of the Twenty-fifth on the first day of the battle, as described in Colonel Veatch's report, than by the entire brigade in this charge so decisive in its result.

At dawn on the morning of the 16th white flags were seen along the whole of the enemy's lines, and the notes of a bugle were heard by us advancing to the outworks where our brigade had bivouacked during the night. It announced an officer, who delivered to General Smith a letter to General Grant from the rebel commander, General Buckner, asking upon what terms he would receive a surrender. General Grant's famous reply was: "No terms except an unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately on your works." The forces engaged as given by General Grant were twenty-one thousand Confederates and twenty-seven thousand Federals.

The only extant account of the battle I sent home was written to my wife on the day after the surrender, dated the 17th:--

"I can write to you to-day with great thankfulness to our Heavenly Father for the privilege of again addressing my dear wife, and sending my congratulations to my home. You will have learned before this reaches you that Fort Donelson has surrendered. I am happy to write that the Twenty-fifth Indiana bore a worthy part in the conflict and triumph. We made two charges on the rifle-pits and fortifications, on the 13th and on the 15th. Yesterday, after the surrender, the Twenty-fifth Indiana was the second regiment to enter the fort. We are now occupying huts in the fort lately occupied by the Second (rebel) Kentucky. This was the regiment which fought us so desperately in the rifle-pits on the 13th.

"Our charge on the 13th was desperate, over the steep and rugged hills, covered with felled timber and under a most terrific fire. The fire of musketry was thick as hail. The cannon raked us on both flanks and in front, and the storm of shot, shell, grape, and canister was awful. You can say to our friends that the Twenty-fifth has been tried in most perilous positions and has acted like veterans. In the thickest of the fight the officers and most of the men seemed to lose all sense of personal danger.

"We have a host of prisoners and a large amount of stores. I am very tired and sore from our four days' labor. Four nights we slept on the wet or frozen ground, without tents or fires, and both day and night under arms. When I get a little sleep and rest I will write you fully. In our regiment the total of killed is 14; wounded, 99."

General Grant's account of the weather, alluded to in this letter, was: "It was midwinter, and we had rain and snow, thawing and freezing alternately. It would not do to allow camp-fires except far down the hill out of sight of the enemy, and it would not do to allow many of the troops to remain there at the same time. The weather turned intensely cold on the evening of the 14th."

Immediately after the battle a representative of the "Evansville Journal" was sent to Fort Donelson to make a report of the battle and the situation. I extract the following:--

A detailed account of the battle will not be attempted, as you have already published an excellent one. I will speak more particularly of our Twenty-fifth, and of the incidents of the battle and the appearance of the field as seen by us.

The Twenty-fifth covered themselves all over with glory. Everybody we talked to gave them credit for the utmost bravery. Exposed to a terrible cross-fire of artillery and musketry, having to charge through the difficulties I have described right up in the teeth of the rebel batteries and into their murderous volleys, they passed through the fiery ordeal like veterans. On their end of the line the rebels first proposed to surrender, and to them belongs a large part of the glory of the victory. This honor is conceded to them.

It is hard, and would be invidious, to mention particular cases of gallantry in the Twenty-fifth, where all did their duty so well.... The field officers all did their duty nobly. For coolness and determination Major Foster is the theme of general praise.... Quartermaster Foster and Chaplain Huring made themselves very useful, and showed great courage in attending to the dead and wounded on the field.

I have thus given an account of the battle from participants and others who had seen the field. But there is always another view of every battle--that to be seen in the faraway homes of the wives and mothers of the combatants. As representing the thousands who waited at home through the days of dread anxiety to know the fate of their loved ones, I give a letter from my wife dated February 20:--

"After four days of painful suspense and anxious waiting, when the news came last night that you were safe, you may be sure there was one thankful, grateful heart. Such dreary days and sleepless nights I hope I may never pass again. The first news of the battle reached here Saturday noon, and not one word did we hear of you till last night. Such a relief I never before experienced in my life, to know that you were safe and well.

"All the accounts say you acted bravely and nobly, and we are all as proud of you as we can be. Oh, if I could only see you once more, my own dear husband! No one knows how thankful I am that you were spared, while exposed to terrible dangers. I began to feel on Tuesday that you must be safe, or we should have some report of it. I remembered that you said if I didn't hear, I might know all was right, but I could not rest until Willie Gwyn dispatched that all was right. I have heard to-day that on Monday it was reported and believed at first that you had been mortally wounded, and next that you were killed, but kind friends did not let those reports reach me.

"A party went down to the fort from here on Tuesday. I then had heard nothing from you, and I thought I would hear sooner by staying at home. Then father was away, and I didn't know what to do. Another boat goes to-day. If we thought there was any prospect at all of seeing you, father and I would go, but every one regards it as so uncertain about your still being there that I guess we won't go. It would only be an aggravation to go and not see you. I hope it will not be long before I have something from your own dear self. Mr. Schoenfield [regimental sutler] was very kind. He dispatched and wrote father that you and Alex were safe and did bravely. The dispatch came last night (Wednesday) and the letter by packet this morning. He said you wrote a few lines and he sent it, but fearing it did not reach us, he wrote himself. We have not received anything from you at all, and are very thankful to him indeed. Such kindness, I assure you, we appreciate.