Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and DescriptiveBurnett, Alfred
History
Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive
Burnett, Alfred
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Anecdotes
A well-known commander was drilling a brigade at "Kripple Kreek," a
short time since, and in it was a slim portion of the "1159th"
Illinois. Quite a large number of this regiment have deserted upon
every occasion offered, the men generally being very inattentive. The
commanding officer of "all that is left of them" was severely
censured, the other day, for dereliction of duty. The General swore by
the Eternal he wished the Colonel of the "1159th" would "_go home_ and
join his regiment."
CHAPTER VI.
General Turchin -- Mrs. General Turchin in Command of the
Vanguard of the 19th Illinois -- The 18th Ohio at Athens --
Children and Fools always Tell the Truth -- Picket Talk --
About Soldiers Voting -- Captain Kirk's Line of Battle.
It is well known by all that General Turchin has been fully
vindicated. Captain Heaton, of Columbiana County, who was an
eye-witness of his trial, and who knew the noble Russian, said to me,
in speaking of this gallant soldier, "He looked like a lion among a
set of jackals!" General Turchin was basely persecuted. He came out of
the ordeal unscathed. The correspondent of the _Gazette_, who was in
Huntsville, gave an account of affairs under Rousseau, who was as
rigid in the punishment of rebels as Mitchel was before him. The
court-martial convened to try Turchin for _punishing traitors_ bid
fair to last for months, under Buell's management.
Mrs. Turchin, before the arrest of her husband, had been making the
campaign of Northern Alabama in his company, enduring, with the utmost
fortitude, and for weeks together, all the hardships incident to a
soldier's life. To ride on horseback, forty or fifty miles per day,
was to her a mere matter of amusement, and in the recent march of the
19th Illinois, from Winchester to Bellefonte, she is said to have
taken command of the vanguard, and to have given most vigorous and
valuable directions for driving off and punishing the infamous
bushwhackers who infested the road. These and similar things had so
much excited the admiration of Colonel Turchin's men, that they would
have followed his gallant lady into the field of battle with all the
enthusiasm that fired the hearts of the French chivalry when gathered
around the standard of the Maid of Orleans. As soon as Colonel Turchin
was arrested, Mrs. Turchin suddenly disappeared. The next that was
heard from her she was in Washington City; and now the story goes,
that when she left the South she hastened to Chicago, enlisted the
sympathies of noble-hearted men in the cause of her husband,
prevailing upon a delegation of noble Illinoisans to accompany her to
Washington, and, with their assistance, secured the confirmation of
the Colonel as a brigadier-general of volunteers. Truly, in the
lottery matrimonial, Colonel Turchin had the fortune to draw an
invaluable prize.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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