Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2: November 1863-June 1865Cox, Jacob D. (Jacob Dolson)
History
Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2: November 1863-June 1865
Cox, Jacob D. (Jacob Dolson)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives
The third was Lieutenant Tracy of the One Hundred and Fourth Ohio, a
man of original character. Tall and angular, there was a little
stoop in his shoulders and a little carelessness in his dress. His
gait was a long stride, and he was not a graceful horseman. His
exterior had a good deal of the typical Yankee, and our Connecticut
Reserve in Ohio, from which he came, has as pure a strain of Yankee
blood as any in New England. But whoever looked into his sallow and
bony face was struck with the effect of his large, serious eye,
luminous with intelligence and will. Devotion to duty and perfect
trustworthiness, with zeal in acquiring military knowledge, were the
qualities which led to his selection for staff duty. When we were
preparing for the great swing of the army to the south of Atlanta,
my division had been advanced close to the enemy's position near
East Point, where, from a strong salient in their works, their line
curved back toward the east. Our position was to be the pivot of the
movement, and we intrenched the top of a forest-covered knoll
separated from the Confederate lines by a little hollow in which ran
a small affluent of Camp Creek. Our pickets were directed to advance
as close to the enemy as practicable, so that any attempt to make a
sally would be detected promptly. Tracy had been directed to
accompany the officer of the day and see that the outposts were in
proper position. Early next morning General Schofield visited me,
and desired to see in person the point most advanced. I called Tracy
for our guide, and from the trenches we went down the slope, through
the woods, on foot. A spur of the hill went forward, and as we
neared the edge of the forest Tracy signalled to go quietly.
Stooping carefully in the undergrowth, we noiselessly advanced to a
fence corner where a sentinel stood behind a tree. Halting a few
paces away, Tracy motioned to us to avoid moving the bushes, but to
approach the fence and look between the rails. Doing so, we found
the fence at the border of a little strip of hollow pasture in which
the brooklet ran, and across it on the other slope, frowning upon
us, was a formidable earthwork, an embrasure and the muzzle of a
great Columbiad looking directly at us. The enemy's sentinels had
been driven in, so that, where we looked, one was pacing his beat at
the counterscarp of the ditch. As we drew back to a distance at
which conversation was prudent, Tracy asked with a grim little smile
whether the picket line was sufficiently advanced. The whole was
characteristic of his thoroughness in the performance of duty and
his silent way of letting it speak for itself. He was struck in the
breast and knocked down by a spent ball in the assault by Reilly's
brigade at Utoy Creek on August 6th, but in a week was on duty
again, though he never wholly recovered from the injury to his
lungs. [Footnote: Being in delicate health after the war, he was
made Governor of the National Home for disabled soldiers at Dayton,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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