Produced by Robert Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) [Illustration: 1861. “CARE FOR HIM WHO BORE THE HEAT AND BURDEN OF THE BATTLE.” A. LINCOLN. _Columbia_: “Unless you, my son, save me, I will be ruined. Go and do your duty, and if you save me I will be your generous friend and protector as long as you live.”] Observations of an Illinois Boy in Battle, Camp and Prisons—1861 to 1865 By Henry H. Eby MENDOTA, ILL. [Illustration] Published by the Author, 1910 Copyright, 1910 By HENRY H. EBY DEDICATED TO MY COMRADES OF THE CIVIL WAR, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF COMPANY C, SEVENTH ILLINOIS CAVALRY, OF WHICH I WAS A MEMBER ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE. The story contained in this book is a true one. It was taken from letters, memoranda and memory. The author has in his possession twenty-nine letters written by him while in the army, from 1861 to 1865, and sent to his relatives, who returned them to him at the close of the war. The memoranda were written soon after his return from the army. The accounts taken from memory are reasonably correct, as the scenes through which he passed, though here poorly portrayed, are of a character not easily forgotten. They are indelibly stamped upon the memory, and it seems, as time rolls on, that it renders the recollection of them even more vivid and distinct. After revising this story a number of times it is presented to the reader in its present form. CONTENTS. --------- CHAPTER I. Beginning of the Great Rebellion, April 12, 1861, 15 CHAPTER II. Beginning of Three-year Service—Camp Butler and Bird’s Point—Night Trip to Belmont—A Reconnaissance into Western Kentucky, 23 CHAPTER III. New Madrid, Point Pleasant, and Island No. 10, 39 CHAPTER IV. Up the Rivers to Hamburg Landing, and Thence by Land to Corinth and Cortland, Ala., 47 CHAPTER V. From Northern Alabama to Nashville, Tenn., and Its Occupation by Us—Fight at Lavergne and Many Skirmishes, 55