Personal Recollections of the Civil War: By One Who Took Part in It as a Private Soldier in the 21st Volunteer Regiment of Infantry from Massachusetts — John Shaqi
Personal Recollections of the Civil War: By One Who Took Part in It as a Private Soldier in the 21st Volunteer Regiment of Infantry from MassachusettsStone, James Madison
History
Personal Recollections of the Civil War: By One Who Took Part in It as a Private Soldier in the 21st Volunteer Regiment of Infantry from Massachusetts
Stone, James Madison
Massachusetts -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Regimental histories; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Regimental histories; United States. Army. Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, 21st (1861-1864)
We were ordered to support a battery that was firing across the river at a
Confederate battery. A lot of our sharpshooters along the river bank were
firing away too. Directly the Confederate guns were silenced but the river
was between us; it was high, there was no ford nearby and we were obliged
to leave the guns there. As we moved along during the afternoon, some
ambulances loaded with wounded men passed us going to the rear. "Where
were you hit?" asked one of the boys. "Passing the time of day with some
cavalry on the other side of the river," was the answer received. At night
we camped near our train and had some coffee, the first we had had since
leaving Kelley's Ford.
About eight o'clock the morning of the 25th we left camp, soon passing a
bridge across the river on fire, then a dead negro lying beside the road.
Some of the boys examined him and said his flesh was still warm. Those
clouds of dust are still visible off to the left. We passed through the
town of Warrenton about noon, then marched till midnight. How the boys
growled! And how they swore! Weren't we a tired lot when we halted! It
seemed as if we would go to sleep marching. When we halted we took a few
steps to the side of the road and dropped. We learned the next morning
that we were at Warrenton Junction, where we stayed all day.
Leaving camp early in the morning of August 27, we marched part way back
to Warrenton, just for exercise, very likely. The reports circulated about
Stonewall Jackson being bagged and the like on this campaign are so common
that they have come to be the laughing-stock of every one. We marched most
of the day and halted at night at the village of Greenwich. Just before we
went into camp, Billy started off across the fields a'foraging. When he
returned he brought with him a basket of turnips. He gave me three of them
and that night I cooked and ate them. Well, it seemed to me that I never
ate anything in my life that went to the right spot like those turnips.
Cannonading in our front and clouds of dust rising off to the west and
north on the horizon are almost continuous, and once more comes the report
that Stonewall Jackson is caught at last. It is a mistake to think that
the private soldiers are not, after a certain amount of experience, able
to size up their commanders in a fairly correct way. If there is a master
mind at the head, they know it very quickly, and it did not take the men
of the 21st long to discover that there was no master mind at the head at
that time. So much backing and filling, so much talking about bagging that
old fox, Stonewall Jackson, soon became a matter of ridicule and all our
dependence was placed in General Reno.
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