ILGenWeb - Civil War Scrapbook - H. E. Ranstead Diary

THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER I. The Fifty-third Illinois Infantry was organized at Ottawa, Ill., during the fall and winter of 1861 by Colonel Cushman and was mustered into United States7 service November 11, 1861. The regiment consisted of ten companies, one company of cavalry and one battery of six guns. The infantry, cavalry and battery of artillery mustered a little over 1,200 men.

Regiment left Ottawa February 27, 1862 and arrived in Chicago the same day where it guarded prisoners in company with the Twenty-third Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry in Camp Douglas. Remained till March 23, 1862 when it left for St. Louis Mo., where it arrived March 24, and left March 25 for the south, arriving at Savannah, Tenn., March 28, 1862 and there is where it got its first sound of battle. Everything was still on Sunday morning, of April 6, when all at once there was a boom, boom, of cannon and a continuous roar of small arms. I tell you it made the hair stand to hear it and to think every volley meant the death and wounding of hundreds of good men. The regiment had to stay at Savannah, about twenty miles from the battle of Pittsburg Landing, and did not get there till the next day, Monday, April 7, 1862, arriving about noon, too late to take a hand, as the boys had them on the run. We marched out to the front, where our men were attacked on the morning of the 7th of April. It looked awful to us as we had never seen any such slaughter as there was along the line of march of five or six miles that afternoon. Men and horse were all piled together all over a space of eight or ten miles. One could not go anywhere without seeing dead or wounded men as many were wounded who laid there two or three days many of the wounded died on the field for the want of care. We were over a week getting all the dead buried.

General Johnson was in front at Corinth and General Hallock settled down for a regular siege and the regiment had regular work to do. They took part in the burial of the dead and in the siege at Corinth, and here while in camp we had a good deal of sickness, as it was very wet weather at that time. Quite a number of the regiment died, and Company D lost their orderly sergeant, John Carter, a fine man and a good soldier. We thought it was awful at that time, but I tell you we got used to that, and found a man’s life was held pretty cheap in those days at the front.

On May 30, 1862, General Johnson evacuated Corinth, Miss., and the union army took possession. We left Corinth for Grand Junction, Tenn., where we arrived June 15, 1862, and left June 25 for LaGrange, Tenn., arriving on the 25th and left on the 30th and arrived at Holly Springs, Miss., July 4, 1862, where we celebrated our first Fourth of July in the confederacy, and left July 5 for LaGrange, Tenn., where we arrived on the 7th and guarded the railroad till the 17th and then left for Moscow, Tenn. All this marching and counter marching was not done by the regiment alone, but by a division and sometimes by the whole army. We always had more or less fighting and skirmishing to do on these trips, and generally had pretty hard living.

On this trip we ran out of rations and had nothing but parched corn for two days. That was tough we thought then, but learned better. CHAPTER II Arrived at Moscow, Tenn., July 17, 1862, left the 18th for LaFayette Tenn., arrived on the same day and left on the 19th for Germantown, Tenn., arrived the same evening and left on the 20th for Memphis, where we arrived on July 21, 1862 and left September 6, for Bolivar, Tenn., arriving on September 13. Here we guarded the railroad till September 20, and then left for new Grand Junction, arriving on the 20th, and left on the 21st for Bolivar, where we arrived on the same afternoon and left October 4, going as far as Hatchie River, where the regiment took an active part in the battle of Hatchie River, Tenn., on October 5, which was a hard contested fight on both sides. Company D, of the Fifty-third regiment had a curious thing happen to two of its men. The both said in the morning of the battle that they would be killed, and they both disposed of their things and told where to send them. Captain Hudson told them if the felt that way they had better not go in, both they would not hear to that and went into the battle and both were killed, almost the first thing. This is something that happened to a good many in the service.

We left the Hatchie River October 7, arrived at Bolivar October 8, and left for LaGrange November 3, and arrived November 4. Left November 6 for LaMar, Miss., then went to LaGrange and back to LaMar on the 8th. Went to LaGrange again on the 9th and guarded the railroad there till 23d of November, when we left for Somerville, Tenn., and came back to Grange the same day and left on the 28th for Holly Springs, Miss., where we arrived on the 29th and left on the 30th for Waterford, Miss., where we remained until December 11, and then left for Oxford, Miss., arrived December 12, and left the same day for Springdale, Miss., arriving in the evening, and left on the 21st for Yacona, Miss., arriving in the evening and left the next morning for Oxford, where we stayed two days and left December 24 for Tallehatchie Fort, Miss., and on Christmas Day left for Holly Springs where we arrived January 5, 1863, and left for Moscow, Tenn., on the 10th. Left Moscow March 9 for LaFayette, passing through Colliersville, and arriving at Germantown, Tenn., March 10. Left Moscow March 9 for LaFayette, passing through Colliersville, and arriving at Germantown, Tenn., March 10. Left the same day for Bridgewater, Tenn., and arrived at Memphis March 11 where we stayed and got ready to go down the river to Vicksburg.

We left Memphis May 16, 1863, for Young’s Point, on Mississippi transports, where we arrived on May 19, and left for Haines’ Bluff on the 20th and left May 21, 1863.

CHAPTER III Between Memphis and Vicksburg, the transports, of which there were five or six, all in line one behind the other, all was going on nicely, and one would think it was the quietest place on earth, but we were destined to have some fun, and so we did. All at once there was a puff of smoke from the shore. The boat the Fifty-third was on was in the rear. All looked ahead and I saw the boats were trying to see which would get the farthest from that side of the river and how quick it could be done, but that did not last long as the signal was given to the rear boats to land a couple of regiments in the rear of the confederates. The Fifty-third regiment was one of them. We marched through the woods and swamps all the afternoon, but they were too swift for us, as we did not catch any of them. We left destruction on our rear, as there was about 50,000 bushels of corn burned that afternoon, and some cotton, and about night we went back up the river to where our boats were waiting for us. There was a little town of Greenville and it was not long before it was all on fire. I don’t think it was ordered to be set on fire, but such things did happen. Nobody knew how it was done.

The boats went up the Yazoo River where the troops were unloaded and started for our destination in the rear of Vicksburg, where we arrived May 25, 1863. From the bluff where the troops landed we could see men of General Grant’s army, and the confederates, fighting. They looked from where we were as if the woods, hills and valleys were full of men. It was a sublime sight, but awful wicked. We looked and wondered how soon we would be engaged in the awful work with the rest out there in the front. We had not long to wait, as all available men were needed in the front. We were started for the front of Vicksburg May 24, where we arrived on the 25th, when the regiment took an active part in the siege of Vicksburg until the surrender of the city on the Fourth of July, 1863.

CHAPTER IV.
We had a great many experiences here. Our work was night and day, and no intermission during the time. It was not the policy of General Grant to sleep when the enemy was in front of him. Around Vicksburg is a very hilly country. The hills are a good deal like taking a lot of eggs and setting them up on end on a table. It is all hills and valleys. We camped in the valleys and built forts and breastworks on the hills. We generally had to build the works in the night, with the Rebs shooting at the noise we made. They did not always hit the noise, but more often they hit a man. In one of these works is where Ed Avery, of Company D, Fifty-third Regiment, received his death wound. He was in one of the works with a Company B man of the Fifty-third Regiment. One of them had shot at a Rebel through the porthole in the fort, and then the Company B man was looking to see what he hit. Ed Avery was looking over his shoulder at the same time. The Rebel let drive back at him and hit the port hole all right and also hit the Company B man in the temple, just back of the eyes. The bullet went clear through his head, drove both eyes out, and hit Ed Avery in the left breast, just over the heart. The curious part of this little incident was when he found the Company B man was killed, he stuck his fore finger in the bullet hole in his breast and walked to the company in that shape, and said he was wounded. He had put his finger in the hole so he would not bleed. The boy lived till he knew Vicksburg had surrendered and he said he was ready to die then. He passed peacefully away the same day. This is only one such incident that might be told. If I told them all, there would be no end to this story and the history of those times.

About the same things happened each day, until the 2d day of July, 1863, when the first flag of truce went up, while Grant and Pemberton were meeting to negotiate for the surrender of Vicksburg. When the white flags would go up, the Rebs would shout, "Yanks, don’t shoot now and we won’t." Then the men from both sides would climb up on the works and have a great visit.

CHAPTER V The Union works and the Confederate works were pretty close together at the last of the siege. In some places they were as close as three or four rods. Looking out over the works we could see the lines of both sides for two miles each way, running over the hills. It was a nice sight at night to look out over the armies and over the city and see the flashes of the small arms and the flash of the gun and mortar boats throwing shell and mortar shot into the city. We could see the flash of the mortar and then see the ball rise up in the air and make a circle through the heavens and then, when near the ground, another flash and boom and all would be still, and so they would be at it all night. The Rebs had to dig caves in the sides of the hills to be in safety from the shell and shot.

The negotiations were going on slowly. During the 2d and 3d of July we would get up on the works three or four times a day when the white flags were up and visit. Pretty soon, way up the line, the flags would begin to go down. Then you would hear everybody shout, "Look out, we are going to shoot," and it would not be a minute till all along the line they were shooting as hard as ever, and so it went till the 4th of July, 1863, when the city and the Confederate army were surrendered to the Union forces, and on that day, after the Johnnies had stacked their arms, they were allowed to mingle freely with the men and you would not suppose we were a lot of men that had been trying to kill one another for the last two months. We gave the Johnnies as good a dinner as we could, and had a general good time to celebrate the glorious Fourth. But the war was not over yet, as General Johnson was in our rear on the east side of Black river, so the Johnnies we had taken prisoners were paroled and turned loose to go where they pleased and General Grant’s army took no rest, but started east on to Clinton, Miss., on the 9th and left July 10 for Jackson, arriving the same day.

CHAPTER VI. Jackson is where the Fifty-third Illinois Regiment, the Third Iowa, and the Twenty-eight Illinois Regiment, and the Forty-first Illinois Regiment got into more trouble. It proved to be pretty serious trouble, too. These four regiments made up the First Brigade, Fourth Division, and had been in the rear guard on the 11th of July, and as all the army was in line around Jackson the night of the 11th of July, the first brigade went in camp for the night. On the morning of the 12th, It was to take its position on the right of the army, and through some mistake in the orders we got into a fearful charge. The brigade was marched up on the right of the army on a raised piece of ground and ordered to lie down. We could look across an open space in front about 200 rods, I should judge, where we could see the Rebel works. All was still over there, and to wake them up we placed a battery in the rear of the brigade and opened fire on the rebel works, over our heads, but got no response from them. Then we were ordered in line of battle, skirmishers were started forward, and the line of battle ordered ahead. We had gone about forty rods and had ran against the Rebel skirmishers and the skirmishers on both sides commenced to fire. The order was given to fix bayonets and charge double quick. It was a hard place to charge over, as all the trees had been felled towards us and all the limbs sharpened and sharp stakes driven in the ground, leaning towards us and wire put on them, but we got through under a heavy fire of small arms and artillery. The cannons were loaded with grape shot and canister shot and some shells. We charged within a few feet of the Rebel works and there all that were alive laid down in a little plowed furrow. Some had retreated and the rest of the brigade were killed or wounded. Those who got close to the works were all taken prisoners, as before they knew they were in danger of being taken prisoners the Rebels were in the rear of us and ordered us to surrender. One of our boys thought at first that we did not have to surrender for he jumped up and drew his gun to bear on a Rebel and told him to surrender, but one of the men told him to be careful, as he was the fellow who had to surrender. They got 104 prisoners out of the brigade who all went to the Old Libby prison in Richmond, Va., and from there to Belle Isle. The island is situated in the James river, northwest of Richmond. It was a vile place at that time. The brigade mustered about 800 men for duty when they went in the charge. They lost something over 300 killed, wounded and missing. The Fifty-third regiment lost their colonel, Seth C. Earl, Company D lost in killed outright L. B. McClaskey; wounded, Capt. James E. Hudson, shot in the arm, afterwards died; Bine Larkin, wounded in arm, afterwards died from wound; Joseph K. McLaughlin, shot in head, got well; Lot C. Larkin, shot in hand, got well; Knute Madison, wounded got well. The prisoners from Company D Fifty-third Regiment were Abner Beale, Lot C. Larkin, H. E. Ranstead, Hamilton White, Geo. Crain, Ed Thomas, John Cary. Abner Beale, after he got out of prison, came home to Earl and died here. No one knows what became of George Crain, as no one ever saw him after he was taken prisoner as he was separated from the others.

CHAPTER VII. After General Johnson retreated from Jackson, the army marched back to Vicksburg. The Fifty-third left Jackson July 21, 1863, arrived at Vicksburg July 23, where they laid in camp till August 18, when they left for Natchez, where they arrived August 19. Here they did a good deal of scouting and marching till the 30th of November, when they went back to Vicksburg, arriving December 1. Left for Milldale, Miss., December 2 and arrived on the 3d. While we lay here at Milldale, the order came from Washington that all regiments that had enlisted for three years and had served two of the three, and would enlist again for three years, or during the war, would be given the year off of the first three years they had enlisted, and could enlist as veterans and would be given a thirty-day furlough and $402. The regiment did the right thing—talked for a day or two and looked around and wondered how many would enlist under that law, but waited for some one to go ahead, and the writer of this book was the first in the regiment to put his name down. After the ice was broken it did not take long for the rest to enlist, and on January 18, 1864, the Fifty-third Illinois was reported as a veteran regiment. CHAPTER VIII We left Milldale January 21, 1864, for a big raid through Mississippi. Arrived Big Black river January 22, left February 3, arrived at Clinton February 4, left on the 5th, got to Jackson February 6 and left on the 7th, got to Brandon the same day and left on the 8th and got to Morton on the 9th. Left Morton on the 10th and went to Hillsboro and on to Decatur, where we arrived on the 12th. Left Decatur on the 13th and arrived at Meridian on the 15th. We had been marching through the country in Mississippi for a couple of weeks in search of Johnnies, and had found a good many of them, and they usually made it pretty lively when we met, and that was every day, but we could not catch many of them at a time. We then turned back towards Vicksburg.

A good deal of property was destroyed on this raid. Meridian was burned and everything in it. Well, we were on the back track now. We passed through about the same places going back as we had passed going out. We left Milldale, Miss., January 21 and got back to Vicksburg March 13, having been out on this raid about five weeks.

It had come time now for the regiment to have its veteran furlough, so they made ready to leave the south for Ottawa, where it had organized and gone forth to the south two years before. And I tell you it was not the regiment that left Ottawa. The company of calvary was not with it, nor the battery of artillery, and the ranks of the infantry were thinned out very much. The regiment looked about the size one of the companies did when it went out in 1861. Well, we arrived at Ottawa March 23, 1864, and there we were disbanded and each company went to its home where it was enlisted, to have as good a time as possible. I tell you the regiment was well received on their way home. We were fed at almost every place we stopped, and had a big supper at LaSalle, and such a dinner as we had in Ottawa cannot be described. The people could not do enough for a soldier at that time, and Company D came to Earlville and every body tried to see who should do the most for the boys.

CHAPTER IX We stayed here till the 28th of April, 1864, and then went to Ottawa, had a big supper and dance and the regiment left on April 29, arrived in Peoria that evening and left April 30 for Havanna, and left for St. Louis, went on to Cairo and Peducah, Ky., where we arrived May 11, and left May 11 for Clifton, Tenn., arriving May 14; left for Huntsville, Ala., and arrived May 23, left for Decatur, Ala., and arrived May 26, left for Somerville, Ala., and arrived May 28, left for Warrentown, Ala., for Van Buren June 2, left for Cedar Bluffs and arrived June 3, left for Missionary Station and arrived June 4, left for Rome, Ga., arrived June 5, left for Kingston, Ga., arrived June 6, left for Caterville, Ga., arrived June 7, left for Altoona, Ga., arrived June 7.

We had now joined General Sherman’s army again. We were kept here at Altoona Pass to fortify and guard the railroad at this point, as this railroad was our only source of supplies. This road had to be kept open clear back to the Ohio river, about 500 or 600 miles. We had to fight for it every day, somewhere along the line. The Rebels were making dashes every day or two, trying to tear up the tracks and capture the trains, and very often succeeded. About this time General Hood thought he would try General Sherman’s tactics. He withdrew part of his forces and started for Sherman’s rear, to try and cut his communications and to force Sherman’s army to retreat, but General Sherman did not think that way. We started back and kept between Hood and the railroad and just watched him. There was no damage done, as they did not strike the railroad.

After we got back from this raid, the Seventeenth Corps was started for the east of Atlanta, Ga. We struck Decatur, Ga., July 19, and moved from there towards Atlanta and found the enemy strongly entrenched. On the afternoon of July 20, we were ordered into line of battle. The Fifty-third regiment’s position was just on the edge of an open field, about half a mile from the Rebel works, and here is where we had to make the charge. Across this field there was a small stream, in front of the Rebel works. They were on a low bluff on the west side. The Union forces brought up artillery and we had a lively artillery battle, but that did not do much good, and now came the infantry charge.

CHAPTER X We were ordered to load and fix bayonets and charge double quick, and away we went with a Yankee yell, and loaded and fired as fast as we could when on the run, and the Rebels were giving us the best they had, of artillery and small arms, and our artillery was firing over our heads. At every discharge you would see men pitch forward all along the line either killed or wounded. The regiment lost quite a number in this charge. Company D had two wounded badly and several others slightly hurt. The two wounded were Joseph K. McLaughlin and Solomon Plank. We could not get to the Rebel works. We got as far as the creek and had to stop, but we held our position and stayed and camped close to the enemy’s works. The next day, July 21, 1864, the Seventeenth Corps charged the works and had their position in line. The 22d of July was when the Fifty-third regiment got in bad shape. The left of General Sherman’s army rested east of Atlanta, and reached clear around to the northwest of the city. The Fifteenth Corps was the extreme left of the army, and was facing west toward the city. The Sixteenth Corps was a mile or two to the east, in line of battle. There was an open place of about a mile, from the left of the Fifteenth Corps to the right of the Sixteenth Corps. The Fifty-third regiment was strung out on picket in this gap between the two corps. The regimental camp was on this line. There was a small guard left with the camp. The guard was eating breakfast when we heard something uncommon in front of camp to the south and we started to investigate, but did not have to look far, for the Rebels were coming in line of battle. General Hood had taken a notion to come a flank movement on General Sherman. Hood had moved his main forces east from the city and then came down in our rear. When we saw what was coming, we fellows in camp had to work quick to keep from being taken prisoners and I, the writer of this book, did not want any more of that, for it was not a long time since I had gotten out of prison.

CHAPTER XI The only chance I saw was to make a run for the Fifteenth corps, about a mile from us, they being the nearest of any of our men. So we started, each man for himself. Myself and two more of my company started together, but had not gone far when we lost one, and the man left with me was Ezra Drew. He stayed with me for a ways and then said he had to stop. I tried to get him to come on but he did not, and the last I saw of him he had stood his gun against a big tree and was resting. I was not tired just then, for I could see Andersonville just behind and freedom in front and I guess my legs saved me that time. Drew and the other man went to Andersonville and Drew died there. The other man got out alive. Other members of the regiment were taken but I never learned how many. I got to the Fifteenth corps, which was General Logan’s old corps. They were armed with what we called in those days "sixteen shooters." That is, sixteen shots at one loading and they did some awful fighting that day. I was with them all day and the rebels charged them. First the got it in the front and the next time they would try them in the rear. One of the charges the Rebs made was the worst I ever saw. They came on, six lines deep, and every man yelling his best, and they charged clear to the Union breastworks and climbed over in the fire of those "sixteen shooters," and pushed the line back from the works about three rods, but the fire was too much for them.. They had to fall back and the ground was strewn with dead, wounded and dying. It was a sight never to be forgotten. But the Yankees were too much for the Johnnies, and they withdrew and went back, defeated in their flank movement.

The next day after the battle the Fifty-third began to look around to see what had become of its members. They began to get together and in a couple of days, the regiment was organized again and got so it could take its place once more in line ready for duty, but when the roll was called there were seventy-three missing. The regiment had lost seventy-three killed, wounded and missing in the three days’ engagement.

On July 27, 1864, the Seventeenth corps, with the Fifteenth corps and the Eighteenth corps, withdrew from the east of Atlanta and moved to the extreme right of the lines, at Atlanta, and on July 28, 1864, the battle was fought.

Then things were quiet for a short time, and then, on August 26, 1864, General Sherman withdrew from before Atlanta and began his flank movement to Jonesboro, Ga. On August 31, the battle of Jonesboro was fought and on September 2, 1864, Atlanta was evacuated by General Hood and the Union forces took possession.

CHAPTER XII.
After General Hood had evacuated Atlanta, General Sherman made ready for his famous march to the sea. The army consisted of four corps-one corps on a road by itself. From the corps on the right to the corps on the left was about forty miles, so we took in a big scope of country. The Seventeenth corps had the center of the main line of railroad between Atlanta and Savannah. The Fifty-third regiment was in the Seventeenth corps, and this corps had the job of tearing up the railroad and destroying the rolling stock. It is quite an art to tear up railroad track. The way we did it was this: We would march on the track till a whole regiment or a division was strung along and then stack arms beside the road and string along the track, one man to a tie, and then the order was given to tip it over, and it went over quicker than it was built. Then we knocked the ties off the rails and piled the ties in bunches about six feet high and laid the iron on top of the pile and then set the pile of ties on fire, and it would soon have the rails red hot in the middle. And then five or six men would take hold of each end of a rail and start for a tree, and one set of men on one end of the rail go one way the other set the other way, and the rail was wound around the tree and there they stayed. All that was left of the railroad was the grading. I think it was not as hard work to dress these trees with the iron rails as it was to get them off. While some were tearing up railroad the rest would be fighting ahead for more road to tear up, as the Johnnies contested every rod of the country and they made the Yanks fight for it. They were in our front all the time. Where the wagon road went through big timber the Rebs would cut the timber from both sides and fell it into the road, so if we got through at all we had to cut the timber out. The way a march of that kind is conducted is all the teams and artillery and all kinds of vehicles are marched in the road and the men march at the side of the road.

CHAPTER XIII. We had rivers to cross, and here is where the Johnnies gave a good deal of trouble. They burned all the bridges after they crossed a stream and then we had to lay pontoon bridges, most generally under fire, and it is not a very pleasant job under those circumstances. Another thing that was a big nuisance was the negroes. They would follow the army by the thousands, with all kinds of vehicles, from a wheelbarrow to a fine family coach, and they were drawn by all kinds of horses and mules and they would be loaded with everything imaginable and some of the men and the Negro women, too, would carry enough on their heads to furnish a house. They would keep falling in all along the road and got so numerous that the army teams could not get along. The way they got rid of them was when we came to a river where we had to lay pontoon bridges, they would station a strong guard at the bridge and halt everything and send them to the side of the road and after the army was all across would take up the pontoon bridge and leave the darkies all on the other side, and all the negroes had to do was go back home.

The days were employed on this march to the sea by tearing up railroad, foraging and getting the road cleared of trees that the Rebs had fallen in the road, and fighting the Johnnies out of the road ahead. There was fighting in front all the time. This was the work every day, and all these places had to be bridged with corduroy bridges. They are made by cutting the trees at the side of the road in lengths of almost eight feet and laid down side by side. Sometimes just before coming to one of these swampy places, if there was fence handy, each soldier as he passed would pick up a rail and by the time the last man came by there would be perhaps 2,000 or 3,000 soldiers with rails on their backs, and as the soldiers in the lead came to the swamp each would lay his rail down, and so on till there was a good rail made road across the swamp, and so it went day after day. CHAPTER XIV. The regiment with the rest of the army left Atlanta on September 3, 1864, on the way to Savannah, and on December 9, 1864, we camped within about ten miles of the city, with the Fifty-third regiment in the advance, and we went into camp by the side of the road. General Sherman had his headquarters on the other side of the road from the Fifty-third regiment. Everything was quiet on the night of the 9th, but on the morning of the 10th we found something else. We had breakfast and had fallen in line ready to march forward. The band was at the head and the colonel of the regiment with his staff officers at the head of all. There had been no firing that morning and I guess they thought there were no Johnnies in the woods. The country around there was very level and nice. The road ahead of us was a straight and sandy one with heavy undergrowth of brush and timber on both sides. The order was given by the colonel to "forward, march!" and as we moved forward the band commenced to play and the men said they guessed we would be in the city that forenoon. We had gone but a few rods when we heard another kind of music. It was the boom! boom! of a cannon in the road in front of us. The Rebels had a masked battery in the road. The first shot was a shell. It came through between the colonel and the officers of the staff, passed over the heads of the band and hit the head man in Company I on top of the head, the next man in the breast and the next man in the bowels, and then exploded, killing the first four and badly wounding six others, putting ten men off duty at one shot, and that was the only shot fired that morning. It did not take the regiment long to get into the line of battle and put out skirmishers and throw up breastworks, and they did not get into the city for several days.

CHAPTER XV. Then General Sherman invested the city, and went to work to open communications with the fleet that lay out on the coast. It was necessary for him to hurry so the army could get rations, as we had none for man or beast to amount to anything, and the country was pretty poor around Savannah in the best of times. It was several days before we got in communication with our fleet and we got pretty short before we got supplies. For four days we had nothing but rice with hulls on. We had to pound it to get the hulls off and then blow the hulls out. We had a one-horse rice mill to hull rice with, but it would not hull enough in a month to give the army one meal, as there was over 100,000 men to feed and Uncle Billie Sherman was in a big hurry to get supplies to us. There was a fort on the river to be taken before the boats could get up to the army and the country round there is all low land and awful swampy so it was impossible to get over with teams, but this fort had to be taken at any cost so there was a division put out to take it. The division had to make a long march to get in the rear of the fort and take the garrison by surprise, and they did it nicely. The fort could be seen from where the Fifty-third regiment was, as the country was open between us and the fort and we could see General Sherman watching from an old house way across the rice fields toward the fort. We had to watch a long time before we could see anything of our men. At last they came out in the rear of the fort and as soon as they were in sight of the Rebels there was something doing. Our men made for the fort on the run and they were soon in a hand to had fight, and from where we were it looked as though there was a cyclone at work there. The awful carnage was soon over and we could see that our men had taken the fort and our communications were open to the grub pile, but at a heavy loss of good soldiers. But such was war!

CHAPTER XVI. Now that communication was open with our fleet, Sherman turned his attention to taking the city of Savannah. All lines were advanced close up to the Rebel works, but when everything was ready to do something, we woke up on the morning of the 21st day of December, 1864, and looked for the Johnnies and lo and behold they had skedaddled and the Union forces took peaceful possession of the city, and General Sherman’s famous march to the sea had terminated successfully.

Some of the troops were sent after General Hardee and the rest got ready to make the march across and through the Carolinas and Virginia to Richmond. The Fifty-third regiment and the Forty-first regiment Illinois had now lost so many men that the Forty-first regiment was consolidated with the Fifty-third and formed companies G and K of the Fifty-third Illinois. This was done on January 4, 1865.

We left Savannah on boats January 6, 1865, for Beaufort, S. C., and left there on January 13 on the raid through South and North Carolina and on to Richmond. On January 14, 1865 the Seventeenth corps drove the Johnnies into their works at Patotaligo, S. C. During the night they evacuated the place. On January 29 we started on the grand raid through the Carolinas. February 3 the First and Fourth Divisions of the Seventeenth corps forded the Carribee River Bridge, S. C., after considerable fighting. February 9 considerable skirmishing on the Little Edisto river at Orangeburg, S. C. February 16 and 17, considerable skirmishing across the Kangaroo, Salada and Broad Rivers, opposite Columbus. The Seventeenth corps was on the west side of the river opposite Columbus. We could see the city plainly from our position. The bridges were all burned by the Rebels when we got here. There were some big cotton mills here, with about 500 or 600 employees, mostly girls and women, and they were nearly destitute of anything to eat. They said the Johnnies took everything to eat with them and we could not help them much, as we were living off the country ourselves. When we crossed the river here we left all the negroes that had followed us up to that place and they had nothing to eat, so they must have had a hard time before they got any provisions.

In the night of February 17, 1865, the Johnnies evacuated Columbus, S. C., and a boat load from the Thirteenth Iowa regiment, Third brigade, Fourth Division, Seventeenth corps, crossed the river and raised the flag of that regiment over the capital, and what was left of the city was in possession of the Union forces. The city was a mass of smoking ruins when we got in there.

CHAPTER XVII. But we didn’t stop there. We were after Johnnies and they didn’t stop in one place long and so they kept us on the jump to catch them. On March 3, 1865, considerable fighting at Sharon, S. C. The Johnnies evacuated the town and crossed the Pedee river. On March 14, 1865 we had quite a fight at Fayetteville, N. C. The Johnnies evacuated the town and crossed Fear river. The way the Johnnies were dislodged from in front of us was by a flank movement on them. The way that was done was to send a detachment of troops away round to their left or to the right of them and when they found the Yanks almost in their rear they up and skedaddled for another good place to make a stand and gave us the trouble of going around them again, and so we kept moving forward in that way. On March 19, 1865, heavy fighting on the left. General Johnson attacked the Fourteenth and Twentieth corps near Bentonville, N. C. On March 20 and 21, 1865, the army closed up on General Johnson’s army at Bentonville. Here was the last battle General Sherman’s army had. The heaviest fighting was on the afternoon of March 21. The firing commenced about 1 o’clock and was continuous till dark, in the open timber, with nothing to protect a man but a tall, slim tree, and some had two, or three men trying to stand behind them, and it did not always work, for as soon as a Johnny saw a piece of a Yank, it was a sure mark for a Reb bullet and often a Yank got one for keeps. To help this along, the Rebs were in breastworks and the Yanks in the open and to make things worse, it rained from dawn all the afternoon, and the writer of these pages was so lame and stiff the next morning he could hardly get up. Some were worse off than that, for they could not get up at all, and I don’t think they have yet. The Fifty-third regiment lost in this battle one killed and six wounded.

CHAPTER XVIII. On March 23, 1865, Johnson evacuated Bentonville, N. C., at night and crossed the river. We now lay in camp till April 7, when a dispatch was received that General Grant had taken Richmond, and everybody was sure the war would be done now, and we lay and waited and watched for the end till April 12, when another dispatch was received stating that General Lee had surrendered to General Grant. Now things began to come our way pretty fast, as on April 15, 1865, General Johnson asked for terms of surrender, but something happened then that was like stirring up a hornet’s nest. ]
On April 17, 1865, a dispatch was received stating that President Lincoln and Secretary Seward had been assassinated. This certainly made things look as if we would not have peace at all. But on the 18th of April Sherman and Johnson agreed on terms of surrender subject to the approval of the war department. On April 24 the Seventeenth corps was reviewed in town by Generals Grant, Sherman and Mead and Secretary Stanton. The terms of surrender agreed on by Generals Sherman and Johnson were not approved by the war department and we were ordered to advance on General Johnson. This again did not look very much like peace, but we did not get a chance to give Johnson battle, as April 26, 1865, Johnson surrendered, and General Lee’s and Johnson’s armies having surrendered, there was no more armies to fight, and so we had to quit, and everybody was glad to do so and have a chance to go home to a peaceful life. We were sick of war.

We had a long and hard march before us. The army was at Raleigh, N. C., and had to march from there to Richmond, and on to Washington for the big and last review of all the armies of the rebellion. The army left there April 29, 1865, on the long march to Washington, where we arrived on the 24th of May, 1865, and went into camp at Fort Henry, D. C., where we stayed until after the big review.

Our march to Washington was considerably different than we had been used to. We had no enemy in front to be driven out before we could go ahead. Lee’s and Johnson’s armies had been paroled and had disbanded and on their way home. We met them all along the road and they felt happy. They would laugh and say, "Well the war is over; glory to God".

The country we were passing through looked like war. Around Petersburg and Richmond the earth was all turned into big forts and breastworks, and the timber nearly all cut down from south of Petersburg nearly to Washington. General Mead’s Army of the Potomac lay all along our line of march between Richmond and Washington and the two armies had lots of jokes for one another. They called us "Sherman’s bummers" and we called then "band box soldiers" because they always were in camp and could keep clean and get new clothes when they needed them. But Sherman’s bummers had been on the march and had been fighting almost constantly for nearly eight months and had no time for many white collars. It was all taken in good part for now all were for peace.

CHAPTER XIX. On May 23, 1865, General Mead’s army was reviewed in Washington, and on May 24 General Sherman’s army was reviewed. After the big review the armies were sent to the various places where they were to be disbanded and discharged. June 7 it was our turn to go toward home, so on that date the Fourth division of the Seventeenth army corps marched to the Baltimore depot and took transportation on the cars for Louisville, Ky., where they arrived June 12. We layed in camp till the 19th of July and were mustered out of the service, and the Fifty-third regiment was then sent to Chicago, where they drew their last pay and were given their final discharge from the service, and then the regiment scattered to the four corners as they had come together nearly four years before, and I hope they made as good citizens as they did soldiers. CHAPTER XX. The Fifty-third regiment in its various marches had been all over Kentucky, had marched all over Tennessee, through and across and up and down the state of Mississippi, all over Alabama and Georgia, and marched through South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and a piece of Maryland, and the District of Columbia, and rode from Washington home. It has been said that the Fifty-third regiment had marched over 5,000 miles and rode as many more. This I cannot vouch for, but I think it is not enough.

DATE OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN WHICH THE FIFTY-THIRD TOOK AN ACTIVE PART. November 11, 1861--First regimental muster. April 6-7--Battle of Pittsburg Landing, Tenn. May 30, 1862--Evacuation of Corinth, Miss. October 5—Battle Hatchie River, Tenn. July 4, 1863—Surrender of Vicksburg, Miss. July 12—The Fifty-third Illinois with the Third Iowa, Twenty-eight and Forty-first Illinois regiments charged the enemy’s works at Jackson , Miss. January 18, 1864—The Fifty-third Illinois re-posted as a veteran regiment. July 20—Closed up on the enemy’s works at Atlanta, Ga. July 21—The Seventeenth corps charged the enemy’s works at Atlanta. July 22—Battle of the 22d of July at Atlanta. The Fifty-third lost seventy-three in the three days’ engagement. July 27—The Seventeenth corps, with the Fifteenth and Eighteenth corps went to the extreme right of the line at Atlanta. July 28—Battle of the 28th of July at Atlanta. August 26—Sherman withdrew from before Atlanta and commenced his flank movement to Jonesboro, Ga. August 31—Battle of Jonesboro. September 2—Atlanta evacuated by Hood and taken possession of by the Union forces. December 21—Savannah evacuated by Harden and taken possession of by the Union forces. January 4, 1865—The Forty-first Illinois regiment is consolidated with and forms Companies C and K of the Fifty-third Illinois regiment. January 14—The Seventeenth corps drove the Johnnies into their works at Pocotaligo, S. C. During the night they evacuated the place. January 29—Started on the grand raid through the Carolinas. January 3[0]—The First and Fourth division of the Seventeenth corps forded the Combabee river at River Bridge, S. C. Considerable fighting. February 9—Considerable skirmishing on the Edisto river. February 11—Considerable skirmishing on the Little Edisto river of Orangeburg, S. C. February 16-17—Considerable skirmishing across the Congaree, Saluda and Broad rivers opposite Columbus, S. C. February 17—Columbus evacuated. A boatload from the Thirteenth Iowa regiment, Third Brigade, Fourth division, Seventeenth corps, crossed the river and raised the flag of the regiment over the hospital. March 3—Considerable fighting at Chrean, S. C. The Johnnies evacuate the town and cross the Pedee river. March 14-- Considerable fighting at Fayetteville, S.C. The Johnnies evacuate the town and cross Pear river. March 19—Heavy fighting on the left. General Johnson attacked the Fourteenth and Twentieth corps near Bentonville, N.C. March 20-21 The army closes up on Johnson at Bentonville. Heavy fighting all along the lines. The Fifty-third regiment Illinois lost one killed and six wounded in this battle. March 22—Johnson evacuated Bentonville at night and crossed the Neuce river. April 7—A dispatch received stating that General Grant had taken Richmond. April 12—A dispatch received confirming the news that General Grant had taken Richmond. April 15—General Johnson asks for terms of surrender. April 17—A dispatch received stating that President Lincoln and Secretary Seward had been assassinated. April 18—Sherman and Johnson agree on terms of surrender subject to the approval of the war department. April 24—The Seventeenth corps is reviewed in town by Generals Grant, Sherman and Mead and Secretary Stanton. The terms of surrender agreed upon by Sherman and Johnson are not approved by the war department and we are ordered to advance on Johnson. April 25—Johnson surrenders. May 23—General Mead’s army is reviewed in Washington. May 24—General Sherman’s army is reviewed in Washington. June 7—The Fourth division of the Seventeenth corps marched to the Baltimore depot and took transportation on the cars for Louisville, Ky. ON THE MARCH—A MARCH AND HOW CONDUCTED IN THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR. The order of a march was this: The advance regiment was started out in the morning with its regimental wagons in the rear, and the next regiment behind them., and thus all the regiments of one brigade. It took four regiments for a brigade, three brigades for a division and three divisions for an army corp, and each regiment, brigade, division and corps had its own wagons in the rear. The regiment that is in the lead one day takes the rear the next day, and so each regiment, brigade, division and each corps takes a turn in being in the lead, and so they keep doubling over from the rear to the front. It is a great deal easier to march in the front than it is to march in the rear, and then if there was anything good to eat the front ones gobbled it up and left the rear ones in the soup. In the first year of the war there was a guard put at all the houses that claimed to be Union people and for everything taken a voucher was given for pay in the future. So in the first stage of the game the people fared all right. There was even a guard placed over the wells and in order to get water one man would take the canteens of several of his comrades and stop at a well to fill them. It was a hard job to do it, there were so many after the same thing at the same well. The way they had to draw the water was with an old tin can of any kind with a bail in it and a string to it. The men would get round a well so thick you could not get near it till your turn came, and some times it never came at that well. All the wells that were dug wells and forty to eighty feet deep and we generally suffered for water, as it was generally hot and dusty. This whole thing was changed the second year of the war. If it had not been we might be at it yet. Our mode of marching was changed. All kinds of transportation was given the wagon road and the men took to the side of the road and took a straight shoot for any place we wanted to go, and there were no more guards placed over property. Every regiment would send a man or two from each company every day under an officer to forage and get supplies for the regiment. It was not so hard on the men as it was under the old way, but this was not all fun.. Imagine hundreds and thousands of men hungry, tired, dirty and foot-sore. If not marching all day in the dust and heat it would be raining and they were wet, and the rear men would get into camp at all times of the night, tired and hungry, but maybe no supper but detailed to go out a mile or two and go on picket, cold and wet. They were allowed no fire on the picket line, and had to eat hard tack and sow belly that night without coffee to wash it down. This is a meager description of what a soldier had to undergo on a march. It cannot be put on paper. But then some funny things happened to put life in the men. One time on a march the men were told as they passed a rail fence for each man to take a rail on his shoulder and carry it along, as there was a swamp ahead that had to be bridged with rails or trees, and as every man took a rail, there was a line of men as far as you could see each way with a rail and his gun on his back and it made a funny sight. A lot of negroes were standing beside the road. They never had seen Yankees before and the darkey did not know what to say, but at last he found his tongue and looked up and won the line of men and rails and made the remark that was used afterwards as a by-word by the men who heard it. The darkey opened his mouth and eyes and raised his hands, and said, "De Lord, look at de rails," and it struck the men quite comically, and such little things were a great stimulant. Another little incident happened that was comical. We ran across the Johnnies where they were strongly fortified and we had to stop and show them how the Yanks drove Johnnies out of our front when we took a notion to march through the country. After we had formed in line of battle the line moved forward. In the movement we came across a plantation residence. There were three or four women folks there, and of course the men did not stop for fences nor anything else in front. There were good picket fences and a lot of bee hives, a lye leach and other truck around, and of course the Yanks never go through there without upsetting everything they came across. Bee hives, lye leach and fence all were kicked out of the way, and when the supporting column came up the old lady of the house was mourning over the destruction of the bees, fence and leach, the spilling of all her good ashes (it was too bad, anyhow), and she was telling how Captain Sherman had formed a string of fighters and went right through her yard and spilled her bees and broke her fence and spilled her lye leach and now she could not have any soap, and she wanted to know who was going to pay for it. The soldiers thought maybe Captain Sherman might come back some day and settle up, and so such things happened every day.

HOW THE ARMY GOES INTO CAMP When an army is on a march and not engaged with the enemy, the advance guard will go into camp ready in the afternoon, and as the balance come up they are marched to the front and so keep on till all are in camp, and generally they will be nearly all night getting in. When it is late at night, about all you will hear is "How far is it to camp," and few ever found out. I never did, as every one had a different distance, but there is an end to everything. We would find camp after a while and were always tired, thirsty and hungry. The first thing to look after was some water and fire to make coffee. Some would go and hunt for water and others would hunt wood and the other fellows would build the fire, and after a while we would have something to eat. As a general thing the men would divide up into groups of from two or three to six, and that way could help one another. Each one was always looking out for his special mess. I don’t know what a soldier would have done without coffee, for it was seldom that he could get any water fit to drink. Most of the water there was saved in holes in ravines. The people built dams across and when it rained it would make a pond of water, and these were the only places at which the army could get water, and the Rebs would throw dead horses and dead hogs in these ponds and at night when we got into camp late and in the dark we would get water and make coffee and in the morning when we saw where the water came from it would almost make us sick to look at it and see what we had drank our fill of, but it was that or nothing in some places. These water holes were generally covered with a green scum in hot weather, but generally we got pretty good grub on the march. When we could catch live hogs we would have fresh port, and if we had flour would have pancakes.

THE FIFTH-THIRD REGIMENT GUARDING RAILROAD In the winter of 1862 the Fifty-third regiment guarded railroad in Tennessee. We had to guard it to get supplies through to the army. The road at that time was our source of supplies between Corinth and Memphis. We were in camp at Bolivar, Tenn, north of the railroad and north of town. We had some little skirmishing to do but no hard fighting, but had a pretty cold job, as there was snow on the ground most of the time. We had ??? tents. They are round and run to a peak in the middle like an Indian wigwam, with a hole in the top for the smoke to go out. In the center of the tent we had a round sheet iron shove [stove] and the bunks were around the stove. The beds were straw and hay thrown on the ground, and when we went to bed we would two go together and lay down a blanket and one or two blankets for covering, and then crawl in with our feet towards the stove, and would fill the tent full clear round the stove, and we slept a good deal like a lot of pigs. What got us was to get out of these warm nests in the morning at 3 o’clock and stand out in line of battle in the snow and cold until daylight. It was worse than sucking corn. This was done because it was the Johnnies’ custom to make a dash in the early hours of the morning on the posts guarding the railroad, but we got a little fun out of lie and had a laugh. One morning the captain of Company K got out suddenly. The company officers had square tents and they had fireplaces built up in one end of the tent, with stick and mud chimneys. The captain of Company K was a little old Irishman. He had been and officer of the war of 1812. His company in the Fifty-third was all Irish, and good lot of men they were, too. Old captain got blowed out that time. He cam out one way and the chimney went out the other. Some of the boys to have a little fun threw a lot of powder down the chimney in the fire and it exploded, and so did the fire place, and the captain exploded after he got his breath. That was all the good it did, as no one know who did it. We had another interesting thing here. We had a big crowd of negroes and smallpox ago among them, and we had to keep them corralled so the soldiers would not get it. Once in a while one took it, and so the time was spent here for about a month, not very pleasantly.

GENERAL SHERMAN’S ARMY ON A RAID In the winter of 1864 General Sherman started on a raid through Mississippi. He started for the purpose of finding Johnnies and to destroy the enemy’s property and capture his grub pile. That is what a big raid is for, and on this raid there was a good deal of stuff captured and lots destroyed. Not much was done on this march until we got to Meridian, and here we went into camp and then scouting parties were sent out all over the county. The division to which the Fifty-third regiment belonged camped by the town of Meridian. General Crocker, the commander of the Fourth Division had his headquarters at the south end of the town Meridian the buildings. The town at that time was one long street, running north and south, and one day when the wind was blowing pretty hard, the ???? took Fire at the north end. The wind swept from the north and took the fire down the street towards General Crocker’s headquarters. He held his post as long as he could, till he saw he was gong to be burned out, and then got on his horse and the headquarters moved, and the comical part of this was what the general said about being burned out. He was an awful man to swear, and when he was burned out he looked around at the destruction and he said it was a "H—of a way to burn out as good a Union man as he was." We had a good living on this raid—had plenty of flour, fresh pork and molasses. There was much sand and wind around Meridian that when we made pancakes and put molasses on them, the wind would start the sand to flying and our pancakes and molasses would be full of sand, and may be there was not some bad words said, but that did not pick the sand out of the molasses. The first day we started was cold and raining. I had my musket over my shoulder with my hat over the breech of the gun and jammed the back of my hand against a post and tore a chunk of skin off my knuckle, and the weather being cold and wet, swelled clear to the shoulder, and I carried my hand in a sling for four weeks, and carried my gun and did duty all the time we were out, and that was a little over forty days, and never had my clothes off during the march. Such was the duty of a soldier. After the burning of Meridian, we started on the back track towards Vicksburg, where we arrived safe after a successful raid of about five weeks. IN CAMP DOING NOTHING When an army is in camp doing nothing the routine consists of getting up at 5 o’clock and then fall in line and have roll call, and if a man is not there to answer to his name there is something doing until he is found, and if he has no good excuse there is something more doing. After roll call comes breakfast and then detail for picket, and details for other duties of the day. The quarters of each company have to be cleaned up, and then those left in camp have to fall in and drill till dinnertime. Then we have dinner and maybe can rest an hour or two, and if nothing better to get at, will go out and drill again until nearly suppertime. After supper the men have a rest and time to write letters and sew on buttons and do a little mending, till 9 o’clock sharp, when the retreat is sounded and the lights must all be out. The office of the day or the office of the guard will go all through the camp, and if he finds a light burning in a man’s tent, the man had better say his prayers, for there is no argument. Orders have been disobeyed and that always means trouble for the culprit. So it goes, day after day, one thing after another. This is what a soldier calls doing nothing in camp. THE DUTIES OF LINE OFFICERS AND PRIVATES IN A REGIMENT OF INFANTRY The officers of a regiment are the headquarters officers, and the line officers are the commissioned officers of a company. The Headquarters officers consist of a colonel, lieutenant colonel, major, adjutant and commissary officer. These are commissioned officers of a regiment. The commissioned officers of a company are the captain, first lieutenant and second lieutenant. The other officers are an orderly sergeant, five sergeants of the line and eight corporals, and the rest of a company are just privates, but they are the fellows who have the most work to do. The duties of company officers are most numerous. They have charge of the company and are responsible to the headquarters officers and have charge of all details, such as guards and pickets and foraging details, and in fact it would take a big book to tell all their duties in time of active service, but the sergeants and the privates and the corporals have all the work to do that is done with the gun, such as fighting, doing guard duty, going on picket, most all of the camp work and if there is any tough job to do the private soldier has it to do. On a march he is the fellow who is put in front to drive the enemy out, and in a battle the private is the one who is ahead on the danger line. In fact, the private is the main spoke in the wheel, and they have to obey all orders if it kills them the same minute. The private soldier likes a good officer and will fight for one any day, but he is a funny fellow, for he has some rights that all officers respect. When off duty he takes the world pretty easy till something is to be done, then he is pretty lively. He generally lets the officers do the worrying, for it is the officers’ duty to hunt up work and the duty of a private to do it, especially if he is going after the enemy. THE FIFTY-THIRD REGIMENT ON A DAY’S SCOUT After the surrender of Atlanta, Ga., the Fifty-third regiment was sent out on a scout to a little town about twenty-five miles away. We started early one morning and did not find much to make it interesting till we got within about a mile of this town, and then our advance guard ran out some Johnnies and we had no way to find out how many there were of them, only to go ahead and see, and if they were too many for us we would have to run for it, and if we were too much for them, then they would have to run from us. So into line of battle we went with skirmishers to the front and all moved forward. The skirmishers began firing and as we advanced the Johnnies kept falling back and we were soon in sight of the town. It was more open here and we could see the Rebs and citizens—some on foot, some on horseback, and they all seemed to try who could get out of town the quickest. They had no great force of soldiers—only a line of skirmishers, and they were in as big a hurry as the rest in town. It was more open here and we could see the Rebs and citizens—some on foot, some on horseback, and they all seemed to try who could get out of town the quickest. They had no great force of soldiers—only a line of skirmishers, and they were in as big a hurry as the rest in town, but they were not very good shots, as they hit none of the Yanks. They shot wild. I guess they did not take sight, but they left fast and we had the won and all in it. There we took twenty-five prisoners. They said they were citizens, but as we could not tell what they were, we kept them under guard and looked the town over to see if we could find anything contraband. We found the post office and as there was nothing better we took the mail and our prisoners, and as it was late in the afternoon we started back for Atlanta. When the prisoners saw we were gong to take them with us they said they were not soldiers, and I guess they were not. They wanted us to let them stay at home, but we told them they were prisoners of war and we had to take them, so they marched with us about ten or fifteen miles and the we paroled them and told them to go home, as they could get there by next morning, and to stay there, and they were most tickled to death. Thus we parted. We got a camp about midnight, all alive and ready for a little sleep.

SHERMAN’S ARMY GOING INTO WINTER QUARTERS IN MISSISSIPPI It seemed to be the aim of the commanding generals to keep the army at work at something, and they always succeeded pretty well. In the winter of 1863-64 the general orders were to build houses and fix all in nice shape for the winter. They called it going into winter quarters. Nice campgrounds were selected and laid out in military order. The Fifty-third regiment was camped in a grove of beech trees and the ground was covered with beechnuts. We had a nice camp and were well pleased with our location, as we expected to stay three or four months. We went to work to fix up in good shape. We cut logs and hauled them to camp and built log houses, each company building its own houses, and so we worked for over a month, and we had a fine camp, and everything now being done we were hugging ourselves thinking what a good time we would have till spring. But we were not destined to enjoy it long, for a rumor came that we were to move camp and the rumor soon proved true, as we got orders to get ready to move, and no one knew where nor what for. We thought possibly we would go on a scout and then come back, but after we left there, I don’t think any one in that squad ever saw that camp again.

BATTLE OF PITTSBURG LANDING I WILL ENDEAVOR TO GIVE A DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE OF Pittsburg Landing, as it looked tome at that time. I saw the most of it, except the first day. The attack in the morning of the 6th of April, 1862, was a complete surprise on the Yanks, for the night of the 7th I slept in one of the tents where seven of our men lay in their bunks where they have gone to bed on the night of the 5th of April. They lay just as they were shot on the morning of the 6th. They were not dressed so they must have been killed quickly. Our men rallied and got to business pretty quickly. After the first firing was heard on the morning of the 6th of April, it was one continuous roar of artillery and small arms. There was not a continuous line of battle, as armies of the size of the one there at that time ought to have been, but we were fighting by divisions and brigades, detached from each other, and therefore the Rebels kept flanking our men, and as soon as they did that they certainly had to fall back or be captured, as all of the Fifty-third Indiana were captured the first day of the battle. Our men fought desperately that day. There were charges and counter charges, but they drove our men back to the river and the only thing that saved the day to the Union forces was our gunboats and the coming of night. Many men were driven to the water’s edge and some swam out to islands in the river rather than be taken prisoners. But there was help close at hand, for the next morning, the 7th of April, General Buell’s army was on the march for the Landing. They passed the Fifty-third camp the evening of the 6th and were taken across the river before the morning of the 7th and that put new life into the Union forces for the day’s fighting, and the ball opened early and desperate. The sound of the firing and yelling was awful to hear, and to realize what it was for but now with a night’s rest and organized in better shape, the Johnnies found a different foe to handle. The Union forces soon gained all the ground they had lost the day before, but the night of the 7th of April the Rebs were in full retreat and the Union forces had made a brilliant success out of an almost total defeat and surprise. But at what a terrible slaughter of men. It was a battlefield of about ten or twelve miles long and six or seven wide, and there were dead, dying and wounded all over this field. There were places where you could step from one body to another. There were patches of brush that looked as though it had been mowed with a scythe, and trees of good size cut off with shot from cannon. There were some desperate things done. One man who was in all the fight told me of a battery that the Rebs charged and took it and then turned it on the Yanks. The Yanks formed again and charged the Rebs again, and so they had it back and forth for two days without any cessation. During the two days ‘ engagement the two armies fought with desperation, for if the Union forces lost there, it meant a prolongation of the war and a big chance for total failure of the struggle of for the Union. It was the hardest and most desperate two days’ battle during the rebellion, except the battle of Gettysburg.

A LITTLE DESCRIPTION OF THE REBEL PRISONS WHERE SOME OF THE FIFTY-THIRD ILLINOIS REGIMENT WERE CONFINED. In the Andersonville prison Company D, Fifty-third Illinois, had two men. One gave up his life and is buried there. The other got out alive. The regiment had some others from other companies there. The stockade was on a piece of ground situated in as swamp, or low, wet place. It got the name of stockade because it had a fence around made of logs sharpened and driven in the ground close together. There were about forty acres in the stockade and the guards were placed at intervals along the top of the fence. I will not try to tell all that was done to men in this hellhole called a prison. Pen cannot give a description of the suffering men underwent in this place till death relieved them. I saw a few who escaped from there when General Sherman was making his march through Georgia. They looked more like crazy men then rational beings. They were just skin and bone and I don’t wonder from what they told of the treatment of the men there. THE LIBBY AND BELLE ISLE PRISONS The old Libby prison consisted of old tobacco warehouses owned by a man by the name of Libby and used for the storage of tobacco. There were two buildings, one used to keep officers in and the other to keep private soldiers. They were situated on the bank of the James river. The buildings were very filthy and full of vermin, old rotten tobacco and other filth. The place was not fit for a man to stay in over night unless he wanted to breed disease. Belle Isle was a twin sister of Libby Prison. It was situated opposite the city of Richmond, Va., in the James river. It is quite a large island. The south end is low and flat. That is where the prisoners were kept. In the center of the island is a hill, and here is where Rebel guards were stationed with a battery of six guns trained on the prison camp. The camp had about five acres in it with a breastworks build around it of dirt about three or four feet high. The guard stood just outside of this breastworks and the dead line was just inside of the works, and woe to the man who stepped over it, for it was sure death if the guard could shoot straight enough, and they could for I saw one man shot while I was there. The men confined here got about as hard usage as men could devise to reduce men down to sickness or death. The prisoners were furnished just enough to eat so they were on slow starvation rations, as starvation was what they mostly died of there. The Fifty-third regiment Illinois had twenty or thirty men who were prisoners on the Isle at one time. Company D had six: Abner Beale, now dead; Ed. Thomas, alive; Lot C. Larkin, now dead; John Corry, now dead; Hamilton White, dead; Herbert E. Ranstead, alive. I would give the names of all the Fifty-third prisoners, but I have forgotten them all except one—Captain Hatfield of Company H, Fifty-third regiment.

THE STORY OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER AND WHAT HE HAD TO DO IN TIME OF WAR IN ACTIVE SERVICE. In this story of a private it is not intended to tell the story of one man, but a sort of history and description of all privates who carried a musket in the front. This was written for the privates who carried a musket in the front and the ones who did the fighting, and not the headquarters privates who did the talking and are still at it. He carried a musket three years and nine months at the front and after leaving the north never lost a days’ duty by sickness or any other cause. He was always on hand for roll call and something to eat, if there was anything on the bill of fare. Sometimes he went pretty short, but felt just as well and grumbled just as much. It was his right to grumble. On a bright morning in the early part of the fall of 1861, a young man of eighteen summers was enlisted in the service of the United States at Earlville, Ill., and went from there to Ottawa, where he was assigned to Company D, Fifty-third Regiment Illinois Volunteers and was mustered into the Fifty-third regiment for three years or during the war if not sooner discharged. His duty now was to serve his country with his life, if duty required it. The time now was put in at this camp at Ottawa, drilling twice a day and standing guard day and night, and doing other duties too numerous to mention in this short story. But don’t think a private was not kept at work, for the commanding officer always had a job of some kind for him. A soldier is supposed always to be lazy. Being organized and all ready for the field, the regiment was ordered to Chicago for duty. Here the private soldier was routed out at 5 o’clock in the morning to answer roll call. He then had his breakfast and was then detailed for guard duty or any other duty required for the day. If it so happened that he was not detailed for duty that day, he might get a pretty easy time if they did not have company drill. But with every other ill, there was a good deal of sickness in this camp, and quite a few died. The private soldier of this story came pretty near leaving his bones there. He had pneumonia and was in the hospital ten days, and off duty three weeks, but it was not his time yet. Now as the regiment was well drilled and all equipped for duty in the field, they were ordered to the front forthwith and took the cars for LaSalle, on the Illinois river, where they took a boat for the Mississippi river, and down that river for the south, where a goodly number of private soldiers left their bodies for all time. We had an uneventful trip down the Mississippi river to Cairo, and then up the Ohio river to the mouth of the Tennessee river, and then unloaded and went into camp. Here the time was filled up at the regular duties of a soldier, such as guard duty, eating, drilling and anything else that might turn up, but we were destined to have a big excitement soon, for we had not been there long until one Sunday morning there was a boom of cannon and small arms and the battle of Pittsburg Landing was in full blast , and the private of this story was somewhat excited and anxious, as all the rest of the boys were to get out in front and help the boys in the battle. They were fighting for the Union, but a soldier has nothing to say where he shall go, nor when, and the head officers did not seem to be in a hurry to get us there. The second day of the battle we where loaded on boats and were in time to see the windup. We had now gotten where there was plenty to do. The private soldiers had a pretty hard time of it here, as the weather was very bad. It rained most of the time and the privates had no tents, but lived out in the woods like cattle. To sleep at night we would lay down brush and then lay down together and put another blanket over them and knapsacks for a pillow, and if it did not rain too hard, would sleep pretty well. But when it rained our roof leaked and the water ran under us, and by morning it would be a pretty wet bed. Such were most of the nights, and the days were put in burying the dead of the Rebel army and the Union army. As the Union army had the battlefield in their possession, we had to bury the dead. This service lasted about ten days and lots of the privates paid for this service with their lives, from the exposure. It was a busy time as the siege of Corinth was on. The private soldier has to do all the work, such as building forts, breastworks, doing guard duty, handling supplies of all kinds and doing the fighting and skirmishing, and in fact the private soldier is the bone and sinew of the whole army. The officers just see that he is kept at work, and if he is sick or killed he is only a private soldier—plenty more where he came from. This job did not last long, as the Rebs left our front and without asking permission, and we had to take to marching to try and catch the Rebs. They were like the Irishman’s flea—when he thought he had him under his thumb, he was gone. So we did lots of marching over the country, but found them once in a while and had a quiet little battle. When not on the march, we were in camp and some were guarding railroads and doing scouting duty in small detachments, but never any rest, night or day, as a soldier in the time of active war don’t hardly know night from day, nor Sunday from any other day. It is all the same in Dutch. The enemy by this time had mostly left this part of the country and gone towards Vicksburg. Thus the army here had to change base, so was marched to Memphis, Tenn., on the Mississippi, and loaded on boats for down the river to take a hand in the siege of Vicksburg. Going down the river would have been uneventful but the Rebs fired on the boats and some of us landed and chased them all one afternoon, but did not catch any of them. We burned a lot of cotton and corn and one little town of Greenville. Nothing more of any moment happened until we got to Haines’ Bluff, on the Yazoo River. Here we were unloaded, and here the private soldier saw something besides play. It was one continuous job of building forts and breastworks and fighting to advance the lines till we were pretty near in the Rebel lines ourselves, and this work all has to be done by the private soldier who carries the musket. This work was continuous, night and day, until the surrender of Vicksburg. The privates thought after the surrender they would get a little rest, but it was not to be. There were other worlds to conquer, so we were started out on a grand raid after more Rebs. We found some more entrenched at Jackson, Miss., but here is where one or two officers thought they could do something big and get another star or eagle on their shoulder straps. It made no difference if they did get a few privates killed so they got their promotion, and so they tried to fight the whole of the Rebel army there with a little brigade of about 800 privates. They had undertaken more than they could do and the privates had to suffer most, as they were badly cut up in this charge, about 300 being killed and wounded and 104 taken prisoners, of which ninety-nine out of a hundred were privates. So the privates always get the worst of a bargain. In order not to break the line of this story we shall have to follow those taken prisoners, especially one of them. They had a trip of nine days through the Confederacy, from one place to another, till at last they were landed at the old Libby prison, in the city of Richmond, Va., and after a couple of days were taken across the James river and went into camp on the very pleasant place called Belle Isle, where there were about 7,000 other privates. There were no officers on the island, so the privates got the bad end all the time. The trip of this squad of privates is described in another part of this book, and also the treatment they received and a description of the two prisons. I shall digress here to say it is almost impossible to give in detail all private soldier is supposed to do and the hardships he has to undergo. A soldier on a march time of war never knows when he can sleep or eat. Sometimes there will be a halt and the men will think they can make a little coffee, will start a fire and get the coffee cooking, and just get a good start to have something to eat, and then the order is given to fall in and forward march and they are obliged to pick up the half cooked coffee and wait until another time to finish it, and don’t get anything to eat only as they march along, and what they generally had to eat at such times was nothing but fat raw pork or "sow belly," as the soldiers called it, and hard tack, and march in the dust if it was dry, and if it was not dry and hot, it would sure be raining, and then get in camp along in the small hours after midnight, tired and hungry, and then be detailed to go on guard duty the balance of the night, and if near the enemy cannot have any fire to warm by or cook coffee. This is a little of what the private soldier had to under go for the preservation of the Union, and the generations of today are reaping the fruits and benefits of the hardships of the private soldiers in the war from 1861 to 1865, for they are the sinew of the army. To resume the story, there was one private of that squad got out of prison after a sojourn of nine weeks in the very pleasant company of the confederates, and after the high entertainment at their first-class hotels—the Hotel Libby and the summer resort of Belle Isle, he joined his regiment in the western department and was ready for duty again, after his vacation from the duties of a private in the regiment. The time was being put in now at scouting and getting ready to make changes in armies and base of operations. During this time there were a few regiments which had re-enlisted as veteran regiments and were allowed thirty days’ furlough to go home, and the Fifty-third Illinois regiment was one of the number, and was given a thirty-day leave and came home and had a high old time while in the north to pay for the two years of hard service in the front. They thought they would have as good a time as they could for there was no knowing how many would ever have the chance again, for there was lots of hard fighting to be done when they got back south, and it was well they did improve the time, for there were lots of them never saw home again. After the visit home we went by railroad to Cairo, and from there up the Ohio river by boat and landed at Paducah, Ky., and started for Atlanta, Ga. There was no more riding—it was all walking now for the privates. We had Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama to march through before we got to Atlanta , and there proved to be lots of fighting before we got into Atlanta. There were many who never got there, but their bones are close there yet. Such is the fortunes of war, and the fortunes of war gave us lots of hard work here, such as marching, building forts and line after line of breastworks, and fighting. That was an every day occurrence and so we were kept pretty well at work. But the fortunes of war soon changed this, as the Yanks work up one morning and found Rebs in our front, so that meant some more hard marching, without any rest. We now had a long, hard siege of marching before us, and no one know where this would end or whether it would ever end with any of us alive, as now we were to cut loose from all communications with the outside world and march into the enemy’s country, where, if we were not successful, it meant the destroying of a whole army, and in that case might be the loss of all we had fought for the last three years. But we were to be successful in the undertaking, after a long, hard march, with plenty of fighting in between, and lots of other hard work, such as tearing up railroad and building roads to get the teams and wagons and artillery along, so with it all in all, we had a hard tramp before we got in communication with our fleet, which was waiting for us on the coast. But after a few days of anxious waiting and fighting and marching, and we got pretty hungry, too, as we were on short rations, but at last communications were opened up with the outside world once more, and we got a square meal and some mail from home. That was better than sow belly and hard tack. We thought we would have a big lot of fighting to do here, as we found a large army of Rebs entrenched with big forts and strong rifle pits, and the country is swampy and makes it hard to operate a large army of men, but after a few days’ struggle we found ourselves in full possession of the country and the city of Savannah, Ga., and here we lay in camp a few days and took a badly needed rest, and got ready for another long march. As the Rebs would not stay in one place long enough to put up a big fight any more, we had to keep after them. The Yankee Soldiers found it a long and stern chase, as they had to march a good many thousand miles to find where the Rebs had gone. Sometimes they would give a good fight and when we thought we had them, lo and behold, they had skedaddled, and that meant more hard marching for the Yanks. That was what we were there for. It was to corner them and give them a good licking or get one ourselves, and so we started out after them again and chased them out of Georgia, through South Carolina and nearly through North Carolina, and then they halted and put up a nice little fight of a half day’s duration, which proved to be the last battle of the war for preservation and continuation of the Union of States, which we were now sure we had succeeded in doing, but at a fearful sacrifice of life and treasure. The private soldiers felt that they had sacrificed their lives and health in a grand duty to the whole country and for the good and benefit of the future generations, and I thank God that I have lived to see our hopes and what we fought, worked and marched and gave thousands of young lives for, a grand success at this late day of 1910. We felt now that our work was done and could see home and peace for the whole country, north and south, one and inseparable. We had a long march yet before we could get home. From Raleigh we marched to Richmond and from there on to Washington, where we were in the big review of all the armies, and then from there to Louisville, Ky., by cars and from there to Chicago, where all were discharged and sent home to enjoy the fruits of our labor of four years for the nation and the benefit of the people of all nations. So be it! THE BATTLE OF JACKSON, MISS The battle of Jackson, Miss., was fought by the First Brigade, Fourth Division, Seventeenth Army Corps. The brigade mustered eight or nine hundred men and officers, and the loss to the brigade was something over three hundred killed, wounded and missing, and one hundred and four taken prisoners. Then battle was fought on a nice Sunday morning. The army had left Vicksburg after the surrender and started out to find General Johnson. He had been in the rear of the Union army for a long time and General Grant sent General Sherman out to give him battle if he would stay in one place long enough. The little brigade got all the fight there was in it, and they were not the first there either. In the marching, the brigade had got in the rear of the whole army as rear guard, and on the night of the 11th of July, 1863, they went into camp on the extreme right of the army. Now don’t think these armies were like the ones we have now days, of our or five thousand or more. General Johnson was supposed to have about fifty or sixty thousand. On the morning of the 12th of July, 1863, everything was as quiet as a Sunday morning could be, with so many men as deadly enemies in a small scope of country, each watching the other to get the advantage and kill as many as they could. Such was war in the sixties. The brigade was brought up in line of battle on a rise of ground, and there laid down to wait for something else. We could look across about a mile and see the Rebel breastworks, but could not see a living being there, but found something later. Everything was as quiet as death, so a battery of six pieces was brought to the rear of the brigade and opened fire over our heads, and got no response from the enemy. Then the brigade was ordered to put out skirmishers and to advance in line of battle. This was an awful place to charge across. It was a level piece of ground with a small stream running through it, and the timber had all been cut down and felled toward us and the limbs all sharpened and wire stretched across, and then there were lines of stakes set close together with the ends sharpened and wire on them, and take it all together it was not a very desirable place to take a Sunday morning ramble under a heavy fire of small arms and artillery. We moved forward for quite a distance and all at once the skirmishers came together, and then it was pop, pop, here and there, and the balls commenced to sip, sip, and then the order was given to fix bayonets and charge double quick. The Rebs opened fire with their cannon loaded with grape and canister shot and then it seemed to come as thick as hail. But we kept right on. Men were falling all along as we went forward and we could not go very fast with all the impediments in our front to overcome as we went forward. But a few got there, for the first thing they knew they were surrounded and taken in out of the wet. We had charged almost to the Rebs works, getting so close we could not stand the fire and hail of bullets, so we laid down in a shallow furrow made by a plow. This had been a cornfield. I don’t know what they thought we would do here, as there were no orders to retreat, and the first thing we knew the Rebs were swarming all around us and said we were their prisoners. We had charged in a half circle, as this was the shape of the Rebel works, and they told us when we got in they had six thousand infantry massed here and fourteen pieces of artillery. This outfit was firing on this little handful of men for over an hour. When we cam to count the number in this squad, we found it to be 104 and whether we were all tat was left of the brigade that had made the charge, we did not find out for some time after. That afternoon we were loaded on the cars and started for a Rebel prison.

A TRIP THROUGH THE CONFEDERACY When we found we were prisoners, there was a good deal of guessing as to where we would be taken. We supposed to Andersonville. Late in the afternoon an officer came in and said that all who had any money or valuables had better give them to him to take care of, as we might be robbed when we were turned over to another guard further along on our journey. After he went out some of us thought we could take care of our own money and went to work to devise ways to hide it about our clothes. The others turned their things over to the officer for safe keeping and it proved to be safe, for they never saw their money again. We got along very well at the time, as they did not search us as thoroughly as they did afterwards. Then the officer came back and put all the valuables in a haversack and hung it around his neck and said it would be safe. Then he marched us out and put us on board the cars, all but George Crain, of Company D, Fifty-third regiment. He was left there and no one ever saw or heard of him again to this day. There was a good deal of speculation as to what was done with him, but no one knows. Some of the men said they knew the officer in charge of us and that he hand lived at Pawl’aw. We were taken on the cars as far as the Tombigbee river, and then by boat to Selma, Ala., and there unloaded and marched out in a grove of nice trees and told to take life easy. In a short time another, officer came and said he would have charge of us. He had the haversack of valuables and said he would give them back to the owners as we were now out of any danger of getting robbed. So he poured the things out on a table and told the owners to come and get their things as their names were called. The first man who got his pocketbook opened it to find his money, but it had taken wings and flown, alas, no one knew where. It was comical to see the fellows as they took their empty pocketbooks. We who had kept ours felt sorry for them but we could not help them any. But there was something else that was worse than the loss of the money. We were getting hungry, as we had had nothing to eat since we became guests of the Confederacy. We were told there were no rations there, but there would be some at the next stopping place, but we could not find out where that would be. Later that proved to be Atlanta, Ga. There we were marched out to a stockade and a big barrel of hams and some hard tack was brought in. Water would not make the hard tack soft, and the hams were packed in ashes and maggots were crawling all through the meat. It had turned blue and had a very nice smell, if you like that kind of roses, but nevertheless, it was eat that or nothing, so we took the meat away from the maggots and did the best we could, for a man is not very particular when he has eaten nothing for three or four days and no prospects of getting anything better soon. We were then told we were on our way to Andersonville. That looked bad to us. We were started that way, but for some reason were turned off and sent towards Richmond, where we arrived July 30, 1863. The latter part of our journey was very slow, as we had the worst railroad I ever saw to run over,. The road was graded and then square timbers or ties laid down about eight feet apart and then long planks or square timbers laid along for the iron rails to rest on. The rails were wrought iron, tow and a half inches wide and an inch thick, and the rolling stock was in keeping with track, so you will believe me if I tell you we went slow enough, we could jump off and pick berries along the track—jump off and on as the boys jump bob sleds in the winter time, only they don’t pick berries as those boys did. This is merely to show what progress had been made at that time in South and North Carolina. At one place where we stopped in North Carolina, some Confederate soldiers came alongside the cars and asked us if there was anyone in the crowd who had guarded prisoners at Camp Douglas, in Chicago, in 1861. We told them some of us were at Camp Douglas and guarded prisoners at that time. They said they hoped that we would receive as good treatment as they received at our hands at that time. We hoped they would, for we had not seen much good treatment so far. Nothing more happened until we arrived in Richmond. There we were marched to the old Libby prison and locked up. The officers were put in one building and the men in another, so we saw no more of the officers. One of the men was taken from the rest and whatever became of him not one of us ever found out.

OUR TREATMENT IN LIBBY AND ON BELLE ISLE. We now found ourselves in the old Libby prison. The prison was a large three story brick building and had been used as a tobacco warehouse before the war. It was a filthy place and the floors were covered with spoiled tobacco and other dirt and filth. This building was taken down and brought to Chicago for exhibition and was visited by thousands of interested sightseers, many of whom had been confined within its dingy old walls many years before. After we were settled in our new quarters, we thought we would get something to eat, as we had received no rations since we left Atlanta. We were disappointed, however, for at least twenty-four hours, when we got a lunch of hard tack and were left alone till the next day. The we were passed between two guards and an officer searched each man as he passed through, and all the money found on the men was taken from them. We were searched pretty thoroughly here. They felt in our pockets and felt our clothing all over, but they did not get everybody’s money, but took all they found. We were then taken back and told that we should be taken to Belle Isle the next day. The next morning two guards were placed at the head of the stairs and we were searched again by two officers for money. All who had good shoes or good coats were required to give them up and old ones were given instead. All our blankets were taken, except one to every two men. One tin cup and a knife and fork and spoon were allowed us, so we thought maybe we would get something to eat some time in the future, as up to that time the question of rations had worried us a good deal. We were then marched out and taken over to Belle Isle. Belle Isle is situated near Richmond, in the James river, northwest of the city. The south end of the island is level, and that is where the prisoners camp was located. The camp consisted of four or five acres with a dirt breastworks thro9own up around it. The guards stood about three or four rods apart, just outside of this breastworks. Just one rod inside the earthw3orks was the dead line. If a man stepped over that line the guard had orders to shoot him down. I saw one man shot for getting over the line while I was there. Just north of the camp was a high hill, and here were six pieces of cannon trained on the camp so they could quell any uprising or any demonstration the prisoners might undertake. Besides this battery a regiment of infantry was camped close at hand, so we had to keep pretty quiet. We thought surely after we got to the island we would get something to eat. We did, but it was mighty little to satisfy a lot of half starved men, and it was a l0ong time between meals. Our daily rations were two ounces of light bread and a little piece of boiled meat—not over two ounces of meat in a ration. In the afternoon we got a pint cup of bean soup and a couple of ounces of light bread. This was our daily rations, never increased but often diminished, as they let us go two and three and sometimes as long as five days without anything at all to eat. I suppose that was done to get us in light marching order. Our rations were good but just enough for slow starvation. It was a hard sight to see men lie there and die slow starvation and disease and for want of medical attendance, of which there was absolutely none. Our drinking water we got in the camp by digging about three or four feet in the sand, and it was warm and dirty. The men would almost choke before they would drink it. The days were hot and the nights were cold, so it was no wonder the men were dying all the time, the deaths being one or two and sometimes more a day. There were between 5,000 and 7,000 prisoners in the camp at that time. We had a few old tents, but most of the men had to lie on the ground with the heavens for a covering as we were not allowed enough blankets for all, so some had none. There were some graybacks there, too, to keep the unemployed from getting homesick. We never got any washing done, so we had to give the graybacks full sway. We did not wash our hands and faces very often as we had not towels, as the washing had not been brought home. Well, I think we will be searched soon for money again, as they give us nothing to eat for three or four days before searching us, and it has been three days since we had anything to eat. The orders are not to fall in the something. We were tall taken outside the camp and through a tent one at a time and searched for money and then marched into camp again. I suppose you think it curious we were searched for money so many times. Just about that time the army had been paid off and all were supposed to have their money on them, and so they had and the Rebs knew it, and therefore tried hard to get it, and they always mad good wages when they searched us for it. They tried all manner of schemes to find it. One day the officer in charge of the camp came in with about a peck of silver quarters and half-dollars and wanted to trade them for paper money. He said it would be handier to play chuck-a-luck and to bet with. The playing of this game was the failing of some of the boys to pass the time away. But he failed to get many trades that way, as the men could not hide the silver. I don’t remember how many of our squad saved their money. Ed. Thomas took $40 through and I had $29 and some little change and some postage stamps. The way I hid mine was this: When first captured at Jackson I had two $10 bills and hid them in the double seams in the front of my pants. It stayed there till we got on Belle Isle. The one time when searched I split a plug of tobacco and put the money inside. It did not look like a $20 plug of tobacco. Next time I was searched I carried it in my mouth under my tongue. Others did the same way. But next time we disposed of it for good. Ed. Thomas and myself took the brass buttons off our blouses and took the buttons apart and made each bill into a little square chunk and pounded it into the hollow of the button and then put the two pieces together again, and there she was, safe so long as we did not lose the blouse, and I tell you that $20 came handy to me when we got out of prison, as I think I would have died if I had been out of money, as I was a pretty hard looking kid. Nothing much happened now, only to lie around and wonder what would come next and talk about what we would have to eat if we ever got where we could get it, and tell of the good things we used to have when we were in God’s country. Another thing we had there that was interesting to a soldier was the l little grayback, of which we had a plenty there on the isle. The way we used to get rid of them, as we could not wash our clothes because we were not allowed to have any fire in the camp, was in the middle of the day when the sun shown out warm, we would take our clothes off and lay them on the sunny side of a tent and the little vermin would crawl off the shirt and get in little bunches on the ten. Then we would take the shirt up and there we had them at our mercy and we would kill every one of the vermin we could find. That got rid of some and we had a little satisfaction on them for keeping a fellow awake nights scratching. One night after we had been on the island about six weeks, I came pretty near getting done up. I was walking along just inside the dead line alone, after midnight. Everything was quiet and it was pretty dark, and as I passed near the guard who was just opposite of me out side the breastworks, and he said to me very low, "say, Yank, are you the one that wanted me to get some biscuit." Of course I answered, "Yes." "Well," says he, "you throw twenty-five cents over to me and I will throw the biscuit over to you." I had some small script, so I tied to ten-cent shinplasters and three two-cent postage stamps to a small stone and threw them over, and he passed the biscuit over to me. I had twenty-four little buns about as large as a lemon, and I sat right down there and ate all I could hold and I was not hungry when I finished, nor did I have any buns left. But I had something else before morning. It was a terrible pain. I had eaten too much at once in my starved condition, and you can guess what I suffered. I was satisfied with small rations after that for a while. We had been on the island about six or seven weeks now and the order came that there was to be an exchange of 500 prisoners of war. The ones to be taken out were to be those who were the sickest. When the order came to pick out those who were to be exchanged there was a good deal of speculation as to who would be the lucky ones to pass out and get a chance to go to God’s country, as we called the north at that time. They had taken nearly all the orders called for and none of our squad had gone except Ed Thomas. We were talking the matter over and came to the conclusion that the rest of us had to stay where we were. Then one of the boys said: "Ranstead, why don’t you try and get out. You are pretty sick looking and about thin enough." I said, "I can’t get out." I waited a while and finally said, "I am going to try for it," and so I got up and started for the placer where they went outside. I went up as though I was nearly dead and the guard and the officer that examined them looked at me and never said a word, and of course I didn’t, and passed out and went down to the tent and they took my name and I had passed muster. I tell you I felt pretty good over it, but I hated to leave the other boys in the pen, but they all got out afterwards alive, but not very fat. All returned to duty afterwards except Abner Beale. He cam home from the prison pen sick and died shortly afterward on account of his prison experience. After the number they wanted were out, we were taken across the river and put in Libby prison again that night. Next day we were searched for money again and then taken to cars and loaded on flat cars and started for Petersburg, Va. On the road we passed the others coming to Richmond with the Rebs who had been exchanged for us. When we met the two trains stopped close together and we said to the Johnnies, "Why, you are looking fine." "Oh, yes," they said, "We had good living." "So did we, but had it to get yet." They were looking fine as thought they had good keep and well fed and were well dressed, mostly with Yankee clothes, and the contrast between us was great., We were poor, thin and ragged, and they were looking fat and healthy. From Petersburg we went to City Point, Va., where our flag of truce boat was. We got there just at dark and when we saw our flag, you can guess we did so[me] lusty yelling. We were glad to see freedom before us and a chance to get a square meal once more, and that is what we got as soon as were marched on the boat. They handed each man a big chunk of light bread and a sliced of boiled ham cut clear across a big h am, and a tin cup of fine coffee , the first we had tasted since we were captured. Everybody was happy because they said they had had a square meal once more. But I was careful not to eat too hearty, as I had some experience one night on the island with a square meal. We left that night for Annapolis, Md., where we arrived the next day and were taken to the barracks to recruit up, as we needed some good living to be fit for service. When I got to a pair of scales I was surprised at my weight, as I weighted just eight pounds. I had weighed before I was captured about 140 to 145 pounds. There is one incident that happened to me at that time. I was supposed to have bee killed at Jackson, Miss., and was so reported in the regiment and the news sent home to the folks, and they had set the time to have my funeral sermon preached here in the Earlville Methodist Church. When I got to Annapolis, I wrote home and the folks got th4e letter on Saturday and the service was to have been held on Sunday. So in place of the funeral service they wrote my record in the family bible with the rest and it is on the record yet. Well, to make a long story short, I stayed in Maryland a week and then went to St.Louis, and stayed till I got well and then went down the river and joined the regiment at Vicksburg and drew a new gun, canteen and haversack and reported for active duty.

AGES OF SOLDIERS The following are the government figures of the ages of the men enlisted for service in the Civil war: Ten years old and under__________________________25 Eleven years old and under________________________38 Twelve years old and under_______________________238 Thirteen years old and under______________________390 Fourteen years old and under____________________1,523 Fifteen years old and under___________________104,087 Sixteen years old and under___________________231,051 Seventeen years old and under_________________844,591 Eighteen years old and under_________________1,151,428 Twenty-one years old and under______________2,159,738 Twenty-two years old and under______________ 618,511 Twenty-five years old and under______________ 40,626 Forty-four years old and under__________________16,011

A FORAGE DETAIL. On General Sherman’s famous march to the sea, the army had to live off the country they marched through, ad so there was a detail of men and teams sent out to get rations for the men and forage for the mules and horses. There would be a detail of two or three men from each company of the regiment and teams to go with them. These details would be under an officer and would start out on their hunt for grub, and as a general thing they would come back at night pretty well loaded, if they got through the day without meeting any of the Rebs, who kept a pretty sharp lookout for these foragers, and they often had to run and fight their way back to camp. They would sometimes go ten or fifteen miles from the main body of troops and that was a pretty dangerous distance in those times, for the enemy had squads of cavalry all over the country watching for these chances to capture Yankees, and the citizens and the women folk kept them informed of the movements of the Yanks all the time, and they would pounce on them when least expected. But if they were not disturbed it would be a sight to see the outfit come into camp at night. There would be a whole line of all kinds of vehicles, from a government wagon to a fine surrey, and they would be loaded with corn fodder, fresh pork, chickens, geese , hams and bacon flour, but nothing except something to eat, as it was strictly against orders to take anything else, and that was one thing most all the soldiers of the Union were opposed to—taking or destroying anything that was not in the eating line. But they would take anything tat was good to eat if they could get their fingers on it, for they were always hungry.

WARTIME PRICES. The following articles given here were taken from the market reports in the Tri-Weekly Mercury, which was printed in Charleston, S. C., in the year 1865, on the 31st day of January. The paper is now in my possession, having brought it home myself. Schedule of Prices. Apples, dried, per bushel of 28 lb. $5.00 Coffee, Rio, per LB $10.00 Bacon sides, each $2.00 Bacon hip, per LB $1.30 Beef on foot, including hide, per LB $0.75 Beef, corned per LB $0.80 Corn in ear, per LB $4.90 Cloth, woolen, one yard wide, per yard $6.60 Flour, extra, per bbl. of 196 lb. $60.00 Flour, extra, per sack of 98 lb. $30.00 Hay, baled, 100 lb. $5.00 Hogs, per lb., net $1.00 Horses, per head $1,000.00 Horse, second grade $800.00 Jeans, woolen, domestics, per yard $10.00 Kettles, iron, each $8.00 Lard, good, per LB $2.00 Leather sole, per LB $6.50 Leather upper, per LB $8.00 Lumber, pine or oak, per thousand $80.00 Molasses, cane, per gallon $8.00 Mules, first-class, per head $800.00 Oats, shelled, per bushel of 84 lb. $8.00 Peaches, dried, per bushel of 38 lb. $7.00 Pork, slat, per LB $1.80 Potatoes, Irish, per bushel $5.00 Rice, per bushel of 100 lb. $5.00 Rye, good, per bushel of 56 lb. $6.00 Sacks, two bushel, each $2.50 Salt, Liverpool, per bushel of 50 lb. $20.00 Sheep, per head, fat $25.00 Shirting, cotton, per yard $2.00 Shoes, army, per pair $25.00 Shoe thread flax, per LB $3.00 Soap, hard, per LB $0.50 Sugar, brown, common, per LB $5.00 Tea, green, per LB $15.00 Tea, black, per LB $10.00 Vinegar, cider, per gallon $2.00 Wagons, wood axle, new $500.00 Wagons, iron axle, new $625.00 Wagons, iron axle, two horse, new $800.00 Wheat, first rate, per bushel $8.00 Wool, washed, per LB $7.00 Yarn, cotton, per bunch of five lb. $15.00 Iron, flat or band hoop, per ton $550.00 Iron, boiler plate, per ton $625.00 Molasses, can, per gallon $3.00 Oats in sheaf, per 100 lb. $4.50 From the Richmond Dispatch, January 21, 1865: The decline of gold has been very rapid within the past few days. On Thursday the brokers refused to buy at fifty, and a number of the hoards of specie were upon the street anxious to sell. Yesterday gold was very dull at forty-seven and eight. In the afternoon several small sums were sold at the latter price. Hire of Teams and Wagons by the Day: Hire of two horses, wagon and driver, rations furnished by the owner, per day --------------------------------------------------------$15.00 Hire of laborer, rations furnished by the owner, per day__$2.25 Hire of four horses, wagon and driver, rations furnished by owner, per day--------------------------------------------------------$20.00 Hire of laborer, rations furnished by owner, per month---$60.00 Taken from the Weekly Mercury: The United States sloop of war San Jacinto was lost off the Bahamas banks on the night of the 1st in a terrible gale. The United States gunboat Narcisse was blown up by a torpedo near Mobile a few days since. Week before last the gunboat Rattler drifted from her moorings between Vicksburg and Natchez. She was boarded by a party of Confederate cavalry and burned to the water’s edge. On Sunday evening last a Yankee monitor was blown up by torpedoes at Charleston. We are glad to see that old Abe’s money is being rapidly reduced. Sherman’s Column’s in Motion. (Taken from the Mercury.) Whatever else the peace may have effected, they certainly have not availed to halt the columns of Sherman, who have now fairly left Savannah. At last accounts his main force was moving in two columns along the west bank of the Savannah river in the direction of Augusta, Ga. Two Yankee gunboats lay anchored at Sister’s Ferry. Another force, fully provided with wagons, etc., was camped near Ennis cross roads on the road leading to Grahamville, and on the road leading to Sister’s Ferry a reconnoitering party was reported within four miles of Robertsville. A small force of the enemy landed on Little Britain on Saturday night but were soon driven off. The fleet at Georgetown is said to have been considerably increased. Nothing further worthy of mention has occurred in the harbor since our last report. The New Peace Movement For two days past the political atmosphere has been thick with rumors of approaching peace. The basis for these rumors appears in the dispatch we published today, announcing the appointment of three well-known Confederate gentlemen as commissioners to confer with the Lincoln government on the subject of Peace. We should have been better pleased had the first formal, as well as actual overtures for peace, come from Washington to Richmond instead of from Richmond to Washington, but in case where the honor, the treasures and the blood of our people are at stake, we would not stand upon trifles, and if there be really a prospect of acquiring our independence and an honorable peace by negotiations, then we bid our commissioners God speed. But has there been anything in the course of the Yankee government to press our people to indicate the least disposition to yield the sine qua non of an honorable settlement—Confederate independence? We hope not. Every utterance of public official or unofficial that has reached from beyond the Potomac forbids the hope of such a concession at this time. Indeed, so great a change has come over the sprit of the Yankee’s dream that they are ready to consent to the separation we have been fighting so long to maintain. It would, perhaps, be well worth while for our government to delay for a season until we can fully learn causes which could have produced so sudden so singular an effect. Meantime it behooves our people to be elated by no elusive hopes and our Soldiers to stand to their arms. Let the spirit of eternal resistance to reunion with the fiends who have wrought such desolation to southern homes everywhere be freshly awakened throughout the land. Let the atrocities and the falseness of our foe be ever kept in view, and let the sea of blood shed by the hosts of martyrs to our cause forever roll between us and the hated states of the north. Let the commissioners at Washington parley and wrangle over the terms of peace to their hearts’ content. Sherman and his insolent army are the commissioners with whom just now we have to deal.

Name of Place	Distance	Date of Arrival	Departure
Ottawa			February 27
Chicago	75	February 27, 1862	March 23
St. Louis, Mo	250	March 24	March 25
	180	March 26	March 27
Savannah, Tenn	250	March 28	April 7
Pittsburg Landing	7	April 7	April 26
Corinth	30	May 30	June 2
Grand Junction	47	June 15	June 25
LaGrange	4	June 25	July 5
Holly Springs, Miss	25	July 4	July 5
LaGrange, Tenn	25	July 7	July 17
Moscow	10	July 17	July 18
LaFayette	10	July 18	July 19
Germantown	15	July 19	July 20
Memphis	15	July 21	September 6
Bolivar	100	September 13	September 20
Near Grand Junction	18	September 20	September 21
Bolivar	18	September 21	October 4
Hatchie River	30	October 4	October 7
Bolivar	30	October 8	November 3
LaGrange, Tenn	23	November 4	November 6
Lamar, Miss	11	November 6	November 6
LaGrange, Tenn	11	November 7	November 8
Lamar, Miss	16	November8	November 9
LaGrange, Tenn	11	November 9	November 23
Somerville	14	November 23	November 23
LaGrange, Tenn	14	November 23	November 28
Holly Springs, Miss	25	November 29	November 30
Waterford	10	November 30	December 11
Oxford	20	December 22	December 24
Tallahatchie Fort	11	December 24	December 29
Holly Springs, Miss	18	January 5, 1863	January 10
Moscow, Tenn	25	January 5	March 9
LaFayette	10	March 9	March 9
Colliersville	6	March 9	March 10
Germantown	10	March 10	March 10
Bridgewater	5	March 10	March 10
Memphis	14	March 11	May 17
Young's Point, Miss	280	May 19	May 20
Haines Bluff	25	May 20	May 24
Vicksburg	20	May 25	July 5
Clinton	40	July 9	July 10
Jackson	10	July 10	July 21
Raymond	20	July 21	July 22
Vicksburg	35	July 23	August 18
Milldale	10	December 3
Milldale		1864	January 31
Big Black	6	January 31	February 3
Clinton	30	February 4	February 5
Jackson	10	February 6	February 7
Brandon	13	February 7	February 8
Morton	25	February 9	February 10
Hillsboro	13	February 10	February 10
Decatur	25	February 13	February 25
Meridian	34	February 15	February 16
Enterprise	18	February 16	February 19
Near Meridian	20	February 19	February 20
Decatur	26	February 21	February 22
Hillsboro	25	February 23	February 24
Canton	37	February 27	February 29
Livingston	12	February 29	February 29
Heyersville	20	March 1	March 2
Big Black	23	March 2	March 13
Vicksburg	10	March 13	March 14
Memphis	280	March 18	March 18
Cairo, Ill	250	March 20	March 21
LaSalle	315	March 23	March 23
Ottawa	16	March 23	April 29
Peoria	115	April 29	April 30
Havana	55	April 30	April 30
St.Louis, Mo	125	May 1	May 2
Cairo, Ill	180	May 3	May 10
Paducah, Ky	80	May 11	May 12
Clifton, Tenn	230	May 14	May 16
Waynesboro	16	May 16	May 17
Lawrenceburg	30	May 18	May 18
Pulaski	20	May 19	May 21
Elkwood	15	May 21	May 21
Huntsville, Ala	33	May 23	May 25
Decatur	28	May 26	May 27
Somerville	24	May 28	May 29
Warrentown	32	May 31	May 31
VanBuren	32	June 2	June 3
Cedar Bluffs	17	June 3	June 4
Missionary Station	14	June 4	June 5
Rome, Ga	18	June 5	June 6
Kingston	15	June 6	June 7
Carterville	10	June 7	June 7
Allatoona	7	June 7	July 13
Ackworth	6	July 13	July 14
Big Shanty	1	July 14	July 14
Marietta	5	July 14	July 17
Roswell	15	July 17	July 17
Decatur	18	July 19	July 20
Near Atlanta	5	July 20	August 25
Fairtown	25	August 28	August 30
Near Jonesboro	14	August 31	September 2
Near Lovejoy	8	September 2	September 5
Jonesboro	8	September 5	September 7
East Point	11	September 8	October 1
Fairtown	16	October 2	October 2
East Point	18	October 3	October 4
Near Marietta	22	October 5	October 7
Powder Springs	10	October 7	October 7
Near Lost Mountain	5	October 7	October 8
Powder Springs	10	October 8	October 8
Marietta	15	October 9	October 9
Big Shanty	5	October 9	October 11
Ackworth	2	October 11	October 11
Allatand	6	October 11	October 11
Carterville	7	October 12	October 12
Kingston	10	October 12	October 12
Near Rome	10	October 12	October 12
Dairsville	12	October 13	October 14
Resacca	23	October 14	October 15
Snake Creek Gap	12	October 15	October 16
LaFayette	20	October 18	October 18
Somerville	13	October 19	October 19
Alpine	10	October 19	October 20
Galesville, Ala	15	October 20	October 28
Missionary Station	16	October 28	October 29
Rome, Ga	14	October 29	October 31
Cedarville	20	November 1	November 2
Vanwert	14	November 2	November 3
Dallas	15	November 3	November 4
Near Lost Mountain	9	November 4	November 5
Marietta	15	November 6	November 13
Atlanta	22	November 14	November 15
McDonough	35	November 16	November 17
Osmulgee Mills	31	November 18	November 19
Monticello	11	November 19	November 19
Hillsboro	9	November 20	November 20
Gordon	28	November 21	November 22
Irvington	11	November 22	November 23
Tombsboro	6	November 23	November 23
Oconea River	7	November 23	November 25
Tombsboro	7	November 25	November 25
Ball's Ferry	8	November 26	November 26
Sabastapol	55	November 31	December 1
Burton	6	December 2	December 2
Millen	13	December 2	December 3
Scarboro	7	December 3	December 4
Oliver	11	December 5	December 7
Egypt	5	December 7	December 7
Brewer	6	December 7	December 7
Gayton	7	December 7	December 7
Marlow	6	December 8	December 8
Eden	7	December 8	December 9
Feoler	11	December 9	December 10
Near Savannah	6	December 10	December 11
Cross Keyes	10	December 12	December 16
Kings Bridge	5	December 15	December 24
Near Savannah	17	December 24
Near Savannah		January 1865	January 6
Hilton Head. S. C.	55	January 6	January 6
Beaufort	22	January 6	January 13
Pocotaligo	26	January 16	January 20
Combabee River	6	January 20	January 23
Pocotaligo	6	January 23	January 29
McPhersonville	8	January 29	January 30
River Bridge	23	February 2	February 6
Midway	19	February 7	February 9
Orangeburg	24	February 12	February 13
Louisville	17	February 14	February 14
Columbus	42	February 19	February 19
Disco	21	February 20	February 21
Ridgeway	6	February 21	February 21
Wimisboro	13	February 22	February 22
Paws Ferry	17	February 23	February 23
Liberty Hill	6	February 23	February 24
Sharon	74	March 3	March 5
Bennettsville	15	March 6	March 7
Florenece College	25	March 9	March 9
Fayetteville, N.C.	37	March 11	March 13
Blocksville	18	March 16	March 16
Owensville	10	March 16	March 17
Bentonville	48	March 20	March 23
Goldsboro	18	March 24	April 10
Raleigh	62	April 14	April 15
Page's Station	8	April 15	April 19
Near Raleigh	5	April 19	April 25
Forrestville	20	May 1	May 1
Clarksville Junction	91	May 3	May 3
Ridgway	4	May 3	May 3
Warrenton	5	May 3	May 3
Robertson's Ferry	13	May 4	May 4
Petersburg, Va.	70	May 7	May 8
Manchester	21	May 10	May 12
Richmond	4	May 12	May 12
Fredericksburg	70	May 16	May 16
Alexandria	62	May 24	May 24
Fort Henry	4	May 24	June 7
Relay House, Md.	30	June 7	June 7
Harper's Ferry, Va.	70	June 8	June 8
Piedmont	120	June 8	June 8
Grafton	86	June 9	June 9
Parkersburg	112	June 10	June 10
Gillipolis, Ohio	115	June 10	June 10
Cincinnati	190	June 11	June 11
Louisville, Ky	145	June 12	...........

H. E. Ranstead

Company D, 53rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry

Diary