Part 1
[Illustration: _Cordially Yours
Annie Wittenmyer_]
UNDER THE GUNS
A WOMAN’S REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR
BY MRS. ANNIE WITTENMYER
AUTHOR OF “WOMAN’S WORK FOR JESUS,” “A JEWELLED MINISTRY,” “HISTORY OF THE TEMPERANCE CRUSADE,” “THE WOMEN OF THE REFORMATION,” AN HISTORICAL WORK, ETC.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. GENERAL U. S. GRANT
BOSTON, MASS. E. B. STILLINGS & CO., PUBLISHERS 55 SUDBURY STREET 1895
COPYRIGHT, BY ANNIE WITTENMYER, 1895.
TO THE
ARMY NURSES OF OUR RECENT CIVIL WAR,
WHO WALKED AS ANGELS OF MERCY ON MANY BATTLE-FIELDS, AND MINISTERED TO THE SICK, WOUNDED, AND DYING, IN LOATHSOME, OVER-CROWDED HOSPITALS;
AND TO THE
NOBLE WOMEN OF IOWA
WHO SO GENEROUSLY SUSTAINED ME IN MY ARMY WORK;
AND TO THE
PATRIOTIC WOMEN OF AMERICA
WHO SENT THEIR HUSBANDS, BROTHERS, AND SONS TO THE DEFENCE OF THEIR COUNTRY WITH A DEVOTION AND COURAGE EQUAL TO THAT OF ANY GRECIAN MOTHER OR ROMAN MATRON, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
In preparing this little volume for publication, no attempt whatever has been made to record, as facts of history, the military movements of the army during our recent Civil War. The great captains, who led the Union forces through the terrible conflict from Fort Sumter to Appomattox, have already covered, to a large extent, the military history of the war.
My purpose has been simply to bring out in connection with these great military events, with which they were so intimately connected, a few of the many incidents and heart histories that were crowded into my own life, from April 20, 1861, to Nov. 23, 1865.
_The stories and reminiscences in this book are true to life, every one of them._ They are told just as they occurred, without any attempt at literary embellishment; and most of them can be substantiated by living witnesses.
Camps and hospitals were established near my own home in Keokuk, Iowa, early in April, 1861. I began at once my ministrations to the sick in these newly established hospitals, and, during my daily visits, closed the eyes of the first Iowa soldier who died in the war. From that time on till the close of the war I was actively engaged all along the lines.
I was loyally and generously sustained by the women of Iowa; was elected by the Iowa Legislature sanitary agent of the State; was commissioned by Iowa’s grand old war governor, Samuel J. Kirkwood; was furnished by Secretary Stanton with a pass to all parts of the field, and government transportation for myself and supplies. This official order of Mr. Stanton’s was supplemented by the following charge:--
“It is especially enjoined upon all officers to furnish this lady every facility in carrying out her generous purposes, it being shown that she is worthy of great respect.”
I had also the co-operation of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, and the chief medical officers and government officials, so that I had unusual facilities for doing good.
I was greatly indebted to General and Mrs. Grant for sympathy and aid. When Mrs. Grant was at her husband’s headquarters the place was a haven of rest for me, and a welcome always awaited me. Indeed, Mrs. Grant would have joined me in the work, but her husband was afraid her strength and sympathies would be overtaxed. During these brief visits I learned to appreciate the unselfishness and noble qualities of General Grant, and the strength and purity of his character; and the loveliness and sterling worth of Mrs. Grant, and her wifely devotion.
I was also under great obligations to General John A. Logan, who was ever ready to aid me. When it was almost impossible to get from Bridgeport to Chattanooga, he sent me up in a little steamer which he loaded with my supplies. Later, I met Mr. Orson, the president of the United Telegraph Association; and General Logan introduced me with such kindly appreciative words, that without a hint from either of us, he filled out an order allowing me “to telegraph free to the end of the war.” I still have that little order in my possession.
It is due our brave soldiers that I should say that I felt as safe in their midst as I would have done in my own home, even though at times I was the only woman in the midst of an army of twenty thousand fighting men, as was the case at Milliken’s Bend, after the repulse of General Sherman at Haines’ Bluff.
Not one impertinent or rude word was ever spoken to me in all those years. No purer or grander army ever marched to the music of fife and drum than the army that stood for the defence of our flag and the unity of our government from 1861 to 1865.
A woman could walk in their midst in white, and a little child would have been as safe as in its mother’s arms.
As I was all along the lines from Vicksburg to Petersburg, and was on some of the bloodiest battle-fields, and as I followed Sherman’s army along the fiery lines from Chattanooga to Atlanta, I necessarily had to pass through many perils, and witness many exciting scenes. A few of these stories I have now thought best to publish.
For more than twenty years my friends have urged their publication; but I shrank from the task, because of their personal character.
In giving these simple, true stories to the public, I shall hope that the same earnest, charitable spirit will be exercised by my readers as I manifested toward the sick and wounded during my army work.
ANNIE WITTENMYER.
SANATOGA, PA., _Dec. 3, 1894_.
INTRODUCTION.
The author of this most interesting and historic volume, Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer, I very often met whilst on my frequent visits to the headquarters of my husband, General Ulysses S. Grant.
She there on her mission of mercy as she came to the front with supplies for the sick and wounded; I there simply to give the general a glimpse of his dear ones (some of the children being always with me). And I would gladly have joined Mrs. Wittenmyer in all her works of devotion; but the general forbade it, saying, when I returned from the hospitals ladened with petitions and heart-breaking stories, “Julia, cease, cease; I cannot listen; I hear this all day, every day, and I must have some rest from all this sorrow and misery. If you insist on going again to the hospitals, I will have to send you home.”
Mrs. Wittenmyer was ever deeply interested in her efforts to relieve suffering; ever appealing for the discharge of the brave men who were made helpless by their wounds; ever braving dangers and enduring hardships in the performance of her self-assumed, patriotic heart duties.
I used to look upon this brave, heroic woman with profound respect and admiration, which, if it were possible, has grown the greater in the thirty years that have passed since then.
JULIA DENT GRANT.
2108 R STREET, WASHINGTON, D.C., _Nov. 27, 1894_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A Boy sent by Express, C. O. D. 5
A But’ful Guv’ment Mule 226
A Fighting Editor 86
A Painful Accident 128
A Perilous Ride 11
A Rich Reward for Services--Saving the Life of a Brother 72
A Terrible Storm at Chattanooga 51
A Visit from General Grant and General McPherson 174
A Visit to Parson Brownlow 68
A Visit to Captain Walke’s Gunboat 190
A Woman wounded in Battle 17
A Young Nurse at Gettysburg 224
Army Life at Helena, Arkansas 48
Army Tricks 41
Blowing up of Fort Hill 102
Braving Dangers 21
Bursting of a Shell behind my Carriage 131
Could you get me a Raw Onion and some Salt? 230
Exhibitions of Mother-love 142
Fred D. Grant--The Brave Orderly at Vicksburg 204
General Grant’s Kindness 43
Getting Two Thousand Sick and Wounded out of Helena 106
Hardships of Camp-life at Vicksburg 125
Healed Soul and Body 152
He died cheering the Flag 237
Hospital Abuses--Putting Logwood in the Coffee 193
How I got the Cotton 244
How Mother Bickerdyke cut Red Tape 82
How Pres. Lincoln received the News of Sheridan’s Victory 239
I have the Best Mother in the World 160
I have the Comforter 98
Johnnie Clem 36
Liberty Hicks 181
Meeting a Rebel Woman at Nashville 134
Memorial Day 272
Men who commanded Themselves and did not swear 232
My First Interview with General Grant 1
Not Time to send for the Colonel 66
Reminiscences of General Grant 202
Running the Blockade at Vicksburg 92
Saved by a Bird 78
Saved by Lemonade 62
Saving the Life of Young Pike 170
Searching for the Dead 164
Secretary Stanton’s Generous Gift 251
Sharing Poor Quarters with Dorothy L. Dix 120
The American Republic--its Glories and its Dangers 268
The Clock at Vicksburg 115
The First Soldiers wounded in the Civil War 89
The Hospitals of Vicksburg at the Time of the Surrender 186
The Hospital at Point of Rocks, Va. 209
The New York Herald Reporter who lived for Two Worlds 156
The Sad Fate of Jennie Wade 206
The Sequel to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” 247
The Special-diet Kitchen Work 259
The Surrender of Vicksburg 147
The Sweet Singer of the Hospitals 217
The Wonderful Potato-patch 58
Trading Tobacco for Coffee 183
Two Dreadful Days on the Battlefield. Shiloh 28
Very Timely Arrest 166
Visiting Hospitals under the Guns 138
We honor Our Grand Old Heroes 4
A WOMAN’S REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR
UNDER THE GUNS.
MY FIRST INTERVIEW WITH GENERAL GRANT.
A large army had been thrown in and about Cairo, Ill., and General S. R. Curtis of Iowa gave me a letter and a pass to go down and visit the hospitals there. General Grant was in command, with headquarters at Cairo. Fortunately for me, I had friends at that point. The great hospitals were at Mound City, six miles above. I missed the boat that plied between the two places at irregular hours, and my friends proposed that we call upon General Grant. We found the modest, quiet, uncrowned hero busy at his desk, with his staff and orderlies about him. I was painfully conscious that I had no business of sufficient importance to warrant such an intrusion upon the man who stood between us and the army threatening that city that hour. I had not thought of that before coming. But I felt very grateful to my friend, who came at once to my aid, by explaining that I had come down from St. Louis to visit the hospitals, and was the bearer of a letter and pass from General Curtis, and that I also had a pass from General Frémont, and had merely called to pay my respects.
We fell at once into pleasant conversation, and I found that the General was personally acquainted with friends and relatives of my own.
“I will send you up to Mound City,” he said.
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself. I can go up to-morrow,” I urged.
But he was writing an order, and soon despatched an orderly with it to Captain somebody. Immediately my pride took alarm. What if he should send me to Mound City on one of those screaming, whistling little tug-boats?
“Have you met my medical director?” he asked.
“No, I have not met him,” I was forced to answer.
“I will send him up with you,” and an orderly was despatched to command his presence. Directly the boat was reported as ready; and the General himself accompanied me to the boat--the _City of Memphis_--the largest and finest steamer on the Mississippi River.
The General simply said, “Take this lady to Mound City, and remain till she is ready to return. Wait for the Medical Director, and till I leave the boat.” So I was for a little space of time the commander of the biggest steamer on the Mississippi River. As I walked the length of that great boat, so rich and gaudy in tinsel and curtains and furniture, the patriotic blood coursed hotly through my veins. Why this extravagance? Why this pomp and display? And when the medical director, who was supposed to be in charge of all of the sick and dying in that great army, came in full military dress, with gloves and sash and sword and spurs, my heart sank down to zero. But I was not long in reaching the truth, and changing my mind. A dozen boats or more had just been impressed into the United States service, and lay there at the wharf with steam up. They had not yet been dismantled; and it was the kindly, proper thing to do to send me to Mound City, and it was military etiquette for the medical director to dress as he did. I was afterwards on the same boat many times; once after Sherman’s defeat at Yazoo, when there were seven hundred and fifty wounded and sick soldiers on board. General Grant was just gathering these boats, and these forces, that he might move on Fort Donelson.
WE HONOR OUR GRAND OLD HEROES.
BY ANNIE WITTENMYER.
We honor our grand old heroes Who stood in the thick of the fight, Where deadly missiles were flying, And valiantly fought for the right.
They stood with God in the conflict, They fought on God’s side in the fray; The Lord and his angels helped them, And Freedom and Right won the day.
Sacred to Freedom forever Is the soil where they fought and bled; No bondsman shall wear a shackle, No tyrant shall lift up his head.
Above the flags of all nations Our beautiful banner floats high; Its stars like the stars of heaven, And its blue as blue as the sky.
Long may it wave in its beauty, The symbol of Freedom and Right; Not a star be lost from its azure, Not a blot stain its spotless white!
A BOY SENT BY EXPRESS, C. O. D.
In the winter of 1862, just before General Grant moved upon Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, I went out to Sedalia, Mo., with a heavy lot of supplies.
Sedalia is 188 miles south-west of St. Louis, and was an important military station at that time.
The people in that section were very disloyal and belligerent.
The train on which I journeyed was fired into three times the day I made the journey, by “bushwhackers,” men who carried on an irregular warfare.
The train was well guarded. There were at least fifty well-armed Union soldiers on board to guard it, who took turns on the platform, ready to spring off, gun in hand, if the train were attacked. But when a volley was fired into the train, before the engineer could stop it, and the soldiers could get started in pursuit, the enemy had mounted their horses, and were far away. When the second volley crashed into the train, a bullet passed through the window beside me, and whizzed very near to my eyes. If it had come a little closer, it would have gone through both of them. Fortunately I had just leaned back against the seat; for if I had been sitting in an upright position, as I was a few moments before, the ball would have gone through my head.
A mother and her little girl, who was five or six years old, sat in the seat in front of me. The poor little child was so terrified that she tried to hide under the seat. Her appeals, as she lifted her beautiful tear-stained face, were very touching.
“Do you think they’ll fire again, mamma?”
“I hope not, my darling,” and the mother would tenderly cover her with the skirts of her dress, and try to soothe her.
“O mamma! do get down on the floor; if you don’t, you might get killed.”
It was pitiful to see a child in such terror, crouching on the floor.
We did not reach Sedalia till midnight, and it was not till the train drew up at the station that the child could be comforted.
The next morning early I went into the nearest hospital. The building was an old, dilapidated frame structure, that had been used as a store. Scores of wounded and sick men were crowded into these poor narrow quarters.
But it is not my purpose just now to speak of them, or of the hospital management, but of a child I found there.
He was lying on a cot in a little back room. They called him “Willie.” He said he was “goin’ on eight;” but if he was that old, he was very small of his age. His face was wondrous fair and beautiful, and his hair hung in golden ringlets about his head. He had been very ill, and was still too weak to leave his bed. But he was bright and happy, and a great favorite with the men, who, lying on their beds, whittled toys for Willie with their pocket-knives out of anything they could utilize for that purpose, such as sticks and bones.
I took a great deal of pains to ascertain the facts about the boy. He was a fatherless, motherless child, who had followed the soldiers when they marched away from the town where he was temporarily staying. No one cared, and no one followed to bring him back, and so he went on with them.
The simple story, as he told it, seemed to be sustained by the facts I afterwards gathered.
“I wanted to go to the war,” he said; “I had no mother, and I did not want to stay at that place. I did not like the people, so when the soldiers went to the war I went too. Some of the men said, that first day, ‘Little boy, you had better run back home;’ but I told them I had no home, that my mother was dead, and that I was not going back; that I was going to the war, so they put me in a wagon to ride. At night I had no place to sleep; but a man who said he had a little boy at home, about as big as me, said I could sleep with him, and he hugged me up under his blanket.
“Then after that I had a place in a wagon, the colonel said I might. Sometimes I rode on the horses behind the big officers. But they wouldn’t let me go to fight; they made me stay back in the wagon. I didn’t like that; I wanted to go to the fights.”
A few days after I found Willie I was in the hospital, when a gentleman came in seeking some one. He was from Ohio. He happened to see Willie, and was wonderfully attracted to the child, and Willie seemed to take a great fancy to the gentleman. He came daily to see Willie during his stay in Sedalia. “This child,” he said to me one day, with tears in his eyes, “looks so much like my own boy, my only child, who died a few months ago, that I want to adopt him if my wife will consent. But her heart is so nearly broken by grief, that she may shrink from the plan.”
I told him that I, too, had taken a great fancy to the boy, and had determined that he should have a good home, and that through my friend, General Curtis, who commanded at St. Louis, I should hold the boy till the best of references were furnished. To this he made no objections; and as soon as he reached St. Louis he sent the very best indorsements, furnishing the most ample evidence that he was in every way worthy of such a charge, as he was a wealthy Christian gentleman. Dr. Irwin, Acting Medical Director, readily concurred; and it was agreed that if, when the boy was able to travel, they wanted him, he should be sent.
Soon after he reached home, a telegram came: “All right--send Willie by express, C. O. D.” (collect on delivery). When the contents of the telegram became known, there was great excitement among the patients. How could they part with Willie? And yet as he was to have a good home they rejoiced with Willie, who was delighted with the news that he was to go.
As soon as he was able to travel, we prepared him for the journey. His name and address, and name and address of the gentleman to whom we were sending him, were written with ink on white muslin, and sewed to his coat and jacket, and on the shawl we wrapped about him, and on the blanket we bundled him up in.
A stalwart expressman came for him, and, after giving a regular receipt for him, took him up in his arms to carry him away. Dr. Irwin and the surgeons of the hospital, and even the nurses and cooks, all came to bid Willie good-by. His farewells were very touching.
When he was carried from his little room out into the main ward, a few golden curls lay out on the folds of the coarse gray blanket, and his laughing eyes turned kindly from one to another, as they called to him: “Good-by, Willie!” “Be a good boy, Willie.” “Don’t forget me, Willie.”
As we were about to pass through the last door-way, Willie, who had said “good-by” to each one as they greeted him, called out at the top of his voice, “_Good-by, everybody_.” There was a chorus of good-bys in response; but an Irishman by the door was heard above them all, as he said:--
“Good luck to ye now! and may ye live a hundred years, and get into heaven afore the Divil has a chance at ye.”
We accompanied him to the train, the surgeons and myself, and saw him safely aboard with his luncheon; and we stood there together in silence as the train pulled out, for a vacancy was felt in every heart.
A telegram was received a few days later, telling us that Willie had arrived safely.
A great deal was crowded into the next few months. Battle after battle followed. Fort Henry and Fort Donelson had fallen, Nashville had surrendered, the bloody struggle at Pittsburg Landing had taken place, and the Union forces had taken possession of Corinth, Miss.; but Willie was not forgotten.
The gentleman adopted him as his own child, and his wife was greatly comforted by the presence and love of little Willie.
A PERILOUS RIDE.
In digging the ship canal across the point opposite Vicksburg, hundreds of men were killed or wounded in the great trench. By long practice the gunners on the bluffs of Vicksburg acquired the ability to drop a shell into the great ditch, causing terrible slaughter. The heavy guns of the Union forces answered the enemy’s batteries, but failed to silence them. “Whistling Dick,” as we all soon learned to call one great cannon used by the enemy, kept the music going night and day. The loud, clear, musical whistle which accompanied every discharge won for that gun the attention of all. “Whistling Dick” was a gun of long range, and was effective in execution, especially along the canal. But one day, after a loud, sharp whistle, there was an explosion, and “Whistling Dick” was heard no more. The work of death went on, however; for there were other effective guns, and the most determined resistance to the project of the Union troops was shown.