Part 6

One day news reached St. Louis that General Price had won a victory, and the editor of _The Southern Christian Advocate_ threw out the State flag. A few moments afterward a friend came rushing into Dr. Elliott’s sanctum: “Doctor, they have thrown out the rebel flag down-stairs.” Dr. Elliott sprang from his editorial chair, and rushed to the front window. There, sure enough, was the flag of disunion, waving in the breeze. Dr. Elliott had prepared for just such an emergency. All the ropes and guys were ready. He ran to a closet, brought forth an immense Union flag, and threw it out. The next moment it was in its place, and was waving back and forth before the windows of the office below, and slapping the other flag furiously. Dr. Elliott laid out a brace of pistols on his editorial table, and took his seat to await developments. He did not have long to wait. The tramp of feet was heard on the stairs, and the editor of _The Southern Christian Advocate_ rushed in with some of his friends.

“Take down that flag!” he thundered.

“I shall not take down that flag; and if any man touches it I will shoot him on the spot as an enemy of my country,” was Dr. Elliott’s prompt reply, as he stood, pistol in hand, ready to execute his threat.

After some parley the invading force retired.

Shortly afterward a large Union force was thrown into St. Louis, martial law was declared, and all the rebel flags were hauled down. The beautiful flag which Dr. Elliott had displayed in front of his office continued to wave in triumph until the war was over.

THE FIRST SOLDIERS WOUNDED IN THE CIVIL WAR.

A COLORED MAN THE FIRST TO FALL.

Fort Sumter was fired on April 12, 1861. The next day the Pottsville Light Infantry, of Pottsville, Pa., tendered their services by telegram for the defence of the government.

Their services were accepted by Simon Cameron by telegraph; and they, with recruits gathered on the journey, were the first troops to reach the capital. There being some question as to the date of their reaching Washington, Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, being appealed to, published the following letter:--

PHILADELPHIA, July 4, 1866.

I hereby certify that the Pottsville Light Infantry was the first company of volunteers whose services were offered for the defence of the capital at the beginning of the War of the Rebellion. A telegram reached the War Department on April 13, 1861, making the tender. It was immediately accepted; and the company reached Washington on the 18th, with four additional companies from Pennsylvania, and these were the first troops to reach the seat of government.

(Signed) SIMON CAMERON.

On July 22, 1861, the United States Congress passed the following resolution:--

_Resolved_, That the thanks of the House are due and are hereby tendered to the five hundred and thirty soldiers from Pennsylvania who passed through the mob at Baltimore, and reached Washington on the 18th day of April last, for the defence of the national capital.

Although the day was cold and raw, the people of the loyal town of Pottsville gathered on the streets and cheered them on their way; and all along the line till they reached Baltimore, they were hailed with loyal enthusiasm.

They reached Baltimore April 18; and while passing through that city a furious mob assailed them, and they fought their way through.

Nicholas Biddle, the only colored man in the company, an old man sixty years old, was the first Union volunteer to shed his blood for the life of the nation in our recent Civil War.

It is a significant fact that the first man killed in the Revolutionary War was a colored man,--Crispus Attucks.

Nicholas Biddle was not killed, but was struck on the head with a stone dropped from a building, and fell senseless and covered with blood. His comrades, although fighting a furious mob, did not desert him, but gathered him up and put him on the cars.

Weary and wounded and bruised and battered by the mob at Baltimore, they got through alive, and were on the 18th of April quartered in the rotunda of the Capitol.

Nicholas Biddle, although sixty years old, enlisted and served throughout the war, and returned to Pottsville with those who survived the terrible struggle.

He lived till he was eighty years old; and his friends at Pottsville have erected a monument in his honor, which bears the following inscription--

“IN MEMORY OF NICHOLAS BIDDLE.

_Died 2d Aug., 1876, aged 80 years._

His was the proud distinction of shedding the First Blood in The Late War for The Union. Being wounded while marching through Baltimore with the First Volunteers from Schuylkill County, 18th April, 1861.

ERECTED BY HIS FRIENDS OF POTTSVILLE.”

The very next day, April 19, the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment fought its way through the same cruel, howling mob.

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE AT VICKSBURG.

The ship canal, and all other plans for getting below Vicksburg with enough boats to transport his troops across the Mississippi River, having failed, General Grant determined to run the blockade. Seven gunboats and three wooden steamers were put in condition to make the perilous trip.

The iron sides of the gunboats were drenched with coal-oil, and the floors were whitewashed, that the gunners might load their guns by the light of the whitewash.

The important working machinery of the wooden steamers was protected by bales of cotton and bales of hay. The smoke-stacks and pilot-houses were taken down; and the pilots must needs stand at their wheels, and the captains on the upper decks, with nothing to shield them from the sharpshooters on the wharves of Vicksburg.

All this preparation was done as secretly as possible.

But the service was a dangerous one, and no one was to be ordered into such unusual and dangerous service. A call was made along the line on dress parade for volunteers. Two thousand brave men stepped to the front, anxious for the perilous service. As only a few were needed, lots had to be drawn to obtain the few from the two thousand; and one young man, who was chosen by lot, was offered one hundred dollars for his place, but he refused it. I am glad to record that he got through safely.

About nine o’clock on the night of April 16, 1863, a dark night, I received a note from Mrs. General Grant, who was with her husband at Milliken’s Bend, informing me that the boats would run the blockade that night, and asking me to come over and go with them to witness it. I accepted the invitation, and accompanied the orderly who had brought the note. It was dark and raining; but very soon we were, in company with General Grant, on our way to the steamer that was to bear us to the point chosen by our fearless leader to witness the running of the blockade.

When we reached the steamer, we found all the leading generals there except General Sherman, who had gone below to receive the fleet. McPherson, Logan, Belknap, Rawlins, Dodge, and all the others whose names have been made immortal in connection with the siege of Vicksburg, were there. The boat at once steamed down to Young’s Point, from Milliken’s Bend; and about midnight all the lights were extinguished, the fires screened, and the boat dropped down without the splash of a wheel, near the first batteries of Vicksburg. With what intense interest we watched for the coming of the fleet, peering out into the darkness of that black night. At last we saw a gunboat, blacker than that starless night, creeping past us like some great monster of the deep. Then another and another, right down under the guns. They passed the first batteries without being noticed; then the storm broke upon them in all its fury.

Admiral Porter on his flag-ship, the _Benton_, led the way. The _Carondelet_, commanded by Captain Walke, and the _Tuscumbia_, followed.

The three wooden steamers were the _Forest Queen_, the _Henry Clay_, and the _Silver Wave_.

The first shot near us seemed to tear the sky to pieces above our heads. There was a flash of light all along the water-line of Vicksburg; great bonfires lighted up the river.

The captain of our boat in his excitement put on steam and started up the river. General Grant, who was with us on the guards, rushed to the hurricane deck, and compelled the captain to drop back to the old position.

Our long line of gunboats were now giving broadside after broadside, keeping well to the Vicksburg side, while the wooden steamers, with their heavily ladened scows or barges, ran through as rapidly as possible, keeping well to the Louisiana side.

The great artillery duel was now on, every gun on both sides of the line was belching forth shot or shell.

Our boat swayed with the concussion of sound. It was as though a thousand electric storms had burst upon us in all their fury. And yet each shot and shell had a voice of its own, and could be heard in thunder tones with awful distinctness. And running through the bass and treble of solid shot and screaming shells, the click of the musketry of the sharpshooters on the wharfs of Vicksburg could be heard, as, by the light of the bonfires blazing high, they aimed the deadly bullets at the captains and pilots who stood up unarmed in full view. My friend, Captain McMillen of Pittsburg, Pa., who owned the _Silver Wave_, and who commanded her on that expedition, stood on her deck in full view, amid the terrible rain of fire and lead.[1]

There were, history informs us, on the average, _one hundred and twenty heavy guns a minute_. The scene was grand and awful. The bonfires were kept blazing. The _Henry Clay_ burned to the water’s edge, the tongues of flame leaping above the track of shot and shell. Shells were flying in every direction; with their burning fuses they made their circles, dropping down out of the sky like stars of the first magnitude, now and then some bursting in mid-heaven with a million scintillations of light.

All the officers had gone to the upper deck; and Mrs. Grant and I stood together, out on the guards, looking out on the grand and awful scene before us, shivering with agony.

We were neither of us alarmed for our own safety, but were overwhelmed with anxiety for the safety of our brave soldiers, and the success of the expedition.

Mrs. Grant was very sympathetic and kindly hearted, and stood there looking out upon the grand and terrible scenes of war through her tears. She was a most devoted wife and mother, and, like her noble, generous-hearted husband, was most heartily interested for the safety and welfare of the brave men who were fighting the battles of her country.

“Our men are all dead men.” “No one can live in such a rain of fire and lead,” we said to each other. “All our fleet, and the heroic men who manned the boats, are surely swallowed in that fiery channel,” we moaned with the tears on our faces. Only once, it was while the _Henry Clay_ was burning, we saw for a moment or two the grand old Stars and Stripes.

“See! see! there is our flag,” was the glad exclamation; but the next moment it was hid from our sight by the smoke of the guns.

We stood there, amid the thunders of this greatest artillery duel that was ever fought in the world, for two long hours, unconscious of danger or weariness. Then General Grant came down from the upper deck with the glad news, for he had been watching for the signals or rockets that the boats, one by one, sent up as they got safely through, that all the boats were through but the _Henry Clay_. The roar of the cannon had begun to die away, when our captain, at the command of General Grant, turned the prow of his boat up the Mississippi River, and steamed back to Milliken’s Bend. We reached there at daylight, after the most exciting night I had ever known, or perhaps will ever know again, on the earth.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] He made the journey safely, and continued to command his boat while she was in the United States service, which was till the close of the war. He was one of the few loyal steamboat captains on the Mississippi River. He lived to enjoy a long season of peace, dying in 1893.

I HAVE THE COMFORTER.

In 1862, just after the terrible battle at Corinth, Miss., I visited the hospitals in that place. The havoc had been fearful on both sides, and the wounded of the two armies crowded every ward.

Going into a hospital known as the College Building one day, and passing from cot to cot, I came to a young man who looked very pale and weak. I asked,--

“Are you sick or wounded?”

He answered, “I am severely wounded;” and seeing the look of sympathy on my face, he went on to tell me all about it.

It was a long, sad story that I need not repeat here.

He had fallen in the front of the battle-line, had been taken prisoner, and had lain out all the night long among the dead; but he said cheerfully, “When ‘our boys’ found me, they took me up tenderly and brought me here, and now I am doing well.”

But I felt that he was not doing well, that he was on the verge of the grave, and that I must speak to him of the future. He went on to tell me of his home,--of a mother and sister and two little brothers in Benton County, Iowa, and added,--

“When I get well enough, I hope they will give me a furlough and let me go home.”

I said tenderly, “I hope you will get well; but how will it be if you should not? Are you ready to die?”

I never shall forget his answer; it has been ringing through my soul all these years. It was as though he was transfigured before me; there came into his face such light and joy, as, laying his hand on his heart, he said, “I have the Comforter!” What volumes in that sentence! I did not need to ask him to what denomination he belonged, or when or where he had found the pearl of great price. It was enough for me to know that he had the Blessed Comforter which Jesus promised to his disciples.

But he went on talking sweetly of Christ and heaven, and the power of Christ to keep. “Religion,” he said, “has kept me through all the temptations of camp-life, and now I am ready to _live_ or to _die_. If the Master sees that it is best that I should go now, it will be as near heaven from Corinth as it would be from Iowa.”

It was evening time, and I went my way. The next morning I was early at that hospital, and first of all went to look after him, but I found his place vacant.

I said to the ward-master, “Where is the young man who was lying here by this post?”

He answered, “He is dead.”

Oh, how his words went to my heart!

“Where have you laid him?” I asked.

He led the way out into the back yard, and there, side by side, stood the seven cot bedsteads that held the seven dead men that had been carried out the night before. He pointed out his cot, and left me alone with the dead. The bed-spreads were drawn up over their faces, and that was all that was between the dead faces and the sky.

I drew down the bedspread to look upon his face. I never can express the emotions of that moment. My heart was thrilled; for there upon the dead soldier’s face was the very same look of joy and peace that was on his face when he said, “I have the Comforter,” and I knew that the Comforter had been with him till the last. I wrote to his mother, telling her the sad story of his sufferings, and the sweet, sweet story of his Christian triumph.

After a while an answer came back to me. She did not know that he was wounded or dead until she received my letter.

His death was a heavy blow; but she rose in Christian triumph above her great sorrow, and in closing her letter said,--

“My son may not come back to me, but I shall go to him, and it is just as near heaven from Iowa as it was from Corinth; and _the same Comforter that comforted my son when wounded and dying among strangers comforts me now_.”

What a glorious Christianity we have! A religion that can keep under the sorest trials, that can comfort in the deepest agonies, and that can give joy and peace in the presence of death, and _leave its divine stamp upon the dead clay_.

BLOWING UP OF FORT HILL.

Along the lines of Vicksburg during the siege, there was no stronger point than Fort Hill. The land stood high, and the approach was almost perpendicular at some points. In the assignment of troops to positions, General John A. Logan’s division was placed in front of Fort Hill. General Logan was a man of energy, and a great fighter. With the consent of his superiors in command, he planned to mine Fort Hill. The work was begun at a distance in the rear, behind a bluff, so as to hide the operation from the Confederates. General Logan’s engineers, with scientific precision, directed the tunnel toward Fort Hill. There were weary days and nights of digging before they reached the foundation of the fort. But there came to the ears of the Confederates at last, even amid the thunder of the cannon and the screaming of shells, the sounds of the mining. Night after night they listened with their ears to the ground to the sound of the Union picks. The Confederates soon began to countermine, and it was not long before the toilers in the Union tunnel heard the thud of the Confederate picks nearly over their heads. They were too high to strike the Union tunnel, but it was evident that no time must be lost in blowing up the fort. Tons of powder were carried in, and one bright afternoon about two o’clock the slow fuse was lighted and the tunnel was cleared. The regular firing of the battle was going on. There was nothing in the movements of the army to indicate that anything unusual was about to occur.

As I was driving around the lines that day, I met General McPherson and his staff, riding at full speed. Halting, he said,--

“You are going in the wrong direction. Fort Hill will be blown up in a few minutes. Better drive to General Logan’s headquarters.”

“Oh, no,” I answered; “I’ll be near enough to see the terrible tragedy. It will be heart-breaking.”

They galloped on; but I lingered along the roadway in sight of Fort Hill.

Suddenly a terrific explosion shook the foundations of the earth, and the heavy timbers of the fort and tons of earth were lifted skyward. The next moment the dust and smoke hid everything from view. General Logan and his men pushed into the breach, hoping to effect an entrance before the Confederates had recovered from the shock; but a glittering wall of bayonets met them, and they were pushed back inch by inch. All that afternoon and evening hand-grenades were tossed back and forth as in a game of baseball; but an entrance could not be made.

A strange incident occurred at the blowing up of Fort Hill, which is perhaps without a parallel. There was at the time of the explosion a slave boy about eighteen years old working with others in the Confederate tunnel. This boy was lifted up with timbers and tons of earth, and thrown into the Union lines. He fell among the men of Williams’s Battery of Ohio. When the men ran to pick him up, he exclaimed with terror, “Is you Yanks goin’ to kill me?”

“Oh, no; we don’t kill colored folks,” was the prompt reply.

“Oh, golly, I went up free miles.”

“Could you see anything?” was asked.

“When I’se goin’ up,” he said, “’most eberything was comin’ down, and when I’se comin’ down ’most eberything was goin’ up.”

“Who commanded Fort Hill?” inquired one of the gunners.

“My massa,” replied the boy.

“Where is your massa now?”

“’Fore God, genl’men, I can’t tell you; he was goin’ up when I’se comin’ down.”

Pictures of the boy were preserved by Williams’s Battery, taken soon after the explosion, showing the boy in the patched tow garments he wore in his wild flight for liberty. General Logan kept him at his headquarters for some time.

I saw him there many times. After the war he went to Washington with them I think, and remained some years.

GETTING 2,000 SICK AND WOUNDED OUT OF HELENA, ARK.

On the 10th of August, 1863, accompanied by my secretary, Miss Mary Shelton, now Mrs. Judge Houston of Burlington, Iowa, I started on my return trip to Vicksburg, with a heavy shipment of hospital supplies.

The _Van Phul_, the steamer on which we took passage at St. Louis, reached Helena, Ark., on the 16th of August.

When the boat landed at that post, we found, on inquiry, that there were over two thousand sick and wounded there, and so stopped over with a part of our supplies, the rest going on to Vicksburg, where I had a covered barge that had done duty on the Yazoo River during the siege, but which was then lying at the wharf of Vicksburg.

We found the hospitals at Helena, if they may be called hospitals, in a dreadful condition. The Methodist and Baptist churches were crowded with very sick and severely wounded men.

There were very few cots in these two churches; most of the men were lying in the narrow pews, with the scant, uneven cushions for their beds. The weather was extremely hot, and flies swarmed over everybody and everything. The faces of some of the men, who were too helpless to keep up a continual fight with them, were black with swarms of hungry, buzzing flies. A few pieces of mosquito-bars were spread over the faces of some of the weakest patients; but, lying loose over their faces, they were of little advantage. Barrels in which had been shipped pickled pork now served as water-tanks, and were placed near the pulpit. They were filled every morning with the tepid water of the Mississippi River.

There was a barge of ice lying at the landing, brought down on purpose for the sick; but I could find no one who had authority to issue it, and so it was slowly melting away under the blaze of an August sun.

The men in charge were, however, willing to sell, and I had money to buy; and soon great crystal cakes of Northern ice were floating in every barrel of water in every hospital in Helena.

Acres of tents had been pitched by the roadside; and the mud, that in the winter had made the streets and roadways almost impassable, had now turned to dust, and every breeze sent it in clouds into the faces of the sick and wounded men.