WAR REMINISCENCES 6



 

 

Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, February 21, 1903.

WAR REMINISCENCES.

By Captain Saxton of the 157th Regiment, N. Y., Vols.

THE ORGANIZING Of THE ARMY.

First Enlistments from Cortland County—Seventy-Sixth Regiment Raised—Cincinnatus Academy Raises a Flag-The Writer Trying to Get Through School—McClellan Slow to Move -Wooden Guns of the Rebels-Peninsula Campaign Begun.

Chapter VI.

To the Editor of the Standard:

   Sir—On the 25th of July General McClellan was summoned from West Virginia, where he had conducted a successful campaign, to Washington to take command of the army of the Potomac. He came by the way of Philadelphia where he received a most enthusiastic reception. When he arrived in Washington, instead of crossing the river and taking command in the field, he secured a house and established his headquarters in the city, and soon surrounded himself with a staff and numerous bodyguard.

. The three months' men were sent home and their places taken by troops which had enlisted for the war. Most of the three months' men returned into the service in other organizations.

   General Scott, who never lost a battle where he commanded in person, on account of his age and disability resigned his command of all the Union forces Oct. 31, and the next day General McClellan was appointed in his place.

   The defeat of the army of Bull Run had stimulated enlistment and that fall and winter volunteers just rushed into the army.

Cortland County Enlistments.

   Quite a good many of our past and present students enlisted. I can’t recall all of them, but as I remember, John Ford, my former chum, afterwards killed at Aldie, Va., Harlan Thompson, Henry Hays, Albert Hays, Reuben Ford, Albert Clark, Johnny Cowles, Clark Rockwell, Charles Huntley, Emmett Butler and others went in the Tenth New York cavalry.

   Frank Place, then attending Hamilton college at Clinton, a former student of the academy, also went with them. He came home in July '62, raised our company and went out as its first captain, was afterwards promoted successively to major, lieutenant colonel and brevetted colonel of the regiment. The Tenth cavalry was not mounted for nearly a year and the winter of 1861-2 it was stationed at Gettysburg, (Pa).

   The Pennsylvania college is located there and Place became acquainted with the president and professors and quite a number of citizens, and when we marched down through the streets on that eventful day, the 1st of July, 1863, into the battle of Gettysburg, Captain Place would stop and shake hands with the citizens he knew.

The Seventy-Sixth Raised.

   The Seventy-sixth New York Infantry was raised in Cortland and Otsego counties, and rendezvoused at Cortland, our county seat. A number of our boys and citizens went in that regiment. Dr. Barnes went as assistant surgeon. Then there was Eli Peck, Theron Blackman, Adin Seeber, Moses Whitney, Mr. Cahill and a number of others. Dr. Stuart went as assistant surgeon in the Twenty-seventh New York along with Miletus Hotchkiss, Charley Winters, Jo Dunning and others. Charles Sturtevant went in the Twenty-third New York. Hial Ford went in a Pennsylvania regiment. Mr. Hatch went in another regiment. I can’t remember all who went at this time, but there were a good many.

Flag for Cincinnatus Academy.

   Our school was very patriotic and we decided we must have a flag for the academy building. So the girls and boys met together and made a large one. We could not buy flags in those days as we can now. We boys procured a flag staff and erected it on the cupola of the academy, and one day we got a half holiday, raised our flag and saluted it by firing off an anvil, had speeches and singing, and a patriotic time generally. This stirred up the copperheadism of some of the citizens, and threats were made to tear the flag down. Edgar Harkness and myself stayed inside the building that night and watched the flag, but no attempt was made and it floated there till it was worn out.

Trying to Get Through School.

   That winter I did not teach school. I was very anxious to finish my course and graduate, this being my last year. My father had suffered financially through the dishonesty of one whom he had trusted, and he came to me one day and told me he did not have the money to pay my expenses.

   You may imagine I felt very badly. I did so want to go on through. In looking back over it now it seems as though providence stepped in to help me, for I soon received a letter from my former chum, John Ford of the Tenth cavalry, inquiring if I knew where he could loan a little money that he had accumulated by teaching school and earned in the army. I told my father if he would borrow this money, give his note for it, I would pay it back from the first money I earned. He did so, and I went on and finished my course, graduated July 2, 1862, and paid off the note with the first money I received from Uncle Sam.

Organizing the Army.

   There was not much done that fall and winter in the army of the Potomac but organize. "Little Mack'' was a great organizer, but for sheer want of room our troops were pushed forward to Fairfax courthouse. He had in and around Washington, Baltimore, Fortress Monroe and nearby, nearly 200,000 men.

   President Lincoln was very anxious for McClellan to make an advance movement, and attack the enemy around Manassas, but McClellan had developed a wonderful capacity of overestimating the force of the enemy opposed to him. In one of his reports he said there were in his immediate front, 115,000 men and 300 cannon, and he wanted more troops, but it is a fact there were not over 50,000 or 60,000 men. The president urged him to advance for the moral effect on the army, but he held back, he wasn't ready. He wanted this and he wanted that. Everything that the government could furnish him was supplied; but he didn't move. Finally, as commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States, President Lincoln ordered all the armies east and west to begin an advance movement on the 22d of February, Washington’s  birthday.

   McClellan didn't move. The president urged him to divide his large army into army corps, and place over them generals of his own choosing. McClellan objected to this, but the president insisted and himself divided the army of the Potomac into four corps. On the 11th of March, the president relieved McClellan from the command of all the armies except the army of the Potomac.

Activity of the Rebels.

   General Beauregard had left the Confederate army around Manassas, and gone west to look after affairs there, and General Joseph E. Johnston had succeeded him. Johnston immediately began quietly to move his army back behind the Rapidan river.

   McClellan did not learn of this till the day after his last regiment had gone. Then he did advance on Manassas March 10, and found the forts manned with wooden guns, and the army gone. McClellan thought it was not the proper thing to do to strike the rebel army in front, but to advance on Richmond by way of the James river. The president preferred that he make a direct attack on the rebel army, but finally consented to McClelland’s plan, providing enough troops should be left behind to protect Washington.

   The battle between the Merrimac and the Monitor in Hampton Roads, March 9, disarranged McClellan's plans somewhat, and he decided to land his forces at Fortress Monroe, and march up the peninsula between the York and James rivers. He himself left on April 1, and on the 5th of April the assistant secretary of war reported that be had transferred by boat to Fortress Monroe, 121,500 men, 14,592 animals, 1,150 wagons, forty-four batteries, seventy-four ambulances, telegraph material and an immense amount of equipage.

   Then McClellan marched up the peninsula to Yorktown, where Lord Cornwallis surrendered his British army to General Washington eighty years before.

W. S.