History of the Twelfth West Virginia Volunteer Infantry / The Part It Took in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865

by active 19th century William Hewitt

(194) During the latter part of September going back a little, the Eighty-Seventh Pennsylvania, the One Hundred and Twenty-Second and the One Hundred and Twenty-Third Ohio regiments, at this point, were ordered to join the Army of the Potomac. The Eighty-Seventh had been in the same command with the Twelfth for about a year. There had always been a friendly feeling between the two regiments, so the night before the former left for the Army of the Potomac, some of the boys from it came over to bid our boys good-bye—and it was good-bye forever for some in either command.

(195) The election for governor of Ohio was soon to take place, and the Eighty-Seventh boys having learned that a considerable number of the above named Ohio troops, say a tenth, were going to vote for Valandigham for governor, were not at all pleased that they should do so. One of the Eighty-Seventh apparently having been indulging in a little strong drink, was especially vehement against those Ohio boys so disposed to vote. He threatened what the boys of his regiment would do in case they were to remain here, and those Ohio boys should so vote, not knowing that the Ohio troops alluded to were, as well as his own regiment ordered to the Army of the Potomac. He urged our boys to use violent means against any of the Ohio boys at this point, who should vote for Valandigham for governor. This hostility toward those disposed to vote for him, was because of his political cause with respect to the war and its prosecution.

(196) Our boys by this time had become substantially a unit in sentiment so far as the political war policy of the administration was concerned. All wrangling concerning it had ceased. And right here may be given a strikingly significant and truthful observation, made perhaps not far from this time, by Lieut. Blaney, of Company D, showing the rapid evolution of ideas, the swift progress and revolution of the sentiment of the time and more especially the potent virtue of the knock down argument, to which class of dispution, war preeminently belongs. Because of the justice, truth and significance of this remark, it should not be omitted from this record, imperfect though it must necessarily be.

(197) In conversation Lieut. Blaney observed: "I have noticed that our boys have never objected to the Emancipation proclamation since being in a battle." This remark was true, it is believed, without an exception.

(198) If the war had never come these soldiers many of them, would doubtless never have been convinced of the justifiableness of emancipation in that contingency. But being brought into battle, and thus required to do as best they might, what they could do to settle the issues involved by the knock down argument in its last and dire extremity—the employment of the bludgeon of war; and seeing their comrades falling around them, light quickly struck in on their minds with a telling force. The conversion was as sudden it seems, as that of Paul spoken of in the scriptures. They suddenly saw, in this death struggle, that anything that the enemy was opposed to; that whatever would tend to weaken or cripple him; that any means justified by civilized warfare to conquer the enemy they should favor and employ; and hence the prejudice, the tradition and the education of years were swept away as if by a flash of lightning, when the ordeal of battle came. There was no longer on the part of the boys any considerate regard for the interests of the enemy, nor any further objection to the emancipation of the negroes.

(199) Another incident of the war illustrating how fast men learned during the war, may as well as not be given here, although it occurred at a later period. Adjt. G. B. Caldwell, in a conversation one day regarding the employment of negroes as soldiers said: "When I went into the service at first I thought that it would be a humiliation and disgrace to me if I had to serve in an army where negro soldiers were employed;" but now, said he, "I have come to the conclusion that they have as good right to be killed as I."

(200) It is very probable that Adjt. Caldwell might have spent all his days, if the times had been peaceful, without ever having changed his views in regard to the matter of making soldiers of negroes, although he is a man of quick perception. But just as it is said of men in a drowning condition that all the events of their past lives come quickly before them; so in time of war and the peril of battle, men's minds are quickened, common-sense asserts itself and men perceive quickly the wisdom or unwisdom of that which in the piping times of peace, they would not see at all.

(201) On September 28th, we were paid two months' pay, this being $13 per month for the privates, or $26 for the two months. This was always a welcome event with the soldiers. They had money now to spend with the sutler; but their money did not go far in buying from him. Canned peaches were, if not just at this time, later in the war $1.25 and tomatoes $1.00 per can.

(202) While we were here at Martinsburg, the boys or many of them, who were taken as prisoners at Winchester, a few months before, were returned to the regiment, being ordered by the government to take up arms again, although they had been let out of prison only on parole, and not exchanged. This action was taken by the authorities at Washington in retaliation for the conduct of the Rebel authorities in putting the prisoners taken and paroled by Gen. Grant at Vicksburg, back into the field again, without their having been exchanged.

(203) While the boys of the Twelfth, who were captured at Winchester, were held as prisoners they were kept at Richmond, Va., and although they were not held long until they were paroled, their experience of prison life was not such as to invite another trial of it. In the language of the west they had "got all they wanted of it." Before any of our boys had ever been prisoners, some of them used sometimes to threaten, when it was difficult to get furloughs, that they would, when a chance offered allow themselves to be taken prisoners, expecting in that case to be soon paroled and then sent home from the camp, as paroled prisoners on furlough. But after the prisoners returned to the regiment, having had a taste of prison life among the Rebels, and related its hardships to their comrades there was no longer any talk among the boys of allowing themselves to be captured in order that they might in that way get a furlough.