Ninth Cavalry: One Hundred and Twenty-first Regiment Indiana Volunteers

by Daniel Webster Comstock

SULPHUR BRANCH TRESTLE.
BY CORPORAL J. A. BROWN, CO. L.

On Sunday, the 25th day of September, 1864, the mounted portion of the 9th Indiana Cavalry, about two hundred in number, were called to do battle at Sulphur Branch Trestle, Alabama. Firing began on the skirmish lines at 5 o'clock in the morning, and was kept up at a lively rate until about 8 o'clock, when the battle began in earnest. There were with us about one hundred of the Third Tennessee Cavalry, and there were also about three hundred colored troops that were stationed in the fort. We were ordered to dismount and corral our horses and climb the hill and enter the fort, except myself and ten men, who were ordered to guard the horses, until the battle became so hot that it was considered unsafe to remain outside of the fort. We remained with the horses until a cannon-ball or slug or something of the kind—anyhow, it was something from a rebel gun—landed in about fifteen feet of us. It tore a hole in the ground large enough to bury a small-sized cow, and threw dirt all over us. We then thought it was time to desert the horses and let them take care of themselves, and climb the hill and get into the fort as soon as we could conveniently without hurting ourselves, and up the hill we went, and when we arrived at the entrance to the fort we asked where the 9th Indiana Cavalry was stationed. We were told that they were on the opposite side of the fort. So we had to go through the center of the fort to get to where our boys were stationed. That was the most dangerous trip I ever experienced in my life. There were a lot of barracks in the fort and the rebel cannon were playing on them and knocking them all to pieces, and throwing the loose boards in every direction. It made the hair raise on our heads as we went dodging through the barracks among the flying boards and shell and cannon ball, but we finally got to our men in safety.

The colonel commanding the fort was killed in the beginning of the battle, and Major Lilly, of our regiment, took command, and, by the way, Major Lilly was a hustler. He was one of the bravest officers that ever went to the front. During the hottest of the battle one of our men got scared so badly that he wanted to surrender. So he pulled off his shirt and placed it upon the end of his bayonet and held it up as a flag of truce. That got the enemy excited and they went for us hotter than ever. They made charge after charge, but some of our boys pulled that old dirty shirt down and made the fellow put it on again. We kept the rebs at bay as long as we had ammunition, but at 1 o'clock we were out of ammunition, and there we were about 800 strong, with no ammunition and surrounded by ten thousand rebels. So we surrendered. We were then conducted out of the fort and taken to the woods and a rebel guard placed around us until they got ready to start to Dixie with us. While we were waiting there a rebel captain that some of our boys had shot in the heel in the fight rode around among us and cussed us for an hour. He swore that if he knew which one of us damned Yanks it was that shot him in the heel he would shoot his heart out. But we did not tell who it was, and I don't think he has found out to this day.

Well, along towards night the rebs got ready to start with us for Dixie. Then fun began; we marched nearly all night through the mud and under rebel guard. Sometime after midnight we were halted and allowed to lie down in the woods on the ground without undressing, but before daylight we were rousted out and on the go again. This kind of business was kept up for three long days, until we had marched something over one hundred miles, with about enough to eat to make one good square meal. With the Alabama red mud enough sticking to each foot to make about three brick we finally arrived at Tuscumbia, Ala., where the rebs were operating a kind of a one-horse railroad. There they piled us into a couple of freight trains and we were hauled around over half of the State of Mississippi and back again into Alabama, and were finally landed at Cahaba, Ala., at the end of ten days from the time we were made prisoners. We were then stripped and examined, and robbed of everything that we possessed that was of any value. We were then marched into the prison pen. The prison pen was a large cotton warehouse, surrounded by a stockade with an elevated walk around the outside of the building. On this walk the rebel guards were stationed about every forty feet with loaded guns ready and anxious to kill any poor Yankee who might see fit to set a foot across the dead line. There was also a walk on the inside of the building around next to the wall, and a rebel guard was stationed there about forty feet apart. The dead line was a mark they made about eight feet from the inside wall, all around the inside of the building, and no prisoner was allowed to step across that line. If he did the orders were to shoot him on the spot, and the order was obeyed to the letter, but we were generally careful to keep off of that dead line.

I shall never forget the morning that we were first marched inside of that prison. The old prisoners that were there before us on seeing us march in all seemed glad to see us, and yelled at the top of their voices, "Fresh fish! fresh fish! Hands on your pocket-books," just as if we had not already been robbed of everything we had by the rebs. But we soon got used to that for we had not been there long until we yelled "fresh fish" to other new prisoners that kept coming in every few days. There were on an average about three thousand of us there during the six months that we were there. Sometimes there were as many as thirty-five hundred of us. When there was that many we could not all lie down at one time inside of the prison. There was a cook yard in front of the prison about seventy-five feet square, enclosed with a stockade. We were allowed to pass out into the cook yard during the day so that we could cook the little grub that was allowed us. Our rations consisted of one pint of corn meal per day and a piece of fresh pork, about one inch square, every other day, but that was not issued to us very regular. Sometimes they would forget to issue rations to us for a day or so at a time. It did not seem to disturb the rebels in the least to forget to issue rations to us. We were divided into messes consisting of ten men to the mess, and every ten men were allowed one old-fashioned Dutch skillet and lid. In this we did the entire cooking for the ten men or mess. So we were engaged in cooking all day, if we happened to have enough to cook to keep the skillet going. It rained nearly the entire time we were there. It seemed to us that it rained at least forty days in each month, consequently we had to do the most of our cooking in the rain. I have stood in a stooping position over the skillet for hours at a time to keep the rain from drowning out the fire while cooking. Our wood that we used for cooking with was generally green white pine, nearly as hard to burn as green buckeye. We were allowed to go outside of the prison to carry the wood in. They would let five of us out to the wood-pile at a time; we would rush out and chop a load of wood and then carry it in. We would form what we called the wood line, and go out as our turns would come. I have stood in the wood line many times for a half day at a time in the rain, and then perhaps I would not get to go out after wood. We would do this work by turns and when we were not busy in this way were busy fighting "gray-backs." That part of the business we had to attend to whether we got dinner or not, for if we had neglected to kill off the "gray-backs" once a day at least we were in danger of being eaten up alive.

We had a regular police force of our own men. It consisted of about thirty men. It was their duty to keep order in the prison and to punish any one who did not conduct himself in a proper manner. If any two got into a fight the police would at once form a ring and let them fight it out. They would make it their business to see fair play. There were three or four fights in the prison every day. That was a natural consequence where there were so many men huddled in together that it was almost impossible for them all to lie down at one time, and half-starved, it was natural for some of them to get cross and be ready to get up and fight at a moment's notice; but they were so weak and in such a famished condition that they seldom ever hurt one another in a fight. We also had a few dishonest men in the prison; they would steal anything they could get their hands upon. The police would sometimes punish them very severely for their misdemeanors—such as stealing, but there was no punishment for a fair fist fight.

We undertook to break out of the prison one morning about 4 o'clock, and captured all the rebel guards inside the prison. We took their guns from them and put them in the privy and placed a guard over them and kept them there nearly an hour, but the rebels on the outside got wind of it a little too soon for us, and there happened to be more rebel soldiers there at that time than they usually kept at that point; they rolled a big cannon up to the door of the prison and scared us out of the notion of breaking out at that time. The rebs called that a mutiny and issued an order that we should have nothing to eat until we delivered up the leaders of the mutiny. Then we thought that starvation stared us in the face sure, for we had no idea that there was one among our number that would give away the leaders; but alas! the leaders were sadly disappointed, for after three days of starvation, some one—I never could find out who he was—got so hungry that he gave the plot away and informed on about twenty of the leaders. The rebs took the informer out of the prison at once and gave him his freedom for his information. If they had not taken him out of the prison he would have fared badly among the prisoners for being a traitor.

They took the leaders of the mutiny out and punished them in various ways. Some they put in dungeons, some in chains, and one fellow was sentenced to be put in a four-foot square box for one hundred days. Some of them were never heard of by us after they were taken out. We supposed that they were killed. We were always scheming for some place to get out. So the next thing we were up to was tunneling out. We had a tunnel dug about fifty feet, and in a few more days our tunnel would have let us out on the bank of the river, when the river raised and filled our tunnel full of water, so that was all work for nothing. I had two special friends as fellow prisoners—George W. Addington and William Collins. We three stuck together like brothers. One day the rebs took Addington out. Myself and Collins did not know what had become of him. We thought that, perhaps, they had killed him for some imaginary offence. Well, things went on as usual for about a week when a reb came in and took Collins out, and no explanation was given, so we thought that he was gone up also, but in another week the same reb came in and called for me. That scared me nearly out of my boots, for I thought my time had come sure, but to my surprise he took me to the hospital where I found my friends Addington and Collins busily engaged in washing clothes for the hospital. I will say now before I go further that the hospital was for Federal prisoners only, and they required prisoners to do all the work about the hospital. Addington had managed in some way to get the job of washing for the hospital, and as soon as he could make an excuse for calling in help he sent for Collins and myself. We got that washing business down to a regular system. We would wash sheets and pillow-slips on Monday, shirts and drawers on Tuesday, colored clothes on Wednesday, odds and ends on Thursday, and on Friday we would boil "gray-backs," that is, we would wash the clothes of prisoners that came out to the hospital sick. When a prisoner was brought out of the prison sick they would take him to an out house, strip him of his prison clothes, and take him to another room and put hospital clothes on him, and every Friday we had to boil and wash all clothes that accumulated in that way. Sometimes it would be a sickening job, but it was far better than lying in prison. We three had to work about four hours each day. This gave us about half work and we received about half enough to eat at the hospital, except occasionally we got something extra. We got it in this way: The managers of the hospital were all rebs and aristocrats, and they had negro women to carry their meals to their private rooms. Of course they got plenty to eat and sometimes there was something left. This the waiters always saved for us, and about two or three times a week, after dark, our door would be pushed open and we would see a tin pan slip in and it always had something in it good to eat, such as cold biscuits and cold beef-steak, and it was always good, and we felt very thankful to the colored people that run such risk in furnishing it to us, for if they had been caught at it they would have been punished severely for it. We were not allowed to speak to any of the colored attendants about the hospital, but we often talked to them when there were no rebs in sight. I once saw a prisoner that was sick but convalescing so that he was able to walk about some, come out of the ward in search of a fresh drink of water. He asked a colored woman for a tin cup to drink out of, and the rebel doctor happened to hear him, and he was sent to the prison for the offence. The next morning the poor fellow was brought back on a stretcher dead. About the first of March, 1865, the Alabama river raised and overflowed and spread itself all over the town and was from two to four feet deep inside of the prison. Our boys had a terrible time of it then for about two weeks. The rebs floated wood inside the prison for the prisoners to roost on. Our boys had to eat what little grub they got raw, and sleep while sitting on a pile of wood. This happened while I was at the hospital, consequently I missed the fun of having to sit on a wood pile for two weeks and eat raw grub. While at the hospital we always had hash for dinner. I remember one day the hash had soured, and we liked it better, because it made a change. About the time the river went down to its proper level we were all paroled; then we started for Vicksburg by rail until we got to Jackson, Miss., about fifty miles south of Vicksburg; there we had to take it afoot. It took me just eight days to walk from Jackson, Miss., to Black River, forty miles. When I got there, there was just one man with me, about twenty behind us, the others being ahead of us. At Black River there was a pontoon bridge—a rebel guard on the south side and a Yankee guard on the north side. We arrived there about sundown and had to stay on the rebel side all night. Our boys on the north side were allowed to bring us over some coffee and hard-tack, which we enjoyed very much, as it was the first coffee that we had tasted for six long months. The next morning we were transferred to the north side and amongst friends. We staid at the hospital in Vicksburg a few days and then took a hospital boat for St. Louis, and from there home.

LYNNVILLE.

While stationed at Pulaski, Tenn., details from the regiment were frequently ordered out upon reconnoitering parties, and upon these occasions generally met Roddy, Duke, Wheeler, or other cavalry commanders in that department, in skirmishes, which, as a rule, were bloodless. They were all exciting, however, and accustomed the boys to the use of their carbines. Of these affairs, what was termed in the regiment as "The Lynnville Fight," was the most sensational, and resulted in more racket than was ever raised by the same number of men in so short a time.