After the war this army of known and unknown dead was carefully removed to the National Cemetery at Orchard Knob, near the base of the ridge, and buried; all the known neatly marked; but how frequently the word unknown occurs in that beautiful home of the dead soldier.
One good result, besides the decent interment of our dead, was the fact that all of our wounded that were not able to be removed to southern prisons were paroled and sent into Chattanooga. One of our men, Arthur Budlong, had lain upon the battlefield until our boys found him and brought him in under the flag of truce. Thus were the severities of war somewhat modified by the humanity of man that not even the unseemly war-cloud could altogether overshadow.
The monotony and dreariness of a siege can be appreciated only by those that have taken part therein. Language fails me to give you anything like an adequate idea of its listless torments. While on the march the scenery is constantly changing. The exercise of marching keeps one healthy, and keeps one's mind employed and the banishment from home and loved ones does not occupy so much of one's thoughts. The skirmishing and fighting, while dreadful in consequences and results, has on the soldier, to a certain extent, an exhilarating effect; and the hours spent thereafter, in the tales of personal adventure and experience, while causing one sometimes to think that the tribe of "Ananias" was not extinct, yet these tales of personal valor and daring helped to cheer and while away many an idle hour; and, as a rule, no one was deceived "by the tales they told us there." But in the siege every day was like all the others; and from the time we fell back on Chattanooga until operations began about the twentieth of November, the sky was cloudless. And while the long Indian summer period of southern Tennessee, so delightful to the citizen in time of peace, to us soldiers (to a certain extent in captivity) it seemed to breed melancholy and homesickness. We did all we could to avert this trouble. We played seven-up until we almost wore the spots off the cards. We smoked and "jawed." We criticised the plans of campaigns and battles. We decided the merits of brigadier and major generals until, could you have heard us, you would have thought we were writers formulating articles for the Century Magazine instead of besieged soldiers trying to drive away enui. Oh, if baseball had been invented then what regimental, brigade and division clubs we could have organized, with hospitals handy to care for the wounded. If we had only known the silly but fascinating game of lawn tennis our sick list would have been shortened.
But these were not all of our troubles. Our commissary department began to get hard up and threatened suspension. Now, for the purpose of being understood by the Sons of Veterans and the young people that hear me, suffer me to explain. A ration is an allowance, issued by the commissary department, of the various things on which soldiers are fed, to-wit: hard bread (called hard-tack), bacon (sometimes called sow-belly), fresh beef, beans, rice, coffee, sugar, salt and pepper, and sometimes, under favorable circumstances, soft bread. Now a full ration is ample for three meals, and sometimes a little to spare when full. We had not been in a state of siege long (owing to the defective transportation of which I have spoken) before we were put on half rations, that is, one-half of three meals or one and one-half meals a day; and before many days after we were put on quarter rations, that is, three-fourths of one meal a day. Now any of you that have tried to live on less than enough for one meal a day (and are no relation to Dr. Tanner) will realize the situation we were in. While our rations were short and, in fact, fast growing less, the health of the men was materially impaired. The truth is, as a rule, while in camp soldiers eat too much, and exercise too little. The quarter rations were helped out by stealing corn from the famishing mules, which the soldiers parched and ate. The mules and horses that were not sent to the rear died of starvation, so that, at the time the operations began against the position of the enemy, we had not a horse to move a gun. Could we have moved our light batteries on to the Ridge, immediately after the assault, the loss to the enemy would have been much more severe. But while the starvation, the enforced fast that we suffered, may have been beneficial to the health of the men, their morals seemed to decrease in a corresponding ratio. Stealing whatever one could get his hands on to eat became not only prevalent, but popular. The brigade commissaries had to be guarded to keep them from being plundered, while not infrequently the guards proved to be simply cappers for the hungry thieves of the regiments from which they were respectively detailed. Officer's mess-chests were raided; and one could not get up in the night without seeing some adventurous fellow slipping through the rows of tents with a box of hard-tack on his shoulders. Holes were excavated under the floors of the tents, and used as storing places for the plunder obtained by these nocturnal adventures. I now distinctly remember one "Israelite, in whom there was no guile," of company I, that the boys for short called "Jew Jake," that more than kept his mess in hard bread during that time of scarcity. But the sad part of the whole business was that, while the raiders and plunderers had all and more than they needed in the way of bread, the honest ones had comparatively less, as the commissary department distributed with absolute fairness the scanty rations it had to issue. And for once there was no favoritism shown to the officers. An officer could not buy more than was issued for a ration to a private soldier. But I am, as I remember it from this great lapse of time, in no situation to be very hard upon those volunteer commissary sergeants that were so willing to help issue rations, even if they had to go on night duty, for, as I now remember it, Jew Jake was a great friend to the mess of which I was a member. And when the time was that the new white hard-tack looked brighter and better than silver dollars to a people's party man, no questions were asked as to how they were issued.
But the day of our deliverance was fast approaching. Above the village and on the river, inside of our lines, was an old steam sawmill that probably had not turned a wheel since the war began. This was discovered by some one, put in order by some soldier (for we had plenty of soldiers in our ranks that could repair and put in running order, anything from a watch to a locomotive), and, on taking a stroll in that direction one day, I saw a gang of soldiers sawing two-inch planks. These planks were slipped into the river, and landed further down town for further use in the great drama that we were preparing to enact. We had not been penned up long in Chattanooga before the country became aroused at the danger to the Army of the Cumberland. Luckily for us almost everyone saw our danger save General Bragg, and he seemed to have no hostile designs on our army. Truly, it seems to me, General Bragg was the General McClellan of the confederate army, without McClellan's powers of organization and his delight in grand reviews.
As I have stated before, the authorities superseded General Rosecrans, and put the Army of the Cumberland, and all other forces to be assembled, in command of the "Hero of Vicksburg," "the silent conqueror of rebel armies and strongholds." But that was not all; the government, by the aid of the matchless executive ability of Edwin M. Stanton, President Lincoln's war secretary, withdrew the 20th Corps, commanded by General Joe Hooker, from the Army of the Potomac, transferred them by rail and put them into camp at Bridgeport, on the Tennessee river about fifty miles below Chattanooga, in seven days' time. This was the most rapid movement of troops ever known in the world's history. In the meantime General Sherman with his western veterans was on the long march from the Mississippi, headed for Chattanooga. I remember one night the rumor came by "the grapevine telegraph," "Hooker was at Bridgeport, Ala.," and soon the shout "Hooker has come—Hooker has come—Hooker's at Bridgeport" ran along our lines. Even the never ending seven-up was abandoned, and the men gathered in squads to inquire and discuss our prospectively bettered condition and situation, while the officers hastened to headquarters, anxious to have the rumor confirmed. It was not long before an officer from the 20th Corps was seen in Chattanooga, and then the enthusiasm of the Army of the Cumberland knew no bounds. But Lookout valley was in the possession of the enemy, and it was the purpose of General Grant to lodge General Hooker's Corps in that valley, preparatory to swinging it around the north side of Lookout mountain.
Day after day the sound of the ax and the hammer might have been heard at the steamboat landing in front of the village. It was the building of boats from the material sawed at the mill above. The boats were constructed on the pontoon pattern, not deep, but wide, and if the rebels took notice of the work they would have been justified in believing from appearances, that our intention was to construct a pontoon bridge across the river from Chattanooga. But that was not the intention. One day there came an order from General Hazen, who commanded our brigade, to furnish so many men, picked men, on account of their known bravery and soldierly character. Also, a certain number of officers to be selected for the same qualities. We furnished the requisite number from company B, and so did each company of the regiment, but the name of your unworthy speaker was not on the list of officers. He was not either among those called or chosen. Of course, I did not know that our gallant Colonel Pickands considered me worthy for the expedition at hand; but I did know that my saber had been hanging idly in his tent "for low, these many days," and being there duty was not for me until I was again put in possession of the same. So I stayed in camp with Captain Powell of company G and some other officers and men; because, while all were brave enough, all could not be chosen. I think the number selected from our brigade was three hundred, commanded by that prince among fine officers, the late lamented General Hazen.
That night the detail were all gotten ready and down to the landing; and at midnight, when the young moon had hidden its bright crescent behind the Cumberlands, and the fog from the river had wrapped the base of old Lookout in an impenetrable cloud of mist, the "three hundred" embarked silently, and the current of the river bore them down to the point where the work was to be done. They swept along without accident; and not even the sleepless rebel pickets, that lined the left bank of the river, discovered their presence. Just before the sun began to chase away the darkness from the east they halted at Brown's Ferry, the place of their destination. Their boats were hastily shoved ashore and the skirmish line formed, and before the rebels in Lookout valley knew what was going forward, the "three hundred" of our brigade awoke them from their dreams by the crack of their muskets, as they scattered the rebel picket line posted along the river, and before the sun was up Hooker's legions were pouring into the valley and on their way to the north base of Lookout, and by the time the sun had set that day Hooker's skirmish line was in sight of Chattanooga.
This signal success at Brown's Ferry, more remarkable for the boldness of its plan and the daring with which it was executed than anything else, did not cost our brigade the loss of a man, either killed or wounded, but it gave Hooker a foothold in Lookout valley whereby he swept it of rebels and opened up our cracker line, as the boys called it, and in a few days we had full supply. From the date of the expedition to Brown's Ferry whatever there was of the siege of Chattanooga was raised.