The Campaigns of the 124th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with Roster and Roll of Honor

by G. W. Lewis

January 16th Colonel Pickands came to my quarters and said he had a soft snap for me; said that I had never had a detail, that I had stayed right with the regiment since we took the field, and he was only too glad to confer this favor. I thanked the genial commander, though I had no desire to leave the Mice in that way; and had but very little confidence in what he said he heard from headquarters, "that we would probably stay where we were for three months." About ten o'clock a. m. the detail was ready, consisting of 149 men. The order was to march to New Market and guard the division stores. We went through a fairly good country, and along in the afternoon we met General Sheridan and staff. He was riding that same black horse that afterward "carried him into the fray from Winchester, twenty miles away." He asked a number of questions. The first was, if I had heard any firing in the direction of Dandridge? This question showed the true instinct of the great general; that he was always looking out for a battle, and had he been in command of the union forces in east Tennessee, the country would have been electrified by the news of a signal victory won, instead of a disastrous retreat from Dandridge, whereby so many of our poor boys were captured, and carried to Andersonville and death. Soon after we bade good-bye to Sheridan and staff one of the Mice, and he must have been one of the kind known as ground mice, found an apple-hole, and before I was aware of what was going on, the Mice were all busy digging out apples. The owner came out and protested; said he was a union man, had been from the start, and his property should be protected. I agreed in all he said, and by the time his protest was fully entered his apples had been transferred to the capacious haversacks of the Mice. Of course I was to blame. I should not have suffered the Mice to gnaw and destroy this good man's apples; but what, I ask you, could I do with 149 men that had not seen or tasted an apple since the fall of 1862? I offered to give him a voucher for the apples, and told him if he was as good a union man as he claimed to be the commissary department at Knoxville would pay him. But he seemed to know what the voucher was worth better than I and declined the same; we marched on to New Market, arriving there after dark, having marched twenty-three miles since ten o'clock.

I soon found nice quarters for my men in the abandoned houses of the village, and my mess arrangements having been broken up, I engaged boarding with an old lady that had two sons in the union army. This was one of the worst battered towns I had seen in the south. The sentiment was about equally divided between union and rebel, and the town had been badly plundered by both sides. The stores were at the station on the railroad, and after relieving the men on duty with a detail of my men, had supper, and being very tired, the old lady showed me a room, and I went to bed between nice white sheets, the first time in more than twelve months. Visions of feather beds, soft bread, pies and cakes, no marching, no picket guard, haunted me until 3 o'clock the next morning, when I was awakened by a loud rapping at my door; on getting out I saw the yellow stripes of a cavalry orderly. He very politely handed me an order directing me to march my detail back to Strawberry Plains, as the army was falling back from Dandridge. I got out to the quarters of the men as soon as I could, aroused the orderly sergeant and the men, called in the guards at the station, and started back on the railway track for the point to which we had been ordered. And that ended the "soft snap."

The winter quarters the Mice had built, the city one day old, was abandoned, and the brigade, wearied out by marching in the deepest mud I ever saw, slept that night under the stars at Strawberry Plains. What became of the stores at New Market I never knew, and why we were ordered back I never knew. All I know about the matter is that Uncle Billy had gone north to meet Grant at Cincinnati, and General Sheridan was not in command.

We lost more men on the retreat from Dandridge than would have been lost in a battle with Longstreet, and we had men enough to have whipped him and driven him out of the state. But "the grand army of occupation" was permitted to do no fighting, and so we wallowed around in the mud of east Tennessee.

In a few days we marched down to Knoxville and below to a place named in honor of one of America's greatest poets, I guess; in any event, it had the poetical name of Lenore, and if not loved, it certainly seemed lost. It may have been found since the war, but it was certainly lost Lenore when we were there.

I suppose no part of the south suffered so much in the way of partisan warfare as east Tennessee. This part of the state owned very few slaves, and the inhabitants were largely true to the union cause. Of course, the wealthy portion of the people were slaveholders, and they were rebels to a man, and middle Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and some portions of North Carolina were intensely rebel, and thus you will understand that east Tennessee was surrounded by a disloyal population. Then, again, the Tennessee valley was the principal gateway from Richmond to the southwest and, until the occupation of Knoxville by General Burnside, this valley was continually being overrun by rebel troops of all sorts, from infantry to mounted bushwhackers. The disloyal, when the rebel army was present, informed on their loyal neighbors, and the old men, the women, and the children had to seek safety in the woods, ravines, and caves of the mountains, only to see their dear old homes in flames behind them. Even the learned and respected Judge Baxter, afterwards appointed judge of the United States circuit court, who, before the war, had a fine residence and lucrative practice in the city of Knoxville, was compelled to "lie out in the bush," as they call it, for three months at one time, to save his life; and yet with most remarkable magnanimity, through Judge Baxter's influence, not an acre of rebel land or a rebel home was confiscated in the whole of east Tennessee. While we were in one of the many camps about Knoxville, the two regiments commanded by the Brownlow brothers, James and John, veteranized, and under the order of the government were granted thirty days' leave of absence. I happened to be present at the time they disbanded. One of these brothers made a speech to the two regiments. I don't remember which one, but I never can forget one thing he said: "Take your arms with you; you will not be wanted here for thirty days. Go home and avenge the death of your fathers and brothers." This speech was received by these hardy mountaineers as a license, as it was intended to be, for murder and the desolating torch. Not a night from that time on for thirty days but the heavens were aglare with the flames of rebel homes, and the number of murders committed will never be known "until the sea gives up its dead." But never did the horrors of Indian massacre compare with east Tennessee for deeds of murder and fiendish, remorseless cruelty from 1861 to 1865.

Then on the 17th moved back in the rain and mud, and went into camp; and then on the 23d moved forward again, found no enemy and then back to camp, having marched that day in the rain and mud twenty-eight miles. Then on the 24th we struck tents and marched twelve miles beyond Knoxville to Strawberry Plains again. Then we were up and off to New Market. Then the next day marched to Morristown, eighteen miles from New Market, and occupied the abandoned quarters built by Longstreet's men. Stayed in this camp until March 2d, 1864, and then marched back to New Market. This marching and counter marching is of no particular interest of itself, but I give it to you to show how we put in the time. Of all the campaigning we ever did this of east Tennessee was the most purposeless, seemingly profitless, and dismal. The most of the time we were hard up for rations, and were compelled to forage on a people as friendly as any in Ohio, and that had been robbed by both armies. I never can forget the time we lay at Clinch Mountain Gap, when it was so cold that we had to build log-heaps in front of our tents to keep from freezing, that Colonel Pickands sent Lieutenant Stedman with a file of men and a wagon to try and find something to eat. I was at headquarters when he returned at night. The colonel, with that usual smile, said: "Lieutenant, what success to-day?" Stedman answered: "Nothing." "Why?" remarked the colonel. Stedman replied, with an oath so terrific that I am sure it was heard in Heaven (and which I hope the recording angel has blotted out, and I know he has if he has attended strictly to business), "that he would be —— —— before he would rob women and children." When the recording angel became acquainted with the noble Stedman, fresh from the bloody field of New Hope Church, I am sure the accounts were properly adjusted.

Well, this must end my recollections of the very celebrated march from Chattanooga to Knoxville and the winter campaign of east Tennessee.

General Longstreet finally went back to the army of northern Virginia, not that he was in any danger from us, but simply because he became tired of the scenery and wanted a change, I suppose.

Nothing in history is grander than the relief of Knoxville; nothing tamer and more devoid of sense than the balance of the campaign. Yet we can draw from it all this useful lesson, that those brave spirits, the noble men that endured the march and campaign, had a patriotism and endurance that nothing of storm, of cold, of hunger, of sickness, of bad management could dampen. And though many of that band sleep in southern graves, yet many lived to bring back the stars and stripes in triumph from the greatest conflict of modern times and to see the rebellious states restored to a peaceful and happy union.