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

by G. W. Lewis

I suppose very few of the people of the north ever had anything like a correct idea of the magnitude of the work undertaken by General Sherman in the campaign of Atlanta. The distance from Louisville to Nashville is stated to be one hundred and eighty-five miles, and from Nashville to Chattanooga it is said to be one hundred and fifty-one miles, and from Nashville to Bridgeport on the Tennessee river, two hundred and eleven miles. This long line of railway from Louisville to Chattanooga, and from Nashville to Bridgeport, Ala., five hundred and forty-seven miles, had to be guarded by military force every mile. For it must be remembered that while the state of Kentucky never went out of the Union and was ostensibly a loyal state, nevertheless, it required more soldiers to look after its disloyal citizens than she furnished to the cause of the Union, not for one moment forgetting that the state of Kentucky furnished some as brave and loyal soldiers as ever sprung a rammer and some as valiant officers as ever drew a saber. Notwithstanding, she had a large population in the aggregate that engaged in that disreputable kind of warfare known as bushwhacking, and very many that did not were ever ready to furnish aid and comfort to our enemy. Again, no portion of Tennessee, save east Tennessee, laid any claim to anything but intense love of the southern confederacy. Blockhouses had to be constructed every few miles of this route and a vast number of soldiers employed in keeping open this line of communications. Nashville was the grand base of supplies, where had been accumulated for many months all kinds of army stores, and from this base General Sherman had to draw supplies of rations, ammunition, and clothing for his campaign in Georgia; while the route from Nashville to Louisville must be kept open to renew the supplies at the base, as well as to send the sick and wounded to the northern hospitals.

It is almost needless for me to state before this intelligent audience that the genius of General Sherman was entirely equal to the emergency. And while the oddities and comical features of great men will usually be better remembered than any others, those of us that participated in that memorable campaign will remember well that no precautionary matter was overlooked by the ever watchful general. If what he really meant by "light marching order" was so difficult to understand that a cavalryman construed it to mean "necktie and a pair of spurs," he was no less exacting of himself and staff and many a night on this campaign he bivouacked as would a picket on an outpost. The thoroughness of his preparation was the sequel of his success. Knowing very well that overrunning rebel territory did not make loyal citizens of its inhabitants, he took the precaution to have his engineers make drawings of every wooden bridge between Louisville and Chattanooga, and between Nashville and Bridgeport. Nor was this all. He had his corps of mechanics construct duplicate bridges for the entire line south of Nashville. He was not satisfied only with his precautions to guard and care for his line of communications to his base of supplies, but he in some manner procured plans of the bridges from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and had bridges constructed and loaded on flat cars ready for use at any time when wanted. It was perfectly astounding the perfect order and dispatch with which he reconstructed the railroads as his campaign progressed, and with such celerity did his engineer corps perform its duty that after the bridge was burned by the rebel rear guards the same would be rebuilt, and the screams of the locomotive would mingle with the rattle of the musketry of the skirmishers just across the river, always reminding us that Uncle Billy's railroad was in good working order and that our "cracker line" was secure. But the vigilance of his preparation was not satisfied with being able to keep up his railroad lines—he had the finest pontoon corps that was ever organized.

Each man was drilled in the movements necessary to put down a pontoon bridge or remove one from the water and replace the same on the wagons as efficiently as an infantryman in the manual of arms or a cannoneer in the handling of a fieldpiece. It was a sight that seemed the perfection of celerity to witness his pontoon corps put down a bridge, and every line of march was thoroughly equipped in this particular.

But what I have heretofore described were not all the obstacles in the way of the making of the Atlanta campaign a success. While we were beyond the Tennessee mountains, while we had crossed the Tennessee river, the country from Ringgold to the south bank of the Chattahoochee river was naturally most admirable defensive ground. Every few miles were high ridges and small mountain ranges remarkably well adapted for defensive military positions; added to this the enemy had no rear that required guarding, had no hostile population to watch and distrust, had the most accurate information as to streams and roads, had swarms of volunteer spies to inform him of our every movement, and finally, had an army of slaves to do his intrenching ready to his hand and use when he was ready to fall back to a new position. This, all this, and more than I have time to describe, must be considered if we would thoroughly comprehend the military magnitude of the Atlanta campaign.

When General Sherman was ready to commence the forward movement, there must have been assembled from Chattanooga to Ringgold between eighty and one hundred thousand men, and on the third day of May, 1864, just as the magnolias were beginning to open their fragrant blossoms to the south wind, and the mocking birds were beginning to make the woods vocal with their songs, our division struck tents and commenced the march southward, and the evening of the fourth found us two and one-half miles from Ringgold confronting the enemy's pickets. From this time until the ninth we made short marches southward, skirmishing with the rebels each day. On the ninth our brigade was composed of the 124th O. V. I., the 41st O. V. I. the 93d O. V. I., the 9th I. V. I., and the 6th Ky. V. I. The brigade was commanded by General William B. Hazen and we had moved as far toward Dalton as a position known locally as Buzzard's Roost, a pass in the White Oak mountains. Here we found the rebels in position, the pass strongly fortified and commanded by a number of heavy guns.

At this position our brigade had an order to charge the mountain at the left of the pass, which order was executed, and we came within two hundred yards of the top of the mountain, where we found it broken off into palisades thirty feet in height. These palisades we had no means of ascending and so the charge ended. Our regiment lost three men killed and ten wounded. This movement was afterwards explained as a demonstration to deceive the enemy, but some of us will always think that we were the ones that were deceived. There was heavy firing on the right of the pass and in the direction of Snake Creek Gap, where a portion of Hooker's Corps fought a severe battle, the 29th O. V. I. losing very heavily. While in this position (Buzzard's Roost) we were terribly annoyed by sharpshooters posted above the palisades, the bugler of the 93d being killed.

All things considered, this position was properly named, and had Dore been there he could, without doubt, within the wilds of that mountain, have found some new illustrations for Dante's Inferno.

Early in the morning of the 13th we found the rebels had abandoned their position, and a party of us, while waiting for orders to move, managed to climb to the top of the mountain. Here we had a splendid view of the scenery of northern Georgia. Away to the north we could see old Lookout towering up, while beyond we could distinctly trace Waldron's and other ridges of the Cumberlands. To the south and west one range of hills after another, with an occasional mountain, as far as the eye could reach, showing us that our way was one of difficulty as well as danger.

About two p. m. we fell into line, marched into and through the pass, and had time to examine the strength of the abandoned rebel works. These works were evidently constructed with the hope that our commander would undertake to force the pass. That afternoon we marched through Dalton, a small village situated near an unbroken forest of pine, a kind from which the inhabitants make turpentine. The country seemed very poor, and from what we could see of the inhabitants we were forced to come to the same conclusion as to them.

The next day, May 14th, we struck the enemy in position at Resaca, and we immediately charged and drove him inside of his works, while our brigade occupied the line of a ridge running from near an angle of the rebel works and within a stone's throw of them. In this charge our young Colonel Payne, then in command of the regiment, just having returned recovered from a very dangerous wound received at Chickamauga that nearly cost him his life, showed consummate bravery, riding his horse in the charge across an open field in a perfect storm of bullets.