Battery D First Rhode Island Light Artillery in the Civil War

by George C. Sumner

Our battery having been thoroughly refitted and prepared for the expedition, was ordered upon the 15th to report to Gen. Hascall, at Danville. Here it remained until the morning of the 17th, when it continued its journey to Stamford, laid over one day, and at two o'clock on the morning of the 19th was aroused by "Boots and saddles," marching as soon as ready, for Crab Orchard.

This place had in ante-bellum days been noted as a watering-place, or perhaps more properly speaking, sanitarium, it being possessed of numerous medicinal springs. If my memory serves me, it was more fortunate than most fakes of this sort, in that these springs were supposed to contain waters of different therapeutical effect. There was the alterative, tonic, and aperient water, a liberal and intelligently administered course of which would rejuvenate the most thoroughly used-up system in the world. No wonder that it was the Mecca toward which all the chronics of the South journeyed.

Any veteran will remember how apt an old soldier was who had been living upon salt junk, salt pork and hard-tack for a considerable time, to allow his imagination full scope whenever his surroundings reminded him of a full course dinner or banquet. Thus it was with Battery D on the evening that we spent at Crab Orchard.

A lot of us gathered on the piazza of the vacant hotel and gave orders for dinners that would have taxed the ability of a Delmonico or a Tillinghast to have filled; and the fearful drop that came when the men who had been personating waiters to help along the joke and had dashed away for the kitchen on receiving our orders to have them filled, and returned with a raw pork sandwich for each, profuse with their apologies from the proprietors, that they were unable to fill our orders because of the great rush of business, which had entirely destroyed their assortment of eatables.

We ate the sandwiches, using all the imagination that we possessed, then went to the springs and tried a course of the waters. One of the springs, which I suppose must have been the alterative, was loud in its smell and loud in its taste, and we vowed we would have no more of it.

Crab Orchard is situated at the beginning of the foot-hills of the Cumberland Mountains, and from here the difficulties of the way will increase with every mile we travel. From this on for some eighty miles we are to march through a wilderness, from which we cannot expect to gather anything in the way of forage, consequently we must secure all the grain and hay that can be found, to take with us. All day of the 20th we spent in this work, scouring the country for ten miles around with indifferent success.

On the 21st we marched to Cub Creek, a small stream emptying into the Cumberland River. Next day we moved to Cumberland River and camped on its bank, near Smith's Ford. On this day our battery made twenty miles, which was considered astonishing by our corps commander. In a report to Gen. Burnside he said that the roads were the worst he ever saw, particularly the last five or six miles before we reached the river, but thought they would be better when we had crossed to the other side.

I think that my comrades of Battery D will smile at this prophecy when they remember what we really did find in the line of roads after we crossed the river. The approach to and exit from Smith's Ford were two of the steepest hills I ever remember to have seen, and the next morning when we began to cross I contemplated the work with fear and trembling; for I considered my position of wheel-driver on the sixth caisson a dangerous one. But as I stood upon the top of the hill and watched piece after piece and caisson after caisson go down safely, and feeling that I was perhaps as expert a driver as any of the others, and had a pair of horses—of which I propose to have something more to say later on—as reliable as any in the battery, I began to have more confidence, and when my turn came made the descent successfully. On the other side it required the united efforts of six pairs of horses and all the cannoniers that could get a hand on the carriages, to make the ascent.

We spent the 24th in foraging for grain, and succeeded in finding enough for three or four feedings, which was very unsatisfactory. We had hardly enough to feed the horses, on small rations, for more than three days, and as on the morrow we were to commence our climb to the top of the Cumberland Mountains, should our horses give out we would be in a sorry plight.

On the 25th we continued our march, and to our surprise found the roads in much better condition than we expected, and were able to make about eighteen miles. We began to feel that perhaps our way was not to be so difficult after all; but the next morning before we had been on the road an hour we found that the good road was a delusion and a snare—a sort of "will-o'-the-wisp" to lure us on, and then suddenly throw before us difficulties which were almost insurmountable.