The St. Paul Press of the same date, has the following: “We congratulate Capt. Mattson and his countrymen for the splendid company of Swedes and Norwegians which he commands. Never was a better company mustered in for service.”
In the beginning of November two steamers arrived at Fort Snelling and took the Third regiment on board. We were ordered to join Buell’s army in Kentucky. Company E, of our regiment, was also mainly from Goodhue county, and when the steamers arrived at Red Wing, they stopped half an hour to let Companies D and E partake of a bountiful supper, to which they had been invited by their city friends, and to say a last farewell to their families and acquaintances. My wife, with the little children, my sister, father, brother, and other relatives, were gathered in a large room in the hotel opposite the landing. The half hour was soon past, and the bugle sounded “fall in.” I pass over the parting scene, leaving it to the imagination of the reader, for I cannot find words to describe it myself. I will only relate one little episode. When the bugle sounded for departure I held my little two-year-old daughter in my arms; her arms were clasped around my neck, and, when I endeavored to set her down, she closed her little fingers so hard together that her uncle had to open them by force before he could take her away from me. When a little child was capable of such feelings, it may be surmised what those felt who were able to comprehend the significance of that moment.
In a few days we were camped on a muddy field in Kentucky, quickly learning the duties of soldier-life, and familiarizing ourselves with the daily routine of an army in the field.
My military career of four years’ duration passed without any event of particular interest or importance; it was like that of two million other soldiers—to do their duty faithfully, whatever that duty might be—that was all.
After eight months’ service I was promoted to the rank of major in the regiment. At that time we were serving in middle Tennessee. Shortly afterward our regiment, with some three thousand men of the troops, made a forced march across the Cumberland mountains. In order to give the reader an idea of the hardships which the soldiers occasionally had to endure on a march, I shall give a short sketch of this. The detachment broke camp in Murfreesboro in the forenoon of a very hot day toward the close of May, and marched twenty miles before night, which was considered a good distance for the first day. Most of the men suffered from blistered feet, and they were all very tired. We prepared our supper, and had just gone to rest in a large open field and were beginning to fall asleep, when, at ten o’clock in the evening, the signal was given to fall in. In a few minutes the whole force was in line, and silently resumed the march forward. We marched the whole night, the whole of the next day, the following night, and till noon the day after, moving altogether a distance of over eighty miles, over a difficult and partly mountainous country, and stopping only one hour three times a day to cook our coffee and eat, while those who sank down by the roadside entirely exhausted were left until the rear-guard came and picked them up. When we finally arrived at our destination the enemy that we were pursuing had already decamped, and we had to return by the same route over which we had come, though more leisurely. Among the many victims of this march was a bright Norwegian lieutenant of my old company, Hans Johnson, who died shortly after our return to Murfreesboro.
A few days afterward the regiment started on an expedition to the South. During this march I got sick with the fever, and would probably have died at Columbia, Tenn., if my friend Eustrom, who at that time was captain of Company D, had not succeeded in getting me into a rebel family, where I was treated with the greatest care, so that in a few days I was able to go by rail to Minnesota on a twenty days’ leave of absence. This took place in the beginning of the month of July, 1862.
Having spent a fortnight in the bosom of my family I returned, with improved health, to resume my command. I arrived at Chicago on a Sunday morning, and, as I had to wait all day for my train, I went to the Swedish church on Superior street. Leaving the church, I heard a news-boy crying, “Extra number of the Tribune; great battle at Murfreesboro; Third Minnesota regiment in hot fire!” I bought the paper and hurried to the hotel, where another extra edition was handed me. The Union troops had won a decisive victory at Murfreesboro, and totally routed the forces of Forrest, consisting of eight thousand cavalry. Later in the evening a third extra edition announced that “The Third regiment has been captured by the enemy, and is on the march to the prisons of the South.” Only a soldier can imagine my feelings when I received this news. I arrived in Tennessee two days later, only to meet the soldiers returning from the mountains where they had been released on written parole by the enemy. They were sore-footed, exhausted, hungry and wild with anger, and looked more like a lot of ragged beggars than the well-disciplined soldiers they had been a few days before. All the captured officers had been taken to the South, where they were kept in prison several months. Only two of them succeeded in making their escape. One of those was Capt. Eustrom, who, in company with Lieut. Taylor, made his escape from a hospital building, some negroes giving them clothes, and, through almost incredible hardships and dangers, they succeeded in reaching our lines, and I met them two days after my arrival at Nashville.
The capitulation of our splendid regiment was one of the most deplorable events of its kind during the whole war. It was regarded one of the best regiments of volunteers of the Western army. It had defended itself with great valor, and, in fact, defeated the enemy, when for some unaccountable reason, Col. H. C. Lester decided to surrender, and he exerted such a great influence over our officers that seven company commanders went over to his side in the council of war, which he called, while the remaining officers and the soldiers were strongly opposed to the capitulation. When the men finally were ordered to stack arms they did so with tears in their eyes, complaining bitterly because they were not allowed to fight any longer. All the officers who had been in favor of capitulation were afterward dismissed from service in disgrace.
Arriving at Nashville I was immediately ordered to assume command of my own scattered regiment, of the Ninth Michigan Infantry regiment, and of a battery of artillery, which had also capitulated on that fatal Sunday. Having supplied the men with clothing and other necessaries, I took them by steamboats to a camp for prisoners in St. Louis, and returned to Nashville to report the matter in person. On my return to Nashville I was appointed member of a general court martial, and shortly afterwards its president, which position I occupied from July till December, 1862. The sufferings which my friend Captain Eustrom had endured during his flight from the rebels shattered his health so that he was soon forced to retire from service.
About this time the well-known Indian massacre in the western settlements of Minnesota took place. About eight hundred peaceable citizens, mostly women and children, and among those many Scandinavians—were cruelly butchered, and their houses and property burnt and destroyed. The soldiers of the Third regiment had given their parole not to take up arms against the enemy until they were properly exchanged, but, as this did not have anything to do with the Indian war, they were ordered from St. Louis to Minnesota and put under the command of Major Welch, of the Fourth regiment, and soon distinguished themselves by their fine maneuvers and valor in the struggle with the Indians.