On the morning of the 20th some regiments of our division moved forward and occupied the town of Iuka, but Gen. Price had in the meantime skipped out, so there was no fighting. Our regiment, with some others, remained in the original position, so that I never got to see the old town of Iuka until several years after the war. Sometime during the afternoon of the 20th I went to Capt. Reddish and said to him that I had become so tired of just standing around, and asked him if I could take a short stroll in the woods. The old man gave his consent (as I felt satisfied he would) but cautioned me not to go too far away. The main thing in view, when I made the request, was the hope of finding some wild muscadine grapes. They were plentiful in this section of the country, and were now ripe, and I wanted a bait. I think a wild muscadine grape is just the finest fruit of that kind in existence. When ripe it has a strong and most agreeable fragrance, and when one is to the leeward of a vine loaded with grapes, and a gentle wind is blowing from the south, he is first made aware of their proximity by their grateful odor. I soon found some on this occasion, and they were simply delicious. Having fully satisfied my craving, I proceeded to make my way back to the regiment, when hearing the trampling sound of cavalry, I hurried through the woods to the side of the road, reaching there just as the head of the column appeared. It was only a small body, not more than a hundred or so, and there, riding at its head, was Grant! I had not seen him since the battle of Shiloh and I looked at him with intense interest. He had on an old "sugar-loaf" hat, with limp, drooping brim, and his outer coat was the ordinary uniform coat, with a long cape, of a private in the cavalry. His foot-gear was cavalry boots, splashed with mud, and the ends of his trousers' legs were tucked inside the boots. No shoulder-straps were visible, and the only evidence of rank about him that was perceptible consisted of a frayed and tarnished gold cord on his hat. He was looking downward as he rode by, and seemed immersed in thought. As the column passed along, I asked a soldier near the rear what troops they were, and he answered, "Co. A, Fourth Illinois Cavalry—Gen. Grant's escort." This was the last time that I saw Grant during the war.
On the evening of the 20th the regiment was drawn back into Burnsville, and that night Co. D bivouacked in the "Harrison Hotel," which formerly had evidently been the principal hotel in the town. It was a rambling, roomy, old frame building, two stories and a half high, now vacant, stripped of all furniture, and with a thick layer of dust and dirt on the floors. We occupied a room on the second floor, that evidently had been the parlor. Being quartered in a hotel was a novel experience, and the boys got lots of fun out of it. One would call out, "Bill, ring the clerk to send up a pitcher of ice water, and to be quick about it;" while another would say, "And while you're at it, tell him to note a special order from me for quail on toast for breakfast;" and so on. But these pleasantries soon subsided, and it was not long before we were wrapped in slumber. It was a little after midnight, and I was sound asleep, when I heard someone calling, "Sergeant Stillwell! Where is Sergeant Stillwell?" I sprang to my feet, and answered, "Here! What's wanted?" The speaker came to me, and then I saw that it was Lt. Goodspeed, who was acting as adjutant of the regiment. He proceeded to inform me that I was to take charge of a detail of three corporals and twelve men and go to a point about a mile and a half east of Burnsville, to guard a party of section men while clearing and repairing the railroad from a recent wreck. He gave me full instructions, and then said, "Stillwell, a lieutenant should go in charge of this detail, but all that I could find made pretty good excuses and I think you'll do. It is a position of honor and responsibility, as there are some prowling bands of guerrillas in this vicinity, so be careful and vigilant." I was then acting as first sergeant, and really was exempt from this duty, but of course the idea of making that claim was not entertained for a moment. I took charge of my party, went to where the laborers were waiting for us with hand cars, and we soon arrived at the scene of the wreck. A day or two before our arrival at Burnsville a party of Confederate cavalry had torn up the track at this point, and wrecked and burnt a freight train. Some horses on the train had been killed in the wreck; their carcasses were lying around, and were rather offensive. The trucks and other ironwork of the cars were piled on the track, tangled up, and all out of shape, some rails removed and others warped by heat, and things generally in a badly torn-up condition. The main dirt road forked here, one fork going diagonally to the right of the track and the other to the left—both in an easterly direction. I posted three men and a corporal about a quarter of a mile to the front on the track, a similar squad at the same distance on each fork of the dirt road, and the others at intervals on each side of the railroad at the place of the wreck. The laborers went to work with a will, and about the time the owls were hooting for day the foreman reported to me that the track was clear, the rails replaced, and that they were ready to return to Burnsville. I then drew in my guards, we got on the hand cars, and were soon back in town. And thus ended my first, and only, personal supervision of the work of repairing a break in a railroad.
I barely had time to make my coffee and toast a piece of bacon when the bugle sounded "Fall in!" and soon (that being the morning of September 21st) we started on the back track, and that day marched to Corinth. It so happened that on this march our regiment was at the head of the column. The proper place of my company, according to army regulations, was the third from the right or head of the line, but from some cause—I never knew what—on that day we were placed at the head. And, as I was then acting as first sergeant of our company, that put me the head man on foot. These details are mentioned for the reason that all that day I marched pretty close to the tail of the horse that Gen. Ord was riding, and with boyish curiosity, I scanned the old general closely. He was a graduate of West Point, and an old regular. He had served in the Florida and the Mexican wars, and he also had been in much scrapping with hostile Indians in the vicinity of the Pacific Coast. He looked old to me, but really he was, at this time, only about forty-four years of age. He certainly was indifferent to his personal appearance, as his garb was even plainer, and more careless, than Grant's. He wore an old battered felt hat, with a flapping brim, and his coat was one of the old-fashioned, long-tailed oil-cloth "wrap-rascals" then in vogue. It was all splattered with mud, with several big torn places in it. There was not a thing about him, that I could see, to indicate his rank. Later he was transferred to the eastern armies, eventually was assigned to the command of the Army of the James, and took an active and prominent part in the operations that culminated in the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.
We reached Corinth that evening, went into bivouac, and remained there a couple of days. On the morning of September 24th we fell in, marched down to the depot, climbed on cars, and were soon being whirled north to Jackson, on the Mobile and Ohio railroad. We arrived there about noon, and at once transferred to a train on the Mississippi Central track and which forthwith started for Bolivar. I think the train we came on to Jackson went right back to Corinth to bring up more troops. We common soldiers could not imagine what this hurried rushing around meant, and it was some time before we found out. But history shows that Grant was much troubled about this time as to whether a threatened Confederate attack would be delivered at Corinth or at Bolivar. However, about the 22nd, the indications were that Bolivar would be assailed, and troops were at once brought from Corinth to resist this apprehended movement of the Confederates.
This probably is a fitting place for something to be said about our method of traveling by rail during the Civil war, as compared with the conditions of the present day in that regard. At the time I am now writing, about fifteen thousand United States soldiers have recently been transported on the cars from different places in the interior of the country, to various points adjacent to the Mexican border, for the purpose of protecting American interests. And it seems that in some cases the soldiers were carried in ordinary passenger coaches. Thereupon bitter complaints were made on behalf of such soldiers because Pullman sleepers were not used! And these complaints were effective, too, for, according to the press reports of the time, the use of passenger coaches for such purposes was summarily stopped and Pullmans were hurriedly concentrated at the places needed, and the soldiers went to war in them. Well, in our time, the old regiment was hauled over the country many times on trains, the extent of our travels in that manner aggregating hundreds and hundreds of miles. And such a thing as even ordinary passenger coaches for the use of the enlisted men was never heard of. And I have no recollection now that (during the war) any were provided for the use of the commissioned officers, either, unless they were of pretty high rank. The cars that we rode in were the box or freight cars in use in those days. Among them were cattle cars, flat or platform cars, and in general every other kind of freight car that could be procured. We would fill the box cars, and in addition clamber upon the roofs thereof and avail ourselves of every foot of space. And usually there was a bunch on the cow-catchers. The engines used wood for fuel; the screens of the smoke-stacks must have been very coarse, or maybe they had none at all, and the big cinders would patter down on us like hail. So, when we came to the journey's end, by reason of the cinders and soot we were about as dirty and black as any regiment of sure-enough colored troops that fought under the Union flag in the last years of the war. When the regiment was sent home in September, 1865, some months after the war was over, the enlisted men made even that trip in our old friends, the box cars. It is true that on this occasion there was a passenger coach for the use of the commissioned officers, and that is the only time that I ever saw such a coach attached to a train on which the regiment was taken anywhere. Now, don't misunderstand me. I am not kicking because, more than half a century after the close of the Civil War, Uncle Sam sent his soldier boys to the front in Pullmans. The force so sent was small and the government could well afford to do it, and it was right. I just want you to know that in my time, when we rode, it was in any kind of an old freight car, and we were awful glad to get that. And now on this matter, "The words of Job are ended."
The only railroad accident I ever happened to be in was one that befell our train as we were in the act of leaving Jackson on the afternoon of the 24th. There was a good deal of hurry and confusion when we got on the cars, and it looked like it was every fellow for himself. Jack Medford (my chum) and I were running along the side of the track looking for a favorable situation, when we came to a flat car about the middle of the train, as yet unoccupied. "Jack," said I, "let's get on this!" He was a little slow of speech; he stopped, looked and commenced to say something, but his hesitation lost us the place,—and was fraught with other consequences. Right at that moment a bunch of the 12th Michigan on the other side of the track piled on the car quicker than a flash, and took up all available room. Jack and I then ran forward and climbed on top of a box car, next to the tender of the engine, and soon after the train started. It had not yet got under full head-way, and was going only about as fast as a man could walk, when, from some cause, the rails spread, and the first car to leave the rails was the flat above mentioned. But its trucks went bouncing along on the ties, and doubtless nobody would have been hurt, had it not been for the fact that the car plunged into a cattle guard, of the kind then in use. This guard was just a hole dug in the track, probably four or five feet deep, the same in length, and in width extending from rail to rail. Well, the front end of the car went down into that hole, and then the killing began. They stopped the train very quickly, the entire event couldn't have lasted more than half a minute, but that flat car was torn to splinters, three soldiers on it were killed dead, being frightfully crushed and mangled, and several more were badly injured. The men on the car jumped in every direction when the car began breaking up, and so the most of them escaped unhurt. If the train had been going at full speed, other cars would have been involved, and there is simply no telling how many would then have been killed and wounded.
On what little things does the fate of man sometimes depend! If in response to my suggestion Jack Medford had promptly said, "All right," we would have jumped on that flat car, and then would have been caught in the smash-up. But he took a mere fraction of time to look and think, and that brief delay was, perhaps, our temporal salvation.
We arrived at Bolivar during the afternoon of the 24th and re-occupied our old camp. The work of fortifying that place was pushed with renewed vigor, and strong lines of breastworks, with earthen forts at intervals, were constructed which practically inclosed the entire town. But we never had occasion to use them. Not long after our return to Bolivar, Gen. Grant became satisfied that the point the enemy would assail was Corinth, so the most of the troops at Bolivar were again started to Corinth, to aid in repelling the impending attack, but this time they marched overland. Our regiment and two others, with some artillery, were left to garrison Bolivar. And so it came to pass that the battle of Corinth was fought, on our part, by the command of Gen. Rosecrans on October 4th, and the battle of Hatchie Bridge the next day by the column from Bolivar, under the command of Gen. Ord,—and we missed both battles. For my part, I then felt somewhat chagrined that we didn't get to take part in either off those battles. Here we had been rushed around the country from pillar to post, hunting for trouble, and then to miss both these fights was just a little mortifying. However, the common soldier can only obey orders, and stay where he is put, and doubtless it was all for the best.
Early on the morning of October 9th, a force of about four thousand men, including our regiment, started from Bolivar, marching southwest on the dirt road. We arrived at Grand Junction at dark, after a march of about twenty miles. Grand Junction was the point where the Memphis & Charleston and the Mississippi Central railroads crossed. We had not much more than stacked arms, and of course before I had time to cook my supper, when I was detailed for picket, and was on duty all night. But I didn't go supperless by any means, as I made coffee and fried some bacon at the picket post. Early next morning the command fell in line, and we all marched back to Bolivar again. We had hardly got started before it began to rain, and just poured down all day long. But the weather was pleasant, we took off our shoes and socks and rolled up our breeches, after the manner heretofore described, and just "socked on" through the yellow mud, whooping and singing, and as wet as drowned rats. We reached Bolivar some time after dark. The boys left there in camp in some way had got word that we were on the return, and had prepared for us some camp-kettles full of hot, strong coffee, with plenty of fried sow-belly,—so we had a good supper. What the object of the expedition was, and what caused us to turn back, I have never learned, or if I did, have now forgotten.
On returning to Bolivar we settled down to the usual routine of battalion drill and standing picket. The particular guard duty the regiment performed nearly all the time we were at Bolivar (with some casual exceptions) was guarding the railroad from the bridge over Hatchie river, north to Toone's Station, a distance of about seven miles. Toone's Station, as its name indicates, was nothing but a stopping point, with a little rusty looking old frame depot and a switch. The usual tour of guard duty was twenty-four hours all the while I was in the service, except during this period of railroad guarding, and for it the time was two days and nights. Every foot of the railroad had to be vigilantly watched to prevent its being torn up by bands of guerrillas or disaffected citizens. One man with a crow-bar, or even an old ax, could remove a rail at a culvert, or some point on a high grade, and cause a disastrous wreck.