A day or two after my arrival, as I lay in my blankets under an orange tree, I was aroused just before daylight and gradually realized that somebody was shaking me. It proved to be Daniel Shaw, one of our company from Mount Morris, Illinois, who had been captured upon the Red River Expedition, about a year previous and confined in that horrible corral at Tyler, Texas. He hugged me frantically and wept like an hysterical child. It was a long time before he could speak; and then, amid tears and sobs he told a most harrowing and revolting story of the inconceivably brutal treatment to which he had been subjected. The prisoners were confined in an open corral or field without any shelter or protection whatever. Their food consisted of offal and discarded portions from the cattle and sheep slaughtered by their captors, who appropriated the edible parts for their own use. The most was eaten raw or in the form of a stew. The story was too revolting for repetition.
The poor fellow was a mere skeleton and in a most wretched condition. Had he not been one of the most hardy men in the regiment, he could not have survived. His experience was but another proof that "War is Hell."
From New Orleans we took steamer for Vicksburg but before we arrived at Baton Rouge, our boat took fire three times, which caused much delay. We reached our destination, however, about the tenth of June, where we joined our regiment and after a day or two, took passage on the "Superior," General Logan's old headquarters boat, for Shreveport, Louisiana. Under a general order, all companies having less than the full quota of men were required to consolidate with others. In compliance with this order our company was merged with Company E, while another took the letter A. It was the fault of the Colonel, who could have graded us fairly had he been so disposed. Although greatly dissatisfied, we were obliged to accept the situation as well as to endure other and more trying things. The men had received no pay since March and were destitute and discouraged. Under these conditions we were not in a mood to see others enjoy privileges which were denied to us.
We spent the Fourth of July at Shreveport; our only food being "salt-horse," "hard-tack" and coffee. Some of the officers failed to appreciate the condition of the men and seemed to think that it afforded no reason why they should not have a good time and good things themselves. In harmony with this view, Colonel Mizner, of the Third Michigan, who was in command of the Brigade, prepared to give a sumptuous banquet in an old church which he occupied as headquarters and which was also the office of the Brigade Quartermaster by whom I was employed. Those who were compelled to confine their diet to salt-horse and hard-tack were not in sympathy with the spread and not averse to having it known. Through the concerted action of several hundred apparently inanimate oyster-cans belonging to our regiment, the Third Michigan and the Fourth Wisconsin, those innocent receptacles seemed to become suddenly endowed with life, became mysteriously filled with powder and succeeded in burying themselves in a kind of under-ground cordon around that church. The first course had scarcely been served and the banqueters were just enjoying their whiskey and other appetizers, when the cans registered a protest. The opening of the ground around that sanctuary was suggestive of the resurrection morn. The officers rushed out of the room in the wildest confusion. Persistent inquiry failed to develop the cause. After fruitless efforts they went back to finish their collation and had barely begun to taste the good things again, when the cans once more showed their cantankerousness. Pandemonium broke loose with ten times more din than ever. The banquet was called off and the officers ordered to their respective companies to "preserve order." It had its effect. The men were as demure as monks in a monastery. While perfect order was preserved by them, an astonishing amount of disorder was still "preserved" in the oyster-cans and the preserves—like all preserves subjected to too much warmth—continued to "work." From that time on, all through the night, the mysterious process went on. The hint was effectual. There were no more officer's banquets in the presence of the ill-fed and dissatisfied men.
On the ninth of July, 1865, we left Shreveport and took up our long and tiresome march of six hundred miles to San Antonio, Texas. Through Louisiana it was not especially trying; but when we reached Texas and were obliged to travel over barren wastes, frequently as far as sixty miles without finding a drop of water, it seemed unendurable. A tropical mid-summer sun burned its way through the sky and onto the dusty, treeless plains until the heat-waves quivered upon the horizon like a blast from a furnace. Horses and men suffered intensely. One stretch of about one hundred miles east of Austin was especially trying. It was a continuous test of endurance from the time we left Shreveport until we arrived at San Antonio, thirty days later. During the march, small towns were sometimes passed where Confederate companies turned over their arms to our command.
Upon our arrival at San Antonio, there appeared to be nothing to do but to wait. Aside from inspection and drills, the men idled in camp until they became so discontented and homesick that many deserted. Most of these were fine men and good soldiers but poor loafers. Nobody blamed them. All realized that the war was over and were looking for discharge. Instead of that we had been sent hundreds of miles over a barren waste to the frontier under most trying and discouraging conditions. Why was all this senseless wandering? We did not know. We were not aware that secret history was being made and that we were instrumental, as a result of these apparently meaningless acts, in saving the nation a second time. We did not know that our country was upon the verge of a foreign war, and that Napoleon the Third, anxious to regain the Louisiana Territory, which the First Emperor in his dire need had sold to us for a song, had been making elaborate preparations for war; and, believing our people to be exhausted, as they appeared to be, by one of the greatest conflicts of history and torn by internal strife, would be unable to make more than a feeble defence, had chosen this moment to strike. We did not know that our government was then undergoing one of the most trying ordeals of its existence. Later developments showed that the sudden mobilization on the frontier of an army of tried veterans, ready if necessary, to fight another war, made the foreigners gasp. France and Austria and Maximillian quietly subsided and the map of the United States required no revision.
About the tenth of November, 1865, the order came to muster out the Second and Tenth Illinois and the Fourth Wisconsin Cavalry. It was the signal for a jubilation. The yells of ten thousand Indians would have been "audible silence" compared to the noise made by those four regiments. The Tenth Illinois sutler rolled out four barrels of whiskey and broke in the heads. Tin cups, camp-kettles, canteens and every liquid holding thing was used for its distribution. How many were drunk I know not. Men indulged who never tasted the stuff before; and, strange to say, the whole thing took the form of a good natured frolic. Horse-play, clownish tricks, songs, practical jokes—all were taken as a part of the fun. Had we realized what we had been there for, we might have been heard in France.
Instead of sleeping in tents, the men had previously procured raw cow-hides which they made into hammocks and stretched in the trees. Each cow-hide served as a hammock for two and some trees would have five or six in a tier. As the boys became tired of celebrating they would slip off to bed; but they could not escape the watchfulness of the others who would wait until they could get a tree full, when some sly rascal would climb the tree, cut the thongs and the whole combination would come down in a heap; the victims apparently enjoying the joke as much as the jokers. I have never seen drunken men retain their good nature as they did on that occasion.
On the 24th of November, 1865, we were mustered out. I remained in Texas to aid in settling up the Quartermaster's accounts but was obliged to return North on account of a severe attack of ague and arrived at Rochelle on the 21st of March, 1866.
In the meantime, there had been a general exodus of soldiers from the South to their northern homes and the transportation lines, particularly the river steamers, were crowded with them. The feeling among those who represented the lost-cause, was intensely bitter and no Union soldier was safe anywhere in the South. A secret organization known as "The Knights of the Golden Circle," was charged as being responsible for many assassinations and other outrages. It was significant of conditions, that boiler explosions and other "accidents" occurred to a number of river steamers—all upon homeward voyages and all loaded with discharged Union soldiers. The most appalling of these was probably that of the "Sultana" which was lost at a point about fifty miles above Memphis on its passage up the Mississippi. While in midstream the boiler exploded—caused, it was believed by an explosive secretly placed in the fuel—and nearly all of the passengers, numbering about fifteen hundred, mostly discharged soldiers, were drowned.