Mr. John Trotwood Moore, Editor of Taylor-Trotwood Magazine:
Dear Sir: There are many persons who credit to the pen of Mr. John A. Cockerill the best war story ever written. As you will remember, Mr. John A. Cockerill was the distinguished editor of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, also editor-in-chief of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Later he was the editor-in-chief of the New York World, and altogether was one of the most brilliant descriptive writers this country has ever produced. He died a few years ago in Cairo, Egypt, being at the time of his death connected with the New York Herald.
At the outbreak of the war in 1861, John A. Cockerill was about fifteen years old, and the recruiting officers had refused to enlist him in the ranks of the fighting line by reason of his youth, but accepted him as a drummer boy in the Twenty-fourth Ohio Infantry, in which regiment his brother was then a first lieutenant and later captain and colonel.
It is in no way surprising to the personal friends of John A. Cockerill that anything written by him should be the best of its kind. The best war story ever written is on the Battle of Shiloh, as seen by John A. Cockerill, which story I send you herewith, with the earnest request that you permit it to occupy a place in your interesting and valuable Historic Highways of the South.
Yours very truly,
Theodore F. Allen,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
[The editor agrees with Mr. Allen that this story is above praise and should find an abiding place in history.]
Shiloh Church, April 6th, 1862.
Here is a date and a locality indelibly burned into my memory. I was then an enlisted fourth-class musician in the Twenty-fourth Ohio Regiment, in which my elder brother was a first lieutenant, and afterwards captain and colonel, successively. I had campaigned in Western Virginia, and had seen some of the terrors and horrors of war at Philippi and Rich Mountain, and some of its actualities in a winter campaign in the Cheat Mountain district. During the winter of 1861, my command was sent to Louisville, Kentucky, where General Buell was organizing his splendid army of the Ohio for active operations against Bowling Green and Nashville. My regiment was assigned to General Nelson’s command, and the early spring found us on the left flank of the army, on the north side of Green River. With unexpected suddenness Nelson’s division was sent back one day in March to the Ohio River, where it was placed on transports and headed for the Cumberland River to participate in Grant’s movement against Fort Donelson. Before reaching that point, intelligence was received of the capture of that stronghold, and our flotilla proceeded to Paducah, Kentucky. At that point General W. T. Sherman was organizing his recruits from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois for the forward movement up the Tennessee River. I had been taken ill on the steamer en route, and my father, who at that time commanded the Seventieth Ohio, stationed at Paducah, took me in his personal charge. Two days later my regiment sailed up the Cumberland River and was with the first brigade to enter Nashville. When I had reached the convalescent stage, I asked permission to rejoin my command, but General Sherman said the armies of Grant and Buell would form a coalition somewhere up the Tennessee River, and I would be better off in my father’s care than elsewhere.