As this is to be a history of prison life, it is not my purpose to write a history of my regiment but a short sketch is proper in order to give the reader a fair understanding of my capture.
The 10th left Camp Holton, near Milwaukee, about the middle of Nov. 1861. We went by railway via Chicago, Indianapolis and Evansville to Louisville, Ky., thence to Shepherdsville, thence to Elizabethtown, where we were assigned to Sill’s Brigade of Mitchell’s Division. Wintered at Bacon Creek and on the 11th of Feb. 1862, marched with Buell’s army to the capture of Bowling Green. Buell’s army and part of Grant’s army arrived almost simultaneously at Nashville, Tenn. Grant with his forces proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, Buell to Murfreesboro. After Buell with the greater part of his army had marched to Grant’s support, Mitchell’s Division marched on Huntsville, Ala., capturing that place together with about 500 prisoners, 12 engines and a large amount of rolling stock, the property of the Memphis & Charleston R. R.
The 10th guarded the M. & C. R. R. from Huntsville to Stevenson, the junction of the M. & C. and the Nashville & Chattanooga R. R. during the summer of ’62.
Early in September we commenced that famous retreat from the Tennessee to the Ohio, and to show the reader how famous it was to those who participated in it, I will say we averaged twenty-four miles per day from Stevenson, Ala., to Louisville, Ky. On the 8th of October, supported Simonson’s battery at the Battle of Perryville, losing 146, killed and wounded out of 375 men. Our colors showing the marks of forty-nine rebel bullets, in fact they were torn into shreds. Dec. 31st, ’62 and Jan. 1st and 2nd, ’63, in the Battle of Stone’s River, or Murfreesboro.
The army of the Cumberland, then under command or Gen. Rosecrans, was divided into four army corps. The 14th, under Gen. Thomas, was in the center. The 20th, under Gen. A. McD. McCook, on the right. The 21st, under Gen. Crittenden, on the left and the Reserve Corps, under Gen. Gordon Granger, in supporting distance in the rear.
We remained at Murfreesboro until June 23rd, ’63, when the whole army advanced against Bragg, who was entrenched at Tullahoma, drove him out of his entrenchments, across the mountains and Tennessee River into Chattanooga and vicinity. Here commenced a campaign begun in victory and enthusiasm, and ending at Chickamauga in disaster and gloom, but not in absolute defeat.
THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.
Rosecrans showed fine strategic ability in maneuvering Bragg out of Tennessee without a general engagement, but he made a serious and almost fatal mistake after he had crossed the Tennessee River with his own army. He should have entrenched at Chattanooga and kept his army well together. Instead of doing so, he scattered his forces in a mountainous country. Crittenden’s Corps followed the north bank of the Tennessee to a point above Chattanooga, there crossed the river flanking Chattanooga on the east and cutting the railroad south, thus compelling the evacuation of that place.
McCook crossed two ranges of mountains to Trenton, while Thomas with his corps still remained at Bridgeport, on the Tennessee, and Granger was leisurely marching down from Nashville.
In the reorganization of the Army of the Cumberland in Oct. ’62, our Brigade was called 1st Brig. of 1st Div., 14th Corps. The Brigade was commanded by Col. Scribner of the 38th Indiana. The Division was commanded through the Perryville and Murfreesboro campaigns by Gen. Rousseau, but through the Chickamauga campaign by Gen. Absalom Baird, now Inspector General of the Army.