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CIVIL WAR ARCHIVE OF SAMUEL PATTON, 1ST ILLINOIS ARTILLERY
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CIVIL WAR ARCHIVE OF SAMUEL PATTON, 1ST ILLINOIS ARTILLERY
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1862-1865 (1st Illinois Light Artillery) and William Desmond (129th Illinois Infantry), ca.260 letters, bulk: 1862-1865 (105 letters by Samuel Patton, 17 by William Desmond, ca.140 letters to them and other family members) In response to Lincoln`s call for volunteers in August 1862, Samuel Patton left home in Chatsworth, Ill., to enlist in Capt. Miller`s Company of the Chicago Artillery, which was mustered into the federal service as Co. M, 1st Illinois Light Artillery. In his mid twenties, Patton was older than most soldiers, leaving behind his wife of two years, Nelly, and their infant daughter Minnie. Soon after, Nelly`s brother William Desmond followed Patton into the service, enlisting in the 129th Illinois Infantry, and in short order, both men were assigned to hazardous duty in the western theatre, witnessing action from Kentucky to Georgia and back – though in Desmond`s case, there was no back: his enlistment ended when he was shot during the Atlanta campaign. At once irreverent and reflective, detailed, densely written, and worthy of publication, Samuel Patton`s letters to his wife Nelly provide a gritty picture of life in a western light artillery regiment, filled with the particulars of artillery drill, hard marches and winter hunkering, ferocious battles and the boredom of camp, all punctuated by a grizzled perspective on life, morality, and war and a perceptive eye to the future. Covering the entire period of his entire of his military service, Patton`s letters begin with a flurry of letters describing his arrival as a raw recruit at Camp Douglas, and his training as an artillerist. As ideologically motivated as any soldier, Patton`s rough edges and harsh opinions shone through from his first moments on southern soil. Slaveholders all, he wrote, Kentuckians looked as if they `had all been asleep for the last forty or fifty years` and their homes, he insisted, `would be fit representatives of drunkards homes… windows knocked out and stuffed full of rags and old hats, the whole building of the most dilapidated character, an old tumble down fence around it, the yard (and garden if they have one) full of weeds, and old nigger shanty in the yard, with perhaps the door knocked off the hinges, with not a tree nearer than the woods.` The soldiers eagerly confiscated slaves from such plantations, and although the masters were regularly seen `prowling around outside the lines,` the soldiers refused to surrender the slaves. The `niggers,` he wrote, `say they would rather be shot than given up.` Even though they had not been accustomed to military life for long, the soldiers in the battery fell quickly into the usual ways of Civil War soldiers, helping themselves freely to civilians` food, fences, and fungible goods and maintaining a strong code of silence about their activities to stave off the wrath of their officers. After the battery had `farted around in Kentucky for three or four months, stealing chickens and robbing smoke houses, when we could do so without being detected,` Patton and his comrades were transferred to Tennessee at the end of 1862, finding at once that the scene had changed. Arriving on his first full-scale battlefield on the day after a fight, Patton wrote with a natural detachment that characterizes most of his letters: `I counted thirty eight dead rebels on a space of ground not more than two acres in extent. They buried about one hundred and fifty yesterday and still continued to find more. Our side lost twelve or fifteen killed and twenty or thirty wounded…. The rebels surrounded the boys and attacked them from all sides. They thus kept them pretty busy for about three hours. One time during the fight the rebels charged up the siege and an officer rode up to the breast works and shouted to the gunner `God damn you why don’t you surrender. Don’t you know you are all whipped?` The only answer he received was a dose of canister that literally tore him to atoms` (Feb. 5, 1863). Patton got a taste of battle for the first time less than a month later during the Tullahoma Campaign, which he described with typical Patton flair spiked an equally typical Patton venom for those he disliked. `Gen. [Charles] Gilbert,` he complained, `played the same game that Buel did at Perrysville, viz. keeping back reinforcements while part of his army was being cut to pieces by a superior force. Our battery and three or four Regiments of Infantry were laying here all fore noon of the 5th listening to the fireing in front when Gilbert knew they were wanted on the battlefield…. I had just written you a few lines and went out of the tent and had not sealed the letter yet when the order was given to hich up and take our blankets with us… we crossed the creek on the Pontoon bridge and moved forward toward the battlefield. We had gone about a mile when a man met Gilbert with a dispatch. I noticed that his countenance fell when he read it. We ware ordered to halt and the Infantry commenced forming in line of battle, our left section being placed on a commanding position…`after crossing paths with the retreating 18th Ohio Battery (out of ammunition), darkness fell and they held off in rain. A few days later, Gilbert did little to endear himself when he ordered Patton punished for stealing and butchering a hog and had other privates arrested for stealing hams – an order made moot when the men charged with punishing Patton refused to go along, and which was overruled by Gen. Gordon Granger. Posted in relative calm near Franklin during the summer, 1863, Patton had time to reflect on the conflict between duty to home and duty to nation that so many soldiers felt. Although he was strongly motivated, he could hardly help keeping Nellie and Minnie from his mind: `When I enlisted you know it was the most gloomy hour of our National existance. Our armies had been driven back and the Presidents call for `three hundred thousand more` men seemed to fall unheeded upon the ears of the nation, it seemed as if the light of patriotism was fast fading away. I looked at the gloomy prospect and thought that whatever others might do, I could not stand an idle spectator of my country`s ruin, but Nellie, it requires but little courage to face the shot and shell of the enemy, compared with what it required for me to tare myself away from all that was dear to me on earth…` (June 18, 1863). A month later, elated over the news from Gettysburg and Vicksburg, he waxed confident that he would return home soon, though his prescient view of the future was all too bleak: `The war cannot last much longer when the large rebel armies are whiped. They may break up into guerrilla parties, but our Infantry will be mounted and the rascals hunted down like murderers and receive no quarter when taken and when they find that death is the penalty for bushwhacking they will be glad to return to their homes and ask protection from the government. They have tryed so long and so hard to overthrow, but the majority will not go that far, but when they find their cause grown desperate they will hasten to return to their allegiance for the purpose of saving their property. The leaders, I think will leave the country unless the government by a criminal clemency offers them pardon and I think it would not only be criminal but unwise as it would be only offering a premium to future conspiraters who would think that they might also deluge the land with blood, enrich themselves and when they could no longer pursue their wicked course receive pardon from the government and sit down and enjoy their ill gotten wealth, unmolested. I dislike Seward`s policy. I think it short sighted and foolish. I would say fight them! fight them!! fight them!!! keep fighting them, tread the wine press if need be til the traitors blood flows, even to the horses bridles` (July 22, 1863) Patton`s hatred for Charles Gilbert grew steadily, but he hated the officers in his regiment even more, and most of all, h e came to loathe the former slaves who flocked into camp. After remarking (based on abundant experience) that privates never rat on other privates when stealing food and other goods, Patton claimed that former slaves gladly ratted out enlisted men to curry favor with officers, and he fulminated against them all: `I wish the black whelps were all in Africa once more. They will be a curse to our country as long as they are in it, whether free or in slavery, but if they must stay it would be better for us to keep them as they were, but as that is impossible without imprinting a stain on the Nation that can never be eradicated, I say get rid of them, send them off as fast as possible, no matter what it costs… I go for sending every man, woman, and child out of the country who has a drop of Nigger blood in their veins, whether they want to go or not. As far as freeing Niggers is concerned, I would not place myself as a target to be shot at one moment to free all the Niggers on earth. I would make an effort to get rid of them as I would to get rid of lice or any kind of vermins` (July 22, 1863). Rushed to Chattanooga front in September, the 1st Illinois Artillery arrived at the Battle of Chickamauga, where they thrust into savage combat. His description is worth quoting at length: `There had been fighting in progress the 19th, but nothing to compare with this. The rapid discharge of musketry – resembling a continuous heavy peal of thunder. Towards noon, we were ordered out on the double quick and after going two or three miles along the line, we were brought in range of a rebel battery and immediately unlimbered and opened fire on them, but could not reach them with our twelve lb. Napoleon guns. We accordingly limbered up while the Rodmans of the center section continued the fight til ordered away. We had just limbered up and my back was turned towards the rebel Battery, when someone called my name in a quick warning tone. I instantly dropped flat on the ground, while shell whistled directly over me. I raised my eyes in time to see it in its rapid flight to the rear – and turning, I saw where it had touched the brow of the hill close behind me and nearly in front of the gun, but in a direct line with the place I was standing.` When ordered forward by Granger, `We were formed in line of battle and ordered to storm the enemy`s position. Our men rushed forward with a shout and when near the top of the hill, ran into an ambuscade of the enemy, whose columns, in the form of a horse show, were concealed in the thick undergrowth. Though exposed to this murderous cross fire, our men did not falter – but charged the enemy with the most determined bravery. Our section of the Batttery turned square off to the right and soon reached the enemy`s left flank, where we unlimbered and poured the canister lengthways of their columns, literally mowing them down. Attacked thus front and flank, they were driven back, leaving us masters of the position, with the exception of their sharpshooters, who still lurked in their hiding places and sent theur bullets unpleasantly close to our persons. But after the shower of bullets we had just been exposed to, we felt comparitively relieved when exposed only to their fire…` Ordered forward again, he continued: `When we attacked the enemy`s position the first time and ran into their ambuscade, I thought the enemy`s fire was hot enough, but it was nothing when compared with what we were now exposed to. The air seemed filled with bullets. They rattled on our guns and the tires of the wheels like hail and licked the ground like a brush. It seemed impossible for a man to live a moment exposed to such a fire. Men were falling like leaves all around us. Had we given way the entire Army would have been lost. The enemy were advancing on us in a solid mass. Our canister plowed wide furrows in their ranks, but they instantly closed up again and advanced on us, the front rank firing and dropping on the ground while those in their rear advanced over them and repeated the same process. In this manner they kept a constant stream of bullets pouring on us…. When our line gave way there were but three canoniers on our gun. It was still unlimbered. The enemy were pressing close on us and our gunner had been taken from the field, shot through the neck. The skeleton of a regiment was slowly falling back before the enemy. The rest of the Battery was limbered and moving off. Gen. Steadman rode up and said `Boys, give them a shall,` but it was too close for shell to be effective and our canister was all gone. While we had not men enough to limber up, Gen. Steadman ordered the shattered regiment that had just passed us to halt and hold the enemy in check til we got our gun away. They told him that their ammunition was exhausted. The men looked as though they could scarcely stand on their feet. `Then give them the bayonet,` said Steadman. As they turned, with fixed bayonets and almost staggered back to meet the enemy I felt as though I could almost worship them.` Patton injured his back during the fray, but the psychological effect may have been greater. On Sept. 23, he wrote a farewell letter to his wife and child should he die, only to learn in his next letter from home that his daughter had died unexpectedly: `When you was watching over our dying Minnie I was laying on the ground wraped in my blanket asleep, dreaming of home, but how different was the scene my fancy pictured from that transpiring there` (Oct. 6, 1863) In the defenses at Chattanooga, Patton`s letters become increasingly rich in their descriptions of military life and the sorts of rumors soldiers pass along. The letters reach a crescendo in Battle Above the Clouds and Mission Ridge November 23-25, which Patton superbly and clearly described with almost clinical precision, made possible by the distance of an artillerist from the action. After fog and rain fell over the battle, Patton began: `we could only judge of the progress of the battle by the sound of the fireing. The breastworks were covered with men with their eyes riveted on the northern slope of the mountain (next the river) to catch a glimpse of the combatants. For some time the fireing seemed to grow louder and more rapid as though our men were charging up the opposite side and then it would grow less distinct giveing the impression that the enemy were driveing our men back, but at last the fireing grew more distinct than usual and with a glass the enemy could be seen flying before a dark line which stretched around the mountain slope til they reached a line of works reaching from a house near the foot of the ledge down to the foot of the mountain where it connected with the rebbel line in our front… the enemy fell back a little farther and then made another stand, while brigade in our front moved to the right to support our men on the slope of the mountain… In the meantime the fog had settled down so as to obscure the operations on the mountain where the fight was still progressing. The enemy had probably been reinforced as they seemed to be holding their ground. I sat down for a long time but at last it moved farther to the left making it evident that our men were again driving them. The brigade sent to their support having probably reaching them but the fireing which had now become reduced to a mere skirmish continued til long after dark…. `Mission Ridge with its top bristling with cannon was still to be taken while its steep sides with a mile or more of level fields in front in easy range of the frowning batteries far above seemed to welcome our men to certain death should they attempt to drive the enemy from his position. It is said that Gen. Bragg told his men that they need have no fears of the Yankees ever attempting to charge up Mission Ridge and when they did start the rebs shouted and clapped their hands for joy at a movement which they considered would result in the certain destruction of our army…. After noon [on the 25th] we could see the smoke or artillery occasionally on the Rossville Road the enemy haveing nearly all fell back from our front between Mission Ridge and lookout mounta in and taken up their position on mission ridge. When the long line moved forward on double quick, scarcely had they started forward when Mission Ridge seemed transformed into a volcano. For mile the top of the ridge was lined with artillery which worked to its utmost capacity litterally vomited death on our men who pushed forward driveing the enemy from one line of works after another til they had reached the enemy`s third line of works, where nearly exhausted they halted a few moments to take breath..` The letter continues with much more (Dec. 25, 1863). His letters continue with descriptions of the battery`s role at Buzzard Roost and Resaca, but by June 1864, the hard use of two years` service began to tell on the battery and on Patton in particular. He fell sick near Marietta after a particularly hard stint of work, and with an ailing back and barely able to stand, much less work, he was sent to hospital from Kennesaw Mountain. `The last night I was there,` he wrote, `the night of June 27th, our battery was in the front line of battle. My bones ached so that I could not sleep much and I could hear the rebels bullets whistle past me til about two o`clock. Next morning the Doctor told me he was going to send me to the Hospital as they had orders to draw ten days rations and forage and get ready to move. There was two others sent with me in the ambulance. We only staid in the field Hospital about two hours and then were sent to the rear. I cannot picture you the appearance of a field hospital after battle. It must be seen to be realized. Look where you will, you see a dead man or one in the agonies of death. Men giving up life as it were by inches, while every breath brought with it a pang that seemed almost beyond endurance. Piles of amputated limbs, while the surgeon at work amputating occasionally throw out an arm or leg as if it were some old bone or something that they cared nothing about` (July 7, 1864). His letters from the hospital open a window onto that all too unpleasant experience for soldiers, including the venting of a little spleen for the irregularities in the distribution of food packages from the Sanitary Commission and the load of puerile reading matter distributed by the Christian Commission, which he insisted was roundly laughed at by the manly men of the sick bed and camp. Patton rejoined his depleted regiment near Chattanooga, where he found their spirits still running high. In December he crowed that the Confederate army was `going South, having found the climate around Nashville to be rather unhealthy for his Army,` and he began living just as hard as he had before his illness, happily admitting to stealing anything and everything he could find to eat, sit on, sit near, or sit under. His letters are filled with stories of being an `old soldier,` now considered a `tough custimer` by the new recruits and given a wide berth by all. One his most interesting late-war letters, though, contains his reaction to the assassination of Lincoln: `In the Army the current indignation runs deep, coming as it does on the heels of such an exhibition of clemency as Lee`s army was the recipiants of. It stirs the deepest feelings of which the human heart is susceptible. Woe be to Johnson`s army if Shermans troops hear of this before he surrenders, as he will undoubtedly have to do if he wants to offer battle. Let this news be read to them on the eve of an engagement, as important news sometimes is, and they will sweep Johnsons army from the face of the earth, while cries for quarter will fall on the ears of men, unheeded as relentless as the angel of death himself…. This sad affair give us a President that I have but little confidence in, but still hopes for the best tho the man will get drunk on the day of his enaugeration can have but little respect for himself and less for his Country… The most inveterate enemy of the south could not have dealt a more deadly blow to the rebellious states than the assassins of Lincoln has done…` In other remarkable letters, Patton censures Nellie`s for falling under the sway of Methodist revivalists and religious zealots, which after Chickamauga, left the always irreverent Patton steaming: `When we first came out nearly every Regiment had its Chaplain, but when hardships and dangers began to increase, their numbers as rapidly began to decrease, til at the battle of Chickamauga there seemed to be but one left in our division to minister to the wants of the wounded and dying, though he conducted himself in a manner that won the respect and admiration of the men, but where had the rest all gone. One thing was certain, they were not there and when their names were mentioned, do you think it could be with respect. In this case, which was the rule and which the exception. If the soldiers had deserted their posts in the hour of danger and skulked off home on some pretext, as the chaplains did, what would have become of our country… Though I respect religion, I cannot help looking on these miserable wretches with a feeling of unmitigated contempt` (March 10, 1864). In another letter, he lambasted the inequities and corruption in the work of the U.S. Sanitary Commission and the feeble efforts of the Christian Commission (Jan. 3, 1865) An extraordinary feature of Patton`s letters is the way in which the perspective of a working grunt is delivered with a polished literary style. Although his handwriting is labored, his words read easily and clearly and modern transcriptions are provided for most of his letters. Desmond`s 17 letters are briefer and less literate than Patton`s, but betray something of a similar personality, and they include a few good letters from the Atlanta Campaign. Also included in the collection are several lovely, small printed broadsides containing Civil War patriotic music written by soldiers, including `Patriotic Ballad` (by a soldier of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry); `High Treason and Brother Jeff` (29th Illinois); `Shoulder Straps` (by `A High Private`); `Liberty Without Alloy` (95th Illinois); `The Union Volunteer` (58th Indiana); and `When This Cruel War is Over` (printed in Nashville). All in all, an exceptional and virtually complete archive of correspondence, containing not only Patton`s letters to his wife, Nellie, but most of her letters to him, several letters to William Desmond, and other ancillary family correspondence written during and after the war. Evidence of some mouse action, occasional separation at folds and general soiling, but generally good condition and very legible. A superbly written set of letters by a salt of the earth soldier from Illinois.
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