Showing posts with label 100th IN INF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 100th IN INF. Show all posts

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Captain Charles Wright Wills: Explanatory Note.

[The Army of the Tennessee remained at, or near, East Point, until October 4th. When General Sherman decided to destroy Atlanta, he gave the inhabitants their choice as to where they would go, either north, south, or remain, and take their chances in the ruined city. Prisoners captured during the campaign were also exchanged, and a detail of some 70 or 80 men from the regiment, commanded by Captain Wills, and a like command from the 100th Indiana, was given the duty of guarding the “neutral ground” at a place called Rough and Ready, some eight or ten miles south of Atlanta. This duty being performed, the detail rejoined the regiment, having been so occupied about ten days. The 4th Division was here broken up, and the “old 2d Brigade” was transferred to the 1st Division, commanded by Gen. C. R. Wood.]

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 304

Friday, February 14, 2020

Captain Charles Wright Wills: September 2, 1864


Six miles south of Jonesboro,
September 2, 1864.

At daylight our skirmish line moved forward and found the Rebels gone. When our boys reached the railroad a train of cars was just loading some wounded; the boys made for it, but it outran them. They left a number of their wounded, and when the 14th broke them on the 1st, we captured several hospitals, in one of which were several officers. I saw in a hole by a hospital two legs and three arms. One can't help pitying these Rebel soldiers. They have been whipped here until they have lost all spirit. They don't fight with any spirit when they are attacked and it's more like a butchery than a battle. Our brigade in advance we started after them. The 100th Indiana and 6th Iowa were deployed as skirmishers, and met the Rebel line almost as soon as they started forward. They drove them finely for four miles, when our skirmishers reported that they had run the Rebel army into fortifications.

The country here is quite open, the fields being from half to a mile or more wide, bordered by a narrow strip of wood. The 46th Ohio and our regiment were now deployed to relieve the skirmishers, and take a close look at the enemy's position. They were shooting at us from some rail fences within range, and a mile away, over the fields, we could see them digging; seemed to be constructing a line of pits. We pushed forward under a heavy skirmish fire, and took from a S. C. Brigade the line of pits we saw them making, and went on a little way until we drew a fire from their main works, when we retired to the pits we had taken and prepared to hold them. Found tools in them. This was 3 p. m. About dark the Rebels made three little sorties, but only in light force. We easily repulsed them. Captain Post was wounded in the right breast. Loss in the regiment is seven wounded, raising the loss in the regiment to 178. The 103d and 46th Ohio captured 19 prisoners and killed and wounded at least 25.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 297-8

Friday, April 20, 2018

Captain Charles Wright Wills: March 15, 1864

Scottsboro, Ala., March 15, 1864.

I am again on court martial duty, with a prospect of a long siege; but we have an experienced President and a Judge Advocate who promises to be a fast worker; so we may get through quicker than we anticipated. The President, Colonel Heath, 100th Indiana, is a Bob Ingersoll for the world, that is, full of anecdote and fond of malt. 'Tis probably fortunate that at this time none of the latter is to be had in our division. I dislike detached service in any shape, but prefer court martial duty to almost any other. Would much rather be with my company, and if it were not considered so nix military would ask to be relieved from this. You can't imagine how proud I am becoming of my company. I have never had an iota of trouble with them. We certainly work as smoothly as any company could. We are all in high feather over the prospect of going to Richmond. Everybody wants to start immediately. If the 15th and 17th corps reach the Rapidan, we doubt your hearing anything more about recrossing the Rapidan and taking positions inside the Washington fortifications. Our corps don't get along well with these Cumberland and Potomac soldiers. To hear our men talk to them when passing them or their camps marching, you'd think the feeling between us and the Rebels could be no more bitter. We are well off by ourselves, but still we don't feel at home. We're too far from our old comrades, 13th, 16th and 17th Corps. This feeling that grows up between regiments, brigades, divisions and corps is very strong and as strange. The 4th and 14th Corps Cumberland chaps our men can endure, although much in the spirit a dog chewing a bone, allows another to come within ten feet. The 11th and 12th Corps Potomac men, and ours never meet without some very hard talk. I must do the Yankees the justice to say that our men, I believe, always commence it, and are the most ungentlemanly by great odds. I do honestly think our corps in one respect composed of the meanest set of men, that was ever thrown together. That is, while on the march they make it a point to abuse every man or thing they see. They always feel “bully,” will certainly march further with less straggling, and make more noise whooping than any other corps in service, but if a strange soldier or citizen comes in sight, pity him, and if he's foolish enough to ask a question, as “what regiment,” or “where are you bound for?” he'll wish himself a mile under ground before he hears all the answers, and ten to one not a whit of the information he asked for will be in any of them. We have no pay yet, and no prospects now, but doing good business borrowing.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 217-8

Friday, August 19, 2016

Major Wilder Dwight: April 6, 1862

camp Near Edinburg, April 6, 1862.

It might be a June morning, by its sunshine and warmth. This broken valley, the “interval” of two sharp, dark-wooded ranges of cuts, itself broken and furrowed by impatient “runs,” as they call every water-flow in Virginia, might be a fitting scene for a pleasure journey. All the air might a Sabbath stillness hold, but another solemn influence is everywhere present. Within a mile of our quiet camp the outposts of two armies are watching one another. The cannon and rifle tone break the silence now and then. If you go down to our line of pickets, you will see the men watching with eager though patient eyes for a good shot; and as the smoke breaks from some cover on the opposite bank of the stream, you may hear a ball whistle near you, and some sentry near by will send his quick reply. I had quite an animated day yesterday. As field-officer of the day, I had charge of our line of outposts. I found in the morning that the Rebel pickets were quite importunate and vexatious. I also thought it important to change the position of some of our pickets; and, in order to do so, desired to reconnoitre the ground. I was soon interrupted in my quiet use of my field-glass by the whistle of bullets following the crack of rifles. The devils had probably worked down through the ravines. I moved my horse quietly under cover of a small house, and could listen to the sound without exposing any other sense. I soon changed my position; and thought, that, as the road went quite too close to the river, I would take the field. But I had not gone far in that direction when a rapid volley assailed me from behind a straw-rick, and I was again led to turn back, more especially as some of the shots seemed to be from some quarter quite too near for security. That is the working of these Rebels. They work themselves into safe covers, and pop away. Even their artillery, from which we have three or four attacks every day, is often so masked that even the smoke fails to disclose it. I leaped my horse over a fence, and made arrangements for my picket on a line a little less exposed. But you can get some idea of the persistency of the devils. They seem to act with a bitter personal hate and venom. In my ride yesterday afternoon I came to a house about which there was a gathering of curious soldiers. The poor woman was in great trouble. The Rebel battery had just thrown two shells through the house, shattering windows and plastering, &c. She was in terror, and her husband was away serving in the army whose missiles had terrified her. “Pa is pressed into the militia,” said the little boy to me. “He's gone away to New Market.” Yet these people explain their misfortunes by our invasion, not by their rebellion. “I wish you'd move your men away or stop their firing,” said a young girl to me at a farm-house. “Our boys'll shell the house sure, if you don't take care.” They cling to their allegiance to their flying army, — and why shouldn't they? It is made up of their brothers and sons and lovers. We find very few men. Indeed, their practical conscription leaves nothing male and able-bodied out of the ranks.

But I must not omit to tell you of my revenge on the men who fired at me. The straw-rick stood just in front of a barn. From the hill on which a section of our battery was posted it was a good mark. On my return to that point I directed a few shell to be thrown there. With lucky aim two of them struck the barn itself; and their explosion had, at least, the result to scatter the men within, who were seen to run back to the woods.

We hear an odd story of an incident in the battle at Winchester. It shows that the Second Regiment has a name in this valley. Probably its long continuance here, and the fact that a flag was given to it at Harper's Ferry, have attracted Rebel attention to it. It is said by some of the soldiers who were in the battle, that when one of the Ohio regiments was broken by the Rebel fire, and faltered a little, some of the Rebels jumped up from the corner of their stone-wall and shouted, “Where's Gordon's bloody Second? Bring it on.” A good deal of curiosity was also expressed by the Rebel wounded and prisoners to know about the regiment, and if it was here. They might any of them have seen it the other day if they would only have waited!

It seems that the Rebels swell their numbers now by a systematic and general compulsion. Such troops will only be an embarrassment to them, I think. But their unscrupulous tyranny spares nothing. An old free negro woman, living in a small hut near our camp, says, “They took away my son last summer to Manassas, and I've had a hard winter without him; but they left me my young son, a poor cripple boy. The other day they come and took him, and my horse and wagon to carry off their sick. He's a poor, weak boy, and all I've got, but they wouldn't spare him to me. I can't help it, but I feel more kind to you all whom I never saw than to them that I was born among.” So she talked on sadly of her troubles.

Look at another picture of this free and happy people, with their patriarchal institutions. Colonel Gordon stopped for the night at a house near Snicker's Ferry. The master was out of the room, and a mulatto slave woman was busy about the table. “You are happy, are you not?” says Colonel G. “No,” with a dull, whining, sad tone in her reply. “Your master's kind to you, isn't he?” “No, he sold my mother fifteen years ago.” That memory and loss had been her life and sorrow for fifteen years, and it would last. Pretty pictures of pastoral content!

“Do not take my corn and grain,” says Mr. Ransom, of Charlestown, a courtly Virginian gentleman. “I've a large family of negroes dependent on me, and I must have enough left to feed them, and to take care of my horses and cows till spring. My poor servants will starve.”

The army moves on; a week passes, and Mr. Ransom may be seen taking care of his single remaining cow and horse. His dependent servants have taken care of themselves, and Mr. Ransom is rubbing his eyes over the abrupt lightening of his burdens. Let us clear our minds of cant, — pro or anti slavery. There is full as much of the former cant as of the latter.

It was Sunday when I began this letter; it is now Monday. We make no movement yet. The Rebel shells have not been thrown among us for a whole day! so life is a little monotonous.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Amelia Dwight, Editor, Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight: Lieut.-Col. Second Mass. Inf. Vols., p. 227-30

Friday, January 30, 2015

98th Indiana Infantry

Failed to complete organization. Two Companies organized, transferred to 100th Regiment Indiana Infantry.

SOURCE: Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the 3, p. Rebellion, Part 1152

100th Indiana Infantry

Organized at Fort Wayne, Ind., and mustered in September 10, 1862. Left State for Memphis, Tenn., November 11. Attached to 2nd Brigade, District of Memphis, Tenn., 13th Army Corps (Old), Dept. of the Tennessee, November, 1862. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, District of Memphis, 13th Army Corps, to December, 1862. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 17th Army Corps, to January, 1863. 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 16th Army Corps, to July, 1863. 1st Brigade, 4th Division, 15th Army Corps, to August, 1864. 2nd Brigade, 4th Division, 15th Army Corps, to September, 1864. 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 15th Army Corps, to June, 1865.

SERVICE. – Grant's Central Mississippi Campaign. Operations on the Mississippi Central Railroad November 26, 1862, to January 10, 1863. Duty at Colliersville, Tenn., and along the Memphis & Charleston Railroad till June 7. Ordered to Vicksburg, Miss., June 7. Siege of Vicksburg June 14-July 4. Advance on Jackson, Miss., July 4-10. Siege of Jackson July 10-17. Camp at Big Black till September 28. Moved to Memphis, Tenn., thence march to Chattanooga, Tenn., September 23-November 20. Operations on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad in Alabama October 20-29. Chattanooga-Ringgold Campaign November 23-27. Tunnel Hill November 23-24. Mission Ridge November 25. March to relief of Knoxville, Tenn., November 28-December 8. Moved to Scottsboro, Ala., and duty there December 17, 1863, to May, 1864. Atlanta (Ga.) Campaign May 1 to September 8. Demonstration on Resaca May 8-13. Near Resaca May 13. Battle of Resaca May 14-15. Movement on Dallas May 18-25. Operations on line of Pumpkin Vine Creek and battles about Dallas, New Hope Church and Allatoona Hills May 25-June 5. Operations about Marietta and against Kenesaw Mountain June 10-July 2. Brushy Mountain June 15. Assault on Kenesaw June 27. Nickajack Creek July 2-5. Chattahoochie River July 5-17. Battle of Atlanta July 22. Siege of Atlanta July 22-August 25. Ezra Chapel, Hood's second sortie, July 28. Flank movement on Jonesboro August 25-30. Battle of Jonesboro August 31-September 1. Lovejoy Station September 2-6. Operations against Hood in North Georgia and North Alabama September 29-November 3. March to the sea November 15-December 10. Griswoldsville November 22. Siege of Savannah December 10-21. Campaign of the Carolinas January to April, 1865. Reconnoissance to Salkehatchie River, S.C., January 25, 1865. Congaree Creek, S.C., February 15. Columbia February 16-17. Battle of Bentonville, N. C., March 19-21. Mill Creek March 22. Occupation of Goldsboro March 24. Advance on Raleigh April 10-14. Occupation of Raleigh April 14. Bennett's House April 26. Surrender of Johnston and his army. March to Washington, D.C., via Richmond, Va., April 29-May 20. Grand Review May 24. Mustered out July 8, 1865. Recruits transferred to 48th Indiana Infantry.

Regiment lost during service 2 Officers and 56 Enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 3 Officers and 173 Enlisted men by disease. Total 234.

SOURCE: Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the 3, p. Rebellion, Part 1153

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

1st Lieutenant Edward P. Williams to A. B. T., August 29, 1862

Fort Wayne, Ind., Aug. 29, 1862.

Yesterday I received a dispatch from Indianapolis saying that Governor Morton had appointed me first lieutenant and adjutant of the One-hundredth Indiana Volunteer Infantry. My commission will come in a few days. The adjutancy is a very good position, and I am better qualified for it than for anything else. No colonel has yet been appointed.

SOURCE: Edward P. Williams, Extracts from Letters to A. B. T. from Edward P. Williams: During His Service in the Civil War 1862-1864, p. 5