864 233

CHAPTER XXI.--The Battle of Wilkinson's Pike. December 7, 1864 238

CHAPTER XXII.--The Fight on the Railroad Near Murfreesboro,
December 15, 1864 247

CHAPTER XXIII.--Murfreesboro. Winter of 1864-1865. Franklin.
Spring and Summer of 1865 258

CHAPTER XXIV.--The Soldier's Pay; Rations; Allusions to Some
of the Useful Lessons Learned by Service in the Army in Time of
War; Courage in Battle 265

CHAPTER XXV.--Franklin, Summer of 1865. Mustered Out, September
8, 1865. Receive Final Payment at Springfield, Illinois, September
27, 1865. The Regiment "Breaks Ranks" Forever 275

PREFACE.

When I began writing these reminiscences it did not occur to me that
anything in the nature of a preface was necessary. It was thought that
the dedication to my son Jerry contained sufficient explanation. But I
have now finished writing these recollections, and in view of all that
they set forth, I believe that a few brief prefatory remarks may now be
appropriate. In the first place it will be said that when I began the
work it was only to gratify my son, and without any thought or
expectation that it would ever be published. I don't know yet that such
will be done, but it may happen. The thought occurred to me after I had
written some part of it, and it is possible that about at that point
some change began to take place in the style, and phraseology, and which
perhaps may be observed. So much for that. Next I will say that all
statements of fact herein made, based upon my own knowledge, can be
relied on as absolutely true. My mother most carefully preserved the
letters I wrote home from the army to her and to my father. She died on
February 6, 1894, and thereafter my father (who survived her only about
three years) gave back to me these old letters. In writing to my parents
I wrote, as a rule, a letter every week when the opportunity was
afforded, and now in this undertaking with these letters before me it
was easy to follow the regiment every mile of its way from Camp
Carrollton in January, 1862, to Camp Butler, in September, 1865.
Furthermore, on June 1, 1863, at Memphis, Tennessee, as we passed
through there on our way to join Grant's army at Vicksburg, I bought a
little blank book about four inches long, three inc