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Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865, The

CHAPTER XIV. LITTLE ROCK. WINTER OF 1863-4. RE-ENLIST FOR THREE YEARS MORE. When I returned to Little Rock from my absence on furlough, the regiment was found installed in cosy, comfortable quarters of pine log cabins. There were extensive pine forests near Little Rock, the boys were furnished teams and axes to facilitate the work, and cut and shaped the logs for the cabin walls, and roofed them with lumber, boards or shingles, which they procured in various ways. The walls were chinked and daubed with mud, and each cabin was provided with an ample, old-fashioned fire-place, with a rock or stick chimney. As wood was close at hand, and in abundance, there was no difficulty whatever in keeping the cabins warm. But I will remark here that of all the mean wood to burn, a green pine log is about the worst. It is fully as bad as green elm, or sycamore. But there was no lack of dry wood to mix with the green, and the green logs had this virtue: that after the fire had once taken hold of them they would last a whole night. The winter of 1863-4 was remarkably cold, and to this day is remembered by the old soldiers as "the cold winter." On the last day of 1863 a heavy fall of snow occurred at Little Rock, and the first day of the new year, and several days thereafter, were bitterly cold. But the weather did not cause the troops in our immediate locality any special suffering, so far as I know, or ever heard. All of us not on picket were just as comfortable as heart could wish in our tight, well-warmed cabins, and those on guard duty were permitted to build rousing fires and so got along fairly well. Big fires on the picket line would not have been allowed if any enemy had been in our vicinity, but there were none; hence it was only common sense to let the pickets have fires and keep as comfortable as circumstances would permit. It was probably on account of the severe weather that active military operations in our locality were that winter practically suspended. There were a few cavalry affairs at outlying posts, but none of any material importance. The most painful sight that I saw during the war was here at Little Rock this winter. It was the execution, by hanging, on January 8, 1864, of a Confederate spy, by the name of David O. Dodds. He was a mere boy, seemingly not more than nineteen or twenty years old. There was no question as to his guilt. When arrested there was found on his person a memorandum book containing information, written in telegraphic characters, in regard to all troops, batteries, and other military matters at Little Rock. He was tried by a court martial, and sentenced to the mode of death always inflicted on a spy, namely, by hanging. I suppose that the military authorities desired to render his death as impressive as possible, in order to deter others from engaging in a business so fraught with danger to our armies; therefore, on the day fixed for carrying out the sentence of the court, all our troops in Little Rock turned out under arms and marched to the place of execution. It was in a large field near the town; a gallows had been erected in the center of this open space, and the troops formed around it in the form of an extensive hollow square, and stood at parade rest. The spy rode through the lines to the gallows in an open ambulance, sitting on his coffin. I happened to be not far from the point where he passed through, and saw him plainly. For one so young, he displayed remarkable coolness and courage when in the immediate presence of death. The manner of his execution was wretchedly bungled, in some way, and the whole thing was to me indescribably repulsive. In the crisis of the affair there was a sudden clang of military arms and accouterments in the line not far from me, and looking in that direction I saw that a soldier in the front rank had fainted and fallen headlong to the ground. I didn't faint, but the spectacle, for the time being, well-nigh made me sick. It is true that from time immemorial the punishment of a convicted spy has been death by hanging. The safety of whole armies, even the fate of a nation, may perhaps depend on the prompt and summary extinction of the life of a spy. As long as he is alive he may possibly escape, or, even if closely guarded, may succeed in imparting his dangerous intelligence to others who will transmit it in his stead; hence no mercy can be shown. But in spite of all that, this event impressed me as somehow being unspeakably cruel and cold-blooded. On one side were thousands of men with weapons in their hands, coolly looking on; on the other was one lone, unfortunate boy. My conscience has never troubled me for anything I may have done on the firing line, in time of battle. There were the other fellows in plain sight, shooting, and doing all in their power to kill us. It was my duty to shoot at them, aim low, and kill some of them, if possible, and I did the best I could, and have no remorse whatever. But whenever my memory recalls the choking to death of that boy, (for that is what was done), I feel bad, and don't like to write or think about it. But, for fear of being misunderstood, it will be repeated that the fate of a spy, when caught, is death. It is a military necessity. The other side hanged our spies, with relentless severity, and were justified in so doing by laws and usages of war. Even the great and good Washington approved of the hanging of the British spy, Maj. Andre, and refused to commute the manner of his execution to being shot, although Andre made a personal appeal to him to grant him that favor, in order that he might die the death of a soldier. The point with me is simply this: I don't want personally to have anything to do, in any capacity, with hanging a man, and don't desire even to be in eye-sight of such a gruesome thing, and voluntarily never have. However, it fell to my lot to be an involuntary witness of two more military executions while in the service. I will speak of them now, and then be through with this disagreeable subject. On March 18th, 1864, two guerrillas were hanged in the yard of the penitentiary at Little Rock, by virtue of the sentence of a court martial, and my regiment acted as guard at the execution. We marched into the penitentiary inclosure, and formed around the scaffold in hollow square. As soon as this had been done, a door on the ground floor of the penitentiary was swung open, and the two condemned men marched out, pinioned side by side, and surrounded by a small guard. The culprits were apparently somewhere between forty and fifty years of age. They ascended the scaffold, were placed with their feet on the trap, the nooses were adjusted, the trap was sprung,—and it was all over. The crimes of which these men had been convicted were peculiarly atrocious. They were not members of any organized body of the Confederate army, but guerrillas pure and simple. It was conclusively established on their trial that they, with some associates, had, in cold blood, murdered by hanging several men of that vicinity, private citizens of the State of Arkansas, for no other cause or reason than the fact that the victims were Union men. In some cases the murdered men had been torn from their beds at night, and hanged in their own door-yards, in the presence of their well-nigh distracted wives and children. There can be no question that these two unprincipled assassins richly merited their fate, and hence it was impossible to entertain for them any feeling of sympathy. Nevertheless, I stand by my original proposition, that to see any man strung up like a dog, and hanged in cold blood, is a nauseating and debasing spectacle. In January, 1864, while we were at Little Rock, the "veteranizing" project, as it was called, was submitted to the men. That is to say, we were asked to enlist for "three years more, or endurin' the war." Sundry inducements for this were held out to the men, but the one which, at the time, had the most weight, was the promise of a thirty-days furlough for each man who re-enlisted. The men in general responded favorably to the proposition, and enough of the 61st re-enlisted to enable the regiment to retain its organization to the end of the war. On the evening of February 1st, with several others of Co. D, I walked down to the adjutant's tent, and "went in" for three years more. I think that no better account of this re-enlistment business can now be given by me than by here inserting a letter I wrote on December 22nd, 1894, as a slight tribute to the memory of our acting regimental commander in February, 1864, Maj. Daniel Grass. He was later promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and after the war, came to Kansas, where, for many years, he was a prominent lawyer and politician. On the evening of December 18th, 1894, while he was crossing a railroad track in the town where he lived, (Coffeyville, Kansas,) he was struck by a railroad engine, and sustained injuries from which he died on December 21st, at the age of a little over seventy years. A few days thereafter the members of the bar of the county held a memorial meeting in his honor, which I was invited to attend. I was then judge of the Kansas 7th Judicial District, and my judicial duties at the time were such that I could not go, and hence was compelled to content myself by writing a letter, which was later published in the local papers of the county, and which reads as follows: <div class="blockquote"> "Erie, Kansas, "December 22, 1894. "Hon. J. D. McCue, "Independence, Kansas. "My Dear Judge: "I received this evening yours of the 20th informing me of the death of my old comrade and regimental commander during the war for the Union, Col. Dan Grass. I was deeply moved by this sad intelligence, and regret that I did not learn of his death in time to attend his funeral. I wish I could be present at the memorial meeting of the bar next Monday that you mention, but I have other engagements for that day that cannot be deferred. It affords me, however, a mournful pleasure to comply with your request suggesting that I write a few words in the nature of a tribute to our departed friend and comrade, to be read at this meeting of the bar. But I am fearful that I shall perform this duty very unsatisfactorily. There are so many kind and good things that I would like to say about him that throng my memory at this moment that I hardly know where to begin. "I served in the same regiment with Col. Grass from January 7th, 1862, to December 15th, 1864. On the last named day he was taken prisoner by the rebels in an engagement near Murfreesboro, Tenn. He was subsequently exchanged, but by that time the war was drawing to a close, and he did not rejoin us again in the field. In May, 1865, he was mustered out of the service. During his term of service with us, (nearly three years,) I became very well acquainted with him, and learned to admire and love him as a man and a soldier. He was temperate in his habits, courteous and kind to the common soldiers, and as brave a man in action as I ever saw. He was, moreover, imbued with the most fervid and intense patriotism. The war with him was one to preserve the Republic from destruction, and his creed was that the government should draft, if necessary, every available man in the North, and spend every dollar of the wealth of the country, sooner than suffer the rebellion to succeed, and the Nation to be destroyed. I think the most eloquent speech I ever heard in my life was one delivered by Col. Grass to his regiment at Little Rock, Arkansas, in February, 1864. The plan was then in progress to induce the veteran troops in the field to re-enlist for three years more. We boys called it 'veteranizing.' For various reasons it did not take well in our regiment. Nearly all of us had been at the front without a glimpse of our homes and friends for over two years. We had undergone a fair share of severe fighting and toilsome marching and the other hardships of a soldier's life, and we believed we were entitled to a little rest when our present term should expire. Hence, re-enlisting progressed slowly, and it looked as if, so far as the 61st Illinois was concerned, that the undertaking was going to be a failure. While matters were in this shape, one day Col. Grass caused the word to be circulated throughout the regiment that he would make us a speech that evening at dress parade on the subject of 'veteranizing.' At the appointed time we assembled on the parade ground with fuller ranks than usual, everybody being anxious to hear what 'Old Dan,' as the boys called him, would say. After the customary movements of the parade had been performed, the Colonel commanded, 'Parade, Rest!' and without further ceremony commenced his talk. Of course I cannot pretend, after this lapse of time, to recall all that he said. I remember best his manner and some principal statements, and the effect they produced on us. He began talking to us like a father would talk to a lot of dissatisfied sons. He told us that he knew we wanted to go home; that we were tired of war and its hardships; that we wanted to see our fathers and mothers, and 'the girls we left behind'; that he sympathized with us, and appreciated our feelings. 'But, boys,' said he, 'this great Nation is your father, and has a greater claim on you than anybody else in the world. This great father of yours is fighting for his life, and the question for you to determine now is whether you are going to stay and help the old man out, or whether you are going to sneak home and sit down by the chimney corner in ease and comfort while your comrades by thousands and hundreds of thousands are marching, struggling, fighting, and dying on battle fields and in prison pens to put down this wicked rebellion, and save the old Union. Stand by the old flag, boys! Let us stay and see this thing out! We're going to whip 'em in the end just as sure as God Almighty is looking down on us right now, and then we'll all go home together, happy and triumphant. And take my word for it, in after years it will be the proudest memory of your lives, to be able to say, "I stayed with the old regiment and the old flag until the last gun cracked and the war was over, and the Stars and Stripes were floating in triumph over every foot of the land!'" "I can see him in my mind's eye, as plain as if it were yesterday. He stood firm and erect on his feet in the position of a soldier, and gestured very little, but his strong, sturdy frame fairly quivered with the intensity of his feelings, and we listened in the most profound silence. "It was a raw, cold evening, and the sun, angry and red, was sinking behind the pine forests that skirted the ridges west of our camp when the Colonel concluded his address. It did not, I think, exceed more than ten minutes. The parade was dismissed, and the companies marched back to their quarters. As I put my musket on its rack and unbuckled my cartridge box, I said to one of my comrades, 'I believe the old Colonel is right; I am going right now down to the adjutant's tent and re-enlist;' and go I did, but not alone. Down to the adjutant's tent that evening streamed the boys by the score and signed the rolls, and the fruit of that timely and patriotic talk that Dan Grass made to us boys was that the great majority of the men re-enlisted, and the regiment retained its organization and remained in the field until the end of the war. "But my letter is assuming rather lengthy proportions, and I must hasten to a close. I have related just one incident in the life of Col. Grass that illustrates his spirit of patriotism and love of country. I could speak of many more, but the occasion demands brevity. Of his career since the close of the war, in civil life here in Kansas, there are others better qualified to speak than I am. I will only say that my personal relations with him since he came to this State, dating away back in the early seventies, have continued to be, during all these years, what they were in the trying and perilous days of the war—of the most friendly and fraternal character. To me, at least, he was always Col. Dan Grass, my regimental commander; while he, as I am happy to believe, always looked upon and remembered me simply as 'Lee Stillwell, the little sergeant of Company D.' "I remain very sincerely your friend, "L. STILLWELL." </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/008.jpg" alt="Daniel Grass" width-obs="380" height-obs="525"> Daniel Grass (Late Lieut. Colonel, 61st Illinois Infantry.)</div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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