War Stories for my Grandchildren. Foster John Watson
behind. General Davis put me in charge of them with orders to get wagons and bring them forward. The sick department of our army is the most unpleasant, the most troublesome, and the most neglected in the whole service. I would rather at any time encounter the dangers of the battlefield than the hospital and receive the treatment of privates. It is a shame to humanity and our Government that it is so much neglected, at least here."
A few days later I wrote: —
"I have no time to write you a letter. I am doing most of the business of the regiment, both of the colonels being sick. All of our brigade left this morning in the forward movement except our regiment, which was left behind for three reasons – the brigade took all our wagons, we had so large a number of sick, and a regiment was to be left to forward supplies. We will leave as soon as we get transportation.
"Aleck [my brother, regimental quartermaster] has been promoted to post quartermaster of General Pope's division, and will be stationed at Otterville, charged with the duty of drawing from St. Louis and forwarding supplies to the division, a very responsible position, and earned by his attention to his duties."
Three days later I wrote: —
"The health of our regiment has been very bad. It is almost unfit for duty. We could only turn out two hundred for company drill, and could hardly march five hundred to-morrow. Diarrhœa, chills and fever, and measles are prevalent. Our officers are almost all laid up. Colonel Morgan has gone to a private house to recruit for a few days. Aleck and I have been the only officers at headquarters who have been entirely fit for duty for several days."
Notwithstanding the condition of the regiment it became necessary for me to run down to St. Louis by rail to bring forward our supply of winter clothing, blankets, etc., and my wife met me there for a day. I am answering her first letter after her return to Evansville, October 23: —
"I am sorry to have you write so despondingly, or rather was sorry to know you felt so lonely (I always want you to write just as you feel). But it was natural that you should feel badly after our separation, for I know what my own feelings were. I trust you are more hopeful and cheerful now. You must remember it is all for the best. I would be with you in our comfortable home, enjoying all the happiness which you and my dear and kind friends could bestow upon me, if I could. But it is impossible. I should be a miserable coward to stay at home in ease and luxury at such a time of national calamity and need."
I wrote again two days later, showing that I had a clear vision of the result of Frémont's grand march to destroy Price: —
"I hardly think we can get off before the first of next week, but it doesn't make much difference to us. We will hardly have a battle at any rate, and will only march down into the lower part of the State to winter, or drag our weary way back again. If this expedition is not a Moscow defeat, I shall be highly gratified. But you must not be alarmed about me. The officer who has a horse to ride and comfortably equipped will be well situated, but it is the poor foot soldier who has to suffer."
I at last chronicle our departure: —
"I have only a moment to write you that we are just about marching to the South. I am very busy, both the colonels and quartermaster being sick. I am colonel, quartermaster, and almost everything else. My health is very good. I see you are secretary of the Ladies Soldiers' Aid Society. You can't do too much for the soldiers, but their greatest need is in the hospitals, good nurses, good cooks, clean shirts, sheets, and kind treatment. If I am to die in the army, I want it to be on the battlefield, never in the miserable hospitals."
The following presents not an unusual phase of soldiering, but new to me: —
"About this hour (3 A.M.) more than two months ago [the day the regiment left Evansville] my good wife was up to give me a good breakfast and bid me good-bye, and I ought to be able to write her a short letter at the same hour.
"We left Otterville day before yesterday with all our regiment that could march, with a train of fifty wagons. We had unbroken, balky horses, and have had a hard time with the train. Our division is fifty miles below Warsaw, and about out of provisions, and we have to use great haste to get them forward. To expedite matters I have taken personal command of the provision train and have been working hard at it. Sometimes it takes us two hours to get over one hill, then two hours to get through one mud-hole. I am not much of a wagoner, as you know, but I have the authority and the knack of getting a good deal of work out of the men. I have two good wagon-masters along with me. I take their advice, and then assume to know all about it with the drivers. You ought to see me preside over the difficulties of a hill or a mud-hole. When a wagon gets stalled, I just get off my horse and put my shoulder to it. The men work twice as hard when I help them. We got along pretty well to-day and reached our camp long before dark. This morning we have two heavy hills before us, and are up at three o'clock to have the horses fed and ready for a move as soon as it is light. Breakfast is announced and we must be ready to be off soon. If I get through with the provisions in good time it will be equal to a small victory for our division of the army. I am well and hearty; this kind of work makes me fat."
The culmination of this campaign is noted in a letter of November 7: —
"I have only time to write you a note to let you know we are safe in Springfield, without a fight or loss of life. When we reached Warsaw we received our orders from General Pope to come to Springfield by forced marches with all possible rapidity, as the enemy were advancing upon us in force. So for four days we marched twenty miles every day, which was something unusual for any army, but our men stood it very well, and are now much better for the exercise.
"When we arrived here we learned that Price was seventy miles away from us and that there never was any danger. Officers speak very disparagingly of Frémont. The indications are that we will march back again in a few days. 'Up the hill and down again.'"
Sometime before the next letter was written from Warsaw, November 14, on the march "down the hill," we had heard of the removal of General Frémont: —
"Our Missouri campaign has been a very barren affair. It may suit a fellow who likes long walks and heavy marching, but there has not been much of war in it. The only time there was to my mind any prospect of a fight was at Georgetown. If Price had ever intended to fight, it was his best chance. We have been chasing him all through the southern part of the State on long and forced marches, wearing out our troops, and spending immense sums of money, and Price keeping fifty miles away from us all the time, and he is now clear over into Arkansas. The Springfield campaign is over at least, and Frémont's reputation and our soldiers' feet have been the sufferers. However popular Frémont may be his military glory is ended.
"Our Colonel Veatch I regard as a man of unusual good judgment and has been an ardent friend of Frémont, and yet says his removal was just and needed, and such is almost the unanimous opinion of officers here. Tell father if he has not become reconciled to the removal, a personal knowledge of matters at St. Louis and here would satisfy him."
My youngest brother, Willie, was eight years old at this time, and I make frequent references to him in my letters. From Syracuse I wrote November 18: —
"We arrived here yesterday from our march of two hundred and fifty miles. We left Otterville on October 29 and arrived here yesterday the 17th, having had only one day of rest during the whole journey. If I had time I would write Willie a letter (but you can tell him) of our march, what a long line our division made, troops and trains of near three miles, what a time the poor soldiers had with sore feet, how we sat around big blazing camp-fires, how we got up before daylight and ate our breakfast on a log, and were marching before the sun was up, and give him a list of all the towns we passed through so he can find them on the map I sent him. About these I can give him the details when I come home. But this is only the least exciting of the soldier's life stories. We can't come home till I can tell him something about our experience on the battlefield, which we have not yet had."
A week later I write still from the same place, expressing great impatience that we are kept in Missouri, and the desire on the part of myself and the men to be ordered into Kentucky, but I add: "I am beginning to understand that the army is one vast machine, and the mass of us need not trouble ourselves about our future, as our generals will determine that. We have only to do our duty and execute their commands." But I caution