Pentecostal Possibilities or "The Story of My Life"
by Milton Lorenzo (M. L.) Haney
CHAPTER 40
Diverse Experiences
When at Larkins Landing there was a strong desire on the part of general officers for the re-enlistment of the veterans, but my regiment refused unless they could choose their own officers. This right was given them, and all the officers signed an agreement not to serve unless thus elected. This as very unmilitary, but the fighting qualities of these men was such that this price was paid to secure them. Captain Jacob Augustine was in every way qualified to command a regiment or brigade, and should have been elected as their Colonel. This I advocated strongly when approached on the subject of my own candidacy, and I supposed, till a very late hour, he would be their choice. I was fully satisfied with my position as a Chaplain, for which I was surely better fitted than for command. I spoke many words against the change, and I think I never uttered a word in its favor, but when the vote was cast I was elected, by an overwhelming majority, as the Colonel of the veteran 55th. I thought it unwise, but yielded to this strong demand. I think I should have resigned in an hour had not Captain Augustine been elected as Lieutenant Colonel. So in case of my failure, I could fall back on him.
Those who "veteranized" were promised a furlough, and we were all subsequently sent home. The treatment we received on the way in Chicago, and at our homes was flattering beyond expectation, and, of course, it as a great feast to us all. My wife and little folks had remained with me, at Larkins Landing, till that time, and accompanied the regiment to Chicago. Her heroic spirit never faltered during the war. When I was reported killed, again and again, she insisted I was alive and would come through unscathed. When others doubted seriously as to the final success of our armies, she unfalteringly maintained that the National flag would never go down! There is a mighty inspiration in one such heroic soul! She came to me at Larkins Landing, when not one woman in a hundred could have gotten through. Orders had been issued against women coming to the front, and when she reached Louisville the commander of the post refused to give her a pass. She answered it was too bad; she ought to have provided for this before leaving home. To this he replied with a distinctive military air: "You could not get through without a pass from me!" She answered: "Would not an order from General Grant suffice without your signature?" And with her lady friend she went to a hotel. Mr. Andres was going to the front with sutler goods for our regiment, and wished his wife to accompany him, and they both gave up on hearing this verdict of the commander, and she expected to return, but my Spartan wife said no, and had a telegram sent to General Grant that the wife of Chaplain Haney, with a lady friend, wished to come to the front, and immediately came an order from the General, signed by his own hand, to pass them. The next morning she, with her friend, was at the depot in due time, where, at the car entrance she was met by his lordship, the commander of the post. He objected to their taking the cars. She replied they were expecting to go, and after sufficient satisfaction for his impudence, she showed him her order. This occurred before my wife was sanctified.
We rejoined Sherman's command, after our furlough, at Big Shanty, north of Mount Kennesaw. Sherman had maneuvered and fought his way through, from Chattanooga to Kennesaw Mountain. There were some hidden works of the enemy around the base of the mountain, which Sherman wanted discovered. The railroad track had not been taken up, so the General suggested to a soldier engineer that he would like a reconnaissance of that unseen locality. The soldier mounted an engine alone, ran around the point under fire, got the desired information and returned unhurt! When he alighted from the engine he walked up alongside of it and patted it like a man would a pet horse, and calling it by name said: "Good old girl," and walked off to his tent as though no extraordinary thing had occurred. There are countless thousands who would not have taken the risk he did for a million dollars!
It was soon understood that we were to assault the enemy in this stronghold. Sherman was doubtful about it, but called a council of war, and some of his generals Logan especially, strongly favored it, and Sherman was overruled. It afterwards proved he was right and they wrong. Our troops were to go around to the west side, but were lying to the north, on their arms, for quite a time. One of the boys, who was a brave soldier, came to tell me that he had a strong conviction if he went into this battle he would be killed, and asked me what to do. He had been clearly converted, but had let go of his hold on Christ. After reflection, I said: "You go down into that ravine and pray till you get tremendously blessed. and come to me again, and if you then want to be excused I will see your Captain and get you off." I knew we were to be there yet, for a time. He obeyed orders and disappeared for an hour, perhaps, but when he reappeared his face was aglow with glory, and coming to me, he said: "Chaplain, you need not speak to the Captain now. I am all right," and went into the battle, and came out without a scratch.
A deep cloud hung over my soul as to this battle, and I was pressed with the thought of disaster. My heart friend, Captain Augustine, was commanding the regiment, and it was plain to me that he expected to die that day. A few minutes before orders to charge had come, he turned his back on the regiment and faced me with a steady, long, last look, with feelings between us too big for utterance. To me it was as though he said "I will see you no more!" God had, as I believed used me in pulling him away from the vortex of infidelity, and I trust his soul had so apprehended Christ that I shall see him again. Our dead were left in the hands of the enemy, and that night Lieut. Henry Augustine, the Captain's brother, and myself undertook to secure his body. Their picket line was this side of where the body lay, and we were halted before we reached it. We both stepped behind a large tree for protection from bullets and I promptly told the picket the object of my coming and plead the case thus: "His mother is old and feeble and has lost one son in battle, and we fear the death of the Captain will take her life; so we want to send the body home, which will be a great relief to her." To this he responded, "Where is General Sherman?" I said: "I suppose he is at his headquarters." "Well," he answered, 'General Sherman can get this body and all these bodies." So in the morning we went to see the General, and laid the case before him. He was much moved, but said: "Chaplain, it is a great humiliation to me to ask any favors of those rebels!" I quickly responded: "General Sherman, we will not ask you to do it, sir."
Young Putnam was a boy of twenty summers, and was converted in Camp Douglass. He had been true and faithful to his vows, and a good soldier. In helping to remove the Captain's body nearer the base of the hill his thigh was broken, and the largest artery cut. Taking his canteen strap, he bound it tightly around the limb and restrained the bleeding, but could not stop it. Having rolled himself down to a stream of spring water at the bottom of the hill, he quenched his thirst, and, seeing he must die, he sang the hymn with the chorus:
"I'm
going home, I'm going home to die no more,
To die no more, to die no more,
I'm going home to die no more."
His notes of victory rang out amid the thunder of shot and shell while dying under the guns of the enemy. Dear, modest, beautiful, Christian boy! I helped bury his remains, with others who had lain for days in that hot sun, till I only knew him by the canteen strap about his limb! Luther said "O, God! how dreadful is this world!"
After this battle Sherman flanked the enemy and forced retreat, which ought to have been done without the battle; and Johnston's army fell back to Atlanta. President Davis came to Atlanta to hold a council of war and General Johnston told him plainly he could not hold the city against the force of Sherman's army. Jefferson Davis insisted it should be done, and General Hood said it could. So Johnston was superseded by General Hood, and we heard all about it in a few days. Our men rejoiced in the change, though they knew it meant more fighting. Johnston was a skillful general, and saved his army by retreating. Hood was full of fight, but greatly lacked in caution. Under Johnston's command he was pre-eminently useful, but when he came to command himself, he ruined his army. On the 22d of July, 1864, he ordered whiskey barrels to be opened, that the boys might fill their canteens, for this was their last battle, and they would drive the Yanks out of the country. It was the last battle for many of them, but the Yanks went the other way. Hood massed his forces and threw them against our left wing, got into our rear and attacked us from both sides. There was a division of our Seventeenth Army Corps, which changed sides of the ditch six times, in the fight, and repulsed the enemy each time. We were near the center, and had naught to do but to look and hear. The musketry was simply terrific. General McPherson was to our rear nearby, and to succor the men on the left, he rode over, not knowing the enemy was inside his lines, and rode right into a rebel troop, and they killed him. He was a great man, and splendid officer.
Hood being repulsed on our left, threw his troops around on our center. It was a woodland and we could not see far. As the order came for battle against three lines of rebel soldiers, six men deep, it looked as though a fearful conflict was before us. Seeing somebody's musket lying there, I thought it ought to be used, and went into our left company with Lieut. Eichelberger in command. or the first time in the war we were behind breastworks and the men had an idea that no force could drive them. When the enemy came in sight a terrible fire of musketry scattered them at once and they were forced to disappear. The 57th Ohio was to our right and their right rested on the railroad coming out from the city, where we also had a battery. When the enemy disappeared an order came to fire "right oblique," so we kept up an incessant fire. While one man stepped up on the step and fired, his mate stepped into the ditch and loaded. When loading my gun I faced northward, and to my surprise the right of the 57th Ohio was retreating. The brush had been cleared, to our rear, for about twenty steps, and they dashed into the brush. The next time I loaded more were going, and I thought when that comes down to the right of my regiment it will stop; but lo, when they were gone our right began to give away, and I began to command them to stand. This continued from right to left till Captain Eichelberger, and one man, with myself, were all that were left. That one said to me: "Chaplain, don't let us go!" Eichelberger raved like a wild man. He thought we were utterly disgraced. Neither of us saw a rebel anywhere As we walked back the bullets appeared thick, but we did not seem to care for them. The Lieutenant broke into tears and wept like a child. Having gone through the brush perhaps thirty rods, a group of the scattered men began to gather around us, and Eichelberger insisted that we return and retake the works. I said it would be foolish with these forty men to undertake that when the whole regiment had been driven from them so wildly. But a soldier came to me, saying: "Our men are still in the line, holding it against fearful odds!" I said that was impossible, as I had seen the last man out before I left. But he insisted they were, and asked me to listen to the muskets. A musket fired toward you has a sharp, short sound; fired from you, a light, prolonged sound, and I was persuaded they were our muskets, and that the men, having seen their foolishness in retreating, had run back and re-entered the works, and were holding them against a great force. Now, we were the cowards, and they the heroes; so it was our duty to reach them in the shortest possible time, whatever it might cost!
The men had said they would not go unless I sanctioned it, and now our duty seemed plain. We fell into a thin line, and the farther we went the faster, till suddenly coming into the clearing, we were face to face with a thousand rebels between us and our works, only about twenty steps away! A rebel seeing me before I saw him, had his musket drawn on my breast. My musket was down at a "trail arms," but was changed to a make ready, take aim, fire! in amazingly quick time and all that could retreated, as the only thing but capture or death! The mystery was now made plain. When they were repulsed, with slaughter, in our front, they turned northward, and one column came down the railroad cut, and filed to the right, and behind the 57th Ohio, and the right company, seeing them, fell back to keep from being captured, and so the retreat of the two regiments was brought about as above described. We on the extreme left did not see the rebels at all, and some of us only left because all the rest had gone! The rebel column which came down the railroad cut and was in the brush on our side of the line when we retired, was now between us and our works.
The right command given those two regiments as the rebels came through the cut would have sent them back in confusion, with but little loss, but that right command was wanting. But the gentlemen did go out in haste before the sun went down, and we were again in possession. Lieut. Eichelberger was shot through the head a few feet from where I stood, others were killed and some wounded, and a part of our group captured and taken to prison. As I turned after firing, it was said by a cool-headed sergeant who was looking on, that one hundred muskets were fired at my person. It may have been less, but the brush was mowed to the right and left by rebel bullets, and by a miracle my life was preserved. A voice went through me, assuring me that no rebel bullet should touch me, and I praised God till two o'clock that night, that He had covered my head in time of battle, and enabled me to "run through a troop and leap over a wall."