Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1880-08-04
"reminiscences

Alpena County Veteran Associa
tior, on Friday evening, July %
1850.
LalieS, Gentlemen and ComrddeS
AS an old veteran soldier, read,
for duty at the call of my superior
l respond to the call of our cap
tain to entertain you tonight t
the best of my ability; but yor
will have to make some allowance
on account of my pronunciation,
rs | am a German by birth. Ii
will be somewhat difficult for me to
show myself as an orator, but it
never troubled a German TO do his
duty as a soldier in the late war.
| will not trouble you by reciting
over the written history of the
war, but | will give you what hap
pened and what was not written
by the great historians.
There is more and better ac-
counts of the late war TO be written,
and of just as much interest to the
American people, as there has been
written. | will not trouble you
with great blood-shed, and great
corps and division changes, but
only what happened under my own
as a soldier on duty.
You have, all of you, heard of the
brilliant charges from the history
OF the war, but let me tell you
there was very few regiments or
bIigades which did not have mis-
fortunes. | am going to relate to
you to-night,some of our blunders
and if my comrades give me
another chance, / will give you
some of our brigade's deeds, under
Pap Thomas and General Sher-
man.
First, l will relate to you how
one of our regiments, namely, the
2lst Wisconsin, saved Louisville,
Ky, from being entered by Gen.
Bragg in September, 1862, on
Buel's retreat to Louisville, with
out a cartridge to put in our guns.
Our regiment, after arriving at
Louisville, had to exchange guns
for Austrian rifles. The rifles we
received, but no ammunition ex-
cept the cartridges belonging to
the guns which we turned over.
BY some means the boys found out
through the day that the cartridges
were larger than the muzzle of the
gun, so in the afternoon we re-
ceived another kind of cartridges,
but they were the old army mus
ket cartridges, that is, buck and
ball-which means three buck shot
to one ounce ball-and a very
hard lot of blue pills for well
man TO take. Now those car
tridges proved to be still too large,
and more so than the former ones,
and they were returned to the am
munition train again.
1t coming on night now, and the
rebels within five miles in front of
us, we commenced to feel uneasy,
but at the same time we were busy
digging trenches for dear life, and
at last when our trenches were
finished, we received orders to take
arms, and we marched like braves
in our line of defence without any
ammunition to keep Bragg out of
our Northern States. These brave
defenders lay without any powder
whatever. To use the bayonet
was hard task as half of the boys
did not know how to fix bayonets,
no more than they could handle a
gun.
When it became dark, we could
hear our cavalry firing direct in
our front, which made us kind oil
uneasy, and the boys wanted car.
tlidges or to be taken out of that
place ut once. They send agar
and again for ammunition, but none
could be obtained to fit the brave
defenders''guns, as there never was
any such ammunition come with
them. We lay in our trenches al
night, but one consolation we had
and that was, the big guns on the
Perryvilie Pike on the left of oul
regiment
In the morning we exchanged
our Austrians for Springfield rifles
making three set of arms, anC
never had a chance to load anC
fire one, but on the Sth day o
October, we had a good chance
and that day our regiment lost 6!
killed and wounded. Among tn,
killed was eur major with tire,
bullet holes in his breast, and b,
was not found until next morning
stripped of every stitch of clothing
Our colonel was wounded in tn
left arm, and he always though
that some of our own boys sho
him. If they did it never leake,
ont, but the boys never cried be
cause he left the regiment, as b
was what the boys called tyran'
They gave him a position as povos
marshal at Chicago more suit
able position for bis temper. Gu
Northumberland took charge @
the regiment and there was gen
eral satisfaction.
Before leaving Louisville, ever
man was equipped with stewiD