News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-11-13
AN INCIDENT OF WAR.
The Sad Mistake of Union SharpshOOters
Near Stone River.
from the Southern Trade Gazette.1

From the Southern Trade Gazette.]
After the battle of Stone River, and
| the Confederate forces had fallen back
to Tullahoma, Tenn, General Rose
Grams. then in command of the Union
Army operating in Tennessee, proceeded
to fortify around Murfreesboro, while
the Confederates were engaged in
strengthening the defenses at Tullahoma.
! Our army, which had done but little
| fighting after the battle of Stone River,
moved upon TuIlahoma in July, 1868,
expecting to find the "Johnnies" pre-
pared to receive them with open arms
and bloody hands.
SIT was there that witnessed the sad
dest event of the war;" said a veteran
soldier to us while talking of the trip
from Murfreesboro to Tullahoma, and he
proceeded to relate substantially the fol-
lowing:
"The Thirty-ninth Indiana was in adj
vance and moved cautiously upon the
town, and found that the enemy had
evacuated, leaving nothing but rear
guard to cover their retreat. The regi-
ment then pushed on into the heart Of
| the place, driving the remaining rebels
out and across small river beyond, at
which our troops came to halt, and,
seeing the enemy on the opposite side of
the river, they awaited for our sharp
| shooters to come up before venturing
across.
"The Confederates could be seen
riding around the woods and fields six
or seven hundred yards away, and just as
they passed through a gap in fence
| Co. 10
cross the road and enter the house, but
soon came out again in plain view of our
men. He was too far away to be reached
by any common gun and was not fired
| upon.
"It was not long before the sharp
shooters came up to the river with their
long range, globe-sight rifles. The man
could yet plainly be seen near the house,
seeming to defy our guns. One of the
dead-shot sharp-shooters brought his
gun up to his shoulder and fired. The
man fell to the ground, and in a few
minutes time a woman and several little
children were seen about the fallen
man.
"The enemy had now disappeared,
| and our troops crossed the river and
moved on down the road, feeling their
way. When they came up to the spot
where the soldier had been killed, there
lay in deaths embrace-not Confeder-
ate soldier-but an innocent little
twelve-year- old boy, and his poor, heart
broken mother and little brothers and
sisters weeping over him, and praying
that God might bring him back to them
again.
''The boy was engaged in putting up
the fence near his home that the army
had thrown down to pass through in
their retreat, and was mistaken by our
men for Confederate soldier.
SIT was truly sorrowful event; but
the soldier that killed the little fellow
would have laid down his own life as a
sacrifice if it would have brought the
boy back to life again, to comfort his
mother, who had already been robbed
of husband and an older son by the
cruel war.
"The regiment passed on in pursuit
OF the flying enemy, and left the poor
woman weeping and wailing over the
death of her dear boy.
sSeveral days afterward, when the
soldiers of the Thirty-ninth regiment re-
turned to Tullahoma and passed by the
| mousse WHERE Tie Sttu aHdli OccuTreu, ana
saw little mound in the front yard
near the road, feeling of sadness
crept over the hardened veterans, and
they could not keep back the tears that
chased each other down their bronzed
cheeks.
Though twenty summers have come
and gone since the death of the boy,
that little mound near the door of his
home, where he had spent many happy
days, is still green in the memory of
those who saw him shot,"