San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-10-24

in on charge and I'll show you thousand
that never saw a rebel, or show me one
that was at Antietam or Gettysburg or
Chattanooga or Atlanta, and I'll prove
that his presence there was an accident
and he never got caught in another fight"
Imagine this wiseacre trying to bolster
up his case by cross examining survivor
of the Seventy-thrd Ohio volunteers,
regiment which, If it did not rush to arms
at the first call, was long enough in serv-
ice to re-enlist and start on second term,
and saw enough fighting to swamp such
calculations as lgnoramus sets store upon
at the first show of its record.
Ignoramus Ito Ohio veteran)-Say, you
didn't see fighting of any account in the
war?
Seventy-third Ohioan-That depends.
don't know what you would call Cross
Keys and Manassas, Gettysburg and Wau-
hatchie Resaca and New Hope Church,
Kenesaw and Atlanta, or little Benton
vile, where Joe Johnston got his final do
ing up.
Ignoramus-But did you really get close
enough for the rebels to hit you had they
wanted to?
Seventy third Ohioan-Well, stranger,
didn't carry a theodolite in the war or any
thing like that, only a musket, and didn't
stop to drive down stakes for the explana-
ton of history, but at Manassas 300 of us
went in and ll2 were hit, 40 of them so
hard they never got up again, and 80 were
made prisoners. At Gettysburg although
we did not compete with Pickett in his
grand charge, 800 of us got in our best
work and al were hit, 80 of them getting
their last call. Then at Wauhatchie, Re
SAGA and so on-still, mebbe it wouldn't
strike you as of any account, as it all de-
ponds.
Ignoramus will discover all at once that
something hard has come between his pate
and the soft nothingness Of the atmosphere
which is so congenial to it, and in despair
will next proceed to prove that the war was
only a myth and the veterans are a horde
of impostors, whose empty trousers legs and
tapping sleeves are souvenirs of thrashing
machine accidents and railway smashups.
Meanwhile, people of sense and feeling will
applaud the modest 0hioan and others like
him, and listen to his story of the days he
trudged with gun and knapsack through
Virginia wastes and over GeOrgia's barren
mountains with Fremont, Pope and Meade,
with Hooker, Thomas and Sherman.
1t was an inCi''' mt rather than an acct
dent which drew my attention to the career
of the Seventythird Ohio. When the Grand
Army men were talking up Gen. Hurst a
few weeks ago for commander in chief, |
turned casually to his war record and
found that his fortunes had been woven
with this regiment-am organization with
a history and of which he was the third
and last colonel, having started at the foot
of the roll as lieutenant in October, 1851
The Seventy-third was organized in the
fall of 1861 from detaChments of recruits
that rendezvoused in the camps in Ross
county. In the winter and spring of 1862 it
marched and countermarched in the tedi-
Gus and prosaic movements of the armies
in West Virginia and in the Shenandoah
valley, winning no glory, but having a
rough time of it nevertheless, campaigning
for weeks in snow and rain without an inch
of shelter other than the forests afforded
If no blood was shed and little advantage
was gained in these marches it was no fault
of the men. They suffered in the cause and
would have died if called upon. At Cross
Keys in May the regiment had taste of
war and lost killed in a skirmish. On