The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1904-12-14
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Redwood OG3ctte
WEDNESDAY, DEC. IA, 1904.
BY AIKEN 6 sCHMAHL.
FORTY YEARS AGO.
Excerpts From st Paul Papers Of Dec
8, 1854.

emu WHICH. Win Tue EHbu, NIuIu
aud Tenth Minnesota regiments,
we're in the hot chase after Price
and his rebels through several
southern states, writes of the aw-
full suffering occasioned by the
forced marches. Veterans who
have served since the beginning of
the war say that they have never
before experienced SUCH hard
marching. From Brownsville to
Cape Girardean, 312 miles, the
march was performed in IS days on
10 days bread rations and about IA
days meat rations. Foraging, how
ever, helped out the meat supply.
Added to the cold nights shoes and
other clothing failed on the march.
Ten per cent. of the command were
barefooted after several days on
the march.
It was pitiable to see the poor
fellows-true heroes-crippling ov-
err the stony hills of southwest Mis-
souri, with blistered and bleeding
feet-some with naked legs, some
coatless, some shirtless, some hat
less. To know men-true men
heroes-you need to see them under
such circumstances. But there was
even worse to come. Later, in
Western Missouri, there we're hard
er marches and real winter wealth
err; snow storms and chilling rain,
and winds that pierced to the mar
row. Remember, we had no tents
or shelter of any kind for the men.
One stormy winter night-the rain
driven in our faces by akeen north
west wind-we were marched far
into the night. We had already
marched 16 miles that day, and now
we were ordered l8 miles further
in the bitter cold. We tried to do
it. Night came on with storm and
darkness; men could not see their
footing. When we came to fences
at intervals, their friendly shelter
and fuel were sought by the men
whose strength was gone, and
gradually the ranks were thinned
until only the officers and corpor-
al S guard of men remained, YEARLY
following Adjutant Patch and my
self, who were mounted. Surgeon
Mattacks, with the two ambulances,
was far in the rear vainly trying to
assist the helpless. When we
finally stopped I had my adiutant
and one solitary man of the ranks.
We were all that represented the
Seventh Minnesota in that nights
camp proper. The whole division
was strung along the road the last
eight miles of the march. The men
had rations in their haversacks.
The officers were without food.
That night I crawled through the
thorny hedges OF an orchard and
made my supper from the apples
beneath the trees, and carried back
as many as I could to my comrades,
who stood warming themselves by
the bivouac fire.
We marched 400 miles through
Missouri at the beginning of win
ter without tents and but poorly
supplied with clothing. Seventeen
miles were made at one time with
out minutes halt. For five days
we marched in the snow from four
to eight inches deep, and part of
the way, mud unfathomable below.
The Usage river was forded with
the water at freezing point. Alto
gether, the marches of the division,
in which so many Minneapolis boys
participated, have few, if any, par
allels in the history OF the war.
*x*
The fog begins to break away
from around Sherman's progress
through Georgia to the coast. The
grave apprehension, fostered by
the vague hints and positive asser-
tions of the rebel press that his
progress has been arrested at the
Ocontes rivera formidable bar
rier if strongly contested-midway
of his journey, has been dispelled.
The rebel papers admit that he has
crossed the Ocontee and would
reach the sea. If Sherman succeeds
in taking Savannah and opening the
Savannah river to our gunboats,