Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1905-01-14
At Kenesaw.

AT kcncsaw.
An old diary said One Hundred
and Twenty-Fifth Illinois man, ere
minded me of that mysterious man on
horseback at Kenesaw. This is what
1 recorded in my diary June 10, 1864:
Again ordered forward, but the John
MES have gone to higher ground. We
follow them up, and at night we are
at the foot of a mountain, up the
sides of which are skirmish pits, and
near the top seems to be breaStworks,
with here and there embrasures for
batteries. We soon know that the bat
tePies are in place all right, and nine
teen of our cannon open to reply to
the rebs on the top of the mountain.
At the same time a furious thunder
cloud comes up and joins in the hurry
burly, and such a roaring, shaking,
and quaking as ensued is seldom wit
messed That reads like it was writ
ten at the front, under the conditions
stated by a soldier present and a par
Ucipant. He was at the foot of Kene-
saw, in Georgia, and belonged to Col.
Dan McCook's brigade, all right, but
when he made his record he did not
know the name of the location
History later made the name mem
orable; incidents of a few days later
fixed themselves on my memory, es-
pecially the charge of June 81, 1864,
on the dead angle of Kenesaw, by
Col. McCOOk's brigade. l belonged to
company X, One Hundred and TWEEN
ty-F:fth Illinois. Our colonel, Oscar
F. Harmon of Danville, ILL.,, was killed
after Col. McCook fell while command
ing and leading the brigade in the sec
ond effort to rush the works. He was
within the twenty-foot line of the
enemy's works. My place was on the
extreme left, and after we had made
the rush and during the confusion
which ensued, some calling on US to
go forward, others to fall back, l lay
down, uncertain just what to do. In
the interim I looked just in time to
see Gen. Charles G. Harker fall from
his horse. He was the only mounted
officer or person 1 saw. l cannot re-
call the color of the horse, nor could
l say as to his leading a charge. He
was to my rear and left. that is, be-
yond the extreme left of McCook's
brigade, which was not so close to the
rebel works as was the right wing,
which was lodged on the outside of
the works at a point about twenty feet
from the angle to the north. 1 could
see the colors of one of the regiments
planted in the loose earth at the foot
of the works and our men were lying
fiat on the face of the breastworks in
support of the co1ors.
''Just as that scene was before me
had one side of my hat torn out by
rebel bullet. This volley gave us
chance to get the drop on the rebs and
the firing Stacked. 1t seemed to me
like pot hunting on the river below
Danville when 1 was a boy. The fir
ing got so slack that 1 got up and
looked around. Everybody was gone
except the dead and wounded. The
brush and underground screened me,
and 1 Strengthened myself up and de-
liberately walked back to the rear IN
til 1 came to the rifle pits evacuated
by the rebels some ways down the
hill. AS I recall it now it seems to
me that the Johnnies must have
thought that they had killed enough
of us for one killing, for when we had
pulled ourselves together the soldier
instinct resumed the ascendant and Of
fcers and men reformed and pushed
up to the brow of the hill, where we
fortified within twenty-Seven steps of
the rebels and made it about the hot
test place for the space of the front of
the brigade that the rebels held at
any time from Chattanooga to Atlanta,
and we kept it hot until the rebels
evacuated their position July 2 and 3,
1864, when we followed them to the
Chattahoochee riyer."-Chicago Inter
Ocean.
Southern Woman's Experience.
Writing in the Raleigh News and