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Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865, The

CHAPTER II. BENTON BARRACKS. ST. LOUIS, MARCH, 1862. Sometime during the last of February, the welcome news was given out from regimental headquarters that we were soon to leave Camp Carrollton. Our first objective point was to be St. Louis, Mo., and what next nobody knew. Definite orders for the movement were issued later, and it then occurred to us that possibly all our recent apprehensions about not seeing any fighting were somewhat premature. Right here I will say that in the brief sketch of the regiment published in the reports of the Adjutant-General of the State of Illinois, the date of our leaving Carrollton is given as February 21, which is wrong. That date is either a mistake of the person who wrote that part of the sketch, or a typographical error. I have in my possession, and now lying before me, a letter I wrote to my father from Benton Barracks, of date March 2, 1862, in which the date of our arrival at St. Louis is given as February 28th. And I well know that we were only two days on the trip. And besides the date given in my letter, I distinctly remember several unwritten facts and circumstances that satisfy me beyond any doubt, that the day we left Carrollton was February 27, 1862. Early in the morning of that day, the regiment filed out at the big gate, and marched south on the dirt road. Good-bye to old Camp Carrollton! Many of the boys never saw it again, and I never have seen it since but once, which was in the summer of 1894. I was back then in Jersey county, on a sort of a visit, and was taken with a desire to run up to Carrollton and look at the old camp. There was then a railroad constructed during the last years of the war, (or about that time), running south from the town, and less than an hour's ride from Jerseyville, where I was stopping, so I got on a morning train, and, like Jonah when moved to go to Tarshish, "paid the fare and went." I found the old camp still being used as a county fair ground, and the same big trees, or the most of them, were there yet, and looked about as they did thirty-two years before. Of course, every vestige of our old barracks was gone. I stood around and looked at things awhile,—and thought—then left, and have never been there again. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/003.jpg" alt="Ann Eliza Stillwell" width-obs="315" height-obs="525"> Ann Eliza Stillwell (Mother of Leander Stillwell.)</div> The regiment arrived at Jerseyville about sunset. The word had gone out, all through the country, that Fry's regiment was leaving for the front, and the country people had come to town, from miles around, in their farm wagons, to have one last look, and bid us good-bye. The regiment, in column by companies, company distance, marched up the main street running south, and on reaching the center of the little town, we wheeled into line, dressed on the colors, and stood at attention. The sidewalks were thronged with the country people all intently scanning the lines, each little family group anxiously looking for their boy, brother, husband or father, as the case may have been. (But right here it will be said that the overwhelming majority of the enlisted men of the regiment, and the most of the line officers, were unmarried.) I was satisfied that my parents were somewhere among the crowd of spectators, for I had specially written them as to when we would pass through Jerseyville. I was in the front rank, and kept my face rigidly fixed to the front, but glanced as best I could up and down the sidewalk, trying to locate father and mother. Suddenly I saw them, as they struggled to the edge of the walk, not more than ten feet from me. I had been somewhat dreading the meeting, and the parting that was to come. I remembered the emotion of my mother when she first saw me in my uniform, and I feared that now she might break down altogether. But there she stood, her eyes fixed on me intently, with a proud and happy smile on her face! You see, we were a magnificent-looking body of young fellows, somewhere between 800 and 900 strong. Our uniforms were clean and comparatively new, and our faces were ruddy and glowing with health. Besides the regimental colors, each company, at that time, carried a small flag, which were all fluttering in the breeze, and our regimental band was playing patriotic tunes at its best. I reckon it was a somewhat inspiring sight to country people like those who, with possibly very few exceptions, had never seen anything like that before. Anyhow, my mother was evidently content and glad to see me there, under the shadow of the flag, and going forth to fight for the old Union, instead of then being sneaking around at home, like some great hulking boys in our neighborhood who were of Copperhead sympathies and parentage. Arrangements had been made to quarter the regiment that night in different public buildings in the town, and the companies were soon marched to their respective places. Co. D had been assigned to the Baptist church, and there my parents and I met, and had our final interview. They were nine miles from home, in the old farm wagon, the roads (in the main) were through dense woods, and across ridges and hollows, the short winter day was drawing to a close and night approaching, so our farewell talk was necessarily brief. Our parting was simple and unaffected, without any display of emotion by anybody. But mother's eyes looked unusually bright, and she didn't linger after she had said, "Good-bye Leander." As for my father,—he was an old North Carolinian, born and reared among the Cherokee Indians at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains, and with him, and all other men of his type, any yielding to "womanish" feelings was looked on as almost disgraceful. His farewell words were few, and concise, and spoken in his ordinary tone and manner, he then turned on his heel, and was gone. Mother left with me a baked chicken, the same being a big, fat hen full of stuffing, rich in sage and onions; also some mince pie, old time doughnuts, and cucumber pickles. I shared it all with Bill Banfield (my chum), and we had plenty for supper and breakfast the next day, with the drum-sticks and some other outlying portions of the chicken for dinner. Early the next morning we pulled out for Alton, on the Mississippi River. But we did not have to march much that day. The country people around and near Jerseyville turned out in force with their farm wagons, and insisted on hauling us to Alton, and their invitations were accepted with pleasure. A few miles north of Alton we passed what was in those days (and may be yet) a popular and celebrated school for girls, called the "Monticello Female Seminary." The girls had heard of our coming, and were all out by the side of the road, a hundred or more, with red, white and blue ribbons in their hair and otherwise on their persons. They waved white handkerchiefs and little flags at us, and looked their sweetest. And didn't we cheer them! Well, I should say so. We stood up in the wagons, and swung our caps, and just whooped and hurrahed as long as those girls were in sight. We always treasured this incident as a bright, precious link in the chain of memory, for it was the last public manifestation, of this nature, of good-will and patriotism from girls and women that was given the regiment until we struck the soil of the State of Indiana, on our return home some months after the close of the war. We arrived at Alton about sundown, and at once marched aboard the big side-wheel steamboat, "City of Alton," which was lying at the wharf waiting for us, and guards were promptly stationed to prevent the men leaving the boat. But "some one had blundered," and no rations had been provided for our supper. We were good and hungry, too, for our dinner, at least that of Co. D, consisted only of the left-over scraps of breakfast. But the officers got busy and went up town and bought, with their own money, something for us to eat. My company was furnished a barrel of oyster crackers, called in those days "butter crackers," and our drink was river water. The novelty and excitement of the last two days had left me nerveless and tired out, and to tell the truth, I was feeling the first touch of "home-sickness." So, after supper I went up on the hurricane deck of the boat, spread my blanket on the floor, and with my knapsack for a pillow, laid down and soon fell asleep. The boat did not leave Alton until after dark, and when it pulled out, the scream of the whistle, the dashing of the paddles, and the throbbing and crash of the engines, aroused me from my slumber. I sat up and looked around and watched the lights of Alton as they twinkled and glimmered in the darkness, until they were lost to sight by a bend in the river. Then I laid down and went to sleep again, and did not wake until daylight the next morning, and found that our boat was moored to the wharf at St. Louis. We soon debarked, and marched out to Benton Barracks, which were clear out of town and beyond the suburbs. The shape of Benton Barracks, as I now remember, was a big oblong square. The barracks themselves consisted of a continuous connected row of low frame buildings, the quarters of each company being separated from the others by frame partitions, and provided with two rows of bunks around the sides and ends. At the rear of the quarters of each company was the company kitchen. It was a detached, separate frame structure, and amply provided with accommodations for cooking, including a brick furnace with openings for camp kettles, pots, boilers and the like. Both barracks and kitchen were comfortable and convenient, and greatly superior to our home-made shacks at Carrollton. The barracks inclosed a good sized tract of land, but its extent I do not now remember. This space was used for drilling and parades, and was almost entirely destitute of trees. The commander of the post, at that time, was Colonel Benjamin L. E. Bonneville, an old regular army officer, and who had been a noted western explorer in his younger days. I frequently saw him riding about the grounds. He was a little dried-up old Frenchman, and had no military look about him whatever. All the same, he was a man who had, as a soldier, done long and faithful service for his adopted country. Should you ever want to post up on him (if you have not already done so), read "Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West," by Washington Irving. You will find it deeply interesting. We remained at Benton Barracks about four weeks. Life there was monotonous and void of any special interest. We drilled but little, as I now remember, the reason for that being it rained the most of the time we were there and the drill grounds were oceans of mud. The drainage was wretched, and the most of the rain that fell stayed on the surface until the ground soaked it up. And how it did rain at Benton Barracks in March, 1862! While there, I found in some recently vacated quarters an old tattered, paper bound copy of Dickens' "Bleak House," and on those rainy days I would climb up in my bunk (an upper one), and lie there and read that book. Some of the aristocratic characters mentioned therein had a country residence called "Chesney Wold," where it seemed it always rained. To quote (in substance) from the book, "The rain was ever falling, drip, drip, drip, by day and night," at "the place in Lincolnshire." 'Twas even so at Benton Barracks. When weary of reading, I would turn and look a while through the little window at the side of my bunk that gave a view of the most of the square which the barracks inclosed. The surface of the earth was just a quagmire of mud and water, and nothing stirring abroad could be seen save occasionally a mounted orderly, splashing at a gallop across the grounds. Since then I have frequently read "Bleak House," and whenever that chapter is reached depicting the rainy weather at the Dedlock place, I can again see, and smell, and hear, and feel, those gloomy wearisome conditions at Benton Barracks of over half a century ago. I have read, somewhere in Gen. Sherman's Memoirs, a statement in substance to the effect that rain in camp has a depressing effect upon soldiers, but is enlivening to them on a march. From personal experience I know that observation to be true. Many a time while on a march we would be caught in heavy rains. The dirt road would soon be worked into a loblolly of sticky yellow mud. Thereupon we would take off our shoes and socks, tie them to the barrel of our muskets a little below the muzzle and just above the end of the stock, poise the piece on the hammer on either shoulder, stock uppermost, and roll up our breeches to the knees. Then like Tam O'Shanter, we "skelpit on through dub and mire, despising wind, and rain, and fire," and singing "John Brown's Body," or whatever else came handy. But rainy days in camp, especially such as we had at Benton Barracks, engender feelings of gloom and dejection that have to be experienced in order to be realized. They are just too wretched for any adequate description. One day while strolling around the grounds sight seeing, I fell in with a soldier who said he belonged to the 14th Wisconsin Infantry. He was some years older than me, but was quite sociable, and seemed to be a sensible, intelligent fellow. He was full of talk about his regiment,—said they were nearly all young men, big stalwart lumbermen from the pine woods of Wisconsin, and urged me to come around some evening when they were on dress parade, and look at them. I had found out by this time that almost every soldier would brag about his regiment, so allowance was made for what he said. But he excited my curiosity to see those Wisconsin boys, so one evening when I was at liberty, I did go and view them while they were on dress parade, and found that the soldier had not exaggerated. They were great, tall fellows, broad across the shoulders and chest, with big limbs. Altogether, they simply were, from a physical standpoint, the finest looking soldiers I ever saw during my entire term of service. I speak now of this incident and of these men, for the reason that later I may say something more about this 14th Wisconsin. While at Benton Barracks we were given our regimental number,—Sixty-first—and thenceforth the regiment was known and designated as the Sixty-first Illinois Infantry. We also drew our guns. We were furnished with the Austrian rifle musket. It was of medium length, with a light brown walnut stock,—and was a wicked shooter. At that time the most of the western troops were armed with foreign-made muskets, imported from Europe. Many regiments had old Belgian muskets, a heavy, cumbersome piece, and awkward and unsatisfactory every way. We were glad to get the Austrians, and were quite proud of them. We used these until June, 1863, when we turned them in and drew in lieu thereof the Springfield rifle musket of the model of 1863. It was not as heavy as the Austrian, was neater looking, and a very efficient firearm. No further change was made, and we carried the Springfield thenceforward until we were mustered out. It was also here at Benton Barracks that the mustering of the regiment into the service of the United States was completed. Ten companies, at that time, constituted a regiment of infantry, but ours had only nine. We lacked Company K, and it was not recruited, and did not join the regiment until in March, 1864. On account of our not having a full regiment, Col. Fry (as we always called him) was commissioned as Lieutenant Colonel only, which was his rank all the time he was with us, and Capt. Simon P. Ohr, of Co. A, was commissioned Major. Owing to our lack of one company, and the further fact that when that company did join us the other companies had become much depleted in numbers, the regiment therefore never had an officer of the full rank of Colonel until the summer of 1865, when it became entitled to one under the circumstances which will be stated further on. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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