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LETTER NO. CXV.
THE END OF RAILING
CAMP REED, JACKSON, TENNESSEE, March 31, 1863.
FRIEND RICH: - It seems that the anonymous letter published in
the Guardian a few weeks since, regarding an order issued by Colonel C. L.
Dunham, requiring the Twenty-seventh regiment to split rails to replace some
that had been burned, caused considerable speculation at headquarters, and
called forth a reply from our worthy friend,
Lieutenant Donnan. Before
answering the letter it would be well, perhaps to state the situation of the
Twenty-seventh Iowa, at the time the rails were used; as there is no doubt they
did use a part, though I doubt if they used all the one hundred and fifty rails
as charged.
Our regiment came into camp at Camp Reed, the thirteenth of
January last. Immediately after coming into camp, there came on a heavy snow
storm, covering the ground to a depth of full six inches, which remained several
days.
On our march from Memphis to the Tallahatchie river, the
division quartermaster took nearly all the axes we had in the regiment to clear
the road and build bridges, and we never saw them afterward. Company C had three
or four axes that had not seen a grindstone for weeks and that had been used
indiscriminately to cut wood, rails, frozen ground, and stones. Other companies
were no better off. As Mr. Donnan says, "here was plenty of wood to be had for
the cutting," but we were in a sorry plight to cut it, and when cut it was all
green. Not a stick or twig of dry wood was to be had to kindle a fire with,
except the aforesaid rails. Any of your readers who have ever made the attempt
to kindle a fire from a match with nothing but green wood, know it is no easy
matter. Add to this the fact that we were out of doors, in the midst of a severe
snow storm, and you can readily imagine that it was of first importance that
fires should be built at once, and that building them of green wood covered with
snow, was not an agreeable task. It was under such circumstances that the rails
were taken.
I am no advocate of indiscriminate plunder, though I do
believe, fully and emphatically, that it is the duty of every Union general to
subsist his army upon the enemy; and I doubt the loyalty of any leader who
refuses to do so. I do not blame Colonel Dunham, after he had issued his order,
for insisting that it should be obeyed; nor do I understand that the writer of
the anonymous letter blames him for it.
Military discipline requires that every order must be obeyed.
What I claim would have been a better course, would have been for Colonel Dunham
to send the quartermaster to get the rails for the boys to kindle their fires
with, and to receipt for them. Had this been done not a rail would have been
taken by the Twenty-seventh. The colonel would have gained the good will of all,
and the owner of the rails, if a Union man, could have had his pay for them. Up
to the time of writing this letter, Lieutenant Donnan had been, most of his
time, after his return on the fifteenth of February, on Colonel Dunham's staff,
and had never been detailed to go foraging with the regiment. Those who did go
say that there were plenty of hogs and cattle to be had, on a proper requisition
from headquarters.
I have written these few lines because I thought justice to the
Twenty-seventh demanded it. The men who compose it went out from you with
honesty of purpose; they will return to you with their honor unsullied. They
bear the "good old flag "- they are not marauders. They respect their officers
and are submissive to military authority; and when the day comes the men of the
Twenty-seventh believe their officers will lead them into the deadly fray with
all the coolness of tried veterans, and the officers are confident that their
men will follow them till the "red field is won," and the star spangled banner
waves in triumph over sea and land.
Respectfully, yours,
E. P. BAKER. |
