Today in History:

274 Series I Volume XLVII-I Serial 98 - Columbia Part I

Page 274 OPERATIONS IN N. C., S. C., S. GA., AND E. FLA. Chapter LIX.

when I received orders to turn back to the assistance of General Slocum, and reported to him with the division near Bentonville at daylight, having marched since sunset twenty miles. At 12 m. the 20th the division was moved to the rear of the Fourteenth Corps, and two regiments were deployed, and connecting with the First Division of the Fifteenth Corps on the right and the Fourteenth Corps on the left, engaged the enemy in their lines, when they were re-enforced by the remainder of the First Brigade was posted on their left and the whole line intrenched. Brisk picket skirmishing was kept up till night, when the enemy retreated. Our casualties were 3 officers and men killed and 26 wounded. * On the 22nd the division moved to Grantham's house, and on the left of the corps, about two miles east of the town.

The whole number of miles marched on the campaign are 461 1\2; men and officers lost, killed, 17; wounded, 52; lost by capture, 45; total, 114. Enemy captured, 159; number killed and wounded, not known.

I would respectfully call attention to tabulated information accompanying this report, also to reports of bridge commanders.

I have specially to call favorable attention to the members of my staff, as follows:

First, to Lieutenant Thaddeus H. Capron, regimental quartermaster Fifty-fifth Illinois, acting quartermaster of this division. Great credit is due for his untiring industry in bringing through the trains of the division in excellent condition, and Captain John W. Cornyn, commissary of subsistence, for the masterly administration of his department. Also to Doctor Potter, Thirtieth Ohio, medical director of the division.

To Captain G. Lofland, assistant adjutant-general; Captain C. A. Earnest, Thirtieth Ohio, acting inspector; Captain P. G. Galvin, Sixth Missouri, acting aide-de-camp; Captain John C. Nelson, Seventh Ohio, commissary of musters; Captain Joseph Shultz, One hundred and eleventh Illinois, provost-marshal; Lieutenant D. M. Burchfield, Forty-third Ohio, aide-de-camp, and Lieutenant C. H. Johnson, Fifteenth Michigan, acting ordnance officer, credit is due for faithful performance of duty.

Mr. John R. Scupham, of Battery H, First Illinois Artillery, has acted as engineer officer of this division with great efficiency and should be rewarded; also, Lieutenant Byron Barrett, One hundred and sixteenth Illinois, master of ambulances, and Captain A. H. Heath, Ninety-ninth Indiana, chief pioneers, deserve special notice for their valuable and untiring services.

No praise can ever reach the full measures due to soldiers of this command, who, without one murmur, have waded rivers and swamps in the most inclement weather, crowding their enemy from every stronghold he chose to occupy, permitting no obstacle, natural or artificial, to check their progress, and gathering for themselves the food that could not be furnished by Government, and without which the campaign could not have been made.

In all this the soldiers of this army, passing through a country traditional for its efforts to destroy the Government, and often from the nature of their duties beyond the control of their officers, have shown a humane forbearance such as was never before seen in any war. A few acts of atrocity by straggling vagabonds that encumber all armies have from time to time been committed, and too often have the good soldiers of the army, who gathered its food and to whom the country owes the

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*But see revised table, p. 68.

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Page 274 OPERATIONS IN N. C., S. C., S. GA., AND E. FLA. Chapter LIX.