| Private Dwight (shown at right) of
the 20th Ohio vividly remembered his first days as a soldier. The brass band in the town escorted the young
soldiers to the train for the ride to Camp Chase, near Columbus. As the train pulled away
from the station, a cold sweat came over him as he realized what he had done. The first
night he slept on the wooden floor of a hut, as there were no cots for the men. The next
day the men were informed they had enlisted for three years, much to the surprise
of Dwight and the others. Ill-fitting clothes were issued, and the men began the comical
act of trying to drill, when none of them had any experience in such an activity.
The new recruits were supposed to pass a physical
examination. Private Ruggles of the 20th Ohio recalled the examination by the camp doctor.
The doctor told him: "Well, I must see whether you are sound or not. Hold out your
hands; work your fingers; touch your hands over your head. Are you ruptured?"
Answering the question 'no' meant that Ruggles was in the army.
Officers were often chosen at camp
by popular vote without regard to ability. Private Dwight turned down an opportunity
to be commissioned a lieutenant after a bad experience at camp. An officer of the
42nd Ohio took Dwight's blanket his family had given him under the guise that Dwight would
not need it on a military exercise. The officer then refused to return it. He
was Col. James Garfield (He was later elected president of the United States.)
Until the spring of 1864, these men fought and lived in
the mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky, and northern Mississippi. They were not in
the better known eastern theater engagements such as Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg,
and the Wilderness, but the battles in which the boys from this county took part, with
such names as Shiloh, Chicamauga,
and Resaca, were every bit as deadly. |
Private Dwight,
20th Ohio
|
