This Hallowed Ground - Bruce Catton [95]
The first thing that happened to the 19th was a train wreck, which occurred in Indiana while the regiment was on its way east to join the Army of the Potomac. The wreck was a horror, killing twenty-four men and injuring one hundred and five, as heavy a toll as a regular battle would have taken, and while the regiment was recuperating its orders were changed and it was sent down to Kentucky to join Buell’s army. Buell was impressed by the 19th’s smart appearance at drill, and Colonel Turchin soon had command of a brigade in Mitchel’s division.
Whatever its achievements on the parade ground, the 19th had a heavy hand with occupied territory. One of the northern Alabama towns was held by the 33rd Ohio, which did so much looting that on complaint of the citizens its colonel was rebuked and the regiment was withdrawn. The townsfolk exulted only briefly, for the 33rd was replaced by the 19th Illinois; and according to army legend, before the day was over the luckless citizens were begging the authorities to let them have the 33rd again — compared with the Illinois regiment, it was a model of decorum.
The real trouble, however, came in the town of Athens, Alabama, where one of Turchin’s regiments was shot up by lurking guerrillas. Turchin considered this a gross violation of the laws of war, and anyway he seems to have had a czarist officer’s notions about the way people ought to behave in occupied territory. He called up his 19th Illinois and drove the guerrillas away, and after things were under control he told the boys to go ahead and take the town apart — “I shut mine eyes for one hour.” One hour was all the 19th needed. When it got through, Athens looked as though it had been hit by Cossacks. Citizens later contributed forty-five affidavits alleging that personal property to the value of more than fifty thousand dollars had been carried off. Turchin was court-martialed and dismissed from the service (although somebody eventually pulled wires in Washington and got him reinstated); but what had happened really did not have very much to do with him, anyway. It was the Illinois boys and not the Imperial Russian officer who had carried off watches, jewelry, heirlooms, and oil paintings, and all that had been needed to set them off had been one signal.3
It was recalled afterward that a detachment of men from the 19th, given horses and assigned to work as scouts and couriers, promptly became famous as “the forty thieves,” and the regimental historian confessed that “perhaps there was some slight reason” for this title.4
Colonel Turchin may have been unique, but the 19th Illinois was not; it was just about average, and the average soldier in the western armies was learning to regard himself as a cross between licensed freebooter and avenging angel. In northern Mississippi a soldier was writing to his sister: “Our men are using this country awful rough. Such animals as chickens, fences, swine, etc., are entirely unseeable and unfindable within fifteen miles of where our camp has been this last week.” Oddly enough, this reflected high morale: “I never saw men in as good spirits and as confident as this army now appears … I can’t see why people will stay at home when they can get to soldiering. I think a year of it is worth getting shot for to any man.”5
The generals tried to stop this sort of thing, but they never came close. These volunteer soldiers were bound to get out of hand once they got into what they considered enemy country. Lieutenants and captains lived on terms of approximate equality with their men.