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Personal Recollections and Experiences

CONCERNING THE

Battle of Stone River.


A Paper Read by Request before the Illinois Commandery of the Military
Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S., at Chicago, Ill., Feb. 14, 1889.

BY

MILO S. HASCALL,

OF GOSHEN, INDIANA,

Formerly a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, and Brigadier-General of
Volunteers during the War of the Rebellion.

Times Publishing Company, Goshen,--Indiana. 1889.

Personal Recollections and Experiences Concerning the Battle of Stone
River.


As will be perceived by the above caption to this paper, it is proposed
to relate what happened to me, and what I observed during the battle
alluded to, and might not inappropriately be styled "What I know about
the battle of Stone River."

In doing so I shall not undertake to give a general account of the
battle, but shall confine myself to that portion which came under my own
observation, and to necessary inferences as to what happened elsewhere.
In setting out it will be well to give a brief account of the history of
the Army of the Cumberland, and its commanders, so far as I know, up to
the time of the memorable battle which is the subject of this paper. My
having been a cadet at West Point from June, 1848, to June, 1852, when I
graduated in the same class with Sheridan, Stanly, Slocum, Crook,
Bonaparte and others, whose names have since become so distinguished,
and my service in the regular army subsequently till the fall of 1853,
threw me in contact with, and was the means of my knowing personally, or
by reputation, most, if not all the prominent characters on both sides,
that were brought to the knowledge of the public by the War of the
Rebellion.

This knowledge of the men in the army of those times served me well all
through the war, as it was seldom I came in contact with an officer on
the other side, but what I knew all his peculiar characteristics, and
idiosyncrasies. For illustration of this idea, as we were approaching
Atlanta, my division had the advance of the Army of the Ohio the morning
we came in sight of the city. My advance guard captured a rebel picket
post, and one of the men captured, had a morning paper from Atlanta, in
which was Johnston's farewell order to his troops, and Hood's order
assuming command. I had been three years at West Point with Hood, he
having graduated in 1853, in Schofield's class. I knew Hood to be a
great, large hearted, large sized man, noted a great deal more for his
fine social and fighting qualities, than for any particular scholastic
acquirements, and inferred, (correctly as the result showed) that
Johnston had been removed because Davis, and his admirers, had had
enough of the Fabian policy, and wanted a man that would take the
offensive. I immediately sent word to Gen. Sherman, who, with his staff,
was not far off, and when he came to the front, informed him of the news
I had, and the construction I put upon it, and in consequence, an
immediate concentration to resist an attack was made in the vicinity,
where we were. It was none too soon, as Hood, upon taking command
immediately moved out to Decatur with nearly his entire army, fell upon
McPherson's corps, with the besom of destruction, killing the gallant
McPherson early in the engagement, and with his vastly superior force,
beating back the Army of the Tennessee so fast, that there is no telling
what might have happened, had we not made the concentration we did, and
been prepared to give them a tremendous enfilading fire as soon as they
came opposite the flanks of the Army of the Ohio. It was my fortune to
be stationed at Ft. Adams, Newport, Rhode Island, as soon as my furlough
expired after graduating at the Military Academy, and there found Lieut.
W.S. Rosecrans, (afterward the commanding general at Stone River), and
from being stationed some ten months at the same post, became somewhat
familiarly acquainted with him and his peculiarities. I had never met
Gen. Don