A Civil War Private’s Odyssey through Battles, Illnesses, and Military Justice
Walter G. Moss (with major research assistance from Roger H. Moss)[[1]]
Jeffrey A. Hill’sThe 26th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry: The Groundhog Regimentis an excellent history of this Civil War regiment.[[2]] In it, citing two sources, he has the following passage involving my great-grandfather: “‘Erastus Guy and Ben. Moss had a fight,’ over an unidentified issue. Unfortunately for Private Benjamin Moss of Company G, Erastus Guy was a 1st Lieutenant, and thus a commissioned officer and his superior. Guy had Moss placed under arrest, ‘and he was tied up to a tree for striking the lieutenant’. . . . When the march resumed, Moss was tied to a wagon and under continuous guard” (Kindle Locations 21270-21274).
Thanks to Hill’s book, it is possible to trace Pvt Moss’s service from his enlistment (and then reenlistment) until his unit was mustered out in Victoria, Texas in late October 1865. Most striking about his service were his many battles with diseases and other illness. Diseases were an important, but often overlooked, part of the Civil War saga because they killed or at least temporarily removed from their units far more men than did battlefield deaths and wounds. According to one source, in the Union Army,1 of 13.5 died of disease, while only 1 out of about 65 men were killed in action, and 1 of 56 died from wounds.[[3]]
Two other facets of Pvt Moss’s service also stand out: first, the geographic range of it—from Ohio, through western Virginia (later West Virginia), Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri, Georgia, and Alabama, and finally, by way of New Orleans, to Texas—and second, his dealings with military justice.[[4]]
He was born in Birmingham, England, in September 1843, and came to the United States with his family (mother, father, and three brothers) when he was four. He enlisted for a three-year stint in the 26th Ohio Regiment beginning on 27 July 1861 at Camp Chase, on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio. Like many others in Co. G, he listed his residence as being Youngstown, Ohio, and like most other veterans in the regiment he reenlisted in January 1864.
After his initial training, in November and December 1861 he joined others from the 26th Ohio stationed in the area of Fayetteville, Virginia.This western portion of Virginia, today’s West Virginia, was already in the process of splitting itself off to form a separate state, and Union troops helped make this a reality. By the time hearrived in the area, most of the fighting between Union and Confederate troops had ended, although some rebel guerrilla forces and many Confederate sympathizers remained.Earlier that fall, hundreds of soldiers in the region on both sides had been sent to hospitals as a result of diseases contracted in unsanitary camp conditions. In October, all six soldiers of the 26th who died did so of disease.
In January and part of February 1862, Pvt Moss was hospitalized with malarial fever at the Fayette County Hospital. Such fever was throughout the Civil War one of the two most common diseases—the other was listed as “diarrhea and dysentery.”
After leaving the hospital in West Virginia, he rejoined his unit on 28 February. It wasnow at Camp Robinson, KY, several miles north of Bowling Green—unlike neighboring Tennessee, which joined the Confederacy, Kentucky never seceded. The 26th Ohio was by this time part of the 15th Brigade, 4th Division of the Army of the Ohio, and this brigade included troops from Indiana, Michigan, and Kentucky, as well as from Ohio. By mid-March, the 26th Ohio had marched to Nashville, occupied it, and then encamped about five miles beyond it. While in this area, the men of Pvt Moss’s regiment were informed that their brigade had been transferred to the 6th Division of the Army of the Ohio. On 29 March, the regiment began marching south toward Corinth, Mississippi, which contained the junction of two important railways.
But before the 26th Ohio reached Corinth, they were diverted to an area in Tennessee just north of Corinth. There the bloodiest clash yet of the Civil War occurred, the Battle of Shiloh (6-7 April), fought near Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Over 10,000 casualties on each side was the result. But the 26th arrived only on the morning of 8 April, after the battle had ended.
But Pvt Moss was soon too sick to fight anyway. For several days he was in critical condition, suffering from diarrhea and fever. At the Tennessee River he was placed aboard the hospital ship Imperial, one of several the Quartermaster Department sent to evacuate sick and wounded Union troops.
By early May, however, he was well enough to participate as part of a large Union army group advancing slowly toward Corinth, only some 22 miles away. There was little good water along the way, anddysentery and typhoid were common. In mid-May, before Corinth was taken, he was one of the men stricken with chronic dysentery and fever. He was sent to a hospital in Hamburg, Tennessee only about five miles south of Shiloh. Many of the sick were cared for in conical (Sibley) tents that could accommodate a dozen soldiers or more. According to another soldier at the time, the “hospital” was vermin infested.
Pvt Moss remained in Hamburg until he was transported to Benton Barracks Hospital, which was about five miles north of St. Louis. He apparently arrived there in late July after a three-day boat trip. The hospital was part of a huge encampment that could accommodate as many as 30,000 soldiers and also contained training facilities, barracks, and more. He convalesced there for several months and in July received extra pay for nursing duties. This was not unusual in the early stages of the war because nursing as a profession was still in its infancy, and most nursing duties were performed by convalescing soldiers healthy enough to help, and to a lesser extent by women in religious orders. There was also volunteer help, like that of the poet Walt Whitman, who served as a volunteer in Washington, D.C. hospitals and wrote about his observations with great compassion and realism.[[5]]
In the months from May to September that Pvt Moss spent hospitalized, his regiment, along with other units from the Army of the Ohio, marched through various parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and especially Tennessee and Kentucky dealing with Confederate threats. On 8 October, six days after he rejoined his unit, it was kept in reserve at the Battle of Perryville. But many others in the Army of the Ohio were casualties in this largest Kentucky battle of the Civil War.
Following the clash, Confederate forces retreated southward with Union forces in pursuit, which led to numerous skirmishes. The rest of October was spent marching through Kentucky toward Nashville. In late October, Gen.William Rosecrans became head of the geographic area known as the Department of the Cumberland and also of the area’s largest army, the Army of the Ohio,which henceforth became known as the Army of the Cumberland.
On the last day of October, with his regiment camped near Glasgow (KY), about 35 miles east of Bowling Green, Pvt Moss, sick with fever, was sent to a Cincinnati hospital. About this time, one of the other soldiers in his regiment commented on the widespread sickness in the unit, attributing it to too much exposure and long-hours of strenuous marching.
For the next four months Pvt Moss remained hospitalized in Cincinnati, then one of the ten largest cities in the United States. The hospital where he was treated was then known as St. John’s Hospital, and it was run by the Catholic Sisters of Charity. From 1855 to 1865, it treated more than 6,000 patients, many of them soldiers brought up the Ohio River on boats from Southern battlefields. At the end of the war, the hospital moved to a new building and renamed itself Good Samaritan Hospital.
While Pvt Moss was hospitalized in Cincinnati, his regiment and the rest of the Army of the Cumberland fought at Murfreesboro, Tennessee in the Battle of Stones River (31 Dec. 1862 to 2 Jan.1863). The losses for each side were heavy. The battle ended with the retreat of Confederate forces. The Army of the Cumberland then remained at Murfreesboro for the next six months, reequipping, reorganizing, building a massive fortress (Fortress Rosecrans), drilling, and waiting for better weather.
On March 7, 1863, when Pvt Moss returned to active duty, his regiment was thus still at Murfreesboro. In the spring of 1863 the soldiers of the 26th Ohio received new pup tents, in which a maximum of two soldiers could sleep. Using them instead of the larger Sibley tents may have cut down upon the spread of communicable diseases.
In early May rumors and finally the bitter truth that General Robert E. Lee’s forces had defeated Union troops at Chancellorsville circulated among the regiment. But later that month the soldiers were encouraged by news of General Grant’s siege of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, hoping the city would soon fall to him (as it eventually did on 4 July). Meanwhile, Gen. Rosecrans continued amassing whatever supplies he could for a summer campaign. Among his shortages were men, many having been lost to battle, disease, and desertion. Some of the troops expressed the hope that theconscription law passed by Congress in March would help replenish their ranks. Others vented their contempt for northern Copperheads, who advocated an immediate end to the war by arranging a peace settlement with the Confederacy.
On 2 June, by order of his brigade commander, Col. Edward P. Fyffe (who eight days later relinquished command of the brigade due to ill health), Pvt Moss was transferred for several months to his 1st Brigade headquarters to serve as a provost guard. Why Fyffe chose to send him to serve in this military-police capacity is not clear, but such guards formed a security unit at the headquarters of various levels, guarded prisoners, and attempted to prevent alcoholic violations, plundering, and desertion. “None of these duties were pleasant.” But “as a rule, soldiers enjoyed their tenure on the provost guard. . . . did not have to drill, enjoyed more comfortable lodgings and better provisions.”[[6]]
On 23 June the 26th Ohio and the remainder of General Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland finally began to move toward Chattanooga. Overcoming Confederate resistance along the way, they occupied it in early September as the Confederate Army of Tennessee retreated rather than fight against unfavorable odds. It was another important gain for Union forces, this time over a Confederate army second in size only to that of General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
But before the month was out, the Army of the Cumberland was threatened with disaster at the Battle of Chickamauga (18-20 Sept.), by which time Pvt Moss had apparently returned to the 26th Ohio from his detail with his brigade’s provost guards. The battle was chaotic and bloody. Regiments collapsed, provost guards stopped fleeing soldiers, and ad-hoc groups combined to form new units. By late on the 20th, Union forces were disorderly retreating back to Chattanooga, fortunate that the Confederate victory was not more devastating than it was.
Estimated combined casualties, including killed, wounded, captured, and missing, numbered over 33,000, with the South’s portion being slightly more than the North’s. In the 26th Ohio about fifty-six per cent of the men were casualties, including many men from the Youngstown area who had served with Pvt Moss in Company G.
After the battle, however, General Ulysses S. Grant assumed command over western Union forces. They were now bolstered by shifting troops to Chattanoogafrom the Army of the Potomac and most of the Army of the Tennessee under General William Tecumseh Sherman. Grant also replaced General Rosecrans as head of the Army of the Cumberland and put in his place General George Thomas, who had distinguished himself at Chickamauga. The troops under Thomas were also reorganized, and the 26th Ohio became part of the 2d Brigade, 2d Division of the 4th Army Corps.
The decisive Battles for Chattanooga occurred on 23-25 November, especially on the 25th at Missionary Ridge, located east of the city. And the 26th Ohio was at the center of it on an advancing and long-extended line of the Army of the Cumberland. At the battle, Northern troops outnumbered Southern ones by about a three to two margin. What was most striking about the seizing of Missionary Ridge from Confederate forces that afternoon was that the officers and men of the Army of the Cumberland exercised great initiative in advancing to the top of the steep ridge across trenches and amidst heavy artillery and rifle fire from above.
Union casualties were much less than those at Chickamauga. The South had fewer killed or wounded than did the North, but more captured or otherwise missing. The 26th Ohio distinguished itself, but it lost only a few men to battlefield deaths and had another 30-40 wounded, a few of whom subsequently died of their wounds. In a post-war pension examination, Pvt Moss reported that a scar on his temple was the result of a fall at the battle of Missionary Ridge.
During February 1864, he and most of the men of the 26th Ohio were on furlough, which had been an inducement for them to reenlist. In early March, they reported back to Camp Chase in Columbus, where they had begun their first training almost three years earlier. From there they took a train to Cincinnati. Along the way, according to one lieutenant, many of them were drinking and fighting. From Cincinnati, they took a steamboat to Louisville, and from there trains to Nashville and beyond to southern Tennessee.
By late March, the returning men were encamped on the south side of Charleston, TN, about 40 miles northeast of Chattanooga, and 89 new recruits had joined the regiment, bringing its total to 274 men. During that same month, General Grant took command of all the Union armies. Taking his place as commander of Western armies was the Ohio-born General William Sherman, who had led his Army of the Tennessee alongside the Army of the Cumberland at Missionary Ridge. During April, Sherman prepared to move southward to capture Atlanta. In and around Chattanooga he gathered supplies and a grand army, with the Army of the Cumberland at over 60,000 men the largest (62 percent of his entire force).
Within the 26th Ohio, four more soldiers died in April, each from diseases which included pneumonia and chronic diarrhea. On 25 April, the 26th Ohio moved closer to Chattanooga, and on 3 May, the regiment (by now up to 314 enlisted men), along with the rest of their division, began their long march toward Atlanta. Pvt Moss, however was not with them. Along with other sick soldiers he had been sent to Chattanooga. Due to mixed later reports from the Record and Pension Office and the War Department Surgeon General's Office, it is unclear exactly when, where, and why he remained hospitalized as long as he did. According to one government document, the initial cause for his hospitalization was “arthritis,” which was a frequent diagnosis during the Civil War and often resulted from earlier diseases such as dysentery.
A second government document indicates that he entered a Chattanoogahospital on 8 May with a back sprain and was transferred on 17 June to General Hospital No. 2 in Chattanooga—where he apparently remained for at least the rest of the month. This same document indicates that he entered Cumberland Hospitalin Nashville on 7 July with a gunshot wound to his left hand and was returned to duty 26 July. How he received the gunshot, whether in battle or not, is not clear.
Meanwhile, his regiment continued marching south with the rest of General Sherman’s forces, sometimes, such as at Kenesaw Mountain, facing stiff resistance. It is possible that Pvt Moss rejoined his regiment somewhere near Marietta, GA, between Kenesaw and Atlanta, because his regiment did suffer some casualties in that area on 4 July (specifically at Smyrna Station, a little south of Marietta). If injured, he could have been transported back by train to Chattanooga and then on to Nashville, but it is also possible that the gunshot wound happened somewhere off the battlefield.
After he returned to active duty on 26 July and throughout August, his regiment and Confederate forces maneuvered and fired upon each other from entrenched positions in and around Atlanta. But Union troops gradually improved their position around the city, cutting off railway lines to it. On 1 September the besieged Confederate forces withdrew from the city, and a portion of Sherman’s grand army occupied it the next day. The four-month long campaign to take Atlanta had cost the Army of the Cumberland almost 23,000 casualties, and the 26th Ohio had suffered 117 of them. But it was a great victory, reenergizing war-weary Northern resolve.