On July 13, 1865, I. N. Haynie, the Adjutant General of Illinois (successor to the wartime adjutant general Allen C. Fuller) sent a circular to the officers of all Illinois regiments, saying that the Illinois regiments were being broken up, "to be known to the future only by the history of their great achievements." He went on, "I have deemed it my duty to call upon the officers who commanded them to render me whatever aid they can to secure beyond question, for all time, a truthful record of their deeds... now when the events of the past four years are fresh in the memory of those most conspicuous in the Union cause." To that end he ordered, "You will immediately forward to this office a brief, compact history of your command... embodying in the statement all the engagements, marches and movements, with all items of interest which will give the organization a merited and enduring record in the archives of Illinois" (Adjutant General Report, 120).

These compact histories were written generally by officers of the regiment but these regimental historians are usually unnamed and unknown. The Adjutant General Office's history of the Twenty-Seventh Illinois was written by William A. Schmitt, Captain of Company A, then major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel; we know that because Schmitt's history was also published as a separate booklet. We cannot determine who wrote the A.G.O. history of the Fifty-First Illinois; it is matter-of-fact in tone like Bradley's other writing; however, Bradley resigned his volunteer commission as brigadier general in June, 1865. James Boyd (the last promoted but never mustered colonel of the regiment) was the only field-and-staff officer of long-standing left at regimental headquarters after July 1865—Raymond had resigned; Davis was still recovering from severe Missionary Ridge wounds; McWilliams had left the regiment in March after the expiration of his term of service and after his exchange and release from Confederate prison; Rose was gone after resigning for disability reasons; Moody was killed at Chickamauga, Bellows at Missionary Ridge, Hall at Kennesaw Mountain; Tilton, who had de facto command of the regiment throughout the last half of 1864 until he was wounded at Franklin, had resigned and was off searching for his brother who was lost in Andersonville; that left only James Boyd actively serving (and Merritt B. Atwater senior among the captains). Adjutant General Haynie stated in mid-July that he had sent out forms to all the regiments: "This circular, with blanks to be filled and returned to this office, has been sent to all commanding officers of troops of this state, out as well as in the service, whose address was known" (First Edition, Volume 1, p. 89).

The AGO history of the Fifty-First is quite, if not utterly, accurate. William Edward Henry of these pages, in the itinerary of Private Edward Tabler of the Fifty-First, points out that the regiment crossed the Chattanooga Creek on September 22, 1863, not Chickamauga Creek as the A.G.O. history says. In December, 1863, as the Fifty-First and other regiments hurried to East Tennessee to support Burnside, the Fifty-First moved to Blaine's Crossroads near Knoxville—by rail, according to the A.G.O. history, but actually covering the last ten miles on foot, as Tabler wrote in his diary. The A.G.O. history does not go beyond perfunctory recounting of the regiment’s movements, casualties, and unit assignments in the Armies of the Mississippi and of the Cumberland—except to class Chaplain Raymond as a “venerable and good man” and to remember being in "the thickest of the fight" at Stones River (as the regiment was a number of other places).

The exact verbiage of the A.G.O. regimental history, in italicized paragraphs, forms the framework of a fuller history of the Fifty-First Illinois. The fuller history is a progressive work, building out the framework, here, then there, then here again. The building does not necessarily proceed from beginning to end, rather from interest and material to interest and material. Initially, the history will only in sections go beyond the AGO-perfunctory, but, if you return to the site periodically, you will find this historical presentation growing—old sections stouter and cushier and new sections starting to take shape, more dependent on letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts, and integrated with information from the National Archives and the venerable, coy Official Records.

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AGO: The Fifty-first Infantry Illinois Volunteers was organized at Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois, December 24, 1861, by Colonel Gilbert W. Cumming.

Organization of the Regiment: "The officers are all military men."
[This section created March 25, 2006; last updated July, 2006; written by Leigh Allen]

The men who became officers of the Fifty-First Illinois were engaged in Illinois militia activities, building and training companies and regiments, months before the Fifty-First was constituted. Goodspeed and Healy (1909, p. 439) wrote that John Loomis and Luther P. Bradley formed "a crack Zouave regiment" in April of 1861, "crack" presumably in the sense that its unison in drill was flashy. Loomis and Bradley turned their efforts from Zouave drill to other volunteer military undertakings. (Loomis eventually went on to be colonel of the Twenty-Six Illinois.) Bradley's energies soon—at the time of Lincoln's call for 75,000 three-month recruits—turned to forming a company to be offered for service in response to that call. The company was comprised of young Chicago men, according to Alexander McClurg, who was one of the company's members, many of whom had college educations and had been "somewhat delicately reared" and hoped to "tone down some of the asperities of the private soldier's life". Luther Bradley was captain of the company which became "before long a very creditably drilled military organization, and was known as Company D, 60th Regiment Illinois Militia." The company was not accepted into Federal military service because Illinois quotas were soon full. Company D was detailed as the guard of honor while Stephen Douglas lay in state in Chicago in June 1861 (McClurg, pp. 101-105) and continued a kind of existence though members were continually departing to serve in regiments bound for "the field". (Company D reconvened in late 1863, after Bradley was wounded at Chickamauga and partially recovered, for an evening of feasting, toasting and speech-making in Bradley's honor at a Chicago hotel.)

In August, 1861, several Illinois militia initiatives were consolidated as the First Regiment, Illinois State Militia. That militia unit never got beyond an inchoate state of organization; it did however form the core of the Fifty-First Illinois. Some of the captains and "home companies" of the First Illinois Militia became the captains and companies of the volunteer regiment (Captain Rufus Rose, Fremont Fencibles, Company K; Captain Henry F. Wescott, Union Railroad Guard, Company A; Captain John G. McWilliams, Sturges Light Guard, Company E; Captain George H. Wentz, Higgins Light Guard, Company G; Captain Isaac Gardner, Tucker Light Guard, Company B). The Fifty-First was formally constituted by Order No. 197 of the Illinois Adjutant General issued on September 20, 1861 (Andreas II, 1884-86, p. 215).

The regiment went into camp in Chicago on October 8, 1861 near what was becoming Camp Douglas [map, sketch, details]. The camp was not a war-ready barracks and training ground carved out of the near-south side of Chicago. It was a piece of prairie, four miles south of the city, called "Cottage Grove", which lay at the end of the street-car line. The line did not even continue far enough through the trees and grasses to reach present-day Hyde Park. The cars themselves were more aptly called "horse cars", for this was prior to the first steam streetcars. The Chicago Times reported once during the war, March 21, 1864, that the State Street car bound for Cottage Grove found its way blocked by a herd of cattle. The street car was halted, as the herd, occupying the entire width of the street, "presented a bold front, or rather rear, to dispute the further passage of the car." This was not yet Chicago urban living at its most urbane. Cottage Grove was beautifully wooded and was home to several music pavilions and a large beer garden. It was popular with the German-American population who traveled the street cars to have picnics and parties. (There were other such celebration groves around Chicago; the Fifty-First reassembled, after its veteran furlough in 1864, at Wright's Grove-Camp Webb-Camp Fry on the north side of Chicago). Before Camp Douglas was ready to accept troopsóeven before it was plannedóIllinois recruits camped and trained in Cottage Grove along Cottage Grove Avenue, which connected north to the city. There were several camps, some utterly temporary, some with permanent barracks, in the Cottage Grove areaóCamp Long, Camp Blum, Camp Heckeróbefore Camp Douglas was built in late 1861; there was even a temporary Camp Douglas, which lay to the south of where the permanent Camp Douglas was built (Karamanski, 1993, p. 78). The Forty-Second Illinois Infantry left Chicago for the field before they ever moved out of the Grove into the Camp. Even after Camp Douglas was completed and fully functioning, the housing and training of regiments at at the camp was not confined to the walls which surrounded it. William Bross wrote, "...troops were cared for in and about Camp Douglas, for it will be remembered at times the section west of the camp and nearly to State Street and south, far away toward Hyde Park, were covered with camps and open spaces for drilling the troops" (Bross, 1878, p. 170). Elias Colbert, a Chicago newspaper editor, remembered "the novel sight of tents dotted all over the surrounding region as far as the eye could reach" (p. 94).

The Fifty-First Illinois was one of the first to inhabit the new camp and undergo its outfitting and first training there, moving in while it was still being built. Benjamin Smith of the Fifty-First wrote that, after his company arrived in Chicago, supped at the Lloyd House, overnighted at the monstrous "Wigwam" (the ramshackle, quick-built, wooden auditorium where the Republican convention of 1860 nominated Abraham Lincoln), and breakfasted, again at the Lloyd House, they boarded "street cars" for Cottage Grove (Smith, p. 12, Cook, p. 38), and so began their military careers. Albert Tilton of the Fifty-First wrote home on October 12, 1861, "We are encamped at Cottage Grove, about 4 miles south of Chicago but easy of access by street car. Extensive and comfortable barracks are being built which when completed are calculated to accommodate 4 regiments of 1200 men each." Even though the Camp Douglas barracks were just then under construction, Tilton headed his letter "Camp Douglas 51st Ill". Tilton's letter of November 9, 1861, headed "Camp Douglas Chicago Legion (51st Ill)", wrote "...we have as yet no stoves put up in our barracks".

The regiment shuffled through several identities before it went to the field of war. At inception it was envisioned as one of the four regiments of a planned Douglas Brigade, a brigade of regiments formed in Illinois' northern military district, constructed by the war-footing military reorganization of 1861, and named in honor of Stephen Douglas, who had died in June, 1861. Two other of the regiments of this to-be brigade were the Forty-Second Illinois Infantry and the Fifty-Fifth Illinois Infantry. There was never a fourth regiment for the phantom Douglas brigade, even on paper, and the brigade ceased to exist before it started. The men of the Fifty-First, however, at some point after arriving in Chicago became aware that the regiment was designated as a constituent of the Douglas Brigade; they felt a certain gratification in membership in a brigade named after the great Stephen Douglas, greater for having thrown himself into the war effort after his election defeat and then, especially, having died. There was at least a passing notoriety to being members of this named brigade. Tilton wrote, in a letter of December 10, 1861, "The 2d Regt [Fifty-Fifth Illinois] Douglas Brigade left for St. Louis yesterday. We are the 3d Regt of the Brigade... It will be a splendid brigade." Benjamin Smith noted the Fifty-First's being part of the Douglas Brigade in his entry of October 11, but Smith sometimes backed into his dates, and not always correctly. The Fifty-Fifth Illinois trained at  Camp Douglas but left for the field before the Fifty-First did, and the two regiments never served together. The Chicago Tribune said the Fifty-Fifth was "well known as the Second Douglas"; The Fifty-First was never known as the "Third Douglas". The Forty-Second, which was the first-formed regiment of the Douglas Brigade (but seldom called the "First Douglas") and which also assembled in Chicago but two months earlier than the Fifty-First, always served together with the Fifty-First.

The Chicago papers in 1861 and early 1862 referred to regiment as the “Chicago Legion" or the "Ryan Life Guard”. The name “Ryan Life Guard” never gained currency, but the early stationery of the regiment, early Illinois newspaper accounts, and the early self-reference of its officers identified the regiment as the “Chicago Legion”, legion because in contemporary military parlance a legion consisted not only of infantry units but also of cavalry and artillery units. The Adjutant-General’s Order No. 197 of September 20, which formally organized the regiment and called it specifically the “Chicago Legion”, stipulated, “There may be attached to said Regiment one company of Cavalry and one company of Light Artillery—said companies to be raised by voluntary enlistment for said purpose, and not to be selected from any of the companies of cavalry or artillery heretofore reported and accepted by the state.” Albert Tilton glossed "legion" in the terms of a new soldier, "The 51st Reg is to be composed of 10 Companies of which 8 are to be Light Infantry, 1 of Flying Artillery & 1 Cavalry Co. making in itself a small brigade able to act on the offensive & defensive" (letter of October 12, 1861). For a time Allen Waterhouse’s battery and Charles Roland’s cavalry company were constituents of the regiment. As late as November 14, 1861 Colonel Gilbert Cumming authorized cavalry recruitment for the regiment. Subsequently, however, Illinois Adjutant-General Fuller cooled toward the “legion” concept and reassigned the cavalry and artillery units. The regiment was left with only eight companies of infantry, rather than the usual ten; hence when the regiment went to the field in February, 1862, it consisted only of 684 enlisted men. (Not until July 1862 did the regiment gain a Company F, and not until early 1865, after the regiment had fought its last fight, did it gain a Company I.)

The regiment was the “Chicago” Legion because the majority of the officers were recruited from Chicago and because the regiment mustered in in Chicago. Only two companies, C and H, had no Chicago-commissioned officers (Kirkland I, 1895, p. 162). There was yet another reason why very practically the regiment’s closest ties were to Chicago: Luther P. Bradley was the first Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment. Before the war he worked for the firm of Munson & Bradley. Munson’s downtown store at 140 Lake Street became the local point of contact for the regiment. Letters and packages could be dropped off there for (relatively) quick transport to the regiment in the field. The first set of colors made for the regiment was initially on display there, and Munson carried the flags to the regiment in the field at Farmington, Mississippi. When one of the regimental flags came back to Chicago, in shreds, after the Battle of Chickamauga, it was on display at Munson & Bradley’s. The Chicago connection was more than officer-deep; Companies A, G, and K drew the majority of their privates from the City of Chicago and the Counties of Cook and Lake. When the regiment departed Chicago in February 1862, The Chicago Tribune bid the Fifty-First good-bye “…with peculiar feelings. Composed, as the rank and file is, mainly of our own citizens, and citizens who have occupied prominent and humble positions in this community, it is severing a near tie to say farewell and leave them to the uncertaintities of war. Chicago will watch the future course of this regiment with peculiar pride, and will anxiously await the day when they shall return…”

Governor Richard Yates appointed Gilbert W. Cumming, a New York native and Chicago attorney, as colonel of the regiment. Cumming was a man of some military training but little military experience. He was born in New York in 1817. At the age of 16 Cumming enlisted in an independent military company, submitted to all its training and discipline, and eventually rose to command of a regiment in the New York militia whose only public function was in composing the public unrest relative to the rising of Anti-Renters in his corner of New York. He rose to the colonelcy of the militia regiment, a position which he held for six years. In the 1850s Cumming migrated first to Wisconsin, then to Chicago, where he established a successful law practice.

The first Lieutenant Colonel of the Fifty-First Luther P. Bradley also had some military background. Bradley was born in 1822 in Connecticut, and his initial military training came with the Connecticut militia before he migrated to Chicago in 1855. There, he was employed with the firm of F. Munson, stationers and booksellers. Bradley accepted a captain’s commission with Company D of the First Illinois State Militia.

Samuel B. Raymond, the first major of the Fifty-First (and later lieutenant colonel commanding the regiment) was born in New York and came to Chicago where he was engaged first in printing, then “mercantile pursuits”, then insurance. He was actively engaged in militia activities, serving as lieutenant colonel of the First Illinois State Militia. His father Lewis Raymond was chaplain of the regiment; a younger brother Eugene was a private in Company K. Regimental Adjutant Charles W. Davis was a native of Concord, Massachusetts and had served in the state militia for five years before migrating to Chicago in 1854.

For better or worse there were no Westpoint graduates among the officers of the regiment, but the officers of the regiment did not themselves require basic military training. They had that. Colonel Cumming wrote to Captain Nathaniel Petts, selling him on joining his independent infantry company to the regiment, “The officers are all military men and the regiment will be equipped in the best manner.” The organizers of the regiment and its field officers took satisfaction that the regiment was not officered by political appointees—who might be marvelous creatures of patronage in the city but inept commanders in the field.

The Chicago Tribune wrote of the regiment, “In point of drill it is superior to any regiment that has been at Camp Douglas this winter.” Camp Douglas was new, and not a lot of regiments had trained there; still, the Fifty-First was in camp a relatively long period of time, four months, before going to the field. And, its days were consumed with drilling, and more drilling. The Federal command heirarchy was frightened by what became of its untrained regiments at Bull Run. "With the establishment of Camp Douglas, troops were, for the first time, given uniform instruction in bayonet and close-order drill. The state appointed two former Ellsworth Zouaves as the official instructors at Camp Douglas. [Camp Commandant] Tucker established a schedule that gave the recruits at least four hours of drill each day." (Karamanski, p, 84). Tilton wrote home about the Fifty-First's training schedule. "We 'turn out' at day break, breakfast at 7, drill from 9 to 11, dine at noon, drill from 2 to 4 PM, take supper at 5 & go to bed at 9 1/2." The diary of Edward Tabler for January 1862 gives some of the tiny permutations of becoming a soldier at Camp Douglas, "Drilling again today, as usual, and learning to be a soldier — Drilled again, at the usual hour, and done well — Drilling again, and have a bad cold — Drilling again — Drill a little while again, but don't feel very well — The boys went to the lake shore, and fired their guns at a target — Drill again today, and have Dress Parade — The boys drilling by themselves today. We done well." The Fifty-Sixth Illinois Infantry, in contrast, found itself in the field after a much shorter interval in camp, and training was not an ambition of its field officers. Chaplain David Bunn wrote in his diary on May 3, as the Fifty-Sixth was joining General Pope's army for the war on Corinth (which came to be known as the "Siege of Corinth"), "The discipline of the Regt. is sadly deficient, and seems to lack a head to make it what it ought to be. The Col. has never yet said 'Shoulder arms' to the Regt." Quartermaster William Ferry of the Fourteenth Michigan, trying to move men and materiel away from Hamburg Landing in May 1862, complained of his regiment, "There is no discipline for this or anything else among our officers." A New York officer criticized the command style of his fellows, "Their orders come out slow and drawling, then they wait patiently to see them half-obeyed in a laggard manner." The militia careers and ambitions of the Fifty-First's field officers and some of its captains propelled the regiment past such inexperience and growing pains. Its field officers, for better or worse, had a taste for command—and some experience in exercising it. Ferry of the Fourteenth Michigan wrote, as his regiment got close to its first fighting, "The result of fight must prove disastrous to this regiment solely for the want of discipline & trained obedience to orders." Even when still untested, the Fifty-First had confidence in its training and proficiency in drill. Time would tell.

In October at Camp Douglas, the men of the regiment began receiving uniforms and some equipment, “So that”, as Adjutant Charles Davis put it, “we hope to make soldiers of our men in very short time.” The regiment was not exactly “equipped in the best manner”, as Colonel Cumming promised Petts, not at first. Benjamin Smith, a private of Company C, wrote that Quartermaster Howland, judging by the ill-fitting uniforms that were issued at Camp Douglas, “must have had the mistaken impression that he was clothing a company of giants.”

REFERENCES FOR THIS SECTION:
Cumming to Captain Nathaniel Petts, September 25, 1861, Fifty-First Illinois Regimental Books 3, Record Group 94, National Archives and Records Administration. The company Petts raised became Company C of the Fifty-First Illinois.
Davis to Lt. Northerington, October 7, 1861, Fifty-First Illinois Regimental Books 3, Record Group 94, National Archives and Records Administration.
The Chicago Evening Journal.
The Chicago Times.
The Chicago Tribune.
James Grant Wilson, Biographical Sketches of Illinois Officers Engaged in the War Against the Rebellion of 1861. Chicago: James Barnet, 1862.
A[lfred]. T. Andreas, History of Chicago from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, 3 volumes. Chicago: A. T. Andreas, 1884-86
Benjamin Smith, Private Smith’s Journal, Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1963.
David P. Bunn Diary, SC 209, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois.
William M. Ferry, Jr. to wife, dated "Between Hamburg & Corinth, six miles out, May 1st/62"; William M. Ferry, Jr. to wife, dated "In camp near Farmington which is 4 miles from Corinth May 5th/62", William Montagu Ferry Family Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Reid Mitchell, The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 24 (slow and drawling orders).
Moses Kirkland, History of Chicago, Illinois, Two volumes. Chicago: Munsell & Co., 1895, Vol. 1, p. 162.
William Bross, "History of Camp Douglas," Paper Read before the Chicago Historial Society, June 18, 1878, in Mabel McIlvaine, ed., Reminiscences of Chicago during the Civil War, New York: The Citadel Press, 1967 (originally published in 1914), 160-194.
Alexander C. McClurg, "American Volunteer Soldier", Extract from an Unpublished Memoir, in Mabel McIlvaine, Reminiscences of Chicago during the Civil War, New York: The Citadel Press, 1967, (originally published 1914), 97-150.
Weston A. Goodspeed and Daniel D. Healy, History of Cook County, Illinois: Being a General Survey of Cook County History including a Condensed History of Chicago and a Special Account of Districts outside the City Limits from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1909.
Theodore J. Karamanski, Rally 'Round the Flag: Chicago and the Civil War, Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1993.
E[lias] Colbert, Chicago: Historical and Statistical Sketch of the Garden City, Chicago: P. T. Sherlock, 1868.
Frederick Francis Cook, Bygone Days in Chicago: Recollections of the "Garden City" of the Sixties, Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1910.
Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois: Containing Reports for the Years 1861-66, revised by Jasper N. Reece, Springfield: Phillips Bros., 1900-02.

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AGO: February 14, 1862, ordered to Cairo, Illinois. Moved to Camp Cullum, on the Kentucky shore, on the 27th. On the 4th of March moved to Bertrand, Missouri, and on the 7th moved to Sykeston, and to New Madrid, and 10th, assigned to the Division of Brigadier General E. A. Paine, and Second Brigade, consisting of Twenty-second Illinois Infantry, and Fifty-first, Colonel Cumming commanding. On the 13th, made a reconnaissance in force, and, 14th, New Madrid was evacuated by the enemy.

To the Field: Cairo to New Madrid.
Section created July 21, 2006; written by Leigh Allen.

Even as the regiment took the field, Colonel Cumming was still trying to bring his regiment up to full strength by the addition of another two companies. He authorized John W. Campion to raise a company in the central Illinois town of Bloomington, McLean County. From February 21 to March 7, 1862, an ad ran in the Bloomington Daily Pantagraph; it read, "Col. Cumming's Regiment.—J. W. Campion has received authority to raise a company for the 51st regiment Ill. Volunteers. Any persons wishing to enlist will find this a crack regiment to go in, and will soon see service."

Campion had considerable success in recruiting men for his company. He recruited 50 men, then formed a partnership with Sylvester G. Parker, a farmer of means, to continue recruiting while he took the first recruits to Camp Dubois (Anna, Illinios, Union County) to begin their outfitting and training. A company skirmish broke out. While Campion was away, Parker held an election for the captaincy and won. On his return, Campion withdrew his men and formed another company. So said Campion. Parker said that Campion was present at the election on March 22 but received only 32 votes against 57 for Parker. Campion then, miffed, went off with 32 men and began to fill out another company. Parker said his 83 men were mustered in as Company H of the Sixty-Third Illinois on April 21 but that Campion's unit was not. Adjutant General records give the lie to this contention of Parker's for both companies were mustered into the Sixty-Third Illinois on the same day, Campion's Company D weighted with men from Bloomington, McLean County, Parker's Company H with men from Decatur, Macon County.

In the upshot, the Fifty-First Illinois did not gain a company from Campion's promising initial efforts. By the time the Campion's company was mustered in, the Fifty-First was on board a steamship heading for Fort Pillow, though certainly a company could join the regiment in the field (as did Company F a few months later). There is a more likely explanation than mere distance for Campion shopping his wares elsewhere. All the companies of the Sixty-Third were raised in central and southern Illinois and such local affinities were effective in a way that potentional ties to a "Chicago" legion could not be. The opportunity for satisfactory outfitting and thorough training were greater at Camp Dubois than they were with the Fifty-First Illinois as it boated up and down the rivers and then debarked in Tennessee and marched for Mississippi in April and May, 1862.

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AGO: April 7, moved against Island No. 10; 8th, pursued the enemy, compelling the surrender of General Mackall, and 4,000 prisoners; 9th, returned to New Madrid; 11th, embarked and proceeded down Mississippi to Osceola, Arkansas; 17th, moved toward Hamburg Landing, Tennessee, disembarking 22d. April 24, the Brigade of Brigadier General John M. Palmer, Twenty-second, Twenty-seventh, Forty-second and Fifty-first Illinois, and Company C, First Illinois Artillery, Captain Hightailing [Houghtaling], known as the “Illinois Brigade,” was assigned to Brigadier General Paine's Division. Engaged in the battle at Farmington, and siege of Corinth. Just previous to the evacuation of Corinth, the Army of the Mississippi was organized into two wings and centre. The Division of Paine and Stanley, constituting Right Wing, under Brigadier General W. S. Rosecrans.

AGO: June 4, advanced near Baldwin, Mississippi, and fell back to Booneville. Colonel F. A. Harrington, Twenty-seventh Illinois, took command of the Brigade. On the 11th, moved from Booneville, and again encamped at Corinth, 14th; 28th, General Pope being transferred to Virginia, General Rosecrans assumed command of the Army of the Mississippi, and Brigadier General David S. Stanley, of Right Wing. July 9, army organized into five Divisions, under Brigadier Generals Paine, Stanley, Schuyler, Hamilton, Jeff C. Davis and Asboth, the Fifty-first being in First Brigade, First Division.

AGO: July 20, the division left Big Spring, and marched to Tuscumbia, Alabama. The Regiment was assigned to guard the railroad from Hillsboro to Decatur. August 24, Regiment concentrated at Decatur. September 4, crossed the Tennessee River, and moved via Athens, Alabama, to Nashville, Tennessee. Here the Division of Negley and Palmer remained as garrison, while the army moved to Louisville, under Buell. November 6, engaged in repelling the attack of Breckinridge, Morgan and Forrest. From September 11 to November 6, Nashville was cut off from communication with the North, the troops being on half rations. September 30, Colonel Cumming having resigned, Lieutenant Colonel Bradley was commissioned Colonel.

AGO: December 10, the Brigade was transferred to the Division of Brigadier General Phillip H. Sheridan, and designated as Third Brigade, Third Division, Right Wing, Fourteenth Army Corps, and marched 7 miles on Nolensville pike. December 26, moved against the enemy, under Bragg. December 30, the Brigade met the enemy and was engaged during the day, losing 7 wounded. December 31, the Regiment was in the thickest of the fight at Stone River, losing 57 killed, wounded and prisoners. The Division lost its three Brigade commanders, Colonel Harrington being wounded and taken prisoner, and died a few days afterward. Colonel Bradley took command of the Brigade, and Major Davis of the Regiment, and upon Major Davis being wounded and carried from the field, Captain H. F. Wescott took command. On the 6th, moved 3 miles south of Murfreesboro, and encamped.

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AGO: January, 1863, the wings and centre of the army were designated as Fourteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first Army Corps, that of McCook being Twentieth Army Corps.

AGO: March 4, moved to Eagleville--Captain John G. McWilliams commanding Regiment. On the 8th, moved to Spring Hill; 10th, reached Duck Creek; 11th, Van Dorn crossed Duck River, on pontoons, and Granger returned to Franklin.

AGO: June 24, Twentieth Corps moved down the Shelbyville pike; 27th, marched to Beach's Grove. July 1, enter Tullahoma, which had been evacuated the night before. Joined in pursuit of the enemy to Elk River, Winchester and Cowan, Bragg retreating over the Cumberland mountains, and across the Tennessee River. Remained at Cowan until the 9th, then ascending the mountains, encamped on the summit on the site of “Southern University.” July 30, moved to Bridgeport, Alabama. September 2, crossed Tennessee River, and moved to foot of Sand Mountain. September 4, ascended the mountain; 5th, moved to Trenton, Georgia; 6th and 7th, marched down to Lookout Valley; 10th, to Winston's Gap; 11th, Alpine, Georgia; 14th, marched up Lookout Valley; 15th, from Stevens' Gap to McElmore's Cove.

AGO: After some days’ movements, entered the battle of Chickamauga, at 4 p.m.; 19th, losing that evening, 90 men out of 209 engaged. During the night erected barricades. On the 20th, went into position on extreme right: by noon were heavily engaged, and in the afternoon the whole Division fell back, in confusion, to Mission Ridge; 21st, threw up works at Rossville; 22d, crossed Chickamauga Creek.

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Chickamauga

The Fifty-First Illinois "entered the battle of Chickamauga" in support of the extreme Federal right, which was fiercely pressed all afternoon and in recurrent danger of complete disintegration. The regiment was some miles south of the battlefield when the brigade of which it was a part, Bradley's Brigade (Third Brigade, Third Division, Twentieth Army Corps), was put on the run, north up the Lafayette Road, toward the south-most end of the Federal line.

There are a thousand things to read on the Federal right-Confederate left at the Battle of Chickamauga, some written in 1863, some in 2003. For now, then, we present an under-construction account of the Fifty-First Illinois and Bradley's Brigade on the 19th and 20th, in miscellaneous notes on the Fifty-First at Chickamauga.

AGO: October 10, the Twentieth and Twenty-first Corps being consolidated, formed Fourth Corps, under Major General Gordon Granger. Regiment being in Third Brigade, Colonel C. G. Harker; Second Division, Major General Sheridan.

AGO: November 24, at Mission Ridge, was engaged, losing 39 out of 150 men engaged, including Major Davis wounded, and Captain George L. Billows [Bellows] killed. Captain A. M. Tilton commanding Regiment.

AGO: November 28, 1863, marched to the relief of General Burnside at Knoxville. December 16, moved, by rail, to Blain's Cross Roads. January 9, 1864, Colonel Bradley returned. January 15, moved toward Chattanooga.

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Chickamauga. The Chickamauga account exceeds the limits of this page and has its own.

AGO: February 10, regiment mustered as veterans, and started for Chicago, where, 17th, the men received veteran furlough. Regiment left for the front March 28, 1864, via Louisville, Nashville and Chattanooga, to Cleveland, Tennessee. May 3, commenced the Atlanta campaign.

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Reenlistment (and Regimental Strength) in Winter 1864.
[This section created April 25, 2006; last updated June 1, 2006; by Leigh Allen]

After the Seventh Ohio's horrendous fight at Ringgold Gap at the end of November 1863—which most of the men considered a fool's errand ordered by General Geary and which killed five of the regiment's thirteen officers and wounded seven others—the regiment went into camp at Chattanooga, then Bridgeport, to winter. It was time for the Seventh Ohio to choose for or against reenlistenment—for the continued existence or dissolution of the regiment as a military unit, as the Seventh Ohio. The Seventh was reluctant. Theodore Wilder of the regiment said "abuse and hard usage" disinclined the men to reenlist. Generals came and made speeches to the regiment. General Geary, whom the men did not like, told them that "to lose the Seventh would be to lose the seventh star of the Pleiades," and that "they were dear to him as the apple of his eye." The men were disgusted. They had no such evidence. "Gen. Slocum and all the corps authorites" came and said more things, but the veterans said, "We know the promises of men in authority, and how much care is exercised for the comfort of those under them." Every effort failed, and the Seventh Ohio, as a regiment, disbanded at the end of their term—the men "with clear consciences... The 11th of June was the glad day of their relief... Co. C was marched out into a little grove which was to witness the sad parting..." The "little band" of Company C — M. M. Andrews, J. F. Harmon, S. M. Cole, J. E. Avery, N. L. Badger, J. M. Burns, H. B. Fry, A. M. Halbert, E. T. Hayes, I. A. Noble, H. Parsons, Thos. Spriggs, T. J. Wallace, D. A. Ward, Oliver Wise, and Wm. Woodmansee — fulfilled their obligations and, still alive, headed home.
(The History of Company C, Seventh Regiment, O.V.I., Oberlin, Ohio: J. B. T. Marsh, 1866, pp. 39-42; Richard A. Baumgartner and Larry M. Strayer, Echoes of Battle: The Struggle for Chattanooga, Huntington, West Virginia: Blue Acorn Press, 1996, pp. 424-427).

Old Regiments: Simmered Down and Sifted Out. If seventy-five percent of the members of a Federal regiment voted to reenlist, the regiment would retain its unit designation, a matter of pride and honor for many Civil War soldiers. The Federal government felt it in its own best interests to maintain existing regimental organizations even if regiments were shrinking in numbers. That is, instead of consolidating smallish regiments into larger ones, the government chose to preserve the "veteran" regiments, build them through recruiting, and get the veterans to reenlist. Frederick Holbrook, the governor of Vermont, argued it this way: "The veteran regiments are worth more to the Government to-day, even when simmered down to not more than 300 well disciplined, able-bodied men, than any new and green regiments of 1,000 men each that the Government can procure. The veteran regiments have borne the heat and burden of the war, all its trials, reverses, disappointments and discouragements; they still stand up firmly and nobly to their duties, desire to fight the war through to a successful termination, and should be permitted to preserve their organization and a continuous record during the war.... True, unworthy officers and worthless soldiers found their way more or less into all the old regiments at the outset; but all such characters have been pretty generally sifted out..." Official Records, Series III, Volume 3, p. 219) There were individual incentives; each reenlisting soldier received a $400.00 bounty from the Federal government and oftentimes like monies from local counties who thus came closer to fulfilling quotas levied on them for additional soldiers. General Order No. 376 from the U.S. Adjutant General provided that "officers may take the volunteers so enlisted home in a body" (Official Records, Series III, Volume 3, p, 1179). Reenlisting soldiers were to be returned to their city of original muster, at government expense and by government transportation, and once home to begin a thirty-day furlough, at the end of which the soldiers reassembled for the trip back to the theaters of war. Historian James M. McPherson wrote that 136,000 men reenlisted; 100,000 did not.

Some regiments reenlisted at the seventy-five percent proportion and some did not. Regimental mood is the key factor, but it's a slippery matter to list the determinants of regimental mood. As the case of the Seventh Ohio indicates recent experience in battle, views and experiences of generals in the immediate command structure, and fair treatment were important factors. The case of the Illinois Brigade—the Twenty-Second, the Twenty-Seventh, the Forty-Second, and the Fifty-First—complicates explanation. The time for Fifty-First to decide for or against reenlistment came in January 1864. The regiment was at the time, away from its Chattanooga camp, at Blaine's Crossroads near Knoxville, their division having rushed there to help Burnside against Longstreet. The ranks were thin, having been thinned by the battling at Chickamauga and again at Missionary Ridge, where the regiment had engaged with only 150 active men. Colonel Luther Bradley himself was away from the regiment, recovering from Chickamauga wounds, until January 9. He wrote to his sister from Chattanooga as he was returning to the regiment, "Chickamauga and Mission Ridge have told terribly on the Brigade, 700 men and 110 officers killed and wounded in the two battles." Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Raymond had tendered his resignation on October 8. Major Charles Davis was promoted immediately to Lieutenant Colonel, but he was not with the regiment at Blaine's Crossroads—he was still recovering from wounds sustained at Missionary Ridge. A captain, Albert Tilton, was in command of the regiment at the time of regimental decision.

En route, Bradley wrote to his sister from Chattanooga on December 10, 1863, "You wonder perhaps that I can think of re-enlisting with my men, but the companionship of such men is enough to make the service tolerable. There was enough gallantry and heroism displayed in the late battle [Missionary Ridge] to redeem a hundred failures" (all Bradley letter references are to the Luther Bradley Papers, United States Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania). Were such companionship and exhileration widespread and longlived enough to be motivation for a regiment to reenlist? Bradley wrote home to his sister once more from Knoxville, on January 8, one day shy of rejoining the regiment. "The 42d has re-enlisted entire, and I am told the 22d and 51st have nearly all gone in. I am glad of this, for it shows a fine spirit in the men who have suffered so much." But, the Twenty-Second Illinois and the Twenty-Seventh Illinois, with whom the Fifty-First had shared a brigade ever since debarking at Hamburg Landing in April, 1862, and who had both fought the early war at Belmont in November 1861, both failed to collect the requisite percentage of votes for those regiments to "veteranize" and continue as units in the order of battle. (The reenlisting veterans of those regiments were parceled out to other regiments such as the Ninth Illinois, which needed to fill out its ranks. The Chicago Tribune reported that ninety-four reenlisting men of the Twenty-Seventh Illinois arrived together in Springfield on March 8 for thirty days of furlough.")

It's hard to construe the unit mood that would see the Seventh Ohio but also the Twenty-Second Illinois and Twenty-Seventh Illinois refuse reenlistment while the Fifty-First Illinois and Forty-Second Illinois reenlisted at a very high percentage. The experiences of the 22nd and 27th for the prior eighteenth months were those of the 42nd and 51st; they shared the same commanders; they had been through the same battles; they reached the top of recent Missionary Ridge together. The Twenty-Seventh, of the four regiments, had encountered the most heat at Missionary Ridge. Company G reported back to their home Mercer County in the December 22, 1863 Aledo Weekly Record, "It is much the hardest fight that we have been in out of fourteen, and our loss is the greatest." The casualty list for Company G starts with, "Hugh M. Love, killed, shot through the neck. John C. Webber, killed; shot through the head. Jefferson Mosby, killed; shot through the bowels." Those losses were fresh at the time of the reenlistment decision for the Twenty-Seventh; were they burdensome enough to put the Twenty-Seventh—or more than a quarter of it—in a Seventh-Ohio-like mood?

In the case of the Twenty-Second there was another factor at work—the remaining term of service. The Twenty-Second, assuming the regiment did not enlist, would leave the front on June 10 to muster out. Certainly then the thirty-day furlough in January or February was no overriding factor for the men of the Twenty-Second, not worth paying for with three more years of service—if time at home were the key factor in one's calculation. But, the Tenth Illinois, which would have left the front for home only four or five weeks after the Twenty-Second, re-enlisted and took 346 men back to Illinois (where the regiment gained 200 recruits during the furlough). There's another factor that may account for the difference between the Tenth and the Twenty-Second. The Twenty-Second saw more violent and deadly service. In its three years it suffered 145 men killed and wounded to death, whereas the Tenth in its four years of service suffered 50 men killed and wounded to death. The Adjutant General's capsule history of the regiment tells that the Twenty-Second lost 96 men, out of 300 engaged, in ten minutes at Chickamauga and then lost another 30 to 40 storming Missionary Ridge five weeks later. There were regiments with similarly severe casualties, but the Twenty-Second's severe casualties began at Belmont in November 1861 and continued for three years. The regimental history says there was only a "scanty remnant" left to join the beginning of the Georgia campaign in May 1862. General George Thomas, commanding the Army of the Cumberland, reported on March 10, 1864 that 34 men of the Twenty-Second Illinois reenlisted (Official Records 32/1, p. 11). If one wants to talk about devotion to cause, right or wrong, these 34 men represent it—having no particular benefit from a 30-day furlough being soon due a furlough forever, not eligible for the honor of belonging to a "veteran" regiment, not swept along by the enthusiasms of their comrades.

(The reenlisting veterans of the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Seventh Illinois regiments were assigned to other regiments which needed to fill out their ranks: the men of the Twenty-Second to the Forty-Second; the men of the Twenty-Seventh to the the Ninth Illinois. The Chicago Tribune reported that ninety-four reenlisting men of the Twenty-Seventh Illinois arrived together in Springfield on March 8 for thirty days of furlough.)

The Forty-Fourth Illinois Infantry, which like the Fifty-First and its brigade, had marched to the relief of Burnside, also reenlisted at Blaine's Crossroads. That regiment was more voluble in their Adjutant General's regimental history about the circumstances of their reenlistment: "Here the troops were on the point of starvation several times, having, for days at a time, nothing but corn in the ear, and but a limited supply of that. Nothing could more fully prove the patriotism of the men, than the fact that here, on the point of starvation, exposed to the most inclement weather, (it being so cold that the Ink would freeze to the pen as the men signed their names,) over three-fourths of the men voluntarily consented to serve three years more for that government for which they had suffered so much during the past two years and a half."

In his January 8, 1864 letter, Bradley described his regiment's situation at Blaine's Crossroads, "It is very cold here, and has been for two weeks, the ground is covered with snow... Our men are suffering greatly from want of sufficient food and clothing and the want of these makes the cold all the worse to bear. We have no tents, but few overcoats or socks, and generally but half rations. I doubt if the stories told of the sufferings of our troops during the winters of the Revolution much exceed the experience of the men now serving in east Tennessee. I have seen plenty of our men without shoes and nearly half their clothing torn from them by the wear of service. This comes not for want of clothing or food, but for want of transportation to bring it to us. One little steamer is all that can be spared to run from Chattanooga to this point and that cannot half supply the troops here." Wilbur Hinman of the Sixty-Fifty Ohio Infantry, which shared the frost of Blaine's Crossroads with the Fifty-First, wrote that in the latter part of December three or four pairs of shoes were issued to each company. Those most in need of shoes drew lots to see who would have them. "There were two men in Company I..., each of whom had one shoe in fair condition, while the other had gone to pieces and was a hopeless wreck. They divided a pair between them, each wearing one new shoe and one old" (p. 467). Great bonfires of oak logs were kept burning, "fed hourly, day and night. Around them the soldiers slept, lying broadside to the fire, or endwise, toastin their feet, while their noses were well-nigh freezing" (Hinman, 468).

Food. There wasn't much. Entire brigades went on foraging missions with large wagon trains for days on end, but "proceeds were most unsatisfactory to the men," (Hinman, 468) and between foraging hauls there was next to nothing to eat. For weeks, the Fifty-First fasted from their usual government fare and made do with what they found in the east Tennessee winter. Tabler wrote that Company K was lucky enough to kill a sheep on December 4 and he had "a few little frozen potatoes, which I scratched out of the ground with my fingers."

Like the Forty-Fourth, the Fifty-First found the requisite numbers at Blaine's Crossroads to sign up despite the ink freezing to the pen. On January 14, 1864, Bradley wrote to his sister from Chattanooga, where his regiment was again in camp, having completed the Longstreet-watch in East Tennessee; Bradley's family hoped the Fifty-First would not reenlist, but Bradley said, "To me it is a matter of unmixed pleasure. It not only shows the best of spirit among the fine fellows who have seen so much hard service and who re-enlisted when they were half starved and frozen, but it is a compliment to their officers that they are eager to serve another term under them."

According to the Adjutant General of Illinois, 151 men of the Fifty-First re-enlisted, by company:
Company A - 20 men
Company B - 7 men
Company C - 33 men
Company D - 26 men
Company E - 25 men
Company F - 0 men
Company G - 18 men
Company H - 13 men
Company K - 9 men

The men of Company F were not eligible for veteran enrollment because they had not served the minimum 21 months required by War Department regulations for the burdens and rewards of reenlistment; Company F had joined the regiment in the field in Mississippi in July, 1862. The regiment's 151 reenlistees were scattered across the other companies. Company K had only 9 men reenlist, but Chickamauga had almost blotted out Company K. One account says that only 8 out of 43 men remained to the Company after the fight on the first day at Chickamauga. The nine men who reenlisted were all of Company K, almost.

The veterans' muster rolls for reenlistment for the regiment are dated February 8, 1864, Chattanooga, Tennessee. The persuasion and politicing occurred prior to that, and the persuasion and politicing left few traces behind. Smith wrote simply that he "rode over to sign the rolls," but Smith was away at headquarters on detached service, absent from regimental politics. Men began signing volunteer enlistment papers in late December 1863 and early January 1864. Private Edward Tabler, in a diary entry of January 6 1864, wrote of a noisy veteranization campaign in Company K, "A great excitement raised about the veterans. Co. K. all depending on me, and after much persuasion, and many promises, I enrolled as a veteran, being promised light duty during my time of enlistment." Again, in another entry, he wrote, "A great cry about Veteran troops. Co. K. all went in, but myself, and after some persuasion and promises, enrolled my name as a Veteran." The pressure in Company K, and no doubt in other companies, stemmed from unit pride and early on from apprehension as to whether or not the regiment would reach the magic three-fourths. Tabler signed up, and for the moment, all of Company K was reenlisted.

Vermilion: The Thirty-Ninth Case in Point. There were certainly sensitivities and pressures for the soldier and the regiment relative to the whole matter of reenlistment. Regiments felt pride in high-reenlistment percentages as a manifestation of patriotism and courage, and in some regiments men and officers campaigned actively for reenlistments. Tabler was not eager to reenlist but bowed to the pressure of his comrades in Company K. Tabler doesn't elaborate on the "much persuasion, and many promises", and other regimental sources for the Fifty-First do not record major hanky-panky. In the instructive case of the Thirty-Ninth Illinois, however, the "great excitement" over veteranization—and the internecine rancor that it generated—leaked out of company and regimental meetings into the public forum of Chicago newspapers. When the Thirty-Ninth returned to Chicago on its reenlistment furlough in January, 1864, The Chicago Tribune of February 6, 1864 carried an article congratulating the Thirty-Ninth on past accomplishments and upon its successful reenlistment and declared in italics, "None have refused to re-enlist." The paper adduced these counts: "They number 352 men; 43 others were left in the field who had not served two years; and about 40 others who are disabled from re-enlistment."

Charles W. Vermilion, late of the Thirty-Ninth, wrote to the rival Chicago newspaper, the democratic Chicago Times, of the reenlistment machinations in the Thirty-Ninth (the letter dated South Carolina, February 23, appeared in the March 7 issue):

I wonder if the officers have forgotten the various ways they took to get men to re-enlist, and to how many they offered promotions, positions, &c., if they would only join; and also, when almost despairing of getting the regiment home as an organization, how they endeavored to get men transferred into the Invalid Corps, merely to have three-fourths of the men veterans?... Permit me also to state that, instead of 43 "yearlings"... and "some 40 invalids", we have a detachment of men, numbering 170, consisting of 1 Lieutenant, 30 non-commissioned officers, 8 musicians, and 131 privates...who are now performing picket duty at the lower point of Hilton Head Island."

Vermilion added (using a phrase that I cannot interpret but which sounds too good to omit), "In conclusion,... notwithstanding their threats of shoving us into the 2d South, we intend to serve out our term of service, and then return home; and, if we then think proper to enter the army, we will do so, bounty or no bounty." Vermilion was offended by "slurs" upon the character of non-reenlistees and reacted to the imputation that "all those left behind" are "nothing but yearlings, invalids, &c." He wrote, "I do not believe a soldier should be abused who had faithfully served his country some two years and six months, simply because he did not feel disposed to re-enlist." He added that the officers of the Thirty-Ninth "labored hard" to make it seem that there was some failure of commitment on the part of those who did not re-enlist—(and then, in print, disdained even their existence).

Vermilion Coda: Vermilion's letter to The Times was signed "Formerly of Company B, 39th Illinois Volunteers". Sergeant Vermilion transferred to the Thirtieth Illinois Infantry, no doubt somewhere in the reenlistment excitement having made himself persona non grata. With the Thirtieth Illinois, Vermilion (of all things) reenlisted. He died of one of the war maladies in 1864 in a Nashville hospital.

The AGO history of the Thirty-Ninth Illinois rehearsed the regiment's reenlistment triumphs: the "Thirty-ninth returned to Folly Island, and soon embarked for Hilton Head... and then re-enlisted, being the first organization in the entire Department to accept Veteran honors and responsibilities. It left Hilton Head on veteran furlough, for Chicago, Illinois, via New York, on the 1st of January 1864, amid great enthusiasm. An entire Brigade, with several Generals and their Staffs, turned out to escort it to the place of embarkation. The Regiment reached Chicago the middle of January, 450 strong, and was tendered a fine ovation by the citizens, in Bryan Hall. After the Regiment had been recruited to seven hundred and fifty (750) strong, it left, early in March 1864, for Washington, D.C., and from thence sailed to Georgetown, Virginia..." Charles M. Clark's Yates Phalanx: The History of the Thirty-ninth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Veteran Infantry in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865, (originally published 1889), counted somewhere between Vermilion and the official regimental communications: "The Regiment was induced to reenlist for three years or the continuance of the war, with the exception of about 100 who preferred to remain in this department until the term of their service expired and then proceed home for good. Many of those who were willing to reenlist could not be accepted because of physical disability... It was exceedingly wonderful to notice how rugged and healthful men would appear and represent themselves, who had formerly been the best patrons of the dispensary, and all through their eagerness to reenlist and get the opportunity of going home." Clark's account bears up some of Vermilion's cynicism. (Interestingly enough, Clark wrote that Lieutenant Colonel O. L. Mann, along with several officers, had returned to Chicago in early November to start recruiting to fill up the regiment. Thus the Thirty-Ninth did not wait until its officers returned to the home front with the mass of men two months later to initiate recruiting.)

Both Vermilion's adopted Thirtieth and his former Thirty-Ninth were distinguished regiments and absorbed great battlefield and hospital casualties.

Clerihan: The Tenth Illinois Case in Point. Michael J. Clerihan ["Clenhan" in Illinois adjutant general records] was one of the few of the Tenth Illinois Infantry to choose not to veteranize. In 1908, he remembered the experience of the non-veteran detachment, after the regiment's reenlisting comrades had gone home to be "feasted and feted by the loyal north" during the thirty days of veteran furlough. "On the morning of Jan. 10, 1864, we non-vets were cruelly abandoned by our officers, and as a punishment for not re-enlisting we were left to 'root hog or die,' until Gen. Morgan, our old Colonel, assigned us to the merciful care of Col. W. B. Anderson, commanding 60th Ill. We found a peaceful home and good treatment whilst we were with them. We shall always cherish in our heart a manly love for the boys of the 60th Ill. and we shall never forget how mercilessly we were cast aside by the men and officers with whom we 'touched elbows' for nearly three years" (National Tribune, March 5, 1908).

Regimental Counts. The Fifty-First did reach the figure of three-fourths, but three-fourths of what one might ask. In a Circular of December 21, 1863, the War Department clarified, "Three-fourths of a veteran regiment will be understood to mean three-fourths of those within the limits of the army in which the organization is serving, and not to include those absent as prisoners of war, in general hospitals, &c." (Official Records, Series III, Volume 3, p. 1179).

The three-fourths would include the members of the Fifty-First who were with the regiment at Blaine's Crossroads, whether they were performing active duty with the regiment, on detached service, or on the sick list, but it would not include those men who were still on the rolls but who were hospitalized in Nashville or St. Louis or wounded at Chickamauga, taken prisoner and released on parole, or wounded at Missionary Ridge—or those imprisoned in Confederate prisons. When Colonel Luther Bradley of the Fifty-First returned to the regiment after recovering from his Chickamauga wounds he passed through Nashville and on to the regimental camp at Chattanooga. From Chattanooga, on December 10, he wrote to his sister, "I found only about fifty of the Regt. here in camp, the Division being absent [gone to East Tennessee]. Those remaining are wounded and sick."

If the Fifty-First had more than 201 men counted in the denominator of the U.S. Adjutant General's three-fourths, then 151 reenlistments would not have entitled them to veteranization, or to any longer be the Fifty-First Illinois Infantry, but 151 did. Thus, there could not have been more than 201 men in the eight companies (the regiment still had no Company I) "within the limits of the army". But there were probably less. Benjamin Smith of Company C wrote in his journal for January 14, 1864, "Nearly all the 51st have veteranized." Pratt said all but seven signed up. Bradley's letter of January 24, 1864, after the sign-up in camp at Blaine's Crossroads but before all regimental reenlistment efforts among the men absent from the regiment in East Tennessee were exhausted, said "Nearly all my men who are not disabled will re-enlist."

The Chicago Tribune of February 17 reported twenty-six officers with the regiment—"Company K has no commissioned officers". This would bring the fit-for-duty strength of the regiment in early 1864 to 151 + 26 officers + 7 men who chose not to reenlist, + the number of Company F fit for duty (say, at a maximum, 30-35 men). 215 men. Were there other men that were duty-fit that we are not counting? Yes, there were—the small number of men who were rejected for veteran service and remained behind in Chattanooga while the rest of the regiment went north. Edward Tabler was one of them—probably not more than five to ten, at the outside—the Federal army wanted every man it could get. 225 men, then, active in mid-February 1864. This does not count the fifty sick and wounded men Bradley found in camp in Chattanooga, though some of them may have recovered enough to be among the reenlistees. The regiment in February, 1864 was equal in number to three of its companies in February, 1862. The other regiments of the brigade, the Twenty-Second Illinois, the Twenty-Seventh, and Forty-Second were similarly lean in numbers. Three months before the Georgia campaign of 1864, then, the whole of the four-regiment Illinois Brigade was equal in numbers only to a healthy-sized single regiment.

The Fifty-First and Forty-Second would not be merely vacationing in Chicago, the officers were also commissioned to recruit—to build the strength of the regiments. Bradley wrote to his sister in his January 24 Chattanooga letter, "The Regt. will be furloughed for thirty days, but I shall have a good deal to do meantime, recruiting and reorganising... We shall get two or three hundred from the state, and during the coming summer a considerable number of veterans from other Regts. that do not go in entire, so that we have the prospect of soon filling up for a full and fine Regt." Bradley started early. He sent officers to Nashville to "recruit men belonging to the Regt. as Veterans, the Regt. having re-enlisted" (Bradley to Brig. Gen. Whipple, Chief of Staff, Army Cumberland, dated Head Qrs. 51st Ill. Vols, Chatt. Jany 27th 1862, Service Record of Lt. Thomas Cummings, Company D, Record Group 94, National Archives). There in Nashville and elsewhere in Tennessee he had wounded men in the hospitals, sick men in hospitals, men serving as hospital stewards, men on detached service—men that would be important to his regimental strength and level of experience in early 1865, when their period of service would expire, if they failed to reenlist. It's fairly impossible to tell how successful this effort to enlist veterans who were not with the regiment was. Men lying in Nashville hospitals with shattered bones and without the company pressure of their comrades were less likely to reenlist. Of the seventeen men of Company H who were wounded at Chickamauga and therefore likely to be away from the regiment only five reenlisted, a far lower proportion than obtained among the men choosing for or against reenlistment at Blaine's Crossroads.

North to Chicago: Furlough. Tabler reported in his diary on January 14, 1864, "Marching orders today. Go home, as a Veteran Regiment, to recruit up some." The next day the regiment began the march across Tennessee to Chattanooga. Bradley wrote to his mother on January 16, "The men are all very happy at the prospect of going home and started on the march (from Blaine's Crossroads to Chattanooga) in the highest spirits. They will return to the service with renewed strength and spirit." The regiment arrived at its old camp in Chattanooga on January 26. Bradley and the company captains started to work on the paperwork. Captain Albert Tilton wrote from Chattanooga on January 29, 1863, "We are very busy getting everything ready— It requires a tremendous amount of work, each man requiring 32 papers to muster out & in..." (Tilton Family Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Correspondence of Albert Murray Tilton, MSS84497, Folder 9). Then the regimental doctor began to examine the men, at least perfunctorily, to determine fitness for three more years of service. On February 2, Tabler wrote in his diary, "The Co. was examined for the Veteran Service. Several rejected, and I with the rest." Why Tabler was now rejected after having been courted by his company is not clear.

A set of reenlistment papers from the National Archives for a member of the Fifty-First Illinois, Fredrick Grabbe.

On February 8, the accepted men were mustered into the veteran service at Chattanooga. On February 10, the new veterans took the train for Chicago. At a maximum, 177 men (the 151 new veterans and 26 officers) would have gone north to Chicago for furlough. Whether or not it had any basis for doing so, The Tribune rounded the number arriving on furlough up to "about 200" (February 16). Probably, it was more like 140-150 men that went north togther; not all the men rode the railroad cars together. Other veterans—William and Robert Morton of Company E, Duncan McGillis of Company B, Jerome Mangan of Company D and others—trickled through the Soldiers' Rest in Chicago in late February and early March on their way to furlough. The same paper, the same month, reported that the Forty-Second Illinois returned to Chicago for reenlistment furlough with 226 men.

The Chicago Tribune of February 16, 1864 recorded their arrival on the Michigan Central Railroad. It was cold and windy. The temperature was seven degrees below zero; the regiment was hours behind schedule in arriving because sand had drifted across the tracks through the MIchigan Dunes. The Tribune wrote that the regiment had been "...in some of the hottest battles of the Southwest," and "they now return with about two hundred men. This brave regiment has been in the terrific battles of New Madrid, Island No. 10, Farmington, Stone River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, &c... This was a fighting regiment throughout—the remarkable depletion is significant of that, as is the fact that not one of the original Captains return in command of their companies..." Bradley wrote of the regiment's warm reception in the bitter cold city, "We were very kindly welcomed here. A party of gentlemen came out as far as Michigan City to meet us." When the train arrived in Chicago, the Tribune said, people stood "on the piazza of the Soldiers' Rest, overlooking the railroad track," cheering and waving handkerchiefs. James Stovall was a slave until 1862. That year he became cook of Company F of the Fifty-First Illinois volunteer infantry. Stovall was with the regiment when it climbed off the railroad cars in downtown Chicago: “When we landed at the lake front we met a great ovation. Many had been killed and the remainder were crippled. As we unfurled our battle worn flag, riddled with bullets and hanging in rags, the people cheered…” The men of the regiment marched to the Soldiers' Rest, "where they were received with loud cheers, Vaas & Dean's Band playing 'John Brown.' Here a bounteous dinner was prepared... After dinner J. B. Bryan, in a speech brim-full of humor, welcomed the boys on behalf of the citizens of Chicago, to which Colonel Bradley responded. Volunteer speeches were made by Mr. Russell, Adjutant Hall, a paroled prisoner from Richmond, and Chaplain Raymond. The band...performed several patriotic airs... The men slept at the Rest last night, and will breakfast there..., after which, if the weather proves favorable, they will parade through the streets to the Board of Trade rooms, where a public reception will be given them." The public reception took place but the weather did not prove favorable. Bradley wrote, "Arrangements had been made to give us an escort through the city, but this was omitted on account of the extreme cold" (letter dated Chicago, February 21, 1864).

The Soldiers' Rest The Soldier's Rest in Chicago, ancient to us, was newer than the Civil War. "The Chicago Tribune" of February 19, 1864 described it.) The Soldiers’ Rest, as far as outward appearances are concerned, is finished, and were it not for the delay in getting in the water and gas pipes, owing to the cold weather, the building would ere now have been completed. It is divided off into four large rooms, one as a dining room and the others as sleeping apartments, while at the north end is a large kitchen, in which stands one of the largest sized cooking stoves. In the dining room are twenty large tables, each capable of seating twenty men, while it is heated by a large stove, always red hot. The room is gracefully draped with streamers and stars and stripes. The sleeping apartments are each provided with four tiers of double bunks, extending round the sides, while in the center of the room stands a large coal stove, whose capacity is almost half a ton.

On February 17, the veteran thirty days officially began. Bradley wrote from Chicago on February 21, "I furloughed the men on the 17th and started them off to their homes, with light hearts and pockets full of money." The soldiers scattered. All of them are hidden from view during the furlough except Benjamin Smith and his brother Calvin, both of Company C. They first returned to their home town of Kankakee and enjoyed their celebrity status there; "We are welcomed with open arms by our old friends, who forthwith inaugurate social gatherings, and evening parties in honor of our return... we enjoyed all this..." Still with pockets full of money—Kankakee County paid a $100 reenlistment bounty over and above all the Federal bounties—and time on their hands, the Smith brothers headed east by train for three days in New York City—strolling along Broadway, attending theater in the evening, visiting Barnum's Museum. The interlude ends with ten days with their sister in Providence, Rhode Island: "social evening gatherings, with Music and impromptu dances, a party on the shores of Narragansett bay, together with a clam bake... boating, bathing, and sailing upon the broad bosom of the beautiful bay... a period we shall long remember, and con over its details when we are again at the front" (Private Smith's Journal, Chicago, 1961, pp. 138-140).

Officers of the regiment began their recruiting activities. And, meanwhile wounded men of the regiment, sick men of the regiment, tried to recover in hospitals in Nashville or St. Louis or convalesced in their home communities; others struggled to survive in Confederate prisons; others stayed out their paroles at Camp Benton, awaiting formal prisoner exchange. The regiment was everywhere, in every condition.

Small Boys and Men of Bad Habits. This matter-of-fact recruitment advertisement for the Fifty-First Illinois appeared in the Chicago papers in February and March, 1864, as the regiment sought to fill its ranks: "ALL THE GOVERNMENT AND COUNTY BOUNTIES SECURED TO RECRUITS. OFFICE ON CLARK ST. Opposite the Sherman House". An ad for the Seventy-Second Illinois appearing in the Chicago papers at the same time said that regiment had already recruited 250 men since December 1, 1863 and that yet fifty men were wanted. The ad said the Seventy-Second, quartered in Vicksburg, Mississippi, promised, "No marches, no standing picket at night, no fatigue duty" and big bounties. The ad for the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, which had recruiting offices at regimental headquarters in the western Chicago suburb of St. Charles and downtown Chicago, was, by comparison, forbidding: its veterans were "not Carpet Knights or feather bed soldiers... Small boys and men of bad habits will not be received and need not apply. There is no place for DEAD HEADS." The advertisement for the Fifty-First Illinois made no promises and issued no imperatives.

On Non-Veteran Duty in Chattanooga. Private Tabler, the other men who were rejected for veteran service, the seven men who had rejected veteran service, and the men of Company F, who were "within the limits of the army", stayed on in Chattanooga, engaged in fatigue duty, waiting for the furloughed men to return and the spring campaign to begin. Only in Tabler's case and the case of Marcellus Metzgar do we know what that duty consisted of. Metzgar clerked for the Sanitary Commission in Chattanooga. Tabler was assigned to the United States Sanitary Garden, an initiative of the Sanitary Commission; the function of this Federal garden was to grow vegetables for the army. Tabler stayed in camp until his duties began on March 9, just nine days before the veterans' 30-day furloughs would come to an end and reassembly of the regiment begin in Chicago. Tabler laid out the garden and waited on the weather. It snowed. In April, he and his colleagues started sowing seed. "April 2. Heard from the regiment. April 7. Setting out cabbage plants. April 9. Setting out sweet potatoes. April 11. Sowing radish seeds. April 12. Marking out onion beds." Recruiting Success? Bradley wrote from Chicago on February 21, "We rendezvous here at Camp Fry at the end of 30 days. Meanwhile we are to recruit as far as we can. I went to Springfield on the 18th and received orders to remain on duty here with a part of my officers, the balance being stationed in different parts of the state. I shall not be confined to Chicago, but shall have a good deal of running about to do superintending the recruiting." It was not a trivial matter to superintend several teams of recruiters. Each recruiting party, according to the War Department's December 1862 regulations, was to consist of a lieutenant, one non-commissioned officer, two privates, and a fifer and a drummer. Bradley then, as superintendent, had "to make such requisitions on the proper departments (through himself) for subsistence, funds, clothing, camp equipage, arms, and accouterments, &c., as may be necessary" for the three or four weeks that the recruiting station functioned. If recruiting was slow, the superintendent was to move the station to a more likely location. Each station had an allowance of five dollars a month for newspaper ads and posting posters (Official Records Series III, Volume 2, p. 914). At intervals, groups of recruits who had assembled at rendezvous points were sent off to join the regiment and begin training. The regiment operated formal recruiting offices from February 21 to March 17, 1865. We do not know who the regiments recruiting officers scattered across the state were. Captain Theodore Brown ran the recruiting office in Chicago and rented rooms from William Wright in that city for the rendezvous of the recruits until the regiment left the city for the return to Tennessee. Captain Albert Tilton of Company C operated a recruiting office in Middleport. Captain Andrew Fraser of Company F worked out of Peoria in Central Illinois. At the end of the period of furlough, Bradley left Brown behind in Illinois to tie up all the official ends of the recruiting effort. On April 28, Brown was in Springfield finishing up the paperwork. Then he left for the front. He had just eight weeks to go before wounds sustained at Kennesaw Mountain ended his career with the Fifty-First (Theodore Brown, Compiled Service Record, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917, Record Group 94, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.). The reassembly of the regiment was set for March 18 at Camp Fry at the northern edges of Chicago. Bradley wrote from Chicago on March 18, "We rendezvous here tomorrow, tho it is not likely we shall get off before the end of next week on account of the difficulty of getting transportation. The large number of troops coming and going keep the roads busy even beyond their ordinary capacity." The reassembly at Camp Fry stretched on for ten days. Recruits and veterans of the regiment were underway, to and fro, individually and in bunches. The Chicago Tribune noted in its March 24 issue, "About fifty recruits and veterans, belonging to the 51st Illinois arrived at the Soldiers' Rest, and after breakfast proceeded to Camp Fry." The regimental morning report of March 26, 1864, at Camp Fry counted, new recruits included, 264 men "for duty" and 522 men "present and absent". The regiment was two days shy of heading back to Tennessee—with 264 men. The regimental discipline around reassembly was strict, so this is a reliable figure. John Durbin of Company H and Port Byron, Illinois tested the waters on this point—ignoring the reassembly at Camp Fry and returning to duty only when the regiment reached Chattanooga—was court-martialed, found guilty, and sentenced to lose one month's pay (51st Illinois, Regimental Books, Morning Reports, Record Group 94, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D. C.).

Tabler's Sanitary Garden How did Tabler (and, along with him, presumably other men of the Fifty-First and other men of other regiments who did not reenlist) find their way to a United States Sanitary Garden? What was it exactly? Here is an explanation: this garden was a new thing. Quoted from M[atthew] C[anfield] Read, "The Work of Ohio in the U. S. Sanitary Commission in the Civil War," in Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, Vol. 1, 1888, pp. 193-4. When the Army of the Cumberland had raised the siege of Chattanooga, and in the winter of 1864 was preparing for a vigorous, aggressive campaign, it was evident the army was likely to suffer severely during the coming summer for the want of vegetable food. It could not be brought to so distant a point from the Northern States, and no dependence could be placed upon the adjacent country for a supply. Scurvy had prevailed to an alarming degree in this army during the previous summer when stationed at Murfreesboro, much nearer the base of supplies. An experi­ment had there been made in gardening, under the management of Mr. HARRIMAN, a gardener detailed from the One-hundred-and-first O. V. I. in 1863, which was so far successful as to warrant, in the opinion of the agent at Chattanooga, more extensive effort in 1864, and commensurate with the increased necessities of the army. He immediately conferred with the medical director of the army, Dr. PERRIN, and proposed with his co-operation and the approval of the commanding general, to establish a sanitary garden of sufficient extent to provide for all the probable wants of the sick and wounded. The proposition was heartily welcomed as a probable solution of what had been regarded as an insolvable problem. He immediately approved a propos­tion prepared by the agent for submission to Gen. THOMAS, proposing that if the general would authorize the Commission to take possession of abandoned lauds suitable for cultivation, would provide for the protection of the garden, and furnish horses and necessary details of men, the Commission would provide a good market-garden, tools, seeds, and appliances for the work, and would undertake to supply all the hospitals at Chattanooga and the neighboring posts with all the vegetables needed, distributing the surplus to convalescent camps and regiments. The general at once issued the necessary orders for carrying on the work; a body of land between Citico creek and the Tennessee river was selected, a detail put to work building a fence, so as to include within it and the two streams something over 150 acres, and a requisition forwarded to Dr. NEWBERRY for seeds and tools. When these arrived application was made for horses, and it was learned that there were none at the post that could be spared for the work. An advertisement was inserted in the Chattanooga papers for the purchase of horses and mules, but none were offered. Then authority was obtained to impress from the country. The agent scoured the neighboring territory for some twenty miles on all sides of Chattanooga without finding anything to impress. Returning somewhat discouraged from his last trip, he stumbled upon a corral of sick and disabled horses, and the difficulty was at once overcome. An order was secured directing the quartermaster to turn over fifty of these horses selected by the Commission and as many harnesses. There was no difficulty in finding horses unfit for military duty which would do fairly good work before the plow or harrow. They were put promptly at work. But during these delays the season had so far advanced that more tools were needed than were sent from Louisville. To meet this want some were impressed from the country and others made to order by the quartermaster; and soon the fifty horses and nearly a hundred men were actively employed under the supervision of Mr. Thomas WILLS, of Summit county, who was sent by Dr. NEWBERRY as head gardener. The work was hushed with energy during the whole season, much of the ground being made to yield two three crops, all the articles raised in an ordinary market garden being cultivated. It happened that wagons were employed distributing the products to the hospitals on the day that the first of the wounded from the Atlanta campaign arrived, and from that time till the close of the season the supply was much in excess of all the wants of the hospitals, the large surplus being distributed to convalescent camps and regiments. As the season advanced the details of men fit for duty in the field were revoked, and details made from the convalescent camps: These men, placed in good quarters, abundantly supplied with vegetables, and moderately worked, were restored to health much faster than those left in the camps. The men were so well pleased with their position and their work that the prospect of a revoking of their detail for any insubordination secured strict discipline. At the close of the season voluntary testimonials were furnished by all the surgeons in charge of the hospitals of the great value of the work, and that it had been the means of saving the lives of thousands. The details for a guard and for work constituted as efficient part of the garrison of the post as if left within the camps, and there was with them an almost entire exemption from sickness. The horses from the sick corrals, well fed and cared for, rapidly recovered. and the whole practical cost was the price of seeds and tools, and the salary of the gardener. The fact was demonstrated that, at a military post, when a garrison is to be maintained through the summer, an abundance of vegetable food can be raised by the garrison without any impairment of its efficiency and at a very trifling cost.

On March 29, The Tribune reported the regiment departed for Chattanooga on the 28th, "...considerably strengthened by recruits." How strengthened? According to published Illinois Adjutant General records, ten recruits joined Company A, three recruits joined Company B, seven Company C, six Company D, twenty-seven Company E, two Company F, twenty-nine Company G, none Company H, two Company K, for a total of 86. In a letter to the assistant adjutant of the Army of the Cumberland, dated April 27, 1864, just a few days after the Fifty-First had taken up its position at the front at Cleveland, Tennessee, Colonel Bradley reported, "No of Recruits gained during furlough, 85"—proportionally, a considerable addition to a regiment with an effective strength of 225-275 men. Yet, other regiments were gaining larger numbers of recruits. Several factors might account for that. It might not have been utterly inviting for a potential recruit to join a regiment whose effective strength had fallen, even with the increment of a Company F, from 672 to 250 in the course of two years, and had only Stones River, Alabama's railroads, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and frigid days at Strawberry Plains to show for itself. The advertising of the Seventy-Second Illinois for recruits, promising "no marches, no standing picket at night, no fatigue duty" and big bounties, might have been more attractive and the Seventy-Second reported having secured 250 recruits in a recruiting effort that started December 1, 1863. The Chicago Times reported a recruiting figure for the Twelfth Illinois Cavalry which put even the Seventy-Second to shame. The Times reported, "Men [recruiters] were sent out into various parts of the state and a system adopted that resulted most satisfactorily; and when the recruiting agents had all rendered their reports, it was found that they had obtained an excess of about six hundred men, which were transferred to another regiment." The Twelfth Illinois Cavalry had recruited itself full (1256 men according to the AGO history of the unit) and had 600 new recruits left over! Now, the Fifty-First Illinois Infantry had also sent men, recruiting officers, to various parts of the state, with all the accoutrements stipulated by the War Department as pertaining to a recruiting officer. However, by the time the Fifty-First started recruiting on February 18, the state had already been picked over by recruiting officers for "old" regiments which had arrived home on furlough one and two months earlier. The Twelfth Illinois Cavalry had started recruiting around December 1, 1863 as had the Seventy-Second Illinois Infantry. The Thirty-Ninth Illinois Infantry sent its lieutenant colonel, Orrin Mann, back to Illinois to open a recruiting station at the corner of Dearborn and Madison streets in early January, almost a month before the regiment came home on reenlistment furlough (Chicago Tribune, January 18, 1864). Moreover, the Twelfth Illinois Cavalry had the advantage of being a mounted unit with generally lower casualty figures than infantry units - less marching around on foot, less getting shot at. Charles Wills wrote of his transition from the Eighth Illinois Infantry to the Seventh Illinois Cavalry, ""My chances for a lieutenancy in that company were first rate but I have got a better thing, and without so much walking" (Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, Compiled by Mary E. Kellogg, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996 [first published 1906], p. 59.) If one were signing up because the bounties were so attractive, one might not seek out a regiment that would tax their commitment the most.

In the letter to the assistant adjutant of the Army of the Cumberland Bradley gave another figure: "strength of the regiment, March 1st". Bradley sets the figure at 517. This is not the number of men that the regiment was able to take into battle. It's the number of men of the regiment altogether. The April 1864 figure of 517 included the 85 new recruits, the 250 men (plus or minus) fit for duty when the regiment was veteran-furloughed, and 150-160 men comprised of (1) those who were not "within the limits of the army"ómen in hospitals, men on detached service, paroled captive soldiers awaiting exchange, soldiers in Confederate prisons hoping for exchange, and men on disability leaves and (2) those who had recovered from wounds or illness in the months since Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge and the regiment's return to the front—a period of five or six months—men who were now ready for duty in the spring campaign.

Remnants Reunited (New Guns). Tabler's news from the regiment reached him on April 2. By that date, the regiment was heading back to the war. The regiment arrived in Nashville, by train, on April 1, 1864 (Record of Events, Company E). Bradley wrote from Nashville on April 4, "Thus far our trip has been very pleasant, but the finale does not promise well. Owing to the crowd of freight on the Chattanooga Railroad, no troops are transported south. All the Veteran Regts. are ordered to march through, 151 miles. This will be a tedious and profitless march, as it will be without the excitement of a campaign—just so much ground to be got over. I shall start tomorrow with my own Regt. the 45th New York and the 77th Penn. and shall be 15 or 20 days on the way as many of the men are recruits, and it will not do to march them fast. We follow the line of the railroad and stop at Murphreesboro, Tullahoma, and Bridgeport... we are likely to have exercise enough you see... We take no baggage on the march."

The men were irritated. Captain Albert Tilton wrote home from Nashville on April 3, 1864, "We reached here on Friday Morning and after waiting several days in suspense we have at last arrived at the irresistibly pleasant conclusion that we are to march from here to Chattanooga instead of going by rail as expected. This news is rather a damper on us and the entire regiment avow that had they known that this was to be the case, they would not have re-enlisted. We were obliged to march from Blaine's CrossRoads to Chat. when we went home, a distance of 150 miles — and now to be made to walk to Chat — 151 miles... when the government promised us transportation to and from home is almost the 'last feather.' — The march in itself is not so much if there was anything to be gained by it in a military point of view, but it is merely plodding back on a 10 or 15 days tramp to get to our old starting point" (Tilton Family Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Correspondence of Albert Murray Tilton, MSS84497, Folder 9).

Indeed, the government seems to have reneged on its stated obligation to provide transportation. Paragraph 4 of General Orders 376, November 21, 1863, read, "In going to and from their respective States and homes the veteran volunteers furloughed as herein provided will be furnished with transportation by the Quartermaster’s Department" (Official Records, Series III, Volume 3, p. 1084). The government could argue perhaps that, by dropping the men off in Nashville, it had furnished transportion going to and from their homes. The men were irritated, but they accepted the argument of supply necessity as Bradley did, and they marched and marched, day after day. On April 17, the regiment marched in to Chattanooga, and, on the 18th, Tabler and the other non-veterans rejoined the regiment. Tabler's gardening career was at an end; his April 18 diary entry reads, "Putting up the Garden’s tent, and returned to the Regiment". On April 21, the regiment piled its old guns—"which have become unfit for service by two years hard usage," Tilton wrote—on a wagon and hauled them off to the Chattanooga arsenal. On the 22nd, they drew new Springfield rifles and marched on. The regiment marched the final sixteen miles and arrived at camp at Cleveland, Tennessee on April 24, the warm feel of the thirty days of furlough considerably cooled. On May 14, a captain of the regiment was killed in battle and twenty other men were wounded.

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AGO: November 28, 1863, marched to the relief of General Burnside at Knoxville. December 16, moved, by rail, to Blain's Cross Roads. January 9, 1864, Colonel Bradley returned. January 15, moved toward Chattanooga.

AGO: February 10, regiment mustered as veterans, and started for Chicago, where, 17th, the men received veteran furlough. Regiment left for the front March 28, 1864, via Louisville, Nashville and Chattanooga, to Cleveland, Tennessee. May 3, commenced the Atlanta campaign.

AGO: Was engaged at Rocky Face Ridge, May 9, losing two men wounded. Resaca, 14th, losing Captain Lester killed, and 20 men wounded. At Dallas, May 25, found the enemy in position, and were engaged 11 days, losing one officer, and 11 men wounded. June 15, in a skirmish, lost Captain Tilton wounded, and 12 killed and wounded.

AGO: Engaged at Kenesaw Mountain and in the assault of June 27, losing 2 officers wounded and 54 men killed and wounded, and Adjutant Henry W. Hall and Lieutenant A. V. McCormack killed.

AGO: July 4, 1864, moved to Chattahoochie River. Marched to Rosewell and crossed, returning to the Corps 13th. July 20, engaged at Peach Tree Creek. Casualties, 5 wounded. Was engaged, during siege of Atlanta, in the skirmish of Jonesboro, losing two wounded, and at Lovejoy, losing three wounded. Marched into Atlanta, 8th September. During the whole campaign the Regiment lost 3 officers killed, 4 wounded, and 105 men killed and wounded.

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AGO: September 28, moved to Chattanooga, and thence to Bridgeport, Alabama. October 18, moved to Chattanooga. Here 192 drafted men joined the Regiment. Here, too, Chaplain Raymond, a venerable and good man, resigned.

The 11th Hour: 192 Draftees & Substitutes

The 192 new men changed the nature of the regiment. There were as many recruits ready for duty as there were veterans. but the recruits had no training, no military savoir-faire, and no stamina. They had to learn all that while the regiment was on the move and campaigning.

William Newlin of the Seventy-Third Illinois recalled, "About September 26 to 28th, were ordered to Chattanooga, going by railway; and from thence marched down into Alpine valley again, about October 18th, returning the latter part of October, via Chickamauga battle-ground, to Chattanooga. On this return march from Alpine, quite a number of recruits of Fifty-first Illinois fell behind, 'straggled,' and no wonder, as most of them wore overcoats, and carried knapsacks packed full; one of them carried his bayonet fixed, instead of in scabbard, whereupon Corporal Lewis (who had just awakened from a short sleep at roadside, where company was resting) cried out, 'Halt, halt, you Fifty-firster; I want to know where you got your gun sharpened'" (Historical Memoranda: Company C, 73D Regiment Illinois Infantry Volunteers, p. 129).

AGO: Moved to Alpine, Georgia; from thence, via Chattanooga, Athens, Alabama, to Pulaski, Tennessee. November 22, marched to Lynnville; 24th, to Columbia; 29th, retreated to Spring Hill, at which place the enemy made an attack. The Regiment lost 12 wounded, including Captain George I. Waterman, A. A. A. G., and General Bradley.  November 30, moved to Franklin, and was heavily engaged in the battle of Franklin, losing Lieutenant Thomas, killed, Captain Tilton and Lieutenants Johnson and Hills, wounded, 52 men killed and wounded, and 98 missing.

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Franklin

"He had seen fields of men reaped clean by bullets, stirring charges withered under guns, but compared to these countless men and their countless torments, this storm of confusion and evil and unrelenting death, he knew that those were the upper circles of hell, where dignity and tragedy still robed the lives of those condemned. This was farther down."
Thomas Dyja, Play for a Kingdom," New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1997, p. 262.

Charles Hills was shot in the face and neck.

The men of Company H relied on Kiser Lansdown because he was always full of expedients. At Franklin he ran out of expedients and was fatally wounded.

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AGO: December 1, reached Nashville. Engaged in the battle of Nashville, December 15 and 16, losing 1 man killed and 5 wounded. After the battle pursued the flying enemy, and afterward moved to Huntsville, Alabama.

The Battle of Nashville.(Awaiting the beginning of construction.

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The Regiment Scatters: "The old 50-onced has played out".

Samuel Walker, Co. F, to Uncle Levi Otis Colburn, Sergeant, Co. F, dated Hospital No. 3, Nashville Tenn Feb 7th/65, Samuel Walker Papers, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois.

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AGO: March 31, 1865, moved to Greenville, East Tennessee. April 15, moved to Nashville. April 11, Company I - 90 men - joined the Regiment from Camp Butler.

AGO: June 15, Company F, Lieutenant James Skidmore commanding, was mustered out of service: 16th, moved to Johnsonville, Tennessee, and embarked for New Orleans, Louisiana. July 28, embarked for Texas; 31st, disembarked at Port Lavaca. August 1, moved to Camp Placidor, Texas.

AGO: Mustered out September 25, 1865, at Camp Irwin, Texas, and arrived at Camp Butler, Illinois, October 15, 1865, for final payment and discharge.

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The Late Autumn of the Regiment. When the Fifty-First Illinois was mustered out on September 25 1865 at Camp Irwin, Texas, there were only 261 men to muster out, and this was after the March 1865 addition of a Company I, of over 90 men, to the regiment (Adjutant General Report, First Edition, 1866-7, p. 263).

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After the War

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