Saturday, June 11, 2016

Major Charles Fessenden Morse: November 22, 1863


Tullahoma, Tenn., November 22, 1863.

We have been moving about so much lately that I have omitted to write my usual quota of letters. A little more than a week ago, General Slocum received orders to remove his headquarters to Murfreesboro; we arrived there about a week ago Friday, and established ourselves in Rosecrans' old headquarters, the residence of a rebel congressman. Before the war, it must have been a very elegant house, and even as we found it, stripped as it was of all furniture, it seemed quite magnificent to us after living in tents. My room had been the front drawing room and was still decorated by a white marble mantle-piece and bronze chandelier. Every room in the house had a fine, open fireplace in it.

We lived here very comfortably till last Monday, when General Slocum was ordered to Tullahoma on account of a new disposition of troops along the road. We left Murfreesboro Wednesday morning; that same morning Colonel Rogers started home on a sick leave, so that I became acting Assistant Adjutant General of the corps for the time being. The day was a perfect one, and both ourselves and horses felt in fine spirits for a march. Our intention was to ride to Shelbyville that day, about twenty miles. We passed through some of the finest farming country in middle Tennessee, and had a fine chance to see and enjoy it. Much of the land had been used for raising cotton, and occasionally we would meet a wagon-load of this valuable article on its way to Nashville. I don't know when I've enjoyed a ride so much as I did the one that day. We arrived in Shelbyville about sunset. This town is the second in size in Tennessee, and has been a very pretty place, almost like a Northern one; it has been the stronghold of the Unionists of the State. During Wheeler's raid the place was entered by the rebels, and every store and many of the houses were stripped of every article of value.

A gentleman named Ramsay invited the General and myself to stop at his house; we accepted the invitation and were treated with great hospitality. Our host was one of the leading Union men of the county, and we have since learned that it was in a great measure owing to him that the neighborhood had been kept so loyal. The county voted against secession by a very large majority. We left Shelbyville about eleven o'clock the next morning. Our ride that day was through a much wilder country than we had passed through on the day preceding; much of the road was nothing more than a cart-path through the woods, but this was very favorable for horseback riding, and we got along pretty fast. General Slocum came near meeting with a severe accident that afternoon. We were galloping along quite fast when his horse, a large, heavy animal, struck a bad place in the road and fell forward upon his knees; before he could be recovered he rolled over on his side, pinning the General's leg to the ground. We all sprang from our horses, and, after some little struggling on the part of the horse, the General was extricated from his dangerous position. We all thought his leg was broken, for he looked deadly pale, but he relieved our anxiety by saying that he was all right, and after lying down a few minutes, he mounted his other horse and we rode on again. Tullahoma was reached about six P. M., after a ride of twenty-three or four miles.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 156-8

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