Monday, June 13, 2016

Major Charles Fessenden Morse: November 28, 1863

Tullahoma, Tenn., November 28, 1863.

We are in the midst of exciting news from the front, yet we have had no particulars. It is evident, however, that we have taken several thousand prisoners and a large quantity of artillery.*

Since the fight at Wauhatchie, there has been no slurring of the Army of the Potomac men. That little affair was a great thing for us. By our own and rebel accounts, there is no doubt that our men fought most gallantly there against superior numbers of their old antagonists.

Every train that comes from the South brings a load of prisoners or wounded men, and rumors that fighting is still going on at the front. It seems to me, now, for the first time since the war began, that the rebellion is nearly crushed. They have not met with any very decisive success for nearly six months, and are now contracted into the smallest territory they have ever occupied.

Atlanta is our important point now; get that, and we have again cut the Confederacy in two, and in a vital place What a glorious thing it would be if we could wind up this rebellion before our original three years are out! It would exceed all my expectations to do this.

Thanksgiving Day was a very pleasant one, warm and bright as May. I took an escort of half a dozen cavalry and rode down to the regiment, which is about ten miles from here. I found them camped very comfortably just outside strong earthworks built to command the railroad bridge over the Elk river. Colonel Coggswell is in command of the post and has a battery in addition to his regiment. lie has made himself very strong, and could defend the place against a large force.

I took a very quiet dinner with the field and staff. Of course we could not help thinking of our other Thanksgiving Days in the regiment, and it brought up many sad memories. At our first dinner at Seneca, Maryland, all our old officers were present; last year there had been many changes, but there were still left a goodly number of the old stock, and we were knit closer together by our losses. This year I couldn't help a feeling of desolation as I remembered that, of all my friends in the regiment, very few were left. How little I thought, when we left Camp Andrews, that we should have such a sad experience!

In looking over his trunks for a photograph, Colonel Coggswell found a letter that had come for me while I was in Massachusetts; he gave it to me, and I found the address was in Bob Shaw's writing. You can imagine how glad I was to get it. I always thought it a little strange that he had not answered my last letter. I opened it the first chance I got. It was mostly a description of his movements to Darien and other places; but at the close he spoke in a very feeling way of our friendship and intimacy, and of his happiness since his marriage. It was written on the 3rd of July; in it he asked to be remembered to Robeson, Mudge, and Tom Fox; little did he think that, at the moment he wrote, one of them was lying dead on the field of battle, and the other two suffering with mortal wounds.

The men of the regiment had a very pleasant day; they had plenty of geese and turkeys for dinner, and in the evening the brigade band came down from Tullahoma, and gave them some music. I am glad that our men have each been able to keep this day somewhat as if they had been at home.

I stayed next morning and saw guard mounting done as it is done nowhere else, and then rode back here again.
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* The battles of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain.

SOURCE: Charles Fessenden Morse, Letters Written During the Civil War, 1861-1865, p. 158-60

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