This is a beautiful still morning, though its stillness is
occasionally interrupted by the heavy cannonading on the Cumberland. After
hastily eating our breakfast, we are ordered into line.
Soon Colonel Babcock gives the command “forward !” Going a
short distance we are ordered to “halt !” “unsling knapsacks!” “draw overcoats
!" We throw them in the fence corners, and move forward on double-quick
time. Soon we are in the fray. While marching over a hill and down towards a
ravine, the Seventh encounters a masked battery. It is our first encounter-our
initiation. But oh, how fierce! we are only seventy-five yards from the
battery's wrathful front. Grape and canister fall thick and fast. There is a
little hesitation, but with their gallant Colonel and enthusiastic Major, the
men stand the tempest. Colonel Babcock, with his quick perception, discovers at
once the situation of his regiment, and with the ready aid of Major Rowett,
succeeds in making a flank movement, passing from the rebel battery's immediate
front to a more congenial locality. In this, our first engagement, one noble
soldier has fallen. It seems almost a miracle that more did not fall. But only
one went down—the gallant Captain Noah E. Mendell, of company I.
The principal fighting to-day has been done by the
sharp-shooters. There is a lull now. Nothing is heard save an occasional shot
from the gunboats. Darkness has come and we bivouac for the night; soon it
commences to rain; then changes from a cold rain to sleet and snow. Oh! how
cold the winter winds blow. We dare not build any camp fires, for Grant's edict
has wisely gone forth, forbidding it. The soldiers suffer to-night. Some of
them have no blankets. During the latter part of the night, Colonel Babcock,
with his men, could have been seen pacing up and down a hill to keep from
freezing. Oh! what a long cheerless night; and with what anxiousness the
soldiers wait for the morning's dawn.
SOURCES: Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment
Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 31-2
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