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Intersting passage from Gen'l Sheridan's memoirs

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  • Intersting passage from Gen'l Sheridan's memoirs

    This passage contains references to one of MY favorite topics, combined with references to one of the A-C's LEAST favorite topics. I'd been trying to remember where I had read this snippet for several years, and a conversation with a friend gave me the jog to my memory that I needed.

    Phil Campbell

    from:
    The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Chapter XIV

    The feeding of our army from the base at Louisville was attended with
    a great many difficulties, as the enemy's cavalry was constantly
    breaking the railroad and intercepting our communications on the
    Cumberland River at different points that were easily accessible to
    his then superior force of troopers. The accumulation of reserve
    stores was therefore not an easy task, and to get forage ahead a few
    days was well-nigh impossible, unless that brought from the North was
    supplemented by what we could gather from the country. Corn was
    abundant in the region to the south and southwest of Murfreesboro',
    so to make good our deficiences in this respect, I employed a brigade
    about once a week in the duty of collecting and bringing in forage,
    sending out sometimes as many as a hundred and fifty wagons to haul
    the grain which my scouts had previously located. In nearly every
    one of these expeditions the enemy was encountered, and the wagons
    were usually loaded while the skirmishers kept up a running fire,
    Often there would occur a respectable brush, with the loss on each
    side of a number of killed and wounded. The officer in direct
    command always reported to me personally whatever had happened during
    the time he was out--the result of his reconnoissance, so to speak,
    for that war the real nature of these excursions--and on one occasion
    the colonel in command, Colonel Conrad, of the Fifteenth Missouri,
    informed me that he got through without much difficulty; in fact,
    that everything had gone all right and been eminently satisfactory,
    except that in returning he had been mortified greatly by the conduct
    of the two females belonging to the detachment and division train at
    my headquarters. These women, he said, had given much annoyance by
    getting drunk, and to some extent demoralizing his men. To say that
    I was astonished at his statement would be a mild way of putting it,
    and had I not known him to be a most upright man and of sound sense,
    I should have doubted not only his veracity, but his sanity.
    Inquiring who they were and for further details, I was informed that
    there certainly were in the command two females, that in some
    mysterious manner had attached themselves to the service as soldiers;
    that one, an East Tennessee woman, was a teamster in the division
    wagon-train and the other a private soldier in a cavalry company
    temporarily attached to my headquarters for escort duty. While out
    on the foraging expedition these Amazons had secured a supply of
    "apple-jack" by some means, got very drunk, and on the return had
    fallen into Stone River and been nearly drowned. After they had been
    fished from, the water, in the process of resuscitation their sex was
    disclosed, though up to this time it appeared to be known only to
    each other. The story was straight and the circumstance clear, so,
    convinced of Conrad's continued sanity, I directed the provost-
    marshal to bring in arrest to my headquarters the two disturbers of
    Conrad's peace of mind, After some little search the East Tennessee
    woman was found in camp, somewhat the worse for the experiences of
    the day before, but awaiting her fate content idly smoking a cob-
    pipe. She was brought to me, and put in duress under charge of the
    division surgeon until her companion could be secured. To the doctor
    she related that the year before she had "refugeed" from East
    Tennessee, and on arriving in Louisville assumed men's apparel and
    sought and obtained employment as a teamster in the quartermaster's
    department. Her features were very large, and so coarse and
    masculine was her general appearance that she would readily have
    passed as a man, and in her case the deception was no doubt easily
    practiced. Next day the "she dragoon" was caught, and proved to be a
    rather prepossessing young woman, and though necessarily bronzed and
    hardened by exposure, I doubt if, even with these marks of
    campaigning, she could have deceived as readily as did her companion.
    How the two got acquainted, I never learned, and though they had
    joined the army independently of each other, yet an intimacy had
    sprung up between them long before the mishaps of the foraging
    expedition. They both were forwarded to army headquarters, and, when
    provided with clothing suited to their sex, sent back to Nashville,
    and thence beyond our lines to Louisville.
    Phil Campbell

  • #2
    Re: Intersting passage from Gen'l Sheridan's memoirs

    Interesting stuff, Phil! At first I thought the main point of your post was the wagons and foraging... :)

    Still, when one thinks about galtroops of the era, one does not usually think of one as a teamster, who were known for their coarse ways and extremely vulgar language.

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    • #3
      Re: Intersting passage from Gen'l Sheridan's memoirs

      Very astute observation, as always, Kevin. I wonder if any event organizer will ever have the commitment to history to actually allow something like this to happen.

      Phil Campbell
      Phil Campbell

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      • #4
        Re: Intersting passage from Gen'l Sheridan's memoirs

        Corn cob pipes are underrepresented in the hobby.
        [FONT=Times New Roman]-steve tyler-[/FONT]

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        • #5
          Re: Intersting passage from Gen'l Sheridan's memoirs

          Originally posted by styler View Post
          Corn cob pipes are underrepresented in the hobby.
          Quiet Man,

          Yes. This adds to the conversation about corn cob pipes from the latter stages of the road trip from Spring Hill this past weekend. That reminds me I still need to mail those clay bowls to Sparky, so he can fit some reeds.
          [B]Charles Heath[/B]
          [EMAIL="heath9999@aol.com"]heath9999@aol.com[/EMAIL]

          [URL="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Spanglers_Spring_Living_History/"]12 - 14 Jun 09 Hoosiers at Gettysburg[/URL]

          [EMAIL="heath9999@aol.com"]17-19 Jul 09 Mumford/GCV Carpe Eventum [/EMAIL]

          [EMAIL="beatlefans1@verizon.net"]31 Jul - 2 Aug 09 Texans at Gettysburg [/EMAIL]

          [EMAIL="JDO@npmhu.org"] 11-13 Sep 09 Fortress Monroe [/EMAIL]

          [URL="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Elmira_Death_March/?yguid=25647636"]2-4 Oct 09 Death March XI - Corduroy[/URL]

          [EMAIL="oldsoldier51@yahoo.com"] G'burg Memorial March [/EMAIL]

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          • #6
            Re: Intersting passage from Gen'l Sheridan's memoirs

            Originally posted by TeamsterPhil View Post
            I wonder if any event organizer will ever have the commitment to history to actually allow something like this to happen.

            Phil Campbell
            But the army did not "allow" it to happen in the instance cited. I think the interesting thing would be could a woman today do what these two women did, ie sign up for an event with a man's name, show up and have no one recognize them for a female for the entire weekend. Now that would be something. Then again how would we know? If they wanted to continue to participate in future events they could not reveal their secret.
            Tom Lowe
            Western Federal Blues
            Tar Water Mess
            GHTI
            42nd Indiana Inf.

            Across the Ohio we could see “Old Indiana.” This made the boys home sick. How they did want to cross the river into “God's Country.” James B. Shaw, 10th Indiana Inf.

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