The 5-foot, 8-inch, 21-year old farmer, described as having a dark complexion, with
blue eyes and light hair, did re-enlist, at Wauhatchie, Tennessee, the wintering-over camp
of the 66th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Regiment. On the strength of the $400 cash
bounty and a 40-day trip home to recruit others for the 66th, Sayre committed himself to
the final outcome of the war. His outcome, as it happened, came before the war's. He did,
however, get 60 bucks and a trip home which lasted until Jan. 27, 1864.
Planning a future
Sayre was confident that he would survive. He had, after all, escaped
injury in two of the bloodiest conflicts yet in the war: Gettysburg and Chancellorsville
in the war's eastern theater. He described these battles and others in a series of letters
home to his father, Ziba Parker Sayre. And he had at least been within cheering distance
of Hooker's famous, if not particularly significant, "Battle Above the Clouds"
on Lookout Mountain just the month before.
It seemed natural to re-enlist: it was December (an off month for fighting), he was
young and his peers were re-enlisting, and besides, $400 is $400. But, it was spring now
and the fighting had resumed. Sherman was pushing hard against Confederate General Joe
Johnston as part of a nationally coordinated Grant-Sherman campaign to bring the war to
conclusion. The battles differed now; no more marching to one place for an all out
slug-fest with a subsequent period of wound licking by both armies. This new warfare was
total: push, fight, push, fight some more, continuously.