| Officers were often chosen at camp
by popular vote without regard to ability. Private Dwight turned down an opportunity
to be commissioned a lieutenant after a bad experience at camp. An officer of the
42nd Ohio took Dwight's blanket his family had given him under the guise that Dwight would
not need it on a military exercise. The officer then refused to return it. He
was Col. James Garfield (He was later elected president of the United States.) Until the spring of 1864, these men fought and lived in the mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky, and northern Mississippi. They were not in the better known eastern theater engagements such as Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and the Wilderness, but the battles in which the boys from this county took part, with such names as Shiloh, Chicamauga, and Resaca, were every bit as deadly. [Back] [Next] [Up] [New Search] [ 'Civil War' segment written in July, 1998 by Rich Wallace ] |