Personal recollections and experiences concerning the Battle of Stone River   By: Milo S. Hascall (1829-1904)

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This knowledge of the men in the army of those times served me well all through the war, as it was seldom I came in contact with an officer on the other side, but what I knew all his peculiar characteristics, and idiosyncrasies. For illustration of this idea, as we were approaching Atlanta, my division had the advance of the Army of the Ohio the morning we came in sight of the city. My advance guard captured a rebel picket post, and one of the men captured, had a morning paper from Atlanta, in which was Johnston's farewell order to his troops, and Hood's order assuming command. I had been three years at West Point with Hood, he having graduated in 1853, in Schofield's class. I knew Hood to be a great, large hearted, large sized man, noted a great deal more for his fine social and fighting qualities, than for any particular scholastic acquirements, and inferred, (correctly as the result showed) that Johnston had been removed because Davis, and his admirers, had had enough of the Fabian policy, and wanted a man that would take the offensive. I immediately sent word to Gen. Sherman, who, with his staff, was not far off, and when he came to the front, informed him of the news I had, and the construction I put upon it, and in consequence, an immediate concentration to resist an attack was made in the vicinity, where we were. It was none too soon, as Hood, upon taking command immediately moved out to Decatur with nearly his entire army, fell upon McPherson's corps, with the besom of destruction, killing the gallant McPherson early in the engagement, and with his vastly superior force, beating back the Army of the Tennessee so fast, that there is no telling what might have happened, had we not made the concentration we did, and been prepared to give them a tremendous enfilading fire as soon as they came opposite the flanks of the Army of the Ohio. It was my fortune to be stationed at Ft. Adams, Newport, Rhode Island, as soon as my furlough expired after graduating at the Military Academy, and there found Lieut. W.S. Rosecrans, (afterward the commanding general at Stone River), and from being stationed some ten months at the same post, became somewhat familiarly acquainted with him and his peculiarities. I had never met Gen. Don Carlos Buel, and knew but little of him, although he was a regular army man, until the fall of '61, upon my return from service in West Virginia, during the first summer of the war... Continue reading book >>