Robert Johnston’s
War Record
War Record of Robert
Johnston
At the age of sixteen I went to Madison,
Wis. with my oldest brother, Alexander,
aged twenty-nine, and we both enlisted there March 4, 1865. We were kept in very cold barn-like barrack
in Camp Randall
at Madison where my brother
Alexander took sick and suddenly died March 15th – eleven days after
enlistment.
I brought his body back home near Loyd, Wisc. for burial. I had to start back to Madison
same day I arrived home.
Upon arriving at Madison,
I with about a dozen recruits started south to join Company K, 4th
Wis. Cavalry then at Port Hudson on the Miss.
river in Lousiana.
We passed through Chicago
on our way to Cairo, Ill.
where we boarded a steamboat going to Memphis,
Tenn.
Here I saw Henry Grover, Clark Buell, George and Bill
Shaw; also, Hank Crouch of the 2nd Wis. Cavalry.
Our boat passed on down to Vicksburg
and finally to Port Hudson where we joined our Regiment and had our first
skirmish in whick our Col. Moore was wounded, and
some ten to fifteen men were killed.
We went from Port Hudson to Batron
Rouge where we had more skirmishing in which our Col. Craig was wounded and
about twenty men killed and wounded.
We went from Batron Rouge by
steamboat to New Orleans where we
stayed four days and lost five of our men by cholera.
Our brigade had its picture taken here and we took steamboat
for Mobile. While getting on boat
at New Orleans, our Captain Curtis
Moore of Co. K fell off the gang plank into the river and was drowning in the
presence of several hundred soldiers of the Regiment.
I locked my legs about a post on the lower deck, holding on
with one hand and reaching down with the other hand I caught Cap. Moore
by the hair the second time he came up and saved his life. This was in April
1865.
Before landing at Mobile
we had to clear the harbor there of torpedoes. Upon landing there we went into
camp in the pine woods where we stayed some three weeks helping bombard
forts
Spanish and Blakeslee.
These forts had been fighting with three hundred cannon for
three months.
While in front of Fort
Blakeslee, I was one of a
reconnoitering party of one hundred picked men who were sent to find out the
strength of the rebels. We were about to be captured, but we cut our way out
with our sabers. We had to force our horses to jump very wide ditches and with
a log breast work on one side. These ditches were dug to catch the cavalry.
Twenty-four out of the one hundred were killed, wounded or was captured. While
in front of these forts, the rebels planted a mine of forty thousand pounds of
powder to blow up our men who might first come close in front of the fort as
soon as the rebels had evacuated the forts. As it happened some four thousand
colored troops were to take possession there to release us, consequently these
colored troops were blown up by this mine. Portions of the bodies of those
colored troops were to be seen in tree tops for half a mile about the forts.
The earth was shaken for six miles around and all the windows in Mobile
broken.
Next our brigade of twenty thousand cavalry went from
Mobile
thru La., Geo.,
Fla. and back to Montgomery,
Alabama. In a forced march of seventy-two
consecutive days in the saddle foraging our own living and arrived at Vicksburg
June 28th. We waded the Chattahooche river near Selma, Ga.,
and there first heard of the assassination of Lincoln.
Our brigade of twenty thousand was haulted
to listen to the announcement of the assassination of Pres. Lincoln; and
strange to say that altho our mules and horses were
braying and whinnying for food or water whenever haulted,
at any time, yet while the sad news was being passed along the line, no noise
was made by man or beast.
All stood in solemn silence and awe, as if conscious of
being in the presence of death of one greater than man.
On this march my horse and some three hundred more were
killed by eating a poison weed. Very many men had to march on foot for about
five days, carrying our equipment until we could capture other horses.
My tentmate, Peter Shoemaker, was
sunstroke while walking and was carried two days by sixteen comrades, before he
got another horse. Some friendly women told us which was the
poisonous weed.
We finally captured the Col. of a band of Gorrillas and many horses.
On this march we found two little white children which we
carried about ten miles and left a house of white folks.
On this march some dozen of our soldiers were invited to
take supper with a rebel family in the country. They were treated to pie
containing poison which casused the death of six of
them.
In passing thru Montgomery,
Ala.
(the Capital of the Confederacy at the beginning of the war) I took a package
of $100000 of Confederate money out of a band, and
distributed most of it among my comrades and brought some bills home.
While there I saw Albert Hoke and
Capt. Townsend of Richland County, Wis.
While at Vicksburg
we occupied old rebel barracks and we got grey backs and other filth.
Early in July we started by steamboat for Texas,
going down the Miss. River
and up the Red river to Shreveport,
La.
While disembarking here I was watering my horse with others
which got to fighting each other. My horse was kicked and he crushed me against
a post, dislocating my right shoulder and injuring my breast. My tentmate, John Billings, picked me up and cared for me. The
scar of the cut yet shows near right nipple.
Later we went to Austin,
Texas
where our horses swam the Colorado river
with their riders and equipment on their backs.
While near Austin
a squad of about a dozen of us went to kill some deer which came near our Camp.
While after those deer we came across about fifty wild cattle.
We shot a few of the cattle and the sight of blood caused
the other cattle to bellow fearfully and to chase us. I climbed a tree for
safety. The cattle pawed the ground about the tree. I shot another a distance
away and then the cattle at foot of the tree ran to the wounded heifer. This
gave me chance to come down the tree and run. I soon found I was lost not
knowing which direction to take for camp. Later I meet perhaps fifty of my
comrades hunting me. I had met a tribe of Indians but they did not molest me.
We next moved to San Antonio,
Texas where our Reg. was re-organized into
eight Companies instead of ten because of the depletion in men. Gen. Sheridan reviewed
our troops of sixteen thousand.
Our Reg. was kept here to fight Indians. I was one of a
squad of one hundred men detailed to go one hundred miles to protect a village
on the old California route from
Indian attacks.
At this village there were from seven to fourteen Indian
scalps tacked up at each log cabin of the whites.
We marched all day and night arriving at the village at day
light. We charged on the Indians killing one hundred sixty and followed them
one day and part of the night. They were mounted on Mexican ponies and could go
as fast as we could. When we came back to the village, the Indians followed us
back too. They only fired a volley of arrows over our heads when we first
arrived at the village.
We found two rebels wounded with arrows which still were in
their wounds. We extracted the arrows for the rebels.
The people of Texas
were rebels and had been killing all the Indians they could. They kept hounds
to fight Indians with. Those village white folks charged us 25 cents a quart
for milk after we risked our lives fighting away the Indians.
We returned to San Antonio
in Aug. 1865 where we received our first pay. Theodore Dogherty
and John Douglas of Richland
County
of my Co., (since re-organization was Co. H) rec’d their
first pay and then stole some $70000 from their comrades and
deserted, going home.
In Sept. our brigade went across the plains about three
hundred miles via Maringo and Eagle
Pass to the Rio Grande
river. Our Co. lost five me by the scorching sun and
chronic diarrhea. In all our marches we had to forage most all our living. We
went into winter quarters at Rio
City
on the Rio Grande river.
Once we went sixty miles to capture four thousand head of
wild cattle. We were piloted by a Mexican. Those cattle were kept in a corrall, at the camp. Near by we saw a flock of perhaps
twenty thousand sheep. A very large yellow dog seemed to have charge of the
herd as no owner was to be seen. We remained at Rio
City until March when we were
ordered to go to Brownsville, Texas
where I was discharged Mar. 8, 1866.
Returned home via Galveston;
thence by boat on Gulf Mexico
during five days and nights out of sight of land arriving at New
Orleans and going on up Miss.
River to Cairo,
Ill. from where we went by rail to Chicago
and finally to Lone Rock and reached home in Apr., 1866.
A big dance at our old home was given me. John Smyth and
wife danced for first time in their life. There were eight fiddlers among whom were Luim Derickson,
Caleb Chapman, High Lane,
Ase Lane, two Cook boys and Sandy
Sullivan.
Dated
Sept. 1918.