Monday, April 15, 2013

April 15 - Tennessee Civil War Notes


15, Campbell county Confederates and Bloodhounds
The Dogs of War.
Among the astounding developments of the last few months is the following advertisement taken from the Memphis Appeal. Its brands and ear-marks are well known in this community who have had a chance to read it in papers nearer home:
"Bloodhounds Wanted.
"We, the undersigned, will pay five dollars per pair for fifty pairs of well bred hounds, and fifty dollars for one pair of thoroughbred bloodhounds that that will take the track of a man. The purpose for which these dogs are wanted is to chase the infernal, cowardly Lincoln bushwhackers of East Tennessee and Kentucky (who have the advantage of the bush to kill and cripple many good soldiers) to their tents and capture them. The said hounds must be delivered at Captain Hanmer's Livery Stable by the 10th of December next, where a mustering officer will be present to muster and inspect them.
"F. N. McNairy,
"F. H. Harris
"Camp Grinfort, Campbell co., Tenn., Nov. 16. [1861]
"P.O.—Twenty dollars per month will also be paid for a man who is competent to train and take charge of the above named dogs."
Gallant Col. McNairy! Chivalric Capt. Harris! Brave, noble, manly! Five dollars a pair for "fifty pair of well bred hounds"—fifty dollars for "one pair of thoroughbred bloodhounds that will take the track of a man!" Capt. Hanmer's Livery Stable! Recruiting service most honorable! Headquarters most fitting! Recruits most select; none but well bred and thoroughbred need apply! Time is precious—opportunity short. It is now the 16th of November; by the 10th of December they must be delivered or the door of Capt. Hanmer's Livery Stable will be forever shut! Thrice happy they who come in time—lucky dogs! A mustering officer, kennel inspector awaits your coming, to welcome you into the ranks of the chivalry, the wellbred; the thoroughbred! the flower of our youth! Paradise of caninity! No common dogs there! Curs and spaniels and terriers and pointers and setters and the "bull pups" shut out! They can't come in! Tray, blanche, and sweetheart, be off! Get out tiger! You cuff! twenty dollars a month, secesh money to a competent drill officer! Hardee's tactics, dogmatically displayed! Magnificent corps, fifty pair of well drilled hounds, that is a hundred, rank and file! One pair of thorough bred bloodhounds, that is two, for the staff! One hundred and two dogs, besides Colonel McNairy and Capt. Harris, one hundred and four in all; not counting Captain Hanmer, not the mustering officer, nor the drill master, "competent to train and take charge of the above named dogs!" Go where the field of glory waits you! Not damsels distressed, nor martyred saints, nor the Holy Sepulchre, shall exhaust your noble championship! Yours is a sublimer mission, a far higher pursuit; "to chase the infernal, cowardly Lincoln bushwhackers of East Tennessee and Kentucky!" Fortunate if you catch them; thrice fortunate if they don't catch you! Whatever laurels you win, by Cerberus, save your dog skin! Greatly will your puissant leader value that; if it were not for aught else it will make him a winter cap and some boots to save his own! But the poor, cowardly East Tennesseans, alas! alas! Their offence is rank, it smells! Taking advantage of the rush not only to kill, but to cripple "many good soldiers!" There is no hope for such miscreants and cowardly too, not thorough bred they, not even well bred! common, very! Woe betide them! chased to their tents, captured, dragged to Camp Crinfork, Campbell county and then—horror of horrors! O murderous McNairy, O maddened McNairy; O mighty McNairy; O monstrous McNairy! O marvellous McNairy, O mysterious McNairy, O multitudinous McNairy, O magnanimous McNairy, O mellifluous McNairy, O meritorious McNairy, O merciful McNairy, O Mister McNairy, O McNairy dry so! dog on it, don't!
Ha! do you say you are misunderstood? that you didn't mean the four-footed kind when you advertised for dogs; that when you said fifty pair of well-bred hounds you had an eye to the hundred members of the Legislature; that Capt. Hanmer's stable is nothing more than the building on Capitol Hill; the mustering officer to muster and inspect them, nobody less than the run-away Governor (Eureka, Eureka, Eureka,) the "one pair of thorough-bred bloodhounds," the two chief member of his Military Board (a second Daniel); and the man "competent to train and take charge of the above named dogs," found in the illustrious Major General of all our forces. Poor, miserable men of East Tennessee! How wretched is their lot! Well might they say, in view of this calamity impending, if you please, let it be the other kind of dogs!
Nashville Daily Union, April 15, 1862. [1]



15, “….[T]he man in the moon must hold his nose;” an excerpt from a medical report relative to the hygienic conditions of the Army of the Cumberland in Murfreesboro
Sickness in the regiment prevails to an alarming extent; average attendance at the sick call, 100, perhaps 100 more are not fit for duty. This army of 40,000 men is encamped on a space so small that it is utterly impossible to keep the camps clean. Thousands of dead horses, mules and offal of every description, literally cover the whole face of the earth inside our picket lines; and each emits a thousand stinks, and each stink different from its fellow. The weather for months has been almost one continual flood of rain, and now, as the sun comes up more nearly straight over us, and pours down his boiling rays on this vast, sweltering mass of putridity, the stinks are magnified, multiplied and etherealized until the man in the moon must hold his nose as he passed over this vast sea of filth.
McGee, 72d Indiana, p. 118.



        15, George Kryder suffers diarrhea and his regiment ordered to make a five day scout
Camp near Murfreesboro Tenn.
April 15th, 1863
My dear and beloved wife
It is with great pleasure that I take my pen to inform you that I am yet alive but not as well as I was a while ago as I took a very bad cold on our scout to Liberty and I have had a severe cough ever since but it is getting better, but I have a diarrhea at present that makes me feel quite shiftless, but I am still able for light duty in camp.
~~~~
The Reg. is ordered on a five day scout tomorrow, but I will not go out, as I do not feel well enough, though I hope it will not be so long.
George Kryder Papers


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