Under the Flag of the Nation

UNDER THE FLAG OF THE NATION UNDER THE FLAG OF THE NATION Diaries and Letters of Owen Johnston Hopkins, a Yankee Volunteer in the Civil War EDITED BY OTTO F. BOND OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS Columbus Frontispiece: Photograph of Lieutenant Owen Johnston Hopkins taken in October 1864, when he was twenty years old. Copyright © 1998 by The Ohio State University. All Rights Reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hopkins, Owen Johnston, 1844-1902. Under the flag of the nation : diaries and letters of Owen Johnston Hopkins, a Yankee volunteer in the Civil War / edited by Otto F. Bond. p. cm. Originally published: Columbus : Ohio State University Press for the Ohio Historical Society, 1961, in series: Publications of the Ohio Civil War Centennial Commission, no. 1. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN0-8142-0743-X(pbk. : alk. paper) L Hopkins, Owen Johnston, 1844-1902—Diaries. 2. Hopkins, Owen Johnston, 1844-1902—Correspondence. 3. United States. Army. Ohio Infantry Regiment, 42nd (1861-1864) 4. United States. Army. Ohio Infantry Regiment, 182nd (1864-1865) 5. Ohio—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Personal narratives. 6. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Personal narratives. 7. Ohio—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Regimental histories. 8. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Regimental histories. 9. Soldiers—Ohio—Biography. I. Bond, Otto Ferdinand, 1885- . II. Title. E525.542nd.H66 1998 973.7f471—dc21 98-12833 CIP Cover design by Gore Studio, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standards for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSIZ39.48-1992. 987654321 ACKNOWLEDGMENT The editor acknowledges his indebtedness to his wife, Julia Hopkins Bond, for the use of her family archives, the factual data relating to her parents and their ancestry, and the iden tification of many of the personal references in her father's diaries and letters. Her research and encouragement have made this work possible and pleasant. OTTO F. BOND CONTENTS Introduction 3 I. The Cumberland Campaign, 1861-62 11 II. The Vicksburg Campaign, 1863 45 III. Keeping Watch on the Mississippi, 1864 93 IV. Letters from Nashville, 1864-65 189 V. Epilogue, 1865-1902 271 Appendixes A. Muster Roll of Company K, Forty-second Regi ment, O.VJ. 296 B. Service Record of Owen J. Hopkins 302 C. List of Articles Received from Captain Irvin by Owen J. Hopkins, Regimental Quartermaster, One Hundred Eighty-second, O.V.I., Nashville, Tennessee 304 D. A Private Expense Account, March through July, 1865 305 UNDER THE FLAG OF THE NATION INTRODUCTION From these diaries and letters of a young soldier in the Un ion Army emerges a clear and unmistakable portrait of their author, a portrait as unique and revealing as a daguerreotype, as personal and intimate as a confession- It is in their revela tion of an engaging and rare personality caught up in a life and death struggle of national import, as well as in their narra tion of the sequence and execution of military maneuvers, that these lines written one hundred years ago hold their present interest. Indeed, Private Owen Johnston Hopkins still lives in that his unquenchable pride and patriotism, his defiant good humor, his deep-seated loyalty and attachment to family, friends, and comrades, and his unflagging zest for adventure and new ex periences, are characteristic of his fellow soldiers of the twen tieth century. They, too, have known the choking dust and drenching rains, the scorching heat and numbing cold, the aching muscles and utter weariness of unending maneuvers. With him they have felt the dread loneliness of the night watch, the elan of victory, the bitterness of defeat. They have shared the feeling of being isolated from one's own world, and have hoped for letters that did not come, or that coming brought no relief. And, like Private Hopkins, they have longed for an end to it all. Again, in these pages, companies form for inspection or dress parade, entrain or embark for unrevealed destinations, break the monotony of camp life by lining up for the pay master or to receive mail. Here are the old familiar work de tails under the same old sergeants. Men get promoted or re duced to the ranks, smuggle in contraband, scrounge, go out on the town, hold bull sessions, swap rumors, gripe, write to 3 4 UNDER THE FLAG OF THE NATION their girls left behind. And always, everywhere, in the back of their minds, surge the remorseless memories of carnage and destruction. The setting and the cast of Hopkins' diaries are different from those familiar to the veterans of today, but the play is the same. The actors are our grandfathers in the blue uniform of the Union Army, serving under Garfield, Sherman, and Grant. The setting is the mid-continent along the Ohio and Mississippi valleys from the Cumberland Gap in Tennessee to New Orleans. On this vast stage of waterways, wilderness, and plantations, moves a confusing array of side-wheelers, ironclads, mule trains, troops of cavalry, armies of men marching and countermarching, guerrilla bands, terror-stricken fugitives, and Negro slaves—a constantly shifting backdrop of war. Seemingly, it is movement without plan. The Civil War in these pages is Hopkins' war, as he saw it day by day; it is a savage, vindictive conflict fought with canister, uminnie balls," grapeshot, the Enfield rifle, and the bayonet. He was a foot soldier, and was, therefore, a witness on the ground level. What he saw both thrilled and saddened him, aged him beyond his years, and left its imprint upon him for his lifetime. Why did this seventeen-year-old country boy, still in school, against the wishes of family and friends, volunteer his services for three years in an unpremeditated and bitter war for an idealistic cause? "When the call for troops came after the battle of Bull Run," he writes simply in his notebook, "I felt it my duty to enlist under the flag of the Nation . and I enlisted as private in Captain Gardner's company." "Duty," "the flag of the Nation"—were these shibboleths, or do they express a personal moral obligation? These were not mere words. Duty to the nation had been built into Hopkins' moral fibre by a hundred years of intrepid and patriotic forebears, pioneer men and women inured to hardships and self-denial, who were inordinately proud of their national heritage. He could not have acted otherwise that June day in 1861. His mother, Sarah Carter, was the granddaughter of Ste phen Carter, a ranger on the frontier during the American INTRODUCTION 5 Revolution. Carter had come to Pennsylvania from New Jer sey with a group of Presbyterians, and had married Elizabeth Gerrard of the Maryland and New Jersey family that pro duced John Gerrard, the founder of Gerrardstown in the Shen andoah Valley, and James Garrard, the second governor of Kentucky. It was John's sons who established, in 1790, near the present site of Cincinnati, Gerard's Station, for many years an outpost refuge for early Ohio settlers in the Miami At the close of the Revolutionary War, Stephen Carter moved down the Ohio River with his family, and in 1792, he bought land near present-day Cincinnati. Four years later, he was killed by Indians. His widow Elizabeth subsequently mar ried Daniel Cox. When he, too, was killed, she took shelter in the family's station. Eventually, she married again; this time to Joseph Coe, son of the founder of the Old Redstone Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania. As settlements pushed further north, members of these families moved on into Shelby County. Sarah Carter's mother, Jemima Hathaway, was the daugh ter of Abraham and Sarah (Goble) Hathaway, who were early settlers in the Miami Valley. Hathaways and Gobies had left New Jersey to settle lands in western Pennsylvania; they, too, had been members of the Old Redstone Presby terian Church and rangers on the frontier. Abraham is de scribed in county histories as a a great Indian fighter" whose life spanned a hundred years. Owen J. Hopkins' father, Daniel, was born in Vermont in 1800. With six other children he was brought by his parents, Joseph and Olivia (Howard) Hopkins, to the vicinity of what is now Maumee and Perrysburg on the Maumee River in Ohio, in 1810. Either Joseph or his father had been a Revolu tionary soldier, as had the father of Olivia Howard. The Joseph Hopkins family was one of many which fol lowed in the wake of their former neighbor and friend, Amos Spafford, then collector of the Port of Miami, at Fort Miami on the lower Maumee River. It was the intention of these families to become homesteaders; and without waiting for the government to place on sale the rich river-bottom lands re 6 UNDER THE FLAG OF THE NATION cently acquired by treaty with the Indians, they proceeded at once to plow and plant, to raise corn and vegetables, and to erect a church and a school.1 After Hull's surrender of Detroit in the War of 1812, the little group of settlers were forced to flee inland before the onrush of the hostile Indians. Most of them found refuge at Urbana, in Champaign County, not far from the present town of Bellefontaine. Among them were Joseph Hopkins and his family. It is said that in the wave of enthusiasm that swept the young state at this time, all the men old enough to bear arms volunteered for service in the war. Joseph, serving as cavalry man with General Tupper's forces, went back to the river in the fall of 1812 in order to harvest for the army the corn planted by the settlers near the site where Fort Meigs was built in January of the following year.

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