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Marching with Sherman: Dutchess County's 150th Regiment

Marching with Sherman: Dutchess County's 150th Regiment

In 1900 and 1901, the Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle published Reverend Edward O. Bartlett's first person account of his experiences as a Civil War chaplain serving in Dutchess County's 150th Regiment. Portions of Bartlett's narrative cover the dramatic events from May of 1864 to May of 1865 when the 150th Dutchess County Regiment served in Sherman's legendary "march to the sea" before turning northward to secure the surrender of North Carolina, South Carolina and the Confederate capitol of Richmond, Virginia.

In April of 1864, as Sherman readied his army of 98,797 men for the march to take Atlanta, Bartlett was invited to accompany an officer paying a call on General Sherman.

Edward O. Bartlett: [Chattanooga, Tennessee] "I had never seen Sherman, not even his picture. I had heard of him as the hero in many hard fought battles, and so was not prepared to see a most gaudily dressed soldier. He was arrayed in a brand new suit that looked so bright and blue in contrast with his immense white vest, that I thought he was `ragged out,' as the college boys used to say, for some special occasion. It was the first and only time during the war that I saw an officer disfigured by a white vest.

His form, not his face, was not unlike Abraham Lincoln. I think they must have been very nearly the same height, and their clothes had very much the same style, or want of style, as though their tailor had cut their garments by looking at their shadows and then had stood at a distance and thrown them on. Sherman was ten years the junior of the president, who at that time was fifty-five. Thus Sherman was forty-five when he began the march to the sea.

He was six feet or over in height, angular, slightly stooping. Whenever I saw him afterwards he was on horseback, riding in a very careless way, his head and body making a seesaw motion opposite to that of the horse

and looked like anything but the commander of a great army. His face was full of wrinkles, strongly indicative of intensity and nervous power, and his dark brown eyes had a deep, piercing glance that made one feel that he had a good deal of `mad' in him. Having heard that he had said a chaplain in the army was like a fifth wheel to a coach, I did not feel over comfortable while in his presence, though I am not certain whether he took me for a chaplain, or the colonel's servant, for he did not notice me in the slightest particular. The colonel he greeted in the most hearty manner.

Major General W T Sherman wearing the "immense white vest" Bartlett considered so unusual. Library of Congress.

The next day was the 4th of May and we passed over the Chickamauga battle field and river, fitly named `river of death.' It was eight months since the battle and in many places the rains had washed the earth partially off from the bodies that had been hastily buried. Sometimes it would be a long line of toes sticking out of the ground, then the knees, bent as though they had been thrown out by a muscular contraction. In places, hideous, grinning heads were just peering above the surface and nailed to a tree would be a little board with something like this: `Here 116 of the 69th Ohio were killed.' A little further on another sign, `54 of the 17th Indiana fell here.' So all around in the woods and by the side of the road showing how hot and dreadful the contest must have been...

We were early in camp, and as the day had been exceedingly sultry, a bath in the river was very tempting, especially as a large number were enjoying it and the water was quite warm. I ventured in on the sandy bank of a beautiful bend in the river, but I could not rid myself of that dreadful battlefield. I imagined that the water had something of the odor that a few miles back had been almost suffocating. ..And when I found that the water for our coffee that afternoon was taken from this same river, I got up and took a long walk through the immense camp trying to direct my thoughts from the horrors of the field of death."

A few days after the march began, the 150th heard rumors that it was about to be ordered forward to assault the Rebel works at Buzzard's Roost. This was Chaplain Bartlett's first experience ministering to men about to face battle.

"One hundred and twenty wounded men passed through our camp and our division, it was rumored, would be ordered in on the morrow. It was a prayer meeting on the eve of battle by men who expected in a few hours to storm the enemy's works. I never had listened to such prayers, and I never expect to again. It seemed as though a cloud of spiritual influences hovered over us that could be felt. It was like a second day of Pentecost. Men prayed that in the expected battle, only those should fall who had made their peace with God. After service, men came to my tent for further conversation. One said, `Oh if I only had a firm hope of heaven how willingly I would offer my life for my country.' Another said, `I can not understand this joy of you Christians. I know what it is to get exhilarated and happy through strong drink, but I can find no enjoyment only depression and fear in thinking of death and the beyond.'..."

After nearly a week of preparations for moving up to the Confederate line, Bartlett and the 150th regiment joined the dreadful Battle of Reseca on May 14, 1864. (As non-combatants, chaplains and surgeons were among those ordered to the rear when battle loomed, although Bartlett often positioned himself so that he could observe the action from nearby.)

"Fall in! Non-combatants to the rear!' was the signal that hot work was near at hand. To the rear did not mean much in the Georgia campaign. Taking it in too literal a sense meant to get lost or to be gobbled up as a straggler, so that the point was never to lose the trail of the regiment no matter how threatening affairs at the front might appear....

...at the end [of a sheltering hill] was an open plain, swept by a Rebel battery. Over this plain the division marched in two lines of battle.... and several Rebel shells were exploded in their midst doing how much harm I did not learn, only where the shells fell I could see a great swaying backwards and forwards, but when the lines were formed the whole line of six thousand men moved magnificently across the plain to the right, leaving the 150th still on the extreme left. After another half hour's delay, carefully spying out the land, I concluded to cross the plain to the hill held by the regiment. I passed over rapidly hearing an occasional

bullet singing through the air. Reaching the regiment, I found the Colonel looking through a field glass at a Rebel sharpshooter in a distant tree on the edge of the woods beyond. He offered me the instrument. I put it to my eyes, but could not get the focus, indeed it was all a blur, my hands trembled so.. .A little later he came to me and said, `Chaplain you better go to the rear, this is a dangerous place.' ...1 went, holding in my hand an ear of southern corn, breaking off the kernels and giving half a dozen to a man here and there. This seems to me now very strange, but there had been no chance to eat since an early breakfast, and I remember distinctly of being surprised at the sweetness of the corn when thoroughly masticated, and telling the soldiers that if they would chew it long enough they would find raw corn, such as is fed to horses, very palatable. ..My lecture, however lasted a little too long. The Rebel charge came sooner than was expected. A terrific yell, then a shower of bullets, like the sudden rain of a thunderstorm.

"Sherman s March to the Sea "by Alexander Hay Ritchie, engraver (c. 1868). Library of Congress.

Soon, as usual, during or after a battle, it began to rain. We put on our rubber coats, when an intense darkness settled down and as the wounded were brought out, we could only find our men by calling out, `Wounded from the 150th, stop here.' As yet no hospital had been established and the only thing to do was to spread out the blankets where they had any and let them lie down in the rain. Toward midnight our pack animals came up and we put up some shelter tents for those most seriously wounded. It was a most dreary night, but it was only the commencement

of a succession of dreary nights and agonizing days.

...The work of amputating limbs and dressing wounds commenced early, but there was only one table and only a few cases received attention, most went over to the third day, by this time maggots had made their appearance on the wounded and bloody parts and there by the pine table the amputated hands, feet, legs, fingers were piled up in a festering mass. These were the most dreadful days of my service..."

In early June, the Northern Army settled into a month long siege of Confederate positions in the mountains above Marietta, Georgia. Bartlett's regiment was located near Pine Hill where night attacks and shelling from Confederate batteries were common occurences.

"...The Confederates now held the three mountains above Marietta, Lost Mountain, Pine Hill and Kenesaw...Here for a month the Union Army battled in the rain, mud and darkness. The firing was almost incessant and scarcely a night passed that I did not hear the Rebel yell, either in a feint or a real charge. I slept in a shelter tent with Major Smith, and at first got up at every alarm, saddled my horse, rolled up my blankets, all ready for an advance or a retreat. After a while, I became so confident of the vigilance and ability of our men to repel a night charge that I did not leave my tent, only slipped on my overcoat and listened...

..A few days later the regiment was moved a mile and a half to the left coming within easy range of a battery located on Pine Hill about a mile distant.. .As the command `Break ranks' was given, a shell from the Rebel battery burst about fifty feet from where I was standing, mortally wounding Corporal Harry Stone, a fragment of the shell passing through his stomach.

He was carried to the foot of a tree, where we spread out his blanket on the wet grass. It was raining at the time, and a strong dose of whisky was given him. He shrieked as the fiery liquid reached the torn and bleeding tissues. It had the effect, however, to bring him to consciousness, and as the comrades gathered around him he said, `Boys, I die in the service of my country.' I knelt by his side and asked him if he would like to have me pray. `Yes, pray to the Blessed Virgin.'

Calling to a Catholic soldier, I said, `He wants you to pray with him.' I have since been sorry that I did not do it myself, but I was filled with

admiration for the noble man, and I did not feel that it was quite right for me to take the place of a priest, when there was a friend of his own persuasion nearby. As the Colonel came up, the dying soldier lifted up his eyes and said, `Colonel, have I not done my duty?' `Yes, my brave boy,' was the prompt reply and with a smile his head fell back as his noble spirit passed away.

We laid him out tenderly for the night, and buried him early the next morning (Sunday) before breakfast, during a drenching rain, a few feet from the spot where he was killed. The bark from a large oak tree had been peeled off for his coffin, and a small board marked with his name was placed at the head of his grave and there we left him..."

On July 20, 1864, the Confederates' daring new general, John Hood made a sudden and violent frontal attack on Bartlett's regiment at the Battle of Peach Tree Creek.

"... No breast works had been erected, we had only halted for our noon meal taking a longer time than usual on account of the long and toilsome march of the morning. It was near 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Our regiment was in a small ravine and the men scattered all about on either side lounging, smoking here and there as though off duty in camp. The Colonel, Major and myself had just finished our last cup of coffee, our horses had not been unsaddled, but were browsing on the green bushes and where they could find it, on the meager forest grass, when without the slightest warning came the roar of the Rebel yell and the whistling bullets of the enemy.

In less time than it takes to tell it, the men were in line of battle advancing to the front and I was in my saddle advancing to the rearward. The retreat of the non-combatants and the tin pan brigade was a wild and yet ludicrous scene. For a mile we went pell mell over a meadow, kettles flying in every direction, making almost as good time as the mounted surgeons and chaplains. ... Reaching a group of surgeons on a rising bank, I looked back and on the left of the meadow, about a mile of our line of battle was in plain view, the muskets gleaming and sparkling in the western light, as they were raised to fire and lowered to be reloaded. I did not know then, but I know now that division was commanded by General Benjamin Harrison, afterwards President of the United States.

there occurred one of the most fierce and bloody contests of the war.

Officers were everywhere conspicuous for their gallantry. Every adjutant in the first brigade was either killed or wounded. In our 3rd brigade Col. Colgrove of the 27th Indiana was dangerously wounded, a shell passing between his arm and body throwing him fully three feet in the air. Capt. Sawyer of the 2nd Mass. was mortally wounded. Major Baldwin of the 157th NY was shot through the eye, the ball fracturing the skull. Lieutenants Van Keuren and Barlow, of our regiment, were severely wounded, and Capt. Bennett of the 107th Topographical Engineers was struck by a ball, cutting the scalp and forehead, and his coolness was discovered on returning to consciousness by the remark, `Rather rough treatment for a non-combatant.'

Lieut. Van Keuren of our regiment was carried to the rear, the bullet had passed through the thigh of one leg and lodged in the other. I held his head and stroked his forehead while Dr. Campbell extracted the ball. He felt quite jolly at first, but as the doctor pressed the flesh to force the lead out, the lieutenant screamed as though trying to imitate the Rebel yell, but in a moment the pain was over, and from that time forward there was no complaint, but abundant thanks for everything done for him.

After the repulse of General Hood at Peach Tree Creek, the Union Army made its way to within musket shot of Atlanta where Bartlett's division remained for eight weeks until the fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864.

The city had many beautiful houses and fine wide streets lined with large brick blocks of stores and warehouses and factory buildings. But everywhere was visible the sad work of the Union shells, which for two months had been bursting day and night over the beleaguered city. At the depot I saw the charred remains of what was estimated at 17 million dollars worth of ammunition burned and exploded the night before. A shell usually struck the roof of a house, plunging through at an angle of less than 45 degrees wrecking everything in its course as though the building had been struck by a terrible earthquake.

The city was surrounded by huge earthworks from fifteen to twenty feet high, and in almost every door yard was a hole dug in the earth with a bank in front where the family took refuge during the shelling. Generally, the inhabitants professed to be very glad to see our soldiers, and brought out tobacco in large quantities which was eagerly bought by men who used the filthy weed. Several bakeries were open and did a

brisk business asking a dollar for a medium size loaf of bread, and same for a pie with crust like shoe leather. This continued however, only for a day or two. Our men took possession of the bake houses and everything was sold at a fair price and of a fair quality.

..Just before dinner, Gen. Sherman rode by with his staff. He was a miserable rider, and with a segar in his mouth looked like a western cow boy.

Among the prisoners taken at Jonesboro were three Confederate chaplains confined several days with other prisoners near our camp. Selecting as nice and as large a lot of provisions as our mess could afford, I obtained permission to visit them. Their uniform was that of a Confederate Captain, gray trimmed with blue and three gold laced stripes on the standing collar of the coat. All three were young men, college graduates and very prepossessing. Their faith in the final success of their side was very firm. They had great faith that Hood would destroy our railroad communications and Sherman's army would either retreat or starve.

When I told them of the large reinforcements coming forward, they seemed much disheartened. I asked what compensation there was in the independence of the Confederate states for the loss of the most powerful government in the world and the confession to Europe that a Republican form of government was a failure in as much as it would not hold together. `Well,' said one, 'I must confess I was not in favor of disruption at first. I could not see then and do not see now the great advantage to be gained, but when your president called out 75,000 men with the intention of coercing the South, I thought it was time to resist and now if we were to submit and sign Lincoln's proclamation, why I must write over my brother's grave who fell at Resaca, "Traitor to his Country," and we should all go down in history as Rebels, the meanest and most wicked of all men. Death is preferable to that and we would rather die fighting than to formally submit and confess to you Yankees that we are wrong.' ...I came away fully satisfied that the only way was to fight it out...

...A joyful event was in store for us, the U.S. paymaster had come with his iron safe. It was eight months since the regiment had been paid, and his appearance was most welcome. My share was $927.25 after deducting a little more than $25 income tax. I owed nearly three hundred dollars for my two horses and military equipment. Retaining $100 for pocket money, I sent the balance home.

It was rumored that the Chaplain would receive leave of absence and be sent North with the remittances of the regiment to Dutchess County, amounting to about $30,000 but it would have been a perilous journey with that amount of greenbacks about my person, through Nashville, Louisville and many Northern cities, so it was finally decided to trust it to Adams Express. I was greatly relieved for the pleasures and honor to be gained bore no comparison to evils that would have followed failure to reach Old Dutchess in safety.

... After a week's delay we are now surely to abandon Atlanta [November 9, 1864]. The city is to be burned and what cannot be burned, blown up. ... We left the city about dusk and encamped about two miles beyond the limits. As we went into camp a heavy mist was hanging over our heads. Fires were lighted in every direction. A rubber blanket spread on the ground with a cup and tin plate at each corner furnished Major Smith, Adjutant Cruger, Dr. Campbell and the Chaplain a hearty meal. By this time the air was filled with a dense smoke from the numerous fires made of wet pine brush. This, the fog and dense woods, prevented [the smoke] from rising or being blown away and our eyes, became literally `fountains of tears.' It was almost suffocating and the only relief was to lie flat on the ground, and so get a breath of air. Dr. Campbell and myself spread a rubber blanket on the ground, then a woolen blanket, and with a bag of corn for a pillow, covered ourselves with our remaining blankets. In the morning the upper one was soaking wet, not from rain but from the heavy dew and fog.

But the great march was not yet to begin. There was a delay of nearly a week. Sherman seemed to be exercising his army as a skillful athlete on a `diamond field,' making various feints, as if unloosening his muscles before sending the ball with tremendous swiftness to its goal. It was November the sixteenth at 6 o'clock before the last reveille was heard in Atlanta. A dark pall of smoke, like a vast mourning garment, hung over the desolated and half burned city as long columns of troops moved out on every road to the eastward with the long swinging step at a `right shoulder shift' singing: `John Brown's body lies mou'dering in the grave, But his soul is marching on."

After leaving Atlanta, Sherman's army began its "march to the sea" foraging off the land to supply the immense needs of the conquering army and destroying whatever was not consumed as the army marched toward Savannah and the sea.

"...Nov. 25 crossed Buffalo Creek, where six bridges, over as many streams and swamps, had been burned by a Georgia planter and for which everything on his place was ordered to be burned. Indeed our march now became a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. ... it was easy to mark our road by the pillars of smoke rising from cotton gins and barns for miles in our rear and advance.

Toward night we came on to firm ground and passed Senator Johnson's house. It was a palatial residence, but nevertheless was given up to pillage. In the garden five barrels of crockery were exhumed and large quantities of clothing, salt and smoked meat and even silver ware. In an out house were twenty five barrels of sorghum and one hundred and twenty barrels of flour. The soldiers took all they could carry and destroyed the remainder. All through this region the inhabitants had buried their household effects, hurrying their horses and cattle into the woods, but the slaves led our men to the hiding places and nearly everything was secured or destroyed. This was where the plantations had been deserted. Where the white people remained such protection was given as was possible under the circumstances.

While for the most part the inhabitants fled on the approach of the Union Army, occasional instances of undaunted courage were met. With these our soldiers had many spicy word battles. ...a soldier found a lot of dried apples, having nothing to carry them in he picked up a bonnet and proceeded to fill that with the dried fruit. The woman, indignant at the sacrilege exclaimed, `I hope they will swell after you have eaten them til you burst as Judas did after he was hung.'

On a piazza as we passed along stood a bevy of young ladies, the center one, a very tall spinster, had wrapped a secession flag around her spindling form and one of our men called out, `Say, boys, I have seen a good many flag staffs, but I never saw a bean pole used for one before.' The shout that went up from the line was too much for the defiant Southerner and she retreated inside out of sight of the saucy Yanks.

The colored people furnished an unceasing fund of information and instruction. We had now entered the Black Belt of Southern Georgia, the region of cotton and rice, and the slaves came in by [the] thousands. Fairly lining our march on both sides with long black lines. They walked along the ranks, carried the guns, haversacks and luggage of the soldiers. For a time every private in the ranks seemed to have a servant. ...As

we advanced the black stream began to swell to monstrous proportions. Men, women, children and babies flanked our march day and night.

'Richmond Ladies Going to Receive Government Rations "(Sketch by A.R. Waud, 1865) Caption: One woman saying to another, "Don't you think that Yankee must feel like shrinking into his boots before such high-toned Southern ladies as we!" as they walk by a Union soldier and the ruins of Richmond Harper's Weekly, 1865.

Tuesday, November 30th, we halted for dinner at the Blake plantation. It was a strange scene. It excelled the most exaggerated descriptions of the degradations of the lowest forms of slavery. The owner was a Spaniard and this was his breeding plant, where he raised laborers for his rice plantations further down the river. There were a dozen women for every man and I should say eight or ten children for every woman. I saw the mother of three children who was said to be not more than fourteen years old... Altogether it was not unlike an immense hog pen. I was glad to get away.

And so closed the famous March to the Sea. It brought great glory and fame to Sherman but he never regarded it as great or wonderful, merely in his own language, `the shift of base.' No great battle was fought, nothing more serious impeded our march than broad swamps, burned bridges and a few cavalry that were brushed away as easily as cobwebs by the irresistible skirmishers of the Yankee Army."

In January of 1865, Bartlett received a furlough home to Dutchess

General Sherman and Staff between 1860 and 1865. Library of Congress.

County. Despite passing unharmed through extreme wartime dangers, it was here at home that he nearly lost his life on the Hudson River one snowy night.

"...My leave of absence covered twenty days giving me about two weeks in Poughkeepsie, during which time I visited many of the families of the officers and soldiers in the city and county. Near the close of my vacation I was a guest at the home of our Adjutant Cruger on Cruger Island near Rhinebeck. The dinner hour was six o'clock and the train we were to take back to Poughkeepsie left the Rhinebeck station near 8pm. We were through dinner in ample time, but Mrs. Cruger was so anxious to learn all the details concerning the wounding of her son at Resaca that my brother and I did not get away till a few minutes of train time and Mr. Cruger told the coachman to drive directly across the river, which was frozen and not to try to go around by the causeway by which the distance was much longer.

We had hardly left the house before there came up a blinding snow storm. We wrapped ourselves up in the large fur robes and were quite comfortable but after riding fifteen or twenty minutes began to wonder why we did not reach the station. Throwing up the furs we could see nothing and asked the driver where we were. He said he did not know. He was a

stranger here, had been in Mr. Cruger's employ only a few days, and did not know the landmarks, could any be seen.

My brother and I undertook to direct him, but strangely enough we were directly opposed in our sensations of directions. He was sure we were going north. I was equally confident the horses were headed south. However, near the horizon we could detect a dark line, concluded it was the railroad track and started for that. Before long we saw a light and drove toward that. But before long we lost sight of that. However, in about ten minutes we were gladdened by another bright light. Our joy was momentary for soon that disappeared. Like a will o the wisp. Four times we were thus allured for how many miles I do not know. We knew afterwards that we were following headlights of locomotives. The night freight trains on the Hudson River Road ran in sections four to each train ten or fifteen minutes apart.

For nearly an hour we followed these moving lights, getting further and further away from the point we wished to reach. We heard the roar of cataract and began to debate whether it was safe to go any further, and if we had not better just camp down and wait for morning. Just then another locomotive headlight showed up. We were now close to the shore and the light revealed that we were on a ledge of ice five or six feet above a stream that came tumbling down the river bank into the Hudson. We were almost paralysed with fear. Few feet further and we must have plunged headlong into the icy gorge.

After the locomotive had passed we saw the lone flicker of a light, and leaving the horses with us, the coachman went for it. He found a switchman with his lantern, who came and slowly led the way to the bank. We then found we were four or five miles above the station we started for, and it was near midnight. We had been on the ice nearly four hours.

The switchman said though he was acquainted with the river, $500 would not induce him to run the risks we had. Icemen were busy cutting ice, and had made large openings on the river into which we might have plunged horses and all, disappearing under the ice, carried by the strong current no one could tell where.

During my furlough many were the strange and curious questions asked concerning army life. How and where we lived and marched and slept, one bank president wanted to know if the army stretched itself out in one

immense line and marched shoulder to shoulder over fields and valleys and hills and mountains.

No, I told him during the march through Georgia, as a rule, the army marched in four columns on roads as nearly parallel as possible—the extreme columns sometimes forty miles apart, but converging again after several days marching. When any obstruction was found and the enemy was supposed to be near, a line of battle, usually a double line, was at once formed, skirmishers thrown out, and this line did often stretch miles across the country, through the fields and woods, men shoulder to shoulder, the artillery posted at intervals usually on the brow of some hill, while the cavalry scoured the country on the flanks to prevent any turning movement or an attack on any unguarded point by the enemy."

On April 19, 1865 while encamped at Raleigh, North Carolina, Bartlett's regiment received news of Lincoln's assassination.

"...on the 19th of April we received the terrible tidings of President Lincoln's assassination. Officers were called to Headquarters and informed in a whisper that an unconfirmed report had been received that the President of the United States had been shot, and that for the present we were to say nothing about it. But it is strange how intelligence will percolate through an army. The countenance of every soldier plainly indicated the possession of a terrible secret.

It was not long in finding expression in a fierce hope that peace negotiations would now fail and the opportunity would soon come to show southern chivalry, who would turn honorable warfare into savage assassination, what punishment would be dealt out to them. The punishment to the Carolinas and Georgia was mild indeed in comparison to what should now be meted out to those responsible for the death of the noblest, truest hearted and most generous of Presidents. This intense determination for a terrible retribution calmed down greatly when it was learned that the dastardly act of the assassin was almost as bitterly condemned and sincerely regretted by the Confederates as by ourselves.

On the 30th of April, with exultant hearts we took up our line of march from the capital of North Carolina for the capital of Virginia. The bands played and the men took up the strain, `Home sweet home, Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.' The route was about 25 or 30 miles west of the railroad

connecting Raleigh and Richmond, through one of the most fertile sections of the state.

Many people came out on the road to see the army as it passed. All pronounced themselves glad the war was over and the kindliest feeling was expressed. Every night some of Lee's men on their homeward journey, came into camp and were fed most generously by the Union soldiers, who in fact lived on half rations because they made such liberal contributions from their haversacks to the many visiting Confederates to feed them and give them a few meals on their journey. The forager's occupation was now gone. ...not a house or field was invaded, nor a goose nor chicken disturbed."

After Northern troops marched into Richmond on May 13, 1865, Bartlett filed out with a number of officers and had dinner at the Spotswood Hotel.

"We had a `right smart' meal, and to cap it off I drank a large tumbler of iced milk.. .Riding leisurely around the city, about the capitol, which was an unfinished building of white marble, we struck out for the regiment. After a ride of two or three miles, we came to a small field of oats or rye nearly full grown, and as we had had so good a time it was suggested we stop and feast our horses.

Dismounting we unsaddled the animals and turned them in while we wandered about examining the zig zag earthenworks. The trees were shot riddled but most ghastly of all were thousands of unburied skeletons lying thickly as they fell before some breast the story of work where they told desperate charges. We Collecting remains of the dead, April 1865. John Reekie, photographer Library of Conwere somewhat horrified at seeing some of the army surgeons gathering up skulls by the bag full. It was said over eight hundred skeletons lay in one pine grove in an area of a few acres."

On May 23, 1865, the victorious Union troops marched into Washington for a Grand Review down Pennsylvania Avenue before being released

from military service.

Grand Review near the Treasury on Pennsylvania Arevue in U'oslhing nn D.C., May 1865. Matthew Brady, photographer. Library of Congress.

"...All through the division now was the unwonted exercise of blacking shoes, polishing arms and a general cleaning up preparatory for the grand review on the ever memorable 23rd day of May. Reveille sounded at 3 am and at day break the regiment crossed the long bridge over the Potomac, formerly the wooden aqueduct of the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. It was near 9 o'clock when the 150th regiment passed in review around the capitol up Pennsylvania Avenue.

The scene was inspiring. Thousands of cheering multitudes from all over the Union filled the side walks and far out into the broad streets, while every window, balcony and house top was filled with wild, enthusiastic spectators waving flags, handkerchiefs, clapping hands, shouting and in every possible way making demonstration of the hearty welcome this

great nation extended to its brave and heroic defenders.

Near the capitol was a great banner, with the inscription, `We welcome the heroes of the country.' The battle flags of the regiments tattered and in shreds were applauded by the thousands as they passed. When the treasury building was reached General Sherman looking back down the avenue upon his compact column, with its glittering muskets and bayonets, declared it was `the most magnificent army in existence' sixty-five thousand men in splendid physique who had just completed a march of nearly 2,000 miles in a hostile country, in good drill and who realized that they were being closely scrutinized by thousands of their fellow countrymen and by foreigners.

Division after division passed, each commander of an army corps or division coming on the stand during the passing of his command, to be presented to the President, cabinet and other distinguished spectators. For six hours and a half the strong tread of the `army of the West,' that had swept through the South like a tornado, resounded upon Pennsylvania Avenue."

(The above excerpts were taken from Bartlett's "The 150th Regiment" printed in the Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle: January 2, 1901; January 9, 1901; January 16, 1901; January 23, 1901; January 30, 1901; February 6, 1901; February 13, 1901; February 20, 1901; February 27, 1901; March 6, 1901; March 13, 1901; March 20, 1901. For more about the 150th Regiment see: The Dutchess County Regiment in the Civil War, Its Story as Told by its Members. Edited by: S.G. Cook and Charles E. Benton. Danbury, CT: Danbury Medical Print Company, 1907.)

Edward O. Bartlett (1835-1909) grew up in Poughkeepsie where his father and later his brother operated the Poughkeepsie Cracker Bakery, manufacturer of the once widely popular "Poughkeepsie Cream" and "Dutchess No. 1" crackers. Bartlett graduated from the Poughkeepsie Collegiate School and Union College before being drafted into the army in 1863. After the war he served as a Congregational minister in several Massachusetts and Rhode Island churches, settling finally in Providence with his wife and seven children.

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