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I grew up in Ohio, my family was anti-slavery and my father was a soldier, who never saw much combat. My family always wanted me to enlist as a soldier in his footsteps and so after getting my education and growing to the ripe old age of 17, I decided that I would indeed enlist as a soldier. The training was very intensive, but I learned all the same within a year, my country went into an armed conflict with our Southern neighbor, Mexico, and I was brought into the frontlines (Mexican-American War, April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848 ). My longtime friend Ulysses Grant was in this war with me, but I didn’t see him all that much as we were on different fronts of the conflict. Instead, I found myself fighting under General Winfield Scott.
I honed my experience and learned a lot through this but was always overshadowed by another soldier, Robert E. Lee. I decided the most intelligent thing to do was make friends with Lee, so that’s what I did. Telling stories of our experiences and having a good time. He was a very good man albeit the main thing we disagreed on was the matter of slavery. I couldn’t put him on too much blame for this though, it was how he was raised it was simply different. Even though our friendship, I held a lot of respect for Lee, as a brilliant fighter and a great man. Time passed going through battle after battle until eventually, I met back up with my longtime friend Ulysses S. Grant in marching from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. It was hard but we pulled on victorious and by the end of the Mexican-American war I returned to my home in Ohio, finding both my parents gone. The next years were hard, finding the way on my lonesome and struggling with some of the remaining horrors of the war I survived.
A lot of thought happened at this time, wondering if we ever had the place to invade our small neighborhood. There was little time for this thought though as very quickly, the tensions in the union on the matter of Slavery grew to a boiling point. This only got worse with the stepping up of our nation’s 16th president Abraham Lincoln (November 1860). He had no plan of abolishing Slavery as a whole, simply the trade and stopping it from growing. His main goal was to make sure the Union stayed together as one. Sadly just the opposite of that happened and before I knew it, southern states that were in favor of Slavery were seceding left and right from the Union I realized that this was going to turn into a massive conflict, a war of brother against brother. Soon enough my initial horror was confirmed as I found that the leader of the confederates would be my respected friend Robert E. Lee. Another horror was just how soon the whole thing erupt, it felt like as fast as these confederate states seceded they led their first attack, one against Fort Sumter in South Carolina (April 12, 1861). With that start, the war was inevitable. My lifetime friend Ulysses S. Grant would go on to lead the Union. I decided that I would fight in this war if nothing else to honor my Father. In that sense, at least there was only one option, to fight against Slavery under the Union and General Ulysses Grant. Once I made this decision, it was back to training.
I told Ulysses of my decision immediately and thus I often fought at his side. The war was hard, even if they decided to leave, every person was still American and I knew there may well come a day in which I have to face my respected friend in battle. If that day came I knew I’d have to do what I must. At this point, we still weren’t sure of the scale to expect of this conflict and I heard orders to form a lightly trained force to storm the confederate capital in Richmond. I heard it was going fairly well, until things went for the worst as the confederates gained reinforcements and slaughtered our troops brutally (First Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861). We started our move and in April of 1862, our army was camped in Pittsburgh Landing. Our numbers were massive (62,000 Union Soldiers) and everything seemed well and good, well and good all until the morning of the 6th. That morning we were ambushed by a massive confederate force. (45,000 Confederate Soldiers) At this point, all hope seemed lost they had the upper hand, we weren’t prepared but we fought back.
We fought our way, giving up ground as we went and it seemed like it stretched on forever. It was hours until we could finally stabilize long enough to get the reinforcements we needed to fight back the confederate army. When all was said and done, this place Shiloh, a place said to be of peace, had seen the most violent and bloody battle I’d ever seen (Up to that point the most bloody American Battle of time, with casualties of 23,000 soldiers between the two armies). Time passed and it was hard, living as a soldier was never easy, sicknesses spread like crazy and the generally low food sources and rations were a hard adjustment. Between physical work and trying to keep our morale up, we passed our time mobile marching through the country and planning for the future. Enough of this went by and In June of 1862, the confederate army truly fell into the hands of Lee. One of General Lee’s plans was to invade Maryland and cut off the railroad to split our armies. I found this through a leak in an old confederate camp. Thus a force of our men led by General George McClellan attacked Lee’s army. (September 17, 1862, Battle of Antietam) We should have easily one due to our massive number advantage but from what I heard about the battle, things got very difficult due to McClellan’s ability to make a strategic decision. This gave the enemy enough time to bolster their morale and fight back, this was another bloody battle and it all went down in just a day (22,000 Casualties).
Even through the massive number of deceased, the Confederates retreated leaving this battle as a strategic victory for the army of the Union. Hearing this news was hard, we were happy that in the end, we won but so many casualties…. It certainly wasn’t easy, one of my close friends left for that battle and never came back. These wars had taken so much, so much from everyone involved, and what was there to gain from all that loss? It was really hard to take in as a whole.
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