PART I.
Andersonville: The Prisoners and Their Keeper
W. J. W. KERR, M. D.
My First Soldiering
I was born in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, July 22, 1839, the youngest of the five children of Wallace and Nancy Bonney Page. My parents were natives of Massachusetts, the former born in 1810 and the latter in 1816, and they were married on April 18, 1832, at Ellington, Chautauqua County, New York. My father's paternal grandfather was a soldier in the War of the Revolution, and the maternal grandfather of my mother was a soldier at the same time. Both were "Continentals" in the "Massachusetts Line," and both were honorably mustered out of service, a matter that has been a source of pardonable pride to their descendants.
The reader will pardon me for intruding these facts and also some succeeding ones relating to my ancestors and' their descendants, but my purpose is to show how thoroughly "Yankee" I am in ancestry, birth, education, and environment. I never was as far south as Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, until I was a Union soldier on my way South.
My parents had five children: Elvira, Wallace Robert, Elmina, Rodney Walter, and myself, I being the youngest, We are all living, and have been for years residents of Pageville, Madison County, Montana.
In 1840 my father died when I was but one year old, and when I was thirteen my good mother died.
Soon after my father's death we removed to Michigan, where I received a good common school education and later I took a course at Eastman's business college at Chicago. I had a keen taste for mathematics, and would at any time much rather encounter the most difficult problem in trigonometry than place myself between the handles of a plow.
When the war broke out in 1861 I was engaged in extending the public surveys in northwestern Minnesota, east of the now flourishing city of Morehead. At that time that portion of our Uncle-Samuel-land was "way out west," and as the region was sparsely settled I was very busy. My calling was a lucrative one, and being far from "the bustling throng and the busy haunts of men" I scarcely heard anything about the "impending conflict."
I was incredulous relative to the threatened "clash of arms." I had been so surfeited with the inflammatory war talk emanating from both North and South that I was disgusted. I regarded almost anything more likely to happen than actual war between the two great sections of our country.
As late as 1861 I little thought that the greatest war of history was to deluge our country with blood. Little did I think there would be calls by President Lincoln for soldiers ranging from 300,000 to 500,000 each, and little did I think that rivers of blood would flow through our land and that half the homes, both North and South, would be in mourning ere the great strife would cease.
I gave the matter little thought until the great disaster that befell the Federal forces under General McDowell at the first battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861. It could plainly be seen then that a gigantic struggle was at hand.
I was twenty-three when I enlisted in Company A, Sixth Regiment Michigan Cavalry, on August 14, 1862, at Grand Rapids, Mich., and was mustered into service August 28, 1862.
On December 10 the regiment proceeded to Washington, D. C., and went into camp on Meridian Hill between Seventh and Fourteenth streets. Our regiment was brigaded with the Fifth and Seventh Michigan Cavalry, and was attached to Casey's division of Heintzelman's corps. While at Washington I was promoted to commissary-sergeant.
During the winter of 1862-63 our regiment participated in several raids into Virginia, in one of which we went to Falmouth, where Burnside's army was encamped.
In the spring of 1863 the regiment broke camp at Washington and marched to Fairfax Court House, and was kept on picket duty till June of that year, Col. Geo. Gray commanding.
While on this duty the regiment often made raids to the west of Fairfax, outside of our lines, in quest of Colonel Mosby, who was continually disturbing our peace of mind.
In my official but non-combatant capacity of commissary-sergeant I had boyish, vague dreams of capturing Mosby myself, and single-handed. I could not think of anything that would more readily change my chevrons to shoulder-straps. Indeed, to be frank, I confess to a feeling of some importance when I looked down and saw my sleeves decked with commissary-sergeant's stripes, and I felt the stirring of military ambition like that of Napoleon's soldier who always carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack that he might be prepared to accept sudden promotion.
After we had become thoroughly conversant with Mosby's dashing tactics we were not half so anxious to capture him, and after forty odd years cogitation I feel satisfied that perhaps it is just as well that we didn't meet him at close range.
A number of incidents occurred while on these raids that might be interesting, but I'll record only one.
It was about the first of May, 1863, that Colonel Gray ordered the regiment ready to march light. Early the next morning we started in the direction of Winchester. It was understood that we were this time really to bag Mosby and his men, and the ambitious commissary-sergeant temporarily took leave of his accounts and supplies and rode with the fighting detachment. We picked up two or three of Mosby's "raiders," and toward noon we circled to the left and immediately passed through a small hamlet on the Winchester pike. In the edge of the town the regiment halted and dismounted for noon rest, when Colonel Gray called me and said, "Sergeant, did you notice that large mansion standing well back of a magnificent lawn, on our right a short distance back?" "Yes, sir." "Well, you take two non-commissioned officers and twelve men, ride back there, station your men around that house and adjacent buildings, and give them instructions to shoot any one attempting to escape that will not halt at a command, and then go through that mansion from cellar to garret and seize anything contraband that you find."
Of all my duties as a soldier this was the one I most detested.
I was soon on the ground and had stationed my men. I felt like a trespasser when I approached the door in company with Sergeant Parshall, whom I asked to go with me in case of trouble. (Dick Parshall was afterward one of Custer's best scouts.) When I rang the bell the door was opened by a fine-looking middle-aged woman, who, upon hearing my business, was not slow in conveying to me in language of scintillating scorn what she thought of me and the whole Yankee nation.
In my placid answer to her furious arraignment I said, "Madam, I am very sorry to disturb you and I do not wonder that you are greatly distressed at this action, but I am acting under orders, and if you knew how very disagreeable this task is to me you would deliver to me at once the key to every room in the house and facilitate the enjoined search as much as possible." Thereupon she reluctantly handed me a bunch of keys, and accompanied us to the third floor, where I made short work of my search and returned to the second floor. In the second room I entered I found three women, an unlooked-for find, and after a hasty search of the apartment I excused myself as gracefully as I could and retreated in good order.
Passing to another room on the same floor I was surprised anew to find five ladies, as unconcerned as though taking an afternoon tea and indulging in gossip.
My curiosity was piqued. It was not probable that these women all belonged to one household. What common purpose, I queried, had drawn them together?
I retreated again, and soon reached what seemed to be a front-room parlor on the same floor. The room was large, and