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Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1, Chapter 5: graduation from the United States Military Academy, 1854; brevet Second Lieutenant in Ordnance Department, 1855-56 (search)
ers, both for officers and men; a garden five times as large as the one we left; perfect roads, well shaded, and fruit trees in abundance. Only five or six enlisted men were allowed, but at the head of them was Sergeant McGregor, a Scotchman of great native talent, who not only knew how to put before you in perfect order all the papers that pertained to the commanding officer, the quartermaster, commissary, and the surgeon, but could refresh you at any time with the most apt quotations from Burns. McGregor had but one drawback. It may be stated in this way: That he was fond of preparing fireworks to properly celebrate the Fourth of July, and it was exceedingly difficult for him to use the alcohol essential to that operation without some of it getting into his mouth. The wounds without cause that afterwards marked his face and the humility that came into his heart were consequent. When I forgave him out and out, only subjecting him to a brief sermon, his gratitude reached the high
Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1, Chapter 6: in Florida, 1856-57, and the Seminoles (search)
, in military company our attention was called to the point where General Harney had been surprised by the Indians and obliged to escape in his night clothes. There he had had some forty men killed. We were shown where he ran down the river some seven or eight miles and was saved by being taken off in a skiff. Against a head wind we made our way, and at last, between eight and nine o'clock at night, landed at Fort Myers. How kind the officers were in those days to one another I Lieutenant W. W. Burns, though he had never seen me before, extended to me his hospitality. From his quarters I promptly visited my commander, General Harney. Harney was very cordial and evidently glad to see me. He rose before me like a giant, six feet and a half, straight and well proportioned; said at one time to have been the handsomest man in the service. He was already gray, with just enough red in his whiskers to indicate what they had been in their best days. His characteristics were peculiar;
Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1, Chapter 16: the battle of Fair Oaks (search)
igade under General Gorman, Sully's regiment, the First Minnesota, went to the right to secure that flank and the other three to the left of Couch's line. Kirby's guns, as fast as they arrived, and two guns under Lieutenant Fagan, of a Pennsylvania battery on the ground, went into action at once, facing toward Fair Oaks, i. e., in front of the left of Couch's line with their own right at the corner of a grove; behind this grove Couch's infantry line extended. Sedgwick's second brigade, W. W. Burns in command, was formed in reserve and the two regiments present of the third brigade, General Dana commanding, extended the front farther to the left from the flank of Gorman. Soon the firing was tremendous. This was the interruption — the check to the advance of the Confederate left — which came to them so suddenly. Then there was a brief pause, when General Whiting with his own, Pettigrew's, and Hampton's brigades faced to the left and attacked our troops in line of battle from the
Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1, Chapter 17: Second battle of Bull Bun (search)
al. By August 27th I had found my way to Sumner's corps, then at Falmouth. Stern as he was by nature and habit, he received me kindly; gave me a seat at his mess table, and Colonel Taylor, his adjutant general, surrendered to me his own bed for the night. My old brigade gave me every demonstration of affection; but thinking that I would never return to the army, Sumner had caused General Caldwell to be assigned to it. He quickly offered me another brigade in Sedgwick's division. General Burns, its commander, wounded at Savage Station, was away, and I was put in his place. It was the California brigade of Colonel Baker, who fell at Ball's Bluff. On the 28th Sumner's corps was moved up to Alexandria and went into camp in front of that city near the Centreville Pike, where we had early news of Jackson's raid and shared the capital's excitement over that event. Toward the evening of the 29th, when so many of our comrades were falling on the plains of Manassas, General Hall
Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1, Chapter 19: the battle of Antietam; I succeed Sedgwick in command of a division (search)
ell to me. It had good troops. Though losing heavily in our futile effort to change front before D. H. Hill, the division was speedily re-formed in the edge of the East woods and gave a firm support to the numerous batteries which now fired again with wonderful rapidity and effect. We prevented all further disaster except the loss for the third time that day of those mysterious West woods. I have a further picture. It is of a ravine in the West woods, where my own staff and that of General Burns sat upon their horses near me, just in rear of my waiting line, when the round shot were crashing through the trees and shells exploding rapidly over our heads, while the hissing rifle balls, swift as the wind, cut the leaves and branches like hail, and whizzed uncomfortably near our ears. Astonishing to tell, though exposed for an hour to a close musketry fire, though aids and orderlies were coming and going amid the shots, seemingly as thick as hail, not one individual of this group
Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1, Chapter 21: battle of Fredericksburg (search)
ter dark. Once the Confederates attempted to move out and turn one of Couch's divisions, when our Ferrero's brigade drove them back to their cover of stone walls and rifle pits. Many valuable lives were lost in that sharp work. At 3 P. M. W. W. Burns's division crossed Deep Run and tried at Franklin's request to give what help it could. By four o'clock Willcox, while the fire was at its height, thought he might create some diversion for my men who were plainly seen from his point of obsand men. At first, Burnside, saddened by the repulse of his attacks in every part of his lines, planned another battle for the 14th. His heart naturally went out to the old Ninth Corps that he had but lately commanded. Willcox brought back Burns's division from Franklin and prepared the Ninth Corps to make the next main assault. Positions for six batteries of artillery had been carefully selected to break the way for the first infantry charge and support it by strong cannon firing. But