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Table of Contents:
Chapter
47
: freedmen's aid societies and an act of congress creating a Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands
Chapter
55
:
first
appropriation by congress for the bureau; the reconstruction Act,
March
2
,
1867
; increase of educational work
Chapter
60
: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the
Congregational Church of
Washington
Chapter
62
: life in
Washington, D. C.
,
1866
to
1874
; assigned to duty in regular army as commander,
Department of the Columbia
Chapter
63
: in the
Northwest
, among the
Indians
; trip to
Alaska
; life in
Portland, Ore.
;
1874
to
1881
Chapter
64
: superintendent of the
United States military Academy
; commanding
Department of the Platte
,
Omaha, Neb.
Chapter
68
:
French
army maneuvers,
1884
; promotion to
Major General
,
United States army
,
San Francisco
1886
-
88
[33] Very early on the 27th Kilpatrick drew out first and pressed on rapidly in order, if possible, to drive the enemy's outposts, scouts, and cavalry beyond the West Point Railroad. Feeling himself so well backed up, Kilpatrick was this time successful in holding on to the railroad. Getting upon the railroad by twelve o'clock noon, I deployed in the usual manner, intrenched enough for protection in case of surprise, with the hamlet of Fairburn in plain sight. I put Kilpatrick out on our approaches so as to give us plenty of warning; Ransom was placed in reserve. Very soon the lively work of railroad breaking was undertaken. We could see different parties of the road destroyers; one party, now standing in a line, seized the rails and lifted all together, causing a long span to come up and be broken apart; another party, catching the ties, threw them upon a log fire to ruin them. Upon the top of a heap others piled the rails, each to be heated in the middle. Another group would run with a rail and push its hot part against a telegraph pole or tree, and run around the trunk in opposite directions. The most effective disabling of a rail was done by using two short hand bars with a contrivance at one end of each to seize and hold the rail fast; two men at each hand bar turning the rail in opposite directions would make a twist. Two such twists prevented the use of a rail till it had gone again to a rolling mill. Schofield had moved a little, enough to free his command for speedy work, and watched toward the east and north to cover all trains. Thomas had chasseed to the left, and he came up abreast of me at Red Oak Station; and we all, in the manner we have indicated, spent a day and a half crippling the West
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