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OF THE

99TH INDIANA INFANTRY

Containing Official Reports, Anecdotes,

Incidents, Biographies and

Complete Rolls,

UNIV. OF

BY

CHAPLAIN D. R. LUCAS.

ROCKFORD, ILL.:

HORNER PRINTING CO..

1900.

BY CHAPLAIN D. R. LUCAS..

[NOTE. An old soldier went limping along the street, when a stalwart young man said to a companion who asked who and what he was, "Nothing but an old Soldier!" This is the old soldier's reply.]

"Nothing but an old soldier? what is that
That you're a sayin' about me so pat?-
Well, I guess you're right, I am gettin' old,
But after all a feller don't like bein' told
That he's nothin' else, ez if he was to blame
For bein' old, an' broken-down an' lame.

"If you'd just stop and think a minute, you'd
Not wonder if I was a little skewed,
An' out o'kilter, an' have some creaky ways
About my walkin', -there was some other days
When it was diff'rent, when I stood up straight,
An' walked a middlin' fair an' steady gait.

"I'm not sure, young feller, if you'd a been
Where I have been an' seen what I have seen,
If you'd a been with me an' felt the pain
O' marchin' day an' night in slush an' rain,
If you'd a follered Grant an' Sherman, too,
If your gait now would be so straight an' true.

"If you'd a laid all night on frosty ground,
An' carried gun an' knapsack an' forty round,
If you'd a stood in line an' heard the zip
O' Minnie bullets give your ear a tip,

If you'd a listened to the screechin' shell
I don't think now you'd feel so awful well.

"Just think o' Grant an' Sherman an' the men,
Who led us in the days o' battle; then
Just think that all o' them are dead an' gone,
An' that my earthly race is nearly run,

An' you'll not wonder if I'm lame;

Time enough and you'll be so just the same.

"Nothin' but an old soldier? It may be
I'm too sens'tive, as others cannot see
The past as it appears to such as me,
Who followed Billy Sherman to the sea,

An' tramped so much in swamps of ice an' cold
That bunions ever since have had a hold.

"Nothin' but an old soldier? A dog tent
Ain't the best o'shelter in the event
Of cold an' stormy weather anywhere,
An' yet I was compelled to winter there
For three long winters, an' you may know
Rheumatic legs make walkin' rather slow.

"Nothin' but an old soldier? old an' gray.

I guess your right young man in what you say;
There aint no title that a man can wear
For honored service than the soldiers bear,
The men who wore the royal union blue,

For if their steps are slow their hearts are true."

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INTRODUCTION.

Thirty-five years will have passed away by June 5, 1900, since the survivors of the 99th Indiana Volunteer Infantry were mustered out of the service of the United States, after three years of active military life. As the regiment marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, at the grand review of the army on May 24, 1865, the 942 men that once composed its rank and file were not all there. One hundred and eighty-eight, or twenty per cent. of the number, were not in line, for the hands that once so proudly grasped the sword, or the musket, were cold and still,

"Under the sod and dew, waiting the judgment day."

One hundred and sixty-four, or seventeen per cent. had been discharged on account of wounds, or disability incurred in the service, many of them to go with halting steps for a few years and then to go in feebleness down to the grave.

Twenty-seven of them by their longings for home and the bad advice of friends there, gave up their manhood and deserted the ranks. Their names will not appear in this history, for it is enough that they are preserved in the archives of the nation. They were nearly all the first winter in West Tennessee and each company had one or more, five being the greatest number from any company.

Seventy-one of the number that were mustered out with the regiment bore the scars of the wounds they received in battle, and those that survive still have these mementoes of their valor and devotion.

To write the history of a body of such men and, do it in any measure commensurate with their patriotic valor and heroic service, is a task from which one might shrink, but the feeling that it should be done, and that the

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