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 "If you'd just stop and think a minute, you'd "I'm not sure, young feller, if you'd a been "If you'd a laid all night on frosty ground, If you'd a listened to the screechin' shell "Just think o' Grant an' Sherman an' the men, 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 An' tramped so much in swamps of ice an' cold "Nothin' but an old soldier? A dog tent "Nothin' but an old soldier? old an' gray. I guess your right young man in what you say; For if their steps are slow their hearts are true." 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 |