My goodness, I'm so thankful to be writing this happy post. I can't even imagine how I'd go about transcribing a loss to THAT TEAM in the form of a war journal. Thankfully, for at least one more year, I don't have to.
GO BUCKS!
Our song for this edition, the Battery L, 1st Ohio Light Artillery song:
Twenty-Fifth November, Year of our Lord Two Thousand Seventeen
Dearest Shelley,
And now the rains shall come, and sing the dead to soft dreams of a land beyond the anguish of war.
We have won. There is yet another battle or two to come, but we have won today. The Army of Michigan fought a ferocious delaying action against us, and for longer than a moment it seemed nigh-certain that our attack would falter, our lines would be broken, and the defenses of Ann Arbor would hold. When, at the height of the battle, Captain Barrett fell with a debilitating injury, a hush fell over our ranks, and it seemed that for the first time since I assumed command of this grand army, our archrivals to the north would have the better of us.
But Sergeant Haskins took up his fallen captain’s regimental standard, and, beating his breast and letting loose an ear-splitting warcry, led a reinvigorated charge into the heart of the enemy lines. This foray shattered their defensive front, splintered a squadron of cavalry, and captured a battery of field guns that had been laying down a withering barrage of grapeshot on our flanks. As we closed in on the limits of the town of Ann Arbor, General Harbaugh set off his traps: buried explosives, packs of rabid wolverines, and trenches filled with kerosene set ablaze to delay our advance. However ingenious his traps might have been, it was a series of critical blunders by his junior officers, namely Captain O’Korn, whose bungling of a simple rearguard action led to the collapse of their entire left flank, which in turn allowed us to envelope them.
The host of Michigan broken, from there they could only mount paltry resistance to our forces, who mopped up the remaining pockets of men and captured whatever officers they could find. While Ann Arbor has fallen, it is with great regret that I tell you that we failed to capture General Harbaugh. Just when he was surrounded by a platoon under the command of Sergeant Weber, that wily devil threw down a powerful smoke bomb and slipped away in the resulting confusion.
His escape changes little however, for the threat to the immediate north is gone. With both of Michigan’s warring generals defeated and the Army of Iowa humbled some weeks ago by the Army of Wisconsin, General Chryst’s army to the northwest stands as our only remaining opposition.
Just now I have received a missive from Chryst, offering to make a gentleman’s go of it. I have accepted his offer, and our two armies will meet on the plains of Indiana. Whether Captain Barrett will be healthy enough to fight again has yet to be seen, but in either case we have a great young officer in the making in young Dwayne Haskins. He may yet lead us to victory over Wisconsin, and—if the fates are kind—perhaps much more than that.
Yours forever,
General Urban Francis Meyer
