Friends Of Resaca Battlefield

03/24/2026

12/19/2025

"Mister, Here's Your Mule"
A catch phrase noted in several Civil War histories.
Several differing accounts of the origin of the phrase are given. The most common involves soldiers in a camp taking a clever peddler's unattended mule and hiding it. When the peddler discovers the mule missing, he goes around the camp inquiring about it. After a while, a soldier would holler, "Mister, here's your mule." When the peddler went toward the call, a soldier in another part of the camp would yell the same, "Mister, here's your mule." That continued and took the peddler all over the camp. Variation of the story supposedly took place at the Camp of Instruction in Jackson, Tennessee, Beauregard's camp at Centreville, Virginia, and others. Another explanation of this phrase ascribes it to a man who found a mule, reported by a Southern newspaper. (Wikipedia)
Having spent the winter in Dalton, Georgia, Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Tennessee would be making preparations for the spring campaign. A large part of that would be issuing transportation for supplies and material needed for the army.
This page shows mules as the mainstay (and some horses) for a lot of these Battalions and Brigades. Infantry and Artillery.

12/19/2025

This is a small image from a much larger map - "Catoosa County map with parts of Whitfield and Walker Counties from September 12th, 1863(?)" from the Library of Congress-https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3923c.cw0132400/?r=-0.305,-0.067,1.505,0.891,0

This map is an example of one of these field maps made using the Margedant photo reproduction process.
Capt. William C. Margedant was a German American engineer, born in Dusseldorf, Germany (then Prussia), educated in
Germany, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1854, who had volunteered in 1861 and organized a company for service in the
Union army. He was later appointed to the topographical engineers on the staff of Gen. William Starke Rosecrans. It was while serving on Rosecrans’ staff that he invented a method of duplicating maps in the field.
It consisted of a light box containing several india-rubber baths, fitting into one another with the proper supply of chemicals. Printing was done by tracing the required map on thin paper and laying it over a sheet coated with nitrite of silver. The sunlight passing through the tissue paper blackened the prepared paper except under the ink lines, which produced a white map on black background. By this process, copies from the drawing -paper map could be made as new information was received, and there could be several updated editions during the same day. "Before Union troops left Chattanooga heading south into Georgia, commanding generals, each had received a bound copy of the map, and before we struck the enemy, every brigade, division, and corps commander in the three armies had a copy". (History of the Army of the Cumberland (1875)

In the Ringgold area, on the map, you can see (Old) Stone Church. Photo attached of the church from Kurtz collection taken in 1953. And a current photo. The Church houses a Civil War museum and library and is operated by the Catoosa County Historical Society. https://catoosahistory.org/ A must see when you're in the area.

12/18/2025

A. Barrail, a member of the 5th Company Washington Artillery, being recovered from the battlefield at Pine Mountain. He was transferred to the Confederate Cemetery at Marietta. From list recorded - September 21, 1867.
Philip Stephenson, also a member of the unit, wrote of Barrail's death at Pine Mountain on June 14, 1864.

12/09/2025

Charge at Resaca ! Article by W.S. Bicknell of the 80th Indiana Infantry on his experience at the Battle of Resaca, from an article in the Commercial Vincennes newspaper, May 17, 1889. Silhouette of a charging officer on horseback in the fog from the Resaca Battlefield Historic Site last Saturday.

12/02/2025

One page (of many) from disinterment list of Union dead on the Resaca Battlefield. These men were buried on the Scales, Rooker, Sprague and Harris properties. Killed on the north end of the battlefield on May 15th, 1864. The 147th Pennsylvania Infantry were in Charles Candy's Brigade of John Geary's 2nd Division of the 20th Corps. The 29th Pennsylvania were in David Ireland's Brigade in Geary's Division, 20th Corps also. These men would be exhumed in 1866-67 and taken for burial at the Marietta National Cemetery in Marietta , Georgia.
Part of report listing his casualties from Colonel William Richards Jr, 29th Pennsylvania Infantry :

" … May 15, marched with division to right of Fourth Corps, and were in reserve to support Butterfield's division. Moved up and occupied a hill in front of a strong breast-work of the rebels, which we were ordered to charge in column by regiments. My regiment had the advance. I was ordered by General Geary to push on, and the supporting regiments would follow. Passing over the Third Division, which lay in our front, I soon arrived within close range of the enemy, who, aroused by the cheering of the Third Division as we passed over them, were fully prepared and met us with a destructive fire. I ordered my men to lie down and pick off their men. On ascertaining that no support was coming, I ordered my men to move back, and took my former position. I then learned for the first time that the order for the charge had been countermanded. The loss of the regiment in this charge was 6 men killed (Higbee, McCauly, Powell, Hunter, Sharp, and Andrew O'Donnell, no grave) and 53 wounded. At 4 p. m. Stevenson's division of rebels charges our front line, but was driven back."
-from War of the Rebellion: Serial 073 Page 0307 Chapter L. REPORTS, ETC.-ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND.

Martin Higbee's widow, Martha Lynn Higbee, received a Widow's pension. She was 19 years of age in 1864 when applying for the pension. His son, Martin Higbee, born 27 April 1863, received a Minor's pension. They lived in Philadelphia.