Transcribed from the Belleville Daily Advocate July 24, 1905 How Logan won the name of Black Eagle History of how John A. Logan won famous name of Black Eagle and faithfulness of his wife who recently gave state mementoes. It was just forty-one years ago Saturday when Gen. John A. Logan, the Black Eagle of Illinois, immortalized himself on the field of battle. July 22 was a day never to be forgotten by those who took part in the great Atlanta campaign. Hood and his great army slipped out from their works in and around Atlanta and fell like a human cyclone on the left flank of the 17th Corps and doubled it up like a jackknife. In the whirling tempest Gen. McPherson was shot dead from his horse, and Shermans entirely annihilated. It was the most stirring and exciting event and the most critical period in the history of the Atlanta campaign. Inside an hour from the time McPherson fell it seemed that the entire army was aware of the terrible catastrophe and the awful disaster struck terror to the hears of the bravest of brave. But there was a man for the emergency and that man was the Black Eagle of Illinois, who immediately, in the midst of the tempest of shot and shell, took command of the demoralized army and snatched a glorious victory from the very jaws of defeat. Logans presence on that day was an inspiration and his magnificent personality rallied the boys as they never rallied before. The stars in Old Glory never shone brighter than they did when they emerged from the field and smoke and flame, where thousands fell. In front of the 17th Corps the blue and gray were piled windrows. While brigades and regiments were decimated and divisions lost their identity. It was a death grapple, on which hinged the fate of Shermans campaign. It was a time when every man did his duty, but high beyond all that great day was the figure of Logan on his black charger sweeping along these serried lines of blue, shouting to his shattered hosts: Remember your mammies, boys, and giveem hell! And those who were with Logan on that far-off day realized what Sherman said war was. There was no grander, braver or more skilled commander in Shermans army than was the Black Eagle of Illinois. If he was good enough to command an army and win victory when defeat stared us in the face, he was also good enough to have remained commander of that army till the close of the awful struggle. And when Sherman displaced him with O.O. Howard, just because he (Howard) was a West Pointer, old Tecumseh made a sore spot in the heart of every volunteer in the Army of the Tennessee. But Logan was not a knocker, or a sulker. He was every inch a soldier from the crown of his head to the sole of the his feet and on every battlefield from Cairo to Atlanta his presence was an inspiration to those who fought and died where glory and the old flag pointed the way. And there was and is another Logan dear to the soldiers of Illinois, and that is his widow, Mrs. John A. Logan, one of the grandest types of American womanhood. From the hour that treason struck the first blow against the walls of Fort Sumter in 1861 till the rebel banners were forever furled at Appomattox, this grand woman stood by John A. Logan, her illustrious husband, who won deathless fame on the field of battle and in the halls of congress. Only a few days ago, in the company with Governor and Mrs. Deneen and Gen. T.W. Scott, she visited Memorial Hall, at the Illinois Statehouse, and stood before the shot-torn banner of the Generals old regiment, the 31st Illinois, the flag under which he began his illustrious career. Who can tell what a flood of memories flashed across the soul of that noble woman, whose head is today crowned with the unmelted snow of more than seventy winters? Who can imagine her thoughts as her eyes rested on the shining banner where are inscribed Belmont, Donaldson, Raymond, Champion Hill, Vicksburg, Fayetteville, Atlanta, Kennesaw Mountain, Lovejoy Station, March to the Sea and other fierce and bloody fields where the boys of the old shot treason to death and by their valor made the name of Logan illustrious for all time and crowned his name with a fame that belongs to the ages. Without the name of the Black Eagle of Illinois the history of the civil war would be incomplete, for Not without they wondrous story, Illinois, Illinois, Could be writ the nations glory, Illinois. In the record of the years Abraham Lincolns name appears, Grant and Logan and our tears, Illinois.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 21:24:30 +0000
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