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 Contents vii

Sexism and Intersectionality: Prospects for a Double Negative 324

Intersectionality: Black and Hispanic Women 325
Intersectionality: Lesbians’ Challenge for Equality 330
Intersectionality: Poor Immigrant Women 332
Intersectionality: Black Students in Special-Education Programs 335
Conclusion 338

Part 3 Addressing Inequalities

Chapter 11 ASTRIDE WITH THE BEST AND THE WISEST 348

Contemplating Strategies for Change 348
Critical Arenas 352
The Schooling Revolution 352
The Revitalization of the Economy 356
Another Way 360
Conclusion 362

Photo Credits 367

Glossary 368
Index 374
This page intentionally left blank
 PREFACE
The title for this book and the subject matter are conventional, but I have sometimes used
less common types of sources to help reveal the workings of social inequality and social
stratification. They are:
• Historical information: Whether the topic is the upper class, the poor, women,
or racial minorities, it seems informative to provide historical material. Significant
subjects such as the way wealthy individuals deal with the government or the middle
class’s treatment of the poor or the working class are not patterns that materialized
full blown in the twenty-first century. The history of such patterns reveals important
clues about why their significance persists. It is comparable to witnessing an actual
conversation about a topic instead of just its terse ending. In Chapters 3 and 5 to 10,
an opening section examines major historical events that have influenced current
trends. For students the material can be both interesting and instructive.
• Qualitative data: To augment the steady flow of quantitative information that
forms the foundation of analyses throughout the text, qualitative sources help re-
veal individuals’ and small groups’ thoughts and activities that accompany people’s
struggles with the socioeconomic order. Such research is particularly helpful in
displaying the complexity of intersectionality, which addresses the impact of two or
more statuses on women’s lives.
• A consistent conceptual skeleton: Individuals’ success in stratified settings often
relies heavily on their access to valued resources—types of capital which involve
finances, schooling, social networking, and cultural influences. Analyzing the
impact of capital types throughout the text helps map out the prospects for indi-
viduals, families, and also classes to maintain or alter their economic, political, and
social prospects. A steady flow of additional theories or concepts often plays a
contributory role.
The text divides into three parts. The opening section contains four foundational
chapters, namely an introduction, one about theory emphasizing the centrality of a con-
flict perspective, another that examines the development and impact of globalization,
and a fourth that discusses the conceptual and structural elements underlying social
inequality and social stratification. The following six chapters provide portraits of the
major Americans classes as well as analyses of how race and gender link to inequalities in
the United States. The last chapter considers attempts to reduce social inequality.
At the end of each chapter, I have included a list of important concepts that are
highlighted in the previous pages along with discussion topics, research papers, and
relevant websites. Clearly there are more activities here than most courses will use. My
intention is to give instructors a variety of choices.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Karen Hanson has been a very effective editor with various contributions to this project.
A special thanks to Maggie Brobeck at Pearson, Chitra Ganesan at PreMediaGlobal, and
Shirley Jackson at Southern. I am also grateful to Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob for
ix
x Preface

their continuous support. In addition, in doing what she always does—commenting on

the entire manuscript and serving as a frequent sounding board—Teresa Carballal has
probably been more valuable than ever before. Many thanks to the talented reviewers
for this project—Diane Kayongo-Male (South Dakota State University), Steve Marson
(University of North Carolina at Pembroke), and Tanetta Andersson (Case Western
Reserve University).
Anyone with a comment or question should contact me at [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
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CHAPTER 1
The Road to Social Inequality:
A Conceptual Introduction

In Raggedy Dick by Horatio Alger, Jr., the hero, a young bootblack, jumped from
a ferry boat into turbulent waters after a small boy, who had fallen overboard. Dick
nearly drowned but managed to save the boy and received praise for his courageous act.
Shortly afterward the boy’s father, who conveniently owned a counting house (account-
ing firm), gave Dick a job at $10 a week—three times what he earned as a bootblack
(Alger 1985, 127). The lad was on his way.
Such fortunate developments typically happened to Alger’s heroes. They were hard-
working, ambitious, intelligent, generous, honest, street-wise, opportunistic boys deter-
mined to advance themselves from modest origins to elevated positions in society. Inner
drive and talent were the primary reasons for their positive outcomes. In Struggling
Upward, Alger indicated that his hero had elevated himself from poverty to wealth—that
luck played a role, “but above all he . . . [was] indebted for most of his good fortune to
his own good qualities” (Alger 1985, 280).
In the late nineteenth-century era of wide-ranging economic inequality, Alger’s
host of well over a hundred novels about dedicated, high-minded poor young white
boys relentlessly seeking fortune and fame was very popular. Many Americans firmly
believed that they lived in a land of open opportunity, where the virtue of hard work
inevitably produced the rewards of wealth, power, and prestige—“rags to riches” as the
phrase goes.
But while such transformations have occurred, the position throughout this book is
that select groups—higher-class members, whites, and males—have had better opportu-
nities and, therefore, more extensive rewards—than lower-class people, racial and ethnic
minorities, and women.
This text’s mission is to examine the processes that have produced and sustained
those inequalities. Besides the conventional quantitative studies and statistics, the up-
coming chapters contain both historical and qualitative sources, broadening and deep-
ening the reader’s grasp of the topics at hand. In addition, the relentless use of certain
concepts—social reproduction and four types of capital, which are introduced in this
chapter—help to structure a coherent overall organization and to reveal “the fine print”
of American social inequality and social stratification. At this juncture it is necessary to
introduce the course’s most fundamental concepts.

1
2 Part 1 • The Foundation of Social Stratification and Social Inequality

Sociologists recognize the prevalence of social inequality, a situation in which

individuals, families, or members of larger structures like neighborhoods or cities vary
in access to such valued resources as wealth, income, education, healthcare, and jobs.
Sometimes people’s inequalities can change—for instance, a large number of working-
class individuals might obtain a substantial pay boost, raising their wages as well as
their ranking among the nation’s earners. Like the members of all classes, however, their
location in the class structure, which is a prominent type of social stratification, generally
remains fairly stable when compared to the previous generation’s.
Any society displays social stratification, a deeply embedded hierarchy providing
different groups varied rewards, resources, and privileges and establishing structures and
relationships that both determine and legitimate those outcomes.
Most people within a given society consider that its social-stratification systems
represent the natural order of things. Respondents in various studies have indicated that
people possessing greater wealth and power tend to have a range of more desirable
traits than those who are less affluent or powerful (Beeghley 2008; Chan and Goldthorpe
2007; Della Fave 1980). This text examines class, racial, and gender stratification. Within
the American class system, middle-class individuals’ chances for advanced education and
high-paying jobs have been better than working-class people’s opportunities. A persistent
suspicion expressed throughout the text is that growing economic inequality between
affluent members of the upper and upper-middle class, and people in other classes is a
precursor of a stratification system featuring a smaller middle class and concomitantly a
larger working class. All in all, systems of class, racial, and gender stratification provide
the conceptual foundations for analyzing trends in social inequalities.
A third central concept is ideology, which is the complex of values and be-
liefs that support a society’s social-stratification systems and their distribution of wealth,
income, and power. The American ideology, which emphasizes the centrality of in-
dividual achievement, equal opportunity, and the importance of hard work, receives
politicians’, business leaders’, and media spokespeople’s frequent endorsement, but the
actual workings producing social inequalities and social stratification tend to remain
unexamined—the fine print hidden behind the ideology’s bold public claims. As the
world’s wealthiest nation, one might expect that the United States would spend more
on its impoverished members, resulting in less social inequality than in other developed
nations. Such a conclusion, however, overlooks the powerful influence of the country’s
ideology, which both lionizes individuals fixated on the pursuit of wealth and criticizes,
even demonizes, the less successful, particularly the poor. The potency of American ide-
ology will be apparent throughout the text, which provides various measures to show
that among developed nations the United States has some of the highest levels of social
inequality.
This chapter describes the development of the global economy and its impact on
the American workforce. Then discussion focuses on certain central concepts, social
reproduction and forms of capital, which analyze the process providing some people
better opportunities and rewards than others. Finally sociological research comparing
working-class and middle-class schooling illustrates these concepts.
Much of this chapter, in fact most of this text, focuses on the United States. As a
foundation for understanding social inequality in American society, however, it is essen-
tial to lead off with a broader view of major developments since World War II. Then the
discussion returns to a decidedly more sociological analysis.
 Chapter 1 • The Road to Social Inequality: A Conceptual Introduction 3

THE RISE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

Globalization is the increasing integration of nations in an age featuring highly reduced
costs for communication and transportation along with the lowering of such “artificial
barriers” as treaties or tariffs restricting the movement of goods, services, financial capital,
and technology across borders (Stiglitz 2002, 9–10). Multinational corporations, many of
which are American based, have been driving forces in globalization, demonstrating that
the largely unregulated movement internationally of capital, goods, and technology leads
to accelerated profit making.
Is globalization new? The term is fairly new, with the verb “globalize” first appearing
in the Merriam Webster Dictionary in 1944. However, early efforts toward globalization
reach back thousands of years. For instance, in 325 BCE, merchants established overland
trade routes between the Mediterranean, Persia, India, and central Asia (Ludden 2008).
Since the 1970s, however, a greatly expanded globalization process has developed. While
globalization involves a variety of issues, including education, agriculture, or infrastruc-
ture, the current emphasis is on the economic dimension, which powerfully impacts
social inequality.
Globalization has produced certain distinct economic changes. First, many nations
once considered underdeveloped have begun producing quality goods. Computer-based
manufacturing plants located in southeast Asia and Latin America have started to compete
favorably with factories in developed countries in western Europe and North America,
pressuring American corporate executives to downsize or close their plants. Second, at
present advanced technology helps coordinate international economic activities. Because
of the use of both modern computers and telecommunications, multinational corpora-
tions can decentralize their activities, locating subsidiaries around the world and effec-
tively monitoring their activities from corporate headquarters. Finally the global economy
has created an international workforce, with both white- and blue-collar jobs susceptible
to being shipped overseas. The option to use alternative workers gives corporate execu-
tives greater clout when negotiating American employees’ wages and benefits.
The global economy has rapidly expanded trade over time, with the wealthier
nations leading the way. The estimate is that about two thirds of international financial
transactions involve the United States, western Europe, and Japan (Brecher, Costello, and
Smith 2000, 2–3; Perrucci and Wysong 2008, 109).
At the end of World War II, the international economic picture was distinctly differ-
ent. Most prominent nations possessed severely damaged economies and infrastructures
that made them incapable of effectively providing food, shelter, and other basic necessi-
ties to their citizenry. The major exception to this outcome was the United States, which
emerged from the war with its economy intact, ready to undertake a massive interna-
tional business expansion. For nearly 30 years, the United States controlled three quarters
of the world’s invested capital and two thirds of its industry. The government helped
subsidize this dominance, developing a $22 billion foreign aid package to western
Europe known as the Marshall Plan. The funding was earmarked for purchasing American
agricultural and industrial products and bringing European nations into a global federa-
tion headed by the United States—both moves that helped solidify the preeminence of
American business.
Global economics, however, has seldom been a stable entity. By the middle 1970s,
the once war-ravaged nations of western Europe and Japan had recovered and were
4 Part 1 • The Foundation of Social Stratification and Social Inequality

becoming rising industrial powers. As a result these countries were less inclined to import
American industrial and agricultural goods. Meanwhile the profits of US corporations
declined in the domestic market, falling from a return on investment of 15.5 percent in
the late 1960s to below 10 percent after 1975.
Who or what is responsible for the decline? Corporate leaders, politicians, and
media spokespeople have criticized various groups for contributing to the American
business slowdown—organized labor for pushing too hard for salaries and benefits,
thereby making American products too expensive for the competitive market; American
workers, whether unionized or not, for being overpaid, complacent, and prone to shoddy
production; and increased environmental and health-and-safety legislation for raising
business costs.
What such corporate leaders and media spokespeople have conveniently ignored
is the fact that American business ventures usually focus on short-term profits, largely
abandoning such demanding but effective tactics as purchasing updated, more efficient
technology, building new plants, engaging in research and development, and seeking
new markets. In addition, Congress has established many tariffs, protecting domestic
American business from outside competition. Shielded from that competition, however,
American corporations often operate inefficiently, turning out inferior products, especially
in the automotive industry.
As the global economy developed, American corporate leaders modified their stance
on governmental protection. If they were going to expand their businesses and be wel-
comed abroad, they needed to permit foreign investment at home. These leaders lobbied
Congress to lower tariffs on foreign imports, and between the 1970s and 2000 a steady
decrease occurred (Dye 2002, 18–19; Perrucci and Wysong 2008, 111–13).
Sociologist Richard Sennett designated the global economic system the “new
capitalism,” which features certain novel traits. First, with the collapse of the Bretton
Woods system of monetary management, national boundaries no longer restrict
investors. Now they can seek wealth anywhere on earth. Banks have been major play-
ers, with American, Japanese, and German financial organizations in the forefront.
David Rockefeller, former CEO of the prominent Chase Manhattan Bank, indicated that
if Chase wanted to remain a prominent player in US banking, it had no option but to
engage in the frantic international competition for foreign business (Rockefeller 2002,
197–98). In the twenty-first century, the same competitive pressure has persisted.
Charles O. Prince III, Citigroup’s chief executive, once admitted that he was aware that
his aggressive deal-making would get the financial conglomerate in serious trouble, but
he felt powerless to pull back, declaring, “As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to
get up and dance” (Goodman 2010, 4).
Second, in this expanding market offering accelerated wealth, the new shareholders
have often been impatient, fixated on making quick profits. As later examples in the text
indicate, a frantic rush for profits—a feeding frenzy—can develop when wealthy business
people see a choice prospect of making a lot of money. In this frenetic atmosphere, cor-
porate leaders generally believe that the companies best equipped for profit making are
those that are flexible and dynamic; the traditional ideal of a solid, stable firm no longer
prevails. To promote a quick-profits corporate agenda, executives become increasingly
enamored of downsizing and outsourcing (Sennett 2006, 37–44). For decades, largely
unheeded by most Americans, some expert observers have indicated that American
corporate leaders have acted more like bankers than big-business executives, appearing
 Chapter 1 • The Road to Social Inequality: A Conceptual Introduction 5

more interested in buying and selling companies than in the always demanding but essen-
tial tasks of producing and selling goods and services. Robert Lekachman, an economist,
concluded that corporate leaders “see more opportunities in tax dodges and mergers than
in the painfully slow process of developing new products.” In this revised business set-
ting, only a select few are winners. Lekachman observed that “[w]hat we’re getting now
is investment which rewards stockholders and senior executives and devastates the com-
munities in which corporations operate” (The Business of America . . . 1984).
Globalization has changed people’s economic prospects. The payoff for corpo-
rate leaders and investors has been impressive. American multinationals are positioned
to pursue any competitive advantage, locating plants to benefit from “low wages,
cheaper raw materials, advantageous monetary exchange rates, more sympathetic gov-
ernments, or proximity to markets” (Perrucci and Wysong 2008, 115). Corporations
are not penalized for eliminating US jobs and are allowed to dismiss any employees
as long as discrimination does not occur. In addition, big-business leaders bringing
money earned abroad back to the United States pay a very low tax rate because it is
simply assumed that those profits are used to maintain or create American jobs (Hira
and Hira 2005, 76–81).
American corporate investment in the global economy has expanded rapidly over
time. In 1970 US firms invested $75 billion abroad, with the figure rising to $167 billion
in 1978. Between 1982 and 2007, that dollar value grew steadily, averaging an increase of
over 12 percent per year in the decade between 1999 and 2008 (Ibarra and Koncz 2008;
Jackson 2009). Figure 1.1 provides data that display the expanding American corporate
investment abroad over a 26-year time span.

3,500

3,000

2,500

2,000
Billions in $
1,500

1,000

500

0
1982 1985 1990 1995 2000 2006 2007 2008
Year
FIGURE 1.1 American Corporations’ Investment Abroad over Time

Between 1982 and 2008, corporate investment abroad increased steadily, including a robust 13.3
percent rise between 2007 and 2008. The 2008 figure of $3,162 billion is over 15 times as large as the
$207.8 billion total for 1982.
Sources: Marilyn Ibarra and Jennifer Koncz. 2008. “Direct Investment Positions for 2007: Country
and Industry Detail.” U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. http://www.bea.doc.gov/scb/pdf/2008/07%20
July0708_dip.pdf. James K. Jackson. 2009. “U.S. Direct Investment Aboard: Trends and Current Issues.”
Congressional Research Service. (November 5). http://relooney.fatcow.com/0_New_6184.pdf.
6 Part 1 • The Foundation of Social Stratification and Social Inequality

While globalization provides large corporations huge profits, it has punished many
Americans economically. Sociologists Maxine Baca Zinn and D. Stanley Eitzen indicat-
ed that starting in the middle 1970s, many Americans experienced workforce changes
involving declines in earnings, factory employment, and union support (Zinn and Eitzen
2005, 17). It is hardly surprising that data from the General Social Survey gathered be-
tween 1977 and 2002 indicated that over time, perceived job insecurity has increased,
with workers who are black, less educated, less well paid, or part-time expressing greater
concern (Fullerton and Wallace 2007).
As the book progresses, all of these issues are examined, revealing the specific
conditions causing many in the labor force to lose out. Of the 3.6 million, long-tenured
(three or more years on the job) workers displaced between January 2005 and December
2007, 45 percent lost or left their jobs due to a company or plant leaving, 31 percent had
their positions eliminated, and 24 percent faced insufficient work (U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics 2008b). An additional 4.6 million individuals who were short-tenured (with less
than three years on the job) were displaced during that same time period, producing
a total of 8.2 million individuals removed from their positions (U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics 2008a).
The global economy has had a polarizing impact on American income. As Table 1.1
indicates, between 1980 and 2007, the richest 1 percent of the population increased its
share of income by 14.3 percent, and the top 25 percent boosted theirs by 12 percent. In
contrast, especially to the top 1 percent, the bottom 50 percent has seen its share decline
by 5.5 percent (Prante 2009).
Business leaders’ relative income increases have been particularly impressive.
The ratio of the average chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) annual income compared to
an average worker’s earnings expanded from 24 times as much in 1965 to 107 times
more in 1990, then zoomed to 525 times greater in 2000, and fell to 339 as much
in 2008 year (Collins 2009; Executive PayWatch 2010; Mishel 2006). That last ratio
indicates that the CEO earns as much in scarcely more as half a day than the worker
in a year.

TABLE 1.1 Income Shares of Selected Segments of Tax Payers over Time

Year Top 1% Top 5% Top 25% Bottom 50%

1980 8.5% 21% 56.7% 17.7%
1985 10 22 58 17.3
1990 14 27.6 62.1 15
1995 14.6 28.8 63.4 14.5
2000 20.8 35.3 67.2 13
2005 21.2 35.8 67.5 12.8
2007 22.8 37.4 68.7 12.2
The more affluent the segment of tax payers, the more their share of the national income has increased over
time. Inevitably the reverse pattern applies to the bottom 50 per cent, who over 27 years have received a
dwindling portion.
Source: Gerald Prante. 2009. “Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data.” The Tax Foundation.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html.
 Chapter 1 • The Road to Social Inequality: A Conceptual Introduction 7

Economist Paul Krugman observed that back in the hardship years, when CEOs
scraped by with incomes averaging scarcely 40 times workers’ salaries, they felt grossly
underpaid. Professors at business schools came to the rescue, arguing that CEOs were
being greatly undervalued, treated like bureaucrats who were compensated the same
whether they made money or lost it. To motivate these critical leaders, the professors
argued, companies needed to offer them special incentives. Stock options, opportu-
nities to buy one’s company’s shares, which increase in value if the stock rises, are
widely considered the most effective enticements to motivate business executives to
produce profits and boost stock prices. With such an arrangement, which is seldom
available to business leaders in other countries, these executives have benefited im-
mensely, especially those working for companies which illegally backdate the purchase
date to when the stock price was low, permitting executives to buy much more stock
in a given transaction than the current price allows. As a result since the early 1990s,
the average CEO has become increasingly wealthy even though research indicates that
companies’ profits bear little or no statistical relationship to CEOs’ expanded incentives
(Krugman 2006).
While affluent Americans have done well, the overall economic picture indicates
that this wealthiest nation has had greater economic inequality than other developed
nations. The Gini index, which is a measurement of a nation’s statistical distribution of
income or wealth inequality, verifies this conclusion: The higher a country’s score, the
greater the inequality. In 2010 the Gini index measuring family income was 45 for the
United States and was higher than the scores for 92 other countries, including all the de-
veloped nations—those in western Europe and also Australia, Japan, and New Zealand
(CIA—The World Factbook 2010). A difficulty with the Gini index is that like the system
for rating (football) quarterbacks, its results, while often cited, are complicated to com-
pute and, in fact, the formula is usually unknown to those who use the data.
Another, more easily understood measure of countries’ economic inequality involves
a comparison between the percentage of the national income a wealthy segment and a
poor segment obtain. One study found that between 1970 and 2000 when compared to
individuals in six western European countries, the top 20 percent of Americans in income
had a greater percentage of income and the bottom 20 percent a smaller percentage than
their counterparts in the other nations (Hoff 2002).
A similar result emerges when researchers calculate the income ratio of countries’
10 percent most affluent to the 10 percent least affluent. Among the 24 developed nations
possessing the highest quality-of-life indices, Japan displayed the least disparity between
the richest and poorest tenths, with a ratio of 4.5 for the richest to poorest tenth followed
by the Czech Republic at 5.3 and Finland at 5.6. The United States scored a ratio of 15.9,
obtaining the greatest disparity between the richest and poorest tenth of the 24 major
developed nations on the list (United Nations Development Programme 2009). Table 1.2
provides the comparative ratios for these countries.
The United States not only produces greater economic inequality than other devel-
oped nations but also higher rates of physical and mental illness, lower life expectancy,
and higher crime. Historian Tony Judt concluded that the affluence of a country has
less impact on its citizens than its social inequality. He indicated that inequality is “cor-
rosive,” rotting from the inside and taking some time to reveal itself. He added that: “in
due course competition for status and goods increases” along with “a growing sense of
superiority (or inferiority) based on their possessions” and the hardening of “prejudice
8 Part 1 • The Foundation of Social Stratification and Social Inequality

TABLE 1.2 Ratio of a Developed Nation’s Richest 10 Percent in Income to Its Poorest
10 Percent

Country Ratio Country Ratio

1. Japan 4.5 13. France 9.1
2. Czech Republic 5.3 14. The Netherlands 9.2
3. Finland 5.6 15. Canada 9.4
4. Norway 6.1 15. Ireland 9.4
5. Sweden 6.2 17. Greece 10.2
6. Austria 6.9 18. Spain 10.3
6. Germany 6.9 19. Italy 11.6
8. Korea (Republic of) 7.8 20. Australia 12.5
9. Denmark 8.1 20. New Zealand 12.5
10. Belgium 8.2 22. Israel 13.4
11. Poland 9.0 23. United Kingdom 13.8
11. Switzerland 9.0 24. United States 15.9
Among the major developed nations classified by the United Nations’ Economist Intelligence Unit as having
the leading quality-of-life indices, the United States displayed the highest ratio of the income for the most af-
fluent 10 percent to the income for the least affluent 10 percent. In short, this measurement suggests that the
United States has greater economic inequality than any other developed nations.
Source: United Nations Development Programme. 2009. “Ratio of the Richest 10% to Poorest 10%.” Human
Development Reports. http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/145.html.

toward those on the lower rungs of the social ladder.” In addition, “crime spikes and the
pathologies of social disadvantage becomes even more marked” (Judt 2010, 19). Judt’s is
a broad, bold claim, and yet nothing in this text disputes it.
Presently a small group of scholars has been attempting to determine if economic
inequality might contribute to widespread financial risk and failure. David Moss, a well
known economic historian, learned that striking statistical correlations appeared between
economic inequality and both bank collapses and financial deregulation, which is a
topic in Chapter 4. Specifically, as the Great Depression approached in 1928, the top
10 percent of earners obtained an inordinately high 49.3 percent of all income and the top
1 percent 23.9 percent; in 2007 on the eve of the modern financial crisis, the respective
numbers were impressively close—49.7 and 23.5 percent. The scholars examining this
topic have suspected that such income inequalities might encourage wealthy individuals
to engage in actions that put the entire financial system at risk. For instance, with grow-
ing affluence Wall Street leaders become more powerful, prompting them to push for
increased deregulation and a rising danger of increased financial instability (Story 2010).
For many modern Americans, the impact of social inequality is greatest on the job.
Barbara Garson wrote about “the electronic sweatshop,” representing “a combination of
twentieth-century technology and nineteenth-century scientific management in turning
the . . . [business] of the future into the factory of the past” (Garson 1989, 10).
 Chapter 1 • The Road to Social Inequality: A Conceptual Introduction 9

As a highly successful multinational, Walmart not only produces goods in many countries
but also has retail outlets around the world, including 189 stores in 101 Chinese cities.

Walmart has been a prominent proponent of this approach, applying industrial prin-
ciples to the retail market by combining the use of informational technology with a harsh,
punitive work regime. Walmart’s core technology, known as “enterprise systems” or ES,
uses sophisticated computer hardware and software to standardize and monitor the full set
of tasks a company’s employees perform. With ES, Walmart has electronic tags, sensors,
and “smart” chips to locate products at various steps in the production and distribution
processes. Informed by ES, supervisors and managers “drill down”—an important phrase
in the ES parlance—and immediately locate any potential culprit—a clerk in Omaha
who sent a package to the wrong destination, an inefficient warehouse team in San
Diego, or an underachieving salesperson in Baltimore.
For the corporation’s bottom line, ES has been a huge success. Walmart employees’
productivity has been about 41 percent higher than that of its competitors while
wages have been considerably lower. However, even without ES, most American
businesses have generally followed the same pattern. Between 1995 and 2006,
the national increase in workers’ productivity exceeded the growth in real wages by
340 percent (Head 2007, 42).
Systems like ES produce distinct consequences. To begin, recognizing that their
employers are fixated on the bottom line and consider them dispensable, job holders
often display little loyalty. It is a far cry from the so-called “giving/getting compact” that
prevailed for about three decades after World War II and involved a company’s commit-
ment to fairly certain lifetime employment along with good pay and benefits in exchange
10 Part 1 • The Foundation of Social Stratification and Social Inequality

for workers’ unflagging loyalty and hard work (Yankelovich 1981). One business analyst
suggested that whereas workers and management previously had a shared fate in a stable
marriage, now employees face a lifetime of marriages and divorces, sometimes emerging
better and sometimes worse but with the companies possessing the upper hand in decid-
ing when termination occurs (Hacker 2006, 67).
In particular, trust no longer prevails. Trust involves both formal situations such as
the recognition that the other party in a contract will meet the prescribed standards and
informal trust, which develops gradually over time in fairly stable organizations as indi-
viduals work with each other in a variety of situations including stressful ones. Richard
Sennett illustrated the change in informal trust by describing employees’ response to
accidents that occurred 30 years apart in two industrial corporations. The earlier situation
involved a factory fire, where a circuit of fire hose nozzles broke. The workers knew each
other well enough to function as a smooth team, efficiently putting out the fire while
ignoring the manager’s distracting orders. The later accident resulted from a malfunction-
ing air-conditioning system, which spewed noxious gases. Many individuals panicked
while others wanted to organize but were at a loss how to do it. People did not know
and trust each other well enough to have established a foundation for working together
in this stressful situation (Sennett 2006, 63–72). After the second accident, one manager
was critical of working arrangements, concluding that the plant was only “superficially
organized on paper” (Sennett 2006, 67).
Workers are hardly the only critics of modern big business. Respondents give a
mixed assessment of multinationals, the chief global players. In an international survey by
the McKinsey Quarterly, 68 percent of corporate executives indicated that large corpora-
tions make a generally or somewhat positive contribution to the public good. In contrast,
only 48 percent of consumers concurred (Brown 2007, C5).
Now the focus shifts from the global economy, which provides the setting for
modern social inequality, to an examination of concepts for analyzing that topic.

THE CONCEPTUAL SKELETON: SOCIAL REPRODUCTION

AND THE IMPACT OF CAPITAL TYPES
Do Americans inhabit a social world where large numbers of people are socially mobile,
living out a version of the rags-to-riches story, or do they tend to die in the classes into
which they are born? The focus here is social reproduction, which is an emphasis on
the structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the
next. The definition suggests the relevance of historical analysis, which is the opening
topic in Chapters 4 through 9. Furthermore, research and theory on the topic has tended
to reach a distinct conclusion—which, according to sociologist Jay MacLeod, “attempts to
show how and why the United States can be depicted more accurately as the place where
‘the rich get richer and the poor stay poor’ than as ‘the land of opportunity’” (MacLeod
2009, 7–8). In short, these analyses tend to conclude that the social-stratification system
holds most Americans in place, making it fairly likely that they will end up in class posi-
tions that are similar to their parents’.
Researchers have examined social reproduction in various institutional contexts,
particularly educational ones. Basil Bernstein’s (1990; 2000) British working-class
respondents grew up in homes where shared knowledge and values developed speech
 Chapter 1 • The Road to Social Inequality: A Conceptual Introduction 11

patterns that put them at distinct disadvantage in schools’ more complex middle-class
language settings. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis’s (1976; 2003) research concluded
that with students’ eventual location in the workforce in mind, administrators structured
various schools differently, emphasizing rules and behavioral control for working-class
students but encouraging a more participatory classroom, less supervision, and a larger
set of course electives for their middle-class counterparts. Jay MacLeod’s (2009) infor-
mants were black and white boys growing up in public housing and struggling, usually
unsuccessfully, against impinging circumstances to be successful in school and in the
work world.
Social inequality impacts people both objectively and subjectively (Wacquant
1989, 15). An affluent, upper-class individual might have the optimal financial backing
to subsidize his or her drive for educational and occupational success, but this person
might lack the self-confidence and optimistic outlook that a less affluent, working-class
person possesses. The first person has the objective advantage and the second one the
greater subjective edge. In referring to “habitas,” sociologist Pierre Bourdieu recognized
that subjective outlooks toward social inequality can involve groups or categories. A
habitas is the set of attitudes, behavior, and experiences maintained by the people shar-
ing a distinct social world. The social world can be narrow such as the one inhabited
by neighborhood residents or broad such as that which all working-class women share.
The concept serves as a connector between the inner consciousness and the limitations
or potentials the social world provides, influencing people to act in distinctive ways.
The habitas members of a given class maintain contributes to social reproduction, sus-
taining the existing structures and cultural standards, including class-based inequalities
(Bourdieu 1977b, 82–83; Bourdieu 1998, 8; Giroux 2001, 89; Kusserow 2004, xi; MacLeod
2009, 15).
Other social theorists emphasized that the process is not deterministic, with
“discontinuities, contradictions, and resistance in the reproduction process” (Walford
1986, 183). Social reproduction is a potent reality, but individuals can sometimes elude
it. College students can be successful in this regard. Starting in the early 1970s, many
colleges and universities admitted what became a substantial number of black and
Hispanic students, often providing them financial aid. These sites of higher education
have generally subscribed to the position that they are providing “compensatory spon-
sorship” for disadvantages these students of color have faced. Most of these schools
have not extended such opportunities to low-income white applicants (Grodsky 2007).
However, a substantial number of colleges and universities do take family income
into account, regardless of students’ race. For instance, since 2003 at the University of
Virginia, a financial aid program has assured that low-income students do not need to
take out loans to attend the school (Kinzie 2009).
In addition, college administrators increasingly recognize the difficulties modern stu-
dents face, supplying a variety of timely services that can empower individuals and help
challenge social reproduction. My university, for example, provides an Office of Study
Skill Enrichment, a Writing Center, a Tutorial Center, and Student Supportive Services.
When such facilities and their personnel are effective, students have an improved chance
to develop a positive strategy for success, planning their college lives so that they make
maximum use of opportunities that can advance them. Admittedly times are tough, but
many college personnel are trying to address pressing student problems, reaching out
quickly and firmly to individuals whom they might help.
12 Part 1 • The Foundation of Social Stratification and Social Inequality

What are the key factors that contribute to determining people’s location in social-
stratification systems and whether or not social reproduction occurs? I introduce four of
them in the following section.

Forms of Capital
Capital refers to resources that people possess or acquire, finding them valuable in
various settings (Spillane, Hallett, and Diamond 2003, 3). These capital forms are criti-
cal tools for obtaining economic, political, and social success. In fact, the quantity
and quality of capital available to different classes replicate their location in the class
hierarchy, representing a potent thrust toward social reproduction. Four types of
capital—financial, cultural, human, and social—have been extensively studied and are
interrelated to each other.

FINANCIAL CAPITAL concerns monetary items such as wages and salaries or purchasable
items such as computers or books that can contribute directly or indirectly to obtaining
various valued resources representing other types of capital (Bourdieu 1990, 132–33;
Spillane, Hallett, and Diamond 2003, 4; Young 2004, 59). A direct contribution might be
the expensive purchase of four years of tuition, room, and board at an elite private col-
lege, which is a type of human capital. On the other hand, an indirect contribution might
involve payment for membership in a social club which offers useful contacts (social
capital) that can lead to a job offer or promotion. Financial capital can also subsidize a
lifestyle that influences the content of cultural capital.

CULTURAL CAPITAL comprises broadly shared outlooks, knowledge, skills, and behav-
ior passed from one generation to the next (Bourdieu 1977a; Bourdieu 1990, 124–25;
Kingston 2001, 89–90; Lamont and Lareau 1988; Lareau and Weininger 2003, 587–88;
MacLeod 2009, 13). All adults possess cultural capital, though certain varieties, notably
those maintained by higher classes, are more helpful than others for educational and
occupational success and advancement. Some earlier definitions of the concept indicated
that it should focus on such refined interests as art, music, and etiquette, but sociologists
Annette Lareau and Elliot B. Weininger observed that Pierre Bourdieu, who created the
concept, suggested that cultural capital also incorporates broader capacities such as tech-
nical or interpersonal skills (Lareau and Weininger 2003, 580). Lareau and Weininger’s use
of the term is consistent with Bourdieu’s sense of it. They indicated that in school systems
some parents effectively mobilize their cultural capital—in this instance their experience
and knowledge of how to promote desired educational outcomes—to meet with teachers
and other school personnel to facilitate their children’s successful movement through
the system. Middle-class parents have more appropriate cultural capital for this purpose
than their working-class and poor counterparts (Laureau and Weininger 2003, 596–97).
Families’ cultural capital can affect the human capital their members obtain.

HUMAN CAPITAL involves the attainment of skills, knowledge, and expertise people ac-
quire to be successful in various valued ways (Brooks 2007; Coleman 1988, S100; Spillane,
Hallett, and Diamond 2003, 3; Svendsen and Svendsen 2003, 609; Young 2004, 59).
Individuals usually receive human capital from schooling and job training. In addition,
someone might obtain it from a formal or an informal apprenticeship such as working for
a carpenter, plumber, labor leader, corporate official, judge, or another experienced job
 Chapter 1 • The Road to Social Inequality: A Conceptual Introduction 13

At dinner family members not only share food but also can offer each other information,
ideas, advise, and support—in short, cultural capital.

holder. A developed nation like the United States strongly emphasizes the importance of
schooling, and less educated employees are often disadvantaged in the job world. Sites
for the development of human capital such as the colleges students attend can provide
social capital, with selected individuals and groups becoming valuable contacts.

SOCIAL CAPITAL, often called “social networking,” refers to those individuals, networks,
groups, and organizations that can assist participants in pursuing valued objectives
(Coleman 1988, S98; Furstenberg and Hughes 1995, 581; Kao 2004, 172; Lin 2000, 786;
Portes 1998, 3; Portes 2000, 2–3; Putnam 1995, 664–65; Sennett 2006, 63). Recent uses of
the concept have extended it from a resource individuals or small groups possess to one
located within communities or even nations (Portes 2000, 3–5). People’s social capital—
for instance their relationships with high-status business associates—can help to increase
their financial capital, sometimes dramatically. Finally some social scientists have made
an additional distinction, referring to “political capital” when individuals use social capital
in the political realm (Magno 2008; Robertson 2008). The reference to social capital takes
the interrelations of the four capital types full circle.
Each of the four forms can interact with any other, but one principle about these
interrelations stands out: That in line with the prevailing prospect of social reproduction,
a given individual, family, or community often has a relatively consistent quality of capital
in the four different areas.
14 Part 1 • The Foundation of Social Stratification and Social Inequality

Throughout the text these four types of capital are prominent, displaying influ-
ence in class formation and social reproduction—both at the macro and the micro levels.
Consider how human capital might develop on both dimensions. At the macro level,
the state-controlled system of funding public education, which relies heavily on local
property tax, produces wide variation in the quality of public schools. At a micro level,
classroom activity involving affluent and poor schools is likely to contrast sharply, with
the latter facilities much more likely to display large classes, more inexperienced and less
well-paid teachers, and lower quality learning materials.
The following study on schooling provides an initial chance to see an illustration of
social reproduction, featuring contributions that capital types make to the process.

SOCIAL REPRODUCTION AND SCHOOLING

Historically and even currently, many analysts of American society have described the
education system as the great equalizer—the place where all children, regardless of how
humble their background, can receive the quality schooling that will make occupational
success possible. But is this an accurate observation about American education?
This outlook ignores the role of class. A class is a large category of similarly
ranked people located in a hierarchy and distinguished from other large categories in the
hierarchy by such traits as occupation, education, income, and wealth (Gilbert 2011, 263).
Chapter 2 indicates that some sociologists have defined class differently, most notably
subdividing a nation’s citizens strictly according to their relationship to the economy.
While such classifications have had a major impact on sociological thinking, the present
definition is the foundation for modern sociological usage. In this section and in subse-
quent chapters, it will become apparent that the members of different classes have varied
access to capital sources, affecting their placement in the social-stratification system.
To begin, it is hardly surprising that financial capital affects people’s educational
opportunities. Middle-class families have more money to spend on schooling, using it
for such costs as private schooling, tutoring, or college payments. As Chapter 7 indicates,
insufficient funding is a prominent reason some working-class students leave college.
Financial capital also impacts children’s education in another way. Because the American
system of public-school funding depends heavily on property tax, children in more
affluent residential districts have better schools—smaller classes, better paid teachers, and
higher quality supplies (Frank 2007; Slavin 1999; Warren 2007). Middle-class parents also
possess other advantages that can promote their children’s educational progress.
The family of origin provides cultural capital that can affect children’s schooling suc-
cess in different ways. First, parents have a chance to help their offspring learn both to
reason and to develop verbal skills. In a study of 88 black and white primarily working-
and middle-class children, sociologist Annette Lareau found that middle-class parents were
more inclined than their working-class counterparts to reason with their children—not
simply to give them orders—and to encourage them to engage in thoughtful conversation.
As a result the middle-class students obtained more effective early development of skills
that helped them relate to teachers and peers in school (Lareau 2007, 542–43).
Second, cultural capital also concerns parents’ outlook on their children’s college
attendance. In a study focused on 80 white middle-class and working-class respondents
living in a medium-sized northeastern city, sociologist Thomas Gorman observed that the
respondents’ class membership distinctly predicted the likelihood of obtaining this kind
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
 Vicksburg on Saturday next, and celebrating the Fourth of July
by a grand dinner, and so forth. When asked if he would invite
General Joe Johnston to join, he said, ‘No, for fear there will be
a row at the table.’ Ulysses must get into the city before he
dines in it. The way to cook a rabbit is ’first to catch the rabbit.’”

“Victimized.—We learned of an instance wherein a ‘knight of the

quill’ and a ‘disciple of the black art,’ with malice in their hearts
and vengeance in their eyes, ruthlessly put a period to the
existence of a venerable feline that has for a time, not within
the recollection of ‘the oldest inhabitant,’ faithfully performed
the duties to be expected of him, to the terror of sundry vermin
in his neighborhood. Poor defunct Thomas was then prepared,
not for the grave, but for the pot, and several friends invited to
partake of a nice rabbit. As a matter of course, no one would
wound the feelings of another, especially in these times, by
refusing a cordial invitation to dinner, and the guests assisted in
consuming the poor animal with a relish that did honor to their
epicurean tastes. The ‘sold’ assure us the meat was delicious,
and that pussy must look out for her safety.”

“Mule Meat.—We are indebted to Major Gillespie for a steak of

Confederate beef, alias mule. We have tried it, and can assure
our friends that, if it is rendered necessary, they need have no
scruples at eating the meat. It is sweet, savory, and tender, and
so long as we have a mule left, we are satisfied our soldiers will
be content to subsist upon it.”

As stated, the city was surrendered on the morning of the 4th of

July, and the army of General Grant marched in and took possession.
Some of the Federal soldiers who went into the city entered the
office of the “Citizen,” and finding the type for the paper all set in
the forms, added the following note, and struck off a large number
of copies, which were extensively distributed among our troops:—

“Note (at foot of last column).—July 4, 1863.

 “Two days bring about great changes: the banner of the Union
floats over Vicksburg; General Grant has ‘caught the rabbit’; he
has dined in Vicksburg, and he brought his dinner with him. The
‘Citizen’ lives to see it. For the last time, it appears on wall-
paper. No more will it eulogize the luxury of mule meat and
fricasseed kitten, or urge Southern warriors to such diet
nevermore. This is the last wall-paper edition, and is, excepting
this note, an exact copy of it. It will be valuable hereafter as a
curiosity.”

The author, deeming this paper a curious chapter in the history of

the siege of Vicksburg, has thought it not improper to quote thus
fully from its columns.
 CHAPTER XXII.

The Regiment Marches on Jackson—Jefferson Davis’s House—Siege of

Jackson—The Regiment Under Fire—Evacuation of the City—A Part of
the City is Burnt by the Enemy—Return to Vicksburg—A Hard March
—“French Joe’s” Mule—The Dead of the Regiment—Return to
Cincinnati—March Over Cumberland Mountains to Knoxville, Tenn.

As soon as the siege was concluded, General Grant immediately

turned his attention to General Johnston, who up to this time had
held the line of the Big Black, watching for a chance to strike our
besieging army. The time had now arrived for the Ninth Corps to
perform its part of the work of that memorable campaign. As soon
as General Johnston learned of Pemberton’s surrender, he began to
fall back to Jackson, the capital of the State. The Ninth Corps under
General Parke, together with General Smith’s division of the
Sixteenth Corps, and General W. T. Sherman’s own corps, all under
command of General Sherman, were ordered by General Grant to
pursue the retreating enemy. This movement began as early as the
evening of the 4th of July, but the Brigade of Colonel Christ did not
commence to move till the afternoon of the 7th, the Twenty-ninth
leaving camp at two o’clock in the afternoon. Toward nightfall the
Big Black was reached, the men crossing the river on a floating
bridge which had been constructed by the advance forces. The
march was continued for into the night, no halt being made till
twelve o’clock. The day had been severely hot, and a large number
of the men were left beside the road, where they had fallen, stunned
and bewildered, by the overpowering rays of the sun. When the
night came on, it began to rain, and for a space of two hours the
overcharged clouds poured torrents of water upon the soldiers, who
were toiling along over the muddy roads so faint from exhaustion
that they could scarcely drag one foot after the other. As soon as the
halt was made, fires were kindled, and the men contrived to dry
their clothing and steep a little coffee, the solace of the soldier. That
was a wet and intensely uncomfortable bivouac; there was no
recourse left the men but to spread their rubber blankets upon the
flooded earth, and, lying down upon them, cover themselves with
the half of a shelter-tent. They had barely fallen asleep when the
storm broke out afresh, and the rain came down upon them in great
sheets. Sleep was wholly banished, and huddling around the
smouldering fires, the “poor boys” thus passed the balance of that
gloomy night. The day which followed this was also very hot, and
the officers having learned that the troops could not endure the sun,
wisely concluded to allow them to remain quiet till near nightfall. At
four o’clock, P. M., the order came to break camp, and a long march
was performed, the Brigade marching till one o’clock on the morning
of the 9th. On the 9th, the line was formed as early as six o’clock in
the morning; but the men were not hurried through the day, being
allowed to make frequent but brief halts. The troops halted at nine
o’clock in the evening near the plantation of Jefferson Davis, where
the regiment was ordered on guard for the remainder of the night.

A part of the regiment on this occasion was posted very near the
house of Davis, and though the men were led by curiosity to visit it,
yet they refrained from destroying the property of this prominent
traitor, or committing any acts unbecoming a regiment of
Massachusetts soldiers. As early as seven o’clock on the following
morning, the men having had no sleep during the preceding night,
and scarcely any for three consecutive nights, the regiment was
ordered to start. At two o’clock that afternoon the rear guard of the
retreating enemy was suddenly encountered, a line of battle was
quickly formed, and slight skirmishing ensued; but the Twenty-ninth,
though very near the front, did not become engaged. Toward
evening the Confederates retreated, and our troops started in
pursuit, the Brigade proceeding only about two miles, when it halted
for the night on the plantation of Mr. Hardeman, on the line of the
Mississippi Central Railroad.

Early the next morning, while the regiments were resting, the order
was given for the Brigade to go to the front, taking position on a
ridge of land upon which stood the State Lunatic Asylum, about five
miles from Jackson. On the previous day, the enemy had occupied
this place, but were driven from it by the First Division under
General Welch. The Confederates on the 11th held another line of
works a little nearer the city of Jackson, but within easy range of this
ridge; the place was thickly wooded, and the Brigade lay concealed
among the trees during the day, the Twenty-ninth supporting
Captain Edward’s Rhode Island Battery, which did but little firing,
however.

When it grew dark, shovels were called into requisition, and every
man in the Brigade was set to work throwing up entrenchments,
laboring till daylight the next morning; but our men were not to be
allowed to enjoy the fruits of their night’s labor, for in the early
morning, they were ordered out of the works, up to the extreme
front, in support of our skirmish line. Fortunately they were not
obliged to endure the scorching rays of the sun, but found shelter in
a piece of woods; it was only a shelter from the sun, however, for
the enemy, knowing our position, poured into the woods a
continuous fire of shell, canister, and spherical case during the whole
of the two days that the regiment was here. The other regiments in
the Brigade suffered more or less loss, but the Twenty-ninth escaped
without a single casualty. In addition to the storm of larger missiles,
many of the musket-balls fired from the enemy’s lines found their
way into the woods, and so severe was the fire, that nearly every
tree along our line bore the marks of the leaden tempest. Many of
our comrades had narrow escapes from death and wounds, one
soldier in Company K especially, a ball passing through his tin dipper,
upon which he was resting his head.
On the morning of the 11th, the Brigade was relieved and ordered to
the rear, resuming its former position near the lunatic asylum; but in
the afternoon of the same day it was again ordered forward, and
again supported Captain Edward’s battery. Here it remained till the
morning of the 16th, when an advance of the whole line was made,
the Twenty-ninth passing up under a heavy fire to within forty rods
of the enemy’s works, bristling with cannon, the right of the
regiment going into the rifle-pits. Once in the pits, there was no such
thing as leaving them while it was daylight, and here the “boys”
spent the day, constantly engaged with the enemy’s sharpshooters.
Though considerably exposed, there was but one casualty during the
day, Private John Scully of Company A being instantly killed, the ball
penetrating his brain. The regiment in this position held the extreme
left of the picket line of our army, its right resting in the rifle-pits,
and its left in dense woods, retired so as to form nearly a half-circle.

The night of the 16th was dark, and hence favorable for secret
movements by both besiegers and besieged. About nine o’clock,
unusual noises were heard within the enemy’s lines, resembling the
rattling of wheels. Colonel Barnes became anxious to learn the cause
of these noises, and Captain Clarke was requested to use every
effort to ascertain what, if any, movement was going on in the
enemy’s camp. That officer had no difficulty in carrying out his
instructions, for one of his men, a fearless soldier, named David
Scully, unhesitatingly consented to undertake the perilous task of
approaching the hostile picket line. The ground descended quite
rapidly from Clarke’s line towards that of the Confederates. Scully
was left to execute his adventure in his own way. Prostrating himself
upon the ground, he rolled slowly down the hill, till he approached
within a few yards of the enemy’s pickets, and then pausing,
overheard their conversation, which was to the effect that their army
was retreating, and that they were soon to be relieved. Listening
here, Scully heard more distinctly than before, the noises in the
enemy’s camp. They were evidently removing their guns from the
works; and, beside this, the regular tread of marching men was
plainly distinguishable. In due time Scully returned, making this
report. About this time, a similar report was brought in by Charles
Logue of Company F, who went forward into the woods, very near
the enemy, exhibiting great courage. In order to verify the
statements of Scully and Logue, Colonel Barnes, with one or more of
the captains, advanced some distance beyond our picket line, when
they soon became convinced that the whole body of the enemy was
moving. Thereupon one of the sergeants was despatched to General
Ferrero, who was in command of the trenches, with information that
the enemy was moving in large numbers, and shortly after a
lieutenant was sent, with the message that the enemy was
abandoning his works and retiring from the city.

The night was intensely dark, and the ground over which these
officers were obliged to pass, in delivering their messages, beset
with difficulties, being broken, and in some places covered with
fallen timber and a thick growth of bushes. But, like faithful soldiers,
they persevered till they found General Ferrero, when they delivered
their messages. The substance of the reply that was sent back was,
“The movements of the enemy are well understood at headquarters.
The enemy are not retiring.” The rumbling of the enemy’s trains and
the neighing of their horses continued; and the Colonel and his
comrades stood at their posts all night, listening to these sounds,
which grew fainter and more distant every hour, as the Confederates
were slipping out of the grasp of General Sherman, and retiring
beyond the Pearl River. When the night was almost gone, a message
was received from General Ferrero, that the regiment might move
forward in the gray of the morning, if Colonel Barnes thought it
advisable.

When the morning came, a flag of truce was seen waving from the
enemy’s works, and at the same time the city appeared to be in
flames. During the night, General Johnston retired with his whole
army, artillery, and baggage, and even the large guns upon his
works. As soon as it was fairly day, the whole line was ordered
forward, and the regiment entered the city. The works were found to
be deserted, and the railroad depot and several public buildings in
flames; but the fire was quickly extinguished by our troops, and thus
a large portion of the city was doubtless saved from destruction.
After the regiment had finished its part of the generous work of
subduing the flames, the men were dismissed for a couple of hours,
during which time they contrived to “do” Jackson quite thoroughly.
The gardens were filled with melons and fruits, but of other and
more desirable food there was a small supply. Everything of much
value had been removed, and many of the deluded inhabitants had
followed in the steps of the retreating army, taking with them their
personal effects, thus giving the place the appearance of a deserted
town. The negroes had the good sense to stay, and, as was
invariably the case, they were overjoyed at the appearance of the
Union soldiers, testifying to their happiness in the way peculiar to
their race.

In the afternoon of the 17th, the regiment had orders to leave the
city, marching back to the ground occupied on the 14th. Here it
remained, enjoying much-needed rest, till Monday the 20th. Another
severe march was before them, a march needlessly hard; and at an
unreasonable hour in the morning of the 20th, the reveille aroused
the men from their slumbers.

Before the movement began, an order was issued from

headquarters, detailing Colonel Barnes Provost Marshal of the corps,
and the whole of the regiment as provost guard, with orders to
move in the rear of the corps, and to keep everything—men, horses,
and wagons—in front. This was the hardest duty the regiment ever
performed in the same number of days. For some reason, the march
was a forced one; the weather was of the same tropical character
that it had been during the three weeks previous, and water not only
scarce, but of poor quality. The story among the men was, that the
corps was racing with another, the Sixteenth (?); but the more
probable statement is, that the corps reaching Vicksburg first would
take the transports to go North, there being only a sufficient number
of steamers for the transportation of a single corps. The imperative
orders given to Colonel Barnes to prevent straggling, required
constant watchfulness and almost superhuman efforts, not only on
his part, but on the part of his brother officers and the men. Many
soldiers gave out, from the combined effects of over-exertion and
the enervating influence of the weather. On the second day out,
matters in this respect became so bad, that it became necessary to
impress into the service, ox-carts, horses, and vehicles of all
descriptions which could be found about the country, and use them
for the conveyance of the invalids, many of whom had received fatal
sunstrokes. The spectacle which the corps presented on the road
was wholly unbecoming a victorious army: nearly every regiment
had lost even the semblance of an organized body; everybody was
straggling along the roads, some riding in carts, and others mounted
upon horses and mules, while miles in the rear of this mob was the
gallant old Twenty-ninth Regiment, driving the crowd before them.
Violent menaces, and sometimes absolute force, were required to
keep the stragglers in motion.

For want of ambulances, nearly all the wounded in the battles and
skirmishes before Jackson were carried the whole distance from the
latter city to Vicksburg on litters or stretchers by details of men. To
protect these unfortunate soldiers from the sun, hoods made of
pieces of tent cloth were placed about their heads, and green
boughs arranged at the sides of the litters.

A large number of disabled horses and mules were left about the
country, in the track of Johnston’s retreat, and these were
systematically gathered up by General Sherman, when he returned
from Jackson, and driven along to the various landings in the vicinity
of Vicksburg and Milldale, where, together with the horses and other
animals captured by the soldiers on the march, they were delivered
up to the quartermasters. Nearly every company of the Twenty-ninth
had a large number of saddle and pack animals, which they had
ridden and used for the conveyance of their baggage during the
march. Company A had some twenty horses and mules, and
Company G nearly as many, when they returned to Milldale, having,
as they swept along the stragglers of the column, as the extreme
rear guard, collected these animals, as well as the jaded and tired-
out men, and their work was much lightened by these mounts. As
the rear guard approached the Big Black, the soldiers on foot were
sent forward into camp, and then about thirty or forty mounted men
came in together, most of the latter being men who had fallen out or
got foot-sore, and had been picked up and mounted to keep them
along with the army.

When one of these motley crowds came in, the commander of the
regiment, who was somewhat indignant at the appearance of the
thing, hailed the captain in command, “I should like to know, sir,
what this means; what sort of a command is this for an infantry
officer?” “Irregular mounted infantry, I should think,” replied the
leader, as he looked at his crew.

It was on this march that Captain Richardson’s man, nicknamed

“French Joe,” came to the conclusion that his captain’s mess kit
might just as well be carried by a mule as by Joseph, and, in fact,
that the mule might carry “Joe” too, and took one of the mules for
this purpose. He had only his belt and some old scraps of rope for a
tackling; but this he thought might serve well enough. He contrived
a pad out of his own and the Captain’s blankets, and, warned by the
example of John Gilpin, he attempted to balance his load and to tie
it securely to the sides of the mule, which were well festooned with
pots, pans, gridirons, camp kettles, and tin dippers, giving the
animal the appearance of the “hawker’s” donkey. After all this varied
assortment of wares had been piled upon the animal, Joe kindly
allowed a knapsack or two to be strapped on behind, and then
mounted, guiding the mule with a rope halter. He had not proceeded
far before some of the knots began to slip, for Joe was not a sailor,
nor was he a very skilful disposer of weights. Very soon one of the
knapsack straps got loose and insinuated itself on the inside of the
mule’s hind leg. It tickled him—he kicked. This displaced a camp
kettle, which slipped under his belly—he “buck-jumped,” and
unseated Joe. Then all the load shifted, the most of it getting under
the beast’s belly. He curveted and pranced, he reared and kicked,
and cleared the road right and left for more than a mile. The men
scattered on every side, for the mule was in earnest, and was no
respecter of persons, kicking just as viciously at the officers as at the
men. Captain Richardson had no dinner that day, save what he got
through the kindness of others; for his coffee, hard bread, and
bacon, tin plates and cups, flour, butter, and roasting corn—all the
materials of many a savory feast—lay in the dust.

On the 22d, the Ninth Corps reached the Big Black River. General
Parke and his division commanders now deemed it impossible, as it
certainty was disgraceful, for the corps to continue to march in this
manner. The different regiments were here, on the banks of the
river, gathered together, and forced to resume their organization.
One whole day was spent in this work, during which the men were
permitted to rest.

Toward evening of the 22d, the corps moved out of camp, and
marching slowly, crossed the Big Black on a pontoon bridge, in the
midst of a pouring rain; the troops camped near the river for the
night, and the next morning started for Milldale. The regiment was
the last to arrive, in consequence of its peculiar duty, and by being
the last, lost the first chance to go on board the transports, and was
thus forced to remain here till the 12th of August.

During the campaign now closed, the roll of the regiment’s dead had
been somewhat increased; and this, with a few exceptions, had
been occasioned by disease contracted in the sickly regions of the
Yazoo and Vicksburg. Private John Scully of Company A, a faithful
soldier, was the first to fall in the campaign, having been killed by a
bullet while bravely doing his duty in the rifle-pits before Jackson,
July 16. Second Lieutenant Horace A. Jenks of Company E came
next, dying of malarial fever, July 26. Lieutenant Jenks had at one
time been a sergeant in his company, and was promoted to be
second lieutenant for his good soldierly qualities. His death was
mourned by all the members of the regiment. First Lieutenant Ezra
Ripley of Company B, who died of fever at Helena, Ark., July 28, was
a member of the Middlesex Bar before entering the service. He was
a gentleman of liberal culture and rarest qualities of both heart and
mind. No sacrifice for his country was too great in his estimation,
and though not of a robust constitution, yet he never shrank from
any exposure or hardship. He performed the terrible march to
Jackson, but the seeds of disease sown during those days, already
described, soon ripened into death. Private Lyford Gilman of
Company B also died of disease at Vicksburg, August 2. He was also
a victim of the exhaustive march.

When the Ninth Corps was about to leave Vicksburg, General Grant,
desirous of recognizing its services in the late campaign, issued the
following order:—

“Headquarters Department of the Tennessee,}

“Vicksburg, Miss., July 31, 1863. }

[EXTRACT.]

“Special Orders, No. 207.

“In returning the Ninth Corps to its former command, it is with

pleasure that the general commanding acknowledges its
valuable services in the campaign just closed.

“Arriving at Vicksburg opportunely, taking position to hold at bay

Johnston’s army, then threatening the forces investing the city,
it was ready and eager to assume the aggressive at any
moment.

“After the fall of Vicksburg, it formed a part of the army which

drove Johnston from his position near the Big Black River, into
his entrenchments at Jackson, and after a siege of eight days,
compelled him to fly in disorder from the Mississippi Valley.

“The endurance, valor, and general good conduct of the Ninth

Corps are admired by all; and its valuable co-operation in
 achieving the final triumph of the campaign is gratefully
acknowledged by the Army of the Tennessee.

“Major-General Parke will cause the different regiments and

batteries of his command to inscribe upon their banners and
guidons, ‘Vicksburg’ and ‘Jackson.’

“By order of
“Major-General U. S. Grant.

“P. S. Bowen, A. A. A. G.”

The time spent at Milldale, after the return from Jackson, was
occupied by the ordinary duties of camp life. The weather continued
very warm, and the destructive effects of the campaign now became
manifest. Deaths were very frequent among the troops here during
this time, burial parties were almost constantly engaged, and the
funeral notes of the fife and drum could be heard nearly every hour
in the day. None save the strongest came out of that campaign in
sound health.

On the 12th of August, the regiment embarked on the steamer

“Catahoula,” one of the slowest boats on the river, to go North; the
steamer left Milldale without a sufficient supply of fuel, and
accordingly frequent stoppages on the route, to gather wood,
became necessary. The trip to Cairo, including one day spent at
Memphis, occupied eight days, the boat reaching its destination on
the 20th.

At midnight on the 20th, the regiment took the cars for Cincinnati,
reaching that city on the afternoon of Sunday the 23d, and receiving
the same kind treatment as on its two former visits.

At night, the regiment left the city, crossed the Ohio to Covington,
Ky., and went into camp on the outskirts of the town, and remained
here till the 27th. At this time, probably nearly half of all the
members of the regiment were on the sick-list, and unable to do
duty. In the course of a few days they had come from the tropical
climate of the South into the cool bracing air of the West, and now
the chills and fever broke out among them to an alarming extent.

While here, Colonel Barnes left the regiment on a furlough to his

home in Massachusetts; he was very sick from the effects of a
malarial fever and overwork; from the eighteenth day of May, 1861,
till he was seized with this sickness, he had never been off duty, for
any cause, a day,—a fact that is not only remarkable, but,
considering the great hardships to which he had been subjected,
one that shows him to have been possessed of an iron constitution.

The author, in the preparation of this work, has endeavored, as far

as possible, to avoid the diary form of narrative, because he is aware
that such does not interest the general reader; but the record of the
regiment would be incomplete if it did not give somewhat in detail
the events of long and memorable marches, and the various
localities visited by it.

The march from Covington, Ky., into East Tennessee, which we are
about to describe, was one of the longest which the regiment ever
performed, and, for the reasons stated, we shall give a very
particular account of it. On the 27th, it broke camp, under the
command of Major Chipman, went to the railroad station in
Covington, took the cars for Nicholasville, arrived there at seven
o’clock the next morning, and camped near the depot. On the 29th,
Colonel Pierce, who had for several months been absent on special
duty in Massachusetts, joined the regiment and assumed command,
and on the same day a march on the Lancaster pike of about four
miles was performed.

August 31. The regiment was mustered for pay; Colonel Pierce
ordered to the command of the Brigade; the Second Michigan
Infantry joined the Brigade, and Major Chipman again took
command of the regiment.
September 1. Reveille at four o’clock, A. M. Started for Crab Orchard,
in Lincoln County; spent the night for the third time at Camp Dick
Robinson.

September 2. Reveille at an early hour; marched all day; camped

near Lancaster.

September 3. Another early start. Reached Crab Orchard, a place of

five hundred inhabitants, and abounding with mineral springs. Here
and at Nicholasville convalescent camps were established, and
during the time which the regiment remained at these places, a very
large number of its members went into the hospitals, where not a
few of them subsequently died.

September 10. The Brigade left Crab Orchard, and had a hard march
of about fourteen miles, and went into camp at a place called Mount
Vernon. The road for a considerable portion of the way was very
rough and mountainous, being so steep in some places that the
horsemen were obliged to dismount and lead their animals. The men
were in light marching order, having left the most of their extra
clothing at Crab Orchard, and had eight days’ rations served out to
them, being thus prepared for a long march.

September 11. The reveille sounded at half-past three o’clock in the

morning, and at half-past four the column was in motion. At night,
after a very fatiguing march, the camp was formed near Wild Cat
Mountain, Kentucky.

September 12. The men were routed out early in the morning, and
the day’s march began at five o’clock, but the road was good all day.
The weather, which had been fine ever since the march began,
became stormy at the end of this day, and at night it rained hard.
The camp was formed at London, Laurel County, Ky. On this march
the regiment passed over the battle-field of Mill Spring, where the
notorious Zollicoffer was killed.
September 13 was Sunday. The men were paid off and allowed to
rest all day. Since this famous march began, the Brigade had passed
through and into three counties; namely, Gerrard, Rock Castle, and
Laurel. The country through which they had travelled was thinly
populated, and with the exception of a few wild fruits and nuts
which they found on the journey, the men were obliged to subsist
upon their rations. It has been stated, that the wild fruits which the
men ate on this march proved very beneficial to their health, and
resulted in curing them of the complaints they had contracted in the
sickly swamps of the Yazoo.

September 14. The march was resumed at five o’clock in the

morning, and at night a halt was made at Laurel Spring.

September 15. Only a part of the day was occupied by marching, a

halt being made at the town of Barboursville, in Knox County, Ky.

September 16. Marched from Barboursville to Flat Lick; a long

march, pausing till the 19th.

September 19. A distance of about ten miles was travelled this day;
the camp was formed at Log Mountain. The column was nearing the
far-famed Cumberland Gap, and the roads were growing rougher
and more broken at every advance in that direction. The night was
very cold, water froze, and the crops of tobacco, sugar-cane, and
cotton in that region nearly all destroyed. When the sun rose the
next morning, it revealed the earth white with frost.

September 20. At ten o’clock in the morning, the Brigade reached

Cumberland Gap, and entered the State of Tennessee. After passing
into this gap, which was defended by a small force of infantry and
cavalry, the road became more and more elevated, till at last it
reached the summits of the mountains. The view from these heights
well paid the men for all their toil in climbing their rugged and
broken sides. In the far distance, ridge after ridge seemed to rise up
toward the heavens, the highest actually invading the clouds, which,
with a beautiful curtain of blue, hid from sight the lofty peaks. The
night was spent in the mountains near the gap.

September 21. Sycamore, Tenn. Camped for the night. An inquiry

having been made at one of the mountain huts, regarding the
distance between this place and Tazewell, the answer was, “Two
rises to go up and two rises to go down and a right smart plain.”

September 22. Morristown, Tenn. Here the Brigade remained till the
24th.

September 24. Marched to New Market.

September 25. Marched to Holston River and forded it.

September 26. Entered the city of Knoxville.

The distance marched between the first of September and 26th was
something over two hundred miles. The march over the mountains
has furnished the theme of many interesting conversations among
the men who performed it. The hardships of the road were manifold
and serious. It was enough to be compelled to climb day after day
the rugged and precipitous path along the side of these mountains;
it was enough, indeed, to bivouac on their cold and barren summits,
with only a single woollen blanket to protect the foot-sore soldier
from the searching and chilling night-air; but when we add to these
discomforts, that of intense and unsatisfied hunger, which was
actually endured during the entire march, the measure of the
sufferings of our comrades seems full to overflowing. They endured
these sufferings and hardships, however, for a good purpose.
Together with the troops which had gone on before them, they had
wrought the long-prayed-for deliverance of East Tennessee. On the
3d of this month, General Burnside, together with the Twenty-third
Corps and other troops, had entered the city of Knoxville, the
Confederate General Buckner retiring from the place with his army
and retreating toward Chattanooga.
The people of this region had long suffered from rebel rule, and the
barbarities which had been practised upon them have never been
fully related to the world. Some had been imprisoned, others
tortured, and others murdered. Their property had been mercilessly
confiscated, and not a few had been forced to perform military duty
in the service of a cause that they loathed and hated. When the
army of General Burnside appeared bearing the old flag, and the
colors of the cruel foe departed in haste and confusion, the loyal
people were overwhelmed with joy. The flag of the Union, which had
been carefully hid under carpets, concealed in cellars and between
mattresses, to save its owners from persecution, was now brought
forth from its hiding-places, and flaunted on every hand; from
windows and liberty-poles, it floated to the breeze.

A considerable part of General Burnside’s army was composed of

loyal Tennesseeans, who had been forced to fly into Kentucky during
the continuance of the enemy’s rule. These native troops, among
which was the cavalry under Lieutenant-Colonel Brownlow, son of
the famous parson, “were kept constantly in advance, and were
received with expressions of the profoundest gratitude by the
people. There were many thrilling scenes of the meeting of our
Tennessee soldiers with their families, from whom they had so long
been separated. The East Tennesseeans were so glad to see our
soldiers, that they cooked everything they had and gave it to them
freely, not asking pay, and apparently not thinking of it. Women
stood by the roadside with pails of water, and displayed Union flags.
The wonder was, where all the stars and stripes came from.
Knoxville was radiant with flags. At one point on the road from
Kingston to Knoxville seventy women and girls stood by the roadside
waving Union flags and shouting, ‘Hurrah for the Union.’ Old ladies
rushed out of their houses and wanted to see General Burnside and
shake hands with him, and cried, ‘Welcome, General Burnside, to
East Tennessee.’”41

These constitute but a small part of all the demonstrations of loyalty

by this intensely loyal people, and this brief account of their wrongs
but a trifling part of the manifold abuses heaped upon them by a
merciless and savage soldiery,—abuses and wrongs of the same
barbarous nature as those perpetrated at Andersonville and Belle
Isle, forming as they do the saddest chapter in the history of the
war. It should be among the proudest boasts of the people of
Massachusetts, that in the persons of her soldiers of the Twenty-
first, Twenty-ninth, Thirty-fifth, and Thirty-sixth regiments, she
helped deliver a people loyal to the old flag from a thraldom such as
has been imperfectly depicted in this chapter,—a thraldom worse
than death itself.
 CHAPTER XXIII.

Battles of Blue Springs, Hough’s Ferry, and Campbell’s Station—Siege of

Knoxville—The Sufferings of the Men—Battle of Fort Sanders—
Gallant Conduct of the Regiment—It Captures Two Battle-flags—The
Siege Raised—General Sherman Re-enforces Burnside.

During the early part of October, a portion of the Ninth Corps under
General Potter, and a large body of cavalry under General
Shakleford, were sent up the valley some fifty miles in the direction
of Morristown, Jefferson County. A force of the enemy had crossed
into Eastern Tennessee from Virginia, and were threatening our
communications with Cumberland Gap. This movement on the part
of the Federals was made for the purpose of clearing the enemy
away from the flank of our army.

On the 8th of October, the regiment with its brigade was ordered
forward from Knoxville to join the rest of the corps, and on the night
of the 9th halted at Bull’s Gap, a pass in the mountains near the line
between Jefferson and Green counties.

The movement of the enemy was a very important one; they had
reached and occupied Greenville, and moved out beyond as for as
Blue Springs. Foster’s brigade of cavalry and mounted infantry was
sent out from Knoxville, up the valley of the French Broad River, to
turn the right of the enemy and get upon his rear, which movement
was accomplished on the 9th. Foster got himself into position, and
on the 10th, General Custer with his mounted infantry came up with
the enemy at Blue Springs, and began to skirmish. Ferrero’s division
of twelve small regiments, of which the Twenty-ninth was one,
arrived about noon, and went into position a half-mile from the field,
where they had a good view of the skirmish for nearly half an hour.
At the end of this time, two brigades of the division—namely,
Humphrey’s and Christ’s—were sent forward.

The enemy had a battery well supported on the left of the main road
leading to Greenville, on a high hill. They had thrown forward their
first line and skirmishers well advanced to a distance of perhaps
three-quarters of a mile from their battery, across the road and
across a rivulet, and had advanced another body of skirmishers
through a corn-field to the crest of a hill about three hundred yards
from where the Twenty-ninth was lying. Custer’s men had slowly
retired before the Confederates, and passed to our rear, when the
order came for our two brigades to charge. The men rose to their
feet and went forward at a rapid run, with arms aport and bayonets
fixed, up the hill. The enemy, closely followed by our men, fell back
rapidly down the hill, across the rivulet, into and through a belt of
woods, where the pursuit ended by the direct orders of our generals.
Here Colonel Christ re-formed his Brigade, to carry one of the
Confederate batteries that had begun to fire shell into our lines. The
enemy, seeing the preparations for a charge, wheeled their guns
about and fled; and at this stage in the affair, it became so dark that
all further hostilities ceased. Captain Leach, then sixty-three years of
age, led his company on this charge; and when the rivulet was
reached, which was some eight feet wide, sprang into it and
scrambled up the opposite bank as actively as the youngest of his
men, refusing the proffered assistance of Major Chipman, who was
leading the regiment.

Captains Leach and Clarke messed together; their negro servants,

Bob and Isaac, were left in the rear of the field, where this fight had
occurred, with their rations and baggage, and when the battle was
over, were sought to prepare supper; but the darkies could not be
found,—neither the rations nor baggage. Upon investigation, it
appeared that a rumor had spread to the rear that both these
officers had been killed in the fight. The negroes had of course
heard of it, and, considering themselves absolved from all further
obligations as servants, had gone back towards Bull’s Gap, taking
the effects of the officers with them, where at night they held a sort
of barbecue, feasted on the rations, and concluded their
entertainment with an auction sale of the baggage. These recreant
negroes were found the next morning and subjected to a severe
questioning. “Where are our rations?” “Where’s the coffee-pot?”
“What has become of our blankets?” Bob acted as spokesman: “De
rations and blankets is done gone; de coffee-pot is done gone, too,
—dey’s stole.” This ended the examination, and these two
unfortunate captains had short rations and hard fare for the rest of
the march. The enemy retired during the night, and soon after
daylight our army started in pursuit. After marching a mile or two,
the infantry halted, and Shakleford’s brigade of mounted men, with
several horse batteries, swept by the head of the column, and then
the infantry marched again. The most annoying information came
from the farmers along the road. They scarcely knew which were our
enemy,—the troops that had passed the night before, or the
mounted column of Shakleford,—and these were some of the
answers they gave in reply to questions of the whereabouts of the
Confederates: “They are just ahead”; “Not far from an hour ago,
they went by”; “A good gallop off”; and so forth.

When our troops reached Greenville, they learned to their surprise

that the enemy had passed through there six hours before, and that
they had a sharp engagement with General Foster’s men a few miles
out at Henderson’s. The tired troops pressed on; at Henderson’s,
they saw some signs of a fight, but the bridge was intact. General
Foster had refrained from destroying it, and the enemy had
neglected to do so. Toward night the regiment went into camp at
Rheatown, twenty-one miles from Blue Springs. Shakleford and
Foster followed the enemy into Virginia, inflicting upon them great
injury, and, upon returning, took up the line of the Watauga, to
cover the passes from Virginia into East Tennessee.

One of the abandoned wagons of the Confederates, found near

Rheatown, furnished our regiment with a liberal supply of excellent
bread and some other food. At this place our troops had two full
days’ rest, and it was much needed, for the men had performed a
forced march hither, and in the course of it had an encounter with
the enemy.

At the close of the second day, the columns were turned towards
Bull’s Gap, making the distance by easy marches, and upon arriving
there the regiment took the cars, but had proceeded but a short
distance when an accident rendered it necessary for them to march
six miles to Morristown, at which place they again took the cars and
went to Knoxville, reaching there on the 10th of October.

While the Confederates held East Tennessee, a merciless

conscription had been enforced by them, to avoid which many of the
male population had abandoned their homes and taken refuge in the
deep forests, or fled into Kentucky. After the country had been
occupied by Burnside, many of these loyal people returned to their
homes, and signified their willingness to enlist in the Federal army.
Burnside issued an order encouraging such enlistments, and
especially into the veteran regiments of the Ninth Corps, which had
been greatly depleted by their recent campaigns. Shortly after the
Twenty-ninth returned to Knoxville, Captain Clarke and Lieutenant
Atherton were detailed for this recruiting service, and ordered to
station themselves at Rheatown, where they spent several weeks,
and secured a number of recruits. On the 11th of November, a force
of Confederates again invaded Tennessee from Virginia, and evading
the left of our army on the Watauga, attacked with about 3,500
cavalry our post at Rogersville, and captured its small garrison. This,
and other hostile movements at various points, rendered necessary
the evacuation of Rheatown, and the drawing in of all our forces in
that part of the State, nearer Knoxville. Our recruiting party,
therefore, returned to the latter place, and went on after their
regiment, which, in the meantime, had gone out to Lenoir’s Station.

A serious invasion of East Tennessee, by General Longstreet, had

already begun. That officer, with a large force, had early in
November been detached from Bragg’s army, in the vicinity of
Chattanooga, and was now marching up the valley towards
Knoxville. On the 20th of October, the Ninth Corps left Knoxville and
went to Campbell’s Station, fifteen miles southwest of the city, on
the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad; on the 21st, it moved
down the railroad to Lenoir’s Station, and remained there, with the
exception of a few days, till the 14th of November. On the night of
the 10th of November, Longstreet made his appearance on the south
side of the Holston River, at Hough’s Ferry, about six miles below
Loudon, and where was stationed General White, with one division
of the Twenty-third Corps. November the 14th, early in the morning.
General Potter, in a hard rain-storm, started with the whole of the
Ninth Corps to re-enforce General White. The Twenty-ninth with its
brigade (Christ’s) was in advance, and toward noon arrived at a
point five miles from the ferry, when rapid and heavy firing was
distinctly heard. Now the clouds parted and the storm slackened, but
the roads were as heavy and broken as before, making it
exceedingly difficult to get the artillery along, and rendering the
progress of the troops very slow. It was nearly dark when the
Brigade reached the ferry; by this time the battle there had nearly
ceased, nothing save an occasional musket-shot indicating the near
presence of the enemy. Immediately upon its arrival, the regiment
was ordered to the right of the line, marched nearly two miles
through a thick woods, and formed in line of battle within one
hundred yards of that of the enemy. The night soon came on, and
early in the evening the storm broke out again with increased fury;
the wind blew with the force of a tornado; the trees swayed to and
fro in the blast, threatening to fall upon the heads of the men, who
stood to arms all night without fires.

Very early the next morning (15th), when the men were expecting to
march against the enemy, the order came to fall back, and taking
the same track by which it had entered the gloomy forest, the
Brigade picked its way back to the place where it had first halted the
night before. All along the way brightly-burning camp-fires were
passed, but no troops were seen; these had already left, and were
well under way towards Lenoir’s. At noon the regiment reached the
latter place. The men had tasted no food for several hours, and were
nearly worn out with fatigue; during the march here, they had
managed to pluck a few ears of corn from the fields by the roadside,
and as soon as a pause was made and the arms stacked, the place
was ablaze with fires; every man at once went to work making
coffee and preparing little messes for dinner. Happily the poor,
hungry men had time to finish their meal, but they had barely
finished it when they were ordered under arms. The enemy had just
then appeared a half-mile away on the Kingston Road, and thither
the Brigade was hurried at the double-quick. This movement of the
Confederates was at once checked, and the rest of the day passed
without any further hostile demonstrations, except a night attack
upon our pickets.

The morning of the 16th was sharp and cold; as early as two o’clock
the regiment was ordered to march. The roads that had been muddy
the day before were now frozen; the artillery horses were pinched
with cold and hunger, and quite unable to drag the heavy cannon. It
was resolved to sacrifice a portion of the baggage train, which, to
the number of many wagons, was parked at Lenoir’s. The horses
and mules were detached and harnessed into the guns; the spokes
of the wagon-wheels were hacked, and, with their contents, set on
fire,—not, however, till the soldiers had replenished their haversacks
with a goodly quantity of smoked pork, coffee, sugar, and hard
bread.

The whole corps was in full retreat soon after daylight, and the
enemy at once began the pursuit, harassing our rear guard
continually. The road from Lenoir’s Station to Knoxville intersects at
Campbell’s with the road from Kingston, and Longstreet had
detached a column on his left to seize the junction of these roads.
The possession of Campbell’s Station was, therefore, of great
moment to Burnside, for should the enemy arrive there before him,
his retreat to Knoxville would surely be cut off. A division of troops
under Hartranft, by rapid marching, succeeded, in the early part of
the forenoon, in reaching Campbell’s, and going out on the Kingston
Road deployed across it, his left on the Loudon Road, along which
our army and trains were moving. Hartranft was just fifteen minutes
ahead of the enemy; he had only time to form his line, when the
Confederate column appeared hurrying up the Kingston Road. A
sharp engagement ensued; but the enemy was foiled in his attempt,
and driven back in confusion. Soon after, all our trains passed this
dangerous point in safety, and moved on to Knoxville. At about
noon, the rest of the army came up, and went into position on “a
low range of hills about a half-mile from the cross-roads.” The Ninth
Corps was posted on the right of the field, which was nearly a mile
broad, and extended a half-mile along the main road, and was
bordered by heavy woods, passable for infantry. Christ’s brigade was
on the right of the corps, and the Twenty-ninth on the right of the
Brigade, fifty yards from the woods in front, while its right flank
actually touched them.

The lines had been formed but a short time, when the blue uniforms
of our rear guard were seen, and finally our skirmishers,—the latter
crossing the fields, creeping along the fences, and coming up the
road, guns in hand, occasionally pausing to load and fire. Now and
then a soldier in gray showed himself on the edge of the woods, but
he would soon dart back out of sight. Colonel Pierce, now in
command of the regiment, had orders to cover his front and flank
with skirmishers, and Companies A and I, under Captain Clarke and
Lieutenant Williams, were detailed for this purpose. The companies
had proceeded but a short distance into the woods, when they came
upon the enemy, who were approaching stealthily from tree to tree,
evidently attempting what Colonel Christ had feared; namely, to
flank the Brigade. A brisk fire began at once, but our men kept their
line intact, and maintained perfect coolness. After the lapse of about
an hour, the officers on the skirmish line discovered that the enemy
were gradually overlapping the right of the Brigade, and promptly
informed Colonel Christ of the fact. The skirmishers were ordered to
come in at once, and the Brigade changed front and began to fall
back. This movement was not made a moment too soon, for a dense
mass of the enemy’s infantry immediately poured out of the woods
in the rear of the retreating Brigade; while his flanking party, which
had not yet lapped over our old position, also at the same moment,
emerged from the woods, and, with loud yells, joined in the pursuit,
firing an occasional shot, and with terrible oaths, shouting to our
men to surrender and lay down their arms.

Our men, loading as they marched, halted by files, turned about and
fired, and again took their places in the ranks. At last, the regiment,
which was in the rear, reached a sunken road, and, leaping into it,
moved rapidly to the left of our lines; while over the heads of the
men, now fully protected by the high bank, played the cannon of our
reserve batteries, at last free to fire without endangering the lives of
our own troops. The slaughter wrought upon the pursuing enemy is
described as terrible; and as the Twenty-ninth came up the hill,
gaining the plateau of the Knoxville side, Generals Burnside and
Ferrero, standing on either side of the road, clapped their hands as it
filed proudly between them.

It was now, perhaps, five o’clock in the afternoon, and the battle
degenerated into an artillery duel on our side, varied by the enemy
with occasional charges, by which they took nothing but disaster.
One by one, as it grew dark, the batteries retired, and after nightfall
the Brigade moved off and took up its weary march for Knoxville,
where it arrived at about three o’clock the next morning, and lay
down for a few brief hours to rest upon the bleak hillside near Fort
Sanders.

During this battle, Charles H. Dwinnell of Company A, a worthy

comrade and brave soldier, was killed, and William O’Conner of
Company H was captured. Dwinnell was shot through the brain by a
sharpshooter stationed in a tall pine. The ball was probably aimed at
Captain Clarke, who was quite conspicuous at the time; the
sharpshooter was instantly marked and shot by two of Dwinnell’s
comrades, who fired simultaneously, the enemy’s body being seen to
fall out of the tree.
The siege of the city commenced on the 17th, and progressed rather
gradually, beginning on the west and northwest, and finally
extending around the entire city, from river to river. As the work of
investing the place continued, our pickets were constantly pressed in
close upon the main works, so that by the 29th of November we
scarcely held more than the slope of the plateau crowned by our
main fortifications, and in some cases not even that.

To the right of Fort Sanders, named after a brilliant cavalry general

who was killed early in the siege, and west of the city, Humphrey’s
and Christ’s brigades picketed one side of the railroad cut, and the
enemy the other.

On one occasion, before the pickets were drawn in, a little squad of
the Twenty-ninth assaulted a house in front of them, and driving
away the enemy’s pickets there stationed, captured it, and brought
in the supplies, which consisted of a small sack of meal, a few
pounds of bacon, a box of tobacco, an eight-gallon keg of blackberry
brandy, and two boxes of cartridges. The enemy re-formed and
recaptured the house, but our men brought their booty safely into
camp. There was meal enough to give each man in the company to
which these adventurers belonged, a dish of hasty-pudding, and
tobacco enough to furnish every man in the regiment with a good-
sized piece. The brandy and cartridges were accounted for during
the night by some of the wildest picket-firing that occurred during
the siege. There was by no means a large supply of food in the city
when the siege began, but long before it concluded, all kinds of
provisions became extremely scarce.

On the 19th, the Confederates drove in our outer pickets and took
possession of the woods. On the evening of the 23d, they attacked
our picket line in front of the Brigade, and seemed to be on the point
of bringing on a general engagement. The order was given to set
fire to a long line of buildings between the two armies. This was
done to break the enemy’s lines and unmask their movements, and
resulted very successfully. The conflagration that followed was both
grand and awful. The dark wintry sky was lighted up by the flames,
which roared and crackled with an unearthly sound, casting a broad
belt of dazzling light over the fields and into the forests. In the
round-house of the railroad, there was stored a large amount of
condemned ammunition, and when the flames reached that, there
was an explosion that shook the earth, and startled the anxious
residents of the city.

The 26th of November was Thanksgiving Day. The men got a full
ration of bullets, but only a half-ration of bread.

About midnight of the 28th, the picket line near the river on the
southwest was driven in, and could not be re-established by the
brigade which furnished it. The line in front of Fort Sanders had also
been assailed and taken by the enemy, and about nine o’clock in the
evening an order was sent to take the regiment out of the lines and
place it in the immediate rear of the fort for special duty; Major
Chipman had command. A little later in the evening, Companies A,
C, D, and K were detached, and ordered to our lines near the river,
where the enemy had a few hours before captured our rifle-pits.

The night had nearly gone, and the first glimmer of day had
appeared, when the familiar charging yell of the enemy was heard
directly in front of the fort. Our pickets at this point were forced in,
and in a moment more a large body of the enemy’s infantry were
swarming at the very edge of the ditch. The battalion of the Twenty-
ninth, under Chipman, were hurried into the fort, and the four
detached companies at once sent for. The latter had a perilous
experience in joining their comrades, and though exposed to the fire
of the enemy’s cannon, reached the works without the loss of a
man, and in ample time to lend a hand in the severe contest which
was now well under way. The Confederates, led by fearless officers,
crowded the ditch, and crossing it on each other’s shoulders, began
to ascend the bank; one of their standard-bearers came running up
and planted his colors upon the parapet, in the very faces of Major
Chipman’s men; but he had hardly performed his deed of daring,
when one of our soldiers shot him through the heart, and he fell
forward into the works. Inspired by the example of their color-
bearer, a large body of the Confederates, led by a gray-haired old
officer (Colonel Thomas of Georgia), with wild shouts made a dash
up the bank. All seemed lost; but at this moment Companies A, C, D,
and K of the regiment came running into the fort, and ranging
themselves along the parapet, opened a deadly fire upon the
assaulting party. The gray old leader of the enemy, while waving his
sword and shouting to his men to come on, was shot dead. Many of
his brave followers suffered the same fate, and the handful of
survivors fell hurriedly back into the ditch. At the same instant, like
scenes were transpiring all along the works. The Seventy-ninth New
York was sharply engaged, and the artillerymen, not being able to
use their pieces, busied themselves by tossing among the enemy
lighted shell with their fuses cut to a few seconds’ length. Finally a
sergeant of one of the batteries, observing a renewed preparation of
the enemy to charge up the bank, slewed one of the large guns
about so as to make it bear upon the edge of the ditch, and, with a
single charge of canister, raked it for a distance of several yards with
deadly effect. About this time the assault slackened; but in a few
moments another column of the enemy came rushing towards the
fort, and with almost sublime courage faced the withering fire of our
troops, and large numbers of them gained the bank. The first
terrible scenes of the battle were re-enacted; three of the enemy’s
standards were planted simultaneously upon the parapet, but they
were quickly torn away by our men. The resistance was as desperate
as the assault: officers used freely their swords, the men clubbed
their muskets, others used their bayonets, and others still axes and
the rammers of the cannon. A struggle so severe as this could not
be otherwise than of short duration. In a few minutes the enemy’s
soldiers began to falter and fall back into the ditch. Seeing this,
General Ferrero, who was in command of the fort and closely
watching the fight, ordered one company of the Twenty-ninth on the
left, and one company of the Second Michigan on the right, to go
through the embrasures and charge the disorganized enemy.
Sweeping down the ditch, these commands captured about two
hundred of the enemy, and drove them into the fort, the little squad
of the Twenty-ninth following their captives and bearing triumphantly
two battle-flags of the foe; the capturers of which were Sergeant
Jeremiah Mahoney of Company A, and Private Joseph S. Manning of
Company K, both of whom afterwards received the medals of honor
voted by the Congress of the United States.

The fight immediately died away in front of Fort Sanders, and the
remnant of the enemy’s charging column shrank back within their
lines in dismay and confusion. But on the left, where the Federal
rifle-pits had been captured on the afternoon of the 28th, a fierce
battle was heard. Hartranft’s division was sharply engaged with the
enemy in its efforts to recapture the pits, and the effort was soon
successful. The Confederates were everywhere routed, our entire
line re-established, and by ten o’clock that Sunday morning
quietness had settled down over the whole field. The enemy seemed
appalled by the dreadful calamity that had overtaken him,—a
calamity, as we shall presently see, that practically ended the siege.
Ninety-eight dead bodies were taken out of the fatal ditch from a
space of four hundred square feet around the salient. General
Humphrey, who commanded the Mississippi brigade, was found dead
on the glacis, within twenty feet of the face of the ditch. Lying
among the dead in the moat, in every conceivable condition, were
the wounded; and scattered all over the open space in front of the
fort, through which telegraph wires had been stretched from stump
to stump to impede the movements of the assailants, were scattered
hundreds of both dead and wounded, and among them not a few of
the enemy’s soldiers unhurt, who, dismayed at the awful storm of
shell and grape that poured upon them, had lain prone upon the
earth until the battle was over, only too willing to be captured.
Nearly five hundred stand of small arms were collected on the field
within our picket lines. Pollard states the enemy’s loss in this battle
at seven hundred.

The great bravery of this charge entitles those who participated in it

to honorable mention. The troops who engaged in this assault
“consisted of three brigades of McLaw’s division; that of General
Wolford,—the Sixteenth, Eighteenth, and Twenty-fourth Georgia
regiments, and Cobb’s and Phillips’s Georgia legions; that of General
Humphrey,—the Thirteenth, Seventeenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-
second, and Twenty-third Mississippi regiments; and a brigade
composed of Generals Anderson’s and Bryant’s brigades, embracing
among others, the Palmetto State Guard, the Fifteenth South
Carolina Regiment, and the Fifty-first, Fifty-third, and Fifty-ninth
Georgia regiments.”42 The troops that garrisoned the fort were
Benjamin’s United States Battery, Buckley’s Rhode Island Battery, a
part of Roemer’s New York Battery, the Seventy-ninth New York
Highlanders, and, at the very beginning of the fight, a battalion of
the Twenty-ninth under Major Chipman, and before the repulse of
the assault on the salient, Captain Clarke’s and the other companies
of the regiment already named. When the battle was well advanced,
and affairs had assumed a serious aspect, the One Hundredth
Pennsylvania was moved up in the rear of the fort, and a few
minutes before the close of the fight, the Second Michigan was
ordered into the works on the right, one of its companies being
detailed to sweep the ditch. Our loss in the fort was eight killed and
five wounded, and among the former were two members of the
Twenty-ninth; namely, Sergeant John F. Smith of Company H, and
Corporal Gilbert T. Litchfield of Company K, both most excellent
soldiers. The loss of the enemy in this encounter doubtless exceeded
greatly that given by Mr. Pollard; one of our officers engaged stating
it to be fourteen hundred.

When Longstreet had drawn off his troops from the scene of his
defeat, General Burnside kindly directed General Potter to send out a
flag of truce, granting the enemy permission to remove his dead and
wounded from the field. The flag was courteously received, and for
the space of several hours there was a complete cessation of all
hostilities. As a reward for its services in this action, the regiment
was retained in Fort Sanders as a part of its garrison, and
consequently relieved from much severe picket duty, only
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