A developing story based on research over the last two years

The hospital ward in Jeffersonville, Indiana, was John Austin’s last stop before returning to Sherman’s Army of Tennessee. Wounded outside Atlanta, then Sergeant Austin; soon to be, Lieutenant Austin, had been for six months recuperating in various hospitals from the field surgery at Atlanta, Georgia to Louisville, Kentucky and finally to this recuperation hospital just a few miles from his father’s home in New Albany, Indiana. While his sister had been to visit Johnny, as his sister called him; his father had not. His sister, Charlotte (Lottie) Jenkins, and her husband, George, were housing his wife, who is ready to give birth to their first child. Mary Ann Ellis Austin had not been to see John because of a scarlet fever epidemic that had swept this part of the country and the hospital wards in Jeffersonville. Mary Ann was in delicate health, and big sister, Lottie, was not going to let scarlet fever endanger the mother and child.

John still suffered night sweats and weakness stemming from the infection that should have killed him. His strong constitution and his will to live and see his first child kept him from succumbing like so many of his fellow wounded, but it kept him from returning to battle.Company B of the 53rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment waited for his return while marching through Georgia to the coast with the rest of Sherman’s army. He had been kept up to date with the arrival of letters from Savannah, Georgia, from members of the regiment and his company. Particularly, Robert Green of Company I, had begged him to stay away until he was completely healed. Robert was old enough to be John’s father and like Uncle Sammy, had been his mentor and substitute father.

John had been wounded in the battle for Atlanta. His regiment had suffered substantial casualties at Peachtree Creek, when the Confederates had outflanked Sherman to escape from the tightening noose around Atlanta. John’s company was decimated of officers and sergeants, overrun and nearly annihilated in that quick action. The beloved Colonel of the 53rd, died in that action, shortly before he was to return home having already been mustered out, but waiting orders to return home. John had tried to protect him, but to no avail. He had been treated by the 23^rd Indiana Regiment surgeon, Dr. Magnus Blucher, on the field. In an irony, not lost on John, Blucher had replaced his father, Dr. T.R. Austin, as regimental surgeon. Had Thomas Ralph been there, John would have spoken to his father for the first time since he was 13 years old. That separation had been in 1854, when Thomas Ralph moved his family from Elizabeth, Indiana, to the largest city at that time in Indiana, New Albany, about 19 miles away. John had balked at leaving his friends, including Mary Ann Ellis who would become his wife, and was apprenticed to a farmer and wagon maker, Samuel Davidson. There John found the affection from Uncle Sammy and Aunt Sally that he hadn’t felt since his mother, Martha Haigh, died when he was 6 years old and his father remarried a much younger woman.

The packing of his small kit was completed. He would return to Sherman and continue the fight through the Carolinas, but first he would stop to see his wife. Then, returning by water and rail to his unit, he would be second in command to a newly minted captain, who like him had climbed through the ranks.In this new year of 1865, many officers at the company level of command were promoted due to attrition and their own survival. He also would be escorting some replacements for the losses in the ranks of his regiment.