Ironton Register 29 Sept. 1887 – Henry D. McKnight, the pension agent, sat on a big goods box the other night talking to T.R. Hall when the Register man approached and asked a reference to some old comrade who had a “Narrow Escape” in the war. Henry immediately referred us to Mr. Hall, who was through it all with Sherman to the sea, but he asked us to postpone till a more convenient season when he would give us a long one.
Therefore, spoke Henry and said, “When you get done with those three years vets, remember I am on the list for a “Narrow Escape” I wasn’t in any fight to speak of, for the 188th [Ohio] to which I belonged came home pretty solid; but look here,” said Henry, getting down off the box and preparing to get excited as a reminiscence went rattling through his memory.
“You fellows can talk, but I’ll be pelted with roses if I didn’t have as “Narrow Escape” as any of them. Isn’t it a “Narrow Escape” to have bullets whizzing all around you, scaring you to death and making you evolute? over the ground like a chicken with its head cut off? Isn’t it a “Narrow Escape” to have a thousand men marching right on you, pointing their muskets right at you and shooting right at you, too? Isn’t a “Narrow Escape” to pick yourself up after the firing has ceased and the storm rolled by, and examine yourself all over to see how many bloody holes the fellows have shot through you? Isn’t that a “Narrow Escape?
“Well sir, that was me. I was just in that fix and may your hair go gray and your appetite fails before I pass through another such an experience. You see I was Quarter Master Sergeant, and one afternoon was sitting on the brow of a gentle hill, trying to dicker the Hebrew sutler who sat near me out of a box of sardines.
Our Regiment was on a brigade drill with Gen. Dudley, as drill master. He was a strict disciplinarian and was putting the new Regiment on the tactics every day. That was at Tullahoma in 1865. That afternoon, they were to wind up with a sham battle. You see this was after the Battle of Appomattox, and there was no more fighting with the rebels, so the boys thought they would have a quiet and harmless little tussle among themselves. The General had ordered that every man take the bullets from his cartridge and fire blanks in the sham battle.
“As I said, the sutler and I were sitting on the brow of the little slope watching the maneuvers and trying to dicker for a can of sardines. Just ahead of us was a shallow gully, and away beyond the Regiment wheeling and countermarching and deploying and charging. It was a pretty sight, and we looked on with patriotic pride, as the stars and stripes floated in the air and the notes of the bugle rolled over the green field.
The sutler was deeply impressed with the pageantry and kept saying, “Is ‘hent dot splendid? See de Seneral, how bootiful he makes the Regiment charge through do field.’ It was indeed a pretty sight and we enjoyed it to the full.”
“Presently, through some intricate maneuver, the front of the brigade was so changed, that it faced the slope whereon we were sitting, and pretty soon we observed a Regiment advancing toward us in the line of battle. ‘Ah dot is foine,’ said the sutler, ‘dey think we are Sheneral Johnson’s army.’ At the same time jumping toward the gully just ahead of us.
“Fire,” added the Colonel. We hadn’t got to the gully when the fire came, and with it bullets by the score. Blank cartridges, indeed! Why, the balls went everywhere, every place, but into us. A dozen went into a little tree where we were sitting. They raised puffs of dust from the ground. It was a scary moment, and into that gully the sutler and I tumbled and rolled over and over, each trying to get under, for the gully was very shallow. Then there was another volley, and I thought to myself, if this is a sham battle, war was no place for me. We flattened out that gully like ground squirrels and stayed there until the Regiment executed a flank movement in another direction.
“We arose and retreated from the battlefield. We left quickly. In fact, we tried which could get away the quickest, and we both succeeded. Hereafters deliver me from sham battles. They are the most dangerous kind. The Regiment who made the charge which cooped up was afterward put under arrest for disobeying orders for not drawing the ball before firing. A bullet went through a tent near where we were, and through a newspaper that an officer was reading. You may talk about your Gettysburg and Wilderness, and Shiloh, but don’t you forget, that the sham Battle of Tullahoma was just about as close to a shave as I want.
“So, goodnight, the directions of the Standard Building Association meeting tonight to dispose of the $3,000 we have on hand and I must be there.”
“Goodnight, Henry.”
The Walters Herald, Walters, Oklahoma 19 Aug. 1909
Major H. D. McKnight Answers Deaths Call
Major Henry D. McKnight, mention of whose death at his home on North Boundary at one o’clock Tuesday, was first conveyed to the public through the columns of the Star, will be buried in the Lawton Cemetery, Thursday evening following a public funeral service to be held in the M.E. Church, at four o’clock. Rev. W.G. Lemon will conduct the services.
The bar association, of which the deceased was an esteemed member, will attend in a body and it is likely all business houses will close for an hour during the funeral as a mark of Lawton’s death.
His service was mostly in the Quartermaster’s Department in the command of General Thomas’ Army of the Cumberland, while it was fighting those memorable battles about Franklin, Nashville, and other portions of Tennessee.
The several years following the war were spent mostly in Ironton [Ohio] and in Washington, D.C. He studied law and was admitted to the bar and was a practitioner for many years, finally giving up general practice to devote his time exclusively to the pension practice in which he enjoyed the distinction of being one of the most successful practitioners before the department at Washington. At the opening of the Cherokee strip in Oklahoma, he established himself in Perry, where he re-engaged in general and land office practice.
He was a personal friend of the late President William McKinley and was regarded by the McKinley campaign management as one of the chief leaders in Oklahoma, and as a reward for his faithful Republicanism and for services rendered, Mr. McKinley prior to the nomination was appointed register and opened the land office at Mangum, Oklahoma, which position he filled with credit to himself for a term of four years.
In July 1901, he was appointed register of the land office at Lawton and conducted the opening of this portion of Oklahoma. His associate in office at that time was James. D. McGuire is now engaged in the hardware business in Norman, Oklahoma.
At the expiration of his term of office, he was re-appointed for a term of four years and had served faithfully three and one-half years of that time, thus being the oldest land office official in point of service in the State at the time of his death.
In the First Congressional election after Oklahoma had been admitted to statehood, Major McKnight was made the nominee of his party for Congress from this, the Fifth District, and while recognizing the district as hopelessly Democratic, went into the campaign with characteristic push and energy, making speeches in every county in the entire district.
The deceased is survived by a wife and four children, Rufus D., Hal B., Howard, and Mrs. Chas. M. Nankivel, all of whom were here at the time of Major McKnight’s death, save the daughter, who will arrive over the Frisco today to be present at the funeral tomorrow – Lawton Star, August 18th.
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