Our Battery; Or, The Journal of Company B, 1st O.V.A. — Inside the Classic

The Rhythm of the March

Cutter's journal is dominated by movement. Nearly every entry begins with a time and a verb: “Early next morning, October 6th, again on the move.” The battery marches eighteen miles a day over rough roads, crosses unnamed creeks, and passes through villages like Glenville and Springfield. The author notes the quality of roads—pike versus dirt—and the constant search for water and campsites. This relentless pacing creates a sense of exhaustion and routine. Even when the battery is not fighting, it is always marching, and Cutter records distances and landmarks with a surveyor's precision. The reader feels the weight of the caissons and the dust of the column.

Waiting for Battle

Despite the title's promise of action, Cutter's account of the Battle of Perryville is notable for what it does not contain: the battery took no part. “Our Battery took no part in this action, as we were, during the time, out of range,” he writes flatly. The chapter is filled with the sounds of distant firing, rumors of enemy positions, and the frustration of being held in reserve. Cutter captures the peculiar tension of soldiers who hear battle but cannot join it. After the fight, the battery spends the next day “charging through woods and cornfields, but no enemy was there.” This anticlimax recurs throughout the journal, suggesting that much of war is waiting, marching, and missing the fight.

The Collective Voice

Cutter almost never uses “I.” Instead, the narrative is built around “we”: “we took our departure,” “we passed through town,” “we held our position.” This grammatical choice reinforces the battery as a single entity, a machine of men and horses. The author's own identity is submerged into the group. Even the dedication and author's note are written in the third person. The effect is that the journal reads less as a personal memoir and more as an official log, though the occasional detail—like the “large number of relatives and friends” at the depot—reminds the reader of the human cost behind the collective. This voice is consistent with the book's origin as a record for comrades, not for posterity.

Cutter's journal offers a ground-level view of Civil War artillery service, but readers should note its silences: there are no descriptions of wounds, no reflections on the enemy, and little emotion beyond eagerness for action. The author's haste and the book's origin as a camp writing project mean the prose is lean and factual. For those interested in the daily mechanics of a Union battery—the marches, the camps, the long waits—this is a valuable primary source. Approach it as a soldier's working document, not a retrospective narrative.

Reading Our Battery, I found myself drifting from the mud of Chickamauga to the crisp engravings in The Mentor: The Revolution, Vol. 1, Num. 43, Serial No. 43 The Story of America in Pictures — A Reader’s Guide. Both feel like quiet doorways to a past that still breathes, just differently—one in tired handwriting, the other in patient ink. Strange, how an old war journal can summon a picture book’s calm.