Residence: Douglas County, Illinois
Enlisted: 8/14/1862 as a Private
Mustered Into: Company G
     79th Illinois Infantry - 8/28/1862
Mustered Out: no date given


Fielden D. Clark enlisted in Company G at Tuscola, Douglas County, Illinois in August 1862 and mustered in August 28, 1862 at Mattoon, Coles County, Illinois. The regiment was assembled at Louisville for training, arriving on September 13. The Regiment was first assigned to the 3rd Brigade, Craft's Division of the Army of Kentucky. Two weeks later it was reassigned to the 4th Brigade of Sills' Division. After remaining in camp for two more weeks of drill the division was sent to Nashville. Armies move slowly. At Frankfort the regiment was reassigned once again. This time to the 5th Brigade. The march across Kentucky continued. They reached Perryville, Kentucky on October 9th. Colonel Lyman Guinnip had raised the regiment and led it onto the cars in Mattoon riding proudly at the head of the column. His military career was brief. On October 17th he resigned his commission and his second in command, Sheridan P. Read was promoted in his place. They arrived in Nashville on November 7th, went into camp and continued to drill. They remained in Nashville until just after Christmas.

On December 26 General Rosencrans ordered his army after Braxton Bragg's Confederate Army of Tennessee near Murfreesboro. Bragg was entrenched on both sides of Stone's River just northwest of Murfreesboro cutting the Nashville and Chattanooga Rail Road line. Rosencrans ordered the attack on the morning of December 31st. The 79th was in line on the Union right, the scene of the sharpest fighting on the first day when Bragg's counterattack folded the Union right back upon itself. Colonel Read was killed in the opening Rebel attack. He was standing with his sword raised, urging the men to stand fast. The minie ball struck him fair in the forehead.

Major Abner Buckner, a Methodist minister from Mattoon took command. By the time Bragg withdrew on January 2, 1863 the 79th had lost 4 of its officers and 3 more were wounded. 23 enlisted men were killed, 68 were wounded and 121 more were missing. The regiment had lost 20% of its effective manpower in its baptism of fire. It was an expensive victory for Rosencrans. He had lost 15,000 out of the 44,000 who had marched on Bragg's 54,000 rebels. Bragg lost 10,000.

The regiment spent the winter in Murfreesboro. The Army was once more reorganized and the 79th was brigaded under Colonel J. B. Dodge of Indiana along with the 77th Pennsylvania, the 34th Illinois, the 29th Indiana, the 30th Indiana and the 20th Ohio as the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd division of the 20th Corps. Major Buckner, immediately nicknamed The Fighting Parson was promoted to Colonel on April 25th. The army moved south toward Chattanooga in June. On the 25th the Regiment forced Liberty Gap at a cost of two Captains killed, 5 enlisted men killed and 36 wounded.

After crossing the Cumberland mountains and The Tennessee River, the 20th Corp camped on the summit Sand Mountain on the 1st of September. Col. Dodge was ordered to report to Division headquarters for duty on a Drumhead Court Martial. He found a number of officers standing around the fire when he reported. He was told to wait and he would be advised as to the proceedings. Shortly the Provost Marshal rode up and told the group that the accused had been hung as a deserter and thief, having been apprehended red-handed in the act of pillaging an old woman's house by soldiers responding to her screams. They left him swinging from an apple tree.

On September 10th they crossed Lookout Mountain as the Corps rear guard shepherding the supply trains and artillery. During the crossing which took all night one teamster fell asleep, his mule misstepped and one caisson, 12 horses, the gun and six men went over a 300 foot cliff. The following morning the exhausted 79th was ordered to advance along the road toward Lafayette, Georgia and hold the gap at the foot of the mountain. They pushed out in a line of strong skirmishers and by the evening of the 12th held the gap in the face of a strong force of the enemy. It was the opening round of the Battle of Chicamauga.

Chicamauga means :River of Death in Cherokee. On September 19th and 20th 1863 it lived up to its name. Dodge's Brigade again held a spot on the Union right and it became part of the hottest part of the field. Buckner and the 79th were deployed in the Brigade's front as skirmishers. They fell back on the 20th and withdrew to Chattanooga during the night. They left 7 officers and 101 men behind taking 13 wounded with them. There was little to do but build defenses against Bragg's siege through October and November. Rosencrans confidence, never strong in the first place, was badly shaken. It was time to change commanders again. Grant was given command of the Union forces west of the Appalachians. He would soon be commander of all of the Union forces.

Grant replaced Rosecrans with William T. Sherman. On November 23 he launched an assault on Braggs works. He sent Hooker with fresh troops from the east to take Lookout Mountain and Thomas up Missionary Ridge. For three days the waves of Union attackers broke on Bragg's works. The 79th was in the last assault on Missionary Ridge and captured a battery of Confederate artillery.

With the siege of Chattanooga broken and the 79th was sent to reinforce Burnsides hotly engaged with Longstreet at Knoxville. It was a respite and the 79th saw no major combat in the Knoxville theater. In April they were ordered back to Cleveland Tennessee as Sherman prepared for his Atlanta Campaign.

The regiment was engaged in the battles of the Atlanta campaign from May 3, 1864 through September 2. They were not in the thick of the fighting and through the summer had 4 officers wounded, 4 enlisted men killed and 53 wounded.

In late October General John Bell Hood was sent to disrupt Sherman's supply lines. The 79th was part of the the force detached to stop Hood's effort. They collided with Hoods columns at Franklin. Combat losses were only part of the casualties suffered in the Civil War. By the 29th of November 1864 the 79th could field only 210 veteran soldiers to meet Pat Cleborne at Franklin. The held out for 4 hours losing 3 officers and 80 men. They fell back on Nashville and spent the rest of the war in the rear areas.

The 79th returned to Camp Butler near Springfield, Illinois, drew their final pay, received their discharges and went home on June 23, 1865. Their long war was over. Fielden wasn't present at the mustering out. He was sick. At least the official records said so. But he was home in Coles County getting married in May. After all, veterans were entitled to have the Army look the other way. Fielden and Sarah moved to Grape Creek in Vermilion County. Like many of the returning soldiers he got involved in politics and secured an appointment as Vermilion County Deputy Sheriff. In 1900 he was a 60 year-old veteran of 35 years of marriage.

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