Joshua Woodrow Sill
was born December 6, 1831 in Chillicothe, Ross Co., Ohio to attorney Joseph
Sill and his wife Elizabeth. Sill’s mother died before he was three years old
and consequently he spent much of his youth with his relatives in nearby
Hillsboro. He proved to be an adept scholar, especially at mathematics, and was
appointed to West Point in 1849 not “from any predilection for the military
profession as a vocation” but because “it offered an inexpensive way to a good
education.” Sill proved to be a superb cadet, graduating third in the class of
1853 which included future Civil War generals and fellow Ohioans Philip H.
Sheridan and James B. McPherson. His first assignment was to the government
arsenal at Watervliet, New York followed by assignment back to West Point as an
assistant professor of history, then stints in Vancouver, Washington Territory
and Leavenworth, Kansas Territory.
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| Brigadier General Joshua Woodrow Sill |
In January 1861, Sill resigned his commission
to accept a professorship of mathematics and civil engineering at the
Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York. The outbreak of
hostilities in April 1861 led Sill to resign his position, and tender his
services to Ohio governor William Dennison. Sill was appointed the state’s
assistant adjutant general and later served on the staff of General George B.
McClellan during his western Virginia campaign in the summer of 1861.
Commissioned as colonel of the 33rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Sill
embarked on his duties in the western theater by winning distinction with a
victory at Ivy Mountain, Kentucky in November. By the beginning of the year,
Sill had been promoted to brigade command and performed his duties with such
marked efficiency that General Don Carlos Buell promoted him to command of the
Second Division, First Army Corps in September 1862. Sill led the division
through the Perryville campaign then moved with the army into Nashville where
it was reorganized under new commander General William S. Rosecrans.
“In stature, General Sill was rather below the
medium height. His figure was well nit and erect, his carriage and movements
vigorous and somewhat nervous,” his nephew Albert Douglas remembered. “His hair
and beard were brown, and his handsome gentle eyes were of the same color.” Sill’s
character was marked by religious fervor wrapped into a shy, retiring modesty;
indeed the county historian remembered Sill as a “plain, simple, mild-mannered
gentleman, very modest, never assertive, always kind and fair to his men.” But despite
Sill’s retiring nature, he proved to be an exceptional military leader. Staff
member Edwin M. DeBruin stated that “as a soldier he was mild and pleasant, but
firm, decided, resolute, and brave. As a man, he was patriotic, all that was
noble and pure, and that pleasant smile peculiar to himself alone that always
greeted friend or foe.” Sill’s
long serving adjutant general Captain Joseph E. Stearns remarked that “as
regards the General’s character, he cannot be too highly spoken of, for a purer
minded, nobler, or more patriotic man never lived. No officer in this entire
army was so much admired, beloved, and respected by both his inferiors and
superiors as was General Sill.”
In early December 1862, Brigadier General
Richard W. Johnson reported for duty with Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland at
Nashville. As the junior divisional commander in the Army, Johnson’s arrival
and assignment to command meant that Sill would be displaced. A staff member
recalled that Sill alone among his intimates ascribed nothing negative to this
change, stating that Johnson as the senior officer deserved a command
appropriate to his rank and time in service. The troops of the Second Division
were less understanding. “The regret of the second division at the loss of Gen.
Sill is intense and universal,” one aggrieved soldier wrote to a Cincinnati
newspaper. “Indeed, there is no individual who stands higher in the opinions of
both officers and men than General Sill.”
Given his choice of assignments, Sill took command of the First Brigade in the
division of his West Point classmate Philip H. Sheridan. “I knew him well and
was glad that he came to my division,” Sheridan wrote. “Sill’s modesty and
courage were exceeded only by a capacity that had already been demonstrated in
many practical ways.”
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| Sill's close friend and division commander Phil Sheridan |
The Army of the Cumberland commenced its march
to Murfreesboro on December 26, 1862, Sill’s brigade taking part in the hard
marching through incessant rain and mud along the roads leading from Nashville.
Sill had concerns that the coming fight would be a hard one. Lieutenant DeBruin
recalled meeting Sill along the road during the march and conversing with him
on the subject. “Mr. DeBruin, we are going to have a severe struggle at
Murfreesboro,” Sill said. “We are going to fight thirteen divisions with eight
divisions. I think we will whip them, but many a good officer and soldier of
our army will be killed. I do not expect to come out of that fight safe.”
McCook’s corps marched into the Murfreesboro area
along the Wilkinson Turnpike on the morning of December 30. McCook dispatched
both Sheridan’s and Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis’ divisions to the
right of the turnpike to establish a position against the Confederates.
Artillery fire soon began to fall amongst the troops as they started to push
Confederate skirmishers across the cotton fields east of Gresham Lane. Sill
called upon Captain Asahel K. Bush and his 4th Indiana Battery to
engage them. “About 1 P.M., we moved across the open fields near the woods
occupied by the enemy. A rebel battery opened on us from the woods at about 600
yards range, when General Sill ordered us into position in the woods fronting
them and ordered me to ‘silence that battery,’ which we did after a sharp
contest of about two hours at 450 yards range.”
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| Captain Asahel K. Bush, 4th Indiana Battery |
The battle continued for several hours as Sill’s
men slowly pushed the Confederates about a mile east of Gresham Lane. As night
brought an end to the contest, Sill arranged his regiments with the 36th
Illinois on the right, supported by the green 24th Wisconsin while
he placed the 88th Illinois to the left of the 36th
Illinois, likewise supported by the 21st Michigan. Bush’s battery
was placed on open ground between the two Illinois regiments. It was a strong
position, situated upon the crest of a low ridge with corn and cotton fields in
front of it. Any attacking force would be caught in the open, exposed to
Federal artillery and musketry. Sill’s ongoing concern for the welfare of his
men is shown by this comment from Major Elisha Hibbard of the 24th
Wisconsin. “I was ordered by General Sill to have a picket posted, the balance
to lie down on their arms and allow half of each company to go to the rear to
do some cooking. I posted one company as pickets, and allowed the men to boil
some coffee, then placed them into line. The night was intensely cold and the men nearly frozen." (8)
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| General Sill's frock coat which was worn by General Phil Sheridan during the Battle of Stones River. The men accidentally swapped coats during Sill's late night visit and Sheridan returned the coat to the Sill family after the battle. (Ross County Historical Society) |
In the course of positioning his front line
regiments, Sill and a group of officers came under fire. Sill’s aide-de-camp
First Lieutenant James W. Davidson was struck in the thigh by a musket ball and
was carried back to the nearby Harding House field hospital. “After dark,
General Sill came in to see him,” relayed Chaplain William Haigh of the 36th
Illinois. “It was a great comfort to the wounded man to have his general take
such an interest in him. Just before leaving, he (Sill) stood for a while,
leaning on his sword, wrapped in deep thought, and I imagined a shade of
sadness on his fine face. I wondered whether some sad presentiment of his fate
was passing through his mind as he stood, gazing silently on his wounded aide.”
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| Captain Ellsworth, Co. K, 24th Wisconsin |
Gloom appeared to impede upon Sill’s generally
sunny disposition. “I returned at night and stayed with General Sill on the
battlefield for we had considerable fighting on that day, especially in the
evening,” Lieutenant DeBruin remembered. “I helped him arrange his bed, but
about 10 ½ o’clock I got up and found his bed on fire, and assisted him in
putting it out. I do not think that he slept much after that.” Sill
wandered to a camp fire nearby and sat with Captain Stearns until after
midnight. “The General and myself were sitting by the fire when the General
made the remark that ‘perhaps the next night, we will not be together here,
Stearns.’ I passed it off as lightly as I could but it seemed to me that from
that time on his was more sedate and melancholy than usual.”
After sitting a while longer, Sill called for an orderly to bring him his horse
which had the effect of waking his dutiful aide Lieutenant DeBruin. “No
DeBruin, you lie down and take your rest. You will have plenty of work to do
tomorrow.”
Sill set out on a ride along his lines and
listened to the steady tramp of Confederate troops moving a few hundred yards
to the east. Alarmed that the Confederates might be aiming to strike the
exposed right flank of the Union army, Sill galloped back to see his friend
Sheridan and apprise him of the situation. “At 2 o’clock in the morning of the
31st, General Sill came back to me to report that on his front a
continuous movement had been going on all night within the Confederate lines,
and that he was convinced that Bragg was massing on our right with the purpose
of making an attack from that direction early in the morning,” Sheridan
remembered. “After discussing the probabilities of such a course on the part of
the enemy, I thought McCook should be made acquainted with what was going on,
so Sill and I went back to see him at his headquarters not far from the Gresham
House where we found him sleeping on some straw in the angle of a worm fence.”
After waking the burly Ohioan, Sheridan and Sill relayed their concerns but
McCook did not think that any changes in disposition were warranted. “He said
he thought Johnson’s division (Sill’s old command) would be able to take care
of the right and seemed confident that the early assault which was to be made
from Rosecrans’ left would anticipate and check the designs we presaged.”
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| Right wing commander Alexander McDowell McCook sits at center with his staff in an image dating from 1863. Note the 20th Corps headquarters flag in the background. |
Sill and Sheridan rode back to Sheridan’s
headquarters and discussed the matter further, Sill’s anxiety finally
prevailing upon Sheridan to dispatch two regiments from the divisional reserve
to bolster Sill’s right flank. “He then rejoined his brigade, better satisfied,
but still adhering to the belief he had expressed when first making his
report.”
Upon returning to his brigade, Sill visited Major Hibbard of the 24th
Wisconsin. “General Sill came down to the regiment and said we would be
supported from the reserve brigade. The men were then awake and ready for
action.”
In the course of checking his lines before dawn, Sill met Colonel William E.
Woodruff who was commanding the neighboring brigade in Davis’ division.
Woodruff also had concerns about his position and indicated to Sill that he,
too, had no support for his front line. “I pointed out to Brigadier General
Sill the weakness of the line at this point and requested him to order up some
regiments of his brigade, held in reserve, to strengthen his right and protect
my left, feeling certain that the enemy meditated an attack and that it would
be made at that place,” Woodruff wrote. “He agreed with me and immediately
ordered up two regiments, which remained but a short time.”
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| Colonel William E. Woodruff |
Sheridan’s orders arrived at Colonel Frederick
Schaefer’s headquarters just before daybreak, and he dispatched the 15th
Missouri and 44th Illinois regiments under the command of Lieutenant
Colonel John Weber to reinforce Sill’s line. Sill, nervously awaiting the
arrival of his reinforcements, called for Lieutenant DeBruin. “Mr. DeBruin, I
wish you to report to General Sheridan again today for duty and tell him that
the reserve has not arrived.” DeBruin mounted his horse, but met the reserve
force marching towards Sill’s line just a few yards away, then continued on his
way to Sheridan’s headquarters. Weber met Sill, who “gave me the directions as
to which place I had to occupy. We hardly had time to form into battle line
before the enemy opened fire and rushed upon us in superior numbers.” Weber
formed his troops a few paces in the rear of the 24th Wisconsin,
which also allowed the two regiments to keep watch on Sill’s right flank.
“At early
dawn of the 31st from Johnson came the distant rumble of battle.
This quickly deepened to thunder along our immediate front,” remembered Sill’s
topographical officer Second Lieutenant John Lendrum Mitchell of the 24th
Wisconsin. “The enemy, massed in overwhelming numbers, column closed upon
column, under cover of their artillery, bore down on us with determined tread.
Above the rattle of musketry rose the roar of cannon. The air seemed alive with
whistling missiles.”
Across an old cotton field, the staunch battle line of Colonel John Q. Loomis’ brigade,
comprised of the 1st Louisiana Regulars, along with the 19th,
22nd, 25th, 26th, and 39th Alabama
Infantry regiments supported by Yancey’s 17th Battalion, Alabama
Sharpshooters, left the cover of trees and steadily marched towards the Union
lines, aiming at capturing Bush’s 4th Indiana battery and Captain
Stephen Carpenter’s 8th Wisconsin battery which supported Woodruff’s
brigade. As the Confederate line approached the Federal position, it split
towards the two objectives, the 22nd Alabama (on the right flank of
the brigade) and 19th Alabama along with the 1st
Louisiana moving in an oblique direction towards Sill’s brigade.
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| Second Lieutenant John Lendrum Mitchell of the 24th Wisconsin served on Sill's staff. He became the father of noted aviator General Billy Mitchell. |
Combat in this sector of the field was especially
fierce, bloody, and determined. Sergeant Emerson R. Calkins of the 8th
Wisconsin Battery remembered the “shot and shell tearing through the trees over
our heads and the long lines of rebel gray coming across that bloody field in
serried ranks, only to be hurled back, shattered and bleeding, only to try
again. At every discharge of our guns, great gaps were opened in their ranks,
while we worked our guns until they sizzled like red hot rain as we forced the
sponges into the muzzles.”
Captain Abner H. Flewellen, leading Co. F of the 39th Alabama,
recalled that this was the “tightest place I ever was in. We advanced through
the open field, not knowing the enemy was posted in the corn field until we
were fired upon. At the same time the battery was cross firing all the time and
between the two fires, we suffered heavily.”
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| Major Silas Miller, 36th Illinois |
Near the Harding House, Sheridan observed the
advancing Confederates through his field glasses. “The effect of this fire on
the advancing column was terrible, but it continued on until it reached the
edge of the timber where Sill’s right lay,” Sheridan recalled. Colonel
Francis T. Sherman of the 88th Illinois recalled that Loomis’ men
advanced “with steady front and firm tread with colors flying as if on parade,
their officers leading the advance of the column and cheering their men. For a
few moments, everything was still as death as that dark host moved toward our
front.”
Captain Porter C. Olson of Sill’s front line 36th Illinois also had
a close view of the advancing Confederates. “They came diagonally across the
field. Upon reaching the foot of the hill, they made a left half-wheel and came
up directly in front of us,” he wrote. “When the enemy had advanced up the hill
sufficiently to be in sight, Colonel Greusel ordered the regiment to fire,
which was promptly obeyed. We engaged the enemy at short range, the lines not
being over 10 rods apart.”
Both Illinois regiments opened fire, the discharge of more than 1,200 muskets
at close range playing havoc on the Confederate line. “Like the grass before
the scythe of a mower, the ranks of the enemy went down as that volley went
crashing and tearing through their ranks. It brought them to a dead halt for a
moment, and then on again they came. That halt was fatal to them; it gave my
men time to reload.”
Corporal William McGregor of Co. C, 88th
Illinois remembered that the Confederates “commenced firing but without much
effect. We gave them the best we had. They made a right face and sought shelter
in a piece of timber where they lay down but still in sight. We made it too hot
for them there, so they made a second attack which fared no better.”
Captain Taylor Beattie of the 1st Louisiana Regulars opposite the 88th
Illinois wrote that he heard an order directing the regiment to fall back. “The
men commenced to break. Captain Douglas West (Co. I) seized our colors and
tried to stop it, but it was no use as the troops on our right and left had
already fallen back. The enemy had also rallied and was advancing to attack us.
We fell back in some disorder to our original position.”
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| Colonel Francis T. Sherman, 88th Illinois |
With the Rebels wavering, Sill ordered his
front line to affix bayonets and charge. He also sent a dispatch (via
Lieutenant Mitchell) to Lieutenant Colonel Weber to bring his two regiments
forward to provide additional support for the charging 36th and 88th
Illinois and to shore up his right flank as Woodruff’s brigade was also reeling
under the Confederate assault. The
charge broke Loomis’ brigade, which retreated back into its entrenchments 300
yards across the cotton field “in some confusion”
having sustained heavy casualties in this engagement. Private William J.
McDearman of Co. H, 12th Tennessee Infantry viewed the onrushing carnage
from his position in the ranks in Vaughan’s brigade which lay in support behind
Loomis, and remembered that Loomis’ troops “were cut to pieces terribly” and
that the Federal commenced cheering “like a lot of little schoolboys. Cheatham
gave orders for every man to be ready and at the command ‘Attention!’ for each
one to rise on his right knee, and shoot under the smoke of the enemy’s guns.
Then we were to load and fire as we advanced. The enemy advanced downhill. We
fired all at once and rose yelling. Cheatham’s and Cleburne’s men could beat
the world on a yell.” The heavy volley halted the impetuous advance of the 36th
and 88th Illinois; both regiments fell back towards their original
line leaving a trail of dead and wounded.
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| Officers of the 21st Michigan Infantry in June 1865. |
In
Sill’s second line, Sergeant Charles E. Belknap of Co. H, 21st
Michigan Infantry observed the Illinois troops returning to Federal lines “with
a confused crowd of prisoners, when General Sill came dashing by the right of
our regiment, going to the front. As I looked upon his handsome face, all aglow
with fire, a jet of blood spurted from his forehead, his saber dropped from
his
hand, his form bent forward for an instant, then he fell from his horse. One
foot caught in the stirrup and the unguided animal dragged the lifeless form a
few rods before the foot became loosened.”
The
musket ball struck Sill through the upper lip under his left eye, penetrating
the brain, and blew out the back of his head.
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| General Sill's sword |
In the smoke and confusion of battle, Sill’s
staff had momentarily lost sight of him. Lieutenant Mitchell, having delivered
Sill’s order to Weber, hurried back towards Bush’s battery and came across
Captain Stearns, who indicated that he had just seen the General’s rider-less
horse bolting for the rear. “In our search for Sill, we almost stumbled over
his prostrate body. A bullet had penetrated his brain; he had tumbled from his
horse without even a friendly arm to ease his fall. He lay unconscious and
alone, bubbling out his last breaths through the blood that thickly flowed over
his fair face and silky beard.”
Stearns raised Sill’s head and implored his beloved general to speak, “but he
closed his eyes, rested back his head, and before we could get a stretcher, he
was dead.” Sill died amongst the guns of the 4th Indiana Battery,
but the chaos of battle was such that few amongst the gunners noticed his fall.
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| General Sill was killed while riding along his lines and fell in the rear of the guns of the 4th Indiana Battery. |
Fearing that the Confederates were reforming to
attack again, Stearns quickly removed Sill’s sword and handed it to Mitchell,
then galloped off to find Colonel Nicholas Greusel to inform him that he had
command of the brigade. Mitchell, left alone with the body, acquired a blanket
and with the help of two stragglers “who were with difficulty persuaded to aid
in taking his body” carried Sill back to the Harding House field hospital. Stearns
found them some minutes later, but observing the imminent collapse of their brigade,
the four men carried Sill’s body westward towards the perceived safety of the Gresham
House field hospital.
News of Sill’s death spread quickly within the
division. Lieutenant DeBruin was with Sheridan when an orderly brought the
word. “Is that true? Is he dead?” Sheridan asked. Yes was the reply. ‘My God,
so good and so pure a man. Well, I suppose it all for the better,’ Sheridan
said. He then turned to Captain Hescock’s battery and said ‘now give it to the
scoundrels’ and from that time his whole aim seemed to be avenging the death of
Gen. Sill.”
Word also passed quickly along the front lines. “It shocked me terribly, for if
I ever loved any man, that man was General Sill. He was a man to love,”
remarked Major Silas Miller of the 36th Illinois.
Major Hibbard of the 24th Wisconsin
learned of Sill’s death when his sent his regimental adjutant Arthur McArthur
to notify the general that a Confederate brigade of five regiments was on his
right flank; in the confusion of the change of command, Hibbard received no
orders and soon was under a heavy crossfire from his right and rear. The green
troops stood the fire for a short time, then broke in confusion for the
rear. “No orders having been received,
and thinking it improper to remain longer in this position, I ordered the
regiment to break to the rear by companies. Some of the officers not hearing
this order, the left did not move with the right, and the regiment came off in
disorder.”
Sheridan in the meantime had just met with Colonel Greusel, and directed him to
move the brigade back to its original line when they were confronted with the
retreating 24th Wisconsin. The collapse of the chain of command
caused by Sill’s sudden death contributed to the ultimate collapse of the
Federal line in this sector of the field.
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| A map showing the position of Sheridan's division at the outset of the Battle of Stones River on December 31, 1862. General Sill was killed just behind the guns of Bush's battery at center right, and was carried back to the Gresham House at the left by members of his staff and some stragglers. Confederates discovered the body shortly thereafter along a fence and numerous claims were made for bagging the Federal general. |
Meanwhile, Sill’s staff carried the body of
their general to the Gresham House field hospital where Lieutenant DeBruin met
the body of his friend and commander. DeBruin had been injured in falling from
his horse and Sheridan gave him permission to escort the body back to safety.
“We conveyed the body to a place near a hospital where I attempted to procure
an ambulance but could not succeed. His sword, pistol, field glass, and some
papers in his pocket were taken possession of by Captain Stearns and some of
the general’s escort. Then finding that the Rebel cavalry had attacked the
hospital and were close upon us, we were compelled to retire without the body.”
Within moments, advancing Confederate troops found Sill, laid alongside the
east side of Gresham Lane “near a fence and 75 yards in the rear of the
hospital.”
Soldiers began to strip the body for souvenirs, a private in Co. D, 2nd
Arkansas Infantry making off with the general’s gloves before handing them over
to his company commander Captain Elbridge G. Brasher. “He states that General
Sill then had his uniform on, which he would have taken, but it was too large
for him.” The body was then taken back to the Gresham House. The
body was brought into Murfreesboro during the afternoon of January 1, 1863 and
laid out in a room at the Rutherford County Courthouse.
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Surgeon Edward Hale Bowman of the 27th Illinois
buried General Sill and the body of his
regimental commander Fazilo Harrington side by side. |
Sill’s body apparently was moved out of the
courthouse as it was discovered outdoors during the evening of January 2, 1863.
Surgeon Edward Bowman of the 27th Illinois Infantry, who had been in
town attending to his commanding officer Colonel Fazilo A. Harrington now
deceased, found Sill’s body and resolved to bury the two men side by side. Bowman
struggled to acquire lumber from the undertaker (“nothing but green oak and
poplar and but little of that”) then constructed two coffins with the help of a
Negro. “We found it (Sill’s body) in the fence corner, unburied, no grave dug,
and no detail for that purpose. It was too late in the day to go back to town
to make arrangements. So after borrowing some tools, we dug a grave large
enough to contain both coffins and with a feeling of sadness to which language
cannot do justice, we lowered them to their resting place side by side and
heaped earth over them, putting up the headboard I had prepared with my own
hands.”
Newspaper accounts initially indicated that the Confederates had given Sill a
military burial, but Bowman’s account calls that into question, and stands in
stark contrast to the statement of General Braxton Bragg. Bragg stated in his
official report that Sill was “sent to town and decently interred, though he
had forfeited all claim to such consideration by the acts of cruelty,
barbarity, and atrocity but a few days before committed under his authority on
the women, children, and old men living near the road on which he made a
reconnaissance.”
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| General Sill's grave mate was Colonel Fazilo A. Harrington of the 27th Illinois of the Third Brigade of Sheridan's Division. One of Harrington's men remembered his colonel as being a wicked man but a first-rate colonel. |
Upon the retreat of the Confederate army from
Murfreesboro on January 4, 1863, General Sill’s remains were sought out by his
staff for re-burial back home in Ohio. “On the 11th of January,
First Lieutenant Robert M. Denning, aide on General Sheridan’s staff and myself
disinterred the body and to be certain of its identity, opened the coffin and
found it to be in almost a perfect state of preservation,” wrote Lieutenant
DeBruin. “On the evening of the 11th, we delivered the body to Dr.
McNally and others of Chillicothe after having put it in a large box in which
we put charcoal and creosote which was the only means of preserving the body.”
In a last gesture of respect, the Army escorted the body from town on the
“clear, calm, and cool” evening of the 11th with a guard of honor
which was led by Second Lieutenant Willis James Nugent of the 78th
Pennsylvania Infantry.
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| Funeral program for General Sill who was buried in Grandview Cemetery in Chillicothe, Ohio. My great-great-great grandfather James Morrow who served in the 1st Ohio Cavalry is buried nearby. |
It took three weeks to transport General Sill’s
remains back to Ohio. He arrived in Chillicothe via rail on the evening of
Friday, January 30, 1863 where a committee of citizens met the incoming train,
and escorted the body to the First Presbyterian Church in Chillicothe. The
funeral services, led by Reverend J.B. Britton “whose address was most eloquent
and appropriate,” took place two days later. General Sill was then laid in his
final resting place at Grandview Cemetery outside of town.
“Over his grave a bereaved sister erected a monument, a fluted column broken
below its capital, draped with the flag of his country.”
“Lay your poor
chieftain down to rest,
With all the mournful
pomp of war,
And sheathe for aye,
his patriot sword,
For him life’s battle
now is o’er.”
 |
| Gravestone detail (Findagrave.com) |
