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Charging in Dashing Style: With the 5th Alabama at Chancellorsville

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F or one soldier in the 5 th Alabama, the hardest fighting at Chancellorsville didn’t occur during Jackson’s celebrated flank attack on the evening of May 2 nd . It occurred when the regiment erroneously charged against General John Geary’s entrenched Federal division on the morning of May 3 rd which resulted in not only heavy casualties but the loss of the regiment’s colors.           The men had recently advanced and were firing upon a Federal battery when they found themselves under a crossfire. “In a few moments, the crossfire slackened and supposing that they were being driven back on the left, we were ordered to charge,” the soldier stated. “We did so in dashing style, or least a portion of the regiment (the rest not hearing the order) and carried the redoubts of Chancellorsville Heights. Just as we were ordered to charge, our color sergeant was wounded and George Nutting, seizing the colors, waved them in proud triumph and cried, “Come on, boys!” That portion of the regiment
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Escaping Champion's Hill with Stephen D. Lee's Brigade

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T he anguish is palpable as one reads the words of James Powers of the 20 th Alabama in this short letter he wrote home to his brother in Greensboro, Alabama. His regiment, the senior one assigned to General Stephen D. Lee’s brigade, collapsed under a heavy enfilade fire and scattered to the winds. “My impression is that the whole brigade is captured with the exception of a few who were cut off and fell in with Loring’s command,” he commented. “The last account we had from our company, it was scattered everywhere.”           Lieutenant Stephen Underhill, serving as aide-de-camp to General Stephen D. Lee, was in a slightly better position to describe the impact of the battle on Lee’s brigade, but likewise was cut off from his commander and despaired of the result. “ When I got up to the road I caught and mounted a loose horse, I saw several aides riding about who all told me the day was lost,” Underhill wrote to his mother back home in England. “Barton’s brigade had been demolished a
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Fallen Eagles, Fallen Buckeyes: Ohio's Colonels Killed during the Civil War

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                                                                                                                  Ohio Colonels in the Civil War      D uring the Civil War, the state of Ohio lost 22 colonels killed in action, 6 in the eastern theater and 16 in the western theater. The importance of a regiment's colonel cannot be overstated- they set the tone and character of the regiment and many of the soldiers often looked upon their regimental commanders as father figures. The loss of a regiment's commander in action, even an unpopular one, tended to cast a pall over the organization and degrade its combat efficiency for a period of time. The circumstances of the leader's demise played an important role in how the soldiers processed the loss- a colonel lost while out in front leading the regiment in a successful effort (Colonel Joseph L. Kirby Smith of the 43rd Ohio for example) was viewed as a justifiable death and in 19th century parlance was "glorious." Conv
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Pen Portrait of Camp Yancey in December 1861

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L aying aside his attorney's robes for the garb of a private soldier, John P. Hubbard of the 22nd Alabama provided this pen portrait of his first army camp, that of Camp Yancey near Mobile, Alabama in the last days of 1861. In this letter, published in the Southern Advertiser in Troy, Alabama, Hubbard describes the layout of the camp, life in the tents, and the regiment's patient wait for pay. 
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A Victim of General Judah's Ambitions: With the 80th Indiana at Resaca

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O rdered to charge the Rebel works at Resaca in advance of the rest of the army, one Hoosier serving in General Henry Judah’s division recalled the horrors he experienced in that ill-fated charge.           “Now just think about the dozens of cannons playing on this small squad with solid shot, shells, grape, and canister until the air was thick; solid shots flying through the dead treetops and cutting off the limbs which fell and killed or wounded many men,” Corporal William Bicknell of the 80 th Indiana recalled in 1889. “Now while this was going on, just think of the thousands of rifles that were shooting at us as fast as they could load and shoot, almost as thick as any hailstorm you ever witnessed. We faced this storm a distance of about 30-35 rods when we came to a creek with opposite banks so steep we could not get up except by helping one another. This was so slow that the enemy shot us down as fast as we could reach the top.”           Bicknell soon was struck in the arm
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Getting our Grub and Kicking Up our Heels Around Camp: A Delayed Word from the 71st Ohio

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W hen Jacob Runkels of the 71 st Ohio penned the following letter to a friend back in Ohio in the days after Shiloh, he would have been horrified to learn that the letter would not only never reach its destination, but would be captured by the Confederates, published, and held up as an object of ridicule.           “As the Yankees are constantly boasting that they possess all the decency, learning, and intelligence, we publish one of their letters picked up on the battlefield at Farmington as a specimen of their boasted intelligence,” the editors of the Southern Advertiser stated. “Many others were found, too disgusting to be made public. The following may therefore be considered rather above the average.”           “The sheet of paper on which the letter was written was ornamented with a picture of Lincoln and the envelope ornamented with a likeness of General Halleck,” it continued. The original letter, loaded with misspellings, grammatical errors, and the like, first saw publi
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An Eyewitness at Carnifex Ferry

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Major Robert Henry Glass, editor of the Lynchburg Republican , witnessed the Federal advance and attack at Carnifex Ferry, Virginia on the afternoon of September 10, 1861, impressed both with the heroism of his comrades and that of his opponents. “The enemy was seen swarming in the woods from one end of our lines to the other,” Glass reported. “He approached us from this point in double-quick time, evidently intending to force our works at the point of the bayonet. At the first crack of our rifles the gallant Colonel who led in front of his men, on a splendid black charger, fell dead to the earth, while the head of his column recoiled in utter confusion. The Colonel's horse, as if unconscious of the fall of his rider, dashed up to our embankments and around them into our camp, and from the inscription upon the mountings of his pistols, proved to be Colonel William H. Lytle of Cincinnati [commanding 10 th Ohio Infantry]. I saw the daring officer fall from his horse, and he was ce
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