Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

B y any measure, the 27th Illinois had already performed a full day's work during their fighting south of the Wilkinson Pike on the morning of December 31, 1862 at Stones River. The regiment had helped repulse multiple Confederate attacks on their position and retreated by General Phil Sheridan's command around 11 a.m.       Moving north along the Nashville Pike in search of ammunition a few hours later, Major William Schmitt now commanding the regiment found himself in the presence of General Rosecrans. The commanding general of the Army of the Cumberland was in a tight spot and needed the 27th Illinois to help hold the line along the Nashville Pike. Schmitt replied that he was nearly out of ammunition but would use the bayonet. Rosecrans agreed and told him to go at the Rebels "quick, quick."      "After retreating over a mile, we struck the road running directly from Nashville to Murfreesboro where we halted and seeing the enemy coming to meet us, w...

F or future Congressman William H. Calkins, the sight at dawn on February 16, 1862, repaid manyfold the privations and sufferings he experienced during the days in front of Fort Donelson.     " The first gray streak of daylight displayed a white flag streaming from off the tops of the surrounding breastworks," he noted in a letter to the editors of the Lafayette Journal & Courier. "If you can imagine the feelings of our troops when they saw the rattlesnake flag fall and the glorious stars and stripes waving in triumph over the Rebel fort. It paid us tenfold for our suffering. To pay us for our gallant bravery, we had the honor to march in front of the long line of troops into the fort.  General Floyd escaped as did General Pillow, but Generals Buckner, Johnson, and West were captured. There were from 10,000-12,000 prisoners taken and a rough-looking set I tell you."     A member of the 14th Iowa Infantry, Lieutenant Calkins' description of the victory at Fo...

O n Thursday, November 5, 1863, Captain Warren Parker Edgarton of Battery E of the 1 st Ohio Light Artillery married the widower Julia Daly Olwine in Nashville, Tennessee. It was apparently a quiet wedding- outside of being recorded in the record of Davidson County, Tennessee marriages, no mention was made of the nuptials in any period newspapers. Wartime marriages were hardly uncommon during the Civil War, but the circumstances of how a Massachusetts-born artillery officer from Ohio met one of the most beloved actresses of the American stage is history (quoting the History Guy) that deserves to be remembered. To start, let’s introduce the couple. Captain Edgarton is a familiar soldier to readers of the blog; the story of how his battery was captured during the opening moments of the Battle of Stones River has been recounted in several previous posts. (See Comanche Versus the Professor ,  Receipt in Full in Red Ink , An Intimate View of Battery E's Demise , and  Captured En...

T he last week of August 1862 may have been the busiest in the history of the 21st Georgia Infantry's history during the Civil War. The Georgians fought in five separate engagements over the course of a little more than a week: Freeman's Ford on August 22nd, Manassas Station in the early morning hours of August 27th, Groveton on the evening of the 28th, Second Bull Run throughout August 29th and 30th, then Chantilly on September 1st.       The engagement at Groveton on the evening of August 28th against a portion of the Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac was a particularly hard fight for the regiment. " We carried 240 men into the engagement and advancing with our brigade, some became hotly engaged," one veteran recalled. "Onward we went to a fence, the enemy falling back before us. Whilst fighting here under a heavy crossfire, our regiment and the 21 st  North Carolina suffered unusually. Owing to some mistake, the 15 th  Alabama and 12 th  Georg...

O n Saturday morning July 26, 1862, the editors of the Atlanta Southern Confederacy heard a ruckus in the streets and looking outdoors saw that a large and visibly angry crowd had gathered in front of Hunnicutt & Taylor’s store. Hanging above the window was a “very large and handsome Lincoln flag,” the editors later remembered. “In full view from our window, spread to the breeze waving to and fro was the beautiful flag of the once powerful and honored, but now broken and disgraced, United States.”           The stars and stripes had not flown in Atlanta since January 1861 when Georgia became the fifth state to secede from the Union. And now this hated emblem floating in the center of Atlanta? Lieutenant Robert Graham, serving in Co. H of the 2 nd Georgia Cavalry, soon provided an explanation- the flag was the regimental flag of the 9 th Michigan Infantry, captured during the recent engagement at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The “rising wr...

O n the morning of July 13, 1862, a cavalry command under Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked and compelled the surrender of the Federal garrison at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Among those taking part in the assault was Private John C. Ellington of the 2 nd Georgia Cavalry who in this brief letter to his father back home in Jonesboro described how his company, the Clayton Dragoons, took the Rutherford County Courthouse.           “The enemy kept up a continual crossfire from the windows,” Ellington stated. “We were ordered to charge on foot. At the first effort, they poured a volley of balls into our ranks, killing R.S. Henderson and F.M. Farris while severely wounding D.P. Morris and Robert Payne, all men from the Clayton Dragoons. We got an axe and charged from another corner and succeeded in reaching the courthouse and broke down the door. About this time, all of them went to the upper story so we went in and built a fire. This they co...