Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

On the southern edge of the Stones River National Battlefield is an open field now used for artillery demonstrations highlighting the story of the Federal batteries that fought in that bitterly contested portion of the field known as the Slaughter Pen. Among the batteries that held this ground on December 31, 1862 was Battery G of the 1 st Ohio Light Artillery commanded by First Lieutenant Alexander Marshall of Cleveland. This battery was an experienced one having been the only battery in Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio that participated in the Battle of Shiloh. Lieutenant Marshall had assumed command of the battery in place of Captain Joseph Bartlett who was suffering from poor health; Bartlett would resign his commission in January 1863 opening the way for Marshall’s promotion to captain.   Guidon of Battery G, 1st Ohio Light Artillery It was a well-equipped battery, if a ‘weird’ one in that four of its six guns were Wiard rifled pieces: two 6-pdr rifles and two 12...

I n the afternoon of January 1 st , quite a large cavalcade of horsemen rode into the west gate headed by a man of fine stature and sitting his big, gray horse like the soldier he was; his face was a grim but not unkindly one, his hair and full whiskers trimmed short and just touched with gray, and the head surmounted by a soft, black felt hat that gave him a very decided resemblance to our own Pap Thomas. He rode to the porch of the house and asked if the body of General [Joshua W.] Sill was still there. A hospital sergeant pointed it out to him and riding over, the man dismounted, and approached the body. The body lay on the porch covered with a blanket. The man took off his hat, lifted the blanket, and looked into the dead face for quite a time, and finally recovering, he said to the sergeant, ‘Poor Sill. He was one of God’s noblemen.’ This big, fine looking man was General [William J.] Hardee of the Confederate Army, and at that time both armies were using Hardee’s tactics, altho...

The doctor looked at my wound and said an ambulance would be after me before long, but have patience he said, there’s a lot of you fellows scattered over this field, your ambulances are gone and ours are limited.   He was right and when an ambulance came along it was what they used to call a prairie schooner, the bottom of the box filled with straw. The little doctor that I had been talking with said that while my wound was not serious, it would probably keep me from walking for a few days. I was thrown into the wagon on the straw; not exactly thrown in but lifted about as if I had been a sack of meal. Others were put in with me, including my little artillery friend, and we were driven to what had been the general field hospital of our army for the benefit of the right wing. [Gresham House] Colonel Leander Stem 101st Ohio Arriving at the hospital we were delighted to find our own surgeons still in charge. An assistant surgeon of our regiment Dr. [Walter] Caswell was still...

Our position went against us immediately after the battle opened up the next day or early morning. We had had such breakfast as we could get at 5 o’clock and then lay there watching the heavy lines of infantry that the Rebels were pushing around to our extreme right. We could see the battle flags plainly but were not allowed to fire at them. About half past five a line of skirmishers was pushed forward by the Rebels and it promptly commenced picking on us. It was followed, as we found just a little later, by two heavy lines of battle, just twice our strength. Their front was covered by a fringe of small bushes and little cedar trees, while we had been drawn back a little into an open strip that ran along between the lines. [Co. E was on skirmish duty in front of the 101 st Ohio when the Rebel attack began and attempted to contest the advance. Lewis Day recalled that ‘the tacit armistice between our pickets and the Rebels in our immediate front was dissolved by the first rays of the ...

The days between the 26 th of December and the 31 st were put into maneuvers for position and it was not until the afternoon of the 30 th that things began to take tangible form. Our army had straightened out on a line some three or four miles long on the north side of Stones River. Stones River is not a very large stream; it is not used for navigation but at times is rather turbulent and has places deep enough to drown men and horses. It was in that condition when it divided the contending Union and Rebel forces. Our army was divided into three grand divisions, or more properly, three corps but each was designated as a wing: right, center, and left. The Battle of Stones River was fought by a Union force of 43,400 men of all branches. It took more than 3,000 men to guard our line of communications and the trains in our rear. The Pioneer Brigade is not counted in the men who fought the battle of the reason that its duties do not take it on the firing line. Of the number actuall...

Private Albert Palmer Co. D, 101st Ohio In commemoration of the 157th anniversary of the Battle of Stones River, I proudly present five excerpts covering the Stones River campaign written by Private Charles Barney Dennis of Co. B, 101st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Wounded through the hip during the battle of December 31st, 1862, Dennis was left behind at the Gresham House field hospital and his account of his experiences behind the lines is one of the finest I have ever read concerning Stones River. These excerpts, part of a much larger manuscript  covering Dennis' wartime service, reside at the Hayes Memorial Library in Fremont, Ohio.

The sounds of battle still reverberated amongst the hills of middle Tennessee when Colonel Timothy Stanley of the 18 th Ohio wrote his official report of the Battle of Stones River. His command, the 29 th Brigade of General James S. Negley’s Division consisting of the 19 th Illinois, 11 th Michigan, 18 th Ohio, 69 th Ohio, and Battery M, 1 st Ohio Light Artillery, had taken part in some of the toughest fighting of the battle in a section of cedar forest now known as the Slaughter Pen. His brigade had suffered heavy casualties in its failed attempt to stem the Confederate tide. He was proud of his men. “They acted with bravery expected of well-disciplined troops fighting in a just cause,” he wrote. “They stood manfully and bravely the appalling fire of a much larger force.” But there was, unfortunately, one exception.           “Early in the action of this day [December 31, 1862] I discovered that Colonel William B. Cassilly of t...

This extraordinary letter, written by former English army officer Stephen Edward Monaghan Underhill to his mother in Coldstream, Scotland in the waning days of the siege of Vicksburg, gives a lengthy account of Underhill’s experiences during the Vicksburg campaign while serving as an aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Stephen D. Lee. The 21-year old Underhill resigned his commission in the British army and entered the Confederacy through the blockade at Charleston, South Carolina in January 1863, journeyed to Mississippi and gained an appointment to Lee’s staff. Underhill gained favorable notice from Lee for his “gallantry and efficient service” during the campaign. Following his parole at Vicksburg, he was commissioned as a first lieutenant of cavalry and eventually became colonel of the 65 th Alabama Infantry. Colonel Stephen E.M. Underhill The letter had a rather twisted path to publication in the Guernsey Times of Cambridge, Ohio. Underhill wrote that he had entrusted th...

The 183rd Ohio Infantry, a new regiment raised primarily in Cincinnati of Germans or men of German descent, made one of the most rapid transitions from peace to war of any regiment from Ohio. Mustered into service November 18, 1864 at Camp Dennison, Ohio, in ten days the men found themselves at the front, staring across the Duck River in southern Tennessee about to square off with the invading legions of John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee.  An unnerving experience for a new unit, the 183rd Ohio performed remarkably well in the hectic three days that followed in large part due to the breadth of experience of its officers and enlisted men. Its colonel, George Hoge, had a distinguished career with the 126th Ohio while Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Clark had served with the Rooster Regiment, the notable 7th Ohio Infantry. Chaplain John Geer had served with the 48th Ohio in the early part of the war and the story of his capture at Shiloh was recounted on this blog some time ago. (See ...

To mark my 100 th blog post regarding the Civil War, I wanted to put something together regarding one of the most poignant events of the war, the surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4, 1863. Widely regarded (with Gettysburg) as the turning point of the conflict, many of the veterans of both Grant’s and Pemberton’s armies penned memoirs and reminiscences of the events leading up to the surrender. For this post, I’d like to share the memories of a few soldiers of the 32 nd Ohio who were eyewitnesses to the negotiations and eventual surrender of the city, interspersed with accounts from Generals Grant and Pemberton.   Sgt. Henry G. Lehmann, Co. H, 32nd O.V.I.           Sergeant Henry G. Lehmann Co. H, 32 nd Ohio had just finished some clerical work for Colonel Benjamin Potts and was about to commence sharpshooting on the Rebels when he spied two Rebel horsemen approaching with a white flag. “Turning to the colonel, I sh...