The Saga of General William R. Terrill's Sword

    In the aftermath of the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, Sergeant Charles Van Houten of the 121st Ohio stumbled upon a once-in-a-lifetime battlefield trophy. As Van Houten examined the battlefield near the wreckage of Lieutenant Charles Parsons’ Battery, he spied a sword and scabbard laying on the ground. Upon the blade he saw engraved two names: Brigadier General Jeremiah T. Boyle and Brigadier General William R. Terrill. Van Houten had inadvertently found the sword General Terrill was carrying when he was wounded. It was a tremendous battlefield trophy, and the Ohioan decided to send the sword back to his home in Pleasant Twp., Marion Co., Ohio. In the meantime, he scratched his name into the handle and quietly packed the sword into a box for shipment.[1]

The Battle of Perryville as depicted by Harper's Weekly. General Terrill was struck down when a Confederate artillery shell exploded over the guns of Lieutenant Charles C. Parsons battery; the jagged shell fragment struck the Virginian, tearing most of his chest open. He died around 2 a.m. that night from the wound. 


William Rufus Terrill was born April 21, 1834 in Covington, Virginia to William Henry Terrill and Elizabeth Terrill and came of age in Warm Springs. His father was a prominent and wealthy attorney who served in the Virginia legislature. In 1849, the elder Terrill secured an appointment to West Point for his son, as remembered by James Terrill, William’s younger brother. “When the appointment arrived, he [William Terrill, Sr.] called the family together and presented it to him with a copy of the Constitution and the New Testament and extracted a pledge before us all that he would never prove false to either,” James said.[2] The Virginian graduated from West Point in 1853 with great promise; he proved to be a bright and disciplined cadet and came back to the Point to serve a year as an assistant professor of mathematics. “He was a great draughtsman and a fine officer, and an amiable, intelligent, and courteous gentleman” his obituary noted. In the late 1850s, he served on the U.S. Coastal Survey and as Civil War drew near he was on duty with the Regular Artillery in Poughkeepsie, New York. [3]

 

When Virginia seceded on April 17, 1861, Terrill made the difficult choice of remaining loyal to the United States against the earnest wishes of his home state and his family. As remembered by his brother James, “when General [Robert E.] Lee resigned his commission, father wrote to brother and urged him to resign and come home and enter the Confederate service, but my brother reminded him of the pledge he had made and declared his determination to stand by the cause of the Union.”[4] The 28-year old lieutenant wrote his widowed father (Elizabeth had died in 1858 at age 53) that “the Union cause to which I have devoted my life has nothing but honor to endear it, and it has no terror but that of death which a soldier must always expect. The rebellion, however, offers nothing but dishonor and disgrace and I shall adhere to the flag of the Union and give my life if necessary in support of the legally constituted Government of the United States.” [5]


 

Brigadier General William R. Terrill
Encyclopedia of Virginia


The elder Terrill was “overwhelmed by the position that you have taken. It is the bitterest cup that has ever been commended to my lips. How it makes my heart bleed to think that while Virginia’s sons are rallying to the defense of her firesides and homes that my son is found playing the part of Benedict Arnold. All your brothers and even your father whose years would exempt him will be in the fight and can you be so recreant and unnatural as to aid in the mad attempt to impose the yoke of tyranny upon your kith and kin. Do so, and your name shall be stricken from the family record and only remembered in connection with your treachery to the country that gave you birth.” Both the elder Terrill and James Terrill went on to serve with the Confederacy, James being killed in 1864 at the Battle of Bethesda Church, Virginia. William Rufus Terrill would meet his end wearing the blue uniform of the Union.[6]

 

Terrill reported to the War Department in Washington, D.C. where he was soon promoted to the rank of captain and tasked with raising what became Battery H of the 5th U.S. Light Artillery. At some point prior to this, he married Emily D. Henry. The couple settled in Reading, Pennsylvania where Captain Terrill recruited volunteers for the battery; Mrs. Terrill continued to live in Reading she remained until his death in 1862. The Virginian made a good impression with his new neighbors, the Reading Times commenting favorably that Terrill “has about him all the marks of a true soldier. There is no bluster, no boasting, no display; but in place of these we find a quiet confidence, a modesty, and gentlemanly bearing.”[7]

 

In November 1861, the battery of four 12-pdr brass Napoleons and two Parrott rifles was assigned to the Army of Ohio and under Terrill’s leadership earned its laurels at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. Terrill’s tough discipline and competence earned him much notice and by August 1862, he arrived in Louisville, Kentucky as a man marked for great things. They soon arrived in the form of a brigadier general’s commission signed by President Abraham Lincoln. It was while in Louisville that I believe that General Jeremiah T. Boyle, then the military governor of Kentucky, presented the newly minted General Terrill with one of Boyle’s swords which was then engraved with Terrill’s name. This was the sword that Terrill carried into action at Perryville which was later recovered by Sergeant Van Houten.

 

At Louisville, General Terrill was given command of the 33rd Brigade of General James S. Jackson’s 10th Division, the brigade being comprised of Charles C. Parson’s battery of eight guns, a detachment of Kentucky cavalry, the 80th and 123rd Illinois, 101st Indiana, and the 105th Ohio regiments.  These were all newly raised troops, fresh out of their mustering camps and in a woeful state of training and discipline. Terrill worked diligently to rough them into shape, but his harsh discipline led to some complaints from the troops, one soldier of the 105th Ohio complaining that Terrill was “a drunken old tyrant and deserves to be shot by his own men.” But Terrill’s “pet project” was Parson’s battery, which Terrill devoted much time to equipping and manned it with volunteers from his infantry regiments.[8]

 

Battle of Perryville between 3 and 4 p.m. (Map by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com)

At heart, Terrill was an artilleryman it is perhaps a bit ironic that it was an artillery shell that killed him at the Battle of Perryville. Terrill became engrossed in directing the guns of Parson’s battery to the neglect of his infantry, Terrill dispatching the raw 123rd Illinois against George Maney’s brigade of tough, veteran troops to hold off a threat to Parsons’ position. The result was predictable: the 123rd was driven off the field with heavy losses, as was the 105th Ohio which had been sent to its support. Terrill himself was struck down around 4 p.m. while trying to rally his broken rookie infantrymen. “He was killed by a shell within five feet of me,” remembered Major James A. Connolly of the 123rd. “I was the only one with him; I raised him to a sitting position and saw that nearly his entire breast was torn away by the shell. He recognized me, and his first words were ‘Major, do you think it’s fatal?’ I knew it must be, but to encourage him, I answered, ‘Oh, I hope not, General.’ He then said, ‘My poor wife, my poor wife.’ He lived until 2 o’clock the next morning.”[9] General Terrill was carried off the field about two miles and was attended to by Surgeon Robert McMeens of the 3rd Ohio, but the injuries sustained by the shell were just too severe.[10] In the shock and confusion of battle, perhaps no one noticed or took the time to retrieve General Terrill’s sword and there it lay near the guns of Parsons’ battery until Sergeant Van Houten discovered it the following day.

 

Detail of Terrill's sword
It is unclear when this photo was taken so this
may not have been the sword he was carrying at Perryville.


Eventually, the story of Sergeant Van Houten possessing General Terrill’s sword made its way to his company commander Captain Marshall Blair Clason, an ambitious Ohio Wesleyan trained officer then angling for a position on the general staff. On April 2, 1863, Captain Clason wrote a letter to General Boyle telling the whole tale and stating that Van Houten knew the sword belonged to Terrill but “he surreptitiously forwarded the sword to his home as a trophy of a battle in which he acted as a most egregious coward.” General Boyle forwarded the matter along to Major General Horatio G. Wright, commanding the District of Ohio, who referred the matter to the U.S. Marshal’s Northern District of Ohio office. Marshal Earl Bill, Jr. of Cleveland was given the job of traveling to Marion County and recovering the sword which he did in mid-April 1863. Marshal Bill made a grisly discovery on recovering the sword. “The sheath, which is of iron, is spattered with General Terrill’s blood which had rusted on. Marshall Bill will transmit the sword to the widow of General Terrill as soon as he can ascertain her whereabouts.”[11] This had to be a sad task for Marshal Bill- the previous fall he had lost his son Horace Harper Bill at the Battle of Antietam.

 

Captain Clason’s motives in ratting out one of his subordinates seem mixed. By April 1863, Van Houten had been commissioned a lieutenant and Clason may have viewed him as a rival. He also may have been trying to cover up his own tracks. In a letter to his mother in law written in May 1863, Clason thanked her for taking care of ‘the gun matter” as apparently Clason himself sent home a battlefield trophy. “Everybody took a trophy from the field and I took that gun. It was a very small matter, but I wanted to take care my enemies had no handle on me,” he wrote. He reminded her of his role in getting Terrill’s sword returned and commented that his letter “occasioned considerable fluttering in certain quarters and I anticipated trouble and prepared for it.”[12] Captain Clason would meet his demise during the assault on Kennesaw Mountain the following year; Charles Van Houten survived the war, eventually rising to the rank of captain before being discharged for physical disability in December 1864.

 

As for General Terrill, his body arrived in Louisville on October 10th at 9 o’clock in the evening along with the bodies of his division commander James S. Jackson and Jackson’s other brigade commander, Colonel George Webster of the 98th Ohio. “General Terrill’s widow was in Cincinnati yesterday at which point she received intelligence of the General’s death,” the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.[13] Where to bury General Terrill was a knotty problem; there was no way the body could be returned to his home in Virginia (not that his family would have even received it if asked), so his widow Emily decided to return to their home in Reading, Pennsylvania and have her husband buried at Charles Evans Cemetery. They arrived in Reading on October 15th and the funeral was held at Christ Church the following day, the services officiated by the Reverend Alexander G. Cummins. In his eulogy, Cummins praised Terrill’s steadfast purpose and devotion to the Union “Nothing could swerve him from his conscientious duty. No rank or honor could tempt him from his allegiance. Like a rock amid the lashing of storm-tossed waves, he stood nobly by the old state ship, which was riding almost rudderless upon the angry sea of revolution,” Cummins said. “But the severest trial was to see the love of parents and friends changing into hatred. He loved not Virginia alone, but his whole country. The oath which bound him to serve his country he viewed as a high and holy thing- as made unto God, and not with men.”[14] The following November, General Terrill’s body was exhumed and sent to West Point where his remains are today. When Emily died in 1884 at age 43, she was also buried alongside her beloved husband at West Point.

[1] “General Terrill’s Sword Recovered,” Cleveland Morning Leader (Ohio), April 20, 1863, pg. 3

[2] “Gen. Wm. R. Terrill,” National Tribune, March 23, 1893, pg. 4

[3] “Gen. Wm. R. Terrill, Killed,” Staunton Spectator (Virginia), October 21, 1862, pg. 2

[4] Terrill, National Tribune, op. cit.

[5] “General Terrill,” Cleveland Morning Leader (Ohio), October 18, 1862, pg. 1

[6] “General William Rufus Terrill: The Civil War Officer That Reading Adopted,” Gary L. Shugar, Historical Review of Berks County, retrieved September 20, 2020

[7] Reading Times, September 3, 1861 as quoted from Shugar

[8] “Artillery: Sticking to His Guns: Lt. Charles Parsons at the Battle of Perryville,” Kevin Pawlak, June 19, 2018. Emerging Civil War blog

[9] Connolly, James A. Three Years in the Army of the Cumberland: The Letters and Diary of Major James A. Connolly. Indiana University Press, 1987

[10] Cleveland Morning Leader, November 14, 1862, pg. 2

[11] Sword Recovered, op. cit.

[12] Clason, Marshall Blair. “Letter from Marshall Blair Clason to his mother in law.” (1863) The Letters of Marshall Clason. Digital Commons of Ohio Wesleyan University.

[13] Louisville Courier-Journal, October 11, 1862, pg. 3

[14] Address at the Burial of Brig. Gen. William R. Terrill, October 16, 1862. Rev. Alexander G. Cummins. Philadelphia: C. Sherman & Son, Printers, 1862.

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on t...
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true ...
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of h...
Read more

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Ma...
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on se...
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my ...
Read more

Cook & Brother of New Orleans

Image
    The lockplate of a New Orleans-made Cook & Brother Enfield rifle produced in 1862 shows the fine craftsmanship that became the hallmark of the maker throughout the Civil War. Note the stars and bars flag at left, an emblem used on C&B's production throughout the war and the Cook & Brother, N.O. 1862 markings. Earlier production weapons at New Orleans had the flag located just above the maker's name while later weapons produced in Athens, Georgia would have a modified flag and Athens on the plate followed by the serial number.        In the spring of 1861, two English-born businessmen, Ferdinand and Francis Cook of New Orleans, perceived the need for the South to have its own domestic production of firearms and  set out to prove "that rifles could made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe." The brothers  elected to produce copies of the British Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield rifle as this was considered the benchmark longarm...
Read more

I Want to See a Battle: A Hoosier at Shiloh

Image
W riting in his diary, Private Manius Buchanan of the 29 th Indiana recalled the eagerness with which his regiment marched towards Savannah, Tennessee with the sounds of the battle of Shiloh ringing in their ears.           “The forced march was kept up until 2 p.m. when we were halted until 4 p.m,” he noted. “The rest was really needed, but the continual question is ‘Why are we stopped here?’ The sound of battle increased in volume and anxiety to be up and doing grows more intense. As I am weak from a late sickness, I am urged to fall to the rear; but no, in common with all, I want to see a battle and fear this will be my only chance.” The regiment would go into action the following afternoon, and of the four neighborhood boys who had enlisted together in Co. B, only Buchanan escaped unscathed. One afternoon's exposure to the horrors of battle was all it took to satisfy this Hoosier's desire to see the elephant. “I wanted to see a battl...
Read more

An Interview with Forrest in May 1864

Image
  “The noise of battle is the only music that ravishes the senses of Forrest.” I t was May 1864. Back east, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were locked in the deadly dance of the Overland Campaign while in Georgia, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army squared off against General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of the Tennessee in the campaign for Atlanta.       Based in relatively quiet northern Mississippi, General Nathan Bedford Forrest bided his time waiting for a Federal advance from Memphis. Earlier in the month, General Samuel Sturgis led a brief campaign into Mississippi but Forrest was sure Sturgis would venture out again. In the meantime, he tried to keep his reorganized command intact despite persistent demands from his superiors that he return the absentees and deserters who inflated his ranks (nearly 1,000 in number) to their original commands.      Around this same time,  an old acquaintance from Me...
Read more