Charging by Fours with the 1st Ohio Cavalry at Kernstown

    The 1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry is generally known as a western unit, but for a good portion of its service (until January 1864), two companies (A and C) were assigned to the various Federal armies operating in Virginia, taking part in the battles of Kernstown, Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, and Gettysburg. 

    Bugler Henry G. Burr of Co. C of the 1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry penned the following account a week after the First Battle of Kernstown, Virginia. This battle, fought March 22-23, 1862, represented Stonewall Jackson's only battlefield defeat, an achievement which the men of General James Shields' division proudly reminded folks about after the war. The 1st Ohio Cavalry arrived in Winchester literally as the opening guns were being fired, and was assigned to Colonel Erastus B. Tyler's wing during the ensuing fight. Burr's account was published in the April 5, 1862 of the Daily Toledo Blade. 

    Burr was discharged for disability in January 1863 and moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he died August 18, 1871; he is buried at Crystal Lake Cemetery in that city. 

Unidentified trooper belonging to the 1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry

Camp at Strasburg, Virginia

March 30, 1862

    We have just fought a bloody battle and are victorious. The telegraph, with its usual reliability, has informed you of the main particulars so I will confine myself to such details as will probably be overlooked by the Associated Press and will promise that those details shall be straighter than were the dispatches which had the honor of being “struck by lightning.”

    The city of Winchester is situated in the Shenandoah Valley upon an elevated plain very similar to that upon which Tremainsville is built. This plain, to the south and west of Winchester, is broken into numerous irregular knobs and hills, the spurs or points of which slope down to the lower bottoms of the Shenandoah and are intersected with innumerable narrow deep ravines, covered with cedars and limestone rocks. The valley is almost shut in on each side by chains of high steep mountains and in some parts is not more than a mile wide, in other five miles. For the distance of ten miles from Winchester nearly all the plantations are fenced in with limestone rocks very substantially laid up, and springs of wonderful volume being literally everywhere; all the ravines are filled with water and in some places too deep to ford. Cedars are grouped in groves of two or three acres on all the knobs and in many places between Winchester and Kernstown (five miles) there are dense forests of large trees, affording secure and ample shelter for a large army. On this edge of the Winchester plain, among these knobs, ravines, cedars, groves, and forests between Winchester and Kernstown was the field where the terrible battle of Sunday afternoon was fought, and there was hardly a spot upon that triangle of three miles on all sides which was not dabbled with Union or Rebel blood, where, behind the stones, fences and the ravines, the killed and wounded lay in gory heaps.

Although not depicted on the above map of the battle, the two companies of the 1st Ohio Cavalry swept in on the far left of Tyler's battle line as Jackson's line collapsed and gathered in roughly 250 captives during the pursuit. 

    Our two companies (A and C of the 1st Ohio Cavalry) started from Camp Chase on the Potomac on Friday morning and after marching 104 miles, reached Winchester at noon on Sunday. We had hardly reached our camping ground when an order came to dispose of all baggage and report in battle order to General Shields in 25 minutes. Blankets, haversacks, and clothing were dumped in a pile and we started for the field. A tremendous cannonade was going on and when we reached the rising ground beyond Winchester, we could see the shells of the Rebels bursting over our batteries and officers and aides flying over the field. An effort was made by the Rebels, under cover of an eight-gun battery, to run our right flank just as our batteries were getting into position and regiments of infantry going at the double quick into the woods, just as our Ohio squadron came on the field. They had been all morning making feints upon our left to deceive us, while the strength of their force was being deployed to the right. But this movement was forestalled by sending the Third Brigade under Colonel Erastus B. Tyler to the extreme right, and by partially changing our front from a line to a semi-circle.

    We were assigned a position in a woods, drawn up in a line of battle; which line was hardly formed before our right wing (composed of the 84th and 110th Pennsylvania regiments, 4th, 5th, 7th, 29th, and 67th Ohio regiments, the 13th and 14th Indiana regiments, Battery L of the 1st Ohio Artillery, and our squadron) was fired upon from behind a stone fence, which almost protected them from our fire. Three times did our boys waver under this galling storm of balls, which cut down whole lines at each discharge. But a light breeze dispersed the smoke that hung in thick clouds over the Rebel breastworks and then our boys marched forward over the brow of the hill and poured in volley after volley upon the Rebels when they raised their heads to fire. For half an hour neither Union nor Rebel troops faltered, and the scale of victory was vacillating between loyalty and treason with fearful impartiality. This was the most terrible moment of the battle. The whole line was under fire, the center of our army charging on the Rebel battery, our left attempting to turn their right flank and our right sustaining the fire of eight regiments, the flower, according to their general’s boast, of the Rebel army.

"The flower of the Rebel army" at Kernstown consisted of men like Corporal Charles Dorma Clarke of Co. F of the 23rd Virginia Infantry. Clarke's regiment was located near the left flank of the Rebel line.

    At this tremendous crisis, the enemy’s left was reinforced and the 110th Pennsylvania fell into confusion, many of its men having fired all their ammunition away in the forenoon. But the officers rallied our infantry that had dispersed behind trees and prepared for a bayonet charge. Captain Nathan D. Menken of my company rode about in the woods between the lines of infantry and by coaxing and upbraiding, sent most of the stragglers back to their lines and ordering our two companies which he commanded to advance carbines and prepare for a charge. He had only just returned to his post before a yell was heard over the hill and the shout went over the field that the enemy’s center was retreating. Just then, a shell and charge of grape raked the stone fence when the Rebels, seeing our boys fix bayonets, fell back out of the woods when a volley from one of the center regiments threw them into confusion. “File off from the right by fours- charge!” roared our captain and charge we did. Like a bolt of hot lightning, our red caps tore through the strip of woods, down over the field, and fell upon that motley army of confused and retreating traitors. Surrender or die was the alternative we gave and in one short hour we returned from the charge with 250 prisoners, six wagons full of wounded officers and hundreds of arms.

    And yet, notwithstanding we stood firm for two of the longest hours I ever lived through, notwithstanding we charged against a force, the number of which or its position we did not know, with 200 men notwithstanding we brought back more than man for man of the Rebels and turned them over to our general- no mention has been made of us; while a few half-armed companies of Virginia cavalry who came upon the field but might as well have been in the Arctic regions hunting Sir John Franklin for all the good they did, received honorable mention in the bulletins. So it was with the Ohio infantry. Though the most heroic courage and bravery was displayed by them, their praise has been second to regiments that did almost nothing; one of them in fact firing into our ranks as we started on the charge, supposing us to be Rebels. This ignoring of our companies has so aroused the indignation of our officers that they have tendered their resignations to General Banks, although I doubt if they will be accepted. At all events I hope this move will have one good result, even though our officers are not permitted to resign: it will teach our General that we are as brave in demanding justice for ourselves as in dispensing it to the traitors. Though we did not come to fight for empty fame, still we do not feel like tamely submitting to such an obliviousness on the part of men who sent us into the most dangerous position on the field, that they forgot there was such a squadron as the 1st Ohio upon the ground.

    After darkness prevented our further pursuit of the Rebels, we returned to Winchester with our prisoners and placed them in a building where, it is said, the Secesh ladies had prepared a banquet for the Rebel officers who were expected to fulfill their boast and take tea in Winchester Sunday evening. The boast was fulfilled by many of them, for they ate supper and slept there that night with Yankee guards behind and around them, instead of their fair entertainers.

The 1859 model .54 caliber Sharps' carbine featured a 22-inch barrel which made this arm easier to handle on horseback. The 1st Ohio Cavalry was issued 658 of these accurate breechloading guns when it mustered into service in late 1861. 

    It is an easy task to describe what one sees in the midst of war’s terrible scenes, but no man can ever tell the sights and emotions he sees and feels upon that field when the bullet and shell have hushed their diabolical songs, when the mantle of night is wrapped around the forms of ghastly men who lay dead or wounded, weltering in pools of gore, when lurid fires are blazing around and upon the hills and in the solemn woods; and pale-faced, silent men with flickering torches in their hands go groping around among brush and along straggling fences after the dead and dying. As we returned to camp, I passed over that part of the field where our right had forced a hard-won victory to perch upon our standard. Such a scene I never wish to behold again; no, not for all the victories ever won. When we were under the Rebel fire with a space not wider than Summit Street between us and six regiments of Rebel soldiers, between whom and ourselves our own infantry were falling like leaves in autumn, I felt proud and glad to have a chance at last to strike a blow for Union and no thought of safety entered my heart- nothing to make my soul sick of war. But coming back with a train of prisoners outnumbering our two companies with consciousness of victory thrilling my veins, my very heart grew sick and I cursed the fiends whose infernal teachings and counsel had covered those grand old forests and verdant slopes with the blood of more than a thousand Americans, who else would have lived and died as brothers instead of foes.

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 their way to
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 how Confederate jacke
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 warrior, for then comes the harvest of gain.
Read more

The Cannons are Now Silent: The Field of Death of Tupelo

Image
       The smoke of battle had drifted away from the battlefield at Tupelo, Mississippi on the hot afternoon of July 14, 1864, but the carnage of war lay spread across the open fields. “Scattered at intervals over the field of a few yards are dull gray blotches half shaded by grass,” an officer from the 7 th Minnesota Infantry recorded. “These are the Rebel dead. They have fought their last battle and lie generally in attitudes of rest; some of them look as if they had welcomed death. On the faces of two is imprinted a smile. One is a boy of 16 with delicate features, almost girlish in their beauty. His last gaze seems to have been directed toward his hand on the forefinger of which was a ring. A circle of purer white indicates its place; the ring was carried off as a trophy of the field.” The following account of the Battles of Tupelo and Old Town Creek was written by an unknown officer of the 7 th Minnesota Infantry, his account appearing in the August 5 th 1864 edition of the
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 securing all the Enfi
Read more

Straw Already Threshed: Sherman on Shiloh

Image
  W illiam Tecumseh Sherman was enjoying retired life in New York City when just before Christmas in 1889 he was presented with an article written by John Cockerill, a former drummer boy in the 24 th Ohio who was visiting his father Colonel Joseph Cockerill of the 70 th Ohio of Sherman’s division when the Battle of Shiloh began. Cockerill’s article, originally published in the New York Journalist and later featured in the January 1893 issue of Blue & Gray Magazine, Sherman later pronounced as “the best war story ever written” and the truest account of Shiloh.           On New Year’s Day 1890, General Sherman composed the following letter to his friend Marshall P. Wilder thanking him for sending along Cockerill’s article and giving his own explanation of Shiloh. “This to me is straw already threshed for we have fought this battle on paper several times, a much more agreeable task than to fight with bullets,” he concluded. “When in England some years ago I was gratified to liste
Read more

Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign

Image
  T he following list, constructed after many years of research, lists unit by unit which type of weapons were carried by the Army of the Cumberland during the Stones River campaign. A number of sources were consulted including state ordnance reports, Federal quarterly ordnance reports (thank you Research Arsenal ), Ken Baumann’s Arming the Suckers, regimental histories and memoirs, captured ordnance reports, and consultation with knowledgeable experts in the field of firearms. Some of this information has been shared on the blog before in “ Rosy’s Heavy Metal: Artillery of the Army of the Cumberland ” or “ Shoulder Arms: How Sheridan’s and Davis’s Divisions Were Armed at Stones River ” but this is the first time the army as a whole has been presented. The overall conclusion I drew from looking at this data is that the Army of the Cumberland in December 1862 was an organization in the midst of transformation as far as arms. Many of the regiments still retained their original issue
Read more

Escape of Captain Henry H. Alban of the 21st Ohio Infantry

Image
Captain Henry H. Alban was among the dozen officers of the 21 st Ohio Volunteer Infantry who were captured on September 20, 1863 at the Battle of Chickamauga. The regiment had held its position atop Snodgrass Hill against repeated Confederate assaults and now battered and without ammunition, with the darkness of evening enveloping the hill, the remainder of that gallant band found themselves at the mercy of the 54 th Virginia. A total of 12 officers and 121 enlisted men surrendered; the regiment’s colors were taken, and the men marched off the field into captivity. Captain Henry Harvey Alban, Co. F, 21st O.V.I. Captain Alban along with the rest went through a series of Confederate prison camps before arriving at Columbia, South Carolina in October 1864. Determined to make an escape, he watched for his chance and one night made his leap for freedom, successfully eluding the local camp guard and setting out along the railroad to head for the mountains of eastern Tennessee and
Read more

Knapsack Compression: Wilbur Hinman recalls the first step of becoming a veteran

Image
L ooking back on his experiences during the war, Captain Wilbur Hinman of the 65 th Ohio (perhaps best known as the author of Si Klegg and His Pard ) recalled that the first road along which his regiment marched was strewn “with debris. A pair of six-mule wagonloads might have been gathered of notions that had been flung aside by a thousand suffering “tenderfeet.” “The average young patriot started for the war with a wheelbarrow load of clothing, a bed quilt or two, books, photograph albums, toilet articles, and gimcracks of every sort,” he wrote. “Neither he nor the good homefolks had the slightest conception of the capacity of a knapsack, nor did they for a moment imagine that before the close of his first day upon the road every pound he carried would seem a hundred.” To the true mark of a veteran soldier was one who “learned to dispense with every unnecessary ounce of weight, and just in the ratio that he did this he increased his efficiency as a soldier. It was of the highest
Read more

Federal Arms in the Chickamauga Campaign

Image
T he ordnance returns of the Army of the Cumberland at the end of September 1863 show the results of a transformational year in weaponry. Since taking command of the army at the end of October 1862, General William S. Rosecrans had repeatedly pestered the War Department to supply his regiments with better firearms both to improve the command’s efficiency as well as expand its striking power. The results speak for themselves: for the infantrymen at the end of September 1863, 90% of them now carried Class I long arms (36,058 out of 39,959), 8.3% carried Class II arms, and a mere 1.5% carried Class III weapons. Most of the foreign-made weapons (except Enfields) were gone, and by and large the army had settled on a single common .58 caliber ammunition, although a few .54 caliber and .69 caliber weapons remained within the ranks. The English-made Enfield rifle musket was by far the most common arm, carried by 56% of the men while the second-most common arm was the .58 caliber M1861 Spring
Read more