Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

     William Watts Carnes was attending the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland when the Civil War began. Leaving the academy and returning home to Memphis, Tennessee, he helped raise a battery of artillery and went off to war. Carnes enjoyed an active service with the Army of Tennessee (see here ) and was in command of the battery at the Battle of Chickamauga. His battery was on the left of Cheatham's division on the afternoon of September 19, 1863 when it was well-nigh obliterated by a Union attack; Carnes' battery lost 38 of its 78 men and most of the horses were shot down, but Carnes' heroism in fighting his battery met with the approval of another experienced artilleryman, army commander Braxton Bragg.      Leaving the shattered remnant of his battery in command of a lieutenant, Carnes went to work for  General Preston Smith on his staff and Carnes experienced the second day of Chickamauga from the vantage point of a staff officer, giving hi...

In the aftermath of the Atlanta campaign, General John Bell Hood moved his Army of Tennessee north into Georgia then west into Alabama, all the while aiming to draw William Tecumseh Sherman’s army northwards in pursuit. It worked for a while, but eventually Sherman gave up the chase and Hood moved into Alabama with intentions to cross the Tennessee River and recover the state of Tennessee. He ran into his first major obstacle at the little river town of Decatur, Alabama where a scratch force of Federals under Colonel Charles Doolittle, soon supplemented by thousands of reinforcements under General Robert S. Granger, held Hood at bay for three days from October 26-29, 1864.             “It is positively known that this force, composed of the veterans of the Confederate States army of the West under their ablest leaders and numbering not less than 35,000 men left Palmetto, Georgia with the intention of taking Decatur,” General Granger wr...

    On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address where he called upon the nation to a "new birth of freedom." His eloquent words speak to us across the ages, but it is important to remember that while Lincoln spoke, the very conflict which tested whether a nation conceived in liberty could long endure was still raging. Less than 200 miles south of Gettysburg in the heart of the Confederate capital, thousands of Federal soldiers also yearned for a new birth of freedom and for them it was a very personal and bitter struggle. The fortunes of war had delivered them as prisoners into the nerve center of the Confederacy; whether they were captured during Streight's Raid, at Second Winchester, at Chickamauga, or at little-remembered Limestone Station, all of these men struggled with the ennui and privations of prison life.       The following letter written by First Lieutenant George Duncan Forsyth of the 100th Ohio was penned w...

     In the Michigan section of Gettysburg National Cemetery rests the mortal remains of First Lieutenant Butler Brown, Co. E, 16th Michigan Volunteer Infantry. Killed in action during the battle for Little Round Top at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, the Adrian native had clerked for several years in a dry goods store in nearby Hillsdale, Michigan before volunteering to go to war. Initially part of the 11th Michigan, Brown was transferred to the 16th Michigan in early August 1861 and commissioned second lieutenant of Co. E of August 9th. Lieutenant Brown's regiment soon left home for Virginia where it endured a very active and hard service with the 5th Army Corps of the Army of the Potomac.  First Lieutenant Butler Brown, Co. E, 16th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Killed in action July 2, 1863 at Little Round Top      "I have been with Butler through many months of active campaigns and fought by his side in eight battles," recalled Adjutant George Prentiss. ...

     As orderly sergeant of Co. K of the 25th Texas Cavalry (Dismounted), North Carolina native Benjamin Franklin Grady participated in some tall fighting at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. As he relates in this letter to his uncle, the pounding his regiment took from Union artillery was frightening. "Balls of all sizes, grape, canister, and 6 lb, 12 lb, and 18 lb balls whizzed among us in copious profusion and fearful proximity," he noted. "One man in our company was struck down by a grape and another had his shoulder torn off. A 12 lb ball went through Company B next to us and took off one's man's head and tore two others into ragged pieces! Many in the regiment were killed or wounded."     The 25th Texas was part of a consolidated regiment consisting of itself along with the 17th, 18th, and 24th Texas cavalry regiments, and was assigned to General James Deshler's brigade, Cleburne's Division, of General Daniel H. Hill's corps.  Gr...

The fight for Degress' battery at the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864 marks one of the most poignant moments of that hard-fought battle. A desperate charge on the part of the Confederates swirled around the guns and forced back two brigades of General Morgan L. Smith's division of the 15th Army Corps. Among those troops was First Lieutenant James Dixon of the 57th Ohio who was right in the middle of the fight for the battery, and recalled some of the details of the hand-to-hand fight that ensued. "A Rebel officer with a red sash jumped upon the rocks and demanded the surrender of a lieutenant working the battery," he wrote. "The lieutenant rushed towards him with sword drawn, intending to strike him, but was met by a Minie ball from the gun of a Rebel soldier and fell dead by the works. A Rebel attempted to spike one of the guns and Bill Gibson of Co. D knocked him down with the butt of his musket. There was a general row. Bullets were flying in every directio...

     Long after the Civil War, Reverend Washington “Wash” Bryan Crumpton wrote a memoir entitled A Book of Memories of his wartime experiences while serving as a sergeant in the ranks of Co. H (the Jasper Rifles) of the 37 th Mississippi Infantry. The following account of the Battle of Peach Tree Creek, excerpted from Crumpton’s book, was published in the October 1921 edition of Confederate Veteran . The 37 th Mississippi was assigned to Cantey’s Brigade was led at this time by Colonel Edward A. O’Neal, and was part of General Edward C. Walthall’s division of A.P. Stewart’s corps. Washington B. Crumpton at left in a pre-war image taken with his brother H.J. After the war, Wash became a minister and noted author.      Wash's account captures the confusion endemic in war, and he opines that the real reason why the Confederate attack failed at Peach Tree Creek was the fact that his comrades were a little too eager to escort Yankee prisoners to the rear...

The 73 rd Illinois, popularly known as either the Persimmon Regiment for its proclivities at emptying fruit orchards during the 1862 Kentucky campaign or the Preacher Regiment for the profusion of preachers within its ranks (preachers don’t steal fruit, right?), was a tough unit that earned its reputation as part of Phil Sheridan’s hard fighting division of the Army of the Cumberland. After suffering heavy losses at Chickamauga, the 73 rd Illinois was folded, along with the rest of the 20 th Army Corps, into the newly formed 4 th Army Corps and served there for the rest of the war.           Mid-July 1864 found the regiment marching towards Atlanta where our unnamed correspondent picks up the story of one of the toughest fights of the campaign: July 20 th along Peach Tree Creek. His regiment was well out in front of the rest of the Army of the Cumberland that afternoon when he heard a noise that made his hair stand on end- it was the R...

     My interest in the Civil War was sparked by several events during my younger years, but one of the key triggers was seeing the movie Glory back in 1990. It was a superb film telling a remarkable story of courage and really kindled the fire of my interest in the Civil War; the opening scene of then Captain Robert Gould Shaw going into action at Antietam in particular left me spellbound.       Among the more poignant scenes in the film was at the end after the 54th Massachusetts made the assault on Fort Wagner and suffered severe casualties; the film mentioned that the white regiments that followed the 54th against Wagner were unable to exploit the breech and that the assault failed. What I didn't know at the time was the one of those supporting regiments, the 67th Ohio Infantry, was from my own hometown of Toledo. And as I learned much later, Major Lewis Butler, the last standing field officer of the regiment after the assault, would probably have...

More than 40 years after the Battle of Tupelo, Henry Ewell Hord wrote the following intense account of the fierce fighting at this little remembered Civil War battle. An inmate at the Tennessee Soldiers’ Home and “still as deaf as a post” from the concussion of an artillery shell that exploded next to his head while charging into this battle, Hord recalled the determination of his comrades to drive the enemy, with even the wounded men taking part in the attack. “When Colonel Edward Crossland gave the command to charge, the whole line swept forward like one company. Some went over the works and were killed in the ditch; scores of them were killed on the works, but they stopped us. Again, and again we made a rush for the works only to be hurled back. Finally, we made a lodgment on our side of the breastworks and fired across with our guns almost touching the enemy. Aleck Cowan of my company, sitting on the ground just behind me with his leg broken, handed me his Spencer. I pitched him my...

       Among the hard-fighting regiments that comprised General Benjamin Cheatham’s division of the Army of Tennessee, the 13 th Tennessee ranks as one of the finest. Raised in the western part of the state in June 1861, the 13 th served with the army from its beginning in 1861 until its end in North Carolina in 1865 when less than 50 men remained in its ranks. Along the way, the 13 th Tennessee saw action at Belmont, Shiloh, Richmond, Stones River, Chickamauga, Atlanta, Franklin, Nashville, and so much more.           Its men, “made up of the flower of the South” as claimed by Colonel Alfred J. Vaughan, five of its ten companies were raised from Fayette County just east of Memphis, while one company each was formed from Shelby, Dyer, McNairy, Gibson, and Henderson counties. With names like the Gaines Invincibles, the Forked Deer Volunteers, and Secession Guards (which had a sprinkling of Mississippians among its rank...

The camps of Colonel Charles Candy’s brigade at Dumfries, Virginia seethed as the year closed 1862. Picking up a recent copy of the Baltimore Clipper newspaper, the men were astonished to read the following: “Disgraceful surrender of Dumfries, Va. By the following named regiments: 5 th , 7 th , and 66 th Ohio regiments and the 12 th Illinois Cavalry, commanded by Col. Chas. Candy of the 66 th O.V.I. Great cowardice shown by the troops, etc. It is reported in military circles that Dumfries Landing, Va. Was attacked on the 27 th ultimo by a Rebel cavalry force. After a few shots being fired on each side, the place was disgracefully surrendered by our forces. Strange to say, our force was composed of Western troops,” it reported. “The report needs confirmation…” The newspaper report was the purest malarkey.  “General Henry Slocum, who has his headquarters at Fairfax Courthouse, on hearing the report, immediately ordered a portion of his corps under arms and set forward to rec...

       The Battle of Malvern Hill, Virginia fought July 1, 1862 was the culmination of the Seven Days battles around Richmond in which General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia broke George McClellan’s hold on the city, and drastically changed the fortunes of war. Malvern Hill was a clear-cut Union victory, at least in the tactical sense. The Army of the Potomac had fought valiantly during the Seven Days, the 5 th Army Corps under General Fitz-John Porter bearing much of the weight during this campaign and proving themselves to be top-notch soldiers. Among those troops serving in the 5 th Corps under Porter was Captain George W. Lumbard of the 4th Michigan Infantry.           Captain Lumbard joined the regiment the previous summer as commander of Company E from Hillsdale County in south central Michigan, and he went to war with an extraordinary artifact of the Revolutionary War in his possession. The day before...

      In the opening days of July 1864, General Jubal Early, leading what was once Jackson's corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, crossed the Potomac River into Maryland with the aim of forcing General U.S. Grant to lessen his pressure on the main Confederate force at Petersburg. Early hoped to be able to make a rapid march on Washington; whether he really intended to actually attack the city or just demonstrate on it seems to be a matter of opinion. The fact is that his troops did skirmish with some of the outer defenses of Washington on July 11th and 12th, but by then, ample Federal troops were in the city. Regardless, it was a very close shave for the Federal government, and would have been considerably dicier had it not been for some hard fighting conducted a few days earlier by a scratch force of troops led by General Lew Wallace 50 miles north of Washington at a battle remembered as Monocacy.       Today's post features an account from each of...

     It was the dog days of the summer of 1861; news was just filtering back to Michigan that the Union army had been defeated at Bull Run. Men throughout the state were opening recruiting offices to answer Lincoln's call for 300,000 men for three years to put down the Rebellion. One of the more intriguing options for service had been proposed by Hiram Berdan who had secured permission to raise of a regiment of U.S. volunteers, with one catch: only the best shots in the land need apply. Berdan's requirement for his sharpshooter regiment was that the aspiring soldier had to average hitting within 5 inches on a bulls-eye at 200 yards. It was proposed that the state of Michigan would supply one of the companies of this regiment.      Across the state, men interested in joining Berdan's sharpshooters had to prove themselves worthy, so shooting trials were held throughout the state. In Hillsdale, Michigan, several dozen men from the area convened at the county f...

Seated atop the rocks on Culp’s Hill south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, First Lieutenant Robert H. Russell of the 66 th Ohio celebrated the nation’s 87 th birthday by writing his uncle a letter describing the battle through which he had just passed. The lieutenant had just returned from scouring the battlefield in his front and brought back a few souvenirs scavenged from the dead Confederates that littered the ground: some paper, an ink well and pen, a portion of the sash worn by an officer, a button from the coat of Major Benjamin Watkins Leigh of Virginia, as well as a fragment of the battle flag of the 21 st Virginia Volunteers. “The loss in our division is small- about one to every 20 killed by us,” he wrote. “Our boys are in fine spirits. We have taken altogether from 12,000-20,000 prisoners and killed or wounded I don’t know how many. Our victory is a great one.”   Captain Robert H. Russell, Co. G, 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (Brad and Donna Pruden Collection)

       Brigadier General Charles K. Graham of New York, who commanded the First Brigade of the First Division of the III Army Corps at Gettysburg, was wounded and captured in the late afternoon of July 2, 1863 in the bitter fighting near the Sherfy peach orchard by soldiers of the 21 st Mississippi of Barksdale’s brigade. In 1888, this private letter that General Graham wrote to his wife while he was imprisoned at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia saw publication in the Ohio Soldier newspaper, a newspaper “devoted to the interests of the surviving soldiers of the war for the Union.” “A comrade sends up the following extract from a letter written by General Charles A. Graham of New York who was severely wounded and made prisoner at the Battle of Gettysburg,” the newspaper reported. “The letter was written to his wife while he was confined in the infamous Libby Prison. It was conveyed to Fortress Monroe by an exchanged wounded soldier who contrived to secrete it b...

  Written by Lieutenant Colonel Arnold McMahan, 21st Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry             On Captain Daniel Lewis:  " He was brave enough to give his life away but not brave enough to be called a coward." Lieutenant Colonel Arnold McMahan, 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry      Daniel Lewis served for a long time as Lieutenant and acting Quartermaster of our regiment but the rapid changes incident to the fighting campaigns of 1863 advanced him to the rank of captain of Company C, which was without a doubt the most difficult company to manage in the regiment, and as he had but little or no experience in dealing with men of strong character such as he was now to command, and who were veterans in all the arts of army life as well as fighting, he often found himself perplexed for means to sustain himself.             He was not a genius in military affairs but he was thoroughly ...