We Glory in It: Outgunning the Rebs at Resaca

     The pride in his regiment’s accomplishments at Resaca comes clearly through the pen of Captain Dennis H. Williams of the 43rd Ohio. “In all these operations we are very well pleased with ourselves,” he wrote home shortly after the battle. “We are now resting for the first time since the 12th, having been marching or fighting since that time without one entire night’s sleep or one full day’s rations. Still, we glory in it if we can but put down this unholy rebellion.”

          The 43rd Ohio, as part of Colonel John W. Sprague’s brigade of the Fourth Division of the 16th Army Corps, fought on the far right of the Union army, not far from the Oostanaula River, and took part in the 15th Corps attack on the evening of May 14th that pushed General James Cantey’s division back to a second line of works closer to the town of Resaca. Williams was pretty touchy about that affair, noting that his brigade was brought up as support and ending up in the front line, charging over 15th corps troops who had become demoralized. “General Logan is said to treat his supports as he did us; that is, put them in front and then give his own troops credit of what his borrowed troops accomplish,” Williams’ grumped.

          Captain Williams’ account of the fighting at Resaca first appeared in the June 2, 1864, edition of the Belmont Chronicle published in St. Clairsville, Ohio.

 

A fine example of the rare State of Ohio breastplate known to be worn by some members of the old Ohio Brigade which consisted of the 27th, 39th, 43rd, and 63rd Ohio regiments. 


Near Kingston, Georgia

May 20, 1864

          We have been in war for some days past. In the operations at Resaca the 16th Army Corps occupied the extreme right and did much of what you will see attributed to the 15th Army Corps under General John Logan. We had pushed our lines closer to the Rebel works that had any command in the army when our brigade (Colonel John Sprague’s Second Brigade, Fourth Division, 16th Corps) was called to support an assault to be made by Brigadier General Osterhaus and Smith upon an important position. Instead of being put in support, we were really in the advance and two regiments, the 25th Wisconsin and the 35th New Jersey, charged right over the already repulsed forces of the 15th corps, drove the enemy back in confusion, then took and held a hill more commanding and 300 yards nearer the enemy’s works than that from which the 15th corps men had been dislodged.

          While this was going on, the 43rd Ohio on the left had charged across a bridge, found a lodgment in some timber, and repulsed every attempt of the enemy to turn our left flank and cut off the party that finally came and held the hill. Most of this occurred after dark on the 14th instant, and since Iuka we have not heard such terrific musketry. The woods seemed alive with combatants. About 9 p.m., after an effort to dislodge our forces by a terrific shelling, the firing entirely ceased and we held ground that rendered the enemy’s works utterly useless.

          The next day was spent in mounting guns bearing on the works and in heavy and effective skirmishing. I am happy to say that in this duty Co. D won the praise of both brigade and regimental commanders and in front of the line we occupied the next morning we counted eight dead Rebels and the wounded must have exceeded this usual proportion. This was at a distance of 500 yards. The boys accompanied all of their effective shots with “Hurrah for Lincoln!”

Brigadier General John W. Sprague
Medal of Honor recipient

          The next morning, Companies A, B, and H of the 43rd pushed our skirmish line forward and soon found the enemy absent. They were the first to enter the works and captured more than half the prisoners taken in the fortifications. Corporal George Long of Co. A alone surrounded and brought in eight men. By this time, General Osterhaus had arrived and afterwards the skirmishers of the 15th corps began to swagger in, claiming that the 15th corps, as usual, had taken the fort. It is admitted that they did their duty but could never have succeeded the day before without the help we gave them and this was what decided the matter, as any could walk into deserted works, however formidable. These circumstances are mentioned with this particularity as General Logan is said to treat his supports as he did us; that is, put them in front and then give his own troops credit of what his borrowed troops accomplish!

          I have not mentioned the operations of our command on the 12th and 13th. We advanced steadily in the face of a warm fire as far as we could go without breaking the connection between our own and the 15th corps. Sprague’s brigade was in the advance all the while and sustained nearly the entire loss of the division, which was small considering the stubbornness of the enemy and that we were contending with Cantey’s noted Alabama sharpshooters. Our own common 43rd Ohio soldiers proved themselves better bushwhackers that they, using up one company of them on one occasion so badly that their officers came into our lines and gave themselves up, all their men except two having been killed or wounded and these came in with their officers. In all these operations we are very well pleased with ourselves. Colonel Sprague has more than sustained his former reputation for gallantry and good sense. Colonel Wager Swayne showed himself a workman that need not be ashamed of his performances.

          I must mention the good conduct of our recruits. They have equaled the veterans in steadiness under fire and the fatigues of the march. Some of them are fine shots, and one of our company, Singleton D. Owings, was seen to bring a Rebel out of a tree at 500 yards.

          We are now resting for the first time since the 12th, having been marching or fighting since that time without one entire night’s sleep or one full day’s rations. Still, we glory in it if we can but put down this unholy rebellion. I have given you nothing of a general character as you will hear that better from others. I have heard a great many favorable and no unfavorable reports. All the trophies I have seen are four cannons, an immense amount of stores of all sorts, and several hundred prisoners.

 

43rd Ohio regimental colors

          After the war, Captain Williams would move to Minnesota and would serve as mayor of Rochester, Minnesota from 1873-1875.

 The 43rd Ohio and Sprague’s brigade fought on the far right of the Union line, crossing the Camp Creek valley where they helped push Cantey’s Division from their first line of works to a second line located just west of the town of Resaca on the evening of May 14, 1864. This particular portion of the battlefield is not part of the Resaca Battlefield Park, but also has not yet been developed. Cantey’s line of works lay on the high ground to the east of Camp Creek stretching north from its confluence with the Oostanaula River. Please visit The Friends of Resaca Battlefield website here to learn more.

 

Source:

Letter from Captain Dennis Hogan Williams, Co. D, 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Belmont Chronicle (Ohio), June 2, 1864, pg. 2

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