Pandemonium Reigned Supreme: A Buckeye Captured at Franklin

     It was like a nightmare that happened in slow motion.

Corporal Erastus Winters was in line with his comrades of the 50th Ohio on the afternoon of November 30, 1864 near Franklin, Tennessee when he spied two Federal brigades in their front breaking for the rear. As the mass of troops converged on his position, Winters nor his comrades could fire for fear of striking their own men. “The Rebs, quick to see their advantage, raised the cry, ‘Let’s go in with them! Let’s go in with them!’ So the rush for the center of our main line became a confused mass of blue and gray, wedge-shaped, entering our works at the pike and pressing outward to the right and left of the pike, overwhelming the 50th Ohio and a part of Reilly’s brigade. They swarmed through the works on the pike and over the works on top of us, Yank and Reb together. I heard Lieutenant Pine say, ‘Boys, we have to get out of here!’ A glance shows me the colors going back and I think its time to go, but I am too late. A big Johnny Reb with his musket pointed at me that looks as large to my eyes as a twelve-pound cannon says, ‘Yank, I’ll take care of you,’ and that settles the business for me,” he wrote.

Corporal Winters of Co. K wrote this compelling account of his capture at the Battle of Franklin in his 1905 memoir entitled In the 50th Ohio Serving Uncle Sam: Memoirs of One Who Wore the Blue.

 

Corporal Erastus Winters (1843-1925) served in Co. K of the 50th Ohio for three years, seeing action at Perryville, during the Atlanta campaign, and finally at Franklin where he was captured. Winters survived four months imprisonment at Cahaba only to be placed on the Sultana; he survived that as well and went on to write one of the finest memoirs of army life in the western theater. 

Without meeting with any more adventures, the Third Brigade under Colonel Silas Strickland marched on to Franklin where we arrived about sunrise on November 30, 1864. We were halted and after getting breakfast were placed in line of battle, the 50th Ohio being on the left of the brigade. The left of our regiment rested on the Columbia and Franklin Pike. We were immediately put to work building breastworks. A little to the right of our regiment was a grove of young locust trees and we used some of the brush in front of our works. Immediately in front of our regiment and also to the left of the pike in front of General Reilly’s brigade was a clear field nearly half a mile across without a brush, stump, tree, or stone to protect an enemy advancing on us. Directly after noon, rations were issued to the 50th Ohio and if I remember rightly, Co. K’s rations had not been divided among the men yet when the battle opened and were lying in bulk in rubber blankets back of our works.

As soon as General Hood realized at Spring Hill the morning of the 30th that Schofield’s army had passed him in the night, he started his army in rapid pursuit, but the 4th Corps skirmished with them and held them in check until late in the afternoon when all of the 4th Corps had come within our lines except for Conrad’s and Lane’s brigades of Wagner’s division. Those two brigades were placed in a line a quarter of a mile in our front, Conrad’s on the left of the Columbia Pike and Lane’s on the right: this placed Lane’s brigade in front of ours.

The afternoon was clear, and the sun was shining brightly and as the Johnnies wheeled into line and took their position, we could see their murderous guns glistening in the bright November sunshine like polished silver. We watched the Confederates file off to the right, their guns at right shoulder shift and form into line as coolly as though they were going on dress parade. And we saw them move forward, Mitchell’s two guns were playing on them with shell and canister mowing great gaps in their ranks, which they immediately closed up and came on. Finally the cannoneers wound up with a charge of canister, limbered up, and came in. General Cox says they came in at a leisurely trot, but if my eyesight and memory are not at fault they came in with their horses on the lope and when they had reached about halfway from where they had been in line to our main works, the Rebs fired a solid shot at them that struck the pike just behind them, and the ball went bounding over our heads into town. It was a good line shot but fell a little short.

The bullet-scarred smokehouse still shows the marks from the battle fought more than 150 years ago. (Photo courtesy of John Banks)


All eyes were focused on Lane’s and Conrad’s brigades when the Rebs began to advance, expecting them to retire within our lines and give us a clear field as we all expected them to do, and as they should have done. But alas, sad to relate, someone blundered again, and those poor, brave boys were kept out there firing on the enemy until they were almost surrounded and when they did start to retire, it was too late as the enemy was swarming among them. The Rebs, quick to see their advantage, raised the cry, ‘Let’s go in with them! Let’s go in with them!’ So the rush for the center of our main line became a confused mass of blue and gray, wedge-shaped, entering our works at the pike and pressing outward to the right and left of the pike, overwhelming the 50th Ohio and a part of Reilly’s brigade. Reilly’s line was immediately restored by his troops rallying and charging back from his second line, but the Rebels held the line taken from the 50th Ohio till the end of the fight.

Sixty of us in the 50th Ohio were surrounded and captured in the front line by the Rebs; the balance of the regiment rallied in the second line and fought bravely on till the close of the battle. Many of those brave boys out in front were killed and wounded in the mad rush for our lines and a number captured. Quite a large number of the enemy got into the open space between the two lines in the front of the Carter House, but a deadly fire from the second line where the 44th Missouri and 183rd Ohio were and where the 50th Ohio had rallied soon cleared them out.

I shall now give a little of my own personal experience. I had stood and watched the Rebs form into line for the charge; had seen Mitchell’s two guns come in and was now watching those two brigades in front. I saw the smoke of their muskets as they fired into the faces of the advancing enemy and saw them break for our lines with the graycoats right among them. From then on until they reached our lines it was a confused mass of blue and gray in a mad rush for our lines. Rebel flags and Union flags were fluttering in the breeze; Rebel officers were waving their swords and calling their men to come on. Away to our left, the ball had already opened; the crash of musketry and the boom of artillery and the bursting shells could be plainly heard above the yelling hordes in our front.

But now they have reached our lines. They swarmed through the works on the pike and over the works on top of us, Yank and Reb together. I heard Lieutenant E.L. Pine say, ‘Boys, we have to get out of here!’ A glance shows me the colors going back and I think its time to go, but I am too late. A big Johnny Reb with his musket pointed at me that looks as large to my eyes as a twelve-pound cannon says, ‘Yank, I’ll take care of you,’ and that settles the business for me. My captor and I got down low in the ditch to avoid the storm of lead which now begins to sweep over us from all parts of the compass. A Reb jumped upon the works beside a fine-looking young Confederate officer, brought his musket up to his face, and fired at Sergeant Major Pete Pecheny, his ball cutting the sergeant across the bridge of his nose. This enraged the young officer and he said to the man, ‘If I see you do another cowardly trick like that, I will cut you down in your tracks with my sword. Firing on a man after he has surrendered!’ The officer jumped down, took a few steps toward the Carter House, turned, and flourished his sword, and urged his men to come on and then fell, pierced by a Yankee bullet.

One of the restored slave cabins at the Carter House lays behind the breastworks held by the 50th Ohio during the battle. Reportedly the cabins were torn down by the Federals before the battle to held construct their works.

Now the music was by the full band on all parts of the line. Pandemonium reigned supreme and in almost less time than it takes me to relate it, the space between the two lines was cleared of everything except dead and wounded soldiers. The crashes of musketry exceeded anything that I heard in front of Atlanta. One wounded Rebel fell on my feet and another on my left shoulder, their life’s blood soaking and staining my clothing to the skin.

The enemy clung stubbornly to the outside of the works out of which they had lifted the 50th Ohio. The prisoners and their captors occupied the inside. After dark, the Rebs ordered us all to get over on their side. The first time, my captor and I kept quiet, but the second time they threatened to fire on us if we did not come over, so my captor said we would have to get over, and we did. I want to say that we were not long about it, either, for our second line was keeping up a deadly fire on those works from three directions, so you may judge it was not very healthy on top of those works at that time. If it had not been for my captor, I would have remained where I was as the ditch was full of wounded Rebs and being dark, I knew they would not fire into that ditch for fear of killing their own wounded. But my guard still had his twelve-pounder and I thought perhaps he might use it on me if I were stubborn, so I hustled over with him. Then he left me, and he may have been killed for aught I know, as I saw him no more.

I lay down beside a wounded Confederate captain. The Rebs in the line soon dwindled down to a mere skirmish line and they were using cartridges taken from the boxes of their dead and wounded comrades. The oblique fire from our lines had thinned them out rapidly. Word was passed along the line for the commanding officer of their brigade, and word came back that he was dead or wounded. Word was passed for the next ranking officer and received the same answer; this was repeated with like results until it reached the wounded captain by my side. Then he spoke up and said, ‘Men, this won’t do. We must either surrender or run.’ But it seemed sure death to attempt to cross that field at that time, as the boys in blue were sending a death-dealing storm of leaded hail across it from right, left, and front.

Perhaps you can imagine my feelings at this time. I was a prisoner of war in the power of a mere handful of the enemy, while within a stone’s throw of me were hundreds of my friends and comrades and yet I could not get to them. Visions of Andersonville, Castle Thunder, and Libby prisons passed in panoramic view before me and how I wished I could get to Colonel Strickland and tell him the facts as I knew they existed. Had I now been on the other side of the works, I certainly would have tried to crawl to our lines. Surely, I though our men will certainly come back and retake this line and realizing if they did, I was in a very dangerous position where I was, I crawled up to the works, picking up a Rebel blanket on my way and wrapping it around me, lay up against the earthworks as close as possible and awaited developments.

 

For Corporal Winters, the war was over. His chances to rejoin the Federal army dwindled as the night passed and by morning, he turned himself over to a Confederate patrol in Franklin. Winters, with about 50 of his comrades from the regiment, would remain a prisoner of the Confederates and soon would be marching south to spend the next four months as a prisoner of war at Cahaba in Alabama. Exchanged in March 1865, Winters traveled to Vicksburg where in late April 1865, he set off for home aboard the ill-fated steamboat Sultana and numbered among the few survivors of that disaster.


 

 Do you want to walk the very ground at Franklin that Corporal Winters describes in this letter? Readers are encouraged to visit the Battle of Franklin Trust’s Carter House site located at 1140 Columbia Ave in Franklin, Tennessee. By visiting stops 6 and 9 on their tour located just south of the Carter House, visitors can follow the preserved line of entrenchments dug by the 50th Ohio on November 30, 1864. Check out the Battle of Franklin Trust’s website at The Battle of Franklin Trust (boft.org) for more details.

 

Source:

Winters, Erastus. In the 50th Ohio Serving Uncle Sam: Memoirs of One Who Wore the Blue. East Walnut Hills: Erastus Winters, 1905, pgs. 119-125

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