War in Earnest: The 11th Illinois and the Taking of Fort Donelson

The opening moments of the fight on February 15, 1862, at Fort Donelson, Tennessee convinced George Carrington of the 11th Illinois that it was now “war in earnest.”

          “A close, quick volley came, striking five men of Co. K on the extreme left,” he wrote years later. “This was the first time we had stood in line of battle and faced death. I looked at those men and they lay in the snow just as they had fallen. Were they dead? Yes. I could hardly realize it, they were so still, the wind scarcely stirred the capes of their coats. Yes, these men were dead, struck down by the first volley having never fired a shot themselves. What a feeling crept over me.”

Moments later, a man was struck right in front of him. “Joe Walker of our company was the first one killed,” he continued. “He received a bullet through the temples and with a cartridge in his teeth, fell over on one of the boys, the blood spouting over his coat. We dragged him a little to one side or down the hill and turned our attention to the work in front.”

The 11th Illinois fought at Fort Donelson in Colonel William H.L. Wallace’s Second Brigade of General John McClernand’s First Division of Grant’s army. The regiment served alongside the 20th, 45th, and 48th Illinois regiments along with two Illinois batteries. Carrington’s account of the Battle of Fort Donelson first saw publication in the January 27, 1882, edition of the Toledo Blade.

 

Fort Donelson marked the first time the 11th Illinois was under fire and regiment fought magnificently, holding a critical position under heavy fire and suffering tremendously in the effort. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas E.G. Ransom, one of the casualties, reported a loss of 68 men killed, 183 wounded, and 79 missing, for a total of 330. George Carrington confessed "the fact is we did not know enough of war to run away." 


          After taking Fort Henry, we marched over to Fort Donelson. The little town of Dover on the Cumberland River was completely fenced in by rifle pits, breastworks, and batteries, besides the water batteries guarding the approach by river. We took our position on the extreme right, being the right regiment of the Second Brigade, the First Brigade to the right of us. The 31st Illinois under Colonel John Logan was the left of the First Brigade and our right rested on their left. Taylor’s Battery was to our left. We were in line and sheltered from the Rebel fire by a line of hills thickly covered with a growth of jack-oak timber.

The night of the 14th of February, snow fell about two inches or more. We were aroused at 2 o’clock in the morning on February 15th by sharp picket firing, threw off our snow-covered blankets and the chill morning air penetrated our very bones. We formed in line but the firing slackened so we started fires down the hill and gathered around them, but another spurt of firing brought us into line again. About daylight, we made coffee and distributed it as the men stood in ranks.

Lt. Col. Thomas E.G. Ransom
11th Illinois Infantry
Wounded in action

Shortly after a close, quick volley came, striking five men of Co. K on the extreme left. This was the first time we had stood in line of battle and faced death. I looked at those men and they lay in the snow just as they had fallen. Were they dead? Yes. I could hardly realize it, they were so still, the wind scarcely stirred the capes of their coats. Yes, these men were dead, struck down by the first volley having never fired a shot themselves. What a feeling crept over me. This was war in earnest.

Scattering firing now commenced off to the right and in our front. Finally, we got to work. Pretty strong musketry began to roar all along our front and far to the right. The right regiments were gradually forced back by the pressure of the Rebel infantry and the firing drew nearer, showing our lines were giving way. Swartz’s battery of six guns was taken. On they came and struck the 31st Illinois.

I leaned on my musket and watched the 31st boys fight. Taking their colors for a center, they gathered around the flag and hung to it as long as they had ammunition, encouraged by Colonel Logan’s highly expressive and forcible language. The brave colonel swung his sword and closed them up, being himself wounded in the arm. Finally, their ammunition gone, they gave way and fell back under cover of the next line of hills.

Then the enemy’s undivided attention turned upon us. In the meantime, we had kept up our share of the racket, the boys falling continually. “Close up” was the word. About the hardest thing I know of in battle is to take a fallen man’s place, to step up and fill a gap in the ranks that was made by a fatal bullet. I stood in line with the file closers. Alexander Hess, on one knee in the rear rank in front of me, was hit in the shoulder, the bullet going clear through and lodged in the skin of the shoulder blade. He looked at me, put his hand to his shoulder, turned and walked out of the ranks without a word and I saw him no more. Shortly after this, we were all busy. I did not hear a man groan or cry with pain that day. The wounded walked or crawled away down the hill, and the dead lay where they fell. Joe Walker of our company was the first one killed. He received a bullet through the temples and with a cartridge in his teeth, fell over on one of the boys, the blood spouting over his coat. We dragged him a little to one side or down the hill and turned our attention to the work in front.

          The constant “spang, spang” of the muskets in the damp, frosty air combining with the roar of Taylor’s guns and the heavy thunder of the water batteries and Uncle Sam’s gunboats made a noise that was deafening. Round shots would pass over our heads, cutting down timber far to the rear. The snow was trodden down and stained with the crimson lifeblood of many of our brave boys.

          We closed up, keeping the colors for our center and by moving so left a gap between the next regiment to our left. It was now noon and they were pressing us sorely. We had orders sent to give way and fall back, but the message never reached us. None of us thought of anything else but to hold the position at any and all hazards. The fact is we did not know enough of war to run away.

          By 2 p.m., Forrest’s cavalry cut out and got away through a gap in the lines. The Rebel infantry at the same time charged us and they were so earnest in the matter that we broke and got over the next hill without stopping to consider the order of our going. However, we brought our bullet-riddled flag with us, the color bearer having been hit three times and down but not dead.

 

 

Captain Lloyd D. Waddell, Co. E, 11th Illinois Infantry

“My color was the color company at which the Rebels took particular aim; as fast as one man who carried the flag would be shot, another would take his place, but the flag was brought through. Out of 85 men in my company, only 7 came out, the most wholesale slaughter that I ever heard of. Do not wonder that I am downhearted. Looking at the poor remnant of my company, the men that I have taken so much pains to drill and men that I thought so much of, now nearly all in the graves, I feel melancholy.” ~ Captain Lloyd D. Waddell, Co. E, 11th Illinois

 

I looked back once and there on the crest of the hill we had so long defended the Rebs stood shoulder to shoulder, and every man in the act of firing. Bullets cut the snow at my feet, cut off twigs and branches about my ears, one went through my overcoat and bruised the point of the hip bone, not even breaking the skin. I never stopped until I got over the hill and out of reach of the fire. Here was a sight never to be forgotten. Wounded men and others, all moving slowly and sullenly, one man between two, some limping, some bare headed and holding a wounded hand, nearly every man with holes in his clothes.

We passed a farmhouse full of wounded where there was a fine spring of water. Farther on we stacked arms and made fires for the night, all 116 of us and part of them slightly wounded. In the morning we numbered slightly over 700. However, our holding the ground so stubbornly checked the enemy and saved others. The Rebels plundered our dead and took some prisoners before falling back into their entrenchments.

Sergeant William H. McAleney
Co. K, 11th Illinois
Later Captain, 47th USCT

The next morning at sunrise the white flag was flying from their works and they surrendered. I went back to the field to find my knapsack and blanket; I found a dead man rolled up in it. My drum the morning before was snow-covered and that was the last I ever saw of it. The wounded had lain all night in the snow and were suffering severely. We relieved them as fast as possible. John Coffee, an Irishman of our company, was always on extra duty because he could obtain whiskey when no other man could. He used to say, “when the bullets do be flyin’, where will you extra duty men be then?” I found John wounded and suffering considerable pain. I asked what I do for him. “Could you get me a wee drop of whiskey?” Yes, indeed. I procured a tin cup of good, strong, commissary and he drank it. There never was a drink of whiskey that did a man so good as that, and he never forgot it either. We finally got him off the field and two months after he came back to camp to get his discharge, his arm hanging useless by his side.

We buried 78 men in one grave where they fell and the next fall we stopped there long enough to build a fence around the graves and left them is as good shape as possible. We also visited the farmhouse and spring. A woman there told us that the horrid smell of blood, powder, and wounded men could never be got out of the house, especially the upstairs, but we drank that sparkling water and ate peaches all the same.

Our captain was killed and our first lieutenant was wounded; shot through the head back of his eyes. He walked off the field, lived to go home, and died there. The second lieutenant had a flattened musket ball strike between his eyes; our first sergeant was wounded and taken prisoner while all of the other non-commissioned officers were wounded. The color corporal of our company was shot through both arms but carried the colors after that all through the war.

We were in what you might call a tight place, but we held the position as long as possible and some of our command hold the same ground yet. The trees and bushes were cut down by musket balls alone. For a week or more after we got into camp at Dover, the rustle of a dry leaf would startle one as though it was a bullet whistling past. I suppose other soldiers experienced this.  

 Source:

“The Taking of Fort Donelson,” Private George D. Carrington, Co. B, 11th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Toledo Blade (Ohio), January 27, 1882, pg. 2

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