Saved by a Pin: Remembering Atlanta from inside a Prison Pen

It was a simple Masonic pin that saved Captain John Gillespie’s life during the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864.

          Gillespie, leading Co. G of the 78^th Ohio, had fought all afternoon but in the closing portion of the action found himself surrounded by a horde of angry Confederate infantrymen, one of whom had a bayonet thrusting towards Gillespie's chest. “At the same time, my ears were greeted with a terrible oath from the Rebel owner asking what I was ‘doing with a sword and gun both?’ I answered that I had been using the gun to the best of my ability when click went the trigger of his gun and with another oath he swore he would ‘put daylight through me,” Gillespie remembered.

          “It flashed across my mind that my earthly existence was near its end when suddenly a Rebel officer ran up to the fellow and cried out, “Hold! Hold! Hold!” The soldier, who was drunk with powder and whiskey, drew his bayonet from his breast and turned away from me. The officer said, “I see you are a Mason,” and then for the first time, I realized that a Masonic pin on the lapel of my blouse had been the means of saving my life,” Gillespie noted. His shirt soaked with blood from the bayonet wound, but once the Rebel officer ascertained that Gillespie was not seriously wounded, Gillespie's savior turned the Ohioan towards Atlanta as his prisoner. 

          Written nearly two months after his capture while he languished in the Charleston City Jail as a prisoner of war, Captain Gillespie’s lengthy description of the battle featured below was given to a soon-to-be exchanged Massachusetts officer who mailed it home to Gillespie’s family in Ohio from Boston on September 30, 1864. The Ohio Soldier, a popular late 19^th century veterans’ newspaper, published the letter entire in their January 7, 1888, edition.

          In my humble opinion, Gillespie's description of the chaotic combat that gripped the 17^th Army Corps through that fateful July 22, 1864 is one of the best Civil War battle accounts I've yet encountered and it is with great pleasure that I share it on the blog on this, the 159^th anniversary of the Battle of Atlanta.

 

Gillespie's Masonic pin may have saved his life at Atlanta but his 17th Army Corps badge reflected the fighting honor of one of the hardest hitting units in the Army of the Tennessee. Veterans of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg, the 78th had seen hard service but none of their previous battles matched Atlanta for sheer intensity. It was the Army of the Tennessee's shining hour but it came at a heavy price in lives. 

“Our men fought like tigers and the Rebs seemed to be very demons in their frenzied assaults. The blue and the gray were piled on top of each other in their struggles for supremacy and in many places along that broad Decatur road that awful hot and dusty July day, the soldiers of both armies lay so thickly strewn that one could have walked many rods without touching the ground.” ~ Captain John W.A. Gillespie, Co. G, 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

 

Military Prison, Charleston, South Carolina

Saturday, September 18, 1864

          I have managed to get together several scraps of nearly all kinds of paper and will spend a few hours this beautiful Sabbath day in giving you the particulars pf the battle of July 22^nd as I saw it and also describe how I was captured.

          We crossed the Chattahoochee on the 18^th of July and remained near the river in bivouac until the next day when we moved off toward Decatur, the extreme left of our lines. Some sharp fighting and severe cannonading took place on the right on the 20^th in which General Hooker’s command took an active part, but none of our command became engaged during the day except to do some slight skirmishing near Decatur. That night we laid on our arms in a pine thicket near the town and on bright and early on the morning of the 21^st we were in line and ready to move at a moment’s notice.

          We did not get started, however, from this place until afternoon when our entire division was ordered forward towards Atlanta and to participate in a fight then taking place on the hills and in the woods half a mile away. We pushed rapidly forward and soon learned that General Walter Gresham, a brave Iowa officer, had been severely wounded in one leg and carried off the field. We also learned that many gallant soldiers had been killed and wounded during the few hours’ fighting. It was grand to see our regiments and brigades in splendid line push up the hill into the woods and drive the Rebels before them.

          Generals Mortimer Leggett and Manning Force, of whom there are no better or braver officers, were right along with us and when our line reached the woods, we could see the Rebs retreating, yet halting once in a while to give us a volley which had but little effect owing to the thick growth of timber we were passing through. After entering the woods, our line never stopped until it emerged into the Decatur road and had possession of the Rebel line of works from which the Rebel troops were running toward Atlanta. We could see the spires and steeples plainly from our position and we thought we would soon be in our possession on the morrow.

General Mortimer D. Leggett
Note 17th A.C. badge

          The line of works captured were only of a temporary character but extended along the south side of the broad road for half a mile. The advantage gained by the day’s work was excellent, yet there was no time to be lost and in a little while picks, spades, and axes were put to work by willing hands to make that temporary work so strong and formidable that no assault from the front could take it.

          The work was kept up all night long and when morning dawned on the 22^nd, the 17^th Army Corps stood ready and anxious to meet the attack which all of our generals expected would be made from the front. Noon came, the men had been ordered to prepare some coffee (which many of them did) and still there was no enemy in sight. A report came saying that the enemy had evacuated the city and preparations began immediately for a forward movement but stop! What was that? Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack when the guns of our pickets and scouts away off on our left and rear. Listen, that’s a volley, and there goes General McPherson followed by an orderly and is soon lost in sight in the thick timber.

           To make a long story as short as possible, the Rebels, instead of evacuating Atlanta, had quietly withdrawn from the city during the night and without being discovered had gained our left and rear and were almost upon us before we could change our position from the front to the rear of the works. Yet the changes was effected in good orders and as we took position on the slope of the works, one line in rear of the other, we could hear the leaves and twigs ratting and crackling under the feet of the long and twice-doubled lines of the enemy as they rushed forward with guns at a trail and apparently confident of a quick and easy victory over the hated Yanks.

          But they counted without their host for as soon as their first line struck the edge of the road, our entire front line fired a deadly volley into their ranks, killing and wounding many, and causing the balance to recoil and fall back into the woods only to come again in much stronger force and with redoubled lines. Again they were met with a furious storm of lead which piled them on top of each other all along their front and drove the survivors howling back into the woods, but they soon came again and this time were met on the open road, musket to musket, bayonet to bayonet, and in hundreds of cases, fist to fist.

          Our men fought like tigers and the Rebs seemed to be very demons in their frenzied assaults. The blue and the gray were piled on top of each other in their struggles for supremacy and in many places along that broad Decatur road that awful hot and dusty July day, the soldiers of both armies lay so thickly strewn that one could have walked many rods without touching the ground. The slaughter in the Rebel ranks was terrible and must have reached into the thousands. The Rebel yell was met time and again by a grand old Union cheer and right in the midst of the awful roar of musketry, the slogan “Remember McPherson” could be heard time and again from our brave boys as they met and repulsed the assaults of the Rebels on that bloody afternoon. Certainly, no more desperate, or terrific battle ever took place in America.

Sergeant Benjamin F. Scott of Co. B of the 78th Ohio was killed in action July 22, 1864, during the Battle of Atlanta (Image courtesy of Mike Willey)

          From the time the battle began until 5 p.m. our regiments, the 20^th Ohio and 78^th Ohio, unsupported by artillery or infantry, repulsed four different assaults and held the position General Leggett was ordered to hold “at all hazards.” The first three assaults were made by the Rebels on our works were in parallel lines, but in the fourth, their lines were thrown across our works at a point where they succeeded in capturing three guns of DeGrasse’s battery which they turned on us and began raking both sides of the line with shrapnel, shot and shell.

          Just at this time, General Giles A. Smith’s command was being slowly forced back along the road in our front while immediately to our rear and right, General Benjamin Potts, with his coat off and shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, was cheering his command as it forced the Rebel left to give ground in the open field over which we expected the attack in the morning. At this time, you will understand, we were fighting with our backs toward Atlanta and were receiving the fire of the enemy from front, flank, and rear, and our men were falling everywhere.

          The Rebels, led by a fine-looking officer riding a magnificent dapple-gray horse, were slowly coming towards us, firing, and yelling as they came, and it did seem for a few moments that we could not hold our position much longer. Yet, nothing daunted, the men with renewed zeal and energy, although almost overcome with heat, dust, and thirst, met volley with volley and sent many a Rebel to his long home. The Rebel officer before mentioned was made a target for many bullets but for a time he seemed to bear a charmed life. Holding the bridle rein with his left hand and swaying his sword with his right, he urged his horse forward down the broad road into the very jaws of death. It was a pity that so brave a man could not have died in a better cause.

          Sergeant Frank Porter stood at my side had just fired and reloaded his gun when I asked him to give it to me for a moment, which he did. In less time than I can write, I took deliberate aim at the officer’s head and fired but only succeeded in knocking his cap off. Then I jumped back and called to my men, “Shoot that officer! Shoot that officer!” In the next minute, the officer and his horse were dead in the road not 20 steps from our position. Just at this moment, the Rebels planted two of their flags on our works and made an attempt to rally around them, but we were ordered to charge them and did so with a hurrah, capturing many and driving back the remainder in confusion and dismay. We learned afterwards from prisoners that that brave officer was General W.H.T. Walker [“Shotpouch” Walker]

          While this desperate struggle was taking place, another portion of our troops recaptured Degrasse’s guns and turned them on the Rebels with splendid effect. The heat of the day was intense and the boys were so begrimed with powder, dust, and perspiration that they scarcely looked like white men. Yet who cared for their looks at such a time? To whip the Rebels was all their thought and whip them they did, yet it was at a fearful cost of precious lives and limbs.

General Leggett related the following story regarding the color guard of the 78th Ohio and their actions in defending their colors at Atlanta. In the summer of 1863, the Ladies of Zanesville, Ohio procured a beautiful stand of colors which Leggett presented to the regiment. "I had the pleasure of witnessing with what pride the regiment flaunted that flag in the eyes of the maddened fore and with what determined courage they defended it," he wrote. The Rebel effort to gain possession of the flag was one of the bloodiest most desperate I ever witnessed. In the last part of the engagement, the Rebels seized the colors while in the hands of Sergeant Russell Bethel. The rest of the guard being shot down, it seemed for a time doubtful as to whether the flag would be retained. Bethel, as strong as he is brave and in the absence of other weapons, used his huge fist to good purpose and released the colors from the vile grasp of the dirty Rebels. But they soon rushed upon him and again seized the flag; at the same time wounding him in both legs and one arm, yet Bethel held on to the flag with an undying grasp and still used his fist as best he was able. At this point, a Rebel was about to thrust his bayonet into Bethel when Captain John Orr of Co. H came to his rescue and with his sword hewed down Bethel's assailants and again released his colors from the Rebels' grasp. The 78th Ohio still proudly waved their colors, though stained with Rebel blood and the whole colors guard; torn and pierced by Rebel hands and Rebel bullets and riven by Rebel bayonets, yet the regiment is more proud than ever of the good old flag, even in its rags." 

          At half past 5 o’clock and during a brief lull in the battle, we were ordered to fall back to “Leggett’s hill” where we could renew the fight without being compelled to receive an attack from all sides as we had done all afternoon. Before this, our brigade commander Colonel Robert K. Scott of the 68^th Ohio had been captured and Colonel Greenberry F. Wiles [his nickname was "Old Whiskers"] was put in command of the brigade which gave Major Rainey command of the regiment which had been fearfully decimated during the day.

          While falling back along the line of works and directly toward Atlanta, the Rebels at a distance discovered the movement and began firing rapidly from almost every direction and succeeded in picking off quite a number of our men before we could get very far and made it necessary for us to scatter out so as not to give them a good chance at us. The fact that we were at further disadvantage and without a fair opportunity to return the fire was a bitter pill for us to swallow after repulsing them so often.

          In crossing over the works to our proper front, I did so with a portion of my company and supposed that all would follow, but as we had been ordered to pay no particular attention to the manner of getting to our new position, they went on and crossed the works further along and nearer our objective point. In going around a traverse which reached out a considerable distance from the main work, I discovered nearly a whole company of men from different regiments taking a slight rest and loading their guns. The gun of one of my poor boys who had been killed was in my hands and loaded. Seeing that the Rebels in our rear were again making their appearance, I suggested that we give them a volley which most of the party assisted in doing.

          After which we began loading again, thinking we had nothing to fear from any Rebel force that could be between us and our new position. The gun I had was so dirty that I could not get the bullet down with my lame arm, so I began punching the end of the ramrod against the timber of the works when all of a sudden, we heard a yell directly behind us and turned to discover a body of Rebels driving at least a hundred captured Union soldiers before them and calling to us to surrender.

Bayonets saw far more use in the Civil War around a campfire than they did plunging into the innards of the various combatants, but bayonet wounds, rare as they were, were difficult to treat. The above bayonet, designed for use with a British-made Enfield rifle musket, saw widespread use within the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Some models of Enfields utilized sword bayonets, an even nastier-looking weapon than the one above. Captain Gillespie was very lucky that a nearby Confederate officer prevented his quick demise. 

          We could not fire at the Rebels because of our own men being between them and us, and the only things left for us to do were to surrender or to try and get away. This I tried to do with gun in hand but the next moment I found myself backed up against the breastwork with a Rebel bayonet at my breast. At the same time, my ears were greeted with a terrible oath from the Rebel owner asking what I was “doing with a sword and gun both?” I answered that I had been using the gun to the best of my ability when click went the trigger of his gun and with another oath he swore he would “put daylight through” me.

          I was surrounded on all sides and it flashed across my mind that my earthly existence was near its end when suddenly a Rebel officer ran up to the fellow and cried out, “Hold! Hold! Hold!” The soldier, who was drunk with powder and whiskey, drew his bayonet from his breast and turned away from me. The officer said, “I see you are a Mason,” and then for the first time, I realized that a Masonic pin on the lapel of my blouse had been the means of saving my life. The bayonet had only pierced my right breast slightly, yet the blood had saturated my flannel shirt and showed through my blouse causing the officer to hurriedly ask me if I was wounded badly. When I said I was not, he replied, “Then get over the works quickly. You are my prisoner.” And I assure you I obeyed as rapidly as possible for our men had begun to pour volley after volley into the Rebels who surrounded us, and in doing do, had killed, and wounded some of our own men, an unavoidable result.

          When we got back over the works, the officer asked for my sword saying, “I would let you keep it, but if you don’t give it to me, someone else will take it.” I took it from my belt and handed it to him, saying that it was something I had never expected to have to do, but would rather he would have it than any other Rebel soldier because of his kindness. He then hurriedly put me under charge of a red-headed Rebel sergeant and told him to take me to Atlanta, but not to allow anyone to take anything away from me. That soldier obeyed his instructions implicitly for afterward when three Rebels came up and wanted to take my belt, rubber poncho, haversack, and canteen, he told them that if they touched anything I had he would run his bayonet through them. They soon went away cursing him and the “damned Yank.”

This famous view of the outskirts of Atlanta give some indication of the scenes through which Captain Gillespie passed on his way into captivity. 

          It was nearly dark and the excitement of the day being over, I was weak from hunger and thirst and could scarcely get along. He took me to a spring where we sat down and for a time listened to the battle which was still raging but evidently in our favor. The stragglers from the Rebel army began to show themselves in large numbers and acted as though they were very anxious to get away from that vicinity. In fact, they were so much interested in their own safety that in passing by, they would stop to get a drink but paid no attention to me.

          I was taken through Atlanta in the night and found the streets thronged with men, women, and children, all of whom seemed greatly alarmed and agitated, and many of them would come running up to us and ask how the battle had gone. The next day at 10 o’clock I was taken to East Point six miles from Atlanta where I joined nearly 2,500 Union prisoners who had been captured during the four or five days’ fighting around Atlanta. I could write much more, but my paper is all used up and I must say goodbye once more.

Sources:

Letter from Captain John W.A. Gillespie, Co. G, 78^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Ohio Soldier (Ohio), January 7, 1888, pgs. 322-323

Letter from General Mortimer D. Leggett, Guernsey Times (Ohio), August 25, 1864, pg. 1