Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

H erman Canfield was born July 29, 1817, in Canfield Township, Mahoning County, Ohio, the youngest son of Herman Canfield and his wife Fitie. He gained his education in the common schools of his community and entered Kenyon College in 1834 where he became proficient in both Greek and Latin. In 1838, he embarked on the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1841. By 1845, he moved to Medina and joined his law practice with that of his older brother William and soon was appointed clerk of the common pleas court. In 1848, he married Sarah Ann Martha Treat and the couple, ardent abolitionists and possessing a deep faith in God, assisted with the local Underground Railroad while Herman devoted his legal talents to defending fellow Ohioans accused of breaking the Fugitive Slave Act. The couple joined St. Paul’s Episcopal Church where Herman became superintendent of the Sunday school. Herman and Sarah Ann "Martha" Canfield.  Originally a Whig, Canfield joined the Republican...

L ooking back on the events of the Battle of Port Republic, Private Elliott Winscott of the 7th Indiana laid the blame for his regiment's misfortunes on one man: Colonel Samuel Sprigg Carroll. In particular, he called into question Carroll's decision making on the Sunday afternoon on June 8, 1862.      " On Sunday, we were within 6 miles of Port Republic and the cavalry under the command of Captain Keughn of Shields’ staff was sent ahead to drive the enemy from the bridge that spans the Shenandoah Rover opposite the town," he noted. "The work was entrusted to a faithful officer and nobly did he discharge his duty, driving the enemy away and firing the bridge. Had he been left to use his own discretion, as he ought to have been, the bridge would have been destroyed and saved our defeat. But no sooner had General Carroll heard what had been done when he ordered the fire put out, and two pieces of short-range brass guns were ordered forward together with our brigade...

A s the Federal army tightened the noose around Vicksburg on May 21, 1863, Captain James R.S. Cox of the 16 th Indiana had an opportunity to observe General Ulysses S. Grant up close and personal.           Cox was atop a ridge with Generals Stephen Burbridge and A.J. Smith when he saw “General Grant, smoking as usual, walking slowly along the ridge, paying no attention to the sharpshooters who are feeling for him,” he wrote. “Some newspapers deem him incompetent to fill the position, but the soldiers of his army swear by him. They know that the campaign, thus far and under great difficulties, has been conducted successfully. I had formed an idea from the description that he was a whiskey barrel on legs but found myself greatly in error. Paying little attention to dress, he usually wears a stand-up collar with cap and coat much the worse for wear. He seems a plain unassuming man, whether studying his maps or as is his custom, smoking, walk...

P rivate James F. Hunt of Co. E, 12 th Michigan Infantry, had the “honor” of firing some of the opening shots of the Battle of Shiloh. What he saw of battle satisfied his desire for combat. “I gave the enemy between 30 and 40 good rounds before they shot me, and I shot at somebody every time,” he explained in a letter to his father. “Whether I killed anyone or not, I do not know nor do I want to. I have seen all I want to of war and would like to get home first best. I have seen men shot dead almost by my side and expected to be the next one myself. Yet I could draw up and fire away just as cool as I could at a flock of pigeons. How I got off so easy I do not know. I had my coat cut all to pieces with shot.” Private Hunt’s account of Shiloh, sent to his father David M. Hunt who lived in Clay Township near South Bend, Indiana, first appeared in the May 1, 1862, edition of the St. Joseph Valley Register .

Stones River Stories T he story of rapid demise of Battery E, 1 st Ohio Light Artillery at the Battle of Stones River has been shared previously on this blog, but I recently discovered this previously unknown account penned by Corporal Oliver P. Clark that provides an intimate view of those fateful opening minutes of Stones River. Oliver Clark’s role with the battery was the No. 2 man as part of Detachment F, the sixth gun in the battery. Clark’s primary duties when the battery was in action included receiving the shell from the No. 5, then inserting it into the muzzle of the cannon. That said, he had an up close view of the action. Once the Confederate assault opened the battle, Clark raced to his piece which was loaded with a double shot of canister. “Dick Gillett says, ‘Let her go!’ and Detachment F was in it,” Clark remembered. “The old gun sent the canister; it struck the Rebel column seven lines deep. The canister cut down every man that was in range, cutting a hole in the col...

Stones River Stories D uring the Battle of Stones River, a total of nine Medals of Honor were awarded to soldiers who displayed valor above and beyond the call of duty. Two of those medals were awarded for actions prior to the main engagement, while the remaining seven were awarded for actions on December 31, 1862. The first of those medals was not awarded until nearly 25 years after the battle, the first recipients being volunteer soldiers who had gone on to serve in the regular army as officers. Six more medals would be awarded during the 1890s with the last medal being awarded to John Farquhar of the 89 th Illinois in 1902.           The first Medal of Honor awarded for action at Stones River went to John Gregory Bourke, formerly of Co. E of the 15 th Pennsylvania Cavalry which was also known as the Anderson Troop. Bourke, born in Philadelphia to Irish immigrant parents in 1846, lied about his age and enlisted in the Anderson Troop on ...

I n the days leading up to the Battle of Chickamauga, Major General Gordon Granger, commanding the Reserve Corps of the Army of the Cumberland, provoked an ugly scene with the men of his command that highlights the differences between volunteer soldiers and the Regular officers who often led them. Major John Corson Smith of the 96 th Illinois, then serving on the staff of General James B. Steedman who commanded one of Granger’s divisions, laid the blame at Granger’s “exacting and overbearing nature.”           The trouble began once the Reserve Corps occupied Rossville on September 14, 1863; the supply wagons trailed days behind and soon the Federals got hungry. “The command at Rossville numbered about 6,000 rank and file,” recalled Major Smith. “Following the forced march over Lookout Mountain, there was a scarcity of food and the men commenced foraging for subsistence- a few nubbins of corn, a bunch of string beans, a piece of smoked mea...

F ollowing the Federal defeat at the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads on June 10, 1864, Private Nathan Browning of the 93 rd Indiana attributed his successful escape to Memphis to the lucky assistance of General Benjamin Grierson’s cavalry. After narrowly escaping capture near a farmhouse, Browning saw a number of his comrades sitting down, worn out and quietly awaiting capture. “I said no. So, I left them sitting until the Rebels came up and told them to throw their hands up, and they were marched back and soon in the pen, stripped of their best clothing and valuables,” Browning recalled in 1893. “I was still on the run, caught up with the Union cavalry and footed it with them over that rough country by the aid of grasping the horse by his tail which enabled me to make good my escape. Comrades, that was one of times that it was tail hold or none, so I hung on, just like a bulldog and it was well that I did.”           Private Browning’s des...

T he last shots of the Battle of Stones River took place on the evening of Saturday, January 3, 1863, when portions of Colonel John Beatty’s and General James Spears’ Federal brigades launched an assault on Confederate positions in the Round Forest held by the 39 th Alabama and 1 st Louisiana Regulars of Colonel John Coltart’s brigade.           It was a wet, miserable evening; it had rained incessantly all day and the men of both armies, exhausted by several days of the most intense combat yet seen in the western theater, were hardly in shape for a fight. Among those who shouldered his musket for this last engagement was Sergeant Henry Breidenthal of Co. A, 3 rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.           Breidenthal drew the unlucky assignment of being in the “forlorn hope,” a group of men tasked with advancing 50-100 yards ahead of the regiment during the attack; their presence would prompt the Co...

I n 1895, Judge Henry H. Williams, formerly a corporal in Co. A of the 71st Ohio Infantry, penned this memoir of his experiences at the Battle of Shiloh. It is clear that Judge Williams took issue with the postwar claims made by Generals Grant, Sherman, and their advocates downplaying the element of surprise at Shiloh: from his view in the ranks, quite the contrary.       " I had unusual privilege for a subaltern officer and was over much of the ground occupied by the Federal army just prior to the bloody battle of Shiloh," he noted. " No fortifications of any kind were in existence and up to Friday, April 4, 1862, no appearance of the enemy had been observed and only the ordinary picket line was maintained by the Federal forces.  General Grant’s headquarters were at Savannah, nine miles down the Tennessee River and on the opposite bank. If at that time there was any apprehension of an attack from the Rebel forces, it was not manifest by any preparation to meet ...

H aving missed most of the action at Fredericksburg, one Alabama soldier recalled the extraordinary meeting of the two armies during the flag of truce two days after the battle. “As soon as they saw the flag, one of them came a little forward and proposed a friendly meeting halfway,” he wrote a few days later. “We accepted, and a dozen or so of us went out and met them, shook hands, passed compliments, traded a little, and had a gay time. In a few minutes, the truce being refused, we all quickly took our places ready to change our friendly meeting into a bloody conflict. We agreed not to fire on each other that day unless the fight commenced.” Later that afternoon, a second flag of truce was agreed upon and again the men met to exchange the bodies of their dead comrades. “A large body of Yankees then came forward with litters to pick up our dead which they brought halfway and laid them down; about the same number of our men commenced picking up the Yankee dead and carrying them to ...

R iding over the Shiloh battlefield on April 8, 1862, Generals Alexander McCook and William "Bull" Nelson came across an old acquaintance lying upon the battlefield: George W. Johnson, the provisional Confederate governor of Kentucky. The 49-year-old, serving as a volunteer aide on the staff of General John C. Breckinridge, had a horse shot out from under him on April 6 th , then took his place as a private in the ranks of Co. E of the 4 th Kentucky on the 7 th . In the course of the fighting, Johnson suffered a mortal wound in the right thigh and abdomen.           I saw lying upon the ground a tall man dressed in gray jeans. I dismounted, approached him, and recognized him as a Kentucky Johnson and told him so,” McCook wrote years later. “He replied, ‘Yes, I am George W. Johnson, Confederate governor of Kentucky.’ He asked me to come nearer. I knelt beside him, better to hear what he had to say. He asked me if I was a Mason, I convinced ...

S ergeant Randolph Smedley of the 15 th Alabama recalled the electric effect seeing General Robert E. Lee had upon his regiment as they moved into action into the Wilderness on May 5, 1864.           “It seemed that every man went in determined to whip or die,” he informed his father. “As we were going in, we passed by General Lee. He raised his hat and said, “Go it, my brave Alabamians!” There is no telling how much good a kind word from such a general as Lee will do. When he spoke, although the balls were flying thick, every face brightened, each one took a quicker step, and when the order forward was given, a yell was raised and each one seemed to try to be the first to get a shot at the enemy.”           Sergeant Smedley felt sure that the bitter losses suffered by the Army of the Potomac in the ensuing battles would send Grant to the rear in disgrace, as had happened so many times before ...

W riting in his diary, Private Manius Buchanan of the 29 th Indiana recalled the eagerness with which his regiment marched towards Savannah, Tennessee with the sounds of the battle of Shiloh ringing in their ears.           “The forced march was kept up until 2 p.m. when we were halted until 4 p.m,” he noted. “The rest was really needed, but the continual question is ‘Why are we stopped here?’ The sound of battle increased in volume and anxiety to be up and doing grows more intense. As I am weak from a late sickness, I am urged to fall to the rear; but no, in common with all, I want to see a battle and fear this will be my only chance.” The regiment would go into action the following afternoon, and of the four neighborhood boys who had enlisted together in Co. B, only Buchanan escaped unscathed. One afternoon's exposure to the horrors of battle was all it took to satisfy this Hoosier's desire to see the elephant. “I wanted to see a battl...

T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Ma...

F or one soldier in the 5 th Alabama, the hardest fighting at Chancellorsville didn’t occur during Jackson’s celebrated flank attack on the evening of May 2 nd . It occurred when the regiment erroneously charged against General John Geary’s entrenched Federal division on the morning of May 3 rd which resulted in not only heavy casualties but the loss of the regiment’s colors.           The men had recently advanced and were firing upon a Federal battery when they found themselves under a crossfire. “In a few moments, the crossfire slackened and supposing that they were being driven back on the left, we were ordered to charge,” the soldier stated. “We did so in dashing style, or least a portion of the regiment (the rest not hearing the order) and carried the redoubts of Chancellorsville Heights. Just as we were ordered to charge, our color sergeant was wounded and George Nutting, seizing the colors, waved them in proud triumph and cried, “...

T he anguish is palpable as one reads the words of James Powers of the 20 th Alabama in this short letter he wrote home to his brother in Greensboro, Alabama. His regiment, the senior one assigned to General Stephen D. Lee’s brigade, collapsed under a heavy enfilade fire and scattered to the winds. “My impression is that the whole brigade is captured with the exception of a few who were cut off and fell in with Loring’s command,” he commented. “The last account we had from our company, it was scattered everywhere.”           Lieutenant Stephen Underhill, serving as aide-de-camp to General Stephen D. Lee, was in a slightly better position to describe the impact of the battle on Lee’s brigade, but likewise was cut off from his commander and despaired of the result. “ When I got up to the road I caught and mounted a loose horse, I saw several aides riding about who all told me the day was lost,” Underhill wrote to his mother back home in Engl...

                                                                                                                  Ohio Colonels in the Civil War      D uring the Civil War, the state of Ohio lost 22 colonels killed in action, 6 in the eastern theater and 16 in the western theater. The importance of a regiment's colonel cannot be overstated- they set the tone and character of the regiment and many of the soldiers often looked upon their regimental commanders as father figures. The loss of a regiment's commander in action, even an unpopular one, tended to cast a pall over the organization and degrade its combat efficiency for a period of ti...

L aying aside his attorney's robes for the garb of a private soldier, John P. Hubbard of the 22nd Alabama provided this pen portrait of his first army camp, that of Camp Yancey near Mobile, Alabama in the last days of 1861. In this letter, published in the Southern Advertiser in Troy, Alabama, Hubbard describes the layout of the camp, life in the tents, and the regiment's patient wait for pay. 

O rdered to charge the Rebel works at Resaca in advance of the rest of the army, one Hoosier serving in General Henry Judah’s division recalled the horrors he experienced in that ill-fated charge.           “Now just think about the dozens of cannons playing on this small squad with solid shot, shells, grape, and canister until the air was thick; solid shots flying through the dead treetops and cutting off the limbs which fell and killed or wounded many men,” Corporal William Bicknell of the 80 th Indiana recalled in 1889. “Now while this was going on, just think of the thousands of rifles that were shooting at us as fast as they could load and shoot, almost as thick as any hailstorm you ever witnessed. We faced this storm a distance of about 30-35 rods when we came to a creek with opposite banks so steep we could not get up except by helping one another. This was so slow that the enemy shot us down as fast as we could reach the top.” ...

W hen Jacob Runkels of the 71 st Ohio penned the following letter to a friend back in Ohio in the days after Shiloh, he would have been horrified to learn that the letter would not only never reach its destination, but would be captured by the Confederates, published, and held up as an object of ridicule.           “As the Yankees are constantly boasting that they possess all the decency, learning, and intelligence, we publish one of their letters picked up on the battlefield at Farmington as a specimen of their boasted intelligence,” the editors of the Southern Advertiser stated. “Many others were found, too disgusting to be made public. The following may therefore be considered rather above the average.”           “The sheet of paper on which the letter was written was ornamented with a picture of Lincoln and the envelope ornamented with a likeness of General Halleck,” it continued. The ori...

Major Robert Henry Glass, editor of the Lynchburg Republican , witnessed the Federal advance and attack at Carnifex Ferry, Virginia on the afternoon of September 10, 1861, impressed both with the heroism of his comrades and that of his opponents. “The enemy was seen swarming in the woods from one end of our lines to the other,” Glass reported. “He approached us from this point in double-quick time, evidently intending to force our works at the point of the bayonet. At the first crack of our rifles the gallant Colonel who led in front of his men, on a splendid black charger, fell dead to the earth, while the head of his column recoiled in utter confusion. The Colonel's horse, as if unconscious of the fall of his rider, dashed up to our embankments and around them into our camp, and from the inscription upon the mountings of his pistols, proved to be Colonel William H. Lytle of Cincinnati [commanding 10 th Ohio Infantry]. I saw the daring officer fall from his horse, and he was ce...

  “The noise of battle is the only music that ravishes the senses of Forrest.” I t was May 1864. Back east, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were locked in the deadly dance of the Overland Campaign while in Georgia, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army squared off against General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of the Tennessee in the campaign for Atlanta.       Based in relatively quiet northern Mississippi, General Nathan Bedford Forrest bided his time waiting for a Federal advance from Memphis. Earlier in the month, General Samuel Sturgis led a brief campaign into Mississippi but Forrest was sure Sturgis would venture out again. In the meantime, he tried to keep his reorganized command intact despite persistent demands from his superiors that he return the absentees and deserters who inflated his ranks (nearly 1,000 in number) to their original commands.      Around this same time,  an old acquaintance from Me...

W riting back to his brother in Fosters, Alabama, Private Joseph Maharrey of Co. H of the 3rd Georgia Infantry described a little known engagement remembered as the " Chicamacomico Races" which took place near Cape Hatteras Lighthouse on the North Carolina coast in early October 1861.       After roughing up the camp of the 20th Indiana on Chicamacomico Island, the 3rd Georgia pursued the Federals by boat and by foot for over 20 miles until closing in on the Federal position near Cape Hatteras.  " Our company took the lead all the time. I do not know whether I killed any or not, but I assure you I did my best and kept old “Bettie” pretty warm at times," Maharrey wrote. "I helped take some prisoners. There was only about 150 of us in the advance and when we came near the lighthouse, the others having broken down. We did not eat anything until we commenced a retreat which we were compelled to make from the bad condition we were in, having eaten nothing and ha...

T he struggle for the colors of the all-German 24 th Illinois at Perryville was an intense, hand-to-hand affair as remembered by Surgeon William Wagner. The line, thinning at each discharge of musketry, was starting to crumble away “but our center, grouped around the regimental colors, refused to give way,” Wager wrote. “I received the flag to carry it on to victory, never shall an enemy see my back” cried Joseph Broesch, the color bearer, ready to die at his post. But immediately afterwards he, too, sank down, holding the flag staff bravely aloft as the flag had already been shot to tatters.”   “Quick as a thought, a Rebel officer sprang forward from the column of the enemy (which was only a few paces from ours) in order to conquer our palladium, but a ball from Corporal Vogelberg’s rifle laid him low at the same moment. However, the gallant corporal, too, was struck down by the deadly lead. The enemy’s flag was only 20 paces from ours and twice the bearers of it were shot down...

T he first word Mary Root of Buffalo heard from her son Colonel Adrian Root commanding the 94th New York after Gettysburg was this short note written from Washington, D.C.  "During the action of the 1 st instant, I was unhorsed by the explosion of a shell directly in front of me, and by which I was so stunned as to have remained quite helpless for several hours,” the colonel began. “During this time the 1st Corps was driven back a mile with heavy loss, leaving me a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. I was however treated with great kindness during the five days of my captivity, and when the enemy retired, I was left on parole. With the exception of severe pains in my head consequent upon concussion of the brain, I am in good condition, although not fit for duty. I hope to be soon exchanged and able to again lead my brave Regiment in the field. Have no fears for my safety.” A week later, Colonel Root recovered sufficiently to provide a more detailed description of Gettysburg;...

S ergeant Major Rufus Haughton of the 123rd Illinois may be forgiven for terming the Federal victory during the March 20, 1863, engagement at Vaught Hill's near Milton, Tennessee as "one of the most brilliant achievements of the war."      The engagement pitted a small brigade under the command of Colonel Albert S. Hall against several thousand cavalrymen belonging to General John H. Morgan's cavalry command. Hall's troops had some combat experience but it was of the unnerving kind: the brigade, then under the command of General William R. Terrill, had been driven off the field during the opening moments of the Battle of Perryville. The fight at Milton gave the men of the 123rd Illinois a chance to prove themselves.       " The battle at Vaught’s Hill on the 20 th  instant has fully established our right to a place on the list of the fighting regiments of this Department," Sergeant Major Haughton stated. "And although we deeply deplore the loss of...