Bearing the Colors at Missionary Ridge

James Walker’s account of charging Missionary Ridge with the 31st Ohio speaks volumes to the intensity of the hand-to-hand combat that took place as Turchin’s brigade crested over the Confederate works on November 25, 1863.

“We climbed to the top of the works and looked down upon the Confederates formed in two lines, one kneeling in the trench with fixed bayonets and the other lying down behind them,” Walker stated. “With a yell, we jumped down into the trench on top of them and a hand-to-hand fight followed, with muskets, bayonets, and even fists. We had broken the Confederate line and as our men came up to support us, we faced right and left and kept widening the gap. One of the Confederates who had thrown down his musket and held up his hands in token of surrender fired at us after we had passed and hit one of our boys on the knee. I turned on him with the butt of my gun but before I could strike, Sam Wright pushed me to one side and said, “Let me fix him.” Placing his musket against the man’s breast, he fired, literally tearing him to pieces."

          Walker’s actions that day in which he bore the regimental colors, recounted in this passage from Deeds of Valor, would be awarded with a Medal of Honor in 1895.

       

James Walker lifted the regimental colors from the hands of the color sergeant as he fainted from the loss of blood, and carried them through the rest of the engagement. He's depicted here reaching across the scorching hot gun tube to pull the fuse out before the Confederate gunners could pull the lanyard.
(Deeds of Valor)

Turchin’s brigade was drawn up in two lines to attack the Confederate position, but as the second line overlapped the first, our regiment was taken out to form a third line. On arriving at the Confederate breastworks at the foot of the ridge, we found them filled with men of the first and second lines which left us without protection from the enemy’s musket fire. It was less dangerous to advance than to retreat, and Colonel Lister rode over the breastworks shouting, “Forward, Thirty-First!”

          We swarmed over and the whole brigade followed. We made no attempt to keep in line as it was everyone for himself, each striving to be the first to gain the top of the ridge. The 31st Ohio started up the ravine to the left of the spur known as DeLong’s Point, but we found that this would lead us into an angle of the Rebel line, so we turned to the right and came out on top of the spur.

          George Wilson of Co. G and I were among the first to get to this point. We laid down at the foot of the Confederate breastworks and Sam Wright of Co. K came up and asked us, “What in the hell are you going to do next?” We told him to wait and see. As the other boys came up, they dropped alongside of us until we numbered 20 all told.

Then I called out, “Boys are you ready?” They replied yes so we climbed to the top of the works and looked down upon the Confederates formed in two lines, one kneeling in the trench with fixed bayonets and the other lying down behind them. With a yell, we jumped down into the trench on top of them and a hand-to-hand fight followed, with muskets, bayonets, and even fists. We had broken the Confederate line and as our men came up to support us, we faced right and left and kept widening the gap.

One of the Confederates who had thrown down his musket and held up his hands in token of surrender fired at us after we had passed and hit one of our boys on the knee. I turned on him with the butt of my gun but before I could strike, Sam Wright pushed me to one side and said, “Let me fix him.” Placing his musket against the man’s breast, he fired, literally tearing him to pieces. Looking at the mangled body, he said, “Now damn you, you have surrendered.”

As I turned to push on, I was struck in the right breast with a Minie ball which knocked the breath out of me and stunned me, making ten holes through my blanket, blouse, and shirt. Our color bearer, Corporal George W. Franklin of Co. K, had been struck in the arm by a piece of shell as he came over the works and was on the point of falling from the loss of blood when I came to my senses. I jumped up and caught the colors just in time to save them from going down.

A Rebel battery a short distance to the left opened a terrible fire of grape and canister upon us. I rushed forward to the first gun of the battery, got in between the piece and the wheel, and with my left hand pulled the fuse out of the gun just as the cannoneer jerked the lanyard. Sam Wright got in on the other side, rested his musket on the wheel, and shot the officer in command of the battery. As the officer fell, his sword flew out of his hand and came end of over to the feet of Captain A.S. Scott of the 31st Ohio.

We drove off the Rebel gunners, slewed the guns around and poured their contents into their late owners. After capturing the battery, we swept on until the Confederates, being reinforced, made a desperate charge and drove us over the breastworks. The ridge at this point was so steep that we would fall back no further and we were compelled to hold our ground. Here we fought for about 20 minutes with the breastworks between us and the only thing that saved us was that we were on lower ground and the Rebels overshot us.

Our troops attacked the flank and rear of the enemy’s line while we leaped over the breastworks and charged them from the front. I noticed the color bearer of the 41st Alabama about 20 paces in front of me endeavoring to rally his regiment. I rushed at him and caught hold of the flag, but in the struggle, we fell and the staff was broken. The Rebel surrendered and I rolled up his flag and carried it under my left arm till I met Sam Wright and gave it to him. Our own colors I continued to carry throughout the fight and brought them out with 89 bullets holes in them and ten in the staff.

 

James Walker would receive a Medal of Honor for his actions at Missionary Ridge on November 25, 1895.

 

Source:

“Now You Have Surrendered,” Private James C. Walker, Co. K, 31st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, from Walter F. Beyer and Oscar F. Keydel, editors. Deeds of Valor: How America’s Heroes Won the Medal of Honor. Detroit: The Perrien-Keydel Co., 1901, pgs. 290-292

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

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

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

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
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 Maryland, performing provost duty at Cumberlan
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

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my
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

Cook & Brother of New Orleans

Image
    The lockplate of a New Orleans-made Cook & Brother Enfield rifle produced in 1862 shows the fine craftsmanship that became the hallmark of the maker throughout the Civil War. Note the stars and bars flag at left, an emblem used on C&B's production throughout the war and the Cook & Brother, N.O. 1862 markings. Earlier production weapons at New Orleans had the flag located just above the maker's name while later weapons produced in Athens, Georgia would have a modified flag and Athens on the plate followed by the serial number.        In the spring of 1861, two English-born businessmen, Ferdinand and Francis Cook of New Orleans, perceived the need for the South to have its own domestic production of firearms and  set out to prove "that rifles could made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe." The brothers  elected to produce copies of the British Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield rifle as this was considered the benchmark longarm at the outset of the
Read more

Revisiting Snodgrass Hill: Memories of a 21st Ohio Officer

Image
Captain Isaac Cusac, Co. G, 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry proudly displaying his rank as captain in an image likely dating from early 1863. One of his shoulder straps was shot off in the final stages of the 21st Ohio's fight atop Snodgrass Hill on September 20, 1863. Cusac brought it back to Chickamauga 50 years later.  I n September 1913, 83-year-old Isaac Cusac, a retired Presbyterian minister from the little town of McComb, Ohio, returned to Chattanooga to attend the national G.A.R. encampment. The former captain of the 21 st Ohio returned to Snodgrass Hill on the old Chickamauga battlefield on the 50 th anniversary of the battle carrying with him a precious relic of his wartime experiences. “He carried with him there an epaulet that was shot from his shoulder at the battle,” it was reported. “The bullet clipped off the epaulet and then struck him on the left hand, injuring two fingers.”           The flood of memories as he walked the grounds must have been overwhelming. The f
Read more