Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

A dvancing over a series of hills and ridges south of Sharpsburg on the afternoon of September 17, 1862, one member of Hawkins’ Zouaves remembered the devastating impact that a volley of Confederate musketry had upon his regiment.           “An entire Rebel division was drawn up behind the stone wall to receive us,” he wrote. “As we mounted the last crest of the hill, directly in front of the wall, we were received by a volley of musketry and a discharge of grape. My God, it was terrible! Over 20 of our men were killed by that one discharge and nearly 60 wounded. A yell, a wild shout of agony from those that had fallen, a yell of defiance from those that were left, and we rushed on the foe without cartridges.” During the Maryland Campaign, the Hawkins’ Zouaves, also known as the 9 th New York Volunteer Infantry, was assigned to Colonel Harrison S. Fairchild’s First Brigade of General Isaac P. Rodman’s Third Division of the 9 th Army Cor...

L ess than a week after being driven out of Iuka by General Sterling Price's army, the 8th Wisconsin marched back into town with General William S. Rosecrans' army in pursuit of Price.      " In the morning, we moved cautiously into Iuka, finding the Rebels gone with most of their baggage," recalled Captain James O. Bartlett of Co. K. "They had made an awful scattering of knapsacks. We were ordered in pursuit and chased them about eight miles south, finding wagons burned and guns scattered along the road. Finding that they could run better or with more success than fight, we abandoned the pursuit."     But the trouble was just beginning for the regiment, specifically for its colonel Robert C. Murphy. Within days, General Rosecrans had the colonel arrested for abandoning Iuka without a fight as is explained in "Losing Iuka, Taking Iuka."

  Stones River Stories I n 1880, Norwegian-born Captain Mons Grinager, formerly of Co. K of the 15 th Wisconsin Infantry, provided his experience of being wounded during the Battle of Stones River to the editors of the Milwaukee Sunday Telegraph .

U ndone by generalship which he considered beneath the ability of an eighth corporal, Sergeant Francis Cordrey of the 126th Ohio bitterly recalled the collapse of his regiment's position at Monocacy on July 9, 1864, and described how he ended up as a wounded prisoner of war.      " Seeing I could do nothing more with my company, I resolved to do all I could with my gun while retreating which caused me to get away slow," he noted. "The Rebels in following our men cut off my retreat through the gap of the hills. Four Rebels in a squad were making for me demanding my surrender. I had not enlisted for such a purpose and told them so through my gun. But I fired too quick, shooting one of them through his left arm instead of his heart and then I started to run when one of them shot me through my right thigh and I fell forward into a thicket of briar bushes. The tumble, though not intended, saved my life as it caused them to think I was a dead yank and they passed on."...

W ilder’s Lighting brigade secured its place as one of the best fighting units of the Army of the Cumberland during the Chickamauga campaign. Wilder’s men helped save the Federal left on the afternoon of September 19 th and plunged into the left flank of Longstreet’s assault column at midday on the 20 th with spectacular results. Wielding their seven-shot Spencer repeating rifles, Wilder’s men were among the best-armed on the field, repeatedly serving as shock troops and turning the tide of battle. Among those taking part in those actions was Sergeant Major Brainard M. Thompson of the 72 nd Indiana Infantry. A farm boy from Boone County, Indiana, Thompson joined the ranks of the 72 nd Indiana in July 1862 and became the regimental sergeant major. Apparently, he was also something of a poet as shown in his following verses about Chickamauga. His poem, entitled “Storms of Chickamauga,” first appeared in the January 20, 1864, edition of the Mattoon Gazette published in Mattoon, I...

W hen General Edmund Kirby Smith’s army marched into Kentucky in August 1862, he passed the left flank of the Union garrison at Cumberland Gap, crossing at Roger’s, Wilson’s, and Big Creek Gap to drive towards the Bluegrass. General Carter Stevenson’s division was tasked with putting pressure on the Union division of General George W. Morgan that was holding the Gap. By mid-September, Morgan, with supplies fast running out, chose to abandon the Gap and retreat to the Ohio River.           “Our supplies of food were rapidly becoming exhausted,” Morgan wrote. “Enveloped on every side by the enemy, absolutely cut off from my base of supplies and with starvation staring us in the face,” Morgan called a council of war with his senior subordinates. The generals all agreed: “A retreat was inevitable.”           “During the night of the 16 th of September, a long train of wagons was sent towards Manch...

A dvancing in support of the 124th Pennsylvania through Miller's cornfield, Acting Adjutant Stephen Bogardus of the Purnell Legion from Maryland recorded the horrors he witnessed among the cornstalks.      " The cornfield was a horrible sight," he noted in a letter sent to his hometown newspaper. "A live Rebel soldier is a disgusting sight, but a dead one surpasses description. And that field was full of them, lying in all positions. Here, one shot through the heart and there, one with his leg torn off, and still farther on a trunk without a head." Soon thereafter, the Legion would advance towards the Dunker Church where Bogardus would be severely wounded in the mouth.       During the Maryland campaign, the Purnell Legion was attached to Colonel William B. Goodrich’s Third Brigade of General George Greene’s Second Division of General Joseph K.F. Mansfield’s 12 th Army Corps. Shortly after entering the field that morning, the Legion was detached and s...

T homas Williams’ account of the 12 th Ohio Infantry regiment’s participation at the Battle of South Mountain is a classic case of writing through the pain. As he wrote, his left hand throbbed as one of the fingers had been shot off during the engagement.           “I am well at the present time with the exception of a sore hand,” he wrote to his brother back in Ohio. “In the evening, I got tapped with a ball which took off the finger of my left hand, the one next to the little finger. It is very sore at present. It will have to be cut off again, which will be a very painful operation.”           The Ohioan took pride in how his fellow Buckeyes handled the enemy in battle. On September 14, 1862, the Kanawha Division under General Jacob Cox struck the Confederate lines held by General Daniel Harvey Hill’s division at Fox’s Gap. “I never before the ground covered with dead as it was with Secesh ...

P inned down during his regiment’s assault on the Federal works at Munfordville, Kentucky, Private Francis Chaplin of the 10 th Mississippi observed the various sounds made by the fusillade of bullets that flew overhead.           “It seemed at length as if I could tell the nature of every ball that passed,” he wrote. “Each kind of ball has its peculiar sound. A shell screams. A grapeshot or round musket ball whistles, a conical ball from a large Belgian rifle sings. A half-ounce Enfield ball, if smoothly formed, sounds like the rapid tearing of a piece of silk. If roughly made, it produces a fluttering noise as though it had a small piece of paper tied to it. A spent ball hums like the last drawn note of a bumble bee, and when it strikes an object, sounds like a stone thrown against it.”           Chaplin’s account of the September 14, 1862, assault on Munfordville ranks as one of the finest ...

I t had been over a month since the men of the Army of Mississippi under the command of General Braxton Bragg had departed their camps at Tupelo, Mississippi, and finally, as Bragg had promised, they were flinging their banners to the breeze and marching towards Kentucky. The first major challenge after leaving Chattanooga was to cross Walden's Ridge and the Cumberland Mountains, a daunting task as recalled by Captain Thomas J. Cox of the 39th Alabama.     " Sauntering forth this morning exhausted, sleepy, and stupid from the excessively tough march of yesterday with the hope of shaking off my lethargy," was how the Alabamian began his letter written from Pikeville, Tennessee on September 3, 1862. The road across Walden's Ridge, " doubtless the roughest in the South," made for slow going, but the prospect of advancing on the Yankees buoyed the men's spirits. " Our boys, not withstanding the unprecedented privation, are buoyant and confident. Constan...

“After a season of seeming peace, our beautiful city has put on its war mask again.”           I n the early days of September 1862 as the rumors of Kirby Smith’s invasion spread through the state, Marie Butler wrote back to her family in Ohio describing the panic that gripped the city of Louisville, Kentucky.           “Louisville is under martial law and every male citizen between 18 and 45 is ordered to enroll himself in the militia and exempts are to form a reserve,” she said. “The Rebel forces are said to be advancing on Louisville and every preparation is being made to meet them. Meanwhile, bank specie and hospital stores are being sent across the river to Indiana for safe keeping. Arrest of disloyal citizens are being made every day by scores and traitors in our midst are beginning to feel that the government which they have insulted so long has not lost its power or dignity.”  ...

W hile escorting a wagon train of supplies to General Phil Sheridan's army at Harrisonburg, Virginia in late September 1864, a Wisconsin soldier stumbled across one of the most controversial acts of Sheridan's Valley campaign: the burning.     " When within eight miles of Harrisonburg, we met a force of cavalry gathering cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs into droves, and burning barns, hay, and grain stacks," he wrote. "As far as I could see in all directions the country was on fire. It is well settled and in times of peace must have been a wealthy country. It was a fearful sight. No one out of the army can conceive of the awful waste of property that a marching army makes."       The following soldier's letter first appeared on the front page of the October 20, 1864, edition of the Appleton Motor published in Appleton, Wisconsin. The correspondent, listed by the newspaper as simply "one of our neighbors now serving in the army," was never ident...

W hen Quartermaster William C. Webb of the 37 th Wisconsin sent his regiment’s colors back to Governor James Lewis in September 1864, his memory was drawn to the fierce devotion demonstrated by its color bearers during the fighting near Petersburg that summer.            “On the 17 th of June, Color Sergeant William H. Green of Co. C, while carrying the flag in the action in front of Petersburg, was seriously wounded,” Webb noted. “Although it required the use of both of his hands to drag himself from the field, yet he did not abandon the glorious flag which he had so honorably borne during the storm of shot and shell into which our regiment was led. He seized the flag with his teeth and crawled off the field, taking the flag with him, drawing it fully a hundred rods with his teeth.”           A month and a half later, the colors saw their last fight at the Battle of the Crater. Borne no...