Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

T he Battle of Stones River entered into its third day and the 99 th Ohio, assigned to Colonel Samuel Price’s brigade of Van Cleve’s division, had thus far escaped any serious combat. Tasked with guarding McFadden’s Ford during the fighting of December 31 st , the regiment crossed Stones River the following day and took up supporting positions behind the front line of Price’s brigade. That afternoon, Breckinridge’s assault threw the 99 th Ohio into some of the hardest fighting of the battle.           “We were laying flat down on the muddy ground and when the fire opened, the bullets sung around is like bees and the bombshells bursting sounded like reports of heavy thunder all around us,” remembered Private Jacob Early of the 99 th Ohio. “The first line stood them a good while but they came up six columns deep. Then we all had orders to retreat back to our reinforcements. We had to retreat across a 15-acre field right in plain view of th...

W hen the Fort Meigs Rifles left Perrysburg, Ohio in April 1861 to take part in the Civil War, the ladies of Perrysburg sent them a silk national flag with symbols stretching back to the birth of the nation. Not only was the company named the Fort Meigs Rifles in honor of nearby Fort Meigs, an important battle site during the War of 1812, but the flag bore Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s motto from the Battle of Put-In-Bay. Intriguingly, the flagstaff carried two tassels with connections to the Battle of Bunker Hill, one of the earliest engagements of the Revolutionary War. “The flag is a beautiful one, bearing the motto of Commodore Perry “Don’t Give Up the Ship’ in gold letters,” the Perrysburg Journal reported. [ The town of Perrysburg was named for Commodore Perry .] “On the flag there are two tassels, which were on a flag borne at the Battle of Bunker Hill. These tassels were given to the ladies who presented the flag by Mrs. Roach, whose grandfather carried the flag at the Bat...

I n this spicy letter which first saw publication in the May 12, 1864, edition of the Saturday Evening Press from Menasha, Wisconsin, a soldier correspondent of the 29 th Wisconsin with the nom-de-plume Scribus denounced the folly of how Generals Nathaniel Banks and William Franklin conducted the Red River campaign by sharing the experience of his regiment at the Battle of Mansfield. As part of General Robert Cameron’s Third Division of the 13 th Army Corps, a five-company detachment of the 29 th Wisconsin along with the 46 th Indiana (all that was present of the First Brigade) were brought into line to salvage the collapsing Federal position at Mansfield. It wasn’t long before Scribus and his comrades in the 29 th found themselves in great peril.           “We who could see what was transpiring were well aware of the danger, yet we remained until the enemy was so near that we were completely hemmed in upon the right. Then an overwh...

W riting to his mother ten days after the disaster that had befallen his regiment at Second Winchester, Private George W. Cross of the 18 th Connecticut counted himself lucky to have escaped unharmed. It was early in the morning of June 15, 1863, when the regiment, trying to escape from Winchester to Harper’s Ferry, found itself trapped near Stephenson’s Depot. Ordered to charge by General Robert Milroy, the 18 th Connecticut turned off the road, formed into line, and went into the fight. It wasn’t long before the line unraveled and was ordered to disperse. “Just as we had orders to scatter and save our lives, a horse came running out of the woods between me and the Rebels,” Cross recalled. “I put for him and caught him. About the time I go on his back, the bullets flew around my head like hail and plowed the ground all around me. The Rebels sung out to me, “Halt, you damned Yankee, your retreat is cut off!” I put the butt of my gun around the horse’s legs and off I went as fast ...

T he Battle of Kinston, North Carolina, was fought December 14, 1862, between Federal forces under General John G. Foster and a small force of Confederates led by General Nathan Evans. Foster marched out from New Bern with roughly 10,000 men aiming to break the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad. In this letter written home to his parents in Connecticut, Private Eugene W. Chaffee of Co. E, 10 th Connecticut Infantry describes his experiences in this all-but -forgotten engagement that cost his regiment 104 casualties. His letter first appeared in the January 23, 1863, edition of the Willimantic Journal published in Willimantic, Connecticut.

I n the Second Battle of Corinth fought October 3-4, 1862, the Federal Army of Mississippi under General William S. Rosecrans a total of 2,520 casualties, including  324 men missing or captured. Among those captured was Corporal Francis E. Engle of the 14th Wisconsin Infantry. In the following letter written home to his family from Benton Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri, Engle describes his time in captivity, his fare consisting largely of cornbread and fresh beef. The corporal was promptly exchanged, returning to Federal hands about two weeks after first being captured on the battlefield at Corinth.            Corporal Engle’s description of his time in captivity first saw publication in the November 13, 1862, edition of the Manitowoc Herald published in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

W riting to his sister Flora in far-off Wisconsin, Private Herbert Smalley of the 7 th Ohio reported how well soldiering agreed with him; as a matter of fact, he bragged that he had “the most agreeable bunk in the regiment.”           “I wish you could be here beside me a moment, looking over my portfolio at the motley crowd who are scoffing their allowance of hard bread,” he noted. “The different portions of the glove are pretty well represented here in our bunk. We have a downeast Yankee, several Germans, a Welshman, a Swiss, three Englishmen, an Irishman, a Californian, and three Buckeyes. I think we have the most agreeable bunk in the regiment. We have three farmers, one rolling mill man, one furnace man, one file cutter, one tailor, one watchmaker, one second-hand theater actor, one sailor, one fisherman, one brakeman, one jack-of-all-trades, and one printer besides one candidate for the lunatic asylum. Don’t you think we have quite a...

F irst impressions often make lasting impressions, and for Sergeant Charles Evans of the 12th Connecticut, the first impression made by the citizens of New Orleans boils down to one word: surly. One example of this was when his regiment disembarked on the afternoon of May 2, 1862, the 12th Connecticut being among the first Union troops to occupy the city.  “Late in the afternoon of May 2 nd , we were ordered to land in the midst of thousands of secessionist soldiers and citizens,” he wrote his brother back home in Connecticut. “As each company descended from the ship to the dock, they were brought to a front and ordered to load which gave the Rebels to understand what they had to deal with in case of a street fight. And we confidently expected it. The bitterness exhibited by the vast gathering boded nothing else. The women were more insulting than the men owing, I suppose, to the worldwide reputation of gallantry on the part of Yankee soldiers. The taunts were intolerable and onl...

C aptured along with 72 other Federal officers at the Battle of Thompson's Station, Tennessee on March 5, 1863, Lieutenant Colonel James M. Henderson of the 33rd Indiana described the officers' long journey to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia.       " At Tullahoma, we were treated by Bragg the worst of any prisoners taken since the beginning of the war," Henderson complained. "Wet and cold, we were stripped of overcoats, oil blankets, canteens, and leggings, and the whole 73 officers were crowded into a small room with no fire, no room to lay down, and we had to nest in like hogs to keep from freezing. Next morning, we were thrown into a train of cattle cars and sent to Chattanooga, nearly freezing along the way. At Chattanooga, we got better treatment. From there we came on day by day till we got to Richmond, making 15 days in all. At some of our stopping places we got good treatment, at others, bad." Lieutenant Colonel Henderson’s letter, written to hi...

W riting five months after the events of Thompson's Station, First Lieutenant Henry M. Brown of the 19th Michigan recalled bitterly the impact that botched engagement had on his regiment. To be sure, nearly the entire regiment was captured in this forgotten battle that took place March 5, 1863 south of Franklin, Tennessee.      " We have lost in all ways as a result of the affair about 200 men, every one of whom was sound and healthy when we left our camp at Franklin," he stated. " Our regiment, out of 488 officers and men, lost 34 killed (including three who were mortally wounded and died soon after the battle) and 79 wounded, making a total loss of killed and wounded of 113 men."       He blamed the cowardice of the 18th Ohio Battery for his regiment's ill fortunes. After falling back from their initial position, Brown observed  " our artillery got ready to march and very soon moved off at a rapid rate towards Franklin and we saw no more of them...

W riting to his sister in Michigan, Sergeant William F. Hall of the 1st Colorado spoke of the thrill and terror he experienced when charging the Confederate guns at Apache Canyon in New Mexico Territory on March 26, 1862, one of the preliminary engagements of the larger Battle of Glorieta Pass.         " I have been where rifle balls fell like hail, where man met man in deadly strife, and where all the evil passions of a man’s nature were aroused and some of the nobler ones, also," he began. " Captain Cook took the lead and gave the command to charge. I was at the left of my section- you should have seen us as we flew up that canyon like a whirlwind and fell on to their forces like a thunderbolt. But many a fellow fell to rise no more before we had passed half through the raking fire. We had passed through or over two-thirds of the distance and I still remained unharmed although the bullets flew like hail about me. Some passed through my overcoat which was held ...

I n his battery’s first action of the war at Scarey Creek, in western Virginia, gunner Philip D. Green of Cotter’s Independent Battery of Ohio Light Artillery witnessed the gruesome sight of one of his comrades losing both legs shot off by a cannon ball.           “He was engaged in handing ammunition from the caissons when he was shot,” Green related in a letter written to his brother Oliver Green of Pipestone, Michigan. “The force of the ball that struck him was so great that it threw me violently upon the ground but did not hurt me much. As he fell, he said, “Oh boys, I am gone!” He lived for seven days, enduring terrible agony. His lower limbs were taken from his body as evenly as with a knife; the right leg near the thigh and the left at the knee.”           Green’s letter, the first I’ve yet seen from a soldier in Cotter’s battery at Scarey Creek, first saw publication in the August 21, 1...

F or nearly four years, the mantra of the Army of the Potomac was “On to Richmond!” In early April 1865, that long cherished goal was finally accomplished and First Lieutenant James Morris of the 4 th New Jersey Battery was on hand to witness the historic occasion.           “At early daybreak a dense cloud of smoke was observed hanging over the city and when we came in sight of the city, the scene was terribly grand,” he recorded. “I thought at first that Lee was trying to play Moscow on us. Great clouds of fire and smoke were rolling up from a score of buildings in the heart of the city. The arsenal was on fire and the immense quantity of shells stored therein were bursting continually, scattering destruction and death among the terrified women and children whose homes were in flames.”           “One of our bands struck up “Yankee Doodle” and when a young lady was asked by an office how she ...

B y the spring of 1863, the impact of the Emancipation Proclamation in changing Union war aims proved a stark dividing line among Northerners. Peace Democrats, increasingly displeased with the heavy losses on the battlefield, grew particularly vocal in opposition to the war. Those sentiments even drove a wedge between comrades in arms as is shown by the following correspondence.           Arthur Truman served as a private for about a year in Co. B of the 74 th Ohio Volunteer Infantry before he received a discharge on a surgeon’s certificate of disability in December 1862. He returned home to Spring Valley, Ohio and soon put his anti-war sentiments on paper in a letter written to a comrade in Co. B, William Zellers. Truman’s letter, expressing his opposition to emancipation and to blacks in general, raised quite a ruckus amongst his comrades in arms, two of whom wrote letters back to Truman sharing their astonishment.    ...

W hile Admiral David Farragut steamed into legend in Mobile Bay, Surgeon Thomas S. Yard of the humble steamer U.S.S. John P. Jackson recorded his vessel’s contribution to reducing nearby Fort Powell which guarded the Mississippi Sound entrance to Mobile Bay. “The Jackson , Conemaugh , Estella , Stockdale , and the tug Narcissus have all day been shelling Fort Powell,” he said. “They replied very briskly. We cannot get near enough to drive them from their guns but no doubt the admiral will send one of the monitors from inside to knock Fort Powell into pie and thus the communication between New Orleans and Mobile will be established without going by Fort Morgan. The monitor with double turrets came down to Fort Powell and, going very close to the fort, opened on it with their 11-inch guns. The fort returned the fire but only occasionally as their guns are all outside of the bombproof where they run for protection and it is only when they can catch the monitor turning around that they ...

P inned down by Stonewall Jackson's determined infantrymen at Second Bull Run, Lieutenant Theodore Young of the 5th New Jersey Infantry recalled how the fight denigrated into a slugging contest at short range.      " We commenced firing ourselves but at first could not see anything for the smoke of the Rebel guns," he commented in a letter written nearly two weeks later. "By and by, however, we could see the heads of the Rebels sticking up behind the railroad embankment while others were standing behind trees and stumps. As our line of battle and line of skirmishers was oblique to the railroad, our left came in sight of the enemy sooner than the right. Company K had the extreme left and a good many of the boys assured me that they were not over 40 yards from the Rebels. We had stood there about half an hour when our line of battle advanced and tried to make a charge. The Rebels, however, opened such a tremendous fire on us that we broke ranks and retreated, leaving i...

A common complaint from infantrymen during the Civil War was “who ever saw a dead cavalryman?” That epithet certainly couldn’t be used in reference to the 8 th Pennsylvania Cavalry whose charge to escape capture at Chancellorsville left the ground carpeted with 97 dead horses and 51 men killed, wounded, or captured. In describing the charge, one veteran stated “the enemy opened their ranks to the front and rear and allowed us to pass amid a shower of bullets and bayonet thrusts. Many of them were cut down with the saber and some were trampled to death by our horses. A good number of our own men and horses had fallen in the road and it was with difficulty we reached the road at all. Our hearts almost sank within us as there was yet another line of the enemy to pass through and in their front our forces were hurrying forward to reach the new line of battle that had been partly formed. We must cut our way through or surrender; so, we dashed forward with renewed energy, scattering the ...

W riting to his brother William H. Freeman in Freehold, New Jersey “with a broken smeller,” James Freeman of the 48 th New York described how he had been shot through the nose while storming Fort Wagner just a few days prior. “As we gained the ramparts, I got a ball square through my nose and one on the shoulder, the latter did not enter but raised a considerable lump and is somewhat sore,” he stated. “I am in no way seriously hurt and there is no necessity for my being in the hospital but it is orders and I had to come. I would leave the hospital today if I could get permission to get away from the awful smell which is just like that of a slaughterhouse. Many of the men are horribly mangled and in this hot climate, where there are so many patients, it is impossible to keep the hospital from smelling disagreeably. The cries and groans of the suffering are not very pleasing music to sleep by until you get used to it.” Freeman’s brief letter describing the fight at Fort Wagner first...

L ocated just north of the Mason-Dixon line, one resident of Greencastle, Pennsylvania had a ringside seat to the beginning and end of Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863. He took especial note of the Confederate generals who accompanied the columns.           “General Lee and staff passed immediately in the rear of General Hill’s corps,” he noted. “His bodyguards were well mounted, well dressed, and well equipped. They numbered about 50 fine looking men. General Lee appears old and had a troubled, careworn countenance. He wore a blue mantle over his gray suit with an ordinary slouch hat and was mounted on a fine black horse. He did not converse with anyone but appeared to be in deep meditation. General Ewell was reserved in conversation and dignified in appearance. General A.P. Hill was more communicative and agreeable but had a very poor opinion of the generals in the Union army- in fact, a general denunciation of the Uni...

W riting to his father while aboard the steam sloop-of-war U.S.S. Brooklyn , Assistant Second Engineer James Atkins desired to correct some of the misinformation that he saw in the newspapers regarding his ship's fight at Forts Jackson and St. Philip in April 1862.      " At about 3 o’clock in the morning, as soon as we came round the point in range of their guns, they opened upon us and for an hour and a half the shots were flying around us like hail," he recalled. "In the height of the noise and confusion, the horrible shrieking of shots as they passed over the ship, the groans of the wounded, and the necessary noise attendant upon working and firing the guns, the long-dreaded ram the veritable  Manassas  struck us just amidships. With a heavy crash, the ship reeled over to port and the ram passed under our stern over towards the shore. Before she could come round again to renew the attack, the old  Mississippi , playing the ram, ran into her and with tre...

Indiana at Chickamauga  I n part two of the 84 th Indiana at Chickamauga series, Thomas Addington provides his experiences on Sunday, September 20, 1863, when his regiment was ordered to support General Thomas's line atop Horseshoe Ridge.         " Up until 11 o’clock Sunday morning, we remained idly in camp enjoying ourselves in such pastimes as are known to all soldiers while Thomas was breasting the storm hurled upon him with relentless fury," Addington recalled. "Then the sharp, quick notes of the bugle called us into line. Chickens were abandoned half dressed, fresh pork partly cooked was thrust hastily into haversacks, sweet potatoes were left roasting in the fire, guns and cartridge boxes were looked over to see if all was in order and away we went on the double quick. Up hill and down, across fields and through the woods, for three miles we hurried on, the roar of battle growing more terrific all the time till at last, panting for breath and drippi...

Indiana at Chickamauga I n part one of the 84 th Indiana at Chickamauga series, Thomas Addington, then serving as a private in Co. A, describes his regiment’s efforts to hold their position on the Union far left defending the army’s road connection to Chattanooga on Saturday, September 19, 1863. In a fight that developed that morning near Peavine Creek, Addington said “just after crossing the creek, we began to hear scattering shots from our skirmishers, replied to vigorously by the enemy, while spent balls began to drop in our midst. Hurrying forward, we took up a position behind the fence where we had laid the night before. Here we waited for our skirmishers to fall back into line; we did not have long to wait. They soon came straggling through the weeds and briars with which the fields were overgrown. A bluecoat would be seen to pop up, fire at the approaching foe, then drop down among the weeds and continue his retreat. Arriving at the fence, a final shot would be fired and then o...

T he initial moments entering combat at Cedar Mountain were anything but encouraging to the men of the 14th Georgia. The regiment had scarcely entered the field when the colonel suffered a wound in his hand, forcing him to turn over command to the lieutenant colonel Once the men got into line, the sight before them dripped with peril as remembered by one veteran.       "Emerging from the woods near the road by which the brigade had approached the field, it was met by General Taliaferro’s brigade, Jackson’s division, falling back before the advancing enemy," he wrote. "The 14 th  was cut off from the brigade by Taliaferro’s retreating men. Some of the men of the 14 th  faltered for a moment. The danger of a panic was imminent. The enemy, encouraged by the retreat of Taliaferro’s brigade and confident of victory, were advancing and about reaching a point at which their line would have prolonged our battleline and were within a stone’s throw of and on the flan...

B y any measure, the 27th Illinois had already performed a full day's work during their fighting south of the Wilkinson Pike on the morning of December 31, 1862 at Stones River. The regiment had helped repulse multiple Confederate attacks on their position and retreated by General Phil Sheridan's command around 11 a.m.       Moving north along the Nashville Pike in search of ammunition a few hours later, Major William Schmitt now commanding the regiment found himself in the presence of General Rosecrans. The commanding general of the Army of the Cumberland was in a tight spot and needed the 27th Illinois to help hold the line along the Nashville Pike. Schmitt replied that he was nearly out of ammunition but would use the bayonet. Rosecrans agreed and told him to go at the Rebels "quick, quick."      "After retreating over a mile, we struck the road running directly from Nashville to Murfreesboro where we halted and seeing the enemy coming to meet us, w...

F or future Congressman William H. Calkins, the sight at dawn on February 16, 1862, repaid manyfold the privations and sufferings he experienced during the days in front of Fort Donelson.     " The first gray streak of daylight displayed a white flag streaming from off the tops of the surrounding breastworks," he noted in a letter to the editors of the Lafayette Journal & Courier. "If you can imagine the feelings of our troops when they saw the rattlesnake flag fall and the glorious stars and stripes waving in triumph over the Rebel fort. It paid us tenfold for our suffering. To pay us for our gallant bravery, we had the honor to march in front of the long line of troops into the fort.  General Floyd escaped as did General Pillow, but Generals Buckner, Johnson, and West were captured. There were from 10,000-12,000 prisoners taken and a rough-looking set I tell you."     A member of the 14th Iowa Infantry, Lieutenant Calkins' description of the victory at Fo...

O n Thursday, November 5, 1863, Captain Warren Parker Edgarton of Battery E of the 1 st Ohio Light Artillery married the widower Julia Daly Olwine in Nashville, Tennessee. It was apparently a quiet wedding- outside of being recorded in the record of Davidson County, Tennessee marriages, no mention was made of the nuptials in any period newspapers. Wartime marriages were hardly uncommon during the Civil War, but the circumstances of how a Massachusetts-born artillery officer from Ohio met one of the most beloved actresses of the American stage is history (quoting the History Guy) that deserves to be remembered. To start, let’s introduce the couple. Captain Edgarton is a familiar soldier to readers of the blog; the story of how his battery was captured during the opening moments of the Battle of Stones River has been recounted in several previous posts. (See Comanche Versus the Professor ,  Receipt in Full in Red Ink , An Intimate View of Battery E's Demise , and  Captured En...

T he last week of August 1862 may have been the busiest in the history of the 21st Georgia Infantry's history during the Civil War. The Georgians fought in five separate engagements over the course of a little more than a week: Freeman's Ford on August 22nd, Manassas Station in the early morning hours of August 27th, Groveton on the evening of the 28th, Second Bull Run throughout August 29th and 30th, then Chantilly on September 1st.       The engagement at Groveton on the evening of August 28th against a portion of the Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac was a particularly hard fight for the regiment. " We carried 240 men into the engagement and advancing with our brigade, some became hotly engaged," one veteran recalled. "Onward we went to a fence, the enemy falling back before us. Whilst fighting here under a heavy crossfire, our regiment and the 21 st  North Carolina suffered unusually. Owing to some mistake, the 15 th  Alabama and 12 th  Georg...

O n Saturday morning July 26, 1862, the editors of the Atlanta Southern Confederacy heard a ruckus in the streets and looking outdoors saw that a large and visibly angry crowd had gathered in front of Hunnicutt & Taylor’s store. Hanging above the window was a “very large and handsome Lincoln flag,” the editors later remembered. “In full view from our window, spread to the breeze waving to and fro was the beautiful flag of the once powerful and honored, but now broken and disgraced, United States.”           The stars and stripes had not flown in Atlanta since January 1861 when Georgia became the fifth state to secede from the Union. And now this hated emblem floating in the center of Atlanta? Lieutenant Robert Graham, serving in Co. H of the 2 nd Georgia Cavalry, soon provided an explanation- the flag was the regimental flag of the 9 th Michigan Infantry, captured during the recent engagement at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The “rising wr...

O n the morning of July 13, 1862, a cavalry command under Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked and compelled the surrender of the Federal garrison at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Among those taking part in the assault was Private John C. Ellington of the 2 nd Georgia Cavalry who in this brief letter to his father back home in Jonesboro described how his company, the Clayton Dragoons, took the Rutherford County Courthouse.           “The enemy kept up a continual crossfire from the windows,” Ellington stated. “We were ordered to charge on foot. At the first effort, they poured a volley of balls into our ranks, killing R.S. Henderson and F.M. Farris while severely wounding D.P. Morris and Robert Payne, all men from the Clayton Dragoons. We got an axe and charged from another corner and succeeded in reaching the courthouse and broke down the door. About this time, all of them went to the upper story so we went in and built a fire. This they co...

C haplain Lark S. Livermore of the 16th Wisconsin had already endured a Sabbath unlike any he'd ever experienced before when on the afternoon of April 6, 1862, he witnessed the frightening breakdown in morale amongst his comrades in the Federal army.  He was starting to dress the wounded arm of his colonel when "a few shells from the enemy dropped amid the promiscuous crowd of thousands on the bank and got up a regular stampede. The whole side hill seemed in motion, making a break for the boats which began just then (as all had steam up) to back off from shore amid the deafening cry, ‘the Rebels are upon us!’ The backing off of the boats heightened the alarm.  I handed the Dr. Torry the bowl I was using to catch the blood from the arm of Colonel Allen, fearing for the safety of Charlie with the horses on shore in such an alarming stampede. The gangplank was literally hemmed full and men crowded off into the river in a rush to get on board the boats and away from the advancing ...