A Captured Sword and Lost Story of the Battle of Stones River

In November 1900, R.A. Miller, formerly a Confederate line officer, wrote a short note to the local newspaper editor advertising for the return of a sword he had captured during the Civil War. “I have a sword captured in the battle of Murfreesboro on the 31st of December 1862,” he wrote. “The name on the scabbard is I. Abernathy, lieutenant, 37th Indiana Volunteers. I was wounded severely a few minutes after. I was a lieutenant in command of Co. B, 24th Mississippi Volunteers. The sword will be returned on application of parties interested.”

          To start off, who was Lieutenant R.A. Miller of the 24th Mississippi, and how did he come to be wounded on the battlefield of Stones River? And who was I. Abernathy of the 37th Indiana and what was his fate? Let’s explore those questions a bit.

 

We don't know for sure exactly what type of sword Lieutenant Abernathy was carrying at Stones River but the type most commonly carried was the Model 1850 Foot Officer's Sword like the one pictured above. The lieutenant's sword was engraved with his name and regiment. 

The Index to Compiled Confederate Military Service Records shows that Robert A. Miller enlisted as a private in Co. B of the 24th Mississippi but has no further record. Co. B had a company monicker of the “Mississippi Confederates;” every company in the regiment had a monicker ranging from the Co. H who called themselves the “Buena Vista Hornets” to Co. E who were the “Helen Johnstone Guards.” The regiment was raised in response to Governor John J. Pettus’s call for three-years enlistment and was “made up largely of very young men. The companies were assembled at Marion Station and mustered into the Confederate States service in September and October 1861.”

Fortunately, Fold3 has Lieutenant Miller’s complete service file which shows he enlisted August 27, 1861, at West Point, Mississippi and was promptly promoted to orderly sergeant. By February 12, 1862, he was promoted to third lieutenant (a rank not typically found in the Union army) and by the time of Stones River was a second lieutenant and apparently in command of Co. B.

The 24th Mississippi was a well-traveled regiment by the time of Stones River. Shortly after mustering into service, it was ordered to report to General Robert E. Lee’s command at Savannah, Georgia on the Atlantic coast. “As they were enlisted for the war, General Lee gave them arms intended for Georgia,” a Confederate history noted. “In December, General Lee ordered the regiment to Fernandina [Florida] which was exposed to Federal naval expeditions. The abandonment of the coast soon followed and the 24th was ordered in late February 1862 to Tennessee. They were not able to start on account of limited railroad transportation until late in March. On March 31st, it was ordered detained at Chattanooga with the command of General Samuel B. Maxey.” On April 9th (in the wake of the losses at Shiloh), Maxey’s command which included the 41st Georgia and 9th Texas was ordered to Corinth where it joined the Army of Mississippi, the predecessor organization to the Army of Tennessee which fought at Stones River.

The regiment would serve in the Army of Mississippi/Tennessee for the remainder of the war. At the end of May, the army abandoned Corinth and went into camp near Tupelo, Mississippi to recuperate and reorganize. Now under the command of General Braxton Bragg, in late July the army moved via railroad and steamboat from Mississippi to Chattanooga, Tennessee. By early September, the army marched into Kentucky. The 24th Mississippi formed part of Colonel Thomas M. Jones’ brigade during the Kentucky campaign. 

By the time of Stones River, the 24th Mississippi was in a new brigade under the command of Colonel Edward Walthall, serving alongside the 45th Alabama, 27th Mississippi, 29th Mississippi, and 30th Mississippi, the 10th Missouri Battery and one very late addition, the 39th North Carolina which joined the brigade on January 1, 1863, in part to make up for the heavy losses incurred on December 31. Just a few days before the battle, Brigadier General J. Patton Anderson assumed command of the brigade while Colonel Walthall returned home to Mississippi to attend to his sick wife.   

The 24th Mississippi was the left center regiment in Anderson's brigade line at Stones River. Moving in conjunction with the neighboring 45th Alabama, the Mississippians first clashed with portions of Sheridan's division before moving into the cedars and tangling with the two brigades of General James Negley's division of Thomas's Corps. 

“The brigade went into line of battle on December 28, 1862, on the left of Chalmers' Brigade, stretching on the right into a dense cedar forest,” a Confederate history reported. “The regiment threw up breastworks of the loose stone which covered the ground. The skirmishers were engaged through the next two days, and on the 31st the attack began."

Lieutenant Colonel Robert McKelvaine provided some further details in his after-action report. “The regiment was ordered about 8 a.m. in connection with the 45th Alabama to support the right of Colonel Manigault’s brigade and in the event Colonel Manigault’s brigade failed to take a battery on the right-hand side of the Nolensville Pike in a small prairie or old field, my regiment in connection with the 45th Alabama was to charge the battery which I did. The first charge my regiment advanced as far as the pike and I observed that my support on the left was giving way and I here ordered my men to fall back which was done in good order.”

“A second charge was made and again I was compelled to fall back for the reason above stated,” McKelvaine continued. “A third charge was made in which we were successful in taking the battery, the enemy fleeing before us through a small field to a thick cedar grove where they made a stand for a short time. At this place, I had two men killed and several wounded. Very soon the ever-memorable General Patton Anderson dashed in front of my line with his hat off calling for the Mississippians to follow him, which the regiment did in good order and new reinforcements joined in the pursuit, the enemy completely demoralized.” [The battery mentioned was Battery G of the 1st Ohio Light Artillery which lost several guns in this sector of the field.]

As the 24th Mississippi surged north of the Wilkinson Pike, the remnants of Sheridan’s division fell back through the cedars before them, unmasking the right flank of General James Negley’s division. The right flank brigade under Colonel Timothy Stanley soon started to fall back which exposed the left flank brigade under Colonel John F. Miller, whose command included the 37th Indiana. It was at this point, somewhere in the cedars near Tour Stop #2 on the present Stones River National Battlefield, that Lieutenant Miller captured Lieutenant Abernathy’s sword.

Second Lieutenant Robert A. Miller of Co. B, 24th Mississippi seated beside his wife Martha in an image likely dating from around 1900, the same time that he was trying to reunite Lieutenant Abernathy's sword with his family or comrades. Severely wounded shortly after recovering the sword on the battlefield, Miller would spend most of the next two years in various hospitals before being discharged in December 1864.

          In a January 21, 1863, report of the casualties sustained by Walthall’s Brigade during the campaign, Lieutenant Miller is listed as being severely wounded in the leg around noon on December 31, 1862, and “near the cedar thicket.” A casualty list crafted by Adjutant W.W. Robinson and shared with the Mobile Advertiser & Register confirms this fact. He was sent to the hospital and apparently went South with the army when they retreated from Murfreesboro in the early morning hours of January 4, 1863. Subsequent records make it clear that he was sent to the hospital in Columbus, Mississippi and despite months of recuperation, was never able to return to duty. Consequently, he was retired December 7, 1864, and cleared from the rolls of the 24th Mississippi.

          A quick check of Find-A-Grave revealed that Robert Andrew Miller was born February 27, 1833, in Lynchburg, Virginia, and moved to Mississippi in the 1850s. On August 4, 1859, he married his wife Martha Jane McDowell (a 17-year-old South Carolinian) with whom he had six children: William McDowell Miller born in 1860, Sarah Duncan “Sallie” Miller in 1864, Robert Esmond Miller in 1869, Margaret Elizabeth Miller in 1872, Powhatan Staples Miller in 1875, and Agnes D. Miller in 1878. The 1860 Federal census shows Miller and his wife residing at Starkville, Oktibbeha County, Mississippi where he was working as a house carpenter.  Lieutenant Miller lived a long and active life as a farmer despite his wound, passing away July 22, 1911, in West Point, Mississippi at the age of 78. He is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in West Point.

 

The national colors of the 37th Indiana may have been the last thing Lieutenant Abernathy saw on the battlefield at Stones River. The colors above carry the single honor for Stone River, the regiment's first severe engagement and its costliest of the Civil War. My great-great grandfather was there, fighting in the ranks of Co. D. 

          Who was I. Abernathy of the 37th Indiana? A quick check of the Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana reveals that it was First Lieutenant Isaac Abernathy of Co. K. A resident of Knightstown, Rush County, Indiana, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in Co. I on September 10, 1861, and was promoted to first lieutenant and transferred to Co. K on November 24, 1861. He was killed in action December 31, 1862, at Stones River and was later buried at Mount Union Cemetery in Union Township, Ross County, Ohio. He was a bachelor.

          Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a more specific account detailing the circumstances of Lieutenant Abernathy’s death; this letter from Sergeant William R. Hunt of Co. K providing the best description. “About 9 o’clock a.m., General Negley’s division became engaged and the 37th Regiment went into the fight about that time. Our company went in with 46 men besides the captain and Lieutenant Abernathy. We fought them about half or three quarters of an hour. We were then ordered to fall back as the enemy were about to outflank us. They were then pouring a hot fire into us from the front and back flanks. We lost 19 of our company killed and wounded, namely the killed being Lieutenant Abernathy and A.B. Kirkham.”

Lt. Col. William D. Ward
37th Indiana

          It wasn’t until January 4th that the Federal army occupied Murfreesboro and among the first tasks the army performed was scouring the battlefield to inter the dead. Captain Hezekiah Shook of Co. D, 37th Indiana noted in his journal entry for January 11, 1863, that “our chaplain [John Hogarth Lozier] preached the funeral sermon of 25 of the men of our regiment who were killed in the action before Murfreesboro. His text was ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’ On the 14th, Captain Shook walked over the battlefield where his regiment had fought and observed “the trees were torn and twisted by cannon balls. Bushes and limbs were shot to pieces. Graves of men were thick over the whole field. But a few days ago, those who now lie slumbering here were full of life, health, and hope. In a few moments, they were cut down, their earthly career ended, their places in our ranks left blank, and their hearthstones at home left desolate. With no monument to tell the passer-by, many brave and noble boys rest here, far away from home.”

           Interestingly, thanks to Lieutenant Ole R. Dahl who served as typographical officer on Colonel William Carlin’s brigade and drew a map of the soldiers’ graves at Stones River, we know where on the battlefield Lieutenant Abernathy was initially buried. Looking at his map crafted after the battle, Dahl placed Lieutenant Abernathy’s grave as site 49, with adjacent grave sites 48, 50, and 51 all holding 17 other soldiers of the 37th Indiana. These graves were located north of the Wilkinson Pike and between the Pike and the Cowan Burnt House; all of this land is located in the open field to the southeast of the Tour Stop #2 parking lot on the battlefield. Since the dead were typically buried close to where they fell, from these gravesites, we can gain some additional insights into where the 37th Indiana was positioned when they took their heaviest losses.

          One of the things about this story that intrigues me is that Lieutenant Miller with the 24th Mississippi located on the left of Anderson’s brigade moved so far to the east towards McFadden’s Lane during the brigade’s attack, really closer to where one would have expected to find the 29th and 30th Mississippi regiments which were the right flank regiments of the line.  But both of those regiments had been driven back and as portions of Anderson’s brigade and A.P. Stewart’s brigade pursued the Federals into the cedars, I’m sure there was a great deal of confusion with maintaining the lines.


I wish we knew more details.  Whether Lieutenant Miller ever was able to return the sword to Abernathy’s family or his comrades in the 37th Indiana is lost to history…but having explored its history a bit, I would love to know if Lieutenant Abernathy’s sword ever made its way into the collector’s market.

To learn more about the Battle of Stones River, be sure to purchase a copy of my campaign study Hell by the Acre, recently awarded the Richard B. Harwell Award from the Atlanta Civil War Roundtable as best Civil War book of 2024. Available now through Savas Beatie. 




Sources:

“A Captured Sword,” Macon Beacon (Mississippi), December 29, 1900, pg. 1

Roster of 24th Mississippi, Index to Compiled Confederate Military Service Records

M269 Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Confederate Organizations; entry for Miller, Robert A., 24th Mississippi

List of Officers of 37th Regiment, Indiana Volunteers, Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana

William R. Hunt Letter, Co. K, 37th Indiana, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana Historical Society

Diary of Captain Hezekiah Shook, Co. D, 37th Indiana, private collection


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