USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 17
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
and walked on three miles further to a water-station. In half an hour the same train of soldiers came along, and I reached Mitchellsville about noon. I went to every sutler- to every grocery-to the express office, to the post office- and back to the express office, when, at last, much to my joy, I found the trunk. I jumped on a freight train and reached Gallatin about dark.
"I forgot to tell you the woman was standing in the door of the house when I passed on my way back, and, recogniz- ing me as I touched my hat, she waved her hand and called the old man and darkey to the door. In passing the place which had made me so uneasy the night before, I felt more like putting my thumb to the end of my nose than tipping my hat.
Your loving brother, LEWIS." " GALLATIN, March -. The funeral of a poor soldier who died in his tent last night, reminds me of Bowling-Green, as it is the first funeral I have seen or heard since we left there. Everything is the same except an ambulance in place of the army-wagon, and the slow, soft music of a few fifes and muffled drums sounds sadder, more distinct and melancholy here in the woods. There is a good deal of sickness in our company. Strange! We were the pride of the regiment for awhile in health, our men the largest and strongest. Bob is back from the hospital and is progressing finely. His three merry ha! ha! ha's! sound so natural I have to laugh every. time I hear them.
"Bob Langsdale is wasted away to almost nothing. It is painful to look at him.
"I took John Cleland's things to him in the hospital. He looks wretchedly, and has suffered very much. I wish his father would come for him.
"Did you ever hear of the scouting expedition about twenty of us made before we left Pilot Knob one dark night under our Lieutenant?
" We went to a Mr. Taylor's house intending to surround it without any notice. We moved rapidly, but unfortunately we ran over no less than forty negro huts, with forty negroes in each hut, and forty dogs at least to each negro. Every
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SEARCHING FOR GUERILLAS.
negro wanted to know what was up, and every dog set to barking! So, you see, the surrounding of Taylor's house was at once known miles around, and the old squire had time to barricade his doors. Through the keyhole I could see an old rusty sword on the table, and ehairs without number piled against the opposite door. The Lieutenant in vain entreated to be let in. At last he said : "Mr. Taylor, you are a very unreasonable feller, sir! If you don't open this door immediately, sir, I shall be under the painful necessity of bustin' the door in, sir! Men, fetch a rail." Mr. Taylor defied, and at the same time entreated, while the Lieutenant kept repeating his address, putting in a single sentence, 'You are an unreasonable feller, painful necessity of bustin' the door, men, fetch a rail,' with his name, position, business and determination to search the house. Certainly the long- est rigmarole ever anybody got up at an enemy's door in the dead of night. Mr. Taylor conquered, however, and we, sul- len and silent, marched back to camp.
"How I long to hear the bells sound, 'Returned soldiers and Peace!' Their music will be sweeter to me than the great Parliament bell in London!
"GALLATIN, April 27 .- About day-break, General Paine told me to detach four wagons and follow him on a side road, while the rest of the train, twenty-six wagons, went on to Hartsville. We pulled up at a grass widow's house- husband in the Rebel army-took breakfast, and loaded our teams with corn, leaving her just enough to keep the wolf from her door. I was then sent back to surround a Mr. Smith's house, and allow no one to escape until the Gener- al's return. There we remained, cooping up a house-full of chattering females until two o'clock, while he went on and told the patriotic citizens of Hartsville, that on his next visit their town would be burned, and every soul would be driven South, if they suffered any more Rebels to cross the river.
"The windows and doors of every other house throughout this entire region are nailed up, and the women have united their families in inhabited dwellings, so that the senti- mental soldier has scarcely ceased moralizing over a deserted home before he beholds a house with nine gaunt women in
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
the door and countless hordes of youngsters at the broken windows.
An old man (a few octagenarians are left) asked me where General Paine was from, when his pretty niece flashed out, "From the devil, uncle; what makes you ask such a ques- tion ? S."
The mail constantly brought to the army letters which were full of consolation and strength; but in the West, as in the East, it also disseminated seeds of evil. A letter written on the twenty-second of January by Mr. Buskirk, a Democratic politician of Vigo county, to his brother, who was in the Eighty-Fifth, furnishes the following paragraph:
"There is a determination in the minds of the people of the Northern States that the proclamation shall not take place. The revolution is complete. I think there will be a committee appointed in this State to take charge of the management of the Indiana troops from the Governor, and then Old Abe will have to withdraw his proclamation, or they will withdraw the troops. This will end the matter in some way."
The soldier deserted, as did another to whom Mr. Buskirk also wrote. Influenced by letters of similar character, fifty men deserted from the Eighty-Fifth before the winter was over.
January 13, Wagner's brigade made an ineffectual pur- suit of Rebel cavalry, which had captured several steamers, loaded with wounded, on the Cumberland.
January 31, General Jefferson C. Davis, with his division of infantry and two brigades of cavalry under Colonel Minty, started west to intercept Wheeler on his return from a raid into Kentucky. The cavalry captured one hundred and forty- one of Wheeler's men, including two Colonels, and joined the infantry, which, without opposition, had taken possession of Franklin. After a twelve days march, the whole force returned to Murfreesboro with little loss. The Twenty- Second Indiana accompanied its division.
March 2, General Gilbert, who was in temporary com- mand at Franklin, ordered Colonel Coburn to move his bri- gade from Brentwood to that point, as the enemy was de-
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RECONNOISANCE FROM FRANKLIN.
monstrating in the vicinity, and had made an attack on liis southern outposts. Coburn promptly obeyed. His brigade consisted of four regiments, the Thirty-Third and Eighty- Fifth Indiana, respectively under Lieutenant Colonel Hen- derson and Colonel Baird, the Twenty-Second Wisconsin, Colonel Utley, and the Nineteenth Michigan, Colonel Gil- bert, with the Eighteenth Ohio battery, Captain Alcshire.
At an early hour on the fourth, Coburn set out from Franklin on a reconnaissance. His force, increased by the addition of the Hundred and Twenty-Fourth Ohio and six hundred cavalry under Colonel Jordan, amounted to two thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven men. He was pro- vided with four days' rations, and was accompanied by some eighty foraging wagons. He was ordered to proceed to Spring Hill the first day, and there to divide his command, sending one portion to Raleigh Hill and the other portion to Columbia. The latter was to return to Spring Hill the same day. The former was to join at Raleigh Hill a force coming from Murfreesboro, or, in the event of the non-arrival of that force by nightfall, it was also to return to Spring Hill. No information was given him as to the forces or numbers that were to meet him, or move in concert.
Four miles out from Franklin, Rebel horsemen were dis- covered, apparently a thousand, with a section of artillery. Coburn brought up his troops at once, deployed his cavalry on the right of the road, and advanced it, posted the Thirty- Third Indiana and Twenty-Second Wisconsin on the right, with a section of the battery, the Michigan and Ohio regi- ments, with two sections of the battery, on the left, and the Eighty-Fifth Indiana about a half mile in the rear, with the train. His guns were on slight elevations, and had a range of nearly a mile directly down the road. In every other di- rection the range of fire and even of vision was restricted to a quarter of a mile by the long, and in many places precipi tous swells and ridges from fifty to two hundred feet in height, into which the face of the country is broken. The enemy opened fire. Coburn replied. A brisk cannonade was kept up an hour, resulting in no injury to Coburn, and
13
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
in the loss of fifteen men and several horses to the enemy. Before it ceased three regiments, with a portion of the cavalry, advanced. The enemy disappeared before them, but soon after showed himself on high hills to the left, and was reported a mile further to the left on the Louisburg road, moving toward the rear, with a force of twelve or fifteen hundred. Coburn withdrew his advanced infantry to its first position, sent his cavalry to reconnoitre on the left, and despatched a courier to Franklin.
General Gilbert received the courier's tidings with incred- ulous surprise. He would not believe that the enemy, in strong force, had advanced so far within the range of Rose- crans' cavalry, and so near his own headquarters. "Coburn must be scared!" he sneeringly remarked. However, he ordered the return of the forage-train, while leaving the re- connoissance to pursue its way unencumbered.
Colonel Coburn, who had waited three hours for orders, immediately sent back the forage wagons, half of which had already been loaded, and resumed the advance, skirmishing slightly. He lost one gun, disabled, and three men slightly wounded in the skirmishing on the left. At night he halted, and apprehending an attack, put the command on the alert, a considerable force sleeping under armns. Artillery ammu- nition was sent for and obtained, and a portion of the cavalry was newly armed with Spencer rifles.
Soon after daylight two negro boys, about twelve years old, were brought into camp. They said that they had been with Van Dorn's army, and that it was out on the road north of Spring Hill and moving up to take Franklin. Coburn despatched the boys with a messenger, and some mounted men to headquarters.
General Gilbert made no reply. He probably thought Coburn was more scared than ever. The latter sent patrols out on the flanking roads right and left, and scouts to scour the country in every direction. At eight, no force having been discovered on his immediate flanks, he moved on, his cavalry and one piece of artillery in advance, with a line of skirmishers extending about a half mile each side of the road. The skirmishers of the enemy in the road, and in the woods,
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THOMPSON'S STATION.
fields and hills on either flank, retired slowly before the slow advance.
Meantime scouts reported a small party of the enemy, ap- parently an outpost, on the Louisburg road, and a small force of cavalry was detached to test the hostile strength in that direction.
After an hour's march the expedition reached a range of hills running at right angles with the road, and forming the northern boundary of a plain or valley which, on the south, is also bounded by a range of irregular hills. As the advance entered a depression which allows the passage of the turn- pike and railroad, the enemy opened a fire of artillery from woods immediately in front, raking the road. Coburn posted two guns, with his Indiana regiments, on the right of the road, and three guns, with his Michigan and Wisconsin reg- iments, on the left, on the ridge, which, at that point, is about fifty feet above the fields in front; he stationed dismounted horsemen on a cedar knoll on the extreme left, the main cav- alry on the rear of the left, and the Ohio regiment a third of a mile in the rear to guard the ammunition train. The mo- ment his arrangements were complete a troop of his cavalry made a demonstration on the left, and his Indianians, under cover of a steady artillery fire, advanced to charge the battery on the right of the road. They moved forward regularly and steadily in the face of shell and canister, as well as musketry from a brigade which stood behind a bank and a stone fence. They had reached a depot building, called Thompson's Sta- tion, in the middle of the plain, when large numbers of the enemy appeared on their left, rallying to the threatened bat. tery. At the same moment scouts reported the advance of a thousand horsemen, a mile to the left, on the Louisburg road.
Coburn being now fully convinced that he was pressing against an overwhelming force, determined to return. He directed Colonel Jordan, on the left flank, to make a feint attack, to resist every attack, and to report the enemy's movements. He then proceeded to withdraw his Indiana reg- iments. They were pursued by the enemy with loud cheers and a galling fire of artillery and musketry, but they rallied
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
on the ridge in good order, and repulsed three successive charges of threefold their own strength, at one time driving the assailants back beyond the station. Captain Seaton, with two companies of the Thirty-Third, posted on an emi- nence some distance to the right, kept back all approaches in that direction.
Aleshire's battery on being ordered, as the troops fell back, to fire more slowly and carefully, ceased altogether, and be- gan to withdraw on the plea that the ammunition might be exhausted. Staff officers, however, examined the chests, and found that the supply was ample for retreat. Shortly afterward, Coburn sent back for ammunition for his infantry. To his indignation and dismay he learned that his wagons were gone, and that his cavalry, his artillery and his reserve had also left the ground. Colonel Jordan, the sentinel who had been put out on the left flank with orders to watch it well, had turned his back on the field, and, without fighting, without resisting, without reporting what the enemy was doing, or what he himself was doing, had made off toward Franklin with every man and horse of his command. With- out orders and against orders, he had directed the reserve and the ammunition train to follow him, thus robbing of their only chance of safety the troops who valiantly held the front while he pursued his ignominious flight. The battery had also fled without the loss of a horse or a man, and notwith- standing the repeated efforts of staff officers to halt it and turn its fire on the enemy.
Deprived of the two most formidable arms in retreat, cav- alry and artillery, and hotly pressed by a constant foe in front, the harassed commander was constrained to hold his ground. Retreat could but end in a disgraceful and fatal flight. A heavy force bore down upon his right. A heavy force appeared on his left, planting guns as it gained posi- tions, enfilading the Michigan regiment, and at last making a furious assault on the whole left. It was repulsed. It re- turned to the charge. The Nineteenth Michigan fell back to the rear of the Twenty-Second Wisconsin, but again the enemy was repulsed. He charged up the road to gain the space between the Thirty-Third and Twenty-Second. All
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COBURN'S SURRENDER.
the troops on the right of the Thirty-Third were swung round to its left. The Twenty-Second was sorely pressed. It gave ground. Lieutenant-Colonel Bloodgood ran away with two-thirds of the men. The remaining third, driven back across the road, retired to the left and rear of the Eighty- Fifth.
The enemy in repeated unsuccessful assaults on the Thirty- Third, Nineteenth and Eighty-Fifth lost several prisoners and the battle-flag of Armstrong's brigade. At length he was driven from the front. Coburn quickly moved into woods on the right and rear. It was of no avail. Van Dorn's game had been successful, and a flanking force was thrown round the brigade. The enemy had come through gaps in the hills on the left. He occupied the entire opposite slope of a deep ravine, and was in position behind trees and fences, and across the road. He raked the road with his batteries. He poured a galling fire on the new line. He hung in thousands on every advantageous post. He thronged along the route of retreat. And there was no sign of the reinforcements so eagerly and so reasonably looked for.
Two hours after Jordan's flight the faithful band, reduced to a thousand and fifty men without a shot in their cartridge- boxes, formed in line, fixed bayonets, and made ready for a desperate charge up the stony and broken steep. Through the whiz and whistle of the enemy's bullets, and the sercam and crash of his shells, every beating heart listened for the word of command. That word was not uttered. It would have been massacre.
Coburn had seen a fourth of his comrades fall. He could witness the sacrifice of no more. He surrendered, with what shame and grief and wrath only they can know who have been abandoned by friends to the contumely of defeat, and the bitterness of captivity.
Not only had many of his subordinates failed him, his very commanding officers had apparently played him false. General Gilbert had thrown him forward unwarned in the face of overwhelming numbers, had sent him no assistance though fully informed of his situation, and had refused to move to his rescue, though he had force enough and was beg-
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ged to do it by his subordinates, though he was distant but nine miles, and the contest raged five long hours. General Rosecrans, thirty miles away and with no information, had sent orders for Coburn to move on, and had halted the co- operating forces, a brigade under Steedman, and a division under Sheridan, when they were almost within sight and were well within sound of the battle.
Up to Lavergne and over to Murfreesboro the roar of cannon was heard. In many a camp in a long stretch of miles our troops anxiously listened and waited for orders to move. None were issued.
Coburn went down as the noble ship sinks which has breasted the storm and swung off from the rock, but whose long-boat and life-boat have been stolen by a cowardly part of the crew, and whose distressful minute guns, resounding far over sea and shore, fail to elicit any response.
Van Dorn's entire army was engaged, six brigades under Generals Martin, Cosby, Starns, Jackson and Armstrong, and Colonel Whitefield, numbering from twelve to fifteen thou- sand men, armed with good carbines, Mississippi and Enfield rifles, and with twelve pieces of artillery,-six and twelve pound guns. Van Dorn had ferried Duck river at Columbia two weeks before, and had been encamped at Spring-Hill a week.
The officers and men of the Indiana and Michigan regi- ments, and such of the Wisconsin regiment as remained with its Colonel on the field, were perfectly observant of their duty. Advancing boldly, retiring steadily, assailing fiercely, withstanding firmly in unflinching line, with fixed bayonets waiting the order to rush upon death, they were true soldiers; but at no time were they more heroic than when they patiently laid down their arms and gave themselves up to a cruel imprisonment. Rebel newspapers acknowledged their merit, saying that by their courage, pertinacity and manhood they had redeemed all that was lost in the routs at Bull Run and on the first day of the battle of Shiloh.
The very day of the battle of Thompson's Station, the name of John Coburn headed a list of officers presented to the Senate for confirmation as Brigadier-Generals. But it was not heard afterwards. The captive and defenceless offi-
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FIGHT ON VAUGHT'S HILL.
cer had no "friend at court," and his superiors, General Granger and General Baird, whose absence from duty had, in part, occasioned the disaster, had not the magnanimity to defend his honor. Neither had Rosecrans, whose interference had saved Van Dorn from the heavy flanking forces of Sher- idan and Steedman. So, with all his other griefs, Coburn bore with him to Libby the sting of a slandered name. The battle of Thompson's Station was the deatlı-blow to his pro- motion. Though in command of a brigade since the winter of 1862, and though on every occasion shown to be efficient, he ended his military career as he began it, a Colonel.
It is a consolation to know that at least the unworthy offi- cer, who, "dressed in a little brief authority," and occupying a place of safety, could coldly sneer at the caution of the com- mander in the field, met his desert. He was brought down from the region of stars to the level of the Captain, and is said to have mightily bewailed the 'Irish hoist.'
On the sixth of March Lieutenant-Colonel Jones of the Thirty-Ninth, in command of his brigade, encountered a heavy cavalry force on the Middletown road. After a spir- ited engagement he retained possession of the field. Rose- crans addressed a letter of thanks to Jones for the "handsome service" performed by the brigade.
March 18, Colonel Hall, with a force of thirteen hundred and twenty-three men, including the One Hundred and First Indiana, Lieutenant-Colonel Doan, and a section of Harris' Nineteenth Indiana battery, moved north-cast to sur- prise a Rebel camp. He soon met opposition, but he pushed on until he was convinced that he was largely outnumbered by the resisting force, when he slowly fell back. On Vaught's Hill, near Milton, twelve miles north-east of Murfreesboro, he made a stand and skillfully posted his men to resist an attack which he could no longer avoid,-three regiments in the front line, the Hundred and First forming the left, the Hundred and Fifth Ohio as reserve in support of the artil- lery. The enemy, cavalry under John Morgan, advanced at a gallop, but being checked by Harris' guns, which were ad- mirably handled, dismounted, and moved on foot more cau- tiously and with frequent halts. Approaching close, he
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threw himself in full force on the left wing. The Hundred and First swerved at the first encounter, but almost instantly regained its steadiness, and twice hurled him back. The enemy repeated the effort on the right, his artillery, mean- time, keeping an incessant fire on the centre. The result was the same. He then attacked the rear, and was again discomfited. He continued the struggle three and a half hours, and withdrew only when he was thoroughly defeated. Morgan and nearly three hundred of his men were wounded, and sixty-three were killed,-while Hall lost but fifty-five.
On the twenty-fourth, Seribner's brigade marched to the assistance of Colonel Wilder, who was engaged in a severe skirmish at Hoover's Gap. Throughout the next day he was subjected to a storm of shot and shell. On the follow- ing day Wilder pushed the enemy out of the Gap, and as far as Winchester. The Thirty-Eighth lost one killed and fifteen wounded in the affair.
Wilder's brigade, or the "Lightning Brigade," as it was more frequently called, was provided with Spencer rifles. It was famous for the celerity and boldness of its operations, and was a terror to the enemy. Traversing almost every road and by-path, in a circuit of many miles, about Murfrees- boro, it captured horses and mules enough to mount the en- tire brigade, and to equip a light battery of four twelve-pound howitzers.
Lilly's mountain howitzers were capable of throwing shell one thousand yards. They could be taken to pieces and transported on the backs of mules. Consequently they were peculiarly adapted to the roads of the region.
On the evening of the first of April Colonel Wilder started out to scour the country north, north-east, and south.
Henry Campbell, in a letter to his mother, partially describes the expedition:
" MURFREESBORO, April 13, 1863.
" We left Lebanon for a place called Big Spring, a fine large farm belonging to a brother-in-law of General Ander- son's. All along the road the negroes were plowing. The wheat looked well. In some places it was six or cight inches high. We camped on a hill near a large barn, in which we
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THE LIGHTNING BRIGADE.
put all our horses. While feeding them we found a box full of hams that had been hid under the straw. We took pos- session of them, and brought them home for our mess. We left camp at eight in the morning. Five miles from camp we captured about five thousand cigars, and about two thou- sand dollars worth of tobacco that was stored in a tobacco manufactory by the roadside. The tobacco and cigars were given out to the troops who were with us. We arrived at Rome at eleven o'clock, and staid there all the afternoon and night. Rome is a small town on the Cumberland river. It is surrounded by seven high hills, the river, a small creek, and a bluff about one hundred feet high. There is only one way to get in and out of the place, that is by a road over a high bridge across the creek. The most of the town was burnt last year by the gunboats when they first came up the river. We started the next morning to Carthage. The last two or three days we have been marching over classical ground- journeying from Lebanon to Rome, and from Rome to Car- thage. After a few miles of very bad roads we entered a beautiful little valley, with green wheat-fields all the way up the hillsides. The ground is very rich on these hillsides. The wheat was about twelve inches high. The farmers here plow hills that are almost straight up and down. At Car- thage we found a brigade which had been there for the last month, and a steamboat which was loading up hogs and cattle. We went on over very bad roads to Cany Fork, and camped for the night. The next day we marched over a very high mountain and rough roads to Middleton, where our forces were divided. The infantry and one section of our battery was sent on to Alexandria, to go from there to Lib- erty, while the other section and all the cavalry turned off, and went through the woods by a cow-path, for it was not anything better. It was the worst road I ever saw. It was up one side of a mountain and down the other, so steep that eight horses could hardly pull a gun up, and so rocky that it was like stairs, two feet deep. We marched about twelve miles, and halted for the night at a place called Smith's Mill. The boys started the mill, and ground up a great lot of flour. " Tuesday morning, we had marched about five miles when
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