USA > Kentucky > A history of Kentucky and Kentuckians; the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry and modern activities, Volume I > Part 51
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The Confederate army lay at Murfreesboro in December, closely watching the Federals who were at Nashville and who were expected to advance. On December 31st, the advance was made and the second greatest battle of
the war in Tennessee soon afterwards began. The Confederates had but a few days before won a substantial victory at Hartsville in which, on their side, none but members of the Orphan Brigade and Morgan's cavalry-Ken- tuckians all-had participated, and were ready and willing to at once try conclusions with the enemy. President Jefferson Davis, him- self a son of Kentucky, had but recently paid them a visit of encouragement and spoken words of praise which nerved them for the tremendous struggle upon which they were about to enter. General Rosecrans had moved out of Nashville, on the 26th, but that little cavalryman, General Wheeler, the "War Child," as his men loved to call him, was in his immediate front and he moved with cau- tion. Finally Wheeler let him alone and marched his cavalrymen elsewhere, but Rose- crans still hesitated and did not attack. He extended his lines on the right causing a shift- ing of the Confederate forces on the southern left. The 30th was a bleak, rainy day. A general attack was expected but did not come, there being nothing more serious than maneu- vering for position and tentative flanking propositions. On the morning of the last day of the momentous year of 1862, which had meant so much to the Confederates General Bragg concluded that he would no longer await attack but would at once move upon General Rosecrans at daylight. The rain had ceased and a clear, frosty morning greeted the two armies. The tremendous con- flict soon began and was continued through- out the day with the night bringing a seeming success to the Confederates, as was the case at the conclusion of the first day's fighting at Shiloh. But Bragg was in command and the second day had its story.
On the 2d, the Federals were holding stern- ly to their position, showing no disposition to willingly leave or be driven from them. They had made an effort to extend their lines to the Confederate right and this led to the
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most disastrous experience of the Orphan Brigade during the war. Of this movement which then, and since, has caused comment among military experts, it is perhaps best to let General Breckinridge who commanded the Kentucky brigade, officially tell the story. In his report of the movements of his command he says: "On Friday, the 2d of January, being desirous to ascertain if the enemy was establishing himself on the east bank of the river, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Buckner, and Major Rice E. Graves, with Capt. Byrnes battery and a portion of the Washington Ar- tillery under Lieutenant Vaught, went for- ward to our line of skirmishers. They soon developed a strong line of skirmishers who were driven back a considerable distance by our sharpshooters and artillery."
General Breckinridge found the enemy oc- cupying, with infantry and artillery, the crest of a gentle slope on the east bank of Stone river. Ordered to report to General Bragg. he was directed to form his division into two lines and dislodge the enemy from this crest which was distant about sixteen hundred yards from his line. The division at this time consisted of some 4,500 men. At four o'clock the signal gun was heard and the sui- cidal advance was begun. General Breckin- ridge says: "I had informed the command- ing general that we would be ready to advance at 4 o'clock, and precisely at that moment the signal gun was heard from our center. In- stantly, the troops moved forward at a quick- step and in admirable order. The front line had bayonets fixed with orders to fire one volley and then use the bayonet." This ad- vance in the face of the most overwhelming odds, was one of the most daring perform- ances of the First Kentucky Brigade during the war in which it made so splendid a record. General Breckinridge's report states his loss as 1.700 men. which occurred in about thirty minutes. Among these was Brigadier Gen- eral Roger W. Hanson, who had formerly
been the colonel of the Second Kentucky In- fantry, and who was a veteran of the war with Mexico. Among the Kentucky Federal offi- cers on the field was a brother of General Hanson. The latter was the idol of his men, and to this day the surviving members of the Orphan Brigade continue to sound his praises and speak of him with a touch of tender re- membrance. For years afterwards and until her death, his devoted wife was known as the "Mother of the Orphan Brigade."
As General Bragg was in command of the army, a retreat was next in order and at a council of war held on the night of Saturday following the second day's battle, this was determined upon. During that night the withdrawal of the army began and was appar- ently unobserved by the Federals who made no movement. As a matter of fact, both armies were exhausted after the serious two days' engagement and neither cared for further con- test at that time. But Bragg could have re- cuperated as quickly as Rosecrans. The for- mer's army was not beaten ; only Bragg was.
Before the battle began, General Bragg had arranged an order of retreat and, in ac- cordance with its terms, the corps commanded by General Polk fell back upon Shelbyville; that commanded by General Hardee upon Manchester, while General Bragg established his headquarters at Tullahoma.
Shortly before the battle of Murfreesboro, or Stone River as it was called by the Federals, General Morgan made a raid into Kentucky which has ever since been known by the mem- bers of his command as "the Christmas raid." It was not a pleasant time to go upon cavalry excursions. The roads were muddy and bad; the weather rainy and altogether disagreeable. At Elizabethtown General Morgan captured six hundred prisoners. These, with others captured at other points, brought the number of prisoners taken during the raid to 1,877. His own loss was two killed, twenty-four wounded and sixty-four missing. His
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command crossed to the southern side of the Cumberland river at Burksville, January 2d. In recognition of the ser- vices rendered on this raid, the Confederate congress tendered thanks to "General John H. Morgan and his men for their varied, heroic and valued services in Tennessee and Ken- tucky on this expedition-services which have conferred upon them fame as enduring as the records of the struggle which they have so brilliantly illustrated."
General Bragg, who for some unknown rea- son, did not like Kentuckians, so far overcame his sentiments in this instance as to recom- mend the promotion of General Morgan to be a major general which was subsequently done, Colonel Basil W. Duke of the Second Cavalry, succeeding to the command of Mor- gan's brigade as a brigadier general, a promo- tion fairly won and richly deserved by that excellent officer, who had long been General Morgan's best subaltern.
Leaving for the moment the narration of military events in which Kentuckians were involved. it may be stated now that at the election hield in August, 1863, Thomas E. Bramlette was elected governor of Kentucky and Richard T. Jacob, lieutenant governor, each of these gentlemen being the colonel of a volunteer regiment in the Union army. It has been stated elsewhere that at a later pe- riod of the war Colonel Jacob was arrested and sent through the lines and into the Con- federate lines. The reason for this remark- able action is supposed to have been the senti- ment of Colonel Jacob in relation to the negro question. He was in the service to preserve the Union and not for the sole purpose of bringing about the freedom of the negro slaves, and was manly enough to say so. There was in the army no man truer to the cause of the Union than was Colonel Jacob, but he did not understand that fidelity to the cause in which he risked his life, put a pad- lock upon his tongue or denied him the priv-
lege of his own opinions. There was in his veins the same blood as that which flowed in those of General Zachary Taylor, the real hero of the Mexican war, and like that sturdy old soldier, he never had an opinion which he was not ready to sustain with his life-blood, if necessary.
Colonel Bramlette, the governor-elect, was an excellent gentleman and a gallant soldier who did his fighting while the war was in progress and not after it had closed. It has been the misfortune of Kentucky to have cer- tain post-bellum soldiers, who have vocifer- ously fought with their jaws for many years since the war and who knew less than noth- ing of actual warfare during the progress of the great conflict. It is a matter for regret that these "professional" soldiers represent cach of the armies, but that regret is tem- pered by the reflection that the real soldiers of the north and of the south properly esti- mate these later-day warriors and have for them an assured contempt and a certain amount of pity.
The Federal soldiers who have formed the Grand Army of the Republic, have builded wiser than those of tis who form the Confed- crate Veterans Association. They have no military titles other than that of Commander, while we of the Confederate Veterans' Asso- ciation have a full roster of officers, with ti- tles from Lieutenant General down to Cap- tain, these titles being bestowed by favor or otherwise, tipon men who in many instances, held merely subordinate positions in actual service. The writer of these words, himself a Confederate soldier, honors the comrade who did his duty in the days of stress and trial whether he was a private or a General, but has no patience with the system which makes alleged lieutenant generals, major gen- erals and the like, of men who in some in- stances, were never heard of during the war, some of whom found congenial employment in Canadian towns for from the battle's rag-
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ing front. The claim is made by many, and probably with truth, that the history of the great conflict between the states can never be correctly written by the men who served therein, or by that generation immediately following them. But someone must write it, and when, in the days of the future, the proper historian has taken upon his shoul- ders the heavy burden of a true and faith- ful history of that war, he will find in later-day Confederate records, the names of lieutenant generals without a corps; of major generals without a division, and brigadier generals without a brigade. Years ago when the title of "Colonel" was bestowed as nu- merously as leaves bestrew the vale of Vallam- brosa, an irreverent country editor, noting a reference in a city newspaper to the presence of one of these post-bellum colonels in the chief metropolis of the state, gravely inquired in his own paper: "Why is not this man with his regiment?" But such sarcasm is wasted. The professional soldier, whose anger and pa- triotism never began to flame until after Ap- pomattox's fatal day, we have always with us, and when "taps" shall have sounded over the grave of the last real soldier of the war, there will still be with us some men wearing bor - rowed lion's skins and military titles never won on the battlefield. And more's the pity. The man who does not grow patriotic until a war is ended usually has some ulterior object back of his patriotism.
The Confederate army, after the battle of Murfreesboro, lay inactive in middle Tennes-
see with the exception of the three cavalry commands of Morgan, Wheeler and Forrest. Cavalry that is worth anything, is never in- active and nothing was more irksome to the Kentuckians in these three bodies of fighting men than inactivity. When they had nothing else to do they went out of camp, with or without permission, and "pirooted." For the information of those who never had the honor to serve as cavalrymen, it should be stated that "pirooting" meant in the soldier's vocabulary, going after something to eat and to drink, and other things not necessary to be more strictly defined. That the Kentuckians were adepts in the art of accumulating creature comforts will be admitted by every survivor of the stir- ring days of the war. They were seldom in camp or in line during a march but, by some system of intercommunication never ex- plained or understood, they were always on hand when the fighting began and always stayed until it was over. There were more Kentuckians among the . cavalrymen who stayed with Mr. Davis after the surrender of General Lee, than there were of troops from all the other states of the south combined. During the war there was much talk of "dying in the last ditch." The Kentuckians, both in- fantry and cavalry, marched to the edge of that "ditch" and looked into it, and the only reason. why they did not die in it was that their chivalrous opponents objected to such a use- less sacrifice and requested them to surrender instead.
CHAPTER LI.
THE FIRST KENTUCKY CAVALRY-KENTUCKY AT CHICKAMAUGA-THE HELM FAMILY-KEN- TUCKY UNION BOYS-COMPARATIVE LOSSES AND STRENGTH-BRAGG AND MORGAN DIS- AGREE-MORGAN "TAKES THE BIT"-MORGAN'S MEN CAPTURED, DISPERSED, REUNITED- FIRST KENTUCKY AT LEE AND GORDON'S MILL-CAVALRY LESSONS TO THE WORLD-RE- TREAT FROM MISSIONARY RIDGE-KENTUCKY SOLDIERS THERE.
On June 24, 1863, the Federal forces came out from Murfreesboro and took up the line of march which would bring them in conflict with the Confederate army. On the Man- chester road their advance came in conflict with the southern outpost, which happened to be the First Kentucky cavalry of General Wheeler's command. A spirited contest be- tween the rear guard of the regiment and the advance of the Federals was kept up until the Confederates, overwhelmed by superior numbers, were driven back upon the infantry reserves at Hoover's Gap. A sharp engage- ment, continuing until darkness brought it to a close, was fought by the infantry and cav- alry of the two armies, the Confederates hold- ing their ground and not withdrawing until the following day, when under orders from General Bragg, they fell back upon Tulla- homa, at which point they joined the main army, and, as was to be expected under Bragg, began another retreat, this time upon Chatta- nooga on the south bank of the Tennessee river.
The chief point of interest in this retreat to readers of Kentucky history lies in the fact that from Tullahoma to Chattanooga, the reg- iment covering the extremest rear was the First Kentucky cavalry, which had performed a like service on the retreat of Bragg from Kentucky one year before. There was but Vol. 1-23.
little fighting on this retreat, the Federals not showing a disposition to press the retreating army. The weather was the feature which gave the army most concern. During an en- tire week, the rain, which began during the engagement at Hoover's Gap on the 24th, fell almost without intermission. The rear guard had neither wagons nor tents and when op- portunity for rest and sleep occurred, it was taken in rain-soaked clothing, few if any of the troops knowing what it was to have on a dry garment for an entire week. But there was no murmuring; no complaining ; the rear guard was composed of Kentuckians, men who had entered the army voluntarily, and who were ready and willing to face every emergency uncomplainingly. Many of these young men were nurtured in wealth and lux- ury, as wealth was known in those days, and never knew a hardship until they entered the army. These, with their comrades who had known harsher training in early youth, met every condition smilingly, and made ideal sol- diers. It is related of Wellington that at the battle of Waterloo, when he saw the Guards go in (the curled darlings of London society, who had never known a greater hardship than find- ing a crinkled rose-leaf in their beds) he ex- claimed: "See the puppies fight!" They fought because they were gentlemen and so the Kentuckians fought. They were born and
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bred gentlemen and, knowing their duty, went in and performed it, no matter what the dan- ger or discomfort. These Kentuckians who covered Bragg's retreat from Tullahoma ; these First Kentucky cavalrymen, when they came to the bridge across the Tennessee river at Stevenson, Alabama, and found it ablaze, hesitated not a moment, but dashed into the flaming structure and crossed to the other side, scorched, it may be but ready for duty. A year later these same Kentucky cavalrymen, the roughest riding Rough Riders who ever rode to battle, rode through a burning bridge at Columbia, South Carolina, coming out scorched and with their clothing ablaze, but every one of theni answered to roll-call on the following morning. One of them devised a regimental toast which is known today from one end of Kentucky to the other: "Here is to our noble selves; there may be better peo- ple but we never met them." There may have been something self-landatory in this senti- ment but it was justified, for the First Ken- tucky to this time, had never known defeat. It had a habit of staying wherever there was trouble, and never surrendered until Presi- dent Davis had himself surrendered to over- whelming odds. Even then, it did not appear to have had enough of fighting and would have gone over to Mexico and joined Maxmil- ian, had not General Breckinridge advised them to go back to Kentucky. The Kentuck- ians who had served in the Federal army, and there were very many of them, had no doubts about their fate when they came home, and to their credit it must be said, that they were very kind to "their friends, the enemy" when the Confederates came home. But this is an- ticipating events and has no present place in this history of those strenuous days.
On September the 9th, Bragg, true to his nature, evacuated Chattanooga and began a series of maneuvers, intended to crush, in de- tail. the widely separated corps of the Federal army. This movement failed and on Septem-
ber 19th, the two armies faced each other for a titanic struggle, which began on that day in the vicinity of Lee and Gordon's mill on the Chickamauga river. General Buckner, a Ken- tuckian, commanded a corps on the left wing, and General Preston, another Kentuckian, commanded the division that covered the ford at Lee & Gordon's mill. General Longstreet, with his veterans from the Army of Northern Virginia, who had come to Bragg's relief, was on Buckner's right. There was heavy but no decisive fighting in the afternoon of the 19th, but everyone understood that this was but preliminary to the great struggle which was to come on the following day. It had been the intention of General Bragg to attack early in the morning of the 20th, and many of his troops, among others the First Kentucky cav- alry, were in line when the sun rose. But there was delay upon the part of the troops who were to support Cleburne's division on the right and it was half past nine before the battle began.
"And there stood old Kentucky," General Breckinridge says in his report, the present writer again quoting from Col. Stoddard Johnston: "The battle was opened by Helm (a Kentuckian commanding Kentuckians) with great fury. The Second and Ninth Ken- tucky, with three companies of the Forty-first Alabama, encountered the left of a line of breastworks before reaching the Chattanooga road, and, though assailing them with great courage, were compelled to pause. From some cause, the line on my left had not ad- vanced simultaneously with my division, and in consequence these brave troops were, at first, in addition to the fire in front, subjected to a severe enfilading fire from the left. The rest of Helm's brigade, in whose front there were no works, after a short but sharp engage- ment, routed a line of the enemy, pursued it across the Chattanooga road and captured a section of artillery in the center of the road. This portion of the Kentucky brigade was
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now brought under a heavy and enfilading fire and being separated from its left, I ordered Col. Joseph H. Lewis, who succeeded to the command on the fall of General Helm, to withdraw the troops some two hundred yards to the rear, reunite the brigade and change his front slightly to meet the new order of things by throwing forward his right and retiring his left. The movement was made without panic or confusion. This was one of the bloodiest encounters of the day. General Helm, ever ready for action and endeared to his command by his many virtues, received a mortal wound while in the heroic discharge of duty. Col. J. W. Hewitt, of the Second Kentucky, was killed, acting gallantly at the head of his reg- iment. Captains Madeira, Rogers and Ded- man, of the Second Regiment, Captain Daniel of the Ninth Kentucky and many officers and men, met their death before the enemy's works; while Colonel Nuckols of the Fourth Kentucky, Colonel John W. Caldwell of the Ninth, and many more officers and men were wounded."
Without entering into the details of this great battle, the object of the writer being to relate the part played therein by Kennickians, it may be stated that the Federal army, with the exception of that part of it commanded by Gen. George H. Thomas, a Virginian who had declined to follow General Lee into the service of his native state, was sent flying back to Chattanooga, led by its commander, Gen- eral Rosecrans. General Thomas, in the face of repeated attacks, held his position after the remainder of the army had retreated and won lasting renown as "The Rock of Chicka- mauga." Charles A. Dana, the famous editor of the New York Sun, who was at that time an assistant secretary of war, and who was on this bloody field, says: "Rosecrans' defeat was a veritable Bull Run. There remained but one point of Federal resistance, besides that of Thomas, and that was the wooded hills near McFarland's Gap, the key to the Fed- eral position."
Colonel Johnston, referring to the conduct of another Kentuckian in this tremendous conflict, says: "General Preston, who had as a guide, Dyer, whose house stood on the battlefield near by, and from whom he learned the nature of the topography in the front, fol- lowed after Hindman's and McLaw's divis- ions, which had met a heavy repulse, and mov- ing up a ravine beyond Snodgrass house, charged the flank of Granger and Steedman, posted with artillery on commanding ridges. It was bloody, but effective work, resulting in the complete rout of the encmy and the cap- ture of the Eighty-ninth Ohio, the Twenty- second Michigan and part of the Twenty-first Ohio regiments. This bold and decisive work which closed the battle as the sun set, was one of the most gallant affairs of the war and, like that of Breckinridge on the right, was made upon General Preston's own judgment, as he was ordered originally merely to sup- port Hindman. A British officer present com- pared Preston to Dessaix and said his charge was one of the greatest in history. The Fifth Kentucky, Colonel Hawkins, was conspicu- outs for gallantry in this fight." And do not forget that Preston and Hawkins, and the men of the latter's regiment, were Kentuckians.
Colonel Johnston concludes his report of the battle in these words: "In the confusion re- sulting from the change of lines, the smoke of battle, and approach of night, it was diffi- cult to comprehend the full effect of this Con- federate victory. The enemy beaten at every point, availing himself of the favorable condi- tions, retreated in the direction of Chatta- nooga, and the Confederate army, worn down by long and ardnous labors, with all com- mands mingled in promiscuous confusion went to sleep on the battlefield, each where he found himself. The further details of what followed, the fatality which, arising partly from the want of sufficient force, but chiefly from the lack of Stonewall Jackson's persist- ence, lost the full fruits of victory, belong to general history. It has been the aim in this
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narrative to sketch briefly only so much of the battle as will show to their countrymen the part performed by the Confederate soldiers from Kentucky and their gallant officers. For small, yet affective, as were the number of muskets, no troops fought more bravely and no state was more ably represented than was Kentucky in her trio of generals-Breckin- ridge, Preston and Buckner-noble men all, who were never separated in friendship by faction or by jealousy, and who illustrated in their character and deeds the elements which make men great and have made their state famous. Each, by the unanimous verdict of the army, earned an advancement in grade; but Kentucky was already top-heavy in rank proportionate to her troops in the service, and other states clamored for recognition of their sons. Later in the war, General Buckner was made a lieutenant general and just before the close, General Preston a major general."
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