USA > Ohio > Four years in the saddle. History of the First Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 > Part 21
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
The expedition left the Tennessee River on the twenty-sec- ond of March. As the regiment formed at the "call to horse," with a premonition of the brilliant campaign before it, there were hundreds of tried and veteran troopers who longed a little bit for some of their old commanders. Lieutenant-Colonel Pat- tin, tried and true, hard as a pine knot, and with a sword that always felt for the enemy, had been mustered out at Louisville, and in his place, much to the disadvantage of the regiment, Major Writer was promoted. There were new Captains in com- mand of Companies I, K and G, and while they had not been tried like the old ones, they gave a good account of themselves in the campaign. Yet there was many a soldier who felt, and many an officer, too, that he would have given much to have known that, riding at the head of Company I, was that brilliant, dashing soldier, Captain John P. Rea, who never counted the odds, whose eyes sparkled when the enemy was ahead, and who followed him as the hunter follows the hounds. The First Ohio never had a better and more gallant officer than
1
-215-
Rea; and if he had known what fight there was ahead, nothing would have induced him to leave the regiment at that time. There was many a trooper that turned in his saddle and longed to see at the head of Company K, erect as an arrow, cool, confi- dent, tireless and absolutely fearless, Captain Will Curry, who took honors without parade or pomp of any kind, was always as steadfast as the stars in their course, and was always in at the death. Company G would have longed to see, with his sword blazing in their front, old Erwin, the Tipton Slasher, the man whose saber in hand to hand fight had tasted the blood of the enemy as often as that of any man in the regiment. Also those brave and well tried officers, Captain Woodlief and Captain Pickering, whose courage had been tested on many a hard-fought field. These gallant soldiers had lost the chiefest pleasure of their soldier lives in losing this campaign.
But there was left Kirkendall, another as good man as ever pulled saber in front of a command; with the brave and dashing Captain Siverd and Captain Lawder, both as true as steel - now both mustered out and camping beyond the great river. Also Lieutenants Ward, Reese, Laughlin, Reynolds, with other tried and true officers whose names I do not now recall, and the old First Ohio went into the campaign with a dash and spirit equal to anything it had ever shown.
At Jasper, Company A, in advance of the regiment, struck a small body of the enemy and brushed them aside; but two of its men, Peter Getz and William Vincent, in some manner becoming separated from the command, were captured by a half dozen rebels of the command whom the company had just routed. They marched with them two or three days when finally, in the interior of Alabama, the rebels sat down to breakfast, and Getz, who had been upon the outlook, suddenly nudged Vincent; they jumped and seized the rebels' arms, captured and paroled them, and then rejoined the regiment at Selma. It had always been said of Getz that a division like him turned loose in the Confederacy could have stolen it poor, and he seemed to have verified on this occasion in a small way what had been before universally said of him. The regiment and division had forded the Black Warrior without waiting for the pontoons on which Long's division afterwards crossed. This was the roughest ford that ever was crossed by a body of mounted men, and it was done with the loss of but two or three horses and one or two men. Indeed, the ford was almost as rapid where the division crossed, and the guide who led it across stripped himself before crossing. The river at this point was about three hundred yards wide. The ford was filled with immense rocks, many of them four and five feet in height, which projected above the water, while the greater part of the ford itself was filled with large slippery stones that tripped up many of the horses, and left the men
-
-216-
standing in mid-stream by these large rocks, whence they were rescued by their comrades. At the lower edge of the ford there was a sudden descent into deep water, along which there was an occasional sand-bar, but in most places so deep as to compel the horses to swim. The first of the column passed along the lower edge of the ford and one or two horses and men were swept over by the current and would have been drowned but for one of these sand-bars. The brigade then commenced crossing forty or fifty yards up stream through a roaring rapid that no man could have stemmed alone, and many a horse went down. It was the most terrible ford that the writer ever saw crossed by mounted men in four years' experience in mounted warfare.
From here the division marched rapidly to the crossing of the Cahawba River. The First Ohio, being in the front, found the ford occupied with rebels. Two or three companies forded, drove them away, then cut out and removed as far as possible the trees which had been felled across the ford. The balance of the division planked the high railroad bridge and crossed in that way, the ford having become dangerous by reason of quick- sands and the trees that had fallen therein. On the twenty-ninth two companies of the First Ohio, in the advance under the direct command of the Assistant Inspector-General of the brigade, charged down from the mountains into the little town of Elyton, just at dusk, brushed away the rebels, established pickets, and waited for the balance of the command. Elyton was then but a small town, and as these companies came into it, it was sur- rounded by a mist created by a drizzling rain, and the sharp crack of the rifles rang out in the early night in a country that had never before felt the touch of war. Elyton is now the city of Birmingham, the center of the great iron trade of the South. Here Jones Valley opened before us, a vision of peace and beauty and plenty. And here were great manor houses; here were great barns; here were long lines of cabins, where the farm-hands sang their songs after the work was done at night-fall; here were great granaries filled with grain for our tired horses; here were great sinoke-houses filled with the finest and sweetest hams that a Yankee soldier ever tasted. The First Ohio being for- tunate enough to be in the advance, it was but a short time until a ham swung from every man's saddle, and the boys could be heard singing the old refrain, "Who wouldn't sell his farm and go for a soldier?" The writer thinks that in some period of his life he has eaten sweet hams, but he is willing to give the palm to those captured in Jones Valley.
-
Here Croxton's brigade of McCook's division was detailed to capture Tuscaloosa, Ala., which it did, flanking and evading Jackson's division of Forest's corps, and finally joining us after the campaign was over near Macon. On the thirtieth we reached Montavello, a little Southern hamlet, also now noted as being
1
1
-217-
one of the centers of the southern iron trade. Here the men were given their first breathing spell. They were washing their clothes and taking care of their horses and equipments, and pre- paring for the movement in the afternoon, when about ten o'clock in the morning Roddy's brigade attached to Forest's command struck the pickets. The Fifth Iowa was ordered out and drove them headlong five miles to the crossing of a little creek, which they had barricaded with rails and covered guns. The First Ohio was getting ready for a flank movement, when the rebels reconsidered the matter and withdrew from the imme- diate creek-crossing. The Fifth Iowa pushed across the creek and dismounted, and a battalion was pushed up the hill in the advance. The writer of this was riding with General Upton immediately in the rear of this battalion; Frank Allen, a Quar- termaster Sergeant of our regiment, who had received permission to turn the wagons over to another Sergeant, was riding with the advance, as he always did when the enemy was in front of us; and just as the battalion crowned the crest of a little hill, from the thick brush there rang out a sharp volley, cutting the leaves around the heads of the men, and involuntarily the whole bat- talion shrank back a step or two. But it was only for a moment. Frank Allen, the darling soldier of the regiment, mounted on a handsome gray horse, received the fire as if he had been a statue of stone, and rode forward through the ranks of the bat- talion as if he had never heard the volley fired. General Upton turned to the writer and said: "Splendid soldier! Splendid sol- dier! Who is he?" Upton was one of those men who never saw a gallant thing without admiring it, who never missed an oppor- tunity to commend a gallant act; and it was he who, after the battle of Ebenezer Church, at the instance and request of the writer, recommended Frank Allen, then stricken with a mortal wound, to be brereted. Here Alexander's dismounted brigade, having dislodged the enemy at this stand, was withdrawn to remount, Winslow's brigade came up and passed to the front and pushed the enemy through the woods far into the night. The next morning was April 1. From our encampment in the woods there lay between us and the little town of Randolph a field about a mile wide. On the other side lay the enemy. The First Ohio and General Alexander's brigade again took the lead. A battalion of the First Ohio was ordered out, and as the writer rode out with it the gallant little soldier, Upton, said, "Give them an April fool this morning." The battalion pushed across the field, rapidly developed the enemy at Randolph and drove him beyond the town. Here the roads fork, there being two roads that lead to Plantersville or Ebenezer Church. The upper or ridge road was the direct road. This battalion of the First Ohio moved out and engaged Forest's skirmishers and held the direct road until Upton's division had passed down
.
1
-
-218-
on the lower Plantersville road, and Long's division entered upon the direct road. Upton's division was then halted and the battaliso moved to the front along with the regiment. Both divisions then advanced simultaneously along the upper and lower roads. The enemy were more directly concentrated on the upper road, but with the intention not to fight until they came near the junction of the two roads. Long's skirmishers were heavily engaged all the time and they carried barricade after barricade with conspicuous gallantry. In the meantime Forest had been planning a trap in front; instead of leaving a simple rear guard he massed an entire brigade and placed it so as to be practically concealed from view, and reared a barri- cade in front which seemed to be defended by but a small number of men. Colonel White of the Seventeenth Indiana, who was in front, as soon as he came in sight of the barricade charged with the battalion that was with him, but as he came up to it he perceived in some way the trap and ordered fours about. Cap- tain Taylor, of Company A, a gallant little soldier, weighing a little over one hundred pounds, was in the advance with his company, and he either did not hear the order or, was carried away with his own ardor, and he jumped the barricade, his company following him, when sixteen of them were shot from their saddles, and Taylor himself, seeing a group of men, charged them at once, realizing that it was Forest and his staff. Single- handed and alone he attacked Forest in the midst of his staff, and this with his saber only; and it is said that if he had had a. sharp saber he would have killed that fearless but brutal cavalry officer. He disabled his right arm, cut his head and ear with his saber, hacked his pistol barrel three or four times in the fight, until finally Forest shot him dead. He said afterwards to General Wilson, in an interview held under a flag of truce, that he never so much regretted shooting any man, as he was the bravest man he had ever seen.
. In the meantime the First Ohio was moving forward rapidly, dismounted, but without any seeming opposition to it, being the lull which immediately precedes the storm. The roar of the conflict above alarmed General Alexander, who feared that For- est was making one of his famous coups and attempting to get a bulge on the flank, and he ordered the First Ohio to mount at once, and ordered a squadron of the Seventh Ohio to move forward rapidly and take the advance, and the whole column went plunging forward at a trot. The squadron under Lieuten- ant-Colonel Warmalsdorf, accompanied by the Adjutant-General and the Inspector-General of the brigade, moved forward, and in about six hundred yards, at a turn of the road, struck a rebel picket. ; They charged it immediately through a little skirt of woods in which it was stationed out in the open and down the road about four hundred yards, when an entire brigade from a
-219-
fringe of woods opened upon it. There was some kind of a shed beside the road and the bullets rattled upon it like a hail-storm. The staff officers attempted to dismount the men and hold the position until the First Regiment could come through the thicket and deploy, fearing that if they fell back at once the enemy in front of them might charge the oncoming brigade in column and double them up. The men were all dismounted except the two staff officers and the orderly of the Inspector-General and the Lieutenant commanding the squadron, and made the best show of fighting they could. Notwithstanding their being dis- mounted, the First Sergeant of one company was killed, the Second Sergeant was killed, the Third Sergeant had five balls shot into him, and every man in the squadron, with one excep- tion, was either killed, wounded or had his clothes cut. The jacket of the mounted orderly, of the writer, Henry T. Resler, of Company A, was fairly ragged; and he said to him after the fight: "Lieutenant, you owe me a new jacket." The answer : was: "I will give you a whole suit for standing by me like you did to-day."
In less than five minutes the First Ohio had come on at a gallop through the thicket, deployed rapidly, dismounted, and were running forward with their Spencers on a charge; the Fifth Iowa came up on their left; and these two regiments formed under the crest of the hill, and as the cheery bugle rang out the "Forward" they charged the guns upon the crest. It was a short, sharp, quick fight, but it was all over in less than ten minutes; and in that time Taylor was avenged; the man who had killed him had met his first defeat as a cavalry officer in many years, and the guns that were planted to cover the con- verging roads were captured. The First Ohio Regiment captured these three guns in the most brilliant style. Leading the regi- ment was that soldier of soldiers, Frank Allen. He captured one of the guns himself, but did not stop even for a moment to secure the trophy, but plunged on after the flying enemy, and about twenty yards beyond the gun fell, shot through the abdo- men. The writer was upon the left of the line and did not know it until the fight was over. Then General Alexander told him that his friend, Allen, was mortally wounded and in an ambu- lance. I went at once to see him; told him of all the kind things that General Upton and General Alexander had said of him, sought in every way to cheer him; but he lay there and said: "Lieutenant, I never thought of that, I never cared for that; all that I ever cared for was to do my duty." I told him that Alexander and Upton had both promised to- brevet him. He put it aside in words as if it were nothing; and it was indeed little to him, as the future proved. We left him at Selma when we moved on, and he died of gangrene of the wound going up the river. I have never known a more brilliant soldier; I have
.
-220-
never known a more lovable man. About twenty years of age, with curly brown hair, clear blue eyes, and well built, he was as handsome as a Greek god. The writer had only known him in the year since he joined the western army; but during that time, in all the campaigns and skirmishes, he had always seen Frank Allen in the front. It was his-rifle that cracked first on the advance and rang out last on the retreat. Handsome, smiling, cool, self-contained, he rode into the fight like a young American St. George; and it is a matter of love to speak of him as he was. On the retreat he always stayed with the rear of the column. And as it moved from Jonesboro to go toward the fatal Lovejoy Station on the Kilpatrick raid, I remember him as I moved past him in the early morning, just as the day was breaking and you could not see more than two or three hundred yards away, how handsome, how fearless, and yet withal how careful, alert and soldierly he looked to be. I had passed with my company not more than five hundred yards away at that time, when I heard the crack of his rifle, and I knew that a part of Cleburn's division was pushing our rear guard and that Frank Allen was giving them his compliments. In skirmish, picket, foray, or in the closer clash of battle, you could always see him leading, with his carbine gleaming or his saber flashing. Death seemed to avoid him, and this handsome and fearless boy never was touched by the enemy until this fatal day near the close of the war. Peace to his ashes. No man of the First Ohio was more tenderly and gently beloved. He and Captain Scott, who was mortally wounded at Lovejoy Station, deserve to be immortalized in these pages. To another pen has been assigned the duty and the pleasure of paying a tribute to Captain Scott. I bring this little garland to the memory of Frank Allen.
The next morning the advance was taken by Long's division, and to it belongs the principal honor of the capture of Selma, and one of the most remarkable feats ever achieved by mounted men. Selma lies about twenty miles from Plantersville, and it was late in the afternoon when Upton's division drew up to the left. The siege guns in position threw shells out toward the line that could be plainly seen hurtling through the air. The plan of the attack was to have Upton first reconnoiter and then assault the left where the works rested upon a swamp and where they were neither so strong in themselves nor so well defended. In the meantime Long had invested the works upon the right. Chalmer's division of Forest's army had not succeeded in entering Selma and it attacked vigorously Long's rear. Long became apprehensive of this attack upon the rear and without waiting for Upton, who was then reconnoitering the left, ordered a charge. Fifteen hundred men of his division, consisting largely of the Third and Fourth Ohio, First Pennsylvania, and Fourth
-221-
Michigan, made this charge, rushing upon the works, delivering volley after volley from their Spencers as they charged. In front of the ditch was a stockade; this was one of the heaviest stock- ades ever placed in front of an earthwork; they tore down this stockade, scaled the works, carried them in a hand-to-hand con- flict and repulsed, General Wilson reports, seven thousand men behind these works. In the meantime Upton, hearing the fight upon the left, ordered his division in and it went in in columns of fours on the lower Selma road, charged into the town and followed the rout and wreck of Forest's army several miles to Burnsville, capturing four pieces of artillery and a large number of wagons and prisoners. This was the battle of Selma; taken all in all it was the most remarkable feat of arms ever achieved by mounted men. Twenty-five per cent. of the assaulting col- umns were killed and wounded in this assault lasting not over twenty minutes.
Selma was a very important town of the Confederacy on account of its arsenal and its position upon the Alabama River, and although in the interior, it had been intrenched at the time Sherman made his raid to Meridian in the winter of '63-'64, under the belief that Sherman was about to attack it. The writer has seldom seen stronger entrenchments. There were mounted on these entrenchments twenty-six pieces of artillery, most of them thirty-two pounders, and many of them of still larger caliber. And it reads like a romance that fifteen' hundred dismounted cavalry should have assaulted and carried these fortifications, with Forest's cavalry behind them and commanded by Forest himself, and that the line moved forward steadily from the time the order was given, without ever suffering even for an instant a check. General Wilson reports that there were captured at this point two thousand prisoners and twenty-six guns in position, beside seventy siege-guns in arsenals, and other munitions of war. We remained here for seven days, thoroughly destroying the arsenals and everything that was advantageous for the future conduct of war.
In the meantime, General Wilson, with marvellous energy, prepared to bridge the Alabama, which was then at a flood. This was practically completed, when floating logs struck the pon- - toons and broke them near the center. The farther end from Selma swung down the river with the leader of the corps upon it and floated in toward the bank. On the other end General Upton and a few officers and men of the First Ohio, holding on to the ropes, ran over the pontoon boats as the water came up to their knees, pulled them up and helped anchor that end in . mid-stream. It was a dangerous movement and a thrilling moment.,
The next day was spent in repairing the same; and as the logs came down upon the ropes, General Alexander was in front
1
-222-
with some men, attempting to get the logs away, when his boat was upset and a log struck him and knocked him against the pontoon and almost crushed him. He was pulled in by his staff; and the two men in the boat went under the pontoon, but were picked up below. The bridge was broken three times, but on the ninth the entire corps was crossed, and on the morning of the tenth Upton's division took the advance toward Montgomery, Ala., the first capitol of the Confederacy. We entered it on the afternoon of the twelfth day of April. There was cotton piled in the streets ready for burning, and but for the vigilance of our men in this place, where secession first held its capitol, where the Confederacy was first proclaimed and the Confederate gor. ernment was inaugurated, would have shared the fate of Colum- bia. We remained at Montgomery until the morning of the four- teenth day of April, when our columns resumed the march towards Columbus, Ga., eighty-four miles away. . We moved rapidly at about thirty miles a day and on the evening of the fifteenth camped at the little hamlet of Crawford, consisting of but two or three houses and a jail. Columbus lay about fifteen to twenty miles away. One of the roads led directly forward into Columbus. Another turned to the right at the town of Crawford and by a longer road reached Columbus by another route. Both roads crossed a deep and sluggish stream through a swamp; and it was necessary to save the bridges in order that - the column should not be delayed, as it would have taken some time in the swamp to have laid our pontoons. General Upton came out to the picket line, explained the situation to the writer, who at that time had the advance, and charged him with the duty of saving the bridges. He was given a squadron of the First Ohio Cavalry, and instructed that the division would fol- low at as rapid a rate as possible, but to press on and capture the bridges at all hazards if the force was not too great. The pickets were struck at the Crawford cross-roads, and immediately took the lower or longer road to Columbus. This reached the bridge and the swamp at about nine miles, instead of six miles as on the direct road. The direct road was guarded by a large body of men; the upper road by but a small body of men. As the pickets were on the upper road, they were followed by the squadron, charging on a dead run for nine miles. As the head of the column reached a turn in the road about three hun- dred yards from the bridge there were but three men of the squadron in sight; there were nearly a dozen upon the bridge attempting to fire it. These three men of the First Ohio took the bridge, put out the fire, the men retreating, evidently fearing that there was a larger column coming. They waited then for the balance of the squadron to come up, went on through the swamp, thinking that there might be another bridge, and then waited at the further end of the swamp for the division to appear.
.
-
-
Brig. Gen. A. J. Alexander.
?
-223-
It was more than an hour before General Upton arrived with his division, and complimented the squadron upon the notable feat it had performed. -
After Upton's division came through it massed on the lower road, leaving Long to take the direct road to Columbus. No- body then knew the exact situation as to the bridges, which will be explained hereafter; but General Upton's blood was up and he ordered out six companies of the First Ohio, Colonel Eggleston in command. While Colonel Eggleston was given command, the general supervision of it was given to the writer as a staff officer of Alexander's brigade, and as we rode out Upton said to us, "Can you give us the bridge across the Chat- tahoochee?" We saluted and said "we would try." This col- umn immediately threw out skirmishers on each side of the road and went driving the enemy at a quick walk and sometimes at a sharp trot along the road to Columbus for nearly five miles. Then as we reached the hill that looked down on Columbus the skirmishers were drawn in, the column formed by fours, and a mile and a half, straight away down the hill, lay the bridge across the Chattahoochee. It was the prize we sought; could we win it? This was at the head of navigation and a gun-boat lay under the banks; but it was useless as a means of defense on account of the high banks. It was a smooth pike and it looked like a beautiful run down there. As we reached the crest of the hill and turned to go downward we could see the upper bridge across the Chattahoochee and the railroad bridge that was surrounded by a tete-du-pont and formidable earthworks, with from twenty-five to forty guns in position. The writer then could not understand why it was that these guns did not open on our column. The reason will be apparent in a moment. It looked as if the range was almost perfect and as if our column could have been destroyed from these guns in place. But not a gun was fired, and it looked as if the town was at our mercy. Colonel Eggleston and the staff officers placed themselves at the head of this column of six companies, the order was given to draw sabers, then the bugle rang out the trot, then the gallop, then the wild charge, and away we went, straight down for Columbus. We had nearly reached the bridge when Upton, standing on the hill, said, "Columbus is ours without firing a shot!" On this side the bridge lies the little town of Girard, a suburb of Columbus, composed of about three or four hundred people. It was a good place to shelter a column in who were attacking Columbus, because it could not be reached by guns or fired upon without firing into the houses of their friends. .When within about six or seven hundred yards of the bridge the writer turned to Colonel Eggleston and said, "Colonel, I see that the bridge upon the other side has three guns planted at its mouth, covering it completely, and so planted as to sweep
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.