USA > Ohio > History One hundred and eleventh regiment O. V. I > Part 10
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4th. If Hood's attack had been delivered where expected, our plight would have been little better, because Hood would then have been nearer Nashville than we. It is obvious that the fords and crossings below Columbia were of minor importance, because a cross- ing there, would have kept us between the invading army, and our base at Nashville. Cooper's Brigade, 30 miles below, should have been added to our infantry, and a small cavalry force stationed there instead. At every available crossing above Columbia, regiments of infant y should have been intrenched, so that the Confederate cavalry could only have secured a crossing far enough away from their supports to have consumed much more time in bringing up their infantry, than we would consume in preparing to receive them. Our campaign was defensive, and every available position on the road, ought to have been contested, for the purpose of giving the needed time for concentration at Nashville.
5th. We were strong in artillery and had plenty more at Nashville, hence artillery should have been freely used in all our fighting; even at the risk of losing part of it. The world at that time had got beyond the period, of regarding a loss of artillery as a dishonor to an army; and if it had not, it was high time that such a sentiment should be abandoned.
If the guns could have been made to pay for themselves before they were lost, what difference ? The north was full of gun metal. and well supplied with facilities for making more. Nashville was full of reserve artillery, all in peril, if our little army should be lost
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on the way ; hence, grape and cannister should have been given to Hood upon every suitable occasion, without stopping to measure the quantity.
6th. At the battle of Franklin our artillery bore no such part in the fight as it should have done. We had four guns where our intrenchment crossed the Columbia and Franklin pike. We had four guns on the west of the Franklin pike, on the ridge in rear of the Carter House.
There was one or two batteries on our left flank, near the river. There was a battery at the fort, or in all no more than 26 out of the 66 guns belonging to the commands. Where were the other 40 guns ?
Does any soldier who has been over that battle field, hesitate in agreeing, that, if half of those 40 guns had been put into position on the bluff north bank of the river, above the left flank of our intrenched line, so that they could have poured an enfilading fire into Hood's charging columns, that his army would have been well nigh annihilated ?
Of course, some artillerymen would have been killed, some horses would have been killed. After the battle was over, some cavalry or officers, must needs have been dismounted, to furnish teams for the guns, but what of that? War, contemplates killing people, and no divinity hedges about artillery horses, though it may be inconvenient to do without them.
Hood had blundered in letting us get back to Franklin after having us bottled up at Columbia. Schofield blundered in letting Hood bottle us up. Hood blundered in charging our intrenehments at Franklin, instead of sending a division of his infantry to force a crossing of the Harpeth above Franklin, and then by a night march taking such a position on our line of retreat, as he tried to take by passing our flank at Columbia, and thus have compelled us to fight him in the open fields.
Schofield blundered again by permitting Hood to follow so close to his heels, that he had no time to get his trains and troops across the Harpeth, before Hood could deliver an assault upon part of his force with a river in their rear. For this last mistake he compen- sated somewhat by having an intrenched position taken to cover the crossing, but again, came near making that advantage unavailable by leaving Wagner's two brigades in such position, that their retreat would necessarily cover the enemy's advance, and carry confusion into his own lines.
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With the best artillery position that an army could have, protected by an unfordable stream from capture, and covering the entire front of his intrenched line by an enfilading fire, the artillery was permitted to stand ingloriously idle, while the infantry were forced into a hand to hand struggle against more than double their numbers, where defeat would have been an irreparable disaster. Forest with his 12,000 troopers could have so impeded the retreat of the remainder of the army, after a defeat, that Hood's infantry could have crushed the remnant, before it got back to Brentwood Hills.
Perhaps some enthusiastie survivor may say, "Well ! what of it? We whipped them all the same, isn't that enough ?" Yes ! in one sense that was enough-it was enough for them, and more than enough. Out of all of the storm of mistakes, the rugged, obstinate, unlooked for persistence of our infantry in that fight, wrung victory from the enemy, when, by all the chances of war, victory was due to the other side.
Turning from the contemplation of this Nashville retreat, with all its casualties dotting the "Hill Difficulty," we turn with more happy sensations to the contemplation of our latest achievement. Never during our campaigns had we seen so fully matured, or so admirably executed a plan of battle, as General Thomas exhibited to us at Nashville.
Had he fully appreciated the demoralized condition of Hood's forces, he would have sent such a force to seize their lines of retreat, before breaking through their works, as would have resulted in the capture of substantially all of the infantry command. At the last encounter which we had with them, they had exhibited such reck- less daring, that no one would have been justified in supposing that in so short a time, they could have gone into military bankruptey.
I have before me a history of the battle of Nashville, which represents the operations of our wing of the army on the 16th as opened by the charge of McMillan's Brigade of General Smith's forces upon Shy's Hill, occupied by Bates' troops of the Confederate forees. My recollection is very distinct that Cox's 3d Division of our corps made the first infantry attack of the day upon the hill about half a mile south of Shy's Hill, and that McMillan did not move his troops to the charge on Shy's Hill until General A. J. Smith gave him the signal, just as the Confederate lines were falling back from the hill in front of Cox's Division.
This historical account represents the attack upon the salient
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angle of the Confederate line at Shy's Hill, as being the initial movement, and that the enemy's line upon its capture, peeled back from the works to both right and left of Shy's Hill.
This does not at all correspond with the recollection of those engaged, and probably arises, from following the orders to attack at the same time, along the extended front as given by Gen. Schofield. Whatever the orders were, the execution of such orders followed, as though the order had been to move in succession, from right to left, upon the enemy's works. We did not start upon our charge until we saw McMillan's men jumping over the ditch at Shy's Hill. The command upon our left did not move until we were climbing over the works in our front ; and so on eastward, as far as I could see.
We sent to the rear, some twenty odd swords of officers of the Confederate troops in our front. We followed after the fugitives through fields and woods, until no longer able to distinguish the color of uniforms, when the bugler of our brigade, sounded the assembly, and we returned to a convenient camping place in the woods.
It puzzled the company cooks to find us that night, but at length the reunion was effected, and we relished Bill Bannister's eoffee, all the more for having waited for it so long.
Bannister was as faithful to his duties as any man could be, and had many a hard scramble, through the woods, burdened by his cooking outfit, in his endeavors to find us, after a day's campaign.
The next morning we moved in the direction of Franklin in pursuit of the enemy. During the day, we captured many of Hood's men, who seemed quite willing to drop their arms and go to the rear, as their brethren had done the day before. They were suf- fered to proceed without guard, after having given their parole to return home, and not engage in further hostilities.
On the evening of December 17th, we went into camp upon the western outskirts of the village of Franklin. We then for the first time after our night retreat of November 30th, went over the battle field. I took a fatigue party and cleaned out the ditch where our regiment had fought during the battle. The enemy had thrown our dead into the ditch. The rails which formed the revetment of the bank had been dumped in, on top of the bodies, and enough earth was then shovelled in to nearly till the trench.
We recovered the bodies and dug graves upon the hill-top be- hind the Carter House and gave them the best burial possible. We
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marked each grave with the name and regiment of the person buried. It appears that the bodies were afterward removed to the National Cemetery at Stone River, where most of them found their last resting place.
The front of our intrenchments had been used by the Confed- . erates as the most convenient place in which to bury their dead, the rows of graves extending to a considerable distance from the works. The field both in front and rear of our lines had been harrowed by the storm of bullets until the surface was pulverized. The loenst grove in our front was not only battle-scarred, but the foremost trees had been eaten away by bullets until no longer able to support the weight of the top, had fallen down. Trees more than six inches in diameter were lying upon the ground as mute witnesses of the terrible six hours volleying.
Behind us on the site of a demolished barn stood a fanning mill and an empty farmer's wagon. The mill was so perforated by rebe! bullets, that it looked like an exceedingly bad reputation. The spokes of the wagon wheels had been reduced to bundles of splin- ters, and it is questionable whether it would have held together, long enough to get to a repair shop.
The morning of the 18th of December came, and with it we turned our backs upon the village of Franklin and pushed on to the south ward.
The pursuit of Hood's demoralized forces from Brentwood Hills to the Tennessee River, was over roads rendered almost impassable by the winter rains, which had been beaten into thick mud by the trains and artillery of the retreating army.
But little of our experiences in this pursuit had novelty enough for us to care to preserve it in memory, except, that at the Tennessee River we received notice that our field of future operations would be the Atlantic coast.
At Clifton, on the river we took transports, and passing down the Tennessee to the Ohio, thence up the Ohio to Cincinnati, where we disembarked, and in midwinter started upon our uncomfortable railroad ride for Washington. Upon our way from the landing to the depot of the Little Miami Railroad at Cincinnati, we were rejoin- ed by several members of the regiment who had been at hospital, by reason of sickness or wounds, and among the rest was Eli Manoir, of' Company H, whom we last saw at the White House, east of Atlanta. There on the 22d of July we saw him borne from the field with a
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wound in his neck, from which the blood was flowing so rapidly, that it was predicted that he would be dead before he could be car- ried off the field. Now, here he was, so sleek, and fat, and hearty, that he looked like a new recruit, just in from the full graneries of the Maumee valley. A cicatrized spot, where the musket ball had entered, was accepted as proof by his comrades that he had not been killed, but was the real Eli, who had got there, with a fair probabil- ity of living as long as the best of them.
At the depot of the Little Miami Railroad we were loaded into cattle cars, and transported by the way of Columbus to Bellaire near Wheeling. At Columbus we were delayed a few hours, and, Col. Brailey, learning of our arrival, and proud of the achievements of his old regiment, brought His Excellency, Governor Brough, to the freight depot, where our train was lying. While the Governor and Colonel were shaking hands with the boys, excusing the miserable accommodations provided for our transportation through our native state, a drove of foragers, who had slipped away from the train upon its first arrival, returned with canteens dripping with molasses, which they had bought from a barrel, at the other end of the depot.
The Governor made a rapid survey of the party, and asked Col. Brailey if those men belonged to the old regiment, and being as- sured that they did, said, with a merry twinkle in his eye, " Well, Brailey, I have sometimes doubted the stories you have told me, about the ability of your regiment to take any position against odds, but I guess you were right about it, they seem to be able to take anything they can see." We explained to the Governor, that from the way we had been treated since we came to Ohio, it was not sin- gular that the boys could not yet realize that they had got out of the Confederacy, where foraging had been attended to as a patriotic duty.
I found among my papers the other day a letter describing the unpleasant experiences of this cheerless winter trip, and venturing the opinion that when the government should again call for volun- teers, there would be no response from the old soldiers. It is need- less to say that those who then entertained such opinions, would have been among the first to rally again, had a call been made.
Our trip from Bellaire was over the Baltimore & Obio Railroad, along the banks of Valley River, where the buttresses of the Alle- ghanies stand guard perpetually between the waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf. On, past Harper's Ferry, where John Brown lit the
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fires of freedom on the mountains, and touched the torpid conscience of the North, with the inspiration of a new battle anthem, which, even then, was rolling on with Sherman's drum beats, " From At- lanta to the Sea."
At Washington we went into quarters for a few days at Camp Stoneman. Some of us attended President Lincoln's reception, at the White House ; were introduced to and cordially greeted by, the Commander-in-Chief of all the armies.
From Camp Stoneman we moved across the long bridge at Alexandria, Virginia, where we took a transport for Fort Fisher, on the North Carolina coast.
Preparatory to leaving, our mess laid in a liberal supply of shell oysters. Having become mariners, we imagined that a fish diet would be most appropriate for the voyage.
Bill Bannister had been around the world a time or two, and was able to cook anything that turned up, in any style from Esquimaux to Fiji. We laid in a liberal supply of miscellaneous provisions, satisfied that unless the voyage was unusually prolonged, we should not suffer from hunger on the way.
It may be proper to remark in this connection, that the Colonel who belonged to our mess, had determined to remain in Washington for a time. This relieved us of some anxiety, on the question of suf- ficiency of supplies. Among cooked provisions the Colonel and Chaplain were most excellent foragers. The Colonel was a great lover of horses-and other animals-provided they were well cooked.
Under command of Captain McCord, then the ranking line officer present for duty, the regiment embarked on board the steam transport -. (I have forgotten her name. She was such a cranky old hulk, that her name does not deserve to be perpetuated, even in a regimental history.)
The weather had been so cold for some days that the Potomac was frozen over, which was the reason for our delay at Alexandria. Our passage down the Potomac was agreeable enough, and so con- tinued until we got well out upon the Atlantic, and were approach - ing Hatteras, when a violent storm set in, accompanied by a sea that none of us had any use for.
When we were stowing away our dunnage at Alexandria, we were cautioned by the mate that we had better tie everything fast to some fixed object, as otherwise it would be liable to fly around in an
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uncomfortable sort of way, when we got out on blue water. We thought at the time that it was a marine joke, and to prove that we were not so verdant as he took us to be, replied that our baggage was tough and could stand it if we could.
Later, however, we took the precaution to tie our mess chest to the main mast, with several coils of small rope.
We were rather tender of that mess chest, containing as it did, an assorted lay-out of china ware, which, through the kindness of several of the first families of Georgia, had been donated to us, as a mark of their distinguished consideration.
It also held other things of convenience in camp life, for which we were indebted to the thoughtfulness of our late comrade Joe Gingery. (Joe went down, with our other brave boys, at Franklin, where the driving rain of lead and iron, chilled so many friends and foes together.)
About 9 o'clock at night the storm had become so fierce that the captain ordered the pilot to run into the nearest harbor on the coast, and await the coming of daylight.
The ship slowly swung around and fell into the trough of the sea, and then went on her beam ends from larboard to port, so that it seemed to us as though her masts lashed the water. At the first lurch, I was returning from the opposite side of the cabin to my bunk, when I found myself going head first under the cabin table. Catching the back of a fixed seat, alongside of the table, I regained my feet, and as the boat rolled in the opposite direction, the back of that seat, which held me nicely, while the boat went in one direction, suddenly reversed itself, and sent me back under the table. Being disgusted with that sort of thing, I made a rush for the mast, where I held on until a favorable moment, when I got back to my bunk. I then held on by its side in such a manner that half of the time I was going to bed, and the other half was getting up again, to look for something I had forgotten.
My apology for making this much of the history personal to my- self, is, that during that interval I had no good opportunity to see what the other boys were doing.
By this time, however, we were all satisfied that if we could have our own way about it, we would command that sea to stand still, long enough at least, for us to see where we were-and get ashore, rebels or no rebels.
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But the sea acted as bad as it could, and the boat was giddier than a school girl at a skating rink.
Our tents and other camp equippage, were going overboard to the whales, as fast as possible. The bulk-heads were threatening to give way and let our horses into the sea.
Our mess chest, with its aristocratic chinaware, its canned fruit, and other contents too numerous to mention, was lurching heavily upon the ropes, which at length gave way, and the mess chest with unbecoming alacrity, in trying to overtake its center of gravity, struck heavily against the side of the cabin, and, as the sailors say, was stove-in. When that boat went over on its other lay, that china- ware and those other things, went down towards China, so suddenly that their market value depreciated faster than grain at the Preduce Exchanges, after country dealers have made large purchases. These things were bad enough for the parties immediately concerned, but worse was to come. The coal stove at the end of our cabin, full of red-hot stone coal, had got uneasy on its feet, although confined to the deck by heavy iron clasps. Suddenly it plunged head first into an adjacent bunk, where one of the pilots had been pretending to sleep through all this melee. That pilot got out of that bunk very quick, the clothes and wood work sprang into a blaze, and at the same time came a cry of " fire " from the boys below. The boat was on fire in two places, and the ship rolling so heavily that the sailors could not keep their feet long enough to man the hose. Some quick-witted person shouted "smother it with your blankets," and immediately a line of woolen blankets were passed up to those near- est to the fire, and thrown upon it. More terrible than charging bat- teries to the soldier, is the cry of fire on ship board to the sailor. The signal rang for the pilot to put the vessel across the seas again, upon her course. The rolling motion largely subsided, the ship was taking the seas upon her bow instead of beam. The sailors manned the hose, and poured salt water upon that fire until they put it out, and then drowned it out, and with it drowned everything else upon deck. During the unpleasantness, we had got our bedding out upon the floor in our efforts to get woolen blankets with which to smother the fire, and when daylight came that boat was a sight. The sailors had white faces, while the danger from fire continued, but now they seemed contented and happy, but the officers and men of the regi- ment, now, that the danger was over, had very white faces and
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seemed to be neither contented or happy. Their fright seemed to have come like a postscript, at the end of a letter.
Some sat down flat on deck in a resigned sort of way, as if waiting for death to come. Others made sudden runs for the rail, and casting down their eyes, and other things, bowed themselves to- ward the water, as though they thought such excessive politeness to old Neptune, would cause him to let up a little on them, but those long dead swells continued, and those boys continued to wish that they were at home with their mothers.
It was said long ago by one who had been touched with fatal- ism, that " There is a destiny which shapes our ends rough, hew them how we will." However that may be, this experience was rongh enough, and never approached by anything else, except when we were eating " sick wheat flour " at Loudon, Tennessee.
The contents of our mess chest lay in the most utter confusion upon the cabin floor, and I think Jerry Bolin was heartily glad of it, as he had no appetite, and it made him ever so much more uncom- fortable to see anyone else eat. We got up a nice mess of raw oysters and presented them to him, but he would have none of them, and did not even thank us for our thoughtfulness. I have for a long time been fearful that gratitude was becoming one of the lost arts. Even Bill Smith seemed to turn up his nose at everything good, in a very unaccountable way. Bill Bannister seemed much more courteous and accommodating. He had sailed with Portuguese and traded with the Kanackers, and did not see n to be frightened in the least. He regarded Neptune as one of his intimate friends.
At length our boat came to anchor off Fort Fisher, and a lighter came along side and landed us on Federal Point. This point is a long sand spit extending between the waters of Cape Fear River and the Ocean.
On Federal Point you saw the famous Fort Fisher, which had so recently been captured by the combined forces of General Terry and Admiral Porter.
The armament of the fort was still in the same condition as when captured. A string of sand mounds, abont fifty feet in base diameter, stood fronting the ocean, connected at the northern end by another line similar in formation, extending across to near the river, thus giving to the fort an eastern and a northern front. Between the sand hills, platforms had been constructed somewhat below the face of the connecting curtain of earthworks, upon which were
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mounted guns almost as long as the main boom ofa man-of-war, and as large as a good sized saw log. Most of the guns were evidently of domestic construction, of rough cast iron painted black. Some had bursted in firing, some had been knocked off their carriages by the heavy iron of the fleet, while others had been broken in two by the heavy blows of shot or shell.
Near the southern end of the earthwork was a massive steel rifled gun, carrying a ball of 150 pounds weight. The gun had been reduced under the turning lathe, to the nicest mechanical propor- tions, and mounted upon a solid carriage of mahogany, bearing up- on its polished side a silver plate with the name of Sir William Arm- strong as the maker. This was said to be a gift from the British aristocrat who made it, to the Confederacy. The gun was a beauty, and if properly handled, ought to have done some damage to the fleet. The most of the other guns were Columbiads. The armament consisted of 48 guns, including several mortars.
The mourds were excavated upon the inner side forming bomb proofs, and several traverses from the line protected the garrison from an enfilading fire.
Our brigade would have taken the contract to have held that fort against many times our number, but after what we saw there, would have been cautious enough to stipulate that there should be no marine business mixed up with it. We had a wholesome dislike to everything marine.
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