USA > Ohio > History One hundred and eleventh regiment O. V. I > Part 8
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With all of the time given us for preparation, we came upon the field at Franklin with only about one half as many men as Hood had. There were 85 regiments of infantry belonging to the two corps, while Hood had 204, including some few batallions. Hood's
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cavalry was largely superior in numbers to ours, but we have no means of ascertaining the actual fighting force.
We had 11 batteries and the Confederates had 27, or in guns, we had 66, and the Confederates 108. Of our forces on the field, General Beatty's Division of the 4th Corps, was on the north side of the river and not engaged. General Kimball's 1st Division of the 4th Corps, was on our right flank, and I assume it was not engaged, for the reason, that an examination of the muster-out rolls of all the Ohio regiments of that division, does not show a single casualty at the battle of Franklin.
The two brigades of Lane and Conrad, of Wagner's Division of the 4th Corps, would have been of more use to us, if they had been back at Nashville, because of the blunder of holding them in front so long that our firing was prevented, until the enemy had nearly reached our works. It is safe to assume that the enemy would not have reached our lines at all, if Lane and Conrad had been out of our way.
The troops which did the effective fighting, were Opdycke's Brigade of Wagner's Division of the 4th Corps, and the 3d Division of the 23d Corps, and Moore's and Mehringer's Brigades of our 2d Division of the 23d Corps. Against these six brigades, of 24 regiments, or if we count Wagner's two brigades, eight brigades of 36 regiments, came Stewart's and Cheatham's two corps and John- son's Division of Lee's Corps, which by accurate count contained twelve regiment and three battalions from Georgia, 36 regiments from Tennessee, two regiments from North Carolina, four regiments from South Carolina, twelve regiments from Texas, eighteen regiments from Alabama, 32 regiments and three battalions from Mississippi, fifteen regiments from Arkansas, five regiments from Florida and three "Confederate" regiments, all infantry, and aggre- gating 130 regiments, and adding the six battalions, the equivalent of 142 regiments, only lacking two regiments of being four times our number of regiments.
So were the forces gathered for a battle which upon our part came unexpectedly, and was delivered suddenly and with the greatest vigor and determination.
Upon my return from the line, where the fatigue party were working, Colonel Sherwood suggested that our men had been skirmishing so long, that their cartridge boxes were nearly empty, and asked me to ride out and order up some ammunition from our
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ordnance train. Looking to the north and east, we saw the wagon trains, on the other side of the Harpeth River, and supposing the ordnance stores of the 23d Corps were among the trains in sight, I rode leisurely over the river to order up the needed supplies. I had visited all of the trains and had returned to a point . near the wagon bridge, when my attention was attracted to a commotion among a group of officers in Fort Granger, who were using their glasses, making observations to the southward. The next moment, a shot was fired from the fort, followed by others in quick succession. The shells from the guns were bursting about half a mile to the south- ward. Following close upon the artillery fire, came the rattle of musketry, and I had barely time to eross the bridge and get into the streets of Franklin, when I was met by ambulances, caissons, wagons, pack-horses, and all the impedimenta of an army going pell-mell for the bridges. Evidently the street leading from the Carter House, had bitten too large a mouthful from the panicy element of the army. For a few moments it seemed almost impossi- ble to make way against the tumultuous tide which filled the street from house-front to house-front, and rising higher overflowed the adjacent yards.
Half way up from the angle of the street, to the Carter House, I met broken and disorganized regiments of Wagner's Division, among whom, their officers were riding back and forth, trying to rally and bring them back toward the works. At first it looked as though our line bad been crushed at the center, and nothing could save the little army from destruction. The next glance showed Opdyke's brigade, of Wagner's division, and the right regiments of Reilly's brigade of our 3d division, in their counter-charge to regain the ground lost at the center. It was only a run such as one could make while holding his breath, but, it was the irresistible charge, of men, who recognizing a deadly peril determine to extrieate them- selves. With a cheer they swept back to the main line, clearing the way with bayonet and bullet, but so converging as they advanced that Opedyke passed to the castward of the Carter House, and regained the center of the line. At this time, I rode to the right of the Carter House, and into a sink-hole at the northwest corner of the Carter House yard, where I hitched my horse to the fence. Where your stacks of guns had stood, Bridge's Illinois Battery was planting its blows across the line as rapidly as the guns could be handled. When I left you at work, I left my sword and revolver on the
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ground, with other headquarter baggage. When I returned Bridge's guns were spouting fire continuously across the interval.
To say that "the air was all a yell, and the earth was all aflame," would be putting it in a mild mannered way. The tempest of lead and iron beat the surface of the earth into dust, as the spray upon great waters, leaps under the lash of the advancing storm.
To run from the cover of the sink-hole to the cover of the rifle pit, would take only a short minute; knowing that the regiment ought to be in the rifle-pits, which they were digging when I went away, I started, bare handed, for the works. On the way I stepped upon some officers sword which had been lost during the charge and counter-charge, and took it for company. Reaching the ditch at the left of Company G, I found you fighting bayonet to bayonet and muzzle to muzzle, as you never fought before or since.
The engagement had commenced not more than ten minutes before, and yet the rebels were within bayonet touch of the light earthworks where you stood, and seemed possessed with a desperate purpose to overwhelm your line, at whatever cost. Sheet lightening played into the rebels faces, smoke enveloped everybody. The curses of the living in their desperate struggle for life, mingled with the groans of the dying.
Our men fired so rapidly that many of their guns became disabled. The guns of the dead and wounded were loaded by the officers and men in the rear rank, and exchanged for empty guns with the men in front. Soon the cry, "Give us more ammunition," ran up and down the line. The officers tried to suppress it, so that the rebels should not know our weakness, and endeavored to add to the supply, from the boxes of those who were disabled.
At the first attack Colonel Strickland's brigade which had been formed between our regiment and the Columbia pike at the Carter House, fell back, and did not again occupy that part of the line. This left the left wing of our regiment in the air, exposed to an enfilading fire from above, which we were powerless to prevent. By firing left oblique our men relieved themselves somewhat from the nearest and most deadly of this fire, but to the more distant fire we were exposed to the end of the action.
When our ammunition was nearly exhausted, a regiment moving by the flank, left in front, came up to occupy the works on our lett, but when in our rear and not more than ten feet away from us, they were caught in that fierce enfilade and threw themselves flat on the
HISTORY 111TH REGIMENT
ground for protection. Immediately we called upon these men for ammunition, and for their guns, in cases where our men had disabled theirs, so that before the end of the battle we had taken a large proportion of their ammunition and a considerable number of guns.
Historians state that this gap in the line at our left was re-occupied during the action, but in that they are mistaken. The line remained empty up to the moment of our evacuation. Lieut. Fernando Bennett, of Company C, recognizing the advantage to his men of the protection which would be afforded by filling that line, sprang to the head of the fallen column, and tried to rally the men, but was killed ontright, together with a large number of the men whom he had indneed to get upon their feet.
At length Joe Gingery came up with a box of cartridges, which being rapidly dealt out to the men, relieved our anxiety about ammunition. The regiment which we made so good use of, I should say from recollection, was the 183d Ohio, but General Cox says in his dispatches that it was the 112th Illinois. In that respect I think he is mistaken as he evidently is in saying that we cut down the locust grove in our front to make into breast works. We cut down some of the trees with musket balls during the engagement, and may have eut a few trees for the breastworks, but the body of the grove stood there as partial protection to the Confederates.
Between 9 and 10 o'clock, the Colonel called me down to the right of the regiment and directed me to pass the order from officer to officer in a whisper, that we would evacuate the works about 11:00 p. m., and that the men should be kept awake and directed to move without orders silently by the right flank, each man being expected to follow the man next on his right. This order I com- municated as directed.
About this time Joseph Gingery came up and notified me, that he had found my horse in the sink hole where I had left him, and run him off the field, delivering him to Ostrander, who had the other horses in charge, and where I found my horse when we finally withdrew. This was among the last of the many acts of kindness for which many of us were indebted to bluff, kind-hearted Joe Gingery. He told me there, of the desperate wound our Sergeant Major was stricken with, and the many others he had beiped to carry from the field, showing a wealth of simple kindliness, for which he did not have full credit. When he left me no one after-
.
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ward appears to have seen him alive. In scouring around the field in search of wounded men, he was doubtless wounded, and as appears from the marks upon his body and clothes, was killed by the rebels after they took the field.
Individual instances of daring on both sides were numerous during the engagement. A very large muscular rebel jumped over our works, just to the left of Company C, and engaged Sergeant John E. Woodworth in a hand to hand encounter. After several thrusts and parries, in which neither got any advantage, the rebel suddenly vaulted to the rear, and pitched his gun, bayonet first, at the Sergeant driving the steel into his thigh. The rebel then tried to spring back to the other side of the works, but when midway over, was caught by our fire and fell on top of the bank dead.'
Lieutenant Kintigh, during a lull in the firing, was talking to me about the casualties which had come under his observation, when a musket ball cut off his thumb. It was the constant inter- change of civilties such as this, that kept both sides from retiring for the night.
The loss in our regiment was 52 men, or about one in eight of those engaged. IJad it not been for the rugged fighting qualities of the rank and file of our regiment, the army could have hardly escaped disaster. If our regiment had retreated as did those to our left, a clear gap would have been made in our lines, without any second line from which to stop a column charging through the interval. From the time I got to the line, until the close of the fight, the men with muskets were the ones who were chiefly con- spieons in the fight. In such a melee as that, officers are in the way. Every foot of available space along the crest of the enbankment needed a resolute Union soldier with a fixed bayonet to till it.
The battle of Franklin had been fought. So far as military results were concerned it was, since Mission Ridge, the greatest Union victory won by the Western army. In Virginia, Grant raised his slouched hat, and a hundred shotted guns, around invested Richmond, sent intelligence to Lee's beleagured battalions that morning was beginning to dawn along the loyal lines of the nation. While Hood had been confidently moving northward, it seemed as though the boast "that he would carry the war to the banks of the Ohio," was rapidly ripening into an accepted prophesy. Now, 6252 of the veterans of the Atlanta campaign had been sub- tracted from his list of present for duty, and thirteen commandants
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HISTORY 111TH REGIMENT.
of brigades, divisions and corps, were among the dead and wounded. Bonfires blazed in northern cities. It was a time for both congratu- lations and crape. Pat. Cleburn, the most desperate fighter of the rebel division commanders in the west, lay dead near the Columbia turnpike. Brown's division of Cheatham's corps had assaulted that part of the works, extending from our front eastwardly to the turnpike, and Strahl's brigade, of that division, crossed bayonets with you over the narrow line of earthworks. Brown, the rebel division commander, was disabled in the first charge. Strahl assumed command directing the firing in person, until he was seriously wounded, and while being borne from the field was again struck and killed. Colonel Stafford thereupon assumed command.
Of the original brigade commanders of Brown's division, Gordon was in our hands a prisoner, Generals Cist and Strahl were dead, and Colonel Carter lay within a stones throw of his father's house mortally wounded.
At this stage of the battle the gap in our front line extending from the left flank of our regiment to a point near the Carter House at the center, was regarded by the enemy as the weakest point of resistance. To take advantage of this, Johnson's division of Lee's corps, was thrown forward about nightfall for the attack. Our deadly volleys drove back the division before it reached the works, leaving General Manigault wounded on the field.
A little to the left of our front the rebel Colonel Stafford stood upon his feet dead; the bodies around him, piled one upon another, prevented his falling.
Upon our return after the battle of Nashville, we found a veritable city of the dead planted outside of our defences. From our front around to the eastward were lines of graves as elose together as they could be made, extending from 50 to 200 feet away. It was the upturned faces of these dead thousands, ghastly and grim in the next morning's sunshine, which made victory so easy for us at Brentwood hills. The shadow of that disaster lay like a sunless day upon all the future of Hood's army.
History has never recognized how the rush and roar, the crash and rattle of those six hours work paralyzed Hood's surviving veterans. Ilow the sheet lightening from the rifle-pits, and the belching flame from cannon mouths, burned into their very souls the doctrine of "peace on earth and good will to men."
You men who touched elbows along the line in that charge
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among the hills at Nashville, vaulting over the rebel's earthworks, and finding their double line of battle crouching in the bottom of the ditch, without spirit enough to fire a single musket as we advanced, know full well, that those men had been melted into cinders in the white heat of the 30th day of November.
The world delights in pomp and ceremony, the flourish of the baton and the blare of the trumpet, the dashing courier, the glitter- ing tinsel, the flash of saber lines, and the mysterious triumph of the unexpected. In all of this the battle of Franklin was conspien- ously deficient. Upon the Union side, no one anticipated more than a skirmish, while the advancing enemy should be held gently in check, to give time for an orderly and safe crossing of the bridges; but, while the clock ticked off ten minutes of common time, that little prosy village, (sitting quietly with its face to the southward, around its shoulders loosely thrown the northern sweep of Harpeth River,) was transformed into a remorseless fury, by the thunder drum of war.
There was no skirmishing for position, no feints to distract the attention of either from the real objective. There was no shaking of hands, or touching of caps, or complimentary messages, but simply the rush of the big giant from the hills upon the little giant in the valley, and quick, the battle anvils rang, with blows so thick, and fast, and loud, that for hours the village shook with the impact of the collision. There was no audience to view the combat; no notice to the world that any battle would be fought. Even the newspaper correspondent for once was mystified, and so the world stuck Franklin into the military mosaic, and labelled it a drawn battle. Had we been able to fight a dozen such drawn battles during the first year of the war, there would have been no occasion for Shilo and Vicksburg, for Gettysburg and the Wilderness, for Malvern Hill and Chickamauga.
Upon our withdrawal from the battle field, the officers found their horses in Walter Ostrander's hands, under shelter of the river bank. The regiment proceeded across the railroad bridge and marched during the balance of the night in retreat, to the vicinity of Nashville. Shortly after our arrival there, we were ordered within the city lines, taking our position a short distance north-east of Fort Negly.
Captain Mock, our Regimental Surgeon, there made his report
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of the casualties in our regiment, at the battle of Franklin, which report is as follows :
Company A-Daniel Plants, wounded in the neck; James B. Garton, wounded in right hand; Jas. Jackson, killed.
Company C-Lientenant Isaac E. Kintigh, wounded severely : Philip Bush, mortally wounded; Oscar B. Daniels, killed; Almon B. Daniels, reported killed, but later information showed him to have been taken prisoner; Andrew Kennaur, killed ; Sergt. John E. Woodworth, bayonet wound in thigh; Adam Miller, wounded in chest; Daniel K. Mounts, killed; George W. Ward, wounded in thigh and arm broken ; James L. Peeny, wounded in leg.
Company D-Julius Greeley, killed ; Eli Boozer, killed ; Wm. Adams, killed : Sergt. Alex. Bowland, wounded in hand and shoulder; Corporal G. W. Inman, severely wounded in shoulder ; J. B. Snively, wounded in shoulder; Tim Lawler, wounded in left hip, severely ; E. Strickland, wounded in both thighs, severely.
Company E-Captain B. F. Southworth, left arm slightly wounded; Isaac W. Grulb, left leg, flesh wound.
Company F-Sergt. Samuel Snyder, wounded in neck ; Corp. Charles A. Lacost, wounded in chest ; Daniel Bear, left leg frac- tured; Wm. B. Hemenway, killed ; Emanuel Byers, scalp wound ; Wm. H. Laribee, wounded in abdomen ; Lafayette Olds, wound in left side ; Warren Shaw, wounded in right arm ; John Lafer, killed.
Company G-Lieut. Fernando Bennett, killed ; Private Edward Hedding, killed ; Sergt. Philip Mathia, wounded in left arm ; Private John W. Hess, wounded in right hand; Wm. Kime, wounded in left arm.
Company H-Samuel Hombarger, missing; William Campbell, missing.
Company I-Henry Linker, wounded through body; Vetus Hass, killed ; Henry Speck, missing ; Sergt. A. Degner, wounded in left hand.
Company K-Lieut. Charles Baker, wounded in face ; Private Joseph Gingery, killed : . Sergt. Samnel Mccutcheon, mortally wounded ; Heury Berdne, wounded in left side; Win. H. Corbin, wounded in shoulder; Frances M. Davenport, in left arm ; Thomas Irwin, wounded in left thigh ; David Greisinger, wounded in cheek.
Non-Commissioned Staff-Sergt. Major Geo. H. Curtis, killed. Detached-Captain P. H. Dowling, wounded in arm.
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There were other casualties not requiring medical attention.
Samuel Homberger, captured upon this retreat, was paroled and lost his life by the explosion of the transport steamer Sultana.
This list is defective in not including among the killed in Co. K, Sergeant Robert H. Dague. "Bob," as he was familiarly called, was an ideal American soldier. Always ready for any duty, always willing and uncomplaining, clean in person and equipment, straight as the barrel of his Springfield rifle, as cool under fire as on parade. No member of his company failed at the next roll-call to miss the honest, sturdy face of Robert H. Dague.
It would have been hard to make a death-roll in our regiment, limited to the same numbers, which would have ontranked this in the qualities of manhood. Sergeant Major Curtis was the prince of good fellows : always kind, obliging, good humored, taking his duties as a matter of course, whether pleasant or unpleasant. Struck in the shoulder with a shell, his brave life went out too soon. Lieu- tenant Bennett had a heart as [tender and impulsive as a woman. He was never known to do a thing to be ashamed of, and when the 183d Ohio threw itself upon the ground behind us, instead of filling the gap on our left as they had been directed to do, I saw Bennett spring from the ditch and run to the head of the prostrate column, calling upon them in God's name, to come forward to the works, and while pointing with one hand to the empty ditch, and with the other waving his sword over his head, he went down under that murderous fire from the left. Had he succeeded in completing the work which the officer from brigade headquarters had commenced, he might have lived a hero, and seen his name mentioned in con- gratulatory orders, but he never thought of that; he saw with a soldier's quick perception, the inert mass lying idle white his men were doing double duty, and at once he sprang forward to right the wrong, and when he had raised the leading company to its feet, and by the strength of his example beld them there, the world slipped away from him and another white soul joined the great majority. Nor did he lack good company, for with him went Jim Jackson, Philip Bush, Oscar B. Daniels, Andrew Kennauer, Daniel K. Mounts, Lewis Greeley, Eli Booser, Win. Adams, Wm. B. Hemenway, John Lafer, Edward Hedding, Vetus Hass, Henry Speck, Jos. Gingery, Sam McCutcheon and Ephriam Strickland.
If the Mostem conceit be true, that the gates of Paradise stand open, for those who worthily die in a good cause, their names all
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glow upon the muster roll of the Great Commander. Several of them I knew very intimately, and the best tribute I can give them is but seant justice to their merit.
Kennauer in the act of recovering his piece after firing, sank down with a bullet through his brain. Bush, standing by me in the rear rank, had just passed up a loaded gun to his front-rank com- rade, when he was shot through the body.
How the others died I have no personal knowledge. They lived well, and when we said good night to their comradeship, we need not hesitate to say good morning to their fame.
I trust there is no man living whose name has been upon the muster roll of our regiment, whether he served worthily or un- worthily in the Union cause, who has a soul so small as to envy the distinction here given to our dead heroes.
After our arrival at Nashville we were not long idle. Orders came to us to turn over our arms and equipments to the post ordnance officer, and receive new guns and equipments in their stead. To most of you old soldiers this was no welcome duty. Nearly every soldier fancied that there was some peculiar merit in the shooting qualities of his gun. He had so frequently dosed it with ashes in- side and out, had worn out so many pine sticks in making it shine for inspection day, had accumulated such a general attachment for his gun, that it was not easy to say, good bye. He had carved his initials on the stock ; had inlaid it with sundry devices in silver or brass ; had put a private mark in some out-of-the-way place by which he could distinguish it, if it should wander away at night and some old battered rusty fuzee take its place in the stacks; had so frequently bet that it was the best shooting gun in the regiment, that it seemed little short of sacrilege to have it pitched into an ord- nance wagon among common guns. But the inspector had examin- ed our outfit and condemned it. The best gun manufactured could not be kept in a constant state of irruption for six hours and come out as good as new. Sentiment was sacrificed and the old guns mus- tered out. Our regiment was re-equipped with guns, accoutrements, camp equipage and new clothes. We had an access of soldierly van- ity, and had our pictures taken, which we sent to our mothers, and -others. Those photographers at Nashville had a focus on both the soldier and his pocket-book, and when done with him the pocket- book was still a pocket-book, "only that and nothing more."
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