USA > Ohio > In the 50th Ohio serving Uncle Sam : memoirs of one who wore the blue > Part 13
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We passed on out the Columbia pike over the battlefield to a
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stone fence on the right of the pike, and we passed inside the fence, where they had a large fire, and around which I found several others of my comrades.
The reader will naturally ask the question, Why was not this part of the line retaken, as well as the part that Reilly's men were driven out of at first ?
General Cox says in his history of the Battle of Franklin that he had Colonel Bond's regiment, 112th Illinois, brought from the left to aid Colonel Strickland to re-establish the line, some time after dark, and that an attempt was made to retake it, but the oblique fire by our men from the second line, both right and left, was so deadly across the space between the two lines that it made the front line untenable, although word had been sent to those troops on right and left to cease firing.
But the din of battle made it hard to get orders understood by the men in line, and they could not be restrained from firing obliquely at the flash of the enemy's guns. And that Colonel Bond was wounded twice slightly by our own troops, so that they withdrew and waited a more favorable opportunity, which it appears never came ; hence we prisoners who had been taken in the confusion of the first dash on the center were left to our fate.
I want to put it on record here that there was no time after the first charge of the enemy, but what that line could have been retaken, especially after dark, as there was nothing left there then but a mere skirmish line with us prisoners.
I know what I am talking about, for I was right there, and ' understood the situation. If the line had been retaken there would have been at least about seventy-five prisoners released.
I shall never forget the humming, dismal sound of these mes- sengers of death, as they passed over me and went whizzing over that field of blood, as I lay there a prisoner that night between the two lines of battle.
I can also vouch for that deadly crossfire that General Cox speaks of, for I could hear the balls striking our camp kettles and coffee pots that were back of our works, showing that the boys were obeying the standing order-when going into battle, to fire low.
The balls came so thick from our second line just after I was captured that it seemed to me had I held up my little finger it would have been shot away. Is it any wonder then that the space between the lines was so speedily cleared out ?
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Just at that time the battle was raging furiously ; cannon were booming, shells were bursting, and the crash of musketry was deafening ; thousands of men were engaged in a struggle for vic- tory ; men were dying, and men were being maimed for life. Blood was being poured out as freely as water.
Truly, General Sherman could not have given a better definition of war than he did, had he searched all through the English language. For the time it lasted, and the number of men engaged, the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, can well be recorded in history as one of the bloodiest battles of the war of the rebellion.
I here give General Cox's estimate of the forces present on both sides, and the loss that each sustained during the battle : Confederates present, 22,000; loss, buried on the field, 1,750; wounded and placed in hospitals in Franklin, 3,800; taken prison- ers, 702; total loss, 6,252. Federals present, 23,734 ; loss, killed, 189; wounded, 1,033 ; missing, 1,104; total loss, 2,326.
The Confederate loss in general officers was quite heavy, five being killed, namely: Major General Cleburne, Brigadier Generals Adams, Gist, Strahl and Granbury; six wounded, namely: Major General John C. Brown, Brigadier General Carter, Manigault, Quarles, Cockrell and Scott, and Brigadier General Gordon cap- tured.
That there were so many general officers killed and wounded speaks well for their courage and bravery. It shows they did not shirk their duty in time of danger.
If General Hood had not brought on the fight at Franklin he could have had the town next morning without the loss of a man, as General Scofield merely made a stand there to save his wagon train. His intention was to withdraw the army from Franklin at dark and proceed to Nashville, but Hood's attack, of course, changed that part of the program. However, at midnight, the battle being over, Scofield withdrew and led his army towards Nashville, and Hood, with his badly cut-up army, limped along after him in a few hours.
To sum up the matter, two mistakes were made in this cam- paign. Hood made a blunder at Spring Hill in not striking Sco- field when he had the opportunity, and someone made a big mistake at Franklin in keeping those brigades out in front of us too long.
It might have caused us to suffer a disastrous defeat. It was a bad beginning, but rounded up all right for our side in the end, except those of us who were prisoners.
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We were up against a hard proposition, and it did not take us very long to realize it. That night after we got back around the prisoners' fire, the rebs seemed very much elated, boasting what they had done, and what they were going to do. They really seemed to think they had won quite a victory.
They told me they were going on to take Nashville and I,ouis- ville, and in reply I told them they would run against a snag before they got Nashville, not to mention Louisville, and I am under the impression that they found out that I was right in the wind-up.
When daylight came, and they began to find out the heavy losses they had met with, they looked pretty blue over it. That put a stop to their boasting.
General Hood had a mania for rushing his men into slaughter pens, and he certainly had it bad at Franklin, November 30th, 1864.
CHAPTER XIX.
Battle of Franklin (Continued)
A Few Incidents, and Then Farewell to Company "K" and the Fiftieth-How We Fared Under the Stars and Bars.
I have told in the preceding chapter how at the beginning of the confusion in the center, one glance showed me our colors starting for the second line, but just at that moment my whole attention was drawn to that Johnnie Reb with the big gun, so I did not get to see what was taking place around the flag. But since the war I have seen and talked with Comrade Joseph Cham- berlain of Company "K," who was our color bearer at that time, and he as well as other comrades have told me how near he came to losing the colors, as well as his life, when the break occurred.
He says that when he saw we would have to fall back he started for the second line, with the rebs in hot pursuit. One in particular, more fleet than the others, yelled at Chamberlain two or three times, "Drop that flag, you Yankee son-of-a-gun," and in another second would have run his bayonet through Chamberlain. but just at that moment one of the color guard came to the rescue, fired on Mr. Johnnie, and he fell. Thus was Chamberlain saved, as well as the colors.
This took place between the first and second line, and not far from the second line. This Chamberlain told me himself, that the
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Johnnie would have got him if it had not been for the color guard downing the reb just in the nick of time. This goes to show how determined the Confederates were.
The little break at the center deceived them for a while. They thought they had the Yankees whipped, but before midnight they found out their mistake.
Company "K" captured a Confederate flag that evening at Franklin, but foolishly gave it up to a soldier of some other command, thus losing the credit for its capture.
Corporal Henry Fox of Company "K" was the man that captured it, but in the rush for it the rebs shot him in the left arm, disabling him, so that he handed the flag to Coleman Quinn of Company "K," who it seems did not understand there was any honor connected with a captured flag, so that when another soldier asked him for the flag, he handed it over to him without a word, thus depriving Company "K" of an honor that should have been hers. No doubt the soldier that got the flag told some big story of how he captured it from the enemy.
This happened also close to our second line, and not far from the pike. The rebs ordered Fox to drop the flag and surrender, but he refused, and lost his left arm by it.
Corporal Fox was a good soldier, and so was Quinn, and I am very sorry that they lost the credit of capturing that flag. Someone asked Quinn why he gave it away, and he said he had no use for that old rag.
Of course I did not see this, but those that told me were eye- witnesses, so I will vouch for it being true.
The Confederates were brave and fearless, and the fighting they put up was worthy of a better cause.
As this ended my service with Company "K" and the 50th Ohio, I will here give a short sketch of their service from Frankiin till their muster-out, as I have been told by other comrades, and then bid them good-bye, and proceed to tell my own experience from Franklin till the 21st of the following May, naming other comrades as I pass along that I was closely connected with, during that very eventful period of my life.
The 50th Ohio still remained in the ring, although their num- bers were somewhat reduced after the Battle of Franklin.
They withdrew with the balance of the army to Nashville, Tennessee, and took a part in helping to reduce General Hood's
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army to a frazzle, and joined in pursuing the straggling remnant of it across the Tennessee River.
Lieutenant Pine of Company "K" was wounded at Nashville, from the effects of which he died in a few days: He was a brave officer, and was highly esteemed by both officers and privates. The community in which he resided at the time of his enlistment lost a good citizen and a noble Christian gentleman.
At his death he left a wife and two children to mourn his untimely death. He was cut down in the prime of his manhood. In his church at home he was the leader in song, both in the church and Sunday-school, so he was sadly missed by a large circle of friends at home, as well as in the army.
But he was not the only one that was cut down by the deadly bullets that had the promise of a brilliant future before them. Hundreds, yes thousands of young men, both in the South, as well as the North, had their lives snuffed out in the prime of young manhood, who, had they lived, would have made their mark in the world.
Oh! when will men cease to war with each other? And learn to love peace ?
The Battle of Nashville was the last battle that the 50th Ohio took any part in. They followed the remnant of Hood's army back across the Tennessee River, and at Clifton, Tennessee, the 50th and the 99th Ohio were consolidated, both being small regi- ments, but were known from that on as the 50th Ohio.
They were then put aboard a steamboat and shipped to Cin- cinnati ; then sent by B. & O. Railroad to Washington, D. C., about January 20th, 1865, crossing over the long bridge, and went to Camp Stoneman, where Company "D" presented Captain Car- nahan of their company a fine sword and revolver.
From thence they were shipped to Wilmington, North Caro- lina, where they arrived about the 1st of March; then they marched to Kingston and Goldsborough, where they met General Sherman's army, that had just arrived from Savannah.
This was the first they had seen of any of Sherman's army since they parted in Georgia in the month of October, 1864, the 50th coming back into Tennessee with the 23rd and 4th Corps, and Sherman starting on his famous march to the sea, and then up through the swamps to Goldsborough, North Carolina.
The meeting was an enthusiastic one. The boys were all glad to see their favorite General once more. They were about here
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somewhere when Lee and Johnson surrendered, and joined in the grand jubilee on that occasion.
The 50th was sent to Saulsbury about this time, and while hunting for water in the night were fired on by the citizens from some of the houses, and a number were wounded. Several arrests were made at the time.
. It was at Saulsbury, June 26th, that the regiment was mustered out of the service and sent by the way of Pittsburg to Camp Cleveland, Ohio, and from thence to Camp Denison, Ohio, where, on the 17th of July, they were paid off, discharged and sent home. Thus ended the service of the 50th Ohio Regiment.
While they are not numbered in Fox's fighting regiments, they tried to do what they were ordered to do, and to go wherever they were ordered to go, and this was all that was required of any regiment in the service.
Their loss was 76 killed in battle and 134 died of disease. Being at home when the regiment came to Camp Denison, I went there and saw them and stayed one night with them, but there were so many of the poor boys missing that it was rather a sad meeting. What few of my comrades were left gave me a warm greeting.
Some of them that I saw then and bade them good-bye I have never seen since, and never expect to see them now, till we all meet in that grandest of grand reunions, over the dark river, where God Himself shall be the Supreme Commander.
Many of those that left friends and homes as I did in 1862 are sleeping in unknown graves. Some sleep in the Dark and Bloody Ground of Kentucky, some in fair Tennessee and Georgia, and still others rest on the slimy bottom of the Mississippi River.
A few of us still live at this writing, June 12th, 1905, but our numbers are few; our heads are blossoming for the grave. Soon it will be with us as the poet has said :
.--
"Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the Judgment Day, Sleep those that wore the blue, With those that wore the gray."
When a few of us old comrades chance to meet now and then we have jolly good times, rehearsing what we passed through from 1861 to 1865.
There is a bond between old comrades that nothing but death
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can sever, and if we cheer when we see the old Stars and Stripes floating on high, who has a better right ?- for
"It's us that knew the bitter days, It's us that went to die ; I guess we got a right to shout When Glory flutters by.
"We ain't a standing army now, In fact, we're gray and lame ;
A trifle stiff about the knees, And shakin' in our aim.
"We're getting scarce, but bless your heart, If country called for men,
We'd sign the roll, "Age 21," And save that flag again." -Wallace Irwin, Collier's Weekly, May, 1905.
CHAPTER XX.
Back to Columbia as a Prisoner-Confined in the Old Fort- A Tough March Dixieward.
And now, kind reader, as I have taken leave of Company "K" and the 50th Ohio, let us go back and gather up my end of the thread again, which from now on we will find full of knots and tangles.
In a day or two after the Battle of Franklin the Confederates had us prisoners back in the old fort at Columbia. On our way here we met quite a number of stragglers from General Hood's army, tramping along toward Franklin.
One among the number took a fancy to a new hat I was wear- ing at the time, and as I passed him he made a desperate grab for it, but fortunately he missed it. The guard that was my escort at the time gave him to understand in plain language that I was in his care, and that he did not intend that I should be robbed, while he had charge of me; and further told him his place was up in front, where he would find something else to do besides insulting and robbing prisoners. That was about all that happened worthy of note till we arrived at Columbia, but fearing now I would lose my new hat, I traded it off to a Johnnie for his old one and some cornbread.
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I found among the prisoners the following comrades from Company "K": Andrew J. Punder, Andrew J. Culp, Alexander McCradie, Peter Shilling and Henry Venant. Comrade McCradie had been detailed as a safe guard for a gentleman living in Colum- bia before our retreat, but had come back to the company when we began to fall back.
McCradie now said to me: "I wish I could see Mr. I believe he would get me out of here. And as the citizens visited the fort each day to look at us tame Yanks, McCradie had the good fortune one day of seeing the gentleman, and sure enough he got McCradie out, and took him home with him, and he remained there till after Hood's defeat at Nashville and watched from an upper window and saw the boys in blue take the boys in grey, whirling back through Columbia on their way to Dixie.
After McCradie's discharge from the army, he stayed with this gentleman two years, and had one of his sisters down there awhile. It was lucky for McCradie, seeing the man, as it saved him going to prison with us.
When McCradie learned he was to be taken away from us, he gave me his blanket-or rather, what was left of it. At the Battle of Franklin it had been neatly folded and laid in our rear, just back of our line, and being in that open space between the two lines of battle, it had suffered accordingly.
There was hardly a space in it as large as my two hands but what had been riddled with bullets, but I accepted it gladly, and kept it during my imprisonment. He also gave Comrade Pouder and me his spoon and a three-quart tin bucket that he had bought from a colored man at Columbia. That bucket was treasured by Pouder and me, and it proved to be very convenient for us while in prison, and you may be sure that Comrade Punder and I were very thankful to Comrade McCradie for his thoughtful kindness in willing us such a useful article at that time. I hardly know what Pouder and I would have done without it. That three-quart bucket will come to the front several times in these reminiscences. Watch for it.
.
We had a pretty cold time of it in the old fort. We scarcely got wood enough to cook our scanty rations of cornmeal which .the Johnnies doled out to us.
. We remained till the 14th of December, when we were started out on the march toward Cherokee Station, Alabama, which place we reached on the 21st, being on the tramp eight days. This was
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one of the hardest marches that I ever made. We had all kinds of weather during the time, but rain rather predominated ; mud, water and slush was ankle deep. I make no doubt but what quite a number of the poor boys gave out, and were shot by the guards on, the way, as it was a common incident to hear the report of muskets back in the rear.
Some of the guards were kind-hearted, but it did no good for them to remonstrate with those that were not.
I saw an incident of that kind one day. One guard rebuked another for abusing one of the prisoners, who was just about given out ; the two guards quarreled about it and drew their guns on each other, and for a short time it looked as though they would fire on each other, but finally they separated. What became of the poor prisoner I never knew, but I am satisfied he never got very much further on the road, for it was impossible for him to keep up.
I am very thankful that God gave me strength to keep in my place. A few of the prisoners made their escape on this march; among the number were two commissioned officers of the 50th Ohio; they made their escape in safety, and were welcomed into our lines a few days later.
One of them had been acting as commissary for the prisoners since our capture, but when they called for him to come and draw our rations one evening, he was found to be missing.
I call to mind one night we camped in the woods, and after we had eaten our cornmeal gruel and my comrade Pouder and I were making our bed for the night, we noticed two comrades prepare their bed pretty near the guard line, but we thought nothing of it at the time, but just as, we were about to drop off to sleep we heard a great racket, and the guards on our side of camp opened fire.
Pouder and I raised up to see what the trouble was, and we found that those two comrades had made a break for freedom. I could never learn whether they escaped or not, but think quite likely they did. That would have been the time for Pouder and I to have made a run for it, while the guards' guns on our side of camp, were empty, but we failed to see and grasp the opportunity until it was too late.
After crossing the Tennessee River, we went into camp on the south bank. It had been raining, but turned colder, and there was a little snow fell. There were guards stationed around us from
..
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the river above to the river below us, but none between us and the river.
The Confederates allowed us axes to get wood, as the weather had turned cold so suddenly, and our clothes being wet the change was pretty severe for us. However, having the axes, we soon had pretty good fires going.
Some of us boys talked of making a raft and trying to float by the guards below us, but the weather was so cold we abandoned the idea. If the weather had been warmer, I believe some of us could have made a success of it, for if I mistake not, we had gunboats below us on the Tennessee River at that time.
In one way the night favored us, for it was as dark as a stack of black cats; one could see no distance out on the river, but we were afraid of perishing with the cold, and did not make the attempt, and perhaps it is just as well we did not.
Being very hungry while here, I gathered up some shelled corn off the ground, that some horse or mule had slobbered over, washed it, put it in the three-quart bucket, boiled it and ate it, but I found it pretty tough chewing. It made my jaws tired. However, it did to fill up on.
Pouder and I made our bed that night on a brush pile, and during the night the river rose, and in the morning when we awoke we found the water all up under our bed. If the night had been an hour longer the water would have reached our bodies.
Ät Cherokee Station we were put aboard platform cars, and after a very slow run we arrived at Corinth, Mississippi, on the morning of the 23rd of December." Part of this run, as I now remember it, was made in the night, and as the weather was cold we suffered a great deal from the exposure of riding on the open cars.
I judge it was hard for them to keep up steam, for they would stop every little while from some cause; I don't know what for, unless it was for want of steam. Whenever they would make one of those stops we would all jump off the cars, and the guards would kindle fires. If they could find nothing else to burn, they would set fire to the broom sage grass along the road and that would blaze up and throw out a little warmth, enough to keep us from freezing.
The guards really did not seem to pay much attention to us, and I know I thought it would be an easy matter to give them the slip, but I don't believe any of the boys tried it. If they did,
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I heard nothing about it. It was rather too cold to make the attempt.
When I look back through the years to that memorable march from Columbia, Tennessee, to Cherokee, Alabama, through the mud, snow and rain in the bleak month of December, 1864, I wonder how I ever kept up in my place in the ranks. Then, too, the exposure of riding on platform cars from Cherokee to Corinth that bitter cold night-it was certainly very trying on the nerves.
But I was in the heyday of youth, and was in the best of health.
Coupled with this, I felt that our cause was just and right, and never for a moment doubted but what we would conquer in the end. A something within me seemed to say: "Do not give up ; do not despair; bear your burdens bravely ; keep in good heart and spirits ; you shall yet be welcomed back into the family circle. Put your trust in God ; do not let these trials overwhelm you ; your life is in God's hands, and is safe."
Thus was I buoyed up with hope, and never once doubted but what I would return in safety to my old Kentucky home.
But many of the poor boys did not have this hope within them and gave way to grief and homesickness, and the trials and hard- ships that came to them soon took them over the Dark River of Death.
We remained at Corinth only one day and night. On Decem- ber 24th we were put aboard some box cars and shipped to Meridian, Mississippi, arriving there on Christmas night, spending Christmas Day on the cars, and our Christmas dinner was raw corn, of which there was plenty at the stations along the road. We found it a very poor substitute for turkey.
· At Meridian we were placed in a stockade, with guards thrown around us. We fared very well here. We drew a quart of corn- meal for a day's ration; drew a little beef or pork; some days, spare ribs and a few black peas.
I had gotten hold of some Confederate money, and when we got the spare ribs I bought some sweet potatoes, and baked them · in an oven that we drew and we enjoyed eating sweet potatoes and spare ribs immensely.
Sweet potatoes were plentiful here, and we could buy all we wanted from the guards, if we had the money. If I remember rightly, I think we drew a small allowance of chewing tobacco. While here also, two prisoners made their escape by climbing the
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