USA > Tennessee > History of the Twentieth Tennessee regiment volunteer infantry, C.S.A > Part 31
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283
25
126
-
53-3
49th Virginia
Fair Oaks
424
32
170
22
52.8
29th Mississippi
Chickamauga
368
38
156
-
52.7
-
29
124
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
98
24
39
20th Tennessee
-
-
162 -
9th Georgia
340
27
27
115
48
54.2
335
26
168
- 57.9
18th Georgia
16th Alabama
414
25
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400
35
350
63.7
240
366 HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH TENNESSEE REGIMENT
Regiment.
Battle.
No. En- gaged.
Killed.
ed.
ing.
Cent.
12th Alabama
Fair Oaks
408
59
156
52.6
7th South Carolina
Antietam
268
23
117
52.2
58th Alabama
Chickamauga
288 . 25
124
51.7
7th Texas
Raymond
306
22
136
51.6
6th South Carolina
Fair Oaks
521
88
181
51.6
15th Georgia
Gettysburg
335
19
152
-
51
IIth Alabama
Glendale
357
49
I21
II
50.7
17th Georgia
Manassas
200
IO
91
- 50.5
37th Georgia
Chickamauga
391
I9
I68
7 50.1 .
3rd North Carolina Gettysburg
312
29
127
- 50
The Federal forces in this war were 2,760,000. Of this num- ber, 464,000 were from south of Mason and Dixon's line, to say nothing of the 13,655 that went from the State of Delaware. There were also in the Federal army 183,000 Germans, 165,000 Irish, and fifty-odd thousand of other nationalities, making at least 400,000 foreigners in the Federal service. Add together the 464,000 from the South and the 400,000 foreigners, and you will have 864,000, which was 264,000 more soldiers than the South had, without enlisting from any Northern State a single native born American.
These remarkable records show that there were at least sixty regiments on each side that lost from 50 to 90 per cent., while at the great battle of Waterloo, one of the fifteen decisive battles of the world, which decided the fate and changed the geography of Europe, the loss on one side was 25 per cent., and on the other 32 per cent.
At Gettysburg, Lee had about 60,000 and Meade 82,000 in the fight, with the sixth corps in reserve. Meade fought behind breastworks about half of the time, and the losses on each side were about 23,000, total, 46,000 or 32 per cent.
At the great battle of Leipzig, Napoleon had 175,000 men, and the allies on the first day had 275,000, and the next day were reinforced to 330,000, with a loss on each side of 40,000.
Perhaps the bloodiest battle that was ever fought since gun- powder was invented was the Battle of Borodino, fought between the French and the Russians, with 130,000 on each side, and it is said that 60,000 were killed on this field.
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Wound- Miss-
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REGIMENTAL HISTORY
We have shown the greatest losses of the bloodiest battles, and the greatest of a number of regiments, but the greatest loss of any regiment in ancient or modern wars was that of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina at Gettysburg. It went into the three days' engagement with 820 men, had 86 killed and 502 wounded on the first day. On the third day it went into Pickett's charge with a remnant of 216 men, and came out with only eighty officers and men, making a total loss of ninety per cent.
One company of this glorious regiment, commanded by Cap- tain Tuttle, went into this battle with three officers and eighty- four men, and came out with only one officer and one man.
The Old North State should erect a mounment to this regi- ment if it bankrupted her .State treasury.
The war has been over for forty years. The Union is restored, slavery is gone, and the South does not want it restored, but the reserved rights of the States still live, and we who fought on the Southern side have not lost all.
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PART IV.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ALEX. P. STEWART.
General Alexander P. Stewart was born in Rogersville, Haw- kins county, East Tennessee, Oct. 2, 1821; was reared near Winchester, Tenn., and was appointed a cadet to West Point in 1838, by Hopkins L. Turney, a Congressman from that district. He graduated from that institution in 1842, and was assigned to the Third Artillery.
A. P. Stewart had as his classmates young men who figured very prominently in our Civil War. Those who fought on the Northern side were Gen. U. S. Grant, Gen. John Pope, Gen. John Newton, Gen. Abner Doubleday, and Gen. W. S. Rosecrans ; and those who fought on the Southern side were Gen. G. W. Smith, Gen. James Longstreet, Gen. R. H. Anderson, Gen. Mans- field Lovell, and Gen. Lafayette McLaws. Gen. A. P. Stewart had as his roommates John Pope and James Longstreet.
One year after his assignment to the artillery, he was sent back to West Point as assistant Professor of Mathematics, but two years afterward he resigned this position May 31, 1845, on account of poor health. He afterward accepted the chair of Mathematics and Experimental Philosophy in the Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tenn., which he held for four years, and in 1854-55 he occupied the same chair in the University of Nash- ville.
At the breaking out of our Civil War in 1861, Professor Stewart offered his services to his State. Gov. Isham G. Harris was then organizing a regiment of artillery to the command of which Governor Harris appointed John P. McCowan colonel, Milton Hayes lieutenant-colonel, and A. P. Stewart major.
After the secession of the State of Tennessee, June 8, 1861, the Army of Tennessee was transferred to the Confederate ser- vices ; and Major Stewart was sent to different parts of the State establishing camps. In the latter part of the summer of 1861,
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HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH TENNESSEE REGIMENT
he was ordered to Camp Randolph, on the Mississippi River, to instruct the raw recruits in drilling.
He was the first to occupy Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Mo., and afterward commanded the heavy batteries at Columbus, Ky., while the battle of Belmont was going on, and it was said that the shells from his guns confused Grant's forces to such an extent as to cause many of them to retreat to their boats.
Major Stewart was promoted to brigadier-general in the Con- federate Army Nov. 8, 1861, and commanded a brigade in Gen. Chas. Clark's division of Polk's corps at the battle of Shiloh. He also commanded a brigade in Cheatham's division, Polk's corps, in the Kentucky campaign, and in the battles of Perryville and Murfreesboro, and after the Confederate Army fell back to Tulla- homa and Shelbyville. On June 2, 1863, A. P. Stewart was pro- moted to major-general, and it was his division that did most of the fighting at Hoover's Gap. This was the first fighting that the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment, under the gallant Brig .- Gen. W. B. Bate, had done under Maj .- Gen. A. P. Stewart.
At Chickamauga, on Saturday evening, this grand old hero, with the three brigades of Brown, Bate, and Clayton, broke the Federal left center for the first time it was broken; and in that desperate charge Bate's brigade, in which was the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment, carried their colors farther to the front than any command on that bloody day.
On the Georgia campaign, near New Hope church, this grand old soldier, with his single division, met "fighting Joe Hooker" with his corps, and repulsed every assault, and made it so hot for them that the Yankees called the place "Hell's Hole." This stubborn stand of Stewart's saved Stevenson's division from being captured.
On June 14, 1864, Lieutenant-General Polk was killed on Pine Mountain, and on June 23, A. P. Stewart was promoted to lieutenant-general and took charge of Polk's corps, which he commanded during the remainder of the Georgia campaign.
When Hood came into Tennessee, his three corps commanders were A. P. Stewart, Stephen D. Lee, and B. F. Cheatham. It was the corps of Stewart and Cheatham with one division of Lee's corps, that fought the battle of Franklin. Stewart's corps
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
was composed of the divisions of French, Walthall, and Loring, in which he took much pride.
This battle-scarred soldier, after the Tennessee campaign, fol- lowed Joe Johnston into the Carolinas, and before the battle of Bentonville all of the infantry that composed the Army of Ten- nessee, which was 8,731 effective men, were reorganized and put under command of Lieut .- Gen. A. P. Stewart, and nobly did he, in the last battle of the war (Bentonville), repulse and force back superior numbers of the enemy.
He accepted his parole of honor with General Joe Johnston, and returned to his beloved Tennessee, to take up anew his scholarly pursuits, and in 1874 became Chancellor of the Univer- sity of Mississippi. In 1890 he was appointed one of the park commissioners of the battlefield of Chickamauga, on which he has served to the satisfaction of both the Blue and the Gray.
GENERAL JOHN C. BRECKINRIDGE.
John Cabell Breckinridge was born Jan. 21, 1821, near Lexing- ton, Ky. His grandfather was a United States Senator, and at one time United States Attorney-General.
John C. was educated at Center College, Danville, Ky., and went through a law course at Transylvania Institute. On his graduation in the law he moved to Burlington, Ia., but remained there only a short time, returning to Lexington, where he soon built up a fine law practice.
About this time war broke out with Mexico, when John C. joined a Kentucky regiment and was elected major. The record does not show that he did much fighting, as nearly his whole time was taken up as counsel for General Pillow, who had gotten into trouble with his associates and superior officers, and had reached the point of litigation.
After the Mexican War, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky, and was elected to a seat in the lower house of the Kentucky Legislature. In 1851 he was elected to Congress, and again in 1853. President Pierce offered him the position of Minister to Spain, but he declined. At the National Democratic Convention
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HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH TENNESSEE REGIMENT
,held at Cincinnati in 1856, John C. Breckinridge was put on the ticket as a running mate of James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, and was elected Vice-President of the United States.
In April; 1860, the National Democracy met at Charleston, S. C. The Northern wing wanted Stephen A. Douglass and the Southern wing John C. Breckinridge, as candidates for the Pres- idency of the United States. They adjourned without a nomina- tion, and later the Northern wing nominated Douglass, and the Southern wing Breckinridge. A fuller description of this is given in another part of this work.
After his defeat for the Presidency in 1860, he was almost immediately taken up by the Kentucky Legislature and elected United States Senator to succeed the Hon. J. J. Crittenden. This position he held until December 4, 1861, when he resigned and joined the Confederate forces under Albert Sidney Johnston. He was at once made a brigadier-general, and commanded Johnston's reserve division at the battle of Shiloh. The Twentieth Ten- nessee Regiment was in Statham's brigade of Breckinridge's divi- sion. After the battle of Shiloh and the retreat of the Confed- erates back to Corinth and thence to Tupelo, Breckinridge's division was sent to Vicksburg, and after the first seige of that place, Breckinridge, with a handful of men, went by way of Jack- son and Tangipahoa and attacked General Williams at Baton Rouge, a full account of which is given in our Regimental His- tory.
Breckinridge was made a major-general after the battle of Shiloh, and after the battle of Baton Rouge, his division was sent to Murfreesboro. In that great battle his division fought near the Cowan House on the first day, and on Friday evening of the third day he with his gallant division made that ill-advised and never-to-be-forgotten charge, that cost him nearly half of his gallant command. A full description of this is given in the statement as to the battle of Murfreesboro.
After the battle of Murfreesboro, Bragg's army fell back to Shelbyville and Tullahoma, and while at Tullahoma, after the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment had been in his division since the battle of Shiloh, Mrs. Breckinridge made a stand of colors of her wedding dress, and requested the General to present it to
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
his favorite regiment. The Twentieth Tennessee was its recip- ient. If a regiment ever worshiped a division commander, the Twentieth Tennessee idolized Gen. John C. Breckinridge, and this admiration we thought was returned to its fullest extent.
It was here that the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment was sepa- rated from its idol, and put in the division of that old war horse, A. P. Stewart.
General Breckinridge afterward commanded a division in the great battle of Chickamauga, and it was the brilliant fighting of the divisions of Breckinridge and Cleburne on Sunday morning that forced Rosecrans to reinforce his left so hurriedly that he left a gap in his line near his center, when Longstreet poured seven brigades through it, which made it possible for Bragg to gain that great victory. Breckinridge fought with distinguished courage at Missionary Ridge; afterward he was ordered to Virginia, and in the spring of 1864 he met General Sigel· near New Market, and literally demolished him. In the latter part of 1864 he in turn met General Sheridan, who had a superior force, in the Shanandoah Valley and was defeated. Breckinridge was with General Lee at the Wilderness.
The spring of 1865 found John C. Breckinridge Secretary of War of the Confederate Government, and when President Davis and. his cabinet left Richmond and reached Georgia, General Breckinridge with his son Cabell, with Colonel Wood, who was a nephew of President Zachary Taylor, and a Colonel Wilson of his staff, left the Presidential party, and on horseback went to Florida Keys, and thence sailed for Havana, and from there to London. He remained abroad until 1868, when he returned to America and lived in retirement in Kentucky until his death, which occurred in Lexington, Ky., May 17, 1875.
MAJOR-GENERAL WM. B. BATE.
Major-General William Brimage Bate was born in Sumner county, near Castalian Springs, Oct. 7, 1826. Early in his youth he manifested a bold and adventurous spirit, which later charac- terized his career as a Confederate soldier. Leaving school to
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HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH TENNESSEE REGIMENT
become a clerk on a steamboat plying between Nashville and New Orleans, he subsequently enlisted, while in New Orleans, for the Mexican War, and served as a private in a Louisiana regi- ment; and when his term of enlistment expired, he went with the Tennesseans. On his return to Tennessee he was elected to the Legislature by his admiring friends in his native county of Sumner, and after this he began the study of law in the famous school at Lebanon. He was graduated professionally in 1852, and then made his home at Gallatin, the scene of his earlier efforts in the profession which has been honored by his intellectual ability and manly worth.
In 1854 he was elected attorney general for the Nashville district for a term of six years. That calm, masterful, and judicious leadership, for which his life has been distinguished, was already manifest in the political field, and having declined congressional honors, his name was put upon the Breckinridge and Lane electoral ticket.
In May, 1861, Tennessee began the official negotiations which promptly resulted in her league with the other Southern States for defense against the war being waged upon them, and Bate entered the military forces as a private. He was speedily pro- moted to captain and then to colonel of the Second Tennessee Infantry Regiment.
His first great battle was at Shiloh, where he shared the work of Cleburne's brigade of Hardee's corps. Bravely leading his regiment in the second charge, through a murderous fire, he fell severely wounded, a minnie ball breaking both bones of his leg and cutting the artery under the knee, disabling him for field service for several months. His horse was killed at the same time. This participation in battle was marked with such gal- lantry that he was mentioned with praise in the reports of Cleburne and Hardee, and on Oct. 3, 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general.
About this time, though unable to return to the field, he was on duty at Huntsville, Ala., and was given temporary command of the district of north Alabama.
In February, 1863, he was again in the field, assigned to the command of Rains' brigade of Polk's corps, and in June, com-
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
manding the Fifty-eighth Alabama, Thirty-seventh Georgia, Fifteenth, Thirty-seventh, and Twentieth Tennessee Regiments and Caswell's Georgia battalion, in the division of Maj -. Gen. A. P. Stewart. He took part in the Tullahoma campaign with much credit, fighting the battle of Hoover's Gap on the 23rd of June, 1863, driving the enemy back and holding at bay the Federal advance. In this action he was in command of the Con- federate forces, Stewart not arriving on the field until nightfall. He was also wounded in this battle, a flesh wound in the left leg which he bound up, and remained on the field directing the battle until night had come and firing had ceased.
According to Rosecrans' report, Bate delayed his army at this point thirty-six hours, preventing the Federals from getting possession of Bragg's communications and forcing him to disas- trous battle. General Bate and his men took a prominent part in the fighting at Chickamauga. They fired the first gun in this his- toric struggle on the banks of the "River of Death," driving the Federal guard from Thedford's Ford in preparation for the Con- federate advance. Crossing the stream the next morning, they went into action, and drove the enemy back toward the position subsequently held by General George H. Thomas, the "Rock of Chickamauga.
As a result of this first day's fight, the brigade was fully armed with Enfield rifles, taken from the enemy. About one o'clock Saturday evening Stewart threw his division against the enemy, the brigade of Brown followed that of Clayton, and the indomit- able Bate pressed on, driving the enemy beyond the Chattanooga road. During this charge, which was truly heroic, General Bate and several of his staff had their horses killed, the second lost by General Bate that day. In the evening he again led his brigade in an action of the division near Kelly's house, routing the enemy and capturing many prisoners. In this action General Bate lost the third horse in that two days' battle, and it is worthy of note that General Bate was still on a crutch, the result of his Shiloh wound, and had to be assisted in mounting his horse. Finally the Eufaula artillery, attached to his brigade, fired the last gun in the battle on Sunday evening.
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HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH TENNESSEE REGIMENT
At Missionary Ridge, commanding Breckinridge's division, he was first on duty in the trenches at the foot of the ridge, and later held a position on the crest of the ridge joining Bragg's headquarters, just east and covering the road leading up the hill.
Fighting in a position where the whole magnificent panorama of the overwhelming army advancing upon them was visible, his troops bravely held their position until both their left and right were turned, and the enemy firing down their flanks, when they fell back three or four hundred yards, and formed in the edge of the woods, which checked the headlong advance of the victorious Federals.
General Bragg reported General Bate among those distin- guished for coolness, gallantry, and successful conduct through the engagements and in the rear guard on the retreat.
He continued in division command after this battle, the division being composed of his own brigade, Lewis' Kentucky brigade, and Finley's Florida brigade, and was commissioned as major general Feb. 23, 1864. Throughout the Georgia campaign he commanded a division of Hardee's corps, so often and so bravely in action, in that "hundred days' fight." At Resaca he hand- · somely repulsed the enemy from his front; at Dallas, he vig- orously assailed Logan's intrenched Fifteenth Federal Corps with his single division; took part in the battle of the 20th of July, and on July 22 led the flank movement under Hardee, which brought on that famous battle of Atlanta. On the 6th of August, General Bate fought, with his division alone, the battle of Utoy Creek, and checked the right flank movement of the enemy around Atlanta. In this he drove back the Federal advance line, and captured several flags, severely punishing the enemy. General Bate was again badly wounded, was shot through the knee in this engagement, and was sent to the hospital at Barnesville, Ga., where he remained until Hood's movement in Tennessee.
In the ill-fated campaign under General Hood, which brought General Bate and his men back to their native State, but under cir- cumstances of suffering and disaster, he led his division, now in- cluding Jackson's Georgia brigade, in the place of the Kentuckians, from Florence, Ala .; November 21, he marched with Cheatham's
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
corps to Spring Hill, where he was in readiness for orders to attack ; fought heroicly at Franklin, in which desperate battle many of his men gained the interior of the works and remained there until the Federal retreat.
Next morning he was ordered to go and destroy the block- house on the N. & C. R. R., which he did in co-operation with General Forrest, and then returned to the main army around Nashville. He marched his men, a fourth of them barefooted, over the icy roads to Nashville. Even under such circumstances his troops bravely took position, entrenched as best they could in such weather, and made a gallant fight against the Federal assault.
After the supporting troops were driven back, he rode along his advance line urging his men to hold fast, though under fire from three sides. His Tennesseans at the "Angle" were almost annihilated; two Georgia regiments fought until nearly sur- rounded ; all three brigade commanders were captured.
The Army of Tennessee after the battle of Franklin, while under General Hood, was not what it had been. The folly of going into the open jaws of a powerful enemy with a handful of soldiers, less than one to five, was criticised and condemned alike by officers and men ; and waiting for such numbers to get around the flank and rear that they might the more easily destroy this remnant of the Army of Tennessee, seemed a combination of folly and madness. So when General Thomas did move with his vast army on flank and front at the same time, the expected came, and this remnant of the Army of Tennessee was driven from their lines and almost annihilated. It swept back, however, in regular form south of the Tennessee River, and finally turned up in the early spring in North Carolina under its old commander, General Johnston, and at Bentonville, N. C., fought its last battle. In this, its dying agony, General Bate was a conspicuous figure. He commanded that day, both his own and Cleburne's divisions as a corps, assailed the lines of the enemy strengthened by temporary works, and overran them, driving them back and capturing many prisoners. It was said that his were the last guns of the Army of Tennessee that found echo in battle. He stood here literally in the " last ditch."
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HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH TENNESSEE REGIMENT
General Bate returned to his home in Nashville after the war, and enjoyed a lucrative practice in the law; was twice elected governor of the State of Tennessee, making a reputation of being one of the most capable and honest governors of the State, and has since been sent thrice to the United States Senate by an appreciative people that he had so fully and honestly served.
GENERAL F. K. ZOLLICOFFER.
Brig .- Gen Felix Kirk Zollicoffer was born May 19, 1812, in Maury county, Tennessee. His father, John Jacob Zollicoffer, moved from North Carolina, and settling on the rich blue-grass lands of Maury county, was a prosperous farmer who divided his time between attention to his farm duties and literary pursuits. George Zollicoffer, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this article, was a captain in the North Carolina Line in the Revolu- tionary War. The family came to America from Switzerland, and is of an ancestry ennobled by a decree of Emperor Rudolphus II., dated Oct. 19, 1528. A member of it named John Conrad Zollicoffer, who was an officer in the French army, threw up his commission (being furnished with a letter from Silas Deane, our first commissioner to the French court), and accepted a commis- sion from the governor of North Carolina, and served in the Revolutionary War until he was taken prisoner, being afterward released on parole. This old baronial family still preserve a faithful record of their lineage, and it is their custom to keep up a constant correspondence with the American branch of the family. Every marriage, birth, and death in the male branch of the family is promptly forwarded, and recorded in the genealog- ical table in Switzerland. The oldest living male member of the family in this country is by courtesy called "the Baron," and is in regular receipt of a yearly annuity from Switzerland.
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