USA > Tennessee > The military annals of Tennessee. Confederate. First series: embracing a review of military operations, with regimental histories and memorial rolls, V.2 > Part 49
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While crossing the fields to the required position the battery was conducted by a staff officer of Gen. Bragg's. The conducting officer, riding in front of the cl- umn, discovered eight or ten infantry-men cowering on the ground behind ofl logs as if to avoid the flying shot of the enemy; whereupon he actually halted the battery in his disgust at such condnet, rode among the awe-struck ereat- ures, slapping them with the side of his sword, and demanded their names an 1 commands. They meekly began to answer such and such company, regimen:, brigade, etc., while the staff officer ordered some of the Lieutenants of the halted battery to take paper and record in writing the belongings of the craven wretche-, intending to court-martial them for cowardice; but a sudden increase in the storm of hostile missiles made the dastards duck behind their logs again, and the staff officer, giving the matter up as a bad job, ordered the battery forward at a trot. The degrading scene was thus quickly changed to one of pomp, glory, and de-
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struction suitable to war. The log-intrenched men were not Tennesseans so far as they reported, we are glad to say.
The guns now stood in battery across the Nashville road, almost facing the so- called " round forest," slightly protected by rising ground. An advance was or- dered, and on reaching the summit of the slight elevation in front, the enemy's concentrated artillery opened fire, as by this time their artillery had become massed on this road by compulsion of Hardee's movement. The position was at once seen to be untenable, and the battery was withdrawn to its former place, slightly covered. One, gun-carriage was disabled by the enemy's shot in the movement. Corp. George Graff, standing by the side of his gun, was instantly killed by a cannon-shot striking him in the breast. Sergeant Wilson was wound- ed in the face and limbs by gravel thrown by shell bursting in the ground at his feet. Presently the enemy seemed advancing, and during the momentary absence of the Captain, Lieut. Marshall ordered the battery to commence firing. The guns were at once shotted and the lanyard in hand, when Gen. Breckinridge came rid- ing from the rear through the battery, and gazing intently to the front, as if to as- certain what was doing among the enemy. The Lieutenant, preferring to have orders, asked Gen. Breckinridge if he should fire. "Yes, sir; load and fire," he quickly answered. The Lieutenant repeated the order, and the number fours in- stantly placed the friction primers in the vents, when the General called out to wait, and spurred forward, warning stragglers to clear the way and let the artil- lery fire. The way was quickly cleared and firing began. This attracted the combined fire of all the convenient opposite batteries; but the Confederate bat- tery was protected a little by the ground, as before stated. There was now a ter- rific concert of shot and shell in the air over the battery, when Governor Harris,* volunteer aid on Gen. Bragg's staff, appeared and said that the General ordered the firing to cease, and also that he was to report the name of the battery firing without orders. Gen. Bragg, with an escort of probably a Lin dred and fifty mounted men, was sitting on horseback directly in rear of the battery, and a good deal exposed. The firing was no doubt unnecessary at that time. Governor Harris kindly forgot to report "the name of the battery firing without orders," and no reprimand was ever given. Before sunset the battery was ordered to move to the Wilkinson pike to a point about half a mile to the front of its former position-the enemy's right flank having been swept away. Here, on the right of the pike as one faces to the north-west, the battery bivouacked for the night after the first day's fighting, and spent the next day skirmishing with the enemy's guns stationed near the "round forest," at long range. No important movements, however, were made by either side that day, the 1st of January, 1863. On the night of the 1st the battery returned to a point near the Nashville pike, and
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* Governor Isham G. Harris, like the phantom ship, generally appeared when a storm was at hand. His advent on the General's staff came to be pretty well understood to portend an action of the first magnitude. If advice were wanted, of course he was competent to give it; and in dangerous service of the staff everybody know that he was intrepid, for he had the temperament of a hero. Old delegates to the army convention at Winchester. when Hon. R. L. Caruthers was nominated for Governor, will remember Governor Harri-'s magnificent and impas-ioned speech asking the members to unite and make the nomination unanimous. Of course it was so voted, and the nominee was ultimately elected ; but the two years of his term of office expired before he could be inaugurated, as the enemy held the capital and most of the territory of the State.
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bivenacked in line with Maney's brigade. The weather had changed from fair to rainy. Before light on the following morning the battery was ordered to advance on the pike about four hundred yards, then turn to the right into an open tin- bered field which was bounded in the rear by a bluff of Stone's River, where the horses were sheltered; but the surface of the ground where the guns stood was on a level with and square in front of the "round forest," distant about six hun- dred yards across a cotton-field. Several of the enemy's batteries were stationed in and about the "round forest." The spot on which the battery was placed had, on the first day of the battle, been the scene of a desperate conflict between some of Breckinridge's command and the enemy, the latter then occupying the position where the battery now stood. The Federals were driven from the place, and their dead still lay in the open wooded field, about the railroad, and all the way through the cotton-field to the "round forest." The place was horrible. The i orses shied and snorted as they picked their way among the prostrate bodies in the early morning darkness. But here four batteries took their position- Carnes's, Melanchthon Smith's, Scott's, and Stanford's; a fifth stood on the same line on the left side of the pike and railroad, which lie close together along here.
All day at short intervals artillery duels were fought, during one of which Sergt. Bailey managed to burst a shell exactly over and only a few feet above one of the enemy's guns which had been very active. The gun was withdrawn after Bailey's shot. About four o'clock in the evening the five batteries were ordered to open fire together and continue a half hour, to make a diversion in favor of an attack to be made by Breckinridge farther to the right. The enemy, however, had enough artillery to reply to the five batteries and repulse Breckinridge also. In this attack fell the promising young Captain of artillery, Wright, commanding a battery in Breckinridge's division, and his guns were taken by the enemy. He was a gallant officer, and seemed to envy Carnes the privilege of confronting the enemy first. He was a son of Judge Wright, of Memphis. After dark the bat- tery was withdrawn to its position of the previous night, and in the morning re- turned, before light, to the spot occupied the previous day. It was now found imperative to bury the dead lying about the position and its vicinity. Firing was not so constant as on the previous day, and the battery men audaciously crept nearly across the cotton-field in front for the purpose of robbing the slain of the enemy whose blue overcoats thickly dotted the field in every direction. Knives, bridles, halters, pipes, and the like, were the usual and lawful prizes.
On the fourth day of the battle Carnes's Battery alone occupied the position, ยท but late in the evening a regiment of Chalmers's brigade formed close in front of the guns, and though the light was dim and waning, the enemy seemed to think an attack was threatened, and they opened a rapid and heavy artillery fire. At every shot that whizzed overhead the newly-arrived regiment instantly, and every man of it simultaneously, bowed low, with admirable precision and punc- tuality. The regiment soon sought a loss conspicuous parade-ground. One artil- lery-man-private Gibbs, of Carnes's Battery-and one infantry-man only were killed at this time. The battery was forbidden to return the fire.
"No parapets of importance were constructed at this position; they had not yet become the fashion in the army. About eight o'clock in the evening Capt. Carnes received orders to withdraw his battery as silently as possible, and report to Gen. Cheatham, in Murfreesboro. The movement could not be made in silence, and 52
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the woods and air again became resonant with shot and shell, but no casualties occurred.
In the beginning of the action on Wednesday, Lient. Vanvleck had been or- dered to take charge of several teams of mules, ready harnessed, for the purpose of seenring captured guns and conveying them to the depot as soon as possible, that they might be sent at once beyond recapture. As the Confederate left rolled the Federal right from its position Vanvleck followed with his harnessed innle- teams, and, hitching to the captured artillery, he thus dragged forty of the ene- my's guns to the depot, and they were safely deposited in Atlanta before the four days' battle closed. While in the execution of this duty on the field, among the wounded and dead of both sides, and while he stood still for a moment-for he was on foot-observing his assistants in their work, an elderly Federal soldier lying on the ground near by, and whom he had supposed to be dead, addressed him, requesting to be raised up and turned so that he could see another Federal soldier lying dead behind him. Vanvleck carefully raised and turned the man, as requested, and for a minute or so the elderly soldier gazed on the deceased younger one in silence, and then, without a word of comment, told Vanvleck to lay him down again as before. The Lieutenant proceeded with his teams to the depot, and when he returned to the field for the next installment of guns the old soldier was dead also, apparently not having moved after being laid down by his compassionate enemy in gray. The silence of the old soldier commands a certain respect, a chord of sympathy is touched, and one is apt to forget, even in its very presence, the mighty tragedy of contending thousands in the sublime pathos of the death of two humble, nameless combatants. Vanvleck always related the circumstance with profound emotion. He himself was a brave soldier and a good officer. He fell at Chickamauga.
On the night of the 3d of Jannary the battery retired from Murfreesboro, on the road to Shelbyville, three miles from which place, on the west side of Duck River, camping-ground was selected. The horses had not been nnharnessed in a week, nor had the men washed their faces probably in three weeks; but in a few days the command had fully recuperated, and was ready for another joust with the enemy. The ladies of Tennessee knew how to flatter a soldier most exqui- sitely by a mere look. The young officers found delightful society in Shelbyville; and on the roads in the country whenever a lady met a soldier she was able, in some subtle but positive manner, to let him know that she considered him her knight. Correspondents of the Northern papers often said that the ladies of the South, especially of Virginia and Tennessee, were keeping up the war. When the ladies of Macon, Ga., gave a military ball to the army men about town, in the winter of 1864, Lieut. Cockrill was present. He said afterward that when he. * read the legend in evergreen on the wall of the ball-room opposite the entrance, " Welcome, ye brave heroes of many battle-fields," he felt inexpressibly compli- mented. How admirable is woman's intuition !
In March the battery moved to Tullahoma to find better grazing, and for awhile camped on the same spot as on its return from Kentucky. In April the command visited Fayetteville, in Lincoln county, in search of better fare for horses; but as after three weeks' trial there seemed to be no considerable improvement, the bat- tery returned toward Shelbyville, and was so fortunate as to find very desirable camping ground about four miles west of the town. Here the company remained,
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REGIMENTAL HISTORIES AND MEMORIAL ROLLS.
almost in luxury, till the middle of June, and then moved to a situation almuos: as good about two miles from town, on the east side. While on this ground the battery was ordered to form one of the three sides of a square to witness the exe- cution of a deserter. The poor fellow's infantry companions sung a hymn, Gen. Wright shook hands with him, then a volley, the square dissolved and the parade ended. Not a man was present except those compelled by military anthority.
On the night of the 30th of June, about one o'clock, a Lientenant of the bat- tery imagined he heard a dull noise, as if produced by the tramp of multitudes; and, being on duty as officer of the day, he stepped out to the road, about two hundred yards off, and saw a dense column of infantry passing. On inquiry he . found it was Cheatham's division going toward Shelbyville. Presently the battery was ordered to hold itself in readiness to move, and about sunrise the artiller; joined the column, now comprising the main body of the army, and passed through Shelbyville and on to Tullahoma. The merchants of Shelbyville, like everybody else, were taken by surprise, and stood in the streets by the side of the moving column, offering their goods at any price the soldiers chose to pay; but business was light, as the medium of exchange was wanting.
The army was leaving Tennessee, not to return again till the disastrous campaign of Hood. In front of Tullahoma line of battle was formed, and some skirmish- ing of artillery took place in the midst of a violent thunder-storm. On the night of the 1st of July the battery arrived at Cowan, and on the following day as -. cended the mountain by University Place, and passed the night in the road on the plateau, the whole army crowding along in the vicinity and being somewhat retarded by the engineer corps, which had undertaken to bivouac right on the road in front. Early in the morning the descent began, and the road to the mouth of Battle Creek was taken, where a pontoon-bridge had been laid for the army across the Tennessee just above the mouth of the creek. A freshet had broken the bridge about its center, and about half the boats were on either shore of the stream. The engineer officers seemed unable to get the bridge across again, and Capt. Carnes, whose naval education served a good purpose here, took charge by order of Gen. Cheatham and placed the bridge in position. The troops began crossing over late in the day, after a most vexatious delay, with the enemy in rear and a broken bridge and swollen stream in front. The battery crossed, and went into position on commanding ground just above the bridge, where it remained two days covering the crossing. The weather was intensely hot, and some of the horses were foundered. The guns were dismounted and sent to Chattanooga on flats from Shellmound, which is two miles from the river. Two days afterward the men and horses arrived, and the battery was encamped in the grove where it had stood the year before on its way to Kentucky.
The fall of Vicksburg was announced. Forty thousand soldiers were in and about Chattanooga, and yet for twelve hours after the announcement of this blow to the Confederate cause almost perfect silence reigned over the multitudinous throng. Men reflected.
After a few days the battery found better camping-ground three miles out on the Russville road. Men and horses were soon restored to their wonted tine con- dition. Nineteen men from Pritchard's battery, which had been disbanded, were now assigned to Carnes's Battery, raising the latter to its usual complement of one hundred or one hundred and ten men. Lieut. Lewis Bond was promoted Captain
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of ordnance just before the departure from Shelbyville, and assigned to duty on Gen. Jackson's staff. The commissioned officers now in charge of the battery were Capt. Carnes and Lieuts. Marshall, Cockrill, and Vanvleck.
In August the company moved to a point fonr miles above Chattanooga, on the Harrison road, and remained there a week engaged in target-practice. The men and guns behaved as well as could be desired. Early in September the battery moved to a new camp-ground in the woods three miles below the city and half a mile from the base of Lookout Mountain. The enemy was threatening, and the battery moved again into the edge of town. Meantime hostile batteries on the other side of the river shelled the place; and a religious congregation, while listen .- ing to the eloquent Dr. Palmer, was dispersed, though Gen. Cheatham, who was present, advised the people to pay no attention to such wild shooting.
On the. 10th of September Lieut. Marshall was ordered to take a section of the battery and occupy the north-west side of Lookout Mountain, in support of a part of Gen. Preston Smith's division doing picket duty in Lookout Valley. The sec- tion accordingly took position about three-fourths of a mile west of the Craven house, a well-known residence on the mountain, and about two-thirds of the way from the bottom to the top. The position commanded, at easy range, part of the open field between Lookout and Raccoon mountains, the railroad bridge and the wagon-road bridge at the base of Lookout Mountain. On the third day of this duty the enemy's infantry appeared on the plain below, and sought cover in rear of a frame house just across Lookout Creek, about nine hundred yards in a direct line from the artillery picket. The section at once opened fire with solid shot, and afterward with shell, one of which happening to burst in the wall of the build- ing close to the ground, set it on fire directly; for the weather had long been very dry, and the flames soon made the rear untenable-not much of a cover at best- under the plunging fire of the guns. The Federals dispersed as they could, ac- companied by shot and shell till out of range. Gen. Smith was informed by his scouts during the night following that the valley was entirely vacated by the ene- my. A few hours before the firing began the owner of the frame house which was set on fire by a shell had paid the section a visit and requested the gunners to spare his house if possible, a thing which they of course readily promised to do; but the exigencies of the case compelled them to disregard the safety of the house.
On the next day (the 13th) the noise of moving trains in and about Chattanooga could be heard unceasingly at the picket station on the mountain. All night also the same rattling and heavy, continuous rumbling were distinctly audible. An important movement was evidently beginning, and early next morning the section was ordered to rejoin the battery, which was already on the road with the rest of the army for La Fayette, twenty-four miles from Chattanooga. At La Fayette the battery halted two days, and then began a retrograde movement. Po- sitions were often taken as if to receive an enemy. The situation was apparently critical to the last degree. The weather continued clear and dry, and clouds of dust filled the air for many miles in all directions, reciprocally heralding to each other, though vaguely, the positions of the adverse armies.
On the night of the 18th the battery bivouacked on the east side of West Chick- amauga Creek, about three miles south of Lee and Gordon's mill and about elev- en miles from Chattanooga. The fire of skirmishers had been heard all day, and
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at dark the forage-wagons came into camp with several dead soldiers loaded on top of the corn. The greatest battle of the West was at hand.
Early on the morning of the 19th picket-firing began, sometimes rising almost to a roar. The battery was ready and expectant. About nine o'clock. the or- der came to move to the west side of the creek, the crossing of which was made at Hunt's Ford, some two miles above Alexander's bridge, and not more than a mile from the camping-ground of the previous night. Across the creek the bat- tery proceeded down the west side, at a trot where practicable, over not a very smooth road, till it passed beyond Alexander's bridge, a march of about two miles. On both sides of the road sat the soldiers of Longstreet's corps, who had just reached the ground from Dalton, where they arrived early that morning by rail. The soldiers of Longstreet's corps were splendid-looking men, healthy, clean, and well dressed. As the battery, accompanied by Wright's brigade, thundered rapidly over the rough road between the rows of Eastern veterans, the latter fixed a gaze of astonishment upon these the first Western Army men they had yet seen. The Virginians were excusable. The Army of Tennessee never looked worse, while at the same time it was never in better fighting order. But three weeks of maneuvering in the densest dust without washing had conferred the same unin- teresting color upon every thing-man, beast, and material.
The battery moved on at a trot, with Wright's brigade, and inadvertently going too far to the right, ground had to be taken to the left, the column at the same time nearing the enemy's front, but approaching it diagonally. The Federal ar- tillery was doing its best, and the open forest was filled with missiles from which Walker's division had just fled, leaving a gap which Cheatham's brigades were now to occupy. Wright's brigade, at a double-quick the last four hundred yards, approached within perhaps three hundred yards of the enemy's works, and swiftly drew into line of battle, not leaving room for the battery to form in the center of their line as they should have done. Capt. Carnes halted the battery a moment in line close behind the brigade, presuming the usual situation would be accorded the artillery for the protection of its flanks; but the heavy, devastating fire of the enemy forbade the brigade to attend to the rights of the battery. After three of the cannoneers were killed in this awkward situation-two of them being young men of Augusta, Ga., who had been recently enrolled from Pritchard's battery- the Captain, on his own responsibility, ordered the battery forward till it should pass the left flank of Wright's brigade, a movement which was executed at a trot all in plain sight of the enemy's artillery and infantry, who had been in position there since daylight. The command happened to make this movement left in front-or, better stated, celerity of execution demanded that the left should precede the right-so that, as the fire was to be to the right, the teams had merely to wheel to the left when the whole had passed the brigade, and then the battery was in line. A minute or two was thus saved in getting ready to fire. The order to un- limber (which was done by simply unhooking and dropping the trails without re- versing the teamis) and commence firing was obeyed in much less time than we take to relate it, and that too by every piece simultaneously except the right, the ammunition of whose limber-chest had become fast, and for a few seconds resisted all efforts to extricate the cartridges. The limber-chest standing open, and the team not having been reversed, the white pine of the unclosed cover raised ver- tically attracted hundreds of hostile infantry shots, which, passing through the
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wood and puncturing the outside tin, made the chest resemble a huge grater. Three or four men were endeavoring to loosen the ammunition at the same time with their heads over the chest, but strangely enough not one of them was then hit. All the horses of the piece, however, except the wheel-team, were killed before the gun was discharged. The wheel-team were hit, and, springing over the roots of a large tree, turned the limber bottom upward, scattering the ammunition on the ground like a load of apples. The driver, Mathews, thinking the situation desperate, urged on the two wheel-horses, and their speed at once righted the emp- ty limber. Mathews, with his team, escaped further casualties and crossed Alex- ander's bridge, thus saving the only two horses belonging to the battery that sur- vived the battle. Four times a minute for the first three or four minutes, at least, each gun was discharged at very short range, probably two hundred yards; but the battery was a target for the concentrated fire of both the adverse artillery and infantry, since Wright's brigade had disappeared from the right flank, though it had rallied long enough to stand one volley after the battery went into action; but now-that is, eight or ten minutes after the artillery was in line-the whole brigade was out of sight. Probably they did right to leave, for otherwise they would have been annihilated. As it was, they left the ground strewn with their wounded and dead. The battery now stood alone, with no support in sight either on the right or on the left; in fact, there had at no time been any support on the left. Col. John C. Carter, of the Thirty-eighth Tennessee, refused to leave the line with his regiment, and, finding himself'alone, came walking into the battery as if for a social visit. His lavish display of coolness and his intrepidity were in- deed admirable. The enemy, easily perceiving the odd exposure of the artillery, jumped over their works, ran behind a large fallen tree, about a hundred yards farther to the left, lying at right angles to the line of the guns, and, resting their muskets on the fallen tree, poured a heavy fire right across the battery from flank to flank. The left piece, under the personal direction of the Captain, wheeled and gave them several shots, mainly to cover the retreat of the battery men not killed, for it was now evident that the place was untenable. Lieut. Cockrill was serving the guns of his section effectively, though only two or three men remained to each detachment. The right section was playing squarely to the front under com- mand of Lieut. Marshall, who was on foot assisting, for by this time only two of the detachment of the right piece had escaped death or severe wounds. The bat- tery was clearly overpowered. Nineteen of the men were killed dead in their places, and upward of twenty men were wounded, most of whom never resumed service in the artillery. Forty-nine horses were killed in harness. The situation was held about ten minutes after the infantry left us. About the eighth minute . Orderly Sergeant White hurriedly announced to Lieut. Marshall that the enemy were flanking the battery, alluding to the ambush behind the fallen tree before mentioned. Marshall told him to report to the Captain, but the latter was fully cognizant of the fact, and was at that moment training the left piece against the flankers. Lient. A. Vanvleck received several severe wounds at the Captain's side, and while the infirmary corps were trying to bear him to the rear-an addi- tional member being added by the Captain's order to assist, as Vanvleck was a heavy man-he was shot through the breast from side to side, and killed thus in the hands of the litter-bearers. The same shot that killed Vanvleck broke the arm of the man ordered to assist. Sergeant John Thompson was killed by the
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