CHAPTER VI
An Accidental Injury—Shiloh—The “Mark-time” Major.
Our regiment, one night, was ordered out to report at daylight to some point up the Tennessee River, the night being very dark—one of the darkest nights we ever traveled in—and branches and small streams very boggy. Colonel Wharton, at the head of the regiment, was riding a very fast walking horse. We struck many places in these branches where it was only possible for one horse to cross at a time, and Wharton, as soon as across, would strike out in his fast walk, leaving the rest of his command to come on as best they could. This threw the rear end of the regiment considerably behind and we had to lope at full speed to catch up with our file leaders after crossing these bad places. In one of these races to catch up, my horse stumbled and fell, pitching me over his head, with my left arm extended, and I sustained a dislocation of my left arm. Considerably stunned by the fall, and suffering great pain from this dislocation, a comrade was sent back with me to Corinth, where I had a surgeon to replace my arm, with instructions to carry it in a sling until it got well. Our regiment returned the next night without having discovered any of the enemy and was then ordered to prepare three days’ rations, as was also the rest of the army.
In the meantime, the enemy had landed a large force, under General Grant, at Pittsburg Landing. Our regiment was ordered out with no one knowing where they were going, until they moved in the direction of Pittsburg Landing. They were immediately followed by the whole army, and on the fifth of April, they engaged the enemy and fought the battle of Shiloh; our regiment was moved about on the field from right to left. As the dense woods did not afford an opportunity for mounted cavalry, they were unable to do much fighting, except, about ten o’clock the first day, they were dismounted and ordered to charge through a thicket at Owl Creek, which they had to do single file, and were shot down by a large infantry force as fast as the men made their appearance in the open. Soon realizing that it was impossible to dislodge the enemy from their position with this handful of men, they were immediately ordered to fall back. This proved the extent of their active engagement, but they served as a corps of observation on both flanks until Tuesday evening.
After the second day’s engagement, Grant’s army having been reinforced on Sunday night by the whole of Buell’s army (as large as our army originally), our army was compelled to retreat, which was done in a heavy rain, rendering the road to Corinth almost impassable for artillery and ambulances. Realizing that our army was in great danger of being annihilated, General Beauregard sent for General Breckenridge, who was on the field with his Kentucky Brigade, ordering him to cover the retreat and try to save the army. General Breckenridge responded that he would protect the army if it cost the last man he had. This occurred on Tuesday after the battle. Our regiment, what was left of it, and Colonel Forrest, with about fifty men, were ordered to support General Breckenridge. Breckenridge’s Brigade was drawn up near the old battlefield. In their front, about a quarter of a mile away, two lines of battle of the enemy were seen to form with a brigade of cavalry, mounted, in their front, covering their movement. Breckenridge’s Brigade was then moved to the rear a short distance, to a position where they were hid by lying down. Our regiment, in command of Major Harrison, and Colonel Forrest with his fifty men, soon formed in front of Breckenridge, preparing to charge the enemy.
As heretofore stated, Colonel Harrison, up to this time, on our retreat, did not have the confidence or respect of the men on account of a blunder he committed at the small town of Jimtown in Kentucky, which caused him to be dubbed the “Jimtown Major;” then again, on account of his ordering some boys to mark time on the Shelbyville Pike, was dubbed the “Mark-time Major.”
A large number of the regiment had been congregated on the pike, at the point from which Ash had led the prisoners, and when Major Harrison reached the spot, after hearing what had been done, he was met by angry glances on every hand for presuming to treat two gentlemen so inconsiderately. Disregarding their menacing looks Major Harrison called out, “Is there an officer of my regiment present who will execute my orders?” when Pat Christian (then a lieutenant in Company K) stepped to the front, with a salute, and said, “Major, I will.” Then Major Harris ordered him to get a file of men and bring the two prisoners back to complete their sentence, and to inform him instantly if interfered with.
It was here that Christian, afterwards captain of his company, and then major and later lieutenant colonel, first attracted the attention of the regiment, afterwards so devoted to him, for his gallantry and his good traits of character, and here that the regiment had its first lesson in military discipline, under an officer temporarily unpopular, who afterwards won their high respect.
For the first time since our retreat, he was in command of the regiment, Colonel Wharton having been wounded, and very soon the enemy commenced a scattering fire, while the regiment was forming, occasionally striking a man or a horse. The men became restive and wanted to charge, but Major Harrison rode down the line saying to them, “Be quiet, boys, ‘till your ‘Jimtown Mark-time Major’ gets ready for you,” in a very cool and deliberate manner, and finally in ordering the charge said, “Now, follow your Jimtown Major.” He led them on to the cavalry, which, in an impetuous charge, they drove right in among their infantry, and, on account of their being confused in the mix-up, the enemy fell back a short distance, and the regiment brought out a number of prisoners. While this charge proved a success, we lost a number of valuable men in killed and wounded. This was the last fighting on the battlefield of Shiloh.
I have not entered into any details of the battle, as history gives such a complete account, written by both sides, that its details are well known, and as the purpose of this writing is to recount my own personal history and because I was not actively engaged with the regiment during the battle, I find it unnecessary to give the details.
As heretofore stated, I was suffering with a dislocated arm, the effects of my fall, and did not move out with the regiment when they started on this trip; but on Sunday morning, hearing the guns of Shiloh in our camp at Corinth, I mounted my horse and struck out for the field. Unable to learn where our regiment was posted, I remained with an infantry command, offering my services to the extent of what I was able to do, but I was not called on during the several days’ battle, except to carry a few orders from place to place.
I reached Corinth, Mississippi, where our camp was located, on Thursday, aiding and assisting about a half dozen wounded men of the Second Texas, allowing them to ride my horse when they were able. These men were completely exhausted, as they did nothing else but stand in line all day Sunday ‘till four o’clock in the evening, firing their guns, and again on Monday, opposed to Buell’s fresh army, which proved the hardest fighting during the battle. “All honor to the Second Texas.”
Recalling General Albert Sidney Johnston’s promise in a telegram to Colonel Terry at New Orleans, that we should never be brigaded as long as he lived; his death at four o’clock on Sunday evening cancelled this promise. General Beauregard then took command of the army.
A few days after the battle of Shiloh, having recuperated our horses, as well as the men, Colonel Wharton was ordered to report to a General Adams, who had a Kentucky regiment, and General Adams, with this regiment and the Eighth Texas, was ordered on a raid into Middle Tennessee, with instructions to capture and destroy everything of the enemy he could meet up with and was able to handle.
We crossed the Tennessee River at Lamb’s Ferry, the ferry boat being propelled by a paddle wheel, driven by a horse-tread power. Here we left our wagons and all our extra luggage, as well as cooking utensils, awaiting our return, but the Federal cavalry a few days after, crossed the river, captured our entire storage and we never saw cooking utensils or tents afterwards, and were thereby reduced to the condition of the real Texas Ranger as on the frontiers of Texas.
Immediately after crossing the Tennessee River we struck a considerable infantry force, with artillery. General Adams, in place of attacking them, moved us around them in great haste, thereby avoiding a collision and getting away, leaving them shelling the woods for several hours, while we were making distance. We next struck the Pulaski Pike, finding about two hundred wagons, loaded with two bales of cotton on each and a guard of two men with each wagon. General Adams drew us out of sight and hearing and would not allow Colonel Wharton to capture this train, which could have been done without the loss of a man. But no doubt as General Adams suggested, in doing this we would stir up a hornet’s nest and get the whole Yankee army in pursuit of us. Wharton was powerless to do anything, held back by General Adams.
When near the town of Fayetteville, Lincoln County, Tennessee, a citizen sent out by the garrison of the town, numbering about five hundred cavalry, told us to come in; they wanted to surrender; they were tired of the war and wanted to go home. General Adams conceived this to be a trick of theirs and declined their invitation, moving us around the town in the night by a path in the woods, guided by a citizen, thereby losing a splendid opportunity of capturing this garrison.
The second night after this, we camped at the town of Salem, about ten miles south of Winchester, and at Winchester the next night, where information reached us that about two thousand infantry, moving in wagons, and a battery of artillery, had been in pursuit of us and had been camped at Salem the next night after we were there, and was expected to follow us to Winchester. The road from Salem to Winchester was a straight lane with high rail fences on each side. At a point about equal distance between Salem and Winchester, was a large woods lot, running up to the lane, as noticed by Colonel Wharton. He suggested to General Adams that we go back, remain concealed in this woods, close to the road and when the enemy came along, riding in wagons, that we charge them and force them to surrender. This seemed good to General Adams and an opportunity he was willing to risk.
We moved around to this woods lot, remaining there until about daylight, when information reached us that the Yankees had already passed and were then occupying Winchester. We immediately returned to Winchester and found them drawn up behind a railroad cut, with a commanding position for their battery. They opened this battery on us, using shells, as soon as we came in sight. Then Colonel Wharton, riding ‘round hunting a place to charge them, decided this could not be done without the loss of a great many men and a charge might result in failure; we, therefore, moved around Winchester, passing through Decherd’s depot and pitched camp in Hawkins Cove, perhaps twenty miles distant from Winchester.
The second day in camp in Hawkins Cove, a citizen came and reported to General Adams that the Yankees were at his house with a couple of wagons, loading his meat, and begging him to send a small force to drive them away. A company of the Kentucky regiment and Company B of the Rangers, which was the company to which I belonged, were detailed for this service. When we reached this man’s house they had already left with his meat and were driving fast, back into town. We struck a lope, endeavoring to catch up with them, but failed. The Kentucky captain, being the ranking officer, was in command; riding at the head of the column and running over the pickets on a bridge near town, he carried us right into the town, up to the courthouse square. This charge proved a complete surprise. We found the enemy scattered all over town and a large party of them in the courthouse, being the only parties we felt free to fire on, as there were no women and children about. We heard the artillery bugle and concluded to get out of there, which we did very promptly and in such good time the artillery never had a chance to fire a shot at us.
Some years after the war, a Winchester paper was sent me, giving an account of fifty Texas Rangers attacking two thousand infantry and artillery in their town, with a loss of only one man, who had his arm broken by an explosive ball.
We returned to our camp in Hawkins Cove. On that night General Adams came down to Colonel Wharton’s camp fire and announced that he would start across the mountain, for Chattanooga, the next morning, and secure artillery, that he could not undertake to remain in Middle Tennessee without it. Colonel Wharton had become exasperated at General Adams’ conduct the entire trip and told him to take his Kentucky regiment and go to Halifax with it, if he wanted to—that he intended remaining in Middle Tennessee and doing what he could to carry out the original order of General Beauregard.
After a few days’ rest in Hawkins Cove, where the enemy did not attempt to molest us, a messenger reached us, with orders from General Kirby Smith at Knoxville, to report to Colonel Forrest at McMinnville, which Wharton did, as soon as we reached there. After a day’s rest Colonel Forrest (who had the First and Second Georgia and a Tennessee battalion, all cavalry) in conjunction with our regiment, started, late evening, for Murfreesboro, which was then the headquarters for Tennessee, of the Federal Army, with Major General Crittenden in command. Murfreesboro’s garrison consisted of the Ninth Michigan Infantry, a part of a regiment of cavalry located in their camp to the right of town, the Third Minnesota and a battery of artillery on the northwest of town. They had about one hundred prisoners in the courthouse, upstairs, with a strong guard downstairs.
Greatly outnumbering us, our success depended on a surprise. When near their advance picket on the pike, Colonel Forrest asked for some Rangers to capture this picket without the fire of a gun, which was done in very short order. He then had a consultation with the commanders of the different regiments, and it was decided that Colonel Wharton, with our regiment in advance and the Second Georgia next in column, attack the Ninth Michigan and the cavalry camp on the right. To reach them he had to turn into a side street about two or three blocks from the courthouse, where Colonel Forrest halted, awaiting for his part of the command to come up to take them through town to the Third Minnesota and battery camp, ignoring the courthouse as much as possible.
After our regiment had passed into the side street, following Wharton, Forrest discovered that the Georgians and Tennesseans had failed to come up and immediately decided to take what was left of our regiment and lead them to the attack on the Third Minnesota and the battery north of the town. This gave him a force of only about fifty or sixty men. By this action he cut our company about half in two, which threw me into the first set of fours at the head of the column, with Forrest riding by my side, on my right. Nearing the courthouse, a couple of Federals up in the second story door, dropped down on their knees and raised their guns to fire, but Forrest and I fired ahead of them. When Forrest fired his pistol, his horse dodged almost in front of me, just as I fired, very nearly shooting Forrest through the head. I have often thought what a misfortune this would have been, as I came very near killing a man who turned out to be the Napoleon of cavalry.
In the upper story of the courthouse were confined about one hundred prisoners, some of Morgan’s men, but mostly civilians, and the courthouse was guarded by about one hundred men, who fired on us through doors and windows. We moved around the courthouse, some to the left and some to the right, as the courthouse was standing in the middle of the square immediately fronting the center of the street we came up on. About the time we reached the courthouse, Wharton, with the balance of the regiment, had charged the Michigan camp, many of whom were asleep in their tents, and the noise of the battle reached us about the time we fired into the courthouse. As stated, Forrest with about fifty men in columns of fours, except a few that were left on the courthouse square, shot down by courthouse guards, moved on to the north of town, where he lost his bearings and was compelled to get a citizen out of his house, to pilot us to the Minnesota camp and battery. When we reached there we found the men up and dressed and the battery opened on us, throwing a few shells among us, which scattered us and caused the disappearance of Forrest. We were in an old field, and on leaving, I was called by a Kentuckian, who had volunteered to go with us into the fight and had his arm shattered by a piece of shell, begging me to not go off and leave him. He was hardly able to sit on his horse. I rode up, taking his horse by the bridle, leading him up to a fence in the edge of the timber, with a scattering fire directed on us. I dismounted and let down the fence, leading his horse over it. While doing this, noticing I was trying to get off a wounded comrade, they gallantly ceased firing on us. I now led my wounded friend through the woods, until we reached a house, about a mile from there, when the gentleman at the house hitched up his buggy, and, placing my friend in the buggy, he drove around the town, with myself following, leading the wounded man’s horse, until we reached a point about a mile below town, where we found the Rangers collecting what was left of them, out of the Michigan camp fight and also the few men who were with Forrest in the old sedge field when fired on by the Third Minnesota and battery.
The regiment formed and gathered at this point about a mile below town, awaiting further orders, with Wharton, wounded again, directing the formation, when a messenger came from Forrest, who was then up town with his Georgia and Tennessee battalions, ordering us back up into town. After joining the Georgians and having displayed about three times as many men as he really had, by moving them around a block, in sight of the enemy (who had gathered and formed, in a splendid position, supported by their battery) Forrest went in, under a flag of truce and demanded their immediate surrender, telling them that he had five men to their one and was determined to take them; that if he had to make another charge on them, on their own heads be the responsibility; that the little fight had, was only with his advance guard, that he had five hundred Texas Rangers he couldn’t control in a fight, and the responsibility was with them. After deliberating on the matter for a few minutes, they raised the white flag and surrendered. The result of this surrender was a parole of eighteen hundred and sixteen privates at McMinnville, the further capture of forty-seven commissioned officers, including Major General Crittenden, with Colonel Duffield of the Ninth Michigan badly wounded in the Michigan camp; thirty-eight wagonloads of valuable stores; a magnificent battery of four pieces of artillery and several million dollars’ worth of commissary and quartermaster’s stores, destroyed by fire.
I would also mention the release of two citizen prisoners confined in the jail, who were condemned to be hung the next day, as spies. The wife of one of these men, with many other ladies, witnessed our passing through Woodbury. Learning that we were going to Murfreesboro, she wrung her hands and begged and plead with us to bring her husband back. Some of the men who heard her, answered that we would surely bring her husband back, which we did the next day.
A dastardly act I will recount here—of one of the Federal guards stationed at the jail. When he found we were about to capture the town, he set fire to the jail, which no doubt would have burned the poor prisoners, but the fire was promptly extinguished by several of our men, who succeeded in capturing the fellow who started the fire and in taking him before General Forrest. Forrest pulled out his pistol and killed him on the spot, a well-deserved punishment.
On marching our prisoners to McMinnville, the commissioned officers who had been captured, were given the privilege of the pike, they taking a parole not to attempt to make their escape. When this high privilege was offered Major General Crittenden, he refused the courtesy, telling Forrest that he could not accept, as his government didn’t recognize him as a regular Confederate soldier and only knew him as a guerilla. Forrest told him that it made no difference with him and he furnished him with a guard of two Texas Rangers, dressed in buckskin, wearing Mexican sombreros. These men were somewhat wild in appearance, no doubt, to General Crittenden. After riding along with his guards for an hour or two, one man on each side of him, occasionally nodding at each other, the general concluded that perhaps they were planning to kill him, and had them take him up to Colonel Forrest, when he asked Forrest to parole him and give him the privilege of the pike, like the rest; saying he verily believed that these men would kill him.
After paroling the privates at McMinnville, permitting them all to retain their private property, which included a magnificent set of silver band instruments, Forrest told the officers that they would have to be taken to Knoxville to General Smith’s headquarters and directed Colonel Wharton, who was wounded, with Company B, his old company, to take charge of them, the battery and thirty-eight wagonloads of valuable stores. He requested Colonel Wharton, when he got safely up on top of the mountain, by way of Sparta, to send back a messenger, reporting that fact, and I was sent back with this message to Colonel Forrest.
Reaching Sparta about daylight, I could not find any one who could tell me the whereabouts of Forrest’s command, and struck out, back in the direction of McMinnville, when incidentally I met a citizen, who reported that they were camped at a certain place in the woods between Sparta and Lebanon, which I succeeded in finding about noon. Reporting to Colonel Forrest that Wharton had got up on top of the mountain safely with his prisoners, artillery and wagons, I told him that I didn’t feel like going back to catch up with my company, going to Knoxville, lying around in camp and that I wanted to remain with the regiment and asked his permission to do so. He kindly consented and told me to report to the regiment and stay with them.