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“On entering [Murfreesboro] . . . what a sight met my eyes! Prisoners entering every street, ambulances bringing in the wounded, every place crowded with the dying, the Federal General [Joshua W.] Sill, lying dead in the courthouse – killed Wednesday (December 31st) – Frank Crosthwait’s (20th TN) lifeless corpse stretched on a counter. . . . The churches were full of wounded, where the doctors were amputating legs and arms.”
- Mrs Bromfield L. Ridley, her husband and sons fought in the battle, whom she found safe later
Citation source: Eyewitnesses at the Battle of Stone’s River, Logsdon, p.84
Columbia Tenn
Dec 28th 1864
Dear Sister,
I received a long letter from you today. I reply not because there is anything of importance transpiring just at present, but because when the most happens is the time I am entirely unable to write. Since I was last at Columbia we have had some stirring times. Hood drove us back to Nashville. We had a very severe battle at Franklin during which our Regiment lost in killed wounded & captured some thing over half its men. After that we were in the big fight at Nashville & our company lost its Commanding Officer, a fine man who was shot through the breast & had an arm broken by a musket ball. But the success atoned for all the loss & more. Hood has halted at Columbia again. The rest of the Army has gone down after Hood. How long we shall remain here idle I know not but presume we shall have plenty to do. Sherman has taken Savannah & Hardee has escaped with his 15,000 men & will probably reinforce Hood which will give him a chance to show us considerable fight. But we shall conquer in the end. The right will triumph in the end. Charleston will be taken next and all important Sea ports. Christmas is over & I thought often of the fine times you were having at home. We had rather hard times living on hard tack & sow belly. It is quite cold to night, I have just had an argument on Slavery with the Captain who is for allowing the slaveholders credit for honesty on account of early education and I am not. I would just as — take a horse or hoe from one of these men as not. But I must stop writing. Having passed safely through the Battle of Franklin I expect good times for a while. Let me know if any thing new happening and you hear from Thomas.
Goodbye.
Your Bro. A.M.Weston
(Asa M. Weston enlisted on 8/11/62 as Sergeant in Company K, 50th Ohio Infantry, 3/4/65 promoted to Sgt Major, 4/22/65 promoted to 2nd Lt, 6/26/65 mustered out at Salisbury, NC)
Asa M. Weston, a member of the 50th Ohio. Weston was a sergeant in Company K.
Franklin, Tenn.,
Dec. 26, 1862.
2nd Cavalry Brigade, Army of the Cumberland.
In the advance on Murfreesboro the brigade, Col. Lewis Zahm commanding, encountered the enemy’s pickets about 2 miles from Franklin and drove them back toward the town, skirmishing all the way.
At Franklin the Confederates made a stand and showed fight. Zahm dismounted six companies as skirmishers and sent a party of mounted men to both the right and left flanks of the enemy, completely routing them and driving them about 2 miles beyond the town, killing and wounding several and capturing 10 prisoners, one of whom was a lieutenant on Gen. Bragg’s escort.
Source: The Union Army, Vol. 5, p.439
********************************
On December 26 I divided the cavalry into three columns, putting the First Brigade, commanded by Colonel Minty, Fourth Michigan Cavalry, upon the Murfreesborough pike, in advance of General Crittenden’s corps. The Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel Zahm, Third Ohio Cavalry, was ordered to move on Franklin, dislodge the enemy’s cavalry, and move parallel to General McCook’s corps, protecting his right flank. The reserve cavalry, consisting of the new regiments, viz, Anderson Troop, or Fifteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, First Middle Tennessee, Second East Tennessee Cavalry, and four companies of the Third Indiana, I commanded in person, and preceded General McCook’s corps on the Nolensville pike. Col. John Kennett, commanding cavalry division, commanded the cavalry on the Murfreesborough pike. For the operations of this column, and also the movements of Colonel Zahm up to December 31, I would refer you to the inclosed reports of Colonels Kennett, Zahm, and Minty.
O.R.– SERIES I–VOLUME XX/1 [S# 29]
DECEMBER 26, 1862-JANUARY 5, 1863.–The Stone’s River or Murfreesborough, Tenn., Campaign.
No. 165.–Reports of Brig. Gen. David S. Stanley, U.S. Army, Chief of Cavalry, including skirmishes near La Vergne, December 27, at Wilkinson’s CrossRoads, December 29, Overall’s Creek, December 31, and Lytle’s Creek, January 5.
HDQRS. CAVALRY, FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
DEPARTMENT OF THE CUMBERLAND,
Near Murfreesborough, Tenn., January 9, 1863.
Christmas Night of 1862
by William Gordon McCabe
(1841-1920)
by William Gordon McCabe
(1841-1920)
The wintry blast goes wailing by,
The snow is falling overhead;
I hear the lonely sentry’s tread,
And distant watch-fires light the sky.
Dim forms go flitting through the gloom;
The soldiers cluster round the blaze
To talk of other Christmas days,
And softly speak of home and home.
My sabre swinging overhead
Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow,
And memory leads me to the dead.
My thoughts go wandering to and fro,
Vibrating between the Now and Then;
I see the low-browed home again,
The old hall wreathed with mistletoe.
And sweetly from the far-off years
Comes borne the laughter faint and low,
The voices of the Long Ago!
My eyes are wet with tender tears.
I feel again the mother-kiss,
I see again the glad surprise
That lightened up the tranquil eyes
And brimmed them o’er with tears of bliss,
As, rushing from the old hall-door,
She fondly clasped her wayward boy
Her face all radiant with the joy
She felt to see him home once more.
My sabre swinging on the bough
Gleams in the watch-fire’s fitful glow,
While fiercely drives the blinding snow
Aslant upon my saddened brow.
Those cherished faces all are gone!
Asleep within the quiet graves
Where lies the snow in drifting waves,
And I am sitting here alone.
There’s not a comrade here to-night
But knows that loved ones far away
On bended knee this night will pray:
“God bring our darling from the fight.”
But there are none to wish me back,
For me no yearning prayers arise.
The lips are mute and closed the eyes–
My home is in the bivouac.
“…we are not only fighting hosti
le armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had a wonderful effect in this respect. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying newspapers to believe that we were being whipped all the time now realize the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience…Many and many a person in Georgia asked me why we did not go to South Carolina; and, when I answered that we were en route for that State, the invariable reply was, “Well, if you will make those people feel the utmost severities of war, we will pardon you for your desolation of Georgia.”
William T. Sherman, in a letter to Major-General H. W. Halleck, Chief-of-Staff, Washington, D.C., December 24, 1864
UNOFFICIAL
HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE OHIO,
In the Field, Columbia, December 27, 1864.
Lieut. Gen. U.S. GRANT,
Commanding U. S. Armies, City Point, Va.:
GENERAL: My corps was sent back to Tennessee by General Sherman instead of remaining with him on his march through Georgia, according to his original design, for two reasons, viz: First, because General Thomas was not regarded strong enough after it became evident that Hood designed to invade Tennessee, and, second, in order that I might fill up my corps from the new troops then arriving in Tennessee. These reasons now no longer exist. By uniting my troops to Stanley’s we were able to hold Hood in check at Columbia and Franklin until General Thomas could concentrate at Nashville and also to give Hood his deathblow at Franklin. Subsequent operations have shown how little fight was then left in his army, and have taken that little out of it. He now has not more than 15,000 infantry, about 10,000 of whom only are armed, and they greatly demoralized. With time to reorganize and recruit he could not probably raise his force to more than half the strength he had at Franklin. General Thomas has assigned several new regiments to my command, and I hope soon to make them effective, by distributing them in old brigades. I will have from 15,000 to 18,000 effective men, two-thirds of whom are the veterans of the campaign in East Tennessee and Georgia. A small force, it is true, yet one which would at least be an appreciable addition to your army in Virginia or elsewhere, where decisive work is to be done. It may not be practicable now for me to join General Sherman, but it would not be difficult to transfer my command to Virginia. I am aware that General Thomas contemplates a “spring campaign” into Alabama or Mississippi, with the Tennessee River as a base, and believe he considers my command a necessary part of the operating force.
Without reference to the latter point permit me to express the opinion that such a campaign would not be an economical or advantageous use of so many troops. If aggressive operations are to be continued in the Gulf States, it appears to me it would be much better to take Mobile, and operate from that point, thus striking vital points (if there are any such) of rebel territory by much shorter lines. But it appears to me that Lee’s army is virtually all that is left of the rebellion. If we can concentrate force enough to destroy that we will destroy with it the rebel Government, <ar94_378> and the occupation of the whole South will then be but a matter of a few weeks’ time. Excuse, general, the liberty I have taken in expressing my views thus freely and unsolicited. I have no other motive than a desire for the nation’s good and a personal wish to serve where my little command can do the most. The change I suggest would, of course, deprive me of my department command; but this would be a small loss to me or to the service. The present arrangement is an unsatisfactory one at best. Nominally, I command both a department and an army in the field; but in fact, I do neither.
I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. M. SCHOFIELD,
Major-General.
—–
O.R.–SERIES I–VOLUME XLV/2 [S# 94]
UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY, SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA, TENNESSEE, MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA, AND NORTH GEORGIA, FROM DECEMBER 1, 1864, TO JANUARY 23, 1865.(*)–#15
Pages 377-78
Bivouac on a Mountain side
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
I see before me now a traveling army halting,
Below a fertile valley spread,
with barns and the orchards of summer,
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain,
abrupt, in places rising high,
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars,
with tall shapes dingily seen,
The numerous camp-fires scatter’d near and far, some away up on the mountain,
The shadowy forms of men and horses,
looming, large-sized, flickering,
And over all the sky — the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal Stars
South Carolina Secedes: “Charleston Mercury Extra” — “The Union Is Dissolved!” “AN ORDINANCE To dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled ‘The Constitution of the United States of America.’” Broadside; Charleston, December 20, 1860. Measures 12 x 24 inches.
Printing begun approximately 15 minutes after secession ordinance passed. As South Carolina was the first state to secede, this broadside is the first Confederate imprint. Rarity, historical importance, and graphic appeal combine to make the Charleston Mercury Extra one of the most sought-after of all American broadsides.
Transcript: “CHARLESTON MERCURY EXTRA: Passed unanimously at 1.15 o’clock, P.M., December 20th, 1860 AN ORDINANCE To dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled ‘The Constitution of the United States of America.’ We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, all acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of ‘The United States of America,’ is hereby dissolved. THE UNION IS DISSOLVED!” Beginning with the nullification controversy of 1832, South Carolina became the hotbed of states’ rights sentiment.
“If the general government should persist in the measures now threatened, there must be war. It is painful to discover with what unconcern they speak of war, and threaten it. They do not know its horrors. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils.”Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, letter to a minister, December 19, 1860
South Carolina became the first southern State to secede the next day
Recommended read:
Stonewall Jackson : The Man, the Soldier, the Legend. By James Robertson
Recommended artist – Andy Amato (see web site)
Letter with ”U.S. Christian Commission” cover and letterhead from Corp. Dwight L. Herrick, Company C, 18th NH Infantry, City Point, VA, to his sister, Angelia Herrick, in Swanzey, NH.
The US Christian Commission seeks to afford a sure and effective medium of communication between the wounded or sick soldier–whether in the Camp of in Field or General Hospitals — and his home friends . .
Note: Dwight had only been in the army just six weeks when he wrote this letter.
Dec 17 [1864]
Source: eBay June 2007
Residence was not listed; 21 years old, when he enlisted on 8/31/1864 as a Private.
On 8/31/1864 he mustered into “C” Co. NH 18th Infantry. He was Mustered Out on 6/10/1865. Promotions: Corpl
Other Information: born in Chesterfield, NH.
The Eighteenth New Hampshire Volunteers was attached to Engineer Brigade, Defences of City Point, Va., Army of the Potomac, October 4 to March 19, 1865.
