The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home by William C. Davis Page B
Authors: William C. Davis
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stood looking at the bleeding stumps and cried, “My Lord, that stops my fighting.” Another shell passed less than two feet in front of Johnny Green and killed three men of the regiment and carved a leg from a fourth. 3
At about this time an unidentified advance Confederate regiment in the fighting withdrew, and its line of retreat brought it straight back through Trabue’s line. This, combined with the heavy fire and confusion already reigning, would have disrupted many green regiments. But as these withdrawing Rebels broke through the 4th Kentucky, Nuckols kept his men in hand. He even tried to halt and rally the other unit, but with no success. Then, when the Kentuckians’ own bugler sounded the recall, so that the regiment could join in meeting the threat from the Federals to their left, the men of the 4th at first would not respond. They feared it would be thought they were retreating with that other demoralized regiment. Finally Major Tom Monroe had to give a verbal order to get the 4th to withdraw.
Trabue seemed to be everywhere steadying his men before the fight. He rode calmly along the line, speaking in low, soothing tones to the men, “apparently as free from excitement as when on review.” Every regiment saw him; most of the men heard him as he casually remarked upon the course of the battle. Here, for the first time, a superior officer appeared on the field, Major General Hardee. Since fighting had taken place here well before Trabue’s arrival, the ground lay littered with dead. Thus he found it difficult to form a perfectly straight line, though he compelled the Kentuckians to stand even astride the dead in the attempt. Hardee smiled, perhaps because of this, and offered his compliments to Trabue.
“General, I have a Kentucky brigade here,” said the colonel. “What shall I do with it?”
“Put it in where the fight is the thickest, sir,” Hardee responded,then rode away. Such was the degree of command being exercised even by professional soldiers this day.
Left to his own discretion, Trabue moved Hunt’s 5th Kentucky farther to extend his own left, completed turning the brigade to face the Federals in their front, and attacked. “In a few minutes we were in the thickest of the fight,” wrote Johnny Green. Several color corporals of Hunt’s regiment fell dead in the first few minutes, and Green himself took a wound. When litter bearers readied to take him from the field, he told them, “There is too much work here for a man to go to the rear as long as he can shoot a gun.” Fortunately, as Johnny put it, the bullet that hit him “glanced off my hard head.”
Most of the 4th Kentucky carried Enfields now, and used prepared cartridges that allowed relatively rapid fire. “The ground in front of us was heaped up with dead men,” wrote John Weller of the 4th, but their own men fell as well. Captain John B. Rogers saw his own brother killed on the skirmish line and soon after fell himself. John Marshall took a bullet in the breast pocket that only missed snuffing his life thanks to burying itself in a Testament given him by a woman in Kentucky.
Trabue estimated that he battered the Federals in his front for an hour and a quarter. He put the 4th Kentucky on his left, Lewis’ 6th Kentucky in the center, and Hunt’s 5th on the right, holding the 31st Alabama in reserve. He no longer had Cobb’s battery, it having been ordered to the right shortly before. “The enemy appeared to outnumber us greatly,” he reported. After a time Trabue put the Alabamians on his left to extend it, and then finding portions of two of Bragg’s brigades in his rear, he put them in line, ordered bayonets fixed, and charged. He said it was a “complete success.”
The regiment immediately fronting the 4th Kentucky was the 46th Ohio. As Nuckols readied his regiment to charge them, giving the order to “change front forward on 8th Company,” the Ohioans, too, changed their front to meet them, maintaining a
At about this time an unidentified advance Confederate regiment in the fighting withdrew, and its line of retreat brought it straight back through Trabue’s line. This, combined with the heavy fire and confusion already reigning, would have disrupted many green regiments. But as these withdrawing Rebels broke through the 4th Kentucky, Nuckols kept his men in hand. He even tried to halt and rally the other unit, but with no success. Then, when the Kentuckians’ own bugler sounded the recall, so that the regiment could join in meeting the threat from the Federals to their left, the men of the 4th at first would not respond. They feared it would be thought they were retreating with that other demoralized regiment. Finally Major Tom Monroe had to give a verbal order to get the 4th to withdraw.
Trabue seemed to be everywhere steadying his men before the fight. He rode calmly along the line, speaking in low, soothing tones to the men, “apparently as free from excitement as when on review.” Every regiment saw him; most of the men heard him as he casually remarked upon the course of the battle. Here, for the first time, a superior officer appeared on the field, Major General Hardee. Since fighting had taken place here well before Trabue’s arrival, the ground lay littered with dead. Thus he found it difficult to form a perfectly straight line, though he compelled the Kentuckians to stand even astride the dead in the attempt. Hardee smiled, perhaps because of this, and offered his compliments to Trabue.
“General, I have a Kentucky brigade here,” said the colonel. “What shall I do with it?”
“Put it in where the fight is the thickest, sir,” Hardee responded,then rode away. Such was the degree of command being exercised even by professional soldiers this day.
Left to his own discretion, Trabue moved Hunt’s 5th Kentucky farther to extend his own left, completed turning the brigade to face the Federals in their front, and attacked. “In a few minutes we were in the thickest of the fight,” wrote Johnny Green. Several color corporals of Hunt’s regiment fell dead in the first few minutes, and Green himself took a wound. When litter bearers readied to take him from the field, he told them, “There is too much work here for a man to go to the rear as long as he can shoot a gun.” Fortunately, as Johnny put it, the bullet that hit him “glanced off my hard head.”
Most of the 4th Kentucky carried Enfields now, and used prepared cartridges that allowed relatively rapid fire. “The ground in front of us was heaped up with dead men,” wrote John Weller of the 4th, but their own men fell as well. Captain John B. Rogers saw his own brother killed on the skirmish line and soon after fell himself. John Marshall took a bullet in the breast pocket that only missed snuffing his life thanks to burying itself in a Testament given him by a woman in Kentucky.
Trabue estimated that he battered the Federals in his front for an hour and a quarter. He put the 4th Kentucky on his left, Lewis’ 6th Kentucky in the center, and Hunt’s 5th on the right, holding the 31st Alabama in reserve. He no longer had Cobb’s battery, it having been ordered to the right shortly before. “The enemy appeared to outnumber us greatly,” he reported. After a time Trabue put the Alabamians on his left to extend it, and then finding portions of two of Bragg’s brigades in his rear, he put them in line, ordered bayonets fixed, and charged. He said it was a “complete success.”
The regiment immediately fronting the 4th Kentucky was the 46th Ohio. As Nuckols readied his regiment to charge them, giving the order to “change front forward on 8th Company,” the Ohioans, too, changed their front to meet them, maintaining a
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