No Better Place to Die- The Battle of Stones River

by Peter Cozzens

  Not all the Confederates fell back. Colonel William Young and his Ninth Texas, unaware of what had happened to the brigade, continued to claw forward among the limestone outcrops after Vaughan had fallen back to regroup for a second attack. The Texans actually had been fighting alone for some time. After they bid farewell to their Tennessee comrades and attached themselves to Wood's right, the Texans pressed on into the woodline on the opposite side of the valley, only to find it empty. While their adoptive brigade grappled with Carlin's Bluecoats, the Ninth searched for a solo engagement, Texas-style. They found it with the Thirty-fifth Illinois, two hundred yards away on their right. The Texans opened fire, but their bullets spattered harmlessly against the intervening trees. Realizing the futility of continuing the fight at this distance, Young pushed his regiment forward a hundred yards by the right flank to a tall fence, from which they reopened fire. Still their bullets missed the target. Young grew impatient. He yelled at his men to scale the fence and close with the Illinoisans. In the din, his command was misunderstood; the Texans scaled the fence, but then stopped after only fifty yards, again falling to the ground to engage the enemy. Suddenly, the sound of firing erupted from the rear. The Ninth was in trouble. The Texans inadvertantly had wedged themselves between the Thirty-fifth Illinois and Carlin's Thirty-eighth Illinois, still in position in their rear. For five minutes the Texans endured a withering crossfire as Young rode frantically about, trying to make himself heard. Men dropped all around him—over one hundred in less than thirty minutes. Young himself went down, his horse shot from beneath him. But his resolve to charge was unbroken. Running up and down the line, he grabbed each company commander in turn to explain his intention. Then, to ensure their response, the colonel seized the regimental colors and, in his own words, importuned his men to “move forward with a shout, both of which they did a la Texas.” The Illinoisans gave way, and the Texans sprinted after them.

  Their charge was well timed, coming just as Carlin retreated and Vaughan closed on the Twenty-fifth Illinois and Eighty-first Indiana for the second and final time. Although men fell in windrows—56 percent of the Twelfth Tennessee dropped dead or wounded, and Bishop Polk, in this long day of costly charges, would later single out Vaughan and his troops for special praise—the Tennesseans kept on coming. Woodruff's line crumbled, not to be reformed. Woodruff later implied that he directed the withdrawal that followed, but the weight of evidence suggests rather that his soldiers, low on ammunition and isolated, took matters into their own hands. The Thirty-fifth Illinois was already gone, and the Twenty-fifth was not far behind. Captain Taggart led his regiment first to safety behind the batteries of Hescock and Houghtalling, and next across the Wilkinson Pike and out of the battle. Then the Eighty-first Indiana withdrew, and only Carpenter's Wisconsin battery was left on the field. Woodruff had instructed Carpenter to cover the Hoosiers’ withdrawal from a position near the Harding house, but the young artilleryman was killed before he could comply. Lieutenant Henry Stiles took charge, unlimbered the guns as ordered, and held Vaughan in check long enough for the infantry to make good its escape. Woodruff, meanwhile, was waiting on the Wilkinson Pike to gather up his fleeing soldiers and throw them into line west of the Blanton house.3

  While Woodruff's brigade and the Thirty-sixth Illinois struggled with Vaughan, Greusel faced his first direct atttack. The time was 8:00 A.M. Like Loomis and Vaughan, Cheatham's third brigade commander, Colonel A. M. Manigault, attacked late and unsupported. A thirty-nine-year-old South Carolina businessman whose formal education had ended with elementary school, Manigault had spent all but two of his thirty-six years before the war in Charleston, leaving the port city just long enough to see limited service as a lieutenant with the Palmetto Regiment in Mexico. As a lieutenant colonel on the staff of General Beauregard, Manigault was present at the bombardment of Fort Sumter and remained in Charleston until the summer of 1862, when he was ordered, along with his Tenth South Carolina, to join the Army of the Mississippi. Manigault went on to serve with distinction in every major campaign through Franklin, where a head wound sent him back to South Carolina. Here at Stones River, the balding, sharp-eyed South Carolinian would lead his own Tenth, along with the Nineteenth South Carolina and three Alabama regiments, in some of the bloodiest charges of the battle.

  Across the valley, the men of Colonel Francis Sherman's Eighty-eighth Illinois lay quietly watching the Stars and Bars draw nearer, unaware that less than a mile behind them the divisions of Johnson and Davis were in a confused and panicked flight northward. For a moment, their attention was drawn from the approaching enemy to a phenomenon recorded by several soldiers in the ranks. The racket raised by Vaughan and Woodruff in the thicket to Greusel's right had driven scores of dazed rabbits from their nests, and they now took the Illinoisans from the flank, “nestling under their coats and creeping under their legs in a state of utter confusion.” “They hopped over the field like toads,” recalled William Bickham, “and as perfectly tamed by fright as household pets. Many officers witnessed it, remarking it as one of the most curious spectacles ever seen upon a battle-field.”

  The boom of their own guns, as Houghtalling and Hescock lobbed shells into Manigault's ranks, shook the Illinoisans back to the reality of battle. With the Rebels now just fifty yards away, the Eighty-eighth rose up and, after its skirmishers cleared the front line, joined in the firing. Manigault's infantry came no closer, but halted, wavered, and broke to the rear.

  As Manigault withdrew to the sound of cheering from the Union ranks, the first of Sheridan's regiments to have been engaged found itself with empty cartridge boxes. With its acting commander, Major Silas Miller, badly wounded, the Thirty-sixth Illinois received permission to leave the front line and retire north of the Wilkinson Pike to draw ammunition. The Thirty-sixth had fought splendidly, as its losses attested. Forty-six Illinoisans were dead, another one hundred fifty-one lay wounded, and fifteen more were missing. Although the regiment would go on to participate in every major battle in the West, it was at Stones River that it suffered its heaviest losses. Only one hundred forty survivors answered muster as their adjutant searched for ammunition. He found none: the men needed .67 caliber, but Sheridan's wagons could offer only .58. At this point McCook rode up and ordered the regiment back to the Nashville Turnpike, where it remained until reunited with the brigade that afternoon.4

  This rare appearance of McCook was typical of his role, or rather lack of a role, in the early hours of the battle. He was as invisible as Sheridan was ubiquitous. Instead of helping his finest division commander rally survivors for a stand near the Harding farm, McCook seems to have drifted aimlessly in the rear of his fast-disintegrating command, stepping in only to order regiments still engaged to give up and retreat, as if the shock of battle had overcome his own will to resist.

  But with or without McCook, Sheridan aimed to fight on. While Manigault prepared to renew the attack, Sheridan reformed his lines to conform to the second positions of what remained of the brigades of Woodruff, Carlin, Post, and Baldwin. He withdrew his right-flank regiments, the Eighty-eighth Illinois and Twenty-first Michigan, to the outbuildings of the Harding farm on the north side of a narrow country lane. Then he moved the Fifteenth Missouri and Forty-fourth Illinois, both woefully short of ammunition, to a place of relative safety behind Hescock's battery. Bush, meanwhile, unlimbered his guns near the Harding house in support of Greusel, while Houghtalling abandoned the elevation in favor of a small neck of wood six hundred yards northeast of Bush, on the dirt lane just below the Wilkinson Pike.

  Manigault struck Sheridan's second position at 8:30 A.M. This time he had support. Cheatham had committed George Maney's brigade, his last. Like Cheatham, Maney was a Tennessean, raised in nearby Franklin and schooled at the University of Nashville. Maney served briefly with Tennessee volunteers in the Mexican War, then returned to Nashville to practice law until he was elected colonel of the First Tennessee in 1861. Maney survived the war and seems to have reconstructed quic
kly, as he campaigned unsuccessfully for the governorship of Tennessee on the Republican ticket in 1876. Afterwards he tried his hand at diplomacy, serving as American consul in Colombia, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay before his death in Washington D.C. in 1901.

  But all that was years in the future. Maney's sole concern for the moment was to guide his men safely across the valley behind Manigault, whose brigade was again crumbling under a murderous converging fire from Bush and Houghtalling. Colonel George Roberts, his brigade as yet unbloodied, saw in Manigault's stalled attack a chance to swing the momentum of the battle in favor of the Federals. Encountering Sheridan behind Hescock's guns, Roberts begged permission to counterattack. The colonel's enthusiasm was contagious, and Sheridan immediately approved the plan. Roberts wasted no time in carrying it out. His Illinoisans lined up in the field south of the Blanton house, “as if on parade,” recalled Alexander Stevenson of the Forty-second Illinois, the right-flank regiment in the brigade front line. On its left was the Fifty-first Illinois, behind it the Twenty-second Illinois. The soldiers fixed bayonets, the officers reminded them not to fire until ordered, the command “Forward, march!” rang out, and the brigade lurched forward. Roberts's adjutant galloped ahead to ask Colonel Sherman of the Eighty-eighth to tear down the fence that stood between the brigade and Manigault's Confederates, but his words were lost in the din. Undaunted, the adjutant rode to the fence and, through a variety of gestures, convinced the soldiers to level it, cease firing, and lie down. Right behind came the Forty-second which, after passing over the Eighty-eighth, aligned itself and prepared to charge. From his place in the ranks Alexander Stevenson recalled the scene that followed: “Suddenly the grand form of Colonel Roberts could be seen riding in rear of the regiment, telling the officers not to let a shot be fired; then, wheeling around the left wing, he rode in front of the regiment along the whole line, with his cap in his hand, cheering the men to endless enthusiasm and shouting to them: ‘Don't fire a shot! Drive them with the bayonet!’” The command “Charge!” followed, and the Forty-second surged forward with a cheer, leaving behind the Fifty-first, its way blocked by a neck of cedars. Manigault's men were too badly shaken by the artillery fire to resist even a single regiment of infantry, and they retreated back to their line of departure, the Forty-second Illinois following them as far as the rail fence previously held by the Twenty-fourth Wisconsin. The impetuous Illinoisans in turn found themselves surrounded by a swarm of Southerners—Polk and Wood had swept through the fields to their rear. Sheridan recalled the regiment at once.5

  Manigault falling back with his brigade met Maney and his Tennesseans coming up. The two conferred. Manigault outlined the Federal dispositions, then subjected the Tennessean to an impassioned account of the havoc Bush and Houghtalling had wrought on his brigade, explaining that their synchronized, mutually supporting fire made an attack against just one impossible, as it would expose the flank of the attacking force to destruction by the other battery.

  Manigault's analysis may have surprised Maney, but his troops already understood the destructive power of the Federal guns. As they lay in the fields southeast of the Brick Kiln, they spent twenty harrowing minutes dodging incoming rounds while their commander listened to Manigault. Finally Manigault finished, and Maney agreed to his plan. Each would move against one battery in a simultaneous assault. Manigault chose Houghtalling's battery; Maney, that of Bush. The two generals returned to their commands. Manigault changed front to the right so as to face Houghtalling, and Maney advanced to Manigault's left.6

  Sheridan, meanwhile, was availing himself of this second lull to modify his lines. Again it was the failure of the commands on his right to resist Cleburne and Vaughan that forced Sheridan to withdraw. Roberts's brigade would be the anchor of this, Sheridan's third position. Sheridan had ordered him into the timber along the Wilkinson Pike after his successful counterattack. In compliance with orders, Roberts inserted the Twenty-second Illinois behind and to the left of Houghtalling, then placed the Forty-second Illinois to the left of the Twenty-second. Due north of Houghtalling and across the pike rested the Fifty-first and Twenty-seventh Illinois, fronting south. With Roberts in position, Sheridan reeled in Schaefer and Greusel. The former joined Roberts's right with the Second Missouri and the Seventy-third Illinois, the Fifteenth Missouri and Forty-fourth Illinois having left the line in search of ammunition; Greusel, meanwhile, sent a staff officer to Colonel Sherman with instructions to fall back alongside the Twenty-fourth Wisconsin, which had reformed west of the Blanton house, and another to the commander of the Twenty-first Michigan with orders to redeploy in support of Hescock. Even with this, however, the Missouri artillerymen could not stay long on the high ground, where they presented Vaughan's sharpshooters with an easy target. Accordingly, Sheridan dispatched them to the small knoll that lay in advance of Negley's right. It was a position of great natural strength, commanding the open fields to the east and the cedar belt to the south. After detaching his two-gun section of Parrotts under Lieutenant R. C. M. Taliaferro to shore up Houghtalling, Hescock rode to the knoll with his remaining four pieces.7

  While Sheridan organized his third position, Maney prepared to seize Bush's battery and drive away the Eighty-eighth Illinois and Twenty-first Michigan, as yet unmoved from behind the rail fence near the Harding house. Supposing Manigault to be ready, Maney sent the Sixth and Ninth Tennessee Consolidated sprinting ahead to occupy the edge of a cedar thicket three hundred yards to their front or, if no enemy were found, to rejoin the main body. Meanwhile, the Fourth Confederate and First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Consolidated waded through cotton fields earlier trampled into a pasty ooze by Manigault's Alabamians. As they right-wheeled south of the Brick Kiln, Bush withdrew to join Hescock on the knoll, their infantry support to the Wilkinson Pike. Raising a cheer, the Confederates ascended the ridge only to find that, silhouetted between the Harding house and the Brick Kiln, they presented Houghtalling with a shooting-gallery target. Out on the skirmish line the startled Butternuts, unable to believe that Manigault had failed to clear away the Federal guns, cried “Cease firing! Cease firing! You are firing on your own men!” Back on the ridge, where “the Rebels were falling like leaves of autumn,” Houghtalling's shelling froze Maney and his lieutenants with indecision. Like his skirmishers, the Tennessean believed that Manigault had done his part in dislodging Houghtalling and thus assumed the fire to be friendly. But friendly fire or not, men were dying, and so, while their leaders hesitated, the soldiers fell to the ground.

  Sam Watkins, out on the skirmish line, had another explanation for the failure of Confederate leadership at this critical juncture: “John Barleycorn was general in chief. Our generals, and colonels and captains, had kissed John a little too often. They couldn't see straight. It was said to be buckeye whiskey. They couldn't tell our own men from the Yankees. The private could, but he was no general, you see.”

  Whatever the cause of the officers’ indecision, it was clear that the identity of the guns had to be established—and quickly. Colonel H. R. Field of the First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee Consolidated understood this, and he sent Lieutenant R. F. James of his staff forward on horseback to reconnoiter the battery. James made it to within fifty yards of the guns before Roberts's Bluecoats shot him dead. Maney still doubted that the guns were hostile. A second officer rode out. He came within forty yards of Houghtalling's battery before Roberts's infantry again rose and fired. This time the bullets missed their mark, and the officer wheeled his horse and escaped unharmed. Field, at least, was convinced that the guns and their infantry support were Yankee. His men happily obeyed the order to return fire.

  Amazingly, Maney's other regimental commanders continued to harbor doubts, that is, until two color-bearers volunteered their lives to put an end to the uncertainty. The color sergeant of the Fourth Tennessee acted first. Marching ten paces forward, he raised the flag and waved it. For ten minutes he drew fire from the Forty-second Illinois before returning to the line, his colo
nel convinced and the colors considerably more tattered. Sergeant M. C. Hooks of the Sixth and Ninth Tennessee Consolidated, which had rejoined the brigade on its left, advanced next with his unit's colors, placing them atop a feed crib. Adjusting range and elevation, Houghtalling's gunners blasted the crib but missed the sergeant. It was enough, however, to convince everyone the guns were unfriendly.

  Certain now that Manigault had failed to move as agreed, Maney brought up the two Napoleans and two twelve-pounders of Smith's battery. Battery commander William Turner unlimbered near the spot that Bush had vacated, and opened on Houghtalling with “terrible effect.”8

  While Turner and Houghtalling pounded one another, Vaughan's Tennesseans emerged from the timber south of the Harding house and approached Maney's left. Unlike Maney, Vaughan never had any doubt that the artillerymen who were raking his lines with solid shot were Yankees. Stopping short of Maney's left, Vaughan wisely ordered his men to take cover on the west side of the ridge while he awaited instructions from Cheatham.