The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home

by Davis, William C.

  Even before his elevation, the Kentuckian readied his Orphans for the coming battle. When he evacuated Bowling Green, the brigade wounded had been sent by rail to Atlanta. A number of others straggled or deserted, and some infantrymen had been held there under orders to act as nurses in the hospitals. Breckinridge sent Colonel Hunt to Atlanta, and Lieutenant Tom Winstead of the 4th Kentucky to Chattanooga and Atlanta, with orders to bring back all men able enough for duty. Winstead was told even to arrest those who would not come freely. As for Hunt, he was chiefly to look for deserters. Once in Atlanta he ordered all convalescents from the brigade aboard cars for Corinth, Gervis Grainger among them. Hunt found one healthy Orphan, however, who had been detailed as a nurse in a military hospital, and the doctors would not release him. Breckinridge immediately ordered a dispatch sent to Atlanta that was unusually blunt. “The Kentucky boys didnt ship for orderlies to ‘Pill rollers,’ ” he said. Indeed, some of the Orphans even returned under lock and key. A group of thirty convalescents from Chattanooga were locked inside a boxcar by Winstead. A still-ailing Johnny Jackman sat among them. It took twenty-four hours for them to reach Corinth. “We got off the train,” he wrote in his diary, “and I never again saw the Lt. He was such a ‘goober’ I don’t believe he knew which road to take.” But then, Johnny was a bit resentful at being locked up.17

  However they came to Burnsville, whether in confinement or like the two men of the 6th Kentucky whose wives accompanied them on the train with baskets of goodies, Breckinridge rushed to prepare them. The old question of inadequate arms arose again. He found that eleven hundred of the brigade guns needed repair, and that boxes of ammunition and kegs of powder were damaged. He sent it all to Corinth for repair or replacement. Hunt requisitioned six hundred new rifles for his 5th Kentucky. Somehow their wants were satisfied for a change so that Breckinridge might look forward to a command well prepared for the coming battle. To the men he gave explicit instructions on conduct under fire. They must shoot “with deliberation at the feet of the enemy,” he said, thus avoiding the tendency to overshoot. Officers were to prevent the men from firing uselessly when not actually engaged. He advised to attempt to wound enemy soldiers rather than kill them. In part this was because a wounded man took one and sometimes two of his comrades from the battle line to help him to the rear, whereas the dead were left where they fell. It may date as well from the sensitivity of Breckinridge’s nature. A man of very tender sensibilities, as a lawyer he could never bring himself to act as a prosecutor. Now, even in battle, he hoped to spare life.

  “It was the deliberate Sharp Shooting of our forefathers in the Revolution of 1776 and at New Orleans in 1815 which made him so formidable against the odds with which they engaged,” he told the brigade. Now they must do the same. They must stay in ranks, and not leave the line to assist wounded. Let the enemy do that. “To quit the standard on the field of battle under fire under pretense of removing or aiding the wounded will not be permitted.” Violators would be shot on the spot.18

  Now that Breckinridge commanded a corps, leadership of the Kentucky brigade devolved upon the senior colonel, Robert P. Trabue. For the first time Breckinridge was separated from his Kentuckians, making all the more apropos his sobriquet for them. How many more commanders would leave them orphans before this war was done?

  As March became April, an undercurrent of excitement flowed through the otherwise peaceful camps at Burnsville. On Sunday, March 30, the Orphans “rubbed up” their brass for the usual inspection, but that evening they heard the ominous sound of cannon fire in the distance to the north. It lasted for some time, and Jackman found that it “made one feel ‘devilish.’ ” As the thunder of the guns rolled over the hills to Burnsville, curiosity coursed through the men. Hunt ordered three of his companies to leave before dawn the next day to determine the cause of the firing. They returned on April 1, to report that Breckinridge’s scouts had fired on a federal gunboat on the Tennessee, and the cannonade they heard was its deck guns answering.

  The men were mostly idle on April 2. Johnny Jackman had time to observe the progress of the new season, finding that nature was “tardy in robing old earth in a mantle of green.” Still, the forests looked more verdant than before, and flowers bloomed. “These remind me of happier days,” he wrote in his diary.

  The next day it came. That afternoon Breckinridge received the order to be ready to march at first light on April 4, expecting to give battle within twenty-four hours. This same day several hundred of the long-requested Enfield rifles reached Burnsville and found eager hands awaiting. Through the day the Orphans received and cooked three days’ rations. Forty rounds of ammunition per man issued forth from the quartermaster. Johnny Green found “the whole command greatly rejoiced at the prospect of battle.” That evening Hunt called his regiment to assemble in front of his tent, and he read to them General Johnston’s battle order. “I have put you in motion to offer battle to the invaders of your country,” it read. “You can but march to a decisive victory … remember the fair, broad, abounding land, the happy homes, and the ties that would be desolated by your defeat.” He hardly need remind the Orphans of what they fought for. Even in defeat most of the other Confederate soldiers in this army would still have homes safely behind their own lines. But a victory by Grant in this contest would only drive the Kentuckians farther from their home fires.

  1. General Simon Bolivar Buckner who gave birth to the Kentucky State Guard and, thereby, the First Kentucky Brigade. (Courtesy Massachusetts MOLLUS Collection)

  2. The Kentucky State Guard encampment at Louisville, August 23, 1860. In less than a year these men will flock to the South. (Courtesy Kentucky Historical Society)

  3. Orphans to be. Several State Guard companies at the Louisville Fairgrounds in 1860. (Courtesy Kentucky Military History Museum, Kentucky Historical Society)

  4. John Hunt Morgan’s Lexington Rifles in 1860. Gay now, they faced hard years to come in the Orphan Brigade. (Courtesy Kentucky Military History Museum, Kentucky Historical Society)

  Reveille interrupted the Orphans’ fitful sleep at 4 A.M. that morning. They arose in a pelting rain and packed the brigade baggage into wagons that would take it to Corinth. Their tents went with it. Poor John Jackman, still not fully recovered from his Bowling Green illness, felt weak and in need of a stimulant. In the rush of packing he found an unattended bottle and thinking it was whisky, decided to “wet up” for the march. It turned out to be alcohol mixed with camphor, a back-rubbing potion for rheumatism. “I thought the stuff would burn me up,” he told his diary. “That taught me a lesson.”

  By daylight the twenty-four hundred Orphans stood in the road, ready to march to the battle they expected on the morrow. Their measured step took them through a swamp where, in places, the mud sat knee deep, and the rain continued through the morning. Already the weaker men, or those not yet recovered from their illness, fell out of line or lagged back. Jackman had to take advantage of the brigade’s occasional halts in order to regain his place in line. It meant that he had no rest. Finally the sun appeared at noon, warming the day but not easing the march. When Jackman stopped at a spring to drink, he rested his Enfield against a tree. He returned to find that another Orphan had traded with him, leaving in its place a rusted old flintlock. Finally, like many others, he gave up walking and climbed onto an ordnance wagon.

  The bivouac that night had no tents, and the rain fell again until dawn, dampening men and spirits, and making the roads even more difficult. Already the artillery and wagon train ran several hours late. By now the Army should have been ready to attack Grant at Pittsburg Landing on the morning. Instead it lay still a day’s march from the enemy, and Johnston found no alternative but to postpone the attack until April 6.19

  The next day’s march was little better, though in the warmth of the sun, spirits renewed. The rain soaked the Orphans’ rations of bread. “Notwithstanding wet bread is not very appetizing,” found Johnny Green, “we ate up the three days ration in half t
hat time & consequently we are all very hungry.” When Hunt bivouacked his regiment at 5 P.M. that afternoon, his starving Orphans immediately raided a turnip patch, flushing a rabbit in the offing. For some time the creature darted about as one avenue of escape after another closed in its path. Finally it ran toward Green, who followed the rabbit, and shortly he fell headlong into a ditch filled with water. “But Brer Rabit was there too,” found Johnny, “& was a poor swimmer.” That night Green’s mess dined on barbecued rabbit and boiled turnips and “ash cake,” corn meal and water baked in ashes between cabbage leaves. “Our mess lived high that night.”

  Not far away, Breckinridge lay on a blanket by the roadside discussing the situation with Johnston and the other generals. Beauregard and Bragg wanted to turn back, certain that their delays and a few brushes with federal outposts had cost them the surprise they hoped to achieve. Johnston and Polk still wanted to attack. Breckinridge, feeling terrible from fever or tension, still sat upright to add his counsel that they should go ahead. Finally Johnston decided to attack and laid forth his battle plan. While Bragg and Hardee assaulted, Polk and Breckinridge would be held in reserve. Johnston said he wanted to keep the Kentuckians in reserve because, used as they were to hard marches and fast ones, they could move speedily to any threatened point in the line. It may have been, too, that Breckinridge had never before been in a battle.

  That night the Orphans slept with their arms at their sides. “The night was clear, calm, and beautiful as such nights always are in the spring-time,” wrote Ed Thompson. Tired as they were from the hard march, the Kentuckians slept well except for the occasional firing of scouts in their front. The morrow was the Sabbath. In their front, behind Grant’s unsuspecting lines, lay Shiloh Church. With the coming of dawn these slumbering Orphans would attend the devil’s service.20

  FIVE

  “Baptized in Fire and Blood”

  “THIS DAY WILL LONG BE REMEMBERED,” Jackman wrote in his diary on April 6, 1862. Indeed it would. The men roused from sleep at 3 A.M. that morning. No bugles sounded the reveille in order not to alert any lurking Federals that an army stood poised to attack them. Instead, orderly sergeants shook the men of their companies to awaken them. They started fires and boiled water for their morning coffee. Just then Breckinridge galloped along the line yelling, “Boys, fall in. You have better work before you than eating.” Minutes later they heard the roar of cannon as the battle opened just over a mile from their camp.

  The Kentuckians formed in the road, the other brigades of the reserve corps taking place behind them. Officers spoke quietly to the men, calming their nerves. Others harangued their privates, trying to excite their martial ardor. Captain D. E. McKendree of “Old Joe” Lewis’ Company D addressed his men briefly in the road. He was a jolly sort, one used to making his rounds of a camp, visiting everyone briefly before moving on to the next group or tent, always saying, “Well, men, I must let my light shine around!” Now he shone as he told his nervous charges: “Boys, we are about to be engaged with the foe for the first time. It will pain me to see any man falter; and for heaven’s sake don’t let it be said, by those whom we love at home, that one member of Company D disgraced himself.”

  Soon the brigade stood ready to move, “Old Trib” Trabue at its head. When Breckinridge gave the order, the Orphans marched up the road at the double quick, some of them still munching the hardtack from their interrupted breakfast. They were twenty-four hundred strong, reasonably well armed, and as ready for a fight as they would ever be. This was the battle that would drive Grant out of Tennessee, out of Kentucky, and return them to their homes. Thus it was fitting that at least one member of Hanson’s 2d Kentucky marched with the brigade today. John Mahon, an Irishman of Company G, took a wound at Donelson and thus left before the surrender. He was back in the ranks now for his revenge.1

  Marching in the darkness toward the sound and flash of the big guns, the Kentuckians found their advance slowed by Polk’s corps in their front. Finally, still before light, they drew close enough to the battle line that Trabue ordered them to unsling their knapsacks in a pile and leave a guard for them. Trabue called for volunteers, but no one wanted to be left behind and miss the battle. The man finally ordered to stay tried bribing another to take his place with extra pieces of hardtack, to no avail. Indeed, even men of the brigade who had been in arrest begged release long enough to take part in the fight. One of Breckinridge’s teamsters, in the guardhouse for some infraction, talked the general into freeing him just for the battle.

  The men seemed lighthearted. To a captain of the 4th Kentucky it seemed incongruous. “Why did we not be more serious, and shake each other by the hand and bid fond adieus?” For a time even, the brass band of the regiment played martial airs, until too near the battle line. Then they “melt away into thin air and are seen no more.”2

  The battlefield ahead of Breckinridge and his Orphans was already a mess. Pittsburg Landing lay on the western bank of the Tennessee River, amid a hilly, wooded terrain crisscrossed by small creeks and forest roads. The left of Grant’s thirty-three-thousand-man army rested about four miles below the landing, against the river. The Federals’ right extended perpendicular to the river and almost six miles from it, its right center intersected by the Corinth road. It was upon this road that Johnston’s corps advanced. He hoped to press back Grant’s left, past Pittsburg Landing, almost two miles to Snake Creek, thus denying the possibility of federal reinforcement by way of the river landing. To make the attack, Johnston intended to send Hardee’s corps against Grant’s right, while Bragg’s corps would do the work of driving back the Federals along the Tennessee. Breckinridge and Polk, of course, were to assist where needed.

  The plan went awry immediately. Johnston achieved a tactical surprise that sent the enemy army into absolute consternation. Yet the Unionists speedily began organizing themselves for a defense, hoping to hold out long enough for twenty-five thousand reinforcements, led by Major General Don C. Buell, to reach them from downriver. As Hardee first struck, and Bragg soon after, it became apparent that Johnston’s plan would not work. The generals and their men were green, and the two corps soon became largely intermingled. Indeed, for the rest of the day officers would lead not so much their own commands as just any group of soldiers who came to hand. It would be a learning battle.

  As they neared the field, Breckinridge ordered Trabue to move forward in readiness for easy deployment behind Polk, and soon thereafter he told “Old Trib” to form in line of battle. He put the 3d Kentucky on the right and the 4th Kentucky on the left, the other regiments in the center, and Byrne’s and Cobb’s batteries in the rear. Morgan and his squadron were already out in front, and Helm guarded the right flank. In this fashion they moved forward until sometime after 8 A.M., when Breckinridge received an order to take the two rear brigades of his corps and move to the right to assist Bragg. It meant that, in its very first battle, he had to leave his Kentucky brigade on its own, but there was no choice. He told Trabue to keep on Polk’s left rear, continue advancing, and tend toward the left. Trabue would be moving almost directly toward Shiloh Church. Then Breckinridge bade him farewell, and both marched toward their fate.

  The first sight the Orphans had of the effects of the fighting was a nearly demolished federal battery, “dead men, dead horses, and broken gun carriages, all lying in a mingled condition.” About 9 A.M. Trabue encountered Morgan’s resting men. “Cheer, boys, cheer,” sang a cavalryman, and the foot soldiers responded in kind. They filed down a wooded slope and into a swampy area along the Shiloh Branch. There sat a large open field before them with enemy camps on the opposite side. The Federals stood in line in the woods near their camps, and over to his left Trabue saw two more enemy campsites occupied by bluecoats. At the same time he could see none of his own troops, being separated from Polk’s left by a rise of ground. Trabue appeared to be at the very end of the Confederate line, somewhat isolated, and had discovered a substantial body of the enemy who might hit Pol
k’s unsuspecting flank with ominous results. Trabue would have to attack.

  Just before reaching this position, Trabue lost the 3d Kentucky, Byrne’s battery, the 4th Alabama, and Crews’s battalions, when Beauregard ordered them to the right in support of another brigade. So now his command stood reduced to less than two thousand, and already the enemy was forming to meet him. The federal artillery opened on the Kentuckians first. A shell killed two of Cobb’s gunners and severed both hands of a third, who 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.