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

by Davis, William C.

  Hunt did oversee Wickliffe and a small detachment from the brigade saving some valuable stores in government warehouses at McMinnville a few days earlier and won compliments for the way “the troops from this Brigade did valuable service.” But still Hunt wanted out of the Army. Finally on April 22 the President accepted his resignation, and on May 1 Hunt—temporarily commanding the 1st Kentucky Brigade in Helm’s absence—formally turned the Orphans over to Lewis. The sadness of Hunt’s leave-taking brought tears from many in his old regiment. Some of them dated back to State Guard days with kindly “Uncle Tom.” “Few among them could take his hand in parting, without tears,” wrote one, “and all were sad and depressed.” Hunt repaired to Augusta, Georgia, to join his refugee family, and there entered business. For the rest of the war he lent aid to the Orphans when he could. After his departure from Tennessee, Helm sent to Hardee a testimonial to Hunt’s “conduct, true courage, and unusual judgment as an officer.” He grieved to lose him, as did the 9th Kentucky. “The resignation of so gallant a soldier and devoted a patriot is painful,” yet all understood the motives that compelled Hunt’s action. Fortunately they did not have long to mourn his absence. By the middle of May the Orphans were needed again.27

  The summons came from a familiar quarter, Vicksburg. Though Williams failed in his attempt to take the fortress city the year before, another man in blue with more men and more determination laid siege to the city just the day before the drill competitions began in Breckinridge’s division. U. S. Grant did not discourage like other men, and now he had the Confederate Army in Vicksburg surrounded. Its only hope lay in support from the outside. General Joseph E. Johnston was organizing a small army to provide that support, and he called on Bragg for assistance. This gave Bragg a much-wanted opportunity to rid his Army of its troublemakers. He ordered Breckinridge’s division to march to Johnston’s aid, and Vicksburg’s.

  The general received the order late on May 23, and that same night set the Orphans to work cooking rations for the trip ahead. Early the next morning the 1st Kentucky Brigade formed, just 2,048 strong, and marched 12 miles to Wartrace, arriving about noon. Along the way the men speculated among themselves about where they were going. “All the boys suspected that the brigade was ordered to Mississippi and were grumbling a great deal,” said Jackman, “not liking to make another summer campaign in the state.” Breckinridge soon dispelled any mystery. Shortly after the Kentuckians stacked their arms, he sent orders for them to form at headquarters. He wished to speak to them, he said. On their way to brigade headquarters a number of the men complained that if they could vote on their probable destination, they would choose to remain in Tennessee rather than spend another miserable summer in Mississippi. When the brigade assembled, the general stood on a stump so they all could see him, and announced that he had orders to bring all except his Tennessee troops here to board a train for Atlanta. Further orders would meet them there, but he had a good idea of his ultimate destination, and supposed they did too. Knowing how the Orphans felt about that, he had asked Bragg if he might not leave them in Tennessee and take a Mississippi brigade with him instead, men who would be glad to go home. Bragg left the matter to Breckinridge, however, and now he asked the Orphans their preference: going with him to Johnston, or staying with Bragg.

  “The boys felt that if they did not vote to follow their Maj. Gen’l. outsiders would think they also condemned him as well as Bragg,” wrote Johnny Jackman. “To stay with Bragg while others were sent with Breckinridge,” said Johnny Green, “would be taking part against their beloved Breckinridge.” Men who a few minutes before spoke of voting for Tennessee if they had the chance, now cast unanimously to follow their general, their father. “Whither thou goest,” said Green, “there we will go also.” They raised their right hands to a man, then followed the balloting with a round of cheering for Breckinridge. He thanked them in a brief speech—“He is the most eloquent speaker I ever heard,” Jackman decided—then left to bid farewell to his Tennessee regiments. Already moved by the Orphans’ gesture, he broke down when saying good-bye to the 20th Tennessee, to whom he had given Mary’s wedding-dress flag. He uttered only a few words before tears overwhelmed him. Abruptly he wheeled his mount and galloped out of sight. A month later the men of the 20th sent him a new horse “as a simple expression of the feelings cherished by soldiers for their favorite chieftain.”28

  The trip from Wartrace to Atlanta, then Montgomery, and on to Jackson, repeated in reverse their journey of the previous September, and with no fewer adventures. Once having decided to go to Mississippi, the Orphans assumed their usual demeanor. When their train left Montgomery, a bystander saw that “all seemed in the highest spirits, cheering and yelling like demons.” In part they cheered in thanks for being alive, for on the very day they left Wartrace by train the 6th and 9th Kentuckys very nearly ceased to be. Their rickety engine and broken-down cars ran out of control coming down a 7-mile grade. By Jackman’s timing, they covered the 7 miles in 4½; minutes. He watched the moon as it appeared from moment to moment between the crags overhead, and thought of saying good-bye to it. “We thought every moment the car would be dashed in pieces against the rocks or be pitched off some of the cliffs and be ground into dust.” How much worse it must have been for those men who “bivouacked” on top of the crowded cars. The rearmost car actually flew to pieces and disappeared from the end of the train, yet not a man was killed. One poor Orphan riding atop it when it disintegrated found himself flying over the telegraph wires and into a briar bramble. Miraculously he survived, “receiving no other injury than being ‘powerfully’ scratched.” The men from the wrecked car and from another damaged car had to bivouac beside the track and wait for the next train. The rest of the Orphans “spent the remainder of the night roaring and clattering over the rails to Chattanooga.”29

  By the evening of May 31, 1863, Breckinridge and the Kentuckians reached the end of their travels, just six miles short of Jackson. The trip that had taken two weeks in 1862 he now accomplished in one. In Jackson, however, the brigade lay idle for nearly a month while Johnston frantically tried to increase his army. For the Orphans it was a month of monotonous camp life, relieved by fishing, swimming, and bathing, and listening to the distant sound of Grant’s artillery shelling Vicksburg. The men caught fish by the hundreds using their blankets, though Squire Bush complained that “after dividing by long division there remained a very small share for each man.” Johnny Green sampled eel for the first time. Late in June several of the men captured in earlier days arrived, having been exchanged. Tom Moss told the boys how, denied exchange, he and twenty-two other prisoners overpowered their guards on the exchange boat and took command, steaming it into Confederate shores. And this month came Lewis’ turn for the petition ritual. Whenever the Orphans had time on their hands, they seemed always to use it recommending their officers for promotion. On June 18 Nuckols, Caldwell, and the other ranking officers of the brigade petitioned the War Department to make “Old Joe” Lewis a brigadier. Helm agreed, and Breckinridge endorsed the petition by saying, “He is surpassed by none [in the] service for courage and conduct on the field.”30

  Only on the first of July did Breckinridge receive orders to move at last toward Vicksburg. It was a hot, miserable march, some men falling dead with sunstroke. More than half of Caldwell’s 9th Kentucky fell by the roadside with heat prostration. Dr. Walter Byrne, surgeon of that regiment, went on a “bender,” as Jackman put it, with a barrel of whisky the two had brought from Atlanta. He kept poor Johnny awake all night “by pulling my blankets, and bothering me generally.” During the march on July 2 the Orphans “foraged” as usual in the fields they passed, today making free with corn and blackberries from Briarfield plantation, which just happened to belong to President Jefferson Davis. At least they were ecumenical. The Orphans would plunder from anyone.

  Here they remained for two days, making further requisitions upon President Davis’ fields. On July 5 they marched toward Vicksburg again
in the afternoon, noticing now that the incessant cannonade of the past several days had stopped. When they formed for the march in the road the next morning, expecting to attack Grant’s rear, their orders turned them instead toward Jackson. Vicksburg had fallen two days before, and now Johnston had to get his army in its earthworks at Jackson before the victorious Federals reached them first. The Orphans marched as rapidly as possible in the heat and dust. Because of the cloud raised by thousands of tramping feet, they could not see ahead to know how far they were from their bivouac. Sergeant Jim Lee of the 6th Kentucky asked a passing farmer how far it was to Clinton. “Four miles.” Some distance farther he asked another native. “Six miles.” That was too much for the poker-playing Sergeant Lee. “By me sowl, Pathrick,” he said, imitating an Irish friend, “by me sowl, Pathrick, why didn’t ye stand? He’s raised you two!”31

  12. The battered bugle of the First Kentucky Brigade, like the Orphans it called to battle, vanquished, but unbeatable. (From Thompson, Orphan Brigade)

  13. “Old Flintlock.” Brigadier General Roger W. Hanson died in the senseless charge at Stones River that made them all Orphans. (Courtesy Jack McGuire Collection)

  14. Colonel Martin Cofer helped raise the 6th Kentucky, and led it when “old Joe” Lewis took command of the Brigade. (From Thompson, Orphan Brigade)

  15. Colonel John W. Caldwell was not above challenging his general when his honor was impugned. (From Thompson, Orphan Brigade)

  16. Joseph P. Nuckols took over the 4th Kentucky from Trabue. They sang him the “Kentucky Battle Song” at Shiloh and died for him at Stones River. (From Thompson, Orphan Brigade)

  17. Major Rice E. Graves, the artillerist who became a personal favorite with everyone. “Old Breck” wept over him at Chickamauga. (From Thompson, Orphan Brigade)

  18. The gentle general, Ben Hardin Helm. Lincoln cried of Absalom when his brother-in-law died at Chickamauga. (Courtesy Massachusetts MOLLUS Collection)

  They reached Jackson on July 7, and here for the first time Johnston officially announced the fall of Vicksburg. “The news cast a gloom over most of the troops,” wrote Jackman in his diary, “but did not seem to affect the ‘Orphans’ much.” Two days later the Federals appeared in their front. The 1st Kentucky Brigade, now 2,089 including Cobb’s battery, took position on the extreme left of the Confederate line. On their right sat their old drill rival, Adams’ Louisianians. The Kentucky officers sent a party into Jackson to impress blacks for work in building up their fortifications, and found “quite a crowd” of them brought back. Several were barbers who did not much fancy working with pick and shovel, but the Orphans gave them little choice. “We layed around & took it easy while the negroes used the picks, spades & axes,” wrote Johnny Green. Jackman made his “headquarters” in a gentleman’s grape arbor.

  Skirmishing began that same day, but nothing of note took place until July 11, when the Orphans were ordered to the right of the line to assist in meeting an expected assault. Caldwell’s 9th Kentucky took position immediately behind a lovely mansion belonging to an old gentleman named Withers. The old man himself shouldered a rifle to help defend his yard against the Yankees. He had previously moved all of his fine furniture into his back yard to protect it from enemy artillery fire, but this afternoon it started to rain, threatening ruin to the upholstered pieces. Jackman and several other Orphans volunteered to help Withers move the furniture into the house again and out of the downpour. They moved everything in by the back door, safe from enemy sharpshooters. But that left an enormous mahogany bedstead, which could only enter by the front. Despite the fire of Yankee marksmen, Jackman and the others moved the bed safely, no doubt giving the enemy cause to wonder just what was going on. Already they rumored among themselves that Breckinridge’s Kentucky soldiers were “considered the best in Johnston’s Army.” But best at what: fighting or furniture moving? The next day old Withers died fighting for his home, and a few days later furniture, house, and all disappeared in flames.32

  The next day brought the only real fighting at Jackson, when three enemy brigades made a reconnaissance in force against the center of Breckinridge’s division. They engaged other brigades, but Cobb’s guns were chiefly responsible for repulsing the enemy with heavy loss. Spectators of a fight for a change, the Orphans marveled at the scene. “This is the grandest site I ever saw,” Squire Bush wrote that night. “The sun shone most beautifully, the fire burning the large houses, the roaring artillery and the rattle of musketry, all combined, made it the most sublime sight that my eye was ever permitted to witness.”

  The good Reverend Pickett watched the firing with a few other officers that day when a spent bullet struck his foot. One of them picked up the ball and handed it to Pickett, who remarked that he was glad it had hit his foot and not his head. He and the 2d Kentucky were there in support of Cobb’s battery, but Pickett was the only man hit. “You see, now,” he remarked, “that chaplains are not bulletproof.” Pickett was a favorite with the Orphans. “Their [sic] is not a man or officer in the Brigade who does not love him,” Private A. W. Randolph wrote his parents. Pickett proved a great friend to the sick and wounded, and always appeared on the field to lend cheer and aid. “He has no fear for him self.”

  Thanks chiefly to fire from Cobb and another battery, the Federals fell back, leaving two hundred prisoners and two or three stands of colors. It was a puny battle, but in the aftermath of the Vicksburg loss, any little victory was prized. The Kentuckians lost only two killed and seven wounded, all from Cobb’s battery, and Johnston congratulated Breckinridge and “your gallant Division.” Yet it was also clear that the Confederates could not remain in Jackson much longer. With all of Grant’s Army in Vicksburg and nearby, Johnston could be overwhelmed if he allowed himself to be besieged. While a route of retreat still lay open, he must take it. On July 16 he readied for the evacuation. Even before orders arrived, the Orphans could tell from the look of things that another retreat was in the offing. At midnight they fell in line and marched out of their works. As a matter of habit now, the Kentuckians acted as a rear guard for the withdrawing Army, but the Federals did not pursue. “It has covered so many retreats,” Jackman wrote, “the boys know just how such things have to be done.”

  In all they marched about fifty miles in the next six days, first in dust and heat, then in torrential rains. Even the usually cheerful Ben Helm grew depressed. “As usual, we are on a grand retreat,” he wrote his wife, Emily, “the sufferings of which, so far as I am personally concerned, are unparalleled in the war. We have to drink water that, in ordinary times, you wouldn’t offer your horse; and I have hardly slept out of a swamp since we left Jackson.”33

  The Orphans found themselves tense and nervous on the retreat. Tired, marching until well past dark, their perceptions were faulty. Once the mere act of an adjutant’s horse coming close to stepping on a man in the dark set nearly the entire 4th Kentucky into a stampede, and some time passed before the men calmed. In the dark they suddenly took each other for the enemy, and only eased back into their place in the road after calling out their names—all except “Devil Dick” Slusser, who found the whole business a bore and laid down in the road to sleep until the confusion subsided.

  Their merry nature returned as always. In the retreat Johnston somehow lost track of his orderlies and baggage for the military court. He made inquiry of Breckinridge, asking that he consult his brigade and regimental commanders to see what they knew of the missing men and records. Helm’s adjutant, Fayette Hewitt, passed the inquiry to Jim Hewitt, commanding the 2d Kentucky, asking, “Has anybody found a Military Court lying around loose?” Jim Hewitt did not think so. “If this court understands herself (and she think she do), she haint seen that court,” he said in passing the matter on to the 4th Kentucky. “Narry sich as that about the Fourth Regiment,” came the response. And Caldwell of the 9th reported, “I hain’t neither seen nor hearn of a thing like that.” Johnston may not have gotten back his court, but the Orphans certainly reco
vered their spirit.

  Johnny Green even received an invitation to General Breckinridge’s headquarters. Once there Johnny found a cousin who claimed he was now an aide to the general. When Green said he knew that his cousin could be no such thing as an aide, the man replied, “The hell I cant,” and produced two jugs of whisky and a basket filled with bottles of champagne. “Dont you call that aid?” he said. The man had written some time before to a friend in Union-occupied New Orleans complaining, “You no doubt are wallowing in ease & luxury with all things good to eat & drink while John Breckinridge & I & a multitude of your other friends are barely keeping alive on Bull Beef & corn bread & are actually dying for something to drink.” The friend sent the liquor, and Johnny Green’s cousin proudly declared now, “There is no doubt that I saved Genl Breckinridges life.” In fact, Breckinridge gave the whisky to his commissary for the men.34

  The brigade spent the next month at a spot a few miles from Morton, Mississippi, that they dubbed Camp Hurricane. Later some claimed it to be the most peaceful month they ever knew during the war. There was little duty to do, and the men spent time building arbors of branches for shade. The brigade glee club sang the strains of “Lorena,” “Neapolitan,” “Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming,” and “Take Me Home to the Place.” Most of the songs turned on a home theme, and they became rather popular with the local citizenry. “General,” a farmer would say to Breckinridge, “I wish you would send them singin’ boys over to my house to-night,” and off they would go, the general and staff usually attending. John Marshall played the violin and sang tenor, John Weller bass, and with guitar, banjo, flute, and even a cornet, they sang for their supper. Every performance began with “We Come Again with Songs to Greet You.”