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

by Davis, William C.

  Hewitt fell in the first charge, whereupon Moss brought the regiment back seventy-five yards to form line with Caldwell’s 9th. Once there he discovered that Caldwell, too, was out of the fight, his right arm badly injured by a federal bullet. John C. Wickliffe took command of the regiment, presumably now allowing himself the luxury of unbuttoning his blouse. Once Wickliffe and Moss were aligned, they discussed the whereabouts of the remainder of the brigade. Unable to determine what was happening on the right, they determined to renew the attack, and charged once more. They got within forty yards this time, but the enfilading fire from their exposed left forced them back. Major Rice Graves, now ordnance officer on Breckinridge’s staff, accompanied these regiments on the left, and here he, too, fell with a desperate wound. Captain Peter V. Daniel of the 9th Kentucky fell dead on the spot.

  Hark to the answer! That shout of defiance,

  Rings out like a knell above the fierce strife,

  ’Tis death without shrift to the dastardly foe,

  And heaven have pity on sweetheart and wife.

  Once again Moss and Wickliffe re-formed. Then a message came from Breckinridge. They must assault again, as Lewis was attacking on the right, and a united effort might dislodge the enemy. Even with the support of Cobb, who brought his battery behind the 2d Kentucky, and now gave his fire to protect their exposed left, the Orphans could not take the federal works. Yet a third time the Orphans fell back. When they did, General Ben Hardin Helm was dying.9

  Helm and John B. Pirtle moved forward with the 2d Kentucky during the first assault. Just when he was hit is uncertain, but at some point a rifle ball entered the general’s right side and he fell from his horse. At once several of his staff rushed to him, a litter came forward, and gingerly they bore him nearly a mile to the hospital in the rear. Wickliffe ordered Johnny Jackman to ride Helm’s horse to the rear, and there he gave it to Pirtle, who in turn would ride the animal to Lewis and give it to him. Word was sent to Breckinridge, then some distance to the right. “He sat erect on his horse,” said an onlooker, “his whole body seeming to indicate attention to the business on hand.” John Castleman was struck with “the impressiveness of the scene.” The message came to Breckinridge, he read it, and then with considerable emotion announced, “Helm has been killed, Colonel Caldwell has been wounded, Colonel Lewis commands the Kentucky Brigade.”

  The general looked at his staff, then called his son Cabell to him. “Bear this message to Colonel Lewis,” said Breckinridge. Theodore O’Hara volunteered to make the dangerous journey instead, but the general sent his own son. The boy made the ride successfully and informed Lewis of his new command. A sergeant-major of the 9th Kentucky declared, “When Lieutenant Cabell Breckinridge reported to Colonel Joseph H. Lewis and rode from the field alive, his escape seemed miraculous.”10

  The battle is over; but where is thy chief,

  The Bayard of battle, dauntless and brave?

  There, cold and uncoffined, lies chivalrous Helm,

  Where glory’s mailed hand hath found him a grave.

  Immediately upon notification of Helm’s fall, Lewis placed Cofer in command of the 6th Kentucky, then started moving toward the left of the brigade to find Helm’s staff. When Pirtle gave him Helm’s horse, he rode with such haste that he accidentally came within a few yards of the enemy positions. Discovering the error, he spurred the animal and dashed away amid a flurry of shots that should have cut him down, but did not. A few nights before, he and his men were speaking of presentiments of death before battle, and Lewis surprised them by saying, “Well, though I am a wicked man, when I go into action my whole dependence is upon God. I trust myself to Him, with the feeling that if I do my duty faithfully by my country and my men He will take care of me.” Thus far, at least, Lewis must certainly have been doing his duty.11

  When Lewis reached the left he immediately reunited the two halves of the divided brigade. This meant withdrawing the right somewhat, as well as pulling the left out of fire and moving it to the right. Then he formed the whole command in line of battle near the Chattanooga road. He ordered the Orphans to lie down for a time. Cleburne, at last, was coming into the battle, and now the Kentucky brigade could rest and act as a reserve. Johnny Green took several canteens from his company and walked back to a spring, only to discover several enemy field pieces trained on that very spot. “It was anything but a comfortable experience to fill those canteens,” he decided, and he returned with considerable relief to his regiment.

  Cleburne, too, proved unable to dislodge the Federals, and withdrew, leaving the Orphans once more to take the enemy fire. Finally General Hill ordered them retired several hundred yards, their morning’s fight done.11

  Where Hewitt and Daniel? Where trumpet-voiced Graves?

  And where the brave men they gallantly led?

  There, voiceless forever and dreamless they lie

  On the field they have won, immortal, though dead.

  The work of the Orphans and Breckinridge’s other brigades was not in vain that morning. Even though they did not break Thomas’ line or capture his position, yet they applied such force in their attacks that he called repeatedly for reinforcements. As Rosecrans sent them from the right and center of the Union line, communications became confused, leading to a momentary gap in the federal center. Just as the gap opened, Bragg happened to have sent a major assault toward that very spot. The effect was electric. Confederates poured through the hole, causing the right of the enemy Army to disintegrate, and sending most of the federal commanders running back to Chattanooga for safety. Already, before 1 P.M., the Battle of Chickamauga was a great victory, the most complete defeat ever suffered by a Union army. Major contributions to that defeat were the terrible, though costly, attacks made by the 1st Kentucky Brigade against more than twice their numbers.

  During the lull for the Kentuckians, Breckinridge rode over the field, steadying the men and looking to his losses. Soon he came to the dying form of his young chief of artillery, Rice E. Graves. Breckinridge dismounted and bent over his beloved young friend, whispering a few hurried words of encouragement, and then ordered litter bearers to take him to the hospital. Graves’s last words to him expressed the belief that if only he could be nursed by Mary Breckinridge again, he knew he would recover. Once in the hospital, Graves was placed next to a man so painfully wounded that he raved incessantly. Nurses tried to move the man away from Graves to give the major more rest, but he rebuked them for proposing to cause any more pain to the poor man by moving him.

  The hospital, in fact, was nothing more than a half acre of ground, with injured Orphans scattered all about. There the doctors struggled well into the night to repair the bloody damage of the guns and cannon. Yet for many, Rice E. Graves included, they could do nothing but try to make the men comfortable as they died.12

  Through the afternoon other Confederates did the fighting for a change, as first one then another division hurled itself against Thomas’ line, only to be repulsed. Thomas was standing like granite to give the rest of his defeated and demoralized Army time to escape to Chattanooga. Finally, about 4 P.M., Breckinridge asked Hill to be allowed to take his own division forward one more time, shattered though it was from the morning’s fight. Hill assented, and the Kentuckian immediately began readying his line. He rode among the Orphans, Charlie Ivey at his side. “Now Charlie,” he said, “we have got them in a bad fix and must finish them this time.” He sent Major Charles Semple of his staff forward to reconnoiter the enemy position, but Semple fell from his horse almost immediately. A bullet struck a Testament in his pocket, deflected from it, and knocked the hilt from Semple’s sword. He had taken the book from the body of a Kentucky officer killed the day before. It did little to save that man’s life, but now atoned for the omission by saving Semple. However much they sinned behind the lines, every Orphan seemed to have a Bible in his pocket in battle.13

  This was the final charge. They knew it. The generals all rode along the Orphans’ line urging
them to do their best. General Frank Cheatham said, “Now boys soon you will up & at ’em & give ’em Hell,” and old Polk soon followed, saying, “Boys! You are going at them again. Now when the command forward is given, go at them & give them what Cheatham said.” Then Breckinridge brought the brigade to attention, ordered bayonets fixed, told them to hold fire until on top of the enemy, and yelled the charge.

  “The very air soon became full of shot & shell,” said Johnny Green. But the Orphans were irresistible. With Cleburne in line on their left, they carried straight over the enemy works and pressed Thomas toward the Chattanooga road. As darkness was fast descending, Lewis decided to halt the brigade at the road. They captured 2 more field pieces and a number of prisoners, 250 taken by the 2d Kentucky alone. Losses in this last charge were nothing compared to the dead and dying from the morning’s assaults. The ground they covered prevented Cobb from coming up behind them in support, but his guns did good work over on the right flank. Only the advancing darkness prevented Hill from pursuing the fleeing Thomas and doing more damage.

  On, on, like a wave that engulfs, do they press

  O’er rider and horse, o’er dying and dead;

  Nor stop they till night—blessed night for the foe—

  Her mantle of peace o’er the fallen hath spread.14

  The awful battle was done. At last, the Orphans could boast of fighting in a victory. After being forced from the field at Shiloh, Baton Rouge, Murfreesboro, and Jackson, it was a heady feeling not to be covering a retreat for a change. They did not want to stop. “We were so inspirited & elated over our victory that we wanted to press right on,” wrote Green. Soon it seemed there would be glory for all. Back in 1862 the Confederate Congress authorized the presentation of medals of honor for soldiers displaying conspicuous valor in battle. Many of the Orphans would find themselves on the honor rolls for their performance at Chickamauga. Already thirty-three of them won the distinction at Stones River. Now more added their names to the list. And when Company I of the 4th Kentucky selected the man who had been most conspicuous in the battle for daring and skill, Marshall suggested that John Blanchard, the coward of Shiloh, deserved it more than any other. The vote was unanimous.15

  There were all too many now beyond medals and distinctions, alas. The Orphan Brigade bled at Chickamauga as it never bled before. Some back in Kentucky even suspected that the high losses in the brigade only reflected Bragg’s hatred of the Orphans. “Bragg’s animosity to Breckinridge is well known,” wrote a lady in Lexington. “He puts the Ky troops always in the most exposed positions, and seems to wish nothing better than that every Kentuckian in his army should be killed.” Certainly Bragg would not have wept overmuch should Breckinridge be among the slain, but in this battle the terrible losses suffered can be laid only to the Orphans themselves. In spite of immense odds against them, they did not stop assaulting Thomas. Their contribution to the victory was enormous; the price paid was ghastly.16

  After detailing guards, nurses, and such, the brigade actually took into battle 1,404, excluding Cobb. Of that number 1,007 were Kentuckians. The 2d Kentucky went into the battle with just 282 effectives, and lost 146, more than half the regiment. The 9th started the fight with 230 and finished with 102 killed, wounded, or missing. Testimony of the fury of the fight they waged against Thomas’ breastworks is the fact that the losses in these two regiments totaled 53 per cent of the entire brigade loss, though they accounted for only one third of the brigade strength. The two regiments with Lewis on the right suffered far less, only 58 killed and wounded in Nuckols’ regiment, including himself, and the losses in Lewis’ own regiment were inconsequential. Yet in all, one third of the Orphans who went into battle that morning did not survive it unscathed.

  The scene in the field hospital that night was bedlam, yet some, like Caldwell, managed to sleep. Around midnight he dreamed a feverish nightmare in his pain when he felt “the tender touch of a sympathetic hand” upon his forehead. It was Buckner, who had come from his own command to look after the wounded among his children of Camp Boone. Some of the most severely wounded were carried to a house near Reed’s Bridge. Captain Weller took a bullet in the morning’s fight, and his litter bearers set him down in the same room occupied by Helm and Graves and one other soldier of the 9th. The yard outside filled with groaning soldiers, and even the hallway of the house congested with them. Mrs. Reed passed back and forth ministering to the wounded as best she could, and frequently officers and men came to visit their friends. Breckinridge himself came late in the evening. For Helm, unconscious, he could do nothing. After he was carried from the field, Helm asked his doctor, “Is there hope?” The reply came. “My dear General, there is no hope!” For the rest of the day and into the evening Helm lay and suffered. As the sounds of battle died away, he found the strength to ask its outcome, and learned for the first time of the triumph. The last word heard to escape his lips was a whispered “victory!” Then he lay silent until midnight, when he, like Hanson and Trabue before him, left his Orphans fatherless once more. Two weeks later the officers of the brigade met to form resolutions expressing their sorrow at Helm’s death, and affirming their sympathy to his widow. Breckinridge wrote to Emily Helm in October and told her, “My solicitude for the welfare of the Kentuckians is in proportion to the pride and affection I entertain for them; and no one need be told that I hold them not inferior (to say the least), in general good conduct, discipline, and valor to any troops in the service of the South. Your husband commanded them like a thorough soldier. He loved them, they loved him, and he died at their head, a patriot and hero.” And far from Chickamauga, in the capital of the United States, another Kentuckian grieved at the news of Helm’s death. His brother-in-law, Abraham Lincoln, sorrowed deeply. “I feel as David of old did,” he lamented, “when he was told of the death of Absalom.”

  After a brief look upon the still face of Helm, Breckinridge turned to his young friend Graves. “Major Graves was mortally wounded, and suffering the most intense agony,” said Weller, lying nearby. Breckinridge spoke to him in tones “as tender as if he were talking to his own son.” Weller received a sedative, and when he awoke the next morning, Graves, too, was dead.17

  “The Lord has given us a great victory in this fight,” wrote Private Randolph, “and we cannot be to thankful to him for it.” Yet as they gave thanks, the Orphans also gave their dead to the soil. They buried them in twos and threes in shallow graves marked only by crude wooden headboards with names or even initials scratched in pencil. All that passersby would see in years to come as a remembrance of the valor and pain of these Orphan dead were a few low mounds of earth, and above them the hasty inscriptions. Some poor boys could not even be identified. Atop one mound sat an oak board with the simple words,

  3 or 4

  Kentuckyans

  C.S.A.

  are burred hear

  That night in the exultation of victory, the Orphan Brigade camped along the Chickamauga. Indians said the stream’s name meant “River of Death.” Certainly it did for these Kentuckians far from home.

  Flow on Chickamauga, in silence flow on,

  Among the dun shadows that fall on thy breast;

  These comrades in battle, aweary of strife,

  Have halted them here by thy waters to rest.18

  TEN

  “We Will Go with You Anywhere”

  “WE HAD GAINED a complete & glorious victory,” boasted Johnny Green. They expected the morning after the battle that Bragg would send them after Rosecrans to finish the job so nobly begun. But in fact Bragg proved just as dilatory in pursuit as Rosecrans had been in his advance to the battle. Bragg spent the day in collecting wounded, and not until late in the afternoon of September 21 did he send the main body of his Army after the Federals. On September 23 the Orphans, with the rest of Breckinridge’s division, reached the crest of Missionary Ridge and saw, spread like a map before them, the city of Chattanooga, and the Federals vigorously erecting their defenses.

&n
bsp; Still the Kentuckians expected that they would be ordered forward to attack the enemy before he completed his earthworks. “We thought an assault was going to be made,” Jackman scribbled in his diary, “and seeing the forts bristling with cannon, and the line of works blue with Federals, we had long faces.” Yet the order did not come, and that night Jackman and Green gathered a pile of dry grass and lay down together, covered only by their overcoats.1

  Thus began two months of almost constant inactivity during which, as Jackman put it, “Both armies seem to be taking a ‘blowing spell.’ ” The Orphans remained in and around Missionary Ridge until October 21, when they moved seven or eight miles to the rear, to Tyner’s Station. Here they remained for the next month.

  There was little to break the monotony of waiting for something to happen at Chattanooga. President Davis visited the Army once more, and he and Bragg rode along the lines being cheered by every command until they reached the Kentuckians. “Our boys stood very respectfully,” said Jackman, “but not a man opened his mouth.” Their animosity for Bragg had not cooled in the aftermath of victory. Occasionally the Confederates shelled the enemy down in the city, and the Kentucky boys liked to take seats and watch the grand incendiary display. The rest of the time they foraged for food, and here they found meager prospects. Most of the men ate only corn “dodgers” and “blue beef,” some of them even picking in the stable areas for uneaten or undigested kernels of corn. Accustomed by now to changes in command, they hardly noticed when Lewis formally received command of the brigade on October 4 and announced his staff. Nor was there any comment five days later when Lewis learned of his promotion to brigadier general. Along with his wreath, he received Helm’s horse in the settlement of the dead general’s estate, only to have it stolen a few weeks later. Helm’s widow, Emily, received a trunk “now empty, valuable from associations,” and the government paid her $200.67 in back salary for the general. Lincoln himself later gave her a pass that allowed her to return to Kentucky to mourn.2