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

by Davis, William C.

  Yet there was another reason for Breckinridge being in Richmond. He came to discuss his new assignment, command of the Department of Southwestern Virginia, that area bordering Tennessee on the south, and Kentucky and West Virginia on the west and north. The department already had its own troops, meager though they were, so he would not be taking his command there with him. That meant, for the first time in the war, separation from the Orphan Brigade. It was not a happy prospect, all the more reason why he argued for mounting the brigade since, with Tennessee lost, the natural place for launching raids into Kentucky would be his new department. Should he fail in efforts to get the men mounted, still he wanted to have this brigade, as infantry, assigned to him.

  The movement to mount the Orphans met with no support, even when presented to Davis. Yet the Secretary of War did approve the notion of consolidating all Kentucky troops into one command. “The infantry Brigade, tho’ much reduced is among the most reliable in service,” he wrote, “and for the real work before our army of more value than 3 times the number of mounted men.” Putting all Kentuckians together, though, and assigning them to Breckinridge where they would be poised on their state’s border, would hold the men together and discourage desertions. “The hope should be held out to them as of returning to Ky most speedily,” said the Secretary of War. President Davis sought the views of Johnston. This time the general approved, asking only that he be given a brigade “equivalent in value,” and still protesting against mounting the Orphans. “There is a Kentucky brigade of infantry equal to any in our service,” he said, and they should be kept that way. In later years the Orphans would claim that Johnston declined sending the brigade to Breckinridge, saying “there is no equivalent for it; it is the best brigade in the Confederate army,” but he did not.

  Breckinridge returned to Dalton on February 5 to collect his staff and baggage. Here, too, he had final conversations with Johnston, who reaffirmed his willingness to let the Kentuckian take his Orphans with him. On February 11 Johnston sent his formal approval to Richmond, and that same day Breckinridge asked Richmond for orders for the command’s movement as soon as possible. He would have to leave right away.

  That night the Orphans gathered outside his headquarters at the Anderson house in Dalton. They came, said a correspondent, “to testify their esteem and devotion to their heroic leader.” With great enthusiasm they raised a clamor for the general to come out and speak to them. When he appeared he met repeated cheers until silence could be enforced. “I have not words to convey the deep emotion I feel on this occasion, nor expression suitable for this manifestation of your respect,” he told them. He would not make a “set speech,” he said, “for I presume you have had enough of that from the numerous candidates pending the late election.” When the Orphans stopped laughing, he went on to say, “I want to talk to you about some things connected with you and myself.”

  There was no body of men on earth for whom he felt such love and attachment as these Kentuckians. He recounted the years of peril and hardship they endured together. Now he was being ordered to another theater of the war, and he declared that he had done everything in his power to have them ordered to accompany him. At this the men cheered, and one Orphan shouted, “We will go with you anywhere—go to-night—yes, and without rations!” When the general continued, he expressed hope that he would yet succeed in bringing them to Virginia, but he did not tell them that Johnston already approved the plan, pending finding a replacement brigade. Theirs would not be a comfortable lot in his new department. Someone shouted, “It can’t be worse than we have seen.” When he resumed, Breckinridge reminded them that they would be nearer their homes, and pointed out to them how tempting it would be to those who had wives and families in the state to desert and join them. And desertion, or taking the oath of allegiance, would be the only way short of defeat for them to go home now. Thus the temptation would be hard, “but not so hard as to be deprived of their personal liberties and to lose all the honor and fame won by their heroic bravery by returning and throwing their leprous bodies into the arms of women who might love, but could not respect them for such unworthy conduct. The shades of martyred heroes would rise and pour out maledictions on all such.”

  Clearly Breckinridge tailored his impromptu address to counter the dissatisfied element in the brigade that spoke of desertion. When he concluded, he declared once more his belief that Kentucky was with them in spirit, and that a just God would eventually grant the Confederacy its independence. While he may really have believed in the former, he still had no private confidence in the latter, but that the men must not know.

  Breckinridge went back inside his headquarters to the accompaniment of thunderous cheering from the Orphans, and immediately his speech took the desired effect. “The boys are anxious to go with him,” said Jackman, “so as to be nearest home.” The way to insure that was to re-enlist. That same night, months before the expiration of their terms of service, Company A of the 9th Kentucky sent Lewis a resolution re-enlisting the whole company for the remainder of the war. They wished to “renew our devotion to our country, and if need be, complete the sacrifice hereafter, as our comrades, before us, have done, whose bones lie buried in almost every state of the Confederacy.” They called on the rest of the brigade to do the same, and from brigade headquarters came the question, “Who stands next on the roll of honor?” By his speech and his example, Breckinridge quelled once more the incipient disaffection among his Orphans. It was to be his last gift to them. Despite all his efforts, the brigade never followed him to Virginia. The men would come to believe that somehow the hand of Bragg was responsible, their old enemy now being an adviser to the President. More probable, however, was Johnston’s inability to replace it with an “equivalent” brigade. Whichever the case, now at last the unthinkable had happened. Breckinridge and Lewis continued trying to have the Orphans ordered to Virginia, but without success. Left fatherless so many times—Hanson, Trabue, Helm, Nuckols, Hunt—the Kentuckians simply never entertained the thought that their most beloved parent of all might be taken from them. They would meet yet once again in this war, but that was a year and more in the future, and now as winter warmed into spring a new campaign loomed for the armies north of Atlanta. The boys would do their part, but they felt now more orphaned than ever before.18

  ELEVEN

  “Hell Has Broke Loose in Georgia”

  JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON relieved Braxton Bragg of his command on December 27, 1863, and from that moment on the men of the Army of Tennessee expected a great campaign for the coming spring. Johnston was a fighter, the hero of Manassas, and he would lead them to victory. The men of the 1st Kentucky Brigade shared this confidence in the new general for, after all, they had served with him at Jackson. From the date of Johnston’s arrival, the reorganization and retraining of the army commenced, and now for the first time all of the Orphans had an opportunity to assess their new brigade leader, Joseph H. Lewis.

  His discipline proved stern, and he dispensed it to men and officers alike under his solid red headquarters flag. More officers sat under arrest in his administration than even in the days of the hard-driving “Bench-leg” Hanson. His own chief quartermaster, Major John R. Viley—Breckinridge’s brother-in-law—he placed under arrest. A captain from his own 6th Kentucky repeatedly languished in his quarters for minor infractions, as did the captain of Company D of the same regiment. And one of his own captains he cashiered. Even regimental commanders did not find themselves immune to “Old Joe’s” guardhouse. Lieutenant Colonel John C. Wickliffe of the 9th Kentucky must have left his coat unbuttoned again, or showed a spark of his razor wit when it was not wanted. On March 29, 1864, Lewis ordered him confined to his quarters under arrest “for persistent disrespect to his commanding officer.” He sent Captain Winstead into Dalton repeatedly to arrest officers and men absent without leave, as well as to search houses suspected of selling whisky. Any Orphans caught brawling or quarreling took quick trips to the guardhouse.

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bsp; Yet the Orphans respected Lewis, and in time came to love him as they did all their commanders. Indeed, here in Dalton Ed Porter Thompson tried to write a sketch of Lewis for publication in the Southern Illustrated News, but the general would not allow him to publish it. “No, no! Don’t do that,” said Lewis, “I am not entitled to that particular consideration.”

  “But,” said Thompson, “the devotion and heroism of …”

  “Old Joe” interrupted. “Oh, yes, I know about heroism, and all that, but every man in the Kentucky Brigade is a hero!”

  Perhaps that is why they came to love him. However frequently the Orphans forgot themselves and their reputation, Lewis never did, and he guarded it jealously.1

  As weather permitted there followed a hard regimen of drill and training to ready the brigade for the coming campaign. Grant had been sent East, and the federal general they would face now was Sherman. They must be prepared for him. Target practice began. Johnston and Hardee repeatedly reviewed the Army, and even “sham battles” complete with blank loads in their rifles pitted Cleburne’s and Bate’s divisions against two others in their corps. Surrounded by hundreds of spectators from the countryside, the Orphans formed hollow squares to meet a cavalry attack and broke it up by shooting cloth and paper wads at “the spurred gentlemen.” One or two they wounded rather badly.

  Even in their fun, the Kentuckians and the rest of the Army played at war games. When the Orphans awoke on March 22, they found almost four inches of snow on the ground, and more falling. During the morning the men of the 4th Kentucky snowballed each other, and then hurled their mushy missiles at the Tennessee brigade in their division. Before long the remaining Kentucky regiments went to the 4th’s rescue. Soon the two brigades stood lined up against each other, their field officers mounted and directing their fire as though in real battle. Of course, the officers became the chief targets of the snowballs, and even the mascot dog Frank of the 2d Kentucky joined in the fray, engaging a Tennessee mongrel who left him hors de combat with a bite in the foot.

  After a while, the Kentuckians and Tennesseeans made peace, and then set forth to attack the Florida brigade in their division. They charged their camp and drove them out, then settled amicably with them, too, and marched off to do battle with A. P. Stewart’s division. Sending skirmishers in advance, the main body launched an assault that easily took Stewart’s camps. “Not having seen near sport enough,” said Jackman, they fell back and allowed Stewart’s people to prepare a defense. General Marcellus Stovall appeared in person to command his brigade of Stewart’s division, only to find himself taken prisoner along with his colors when the Orphans charged again. Jackman himself captured the flag, and bore the prize back to his camp for lunch. “I got several bruises,” he noted. Indeed, some of the men began putting rocks in the centers of their snowballs, but they were soon reprimanded for violating the rules of “civilized warfare.”

  That afternoon a courier came to the Orphans’ camps with news that Stewart’s division was renewing the conflict and even then advancing against Bate’s brigades. At once the Kentuckians marched to the field, formed line, and sent out skirmishers. Soon they saw the red battle flags of the advancing host against the white background. The quartermaster of the 9th Kentucky made a stirring speech to screw the Orphans’ courage for the fight. Then came the first enemy volley, Stewart’s men having filled their haversacks with ten rounds of snowballs per man. In the face of such a fire, the Kentuckians fell back. Stewart drove them through the camps of the Tennessee and Florida troops, who then deserted the Orphans. Yet, as they fell back, Lewis’ men turned to fire from time to time, and managed to send a party by the flank that captured General Stewart himself. The 2d and 4th Kentucky lost their colors to the enemy, but the Orphans checked their advance when they reached their own camps. Then, at last, peace was made, prisoners exchanged, and much—but certainly not all—of the property captured from abandoned camps was returned. Poor Jackman, hit in the eye, felt terribly sore. Yet, he wrote in his diary that night, “We have seen more fun to-day than at any one time during the war.”2

  By late April Lewis could tell that active operations were imminent. The training and equipping of the men increased, and now he formed a new adjunct to the brigade, a corps of sharpshooters. Sometime before, an English admirer gave Breckinridge a dozen Kerr rifles, a prized muzzle-loader reputedly capable of deadly accuracy at nearly a mile. Breckinridge, in turn, donated the rifles to the brigade, and on April 24 Lewis formed a company comprising the two best marksmen from each regiment, under command of Lieutenant George H. Burton of Company F, 4th Kentucky. “I believe this officer took more pleasure in a fight than any other man I ever saw,” wrote one of Burton’s sharpshooters. In the campaign to come, when one of the company fell and a new man took his place, Burton personally tested the recruit’s grit by conducting him to a heavy artillery fire and standing in it with him. Lewis instructed the company never to approach within four hundred yards of the enemy, but rather to keep their distance and use their superior rifles to bring down federal artillerists and officers. They were to work their way close to the enemy at night, spot his artillery positions, and then silence the batteries after dawn if possible. Probably no more elite band of marksmen served anywhere else in the Confederate Army. So prized did membership in this band become that when one of Burton’s men was killed—as many were—there were numbers anxious to take his place.3

  Finally came May. Johnston reviewed his Army once more before the anticipated commencement of the campaign. Lewis being absent, Caldwell commanded the brigade for the day. He led the Orphans with their polished bayonets and tattered flags past the reviewing stand, and heard a hum of comment among the officers around Johnston. Johnston’s face supposedly lit with enthusiasm as he watched the Orphans pass. Turning to General Thomas Hindman, he said, “There goes the finest brigade I ever saw.” Hindman, too, noticed their distinctive bearing and in a congratulatory order to the Army, mentioned “the Kentucky Brigade as especially entitled to commendation for soldierly appearance, steadiness of marching, and an almost perfect accuracy in every detail.” Johnston would reiterate his sentiments several times in the years ahead. “Yes,” he would say, “the Kentucky Brigade was the finest body of soldiers I ever saw.”

  Certainly the Orphans were exceptional soldiers, all 1,512 of them. And as May 1864 dawned, they faced exceptional times ahead. “We are again on the ‘war-path,’ ” Jackman wrote on May 7. “I think I shall now have something more stirring to put in my Journal than church goings.”4

  The campaign for Atlanta about to begin would last for 117 days. Johnston, outnumbered three to two by his opponent, Sherman, would consistently find his left flank turned by the Federals. Time after time Johnston would have to fall back, ever closer to the prize he sought to protect, Atlanta. It would be the most grueling overland campaign of the war. It would carve the Confederacy in twain. It would lay waste to Georgia. And it would destroy the Orphan Brigade as an effective body of infantry.

  The same day that Jackman wrote both in hope and dread that “something more stirring” seemed in the offing, Sherman advanced against the Confederates. For the next five days Johnston kept the Kentuckians hopping about from one hilltop to another skirmishing and sharpshooting, but the enemy did not yet seem disposed to assault them. Indeed, at night the federal bands played serenades for the men in blue, and when some of the Orphans yelled out for “Dixie,” the Union musicians obliged, though always ending with a refrain of “Yankee Doodle.” Only on the evening of May 12 did Johnston withdraw the brigade to the vicinity of Resaca, Georgia, sixty miles northwest of Atlanta. Here the general chose his first defensive position of any strength, hoping to stall the federal tide. The Orphans marched all through the night until they reached their position about dawn. After only a brief halt, they fell back farther, and immediately began digging earthworks. There was literally no rest for them all day.

  Morning of May 14 found the brigade on its way to the left
of the Confederate line, where the men occupied works of logs and fence rails thrown together by some Tennesseeans during the night. That morning, too, expecting a fight, Lewis issued a small ration of whisky to the men, though some apparently received more than others, for Jackman saw Orphans so “top-heavy” they could not walk without help. Yet by 10 A.M. they finished their breastworks, and not before time. At once skirmishing commenced the whole length of the Confederate line, and in front of Lewis’ brigade two seemingly endless lines of enemy soldiers emerged from the woods that covered them.

  The Kentuckians held an angle in the line which faced the 5th, 6th, and 9th regiments to the west, and the 4th and 2d north. The first three regiments, forming the left part of the angle, received only one major charge, and held their fire until the enemy came within a few yards of their works. Then they gave them a volley that sent the bluecoats back to cover without much fight. On the right of the brigade, however, the 2d and 4th Kentucky regiments saw quite a time. The Federals attacked repeatedly. “Column after column came down in full view, and moved right toward us,” wrote an Orphan. Some of the enemy got within seventy-five yards of their line before the 2d and 4th opened on them. “It was harvest time with the Orphan Brigade,” said one, “and every available contrivance was used for reaping the field before us.” The fighting became so intense that, when John Gordon of Company D, 4th Kentucky, fell dead, his comrades spent the rest of the day stepping over him in the melee. Only with nightfall could someone find time to take him from his place in the line.

  While the 4th Kentucky held its own on the extreme right of the brigade, the 2d Regiment sat on its left, and the new corps of sharpshooters operated between the two and somewhat in advance. “Their terrible rifles soon attracted the fury of the Federal artillerymen,” wrote an Orphan of the 4th. Before the day was out, half of the elite marksmen lay dead or wounded. Jim Guilliam only abandoned his place with his fellow sharpshooters when a fragment of enemy shell left his right arm dangling from his shoulder only by a thin bit of skin and flesh. He walked unaided to the surgeon and underwent the remainder of the amputation without benefit of anesthetic.