History of the 85th Illinois Volunteers
Illinois Volunteer Infantry
by
Henry J. Aten

CHAPTER VIII.
Pages 72 - 83
_____________

March 1863

     By the first of March, the threatening attitude of the enemy under General Van Dorn, now commanding the left wing of Bragg’s army, led to a concentration of Federal troops at Franklin, about eighteen miles south of Nashville. On the 4th General Gilbert, in command at that point, ordered Colonel Coburn, with five regiments of infantry, four detachments of cavalry and a battery of artillery, the whole command nearly three thousand strong, to proceed south from Franklin with a wagon train of one hundred wagons. While this was seemingly a foraging expedition, it was really intended to reconnoiter the enemy’s front toward Columbia.
     The enemy was encountered three miles south of Franklin, but after sharp fighting, Coburn drove him back to Spring Hill. That night Coburn advised Gilbert that he was confronted by a largely superior force, and suggested that he be permitted to fall back. But Gilbert ordered him to continue the advance, and, proceeding the next morning, the column found the enemy in overwhelming numbers. Soon the small Federal force found itself surrounded, and after exhausting his ammunition, Coburn and most of his command surrendered. The force of the enemy was fully fifteen thousand strong, and the surrender, after Colonel Coburn had gone into the midst of the enemy, was doubtless a necessity. He went forward against his own convictions, under orders from his superior who was miles in the rear, and that officer must be held responsible for the disaster. This surrender did not, however, take place without sharp fighting, in which Colburn lost fifty killed, one hundred and fifty wounded, and a total of twenty-two hundred prisoners.
     On the 5th the south wind wafted the sound of distant cannon to the camps about Nashville, and the ominous sounds sent the troops from their usual drill back to camp in order to await orders. While there were many rumors of disaster floating through the camp, it was not until evening that the extent of the defeat became known. But upon receiving definite information of the defeat and surrender, General Granger threw General Baird’s brigade into Franklin by rail, and following in person, he assumed command of that important post.
     The whole country between Nashville and the army at the front was infested with guerilla bands. These bands were largely, if not wholly, composed of citizens, who, during the day, while apparently attending to their usual avocations in a quiet an lawful manner, learned the position of the troops, where a picket might be shot, or foragers or stragglers murdered with little risk to themselves. When this information had been secured they quietly assembled at night at some out of the way place, from whence they sallied forth and accomplished their murderous task. This done, they quickly dispersed and resumed the role of virtuous, law-abiding citizens. They were usually led by some local celebrity, whose cunning and reckless daring fitted him for leadership. Living on a large plantation not far from La Vergne, was one Dick McCann. This man was suspected of being the leader of a band that had been very active in destroying culverts, ditching trains, harassing men of supposed loyalty, killing pickets and murdering foragers when in parties small enough to make it a safe pastime. One evening early in the month, soon after dark, the Eighty-fifth was ordered aboard a train of freight cars, and ran out opposite the McCann plantation. The night was very dark, the thunder roared, the lightening flashed and the rain poured down in torrents, as the regiment marched a mile or more west of the railroad to McCann’s home. There was a large mansion, fine barns and many slave cabins. The men removed the family from the house, the slaves from the cabins, and turned the stock out of the barns. This done, the order was given to set fire to everything that would burn, and very soon everything that could shelter man or beast was consumed to ashes. After this had been accomplished, the regiment took up the line of march to the train. The small streams crossed in going out were now swelled by the deluge of rain, so as to be almost too deep to ford, but fortunately not entirely so, and the regiment returned to Nashville before daylight the next morning. This expedition had the best possible effect, and henceforth our pickets, train guards and foragers were not molested or murdered in that neighborhood.
     The Federal authorities were slow to learn how to stop the depredations and murders committed within the territory occupied by the Union armies. Such outrages were almost universally committed by men who were too cowardly to engage in open manly warfare; men who under the guise of peaceable citizens, demanded protection for their property, and who became cruel assassins when it appeared perfectly safe to indulge their bloodthirsty desires. But within less than a year after the McCann neighborhood had been quieted, General Thomas found a way to deal with southern banditti that aroused the admiration of the writer and was at once so just and far reaching that a copy of the order is here set out in full [Chaplain Van Horne's Life of General Thomas, pgs. 214-216]. It will be observed that it not only provided a pension for the families of the murdered soldiers, but it made it lawful for anyone to kill the murderers on sight.

GENERAL ORDERS No. 6
Headquarters Army of the Cumberland
Chattanooga, Tenn., January 26th, 1864

     It having been reported to these headquarters that between seven and eight o’clock, on the evening of the 23rd ult., within one and one-half miles of the village of Mulberry, Lincoln County, Tennessee, a wagon which had become detached from a foraging train belonging to the United States was attacked by guerillas, and the officer in command of the foraging party, First Lieutenant Porter, Company A, Twenty-seventh Indiana Volunteers, the teamster, wagonmaster, and four other soldiers who had been sent to load the train (the latter four unarmed), were captured. They were immediately mounted and hurried off, the guerrillas avoiding the road, until their party halted about one o’clock in the morning, on the bank of the Elk river, where the rebels stated they were going into camp for the night. The hands of the prisoners were then tied behind them, and they were robbed of everything of value about their persons. They were next drawn up in line about five paces in front of their captors, and one of the latter, who acted as leader, commanded ready, and the whole party immediately fired upon them. One of the prisoners was shot through the head and killed instantly, and three were wounded. Lieutenant Porter was not hit. He immediately ran, was followed and fired upon three times by one of the party, and, finding that he was about to be overtaken, threw himself over a precipice into the river, and, succeeding in getting his hands loose, swam to the opposite side, and, although pursued to that side and several times fired upon, he, after twenty-four hours of extraordinary exertion and great exposure, reached a house, when he was taken to Tullahoma, where he now lies in a critical situation. The others after being shot, were immediately thrown into the river. Thus the murder of the men – Newell E. Orcutt, Ninth Independent Battery, Ohio Volunteer Artillery; John W. Drought, Company H, Twenty-second Wisconsin Volunteers; George W. Jacobs, Company D, Twenty-second Wisconsin Volunteers – was accomplished by shooting and drowning. The fourth, John W. Folley, Ninth Independent Battery Ohio Volunteer Artillery, is now lying in the hospital, having escaped by getting his hands free while in the water.
     For these atrocious, cold-blooded murders, equaling in savage ferocity and everything ever committed by the most barbarous tribes on the continent, committed by the rebel citizens of Tennessee, it is ordered that the property of all citizens living within a circuit of ten miles of the place where these men were captured be assessed each in his due proportion, according to his wealth, to make up a sum of thirty thousand dollars, to be divided among the families who were dependent upon the murdered men for their support.
     Ten thousand dollars to be paid to the widow of John W. Drought, of North Cape, Racine County, Wisconsin, for the support of herself and two children.
     Ten thousand dollars to be paid to the widow of George W. Jacobs, of Delevan, Walworth County, Wisconsin, for the support of herself and one child.
     Ten thousand dollars to be divided between the aged mother and sister of Newell E. Orcutt, of Burton, Geauga County, Ohio.
     Should the persons assessed fail, within one week after notice had been served upon them, to pay in the amount of the tax in money, sufficient of the personal property shall be seized and sold at public sale to make up the amount.
     Major General H. W. Slocum, United States Volunteers, commanding the Twelfth Army corps, is charged with the execution of this order.
     The men who committed these murders, if caught, will be summarily executed, and any persons executing them will be held guiltless, and will receive the protection of this army, and all persons who are suspected of having aided, abetted or harbored these guerillas will be immediately arrested and tried by military commission.
 

By Command of
MAJOR GENERAL THOMAS
WILLIAM D. WHIPPLE, Assistant Adjutant General
 

     The full amount of the assessment levied by the foregoing order was promptly collected, and the entire thirty thousand dollars was distributed among the dependent relatives of the murdered soldiers.
     Desertion in the ranks and resignations tendered by commissioned officers under circumstances which rendered the latter method of quitting the service, little, of any less, dishonorable than the former, became alarmingly frequent in the early months of 1863. Prior to this time the copperheads of the North had confined their treasonable efforts to discouraging enlistments, and opposition, more or less violent, to all measures adopted by the Federal authorities for the preservation of the integrity of the National Union. But now they entered into an organized conspiracy to aid and assist their allies in open rebellion by encouraging desertions and promoting resignations for the purpose of reducing the strength and destroying the efficiency of the armies in the field. To accomplish this purpose the methods they employed were as diabolic as their intentions were disloyal. The emancipation proclamation had gone into effect at the beginning of the year, and they eagerly seized the opportunity they thought it afforded, to incite insubordination and dissatisfaction in the army. Officers and men received letters from pretended friends and neighbors, and unfortunately, in some instances from parents, urging the officers to resign and the men to desert and come home. To this effort of the individual copperhead the disloyal press of the North added its hearty and enthusiastic support. The columns of the copperhead press teemed with articles denouncing the government, while expressing sympathy for the men who had volunteered from patriotic motives, now forced to engage in an unholy war for the abolition of slavery.
     The writer remembers seeing many of these letters, some of which he was allowed to read entire, in others a few sentences were shown, while the name of the sender was withheld. But the general trend of the argument used was the same in all – tainted with treason, while expressing boundless friendship for the soldier. These letters ran substantially as follows: “When you enlisted in defense of your country it was for the sole purpose of restoring the Union, and it was understood as a part of the contract that the war would be waged wholly for the attainment of that end. But by the use of despotic power and the admonition of unconstitutional means, the President has changed all this, and you are now called upon to fight to free the negro, and perhaps sacrifice your life for the abolition of slavery. You are therefore no longer bound by the contract under which you entered the service, the government having violated both the letter and the spirit of its agreement,” usually closing with, “Come home and we will protect you from arrest.” This in brief was the argument used by the copperheads to induce young men to desert the service, abandon the flag they had sworn to defend and stain their names with a crime which no after life could wholly obliterate. To those who had no well-founded conviction upon the question of slavery, such advice, coming from pretended friends, could not fail to have the most unfortunate results. While the army lay in winter quarters at Murfreesboro so many officers tendered their resignations that it raised suspicion and seemed to point to a conspiracy to injure the service. On one occasion General Rosecrans received for approval the resignations of all the commissions held by both the field and line officers of a certain regiment. As these resignations came to headquarters in a single package, all bearing the same date, and all in the same hand writing except the signatures, the proof of conspiracy was conclusive and the disloyal purpose of these officers manifest. This afforded the commanding general an opportunity of giving the army a much needed object lesson by making an example of these worthless officers that would prevent others from combining to injure the service. Accordingly he had the regiment paraded, when an order was read reciting the circumstances surrounding the offense and ended by dismissing the guilty officers from the service. Then, in the presence of the command, he caused the shoulder straps to be stripped from the shoulders and the buttons cut from the uniforms of the offending officers and then drummed them out of camp. This prompt and energetic action had an admirable effect, and resignations became less and less frequent. Indeed, after this an officer seldom tendered his resignation unless it was accompanied with a surgeon’s certificate of disability.
     That the copperhead influence, so potent for evil, causing such heavy losses by desertion, was not confined to the Army of the Cumberland will fully appear by reference to a special order of the war department, issued April 1st, 1863. This order recites that a certain regiment in the Army of the Tennessee entered service with an aggregate of eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the short space of five months it had been reduced to one hundred and fifty-one, principally by desertion. The order then directs that the colonel, lieutenant colonel, quartermaster, chaplain, ten captains and seventeen lieutenants be dismissed, the remaining men to be formed into a detachment to be commanded by a lieutenant and the detachment be consolidated with some other regiment.
     Throughout the winter the rebel troopers under Generals Forrest and Wheeler were exceedingly active in their efforts to surprise and capture detachments in local garrisons. On the twenty-fifth of March they made a dash to within nine miles of Nashville and captured at Brentwood, after a short engagement, about four hundred men of the Twenty-second Wisconsin, under command of Lieutenant Colonel Bloodgood. They also captured, at a stockade south of Brentwood, a detachment of the Nineteenth Michigan. General Smith at the time was moving to the support of Colonel Bloodgood and pursued the enemy. He overtook a rebel regiment four miles south of Brentwood, inflicted severe loss upon it and recaptured considerable property, but was forced to retire before Forrest’s whole command. For a time after the Brentwood was garrisoned by the Ninety-sixth Illinois infantry.
     On the 25th the resignation of Daniel Westfall, second lieutenant of Company A, was accepted, and Sergeant John K. Milner was promoted to be second lieutenant. William W. Turner, second lieutenant of Company D, resigned on the 30th, but the company was too small to permit of a successor being appointed. John P. Vanduesen, of Company A, died at Nashville on the 3rd. James Hanks and James Ross, of Company F, were killed by guerrillas on the 9th, but the writer has been unable to obtain particulars. Milton Stodard, of Company I, died at Nashville on the 23rd, and Wesley C. Blakesley, of Company K, died at the same place on the 7th.

 

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