The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home (33 page)

While Lewis and one half of the brigade enjoyed marked success, Helm and the remainder of the Orphans found hard going in their course. “A perfect shower of grape shot tore through our ranks,” said Johnny Green. The rifle fire came not only from their front, but into
their unprotected left flank as well, and it brought men down in fearful numbers. A bullet hit Captain John Weller just under the eye and passed out behind his ear. He thought himself killed, refused aid, and urged the men forward. Then a burst of canister from an enemy gun flew into Green’s company, and Johnny went down. Hit in the groin, he spun about and fell on his back. At first he thought his leg had been severed, but soon found it in place. He could detect no blood anywhere, but did find a shot in his pocket, where it had torn through his clothes and struck the metal clasp on a pocket purse. In a few minutes he could walk again and soon rejoined his regiment battling right in front of Thomas’ breastworks.

The fire was hot enough to clutch Otho Haydon’s hat from his head as he bent down to help a wounded friend from the field. Tom Strother of Caldwell’s Company G was seen to shake his left foot at every step, blood dropping from it as he did. A comrade asked him the problem, and he said, “O, nothing; only a minie in my shoe.” When an opportunity presented, Strother took off his shoe and pulled the minie bullet from his big toe, then put the shoe on again and continued the fight. Hervey McDowell of the 2d Kentucky likened the musketry fire to the sound of a woodman’s ax, and commented to an officer, “This is the biggest wood-chopping you were ever at, ain’t it?” Certainly it was for John Mahon. Wounded at Donelson, Shiloh, and Baton Rouge, he took another bullet now. He might well have paraphrased the words of a much-wounded Union officer who quipped that he was not of the blood of the South—it was of
his
.

Here, too, poor Flying Cloud had his beauty spoiled. A bullet hit him in the face, removing much of his upper jaw. When the painful wound healed, it left him with a contorted and “rather hideous” expression. He swore vengeance on all Yankees.
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Helm advanced his line about four hundred yards and then charged toward the enemy defenses. When Green rejoined his regiment the Confederates were only thirty yards from the Federals, “giving & taking death blows which could last but a few minutes without utter annihilation.” In all, Helm led three separate assaults against Thomas’ breastworks, each one repulsed. Lieutenant Colonel James W. Hewitt fell dead in front of his regiment. The poor 2d Kentucky. First they lost Hanson, and now they were orphaned again. With Colonel Bob Johnson incapacitated with dysentery, Major Jim Moss took command of the regiment.

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.

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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

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.
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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.
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