Kentuckians at Chickamauga

Confederate Veteran
Volume 3, Number 10, Page 294-295
October 1895

W. W. Herr, Owensboro, Ky., refers to the reunion at Bowling Green. He begins with a pleasant compliment, saying: I was glad to grasp the hand of a comrade who has labored so faithfully to keep before coming generations the heroism of our gallant soldiers of the South.

We were returning from the dedication of the battle field of Chickamauga. Our party of ten (nine of us veterans of the Confederate Army) left Owensboro on the 17th of September, taking camp equiPage with us, and spent a week at Chickamauga Park, Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. Many of the scenes were very familiar, as several of us participated in the battles there.

The place of intense interest to me was the position where the Orphan Brigade was engaged at Chickamauga on the 20th of September, '63.

Three of us, John H. Weller, Mr. Pullen and the writer, as Park Commissioners were there two years ago, all members of the Kentucky Brigade. We marked the positions of the five regiments of our command, and I designated the spot where our gallant commander, Ben Hardin Helm, fell mortally wounded. I was serving on the staff of Gen. Helm as aid decamp, and was near him when he fell from his horse. The Government has placed every handsome monument at the spot where our beloved chieftain fell. All the monuments to brigade commanders and generals are exactly alike, without any partiality to either army.

Some of the Northern States have furnished splendid tablets and monuments to their troops, and others are at work putting up these memorials to their gallant soldiers. May we not hope that the land of the Sunny South will show its appreciation of our heroic dead and maimed veterans by placing at least one monument for each state, telling of valor unsurpassed in the history of the world?

And that old Kentucky Brigade! Will our State at some future day remember the devoted and undying love of principle displayed on that and other deadly fields, and write its achievements on enduring granite in front of our position at Chickamauga?

After more than thirty years, the scenes seemed as familiar as our own native hills and valleys. A strong position on the hill, with logs thrown up as breastworks, two lines of United States regulars behind those breastworks and the Kelley field in their rear was the position that the Orphan Brigade was ordered to take.

Our brigade with Breckenridge's division, had arrived on the field a few days before the battle, from Mississippi, where we had been sent several months before, to reinforce Gen. Johnston. On the 19th day of September we were on the left of Bragg's army near Glass' Mills. During the day the command had some skirmishing with the enemy and the artillery of the division had a severe duel with several Yankee batteries. About three or four o'clock on the evening of 19th, our division was ordered to right of the enemy, when the Kentucky brigade crossed Chickamauga river at Alexander's Bridge after dark, and was placed in position in front of the enemy about nine o'clock p. m. About 9:30 a. m., on the 20th, the brigade was ordered forward in the following order: The Sixth Kentucky, Col. Lewis, on the right, the Second Kentucky, Lieut. Col. Hewitt, on the left, the Fourth Kentucky, Maj. Thompson, and the Ninth Kentucky, Col. Caldwell, the right and left respectively, and the Forty first Alabama, Col. Stansil, in the center.

Gen. Breckenridge's other brigades, commanded by Generals Adams and Stovall were on our right, which was the extreme right of the infantry. Gen. Forrest's Cavalry protected Breckenridge's right flank. Our brigade moved forward at a double quick, under a perfect storm of rifle shot and shell and canister. The United States regulars occupied a line, or rather two lines, of breastworks about cue half the length of our brigade front. Half of the Forty first Alabama, and the Fourth and Sixth Kentucky regiments passed the enemy's works with little opposition and captured a battery near the Chattanooga and La Fayette road. But the other position of the command, composed of the Second and Ninth Kentucky, and half of the Forty first Alabama, was brought under one of the most murderous fusilades of the war. Owing to some misunderstanding, the command on our left did not move as promptly as our division, and the position of the brigade from center to left, suffered from a severe enfilading fire as well as a perfect tornado of bullets from the front.

It was here with the center of his command, and near the foot of the hill, that the brave and patriotic Helm fell mortally wounded. Lieut. Col. Hewitt, commanding the Second, was killed, and Col. Caldwell, of the Ninth, severely wounded. Col. Nuckalls, of the Fourth, was also wounded so severely as to never be able to take the field again. After the fall of Gen. Helm, Colonel (afterwards General) Lewis took command of the brigade, and brought the portion of the command back, that had passed the Yankee works, and made two more attempts to drive the regulars from their fortified position. This was not done, however, until late in the evening, when our old brigade, shattered as it was, responded nobly to the call of the gallant Breckenridge and Lewis, and drove the regulars from their fortified hill across the Kelley field with .great slaughter.

The brigade went into the battle on the 20th with something over 1,200 men, including Cobb's Battery. Our loss in killed and wounded was 471. Of this loss the severest part fell on the Second and Ninth Kentucky, and half of the Forty first Alabama. The Second Kentucky had about twenty five commissioned officers on the morning of the 20th, and on the evening had only seven or eight fit for duty. The loss in the Ninth nearly equalled that of the Second which was about 55%. The average loss in the brigade on the 20th was about 33%.

If State pride will not induce the Legislature of Kentucky to appropriate enough money for at least one monument to such men as composed the Orphans, I hope the survivors will raise enough by subscription to build a monument of Kentucky limestone. Let our future generations know that Kentuckians, believing that they were right, joined our Southern brethren in the forefront of battle to dare and to die for their convictions.

The First Kentucky Cavalry was engaged in the battle on the 20th with 'the Eighth Texas Cavalry and some other regiments. This cavalry drove the Federal cavalry and mounted infantry in front of our left near Lee and Gordon's Mills into McLemore's Cove, killing and capturing many of them. The Fifth Kentucky Infantry was also in the battle with Gen. Buckner, and, was afterwards with the Orphan Brigade.

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