OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Colonel James Perry Fyffe - The last day at Stone River -- Experiences of a Yank and a Reb (Civil War) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darrold Crites DCrites642@aol.com July 16, 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE LAST DAY AT STONES RIVER--EXPERIENCES OF A YANK AND A REB Tenn. Historical Quarterly, Vol XL Spring 1981, No. 1 by James L. McDonough On a cold, Gloomy, Friday afternoon in January, beside a river whose name few people outside of Middle Tennessee had ever heard, and close to a town equally obscure, one of the spectacular, breath taking moments of the entire Civil War occurred. The determined Confederate brigades that anxiously formed for the assault east of Stones River were not as numerous as those in the famous charge at Gettysburg six months later, or the larger, through little-known Rebel assault twenty miles to the west at Franklin nearly two years afterward; but Brigadier General John C Breckinridge's colorful Confederates, moving out in impressive alignment across an open field west of Murfresboro, steadily tramping to- wards the Union line, possessed a pride and participated in a drama that were not surpassed by any of the war's more massive assaults. The time was four o'clock. The date was January 2, 1863. Tense Yankees on the high ground above McFadden's Ford, their weapons tightly clutched in readiness for the bloody work, watched silently as five thousand Rebels marched against them. This time there would be no surprise like the morning of the battle's first day. This time the Federals were peering down their gun sights as the Grayclads came on. But in the front-line Union forces, with Colonel Samuel Price's and Colonel James Fyffe's brigades lying in double line of battle, were less than two thousand strong. Even counting Benjamin Grider's reserve brigade and William Grose's brigade from John M. Palmer's division, the Yankees did not number four thousand soldiers east of Stones River, while the Confederates, enjoying substantially more than a two-to-one advantage over the Union infantry in the front line, seeing the Rebels move unflinchingly up the rise, must have known that they were significantly outnumbered. The first Yankee volley, fired while the Rebels were within one hundred yards, did not come close to arresting the Confederate's charge. And there was not time to reload. The Grayclads were upon them, mounting their works from end to end. The fighting was desperate, hand-to-hand, and short. Men shot their opponents at point blank range, clubbed them with rifle butts and pistol handles, or stuck them with bayonets. Overwhelmed and demoralized, the Union infantry of Price's brigade fled to the rear while the Confederates reloaded, poured a deadly fire of musketry into their routed ranks, and screamed in triumph.(1) There had been one chance to save the Union right wing under Price. If Grider's reserve brigade could have been brought into action earlier, Price's command might have held its ground. But Grider's unit, thinking the Rebels would not attack until the next day, had stacked their weapons and relaxed. The Confederate onslaught took the brigade by surprise. Grabbing their rifled muskets and hastily forming into line of battle, Grider's regiments marched to the fight at the order of their division commander, Colonel Samuel Beatty. Apparently undaunted by the desperate situation, they moved eagerly toward the battle only to be met by Price's regiments, racing headlong for the rear, and running directly through their ranks. Meanwhile, a little farther to the east, the Rebel assault was reaching high tide as calamity struck the Union brigade under Fyffe. When the Confederates launched their attack, Colonel Fyffe was back near the ford, talking with Colonel Beatty and Major General William S. Rosecrans. Their discussion was abruptly terminated as a courier galloped up with the news that the enemy was about to advance. Colonel Fyffe mounted and rode to his headquarters. He arrived in time to see the advancing lines of Roger Hanson's and Gideon Pillow's brigades colliding with the Yankees under Price. Only one of Fyffe's regiments, the Forty- fourth Indiana anchoring his right flank, was close enough to give fire support to Price's line as the heavy masses of Rebel infantry bore down upon it. Fyffe told his regimental commanders to wheel their units to the right, for he intended to take the Grayclads in their exposed right flank. Unfortunately, he had not reckoned with the oncoming second Southern battle line, composed of two brigades, that now moved to the attack. Suddenly Fyffe realized that Price's whole unit had collapsed, his own right flank was thus unsupported, and, worse yet, the Rebels were closer to McFadden's Ford than he was. Fearing his brigade would be cut off, Fyffe ordered a retreat, which soon turned into shambles. Fyffe himself was thrown from his horse and disabled. At least one of the regiments, Fyffe's own Fifty-ninth Ohio, panicked and ran right through the Twenty-third Kentucky, trampling some of its men who lay behind a rail fence. It was no more than thirty minutes since Breckinridge had launched his assault and three Yankee brigades were routed.(2) Probably the Federals had enough manpower east of Stones River, if it had been used effectively, to have held their front lines. But Grider's reserve brigade never got into action until Price's front line infantry were routed. In Fyffe's front line brigade, only one regiment supplied any effective flanking fire on the Rebel attacking columns as they drove in against Price. Then when Price was overwhelmed, Fyffe's soldiers found themselves outflanked and, trying to retreat, they panicked and went to pieces. Finally, William Grose's brigade, which was supposed to anchor the Union left, was like Grider's reserve, never in the fight until both of the front-line brigades had gone to the rear, one overwhelmed and thee other panicked. The weight of the Rebel assault, four brigades strong, had gone in against Price's lone brigade, assisted by two regments, the Seventy-ninth Indiana from Grider's command and the Fourty-fourth Indiana from Fyffe's brigade. The Rebel force was concentrated while the Union strength was dispersed, enabling the Confederates to dispose of the Yankee infantry in piece-meal fashion. The Grayclads should not have accomplished as much as they did. A glorious victory was at hand, or so it must have seemed to the jubilant Southerns, as the Federal line retreated before the advancing Rebels. Some of the Confederates, infantry from the Sixth and Second Kentucky and Gibson's Louisanna brigade, had even charged across the River in pursuit of the fleeing Yankees. Actually, what seemed the forerunner of victory was a prelude to disaster. As the retreating Federals were pushed back toward the river, they drew the hotly pursuing Rebels down toward the slope and within range of some forty-five cannon massed on the hill west of Stones River. The Union artillerists had the chance they had been waiting for, to shoot at the foe without harming their comrades. Unleashing a fierce cannonade, darkened the sky with smoke, and striking across river into the ranks of the Confederates, the Federal guns dealt destruction up and down the line. It was suddenly, as one writer expressed it, "as if the Rebs had opened the door of hell, and the devil himself was there to greet them."(3) The soggy river bottom over which the Yankees had been driven had become a death trap as the Federal gunners blazed away with deadly effect. There was nothing reasonable to do except fall back. When Major General Braxton Bragg was informed that Breckenridge's troops were beginning to retreat, he ordered Brigadier General J.Patton Anderson's brigade to cross the river and provide reinforcement. The battle, of course, was all over when Anderson arrived, to late for his infantry to help. Besides, the Federals had mounted a strong counterattack. With heavy reinforcements at hand and a little daylight remaiming, the Yankees acted quickly, although it was apparently an impatient brigade commander who sensed that the time was right and triggered the attack. Generals Thomas Crittenden, James Negly, John Palmer, and Rosecrans looked on from the ridge that bristled with Union artillery, Colonel John F. Miller of Negley's division, without waiting for orders from his general, moved out against the Rebels. Then Colonel Timothy R. Stanley's brigade joined him, ordered forward by Generals Rosecrans and Negley. Cheering wildly as they surged after the retiring Grayclads, the Yankees now realized that the momentum of battle had changed. Other units joined in, as thousands of Federals splashed across the stream to the east bank. Grider's and Price's shattered commands, anxious to redeem themselves, quickly responded. There were units from Fyffe's brigade, and from other commands---all now pursuing the Rebels, forcing their artillery back from the ridge above the ford, finally compelling them to once more take up their original line along Wayne's Hill. Nothing had been changed by the short bloody fight, the Federals regaining everything they had held before the assault took place.(4) Colonel James P. Fyffe of Ohio, whose front line brigade was driven back in panic by Breckenridge's assault, wrote letters to his mother and wife following the battle which helped to bring alive the human element of the tragic conflict. Fyffe had been a Lieutenant in the Mexican War and saw action at the battle of Monterrey. Later he "read law" and in 1851 went to California seeking gold, keeping an interesting journal of his experiences in the gold field and his return by sea. Filled with love for his country, a sense of duty, and an adventurous desire to participate in, as he expressed it, "the grandest events that have shaken the world since Peter the Hermit preached the Great Crusade for the rescue of the Holy Land."(5) Fyffe went to war for the Union. There is a marked contrast between the letters written before the battle Stones River and those written afterward. His rather light, chit-chat approach, and the continual fond and romantic references in the letters to his wife, are replaced by a more serious, brief, and matter-of-fact tone as he contemplates the crisis he has just survived. The following are the major portions of two letters, the first to his mother and the second to his wife, both penned a few days after the battle. Camp near Murfreesboro January 10, 1863 My dear Mother, I am sitting alone in my tent tonight and have been thinking about you all, away at home...I thought the best thing I could do would be to write to my Ma, and the rest.., for this letter is for the whole family....I was not in condition to write, and I am not much better now, for the "black Dog," got hold of me this afternoon; in other words, had a touch of the blues originating partly from being very sore from a fall off my horse....and partly, I suppose, from the reactions of the system after so long and sustained excitement... In the last day of fighting, the great charge made by [Brig. Gen. John C.Breckinridge's force just missed my brigade, where it stood in a single line, without any reserves whatever, and fell about two hundred yards to the right, where Colonel [Samuel] Beatty's troops..were posted, sweeping them backward like fallen leaves before a wintry wind; one after the other the lines were swept away. If it had fallen on me, in place of where it did, I do not see how a single man could have escaped of my brigade....I was not going to describe the battle, only allude to the narrow escape..., but as I have told this much, I will add that Breckinridge's charge was intended to cut through our lines and get to the [McFadden's] ford over Stone River. ...They succeeded in getting to the ford, turning our right, but found themselves in what the French call a cul de sac. They found themselves in a bend of the river, running around them as it were, while the opposite bank was lined with fifty pieces of cannon, and dark with dense masses of infantry. I need not state what followed....I do not know what is to become of the people in this country. They [Confederates] force all the poor white people into the ranks, as soldiers, and have a law exempting every white man from the conscript law who owns 20 Negroes, thus forcing the poor, who had nothing to do with bringing on the war, to do the fighting, while the wealthy man who all he could to bring it on is exempt by law from fighting. We have been without tents or cooking utensils, nearly ever since we left Nashville until yesterday when our train came by, and I don't know when I was so glad to see a man as I was to see Tom Macaker. He had stayed back with my Head Quarter wagons, and we feared they were burned. Tom tells me [they] had a narrow escape. The train was very long and part of it burned... I hope Ma, you won't fret about the war. Somehow or other I have got to believe that it may all come out right, that the Great Being who rules over all things [will conclude it] for the best. Your affectionate son, Perry Camp near Murfreesboro January 20, 1863 My Dear Wife, I sent you a telegram the last day of the fight assuring you of my safety, to save you unnecessary anxiety, and my mesenger has just returned and informed me he did not deliver it because the wires were down between Nashville and Louisville. I feel annoyed about it, and have set down to write you at once. Our tents have just come up, and are not pitched yet, and it is spitting snow so I can not write much. You will see Gus Pems is killed before this reaches you. He was shot dead, venturing too far to get the wounded. He was a noble boy. His body was sent to Nashville to send home. William King was wounded in the arm... John Brockhouse is missing. Leach is killed. Lieutenant A. Conner was wounded..Lieutenant Dancer, Eleventh Kentucky, on my staff, was wounded in the last day's fighting, and my horse, frightened by a shell, became frantic and threw me off, dragging me by the foot...bruising my face and back and disabling me...right in the midst of a terrific [enemy] charge. You will see all about it in my official report. We got mail today for the brigade; hardly any letters for the 59th Regiment [Fifty-nineth Ohio Volunteer Infantry]; none for me.... I must now close, as I am not sufficiently recovered from the exhausting effects of the terrible struggle we have gone through to pretend to write much. My love to all...... Yours affectionately, J.P.Fyffe P.S. Adjt. Charles King goes to Nashville today to send Gus Pems body home. Henry Liggett is also going to take his brother's remains...Tom Macabeer got back from Nashville yesterday. I had a hard time while he was gone--no wagon-- no tent--no blankets--no cooking--nothing to cook if we had; I tell you--we have had a "Bad time...." Colonel Fyffe, in spite of his troubles, was actually fortunate, if compared to William McKay, a Tennessean in the ranks of the Rebel army. Badly wounded in the thigh during Breckinridge's assault, McKay experienced a seemingly unending nightmare of pain and anguish. "I remained helpless and partially unconscious until our command retreated," he wrote. "I saw the Yankees coming and attempted to get up but could not. Our men moved up a battery of three guns and planted them just over where I lay. The fire from the guns was nearly hot enough to burn my face, and the Yankee bullets rattled on the gun carriages like hail." Finally the Confederates, with most of their horses killed, had to leave their guns. As McKay lay between the lines, suddenly shrapnel and concussion from a bursting shell, fired by the Rebels, broke his left arm and badly bruised his body. For hours he remained in the field while a cold drizzle mixed with sleet came down and Federal soldiers marched by him and over him. "I lay where I fell until about midnight and recieved brutal treatment from some of the Yankees," McKay later recounted, "The commanders of companies would say as they passed me, `look out men: here is a wounded man' and some of them would step over me carefully while others would give me a kick, call me a damned Rebel, and I was covered with black spots from the bruises." At last two Federals, searching the battlefield for a friend, took pity, secured an ambulance, and had McKay taken to a Federal hospital. The horror was far from ended however. Overworked attendants, thinking he was too near death to waste their time, laid him out on the ground. McKay's own words speak for themselves: "I lay all day Saturday in the rain without any attention being paid me. When I would ask for water they would say `you don't need water. We will take you to the graveyard after a while.'..." McKay then felt fortunate that it was raining. He found he could suck the water out of his rain-soaked coat sleeve. After dark on Saturday night some of the attendants, concluding that he was not going to die after all, picked him up, laying him in a tent out of the rain. During the night two wounded Confederates died in the tent and one of them fell across McKay's legs where his body lay for several hours. Sunday, at noon, McKay found himself moved to another tent where both Rebel and Federal wounded lay. Not until Monday morning was he given breakfast, his first food since Friday, before he was wounded. Next came the surgeons, who decided that his wounded leg must be amputated. McKay rebelled, saying that they could not do it, and he begged and pleaded with them not to do it, until the chief surgeon put an end to the matter: "If the damned Rebel wants to die let him go," was the conclusion. The surgeons moved on, amputated the leg of a Florida soldier near by, and the next day he died. The foul air and the sight of suffering and death were all around McKay. Two Yankee wounded were close at hand, one right beside him, and they also died. "So the three men nearest to me died , " wrote McKay, "and none of them seemed to be wounded as badly as I was." Having barely survived, and avoided the amputation of his mangled leg, it was not until January 7 or 8 that real hope was kindled when a man named Casper Freas, in company with a Mrs. Clemons, came upon McKay in the Federal hospital at Murfreesboro. The woman was in search of her husband (he was never found), whose two brothers had both been killed on the last day of the battle. Surprised to find McKay, who had been reported dead by a soldier claiming to have actually examined the corpse, Mr. Freas took an immediate interest in him. Procuring a surgeon's certificate which testified that McKay was mortally wounded, Freas secured a pass to take him to his own home. After a harsh cursing from the Provost Marshal who issued his parole, McKay found himself loaded into a wagon. The one friend he had made among the Federal surgeons packed a pair of blankets, a bottle of whiskey, and some tea, coffee, and sugar--but the blankets, and whiskey disappeared as soon as the surgeon was out of sight, swiped by the Yankee guards. At last McKay's wagon completed the ten-mile trip to the home of Freas. "I could not understand," McKay wrote, "why he would burden himself with a wounded man." Eventually, he realized Freas was a Union sympathizer, merely using McKay for his own interests, as he hoped to prevent the Confederates, who would know that he caring for a wounded Rebel, from harming his property. In the meantime, Freas was planning a quick departure to Indiana. "The night he left," remembered McKay, "proved to be the most horrible of all my trials." Freas and his family exited the house about midnight, placing McKay in the care of a big black man who promised to look after him through the night. As soon as the family had gone McKay said the black man began bringing in fence rails to make a fire by putting one end on the fire and the other on the floor. "I begged him to desist," wrote McKay, "but he would not obey me." Instead he kept bringing in rails, saying he was going to make a good fire--and then go home! Indeed McKay soon had a tremendous fire, but, unable to move, spent part of the night in terror, fully expecting that the house would catch fire and he would be burned to death. Finally the fire died down, and then the severe cold set in, leaving McKay badly chilled and despondent when a neighbor happened to find him the next day. It would be summer before McKay, nursed by a Confederate family,eventually regained enough strength to struggle about on a pair of crutches.(6) Perhaps McKay was a fitting symbol of the mangled armies, with their combined total of over 24,000 casualties at the battle of Stones River, for neither army moved again until the summer of 1863. FOOTNOTES; (1) War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 129 Vols. (Washington,D.C., 1880-1901), Serial 1, vol XX, pt. 1, 615, 827,833. Hereafter cited as OR. All references are to Serial 1, vol.XX, part 1 (2) Ibid.,598-99, 601, 602-06 (3) Robert Womack."The River Ran Red with Men's Blood", Accent,magazine of the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, December 20, 1976, 10 (4) OR, 434, 408, 184-85, 451 (5) Fyffe to his wife Wilma, December 11, 1862. Fyffe's letters were made available by Mr. E. Gale Pewitt, Naperville, Illinois. The originals are in the Public Library, Chattanooga, Tennessee. They contain some misspelled words and improper punctuation. The spelling has been corrected and the punctuation improved in order to make the letters more readable. (6) William L. McKay "Memoirs," Confederate Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives. R'cd from E. Gale Pewitt, 1129 Bigfoot Lane, Napervile,IL 60540 WS5\ JPFYFFE.COL