Mend the broken Confederate lines at the battle of the Wilderness

Stiles/Akin

Sergeant Major
Joined
Apr 1, 2016
Location
Atlanta, Georgia
155 years ago today the 38th Georgia Regiment was called on to mend the broken Confederate lines at the battle of the Wilderness and save the Army of Northern Virginia from destruction....they did not disappoint!

Excerpt from , "Hurrah for Georgia! The History of the 38th Georgia Regiment:"

General Gordon noted, “A more beautiful day never dawned on Clark's Mountain and the valley of the Rapidan than May 5th, 1864. There was not a cloud in the sky and the broad expanse of meadow lands on the north side of the little river and the steep wooded hills on the other seemed ‘appareled in celestial light’ as the sun rose upon them. At an early hour, however, the enchantment of the scene was rudely broken by bugles and kettledrums calling Lee's veterans to strike tents and 'fall into line.' My command (The Georgia Brigade) brought up the rear of the extreme left of Lee's line, which was led by Ewell's corps.

Lee, in the meantime, was hurrying his columns along the narrow roads and throwing out skirmish lines, backed by such troops as he could bring forward quickly in order to check Grant's advance and to ascertain whether the heaviest assault was to be made upon the Confederate centre or upon the right or left flank. Field glasses and scouts and cavalry were equally and almost wholly useless in that dense woodland. The tangle of underbrush and curtain of green leaves enabled General Grant to concentrate his forces at any point, while their movements were entirely concealed. Overlapping the Confederate lines on both flanks, he lost no time in pushing to the front with characteristic vigor Long before I reached the point of collision, the steady roll of small arms left no doubt as to the character of the conflict in our front. Dispatching staff officers to the rear to close up the ranks in compact column, so as to be ready for any emergency, we hurried with quickened step toward the point of heaviest fighting. Alternate confidence and apprehension were awakened as the shouts of one army or the other reached our ears. So distinct in character were these shouts that they were easily discernible. At one point the weird Confederate ‘yell’ told us plainly that Ewell's men were advancing. At another the huzzas, in mighty concert, of the Union troops warned us that they had repelled the Confederate charge; and as these ominous huzzas grew in volume we know that Grant's lines were moving forward. Just as the head of my column came within range of the whizzing Miniés, the Confederate yells grew fainter and at last ceased; and the Union shout rose above the din of battle."

Sergeant Hudgins wrote of 38th Georgia Regiment waking early on the morning of May 5th and marching towards the battle, he wrote, “We resumed our march in the direction of the Wilderness and quite soon we heard the rattle of musketry and we knew the great battle had begun. Warren, commanding the 5th Army Corps, had assailed Johnson and Rhodes furiously; and when Gordon’s Brigade, of Early’s Division, arrived on the field, the ordnance and ambulance trains were all moving to the rear.”

General Gordon continued, “I was already prepared by this infallible admonition for the sight of Ewell's shattered forces retreating in disorder. The oft-repeated but spasmodic efforts of first one army and then the other to break through the opposing ranks had at last been ended by the sudden rush of Grant's compact veterans from the dense cover in such numbers that Ewell's attenuated lines were driven in confusion to the rear. These retreating divisions, like broken and receding waves, rolled back against the head of my column while we were still rapidly advancing along the narrow road. The repulse had been so sudden and the confusion so great that practically no resistance was now being made to the Union advance; and the elated Federals were so near me that little time was left to bring my men from column into line in order to resist the movement or repel it by countercharge. At this moment of dire extremity I saw General Ewell, who was still a superb horseman, notwithstanding the loss of his leg, riding in furious gallop toward me, his thoroughbred charger bounding like a deer through the dense underbrush. With a quick jerk of his bridle-rein just as his wooden leg was about to come into unwelcome collision with my knee, he checked his horse and rapped out his few words with characteristic impetuosity. He did not stop to explain the situation; there was no need of explanation. The disalignment, the confusion, the rapid retreat of our troops and the raining of Union bullets as they whizzed and rattled through the scrub oaks and pines, rendered explanations superfluous, even had there been time to make them.”

Lieutenant George Lester of the Tom Cobb Infantry recalled the moment, “The battle was opened by an attack on Jones' Va. brigade. The Yankees were met with a galling fire but pressed on and drove General Jones back, thus making a gap in the line. General John B. Gordon's (our) brigade was ordered to his relief.” Sergeant Hudgins watched Gordon as the brigade prepared to form a line of battle. They encountered Rhodes Brigade and Gordon’s old regiment, the 6th Alabama Regiment, “We had now reached Battle’s Brigade, of Rhodes’s Division and General Gordon said: 'Steady, 6th Alabama!' Those instantly recognized their former captain and colonel and instantly replied: 'We will.' Warren was making his main attack and those gallant Alabamians were holding their own.”

Ewell greeted Gordon as he rode at the head of the George Brigade, “The rapid words he did utter were electric and charged with tremendous significance. ‘General Gordon, the fate of the day depends on you, sir,’ he said. ‘These men will save it, sir.’ Quickly wheeling a single regiment into line, I ordered it forward in a countercharge, while I hurried the other troops into position. The sheer audacity and dash of that regimental charge checked, as I had hoped it would, the Union advance for a few moments, giving me the essential time to throw the other troops across the Union front. Some of my men were killed and wounded before the first regiment was placed in position.”

As the Georgia Brigade was forming a line of battle, the 38th was at the rear of the column and was the last to file into line. Gordon then ordered: “Forward into line on the right; right oblique and load as you march!” Gordon rode in front of the brigade and began steeling the men’s nerves for battle. Private Bradwell, 31st Georgia watched as, “Gordon rode along the front of the entire brigade, seeming as one inspired with burning word of eloquence. With hat in hand he passed along, his face radiant as he spoke to his men in these words, ‘Soldiers, we have always driven the enemy before us, but this day we are going to scatter them like the leaves of the forest,’ he raised the fighting spirit in his men to the highest pitch.”

Private Nichols of the 60th also witnessed the event, “General Gordon turned to us with a deep determined look—to move them or die. General Gordon addressed us in about these words: ‘Boys, there are Yankees in front and lots of them and they must be moved or the day is lost and we must move them. Now all who are faint hearted, fall out, you shall not be hurt for it; for we do not want any to go but heroes—we want brave Georgians.’ The brigade cheered loudly and prepared to charge. Gordon rode to the center of the brigade’s line of battle and gave the command 'Forward!'”

“Just as we were ordered forward, Irvin Spivey, of the Twenty-sixth Georgia Regiment, hallooed. He could halloo the queerest that I ever heard any one. It was a kind of a scream or low, like a terrible bull, with a kind of a neigh mixed along with it and it was nearly as loud as a steam whistle. We called him 'The Twenty-sixth Georgia's Bull,' and the Yankees called him 'Gordon's Bull.' He would always halloo this way when we charged the enemy and we were informed that the Yankees understood it as a signal for them to move back,” wrote Private George Nichols.

"Gordon’s command of 'Forward!' fell, with a deafening yell which must have been heard miles away, that glorious brigade rushed upon the hitherto advancing enemy and by the shock of their furious onset shattered into fragments all that portion of the compact Union line which confronted my troops.”

The Georgia Brigade met their old antagonist, the “Iron Brigade” of the Federal Army. The Georgia Brigade and 38th Georgia fought the “Iron Brigade” at 2nd Manassas and Antietam, but for the first time, the Iron Brigade’s ranks were shattered and they were swept from the field, with the Georgians close on their heels. Gordon told of the unique situation facing the Georgia Brigade, due to the success of the attack, “At that moment was presented one of the strangest conditions ever witnessed upon a battle-field. My command covered only a small portion of the long lines in blue and not a single regiment of those stalwart Federals yielded except those which had been struck by the Southern advance. On both sides of the swath cut by this sweep of the Confederate scythe, the steady veterans of Grant were unshaken and still poured their incessant volleys into the retreating Confederate ranks. My command had cut its way through the Union centre and at that moment it was in the remarkably strange position of being on identically the same general line with the enemy, the Confederates facing in one direction, the Federals in the other. Looking down that line from Grant's right toward his left, there would first have been seen a long stretch of blue uniforms, then a short stretch of gray, then another still longer of blue, in one continuous line. The situation was both unique and alarming. I know of no case like it in military history; nor has there come to my knowledge from military text-books or the accounts of the world's battles any precedent for the movement which extricated my command from its perilous environment and changed the threatened capture or annihilation of my troops into victory.

The advance was made with such spirit that the enemy was broken and scattered along the front of my brigade, but still held his ground or continued his advance on my right and left. It will be seen that further movement to Grant's rear was not to be considered; for his unbroken lines on each side of me would promptly close up the gap which my men had cut through his centre, thus rendering the capture of my entire command inevitable. To attempt to retire by the route by which we had advanced was almost, if not equally, as hazardous; for those same unbroken and now unopposed ranks on each side of me, as soon as such retrograde movement began, would instantly rush from both directions upon my retreating command and quickly crush it. In such a crisis, when moments count for hours, when the fate of a command hangs upon instantaneous decision, the responsibility of the commander is almost overwhelming; but the very extremity of the danger electrifies his brain to abnormal activity.

In such peril he does more thinking in one second than he would ordinarily do in a day. No man ever realized more fully than I did at that dreadful moment the truth of the adage: ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’ As soon as my troops had broken through the Union ranks, I directed my staff to halt the command; and before the Union veterans could recover from the shock, my regiments were moving at double-quick from the centre into file right and left, thus placing them in two parallel lines, back to back, in a position at a right angle to the one held a moment before. I left a thin line (Thirty-first and Thirty-eighth Georgia Regiments) to protect my front and changed front to the right with three regiments (Thirteenth, Sixtieth and Sixty-first Georgia) and moved directly upon the flank of the line on my right… At the same time I caused the regiment on the left (Twenty-sixth Georgia) to make a similar movement to the left, which was also successful.

This quickly executed maneuver placed one half of my command squarely upon the right flank of one portion of the enemy's unbroken line and the other half facing in exactly the opposite direction, squarely upon the left flank of the enemy's line. This position is correctly represented by the solid (Federal) and dotted (Confederate) lines here shown. (see attached photo)

By this time portions of Battle's brigade rallied and with other troops of Rhodes' division came forward and assisted in driving the enemy back and establishing the line, which was afterward held.

Private Nichols of the 61st described the attack and amazing capture of an entire Union regiment, “We forwarded and soon struck the Yankees. They began to fire at us and we at them. I never heard such a yell as we raised. We could scarcely hear a gun fire and could hardly tell when our own guns fired, only by the jar it gave us. We soon routed the first Yankee line. We all pushed right on and on with the yell, until we had driven the first line into the reserve line. The two lines did not stand but one or two volleys before both began to waver and retreat in confusion. We soon had them into the third line and on into the fourth and on until we seemed to have five or six lines in one confused mass, with many of them lying down and surrendering, or coming back with their hands up to show that they were surrendered. We would send them to the rear. Our officers could hardly get a man to go to the rear with them. We killed a great many of them and drove them off of Lee's position and on for nearly two miles.

The brigade forwarded in thick woods in the wilderness. Every man seemed anxious to go ahead and it seemed that everyone had an iron will— determined to move those Yankees from General Lee's chosen position or die in the attempt.

The performance of the 38th Georgia on the following day, May 6th, 1864, was just as incredible as their performance on May 5th...they helped demolish the right wing of the Federal army and brought General Grant to tears

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From: https://www.facebook.com/permalink....E6yJSzWW9OXfuQTYrexy1QcYFRTJHbj0RQ&__tn__=K-R
 
Read about that yesterday in a rather thick book(400+ pages) I'm reading about The Wilderness Campaign. The Spotsylvania anniversary will come and go before I finish this book.
 
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