Remembering Our Civil War Heritage and
Heroes:
1861-1865
In the Shadow of
Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest:
Private John C. Lilly’s
War Gets Nasty—Part II
By
Ken Robison
For The River Press
August 1, 2012
This
continues a monthly series commemorating the 150th Anniversary of
the Civil War and the veterans that settled in Central Montana. In Part I, John
C. Lilly, of Shelby County, Ky., joined the Confederate Army, and was assigned
to Company A in Colonel N. B. Forrest’s Old Regiment. Part II continues Private
Lilly’s wartime experiences as the action in the [then] western border states
of Kentucky and Tennessee went from mild to wild.
Private John C. Lilly spent Christmas 1861 in Col. Nathan
Bedford Forrest’s winter camp at Hopkinsville, Ky. in relative comfort. The
reconnaissance, light skirmishes and limited action of the Regiment as they
protected the Confederate base and capital at Bowing Green, would soon to
change dramatically.
Sometime after the Civil War, Private Lilly wrote about
his wartime experiences. [Portions of his narrative are presented with his
creative spelling and expressions “normalized” by this author.] Lilly
continues, “After a few days in Camp the news came to Forrest that the First
Kentucky Cavalry (Union) were South of Green River in the neighborhood of
Greenville under the command of Major More. Col. Forrest, always ready for a
fight, ordered three days rations and to be ready to move early on the next
morning. This time [Col. Forrest] took, for the first time, his whole Regiment
with the exception of a few [men] to do Camp duty and what was on the sick
list.
“The next morning we started on the road to Greenville. .
. . we got to Greenville and camped at a big hay ranch or farm. It was bad
weather in [late] December with a cold drizzling rain all day and night. A
scouting party was sent out that night. They came back and reported the Yankees
were close and Captain [C. E. or Ned] Meriwether with an independent squad was
‘working them’ as we called [it] now in the west.
“Forrest ordered to sound the bugle for Boots and Saddle.
In 10 minutes we were on the road towards Sacramento, Ky. When we got to a
crossroad [one mile south of the town], an old farmer and his daughter who were
coming from Sacramento told Forrest that the Yankees were but five miles ahead
of us. Forrest . . . sent his orderly back to the other Captains of Co B and Co
C, [for these companies] to come up in good order a little behind our Co [A].
Forrest then gave the command to our Company by fours double quick march and
him in the lead on a fine thoroughbred Sorrel, and he went charging down a lane
into our first battle.
“I must state here an incident in regard to myself. I was
on a Chesnut mare as fine a little Kentucky animal as ever was under the
saddle. She was a present to me from Olivia Harris, the daughter of Henry Harris
of Shelby County, Ky. This little mare got it in her head that no other horse
should beat her, and there were but a very few that could do it. So the little
mare struck [out] and passed my company and passed the Col. right straight for
Yankee Cavalry.
“Right at the end of the lane was a big stand of timber
land. When I [was] very near to the end of the lane, the Col. saw that I was
going right into the Yankees. He called to me to pull her into the fence
corner, which I did just in time. When the Sorrel came to a halt near the rear
guard of the Federal Cavalry, Col. Forrest jumped off his horse while I tried
to get my mare quiet. He says, ‘Give me your gun,’ which I handed over. He
fired into the enemy, gave back my gun, and was mounting at the same time.
“The Yankees fired at the same time but the balls went
over our heads . . . [As] we dashed forward into the edge of the timber, to our
surprise they were formed in a splendid line of battle. Before we could form a
line, they give us a volley and kept it up. [This] being our first engagement
to face the enemy in such close quarters, they had the advantage on us in
position with the exception that the ground [was] so situated that they fired
too high. Under this fire we tried to form in line [but it] was almost
impossible. Col. Forrest and our Lieutenant Ward had their horses shot. Being a
foot, [they ordered] us not to run. If the Yankees had made a charge that
moment they would have demoralized us right there.
“Captain Meriwether had got to the front with a few men
and one of his men and himself were killed and two wounded laying in the road.
By this time Captain May of Company B had formed in our right when they drew
our fire. So we got in line and fighting was pretty severe for five minutes
when Captain Gughle with Company C came up the lane in good order by fours.
When Forrest ran back and got Capt Meriwether’s horse, [he] says to Capt
Gughle, ‘Capt, charge them!’ When Capt Gughle gave the command to his Texas
Rangers, ‘Charge them boys,’ they then gave the Rebel yell which went thru the
woods echoing [so loud] that you could scarcely hear the sound of the rifles.
When the sound of that yell from the Texas Rangers reached the ears of the
Yankee Cavalry, that was too much for them, and our battle was won. That
splendid line of battle in Blue was broken and retreating in bad order thru the
little town of Sacramento, Ky.
“Right here in the streets of this little town there was
a hand to hand duel with sabers which perhaps is not on record or in the
history as the Yankees . . . but those were Kentucky Yankees and as brave of
men as ever faced a gun or used a pistol or drove a saber which was shown.
“Right in that little engagement at the outskirts of this
little Kentucky town met Col.. Forrest in the lead of his command victorious
and Captain Backer in the rear of his Command defeated. With sabers drawn, they
both went at it, as foes would meet. As Captain Backer was better fighting with
a sword, as Forrest found out in a few minutes or seconds, I might say I think
that and believe, Col. Forrest would have ready left that field of life. But in
such conflict where it is in such close quarters it was a pistol ball that
ended that saber duel between Col. Forrest and Captain Backer, when the brave
Capt tumbled off his horse a dead man. The supposition is that the shot that
killed Capt Backer was fired from a man of our Company, his name I will not
mention.
“Here the battle was ended in a glorious victory for
Forrest and his Old Regiment. I have forgotten now the number of prisoners we
took. I think that the Yankees lost in that fight between forty or fifty
killed, wounded, and prisoners. Our lost, I believe, was three killed and five
wounded and a few horses killed. The reader will imagine here that there never
was a prouder Regiment in the Confederate Army than Forrest’s Old Regiment of
Cavalry, and the old Col. himself, after that fight, thought that he could lick
the whole Yankee army.
“That same day we marched back with our prisoners to
Greenville. The next day we started back for Hopkinsville to our winter’s
quarters going through that little town called Cloverport [Ky., on the Ohio
River] which I shall never forget, though I have never been or seen it since.
The ladies of that place gave us the finest picnic in the winter that I have
ever been to before or since. I never saw as much fine eatables in my life, and
we were supplied with socks, mittens, gloves, blankets, most everything forced
on to you, whether you wanted it or not. God Bless the people of Cloverport,
Ky. is my wish today. In fact in the beginning of the war the people of the
South could never do too much for a Confederate soldier and especially the
women.
“When we got back to our winter quarters the first news
was that there was a gunboat going up the Cumberland River. General Clark had
some Infantry camping at the Hopkinsville Fairgrounds with a few pieces of
artillery. Now I will give the reader a plan of Col. Forrest’s scheme. Col.
Forrest wanted to capture that gunboat with his Cavalry. His idea was to
capture that boat and then go down the river under the U.S. flag and destroy
the whole Yankee fleet at Paducah, Ky. and at Cairo, Illinois which I believe
he would have done if we could have got away with the Yankee gunboat.”
Private Lilly provides a detailed account of this bizarre
attempt by Forrest’s Cavalry to capture a Yankee steamboat. Although ultimately
their trap did not succeed, it did result in the death of a dozen of the
steamboat’s crewmen and damage to the gunboat. Lilly concludes the story, “one
of our cannon shots had bored a hole thru the boat. So that ended the charge of
Cavalry charging a gunboat on the Cumberland River where we [did] not lose a
man.”
Lilly’s narrative continues, “We landed again with
triumph in our camp. The people of the surrounding country and of Hopkinsville
would visit our Camp and thought that Col. Forrest and his Cavalry were the
heroes of the Southern Confederacy. Then we had a good time in camp [with]
plenty of good rations and fat and slick horses [with only] a little camp
duties and drilling to do. [We] got passes to go out in the Country and see the
girls who thought more of Forrest’s Cavalry than they would of themselves. Who
would not be a soldier under such circumstances but as God knows we saw some
hard times afterwards.”
Subsequent events would have a profound impact on the
outcome of the Civil War. Two legends emerged from the action in Tennessee in
early 1862. The North would finally find a “fighting” general in Ulysses S.
Grant, while the South would find a legend in the daring and determination of
Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. In the first use of rivers for major operations
during the Civil War, Fort Henry was attacked by Union naval gunboats and
surrendered after most of its guns were disabled. Then, Confederate troops were
trapped at Fort Donelson, mainly because of indecisiveness by rebel commanders.
Several thousand Confederates did escape, including Forrest’s Old Regiment
through decisive action on the part of Col. Forrest. The loss of Forts Henry
and Donelson was a stunning defeat for the Confederacy. Gen. Grant had seized
the initiative, forced the Confederates out of Kentucky, broken their defense
line in northern Tennessee, and permanently changed the strategic situation in
the West. And Private Lilly and his Forrest’s Old Regiment were knee deep in
the action.
Private John Lilly continues his narrative, “From now on
our hard times begin. Five days of the month of February [1862] have passed,
and rumor in camp is that [BGen.] Grant is marching on to Fort Henry. Another
day and orders were given to cook up three days rations. The next day we were
marching to Fort Donaldson over the same road that we came over five months
before to go into our winter quarters. Before we crossed the old Cumberland
River we could hear the cannon booming at Fort Henry fourteen miles distance.
We were taken across on a steamboat the next morning, one company at the time.
When our Company got across, Col. Forrest started immediately out on the Fort
Henry road. About six miles out we met the Yankees and fighting commenced. We
skirmished all day and fell back at night when our whole Regiment was across
the River.
“We camped that night in a kind of a ravine but worked
all night building breastworks for the Infantry. All the next morning the
Yankees advanced [so] that the Infantry got to skirmish with them. Then the
gunboats came up and attacked our batteries on the River and the Infantry
[attacked] by land. But the Yankee Fleet got the worst of it, and five of their
boats were sunk and others disabled so that they were poled off. The gunboats
made it pretty warm for us but with very little harm to us. We were not there
to charge gunboats.” The battle for Fort Donelson had begun.
“Then the next morning we were completely surrounded by
Grant’s army and fighting commenced in earnest with Forrest and his Cavalry on
our extreme left. By noon the enemy were driving [us] from the field. About
noon a Regiment of [our] Infantry took a battery from the Seventh Iowa. As it
happened then the Confederate Regiment gave out of ammunition and could not
hold the Battery. As the Battery was right at the head of a deep ravine and as
the Seventh Iowa was in the Ravine and was about to retake the guns, Col.
Forrest led one of the grandest Cavalry charges on the Seventh Iowa Infantry.
The charge was made by placing two companies . . . to charge up to that ravine
and fire, one company to wheel to the right, and the other to the left in the
ravine . . . and load while the other platoon would charge right here.
“That brave Capt May of Company B fell before the charge
was made and several of our brave boys beside him. The Seventh Iowa gave us a
terrible fire while we were forming in line, and it stood time in hand for the
move what was coming if they could keep us from forming in line. Reinforcement
was coming for them, and they would have retaken their battery, but Forrest with
actually tears in his eyes led the charge and the Seventh Iowa was very nearly
all slaughtered in that famous Death Hollow.
“When the roll was called of the Seventh Iowa after that
charge of Forrest’s Cavalry into that Hollow of Death there were not many to
answer to their names, and so it was the same with Forrest’s Cavalry. If the
Reader has never been in a battle he has no idea what it is to form a regiment
of Cavalry especially under heavy fire, especially in timber and brush as it
was at that battleground but we were victorious for a short time.
“As the Yankees retreated we marched down that same
ravine, and [I] must say that it was almost impossible for our horses not to
step on a dead man. It was but [a] short ravine yet it was horrible to look at
the brave men in the different shapes and positions where they were laying.
“As we were following up the retreating Army which was
but a short distance, when General Grant massed a heavy battery on a hay hill
and turned loose on us all at once before we knew what was going on. We were
wheeled right about by fours to get out of range of that heavy artillery fire.
Shells and solid shot was whistling over our heads that were ranging a little
too high but close enough that the boys would dodge when Col. Forrest made the
remark, ‘don’t dodge, Boys.’ When he had hardly said the word, a shell came so
close to his said that he could not help from dodging. When he looked around
with a smile and said, ‘Boys dodge them of you can,’ which the boys never
forgot all thru the war.
“We were then marched back inside our camp and thought
that Grant was retreating. Firing had ceased with the exception on our left
near the river bottom where General Buckner with his Infantry was doing some
hard fighting, and the Motor Boats would throw a few shells into our camp when
the night closed the battle. If the reader has read the history of the battle
of Fort Donaldson, he must know that the object of attacking the Yankee’s right
wing and going out of our breast works was to open the road to Nashville and
for our Army to retire. Such was the plan of Generals Pillow, Floyd &
Buckner, and Col. Forrest to cover the retreat of the Infantry, but that was
not carried out and was without a doubt a mistake of General Pillow’s as he was
Commander in Chief.
“That Saturday night [15th] everything was
quiet but it snowed about three or four inches about twelve o’clock at night.
No bugle was sounded but every man was called from under his blanket of snow to
be quiet and get ready to march. The generals had agreed for Genl Buckner to
surrender the troops but Col. Forrest had no notion to surrender. In one hour
from the time that we were notified, we were in line when Forrest spoke, ‘Boy’s
the Confederate Forces have surrendered and the white flag is now floating over
Fort Donaldson. After our hard fighting yesterday and the brave men that we
left on the field, I have concluded not to surrender. We may have a hard time
to get out, but any of you that want to follow me, Forward March.’
“And the Col. moved on, but I don’t think that there was
over five hundred of the Old Regiment that followed. Some were killed. Some
wounded. Some had their horses killed or wounded. Col. Forrest followed close
up the River without any trouble until we came to a large slough which was full
from the backwater of the old Cumberland River and partly frozen. We were fired
into by a Michigan Regiment of Cavalry, but they could not stop Forrest and his
men. Forrest and the advance guard [rode] right into the backwaters, and the
balance followed. Some had [to] swim their horses and some could even ford
them. The charge on the Michigan Cavalry took them by surprise as it was not
daylight yet, and in a short time we were behind the Yankee Army. I am not able
to tell whether we lost any of our men or not as we did not know who followed
in our retreat, and as far as the Yankee Cavalry we did not lose any time to
get out after we got thru the Yankee lines. We could hear the bugles and the
drums in our ears. So far Col. Forrest had escaped from Fort Donaldson but what
was before him he did not know.”
To Be Continued Photo:
(1) Private Lilly's Legendary Cavalry
Commander Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. [Courtesy of Wikipedia]
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