The FReeper Foxhole Remembers 21st Ohio Infantry at Chickamauga (Sept.19 -20,1863) - Oct 13th, 2004

Civil War Times Illustrated. | January 1967 | Virginia Kepler

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

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for all those serving their country at this time.

...................................................................................... ...........................................

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Buckeyes Make a Stand

'My God, We Thought You Had a Division Here!' The 21st Ohio Infantry's unique repeating weaponry was its salvation - and nearly its undoing - at Chickamauga.

The 21st Ohio was heading at the double quick toward Snodgrass Hill as midmorning of a warm September Sunday in 1863. They were sure something was going terribly wrong with this battle on the banks of the Chickamauga, but then, many things had been going wrong with this Union army lately.

The Army of the Cumberland had been given to understand that they were chasing Confederate General Braxton Brag's army which was fleeing before them into Georgia. But the triumphant "chase" had begun to have ominous overtones, and yesterday a big battle had flared in the dark woods. The fighting had raged all day. But even worse, some bewildering thing was happening off to the Union right among the tangled ravines and forests drained by Chickamauga Creek. One thing was certain. In the 21st's front, the Rebels were running in only one direction-straight at the left wing of the Army of the Cumberland.

The 21st Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, hailed from the northwestern part of their state, a region that was still frontier in 1863. They came from the Black Swamp, a huge morass that for generations had turned back the tide of settlement. During the early part of their enlistment, an old man in Kentucky had found it impossible to believe these men lived in the dreaded Black Swamp. He had marched through it with General Harrison in 1814 and still remembered with horror its dark and brooding vastness.



Despite the legend that no white man (and few Indians) could live there, these men were taming the swamp when they were interrupted by Lincoln's call for troops. They formed a very tough outfit, short on discipline but long on endurance. Perhaps for this reason, or for no reason, in May of 1863 they had been chosen to receive some rather special arms. They had turned in the usual motley collection of muskets carried by Western regiments and had been given in exchange brand new weapons. Two companies got English-made, muzzle-loading Enfields, but the remaining six companies were issued Colt's Revolving Rifles.

Few of the men had seen any kind of repeating breechloader and this five-shot Colt was received with wonder. It was a .56-caliber percussion rifle with the distinctive Colt revolving breech mechanism. It had a solid frame and a Root patent side-hammer. The guns used a .56-caliber paper or linen cartridge, and with a little practice the Yanks found they could load five shots into the Colts in less time than it had taken to load one minié ball in their muskets.


Major General George Henry Thomas

They mastered their weapons so well they were given the dangerous honor of being brigade skirmishers and sharpshooters. As they marched and fought their way south, they neither knew nor cared that the Colts were "unsuccessful experiments" in the family tree of gun design. If the Ohioans were appalled at the blast of gas from the cylinder, they failed to record it. If there were accidents from flying bits of the percussion caps, if occasionally all five cartridges exploded together, if they suffered powder burns on their jaws, the riflemen of the 21st made no loud or lasting complaints. Like most practical men used to bending a hostile environment with their own hands, they did not expect perfection. They weighed the fast-shooting, quick-loading accuracy of the Colts against the pitiful, junked European muskets carried by other outfits, and counted themselves supremely lucky. They adopted an unorthodox grip on the gun that lessened the danger to their hands and gloated happily over the fact that they could fire and reload the Colts while lying down behind a nice, thick tree trunk. As dawn that 20th of September the 21st Ohio, as part of the 3d Brigade, 2d Division, XIV Corps (Thomas's), had been drawn up in line behind some sturdy breastworks they had lost sleep to build during the night. Though part of Thomas's corps, they had recently been under McCook's command. The men were sure the battle would resume, and skirmishing had begun on their front when orders came for the entire division to move out.


General James Longstreet

Like all soldiers, they were used to receiving orders for unknown reasons. That this particular one would initiate a chain of disaster for the Army of the Cumberland, they had no way of knowing. Its reasons, on the high command level, was a simple one.

In the morning Major General George H. Thomas, commanding the Union left, had decided (correctly) that the main Rebel assault of the battle's second day was aimed at his wing of the army. He called for reinforcements. Major General William S. Rosecrans, army commander, was sending him the 2d Division and Brigadier General Thomas J. Wood's division was ordered to relieve them. A little later Rosecrans received a message that there was a gap in the line to the right of Reynolds's division. Assuming that this accounted for Thomas's call for more reinforcing, he ordered Wood to close up with Reynolds. Unfortunately, Brigadier General John M. Brannan's division was nicely closed up with Reynolds and directly behind Wood and Reynolds; there was no gap in the line. As Wood obeyed Rosecrans's order in the only way he could, by pulling out of the line and marching behind Brannan, the Confederates, under Lieutenant General James Longstreet, smashed through the now genuine gap left by Wood, and chaos engulfed two-thirds of the Army of the Cumberland.



But in the freshness of the morning, as the 2d Division was moving out, the leathery veterans of the 21st Ohio knew nothing of the high-level commands given or high-level mistakes about to bear fruit. They only knew they had a march of a mile and a half to make, leaving their hard-won breastworks for one of Wood's regiments to use.

As they marched behind the Union front on the way to their unknown destination, without warning disaster exploded around them. Suddenly the division was gone, the brigade was gone, and all that was left was a swirling mass of men, horses, wagons, cannons, screaming shells, and utter disorganization.


Ohio Volunteers at Chickamauga
by
James Allen Davis of Harper's Weekly

In the midst of the roaring thunder of guns, running troops, smoke, dust, and careening wagons, the regiment paused. To the 21st's commander, Lieutenant Colonel D.M. Stoughton, only one thing was clear in the bewildering storm of a thousand unclear things. He would hold the regiment together and continue to the position he thought the 3d Brigade was aiming for. To carry out his decision, the regiment had to push through fleeing remnants of the center of the army and find the right of Brannan's division.

As the moment, Brannan's division, or what was left of it, was trying to curl itself around some high ground to check the Confederate waves advancing through the broken line. Stoughton and the 21st didn't know that the whole right and center of the Union army had come apart and was streaming in a disorganized retreat back to Chattanooga. They didn't know that Thomas had determined to hold his single corps steady and anchor its flank on a small rise called Snodgrass Hill to try to prevent annihilation of the Army of the Cumberland. They knew only that they had been given orders to reinforce Thomas, and if they could find him, they would carry out those orders.

[SAMWolf]

Stoughton's determined march brought the 21st Ohio into contact with some of Brannan's men, who were standing off what looked like all the Rebels in the world. After a brief halt at the foot of Snodgrass Hill, Stoughton got some shouted orders and the wave of an arm from a frenzied officer. The 21st again moved…over the hill, through the woods, past a huddled log house and down over the southwestern brow of the ridge.



Here, too, were gray - and butternut-clad soldiers advancing. And here, too, a quick glance showed the men of the 21st Ohio that there was no one - literally no one - to their right. They were the anchormen of Thomas's stand. Fate, garbled orders, and sheer luck of the draw had put, at the far end of the crumbling Union line, a regiment of veterans armed with repeating rifles.

Longstreet was hurling 17 brigades of infantry, supported by artillery, at the remaining third of the Army of the Cumberland. He knew that victory would depend upon slashing through the broken line and coming in on the flank and rear of Thomas. If the Confederates could break through on the southwestern slope of Snodgrass Hill, they would be in Thomas's rear and directly across his line of retreat-a situation no Civil War army could stand without dissolving. Rebel soldiers were within an eyelash of doing just this when the 21st Ohio arrived on the scene.

Action at Chickamauga
by
James Allen Davis of Harper's Weekly

Acting instinctively, the Ohioans threw themselves to the ground and opened fire on the charging Confederates. A solid sheet of flame leaped from the repeating Colts. The sheer firepower of the defense appeared to stun the enemy. They were expecting musketry-a volley, followed by ragged shots. Instead they ran head-on into an unbroken wall of blazing bullets that offered no pause and no intervals. The Rebel line slammed against that wall, wavered, broke, and fell back. The 21st used the breathing space gained to back up the hill and form a firm line behind the hillocks of the ridge. Almost simultaneously, the gray lines again swept up the hill, and again the Colts' staccato bursts threw them back. The Ohioans lay close to the ground, making difficult targets for their attackers, and poured the rapid fire of the repeaters into the assaulting ranks.

Yet even while the men of the 21st prayerfully gave thanks for the power of their guns, an uneasy, silent chill swept the regiment. For much as they respected the "Five-Shooters," they knew their fatal weakness was ammunition. From the day they had begun to carry the Colts they had refused to rely on routine ammunition procurement. Ordnance Sergeant John Bolton had been detailed to personally obtain cartridges for the repeaters. It was never an easy job, and when the army was deep in enemy territory and dependent on a precarious supply train from the North it became even harder. Yet a sufficient supply of .56-caliber cartridges was literally the lifeblood of the 21st OVI.

Snodgrass cabin near the summit of Horseshoe ridge, where Union General George Thomas made his stand that earned him the name "the Rock of Chickamauga."

Early on this Sunday morning, Bolton had scoured the ordnance train to gather every Colt Repeater cartridge he could find. He had seen to it that every round had reached the regiment. The 21st had in supply about 25 rounds per man. Bolton had issued 70 rounds more, which gave each soldier 95 rounds. At dawn, this had seemed adequate, but no one had foreseen the disaster of Chickamauga or the role the 21st would be called to play.

After the regiment had single-handedly beaten back the first great charge of Longstreet's men, the attack became a steady pressure. Some of Brannan's regiments fell into the right and left of them, and later, Granger's providential arrival reinforced the hill's defenders. But they were still dangerously few, and the Confederates continued to mount massive assaults. The steady, unbroken fire of the Colts kept lancing down the hill, taking a tremendous toll. But the 95 rounds were dwindling alarmingly, even as the ranks of the 21st were thinning from the constant barrage of artillery and rifle fire.

Action on Snodgrass Hill

By 2:00 in the afternoon, the indefatigable Bolton was pulling men out of line under cover of the fire and sending them out to retrieve cartridges from the regiment's dead. Runners were sent to the field hospital at the Snodgrass house to strip the 21st's wounded of their unused rounds. By using these gleanings and making every shot count, they held their vital part of the hill all during that fiery afternoon, against the strongest assaults the enemy could mount.

How successfully they did so was illustrated by the stunned surprise of a Confederate soldier captured in one of the last Rebel charges. He looked dazedly around him at the thin ranks and blurted, "My God, we thought you had a division here!" But as the shadows lengthened on the hill, disaster was building for the 21st Ohio. The Colts were running out of ammunition, and for them there could be no more. Although every man knew how to load his gun with loose powder and ball in place of factory-made cartridges, the balls had to be .56-caliber. Like castaways on the ocean, surrounded by water and dying of thirst, they were surrounded with ammunition they couldn't use. Everywhere on the hill lay abandoned stores of minie balls-.58-caliber, and useless for the repeaters.

Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas and is 14th Corps near Chickamauga Creek, Sept. 20, 1863.

In desperation, men tried what they knew was hopeless. All caution forgotten, they tore open the paper-covered .58's, dumped powder in the Colt chambers, and frantically hammered the oversized balls into their guns. The guns jammed, burst, or exploded. Major Arnold McMahan, commanding the regiment since Colonel Stoughton had been carried from the field, ordered the regiment to fall back. As the men emptied their guns, they moved back over the ridge to gather in companies beneath two sheltering trees.

[SAMWolf]

It was very late in the afternoon, and the major noted with unease that the firing on the Union side had dwindled to almost nothing. Although the major couldn't know, Thomas had accomplished his miracle. He had held the Confederates at bay long enough to allow the shattered Army of the Cumberland to retreat through McFarland's Gap to safety in Chattanooga. Then he had gradually disengaged the XIV Corps and sent it in an orderly withdrawal to shelter behind Missionary Ridge. The men on Snodgrass Hill were part of the remnant left to keep the bruised Confederates from noticing that the battle was over. Now they, too, were to set out quietly for the gap.


Major Arnold McMahan

The sun was slipping behind the darkening hills when a staff officer wearing colored glasses galloped over to the dazed survivors of the 21st Ohio. He shouted an order for them to get back over the brow of the hill and charge the enemy. Major McMahan, his square jaw tightening, explained that his men were out of ammunition. "It doesn't make a God-damned bit of difference," bellowed the officer. "Fix bayonets and charge!" With that, the unidentified officer wheeled his horse and rode rapidly in the direction of Chattanooga.

Major McMahan, by methods even he forgot, produced enough ammunition for one round each for the remaining men. Then the Ohioans moved out, slightly to the right of the position they had held so long. A soldier of Granger's command, lying wounded on the field, saw them coming and wrote later:

"While lying on the ground just as twilight was coming on…I suddenly saw a line of blue from our rear coming on the charge. It seemed to me I never saw a steadier or better line on review or dress parade. As it reached me, files dropped out to avoid treading on me, then the gap was filled and the line sent on. A few moments, and a fragment of that line came back…. It was the only time I ever saw that regiment which I soon after learned was the 21st Ohio, but I shall remember it as long as memory lasts. That charge was, as I believe, the last charge made at that battle. It was made against overwhelming numbers and hopeless from the first, but it was made with remarkable coolness and bravery."


Thomas at Chickamauga by Mr. Rudy Ayoroa

In the gathering dusk, the 21st waited. On either side of them lay the decimated ranks of two other regiments, the 89th Ohio and the 22d Michigan. No command had come for retreat and the Westerners would not leave the battlefield without one. In the gloom, figures could be seen advancing. Then, from the upper side of the hill, more and more men, moving warily, closed in. The 21st was surrounded, holding empty guns.

But one last stroke of luck awaited them. Peering through the dimness, the Confederates moving down the hill mistook for an instant the ranks moving up the hill for Yankees. A scattered volley of musketry erupted, and a momentary confusion ensued. Seizing their chance, almost 100 powder-blackened men of the 21st melted into the twilight. For the 116 who could not escape, surrender came, quietly and wearily.

The 100 lucky ones made their way slowly back to Chattanooga through the moonlit forest. They left 48 men dead on the field and 101 wounded scattered in a dozen different places. Of the 116 prisoners taken that evening, less than half would survive Southern prisons.


General Ben Hardin Helm, Commander of Kentucky's Orphan Brigade and brother-in-Law of President Lincoln, leads the 2nd Kentucky against George Thomas' Federals at Chickamauga.

But the Army of the Cumberland had escaped. Thomas, by holding on the left with a single corps against Bragg's entire army, had earned undying fame as the Rock of Chickamauga. Just two months later, he would command this defeated army and watch it roar up Missionary Ridge to win the most spectacular victory of the war.

The 21st Ohio Volunteers had been an indispensable part of Thomas's feat at Chickamauga. Although their role in the battle was obscured for a variety of understandable reasons, it is indisputable that they were a vital key. Due to their detachment from brigade and division, few high-level officers knew where they were and what they did. Most of the battle reports couldn't have evaluated the 21st's contribution even had they known of it.

This little backwoods Ohio regiment, with their odd-looking guns, had demonstrated that every military textbook in the world was obsolete. The scholarly experts who, in the quiet days of the future, were to dismiss the five-shot Colt Rifle as a fault-laden failure were not behind the guns on Snodgrass Hill. For while it was inferior even to contemporary breechloaders like the Sharps, it was there when it counted. Not a single man, on either side, who survived the battle ever denounced the Colt Repeating Rifle.


TO THE LAST ROUND
The 21st OHIO AT HORSESHOE RIDGE
In the confusing terrain of the Chickamauga battlefield, deception was on the side of the Buckeyes, and their ace at the deadly gaming table lay in their weaponry: the Colt repeating rifle. In "To The Last Round", Keith Rocco masterfully portrays the sesperate, final moments of the 21st Ohio's stand, which enabled General Thomas to organize his now famous patchwork defense on Snodgrass Hill. With their final rounds, the men of the 21st train their sights on the advancing Confederates, as a prisoner remarks to his guard that he had thought a whole division held the hill... a powerful testimony to the men and weapon of the 21st. Ohio.

Although it would slip into oblivion as the metallic-cartridge breechloaders came into general use, it had provided the extra punch needed at a desperate moment. It also had, by its very existence, produced new tactics which seemed impromptu to the fast-thinking men who were using them. Three years later, and thousands of miles away. Prussia would defeat Austria in the Six Weeks War. Military strategies would unite in praising the genius of the Prussian Von Moltke's tactics, while noting in passing that the Prussians were equipped with "needle-guns." Every army in the Western world spent the next 60 years studying Von Moltke. They would have profited more by studying the actions of the 21st Ohio, part of the "armed rabble" as Von Moltke termed soldiers of our Civil War, on a September afternoon in Georgia.

Major McMahan, who had been captured, was exchanged early in 1864. He waged a bitter and fruitless campaign to win recognition for the 21st's heroic stand at Chickamauga. He also tried to find those responsible for the useless sacrifice of the regiment at the day's end.

He accomplished neither. The commanding officers of the 2d Division had their hands full explaining to Boards of Inquiry just why they had arrived in the streets of Chattanooga instead of on Snodgrass Hill. They were not about to become advocates of the single regiment which had succeeded in doing what they had been busily explaining was impossible. And no one sprang to volunteer that they were responsible for leaving the regiment deserted to its fate. The Western armies were gathering for the last great campaigns, and there was no time for postmortems on a lost battle, however unjust it might be.


21st Ohio Monument — part of the troops that came to the rescue on Horseshoe Ridge

So the 21st Ohio went on to the end. It was considered a peculiarity of their that any strange officer who wore colored glasses in their vicinity was inviting harsh treatment. They arrived, like many others, in Washington to participate in the Grand Review of the Armies of the Republic. Here they discovered that the glory-covered New Englanders of Berdan's Sharpshooters had discarded the Colt Repeater early in the war in favor of the superior Sharps. Some of the knock-down brawls the Ohioans had with Eastern soldiers may have been precipitated when they pointed out that they had done more marching, more fighting, and won more battles with their inferior Colts than Berdan's men had done with the great Sharps. On the second day of the Grand Review, looking unnaturally neat and clean, the Western armies marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. The 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry marched among them. In perfect step, carrying proudly and with honor their battle-scarred Colt Revolving Rifles, they marched into history; "unsuccessful" guns in the hands of "unmilitary" men, who had accomplished unparalleled things.

Additional Sources:

www.aotc.net
www.ohiohistory.org
www.civilwaralbum.com
home.earthlink.net
www.cr.nps.gov
usa-civil-war.com
www.generalsandbrevets.com
www.assonetart.com
hometown.aol.com/dam1941
www2.berry.edu
www.flintlockroom.com
www.campchase.com
www.oldgloryprints.com
home.att.net/~dmercado
www.aotc.net

[SAMWolf]

The Colt revolving rifle

The .56 caliber 5-shot Colt revolving rifle came on the market in 1855. Before the Tullahoma campaign (24 June to 3 July 1863), Rosecrans had equipped about 1600 of his men with such rifles. It was not properly a breechloader, but once loaded, its rate of fire was considerably faster than that of a muzzle loader.


The Colt revolving rifle

However, the loading procedure was cumbersome for a soldier under fire. The cylinder had to be removed, powder packed into each of the chambers, a bullet packed on top of the powder, the chambers sealed with wax, and finally the whole covered with grease in order to protect against the possibility of loose powder igniting all of the chambers at once, a phenomenon called chain fire. Given the size of the powder charge, this could be lethal to the bearer. The soldiers therefore loaded spare cylinders in advance, and in battle someone normally did the loading for the ones shooting, and this reduced the risk attendant with hurried loading.

In addition, the arm which normally supported the weapon was right beside the cylinder and was thus exposed to the powder flash which escapes from the gap between the rear end of the barrel and the forward face of the cylinders of all revolvers. To avoid being burned the soldier had to either hold his elbow very far away from the cylinder or support the weapon on some object.


The shorter carbine version of the Colt revolving rifle for cavalry

Nevertheless it did good service for some Federal units on Snodgrass Hill at the battle of Chickamauga. For example, on the afternoon of 20 Sept. 1863, the second day of the battle, the 535 men of the 21st regiment of Ohio commanded by Lieut. Col. Dwella Stoughton of Sirwell’s brigade of Negley's division, posted on the far right of Thomas' line, expended 43,550 rounds along with some Enfield bullets (.57 caliber, but could be made to fit), and they repulsed 5 charges by much greater numbers of Confederates under Hindman.

[SAMWolf]

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UPDATED THROUGH APRIL 2004



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[SAMWolf]

Good Night Snippy.

[snippy_about_it]

Good night Sam.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

We downloaded five critical updates from Windows yesterday. Today is Norton update day. Be sure to download them when they arrive.

[The Mayor]

October 13, 2004

Witness From A Wheelchair

Read: Matthew 25:31-40

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve. —Matthew 20:28

Bible In One Year: Isaiah 41-42; 1 Thessalonians 1

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A woman named Nancy put this ad in her local newspaper: "If you are lonely or have a problem, call me. I am in a wheelchair and seldom get out. We can share our problems with each other. Just call. I'd love to talk." The response to that ad was surprising—30 calls or more every week.

What motivated this woman to reach out from her wheelchair to help others in need? Nancy explained that before her paralysis she had been perfectly healthy but in deep despair. She had tried to commit suicide by jumping from her apartment window, but her fall left her paralyzed from the waist down.

In the hospital, utterly frustrated, she sensed that Jesus said, "Nancy, you've had a healthy body but a crippled soul. From now on you will have a crippled body but a healthy soul." As a result of that experience, she surrendered her life to Christ. When she was finally allowed to go home, she prayed for a way to share God's grace with others, and the idea of the newspaper ad occurred to her.

Every believer can do something to help others. Limited as we may be by sickness, old age, or disability, we can still pray, call, or write. No matter what our condition, we can be effective witnesses for Jesus. —Vernon Grounds

Lord, let me be a shining light
So others then may view
Your mercy and Your love displayed
In all I say and do. —Sper

Only after talking to God about people are we ready to talk to people about God.

[alfa6]

Wednesday Civil War Bump for the Freeper Foxhole.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on October 13:
1537 Jane Grey, Queen of England for 9 days
1563 Francesco Caracciolo Italian religious founder/saint (Caracciolini)
1754 Mary Ludwig Hayes American Revolutionary War heroine Molly Pitcher.
1808 Henry Haywood Bell Commander (Union Navy), died in 1868
1810 James Shedden Palmer Commander (Union Navy), died in 1867
1826 Lafayette Curry Baker Brig General (Union volunteers), died in 1868
1853 Lillie Langtry [Jersey Lily], vaudevillian actress
1885 Harry Hershfield Cedar Rapids Iowa, cartoonist (Can You Top This?)
1890 Conrad Richter writer (The Light in the Forest)
1909 Herblock (Herbert L Block) political cartoonist
1911 Ticker Freeman Paterson NJ, pianist (Dinah Shore Show)
1915 Cornel Wilde actor (High Sierra, 5th Musketeer)
1917 Burr Tillstrom Chic Ill, puppeteer (Kukla, Fran & Ollie)
1917 Laraine Day Roosevelt Utah, actress (Dr Kildare, I've Got a Secret)
1920 Albert Hague Berlin Germany, actor (Mr Shorofsky-Fame)
1920 Nipsey Russell Atlanta Ga, comedian (Car 54, Barefoot in the Park)
1921 Yves Montand France, actor/singer (Z, Napoleon, Grand Prix)
1925 Frank Gilroy American writer (Subject Was Roses)
1925 Lenny Bruce comedian, arrested on obscenity charges
1925 Margaret Thatcher (Tory) British PM (1979-90) Iron Lady
1931 Ed Matthews Hall of Famer/Milwaukee Brave/HR hitter (512)
1939 Melinda Dillon Hope Ark, actress (Close Encounters, Slap Shot)
1942 Pamela Tiffin Oklahoma City, actress (Viva Max!)
1942 Paul Simon Newark NJ, singer/actor (Kodachrome, 1 Trick Pony)
1946 Demond Wilson Valdosta Ga, actor (Sanford & Son, Baby I'm Back)
1946 Lacy J Dalton country singer (Blue Eyed Blues)
1948 Leona Mitchell Enid Okla, soprano (Musetta-La Boh‚me)
1949 Sammy Hagar singer-musician (Van Halen-Jump)
1959 Marie Osmond Ogden Ut, singer/actress (Paper Roses, Goin' Coconuts)
1961 Jerry Rice NFL receiver (SF 49ers) (Super Bowl XXIII, XXIV, XXIX); NFL individual record: touchdown receptions: career [131], season [22]; Super Bowl records: career: yards gained [215], points scored: [42], touchdowns scored [7], TDs in one game [3]
1969 Cady McClain Burbank Calif, actress (Dixie Martin-All My Children)
2324 Beverly Crusher Chief Medical Officer Enterprise-D

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Deaths which occurred on October 13:
0054 Claudius Roman Emperor, dies
1601 Tycho Brahe greatest naked-eye observer, dies in Prague
1795 William Prescott American Revolutionary soldier, dies
1815 Joachim Murat marshal of France/King of Naples (1808-15), executed
1909 Francisco Ferrer Spanish anarchist, executed
1974 Ed Sullivan TV host (Ed Sullivan Show), dies at 73
1979 Clarence Muse actor (Sam-Casablanca), dies at 90
1988 Mike Venezia jockey, dies in 5th-race fall at Belmont Race Track, NY
1989 Jay Ward animator (Rocky & His Friends), dies at 69 of cancer
1990 Le Duc Tho North Vietnamese negotiator in Paris (1975), dies
2002 Stephen Ambrose, Historian, author of numerous books on World War II, American presidents and America's early westward expansion (Band Of Brothers, Undaunted Courage), died of lung cancer. He was 66.

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Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1966 BORDEN MURRAY L.---GOLDSBORO NC.
1966 MEADOWS EUGENE T.---HIDDENITE NC.
[REMAINS RETURNED 11/94]
1967 MILLER EDISON WAINRIGHT---CLINTON IA.
[02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED]
1967 WARNER JAMES H.---YPSILANTI MI.
[03/73 RELEASED BY DRV "ALIVE IN 98 "HONORABLE JAMES WARNER"]
1968 HUNT JAMES D.---MISSOULA MT.
1968 MASTERSON MICHAEL J.---EPHRAYA WA.
1968 ORELL QUINLEN R.---BARNESVILLE OH.
1969 GETCHELL PAUL E.---PORTLAND ME.
1970 CHESTNUT JOSEPH L.---MURFREESBORO TN.
[REMAINS RETURNED/IDENTIFIED 07/25/95]

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

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On this day...
1307 French king Philip IV convicts Knights Templar of heresy
1399 Henry IV of England is crowned
1483 Rabbi Issac Abarbanel starts his exegesis on the Bible
1629 Dutch West Indies Co grants religious freedom in West Indies

1775 Continental Congress orders construction of a naval fleet (Happy Birthday Swabbies, All sweepers man your brooms)

1792 Washington lays cornerstone of the Executive Mansion (White House)
1812 Battle of Queenston Heights
1843 B'nai B'rith founded in NY
1845 Texas ratifies a state constitution
1860 1st aerial photo taken in US (from a balloon), Boston
1862 Bismarck's "Blood & Iron" speech
1863 Skirmish at Blountsville, Tennessee (50 casualties)
1864 Battle at Darbytown Road Virginia (337 casualties)
1864 Battle of Dalton, GA - surrendered
1864 Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby robs train near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
1903 Pirates beats Pilgrims (Red Sox) 5 games to 3 in 1st World Series
1919 Race riot at Elaine Arkansas
1921 NY Giants beat NY Yankees, 5 games to 3 in 18th World Series
1924 Wahhabietes under Ibn Saudi take Mecca
1941 Nazis kill 11,000 Jewish children/old people
1943 Italy declares war on former ally Germany
1944 US 1st army begins battle of Aachen
1947 "Kukla, Fran & Ollie" premieres
1947 NHL All Star Game - All Stars beat Toronto Maple Leafs
1953 Burglar alarm-ultrasonic or radio waves-patented-Samuel Bagno
1957 German Dem Rep recalls the East Mark & issues new currency
1960 3rd presidential debate with Nixon in Hollywood & Kennedy in NY
1960 Pirate's Mazeroski's bottom of 9th lead off HR beats NY Yankees 10-9 in game 7 of 57th World Series
1960 Opponents of Fidel Castro executed in Cuba
1962 "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opens on Broadway, with Uta Hagen
1963 "Beatlemania" is coined after the Beatles appear at the Palladium
1964 Voskhod 1 crew returns
1969 Soyuz 8 is launched
1970 Angela Davis arrested in NYC
1971 1st world series night game (Pittsburgh 4-Baltimore 3) (World Series #68)
1972 Uruguay to Chile plane crashes in Andes Mountain, (12/23 rescue)
1978 James Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King weds Anna Sandhu
1978 Tiros N, US's 1st 3rd generation weather satellite, is launched
1978 Graig Nettles at 3rd makes many spectactular plays in WS game 3 as Guidry beats Dodgers, after trailing 2 games to 0 Yanks win next 4
1981 Vice President Hosni Mubarak "elected" president of Egypt
1982 IOC restores 2 gold medals from 1912 Olympics to Jim Thorpe
1982 NJ Devils 1st short handed goal-Don Lever
1984 Blackhawk Bill Gardner scores on 10th penalty shot against Islanders
1984 John Henry becomes 1st thoroughbred to win $6 million
1984 STS 41-G mission; lands at Kennedy Space Center
1987 1st military use of trained dolphins (US Navy in Persian Gulf)
1987 Costa Rican Pres Oscar Arias wins Nobel Peace Prize
1988 Concert at Masada ends Israel's 40th-anniversary fest
1989 Dow Jones down 190.58 points
1990 1st Russian Orthodox service in 70 yrs held in St Basil's Cathedral
1991 Blue Jay Cito Gaston is 1st manager ejected in a playoff game
1999 The Senate rejected a treaty signed by the United States that banned all underground nuclear testing.

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Burundi : Hero of the Nation Day
US : Sweetest Week (Day 2)
Home-Based Business Week Begins
Polish-American Heritage Month

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Religious Observances
Ang, RC : Commem of St Edward the Confessor, king of England (1042-66)

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Religious History
0539 (BC) The Persian armies of Cyrus the Great captured Babylon. (Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar, was the former military scourge which had taken Judah into exile in 586 BC (see 2 Kings 25).
1670 In Virginia, slavery was banned for Negroes who arrived in the American colonies as Christians. (The law was repealed in 1682.)
1843 B'nai B'rith ("Sons of the Covenant") was established in New York City by a group of German Jews. It is both the oldest and the largest of the Jewish fraternal organizations.
1917 The Virgin Mary last appeared to three shepherd children near Fatima, Portugal. Six visions had occurred between May and October, each on the 13th of the month. (This last vision was attended by over 50,000 pilgrims.)
1988 The Bishop of Turin, Italy announced that the Shroud of Turin, long believed to be Christ's burial sheet, did not withstand scientific testing. It dated back only to 1280, and not to the time of Jesus' crucifixion (ca. AD 30-33).

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

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Thought for the day :
"We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon"

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Gender Dictionary...
FLATULENCE (flach-u-lens) n.

A. Female...An embarrassing by-product of digestion.

B. Male...An endless source of entertainment, self-expression & male bonding.

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Signs Your Cat is Planning to Kill You!...
Seems mighty chummy with the dog all of a sudden.

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The Ultimate Scientific Dictionary...
Sagan:
The international unit of humility.

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Things you would like to say at work, but won't...
I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't care.

[Professional Engineer]

Good morning ladies. Flag-o-gram.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Fort Meigs Rifles

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Chickamauga: The Stubborn Fight made by the 21st Ohio

September 4, 1884, p.3

To the editor: I saw a letter by G.S. Robinson, Co. H, 115th Illinois of August 7 entitled “Twp Glimpses of the Field by a Wounded Man.” I saw two or three glimpses of that bloody field and was one who he describes, of the 21st Ohio at dark. We belonged to the Third Brigade, Third Division, 14th Corps. Our brigade consisted of the 38th Ind. Inf., 79th Penn. Inf., and 21st Ohio commanded by Col. Hambright (Ed. Note: Van Camp is incorrect- this organization holds true 1864 but in September 1863, the 21st Ohio was brigaded with the 78th Pennsylvania, 37th Indiana, and 74th Ohio under the command of the 78th Pennsylvania, Colonel William Sirwell). General Negley commanded the division. We were taken from the brigade about 10 o’clock Sunday morning and placed in the wood a long ridge in the rear of that small log house to support a battery that belonged to Brannan’s division. We were on the left of the battery when we first went on the ridge. The woods beyond seemed to be alive with Johnnies, and our work began at once. It was a stubborn struggle to see who would hold the ridge, but we stayed there all day. We were armed with Colt’s revolving 5-shooters, and went into the woods with 125 rounds per man as we threw away the tins from our cartridge boxes and filled them full, and our haversacks besides. We had 460 guns and officers to command us that morning. It was nothing but out five-shooters and the determination of the 21st to stay there or die as the records show.

Our Lieutenant Colonel (Dwella Stoughton) was soon shot, and the men and officers began to melt away like frost before a hot sun. I never knew why we were taken from our brigade and left on that ridge all day without relief or support. We were the only regiment of our brigade that fired a gun that day, as the rest of the brigade was back to Rossville by 3 o’clock that afternoon, so they told us the next day. The 37th Ind. and 78th Pa. were as good of regiments as the service could boast of. They were acting under orders I suppose. I, for one, would like Gen. Negley to make a statement of the facts and relieve the minds of many. In regard to that last charge that Comrade Robinson refers to: that was the third time we were compelled to charge their lines as our ammunition was nearly gone. We had taken ammunition from our dead comrades’ boxes and divided it all around the remaining ones. Some had one round, some had two, some had none. An officer rode along the lines about an hour before sundown and told us we must hold this place as there were reinforcements coming to help us, that Jeff. C. Davis’ division would soon be there. Jeff. C. Davis’ troops did come, but it was after dark so we could not tell friend from foe 10 rods away. They came down the hill in our rear, a brigade of them, without a flag flying or a word spoken that we could hear, and when our Major sent two men to find out who they were, they gobbled them up and said nothing, and when he called to them to know what troops they were, not an answer came back. They were then within 10 rods and not a round of ammunition left in the regiment. I then told the Major and our Lieutenant, as we had but one left, that I stayed by them all day but would stay no longer. He said, “Save yourself if you can.” About 12 or 15 of us broke over the hilltop where we knew Gen. Stanley’s brigade was in the afternoon and found the Colonel and some of his men behind logs and fence poles. As we came running over the hill in his rear, he wanted to know what regiment we belonged to. We told him we were what was left of the 21st Ohio and that the Johnnies were coming down on him. We had hardly spoken a word when a volley from a detachment of them came tearing through our midst, wounding two of his men and one of ours that had just got there. I was standing about 5 rods behind their rude breastworks, talking to the Colonel when the volley came. It passed over our heads. The Colonel said, “We must get out of here,” and ordered his men to fall in, an order that was quickly obeyed and marched out of the woods by the little log house that was being used for our wounded. It was so dark there that you could not tell friend from foe 1 rod away. The Rebs followed us so close that Col. Stanley’s men were exchanging shots with them most of the way until we got inside the picket lines our men had established at Rossville, and quite a lively skirmish took place before they would let up.

If we were not the last troops off that bloody field I would like to know who was, as it was after 11 o’clock when we reached Rossville. Out of the 460 men we had that Sunday morning, when the stragglers were picked up and some came from the rear to Chattanooga we had 160 men, one Captain and two Lieutenants. There were 111 men and officers taken prisoner that night; the rest of them were killed our wounded. If that does not tell what the 21st Ohio did that terrible day, I hope some abler pen will. If it would do Comrade Robinson and good to know who tried to help him off that field, I could tell him, but enough for me to know that he got off and is yet alive. If he is only lucky enough to have two or three doctors and the same number of commissioned officers to testify to his wounds, where he got them, and the place he fell, he is alright. H.H. Van Camp, Co. C, 21st Ohio

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone!

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Report of Major Arnold McMahan, 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry

CAMP CHASE, COLUMBUS, OHIO, April 6, 1864.

SIR: Having been a prisoner of war in the hands of the enemy, I was unable sooner to report the part taken by the 21st Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Third Brigade, Second Division, Fourteenth Army Corps, in the battle of Chickamauga, fought on Saturday and Sunday, September 19 and 20, 1863.

The regiment moved into action Saturday evening, an hour before sundown, under command of Lieutenant Colonel Dwella M. Stoughton. We had position on the left of our own brigade and joined Colonel Stanley's (Second) brigade on its right.

We engaged the enemy's skirmishers until dark, when the firing ceased, after which breastworks of logs were constructed, facing east-southeast, in front of an open field. This position was held by us until Sunday morning (20th), at which time our skirmishers became engaged with the skirmishers of the enemy at daylight.

Late Sunday morning (20th) we were withdrawn from this position, and moved with our brigade to a new position. Skirmishers from the 26th Ohio Volunteers (General Wood's division) relieved our own skirmishers, and that regiment moved to the position from which we had just withdrawn. This position is also particularly marked by two large vats, used for the manufacture of niter, about 200 yards to the rear.

At 12 o'clock Sunday (20th) our regiment was assigned a position upon a curved ridge, our front being south. A deep ravine was in front on this ridge, and on our right heavy timber; on our left an open field with timber beyond. There was an old house about 200 yards to our rear which was subsequently occupied by our wounded.

Our effective support in this division consisted of the 22nd Michigan Volunteers and 89th Ohio Volunteers on our right, troops under command of Colonel Walker (of the 31st Ohio Volunteers), and 9th Ohio on our left, and the 2nd Minnesota Volunteers in reserve. I have not learned any name by which this position may be designated, therefore have substituted a description of it.

Immediately after taking position (12 m.) the enemy's skirmishers engaged us, and in a short time a strong force moved against us. A severe engagement resulted in the repulse of the enemy.

This demonstration of the enemy for the occupation of this important position was made before the arrival of the support heretofore stated, and though superior in numbers he was unable to endure the repeated volleys of our superior arms (Colt's revolving rifles).

Heavy skirmishing continued until 2 o'clock, when the enemy again made an attempt to carry this position, in which he failed. Our position was maintained, however, with severe loss in killed and wounded.

At 2.30 o'clock Lieutenant-Colonel Stoughton, who was commanding the regiment until this time, was severely wounded, and the command devolved upon myself. By 3 o'clock every effort had failed to procure a further supply of ammunition. Orderlies sent to report our condition and position to Colonel William Sirwell, commanding our brigade, and to General Negley, commanding our division, and to obtain ammunition, returned without being able to accomplish the object for which they were sent. Our brigade had retired in the direction of Chattanooga.

I was unable to communicate with General Negley, and no general officer was designated to whom I might report. But we continued to hold our position. The cartridge-boxes of our killed and wounded were carefully searched, also the hospitals for any ammunition that might be carried there in the cartridge-boxes of our wounded, and by this means obtained sufficient ammunition to meet the enemy in a third assault upon our position about 5 o'clock.

In this assault the enemy crossed the ravine in our front and carried his banners up the hill to within 20 yards of our line. He was repulsed, and did not retire in good order. During the afternoon a battery had range upon our position, inflicting some damage upon us, also setting fire to the leaves and brush in our front, and the enemy advanced under cover of the smoke. The wounded, under cover of our fire, were removed.

A heavy line of skirmishers continued to annoy us, and a sharp fire upon this line exhausted our ammunition a short time before sundown, at which time the 2nd Regiment Minnesota Volunteers relieved us. A further search for ammunition resulted in finding one round each for the men composing my command, which had now become very much reduced in numbers.

At this time Colonel Van Derveer (who assumed command) ordered me to occupy a position on the extreme right, from which a part of our line had just been driven by the enemy. In obedience to the order we occupied the position and captured 9 prisoners. A sharp fire from the enemy forced us back, but we regained our position and held it until dark, at which time a brigade of four regiments, under Colonel Trigg, moved upon us and overwhelmed us.

Simultaneous with this movement of the enemy, which was upon our right flank and rear, we received a fire from the enemy, who had also opened upon our left, which took effect both upon the enemy on our right and ourselves. During the misunderstanding thus occasioned, a part of my men escaped under cover of the night. Colonel Van Derveer having withdrawn the troops under his command, my command was unsupported, and both flanks were exposed. Thus we lost our stand of colors, which were made sacred to us by the blood of many comrades who fell in their defense and for their honor on other fields as well as on the unfortunate field of Chickamauga.

Great credit is due the gallant officers and brave men of my command for their soldier-like bearing and good discipline, who stood by their colors and contested the fortunes of the day to the bitter end.

I have the honor to report that my regiment did the last firing upon and offered the latest resistance to the advance of the enemy which he received, and which checked his progress and ended the battle of Chickamauga.

Having been separated from my brigade and division commanders without orders, and not being in communication with any other general officer, I was not informed of the movements of the army, and held my regiment too closely engaged for the nature of the contest at dark.

The reference made to other officers and troops than those under my command is not intended as a report of any part of their conduct on the field, but to describe the position of my own command, yet I would be pleased to note the gallant conduct of the troops I have mentioned.

Our losses were as follows:

1 officer, 47 men killed= 48

3 officers, 98 men wounded= 101

12 officers, 104 men captured= 116

Total: 265

Rounds of ammunition expended, 43,550.

We moved into action with 22 officers, and 517 men with rifles.

Very respectfully,

A. McMAHAN,

Major 21st Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry

[The Mayor]

Mornin feather

[Soaring Feather]

oh Thank You, for the lovely feather.

[SAMWolf]

Morning E.G.C.

Got my Norton updates. :-)

[SAMWolf]

Morning Mayor.

Inspiring story this morning.