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Alexander Hamilton Green – 1843 to 1914 A Biographical Sketch of a Private in General Forrest’s Cavalry
By Edwin L. Green III
Preface
Several years ago my daughter, Elizabeth, gave me a copy of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, which I read with interest – the movie version limped in comparison, though the acting was enjoyable. It occurred to me, however, that Alexander Hamilton Green’s experiences with Nathan Bedford Forrest must have been at least as exciting as those of the book’s young hero, Inman. Out of curiosity, for I knew little about Forrest or my great grandfather, I decided to put together an account of A.H. Green’s service as a Private in General Forrest’s cavalry. He played a minor role, to be sure, but there is a certain dignity and worth in having served in an inconspicuous way– est et fideli tuta silentio merces (Horace, Odes III 2.25). As inchoate as this present effort is, for its several conflicting and specious sources are a true frustration, it is a sincere attempt to give some account of an understated young life that risked all for a lost cause and yet persevered in the face of greatest suffering and deprivation. Perhaps someone reading here may have further information and will be able to supply additions or corrections where the account is lacking or goes astray. That would be a welcome courtesy, indeed, for I would be gratified to learn more and any contribution to clarity would be considered a true kindness.
***
Alexander Hamilton Green was born to Christopher Wren Green and Marzan (sic) Frances Watson Green on July 4, 1843. His mother’s name seems unusual and raises some question. On her tombstone in Burnt Corn, AL she is listed simply as M. F. Green. Edwin L. Green Sr., her grandson, copied a hand written list of marriages from the Christopher Wren Green bible in his possession August 18, 1932 where he unmistakably wrote ‘Maryan’. Marzan seems likely to have resulted from a corruption when the name was later transcribed by someone into type, e.g. what was written as Maryan in cursive, was made Marzan when typed, mistaking the ‘y’ for a lower case cursive ‘z’. A.H. Green was named for an uncle (Alexander Hamilton Green) who was killed by a falling tree while he was hunting shortly before A.H. was born (Dictionary of Alabama Biography p.700). Alexander Hamilton Green was the second of eight children. What name he answered to is not known – whether Alexander, Alex, Hamilton etc. South Carolinians would have pronounced his name “Alec” not “Aleks”. The Green family had left the Abbeville District of up-country South Carolina after the American Revolution and, after spending a little over a decade in Jackson County Georgia, settled in Conecuh County, Alabama on land the Creek Wars had just made available. All written references to him are to A.H. Green (War of the Rebellion, pension application, and obituary) with the exception of the muster list for Hilliard’s Legion, 2nd Battalion, Company D, where it appears as Alexander H. Green. Perhaps he went simply by his initials. His son, Alexander Hamilton Green Jr., was known to my family as ‘Uncle Ham’. No known anecdote from Alexander Hamilton’s youth survives. When he was eight, a sister, Josephine Elizabeth Green, died in December 1850 -barely a year old.
A.H. was eighteen when the War Between the States broke out. He enlisted September 8, 1861 in Monterey, AL, Wilcox County, as a Private in the 4th Alabama Cavalry, ‘A’ Company, under Captain W.C. Bacot – “Gen. Forest Battalion” according to his Confederate Pension application (FL Pension Application 10520 Pensioner 5710). Formal enlistment papers name the place and time as Montgomery, Al the 14th of September for twelve months. The company was formed by a Capt. Parker, who soon left it in Montgomery. (E.L. Green Sr.’s notes). Its lieutenant, W.C. Bacot, was promoted to Captain and the company proceeded north to Memphis where the 80 men from southern Alabama joined Nathan Bedford Forrest’s newly formed command the first week of October as ‘B’ Company (That Devil Forrest p.24). How they traveled to Memphis is uncertain, though it was probably from Montgomery by train. If so, the trip required a full day at least. If they went on horseback, the trip would have taken a week or more. On the company muster roll A.H. is credited with a horse worth $80 and equipment worth $25 - probably his tack and saddle and perhaps a shotgun.
Forrest’s intent was to enlist 500 able-bodied men, mounted and equipped with such arms and mounts as they could procure (shotguns and pistols preferably), to be credited to the volunteers upon enlistment (TDF p.22). Despite Forrest’s efforts to obtain weapons, Wyeth says that barely half the men had anything better than the double barrel shotguns they brought from home. By early October Forrest had 650 men. The end of the month found the regiment ready for duty. Forrest was elected Lt. Colonel in Nolin, KY, a station on the Memphis/Louisville RR, on the way to their first post at Fort Donelson, TN.
Earlier in July, A.H.’s older brother, Thomas Lafayette Green (b. October 7, 1841), had joined an infantry unit. Enlistment records conflict with the entry in The Dictionary of Alabama Biography (p.700) which names the 1st Alabama Infantry as his unit. This cannot be entirely correct; the 1st Alabama never fought in Virginia where Thomas Lafayette Green was killed Monday June 30, 1862 in the “Battle for Richmond” (ibid p.700). The actual enlistment records have him signing up July 29, 1861 at Belle’s Landing (AL) by a Lt. Brown for 12 months. His unit was (Old) Company D – 5th Alabama Infantry.
So far as his unit and enlistment are concerned, Thomas L. Green, Private, is found on the muster list of the 5th Alabama Infantry, New Company C, reorganized in Yorktown, VA March 1862. The 5th was originally formed in Montgomery, AL May 5,1861 with recruits from Barbour, Clarke, Dalles, Greene, Lowndes, Monroe, Pickens, Sumter, and Talladega counties. There are other Conecuh (Monroe) County men in new “C” company’s muster list, i.e. Betts’, several Watson (cousins). Immediately after forming, the 5th was stationed in Pensacola (where the 1st Alabama was also stationed -is this the crux? Did Thomas change units?) and then proceeded to Virginia near Manassas under the command of Gen. Richard Ewell. It was engaged in a skirmish at Farr’s Crossroads and was on the field at 1st Manassas, though not engaged. The 5th remained in the vicinity of Manassas during the winter under Gen. Robert E. Rodes (its first colonel) and moved to Yorktown in March (1862) to re-enlist and reorganize. It was under fire at Yorktown and at Williamsburg. It played a role at West Point (Eltham) Landing (May 7, 1862). At Seven Pines (May 31- June 1) it was frontally engaged for the first time, losing 27k and 128w of 660 men and then at Gaines Mill (June 27). Finally in the Peninsula Campaign, a day after Thomas’ death, the 5th fought at Malvern Hill on July 1st – 15k and 58w.
Hospital Muster Rolls for October 9th through December 31, 1861 show that Thomas Lafayette Green was detached from his unit and served as a nurse in Richmond at Hospital #18( Greanor’s Hospital) – eastside of 22nd Street between Main and Franklin streets. The hospital was in an old tobacco warehouse converted for the purpose. In September 1861 it was reported as having 260 patients.
March 1862 in Yorktown would have been the time for Thomas L. to re-enlist, if his initial enlistment had been at his unit’s forming. Under the Bounty and Furlough Act passed in Richmond December 11,1861 he would be entitled to 60 days leave and $50 if he signed up for the duration of the war. Men could form their own companies and elect their own officers. The Act was immediately popular, but caused commanders unimagined problems filling the places of those going on leave. Initially, Confederate enlistment was for one year (3 months for the North). If Thomas Lafayette was given the full 60 days, he would have been due back some time in May, which would have allowed plenty of time to return home. His unit was engaged in the conflict of Yorktown (April 5th to May 4th) and they fought in the Battle of Williamsburg (May 5, 1862). What of this action he saw would depend on whether he had taken leave and when. If his brother, Alexander Hamilton, had taken leave after Shiloh, there is a real chance for the two to have seen each other at home in Burnt Corn during early May.
Family tradition has Thomas Lafayette Green killed by a Minnie-ball and his corpse then hit by cannon fire (probably case or canister shot) – no doubt the reason his body was not shipped back to Alabama. The main fighting on the 30th centered around Frayser’s Farm (the Battle of Glendale) in the failed attempt to prevent McClellan from reaching the James River and gunboat support. That day Thomas Green’s unit was not involved in the grim frontal attacks against artillery and well established infantry at the farm; instead, his unit fought to secure and repair the burned-out trestle bridge over the creek in White Oak Swamp (on today’s Elko Road) . The Yankees had destroyed the bridge after they had crossed around noon on the 30th and had set up an artillery position on a rise on the south bank to control approaches to the crossing. D.H. Hill’s men (with the 5th Alabama and Thomas Lafayette Green) were first to arrive at the bridge –around 1:45 -2 PM. There in those dense swampy woods east of Richmond a fierce artillery duel raged throughout the afternoon until dark. Thomas Green could have been one of those sent out with skirmishers to silence snipers or in the crew to rebuild the bridge, though it is very likely, given his medical experience in Richmond, that his role was to aid the wounded at the bridge. Sniper and artillery fire on these men was so intense that many refused to continue working and Gen. Jackson, realizing the cost, suspended the order. Jackson has been much criticized for his dilatory performance during this Seven Days Campaign and particularly for not crossing White Oak Swamp to lend support a mile and a half down the road at Glendale. His inaction may be said to have contributed significantly to the Confederate loss there and to have set up the disaster on the following day at Malvern Hill. The question is still argued by those more learned than I, but the fact is Thomas Lafayette Green was one of more than 25,000 casualties in the Seven Days Battle – at the time, second only to Shiloh’s 35,000.
Battle of White Oak Swamp Bridge. Alfred R. Waud June 1862. View from Union (south) side of the bridge. The road and bridge are just above the cannons in the middle of the drawing.
It would be interesting to know how the family was informed of Thomas Lafayette’s death and whether any eyewitnesses from his company survived the war to report it in person. The task of burying the dead after such monumental slaughter is practically unimaginable, especially in the case of bodies mutilated beyond recognition. It is possible the remains of Thomas Lafayette Green were buried near where he fell, though it was common practice to carry them to Richmond for burial in Hollywood Cemetery. A pyramid of local granite preserves the memory of Confederate enlisted men buried there - recognizable or not. Thomas Lafayette Green is not found in the cemetery’s registry. However, the registry only lists some 10 thousand of the over 18 thousand interments – not entirely disallowing that his remains might be among them. His father, C.W. Green, collected $119.39 from the Confederate government as compensation January 6, 1863 after applying two times – the second attempt through his brother, attorney William Green. Presently, there are plans to place a cenotaph for Thomas Lafayette Green in the John Green Cemetery in Burnt Corn, Alabama.
But to return to Alexander Hamilton’s activities: on November 21, 1861 Forrest engaged the gunboat Conestoga on the Cumberland River (KY). The Conestoga was dispatched to destroy a commissary storehouse at Canton Landing. By forced march Forrest reached the area in early morning before the Conestoga arrived. There he was joined by Lt. Sullivan with a single four pounder. The gun was masked and the infantry concealed in brush and timber near where it was thought the Conestoga would land. But her captain was too clever for this. He anchored mid-river and shelled the timber. Lt. Sullivan responded with the four pounder, but after two rounds the heavy broadsides of the gunboat made his position untenable. Forrest’s troops, for the first time under fire, held their ground and aimed for the gunboat’s ports. In the seven hour conflict, they inflicted some 17 casualties. The Conestoga chose to steam back down the river, the commissary was protected, and Forrest returned to Hopkinsville, KY. While returning, a squadron of 400 Federal cavalry followed for part of a day, and though Forrest turned and offered battle, they chose not to close with him. Operating from Hopkinsville for the balance of the month, Forrest gained two more companies – a total force now of 790 men (An Untutored Genius p.23).
On November 24 Forrest began a reconnaissance mission with 300 troops toward the Ohio River. He went first to Greenville where he captured some prisoners and arms that had been collected by the enemy. Forrest said that the purpose of the mission was to give confidence to the southern rights people in the area (Untutored Genius p.25). It was during this time that Forrest and his regimental surgeon, Dr. S.M. van Wyck approached a house where they were informed a Union spy, Jonathan Bells, was hiding. Bells mistook the doctor, who was in full uniform, for Forrest and shot him through the heart. The culprit was able to escape through the back door.
On December 26 Forrest was sent to conduct reconnaissance around Greenville and Rochester, KY with a detail from companies A, C, and D of his own battalion; Maj. D.C. Kelley took men from companies E, F, and G (TDF p.28). Company B, A.H. Green’s, was left behind. The reason is not known: was Company B the least well equipped or unsuited for some reason? Or was Capt. Bacot the most competent and reliable officer there – trusted to be left behind? Was there some other reason? At any rate, on December 28 the reconnaissance group engaged in the Battle of Sacramento, a contest that showed the true tactical genius of Nathan Bedford Forrest.
The month of January 1862 passed with Forrest on various scouting assignments and general duty, but with no serious incident. On February 7, 1862 he received orders to report to Fort Donelson. He arrived on Tuesday the 11th with his command, the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, and was immediately dispatched to make a reconnaissance in the direction of Fort Henry with 300 troopers. Forrest encountered the advance guard of the Federal cavalry which he routed in the direction of Fort Henry, taking two or three prisoners.
Note: 3rd Tennessee Cavalry (Forrest’s Old Regiment) consisted of the following:
Capt. Frank Overton 90 men from Meade Co. (formed at (Brandenburg) Trewhitt’s Company from Gadsden, AL Logan’s Kentucky Company D.C. Kelley’s Huntsville, AL Company Gould’s Texans Bacot’s Company from southern AL Milner’s Company from Marshall County, AL May’s Tennessee from Memphis McDonald’s Tennessee
The next morning (Feb 12) he advanced over the same terrain with his own command, and three companies of Kentucky cavalry, and a battalion of mounted Tennesseans – about 1300 men in all. As soon as he came in sight of the Federal advance guard, he dismounted a portion of his men, who took position on a ridge. From there the Federal advance was checked. More Federals came up and their cavalry tried to turn the Confederate left. A Squad of 200 Confederates under Maj. Kelley charged them at close quarters and they fell back to their infantry. As more and more Federal troops kept coming, Forrest withdrew, until by nightfall, he was within the entrenchments of Dover. That same day Forrest had noticed a sharpshooter high in a tree. He borrowed a Maynard rifle from one of his men and fired at the sniper, who fell to the ground dead.
No Confederate cavalry was engaged on the 13th. That night it began to turn bitterly cold – snow and sleet continued to fall for the next 48 hours. For the man on the ground it was almost impossible to stay dry - certainly not warm. The shelters were little better than sties or cribs, 6 by 8 feet roughly, made of small logs – barely large enough to stretch out in, though most probably sat huddled together inside if they were lucky enough to find a place. No fires were allowed so as not to attract fire from the Federal gunboats in the river. Daylight of the 14th would have been a blessing; fires would have been permitted then. The snow, already an inch on the ground, turned to rain, making hypothermia a real factor. The wind picked up, too, dropping the 10 degree temperature even lower. During the day no major action took place on land, though the artillery was busy. Men had to content themselves with listening to the snipers do their work or to the small arms racket of the skirmishers. Beginning about 3PM the gunboats began a heavy shelling of the water batteries which lasted for an hour and a half. Amazingly, the gunboats were overwhelmed by the Confederate batteries and those disabled drifted down stream – no longer to be a factor in this siege. At this point the Federal forces numbered roughly 30,000; the Confederate 15,000.
Early Saturday the 15th, the Confederates were in motion. The battle began at six AM and raged for two hours. Forrest had charged through the line with his entire cavalry and was behind the enemy. When he noticed that Oglesby’s men were retreating, he charged them. They fled in panic. Forrest galloped up to Gen. Bushrod Johnson and pleaded with him to make a full advance. Johnson would not budge without orders. Noticing a battery of six guns, Forrest attacked the infantry guarding them. The soldiers were routed and the guns captured, but Forrest lost a number of his men in the hand to hand fighting. His horse was killed, as well. His brother, too, had his horse shot from under him and was seriously crushed by the falling animal. At this point Gen. Pillow ordered Forrest to take out two guns that were doing considerable damage. Forrest called for infantry support and charged through thick brush to capture the guns. Again, his horse was killed. Securing another, he charged on to just before Bruckner’s battery where he halted his men and moved forward with one or two men to scout. In the heavy undergrowth they suddenly came upon a body of infantry, which opened up on them. A shell struck Forrest’s horse behind the stirrup. Leaving the fallen animal, he had to run to the rear on foot. At this juncture the Confederates began to withdraw. They were busy until nightfall gathering wounded and guns and accoutrements from the field. A.H. Green, as a Private, was likely to have been involved in this collecting. Records show that between 4 and 5 thousand small arms were gathered between 2PM and sundown (TDF p.48).
Between 1 and 2AM Sunday morning (the 16th) Forrest was summoned to a war conference – the generals had decided to surrender. His reaction to this foolishness is best recorded in an affidavit he provided on March 15, 1862. (See attached) Essentially, he had informed the generals that their escape route was unguarded, of this he had reliable information from his own scouts, and that he had not come there to surrender. But the generals were resolved. Gen. Pillow gave him permission to leave with his men and any who would follow. Forrest then sent out two men and Dr. J.W. Smith (who had grown up locally) to scout. They returned to say that the way was still unguarded – Lick Creek was only up to their saddle skirts. Arousing his men, Forrest explained the situation and said that he would take with him all who would follow. Leaving about 4AM with 500 troopers and some 200 others who rode artillery horses or went on foot, all escaped unchallenged – only a few suffered frostbite. By Sunday night Forrest camped 20 miles away.
On January 8, 2008 I walked the route those men took that early morning of February 16, 1862. It was just nightfall, there was a chilly drizzle falling and the wind was gusting up off of the river. Of course today the road is a paved highway. It passes through town, just uphill from the old Dover Hotel, and, continuing through an area that is still forested, quickly leaves the town behind. Lick Creek is there at a curve in the road: swampy, mordantly cold in that kind of weather, but there’s a bridge now. I elected not to wade the creek, but I can imagine the difficulty for those on foot – lucky if they could hold on to a girth or stirrup.
On Tuesday February 18, Forrest reached Nashville at ten in the morning. There was panic in the city. A plundering mob was becoming violent. The abundant Confederate stores in the commissary were being broken into and carried off in broad daylight. Gen. Floyd put Forrest in charge. His first order was to guard the commissary. When the mob refused to disperse, Forrest rode into the crowd with his troopers, striking the most obstinate with the flat of their sabers. At one point a fire engine was brought up and the cold water discouraged many. One man, probably drunk, tried to attack Forrest; the butt of his pistol knocked the man unconscious. Every wagon, cart, horse or mule was used to remove the valuable stores. Railroad cars loaded with clothing were sent to the Nashville/Chattanooga depot. A hundred bales of grain sacks, a large quantity of military supplies, and nearly a thousand wagon loads of meat were hauled to the Tennessee/Alabama railroad. Rifling machines were taken from the ordnance factory and sent to Atlanta. Fearing there was too much to move in time, the ammunition was hauled eight miles on the line leading to Decatur. After the city was occupied, it was shipped further south. Forrest remained in Nashville 48 hours after the enemy had arrived just across the Cumberland River, at Edgefield. His later opinion was that all could have been saved with the proper diligence.
When the enemy entered Nashville, Forrest marched to Murfreesboro, arriving Sunday night, February 23rd. The following day his orders were to proceed to Huntsville, AL where he was to rest and recruit. There they arrived on the 25th. Forrest furloughed his entire command; they were to reassemble on the 10th of March. And all did return without exception – fresh, new clothes, rested.
The furlough would have allowed enough time for A.H. to return to Burnt Corn - assuming he could travel by train. By horse much of his leave would have been taken up with travel. My guess is that he did go home. His family had the means; he could have afforded a ticket. Probably all of his buddies were going, too. What an experience; a young man home from war! Who knew what the future would hold? About this time, as mentioned above, A.H.’s brother, Thomas Lafayette, was probably re-enlisting in Yorktown, VA. Could he have taken leave, as well?
Forrest was now ordered to move his command to Burnsville, MS, a town seven miles west of present day Iuka, MS. He arrived there on the 16th of March. The command was reorganized as a regiment with ten companies. Forrest was elected Colonel; Maj. Kelley was promoted to Lt. Col. The regiment remained in Burnsville performing routine duties until movement toward the battlefield of Shiloh began on the 2nd of April .
When this movement began Forrest’s unit was attached to Breckinridge’s division. His men provided a strong picket along Lick Creek and a scouting party of about 20 men was sent out toward Marr’s Landing on the Tennessee River to watch for Buell. Their report that Buell was moving toward Pittsburg Landing spurred the Confederates to action. On Saturday the 5th some light skirmishing occurred. Forrest was camped so close to the Federal troops that they could hear the music from bands along the Union lines. That night after midnight the camp was awakened by the watch officer with orders to make no noise and to get to the horses as fast as possible. Marching feet were heard and every man stood ready. Imagine the relief when an escaped artillery horse appeared across the creek.
Early on the morning of the 6th the fighting began on the Confederate left. Forrest crossed Lick Creek immediately – his instructions were to guard the Confederate flank. About 11o’clock when he was sure no enemy was coming that way, Forrest rode out in front of his troops and, judging from the din of battle that the enemy was giving way, marched in the direction of the firing. He could find no commander, so he advanced his men at a gallop to the point of heaviest fighting. Arriving, they met men of Cheatham’s division which had just been driven back from an attack on the Hornet’s Nest. Forrest pressed forward where there was an open field beyond which was a black-jack thicket (oak). To the left were woods with considerable undergrowth; a peach orchard was to the right. Directly in front were two batteries with a third to the right by the peach orchard. As they approached, a battery was turned on them. Forrest rode up to Gen. Cheatham and asked for orders to charge, saying that he must charge or move back out of fire. When Cheatham said he couldn’t give such an order, Forrest decided to charge on his own. When they reached the edge of the field, a volley from the battery killed three men and four horses. Forrest charged in column of fours, the battery did not have time for a second shot and the horsemen plunged on until the impenetrable undergrowth stopped them some forty paces from the enemy. The Federals gave way. Forrest detoured around a thicket and marshy ground and came up behind them, cutting them off as they fled toward the river. The infantry came forward and took the guns; the battery to the right, protected as it was by dense undergrowth where the horses could not go, escaped capture.
Shortly afterward, Forrest received orders to move to the Sunken Road (Hornet’s Nest) where Union General Prentiss was being pressed hard. At a quick pace, they arrived to see the infantry running. Forrest charged and passed completely through the infantry, a move which cut them off from the river and safety. Gen. Ruggles brought in more Confederate artillery (62 guns in all) and with canister and grape literally cleared away all resistance. Prentiss surrendered with over two thousand troops. A victory, but the two or three hours spent in gaining it had given Grant time to mass men and artillery at Pittsburg Landing. It was about 5:30 when the fighting ceased. They spent the night at arms, sleeping on the ground. Wyeth says that soldiers of the 4th Alabama essentially slept under the stars or rigged their oilcloths over fence rails for shelter. Two would sleep together on a pile of leaves with an oilcloth and saddle blankets thrown down and saddles for pillows. This gave an extra blanket over the two. Most, however, did not have an oilcloth. Later in the war, A.A. Russell was the only one in the 4th Alabama to have a tent. (Wyeth, With Sabre and Scalpel, p.201)
Forrest was always on his guard; that night was no exception. He sent out scouts dressed in Union uniforms who reported that Buell’s force had arrived and were being transported across the river; that here was such confusion in the Union ranks that an immediate attack would drive them across the river. Forrest found Gen. Hardee and Gen. Breckinridge and reported. They told him to go find Gen. Beauregard. Forrest searched, but could not find him. Again he sent out scouts (2AM); the same report. Again, Forrest went to see Hardee, but was told to return to his camp and to keep doing what he had been. Forrest gave up in frustration; it was Fort Donelson redux.
The next day (Monday) the battle lasted most of the day. Finally, Beauregard realized that further fighting was pointless against such odds. The Army of Mississippi bivouacked near Shiloh Church that night and resumed its retreat toward Corinth, MS the following day. Forrest’s men acted as the rear guard; W.T Sherman took charge of the pursuit. Forrest set a trap for him with the 350 troopers that were with him. Charging out from behind a ridge as Col. Dickey’s cavalry was crossing a stream, they hit the two battalions of Union cavalry and a regiment of their infantry. At twenty paces they gave a volley with shotguns and charged on with pistols. The Federals, in spite of their numerical superiority, fled back in confusion to their first line of infantry support – the Federal and Confederate cavalry becoming mixed up in the confusion. As they approached the second line of infantry, a full brigade in battle line, the more cautious Confederates pulled up. Forrest charged on and found himself well in advance of his men. Surrounded by enemy shouting to capture or kill him, one infantry man was able to push a rifle against his side and fire. The ball entered just above the hip and, traveling up through the large muscles of the back, it lodged against the spine. Forrest was barely able to keep his seat, but his horse, though mortally wounded, leaped clear of his assailants and carried his rider, pistol blazing, to safety. This desperate and successful attack ended all Federal pursuit – a lucky thing, for the Confederates were in no condition to resist. Forrest’s horse carried him all the way back to Corinth, but the valiant animal died the following day.
Forrest went on 60 day leave; he was carried home to Memphis where he improved rapidly. He left Memphis on the 29th of April to rejoin his command. He had heard that his men were discontented because of a lack of food – a situation he quickly remedied. About a week after returning he re-injured himself while on reconnaissance by jumping a log. Surgery was indicated. The ball was removed in a second operation; Forrest was in bed the next two weeks.
On April 28th, or shortly after, Capt. Bacot was sent to Chambers (Creek), MS near Corinth with companies B, E, F and H.
Up to this point the information concerning A.H. Green’s enlistment is completely secure. For what follows, quite simply put, the sources are contradictory; they place A.H. in two different units at the same time. Here, then, is a good point to interrupt the narrative and introduce this crux concerning enlistment. Perhaps the best way to view the contradictions is to present all primary evidence side by side in chronological order (enlistment records, pay records, pension application and the letter in the War of the Rebellion) and then address each item seriatim.
The first entry above is from the pension application of September 1907 which A.H. filed as a Confederate veteran at the Post Office in Pensacola, FL. He states that he is 64 years old and owing to his age unable to earn a ‘livihood’ by manual labor. To receive a pension, unless you had a disability caused by military service, you had to be 60 years old and unable to earn a living by manual labor. R. F. Chappell, who swore that he was in the Alabama 4th Cavalry Regiment, Company A, was present as a witness. He swore that A.H. Green had rendered service to the Confederate States and that it was true that he had joined “Forest (sic) Battalion” Company A under Capt. Bacot in September 1861 –Monterey –Wilcox County, Alabama. He claims that he, himself, surrendered with his company in Marion, Alabama at the close of the war, but that A.H. Green was not present. His response to the question ‘Why he was not present’ is: “He was captured”. And then to the question “When did he leave the Command? For what cause?”, written very faintly, “1862/Captured”. There follows his signature: R.F. Chappell Sr. Co. A Regt. 4th - bracketed top to bottom with ‘his mark’. In the muster list of A Company his name is spelled R.F. Chapple, Private. Private Chappell was illiterate; the blanks in the pension application had to be filled in for him. Also witnessing the pension application is the signature of C. L. Cambell, A Company 4 Alabama, which looks like ‘Chatwell’, but he is listed as C.L. Campbell in the A Company muster list along with A.H. and R.F. Chappell. The erroneous 1862 date is curious, though A.H.’s capture was relatively early in the war.
In 1909 there was a revision of the pension law. A.H. had to make a second pension application before the Clerk of Court in Escambia County, FL. There he states that he is 66 years old, that he has lived in Florida since the Fall of 1865, that he enlisted at Monterey, AL 8 September 1861 4th Regiment. The ‘1’ in 1861 is over-written in ink with a ‘2’. The 8 September 1861 appears to have been written in pencil, probably as a reference before the form was to be filled out in ink in the actual presence of the Clerk of Court. Why the ‘2’ was written in ink over the ‘1’ has no reasonable explanation. He claims to have no real estate; that his personal property is worth $25; that he has $500 of other mortgages, notes, and securities. Total personal worth =$525. More than $5000 combined personal worth for husband and spouse disqualified one for a Confederate Pension. In addition, he states that he receives a Florida pension (5710) of $100 per annum.
The second entry in the chart above (Sept. 14, 1861) is taken from the official Company Muster-in Roll. Why the 14th rather than the 8th of September? As stated above the company was formed by a Captain Parker with W.C. Bacot as Lieutenant. No doubt the nearest place of enlistment to Burnt Corn was Monterey (today Monroeville, AL). After signing up the enlistees joined others in Montgomery where the formal swearing -in was recorded as September 14th.
The next evidence presents the crux. An official muster list dated May 12, 1862 Troy, AL (Montgomery) has A.H. joining Hilliard’s Legion as a Private 2nd AL 2nd Battalion. A second list covering May 12 to August 31 has him recorded as present. A third document dated June 25th has him receiving $50 bounty for re-enlisting for three years. Although it is plausible he joined Hilliard (more will be said later), since many soldiers changed units, the next document calls this into question.
The evidence is from official pay cards: one pay period with 3rd TN Calvary and 14 consecutive pay periods in the 4th Regiment Alabama Calvary. Confederate Privates were paid $11 per month every two months until June 1864 when pay was raised to $18 per month. These pay periods throughout the army were frequently irregular with some soldiers reported as going six months without pay. The records are copies of original documents made after the war by clerks employed by the US government. They indicate a total service with Forrest and Russell of 15 pay periods or roughly 30 months. A.H. joined in September 1861 and was captured in June 1863 – 21 months service and was paid approximately 15 times.
The next record dated April 30, 1863 states that A.H. was last paid on that date. It further indicates that he is absent as a POW since the July 30, 1863 pay period and did not collect his pay then.
This next entry is the Muster Roll for 4th Cavalry A Company covering dating June 30 to December 31, 1863. It has A.H. marked absent - noting that he was a prisoner of war since 27 July 1863.
The next document is from the Department of the Cumberland (Union) for POW’s forwarded from Franklin, TN to Nashville. A.H. arrived in Nashville July 1st, 1863. The next several documents continue to record his transfer from Nashville to Louisville, KY on July 16th, to Camp Chase, OH from July 19th to 20th, and then to Camp Douglas August 22, 1863.
On the Hilliard Legion side the Company Muster Roll from July-August 1863 lists him as absent with the notation that he was sent to a Knoxville, TN hospital on August 22, 1863. A pay register for the period July1 to August 31 has him collecting pay on August 31st in the amount of $22. It should be noted that this is the only record that A.H. collected any pay for service in Hilliard’s Legion save the Bounty List of June 25, 1862 stating that he collected his re-enlistment bonus. The next Company Muster Roll – that of September-October- repeats that he was sent to the hospital in Knoxville, but that his whereabouts now are “unknown”. No further records exist for Hilliard Legion service.
On September 27, 1864 A.H. and twelve others tried to escape from Camp Douglas. This is recorded in The War of the Rebellion in a letter written by the commandant of the camp to his superiors (Series 2, Vol. 7, p.897).
The final two records transfer A.H. from Camp Douglas on May 4th to New Orleans where he was exchanged May 23, 1865. Dr. E.L. Green Sr. said that he was sent first from Camp Douglas to Red River, IL on April 30, 1865 – probably to meet the steamboat to take him down the Mississippi.
The question now is to explain how A.H.’s name appears on the Muster Rolls of Hilliard’s Legion.
After Shiloh Bacot’s companies went to Chambers, MS (outside of Corinth) as stated above. John A. Wyeth, in Sabre and Scalpel, says that after Shiloh all of the ‘Old Forresters’, when their one year enlistment was up, signed up ‘for the war’ (p.199), but there is no record that A.H. was among them. He was entitled to leave; perhaps he took it. His brother had leave coming as he had re-enlisted in Yorktown in March according to the Company Muster Roll. It is fair to assume that A.H. was in Montgomery (Troy) on May 12th, if any credence can be given the Hilliard enlistment record. Where else would they get his name? But why would he go there in the first place? It would have required some effort, if he was already on leave in Burnt Corn. If he were coming by train from Chambers on his way to Burnt Corn, it would be reasonable. Had his brother, Thomas, taken his 60 days, his leave would be nearing an end. Montgomery was convenient for returning to Virginia by train. Did A.H. accompany his brother as far as Montgomery? Did he meet him there on his way home after Shiloh? And was there some connection with Hilliard?
Henry Washington Hilliard was an interesting character. He was commissioned Colonel and authorized to recruit a ‘legion’ of 3000 men. Hilliard’s family had re-located to Columbia, SC, where he graduated from the then South Carolina College in 1826. He read law in Columbia and in Athens, GA before being admitted to the bar in 1829. He taught English literature at the University of Alabama for three years before resigning and opening a law practice in Montgomery. Hilliard was elected to the state legislature and was defeated in a bid for Congress. He was named on the William Henry Harrison electoral ticket. As a reward for faithful service he accepted a mission to Belgium. In 1845 he ran again for Congress and was elected for three successive terms. He was a successful lawyer, sometimes preacher in the Methodist church and a well known anti-secessionist before the war broke out. When Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the South, Hilliard moved to support the Southern cause. He began recruiting in Montgomery (Troy) April 25, 1862. The unit drilled until the 8th of July when it moved by way of Atlanta to Chattanooga, TN. During the winter (December 1862) Hilliard resigned his commission for personal reasons. The unit was disbanded in December 1863, several months after Chickamauga and its horrific losses there.
Hilliard and John Green Sr., A.H.’s grandfather, had much in common. John Green, like Hilliard, had served in the Alabama legislature for two separate terms (1824 and 1828), though not at the same time as Hilliard. A Unionist, like Hilliard, he was the only delegate from southern Alabama to vote against secession (Dict. AL Bio. p.699). No doubt he knew Hilliard (or knew of him) and was in sympathy with his views. John Green had been a Methodist before becoming a Universalist. Had he heard Hilliard preach? It would not be surprising if he had wanted his grandson to be with ‘a man like that’ – now that Hilliard was forming his own unit. Was Forrest’s cavalry too dangerous: he too bold – uneducated – too much the daredevil? The Bounty and Furlough Act allowed one to change units, though it caused so many problems that steps were taken later to restrict this option. At very least, perhaps John Green encouraged his grandson to visit Hilliard if only to pay respects.
Were there no other records save its Company Muster Lists and the Bounty Receipt List, it would be safe to believe that A.H. Green had joined Hilliard’s Legion May 12, 1862. This is exactly why Lauretta Russell and Edwin L. Green Jr. were comfortable with placing a footstone on A.H.’s grave in Bagdad, FL indicating service with Hilliard’s Legion. Yet at that time they had seen A.H.’s pension application and Lauretta Russell was in possession of the Hilliard documents. But, they did not see contradictions. Certainly, it was plausible that A.H. had changed units after Shiloh, despite the questions the pension application would then raise. Had they further information they would have thought differently. I say this not to criticize, for I followed the same path before I saw the Forrest enlistment papers – trying my best to reconcile the differences between the pension papers and the Hilliard Legion evidence. While there is no perfect system and it is painfully easy to draw mistaken conclusions, we are today in a far better position to obtain information.
Here, then, is the argument against A.H.’s actual enlistment in Hilliard’s Legion. The Bounty Receipt Roll shows that A.H. did in fact receive the bounty for re-enlisting for three years or the duration of the war. This was done on a standard form for Hilliard’s Legion 2 Battalion, Capt. McIntyre’s Company, Alabama Vols. However, there are no other pay records to support any continued participation in the Legion save the one indicating that he was paid $22 for service from July 1 to August 31, 1863. However, the date August 31, 1863 is over two months after both Confederate and Union records establish that A. H. was captured, e.g. June 27.1863. This last pay of $22 is nothing less than evidence of a scam; the money went into the pocket of someone other than A.H. Green. The person responsible knew that A.H. had never served in the unit and had not been present for over a year. The ruse of sending him to a Knoxville hospital made him difficult to track; reporting his whereabouts as “unknown” made it almost impossible. There was no likelihood of getting caught. Further, pay records alone for Forrest and A. A. Russell are sufficient to establish uninterrupted service from the time of enlistment in Monterey, AL in Capt. Bacot’s company to his capture June 27, 1863. The Muster Roll for Hilliard’s Legion indicating enlistment May 12, 1862 for three years is merely a clerical justification of A.H.’s receiving the $50 bounty for re-enlisting, i.e. he had to be enlisted in some unit to receive his bonus; this was the form available. If there need be further proof, the pension application states that W.C. Bacot was his Captain at enlistment and at discharge. For Battalion or Regiment commanders: Forrest is named at enlistment, A.A. Russell at discharge. There is no mention of Hilliard’s Legion. Finally, in Commandant Sweet’s report of the Camp Douglas prison break attempt, A.H. is listed as belonging to the 4th Alabama Calvary. It is clear, therefore, that A.H. never joined nor did he participate in Hilliard’s Legion except to receive his re-enlistment bounty. The records listed above establish this without any doubt for they give a complete account of A.H. Green from the day of his initial enlistment until he was exchanged in New Orleans in May 1865.
As stated previously the purpose of this writing was to describe what Alexander Hamilton Green would have experienced as a private in Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry. The unfortunate confusion over enlistment required several years to unravel and a tedious amount of space above to explain. Our present account left Company B at Chambers (Creek), MS after the battle of Shiloh. The unit stayed in Chambers Creek until early June when the four companies under Capt. Bacot were ordered to join Forrest and the rest of the army in Tupelo, MS. Judging by the May 14 re-enlistment date in Troy, AL it is assumed that Alexander Hamilton Green had taken leave sometime after Shiloh and by June, if not before, he would probably be returning to his unit. On June 9th Forrest was ordered to form a new command and he left immediately for Chattanooga, TN. For Bacot’s four companies nothing of consequence happened in the time intervening until August 11, 1862. On that date Bacot was ordered to join Forrest on the Kingston/Sparta Road twenty miles west of Kingston, TN.
Forrest and his new command had left Chattanooga on July 6th. He had learned from his scouts that there were two regiments of infantry, some cavalry, and four pieces of artillery in Murfreesboro, TN. On July 13 he was able to capture the town – some 1100-1200 infantry, the four pieces of artillery, and forty to fifty wagons and teams with harness, small arms and ammunition, not to mention two brigadier-generals, their staff and field officers. His blood up, Forrest proceeded toward Nashville destroying on his way bridges, railroad stock, and supplies. He operated in this region of middle Tennessee, playing hide-and-seek with the Yankee cavalry, until on July 30th Gen. Nelson telegraphed Gen. Buell that his endeavor chasing Forrest was hopeless. Forrest himself was in Sparta, TN with 2500 men, he reported.
During the first week of September, before Forrest left Sparta under orders from Gen. Bragg to cover his left flank on the advance toward Louisville, KY, he received word that the four Alabama companies under Capt. Bacot had rejoined his command. On the 7th he entered Murfreesboro just in time to save the downtown area and courthouse from Union torches. On the 8th he left Murfreesboro, crossed the Cumberland River, and attacked the Union pickets at Tyree Springs, TN - 18 miles south of Franklin, KY.
On the September 14th the Confederate cavalry was divided into two brigades: one under Col. Joseph Wheeler, the other under Forrest. On September 14th Forrest was ordered to dispose of all excess baggage and prepare to move without hindrance and at a moment’s notice. By the 17th the Confederate army had forced the surrender of Mundfordville, KY along with 4000 prisoners and a great number of small arms and ten pieces of artillery. Forrest’s role had been to cut off the Union garrison when it tried to retreat and force its return to their fortifications.
The victory could have been decisive. The plan was that Bragg would double back and take Nashville. Instead he let the pressure off of Buell who easily moved on to Louisville and strong reinforcement. The missed opportunity disgruntled many officers including a vocal Forrest. His command was continuing toward Louisville when he was ordered to general headquarters at Bardstown, KY. In an interview with Bragg he was relieved of duty in Kentucky and ordered to Middle Tennessee where he was to raise six new regiments: two of cavalry and four infantry. This force was to operate against the enemy in all ways possible wherever they were found. He was allowed his staff and the four Alabama companies under Bacot as his personal escort.
Six weeks after returning to Murfreesboro on October 1, 1862, Forrest had organized and trained a significant force of four cavalry regiments, artillery, his escort, and his brother William’s scouts – the forty thieves. The resulting force numbered some 2100 troops.
It was at this point that Col. A.A. Russell with his Alabama cavalry joined Forrest. Russell’s Fourth Alabama, as it was afterwards known, consisted of both veteran and new troops. The four companies of Capt. Bacot had volunteered early in the war (see above) and had formed part of Forrest’s original battalion. These were allowed to join Russell, their original commander, at their persistent request. To these Russell’s six other companies of recent Alabama volunteers were added. Most of them had only the weapons they brought from home – shotguns and squirrel rifles, some even flint locks. Bacot’s men were well equipped.
The first week of December 1862 the command took position at Columbia, TN in preparation to what became perhaps the most famous raid of the war – the Winter Campaign of 1862/63 into West Tennessee. On December 10th Forrest was ordered to march. He had already sent ahead a contingent of troops and carpenters to build two small flatboats to ferry the men and equipment across the Tennessee River. These were hidden near Clifton, TN where Forrest arrived on the 15th.
While crossing the river the men were kept concealed a distance from the banks. Scouts were sent down the river at Clifton to signal the approach of any gunboats. A cold rain set in and, while it helped hide the operation, it soaked and chilled the troops waiting to cross. The boats only held 25 men and horses per trip; the crossing required two days. December 17th saw its completion.
The enemy was aware of where Forrest was; Sherman reported the crossing at Clifton, suspecting that it was intended to draw troops from Vicksburg. The night of the 17th Forrest camped eight miles west of the river. Like Hannibal, the wily Carthaginian general before him, Forrest built a long line of fires, marched his men to kettledrums, and had soldiers ride back and forth across bridges all night to deceive the Union scouts and the local Union sympathizers into thinking that his force was much larger than it actually was. Gen. Sullivan wired Grant that 10,000 Confederate cavalry were eight miles west of Clifton.
At daybreak Capt. Frank B. Gurney of the 4th Alabama was ordered to select 20 men and take the point on the Lexington road. He was to drive in the sentries. The rest of the fourth Alabama was to follow in short order. Before leaving camp a civilian brought in thousands of percussion caps from Memphis which Forrest had paid for with his own money.
About four miles down the road Gurney found the Union pickets who retreated, leaving two wounded. When Gurney was a few miles from Lexington, TN the advance guard and four companies of the Alabama 4th, which had just come up, met the 3rd Battalion of the 5th Ohio cavalry, 300 strong waiting on the opposite side of the river. The Yankees had rendered the bridge there impassable by throwing the planks into the water. Gurney charged under heavy fire and drove the enemy away from the bank. With rails from a nearby fence the Confederates were able to make the bridge passable and in less than twenty minutes they were across. Col. Robert G. Ingersoll took advantage of the interruption and formed a position behind the crest of a hill to await further attack .Gurney flanked this emplacement and Col. Ingersoll retreated to Lexington. East of town three units of Union cavalry with artillery support were readied. Col. Ingersoll commanded the 11th Illinois. Gurney moved up to attack, but Forrest did not want to risk a frontal assault. He sent part of his men around the left flank while he feigned attack in the front. Gurney’s men and the 4th Alabama were able to move forward up a depression to within a hundred yards of the guns before they came under direct fire. They were so close that the lethal canister shot merely roared over their heads. When the attack on the left flank was well underway, they charged the two guns protecting the 2nd West Tennessee, the 11th Illinois, and the 5th Ohio. Gurney wrote that the last shot was fired just as they reached the battery killing his first sergeant at point blank range. Most of the Yankees fled leaving Col. Ingersoll dismounted, flanked, and enfiladed. He and most of his men were captured. Two steel three inch Rodman guns and around seventy horses were taken. The guns remained with the ‘old brigade’ to the end of the war; the horses were put into immediate service. The fighting was done almost entirely by one section of Freeman’s artillery and the four companies of the 4th Alabama, which captured the battery. The rest of the enemy was driven from the field by Col. A. A. Russell. In his report Forrest said that Colonel Russell and his men deserved special notice for their gallantry. He mentions that Captain Gurney and the 4th Alabama cavalry captured two guns only to lose his orderly within fifteen feet of the muzzle. The fleeing Union soldiers were hotly pursued. Many were captured, but what is more important is the capture of small arms and ammunition which did much to equip Forrest’s men in a proper manner.
Forrest by this time had learned that the role of the traditional cavalry soldier had changed radically. No longer was the frontal attack with saber charge over level ground sensible – not in the face of modern weaponry. Instead Forrest preferred Navy revolvers for close work and the carbine for the more distant. He fought his cavalry battles much like Homer’s battles in the Iliad: heroes were brought by chariot into the fighting where it was the hottest and dismounted to fight on foot. When they had prevailed or when too hard pressed, they were withdrawn. It was typical for Forrest’s troops to ride where they were needed, dismount, and fight as infantry.
Late that afternoon Forrest pinned down Sullivan outside Jackson, TN. This allowed time to destroy bridges, trestles, telegraph lines and a section of railroad that ran from Jackson through Bolivar to Corinth, MS. The next day (December 19th) Forrest withdrew to Spring Creek where he camped for the night. He left A.A. Russell behind outside of Jackson as a rear guard. That night Russell caught up with the brigade. The next morning the 4th Alabama remained at Spring Creek as rear guard while the rest of the command was dispatched to various targets in the area. At Humboldt, TN the captured town yielded some 200 prisoners, four caissons with their teams, and large quantities of food and supplies. What could not be carried was destroyed along with the railroad depot, a trestle bridge and the stockade. Forrest then moved toward Trenton, TN which he took after a stiff fight and the offer of unconditional surrender to the Union Col. Fry. Forrest accepted Fry’s sword, but then returned it when Fry told him it was a family relic. He added that he hoped Fry would use it next time for a better cause than oppressing his countrymen. On the night of the 20th all of the detachments that were out, including A. A. Russell, returned with their prisoners and captured materiel. While at Spring Creek Russell had been attacked by infantry sent from Jackson, TN to pursue the raiders. These he repulsed. In his report Forrest said that Russell and the 4th Alabama had charged on horseback and the panic stricken enemy had retreated, burning the bridge over Spring Creek behind them. The 1300 prisoners were paroled. Those from Tennessee were allowed to return home; the rest were sent to Columbia, KY.
Forrest left Trenton on Sunday the 21st after burning the remaining supplies. He moved north attacking the towns along the way: Rutherford Station, Kenton, Union City, and Moscow, KY. His destruction of bridges, trestles, railroads and telegraph lines virtually cut the Union supply line to the siege at Vicksburg. Forrest’s report to Bragg on the 24th states he has made a “clean sweep” of Federals and roads north of Jackson , but that many enemy troops were being sent up from Memphis toward Kentucky.
Forrest now turned south from Union City toward Dresden and McKenzie. On the 26th he destroyed the bridge over the Obion River on the rail line to Paducah. Informed that a strong force was pursuing him from Trenton, he left Col. Biffle behind to protect from a surprise attack on the quarter. On the night of the 26th Forrest’s main force arrived in Dresden where they spent the night after destroying the railroad and all government supplies. On the 27th he moved as far as McKenzie where he learned that two brigades were moving to intercept him. About 9PM scouts reported that the Yankees had destroyed all the bridges ahead of them over the Obion and that Col. Russell, who had been sent in advance, had run into a large force while he was trying to cross.
As luck would have it, Forrest learned that an old bridge, so dilapidated as to be impassable, had been left standing. About 11PM he reached the bridge and immediately set to work repairing it and the approaching causeways. The exhausted men labored throughout the night and part of the next day. Forrest lent a hand himself and actually drove the first wagon across. Two of the ammunition wagons did not enjoy the same success and overturned. That night a Union brigade passed close by. From the swampy Obion bottoms Forrest waited before proceeding to McLemoresville. Arriving in McLemoresville they learned that a Union brigade bound for Huntington had passed through a few hours before. On the same night another brigade was also close heading for Huntington as well. Altogether there were nearly four thousand Union troops in the area, all looking for Forrest. The choice was to run the forty miles to the Tennessee River and try to force a crossing or to turn and face an enemy that was divided on either side of him.
Of course what he did is well known. The resulting action culminated at Parker’s Crossroads. Forrest’s plan was to attack Col. Dunham before he could be reinforced by Fuller’s brigade. He sent a detachment of four companies to get between him and the Union line and stop the advance of Fuller as much as possible. Forrest was to be notified immediately if there was any movement from that direction to reinforce Dunham. Unfortunately these companies took the wrong road. Meanwhile Forrest was initiating his attack, fully confident that his rear was covered.
The battle opened with an artillery duel at scarcely 400 yards. Forrest personally placed the first guns and stayed while the battery tore through the Union lines with canister and grape. Dibrell’s and Russell’s men were dismounted and sent forward as skirmishers. By noon the Union was driven back into a grove of trees. Forrest then sent Starnes to the right and A. A. Russell to the left to block any attempted retreat to the rear. Russell was able to move hidden along a gulley which led behind Union lines. Arriving there the two forces surprised and captured the entire baggage and ammunition train. In desperate straits Col. Dunham sent forward a flag of truce asking for a conference with Forrest. White flags appeared all along the Union line. All firing stopped.
At this point a volley of small arms was heard behind the Confederate line. Federal artillery began to cut into the dismounted Confederates who were busy pushing the Union soldiers back. Though surprised, for he thought he had covered that contingency, Forrest acted quickly. He had his men charge from the field between the gauntlet of enemy ranks. One hundred and fifty dead and wounded had to be left behind as were three captured guns. When Russell and Starnes heard the volley of fire breakout behind the Confederate rank they accurately realized what was happening. Immediately, they attacked Dunham to prevent him from taking any part in the action. On the field the 300 men who were dismounted and whose horses had been taken to the rear had no means of escape. Over 150 of them fell prisoner. What could easily have resulted in the capture or loss of his entire command Forrest’s quick action prevented. His plan had been brilliant – equal to any of Napoleon’s or Stonewall Jackson’s tactics; in such circumstances, though, Fate often has a different say.
Forrest was proceeding toward Lexington, TN with his wagons and artillery when he abruptly turned on his pursuers with such fury that Col. Fuller was ordered to hold his line of battle until the next morning. Reaching Lexington, Forrest rested his men until around 2 AM before moving on. By daylight on January 1st they were ten miles east of Lexington where they rested for several hours and paroled the 83 prisoners they had taken. Between nine and ten o’clock scouts reported a strong column of cavalry ahead. Dibrell, Starnes, and Biffle moved ahead and quickly put the Union cavalry in retreat.
At one in the afternoon the command reached the Tennessee River at Clifton. Within ten hours the entire command was safely across, conveyed on rafts and the two flatboats left sunken in the river to hide them from the enemy– two thousand men, their saddles and equipment, six pieces of artillery, the captured supplies with wagons. The horses were led into the river and made to swim across. Fuller’s brigade reached Clifton on January 3rd.
The new Confederate line now extended from Shelbyville to Wartrace, guarded on each end by large cavalry units at McMinville and Columbia, TN. Forrest had command of the Columbia force. Maj. General Joseph Wheeler was instructed to interrupt traffic on the Cumberland River. He took Wharton’s brigade and several of Forrest’s regiments and moved to block the river at Palmyra. A.A. Russell and the 4th Alabama were not involved. The Union learned of this and stopped all traffic. Wheeler in disappointment decided to re-visit Fort Donelson. Forrest strongly protested that the men lacked the ammunition and rations to prevail in such an attack. After the battle he told Wheeler that he would never again fight under his command.
In the latter part of February A.A. Russell’s 4th Alabama was transferred to Gen. W.T. Martin’s Division, W.W. Allen’s Brigade. Maj. C.W. Anderson, Forrest’s Adjutant, said “General Forrest held the 4th Alabama in high esteem. He always spoke of it as a command he could rely upon to accomplish what it was ordered t do”. Many feel this transfer of the 4th Alabama was a reprisal by Wheeler for Forrest’s harsh words.
On February 4, 1863 Gen. van Dorn left Columbia, TN with Forrest and four other generals including W.T. Martin (with the 4th Alabama) advanced toward Franklin, TN to meet the enemy. The advance Confederate party was driven back and bivouacked near Thompson Station with the rest of van Dorn’s cavalry. Gen. Martin’s command did not play a significant role in the next day’s battle. Forrest, acting independently, performed brilliantly to carry the day for the South.
On the 5th of March Gen. van Dorn moved his force to Spring Hill and then near Columbia. That Spring the Confederate cavalry raids from this headquarters disrupted enemy supply lines and forced them to ship in fodder from outside. It was the Federal’s practice to burn homesteads of families having sons in Confederate service. The subsequent lost of forage did not deter them from such a despicable practice. In May General van Dorn was shot dead by an irate husband who claimed that van Dorn had dishonored him by having an affair with his wife. The man, a Dr. Peters, was never brought to trial.
There was a fear in Washington that Confederate units operating in Tennessee would be shifted to Vicksburg to put pressure on Grant who was preparing to lay siege to the town. Gen. Rosecrans, now strongly reinforced and ordered by Lincoln to act, moved forward to attack the Southern entrenchments. The plan was to feint an attack on the well fortified position in Shelbyville, TN while the main body of troops would be marching east toward Manchester.
When enemy infantry and cavalry approached Shelbyville on June 27th, Gen. Wheeler’s cavalry units (including Gen. W.T. Martin and A.A. Russell’s 4th Alabama Cavalry) fought a delaying action to allow Gen. Polk to escape across the Duck River with his command and immense baggage train. A.A. Russell’s men joined the others in this action at Guys Gap (Bradley, Tullahoma, p.76), gradually retreating until they took a stand behind the outer ring of earthworks at Shelbyville. The retreat was orderly, but not without some confusion. By mistake, a group of some 250 by rode into a large strongly fenced in garden from which there was no escape and were captured.
At the same time Forrest was approaching from the north after riding all night through torrential rain. Wheeler held his position until late in the afternoon waiting for Forrest’s arrival. Concluding that Forrest was not coming, he crossed the Duck River and was preparing to burn the bridge when a staff officer from Forrest rode up and informed him that Forrest was in sight of Shelbyville. Wheeler called for volunteers and with General W.T. Martin and a force of 500 volunteers from Martin’s division and two pieces of artillery re-crossed the bridge and tried to hold it for Forrest. Union troops came straight down Main Street in columns of fours. The Confederates held their ground as best they could, but in overwhelming numbers the enemy rode through them and captured the two pieces. Wheeler shouting to his men that they must cut their way out and swim the river charged ahead with Gen. Martin and any who could follow. The bank there was a sheer cliff over fifteen feet above the river swollen to flood by the recent rains. Off this they charged, submerged, and reemerged downstream where the swift current carried them. The Yankees rushed to the bank and fired on the men struggling in the water below. Some forty or fifty were thought to have perished.
And what of A.H. Green in all of this? That he was captured at Shelbyville, TN on June 27, 1863 is undoubtedly secure: the pension application states so as do both Union and Confederate records. Edwin L. Green, Jr. provides a further note. He wrote:
Father (Edwin L. Green, Sr.) told me several times that our grandfather (A.H. Green) had been a prisoner: that they were retreating before the Union Army and our grandfather fell and immediately a Union soldier was over him. Grandfather snapped his pistol at him but nothing happened and he had to surrender. This was at Shelbyville, TN… (E.L. Green, Jr., Notes: 21 May 1967)
No doubt the pistol misfired because of the recent heavy rainfall. It had been raining every day without cease since June 23rd. Perhaps it is just as well there was a wet cartridge in the chamber; otherwise someone else might be the one writing this account. Gen Arthur Manigault wrote that Confederate arms were rusty and powder wet from all the rain and commanders were remiss for not checking on this. A guess is that A.H. was captured - “retreating before the Union Army” - somewhere between Guy’s Gap and the town’s defenses. It would seem, too, that he was on foot since he “fell and a Union soldier was over him…”. His horse had probably been taken to the rear at the Guy’s Gap to allow the unit to fight as infantry. But these are questions which may never have an answer. Wheeler made no official account of the battle.
What we do know is that A.H. was quickly moved from Shelbyville; by June 30th he was in Nashville. Then on to Louisville, KY on July 16, 1863. The 19th of July found him in route to Camp Chase, OH, where he arrived on the 20th. He was received in Camp Douglas, Chicago on August 22, 1863.
Camp Douglas was built on land formerly owned by Stephan A. Douglas – approximately 80 acres. Its first prisoners were among those captured at Fort Donelson in February 1862. Conditions and treatment of prisoners rivaled Andersonville, though this seems to have gone relatively unnoticed; most records of deaths, medical inspections, and maltreatment of prisoners have been suppressed or lost. From 1862 to 1865 over 6000 died, 1500 were unaccounted for. The A&E Channel aired a documentary on Camp Douglas (Eighty Acres of Hell) and numerous books have been written on Civil War prisons– most are merely sensational. There is an old Roman maxim, Vae victis –woe to the vanquished. This could not be better illustrated than by historians’ reshaping of American history of the Civil War (everyone has heard of Andersonville – ever heard of Camp Douglas?). A more reliable account of prison life was published in 1914 by John A. Wyeth (Sabre and Scalpel – reprint Chapel Hill). Dr. Wyeth, who rode with Forrest in the 4th Alabama and wrote That Devil Forrest, was captured and sent to Camp Morton, a prison in Indianapolis – very similar to Camp Douglas. The Retaliation Act of 1864, passed in retribution for mistreatment of Union men in Southern prisons and Grant’s directive in 1863, limiting prisoner exchange only to those who were no longer able to fight, reduced daily rations in Northern prisons to starvation portions and guaranteed the overcrowding of the prisons in general.
A wall 12’ to 20’ high made of smooth planks surrounded Camp Morton; no doubt Douglas’ wall was similar. A ditch ran inside this wall 16’ wide and 10’ deep. At night reflectors made it light as day - beyond the wall was pitch black dark. There was a ‘deadline’ (hence, our word today – originally used as a newspaper term) and crossing beyond it meant certain death. Wyeth reports that survivors of one escape attempt were tied to a tree and left outside in the cold all night. Citizens of Chicago were uneasy about possible prison breaks; so were the guards. If you went outside to the latrine ditch at night, you had to go without a coat.
The barracks were constructed of planks like the perimeter wall. They were about 80 feet by 20 feet with 15 feet to the roof peak. There was no insulation and no floor - this to prevent tunnels. In inclement weather rain and snow found its way inside and there was always a draft. Constant tramping in and out kept the center aisle muddy. Bunks were built on each side - four tiers about a foot off the ground. These were seven feet by three feet. Men slept head to wall, two feet allotted per man, about 320 men per shed at Camp Morton. There was no straw and only one blanket per man. This made for some interesting sleeping arrangements. To keep from freezing men huddled spoon fashion three or more to a group. One blanket was placed on the boards and two on top. A rotation was established where an outside man would rotate to the center – the warm place. Often the top blanket was wetted to hold in heat. In the very coldest spells the groups were larger. Lots were drawn for the center and no one was allowed to sleep on his back. All during the night could be heard, “Ok, boys, spoon” and the entire group would flop over to the delight of one end man and the chagrin of the one on the other end. At Camp Morton four stoves were installed at equal distances along the center passage way in 1863. Even then only the strongest, who were able to push or fight their way to the stove, got any benefit. In their weakened and starved condition it was not unusual for someone to freeze to death overnight. The winter of 1864 was one of the most brutal of the 1860’s.
Beatings were regular, often for no good reason. The ‘mule’ (or ‘horse’ as A.H. called it) was a favorite punishment. This was a sawhorse affair which prisoners were made to straddle. ‘Spurs’ were added as an additional discomfort. These were bags of sand tied to the ankles. Sometimes the bar was raised 10 or 12 feet off the ground, which made the inevitable fall quite dangerous. Making prisoners sit or stand outside in the snow was easy enough to order. It, too, was an effective punishment. Frances Lauretta Green, when asked if her father tried to escape again, answered that he told her: ‘No, I did not want to sit on that horse again, so I was good (reported by Dena Elizabeth Snodgrass).
Food rations were not sufficient to satisfy hunger. A loaf of bread 3 ½ by 7 inches was issued daily, usually with a small portion of beef marrow or meat. Soup was issued in the evening unless vegetables had been given with the meat. Men resorted to trapping rats and raiding garbage cans. Some drank the swill from camp dish washing, though this was discouraged by the prisoners themselves. Stealing was not uncommon and there were fights over rations. When a piece of meat was allotted to a mess group, the several men in the group chose an arbiter who stood with his back to the group and named the group’s member who was to receive the piece being cut. Tobacco was the currency of choice, though there was not much to buy and then only at an exorbitant price.
Lauretta Russell wrote of her grandfather:
My most vivid memory of stories about Grandpa’s prison term with the Yankee Army during the Civil War was the one about the end piece of a loaf of bread. Mamma told us that, during captivity, little food was available for the prisoners. Mostly white bread was issued and this was not very good for preserving teeth and keeping gums in condition. So Grandpa always asked for the end piece of the loaf because it was tough and required a lot more chewing before it could be swallowed.
Also handed down by Lauretta’s sister, Dena, is story that A. H. was taught bookkeeping while in prison. One of the jailers evidently took an interest in him, perhaps because he was young, she thought.
On September 30, 1864 Col. William Hoffman wrote to his superior that on the evening of September 27 about 8 PM an attack was made on the fence and guard line surrounding the prison, i.e. ‘the deadline’. Twelve men were named; one of whom was A. H. Green of the 4th Alabama Cavalry. These men were put in irons by way of punishment, he reported. Cf. War of the Rebellion. Series 2 Vol. 7 p.897.
Those attempting the prison break must have known that it was an act of sheer folly. A.H. was facing his second winter at Camp Douglas. What was he thinking? It must have seemed better to risk death trying to escape than by spending another winter in Chicago. Canada and freedom were really not so far away. There was time to make a getaway before the real cold set in. Desperation decided the rest.
My grandfather wrote that A. H. was exchanged at Red River, IL on April 30, 1865. Official records state that he was forwarded to New Orleans May 4th and exchanged on the 23rd.
It goes almost without saying that the Burnt Corn he left and the place to which he returned were vastly different. The slaves had been freed. John Green, his grandfather, at one time, was reported to have owned more than three hundred (Dict. of Alabama Biography), whom he dressed in green livery. He is listed, too, as having a thousand acres of land. However, Conecuh County records of slave holders in 1865 show John Green Sr. having only one slave (Prince), who stayed with the family after emancipation, and C.W. Green (A.H.’s father) three. It would be interesting to research how much land the respective families still held at the end of the war. His brother Thomas had died in the fight at White Oak Swamp Bridge on the outskirts of Richmond in June 1862. A younger sister, Susannah, followed him shortly in August (1862). She was only fifteen years old. How long A.H. stayed in Burnt Corn is uncertain, but it was not for very long; his second pension application (i.e. 1909 version) states that he had lived in Florida since the fall of 1865.
Leaving Burnt Corn, he moved to Bagdad, FL where he was the owner of the general store in nearby Milton, FL. Whether he moved there to set up the store or was able to buy it from the owner is uncertain. His obituary says that he was active in commercial and political affairs in Santa Rosa County and that he served for several years as tax assessor. When he died he was keeping the books for a lumber company in Mulat, FL. In August 1868 his sister Narcissa, 22 years old, passed away.
In Milton A.H. met Lauretta Virginia Fisher, the daughter of Lauretta Grimes Fisher and the late George Dorranty Fisher, a prominent local physician and former state legislator. Lauretta Fisher was born in 1849 in Milton, FL. Like A. H., she had lost a brother, Lt. Luther Calvin Fisher, killed in the battle of Franklin, TN. She had lost her father, too. He was robbed and murdered April 1, 1865 by a party of marauding Yankee deserters near Geneva, AL -while he was making his rounds my family relates. Carolyn Calhoun Shaffer’s account has the deserters coming to get Dr. Fisher to tend one of their wounded. When they realized that he could identify them, they killed him. Dr. Fisher and his wife, Lauretta, were buried in Milton, FL – graves unmarked. After their father’s death the Fisher daughters supported themselves and their mother by spinning and weaving. During a major flood, the Lincoln Freshet, the houses in Milton stood for several days in water six to eight feet deep. When the waters subsided the girls found their piano completely ruined, much to their distress, but their spinning wheel was in perfect condition. Indignant that the spinning wheel survived and not the piano, Mary Fisher addressed the spinning wheel saying: “I shall find a more congenial companion in the future to gain a livelihood with than you”. She picked up a ready hatchet and destroyed the guiltless wheel (History of Walton County. John L. McKinnon. Gainesville, FL, 1968). Lauretta Fisher and A.H. were married January 5, 1870. December saw the birth of the first of eight children, Edwin Luther Green Sr.
Lauretta Virginia Fisher Green 1849-1893
In January 1871 George Ashley Green died, the younger brother of A.H. George Ashley was born in 1850 and was too young to fight in the war. Then on August 4th A.H.’s mother, Maryan Frances Watson Green, passed away after an illness spanning ten years and was buried in the Green Cemetery in Burnt Corn, AL. She had borne Christopher Wren Green eight children. He, by mid-December, had married the widow Feribe Rhodes in Butler County Alabama, who brought a stepdaughter, Anna S. Rhodes (b. 1863), into the family. Feribe Rhodes was 19 years Christopher Wren’s junior. The couple was to have four children of their own. Christopher Wren died June 10, 1885 in Mulat, FL and is buried in Bagdad, FL. His fourth child by Feribe Rhodes, David Simpson Green, was born 1882, but died in October 1884. He is buried in Bagdad, Fl. Feribe Rhodes died about 1938, age 92, at the home of her daughter Ann Rhodes Seals in Greenville, AL. A.H. and Lauretta had seven children by 1884; their 8th and final child, a son, was born in 1887.
Sadly, on August 15. 1893, Lauretta Fisher Green, A.H.’s wife for 23 years, died of malaria (scarlet fever according to Carolyn Shaffer’s side of the family). She was buried in the City Cemetery in Bagdad, FL. Only 44 years old, she had lived long enough to see her oldest son, Edwin L. Green, graduate summa cum laude from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA. He went on to Johns Hopkins where he took a PhD in Classics under Basil Gildersleeve, the world eminent scholar, who had taught at UVA during the war, but rode with the 1st Virginia Cavalry during vacations– to pay his debt to society for the privilege of teaching Southern youth, he claimed. Lauretta Fisher Green left children still living at home - the oldest, 21; the youngest, 6. On a happy note, by 1905 all living at home were married with the exception of George Chadwick, who married in 1912. Alexander Hamilton Green never re-married.
During the evening of April 26, 1914 A.H. Green died at the age of 72. At the time, he was living with his son, A. H. Green, Jr., in Pensacola, FL. He had been a widower for 21 years. All of his children survived him with the exception of a daughter, Elizabeth, who died in 1906. His obituary in the Milton Gazette said that he left a large circle of friends. His genial smile and hearty handshake would be missed, it said.
AFTERWORD
It was not until I was in my mid-twenties that I first learned that my great grandfather, Alexander Hamilton Green, had ridden with Nathan Bedford Forrest. Growing up like most Southerners, we were interested in our country’s history and the role our ancestors had played in it. For us history was a source of pride – something personal. It seems strange, then, that I had not been told stories of Forrest, as I had of Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens, or Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. Mr. Lee was always held up to us as a paradigm of moral excellence and, in the Southern mind, ranked along with Jesus and Socrates for his piety. I remember feeling offended the first time I heard him referred to as ‘Bobby Lee’, though both sides called him that. Certainly, the Civil War was something that I found interesting, but my focus was on Virginia and the conflict there. As an early teen I had read all three volumes of Douglas Southhall Freeman’s Lee’s Lieutenants, yet knew almost nothing about the western theatre. I do remember my mother telling me about the siege of Vicksburg and Chattanooga and the horrible struggles there. Why she knew about those places I do not know. My great grandfather on her side of the family had lost a leg fighting in the Army of Northern Virginia - the particulars I never learned. My Aunt Helen remembered his tapping on a wooden leg with his cane and laughing, but no cousin of mine seems to have heard anything more, if even that. Perhaps our great grandfathers did not talk much with their children about their experiences in the war and as a consequence stories were never handed down. My father, the executive officer of a tanker in the South Pacific in WWII, would be an example of such reticence. He spoke of his war experiences in terms of celestial navigation and the gyroscopic precession of lead computing gun sights, or of seeing the Bird of Paradise in New Guinea, and how, since censorship prevented giving the position of his ship, he had written his friend Walter Weber, a staff wildlife artist for the National Geographic, to ask that he tell my mother this fact. He knew, of course, that Walt Weber would guess that they were in New Guinea, the only place in the world where the bird was found, and would pass this along. When asked about the many battle stars on his ribbons, he stated simply that his ship had shot down Japanese kamikazes or that they had been at Leyte Gulf and so forth. Maybe those who truly experience the horrors of war find them too terrible to relate. But I wish that they had related them and I wish that I had listened more carefully.
February 2009
Edwin L. Green III PO Box 744 Toano, VA 23168 elgreenart.com
A word about the new evidence and revisions....
Several years ago, when I decided to write about my great grandfather, Alexander H. Green, I had no idea how complicated or convoluted the task would be. What appeared to be a straight forward account would turn out at the time to have no supporting evidence save insufficient family lore. What would seem to be unimaginable proved to be documented. None of this presented itself in any coincident or consistent fashion. Records kept popping up here and there haphazardly – each one a contradiction of the previous and each one just as convincing. There were times when I was certain there was no further evidence in existence and I had done all that could be done, only to discover some new fact. Without the help of Carolyn Calhoun Shaefer and Don Green, who provided service records and information their families had, little could have been established without egregious error. Billie Patterson was ever the perfect role model – always with more insight about genealogy and the Green’s than I could even pretend. Her passion for accuracy is exemplary. Marcia McClure’s vast experience in these matters and her support and willingness to suffer through several drafts is much appreciated. Maybe I’ve gotten it right this time; secure documentation now accounts for every day of service from enlistment to final discharge. If there are errors, they are my own, and I hope someone will have the thoughtfulness to set me straight.
October 1, 2012
Edwin L. Green III elgreenart.com
Bibliography
An Untutored Genius. Lonnie E. Maness. Tennessee Regimentals Series. Guild Bindery Press. Oxford, MS, 1990.
Extraordinary Circumstances – The Seven Days Battles. Brian K. Burton. Indiana University Press, 2000.
History of Walton County. John L. McKinnon. Gainesville, FL 1968
Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland. Benjamin F. Cooling. University of Tennessee Press. Knoxville, 1987.
Florida Confederate Pension Application. Application 10520, Pensioner 5710.
Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Escort and Staff. Bradley, Michael. (Kindle) September 2006.
Milton Gazette. May 1, 1914, p.1
That Devil Forrest. John A. Wyeth. Harper Brothers. New York, Re-print 1959. (Originally published 1898)
Tullahoma- The 1863 Campaign for the Control of Middle Tennessee. Michael R. Brady. Burd Press. Shippensburg, PA
War of the Rebellion. Series 2, Vol. 7 p.897.
With Sabre and Scalpel, The Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon. John A.Wyeth. Harper Brothers. New York, 1914. (Electronic Book, Chapel Hill, 1998)
Family Records in Bibles of Green and Watson. Lauretta Snodgrass
Green Family Photographs
Christopher Wren Green, father of A H Green 3 February 1818 - 10 June 1885 Buried in City Cemetery, Bagdad, Florida
Forrest’s Fort Donalson Deposition
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