Staff Ride Handbook For The Battle Of Chickamauga, 18-20 September 1863 [Illustrated Edition] by Robertson William Glenn;

Author:Robertson, William Glenn;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Golden Springs Publishing
Published: 2014-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

Map 3. Day 1, stands 17 through 20

Teaching Points: Leadership, initiative, training, cohesion, tactical formations, synchronization, depth.

Stand 18 — Carnes’ Tennessee Battery

(Carnes’ Tennessee Battery plaque, woods south of Brotherton Road [see map 3])

Situation: 19 September 1863, p.m. Captain William W. Carnes’ Battery, consisting of two 6-pounder smoothbores and two 12-pounder howitzers, supported Wright’s Brigade of Cheatham’s Division. Around 1330, the battery went into action on the left of the division, firing canister because of the nearness of the enemy. The battery had no infantry support on its left, the direction from which Federal reinforcements approached the battlefield. Soon after it went into action, the battery was attacked on its left and rear by Van Cleve’s division. After many of the men and most of the horses were killed, the remaining gunners withdrew hastily on foot. The Federals dragged the guns back to the road, where they were recaptured by Stewart’s advancing infantry. From a complement of seventy-eight officers and men, one officer and eighteen men were killed, eighteen men wounded, and one captured. Only ten of the battery’s fifty-nine horses survived.

Vignette: “The woods...were so dense with undergrowth that it was almost impossible to keep the battery up with the infantry line. The infantry struck the enemy first, and as soon as Carnes could clear the ground of undergrowth, which he had to do with a detail of men armed with axes, he put his battery in position, and opened on the advancing Federals with canister. In the heavy fighting which immediately followed, many of the men and horses were soon killed or disabled; and Carnes, seeing the impossibility of saving his guns if our line should be pressed back, sent his orderly to report the situation to the division commander and ask for help. Receiving reply to hold his ground as long as possible, Capt. Carnes dismounted his officers and sergeants and put them and the drivers of the disabled horses at the guns to replace the cannoneers as they were shot down, and, giving the enemy double charges of canister at close range, drove back the line in his front; but as he had no support on his left, the Federals swung around the battery until it was almost surrounded. Finding it impossible to hold out longer, Carnes sent his few surviving men to the rear and, with his sergeant, fired his left gun a few times as rapidly as possible to keep back the fast closing lines, and then he and his sergeant jumped to their horses, which were tied nearby. The sergeant, mounting first, was riddled with bullets from a volley that passed over the Captain as he was in the act of mounting, wounding his horse. Making a dash for the now narrow opening to the rear, Capt. Carnes escaped capture by being well mounted and a good rider. His horse was struck a number of times, and could barely carry his rider till he reached the support coming from the rear, and fell just after he passed through the advancing Confederate line.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.