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Forging A New South The Life of General John T Wilder 1St Edition Nicely Full Chapter PDF
Forging A New South The Life of General John T Wilder 1St Edition Nicely Full Chapter PDF
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Forging a New South
forging a new south
The Life of General John T. Wilder
Maury Nicely
Acknowledgments
xi
Prologue
1
part 1
Old Northwest to Old South
5
part 2
Old South to New South
235
Notes
415
Bibliography
491
Index
517
Illustrations
photographs
Following page 185
John Thomas Wilder and Martha Stewart, 1858
Ridgway Foundry, Columbus, Ohio
Wilder’s Patented “Improved Horizontal Water-Wheel”
John T. Wilder Residence, Greensburg, Indiana
Lt. Col. John T. Wilder, 1861
Indiana Governor Oliver P. Morton
Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner (CSA)
Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans (US)
“Wilder’s Mounted Infantry Passing the Blockhouse
of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad”
Spencer Repeating Rifle
Hoover’s Gap Battlefield
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Capt. Eli Lilly (US)
First Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Friar’s Island, Tennessee River
The “Ditch of Death,” West Viniard Field, Chickamauga
Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana (US)
Maj. Gen. Thomas Crittenden (US)
Roane Iron Company Furnace, Rockwood, Tennessee
Hiram S. Chamberlain
Superintendent’s House, Rockwood, Tennessee
Company Store, Rockwood, Tennessee
Roane Rolling Mill, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Stanton House, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Opera House Foundations, Chattanooga, Tennessee
John T. Wilder Residence, East Terrace, Chattanooga, Tennessee
H. Clay Evans
David M. Key
Tomlinson Fort
Confederate Monument, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Group of Chattanooga’s “Distinguished Citizens,” 1881
Frank Stratton
John T. Wilder’s “Rustic Boarding House,” Roan Mountain
Roan Mountain Inn, Roan Mountain Station, Tennessee
John T. Wilder Residence, Roan Mountain Station, Tennessee
Wilder Family at Roan Mountain Station, 1886
Northern Methodist Church, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga (U.S. Grant) University, Chattanooga, Tennessee
John T. Wilder, early 1880s
John T. Wilder Congressional Campaign Ribbon, 1886
John Randolph Neal
Cloudland Hotel, Roan Mountain
John T. Wilder at Roan Mountain, 1886
Lightning Brigade Officers atop Lookout Mountain, 1880
John T. Wilder, 1887
Joseph Wheeler
Carnegie Hotel, Johnson City, Tennessee
John T. Wilder Residence, Johnson City, Tennessee
President Benjamin Harrison Visit to Johnson City, 1891
Crawfish Springs, Chickamauga, Georgia, 1898
Henry Van Ness Boynton
Commissioners, Chickamauga and Chattanooga
National Military Park, 1892
Wilder Brigade Monument, Chickamauga Battlefield
U.S. Custom House, Knoxville, Tennessee
John T. Wilder
Dr. Dora Lee Wilder
John T. Wilder Residence, Knoxville, Tennessee
G.A.R. Monument, Knoxville, Tennessee
Imperial Hotel, Monterey, Tennessee
John T. Wilder Residence, Monterey, Tennessee
John T. Wilder in Monterey, Tennessee, 1913
Lightning Brigade Reunion, Chickamauga, 1903
Wilder Point, Signal Mountain, Tennessee
G.A.R. Encampment, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1913
John T. Wilder Grave, Forrest Hills Cemetery, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Wilder’s Children at His Funeral, 1917
John T. Wilder, c. 1900
maps
Map 1. Battle of Munfordville 36
Map 2. Battle of Hoover’s Gap 86
Map 3. Crossing the Chickamauga 126
Map 4. John T. Wilder’s East Tennessee 236
Acknowledgments
highest point in the park, from which the battlefield spreads out into the
distance, undulating fields bisected by woods and creeks, the foothills of
the mountains at the horizon. Shadowing the iron tablets, green-weathered
cannon, and sculptures littering the spot where widow Eliza Glenn’s cabin
once stood, the tower overlooks the field like a massive chess piece, a general
surveying the terrain with upthrust chin, squinting through battlesmoke
toward the enemy.
Celebrating the United States Bicentennial, on July 4, 1976, the Chat-
tanooga Symphony played a “Pops in the Park” concert at the foot of the
historic tower. It soon became an annual event, drawing thousands to listen
to the patriotic music of Copland, Tchaikovsky, and Sousa. Most of those in
attendance, however, were little aware of the tactical movements that took
place on the ground where they sat, the story of the iconic stone tower, or
the achievements of its namesake.
John Thomas Wilder enlisted in the 17th Indiana Infantry (17 IN) regiment
in a patriotic fit in April 1861; he rose to command the regiment, then its
brigade. In the aftermath of Chickamauga, where Wilder’s Brigade delayed
the Confederate advance and helped to save the Union Army, he was bre-
veted a brigadier-general. “Many believe General Wilder to be the greatest
military genius and soldier developed during the war,” a 1905 biographical
article gushed. Plagued by a nagging illness, however, he retired from the
war in October 1864, his military career spanning roughly three years and
six months.1
Perhaps rightfully so, biographies of the notable, colorful, and notorious
figures of the American Civil War tend to focus almost exclusively upon
the four-year period between 1861 and 1865—their postbellum careers are
often a footnote to their wartime exploits. Wars, of course, make for excit-
ing reading—more so than business partnerships and financial investments.
As such, biographers focus upon the thrilling wartime adventures of their
subjects, in comparison to which their civilian lives often pale.
Many Civil War icons, moreover, had less-than-prosperous peacetime
careers. The war was the highlight of their public lives, inspiring otherwise
average men to heroic (or notorious) deeds. Many reentered civilian life only
to settle into dull mediocrity or failure—the qualities that had served them
in the heat of battle ill-suited to the humdrum of daily existence. For many
war heroes, there was not much beyond the war worth telling.
Such was not the case with Wilder. “It would take a book of space and
great time to enumerate the successful undertakings of this one man,” pro-
prologu e 3
O
n April 20, 2001, onlookers gathered for the unveiling of a historic
marker at the corner of Main and Lathrop Streets in the small
town of Greensburg, Indiana. A handful of mustachioed Civil War
reenactors, resplendent in blue-trimmed infantry coats and high-crowned
Model 1858 “Jeff Davis” dress hats, milled around among the crowd. They
were armed with reproduction muzzle-loading muskets—not the Spencer
repeating rifles that were the hallmark of the “Lightning Brigade,” the other-
wise-eponymous unit whose commander the crowd was gathered to honor.
Dedicated to “Civil War General John T. Wilder,” the iron marker stands
on a quiet residential street in front of the home built by Wilder and his
wife, Martha, during the closing years of the war. Although his sojourn in
Greensburg was fairly brief, Wilder is memorialized by of one of only three
historic markers in and around Greensburg. To that end, at the unveiling
of the marker, it was noted that it “commemorates the life of a man who,
although he spent only eleven of his eighty-seven years in Greensburg,
non-the-less was, and continues to be recognized as one of the community’s
finest citizens.”1
Throughout his long life, one enduring character trait of John Thomas
Wilder was a certain restlessness, an “itchy heel” that kept him surveying
the horizon for new opportunities, leaping from one to the next. He was
always lured more by the prospect of a new challenge than by the daily
drudgery of maintaining his affairs. “I am essentially a pioneer by disposi-
tion,” he advised a newspaper reporter in 1887. “Whenever an enterprise
gets to running along smoothly in a rut, I get out of it.” This opinion was
consistent with American attitudes of the time. “The American has always
something better in his eye, further west,” one visitor to the young country
wrote in 1823, “he therefore lives and dies on hope, a mere gypsy in this
8 pa rt 1
in Hingham. Like his father, he was a blacksmith. It has been claimed that
he was involved in the Boston Tea Party uprising, but the sole source, a
newspaper claim made by a descendant in 1858, cannot be validated.
John T. Wilder’s grandfather, Seth Wilder, Jr. (1764–1813), married
Tabitha (or Dorcas) Briggs (1766–1825) around 1788. He died at age forty-
nine in 1813 and is buried in Cummington.
Reuben Wilder (1797–1880) was John T. Wilder’s father. Like many New
Englanders in the decades following the Revolution, he sought his fortune in
the green lands of the advancing frontier, venturing west to Hunter Village
(Greene County), New York, a small town in the Catskill Mountains. It was
a pristine region. Designated as Lot 25 of the two million-acre Hardenbergh
Patent granted by Queen Anne in 1708, the land was purchased by John
Hunter in the 1790s and christened “Greenland” because of the rich forest
lands surrounding the village. After Col. William Edwards established a
tannery to exploit the vast hemlock forests whose bark was used for tan-
ning hides, it was renamed “Edwardsville,” but after the tannery failed the
chagrinned townspeople substituted Hunter’s name in 1814. The villagers
continued to make use of the forests, establishing lumber mills and furniture
factories that supported the town until a bristling tourist trade developed
in the mid-nineteenth century.
In 1825, Reuben Wilder married Mary Merritt, born in 1793 in Hunter
Village. He was a farmer and millwright, described as a “mill contractor
and prosperous” and praised as “a man of sturdy self-reliance; a strong
man who never used his strength; without ambition beyond living well and
educating his children; [and] noted for his broad, practical good sense.”
Politically, he was a Whig, although he became a Republican after the col-
lapse of the Whig party.3
John Thomas Wilder was born on January 31, 1830, in Hunter Village. The
details of his early life are sparse and have been oft-repeated in biographies
over the years. He was the third of five children, following sisters Elizabeth
(1826) and Clarissa (1828), and preceding Mary Ann (1832) and Horace
(1834). He is said to have attended the local common (public) schools, where
accounts uniformly report that he obtained “a fairly adequate education
for that day.” Even as a youngster, he was clear-eyed and ambitious. An
alert and inquisitive young man, he was interested in natural curiosities,
collecting a cabinet full of stones and minerals that he studied throughout
his childhood. “Though essentially a business man,” it was later remarked,
10 pa rt 1
the interior of the state. An eleven-mile feeder channel branched off from
the canal toward Columbus, which was laid out as the capital of Ohio in
1812 due to its central location. Until the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincin-
nati Railroad reached the city around 1851, the canal remained the primary
means of reaching the capital.
For a time, Wilder was unable to find work in Columbus. “Too poor to
enjoy the society of people of the station in life which his father’s family
occupied, and too proud to associate with those of pecuniary circumstances
like his own,” it was noted, “he took up the study of mineralogy and geology
in order to have some occupation for his leisure moments. Of keen powers
of observation and marked quickness of the true inwardness of whatever he
read, the young man succeeded in thoroughly mastering the sciences which
he pursued.” Though this account ignored the fact that the young man had
studied mineralogy since boyhood, it did confirm that his scientific interests
were not simply a passing childhood fascination.
Gilded Age newspapers often printed colorful but apocryphal morality
stories about the childhoods of public figures; Wilder was no exception.
“Practically penniless,” the young apprentice was said to have at one point
found a coin on the street and, famished, raced to High Street (the main
north-south thoroughfare in Columbus) to buy a bun. Once there, however,
he determined that he could wait until he was even more starved before
parting with the coin. His persistence and frugality were highlighted by the
claim that “he kept that coin in his pocket through all of his eventful days.”
No evidence exists of Wilder sharing this anecdote himself.
He eventually secured an apprenticeship at the Ridgway Foundry (Co-
lumbus Foundry) at the corner of Broad and Water Streets on the west
bank of the Scioto River. The foundry was built in 1822 by New York na-
tive Joseph Ridgway, who advertised in the Columbus Gazette that he was
“preparing a large plough for the special use of breaking up new prairies
and barrens.” Operated initially by horse (as opposed to steam) power, the
foundry produced the cast-iron “Wood’s Plow,” touted as especially durable
for use in the tough fields of the Midwest. “When I came here in 1826,”
a competitor recalled, “Ridgway’s foundry was the only manufacturing
establishment in the place. For several years all the pig metal was hauled
from Granville furnace in a two-horse wagon, which made three trips a
week, aggregating about five tons in that time. This was principally used in
the manufacture of plows.”
In 1830, the firm converted to steam power, which enabled production of
a wide variety of products, including steam engines, stoves, firedogs (which
held logs in a fireplace), and gudgeons (flat, circular bearings). It was at the
12 pa rt 1
Ridgway Foundry that the young Wilder “learned the iron business from ore
beds to steel ingots.” He was taught the various phases of the trade, includ-
ing drafting (drawing images of a metal item to be manufactured), pattern
making (transforming the drawing into a mold, into which molten iron was
poured to create the item), and mill-wrighting (building mill machinery that
was correctly aligned so as to operate properly). Wilder later asserted that he
“served seven years apprenticeship at the trade of a millwright,” after which
he “acted as foreman of a machine shop for one year,” an apprenticeship
that would provide him with the skills and knowledge he would employ
throughout his business career.
Impressed with the young man’s skill and work ethic, Ridgway eventu-
ally offered Wilder a one-half share in the foundry (the other half offered to
Ridgway’s son). Though he was surely appreciative of the mark of respect
conveyed by the proposal, Wilder rejected the offer; he had set his sights
higher than managing another man’s business. His ambition would lead him
farther westward, where he would strike out on his own.7
From Ohio, Wilder’s travels carried him to the neighboring state of Indi-
ana. By 1850, railroads linked Columbus to Cincinnati; it was a small leap
across the state line to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on the Ohio River downriver
from Cincinnati. Settling there in 1857, he was involved in several business
enterprises, including a contracting partnership with William Probasco, a
New Jersey native millwright who had come west a decade earlier. The busi-
ness fell apart due to a difference in moral principles. Although he was by
no means prudish, Wilder “never drank, never gambled, [and] never used
tobacco or dissipated in any way.” Probasco did not share those attitudes,
and when the business obtained a contract to build a large distillery in
Petersburg, Kentucky, Wilder ended the partnership.8
After a brief spell in Lawrenceburg, Wilder in 1857 pulled up stakes
and moved to Greensburg, a small town midway between Cincinnati and
Indianapolis. After the Delaware Indians ceded the surrounding land to the
United States in the 1819 Treaty of St. Mary’s, Col. Thomas Hendricks, a
Pennsylvania veteran of the War of 1812 and early Indiana legislator, was
one of two men selected to survey the area—a plum job he likely obtained
because his brother, William, was the governor of the state at the time.
Hendricks donated one hundred acres on which to locate the town, with
the hope it would be selected as the seat of Decatur County. The name
“Greensburg” was selected by his wife, Elizabeth, in honor of her Pennsyl-
vania hometown.
By 1857, Greensburg was home to twenty-five hundred residents, two
steam flouring mills, ten dry goods stores, twelve groceries, two carriage
old nort h w est to old sou t h 13
and wagon shops, two drug stores, four hotels, and four churches. It also
boasted one of the finest courthouses in the state, a $100,000 Italianate
structure that had replaced the original courthouse, Hendricks’ log cabin.9
The advance of the western frontier was fostered by technological innova-
tion, particularly the spread of rail lines. Most Indianans initially clung to
the southern fringe of the state along the Ohio River, “the only important
navigable river flowing to the west in eastern North America,” which led
to important markets, primarily New Orleans. New infrastructure opened
the interior of the state (as when a road connecting the Ohio to Lake
Michigan was lain through Greensburg), and as railroads replaced rivers,
canals, and rudimentary roads, the population boomed. During the 1850s,
railroad mileage within Indiana increased from 212 to 2,163 miles; as a
result, the population swelled from 988,416 to 1,350,428, making it the
sixth most populous state in the nation. This growth benefited Greensburg
directly when the Lawrenceburg & Indianapolis Railroad reached the town
in 1853; the following year, the L&I was completed to Indianapolis, forg-
ing a vital link between the Indiana capital and Cincinnati (reached from
Lawrenceburg via the steamer Forrest Queen).10
With the L&I providing efficient, reliable access to commercial markets
within the state (and to the Ohio River, connecting the Old Northwest to
the South), Greensburg was a fitting choice for Wilder to focus his busi-
ness interests on. During the antebellum period, Indiana, with abundant
limestone deposits, ready access to extensive coal beds, and fields of timber
to be converted to charcoal (key ingredients for the manufacture of iron),
was a prime site for the construction of blast furnaces. A combination of
natural resources, transportation to markets, and available land provided
Wilder with a good chance for success in Greensburg.11
Wilder exhibited no caution or doubt as he laid down stakes in his new
hometown. As he would do time and again, he leaped immediately into the
Greensburg business community, prompting a later assessment that “perhaps
no one from that era left a more lasting legacy from his time in Decatur
County than John Wilder.” His most significant business involvement was
an iron foundry and machine works begun “on a modest scale” across the
tracks from the L&I depot, at the corner of Montfort Street and Railroad
Avenue. The business quickly boomed, employing nearly one hundred em-
ployees by 1861, such that “at the breaking out of the war [Wilder] was at
the head of and half owner of the largest establishment of its kind west of
the Ohio.”12 Wilder’s Machine Works sold equipment and erected mills in
six states, including Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Virginia, and
Kentucky, leading to plaudits that Wilder “built more mills than any man
14 pa rt 1
west of the Allegheny mountains.” The business made him a wealthy man.
In the census of July 1860, Wilder, a “30 year old Mill-wright from New
York,” was said to possess $6,900 in real estate and $25,600 in personal
estate—a substantial sum at the time, particularly for a young man.
Part of his success may be traced to innovations Wilder developed while
in Greensburg, chief among them the low head water turbine, which he
would patent three times over the years. The novel device was first patented
on October 18, 1859, as the “Improved Horizontal Water-Wheel” (Patent
No. 25,859). The design proved far more efficient than the typical over-
shot waterwheel, which was powered by water pouring down from above.
Wilder’s turbine was set on its side; water was introduced from the side,
funneling through the entire encased wheel, maximizing the water pressure
powering the mill. As a result of this and other innovations, he became a
nationally recognized hydraulics expert, such that “he was called to serve as
a witness or umpire in [disputes occurring in] distant parts of the country.”
Tireless and enthusiastic, Wilder leaped into various other enterprises
in Greensburg. He contributed funds to erect the three-story brick Wilder
Building on the courthouse square, at the corner of Washington and Franklin
Streets. It is said that the International Order of Odd Fellows contributed
funds for the top floor, while Wilder funded the first two. He maintained
an interest in the building well into the 1870s, long after he had left the
town. The Greensburg Woolen Mills, situated on land that he owned at the
corner of Main and Lincoln Streets, was built after he agreed to relocate the
channel of a creek on the property so that the lot would be large enough to
accommodate the mill. He also developed a residential area labeled “Wilder’s
Addition,” where he would erect his own substantial home.13
Through the success of his business endeavors, or simple good fortune,
within a year of his arrival in Greensburg, on May 18, 1858, Wilder married
twenty-year-old Martha Stewart, “a lady of great charm” whose father, Silas
Stewart, was “a prominent citizen and one of the founders of the town.”
The Stewart family was “banished from Scotland, in 1752, for following the
fortunes of Charles in the last Scottish rebellion,” before coming to Indiana.
In a photograph of the newly wedded couple, he holds her left hand, which
rests lightly upon his knee. The image, the earliest portrait of Wilder to
survive (and possibly the first taken), depicts him with the short chin-beard,
without sideburns or mustache, which he “sported since early manhood”
and which would serve as a distinguishing facial feature throughout his life.
By all accounts, the marriage was a first-rate match. “His genial and
hospitable nature was equaled by that of his remarkable wife,” a relative
recalled decades later. While Wilder seems to have left no personal diary
old nort h w est to old sou t h 15
A
t 2:30 p.m. on April 13, 1861, the thirty-six-hour bombardment of
Fort Sumter at the mouth of Charleston harbor in South Carolina
ended with the surrender of US Maj. Robert Anderson and his small
garrison. The American Civil War had begun.
Before Sumter, most in the State of Indiana had taken a temperate posi-
tion on the secession question. Among the states of the Old Northwest,
Indiana had the largest population of native Southerners—in 1860, sixty-five
thousand Kentucky natives lived in Indiana. There existed a natural affin-
ity toward the South in the Hoosier state, “the most southern of northern
states.” With its southern border on the Ohio River, Indiana was tied to
and reliant upon Southern markets, including New Orleans. Indianans were
therefore wary of a self-destructive war with the South.
Attitudes shifted immediately when news of Sumter reached Indianapolis.
War fever engulfed the state. Geography played a role, as Indiana, poised
north of the wavering border state of Kentucky, was thought to be particu-
larly vulnerable to Confederate invasion. “In every quarter, and especially in
the counties bordering on the Ohio River,” Indiana Adjutant Gen. W. H. H.
Terrell recounted, “the most serious fears were entertained that the State
would be invaded by rebel bands, known to be organizing in Kentucky,
the towns on the border plundered, and the country devastated.” This ap-
prehension, coupled with patriotic fervor, sparked a rush of enlistments.
On April 15, Abraham Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand
three-month volunteers. Though the Indiana contribution was fixed by the
Secretary of War at six regiments of infantry (4,683 men), in less than a week
twelve thousand were tendered by the state. When the US adjutant general
visited Indianapolis in October, he commented that the state had raised
and equipped a greater number of troops per capita than any other state.
old nort h w est to old sou t h 17
There was little question that the purpose of the war in the minds of
most Indianans was preservation of the Union—not subjugating the South
or emancipating Southern slaves. Although the 1850s had observed the rise
of the Republican Party throughout Indiana (the towns along the Ohio River
remaining the only solidly Democratic portion of the state), that affiliation
did not equate with an anti-slavery mindset. Racist sentiment was prevalent
in Indiana, and many residents, particularly those along the state’s southern
border, feared an influx of newly freed blacks competing for jobs, land, and
other benefits of citizenship (in violation of Article XIII of the 1851 state
constitution, which provided that “No negro or mulatto shall come into or
settle in the State”). As war loomed, a special session of the legislature in
early 1861 stressed that Indiana soldiers and taxes would not be used “in
any aggression upon the institution of slavery or any other Constitutional
right belonging to any of the states.” The Indianapolis Sentinel summed up
local sentiment when it declared that “the Union must and will be preserved
. . . [but] it can never be preserved by an anti-slavery policy. Secession and
abolition must go down together.”1
The citizens of Decatur County rallied to the flag following the fall of
Sumter. The county contributed twenty-five hundred soldiers to the war
effort, including six future Medal of Honor recipients, ten colonels, fifteen
regimental officers, and six brevetted brigadier generals—including John T.
Wilder.2
Successive generations of Wilders had distinguished themselves through
wartime service. Henry VIII reportedly gifted Nicholas Wilder the “beauti-
ful estate” of Parley Hall on the Thames in Berkshire as well as a crest with
the motto Courage conquers walls for “his manly conduct in attacking
and carrying the castle in which Richard III had taken refuge during the
[1485] battle of Bosworth.” Wilder’s great-grandfather Capt. Seth Wilder
commanded a company of minutemen in the American Revolution before
losing a leg at Bunker Hill; his sixteen-year-old son, Seth Wilder Jr., took his
place, serving as a mechanic in the militia through the battles of Saratoga,
Monmouth, and Stony Point, where he suffered a bayonet wound. In the
same conflict, Wilder’s maternal grandfather, Samuel Merritt, enlisted at age
sixteen to serve under a pre-treasonous Benedict Arnold. During the War of
1812, Wilder’s father raised a company of New York light horse, fighting
at Plattsburg and Sackett’s Harbor. Without question, Wilder came from
“revolutionary stock.”3
Anticipating the outbreak of hostilities, Wilder, who ventured far and
wide in association with his foundry business, recruited volunteers from
among those customers whom he thought might make good army officers.
18 pa rt 1
of West Point graduates could be found. There were a few veterans of the
Mexican War, and some volunteers were awarded commissions in return for
their recruiting efforts throughout the state. Republican governor Oliver P.
Morton appointed both Republicans and Democrats to military posts,
regardless of political affiliation (although some complained that he was
simply surrounding himself with lackeys devoted to him); for example, the
brigadier-general commanding Indiana’s new regiments was Col. Joseph J.
Reynolds, a Lafayette grocer who had not been a Morton supporter but
who had served in the army after graduating from West Point.
Wilder, a prewar Democrat, was commissioned a lieutenant-colonel by
Morton on June 4, bypassing the rank of major. His recruiting efforts may
have played a role in his speedy rise through the ranks—in fact, he was of-
fered the opportunity to leap forward to the rank of colonel but declined, as
he “did not think himself fit for such a high position with so little experience
in, or knowledge of, military affairs.” Goshen lawyer and railroad promoter
(and West Point graduate) Milo S. Hascall was instead commissioned colonel
of the 17 IN; George Gorman, a printer from Owensville who had served
in the Mexican War, assumed the post of major. When the Secretary of War
called for four regiments to increase their commitment from a single year to
three years or the duration of the war to enable more ambitious campaigns
by Union commanders, the 17 IN readily volunteered.6
Though nominally part of the rebel state of Virginia (the state of West Vir-
ginia would not be carved out until June 1863), the Unionist counties of
western Virginia held fierce antisecession sentiments. In the early months
of the rebellion, Union forces were dispatched to the region to assuage the
fears of local Unionists and protect the adjacent states of Ohio and Penn-
sylvania from a Southern invasion. Key objectives included the Staunton-
Parkersburg Pike (linking the rich Shenandoah Valley to Parkersburg on
the Ohio River) and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which connected the
western and eastern theaters of the war. Union control of western Virginia
would also open the way to the Great Valley of Virginia and East Tennessee.
On July 1, 1861, the 17 IN and its sister regiments boarded trains in
Indianapolis destined for Parkersburg. Before departing Camp Morton,
Wilder joined a group of 17 IN officers to contribute funds to purchase a
memorial sword and sash for Adj. Gen. Lazarus Noble, a former business
partner of Governor Morton who served as the principal military advisor
20 pa rt 1
to the State of Indiana at the start of the war. The politically savvy Wilder,
who appears to have drafted the pact and may have conceived the plan,
donated five dollars himself.7
Passing through the counties of southeast Indiana, the green troops were
treated to “one continued ovation” by cheering crowds expecting a swift,
decisive end to the Southern revolt. After a three-day layover in Cincinnati,
on July 5 they detrained at Parkersburg and set off on a twenty-three-mile
march through a steady rain to the town of Elizabeth, Virginia. Along the
way, it was reported to readers back in Indiana that Wilder and Hascall
“are quite energetic and do all they can for the welfare, safety and comfort
of the men under their charge.”
After a two-day respite, Wilder was instructed to take 380 men twenty-
six miles south to Spencer to determine whether rebels held the town and,
if so, drive them out. The assignment was a minor piece of a broad Union
effort to secure two key mountain passes deemed by Confederates to be
“the gates to the northwestern country.” “See to it that your men commit no
depredations upon the persons or property of . . . citizens,” Hascall counseled
his eager subordinate; it was critical in the early stages of the conflict that
nothing be done to risk alienating the local population and causing them
to shift their allegiances to the Confederacy.
Nearing Spencer, Wilder split his force, taking 160 men on a laborious
march over the mountains to entrap the several hundred rebel troops sus-
pected to be in the town. After sporadic clashes over nine miles of broken
terrain, they burst into Spencer to find that the Confederates had fled. “The
villains did not dare to fight us fairly, but kept in the brush and on the hills,”
a scuffle-flushed Wilder wrote to Martha. “The route was very difficult, as
the road wound through ravines and over mountains and around points
where they would lay in wait for us, but we kept flanking parties out ahead
that came in behind them when they would run to some other point.” They
did kill one rebel, wounding another and capturing five prisoners and three
horses, suffering a single casualty shot through the thigh. Though it was a
largely bloodless skirmish, Wilder was exhilarated; as his men set up camp
on the courthouse lawn, he claimed a “first rate Quarters” in a lawyer’s
office in the courthouse.8
Hascall dispatched troops, arms, and supplies to bolster Wilder, who was
expecting a counterattack. “We are farther out in their country than any
other party and if they make any stand at all, we will probably have a fight
soon,” the brash lieutenant-colonel informed his wife. “They have at least
three times our number within 18 miles of us, but if they attack us I think we
can whip them.” No attack developed. Dislodged from their entrenchments
old nort h w est to old sou t h 21
Wilder wrote home on September 26, proclaiming the recent events “such
a busy exciting time” and explaining that, despite “desperate odds” pitting
six thousand federal troops against twenty-six rebel regiments, “we whipped
them with about 600 men thrown out as Skirmishers . . . who fought like
tigers.” He was unimpressed by the “cowardise” [sic] of the rebels, who
had stalled and fallen back in the face of a smaller Union force. “They had
brought 80 empty wagons with them to haul away our stores,” he wrote.
“They [instead] used them to haul off their wounded.”13
A notable episode occurred on September 13 when Lee sent out a small
party to reconnoiter the Union right at Elkwater, probing for any weakness
that might be exploited by a renewed attack. The detail included his son,
Maj. W. H. F. (Rooney) Lee, and Col. John Augustine Washington, a nephew
and topographical engineer who served as Lee’s chief of staff.14
Sgt. J. J. Weiler (17 IN) and ten men were meanwhile scouting the flank
of the mountain in response to reports that rebel troops had been spotted in
the area. Halfway up a foggy ridge, they encountered three men on horse-
back “evidently scouting around to see what could be seen.” As the rebels
wheeled to escape, Weiler shouted to his men, “who were good shots,” to
“take the middle one.” Struck three times in the back, Washington fell from
his horse. Rooney Lee, his horse shot, scrambled onto Washington’s and fled.
Mortally wounded, Washington asked the clustering bluecoats for water,
but by the time a cupful was retrieved from a nearby stream he was dead.
His personal items were claimed as souvenirs, including his sword, two
revolvers, a field glass, one hundred-fifty dollars, and “a remarkable accurate
map of the federal camp.” At the site of the ambush, a bitter inscription
was carved: “Under this tree, on the 13th of Sept, 1861 fell Col. John A.
Washington, the degenerate descendent of the Father of his Country.”
Lee soon learned of the confrontation, but not the result. “His
[Washington’s] zeal for the cause to which he had devoted himself carried
him, I fear, too far,” he worried in a note to the governor of Virginia. If
Washington had been killed, Lee wrote in a message sent across the lines
on September 14, “I request that you shall deliver to me his dead body.”
The flag of truce carrying this inquiry was met by an ambulance bearing
Washington’s body to the rebel camp. A subsequent account described
Wilder with a detail of soldiers delivering the body to the Confederate
general. “Gen. Lee’s kindly eyes filled with tears of gratitude, mingled with
those of grief,” it was said, “for he was most grateful for the courtesy ex-
tended by the enemy.” Weiler, however, did not mention Wilder in his own
reminiscence, stating that he drove the ambulance while Hascall and Adj.
Edward Kerstetter rode ahead with a flag of truce.
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me and another officer as we were talking, and stuck in the hillside behind
us.” Newspapers described soldiers knocked from their feet as shells struck
the hillside, “fortunately without injury, save a few scratches,” and a four-
pound ball passing within a few inches of George Gorman, “causing his
horse to crouch nearly to the earth” as the shell skimmed across Gorman’s
back. More men would have been injured, Wilder estimated, but for the
rebels “forgetting to cut the fuses” on their shells, preventing them from
exploding in the federal ranks.
A lull followed the artillery barrage, after which Reynolds ordered his
forces forward to test the rebel defenses. Crossing the Greenbrier, the 17
IN would assist the attempt to turn the rebel left. “I formed the regiment
and told them that any man who was not willing to storm the enemy’s bat-
teries with me, and follow wherever I led the way, could fall out of ranks,”
Wilder recounted. “Not a man stirred or spoke. I could see them clutch their
muskets tighter and straighten a little taller, and when I gave the order to
advance double-quick, every man started off with a promptness and will
that convinced me they would follow me to Mobile if I led the way.”
Moving forward “under a perfect rain of canister, shot and shell,” the 17
IN came upon a hesitant, halted 25 OH infantry. In his battle report, Lieut.
Col. William P. Richardson (25 OH) wrote that an animated Wilder “asked
me why I did not move forward.” Responding that he was “waiting for the
commencement of the charge,” Richardson was told that “I was mistaken;
that your [Reynolds’] order was that I should proceed to the enemy’s right;
and that if I did not immediately proceed he would occupy my place.”
Either inspired or intimidated by Wilder’s bold directive, Richardson “at
once complied with the demand” and compelled his men to press forward
toward the rebel earthworks. For his part, Wilder wrote of the encounter
only that “we passed the Ohio Regiments who were halting and wavering.”
Wilder shifted to the left to steady the 7 IN, “whose men had scattered
through the woods, recoiling from the iron hail.” After a half hour standing
“steady as mile-posts” while waiting for orders, they were drawn back. The
attack failed to carry the rebel works. “We distinctly saw heavy reinforce-
ments of infantry and artillery arrive while we were in front of the works,”
Reynolds explained; after almost five hours of faltering action, he called off
the attack. “You are the only regiment in order,” he advised Wilder. “Can
you cover those batteries and bring them off the field?” The 17 IN covered
the withdrawal of the federal guns and “brought them safely into camp.”
“Rapidly and in disorder they returned into the turnpike,” Jackson
gloated, “and soon thereafter the entire force of the enemy—artillery, in-
fantry, and cavalry—retreated in confusion along the road and adjacent
26 pa rt 1
fields.” Reynolds, on the other hand, claimed that he had met his objective,
reporting that “after having fully and successfully accomplished the object of
the expedition [we] retired leisurely and in good order to Cheat Mountain.”
The battle at Greenbrier River was indecisive. The official Union tally was
eight killed and thirty-five wounded; the Confederates suffered six killed,
thirty-three wounded, and thirteen missing. Wilder claimed that his regiment
alone killed thirty-eight Confederates. The 17 IN suffered three wounded
and one killed—Pvt. E. T. Dukes, who was “cut in two by a cannon ball.”
The federal dead were buried at Cheat Mountain Summit.17
The thrill of battle was soon replaced by the dullness of camp life. In
October, Co. A of the 17 IN was peeled off and reassigned to the artillery
service (26 IN). Wilder, however, would stay with regiment in western Vir-
ginia. Although his health was “getting first rate again,” he was unenthused
by the prospect of wintering in the mountains. “I liked this country as well
as any, but to lay here all winter is rather a dreary prospect,” he grumbled
in a letter home on October 25.18
With winter looming, rebel troops were drawn off to be deployed at
other needed points, and the focus of the war effort shifted from western
Virginia to the Potomac in the eastern theater and Tennessee and Kentucky
in the west. “We have been partially promised a campaign in Ky. this winter,”
Wilder informed Martha, “and earnestly hope we will be ordered there.”
On November 9, the Department of the Ohio was reorganized to include
the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee, and Kentucky (east of
the Cumberland River). Assigned to command was Brig. Gen. Don Carlos
Buell, a forty-three-year-old career army officer who had spent part of his
childhood in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and had been commissioned to West
Point from that state. Ten days later, before western Virginia could be hit
by harsh winter weather, the 17 IN was directed to report to Louisville; the
regiment would remain in the western theater for the remainder of the war.19
Three
D
uring the war, Indiana troops fought in 308 engagements in seven-
teen states, the great majority in the western theater. In the winter
of 1861–1862, federal manpower in the west was concentrated in
Kentucky, “an area about which there was particular concern because of its
proximity [to Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois].” Reassigned to the Bluegrass State,
on November 30 the 17 IN joined the Fifteenth Brigade (under Col. Milo S.
Hascall) of the Fourth Division (led by a six-foot two-inch, three-hundred-
pound naval veteran, the profane and quarrelsome Maj. Gen. William “Bull”
Nelson) of Buell’s Army of the Ohio. The regiment camped briefly at the old
Oakland Race Course before moving into winter quarters near Hodgenville,
where it would remain for two months. On New Year’s Day 1862, Wilder,
who denigrated Camp Wyckliffe as “the unhealthiest camp I have ever seen,”
contracted pneumonia; he was ill for several weeks, as were others in the
regiment, which was “about half fit for duty.”1
In February, the brigade was reassigned to the Sixth Division of the Army
of the Ohio, “raw troops” commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Wood, a
thirty-nine-year-old Kentuckian and career soldier. “All like the change, very
much,” Wilder informed “Pet.”
When Buell assumed command, the Confederate line extended across
southern Kentucky, from the Mississippi to the Cumberland Gap. Side-
stepping the formidable rebel defenses at Columbus, Kentucky, the Union
high command determined to plunge south along the Tennessee and Cum-
berland Rivers to the Mississippi River Valley. The capture of Forts Henry
and Donelson in February 1862 opened the door to the rebel-held capital
of Tennessee. “If you can occupy Nashville,” McClellan urged Buell from
Washington, “it will end the war in Tennessee.”
28 pa rt 1
Two days after the fall of Fort Donelson (February 18), therefore,
Hascall’s brigade was ordered to march on Nashville. Issued seven days’ ra-
tions and one hundred rounds of ammunition, they slogged ten miles through
what Wilder called “one of the worst storms you ever saw” to Munfordville,
a key river crossing along the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. “You may
expect to hear a good account of the 17th if the rebels dont run as usual, or
surrender without much of a fight,” Wilder wrote to Martha on February 23.
Although he struggled under the lingering effects of his recent illness, the
prospect of battle had fortified him somewhat. “Hope we will get through in
time to plant the Old flag on the dome of the Capitol of Tennesee [sic],” he
reflected. “Think I would be willing to lose an arm for the privilege of doing
it myself.” He was confident that the end of the war was in sight. “Think the
rebellion is about played out,” he predicted, “and we will get home with the
proud conciousness of having been among the first to volunteer in defence
of our country, and of having been successful in its defence.”2
Wilder’s medical issues—possibly a recurrence of his Virginia ailment—
persisted, as noted on March 26 by Samuel E. Munford, surgeon for the
17 IN, who recommended that the patient “remain quiet for some time”
due to dysentery and hemorrhaging of the bowels, which had reappeared
with “renewed severity.” This notion was set aside when Wilder, described
by the Evansville Journal as “a worthy and efficient officer,” was promoted
to colonel on March 29. His Model 1850 foot officer’s sword, upon which
had been scrolled “Capt. Of Wilder’s Battery April, 1861,” was sent home
for “Col. 17th Ind. Vols. 1862” to be added to the scabbard.3
By March, Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee had driven south to
take possession of Pittsburgh Landing along the Tennessee River, twenty-
two miles north of the strategic rail crossroads of Corinth, Mississippi.
Albert Sidney Johnston (CSA) sought to take advantage of Grant’s isolated
position by attacking from Corinth. Sensing the danger, Henry Halleck, in
overall command of the western theater, ordered Buell to press his Army of
the Ohio to Pittsburgh Landing to support Grant. On March 29, the 17 IN
raced south from Nashville, anxious not to miss the fight. Along the ten-day
journey, though, the regiment was diverted to Lawrenceburg, Tennessee,
“to disperse a gang of rebels,” wounding two “secesh Cavalry” and seizing
large stores of bacon and other supplies.
On the morning of April 6, Johnston surprised Grant, driving the shocked
bluecoats to the Tennessee River; the following day, bolstered by Buell’s
reinforcements, Grant turned the tide, forcing the rebels to fall back in
confusion. The battle of Shiloh was a revelation—the bloodiest day in U.S.
history, with 13,047 federal and 10,699 rebel casualties. The 17 IN, how-
old nort h w est to old sou t h 29
ever, was not among the fourteen Indiana regiments that saw action on the
bloody field—the exhausted Hoosiers arrived the day after the battle had
ended. “I telegraphed you immediately after the great battle to let you know
there was nothing the matter with us,” a slightly disappointed Wilder wrote
home on April 16. “The rebels are very much demoralized,” he concluded.
“I think their cause is nearly used up, at least their army is.”4
In Virginia, Milo S. Hascall had urged Wilder to restrain his men from
plundering the countryside. Whether by 1862 soldiers had become more
hard-boiled or the admonition fell flat when the property belonged to reb-
els, by the spring of 1862 Wilder himself was shipping home souvenirs of
the war, a few of which became subjects of no small intrigue. An April 3
letter from brother-in-law Daniel Stewart pleaded that “special U.S. Detec-
tives are here, seizing all property that now belongs or has belonged to the
Government . . . They have accurate descriptions of every horse that has
come into this county, whether taken in Western Virginia or Missouri.”
George Anderson, an associate to whom Wilder had presented a gray stal-
lion, asked him to explain in writing “all you know about the Horse, how
he was procured and how you got possession of him.” Wilder’s father-in-
law, moreover, was said to feel “a little uneasy in reference to a certain little
grey colt in his possession[,] as the detectives are on the scent of it.” No
further correspondence discusses the fate of the suspect horseflesh shipped
home by Wilder, but it is evident that the wartime chaos provided him the
opportunity to make personal gifts of government property.5
After the setback at Shiloh, the Confederates fell back to Corinth, “the
great rallying point in the central South.” The Tishomingo County town sat
at the intersection of two critical railroads: the Memphis & Charleston, the
key east-west corridor of the Confederacy, connecting the Mississippi to
the East Coast; and the Baltimore & Ohio, striking north from the Gulf of
Mexico to Columbus, Kentucky. Corinth was a key strategic objective. As
Halleck wrote to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton on May 25, “Rich-
mond and Corinth are now the great strategical points of war, and our
success at these points should be insured at all hazards.”
Rising to command after the death of Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh,
P. G. T. Beauregard sought to render Corinth unassailable. A seven-mile line
of fortifications, the “Beauregard Line,” was strung along the ridgelines north
and east of the town; beyond lay marshy ground that would complicate
a federal offensive. Five crescent-shaped works manned with siege guns
covered the roads leading to the town. Reinforcements poured in from the
south and west, and by the end of April seventy-thousand Confederates
were stationed in and around Corinth.
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