24th Wisconsin Infantry at Franklin

For fun, I like to write brief historical treatments. The one below deals with the 24th Wisconsin during the battle for Franklin in November of 1864. I wrote this so when I went to the Carter House, I could sit on the porch and read it. I did and it worked.

NOTE: The Carter House is a great Civil War tour stop. Sure its surrounded by modern life, but where else can you see the physical proof of a horrific battle as when you look on the scarred walls of the Carter property.
WEBSITE RELATED TO CARTER HOUSE http://www.carter-house.org/

THE 24th
In August 1862 over 1,000 men from Milwaukee boarded trains for the South, the war. Above their numbers flew a brand new flag bearing the number 24. History will forever know these men as the 24th Wisconsin Infantry, or the Milwaukee regiment.
November 30th 1864, at about 2:30, barely one hundred Wisconsin are the rear guard holding back Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry as General Schofield’s federal army rushes to Franklin Tennessee. The 24th and their brigade led by Emerson Opdycke finally arrives at the outer defensive works encasing Franklin. Passing through the 3-5 foot breastworks, the brigade is ordered to halt and support the outer defensive position held by General Wagner. Wagner’s line sits over a half mile from the main works. Opdycke would have no part of it. He refused the order, stating that his brigade had been without sleep or food for two days. The 24th, and Opdycke, move past the brick house and farm buildings of Fountain Branch Carter, where a second line of breastworks lay, headlog just above the dirt.
Finally, the Milwaukee men…stack their Enfield rifled-muskets…pull their leathers off and drop to the ground. Dry mouths wait as men tear boards from the Carter buildings to build fires. Soon the sound of salt pork frying and men making their first meal in days fills the air near the Carter home. . Around 4:00, an artillery battery fires. Return fire from Confederate guns whistle past the Badger boys. John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee; 45,000 tired, beaten men are about to participate in an attack bigger than Pickett’s Charge and much more deadly.
Corporal Cooley, of the 24th rises up from his coffee as he and his mates hear the roar of rifle fire not fifty yards to their front. Cooley has turned 29 this day. He forgets about his birthday. He has much more pressing concerns. Two Confederate corps, almost 45,000 men are conducting a charge larger and more bloody than Pickett’s famous charge. In moments
Tom Ford States, “Our coffee was just beginning to boil and our sowbelly and crackers frying, when the rebels charged and drove our men out and upon us.” Stacks of rifles toppled and frying pans tipped as the retreating union men tried to escape the assault. “Everyone of us was as eh could be after losing his nearly cooked dinner, and we felt as if we would whip the entire rebel army”(Beaudot, 335). The shrill voice of the 24th Colonel ordered, “Fall in, Twenty-fourth. Take arms. Charge. Give um hell boys. Give um hell, give um hell twenty fourth”(Beaudot, 336).
“ I saw…Colonel McArthur sobering his way toward a Confederate flag. His horse was shot from under him, a bullet ripped open his right shoulder.” (Langsdorn, 34).
A Confederate major holds the flag as McArthur approaches. He shoots the Wisconsin officer in the breast. Staggered by the force of the shot, McArthur drives his sword through the rebel officer. Falling the major gets one more shot off, hitting McArthur in the knee. Laying on the ground another minie ball enters his shoulder. He survives his wounds. And later calls Douglas MacArthur, son.
The 100 men from Wisconsin rush in like furies, bayoneting and clubbing any man in a gray uniform. Driving the attackers to the opposite side of the breastworks, A.J. Jones tells,” we found ourselves in the rear of the Carter house. As we filled around the house, the captain seeing that the works were full, ordered us into the house, telling us to shoot out of the windows, of which there were two on the side next to the enemy. The house was nearly full before our company filed in, and for six hours we were in what might be called a hellhole. Every few moments some one would be hit and carried to the rear of the house. The room soon filled with powder smoke to such an extent that it was difficult to breathe” (Langsdorn, 39).
Having driven the survivors of Strahl’s and other brigades to the opposite side of the works, the Wisconsin men thrust bayonets through the aperture, fire muskets into the boy faces of Hood’s army with furious repetition. Color Sergeant Ed Blake plants the 24th colors on the breastworks where rebel fire shatters the staff. Blake strips the flag from its staff and opening his fatigue coat wraps the stained banner around his chest. Grabbing a musket he joins the shooters.
Christian Bessenger of Wauwatosa doubles over from a groin wound while on the porch, a lone federal used the doorframe of the house as personal barricade. Making himself as narrow as possible, he aims and fires his musket. In loading, his ramrod hits the top of the doorframe, leaving tulip marks in the wood. Finally having enough he pushes on the locked door imploring those on the inside to let him in. A still locked door proves his only response. Taking the butt of his musket the young federal bashes in the lower portion of the door finishing the fight inside the house. Later that week Fountain Branch would tack up a repair that still covers the hole made by one scared federal soldier.
In one of the many enemy surges Captain Philbrook sees an Irishman from Company D dodging the bullets as they came near. Angry the captain responds, “Mike, quit dodging your head there. Stand up and take it like a man.” Just then a bullet enters the captain’s mouth. The Irishman continues dodging and survives the day and the war.
Battle continues until around 11:00 that night when the Wisconsin men and the rest of Schofield’s army begin their retreat to Nashville, 19 miles away. Many in the regiment have fired near 300 rounds. Hand to hand fighting prevailed as clubbing and bayoneting reigned supreme. As the tired blue masses left Franklin, they also left the bodies of Bryon Covalt a sergeant in Company K, Company C Corporal Dietrich Leubben, Captain Alvah Philbrook of Company D and John Zahl, sergeant Company C. 17 wounded and 7 missing totaling 28 out of the 100 men that entered Franklin. 7,000 Confederate casualties, six dead rebel generals, and 2,300 federal casualties tallied the total butcher’s bill for November 30th 1864.
Years later, the veterans of the Battle of Franklin remembered that day as the hardest fighting of their war.

SOURCES
Beaudot, William. The 24th Wisconsin in the Civil War: The Biography of a
Regiment. Mechanicville: Stackpole Books, 2003.
Logsdon, David. Eyewitness at the Battle of Franklin. Nashville: Kettle Mills Press,
1988.
Original letters held in the Wisconsin Veteran’s Museum. 2004.