A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A.

by George Little; James Robert Maxwell

By the 15th (the day of the battle) we had manerals so long. At my gun we had lost private Horton and Corporal Gunner Ed. King. Hilen L. Rosser at another gun had part of his head shot away. That night as I was pouring some water for Lumsden to wash, he was picking something out of his beard, and said: "Maxwell, that is part of Rosser's brains", out of the 40 men that we had at guns, we had only 22 left, balance having been killed or captured. A Federal officer rode around Lieut. A. C. Hargrove and demanded his surrender, and cut down at his head with his sabre. Hargrove caught the blow on his arm, but it beat down his arm to his head enough to "hurt like thunder", as Hargrove expressed it.

Hargrove grabbed a loose tree branch and struck at Yank's horse which about that time got a bullet from our infantry line and ran away from Hargrove, so that he made it to our new line.

That night we buried Horton near the Franklin pike, where we bivouaced. I cut his name on a head board, and Command to which he belonged.

A detail was sent to the house that had been used as a hospital to bring his body. A long, tall, red-headed private, John Walker, was one of that detail. He had been carrying a great long navy revolver for months for use in such circumstances. When asked how many times he shot it. He laughed and said it was as much as he could do to persuade himself that he was able to get out with it.

It was about 12 o'clock that Capt. Lumsden sent orderly Sergeant J. Mack Shivers on horseback to report to General Stewart that all Confederate infantry had been driven into the fallen timber at our front, and that it was evident the enemy would soon rush us with a charge. That we could leave the guns and get away with all the men.

Shivers returned with the orders, "Tell Captain Lumsden it is necessary to hold the enemy in check to the last minute regardless of losses." This was about 12:30 p.m. They overwhelmed us about 2 p.m.

So that Lumsden's Battery alone had stopped the advance of A. J. Smith's federal Corps for 3 hours during which Confederate troops had been moved from right wing to a new line behind the Hillsboro pike several hundred yards in our rear, which was all important, to the Confederates.

Moving southward from Nashville battlefield, with the remnant of Hood's army, Lumsden's battery was now but a name for a command of men without arms, with a quota of horses, wagons for commissary and quartermaster's supplies with their drivers, one half its cannoneers having been lost at Nashville, killed wounded and prisoners.

A relation of a few happenings along this dreary march in midwinter the roads, a loblolly of sleet and turnpike dust and grit, may serve to show how Lumsden and his officers maintained discipline without resort to severe or degrading punishment for lapses from duty. Like all volunteer commands, it had in its ranks men from all conditions of life and of various degrees of education from the collegiate down to the illiterate man who could not write his own name. But perhaps one half of the enlisted men or privates were graduates and had started into professional life or had left college to give their services to their country before the end of the university terms. They were gentlemen, and imbued generally with the high sense of honor and devotion to duty usual among boys and men in such social standing. They gave the general tone to the command and the officers were careful to do all possible to keep its moral tone and to impose no punishment that would lower the culprit in his own estimation. They did punish by imposing extra duties for violation of military rules, but always the individual punished as well as all his comrades were perfectly conscious that the punishment was deserved, and therefore necessary. For instance a private had been grumbling for several weeks to his sergeant about putting him on details so often, ignoring the fact that the numerous jobs to be attended to, brought around often to each man, his time to go on detail. One morning this private said something to the sergeant who was at the time cutting up the detachment's cooked beef into equal portions, that passed the sergeant's patience. He laid down his knife, got up and faced the man, with the remark: "I've stood your jaw as long as I intend to", and delivered him a blow with his fist between the eyes. Of course things were lively for a while until Lt. Hargrove ran up interfered forcibly between the combatants and ordered them back to the duties on hand. Some nights after the sergeant was standing by the Captain's fire and no one was near, but Capt. Lumsden, who said: "What was the matter with you and ——, the other morning?" "Nothing much, Captain, except he had been grumbling and fussing for some time, whenever his time came to be detailed on a job, and just got so I could not stand it any longer, and determined to put a stop to it." "Well, you've no right to strike any of these men with your fist. If a man is insubordinate, you have a right to shoot him, but not to strike him with your fist." The sergeant laughed and replied: "But it was not bad enough for that, and of course I was not going to shoot him, but I don't think he will need any more." There was never anything more said about it, and the soldier quit grumbling and did his part thereafter, as well as anyone to the end of the war. Another case in point, just after leaving Nashville, a non-commissioned officer had been affected with boils, so that he could not ride horseback for a few days, and it was against orders to ride in the wagons. His boots were split at the counters, the soles were tied to the uppers by strings and he had no socks. The turnpike gritty freezing slush worked into his feet until he could hardly hobble, so he would watch his chance, when no officers eye was on him, and crawl into a wagon and there stay until camp was reached at night when he would crawl out. One night, when he crawled out in a drizzling cold rain, and finding a fire in an old barn on the opposite side of the road, with soldiers of another command, he remained there in comparative comfort all night, and after daylight turned up at the officers fire. Lieut. A. C. Hargrove said to him: "Where were you last night, Sir, after we went into camp?" "I slept in that barn across the road." "Well, we had to send a detail with horses back to the pontoon train, and I wanted to send you in charge of it, but no one could find you anywhere. You have been straggling ever since we left Nashville, and not attending to your duties." "Lieutenant, I've not been straggling, as you think I have. Look at my feet, I could not walk and keep up. I had boils so that I could not ride my horse. The only way I could keep up was to steal rides in a wagon during the day, and that's what I have been doing." "Well, you have not been excused by the surgeon." "No, Sir, I did not want to be sent away from the command." When the Lieut. walked off, the Capt. said: "I'll tell you what's the matter with you. You've got out of heart. You've lost all hope of our winning this fight. It does look black. But the thing for you and me and all the balance of us to do, is to just stand it out to the end. It can't last much longer. That is true. But when it is done, we all of us want to be conscious that we have done our duty from start to finish." "Captain, I've always done all I was able to do, and expect to, until the end comes." "That is true and, we'll hold out to the end."

That was Lumsden's way of controlling his men. He made them feel as if he knew that it was their determination to do their full duty, and the whole tone of the battery was kept up to the standard by the idea. The high standard of its personale was the result not of fear or compulsion, but of individual personal patriotism.