CAMP OF THE 9TH INDIANA CAVALRY,
NEAR FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE, DECEMBER 18, 1864.
It is a lamentable fact, that, for some reason as yet ungiven, the
cavalry arm of our service has not, until quite recently, been
distinguished for any special efficiency. Its connection, however, with
the late brilliant victories in the Shenandoah Valley, have won for it
at least the respect of the country, and caused the withdrawal of Major
General Hooker's standing offer of twenty dollars for a dead cavalryman
of the Potomac Army. In the West this branch of the army, as your
readers are aware, has been organized into the corps of the Military
Division of the Mississippi, under command of Brevet Major General
Wilson, whose dash and splendid abilities, while eminently fitting him
for the responsible position he holds, have fully warranted his
promotion from Lieutenant Colonel to his present rank. The late complete
successes of his command are evinced in those sure and substantial
evidences of victory--prisoners, battle-flags and guns; and in this
department no corps can show more of them than the cavalry.
While all the troops in this command have behaved with credit to
themselves and honor to the cause in which they fight, for pluck,
coolness and promptness in the hour that tests men's courage, among all
the regiments taking part in the late move in front of Nashville, the
9th Indiana Cavalry of brigadier General Hammond's brigade, is worthy of
special and honorable mention, and, particularly, its splendid charge
upon the works and forces of the enemy at Franklin yesterday--an exploit
unsurpassed by anything written of the war, and compared to which in
point of success, Major Zagonyi's celebrated charge at Springfield,
which created such a sensation at the beginning of the war, and
interested the principal artists of the country in the face of a homely
but ordinary man, becomes tame and unimportant. Some five hundred yards,
over undulating grounds, made miry by recent rains, from the advance,
(9th Indiana Cavalry, Colonel George W. Jackson commanding), of
Hammond's brigade, and upon the north side of Big Harpeth river was a
section of a battery, supported by two regiments of infantry, strongly
entrenched behind abatis and rifle-pits; in front of them a regiment of
cavalry drawn up to receive a charge. On the south side of the river
four guns were so planted as to enfilade the road. Filing and forming to
the right and left of the road, with a coolness, which seemed utterly
regardless of the terrible accuracy with which the rebel guns were
aimed, while their shells were mangling horses and their riders, the men
seated themselves more firmly in their saddles, tightened the reins, and
"looked on sky and tree and plain" as sights they might never see again.
Led in person by Colonel Jackson, in a line which would have awakened
the admiration of Old Hardee himself, the 9th, at a walk, advanced to
victory--many of them, alas, to death. From a walk to a trot, from a
trot to a gallop, the short distance of five hundred yards was soon
traversed, and the Hoosier boys measured arms with the chivalry from
Georgia, Alabama and Texas. Overwhelmed by the celerity and boldness of
the movement, many of the enemy were sabered and captured before they
had fairly entered into the spirit of the fight. Before the impetuous
Jackson three men in gray fell in less time than it takes now to tell
it. A little Sergeant from Company K, George Leslie, with no weapon but
his sabre, took from their gun a Lieutenant and artilleryman.
To describe a real cavalry charge, however, where sabres are crossed and
skulls are cleaved, as was the case at Franklin on the 17th inst., and
do it justice, is impossible. One may tell how hundreds of well-drilled,
well-mounted men, with clean blades, seen through the clear morning air,
moving like machinery, is a sight not often seen, and a splendid
embodiment or representation of power, and in the rush of a charge may
liken it to the tornado, that must sweep the earth unless averted. This
may be said, but a hundred instances of individual prowess must
necessarily be overlooked. In fifteen minutes the field was won. Two
stands of colors, two guns and 250 prisoners were the spoils of victory.
The remainder of the enemy, in confusion, fled through Franklin, leaving
it to be taken with near 2,000 of their wounded, without further
fighting. This, with 400 men, for the other regiments, comprising the
brigade, were not formed until the enemy had been driven across the
river. Prisoners said the cavalry had never acted so before--that they
were not even given time to fight, before they were whipped, and, even
after surrendering, had difficulty in escaping the hoofs of the horses.
Rebel officers accounted for the desperate and determined fighting of
our men, by saying they had been given whisky and gun-powder. The latter
part of the statement was strictly true. A successful cavalry
charge--the capture of stands of colors, guns and prisoners, is a new
episode in the great rebellion. But the faithful historian in the annals
of the heroes and heroic deeds of the war, and glowing tributes to the
devotion of patriot soldiers, will find no theme more worthy the
beauties of our Saxon tongue, than the charge of the 9th Indiana Cavalry
at Franklin.