• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

B Y DAVID T. D IXON nion Brigadier Generals ease, as Kirk’s remnants had already scat- Willich and his comrades were forced to Edmund Kirk and August tered them. The Confederates prepared sign a parole of honor, promising not to UWillich hardly suspected the to vanquish the Forty-Ninth Ohio, while fight the Confederates until exchanged. degree of danger they faced at dawn on Rains and his Georgia, North Carolina Their day of deliverance would be much December 31, 1862, north of the Stones and Tennessee troops gained the rear. further in the future than they anticipated. River near the town of Murfreesboro, The Eighty-Ninth Illinois vanished, leav- August Willich was the prize capture Tennessee. Two divisions of rebel soldiers ing only the Fifteenth Ohio to make a by Confederates at the Battle of Stones under the commands of Major Generals brief, futile stand before they, too, took River. A career officer in the Prussian Patrick R. Cleburne and John P. to their heels and skedaddled. army, he had joined ill-fated rebellions in McCown had silently assembled directly Disaster unfolded. All sense of organ- Germany in 1848 and 1849 against his I think, boys, I am done for! Taken captive, a Prussian general in Union blue left a memorable account of his time in Civil War Georgia. opposite Kirk and Willich on the ization disintegrated. Union soldiers ran extreme right wing of Major General for their lives.4 William Starke Rosecrans’s 42,000-man August Willich heard the commotion Army of the Cumberland, well posi- and leapt onto his horse, desperate to tioned to strike the flank of the unwary rejoin his command.5 Amid the smoke soldiers in blue. and confusion, he galloped directly into While Union soldiers enjoyed break- McNair’s Arkansans, who were mopping fast, the Confederates primed their up what was left of Kirk’s broken brigade. troops with a few swigs of whisky and James Stone, a volunteer aide to General awaited orders to attack. At 6:22 a.m. McNair, confronted Willich and Willich and his commander were con- demanded his surrender, but Willich sulting at division headquarters, while turned his horse and fled.6 A cannonball Lieutenant Colonel Fielder A. Jones of shattered the hind leg of Willich’s horse, king. He then became a political refugee the Thirty-Ninth Indiana Regiment but the general was uninjured. Stone in America. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS probed the enemy with his skirmish took Willich’s sword and led him away.7 In the opening year of the American lines. Suddenly, Jones heard shots. Then Willich and thousands of captured Civil War, Willich rose rapidly in the vol- he saw the enemy coming.1 Union soldiers were rushed to the rear of unteer Union army, commanding a regi- Skirmishers from Edmund Kirk’s the Confederate lines. They crossed a rail- ment that defeated a much larger force of brigade described the onslaught of tens road bridge and caught a glimpse of Confederates at Rowlett’s Station, of thousands of rebels upon their thin Confederate Army of Tennessee command- Kentucky, and killed Colonel Benjamin lines as resembling a “tornado,” with er Braxton Bragg directing his 37,000 F. Terry of the famed Texas Rangers. hordes of gray-clad soldiers “yelling and troops from the opposite bank. Jubilant Willich’s sparkling performance at Shiloh shooting like demons.”2 McCown’s front guards herded the captives into the walled in April 1862 earned him promotion to line brigades of Generals James Rains, courthouse yard in Murfreesboro. They the rank of general, commanding what Matthew D. Ector, and Evander McNair, told prisoners that they were lucky, since became the First Brigade in the Second aligned from south to north, overran the rebels would raise the black flag and kill Division of the right wing of Rosecrans’s skirmishers and crashed into Kirk’s main those captured the following day, when army. The Federals were moving forward, line in mere minutes, disabling the com- Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was intent on driving the rebels out of middle mander and sweeping his men from the to take effect.8 field. As they fled northwest, Kirk’s regi- A fellow prisoner observed Willich ABOVE: Brevet Major General August Willich ments careened directly through Willich’s wringing his hands and moaning, “My (1810-1878). Willich was a first lieutenant of brigade, creating confusion and panic.3 poor boys! My poor boys!”9 Some fifty artillery in the Prussian Army before joining republican rebels. He emigrated to America in In the meantime, Ector’s Texans were commissioned officers were moved to 1853. Willich helped raise two all-German reg- rolling over the Thirty-Ninth and upstairs rooms to make room for more iments for the Union and served for the dura- Thirty-Second Indiana regiments with Yankee prisoners. His brigade decimated, tion of the Civil War. 50 GEORGIA BACKROADS/SPRING 2019 Tennessee, so Willich’s capture and forms remained, along with two grand The novelist Augusta Evans paid a call removal from the field of battle delighted crystal chandeliers. Otherwise it was on the prisoners one day. She was among Confederate leaders. filthy and looked deserted. In fact, it was the curious citizens of Atlanta and a Willich gazed out of Murfreesboro’s crowded with new neighbors who would steadfast supporter of the Confederacy. courthouse window at smoke from the make their days unbearable and their James Whelan, the Catholic bishop of battle two miles to the northwest. His nights devoid of slumber. The makeshift Nashville and a strong Union man, also ears told him that the initial rout had prison was infested with lice. stopped in to chat.10 turned into a desperate struggle. His eyes Willich’s fair, thin skin made him a Prisoners had begun arriving in convinced him that reports from rebels particularly sweet treat for the ravenous Atlanta in significant numbers during of Rosecrans in full retreat toward insects. The fifty-two-year-old general the spring and summer of 1862, follow- Nashville were false. A deluge of prison- was so pestered by his unwelcome bed- ing the horrific battle at Shiloh Church, ers into the courthouse yard slowed to a mere trickle. Near nightfall, cannon still thun- dered. Willich and his famished, exhaust- ed comrades marched to the rail station, loaded into boxcars, and began their journey south. The prisoners demanded rations, which were promised on arrival late in the evening at Tullahoma. When they finally arrived, most received only a single small, hard biscuit. The prisoners received only water until they reached Chattanooga late in the evening of January 1, 1863. They were shuttled to a warehouse on the outskirts of town, then back to the cars for a night ride to Atlanta. By early morning, Willich and his companions reached Atlanta for what most figured would be a short stay. It Brigadier General August Willich in the act of being captured by turned out to be several weeks. Confederates at Stones River, Tennessee, December 31, 1862. Drawing Just days after Willich’s arrival in by Adolph Metzner. The artist probably did not witness the event. Atlanta, Confederate President Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation declaring mates he thought they, rather than the in Tennessee. Atlanta’s secret circle of that captured Union officers should be rebel army, would end his time on earth. Union supporters did whatever they considered complicit in fomenting slave He procured large quantities of mercurial could do safely to help Federal prisoners rebellion, delivered up to local authori- ointment, which made him gravely ill as they passed through town. Local ties, and jailed in civil prisons with com- and did little to alleviate his suffering. Union men, women, and even children mon criminals. Willich believed this was After a hospital stay of several days, an took great risks to assist captive Union just slightly better than being handed emaciated Willich returned to his friends soldiers by placing money in newspapers, over to a lynch mob. complaining, “If I stay here, the little ver- books, and pies on clandestine visits to When the captives first viewed their min will kill me. If I use medicine, the rail cars and prisons. place of confinement, a fine three-story medicine kills me. So, I think boys,” he One Atlanta newspaper reported with brick building at the corner of Whitehall whimpered, “I am done for.” frustration that “respectable” ladies of the and Alabama streets, it looked clean and Life in the prison was not all pain and community brought bouquets of flowers spacious. It was close by the railroad car drudgery. Captives enjoyed an unlimited and strawberries to the Yankee prisoners. shed, where they could watch troops and supply of gas for the chandeliers, using its Pretty Atlanta girls made fun of the supplies being sent to the front. The bright light to enliven cheery “stag dances” Union soldiers on their walks by the building had been the local Masonic Hall and other amusements. General Willich prison. Visits from Confederate officers until 1860. Merchants Brown and gave lectures on military tactics. Another revealed rumors of a planned Northwest officer recited Shakespeare. A third led the Confederacy. Later investigations would Fleming occupied the bottom two floors. 11 On the third floor, where the prisoners prisoners in exercise routines. Inmates prove such schemes were a real threat. were housed, various stands and plat- enjoyed chess, checkers and cards. Food supplied to the prisoners in I THINK, BOYS, I AM DONE FOR! HISTORY 51 Atlanta was barely enough to keep them Cavalry, who somehow alive. Once a day, a slave entered the acquired a Confederate prison with a small supply of boiled beef uniform.

Load more

  4

Copy Link