| The Death of Maj. Gen. J.B. McPherson |
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By: By Capt. Richard Beard of Murfreesboro, Tenn.
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Taken from the Nashville Union and American
I notice in your paper also in the Banner of the 24th, a letter from a correspondent at Shelbyville, Tenn., connecting my name and that of my company with the killing of Major-General McPherson, on the 22nd of July, before Atlanta. Both letters are substantially correct with the exception of one important particular. The impression is made by your correspondent that we were detached at the time and in ambuscade which is erroneous for we were in line of battle with our regiments the Fifth Confederate, together with Polk’s brigade of Cleburne’s division, to which we belonged.
After my return from prison at the close of the war, I heard that it had been charged by the Northern press that General McPherson had been murdered. I have been frequently asked to write a letter of vindication and to give an exact statement of the faces connected with his death, but owing to my ignorance of localities and the general arrangements of the battle of the 22nd of July I have up to his time, failed to do so.
On the 7th of May, 1864, commenced that memorable campaign from Dalton to Atlanta which lasted for a hundred days and during which the sound of the enemy’s guns never were beyond the reach of our ears and which ended in the capture of the later important city, on the 28th of July. It was in the last but one of the engagements in this campaign that the unfortunate occurrence took place which I am about to relate. The simple unvarnished faces in regard to the killing of the Federal general are as follows:
For a day or two previous to the battle I had been in command of a brigade line of skirmishers and early on the morning of July 22nd, was ordered to join my regiment and division which were moving out from Atlanta on the Decatur road, in order to strike the left flank of General Sherman’s army under the command of General McPherson, which was stretched across the Augusta railroad. It will be remembered that a few days before this General Hood had relieved General Johnston in command of the Army of Tennessee and this was his second tussle with the enemy. While halting on the road to the battleground, we were furnished with sixty additional rounds of ammunition and were told that there was a hard day’s work before us.
We were placed in the line of battle about 12 or 1 o’clock in the day and the last order given by General Pat Cleburne to us, was to move forward turn neither to the right hand or the left until we were within the enemy’s breastworks. Shortly afterwards a heavy and rapid cannonading commenced from what we supposed to be General Bate’s division which announced too clearly that the ball was about to open in good earnest. Under the excitement aroused by it, we commenced a double-quick through a forest covered with dense underbrush. Here we ran through a line of skirmishers and took them in without the firing of a gun. Suddenly came up to the edge of a little wagon road running parallel with our line of march and down which General McPherson came thundering at the head of his staff and according to the best of my recollection followed by his body guard. As he swept down that lonely road in that black jack forest, he was little aware of the fate that awaited him. He had evidently just left the last conference he ever had with General Sherman near the Howard House and was on his way to see what the sudden and rapid firing on his left all meant. General Sherman is certainly mistaken in his memoirs when he says that he was almost, if not entirely alone, for I estimated his rank not only by his personal appearance but by the size of his retinue and in that estimate I fixed his rank at nothing less than a corps commander. He had a considerable staff with him and according to the best of my recollection, a body guard followed him.
He was certainly surprised to find himself suddenly face to face with the Rebel line. My own company and possibly others of the regiment had reached the verge of the road when he discovered for the first time, that he was within a few feet of where we stood. I three up my sword to him as a signal to surrender. Not a word was spoken. He checked his horse slightly, raised his hat as politely as if he were saluting a lady, wheeled his horse’s head directly to the right and dashed off to the rear in a full gallop. Young Corporal Coleman who was standing near me, was ordered to fire on him. He did so and it was his ball that brought General McPherson down. He was shot as he was passing under the thick branches of a tree while bending over his horse’s neck either to avoid coming in contact with the limbs, or more probably, to escape the death dealing bullet of the enemy that he knew was sure to follow him. He was shot in the back and as General Sherman says in his Memoirs, “the ball ranged upwards across the body and passed through his heart.”
A number of shots were fired into his retreating staff.
I ran immediately up to where the general lay, just as he had fallen upon his knees and face. There was not a quiver of his body to be seen, nor a sign of life perceptible. The fatal bullet had done its work too well. He had been killed instantly. Even as he lay there in his major-general’s uniform with his face in the dust, he was as magnificent a specimen of manhood as I ever saw.
Right by his side lay a man who if hurt at all was but slightly wounded but whose horse had been shot from under him. From his appearance I took him to be the adjutant or inspector-general of the staff. Pointing to the dead man I asked him, “Who is this lying here?” He answered with tears in his eyes, “Sir, it is General McPherson. You have killed the best man in our army.” This was the first intimation we had as to who the officer was and as to his rank.
There was a touch of pathos connected with the death of this great soldier of the Federal army. He seemed to be about thirty-five years of age and it was said at the time that he was engaged to be married to a beautiful girl in Baltimore, that a short time before this, he had asked for a leave of absence from General Sherman, to visit her but owing to the exigencies of the times and the stirring scenes through which the two armies were passing, his application was denied.
General Sherman alleges in his book that General McPherson’s pocketbook and papers were found in the haversack of a prisoner afterwards. That may be so but that prisoner did not belong to our party. Captain W. A. Brown of Mississippi picked up his hat that had caught in the branches of the tree under which he had fallen and that was the only piece of McPherson’s property disturbed by any of us. That had Captain Brown wore through all of our prison experience and at the close of the war when the last Confederate flag was furled and when we separated at Hamilton, Ohio, he was going to his home in Grenada, Miss., and I to mine in Lebanon, Tenn., he still wore it. ... We were all taken prisoners.
The next day we started on our way to Northern prisoners – the officers to Johnson’s Island, near Sandusky, Ohio. On that route we spent one night in the Chattanooga jail – an old building that now stands on Market street in that city: a day in the Nashville penitentiary, and one Sunday in jail in Indianapolis. A short distance this side of Sandusky we passed through the little city of Clyde, the birthplace and the home of General McPherson. We noticed the flag was at half mast and asked some the crowd around the depot what it meant and were told that they had just buried General McPherson whom the “damned Rebels had murdered” and the flag was at half mast for him ....
I have somewhat digressed, but I will say that the tragedy I have described above was the last one that I ever took part in during the war and it is as vividly pictured on my mind as if it all had occurred yesterday. The circumstances under which General McPherson met his death were perfectly justifiable. He had every opportunity on earth to surrender but refused to do so and preferred to take the chance of flight. Although he was considered a host in himself against us, his untimely end was mourned even by the Confederate army, for he was universally esteemed as a soldier and a gentleman.
Some others have rendered and published different versions of his death and some have even claimed that they fired the shot that brought him down but this credit – if there can be any credit attached to it – I have never claimed. His blood is not on my hands. The only claim I make is that I saw him fall and I believe that I was about the first party that reached his body.
On this same day our Major General W.H.T. Walker, commanding a division in our (Hardee’s) corps was killed.
"McPherson had apparently encountered Rebels of the 5th Confederate Tennessee Regiment attached to Lucius Polk's brigade of Maj. Patrick Cleburne's division, the 5th's Cpl. Robert Coleman being credited with shooting McPherson." -Derek
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