MIKE WEST, Managing Editor
Posted: Sunday, October 5, 2008 7:17 am

At Liberty Gap, the “Stonewall of the West” made a stand against, of all things, a communist.

Or if you prefer to look at this June 1863 battle of the Tullahoma Campaign in at different way it was two Europeans – a German and an Irishman – who led the opposing forces at the twisting narrow gap on Liberty Pike between Christiana and Bell Buckle.

Defending the gap was the Confederate Army of Tennessee’s best division commander, Gen. Patrick Cleburne, born in Ovens, County Cork, Ireland.

The second son of Dr. Joseph Cleburne, a physician of English ancestry, Cleburne was an orphan at 15. After failing admission to medical school, he enlisted in the British Army, rising to the rank of corporal.

Three years later, Cleburne immigrated to the United States with two brothers and a sister. He settled in Helena, Ark.

Leading the Union attackers was Gen. August Willich, a veteran of the Prussian Army, one of Europe’s best military organizations. Willich was born “von Willich” in Braunsberg, Prussia in 1810, as a member of the aristocratic Junker class (junger herr, meaning “young lord”).

August attended the military academy of Potsdam at the age of 12 and by 15 was an ensign in the Prussian Army. He was an artillery captain by age 21. Somewhere along the line, he developed an interest in radical politics.

Faced with court martial, Willich resigned from the military and became a carpenter, abandoning the ruling class for the proletariat. An active member of the Communist League, his military training soon came in handy as he led a force of armed workers called Willich’s Free Corps, which flew the “Red” flag and managed to hold back the Prussian Army. German social scientist Friedrich Engels served as his aide-de-camp. It was Engels, who, along with his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authored “The Communist Manifesto.”

By 1850, Willich was a leader in the left faction of the Communist League and had taken a strong anti-Marxist stance. With the failure of the 1848-49 revolution, Willich immigrated to the United States where he settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, which had a large German population.

Once in the U.S., Willich resumed the profession of carpenter. However, he didn’t give up his interest in radical politics. In 1858, he became the editor of Republikaner, a German-language free labor newspaper. As an editor Willich promoted socialism, denounced Catholicism and criticized all organized religions all while backing Republican candidates, like Lincoln, and policies in Ohio.

By early 1861, Willich was busy recruiting German immigrants for the Union Army. Joining the 9th Ohio Infantry, he served in western Virginia at Rich Mountain and Carnifex. During the winter, he returned to Ohio and resumed his recruiting efforts. Gov. Oliver P. Morton honored his efforts by commissioning Willich as colonel of the 32nd Indiana, also called the 1st German.

Willich drilled the all-German regiment in their native language. His respect for his men and their well-being earned him the nickname, “Papa.”

It didn’t take long for the 1st German to win national recognition. At Rowlett’s Station, Ky., a 500-man German detachment fought off 1,300 men of the very formidable Terry’s Texas Rangers and infantry lead by Gen. Thomas Hindman. The unit formed a classic, European “hollow square” formation and resisted the Confederates. Among the dead was Col. Benjamin F. Terry, the namesake of the famous Texas unit.


On the second day of Shiloh, Willich displayed his own brand of calm under fire. With his troops growing unsteady under relentless Confederate fire, Willich moved before his troops and calmly put the regiment through the manual of arms, while the regimental band played “La Marsaillaise,” which was the anthem for European republican movements. The regiment then charged with bayonets fixed. With that, Willich was promoted to brigade command.


At Stones River, Willich’s 1st Brigade, 2nd Division of McCook’s Corps, was caught by surprise during the opening minutes of the battle. The Confederates captured Willich when his horse was shot out from under him. After four months in Libby Prison, he was exchanged and assigned and returned to brigade command in McCook’s Corps.

Early on the morning of June 24, 1863, McCook’s XX Corps was ordered to break camp in Murfreesboro and head out the Shelbyville turnpike.

An early morning rain continued throughout the day and soon began to hamper Union troop movement, especially after Willich and other units from the XX Corps left the turnpike and continued up a dirt road through Millersburg and on to Liberty Gap. After a “toilsome march through the mud,” the Union troops arrived at the gap around 3 p.m.

Gen. Willich's brigade, which was in the advance, quickly encountered Rebel pickets. Other units were ordered forward to help.

“The firing soon became quite spirited, and finally assumed the form of a skirmish, when the Twenty-ninth Regt. Indiana Volunteers, of our own brigade, was ordered forward to try and flank the enemy, which order was promptly and spiritedly executed. In a few minutes after, I received orders to move up for the same purpose. I immediately moved up in column by company to the main entrance of the gap, where the enemy were posted,” reported Col. Thomas E. Rose, 77th Pennsylvania Infantry.

Rose’s unit was in Gen. John F. Miller’s Brigade. An Indiana native, Miller was U.S. Senator from California after the war and was president of the Alaska Commercial Co., which controlled the fur industry in newly acquired Pribilof Islands. Miller was among the first to acquire land holdings in a wilderness area now called the Napa Valley.

The Union fighting in now what was a hard rain rousted the Confederate defenders, two regiments of Brig. Gen. St. John Liddell’s Brigade of Arkansas troops. Liddell was a schoolmate of Jefferson Davis during their childhood in Mississippi.

Liddell’s Brigade was a key part of Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne’s Division, and Cleburne had a new “secret” weapon, the British-made Whitworth sharpshooter rifle.

Sir Joseph Whitworth of England designed the rifle that had a twisted hexagonal bore and bullets to match. When outfitted with a telescopic sight, this firearm had an effective range of 1,500 yards. The twisted hexagonal bore imparted a steadiness of flight to its .45 caliber bullet and made this rifle the favorite of Confederate sharpshooters.

Made in Manchester, England, only a few of the Whitworths made it to the Confederacy. Confederate sharpshooters peppered the Union infantry with fire from them. Perhaps, it was a bullet from a Whitworth that struck Brigadier Miller and seriously wounded him at the gap. It took Miller nearly a year to recover.

It was the first time Cleburne used the Whitworths and he reported them “doing their work at 1,000 yards and more.”

But by 4 p.m. the Confederates launched a strong counterattack, which failed to retake the gap. More unsuccessful counter attacks followed on June 25, making Cleburne believe a full Union division was lodged in Liberty Gap. He ordered his men to fall back to a line of hills a mile south to await orders.


All of this made Army of Tennessee commander Braxton Bragg convinced the main Union assault was coming through Liberty Gap, particularly since he was receiving absolutely no reports from his right wing. He met with Corps commander Gen. Leonidas Polk and ordered him to flank the Union army through Guy’s Gap. Polk protested that the rough geography of the area made such a movement impossible, but he returned to Shelbyville to prepare for it.

On the evening of June 26, Bragg finally heard from A.P. Stewart on the right wing that the Union had punched through and was threatening to flank Cleburne and capture Wartrace and trap Polk in Shelbyville.

The fragmented Army of Tennessee could do little more than withdraw once again. At 11 p.m. Bragg ordered Hardee and Polk to cross the Duck River to the fortified town of Tullahoma.

As for Tullahoma, a joke spread through Union troops that the name was a combination of two Greek words, “tulla” meaning mud and “homa” meaning more mud.

But it was no joke in Washington that Rosecrans had failed to crush Bragg.