The 3rd Georgia Infantry Commandeer Breckinridge’s Train

   In reading through Jefferson Davis’s papers, there is an interesting discussion regarding a train. It is April 1865. Davis and most of the Confederate cabinet have moved from Greensboro to Charlotte. John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, had caught up with Davis in Greensboro. As the group makes its way across the piedmont of North Carolina, Breckinridge is called away to meet with Joseph E. Johnston as Johnston is meeting with William T. Sherman at the Bennett farm outside Durham.

John C. Breckinridge (LOC)

   Davis, who had reached Charlotte on April 18, was anxious for Breckinridge to rejoin him. While Federal cavalry had wrecked most of the railroad around Greensboro and Salisbury, it was still possible to get trains almost to Salisbury. Breckinridge telegraphs Davis from Salisbury on April 20: “We have had great difficulty in reaching this place. The train from Charlotte which was to have met us here had not arrived. No doubt seized by stragglers to convey them to that point. I have telegraphed the commanding officer at Charlotte to send a locomotive and one car without delay. The impressed train should be met before reaching the depot and the ringleaders severely dealt with.” Davis responds: “Train will start for you at midnight with guard.”[1]

   Now, the rest of the story…

   In 1916, W. Frank Marsh was in Charlotte, reading a historical marker that described the last meeting of the Confederate cabinet in the city. Marsh, a member of the 3^rd Georgia infantry, had made it all the way through the war, surrendering at Appomattox Court House. “We were not able to secure transportation back home, so many of us started to walk through Virginia and North Carolina, half starved and some of us almost barefooted. We reached a point past China Grove [Rowan County] coming into Charlotte, some two hundred of us, hungry and sad and a motley lot all bent upon getting back into the country where we had our homes. We came upon a train destined for China Grove to bring back General Breckinridge from there to the conference of the Confederate Congress in Charlotte [the Confederate Congress never met in Charlotte, only the Cabinet], but we took possession of that train and demanded that the conductor take us to Charlotte. He refused and said he was under orders to get General Breckinridge and take him to Charlotte as fast as possible. We insisted and took charge of the train with the result that we told the conductor he could detach the engine and tender and go to China Grove to get the general, who would have to ride upon the woodpile in the tender.”

   “We remained in charge of the cars until the engine came back from China Grove with the General riding in the tender and I guess he was mad, but we hooked onto the cars and were brought in toward Charlotte. Finally, the conductor announced we were in Charlotte, and we all got out of the train only to find that we were not in Charlotte but in a bull pen some half a mile or more from the town and all held prisoners. The home guards had been ordered out in Charlotte and they had us in charge, while they took away our three officers and locked them up in Charlotte for failing to keep the soldiers in subjection instead of letting them confiscate the train.”

   “The next morning we were all released and going into Charlotte found that they had released our officers. Something to eat in those times looked bigger to our eyes than a gold brick. Well, we went down to the railroad station and there we found a train of cars with an engine attached and steam up, ready to go somewhere.”

   “We all rushed on, but the doors were locked and we couldn’t get in, so a lot of us climbed onto the roofs and this broke in the old timber. We found that it was Jeff Davis’ special loaded with Confederate gold and silver, with many kegs of coins aboard and when Jeff Davis found us so determined to get to Georgia he ordered a train made up and we were carried to Chester, S.C., which was as far as the train could go as the bridge had been burned. Those were stirring times and no mistake.”[2]

   There is much to process between these two accounts – trains still running in North Carolina in April 1865, telegraphs still operating, the passage of Lee’s paroled men through North Carolina after Appomattox, a glimpse of the remnants of the Confederate treasury, along with the charming magnanimity of Davis, it is just nice to flesh out the fragments of two communications between Davis and Breckinridge.

  

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[1] OR, Vol. 47, pt. 3, 814. See also Davis letters, Vol. 11, 553.

[2] The Charlotte Observer, October 20, 1916.

Site Visit Saturday: Fort Harrison

 

   The armies, both gray and blue, tore up the landscape wherever they went during the war. Thousands of acres of trees were felled, and in many places, the ground itself was overturned and reshaped into field fortifications. In many cases, those fortifications are really the only visual evidence that remains to remind us the carnage of the 1860s.

   Fort Harrison, near Richmond, Virginia, was a part of field fortifications constructed by Confederates beginning in June 1862. The fort was named after Lt. William Harrison, a Confederate engineer, and was the largest fort in a series of works that stretched from New Market Road to the James River. Parts of the fort and the abatis in front were constructed by 200 convicts from the state penitentiary, 300 black laborers, and the 17^th Georgia Infantry. Fort Harrison and the corresponding lines were considered a critical link in Richmond’s defenses, and on September 29, 1864, the Federals launched an attack. Confederate forces near the Fort numbered just 800 men, with a mere 35 artillerists manning the actual fort. The artillery appears to be from John Guerrant’s Goochland Artillery.

   The Confederate defenders did not really stand a chance. Over 8,000 Federal soldiers attacked and carried Fort Harrison and the surrounding works. Seeing a potential threat to Richmond, Robert E. Lee ordered a counterattack on September 30. The attacking Confederate force consisted of Anderson’s Georgia brigade, Bowles’s brigade of Alabamians, and Bratton’s South Carolina’s brigade, under the command of Maj. Gen. Charles Field. In Hoke’s division were the brigades of Scales, Colquitt, Kirkland, Hagood, and McKethan. Confederate naval forces and land artillery shelled the Fort. Around 1:45, the attack commenced. While the plan of attack designed by Lee looked good, it fell apart from the beginning. An ill-coordinated attack by 10,000 Confederates failed to dislodge the Federal defenders. The Confederates fell back and established a new defensive line, while the Federals re-worked Fort Harrison and renamed it Fort Burnham, a Federal general killed during the first attack on September 28.

   The well-preserved Fort Harrison is a part of the Richmond National Battlefield Park. I last visited in March 2018.