frontpaged at My Left Wing
Heroes and saviors often come in unlikely forms. The recently departed and much missed Rosa Parks certainly qualifies as an unlikely hero. Jesus of Nazareth would be classified as an unlikely savior...a carpenter's son is not exactly what one first thinks of when imagining a messiah.
So too it is in war, when the actions by which battles and history turn are performed by the most ordinary of people. Or even beasts...
Following the disaster to Union arms at the battle of Chickamauga, the Federal Army of the Cumberland had limped back to its base in Chattanooga, Tennessee. They were quickly besieged by the Confederate Army of the Tennessee, who occupied the heights of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain that ringed the town, effectively cutting off any hope of resupply by water or rail for the beleaguered Unionists.
The supply situation in Chattanooga quickly became dire. In fact, according to the testimony of those who survived the five weeks of privation and hunger, dire hardly suffices. A Kansan testified that he had seen a squad of soldiers shoot, skin and cook a stray dog that had been unwise enough to come trotting into their campfire light. Private Christian Hinchberger of the 78th Pennsylvania confided to his diary that he had seen a comrade grow so hungry that the man had pulled an old piece of shoe leather out of the ground, cleaned the dirt off, and boiled it for his dinner. Scurvy, starvation and disease hung like a funeral pall over the Army of the Cumberland, even more menacing in their own way than the Rebel guns frowning down from the heights outside the town.
Hurrying to the scene, the new commander of all Union forces between the Appalachain Mountains and the Mississippi River, Ulysses S. Grant, conferred with officers on the scene and approved a plan for opening a new supply route. The plan is complex and almost impossible to explain or understand without the benefit of a map...in any case, the specific details are outside the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say that one portion of it involved troops under Major General Joseph Hooker, encamped at Stevenson, Alabama and recently arrived from the Army of the Potomac, closing upon a critical objective from the rear. On his way to his goal, Hooker took the precaution of dropping off Brigadier General John W. Geary's division at Wauhatchie, Tennessee to protect his rear.
It was well he did, for just after midnight October 29th, 1863, a Confederate attack exploded out of the pitch dark night. These soldiers under Brigadier General Micah Jenkins were some of the fiercest, hardest fighters in the whole Confederate army. Among their number were the famed Texas Brigade and a brigade of Georgians known as the "Rock" brigade. They had taken the nickname from their commander, Henry "Old Rock" Benning, for whom present day Fort Benning in Georgia is named. These Georgians had won a reputation as fearsome as any, for it was they who had defended Rohrbach Bridge over Antietam Creek and shattered the Yankee line at the Devil's Den at Gettysburg.
Now they and their comrades came on through the darkness, yelling as they surged forward, intent on scattering the Yankees in the darkness, then moving on toward Hooker's rear. Geary's men--despite being caught off balance at thus being on the receiving end of a night attack, one of the Civil War's rarest things--gave an excellent account of themselves. Stumbling out of their tents, they showed what good discipline and courage could accomplish by somehow forming a line in the firey darkness and soon were giving as good as they were getting.
The Confederate attack quickly broke down for several reasons. One, the assault had been badly delayed in the first place, thus throwing off crucial timing and co-ordination between units. Two, the night was pitch dark and many Rebel units quickly lost their sense of direction and there was more than one incident of friendly fire on the butternut side.
There was, however, a third reason.
Usually, army supply wagons were far to the rear during any kind of fighting. Given the nature and time of the battle of Wauhatchie, however, it should not surprise the reader to learn that many of Geary's divisional wagons were parked right near what became the firing line. The teamsters--noncombatants who wanted no part of heroics, valor, or a glorious death on the battlefield--quickly rushed to the rear, leaving the wagons and their teams behind. These teams numbered in all about 200 mules. The army mule is truly the stuff of legend, renowned for its stubborness, intelligence and apparent indestructability.
Frightened by this unexpected descent of chaos and noise, the mules quickly broke out of their restraints and went stampeding off into the night...
The Georgians of the "Rock Brigade" had been fighting all this time, trying to maintain unit cohesion as the night around them glowed orange with the fire of muskets and artillery. Demoralized by the unfavorable surroundings and tired from recent exertions, the Georgians suddenly heard what to them was probably the worst imaginable sound...the thunder of many hooves pounding directly toward them. The terrors of the night fighting quickly magnified this in their minds eye to visions of all the cavalry in the Yankee nation about to descend on them out of the dark. The Georgians took what to them seemed to be the only sensible course of action--they broke and ran, unaware that they were running from an unplanned assault of army mules.
Having no better success anywhere else along the line--though blessedly free of any unexpected equine encounters--the rest of the Confederate force soon broke off the engagment and retired, leaving Geary's men in possession of the field. 420 Federals had been shot, as compared with 408 Confederates.
Did the "Jackass Brigade" save the day for Geary's men? In all truth...probably not. Plenty of Union reinforcements were close by, and in point of fact were arriving as the fighting sputtered toward silence. Still, the mules undoubtedly did relieve some pressure along Geary's hard pressed line, sent one of the best Rebel fighting brigades running to the rear, and showed "devotion above and beyond the call of duty." (Perhaps they should have each received a Medal of Honor?)
Best of all, however, they inspired an Ohio infantryman engaged at Wauhatchie to put pen to paper and set an example for all future satirists to strive for. (Incidentally, he perhaps caused Tennyson a small amount of indigestion if the distinguished poet ever had occasion to read the lines that follow):
Half a mile, half a mile,
Half a mile onward,
Right through the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.
"Forward the Mule Brigade!
Charge for the Rebs," they neighed.
Straight for the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.
"Forward the Mule Brigade!"
Was there a mule dismayed?
Not when their long ears felt
All their ropes sundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to make Rebs fly.
On! to the Georgia troops
Broke the two hundred.
Mules to the right of them,
Mules to the left of them,
Mules behind them
Pawed, neighed, and thundered.
Breaking their own confines
Breaking through Longstreet's lines
Into the Georgia troops
Stormed the two hundred.
Wild all their eyes did glare,
Whisked all their tails in air
Scattering the chivalry there,
While all the world wondered.
Not a mule back bestraddled,
Yet how they all skedaddled --
Fled every Georgian,
Unsabred, unsaddled,
Scattered and sundered!
How they were routed there
By the two hundred!
Mules to the right of them,
Mules to the left of them,
Mules behind them
Pawed, neighed, and thundered;
Followed by hoof and head
Full many a hero fled,
Fain in the last ditch dead,
Back from an ass's jaw
All that was left of them, --
Left by the two hundred.
When can their glory fade?
Oh, what a wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Mule Brigade,
Long-eared two hundred!
Marvelous, huh? Well, I thought so.
Allow me to close by pointing out that, whatever humorous nuggets people may glean from the grim litter of war, it is still ultimately all about horrifying death and destruction. Though the casualties at Wauhatchie were miniscule compared to the great battles of the war, that scarcely mattered to the mothers, fathers, wives, children, brothers, sisters and sweethearts who lost a loved one at Wauhatchie. To them, the inconclusive fighting outside that otherwise anonymous railroad town suddenly became the most important and all-consuming of the entirety of military history.
Certainly John Geary saw it in that light. He was a veteran of the Mexican War, much of the fighting in the East, and would see a great deal of combat until the war's end, taking several wounds in defense of the government he served. Yet even to so seasoned a warrior as this, the battle of Wauhatchie would be the one that would stand out above all others to the end of his days.
Well pleased with his soldiers' performance, he rode to the center of his line to inspect the position of his artillery in case the Rebels tried the thing again. There he found his son, the battery commander, lying on the ground in a heap. Lieutenant Edward Geary had taken a bullet through the throat and now lay crumpled at his grieving father's feet. When the commander of the first of the reinforcements to arrive reported to him for instructions, Geary, his eyes swelled with tears, could only shake his head and point to the ground.
The next day, Geary wrote home to his wife:
"Poor dear boy, he is gone.... Oh, my God....I have gained a great victory....But oh! How dear it has cost me...my dear beloved boy is the sacrifice. Could I but recall him to life, the bubble of military fame might be absorbed by those who wish it."
In the final analysis, war is, I suppose, much like life in general. One should never forget its unrelentingly grim nature, yet it is the ludicrous, the ridiculous, the silly--such as an unlikely story of a band of panicked mules defeating battle hardened soldiers--that make the enduring the darkness worth it.