150th Anniversary of the Battle of Nashville

Today and tomorrow, December 15th and 16th, mark the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Nasvhille.  There was at least one woman soldier who participated: Jennie Hodgers, alias Albert Cashier, of the 95th Illinois Infantry.

Hodgers was an Irish immigrant who lived in male disguise before, during, and after the war.  With the 95th, she participated in over 40 battles and skirmishes yet somehow managed to escape unscathed and undetected, mustering out with her disguise intact.  Her true identity wasn't discovered until 1911 when she was accidentally backed over by a car, breaking her hip.  She died in 1915 due to complications of her injury.

Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William Avery, the 95th Illinois was assigned to Colonel Leander Blanden's 2nd Brigade, General Jonathan B. Moore's  Third Division, General A.J. Smith's corps.


After participating in the Red River Campaign, the regiment was sent to Arkansas and then to Missouri for garrison duty.  On November 23rd, 1864, they boarded the steamer, Isabella, at St. Louis and headed to Nashville where they arrived on the morning of November 30th, the same day the Battle of Franklin raged.  On the evening of December 14th, the regiment received orders to prepare to move out by 5:30 the following morning.  The 15th started off foggy when Moore's brigade was placed  into a reserve position behind McArthur's division on the right and Garrard's to the left.

The battle opened with skirmishing on both sides.  By 11 a.m., the fight had commenced all along the lines with the Confederates opening up with artillery fire towards the advancing Federals. During the charge made by Blanden's brigade across an open field, the 95th received fire of solid shot from one of the Confederate batteries, losing one soldier in the process.  This was in the area of Redoubt No. 4.

Click here for more information and pictures of this location.

As night fell, the regiment entrenched and prepared for another fight the following day.  Hood had withdrawn and taken up a position near Brentwood Hills, which was eventually overrun on the 16th.  The Confederates broke and fled for Franklin, the 95th Illinois giving chase.  The regiment arrived there on Sunday, December 18th, and camped on the south side of town where the battle of Franklin had been fought a couple of weeks prior.

(From A History of the Ninety-Fifth Illinois Infantry by Wales W. Wood, p. 125-140)

Mark and I have some connections with Jennie Hodgers in the Battle of Nashville.

His relatives in the 35th Iowa were in the same corps as the 95th Illinois but were in McArthur's division, which means they were positioned to the right of the 95th Illinois, and Hodgers, on the first day.

On December 16th, the second day, Smith's corps was facing Stewart's corps in the center.  I had quite a few relatives in the 3rd Mississippi Infantry, which was with Loring's Division, Featherston's brigade of Stewart's corps.

Following Franklin, Featherston's entire brigade numbered a mere 781 men, 104 of them of the 3rd MS.  These remnants now had to deal with sleet and hunger as rations generally consisted of an ear of corn per man per day.  Many were without shoes or blankets as they faced the Federals at Nashville. 

As the redoubts began to fall to the 3rd's left, they felt pressure from opposition to their front left and then their rear from Wilson's cavalry, armed with Spencer repeating rifles, who had snuck behind Stewart.  Walthall's line collapsed to their left, and a retreat was called.  The 3rd MS lost 15 men on the first day, mainly through capture, as they found themselves trapped during the chaotic withdrawal.

During the night of the 15th, Stewart's corps was moved to the center and took up position behind a stone wall, which now runs through someone's yard.   The weary soldiers spent that night entrenching and trying to rest.  The following day around noon, a cold, hard rain began to fall, which eventually turned to ice, creating brutal conditions the rag tag men endured as best as they could as they desperately tried to hold their position.  However, Shy's Hill fell, and Wilson's dismounted cavalry once again got behind Stewart's corps as they had the previous day.  All was lost at that point, and the weary Confederates began to flee for the Franklin Pike.

 

Fred Hewes of the 3rd MS recalled:

"After our defeat at Nashville it so happened that the night after we crossed the Duck river on the retreat, he [Fred Holley] and I alone got together, and in his loneliness and sorrow for the dead and missing he came to share my mudless couch of fence rails and that night one blanket covered, as far as we then knew, all of Company H."

When the 3rd regrouped at Columbia, only 51 men remained.  They once numbered nearly 1000.

(From To Live and Die in Dixie:  A History of the Third Mississippi Infantry, C.S.A by H. Grady Howell, p. 396-403)

Two of my relatives in the 3rd were not among them.  Victor Saucier and John Lizana, both of company F, were captured on the second day as the line to their left began to collapse, resulting in a route.  Both were sent to Louisville and then to Camp Chase.  Victor is still there, a victim of pneumonia in January, 1865.  John was paroled and sent to Federal authorities at Vicksburg for exchange.  There, he died of bronchitis at General Hospital No. 2 on May 25th, 1865.  He nearly made it home.

I have yet to find where he is buried.

(photos by Mark Hidlebaugh)