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During the Civil War, Major John M. Wright was the adjutant general for Union General Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio during the Battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862. He is one of the few officers who supported General Buell for his actions at Perryville. Wright also gives an in-depth account of his actions during the battle.
John M. Wright was born at Madison Barracks, New York on February 22, 1839. He was the son of General George Wright, who, with his wife, was lost at sea on a trip from San Francisco, where General Wright was stationed. When he was seventeen years old, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. In September 1861 he resigned from the Military Academy to go into active service and was appointed captain and adjutant of volunteers on the staff of Union General Don Carlos Buell. His lowest class standing at the Military Academy was ninth in his class and at different examinations he stood two and three files higher. During his entire course he held the highest military appointment in his class and at the time of his resignation he was the Sgt. Major of the Corps of Cadets. He had every prospect of graduating with distinction and of going into a staff corps. He gave up these prospects to seek active service in the Federal army. Wright accompanied Union Gen. Don Carlos Buell to Kentucky and was on duty at his headquarters in Louisville, and after his taking the field was the adjutant general of Buell’s Army during the entire 1862 Kentucky campaign. During the battle of Shiloh, in April 1862, Wright was specifically mentioned by his brigade commanders, and during a critical moment during the battle, he led the charge of a regiment. General Buell recommended Wright for a promotion for “gallantry under fire” at Shiloh. On June 30, 1862, he was promoted to major.
As adjutant general for Union General Don Carlos Buell’s Army, Wright had a in depth view of the battle of Perryville. In 1885, he wrote that on August 30, 1862, Gen. Buell’s Army was distributed over an area of about 150 x 100 miles and had been looking toward Chattanooga as the object of its future movements. Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith had moved in Kentucky with a large Confederate force, and the federal government had only raw levies to oppose him. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad had been cut, and now General Bragg suddenly moved toward Middle Tennessee. On August 30, Gen. Buell issued orders to his widely distributed Army to concentrate at Murfreesboro.
This movement was executed simultaneously by the various parts of the Army, and on September 5th Buell’s whole force, coming in by four roads, was in position at Murfreesboro, ready to give battle to the enemy. It was one of the best executed movements in the war. All the men and all the supplies were pulled together as by a string and seem to drop in the new position as if it were by magic. A detailed account of this remarkable movement would form one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the war.
Bragg did not give battle where it was expected, but pushed on into Kentucky, and Buell pushed on after him by forced marches, leaving Nashville strongly garrisoned. In the meantime, (General William) Nelson had been defeated and routed, and himself wounded, at Richmond Kentucky, and the condition of affairs was not very well known in our hard-pressed Army. Bragg turned off toward the right and made toward Bardstown, and Buell’s jaded Army was diverted to the left, struck the Ohio River at the mouth of the Salt River, and then hasten to Louisville.
The situation at Louisville was not unlike that at Washington after the first battle of Bull Run. The belief was entertained by many that Bragg would capture the city, and not a few had removed their money and valuables across the Ohio River, not over assured that Bragg might not follow them to the lakes. Nelson had sworn a mighty oath that he would hold the city so long as a house remained standing or a soldier was alive, and had issued an order that all the women, children, and noncombatants should leave the place and seek safety in Indiana. He had only raw troops and convalescent veterans, and few citizens believed that he can hold out against an attack. Buell’s arrival changed the situation of affairs. The uncertain defensive suddenly gave away to an aggressive offensive attitude, and speculation turned from whether Bragg would capture Louisville to whether Buell would capture Bragg.
Buell’s headquarters was established at the old Galt House, in Louisville. In the room in which the Adjutant General’s office was conducted I was seated at my desk, and chance to be addressing a communication to General Nelson. I was startled by the report of the pistol shot in the hall, and I hastened out to learn the cause of the shot. I saw General Nelson reeling toward General Buell’s room and heard the exclamation from the hurriedly following throng that Gen. (Jefferson) Davis had shot him. A few hours later I saw Nelson lying dead from the fatal shot. But a few days later, as I was mounting my horse to join Gen. Buell on a march, a message came to me, and in a few moments, I was beside Davis, in his room, to receive a communication for my chief. I had seen Nelson dead, and I thought that Davis, too, looked like a dead man. He was the most unhappy looking person I ever saw, although he showed no sign of agitated emotion. I retired from his room more profoundly impressed with awe of death than when I turned away from the dead form of Nelson. The details of the difficulty between Nelson and Davis had been minutely described, with some variance, by eyewitnesses; but from what I saw and heard I am inclined to think that all the circumstances of the occurrence have not been made public. I do not know, but I’ve always suspected that a strong hand took hold of the situation promptly and smothered the fires that I thought for a few hours would certainly burst into a flame of resentment.
Probably no city or town in the country has so completely obliterated the traces of war as Louisville. Yet Louisville, at the time of which I am writing, was an entrenched city. The rifle pits ran across Fourth Street, just south of Kentucky, where now stand, and for a long distance southward stand some of the most beautiful residences of Louisville….. As a base of operations, Louisville was at all times familiar with the war, but she was accustomed to looking at the actual operations of the war through her field glasses. This time she was a participant, and when afterward stately dwellings reared themselves upon her trenches, they destroyed the work of some of her best citizens, who not over willingly handled the pick and the spade in those stormy days.
Buell’s Army march from Louisville in three columns on parallel lines. (General Alexander) McCook commanded the left wing, (General Charles) Gilbert the center, (General Thomas) Crittenden the right wing, and (General George) Thomas was second in command and charged with bringing up the right. On approaching Perryville, it was learned that Bragg might concentrate his forces there, and Buell at once arranged his order of battle. On October 7, 1862, Buell designated positions for his three cores for the purpose of a general attack the next day. McCook could not reach his position in time; Crittenden went out of his way to attain water, and the plan had to be changed for an attack on October 9.
The country through which Buell’s army marched is almost destitute of water, but at Perryville a stream flowed between the contending armies, and access to that water was equally important to both armies. Buell marched with the center corps, and the advance reached this stream on the evening of October 7. From that time until the stream was crossed there was consistent fighting for access to it, and the only restriction on this fighting was that it should not bring on engagement until the time for the general attack should arrive. An accident will illustrate the scarcity of water. I obtained a canteen full; and about dark on October 7, after giving myself a good brushing and a couple of dry rubs without feeling much cleaner, a careless announcement that I was about to take a tin dipper bath brought Gen. Buell out of his tent with a rather mandatory suggestion that I pour the water back into my canteen and save it for an emergency. The emergency did not come to me, but on the morning of October 9 that same water helped to relieve the suffering of some wounded man who lay out between the two armies.
At Buell’s headquarters, on the 8th, preparations were going on for the intended attack, and the information was eagerly awaited for that Crittenden had reached his position on the right. Fighting for water went on in our front, and it was understood that it extended all along the line, but no battle was expected that day. McCook was at Buell’s headquarters in the morning and received, I presume, some oral instructions regarding the contemplated attack. It was understood that care would be taken not to bring on a general engagement, and no importance was attended to the sounds that reached us of artillery fire in front of the enemy.
McCook’s people pushed the struggle for water too far or became overzealous in resisting the like effort on the other side, or were attacked in force, and a battle came on. To the public mind this battle has always had a mystery about it.
In his statement before the Commission, Gen. Buell remarks that it had been a matter of surprise that so severe an engagement could have taken place within 2 ½ miles of his headquarters without his knowledge. After commenting on his arrangements for the attack next day, and the dependence of a commander on his distant subordinates for information, he says:
“I received, with astonishment, the intelligence of the severe fighting the commenced at 2 o’clock. Not a musket shot had been heard, nor did the sound of artillery indicate anything like a battle. This was probably caused by the configuration of the ground, which broke the sound, and by the heavy wind, which it appears blew from the right to the left during the day.”
In his official report of the battle, Gen. Buell again says:
“At 4 o’clock, however, Maj. Gen. McCook’s aide-de-camp arrived and reported to me that the general was sustaining a severe attack, which he would not be able to withstand unless reinforced, that his flanks were already giving way. He added, to my astonishment, that the left corps had actually been engaged in a severe battle for several hours. It was so difficult to credit the latter that I thought there must be some misapprehension in regard to the former.”
Gen. Buell had received a hurt and was riding in an ambulance. Perhaps, if he had been able to ride his horse without great pain, he would’ve been up and down the whole line all day, for his staff knew only too well his hard riding under such circumstances. Of course, the young officers of the staff, of whom I was one, were not taken into conference by Gen. Buell, but we all knew that the subject of attention that morning was the whereabouts of Crittenden’s Corps, and the placing it in position on the right for the general engagement that was to be brought on as soon as the army was in line. We all saw McCook going serenely away, like a general carrying his orders with them, and only anxious for the future of his command.
In the afternoon we moved out for a position near Crittenden, as I inferred from the direction taken. A message came from the direction of the center to Gen. Buell and in a few moments Col. James B Fry, our Chief of Staff, called me up, and sent me an order to Gen. Gilbert, commanding the center corps, to send at once two brigades to reinforce General McCook, commanding the left corps. And this is how I came to be a witness to some of the curious features of Perryville.
I did not know what was going on at the left, and Col. Fry did not inform me. He told me what to say to Gen. Gilbert, and to go fast, and, taking one of the general’s orderlies with me, I started on my errand. I found Gen. Gilbert at the front, and as he had no staff officer at hand at the moment, he asked me to go to Gen. (Albin) Schoepf, a division commander, with the order. I found Schoepf riding in an ambulance in a corn field. I have read that about this time General Schoepf fired by the din of battle on the left, was weeping with rage because he was not permitted to carry his division to the rescue. He was not weeping when I saw him; he seemed to be in a placid frame of mind, and he made no comment on the fact that he was not ordered to go with his two brigades. The din of battle on the left was not audible to me, and he did not seem to hear it. At that moment I was still uninformed of the necessity for reinforcing the left.
My mission was to convey an order to Gen. Gilbert, but I had to got into business. Schoepf detached two brigades, and they started to the left, and he told me I had better go ahead and find out where they were to go. There was no sound to direct me, and as I tried to take an air-line I passed outside the Federal lines and was overtaken by a cavalry officer, who gave me the pleasing information that I was riding toward the enemy’s lines. Now up to this time I had heard no sound of battle; I had heard no artillery in front of me, and no heavy infantry firing. I wrote back and passed behind the cavalry regiment in the woods, and started in the direction indicated to me by the officer who called me back. At some distance I overtook ambulance train, urged to their best speed in my direction, and then I knew something serious was up, and this was the first information I had that one of the fiercest struggles of the war was at that moment raging almost within my sight.
Directed by the officer in charge of the ambulances I made another detour and pushing on a greater speed I suddenly turned into a road, and there before me, within a few hundred yards, the battle of Perryville burst into view, and the roar of artillery and the continuous rattle of musketry first broke upon my ear. It was the finest spectacle I ever saw. It was wholly unexpected, and if fixed me with astonishment. It was like tearing away a curtain from the front of a great picture. It was like the sudden bursting of a thundercloud with the sky in front seems serene and clear. I had seen an unlooked for storm at sea, with hardly a moment’s notice, hurl itself out of the clouds and lashed the ocean into a foam of wild rage. But here there was not the warning of an instant. At one bound my horse carried me from stillness into the roar of battle. One turned from a lonely bridle path through the woods brought me face-to-face with the great and bloody struggle of thousands of men. Someone once said that the extremes of human experience might be met by passing from Wall Street some hot and exciting day and gliding up the Hudson in a boat and reading the Culprit Fay beneath the shadow of old Crow nest itself. But notwithstanding it was war times. In armed men and skirmishers were all about us, this sudden development of battle was a more striking meeting of extremes that any such ordinary vicissitude of experience.
I rode down the road, profoundly impressed with the seriousness of the location of the grave importance of my tidings, but just as I jerked up in front of General McCook, I received an impression that has always been the most vivid in my recollections of Perryville. My rapid approach excited the curiosity of a soldier, who, standing near McCook, which just capping his gun. He dropped the butt of his musket on the ground, threw his head forward and open his mouth as if listening intently, and at that instant dropped his gun, clapped both hands to his face, gave a wild howl, and went dancing off the road in a most absurd fashion. A buckshot had passed between his teeth and through his cheek. I have never forgotten the ludicrous appearance of the man and his strange antics came into my mind in the midst of the most painful scenes I witnessed.
I think what I told General McCook lifted something off his mind. He looked relieved, and he told me to remain on the ground and he would send a message back by me. Just then I noticed an occurrence that is often since made me doubt the accuracy of statements of men who were not informed of all of the events of the battle. I had left the reinforcements far back on the road; I had ridden as fast as a good horse could carry me; I had just arrived and delivered my information, and had hastened to dismount to hurry off a note to the Chief of Staff, when a fresh battery whirled past me into position, and a brigade of infantry came cheering down the lane at the double time and ran beyond me into the position opened for them in line. I was astonished at the quick arrival and thought I must have taken a fearfully roundabout route to reach McCook’s battleground. They must have come on the wings of the wind, or I must have gone miles to the rear. Fortunately, I had reached the ground an instant sooner than they, and so I thought the least absurd thing to do was to let the matter drop. In letting it drop I failed to learn for a long time that, before I carried up the order for reinforcements, Gilbert had responded to the call of McCook, and had sent over some reinforcements before I had reached Gilbert’s position, and that it was these troops, who started long before me, and not the troops I saw start, who went into action with such unlooked for promptness.
Waiting for news to carry back, I saw and heard some of the unhappy occurrences of Perryville. I saw young (Union Colonel James Brown) Forman with the remnant of his company of the 15th Kentucky Regiment withdrawn to make way for the reinforcements, and, as a silently past me, they seem to stagger and reel like men who had been beating against a great storm. Forman had the colors in his hand, and he and several of his handful of men had hand upon the breast and their lips apart, as though they had difficulty in breathing. They filed into a field, and without thought of shot and shell they lay down on the ground apparently in a state of exhaustion. I joined a mounted group about a young officer, and heard (Edward) Rumsey Wing, afterward minister to Ecuador, telling of (Union General James) Jackson’s death and the scattering of the raw division he commanded. I remembered how he had gone up to Shiloh with Terrell’s battery in a small steamer, and how, as the first streak of daylight came, Terrell, sitting on the deck near me, had recited a line about the beauty of the dawn, and had wondered how the day would close upon us all, and I asked about Terrell, who now commanded a brigade. He had been carried to the rear to die. I thought of the accomplished, good and brave (Captain Charles) Parson, whom I had seen knocked down seven times in a fight with a bigger man at West Point without ever a thought of quitting so long as he could get up, and who lived to take orders in the church and die at Memphis of the yellow fever, ministering to the last to the spiritual wants of his parishioners, and I asked about Parsons battery. His raw infantry support had broken, and, stunned by the disaster he thought he had overtaken the whole army, he stood by his guns until every horse and every man had gone, and with the enemy almost touching him, and had been dragged away by one of his men who had come back to rescue him. His battery was a wreck, and no one knew then where he was. And so the news came in of men I knew and men with friends around me.
But the reinforcements brought new spirit to the jaded line of troops which held their position, and while I waited, the whole of McCook’s line, as far as I could see, advanced and seem to be maintaining the ground as it was gained. I thought things looked pretty well, and I asked General McCook if he had any message to send. He told me to go back and tell Gen. Buell he thought he was all right and could hold his ground.
One of Gen. Buell’s orderlies had gone to the front with me. He was a soldier in the well-known Anderson Troop, composed of some of the best young man of Pennsylvania, who, I fancy, had little notion of what they were facing when they enlisted, but who, when they discovered the rough experiences of the ranks, met the situation like earnest men and good soldiers. Many of them have since shown in important positions the high qualities that made them exemplary and efficient soldiers of the war. The name of my friend E. P. Wilson is born on the banners of the “Queen and Crescent” route all over the South. He rode out of the Anderson Troop into railroad prominence. The man who rode up with me at Perryville was a thick set youth, cool and brave, but not over fond of exertion. If his name was not in every Pennsylvanians head, it was on the head of the half the men of Philadelphia. A few years ago, I was in that city, and, stepping out of the Continental Hotel, I saw the name Oakford still proclaiming itself inseparably associated with the hats of Philadelphia. I entered the store and there was my comrade, older and stouter and much brisker than he was before the battle of Perryville. Oakford had an amusing time for a while, but he told me on my visit to him that, after a certain moment, I had a much better time than he did. When he left General McCook he found that the shells of the enemy chanced to fall just where he had to pass, and on this account several laden wagons had been hastily abandoned there. We made a run for it, but Oakford, being poorly mounted, came near being blown up with a wagon load of knapsacks. We got through but eventually parted company, and a regret to say that later in the evening I lay down among my friends on my own blankets, while Oakford, without any blankets, endeavored to find repose among the enemy. He was paroled, but he told me that he still shivered at the narrow escape he made from having to walk out of Kentucky with General Bragg.
As I rode back to Gen. Buell’s position on the main road, I saw the great yellow moon rising out of the tops of the hills I had left, and across its face and through the background of dark blue sky, from opposite directions, I saw the shells of opposing batteries cross and fall like meteors toward either line. It was a beautiful view, the enchantment of which was considerably heightened by distance.
While I was reporting to Gen. Buell how well things were looking at McCook’s front, stout Oakford, riding to the ground where we had left General McCook, rode into the Confederate lines and was captured. The beautiful moon I had paused to admire, and which I thought illuminated the good night salutations of the artillery, and would roll serenely over the resting armies, was, as it turned out, at that moment furnishing light for the latest movement of our left, which was to swing back until the place where I had seen some of the events of the day was ours no longer.
I do not pretend to write of Perryville as one familiar with all its history. For only a part of the time I was where the conflict was going on, and, waiting near a given place for instructions, I made no extended observations. I tell only what I remember of what I saw and heard there. I saw and heard enough, however, to recognize the fact that it was a dreadful struggle. It was not a long fight; but on the Federal side more than 900 men lay dead, and within a few score of 3,000 lay wounded on the field. The next morning, and caring some orders, I had occasion to ride along the front of the conflict the day before and saw the wounded of both armies in places almost side-by-side. Here it was that the prudent admonition of Gen. Buell, concerning the water I propose to waste and washing my face, enabled me to moisten the parched lips of suffering wounded man. All the army did not know it, but when Gen. Buell was relieved, his army lost a commander who never forgot, under any circumstances, to consider the comfort and safety of his men. There are persons now living who might write an interesting account of certain movements in the first few days after Perryville. Is not likely the account will be written by any of those best informed, for probably they all regret, as some have frankly regretted, the occurrences. But, yielding to a clamor that had a political rather than a military purpose in view, there was a movement set on foot that came very near a conspiracy to depose Buell from his command. I heard something of it about the time Gen. Buell was relived, but I heard more of it a few years ago in a Sunday evening street-corner conversation, when a gentleman who now occupies a most distinguished position gave me some details, and told me that under the law appliable to such cases he thought he might have been shot for his small participation in the matter without any great violation of military justice. But these things are all passed away, and the dignified reserve of Gen. Buell through many years of what his friends consider in justice and ingratitude, has commended him even to those who were most active in opposing the policy he pursued in his share of the conduct of the war.
After the battle of Perryville, Gen. Bragg’s Army hastened out of Kentucky, and Gen. Buell’s army followed to a given point and then was directed towards Nashville. Contemporaneous criticism at the South saw no reason why Bragg did not whip the Federals and hold Kentucky. Criticism at the North could not understand why Buell did not capture the whole of Bragg’s Army and carry it back to Louisville. Probably history will say that Bragg and Buell each conceived and well executed very considerable plans which were frustrated by the exigencies of war.
On June 8, 1863, Wright applied for an appointment in one of the artillery regiments of the regular Army. At the time, he was on duty on the staff of Brig. Gen. Jeremiah Boyle and was in charge of recruiting 20,000 new troops which were being raised in Kentucky. On January 16, 1864, he resigned his commission in the army and entered the University of Louisville law school and graduated. Soon after moving to Louisville, Wright married Nellie Butler Ewing, the daughter of Dr. U. E. Ewing, a famous physician of the day. He was a member of the Kentucky legislature from 1871-1875; served as Adjutant General of Kentucky from 1875-1879; he was superintendent of the Louisville Board of Trade from 1879 to 1883 and served twenty-seven years as Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1879 he helped organize the Salmagundi Club. He was also one of the founders of the Pendennis Club. He became an editorial writer on the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper, and on January 4, 1888, he was elected Marshall of the Supreme Court at the suggestion of Justice John Marshall Harlan.
Within two days of completing his twenty-seventh year as Marshall of the United States Supreme Court, Major Wright was found dead at his apartment by his wife when she tried to wake him in the morning on January 3, 1915. He had been living quietly at the Everett in Washington, D. C. He had been suffering from cancer on the side of his face and also kidney trouble. The doctor stated that he died of a heart attack during the night. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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