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320 Series I Volume XLV-I Serial 93 - Franklin - Nashville Part I

Page 320 KY.,SW.VA.,TENN., MISS., ALA., AND N.GA. Chapter LVII.

A, First Ohio Light Battery, were placed in position and checked this advance. Battery B, Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, Battery M, Fourth U. S. Artillery, Sixth Ohio Light Battery, and Twentieth Ohio Light Battery were placed in position to cover the wagon train. At 4 p.m. the enemy advanced in force and drove the Second and Third Brigades of the Second Division back to the pike upon the line of batteries previously posted there. He was repulsed and compelled to fall back to a wooded ridge half a mile from the pike. In this action Batteries A and G, First Ohio Light Artillery, Battery B, Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, and Battery M, Fourth U. S. Artillery, were engaged. At 8 p.m., by direction of Major-General Stanley, Battery M, Fourth U. S. Artillery, was ordered to report to General Wagner, to cover the retreat of the army. November 30, at 2 a.m., the brigade marched out upon the Nashville pike. When ten miles from Franklin the enemy's cavalry charged the column. Lieutenant A. P. Baldwin, commanding the Sixth Ohio Light Battery, and Lieutenant E. H. Neal, commanding a section of the Twentieth Ohio Light Battery, promptly placed their batteries in position and held them in check until General Wood's division came up and drove him back. The command reached Franklin at 9 a.m., where all the batteries of the corps were assigned their positions for the defense of the place. At 11 a.m., by direction of Major-General Stanley, one section of Battery G, First Ohio Light Artillery, reported to General Wagner, and moved two miles out on the Franklin pike, and was used with much gallantry and success on the outer line. By direction of Brigadier-General Cox,commanding Twenty-third Army Corps, at 12 m., I placed First Kentucky, Light Battery, Sixth Ohio Light Battery, Twentieth Ohio Light Battery, and Battery B, Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, in position in line, and had good embrasures made for their guns; Battery M, Fourth U. S. Artillery, and Battery G, First Ohio Light Artillery, were placed in position upon the south side and near the river, covering the left flank of General Reilly's brigade, Twenty-third Army Corps, which was the left flank of the army at that time. Bridges' Battery Illinois Light Artillery and Battery A, First Ohio Light Artillery, were placed in reserve in rear of the center, near the Columbia pike. At 3 p.m., receiving orders from Lieutenant-Colonel Schofield, chief of artillery, Department of the Ohio, I placed one section of Bridges' Battery Illinois Light Artillery, Lieutenant White commanding, in position on the right of the Columbia pike. At 3.30 p.m., the enemy appearing in force in front of the first line, and General Wagner's division having began to retire to the second line of works, I directed Captain Charles W. Scovill, Battery A, First Ohio Light Artillery, to place one section of his battery in position on the right of the Twentieth Ohio Light Battery, and to take command of the six guns, including his own and the Twentieth Ohio Light Battery, upon the right of the pike. He sent for one section of Battery A, First Ohio Light Artillery, and immediately took command of the Twentieth Ohio Light Battery, which had but one officer present, and he recently promoted, and worked the battery very gallantly.

The enemy followed General Wagner's division so closely that when the Second Division, Fourth Army Corps, reached the second line of works and endeavored to rally in the second line, many of the new troops near the pike were carried back with General Wagner's troops, and the section of Battery A, First Ohio Light Artillery, Lieutenant Grant commanding, was by my order placed in position upon the left


Page 320 KY.,SW.VA.,TENN., MISS., ALA., AND N.GA. Chapter LVII.