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The Battle of Adairsville
May 17, 1864

After the Battle of Resaca, General Joseph Johnston’s Army of Tennesse began to call back along the Western and Atlantic Railroad. Johnston was looking for a place to attack Sherman on favorable terms for the Southern Army. Failing to find a good position south of Calhoun, Georiga, on May 17, 1864, Johnston began to fall back towards Adairsville, Georgia while his forces continued to fight a skillful rearguard action.

Sherman had divided his forces into three colums and was advanicing on a broad front. There was continual skirmishing as he advanced. Arrivig at Adairsville Johnston hoped to find a good position but had to fall back further. Johnston was looking to isolate a part of Sherman’s three columns and attack one or part of the columns.

There were two roads leading south from Adairsville. One to Kingston, Georgia and one to Cassville, Georgia. It was hoped that Sherman would split his army allowing Johnston to attack only a part of Sherman’s army. Sherman did as Johnston thought he would. He sent General McPherson’s and a large part of Thomas’ armies to Kingston and sent General Scofields army towards Cassville, Georgia.

Now that Scofield army was isolated Johnston moved to have the southern corps of General Polk and General Hood attack Scofield. Polk would attack Scofield head on and fix him in position while Hood would hit him in the flank. In order to take Scofield in the flank Hood would have to face West exposing his flank to Northern forces moving South. As Hood moved into position. He found Nothern soldiers on his flank. After a brief skirmish with the Northern soldiers Hood fell back towards Polk. Johnston believing an opportunity to strike a blow broke off the contact. Johnston ordered Polk and Hood to mover to a new line on a ridge east and south of Cassville where they were joined by the other corps of the Army of Tennesse under General Hardee.

Later that night the Confederate leaders held a council of war. There is no record of what happened at the council and later records by General Johnston and Hood do not match. According to Johnston, Polk and Hood stated that their lines could not be held and urged retreat. Johnston yielded to these demands, even though he thought the position to be defensible. According to Hood, whose recollection of the council as stated earlier differs markedly from Johnston’s, stated that he and Polk told Johnston that the line could not be held against an attack but that it was a good position from which to move against the enemy.

Johnston was unwilling to risk an offensive battle and decided to fall back across the Etowah. There is no way to know the real story but most of the record supports Hood’s version of the conference. As army commander Johnston is held responsible for the action and the responsibility for abandoning the Cassville position rests on the Southern commander

The Battle of Round Mountain took place on November 19th, 1861 in present day Oklahoma. This is one of the Civil War battles where Native American troops were engaged.

Confederate Colonel Douglas H. Cooper, commander of the Indian Department, wished to remove Chief Opothleyahola, commander of a band of Unionist Creeks and Seminoles from the department.

Cooper set out on November 15, 1861, with about 1,400 men to attack Opothleyahola. Cooper’s force rode up the Deep Fork of the Canadian River where they found Chief Opothleyahola’s camp deserted.

On November 19, Cooper learned from captured prisoners that part of Opothleyahola’s band was erecting a fort at the Red Fork of the Arkansas River. Cooper’s men discovered Opothleyahola’s men that afternoon and a pitched battled ensued. After a short fight, Opothleyahola’s men set fire to the prairie grass and retreated.

The next morning, Cooper advanced on Opothleyahola’s new camp but found that the Federal forces had fled. This was the first of three encounters between Opothleyahola’s Union bands and Confederate troops. The chief was forced to flee to Kansas at the end of the year.

The Confederate loss in the engagement was 1 captain and 5 men killed, 3 severely and 1 slightly wounded, and 1 missing. Opothleyahola lost about 110 killed and wounded.

The 26th North Carolina Regiment started the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg with 800 men. By sunset, 588 of them were either dead or wounded. Yelling like demons, they had courageously charged and taken the formidable federal position on Seminary Ridge. Fourteen colorbearers in the 26th were shot down in succession. One of them was 21 year-old Henry King Burgwyn, the youngest colonel in the Confederate army, who stained the flag with his blood as he fell wrapped in its folds. All 90 soldiers in the 26th’s Company F had fallen.

Mustered into Confederate service on August 27, 1861, the 26th Regiment served its first 10 months in eastern North Carolina in an undistinguished effort to contest the foothold made by the Union forces. On June 21, 1862, the regiment arrived at Petersburg, VA., and became a part of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Then began an association that lasted until the regiment’s flag was finally and forever furled at Appomattox. The 26th North Carolina at one time was the largest regiment in the Army of Northern Virginia. They participated in some of the hardest-fought battles of the war, including Malvern Hill, Bristoe, and Spotsylvania; but it was Gettysburg that earned them a place in the Civil War record books.

After their disastrous first day at Gettysburg, the 26th was not utilized in the actions fought on the second day. But the third day of the battle found the regiment charging under its battle flag across the fields to the federal position behind the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge. Members of the 26th North Carolina advanced as far as any other of the Confederate troops that took part in Pickett’s charge, and like the rest, they paid a terrible price for their bravery and determination. Only 90 soldiers from the 26th North Carolina were able to make their way back to the Confederate lines on Seminary Ridge. The Battle of Gettysburg claimed as casualties 88 percent of the regiment, the highest percentage of casualties for any regiment, North or South, in any battle.

Fascinating Fact: Approximately 2,000 men served in the 26th North Carolina Regiment during the course of the war. Just 131 of them were left to receive their paroles at Appomattox.

THE STORY OF GROTON’S HISTORICAL SLEEPING SENTINEL
His Memory Lives On
by Marilyn Hatch-Ruiter
Used by permission of the Journal Opinion and its author, Marilyn Hatch-Ruiter

GROTON — “The Sleeping Sentinel ” of Groton is the most notable Private of the Civil War. Historians and writers of that period, and ever since, have written many words about the remarkable Groton soldier – Private William Scott.

This is a time of special significance in Groton’s history, as both Scott’s birth and death occurred during the month of April.

A Vermont granite monument can be seen alongside the heavily traveled U.S. Route 302 highway, and is situated about five miles west of Groton Village. The memorial was cut and engraved by the James W. Main Granite Company of Groton. Special dedication ceremonies for the stately remembrance marker were conducted June 25, 1936 by the Grand Army of the Republic, and attended by noted Groton and Vermont officials and citizens.

The engraved stone tells the story of “The Sleeping Sentinel,” and denotes the nearby cellar hole of the farmhouse where Scott was born on April 9, 1839. At that spot Thomas and Mary (Wormwood) Scott raised a family, with William Scott and four of his brothers responding to the call of President Abraham Lincoln for volunteers to fight in the War Between the States on July 10, 1861. They enlisted in the Union Army as members of Company K of the Third Vermont Infantry Regiment.

Seven days after his 23rd birthday, 145 years ago on April 16, 1862, Scott laid down his life admirably for his country. He died from five, perhaps, six gunshot wounds upon the battlefield at Lee’s Mills, VA., while assaulting the Confederate lines. However, that is not the reason for Scott’s notoriety.

PRESIDENTIAL PARDON

The name of this 23 year old Vermont youth has been featured alongside that of President Lincoln, “the great emancipator.” Lincoln issued a presidential pardon that spared the life of William Scott.

Private Scott had been court-martialled and he was sentenced to be put to death by a firing squad on September 9, 1861. He had been found guilty of falling asleep at his post, while on watch upon the Potomac, where he had been assigned to guard the Chain Bridge and the Nation’s Capitol. Scott was found asleep there on August 31, 1861 between the hours of three and four a.m.

Only a few months before that, Scott had enlisted and made the trip by train to Washington, D.C., starting out on July 24 and arriving on July 28. The raw Vermont troops were accustomed to a very different climate and were marched immediately to Georgetown Heights, to a post known as Camp Lyon. There they experienced intensive training as well as serving on picket duty.

Brigadier General William F. “Baldy” Smith was the brigade commander and he took orders from Lt. General George B. McClellan, who was commanding the Army of the Potomac.

According to the Articles of War at that time, General Orders required that a sentry found asleep on duty should be shot. Four days prior to the Vermont regiment starting the guard of this strategic bridge, the Union forces had been badly beaten at Manasses Junction. General P.G. Beauregard’s Confederate army was about ten miles away, south of the river, and a sentinel asleep at his post could have helped cause the loss and fall of Washington.

All accounts written about the “The Sleeping Sentinel” report that Private Scott had actually volunteered to take the place of a sick comrade and was serving his second consecutive night of sentry duty, when Scott was found asleep by the officer of the guard. He was immediately arrested.

A copy of the death warrant of the court martial made available from the Fairbanks’s Museum in St. Johnsbury, VT, shows that it was signed by Colonel B.N. Hyde on Sept. 4, 1861. Scott’s death sentence was to have taken place Sept. 9, 1861.

The death penalty seems very harsh to people of this day, and it also seems to have been viewed as severe by Scott’s contemporaries. Conflicting reports indicate that officers and enlisted men appealed to Brig General Smith through a signed petition bearing 191 signatories asking for a pardon. The Chaplain, the Rev. Moses P. Parmalee, is believed to have presented President Lincoln late Sunday evening with the execution planned for Monday morning.

Another story actually tells of Lincoln sending the pardoning order, then worried about the situation, ordered his carriage and had it driven the 10 miles to make certain that Scott’s life was spared.

In an essay written by Mrs. William (Nellie T.) Jeffrey of Groton, she wrote that President Lincoln told Scott he was not to be shot the next morning and did not merit the death penalty. Scott had given the President his solemn pledge, never again to fail in his duty to his country.

EXECUTION STILL PLANNED

But the story does not end there. The commanding officer decided to carry out the execution plan anyway to impress upon the men the seriousness of the offense. The brigade formed a hollow-square formation, the prisoner was blind folded, and the general order was read. The pardon then was read noting it was the president’s wish that mercy be extended to Scott.

In military terms Lincoln’s wish as chief executive, was an order and Scott was immediately returned to duty. The language contained in the pardon also declared that the pardon on Scott would not set a precedent.

Although news didn’t travel as fast as it does today. There was an editorial in the New York Times written at that time, that called for the carrying out the sentence to set an example for others. It was an order that had never been taken that seriously.

One conclusive piece of evidence was letter revealed by Waldo F. Glover, Groton’s Historian, in his book written in 1936 entitled “Abraham Lincoln and the Sleeping Sentinel of Vermont.” In it Glover explained that General McClellan wrote to his wife on Sept. 8, 1861 in the evening before the execution as to have taken place. He wrote, “Mr. Lincoln came this morning to ask me to pardon a man that I had ordered to be shot.”

Glover in his writings notes that Vermont newspapers carried the story and a letter from Captain Francis V. Randall which verified the petition, and the general good character of Scott and the pardon. Glover also told of one woman spending the entire execution day with Mary Scott, his mother. William Scott’s father later personally thanked President Lincoln who allowed Thomas Scott to visit his sons with the army in Virginia. The president is reported to have given the father a $10 bill, after he was asked how he could manage his farm with five of his sons at war.

George Scott is recorded to have died in Maryland on November 4, 1862; while Daniel died March 25, 1864 in Virginia. Another brother of William, John, reportedly lived many years after returning home. Joseph W. Scott of Company H. Sixth Vermont Volunteers is believed to be the brother who died of his war wounds shortly after returning home to Vermont.

Joseph’s remains are that of the only brother who was buried at home. His gravestone is believed to be in an old cemetery situated at the top right hand corner of a knoll on the opposite side of the road from the memorial honoring his “Sleeping Sentinel Brother.”

–WILLIAM SCOTT’S DEATH–

About seven months after the pardon, on April 16, 1862, William Scott was sent with a contingency of 192 men to destroy the Confederate rifle pits across the Warwick River at Lee’s Mills, VA. Only about 100 men returned from that mission. Private Scott fell mortally wounded, while struggling up a riverbank with a wounded soldier on his shoulders. He is reported to have saved several men from drowning the muddy waters of that river.

Knowing that he was dying the next morning of his bullet wounds he sustained, he called some of his closest comrades to his hospital cot. There he relayed messages to his family and friends at home. He also made an earnest plea that if it was at all possible that President Lincoln be told of the circumstances of his death. He asked that his gratitude be expressed for the pardon, which made it possible for him to die in battle as a soldier and not at the hands of a firing squad.

William Scott’s record as a Company K soldier from the day of his pardon was considered to be outstanding according to all reports. No assignment was too dangerous or difficult for his ready acceptance and no one was ill or in trouble was ever ignored by him..

Charles Emery of Groton, and of Company C. helped carry Scott’s body from the battlefield. George Philbrick, also of Groton, along with Emery were in attendance at Scott’s burial, as was Dr. Seth Eastman, another Groton soldier. Scott was buried under the blossoming trees on the banks of the Warwick River.

WORTHY OF REMEMBRANCE

During the Vermont legislative session of 1945, through the efforts of a Groton Representative, the late Mrs. Nellie Jeffrey, U. S. Route 302 beginning at the intersection of U.S. Route 2 and extending through the city of Barre was named the William Scott Memorial Highway and it was the duty of the State to see that the highway was to appropriately marked The road runs through Barre, Orange, Topsham, Groton, Ryegate, Newbury and the Village of Wells River, to the Vermont-New Hampshire border. Groton citizen, Marilyn Hatch-Ruiter in 1994 reading again “Mr. Glover’s Groton” historical book, “the Vermont State Highway Board was “hereby authorized to properly mark the designated highway accordingly.” Noting the omission to properly mark the William Scott Memorial Highway.” Hatch-Ruiter took her concern to the Groton Selectmen who had a letter written to the Vermont Transportation Agency asking that the highway be so marked with signage. In response, the State, within two months had signs noting its official name.

Carl Sandburg, in his biography “The War Years,” quoted Lincoln concerning the Scott incident and pardon. Francis Janvier, a contemporary poet, wrote a ballad about Scott.

Scott is remembered by both local citizens and through numerous mentions in historical writings. The memory of the valiant soldier, Private William Scott lives on.

The Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries, sometimes known as the Battle of Forts Hatteras and Clark, was a small but significant engagement that took place on August 28th and 29th of 1861. The ill-equipped and undermanned forts endured bombardment by seven Union warships, to which they were unable to reply. Although casualties were light, the defenders chose not to continue the one-sided contest, and on the second day they surrendered. As immediate results of the battle, Confederate interference with Northern maritime commerce was considerably reduced, while the Union blockade of Southern ports was extended. More importantly, the Federal government gained entry into the North Carolina Sounds. Several North Carolina cities (New Bern, Washington, Elizabeth City, and Edenton among them) were directly threatened. In addition, the sounds were a back door to the Confederate-held parts of Tidewater Virginia, particularly Norfolk.

The battle is significant for several reasons: It was the first notable Union victory of the war; following the embarrassment of First Bull Run (or First Manassas), 21 July 1861, it encouraged supporters of the Union in the gloomy early days. It represented the first application of the naval blockading strategy. It was the first amphibious operation, as well as the first combined operation, involving units of both the United States Army and Navy. Finally, a new tactic was exploited by the bombarding fleet; by keeping in motion, they did much to eliminate the traditional advantage of shore-based guns over those carried on ships.

The Battle was run on the Union Side by Silas Stringham of the Navy and Benjamin Butler of the Army. On the Confederate side the leaders were Samuel Barron of the Confederate Navy and William Martin of the Confederate Army

John C. Fremont Order of Martial Law Throughout Missouri

Headquarters of the Western Department
St. Louis, August 30, 1861.

Circumstances, in my judgment, of sufficient urgency, render it necessary that the commanding general of this Department should assume the administrative powers of the State. Its disorganized condition, the helplessness of the civil authority, the total insecurity of life, and the devastation of property by bands of murderers and marauders, who infest nearly every county of the State, and avail themselves of the public misfortunes and the vicinity of a hostile force to gratify private and neighborhood vengeance, and who find an enemy wherever they find plunder, finally demand the severest measures to repress the daily increasing crimes and outrages which are driving off the inhabitants and ruining the State.

In this condition, the public safety and the success of our arms require unity of purpose, without let or hindrance, to the prompt administration of affairs. In order, therefore, to suppress disorder, to maintain as far as now practicable the public peace, and to give security and protection to the persons and property of loyal citizens, I do hereby extend and declare established Martial Law throughout the State of Missouri.

The lines of the Army of Occupation in this State are for the present declared to extend from Leavenworth by way of the posts of Jefferson City, Rolla, and Ironton, to Cape Girardeau, on the Mississippi River.

All persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within these lines shall be tried by Court-Martial, and if found guilty will be shot. The property, real and personal, of all persons, in the State of Missouri, who shall take up arms against the United States, or who shall be directly proven to have taken an active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use, and their Slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared Free men.

All persons who shall be proven to have destroyed, after the publication of this order, railroad tracks, bridges, or telegraphs, shall suffer the extreme penalty of the law. All persons engaged in Treasonable correspondence, in giving or procuring aid to the Enemies of the United States, in fomenting tumults, in disturbing the public tranquility by creating and circulating false reports or incendiary documents, are in their own interests warned that they are exposing themselves to sudden and severe punishment.

All persons who have been led away from their allegiance, are required to return to their homes forthwith; any such absence, without sufficient cause, will be held to be presumptive evidence against them. The object of this declaration is to place in the hands of the Military authorities the power to give instantaneous effect to existing laws, and to supply such deficiencies as the conditions of War demand. But this is not intended to suspend the ordinary Tribunals of the Country, where the Law will be administered by Civil officers in the usual manner, and with their customary authority, while the same can be exercised.

The commanding general will labor vigilantly for the public Welfare, and in his efforts for their safety hopes to obtain not only the acquiescence, but the active support of the Loyal People of the Country.

J. C. FREMONT
Major-General Commanding.