Battle of Adairsville, Georgia The Gallant Fight of the First Tennessee at the Old Octagon House, March 17th 1864 Sunny South, Mar. 3, 1888 - pg 1 by J.R. Watkins Editor Sunny South After remaining in winter quarters at Dalton, Georgia the winter of 62-64 sometime in May the Federal Army advanced and General Joseph E. Johnston took up his line of battle on Rocky Face Ridge. the armies skirmished along until they got to Resaca where a battle was fought. After the battle of Resaca, Johnston commenced his retrograde movement towards Atlanta, Georgia. At Adairsville one of the hottest little battles of the war was fought, and yet the quasi historian has overlooked or neglected to mention it. Johnston, with all his capacity and popularity, had allowed the federals to slip up on him. We had gotten to Adairsville, the army had gone into camp, and were drawing rations. All at once we saw our cavalry thundering along the road at full retreat firing back towards their rear. An order came for us to go forward and occupy an old Octagon House in our front. The Federals were advancing - were even then nearing the Octagon house. The race commenced as to who would reach the house first. We succeeded and a part of our command was sent to occupy and hold down an old barn across the road. But they soon whipped us out of that, and we made dust fly while running for dear life to the house. We had barely gotten in when we found the federals nearly surrounded it in the yard and garden on the opposite side. The balls were flying through the glass in the windows and flattening themselves against the opposite wall, when some fellow hallooed out boys by God this is nothing but a lath and plaster house, and we would have been a regular stampede had it not been for Colonel Henry R. Field, who seized a musket and threatened to shoot the first man that would try to get out of the house. We soon found out, however, that the walls were solid brick; we ran to the windows, upstairs, downstairs and in the cellar; and then opened up musketry fire upon our assailants. The shot and shell would scream through the windows, while the plastering would fall upon the floor, and the solid shot from their cannon would penetrate the walls with a terrible and unearthly jar as if ten thousand earthquakes had come together and threatened to grind the old house into powder. At length a shell loaded with shrapnel burst exploded in the room right in our very midst, When the smoke slightly cleared we saw eight men in that little band weltering in their life blood, and many of the others wounded. In other rooms similar scenes were being enacted. Thirty four corpses in that old building were weltering in their own blood. In the meantime the Federals had set fire to the stable and barn which lit up the darkness of the night, and we could see the dark shadows of the blue coats in the bright glare of the burning barn that looked like a million devils dancing around the lost souls in hell. Men who looked on afterward told us that the roof of the house looked like it was on fire, and that columns of smoke towered above the building which seemed to be a vortex from a burning volcano. it being night, the bright blazes and flashes from our own and the Federal guns, looked like a hot blast furnace at midnight. When we first got in the house the walls were white and decorated with beautiful pictures, and lace curtains and sofas, settee and piano and other things pertaining to a luxurious home. When we came out shattered wrecks of every kind of furniture were scattered all over the floors, and the walls looked like an old dilapidated wall begrimed with smoke and soot, the curtains all torn down and trodden under foot covered with blood. After fighting for some time we found that nearly all of our cartridges had been shot away; Colonel Field called for volunteers to go back to the main line for cartridges. There was but one way open through the fiery circle to the Confederate Supply Wagon, and to pass thither and return seemed impossible, When Colonel Field called for volunteers, there was a moments pause, while the cheeks of those brave men, who fought a hundred battles, paled at this thought of the desperate venture - but Charley Erwin and Lieutenant Joe Carney, stepped from the ranks and offered to go. We got out of the back window and started, when Colonel Fields said: Hold a minute, boys, Ill divide the fire with you. We had to run the gauntlet of that circle fire while the balls plowed up the ground all around us, ripping it up with a tremendous and unearthly thud, We got to the ammunition train, and each of us got as many cartridges as we could carry and started back; two of us got back; but one fell just as he threw the cartridges in the window saying here boys, and then fell back a livid corpse. Meantime Colonel Fields stood with folded arms and looked on, exposed to the fire of ten thousand muskets as he divided fire with us. The federals in the meantime, after having made charge after charge, finally reached the house. Then was enacted the scene of blood and carnage, and death, almost without a parallel in the history of the war. The federals having surrounded the house, demanded our surrender which Colonel Fields refused; then they attempted to take it by storm, but we had fought and held our position for so long that we had lost all consciousness of fear, and every mind =determined to die before he would consent to surrender. Our blood was up and we held the house.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 11:35:22 +0000
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