Chickamauga Part II: Capt. Eli saves the day for the Union
By Bob Ford Special to
Articles, podcasts and YouTube videos are complimentary from those helping preserve our history: Eagle Communications, Nodaway Valley Bank, Hughes Chiropractic, The Hearing Connection and Anonymous Buffs. To comment or join in supporting this non-profit, contact Bob at robertmford@aol.com.
The Battle of Chickamauga had turned into a monster clash with both the Union and Rebel Armies being reinforced with additional troops.
Yankee Gen. William Rosecrans made his headquarters in a small house with his staff sleeping in the front room and on the porch.
“Rosecrans paced all night again, going with very little sleep, which will affect his decision making throughout the battle,” states Jim Odgon, national battlefield historian.
On Sept. 19, 1863, the battleline was six miles long, with divisions and brigades ensuring there were no gaps that could be breached. When an attack from either side happened, troops would be shifted and reserves committed, hopefully with artillery support. As stated, all this maneuvering with the topography in mind was a vast military chess match.
The Union’s 1st Light Cavalry Brigade under Col. John Wilder was one such unit on the front line who unknowingly had a massive attack heading their way from the Rebels.
Across Viniard Field, Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood, commanding his Texans and Georgians, did not know he was about to face a new state-of-the-art battlefield weapon.
Col. Wilder had mortgaged his business and made each soldier in his command sign a promissory note allowing him to purchase Spencer repeating rifles for the regiment. The rifles were capable of unloading a volley of seven shots compared to what the Rebels carried … slow loading muskets.
When Hood attacked, the firepower of the Spencer rifles made it seem like the assaulting front melted away. The soldiers kept on charging but didn’t get any closer. The assault took place in an open field, but now the attacking Rebels fell back into a 20-foot-wide shallow dry ravine for cover from the Spencer’s firepower, returning fire shortly after.
Capt. Eli — whose four-cannon battery supported Wilder — was firing from the woods fairly straight on, but the captain received orders to move two pieces up along the border of Viniard and the woods in a flanking movement in order to look straight down the length of the ravine, if he could get there. Fierce fighting was all around, with Wilder being greatly outnumbered. But those new rifles evened the odds.
Using manpower to move the howitzers, Capt. Eli got into an unbelievable position. Now staring down the breath of the ditch, he commenced firing at will. The canister shots used were tin cans full of 27 one-inch diameter lead balls in each. Eli’s cannoneers were quick and accurate, they shoved three cans down the barrel per shot and could reload at a rate of four shots per minute.
It was the most devastating carnage one could ever imagine, like having two huge shotguns hitting the unprotected enemy at close range.
In Wilder’s later report he considered halting Eli’s battery from taking more lives because he felt “sympathy for those poor young boys.”
After the Rebs realized the devastation, they retreated, limping away from the ditch. It was said you could walk 200 yards up the ravine without touching the ground because of all the bodies you had to step on. Battlefield estimates had 2,000 Confederate soldiers killed or wounded in that trench.
Capt. Eli is an interesting character. A young chemist before the war, he enlisted and personally raised an artillery battery consisting of his Indiana friends.
He did survive Chickamauga.
Later in the war, now-Major Eli — along with his unit — was moving on the Sulphur Creek trestle in Mississippi when they were swarmed and captured by the Confederates best cavalry General, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and his 3,500 mounted veterans.
As a prisoner, Eli was sent to Enterprise MS where he commanded the prisoner garrison. Shockingly, all 100 of his captive men were given a parole of honor, not guarded but ordered not to leave town. Enterprise is located close to Jones County, Mississippi, the county that seceded from the Confederacy, creating their own “Republic of Jones.”
Think Matthew McConaughey’s movie “The Free State of Jones.” They refused to fight for “the cause.”
The rebels who rebelled against the Confederacy were poor farmers, deserters, runaway slaves and the disenchanted. These people took refuge in the nearby swamps and would occasionally fight local rebel units ordered to capture them. If the Confederacy sent a larger force, they simply went back into the bog.
Desperate, the double rebels heard the Union prisoners were close, well fed and clothed. Major Eli’s captors felt an attack from the Jones County irregulars was imminent. They decided to arm the Union prisoners so they could defend themselves.
Eli set up a fighting unit involving pickets, built defensive breastworks, sent out patrols and created a headquarters. Word soon got back to the Jones County boys that the Union prisoners were now armed and ready for them. They never attacked but in frustration, skirmished with the captured Union soldiers.
“I will venture the assertion that no war will show another instance where prisoners of war having been furnished arms by their captors to protect themselves against an enemy foreign to both,” Major Eli, 9th Indiana Calvary.
Eli and his fellow POW’s eventually were moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where they were exchanged in January of 1865.
Oh, did I forget to mention Eli’s full name, the man whose battery mowed down throngs of Southern soldiers at Chickamauga?
That would be Eli Lilly … yes that Lilly. Lilly took his early chemical training after the war and entered the pharmaceutical business. The company he founded and bears his name saved many more lives compared to the number of people his unit killed in the ditch that day at Chickamauga.
Eli Lilly and his company helped develop the gel capsule that regulated the amount of medicine one takes. The company was also was the first in the industry to commercially manufacture insulin. Think of all the diabetics that have survived because of the treatment his company provided. Lilly passed leadership of his company on for generations to family members. The company last year had revenues upwards of $34 Billion. That will teach you to keep your head down!
It makes you wonder if Lilly devoted his life to healing people after that dreadful day unloading shots up the ditch … war is hell!
Back to Chickamagua, where the last phase of the battle was playing out along with the long-awaited arrival of General Longstreet’s Corps from the Army of Northern Virginia.
The outcome and consequences next time, charge!
