13
Henry Kilburn, 12th Battery, Ohio Light Artillery
April to September 1863
Henry Kilburn was still in winter camp at Falmouth, Virginia in April. Most likely he spent the winter patrolling the surrounding area, guarding against deserters and looters. And we can assume he changed his underwear once a week, whether it needed it or not. By the end of winter the army’s health and morale were largely restored by General Hooker’s reforms, and he was ready to begin his spring campaign in late April.
Hooker divided his army into two pieces, leaving part of it to watch the Confederate lines at Fredericksburg while he took most of the army and marched upstream on April 27. His plan was to go about 30 miles upriver, cross over and come back down the other side, trapping Lee between the two Union forces. He got upstream and crossed over with no problems, but then, like McClellan and Burnside before him, he started delaying and worrying about whether his army was big enough. This gave Lee enough time to split his own army up into several pieces, and he completely confused and outmaneuvered Hooker over the next several days.
The Battle of Chancellorsville, lasting from May 1 to May 4, 1863, is generally considered Lee’s greatest battle. Unfortunately for Hooker, his skill at organizing and providing for his army did not extend to ability on the battlefield. Chancellorsville was another costly defeat for the Union.
I am not going into any detail on this battle, because the 12th Ohio Battery was not involved. In fact we have no idea where they were placed during the battle. Being part of the Provost Guard, they might have been with either of the two sections of Hooker’s army. The Official Records do give the 12th Battery credit for the April 27 - May 6 Chancellorsville campaign, which indicates they had some supporting role and may have been involved in the movements leading up to the battle; but they are not listed as participating in the battle itself.
As was usual following a large battle, the two armies pulled back a little and sat for several weeks, recovering their strength and bringing in new supplies. While this was happening, General Grant finally reached Vicksburg and, after an unsuccessful assault, began his siege of the city on May 18.
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Following the Battle of Chancellorsville, the 12th Ohio Battery was moved from the Provost Guard and placed in the "Unattached Artillery Reserve," still directly under the Headquarters Section of the Army of the Potomac. They were probably replacing some other artillery unit that had been mangled in the battle. We don’t see anything to indicate whether they acquired any cannons of their own at this time. I am guessing probably not: being in the artillery reserve, they were probably one of several units sharing a common pool of cannons.
By early June it was obvious that although Hooker had been defeated, his army was still much stronger than Lee’s and was still in a good position to threaten Richmond, if he would only decide to move. Lee acted first, as usual, taking his army on its second invasion of the North. Hooker wanted to move toward Richmond, which was now left almost undefended, but Lincoln ordered him to go after Lee’s army.
The Confederate Army was strung out over 50 miles as they marched from Fredericksburg through the Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah Valley, and across the Potomac into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Hooker’s army followed, but he seemed unable to find a place to attack them, despite a constant stream of orders and criticism from Lincoln.
On June 25, the 12th Battery had reached the area of Washington, and at this time they were detached from the Artillery Reserve and left there. They were reassigned to "Duty in the Defences of Washington" under the Department of Washington (General Heintzelman). At various times during the war this was a separate command, but at the moment the Department of Washington was a part of the Army of the Potomac. The 12th Ohio Battery was at Arlington Heights, Virginia, across the river from the capital, for the next few days.
Three days later, General Hooker asked to be relieved of command of the Army. Lincoln immediately replaced him with General George Meade on June 28. The Army continued its pursuit of the Confederates toward Gettysburg.
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The 12th Ohio Battery was next stationed at Camp Barry, Washington. Along with eleven other batteries, they formed the "Artillery Camp of Instruction" under General William F. Barry. This is similar to the Cavalry Camp that the Vinings had passed through in St. Louis, providing new units with some advanced instruction prior to their assignment in the field.
The Army had for some time been concerned about the lack of training in new units arriving for duty. Many of the new batteries went directly into battles without even knowing how to load their own cannons. The push for an artillery school began at the start of the war, in letter of December 16, 1861 from Col Henry Hunt to McClellan. Hunt complained of the poor organization of the artillery at that time, wherein the artillery was one company in an infantry regiment. He said they should emphasize the battery structure and keep them independent of the infantry (this letter is probably the reason that the 12th Battery was started in the first place). Hunt went on to speak of the lack of training of the men, their lack of knowledge of their weapons, and the need to form an artillery school. Over a year later, the school was started. Newly formed artillery units were sent here to learn how to load and fire their weapons, as well as how to repair, transport and resupply them, before going off to join the rest of the army.
The records don’t tell us whether the 12th Battery was assigned here to learn or to teach. Because they were here for three months, and most training courses would take only a few weeks, I am guessing they did both – they most likely went through the course themselves, then stayed around to train several batteries following them. I am also guessing that the reason they were assigned here was because they had no cannons, having lost them all on the Mud March.
Camp Barry itself was an "open camp" (i.e. no fortifications) in the city of Washington. Nothing is left of it today. It was located one mile northeast of the Capitol building, near the intersection of Benning Road and Bladensburg Pike. While they were stationed here, the 12th Ohio was part of the Artillery Camp of Instruction, (under General Barry), Defences of Washington (General Heintzelman), XXII Corps (also Heintzelman), Army of the Potomac (General Meade).
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The Battle of Gettysburg took place from July 1 to July 3, 1863. Both armies were badly wrecked, but the Confederates had the worst of it. As at Antietam, they were close to falling apart completely as they retreated back to Virginia, but this time they would never recover and would never again take the offensive. The following day, on the 4th of July, Vicksburg surrendered to Grant and the Confederacy was split down the Mississippi River. Although the war would continue to drag out for another two years, these two battles signaled the end of the Confederacy.
The 12th Ohio Battery remained at Camp Barry through July, August and most of September. Nothing noteworthy happened during that time; then in mid-September a battle in Tennessee started a chain of events that led to a major move for the battery.
Since the Battle of Murfreesborough in January, General Rosecrans and his Army of the Cumberland had continued pushing the Confederates back – slowly – and working their way southeast. They captured Chattanooga and moved on into Georgia, where the Battle of Chickamauga took place on September 19 and 20. Rosecrans might have continued slowly pushing the Confederates back to Atlanta, but at this point Lee sent Longstreet’s Corps by train from northern Virginia. The reinforcements happened to reach Bragg’s army right in the middle of the battle, breaking Rosecrans’ line in half. Rosecrans fled the field with most of his army, back to Chattanooga. He found out later that he had abandoned part of his army in the field, and they held out alone under General George Thomas, who became famous as the "Rock of Chickamauga."
Rosecrans had his army dig in at Chattanooga and prepared to hold it, though they were now short of food and ammunition. Bragg’s army was too weak to attack the Union position, so the Confederates started a siege. They held all the surrounding high points overlooking the river and the railroad, so the Union army could bring in almost no supplies. They were close to starvation by the time they were relieved in mid-October.
News of the defeat and the dangerous position of the army reached Washington on September 23. They immediately ordered General Meade, currently on the Rapidan River in Virginia, to send two of his Corps from the Army of the Potomac to assist Rosecrans. Meade chose two "slightly substandard" outfits, Howard’s XI Corps and Slocum’s XII Corps, and placed them under General Hooker. The first train left Washington on the 25th.
With this emergency developing in the west, the 12th Ohio Battery was taken from the Artillery School and placed back in the XI Corps. As the Corps moved from Virginia through Washington the battery rejoined it, and Henry Kilburn boarded a train for Tennessee.
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