An officer of the 9th Indiana Infantry Lt Ambrose Bierce [about 1866]
By the time the 9th was assigned to William B. Hazen's 19th Brigade of Buell's Army of the Ohio in March 1862, Colonel Gideon C. Moody, a former prosecutor and politician, commanded the regiment. Hazen called Moody "a most gallant officer".[6]
Isaac C.B. Suman, initially the captain of Company H, then became colonel of the 9th. He commanded the 9th during such major battles as Chickamauga.[7][8]
William H. Blake, initially a major, later became colonel of the 9th. Dudley H. Chase served as a captain in Company K of the 9th in the three-month regiment. William P. Lasselle began as a sergeant in Company K in the three-month regiment and finished as a lieutenant colonel in the three-year regiment. James Nutt of Company I began as a first sergeant and ended as a captain of the three-year regiment. Photographs of some of these officers and a number of other officers and enlisted men from the 9th can be found at Indiana Civil War Soldiers, 9th Infantry,CITEREFCWI,_9th_Infantry_(2001)[note 4]
Service records
The NPS System includes 816 troop records (three-month) and 2916 troop records (three-year) classified as 9th Regiment, Indiana Infantry. These are not complete listings, and they include a number of apparent duplicates (due to alternate name spellings), but the listings do consist of many useful records. For example, author Ambrose Bierce's record of service in the three-year regiment is as follows:
No.
Last, First
Company
Rank_In
Rank_Out
195
Bierce, Ambrose G.
C
Sergeant
First Lieutenant
Other sources such as the Bierce biography by Roy Morris , or at least the sources Morris relied on, confirm the accuracy of this particular record.
Other kinds of service documentation that exist include muster rolls, identification discs, and discharge papers. In the case of the 9th, George Bickel's documentation is representative. Bickel served in Company C of the three-month regiment and, for a short period, in the three-year regiment before he received a medical discharge. Photos of his identification disc, images of the other documentation such as his three-year regiment service papers and a narrative of Bickel's service are available at .[10]
Death records
Records of some 9th's troops who died during the war can be found at national cemeteries in states where the 9th served, such as Grafton and Shiloh National Cemeteries.
Grafton National Cemetery
According to the available records, 19 soldiers from the 9th are buried at the Grafton National Cemetery, West Virginia. All of these men were killed in action in what is now West Virginia between the fall of 1861 and the winter of 1861–1862.[note 5]
There are 22 dead buried in Shiloh National Cemetery at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, identified as soldiers from the 9th Indiana Infantry, according to the cemetery's records.[13]
Name
Rank
Company
Name
Rank
Company
Bear, William S
Private
E
Berlin, Jacob
Private
C
Bolton, R.
Private
B
Cathcart, Wm. H.
Private
K
Dolph, Joseph O.
Private
F
Folsom, Alfred E.
Private
E
Green, George F.
Private
G
Guild, C.L.
Corporal
G
Hadley, Uriah
Private
N/A
Hitecle, J.
Private
H
Houghton, James
Captain
I
Lathrop, Robert R.
Private
E
Miller, Jesse
Corporal
I
Mitchell, James
Private
H
Ormsby, Martin P.
Corporal
C
Patton, Thomas J.
Captain
N/A
Redding, J.F.
Private
G
Stretch, William M.
Private
G
Tantlinger, John S.
1st Sergeant
A
Thatcher, David
Private
H
Thomas, W.M.
Private
G
Ungry, Daniel B.
Private
I
Stones River Hazen Brigade Monument
The west face of the Hazen Brigade Monument indicates that Capt. Isaac M. Pettit and 2nd Lt. Henry Kessler were among those from the 9th killed at the Battle of Stones River on December 31, 1862. 113 men from the 9th were killed or wounded in the battle. Capt. A. Johnson of the 9th and a detail of officers selected the location of the monument on a crest located between the railroad and the Nashville Pike. Lt. Edward Crebbin of the 9th supervised the detachment that constructed the monument in 1863.[12]
June 3, 1861. After some skirmishes at Grafton, one of the first land battles of the Civil War, the Battle of Philippi, took place in Philippi, Barbour County, in what is now West Virginia.[note 7] The battle began when a Federal battery started lobbing shells into a camp of around 825 and surprised Confederate recruits who had been asleep. In response, the Confederates ran, thus earning the battle the name “Philippi Races.” After the battle, the 9th camped on the same hill where the battery was located.[15]
Ambrose Bierce mentioned being at Philippi Races. He had enlisted as a private in Company C. Years later, in 1903, Bierce revisited the town. He recalled that visit and the battle in a 1904 piece written for the Eighth Annual Reunion of the 9th Indiana, noting that the Union battery involved "did nothing worse than take off a young Confederate's leg."[16]
July 7–11, 1861. The Battle of Laurel Mountain, also known as Laurel Hill, pitted 3,500 forces under Union Brigadier General Thomas A. Morris against what Morris perceived to be superior forces of 4,000 under Confederate Brigadier General Robert S. Garnett. McClellan had ordered Morris to occupy Garnett while McClellan's own force of 5,000 attacked 1,300 men under Lt. Col. John Pegram at Rich Mountain.[17]
As part of Morris' brigade, the 9th Indiana, taking cover behind trees, exchanged fire with Confederates, who were behind breastworks. Tiring of the stalemate that ensued, the Union troops charged the breastworks and did "well enough, considering the hopeless folly of the movement," according to Ambrose Bierce. After Corporal Dyson Boothroyd of the 9th's Company A was wounded in the neck and paralyzed during the charge, Bierce carried Boothroyd "fully 20 rods" (100 m) under enemy fire to safety, only to see him die later, according to an Indianapolis Journal reporter's account. Garnett and his forces retreated to the Cheat River, 10 miles to the northeast. The 9th along with the rest of Morris' brigade (including the Seventh Indiana and the 14th Ohio) pursued Garnett to Corrick's Ford.[17][18]
July 12–14, 1861. Heavy rains complicated Garnett's retreat, resulting in a wagon train becoming mired in the mud at Corrick's Ford, located east of Philippi near St. George (now St. George, West Virginia). By July 13, 1861, the bulk of Garnett's troops had moved north of Job's Ford, near Parsons on the Cheat River. During their retreat, they had crossed the river numerous times to evade the Union forces. To ensure the escape of most of his forces, Garnett ordered the 23rd Virginia Infantry to make a stand in a laurel thicket on the east side of Shaver's Fork at Corrick's Ford. He stayed with this regiment and used the wagon train in the mud as a decoy. This planned ambush ultimately failed. Morris' brigade successfully attacked and displaced the 23rd, and a member of the Seventh Indiana managed to shoot Garnett in the spine, killing him.[19][17]
September 12–16, 1861. Morris asserts that the 9th was in Elkwater on September 12 and was not engaged during Lee's attack, but another source states that a column of Lee's attacked Elkwater on or about September 12, and that the Unionists drove them off with no difficulty. Bierce didn't mention this attack in any of his surviving writings.[20][17]
October 3–4, 1861. Bierce did mention the fighting at Greenbrier River, which he called a "reconnaissance in force." A Union force of 5,000 under Joseph J. Reynolds exchanged artillery fire with a Confederate force of 2,000 under H.R. Jackson remaining at Camp Bartow to guard the Staunton-Parkersburg Pike. The Confederates succeeded in defending the road because their artillery was well placed, protected and effective. During a 1903 visit to the site, Bierce noted Union graves, most of which had been opened, with the bodies relocated to the National Cemetery at Grafton. He observed that some graves had been apparently overlooked. There were also between 80 and 100 graves behind the Confederate earthworks that were neglected.[17]
One of the bodies initially buried at Greenbrier River was that of J.A. Abbott of Bierce's company. After a 1909 visit to the area, Bierce recounted the manner of Abbott's death, although he did not personally witness it: "He was lying flat upon his stomach and was killed by being struck in the side by a nearly spent cannon-shot that came rolling in among us. The shot remained in him until removed. It was a solid round-shot, apparently cast in some private foundry, whose proprietor, setting the laws of thrift above those of ballistics, had put his 'imprint' upon it; upon it: it bore, in slightly sunken letters, the name 'Abbott.'"[21]
December 13, 1861. The 9th formed part of a brigade under their old regimental commander, now Brigadier General Robert H. Milroy, that attacked Col. Edward Johnson's forces protecting the Staunton-Parkersburg Pike. They exchanged fire for a good portion of that morning, and the Confederates managed to force a Union retreat back to the Cheat Mountain camps.
The 9th participated in building the Union fortification at the summit of Cheat Mountain during the winter of 1861, according to Bierce, who said the following after a visit in 1909: "Here we slew the forest and builded us giant habitations (astride the road from Nowhere to the southeast) commodious to lodge and army and fitly loopholed for discomfiture of the adversary. The long logs that it was our pride to cut and carry! The accuracy with which we laid them one upon another, hewn to the line and bulletproof. The Cyclopean doors that we hung, with sliding blots fit to be the 'mast of some great admiral!' And when we had 'made the pile complete' some marplot of the Regular Army came that way and chatted a few moments with our commander, and we made an earthwork away off on one side of the road (leaving the other side to take care of itself) and camped outside it in tents! But the Regular Army fellow had not the heart to suggest the demolition of our Towers of Babel, and the foundations remain to this day."CITEREFNPS,_Camp_Alleghany_(2003)[22]
Bierce described what the 9th saw of Pittsburg Landing that evening in vivid detail in "What I Saw of Shiloh." After an exhausting march from the village of Savannah, Tennessee, through swamps and jungle to the banks of the Tennessee opposite the landing, the 9th waited to be ferried across to the western side. Once on a steamer riding precariously low in the water under the weight of the troops, the 9th had a closer view of two Union gunboats, the Lexington and the Tyler. These gunboats had taken advantage of the high river bank and the opportune location of the mouth of a bayou to lob shells at the enemy from a protected vantage point on the river, effectively silencing Confederate small arms fire as much as a mile away. After debarking, the 9th passed through the chaos and carnage evident from the first day's battle. They pushed past fearful soldiers who were trying to escape by boarding the steamers for the trip back to the east bank. Men with bayonets kept those attempting to flee off the boats, and if not initially successful, subsequently threw them into the water.[24]
During the night of April 6 and the early morning of the 7th, Buell positioned Nelson's division closest to the river of all the troops under his command. By the time daylight came, Buell had directed Nelson to advance toward William J. Hardee's corps. Assuming the enemy had retreated all the way to Corinth, Bierce's platoon at one point advanced up an incline over open ground to strengthen the skirmish line, only to discover that Confederate forces in the woods on the far side had been waiting quietly to open fire upon them. Once they did, "a dozen of my brave fellows tumbled over like tenpins." Bierce's platoon made a retreat back across the field to rejoin the rest of the regiment.[25]
The 9th spent the remainder of the battle positioned behind the Union guns (at first lying face down, trying to avoid being killed by the enemy's own artillery) and countering the flanking movements of several succeeding lines of Confederate infantry, which eventually retreated when Union reinforcements arrived.[26]
December 30–31, 1862, and January 1–3, 1863. On December 31, the 9th as part of Hazen's brigade defended the left flank of the Union line at Round Wood, now known as "Hell's Half Acre" because of the intensity of the battle at this location. Hazen's forces were the only part of the original line to hold, despite a number of attacks by Breckenridge's division and reinforcements from Polk's corps. 113 men from the 9th were killed or wounded during this battle.[27]
September 19–20, 1863. Colonel Isaac C.B. Suman's official report described the 9th's activities before and during this battle.[28] Ambrose Bierce, then a 2nd Lieutenant, documents the ferocity and sheer brutality of the battle in his famous short story "Chickamauga".
↑ The NPS System [9] confirms most of the names listed at [3] as being from the 9th, but we lack confirmation that those pictured are indeed the named soldiers.
↑ J.A. Abbott is incorrectly listed as from the 8th Indiana, when he was from the 9th, Company C, according to Bierce.[12] The record is corrected here. Date of death in the existing record for this J.A. Abbott, along with place of burial, is consistent with Bierce's recollection.
The Battle of Philippi formed part of the Western Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War and was fought in and around Philippi, Virginia, on June 3, 1861. A Union Army victory, it was the first organized land action of the war, though generally viewed as a skirmish rather than a battle.
William Babcock Hazen was a career United States Army officer who served in the Indian Wars, as a Union general in the American Civil War, and as Chief Signal Officer of the U.S. Army. His most famous service was defending "Hell's Half Acre" at the Battle of Stones River in 1862, and seizing Fort McAllister, Georgia, in December 1864, which allowed William Sherman to capture Savannah at the end of his March to the Sea.
The Battle of Rich Mountain took place on July 11, 1861, in Randolph County, Virginia as part of the Operations in Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War.
The Battle of Camp Allegheny, also known as the Battle of Allegheny Mountain, took place on December 13, 1861, in Pocahontas County, Virginia, about 3 miles from the mountainous border of Highland County, Virginia, as part of the Operations in Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War. The battle was a small brigade-level conflict, and while the Confederates technically won with a Union withdrawal, it was considered militarily indecisive. However, it had critical implications for the future border of Virginia and West Virginia, ensuring Highland County remained in Confederate hands and would not be involved in the formation of the future state of West Virginia.
The Battle of McDowell, also known as the Battle of Sitlington's Hill, was fought on May 8, 1862, near McDowell, Virginia, as part of Confederate Major General Stonewall Jackson's 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign during the American Civil War. After suffering a tactical defeat at the First Battle of Kernstown, Jackson withdrew to the southern Shenandoah Valley. Union forces commanded by Brigadier Generals Robert Milroy and Robert C. Schenck were advancing from what is now West Virginia towards the Shenandoah Valley. After being reinforced by troops commanded by Brigadier General Edward Johnson, Jackson advanced towards Milroy and Schenck's encampment at McDowell. Jackson quickly took the prominent heights of Sitlington's Hill, and Union attempts to recapture the hill failed. The Union forces retreated that night, and Jackson pursued, only to return to McDowell on 13 May. After McDowell, Jackson defeated Union forces at several other battles during his Valley campaign.
The U.S. state of West Virginia was formed out of western Virginia and added to the Union as a direct result of the American Civil War, in which it became the only modern state to have declared its independence from the Confederacy. In the summer of 1861, Union troops, which included a number of newly formed Western Virginia regiments, under General George McClellan drove off Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Philippi in Barbour County. This essentially freed Unionists in the northwestern counties of Virginia to form a functioning government of their own as a result of the Wheeling Convention. Before the admission of West Virginia as a state, the government in Wheeling formally claimed jurisdiction over all of Virginia, although from its creation it was firmly committed to the formation of a separate state.
The 1st Ohio Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It served in the Western Theater in a number of campaigns and battles.
Robert Huston Milroy was a lawyer, judge, and a Union Army general in the American Civil War, most noted for his defeat at the Second Battle of Winchester in 1863.
The 41st Ohio Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
The 5th West Virginia Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
The 6th Indiana Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment from the State of Indiana that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. This regiment was the senior Indiana regiment of the Civil War, as it was numbered first in sequence after the five Indiana volunteer regiments which had served in the Mexican–American War. The regiment was originally mustered-in for a three-month period of service between April and August 1861, but after its initial term of service had expired it was re-formed in September 1861 for a further three-year period, before being mustered out in September 1864.
The 7th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment from the State of Indiana that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
The Battle of Corrick's Ford took place on July 13, 1861, on the Cheat River in western Virginia as part of the Operations in Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War. By later standards the battle was a minor skirmish. Often considered a final part of the Battle of Rich Mountain, it was the end of a series of battles between the forces of Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan and Confederate Brig. Gen. Robert S. Garnett.
Thomas Armstrong Morris was an American railroad executive and civil engineer from Kentucky and a soldier, serving as a brigadier general of the Indiana Militia in service to the Union during the early months of the American Civil War. During the Western Virginia Campaign in 1861, he played an important role in leading regiments from West Virginia, Indiana, and Ohio in clearing the Confederate army from western Virginia during the Battle of Philippi, a move that helped bolster pro-Union sentiment and contributed to the creation of the separate state of West Virginia. Morris was also instrumental in the planning and construction of the Reconstruction era Indiana State House.
32nd Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry was a Union Army infantry regiment during the American Civil War. It was also known as Indiana's "1st German" regiment because its members were mainly of German descent. Organized at Indianapolis, the regiment's first recruits mustered into service on August 24, 1861. From 1861 to 1865, the 32nd Indiana was attached to the first Army of the Ohio and the Army of the Cumberland, where it served in the Western Theater.
The 15th Indiana Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
The 39th Regiment Indiana Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The regiment fought at Shiloh, Corinth, and Stones River. In April 1863 the unit acquired horses and Spencer rifles and became mounted infantry, serving in the Tullahoma campaign and at Chickamauga. On October 15, 1863, the unit was renamed the 8th Indiana Cavalry Regiment.
George Alexander Porterfield was a junior officer of United States forces in the Mexican–American War, colonel, in the Confederate States Army during the first year of the American Civil War and longtime banker in Charles Town, West Virginia, after the war. He was in command of Confederate forces at Philippi in northwestern Virginia, later West Virginia, when they were surprised and routed, though with only a few soldiers wounded or captured, by Union Army forces on June 3, 1861, near the beginning of the Civil War. After serving in staff and temporary field positions for 11 more months, Porterfield resigned from the Confederate Army because he lost his position in a regimental election. In 1871 he helped found a bank at Charles Town, West Virginia, which he served for many years. At his death, he was the third-last surviving veteran officer of the Mexican–American War.
The western Virginia campaign, also known as operations in western Virginia or the Rich Mountain campaign, occurred from May to December 1861 during the American Civil War. Union forces under Major General George B. McClellan invaded the western portion of Virginia to prevent Confederate occupation; this area later became the state of West Virginia. West Virginians on both sides would fight in the campaign while a Unionist convention in Wheeling would appoint their choice for a Unionist governor for Virginia, Francis H. Pierpont, and promote the creation of a new state in western Virginia. Large scale Confederate forces would gradually abandon the region, leaving it to small local brigades to maintain hold on southern and eastern sections for much of the war.
The Hazen Brigade Monument at Stones River National Battlefield, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is the oldest American Civil War monument remaining in its original battlefield location.
The Civil War Archive, Union Regimental Histories, Indiana , accessed 17 May 2007
Corridor H - Parsons, West Virginia Division of Highways, Corrick's Ford Battlefield Archived 2003-03-24 at the Wayback Machine , accessed 17 May 2007
Liggett, Kristopher and Larry, Indiana, in the Civil War, 9th Regiment Indiana Infantry, accessed 17 May 2007
Private George Bickel service documentation , accessed 17 May 2007
National Park Service Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, Battle Summaries by State, West Virginia , accessed 17 May 2007
National Park Service Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System , accessed 17 May 2007
National Park Service, Stones River National Battlefield and Hazen Brigade Monument , accessed 17 May 2007
Rich Mountain Battlefield , accessed 17 May 2007
Robert H. Milroy Collection at the Jasper County Public Library. Online document database at . Includes Governor Oliver P. Morton's appointment of Milroy as Colonel to the 9th, accessed 17 May 2007
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![An officer of the 9th Indiana Infantry Lt Ambrose Bierce [about 1866] Abierce.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Abierce.jpg/170px-Abierce.jpg)
