General Otho Strahl at the Battle of Franklin

and [Music] action topics to study when you're talking about the civil war are varied and there's tons and tons of things we can talk about but usually when you go to a battlefield and you try to interpret what happened uh and figure out what made this battle so unique and different we often look to the leadership the generals the guys who made the plans executed the plans and then reacted to what happened when those plans unfolded in franklin we're no different here we tell stories of general john bell hood and general scofield and jacob cox at the battle of franklin we'll have six confederate generals killed six more confederate generals wounded and one captured this is the single largest loss of general staff life of any battle the entire civil war on one side of the army and all happened really in the first hour of this fight and we tell that fact to our guests to prove a point but it generally doesn't go much further than that so we hope with these videos to be able to tell at least part of the rest of their story so i hope you'll join us as we the interpreters of the battle of franklin trust take you around this battlefield and we'll tell you about their lives their exploits what brought them here to franklin and of course we'll show you the spots where these six men met their fate and destiny here at the battle of franklin on november 30th 1864. now when the confederate army launched their attack from winstead hill they started out in these long battle lines that stretched for over two miles but as they approached these lines of defense right they got closer they started to kind of bunch up a little bit specifically this part of the battlefield was being attacked by john brown's division general john brown had four brigades of those brigades was general straws so two brigades kind of got slid in front as the leading element that was going to make kind of the first wave attack here and then two more brigades are kind of slid in back of them to be that second wave to hit it so by the time general straws brigade got to these works they were on that kind of second wave that hit this position this gravel line marks the exact location of the u.s line of defense uh through this section of the property now those two brigades that have been snuck out in front to make that first line attack here when they hit this section of the line they would actually pierce a giant hole in the middle of it they bounded over these works into the carter yard and then for the next little bit we have really some of the worst hand-to-hand fighting of the entire civil war swirling all around this house and these fields now if you remember straws brigade was part of that second wave they're still a little bit to the south trying to catch up so by the time they reach these works the confederate troops who have broken through this position had already been mostly repulsed they have been bought hand-to-hand they pushed back and now they occupy this trench this ditch so what previously had been a u.s position with all the soldiers along this line all firing to the south was now a confederate position so these troops had now occupied this space and they're firing to the north shooting at the u.s soldiers who are entrenched on that secondary line and really all the troops out in this position so to put these works into perspective what we have here is the u.s trench right now i'm in the position of the u.s soldier facing south and this morning when they were building these works we know archaeological evidence suggests that they had dog about 18 to 20 inches deep they had taken the dirt that they had excavated and they built a parapet in front of these works so they're not only 18 to 20 inches down but they also have a giant earth mound in front that can stop bullets additionally on top of these works they had late headlocks wood that was meant to protect them and would leave a little gap for them to shoot through and that log would protect their head while they were firing through that gap and as they did so what this means is that on the other side of this trench there's now a ditch forming and we also believe that maybe they had excavated additional dirt we know that along this section of the line we have really a very tall wall of dirt on the other side here so high that they were saying they were having to hoist soldiers up and over the works in some spots so this is the u.s line the confederate soldiers along that first wave they hit it here they pierce through the u.s soldiers retreat to the north the confederates in hot pursuit now we have this hand-to-hand action that's occurring in this yard the confederates that are fighting here are now pushed back they are now repulsed they are retreating back to the safety of this line of works about this time straw's men are getting up here as well so now remember along this trench we have this giant mound of dirt right here this is where the confederate soldiers are now hunkering down behind this this wall of dirt what we call a ditch and in this ditch the confederate soldiers are reloading and firing to the north uh the u.s soldiers that are entrenched now along the secondary line and reforming and regrouping so to understand the death of general straw that's really the perspective that's going to give you the most understanding of it right he's behind these trenches behind that earth and berm he's taking cover and he's firing north into really what we call this this no man's land because 50 yards to the north our u.s troops entrenched along the secondary line of defense we had two parallel lines of defense here the main line which has been pierced in the secondary line just about 50 yards up right so we have the strange no man's land in between now the exact location of where general straw was when he was first wounded will never be known exactly but based on all the accounts that we have we suspect he's about this part of the line right here where it starts to bend back around there was one account of straw while he was down here reloading rifles for his men and he actually hoisted up soldiers up onto the works to fire and there was one soldier who hoisted up got shot and killed the second hoisted up got shot and killed and the third boy came up to him and said hoist me up general and he said no i have helped my last man up under the works to be shot in my hands in some of general straw's final moments on earth along this line of defense he was interacting with a sergeant by the name of sergeant cunningham now sergeant cunningham would later write that he remembers fighting after this ditch was almost full of dead men he said that there were so many corpses here that there was no standing room for the living at one point during the fight he was looking up and down this line sergeant cunningham was and he asked her on a straw he said what do we do he said that he can hardly find anyone along this line who can still fight and general oath of straw his only command was just keep firing keep firing keep firing there's a multitude of reasons why i think this would have been one of the worst parts on the battlefield to be if you were a confederate soldier that day one of the most important reasons is something we haven't talked about yet this line this u.s line extends across columbia pike onto the other side of the road and turns to the south now that section of the u.s line was also broken through the problem was is that across the street the u.s troops were able to retake that section of the line and right here where general straw's men were they never did so the confederates occupied this trench but across the street that line had been retaken and sent us to the south just a little bit they're able to turn their rifles and their cannon and shoot at general straws men where they have absolutely no cover they've turned up they're fighting what we call on filet fire along the long axis of these confederate troops and they're cutting them to shreds now it's at this point and near this exact spot where general straw takes his first wound he is struck by a bullet in the neck presumably from across the street it is grievous wound but he's still awake he's still alert he crawls finds a second in command relieves himself of his command uh to him and starts to remove himself from the battlefield now three guys pick him up and they start to carry him away as they stand up and they carry away with him they come under a tremendous amount of fire right they let him down wait for the fire to die down a second then they pick back up and off they go and when they go general straw is struck by a bullet in the head and he dies on site immediately during his evacuation straw's body is then carried over to carton if you're familiar with the story of the dead generals being laid out of carton general straw was one of them shortly thereafter his body is going to be taken down to columbia and he's going to be buried at st john's he's going to stay there for some time before eventually he is disinterred and he has moved back to dyersburg tennessee where he currently rests today dyers burgess is adopted home because he's not actually from tennessee he's from ohio he was born and raised there after studying for a couple of years at ohio wesleyan university he decides to be the first member of his family to break away from a life of farming he moves down to west tennessee here to study law why he chooses to move all the way down here and study law we don't know for sure what we do know is that at 1855 he did move here and in 1858 he was admitted to the bar and started his law practice here in dyersburg when tennessee deceits from the union straw is now faced with a decision does he go back to his native state of ohio and fight for the u.s or does he side with a confederacy well at this point he's been here for several years he decides he's all in for the confederacy he decides to raise a company of infantry right here in dyersburg sets him on a course for war now a lot of famous civil war generals have prior military experience or west point graduates but sometimes when companies were being mustered just being a good leader was enough a lot of them didn't have military experience and other straw is a really good example of that he'd never been in the military but he was educated he was a lawyer people respected him they said he was a great speaker and he was able to raise this company and be its leader even though he had never been in the military before when the time came to test those leadership skills under fire straw performed extremely well battle after battle he fought at shiloh he bought it parable he was at stones river murfreesboro chattanooga chickamauga off of the atlanta campaign he received promotion after promotion and then was eventually promoted to brigadier general after a lot of very high ranking people went to bat for him and sent letters to jefferson davis saying hey promote this man to brigadier general before the battle of franklin began they said that general straw really didn't say much they said he was pretty stone-faced and honestly looked very sad he is quoted though as saying boys this will be short but desperate one of the more famous quotes you'll hear about the battle of franklin he knew that it would be short and desperate he gave his prized horse away decided not to ride it into battle and then he was killed as we know on november 30th 1864 on that battlefield and here are general straws remains dyersburg is a quaint little town if you're a tafa file if you're a person who likes going to cemeteries like i do there is plenty to see here besides just general straw's grave and i encourage you to do that go out see history enjoy it learn and learn from it and thank you so much for joining me on this journey of other straw's life and i hope you watch as we go through the rest of the other generals who died at the battlefront [Music] you

Channel: The Battle of Franklin Trust

Views: 2,061

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: history, civil war, battle of Franklin, tennessee, 1800s, education, battle of Franklin trust, carnton, Carter house, battlefield tour, Otho strahl

Id: lujxAgQJ4No

Length: 9min 53sec (593 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2021