10 June 2014

Guntown Disaster


"The writer first saw Castle Morgan [at Cahaba] July 26th, 1864, and found on entering it about three hundred men, one half of whom owed their capture to the criminal blunder and cowardice of General S. D. [Samuel D.] Sturgis at the time of the 'Guntown Disaster'...". Source

Source


The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center featured a letter online from Civil War Captain Jonathan Harrison to his mother that mentioned the Guntown Disaster [in Mississippi - see Battle of Brice's Cross Roads], described as:

"...his desperate escape from General Nathan Bedford Forrest's Cavalry following the Battle of Guntown. Two thirds of the 72nd Ohio was killed, wounded, or imprisoned at Andersonville as a result of the Guntown disaster."

Would love to find a copy of this book*:
General Sturgis at Guntown, Miss., (1864): Dastardly Attempt by Him and His Apologists to Escape Responsibility for the Disaster by Charging it Upon the Brave Grierson and His Gallant Command, and Upon the Infantry and Artillery which Were So Shamefully Sacrificed : Testimony of Survivors Bearing Upon His Conduct on the Occasion ...,Blade, 1879 - Guntown (Miss.), Battle of, 1864 - 64 pages

*Perhaps in the Papers of Edward Francis Winslow

Oscar Kelton was a casualty at the Guntown Disaster.  The Kelton house is now a museum in Columbus, Ohio.


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