Today in History:

888 Series I Volume XX-I Serial 29 - Murfreesborough Part I

Page 888 KY.,MID.AND E.TENN.,N.ALA.,AND SW.VA. Chapter XXXII.

When the Seventeenth Regiment passed the hospital, the companies of Captain Watterson and McDonald passed through the yard of the hospital, and Captain Harrison's passed entirely on the left of the yard, a number of men of that company passing along the lane, and, as has already been shown, the firing was commenced again in rear of the hospital. General Sill's body was found not far from the hospital, "near the fence or lane," in the words of Colonel Govan, of the Second Arkansas Regiment.

Now, the foregoing statements having, in my mind, conclusively established the fact that the Seventeenth Regiment captured the Federal hospital at the Jenkins house, and that it reached that house some thirty minutes before any other troops, I cannot resist the conviction that the prohabilities quite as much indicate that it was the Seventeenth Regiment which killed General Sill as that any other regiment did it. Until other facts are developed in reference to this matter, I am disposed to think that no regiment can establish this claim in its own favor. Sill might have been killed by the Seventeenth Regiment from the fence and lane in rear of the hospital, or he might have been killed by the Second Arkansas Regiment, which came up some thirty minutes later. Sill's body was found on the right of the lane, near the fence, and about 75 yards in rear of the hospital, and it appears exceedingly probable that he was killed by the Seventeenth Regiment firing from the fence in rear of the hospital. This is the impression prevailing in the Seventeenth Tennessee Regiment.

In making the foregoing statement, I profess to be actuated by a simple desire to do justice to all parties concerned. i would rather suffer from injustice to myself than to do injustice to a fellow soldier. I am disposed to submit the foregoing facts, with any counter statements that may be made, to the decision of the impartial tribunals into whose hands they may be destined to fall.

WATT W. FLOYD,

Lieutenant-Colonel, Comdg. Seventeenth Tennessee Regiment.

[Indorsement.]

HEADQUARTERS JOHNSON'S BRIGADE, Tullahoma, Tenn., March 20, 1863.

I respectfully request that this communication may be forwarded to the War Department as a part of the report of the services of my brigade in the battle of Murfreesborough.

I may here add that John Wilson, a private of Company A, of Seventeenth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers, was wounded near this Federal hospital.

[B. R. JOHNSON,]

Brigadier-General, C. S. Army.


No. 267. Report of Lieut. Col. R. H. Keeble, Twenty-third Tennessee Infantry.

JANUARY 5, 1863.

The following report of the part taken by the Twenty-third Tennessee Regiment in the battle of Murfreesborough is respectfully submitted:

Having been changed from the right to the left wing on the evening


Page 888 KY.,MID.AND E.TENN.,N.ALA.,AND SW.VA. Chapter XXXII.