A Reckless And Useless Charge

As the Confederate line began to push Gen. Mahlon Manson's army, Gen. Charles Cruft brought part of his brigade, including two regiments of infantry and a partial artillery battery, onto the field. The 95th Ohio and 18th Kentucky entered the fight as Confederates advanced from the draw and moved Capt. John T. Humphrey's Arkansas battery forward to punish Manson's infantry. Manson placed the Kentuckians in the center of his line and sent the 95th Ohio to the right, then rashly ordered the regiment to charge the Confederate artillery unlimbered 400 yards to the south. Col. William L. McMillen had his men fix bayonets and advance, but they came under a deadly crossfire from the battery and Confederate infantry near the Palmer House. The attack became an unmitigated disaster, with confusion spreading through the regiment; Lt. Col. J.B. Armstrong later wrote that the 95th Ohio was met by a murderous cross-fire that cut them up badly and caused considerable confusion in their ranks. Reports differed over whether McMillen ordered a retreat, whether no order was heard, or whether he shouted for every man to save himself, but whatever happened, the withdrawal quickly turned into a rout. About 200 men of the 95th were captured by Churchill's Confederates, the fleeing Ohioans carried away what remained of the 69th Indiana, and the Union right collapsed. Manson later blamed the 95th Ohio for the disaster at Kingston. After being exchanged, the 95th Ohio served in the western theater, taking part in the Vicksburg Campaign, fighting at Brice's Crossroads and other operations in northern Mississippi, then serving in Missouri, returning to Tennessee for the Battle of Nashville, and spending the last months of the war on the Gulf Coast in operations around Mobile, Alabama.

Kentucky · United States