The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-09-05


The Cleveland Leader in its special
edition connected with the unwilling of
the soldiers monument in that CITY,
had description of the monument.
Commenting on the medallion of
Colonel Mervin Clark, of the Eighty
third Ohio, the Leader said he fell into
the arms of brother officer while as
cending the parapet. This has brought
out letter from General Isaac r.. Sher-
wood, who commanded brigade at
Franklin, including his own regiment,
the One Hundred Eleventh Ohio, of
which he was then colonel, giving an
important bit of history in connection
with that battle and the death of
Colonel Clark, and calling attention to
the fact that there was no parapet or
other Notifications where they fought.
The One Hundred Eleventh Ohio was
the last regiment to arrive on the march
to Franklin, and they went at once into
action in an open field. General Sher-
woods horse was shot under him at the
first onset, hence he was dismounted
when he met Colonel Clark on the bat
tie line. In his letter to the Leader he
says:
81 was deeply interested in reading
the story of the death of Colonel Mervin
Clark in the souvenir edition of the
Leader of July 4. AS l was the officer
into whose arms the gallant Colonel
Mervin Clark fell, on the battlefield of
Franklin, November 30, 1864, a few
words of explanation may be of interest
to his surviving friends and the COM
rades of that terrible conflict. AT the
Af 81 la VI 10 I
yelling into his ears to go to the rear
and rally his regiment, as | was hold
ing my line-of-battle intact. 1t was
amid tornado of crashing cannon and
blistering bullets, so deafening that
was compelled to yell into his ears.
When the rebel battalions charged our
lines some five or six lines deep, as it
seemed to me, just in front of the
Franklin pike where the left of my
command rested, the new troops gave
way.
| 1t is due to those new soldiers, that
had never before been under fire, to
say that no new troops, however
bravely commanded, ever did or ever
will stand such a charge. 1t is due to
those living to say that the battle of
Franklin was the fiercest combat of the
war, and that more men were killed in
that battle, in proportion to the number
engaged, than in any battle ever fought
on either side of the Atlantic since the
invention of gunpowder. That the
troops under my immediate command
the One Hundred and Eleventh Ohio,
the Twenty-Fourth Missouri and the
One Hundred and Seventh Illinois
(Col. Lawry, of the One Hundred and
Seventh, having been killed in the first
onseD-were able to hold that line was
because they were all veterans that had
been schooled in the school of actual
war on thirty battleields.
"When l first saw Col. Mervin
Clark he was approaching my line-of-
battle rapidly from the left in the i'm
mediate rear of the position from which
his command was driven by the rebel
charge. Capt. P. II. Bowling, of my
regiment, the One Hundred and
Eleventh Ohio, who was serving that
day on the brigade staff, had just ridden
up the line and ordered me to take the
Twenty Fourth Missouri, in the imme-
diate rear of the One Hundred and
Eleventh, and make an effort to retake
the position. Bowling, with that gal
lantry for which he was noted, sought
to aid the movement, but was instantly
shot, and had to leave the field. Lieut.
Fernando Bennett, also of my regiment,
was instantly killed as he jumped to
my side as volunteer. 1t was at this
moment that / FIST saw Col. Mervin
Clark, with his sword in hand, and, as
| remember, in bright new uniform,
march down the line to the right, when
| rushed to his side to tell him what /
have already written. There was no
fort or parapet where we stood. 1t
was in the open field, just in front and
to the right of the old cotton gin, and
at the tight of the Franklin pike. His
boyish face was all ahame, and he
seemed the only man of his entire COM
mand, officer or private, who had stood
firm and undaunted amid the awful or
deal. Amid all the memories of the
war, many now dim after the lapse of
so many busy years, l shall always re-
member the gallant bearing of the boy
colonel on the battlefield of Franklin.
He is worthy of commemoration in