The 17th Indiana Infantry Regiment, also known as 17th Indiana Mounted Infantry Regiment, was an infantry and mounted infantry regiment that served in the Union Army from 1863 to 1865 during the American Civil War. It served in West Virginia before being transferred to the Western Theater. In that theater, it was known for its membership in the "Lightning Brigade."
Service
The 17th Indiana was organized at Camp Morton, Indianapolis, Indiana, and mustered into the United States service on Wednesday, June 12, 1861, by Lieut. Col. Thomas J. Wood, U. S. A., for an initial 3-year enlistment. When the regiment was first organized there were ten full companies, but in October 1861, Company A was taken out and organized into an artillery company, thus leaving only nine companies, until August 1862. A new Company A was recruited and added, making a full quota of companies of the regiment again. The regiment had a full complement of officers and men, mostly young men under twenty-one years of age.
The regiment was initially commanded by Col. Milo S. Hascall of Goshen, an 1852 graduate of West Point who had resigned his commission before the war and entered law and Indiana politics. The Lieutenant Colonel was John T. Wilder of Greensburg, and the major was George W. Gorman of Owensville. The Adjutant was Edward R. Kerstetter also of Goshen and the quartermaster was Winston P. Noble of Indianapolis.
Initial infantry service
On Monday, July 1, it marched through Indianapolis and got aboard cars on Indiana & Cincinnati Railroad arriving at Lawrenceburg on the Ohio that night. The next morning they boarded a steamboat and moved twenty miles upriver to Cincinnati. On Thursday afternoon, July 4, it boarded the Marietta Railroad and after travelling through the night was in Parkersburg, West Virginia on Friday. It was subsequently attached to the District of the Kanawha. Remaining there for two and a half weeks, on Tuesday, July 23, it took the train and moved to Oakland, Maryland. Marching sixteen miles from there to the north branch of the Potomac, it built fortifications known as Camp Pendleton until Wednesday, August 7. Taking rail from Oakland to Webster, and then marching up Tygart's Valley to Huttonsville, the regiment reached Cheat Mountain Pass on the following Wednesday and encamped at Elkwater. While in this vicinity the 17th participated in the operations of Brig. Gen. Reynolds' army, including the battle of Green Brier, on Thursday, October 3, in which its loss was one killed.
On November 19, it proceeded to Louisville, Kentucky, where it reported to Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell on Saturday, November 30, and camped there at the defunct Oakland Race Course for ten days. Being assigned to General Nelson's Division, on December 10, the regiment marched to Camp Wickliffe, near New Haven, where it remained until Monday, February 10, 1862, when it moved toward Green River. Crossing Green River, it marched southward, arriving at Nashville thirty days later on Wednesday, March 12, and stayed there until the march to the Tennessee began.
Col. Milo Hascall was promoted to Brigadier-General on March 25, and Governor Oliver P. Morton appointed John T. Wilder as the regiment's colonel..
Leaving Nashville on March 29, the regiment reached the field of Shiloh on Tuesday, April 8, the day after the battle ended. It then participated in the march to and siege of Corinth from April 29 through May 30, and after its evacuation moved with Buell's army through northern Alabama to McMinnville, Tennessee, where, on Saturday, August 30, it overtook Forrest and attacked and routed him.
On September 3, the 17th left McMinnville and marched via Murfreesboro, Nashville, Bowling Green, Elizabethtown, and West Point, to Louisville, Kentucky, arriving there on Thursday, September 25, after marching 270 miles and having a skirmish with Bragg's rear guard on September 21, near Munfordsville. Leaving Louisville on October 1, it moved to Bardstown, where it remained in camp until Saturday, October 18, and then marched to Nashville via Lebanon, Columbia, Glasgow, and Gallatin, reaching there on Wednesday, November 26. It remained there until Sunday, February 1, 1863, and conducted numerous expeditions against regular and irregular raiders in different directions from Nashville.
Conversion to mounted infantry
In December 1862, the regiments colonel, John T. Wilder was promoted to command of the 2nd Brigade, 5th Division, Center, XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland (AoC) under Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans.
Throughout 1862 and into 1863, the AoC had been plagued by Confederate cavalry and irregulars. Even when the regiment and brigade belonged to Buell's army, U.S. cavalry in that theater was inferior in both numbers and equipment to Rebel cavalry. Due to this, every advance made by Buell was impeded by repeated Confederate cavalry raids in his rear to capture or destroy his supplies and wagon trains and cut off his communication. Since there was insufficient U.S. cavalry to counter them, it became necessary to send infantry in support of our cavalry to drive the rebel cavalry from our rear in order to safeguard the logistics and lines of communications. Like many in the U.S. Army, the 17th were coming to the realization of how hasty and in error the McClellan clique had been in resisting the raising of volunteer cavalry as seen by their own experience as well as McClellan's failure in the Peninsula Campaign. The federal government had already put out a call to the states in the summer of 1862 for cavalry regiments, but they were just recently being raised and were not yet active in sufficient numbers. As the 17th and its brigade were composed mostly of young men, they were invariably called upon to support the cavalry in a chase after the raiders attacking in their rear.
After fruitless attempts to chase down rebel cavalry raiders on foot, Rosecrans began mounting some of his regiments in wagons and later as mounted infantry. At the same time, Wilder who had previously protested his men continually on the run on foot in a vain attempt to catch the Confederate cavalry, volunteered his whole brigade for conversion and also proposed to the arming of his regiments with repeating rifles, promising to take the initiative away from the Rebels.
On Sunday, February 1, the 17th and the brigade moved to Murfreesboro. On Wednesday, February 12, Rosecrans permission was given to mount the brigade. Wilder put the conversion to mounted infantry to the men for vote. The 17th Indiana voted to go ahead with the conversion to mounted infantry. The initial horses offered were of poor quality and the men, supported by their brigadier, refused to accept them. Wilder then proposed to Rosencrans that he be permitted to capture horses from the citizens in the surrounding country. Rosecrans approved and the 17th and its mates periodically raided searching for horses in the Murfreesboro, Lebanon, McMinnvllle, Liberty, and Columbia vicinities in central Tennessee, until enough good horses were secured to furnish mounts for the entire brigade, for which receipts were given to the owners of the horses.
The regiment and the brigade to which it belonged being fully mounted, the next important matter was the arming of the men. At first, Sharp carbines were offered to the brigade, but rejected. Initially interested in Henry rifles, Wilder met an agent from Spencer rifles sent to him by Rosencrans. Wilder inspected the samples and had them tested by the men, and chose them. Officials of the War Department refused to pay for the guns, but Wilder, determined his men should have them, wrote to his bankers in Indiana, and asked for the loan of sufficient money to pay for the guns, offering to mortgage all his property, but the bankers, feeling a patriotic duty, loaned him the money without security. The arms were purchased by General Wilder and given to his men, who agreed to reimburse him the next payday. On May 18, the regiment and brigade received their Spencer repeating rifles. The 17th and its brigade were now fully mounted and equipped as was no other command at that time in the service.
The new increase in firepower that the Spencer gave, allowed the 17th and its brigade mates to see off numerically superior Confederate infantry and cavalry in several engagements. The weapon was estimated to allow the regiment to deliver five to seven times the firepower of muzzle-loading opponents. This brigade became known as the Lightning Brigade (also sometimes, "The Hatchet Brigade").
Tullahoma campaign
After intense training and development of new tactics, the "Lightning Brigade" was ready for service. The mounted infantry proof of concept for the AoC would occur at the Battle of Hoover's Gap.
On June 23, 1863, Rosecrans deployed forces to feign an attack on Shelbyville while massing forces against Braxton Bragg's right. His troops moved out toward Liberty, Bellbuckle, and Hoover's Gaps through the Highland Rim (near Beechgrove, Tennessee). On June 24 in pouring rain that would persist for 17 days (Union soldiers spread the humorous rumor during the campaign that the name Tullahoma was a combination of the Greek words "tulla", meaning "mud", and "homa", meaning "more mud".) Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas's men, spearheaded by Colonel John T. Wilder's "Lightning Brigade", made for Hoover's Gap. }Despite torrential rains, the 17th and its brigade gained the gap so quickly that they surprised and scattered the Confederate 1st (3rd) Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, under Colonel J. Russell Butler at breakfast in front of the entrance of the gap. After skirmishing briefly and withdrawing under pressure, the rebels were unable to reach the gap before the better-fed horses of the Lightning Brigade. The Kentuckians fell apart as a unit and, unluckily for the Confederates, failed in their cavalry mission to provide intelligence of the Union movement to their higher headquarters. The brigade had shown mounted infantry's value by reaching the gap nearly 9 miles ahead of Thomas's main body. Despite orders from the divisional commander, General Joseph J. Reynolds to fall back to his infantry if he made contact, which was still six miles away, Wilder decided to take and hold the position.
The 17th drove the 1st Kentucky through the entire seven-mile length of Hoover's Gap followed by the rest of the brigade. At the other end, they were met at the southeastern exit with artillery fire and found out that the brigade and its one battery were outnumbered four-to-one. The 17th had met Brig. Gen. William B. Bate's brigade of Maj. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart's four-brigade and four-battery division.
Wilder entrenched on the hills south of the gap and determined to hold this extremely advanced position. Bate's brigade, supported by Brig. Gen. Bushrod Johnson's brigade and some artillery, assaulted Wilder's position, but was driven back by the concentrated fire of the Spencers, losing 146 killed and wounded (almost a quarter of his force) to Wilder's 61. The massive superiority of firepower the 17th and its brethren had with the Spencers made Bate initially think he was outnumbered five-to-one.
Colonel James Connolly, commander of the 17th's brigade-mate 123rd Illinois, wrote:
After a long day of combat at 1900, the 17th's morale was uplifted by the arrival of a fresh battery at the gallop, which meant the XIV Corps were close behind. A half-hour later, the Corps' main infantry units arrived to secure the position against any further assaults. The corps commander, General Thomas, shook Wilder's hand and told him, "You have saved the lives of a thousand men by your gallant conduct today. I didn't expect to get to this gap for three days." Rosecrans also arrived on the scene. Rather than reprimand Wilder for disobeying orders, he congratulated him for doing so, telling him it would have cost thousands of lives to take the position if he had abandoned it.