Free The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn't Go Home by William C. Davis Page A

deal.”
    Hanson himself narrowly escaped injury. The lower left leg of his trousers was shot away without hurt to him. A bullet came close enough to pass through the nightshirt that he kept stuffed in the pocket of his uniform jacket. And when he started to mount his horse during one of the charges, a cannon ball struck and killed the animal. Graves, who brought two pieces from his battery to assist in stabilizing Hanson’s new line atop the hill, also had narrow misses. After the firing died in the fading light, he walked forward over the contested field and found a young federal soldier, severely wounded and in great suffering. Graves brought him behind the lines to a rifle pit occupied by Company B of the 4th Kentucky, the company assigned to Graves. One of the gunners in the company, Oliver Steele of Henderson County, recognized the young federal soldier as his own brother. Here for the first time, though certainly not the last in this war, the Orphans discovered the horror of what was, for Kentucky, truly a “brothers’ war.” How much more an Orphan Ollie Steele felt when his brother died in the pit that night.
    With the safety of nightfall, Buckner pulled Hanson farther up the hill he occupied, and there attempted to build a new defense. “This position was a stronger one than the one lost, and every effort was made that night to construct defenses,” Hanson reported, “but themen were so exhausted from labor and loss of sleep that it was utterly impossible.” Buckner continued moving among the Orphans calming them, but he knew that another battle the next day would certainly be the end of them. That night in a conference with Pillow and Floyd he declared that the 2d Kentucky was “as good a regiment as there was in the service.” Yet in attempting to retake the trenches this afternoon, he had been actually forced to grasp as many as twenty men to turn them to forward against the enemy. Many of the Orphans were so exhausted from loss of sleep and exposure that they could not think, much less fight. “It was not your fault, my brave boys,” Buckner said to them as they futilely worked at new defenses, “it was not your fault.” Those sensible enough to realize what had happened that day felt downcast that in their first battle they lost their position to the enemy. Buckner’s words were a little reassuring. Then he left to discuss the gravity of the situation with the other generals, and the Orphans were alone.
    The cold, perhaps forgotten in the fight, returned with renewed bitterness. The men started pitiful little fires atop the hill and huddled around them for warmth, sulking moodily over the failure of the day, or else looking with equal gloom toward the bloody work that dawn must surely bring. A few managed sleep, only to be aroused at 3 A.M. , February 16. Hanson formed them in line and led them to the left again, in the direction of the road along which they attacked so successfully the day before. Yes, certainly, they would go into action here again. Most believed they knew why. Grant heavily outnumbered the Confederates at Fort Donelson. They were surrounded, everyone knew. Obviously they could not withstand more siege, as demonstrated by the federal gains on the right on February 15. Now the Confederates were going to attack down this road again and cut their way through to safety, perhaps to Nashville.
    Hanson halted the regiment in a ravine near the scene of its success of yesterday. He had passed a sleepless night, as usual, yet he never let himself relax in his effort to keep the men ready for the fight. He was earning his $195 per month colonel’s pay. The regiment stood in line for an hour, perhaps two. A. G. Montgomery of Company B was not with it, doing some volunteer duty for Buckner. Then a message came to Hanson. He spoke to the men, “said to us in a husky voice,” one recalled, “Go to your places, boys, and cook something to eat.” Then he added, “The war is about over for