Civil War marker unveiled at Old Virtue Mill site
“We care about history in Farragut,” Farragut Mayor Ron Williams said during an unveiling of the sign on Veterans Day, Monday, Nov. 11, at the Virtue Road entrance to the greenway. “You can tell from the historic markers at Founders Park and Mayor Ralph McGill Plaza and the Farragut Museum.”
Funded by a grant from the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable, the sign marks the spot where “the 17th Michigan Volunteer Regiment took a stand against Confederate forces on Nov. 16, 1863, as part of the Battle of Campbell Station,” Parks and Recreation director Ron Oestreich said.
“On behalf of the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable board of directors and myself, we are very pleased to have a part in this dedication today,” Roundtable president Tammie McCarroll Burroughs said. “Many thanks to director Tim Vane for his work in making sure that the Dot Kelley Grant is distributed and put to good use.
“Dot would be proud for this today, and we’re proud we get to see this through,” she added.
East Tennessee historian Gerald Augustus, who researched the Battle of Campbell Station, related the events leading to the skirmish between Union and Confederate officers on that snowy day in November 1863, when the 17th Michigan Volunteer Regiment was overtaken at the mill while heading toward Knoxville.
“Think about that — right here — not some way off place,” Augustus said.
After contemplating for years, “I finally figured out why they came on this side of the creek instead of the other,” he said. “It’s that mill. Several of the men get into that mill that offers a little bit of protection.
“As the Confederates came over the hill into the 17th Michigan infantry, almost immediately the Confederates start spreading out and coming around on both sides,” Augustus related. “Pretty soon the 17th Michigan is being fired on (from three directions) but had no causalities up to that point.”
Finally, Lt. Col. Loren Comstock ordered his men to “orderly retreat” across the creek, but the men panicked and start racing up the hill.
Sgt. Joseph Brandle grabbed the American flag and started waving the flag to get the men to form, but is shot in the right eye and was ordered back. Comstock hands the flag to Cpl. Franklin Knight, also of the honor guard, but he was immediately killed.
Then, the acting major of the regiment, Frederick Swift, grabs the flag, waves it and “yells for the men to stop and they do,” Augustus related.
Meanwhile, the rest of the brigade got into position up the hill and started firing cannonballs at Confederate troops, giving “the 17th Michigan time to slowly get back up the hill.”
Brandle and Swift each won a Medal of Honor for their bravery.
“This, believe it or not, is the hardest fighting of the battle, and the statistics show it,” Augustus said.
