Freeman's Battery

Freeman's Battery. .

"Brass 12 and 6 pounders are in the habit of chawing up and spitting out when vile men with malice of afterthought will pull their tails." , Corp. Lucius B. Corbin, 122nd Illinois

, "Open immediately upon them" , When the Union line withdrew to the split-rail fence, General Nathan Bedford Forrest shifted his artillery, creating an arc around the new Union position. Captain Samuel Freeman moved his battery, two 6-pounder bronze smoothbores and two bronze 12-pounder howitzers, east, placing it on the flank of the Union line. Gunner Nat Baxter later recalled that Forrest "told me to open immediately upon them." , Freeman's guns joined Lieutenant John Morton's two guns in the center and two mountain howitzers on the west, keeping up a deadly barrage on the Federals. Private W.H. Peter, 122nd Illinois, wrote a few days later: "They [Freeman's guns] were planted on a ridge within full view and had we not lain down while we were there many more must have been killed." Though rattled, the shaky Union line at the fence did not break. , (sidebar) , Captain Samuel L. Freeman , Samuel Freeman began his service as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 11th Tennessee Artillery Corps of the Provisional Army of Tennessee. He received a commission in the Confederate army with the same rank on September 17, 1861, and served with Monsarrat's Battery. , In July 1862, the battery was reorganized as Freeman's Battery, and Freeman promoted to captain. In October, the battery joined General Nathan Bedford Forrest's command. , Forrest abandoned some of his artillery when Union reinforcements arrived at Parker's Crossroads, but it is thought that Freeman's Battery escaped the battlefield. Captain Samuel Freeman served with Forrest until April 10, 1863, when he was killed by Union cavalry at Franklin, Tennessee.