The Hall family at Chickamauga

         

          When he positioned the 20^th Maine to defend its portion of Little Round Top

The Federal view of the fighting at Horseshoe Ridge.

during the Battle of Gettysburg, Joshua Chamberlain sent his brother to the far end of the regiment’s placement so that the brothers would be separate. If the same bullet killed both men, Chamberlain felt, it would be a bad day for their mother. But many mothers had bad days during the war, regardless of how close their sons stood while battle raged.

Both armies in the American Civil War raised regiments in cities and towns with the idea that the neighbors and families would serve together. Part of the thinking was that these soldiers would be less likely to shirk their duty with witnesses from their home towns on hand to see.

          Letters home, the thinking went, were real threats to a soldier’s reputation.

          It was a good theory, you’d suppose, but it did not work too well. There were deserters and stragglers in both armies. The effective fighting strength of a given combat unit might be twenty or thirty percent below its listed number on a given day due those reasons, along with the impact of diseases and illness.

          There were no deserters or stragglers in the Alabama family of Bolling Hall Sr. Sons Bolling Jr., Crenshaw, James, John E. and Tom all saw battle during the war.

          Bolling Jr. served in Hilliard’s Legion in 1862 and 1863 as a Lt. Colonel, having

The South Carolina monument at
Chickamauga. Bolling Hall Jr. was
among the Confederates that charged
up this hill into the woods behind it.

served the previous year in another regiment. After the Legion was split into three different commands, Hall Jr. served in the 59^th Alabama Infantry Regiment in 1864.

          Crenshaw Hall was the adjutant in the Second Battalion of Hilliard’s Legion.

James Hall served as a Captain in Company K of the 24^th Alabama Infantry Regiment.

John E. Hall also served in the Legion, as a Lieutenant.

Bolling Hall Jr. was wounded during the Battle of Chickamauga. According to reports, he seems to have reached the enemy works on the berm of Horseshoe Ridge at the time he was wounded. His battalion was the first Confederate unit to push the Federals away from the front of the Ridge, one of the costliest accomplishments of the war for either side. Hall recovered from his Chickamauga wound and rejoined his men, only to lose a leg during the 1864 battle of Drewry’s Bluff. He died of complications from the Drewry’s Bluff wound in 1866.

Crenshaw Hall had the difficult task of writing the battle report in place of his brother after the Chickamauga fight. It was a hard job, knowing that not one but two of his brothers were dangerously wounded during that two-day event.

The second wounded brother was Tom Hall. Tom was not a soldier at the time the fighting broke out at Chickamauga. He was a University student. While he wrote letters about wanting to join the Confederate arms with his brothers, Tom Hall had not officially enlisted.

There is a letter from brother Bolling Jr. to Bolling Sr. recommending that Tom contact James Hall, a Captain remember, of the 24^th Regiment. If Tom wanted to join Bolling Jr. in the Legion, he’d have to do so as a private, since there were already three Hall brothers among the officers in Hilliard’s Legion.

James Hall might have had a better opportunity for his younger brother and Tom may have been seeking an appointment while visiting James that September.

Tom Hall’s wound was very serious. Bolling Jr., although wounded himself, telegraphed his father to warn of Tom’s condition and recommended that Bolling Sr. bring a good surgeon if the father came to see his sons.

Bolling Sr. was a man with connections. He was able to secure rail transportation to north Georgia and seems to have arrived within a few days of the battle. Whether Bolling Sr. brought a surgeon or not (the evidence indicates that he did not), Tom Hall died of his wounds.

Thomas Brown Hall, university student, was buried on the battlefield with members of the 24^th Regiment.

 

         Thanks for reading.