James Brammer Interesting War Experiences
Narrow Escape #40
Ironton Register – August 18, 1887
Submitted by Linda Adkins
We met James Brammer of the firm Brammer Bros., who owns a mill near the mouth of Symmes Creek. The subject of narrow escapes, as appearing in the Register, came up. He said his brother, Frank E. Brammer, member of Battery L., 1st O., was the man who built a fire between McGee and Jones to keep them from freezing to death after their wounds at Cedar Creek. At our request, he gave full particulars of his brother’s part in this action:
“After Early’s charge at Cedar Creek, he undertook to save his gun. While harnessing, the infantry was fast getting ground between themselves and the rebels. No regulation method of mounting or starting was observed. Accouterments and other traps were left scattered over the ground. When he got started, there were no other Union boys in sight.
“On reaching the top of a slight hill, he fully saw five armed rebels who halted him. He turned his horse as quick as a flash and started at full gallop. All fired. The quick change of position undoubtedly saved his life as the bullets whistled directly over where they had been. One struck his horse.
“He sprung behind the saddle upon another and galloped toward the re-formed Union lines. The driver of the lead horse to his piece had been shot; he being on the wheel horse, lost all control of the team of six horses hitched to the piece. The animals, frightened by the shots and yells, soon became unmanageable, but he pluckily retained his seat.
“But it was about as dangerous to jump as to stay on the horse, for he would be either shot or captured by the rebels if not killed by the team. A bursting shell made them wheel in a circle beside the rebel line when they poured a deadly volley into them. Bullets whistled in all directions. Five horses in the team were shot. The one that escaped was the near-wheel horse upon which he was riding. The off one fell against his leg, pinning him against the tongue so that he could not escape. A piece of shell struck the horse upon which he was seated on the neck.
“Although it had received a death wound, it reared and plunged fearfully, allowing him to free himself from his perilous position. In the struggle, the strong tongue of the calason (?) was broken in two. He sprang up and ran for the Union ranks amid a storm of shots. He could see no one belonging to his battery, so he, regaining the lines, joined another battery and re-entered the fight raging fiercely on all sides. After the battle, the result of which is known to all, he proceeded to hunt up his boys, who had given him up for dead.
“You remember,” said his brother, “the narrow escapes of Jones and McGee spoke of at length in the Register some time ago? Both had had a leg taken off by a cannon shot in this fight. My brother found them and built a fire between them to keep them from freezing to death. One incident made him feel worse than anything happening during the whole day. He took an axe and started to get wood. Seeing what was supposed to be a log of wood, he raised his axe and put his foot on the supposed log, as one naturally would in chopping. Imagine his horror of finding it a human body, stark and stiff in death.
“During the night, Jones, suffering terribly, kept up noise by groaning. To ease him, Brammer went to the surgeon for medicine. ‘Give him this,’ said he, handing him a bottle, and he’ll not bother you anymore tonight.’ I took the bottle, but before giving it to him, I held it before the light of our fire and found it was laudanum. Verily, had he administered the required dose, he would have had no further trouble from poor Jones.
“One more about this battle,” said Mr. Brammer, “and I will close. A few nights before the battle, my brother had a very strange dream in which he saw the fight scene and went through the whole battle. So accurate was his vision of the place that on reaching it, a place he had never seen before, he told his companions they would fight there and get a terrible whipping, and in the language of Chatham, ‘so it proved.”
Mr. Brammer was sorry we could not see Frank, as he would have given us a much better description.
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