Ironton Register 9 Aug. 1888 – Capt. S. N. Misner was sitting tiled? back clean office of the Sheridan House, feeling for chance breezes as they came through the open windows from off the broad sweeping river.
As the Register man approached the captain, [he] invited him to follow suit, so taking a toothpick and lifting his brogans to the casement, he joined the captain in courting the lazy breezes and gazing languidly at the hot and silent hills of Kentucky.
“Were you in the army, Captain Misner?” asked us, breaking on him without much ceremony.
“Yes, I was in the 52nd Ohio,” he replied, “but look here you ain’t interviewing me for a ‘Narrow Escape.’
“Yes,” said we.
“Well, I haven’t got any – not one,” he added.
“Never in any danger? “quizzed the reporter.
“I should say I was. I was in the 15th Army Corps and that did plenty of heavy fighting and I happened to be in about all of it,” Capt. S. N. Misner replied.
“Let me see, the 15th Army Corps did some desperate fighting a Kennesaw Mountain – were you there?” we asked.
Capt. S. N. Misner looked at me with a smile then slowly reached down to his right foot and pushed down his sock, exposed to the view and ugly scar on the ankle, and remarkably quiet, “I got that there.”
“Indeed, that looks as if you were knocked out of time,” said we.
“Yes, indeed it put me on crutches for a year. But I tell you, Ed., whenever I think of Kennesaw Mountain, I get mad, not on the amount of that wound, but because of the needless and foolish charge Gen. Sherman ordered there. It was simply and purely a mistake. Thousands of lives were lost for nothing. I see one of Gen. Sherman’s staff officers say that the charge is due to an idle banter that the reb commander made, that Sherman was afraid to attack him, but relied wholly on a bigger force. Nobody certainly can account for the charge except some senseless whim.”
“But how did you happen to get shot? Where were you? What were you doing?” we asked.
at lCaptian S. N. Misner replied, “Oh yes you want to know about that. Well at the beginning of the charge up the mountain, Company A of our regiment was ordered to skirmish the line. It had but one commissioned officer and me, who belonged to Company D was ordered to go with it. We scrambled over our breastworks and moved forward intent on routing with the rebs in the rifle pits, which were located a little way up in the mountain. We dashed forward briskly and encountered only a few shots from the rebs. The charging party came close behind us but stopped before they got to the rifle pits. Our skirmish line had, however, gone on and much to its surprise found the rifle pits abandoned.
“I had command of about 20 men in the skirmish line and we took possession of our part of the pits and waited for the charging party to come, as our whole duty was to clear the rifle pits. While thus enjoying our temporary and bloodless victory, I observed some commotion near the rebs’ breastworks and the first thing I saw was a force of rebs. Making a dash toward the rifle pits evidently intent on their recapture. As the rebs were coming by the hundreds and I only had 20 men, I concluded, as the rest of our skirmishers had gone too that I would fall back on our line. I had not however got the men more than halfway back to the line when we halted behind some trees intending to give the rebs a few shots anyway. But just then the rebs bullets were a great deal more numerous than ours. While thus standing skirmishing between our lines and the reb rifles pits came the ball that crushed my ankle,” continued Capt. S. N. Misner.
“I fell and managed to crawl back through our lines just as the charge up the mountain was made. I found a little shelter behind some fence rails and there I lay while the storm of shot and shell of that awful charge up Kennesaw took place.
“During a lull in the fight, I was put on a stretcher and sent back to the hospital. And that’s how come that wound. It might have been a great deal worse had I been in that luckless charge afterward.”
Ironton Register 9 June 1870 Metta Misner, one month and 10 days old, infant daughter of Capt. S. N. Misner and Rachel Misner died 4 June 1870.
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