REDOUBT NO. 4 CATEGORY
September, 2021
KAY DESCRIBES THE RISE AND FALL OF REDOUBT NO. 4 IN A PRESENTATION TO ABBOTTSFORD RESIDENTS WHOSE PROPERTY ENCOMPASSES THE PRESERVED FORT
Jim Kay, president of the Battle of Nashville Trust, spoke by invitation on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, to the residents of the Abbottsford community about Redoubt No. 4, the historic remnants of which have been partially preserved on their property.
Abbottsford Relics on display. All the artillery shells and friction primers were found at the site.
From his huge collection of Civil War artifacts which he has been discovering in Nashville neighborhoods since childhood, Kay brought and displayed many that were found in the vicinity of Redoubt No. 4 at Abbottsford, which had previously been the farm of Frank R. Leu.
He began his presentation with an overview of the city of Nashville under Federal control, noting that the massive battlefield area south of Fort Negley had been largely denuded of trees, not only for firewood, but also for clearing a “field of fire” for artillery. That included the hills where Redoubts 4 and 5 were located, west of the Hillsboro Pike. As he noted, Confederate forces on this very high ground could see for many miles, and conversely, Union forces could see the Confederate works.
Redoubt No. 4 was involved in some of the earliest and heaviest fighting on the first day of the battle, December 15, 1864. The Redoubt itself was an earthen fort which Confederate troops began digging on December 2, 1864, after Gen. John Bell Hood brought his army north from Franklin. Due to harsh winter conditions, excavation was extremely difficult, and construction was not completed before the battle. Kay said the Redoubt would have been laid out by Maj. Wilbur Foster, a military engineer assigned to Gen. A.P. Stewart’s corp. Today, the high ground where the remnants of the Redoubt are located is named “Foster Hill,“ possibly after Major Foster, though some sources believe it is named for the chaplain of the 29th Alabama Regiment.
The fort consisted of 8-foot compacted dirt walls, strengthened by cut trees. Inside the walls were four 12- pounder Napoleon smoothbore cannons, each operated by a crew of about10 artillerymen. The cannons were spaced about 12 -14 yards apart, and faced outward through embrasure openings in the walls. About 35 yards to each side of the cannon emplacements, in a 3-foot deep trench-line, were about 125 support troops from the 29th Alabama.
The unit was commanded by Capt. Charles Lumsden, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute and previously head of cadets at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa before the war. He had met with Gen. Hood when the general visited the Redoubt on horseback earlier in the morning. Lumsden was told to hold the hill at all cost.
Capt. Charles Lumsden
The massive attack by the Union army on December 15, 1864, came wheeling around toward the Confederate positions from the northwest and arrived in the area of Lumsden’s Alabama Battery at Redoubt No. 4 around 10:30 a.m. In the area of a ridge to the west, at what is now Estes Road, the U.S. Army deployed six batteries of four cannons each, which began shelling Redoubt No. 4 with an overwhelming barrage. The 24 artillery pieces were accompanied by approximately 4000 dismounted cavalry troops. Kay said that the Union batteries dropped 2 – 3 tons of ordnance on the Redoubt during the 4 hour battle. The din of noise of the cannon fire exchange made it difficult to hear, and the smoke made it difficult to see.
Confederate forces were not only under-manned, but under-powered. Lumsden’s Napoleon cannons had a range of 600 – 800 yards. The Union field guns had rifled barrels which could fire Hotchkiss rifled shells 1600 yards, and once they were dialed in, were capable of hitting “an area the size of a car window“ at that range. In addition, Federal forces also had the advantage in small arms. Confederate soldiers were armed with Enfield muskets, which could be fired about 3 times per minute. The dismounted cavalry for the U.S. Army were firing 7- shot Spencer repeater carbines, which could fire 21 shots per minute.
Redoubt No. 4 had fallen by around 2:00 p.m. that afternoon, along with its nearby neighbor, Redoubt No. 5. Survivors had fled downhill to the east, to join up with the Confederate line parallel with Hillsboro Pike. The action on this high ground was witnessed by Gen. Stewart, who was watching from the house of Andrew Castleman on the far side of the Pike.
Kay told his audience the story of 17-year-old Alabamian Hylan Rosser, who was in Lumsden’s Battery with his two brothers. During the artillery siege, Pvt. Rosser’s head was blown from his body by an artillery shell. Later in the evening, when Capt. Lumsden was washing up, he pointed out to Sgt. James Maxwell that he had parts of Rosser’s brain in his beard.
Above: Painting of Lumsden’s Alabama Battery in the battle of Kennesaw Mountain, prior to the Battle of Nashville. It was used by Jim Kay to illustrate what Redoubt No. 4 might have looked like.