December 2020
REDOUBT NO. 3 CATEGORY
THE STORY OF FAMOUS WAR HORSE “DIXIE BILL” AND HIS RIDER
One of the most significant features of the Union Army’s assault and sweep of Confederate Redoubt No. 3 on December 15, 1864, was the death of 44-year-old Col. Sylvester G. Hill, the highest ranking Federal officer to be killed during the Battle of Nashville.
In his Civil War Blog, BONT board member and historian John Banks takes a new look at the battle at the third of Hood’s five redoubts to fall that day, with a sharp focus on the an interesting aspect of Sylvester‘s death, the presence on the field of his veteran Bay horse, “Dixie Bill.“
“Bill“ was already a famous horse at the time, having been captured from Confederate officers by Union forces and eventually sold to Col. Hill in Iowa, and having sustained four war wounds in the battles in which he carried his riders before the Nashville campaign. John Banks describes the unique history of this famous war horse and fills in the rest of his story after the war, while also shedding more light and providing new photographs of the battle at Redoubt 3.
Click the link below to read about the story, and to learn about what happened to Dixie Bill after he lost his owner in the Battle of Nashville and returned to Iowa in the care of a regimental chaplain: