The Railroad Conductor Who Saved Uncle Billy

     William Wallace Patch is a name that would probably be excoriated in the South if his story were better known.  The General who made Georgia howl and brought home the hell of war to the civilian population in South Carolina could have spent much of the war as a prisoner of the Confederates but for the quick thinking of the C. B. & Q. engineer.

 

     Conductor Patch was in charge of a train scheduled to run between Memphis and Corinth.  Among the cars assigned to the train was a private coach on which were traveling General William Tecumseh Sherman and his staff.  Unbeknown to the brass in blue, the engineer of the train was a Rebel sympathizer, and he had worked in conjunction with a band of mounted cavalry to ambush the train and capture the General and his staff.

 

     As the train entered into a densely forested area, the engineer slowed the train to a stop.  Leaning out the window, he bellowed a piercing war whoop.  This was the signal to the men waiting in ambush to attack the train. 

 

     Conductor Patch, immediately sizing up the situation, ran to the locomotive, jumped aboard it and stuck a revolver into the ribs of the treacherous engineer.  He then gave him the alternative of getting the train moving immediately at full speed or of meeting his maker.  The engineer, valuing his life more than his allegiance to his cause, got the train moving quickly, but in the meantime the attacking rebels were charging forward and a furious firefight began.   Nearly a dozen of General Sherman’s bodyguard were killed.  According to Hiram Mars, a Galesburg resident who was an eyewitness to the incident, when the train reached Collierville, General Sherman and several members of his staff jumped off one end of the coach as rebel soldiers were storming their way into the other end.  According to Mr. Mars, “If General Sherman never ran before, he certainly ran then,” and he and his staff were able to flee to the safety of a Union fort not far away from the tracks.

 

     Close friends of Myra Patch, the heroic conductor’s daughter, recalled at the death of her father that she frequently referred to the incident, and that in appreciation for what Conductor Patch had done to enable the General’s narrow escape, Sherman later presented him with a diamond ring.

 

     General Sherman’s report on the action, issued from the Headquarters of the Fifteenth Army Corps, which he commanded, and dated October 14^th, 1863, issued from Corinth, Mississippi, addresses the action at Collierville in detail, and testifies to the briskness and the severity of the firefight.  It reads as follows…

          I have the honor to report that on Sunday, the 11^th instant, having sent forward all my troops, partly in cars and mostly by land, owing to the small capacity of the railroad, I started in a special train with my personal staff and the Battalion of the Thirteenth U. S. Regulars, Captain C. C. Smith commanding.  At 12 noon we reached Collierville, and observing signs of danger, the train was stopped.

          Colonel Anthony, of the Sixty-Sixth Indiana, commanded at Collierville, and soon that his pickets had at that moment been either captured or driven in by a large force of Confederate cavalry.  I directed the regulars to get off the cars, and the train to back to the depot.  A flag of truce was seen to be approaching from the direction of the enemy, and Colonel Anthony, who met it, sent me word, by Captain Dayton of my staff, that General Chalmers, of the Confederate army, had sent his adjutant to demand the surrender of the place.  I instructed him to return an emphatic negation, and at once made preparations to resist the attack.  The battalion of regulars consisted of eight small companies, aggregate, 260, and Colonel Anthony had six companies of the Sixty-Sixth Indiana, aggregate, 240.  These were disposed, three companies of the regulars in the ditch outside a small earth-work near the depot, and the balance in the wood near the railroad cut, to the east and south of the fort.  One company of the Sixty-Sixth Indiana was inside the fort, one in the depot building, and in rifle pits behind the fort near their regimental camp. 

     The enemy at once opened with artillery from a ridge overlooking our entire position, throwing canister, 6 pounder round shot and rifled solid projectiles.  They also threw a few shells at us, but their artillery fire was principally aimed at our train, disabling the locomotive and damaging some of the cars, killing and wounding 8 of our horses.  Two columns passed the railroad on either side of us, breaking the telegraphic wire, and burning three small trestles of the railroad.  A pretty brisk fire of small arms was kept up for a couple of hours, the enemy approaching under cover of the ground, woods, and depot building to about 75 yards of the fort, but at no time did he attempt to assault the fort.  We had no artillery, and had to confine our attention to the defense of the fort, depot building containing the supplies of the garrison, and our own train.  In this we succeeded.  Lieutenant James, Third U.S. Cavalry, acting ordinance officer on my staff, organized the unarmed clerks and orderlies with some soldiers who had taken passage with us on the train, and undertook to protect the train, which extended well from to the rear of the depot, and was sheltered from the fire of the fort by that building.  He made a sally and charge on the enemy, receiving a very severe wound.  He is a very enthusiastic and meritorious young officer, and his loss to the service at this time is a serious one. 

     Toward the close of the action, the enemy had got possession of some of the rear cars, and had taken out 5 of our horses, and carried off some overcoats and parcels left in the cars.  They set fire to the rear car, but a sally from the fort, made by a company of regulars led by Lieutenant Griffin, drove them off, and the party extinguished the fire.

     The enemy drew off about 3pm, leaving on the ground about 10 dead, but their ambulances were seen removing dead and wounded.  From wounded prisoners left in our hands, we learned that General Chalmers was in command, and his force was entirely a mounted one, composed of 5 regiments numbering from 2500 to 300, with four guns.

     There is not doubt that our opportune arrival (which wouldn’t have occurred without the quick actions of Conductor Patch---Authors note) and the efforts of the regulars saved the place, and prevented the enemy capturing our force at Collierville, with its store of supplies, and what is of more importance, the railroad at that point.

 

     The after action report that follows that was submitted by Colonel Anthony isn’t couched in the dispassionate military jargon that Sherman’s is.  It gives us a more of vivid picture of the fighting and how strapped for men the defenders were….

          Upon reaching the front from which the attack was being made, I immediately deployed Companies I., G. and E as skirmishers and advanced them 200 yards south of

and parallel with the railroad.  Companies B and C were left in rifle pits protecting the rear of the camp as approached upon the State line Road east and west.  These dispositions had just been completed when a flag of truce was discovered approaching from the enemy, and at the same time a train arrived going east, bearing Major General Sherman and staff, escorted by about 240 of the Thirteenth Infantry, U.S Army.  The flag of truce was from General Chalmers, borne by his assistant adjutant-general, and his communication a demand for the unconditional surrender of the post.  Having received the flag in person, a compliance with the demand was at once refused.  The Thirteenth U. S. Infantry was at once disembarked, and formed in line of battle immediately on the left of the three companies of the Sixty-Sixth Indiana.

          Upon the return of the flag, the enemy opened with artillery upon the earth-work and depot.  Having no artillery, and by reason of the scarcity of our numbers, we were compelled to act entirely on the defensive.  Our fire was reserved until the enemy moved within the range of small-arms, where it opened actively from both sides.

          Company D, having been sent upon the railroad in the morning to assist in the repairs, arrived and was placed north of and perpendicular to the railroad, to guard against a flank movement on my right and rear, then being attempted.  The company soon became hotly engaged, and Company E was withdrawn from the rear to re-enforce it.

          30 or 40 passengers on the train were armed with some surplus guns in my possession, and at his own request, placed in command of Lieutenant James, Third U.S. Cavalry, and a member of General Sherman’s staff, and these were also sent to re-enforce Companies E and D, then hard-pressed on the right by the Second Missouri, under Lieutenant-Colonel McCulloch.  Upon the arrival of Lieutenant James, the two companies with a portion of Lieutenant James’ command, charged the enemy with great boldness, and drove them 500 yards into a wood, when, encountering three additional rebel regiments, they were compelled to retire to their original position.  In this attack Lieutenant James was severely wounded and Lieutenant Mills, Company D, was taken prisoner, with 12 of his men, and had 2 wounded.  Company E lost 7 killed and wounded and 5 missing.  About an hour after commencement of the attack, the Thirteenth Infantry, on the left of the line, fell back on the earth-work and occupied that and the surrounding ditches.

          This movement involved the necessity of withdrawing the companies of the Sixty-Sixth from the front.  Company I was ordered into the earth-work, and Company G into the ditch on the west of the work.  After the charge referred to, made upon our own right, the enemy attempted no further encroachments upon that flank, and Company E was withdrawn and placed in the depot building.  The positions now occupied were held until the affair closed at 3:30 p.m. by the hasty retreat of the enemy.

 

     The brave conductor whose quick actions enabled General Sherman and his troops to arrive in Collierville in time to repel a Confederate assault was born in Ludlow, Vermont on October 14^th, 1823.  He received his early education there, but his childhood suffered the grief and consternation of his father’s early death.  After a brief stint as a farm worker, he was drawn to the railroad as a young man, and found employment there, on one of the first railroads in the region, a line that ran from Boston, to Bellow’s Falls, Vermont.   The big city drew his attention.  He moved to Boston and found work in a large wholesale clothing concern.  Ill health was the reason that he fled the New England winters and moved west.  He immediately sought employment with the Michigan Central road, then was hired by the Burlington line.  When a merger formed a new line, a new line, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, he was, in fact, the first man hired by the company after it had taken on its new name, and the man chosen to run the first passenger train from Galesburg to Chicago.

 

     On October, 17^th, 1855, William Wallace Patch married Philena Estes in Durham, Maine.  Thus began a long and happy marriage that included a residence of over 40 years in a home on Galesburg’s Beecher Avenue.  Their residence there almost ceased before it began.  While Mr. Patch was building his home in 1858, the structure was practically destroyed by a great storm that passed through the area.  Undaunted, Mr. Patch persevered, rebuilding the structure.

 

     One of Patch’s regular runs was on the main line to Chicago, and in his obituary, reference is made to two runaway slaves, whom Galesburg’s Dr. Beecher had hidden in his home.  Having heard that officers were about to search his home, Dr. Beecher, with the aid of Henry Hitchcock, hustled the runaways out of his home and took them to the Burlington right-of-way that passed nearby.  There they flagged down a train that Conductor Patch had charge of, and persuaded the kind-hearted gentleman to take the two runaways with him to Chicago to help them avoid their pursuers and set them on their way to Canada and freedom.

 

     Conductor Patch’s heroic actions that saved General Sherman and his staff have been already discussed.  Years afterwards General Sherman mad an appearance in Galesburg.  He noticed William Patch in the crowd, and called him forward and publicly credited him as the man who had saved him from certain capture, and perhaps saved his life.

 

     General Sherman gave Mr. Patch a diamond ring as a token of appreciation for his prompt action.  An interesting story arises out of this.  His spinster daughter, a longtime Galesburg schoolteacher, had the setting of the ring made into a stickpin after her father’s death.  Returning a few years later from a trip out east, Miss Patch stuck the pin in her nightgown after retiring to her Pullman berth for the night.  She was awakened from her sleep by a fumbling in her berth, and feeling for the pin, discovered that it was missing.

 

     She raised an alarm but the pin could not be found.  Upon her return to Galesburg she wrote to the company on whose train she’d been a passenger and told them of the theft of her pin and the history behind it, a history that included her father’s honorable history of railroad service and his association with General Sherman.  She offered an award for its return.  It’s possible that the railroad brass had a pretty good idea of which petty thieves frequented their line, or perhaps their suspicions centered upon one of their own staff.  Either way, a few weeks later she received a mailing from the company that contained the pin.  They refused to accept the reward money that she’d offered.  No doubt an interesting tale could be woven about the trails that led to the pin’s recovery.

 

     For a number of years after the war, Conductor Patch handled the run from Galesburg to Aurora.  Eventually he was given the accommodation train from Galesburg to Burlington and return.  During his railroad life he was a member of the O.R.C.  Railroading was a career fraught with injuries during his time, and he suffered a serious injury at the station at Kirkwood, Illinois when he was caught between some cars and dragged for a distance.  This left him with injuries that followed him to the grave.  He finally retired from railroad service in 1885.  The Chicago Burlington and Quincy gave him the letter of recommendation that follows, in case he ever desired to enter again into service in the industry.

          To whom it may concern:

     The bearer, W. W .Patch has been employed by this Co. for several years past, of which time he has been on this division in the capacity of both Freight and Passenger Conductor.

     I take pleasure in recommending him as an honest and faithful man, and fully competent to carry out and fill any position he should accept.

 

     William Wallace Patch died of pneumonia at his home at Beecher Avenue, in Galesburg, toward the end of January, in 1900.  His obituary lists numerous offices that he held in the Masonic order.  He was also a member of the Central Congregational Church and a good friend of Dr. Beecher.  He was also a member of the Anti-Saloon League and served for a time as Superintendent of Streets, Sealer of Weights and Measures, and on the election board.  Besides the many accomplishments and friends that he could hold close to him at his end, his obituary also stressed his kindliness, his love of animals, and his love for his family in an effusive style that has long been jettisoned by today’s newspapers..  His gravesite, as those of other members of his family, can be located in Galesburg’s Linwood Cemetery.

 

Notes and Sources

     I have Phil Reyburn to thank for the generous loan of the primary sources that he’d gathered in order to preserve the story of General Sherman and William Wallace Patch.  The Galesburg Republican Register was a treasure trove of information, as were the Official Records of the Rebellion.  The Galesburg Register-Mail also had a 1942 article about Mr. Patch that Phil had culled up that I found useful.  Regrettably, I could find no mention of Conductor William Patch in Sherman’s Memoirs.