A STORY OF MISSIONARY RIDGE
One of the war’s romances was recently related by Governor Foraker to a newspaper reporter, which is repeated here since its hero is a resident of Pike County. When the Confederates were making a desperate attempt to hold the crest, and the conflict had become a hand to hand fight, Captain Foraker was ordered to capture a rebel battery. The order was executed but the enemy rallied, and were pulling a captured gun over the ridge. For a moment the wheels were balanced on the summit and the victory was wavering. Men were clubbing each other with muskets, firing pistols, in each other’s mouths, firing so close indeed that the powder singed their hair. At the critical moment Foraker saw a young, yellow-haired, white-faced boy jump astride one of the guns as if it was a horse. He sat there, erect as a Centaur, and with his bayonet stabbed the Johnnies one by one as they attempted to pull the gun away. Every hand, which touched it, was pierced by the bayonet, and soon the victorious Federals pulled the gun down the slope, and one decisive contest of the war was over. Alas for the boy who had gained it. A parting shot from the rebels was aimed at his head and plowed its way through his scalp, furrowing the yellow hair in true pompadour fashion. "I only knew him as Sharp," said the Governor, as he told the story. "That was a nickname he was known by in camp. But I never heard from him again until the Veterans’ re-union at Portsmouth the other day, when a big, full bearded G. A. R. man came up and shook hands with me, saying, "I was in your regiment." Were you at Mission Ridge? I asked. "Indeed I was and I came near never leaving there." and the veteran smiled grimly as he took off his hat and showed a long scar, which parted his hair from brow to crown. It flashed through my mind that this was the boy who rode the gun and had been scalped by a rebel bullet. Sure enough it was the same "Sharp," as the boys in camp had dubbed him. His right name is *George W. Fellers, and he was a member of Company "D", Eighty-Ninth Ohio. His wound was not fatal, but he had a vacation in the hospital."
*Note: George Fellers enlisted in Ross County, July 1862, Company "D", 89th Ohio Volunteer Infantry; mine-ball wound in head at Missionary Ridge; four months in hospital at Nashville, Tennessee; discharged at Camp Dennison - June 13, 1865; Member of California (now Stockdale, Ohio) Post, G.A.R.; past - post Commander.
Pike County, Ohio Military History - 1887
Copyright © 2004
Pike Co. Genealogy Society a Chapter of O.G.S.
P. O. Box 224,
Waverly, Ohio 45690