This is Charles O. Brown's account of his trip back to Lovejoy in 1913, found in the National Tribune, October 30, 1913, p. 8.
Brown was the 16-year-old chief bugler of the 3rd Ohio Cavalry. His reminiscences was useful in accessing the very words of two Union Veterans who came back to visit one of their former battlefields.
Getting off a southbound train at Lovejoy in 1913, Brown happened to meet I.G. Dorsey, who was an eleven-year-old boy at the time of the battle. He was also the son of Judge Stephen G. Dorsey, and Brown noted Judge Dorsey's home was "the large plantation house, with ample porches, still standing, which we passed on our right just before we ran into Gen. Cleburne's Division, with his unexpected breastworks and his surprisingly warm welcome."
Now, of course, Confederate records make it clear neither Pat Cleburne, nor any part of his division was at Lovejoy on August 20, 1864, but Kilpatrick's column did collide with a small brigade of Confederate infantry east of the depot at Lovejoy. These Confederate troops had
just climbed off a train from Jonesboro and had no time to build breastworks.
But the important point is that Brown remembered passing Judge Dorsey's house "on our right" as Kilpatrick's column approached Lovejoy. On a cloudless morning nearly fifty years later, with I. G. Dorsey as his guide, he tramped across the scene of the stirring events he remembered so well. He described how they first came to the spot where the Confederate infantry formed their line. Then came the spot where Kilpatrick and his staff sat on their horses and watched as regiment after regiment of blue-coated troopers dismounted to skirmish with the Rebel foot soldiers. A little farther to the east, Brown explained this was the place where his own regiment, the 3rd Ohio, had formed for the charge. Pointing in the distance, i.e., to the east, Brown told his guide, "There's the field over which we charged, and up on that hill to the left is where Gen. Ross had his battery."
Dorsey replied that another Ohio veteran had visited Lovejoy the previous June and he thought it remarkable that "both of you remember exactly the same course after a half century."
Brown and Dorsey then made their way across the gullied field to the hill where Ross's artillery had stood. After lingering there while Brown wrote postcards to some of his old comrades, they started back to Lovejoy for lunch. "On the way back," Brown recalled, "instead of crossing the fields, we kept the road and visited Judge Dorsey's old homestead."
So, according to Brown, Kilpatrick's troopers charged eastward, across the gullied fields of the Dorsey plantation. Then, "to the left" or north of these fields, came the hill where Ross's artillery stood. This hill was well to the east of the Dorsey house. In other words, Brown's description of his visit to the battlefield matches the Nash Farm property PERFECTLY.
