The Darkest Days of the War- the Battles of Iuka and Corinth

by Peter Cozzens

  Crossing the ravine, the Iowans met a cavalcade of frightened officers and cavalrymen from Rosecrans’s bodyguard that had strayed too close to the enemy They stampeded down the road toward the center ranks of the Seventeenth. Rankin managed to yell an order to “give way to the right,” so that the men on the road were not trampled, but in the bedlam that followed, the regiment separated. Watching the left wing drift off and his own company waver, Captain Young called Rankin’s attention to the impending breakup of the regiment. “He told me to do the best I could for them and keep them together if possible,” recalled Young. “After this I saw no more of him during the engagement.”

  Those who saw Rankin differ on what happened next. All agree that he tumbled from his horse and hit his head against a tree. As to the cause of his fall, there was considerable debate. Some said his horse was shot and Rankin was thrown from the dying animal. Others said he simply rode into the tree in a blind drunk. Averred one veteran, “The Colonel dashed into a tangle which brought down the colonel from his horse, tearing his sword and one epaulet off him. After that the colonel returned to his law practice in Keokuk.” The regiment left him lying unconscious beside the tree and struggled onward.8

  Word of Rankin’s fall reached Captain Young, and he took command. An ambitious, scheming sort, Young had his eye on the colonelcy and was gravely disappointed when an Iowa judge was named to replace Rankin, but a good showing at Iuka as temporary commander would at least boost his standing when the new colonel arrived.

  The situation, however, had deteriorated beyond Young’s ability to salvage it. The left companies were beyond his reach, and those on the right unraveled under a plunging fire from the Third Texas Dismounted Cavalry. Capt. Samson Archer was shot while trying to get the men of the center companies to lie down. All panicked. Young ran rearward with the Iowans to an old graveyard, 400 yards from the Rebels. There, winded and frightened, the men collapsed.

  “I succeeded in rallying them and got them back to about where our line was first formed and succeeded in quieting them for a time,” said Young. General Sullivan rode up. Young reported himself in command of the regiment and asked for orders. Sullivan told Young to do “the best [he could],” then hurried away. Young walked to the right of the line and led the men forward. “We had proceeded but a short distance when a tremendous volley from the enemy caused a panic in the battalion, and with all my efforts I could not rally them until they had retreated almost to the road near the old log church.” There Young reassembled them. Stragglers from other shattered regiments wandered into his ranks. Two thrashings had satisfied Young’s taste for command, and he held the men in place, content to wait for orders.9

  The Eightieth Ohio gave a better account of itself than did the Seventeenth Iowa. Lt. Col. Matthias Bartilson got his men across the ravine in good order. Near the base of the ridge a concealed line of Rebels — probably skirmishers belonging to the First Texas Legion — rose from the underbrush and at a range of thirty paces fired into the Ohioans. Colonel Bartilson’s horse was shot dead. As he rose, the colonel was struck in the shoulder by a buckshot. Bleeding profusely, Bartilson called together his company commanders. Before leaving for the rear, he enjoined them “to hold their position until relieved by some proper officer.” They did. Returning fire, the Ohioans bested the Confederates after a ten-minute exchange of volleys.10

  The Ohioans' stand bought Sullivan time to patch together a scratch line from soldiers of the Twenty-sixth Missouri, the Forty-eighth Indiana, the Sixteenth Iowa, the Fifth Iowa, and the Fourth Minnesota who were milling about in the ravine. At General Hamilton’s behest he led them past the Eightieth Ohio and recaptured the battery.

  Sullivan’s twilight counterattack caught the Confederates off guard. The Third Texas Dismounted Cavalry recoiled down the ridge. The Third Louisiana held on to the brow until a volley from behind disrupted the Louisianans' resistance. While his men sought cover in the underbrush, Maj. William Russell galloped rearward to find the source of the misdirected fire. Lieutenant Colonel Gilmore had been hit five times, but he stayed with the men, riding among them until his horse was shot. A sixth bullet struck Gilmore in the shoulder. He kept on his feet and, as much to escape the friendly volleys as to drive away the enemy, led a wild bayonet charge into the Federal ranks. Major Russell returned to the regiment and “came near losing his life by giving orders to a company of the enemy, mistaking them for one of our own.” Gilmore’s audacity paid off. Darkness intensified the ferocity of the Confederate charge, and the Federals gave way.11

  The seesaw struggle for the ridge continued. The First Texas Legion was momentarily thrown off the ridge. Sullivan’s left wing reassembled along the brow, and those in the center re-formed in front of Sears’s cannon, three of which the Rebels spiked before falling back. The Federals' stay among the guns was brief. The acting major of the First Texas Legion had concealed three companies in the brush on Sullivan’s left. They went undetected by the Yankees until, a few minutes after 7:00 P.M., they let go a volley, rose to their feet, and charged. Seeing only the flash of rifles beyond his flank, Sullivan ordered a retreat. The Confederates poured off the ridge in pursuit. Sullivan rallied his men and met the Rebels at close range. “It was so dark that friends could not be distinguished from foes,” said Sullivan, but the fighting went on nonetheless.

  MAP 4.Sullivan Counterattacks, 7:00P.M.

  Sullivan got help of a sort from an unexpected source. After waiting forty-five minutes for orders, Captain Young had found the nerve to start forward again. Badly frightened by their first two encounters with the enemy, Young’s men fired randomly as they advanced. A soldier from the Fifth Iowa emerged from the dark to scold them; they were shooting into the backs of friendly troops. Young halted, restored discipline, and then edged the regiment forward, intending to draw near enough “to support our men in case they should fall back.” But darkness thwarted Young’s good intentions: “We had not proceeded far when some of my men again commenced firing, which was apparently answered by a tremendous volley from the direction of the enemy; but [another] soldier who was some distance in advance came rushing back and said that our own men were firing upon us. I then ordered my men to fall back in good order so as not to come in contact with them.” Thirty yards to the rear, near the graveyard, he directed them to halt, face about, and kneel. Frightened soldiers from Sullivan’s shattered counterattack came back onto his line. Behind them came the crash of an unseen volley. Again Young’s men panicked. “In spite of all exertions they ran back about one hundred yards, when I succeeded in forming another line, and having advanced a few yards I ordered them to stand and wait for orders.”

  None came, but Sullivan brought his mixed command into line beside Young. Sullivan’s troops opened fire and checked the Rebels. Young was about to join in when “a tremendous volley was fired by the enemy, and was immediately answered by some regiment still in our rear. We were now between two heavy fires from front and rear.” Captain Young was helpless to prevent what followed. The deadly cross fire in the dark “caused a dreadful stampede among the men, and all commenced firing in all directions without regard to where their guns were aimed.” Young had little trouble stopping their wild shooting after the volley from the rear ceased; his men were too exhausted to reload.

  The same misdirected volley played havoc with Sullivan’s line; it “killed and wounded more than my whole loss prior to that time,” he complained bitterly. The Confederates were too tired to exploit the chaos in the Federal ranks, if they were even aware of it. All they knew was that the volume of enemy fire suddenly had increased, and that was enough to cause them to retire to the ridge, where they contented themselves with dragging away the cannon of Sears’s battery. A few fitful volleys lit up the woods before the shooting sputtered out at 8:00 P.M.12

  10. We’ll I-uker Them Today!

  The fire from behind that decimated Sullivan’s ranks and terrified the soldiers of the Seventeenth Iowa was the consequence of a bel
ated effort by General Rosecrans to strengthen the Federal center. Rosecrans’s whereabouts during the battle are a matter of conjecture. Sergeant Brown of the Fourth Minnesota said Rosecrans walked behind his regiment on a quick tour of inspection shortly after the Minnesotans came into line. George Pepper of the Eightieth Ohio said, “Rosecrans was everywhere, cheering and encouraging the troops.” Pepper said Rosecrans exhorted Sanborn’s brigade into line with the words, “Come on, boys! We’ll I-uker them today!”

  Pepper’s account is plausible, given Rosecrans’s penchant for silly turns of phrase. But if Rosecrans remained on the ridge when the shooting started, his presence there was unknown to Hamilton or Sanborn. Perhaps, as a veteran of the Seventeenth Iowa suggested, the commanding general had been borne back with the cavalcade of staff officers that stampeded his regiment early in the fight. In any case Hamilton insisted Rosecrans was nowhere to be found when he most needed him: “Thinking General Rosecrans was in the rear, where he could hurry up the troops of Stanley’s division, I dispatched an aid with the request that General Rosecrans would come forward far enough to confer with me. All the while the battle waxed hotter and more furious.” Hamilton grew worried. “The dead lay in lines along the regiments, while some of our troops gave signs of yielding. I dispatched another officer for General Rosecrans. He happened to be one of General Rosecrans’s staff, and at my request he started to bear the message to the general.”

  When the Forty-eighth Indiana crumbled, Hamilton’s patience ran out. Four of his staff officers were down, badly wounded. Hamilton sent two of those still in the saddle to tell Rosecrans he “considered it imperative he should come forward to see me and should hurry forward fresh troops.”

  Sanborn waited with Hamilton for a reply. By then the Sixteenth Iowa had been swept from the field, and Colonel Boomer was struggling to keep his four companies of the Twenty-sixth Missouri in the fight to the right of Sears’s battery. No word came from Rosecrans, but General Stanley galloped up.

  “Sanborn, this is the heaviest musketry fire that I have ever heard in my life, and I was in every battle in Mexico. What can I do to assist you?" asked Stanley.

  “I must have reinforcements on that portion of the line about the battery, or I shall lose it,” Sanborn said.

  “I will send up the Eleventh Missouri double quick,” Stanley assured him, then rode off to carry out his promise. Hamilton and Sanborn waited for Stanley’s return until the tide of retreating Federals carried them off the ridge. The Eleventh Missouri, lamented Sanborn, “was ten minutes late for the relief needed.”1

  That fatal delay indirectly was Rosecrans’s fault. Wherever he may have been when Hamilton was searching for him, Rosecrans knew the division commander needed help. He tried to provide it by ordering Col. Joseph A. Mower, commander of the lead brigade of Stanley’s division, forward from the Ricks house.

  Mower moved at once. He beckoned Maj. Andrew Weber, whose Eleventh Missouri stood at the head of the brigade column, to follow him. To make better time Weber filed the Eleventh off the road and into the Ricks field at the double-quick time. Crossing the field Mower and Weber noticed the firing from Hamilton’s extreme right wax louder. As the volleys from the direction of Hamilton’s center had diminished — a consequence of Sanborn’s line having been thrown from the ridge — Mower diverted the Eleventh Missouri to the right. Major Weber halted the regiment at the northeastern corner of the field, deployed, and advanced into the timber. When Mower turned to form the rest of his brigade, he found the field empty. Judging the moment too critical to allow him to search for the brigade, Mower followed the Missourians into the forest.2

  Brig. Gen. David Shane Stanley, in later dress as major general (Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and the U.S. Army Military History Institute)

  Both Rosecrans and Stanley were to blame for the breakup of Mower’s command. Rosecrans erred in not telling Stanley he had ordered Mower to send in his entire brigade. When Stanley reached the brigade column, Mower had already moved out with the Eleventh Missouri. Apparently assuming one regiment was enough to relieve the pressure on Sanborn, Stanley opted to fashion a strong reserve in case Hamilton’s division buckled. He halted the Forty-seventh Illinois near the meetinghouse and sent the Twenty-sixth Illinois midway into the Ricks field. Stanley placed Mower’s trailing regiment, the Eighth Wisconsin, 300 yards south of the Ricks house, beside the Second Iowa Battery.

  Mower was “all fight from head to foot,” said one of his men, and he proved himself deserving of his nickname “Fightingjoe.” He had guessed correctly in diverting the Eleventh Missouri to the right. The firing was heaviest in that direction because the unit that fought there — the Fifth Iowa—was the only regiment of Sanborn’s brigade still in action. Major Weber maneuvered the Eleventh Missouri into line on the right of the Iowans. No sooner had Weber’s regiment entered the forest north of the Ricks field than it came face to face with an enemy line of battle, thirty yards away.3

  The Missourians got off the first volley. No response came from the Rebels. Instead, said Weber, a confused Confederate ran into Federal ranks screaming, “For God’s sake, stop firing into your own men; you are firing into the Thirty-seventh Mississippi.” The Missourians collared the man, raised a cheer, and released a second volley “more terrific than the first.” The Confederates returned the fire, but their bullets largely passed over the Missourians, who were on lower ground.

  Major Weber had misunderstood the bewildered Rebel who had tried to call off his men. He was not fighting the Thirty-seventh Mississippi but, rather, the Thirty-seventh Alabama and the Thirty-sixth Mississippi regiments, which Col. John Martin finally had brought to bear to the left of Hébert. Martin had been slow in coming up; perhaps the death of Little interrupted his advance. Had he moved fifteen minutes earlier, he would have outflanked the Fifth Iowa, caught the Eleventh Missouri in route column in the Ricks field, and perhaps rolled up Rosecrans’s entire right flank. As it was, the two lines settled into a fierce firefight after sunset.

  After the first two or three volleys blanketed the forest with smoke, neither side hit much. The Missourians overshot their targets as badly as did the Confederates. To break the impasse, Martin ordered a bayonet charge. Pvt. Sam Singletary of the Thirty-seventh Alabama recalled the moment the two lines collided. “We went right into their lines. A Yankee [officer] being the first to see our approach shot a man named Judkins through the arm with his pistol. By this time five or six of us had our muskets on him and were pressing our triggers when he said for God’s sake men don’t fire, which saved his life.” Judkins was handed the pistol and allowed the privilege of escorting the officer to the rear. Singletary last saw him sitting astride the Federal, punching him with the pistol.

  Weber repelled three charges in brutal, close-quarters fighting. Men darted forward in the dark to yank enemy soldiers from the ranks, bayonets crossed, and powder burns were common. An hour after sunset the Confederates broke off the attack. After they disappeared, the Missourians, out of ammunition, fell back slowly. In forty-five minutes of fighting, Major Weber lost seventy-five men. Colonel Martin reported seventy- seven casualties, including both the commander and the lieutenant colonel of the Thirty-seventh Alabama. Their clash was the last action of the day, but not the last killing.4

  In an appropriate denouement to the two-and-a-half-hour, addled affair, misdirected fire inflicted the last casualties of the day. On the Federal side the principal culprits were the Thirty-ninth Ohio of Fuller’s brigade, brought forward by Rosecrans and Stanley to steady Sullivan’s patchwork command, and the wayward Fourth Minnesota.

  Maj. Alfred Gilbert of the Thirty-ninth said he had no idea what was happening. It was dark when his regiment reached the battlefield, said Gilbert, and “large clouds of smoke issuing from above the trees” obscured the fighting. General Rosecrans and his staff paused near the Thirty-ninth Ohio. On the commanding general’s instructions, Stanley led the regiment forward. The
Ohioans marched up the road and filed into line thirty yards behind the Seventeenth Iowa and the right wing of Sullivan’s force. The timidity of Captain Le Gro had kept the Fourth Minnesota out of the battle; now his ineptitude caused a clash between the Thirty-ninth Ohio and the Seventeenth Iowa.

  Shortly after the Eleventh Ohio Battery changed hands for the last time, the Minnesotans were removed from their superfluous position near the Yow house to bolster the new line near the meetinghouse.

  The Minnesotans trudged down the settlement road. “The fighting at this time had entirely ceased. On our way to the front we stepped over a good many of our wounded who belonged to other regiments, several of whom begged us to shoot them and put them out of their misery,” remembered Sergeant Brown. “Before arriving at the place of our destination we were halted. It was now very dark.” Captain Le Gro lost control of the regiment while forming a line of battle. The left wing companies kept marching after the rest of the regiment stopped, stumbling between the lines of the Thirty-ninth Ohio and the Seventeenth Iowa. A few of the Minnesotans heard officers, whom they swore were Rebels, whispering commands. They panicked and let go a few random rounds, which set the black woods ablaze with gunfire. The Eightieth Ohio, which had regrouped to the right of the Thirty-ninth Ohio, joined in the shooting. Six soldiers in the Thirty-ninth were lightly wounded — two having been kicked by the regimental commander’s startled horse — but Pvt. J. H. Van Eman said a lieutenant of the Seventeenth was killed at his side. Several more Iowans must have been shot trying to pass through the lines of the Thirty-ninth, said Van Eman, “judging by the amount of shooting done at close range.”