Colonel Babcock’s flank companies opened fire too early, most of their bullets passing harmlessly among the skirmishers of the Second Texas. At the same instant a shell fired from a ten-pounder Parrott gun at a range of 500 yards exploded in front of the color guard of the Forty-second Alabama. Eleven men collapsed in a bloody pile, including the color-bearer. A few spent bullets thudded against soldiers of the left-flank company, slightly wounding several. Whipped into a frenzy by the unexpected fire and the momentary fall of its colors, the Forty-second Alabama broke into a running charge. In their anger they mistook the skirmishers of the Second Texas for the enemy, sending a volley into their backs that killed a lieutenant and wounded six privates.22
The chance fire that stirred the Alabamians came from the Eighty-first Ohio and the section of artillery posted with it on the extreme left of General Davies’s attenuated line of battle. In front of the charging Confederates were vacant earthworks.
Colonel Babcock saw that his predicament was hopeless. He sent to General McArthur for instructions, which by Babcock’s telling never came. McArthur claimed to have told him to “change front to the right and charge the enemy with fixed bayonets” — a foolish order that Babcock could not have obeyed. By then Babcock and his men knew they were alone. Dense timber blocked Oliver’s hill from view, but the Illinoisans had been following the fight by sound. Said Sgt. Leib Ambrose of the Seventh, “Up to this the battery and the force on our left have been making the woods ring with their terrible thunder, but they are silent now; their cannons are still; their musketry is hushed.” From the woods instead came shots from skirmishers of the Thirty-third Mississippi, who had left the Chewalla road and were probing north after the retreat of the Fifteenth Michigan. The Thirty-ninth Mississippi renewed its attack across the abatis in front of the Seventh. Having crossed the breastworks to the Illinoisans' right, Moore’s Confederates were re-forming their lines to front south. Sergeant Ambrose summed up the situation: “This is our position; rebels in our front; rebels on our right and rear; rebels on our left and rear; soon their right and left columns will meet; soon we will be surrounded if we remain here.” Reaching the same conclusion, Colonel Babcock gave the command, “By the right of companies to the rear,” and the Seventh slipped away before Moore could close off its line of retreat.23
Mansfield Lovell was pleased with the work his division had done. To the men of the Thirty-fifth Alabama, who had helped capture the Lady Richardson, he remarked jovially, “Well, boys, you did that handsomely.” But the struggle for Oliver’s hill took the fight out of Lovell. He recalled Rust, whose brigade had pushed 300 yards beyond Oliver’s hill in pursuit of the fleeing enemy, and told him to return to the south side of the railroad. To Bowen and Villepigue, who had lost control of all their regiments except the Thirty-third Mississippi, he gave orders to reassemble on the hill.
Lieutenant Holmes paused in his conversation with the color-bearer of the Fourteenth Wisconsin to watch the return of his brigade. Twenty minutes had elapsed with no one but dead and wounded Yankees, a few stragglers, and himself on the hilltop. Remembered Holmes, “The Twenty-second returned in due time, and we formed in line as best and as quickly as we could to await orders; but a battle is to a company, regiment, brigade, or the whole army what a blow is to a beautiful rose—it is broken into innumerable pieces, and it looks as though it can never be replaced, but still it must be done.”
Mansfield Lovell, to employ Holmes’s metaphor, was not about to lose any more petals. Rust, Villepigue, and Bowen—the latter in growing disgust—waited for orders to advance as minutes slipped into hours. Finally, at 3:00 P.M., Bowen asked Lovell for permission to lead his brigade to the support of the First Missouri, which had strayed during the fight for Oliver’s hill and attached itself to J. C. Moore’s brigade. Lovell instead told Bowen to recall the Missourians. Bowen complied. Seeing the point- lessness of further entreaties to Lovell, he allowed his men to disperse to collect and bury the dead, carry off the wounded, and begin repairs on the damaged Lady Richardson. Lieutenant Holmes heard distant firing and wondered at their own inactivity: “We had captured the oudet line, and the battle raged with redoubled fury. We remained there; not a regiment of the brigade or the division [was] engaged.”24
16. They Ran Like Hens
The soldiers of Richard Oglesby’s woefully understrength brigade had plenty of time to contemplate their fate. Six Confederate brigades assembled deliberately in the timber opposite them, with no thought to disguising their purpose. They did everything with a theatrical, almost disdainful flair that suggested they knew how few Federals were crouched behind the breastworks they were about to assault. At 10:00 A.M. their skirmishers emerged from the woods and spread out among the abatis with a calmness infuriating to the Yankees. “We were looking over the works and scanning everything in front with all the eagerness displayed by troops in the beginning of a fight,” Cpl. Charles Wright said. Nerves frayed quickly, and men squeezed off shots haphazardly. A sergeant next to Wright screamed, “Boys, there’s a sharpshooter in that bushy oak down there in the ravine!” and let go a shot. “I think he tumbled and fell behind the tree,” affirmed another Ohioan. Wright had seen nothing; he was preoccupied with what was going on behind the Rebel skirmishers. “Through an opening in the woods I could see the rebels forming their lines for the assault on our works. The woods seemed to be full of the men in gray. A great number passed this opening; tramp, tramp, tramp, they kept coming.” Wright grew angry. “Knowing our number and speculating on theirs, I was convinced that back a mile and more in our rear, under the guns of Robinett, was the place to make a fight.”
The Rebel skirmish line thickened until it contained more men than did all of Oglesby’s brigade. Only then did the Southerners return the Federal fire. Their first shots fell short, kicking up little puffs of orange dust in front of the breastworks. One of Wright’s comrades broke under the strain of waiting. He stuck his head above the breastworks and yelled, “Shoot higher, you damned rebels, you’re doin' no good!"1
As if to taunt the Rebels, Col. Thomas Morton stepped atop the breastworks and jammed the regimental colors into the dirt. Nobody hit him. Climbing down, he paced behind his Ohioans, gazing steadily at the woods beyond. A rider on a white horse caught his eye. Galloping from a clump of timber, the man paused to scan the Federal breastworks with a field glass, evidently to get the range of Morton’s supporting artillery.
Morton stopped and yelled to the first sergeant of Company E: “Say, can’t you stir that fellow up a little?” He could not but knew a man who could. The sergeant called over nineteen-year-old Pvt. Erastus Curtis, a crack shot. Colonel Morton bade Curtis to fire. “What is the distance, Colonel?” asked Curtis. Morton raised his field glass and guessed 500 yards. Curtis cocked his rifle-musket and stuck the barrel over the breastworks. Before he could fire, six cannonballs came crashing down on the works near the regimental colors. The Confederates had shown their contempt of Morton’s gesture, and of the Union defenses, by running Wade’s Missouri Battery onto a knoll in front of the Eighty-first Ohio.
Capt. John Welker’s Battery H, First Missouri Light Artillery, had the final say in the affair. Welker had split his battery, placing one section on the bridle path alongside Colonel Morton’s Eighty-first Ohio and the other 200 yards to the right, beside the Twelfth Illinois. Welker’s two sections opened a converging fire that killed most of the Rebel limber horses and drove the guns back into the woods. The battery commander, Lt. Samuel Farrington, was cut in half by a solid shot. General Price nevertheless wanted to bring his remaining batteries into the open to support the impending assault, but his chief of artillery resisted, pointing out that Wade’s “horses were stricken down too fast for a gun to be planted.” As though to drive home the point, a shell burst among Price’s party, killing the horse of an aide and just missing Maj. John Tyler.2
Apart from the good aim of their artillerymen, who were the only ones to enjoy the preliminary proceedings, all
the 720 Federals had going for them was the quality of their leaders: in Oglesby a fine brigade commander, and in Cols. Augustus Chetlain of the Twelfth Illinois and August Mersy of the Ninth Illinois two talented regimental commanders.
“Uncle Dick" Oglesby, as his men called him, was among the most colorful and prominent officers in blue at Corinth, an intimate friend and political ally of Lincoln whose early life closely resembled that of the president. Born in Kentucky on July 25, 1824, Oglesby was orphaned at age nine and taken in by an uncle in Decatur, Illinois. He received a rudimentary education before quitting school to work variously as a farmhand, a rope maker, and a carpenter. With the money he saved, Oglesby studied law in Springfield and was admitted to the bar. Quitting his fledgling practice to enlist in an Illinois regiment when the Mexican War broke out, he won election as commander of his company by “out- wrestling, out-running, and out-talking” his fellow volunteers. Oglesby strove hard to keep the respect of his men. He led them on a 450-mile march from the border deep into Mexico, “walking every step of the way in twenty days,” he told his sister. “Tis true my feet often wore into blood blisters, and the skin came off in pieces as large as half-dollars, but I had to go it. I knew it would not do to despair whilst there were so many of the men looking for my example in that respect.”
Brig. Gen. Richard J. Oglesby (Illinois State Historical Library)
Two years later Oglesby again journeyed overland, this time to California to take part in the gold rush. He returned to Decatur with $5,000 in gold dust, speculated in land, and became one of the richest men in the county. He also threw himself into Republican politics, becoming one of the dozen party leaders, known as the “original Lincoln men,” most responsible for the future president’s nomination. At thirty-seven, with a friend in the White House and a natural gift for leadership, Oglesby looked like a man with a bright future.
So, too, did Augustus Chetlain. Also thirty-seven years old, Chetlain had been born in Switzerland and migrated with his parents to Galena, Illinois, as an infant. Starting as a clerk in a local store, Chetlain went into business for himself in 1852. Seven years later he was rich. Chetlain had accepted a commission at Grant’s suggestion, and his service to date confirmed the general’s estimation of him.
August Mersy had neither wealth nor political influence. He came to America from Prussia in 1849, a penniless former general of the revolutionary army. He found employment as a bank clerk in Belleville, Illinois, but was unable to rise higher than cashier. When war came, however, Belleville’s German community remembered Mersy’s accomplishments during the revolution, and they turned to him for leadership.
Mersy and his largely German Ninth Illinois had fought well and suffered much. At Fort Donelson the regiment held off a series of furious attacks during the abortive Rebel effort to break out of the Federal cordon. The Ninth paid dearly for its tenacity, losing 210 men in two and a half hours. At Shiloh the Ninth was again brutalized, losing an incredible 366 men. Whether the survivors could stand up to another test was an open question, but one that would not be answered here. Fifteen minutes after General Price waved his 9,000 men forward at 11:00 A.M., the Confederates were in the breastworks.3
Cpl. Charles Wright of the Eighty-first Ohio saw his earlier fears confirmed. All around him was “conclusive proof that the battle had better be fought under the guns of Robinett.” A long Butternut line—J. C. Moore’s brigade — climbed the empty breastworks far beyond the regiment’s left. Closer at hand Phifer’s entire brigade bore down on the five small companies from in front, while Martin’s brigade made for the gap in the line between the Ohioans and the Twelfth Illinois. “The musketry fire was now terrific,” said Wright. “I could hear the steady voice of Lieutenant Chamberlin, ’Load fast, boys; load fast!' which was the one thing needful at this particular time.” Wright and his comrades got off between fifteen and twenty rounds before Phifer’s Rebels swarmed over the head- log of the earthworks, pinning several slow-footed Ohioans to the bottom of the ditch with their bayonets. Wright had obeyed the command to “spring out of the ditch” and got away unhurt. So, too, did most of the men of the Eighty-first, leaving Lt. John Conant’s section of Welker’s battery unprotected. With nearly all his horses shot down, Conant and his gunners abandoned their cannon to the Ninth Texas Dismounted Cavalry and ran for the rear.
Welker’s right section gave a good account of itself, tearing huge gaps in the Rebel ranks. A single discharge of canister killed twelve members of the Forty-third Mississippi; another mortally wounded Col. John Martin, and a third blast tore apart General Green’s horse. But Colonel Chetlain, knowing a hopeless fight when he saw it, ordered his men to fall back “as soon as possible.” Left without infantry support the remaining two guns of Welker’s battery escaped just ahead of the Rebels.4 The Ninth Illinois was the last to go. Stunned by the ferocity of the enemy attack and the rapid collapse of the Twelfth Illinois on their left, three officers and thirty men were captured before they could escape. The rest of the regiment, less seven dead or wounded, fled into a thick underbrush of briars and mulberries behind the breastworks. “They ran like hens running from a hawk, hiding behind every log and in every place they could find,” recalled James Fauntleroy of the First Missouri. Astonished prisoners told their captors they thought them drunk, for the recklessness of their charge.
Delayed by the abatis, mounted officers galloped up a few minutes later. Ready to lead their men in pursuit, they instead found most already chasing the Yankees on their own. Lieutenant Colonel Bevier of the Fifth Missouri took it philosophically. He dismounted, hitched his horse to a log, and walked over to the abandoned cannon of Welker’s left section. There Bevier found a soldier of his regiment sitting on a gun tube and wiping the sweat from his face. Bevier himself was “panting and blowing” from having negotiated his horse through the obstacle-laden field under a sun now midway across the sky. The temperature had climbed to 100 degrees and was still rising.
“Well, Colonel, you mounted fellows are tolerably useful in camp, and serve a good purpose on the drill ground, but we don’t need you much in a fight.”
“No, I’ll swear you don’t,” gasped Bevier, “and you boys can out-run the devil when you are after a Fed.”
“You bet we can!"5
Price’s advance had been confined to the west side of the Chewalla road, which placed the men of Hackleman’s brigade in the safe but exasperating position of watching the spectacle without being able to contribute a shot on Oglesby’s behalf. When the Rebels crossed the breastworks to his left, Hackleman was outflanked, and he ordered his three regiments to fall back.6
To Charles Colwell, the moment looked desperate. On detached service from the Ninth Illinois with the division trains, Colwell had advanced his wagons to the first field behind the breastworks just as Oglesby’s line gave way. “I met soldiers coming running, infantry, cavalry, and artillery. They said the lines were broken and nearly all taken prisoners.” General Davies rode up a moment later. His staff was as nonplussed as the soldiers. “General, the lines are broken, the rebels came in behind us, [have] taken us by surprise, and [are] pouring a deadly volley into us from behind us as well as before,” stammered an aide.
Davies kept his head. To Colwell he said calmly, “Charley, you can take your train back to town.” Colwell remonstrated, “General, if I move the train it will raise a stampede and wouldn’t it be better if I got the train in such shape that I could drive out at a minute’s notice and then wait till you form your line?” Davies agreed. Turning to the task of consolidating his division and restoring order to Oglesby’s brigade, Davies chose the open field as a rallying point for Hackleman and Oglesby. Davies sent a courier to Baldwin—wherever he might be — directing him to retire to the intersection of the Columbus and Chewalla roads. Hackleman’s brigade marched through the field in perfect order and assembled in the timber along its southern fringe, on the east side of the Chewalla road. Re-forming Oglesby’s brigade took longer, but ulti
mately the presence of Oglesby steadied the men. Obviously embarrassed by the retreat, the burly Illinoisan drew rein in the center of the field and bellowed, “Men, we are going to fight them on this ground. If there’s dying to be done, men, I pledge to you my word I’ll stay with you and take my share of it.”7
The sincerity of Oglesby’s vow went untested. Davies had no intention of making a fight there. “The second line of my two remaining brigades was only intended to attract the attention of the enemy and cause them to form line of battle in my front, which they did,” he explained. No sooner had Oglesby finished his speech than a messenger from Davies rode up and handed him a paper. Corporal Wright watched Oglesby: “He read, placed the paper in his pocket, and gave the order to ’about-face,' and in battle-line we moved through the woods toward Corinth.”
Davies had two other good reasons for not engaging the enemy. From a returning messenger he learned that McArthur, who had promised to re-form on his left, had been forced to withdraw south of the Chewalla road, beyond the fortified camps of the Seventeenth Wisconsin and the Twenty-first Missouri. A strong Rebel column, the messenger said (a reference to J. C. Moore’s brigade), was driving down the road between their two commands. The courier dispatched to Baldwin also returned, bleeding badly. He had been shot trying to get through to Baldwin, who had been cut off by Moore and Phifer and forced to withdraw with McArthur.
It was between 1:00 and 1:30 P.M. when Davies ordered Oglesby and Hackleman to retire. They were to form a line of battle at the junction of the Chewalla and Columbus roads, “with the same view and same effect as their previous movement.”8
The Darkest Days of the War- the Battles of Iuka and Corinth Page 22