Mower saw to it the remaining regiments of his brigade gave a better account of themselves. The Eleventh Missouri, which had comported itself so well at Iuka, settled into the woods behind the rise toward which Hackleman’s brigade was withdrawing. The Fifty-second Illinois stood in the field to the Missourians' front. Thanks to its mascot, the next of Mower’s units to appear was the most celebrated regiment in the Army of the Mississippi. That afternoon, as it had on every occasion before, the Eighth Wisconsin went into action with a bald eagle roosting on a perch beside the regimental colors. The eagle was named “Old Abe,” and in the Eighth to carry his perch was an honor greater than bearing the colors.
Abe had come to the regiment in August 1861, a few days after the men were recruited. An Indian had brought the young eagle to Chippewa Falls to barter. Two of the townspeople gave him a bushel of corn for the bird, then offered to sell it to Company C of the Eighth Wisconsin, which was recruiting at Eau Claire. The members chipped in a dime apiece to buy him, but before they could complete the transaction, a citizen of Eau Claire bought the eagle and made a gift of him to the company. Capt. John Perkins at first hesitated to accept such an odd member into his company but finally agreed to take him to the front. Caparisoned with red, white, and blue ribbons around his neck and a rosette of the same colors on his breast, Old Abe accompanied the regiment southward.
David McLain, one of the members of Company C to have offered up a dime for the bird, bore him into battle at Corinth. McLain was proud to have taught Old Abe to drink water from a canteen—"thus saving him much suffering on long, hot marches in a dry country" — but otherwise found the duty a mixed blessing. Army life had agreed with Old Abe, recalled McLain, and “by this time he was getting rather heavy. I think he weighed about twelve or fourteen pounds, and on hot days was very troublesome. When he got tired on his perch, he would want to fly to the ground to rest.”13
Before Mower could bring up his last regiment, the Forty-seventh Illinois, the Rebels reappeared. Davies and Mower conferred and agreed to a passage of lines. The Eleventh Missouri would replace the Fifty-second Illinois, and the Eighth Wisconsin would substitute for the Seventh and Second Iowa regiments.
Mower’s line proved too short to cover Chetlain’s front, but Davies withdrew the brigade nonetheless; the men were simply too exhausted to fight any longer. The Union Brigade, it seems, was left in the west White House field to cover Cpt. Nelson T. Spoor’s battery. Davies marched the remainder of the division back to the protection of Battery Robinett. Nearly crazed with thirst, the men attacked wagons laden with water sent from Corinth.14
* * *
The men of Mower’s brigade had no time to contemplate their surroundings. The Eleventh Missouri and the Eighth Wisconsin were under fire the instant they marched over Davies’s recumbent soldiers. Although they had been fighting for two hours, Green’s Confederates drove through the fields with a vigor that startled Mower’s men, who were nearly spent from twenty-four hours of constant marching.15
The Missourians and Mississippians had at last been reinforced. By 4:00 P.M. General Gates had extricated his brigade from the tangle with Martin’s errant command and moved up behind Green. He rested the brigade 400 yards behind the fighting, in weeds four feet high, “under cover of a ridge, where the minie balls whizzed over our heads in showers,” recalled Lieutenant Colonel Hubbell of the Third Missouri. Lan- dis’s battery of twenty-four pounder howitzers played upon the enemy from atop the ridge. That Green needed help was obvious to every man in Gates’s brigade, including Gates. But absent orders, he felt he must remain where he was. It apparendy occurred neither to General Hébert, whose whereabouts during the fight at the White House are unknown, nor to Price to commit Gates to the attack. Not until Green applied directly to the Missourian to reinforce his left, where the Forty-third Mississippi was being cut to pieces by an oblique fire from the Fifty-second Illinois, did Gates move. He set off through the woods at about 4:45 P.M. intending to bring his entire brigade in on Green’s left, not merely to steady the Forty-third Mississippi but perhaps also to outflank the enemy in the bargain.
Gates apparently never communicated his intention to Green, who waited only long enough for Gates’s lead regiment, the Second Missouri, to deploy on the left of the Forty-third Mississippi before resuming his assault. For a third time his brigade sallied forth into the east White House fields.16
The addition of the Second Missouri to Green’s command and the departure of Oglesby’s brigade gave the Confederates a decided advantage. Phifer renewed his attack west of the Memphis road simultaneously with Green’s third assault. He easily brushed aside the ragged remnants of the Union Brigade, then made for Spoor’s Second Iowa Battery, posted on the road. The Confederate Second Missouri opened an enfilading fire on the Federal Eleventh Missouri, which gave back slightly, and Mower found himself threatened with a double envelopment.
He left the Eleventh Missouri to fend for itself and gave his attention to the threat Phifer posed. As fugitives from the Union Brigade streamed across the Memphis road, Mower called upon the Forty-seventh Illinois to meet the Rebel onslaught. Coming up late, the Forty-seventh had gotten entangled with the left companies of the Eighth Wisconsin, which were themselves trying to change front to meet Phifer. As soon as Lieutenant Colonel Thrush extricated his men, he ordered them into the west White House field, where, said an eyewitness, “the fire from the Confederate lines became so fierce that it seemed as though a magazine had exploded in their very faces.”17
The Forty-seventh Illinois presented too narrow a front to challenge the whole of Phifer’s brigade. But before the Confederates could avail themselves of their superiority in numbers, Lieutenant Colonel Thrush ordered a bayonet charge. Spoor’s Battery contributed a steady fire of canister from the road. Thoroughly surprised, the Confederates gave way. Thrush fell, shot through the heart. Capt. Harman Andrews took command, and the Illinoisans kept up the pursuit for 250 yards before Phifer regained control of his brigade. Then the Illinoisans halted, and the Confederates counterattacked. “The battle took a turn and for a while seemed to hang in even scale,” said Clyde Bryner of the Forty-seventh. “The men were falling like autumn leaves.” Captain Andrews was killed, three company commanders were hit, and nearly 100 enlisted men fell, dead or wounded. The Forty-seventh was leaderless. Rebels swept around their left flank, yet the Illinoisans held their ground. Not until the enemy began to work its way behind the regiment did the surviving company officers lead their men from the field. “Terribly worn from their severe march and lack of water,” said Bryner, the Illinoisans were happy to leave, stopping only when under the protective guns of Battery Williams.
On the brigade right the Eleventh Missouri fought for thirty minutes before retiring toward Battery Robinett, where the Missourians were reunited with the truant Twenty-sixth Illinois and Spoor’s battery, which had gotten away intact.18
In the brigade center the soldiers of the Eighth Wisconsin gave only a marginally better account of themselves. Their leaders certainly set a poor example. The usual commander of the regiment, Robert Murphy, was still under arrest for evacuating Iuka. His successor, Lt. Col. Josiah Robbins Jr., proved a coward. Early in the action a spent ball bruised him in the stomach. Robbins allowed himself to be carried from the field, and regimental command passed to Maj. John Jefferson. He was a conscientious officer but had been sick with typhoid fever for several days and never should have left his cot. Gaunt and burning with fever, Jefferson was knocked senseless by a flesh wound in the shoulder. Capt. William Britton took charge and promptly had his horse shot out from under him.
Even Old Abe had more of the chicken than the eagle in him. At the first Rebel volley a bullet cut the cord holding Old Abe to his perch. Another clipped his wing, carrying away three quill feathers. Old Abe screamed, spread his wings, and flew a few feet upward, then along the line of battle. David McLain rammed the perch in the ground and chased after him. Overtaking Old Abe some fifty feet fro
m his perch, McLain scooped him up and carried him back to his perch. But Old Abe would have no more of that. Said Capt. James Greene of Company F, “He hopped off his perch to the ground and ducked his head between his carrier’s legs. All attempts to make him stay on his perch were useless. He was thoroughly demoralized.”
So were the men of the Eighth. Hit while still deploying from column into line by Missourians who yelled “like so many screech owls or devils,” the soldiers had to be coaxed into place by their captains. That they proved pliant was due to the efforts of the regimental quartermaster. Riding ahead of the regiment on its march to the White House, the quartermaster had found and knocked open a barrel of whiskey. He was ready when the men passed. “They had been on the run for several hours and were in a state of exhaustion,” said Captain Greene. “As the boys marched by every man who wanted to dipped his cup or canteen in and took a drink.” The effect of liquor on hot, tired, and thirsty men can be imagined.
The Wisconsin men were lucid enough to see they could not fight after the troops on both their flanks had fallen back. Confessed Captain Greene, “They broke and ran before the advancing Rebel charge — the carrier of the eagle picking him up and carrying him under his arm as fast as he could run. It was a new experience for us, for heretofore we had always been the victors. The regiment and brigade dissolved so quickly that it was impossible to see what had become of them.” Captain Greene ran into the captain of the color company—Abe’s protectors. He had with him no more than a dozen men. As they ran, the color-bearer was shot dead. The next man to grab the colors fell wounded. Captains Greene and Wolf picked them up and ran “with the enemy at our heels.” The cannon of Battery Robinett drove off the Rebels, and the two captains brought in the colors.19
Lagging a bit behind his regiment, Cpl. James Bradley of the Third Missouri Dismounted Cavalry caught a glimpse of General Green a few moments after Mower’s brigade collapsed: “This writer will never forget the appearance of General Green as he rode, smiling, along the rear of the brigade that evening just after a desperate charge of his men had driven the enemy flying to their entrenchments. He had a revolver in each hand, and his hands were black with powder, showing that he had, indeed, been in battle. He actually led the charge of his brigade.”20
Green had reason to feel pleased. At 5:00 P.M., while his soldiers paused to catch their breath at the southern edge of the forest below the White House fields, the Virginian surveyed the ground before them. Four hundred yards to the southwest was Battery Robinett. Only one of its three twenty-pounder Parrott guns was trained to cover the field Green would have to cross, should he press on toward town. The entire complement of guns could be withdrawn from the redan and trained on the field, but a simultaneous attack by Phifer down the Memphis road against Robinett would prevent such a measure. With the cannon of Battery Robinett directed elsewhere, Green would have only to negotiate a quarter-mile of cut timber to reach the outskirts of Corinth. The trees had been chopped down hastily and left where they fell. The Federals called the clutter of felled trees and stubble of stumps an abatis, but it was a poor obstacle that would scarcely serve to slow a determined charge.21
On the Federal side of the field, a mere 300 yards from the junction of the Memphis and Charleston and Mobile and Ohio Railroads, all was confusion. Davies’s troops were beyond regrouping for the night. General Stanley had ridden into the field to meet Mower’s men as they spilled rearward, but they also were too tired and thirsty to heed his call to rally. Captain Spoor had his battery resting behind Robinett, but the Iowan’s caissons were almost empty. Because Rosecrans had chosen to wait until Mower broke to summon Fuller’s brigade, which rested a mile and a half away near Corona College, there was no help immediately in sight. Green, on the other hand, had Phifer’s brigade — a bit unsteady but still capable of fighting—on his right and, by 5:00 P.M., Gates’s comparatively fresh brigade coming into line on his left. Also, William Cabell had reported in with the two regiments and two battalions left him after Maury had detached the Nineteenth and Twentieth Arkansas regiments to reinforce Moore earlier in the afternoon. Cabell’s infantry, tired from a day of marching but unbloodied, fell in behind Phifer, ready to support an attack. Green’s own command had lost heavily, especially in field-grade officers, but the Virginian never doubted for a moment that his brigade was up to one final assault. “So far as my brigade was concerned I could have gone into the town. There was nothing in the way.”
With Fuller only then receiving orders to move, the Confederates had been handed thirty minutes of daylight with which to take Corinth.22* * *
* * *
Mingling with the soldiers who had captured the White House fields, General Price saw matters quite differently than did General Green. The ubiquitous Major Tyler was at Price’s side and witnessed the same spectacle. Exhaustion was everywhere evident. Wrote Tyler,
The day was now far spent and, the excitement of the contest subsiding, scores of our men sank down exhausted by heat and desperate for water. General Price rode among them, sympathizing with their suffering. He himself had been hit in the left arm by a shell fragment; though not serious, the wound was ugly and painful. Wherever Price went, cheers followed him. The wounded threw up their caps and even the dying waved to him their hands. He dispatched his entire body guard with canteens for water, and sent off courier after courier to hasten up surgeons, ambulances, and restoratives.23
It was not the fatigue of his men that led Price to caution against further attacks, but the unaccountable failure of Lovell to do more. For two hours a strange — and, to Price and his heavily engaged subordinates, infuriating—silence had reigned west of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Price was convinced that “with a cordial support from General Lovell’s command we would have carried their works and held them.” Not knowing what had become of Lovell, Price concluded “it prudent to delay the attack on the town until the succeeding morning.” He told Van Dorn as much when the Mississippian met him on the front line a few minutes after 5:00 P.M. Maury joined the gathering. He was for pushing on: “After a hot day of incessant action and constant victory, we felt that our prize was just before us, and one more vigorous effort would crown our arms with complete success.” Van Dorn agreed and wanted to storm the town at once. Price dug in his heels. Without the support of Lovell, he doubted that his men could do the job. “I think we have done enough for today, General, and the men should rest,” Price told Van Dorn. Maury agreed that nothing would be lost waiting until the next morning. Van Dorn acquiesced, and Price’s frontline brigades stood down. Commanders perfected their lines and looked to their wounded, and the soldiers sank to the ground to sleep.24
Discouragement ran high. Some already sensed that their sacrifices might have been in vain. Ephraim Anderson of the Second Missouri expressed what seems to have been a common sentiment, at least in Gates’s brigade: “If the works had been immediately charged, we could easily have carried them. Their present force had been defeated during the day’s engagement, must have been considerably demoralized, and a rush upon them promptly would have left but little time to make proper dispositions.”25
On the balance Price was probably prudent to counsel a halt. The exuberant hopes of Maury and Green notwithstanding, it is a military axiom that a hard-fought victory can leave a command as disorganized as a defeat, and the brigades of Phifer and Green certainly had done their share of fighting.
Matters were far different on Lovell’s front. During the two hours that Moore had batded McArthur and Crocker, Lovell had stood idle. When he at last moved, it was only to make contact with Moore’s command. Lovell stopped on the ridge near Battery F and told Moore to wait with him there until he said otherwise. Thoroughly disgusted with Lovell’s indolence, Moore looked for an excuse to return to his own division. He found it at dark. “While waiting for a notification from General Lovell to advance, which he said he would give when ready, we received orders from General Maury to rejoin the division and take p
osition on Phifer’s right.” Moore obeyed with alacrity.
Lovell’s listlessness angered his own brigade commanders as well. Albert Rust, who had strenuously objected to the attack on Corinth, now was all for continuing the assault: “We had come much nearer achieving success than I had hoped for. I believed at the end of the first day’s fight that the place was nearly taken.” He did not see any reason why Lovell should not move on the enemy’s inner works at once; Rust’s men, at least, were in “first-rate fighting condition.”
General Bowen agreed that Corinth could have been carried. Lovell had missed two opportunities to do it. The first, thought Bowen, came when Crocker withdrew: “The enemy’s center was broken near the railroad. I saw it retiring in confusion, pursued simply by a line of skirmishers. If Lovell’s division had moved directly forward we could have entered pell-mell with them into town.” The second came after Mower’s retreat. “If the line had formed within an hour and the advance made directly upon the center I think the place would have fallen.”
Bowen’s men chafed with him. Recalled Lieutenant Holmes of Ca- ruthers’s Mississippi Battalion, one of the few units in Lovell’s division to have seen any serious action: “Corinth could have been taken in one more hour’s fighting had our division marched down the Memphis and Charleston Railroad track. We lay quietly for orders to attack, but no such orders came.”26
The Darkest Days of the War- the Battles of Iuka and Corinth Page 26