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

by Peter Cozzens

  The pitiful remnant of the Union Brigade present that day was among the first to fold. The Seventh Illinois, on the Iowans' left, gave way with them. General Rosecrans happened to be near the Union Brigade. He had a hearty disdain for the Iowans that was returned in equal measure. When they joined his command for outpost duty two months earlier, Rosecrans berated them in a letter to Grant: “The Mackerel — I mean Union — brigade, reported to General Granger 520, 300 for duty; advanced as far as Danville where . . . they attacked the pigs of Danville deploying skirmishers for that purpose, who opened a sharp fire and brought eight of the hairy rascals to the ground before Colonel Tinkham, commanding the station, arrived and informed the commander of the brigade that these natives were non-combatants as loyal as possible considering their limited information.”

  Rosecrans rode among the fleeing Iowans and Illinoisans. Forgetting Davies’s prophecy, he screamed and swore at them: They were a set of cowards and old women; they would have no military standing in his army until they won it back in battle; it was no wonder the Rebels had thrown most of their force against Davies’s division. The men kept running.14

  Sweeny’s brigade gave a better account of itself. On the brigade right the Fifty-second Illinois held its ground even after the batteries on either side of it “limbered up and galloped off in wild confusion,” as Colonel Sweeny remembered. The limbers crashed down on Sweeny’s reserves, the Twelfth Illinois and Eighty-first Ohio regiments of Mersy’s brigade, which were stacked up in column, crushing several men and scattering the rest. General Davies was beside himself. “This communicated a stampede in the ammunition wagons in the hollow in the rear of the line, and they too started on the run to the rear.” The general and his staff galloped after them. Davies lost himself to the madness of the moment. When one officer refused to turn around and return to the front with his men, Davies drew his revolver and shot him dead. A stunned private bent over to examine the body. “Let him alone,” snarled Davies before riding off.15

  The cannoneers in Battery Powell followed the examples of the batteries to their left. There were five cannon with their crews, horses, and limbers all pressed into the small redoubt. Smoke, the thud of guns, the shouting of gun commanders, the odor of powder, and the stench of dead and dying horses converted Battery Powell into an inferno of the senses. No one could stay there long. Lt. John Brunner fired double charges of canister from the two guns of his section of Battery I, First Missouri Light Artillery, until half his men ran off or were shot down and only five horses were left standing. Brunner waved the animals away and, leaving the guns behind, started rearward with the rest of his cannoneers. Captain Richardson’s gunners kept firing until the enemy was twenty yards away. His drivers had all but lost control over their terrified animals. They danced about madly, making it impossible to limber up the cannon. The limbers and caissons made good their escape, as did most of Richardson’s cannoneers, but his three twenty-pounder Parrotts remained in the redoubt. Abandoned with his and Brunner’s cannon were two twenty- four-pounder howitzers from Welker’s Battery H, First Missouri Light Artillery.16

  Gates’s one Arkansas and four Missouri regiments hit the rapidly emptying Union lines a few minutes ahead of Moore’s brigade. Lieutenant Colonel Bevier’s Fifth Missouri struck Battery Powell from in front. His men swarmed over its low earthen walls to find a score of mangled horses and five stilled cannon. “Unfortunately, we had nothing to spike [the guns] with,” Bevier lamented. The inside of the lunette was a charnel house, “one of the bloodiest places I ever saw,” said Missourian William Ruyle. “On all sides of me I could see both the enemy and our men lying in the bleaching sun, in the dust which was about six inches deep. Every second it seemed I could see some comrade fall dead or wounded.”

  Colonel Sweeny called on his own Fifty-second Illinois to change front and “meet the enemy boldly.” Lieutenant Colonel Wilcox tried, but before he could arrange his lines, the Second Iowa began to give way. With the enemy just twenty yards from his right flank, Wilcox hurriedly barked the order to withdraw. The Third Missouri poured over the breastworks and delivered a volley that wrecked the Fifty-second; before Wilcox could rally them, the Illinoisans scattered. But they had hurt the Third Missouri badly before breaking. Its lieutenant colonel lay in the field wounded. Col. J. A. Pritchard dismounted at the breastworks. As the Fifty-second retreated, he waved his sword to urge his men forward in pursuit. A minie ball struck him in the left shoulder, “literally crushing the bones,” said a captain who witnessed the scene. “My God, I am shot!" said Pritchard. “Boys, take me off the field — don’t let me fall into the hands of the Yankees.” Grasping his left wrist with his right hand, his features contorted in pain, Pritchard stammered as he was carried away, “Boys, do your duty.” Major Hubbell assumed command; Pritchard died sixteen days later.

  “Waving his sword and pointing it to the grim mouths of the artillery,” Col. Francis Cockrell led his Second Missouri against the only cannon remaining on that part of the field, the six guns of Capt. Henry Dillon’s Sixth Wisconsin Battery. “Forward, my boys; we must capture that battery,” he shouted repeatedly above the din.17

  Dillon had only thirty-nine men to serve the battery, but they fought admirably, staying with their pieces until the Missourians were among the cannon. Several were bayoneted, and one cannoneer knocked a Rebel down with his ramrod in order to send a final charge home. Dillon escaped with his limbers and caissons but lost all six guns and twenty-four men. He halted the teams in front of the Fifty-ninth Indiana and sought out its commander, who was a friend. First Lt. William Bartholomew watched Dillon approach. “I shall never forget his expression. The tears rolled down his cheeks as he said: ’Colonel, my battery is gone. I did the very best I could. They shot down my men and my horses, and took my battery.'”

  Dillon’s infantry support had failed him miserably. Indeed, the Sixth Wisconsin Battery lost nearly as many men as either the Eightieth Ohio or Tenth Iowa Infantry regiments. On his left the Eightieth Ohio came apart at about the same time as the Fifty-second Illinois. When Bevier’s Missourians poured into Battery Powell on their left flank and those of Cockrell closed in on their right, the Ohioans gave back. Maj. Richard Lanning was killed trying to rally them, and command devolved on the senior captain, who could do nothing to stem the panic.

  The Tenth Iowa retired from its indefensible position after losing thirty-four men. With their right flank in the air, the Iowans had no recourse but retreat when the brigades of McLain and Colbert, having caught up with Gates and Green, slipped around them. The Iowans fell back 300 yards to the protection of the Twelfth Wisconsin Battery.18

  By 10:45 A.M. the only regiment left to confront Gates’s Missourians was August Mersy’s hard-luck Ninth Illinois. The regiment was in closed column beside a large, white house on a hill behind Battery Powell when Sullivan’s regiments collapsed and the Sixth Wisconsin Battery was taken. The limbers and caissons of the battery bounced onto the rear companies of the Ninth, throwing them into disorder. Out of the dust came the Confederates. They poured a volley into the flank of the startled Illinoisans, who milled about the yard until Mersy rallied them. He somehow got the regiment into line to meet the Missourians, and the Ninth held on long enough to allow the gun crews from Battery Powell and the last fugitives from the Fifty-second Illinois to slip away safely.19

  The moment was critical in the extreme. Gates had punched a quarter- mile-wide hole in Rosecrans’s inner defenses and taken thirteen cannon. On his right William H. Moore had rolled over the Second and Seventh Iowa regiments of Sweeny’s brigade and the Fifty-seventh Illinois of Du Bois’s brigade. Nothing stood between Moore’s men and the town but several hundred frightened Federals, most of whom had given up all thought of resisting.20

  As stunning as their success had been, Gates and Moore could not carry the day alone. The Missourians had breached the Federal front line, but the effort had exhausted them. Key officers had fallen, and the surviving Confederates were
nearly as disorganized as the Yankees. They needed immediate help to exploit their gains, but none was forthcoming. To their left the brigades of McLain and Colbert were faltering before Buford’s brigade and Hamilton’s massed artillery. To their right Dabney Maury had yet to begin his attack. Nor was support forthcoming from behind; Cabell’s brigade remained beside Phifer, glued to the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Martin Green had not called on Cabell, and Price apparently was not near enough to the action to recognize Green’s need for reinforcements.

  Inside Battery Powell, Lieutenant Colonel Bevier contemplated the probable fate of his men. The Federals were rallying and pouring a murderous fire into the flanks of his Fifth Missouri, and the cannon of Battery Robinett and the rifles of Fuller’s Ohioans, who had been spectators to the contest, joined in to rake the lines of Moore. Said Bevier, “The battle was furiously raging, a fatal cross-fire was enfilading us, and more than half our men were killed or wounded. Still, we are inside the breastworks of the foe, and hold a portion of their guns; and if Cabell only would come! Why don’t they help us on the right? A division hurled in that direction would attract that terrible cross-fire which is turned upon us. But we expected in vain.”21

  Even before their brigades crossed the breastworks, many Missourians had seen the inevitable outcome of the struggle and had acted accordingly. In open defiance of orders, they lay down when the command was passed to charge Battery Powell. Especially egregious was the case of the First Missouri Dismounted Cavalry, which had lost its commander early in the action. Confessed Pvt. Will Snyder in a letter home, “Within three or four hundred yards of a very large fort, we laid down . . . . I think it was the intention for us to charge it by some means—we did not do it.” James Fauntleroy was among those of the regiment who shirked their duty while others “rousted the Yankees out of their breastworks.” But the field offered the laggards little protection. “We lay there for three-quarters of an hour under a blinding shower of shot and shell, wounding a good many,” recalled Snyder. Fauntleroy lost two friends and took a bullet through his hat and one that burned his neck.22

  MAP 10. Batteries Powell and Robinett, 11:00 A.M.

  Most of Gates’s Confederates clung to the line of captured breastworks. A few dozen pressed on, through the yard of the Wilson house and up the slope of a low hill. On the opposite side, hidden from view, was the Twelfth Wisconsin Battery, posted on a slightly lower rise. To the left of the battery was the Fifty-sixth Illinois; to its right, the Tenth Missouri. Both regiments were intact, thanks to the clear thinking of their commanders, and had changed front to meet the impending onslaught. Reported Col. Green Raum, commander of the Fifty-sixth Illinois, “The front line began to waiver and fall back. Their retreat soon became a rout, and they came down pell-mell upon us, running over my men in every direction. The caissons and a number of loose horses came thundering down and passed through the interval between the Tenth Missouri and my regiment.” Maj. Leonidas Horney of the Tenth Missouri took a more aggressive approach. He told his men to fix bayonets and run through anyone who tried to trample them.23

  As soon as their front was clear, Raum and Horney ordered their men to stand up and fire at the unfortunate Rebels exposed on the hillcrest 100 yards away. The Twelfth Wisconsin Battery joined in with a rapid fire of shell and canister. Sgt. S. E.Jones, in command of the left section, had his one serviceable cannon spew double-shotted canister at the remarkable rate of six shots a minute. Jones’s performance caught the attention of others in the battery. “Lord, boys, look at Jones,” shouted a sergeant commanding a nearby gun. “Three cheers for Jones.” First his crew, then the entire battery, and finally its infantry support took up the cheer. “In an instant the whole aspect of the situation was changed,” said the battery commander, Lieutenant Immell. “Without knowing the cause of the cheering our retreating troops took courage and rallied on our left, while the enemy appeared paralyzed at they knew not what.”24

  Their indecision was fleeting. Through the smoke a Wisconsin gunner watched the Rebels, “who halted for a moment, then turned and fled, leaving their dead and wounded behind. When they started on the retreat they ran like frightened sheep, and at last accounts were still running.” The Fifty-sixth Illinois and the Tenth Missouri charged down the slope after them with a shout. “On we went, yelling at the top of our voices, every man trying his best to reach the top of the next hill first down which the late advancing foe was now retreating on the ’thrible quick,'” quipped a Missouri Yankee.25

  Back in Battery Powell, Lieutenant Colonel Bevier watched the near- ing tide of blue: “While looking at them in dismay, and fruitlessly trying to pierce the misty atmosphere in the rear for some sight of more ’bold boys in gray,' my horse was shot through, and the ball flattened against my ankle. As he fell heavily and rolled in the dust, I was sure three-fourths of my leg was gone; but on arising, found it all safe and sound, though somewhat bruised. I was engaged in feeling and shaking it. . . when the order came to fall back—and it was time.”

  Few of Major Hubbell’s Missourians waited for the order to retire. “A panic seemed to seize all the men on the right and left, until I stood alone, with only fifty of my own brave boys, who all offered to die with me,” said Hubbell. “But I thought it would be sacrificing their lives to no purpose, and finally gave the painful order to fall back, which was obeyed.”

  The Missourians' retreat proved nearly as cosdy as their advance. The guns they had been unable to spike were turned against them with murderous effect. Major Horney’s Tenth Missouri retook the Sixth Wisconsin Battery and blasted the fleeing enemy of their home state. In Battery Powell a scramble ensued for the chance to shoot Rebels in the back. Several companies of the Fifty-second Illinois had rallied and insinuated themselves into the counterattack of the Fifty-sixth Illinois, which retook the redoubt. As soon as it was secure, General Davies’s adjutant general, Capt. Julius Lovell, jumped from his horse and, with the help of a soldier from the Fifty-second and a bugler from Richardson’s battery, turned a twenty-pounder Parrott on the enemy. The trio got off ten rounds before Richardson’s crews returned to their guns. Company C of the Fifty-sixth Illinois, which had trained as artillerists, manned the remaining pieces in the interim. It was 11:30 A.M. before Gates’s brigade ran the gauntlet of shot and shell and returned, horribly bloodied and exhausted, to the shelter of the embankment of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. But not all had obeyed the order to withdraw; 100 chose to surrender at the Federal breastworks rather than risk death recrossing the field. Some 300 more lay dead or wounded around Battery Powell.26

  * * *

  McLain and Colbert fared no better than Gates. During the hour Gates clung to the Yankee breastworks — from 10:30 to 11:30 A.M. — they fought Napoleon Buford’s brigade inconclusively in open, rolling timber 400 yards east of Battery Powell. Behind a cloud of skirmishers they descended on Buford from the north. At a range of 600 yards the Federal artillery opened with shell. Mounted beside the cannon of his reconstituted Eleventh Ohio Battery, Lt. Henry Neil strained to make out the approaching enemy through his field glass. The breeze blew open their colors. Neil shivered with the shock of recognition; his gun barrels were trained on the Third Texas Dismounted Cavalry and the Third Louisiana Infantry. “Boys, there are the same troops that fought us at Iuka; are you going to let them touch our guns today?” he screamed. His artillerymen responded in kind. Recalled Neil, “The yell of rage that went up was more ominous than a rebel yell ever tried to be. The men worked like tigers in their desperate resolve that their beloved guns would never again feel the insult of a rebel touch.”

  Nor would they. At a range of seventy-five yards Buford’s 1,800 infantrymen rose and delivered a near-simultaneous volley that brought the Confederates to an abrupt halt. The wait had been excruciating. “We were in a field of high weeds,” said Samuel Byers of the Fifth Iowa. “The orders were to lie down, as the enemy was about to assault us directly in front. We lay there in the weeds for an hour wi
thout speaking. What a chance for strange thoughts! And the men, thinking of their comrades dead in the ditches of Iuka, did meditate.” The sun was high and the heat blistering. Continued Byers, “The suspense, lying there in the weeds, every moment expecting a crash of musketry in our faces, was something intense.” The strain was too much for Private Billy Bodley, still lost in grief over the death of his only brother at Iuka. Byers felt a light touch on his shoulder. “I am not afraid, but I am too sick to fight—you are the captain’s friend; ask him to let me go back,” implored Bodley. Byers crawled to the captain, who obliged Bodley. The heartsick Iowan crept away, only to be killed on another field of battle.

  Byers had turned to watch Bodley go when someone yelled, “Rise and fire.” Byers jumped up. He had been on detail far in the rear at Iuka; this was his first taste of combat. The moment was seared in his memory: “I was burning up with excitement, too excited to be scared. I was in the rear rank. I raised my musket and blazed away at nobody in particular. A comrade in front of me afterward said I ’nearly shot his ear off.' He glanced back once, he said, and I was only laughing. That was my first shot in an open, stand-up battle.”27

  Lieutenant Neil teetered between revenge and death. The Ohioan rode forward of his battery to taunt the Rebels. He waved his hat to attract their attention and yelled, “Come on! Come on! If you think you can play Iuka over again.” Three times the Louisianans and Texans closed on their colors as if to charge; three times Lieutenant Neil signaled to the soldiers of the Fourth Minnesota, posted behind his cannon, to rise and fire. Each time the Minnesotans stood up, he motioned them back to the ground with the words, “No, no, they have broken again.”28