USA > Illinois > Military history and reminiscences of the Thirteenth regiment of Illinois volunteer infantry in the civil war in the United States,1861-65, pt 1 > Part 22
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only the Fourth Iowa Infantry had followed me. No other regiment was to be seen. It was awful-a repetition of Balaklava, although mine was infantry and Earl Cardigan's force was cavalry.
My first thought was of those troops that I had seen in the rifle-pits, and I said to Colonel Williamson : "Hold your ground, if possible, while I go back and get those troops up to support you."
I returned to the place where I had seen them and found General Blair, in a very earnest and excited conversation with an officer who, I was informed, was DeCourcy. He was urging DeCourcy to get his men for- ward, having anticipated my intentions. I joined in the conversation, but to no purpose. I then started to return to where the Fourth Infantry was and met Colonel Williamson bringing his regiment. He had less than five hundred men in the morning ; one hundred and fifty-two were killed and wounded in less than thirty minutes, and to have remained would have been a murderous sacrifice of his men ; for two lines of rifle-pits along the height and several batteries were bearing upon his regiment, as they had been bearing upon us as we marched forward to the assault. In leading the assault I had marched side by side with Colonel Williamson at the head of his regiment. On getting back to the field where I had left them I saw General Steele, and in 110 very respectful language demanded to know why he had taken the four regi- ments away from me without my knowledge. My brigade consisted of five regiments of Iowa troops, the Fourth, Ninth, Twenty-sixtlı, Thir tietli and Thirty-fourth Iowa and the First Iowa battery. When I received the order in the forenoon from General Morgan to assault the heights I went back along the line directing the colonel of each regi- ment to follow the preceding regiment and to keep well closed up, and to obey this order till they received further instructions. Steele replied that after I had moved forward across the bayou General Morgan came to him and directed him to turn Colonel Abbott, with the Thirtieth Iowa, which had followed the Fourth Iowa in accordance with my orders. Abbott, knowing Steele to be my superior officer, obeyed the order instead of carrying out my order, and before crossing the bayou, turned away to the right, the Ninth Iowa following, the Thirtieth fol- lowing it, and thus they were taken from my command. The other regiments did the same. Each commander, except Colonel Abbott, complying with my order to follow the preceding regiment. The four regiments were thus parted from me, and I was left to proceed with the Fourth Iowa, which was only a half regiment.
- My regret always has been that I did not prefer charges against Morgan and Steele, for between them they were responsible for one of the most terrible blunders which has ever occurred in military affairs .. There was a conflict between them as to which ranked the other, and
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General Sherman had placed Morgan in command of the assault to be made that day.
DeCourcy's men were staying in the rifle-pits when Blair's brigade and my Fourth Iowa were moving toward that most terrible assauit. They never went beyond the line of rifle-pits which hugged the bayou.
I have written on your map the place where my command was lying in the morning and where I crossed the bayou. I have also marked the place where the fence was, and have marked the battle. ground.
At Balaklava the Earl of Cardigan was ordered to charge with his six hundred men the whole Russian army. I was ordered to take the Chickasaw Bluffs and to lead my command as the assaulting column when I had three thousand five hundred men ; but when I got into the field directly in front of the enemy's batteries and rifle-pits, I found my. self with less than five hundred men. The other four regiments were nearly full, having been in the field but a short time. It was worse than a blunder. It was a crime, a terrible crime, and the responsibility for that crime rests upon Morgan and Steele.
General Morgan wrote to me a couple of years ago asking me for a statement of iny parts in that terrible affair. I gave him a partial statement, which he found anything but agreeable and I have never heard anything further from him.
I am, with great respect, very truly yours, JOHN M. THAYER.
Notwithstanding General Thayer's positive assertions that DeCourcy's men did not get on to the real battle-field at all, on the 29tli, it is claimed, and generally admitted, that the enemy, after being driven from their first line of rifle-pits, never were again in possession of that part of the field until after the final retreat, and took no prisoners in that near vicinity ; and as DeCourcy lost in missing, three hundred and fifty-five, it follows that a considerable portion of De- Courcy's brigade must have reached a position on the battle- field well in advance of the first line of rifle-pits.
In the light of General Thayer's letter, as given above, the student of military history will not only turn again to General Morgan's statements of his action in the battle of the 29th of December, 1862, and carefully re-read the lines, but will read · between the lines, for possible motives of action ; and in some minds will be left a painful doubt as to whether General Mor-
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gan intended to effectively co-operate to carry out General Sherman's plans for assaulting the works of the enemy on that day.
In his article on "The Assault on Chickasaw Bluffs," in " Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," after quoting Gen- eral Sherman, where he says, "Already gun-boats have secured tlie Yazoo for twenty miles, to a fort on the Yazoo, on Haynes Bluff," General Morgan comments on as follows : " These movements of the gun-boats not only rendered a sur- prise impossible, but gave notice to the enemy of the coming attack."
Sherman had declared a surprise intended.
As General Grant had originated or approved the mode of this intended "surprise," both Grant and Sherman are in- cluded in General Morgan's criticism.
A few lines farther on, after describing the formidable feat- ures both of nature and art, of the prospective battle-ground, General Morgan thus comments : "Such was the point chosen for the assault by General Sherman. What more could be de- sired by an enemy about to be assailed in his trenches ? "
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Drawing a sharp contrast with the above, as what an able general should have done, he quotes Confederate General Stephen D. Lee, who commanded the enemy's defenses, at that time, as follows : "Had Sherman moved a little faster after landing, or made his attack at the 'Mound,' *
* X or at any point between the bayou and Vicksburg, he could have gone into the city."
To which statement General Morgan makes what some would call a sarcastical comment in the following language : "Sherman did make an attack at the 'Mound,' but only sent one regiment, the Sixth Missouri to the assault ; and in mak- ing it that gallant regiment lost fifty-seven men."
That General Sherman intended the advance of that regi- ment, in this case, as anything more than the skirmish of a regiment to feel of the enemy to develop his position and strength, and not an attack or assault, will be doubted by many soldiers who are capable of judging.
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On the next page General Morgan says : "Had a real at- tack been ordered by General Sherman, Vicksburg would have fallen."
These items already noticed seem very little more than harmless, of themselves, or perhaps savoring a trifle of the inordinate vanity exhibited by mediocre minds who not only overrate themselves, but underrate their superiors ; and may, therefore, assume a possible significance alongside of others.
Again General Morgan, after minutely describing a re- quested interview with General Sherman at Morgan's front, on the morning of the 29th, says : "For a time General Sher- man made no reply. At length, pointing toward the bluffs. he said : 'That is the route to take !' and without another word having been exchanged, he rode away to his headquarters hchind the forest."
This polished sneer (" behind the forest,") which covertly implies a want of personal bravery in General Sherman, will fall as harmless among the thousands of both enlisted men and commissioned officers who have lived and fought with General Sherman, as would the poisoned arrow of the savage without momentum enough to cleave the distance from the bow to its mark. '
General Morgan, without fear of rivalry, may safely carry off the honors of being the first to accuse General Sherman of cowardice.
In a foot-note in this same article, General Morgan further says of this interview : " As to this interview, General Sher- man and myself are at variance. He states that he gave me an order to lead the assault in person, and that I replied I would be on top of those hills in ten minutes after the signal for the assault was given. I am positive that no such order was given ; nor was there such an understanding. A well- mounted horseman, unobstructed by an enemy, could not have reached the top of those hills in double that length of time. The circumstances of the occasion must decide be- tween us."
As to the exact number of minutes in which General Mot -
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gan is said by General Sherman to have promised to be on the top of those hills, the denial of General Morgan as to having promised any such thing, will hardly be accepted as sincere, after reading General Steele's report to General Sherman, which says :
* At the 'White House,' I met General Morgan, whe told me he was building a bridge across the bayou, which would occupy two hours ; that within thirty minutes thereafter he would have possession of the heights, to a moral certainty."
General Sherman's statement, corroborated with sufficient exactitude by General Steele, makes it certain that General Morgan could use very extravagant language, which seems to show that, in his hands, "the pen was mightier than the sword."
Leaving the occupation of the "Bluffs," which seems to have been, with General Morgan, merely a question of time ranging from ten to thirty minutes, we come from the implied personal cowardice of General Sherman, to his utter disregard of the sacrifice of the lives of his soldiers, which is to be inferred from the language which General Morgan puts into the mouth of General Sherman, and by him, ordered carried by his Assistant Adjutant-General, Major John H. Hammond, to General Morgan, as follows : "Tell Morgan to give the signal for the assault ; that we will lose five thousand men before we take Vicksburg, and may as well lose them here as anywhere else."
This heartlessness in regard to the sacrifice of human life, which General Morgan impliedly imputes to General Sherman, would be received with more credulity in the shape of a written order over General Sherman's signature ; but, unfortunately, it is given to us through the medium of a verbal order which, if accepted at all, will be with slow reluctance ; and it comes with a bad grace from General Morgan, who quotes himself as saying to Major Hammond, to be reported to General Sher- man, that : " We might lose five thousand men, but that his entire army could not carry the enemy's position in my front ;
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that the larger the force sent to the assault, the greater would be the number slaughtered."
Notwithstanding that defeat and great "slaughter had been predicted by General Morgan, yet, when we had experi- enced both the defeat and slaughter," General Morgan reported to General Sherman that "the troops were not dis- couraged at all," and he would renew the assault [and slaughter (?) ] in half an hour." And that orders and instructions were given the Generals of brigades to prepare for another "slaughter," is evident from the fact that the troops who had made a scattered retreat, immediately re-formed in line of battle.
And now, strange to say, General Sherman interposes to prevent the renewal of the "slaughter " proposed by General Morgan.
The words of General Sherman were : "At first I intended to renew the assault, but soon became satisfied that the enemy's attention having been drawn to the only two practi- cable points, it would prove too costly, and accordingly resolved to look elsewhere below Haynes Bluff, or Blake's plantation."
When General Sherman says : "I have ever felt that had General Morgan promptly and skillfully sustained the lead of Frank Blair's brigade on that day, we should have broken the rebel line, and effected a lodgment on the hills behind Vicksburg," he will be borne out in his belief by many a brave man of Blair's and Thayer's brigades who, as it was, went to the foot of the enemy's last works, the success having been accomplished by only five of the thirteen regi- ments which had been ordered to the assault. It is believed by many who helped do what was done that day, that had the entire thirteen regiments designated, moved forward with the impulse which inspired those of Blair, and of the Fourth Iowa, that they would have been on top of Walnut Hills before dark. But if that had been doubtful, there were still remain- ing out of the fight, two more of Blair's regiments which had been detached, and six more regiments of Morgan's troops, and six more regiments of Steele's, which latter General Sher-
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man had assigned to the support of Morgan, for that battle. Had the entire original assailants of thirteen regiments been as far to the front as were Blair and Thayer, and looked round and seen fourteen more regiments charging over the first line of rifle-pits, neither the bravery nor skill then pos- sessed by the enemy before us could have saved them the victory ; and further, there was General Morgan L. Smith's second division, on our right, with ten regiments which could have been moved to the left, and put behind the twenty- seven regiments preceding, and there was no danger what- ever that the vacant position would weaken our line, for nature had so arranged the ground where these battles were being fought, that each position was nearly impregnable against the other side. Theirs to us by reason of the great difficulty of approach, and the formidable works of military engineering, and fully manned by determined men,-ours to them by reason of the same difficulty of approach, and their weakness when outside their fortifications and on ground where it would be impossible to maneuver armies.
Sherman says : "At the point where Morgan L. Smith's division reached the bayou, was a narrow sandspit, with abatis thrown down by the enemy on our side, with the same deep, boggy bayou with its levee parapet and system of cross bat- teries and rifle-pits on the other side. To pass it in front by the flank would have been utter destruction ; for the head of the column would have been swept away as fast as it presented itself above the steep bank."
And yet, that was exactly what was done the next day by DeCourcy and Thayer, under the orders of General Morgan.
It will be seen that while Blair's brigade rushed to the assault in line of battle, plunging and struggling through mud, water, quicksand, and all kinds of difficult abatis, De- Courcy and Thayer went in, in column, and dry shod, but their formation subjected them to a more deadly fire between the corduroy bridge and the first line of the enemy's rifle-pits, than could possibly have been concentrated on the brigade of Blair. General Morgan had originally intended to order
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Blair's brigade to assault in a column parallel to that of De- Courcy ; but fortunately, this plan was abandoned and prob- ably many precious lives saved thereby. As it was, the crossing of that bridge in column gave the enemy the desired opportunity for unlimited slaughter of the assailants as they entered the death-trap at Chickasaw Bayou, which could be only faintly paralleled by the slaughter of Napoleon's troops while charging across " the bridge of Lodi."
If General Morgan had moved DeCourcy and Thayer to the left and formed them in line in rear of Blair, and let them follow that brigade until it had cleaned out the first line of rifle-pits, then let them move by the right flank until Blair was uncovered, then form line with a front of their own, far more efficiency and much less slaughter would have resulted. The four hundred yards only of gateway to the battle-ground made it impossible to simultaneously bring three brigades on to the ground without "jamming" the men together, break- ing files to the rear, or by some way of telescoping the wings into the center, which could have been more safely done after, than before the first rifle-pits were carried.
A most astonishing thing that took place that day, was diverting of four of General Thayer's regiments from their position in the assaulting column which was following De- Courcy's column across the bridge, by turning them to the right, without any notice whatever to General Thayer, who was on foot leading what he supposed was his brigade, but really was the Fourth Iowa only.
After the repulse, General Thayer says : "On inquiring of Colonel Abbott of the Thirtieth Iowa, which was next in line to the Fourth Iowa, why he did not follow the Fourth, I found that after I had started he had been ordered by General Steele in person, to turn off to the right to take another posi- tion. I had directed the commander of each regiment to follow the preceding one. The second regiment of my col- umn being turned aside, it broke my line, cutting off four regi- ments without my knowledge, leaving the Fourth Iowa, going ahead alone."
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This passes the responsibility along to General Steele ; and he says : "After Thayer had passed with the Fourth Iowa Infantry, Colonel Williamson, General Morgan asked me how many troops I had. I told him Thayer's brigade, one of his regiments, however, the Twenty-sixth Iowa, was detached to cut a road, but that I did not know whether any of Hovey's had arrived or not. He then asked me to turn a part of the troops a little further to the right. I therefore directed Colonel Charles H. Abbott, of the Thirtieth Iowa Infantry, a little to the right, supposing the object of this was to facilitate the crossing of the troops over the bayou by preventing them from all huddling into the same place. At the time I did not know that there was any dry crossing, and I presume General Morgan was not aware of the fact. [General Morgan knew all about it.] The troops that I directed to the right, it seems, did not get across the bayou ; but General Thayer went gal- lantly on with the Fourth Iowa, and instead of being a sup- port to the storming party, was soon in advance, and entered the enemy's second line of rifle-pits nearly as soon as any.
" I gave no orders on the field that day, except at the sug- gestion of General Morgan, save that I followed up the move- ment, encouraging the men while they were advancing, and endeavoring to check them when they fell back."
This leaves the burden of proof on General Morgan, who never explains, but drops it by merely saying, in one place : " Four regiments of Thayer's brigade of Steele's division were on my right." And again : "By some misunderstanding-a fortunate one, I think, as it turned out-four of Thayer's regiments diverged to the right, leaving only one regiment, the Fourth Iowa, with him in the assault."
This dodges the responsibility entirely ; but whether by mistake, misunderstanding, or any other cause whatever, the presence of those four regiments on his right must have been known to General Morgan, and the misfortune · should promptly have been rectified, involving as it may have done, the lives of many brave men at the front.
As to the time of day when this assault was begun, there
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is great diversity of claims. Memories differ widely, not only from the recorded reports of commanders who were on that field but among themselves. General Thayer, in his report, says at about 2 p. in. Colonel Williamson, who took his orders from General Thayer, says his order to charge came at about 3:30 p. m. It seems as though both of the above must be mistaken. It will be remembered that it was at the time of the year when the days are the shortest, and if the assault was not commenced until 3:30 p. m. there would be no more than an hour and a half of daylight left ; and it is a fact that tlie troops re-formed in line of battle after being driven from the field, fully expecting to renew the assault ; but this was given up, and after that, a flag of truce party approached the ene- my's lines, but by that time it had got so dark that the move- ment was misunderstood and the flag of truce party fired on, and had to retire.
Comrade Charles Carpenter, of K Company, Thirteenth Illinois, says that he was there made a prisoner, and was in Vicksburg before night.
Since writing the above, a letter from General Thayer, of a late date, and given in full above, says that he received his orders to assault in the forenoon, showing that the former fig- ures undoubtedly were a clerical error.
Comrade Lieut. Simeon T. Josselyn, of Company C, Thir- teenth Illinois, says that the assault was begun at noon.
Comrade Wilson E. Chapel, of F Company, Thirteenth Illinois, says that the assault began at 11:45 a. m. and that we got back to the woods at I p. m.
Confederate General Pemberton says the assault began be- tween II a. m. and noon.
From the above, it is safe that our history should claim that the assault at Chickasaw Bayou was made at noon.
If any reader thinks that needless space has been taken up with this Chickasaw Bayou affair, it may be answered that on no other battle-field of the war was its geography so intricate and difficult to be understood as was the case here ; and your historian has only partly become familiar with it after the
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most careful and repeated study, aided by the memories of many who were there, and he still feels that in many impor- tant particulars he has made but a poor and unsatisfactory effort. It is hoped that very many will read this history ; some of whom will be almost sure to study as well as read, especially veterans will, many of them, study battle-fields. When the positions and numbers of regiments on the field - or preparing to take the field-are known, the interest is much greater ; as a friend may have been in such a regiment on a certain part of the field, a brother on the extreme right, and they themselves were somewhere in the fight ; hence the inter- est attaching to as minute a description as possible, and which the historian should not neglect.
To several grave charges affecting the reputation for bravery of DeCourcy's brigade during the assault on the enemy's works at Chickasaw Bayou on December 29th, 1862, General Morgan makes no specific denial of all or either of these charges, but instead, offers the figures of the compara- tive losses as reported of the three brigades constituting the assaulting force, which he says shows that DeCourcy's losses were greater than those of Blair and Thayer together, and which, he says, "speak for themselves." Some comparisons of those losses itemized, and then grouped, seem to give a somewhat different answer to the charges from that which General Morgan seemed to desire, when he offers the aggregate loss of DeCourcy, which foots up three hundred and fifty-five against the aggregate of both Blair and Thayer's two hundred and eighty-five. It must be confessed that without analyzing, this would seem to show that DeCourcy experienced more fighting, and harder fighting, than did Blair and Thayer ; but there are losses, and losses ; and an analysis will show that General Morgan's dependence for DeCourcy's greater losses than both Blair and Thayer together, is derived from De- Courcy's captured and missing. It will be seen that while Blair's loss in missing was only, say : eighty-three and two one-thousandths per cent of DeCourcy's, on the other hand, DeCourcy's killed were only forty-eight and four one-thou-
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sandths per cent of Blair's; and in wounded, only ninety-seven per cent of Blair's ; and few soldiers will be found who take more pride in the capture and missing of their comrades, than in that desperate valor which claims either victory, or death, or wounds which totally disable from fighting or retreat. Gen- eral Morgan however, almost boastingly parades seventy men who are missing, as make-weights to boast a preponderance of losses for DeCourcy as proof against the ugly charges pre- ferred by four generals, one the Commander-in-chief, outrank- ing General Morgan, and three others of at least equal rank with himself. If General Morgan takes more pride in cap- tured or missing, than in the valor which is shown by the killed and wounded, then he must deeply commiserate Gen- eral Thayer, who was so unfortunate as to lose none in cap- tured or missing ; and who probably would be generous enough to congratulate General Morgan that DeCourcy was, in that particular, "peerless on the field."
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