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 23
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The losses in Blair's brigade in the three days at Chick- asaw Bayou, were ninety-nine killed, three hundred and thirty- one wounded, and one hundred and seventy-three missing.
In DeCourcy's brigade, forty-eight killed, three hundred and twenty-one wounded, and three hundred and fifty-five missing.
In Thayer's brigade (only one regiment on the 29th), seven killed, and one hundred and five wounded, and none missing.
The army, two hundred and eight killed, one thousand · and five wounded, and five hundred and sixty-three missing. Total, seventeen hundred and seventy-six.
The Thirteenth lost twenty-seven killed, one hundred and seven wounded, and thirty-nine missing. Total, one hundred and seventy-three.
Thus it will be seen that the Thirteenth, in killed, lost twenty-seven and a quarter per cent of Blair's brigade, thirty- two and three one-thousandths per cent of its wounded, while Blair had in killed, forty-seven and six one thousandths per cent of the whole army ; and in wounded, thirty-two and nine one-thousandths per cent of the whole army ; or nearly one
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half the army in killed, and very nearly one third the entire army, in wounded.
The Thirteenth had in killed, considerably more than one- half, and in wounded, exactly one-third, the entire brigade of DeCourcy.
The Thirteenth lost in killed, three officers, and twenty- four enlisted men-a total of twenty-seven killed ; and in wounded, eight officers, and ninety-nine enlisted men-a total of one hundred and seven wounded ; and of missing, two officers, and thirty-seven enlisted men-a total of thirty-nine missing. Total loss, one hundred and seventy-three.
The total of losses in the Thirteenth, exactly equaled the total of missing of the entire brigade.
The writer confesses to a feeling that the combinations and groupings of the foregoing analysis are somewhat inco- herent, but believes that each separate statement and prop- osition is as accurate as the means at hand will allow of.
On the 31st a flag of truce was successful in getting per- mission to bring our dead and desperately wounded from the field of battle, which was still held by the enemy, under the usual restrictions, such as limiting the flag of truce party to exactly such a number of commissioned officers, exactly such a number of the ambulance corps to each stretcher, each with a white badge on the left arm above the elbow, and of such ample dimensions as to be easily seen for a considerable distance.
The writer, as musician, was a member of the ambulance corps, which is supposed to be constituted of musicians, with the exception of the above specified commissioned officers, and noted many things for future record ; and memory calls up the scenes of that battle-field as though twenty-nine years were but as yesterday.
The stark forms of our dead comrades lay about us in every direction, and in every conceivable position. Some lay with the face down, and painfully expectant were we in turn- ing the body, that some well known face would be exposed to view. Some lay with their faces fully exposed, and the
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wide-open eyes staringly met ours, but it was the stare of death.
The writer, while too busy in garnering this fruitful harvest of death, to particularly notice the actions of his comrades in the work, nevertheless became aware, more by impression than by sight, that a strange ambulance man was making himself extremely useful among us ; and finally a tone of voice caused him to look closer to the face of the man who wore a private's clothes and the regulation white badge ; but he then saw that both tone of voice, and face belonged to Lieut. James Beardsley, of Company D, of our regiment, who, in the garb of an ambulance man, had (unbeknown to Dr. Plummer, of course) come onto the field as a spy, and while busily engaged in clearing the battle field of our lamented dead, was also busily engaged in turning a critically observant eye to every part of the enemy's fortifications, making mental notes for possible future use; and as his . modesty would never allow him to say anything which might be construed as self-praise, it is believed by the writer that this is not an improper time and place to say, that this action, just mentioned, is no otherwise than characteristic of the man, Lieutenant, Captain or Major, Jim Beardsley, who, dur- ing his entire military life with the Thirteenth, never let slip an opportunity of devising, leading into, or following into, some desperately dangerous scheme, which, if successful, would redound to the prestige and glory of the old Thirteenth regiment, while at the same time, no cooler, or braver man ever went on to a battle-field.
We found the bodies of several of our dead who had been stripped of their outer clothing, but evidently not for plun- der, as the pockets had been turned and their contents emptied on to the ground, where we found them still lying. When seeing these things scattered over the ground no one could feel like attaching blame to those who took the clothes, evi- dently from necessity, as the contents of the pockets, including not a little money showed that robbery was not the motive.
The contents of the emptied pockets was a curious and
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sadly interesting study that afforded abundant food for reflection.
There were watches, spectacles, knives, match-boxes, pipes, tobacco, handkerchiefs, packs of playing-cards, Bibles, combs, revolvers, and pictures ; and this by no means ex- hausts the schedule of personal property lying about ; and the fingers of some of our men fairly itched to gather up some of these things, but they must not be touched. Among other things a small meerschaum pipe lay tantalizingly handy, and wrung from the very soul of one of our men, the admiring exclamation, "By gosh ! ain't it a beauty !" and "the pregnant hinges of his knees " began to crook, preparatory to a closer acquaintance with the "beauty," but suddenly he straightened and swept the field with a wicked flash of his eyes, and found the enemy's guard so vigilantly observant of our every movement, that the "beauty " remained untouched.
The pictures, I hardly need say, were, with scarcely an exception, faces of the loved ones at home. They were of all possible kinds. Daguerreotypes, tintypes, ambrotypes, and photographs. They were pictures of sisters, sweethearts, wives and mothers. The most sacred mementoes of home ;. and, upon reflection, they seemed to be in their proper places, when on the battle-field.
Who will undertake to measure, prescribe, or circumscribe the power and extent of the restraining influence from the temptations and vices of army life, and the strengthening influences towards all good promptings towards a better life which these mementoes possessed ?- were they not the guard- ian-angels of life ? The Marys, and those other Marys, who were always "last at the cross, and first at the grave ?"-in short, "faithful until death," and then, the real "angels of the sepulchre," which contains the mortal remains of those dearly loved ones slain on the battle-field ?
Oh, these old army memories ! how they are constantly spiriting us back through the accumulating decades of years, but do not relieve us of our wrinkles, our gray hair, or our crutches.
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Among the dead we found part of a human hand. It con- sisted of nearly the entire palm, with the four fingers but without the thumb, of the right hand. It was entirely blood- less, and was not ragged where severed ; we did not then, nor afterwards, find the body, or the man to which it belonged. Very probably the soldier after receiving the wound, was cap- tured, and by the time we found the hand, was on the way to some rebel prison. It was carefully buried and I shall never forget the mute, but pathetic eloquence of that hand.
The captured, lost, and recovered battle-flags of our regi- ment, on the Chickasaw Bayou battle-field, possess so much of strange fortune and vicissitude, as to invest them with a romantic interest, and they clamor for a place in our history ; and as much justice as can, will be given them under the title of the " Confusion of the Battle-Flags."
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CHAPTER XXI.
THE CONFUSION OF THE BATTLE-FLAGS .- THE RETREAT NOT FOLLOWED .- ARKANSAS POST EXPEDITION. - THIS TIME WE ARE THE VICTORS.
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N MRS. LIVERMORE'S "My Story of the War," the author gives a short his- tory of about fifty battle-flags ; and on page 329 are pictured six battle-flags, beautifully col- ored and artistically grouped. The regiments and batteries to which these precious relics be- longed, were :
First Minnesota Artillery, Second Michigan Infantry, Seventh New York Heavy Artillery, Twenty fourth Michigan Infantry, Eighth Missouri Infantry, Thirteenth Illinois Infantry.
The latter is the National colors, mistakenly supposed by many, to be the stand captured by the enemy at Chickasaw Bayou ; but was really the successor of that flag. The flag represented by the picture, was borne on the field of Ringgold Gap, Georgia, by Color-Sergeant Patrick Riley, of Company K, who was there shot through the breast, and fell in such a manner as to be enveloped by the flag, which thus became his winding-sheet, and still has the stains of Sergeant Riley's life- blood, which are shown by the picture.
The presence of the blood-stained battle-flag of the Thirteenth Illinois, in the above-mentioned group, in Mrs. Livermore's picture, suggests the propriety of a detailed ac- count of what may properly be termed, "The Confusion of the
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Battle-flags," of the Thirty-first Missouri and the Thirteenth Illinois, at Chickasaw Bayou.
When Blair's brigade . charged the enemy's works at Chickasaw Bayou, at noon on the 29th of December, 1862, the eight battle-flags of the four regiments in the brigade, in two lines of battle, were a most inspiring sight; and they were borne proudly on to the bloody field where some were lost, while others were trailed in the dust and trodden under foot by both friend and foe as the waves of battle ebbed and flowed in successes and reverses until our troops were driven from the field.
No flag was borne more proudly, defended more stoutly, or beckoned its brave followers nearer the last works of the enemy, than ours. The fortunes of war decreed its capture by the enemy.
The brigade line of battle had been formed by placing our regiment, Thirteenth Illinois, in the right front, and the Thirty-first Missouri in the left front ; and it will be noticed that of those two regiments touching elbows in line of battle, the figures designating the number of one, are exactly trans- posed in that of the other. This will be shown to have been the cause of a most singular double mistake, after the repulse of our troops.
A strong personal friendship prompted Private Jack Kenyon, of Company K, Thirteenth Illinois, to crawl over on to the battle-field, after dark, to search for the wounded or dead lieutenants of his company, who were missing.
In his search he came across a flag whose figures he thought were a "one" and a "three." While not knowing that our flag was missing, this seemed proof that it was so ; and he determined to rescue it from eventually falling into the enemy's hands. He tore the flag from the staff and wound it about his body, and continued what proved an unavailing search. Just before daylight he had recrossed the bayou and reached camp only to find that the flag was the State flag belonging to the Thirty-first Missouri.
When driven off the field that same day, Private George
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W. Sutherland, of Company I, Thirteenth Illinois, was not so scared but that he noticed a flag partly rolled up, and nearly concealed under the body of a dead soldier and the other wreckage of a battle-field.
Enough of the flag was exposed to show a figure "three," and he had no doubt that it was our flag ; and making a mental memorandum of the locality, for that was all he could- do then, as the bullets and shells of the rebs were "speeding the parting guest," and so Comrade Sutherland "stood not upon the order of his going, but went at once."
From the first, he had determined to return to the battle- field during the night and bring away the flag. When the darkness brought the opportunity, he could not find Colonel Gorgas or any staff officer authorized to give the required permission, except Surgeon Plummer, who reluctantly gave him the permission by saying : "Well, George, go over and get the flag, but be sure that the rebs don't get you."
After a tedious search, he found the flag, and dragged it, staff and all, to the first line of rifle-pits, then ran for the bayou, across which he found a log which he used as a bridge, and triumphantly bore his trophy to Surgeon Plum- mer, who was taken down considerably by the revelation that it was the National colors of the Thirty-first Missouri, both of whose flags had been lost on the field, and both had been rescued and restored by soldiers of the Thirteenth Illinois, who both supposed that they were rescuing their own flag. An officer of the regiment to which the flags belonged, stood near and claimed the flag that Private Sutherland had delivered to Dr. Plummer, who, too readily gave it up ; and for the rescue of neither of these flags did any thanks come back.
The National colors carried by the Thirteenth, on to the battle-field of Chickasaw Bayou, on December 29th, 1862, and captured by the enemy at that time, was afterwards trans- mitted to the State of Illinois, with the following letters :
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COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS,
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, BOSTON, May 10th, 1865. To His Excellency, GOVERNOR OGLESBY, Springfield, I11.
GOVERNOR : I inclose with this a copy of a letter I received yester- day from Rev. Dr. Lothrop, clergyman of the Brattle Street Church in this city, which tells its own story. Locke, who is a fine young fellow in appearance, brought it to me in person, and brought with it the silk flag, the first Union flag displayed in Richmond on the day of its cap- ture. Upon examination, this flag appears to belong to an Illinois regiment, numbered the Thirteenth; but of what arm of the service, whether infantry or cavalry, does not appear. It was probably hanging in Turner's office as a rebel trophy. It belongs of right, therefore, to your State, and I hold it subject to your order, content in yielding it to you, to remember, as symbolical of the common patriotism of the whole country, that the first Union flag raised in Richmond was an Illinois flag by a Massachusetts soldier.
I am, Governor, faithfully, Your friend and servant, JOHN A. ANDREW, Governor of Massachusetts.
Then follows the exceedingly interesting, and historically valuable letter to Governor Andrew, from the Rev. S. K. Lothrop, to whom the flag was brought before he took it to the Governor, by Locke, who raised it over Richmond at its capture, and who then took it home to Massachusetts with him.
12 CHESTNUT STREET, May 9th, 1865.
To His Excellency, JOHN A. ANDREW,
Governor of Massachusetts.
DEAR SIR : The bearer, John F. Locke, of Somerville, a private of Company E, Thirty-ninth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, Fifth Army Corps, was captured at the attack on Weldon railroad, on the 19th of August, 1864, and sent to Salisbury, N. C., where he was kept till the 20th of February, 1865, and on that day was sent to Richmond, arriving there on the 22d, to be paroled and exchanged.
The day after his arrival at Richmond, he met Captain Porter, Ad- jutant-General of his brigade, who had been left by General Hays in charge of the supplies sent to Richmond for our prisoners there, and Captain Porter wished him to remain and assist in the charge and distri- bution of these supplies. With this wish, or order, he complied, and
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remained at Richmond so employed up to the time of the evacuation of that city by the rebels, civil and military.
Captain Porter, having in the meantime left, and Captain Stewart of the One Hundred and Forty-sixth New York Regiment taking his place. On the morning of the 3d of April, Captain Stewart, Locke, and one sol- dier, having passed the night in the building containing our stores, which was near Libby Prison, Captain Stewart left a little before 7 o'clock and walked up Main street to see what was going on-the explosions, the fires, and other indications all satisfying them that the city was being evacuated. Locke was left in charge of the building. About twenty minutes after this, Captain Stewart's servant came down to the building and said the Federal cavalry were coming in, that they were about a mile and a half off. Lock upon hearing this, went immediately over to Libby, entered Major Turner's office, found tliere two captured Union flags, one silk, the other bunting, returned to the building, and proceed- ing to the third story, hung out the Union flag from a window or door- way before any of our troops were in sight, and while there were yet straggling many rebel soldiers in the street. He claims thus to have raised the first Union flag in Richmond, and as he proposes waiting upon your Excellency with the Union flag which he took from Major Turner's office in the Libby, and wanted these facts to be known to you, I have taken the liberty to write them out in the form of this note to you. Locke has been nearly three years in the service, and is twenty- one years old.
Commending him to your Excellency, I have the honor to be, with great regard, your friend and obedient servant.
S. K. LOTHROP.
Both of these priceless relics are now in the office of the Adjutant-General of Illinois, where they can be seen, the one with the blood-stains of Sergeant Riley, and the other, after war's many vicissitudes, bearing the proud record of its regiment, which says: "Thirteenth Illinois, First National Colors, First Regimental Colors. Actually first at Chickasaw Bayou, and assault of 29th ; Jackson, May 14th, 1863 ; Vicks- burg and assault, May 22d, 1863 ; Jackson, July Ioth, 1863 ; Tuscumbia, October 26th and 27th, 1863 ; Lookout Mountain, November 24th, 1863 ; Mission Ridge November 25th, 1863 ; Ringgold, Georgia November 27th, 1863."
January Ist, 1863 .- On board steamer Continental, lying in the Yazoo river.
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- We had broken our camp before the enemy last night. We had buried the dead year side by side with our dead heroes from the battle-field. Our wounded were in hospital. Great fires were kindled to deceive the enemy, and we marched away from one of those fields of glory where death and defeat are constituent parts.
During the last day of the old year, our brigade received orders to take two days' rations and be ready to march at 8 p. m. We marched sullenly, however, and as though fol- lowing the orders of the Grecian general, Diomed, who, not daring to meet the approach of the great Hector, is made by Homer to say :
"Retire then, warriors, but sedate and slow, Retire, but with your faces to the foe."
Thus silently, we left that silent camp, with noiseless tread and guns at a trail-arms, and on reaching the Yazoo, had em- barked on the steamer Continental, presumably for some secret night expedition. It might be for an attack on Haynes Bluff ; but the night proved foggy and dark, which was prob- ably the reason why we found ourselves in the same place this morning ; and still did not move till dark, when we left the Continental and marched two miles down the river and em- barked on our old floating home, the John Warner, where we found our hospitable knapsacks impatiently waiting for us with warm blankets and other all-wool comforts which we had been without for five days ; and which, a part of the time, we needed very much.
Friday, January 2d .- At about 2 p. m. dropped down to the Mississippi, touched at Young's Point, and then at about dark, Comrade Chapel says: "We were ordered up to Milli- ken's Bend. The night was rainy, foggy, and dark ; and it was very difficult and dangerous running. We put up some tents on the hurricane-deck ; but were in danger of swamping our boat, from having too much sail on her, and had to take them down in double-quick time, and then lay exposed to a
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terrible rain-storm all night, but had got to the 'Bend ' at 10:30 p. m. and laid over until morning."
The whole fleet rendezvoused at Milliken's Bend, and on January 3d, General McClernand arrived, and the next day assumed command of the expedition, and reorganized the army, to which he gave the name of " The Army of the Mis- sissippi," dividing it into two corps ; the Thirteenth Corps, commanded by Brigadier-General George W. Morgan, and the Fifteenth Corps commanded by Major-General W. T. Sherman.
We were now the First Regiment of Blair's First Brigade of Steele's First Division of Sherman's Fifteenth Corps, of Grant's Army of the Tennessee. The regiments of Blair's brigade now consisted of the :
Thirteenth Illinois, Lieutenant-Colonel, Adam B. Gorgas. Twenty-ninth Missouri, Colonel, John S. Cavender.
Thirtieth Missouri, Lieutenant-Colonel, Otto Schadt.
Thirty-first Missouri, Lieutenant-Colonel, Samuel P. Simpson.
Thirty-second Missouri, Colonel, Francis H. Manter.
Fifty-eighth Ohio, Captain, Bastian Benkler.
Fourth Ohio Battery, Captain, Louis Hoffman.
Of the other brigades in Steele's Division, the Second Brigade was commanded by Brigadier-General Charles E. Hovey, and the Third was commanded by Brigadier-General, John M. Thayer.
The " Mississippi River Expedition," which we have been considering, in its incipiency and carrying out, was almost as intricate and difficult to be understood as was the geog- raphy of the Chickasaw Bayou battle-field, and the policy which is held responsible for the criminal manslaughter of its victims.
On the 21st day of October, 1862, Secretary Stanton se- cretly authorized Major-General John A. McClernand, who was in Washington, to proceed West and raise an army for a Mississippi river expedition, with Vicksburg as an objective.
Secretary Stanton authorized General McClernand to show his secret orders to the Governors of Indiana, Illinois, and
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Iowa, but they were not communicated to General Grant, who was also planning the reduction of Vicksburg by a com- bination of his own army, and a river force, and General Halleck as commander of the department was in telegraphic communication with Grant who designated Sherman to com- mand the river force, which had the sanction of General Halleck, and this secret movement was kept from the knowl- edge of General Grant for fifty-eight days, when on the 18th of December, Halleck telegraphed Grant to give the command of the "river expedition " to McClernand. Fearing this very thing, Grant had hurried Sherman off from Memphis before McClernand could get started down the river, so that when obliged to notify McClernand of his appointment, and Sher- man to delay at Memphis for McClernand, the note sent to Cairo could not find McClernand, and that to Sherman at Memphis was too late, as Sherman had already sailed with his fleet.
On December 20th, two days before we left Helena, Van Dorn and Forest had so maneuvered as, the one to capture Grant's great depot of supplies at Holly Springs, and the other by a raid into west Tennessee, to break his communica- tions so that his co-operating advance on Vicksburg, had to be abandoned. This left Sherman in the river before Vicksburg with either an unequal fight, or a back out. The latter, with McClernand expected any day, who would take from him the command, which was exceedingly repugnant to the Sherman nature, was not to be thought of, hence the fighting which we have been considering.
The expedition against Fort Hindman, or Arkansas Post, said to have been a conception of Sherman, and adopted by McClernand, had the great merit of promptness, and prompt- ness is always a strong element of success. The same day that he assumed command, Sunday, January 4th, 1863, Mc- Clernand embarked the army of thirty-two thousand men, and with Porter's fleet of three ironclads and six gun-boats set sail for the Arkansas river. The objective, about sixty miles
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up from the Mississippi, was described by Professor James Russell Soley, U. S. N., as :
"A square bastioned work standing at a bend of the river sufficiently high to command the surrounding country. It was commanded by Lieutenant John W. Dunnington, who had done such good service at St. Charles, and defended by troops under Brigadier-General Thomas J. Churchill. On the side facing the river were three casemates, two of them at the angles containing each a nine-inch gun, and the intermediate one an eight-inch. On the opposite side the approaches were defended by a line of trenches a mile in length, beginning at the fort and terminating in an impassable swamp. In the main work and in these trenches were mounted fourteen lighter pieces, several of them rifled. Two or three outlying works were built on the levee below the fort, but these were exposed to an enfilading fire from the gun-boats, and at the first attack by the latter, were promptly abandoned."
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