USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 21
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" I think a man is entitled to call himself a veteran who can sit on his horse and observe the endeavors made to pick him off.
"I see little mention in the newspapers of the part Ham- ilton's division took in the battle of Corinth. Both the First and Second Brigades were engaged on both days, and did nobly. On the fourth the First Brigade was kept together, i. c., the regiments were not detached, and their line of battle, firing, &c., was a most magnificent scene; while the Second Brigade labored under the disadvantage of being, as it were, broken up, the regiments acting as supports to batteries, &c., almost independently of each other. But all did well, and to General C. S. Hamilton's division should be accorded the honor of the success of the day on our extreme right.
" You have always heard me assert that the Rebels would fight. Had our men, as a whole, done as well, exhibited the same gallantry and dash, the Rebel army would have been annihilated.
" You remember Marshal Macdonald's charge across a
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
wide plain under a terrible artillery fire. I thought of it as the Rebels advanced, not merely on batteries, but under en- filading and cross-fires, which swept them away as the hail beats down dead leaves.
"Our troops are not credited with any such charges as I saw the Rebels make on the third, when they turned Hack- leman's left, and forced the action in which he was killed, although his brigade did, perhaps, as good fighting as has been witnessed in this war.
"However, the result was a grand success. The Rebel army met with an unexpected and total defeat, and fled in disorder.
" You know General Hackleman was an old acquaintance and friend of mine. I was with him but a short time before he was killed. He was everything that the army or the country could desire or demand, and his loss is a great calam- ity. We have but few commanders in the army, unfortu- nately, so modest, pure and competent."
The same gentleman, in a letter which is published in "Indiana's Roll of Honor," writes further of General Hack- leman:
" Embracing the first hour of leisure and relief from march- ing, business and fatigue since the memorable third and fourth of October, 1862, I offer my grateful tribute of esteem and affection to the memory of our lost hero and friend, Gen- eral Hackleman. Dead, but living, an example to his late brother officers; absent, yet present in memory; without an enemy save such as envy makes; the Chevalier Bayard of the army, without fear, and without reproach; the courteous gentleman, the competent General; beloved alike by private and officer, lamented by all; tears fill the eyes of his soldiers at his name; the lost leader is mourned as men mourn for a lost brother.
"On Friday, the third, I twice bore messages from Gen- eral Sullivan to General Hackleman, and saw him at his headquarters, near the intrenchments, a short time before he was mortally wounded, observing the advance of the Rebel column on the battery and line to his left. It was a life picture, such as only contending armies portray. Once wit-
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HACKLEMAN AND MILLS.
nessed, the scene is never lost; memory but reverts to it, and some mysterious camera spreads it out anew in all its hide- ousness. The Rebels charged across an open field, under the well served guns of the battery, near the General's head- quarters, and up to the very mouth of the guns attacked, with the desperation of a forlorn hope. Every discharge tore through their ranks; platoons fell as one man; wide gaps were torn, but to be closed by the impetuous rush of brave men. Alas! that such bravery and devotion should die in such a cause.
" Once they falter. Some turn to fly, but the ringing call of their leader again moves the more than decimated band. "Forward!" The intrenchments are stormed, the daring charge successful, our troops fall back fighting, and Hackle- man's brigade is to face the foe. Observant, silent and col- lected, Hackleman turns to his staff and officers grouped around him, and calmly issues his orders. I marked the kindly, affectionate tone in which he gave poor Mills the order: 'Bring up your regiment.' Observing me awaiting his orders, he directed me to report the turning of our flank to General Sullivan. I rode away with apprehension. The roar of battle was momentarily stilled, the combatants mov- ing into order of battle, preparing for the hand to hand con- flict which soon recommenced with increased fury; a mus- ketry duel, replying batteries, howling shell, sereaming grape and canister, death-winged Minie balls, a hell of withering consuming fire, murderous bayonet stabs, destroying charges, the rush of wounded horses, the repulse, the retreat. Amid cheers, cries, groans and curses, the elear, ringing voice of Hackleman is not heard. His men bear him sadly away, the life-drops purpling the autumn leaves. Pleasant A. Hackleman laid down his life deliberately, willingly, in re- sisting the flood of wicked treason."
"Poor Mills," of whom Captain Harris speaks, was the son-in-law of General Hackleman. He was a member of the Second Iowa infantry, but he was a native of Indiana, was educated at Wabash College, and was admitted to the bar before he removed to Iowa. His life was spent mainly in Indiana. He was an excellent officer, and distinguished
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
himself at Fort Donelson, and on the field of Shiloh as well as at Corinth. He was Lieutenant Colonel, and assumed command of his regiment on the fall of his Colonel, Friday afternoon. He at once became a mark for the enemy, his horse being shot under him, his sleeve pierced, and his foot struck though not injured. The next day, after the falling back of Davies' division before the overpowering assault of Price, he seized his colors, rallied his men, and was leading them to a bayonet charge, when he was severely wounded in the foot. Lockjaw set in, and after eight days of patient suffering, he died Sunday evening, October 12.
General Tuttle wrote of him: "Colonel Mills' death is a great calamity. He was truly a hero. I think he was a little nearer just right than any other man I ever knew, high- minded, honorable and brave as a lion."
Colonel Mills unconsciously gave himself still higher com- mendation: "In the army, I have tried conscientiously and prayerfully to do my duty, and if I am to die in my youth, I prefer to die as a soldier of my country."
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241
MARCHES AND FIGHTS.
CHAPTER XII.
SUMMER AND WINTER IN MISSOURI AND ARKANSAS.
During the winter and spring of 1862, Missouri was kept tolerably quiet, by the pressure of a large militia force and a small number of United States troops left behind on the withdrawal of Curtis' army. In the summer, the State again fumed and foamed with strife, promoted by the devastations of guerilla bands and the invasion of formidable forces, which were encouraged by M'Clellan's failures in the East to the boldest demonstrations. On the last of June, the Twenty-Sixth Indiana regiment and the Third Indiana bat- tery, formerly Frybarger's, now under the command of a sc- cretly disloyal officer, James Cockefair, were released from their distasteful inactivity of nearly seven months at Lamine cantonment, and were started on a series of marches and fights. During the month of July, the Twenty-Sixth marched three hundred and thirty miles.
Rabb's battery, which had wintered at Fort Leavenworth, joined General Blunt's command at Fort Scott, Arkansas, carly in the Spring, and as part of Colonel Salomon's bri- gade, engaged in several expeditions. In the first part of June, it formed a portion of a force which, having marched through Iola, Kansas, and Baxter's Springs, Indian Territory, routed General Coffey at Round Grove, in the Cherokee Nation. About a month later, Colonel Salomon undertook to meet rebel Indians at the same place, but he was unable to make them stand up to a fight.
At Hicksville on the sixth of August, Colonel McNeil, with one thousand cavalry and Cockefair's battery, engaged a Rebel force between two and three thousand strong, under Colonel Porter, in a desperate four hours' fight, with signal
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
success, the Federal loss being ninety to a Rebel loss of six hundred and eighty, and the spoils including several wagon loads of arms.
About the middle of August, the Twenty-Sixth regiment engaged in the pursuit of General Coffey, who, with four thousand five hundred men, had entered the State from Ar- kansas, and penetrated almost to Lexington, but had been forced, by the approach of Union troops from every quarter, to turn again to the South. The pursuit was hot, and con- tinued to Fayetteville, whence the pursuers returned through Cassville to Springfield. Here they were organized into an army called the Army of the Frontier, and placed under the command of General Schofield. The Twenty-Sixth, in com- mand of Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, was put in the First brig- ade, under Colonel Wheatley, and Second division under General Totten.
October 1, Schofield moved south-west and effected a junction with General Blunt, who had come up from Fort Scott. The united force was ten thousand strong. Salo- mon's brigade, four thousand five hundred, encountered about seven thousand of the enemy at Newtonia. His ad- vance was beaten, but renewing the combat with his whole force, he kept it up several hours with little loss, and retired from the field in no disorder. Schofield moved up on the right, although rain fell heavily and mud was ankle deep, and directed his forces, so that when day dawned, Blunt lay on the north and west, and Totten on the east of the enemy. He lost no time in opening fire. The enemy was equally expeditious in taking to his heels.
The Rebel force was nearly twenty thousand in number, but it was so poorly armed as to have reason to dread contact with disciplined troops of half the number. Schofield pur- sued rapidly. At Pea Ridge, after scattering the hostile rear guard, he found it necessary to divide his forces in order to follow the divided fugitives. With one portion he reached Huntsville, only to find that the Rebels were already beyond the mountains. General Blunt, with another portion, over- took and routed a body of the enemy at Marysville, captur- ing four guns.
243
BATTLE OF PRAIRIE GROVE.
Blunt established himself at Cane Hill, where, during the following months, he had one or two slight engagements.
Schofield returned to Cassville, and, having lost his health, resigned his command. General Totten went to St. Louis, leaving the Second and Third' division under the command of Herron, an able and spirited officer. Colonel Wheatley resigned and returned to Indianapolis, leaving his regiment in excellent discipline and condition. Clark was promoted to the Colonelcy of the Twenty-Sixth.
The evening of Wednesday, December 3, Herron received a summons to the immediate assistance of Blunt, who was threatened by General Hindman with a force of twenty-five or thirty thousand men. Herron was at the time on Wil- son's creek, ten miles south of Springfield, and his divisions were thirteen or sixteen miles further south, yet so prompt was he, and so well seconded by his subordinates, that the whole force was on the march the same night. Sunday morning, at four o'clock, he reached Fayetteville, having, with the entire baggage and commissary train, accomplished one hundred and ten miles. The rising sun saw him again in motion, after an hour's rest. The roads and weather were fine. "I never beheld a more beautiful morning or a grander sunrise," is a line of Herron's report. In seven miles the ad- vance met hostile skirmishers. Hindman, having engaged Blunt's attention in front, was on the move to gain his rear, with no conception of the approach of Herron, who, having thrown his cavalry, three thousand in number, so far in ad- vance that he was assured it had reached Cane Hill the pre- ceding day, had not thought of finding the enemy across his line of march. Both Hindman and Herron were thoroughly astonished, but both eagerly accepted the unexpected situa- tion, the Rebel General calculating that he had a fair pros- pect of gaining double the success he had anticipated, by taking his antagonists one at a time; the national com- mander hoping for the arrival of Blunt and confident of the spirit of his troops. By dint of hard pushing, the latter marched four miles further, to Prairie Grove, a beautiful open valley which is watered by Illinois creek. Following the road, he threw two guns across the creek. He was forced to
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
withdraw them immediately by the guns of the enemy, who was strongly posted on a long ridge, with magnificent posi- tions for batteries. Herron then cut a road through woods to a position further down, pushed over and posted a full battery of six guns. These, opening unexpectedly, threw the enemy into some confusion and drew his attention from the regular crossing, enabling fourteen guns to get into position south of the stream, and to cover the advance of the whole force, not only over the creek, but across an open field. The Rebels were vastly superior in position, but vastly inferior in artillery, and Herron held them in check by an admirably di- rected as well as heavy cannonade, until he was within one hundred yards of the ridge. Two regiments then moved out from the left, drove the Rebel skirmishers home, advanced steadily and swiftly to the foot of the hill, and gallantly seized a battery. They were unable to hold it and returned shattered and bleeding to the lines. Again two regiments, the Twenty-Sixth Indiana and the Thirty-Seventh Illinois, moved out and up the hill, gained the battery, lost it, and, shattered and bleeding, returned, reaching the line just twenty minutes after they had left it.
At half past two, far on his right, Herron heard Blunt's approaching artillery, Rabb's battery, opening a cross-fire on the two Confederate batteries.
Early in the morning, Blunt sent his cavalry along the Fayetteville road to form a junction with Herron, and fol- lowed as fast as infantry could move. He approached the enemy's left just as that wing was swinging round on Her- ron's flank, consequently Blunt was immediately engaged. Both parties fought with a fierce determination and an activ- ity which scarcely left room for the exercise of skill, and which held them with little fluctuation in steady lines. Rebel sharp- shooters engaged in picking out officers with rifles which were not apt to miss their aim. Rabb's battery was in con- tinual and effectual play. With Tenny's battery, it saved Weer's brigade from destruction. With Hopkins' guns it subjected a large and impetuously assaulting force to a ter- rible repulse.
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CURTIS SETS OUT FROM BATESVILLE.
The battle closed with the day. The Union soldiers slept on their arms in the open cornfields. The Confederate troops absconded, while their General remained on the ground with a flag of truce for the ostensible purpose of making ar- rangements for the burial of the dead and the care of the wounded.
The total Union loss was one thousand one hundred and forty-eight, of which nine hundred and fifty-three were from Herron's force of little more than four thousand. The Indi- ana Twenty-Sixth lost two hundred and three.
Hindman's official report makes his total loss one thou- sand eight hundred and seventeen. Pollard's historical re- port places it at three hundred. Blunt, from the number left on the field, and in the houses in the vicinity, judges it to have been at least three thousand.
The army encamped in Prairie Grove, and rested until the twenty-seventh of December. On that day, at eight in the morning, it started to Van Buren, Arkansas, where, accord- ing to report, Hindman was preparing for another invasion of Missouri. It made fifty miles in two days, the infantry crossing Lee's creek on the croups of the cavalry horses, drove the enemy out of Dripping Springs and Van Buren, and captured his wagons, steamboats, provisions and ammuni- tion, with one hundred of his men.
General Blunt and General Herron now separated, the former going to Fort Smith, the latter to Rolla.
From January to June Vicksburg drained Missouri of both invaders and defenders.
General Curtis, as has already been recorded, made a long easterly march after the battle of Pca Ridge, on the sixth of May, reaching Batesville, in the White river valley, where he had expected to meet gunboats with supplies from below. The river was so low as not to be navigable, and after wait- ing seven weeks for a rise, he set out again, directing his course to Clarendon, which point boats were able to reach in any season. The dangers of the march may be inferred from the following proclamation:
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
" LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, June 24.
" To the People of Arkansas :
" The Yankee General Curtis is attempting to escape. His position is untenable. He is appalled by the dangers that surround him. In his terror he resorts to the desperate expedient of moving to the south, along White river, trusting for supplies from the Mississippi by boats. The supplies cannot ascend White river. We have already blown up one of his iron-clad boats, crippled another, and can hold the river against his fleet. The question now is, shall his army reach the fleet below? Can you prevent it? The power is in your hands. The plan is not a secret. I proclaim it to you all. If it is not carried out the responsibility rests on you.
"Take your gun in your hand, and ammunition, every man of you; mount your horse, or go afoot. Do not wait an hour; lose no time in holiday meetings; move toward the enemy by the shortest road; join the first company you over- take on the march; press upon the invader from every direc- tion; attack him day and night; kill his scouts and pickets; kill his pilots and troops on transports; cut off his wagon trains; lie in ambush, and surprise his detachments; shoot his mounted officers; destroy every pound of meal and flour, every car of corn and stack of fodder, oats and wheat that can fall into his hands; fell trees as thickly as in rafts on all the roads before him; burn everything, and block up the fords; hang upon his front, flanks and rear, and make the ring of your rifles and shot guns the accompaniment of every foot of his retreat. Let every man feel and know that this appeal is addressed to him specially, and that it is the appeal of a bleeding country to her sons for deliverance. Our army in the field will do its part. Will you do yours?
"T. C. HINDMAN, "Major General."
The Eighteenth Indiana regiment and Klauss' battery were the last to leave Batesville, which was immediately occupied by the enemy. The weather was extremely warm. The country afforded little food, and so little water that the advance guard exhausted the wells, and the remainder of the
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BATTLE OF THE CACHE.
troops were forced to quench their thirst from stagnant cy- press swamps. The fourth of July was spent and celebrated at Augusta, whence Curtis, turning from the White, assumed a generally south-west direction, moving through cane brakes, swamps and woods. He approached the Cache, and en- camped near it, while a detachment cut through a blockade of felled timber, a reconnoitring party of four hundred in- fantry, with a little steel gun, under Lieutenant Danneman, of the First Cavalry, examined the route, and a battalion of the First Indiana Cavalry, with two guns, directed by Colo- nel Baker, who was in command of the Fourth Brigade, went forward to save the bridge over Bayou de View, fifteen miles distant.
Colonel Hovey, in command of the reconnoissance, fell in with a Rebel force of fifteen hundred. Happily an hour after, and while he still held his ground, Lieutenant Colonel Wood, with the First Indiana and Klauss' two guns, came galloping to the field. He was received with cheers. "The Rebels are down the road," said Hovey, "and there's plenty of them. Pitch into them." Wood pressed on at full speed, and seeing the enemy with extended and advanced wings, moving as if to enclose the whole Union force, he instantly formed line of battle, with guns in battery in the centre, and with one squadron on the left, and the other on the right, poured canister on the Rebel front, and shell on its rear. The enemy wavered. Before he could recover, Major Clendennin, with Companies E and G, made a furious charge upon his right flank. The Major was severely wounded, Captain Sloan was killed, his First Lieutenant was thrown from his horse, and the horse of the Second Lieutenant was shot un- der him; but not the slightest confusion followed these dis- asters. After a twenty minutes' fight with carbines and pistols, the Rebels were forced into flight, cavalry breaking through infantry.
One hundred and ten of the enemy were left on the field. The Union loss was but eight killed, and forty-five wounded. The battle of the Cache was fought July 7.
Colonel Wood proceeded, with his command, to the bridge
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
across Bayou de View, and reaching it just as a fire had been built on its north end, saved it from destruction.
July 9, Curtis arrived at Clarendon, where he received the tantalizing intelligence that gunboats and transports with supplies had been there and had returned down the river the day before. He had now only to hasten eastwardly to the Mississippi, which at the nearest point was sixty-five miles distant. Three days more of marching, during which the men received from the Commissary but three crackers each, brought the army to the highlands of Helena, and within sight of the old face of the Father of Waters, "which in- spired us with as great a joy," says a member of the Eight- eenth, "as did its discovery the followers of DeSoto." The brigade encamped among the hills in a beautiful beach grove. Nearly seven months and nearly one thousand miles of wan- derings were thus at last happily ended.
There had been no lack of effort to furnish Curtis with supplies. Four gunboats, a transport loaded with army stores, and two transports containing the Forty-Sixth Indi- ana, Colonel Fitch, left Memphis the middle of June, with the purpose of opening communications to Batesville. The morning of the seventeenth, Colonel Fitch landed with his regiment two and a half miles below St. Charles, which, with two concealed batteries and an infantry force, threat- ened the boats. Fitch threw out skirmishers, and marched toward the rear of the position, pushing the hostile pickets back through a deadened wood. The gunboats at the same time moved up and opened fire. The enemy promptly answered, struck the foremost boat, the Mound City, sending the ball through her steam-drum. An im- mense volume of steam rolling from the front pipes, and a frantic rush of men overboard, gave intelligence that many, if not all, of the officers and crew were scalded. Firing in- stantly ceased. Tugs, cutters and yawls pushed out to the drowning men. The enemy on both banks, regardless alike of humanity and of gratitude to Union men, who, at Mem- phis, had saved Rebel sufferers in the same situation, not only continued his fire, but directed it upon the scalded men,
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ATTEMPTS TO RELIEVE CURTIS.
both in and out of the water, and on the boats lowered to their relief.
Meantime the Forty-Sixth moved rapidly up toward the remaining battery, one having been silenced almost at the first fire, shot the gunners at their posts, and carried the works without the loss of a man. Nine brass and iron guns, a quantity of ammunition, and thirty men with their com- mander, were captured.
The expedition, after the river had been explored some distance above, and the country scoured for miles round St. Charles, returned to the mouth of the White, whence a por- tion of the troops went up the Mississippi to Memphis, and another part, after some delay, during which it was rein- forced by the Thirty-Fourth and Forty-Third Indiana, reas- cended the White, passing St. Charles, and stopping at Crockett's Bluff during the fourth of July. Here it was still further reinforced by the Twenty-Fourth Indiana. The next day, Fitch landed at Aberdeen. Finding the enemy near, he sent out a reconnoissance of about two hundred of the Twenty-Fourth under Colonel Spicely. At an interval of half an hour, he threw forward in the same direction two hundred of the Forty-Third under Lieutenant Colonel Far- row, and at succeeding intervals portions of the Thirty- Fourth and Forty-Sixth.
Colonel Spicely saw the enemy's pickets before he had advanced a mile, but met with no force of consequence until, after a march of four miles, he reached an open wood on the border of Grand Prairie. Sending Lieutenant Colonel Bar- ter back to hasten the movement of Farrow, with his skirm- ishers he kept in check cavalry threatening his front. Sud- denly four hundred of the enemy dashed upon his rear. He saw the movement in time to face about, and met it with such steadiness that it was broken in full carcer. It was not renewed, and after a short pursuit, Colonel Spicely, with a loss of twenty-two killed and wounded, and the satisfaction of having inflicted a much greater loss, returned to the river in company with Colonel Fitch, who had reached the field at the close of the engagement. The next day and night, the brigade marched to Clarendon, skirmishing on the way,
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