USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 24
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
down to the mouth of the Yazoo with his disappointed and wearied army. He had lost one hundred and seventy-five men killed, nine hundred and thirty wounded, and forty-three missing.
Captain Keck, of the Forty-Ninth Indiana, was shot, and died on the field. The Adjutant of the Fifty-Fourth, Mar- shall Hayden, was wounded and captured. He died in Rebel prison. He was eighteen years old, and full of promise. Lieutenant Ralston died of wounds. The Fifty-Fourth, the Forty-Ninth, Sixty-Ninth and Eighty-Third were all in Mor- gan's division. Burbridge's brigade was in A. J. Smith's division.
Rumors of Pemberton's arrival at Vicksburg, and of Grant's retreat from the Tallchatchic, added to the depres- sion of the army. All the labor had been for nothing, and all the blood shed in vain.
Grant, as has been said, vigilantly guarded every mile of the Mississippi Central Railroad as far as he had advanced. He kept his eye especially on Holly Springs, his depot of supplies, without which his army could scarcely subsist a day, and while he warned Colonel Murphy, the commandant, that Van Dorn and Forrest, with large forces, were prowling along the rear, and hankering especially after that post, he promised him ample reinforcements on the first notice of dan- ger. The commandant was the same who had surrendered Iuka at the first intimation of the enemy's approach. He pur- sued an equally imbecile course in regard to Holly Springs, relinquishing to Van Dorn, without an attempt at defence, more than four millions worth of stores, two immense and finely furnished hospitals, and all his troops except his indig- nant cavalry, which cut its way out. It was the twentieth of December, the very day on which Sherman set out from Memphis, and steamed hopefully down the Mississippi.
Encouraged by so signal an achievement, Van Dorn has- tened northward, bent on destroying the railroad at every important point in Grant's rear. He attacked Cold Water, Davis' Mills, Middleburg and Bolivar, and at each place was repulsed. The Twenty-Fifth Indiana had charge of about fourteen miles of the road. Parts of six companies at Davis'
275
ATTACK ON DAVIS' MILLS.
Mills, with the Fiftieth Ohio Cavalry, guarded a trestle three hundred yards in length over Wolf river, and the remainder held a pieket line as far south as Cold Water. Van Dorn struck this picket line, and though he met a stout resistance, captured sixteen men. He then appeared before Davis' Mills, which he expected to overwhelm by mere force of numbers. His troops, at least five thousand, approached the river impetuously and with loud cheers, but their speed slack- ened and their ardor cooled as they entered low, thickly- wooded, uneven ground, within the range of a destructive fire. The small force opposed to them, not three hundred men, was evidently prepared and resolute.
On intelligence of the surrender of Holly Springs, Colonel William H. Morgan, in command at Davis' Mills, fortified his position as strongly as was possible with the men and means at his disposal. With railroad ties and cotton bales he converted an old saw mill into a block-house, and by the erection of earth-works at its base, he made a beautiful In- dian mound into a fort of no mean pretensions. He provis- ioned the block-house for a forty-eight hours' siege, and gar- risoned it with Company H and a small part of the cavalry. The rest of his foree he stationed in the fort, except a few cavalry, which guarded a distant crossing to the west. The block-house and the fort commanded the trestle and the bridge, on which the railroad and the wagon road cross the river.
Van Dorn came in sight shortly after noon on the twenty- first, and directed his course toward the bridge. Onee across the river, there was no question of his ability to demolish Morgan's little force. But he could not get across. First, he threw his troops in a mass upon the bridge. Then he extended his line, making a front of nearly four hundred yards, and poured an incessant shower of shot on the block- house and fort; while at different points, but chiefly at the bridge, he endeavored to effeet a crossing. Then he threw cotton balls saturated with turpentine, against the trestle work, while he made a third effort to pass the bridge and gain a footing on the farther side. He constantly met a pre- cise and rapid fire. At length he made a demand for sur-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
render. "Such a thought," says Colonel Morgan, "had not been entertained for a single moment by any officer or pri- vate of my command." It is not necessary to say that it was refused. Van Dorn retired about dark, thoroughly baf- fled, leaving under the bridge a few of his men, who had successfully run the rifle fire, and under the trestle a few who had been employed with the turpentine balls. These crept out and gave themselves up, making twenty prisoners. Twenty-two Rebel dead and thirty wounded on and near the ground, testified to the precision of the Union fire, and one hundred stand of arms to the disorder of the withdrawal. The smallness of the Union loss, but three wounded, was to the credit of the block-house and the fort, for the rebel fire was heavy and long continued.
Before Van Dorn captured Holly Springs, Forrest, who had been detached from Bragg's army at Murfreesboro, made his appearance in West Tennessee, with thirty-five hundred cavalry. General Sullivan was in command of the District of Jackson, which included all the territory radiating seventy miles from Jackson. His troops were scattered along the railroad from Union City to Davis' Mills, a dis- tance of one hundred and thirty miles. But as soon as he was apprised of Forrest's approach, he concentrated in Jaek- son all that were available, holding them in readiness for defence, and at the same time threw out toward the Rebel raider five hundred Illinois cavalry, Colonel Ingersoll, with one section of the Fourteenth Indiana battery, thirty men, in command of Lieutenant McGuire. The reconnoitring force marched twenty-eiglit miles east to Lexington, and there met Forrest. A brief but spirited fight was followed by the flight of Ingersoll's troop, at least that part of it which was able to get away. The guns were captured, together with Lieutenant McGuire and twenty-seven men. Two men were killed, two were severely wounded. But one ar- tilleryman escaped. Colonel Ingersoll, who was also cap- tured, highly commended the gallant conduct of McGuire and his command.
Forrest pursued until he met General Sullivan advancing with a considerable force to the relief of the fugitives. He
277
SULLIVAN IN PURSUIT OF FORREST.
then fell back to Lexington, and thence proceeded to the railroad and north, capturing squads of pickets, tearing up rails and burning bridges. On the 26th, he began his retreat, directing his course southeasterly from Dresden, on a line leading through Huntington, Clarksburg, Red Mound and Lexington, to Clifton on the Tennessee.
General Sullivan had received reinforcements from Gen- eral Grant, and had now ten thousand or more troops. Having repaired the road to Trenton, and proceeded to that point, he divided his force into three brigades under the care respectively of Colonel Fuller, Colonel Dunham and General Haynie, and moved directly east, reaching Huntington in advance of the enemy. Major Atkinson, with three hundred of the Fiftieth Indiana, reconnoitring on the Dresden road, met Rebel skirmishers at a bridge, and turning them back, sent Forrest's whole force, as was conjectured from its non- appearance, to a more western road. This last, however, was a matter of uncertainty; and while Sullivan remained in Huntington, with two brigades, on the alert to march or fight, according to circumstances, Colonel Dunham, with his brigade, fifteen hundred and thirty-four men, including the Fiftieth Indiana, Lieutenant Colonel Wells, hastened south- ward and reached Clarksburg, twelve miles further, shortly after dark. He drove out the enemy's skirmishers, and learning that Forrest was in camp four miles west on a road leading into the Lexington road a half mile above Red Mound, he dispatched a courier with the intelligence to Sul- livan. He was on the march again before light. Lieutenant Judy, with company A of the Fiftieth, met skirmishers near Parker's Cross Roads, as the junction is called, but pushed on, his men deployed as skirmishers, and the column follow- ing. Colonel Wells, with his regiment and two guns turned into the west road, but almost immediately found it neces- sary, under an admonitory fire of the enemy, to turn baek and rejoin his brigade at the Cross Roads. One of his guns lost two or three horses and barely escaped capture.
Having now found the enemy and crossed his line of march, Dunham's perilous duty was to hold him until the arrival of the main force. He moved on accordingly to Red
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
Mound and formed line of battle on and behind the crest of a ridge, his left on the road, his right on a thick wood and ravine. The wagon train he placed in a hollow in the rear. He sent out two companies of the Fiftieth, G, under Captain Carothers, and B, Lieutenant Davis, to skirmish with and fall back before the enemy as he advanced along the road toward the crossing. G turned the angle and both compa- nies opened fire, as did the artillery. The latter, however, was inefficient, and the former was ineffectual. The enemy moved on in overwhelming numbers, but with the evident intention of avoiding a collision by crossing the Lexington road and directing his course toward the east. Colonel Dun- ham, determined that he should not escape, relinquished his strong position on Red Mound, and rapidly formed close in the hostile front, the Fiftieth Indiana on the right, resting on an open field, except company G, which, having fallen back from the west road, was on the extreme left. The guns again feebly firing, Dunham learned to his vexation that they were almost out of ammunition. However, "he directed the officer in command to do the best he could with them, while he turned away to do the best he could without them." The enemy's artillery was intolerable, but just as Dunham was prepared to charge a battery on the right, his attention was imperatively called to the rear. 1 Under cover of woods and hills both his flanks had been turned. He dauntlessly faced about and rushed upon his new assailants, drove them down the Lexington road, regaining and resuming his first position at Red Mound. In the rush the Fiftieth made a bayonet charge which carried it into and through the enemy's lines. Dunham's horse was shot under him, but his orderly, Frederick L. Prow, dismounting in the midst of a terrible fire, supplied the loss by his own deprivation.
Dunham had acted not only bravely but skillfully; never- theless, he was now nearly surrounded, and forced to listen to a demand for surrender. "The General understands," said Forrest's aid, "that you have surrendered." "The Gen- eral is entirely mistaken," replied the indomitable Colonel, who had observed with irrepressible admiration the spirit of his little force, "we have never thought of surrendering."
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279
THE BATTLE OF RED MOUND.
The aid departed, but soon returned with a demand for an unconditional surrender. Dunham, with rising indignation, replied: "You will get away with that flag very quickly, and bring me no more such messages. Give my compli- ments to the General and tell him I never surrender. If he thinks he can take me come and try." Dunham's situation was critical, but so was Forrest's. As the one did not know how near, the other was equally unaware how far off Gen- cral Sullivan was; indeed, Forrest was not sure whether he had a part or the whole of the Union force in his front. Dunham's deportment inclined him to the latter opinion. Happily, General Sullivan, who had moved three miles on the double quick, toward the sound of artillery, reached the ground just after the combatants fell to again. He rushed upon the tired Rebels, drove them in utter rout and in an astonishingly short time was master of the field, with five hundred prisoners and many horses and arms. Forrest, nar- rowly escaping, fled to the ferry, crossed it and joined Bragg.
Forrest's loss in killed and wounded was two hundred. Dunham's was nearly as great.
It was unprecedented for infantry to force cavalry into a fight, and Dunham and his men received much credit. Sul- livan, for his manner of conducting the pursuit, and for his success in intercepting Forrest, was highly commended by General Grant.
The men captured from the Fourteenth battery in the pre- liminary encounter with Forrest, were retained but a short time. They were paroled and made their way on foot across the country to the Ohio river, thence home.
Forrest's raid was a terrible blow to the people of the dis- trict, as both his army and Sullivan's, after the communica- tions of the latter were broken and his supplies cut off, lived on the country. Sullivan seized everything that troops could eat and made citizens rebuild the road.
The two raiders, Van Dorn and Forrest, had not succeeded in destroying the whole length of the road, but they had ac- complished the main object of their expedition, in so break- ing up communication as to force Grant to leave the region
280
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
of the Tallahatchie. The backward movement is partially described by Mr. Williams, of the Hundredth:
" CAMP ON RAILROAD, ONE MILE NORTH OF THE TALLAHATCHIE RIVER, Friday, December 26, 1862.
"DEAR MOTHER :- My last letter home was written at Camp Yocknapatufa. We remained there quietly until last Monday morning when we were ordered to make the north bank of the Tallahatchiie by Tuesday night. We moved at seven in the morning and camped on Tobytuby creek, eight- een miles, at three in the afternoon. We had intended to cross the Tallahatchie at Wyatt, where we had built a bridge on our way down, but on reaching Tobytuby a courier from McPherson met us with orders to bear to the east and cross the river at Abbeville, the bridge at Wyatt having been burned. Were off at daylight and reached our present camp, fifteen miles, by two in the afternoon. This two days was very severe on our men, the roads being very hilly and they having been so many days idle at Yocknapatufa. All our regiments straggled considerably. Our division, Denner's, was further south than any other, being sixteen miles south of Oxford. The railroad was about finished to within a few miles of us, and we had already heard the whistle of the en- gine when the news came of the unfortunate cavalry dash on Holly Springs and the destruction of all our stores. At this juncture our forces were ordered to fall back beyond the Tal- lahatchie. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday there was a continued stream of soldiers from daylight until eight at night, crossing the river at this point. We are now all over. All the cotton has been brought up from Oxford, and all the railroad bridges destroyed up as far as Abbeville, which is three miles south of the river. The trestle work built by our troops, across the river, is an eighth of a mile in length. This too will probably be destroyed by us as soon as the cotton can be carried away. An engine and train passes us three or four times a day. It does our boys good to see it, having had no such sight since we left Cairo.
"Just on the other side of the river, guarding the railroad
281
SURRENDER OF HOLLY SPRINGS.
bridge, we saw the Twelfth Indiana, which was separated from us at Wyatt as we went down. It is entirely isolated and belongs to no division or brigade. Denner has requested Grant to assign it to his division.
" Colonel Reuben Williams and the Quartermaster of the Twelfth were at Holly Springs on business at the time of the surprise, and were taken prisoners and paroled. This is the third time for Colonel Williams and bores him hugely. Our sutler was also there, fortunately without any goods and with but eighty dollars in money. This they took from him, and eleven hundred dollars left with him by a cotton buyer to pay for cotton. The Rebels even paroled him, which, of course, amounts to nothing. Since we have been here he has been down to see us. He gave us an interesting account of how everything went at Holly Springs. Three million four hundred dollars worth of cotton was destroyed, all be- longing to speculators, from whom was also taken one hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars in money. The Rebel force consisted of some eight thousand cavalry and mounted in- fantry. The garrison was small but ample to at least hold the enemy in check until reinforcements could have come up, had any precaution whatever been taken by the Colonel com- manding the place. He was taken prisoner in his bed. We are now cut off from supplies, and are on half rations. To- day a train of three hundred wagons, guarded by five hundred men, started from Holly Springs to Memphis for provisions."
For more than a week General Grant had no communi- cation with the North. For two weeks he received no sup- plies. Until January 7 the army lived on the gleanings of the impoverished country. Grant did not fall back further than Holly Springs, but he scattered a large portion of his forces through the southern and western parts of Tennessee. The Twenty-Third Indiana was posted at Colliersville, where it remained several weeks with ragged clothes and worn-out tents, and with such a deficiency of shoes that more than two hundred men were barefoot. After leaving Colliersville it was on duty in Memphis. The Twenty-Fifth moved from Davis' Mills to Memphis, and was there placed on provost duty. The Twelfth, One Hundredth, Ninety-Third and
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
Ninety-Ninth regiments, all in the Sixteenth, Hurlbut's corps, were employed during the remainder of the winter in guard- ing the railroad, or in building block-houses. The Twelfth and One Hundredth remained a few weeks at Grand June- tion, where the following letters were written by Lieutenant Williams:
"January 12. We are once more in communication with the world. The roads to Memphis and Columbus are both in operation, and a mail is received every day. It looks as though our business, for sometime, would be to guard the railroad. Our Quartermaster met us here from Memphis, bringing with him tents for the regiment, so that the boys are now pretty well fixed.
" We have here large numbers of contrabands. They come in every day, and move off by hundreds on every train going to Memphis-men, women and children. Poor, deluded crea- tures! I pity their condition, and wonder what will ever become of them. They have an indistinct idea of a "jubiloh" to which they are tending; where it is, or when it will com- mence, they cannot even conjecture. The idea that their condition is somehow soon to be improved through the agency of our troops is hurrying them into our lines by thou- sands. A man and wife so old and infirm that they could scarcely walk, I saw yesterday trying to find a place on top the bales of cotton upon the cars. They were pushing on, with the rest, to the land of "jubiloh." When told that they would not live a year after going North, and that they had better not go, the old man replied that if he only lived one day there, he would live that day a free man.
"I saw to-day, sitting among the negroes around the depot, a white woman, fifty-two years of age. Her hair was turning grey, and her face was wrinkled, but she bore trace of having once been quite good looking. I wondered how she came to be in the crowd of contrabands, and asked her the question. She said that her children had all left home to go to Memphis, and that she wished to go and look after them. I was still mystified, and remarked that I did not know white people were leaving their homes, and going North. She smiled and said that although she was white,
283
ARKANSAS POST.
she was a slave, and had negro blood in her veins. Her father was a white man, and her mother almost white. I never before saw such an instance. Her lips were as thin as mine, and her nose fine. I defy any one to detect a drop of negro blood in her.
The weather is delightful, like yours in September. Four regiments and one battery of our brigade are at this place."
"January 20, 1863 .- There is a general impression that before many weeks this entire country will be evacuated, and all the troops sent down the river to operate on Vicks- burg. This looks probable, for it will be impossible to guard railroads here and take Vicksburg too. All our troops will be needed at the latter place.
"Grant has done nothing but protect cotton buyers for the past three months, and nothing but the taking of Vicks- burg will raise his sinking reputation.
"Here, after raining thirty-six hours, it snowed to the depth of five and a half inches, the heaviest snow that has visited the country for a number of years. The weather then grew stinging cold and froze everything up tight. The wintry North was brought down to us, and the Sunny South was counted among the things that were. We still have our quarters in tents, and I slept in one without fire. Some fugitive contrabands froze to death."
When General Sherman emerged from the Yazoo, after his repulse at Chickasaw Bluffs, he turned his command over to General M'Clernand, who had just arrived from Memphis. Without allowing time for the indulgence of regrets, M'Clernand moved up the Mississippi to the mouth of White river, up the White through a cut-off into the Ar- kansas, and up the Arkansas to a landing three miles from Arkansas Post, on the left bank. Here, on the ninth and tenth of January, under the protection of three gunboats, which previously bombarded the fort and drove the Rebel sharpshooters out of two rows of rifle-pits along the river, he landed twenty-five thousand men.
Arkansas Post was garrisoned by less than five thousand men, and armed with but twelve guns, but, situated on high ground, surrounded by bayous, swamps and woods, and pro-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
vided with a wide deep ditch, a broad high parapet, a foot- bank behind the parapet for infantry, strong casements and rows of rifle-pits, it presented a bold and formidable face even to so large a force. General Churchill, in command, was, he affirmed, bent on holding out until help arrived, or all were dead.
MeClernand's troops lay on their arms at night, without tents or fires. During the day, they gradually pushed their way through marshes, bayous and woods. They invested the fort before noon of the eleventh, and stood ready for a general assault. It was Sunday, and remarkably quiet until afternoon, when artillery on the river and on the land opened fire. The fort guns answered with spirit, but, except the lightest, were soon silenced. The troops pressed closer, run- ning across open ground, and halting in thickety ravines, to get breath to rush out again. A. J. Smith, with Burbridge's and Landrum's brigades, reaching a position within two hundred yards of the fort, sent word to McClernand that he could almost shake hands with the enemy. Shortly after three, all the guns in the fort were silenced, and the invest- ing force moved np to a general assault. The Sixteenth Indiana, the One Hundred and Twentieth and Eighty-Third Ohio, were already mounting the intrenehments, when a white flag rose above the ramparts.
All the garrison, with the guns and provisions of every kind, was captured. Our Sixteenth was the first to plant the colors within the fort. The garrison flag fell into the hands of the same regiment-poetic justice, as at the disas- trous battle of Richmond, Kentucky, the Sixteenth had sur- rendered to General Churchill. The regiment recognized many of its own wagons and accoutrements among the captured articles.
McClernard lost nine hundred and seventy-seven men, of whom one hundred and twenty-nine were killed. The Six- teenth Indiana lost seven killed and sixty-four wounded. Lieutenant Colonel John W. Orr, commanding the regiment, received a severe wound in the head from the effects of which he never entirely recovered. The Sixty-Seventh had three killed and thirty-five wounded. The Sixty-Ninth lost none.
285
THE ARMY CONCENTRATES AT YOUNG'S POINT.
It supported a Wisconsin battery, but was not actively en- gaged. The Sixtieth, Forty-Ninth, Fifty-Fourth and Eighty- Third were engaged.
The fort with all its defences was destroyed, the dead were buried, and after four days of rest McClernard dropped down to Milliken's Bend.
Meantime an expedition under General Gorman and Lieu- tenant Colonel Walker went from Helena up White river to attack three less important Rebel posts, St. Charles, Du- vall's Bluff and Des Arc, where the railroad crosses the river. The Eleventh, Twenty-Fourth and Forty-Sixth Indiana were included in the expedition. Crowded boats and in- clement weather, occasioned great suffering, hands and feet in many cases being frozen, but the enterprise was an unex- pected success. The enemy fled from each point, as the boats came in sight, without an effort at defence. From Duvall's Bluff, Colonel Spicely, with the Twenty-Fourth, went on alone to Des Arc, thirty miles above. Several guns and a number of fugitive soldiers were captured. The expedition returned to Helena on the twenty-second.
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