USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. II > Part 29
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69
"The ground between the works and Lauman's line had been covered with scrubby timber. This was all cut down, with the tops of the trees outward. A charge to gain the works must be made over ground thus obstrueted, for more than a thousand yards. Lauman's artillery failed to get into position, and the Rebel guns threw grape and canister witli- out opposition. The rifle-pits were filled with men who poured a shower of Minie balls at the approaching line. The men were literally mowed down. When within a hundred yards of the trenches, our lines broke, and a general retreat was made. One gun was left, the horses being killed, and one was badly injured. A portion of the as- saulting party, rather than pass through the Rebel fire again, threw down their arms and ran toward the fort. These were not fired on, but the retreating lines were not spared whilst a man was in sight."
The Fifty-Third Indiana was in this terrible charge. "This action seemed to draw the Rebel attention to that part of their line, and we had little trouble obtaining the position we wanted.
"During the advance our regiment was under severe fire. The balls came thick and low. When not advancing, the men lay down, not a position exempt from exposure. Lau- man's loss in this assault was four hundred and seventy-five, The dead must number three hundred.
" We remained in line of battle the rest of the day, and through the two following days. On the fourteenth we be- gan breastworks. We kept a company in front constantly firing upon the enemy, when he appeared outside of his trenches. At two o'clock a flag of truce appeared. It came first from our side. Of the thirteenth an effort had been
334
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
·made to get permission to bury the dead of Lauman's divis- ion, and to remove the wounded, who had lain where they fell on Sunday. We could hear them complaining at night, but could not relieve them, the ground being in full view of the Rebel works. The night before some of our regiment brought off two men who had crawled up to the picket line. They were both shot in the legs. They had torn their shirts into strips, and having fastened up the dangling parts, drag- ged themselves toward their friends.
"The Rebels furnished the burial party. Hundreds of dead lay upon the field, no wounded. Many had evidently been wounded and had lived to move into the shade, or to crawl a short distance toward our lines. In some places two or three were found huddled up under the root of a tree, or behind a log. After the burial, the location of each body could be told by the hair, which had fallen off before burial. The Rebels tied handkerchiefs round their faces and hurried through their awful task with all possible speed, stopping, however, to take the boots off our dead. They carried away also hats and caps.
"On the evening of the twentieth a solid shot struck the ground two hundred yards from a group of four officers, rose two feet and rushed toward them with a sharp whistle. They scattered in different directions, leaving the Sergeant Major, Joseph E. Scott, standing in the direct line of the ball's ap- proach, uncertain what to do. He had barely time to jump up; and he actually came down on the ball, forcing it to the · ground, when it scooped out a gutter, rose again, dropped again a hundred yards beyond, again rose, passed on and killed a mule. This is certainly a strong story, but it is act- ually and positively true, as I was an eye witness, and within twenty feet of the spot when Scott got the ball down. While the danger of the position was being discussed, a shell from the same gun exploded just to the right of the line followed by the ball. These were the last Rebel shots fired."
While Sherman was drawing his line up toward Jackson, our Eighteenth one day skirmished in the Governor's beau- tiful grounds, where, among other works of art, was a statue of a black slave kneeling in suppliant posture, "a type," so
335
DEVOTION OF SURGEONS.
says a soldier of the regiment, " of the religion of the South." A Rebel shell, hissing along, took the marble negro in its path, and broke it into fragments. A loud shout from the men testified their appreciation of the symbol.
The enemy began to withdraw on the night of the six- teenth, although as he kept up work and firing on his front, the movement was not discovered. He burned bridges, planted loaded shells and torpedoes in the road behind him, and directed his course through Brandon to Morton.
Sherman pursued to Brandon. He tore up the railroad at intervals, on the south fifty miles, on the north, twenty miles, and on the east, fifteen miles, destroying costly bridges, ma- chine shops, locomotives and cars, and effeeted such a de- struction of communications and means of repairing roads and cars that Grant was seeured in possession of the western part of the State. He supplied the hospitals and citizens of Jackson and Clinton with provisions, and returned to Vicks- burg accompanied, by thousands and thousands of negroes, who, uncertain whether they had entered upon the day of Jubilee or the day of Wrath, were, in either case, unwilling to be found in slavery by the coming master.
The last of July, the army once more and for the last time, concentrated about Vieksburg. A rest of several weeks fol- lowed, during which a very large proportion of the troops re- ceived furloughs.
The courage and devotion of surgeons during the Vicksburg campaign were not inferior to the same qualities displayed in the rank and file. The night after the assault of May 22, eight surgeons took charge of the wounded, four hundred and ninety-eight in number, of Carr's division. The night was excessively hot, although during part of it there was rain. No hospital appliances had been brought up. The sufferers were laid on raw cotton under China trees. But the attention which they needed instantly was often long delayed. From the heat, over exertion, and the terrible ner- vous strain, many of the surgeons became ill, and soon, on an average, there remained but one to two regiments. Dr. Bigelow had charge of the Eighth, the Eighteenth, and the First battery.
336
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
As soon as it was known that the army had closed round Vicksburg, surgeons and nurses hastened from Indiana to give their services temporarily to hospitals. Not a few sac- rificed their lives.
About the middle of June Dr. Calvin West, of Hagers- town, Indiana, arrived and devoted himself to hospital work. His labors were arduous and invaluable, but they were short. Being attacked by chronic diarrhea, he returned to his home, where, shortly after, he died.
No more precious life was sacrificed before Vicksburg than that of Dr. Talbut Bullard, whose name has already been mentioned in these pages as the chief physician of one of the Rebel hospitals in Indianapolis early in 1862. He was an eminent physician, and an honored citizen, a man of fine education, extensive reading, wide sympathies, genial manners, perfect honor and honesty, intense energy, and most Christian humanity. From the outbreak of the war he gave money, medicines and medical attendance to soldiers' families, and responded readily to Governor Morton's repeated calls for volunteer surgeons, going to Shiloh in the spring of 1862, to Richmond, Kentucky, in the summer, and to the hospitals round Washington in the fall of the same year. In the winter he bestowed several weeks of time and labor on the hospitals in Gallatin and Nashville. He contracted chronic diarrhea at Pittsburg Landing. In consequence his friends urged him to cross the ocean for his health. To their solicitations he replied: "I would rather die in the harness than leave my country with her flag disgraced."
When intelligence of Grant's battles in the rear of Vicks- burg reached Indianapolis, Governor Morton requested Dr. Bullard to take charge of a corps of surgeons and nurses which he desired to send to the field. The Dr. reluctantly declined out of consideration for his health. But his gener- ous and tender heart reproached him with want of devotion, and he retracted his refusal, saying he would go if he knew he never would return. Yet Dr. Bullard was not reckless. He was one day invited by an officer to advance to a certain point in the besiegers' lines, where, from an embrasure, some- thing of interest was to be seen. "No sir," said the Dr., "my
337
LAID ON THE ALTAR.
duty does not call me to so exposed a place." He may have called to mind, or if he did not, the reader can scarce avoid remembering the reproof of William of Orange to Mr. God- frey, in the siege of Namur: "Mr. Godfrey, you ought not to run these hazards. You are not a soldier." "I run no more hazard than your Majesty," answered Godfrey. "Not so," said William, "I am where it is my duty to be, and I may, without presumption, commit my life to God's keeping."
Not a half hour elapsed after Dr. Bullard's refusal to ex- pose his life unnecessarily before, in that very embrasure, lie amputated a soldier's shattered leg.
Being exceedingly quick in thought and action, he was able, with little strength, to accomplish a large amount of work. Unhappily, on a very hot day, he was compelled to ride several miles on horseback. The fatigue and exposure prostrated him, but he remained on the field until the expe- dition returned.
At Evansville Mrs. Bullard met him. She found him calm and gentle, but with little hope of recovery. After a rest tlie journey was resumed, and the beloved physician reached his home, but only to die.
"I have laid my life on the altar of my country," he said, smiling, and consoled by the great thought, his noble soul passed away.
A passage from a letter of Colonel Bringhurst, who was ordered to Milliken's Bend the first of June, to serve upon a "Court of Inquiry," shows that hospitals were not neglected:
"Two miles below is a hospital for wounded soldiers. It now contains two thousand of the victims of Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, Black River and Vicks- burg. It is the neatest, best arranged and most capacious hospital I have ever seen. The wounded are in very large tents, shaded by Chinas and magnolias. Great ovens and other cooking arrangements supply food, and cisterns fur nish good water. Plantation houses are used as offices and store houses, and not for the sick. Then we differ from the Rebels in the treatment of the wounded. They scek houses; we avoid them. They crowd wounded men into close build- 22
338
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
ings and upon porches. We put up accommodations in the open air. They engender fever inflamation, dirt, vermin, and death. We, by ample ventilation, free application of water, and constant attention, soon get the wounded on their feet, and save many cases which would certainly be lost in Rebel hospitals.
"I found most of our wounded in good spirits and good health. All that are now there are recovering. Most of them are able to get under the fine trees that abound, and enjoy the splendid breeze that comes down the river. The smell of the China trees and the rich magnolias, joined with a thousand indescribable sweetnesses with which the air is laden, do more to strengthen and refresh these poor fellows than all the medicines in the dispensary.
" They all, too, give evidence of the sympathy and thought- fulness of their friends at home. They have clean clothes and clean beds, furnished by the sanitary associations North, and the great abundance of vegetable food, necessaries and luxuries, come from the same source. The wounded are patient and uncomplaining. Most of them are anxious to rejoin their regiments. Many will have to be discharged. Many totally disabled for life, others but partially injured, they present an aggregate of suffering that challenges the sympathy and consideration of those for whom their great sacrifices are made.
" These men are the true heroes of the war; not the offi- cers, upon whom too generally falls all the credit of success- ful action. They bear the weight of the heavy blows sent by the enemy, while the glory earned by them too often set- tles round those who, though more prominent upon record, are less so upon the field."
·
339
PREPARATION TO RECEIVE ASSAULT.
CHAPTER XV.
BATTLE OF HELENA.
During the siege of Vicksburg, Helena lay insignificant and unnoticed, its force diminished to a garrison of three thousand eight hundred, and preserved from the rust of in- activity only by the depredations of guerillas in the vicinity, and the spiteful but feeble demonstrations of detached Rebel regiments. It was not, however, forgotten by the Confeder- ate government, and was destined to be the scene of a bloody struggle. The last of June, rumors reached General Prentiss, who was now in command of the fort, of the secret concentration and swift approach of forces from the south of Missouri, and from all quarters of Arkansas, under Price, Marmaduke, Parsons, Fagin, McRae and Walker, with General Holmes as Commander-in-Chief. Owing to high waters, neither secresy nor swiftness attended the operations of the Rebels, and their approach was prepared for and ex- pected several days before it occurred. At daylight of July 4, they were announced by pickets, who fell back steadily and gallantly, loading and firing until they reached the in- trenchments. The First Indiana cavalry, whose encamp- ment was without the works, rapidly removed tents and baggage within the circuit, and formed line of battle behind the Fifth Kansas, in the open flat above the town. The battery attached to the regiment hastened forward up the levee, under Lieutenant Lefler, and supported by companies M and L, which were dismounted. Other cavalry and artil- lery took a similar position south of the town. The gun- boat Tyler prepared to take part in the defence. Infantry regiments in line of battle supported the batteries, which were on the hills-A on the extreme right, B next, C on Graveyard hill, and D on Hindman's hill, all connected by
340
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
rifle-pits. The Forty-Third Indiana, under Major Norris, was in support of battery D, a portion of it across the mouth of a ravine. Holmes' forees were double those of Prentiss, and were skillfully arranged for a simultaneous advance and attack. Walker, with cavalry, moved toward the north of the line; Marmaduke, with infantry, to the north-west; Priee, with nearly half the entire force, advanced to the assault of Graveyard hill, and Fagin to Hindman's hill.
At every point the attack failed. Walker made but pre- liminary movements, being successfully held back by the ar- tillery and musketry on the levee. Marmaduke, exposed to a heavy flanking fire, for want of Walker's support, desisted after a single attempt. Price's troops poured over the breast- works on Graveyard hill, in a dark continuous stream, and stormed the battery; but having been forced to leave their guns behind, and finding ours in an unserviceable condition, they were exposed, almost defenceless, to a dreadful fire on either hand, at first of artillery alone, but soon of musketry in addition, the First Indiana and other regiments rushing to a break in their line, over ravines and eliffs, ereeping on their hands and knees where they could not run, and leaping where they could not ereep.
More than a third fell or surrendered. The rest were glad to get off the ground as fast as their feet eould carry them.
Fagin also left his artillery beyond the abatis. With in- fantry alone, not more than four regiments, he climbed and ran and fought, until he gained the rifle-pits on Hindman's hill. He then formed for an assault on battery D, and being relieved by Price's success, of a heavy enfilading fire from Graveyard hill, he made a bold rush. He was repulsed. He dashed forward again to be again repulsed, and thus repeat- edly, and while suffering from heat, thirst and fatigue. At eleven, Holmes withdrew, thoroughly discomfited, and with a loss of two thousand, more or less. He says less. Prentiss reports more.
The First Indiana, under Lieutenant Colonel Pace, and the Forty-Third, behaved with great gallantry in the defence of Helena. The Forty-Third captured more men than the regi- ment numbered. The First, beside capturing about a hun-
341
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH.
dred men, threw away more than half its carbines, supplying their place on the field with the enemy's Enfield rifles.
The negro troops at Helena were not without an honora- ble share in the battle. Standing behind intrenchments less than three feet high, they received and flung back a heavy storming party which had thrown itself upon them in an ar- rogant assumption of success through the mere power of complexion. A Rebel Colonel, who was in the assault, af- terward in strong terms described to Colonel Rose, then a prisoner in Texas, the consternation of the assailants when they found themselves not only fairly met, but fairly mas- tered.
One of the negro camps was burned, but the school house which Mr. Sawyer had built, and which was the first free school house ever built in Arkansas, was left standing. That which the Rebels feared and hated most, they failed to destroy.
With the battle of Helena ended the series of victories which, in one day, extended from Pennsylvania to Arkansas. The sun of the Fourth of July, 1863, traversed a bloody but shining path. It rose on the defeated Lee withdrawing from Gettysburg, passed over the crestfallen Pemberton sullenly surrendering Vicksburg, and set on the broken army of Gen- eral Holmes, retreating from the region of the Mississippi.
342
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER XVI.
PORT HUDSON.
On the fall of Vicksburg President Lincoln congratulated General Grant that the Mississippi now "went unvexed to the sea." Port Hudson, however, still stood, and still was defiant, though suffering, and in such weakness that the sim- ple announcement of the surrender of the greater fortress was sufficient to complete its overthrow.
Port Hudson, situated on a sharp bend of the Mississippi and on a high, broken bluff, had all the protection which bountiful nature could afford of creek, bayou, swamp, tangled wood and hill, and all the strength which could be derived from the most elaborate and skillfully executed fortifications. Its inner line of defense was three or four miles long. Its outer line stretched ten miles in a semi-circle from the Missis- sippi on the south, to Thompson's creek on the north, where a swamp, reaching toward the river, rendered artificial works superfluous. But its main defense was a brave and numer- ous garrison, under a fine, determined, gray-headed com- mander, Colonel Gardner.
During the winter and spring, General Banks frequently cast an anxious eye on this formidable fastness; in March he approached its rear and threatened an attack, while Farra- gut with his fleet passed the front; but he did not sit down to a siege until he had, with much marching and some fight- ing, driven the enemy from southern, central and western Louisiana, and beguiled part of the garrison to other points, and until his compeer, Grant, after a series of battles, had coiled his forces round Vicksburg.
On the 21st of May, Banks landed five miles above Port Hudson, on the east bank of the Mississippi, with troops which had marched, or which had been transported on steamboats
343
SIEGE OF PORT HUDSON.
from Semmesport, on Red river. At the same time, Gen- cral Augur advanced from Baton Rouge with forces which had been quartered at New Orleans. After repulsing and driving the enemy within his outer works, the two bodies effected a junction and established a besieging line in the following order from right to left: Weitzel, Grover, Painc, Augur and W. T. Sherman, the left extending to the river, the right to Thompson's creek. The usual labors of a siege then began. These were all the harder that the sun was burning, that the surrounding country, poor at the best, was now exhausted, that the inhabitants were bitterly hostile, that the Rebel sharpshooters were untiring and unfailing, and that the besiegers were scarcely more numerous than the besieged, and were many of them nine-months men, whose term of service was about expiring.
On the twenty-seventh, an attempt, useless as it was bloody, was made to storm works which were invulnerable to direct assault. At the close of the day a truce was asked and granted for the burial of the dead. Banks' loss thus far amounted to one thousand, and included some of his best officers. June 10, an effort, under the protection of artillery, to draw the lines closer, was relinquished after heavy loss.
On the fourteenth, a second assault was made, heralded as the first had been by a bombardment, and carried on un- der showers of fire. Seven hundred men fell. The lines on the left were advanced from one to two hundred yards to a hill which commanded the citadel, an outlying work in front of a triple or double line of parapets at the southern end of the intrenchments, and an essential part of the fortress.
After the second assault, operations consisted entirely of ditching and mining, sharpshooting, skirmishing and batter- ing. Each day the lines drew up more closely, and more . surely hemmed the enemy in. Balls penetrated to every part of the fortress. Every exposed gun was ruined by the accurate aim and prompt firing of our cannoneers. Saps were dug to the line of defences. The citadel was made a special object of attack, and round it tree-tops were cut square off, trunks were splintered or bored through and through, and the earth was swept clean of bushes and weeds
344
THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
by balls, while the ground was pierced by shot and dug into cellar-like holes by exploding bombs. Under the citadel a deep, wide mine awaited the powder and the match, when the besiegers heard intelligence of the fall of Vicksburg. Guns and cheers on river and land announced the tidings to the enemy.
The garrison capitulated without delay. It had been reduced in part to mule meat, and had caten rats, but it pre- sented a less gaunt and emaciated appearance than the be- sieging force. General Banks' troops were wearied and worn beyond all description by previous hard marching, by the climate and by the almost unprecedented toil, exposure and hard fare of the siege.
Nearly three thousand men fell before Port Hudson. In- cluding the garrison, which, at the time of the surrender, numbered six thousand four hundred and eight, the captures amounted to ten thousand five hundred and eighty-four men, with guns and small arms, steamboat, cotton and commis- sary stores of immense value.
The following report, somewhat condensed, of the Colonel of the Twenty-First Indiana, gives an account of the opera- tions of the only Indiana troops which were engaged in the siege. In February, 1863, the Twenty-First was removed from infantry to heavy artillery service. In the intervening time it drilled in New Orleans, except during the Teche cam- paign in April, in which it participated, the men manning their guns like old artillerists:
" PORT HUDSON, July 15, 1863.
"Brigadier General Richard Arnold:
"On the twenty-third of May, with batteries A, B, G, H and K, of my regiment, under command respectively of Cap- tains Roy, Grimsley, McLaflin, Connelly and Cox, I ar- rived in front of Port Hudson and reported to General Augur, who ordered me to park my artillery at a point a mile and a half from the enemy's works. On the evening of the twenty- sixth I was joined by Captain Hamrick with battery E.
"At one o'clock the next morning, I commenced posting my batteries as follows: K nine hundred and seventy-five
315
POSITION OF BATTERIES.
yards from the parapet, on the right flank of General Augur's front; G to the left of K; B on the right flank of General Augur's front, twenty-two hundred yards from the enemy's intrenchments, protected by a rude earthwork thrown up during the night; H at a point of woods to the right of B, and E on the left of B. The positions were taken under cover of darkness and without alarming the enemy.
" I sent Battery A to General Sherman, commanding the extreme left. The first section was posted eight hundred and fifty yards from the enemy's works, and fired during the day four hundred rounds, disabling a forty-two-pounder rifled gun of the enemy. The second section, fifteen hundred yards from the parapet, fired two hundred and fifty rounds, and dismounted a nine-pounder brass piece. At night the " second section rejoined the first, and both remained in this position, firing one gun every fifteen minutes at the parapet and the woods enclosed by it, where the enemy was supposed to be in force.
" On the third of June Captain Roy was ordered on duty as Major, and the command of the battery devolved on Lieu- tenant Hall. During the day it changed its position to a point on the left, and was engaged by two nine-pound rifles, two six-pound smooth bores, one twenty-pound Parrott, and two twenty-four-pound rifled guns. So well was it served that all the enemy's guns were silenced, and he was driven from them. From the fourth to the eighth one shot every fifteen minutes was thrown inside the works. On the night of the ninth the battery advanced three hundred yards. Dur- ing the assault of the next day it fired on the enemy's guns whenever presented, and in every instance silenced them. The battery shelled the works inside the fortifications until the fourteenth, when it covered the assaulting column, firing four hundred rounds. On the six following days it fired twenty rounds a day on the parapets and works. On the twenty-second it advanced four hundred yards nearer, where it kept up a desultory fire until the surrender.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.