USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. I > Part 25
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THE KANSAS COLORED REGIMENTS.
The number of volunteer soldiers from Wyandotte county that served in the colored regiments was: 206 in the First Colored Regiment, 102 in the Second, 35 in the Independent Colored Kansas Battery, and 80 in the Eighteenth United States Colored Infantry. The total was 483.
THE BATTLES THEY FOUGHT.
The soldiers that went from Wyandotte county with the First Regi- ment Kansas Volunteer Infantry saw hard service from the start. While the regiment was lying in its original eamp, a rebel flag was displayed at the village of Iatan, across the river in Missouri, about eight miles
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above Leavenworth. Sergeant Denning, with a squad of six men, pro- ceeded, without orders, on June 5th. to hanl down the insolent flag. Three of these men were wounded, but they brought the flag to camp as a trophy and evidence of their snecess. In due time the regiment broke camp, and moved toward the field of war, and on July 7th it effected a junction with the army of General Lyon. Afterward, on August 10th, it participated in the battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri, where it suffered considerable loss in killed and wounded. It then fell back with the army to Rolla, that state. . Soon after Beauregard evacu- ated Corinth, Mississippi, the First Kansas arrived at Pittsburg Land- ing, where the great battle of Shiloh had been fought on the 6th and 7th of the previous April. Reinforcements not being necessary there, General Halleck sent the regiment to Columbus, Kentucky. The regi- ment led the pursuit of the rebels, as part of General MePherson's brigade, after the battles of October 3 and 4, 1862, at Corinth, and participated in the campaigns against Vieksburg, in Mississippi. After February 1. 1863. the First Kansas was mounted, and for the next eighteen months it served as mounted infantry, being a very effective branch of the army. After the fall of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863, it was ordered to Natchez, Mississippi, to hold that post. In October follow- ing it was returned to Vieksburg, and stationed on an outpost on Black River bridge, with picket posts on both sides of the river. It also ac- companied General MeArthur's expedition up the Yazoo river.
Upon the expiration of its term of service (June 3, 1864), all of the men, except recruits whose terms of enlistment had not expired and two companies of re-enlisted veterans, embarked on board the transport "Arthur," and moved to Leavenworth, where they were mustered ont, June 16, 1864. The veterans of the regiment continued in the service in the states of Mississippi. Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas, until after the close of the war, and were mustered out at Little Rock, Arkansas, August 30, 1865.
FIGHTING IN THE OZARKS.
The Second Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry as originally formed participated in the battle at Wilson Creek. After it was re- organized as cavalry. the regiment chased and routed several southern raiding parties, and on October 4th, it was sent to Newtonia to re- enforce Brigadier General Solomon. Afterward, on October 20, 1862, it did good service at Pea Ridge, or Elkhorn, in Arkansas. A Con- federate battery, consisting of four guns, was eaptured by this regiment. It was manned and was thereafter known as Hopkin's Battery, and continued to aet with the regiment. In November following, the See- ond Kansas moved with the army of General Curtis toward Fort Smith, Arkansas, and participated in the action near Rhea's Mills on the 7th,
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and in the action near Boonesboro on the 28th of November. Again, on the 6th and 7th of December following, it was engaged in the action on Cove Creek, near Fayetteville, Arkansas; in all of which engagements the Union forces were successful.
It also bore a prominent part in the expedition which, on August 23, 1863, crossed the Arkansas river to Holly Springs, in the Indian Territory, afterward captured Fort Smith, Arkansas, and drove the enemy from the northwestern part of that state. During the winter of 1863-4 this regiment did effective service in Arkansas, capturing a goodly number of prisoners. During the spring and summer of 1864 it served under General Steele in the southern Arkansas, and did much effective work. It continued to operate in that state and the Indian Territory until its final muster ont. It received many recruits in Arkansas after helping to drive the armed enemy ont. It did very effective service, and its history in detail would make a very readable book. Some of its men having served their full time, were mustered out in April, 1865, at Little Rock ; others, June 22, 1865, at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory ; others, at Leavenworth, Kansas, at different times; and still others were mustered ont on different dates at several other places. The greater number of the regiment, however, were mastered out at Leavenworth.
POWELL CLAYTON'S COMMAND.
Two companies of the Fifth Kansas Cavalry left Leavenworth in July, 1861, coming to Kansas City. Their first engagement was at Harrisonville, Missouri, where the enemy was driven from the town. The regiment participated in the fight at Drywood September 2nd, and in the action at Morristown on the 17th, where Colonel Johnson was killed. It went into winter quarters at Camp Denver, and in February, 1862, Lieutenant Colonel Powell Clayton became its colonel and assumed command. The regiment was then thoroughly drilled and made useful. On March 19th following, it made valuable captures at Carthage, Missouri, making prisoners a company of guerrillas then and there forming. Afterward the regiment entered Arkansas, and in the sum- mer following it routed an Arkansas regiment of cavalry from the town of Salem, in that state, and a large force of Texas rangers on Black river, near Jacksonport. The detachment winning these victories was under command of Captain Criets. Afterward, at the battle of Helena, the regiment won distinction and rendered valnable service under Gen- eral Steele in the capture of Little Rock, Arkansas. On October 25, 1863, the Fifth Kansas had a hard fight with a Confederate force much superior in numbers and lost thirty-seven men, but held its position, the loss of the enemy being greater. Following this, the regiment did much service in southern Arkansas and elsewhere in the state. It was with Vol. I-14
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General Steele at Mark's Mills, when the enemy captured his baggage train and a few of his men. On September 17th there was a hard fight at Warren Cross Roads and part of the Union forces were scattered, but the Fifth Kansas, First Indiana and Seventh Missouri repelled the enemy and saved the artillery from capture. The remainder of the service of the regiment was of less note. The men of the regiment were mustered out at various times and places, when they had finished their term of service, and the re-enlisted veterans were mustered out June 22, 1865, at Devall's Bluff, Arkansas.
PROTECTORS OF THE SOUTHERN BORDER.
Garrison duty and scouting constituted the first work of the Sixth Cavalry, which was organized for the defense of the southern frontier of the state. The battle of Drywood was commenced by a company of this command. In the spring of 1862 the regiment was re-organized and made more effective. It then gave attention to guerrillas and bushwhackers, and succeeded in breaking up some small companies of guerrillas under the notorious Quantrell and others; it also broke up not less than eight companies of bushwhackers, killing and wounding a large number, withont suffering much loss. In June, 1862, the Sixth won distinction in the fight of Cowskin Prairie, and, on July 4th follow- ing, it chased the retreating forces of Confederates, when Colonel Clarkson and a number of his men were captured. On that day two companies of the regiment routed the enemy at Stanwattie's Mills and captured a large amount of provisions. The same month a detachment of the regiment captured the Cherokee chief, John Ross, who was fight- ing for the south. In August the Sixth accompanied a command toward the Missouri river in pursuit of the noted General Cooper and his command. The latter was overtaken and defeated at the Osage river. Scouting and skirmishing were successfully continued by the Sixth until September 30th when it participated in the battle of New- tonia and covered the retirement of the united forces. It then assisted in the several actions which resulted in driving the enemy across the Boston mountains.
The Sixth was at the battle of Prairie Grove, in Washington eounty, Arkansas, which took place on December 7. 1862, and afterward assisted in capturing Van Buren, Fort Gibson and Fort Davis, and then returned to Missouri for winter quarters. Recruiting was carried on to some extent during the early winter and the spring of 1863. The Sixth took part in the fight and capture of Holly Springs, July 18. 1863, and then performed scouting service until it joined Steele's army and took part in the Camden expedition, being in the skirmish at Prairie de Anne on April 10th following, and the fight at Aebin Creek on September 19, 1864. It participated in many small engagements and continued aetive
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until hostilities eeased. The men were mustered out at various places and dates, the last of the veterans being honorably discharged July 18, 1865, at Devall's Bluff, Arkansas.
WHEN COLONEL CLARKSON WAS CAPTURED.
After performing many minor services the Tenth Infantry took part in the expedition against Colonel Clarkson, on July 3, 1862, which resulted in the capture of this officer and 155 of his men, besides the killing and wounding of about seventy of the enemy. The Tenth was repeatedly opposed to the officers, Coffey and Coekrell, and it assisted in the pursuit of the Confederates in their retreat from Newtonia. In the fall of 1882 the regiment participated in the campaign in northwest Arkansas, and was lightly engaged in action at Cane Hill and Prairie Grove, losing in the latter engagement twenty-three per cent of its men.
The Tenth moved out of camp on December 27, 1862, to strike Ilindman at Van Buren. and put an end to his army. Marmaduke next invited the attention of the Tenth, with a force of 6,000 cavalry advancing to Springfield, Missouri. The regiment made a forced march to that place in conjunction with a brigade of cavalry in very severe weather, making thirty-five miles a day, and by their advance forced Marmaduke to retreat. The brigade followed the Confederate and routed him at Sand Spring, thirty miles beyond Springfield, and that general in his hurried retreat fell into the hands of General Warren, who completed his discomfiture. The campaign of 1862 was concluded in a manner very honorable for the Tenth. The regiment was mustered out of service in August, 1864, but immediately re-organized as veterans. It then served against Hood in Tennessee (at Columbia, Franklin, Nashville), and in pursuit of the routed foe winning distinction, al- ways being assigned to the skirmish line on every important occasion ; and their losses abundantly testify to their courage and endurance. The regiment was dispatched to Fort Gaines, Alabama, on March 7, 1865, and operated in that line of country until a junetion was effeeted with General Steele. and the works of the enemy at Fort Blakely captured. The Tenth was named in the reports officially made in a manner exceedingly gratifying to the state. The final muster out occurred on September 20, 1865, at Fort Leavenworth.
THE TWELFTH CAVALRY'S MANY BATTLES.
In the spring of 1863 the Twelfth Cavalry, in which Wyandotte county had many brave fighters, was moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the following fall it went to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and thenee, in the spring of 1864, it participated in the Camden expedition, remaining at Camden about ten days and then falling baek to Little
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Roek, Arkansas, with Steele's army. It was in the fight at Prairie de Anne, and on April 30th it bravely repulsed the enemy's advance at Jenkins' Ferry, which enabled the Union troops safely to cross the Saline river and make a safe retreat to Little Rock. After staying a few days at Little Rock, the regiment went baek to Fort Smith, where it remained until fall; then returned to Little Rock, where it spent the winter. It was mustered out June 30, 1865.
The services of the Fifteenth regiment of Kansas Cavalry were confined largely to expeditions against bushwhackers and marauders. This service was well performed, although no brilliant fighting is re- eorded for the eavalry.
The Sixteenth Kansas Cavalry came into serviee too late to share in the fighting with the regiments formed earlier. Its service at home in proteeting the people from the Indians and guerrillas, however, was well performed.
CHAPTER XX.
THE GREAT BATTLE OF THE BLUE.
GENERAL PRICE'S BOLD PLAN-THE FIGIIT ON THE LITTLE BLUE- SITUATION BEFORE THE BIG BATTLE THE DASH FOR KANSAS-THE CROSSING AT BYROM'S FORD-COLONEL VEALE'S HEROIC STAND-AS A PARTICIPANT SAW IT-THE REBEL YELL-FIGHTING TO THE DEATH-THE TOPEKA BATTERY'S LOSS-AS GENERAL DEITZLER TOLD IT.
It seems fitting that the region about Kansas City and Westport, Wyandotte, Shawnee Mission and Independence, wherein were enacted those scenes of border strife that finally precipitated the Civil war, should, in the fall of 1864, furnish the setting for the great contest be- tween the Federal and Confederate armies that had much to do with hastening the final victory for the canse of the Union. The Battle of the Blue, as it is known in history, is overshadowed by many of those great battles that distinguished the Civil war of the United States as the bloodiest conflict that ever was known among civilized men in the annals of war. Yet the Battle of the Blue was a momentous struggle that is well worth telling in detail, since it is a part of the history of Kansas and Missouri and of the region about the great eity that has been builded on a part of the battlefield.
The preparation, the march, the disastrous vietory so dearly bought, the capture, the captivity that was filled with experiences made gro- tesque by useless cruelty, the escape of a few, the final parole of others, the hardships that resulted in a lingering death to many ;- all this may be included in the history of about eleven days; from October 14 to 25, 1864.
By the time the great war had reached the year in which the Battle of the Blue occurred we were almost a nation of soldiers; trained and hardy veterans whose serried blue lines had been thinned a hundred times, who had won or lost innumerable fields historic as the bloodiest in modern history. These men were extraordinary in being merely citizens. They were called out in a sudden emergency. They were untrained, not nniformed; had with them none of the vast and compli- cated machinery which clothes, feeds and nurses a modern army in the field. They were fresh from home. Wives and children and peaceful occupations were vivid in their minds. They did not know how to
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camp and march and fight. £ They knew that they were unknown; a straggling band of citizens to whom was lacking even the corps-badge they might make renowned. They saw no regimental colors flaunting from the midst of a stalwart line, a rallying-point and leader above the purple smoke. They were woefully unequal even in numbers to the foe they went to meet; and they knew that too.
So it occurs that those who went out at last to meet the host under General Price were as a remnant. The call to arms included every able-bodied man. The intention was that a defenseless people in Kansas City and Wyandotte, who lay between the Confederate army and the stores at Fort Leavenworth, should be easily overrun. Resistance would be impossible.
GENERAL PRICE'S BOLD PLAN.
The history preceding the raid of the rebel lieutenant general, Sterling Price, is embodied in official reports and numerous books. It was a bold conception, made possible by a series of reverses to our arms in the southwest. Bank's Red River expedition had failed. Two months later a conjoint movement under General Steele was ended with equal disaster. Then the Price raid was planned, and finally lacked little of snecessful execution. The high-water mark of this great raid was reached on October 22, 1864, on the banks of the Big Blue, in western Missouri, about eight miles east of the Kansas line. Up to this date the direction of the raiding column, an army of at least thirty thousand men of all arms, and all grades from the veteran Confederate to the homesick country conseript and the border bushwhacker, had been northward. From that date it was turned south, waging that running fight with pursuing enemies down the state line which is so well remembered by surviving prisoners. Around this little point, diminutive on the map of Missouri, the interest of this present narra- tive centers.
The movements of the strong rebel force near the town of Westport, Missouri, and near the eastern line of Kansas, were, on October 20 and 21, 1864, very extensive. Many pages of tersely written deseriptions fail to convey to any but the closest student more than a confused idea of them. Let us attempt to condense, in plain terms, the story of the events that led to this final cheek by a handful of men.
The famous battle, or defence, of Lexington was fought by Colonel Mulligan, of Illinois, in 1861. The last battle, the battle of Lexington of the campaign of the Price raid, was fought by Blunt. So far as known it was also the last personal fight of the celebrated James H. Lane, who here took a carbine and stood in the skirmish-line with the Jayhawkers of the Second Brigade. It was a fight only to check and hinder, without hope of a decisive victory, and represented the hardest
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possible military service. Backward along the Independence road successive lines of battle were formed, and the retreating fight continued briskly for more than six miles. Some characteristic Jayhawkers were there. One of them, Jack Curtis, distinguished himself by cutting his company out and rejoining his eommand after having been completely ontflanked and eut off in the retreat. No one had known until now precisely where or how strong Price's army was, or which way he was marching. An army of twenty-eight thousand men was held in check for twenty-four hours by a cavalry force of two thousand. It was this check that reunited the militia on the Kansas line and the banks of the Blue by giving them farts, and letting that army of independent citizens know what they were there for, to a certainty. Nevertheless the militia deelined to be moved too far forward, the line of the Little Blue was not occupied by them in force, and the larger stream to the west of it known as the Big Blue was chosen instead. Military men long discussed this choice and its consequences, to no avail.
THIE FIGIIT ON THE LITTLE BLUE.
Blunt's retreat from Lexington to Independence was accomplished on the 20th of October. On the way Moonlight was left at the Little Blue with about six hundred men and four light howitzers. There is not space to enter now into the details of his battle. The fight of the Little Blue was known to be a certainty and accordingly began early on the morning of October 21st. As soon as it opened, troops began to be forwarded to the west bank of the Big Blue, and General Deitzler was placed in command there. It will thus be seen how operations came to
be transferred to this stream. It was a good line of defense. The stream was larger and deeper than the other, with wooded banks and steep slopes on the western side. The Judgment of the militia ap- proved it, and under the circumstances they were right. It is difficult to get artillery across a sizable stream under fire, and Price was known to have some guns that had onee been ours.
But after the battle of the Little Blue began, Colonel Moonlight was re-inforced until the command, now in the hands of General Curtis, with Blunt in immediate command, numbered about two thousand five hundred men, mostly veterans. While the battle was progressing, the enemy being in heavy force, General Curtis superintended the evacua- tion of Independence and the transfer of the militia force, supplies, etc., to the line of defense on the Big Blue.
It will not answer to underrate the magnitude and importance of Moonlight's engagement. It lasted eight hours. For three of these the confederates were held back by six hundred men. It was most skillfully fought, and employed before it was over three divisions of Price's army, outnumbering the Union forces ten to one. The last
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line of battle was formed in the outskirts of Independence. The loss of the Confederates was about two to one of the Union soldiers. Night came and the battle ended, and meantime, in the delay caused by it, Pleasanton's forces were coming nearer and nearer, his eavalry was al- most within striking distance, and the militia were being rapidly organized. This was the situation on the evening of October 21st. Meantime it must be remembered that Rosecrans was in the rear of Price's army. On the night after the morning that the retreat of Blunt from Lexington was begun General MeNeil, with a cavalry column of Roseerans' army, was within ten miles of that place. On the morning of the 22nd this same foree was at the crossing of the Little Blue, where Moonlight's battle in retreat began the day before. They built a bridge to cross the artillery, the same having been burned the previous day, and were soon after engaged with the enemy in the streets of Independence and driving him southwest toward the eastern banks of the Big Blue, on the western side of which the Kansas men and some volunteers were posted, covering a distance of abont fifteen miles. They had camped in position there on the night of Friday, October 21, 1864.
SITUATION BEFORE THE BIG BATTLE.
There has so far been an attempt to place before the reader, with- ent elaborate details or a prolonged history of complicated military movements, the situation that led to that battle of the Blue, with which this story has to do. The heads of this situation may be now stated, thus : The Price raid was a military movement of magnitude, with a purpose almost as ambitions as Sherman's march to the sea. There were included in its divisions about thirty thousand men.
These men were mainly trained and hardened veterans. No more formidable body of cavalry, perhaps, ever existed than Shelby's divi- sion, and their commander was a splendid soldier, entitled to rank as such regardless of his uniform. This formidable body of men, known to us as Price's army, was burdened, not helped, by a horde of con- scripts gathered on the march. The regiments of guerrillas, "Border Ruffians," are not to be classed among these, but they were hard riders and keen fighters.
The course of the great raid through Missouri was, as direetly as circumstances would permit, toward Leavenworth, and the immense accumulations of war material in the fort immediately above the city.
Major General Rosecrans, commanding the Department of Missouri, did not know as definitely as he should have known about Priee, his course, his force, his intentions or his destination. These were not dis- covered until Blunt's demonstration at Lexington, and the masterly retreat therefrom. This want of information, the indefiniteness of rumors and the conflict of news, disheartened the militia upon whom
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the chief defense of Kansas was finally to devolve. The essential dif- ference between the citizen soldier and the veteran is that the former insists upon thinking for himself, and arrives at conclusions on his own account. £ When he has done so, he will act independently. It is a habit of his entire previous life.
THE DASH FOR KANSAS.
The first turning point in Price's raid was at Independence, on the night of October 21st. Thence he turned nearly south to the east bank of the Big Blue. The enemy, once there, and now pressed behind, tried to still turn westward and get into Kansas. He did not know, could not have known, what was in front of him beyond what he had fought between Lexington and Independence. The rest was guess- work and risk. He had an immense wagon train-his burden and his pride. No one will ever know precisely what he intended to do after the check at Independence, but he did not then know the actual situation of the Confederacy, and may have intended to establish the Confederate supremacy over an immense area in the west, including at least Missouri and all Kansas and the southwest. There was undoubtedly a vague idea, in the beginning, of diverting forces from the east and weakening the armies there engaged. The situation of Kansas, had he succeeded in the attempt of the afternoon of the 22nd, may be left to the imagination.
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