USA > Missouri > A history of northwest Missouri, Volume III > Part 3
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General Prentiss spent his early childhood in Virginia, and from there his parents moved to Quincy, Illinois. His education came from the country schools of Virginia, and afterwards from a private military school. Migrating west in 1836, he located in Marion County, Missouri, and engaged in the manufacture of cordage. In the spring of 1841 he went to Quincy and established himself in the same business with his father. During the Mormon excitement at Nauvoo, Illinois, he was in the service of the state, and at the opening of the Mexican war he was appointed adjutant of the First Illinois Infantry. With this regi- ment he served through the entire war, first as first lieutenant and aft- erwards as captain of Company I, which he commanded under Gen- eral Taylor at the battle of Buena Vista.
It was during his residence at Palmyra, Missouri, that the mettle of General Prentiss' character was tested. A small man in physical stature, but with extraordinary courage and force of intellect and will, he never hesitated in the presence of anyone to uphold his ideas of morals and politics. He possessed decided convictions on the subject of slavery and other economic questions which finally were settled by the ar- bitrament of war, and expressed himself characteristically and freely in whatever community he lived. Palmyra at that time was a hotbed of secession sentiment, and young Prentiss was constantly persecuted because of his anti-slavery views. In a contest of wits and logic he was an easy victor, but not all his battles were of that character. He fre- quently engaged in personal combat, though not as an aggressor, and it became almost a common practice for the southerners in that town to set upon the valiant young abolitionist the strongest bully who could be induced to attack him. So far as can be ascertained, there was never a case in which Prentiss did not prove himself master of the situation, and when he left Palmyra he had at least the thorough respect if not the friendship of every resident. After his return to Quincy and also after the war, General Prentiss was engaged in business as a commis- sion merchant and also as a manufacturer of cordage. With the out- break of hostilities between the North and South he was one of the first to respond with the offer of his services. At the first call for troops he sent a telegram to the governor of Illinois, tendering two companies, and has the distinction of having been the first officer com- missioned by the state. Beginning as a captain, he was promoted to
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major, from that to colonel, and then to the rank of brigadier-general before reaching the actual scene of hostilities. General Prentiss was placed in command at Cairo at the beginning of the war and established a blockade of the Mississippi River. While there he was waited upon by a delegation of Kentuckians, who protested against the landing of troops on Kentucky soil. This delegation reminded him that Kentucky was a sovereign state, the peer of Illinois, but to this General Prentiss replied that when the President called for troops to defend the Union, Illinois promptly furnished her quota, while Kentucky had failed to respond, and consequently her wishes were not entitled to the same consideration.
After leaving Cairo General Prentiss was ordered by General Fre- mont to Jefferson City, Missouri, to take command of all North and Central Missouri. He fought at Mount Zion and a number of other minor engagements in the state. Subsequently being ordered to the field by General Halleck, he proceeded to Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, where he arrived April 1st, and organized and took command of the Sixth Division, Army of the Tennessee. It was there that his reputa- tion as a military leader was secured beyond all peradventure. The historians of that great battle have all united in giving General Prentiss' command credit for maintaining the integrity of the Union position during the first day, and thus insuring what amounted to a virtual vic- tory for the Union arms. It will be recalled that the other federal generals in council doubted that the Confederates were massed in force at Shiloh, and at his own request General Prentiss was permitted to send a small force forward to ascertain whether the enemy was not there in force. Five companies from General Prentiss' division were selected for that task, and these troops while reconnoitering received the first onslaughts of the enemy, arrested their charge and thus gave the Union army time to form the line of battle. The Confederates at- tacked in such force and with such energy that General Sherman's corps and all the other commands were compelled to give ground, and General Prentiss himself had to retire to a better position. At his com- mand his troops finally took position in the old Sunken Road, and there their resistance was so deadly that the Confederates called the place the "Hornet's Nest," and there the most sanguinary struggle of the day was centered. It was while General Prentiss was holding this line that General Grant came up, and requested him to hold the road until sundown at all hazards. General Prentiss gave his promise, and he afterwards stated that again and again he looked for the setting sun, and was almost convinced from the slowness with which that lumi- nary moved toward the western horizon, that it had surely caught upon a snag. No reinforcements were sent to his hard-pressed troops, and at 5.30 in the evening General Prentiss and his 2,200 soldiers were captured. For the following seven months he endured the rigors of Confederate prisons. It was during this time that newspapers pub- lished the report that the Confederates had surprised and taken Gen- eral Prentiss out of bed early in the morning on the first day. This report went all over the Union, and for a number of years remained without formal contradiction. General Prentiss declined to defend himself officially from the falsehood until 1880, when at the urging of his friends and in justice to the troops captured with him, he issued a formal statement as to the exact truth, and subsequently lectured in different parts of the country on that subject. Both General Grant and General Sherman in their memoirs published the truth about his capture and his heroic defense of the federal position, though for a number of years the calumny was allowed to persist without correction. Vol. III-2
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THE BATTLE OF SHILOH WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE SIXTH DIVISION, COMMANDED BY GENERAL PRENTISS
"On the morning of April 6, 1862, the Union forces encamped at Pittsburg Landing consisted of five divisions, commanded respectively by : First, MeClernand, 7,028 men; second, W. H. L. Wallace, 7,564 men; fourth, Hurlbut, 7,302 men; fifth, Sherman, 8,830 men; sixth, B. M. Prentiss, 5,463 men; total, 36,187 men.
"About 20 per cent of this number did not engage in the action on account of sickness, detailed for other duty and temporary absence, leaving 28,950 on active duty; with sixty-one regiments of infantry, three regiments of cavalry, and twenty-one batteries of artillery, exclu- sive of the Third Division, commanded by Gen. Lew Wallace, at Crump's Landing, seven miles below, numbering 7,564 men, not engaged in the first day's battle.
"Gen. U. S. Grant was in command of all Union forces in the vicinity of Savannah and Pittsburg Landing.
"Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston was in command of all Confederate forces in Tennessee.
"General Hickenlooper."
SIXTH DIVISION
"On the 26th day of March, 1862, General Grant, by Special Order No. 36, assigned General Prentiss to the command of unattached troops then arriving at Pittsburg Landing, with directions to organize these regiments, as they arrived upon the field, into brigades, and the brig- ades into a division, to be designated the Sixth Division.
"Under this order one brigade of four regiments, commanded by Colonel Peabody, had been organized and was encamped on west side of Eastern Corinth Road, 400 yards south of the Barnes Field. An- other brigade, commanded by Colonel Miller, Eighteenth Missouri, was partially organized. Three regiments had reported and were in camp on the east side of the Eastern Corinth Road. Other regiments on their way up the Tennessee River had been ordered to report to General Prentiss, but had not arrived.
"The Sixteenth Iowa arrived on the field on the 5th and sent its morning report to General Prentiss in time to have it included in his report of present for duty that day ; it was not fully equipped and did not disembark from the boat until the morning of the 6th. The Fif- teenth Iowa and Twenty-third Missouri arrived at the landing Sunday morning, April 6, 1862. The Twenty-third Missouri reported to Gen- eral Prentiss at his third position about 9:30 A. M., and was placed in line at once as part of his command. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Iowa were, by General Grant's order, sent to the right to reinforce McClernand. They reported to him at his fifth position in Jones' Field, and were hotly engaged from about 1 P. M. to 2:30 P. M. Hicken- looper's Fifth Ohio Battery and Munch's First Minnesota Battery and two battalions of Eleventh Illinois Cavalry had been assigned to the division and were encamped in the rear of the infantry. One company from each regiment was on picket one mile in front of the camps. On Saturday, April 5th, a reconnoitering party under Colonel Moore, Twen- ty-first Missouri, was sent to the front. Colonel Moore reported Con- federate cavalry and some evidences of an infantry force in front, but he failed to develop a regular line of the enemy. Prentiss doubled his pickets, and at 3 A. M. Sunday sent out another party of three com- panies of the Twenty-fifth Missouri, under Major Powell, to reconnoiter
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well to the front. This party encountered the Confederate picket under Major Hardcastle in Fraley's Field at 4.55 A. M. These pickets at once engaged, and continued their fire until about 6:30 A. M., when the advance of the main line of Hardee's Corps drove Powell back.
"General Prentiss, hearing the firing, formed his division at 6 A. M. and sent Peabody's brigade in advance of his camp to relieve the retir- ing pickets and posted Miller's brigade 300 yards in front of his camp, with batteries in the field at right and left of the Eastern Corinth Road. In this position the division was attacked at 8 A. M. by the brigades of Gladden, Shaver, Chalmers, and Wood and driven back to its camp, where the contest was renewed. At 9 A. M. Prentiss was compelled to abandon his camp and fall back to his third position, which he occu- pied at 9:05 A. M. in an old road between the divisions of Hurlbut and W. H. L. Wallace. Hickenlooper lost two guns in first position and Munch had two disabled. Each brought four guns into line at the Hornet's Nest. Prentiss was here joined by the Twenty-third Missouri, which gave him about one thousand men at his third position. With this force he held his line against the attacks of Shaver, Stephens and Gib- son, as described in account of Tuttle's brigade, until 4 P. M., when Hurlbut fell back and Prentiss was obliged to swing his division back at right angles to Tuttle in order to protect the left flank. When Tuttle's left regiments marched to the rear Prentiss fell back behind them towards the Corinth Road and was surrounded and captured at 5:30 P. M., near the forks of the Eastern Corinth Road. Hickenlooper and Munch withdrew just before they were surrounded, Hickenlooper reporting to Sherman and becoming engaged in the 4:30 action on the Hamburg Road. Munch's battery reported to Colonel Webster was in position at mouth of Dill Branch, where it assisted in repelling the last attack Sunday night.
"Maj. D. W. Reed, "Historian and Secretary, Shiloh National Military Park Commission."
THE HORNET'S NEST
"Slowly we retired from one defensible position to another, at each receiving the fire of well-served opposing battery, until we reached a roadway which ran at right angles to the one upon which we had been moving, well known as the "Sunken Road," having been cut some dis- tance through a low hill. Thus nature supplied a breastwork, a defensive line upon which to rally, with a prominent knoll upon which to place the battery, with front covered by almost impenetrable growth of underbrush. The Confederates made repeated charges and desperate assaults but the Union force could not be routed from their place of vantage. The dead and wounded fell like hail. A great number of the troops that fought like tigers in the "Sunken Road" were raw, had never been in battle before. The day wore on, the Union line slowly melting away, ammunition nearly exhausted. The enemy's lines were plainly seen crossing to the peach orchard in our rear, toward the only road over which escape was possible. Then General Prentiss informed me that he feared it was too late to withdraw his infantry, but I must pull out, and, if possible, reach the reserve forces in the rear. I bade the general good-bye, and under whip and spur, the remnant of our battery dashed down the road, barely escaping capture. Prentiss remained with his devoted followers, and with them accepted captivity rather than abandon the position he had been ordered to hold to the last.
General Hickenlooper."
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"Shiloh was the severest battle fought at the West during the war, and but few in the East equaled it, for hard, determined fighting. I saw an open field, in our possession on the second day, over which the Confederates had made repeated charges the day before, so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing, in any direction stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the ground. On our side, National and Confederate troops were mingled together in about equal proportions, but on the remainder of the field nearly all were Confederates. On one part, which had evidently not been plowed for years, bushes had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten feet. There was not one of these left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all cut down.
"Gen. U. S. Grant."
"The chivalry of the South was to be met by the sturdy manhood of the North. Perhaps neither Gettysburg nor any other battlefield of the war furnished a greater scene of courage and carnage than that afforded in and about that 'Peach Orchard.' It was simply an exhibi- tion of valor, and it was splendid. * Prentiss took his third position a few minutes after 9 o'clock, and here he was joined by the Twenty-third Missouri Infantry, which added about six hundred to his fragment of a division. In Prentiss' morning fights and retreat his command had dwindled to less than a thousand men, but these men gave a good account of themselves before the night fell. *
* There was much good fighting in different parts of the field, though not of such magnitude as in and about the 'Peach Orchard" and in front of the 'Hornet's Nest.' *
* * The heroic stand of Prentiss and Wallace in the old road near Duncan field had served the Union cause well. Prentiss was a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, and W. H. L. Wallace lay mortally wounded on the field held by the Confederates, but the stubborn fight, waged from half-past nine in the morning until half-past five in the afternoon, taking the whole strength of the Con- federates to subdue the spirited resistance, had saved the day to the Federal Army.
Maj. Geo. Mason,
"Secretary Illinois Shiloh Battlefield Commission."
"The first collision was in the quarter of Gladden's brigade, on our right, with a battalion of five companies of the Twenty-first Mis- souri of Prentiss' division dispatched well to the front by General Prentiss, of his own motion, as early as 3 A. M. But for this incident, due solely to the intelligent soldierly forethought of an officer not trained for the business of war, the whole Federal front would have been struck wholly unawares, for nowhere else had such prudence been shown.
"General Beauregard."
"I think it is now generally conceded that but for the foresight of General Prentiss in sending Colonel Moore to the front, the Rebels would have reached Sherman's and Prentiss' camp before 6 o'clock. It is also conceded that the heroic fight made by Prentiss at 6 o'clock, in advance of his camp, was the most important event of the battle. He checked the enemy for more than an hour, and their heavy infantry and artillery firing made it so plain to the rest of the army that a battle was unexpectedly upon them, that they moved to its sound without orders.
Colonel Andreas."
"With Hurlbut gone, and Wallace gone, Prentiss was left isolated, struck in front, in rear, and upon either flank, cut off in every attempt to escape, about half-past 5 o'clock what was left of Prentiss' division surrendered. It was this division which had received the first blow in the morning, and made the last organized resistance in the afternoon. The whole Confederate line advanced, resulting at first in the confusion
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of the enemy, and then in the death of W. H. L. Wallace and the sur- render of Prentiss. These generals have received scant justice for their stubborn defense. They had agreed to hold their position at all odds, and did so until Wallace received his fatal wound, and Prentiss was surrounded and captured, with nearly three thousand men. This delay was the salvation of Grant's army.
"Col. Wm. P. Johnston."
"Prentiss' vigilance gave the first warning of the actual danger, and, in fact, commenced the contest. This spirited beginning gave the first alarm to the divisions of Sherman and Prentiss. The latter promptly formed his division and moved a quarter of a mile in advance of his camp, where he was attacked before Sherman was under arms. With the rawest troops in the army, his vigilance gave the earliest warning of danger, and offered absolute resistance to its approach; though broken in the advance, he rallied in fine with Hurlbut and Wallace and firmly held his ground until completely surrounded.
"General Buell."
"The final victory of that battle was one of the most important which has ever occurred on this continent. It dissipated forever that nonsense of 'one southern man whipping a dozen Yankees.' It gave us the prestige which we had only to follow up, as we did at Corinth, Iuka, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Columbia, and Raleigh-yea, to the end of the war-to insure absolute success.
"General Sherman."'
After being exchanged, General Prentiss was commissioned a major general of volunteers for his gallantry at the battle of Shiloh. He served on the court-martial in the case of Gen. Fitz John Porter, and he was the last member of that court to pass away. At the close of this trial he was ordered to report to General Grant at Milliken's Bend, by whom he was assigned the command of the eastern district of Ar- kansas, with headquarters at Helena. Here on the 4th of July, 1863, he commanded the Union forces in the battle of Helena, gaining a de- cided victory over the enemy, whose forces were equal to four times his number.
The political career of General Prentiss began a number of years before the war. He was a republican from the organization of the party, and in 1860 was nominated by the Quincy district for Congress. During that year he spoke from the same platform with Oglesby, Inger- soll, Palmer, Yates and Lincoln, and was a companion of Lincoln when the latter spoke in his district. On the first occasion in which General Prentiss spoke with Mr. Lincoln, the future president made a charac- teristic speech, and said about all there was to be said. When he sat down "Captain Prentiss" was introduced as a candidate for Congress, and being sadly embarrassed by the presence of Mr. Lincoln, leaped from his chair and landed flat-footed on the table in the center of the stage. He did this to attract the attention of the audience and per- haps also it removed some of his embarrassment. When he started into his speech he began in his usual fiery and entertaining way and kept the audience laughing for a few minutes and then sat down. Lincoln with his ready sympathy had divined his predicament and understood the reason for his action, and at the conclusion of his speech leaned over and said, "Young man, when you come in contact with great men, rub up against them and you will find there is not much differ- ence after all." In that campaign General Prentiss was defeated, since that congressional district was not yet ready to accept the doctrines of a new party, but throughout the remaining years of his Illinois residence was in great demand as a speaker in the campaigns.
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During his residence at Quincy, General Prentiss was appointed United States pension agent by General Grant, and filled the office eight years. In 1878 he moved to Missouri, spent a short time in Sulli- van County, and then engaged in the practice of law at Kirksville. After moving to Bethany in 1881 he continued the practice of law, and in 1888, after the election of President Harrison was appointed postmaster, and received the same honor from President Mckinley. In 1880 General Prentiss served as a delegate-at-large to the republican national convention which nominated General Garfield, and was a dele- gate to the national convention of 1884 which placed Blaine and Logan in the field as the national republican candidates and seconded the nomination of John A. Logan for president. He frequently attended the Missouri conventions of his party, and was one of the most influ- ential and popular leaders in the state. He took part in every cam- paign until his death. Those who recall General Prentiss as a political orator will agree with the opinion that no speaker of his time could stir up more enthusiasm among his followers, and at the same time do more to convince the lukewarm and disaffected.
After the election of General Harrison, General Prentiss went to Washington, met the president, and was asked what he wanted. General Prentiss, considering his distinguished services was exceedingly modest, and his request was for the postmastership at Bethany, but, he said, he did not wish that office until the then incumbent's term had expired. The president assured him that the office should be his, but expressed himself as desirous to accommodate General Prentiss with something more suitable. However, the latter declined any further favors. While in Washington he went to the office of General Noble, then secretary of the interior, and told the secretary that he was to be the postmaster of Bethany after a few months, and in the meantime inquired if there was not some service that he could render during the interval. General Noble in response made him special agent of the general land office and sent him to Denver, Colorado. While there General Prentiss became so occupied with his duties that he almost forgot the Bethany post- office, until notified of the resignation of its former incumbent, returned just in time to receive his commission. In religion General Prentiss was a member of the Methodist Church.
The first wife of General Prentiss was Margaret Sowdosky. Their children were: Harrison Tyler; Guy Champlain, who marched with Sherman to the sea and died in Quincy; Jacob Henry, who spent his last years in Bethany, where his family survive him; Ella, who married Doctor Blackburn and still lives in Bethany; Benjamin M., Jr., of Colorado; Clay, of Bethany. The oldest of these children, Harrison Tyler, known better as "Tip," was a drummer boy at Shiloh under General Sherman. The story is related that during the battle he met his father's aide and inquired "where is the old man ?" "He's out there where you hear all that fighting," was the reply. "Well," said the drummer boy, "if he's out there one member of the family in the fight is enough, I'm going to the river." For many years after the war, Tip Prentiss was a river pilot on the Mississippi, and died in Bethany.
General Prentiss' second wife was Mary Worthington Whitney, a daughter of Joseph Ingram Whitney, who came from Maine. Mrs. Prentiss was born in Pennsylvania, December 16, 1836, and died in Bethany July 28, 1894. Her children were: Joseph W., of Bethany ; Arthur Oglesby, who died in California; Edgar Worthington ; and Mrs. Mary Cover, of Harrison County.
Edgar Worthington Prentiss, who has spent most of his life in Bethany, was born in Quincy, Illinois, November 21, 1870. He has
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lived in Bethany since December 16, 1881. For a number of years he was the companion of his father during numerous political campaigns. While his father was postmaster at Bethany he served as assistant through both the Harrison and Mckinley administrations, and then suc- ceeded his father in the office and was himself postmaster for two terms. Since leaving the Bethany postoffice Mr. Prentiss has engaged in business.
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