USA > Tennessee > History of the Twentieth Tennessee regiment volunteer infantry, C.S.A > Part 17
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First Corps under General Polk, on the Bark Road ; Second Corps, under General Bragg, on the Monterey Road and Savan- nah Road, passing by the Mckay House, this Corps being the largest Corps, was moved in two wings, its left wing resting on Owl Creek when formed in line of battle, this creek flowing into
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Snake Creek, formed the Confederate's left and the Federal's right of line of battle.
Third Corps under General Hardee on the Ridge Road to the Bark Road.
The Reserve Corps composed of the Brigades of Trabue, Bowen and Statham under Brig. Genl. J. C. Breckinridge, moved out from Burnsville and struck the Monterey Road. The Twentieth Tennessee was in Statham's Brigade. All of this moving out was on the 4th of April, and the Army camped that night on the various roads. On the 5th, we moved cautiously, and formed in two lines of battle that day and that night with our left resting on Owl and Snake Creek, and our right on Lick Creek. We laid in line of battle all night and were not allowed to have any fire or loud talking, we were so close to the enemy. Before sunrise on the morning of the 6th, our skirmishers began to advance, and the great battle of Shiloh had opened.
The Yankee skirmishers gave way as ours advanced, our first line of battle followed close on our skirmish line, and in a short while it seemed as if our whole line to our left was engaged. Statham's Brigade was near the extreme right, and in a short while our front line was into it too, and drove the Federals out of their camps. It was now about eleven o'clock, when the Re- serve Corps was ordered in.
Statham's Brigade was composed of the Twentieth Tennessee on the right and then the Forty-fifth, Nineteenth, and Twenty- eighth Tennessee, Twenty-second and Fifteenth Mississippi, and Rutledge's Battery. We passed through the camps that the Yankees had been driven from, then across a mule lot of about three or four acres, and beyond this lot, McArthur's Brigade of W. H. L. Wallace's Division of Federals were laying in a ravine waiting for us, and they gave Statham's Brigade a warm recep- tion. McArthur's Brigade was composed of Ninth Illinois on his left, the Twelfth Illinois, Eighth Ohio, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Missouri.
The Twentieth Tennessee met the Ninth Illinois Regiment in a death struggle on the edge of the ravine, which lasted one hour and a half, and during that time the Forty-fifth Tennessee that had never been in an engagement before became confused in
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passing the stake and ridered fences of the mule lot, and being a little in the rear and to the left of the Twentieth mistook us for the enemy, and poured a very destructive fire into us. Colonel Battle sent a courier to Colonel Searcy commanding the Forty- fifth, to tell him that he was firing into his own men. About this time the Federals brought up a regiment and flanked the Twentieth Tennessee on the right, which caused the right wing of the regiment to swing back as far as the regimental colors.
In a few minutes a Louisiana Regiment came to our assistance and drove back the flanking party. The right wing of the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment advanced with the Louisiana Regiment and our line was re-established.
Colonel Battle's horse was killed here. The battle now had been raging at this point for more than one hour ; I had fired thirty rounds while on the edge of this ravine, and the barrel of my new Enfield rifle had become so hot that I could only hold it by its wooden stock. It was also here that Corporal W. S. Battle, of Co. "B," a son of our Colonel, was killed ; and about this time Genl. John C. Breckinridge, who was on a magnificent bay horse, rode up to Capt. Thomas B. Smith, (afterward Genl. Smith), who was in command of Company "B," of the Twen- tieth Tennessee, and ordered the charge that swept McArthur's Brigade out of that ravine and drove them pell mell for five hundred yards across a level burnt district to another ravine, where they attempted to rally.
The Twentieth Tennessee was following the Ninth Illinois so closely that they were on a portion of them before they could form. A little red headed Irish boy from Company "A" and I captured a First Lieutenant and two privates at the second ravine. The game little Irish boy took charge of the two privates and I the Lieutenant. We started to the rear with them, and in the confusion and smoke we became separated, and while escorting my fine looking prisoner, (for he was of a magni- ficent physique, of about two hundred pound weight, and finely dressed), back over the burned district that we had driven them, we came across his Captain, who was killed, and he remarked that his Captain had on his person some very valuable papers that would be of much service to his wife. He asked my per-
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mission to take them, which I refused, because his Captain had buckled on him a sword and a pistol, and as I had disarmed my prisoner once, I could not let him have an opportunity of rearm- ing himself. He and I were alone in the bushes and smoke, and I knew he was a powerful man and I nothing but a lad. He insisted that he should get the papers and started towards his Captain, when I was forced to cock my Enfield and level it on my prisoner, (which I regretted to do), and told him if he touched his Captain that he would be shot. He did not wait for a second order. His Captain was also a fine looking soldier about six feet tall, with long sandy whiskers, and was splendidly dressed.
After my prisoner and I had passed his Captain going to the rear, we entered into a conversation about the battle. He told me that he was a First Lieutenant in the Ninth Illinois Regi- ment, McArthur's Brigade, his Captain and about twenty of his company had been killed, and he did not know how many had been wounded. I took my prisoner on to the rear and guarded him until Prentiss' Brigade surrendered, and put him in with them and the officers took charge of me and made me help guard the prisoners all night in the rain.
I hope I will be pardoned for mentioning myself so often in this connection, but I have to do this to prove the identity of the regiment that the Twentieth Tennessee was fighting.
The lines of the Twentieth Tennessee was formed near the second ravine, moved through some abandoned camps and was halted, and for some reason waited and saw the enemy reform their lines, when an artillery duel took place. The Twentieth Regiment was not engaged any more that evening, and about dark the Regiment was withdrawn a short distance and lay in line of battle. It rained and rained almost the entire night, and the Yankee's Gunboats were shelling the woods all around with their big guns, and we there in the mud and rain waiting for another day that the machines of death might begin their work.
On the morning of the seventh, Statham's Brigade was formed in line and took two or three positions, and later went to the support of a battery that was having a duel at close range.
The enemy's infantry was formed and reinforced by twenty-
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five thousand fresh troops under General Buell during the night, when our exhausted troops, who had not slept any for two nights and were in the battle of Sunday, moved on the enemy who were fresh and in greatly superior numbers, we were re- pulsed and our battery taken.
The command rallied about four hundred yards in rear of the battery in an irregular line, when two regiments reinforced us and we moved forward again to retake the battery that we had lost, which we did, and the fighting was at such close range that the smoke from the enemy's battery blinded us. We not only retook our battery but also another battery of the enemy's and re-established our line where we were in the early morning.
It was in the first charge on the morning of the seventh, that the Twentieth Tennessee Regiment sustained its heaviest loss, by the wounding and capturing of our colonel, and the death of the gifted, gallant and brave Joel Allen Battle, Jr., who was Ad- jutant of the regiment. .
He was severely wounded in the battle of Fishing Creek, Jan. 19, in the shoulder, from which he had not recovered, and went into the battle of Shiloh with his arm in a sling, went all through the battle on Sunday and was killed early Monday morning. His remains fell into the hands of the enemy, members of the Eighty- first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, some of whom were students with Joel A. Battle, Jr., at the Miami University of Ohio in the years 1859-1860, who found there a former fellow student dead on the bloody field of Shiloh, and had him decently buried. The names of these generous Federal soldiers were Capt. R. N. Adams, Lieut. W. H. Chamberlain, Sergeant John R. Chamberlain, Ad- jutant Frank Evans and Private Joseph Wilson, all from the same regiment, thus showing in what esteem he was held by his former associates at college, but now his enemies on the battle field.
After the second charge of the Twentieth Tennessee on Mon- day morning nearly all of the heavy fighting was over, but there was heavy skirmishing the greater part of the afternoon ; until late in the evening the Confederate forces began a retreat back to Corinth. General Breckinridge's Division acted as a rear guard and laid near the field of battle for three days, and the
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enemy with all of their fresh troops made no offer whatever to pursue.
The Twentieth Tennessee Regiment went into the battle of Shiloh with three hundred and eighty men rank and file, and lost in killed and wounded one hundred and fifty-eight. Our Colonel was wounded and captured, our Adjutant killed, and the regiment was, soon after the battle, reorganized.
The regiment that the Twentieth Tennessee met and fought at such close range for one hour and a half, on Sunday, the first day of the engagement, was the Ninth Illinois, and the official report of Col. A. Mersy who commanded that regiment in the battle, stated that his loss was sixty-one officers and enlisted men killed on the field, nineteen officers and two hundred and eighty-one enlisted men were wounded, and five captured ; making a total loss of three hundred and sixty-six out of six hundred men and officers that he carried into the fight.
The greatest loss to the army of Mississippi was the death of that towering military genius Albert Sidney Johnston, at 2 : 30 o'clock on Sunday, who with far seeing military insight had con- ceived, planned and fought one of the best conducted battles of the war, and had fought it with raw troops, inferior numbers poorly armed, against an army nearly twice his number and largely composed of regulars, superbly armed.
The Confederate Army lost in the Battle of Shiloh, which lasted for eighteen hours of the fighting, 1.728 killed dead on the field, 8,012 wounded, 925 missing, making a total loss of 10,665 out of an army of 40,335.
General Grant fought his five divisions that were at Pittsburg Landing, 45,000 strong; Lew Wallace's division at Crump's Landing, 8,000; Buell's Army or four divisions 25,000 strong, making an army of 78,000 men, and lost in killed on the field 1,754, wounded, 8,408, captured 2,885, total 13,047 out of an army of 78,000. General Grant also lost five regimental colors, made of blue silk, twenty Federal flags, one garrison flag and two guidons, total colors lost, twenty-eight, small arms about eight thousand, artillery forty pieces.
The people of the South can never pay the debt they owe to the name of Albert Sidney Johnston, neither can the people of
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the North pay the debt they owe to the private Federal soldier who fired the shot that caused the death of Genl. Albert Sidney Johnston, for one hour more of life to General Johnston, and Grant's Army would have been captured or swept into the Tennessee River, and U. S. Grant would hardly have been known in history.
"But God works in a mysterious way, his wonders to per- form."
The Confederate Army now back at Corinth under the com- mand of Genl. G. T. Beauregard, was largely reinforced, in fact was the largest Confederate Army ever collected in the West, and had on its rolls of the different branches of the service sick, well, detached, and absent, 112,092. It was here that the Confederate Army was reorganized, and the Twentieth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry remodeled itself, Capt. Thomas Benton Smith, who was Captain of Company "B" was elected Colonel, he was about twenty-two years of age. Capt. Jno., S. Gooch of Company "E" was elected Lieutenant Colonel, he being only about nine- teen years of age; Frank Lavender, Captain of Company "H" became Major.
The reorganization of the different companies is detailed in the company histories. This reorganization took place May 8th, 1862, and while here at Corinth we were in the left wing of the army and did no fighting but were ordered out several times with that expectation. We were all anxious to see how the regiment and different companies would behave under their newly elected officers. We were not disappointed, the Twentieth Regiment under the leadership of the invincible Smith, was truly a fighting machine.
I would like to pay Col. T. B. Smith this compliment here. The first year of the war, I was in the same company with him, and during the three remaining years of the war served under him as Colonel, and I have often said that I would rather risk him to fight seven days in the week from daylight until dark than any soldier I ever knew.
While General Beauregard was at Corinth with the largest Confederate Army that was ever gathered together in the West, he only had an effective total of 52,706, on account of sickness,
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and absentees from various causes ; while General Halleck was moving on him from Pittsburg Landing with an army estimated at 120,000 men, well supplied with all that an army required. After several heavy skirmishes on our right near Farmington, and on the Monterey Road between the commands of Generals Price and Van Dorn on the part of the Confederates, with no decisive results, General Beauregard decided to retreat further South, so he evacuated Corinth on the night of May the 30th, 1862, and moved his army to Baldwin and encamped there for a few days, but the location did not suit, so he moved further South to Tupelo, fifty-two miles from Corinth where we camped for two or three weeks.
It was about this time that General Bragg succeeded General Beauregard to the command of the Army of Mississippi. General Bragg moved a portion of his army to West Point, Miss., and it was about this time that the Army of Mississippi changed its base of operations.
About the middle of April, 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the Conscript Act, which read : "All soldiers now in the Confederate service between the ages of eighteen and forty-five shall be retained until the close of the war, and all soldiers who are over forty-five years of age and under eighteen will be dis- charged, and .a bounty offered to all such for re-enlistment." The commissioned officers that were not re-elected were allowed to resign and choose the branch of service they preferred. The same provision that applied to the soldiers applied to the civil- ians, and an enrolling officer was placed in each civil district to enforce the Conscript Act. The exemption included all civil officers, physicians, ministers of the gospel, millers, shoe-makers, black-smiths, school teachers, government employees and those who owned a certain number of negroes. This last clause brought about a good deal of comment from the soldiers in the field, but it was done that the owners of the negroes might stay at home and make the negro labor more effective in raising pro- visions for the army. It is true the ranks of the army were ap- parently considerably swollen, but virtually they were weakened. The hearts of but few of the Conscripts were in the cause, and it took efficient soldiers to look after them. Some few fought
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as became Southern soldiers, and stayed with us to the end, but a great many deserted at the first opportunity.
While Bragg's Army was at West Point, Memphis and New Orleans had fallen, and the Army under Halleck was being dis- persed to other points. The Federal gunboats had ascended the Mississippi and captured Baton Rouge and were threatening Vicksburg. General Breckinridge with his division was ordered from West Point to Vicksburg. (The Twentieth Regiment still remained in Breckinridge's Division after the reorganization). We moved west through Pontotoc over to Abbeville, on the Mississippi Central R. R., and took the cars for Jackson, Miss., and there changed cars for Vicksburg, forty-five miles distant, where we arrived at the Big Black River Bridge, June 28, some five miles from Vicksburg. Next morning we cooked breakfast and marched down the railroad to Vicksburg, Statham's Brigade was halted in a deep cut on the railroad about three hundred yards from the Mississippi River ; the enemy was that morning shelling the city of Vicksburg from Farragut's Fleet, some five or six miles below the city. While Statham's Brigade was laying in the cut, a Confederate regiment had marched down near the water's edge and occupied a brick warehouse, their marching in must have attracted the attention of the Federal Fleet, and as a number of those large mortar shells had burst near the warehouse . and some large fragments came crushing through the roof, this regiment became stampeded and left the warehouse.
General Breckinridge was an eye witness to the affair, and said, that he would send a regiment there that would stay, so he ordered the Twentieth Tennessee, who promptly moved into the warehouse, Colonel Smith knew that there was no enemy close by. He formed his regiment in line and ordered them to stack arms, and rest until further orders, he placed two guards at each door with fixed bayonets with orders to bayonet the first man who attempted to pass out without permission, but this was un- necessary. The Federal Fleet seemed to have increased their fire, one shell tore off one corner of the warehouse and another burst over it, and a fragment that would weigh about one hun- dred pounds came crashing through the roof and fell among the
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men, but injured no one. The regiment stayed there until ordered out.
Statham's Brigade was then taken over behind the ridge from the lower batteries, and went into camp, this brigade picketed the line that was along the edge of the swamp that was between our lower batteries and the river, and the Yankees would send a detachment each night from their boats into this swamp, and between the Yankees, green lizards, mosquitoes and alligators it was indeed quite interesting for us.
When General Breckinridge with his division arrived here on June 28, he found Genl. M. L. Smith in command with the fol- lowing troops: Twentieth and Twenty-eighth Louisiana Regi- ments, five companies of Stark's Cavalry, four companies of the Sixth Mississippi Battalion, Ridley's Light Battery and twenty- nine stationary guns, two of which were ten-inch Columbiad's, the rest thirty-two and forty-two pounders of old style.
An amusing thing took place with a Frenchman while the heavy firing was going on, on the 28th. He said, "I confess I no like ze bomb, I can no fight him back." And that was the reason that it was so hard to keep men in the warehouse. Breckinridge brought to the relief of Vicksburg at the first seige, the Brigades of Helm, Preston, Bowen and Statham and while our stay at Vicksburg was about one month, we were entertained nearly every day and night by shells thrown from the mortar fleet below the city. During the night when one of their mortar guns would fire, we could see the light as it ascended into the skies like a great meteor circling through the heavens with a tail sometimes about forty or fifty feet long. This was one of the grandest sights that I ever witnessed. If this enormous shell should strike the ground before it exploded it would often go fifteen feet into the sand and clay. I have seen these shells go into the ground at the roots of good sized trees, explode and tear the trees up by the roots, and when they started in your direction you would not know which direction to go to get out of the way. Most of the shelling was done by the lower fleet. There were about fifty gun boats, mortar boats and transports in the upper fleet, which arrived here after Memphis and Island No. 10 had fallen. This constant shelling of Vicksburg went on for sixty-
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COL. W. M. SHY. See page 397.
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seven days when the two fleets disappeared and the first siege of Vicksburg was over, and it was estimated that 25,000 of these enormous missiles were thrown into the city of Vicksburg, and yet the casualties in the batteries were only seven killed and fifteen wounded, and only two citizens were killed in the city.
It was estimated that three hundred guns were used against the defences of Vicksburg, and not a single gun of the Confeder- ates was dismounted.
The first siege of Vicksburg ended July 27. While here the lamented and gallant Genl. W. S. Statham died of disease, which was a great loss to the Confederates. While the first siege of Vicksburg was going on, day after day in a monotonous manner, on the morning of July 15, about eight o'clock, the scene was changed by one of the most gallant performances that was ever enacted in the naval history of the world.
In the fall of 1861, at Memphis, was begun the construction of two ironclad rams, one was named the Tennessee and the other Arkansas. When Island No. 10 fell, these two rams were un- finished, the Tennessee was burned, and the Arkansas was brought down the Mississippi River to the mouth of the Yazoo River, and taken up the Yazoo to Greenwood, where she was completed under the supervision of Lieut. Isaac N. Brown, C. S. N., who was in the United States Navy before the war, from Mississippi. Before Lieutenant Brown could finish his boat, Commander A. W. Ellet, who had heard of Rebel gun-boats being built up the Yazoo, went up that river sixty-five miles with two Federal rams to destroy them. As Ellet came up the Yazoo the Confederates set fire to some unfinished boats and cut them loose, and before this fiery advance, Ellet and his two rams were run out of the Yazoo River, and he didn't find the Arkan- sas Ram that Brown was at work on.
The Arkansas was completed, and in appearance suggested both the Merrimac and the Monitor, having the ends above water like the latter, and with the armored shed of the former short- ened up to a "gun-box" amid-ships. The armor was ordinary railroad iron. The battery was respectable for that period, ten guns, including two 64-pounders and two 100-pounders, and was
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manned principally by men from the late river fleet, commanded by experienced officers from the old United States Navy. .
On July 12, Commander Brown dropped down to Satartia bar, and after a day spent in organization and drill started down to encounter the enemy's fleet. At the mouth of Sunflower creek it was found that steam had wet the powder in the forward mag- azine so as to render it unfit for use, and it was necessary to tie up and spread the powder out in the sun to dry. Finally, after more vexatious delays, the ram entered the broad expanse of Old River, and was there met at dawn, on the 15th of July, by the ironclad Carondelet, the wooden gunboat Tyler, and the ram Queen of the West.
The Arkansas immediately started at full speed for the Caron- delet, which fired one gun and then turned tail, followed by the other vessels. The Arkansas opened fire with her 8-inch guns, and the 64-pound projectiles were seen to have marked effect on the armor of the Federal ironclad. The latter and the other Federal boats kept up a spirited fire from their stern guns. The pilot house of the Arkansas was imperfectly covered with 1-inch bars, and a shot from the enemy wrought havoc in that quarter, mortally wounding Chief Pilot Hodges and disabling Shacklett, the Yazoo River Pilot. James Brady, a Missourian, then took the wheel, and all went well until the Tyler, slowing up, came within gunshot, and a minie ball struck Brown in the temple and momentarily rendered him unconscious. On recovering he re- sumed command and passing the Carondelet, which took refuge in shallow water, he drove the other two boats before him into the Mississippi River.
On turning down the Mississippi towards Vicksburg, it was found that the temperature in the engine room had run up to 130 degrees, so that the engines could only be tended by frequent re- lays of men, and the connections between the furnaces and the smokestacks had been shot away ; so that only twenty pounds of steam were available, barely enough to run the engines. This destroyed all hopes of using the vessel as a ram in the conflict with the great Federal fleet which now lay before Brown and his men like a forest of masts and smokestacks. But they had no mind to do else than what in fact was the only thing they could
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