USA > Wisconsin > History of the First Wisconsin Battery Light Artillery > Part 12
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W HEN the fleet arrived at the mouth of the Yazoo River General Sherman found Major-General John A. Mc- Clernand there to supersede him in command. General McClernand divided the army, which he designated as the Army of the Mississippi, into two corps; the first to be com- manded by General Morgan, composed of his own and A. J. Smith's divisions, and the second, composed of Steele's and Stuart's divisions, to be commanded by General Sherman.
The army moved up to Milliken's Bend, where the boats landed, but the troops did not disembark. It was a thoroughly discouraged army; had been one week in the Chickasaw and Yazoo bottoms fighting, wading in the mud, cold, wet and defeated, with great loss and nothing gained. The reasons for anticipating a victory or the causes of defeat were not then known to or so well understood by the rank and file as they were afterwards. They only knew that they had met defeat and that many of their comrades had been killed and taken prisoners in an ineffectual attempt to do what then seemed to them to be an utter impossibility. The logical conclusion was that "some one had blundered."
There was a fort on the Arkansas River known as Fort Hindman to the rebels and as Arkansas Post to the Federals. This fort was garrisoned by about 10,000 men. For a descrip- tion of this fort we will quote from the History of the Con- federate Navy, by J. Thomas Scharf, an officer in said navy. He says:
"Fort Hindman, or Arkansas Post, as the Federals called it, was a regular bastioned work, 100 yards exterior side with a deep ditch some 15 feet wide and a parapet 18 feet high. It mounted 11 guns of various sizes."
This fort was a menace to the forces of the Union in its operations against Vicksburg, as from it the rebels could for- age, as it were, upon the commerce of the Mississippi River. While we had been operating against that stronghold in the Chickasaw bottoms, the steamer Blue Wing, a boat carrying supplies and the United States maill to the army, was cap- tured by the enemy and carried to this fort. Generals McCler- nand, Sherman and Admiral Porter held a consultation and decided to go up there in force and capture the said fort. The
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fleet was again put in motion and moved up the Mississippi to the mouth of the White River, when it entered that stream and proceeded up the same until the "cut off," a channel leading into the Arkansas River, was reached, which the fleet entered and proceeded up the latter river until it reached Notrib's farm, some four miles below the fort, where the troops were disembarked. The Confederates had thrown up heavy earth- works and extensive rifle-pits all along the levee; and the fort itself was built not more than 20 yards from the river bank.
The army landed on Saturday morning and one of Sher- man's divisions moved forward and drove the enemy from the rifle-pits to their earthworks, from whence they retreated to the fort. Two or three of the gunboats ascended the river and shelled the fort in the evening and then withdrew for the night. One section of the Battery, under Captain Foster, was sent with a brigade across the river to prevent the enemy's escape, if they should find it necessary to attempt one, while the right section, under the command of Lieutenant Webster, was assigned a position on the bank of the river about 1,000 yards below the fort and on the same side of the river with said garrison, with instructions to silence, if possible, the casemated guns of the enemy, being admonished to keep his guns masked until they should be needed. The coun- try between the first rifle-pits and the fort, except some 300 or 400 yards next to. the fort, was heavily timbered, which enabled the Lieutenant to get a desirable position unseen by the enemy. About noon the gunboats moved up to the fort and attacked it. Then the guns under Lieutenant Webster were run out and put in position for work, and were greeted by a salute from the rebels' largest gun in the shape of a shell which passed over and killed a man or two in the infantry regiment which was assigned as our support. General Oster- haus, who was now our division commander, directed Lieu- tenant Webster to confine his fire to the two rebel guns in casemates, as the gunboats would attend to the big guns en bar- bette. Gunners Gabe Armstrong and Ira Butterfield were respectively in charge of the directing and sighting of the two guns in the right section, and better service in that line was never performed than they did that day. As true as the needle to the pole did their shots go to the mark they had selected, and it was but a short time until the task assigned them was accomplished, and the casemated guns of the fort completely silenced. So satisfactory was the work done by them that General Osterhaus rode up to Lieutenant Webster in the midst of the engagement and said to him: "Let me con- gratulate you upon your success; you are doing more good than all the gunboats; I never saw such shooting with artillery."
Soon after this a shell from the large gun entered the ports
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of one of the gunboats in the river and set it on fire, upset one of its guns and demoralized matters generally. Then General Osterhaus sent an orderly to Lieutenant Webster with orders to "silence that gun, or it would sink the fleet." Both guns of the section were loaded with solid shot and trained upon the rebel monster, and in less than three minutes it was completely silenced, having about 100 pounds broken off its muzzle and its carriage ruined and disabled. After those guns were silenced by that section of the 1st Wisconsin Battery the gunboats moved up to the fort and poured heavy broadside after broad- side into the bank of the river under the fort, and claimed all the merit for having silenced all of the guns, whereas they did not, in fact, silence one of them. The section under Cap- tain Foster occupied a position from which it enfiladed the enemy's rifle-pits and did its work so well that they killed more of the enemy than all other pieces of artillery combined.
The following account of this battle, written by Captain Dan Webster, and published in The National Tribune, will be found to be a true and succinct account of the engagement so far as the Battery is concerned :
"The capture of Arkansas Post-or Fort Hindman, as the rebels called it-by the combined land and naval forces, com- manded, respectively, by General John A. McClernand and Admiral David D. Porter, on the 11th of January, 1863, was considered of enough importance to be accorded a place in the history of the war for the preservation of the Union, as its capture, aside from the munitions destroyed and prisoners taken, removed a formidable obstacle to the prosecution of military operations against Vicksburg.
"It is that certain important facts concerning the part taken therein by a portion of the land force-facts which have, through ignorance or prejudice, been smothered-may be known, and that some of the alleged facts which grace the pages of nearly if not all the published histories may be dis- covered and corrected. that this article is written.
"I wish to state a fact here-a fact which was well known to the Thirteenth Corps before operations against Vicksburg were closed, and that is that the 'Regulars,' including Grant, Sherman and Porter, were disposed to look with disfavor, if not disgust, upon and to withhold confidence from General McClernand. However much prejudice may have had to do with this, it is not my purpose to discuss. but whatever it may have been it did not justify those officers in withholding honors from those to whom they justly belonged, simply because they were serving under a volunteer General who was distasteful to the aforesaid 'Regulars.'
"Fort Hindman was situated on the left bank of the Arkan- sas River, about forty miles from its mouth, at the head of a
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long oxbow-bend, and at the time of its capture was some 25 feet higher than the water in the river. J. Thomas Scharf, author of 'The Confederate States Navy,' says, page 384: 'It mounted 11 guns of various sizes.' The diagram given by him in said work shows that there were two eight-inch casemated guns and one nine-inch en barbette. The other guns were smaller, some of them being rifled field pieces.
"It is concerning the silencing of those larger guns that I wish to correct history 'as she is writ.'
"'Greeley's Conflict' is the only history that has, so far as I am able to ascertain, seen fit to mention the land batteries in connection with the reduction of that fort, and it merely says: "'General Morgan's Batteries, by a rapid fire, silencing a part of the enemy's artillery; Lieutenants Webster's and Blount's Parrott guns, with Hoffman's, Wood's and Barrett's Batteries rendering efficient service.'
"The land force upon that expedition was designated as the First and Second Corps of the Army of the Mississippi, the former commanded by General W. T. Sherman and the latter by General George W. Morgan. The relative positions of the two commands will be better understood from the following description as given by General Sherman in his 'Memoirs,' page 298, vol. 1:
"'When daylight broke it revealed to us a new line of para- pet straight across the peninsula connecting Fort Hindman on the river bank with the impenetrable swamp about a mile to its left or rear. This peninsula was divided into two nearly equal parts by a road. My command had the ground to the right of the road and Morgan's Corps to the left.'
"General Sherman further says, pages 302-3:
"'McClernand's report of the capture of Fort Hindman almost ignored the action of Porter's fleet altogether .. This was unfair, for I know the Admiral led his fleet in person in the river attack and that his guns silenced those of Fort Hind- man and drove the gunners into the ditch.'
"W. T. Michael, of the U. S. Navy, in an article published in The National Tribune in June, 18SS, said :
"'Everything being ready, the DeKalb, Louisville and the Cincinnati moved up to within 400 yards of the fort, and opened the ball in earnest. Each boat was assigned a partic- ular casemated bastion, with orders to reduce it. This plan was carried out completely. The gunboats dismounted every gun in the fort.'
"The 'Military and Naval History of the Rebellion," page 336, says: 'It was not long before the heavy guns of the fort were silenced by the gunboats.'
"'The Gulf and Inland Waters,' one of a series of histories published by Charles Scribner & Sons, page 122, says:
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"'It was impossible that the work of the navy could be done more thoroughly than in this instance. Every gun opposed to it was either destroyed or dismounted, and the casemates were knocked to pieces, the fire of the 10-inch guns of the DeKalb being in the opinion of the enemy most injurious.'
"'Schmucker's History of the Civil War,' page 240, says:
" 'The spirited and accurate firing of the Federal gunboats soon began to tear up and penetrate the solid timber, three feet in thickness, which formed the casemates of the fort, and which were covered with railroad iron. The battered rails began to tumble from their positions, and many of the guns behind them were dismounted. One shot penetrated a caisson of the enemy, exploding it, destroying six men and nine horses.'
"Lieutenant-Commander Walker, who commanded the gun- boat Baron DeKalb, in his report says:
"'In the attack on the 11th one of the 10-inch guns was struck in the muzzle and both gun and carriage destroyed.'
"In the above excerpts from 'history" we have had a great deal of fiction. Now for the facts in the case.
"It was my privilege and duty to command the right sec- tion of the 1st Wisconsin Battery of 20-pound Parrotts, which section was stationed during the engagement upon the bank of the river about 600 yards below the fort. This fact could not have been unknown to Admiral Porter, as General McCler- nand says in his report: 'At the request of Admiral Porter two 20-pound Parrotts were placed, as already explained, for the purpose of dismounting the guns in the lower casemates which had seriously annoyed the gunboats on the previous evening.'
"And I wish to say right here, incidentally, that those two guns, placed there at the request of Admiral Porter, accom- plished just what he had them put there for, as will be shown further on.
"Our guns had been run up under cover of some brush and timber in the morning, with instructions to keep under cover until the gunboats should move up to us and open the attack. We were then to run our guns out by hand, and confine our work to the lower casemate guns. As soon as the foremost boat came opposite us we ran the Parrots out in plain sight of the enemy and drew their fire, two or three of the first shells from the fort being directed towards us. We, of course, re- plied promptly, the first shell going a little too high, the sec- ond a little too low, but the third went straight into the case- mate, and from that on we did not miss sending shell after shell into the casemates until the guns therein were silenced.
"In the meantime there was a field piece just at our right of the lower casemate which had annoyed us a little, and we put
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a shot where it dismounted it and another into a caisson, ex- ploding it and killing all six of the horses. All this time we were religiously ignoring that nine-inch barbette gun, not- withstanding the fact that it had invited our attention by sending one or two of its shells unpleasantly close to us. But we had been told that that was game for the gunboats, and that they would take care of it in good shape. At last, when the DeKalb, which was just abreast of us in the river, received the shot which dismounted the gun spoken of by Commander Walker, as quoted above, General Osterhaus sent an orderly to me with a verbal order to 'silence that gun before it sank the fleet.' The Parrotts were loaded with solid shot and trained upon the said nine-inch gun, and but three or four shots were fired before that gun was a cripple for life, with a piece of about 100 pounds in weight knocked off its muzzle and a shot in the cheek of its carriage. When this was done there was not a gun left in the fort that could reach the boats, and the fleet then moved up and poured broadside after broad- side into the river bank under the parapet, as the latter was so high that their guns could not give elevation enough to do effective work on the fort itself.
"It was at this time that General Sherman saw the men run. into the ditch. That our guns silenced those rebel guns we know, because we could and did see nearly every shot fired by us from the time it left the smoke of the gun until it' struck.
"General Osterhaus, who was near us watching the effect of our work, rode up to me when he saw the shot strike that dis- abled the nine-inch gun, and, seizing my hand, congratulated us on the excellence of our work, and said: 'You have done more good than all the gunboats.'
"A Confederate officer who was in the lower casemate, and who did not at the time know in what part of the field I was during the engagement, said to me that 'that little battery on the bank did us more harm than all the fleet, as it would not let us work our guns.'
"This was a fact. as we could load and fire three shots to their one. With us every condition requisite for accurate shooting was favorable, and when the range was once obtained it was maintained to the last. With the gunboats it was differ- ent ; they were at least 30 feet lower than the embrasures, and fully 40 feet lower than the barbette gun. while they were constantly moving, which made it difficult for them to get or maintain the range.
"General L. A. Sheldon, late Governor of New Mexico, and who commanded the brigade in which we were serving, wrote to me recently as follows:
"'You will remember that my brigade occupied the extreme left of our line, its left resting upon the Arkansas River, and
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that for the larger part, and particularly for the latter part, of the bombardment I stood near your guns, and between them and the river. I saw your guns silence one casemate gun and dismount the barbette gun, and also explode the caisson a little to our right of the fort.'
"Sergeant McKeith, of the 1st Wisconsin Battery, who made it his especial duty to watch each shot, thus reports:
"'From my position on the bank of the river I had our guns on my right, the gunboats on my left and the fort in front. Gunner Armstrong would ask of me the effect of each shot, which was not difficult for me to give, as I could see every shot from the time it left the smoke of the gun until it struck. The gunners, Gabe Armstrong and, I think, N. D. Ledyard (it was Ira Butterfield), soon got the range, and they made quick work with the casemate guns. I know our guns silenced the case- mate guns, and I know it was a shot from Armstrong's gun that broke the piece from the muzzle of the barbette gun, for I saw the shot from the time it raised from the smoke until it struck the gun. I also know that the fleet claimed all the honors, and I know, too, that we were not slow in telling them they were a little off in doing so.'
"General Osterhaus says, in his report of the engagement : "'The right section, under Lieutenant Webster, took posi- tion about 1,000 yards below the fort; the remaining sections, under Captain Foster, being placed on the other side of the river. During the connonading which followed, lasting two hours, the right section reduced and destroyed the enemy's casemates in their front, silencing three heavy guns and dis- mounting several smaller ones. They also blew up one of the enemy's caissons and disabled a large barbette gun. The left section meanwhile enfiladed the enemy's rifle-pits, doing great execution. I heartily congratulate Lieutenant Webster and his men on their reduction of the lower casemates. The silencing of four formidable guns is their exclusive merit.'
"I do not doubt that General Sherman was honest in his belief that the fleet silenced those guns, particularly after Por- ter told him so. But. from his own statement, published above, he could not have known from personal observation, as he was, at the least calculation, half a mile from the river, whose banks were so high that only the smokestacks of the gunboats could be seen 100 yards from the shore, while his view was ob- structed by brush and timber.
"That the fleet did much to demoralize the enemy with their furious firing, or that, from the noise made by them, they and the rebels may have shared the delusion of General Sher- man, I will not deny: but the fact still remains that 'the silencing of those formidable guns' was accomplished by a
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section of the 1st Wisconsin Battery of Light Artillery. The fort could not have been taken by the gunboats alone.
Of this battle a lead driver writes:
"A bright, sunshiny day, like a Minnesota November Indian Summer day. Sunday. The right section filed early off from the boat-who recalls the name? Not the Empress. Our de- pleted gun squads recruited from the center section. and struck out up the Arkansas River, through Notreb's plantation, to the sullen growl of an occasional heavy gun. Sergeant McConnell was sick, and, after a mile, at my urgent solicitation, returned to the boat, and we proceeded without any chief of piece. We halted within eight or nine hundred yards of the Post Arkan- sas water batteries, screened by a fringe of young timber, under orders to run the pieces up by hand as soon as the gun- boats steamed past our left flank. Lieutenant Webster, com- manding section, reproved the left of right chief of caisson for not getting in line with his gun, and directed him to dress to the left. I remarked that it made very little difference about aligning anything, as we would be wrecked in short order after fire was opened. Most of the cannoneers moved up under cover of the trees to take a look at the work cut out for us. I observed that every one came back whispering. I dismounted and moved up in rear of Freeman and looked at the sun shining into the black throats of those immense guns. Freeman whis- pered, 'Loose grape. They'll throw a bushel of it,' and we moved back whispering. I took out the little Testament given by the ladies of La Crosse and wrote my last will and testa- ment. January 11, 1863. They have run us up close under the fort ; we are but waiting for the gunboats, when we open fire. The rebels will knock us into pie. 'It is a brave man that knows his danger but faces it.' The book of Psalms fol- lows in the little volume and opened at the 76th. (I'll bet nine of ten who read this will turn to that Psalm and read it now.)
"Soon the gunboats came up. led by the Benton, and Lieu- tenant Webster commanded, 'Pieces by hand to the front,' and the boys sprang to their places. Scarce a half dozen revo- lutions of the wheels when the white smoke belched out of the left casemate gun, a shell burst high in the air and the pieces went hurtling overhead to the rear, killing two men and wounding two more of the infantry regiment drawn up in sup- port to our left rear. Bless the man that cut that fuse, and why didn't Webster wait until the gunboats drew their fire. ran through my mental machinery. They gave us but three shells then, all bursting short, when we opened. The first shell we sent went a little high, the second a little low. but the third went square into the casemate and thereafter not a shot missed its mission. .
"Freeman, our No. 1. found a convenient water hole for a
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sponge bucket, cool and fresh and clean, but the gun was soon too hot to touch. The recoil soon imbedded the wheels in the soft sod and the work was severe. Jim Davidson and I car- ried ammunition and once went below to fill canteens. While on our way down, and walking in his rear, I heard a shell burst, and looking back saw a huge piece hurtling over. Crying 'Jump, Jim,' I halted. He sprang forward; the iron struck just behind and covered him with mud. Had he not sprang upon the instant he would have been cut in two.
"The woods to our rear was filled with skulkers and steam- boat men, and once in a while when one of these large shells went bounding and rolling in among them it was fun for us drivers to see 'em scatter. Soon the muzzle of the barbette gun was knocked off and I cried to Ira Butterfield, who was acting gunner for the left of the right, 'That was your shell, Ira; I saw it;' and the cry was echoed by others. Ira was so pleased that he held up his canteen to me and said, 'Let's take a drink on that. Carl.' 'Twas commissary, sure enough. I took a reviving drink and, as Nutting would say, was 'turrible brave' thereafter. But the problem with me is, where did he get it?"
Frank Mason, of the 42d Ohio Regiment, and afterwards United States Consul to France, and John W. Fry, of the same regiment, furnished an account of this battle, as they saw it, to The National Tribune, of Washington, D. C., in which they say :
"The 20-pounder Parrotts of Foster's Battery were run up behind a large sycamore log on the river bank, about 800 yards below the fort, and from that advantageous position sent shell after shell into the embrasures of the casemates. These two guns, which were fired with the deliberate accuracy of a sharpshooter's target rifle. also dismounted and capsized a 12- pounder iron gun that during the morning had worked indus- triously from the northeastern portion of the fort."
W. C. Paddock, of the Battery, writes: "You will proba bly remember that during the battle. a little to our left and a few paces to our rear, behind a tree, with pencil and paper, stood a correspondent of the Chicago Tribune watching the opera tions of the land and naval forces. General Osterhaus, hav- ing ordered us to cease firing, as we had made it pretty hot for them in the fort, remarking that he had seen artillery practice in the old country and in this, but that was the most accurate he ever saw. Myron Whitney, our cook. had prepared coffee. and we sat by the guns and partook of it and hardtack, the correspondent partaking with us. Before we had finished our meal a white flag was raised over the fort, and we dropped our hardtack and broke for the works. the correspondent with the rest, he going directly to the casemates which we had been
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firing at, and talked with the officer in command thereof in regard to the battle. He reported him as saying something like this: . When those two guns came there in front of the fort we did not pay much attention to them; the gunboats were what we feared most. But those two guns damaged us more than all the fleet. The first shot went a little too high; the second shot a little too low, and the third-oh, God ! look here, pointing to the dead gunners lying by the side of the gun."
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