USA > Wisconsin > History of the First Wisconsin Battery Light Artillery > Part 15
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The next ten days are soon told. Johnston, who was hurry- ing matters further inland to come and take personal com- mand, urged, and Pemberton should have evacuated Port Hud- son and joined Gardiner's forces with his; abandoned Vicks- burg, swung around to our front and right, called in his force from Jackson, and fought us with his back to the northwest, or east. But Grant's celerity confused him and he couldn't dispossess himself of the idea of holding on to Vicksburg. Fortunately for us, General Joe Johnson didn't get up in the early days of May to take command. We sauntered through the country, finding that an army could live gorgeously, sack- ing a wayside store here and making reprisals in a village there. No plundering was done in a house where the women held the fort. The advance would break in the doors of a store, inspect the empty safe and cash drawer, get into a pair of summer trousers, and march on. The last straggler would emerge with a straw hat or a mouse trap. At Rocky Springs Bill Pink, from a garden, unearthed a tin can of cash, and a woman came rushing down the steps crying that it was her savings; that she was a Union woman; came from Illinois, et cetera ad infinitum, snatching at the can as Bill shifted it behind him. Upon completion of her vociferous tale he handed her the can and contents, advising her to keep it in her trousers pocket while these marauding Yanks were about.
Among the new order of civilization we found that the rebel country newspaper retired as we advanced, often failing to retire in time, and our advance, taking possession of the office. got out a later edition. needless to say with a change of politics and sentiment. The late copies also taught us some things anent the war and principles involved and status of
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the combatants. Having long known that we were "Lincoln's hirelings" we now found that we were "ruthless invaders, un- civilized hordes, despoilers of firesides, oppressors of the chiv- alric South." and other gems fit to name only in published mirrors of Mississippi refinement. We learned that the "bhuin- dering audacity of Grant" was leading him and us to hospita- ble graves at the hands of the chivalric sons of that foremost civilization. These papers often found temporary haven for one issue only in the same town. The Memphis Avalanche, Port Gibson Gazette and Raymond Times were all published for one issue in Bolton, and then they moved on quickly.
Disregarding these benevolent intentions, we continued to slosh around the State monograming the sacred soil with our bean holes, loading limber and caissons with sugar, molasses. honey, hams and hens. Plums got large enough to stew, and sauce was always on tap. By and by we seemed to thrive on capturing a battery here today, wiping out a regiment there tomorrow, and annihilating a brigade or a division some other day.
Gardiner shook off two brigades who hurried north and ran into Crocker and his Iowans at Raymond on the 12th of May. Sherman had made a quick retrograde from Hayne's Bluff. crossed the peninsula, ferried the river, and hurrying up was taking his place on the right, and McPherson was swinging into his place in the center. We had been "left in front" until now. Crocker held the rebel brigades until Tuttle came up, when the forces being nearly equal, he and Tuttle proceeded to thrash them too quick. We marched to the sound of their guns, but were too late to be of any material service. Special orders permitted us to place "Raymond" on our flag. We had heard much of the Southerner as a superior fighter, and that one of their brigades was a match for a division of ours. but we wish to emphatically say that from start to finish we never met them out of their works, in the field, in anywhere near equal numbers, that we didn't thrash them good. At Cham- pion Hill Grant got in about 16,000 only, and we took prisoners from 69 regiments and the rest ran like company cooks.
That night we camped in Raymond and, our supplies reach- ing us, we drew rations for the first time since April 29. 15 usual after a battle. it rained and continued a steady downpour for 12 hours. About 10 a. m. we were detailed and swung into Quinby's column under the sheeted rain and pushed for Jack - son. Between the hills the water ran across the road a half yard deep; but on we plodded, halting at dark within "two shoots and a horn blow" of the Capital City. to be told that it was taken by Sherman. We got no farther, and are unable to affirm "who planted the first flag on the State House." We bivouacked beside our harnessed horses and the next morning
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Quinby and his division marched away, leaving us alone and unsupported. Here was again a full equipped battery for the taking and the country full of armed detachments of the enemy. Finally the bugle rang out "Boots and saddles; mount," and, Lieutenant Kimball ordering left reverse, we set our faces to another front and plodded through the fast drying clay to the westward, bivouacking north of Raymond. But we were allowed, by special orders, to put "Jackson" on our flag. Its folds were now entitled to be emblazoned with: Cumberland Gap, Tazewell, Kanawha, Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, Thompson's Hill, Raymond and Jackson.
CHAMPION HILL.
Captain Foster, who had been left sick at Perkins' Planta- tion, joined us sometime in the night and assumed command. Obe Lindsay also came with him and gave us interesting ac- counts of scenes in the rear.
Distant cannonading aroused us from where we lay beside our harnessed horses and Foster's well-known voice ringing out in command was the first some knew that he was with us. We fed, watered our stock, breakfasted and mounted while day glimmered in the east and the white moon hung like a misty vapor in the cloudless sky. Setting our solemn faces, under the solemn stars, slowly dying out, under the solemn trees, we marched toward the sullen, solemn throbbing of the guns. Hell was just before us, and with the superb effectiveness that Fos- ter's constant drill and discipline had brought, every equipment in order, every shell and cartridge, bunch of primers and fuse carefully inspected : the wisdom born of battlefields, our grim 20-pounders. alert drivers and sturdy cannoneers, we were as compact a bunch of hell as moved on earth. Nearer and faster came the booming of the cannon, soon blended with crack of the skirmisher's rifle. Then deepened from volley into one continuous roar. As fierce a fight as was ever fought on the continent was on. The rebel lines being selected with rare skill, every piece of woods. and there were many. every acclivity being taken the utmost advantage of, and we the attacking party, they on the defensive.
A word as to the situation. General Joe Johnston had twice suggested to Pemberton that he should not let himself be shut up in Vicksburg: that he should gather his forces and beat Grant outside: failing which he should slip around our right flank, putting his back to the northeast. and Johnston would soon be up. Pemberton intended making his stand at or near Baker's Creek and gathered everything except Gardiner's force at Port Hudson and the force at Jackson. Gardiner, like Pem- berton in regard to Vicksburg. could not divorce himself from the idea of holding Port Hudson and an independent com-
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mand, and was caught by Banks. Grant wished to gather Banks up with us, and Johnston wished to gather the entire force which Pemberton had scattered, and the two Generals proposed to settle the supremacy of Mississippi and the open- ing of the river by one great battle in Mississippi. Fortunately for us, Johnston could not get west soon enough, and Pember- ton had no greater military instinct than Banks.
Sherman was to swing from Jackson around to our right, McPherson close up in the center and McClernand, who was close up on the left, was to hold his hand until all was ready. Sherman and McPherson showed jealousy of McClernand and discounted his ability. Probably Grant was tinctured with similar sentiments of doubt. Anyway, Grant censured McCler- nand for opening the fight earlier than was wished, perhaps forgetting the difficulty of keeping two armed bodies of Ameri- can citizens with guns and divergent sentiments, in proximity, from entering into a heated argument.
In the night of the 15th Pemberton got more than a sugges- tion not to fight with his back to the west, and on the morn- ing of May 16th was actually trying to left flank his army out of our vicinity when McClernand's left got entangled with the enemy's right and this was what we heard as we were marching up. Peremptory orders were sent McClernand to stand fast and not press the enemy, but Pemberton had stopped his flank movement and serried his troops on center. The enemy thinking the reception accorded our attack had satisfied our hunger for a fight, and no doubt surprised at the inferior article presented, very jubilantly made a counter attack to sweep us off the face of the earth, the brunt falling on Hovey. Forgotten then was the order to hold our ground, nor could any orders except those of the Creator hold an army of West- ern boys when their blood was up. It was an infantry fight. and the lines rocked to and fro amid the timber and up and down the slopes. Crests of hills were taken and lost, and taken and lost again. Charge and counter charge, rebel yell and Northern hurrah added to the din of unceasing roar for about five hours. Hovey pressed back their center. The left pushed through their right wing, cut off Loring, who double-quicked to the southward and was lost, and rolled their flank up on to their center. In the meantime Logan, Grant with him, did just what Warren did later at Five Forks, moved at a right oblique, reached out too far, crossed the Vicksburg road, leav- ing it open for Pemberton to escape, and swung around in the woods feeling for a fleeing enemy. Sherman wasn't in it. We took prisoners from 69 regiments, and still Grant did not esti- mate the enemy at over 15,000 until long after the siege begun, and then did not put them at over 20.000. We killed 1.000, wounded and took prisoners three times as many, cut off
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Loring, who escaped with his division, and rounded up 30,000 in Vicksburg. In this fight we had 16,000, they 15,000, and the advantage of position.
The Battery went into a field to the left of the road in the morning and took position just where the tide of battle was expected to break after Grant's orders to hold our hand reached us, and the Battery's part in the great fight was small.
As the enemy retreated Osterhaus' division was drawn back and hurried to the right and pushed in pursuit. Crossing the field from left to center we encountered all the horrors of the residiuum of a foughten field with its sickening sensations. Crowding the fleeing enemy until after dark, we lay down beside our guns and horses at Edward's Station. The horses had not been unharnessed in six days.
The whole route was strewn with guns, equipments, wounded rebels who had dropped by the way, and impedimenta of war. At the station they had fired and abandoned a train of cars laden with ordnance stores, the exploding shells forming a fit postscript to the horrors of the day.
During a momentary halt, just before crossing Baker's Creek, Sergeant Norm Webster remarked to the Hokah boys that a few steps away Major John Thompson lay, breathing his last. Knapp joined the group that gathered around the Major and suggested that a swallow of whiskey from his canteen might be a good thing, and it was put down his throat. Years after the Major told how he made an unavailing effort to intimate his desire, and added that the whiskey saved his life.
Just at this spot an infantryman stopped by a dead comrade and, remarking that he believed the dead man didn't need those boots any more, discarded his ragged shoes, removed the com- rade's boots and drew them on. The boots had bright yellow tops and a heart pegged in the center of the tap.
As we obliqued from the road into the field to our left the morning of the Big Black River fight, that soldier lay dead just at the edge of the grove, with a portion of his head torn away by a piece of shell. Practically the Champion Hill epi- sode was reenacted and the live. infantryman marched off with his trousers tucked into the yellow-topped boots.
The next morning we flanked left from the big white house and over on the crest of the hill near where General A. L. Lee came back to us with his head bound up and bleeding from a bullet wound, that soldier lay under a tree, shot through the heart. None of our crowd wanted those boots, believing that we could worry along with what we had until Crocker came up.
BIG BLACK RIVER.
But. hark, the far bugles their warnings unite;
War is a virtue-weakness a sin :
There's a lurking and loping around us tonight ;
Load again, rifleman, keep your hand in.
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All through the night troops came up and lay down silently near us, or passed with that hushed hum of marching men into the darkness beyond. As at the crossing of the river, Thomp- son's Hill, across to Raymond, Champion Hill, the Thirteenth Corps was leading again, Osterhaus in front, Carr next, but with many regiments sandwiched in with ours. Hovey with his shat- tered legions was left at the battlefield to pull himself together after his fearful experience, and to care for the wounded and bury the dead. Osterhaus, alert and vigilant, pushed the enemy through the darkness until meeting stubborn resistance a mile or two from the Big Black, halted for daylight and sent back an Aid for us to feed, water, breakfast and "come to him." When the prospect of a fight was on General Osterhaus resembled the boy whose boast it was: "I'se a tuff from tuff alley. De farder up de alley you goes de tuffer dey is, and I lives in de las' house." Always a genial gentleman, his battle enthusiasm was unbounded, and he seemed to think we were his trump card.
The battle was on at the first glimpse of light, but at sunrise we were still in column in the road close up to the timber fringing Black River, mixed up with General Lawler's Bri- gade. The enemy's shells were passing just over us, coming from right and left oblique and front, showing a line of some extent. As they nipped off the limbs of the trees, that came crashing down, and tore up the ground, we felt that the enemy was reaching out for that road and wondered why we were not flanked to the left into a field out of the line of fire. Osterhaus, had he been there, would not have left us uselessly exposed. Lawler sat stolidly on his horse under a tree with the branches falling about him. His saber suspended by a surcingle slung over his shoulder and his stomach o'er shadowed his saddle pominel. A slim lead driver slipped from his saddle, stealthily approached and "fortified" behind Lawler's ponderosity, much to the disgust of his staff, when noted.
Osterhaus soon came riding from the left front, toward which regiment after regiment had been moving, consulted with Foster, and we moved over the prostrate rail fence into the field. The center section, under Lieutenant Hackett, moved off to the front in rear of Osterhaus and Foster, and passing around the plantation house, through the grove, came into a cultivated field and advanced to the crest of an incline and took position alongside the Vicksburg & Jackson Railroad. Oster- haus, as usual, flattered the boys with promise of an elegant position. "I shows you a place where you gets a good chance at 'em." In front of them, beyond a parallel bayou, was as pretty a line of fortifications, with cotton bales embrasures, as ever a regiment or battery would wish to be behind. As the limbers were making a left reverse after action front 17 rebel guns cut loose on them. Charlie Withee, who was number six,
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had hurried to his limber and, throwing up the lid, reached for a shell while the limber was still moving. The limber was blown up, mortally wounding Charlie, blowing the drivers, John Castles, Peter McNally and Jacob Deidrick, a detail from infantry, clean out of their saddles, scorching the horses, which tore off on a mad run. A piece of shell struck Capt. Foster on the shoulder as his horse made a demi-volte, hurling him from the saddle, and General Osterhaus got a bullet through the fleshy part of his thigh. Others of the men were hurt, but not disabled. Number five ran over to the limber of the other gun to get his ammunition and these "coffee coolers," "Lincoln's hirelings," "draft sneaks," "bounty jumpers" of the center sec- tion put up as pretty a fight as was possible for two guns in open field to present to 17 guns behind fortification. Perhaps prompted by a conscientious endeavor to earn their $13 a month.
The wonder of it all is, now as we look back at it, what im- pelled men to stay at their guns under such circumstances. Every man knew that he was a target for a sharpshooter and for three or four field batteries. Can anyone conceive what reward would induce a private soldier to walk into such a place-and stay there ?
The right section was hurried up to their assistance, the infantry crept closer, where they could pick off the rebel gun- ners, and the iron and leaden hail soon abated. Gunner Billy McKeith reached out and dismounted one particularly vicious piece, and McPherson with a division drew the fire of some of their guns to our right.
A slight, soldierly man bearing the single stars on his shoul- ders, whom we had for a day or two noted as acting Aid, rode up at a gallop, slacked his pace, crying: "I am General A. L. Lee; I command this division. You will report to me for orders," and galloped to the front, along the rear of our in- fantry line, presumably repeating the above legend; a mark for a thousand rifles. Returning to us and consulting with Lieutenant Hackett and Orderly Sergeant E. P. Aylmer, who commanded the right section, he wrote on a leaf from a note book, using his hat for a rest, an order for an infantry detail to help man our guns. Soon back from the 16th and 42d Ohio and other regiments of our division came men who stayed with us all through, some of them veteranizing, and were mustered out with us at Milwaukee. Although coming from as stanch a regiment as ever went to the front, if today asked their ser- vice, promptly reply, "1st Wisconsin Battery." One of them, Thomas Akers, had a bright red blister across the end of his quite broad nose from too great a degree of intimacy with a rebel bullet. Lee, before riding down on us. had sent the left section over to the right and they went in with a division of
1
B. N. BRADFIELD.
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McPherson's Seventeenth Corps. (The Battery boys have the right to wear three Corps and five Army badges.)
Lawler crept up on our left, found a place to cross his bri- gade and went over the works with a rush, taking more pris- oners than he had men under him. The rebels shook white handkerchiefs and pulling cotton out of the bales hoisted bunches of it on their bayonets in token of surrender. The greater part rushed across the wagon and railroad bridge, firing the same behind them, leaving us in possession of the works and 19 guns. We moved over to the left section and lay down in the shade awaiting the laying of a bridge which was contested by their skirmishers on the opposite overshadowing bank. ยท Sherman reached out down on the far side of the river and brushed them away before the bridge was completed.
While lying here in the shade Bailey Webster fired the last shot of the battle of Big Black River. In the rebel camp the men struck a prime article of old Jamaica rum, and the drivers of the right piece took possession of a "fly" bearing the legend "44th Ala. Inf.," and used it for a tent until the Red River campaign. Many gathered mementoes and trophies from this camp and rebel love letters were handed about.
On the evening of May 17th we crossed the river on an im- promptu bridge and pushed on towards Vicksburg, skirmish- ing heavily with the enemy and pressing them back until far into the night. Years thereafter a member of the 26th Mo. Inf. related that while crossing the cotton bale pontoon at Black River bridge with his regiment, it looked so scaly they were afraid to go on it, feeling their way across, when up came that d-d Wisconsin Battery. The lead driver looked at the bridge, gave a cluck to his horses and then used the whip, and on he went, and came very near throwing the whole regi- ment into the river.
To which the lead driver responds:
"I was the lead driver who lashed across the temporary bridge at Black River when that Missouri regiment hesitated, and 25 years thereafter learned that it really did rock and pitch under the crossing of the army. As we sat in our sad- dles watching the finishing of that bridge, Hargraves came from near the rebel commissary tent with a pan of Jamaica rum. The pan had two holes in the bottom and Mark had two fingers stopping the holes, balancing the pan on one hand and stendying it with the other. He held the pan aloft to my lips and I took a 'grown person's drink.' When Jerome blew 'for- ward' I thought it was the rum rocking in my head."
J. B. Davidson writes:
"I was sent after right section. When I got there I could not find the Lieutenant commanding, viz, C. Kimball. Jim McConnell came to ine and asked what was the matter. I told
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him the center section cannoneers were played out and could not work the guns fast enough, and Eph had sent me after this section and I could not find a commissioned officer. 'I am com- missioned officer enough for this section. Do you want her?" I said: 'Yes.' Jim said 'Wait and show where to go,' and Jim did some lively commanding, and in less time than it takes to tell it he was after me like a hurricane.'
Early the next morning we were on their trail, and about 9 o'clock we ran against their fortifications at Vicksburg, and the siege of 46 days and nights had begun.
Sergeant Blake, in charge of one of the guns of the center section at Black River Bridge, writes of the part his section took in that engagement as follows:
"The center section was ordered in and General Osterhaus and Captain Foster went to show us a position, but Hackett wanted to go to another position nearer and on a lower bench, which position was assigned us. As we were getting into posi- tion a shot from one of the rebel guns struck the ground just in front of our section and ricochetted through my limber chest just as Charlie Withee was reaching for the lid to open it, exploded the primers, set fire to the powder and blew the chest into kindling wood, but did not explode a single shell. The drivers were just dismounting, some were off, the others were more or less hurt as the team ran toward the enemy's line until stopped by our skirmishers. One piece of the chest struck Captain Foster between the shoulders and another struck General Osterhaus upon the leg, disabling them both. Withee was so badly burned by the explosion that he died from the same in a Memphis hospital. General Lee assumed command of the division and Lieutenant Kimball of the Bat- tery. Notwithstanding the seriousness of the occasion an inci- dent occurred which drew peals of laughter from the men of the section. When the limber chest was blown up Gunner McKeith, having no ammunition left. jumped straddle of his gun. Hackett asked him why he did not commence firing. Billy replied. 'I have no ammunition.' Hackett says, 'Why in h-I don't you use out of Stewart's limber?' Billy jumped down saying, .Well, I swear I never thought of that, but I will give that rebel gun h-1.' And he did, for he dismounted it in short order.
"The first section was not with us. It was a fearfully hot day, and Hackett had sent twice to Kimball to be relieved, but no attention was paid to the request. The boys were awfully tired and about ready to give up, when General Lee came up, and noting it. spoke to Hackett concerning their condition. Upon being told about sending to Kimball and the barren result, the General wrote a note to Kimball which he sent by an Orderly. Soon the right section came and relieved us and
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we went to the rear. Nutting had taken one gun of the left section and gone over to Lawler's brigade, on the extreme right, where they ran the gun by hand out upon a sand bar from whence they enfiladed the enemy's breastworks, soon driving the enemy out, after which Lawler charged and car- ried the enemy's position."
THE INVESTMENT.
"You know that ungodly day When our left struck Vicksburg Heights, How ripped and torn and tattered we lay."
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