Noble Sons of New Orleans: A Washington Light Artilleryman Survives Shiloh


          The famous Washington Light Artillery of New Orleans sent five companies off to fight for the Confederacy in 1861: four the companies fought in Virginia but the 5th Company served in the western theater. Raised in New Orleans in March 1862 for 90-days' service (subsequently extended through 1865), the six-gun battery of 160 men utilized two 6-lb smoothbores, two 6-lb rifles, and two 12-lb howitzers at its first battle, the Battle of Shiloh fought April 6-7, 1862. Today’s post features a superb account of that engagement from one of the members of that notable battery, Private James F. Giffen. Private Giffen had attended Harvard in Massachusetts with the class of 1861 then returned to his home in New Orleans at the outbreak of the war.

 

Private James F. Giffen
5th Co., Washington Light Artillery
(Glen Cangelosi's Washington Artillery site)



In this letter written to his father, Private Giffen gives a lengthy description of his first experience of battle and tells how his life was saved by a knife he carried. “I received the full force of a Minie ball in my right flank just below the ribs a little towards the front which would have undoubtedly perforated me through and through, passing several vulnerable points and causing instantaneous death, had it not been for the very large knife I carried in the deep breast pocket of my overshirt. This, fortunately, turned the ball, which glanced off and did me no further injury than perforating my shirt in two places, bruising my body a little and taking my breath away for a few minutes,” he stated.

 

Giffen would later be promoted to the rank of sergeant and survived the war despite an arm wound sustained in the war’s final days. His letter was originally published in the April 19, 1862 issue of the New Orleans Daily Crescent.

 

Camp Moore, Corinth, Mississippi

April 9-10, 1862

 

          My dear father,

          I wrote you by Mr. Slocomb’s boy who was expected to leave this morning and also telegraphed yesterday afternoon when I returned to camp after our army had fallen back. But as I see Mr. [Cuthbert H.] Slocomb’s boy in camp this afternoon, I shall write in fuller detail and you will probably get both letters at the same time. First of all, I will say that Bob and I are safe and unhurt. Willie was wounded in the beginning of the battle by a ball in the knee. The ball struck just above the knee of the left leg on the outer side and glanced up. The wound is not considered by Dr. Stone a dangerous one, and if he can be kept perfectly quiet and if inflammation can be kept down. But it is almost impossible to say what the wounded of our army may be obliged to undergo.

 

          The enemy, since his defeat, had received large reinforcements and still threatens Corinth. If they persist in their undertaking, we shall be compelled to fight the battle over again at this place and the wounded would be sent off. I do not think Willie can be removed under the most favorable circumstances for a week, for his wound is one which will require care and time to heal so that he may again have the use of his leg. If the enemy delay several days and give our wounded and weary soldiers time to recruit, we shall be ready for them.

 

          I will give you a description of our battle and you will, perhaps, become better informed of everything in that way than in any other. Upon Thursday morning [April 3rd] at about 2 o’clock, I was awakened by the long roll which was sounded throughout the whole camp. Everything and everybody were in motion. The fires of the grand encampment presented to the aroused soldiers a brilliantly illuminated scene. Drums were beating, trumpets sounding, fifes blowing, bands playing, and men hurrahing. The order to march the whole army had been given and the different divisions were getting ready to march at 6 o’clock in the morning. It had been determined on by the generals of our army to advance, attack, and defeat the large Federal army encamped near the Tennessee River before Buell, who was advancing to form a junction with them, could affect it.

 

General J. Patton Anderson

Our company attached to General [Patton] Anderson’s brigade of General Ruggles’ division began to march toward the enemy at 3 o’clock in the afternoon of Thursday and bivouacked on the road. The next day we continued our march and halted at Monterey at midday. This place was about six miles from the enemy’s encampment. Here I saw the first indications of the Yankees for while we were there 14 prisoners belonging to the 70th Ohio, who had been captured by our cavalry, were brought in. In this skirmish we killed a Yankee colonel, captured a major [Major Leroy Crockett of the 72nd Ohio- see here], a lieutenant [Lieutenant William H. Herbert of the 70th Ohio], and the prisoners spoken of above.

 

At this place I had the pleasure of seeing in consultation together Generals [Albert S.] Johnston, [P.G.T.] Beauregard, and [Braxton] Bragg, who were questioning a citizen of Monterey whom the Yankees a short time before had taken from the town and kept in their camp for several days and had shown him their whole encampment. With what view this was done, it is impossible to say unless it was to carry information to Johnston of the very large force of the enemy, thinking perhaps, thereby to delay our attack by conveying the supposition that the force of the enemy had been greatly augmented by reinforcements and that Buell had already made this junction, But our generals were not to be outgeneraled, for on they pushed and Saturday night our whole army was in line of battle before the camps of the enemy. We slept that night in our positions and on Sunday the line of battle advanced.



 

The battle began early in the day. For some time before our battery reached the field, we could hear the rattle of musketry and the thundering of cannon- the engagement having already been opened by General [William J.] Hardee’s division. The first intimation of a near presence of the enemy was the falling of a Minie ball some six feet from me, and then others around me, for we were crossing an open field between which and the enemy’s first camp was a wooded hill. We were immediately led by an aide up the hill and we took position just in time to cover the retreat of several of our regiments and opened fire on the enemy. We sent spherical case into their camp and soon silenced their battery which had been playing on our troops, who again rallied and charged the enemy, driving them back from their camp.

 

It was during this engagement that Willie received his wound. The battery of the enemy had been throwing shot, shell, and spherical case at us and their long range rifled Minie balls. It was at first an unpleasant sound- the whir of balls and bursting of shell, and several times the balls flew so close to me as to cause an instinctive dodge or jump. One of the spherical case shots of the enemy burst over Willie’s gun, wounding him in the leg, another of the detachment in the leg, a driver in the foot, another in the leg, and killed one of our lead horses. I helped carry Willie to the rear to a house where our surgeon took charge of him and I hurried back. When I got back, we had nearly given the enemy enough for their artillery had ceased and the sound of musketry was further off. We had driven them from two of their camps.

 

Our next position was the hottest of the day and that was in the center of their line of camps. The sharpshooters rained musket balls upon us and for a time the tide of the battle was in a balance, but we stood it bravely though with some loss to our company. A Kentucky regiment charged upon the camp and the enemy retreated. Here Sergeant Demeritt and Private Hartwell (a stepson of the neighbor of C.C. Gaines & Henderson on Magazine St.) and a driver were killed. Corporals Macready, Higgins, and Bellanger along with privates Bayne, Davidson, Walsh, McKnight, Watson, and Stephens were wounded.

 

Our next position was one further on flanking one of the enemy’s encampments from which strong position he was damaging our infantry in front. It was in this engagement just spoken of where so many of our company were put hors du combat that I had a miraculous escape. When coming into battery and while running along to my piece, I received the full force of a Minie ball in my right flank just below the ribs a little towards the front which would have undoubtedly perforated me through and through, passing several vulnerable points and causing instantaneous death, had it not been for the very large knife I carried in the deep breast pocket of my over shirt. This, fortunately, turned the ball, which glanced off and did me no further injury than perforating my shirt in two places, bruising my body a little and taking my breath away for a few minutes. The make of the knife, I think, was of great advantage to me for there were several compartments and a number of different blades and instruments, all of which resisted the force of the ball and turned aside what otherwise would have perforated a common knife.


 

6-lb smoothbore like that used by the 5th Co. at Shiloh

We pursued the retreating enemy to their gunboats and had it not been so late, there is not the slightest doubt, but all of their force would have been taken notwithstanding the fire of their gunboats which, I assure you, was terrific and terrible to hear. The whizzing of those huge shells through the air, crashing trees all around you, bursting with the report of a cannon, is frightful. It was impossible to follow up our success that night, so we fell back from the river to the enemy’s camp in which we passed the night, worn out and fatigued with ten hours hard fighting and with three days’ hard marching and no sleep for it rained every night. We were obliged to bivouac and could not under any circumstances enjoy our sleep in the cold mud and rain. We gained a great victory; fought the hardest fight that had ever been fought on the continent with forces almost equal, defeated and driven back the best composed and best equipped army the North had in the field (as General Prentiss, who was taken prisoner, himself said) and captured most of their field batteries and everything in the encampment.

 

We had a hearty supper from the Yankee stores and permit me to say in parenthesis that the Yankees were abundantly supplied with everything that was good. I really was astonished at the excellence of their Commissary Department, but we did justice to the provisions. During the night, it rained very heard and we were unable to sleep. All night the signal guns of the enemy’s gunboats were heard, undoubtedly meaning something; but it was not until 4 o’clock in the morning that General Beauregard learned that the enemy had been largely reinforced by 40,000 fresh troops. It had always been his intention, I think, to come back to Corinth after he bagged the Tennessee army and he only delayed burning the tents and carrying off the enemy’s stores until that could be affected; the Generals were confident they could do this the following day. But the addition of so many fresh troops to so large an army made it necessary for a prudent General to fall back, and not risk a battle with his wearied troops.

 

However, to cover our retreat, Beauregard engaged the enemy the next day and our fight, that of the Washington Artillery, was upon this day the hardest. We were, at one time, within 50 yards of the Yankees and they advanced with great force, charged our battery, raining musket balls upon us as we shot canister among them. I was ramming during the whole day’s battle and at that time expected every moment to have a Minie ball sent clear through my body, but though they whistled around me and bended the trees and twigs about me, I was unhurt. The enemy compelled one of our regiments to retire and for ten minutes we held them at bay until they advanced to within 50 yards of our battery; this made it too hot for so and the order to limber to the rear was given.


Detail from lithograph commissioned by McCormick Harvesting Machine Company depicting the close quarters combat at Shiloh


 

At this point the horses from one of our pieces were all shot dead, several others being killed or wounded, and of the company Mr. Slocomb was shot through the breast; young Green (Bob’s friend) shot through the breast and killed, another wounded mortally in the thigh, and six or seven slightly wounded in the arms, legs, or breast. We retired and the infantry, the Crescent Regiment [of New Orleans], charged and drove the enemy back. We decidedly got the advantage of the enemy that day and towards evening all our wounded and dead had been taken to Corinth, so our army began to fall back in such order and with such quietness that no one knew where we were going until General Beauregard asked from 12 men from our company to man a gun of Byrne’s Mississippi battery to cover the retreat of our army.

 

The enemy had again been defeated for while we were slowly going back to Corinth with many of the trophies of our victory, the enemy being glad to be left alone, fell back to their gunboats and did not attempt to advance or retake possession of their camps for 24 hours after we had withdrawn. Our company burned three of their camps and destroyed much more of what they had left, though not all. The report today is that they have advanced their encampment and are getting away. What their object is, I cannot say. They may intend to threaten another point. But my idea is that they have become afraid that Beauregard and Bragg would repeat their castigation. If they remain and do not have their gunboats to attack Corinth, Bragg says that in less than three weeks he will be after them again.

 

Whatever the result of the great battle may be, it is a fact that the enemy have received a check and suffered a severe defeat, though their resources are so great as to allow them to recuperate very quickly and they may recover so soon as to make themselves again troublesome. There has been great loss on both sides. We have had many killed and wounded among such a class as will make it felt in the social circles of New Orleans. I am thankful for the Providential interference in my behalf, and that Bob has escaped and Willie’s wound not more serious that it is. The battalion in Virginia will be compelled now to look to the 5th Company in Tennessee as their model. We have surpassed them and received the personal congratulations of General Beauregard: “Gentlemen, you have done nobly. No troops ever fought better.”

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