The Sublime Horror of the Occasion: Memories of a Rebel Officer at Corinth

     The role of the 1st Mississippi Sharpshooters was to lead the division into battle and cover it in the event of a retreat. Assigned to General Mansfield Lovell's division of the Confederate army at the Battle of Corinth, “we were anxious to show our hand in the line of warfare set apart for is, for our small size made us the jest of the other regiments,” one of its members William Cox Holmes later wrote. Then serving as a lieutenant in Co. B, Lieutenant Holmes recalled the sights of the battlefield after the Confederates charged on a Union battery on October 3, 1862.

“Going up to the line just occupied by the 14th Wisconsin, there was presented to my gaze a sight that could but appeal to the heart of the hardest soldier: men dead, dying, and wounded, all in a line just as the regiment stood,” Holmes wrote. “The first man I saw alive had in his arms a man dead, shot through the head. ‘My friend, are you hurt?’ I asked. ‘No, but this is my poor dead brother and I could not leave him. I would not mind it for myself so much, but for his poor wife and little baby!’ I could stand no more of that and I went to the next man sitting down and gritting his teeth with pain. ‘Are you hurt my friend? I asked. ‘Oh yes,’ and he showed me a ghastly wound from a bayonet in his groin. “Well here is a grain dose of morphine I had for myself should I be wounded. Will you take it?’ ‘Oh yes, with pleasure and thanks.’ I gave it to him and I thought what ought to ring down the ages of humanity to great and small. ‘Well, what foolishness! Here we have been trying to kill each other, and now we are trying to do all we can to repair the damage done.”

After the war, Dr. Holmes moved to Texas and in 1909 wrote a memoir of his service in the Confederate army from which the following extract was pulled. It saw publication in the August 1919 edition of Confederate Veteran.  

 

The grim determination visible on the face of this young western Confederate echoes the sentiment of the placard: Victory or Death! The battle for Corinth proved an exceptionally bloody affair for his comrades in the Confederate army of the West: 497 men killed with another 1,997 reported as wounded along with 1,763 men listed as missing. Many of these were wounded soldiers left behind when the army abruptly retreated from Corinth on the afternoon of October 4, 1862. 


          The battalion had assumed a new role in the great science of warfare. We had been drilled in the “skirmish drill” almost exclusively and our place in the army was in the front, leading the entire division in the advance, but always in the rear in the retreat. Individually, to a man, we were anxious to show our hand in the line of warfare set apart for is, for our small size made us the jest of the other regiments. [The battalion consisted of four companies.]

          On October 2nd we were meeting with the outposts of the enemy and on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad were seen the wheels of an old sawmill sitting up very still, but looking to General Mansfield Lovell very much like a park of artillery. He rode up in front of the battalion in full uniform, drew his shining blade, and pointed us to it. In an instant we were scattered over all the ground we could cover at ten paces apart and advancing at a full run to drive in the enemy’s skirmishers, if there were any. I kept my eye on those wheels in their solemn stillness till I got so near that there could be no mistake of their reality. I turned and looked back and the entire brigade in line of battle was advancing in splendid array. I did not know what moment insanity might possess the entire brigade and they might fire on us, as there was nothing else to fire at; so I had the presence of mind to pull out my pocket handkerchief and tie it to the end of a cornstalk and wave as I went back. I struck the main body of the 22nd Mississippi and stopped them. If any surviving members of the glorious 22nd Mississippi remember the charge on the old sawmill, it was I that stopped you and saved further injury to that innocent old mill, to say nothing of the humiliation of capture by Van Dorn’s whole army!

General Mansfield Lovell

          The day’s military experience was the subject of much merriment and coarse jest with the men all that night and the next day till noon when the frequent stops and slow marches told the knowing ones that something was about to happen. Sure enough, we crossed a creek and in it was a spiked cannon abandoned by the enemy; a little further in a little old field we halted and could hear the report of muskets and sing of the Minie balls flying through the air. Solemn feelings flew over us to a man. I know one thing. Never before had the perfect quiet and serene sacredness of home presented such clearness to my mind; there in all its sacredness appeared no place like home. A few straggling cavalrymen, pointing to the front and looking wistfully to the rear, told us the time was up for us to play our hands.

          We were quickly deployed as skirmishers in the woods and cautiously felt our way to the front when all at once, with no warning, an entire battery turned loose solid shot whose unearthly screams through the air set up the most gigantic dodging I have ever seen in the dense woods, and no one could give censure or sympathy. On we went, thought, and muskets shots were added to the horribly sublime music for such it verily was, till suddenly an exhilarating frenzy seemed to take possession of every man and with a rush we swept away the enemy’s skirmishers, despite the huge limbs of trees cut off by the solid shots of the heavy battery we were destined soon to charge and capture.

          With a rush we all seemed to come together out of the woods to an embankment near a deep cut on the railroad. We ran the enemy’s skirmishers from the embankment. As they went up the hill toward the battery, they were in plain view of our country boys as sharpshooters and but few escaped. At the embankment with this battery on the hill about 50 yards distant belching forth fiery destruction, simply grand in its sublimity, the whole battalion gathered and for a time kept up a promiscuous firing. I saw nothing to shoot at when inspiration infused itself in all of us and Captain Tom Adkinson who was commanding Co. C of Yalobusha County pulled off a tall white hat, mounted the embankment, waved it, and shouted, ‘Come on boys, let’s take it!’ The first one I saw follow him was Sergeant David J. Bailey of our company with his old hat in his left hand and his right holding aloft his old musket. ‘Come on boys, let us follow him up!’ he shouted. All seemed infused with the sublime horror of the occasion and to a man we rushed over that embankment, up the hill to the very mouth of the cannon, killing the gunners at the guns and silencing the battery.

The company flag belonging to the Liberty Guards, Co. E of the 22nd Mississippi. Hardened veterans of Shiloh and Baton Rouge, the regiment would go on to see action in the Vicksburg campaign with Johnston's army before traveling east to serve in the Army of Tennessee until the end of the war. 

          This was done on orders from nobody and was not an acknowledged part as we were taught our duty, but we did it, and I know it did not enter my mind nor that of a single officer or man of the battalion that there was a brigade supporting the battery. But when we got to the battery, Captain Adkinson saw six strong regiments on their knees ready to receive us. My eyes were on Captain Adkinson when he turned back and with the volley turned on us, we went down that hill much faster than we ran up it. We were in no military order or line, presenting a solid front in the charge, but any and every way so we got there. In the run down the hill, it was more so but those behind going up were also behind getting back. I was then second lieutenant and carried no gun but was urging and shouting to the men to shooter the gunners. Running with and near me I saw William Wright of my company take aim and fire. The discharge of the cannon which blew smoke in my face was the last one for the gunners were all killed or driven away.

          Halfway down the hill, we met the 22nd Mississippi; Captain James D. Lester commanding the regiment was detained by a telegraph wire getting caught under his horse’s shoe as he crossed the embankment on the railroad and as he galloped up the hill to catch up with the regiment, I could look down the line of the regiment into the faces of the Black Hawk company, the senior company, occupying the right. Many of them I recognized and they showed but the sublime courage of the whole regiment. No orders but shouts from one man to another to form on its left as it was rapidly advancing were echoed by every man and an effort was made to do so. But before many could reach the left, the 22nd had gone far ahead and had gotten so near the enemy that the firing commenced from the whole brigade of the enemy.

With an irregular mixture of the battalion, I took refuge in an old gully and for a few minutes a torrent of Minie balls passed over us, cutting the leaves and twigs from the trees. We were almost covered but we were out of danger and no one was hurt. When the firing ceased to some extent, I got out of my place of refuge and safety and went, with no one following, to where I thought the 22nd was or ought to have been. I found no 22nd: it had gone clear out of sight after the fleeing enemy but left behind a sure and terrible token of its work.

The horrors of the battlefield at Corinth were exacerbated by the 90 degree heat and high humidity. The dead bodies quickly bloated with gas and maggots moved in with a vengeance to feast upon the living and the dead. "Their ghostly looks were sufficient to drive away all thoughts of minor affairs," one Federal wrote. "Their faces, bodies, and limbs were all swelled almost to bursting and the skin was very dark blue. Their eyes were all closed and mouths generally a little open. They were lying in all shapes imaginable." 

Going up to the line just occupied by the 14th Wisconsin, there was presented to my gaze a sight that could but appeal to the heart of the hardest soldier: men dead, dying, and wounded, all in a line just as the regiment stood. The first man I saw alive had in his arms a man dead, shot through the head. ‘My friend, are you hurt?’ I asked. ‘No, but this is my poor dead brother and I could not leave him. I would not mind it for myself so much, but for his poor wife and little baby!’

I could stand no more of that and I went to the next man sitting down and gritting his teeth with pain. ‘Are you hurt my friend? I asked. ‘Oh yes,’ and he showed me a ghastly wound from a bayonet in his groin. “Well here is a grain dose of morphine I had for myself should I be wounded. Will you take it?’ ‘Oh yes, with pleasure and thanks.’ I gave it to him and I thought what ought to ring down the ages of humanity to great and small. ‘Well, what foolishness! Here we have been trying to kill each other, and now we are trying to do all we can to repair the damage done.’

I soon found another man leaning up against a tree shot through the lungs, groaning at every breath. I gave him a dose and then found a poor boy crying with a mangled arm to whom I gave my last dose. I then went back to my bayoneted man and found him eased of his pain. He was an intelligent, talkative Yankee and from him I got what the generals in command do not and cannot know. He was the color bearer of the 14th Wisconsin. When the volley that poured in upon them by the 22nd proved so deadly, the whole regiment was paralyzed and could not run before the 22nd was upon it. The color bearer was bayonetted, but someone snatched the flag out of his hands and ran off with it. He also told me that six strong full regiments were holding that place, but none were there except the dead, wounded, and prisoners.

Sources:

“The Battle of Corinth,” Second Lieutenant William Cox Holmes, Co. B, 1st Battalion Mississippi Sharpshooters, Confederate Veteran, August 1919, pgs. 290-292

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular Posts

Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

Image
     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on their way to
Read more

Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

Image
       Civil War bullets are perhaps the most common item collected from the era; the two armies expended bullets by the millions during the four years’ conflict and spent or deformed bullets of all shapes and sizes have made fascinating and affordable collectibles since the guns went silent in 1865.       I recently acquired a display piece featuring 35 different types of small arms ammunition used during the Civil War, including everything from a small .28 caliber ball up to a .69 caliber three-ring Minie and it triggered some questions: how did the Federal army obtain its small arms ammunition during the war? Where did the lead come from to make the bullets, and where and how was the ammunition manufactured? This post seeks to answer those questions. A typical .58 caliber 3-ring Minie bullet   “Whenever the blasts of war blow in the ears of men who trade in the implements of destruction, they are apt to experience more joy than the true warrior, for then comes the harvest of gain.
Read more

Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

Image
     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of how Confederate jacke
Read more

The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

Image
T he 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.           Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84 th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84 th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Maryland, performing provost duty at Cumberlan
Read more

The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

Image
     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on securing all the Enfi
Read more

In front of Atlanta with the 68th Ohio

Image
  The arrow corps badge of the 17th Army Corps was worn by many members of the 68th Ohio in the latter days of the war.       Private Edward A. Bigelow of Co. F of the 68th Ohio Volunteer Infantry wrote this brief account of the Battle of Atlanta just two days afterwards to his father back home in Henry County, Ohio. The regiment formed a part of Colonel Robert K. Scott's three regiment all-Ohio brigade consisting of the 20th, 68th, and 78th regiments, being designated the Second Brigade of the Third Division of Frank Blair's 17th Army Corps. Bigelow's letter originally appeared in the Napoleon Press newspaper and was copied in the Toledo Daily Commercial which was providential as no known copies exist today of the wartime Napoleon Press.  
Read more

Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth

Image
W riting 30 years after the Battle of Corinth, James A. McKinstry of the 42 nd Alabama recalled his experiences storming Battery Robinett with Colonel William P. Rogers of the 2 nd Texas and expressed guilt that it was perhaps his action that brought about the colonel’s demise. “On seeing a line of Federals approaching, and before giving the situation a thought, I immediately raised my gun and fired full into the breast of a Federal sergeant, who was in front of the column, and only a short distance from us.  'Twas then that Captain George Foster shouted, "Cease firing, men! cease firing!" and waved his handkerchief, then I realized the true situation. 'Twas too late! That fatal volley had been turned on our little band from the muzzles of 1,500 muskets. I was still standing just as I was when I fired my last shot, and within a few feet of Colonel Rogers, when a Minie ball went crashing through my left hip and turned me half round; another went tearing through my
Read more

Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign

Image
  T he following list, constructed after many years of research, lists unit by unit which type of weapons were carried by the Army of the Cumberland during the Stones River campaign. A number of sources were consulted including state ordnance reports, Federal quarterly ordnance reports (thank you Research Arsenal ), Ken Baumann’s Arming the Suckers, regimental histories and memoirs, captured ordnance reports, and consultation with knowledgeable experts in the field of firearms. Some of this information has been shared on the blog before in “ Rosy’s Heavy Metal: Artillery of the Army of the Cumberland ” or “ Shoulder Arms: How Sheridan’s and Davis’s Divisions Were Armed at Stones River ” but this is the first time the army as a whole has been presented. The overall conclusion I drew from looking at this data is that the Army of the Cumberland in December 1862 was an organization in the midst of transformation as far as arms. Many of the regiments still retained their original issue
Read more

Cook & Brother of New Orleans

Image
    The lockplate of a New Orleans-made Cook & Brother Enfield rifle produced in 1862 shows the fine craftsmanship that became the hallmark of the maker throughout the Civil War. Note the stars and bars flag at left, an emblem used on C&B's production throughout the war and the Cook & Brother, N.O. 1862 markings. Earlier production weapons at New Orleans had the flag located just above the maker's name while later weapons produced in Athens, Georgia would have a modified flag and Athens on the plate followed by the serial number.        In the spring of 1861, two English-born businessmen, Ferdinand and Francis Cook of New Orleans, perceived the need for the South to have its own domestic production of firearms and  set out to prove "that rifles could made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe." The brothers  elected to produce copies of the British Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield rifle as this was considered the benchmark longarm at the outset of the
Read more

Revisiting Snodgrass Hill: Memories of a 21st Ohio Officer

Image
Captain Isaac Cusac, Co. G, 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry proudly displaying his rank as captain in an image likely dating from early 1863. One of his shoulder straps was shot off in the final stages of the 21st Ohio's fight atop Snodgrass Hill on September 20, 1863. Cusac brought it back to Chickamauga 50 years later.  I n September 1913, 83-year-old Isaac Cusac, a retired Presbyterian minister from the little town of McComb, Ohio, returned to Chattanooga to attend the national G.A.R. encampment. The former captain of the 21 st Ohio returned to Snodgrass Hill on the old Chickamauga battlefield on the 50 th anniversary of the battle carrying with him a precious relic of his wartime experiences. “He carried with him there an epaulet that was shot from his shoulder at the battle,” it was reported. “The bullet clipped off the epaulet and then struck him on the left hand, injuring two fingers.”           The flood of memories as he walked the grounds must have been overwhelming. The f
Read more