The Yankees are Buried Shallow: A Civilian’s View of Brice’s Crossroads

 The carnage surrounding his family’s homestead near Guntown, Mississippi in the aftermath of the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads left local resident Samuel Agnew speechless. The war had been brought literally to his doorstep.

          “I walked through the rooms and found everything turned upside down and nearly everything we had taken from us,” he wrote in his diary. “Dead and wounded men were lying in the house. The walls of the house had been perforated by a good many bullets. Negroes and white men both plundered the house, and nothing could move their hearts to pity, but with vandal hands they rifled trunks, bureaus, and rooms. The garden and yard fences were torn down. Before I reached the house, I found the road filled with shoes and articles of every description which had been thrown away by the Federals in the retreat. Soldiers lay stretched cold in death on the roadside. I saw two before I came to the gate. When I saw these things, I knew that Forrest had gained a great and complete victory, but my heart sank within me at the prospect of our own losses.”

The following excerpts from Reverend Agnew’s diary were sent to Captain John W. Morton of General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s command in February of 1883. Agnew sent this information along to Captain Morton in hopes that the famous artillerist would use it in a future article describing the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads. But Captain Morton felt that Agnew’s account was so compelling and unusual that he provided it to the editors of Southern Bivouac magazine who ran the diary as a stand-alone article ran under the title of “Confederate War History: Tishomingo Creek, or Guntown, Where Sturgis and Grierson Were Badly Worsted” in their May/June 1883 issue.

          The University of North Carolina now owns the original diary as part of their Southern Historical Collection. A full transcript of the diary covering from September 27, 1863 to June 30, 1864 can be found here.  

 

The Agnew household was located near the Ripley-Guntown Road which was the primary pathway along which the Union army under General Samuel Sturgis both approached and retreated from Brice's Crossroads. The structure survived the battle but just barely. "When it was evident that there would be a fight here, a Yankee told mother that she had better leave the house as the Rebels were going to shell it," Samuel Agnew recorded. "They told the Negroes that if the whites left the house, they would burn it." His mother, wife, and sister took shelter in one of the bedrooms in the center of the house while the storm of battle raged in the yard. When Sam Agnew returned the day after the battle, he found dead soldiers scattered along the road and even within the house itself. "My heart was so full because of our situation that I could hardly talk."


Diary of Samuel A. Agnew, Guntown, Mississippi

June 8, 1864

This morning is dark and lowering and before breakfast it commenced raining. It bids fair to be a very rainy day. There has been some excitement today growing out of the Yankee raid. Forrest has gone up country. He passed yesterday evening and I learn today is repairing the bridge across Twenty-Mile Creek near Burres. Trains brought up his artillery to Baldwyn last night and this morning he evidently is striking toward Corinth as the point of danger. Our intelligence is that the Yankees are at Ripley. I cannot learn which way the Yankees are going, some think they are moving toward New Albany, others towards Rienzi or Corinth. There force is said to be seven regiments of infantry at Muddy Creek, four of which are Negroes, 2,500 cavalry, 250 wagons, 150 ambulances, and large quantities of artillery.

 

June 9, 1864

          The news we had was that Rucker had gone from Baldwyn with his brigade towards Rienzi while General Forrest with his entire command has gone to Rienzi. The Yankees were reported to have gone in the same direction. We hence felt very easy thinking that for the present we would not be troubled with the Yankees. Late this evening Thompson Phillips came over telling us that Oliver Nelson had sent word down that the Yankees were coming down the Ripley road this evening and it was not know whether they would go towards Baldwyn or Guntown. Sent the mules off to the woods lot. Brought in the mules at dark. We discredited the news of the approach of the Yankees.

 

June 10, 1864

          The morning was cloudy. At breakfast we learned that the Yankees camped at Stubbs’s last night although we did not suppose they would travel this road. Went out early with the mules into the woods back of Watson’s field. Went over to Uncle Joe’s to notify him of the report and got lost on the way. While at Uncle Joe’s, heard a roaring towards Lyon’s Gin which I did not understand; came on back and stopped at the end of the lane to take observations and while there heard two horsemen approaching down through the thicket in back of the farm. I awaited until I could hear them conversing then put my horse to the run and escaped to the thicket. I have reason now to think that the approaching horsemen were Yankees.

          About 10 o’clock heard the report of a cannon toward Baldwyn. Suppose that the enemy had gone down to the Baldwyn road and met Forrest. Walked over to the western fence of the Watson field to note the direction of the cannonading and concluded it was about the crossroads. The cannonading continued with brief intermissions for several long hours. While at the Watson field I saw Arch, one of my father’s Negroes, skulking through the woods. He told me that the Yankees were at our house and had taken everything we had to eat. About 50 wagons were in front of the house and the yard was full of thousands of Negroes. This was bad news, but I hoped that Arch being badly frightened had exaggerated. But his news caused us to keep quiet and not attempt to communicate with the house.

          I listened intently and anxiously to the firing. The battle waged long and doubtfully for some time in the direction of the crossroads. About 5 o’clock the firing evidently grew nearer, and I was satisfied it was near Holland’s. About 6 p.m. to my surprise shells began to fall in the woods where I was hiding, when I was near the Watson field taking observations. Shells coming over rapidly with a whizzing noise such that I deemed it prudent to get out of the way. Just as we were leaving the back of the field, I heard some person talking near us; I supposed it was Pa conducting mother and the family to a place of safety and came very near going to their assistance, but just then a shell came whizzing with a peculiarly unpleasant noise over my head and I betook myself to the mules.

          I saw Uncle Joe [Agnew] in the woods, and he told me the Yankees were in our wheat field in thousands. He could give no intelligence from home, and I was greatly uneasy. The battle was then evidently raging there. The battle at the crossroads was very severe. The ground all around the crossroads is covered with the wounded and dead. The enemy fought desperately making a stubborn fight, but finally were driven back and at last accounts the fighting was going on about our house.

 

Samuel Agnew was the eldest surviving son of Enoch and Letitia Agnew; his younger brother Martin Luther Agnew had served briefly in the 23rd Mississippi but died in 1862; two other brothers had died before the war.  He was of military age but stayed home to assist his parents with running the family farm and married Nannie McKell in 1864. Agnew became minister of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in 1868 and led the congregation until his death in 1902. 

June 11, 1864

          I was in the woods all night and it was showery. By light I was up and walked over to Uncle Young’s but received no additional information. I was very anxious in reference to the family at home and came up on home cautiously and found that the Federals had been driven away. Our once pleasant home was a wreck; my very heart pained me when I saw the desolation wrought. Thanks to a merciful God, the lives of the family were preserved although they were exposed to great danger. The garden and yard fences were torn down. Our yard was full of horses. Soldiers were stalking through the yard and house without any ceremony. Federal wagons lined the road. Before I reached the house, I found the road filled with shoes and articles of every description which had been thrown away by the Federals in the retreat. Dead Negroes lay stretched cold in death on the roadside. I saw two before I came to the gate. When I saw these things, I knew that Forrest had gained a great and complete victory, but my heart sank within me at the prospect of our own losses.

          I found mother, Nannie [Agnew's wife], Mary [Agnew's younger sister], and Margaret on the back piazza. They were laughing and talking but under their mirth I thought I could see sadness concealed. They told me the Federals had taken from us every ear of corn and every pound of meat leaving nothing to eat and that the house had been plundered. I walked through the rooms and found everything turned upside down and nearly everything we had taken from us. Dead and wounded men were lying in the house. The walls of the house had been perforated by a good many bullets. One shell struck the gutter on the south side of the dining room. Negroes and white men both plundered the house, and nothing could move their hearts to pity, but with vandal hands they rifled trunks, bureaus, and rooms. They entered every room but the catch all. Even the Negroes were robbed of their clothing. The Negroes were especially insolent. As they passed down the road, they shook their fists at the ladies and told them they were going to show Forrest that they were his rulers. As they returned, their tune had changed. With tears in their eyes, some of them came to my mother and asked them what they must do? Would General Forrest kill them? Poor fools, many a simpleton lies rotting along the road this day. I felt sorry when I first saw them lying dead, but when I heard how they did I lost all my sympathy for the black villains.

The shallow graves at Gettysburg typify the graves dug for soldiers killed in battle. Sam Agnew along with members of his family hastily buried the dead Federal soldiers two days after the battle in a pouring rain. "I saw several newly made graves by the roadside and the Negroes were covered with very little dirt," Agnew wrote. "It is sickening to pass along the roads." 

          The Yankees acknowledged on the retreat that they had got the worst whipping they ever had. On the retreat, Sturgis was in front going at a trot. Two Yankees surrendered to mother before the battle here and remained in the house during the fight. While the fighting was going on at the crossroads there were Yankees on this place all the time. When it was evident there would be a fight here, a Yankee told mother that she had better leave the house as the Rebels were going to shell it. They told the Negroes that if the whites left the house, they would burn it. When the fight commenced, mother and the rest of them closed the doors and window blinds and lay flat on the floor in Margaret’s room at the center of the house and remained safely until our men drove the Yankees away.

          The yard was a battleground with the Southerners on the south side and the Yankees next to the crib. The Yankees made a breastwork of the picket fence between the yard and the crib lot. The Yankee battery was in front of our gate. Rice’s artillery was just below the garden. The fight here was nearly as stubborn as at the crossroads. Captain Rice told me that the artillery saved the day here as when he came up, the cavalry was retreating. The cavalrymen say this was the only time the artillery ever did them any good. In front of the house the marks of the bullets are plainly to be seen. My heart was so full because of our situation that I could hardly talk.

 

June 12, 1864

          Sabbath was a very rainy day and such crowds as have been passing; so many guns have been firing and so many persons have been about the house that it has not seemed like a Sabbath. Pa, Uncle Joe, and John Martin took the Negroes and buried the Yankee Negroes whose bodies lie nearby. It rained so much that they had to suspend operations until this afternoon.  Some Federal prisoners, four in number, were brought in this evening to assist in burying the dead: they were from Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Illinois. They are down on their officers and say that in a fight they were always in the rear and on a retreat in the front. Three white men are buried near us: Rice of the 7th Tennessee, Henry King of Rice’s battery, and A.J. Smith. The Yankees are buried shallow, the Negroes especially so. Sat about the house the entire day doing nothing of great moment. Pa had the Negroes repairing the fences deeming it a work of necessity. The people are riding over the battlefield from some distance; although the day was rainy, I notice many ladies riding over the road.

 

General Nathan B. Forrest "was in a bad humor having been informed that the citizens have been stealing many things from the Yankee wagons." 

June 13, 1864

          The road has still been the scene of continued traveling by the soldiers. The wagons which were captured are being taken down the road. Forrest has made a rich capture. This morning I walked over the ground near us, finding many dead horses and mules and the stench is great. General Forrest passed back today. I note nothing special in his appearance and understood that he was in a bad humor having been informed that the citizens have been stealing many things from the Yankee wagons. General Buford also passed; he is a large chuffy man. General Lyon also went down. A Good many troops passed down today. The pursuit of the enemy has been discontinued.

          Eight hundred Yankee prisoners were passed down today under guard. It is impossible to find one who will acknowledge that he ever plundered. One remarked as he came up “Here’s the man that caught your turkeys,” while another one was heard to say, “Here’s the place where we got the wine.” Some officers were among them and nice-looking men they were. A few negroes brought up the rear, but most of the Negroes were shot, or so reported. Our men were so much incensed that they shot them whenever they saw them. The prisoners pointed out their positions here. One was in the yard, one in the road, and another in the woods. One pointed out a tree and said, “I shot a big fat Rebel from behind that tree.” Representatives of a good many regiments were along; some from the 9th Minnesota, 2nd Iowa Cavalry, and the 114th Illinois, etc.

 

June 14, 1864

          Affairs are becoming quieter but there are many still passing. I found the roads badly cut up by the wagons and artillery that are passing every hour. The lane of Mrs. Phillips has become impassable, and the wagons go in by Mrs. Phillips’ house now. I saw several newly made graves by the roadside and the Negroes covered with very little dirt. The stench from the dead horses is almost insupportable. It is sickening to pass along the roads.

Captain Leroy Moore of Co. F of the 72nd Ohio was one of the hundreds of Federal prisoners that marched by the Agnew house in the days after Brice's Crossroads. Sam Agnew reported that the men "the Yankees acknowledged on the retreat that they got the worst whipping they ever had." Captain Moore survived months of imprisonment and eventually returned to the 72nd Ohio and mustered out with it in 1865.  


I rode over to Brice’s and saw marks of the battle but not so apparent as I had supposed from the great firing. Brice’s house and yard are public property now; sick men occupy the rooms some poor fellows are mortally wounded. I felt sorry when I looked on the poor fellows dying so far from dear ones at home. They are lying on pallets. Some Yankees are also there. The church seems to be occupied by sick and wounded prisoners. The principal surgeon was operating on a Yankee while I was there: he was lying on a table insensible, being under the influence of chloroform. His right foot had been amputated and his left hand half taken off.

 

June 16, 1864

          The stench of the dead is very unpleasant. Pa had the carcass of a horse burned a few days ago. I notice down in Phillips’ lane the grave of a Yankee with the hand projecting out. I think it is a white man though the hand looks black. I think the enemy’s dead are buried too shallow. The graves are not two feet deep and very little dirt conceals them from the eye. Some apprehend that this stench will produce sickness. Soldiers are still passing. Some of them are rough cases. We have in our army some as vile men as the Yankees can have.

 

 

Source:

“Confederate War History: Tishomingo Creek, or Guntown, Where Sturgis and Grierson Were Badly Worsted.” Samuel A. Agnew, Southern Bivouac, May/June 1883, pgs. 356-365

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 t...
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 ...
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 h...
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 Ma...
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 se...
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

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...
Read more

I Want to See a Battle: A Hoosier at Shiloh

Image
W riting in his diary, Private Manius Buchanan of the 29 th Indiana recalled the eagerness with which his regiment marched towards Savannah, Tennessee with the sounds of the battle of Shiloh ringing in their ears.           “The forced march was kept up until 2 p.m. when we were halted until 4 p.m,” he noted. “The rest was really needed, but the continual question is ‘Why are we stopped here?’ The sound of battle increased in volume and anxiety to be up and doing grows more intense. As I am weak from a late sickness, I am urged to fall to the rear; but no, in common with all, I want to see a battle and fear this will be my only chance.” The regiment would go into action the following afternoon, and of the four neighborhood boys who had enlisted together in Co. B, only Buchanan escaped unscathed. One afternoon's exposure to the horrors of battle was all it took to satisfy this Hoosier's desire to see the elephant. “I wanted to see a battl...
Read more

An Interview with Forrest in May 1864

Image
  “The noise of battle is the only music that ravishes the senses of Forrest.” I t was May 1864. Back east, the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac were locked in the deadly dance of the Overland Campaign while in Georgia, General William Tecumseh Sherman's army squared off against General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of the Tennessee in the campaign for Atlanta.       Based in relatively quiet northern Mississippi, General Nathan Bedford Forrest bided his time waiting for a Federal advance from Memphis. Earlier in the month, General Samuel Sturgis led a brief campaign into Mississippi but Forrest was sure Sturgis would venture out again. In the meantime, he tried to keep his reorganized command intact despite persistent demands from his superiors that he return the absentees and deserters who inflated his ranks (nearly 1,000 in number) to their original commands.      Around this same time,  an old acquaintance from Me...
Read more