With the Chicago Mercantile Battery at Arkansas Post

Surveying the carnage wrought by his battery during the reduction of Fort Hindman, Arkansas in January 1863, Private Everett Hudson of the Chicago Mercantile Battery came away with a harsh education in the horrors of war.

          “Such a sight as met my eyes when I first gained the top of the pits I can never forget,” he wrote a week later. “Here and there lay dead and wounded Rebels in all conceivable forms. Some lay with a head off, some a leg, others an arm, and some mangled all to pieces. Inside the casements, our shells had burst and hit the gunners on the head and spattered the brains all over the walls. Pieces of shells weighing 15-20 lbs. were found imbedded in the solid walls inside, showing that our shells were terribly destructive.”

          The carnage was not one-sided. Hudson witnessed a Confederate shell that detonated among a nearby group of Federal soldiers. “The ball cut men in two, just below the heart. I was standing only a few yards distant at the time and only a few moments before was standing with the same group,” he recalled.

          Hudson, a grocery clerk working in Chicago at the time of his enlistment, joined the Chicago Mercantile Battery under the command of Captain Charles G. Cooley on August 20, 1862. The battery was organized under the auspices of the Mercantile Association, consisting of the most prominent merchants in the city of Chicago. The battery was initially equipped with four 6-lb smoothbores and two 3-inch wrought-iron ordnance rifles and Private Hudson found himself assigned to one of the smoothbore pieces.

He would serve through the rest of the war with the battery, mustering out July 10, 1865, at Chicago. In those three years, the battery would see extensive action in the western theater, fighting mostly as part of the 13th Army Corps in the Army of the Tennessee. The engagements at Chickasaw Bayou, Port Gibson, Champion’s Hill, Vicksburg, and Sabine Crossroads thundered with the sound of the Mercantile battery’s six guns.

Hudson would survive the war. A native of Ohio, he had moved to Illinois with his parents in 1846 and had his first clerkship in a general store in Wilmington, Illinois, which explains why his letter appeared in the local newspaper. Not long after his discharge, Hudson journeyed west to Dakota Territory and settled in what later became Yankton, South Dakota. His mercantile training served him well, as Hudson became involved in banking, real estate, insurance, and brokerage firms during his lengthy business career. In 1874, he married Clara E. Warren with whom he enjoyed 22 years of marriage until her death in 1896. Hudson never remarried, devoting his time to Yankton College, the local school board, and his associations with the Grand Army of the Republic until his death at age 85 on October 28, 1924, in Windom, Minnesota.

Private Hudson’s account of Arkansas Post appeared on the first page of the February 18, 1863, edition of the Wilmington Independent published in Wilmington, Illinois.

 

The red stripes of this Cincinnati-depot shell jacket denote the artillery branch; Private Hudson and his comrades of the Chicago Mercantile Battery wore similar jackets when they took part in the operations against Fort Hindman in early 1863. 

On board steamer Warsaw

January 18, 1863

          The last time I wrote you, I was on board the steamer Adriatic bound up the Mississippi River and destination not positively known. You have undoubtedly heard ere this where we went and what we have been about and now anxiously await a letter from me.

          The particulars of the capture of Fort Hindman (named after the illustrious senator from Arkansas when the Secesh seceded from the halls of Congress) are about as follows. We arrived before the fort about dusk on Saturday the 10th instant, and the artillery, cavalry, and infantry were immediately ordered to debark and form in line of battle around the entire fort and rifle pits, this line being about two miles long. The enclosure formed by the rifle pits contained, I should judge, about 200 acres. The fort was on the extreme left and lower corner of the area. The works were built on a bend of the river, the bend being convex from the land; the rifle pits extended from the river at the fort out into the woods and around to the river above. Distance was half a mile from the starting point by water and as I said before, two miles around by the pits.

          The fort was so arranged that if we gained possession of the ground inside the pits that we still had the fort to take as there was an embankment thrown up between the fort and area of the main ground. Upon this embankment were heavy guns commanding any point of the compass. On the side of the fort commanding the river were two blockhouses built of heavy green oak timber hewn a foot square and laid up double, making it old solid mass of timber two feet thick and the roof being built in the same manner as the walls excepting the roof is cased over with iron half an inch thick. The roof being a one-sided roof with quarter-pitch slanting from the river.

          Inside the casements were one 84-lb and one 120-lb Parrott guns. Mark me, one gun throwing a ball 84 lbs. and the other 120 lbs., each capable of throwing accurately two miles. In other parts of the fort were guns and howitzers throwing balls from 6-32 lbs., being flying artillery in all parts of the field. There were inside the enclosure about 60 baggage wagons, 400 mules and horses, and quite a large supply of commissary stores in sufficient quantities to last the garrison of 8,000 men about three months. Everything in and about the fort was done as though they thought it impregnable and therefore intended to make it a permanent post. Inside the fort was a well about 120 feet deep with an abundant supply of water. In this well hung a fireman’s hose with one end attached to the engine and the other end in the water; this was designed to put out fire in case we threw hot shot.

          Well, to go back to the time we arrived. The order was executed in quick time and the first intimation of our presence the Rebs had was when they were completely surrounded by 10,000 men. All was now ready, a rocket was sent up as a signal to the gunboats when they (three in number) opened the ball with a terrific bombardment against the fort while we, the artillery and infantry, lay low in the bushes watching the effect of our balls. This was after dark, but the fire from the gunboats and the fires about the fort afforded us light enough to see pretty well.

The gunboats steamed up so close to the fort that the Rebels’ guns could not hit ours. The fort was on a high hill and the heavy guns were so fixed that they could not shoot low enough inside of a half mile to hit us. I suppose the Rebs did not think the Yankees were so audacious as to steam up as close as we did. The only chance they had of hitting the gunboats was from the time they were two miles distant until they were within half a mile; after that, we were under their range.

Their guns, weighing several tons, could not be moved without some great mechanical force that could not be got in readiness while so hotly engaged as they were. The bombardment was continued without intermission for an hour and 20 minutes. All this time, the ground jarred worse than any thunder I ever heard. There was a constant quiver like lightning in the air high over the flat from the cannon’s mouth. How to account for this singular phenomenon was the query of all observers. I suppose though it was caused by the hot and cold air coming into contact, similar to the case of lightning. After the bombardment had ceased, all was still and calm as a graveyard until the first rays of light on the morning of the 11th when we ordered the Rebels to surrender, which they politely declined. The Rebs were under the command of that unmerciful old Churchill, who you will recollect had command of the Indians at the Battle of Pea Ridge and who ordered them, or let them, bayonet our wounded upon the field.

Union gunboats firing upon Fort Hindman on January 11, 1863. 

After the preliminaries were passed through, the ball again opened at half past 12- musketry, artillery, and gunboats combined. For 300 yards from the rifle pits all the way round stood trees from the size of a man’s body up to two and even three feet in diameter. These had been fell by the Rebs in order to have an open field in which to fight when they were assailed. But here fortune favored us, for they had either delayed or had not time to remove them before our appearance, probably the latter as the trees looked fresh cut. These trees afforded us great shelter.

The infantry entered this underbrush and poured volley after volley into the Rebel ranks every time they raised their heads above the pits to fire. The artillery would aim about 6 inches below the top of the pit and then could be seen sand, sticks, and splinters flying high into the air. The gunboats, in the meantime, were throwing grape and shell over the fort to the opposite side of the field, doing terrible execution. Their shells would strike trees as large as my body and cut them straight in two. There was one large tree in the center of the enclosure, a perfect old monarch, with many branches as large as a good-sized tree; these branches were all riddled by our shell and solid shot.

The battle went on in this way for just four hours when they hoisted the white flag and surrendered unconditionally 8,000 men, 10,00 stand of arms, a large quantity of ammunition, and other ordnance stores besides about half the horses and miles. The other half lay dead or wounded upon the field. When they capitulated, we marched up to their works and took immediate possession of everything.

But such a sight as met my eyes when I first gained the top of the pits I can never forget! Here and there lay dead and wounded Rebels in all conceivable forms. Some lay with a head off, some a leg, others an arm, and some mangled all to pieces. Inside the casements, our shells had burst and hit the gunners on the head and spattered the brains all over the walls. Pieces of shells weighing 15-20 lbs. were found imbedded in the solid walls inside, showing that our shells were terribly destructive. The very gun I was working upon was sighted upon a 20-lb howitzer with solid shot and fired and was seen to break right into the center or about the trunnions. There were about a dozen guns served in like manner.

The fallen trees were so great a protection that our loss was comparatively small in proportion to the Rebels. Our battery came out without any killed and only three wounded, two of them slightly. Our loss would have been severe if the Rebs had not been so hotly engaged by the infantry from the center. It could not have been otherwise as we were only 300 yards from the Rebel sharpshooters. Some of our horses were shot.

The Chicago Mercantile Battery was attached General Andrew J. Smith's division which constituted the federal left center during the operations against Fort Hindman. Hudson relates an incident in which his battery overshot a Confederate battery and dropped a shell amongst the hospital buildings shown on the map above as being located behind the fort proper. 

I must here relate some little incidents during the fight. First, in the beginning of the fight, we saw some men nearly a mile distant erecting a battery to open upon us so we turned our guns upon them. We had to get sight at quite an elevation in order to reach them as our guns were smoothbores and do not shoot as far as rifled guns. The first shot fired was at too great an elevation and went over the Rebs and hit a hospital about a mile beyond which we did not see and cut the surgeon general’s head completely off. This is known to be true as no other guns except ours were fired in that direction.

Another shot was fired and struck a caisson, which of course exploded and carried everything with it for yards arounds. The first shot which was fired on the 11th from the forts was fired into a small group of men seated about a mile below, observing the moving of our army. The ball cut men in two, just below the heart. I was standing only a few yards distant at the time and only a few moments before was standing with the same group. In the logs and stumps which our men were behind were found from one to half a dozen bullets; almost every bush was either cut off or scarred with these death-dealing slugs. The boys were perfectly contented with the sound of the shells, for they could dodge them; but when the bullets came thick and fast with their zip, zip, zip, they began to think of some big trees.

To learn more about the Chicago Mercantile Battery, check out Richard B. Williams' 2005 book Chicago's Battery Boys: The Chicago Mercantile Battery in the Civil War's Western Theater available through Savas Beatie. 

 To learn more about the fighting at Arkansas Post, please check out these other articles:

Amongst the Ambulance Drivers at Arkansas Post (57th Ohio)

Taking Fort Hindman with the 76th Ohio

Breaking the Clouds of Gloom: The 83rd Ohio at Arkansas Post

Storming the Ramparts at Arkansas Post with the 120th Ohio

Among the Phone Brave at Arkansas Post (1st Wisconsin Battery) 

The Surrender of Arkansas Post 

Source:

Letter from Private Everett Eugene Hudson, Chicago Mercantile Battery, Wilmington Independent (Illinois), February 18, 1863, pg. 1

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