A Lead Miner at Fort Henry

On the evening of February 4, 1862, Lieutenant Colonel Jasper Maltby of the 45th Illinois gathered the commissioned officers of his regiment together to give them a pep talk. After more than two months of service at Camp Washburne, Camp Douglas, and Cairo, there was finally the prospect that the regiment would see action on the morrow. Ten miles south of them lay Fort Henry on the Tennessee River.

          “He said that we were about to meet the enemy and he expected that everyone would do his whole duty,” recalled Second Lieutenant Henry H. Boyce of Co. I. “He also said that by placing our trust in the God of battles and our good guns we would surely conquer. We would assist in making the future history of our country and he wanted it to be such a history as our children should not be ashamed to read.”

          Duly encouraged, the regiment marched out on February 6th as they heard the booming of the gunboats but by the time they reached the fort, the U.S. Navy had already taken possession. “We did not have a chance to participate in the fray directly, but no matter. The battle was won by the Union army and that was enough for us to know,” Boyce commented.

The 45th Illinois (Washburne's Lead Mine Regiment) would receive its baptism of fire a week later at the first day of the Battle of Fort Donelson. Lieutenant Boyce’s letter first appeared in the February 15, 1862, edition of the Waukegan Weekly Gazette.

 

The capture of Fort Henry on February 6, 1862 was the second fissure in General Albert Sidney Johnston's defensive line that stretched from Columbus, Kentucky on the Mississippi River east to the Appalachians. The loss of Fort Henry opened the Tennessee River to the Union as far south as Muscle Shoals in northern Alabama. The Union army and navy quickly utilized this natural highway to move troops south and these movements would eventually place Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, setting the stage for the Battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862. 

Fort Henry, Stewart Co., Tennessee

February 9, 1862

Editor Gazette,

          After the strife and turmoil of the field and before the flush of victory has fairly worn away, I seat myself to drop a line to you, thinking that perhaps it may not be uninteresting to the readers of the Gazette to learn something of the fate and fortunes of the 45th Illinois.

          On the morning of February 2nd, we received orders to be ready to march at 2 p.m. Punctually at the time we were in line and started as we supposed for the seat of war. Embarking on board the City of Memphis and taking on board the 7th Illinois and two companies of Knowlton’s Cavalry, we left for Paducah without stopping at the latter place. We entered the Tennessee River and there learned that we were en route to the Rebel stronghold at Fort Henry. Our men gave cheer after cheer when they found that there was a prospect of having a little fight.

          Our force was eminently adequate in point of numbers to almost any emergency. It consists of six brigades, each of which were commanded by the ranking colonels. Our brigade was commanded by Colonel William H.L. Wallace of the 11th Illinois [later killed at Shiloh]. Three brigades constituted a division; the first division was commanded by General John A. McClernand and the second by General Smith. Besides these there were detached cavalry companies and a fleet of gunboats making in all 35,000 men all commanded by General U.S. Grant.

Captain Henry H. Boyce
Co. I, 45th Illinois

          On the evening of the 4th, we encamped on the right bank of the Tennessee ten miles below the fort. Soon after we landed, Lieutenant Colonel Jasper Maltby, who was then commanding the 45th Illinois, called the commissioned officers together and proceeded to make a little talk to them. He said that we were about to meet the enemy and he expected that everyone would do his whole duty. He also said that by placing our trust in the God of battles and our good guns we would surely conquer. We would assist in making the future history of our country and he wanted it to be such a history as our children should not be ashamed to read.

          All day and evening of the 5th, we waited anxiously for orders to march; these we received at midnight and although the rain poured down in torrents, our men cheerfully went to work cooking provisions for three days’ rations. At 11 o’clock on the 6th, the first division got into column and we proceeded by a circuitous route towards the Rebel fort.

          As we started, the gunboats opened on the fort at a distance of four miles, gradually closing their distance as they saw the effects of their shots. Well and nobly did they do their part that day. They threw their shots and shells so thick and fast that they dismounted guns, raining a perfect storm of death until the Rebels surrendered. This, although easily won, is regarded as one of the greatest victories yet achieved by our arms.

          General Lloyd Tilghman and 200 men were made prisoners; 50 of their men were killed, 18 large siege pieces and 12 field pieces taken, making in all 30 pieces of cannon. We also took a large quantity of ammunition and a full supply of commissary stores besides gaining possession of one of their strongest forts, opening a round to future victories. We did not have a chance to participate in the fray directly, but no matter. The battle was won by the Union army and that was enough for us to know. We arrived on the field about two hours after the enemy had fled. Our loss was 25 men killed, 20 of which were on a gunboat; the others were cavalry.

 


Lieutenant Boyce would eventually be promoted to the rank of captain before resigning his commission August 31, 1863. “An army officer of undoubted bravery, he bore proof of his gallantry, a splinter from a shell having struck him in the face,” his obituary stated. After the war, he worked as a school teacher, book agent, and banker, losing three children in the 1881 Milwaukee diphtheria epidemic. He moved to Los Angeles in 1883, purchasing a half interest in the Los Angeles Times before founding the Southern California National Bank. Boyce moved to New York around 1895 and remained engaged in the mining business.

A member of the Ohio Society and Secretary of the Navy League, Captain Boyce was fatally injured by a streetcar while crossing Broadway in New York City on October 14, 1903. “Boyce started to cross Broadway at a time when it was a bewildering mass of vehicles,” the San Francisco Examiner said. “As he reached the northbound tracks he was hemmed in by a rapidly approaching car and a heavy truck. Hastily stepping back to avoid the car, he stepped directly in front of a southbound car.”

“The bumper struck him squarely on the left side, hurling him on his head several feet in front of it. Before the car could be stopped, the wheels of its front truck had struck his body but did not pass over it. His skull was fractured and he died an hour later without recovering consciousness,” the New York Herald stated.

 To learn more about the wartime services of the 45th Illinois, I recommend picking up a copy of Thomas Mack’s The Lead Mine Men: The Enduring 45th Illinois Volunteer Infantry published by Southern Illinois University Press which won a Certificate of Excellence from the Illinois State Historical Society last year.  

Sources:

Letter from Second Lieutenant Henry Harrison Boyce, Co. I, 45th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Waukegan Weekly Gazette (Illinois), February 15, 1862, pg. 3

“General Henry H. Boyce Loses Life in New York,” San Francisco Examiner (California), October 15, 1903, pg. 5

“Car Kills Gen. H.H. Boyce,” New York Herald, October 15, 1903, pg. 3

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