THE SIEGE OF CORINTH

Leaving Winter Quarters—The Prairies—Duvall’s Bluff—Awaiting Transportation—White River—The Mississippi—Memphis—Am Detailed—En Route to Corinth—Corinth—Red Tape—Siege of Corinth—“A Soldier’s Grave”—Digging for Water—Suffering and Sickness—Regiment Reorganized—Evacuation of Corinth.

Captain Frank M. Taylor having died, First Lieutenant J. J. A. Barker was promoted to captain and Private James E. Dillard was promoted to second lieutenant. After remaining at our winter quarters for a few days, resting and feeding up, we started on our long eastward journey, leaving the wounded and sick in charge of Dr. I. K. Frazer. We moved down on the north side of the Arkansas River, stopping two or three days opposite Little Rock. During our stay here I availed myself of the opportunity of seeing the capital of the State. From Little Rock we crossed the country to Duvall’s Bluff on White River, where the men were requested to dismount, send their horses back to Texas, and go afoot for a time. This they agreed to without a murmur, on the promise that, at a proper time, we should be remounted.

On this march from Arkansas River to White River we crossed grand prairie, and, though I had often heard of these great stretches of dead level country, had never seen them. I do not know the distance that we marched in this grand prairie, but it was a good many miles, as we entered it early in the morning one day and had to camp in it that night, and for almost the whole distance water stood on the ground to the depth of about two or three inches, and it was a difficult matter to find dry ground enough to camp on at night.

Men having been detailed to take our horses back to Texas, the animals were prepared for the journey, each detailed man having to manage a number of horses; and to do this they tied the reins of one horse to the tail of another, each man riding one horse and guiding the leader of the others, strung out in pairs behind him. As they were recrossing the grand prairie the buffalo-gnats attacked the horses, stampeding them and scattering them for many miles over the country, and were with much difficulty recaptured.

We waited several days at Duvall’s Bluff for transportation to Memphis, Tenn., on our way to Corinth, Miss. General Joseph L. Hogg, who had been commissioned brigadier-general, accompanied by his staff, came to us here, with orders to take command of a brigade, including the Third Texas Cavalry at Memphis. General Hogg’s staff was composed of civilians who had never seen service in the army, and this proved to be an unfortunate time of the year for men not inured to camp life to go into active service. His staff consisted of William T. Long, quartermaster; Daniel P. Irby, commissary; H. H. Rogers, of Jefferson, usually called General Rogers, ordnance officer; in addition there were E. C. Williams, John T. Decherd, and H. S, Newland.

After several days’ waiting a steamboat came up the river, landing at the Bluff, and we were crowded upon it for our journey down White River into the Mississippi and up to Memphis, and it was hard to realize that the booming, navigable river we were now on was the same stream we had forded so many times in the mountains of northern Arkansas on the night we went in search of our lost artillery. When we got on the Mississippi we found it very high, numbers of houses along the banks being surrounded by water up to the front doorsteps, where numerous small skiffs could be seen moored. These skiffs furnished the residents their only means of going from house to house.

Arriving at Memphis, we marched away up Poplar Street to the suburbs, and camped in a grove, where we remained several days, spending the time in preparation for the move to Corinth, Miss. Here General Hogg took formal command of his brigade, and, having told me that he wanted Tom Johnson and myself at his headquarters, he had us detailed,—Tom to the ordnance department and me in the quartermaster’s department, while John A. Boyd was detailed to work in the commissary department.

Word having finally come for us to proceed to Corinth, we were crowded into a train on the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, en route to that city. On this train, as conductor, I found my former friend and schoolmate, William Wingo. The trip to Corinth was a very slow and tedious one, the train being loaded down with troops and supplies, and unfortunately had lost so much time it had to be run very carefully and make numerous stops. In consequence of this, some of our over-suspicious “patriots” went to General Hogg and implied that the enemy had forces but a short distance north of us and that the slow running and the many stoppages of the train was done evidently through treachery, and that the plan apparently was to give the enemy an opportunity to capture the train with the men and munitions on board.

I had been riding on a rear platform, conversing with Mr. Wingo, when I proceeded to General Hogg’s coach, and found him considerably excited. In answer to my inquiry he told me what had been intimated and said the suggestion, he thought, was a plausible one, and that he had about determined to order the train forward at all hazards. He was rather an irritable man, and his suspicions were easily aroused. I endeavored to quiet him, and did so for a time, by explaining the situation, and pointed out the danger we would be in of colliding with some other train unless the utmost caution was used, as was being done; and finally told him that I had known the conductor since he was a small boy, had gone to school with him, and was sure there was no treachery in him. It was not a great while, however, before others came around with similar evil suspicions, until the general was wrought up to such a pitch that he peremptorily ordered the train run through to Corinth, regardless of consequences, else some dire calamity would overtake every person in charge of it. Well, we made the rest of the journey in very good time, at the risk of many lives, but fortunately without accident. For this our friend and new brigadier-general was on the next day ordered under arrest by General Beauregard. But nothing more ever came of it.

After dragging along for more than thirty hours over a distance ordinarily made in six or seven, we finally disembarked, in the middle of the night, on the north side of the railroad, about two miles west of Corinth. So here we were, without horses, to confront new conditions, under new commanders, constrained to learn the art of war in a different arm of the service, and to drill, to march, and fight as infantry.

The next morning after our arrival I mounted the quartermaster’s horse, and rode into town, which was my duty as the quartermaster’s right-hand man, to procure forage for our stock—that is, for the regimental and brigade headquarters horses, artillery horses and the wagon teams. I found the road leading from our camp to town almost impassable owing to the mud, impassable even for a good horse and rider, and utterly and absolutely impassable for a wagon at all, as the best team we had could not have drawn an empty wagon over the road.

I found Corinth all aglitter with brass buttons and gold lace, the beautiful Confederate uniform being much in evidence everywhere. I never had seen anything like it before.

The Battle of Shiloh had been fought while we were on the steamer between Duvall’s Bluff and Memphis, General Albert Sidney Johnston had been killed, and the army under General Beauregard had fallen back to Corinth, and the town was literally alive with officers and soldiers. There were more headquarters, more sentinels, and more red tape here than I had ever dreamed of. I had not seen uniformed officers or men west of the Mississippi River, and had known nothing of red tape in the army. Knowing nothing of the organization of the army beyond our own brigade, I had everything to learn in reference to the proper quartermaster, forage master, and master of transportation, as I must needs have railroad transportation for my forage.

So beginning at the top, I made my way to General Beauregard’s headquarters; from there I was directed to division headquarters; thence to a quartermaster; and from one quartermaster to another, until I had about done the town—and finally found the right man. One lesson learned not to be gone over. Finding there was no difficulty in getting forage delivered in Corinth, I had now to hunt up the master of transportation and satisfy him of the impossibility of hauling it on wagons. Owing to the immense business just then crowding the railroad and the scarcity of rolling stock, it was really a difficult matter to get the transportation; but by dint of perseverance in the best persuasive efforts I could bring to bear, I succeeded in having one day’s rations sent out by rail. The next day the same thing as to transportation had to be gone over, and the next, and the next, and each succeeding day it became more difficult to accomplish, until a day came when it was impossible to get the forage hauled out at all.

I rode back to camp and notified the battery and the different headquarters that I would issue forage in Corinth, which would have to be brought out on horseback. All accepted the situation cheerfully except Rogers, who didn’t seem to like me, and I suppose it was because I called him Mr. Rogers, instead of General Rogers, as others did. He went directly to General Hogg and said: “I think that fellow Barron should be required to have the forage hauled out.” General Hogg said: “I do not think you should say a word, sir; you have been trying for a week to get a carload of ammunition brought out and have failed. This is the first day Barron has failed to get the forage brought out; if you want your horses to have corn, send your servant in after it.” I had no further trouble with Mr. Rogers.

I cannot remember exactly the time we spent at Corinth. It was from the time of our landing there until about the 29th day of May, say six or seven weeks; but to measure time by the suffering and indescribable horrors of that never-to-be-forgotten siege, it would seem not less than six or seven months. From the effects of malaria, bad water, and other combinations of disease-producing causes, our friends from home soon began to fall sick, and, becoming discouraged, the staff officers began to resign and leave the service. Rogers, I believe, was the first to go. He was soon followed by the quartermaster and commissary, and soon all the gentlemen named as coming to the front with General Hogg were gone, except John T. Decherd, who had been made quartermaster in place of William T. Long, resigned. I bought Long’s horse and rigging, and Decherd and myself continued to run that department for a time, and Tom Johnson was made ordnance officer in place of Rogers, resigned. General Hogg, being stricken down with disease, was removed to the house of a citizen two or three miles in the country, where he was nursed by his faithful servant Bob, General W. L. Cabell meantime being placed in command of the brigade. General Hogg died a few days later—on the day of the battle of Farmington.

The following “pathetic story of Civil War times” having been published in the Nashville (Tenn.) Banner, Youth’s Companion, Jacksonville (Tex.) Reformer, and perhaps many other papers, I insert it here in order to give its correction a sort of permanent standing:

Our camp was moved to a point about three miles east of Corinth. Decherd, the quartermaster, resigned and W. F. Rapley was appointed quartermaster by General Cabell. The rate at which our men fell sick was remarkable, as well as appalling, and distressing in the extreme. The water we had to drink was bad, very bad, and the rations none of the best. The former we procured by digging for it; the earth around Corinth being very light and porous, holding water like a sponge. When we first went there the ground was full of water, and by digging a hole two feet deep we could dip up plenty of a mean, milky-looking fluid; but as the season advanced the water sank, so we dug deeper, and continued to go down, until by the latter part of May our water holes were from eight to twelve feet deep, still affording the same miserable water. My horse would not drink a drop of the water the men had to use, and if I failed to ride him to a small running branch some two miles away he would go without drinking. The rations consisted mainly of flour, made into poor camp biscuit, and the most unpalatable pickled beef.

As fared General Hogg and his staff, so fared all the new troops who saw their first service at Corinth. While many of the old troops were taken sick, it was much worse with the new. We had one or two new Texas regiments come into our brigade, whose first morning report showed 1200 men able for duty; two weeks from that day they could not muster more than 200 men able to carry a musket to the front. The sick men were shipped in carload lots down the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, some dying on the trains, and hundreds of others succumbing at the different towns and stations where they were put off along down that road south of Corinth. It seemed impossible for the surgeons and their assistants properly to care for the number of sick on their hands. Day after day as I passed the Mobile & Ohio depot, I saw scores of the poor sick fellows on the platform waiting to be hauled off. On the day we left Corinth I passed Booneville, a station ten miles below Corinth, and here were perhaps fifty sick men lying in the shade of the trees and bushes. One of the attendants with whom I was acquainted told me he had just returned from a tramp of two or three miles, after water for a wounded man. At every house he came to the well buckets had been taken off and hid, and he finally had to fill his canteen with brackish pond water. Why these sick men had been put off here in the woods, when the station was the only house in sight, where they could not even get a drink of water, I do not know. The mere recollection of those scenes causes a shudder to this day. I was told that two dead men were lying on the platform at Booneville, and a Federal scouting party burned the station during the day. If it was true, they were cremated.

As for myself, I was sick, but was on duty all the time. I performed all the active duties of the brigade quartermaster, being compelled to go to Corinth and back from one to three times daily, looking after forage and other supplies; carried all orders and instructions to the regimental quartermasters; superintended the moving of the trains whenever and wherever they had to be moved; and, in fact, almost lived in my saddle. But, with the exception of two or three nights spent with the troops at the front, when the day’s duties were over, I was comfortably situated at headquarters, having a good wall tent, a cot, and camp-stool, and was kindly treated by General Cabell and the members of his staff. Dr. S. J. Lewis of Rusk was our brigade surgeon, and did everything he could for my comfort and, had I been well, my position would have been as pleasant as I could have desired in the army, as my duties mainly involved active horseback exercise, while my personal surroundings were very agreeable. Nevertheless, I lost my appetite so completely that I was unable to eat any of the rations that were issued to the army. I could no more eat one of our biscuits than I could have eaten a stone, and as for the beef, I could as easily have swallowed a piece of skunk. The mere sight of it was nauseating. Had I not been at headquarters doubtless I would have starved to death, since there we were able to get a ham or something else extra occasionally, and I managed to eat, but barely enough to keep soul and body together. Dr. Lewis saw me wasting away from day to day, and advised me to take a discharge—and quit the service; but this I declined to do. I paid General Hogg a short visit one afternoon during his illness, and another afternoon I rode over to Colonel Bedford Forrest’s camp, to see my brother and some other Huntsville, Ala., friends. I found that my brother had gone, on sick leave, with Wallace Drake, one of his comrades, to some of Drake’s relatives, down the railroad. With these exceptions I was not away from my post at any time. I must have gained some reputation for efficiency, as the quartermaster of our Arkansas regiment offered to give me half his salary if I would assist him in his office.

All the time we were at Corinth Major-General Halleck, with a large army, was moving forward from Pittsburgh Landing, on the Tennessee River, near the Shiloh battlefield, by regular approaches. That is, he would construct line after line of intrenchments, each successive line being a little nearer to us. Hence our troops were often turned out and marched rapidly to the front, in expectation of a pitched battle that was never fought, sometimes being out twenty-four hours. On one occasion an active movement was made to Farmington in an effort to cut off a division of the enemy that had ventured across Hatchie River, and the move was so nearly successful that the enemy, to escape, had to abandon all their camp equipage. On one of the days when our troops were rushing to the front in expectation of a battle, I came up with an old patriot marching along through the heat and dust under an umbrella, while a stout negro boy walking by his side carried his gun. This was the only man I saw during the war that carried an umbrella to fight under. As the battle failed to come off that day, I had no opportunity of learning how he would have manipulated the umbrella and gun in an engagement.

After General Hogg’s death and the promotion of Colonel Louis Hebert to brigadier-general, the Third Texas was transferred to Hebert’s brigade, and I was temporarily separated from it. On May 8 our year’s enlistment having expired, the men re-enlisted for three years, or during the war, and the regiment was reorganized by the election of regimental and company officers, when all the commissioned officers not promoted in some way returned to Texas. Captain Robert H. Cumby, of Henderson, was elected colonel, Captain H. P. Mabry, of Jefferson, lieutenant-colonel, and our Captain J. J. A. Barker, major. James A. Jones was elected captain of Company C, John Germany, first lieutenant, William H. Carr and R. L. Hood, second lieutenants. I was not present at the election. Dr. Dan Shaw, of Rusk County, was made surgeon of the regiment.

Finally, on May 28, we received orders to strike tents and have the trains ready to move. General Cabell came to my tent and advised me to go to the hospital, but I insisted that I could make it away from there on horseback. The next morning the trains were ordered out. Dr. Lewis, having procured about eight ounces of whisky for me, I mounted my horse and followed, resting frequently, and using the stimulant. About noon I bought a glass of buttermilk and a small piece of corn bread, for which I paid one dollar. This I enjoyed more than all the food I had tasted for several weeks.

On the day of the evacuation of Corinth, May 29, the Third Texas, being on outpost, was attacked by the enemy in force, and had quite a sharp battle with them in a dense thicket of black jack brush, but charged and gallantly repulsed them. Our new colonel and lieutenant-colonel not being able for service, Major Barker had asked our old Lieutenant-Colonel Lane to remain with us for the time, so the regiment was commanded by him and Major Barker. The regiment sustained considerable loss in this affair, in killed and wounded. Among the killed was my friend, the gallant young Major J. J. A. Barker; our orderly sergeant, Wallace Caldwell, was mortally wounded, and John Lambert disabled, so that he was never fit for service again. For the gallant conduct of the regiment on this occasion, General Beauregard issued a special order complimenting the Third Texas, and specially designating a young man by the name of Smith, from Rusk County. Smith in the charge through the brush found himself with an empty gun confronting a Federal with loaded musket a few feet from him. The Federal threw his gun down on him and ordered him to surrender. Smith told him he would see him in Hades first, and turned to move off when the fellow fired, missed his body, but cut one of his arms off above the elbow, with a buck and ball cartridge. This was the kind of pluck that General Beauregard admired.[1] On that day the entire army was withdrawn and moved out from Corinth and vicinity. The manner and complete success of this movement of General Beauregard’s has been very highly complimented by military critics.