BATTLE OF IUKA

Camp at Tupelo, Miss.—Furloughed—Report for Duty—Camp Routine—“The Sick Call”—Saltillo—Personnel of the Brigade—Baldwin—“Contraband”—On to Iuka—Iuka—Battle of Iuka—Casualties—Retreat.

In the early days of June our command halted and went into camp near Tupelo, Miss., where it remained for several weeks. Here, as I was physically unfit for service, I voluntarily abandoned my place at General Cabell’s headquarters and returned to my own regiment. Obtaining, without difficulty, a thirty days’ furlough, I called on Dr. Shaw for medicine, but he informed me that he had nothing but opium, which would do me no good. But he added, “You need a tonic; if you could only get some whisky, that would soon set you up.” Mounting my horse I went down into Pontotoc County, and, finding a good-looking farmhouse away from the public roads, I engaged board with Mr. Dunn, the proprietor, for myself and horse for thirty days. Mr. Dunn told me of a distillery away down somewhere below the town of Pontotoc, and finding a convalescent in the neighborhood I sent him on my horse to look for it, with the result that he brought me back four canteens of “tonic.”

Now Mr. Dunn’s family consisted of that clever elderly gentleman, his wife, and a handsome, intelligent daughter, presumably about twenty years of age. I soon realized that I had been very fortunate in the selection of a boarding house and that my lot for the next thirty days had been cast in a pleasant place, for every necessary attention was cheerfully shown me by each member of the family. They had lost a son and brother, who had wasted away with consumption, and in my dilapidated and emaciated condition they said I favored him, so they were constantly reminded of a loved one who had gone to his grave in about the same manner I seemed to be going, and they felt almost as if they were ministering to the wants of one of the family. They lived in a comfortable house, and everything I saw indicated a happy, well-to-do family. Their table, spread three times a day, was all that could be desired. We had corn bread, fresh milk and butter, fresh eggs, last year’s yam potatoes, a plentiful supply of garden vegetables and other good things, everything brought on the table being well prepared. At first I had little or no appetite, but thanks to Miss Dunn’s treatment, it soon began to improve. She, using the “tonic,” gave me an egg-nog just before each meal, and, blackberries being plentiful, she gave me blackberries in every form, including pies and cordial, all of which, for one in my condition, was the best possible treatment.

So I improved and gained strength, not rapidly, but steadily, and though the thirty days was not as much time as I needed for a complete convalescence, it was all I had asked for. Mr. Dunn manifested a great deal of interest in my welfare; he did not think I could recover my health in the service, and urged me most earnestly to go back to camp, get a discharge, and go to Cooper’s Well, a health resort down in Mississippi, and I was almost compelled to promise him I would do so, when in truth I had no such intention. The thirty days having expired, I bade farewell to these good people who had taken in a stranger and so kindly cared for him, and returned to camp, not strong or well by any means, but improved, especially in the matter of an appetite.

Going up to regimental headquarters upon my return to the command I let out my horse for his board, procured a rifle and at once reported to our company commander for duty. The strictest military discipline was maintained by General Louis Hebert in every particular, and one day’s duty was very much like the duties of every other day, with a variation for Sunday. Of course the same men did not have the same duties to perform every day, as guard duty and fatigue duty were regulated by details made from the alphabetical rolls of the companies, but the same round of duties came every day in the week. At reveille we must promptly rise, dress, and hurry out into line for roll call; then breakfast. After breakfast guard-mounting for the ensuing twenty-four hours, these guards walking their posts day and night, two hours on and four hours off. Before noon there were two hours’ drill for all men not on guard or some other special duty; then dinner. In the afternoon it was clean up camps, clean guns, dress parade at sundown; then supper, to bed at taps. On Sunday no drill, but, instead, we had to go out for a review, which was worse, as the men had to don all their armor, the officers button up their uniforms to the chin, buckle on their swords, and all march about two miles away through the dust and heat to an old field, march around a circle at least a mile in circumference, and back to camps. All that, including the halting and waiting, usually took up the time until about noon.

With the understanding and agreement that I would be excused from the drill ground when I broke down, and when on guard be allowed to rest when I had walked my post as long as I could, I went on duty as a well man. For quite a while I was compelled to leave the drill ground before the expiration of the two hours, and when I found I could not walk my post through the two hours some one of my comrades usually took my place. It was necessary for me to muster all my courage to do this kind of soldiering, but the exertion demanded of me and the exercise so improved my condition that soon I no longer had to be excused from any part of my duties. We had men in the command afflicted with chronic diarrhea who, yielding to the enervating influence of the disease, would lie down and die, and that was what I determined to avoid if I could.

Among other bugle calls we had “the sick call.” Soon after breakfast every morning this, the most doleful of all the calls, was sounded, when the sick would march up and line themselves in front of the surgeon’s tent for medical advice and treatment. Our surgeon, Dr. Dan Shaw, was a character worthy of being affectionately remembered by all the members of the Third Texas Cavalry. He was a fine physician, and I had fallen in love with him while he was a private soldier because he so generously ex-erted his best skill in assisting Dr. McDugald to save my life at Carthage, Mo. He was a plain, unassuming, jolly old fellow, brave, patriotic, and full of good impulses. He was the man who indignantly declined an appointment as surgeon soon after the battle of Oak Hills, preferring to remain a private in “Company B, Greer’s Texas regiment,” to being surgeon of an Arkansas regiment.

Knowing that he had no medicine except opium, I would go up some mornings, through curiosity, to hear his prescriptions for the various ailments that he had to encounter. He would walk out with an old jackknife in his hand, and conveniently located just behind him could be seen a lump of opium as big as a cannonball. Beginning at the head of the line he would say to the first one: “Well, sir, what is the matter with you?” “I don’t know, doctor; I’ve got a pain in my back, a hurting in my stomach, or a misery in my head, or I had a chill last night.” “Let me see your tongue. How’s your bowels?” He would then turn around and vigorously attack the lump of opium with his knife, and roll out from two to four pills to the man, remarking to each of his waiting patients: “There, take one of these every two hours.” Thus he would go, down the line to the end, and in it all there was little variation—none to speak of except in the answers of the individuals, the number of pills, or the manner of taking. And what else could he do? He had told me frankly that he had nothing in his tent that would do me any good, but these men had to have medicine.

For water at Tupelo we dug wells, each company a well, using a sweep to draw it. In this hilly portion of the State good water could be obtained by digging from twenty to twenty-five feet.

From the time of the reorganization at Corinth up to the middle of July Company C had lost a number of men. Some, as McDugald and Dillard, were commissioned officers, and did not re-enlist; some were discharged on applications, and others under the conscription law then in force, a law exempting all men under eighteen and over forty-five years of age. Among those discharged I remember the two Ackers, Croft, I. K. Frazer, Tom Hogg, Tom Johnson, W. A. Newton, William Pennington, and R. G. Thompson, all of whom returned to Texas except William Pennington, who remained with us a considerable time, notwithstanding his discharge. In the regimental officers several changes had been made. After the death of Major Barker, Captain Jiles S. Boggess, of Company B, from Henderson, was promoted to major; Colonel R. H. Cumby resigned, and Lieutenant-Colonel Mabry was made colonel. J. S. Boggess, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Captain A. B. Stone, of Company A, from Marshall, promoted to major. About the first of August we moved up the railroad to Saltillo, about fifteen miles north of Tupelo, established camps, dug wells, and remained about three weeks. Here the Fortieth (?) or Mississippi regiment joined the brigade. This was a new regiment, just out from home, and it seemed to us, from the amount of luggage they had, that they had brought about all their household goods along. This regiment is remembered for these distinct peculiarities. Aside from the weight and bulk of its baggage they had the tallest man and the largest boy in the army, and the colonel used a camel to carry his private baggage. The tall man was rather slender, and looked to be seven feet high; the boy was sixteen or eighteen years old, and weighed more than three hundred pounds.

The brigade now consisted of the Third Texas, Whitfield’s Texas Legion, the Third Louisiana, the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Arkansas, and the Fortieth Mississippi.[2] The army here, commanded by General Price, was composed of two divisions commanded by Generals Little and D. H. Maury. Many of the troops that came out of Corinth with General Beauregard had gone with General Bragg into Kentucky. At the end of three weeks we moved farther up the railroad to Baldwin. Here we dug more wells, and it was my fortune to be on the second day’s detail that dug our company well. The first detail went down some eight feet, about as deep as they could throw the earth out. The next morning four of us, including C. C. Watkins and myself, the two weakest men, physically, in the company, were detailed to continue the digging. We arranged means for drawing the earth out, and began work, two at the time, one to dig and one to draw. At quitting time in the evening we had it down twenty-one feet, and had plenty of water. But we were not to remain long at Baldwin, as preparations for moving on Iuka were soon begun. As commissary supplies were gathered in for the approaching campaign they were stored in the freight department of the depot. One R. M. Tevis, of Galveston, was acting as commissary of subsistence, and Charlie Dunn, of Shreveport, was his assistant. They occupied a small room, the station agent’s office, in the building during the day. A good many fatigue men were usually about the place during the day, to handle the stuff that was brought in.

One day, while I was on the platform, a country wagon drove up. Tevis and Dunn seemed to have expected its arrival, as they were soon out looking after the unloading. Among the rest was a barrel, a well-hooped, forty-gallon barrel, and instead of being sent in with the other stores it was hurriedly rolled into the private office of the commissary. This proved to be a barrel of peach brandy. Now, peach brandy was “contraband.” The character and contents of the barrel were shrewdly guessed by the bystanders as it was hurried into its hiding-place, and its locality, after it had been stowed away, was clearly observed and mental note made thereof. The depot building was located at the north end of a cut and was elevated fully three feet above the ground, platforms and all. The Third Texas was camped along on the east side of the cut, say one hundred yards below the depot. The supplies were guarded day and night, the guards walking their beats, around on the platform. The next morning the guards were seen pacing the beats all right enough, but in the bottom of that barrel was an auger hole, and there was an auger hole through the depot floor, but there was not a gill of brandy in the barrel. At dress parade that morning it was unnecessary to call in an expert to determine that the brandy, when it leaked out, had come down the railroad cut. The two gentlemen most vitally interested in this occurrence dared not make complaint, but bore their sad bereavement in profound silence, and no one else ever mentioned it.

This brief stay at Baldwin terminated our summer vacation and our study of Hardie’s infantry tactics. The constant all-summer drilling and the strict discipline we had been subjected to had rendered our dismounted cavalry the most efficient troops in the army, as they were good in either infantry or cavalry service, as was afterwards abundantly proved.

All things being ready, the march to Iuka was begun under General Price, with his two divisions. Up to this time the only infantry marching I had done, beyond drilling and reviews, was the two moves, Tupelo to Sattillo and Sattillo to Baldwin. As we were furnished transportation for cooking utensils only, the men had to carry all their worldly effects themselves and the knapsack must contain all clothing, combs, brushes, writing material and all else the soldier had or wished to carry, in addition to his gun, his cartridge box with forty rounds of ammunition, his cap box, haversack, and canteen. The weather was extremely hot, and the roads dry and fearfully dusty. While I had been on full duty for some time I was very lean, physically weak, and far from being well, and starting out to make a march of several days, loaded down as I was, I had some misgivings as to my ability to make it; but I did not hesitate to try. As the object of the expedition was to move on Iuka and capture the force there before General Grant could reinforce them from Corinth, a few miles west of that place, the troops were moved rapidly as practicable, the trains being left behind to follow on at their leisure. Unfortunately for me, I was on guard duty the last night before reaching our destination, and as we moved on soon after midnight I got no sleep.

Next morning after daylight, being within six or seven miles of Iuka, the Third Texas and Third Louisiana were placed in front, with orders to march at quick time into Iuka. Now, literally, this means thirty inches at a step and 116 steps per minute; practically it meant for us to get over that piece of road as rapidly as our tired legs could carry us. To keep up with this march was the supreme effort of the expedition on my part. I do not think I could have kept up if Lieutenant Germany had not relieved me of my gun for three or four miles of the distance. We found the town clear of troops, but had come so near surprising them that they had to abandon all their commissary stores, as they did not have time to either remove or destroy them. At the end of the march my strength was exhausted, and my vitality nearly so. The excitement being at an end, I collapsed, as it were, and as soon as we went into camp I fell down on the ground in the shade of a tree where I slept in a kind of stupor until nearly midnight.

We remained about a week in and around Iuka, in line of battle nearly all the time, expecting an attack by forces from Corinth; and as it was uncertain by which one of three roads they would come, we were hurried out on first one road and then another. One afternoon we were hurriedly moved out a mile or two on what proved to be a false alarm, and were allowed to return to camps. On returning we found a poor soldier lying in our company camp with a fearful hole in his head, where a buck and ball cartridge had gone through it. A musket was lying near him, and we could only suppose he was behind in starting on the march, and had killed himself accidentally.

On the night of September 18 we marched out about four miles on the Corinth road, leading west, and lay in line of battle until about 4 P. M. the next day, when a courier came in great haste, with the information that the enemy was advancing on the Bay Springs road from the south, with only a company of our cavalry in front of them. We had then to double quick back about three miles in order to get into the road they were on. We found them among the hills about one and a half miles from the town, a strong force of infantry, with nine or ten pieces of artillery, and occupying a strong position of their own selection. We formed on another hill in plain view of them, a little valley intervening between the two lines. Our fighting force consisted of General Little’s division of two brigades, Hebert’s, and a brigade of Alabama and Mississippi troops commanded by Colonel John D. Martin, and the Clark battery of four guns, Hebert’s brigade in front of their center, with two of Martin’s regiments on our right and two on our left. We began a skirmish fire, and kept it up until our battery was in position, when we began a rapid fire with canister shot. We then advanced in double line of battle, slowly at first, down the hill on which we had formed, across the little valley and began the ascent of the hill on which the enemy was posted, General W. S. Rosecrans in command. As we ascended the hill we came in range of our own artillery, and the guns had to be silenced. The entire Federal artillery fire was soon turned on us, using grape and canister shot, and as their battery was directly in front of the Third Texas, their grape shot and musketry fire soon began to play havoc with our people, four of our men, the two files just to my right, being killed. We charged the battery, and with desperate fighting took nine pieces and one caisson. The horses hitched to the caisson tried to run off, but we shot them down and took it, the brave defenders standing nobly to their posts until they were nearly all shot down around their guns,—one poor fellow being found lying near his gun, with his ramrod grasped in both hands, as if he were in the act of ramming down a cartridge when he was killed. The infantry fought stubbornly, but after we captured their guns we drove them back step by step, about six hundred yards, when darkness put an end to a battle that had lasted a little more than two and a half hours, the lines being within two hundred yards of each other.

I cannot give the number of Federal troops engaged in the battle, but General Rosecrans, in giving his casualties, enumerates eighteen regiments of infantry, three of cavalry, one detached company, and four batteries of artillery. The cavalry was not in the engagement, and I think he had but two batteries engaged. One of these, the Eleventh Ohio Light Battery, lost its guns and fifty-four men. The total Federal loss, reported, was 790, including killed, wounded, and missing. Hebert’s brigade, that did the main fighting, was composed of six regiments, reporting 1774 for duty, and lost 63 killed, 305 wounded, and 40 missing; total, 408. Colonel Martin had four regiments (1405 men), and lost 22 killed and 95 wounded; total, 117. We had two batteries with us, the Clark battery and the St. Louis battery, but they only fired a few shots. The Third Texas had 388 men, and lost 22 killed and 74 wounded; total, 96. Company C lost W. P. Bowers, Carter Caldwell, W. P. Crawley, and W. T. Harris killed; and J. J. Felps severely wounded. Crawley had a belt of gold around his waist, but only four or five of us knew this, and I presume, of course, it was buried with him. General Maury’s division was not engaged. General Henry Little, our division commander, was killed. Lieutenant Odell, of the Third Texas, who was acting regimental commissary, and who was mounted on my horse, was killed, and the horse was also killed. Colonels Mabry and Whitfield, and, I believe, all our other colonels were wounded. The captured artillery was drawn by hand into town that night, where the guns were left next morning, after being spiked, as we had no spare horses to pull them away. Spiking guns means that round steel files were driven hard into the touch-holes, giving the enemy the trouble of drilling these out before the guns can be of any use again.

As General Ord was marching rapidly with a strong force from Corinth to reinforce General Rosecrans, General Price concluded to retreat. Putting the trains in the road some time before daylight, early in the morning the troops marched out southward, leaving our wounded men in Iuka and sending a detail back to bury the dead. As General Hebert’s brigade had stood the brunt of the battle the evening before, we were put in front and, to clear the road for the other troops, we had to move at double quick time for six miles. This used me up, and I obtained permission to go as I pleased, which enabled me to outgo the command and to rest occasionally while they were coming up. We made a march of twenty-five miles that day on our way back to Baldwin. But oh, how my feet were blistered! They felt as if I had my shoes filled with hot embers. Late in the afternoon, when I was away ahead of the command I came to Bay Springs. This little village stands on a bluff of a wide, deep creek, and is crossed by a long, high bridge. At this time, when the creek was low, the bridge was at least twenty-five feet above the mud and water below. I climbed down under the bluff, just below the bridge, to a spring, where I slaked my thirst, bathed my burning feet and sat there resting and watching the wagons cross the bridge. Presently a six-mule team, pulling a wagon heavily loaded with ammunition in boxes, was driven onto the bridge, and as it was moving slowly along one of the hind wheels, the right one, ran so close to the edge that the end of the bridge flooring crumbled off and let the wheel down. Gradually this wheel kept sliding until the other hind wheel was off. This let the ammunition go to the bottom of the creek, followed by the wagon bed. Soon off came one fore wheel. This pulled off the other one, then the wagon tongue tripped the offwheel mule and he dangled by the side of the bridge, and soon pulled the saddle mule off, and this process gradually went on, until the last mule started, and as he fell off his hamestring caught on the end of the bridge flooring, and for an instant the whole outfit of wagon and six mules hung by the hamestring, when it broke and down went the wagon and the six mules atop of it. The driver had seen the danger in time to make his escape.

We soon arrived at Baldwin, our starting point. Our wounded left at Iuka fell into the hands of the enemy and were kindly treated and well cared for. The good women of the town and surrounding country came to their rescue nobly, and they received every necessary attention.