“No scenes of life are so deeply and indelibly impressed upon the memory as those which occur in war and battle. All the mental faculties seem to be melted into a fused condition by the excitement of the occasion, so that a full and deep impression of all the principal events is made and then to be suddenly turned to adamant so that the impression must remain as long as the faculties endure. There is not a soldier of the late war, who took part in any engagement, who does not have impressed upon his mind some event or scene which then transpired that is just as vivid and fresh today as on the day it was made. And when the memory is turned toward it by the suggestion of any other faculty—by the sight of some party connected therewith, or hearing kindred sounds, or by those more hidden spiritual influences less understood that at times cause to form in order and pass in review before the mind all the leading and exciting incidents of past life, these events and scenes are again displayed with all the vividness and strength of first impression. These thoughts were suggested to the writer upon meeting Lieutenant H. M. Neil of the Eleventh Ohio Battery at the meeting of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee at St. Louis, in 1882. Twenty years had passed since I had seen his face, and I had reckoned him among the brave spirits of the war which had gone to rest. When I saw him last before this, he was commanding his battery in the thickest of the fight at the battle of Corinth about 11 o’clock in the forenoon of October 4, 1862. His rank was that of Second Lieutenant. All officers of higher grade were absent in hospital from wounds received fifteen days before at Iuka, in which battle this battery of a few more than 100 men had eighteen killed and fifty-two wounded, and out of 148 horses had but three left standing at the close of the engagement. The battery was captured by the rebels and recaptured by our troops. Lieutenant Neil was the only commissioned officer on duty at the close of the engagement, and he had been wounded twice with shell and twice with bullets—severe flesh wounds. He was besmeared with blood. The Lieutenant was, notwithstanding full of pluck. He said the next morning, “If I can have one hundred men detailed from the infantry and horses furnished, I will have the battery in fighting trim again in two weeks.” Infantry soldiers readily volunteered upon call to man the battery, and horses were furnished by the Quartermaster, and on the afternoon of the 3d of October—fourteen days from the annihilation of the battery the battle of Corinth was fought and the Lieutenant having marched up from Iuka without escort, came upon the field with his battery fully manned, equipped and drilled, amid the hurrahs and tears of the infantry that had seen it destroyed under the terrible fire of the 19th of September, and who now seemed to feel that the battery men, horses and all, had come back from the regions of the dead to aid in the terrible struggle now going on between the same armies.

“The Lieutenant received the heartiest congratulations of all officers who had been with him in the battle of Iuka. While receiving those of the writer he said: “I want you to stay right by my battery with your regiment when it goes into action here, and if you will no rebel battalions can take it this time.” There was a promise to comply with his request. On the following morning when the irresistible assault of the rebel army came, the Eleventh Ohio Battery was in position commanding the whole rebel line and the Fourth Minnesota Infantry in line flat upon the ground close in its rear. Lieutenant Neil was seated on his thoroughbred from twenty to forty feet in front of the battery, between the line of fire of the guns of the middle section. He requested the Colonel of the infantry to keep his eye upon him and whenever he beckoned with his saber, to have the infantry rise up and deliver their fire.

“Now the assaulting lines of the rebel armies come on like a wave of the sea, rolling along over breastworks and batteries. He orders the men to open fire and, still in his advanced position, waves his hat constantly to the advancing lines of rebels, and shouts, ‘Come on! Come on! if you think you can play Iuka over again.’ A strange coincidence was that the same rebel battalions came against this battery that had captured it on the 19th of September. But they could not come on here. Three times the Lieutenant signaled the infantry to rise and fire, and each time they rose to hear him say, ‘No, no, they have broke again.’

“For a half mile in front of this battery, after the battle, were large areas covered with the dead and dying, which told with what terrible effect it had been served during the assault.

“The sight of the Lieutenant, after twenty years, brought up these occurrences—this whole scene, and made it as fresh as if it had transpired yesterday, and made me resolve to commit it to writing before I died, feeling that none of us had done him justice in our reports of these battles.

“The scene at Corinth, if it could be placed on canvas, would be thrilling even to strangers. An elegant thoroughbred Kentucky horse fully caparisoned, on which the Lieutenant is sitting erectly, with his hat in his hand, is standing out in front of the battery between the lines of fire of the two center guns, seemingly conscious that if he moved to the right or left he would be torn to atoms, and trusting himself wholly to his rider, the Lieutenant is waving his hat in the air, and bidding defiance to the foe; advancing in masses and lines upon his positions, the artillerymen with superhuman power and skill, amid the smoke that rolled incessantly from the muzzles of every gun, loading and firing, is a picture before the mind at this distance plainer than can be placed on canvas by the most skillful artist. It is such men and such services that saved this nation in the war. They were not conspicuous nor vain-glorious, perhaps not heard of before the war, nor afterwards; but in the midst of it, meeting the full demands of the great occasion and leaving the reward to posterity.

“What this officer did after this battle in the war, I know not. He passed from my sight when we withdrew from that line of battle, and twenty years passed before I saw his face again, and during all this time never heard a word concerning him. When I met him it was my privilege to name him as one of the vice presidents of our society, showing that time had in no respect obliterated or dimmed the memory of his services.

JOHN B. SANBORN, Commanding,

First Brigade, Seventh Division, Army of the Tennessee.

St. Paul, Jan. 14, 1884.”

Transcriber’s Notes:

Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text.