SIEGE AND SURRENDER OF PORT HUDSON—THE INVESTMENT—SKIRMISHING—THE FIRST GRAND ASSAULT—ASSAILED AND ASSAILANTS—DOUBLY ARMED—LIEUT. PRATT AT BATTERY 11—THE “ESSEX” DRIVEN OFF—LIEUT. ADAMS ELECTED—ARTILLERY PRACTICE—ASSAULT OF JUNE 14TH—EFFECT OF BUCK AND BALL—BANKS’ INHUMANITY—LEAD FOR WATER—A GALLANT CORPORAL—BATTERY 11 SILENCED—GALLANT SCHURMUR’S DEATH—THE SUNKEN BATTERY—MULE AND PEAS—THE FALL OF VICKSBURG—UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER—GEN. GARDNER’S SWORD—CASUALTIES OF THE FIRST.
The initiatory steps of the siege of Port Hudson may be reckoned from May 20th, 1863, when Gen. Augur, with his own and Gen. Sherman’s division, advanced from Baton Rouge. Gen. Banks, who had been campaigning in the Teche country, embarking his troops at Shreveport, landed at Bayou Sara, five miles above Port Hudson, on the 21st. His forces consisted of the divisions of Gens. Grover and Emory, Gen. Weitzel’s brigade of sappers and miners and two regiments of negro troops. A junction was effected with Gen. Augur’s command on the 22d, thus closely investing the position. Gen. Banks then assumed command, his forces consisting of four divisions, one brigade and two unattached regiments, numbering from twenty-five to thirty thousand men. To resist this army, Gen. Frank Gardner had Beale’s brigade, consisting of the First and Twenty-ninth Mississippi regiments, the Tenth and Fifteenth Arkansas and the Forty-ninth Alabama; Lieut.-Col. Miles’ Legion; the First Alabama acting as heavy artillery; DeGournay’s battalion of heavy artillery; a Tennessee company of heavy artillery; several companies of Mississippi light artillery, and some dismounted cavalry—all told, about six thousand men. Col. DeGournay, in an account of the siege, also mentions the Twelfth, Sixteenth, Eighteenth and Twenty-third Arkansas regiment, First Arkansas battalion, Ninth Louisiana battalion, a battalion of Texans from Maxey’s brigade; but he places the number fit for duty at the beginning of the siege at only five thousand, the Arkansas regiments being skeletons.
On the 21st, Gen. Gardner sent out Col. Miles, with 400 cavalry and a battery, to reconnoitre in the direction of Plain’s Stores. About four miles from Port Hudson they encountered Gen. Augur’s advance, and a severe skirmish of two and a half hours followed. The Confederate loss was thirty killed and forty wounded. At the same time Col. Powers’ cavalry, 300 strong, had a skirmish on the Bayou Sara road, and, being cut off, did not return to Port Hudson. When night fell the other forces were recalled within the fortifications. From Saturday, the 23d, to Tuesday, the 26th, the enemy were engaged in taking positions, the close investment being completed on the 24th. The First Alabama, with the exception of detachments at the guns, went to the front on the 23d, and were stationed on the northern line, at that time unfortified. Col. Steadman having been assigned to the command of the left wing of the garrison, Lieut.-Col. Locke commanded the regiment. Gen. Beale had command of the centre, and Col. Miles of the right. On the 24th there was heavy skirmishing, the First Alabama being engaged. The same day an order was issued for the brass rifle to be taken to a redan near the Jackson road. Lieut. Frank, with a detachment of the sick and cooks—the only men of the company in camp—went with the gun and opened fire at long range upon a battery of the enemy, which was soon silenced. This gun remained at the Jackson road redan during the entire siege, the gunners suffering severely, and the gun being several times dismounted. On the 25th the First Alabama was again heavily engaged skirmishing, keeping back the enemy, while at the same time hurriedly fortifying, and lost twelve or fifteen men in killed and wounded. On the 26th the 30-pound Parrott was sent down to Battery No. 11 with a detachment of Co. K, under command of Lieut. Pratt, Sergt. Williamson, gunner, and a 24-pounder, rifled, was transferred from Battery No. 2 to No. 1. Lieut. Tuttle was in charge of Battery No. 1, and Lieut. Frank remained at the Jackson redan with the brass gun. Most of the 24-pounders were transferred from the river batteries to the fortifications, their places being supplied with Quaker guns. On the 26th there was but little firing, both armies preparing for the work of the following day.
Early on the morning of the 27th the enemy opened a heavy fire from both the land batteries and the fleet, and at 6, A. M., the Federal troops advanced to the assault. The heaviest attack was directed against the Confederate left, the assaulting column consisting of Grover’s and Emory’s divisions, Weitzel’s brigade and the two regiments of negro troops. On the extreme left the negroes, supported by a brigade of whites, crossed Sandy Creek and assaulted the position held by Col. Shelby with the Twenty-ninth Mississippi. They advanced at a double-quick till within about 150 yards of the works, when the 24-pounder in Battery No. 1, manned by Co. K, and two pieces of light artillery on Col. Shelby’s line, opened on them; at the same time they were received with volleys of musketry from the Mississippians. The negroes turned and fled, without firing a shot. About 250 of them were killed and wounded in front of the works; but the Federal reports stated that 600 were killed and wounded. If this were correct, they must have been shot down by the white brigade in their rear; and, indeed, volleys of musketry were heard in the direction of their flight. The First Alabama, Lieut.-Col. Locke, and the Tenth Arkansas, Col, Witt, engaged the enemy outside the entrenchments in the thick woods, and fought most gallantly; but were compelled, by the heavy force brought against them, to fall back across Sandy Creek. Col. Johnson, with the Fifteenth Arkansas, 300 men, occupied and fortified a hill jutting out from the line, and held it till the close of the siege, though desperate efforts were made to dislodge them; on the 27th they repulsed a very heavy assault, the enemy’s dead in front of the position numbering eighty or ninety. Gen. Beale’s command in the centre, and Col. Miles’ on the right, were assailed by Augur’s and Sherman’s divisions about 2, P. M., but the enemy was everywhere repulsed with heavy loss. At the Jackson road the detachment of Co. K, Lieut. Frank commanding, who were serving the brass rifle, were, with but one exception, killed or wounded. While ramming a charge home, Private Henry Smith was mortally wounded by a sharpshooter; Corp. Fergerson promptly stepped to his place, and was instantly fatally shot. In the meantime Private Hayes had been stricken down. Private Sears was busy attending the wounded and Lieut. Frank and Sergt. Ellis fired the gun themselves several rounds, the former pointing and the latter loading. While doing this Lieut. Frank fell, pierced by a Minie ball; by his request, Sergt. Ellis carried him out of the battery to Gen. Beale’s headquarters, and gave him some water from the General’s canteen. Sergt. Ellis then asked for more men, and the General sent his courier to the rear for a detachment, which came under Lieut. Tuttle’s command. Lieut. Frank and Corp. Fergerson died that night; Private Smith lingered until July 10th; Private Hayes’ wound was slight. Near the camp, Private Winslett was instantly killed by a shell while on his way to Battery No. 11 with the Parrott gun. The final effort of the day was made about 3, P. M., when the enemy, under cover of a white flag, made a dash on a portion of our lines, but they were easily repulsed. All day the fleet kept up an incessant firing upon the lower batteries, but did no damage. The Confederates had about 5,500 muskets at the breastworks; and had the men been evenly distributed, they would have been about three feet apart. Fortunately, the nature of the ground enabled Gen. Gardner to leave long stretches of the works defended only by pickets; and, as the charges were not simultaneous, troops were hurried from one point to another where most needed. The fortifications, as previously stated, consisted of an ordinary field earthwork, over any portion of which, at the beginning of the siege—it was materially strengthened during the 48 days at exposed points—a fox hunter could have leaped. In some places, in fact, as in front of the First Alabama, there were no breastworks. Against this small force and weak defences Banks hurled nearly his whole army of 25,000 men, who fought bravely, but were badly handled. Gen. Banks loss was 293 killed and 1,549 wounded; the Confederate loss was about 200 killed and wounded. The Confederates picked up outside the works the following night a considerable number of Enfield rifles. These guns, with others subsequently captured, were retained at the works, and ere the close of the siege most of the men were armed with two guns each—a musket loaded with buck and ball for use at close quarters, and a rifle for sharp shooting. As the fixed ammunition for the Enfield’s became exhausted, the men used the powder from musket cartridges, and for lead picked up Minie balls fired into the place by the enemy. These Yankee leaden missiles were also used instead of canister and were so thick on the surface of the ground within our lines, that it was but the work of a few minutes to pick up enough to charge a 12-pounder gun.
During the bombardment, on the 27th, a rifle shell from the fleet struck in Battery No. 5 disabling the 10-inch Columbiad carriage and killing a private of Co. G, First Alabama. A squad from Co. K worked in that battery on the nights of the 27th and 28th in dismounting and remounting, after the repair of the carriage, this 10-inch gun, which was ready for service again on the 29th. The man who was killed was standing on the carriage and was literally torn to pieces.
On the 28th there was a cessation of hostilities at the breastworks for the purpose of burying the dead. Gen. Banks did not deem it worth while to bury the colored troops who “fought nobly,” and their bodies lay festering in the sun till the close of the siege, when the colored regiments gathered the bones of their unfortunate brothers-in-arms and buried them.
At 7 P. M. the truce ended and the enemy made a furious rush upon the position held by the First Alabama. The fighting lasted nearly an hour, but the enemy were gallantly repulsed. The armistice did not embrace the river batteries and fleet, and the firing from the latter was unusually heavy. As previously mentioned Lieut. Pratt had received orders to take the 30-pounder Parrott, with a detachment from Co. K to Battery No. 11. An old 24-pounder, rifled, manned by a detachment from Col. DeGournay’s battalion was also ordered to report to him at the same battery. His orders were to open upon the enemy’s fleet at daylight, but owing to the darkness of the night and the road being torn up by shells, it was after sunrise when the guns were got into position. The battery was very small, having been built for one gun only, and the parapet was but little over knee-high. About 6 A. M., everything being in readiness, Lieut. Pratt opened fire with the two guns upon the “Essex” anchored one mile or more distant. Within ten minutes the little battery was receiving the concentrated fire of the fleet including the six mortar-boats. The “Essex,” owing to her position, was the most accurate in her fire; three shells from her nine-inch guns exploded on the platform of the battery, and one struck a canteen hanging on the knob of the cascable of the Parrott. Private Joe Tunnell was slightly wounded by this shell; he was thrown upon his face and it was supposed he was killed, but he got up and brushing the dirt from his face exclaimed, “Well, boys they liked to have got me.” His wound though not serious disabled him, and Lieut. Pratt, in addition to his own duties as commander, had to assist in serving the gun. Lieut. Pratt was himself wounded during the action, but did not leave the battery; he was standing on the parapet watching the effect of the fire, when a shell exploded in the earth under his feet, and threw him into the battery, while fragments of the shell struck him on the hand and hip. Never did men act with more coolness than those at these guns, nor has artillery often been more ably served. There were fired from Co. K’s gun 49 shot and shell, and from the other piece 50. The enemy’s vessels were struck repeatedly; one shell from the Parrott was seen to enter a port-hole of the “Essex,” after which she closed her ports and, without firing another shot, retired out of range. The “Genesee” was also struck, and it was thought partially crippled. In addition to the casualties in Co. K, one man at the other gun was wounded.
The enemy made no more general assaults upon the works until June 14th, but in the meantime were approaching by parallels and planting batteries of heavy siege and naval guns. A steady fire was kept up day and night both by the fleet and the land batteries. There were about eighty siege pieces in these latter. An eight-inch howitzer so planted as to enfilade a portion of the southern line of defences, caused much amusement as well as annoyance to the Confederates. It was fired with light charges so as to make the shell ricochet and was, in consequence, christened “Bounding Bet” by the men, who speedily sought cover whenever they saw a puff of smoke from it. The deadly missile would go rolling and skipping along the inside of the line of works, finally exploding; one, that failed to burst, was opened and found to contain 480 copper balls of less than half an inch in diameter.
The sharp shooters were constantly engaged, and a man could scarcely show his head above the breastworks, at the more exposed points, without its being made a target. On May 31st the Parrott gun in Battery 11 fired a few rounds at the fleet. Soon after this Co. K was given a 24-pounder siege gun on the south side of the works named, by the company that had formerly used it, “Virginia,” and the Parrott was transferred to DeGournay’s battalion.
On the 3d of June an election was held in Co. K to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Lieut. Frank. N. K. Adams received 37 votes, W. L. Ellis 7, scattering 4, and Lieut. Adams was duly commissioned. Hot weather had now set in, and this, coupled with constant exposure in the trenches, caused much sickness among the troops; camp fever, diarrhœa, chills and fever soon reduced the number able to report for duty nearly one-third, and many of Co. K were among the sick. The company now served only at the artillery; Lieut. Pratt had charge of the “Virginia,” on the south side of the fortifications, Lieut. Tuttle had “The Baby,” brass rifle, at the Jackson Road, Lieut. Adams remained at Battery No. 1, occasionally relieving Lieuts. Pratt and Tuttle. Capt. Whitfield was placed in command of the Batteries 1, 2, 3 and 5, manned by detachments from Cos. K, A, G and B, respectively. The detachments of Co. K, at the “Virginia” and “Baby,” were daily relieved by the men held in reserve at Battery No. 1. The fire of the enemy’s land batteries was now very annoying, and the Confederate artillery could not fire a gun without having the fire of a dozen pieces concentrated upon it. Co. K’s brass gun was in this way several times silenced, and during the siege had two or three sets of wheels cut down. Finally the artillerists were compelled to withdraw their guns from the batteries and only run them in when a charge was made. In a measure to meet this emergency, the ten-inch Columbiad in Battery No. 4, on the river, was turned around and brought to bear by calculation on the batteries giving the most annoyance, and fire opened, apparently with considerable effect as the enemy’s fire slackened. Quite a number of eight and nine-inch guns were landed from the fleet, and placed in positions where they did much damage to the Confederate works. A battery of seven of these guns were located in front of Gen. Beale’s centre, one of six guns to the right of the Jackson Road, in front of Co. K’s brass gun, and one of seven guns in front of Col. Steadman’s command. From all of these a constant fire was kept up.