Four Years a Scout and Spy / "General Bunker", One of Lieut. General Grant's Most Daring and Successful Scouts, Being a Narrative of ... the Experience of Corporal Ruggles During Four Years' Service as a Scout and Spy for the Federal Army

by E. C. Downs

The city had been so completely ransacked by the soldiers before I got in, that I failed to get pay for my glasses.

On the 15th of May we marched west, toward Vicksburg, and on the 16th the enemy was found in large force at Champion Hills, under command of Lieutenant-General Pemberton. He had moved his army out from Vicksburg to attack us. The position selected by the enemy was a strong one, on the summit of an elevation, or ridge of ground, with a line something like a crescent, the right and left of the line further advanced than the center. The face of the hill, in front of the enemy, was an open field, thereby exposing our lines to view as we advanced to the attack. The enemy's lines were in the skirts of a piece of woods that extended to his rear.

Early in the day, the battle commenced, opening on our left, and extending gradually along to our right, until the whole line was engaged, when it raged with intense fury. General Hovey's division, on our left, from the much stronger position occupied by the enemy in its front, suffered terribly; but timely support arrived, and the enemy was driven back. An attempt was then made to crush our center, but made in vain. Support having arrived to the assistance of the center, a dashing charge was made and the enemy routed.

It was a desperate and hard-fought battle, with a heavy loss on both sides, but that of the enemy was much the heaviest. Here, again, I must refer the reader to the official reports for the casualties. It will not be amiss, perhaps, to give the reader some of my personal experience in that battle.

When the action commenced, I was instructed by General Logan to keep to the right of each brigade of his division, as they successively arrived in position and became engaged, and to watch closely for any attempt at flank movement on the part of the enemy. My first position was with the line of skirmishers of the 2d Brigade. About the time our skirmishing commenced, a rebel courier was seen dashing along in a line nearly parallel to the line of skirmishers from the right, and about one hundred yards in advance of the line. When up with and in front of the line, he discovered us and wheeled to the right, and was dashing away at right angles with our line, when six of us brought our pieces to bear on him and fired. He fell from his horse, with one foot fastened in the stirrup. At that instant, the horse gave a leap over a log, and the dangling body struck the log and bounded into the air higher than the horse's back, and then struck the ground with a "thug" sufficient, to all appearances, to have crushed every bone in his body.

A few minutes later, I saw a rebel Major leading his regiment forward to charge upon one of our batteries. When I saw him he was not more than fifty yards distant. In an instant I brought my "repeater" to my face, and while I was looking at the prominent point of his right-cheek bone, a ball took him in the exact spot that I was looking at, and he tumbled from his horse.

I now discovered that, instead of a regiment, a whole brigade was coming, and that our skirmishers had fallen back, and that I was in range between McAlister's Battery and the rebs. I started on a run, and fairly flew as I went; but before I could get out of range, the battery opened on the rebs with double charges of grape and canister, which came howling and tearing the ground all about me. How I escaped instant death is a wonder to me. I succeeded in getting out of the way before another round was fired, quite satisfied with my experience there.

I then moved round much further to the right, and took with me a corporal of the 20th Ohio, by the name of Wm. Grinnell, whom I found engaged in sharp-shooting. After reconnoitering a little, we discovered a rebel battery of eight guns, that kept up a harassing fire upon our lines. We succeeded in sheltering ourselves from view, in close rifle range of the guns, behind a large clump of bushes, and then commenced paying our respects to the gunners. We were doing "bully" execution, and had fired ten or twelve shots apiece, when the rebs returned our compliments with a charge of canister that mowed the bushes all about us. The charge made such a terrible whizzing and howling, and came so suddenly and unexpectedly, that I involuntarily dropped to the ground.

"Are you hurt, Bunker?" called out the corporal.

"No; are you?"