“AN ARMY EXPERIENCE”
The following appreciative remembrance of the action of the Eleventh Ohio Battery at battles of Iuka, September 19, 1862, and Corinth, October 4, 1862, appeared in the columns of the St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press in 1884. Having been preserved by a Companion of the Ohio Commandery, it was read by the Recorder, Major Thrall, at the Commandery monthly meeting of October 6, 1909, as the Recorder’s contribution to the discussion of an account of the part of the Eleventh Ohio in those battles, which had just been presented by Captain Neil, and by general request is published by the Commandery, without the advice or consent of Companion Neil.
Geo. A. Thayer,
A. B. Isham,
L. M. Hosea,
Publication Committee.
“AN ARMY EXPERIENCE.
“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.