History of the Nineteenth Army Corps

by Richard B. Irwin

The Arkansas, disabled within sight of the goal by an accident to her machinery, was run ashore and destroyed by her commander to save her from capture. The Confederate losses were about 84 killed, 313 wounded, and 56 missing; total, 453. Clark was severely wounded and made prisoner. Allen was killed, and two other brigade commanders wounded. Helm, Hunt, and Thompson had been previously disabled by an accident during the night panic.

The Union losses were 84 killed, 266 wounded, and 33 missing; total, 383. The heaviest loss fell upon the 21st Indiana, which suffered 126 casualties, and upon the 14th Maine, which reported 118. Of the killed, 36, or nearly one half, belonged to the 14th Maine, while more than two thirds of the killed and nearly two thirds of the total belonged to that regiment and the 21st Indiana. The 4th Wisconsin, being posted quite to the left of the point of attack, was not engaged.

Colonel G. T. Roberts, of the 7th Vermont, fell early in the action, and near its close Williams was instantly killed while urging his men to the attack. In him his little brigade lost the only commander present of experience in war; the country, a brave and accomplished soldier. If he was, as must be confessed, arbitrary, at times unreasonable, and often harsh, in his treatment of his untrained volunteers, yet many who then thought his discipline too severe to be endured, lived to know, and by their conduct vindicate, the value of his training.

The Confederates appear to have suffered to some extent during the last attack, until the lines drew too near together, from the fire of the Essex and her consorts. Ransom also speaks of having shelled the enemy with great effect during the afternoon from the Kineo and Katahdin, accurately directed by signals from the capitol; but no other account even mentions any firing at that period of the day; the effect cannot, therefore, have been severe, and it seems probable that the troops against whom it was directed may have been some outlying party.

Cahill's seniority entitled him to the command after Williams fell, yet during the remainder of the battle Dudley seems to have commanded the troops actually engaged. Shortly after the close of the action Cahill assumed the command and sent word to Butler of the state of affairs.

The Confederates were still to be seen upon the field of battle. Their force was naturally enough over-estimated. Another attack was expected during the afternoon, and reinforcements were urgently called for. Butler had none to give without putting New Orleans itself in peril. However, during the evening he determined to release from arrest a number of officers who had been deprived of their swords by Williams at various times, and for various causes, mainly growing out of the confused and as yet rather unsettled policy of the government in reference to the treatment of the negroes, and to send all these officers to Baton Rouge. Among them were Colonel Paine of the 4th Wisconsin and Colonel Clark of the 6th Michigan. Since the 11th of June Paine had been in arrest; an arrest of a character peculiar and perhaps unprecedented in the history of armies. Whenever danger was to be faced, or unusual duty to be performed, he might wear his sword and command his men, but the moment the duty or the danger was at an end he must go back into arrest. Paine, who was an extremely conscientious officer, as well as a man of high character and firmness of purpose, had from the first taken strong ground against the use of any portion of his force in aid of the claims of the master to the service of the slave. Williams, strict in his idea of obedience due his superiors, not less than in his notions of obedience due to him by his own inferiors in rank, stood upon his construction of the law and the orders of the War Department, as they then existed; hence in the natural course of events inevitably arose more than one irreconcilable difference of opinion. Paine was now ordered to go at once to Baton Rouge and take command. He was told by Butler to burn the town and the capitol. The library, the paintings, the statuary, and the relics were to be spared, as well as the charitable institutions of the town. The books, the paintings, and the statue of Washington, he was to send to New Orleans; he was then to evacuate Baton Rouge and retire with his whole force to New Orleans.

At midnight on the 6th of August Paine arrived at Baton Rouge. There he found every thing quiet, with the troops in camp on an interior and shorter line, but expecting another attack. There was in fact an alarm before morning came, but nothing happened. On the 7th Paine took command and set about putting the town in complete condition for an effective defence. With his accustomed care and energy he soon rectified the lines and entrenched them with twenty-four guns in position, and, in co-operation with the navy, concerted every measure for an effective defence, even against large numbers.

Breckinridge, however, after continuing to menace Baton Rouge for some days, had, by Van Dorn's orders, retired to Port Hudson, and was now engaged in fortifying that position. Ruggles was sent there on the 12th of August. The next day Breckinridge received orders from Van Dorn, then at Jackson, to follow with his whole force. "Port Hudson," Van Dorn said, "must be held if possible." "Port Hudson," remarks Breckinridge, in his report of the battle of Baton Rouge, "is one of the strongest points on the Mississippi, which Baton Rouge is not, and batteries there will command the river more completely than at Vicksburg."

Meanwhile Butler had changed his mind with regard to the evacuation of Baton Rouge, and had directed Paine to hold the place for the present. With an accuracy unusual at this period, Butler estimated Breckinridge's entire force at 5,000 men and fourteen guns. On the 13th the defences were complete, the entrenchments forming two sides of a triangle of which the river was the base and the cemetery mound the apex. The troops stood to arms at three o'clock every morning; one fourth of the force was constantly under arms, day and night, at its station. At two points on each face of the entrenchment flags were planted by day and lights by night, to indicate to the gunboats their line of fire.

On the 16th of August Butler renewed his orders to burn and evacuate Baton Rouge. Its retention up to this time he had avowedly regarded as having political rather than military importance. Now he wrote to Paine: "I am constrained to come to the conclusion that it is necessary to evacuate Baton Rouge. . . . Begin the movement quietly and rapidly; get every thing off except your men, and then see to it that the town is destroyed. After mature deliberation I deem this a military necessity of the highest order."