CHAPTER III
Iuka, the fiercest battle of the war, 217 men out of 482 of my regiment are shot—The awful Rebel charge at Corinth—Moonlight on the battlefield—Bushels of arms and legs—Tombstones for fireplaces—One of Grant's mistakes.
All that summer, after taking Corinth, we chased up and down the State of Mississippi, trying to get fair battle with the Rebel army. At last the chance came, and for my regiment it was an awful one—the battle of Iuka.
The battle of Iuka took place on the 19th of September, 1862. It was fought by a handful of the troops of General Rosecrans against half the army of General Price. Grant was only a few miles away, but although commander-in-chief, he knew nothing of the hardest-fought battle of the Civil War until it was over.
One morning before daylight while camped in the woods near Jacinto half expecting to be attacked, we heard that Price's army was in Iuka, some eighteen miles away, and that if we would hurry there and attack from one side, General Grant, with Ord's troops, would attack from another side. How eagerly the regiment made the forward march on that beautiful autumn day! The woods were in their fairest foliage, and it seemed too lovely a day for war and bloodshed. The bugles played occasionally as the men hurried along, but not a shot was fired. No noise like war fell on the soldiers' ears as they tramped over the beautiful country road toward the Tennessee River. They had time for reflection as they marched, and they knew now they were going to battle. There had been no time for letters or farewells, and each thought the other one, not himself, most likely to fall in the coming engagement.
There were only 482 of my little regiment now marching there, hoping, almost praying, the enemy might only wait. How little anyone dreamed that before the sun set 217 of that little command would be stretched dead or dying among the autumn leaves!
It was just two o'clock when the regiment ran on to the army of the enemy, lying in line right across the road close to Iuka. My own regiment was in the advance. Instantly it, too, was in line of battle across that road, and in a few minutes absolutely the fiercest little conflict of the war began. Our brigade was fearfully outnumbered. Rosecrans, had ten thousand soldiers within five miles of the battlefield, yet let three or four small regiments and a battery do all the fighting. Ten miles away, in another direction, lay General Grant and General Ord, with many other thousands, as silent as if paralyzed. An unlucky wind blew, they said, and the sound of our cannon, that was to have been the signal for them to attack also, was unheard by them.
Charge after charge was made upon our little line, and the Eleventh Ohio Battery, which the regiment was protecting, was taken and retaken three times. There were no breastworks, yet that one little brigade of Hamilton's division stood there in the open and repulsed assault after assault. It was the Iowa, the Missouri, and the Ohio boys against the boys of Alabama and Mississippi, and the grass and leaves were covered with the bodies in blue and gray. Not Balaklava, nor the Alma, saw such fighting. It was a duel to the death. For hours the blue and the gray stood within forty yards of each other and poured in sheets of musketry. Every horse of the battery at the left of my regiment was killed, and every gunner but one or two was shot and lying among the debris. No battery in the whole four years' war lost so many men in so short a time. Antietam, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, could show nothing like it. Only the setting sun put an end to what was part of the time a hand to hand conflict. One daring Rebel was shot down and bayoneted clear behind the line of Company B, where he had broken through to seize the flag of my regiment.