Recollections with the Third Iowa Regiment

by Seymour D. Thompson

To our right and rear, one of our batteries was engaged with one of the enemy's, a short distance to our left and front. The duel they kept up was rapid and revengeful. They fired shot and shell, which flew directly over our heads and struck and burst behind us and before us. A soldier in our ranks expressed the wonder whether the battery on our right was ours or the enemy's. A voice from behind him answered, "It is ours of course." Looking around us we saw General Hurlbut, seated on his horse and smoking calmly. Such was the conduct of this brave man. Whatever the danger, he kept constantly near his line, inspiring us with his presence, and never omitting a word that could encourage his meanest soldier.

In front of us we could catch glimpses of the battle. Regiments advanced, disappeared in the thick woods, and came back in disorder. It was a succession of successful and unsuccessful attacks. Now fortune was with us, and now with the enemy. Behind all the Fourth Division stood firmly, stayed the retreating battalions and held the line. Through all, the enemy's battery held its position and kept up its cannonade. Its shells seemed omnipresent. Its projectiles falling far and near to right and left, scaling the tree tops or crashing through their boughs, it seemed to overlook the field and talk to the army's whole right wing.

General Hurlbut several times changed the disposition of his line as circumstances seemed to dictate. A regiment retreating in confusion by the flank, broke through it cutting it about the center of our regiment. At this precise moment, Col. Pugh began to move the brigade to the left. In the noise and confusion, the command was not heard by those of the right, and one regiment thus separated from the rest; nor was the movement known until the left of the brigade had disappeared. This portion took position in the reserve line and was not engaged during the day. The right of the brigade, however, including about forty of our regiment with our colors, were to play a very different part.

Col. Emory K. Johnson, of the 28th Illinois, assumed command, and began immediately to advance the line. As it moved into more open ground and discovered its length, it was evident he had command of a greater part of the brigade. Having advanced a considerable distance, the line halted and volunteer skirmishers were called for. A sufficient number immediately went forward and when about a hundred and fifty yards to the front, the line again advanced. The skirmishers soon discovered the enemy moving by the left flank along our front in the edge of a wide field. At the same time skirmishers farther to the left reported him massing troops in that direction, with the apparent design of flanking us. Col. Johnson immediately took measures to meet this movement. He moved his line to the left perhaps a quarter of a mile and then changed its direction to the front.

Suddenly we confronted the enemy, standing in compact line of battle, as if just dressed to begin an advance. We halted and both lines began a vigorous and steady fire. On our part there was no swaying nor straggling. It was a fair stand-up fight, the antagonists exposed to view, and deliberately shooting each other down. The enemy must have outnumbered us, for his right extended some distance beyond our left. It was a splendid test of the morale of the two forces. Victory was with us. We had expended from twenty to thirty rounds of ammunition, when the enemy's line gave way and ours followed at a charge. We pushed him to the edge of a field, over which he fled in disorder, suffering severely under our fire. A part of a battery fell into our hands, around which dead men and horses lay thickly, showing how severely it had suffered. The enemy, escaped across the field, and began a feeble fire from the opposite side.

All at once our line was ordered to retreat. It fell back rapidly and not without some disorder, and took position with the other troops. I have never been able to ascertain why this retreat was made. At the time it was commanded, the enemy's fire was so slight, that without its being increased we could have easily crossed the field. Neither part of our regiment was engaged during the remainder of the day. Fresh troops went forward to reinforce the right, and the battle raged with unvarying steadiness all along the line, the enemy being gradually forced back till about four o'clock, when he finally disappeared from the field, and the cavalry rode forward with loud shouts to pursue. We who knew nothing of the ineffectiveness of cavalry against infantry, and especially untrained cavalry, and on a timbered field, expected them to perform prodigies in disorganizing the retreating enemy. But when we learned they had only followed him a short distance, picking up a few stragglers, "the man on the horse" sunk profoundly low in our estimation. As it was, they doubtless did all they could. Breckinridge's division covered the enemy's retreat, and presented a strong front to them when they approached.

The soldiers now expected the order to pursue. It is now almost useless to inquire why this was not done; but history will demand to know why nearly two months of hardship and suffering, including the recall of the army of the Mississippi from its theater of successful operations, was required to force the evacuation of Corinth, which might now have been accomplished by twenty-four hours vigorous action. General Grant's apology for not pursuing the enemy is expressed in his official report: "My force was too much fatigued during two days hard fighting, and exposed in the open air to a drenching rain during the intervening night, to pursue immediately. Night closed in cloudy and with heavy rain, making the roads impracticable for artillery by the next morning." This statement admits of some qualification. None of Buell's army had been engaged but one day; and of this but a part of Wood's Division, and none of Thomas' had been engaged at all. The latter, though greatly fatigued by the long and hurrying march they had made to reach the scene of conflict, were eager to participate in the honors of the occasion, and might have been advantageously used in the pursuit. At least, were we not as able to pursue as the enemy to retreat? He had suffered as much in fatigue as we, and proportionally far more in the losses of the battle. He had marched against us expecting everything, and had gained nothing but slaughter and defeat. His right wing had left the field in rout. His whole army, conscious of our now superior strength and of their utter inability to make a stand against us, whatever the position they might take, was retreating demoralized on a single road which defiled for twenty miles through an almost uninterrupted forest, and which was now almost impassable for his artillery and train. Before reaching Corinth his retreat had degenerated into a rout, and his army had dissolved into a disorganized and straggling multitude. If we may believe the concurrent accounts of citizens, added to those of his own soldiers whom we subsequently captured, such was their dismay, that a pursuit conducted with ordinary skill and vigor, would have resulted in immense captures of men and materiel. The enemy succeeded in getting his artillery through to Corinth after the night's rain, which General Grant avers made the road impassable for artillery. But had this been the case, a successful pursuit could have been made without doubt by infantry and cavalry alone. Who then shall say, that, within the utmost scope of endurance, General Grant should not have pursued as soon as the enemy retreated? The soldiers seemed to think so, and murmured because it was not attempted.

Nevertheless, whole regiments dissolved into squads and scattered over the field in search of their dead and wounded; and it was not long before the entire field was covered with stragglers and plunderers of the dead. To put a stop to this, the cavalry was ordered to get up a panic among them. They rode frantically over the field, circulating the report that the enemy's cavalry was upon them. The effect was admirable. In a few minutes the panic communicated itself to all parts of the field, and stragglers without number poured through the woods toward the river like herds of frightened brutes. No one could tell what he was running from. Each saw his fellow straggler run and followed him, seized and mastered by an indefinable, vague dread. At one point an officer, meeting a gang of stragglers, advised them to congregate for their safety upon an open field which was without a fence! The simpletons actually followed his advice.

General Sherman pursued the enemy a short distance and returned. The men of our regiment, after collecting their wounded and most of their dead, assembled at our regimental camp. Through the energy and prudence of Quartermaster Clark, during the forenoon of Monday, our tents had been let down to the ground and our baggage hauled to the landing. Thus the former were saved from being greatly injured by the missiles of the battle, and the latter from capture by the enemy. The baggage was not brought up till the next day. We divided and ate a little food, put up our tents, and without covering lay down to rest. With blankets for their shrouds our dead comrades lay near us. Scattered over the field were thousands of wounded whose sufferings we could not alleviate. Under ordinary circumstances it would seem that men in this situation would scarcely wish to sleep at all. But we slept a sound and joyous sleep.