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  _A Battery at Close Quarters_

  _A Paper_

  READ BEFORE THE OHIO COMMANDERY
  OF THE LOYAL LEGION

  October 6, 1909


  BY
  HENRY M. NEIL
  Captain Twenty-second Ohio Battery


  COLUMBUS, OHIO
  1909



  THE CHAMPLIN PRESS
  COLUMBUS, OHIO




A BATTERY AT CLOSE QUARTERS.

BEING THE STORY OF THE ELEVENTH OHIO BATTERY AT IUKA AND CORINTH.


During the Civil War artillery projectiles were divided as to structure
into _solid_, _hollow_ and _case shot_. The solid shot were intended to
batter down walls or heavy obstructions. Hollow projectiles, called
shell and shrapnel, were for use against animate objects; to set fire to
buildings and destroy lighter obstructions. Under the head of case shot
we had grape and canister. Grape shot is no longer used; being
superseded by the machine gun. Canister is simply a sheet iron case
filled with bullets and is effective only at very short ranges.

The foremost European military writer, Hohenloe, states that in the
Franco-Prussian war, the batteries of the Prussian Guard expended about
twenty-five thousand shells and one canister, and that this one canister
was broken in transport.

In the official reports of the recent Russo-Japanese War we find that
the Arisaka gun, which was the Japanese field piece, has a range of
6,600 meters. The Russian field pieces were said to give good results at
8,000 meters, or five miles. The Japanese, and later the Russians, made
a great feature of indirect fire. Having located a mass of the enemy,
probably beyond two ranges of hills, they would stake out a line
indicating the direction, then secure the range by the use of shells
which gave out a yellowish vapor on bursting. This vapor being observed
and signaled by scouts also indicated the necessary angles of departure
from the line of stakes and enabled the artillerymen, miles away from
actual contact, to complacently try experiments in battle ballistics
with very little fear of being interrupted by an enemy.

The range of modern field artillery being officially reported at five
miles, permit me to take you back to a day, over forty-seven years ago,
when an Ohio battery, placed in the extreme front of battle, fought at
less than fifty yards.

The village of Iuka lies in the northeast corner of the State of
Mississippi. The neighboring country is broken and, in 1862, was covered
with forests. Northwesterly from Iuka lies the village of Burnsville and
further on the little city of Corinth, close to the Tennessee line. In
1862 Corinth possessed strategical advantages which caused it to become
a large supply depot for the Federal armies. South of Corinth and
southwest of Iuka, the town of Jacinto was located.

On the eighteenth of September, 1862, General Sterling Price lay at Iuka
with an army of about twenty thousand Confederates. General E. O. G.
Ord's force lay between Burnsville and Corinth and had just been
reinforced by Ross's division. Burnsville was seven miles from Iuka.
General Rosecrans lay at Jacinto, nineteen and one-half miles from Iuka.

General Grant, taking advantage of this situation, ordered a combined
attack by Ord and Rosecrans upon General Price. Under this order
Rosecrans moved from Jacinto at 3:00 A. M. September 19th, and was
within striking distance of Price's patrols by noon. Ord was to attack
from the west and draw Price in that direction while Rosecrans was to
move to the rebel rear by the Jacinto and Fulton roads and cut off their
retreat. Neither of these Union armies was powerful enough to make,
alone, a successful attack upon Price.

The strategical plan of attack above outlined was not carried out. Ord's
strategy never reached the domain of tactics, for he went into camp
seven miles west of Iuka and the head of Rosecrans' column was attacked
by the entire army of Price. It was with the head of this column that
the Eleventh Ohio Battery marched into the fight. Anticipating a
combined engagement the head of the column pushed its innocent way into
the maw of the entire rebel army. We had to fight first and think
afterward. Price had hours to choose his positions and, incidentally, he
chose our position also. We didn't have time to change it.

"Rapidity of movement and surprise are the life and soul of the
strategical offensive." That maxim reads well but, in practice, it is
important to provide against being surprised by the other fellow before
you spring your surprise on him.

For several miles in the afternoon of the 19th of September the advance
of Rosecrans' column was warmly contested. The enemy's sharp-shooters
occupied every point of vantage, making the last five miles a steady
contest. The cavalry had long ago been driven in. A few companies formed
an advance skirmish line only a short distance from the main column.
Near the front of the column marched the Eleventh Ohio Battery. The men
knew that an engagement was imminent but their immediate front was
unknown and unexplored. As usual, we had no maps. While marching through
a defile at the crest of a thickly wooded hill we noticed that the rifle
fire in front was suddenly increased. But there was no pause to
reconnoiter. The battery marched from the defile into within short range
of Price's whole army. Instantly an entire rebel division concentrated
its fire on the battery with the intention of annihilating it before it
could unlimber.

As we emerged from the cut this sudden concentration of rifle fire gave
me the impression of being in a violent hail storm. Riding at the head
of the column I turned my head to look for the men, expecting to see
half the men and horses down. To my great joy I found all uninjured. The
storm of bullets was passing just over our heads. We hastened to get
into position and unlimber before they could get the range. Just in
front of us the road turned to the right. We turned to the right into
the brush and took position facing this road. As our men were clearing
the hazel brush for positions for their guns a Wisconsin battery
appeared about three or four hundred yards to our left and unlimbered;
but it suddenly limbered up and galloped to the rear without having
fired a shot. It had been ordered back, leaving the Eleventh the only
Union battery in the battle.

The Fifth Iowa took position just at our right. The Twenty-sixth
Missouri prolonged the line to the right of the Fifth Iowa. On our left
the Forty-eighth Indiana formed a line that swung somewhat forward at
its left flank. Our side of the fight began with these three regiments
in position. The front thus hastily formed did not permit of further
extension, owing to the nature of the ground.

A little later the Fourth Minnesota and Sixteenth Iowa were,
respectively, echeloned in rear of the left and right flanks. The total
force actually engaged was 2800 Union and 11,000 Confederates.

When the Eleventh went into position Lieutenant Sears was in command. As
junior First Lieutenant, I had the right section, while Second
Lieutenant Alger fought the center section. Of the acting Second
Lieutenants Perrine had the left section and Bauer the line of caissons.
During the fight I succeeded to the command when Sears went to the rear
with a wound. Alger was captured. Bauer was killed.

The battery had taken position in line from column under an infantry
fire from an entire division at ranges of from 200 to 400 yards. Shells
from the rebel artillery were also crashing through our line. We opened
fire at first with shell. This shell fire proved so effective that a
rebel assault on the battery was ordered. A division of Price's army
rushed to the charge. The battery changed from shell to double charges
of canister. The effect of the canister was terribly increased because
of the rebel method of charging in masses. Had the line to the left of
the battery held its front the assault on the battery would have been
impossible of success. But Col. Eddy of the 48th Indiana was killed and
the survivors of his regiment were swept back by overwhelming numbers.
The left flank of the battery was thus left bare and unsupported. On the
right the Fifth Iowa was cut to pieces. Only eleven officers and a
handful of men remained. With the line melted away the battery found
itself facing in three directions and battling with masses on three
fronts. It had a rear but no flanks. The guns were being worked with
greater speed and smaller crews. Cannoneers were falling. Other
cannoneers coolly took their places and performed double duty. Drivers
left their dead horses and took the places of dead or wounded comrades,
only to be struck down in turn. Of eighty horses only three remained
standing and a withdrawal of the guns was impossible. The surviving men
were too few to do more than work the guns. Finally the charging hordes,
checked and mutilated again and again in front, to right and to left,
pressed close. Eight thousand men against two score. On the fifth charge
the survivors were finally choked from the guns they would not abandon.

General Rosecrans in his notice, in orders, of the facts and results of
the battle of Iuka, states that the Eleventh Ohio Battery participated:

     "Under circumstances of danger and exposure such as rarely, perhaps
     never, have fallen to the lot of one single battery during this
     war."


In the same order the commanding General further states:

     "On a narrow front, intersected by ravines and covered with dense
     undergrowth, with a single battery, Hamilton's division went into
     action against the combined rebel hosts. On that unequal ground,
     which permitted the enemy to outnumber them three to one, they
     fought a glorious battle, mowing down the rebel hordes until, night
     closing in, they rested on their arms on the ground, from which the
     enemy retired during the night, leaving us masters of the field."


General Hamilton's official report, in describing the action of the
Union left flank, states:

     "Colonel Sanborn, in command of the first brigade, most gallantly
     held the left in position until, under a desolating carnage of
     musketry and canister, the brave Eddy was cut down, and his
     regiment, borne down by five times their numbers, fell back in some
     disorder on the Eightieth Ohio, under Lieutenant-Colonel Bartilson.
     The falling back of the Forty-eighth exposed the battery. As the
     masses of the enemy advanced the battery opened with canister at
     short range, mowing down the rebels by scores, until, with every
     officer killed or wounded and nearly every man and horse killed or
     disabled, it fell an easy prey. But this success was short lived.

     "The hero Sullivan rallied a portion of the right wing, and, with a
     bravery better characterized as audacity, drove the rebels back to
     cover. Again they rallied and again the battery fell into their
     hands; but with the wavering fortunes of this desperate fight the
     battery again fell into our hands, and with three of its guns
     spiked and the carriages cut and splintered with balls, it is again
     ready to meet the foe."


At the close of the engagement the ground in front of the battery showed
heaps of dead bodies. Statistics show that the Confederates' loss in
this engagement amounted to eight hundred in killed and wounded. While
actual inspection of the field of carnage indicated that a large
proportion of