The Battle of Collierville

This article is from:

 Sketches of War History 1861-1865

Papers prepared for the Commandery of the State of Ohio, Military Order of the Loyal legon of the United States. 1896-1903 Volume five.

Web Editors Note: This article contains some racial epitaphs. I am personnaly opposed to using racial epitaphs. I am also opposed to changing an historical record in order to make it Politically Correct.  

                              The Battle of Collierville

                                       By E. O Hurd,

            Late Captain Thirty-ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

Some years ago I received from the War Department at Washington an official envelope, which I opened with some curiosity, wondering what could be the occasion of it.

       My surprise was enhanced to find it contained a copy of what purported to be a letter written by myself, giving an account of the Battle of Collierville, Tennessee, and the accompanying letter from the War Department stated that it had appeared in the Cincinnati Gazette in 1863, and asked me, if it was correct, to please verify and return it to them.

       I had forgotten ever having written such a letter, but on going to the office of the paper, Mr. John T Perry, who was then connected with it, referred to the old files and showed it to me. It was one written to my father in Cincinnati, and he had forwarded it to the Gazette for publication.

It read as follows:

The Battle of Collierville, Tennessee

Headquarters Detachment, Thirty-ninth O. V. I.

Memphis, Tenn. , Oct 14, 1863.

Last Sunday about 11 AM., General Sherman, staff, horses, baggage, and eight companies of the Thirteenth Regular Infantry, left here on one of the heaviest and longest trains that has gone out of Memphis for some time. At noon I had just gone up to camp to dinner, when General Webster sent word that he wanted me down at the depot immediately, with every available man not then on duty, armed, and with forty rounds of ammunition apiece. We supposed that there must be some disturbance or riot in the neighborhood which we were required to quell, and in a very short time we reported to the General. He told us that General Sherman had been attacked at Collierville by a superior force with artillery, and had telegraphed for a special train to bring General Corse’s brigade to his relief, which was then en route for that place  on foot. He had telegraphed to send platform cars, on which to load the artillery for of that he stood particularly in need, as he had none, and that if we had not that kind of cars, to construct them (by cutting the tops off of box-cars I suppose). We were required to accompany this train as a guard, with orders to return at the earliest opportunity. We jumped aboard, and at White’s Station, about nine miles from here, came in sight the rear of General Corse’s brigade, and at Germantown caught up with the head of the column. Here we took aboard the ninety-third Illinois, commanded by Colonel O’Meara, and three pieces of artillery belonging to Captain Cheeney’s Illinois Battery. With orders from General Corse to proceed cautiously, as the enemy were known to be between us and Collierville, then only nine miles distant, we continued on our way.

       After going a few miles, Colonel O’Meara, who is an Irishman, and appears to be a genuine fighting man, threw out skirmishers ahead of the train, and we followed slowly. We picked up first two negroes, who reported that General Sherman was taken prisoner; next three citizens, who said that the enemy had possession of the place, and that General Sherman was hid, but that they were hunting for him, and had probably found him; then two more citizens, who said that the rebels had left. Two miles this side of Collierville we came to the first obstruction, a large culvert that had been burnt. Here Colonel O’Meara disembarked his force, and after distributing one hundred rounds of ammunition to each man, we advanced. Arrived at the place, we found the report of the citizens last picked up to be the correct one,- that the rebels had left. Before this, just after the cartridges were distributed, Colonel O’Meara, who had his sleeves rolled up, slaughter house style, and was mounted on a very fine horse, and had his sword drawn—an ugly-looking weapon, looking more like an elongated bowie-knife than a field officer’s saber – made us a short speech, telling us that General Sherman had sent for his regiment to come to his relief, and that with the assistance of the brave fellows on his left (that was, my boys) and Captain Cheeney’s Battery, he was going to do it, let there be what might be in the way. This quite took the men, and they cheered him.

       At Collierville he ordered me to report in person to General Sherman, and receive his commands relative to my two companies. I did so, telling General Sherman what my orders were with regard to returning by the first train, but he told me that he could not let me do so yet; that he could not let us do so yet; that we knew more about railroads than his men, and must first repair the damages to the road behind us. Now this was something about which I knew nothing; but as he requested me to first go down and see what damage was done and report, in company with Captain Yorke, of his staff, we started. It was a long way, and growing dark very rapidly; but Captain Yorke being confident that the rebels had all left, we thought we could venture it alone. On the way he gave an account of the whole affair.

       The attack commenced on the train just as it passed the station. The telegraph operator there had run out with his gun in one hand, and motioning with the other for the train to stop. The conductor hurried to General Sherman to inquire whether he should or not, and the latter ordered him back up to the station. This was no easy task, the train being unusually long and heavy, and the grade backward up hill; but after a little time it was accomplished, the rebels all the time continuing their firing.

       “When the train stopped,” said my informant, “I never saw a line of battle formed so quickly as from off the tops of those cars. It was a mystery to me how the men got off so quickly.”

       They fought for some time without the fort or earthwork, and then retreated inside, where Colonel Anthony’s regiment. The sixty-sixth Indiana, which garrisoned the post, already was.

       Here the rebels sent in a written demand to surrender, signed, it was said by General Pemberton’s Adjutant. One of General Sherman’s staff asked what reply they were to make to it.  “Tell them ‘no,’ of course,” said the General.

       The attack was then renewed, and continued without intermission for some three hours – till after 3 o’clock – when a gallant Lieutenant of the Thirteenth Regulars whose name I am sorry to have forgotten, made a charge upon them with thirty men, drove them like sheep, and they finally disappeared. They were all mounted, but fought part of the time on foot. They had several pieces of artillery, and we had none; but their practice was miserable – the poorest, General Sherman said, that he had ever witnessed on their part.

       Our loss was fifteen killed and thirty wounded, about equally divided between the Thirteenth Regulars and the Sixty-sixth Indiana, and the loss of the rebels was supposed to be about the same, though it could not be ascertained exactly, as they were seen carrying off their dead and wounded. Right on the railroad track two were lying dead as we passed. One was a genuine type of the Butternut, dressed in a suit of that color, with a shallow complexion, long beard, and a ghastly wound in his side; the other was an old man, with his cartridge-box on, who was a resident of the neighborhood, and received protection from our government, and, only a few days before, had been in the place selling articles to the soldiers.

       Of the conduct of the telegraph operator, Edward F. Butler, I must speak in terms of the highest praise. Entirely unsolicited, he had taken his gun and fought gallantly at the breastworks till he was disabled by a shot in the left arm, when he turned his gun over to one, he said, could then use it better than he. It was in excellent contrast to that of a brakeman on the train, who, after he had taken refuge and was cowering in the fort, was ordered by one of the officers to take up a musket, go to the breastworks, and fight for his life. He refused, saying that the government paid him forty-five dollars a month to brake on the road, and that he had all that he could do to take care of his life now.

       Of the colored servants belonging to the two regiments I must also speak. An Irish Captain of the Thirteenth said; “I have always talked against the ‘damned’ niggers, and against making them soldiers; but since I have seen what I have to-day, those brave fellows, to a man, without an officer saying a word to them, pick up guns and fight like devils at the breastworks, I have not a word to say.”

       Another brakeman took refuge under a bridge, but the rebels making a charge in that direction, he made a “break” for the fort, but in passing the depot saw a darky’s woolly head sticking out of a hole underneath, and thinking that a more secure place of refuge, made a dive for it, and found himself securely ensconced among cobwebs, between four stone walls, where in the event of the rebels capturing the place, he determined to remain till they left, unless by burning the depot they should compel him to come out.

       One of the General Sherman’s negroes remained on the train with the horses. The rebels came up and asked him which the Generals horse was, and, he replied falsely that he did not know. They then asked him which was a certain other officer’s horse; to which question he made a like reply. They then commenced to select them out on their own judgment, and happened to get the General’s mare among them. They were obliged to jump them out of the cars on to the ground. The feat of coming right up in front of the fort, all the while under a very hot fire, was spoken of as a very brave deed. They also rummaged the General’s car, taking from it his coat and a number of articles of baggage belonging to the members of his staff, and tried to set it on fire; but in this they did not succeed.

       Throughout the fight General Sherman maintained his position in the center of the fort, giving every move his personal superintendence, as calm and unconcerned as though he was standing on a parade, instead of in the most exposed position in the works, and by his example infusing coolness and courage into all around him. The conductor on the train said to me: “I was somewhat frightened at first but when I saw such a great man as he so unconcerned amid all the balls flying around him, I did not think it worth while for me to be scared.”

       A house close by the fort, filled with commissary stores, obstructed the range and gave shelter to the enemy. “Sixty days furlough for the man who sets it on fire,” said General Sherman, and one of the Sixty-ninth Indiana did it. I wish I knew that brave fellow’s name.

        One of his staff, Lieutenant James, his acting ordinance officer, whom I had seen passing into the depot yard on business connected with his department, every day, for several days past, was very severely injured-- one shot through the breast, while doing his utmost with a musket.

       But to return to the culverts; We found three of them burned—two small and one large—and returned and reported the facts. Colonel Anthony furnished a detail to mend the former, and with my two companies we repaired the latter, and by 7 o’clock in the morning had the road again in running order to Collierville. General Sherman told us that we had done so well that he now wished us to go to Lafayette with the construction train, which had just arrived, and repair the road at that point; after which we might return, according to our orders, to Memphis.

       We started; mending the telegraph wire in four places where it had been cut, and replacing one rail which the rebels had taken up and carried some one hundred yards and hid among the weeds, and at Lafayette found the road and telegraph in good working order the rest of the way to Corinth.

       On our return to Collierville, General Sherman proceeded with his train on his way to Corinth, leaving us deeply impressed with his qualities as a gentleman and an officer.

       As we were backing down again to Memphis, we struck with the tender and ran over a young heifer, without, however, throwing anything off the track, and this completed our adventures on this expedition. The force of the enemy was estimated at about twenty-five hundred and ours was estimated at about six hundred.

                                                                        E.O. Hurd,

                                        Captain Company B, Thirty-ninth O. V. I.

                                                         Commanding Detachment

       This is the end of the letter.

       Some years after, General Sherman told me that it was a favorite mare of his named “Dolly” that the Confederates captured, and that not long after, his men brought in a very fine Southern horse, which he took for his own use; and the owner came in to claim him, and he gave him an order on General Chalmers, who commanded the attacking force at Collierville, for his mare “Dolly”; and when he afterwards met General Chalmers, the latter told him that the man had hunted him up in South Alabama and presented the order.

       Colonel Dayton was with General Sherman at Collierville, and we long afterwards talked the matter over together.

       The Captain Yorke mentioned in my letter was a brother-in-law of Griff Miller, of Cincinnati.

       Colonel Audenreid was also there with General Sherman, and the rebels captured his wardrobe, and all who knew Colonel Audenreid will appreciate what a good joke that was on him.

       At the time of this affair I was in command of a detachment of our regiment, consisting of two companies, encamped in a beautiful grove a short distance east of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad depot in Memphis.

       Every morning we sent out a guard of twenty men and one officer, in a gunboat car immediately behind the locomotive, to accompany the train to Grand Junction, Tenn., meeting there the return train from Corinth,Miss., and exchanging with the guard who had escorted it thus far, and getting back to Memphis in the evening.

       Each morning two soldiers stood with their bayonets crossed at the gate leading to the train. Every one wishing to enter had to show a pass, which I would inspect, and at a nod to the men, they would raise their bayonets and allow the bearer to enter.

       One morning one of the cutest darkies that I have ever seen presented himself, without a pass, ticket, or money, and said he wanted to go on the train to Moscow, Tenn., to see his mother. He was about twelve or thirteen, dressed in a ragged suit of a full-grown mans clothes. I asked him how would he like to work for me and be my servant. He agreed eagerly, and I took him up to camp, and there was soon a great change in his appearance, caused by a new suit of soldiers clothes, cut down for him by the company tailor. One of the first things the boys did was to get him to wrestling with another colored boy of about double his weight. My boy threw him. He became a great favorite, and the boys used to tell a great many stories of him. One was of his stumbling down when carrying a bucket of water on his head from the spring, and getting up again without spilling a drop.

       After a while we let him go out on the train to see his mother. He made her a visit and came back. He was an inveterate player of chuck-a-luck, which my Lieutenant tried in vain to cure him of. One moral argument he tried with him was to tie him up for it.

       I brought him home with me to Cincinnati, and he is here now. His name is Tom Anderson, and some of the waiters present perhaps know him.

       All baggage going out was searched by an official of the treasury department, and he used to have some interesting experiences to relate. 

       We were under General J. D. Webster, Superintendant of Military Railroads, with his headquarters in the depot. One morning, on reporting to him, he said to me: “Captain, who is dead?” Seeing my surprise, he added: “You have the flag at half-mast.” The boys had failed to get it quite up to the top of the flagstaff.

       He was one of the most agreeable officers to serve under I ever met. He was later Chief of Staff to General Sherman, and was in charge of his headquarters at Nashville during the Georgia campaign.

       My Partner, Captain of my second company, was William H. Williams. After the was we carried on a cotton plantation together on the Tennessee River, near Decatur, Ala. We had assisted in the capture of Decatur,-- but that is another story. He was one of the bravest men I ever knew, nervous and high strung. One night on the plantation he awakened me under the impression that he had heard a Ku-Klux whistle, and we sat by the windows with our guns in our hands awaiting an attack that never came.

       There were Ku-Klux in the country, though. One night, when on the streets of Decatur in company with a Southern man, we met them in their masks and uniform, with revolvers drawn. They hated us, and demanded where we were going? We replied: “To church” They said that was a good place to go to, and they would go along, and escorted us to the Episcopal Church, where, it being just before Christmas, the young people were at work getting up evergreen decorations. They followed us in, and took seats in the rear. Some of the young ladies played and sang for them, and they then rose and left.

       At Memphis a part of the duty of my two companies was to patrol the streets and act as Provost Guard for that part of Memphis lying on our side of the Gayoso Bayou; the jurisdiction of the Provost Marshal extending only to the Bayou.

       We had the usual trouble with the illicit sale of liquor to soldiers. At one place we confiscated several barrels of whiskey and emptied them into the gutter. The tax alone on whisky was at that time two dollars a gallon.

       At another place we arrested the proprietor, an Irishman, and took him up to camp and put him at police duty; and on finding he was also a barber, at shaving and cutting the hair of all the soldiers who wished it.

       Some time after I met him and his wife. They appeared to bear no grudge. On the contrary, his wife seemed to think it a very good joke on him indeed, that we had had her husband, as she said, “up on the hill a swaapin’ the grass for the so’jer b’yes to walk on.”

       March 7, 1900.

Illinois Artillery Officer’s Civil War- The Diary and Letters of John Cheney

Chewalla, Tenn.                                                                                                      Oct Oct 16^th 1863

My Dear Wife,

On Sunday the 11^th inst. We left Memphis for Corinth . On our arrival at White Station we heard heavy cannonading. Soon the artillery received orders to pass the column and go to Germantown soon as possible. We went kiting. On our arrival we learned that a fight was going on at Germantown. My battery and the 90^th Illinois were ordered to go by railroad to Collierville. In a few moments we were on the way. When within one mile of town found the railroad bridge on fire. Disembarked, formed in line of battle. Advanced on the enemy as we supposed, having been informed that they had surrounded the town and Gen. Sherman with had surrendered. But were surprised to learn that Gen. Sherman with 450 men and not a piece of artillery had repulsed 25,000 at least of mounted infantry. I saw many dead and wounded. Had I time could fill a volume with incidents connected with the fight. Our usual luck! The Rebs knew we were coming and skedaddled.

            We went on our way the next morning. We are now 10 miles from Corinth. Nothing of unusual interest has occurred. We have the most terrible roads that I ever saw. I wish you could see some of the bridges and creeks that we passed through this week. We broke through two bridges yesterday. Had 3 horses taken out from below. Did not delay the column one hour in the while I have been formally complimented by the General for the good condition of my trains, the willingness of my men to work and the promptness with which every order is executed.

           We will go to Corinth tomorrow. Where we will go from there is more than I can tell, probably toward Rosecrans. But the fighting will be done before we get there. ECT…