13TH MISSISSIPPI INFANTRY REGIMENT

The fight at Campbell’s Station

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Dick Stanley

General Burnside’s federal army was retreating to Knoxville. Pursuing them, after crossing the Tennessee River on Nov. 15, General Longstreet divided his two divisions.

He accompanied Hood’s Division along the Hotchkiss Valley Road to Lenoir City and sent McLaws’ Division farther north along the Kingston Pike to Eaton Crossroads. The going was hard because repeated rains had turned the soil to syrup and the weather had turned cold for the lightly-clad Confederate troops.

In the curious manner of Civil War armies, neither side liked to fight at night, so they camped at dusk with orders to keep fires to a minimum to avoid alerting the enemy to the size of their forces—the Union near Lenoir City and the Confederates not far from Eaton’s Crossroad. That night, a heavy rain fell for several hours followed by a cold north wind.

On Nov. 16, a Monday, Burnside’s infantry retreated from Lenoir City, striking north on the Loudon Road to the Kingston Pike, accompanied by their wagon trains and artillery.

Longstreet intended to use Hood’s Division to push the federals into McLaws’ guns at Campbell’s Station, farther east on the pike. Both Union and Confederate forces dispatched advance troops to Campbell’s Station to try to hold it before the other side got there. McLaws apparently was unaware of any need for haste and the federals got there first, around noon.

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Posted in Gen. James Longstreet, Gen. Lafayette McLaws, Humpreys Mississippi Brigade, Siege of Knoxville, The Spartan Band, The Winston Guards, William H. Hill Diary | Tagged 13th Mississippi Infantry Dvision, Campbell's Station | Leave a comment

The Journey: On to Knoxville

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Dick Stanley

Humphreys’ Brigade and the 13th regiment marched to Tyner’s Station, northeast of Chattanooga. The plan was for them to take a train from there northeast to Sweet Water.

Indeed, the Confederates had rail transportation almost to Loudon, two thirds of the way to Knoxville. But there weren’t enough trains for all of Longstreet’s 11,000 infantry to make the journey at the same time.

Complicating things further, Longstreet had to move pontoon boats which he would need to bridge the Tennessee River at Loudon.

So when they did ride, the troops had a long wait between stations, and a hungry wait, at that, for rations had not been supplied. And the rides were in box cars or on open flat cars, and the weather was turning breezy and cold.

The trains shuttled back and forth, pausing frequently, according to historian Robert K. Krick to take on wood and water for the steam engine’s boilers—wood the men were expected to cut and water they had to fetch. The sixty-mile trip from Tyner’s Station to Sweet Water, for some, took all afternoon and most of the night.

Humphreys Brigade rode in this manner from Tyner’s to Ooltewah just in time for what Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill said was a “heavy frost” that Saturday morning, Nov. 7. The next day, Sunday, they were in Sweet Water, greeted by “another large frost,” Hill wrote, and again no rations.

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Posted in Gen. James Longstreet, Humpreys Mississippi Brigade, The Journey, The Spartan Band, William H. Hill Diary | Tagged 13th Mississippi Infantry Regiment | Leave a comment

The Siege of Chattanooga

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Dick Stanley

By Oct. 3, 1863, Humphreys Brigade had moved near the base of Lookout Mountain, and General Longstreet had ordered his artillery mounted atop the north end of mountain to be able to fire on the enemy occupying the town below.

Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill, clerking for the 13th regiment’s quartermaster, recorded that day, a Saturday, in clear and pleasant weather: “We moved with the baggage to McFarland’s Springs [Rossville Gap] 4 miles southeast of Chattanooga.”

Two days later, “Our batteries opened up on the enemy and kept up a slow fire all day. The enemy replied a few times.”

It was the most concentrated fire the Rebel artillery would undertake in the Siege of Chattanooga, a Union-held railroad junction of about 3,000 residents, though sporadic shelling would follow over the course of the rest of the month.

On Oct. 8, for instance, a clear and cool Thursday, Hill wrote:

“The enemy opened fire on our batteries this evening and kept up a slow fire for 3 or 4 hours. Lt. James A. Smith of Company B [Wayne Rifles] was wounded in the leg by a piece of shell. No other damage was done.”

On Saturday morning, Oct. 10, Confederate President Jefferson Davis reviewed the troops, including Humphreys Brigade and the 13th regiment. Hill wrote “The troops received him with great enthusiasm and cheered vociferously as he passed along the line.”

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Posted in Siege of Chattanooga, The Spartan Band, Wayne Rifles, William H. Hill Diary | Tagged 13th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, Siege of Chattanooga | Leave a comment

After Chickamauga

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Dick Stanley

After the Battle of Chickamauga, the Union Army of the Cumberland retreated north through the mountain gaps towards Chattanooga, with Bragg’s Army of Tennessee temporarily stalled at Chickamauga.

Nevertheless, on Sept. 22, Mississippi Brigade commander General Humphreys dispatched thirty men from the 18th regiment to skirmish with a lingering party of the enemy near the gap at Rossville on the Georgia-Tennessee line.

Humphreys said they succeeded in capturing “9 officers and 120 men, making a total of prisoners captured by the brigade, 37 officers and 535 men.”

Generals Longstreet and Bragg, meanwhile, were arguing over what Longstreet saw as a diminishing chance to destroy the defeated Yankee forces while Bragg worried that his army had been too severely mauled for more action immediately.

According to figures compiled by the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, Rosecrans had lost 16,170 killed, wounded, and missing out of about 62,000 engaged, while Bragg had suffered a total of 18,454 casualties out of approximately 67,000 engaged. And the Union forces were being reinforced by the Army of the Potomac and their Army of the Tennessee.

Humphreys Brigade apparently regrouped with the rest of McLaws’ Division in the vicinity of the town of Chickamauga, south of the battlefield. McLaws had come up to the battlefield from Atlanta in the late afternoon of Sept. 20, as the battle was winding down. He had brought much of the rest of the division with him.

They were soon helping tend to the thousands of Rebel wounded, burying the dead and corralling thousands of Yankee prisoners while Longstreet, Bragg and the other generals argued about what to do next.

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Posted in Battles: Chickamauga, Gen. James Longstreet, General Braxton Bragg, Humpreys Mississippi Brigade, The Spartan Band, William H. Hill Diary | Tagged 13th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, Battle of Chickamuaga, Doctor Samuel Stout | Leave a comment

The Battle of Chickamauga

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Dick Stanley

Humphreys’ Mississippi Brigade, including the 13th regiment, joined General Kershaw’s South Carolinians on the evening of Sept. 19 in a fast march west from the Ringgold railhead.

They arrived at Alexander’s Bridge on West Chickamauga Creek, on the southeastern corner of the battlefield, which was essentially a hilly forest broken only by small fields, about one in the morning on Sunday, Sept. 20, where they awaited further orders.

General Braxton Bragg had his headquarters near Alexander’s Bridge. His Army of Tennessee had been fighting off and on for weeks and had spent Saturday in a stupendous but undecided slugfest with General William Starke Rosecran’s Union Army of the Cumberland. The two armies, totaling about 65,000 troops, had fought, as independent historian Shelby Foote wrote “deep in the woods, with visibility strictly limited to [each man's] immediate vicinity.”

Foote wrote that Sunday’s sun came up looking blood red inside a hazy sky and the powder smoke of Saturday’s battle which still hung about the field. More than one man found the sun’s color ominous, portending a worse day of blood-letting. But confused attack orders from General Bragg made the morning drag on with little action.

About 11 a.m., according to Kershaw, his light division of two brigades was sent from Alexander’s Bridge to form up in reserve behind General John Bell Hood’s Division in the center of the Confederate battle line, opposite a quarter-mile stretch of Union breastworks.

“General Hood,” Kershaw wrote later, “directed me to form line in his rear, with my center resting on the spot where I found him, which I suppose, was his center. Forming line
(Humphreys on my left) as rapidly as possible under fire of the enemy and in a thick wood, I moved, as directed, to the front.”

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Posted in Battles: Chickamauga, Humpreys Mississippi Brigade, The Spartan Band, William H. Hill Diary | Tagged 13th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, The Battle of Chickamauga | 1 Comment

Poore Boys In Gray

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Dick Stanley

Ralph Poore, a onetime Utah newspaperman, is the latest descendent of a 13th Regiment soldier to write a book about his ancestor—two of them, actually, his great uncles the privates Francis Marion Poore and John F. Poore of the Newton Rifles.

Jo Anzalone’s story about her great great grandfather Jonathan James McDaniel, who was a private in the Winston Guards, is in the form of a novel. Ralph Poore’s “Poore Boys In Gray” is non-fiction, and it includes a third Confederate ancestor, his great grandfather William B. Poore.

William B. was originally in the 37th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, which fought the Union invasion of Mississippi, and was later also in the 16th Mississippi Infantry Regiment.

Ralph Poore’s challenge was to write of these men who left no diaries or letters about their wartime experiences. He (as have I) found independent historian Jess N. McLean’s wartime history of the men of the 13th regiment indispensable. But Poore has also added census and other documentary evidence (including family lore) to piece together the pre- and post-war lives of William B. and his two brothers.

I’m reading the book now and plan to review it at Amazon where it’s for sale as a Kindle ebook. If you have a Kindle, try the free sample. Like me, I expect you’ll be hooked to read more. Meanwhile, you should also check out Poore’s new blog on the book.

Posted in Jess N. McLean, Mississippi, Newton Rifles | Tagged "Poore Boys In Gray", 13th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, Newton Rifles, Ralph Poore | Leave a comment

The Journey: Destination Ringgold, Georgia

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Dick Stanley

Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill recorded that the 13th Regiment and the rest of Humphreys’ Brigade left Columbia, South Carolina at 8 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1863.

They traveled 130 miles, crossing the Savannah River and arrived at Augusta, Georgia about 11 p.m.

They left Augusta at 1 p.m. the next day, a clear and warm Wednesday. They rode 170 miles on the Georgia State Railroad, arriving in Atlanta, at sunrise on the 17th. After a layover of a few hours, they changed trains and headed north on the Western & Atlanta Railroad, for another 120 miles, arriving at Dalton, Georgia at 2 a.m. on Friday, the 18th.

The brigade continued on, finally arriving at their unloading point, according to independent historian Shelby Foote “four miles short of Ringgold and 965 circuitous miles” from where they began in Virginia. They marched to a bivouac a few miles east of Ringgold.

They were without their division commander for, as Foote wrote in his three-volume history of the war, General McLaws “was charged with hurrying the last infantry elements northward from Atlanta.” Indeed, McLaws was trying to stop Longstreet’s Georgia troops from dispersing.

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