The Real Horse Soldiers

by Timothy B Smith

  For five critical days Grierson held Pemberton’s almost undivided attention, arguably the five most critical days of Grant’s operation. Grierson’s nearly unopposed ride through south-central Mississippi was enough to tip the scales in Grant’s favor and allow him to gain a crucial foothold east of the Mississippi River.37

  Grant admitted as much. Years later, when he and Grierson were together listening to several other officers talk about the Vicksburg campaign, Grant leaned over to the former cavalry commander and whispered, “Grierson, when I got that paper at Port Gibson and saw what you had done I would not have given that (snapping his fingers) to have my success assured.”38

  ***

  While word spread of the success of the raid, Grierson’s troopers embarked on a few days of well-deserved rest. They needed it. “If it does not cover us with glory [it] did cover us with mud,” Daniel Robbins declared. Many letters flew out of Baton Rouge informing loved ones that they were safe and in Louisiana. Robbins wrote his brother on New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad Company letterhead, which he had picked up at the depot in Brookhaven. Grierson wrote to Alice: “I arrived at Baton Rouge La. Friday all O.K. with my command. I had a very successful expedition—beyond my own most sanguine expectations.”39

  Unfortunately, some of the troopers were in no condition to live up their newly gained fame and popularity. Most, one Illinoisan described, “suffered from swelling of the legs and erysipelas, from sitting so long in the saddle, but it was only temporary.” A few suffered more serious issues, and 12 had to be hospitalized. According to Illinoisan Thomas W. Lippincott, “Some of our men whose helpless feet hung numb and useless by their stirrups, were taken to the hospital, helped from their horses to cots, where their boots, which had not been off since leaving Tennessee, were cut from their swollen feet, and were told by the surgeons that, had our raid lasted two or three days longer, their feet would have had to be amputated.”40

  Grierson’s Brigade Camp. Another contemporary photo showing Grierson’s cavalry camp after the brigade reached Baton Rouge. Photographic History of the Civil War

  Others suffered different maladies. Henry Forbes, who had done perhaps more planning than anyone else on the raid except for Grierson, became “suddenly delirious . . . as he lay resting by his camp fire,” explained an eyewitness, “and [he] was taken with cautious violence to the post hospital, tearing the curtains from the ambulance on the way, and swearing that we might kill him if we would but we could never take him prisoner.” Another Illinoisan had a different kind of problem. His family had sent him a care package of “apples, fried cakes & cookies” to La Grange. “I am afraid . . . [they] will spoil before I get them,” he sadly reported.41

  The troopers of the 6th and 7th Illinois Cavalry regiments who were not suffering any lasting maladies from the raid had the run of Baton Rouge. Many spent their hours in saloons, where fights broke out, often between the Illinoisans themselves. Still, if a comrade found himself in trouble, they were all there to help. Fisticuffs aside, the members of the two regiments became very close. “A better understanding and feeling never existed between two regiments than between these two so linked together,” confirmed one of the men. The appearance of the raiders in Baton Rouge not only surprised the local residents but pleased them. In fact, they were so joyous that they rarely allowed the Illinoisans to pay for anything. Most chalked up the rowdy behavior to the stress they had experienced and simply looked the other way. Not all the men participated in hard drinking and fighting, however. One of the troopers recalled spending his free time quietly playing “billiards.”42

  Several members of the regiments experienced a different form of excitement in Louisiana. Four troopers from the 7th Illinois Cavalry who had been captured on the raid were freed when Port Hudson surrendered. Days earlier, another captured 7th Illinois trooper escaped Port Hudson by jumping into the river. The Confederates fired at him, but with one arm over a plank and only his head above water, he managed to swim “two miles upstream to our fleet.” Sadly, one of Grierson’s orderlies, Billy Post of the 2nd Iowa Cavalry, was killed in the Port Hudson fighting.43

  For his part, Grierson was startled by the attention lavished upon him. “I woke from my tired sleep and weariness to suddenly and unexpectedly find myself famous,” he wrote Alice. “I did not know and could not realize the extent of my success. In fact, I did not then think we had accomplished anything wonderful. I hope to be able to do more for the Cause before the close of the War.” In some small way, however, the performer in Grierson surely enjoyed the praise heaped upon him.44

  Grierson’s troopers certainly thought he deserved the praise. Daniel Robbins, for example, showed remarkable insight just a few days after reaching Baton Rouge when he wrote that Grierson had “fooled & outwitted the Confederates in fact showed them a new rinkle in the art of war.” He added that “probably many a poor soldier at Vicksburg & Port Hudson will go hungry in consequence of this trip.” Another example of Grierson’s newfound fame occurred in New Orleans. Officially, he and Colonel Prince were there on business to get new wheels for the cannon, but in reality they looked forward to some downtime. There, Grierson was bombarded with attention and even felt the need, “as ugly as I am,” to get a photograph made. The locals in New Orleans went wild when he appeared in public. The city, explained one eyewitness, “was thrown into a great excitement when the news of Col. Griersons Cav. Raid through Mississippi and when he came to the city there was given him quite a reception at the St. Charles Hotel. To wit a number of patriotic speeches were made also a lot of fireworks were set off.” The people of the city gifted him a “splendid horse” and equipment.45

  Regardless of their behavior, the hardy brigade of Illinois cavalry was too valuable to be left loitering for long in Baton Rouge. Before long they drew tents, cooking utensils, and other equipment to replace what was left behind in Tennessee or lost along the way in Mississippi and returned to the war. More than one commander wanted the brigade. Grant asked Nathaniel Banks on numerous occasions to send Grierson back into the Department of the Tennessee. Banks balked at the request, arguing that Grierson’s horse soldiers was the only major body of cavalry under his command. A disgusted Grierson, who wanted to return to Grant’s command, wrote, “General Banks seemed to think that he could not get along without the cavalry which arrived so suddenly and opportunely within his department.”46

  Eventually, Grierson and his two Illinois cavalry regiments reentered the real war. They fought under Banks around Port Hudson during the early weeks of the summer, making raids into the area near where the column had ridden earlier in May. Once Vicksburg fell and Port Hudson followed suit, the brigade was sent back to Grant and thence northward to La Grange, where the troopers were warmly welcomed. Grierson toured Vicksburg on the way to Tennessee, where his knee was injured by another kick from his horse. He took a leave of absence because of the injury and made his way to Illinois to see Alice and the boys. Grierson’s fame followed him, and his return to Springfield and Jacksonville, where he was feted in high fashion, was no doubt welcome to the failed store owner and musician who had left Jacksonville two years earlier in debt and a virtual nobody.47

  Like it had for so many, the war had given Grierson a unique opportunity he would take advantage of fully. For the musician-turned-warrior, it was the performance of a lifetime.

  1Edwin R. Havens to Parents, May 13, 1863, in Havens Family Papers, Michigan State University; Paul Selby to S. A. Forbes, November 24, 1908, in Stephen A. Forbes Papers, UI; Charles W. Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier: Including a Day by Day Record of Sherman’s March to the Sea (Washington, DC: Globe Printing Company, 1906), 174; “Vicksburg 75 Years Ago,” Vicksburg Evening Post, April 22, 1938.

  2“The Romance of the War,” New York Times, May 18, 1863; “Colonel Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” New York Times, May 10, 1863; “Details of Grierson’s Great Raid,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 10, 1863; “The Great Raid of the War,” Chi
cago Tribune, May 20, 1863; “Colonel Grierson at New Orleans—What He Learned by His Raid,” Cleveland Morning Leader, May 20, 1863; “The Great Raid of the War,” Times (Goshen, IN), May 28, 1863; “The Rebellion to Be Crushed with Cavalry,” Advertiser (Edgefield, SC), June 10, 1863; “Col. Grierson,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, June 6, 1863; Abbott, “Heroic Deeds of Heroic Men,” 281.

  3Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 180.

  4OR 24, pt. 3, 264; Muster Roll for Company L, 6th Illinois Cavalry, RG 94, E 57, NARA.

  5Henry C. Forbes to His Sister, May 23 and June 24, 1863.

  6“Camp Correspondence,” Fulton City Register (Canton, IL), May 26, 1863; Daniel E. Robbins to Parents, May 5, 1863.

  7Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” 103; “Ben Grierson,” n.d., in Henry C. Forbes Papers, CHM; “Ben Grierson,” St. Landry Democrat, June 23, 1888; William Dunaway to Wife, May 8, 1863, in William E. Dunaway Papers, UI; “The Grierson Raid,” Weekly Register (Canton, IL), September 7, 1863; “Camp Correspondence,” May 26, 1863; Daniel E. Robbins to Parents, May 5, 1863.

  8“From One of Grierson’s Cavalry,” June 5, 1863; Surby, Grierson Raids, 103, 128; “Camp Correspondence,” Fulton City Register (Canton, IL), May 26, 1863; Freyburger, Letters to Ann, 45; William Dunaway to Wife, May 8, 1863.

  9Surby, Grierson Raids, 103, 128.

  10Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” 125; W. S. Smith to S. A. Forbes, May 4, 1907; Smith, “The Mississippi Raid,” 381; OR 24, pt. 3, 276.

  11W. S. Smith to S. A. Forbes, May 4, 1907; S. A. Forbes to W. S. Smith, March 3, 1907, in Stephen A. Forbes Papers, UI.

  12William Dunaway to Wife, May 8, 1863; OR 24, pt. 3, 273, 367.

  13Simon, PUSG, vol. 8, 139, 144; “Colonel Grierson’s Brilliant Raid in Mississippi,” Union (Urbana, OH), May 13, 1863; Grant Letter, Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1863; OR 24, pt. 1, 33-34.

  14OR 24, pt. 3, 308-9; “Army Correspondence,” Weekly Register (Canton, IL), May 11, 1863.

  15Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” 128-29; “From Mobile and Ohio Railroad,” Jackson Daily Mississippian, April 28, 1863; “Grierson,” Jackson Daily Mississippian, May 8, 1863; Frank Moore, ed., The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, with Documents, Narratives Illustrative Incidents, Poetry, etc., 11 vols. (New York: D. Vann Nostrand and Co., 1861-68), 7, 24-25.

  16OR 24, pt. 3, 302; J. M. Quin to John J. Pettus, April 28, 1863.

  17“Traitor Caught,” Natchez Daily Courier, May 5, 1863. Further research could not determine Hammond’s fate.

  18“Incidents of the Raid,” Memphis Daily Bulletin, May 23, 1863, copy in Benjamin H. Grierson Papers, ALPL; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 181.

  19William P. Chambers, “My Journal,” Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Centenary Series, 5 vols. (Jackson: Mississippi Historical Society, 1925), 5, 262; W. A. Rorer to Susan, June 13, 1863; OR 24, pt. 1, 255, 533, 541, 543, 550; Brown, Grierson’s Raid, 236; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 53-54; OR 24, pt. 3, 803.

  20William P. Chambers, “My Journal,” Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Centenary Series, 5 vols. (Jackson: Mississippi Historical Society, 1925), 5, 262; W. A. Rorer to Susan, June 13, 1863; OR 24, pt. 1, 255, 533, 541, 543, 550; Brown, Grierson’s Raid, 236; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 53-54; OR 24, pt. 3, 803.

  21William P. Chambers, “My Journal,” Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Centenary Series, 5 vols. (Jackson: Mississippi Historical Society, 1925), 5, 262; W. A. Rorer to Susan, June 13, 1863; OR 24, pt. 1, 255, 533, 541, 543, 550; Brown, Grierson’s Raid, 236; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 53-54; OR 24, pt. 3, 803.

  22“Grierson’s Raid,” Jackson Daily Mississippian, May 7, 1863.

  23James H. Rives to John J. Pettus, May 2, 1863; Bettersworth, Mississippi in the Confederacy, 112; E. T. Eggleston, diary, April 25, 1863, 1st Mississippi Light Artillery File, Vicksburg National Military Park.

  24OR 24, pt. 3, 787; “The Yankee Raid in Mississippi,” Republic (Columbus, MS), n.d., copy in Stephen A. Forbes Papers, UI; W. A. Rorer to Susan, June 13, 1863; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, 2, 235.

  25“Grierson,” Natchez Daily Courier, May 12, 1863; “Proceedings of a Meeting to Organize a Cavalry Company,” Jackson Daily Mississippian, April 25, 1863; “The Raid in Mississippi,” May 7, 1863.

  26A. K. Brantley to John J. Pettus, April 24, 1863.

  27OR 24, pt. 3, 802; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 186.

  28OR 24, pt. 1, 528-29; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 179.

  29“The Great Federal Raid,” May 5, 1863; Grabau, Ninety-Eight Days, 119; “The Yankee Raid in Mississippi,” Mobile Advertiser and Register, n.d., copy in Stephen A. Forbes Papers, UI.

  30OR 24, pt. 3, 796; “The Great Federal Raid,” Natchez Daily Courier, May 5, 1863; Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, 127; Carlton J. Corliss, Main Line of Mid-America: The Story of the Illinois Central (New York: Creative Age Press, 1950), 197-99; James Wilford Garner, Reconstruction in Mississippi (New York: Macmillan, 1902), 144; Smith, Mississippi in the Civil War, 38-39; Michael B. Ballard, The Civil War in Mississippi: Major Campaigns and Battles (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2011), 144.

  31Jason Niles, diary, January 11, 1864, University of North Carolina.

  32T. W. Lippincott to S. A. Forbes, April 7, 1907 and November 25, 1908.

  33OR 24, pt. 3, 775.

  34Ibid., 781-800; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, vol. 2, 236.

  35OR 24, pt. 3, 781-800; Bearss, The Vicksburg Campaign, vol. 2, 236; Edwin C. Bearss, “Grierson’s Raid,” April 17-May 2, 1863, Vicksburg National Military Park.

  36Woodward, “Grierson’s Raid,” 112-13; F. T. Demingway to S. A. Forbes, May 7, 1910, in Stephen A. Forbes Papers, UI.

  37Grabau, Ninety-Eight Days, 121.

  38T. W. Lippincott to S. A. Forbes, January 3, 1908; “Letter to the Editor,” n.d., in Stephen A. Forbes Papers, UI.

  39Daniel E. Robbins to Brother, May 7, 1863; B. H. Grierson to Alice, May 6, 1863.

  40“Incidents of the Raid,” Memphis Daily Bulletin, May 23, 1863; “Grierson’s Big Raid,” n.d., Thomas W. Lippincott Papers, ALPL; Daniel E. Robbins to Parents, May 5, 1863.

  41Forbes, “Grierson’s Cavalry Raid,” 120; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 176; Henry C. Forbes to His Sister, May 23, 1863; Daniel E. Robbins to Parents, May 5, 1863.

  42Surby, Grierson Raids, 103; Curtiss, diary, May 5 and 7, 1863; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 181.

  43“The Grierson Raid,” Weekly Register (Canton, IL), September 7, 1863; Soldier Letter, Fulton City Ledger (Canton, IL), July 21, 1863; Death of Wm. Post,” Evening Argus (Rock Island, IL), July 8, 1863.

  44B. H. Grierson to Alice, May 6 and 9, 1863; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 181.

  45Daniel E. Robbins to Brother, May 7, 1863; B. H. Grierson to Alice, May 6, 1863; Horace P. Milton to John, May 8, 1862, Horace P. Milton Letters, Louisiana State University; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 182-83; George H. Hepworth, The Whip, Hoe, and Sword: Or, the Gulf-Department in ’63 (Boston: Walker, Wise and Company, 1864), 285.

  46Daniel E. Robbins to Brother, May 7, 1863; OR 24, pt. 3, 289, 347, 360, 493; Grierson, A Just and Righteous Cause, 184.

  47A. B. Archer to Jennie, June 5, 1863, in Archer Family Papers, MDAH; Soldier Letter, Fulton City Ledger (Canton, IL), July 21, 1863; A. Curl, “The Fight at Clinton, La.,” Confederate Veteran (March 1905), vol. 13, no. 3, 122; Charles W. Gallentine to Sister, June 12, 1863, in Charles W. Gallentine Letter, Navarro College; Charles W. Gallentine to Sister, August 18, 1863, in Charles W. Gallentine Letters, Newberry Library; “Jacksonville Letter,” Telegraph (Alton, IL), October 16, 18 63.

  Epilogue

  Just because Grierson had made a name for himself and his brigade was now safe again within Union lines did not mean the war was over for them or for anyone else. The fighting would continue for two more ye
ars, into April 1865. Many of the raid’s participants went on to greater glory. Others went to their graves. Most faded into oblivion, such as the elderly Rev. Capt. Jason B. Smith who had commanded the battery of small guns hauled through Mississippi. He was already in his 60s when the raid began, and the expedition used up whatever energy he had left. Smith resigned from the service in 1864 due to what his surgeon described as “chronic inflammation of the Liver, and advancement in age.” Another surgeon’s certificate mentioned “malarial fever, and unusually severe fatigue and exposure.”1

  Sadly, many did not survive the war. Lieutenant Colonel Blackburn died on May 17 from the wounds he received at Wall’s bridge. Grierson had left the wounded officer at the Newman plantation, where he “suffered greatly and lay for . . . days during which time he had to be waited upon constantly day and night.” Blackburn’s body was eventually buried behind Federal lines at Port Hudson, Louisiana. “He was a good officer, looked out for his men well, and he was a brave man, perhaps a little too rash at the time he was wounded, or he might have saved himself and others,” one Illinoisan wrote of their courageous but ill-fated young leader. Fortunately, his widow was able to apply for a pension.2

  Lieutenant Colonel Reuben Loomis, who had commanded the 6th Illinois Cavalry, did not fare much better. Soon after the raid he took an extended leave of absence because of hemorrhoids, which a surgeon described as “very much aggravated by his uninterrupted service during Gen Grierson’s Raid through Mississippi.” Just seven months later Loomis became embroiled with Maj. T. G. S. Herrod in a matter of honor after he reprimanded his subordinate for “unwarranted assumption of power.” Herrod took exception to the charge and told Loomis to take back his accusation “or I’ll kill you.” Loomis foolishly replied, “Maj. Herrod, you have got a pistol in your hand and I am unarmed. If you want to kill me, kill me.” Herrod did just that by firing five shots, two of which struck Loomis, the fatal ball striking him in the chest. Herrod was court-martialed and imprisoned but then pardoned after the war. Less criminal but just as fatal, Maj. Matthew Starr rose to the rank of colonel and commanded the 6th Illinois Cavalry, but he died of wounds in October 1864.3