Another brigade was marching behind them and pushing forward vigorously, trying to force the enemy to stand and take some real punishment and quit dancing just out of range. With their line extended, the enemy skirmishers would have to spread out or be recalled, and the battle line just beyond would have to stand, fight, or run. This time they were in the van of the advance, seeing the enemy and not just marching some road as a distraction. Pushing forward and into the enemy was what brought results.
The pause gave Michael a moment to relax. He took a knee and arranged his saber across his upturned knee. There were few moments in the middle of executing an action when the grand pause ensued, allowing one to catch his breath. The march of the last several days had been of little account. Riding with Moore’s staff had put Michael out of the way of Colonel Rogers, and for that Rogers seemed to be pleased, though it meant that Michael had little to do but ferry information back and forth between the brigade commander and the colonel. It was a lackluster brigade that had awakened this morning to cross the Hatchie River and take up the march down the Chewallah road, until the enemy formations appeared. The days of marching and marching were about to be fulfilled with something to write home about. Iuka had been marching and skirmishing; this had been marching and marching. No one in the company looked forward to a fight any longer, but at least the fight meant something might actually be accomplished. Michael had barely made it back to the regiment before Rogers was about to deploy the left wing on skirmish detail. He’d heard the rattle of musketry from the rear of the column as Moore was getting his orders from Maury. Excusing himself, he’d rushed to the sounds of the skirmish in time to report. Rogers had merely grunted and waved Michael on.
General Moore thought that Rosecrans had finally made his last mistake—Rosecrans’s failure to accomplish anything at Iuka and allowing Price’s army to quietly slip away in the night being the first. But had Rosecrans arrived a day earlier, he might have been thoroughly thrashed, and they still might be holding Iuka.
Michael was shaken out of his reverie by a cry from the middle of his line. Someone was down. On a skirmish line, that would not seem to be a new experience, but they had been doing so well all morning long in keeping out of trouble that the sudden falling out was abrupt. Michael stood and moved toward a pair of men carrying off the stricken soul, a dazed look in the man’s eyes. A head wound was streaming blood down his temple. Michael waved them toward the rest of the regiment—needlessly; they were already in motion that way.
The brigade to their left, Phifer’s dismounted cavalry regiments, threw out a cloud of skirmishers and advanced rapidly, passing their own battle line and lapping their skirmishers as if they were in a race. A shortage of horseflesh had relegated Phifer’s command to dismounted status, carrying muskets. They were mounted cavalry no more.
Michael noted Phifer’s direction and where it would place his brigade in relation to Michael’s skirmish line and ran across the field to his far company. “Captain Wyrich, halt your advance! Halt!” Michael called as he cleared the remaining distance in several strides.
The other brigade was crossing by the oblique into Michael’s field of fire, forcing the enemy skirmishers to rapidly retreat. Swearing quietly to himself, Michael walked up to Captain Wyrich to confer. Their replacement skirmish line would not be needed unless Rogers intended to link up with the advance of Phifer’s brigade. For the first time in hours, the 2nd Texan skirmishers could all take a knee and just watch. Soon, the whole of Moore’s brigade was masked by Phifer’s advance, having covered most of their line of fire in their zeal to close on the enemy. Michael and Wyrich stood and watched Phifer’s line move forward as if to judge their execution of movement, closing the gap between the enemy’s skirmishers and the works just behind them. The ground had been cleared of trees in the spring; though rolling and hilly, it looked like someone had felled an immense forest and left nothing but the stumps behind. Nothing but shrubs and bushes remained, and the rainy season had seen to most of those, the ground being washed clean of anything growing on the slopes of the hills.
“General Moore’s going to give Phifer an earful for this,” Wyrich muttered, breaking the mood.
“Well, we have our opportunity to replenish the tins now.” Michael shrugged. “We’ll have to march to the wagons and do so. Hopefully Moore’ll give us opportunity before we push on those works.”
A runner from the regiment jogged up to Michael and saluted. “Sir, Colonel Rogers wants you to re-form on the regiment.”
“Battalion, by company into line!” Michael shouted as the scattered skirmishers ran to form company line on each company guide. With a command of “by the right flank, march,” the battalion line shifted into a march column. Michael led it to the rest of the regiment, where the quartermaster sergeant met them with boxes of .69 caliber cartridges, and soon the 2nd Texas was fully on line once again as a whole unit, watching as Phifer’s brigade pushed the Yankees into the old works and gave themselves a mess to contend with. Like the breaking of a handful of twigs, the crackling of musket fire was becoming louder as the reports of hundreds of rifles sounded in quick succession.
General Moore reined up behind the regimental line and stood his horse next to Colonel Rogers’s mount. Michael regained his own mount and joined the group watching the proceedings unfold. Spectators now to Phifer’s movement across their front, Moore’s brigade watched as the Union regiments scampered up the fortification walls.
“Damn that!” snapped Moore. “Captain, send to General Maury for orders. Tell him Phifer’s brigade has crossed my front.”
“They get guns into those works—” Colonel Rogers said. The booming of cannon finished his sentence. Several loud reports followed as enemy cannon fired on Phifer’s regiments.
“Sir.” Michael pointed toward the Chewallah road as it cut parallel to the formations of Phifer on the left, Moore in the center and rear, and Cabell’s brigade on the right. “The Chewallah cuts through the earthworks, and we know the ground behind the works is open plain. The enemy hasn’t fortified this part of the line. The Chewallah road is the back door through his defenses.”
“If Cabell pushes along the road and Phifer on the left flank,” continued General Moore, “and we push him through the center, we’ll spread him out. Phifer’s cutting across my path indicates the enemy doesn’t have anything further on the left; we caught him unawares of the weakness of this part of the line.” Moore smiled, his attitude changing from annoyance at Phifer’s actions to enthusiasm.
“Sir, if my memory serves me,” Michael added, ignoring Rogers and addressing Moore directly, “Cane Creek and Carter Swamp make up the ground to the right of the Chewallah road as it cuts through our old works; it’s indefensible, and the enemy probably does not have anything on Cabell’s flank. Pushing down the road and through the works will force the enemy to abandon them since his left will be in the air.”
“Send to General Maury: Enemy only lightly holding works in my front, Chewallah road not defended. Suggest pushing Cabell through on right and cooperate with Phifer on left and assault by coup de main,” General Moore dictated to his aide-de-camp. “Colonel Rogers, prepare to move your regiment to connect again with Phifer’s line and push the enemy out of the works.”
Colonel Rogers nodded curtly and regarded Michael with suspicion. “Sir, do we wait for General Maury’s orders, or shall I move my regiment in anticipation?”
“Colonel, hold here in case Maury wants to do something else,” Moore replied. He put spurs to his mount and moved off, leaving Rogers and Michael alone.
“Major, take command of the left wing; wait for the order to move by the right oblique,” Rogers said sourly.
Michael waited for the upbraiding for his impertinence to begin, but it didn’t come.
He watched the works suddenly crowd with the colors of several regiments and the embrasures fill with cannon. The push forward was going to get rough, he thought. The enemy was filling in the defenses fas
ter than his side could sort their brigades out to take them in one easy rush. Phifer’s regiments were doing their best to rush forward, but they were going to get caught in the open and unsupported. At least he was at his rightful place with the regiment. Moore would have put him back by now. If Rogers sent him off on more liaison errands, he might have to stand his ground.
The Union regiment that had been retreating before Michael’s skirmish line scampered into the works, and Phifer’s regiments sorted themselves out to push into their open flank. The 6th and 9th Texas and 3rd Arkansas marched with steady cadence and joined the brigade of Cabell as they deployed across the Chewallah road and onto uneven ground to front the Yankee line sitting astride the road and on an elevation. Artillery deployed along the ridge line and the James House, a house and barns sitting astride the C&M rail line, and began shelling the Yankees. The enemy in the earthworks were well protected. Shot and shell from the enemy guns within the works were sent toward the exposed regiments as Cabell stepped off to confront them and close the distance to within musket range.
Phifer’s regiments halted and traded volleys with the enemy in the works to little account. The enemy across the road, outside the works, started falling back.
“Colonel, Maury’s orders are to advance and place yourself behind Phifer and Cabell and be ready to support either should the need arise.”
Moore pushed his way with his staff to the front of the drawn-up brigade, the 2nd Texas forming next to the 23rd Arkansas in line. With the brigade color guard advanced ten paces forward and the regimental commanders stationed in the center, the order to forward march was given and the whole brigade trooped ahead. Michael rode to the left of the 2nd Texas line, where he would be in position to take charge of the left battalion. The guns in the earthworks were concentrating on the two brigades immediately in their front, but another off to the left of their advance sent solid shot arching down the left flank of the brigade, sending geysers of earth into the air.
Happy for once not to be in the advance as Cabell and Phifer’s line took a pounding from the shot and shell directed at them, Michael felt a little easier. Another thunderous volley from Phifer’s regiments, and they stepped off toward the works. The old abatises and battery ditches were still in evidence, and Phifer’s regiments began bleeding casualties. A brigade in full motion with thousands of rifle barrels glinting in the early morning sunlight and the tramping of feet in the fields was something that had to be experienced, and it swelled Michael’s heart with pride—even more so when Bledsoe’s guns wheeled across their front and quickly went into battery. As if he were riding one of the wheelhorses and guiding it, feeling the rush of wind on his face as the team of six horses pulled a caisson and gun, or as if he were one of the gunners holding on for dear life atop the caisson, Michael watched Bledsoe’s battery race across their front and felt a tinge of nostalgia.
“Glad this ain’t us for a change?” Michael said to Wyrich, whose company he was close behind.
“Be us next time; Phifer’s enthusiasm saved us this time,” Wyrich replied. “Gotta love seein’ a battery come full gallop.”
“More fun to be in command of it.”
Bledsoe’s gunners leaped from the caissons and carriages, swung the pieces into position, and opened fire on the Yankees in the works and over the heads of Phifer’s regiments. Michael could appreciate the action of gun and horse, man and charge as the battery let loose another few rounds. Moore’s color guard came even with them, cheered on by the gunners. The battery limbered up once more as the infantry passed through and pulled the guns around the rear of the brigade line toward the road.
“You miss it? Commanding a battery?” Wyrich asked.
“Sometimes. The 2nd has been an experience and a leg up, but there was a certain danger to a battery that I do not find in the infantry. There’s this lambs to the slaughter aspect to an infantry action that never happened in the artillery. Bledsoe will unlimber, fire over the heads of Cabell and Phifer, and then be off before he takes too much heat. That is something the infantry can’t do,” Michael said, a wistful longing in his eyes as the battery sped off and back toward the Chewallah road.
Coming up behind Phifer and Cabell, Moore halted the brigade color guard as the other regiments came abreast and likewise halted, forming one contiguous line with the brigade colors in the center. Phifer was having a time encouraging the Yankees in the works to give them up, but Cabell was pushing the exposed regiments on the other side of the Chewallah road further back. The 25th Mississippi was pulled back behind the rest of the brigade as reserve, and they waited. The Appeal battery, so named for the Memphis Appeal newspaper that had contributed to its outfitting, was deploying on a slight rise to their left, engaging guns within the works.
A runner from Phifer’s brigade charged up to General Moore, and a brief conference took place out of Michael’s hearing. The gist of it was clear: they were going to be advancing any moment. The brigade color guard trooped forward once more and halted. Tense moments passed. A solid shot from the meddlesome Yankee battery off to their left came bounding down the line, uncomfortably close, and bounced into the air to sail harmlessly into the rear, not harming a soul but causing all to flinch. The colors of Phifer’s 6th Texas bobbed up and down as their line disappeared into a cloud of smoke, a well-rent volley pounding into the earthworks. The Yankee line on the other side of the road vanished and was soon filled with Cabell’s triumphant regiments. A man behind Michael called out, a spent round knocking the wind out of him.
The Yankee colors behind the earthworks also vanished, one by one. Concussive explosions behind them as the Appeal battery, taking a position on a rise in the ground, let loose another volley caused Michael’s clothes to bounce. Phifer’s regiments stepped off, and Moore shouted something Michael couldn’t hear as the command moved forward.
The regiments of Phifer’s line clambered down into the ditch and disappeared for a moment before climbing up the steep wall of the earthworks and over. The Yankees were abandoning the whole of the line, and a cheer arose. A few forms lay on the ground, felled by the advance. On the whole, it had been almost bloodless. A sense of relief was enjoyed by Moore’s regiments as they cheered in support of their sister brigades.
“Easier than it looked,” Wyrich shouted, slightly out of breath.
“Yanks didn’t have the trenches covered; our luck,” Michael replied as he brought his mount up close.
At the ditch, Michael and the other officers dismounted and followed the advance over the works on foot. Cresting them, for a brief moment Michael took in the panorama. The enemy was in retreat over the whole vista. The spires of the Corinth churches could be seen in the distance, the rail line running across fields and farms, and Yankee regiments falling back, slowly. Thousands of men in blue, in regimental and brigade lines, were in motion. As the enemy who formerly fronted them were sent packing, their own columns appeared down the Chewallah road as the division of Hébert began to deploy. Michael scampered down the battery position and brought his battalion to a halt as the whole brigade sorted themselves out. Phifer’s men were just ahead, moving forward in starts. The enemy cannon were topping a rise just to the front of where Moore’s brigade came out of the works, and Yankee regiments were forming at its base.
Michael brought his battalion on line and paused. He had to admit, he felt a slight disappointment that it had been this easy. In May the yankees had been loathe to assault the same fortifications, fearing enormous loss. Today, the enemy was pushed out of what should have been a bloody Confederate assault. Leading his battalion in a charge should have been exhilarating, but instead he was watching the enemy break apart with nothing between them but the town itself, the most formidable works in the region now totally open.
“They tryin’ to rally base of that hill,” Wyrich noted.
Now the enemy was out in the open. But the rise in the ground extended too close to the now-captured works, and the batteries on its crest fired a few
rounds and then limbered up and vanished from view as the infantry in front of the hill replaced them. Another column of butternut and gray appeared, marching down the Memphis road that cut perpendicular to the Chewallah and through the earthworks. The hill, flanked now, was useless to the enemy as a rally point.
“See, bein’ in the infantry’s not all that bad,” Wyrich added.
Michael nodded and waited for the colonel to give the order to move. The other two brigades were also reorganizing after the clamber over the works as the enemy was putting distance between themselves and Price’s troops.
“Not bad for being in support,” Michael conceded. “Let’s see what happens when we redeployed.”
****
The sounds of fighting were a shock to the little group of 21st Ohio making their way northward to locate Davies’s division headquarters. The officer at Rosecrans’s HQ, also called White House, the most prominent and official-looking edifice along Corinth’s main thoroughfare, just pointed down the Memphis road and said, “That way.” When they started down the road, silence had greeted them. Now a full-blown battle was tearing loose ahead of them, and this was not the place to be. Batteries in full gallop forced them off the road several times, as did supply wagons and ambulances coming back from the fighting. They made an odd group. Too small to be of notice, but large enough to present a covetous line of rifles for someone looking to plug a hole.
Philip marched in the rear of the column, and each step was one he wished they weren’t making. The fresh fish were jabbering away excitedly, and even the veterans were enlivened, even if the sounds of fighting did not evince happy portent for their immediate future. Heading down the road, they passed a large battery position with three guns and engineers piling up the earth and soldiers digging feverishly to deepen the ditch that surrounded it. There were no entrenchments, nothing like what they had passed through earlier along the Pittsburg road. These were fall-back positions, close in on the town, defensive spots commanding the roads and rail lines and only meant as a last-ditch before the town. What had to be the army under Rosecrans’s command was north, occupying the old Confederate earthworks, but from the sounds of it something wasn’t going right. Cannon fire boomed and cracked, its sound echoing like distant thunder, but the sounds were coming from all sides and at times were creeping nearer.
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