Today in History:

261 Series I Volume XVII-I Serial 24 - Corinth Part I

Page 261 Chapter XXIX. CORINTH.

Corinth was enacted. The brave and noble bearing of the Confederate troops in this charge is deserving of a better cause. Thirteen Confederate soldiers were found dead in the little ditch of the earthwork.

A new line was now formed, and in half an hour from the first assault the men were in their places and I was furnished with four regiments to form a reserve line. The troops stacked their arms, and when it was ascertained that the enemy had abandoned the idea of further attack the regiments bivouacked for the night.

Total loss in the artillery arm was one 20-pounder rifled gun, one 24-pounder howitzer, and one 10-pounder rifled gun, with fixtures complete, 3 caissons, and 131 horses. The casualties in the division during October 3 and 4 amounted to 114 killed, 705 wounded, 23 sun-stroke, and 159 missing. Total casualties, 1,001.*

The following regiments captured prisoners and stand of colors, viz: Seventh Illinois, 74 prisoners; Fiftieth Illinois, 2 officers, 149 prisoners, and 1 stand of colors; Fifty-seventh Illinois, 3 officers, 119 prisoners, and 2 stand of colors; Eighty-first Ohio, 71 prisoners; Fourteenth Missouri, 78 prisoners; Twelfth Illinois, 40 prisoners and 1 stand of colors; Twenty-second Ohio, 20 prisoners and 2 stand of colors; Ninth Illinois, 15 prisoners; Fifty-second Illinois, 81 prisoners (among them 1 colonel, 2 captains, and 2 lieutenants) and 1 stand of colors; Seventh Iowa, 6 prisoners and 1 stand of colors; Second Iowa, 31 prisoners and 1 stand of colors. Lieutenant Davidson, Fifty-second Illinois, on Colonel Sweeny's staff, also captured one stand of colors. The division in the pursuit captured 78 prisoners. Colonel Burke reports that there were left on the ground in front of the division, wounded and taken away by the ambulances, and which prisoners were captured by the division, 693, making a grand total of 1,460 prisoners captured by the division. Ten stand of colors were captured by the division.

THE PURSUIT.

Pursuant to order the division moved on Sunday morning, October 5, and joined in the pursuit, the position of the division being in the rear, and on account of the slow motion of the column and some of the divisions having taken the wrong roads we made but 7 miles advance that day.

Next morning we moved forward to Chewalla, Colonel Sweeny and Colonel Du Bois reconnoitering the two fords on the Tuscumbia. I had orders to tacked charge of public property abandoned and to make a report, herewith attached. We then moved forward to Tuscumbia and encamped all night.

Next day we moved to within 2 1\2 miles of Jonesborough, across the Hatchie.

The next day we were ordered forward to Ruckersville to support, which we did. We remained there two days, and were ordered to return to our camp at Corinth by the way of Davis' Bridge.

While absent our camps were attacked by guerrillas, and I embody the report of H. F. Olds, wagon-master of the Union Brigade:

CAMP UNION BRIGADE, October 15, 1862.

Sunday evening, October 5, about 3 o'clock, a party of guerrillas, numbering about 100, made an attack upon the camp of the Union Brigade. There was at the time a number of convalescents and teamsters in camp. I arrived in camp just as the news

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*But see revised statement, p. 175.

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Page 261 Chapter XXIX. CORINTH.