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687 Series I Volume XLI-I Serial 83 - Price's Missouri Expedition Part I

Page 687 Chapter LIII. PRICE'S MISSOURI EXPEDITION.

General Fisk wrote a letter (find a copy with report) acknowledging obligations for kind treatment, &c., and ordering one of his staff officers to receipt for prisoners.

JNO. B. CLARK, JR.,

Brigadier-General, Commanding.

Lieutenant Colonel L. A. MACLEAN, Asst. Adjt. General, Price's Army.


Numbers 96. Report of Colonel Colton Greene, Third Missouri Cavalry, commanding Marmaduke's brigade.


HEADQUARTERS MARMADUKE'S BRIGADE,
Camp on Red River, Ark., December 18, 1864.

MAJOR: In writing a report of the part taken in the late expedition into Missouri by the commands under me, I have embraced the actions of my own regiment and Marmaduke's brigade because I was in command of the latter in several engagements and during many marches, and that in the most memorable action I commanded both on the same day.

In pursuance of orders received from Brigadier-General Clark, commanding Marmaduke's brigade, I turned over my train at Princeton, excepting one wagon, and took the field on the 31st of August, marching in a northwesterly direction through a broken, mountainous, and thinly populated country, and struck the Arkansas River at Dardanelle on the 6th of September. On the same day I crossed the river and moved north and northeast through a country equally barren and broken without interruption; crossed White River fifteen miles above Batesville, and arrived at Pocahontas, on Black River, at midnight of the 18th of September. We swam this stream during the night, proceeded up its left bank fifteen miles and recrossed it, making our bivouac in Ripley Country, Mo., on the 20th, just two miles from the Arkansas line. On the same night I was ordered forward to Poplar Bluff, which town I occupied on the following morning, the enemy in small force evacuating the day before, and in pursuance of orders made a reconnaissance of the country and of the enemy's position at Bloomfield. From Poplar Bluff my march was northward to Patton, thence west to Fredericktown, during which my flankers dispersed several parties of militia, killing and wounding 4, capturing 11, and sustaining no loss. Here two companies of my regiment were detached on recruiting service.

The morning of the 27th of September found me in Ironton, where preparation was made to assault the enemy's position at Pilot Knob, contiguous to this village. His work, consisting of an octagonal bastion mounting four 32-pounder guns and two field batteries, lay in the cleared bed of a valley, around which Shepherd's Mountain and Pilot Knob rose up like a wall. I dismounted at the foot of Shepherd's Mountain, advanced to its crest with skirmishers deployed, and was by order of the brigadier-general put in line in reserve, ordered to preserve distance of seventy-five yards, and to support the first line at discretion.

Our artillery opening from both mountains, I moved at 1 p. m. down the northern slope of the mountain exposed to heavy artillery fire. My regiment kept admirably aligned and preserved the prescribed interval; reached the plain, whereupon, observing confusion in the advance line, I charged past it, rallying it on my flank, and gained a short distance of the fort, only to find our whole force broken and retiring. I now took cover about seventy-five yards from the work and rallied


Page 687 Chapter LIII. PRICE'S MISSOURI EXPEDITION.