History of the Nineteenth Army Corps Part 13

When Lee found himself so obstinately opposed, and so hindered by these dilatory tactics, he sent a message to Franklin, through Banks's senior aide-de-camp, who had been riding with the advance, asking that a brigade of infantry might be sent forward to his a.s.sistance. Lee's view was that the infantry, advancing in skirmish order, could make better progress than the cavalry, which, in a country so thickly wooded, found itself reduced to the same tactics, with the added drawback that as often as they dislodged the enemy they had to run back after their horses before they could follow. Franklin declined to accede to this request without orders, justly reflecting that infantry thus advanced at night, after a hard day's march, must be worn out in the attempt to keep touch with the cavalry, while, in the history of these mixed forces, the instances are rare indeed in which the mounted men have not, after bringing on the action, left it, as the proper thing, for the infantry to finish. However, late in the evening Banks joined Franklin, and an hour or two before midnight ordered him to send a brigade to Lee, to report to him at dawn. Upon this Franklin directed Ransom to send either a brigade or a division, at his discretion, and Ransom, in his turn, ordered Landram to take Emerson's brigade of his division and join the cavalry for the service indicated.

(1) January 4, 1864-Official Records, vol. x.x.xiv, part ii., p. 15.

CHAPTER XXIV. SABINE CROSS-ROADS.

Landram accordingly marched at three o'clock on the morning of the 8th of April, and reported to Lee about five.

Soon after sunrise Lee moved forward against the enemy, Lucas leading, with one regiment of his brigade dismounted and deployed as skirmishers, supported by two regiments of Landram's infantry, in line of battle. Green's men still adhering to the obstructive policy of the day before, after a time the two remaining regiments of Emerson's brigade were deployed and required to drive the enemy more rapidly, while the cavalry covered the flanks. About one o'clock in the afternoon, when half the distance that separated Mansfield from his camp of the night before had been accomplished, Lee found himself at the edge of a large clearing on the slope of a hill, with the Confederates in force in his front and on his right flank.

Ransom marched from Pleasant Hill at half-past five, and at half-past ten was ten miles distant on the northerly branch of the Bayou St. Patrice, designated as his camp for the day. He was just going into bivouac when, on a request from Lee for a fresh force of infantry to relieve the exhausted men of Emerson's brigade, Franklin directed Ransom to go forward himself with Vance's brigade, and thus to make sure of Emerson's return.

Franklin's arrangements for the day's march of his command, as well as Banks's for the whole force, contemplated a short march for the head of the column and a longer one for the rear, so that a comparatively early hour in the day the army would be closed up, ready to encounter the enemy in good order. Accordingly, shortly before three o'clock in the afternoon, Emory went into camp on the banks of the south branch of the St. Patrice, within easy supporting distance of Ransom, while A. J. Smith continued his march, until at night, having accomplished twenty-one miles, he went into bivouac about two miles before reaching Pleasant Hill.

At last nearly the whole of Green's cavalry corps had joined Taylor, and at the same time two divisions of Price's army had come in from Arkansas and taken post in supporting distance of Taylor at Keachie, which is about half-way between Mansfield and Shreveport, or about twenty miles from either. With his own force, under Walker and Mouton, Green's Texans, Churchill's Arkansas division, and Parsons's Missouri division, Taylor now had at least sixteen thousand good men, with whom, if permitted, he might give battle in a chosen position, while Banks's force was stretched out the length of a long day's march on a single narrow road in a dense pine forest, with no elbow-room save such as was to be found in the narrow and infrequent clearings. In such a region excess of numbers was a hindrance rather than a help, and cavalry was worse then useless for offence. Banks was, moreover, enc.u.mbered by twelve miles of wagons bearing all his ammunition and stores, and was weakened by the necessity of guarding this long train through the barren wilderness deep in the heart of the enemy's country. Of these conditions Kirby Smith was planning to take advantage, and it was to guard against such an enterprise that Banks's column was closing up in readiness to meet the enemy with its full strength, when suddenly on both sides events took the bit in their teeth and precipitated a battle that was in the plans of neither.

It was about eleven o'clock when Ransom set out to go to the front with Vance's brigade. The distance to be pa.s.sed over was about five and a half miles. Riding ahead, Ransom himself arrived on the field about half-past one in the afternoon. At this time, by Lee's orders, Landram had pushed forward the 19th Kentucky, deployed as skirmishers, and supporting it strongly with the rest of Emerson's brigade, had driven Green's troopers across the open ground, over the hill, and well into the woods beyond, and had taken position on the crest. Here he was joined by Nims, who brought his guns into battery across the road. On the left of Nims were placed two of Rottaken's howitzers, detached from the 6th Missouri cavalry. On the right and left of the horse artillery Emerson formed, and Vance, as soon as he came up, took position on Emerson's right, but as Banks undertook to hasten the movement through the direct action of his own staff-officers, it resulted that the regiments of the two brigades were sandwiched. Lucas, dismounted, extended the line of battle to the right. With him were a section of Rawles's battery and another of Rottaken's.

To cover the flanks in the forest Dudley deployed as skirmishers the 8th New Hamps.h.i.+re on the right, and on the left the 3d and the 31st Ma.s.sachusetts, supported by the 2d Illinois. Robinson was with the cavalry train, which was rather closely following the march of its division, in order to clear the head of the infantry without starving the cavalry.

Neither side could move forward without bringing on a battle. But Lee, instead of being able and ready to disengage his cavalry advance-guard and to fall back to a chosen field, was now anch.o.r.ed to the ground where he found himself, not alone by the concentration of the main body of the cavalry at the very front, but also and even more firmly by the presence of the infantry with its artillery and their employment, naturally enough, to form the centre of his main line.

The clearing, the largest yet seen by the Union Army since entering the interminable wilderness of pines, was barely half a mile in width; across the road it stretched for about three quarters of a mile, and down the middle it was divided by a ravine.

Directly in front of Banks stood Taylor in order of battle, covering the crossing of the ways that lead to Pleasant Hill, to Shreveport, to Bayou Pierre, and to the Sabine. On his right was the cavalry of Bee, then Walker's infantry astride of the main road, and on Walker's left Mouton, supported on his left by the cavalry brigades of Major and Bagby, dismounted. To this position, well selected, Taylor had advanced from Mansfield early in the morning, with the clear intention of offering battle, and, regardless of Kirby Smith's purpose of concentrating nearer Shreveport, had sent back orders for Churchill and Parsons to come forward. They marched early, and were by this time well on the way, but a distance of twenty-five miles separated their camp of the night before from the field of the approaching combat.

As on the previous day's march, Stone had been with Lee's advance since the early morning, without, however, being charged with the views of his chief and without attempting to issue orders in his name; but now Banks himself rode to the extreme front, as his habit was. Arriving on the ground not long after Ransom, and seeing the enemy before him in force, Banks at once ordered Lee to hold his ground and sent back orders to Franklin to bring forward the column. The skirmis.h.i.+ng that had been going on all the morning, as an incident of the advance and retreat of the opposing forces, had become the sharp prelude of battle, and through the openings of the forest the enemy could be seen in continuous movement toward his left. This was Major and Mouton feeling their way to the Union right, beyond which and diagonally across the front ran the road that leads from Mansfield to Bayou Pierre.

Whether Taylor, as he says, now became impatient at the delay and ordered Mouton to open the attack, or whether, as others have a.s.serted, Mouton attacked without the knowledge or orders of Taylor, is not quite clear, nor is it here material. About four o'clock, when the two lines had looked at each other for two hours or more, Taylor suddenly delivered his attack by a vigorous charge of Mouton's division on the east of the road. Ransom's infantry on the field numbered about 2,400 officers and men; including Lucas, Banks's fighting line fell below 3,500, and the whole force he had at hand was not above 5,000 strong. Against this, Taylor was now advancing with nearly 10,000. It was therefore inevitable that on both flanks his line must widely overlap that of Banks as soon as the two should meet.

When Ransom perceived Mouton's movement, he threw forward his right to meet it with such spirit that Mouton's first line was driven back in confusion on his second; then rallying and returning to the charge, Mouton's men halted, lay down, and began firing at about two hundred yards' range. The two batteries of Landram's division, Cone's Chicago Mercantile, and Klauss's 1st Indiana, now came on the field, and were posted by Ransom on the ridge near the centre, to oppose the enemy's advance on the left, before which Dudley's men were already falling back. Bee and Walker had in fact turned the whole left flank, and were rapidly moving on, breaking in the line as they advanced. This soon left Nims's guns without support, and at the same time Klauss and Cone came under a fire so severe from Walker's men, that Ransom determined to withdraw to the cover of the wood in his rear at the edge of the clearing. Unfortunately, Captain d.i.c.key, his a.s.sistant adjutant-general, fell mortally wounded in the act of communicating these orders, and thus some of the regiments farther toward the right, being without orders, and fighting stubbornly against great odds, stood their ground until they were completely surrounded and taken prisoners. While aiding Landram to rally and reform the remnants of his division in the skirt of timber, Ransom was severely wounded in the knee, and had to be carried off the field. Vance and Emerson were wounded and taken prisoners, each at the head of his brigade.

Meanwhile, shortly after three o'clock, at his quarters, near Ransom's camp of the forenoon, Franklin received his first suggestion of an impending battle, in Banks's order to bring all the infantry to the front. First sending back word to Emory, Franklin set out at once and rode forward rapidly, followed by Cameron's division. When, some time after four o'clock, he entered the clearing and galloped to the hill where the guns of Nims still stood grimly defiant and Ransom's men were still desperately struggling to hold their first ground, the situation was already hopeless. Hardly had he arrived on the ground, than, by a single volley from Walker's advancing lines, Franklin's horse was killed, and he himself and Captains Chapman and Pigman of his staff were wounded.

Cameron came up just as Landram was striving hard to rally his men and to hold a second position in the lower skirt of the wood, to prevent the enemy from coming on across the clearing; but for this, time and numbers and elbow-room were alike wanting. Moreover, every movement of the Confederate troopers must be gaining on the flanks. Nor was Cameron's handful, barely 1,300, enough to enable the remnant of the Thirteenth Corps to hold for many minutes so weak a position against such odds. Cameron deployed his four battalions and tried hard, but the whole line soon crumbled and fell apart to the rear.

Until this moment, Banks and Franklin, as well as every officer of the staff of either, beginning with Stone, had exerted themselves to the utmost to second the efforts of Ransom and of Landram to save the day. The retreat once fairly began, all attempt to stay its course was for a time given up as idle, for every man knew just how far back he must go to find room to form a line of battle longer than the road was narrow. Green's cavalry having been for the most part dismounted and on the flanks, as well as in the forest, the pursuit was not very vigorous and was now and then r.e.t.a.r.ded by the successive covering lines of Lucas and of Dudley, so that the prospect seemed fair of bringing off the remnants of the fighting force without much more loss, when about a mile behind the battle-field, at the foot of a slight descent, the retreating column came upon a knot of wagons inextricably tangled and stuck fast in a slough. This was the great cavalry train trying to escape. Instantly what had been a severe check became a serious disaster. Already, by holding so stiffly to his first position, in the front line, in the road, Nims had lost more than half his horses, and thus in quitting the field he found himself compelled to abandon three of his guns; yet not until he had inflicted vast injuries on his enemy, and to the last furnished a n.o.ble example of coolness in the performance of duty and the highest courage in the hour of trial. Now the remnant of this fine battery was swallowed up in the wreck of the wagons, and soon fourteen more guns went to swell the ruin. Thus Rails and Rottaken lost each a section, Cone and Klauss their whole batteries. In all twenty guns were lost; three on the field and seventeen at the jam. With them went 175 wagons, 11 ambulances, and 1,001 draught animals. To pa.s.s the obstruction the infantry had to turn widely out of the road and for a long distance push their way through the woods. No semblance of order survived. After this there was only one ma.s.s of men, wagons, and horses crowding to the rear.

How little expectation there had been of fighting a battle that day, especially on the line where the extreme outposts chanced to be, and how suddenly all was changed, is aptly shown by what was happening in Emory's camp when, at a quarter before four o'clock, he received Franklin's order to go to the front. The wagons of the Thirteenth Corps were in the road in the act of pa.s.sing the lines of the Nineteenth Corps on the way to join their proper command. Emory's wagons had been with him for some little time and several of the quartermasters were even engaged in issuing clothing when the summons came. There had been no heavy firing as yet, such as indicates a battle, and the exact degree of urgency may be best represented by saying that the marching orders were delivered to Emory in writing by a mounted orderly and were in these words: "Move your infantry immediately to the front, leaving one regiment as guard to your batteries and train. If your train has got up, you will take two days' rations and the cooking utensils." The language of this order, which may fairly be taken as an authentic reflection of the oral message from Banks, on which it was directly based, would have justified Emory in taking an hour or more for the issue of the rations; but Emory, whose nature it was to forecast danger, had from the first hour of the campaign been apprehensive of some sudden attack that should find the army unprepared; and thus it was that, merely stopping to take a double ration of hard bread, twelve minutes later the head of his column filed into the road and marched to the front. At this hour the battle was just beginning, and the first sounds, rolling to the rear, served to quicken the march of Emory's men. About a quarter before five he was met by an aide-de-camp with orders to hasten, coupled with the first direct information that an engagement was in progress. A mile farther on an ambulance was met bearing Ransom to the rear. Emory exchanged a few words with the wounded officer, and then ordered his division to take the double-quick. A mile beyond, the usual rabble of camp followers and stragglers was encountered, and soon the road was filled with the swollen stream of fugitives, crying that the day was lost.

And now from Emory down to the smallest drummer-boy every man saw that the hour had come to show what the First division was made of. The leading regiments and flankers instantly fixed bayonets; the staff-officers drew their swords; hardly a man fell out, but at a steady and even quickened pace, Emory's men forced their way through the confused ma.s.s in the eager endeavor to reach a position where the enemy might be held in check. This, in that country, was not an easy task, and it was not until the last rush of the flying crowd and the dropping of stray bullets here and there told that the pursuing enemy was close at hand, that Emory found room to deploy on ground affording the least advantage for the task before him. He was now less than three miles from the field where Lee had been beaten back and Ransom had been overwhelmed. The scene was a small clearing with a fenced farm, traversed by a narrow by-road and by a little creek flowing toward the St. Patrice. Here the Confederates could be plainly seen coming on at such a pace that for some moments it was even doubtful whether Emory might not have delayed just too long the formation of his line of battle. Such was his own though as in the dire need of the crisis he determined to sacrifice his leading regiment in order to gain time and room for the division to form. Happily the Confederates helped him by stopping to loot the train and the rejoice loudly over each discovery of some special luxury to them long unfamiliar.

Then rapidly sending orders to Dwight to hold the road at any cost, to McMillan to form on the right, to Benedict to deploy on Dwight's left, Emory himself rode up to Kinsey, and together they led forward the 161st New York and deployed the regiment widely as skirmishers across the whole front of the division, in the very teeth of the Confederate line of battle, rapidly advancing with wild yells and firing heavily as they came. Not a man of the division, not one of the 161st, but felt as well as Emory the imposing duty laid on that splendid regiment and the hard sacrifice expected of it; yet they stood their ground so well and so long that not only had the whole division time to deploy, but, when at last the Confederate line of battle refused any longer to be held back by a fringe of skirmishers, it became a serious question whether friend and foe might not enter the Union lines together. Then, when Emory saw that his line was formed, he gave to word to Kinsey to retire. For some seconds his skirmishers masked fire of their own lines, but, as the Confederates followed with great impetuosity, Dwight's whole line, kneeling, waiting, and ready, opened a fierce fire at point-blank range and soon threw off the attack with heavy loss to their a.s.sailants. The brunt of the attack was borne by the 28th Maine, holding the centre and the road. An attempt followed to turn Emory's right flank; in this Dwight's right was pressed so heavily that Emory was obliged to deploy McMillan nearly at right angles to the main front, and thus the onset was easily checked. About the same time the Confederates, whose line was longer than Emory's, made a like attempt to turn the left, but Benedict held on firmly, and although his position was a bad one, soon drove off his a.s.sailants. The whole fight was over in twenty minutes, but while it lasted it was sharp. It rolled back the pursuit and changed the fortunes of the evil day.

In no other battle of the war was so little use made of artillery. In Ransom's fight only a few guns could be brought into action on either side, though these indeed were served with vigor. As for Emory, he left his batteries and his baggage to the safekeeping of the 153d New York and swept to the front with all the rest of his infantry, while the same jam of wagons that entrapped the guns of Lee and Ransom likewise held back the guns of Taylor. Thus Emory's fight was fought by infantry alone against infantry and dismounted cavalry, and no roar of cannon was heard to break the rattle and the wail of the musketry.

So great a change had these few hours wrought that the same sun rose upon an army marching full of confidence that within two days Shreveport would be in its grasp, and set up the same army defeated, brought to bay, its campaign ruined, saved only by a triumph of valor and discipline on the part of a single division and of skill on the part of its intrepid commander from complete destruction at the hands of an enemy inferior in everything and outnumbered almost as two to one. The pa.s.sage of a wood is the pa.s.sage of a defile; there, then, was a blind defile, where of six divisions four were suffered to be taken in detail and attacked in fractions on ground of the enemy's choosing. Hardly any tactical error was wanting to complete the discomfiture. Ransom was overwhelmed and double outflanked by two or three times his numbers; even Emory had but five thousand against a force reduced by casualties and straggling, yet still half as large again as his and flushed with victory; moreover, his position was, whether for offence or defence, worthless beyond the pa.s.sing hour.

Banks's losses in the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads were as follows:

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total.

Cavalry Division ... . 39 250 144 433 Cameron's " ..... 24 99 195 318 Landram's " ..... 28 148 909 1,085 Emory's " ..... 24 148 175 347 Staff of Nineteenth Corps 0 3 0 3 ____ ____ _____ ______ In all ... 115 648 1,423 2,186 By Taylor the action is called the battle of Mansfield. He puts his losses at 1,000, all told. Foremost among the slain, while leading the fierce onset against Ransom's right, Mouton fell, a regimental color in his hand, and with him perished many of his brave Louisianians.

Clearly the next thing, whatever might be the next after, was to concentrate and reform on the first fair ground in the rear. Such were Banks's orders. Accordingly at midnight Emory marched in orderly retreat, with all his material intact, and at eight o'clock the next morning, the 9th of April, went into bivouac at Pleasant Hill, where A. J. Smith was found near his resting-place of the night before, and with him Gooding. Thither Lee and the shattered remnants of Ransom's Corps, now under Cameron, had already retired, and there they now reformed in comparative order.

CHAPTER XXV. PLEASANT HILL.

The scenes and events of the 8th produced a deep effect on Banks. At first he was disposed to look on the campaign as lost. Whatever hope he might have had that morning of taking or even reaching Shreveport within the time fixed for the breaking up of the expedition, was at an end before night fell. Not only must A. J. Smith be sent back to Vicksburg within two days, but Banks himself must be on the Mississippi with his whole force ready to move against Mobile by the 1st of May. Such were his orders from Grant, peremptory and repeated. Therefore Banks at once made up his mind to retreat to Grand Ecore, and sent messenger after messenger across the country to tell Kilby Smith and Porter what had happened and what he was about to do. In thus deciding he chose the second best course, and the one that Taylor wished for; it would have been far better to cover Blair's Landing and thus make sure of the safety as well as the support of the gunboats and Kilby Smith.

Pleasant Hill was a village of a dozen houses dispersed about a knoll in a clearing. Beside the main highway between Natchitoches and Shreveport, by which Banks had come and was now going back, fairly good roads radiate to Fort Jesup and Many on the south to the crossings of the Sabine on the west, and on the north and east towards the Red River. The nearest point on the river was Blair's Landing, distant sixteen miles from Pleasant Hill by the road and forty-five miles by water above Grand Ecore.

Though a good place to fight a battle, Pleasant Hill was not a position that could be held for any length of time, even if there had been an object in holding it. It was too far even from the immediate base of supplies, and there was no water to be had save from the cisterns in the village. These were merely sufficient, in ordinary times, for the storage of rain water for the daily use of the inhabitants. Now two armies had been drawing from them, and there was not enough left in them to supply the wants of Banks's men, to say nothing of the animals, for a single day; and for this reason, if for no other, it was impossible for the army to stay there an hour longer than was really necessary to cover a safe and orderly withdrawal of the train.

Accordingly, early on the 9th of April, Banks gave orders for the wagon train to be set in motion toward Grand Ecore, escorted by Lee with the cavalry and d.i.c.key's colored brigade, and put his army into position at Pleasant Hill to cover the movement.

Churchill with Tappan and Parsons had accomplished the march of twenty miles from Keachie to Mansfield too late in the evening of the 8th to take any part in the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads. At two o'clock the next morning he marched toward the front in order to arrive on the ground in time to renew the fight. By the earliest light of morning Taylor saw that his adversary had already left the field. Then he promptly advanced his whole force, feeling his way as he went. Green led with the cavalry; next came Churchill with his own division, under Tappan; then Parsons, Walker, and Polignac. The morning was wellnigh spent, when Taylor with the head of his column drew near Pleasant Hill and discovered his adversary in position. The last of his infantry did not come up until after noon. Churchill's men were so f.a.gged by their early start and their long march of forty-five miles since the morning of the 8th that Taylor thought it best to give them two hours' rest before attempting anything more.

Two miles to the southward, across the main road, stood Emory, firmly holding the right of the Union lines. Dwight's brigade formed the extreme right flank, thrown back and resting on a wooded ravine that runs almost parallel with the road. Squarely across the road and somewhat more advanced, in the skirt of the wood before the village, commanding an open approach, was posted Shaw's brigade, detached from Mower's Third division, to strengthen the exposed front of Emory. Benedict occupied a ditch traversing a slight hollow, the course of which was nearly perpendicular to the Logansport road, on which his right rested in echelon behind the left of Shaw. Benedict's front was generally hidden by a light growth of reed and willow, but his left was in the open and was completely exposed. Grow's battery, under Southworth, held the hill between Dwight and Shaw, and Closson's battery, under Franck Taylor, was planted so as to fire over the heads of Benedict's men. McMillan's brigade was in reserve behind Dwight and Shaw. The position thus occupied by Emory was a short distance north of the village in front of the fork of the roads that lead to Mansfield and to Logansport.

About four hundred yards behind Benedict, and slightly overlapping his left, the line was prolonged by A. J. Smith, with the two divisions of Mower, strongly posted in the wood, to cover the crossing of the roads to Fort Jesup, to Natchitoches, and to Blair's Landing. Near Mower's right, Closson placed Hebard's battery.

The extreme left flank on the Fort Jesup road was for a time held by Cameron; but, through some uncertainly or misunderstanding of orders, he appears to have considered himself charged with the duty of protecting the right flank and rear of the retreating trains, rather than the left flank of the army. Accordingly five o'clock found him with the wagons, two hours' march from the field of battle.

Lucas, with about 500 picked men of his own brigade, taken from the 16th Indiana, the 6th Missouri, and the 14th New York, and a like number from Gooding's brigade, was detached from the cavalry division for service under the immediate orders of Franklin. With these detachments Lucas skilfully watched all the approaches.

Thus matters rested until the afternoon was well advanced, the long train steadily rolling on its way, and the prospects of being molested seeming to grow by degrees fainter as hour after hour pa.s.sed and gave no sign of movement on the part of the Confederates.

Taylor formed his line of battle and set his troops in motion between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. Bee with two brigades of cavalry was on the left or east of the Mansfield road, supported by Polignac, on whose division had fallen the heaviest losses of the day before. On the right or west of the road was Walker, while Churchill, with three regiments of cavalry on his right flank, moved under cover and out of sight on the right or south of the upper road to the Sabine.

As early as the previous evening Taylor had considered the chances of Banks's retreat on Blair's Landing, and had sent a detachment of cavalry to gather intelligence of such a movement and to seize the crossing of Bayou Pierre. Now, hearing nothing from this detachment, he sent Major, with his own brigade and Bagby's, to the right of the Union army in time to seize and hold the road to the landing.

Taylor's intention was that Churchill should gain the Fort Jesup road and fall upon the flank and rear of the Union army, while at the same instant Walker was to deliver a direct attack in echelon of brigades from the right. As soon as Churchill should have thrown the Union left into disorder, Bee was to charge down the Mansfield road, while Major and Bagby were to turn the flank of Emory.

It was after three o'clock when Churchill took up his line of march through the woods, Parsons leading. Whether for want of a good map of the country or from whatever cause, it seems probable that, when the head of Churchill's column had gained the lower Sabine road, which enters Pleasant Hill from the southwest, he mistook it for the Fort Jesup road, which approaches the village from the south. Thus, changing front to the left, the double lines of Parsons and Tappan charged swiftly down on the left flank and diagonally upon the front of Benedict, instead of falling, as Taylor meant, upon the flank and rear of Mower. Emory says the attack began at a quarter after five; other reports name an earlier hour. However that may be, night was approaching, and the Union army had practically given up the idea of being attacked that day, when suddenly the battle began.

Benedict's position was, unavoidably, a bad one, and this oblique order of attack was singularly adapted for searching out its weakness. When once Benedict's skirmishers had been driven back through the skirt of the woods that masked his right and centre, Churchill's men had but to descend the slope, firing as they came on, but without checking their pace, and it was a mere question of minutes when the defenders of a line so exposed and overlapped must be crushed by the weight of thrice their numbers. For one brief moment, indeed, the fight was hand to hand; then Benedict's men were driven out of the ditch, and forced in more or less disorder up the reverse slope. So they drifted to the cover of the wood, where Mower lay in wait, and there by regiments they re-formed and sought fresh places in the front of battle; for Benedict had fallen, and the night followed so quickly that darkness had closed in before the discreet and zealous Fessenden had gathered the brigade and held it well in hand. The whole brigade bore the searching test like good soldiers, yet conspicuous in steadiness under the shock and in prompt recovery were the 30th Maine and the 173d New York, inspired by the example and the leaders.h.i.+p of Fessenden and of Conrady.

When Green heard the sound of Churchill's musketry he launched Bee with Debray's and Buchel's regiments in an impetuous charge against the left of Shaw's line; but this wild swoop was quickly stopped by the muskets of the 14th Iowa and the 24th Missouri at close range. Many saddles were emptied; Bee, Buchel, and Debray were among the victims, and in great disorder the beaten remnants fled.

Eighteen guns, among them, sad to say, trophies of Sabine Cross-Roads, concentrated their fire upon the six pieces of Southworth and presently overcame him by sheer weight. The giving way of Benedict had already exposed Shaw's left when Walker closed with him. Vigorously attacked in front, and menaced in flank, Shaw made a stout fight, but he was in great danger of being cut off. Not a moment too soon A. J. Smith recalled him.

When Shaw gave back, Dwight suddenly found himself attacked in front by Walker and in flank and rear by Major. At this trying moment the 114th New York and the 153d New York were covering the fork of the roads to Mansfield and to Logansport, while beyond the Mansfield road, on the right, stood the 116th New York. To protect the left and right flanks of this little line, Dwight quickly moved the 29th Maine and the 161st New York. Fortunately his men stood firm under the trial of a fire that seemed to come from all quarters at once. For a moment, indeed, the exultant and still advancing Confederates seemed masters of the plain. Along the whole Union front nothing was to be seen in place save Dwight's men far off on the right, standing as it were on a rocky islet, with the gray floods surging on every side.

But far away, out of sight from the plain, an event had already occurred that was to cost the Confederates the battle. Parsons, following up the overthrow of Benedict, offered his own right flank to Lynch, who stood alert and observant in the skirt of the woods, beyond the left of Mower. Lynch struck hard and began doubling up the Missourians. Seeing this, and noting the condition of affairs on the other flank, A. J. Smith instantly ordered forward his whole line. Shaw had already re-formed his brigade on the right of Mower. Across Dwight's rear Emory was leading McMillan from his position in reserve, to restore the line on Dwight's left. Then, just at the instant when to one standing on the plain the day must have seemed hopelessly lost, the long lines of A. J. Smith, with Mower riding at the head, were seen coming out of the woods and sweeping, with unbroken front and steady tread, down upon the front and flank of the enemy. To the right of this splendid line McMillan joined his brigade, and among its intervals here and there the rallied fragments of Benedict's brigade found places. Under this impetuous onset, Parsons and Tappan and Walker melted away, and before anything could be done with Polignac, the whole Confederate army was in hopeless confusion. Their disordered ranks were pushed back about a mile, with a loss of five guns, and after nightfall Taylor's infantry and part of his cavalry fell back six miles to the stream on which Emory had encamped on the morning of the previous day, while the cavalry retired to Mansfield, but Taylor himself slept near the field of battle with the remnant of Debray's troopers. In the superb right wheel, three of the guns lost at Sabine Cross-Roads were retaken.

As soon as the news of the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads reached Kirby Smith at Shreveport, he rode to the front and joined Taylor after nightfall on the 9th of April. The earliest Confederate despatches and orders of Kirby Smith and Taylor claimed a signal and glorious victory, and to this view Taylor seems to have adhered; but in a report dated August 28, 1864, Smith says, in giving his reasons for not adopting Taylor's ambitious plan of pursuing Banks to New Orleans, that Taylor's troops

"were finally repulsed and thrown into confusion ... The Missouri and Arkansas troops, with the brigade of Walker's division, were broken and scattered. The enemy recovered cannon which we had captured, and two of our pieces were left in his hands. To my great relief I found in the morning that the enemy had fallen back during the night... . Our troops were completely paralyzed by the repulse at Pleasant Hill."