home

   
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Back | Next


General Holmes entered Battery C in the wake of Price’s heroic troops and proceeded to hamstring his own army by ignoring the chain of command. The overexcited old man, carried away by visions of a Yankee rout, told one of Parsons’ colonels to attack Fort Curtis without delay. As that lone regiment issued from Battery C, Parsons’ other battalion commanders assumed that the entire brigade had orders to make this assault, and they shouted to their men to join in. The Missourians poured down the back of Graveyard Hill in full view of thousands of Federals. Observing the scene from Battery B, Captain Redington of the 28th Wisconsin thought: “How grand they looked, and how for a moment, our hearts almost ceased to beat as those ranks of daring desperate men came over the hill, and we thought all was lost.” Salomon’s reserve line of cavalry and infantry waited for Parsons’ troops to reach the foot of the hill and gave them a staggering volley. Then the guns of Fort Curtis weighed in with double charges of grapeshot and canister, breaking the Rebels’ momentum and morale. “Their officers waved their swords and tried to urge the men forward,” noted Sergeant Carroll, “but it was no use. It was not human to stand it.”40

Unable to go forward, the Missourians turned back toward Battery C, but they soon learned that the return journey was more risky than their charge. A man could race downhill faster than retreat up, and every Federal in range blazed away at those staggering, defenseless targets with rifle muskets, carbines, and cannon. “It was here that my loss was the heaviest,” confessed General Parsons. “Not more than half of those that went in that direction returned.” Frantic to escape the lethal crossfire, many Missourians took refuge in the ravines located along the lower reaches of Graveyard Hill, popping up at intervals to exchange shots with their antagonists. “To prevent a charge upon our position we kept up a steady fire,” explained Sergeant Bull. “A few of us battery boys got together and would follow one after the other in firing over the top of a stump which stood on the brow of the hill.”41

Holmes was so oblivious to the harm he had done that he commanded a chagrinned Parsons to aid General Fagan by striking Battery D from the rear. With his brigade getting shot to pieces in front of Fort Curtis, Parsons was powerless to comply. Holmes next sent an aide to transmit the same order to Price and headed for the rear without awaiting confirmation. Starting down the western slope of Graveyard Hill, Holmes sighted General McRae and instructed him to attack Battery D. Holmes seemed unaware that the orders he had issued to Price and the latter’s brigade commanders would have denuded Battery C of Confederate troops and invited its easy recapture by the enemy. As Parsons reassembled three to four hundred of his survivors who had succeeded in climbing Graveyard Hill for the second time, he linked up with McRae. The two brigadiers realized the impracticability of Holmes’ orders. McRae proposed that if Parsons agreed to hold Battery C, the former’s Arkansans would go to Fagan’s rescue.42

Price’s brigade commanders did not move quickly enough to please Holmes. He returned to Battery C and accosted Parsons, who informed him of McRae’s offer. “That officer was nowhere to be seen,” Holmes complained, “while General Fagan, with greatly reduced force, was being assaulted and driven back by the enemy, largely reinforced.” When Holmes finally found McRae, he badgered him to such an extent that the younger man felt compelled to act before he could reorganize his entire brigade. With only two hundred soldiers at his back, McRae set out for Hindman Hill. He did not get far. Federal artillery and rifle fire stopped him at the hill’s base.43

Holmes’ battered and mishandled army had now deteriorated into a fragmented collection of exhausted men struggling for survival rather than victory. The Union troops could tell that the initiative had passed to them, and they began making sorties from Batteries B and D and the vicinity of Fort Curtis-pouncing on isolated groups of Rebels. With his army disintegrating before his eyes, Holmes bowed to the inevitable and announced a general retreat at 10:30 a.m.44

   

 


Lieutenant Commander James M. Pritchett.  Battles and Leaders of the Civil War

 


The USS Tyler. Wash drawing by F. Muller, circa 1900, depicting the Tyler anchored offshore in the Mississippi River during the Civil War. Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Back | Next

     
     

 

Website design © 2000-2007 HarpWeek LLC
All Content © 1998-2007 HarpWeek, LLC
Please submit questions to support@harpweek.com