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While the 1st Kansas Colored mauled DeMorse’s Texans, Tandy Walker’s
Choc-taws kept a respectful distance from the 18th Iowa Infantry, which Captain
Duncan had posted behind a thickly wooded ravine. The Indians hesitated to get
entangled in that natural obstacle and turn themselves into easy targets for the
Iowans. Colonel Walker offered a lame excuse for his inaction. He reported that
some Union cavalry had gained his left flank, but the truth was that the
Choc-taws’ line overlapped Duncan’s. Despite Walker’s passivity, Duncan declined
a request from Colonel Williams to send four infantry companies to reinforce the
1st Kansas. The captain replied that he was hard pressed and had no men to
spare.
Peering through the smoke produced by exploding artillery shells, Major Ward
spotted DeMorse’s brigade reforming for a second assault. In response to Ward’s
plea for more troops, Colonel Williams released Companies G and K from reserve
to bolster the 1st Kansas Colored’s right wing. Ward incorporated these two
companies into his southward-facing line just in time to meet DeMorse’s next
onslaught. The Texans returned to the fight in two columns, and Ward could hear
them “yelling like fiends” to keep up their courage. Colonel Williams observed
that the enemy’s “continuous cheering” was so loud “as to drown out even the
roar of the musketry.” Instead of ceasing fire, the three Confederate batteries
slightly increased their elevation, hurling their shells over their own troops
to burst above the 1st Kansas Colored.19
Colonel Williams sat calmly on his horse amid the whirr of shrapnel,
permitting the Texans to come well within 100 yards before he shouted to Ward’s
reinforced line to open fire. Once again, the blacks subjected their assailants
to repeated doses of buck and ball. The Texans plunged into that leaden storm,
determined to drive their attack home. “The noise and din of . . . this almost
hand-to-hand conflict was the loudest and most terrific it has been my lot to
listen to,” Williams recalled. Twice the Union commander saw a Rebel battleflag
fall from the hands of a wounded color bearer, but each time some brave soul
sprang forward to raise it again.20
Several minutes into this ferocious musketry duel, one of DeMorse’s
regiments, the 29th Texas Cavalry, edged close enough to Ward’s position to
recognize the opposing regiment. A wave of redoubled fury swept the Texan ranks,
and the men announced their identity by shrieking: “You First Kansas Niggers now
buck to the Twenty-ninth Texas!” These two units had met earlier at the Battle
of Honey Springs in Indian Territory, July 17, 1863. In a fair, stand-up fight,
the 1st Kansas outshot the 29th Texas, forcing the shaken Confederates to
withdraw without their colors. Ashamed at having been bested by former slaves,
the Texans burned for revenge.21
As in the first attack, the Rebels concentrated much of their fire on the
James rifle from the 2nd Indiana Light Battery attached to Major Ward’s right
wing. Eventually, all but two of the 10-pounder’s crew had been hit or were
hugging cover. When Ward pointed that out to Colonel Williams, the latter
ordered the endangered piece to the rear. The Confederates noticed the blue
artillery-men preparing to limber, and a gray column bounded forward to prevent
the gun’s escape. Only the steady bravery of one Indiana cannoneer, Private
Alonso Hinshaw, cheated the Rebels of their prize. Working alone, Hinshaw loaded
his gun with double-canister, inserted a friction primer, jerked the lanyard,
and sprayed the oncoming Texans with a withering cone of cast-iron balls,
causing them to scatter.
Hinshaw’s parting shot knocked the wind out of DeMorse’s attack. Fifteen
minutes of unrelenting punishment told the Texans that they could not budge
Ward’s quick-shooting blacks. Without abandoning their formations, the Rebels
sullenly backed away, and their weary adversaries soon stopped firing.
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