With Shelby and Greene’s brigades recoiling in disarray, Rice’s riflemen and
cannoneers concentrated their fire on Bledsoe’s two guns. In this moment of
crisis, Major Robert Smith, Marmaduke’s quartermaster, forgot his presentiments
of death. The staff officer leaped from his horse and took charge of one
fieldpiece. When a bullet perforated Smith’s hat, he hooted at the Yankees, “Ah,
shoot better than that.” A second slug grazed the major’s leg, prompting
him to joke, “A miss is as good as a mile.” An anxious Marmaduke admonished
Smith to leave the post of danger, but the latter replied, “One more shot,
General, one more shot.” Before Smith could finish sighting his gun, a bullet
smashed into his shoulder and another tore through his side and lodged in his
heart, killing him instantly.33
A grief-stricken Marmaduke knew that he could make no headway until someone
dislodged the pesky Clayton from his left flank. The fretting Missourian sped
two galloping couriers to beg the assistance of General Walker, whose brigade
had halted more than half a mile to the north. Walker had put his two Arkansas
cavalry regiments in motion down the Sterling Road at daylight, only to
encounter the inevitable roadblock a mile short of Helena. He dismounted
approximately three hundred troopers and advanced them beyond the barricade as
skirmishers, but he held the majority of his brigade north of it. Aside from
several hours of desultory, long-range sniping, however, Walker’s Arkansans
contributed nothing to the Confederate attack. Infuriated by this failure to
support Marmaduke, General Holmes fumed, “No satisfactory reason has been given
by General Walker why this service was not rendered.”34
Marsh Walker’s timidity did not affect the battle’s outcome as much as the
inexplicable behavior of Sterling Price. Price ended his night march toward
Battery C one-and-a-half miles short of his objective. He subsequently claimed
that he feared alarming the Yankees prematurely, but one of Old Pap’s brigade
commanders testified that the halt was ordered “to await sufficient light.”
Whatever Price’s motives, he stayed put for more than an hour after the first
streaks of dawn showed over the horizon and Fagan’s brigade engaged Battery D.
Finally prodded into action by an impatient General Holmes, Price’s division
moved out. Brigadier General Mosby M. Parsons’ brigade of 1,868 Missourians led
the way and Brigadier General Dandridge McRae’s brigade of 1,227 Arkansans
brought up the rear. Dense woods, precipitous ridges, and deep ravines cut up
the ground over which Price marched, slowing his progress to a crawl. After the
sharpshooter battalion composing Parsons’ advance guard made contact with Union
pickets, Price arrayed his brigades in columns of divisions. That meant that the
lead regiment in each brigade deployed in a column two companies wide and five
companies deep, the men in each company aligned in a double-ranked line of
battle. All the other regiments in the brigade stacked up behind the first in
the same formation. As Price took the time to assume this new configuration, the
whiz of Yankee minié balls terrified the five civilians guiding his division.
They gradually slipped away, which further slowed the Missourians after they
resumed their advance.35
The energetic Parsons trailed behind his sharpshooters until he ultimately
sighted Battery C. Blue gunners from the 33rd Missouri’s Company E downed twenty
of their fellow Missourians in gray with shrapnel and grapeshot, but Parsons
drove to within three hundred yards of the enemy’s rifle pits before halting on
the south slope of a hogback ridge. Price’s attack plan called for Parsons to
let McRae fall in on his left and the two brigades would attack together.
Unfortunately, the ridge leading to Battery C hid the Missourians and their
Arkansas comrades from each other, and neither Parsons nor McRae thought to
check on his counterpart’s position. That breakdown in communications cost the
Confederates more precious minutes until an exasperated Price discovered the
mix-up and instructed his brigade commanders to close with the enemy. By this
time, the Federals had checked Marmaduke at Battery A and pinned down Fagan’s
Arkansans in front of Battery D.36
Price’s men atoned for the hours squandered by their generals with their
valorous ascent of Graveyard Hill. A Federal staff officer called the division’s
charge “a splendid spectacle,” and General Prentiss credited the Confederates
with “a courage and desperation rarely equaled.” Screaming shrill battle cries
every step of the way, the Rebels made their difficult climb as the defenders of
Battery C shredded their ranks with cannon and small arms, and the artillery and
infantry at Batteries B and D inflicted additional casualties from the flanks.
“The shots of the enemy . . . was poured upon us . . . from the time we
appeared,” testified Sergeant Bull, the musket-toting Rebel artilleryman. “We
did not know the fate of individuals at the time but the gaps in our . . . lines
showed the fire had been very disastrous.” Standing by Gun No. 6 in Fort Curtis,
First Sergeant Henry S. Carroll of Company D, 33rd Missouri Infantry, spotted
Parsons’ right as it wrapped around the south side of Graveyard Hill. “I asked
the Capt[ain] if I could give them a fourth of July salute,” Carroll recounted.
“He replied give it to them and thus opened the most murderous fire from our
guns that ever men withstood.” That portion of Parsons’ brigade was also
bombarded by the Tyler, Lieutenant Lyon’s section from the 3rd Iowa
Battery, and even two guns in the works south of Helena belonging to the 1st
Missouri Light Artillery’s Battery K.37
Twice that merciless crossfire hammered Price’s regiments to a standstill,
but the frenzied Rebels regrouped and bulled their way forward for a third time.
The artillerists inside Battery C let their assailants approach to twenty feet
and then unleashed a final salvo. The Confederates absorbed that murderous
salute without a pause. In a matter of seconds, the 9th Missouri Infantry raised
its battle flag triumphantly over Battery C’s parapet. A short melee with
bayonets and rifle butts climaxed in the battery’s outnumbered defenders
breaking to the rear as fast as their legs could carry them. Before the
quick-thinking gunners from the 33rd Missouri abandoned their pieces, however,
they disabled them by carrying away all their friction primers and priming
wires. Taking heart from Price’s success, Fagan’s weary Arkansans roused
themselves and captured the last line of rifle pits barring them from Battery
D-but they would need help if they were going to take the battery itself. It was
now 8:00 a.m., and Helena’s fate hung in the balance.38
General Salomon reacted to Price’s breakthrough by recalling Lieutenant
Colonel Thomas N. Pace’s 1st Indiana Cavalry and a section of the 3rd Iowa
Battery from the Union right to Fort Curtis. Remnants of the two 33rd Missouri
companies shoved off Graveyard Hill rallied on Pace, and Lieutenant Colonel
Mackey extended the Hoosiers’ line with five companies from his 33rd Iowa.
Colonel McLean also double-quicked half of the 35th Missouri from the Union left
to assist in containing any further Rebel lunges. In the meantime, the three
hilltop batteries still in Federal hands-in concert with Fort Curtis, assorted
artillery sections, and the Tyler-continued to pound Graveyard Hill. The
gunboat alone fired 413 rounds that day. One of its 8-inch shells exploded
beneath a fieldpiece in Battery C as twenty-five Rebels strained to turn it
around and aim it at Fort Curtis. When the smoke cleared, twenty-four of these
men lay dead or wounded.39
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