Chapter VII: Corinth After Shiloh

Captain J. H. Lockett was chief of the corps of engineers in throwing the line of fortifications around Corinth.

We made the first general survey, commencing at a point on the Memphis and Charleston (now the Southern) Railway about one mile and a half east of Corinth and running north and west in a circle, keeping about the same distance from the town until we came to the Ijams crossing, west of Corinth.

I felt keenly the responsibility of my work as a pilot, but in boyhood and youth I had learned the faces of these hills and woods as one comes to know the kindly countenances of loving friends. In these quiet places I had played every game known to the boys of my day, including “Hookey.” I knew where the landscape smiled with sunny meadows or laughed with purling springs or frowned with the gloom of a tangled thicket or grew calm and dignified in the cooling shadows of stately groves.

Just how well we did our work was never put to a test, as our army withdrew from Corinth before it was assailed; but our knowledge of the country and of the necessities of that troubled time is mutely reflected in the remaining sections of that great coil of clay, in its segment of seven miles, still plainly visible after the rains and snows and frosts and freezes have charged against them through sixty years.

At the point in our line of fortifications where the road forks, one prong going eastward by Box Chapel and Farmington and the other in a northeasterly direction to Pea Ridge and Pittsburg Landing, we built double communicating lines and placed siege guns.

When we had finished our fortifications and mounted heavy guns at the points of greatest danger, we settled down to await the approach of the Union Army under the direct command of General Halleck, moving upon us with an extreme and timid caution, which forever consigned him to a place among the world’s smallest commanders of great armies.

One cannot imagine Lee or Grant or Stonewall Jackson or W. T. Sherman taking more than a month to cover twenty miles in pursuit of a smaller and defeated army. Napoleon or Hannibal, at Shiloh on the night of April 7, 1862, would have found the Confederate Army or the gates of Corinth before sunrise the next morning.

Heretofore in our fights in this theater of war the Union forces had enjoyed the co-operation of the gunboats, and now we were all elated over the prospect of meeting the enemy out of range of his floating batteries.

I was too young to know anything of the strategy of war, but the knowing ones were pointing out the reasons why the Confederates had to defend Corinth. It was at the crossing of the only two trunk lines in the South at that time, and by these lines the Confederacy could transport whatever supplies, men, and guns it possessed to this point. Corinth was the key to the richness of the Mississippi Valley and the outer gateway to the Eastern South; and so if with these reasons urging Richmond, Corinth and these two essential lines of transportation could not be saved, the future of the Confederacy would be dark indeed. My father made this gloomy forecast to me when Corinth was evacuated; and although I fought on as a stern duty, I never again hoped for the success of our cause.

About the first of May, General Beauregard, desiring information regarding the movements of the enemy, called on the detail for three reliable scouts who knew the country and were willing to undertake a dangerous expedition within the Union lines, saying that he did not wish us to go as spies, but as Confederate soldiers, in full uniform, armed, and well mounted, notwithstanding the fact that it would be necessary for us to keep out of sight as much as possible. Dr. Lowry and Mose Austin responded to the call, and insisted that I should be the third man, as I knew the country and could guide them. Setting out early one morning, we traveled the main road until we passed our advanced pickets, and then took to the woods, moving cautiously and in single file until we were well within the Union lines.

About two and a half miles beyond Chambers’ Creek we came to the southwest corner of an old, abandoned plantation--no signs of its vanished life except an old house in a state of decay. There being no evidence of human occupants, we decided to rest our horses and investigate the house and the country beyond. Riding forward in single file across the opening between the woods and the house, Austin in front, Lowry next, and I in the rear, when within fifty feet of the front door, six Union soldiers stepped out from behind the house, covered us with their guns, and commanded us to halt. This we had already done. In the tense moment I remembered the quickness and speed of my horse. I knew that Lowry would not surrender, and neither did I intend to. When one of the men commanded us to come forward one at a time, Austin rode forward. This put him directly between us and the firing squad, and I took the opportunity and gave my horse a quick turn and told him to go. He wheeled so quickly that I came near losing my balance and falling, but I lay down and put my arms around his neck and did not try to check his speed until I had received the fire of the squad. Dr. Lowry used the same tactics, and he afterwards told me that he had thought out the same plan, but feared that I would not do as I did do and that our horses would get in a mix-up and cause us to be killed or captured.

Our enemy, having muzzle-loading guns, had no time to reload before we were out of range.

I have always considered this one of my narrowest escapes from death.

We knew that we had no time to lose, as the Federal cavalry would soon be informed as to our presence; so we diverted our course from the route we had come, traveling westward toward the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, and escaped without further contact with the enemy.

We never again saw our comrade, Mose Austin. He was sent to Cairo, Ill., and died in prison.

About two weeks after this episode I was sent with a message to General Price’s headquarters at the old Bogle Place, beyond the Stevenson Hill. It developed that the message contained information relative to the advance of the Union Army, then approaching Old Farmington, on the Hamburg and Farmington Road.

When I delivered the message, I was informed that it was desired that the information be repeated to the colonel in command of the picket east of Seven-Mile Creek, and, with this order, I set out upon my prolonged mission. As I had to pass through Old Farmington, where our company was encamped, I stopped long enough to persuade Bailey Donnelly to accompany me. Leaving the main road, we took a cattle trail along Seven-Mile Creek, thence across a swamp, to the east of which we found a country of thick undergrowth. Keeping in this for some distance, we struck the road again, and I soon delivered my message. We hastened to return; and just as we were ready to leave the road for the country of thick undergrowth, we discovered a lone horseman coming over the top of the ridge above us. Slipping into the thicket, we dismounted, tied our horses, and cautiously crept back to ascertain whether the traveler was friend or foe. We soon discovered that he was deeply distressed and in a state of bewilderment. Riding first in one direction and then in another, he seemed to become more and more excited and confused. I was much excited when he came close enough for us to see that he wore the uniform of a Union officer. He finally turned down toward us; and when he was close to us, we stepped from our hiding place and commanded him to surrender. He obeyed without any show of resistance, exhibiting great surprise and excitement, as he, at first, took us for guerrillas ready to kill him. We explained to him that we were regular soldiers, and that his ultimate misfortune would be to become a prisoner. After disarming him, we mounted him on his own horse and took him to our command at Farmington. I took his six-shooters, and Donnelly his saddle and his sword, turning in his horse to the army with the prisoner.

He told us that he was Major Phillips, of some Illinois regiment, and that he was reconnoitering in front of his line and became separated from his regiment and lost his way.

Since the war I have endeavored to locate Major Phillips, but have never heard of him. I think he was sent from Corinth to prison at Demopolis, Ala. If still living, I am sure that he would feel some interest in meeting one of his captors of that long-gone time of stress and danger and sorrow.

In a few days after my return, General Pope threw a division of the Union Army across the Seven-Mile Creek opposite the Dick Smith Place, near Farmington, which force was vigorously met by a similar force of Confederates. For four or five hours there was a desperate fight, with the Union force at a great disadvantage because of the fact that their only way of approaching was by a narrow road through an impassable swamp. As soon as the Confederates discovered this condition, they brought reënforcements to the point of action, and, by a strong counter attack, drove the enemy back, with a considerable loss of Union men and one battery of guns.

Then, later in May, came the fighting on the Purdy Road, three miles north of Corinth--at the old Dickey Field, on the Pea Ridge Road; at the Surratt Place, on Bridge Creek; on the Farmington Road, at the Box Chapel; and on the Burnsville Road, at Shelton Hill, now the poorhouse.

The Union Army was attacking along the entire line, and the general opinion on our side was that the day for a general engagement against Corinth and our entrenchments had come.

Our full force was called to the trenches, and remained in line of battle all day. But it developed afterwards that the enemy was only feeling his way toward our fortifications and gaining the higher points wherever possible, so as to establish his large guns in positions from which he could shell our lines before storming our works with his infantry. General Halleck had made every preparation to capture Corinth. In his final dispositions, heavy mortars had been so placed that they could throw shells into the heart of the town. Rather novel signal stations had been set up by securing high poles to the tops of trees. This enabled the signal corps to overlook the surrounding country, to see our line of entrenchments, and to direct the movements of attacking troops, as well as the fire of the shelling guns.

Just how well General Beauregard had timed the attack of the enemy is shown by the closing events of the siege of Corinth.

For many days our army had been moving out train loads of supplies, and at nightfall on May 29 we were all lined up in the trenches; but as soon as darkness came, everything except the cavalry marched out, bidding a final adieu to Corinth. On the following morning at daybreak, when the enemy advanced his skirmish line, he met with no resistance; and when the first line of battle advanced, it found the trenches deserted.

The regiment of Union troops sent around to the rear to prevent our withdrawal arrived too late, and our trains had all passed when they began removing rails from the tracks.

As General Forrest had been wounded on the way from Shiloh, General Chalmers was in command of all the cavalry which covered our retreat from Corinth to Tupelo, Miss.