1864 (Part I)
 
 

JOB BENJAMIN VISITS HOME

        Few who yet live have forgotten that bitterly cold New Year's Day of 1864, when the whole country suffered.  Far south as we were, it struck us severely as we started to put up our tent-covered shanties.1-A
       These recollections of Private Charles Willison of the 76th Ohio were echoed throughout the nation.  Over 700 miles to the southwest, Private William Wiley of the 77th Illinois also described the arctic grip felt on the windswept coast of Texas:
On the day before New Years we were struck by what the southerners call a northerner... It became very cold, the wind blew our tents all down the first nights which raised a terrible uproar . . . Some tried to keep warm by building fires in their tents and by the time the storm was over their tents, clothes, blankets and everything was as black as soot. . . [To] help our discomfort the storm lasting so long and the water being so rough they could not unload any supplies for us and our rations ran very short.1-B
        But cold weather was not the greatest threat to the Union cause in early 1864.  With the enlistment terms of many volunteer soldiers about to expire, the United States government was forced to offer a number of incentives to ensure that the war effort would continue unabated.  Charles Willison described one set of inducements:
As an inducement, [a] $402 government bounty and thirty days' furlough were offered to all who would re-enlist.1-C
        Historian Bell Irvin Wiley described the re-enlistment issue on a larger scale:
With the end of the season of active campaigning in 1863, authorities high and low applied tremendous pressure on the veterans to re-enlist. As a result of the combined influences of propaganda, patriotism, bounty and furloughs, an epidemic of re-enlistment passed through the armies during the following winter, with regiment after regiment going through the 'veteranizing' process of signing up, returning north amid a fanfare of public receptions, visiting homefolk and then heading south for the all-out campaigns of 1864 and 1865.1-D
        On January 4, 1864, about two-thirds of the 76th Ohio succumbed to this pressure and re-enlisted.  In return for their dedicated service, the entire regiment was granted leave in late January and was returned to Ohio for a period of about six weeks. On January 30th, the regiment moved via Nashville, Louisville, and Cincinnati to Columbus, and on February 8th took the train for Newark, Ohio. The regiment disembarked one mile from the city, and marched into town in column formation.2-A
        After nearly two years of fighting, the regiment had been severely reduced in number -- from 962 to less than 300 soldiers. A large and enthusiastic crowd of Newark residents were on hand to welcome their boys home. Speeches were made and the soldiers enjoyed a well-deserved meal at the City Hall.2-B  Charles Willison fondly remembered his train stop:
Never will I forget our reception at Massillon [Ohio].  The population turned out en masse to meet us at the depot, with bands and guard of home militia.  The train had no more than stopped till we were almost carried bodily out of the car.  When finally we were able to form in line, the procession, headed by the band and militia, marched to the principal hotel of the city, where a banquet was in waiting.2-C
        With joyful enthusiasm, the soldiers were then furloughed to their homes. However, all good things must come to an end, and this leave from war was no exception. Approximately a month later, on Tuesday, March 15, 1864, the 76th Ohio regrouped and began its long journey southward again. As before, the regiment passed through Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville and Huntsville to reassemble at their old camp at Paint Rock, Alabama.2-D The Company C Muster Roll for March/April, 1864 showed Job Benjamin to be present for duty.3
 
 

SAMUEL KIRKMAN BEGINS THE RED RIVER CAMPAIGN

        To begin his account of the Red River Campaign, Corporal William Bentley confesses:

It now becomes our painful duty to write a chapter full of disaster to the 77th and to the 13th Army Corps -- a chapter which we would gladly blot from the pages of this history. But the events transpired, and the record must be made.4
        The French invasion of Mexico and the fall of Mexico City during the summer of 1863 concerned the Lincoln administration. In particular, they feared a possible alliance between the Confederate government and the new emperor of Mexico, named Maximilian.5 To counter this, a plan was developed to send troops across Louisiana, capture Shreveport, and then invade Texas. As an added benefit, the Union might be able to capture some cotton and send it back to mills in the North.6
        Chosen to lead this operation was the senior commander of the Department of the Gulf, Major General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks. General Banks was a Massachusetts politician whose claim to fame had been the capture of Port Hudson, downriver from Vicksburg, in July of 1863. Despite receiving the "thanks of Congress" for this, Banks' success at Port Hudson was a rather hollow victory, since the fall of Vicksburg just five days earlier forced Port Hudson to surrender more so than any action taken by General Banks.7
        On Monday, February 22, 1864, Samuel Kirkman and the 77th Illinois left the sandy shore of Texas, boarded the steamer "St. Mary," crossed the Gulf of Mexico and landed at Algiers, Louisiana on February 24th. The following day, the regiment proceeded to Brashear City and northward along the Bayou Teche River.8 The Company Muster Roll for January/February, 1864 showed Samuel Kirkman present and still detached to the regimental quartermaster.9
        The Red River Campaign began in early March of 1864. General Banks had at his command detachments from the 13th, 16th and 17th Army Corps, black regiments from the African Corps, and his own 19th Army Corps.10 Also important to the Red River Campaign were naval vessels from Rear Admiral David Porter's Mississippi Squadron.11
        On Friday, March 25th, General Banks' soldiers joined other forces commanded by General A.J. Smith and Admiral Porter's gunboats near Alexandria, Louisiana. Union forces, now approximately 30,000 strong, immediately began marching northwestward, never straying far from the river and the safety of gunboat support. In early April, General Banks' army left the security of the river and turned westward, following the land between the Red and Sabine Rivers. The landscape consisted of low rolling hills and dense pine woods interrupted only by a few narrow roads.12 The heavily wooded terrain made the deployment of artillery pieces very difficult.13 The army's intended route, known as the Old Stage Road, led through the towns of Pleasant Hill and Mansfield on the way to Shreveport.14
        Marching over 300 miles in less than a month, the footsore and weary soldiers of the 77th Illinois arrived at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana on Thursday, April 7, 1864. During the long march, they had become aware of the fact that the soldiers of the 19th Army Corps were given preferential treatment by General Banks. This angered the other soldiers, who sarcastically referred to them as "Banks' pets." As Corporal William Bentley recalled:
They led the march, which gave them the greatest advantage in foraging for food. But as soon as the sound of battle was heard, the pets were halted, and the 13th Corps was sent to the front.15

 

SAMUEL KIRKMAN AND THE BATTLE OF SABINE CROSS ROADS

Company K -- 77th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Lysander R. Webb, until April 8, 1864; Major John A. Burdett, after April 8th) -- 1st Brigade (Colonel Frank Emerson) -- 4th Division (Colonel William Jennings Landram) -- detachment of the 13th Army Corps (Brigadier General Thomas Edward Greenfield Ransom, wounded April 8, 1864; Brigadier General Robert Alexander Cameron).16

        After eating a hasty breakfast in the wee hours of Friday, April 8, 1864, Samuel Kirkman's brigade began marching at 3 a.m. to relieve Union cavalrymen under Brigadier General Albert Lindley Lee.  "The march was slow and tedious," William Bentley remembered, "as the night was dark." 17-A  As the sun rose, the brigade met up with Lee's cavalry and formed their lines at the edge of a field one-half to three-quarters of a mile from the rebel defenders.  General Lee began sending small parties of men to engage the enemy.  The brigade commander's own 23rd Wisconsin and the 67th Indiana led the way, supported by the 19th Kentucky and the 77th Illinois.17-B  William Bentley recalled the early encounters:

This advance was through a heavy pine country, quite undulating, and as the enemy -- which seemed to be only a force of cavalry -- were driven from one hill, they would take a position on the next.17-C
       At about this same time, the 77th Illinois, held immediately behind in reserve, lost its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Lysander R. Webb of Peoria, to a Confederate sharpshooter. Shot in the head and killed instantly, Webb was described by Captain John D. Rouse of Company G as "an excellent officer, eminently courteous and social, who commanded the respect and esteem of all who came in contact with him. His loss is deeply felt by his comrades in arm." 18-A   Replacing Colonel Webb as commander of the 77th Illinois was Major John A. Burdett of Knoxville.18-B
        William Wiley also described the early stages of the battle:
We drove the rebels from one position after another for several miles through the pine timber along the course of the Shreveport Wagon Road.  The rebels were mounted and when we would press them too hard they would fall back to their horses, remount and ride away until they would find another good position where they would make another stand and wait for us to come up and then give us the best they had in store.18-C
        About mid-morning, General Lee asked for fresh units to support the fatigued soldiers who had fought the initial skirmishes.  Brigadier General Thomas Ransom, commander of the Union army's 13th Corps, ordered Colonel Joseph Vance's 2nd Brigade, comprised of the 130th Illinois, 48th Ohio, 83rd Ohio, and 96th Ohio regiments, into position to the right of Colonel Frank Emerson's 1st Brigade.  This was achieved by 1:30 p.m.19
        Retreat had so far been the rule of Major General Richard Taylor's Confederate army of 8,800 men during the Union army's advance through Louisiana.  However, near the small town of Mansfield, the Confederates decided that they had retreated far enough and stood their ground.20  General Taylor selected Moss Plantation, about three miles southeast of Mansfield, as his army's new defensive stand.  His force consisted of two infantry divisions and three Texas cavalry brigades.21  General Taylor positioned his rebel army just inside the woods on either side of the Old Stage Road, at a strategic communications hub known as Sabine Cross Roads.22-A  Opposing Vance's 2nd Brigade were three Louisiana regiments commanded by Colonel Henry Gray.  Facing Emerson's 1st Brigade (including the 77th Illinois) were Texas cavalry brigades commanded by a Frenchman named Camille J. Prince de Polignac.22-B
        Historian Arthur Bergeron, Jr. describes the placement of Union forces:
The Union line soon formed a 90-degree angle, one arm stretching south of the Old Stage Road and the other to the east ... In all about 5,700 Union soldiers were on the battlefield.23-A
        The Union infantry regiments (from the southwest to the northeast corner) were the 23rd Wisconsin, 67th Indiana, 77th Illinois, 130th Illinois, 48th Ohio, 19th Kentucky, 96th Ohio, and the 83rd Ohio.  Cavalry units flanked the infantry regiments on either side.  Artillery units were positioned astride the Old Stage Road (a.k.a. the Mansfield-Pleasant Hill Road) between the 23rd Wisconsin and the 67th Indiana regiments.23-B[See Troop Deployment Map and Photographs].

        Confederate General Taylor had entrenched his Confederate troops so as to form an obvious trap -- obvious, that is, to everyone except General Banks, who ordered two brigades of the 13th Corps to advance directly into it.24 According to Corporal William Bentley, corps commander General Ransom protested the manner in which Union soldiers and artillery were placed; he felt they were too scattered and unconsolidated for battle. When ordered by General Banks to move forward, General Ransom reportedly remarked, "that will finish me." 25
        General Ransom's fears were justified. At approximately 4 p.m., General Taylor received orders from his superior (Major General Edmund Kirby Smith) to attack the Union positions while daylight remained.26 Two Confederate brigades commanded by Brigadier General Alfred Mouton stepped over the split rail fence that separated the woods in which they had assembled from the barren field ahead of them.  They arranged themselves into several long lines of soldiers and began their advance on the Union columns less than a half mile away.27-A  Historian Arthur Bergeron, Jr. described the rebel charge:

As the Louisianans swept into the open field and easily drove the enemy skirmishers back upon their main line, the Federals poured forth a heavy fire of musketry and artillery into Mouton's charging masses.  One Confederate recorded his recollections of this fire in his diary, noting that 'The balls and grape shot crashing about us whistled terribly and plowed into the ground and beat our soldiers down even as a storm tears down the trees in a forest.' 27-B
        Private William Wiley described the early Union response to the rebel attack:
Just as the rebels were coming up the hill in our front we made a stand in the edge of the timber and poured such a withering fire into their ranks that they gave way and fell back in our front but they swung around and flanked the left of our line doubling it back onto us.  [We] were ordered to fall back across the open field and form a new line in rear of our Chicago Mercantile Battery. . .28-A
        Maintaining their position on the Union's original line of defence were the artillery batteries of the 2nd Massachusetts and 6th Missouri -- eight guns in all.  Wiley noted the bravery of these artillery units:
[They] stood bravely by their guns and worked them for all that was in them loading with grape and shrapnel and as the rebels came closer filling their six guns to the muzzle with minie balls that mowed the rebels down by the hundreds and continued the fight until they were driven from their guns at the point of the bayonet.28-B
        The 77th Illinois' new battle line near the Chicago Mercantile Battery didn't protect them for long.  William Wiley described the Union army's rapidly deteriorating situation:
When we fell back from this position all was confusion.  Our lines were so doubled up that the men of the different regiments were all mixed up and the regimental officers could not get their men together.28-C
        Corporal William Bentley described in similar detail this unfortunate sequence of events:
The rebels threw their line upon our flanks, telescoping our line, and as the timber was densely studded with underbrush, our boys, in many instances, were entirely surrounded before they knew it. The line being flanked -- the movement striking our extreme right -- the Regiments fought by detail and detail were defeated. As the timber was dense with underbrush, and the line of the enemy constantly advancing, surging around farther and farther on our flank, our troops were placed in the dilemma of having the enemy in front and rear. The 77th had fired several rounds before the regiments on the left had fired a shot. The column thrown into confusion, hundreds of the boys captured, the enemy pressing us from all quarters, what men were able to get out of the tangle fell back [and formed] a line on the batteries which had not as yet fired a shot.29-A
        In the confusion of retreat, supply wagons that had earlier been brought forward by General Banks blocked the narrow road, trapping supply wagons, hundreds of small arms, nearly 1,000 horses and mules, and 20 artillery pieces of the Chicago Mercantile and [Captain] Nims' Batteries [the latter officially known as the 2nd Massachusetts Battery].29-B  Private Wiley described this unfortunate situation:
The rebels soon brought their lines around and had us completely surrounded and the narrow road through the pine timber was completely blocked up with our [wagon] trains... The road being thus blocked it was impossible to get our artillery up to the front or get that away which had been gotten up and was not already captured by the enemy.30
        Corporal William Bentley added:
This was a sad loss to the brave men who had so long handled these guns. The Nims Battery had participated in 30 battles without losing a gun, and now to lose them all, filled the boys with the deepest regret.31
        Captain John D. Rouse of Company G summarized the overall battle:
Here began one of the most terrific fights yet recorded. Bravely and well did the old 4th Division stand up to the work here for more than one hour ... The slaughter on both sides was fearful. General Ransom was dangerously wounded. Colonels Emerson and Vance, commanding respectively the 1st and 2nd Brigades of our Division, were wounded and captured. The 77th Illinois lost 10 officers out of 16 engaged. Our Brigade lost 32 commissioned officers out of 68 line and field.32
        13th Corps Commander General Ransom was wounded as his Union soldiers were overwhelmed. Command of the corps was transferred to 3rd Division commander Brigadier General Robert Alexander Cameron.33 Captain Rouse went on to describe the general sentiment of the 77th Illinois:
If the whole force had been at the front and the train at the rear, we might report a glorious victory instead of this. Somebody (and the army knows who) is very much to blame for pushing one small Brigade nine miles ahead of the supporting column in the very face of ten times their number ... I never saw troops stand up so well under such a tremendous fire. Nothing at Vicksburg ever equalled it.34
        The infamous orders that, in reality, sent two small Union brigades forward was also described in the regimental history of the 48th Ohio, as follows:
Seven miles back from the battle-ground the Nineteenth Corps was encamped, numbering five or six thousand men, and fifteen miles back, Gen. A. J. Smith, with seven or eight thousand. The main army was in camp, out of supporting distance, to the number of thirteen or fourteen thousand men, while the battle was fought on our side with twenty-four hundred, besides the cavalry, and we had opposed to us an army of ten thousand rebels.35
        Although the Confederates suffered heavy casualties themselves, they still outflanked and routed the Union army that they met on the battlefield that day. The effect of the battle was catastrophic as far as the 13th Corps was concerned.  In the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads (known as the Battle of Mansfield by the Confederates), the 77th Illinois suffered 9 dead (including its commanding officer), 17 wounded, 2 missing, and 143 captured.36 Those that were captured spent more than 13 months in a rebel stockade at Camp Ford in Tyler, Texas.37 Historian Victor Hicken summed up the Union defeat:
The Battle of Sabine Cross Roads was probably more vicious than any fought in the entire Red River campaign . . . The Union lost 2,235 in dead, wounded and missing, as well as 20 guns and 250 wagons.38
        For the Confederate army, it was one of their last major field victories of the war.39
        During the night of April 8-9, the Union army withdrew approximately 20 miles to the southeast. Badly shaken by the previous day's defeat, General Banks still failed to correct the faulty positioning of his troops, scattering brigades on a cleared plateau near the town of Pleasant Hill. Taking advantage of the demoralized Union army, Confederate General Richard Taylor planned to pursue the Union army on April 9th and force their continued retreat. This set the stage for the Battle of Pleasant Hill.40
        Saturday, April 9, 1864 brought the second battle in as many days, but the 13th Corps, decimated and demoralized by their mismanagement at the hands of General Banks, was ordered to the rear of the fighting. Ironically, many of the Confederate troops that pursued the Federals and fought in that battle were commanded by Brigadier General Thomas J. Churchill, who had surrendered Arkansas Post to General McClernand's Union army 14 months earlier. Confederate General Taylor's plan would exploit the Federal's scattered positions by sending Major General John G. Walker's division to attack the Union army after Churchill's division worked its way around the Union's left flank.41
        Although the plan was excellent, Churchill's men were unable to outflank the 12,000 men from the Union army's 16th and 19th Corps. Serious fighting ensued when the Confederate troops ran headlong into these two Union corps.42
        Although the Union forces were victorious in the Battle of Pleasant Hill, General Banks acted as if they had lost, and ordered another retreat. Union Generals A.J. Smith and John McClernand, whose forces had been in hot pursuit of the enemy, were ordered to retreat to Alexandria. At first, both Smith and McClernand pretended that they never received the orders to retreat, but after the third such order, they reluctantly obeyed. General Smith begged that he be allowed to remain long enough to bury their dead and care for their wounded, but General Banks would not reverse or delay his order. As Corporal Bentley described: "With tears in his eyes, [General Smith] was obliged to leave his men who had fallen on the battlefield to the tender mercies of the rebels." 43
        The Union soldiers never forgave General Banks. They referred to him privately as "Corporal Banks." Dr. George Lucas, Surgeon in Chief of the 16th Corps, wrote:
It is impossible to measure the indignation of this army against General Banks. Everybody sits up to the "wee sma' hours" over the matter -- the profane to weave new curses about his head and the moral few to chime in with hearty amens.44
        Corporal Bentley added, "Incompetency, thy name is General Banks!" 45
        Because of General Bank's inept command, the Red River campaign was a dismal failure. Only because of the bravery and determination of the veteran Union troops was total disaster averted. Nevertheless, these two battles essentially ended any hope that Union strategists had for taking Shreveport and using it as a springboard to invade Texas.
 
 

SABINE CROSS ROADS 46
.

Twas on the eighth of April,
In Eighteen Sixty-four,
A day to be remembered,
By the thirteenth army corps.
.
From pleasant hill at two o'clock,
Before the break of day,
The fourth division took the front,
And boldly led the way.
.
With General Ransome in command,
We did not fear to go,
And meet the reb Dick Taylor,
And charge upon the foe.
.
The night was dark and cloudy,
The stars refused their light,
Yet everyone seemed cheerful,
They felt their cause was right.
.
The thought of home and downy bed,
And wished their friends secure,
And felt twas only for their rights,
Such hardships they'd endure.
.
At length the dawn of day appeared,
And soon the sun arose,
And many that beheld its light,
Ne'er seen that evening close.
.
At six o'clock that morning,
The rebs we overtook,
And soon began to skirmish,
Close by a running brook.
.
They killed Lieutenant Col. Webb,
Quite early in the day,
And others dead and wounded,
Upon the field did lay.
.
Till one o'clock that afternoon,
We drove them through the pines,
When Gen. Price with his command,
Did reinforce their lines.
.
Likewise Dick Taylor, Kirby Smith,
And Monton lay in sight,
All ready now for action,
And anxious for a fight.
.
One of the Sixth Missouri scouts,
Came passing to our right,
He told us that in half an hour,
We might expect a fight.
.
He said he'd been where he could see,
The rebels forming lines,
And all that hid them from our view,
Was a narrow strip of pines.
.
Their force he said was very large,
And on us soon they'd be,
And if we did not quick get help,
A hot time we would see.
.
This was a time that tried the nerves,
Of men as true as steel,
They knew the time was close at hand,
When rebel lead they'd feel.
.
The 4th division still in front,
And no relief in sight,
We slung our knapsacks in a pile,
And rushed into the fight.
.
To meet such heavy forces,
And no relief at hand,
It seemed to us bad management,
By those in high command.
.
But Gen. Ransome true and brave,
Would never disobey,
When ordered front with his command,
He boldly led the way.
.
The roar of musketry in front,
And cannon from our rear,
Dealt death among the rebel ranks,
To them it was severe.
.
The 23rd Wisconsin,
To their honor be it said,
They fought with desperation,
While round them lay their dead.
.
The 67th hoosier boys,
Show patriotic grit,
And when out numbered six to one,
They did not like to quit.
The 77th Illinois,
Great bravery they did show,
With leveled guns and deadly aim,
They laid the rebels low.
.
The 130th Sucker boys,
Whose bravery ever shines,
Sent death and great destruction,
Into the rebel lines.
.
The 96th Ohio,
Stood bravely to the work,
And not a man among them,
Did seem disposed to shirk.
.
Their noble colonel soon was killed,
So awful to behold,
His name shall shine in history,
Like letters wrote with gold.
.
His motto was his country's rights,
A man both great and good,
His principle was justice,
He sealed it with his blood.
.
The buckeye boys of the 83rd,
Cannot be praised too high,
They fought till fight was useless,
They were compelled to fly.
.
The 19th Kentucky,
All honor to that state,
They showed a boldness unsurpassed,
And met a cruel fate.
.
The 48th Ohio,
Was posted on their right,
And never did a regiment,
Show better blood for fight.
.
In truth the whole division,
Did bravely stand the fire,
Till overwhelming numbers,
Compelled them to retire.
.
Their noble Col. Sandrum,
Who led us on the field,
Was never known to falter,
He did not like to yield.
.
He viewed the lines from right to left,
He saw they could not stand,
So thick and fast were falling,
His more than spartan band.
.
Great praise to Gen. Ransome,
He did command our corps,
To gain the day and save his men,
No General could do more.
.
But now the day to us was lost,
We saw that we were beat,
And everyone now for himself,
Did hastily retreat.
.
The 3rd Division just as good,
As ever fired a gun,
Came up too late to save the day,
They too did have to run.
.
The 19th corps of yankee boys,
Came up on double quick,
They formed their lines in gallant style,
And held the rebs in check.
.
Such volleys from their muskets,
I never heard before,
All honor to the 19th boys,
They saved the 13th corps.
.
And now I've told you of the 8th,
And of our hasty flight,
To pleasant hill where Gen. Smith,
Was ready for a fight.
.
The rebs came up he mowed them down,
Of victory we will boast,
He drove them back he gained the 9th,
He saved what we had lost.
.
All honor to his noble name,
Of him we'd ever boast,
Had it not been for Gen. Smith,
Both corpes would have been lost.
.
And now my song is ended,
I hope 'tis not in vain,
And if the eighth to us was lost,
The eighth to us was gain.

 

SAMUEL KIRKMAN RETREATS TO BATON ROUGE

        Corporal William Bentley described the days following the battles of Sabine Cross Roads and Pleasant Hill:

At midnight, after the close of the battle, the retreat began. How different from the advance! The 13th Army Corps was literally cut to pieces. The 4th Division was a mere shadow of its former self. The 77th, and some other regiments, were almost annihilated. With feelings of sadness, mingled with indignation, the shattered remains of that army turned their faces from the scene of disaster and began their toilsome march in the direction of the Mississippi.47
        On the evening of April 9th, the same day as the battle of Pleasant Hill, the 77th Illinois began a 35-mile march to Grand Ecore, where Union gunboats could offer them greater protection.  Private William Wiley described the march:
We were badly worn out.  I had marched for two nights and two days barefooted and bare headed.  My feet were so swollen I could hardly walk during the last night. . . A great many of our wounded were being hauled back in the ambulances and wagons and the poor fellows were having a hard time of it and we could hear their moans and cries as they were hauled along on that weary march and many one of them died that might have lived if they could have had proper care.48-A
        Upon arrival [at Grand Ecore, Louisiana], fortifications made from logs and dirt were quickly constructed to guard against a possible counterstrike by rebel soldiers. Union troops remained there until the afternoon of April 22nd, when they resumed their southeastern march.48-B
        On April 23rd, Confederate General Taylor tried to trap the Union army between the Red and Cane Rivers, in an engagement that would become known as the Battle of Monett's Ferry.49 When the 19th, 13th, 16th and 17th Corps reached the Cane River, they found the enemy entrenched on the south bluff of the river, trying to prevent them from crossing. Union shelling began and lasted about an hour, during which time the 13th and part of the 19th Corps marched upriver two miles and crossed the waist-deep waters. After marching a short distance through the timber, they were met again by enemy pickets. However, they overcame this new obstacle after a short time and the march resumed.50 Harassed daily by the enemy, they reached Alexandria, Louisiana on Monday, April 25, 1864.
        In Alexandria, General Banks ordered Union reinforcements to assist engineers in constructing a 750-foot wide dam to raise the level of the water to a sufficient height to extricate the Union gunboats, left stranded and vulnerable by low water levels.51 Constructed in just ten days by an ingenious Wisconsin engineer named Colonel Joseph Bailey and the muscle of 3,000 soldiers, the Red River darn would become famous in the history of military engineering.52 By May 13, 1864, the Union fleet had safely passed the obstacle. Had the dam not been constructed, the fleet would have almost certainly been destroyed by rebel forces.53
        The enemy continued to pursue the retreating Union soldiers. On Monday, May 16th, artillery batteries from North and South exchanged fire near Marksville.  William Wiley describes the skirmish:
They made quite a noise for awhile.  The rebels had got round on our flank and let loose on our batteries as they were passing over the open prairie killing some of our horses and dismounting some guns.  But our men wheeled into position limbered up their guns and gave them all they wanted of it . . . 54-A
        On May 18th, the rebels caught up with them at the Atchafalaya River and another engagement took place, fought mostly by General A.J. Smith's combined 16th and 17th Corps.  This final engagement of the Red River Campaign would come to be known as the Yellow Bayou or Bayou de Glaise.  On May 21st, Union troops reached the mighty Mississippi River, and began a march downriver to Morganza.54-B  On May 22nd, Colonel Grier and others who had left the regiment in December to go home and enlist new soldiers rejoined the battle-worn 77th Illinois.  Forty new soldiers had been recruited, and their training at the hands of the veteran soldiers would now commence.54-C  On the evening of Tuesday, May 24th, the 77th Illinois boarded the steamer "Colonel Cowles" and the next day left for Baton Rouge, which they reached on the morning of May 26, 1864.54-D  The Red River Campaign was finally over!
        Once encamped at Baton Rouge, life transformed itself from the threats of war to the routine of camp. The paymaster appeared with two months pay. Soldiers caught up with reading the news and letters from home. Furloughs were granted to some.55 The March/April Company K Muster roll showed Samuel Kirkman to be absent (perhaps on furlough) and also indicated that on March 15th, he had been detailed to the Quartermaster by order of Lieutenant Colonel John Cowen, brigade commander.56 Colonel Cowen, from the 19th Kentucky, had succeeded Colonel Frank Emerson as 1st Brigade commander when Emerson was wounded and captured.57 The 77th Illinois remained at Baton Rouge until July.58
 
 

THE UNION'S NEW GRAND STRATEGY

        Following the debacle at Chattanooga, the Confederate Army of Tennessee also changed its commander, from Braxton Bragg to Joseph E. Johnston. This was a popular choice with the Confederate soldiers and officers, but not a popular choice to President Jefferson Davis, who personally disliked Johnston. During the winter months, however, General Johnston transformed a poorly fed and demoralized rebel army into an effective fighting machine once more.59
        On March 3, 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant was ordered to Washington, D.C. to receive the commission of Lieutenant General, the first person to receive that rank since George Washington.
        With his successes at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Ulysses Grant had gained a tremendous reputation, and on March 17th he was placed in command of all Union land forces, east and west.60 With General Grant's departure, General Sherman assumed command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, thereby directing all principal military operations in the western theater of the war.61
        General Grant's strategy was to move against the Confederacy in two powerful and unrelenting offensives. In the East, Grant would personally direct the Army of the Potomac against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In the West, Grant wanted to destroy General Johnston's Army of Tennessee and capture Atlanta, an important manufacturing city and railroad junction.62
        With the departure of General Grant, command of the western Union forces fell to Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, who had led his 15th Corps through the battles of Shiloh, Vicksburg and Chattanooga.63-A  Now, Sherman had at his command three powerful armies, containing nearly 100,000 men -- the Union Army of the Cumberland (60,773 men commanded by Major General George Thomas), the Army of the Tennessee (24,467 men commanded by Major General James B. McPherson) and the Army of the Ohio (13,559 men commanded by Major General John M. Schofield).  Private Charles Willison of the 76th Ohio described two of the principal generals:

As we passed through Big Shanty I recall noticing Generals Sherman and McPherson conferring together on the porch of one of the residences, and the impression each made on my mind as I observed them in conversation.  Sherman, tall, lithe, careless and plain in dress, restless, nervous, and decisive in his movements -- McPherson, dignified and commanding in person, and trig and immaculate in uniform, with all the insignia of his rank.  Both were regarded as skillful, brave leaders -- very popular with their troops, the utmost confidence existing between the two generals, and between them and the men under their command.63-B
        Opposing the Union armies was a Confederate force of only about 53,000 men.64 General Johnston and his lieutenants could only hope to slow Sherman's advance and perhaps lure him into making a major mistake that would further erode Northern support for the war and swing the fall presidential election against Lincoln.65
        The major mistake never came. Sherman, who had surveyed parts of Georgia earlier in his career, planned and executed a masterful campaign against Atlanta between the months of May and September, 1864.66
 
 

JOB BENJAMIN BREAKS CAMP AND MARCHES TOWARD ATLANTA

Company C -- 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Colonel William Burnam Woods) -- 1st Brigade (Brigadier General Charles Robert Woods, until July 15th; Colonel Milo Smith, July 15th to August 18th) -1st Division (Brigadier General Peter Joseph Osterhaus, February 6th to July 15th; Brigadier General C. R. Woods, July 15th to August 18th) -- 15th Army Corps (Major General John Alexander Logan, until July 22, 1864; Brigadier General Morgan Lewis Smith, July 22nd to July 27th) -- Army of the Tennessee (Major General James Birdseye McPherson, until his death on July 22, 1864; Major General John Logan, July 22nd to July 27th)67

        After nearly six weeks in camp at Paint Rock, Alabama, Job Benjamin and the 76th Ohio broke camp on Sunday, May 1, 1864 and marched with the division for Chattanooga, Tennessee. At Bridgeport, the regiment was presented with a new strand of colors from the citizens of Newark, Ohio. The troops arrived at Chattanooga on May 6th.68 During the grand march southward to Atlanta, the 76th Ohio was assigned to the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 15th Army Corps of Major General James B. McPherson's Army of the Tennessee, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman was in overall command of all Union armies.69
        The following day -- Saturday, May 7, 1864 -- the march to Atlanta began, following the tracks of the Western and Atlantic railroad, which also served as the Union army's supply line.70 General Sherman had at his disposal 100,000 men in seven army corps and one cavalry corps.71
        When the Union troops met their first serious opposition the following day at Dalton, Georgia, General Sherman sent General McPherson's Army (including the 76th Ohio) on a right flanking march around the rebel positions to the rail town of Resaca.72 On Monday, May 9th, Union soldiers moved through Snake Creek Gap, skirmishing with the enemy and fortifying their positions all the while.73 This maneuver surprised the rebel army.  In his memoirs, Sherman expressed his belief that had McPherson attacked the rebel army immediately at Snake Creek Gap, he would likely have inflicted serious damage to General Johnston's rebel army and its store of supplies.74 Such a quick assault, however, was never attempted.
        The rebels hurriedly built fortified lines, which came under Union attack on May 13th.75  The following day, Saturday, May 14th, both armies faced each other north and west of Resaca, Georgia.  The Union's far left flank was vulnerable to attack, and at 4 p.m., General Johnston ordered rebel forces to launch an attack, crush this portion of the Union line, and then move on to Snake Creek Gap to cut off Sherman's supply lines.  But the Union army was also aware of Confederate troop movements and they too recognized a similar weakness along the rebel's left flank on the opposite end of the field.  They launched their own offensive at 4 p.m., sending two brigades of the 15th Corps across Camp Creek toward Resaca, one of which was commanded by General Charles Woods and included the 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.  After re-forming their lines on the other side of the creek, the Federals charged across the fields under heavy enemy fire and gained a footing on the first line of hills west of Resaca.76 This lodgement of troops, combined with news that the Union army had erected a pontoon bridge below Resaca that would further threaten their left flank, forced the Confederate leadership to evacuate their position once again and flee southward, ever closer to Atlanta.77 The Union army continued to press forward, despite heavy rains that would hinder their progress throughout the campaign.78
        The next major engagement of the Atlanta Campaign took place at New Hope Church, near Dallas, Georgia. An intense battle, largely involving the Army of the Cumberland's 20th Corps, took place on May 25th and, to a lesser extent, for several days thereafter.79
        On Thursday, May 26th, John Logan's 15th Corps, including the 76th Ohio, moved south into the town of Dallas, where it met an entrenched rebel corps commanded by General William J. Hardee. During the night, the Union soldiers worked to construct their own makeshift defenses.80 For the first time during the Civil War (at least in the western theater) armies on both sides were now in the habit of building breastworks, advancing beyond them, and then entrenching once again. In the past, this maneuver was only undertaken during a siege, such as at Vicksburg.81
        Because of faulty communications, one rebel division on the left flank of Hardee's Corps mistakenly left their trenches late in the afternoon of Saturday, May 28th and attacked the Union's 15th Army Corps.82-A Albert Castel, author of Decision in the West: The Atlanta Campaign describes the ferocity of the rebel assault:

The Federals, whose fortifications along this part of the front consist of a double tier of log-and-dirt ramparts, mow the Floridians and Kentuckians down by the hundreds: 'a heap of human beings, one over the other, writhing in their blood,' is how Private John Bueguel of the 3rd Missouri describes it.82-B
        Because of the Union's strong defenses, the rebel assault was repulsed, "leaving many [Confederates] dead on the field, some of them within fifty yards of the works in front of the 76th Ohio." 83
        On June 1st, the 15th Corps moved to their left, passed the densely wooded country near New Hope Church, and then proceeded to Acworth, where it rejoined the important rail supply line from Chattanooga.84 The heavy rains had returned again, making the roads even more impassable than normal.85 On June 9th, Sherman advanced his armies to the foot of three mountains north and west of Marietta, where Confederate forces were now positioned.86 The rain finally slackened on June 14th as the Union army reconnoitered the enemy's movements. The rains returned on June 17th and 18th, making further advances nearly impossible.87 Wrote Sherman:
This is the 19th day of rain, and the prospect of fair weather is as far off as ever. The roads are impassable; the fields and woods became quagmires after a few wagons have crossed over.88
        On June 18th, in an effort to consolidate his strength, Confederate General Johnston repositioned his rebel troops into defensive positions atop the Big and Little Kennesaw Mountains and then extended their line two miles southward to a hill occupied by Major General Benjamin Franklin Cheatham (thereafter known as Cheatham's Hill).89 The 76th Ohio followed their corps southward, as it advanced and fortified its position each day. On Wednesday, June 22nd, it occupied a position near the railroad at the foot of Kennesaw Mountain.90 The Company C Muster Roll for May/June, 1864 showed Job Benjamin to be present for duty. A notation on the form also indicated that he owed the army 41 cents for a canteen and strap, evidently lost between his desertion and his return.91
        General Sherman's attempt to get around the rebel left flank failed on June 23rd in the Battle of Kolb's Farm, when Lieutenant General John Bell Hood's Confederate corps assaulted the Union Army's 20th Corps, commanded by Major General Joseph Hooker. Sherman's plan now was to destroy the Confederate Army by staging an assault on Kennesaw Mountain and Cheatham's Hill.
        At 9 a.m. on Monday, June 27, 1864, three brigades from the 2nd and 4th Divisions of General Logan's 15th Corps were ordered up Kennesaw Mountain, but were stopped before they could get within 30 feet of the principal rebel defenses.92 A savage slaughter took place two miles to the south atop Cheatham' s Hill. There, two Union divisions from the Army of the Cumberland were brutally driven back.93 The 76th Ohio was not directly involved in either assault. By 11:30 a.m., Sherman realized that the assaults had failed, after suffering over 3,000 casualties.94 Historian Geoffrey Ward observed:
Sherman never admitted he had made a mistake at Kennesaw Mountain, but he never repeated it either. He returned to his flanking maneuvers, forcing Johnston back to within sight of Atlanta itself.95
        Confederate General Johnston's next defensive line was established on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, just ten miles northwest of Atlanta. On July 8th, Sherman sent a diversionary strike upon the rebel left flank, while other troops successfully crossed the river upstream and established a strong position there. General Johnston's rebels crossed the river behind him and positioned themselves, once more, between the Union Army and the city of Atlanta.96
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© 2002 by Bart Benjamin
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1864 (Part I) FOOTNOTES

1-A.  Willison, p. 83.
1-B.  Winschel, pp. 87-88.
1-C.  Willison, p. 85.
1-D.  Wiley, pp. 342-343.
2-A.  Reid, p. 442.
2-B.  Ibid.
2-C.  Willison, p. 87.
2-D.  Reid, p. 442.
3.  from Company C Muster Roll, from the National Archives.
4.  Bentley, p. 244.
5.  Johnson, p. 163. Maximilian was an Austrian archduke who, with his wife Carlotta, ruled Mexico from 1863 to 1867 with the aid of French troops. In 1867, he was overthrown by Benito Juarez, who would become a Mexican national hero (from The Family Almanac, The New York Times Company, 1971, p. 556).
6.  Johnson, p. 163.
7.  Lawrence Lee Hewitt, "Port Hudson," in The Civil War Battlefield Guide. ed. Frances H. Kennedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), p. 149; Boatner, p. 42.
8.  Bentley, p. 243.
9.  from Co. K Muster Roll, from the National Archives.
10.  Johnson and Buel, IV., 367.
11.  Johnson, p. 164.
12.  Ibid.
13.  Boatner, p. 715.
14.  Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., "Mansfield and Pleasant Hill," in The Civil War Battlefield Guide. ed. Frances H. Kennedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), p. 167.
15.  Bentley, pp. 248-249.
16.  Johnson and Buel, IV, 367; Bentley, p. 268.
17-A.  Bentley, p. 249.
17-B.  Ibid.
17-C.  Ibid.
18-A.  Bentley, p. 259.
18-B.  Ibid., pp. 268 and 31.
18-C.  Winschel, pp. 100-101.
19.  Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., "A Colonel Gains His Wreath: Col. Henry Gray's Louisiana Brigade at Mansfield," in The Red River Campaign. eds. Theodore P. Savas and David A. Woodbury (Campbell, CA: Regimental Studies, Inc., 1994), p. 12.
20. Bergeron, "Mansfield and Pleasant Hill," p. 167; Boatner, p. 686.
21.  Bergeron, "A Colonel Gains His Wreath," p. 9.
22-A.  Bergeron, "Mansfield and Pleasant Hill," p. 167; Boatner, p. 686.
22-B.  Bergeron, "A Colonel Gains His Wreath," pp. 2 and 14.
23-A.  Bergeron, "Mansfield and Pleasant Hill," pp. 167 and 169.
23-B.  from "The Battle of Mansfield" map, courtesy of the 1994 Mansfield SCA Tour Guide, published for the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Office of State Parks, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  Special Thanks to Bruce Schulze, webmaster of Civil War Album.com.
24.  Hicken, p. 329.
25.  Bentley, pp. 250-251.
26.  Bergeron, "Mansfield and Pleasant Hill," p. 169; Bergeron, "A Colonel Gains His Wreath," pp. 12-13.
27-A.  Theodore P. Savas, "A Death at Mansfield: Col. James Hamilton Beard and the Consolidated Crescent Regiment," in The Red River Campaign. eds. Theodore P. Savas and David A. Woodbury (Campbell, CA: Regimental Studies, Inc., 1994), p. 92.
27-B.  Bergeron, "A Colonel Gains His Wreath," p. 13.
28-A.  Winschel, p. 102.
28-B.  Ibid., p. 103.
28-C.  Ibid., p. 104.
29-A.  Bentley, pp. 251-252.
29-B.  Bergeron, "Mansfield and Pleasant Hill," p. 169.
30.  Winschel, p. 104.
31.  Bentley, pp. 252-253.
32.  Bentley, pp. 257-258.
33.  Boatner, p. 687.
34.  Bentley, p. 258.
35.  Bering and Montgomery, from the website created by Don D. Worth and Stephen E. Williams at
http://www.48ovvi.org/index.html, Chapter XV.
36.  Bentley, p. 276.
37.  Ibid., pp. 281 and 285.
38.  Hicken, p. 329.
39.  Bergeron, "Mansfield and Pleasant Hill," p. 170.
40.  Ibid., p. 169.
41.  Ibid., pp. 169-170.
42.  Hicken, p. 330.
43.  Bentley, pp. 262-263.
44.  Ibid., pp. 277-278.
45.  Ibid., p. 315.
46.  David Clemens of Monterey Peninsula College in California found this typewritten poem among genealogical papers kept by his grandmother. His link to the Civil War was his great-grandfather Harvey Lieurance, who fought with the 48th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Although the poem was attributed to "Billy R. M.; Fifer Co. C 77 Illinois Vol.," this writer can find no record of any soldier by that name or similar name in any Illinois regiment. There is a listing for a Private William R. Moore, who started off the war in Co. F of the 77th Illinois but soon transferred to Co. C. The initals of his name match "Billy R.M." He is not listed as having been a musician, but perhaps he "unofficially" played the fife for his own personal enjoyment. In any event, this poem is reprinted here by the kind permission of Mr. Clemens.
47.  Bentley, p. 307.
48-A.  Winschel, p. 108.
48-B.  Bentley, p. 310; Winschel, p. 109.
49.  Johnson, p. 166; Winschel, p. 110.
50.  Bentley, pp. 310-311.
51.  Johnson, p. 166.
52.  Ward, p. 292.
53.  Boatner, p. 688.
54-A.  Winschel, p. 114.
54-B.  Bentley, p. 315; Winschel, p. 115 (note).
54-C.  Winschel, p. 117.
54-D.  Bentley, p. 315.
55.  Bentley, pp. 315-316.
56.  from Co. K Muster Roll, from the National Archives.
57.  Johnson and Buel, IV., 367.
58.  Illinois at Vicksburg. pp. 239-240.
59.  MacDonald, p. 156.
60.  Grant, p. 469; Sherman, p. 1103.
61.  Sherman, p. 1103.
62.  MacDonald, p. 156.
63-A.  Ibid.
63-B.  Willison, p. 92.
64.  MacDonald, p. 167.
65.  Ward, p. 322.
66.  Ibid., pp. 322 and 329.
67.  Johnson and Buel, IV., 287; Boatner, pp. 413, 487, 613, 773-774, 947-948.
68.  Reid, p. 442.
69.  Johnson and Buel, IV., 287.
70.  MacDonald, p. 156.
71.  Boatner, p. 30.
72.  MacDonald, p. 156.
73.  Reid, p. 442.
74.  Sherman, p. 500.
75.  MacDonald, p. 156.
76.  Reid, p. 442; Castel, pp. 155, 163, and 166.
77.  MacDonald, pp. 156 and 158; Castel, p. 168.
78.  Sherman, p. 513.
79.  MacDonald, p. 159.
80.  Jay Luvaas, "New Hope Church, Pickett's Mill, and Dallas," in The Civil War Battlefield Guide. ed. Frances H. Kennedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), p. 185.
81.  Ibid., p. 186.
82-A.  Ibid., p. 185.
82-B.  Castel, p. 246.
83.  Reid, p. 442.
84.  Jay Luvaas, "Kennesaw Mountain," in The Civil War Battlefield Guide. ed. Frances H. Kennedy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), p. 187; Reid, p. 442. & Sherman, p. 519.
85.  Sherman, p. 519.
86.  Luvaas, "Kennesaw Mountain," pp. 187-188.
87.  Sherman, pp. 523 and 525.
88.  Ibid., p. 527.
89.  Luvaas, "Kennesaw Mountain," pp. 187-188.
90.  Reid, p. 442.
91.  from Co. C Muster Roll, from the National Archives.
92.  Luvaas, "Kennesaw Mountain," p. 189; Johnson and Buel, IV., 287.
93.  Luvaas, "Kennesaw Mountain," pp. 189-190.
94.  MacDonald, pp. 160-161.
95.  Ward, p. 324.
96.  MacDonald, p. 161.
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Last Updated: April 15, 2002