M. V. B. Snow died at Wilmington, March iS, 1864; George
Crane, killed near Pulaski, Tenn., December 24, 1864.
Chicago Mercantile Battery. — On July 29,
1862, the Mercantile Association of Chicago, voted that
the rooms of the association should be opened to recruit
an infantry company, to be called the Doggett Guards,
which should be under its own special patronage and
care. Finding that an artillery company, if raised,
could be furnished with Carr's union repeating guns,
the original intention of recruiting infantry was aban-
doned, and the muster rolls of the Mercantile Battery
were opened at the rooms of the association on
August 5. On August 8, the ranks were full, and fifty
applicants had been refused. On August 13, the bat-
tery went into camp near Camp Douglas, and on the
29th of the same month was mustered into service under
the following officers:
Captain, Charles G. Cooley; Senior First Lieutenant, Frank
C. Wilson; Junior First Lieutenant, James H. Swan; Senior Sec-
ond Lieutenant, David R. Crego ; Junior Second Lieutenant,
Frederick B. Bickford: Sergeant-Major, Pinckney S. Cone; Quar-
termaster-Sergeant Edwin J. Crandall; Sergeants: Samuel H.
Tallmadge, Thomas N. Sickles, George Throop, Warren Y. Whit-
ney, Edward J. Thomas, William K. Knight; Gunners, with
rank of corporals: Fred. A. Sampson, John Lunt, Solomon F.
Denton, Charles P. Hazeltine, Nelson James, John C. Lee.
The battery remained at Camp Douglas, waiting for
horses and equipments and greater proficiency in artil-
lery drill and practice, until November 8, 1862, when
it moved, in obedience to orders, to Memphis, Tenn.,
starting from Chicago one hundred and fifty-two strong.
Arriving at Memphis, it moved, on the 24th, with Gene-
ral Sherman, for the Tallahatchie, arriving at College
Hill, near Oxford, Miss., on December 5. On Decem-
ber 9, the movement on Vicksburg by the Yazoo River,
being determined upon, the battery returned to Mem-
phis to prepare for it — arriving there on the 12th.
< )n General Sherman's return to Memphis, he reorgan-
ized a portion of the forces there into two divisions,
ARTILLERY.
283
under Generals A. J. Smith and G. W. Morgan, to
the former of which the Chicago Mercantile Battery
was attached.
On December 21, the battery embarked with Sher-
man's army for an expedition against the northern de-
fenses of Vicksburg, and reached Milliken's Bend on
the 24th, and the following day, with Smith's division,
marched twenty-five miles west, into Louisiana, to
destroy a section of the Shreveport Railroad, which was
struck at Dallas. The command then returned to
Milliken's Bend, and joined Sherman on the Yazoo,
near Chickasaw Bayou, on the 27th
The next morning, the division advanced along the
main road to Vicksburg to within a mile of the bluffs.
The battery occupied various positions to cover the
movements of the division, until the attack was aban-
doned, December 31, 1862, when, at midnight, one sec-
tion ot the battery, with the 108th Illinois Infantry,
covered the retreat of the boats down the Yazoo. On
the return of the troops to Milliken's Bend, General
McClernand assumed command of the army, styling it
the Army of the Mississippi, and organizing it into two
corps — Thirteenth and Fifteenth — commanded by Gene-
rals Morgan and Sherman respectively. The Chicago
Mercantile Battery remained attached to General
A. J. Smith's division, which was designated the Tenth
Division, Thirteenth Army Corps.
On the 5th of January, 1863, the battery, with
Smith's division, embarked at Milliken's Bend for an
expedition fifty miles up the Arkansas River, against
Fort Hindman, or Arkansas Post. In this movement,
the battery was temporarily attached to the Ninth Di-
vision, General Osterhaus. On January 11, the gun-
boats moved up the river and opened fire, followed by
the field artillery. On the left, Colonel Sheldon, under
General Osterhaus's direction, ordered the sections of
the Mercantile Battery under, his command to a posi-
tion within two hundred yards of the enemy's defenses,
to cover the assault of the infantry on the eastern face
of the fort. The section under Lieutenant Wilson, on
the opposite shore, opened into the enemy's line of
rifle-pits, and did good execution. The battery received
public thanks from General Osterhaus for the efficient
service it rendered in its first engagement, and for the
" excellent and gallant conduct of both officers and men."
The command of the captured post was assigned to
General A. J. Smith, as a token of the conspicuous
merit displayed by himself and command during the en-
gagement.
The command re-embarked at Arkansas Post on
the 17th, and moved down the Mississippi to Young's
Point, nearly opposite Vicksburg, where the battery
went into camp on the 25th. General Grant assumed
personal command of the movements against Vicksburg
on the 30th, and General McClernand took command
of the Thirteenth Corps. Most of the officers were sick
at this time, and Lieutenant Swan was appointed to
command the battery ; which remained at Young's
Point until March, when it moved, with the division, to
Milliken's Bend, fifteen miles above Vicksburg, and
again encamped until the middle of April. The
change from the malarial swamps and poisonous water
of Young's Point to the beautiful location at Milliken's
Bend, was a grateful one to the boys; and once settled
in their "shebangs" among the oaks and magnolias,*
with roses, and jasmine making fragrant the soft April
air, good rations and improving health made the ter-
rible winter, just passed, seem like a fearful dream.
* The members of the battery will remember how the practical jokes of
" Tom " Egan also enlivened the camp.
On April 15, the battery broke 'amp at Milliken's
Bend, and marched with the division, as a part of
Grant's army, on the famous expedition against Vicks-
burg, by way of the Big Black River, arriving on the
morning of May 1, near Magnolia Church, about three
miles west of Port Gibson, Miss. There the enemy
was encountered, and the battery heavily engaged , the
Confederates being driven back to Fort Gibson, which
they evacuated during the night.
From May 3-6, the battery, with its division, was
near Willow Springs, waiting for supplies, and after
leaving there reached the neighborhood of Raymond
on the 15th. On the 1 6th, it advanced —Smith's divis-
ion forming the left of McClernand's corps — on the
direct Raymond road toward Edward's Station, meet-
ing the enemy at Champion Hill, some eight miles
out of Raymond. At Champion Hill, the fighting in
Smith's division was confined to the artillery and
skirmishers, the Mercantile Battery having a severe
engagement, at short range, with a rebel eight-gun
battery, in covering the advance of the left. At day-
light, on the 17th, the battery joined in the pursuit of
the enemy to the Big Black bridge, the Thirteenth
Corps arriving at about eight o'clock a. m., and driv-
ing the Confederates from the position, with the loss
of eighteen pieces of artillery and nearly two thousand
prisoners.
. The command crossed the Big Black May 18, and
marched to within four miles of Vicksburg. On the
19th, it formed on the right of the Baldwin Ferry road,
behind the crest of a hill overlooking Two Mile Creek,
in plain view of the enemy's defenses a mile west. The
battery opened fire from the summit of the hill, and, as
soon as the enemy's skirmishers were driven back, ad-
vanced across the creek to the hill on the opposite side,
covering the infantry in the assault of that day. On
the 2 2d, a section of the battery was moved by hand to
a position within twenty-five feet of the fortifications,
which position it held through the day, covering Law-
ler's and Landrum's brigades in their heroic, but disas-
trous, assault on the fortifications near the Baldwin
road. General McClernand remarked of this episode,
that " Captain White carried one of his pieces quite to
the ditch, and, double shotting it, forced it into an em-
brasure, disabling a gun in it ready to be discharged,
and scattering the rebel cannoniers." Although the
defenses of this point were carried, and the Union col-
ors planted on the parapet, where they remained nine
hours, it was a barren triumph — the Confederates fall-
ing back a little distance to an inner work, on higher
ground which commanded the interior of that carried,
and prevented its occupation — all but one of those who
gained the interior being killed. The assailants re-
mained in the ditch outside until nearly dark, when the
attack was abandoned and the battery and infantry
withdrawn.
At the close of the siege, the battery, then with
General E. O. C. Ord, who succeeded McClernand in
command of the Thirteenth Corps on June 18, took
part in General Sherman's movement against Jackson,
Miss, entering that city on Johnston's evacuation, July 17.
After remaining until the 21st, engaged in the destruc-
tion of portions of the lines of railroad centering there
and other Confederate property, the command returned
to Vicksburg, and encamped a short time, until the
Thirteenth Army Corps was transferred to the Depart-
ment of the Gulf. On August 6, the battery, with that
corps, proceeded to New Orleans, and thence to camp
at Brashear City, where the designation of the Tenth
division was changed to the Fourth, of which General
284
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
Camp Rap, TVcr
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AGrandCELEBRATION!
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III. I. 01 PAPER ISSUED IN CAMP TYLER PRISON; PRINTED UY PEN AND INK.
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
285
OLD F~ 1_ /=^ r^.
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FAC-S1MILE OF PAPER ISSUED IN CAMP TYLER PRISON; PRINTED BY PEN AND INK.
2S6
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
Burbridge was the commander, and General Ord com-
manded the corps. In October, the battery, with a
part of its division, moved from camp at Brashear City
to Opelousas. and thence to Barras Landing, near
Bayou Teche, where it encamped until November i.
It then marched, with one brigade of Burbridge's com-
mand, down the Teche to Muddy Bayou, and on the
3d participated in the battle of Grand Coteau, wherein
Major-Genera] Washburn commanded the Federal
forces, comprising the Third and part of the Fourth
divisions.
On the return of the expedition, the Fourth Division
went into camp at New Iberia, where it remained until
December 19, when it moved to Algiers, and was as-
signed to duty as part of the Texas expedition, under
General Washburn. Leaving Algiers, on January 5,
1S64. it disembarked at DuCroix, near the mouth of the
Rio Grande, on the 12th. There the command remained
until the 20th of February, employed in guard and gar-
rison duty, after which it returned to Algiers, landing
there on the 24th, an 1 moving thence by rail to Berwick
City, on the 5th of .March. There, the Fourth Division
of the Thirteenth Army Corps, commanded by General
Landrum, and the Third Division, General Cameron,
were placed under command of General T. E. G. Ran-
som, under whom the)' started with General Banks's
miserable Red River fiasco.
Leaving Berwick City, on the 13th, the battery, with
the division, marched by way of Opelousas, through
Holmesville, to Alexandria, where it arrived on the 26th,
and thence marched to Natchitoches, where General
Banks's army concentrated for his contemplated move-
ment on Shreveport, the head of steamboat navigation
on the Red River. General Banks's forces consisted of
a part of the Nineteenth Corps (composed of Eastern
troops formerly commanded by himself, and at that
time by General Franklin\ the Third and Fourth divis-
ions of the Thirteenth Corps 'commanded by General
Ransom , the Cavalry Division (commanded by General
Lee *, and detachments of the Sixteenth and Seven-
teenth corps (under General A. J. Smith).
On the 6th of April, the whole force, with the excep-
tion of General Smith's command, moved from Natchi-
toches, and, on the evening of the 7th, encamped at
1'ieasant Hill, a little settlement in the pine woods,
thirty miles distant. On the morning of the 8th, the
march was resumed — the Fourth Division, to which the
Mercantile Battery was attached, leading the infantry
The cavalry advance, supported by Emerson's brigade
of the Fourth Division, after severe skirmishing with
the enemy, t finally reached an opening in the pine
forest, some fifteen miles beyond Pleasant Hill, termed
Sabine Cross Roads, and three miles southeast of Mans-
field, where the Confederates, under General Kirby
Smith, were encountered in force, and its further ad-
vance totally checked. The remainder of the Fourth
Division, commanded by General Ransom in person,
was hurried forward in support, arriving at about half-
past two o'clock p. m., and immediately formed in line-
of-battle, at the rear of a large open field of irregular
shape, through which the road to Mansfield passed in a
northwesterly direction. A narrow belt of timber
divided the field on the right of the road.
One regiment of the Fourth Division was placed on
the left of the road to support Nim's Massachusetts bat-
tery, Dudley's cavalry brigade also guarding the left
rard >.ne of the proprietors of the NewOrleana Republii an.
t When the cavalry skirmishing i General Banks, accompanied
by his ■• p.. : .- ■ ■ r.d by the marching column, and, in reply to
the cheer* of the men, he jubilantly boasted that " We'll drive these rebels
back to their lairi" ; which he did not do.
flank. The remainder of the Fourth Division was
formed in rear of the belt of timber on the right, the
Chicago Mercantile Battery occupying a position in the
center of the field. Nim's battery was then advanced
to the extreme front; three pieces on the left of the
road, one in the road, and two on the right. The Con-
federates occupied a strong position on rising ground
in the edge of the woods, on the farther side of the
"clearing," their line, through which ran the road,
curving around toward the Union right. At about
half-past four, the Fourth Division moved forward
through the belt of timber in its front, and immediately
engaged in heavy skirmishing with the Confederates.
Ransom's skirmishers were driven back, and the enemy
immediately moved in heavy columns from the woods,
and advanced, across the clearing in his front, upon the
Union right and center, which held its ground bravely,
and, after severe fighting, checked and, finally, partial-
ly repulsed the enemy. The Confederates moved from
their flank with such rapidity, and the troops in the front
were so long delayed by the non-receipt of orders to re-
tire, that Federals and Confederates were charging
across the field in a jumble of blue and gray, and were
equally the recipients of the steady fire from the bat-
teries; the Federals, in addition, receiving some desul-
tory shots from the " Johnnies," with whom they were
thus intimately and unpleasantly associated. Before the
right had accomplished this, however, the Confederates
had attacked the left. General Ransom attempted to
withdraw his division and form a new line on a ridge in
the woods, a little in the rear; and, while engaged with
Captain White in an effort to retire the Mercantile Bat-
tery to the desired position, was shot through the knee,
and carried to the rear just in time to escape capture.*
The effort to retire the Fourth Division was utterly
futile, the Confederates rushing in overwhelming force
on the left, scattering the cavalry, which fled in utter
confusion, capturing Nim's battery and pushing the in-
fantry back through the woods in complete disorder.
The only road — a narrow pass through the pine woods
— was completely blocked by the baggage train. f The
Third Division, hurrying to the front, was pushed back
in the general rout ; the Mercantile Battery could not
be taken from the field, but in the attempt to save it, or
render it worthless, Captain White was wounded and
captured, Lieutenants George Throop and Joseph W.
Barr killed, Lieutenant Cone captured, one non-com-