From Fort Henry to CorinthForce, M. F. (Manning Ferguson)
History
From Fort Henry to Corinth
Force, M. F. (Manning Ferguson)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns
The Carondelet, a thirteen-gun ironclad, arrived in the morning of the
13th, and fired at the water-batteries at long-range. One shot struck a
thirty-two-pound gun, disabling it, and killed Captain Dixon, of the
engineers, who had assisted Colonel Gilmer in the construction of both
Henry and Donelson. A shot from the one hundred and twenty-eight-pound
gun in the upper battery, entering a porthole, damaged the machinery of
the Carondelet, and she drew out of range.
The fleet, together with transports bringing reinforcements and
supplies, arrived toward evening. McClernand had moved so far around to
the right as to leave a wide gap between his left and Smith's division.
McArthur's brigade, of Smith's division, was moved to the right. Near
midnight, upon the request of General McClernand, McArthur detached two
regiments and moved them farther to the right, to within a quarter of a
mile of McClernand's left. Severe wind set in with the night. Snow fell
and the ground froze. Fires could not be lighted by either army. Some of
McClernand's regiments, having thrown away their blankets on going into
action, sat up all night.
General Lewis Wallace arrived from Fort Henry about noon, Friday, the
14th, and was placed in command of a division of troops just arrived on
the transports, styled Third Division. The First Brigade, commanded by
Colonel Charles Cruft, consisted of the Seventeenth and Twenty-fifth
Kentucky, and the Thirty-first and Forty-fourth Indiana. The Third
Brigade, commanded by Colonel John M. Thayer, comprised the Fifty-eighth
and Seventy-sixth Ohio, and the First Nebraska. The Second Brigade was
not organized; but in the course of Saturday, the Forty-sixth,
Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Illinois and Twentieth Ohio, reported
separately, and were assigned to duty. General Wallace moved into
position on the right of General C.F. Smith, so as to hold the narrow
ridge or spur which faced the right of Buckner's line, and was separated
from McClernand by the valley of Indian Creek.
The day was quiet along the National lines, and was spent in defining
and adjusting the commands in position. Skirmishers exchanged occasional
shots, and artillerists from time to time tried the range of their
guns. McClernand moved his right still nearer to the river, Oglesby's
brigade reaching nearly to the extreme left of the Confederate works,
and to the head of the back-water up the valley of the small brooks
above Dover; the Eighth, Eighteenth, and Twenty-ninth Illinois were
respectively posted across the three roads, which, leaving the main road
along the ridge, called Wynn's Ferry road, crossed the hollow and
through the enemy's intrenchments into Dover. The cavalry reconnoitered
around the enemy's left, to the muddy and overflowed bottom extending
back from the river immediately above Dover.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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