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The Battle of Pittsburgh

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Aphrodite
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« on: April 07, 2010, 07:08:05 am »

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Aphrodite
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« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2010, 07:09:00 am »

The Battle of Pittsburgh
Important Particulars of the Terrible Struggle The Fight Continued Through Two Days Partial Success of the Enemy on Sunday Opportune Arrival of Gen. Buell's Forces Final Defeat and Flight of the Rebels Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston's Body Left on the Field Other Prominent Rebel Officers Killed Our Probable Loss in Killed, Wounded and Missing Five Thousand Gen. Wallace Killed and Gen. Prentiss taken Prisoner Occupation of Corinth by Our Forces


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Cairo, Wednesday, April 9 -- Further advices from Pittsburgh Landing give the following about the battle:

The enemy attacked at 4 o'clock Sunday morning, the brigades of Gens. Sherman and Prentiss being first engaged. The attack was successful, and our entire force was driven back to the river, where the advance of the enemy was checked by the fire of the gunboats.

Our force was then increased by the arrival of Gen. Grant, with the troops from Savanna, and inspirited by reports of the arrival of two divisions of Gen. Buell's army.

Our loss this day was heavy, and, besides the killed and wounded, embraced our camp equipage and 36 field guns.

The next morning our forces, now amounting to 80,000, assumed the offensive, and by 2 o'clock P.M. had retaken our camp and batteries, together with some 40 of the enemy's guns and a number of prisoners, and the enemy were in full retreat, pursued by our victorious forces.

Our casualties were numerous and include:

Gen. GRANT, wounded in the ankle, slightly.
Gen. W. H. WALLACE, killed.
Gen. SMITH, severely wounded.
Col. HALL, Sixteenth Illinois, killed.
Col. LOGAN, Thirty-second Illinois, wounded severely.
Col. DAVIS, Forty-sixth Illinois, wounded severely.
Major HUNTER, Thirty-second Illinois, killed.
Col. PEABODY, Twenty-fifth Illinois, severely wounded.

Our killed, wounded, and missing are not less than 2,000.

CHICAGO, Wednesday, April 9 -- The Times' account of the battle of Pittsburgh Landing on Sunday and Monday, says that the enemy surprised Gen. Prentiss' Brigade, which was in the advance, five miles beyond Pittsburgh, at 5 o'clock on Sunday morning, taking two regiments prisoners and capturing the General. The fight continued during the entire day, the enemy driving our forces back to Pittsburgh with fearful loss.

Gen. Buell, with Gen. Nelson's division, arrived at 4 o'clock, and turned the tide of the battle.

The enemy was commanded by Gens. Pott and Beauregard, who suspended the attack about 6 o'clock.

On the morning of Monday, the troops having rested on the field, and being reinforced by Gen. Nelson's Division, supported by the gunboats, drove the enemy back and occupied their former position, completely routing the rebels, who were immediately followed by several thousand cavalry, who at last accounts were some miles beyond Corinth.

The Tribune places our loss at from 500 to 1,000 killed and 3,000 to 4,000 wounded. The rebel loss is twice that number. Six of our batteries were taken and retaken six times.

The Times says that Gen. Beauregard had given orders not to destroy any of the camp equipage taken on Sunday, as he expected a complete victory the next day.

CHICAGO, Wednesday, April 9 -- The Tribune's special from Cairo gives the following summary of reports gathered from persons who witnessed the battle at Pittsburgh landing:

The National army was posted between two streams, about four miles apart, that run into the Tennessee nearly at right angles, within about two miles from Pittsburgh. The left front was commanded by Gen. Prentiss, who had several raw regimens. In his rear was Gen. Sherman, with his division, completely cutting it off from the main army.

Gen. McClernand put himself at the head of his troops and cut his way through the rebels, and rejoined the army.

The fight had now become desperate, and on Gen. Grant's assuming command, the enemy were driven back, and the National forces occupied at night nearly the same position they did in the morning. The fight lasted 15 hours.

During the night, Maj.-Gen. Lew. Wallace came up from Crump's Landing, with 19,000 troops, and in the morning the battle was reversed with great fury; neither party seeming disposed to yield. Between 11 and 12 o'clock the fight was terrific.

Soon after noon, Gen. Buell had crossed the Tennessee, and attacked the enemy in flank with 40,000 men. The rebels were soon routed, Gen. Buell pursuing them with 12,000 men, mostly cavalry, and the latest rumors were that he had taken Corinth.

Eight hundred wounded are reported to be on one steamer, on the way down. Gen. Halleck is expected here in the morning en route for Tennessee. Several barges of ice are ordered to go up the Tennessee to-night for the use of the wounded.

THE FIRST DETAILED REPORTS

The following dispatch reached us yesterday morning too late to be inserted in our regular morning edition, but was issued at an early hour in an Extra:

Pittsburgh, via Fort Henry, Wednesday, April 9, 3:20 A. M. -- The greatest battle of the war has just closed, resulting in the complete rout of the enemy, who attacked us at daybreak Sunday morning. The battle lasted without intermission during the entire day, and was again renewed on Monday morning, and continued undecided until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when the enemy commenced their retreat, and are still flying toward Corinth, pursued by a large force of our cavalry. The slaughter on both sides is immense.

The fight was brought on by a body of three hundred of the Twenty-fifth Missouri Regiment, of Gen. Prentiss' Division, attacking the advance guard of the rebels, which were supposed to be the pickets of the enemy in front of our camps. The rebels immediately advanced on Gen. Prentiss' division on the left wing, pouring volley after volley of musketry, and riddling our camps with grape, cannister and shell. Our forces soon formed into line and returned their fire vigorously, and by the time we were prepared to receive them, had turned their heaviest fire on the left centre of Sherman's Division and drove our men back from their camps, and bringing up a fresh force, opened fire on our left wing, under Gen. McClernand. The fire was returned with terrible effect and determined spirit by both infantry and artillery, along the whole line for a distance of over four miles.

Gen. Hurlbert's Division was thrown forward to support the centre, when a desperate conflict ensued. The rebels were driven back with terrible slaughter, but soon rallied and drove back our men in turn. From about 9 o'clock, until night closed on the bloody scene, there was no determination of the result of the struggle. The enemy exhibited remarkably good generalship. At times engaging the left with apparently their whole strength, they would suddenly open a terrible and destructive fire on the right or centre. Even our heaviest and most destructive fire upon the enemy did not appear to discourage their solid columns. The fire of Maj. Taylor's Chicago Artillery raked them down in scores, but the smoke would no sooner be dispersed than the breach would again be filled.

The most desperate fighting took place late in the afternoon. The rebels knew that if they did not succeed in whipping us then, that their chances for success would be extremely doubtful, as a portion of Gen. Buell's forces had by this time arrived on the opposite side of the river, and another portion was coming up the river from Savannah. They became aware that we were being reinforced, as they could see Gen. Buell's troops from the river bank, a short distance above us on the left, to which point they had forced their way.

At five o'clock the rebels had forced our left wing back so as to occupy fully two-thirds of our camp, and were fighting their way forward with a desperate degree of confidence in their efforts to drive us into the river, and at the same time heavily engaged our right.

Up to this time we had received no reinforcements, Gen. Lew. Wallace failing to come to our support until the day was over, having taken the wrong road from Crump's Landing, and being without other transports than those used for Quartermaster's and Commissary stores, which were too heavily laden to ferry any considerable number of Gen. Buell's forces across the river, those that were here having been sent to bring up the troops from Savanna. We were, therefore, contesting against fearful odds, our forces not exceeding thirty-eight thousand men, while that of the enemy was upwards of sixty thousand.

Our condition at this moment was extremely critical. Large numbers of men, had straggled toward the river, and could not be rallied. Gen. Grant and staff, who had been recklessly riding along the lines during the entire day, amid the unceasing storm of bullets, grape and shell, now rode from right to left, inciting the men to stand firm until our reinforcements could cross the river.

[The] Chief of Staff immediately set into position the heaviest pieces of artillery, pointing on the enemy's right, while a large number of the batteries were planted alone the entire line, from the river bank northwest to our extreme right, some two and a half miles distant. About an hour before dusk a general cannonading was opened upon the enemy, from along our whole line, with a perpetual crack of musketry. For a short time the rebels replied with vigor and effect, but their return shots grew less frequent and destructive, while ours grew more rapid.

The gunboats Lerington and Tyler, which lay a short distance off kept raining shell on the rebel hordes. This last effort was too much for the enemy, and ere dusk had set in the firing had nearly ceased, when, night coming on, all the combatants rested from their awful work of blood.

Our men rested on their arms in the position they had at the close of the night, until the forces under Major-General Wallace arrived and took position on the right, and General Buell's forces from the opposite side and Savanna were now being conveyed to the battle-ground. The entire right of Gen. Nelson's Division was ordered to form on the right.

THE SECOND DAY OF THE BATTLE

Gen. Buell having arrived on Sunday evening, in the morning the hall was opened at daylight, simultaneously by Gen. Nelson's Division on the left, and Major-Gen. Wallace's Division on the right. Gen. Nelson's force opened up a most galling fire on the rebels, and advanced rapidly as they fell back. The fire soon became general along the whole line, and began to tell with terrible effect on the enemy. Generals McClernand, Sherman, and Hurlburt's men, though terribly jaded from the previous day's fighting still maintained their honors won at Donnelson, but the resistance of the rebels at all points of the attack was worthy a better cause.

But they were not enough for our undaunted bravery, and the dreadful desolation produced by our artillery, which was sweeping them away like chaff before the wind. But knowing that a defeat here would be the death blow to their hopes, and that their all depended upon this great struggle, their Generals still urged them on in the face of destruction, hoping by flanking us on the right to turn the tide of battle. Their success was again for a time cheering, as they began to gain ground on us, appearing to have been reinforced; but our left, under Gen. Nelson was driving them, and with wonderful rapidity, and by eleven o'clock Gen. Buell's troops had succeeded in flanking them and capturing their batteries of artillery.

They however again rallied on the left, and recrossed another right forced themselves forward in another desperate effort. But reinforcements from General Wood and Gen. Thomas were coming in regiment after regiment, which were sent to Gen. Buell who had again commenced to drive the enemy.

About three o'clock in the afternoon Gen. Grant rode to the left, where the fresh regiments had been ordered, and finding the rebels wavering, sent a portion of his body-guard to the heart of each of five regiments, and then ordered a charge across the field, himself leading, as he brandished his sword and waved them on to the crowning victory, while cannon balls were falling like hail around him.

The men followed with a shout that sounded above the roar and din of the artillery, and the rebels fled in dismay, as from a destroying avalanche, and never made another stand.

Gen. Buell followed the retreating rebels, driving them in splendid style, and by 5 & frac12; o'clock the whole rebel army was in full retreat in Corinth, with our cavalry in hot pursuit, with what further result is not known, they not having returned up to this hour.

We have taken a large amount of their artillery and also a number of prisoners. We lost a number of our forces prisoners yesterday, among whom is Gen. Prentiss. The number of our force taken has not been ascertained yet. It is reported at several hundred. Gen. Prentiss was also reported as being wounded. Among the killed on the rebel side was their General-in-Chief, A. Sydney Johnston, who was struck by a cannon ball on the afternoon of Sunday. It is further reported that Gen. Beauregard had his arm shot off.

This afternoon Gens. Bragg, Breckinridge and Jackson were commanding rebel forces.

Our loss in officers is very heavy. It is impossible at present to obtain their names. The following were among their number:

Brig. Gen. W. H. Wallace, killed.
Col. Ellis, Tenth Illinois, killed.
Maj. Goddard, Fifteenth Illinois, killed.
Lieut. Canfield, Seventy-second Ohio, mortally wounded, since dead.
Lieut.-Col. Kyle, Forty-first Indiana, mortally wounded.
Col. Davis, Forty-sixth Illinois, mortally wounded.
Gen. Sweany, Fifty-second Illinois, Acting Brigadier-General, wounded. Received two shots in his only remaining arm, having lost one in Mexico, also a shot in one of his legs. Col. Sweany kept the field until the close of the fight, exciting the admiration of the whole army.
Col. Dave Stuart, Fifty-fifth Illinois, Acting Brigadier-General, shot through the breast on Sunday, returned to the field on Monday.
Col. Crafts, Thirty-first Illinois, Acting Brigadier-General, shot through the right shoulder, not dangerously.
Col. Hayne, of the Forty-eighth Illinois, wounded slightly.
Col. C. McKenny of the Seventeenth Kentucky, wounded slightly.
Lieut.-Col. Stout, of the Eighteenth Kentucky, wounded slightly.
Lieut.-Col. Morgan, of the Twenty-fifth Indiana, wounded badly in the head.
Col. Mason, of the Seventy-first Ohio, wounded slightly.
Maj. Eaton, of the Eighteenth Illinois, (Acting Colonel,) wounded fatally.
Capt. Irving W. Carson, Gen. Grant's scout, head shot off by a cannonball.
Capt. Preston Morton, wounded mortally since dead.
Capt. Dulson, of the Eighteenth Illinois, killed.
Capt. Mace, of the Fifth Illinois, killed.
Capt. Carver, of the Eleventh Illinois, killed.
Maj. Page, Fifty-seventh Illinois, killed.

Gen. Grant and staff were in the field, riding along the lines in the thickest of the enemy's fire during the entire two days of the battle, and all slept on the ground Sunday night, during a heavy rain. On several occasions Gen. Grant got within range of the enemy's guns, and was discovered fired upon.
Lieut.-Col. McPherson had his horse shot from under him, when alongside of Gen. Grant.

Capt. Carson was between Gen. Grant and your correspondent, when a cannon ball took off his head and killed and wounded several others.

Gen. Sherman had two horses killed under him, and Gen. McClernand shared like dangers. Also Gen. Hurlburt, each of whom received bullet-holes through their clothes.

Gen. Buell remained with his troops during the entire day, and with Gen. Crittenden and Gen. Nelson, rode continually along the line, encouraging their men.


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