A thousand heads turned as the 320 men in butternut brown and faded white stepped out of the woods. In amazement, 2,000 eyes watched the 2nd Texas Sharpshooters dressed right into a line of battle and then begin a slow and methodical march directly toward the earthen fort. Later one of the marchers would tell his father, “ It was as if hell had been let loose, shells bursting all around, round shot plowing the ground and canister sweeping the ground by the bushel. It is a miracle how anyone escaped."
It was a little before noon, under a surprisingly warm sun, on Saturday, 4 October, 1862, just outside the little village of Cornith, Mississippi - population once 400, but after six months as a battlefield now perhaps half or a third of that number.
Dug in just north of the earthen fort in the center of the Federal line, commander of the 63rd Ohio Volunteer infantry, 22 year old Lieutenant-Colonel Oscar Lawrence Jackson, would later remember, "In my campaigning I had never seen anything so hard to stand as that slow, steady tramp of Rogers and his men. They made not a sound but looked as if they intended to walk right over us.”
The abatis were simply trees felled, so their confusion of interlocking upper branches forced the attackers to break formation, thus absorbing and dispersing their energy like a breakwater. As the rebels filtered through and around the barrier, three siege guns in the fort switched to round shot, 20 pound cannon balls traveling at almost supersonic speeds, smashing all before them.
Leading the methodical advance from horseback was the commander of the 2nd Texas infantry regiment, 43 year old Houston lawyer Colonel William Peleg Rogers (above). A personal enemy of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Rogers had inherited the regiment in April after its first commander, and one third of its men, had been shot down at the Battle of Shiloh. After which he wrote his wife, "The gallantry of our regiment is spoken of by all."
Now, faithful to Colonel Rogers' orders the Texans resumed their silent march up to the 10 foot deep trench in front of the fort. This was when Colonel Jackson ordered his buckeyes to “...give them a volley." As the smoke cleared away," said Jackson, "there was apparently ten yards square of a mass of struggling bodies in butternut clothes.....Still..., (they) gave us a volley, but fired too low. We gave them another volley and they broke back in confusion." Colonel Jackson remarked to his Buckeyes that, “...we would not have to fight these men again this day...”.
What these desperate men were dying for was possession of “...the most valuable 16 square feet in the Confederacy”, the junction of the north-south (red) Mobile and Ohio Railroad (“The vertebrae of the Confederacy”) – which ran from the port on the Gulf of Mexico to Cincinnati on “la belle rivierer” - and the east-west (blue) Memphis and Charleston Railroad – which ran from the Atlantic ports to the Memphis docks on the Mississippi.
The Texans dragged their wounded away in blankets – including 17 year old Joshua Halbert Rogers, eldest son of the rebel commander - back to the relative safety of the tree line. There Colonel Rogers reformed his regiment. And forty minutes later, just after noon, he threw them again into the maelstrom.
This time they came at the run, screaming that high pitched unnerving trill of the Rebel Yell. And this time they were supported on the left by the 35th Mississippi and on the right by the 42nd Alabama infantry regiments. Three explosive shells gouged bloody gaps in their ranks, but they came on. The Yankee gunners and riflemen in and around the earthen redoubt could not miss.
Sixteen year old Private James Alston McKinstry, was in Company D of the 42nd Alabama during the second charge. He remembered, “...our men did not waver or halt, but over the tops, under the limbs, around the stumps, along the fallen trunks of the trees, like squirrels, they scrambled... when about half (way) through the abattis,.. (the Yankee fort) changed shells for grape and canister...Our yells grew fainter, and our men fell faster; but at last we reached the unobstructed ground in front of the fort, which was still a hundred yards away....and our badly scattered forces rallied on the flag. Twenty steps further, and our colors went down again...Comrade Crawford, of Company A, dropped his gun, and, almost before the flag had touched the dust, hoisted it again, and shouted: "On to the fort, boys!”
As had happened often in the first two years of war, Major General Van Dorn had gambled that boldness would force an outnumbered and badly led Yankees garrison to surrender, But 43 year old Federal commander Major General William Rosecrans (above) remained cool and actually commanded slightly more troops than Van Dorn.
In the Yankee fort itself were the three 20 pound cannon manned by 35 Iowa gunners under Lieutenant Henry Robinet, and an Ohio regiment, straddled by another Ohio regiment and a Union Missouri infantry regiment, with a dozen cannon and another five regiments of infantry in close support. Unaware of this strength, Van Dorn pressed the attack.
Prewar Mobil, Alabama merchant, Lieutenant Charles R. Labruzan, remembered the air was filled with hissing minie balls ,canister and grape shot. “The men fell like grass,” he recalled. “I saw men, running at full speed, stop suddenly and fall upon their faces, with their brains scattered all around...I saw poor Foster throw up his hands. . . . The top of his head seemed to cave in, and the blood spouted straight up several feet.”
James McKinstry said, “Some one at this juncture shouted, "Over the walls, and drive them out;" and up the steep embankment we clambered...As we scaled the top of the parapet, a volley of musketry met us... Franks was killed with a bullet in the forehead, and, as he fell backward, he clinched me around the neck and carried me tumbling back with him to the bottom of the ditch on the outside. I was considerably rattled by the fall; but I heard Luke shout from the inside of the fort," Come on, boys; here they are;"
Almost half of Lieutenant Robinet's gunners were killed or wounded. And the Ohio Colonel Oscar Jackson, who had been certain the Texans were done, was shot in the face by a rebel with a squirrel rifle, and fell bloodied and unconscious to the ground. For a few brief moments the Confederates were in possession of the fort. And then they were struck by a combined bayonet counterattack by the 63rd and 43rd Ohio and the 11th Missouri regiments, almost 1,500 men all together. Major Andrew J. Weber of the 11th Missouri reported: "The enemy...were within 30 paces of my little line, when we arose with a yell and charged them...We retook the fort and then fired our first shot...”
In that barrage Private McKinstry fell when. ”...a minie ball went crashing through my left hip...another went tearing through my right shoulder...and another ball crushed through my left shoulder, causing me to drop my gun and my left arm to fall limp by my side. I looked, and, lo! every one of the fifteen men who were standing with me had fallen in a heap. I looked again, and not a Confederate was in sight.” Said Major Webber, “They dashed themselves against us like water on a rock and were again repulsed and driven back."
Again the surviving rebel soldiers fell back through the abatis, and into the woods. But this time the Yankees followed, driving the survivors away from the railroad crossroads, and away from victory. By 1:00pm that afternoon, Major General Van Dorn ordered the immediate retreat of his little army.
The Second Battle of Cornith cost Van Dorn's men some 4,200 causalities, including 1,700 captured and some 500 rebel dead littering the field. On Sunday morning of 5 October 1862, the 2nd Texas regiment could only muster 124 men for duty. Federal losses were only half that. General Rosecrans had the bullet riddled body of Texas Colonel William Rogers (above) buried with full military honors. But because he felt his own men were winded by the battle, Rosecrans waited 24 hours before following up the retreating rebels.
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