America’s Civil War: Philip Sheridan

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By then the Confederates knew that the Union cavalry was on the move. Colonel William R. Bradfute commanded a cavalry outpost at Jacinto, midway between Iuka and Booneville. In the evening, a company arrived from Iuka with news of Elliott’s column. Bradfute deployed the few cavalry units under his command at Booneville. He placed Lt. Col. Robert McCulloch’s Arkansas cavalry and one company of Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s regiment in Booneville on the west side of the railroad so that it commanded the road by which the enemy would approach. He put Lt. Col. Charles McNairy’s Tennessee Battalion 1 1/2 miles below Booneville on the east side of the railroad. All told, he had about 400 men to defend the town.

At dawn on the 29th, Elliott’s brigade started forward again, this time riding southwest through country filled with swamps. About 3 o’clock the next morning, the Union cavalry arrived at the outskirts of Booneville.

While Bradfute thought he had enough men to defend the town, most of the defenders had already left. He confronted McCulloch about the disappearance of his battalion the next day. ‘I asked him why he did not remain in his position overnight,’ Bradfute said. ‘He reported that Colonel Orr had ordered him to move his command to the railroad bridge by order of General [P.G.T.] Beauregard.’

Booneville was more than just another place on the railroad. Stranded there was a fully loaded supply train bulging with artillery, arms and ammunition. The train had been scheduled to leave 48 hours earlier, but had been delayed by what General Beauregard, Johnston’s second in command, termed ‘mismanagement.’

Because the main Confederate force lay behind them, Hatch tried to cut communications between Booneville and Corinth. Upon arrival, he sent a lieutenant with a six-man detail to cut the telegraph line. They tried twice to destroy the wire, but both times they were run off by alert Confederate cavalry.

At dawn on the 30th Elliott deployed his two regiments about a quarter mile from the Confederate camp. Hatch’s regiment was on the right, with Sheridan’s to the left and a little behind the 2nd Iowa.

Elliott advanced his regiments in two columns, after leaving part of each regiment behind as a reserve. Hatch was directed to take half the 2nd Iowa straight into Booneville, while Sheridan took half the 2nd Michigan to burn a bridge on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad south of town.

Hatch cut the telegraph wire and tore up the railroad with one squadron while another advanced over the railroad. The few healthy Confederate troops remaining in town immediately surrendered. Also captured were 2,000 sick and wounded Confederates.

Hatch reported later that his men had also destroyed ‘13,000 stand of arms, equipments for 10,000 men, and an immense amount of stores and ammunition.’ He also noted, ‘Some of our men, going too far from us in their zeal to destroy, were attacked — killed, wounded, or taken prisoners.’

Beauregard told a different story, writing to his superiors in Richmond: ‘I regret to add that the enemy also burned the railroad depot, in which were at the moment a number of dead bodies and at least four sick soldiers of this army, who were consumed — an act of barbarism scarcely credible and without a precedent to my knowledge in civilized warfare.’

Sheridan’s men rode rapidly to the railroad, then down it 1 1/2 miles without discovering any bridges or culverts to destroy. The nearest bridge was at Baldwin, nine miles farther down the track, but a report said that three Confederate regiments and a battery guarded it. Sheridan gave orders to destroy the railroad at four different places. ‘I concluded that I could best accomplish the purpose for which I had been detached — crippling the road — by tearing up the tracks, bending the rails, and burning the cross-ties,’ he reported. ‘This was begun with alacrity at four different points, officers and men vieing [sic] with one another in the laborious work of destruction.’ Since they had few tools, they accomplished this destruction by lifting the track from its bed, turning it over, and subjecting it to heat from burning fence rails.

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Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures

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