While he struggled with his horse, Surby caught a glimpse of Blackburn. The colonel lay on the rough flooring, his hat gone, blood streaming from his forehead into his beard; one leg was caught under the dead stallion. Surby glanced quickly back over his shoulder; the long lane behind was empty. Where was G Company? He pulled his mount around, found the bridge half blocked by another dead horse; the dismounted scout was already up behind a comrade’s saddle, in flight. Surby spurred his own horse after them.
He knew he was off the bridge at last, but he seemed to be floating painfully and slowly through stopped time. He looked down at his hand; he still gripped his revolver tightly but his thumb was sticky where it had brushed against his trousers. He could feel the blood trickling warm into his boot, and then faintness and nausea overwhelmed him. He barely had strength to pull off the road when he heard the horses pounding on the sandy clay, and looked up to see Lieutenant Styles leading a charging platoon of G Company. Lieutenant Styles was shouting and waving his saber, but to Sergeant Surby the sounds all seemed to come from very far away.10
When he heard the first firing from Wall’s Bridge, Lieutenant William Styles was still in command of the column’s advance, G Company. Styles had started the company forward after Blackburn trotted on ahead with the scouts, but he followed the curving road instead of cutting across the cotton field, thus spreading the gap between the advance and Blackburn’s reconnaissance. For some reason the column behind G Company had been delayed in resuming march, and so Lieutenant Styles acted upon his own authority when he ordered the first platoon to follow him in a dash to aid Blackburn and the scouts.
The lieutenant’s action was as brave and as imprudent as Colonel Blackburn’s. Followed by the twelve men of his platoon, he charged upon the bridge, dodged around the dead horses, and reached ground on the other side. But Major De Baun’s ambushed rebels, their weapons reloaded, had purposely held their fire to draw the Yankees in closer for a deadly volley. Seven horses went down, thrashing and screaming, and a swarm of Confederates rushed forward. Miraculously, only three of Styles’s men were hit, but the rebels captured five others. The four survivors, including Lieutenant Styles, beat a hasty retreat across the bridge and were moving into the shelter of the trees when they heard the Seventh Regiment’s bugler blowing battle calls beyond the shaded road.
At the first sounds of action from Wall’s Bridge, both Colonel Grierson and Colonel Prince had come forward to the head of the column, and while Lieutenant Styles was charging the bridge, Companies A and D of the Seventh were sent forward on the double-quick across the cotton field.
The time was high noon, the battle commands echoing in heavy air that smelled of burned gunpowder:
Form fours! March!
C-L-O-S-E U-P!
A bugle interrupted the hoarse commands. A and D Companies halted in adjoining columns facing the road. Prepare to fight—on foot! The troopers dismounted, passing reins to the horse-holders, and formed in three lines. Behind them one of Captain Jason Smith’s two-pounder mounted guns was rolling and bouncing across the cotton field, the captain galloping along in front.
Colonel Prince sent A Company to the left and D Company to the right of the bridge, with orders to form skirmish lines along the river bank. The two-pounder clattered across a ditch, skewed around into the middle of the road, showering sand on the batterymen. Captain Smith began shouting fire orders, and in a minute the shells were whooshing into the woods beyond the bridge. At first shock, De Baun’s Confederates replied with rifle and carbine volleys directed upon the Yankee skirmishers, but Captain Smith’s men brought up a second mounted gun and persistent artillery shelling quickly diminished the rebels’ return fire.
A courier came speeding down from Grierson’s position in front of the halted Sixth Regiment. A trumpet sounded Cease Firing, and then the Sixth’s bugler was blaring the Charge. Down the slope by fours came the regiment, slowing and then spinning off in files at the road.
“They came galloping in with all haste with their guns smoking and some of them without their hats and fell into line. We could hear the sound of galloping horses in front and soon a perfect chorus of yells arose from behind the brush and with a quick sharp rattle a little cloud of smoke arose, whiz, skip, cling, the bullets came howling past our heads, spattering the poor innocent trees unmercifully. Then suddenly came a quick flush in the face, a feeling at the small of the back as if a charge of electricity was passing through it, then a desperate attempt to keep cool, and whang went the carbines one after another all along the line. ‘Stand firm! Don’t flinch! Hold your ground, men!’”11
Grierson’s attack order sent one battalion of the Sixth single file over the bridge while the other two battalions were fording the river in flanking movements. When the first platoon hit the bridge, Lieutenant-Colonel Blackburn raised himself up and waved them forward. Although he had regained consciousness, he was still trapped with one leg under his dead horse.*
The charging platoon swept on past him, firing at the enemy retreating through the trees.
Shaken by the unexpected shelling from the two-pounders, Major De Baun’s Confederates were unable to make a stand against the onrushing Yankees. They broke into retreat, leaving the road strewn with blankets, coats, hats, and occasional firearms. De Baun explained it as follows: “My command being small, … and fearing to be surrounded, I ordered a retreat in the direction of Osyka.”12
While the Sixth Regiment continued in pursuit of the fleeing rebels, a squad from the Seventh went forward to gather up the dead and wounded. G Company had lost eight men in the charge on the bridge, five captured and three wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Blackburn had received head, chest, and thigh wounds, and had lost considerable blood.
Sergeant Surby, suffering from a deep flesh wound in one leg, was able to ride back to the rear of the column. His old comrades of Company A—called back from skirmishing on foot—helped him from his horse. Even before attending his wound, they removed his Secesh disguise and dressed him in his regulation Union uniform. Realizing why they were doing this, the sergeant protested strongly. He did not want to be left behind.
But Surby was too weak to argue for long, and when an old friend, Cornelius Griffin, warned him that the Confederates would hang him for a spy if they found him in the Butternut Guerilla disguise, the sergeant submitted. He realized he could not sit in a saddle for a long march, and so he gave Griffin his side-arms and a diary which he had faithfully kept each day of the raid.*
Meanwhile the Seventh was assembling to move across Wall’s Bridge after the Sixth. The brigade was intact, except for Lieutenant G. W. Newell’s squadron of the Sixth, which Grierson had sent on a search for fresh horses early that morning. But Grierson could not wait for Lieutenant Newell. A wagon impressed from the adjoining plantation was converted into a blanket-lined ambulance, and the wounded were transported a mile beyond the river to Newman’s Plantation.
“I remember being carried through the front into a back room, joining the kitchen,” Surby wrote afterwards, “and laid upon a pile of unginned cotton, which Hughes, Roy and myself occupied, the Colonel remaining in the front room.”†
Surgeon Erastus Yule, who had been detached from the Second Iowa Regiment when Colonel Hatch turned back north, volunteered to remain with the wounded. Augustus Leseure, Blackburn’s French-speaking sergeant-major, and Private George Douglas of Blackburn’s original Company A, also requested permission to stay with the colonel and assist in nursing the wounded men.
Grierson granted them permission to remain, and before giving the Seventh orders to resume march, he went into the plantation house with Colonel Prince to bid Blackburn and the men farewell. During this interview, Grierson kept to himself his feelings about the misadventure at Wall’s Bridge, but he said later that Blackburn was “not as discreet and wary as he was brave … The passage of the Tickfaw might have been a complete surprise and accomplished without loss but for the accident of the firing and alarm. Unfortunately,
Lieutenant-Colonel Blackburn, calling on the scouts to follow him, dashed forward to the bridge without waiting for the column to come into supporting distance.”13
Colonel Prince was visibly moved by the serious condition of his lieutenant-colonel; he had depended heavily upon Blackburn’s limitless energies in commanding the Seventh Regiment. Now Prince was left without a second in command; there was not even a major in rank below him in the regiment, and the realization of this seemed to shake his confidence in himself.
“Colonel Prince was exceedingly excited by his first serious loss,” Grierson said, “and wanted to go into camp.”14
But Blackburn, who was still conscious, did not agree with Prince. He urged Grierson to march on to Baton Rouge and save the command.
V
After leaving his mortally wounded lieutenant-colonel at Newman’s Plantation, one of Grierson’s first acts was to assign a new leader for the Butternut Guerillas. The scouts had lost both their sergeant and their officer in the fight at Wall’s Bridge. Grierson chose Corporal Samuel Nelson, the stuttering young man from southern Illinois, who had saved the brigade from a surprise attack by his long night ride after encountering Captain R. C. Love’s Confederate cavalry regiment in the Piney Woods country. “Samuel Nelson was a robust heavy-set muscular man, sandy complexion, reddish hair,” said Grierson, “and looked as honest and harmless as a Presbyterian deacon.”15
Sam Nelson took his scouts forward at a gallop and began patrolling the road ahead of the Sixth Regiment, which was continuing in advance of the Seventh. Within an hour the column had crossed into Louisiana. But the Union picket line outside Baton Rouge was still more than fifty miles away.
About two o’clock in the afternoon Nelson sent a messenger racing back to Grierson to inform him that a Confederate cavalry force was approaching on a side road. While the scouts delayed the rebels with carbine fire, Grierson ordered Captain Smith to bring up the first two-pounder. The artillery shells exploding suddenly from nowhere sent the surprised Confederates scattering back down the side road. Grierson ordered one battalion of the Sixth in pursuit, recalling them as soon as he was fairly certain the rebels would not attempt to delay him with a fight.
This Confederate force was Major W. H. Garland’s Mississippi Battalion, and as soon as Garland could rally his men he sent a courier to General Franklin Gardner at Port Hudson, advising Gardner that Grierson was continuing on the road to Greensburg. “They will cross at Williams’ Bridge, on the Amite River,” Garland said. “If a force can be thrown there, they may yet be cut off. Williams’ Bridge is about 16 miles from Greensburg and about 14 miles from Clinton. To stop them at Williams’ Bridge is the last chance.”
Colonel Grierson also knew that Williams’ Bridge was his last chance to escape. “The enemy were now on our track in earnest,” he said. “We were in the vicinity of their stronghold [Port Hudson] and, from couriers and dispatches which we captured, it was evident they were sending forces in all directions to intercept us. The Amite River, a wide and rapid stream, was to be crossed, and there was but one bridge by which it could be crossed, and this was in exceedingly close proximity to Port Hudson. This I determined upon securing before I halted.”16
At four o’clock in the afternoon, the column was approaching Greensburg, with the strategic bridge over the Amite still sixteen miles away. Grierson ordered the scouts to move in rapidly and search for evidences of enemy troops. On Greensburg’s outskirts Sam Nelson encountered a single mounted picket, and before capturing the man he questioned him long enough to discover there was no armed force in the town. The column once again had outrun the news of its approach.
During this brief halt Lieutenant G. W. Newell and his squadron from the Sixth Regiment overtook the column. Detached by Grierson during the morning with orders to search for horses, Newell had not learned of the Wall’s Bridge fight until he reached the scene of action. He narrowly escaped capture, and only by swift riding had managed to bring the squadron through to rejoin the column.
With his command intact once again, Grierson marched through Greensburg, turning southwestward into the late sun on the road to Williams’ Bridge. Every man knew there could be no halting for night camp, not even a brief stop for feeding or watering, until they reached the bridge. And what fate waited upon them there? Would they be forced to fight again, this time against greater numbers? Or had the rebels, anticipating their coming, already burned the bridge, trapping the raiders between Port Hudson and the pursuing Confederates along the New Orleans & Jackson Railroad?
Samuel Nelson and his alert scouts brought in two couriers carrying dispatches from General Franklin Gardner to the commanding officer at Osyka. Grierson read the intercepted messages with keen interest; they were orders urging Gardner’s men to move with all haste to Williams’ Bridge to block a crossing by the Yankee raiders.
Near midnight the advance heard the first rumblings of big guns somewhere to the west. Grierson guessed they might be Admiral David Farragut’s mortarboats dueling with Port Hudson. He ordered Corporal Nelson and his men to visit some of the plantation houses, posing as Confederate guides, and obtain information about the defensive strength at Williams’ Bridge. “Our scouts … learned that a company was stationed near the bridge about one mile away, while a detachment of ten men were kept at the bridge by day and all but two recalled at night.”
The column moved on into the dark Amite bottoms. About a mile from the river the road slanted downward and became quite muddy. Grierson halted the column and sent Nelson ahead, on foot and alone, to determine if their information as to the size of the guard was correct. As he came down the shadowed road to the river, Nelson saw the bridge; it was almost 200 yards long, a solid structure wide enough for a column of twos to ride easily abreast. When he heard the river splashing he moved up so that he could see the strong full current running under the pale light.
Within a few minutes Nelson discovered the presence of the two Confederate guards. He reported back to Grierson, who described subsequent events as follows: “On went the scouts, the two guards were taken as usual. The scouts advanced with letter in hand as couriers on the way to Port Hudson. A cocked revolver quickly placed at the heads of the guards, no words were spoken above a whisper and both were readily captured.”17
Captain Henry Forbes also wrote of this long night ride:
To our right as we marched into that last night, of May 1st, the occasional boom of a big gun pointed out the position of Port Hudson, then undergoing bombardment by the mortar-boats. Our scouts had already reported a picket at the bridge on the Amite, a stream which could not be forded. Would this picket, apprised of our approach, put the torch to the bridge, or would a force from Port Hudson present itself to contest passage? Either event would be equally fatal to us.
About midnight we were in the vicinity of the bridge. Our advance dashed down on the charge. A single horseman was turning southward from the bridge towards the lights moving about a house said to be the headquarters of the guard.
The way was ours, and the steady beat of our horses’ feet on the bridge assured us of success.
The best of the story is yet to be told. We afterward learned that General Gardner commanding at Port Hudson, apprised of our approach, had correctly foreseen our destination and made his dispositions for our capture. He preferred not to burn the bridge, as he needed it for his own uses, but thought it better to meet and capture us at that point. Dispatching, therefore, an ample force of infantry and cavalry, accompanied by a battery of artillery, to command the bridge, he awaited our arrival. His detachments marched through Clinton (Louisiana) and bivouacked for refreshment in the outskirts of the town. The good citizens, rejoiced at the foreseen capture of Grierson and his raiders, tendered a complimentary dance to the officers of the rebel command.
The officers had carefully estimated the time of our possible arrival near the bridge, and accepted the compliment as an incident too pleasant to be needlessly rejected. While, therefor
e, we were stretching our legs for the bridge, these gentlemen were stretching theirs in the cotillion. After they had danced they marched. After we had marched we danced—when we learned they arrived at the bridge just two hours after we had crossed it.18
VI
Captain Forbes did not name the commander of the force dispatched by General Gardner from Port Hudson to defend Williams’ Bridge, but from an examination of Confederate troop movements in that area on the evening of May 1, it may reasonably be assumed that he was referring to Colonel Alexander J. Brown of the Fifty-fifth Tennessee Infantry. Colonel Brown actually did not arrive at Williams’ Bridge until several hours after the Yankees crossed it; at 9:30 o’clock the next morning he was still six miles from the bridge when he sent a report back to General Gardner: “A courier from Williams’ Bridge … is just in, and informs me the enemy, 1,500 strong, crossed the bridge last night between 12 and 1 o’clock.”
As for the other Confederate troops assigned to block Grierson’s escape, Major James De Baun had reached Osyka at five o’clock on the afternoon of May 1, four hours after his fight at Wall’s Bridge. “I reached Osyka, but found no re-enforcements,” he said. “Not being in force (the enemy being at least 1,000 strong and four pieces of artillery), I was unable to pursue them. During the night cavalry re-enforcements, under Colonel Richardson, numbering 400 men, reached Osyka.”
Richardson, marching south from Summit, learned of the Wall’s Bridge fight when he rode into Magnolia. This news only whetted his eagerness to overtake the raiders, and he resumed march to Osyka, arriving there at 10 P.M. “The enemy had not approached Osyka nearer than Wall’s Bridge,” he said, “but had gone on the road to Greensburg. … I fed my horses, and rested my men three hours, when, with a force of about 470 men, I resumed the march to Greensburg.”19
And so, for the fourth straight night, Richardson’s weary troops, joined now by the three companies of Major De Baun, found themselves pressing forward after the elusive Yankees. Richardson was counting heavily on Captain Wren’s having reached Williams’ Bridge in time to burn it; he did not know that General Gardner had forbidden destruction of the bridge.