Your obedient servant, EDWIN MOORE,
Maj. 21st Mo. Infantry Vols.
At the close of the Corinth engagement the whole number of the regiment
did not exceed 400 men. Over 600 during the period the command had
been in active service had been lost either in battle, sickness or
captured by the enemy. While at Chewalla a detail had been sent home
to muster recruits and a few days after the Corinth fight the whole
regiment, or what was left of it, was furloughed for thirty days.
The men returned home, where they found recruiting offices had been
opened by the detail of men sent from Chewalla, at Memphis and Edina.
North Missouri was still bubbling over with patriotism for the Stars
and Stripes. The tattered and worn condition of the 400 survivors of
the 21st, with their battle torn flag, gave a new impetus to the war
spirit. Volunteers sprung up from every side and in an incredibly short
while the regiment was recruited to double its number. Canton was the
rallying point for the men and from that place on the 10th of December,
1862, tents were folded, good-byes to loved ones said, and the gallant
old 21st once more started for the bloody theatre of war. The objective
point was Holly Springs, Miss., where the old 6th Division of the Army
of West Tennessee was encamped.
At St. Louis the regiment boarded the steamer known in history as the
Di Vernon, and got as far as Columbus, Ky., on December the 20th,
where the command was stopped. Instead of proceeding to Holly Springs,
the regiment was ordered by Gen. Asboth, commander of the Columbus
Post, to Union City, Tenn., twenty miles from Columbus, to do outpost
duty guarding Gen. Grant’s line of communication between Columbus and
Corinth, which had been interrupted by raids of Confederate cavalry
under Gen. Forrest.
Here barracks of logs and stockades were built and the men camped for
the winter, doing guard duty and everything else incident to a military
camp, facing a vigilant enemy. In this time Gen. Grant had gotten as
far as Milliken’s Bend, on his way to Vicksburg, and on the first of
March, 1863, the regiment pulled up stakes to join him. But again the
fortunes of war decreed otherwise. Gen. Forrest, of the Confederacy,
had made another raid in the rear of Gen. Grant, and at Columbus the
regiment was switched off to Clinton, Ky., where for two months it was
engaged again in the same kind of service as at Union City. On May
11th orders again came to move on towards Vicksburg. At Columbus the
regiment boarded the steamer J. J. Rowe and started south to join the
old 6th Division operating under Gen. Grant. On May 15th Memphis was
reached and orders were found waiting us to report to Gen. Hurlburt,
Post Commander there. Here the regiment was kept at garrison duty
until about January 25th, 1864. While in garrison at Memphis the 21st
was attached to the 1st Brigade, 3d Division, of the 16th Army Corps,
commanded by Gen. A. J. Smith. The 1st Brigade was composed of, besides
the 21st, the 89th Indiana, 119th Illinois, 58th Illinois, and the 9th
Indiana Battery, commanded by Col. David Moore. On January the 28th
the command boarded a steamer en route for Vicksburg. On the way down
the river, opposite Islands Nos. 70 and 71, the vessel was fired on
from the shore by Confederates under Gen. Marmaduke, and three men were
killed and four wounded. With no other incident the regiment reached
Vicksburg on the 1st of February.
On the next day, with the army under Gen. Sherman, the march to
Meridian, Miss., began. They met and skirmished with the enemy at
Champion Hills, on February 5th, Brandon on February 12th, and
Meridian on February 14th.
[Illustration: MAJ. ABEL C. ROBERTS.
Surgeon 21st Regiment Missouri Inf. Vet. Vols.
President 21st Missouri Inf. Vet. Vols. Association.]
From Meridian, Miss., the regiment was sent back to Vicksburg,
returning by the way of Canton, reaching there on March 4th, where most
of the regiment re-enlisted for three years more, or till the war was
ended. At Meridian and on the trip back our army destroyed some forty
miles of railroad and inflicted other damages on the enemy.
Returning to Vicksburg the veterans re-enlisting were granted a thirty
days’ furlough. There was a happy home-coming for these scarred
warriors of the 21st, who had, by their gallant services, well earned
their holiday. But there was quite a number of the 21st, about two
hundred and fifty, who failed to enlist as veterans under the holiday
offer. These were assigned to Gen. Banks’ army and took part in what is
known to history as the Red River Campaign.