SABINE CROSS-ROADS.
Landram accordingly marched at three o'clock on the morning of the
8th of April, and reported to Lee about five.
Soon after sunrise Lee moved forward against the enemy, Lucas
leading, with one regiment of his brigade dismounted and deployed
as skirmishers, supported by two regiments of Landram's infantry,
in line of battle. Green's men still adhering to the obstructive
policy of the day before, after a time the two remaining regiments
of Emerson's brigade were deployed and required to drive the enemy
more rapidly, while the cavalry covered the flanks. About one
o'clock in the afternoon, when half the distance that separated
Mansfield from his camp of the night before had been accomplished,
Lee found himself at the edge of a large clearing on the slope of
a hill, with the Confederates in force in his front and on his
right flank.
Ransom marched from Pleasant Hill at half-past five, and at half-past
ten was ten miles distant on the northerly branch of the Bayou
St. Patrice, designated as his camp for the day. He was just going
into bivouac when, on a request from Lee for a fresh force of
infantry to relieve the exhausted men of Emerson's brigade, Franklin
directed Ransom to go forward himself with Vance's brigade, and
thus to make sure of Emerson's return.
Franklin's arrangements for the day's march of his command, as well
as Banks's for the whole force, contemplated a short march for the
head of the column and a longer one for the rear, so that a
comparatively early hour in the day the army would be closed up,
ready to encounter the enemy in good order. Accordingly, shortly
before three o'clock in the afternoon, Emory went into camp on the
banks of the south branch of the St. Patrice, within easy supporting
distance of Ransom, while A. J. Smith continued his march, until
at night, having accomplished twenty-one miles, he went into bivouac
about two miles before reaching Pleasant Hill.
At last nearly the whole of Green's cavalry corps had joined Taylor,
and at the same time two divisions of Price's army had come in from
Arkansas and taken post in supporting distance of Taylor at Keachie,
which is about half-way between Mansfield and Shreveport, or about
twenty miles from either. With his own force, under Walker and
Mouton, Green's Texans, Churchill's Arkansas division, and Parsons's
Missouri division, Taylor now had at least sixteen thousand good
men, with whom, if permitted, he might give battle in a chosen
position, while Banks's force was stretched out the length of a
long day's march on a single narrow road in a dense pine forest,
with no elbow-room save such as was to be found in the narrow and
infrequent clearings. In such a region excess of numbers was a
hindrance rather than a help, and cavalry was worse then useless
for offence. Banks was, moreover, encumbered by twelve miles of
wagons bearing all his ammunition and stores, and was weakened by
the necessity of guarding this long train through the barren
wilderness deep in the heart of the enemy's country. Of these
conditions Kirby Smith was planning to take advantage, and it was
to guard against such an enterprise that Banks's column was closing
up in readiness to meet the enemy with its full strength, when
suddenly on both sides events took the bit in their teeth and
precipitated a battle that was in the plans of neither.
It was about eleven o'clock when Ransom set out to go to the front
with Vance's brigade. The distance to be passed over was about
five and a half miles. Riding ahead, Ransom himself arrived on
the field about half-past one in the afternoon. At this time, by
Lee's orders, Landram had pushed forward the 19th Kentucky, deployed
as skirmishers, and supporting it strongly with the rest of Emerson's
brigade, had driven Green's troopers across the open ground, over
the hill, and well into the woods beyond, and had taken position
on the crest. Here he was joined by Nims, who brought his guns
into battery across the road. On the left of Nims were placed two
of Rottaken's howitzers, detached from the 6th Missouri cavalry.
On the right and left of the horse artillery Emerson formed, and
Vance, as soon as he came up, took position on Emerson's right,
but as Banks undertook to hasten the movement through the direct
action of his own staff-officers, it resulted that the regiments
of the two brigades were sandwiched. Lucas, dismounted, extended
the line of battle to the right. With him were a section of Rawles's
battery and another of Rottaken's.
To cover the flanks in the forest Dudley deployed as skirmishers
the 8th New Hampshire on the right, and on the left the 3d and the
31st Massachusetts, supported by the 2d Illinois. Robinson was
with the cavalry train, which was rather closely following the
march of its division, in order to clear the head of the infantry
without starving the cavalry.
Neither side could move forward without bringing on a battle. But
Lee, instead of being able and ready to disengage his cavalry
advance-guard and to fall back to a chosen field, was now anchored
to the ground where he found himself, not alone by the concentration
of the main body of the cavalry at the very front, but also and
even more firmly by the presence of the infantry with its artillery
and their employment, naturally enough, to form the centre of his
main line.
The clearing, the largest yet seen by the Union Army since entering
the interminable wilderness of pines, was barely half a mile in
width; across the road it stretched for about three quarters of a
mile, and down the middle it was divided by a ravine.
Directly in front of Banks stood Taylor in order of battle, covering
the crossing of the ways that lead to Pleasant Hill, to Shreveport,
to Bayou Pierre, and to the Sabine. On his right was the cavalry
of Bee, then Walker's infantry astride of the main road, and on
Walker's left Mouton, supported on his left by the cavalry brigades
of Major and Bagby, dismounted. To this position, well selected,
Taylor had advanced from Mansfield early in the morning, with the
clear intention of offering battle, and, regardless of Kirby Smith's
purpose of concentrating nearer Shreveport, had sent back orders
for Churchill and Parsons to come forward. They marched early,
and were by this time well on the way, but a distance of twenty-five
miles separated their camp of the night before from the field of
the approaching combat.
As on the previous day's march, Stone had been with Lee's advance
since the early morning, without, however, being charged with the
views of his chief and without attempting to issue orders in his
name; but now Banks himself rode to the extreme front, as his habit
was. Arriving on the ground not long after Ransom, and seeing the
enemy before him in force, Banks at once ordered Lee to hold his
ground and sent back orders to Franklin to bring forward the column.
The skirmishing that had been going on all the morning, as an
incident of the advance and retreat of the opposing forces, had
become the sharp prelude of battle, and through the openings of
the forest the enemy could be seen in continuous movement toward
his left. This was Major and Mouton feeling their way to the Union
right, beyond which and diagonally across the front ran the road
that leads from Mansfield to Bayou Pierre.
Whether Taylor, as he says, now became impatient at the delay and
ordered Mouton to open the attack, or whether, as others have
asserted, Mouton attacked without the knowledge or orders of Taylor,
is not quite clear, nor is it here material. About four o'clock,
when the two lines had looked at each other for two hours or more,
Taylor suddenly delivered his attack by a vigorous charge of Mouton's
division on the east of the road. Ransom's infantry on the field
numbered about 2,400 officers and men; including Lucas, Banks's
fighting line fell below 3,500, and the whole force he had at hand
was not above 5,000 strong. Against this, Taylor was now advancing
with nearly 10,000. It was therefore inevitable that on both flanks
his line must widely overlap that of Banks as soon as the two should
meet.
When Ransom perceived Mouton's movement, he threw forward his right
to meet it with such spirit that Mouton's first line was driven
back in confusion on his second; then rallying and returning to
the charge, Mouton's men halted, lay down, and began firing at
about two hundred yards' range. The two batteries of Landram's
division, Cone's Chicago Mercantile, and Klauss's 1st Indiana, now
came on the field, and were posted by Ransom on the ridge near the
centre, to oppose the enemy's advance on the left, before which
Dudley's men were already falling back. Bee and Walker had in fact
turned the whole left flank, and were rapidly moving on, breaking
in the line as they advanced. This soon left Nims's guns without
support, and at the same time Klauss and Cone came under a fire so
severe from Walker's men, that Ransom determined to withdraw to
the cover of the wood in his rear at the edge of the clearing.
Unfortunately, Captain Dickey, his assistant adjutant-general, fell
mortally wounded in the act of communicating these orders, and thus
some of the regiments farther toward the right, being without
orders, and fighting stubbornly against great odds, stood their
ground until they were completely surrounded and taken prisoners.
While aiding Landram to rally and reform the remnants of his division
in the skirt of timber, Ransom was severely wounded in the knee,
and had to be carried off the field. Vance and Emerson were wounded
and taken prisoners, each at the head of his brigade.
Meanwhile, shortly after three o'clock, at his quarters, near
Ransom's camp of the forenoon, Franklin received his first suggestion
of an impending battle, in Banks's order to bring all the infantry
to the front. First sending back word to Emory, Franklin set out
at once and rode forward rapidly, followed by Cameron's division.
When, some time after four o'clock, he entered the clearing and
galloped to the hill where the guns of Nims still stood grimly
defiant and Ransom's men were still desperately struggling to hold
their first ground, the situation was already hopeless. Hardly
had he arrived on the ground, than, by a single volley from Walker's
advancing lines, Franklin's horse was killed, and he himself and
Captains Chapman and Pigman of his staff were wounded.
Cameron came up just as Landram was striving hard to rally his men
and to hold a second position in the lower skirt of the wood, to
prevent the enemy from coming on across the clearing; but for this,
time and numbers and elbow-room were alike wanting. Moreover,
every movement of the Confederate troopers must be gaining on the
flanks. Nor was Cameron's handful, barely 1,300, enough to enable
the remnant of the Thirteenth Corps to hold for many minutes so
weak a position against such odds. Cameron deployed his four
battalions and tried hard, but the whole line soon crumbled and
fell apart to the rear.
Until this moment, Banks and Franklin, as well as every officer of
the staff of either, beginning with Stone, had exerted themselves
to the utmost to second the efforts of Ransom and of Landram to
save the day. The retreat once fairly began, all attempt to stay
its course was for a time given up as idle, for every man knew just
how far back he must go to find room to form a line of battle longer
than the road was narrow. Green's cavalry having been for the most
part dismounted and on the flanks, as well as in the forest, the
pursuit was not very vigorous and was now and then retarded by the
successive covering lines of Lucas and of Dudley, so that the
prospect seemed fair of bringing off the remnants of the fighting
force without much more loss, when about a mile behind the
battle-field, at the foot of a slight descent, the retreating column
came upon a knot of wagons inextricably tangled and stuck fast
in a slough. This was the great cavalry train trying to escape.
Instantly what had been a severe check became a serious disaster.
Already, by holding so stiffly to his first position, in the front
line, in the road, Nims had lost more than half his horses, and
thus in quitting the field he found himself compelled to abandon
three of his guns; yet not until he had inflicted vast injuries on
his enemy, and to the last furnished a noble example of coolness
in the performance of duty and the highest courage in the hour of
trial. Now the remnant of this fine battery was swallowed up in
the wreck of the wagons, and soon fourteen more guns went to swell
the ruin. Thus Rails and Rottaken lost each a section, Cone and
Klauss their whole batteries. In all twenty guns were lost; three
on the field and seventeen at the jam. With them went 175 wagons,
11 ambulances, and 1,001 draught animals. To pass the obstruction
the infantry had to turn widely out of the road and for a long
distance push their way through the woods. No semblance of order
survived. After this there was only one mass of men, wagons, and
horses crowding to the rear.
How little expectation there had been of fighting a battle that
day, especially on the line where the extreme outposts chanced to
be, and how suddenly all was changed, is aptly shown by what was
happening in Emory's camp when, at a quarter before four o'clock,
he received Franklin's order to go to the front. The wagons of
the Thirteenth Corps were in the road in the act of passing the
lines of the Nineteenth Corps on the way to join their proper
command. Emory's wagons had been with him for some little time
and several of the quartermasters were even engaged in issuing
clothing when the summons came. There had been no heavy firing as
yet, such as indicates a battle, and the exact degree of urgency
may be best represented by saying that the marching orders were
delivered to Emory in writing by a mounted orderly and were in
these words: "Move your infantry immediately to the front, leaving
one regiment as guard to your batteries and train. If your train
has got up, you will take two days' rations and the cooking utensils."
The language of this order, which may fairly be taken as an authentic
reflection of the oral message from Banks, on which it was directly
based, would have justified Emory in taking an hour or more for
the issue of the rations; but Emory, whose nature it was to forecast
danger, had from the first hour of the campaign been apprehensive
of some sudden attack that should find the army unprepared; and
thus it was that, merely stopping to take a double ration of hard
bread, twelve minutes later the head of his column filed into the
road and marched to the front. At this hour the battle was just
beginning, and the first sounds, rolling to the rear, served to
quicken the march of Emory's men. About a quarter before five he
was met by an aide-de-camp with orders to hasten, coupled with the
first direct information that an engagement was in progress. A
mile farther on an ambulance was met bearing Ransom to the rear.
Emory exchanged a few words with the wounded officer, and then
ordered his division to take the double-quick. A mile beyond, the
usual rabble of camp followers and stragglers was encountered, and
soon the road was filled with the swollen stream of fugitives,
crying that the day was lost.
And now from Emory down to the smallest drummer-boy every man saw
that the hour had come to show what the First division was made
of. The leading regiments and flankers instantly fixed bayonets;
the staff-officers drew their swords; hardly a man fell out, but
at a steady and even quickened pace, Emory's men forced their way
through the confused mass in the eager endeavor to reach a position
where the enemy might be held in check. This, in that country,
was not an easy task, and it was not until the last rush of the
flying crowd and the dropping of stray bullets here and there told
that the pursuing enemy was close at hand, that Emory found room
to deploy on ground affording the least advantage for the task
before him. He was now less than three miles from the field where
Lee had been beaten back and Ransom had been overwhelmed. The
scene was a small clearing with a fenced farm, traversed by a narrow
by-road and by a little creek flowing toward the St. Patrice. Here
the Confederates could be plainly seen coming on at such a pace
that for some moments it was even doubtful whether Emory might not
have delayed just too long the formation of his line of battle.
Such was his own though as in the dire need of the crisis he
determined to sacrifice his leading regiment in order to gain time
and room for the division to form. Happily the Confederates helped
him by stopping to loot the train and the rejoice loudly over each
discovery of some special luxury to them long unfamiliar.
Then rapidly sending orders to Dwight to hold the road at any cost,
to McMillan to form on the right, to Benedict to deploy on Dwight's
left, Emory himself rode up to Kinsey, and together they led forward
the 161st New York and deployed the regiment widely as skirmishers
across the whole front of the division, in the very teeth of the
Confederate line of battle, rapidly advancing with wild yells and
firing heavily as they came. Not a man of the division, not one
of the 161st, but felt as well as Emory the imposing duty laid on
that splendid regiment and the hard sacrifice expected of it; yet
they stood their ground so well and so long that not only had the
whole division time to deploy, but, when at last the Confederate
line of battle refused any longer to be held back by a fringe of
skirmishers, it became a serious question whether friend and foe
might not enter the Union lines together. Then, when Emory saw
that his line was formed, he gave to word to Kinsey to retire.
For some seconds his skirmishers masked fire of their own lines,
but, as the Confederates followed with great impetuosity, Dwight's
whole line, kneeling, waiting, and ready, opened a fierce fire at
point-blank range and soon threw off the attack with heavy loss to
their assailants. The brunt of the attack was borne by the 28th
Maine, holding the centre and the road. An attempt followed to
turn Emory's right flank; in this Dwight's right was pressed so
heavily that Emory was obliged to deploy McMillan nearly at right
angles to the main front, and thus the onset was easily checked.
About the same time the Confederates, whose line was longer than
Emory's, made a like attempt to turn the left, but Benedict held
on firmly, and although his position was a bad one, soon drove off
his assailants. The whole fight was over in twenty minutes, but
while it lasted it was sharp. It rolled back the pursuit and
changed the fortunes of the evil day.
In no other battle of the war was so little use made of artillery.
In Ransom's fight only a few guns could be brought into action on
either side, though these indeed were served with vigor. As for
Emory, he left his batteries and his baggage to the safekeeping of
the 153d New York and swept to the front with all the rest of his
infantry, while the same jam of wagons that entrapped the guns of
Lee and Ransom likewise held back the guns of Taylor. Thus Emory's
fight was fought by infantry alone against infantry and dismounted
cavalry, and no roar of cannon was heard to break the rattle and
the wail of the musketry.
So great a change had these few hours wrought that the same sun
rose upon an army marching full of confidence that within two days
Shreveport would be in its grasp, and set up the same army defeated,
brought to bay, its campaign ruined, saved only by a triumph of
valor and discipline on the part of a single division and of skill
on the part of its intrepid commander from complete destruction at
the hands of an enemy inferior in everything and outnumbered almost
as two to one. The passage of a wood is the passage of a defile;
there, then, was a blind defile, where of six divisions four were
suffered to be taken in detail and attacked in fractions on ground
of the enemy's choosing. Hardly any tactical error was wanting to
complete the discomfiture. Ransom was overwhelmed and double
outflanked by two or three times his numbers; even Emory had but
five thousand against a force reduced by casualties and straggling,
yet still half as large again as his and flushed with victory;
moreover, his position was, whether for offence or defence, worthless
beyond the passing hour.
Banks's losses in the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads were as follows:
Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total.
Cavalry Division . . . . 39 250 144 433
Cameron's " . . . . . 24 99 195 318
Landram's " . . . . . 28 148 909 1,085
Emory's " . . . . . 24 148 175 347
Staff of Nineteenth Corps 0 3 0 3
____ ____ _____ ______
In all . . . 115 648 1,423 2,186
By Taylor the action is called the battle of Mansfield. He puts
his losses at 1,000, all told. Foremost among the slain, while
leading the fierce onset against Ransom's right, Mouton fell, a
regimental color in his hand, and with him perished many of his
brave Louisianians.
Clearly the next thing, whatever might be the next after, was to
concentrate and reform on the first fair ground in the rear. Such
were Banks's orders. Accordingly at midnight Emory marched in
orderly retreat, with all his material intact, and at eight o'clock
the next morning, the 9th of April, went into bivouac at Pleasant
Hill, where A. J. Smith was found near his resting-place of the
night before, and with him Gooding. Thither Lee and the shattered
remnants of Ransom's Corps, now under Cameron, had already retired,
and there they now reformed in comparative order.