CHAPTER V.

THE BATTLE OF BOONEVILLE.

SHERIDAN'S FIRST BATTLE-IT WAS AT BOONEVILLE, MISSISSIPPI — STRENGTH OF HIS COMMAND ITS PERILOUS POSITION HOW HE MANAGED HIS TROOPS -SENDING FOR REINFORCEMENTS THE SCOUT AND THE NEGRO FOOLING THE ENEMY-CAPTAIN ALGER AND THE FORLORN HOPE -THE LAST CHARGE, AND A COMPLETE VICTORY.

"THE enemy has ten regiments under Chalmers. I want support, particularly artillery. I have been cut up some little, but am still strong."

This was Sheridan's first appeal in a grave emergency. He met it with a fearlessness and show of military sagacity that thus early in war demonstrated his fitness for high command. He was only a colonel then and had led the Second Michigan Cavalry but little more than a month, when suddenly called upon to meet the serious responsibilities of a battle under as exacting conditions as were ever imposed upon a soldier.

It was 2.30 in the afternoon of July 1, 1862, when he sent the above dispatch to General Asboth, his division commander. He had then been fighting against overwhelming odds since early morning. At 3 o'clock, as the combat waxed more intense, he hastily penned this message to the same authority:

"I have been holding a large force of the enemy prisoners say ten regiments in all-all day. Am considerably cut up, but am holding my camp."

These were the first echoes from a desperate combat that reached the larger army twenty miles in the rear.

It has been truly said that "mighty events turn upon small hinges." Sheridan's first experience as an independent commander illustrates the truth of this adage. His primary test in the stroke and strategy of battle gave decisive promise of that inspiration in danger and fertility of resource which, in the short space of two years, placed him in the lead among the group that achieved greatness during the Civil War. It was

in the second year of the Rebellion - the acute stage of the colossal struggle: the awful "battle summer of 1862"- that Sheridan emerged from the obscurity of staff duty into the stirring arena of command and

combat.

There was a pause in the death grapple of the contending armies of Halleck and Beauregard when Sheridan was appointed colonel of the Second Michigan Cavalry. McClellan was then before Richmond. Halleck was preparing a new campaign. The eyes of the world were watching the Chickahominy, while the Western armies for the moment were inactive. The new colonel found his regiment well trained, and composed of stalwart men, skilled in woodcraft and inured to the hardships of open-air life. The man and the instrument were well suited to each other and the dangerous work before them.

Sheridan was no sooner in command than he was in the saddle and taking part in an adventurous errand. Two days after he was made a colonel, he, with his regiment, joined an expedition under Colonel W. L. Elliott, of the Second Iowa Cavalry. These two regiments cut loose from the main army and pushed southward, to the rear of the Confederate lines. With but little halt or rest, this small command scoured the debatable land between the armies. It harassed the Confederate outposts, tore up the Mobile and Ohio railway, and burned supplies at Booneville, Mississippi, clearing the country for future operations. This was the first successful raid of the war.

The cavalry is called the eye of the army. Sheridan made his the right arm, as well. In a short time after his promotion his irresistible dash and ceaseless activity was the talk of the meagre force of horsemen attached to the army before Corinth, to whom he was a wonder. Shortly after his first promotion, Beauregard's army fell back, leaving Halleck free to concentrate his forces in the Confederate stronghold. Following the retreating enemy, Sheridan found himself again at Booneville. On the 1st of July, 1862, he was encamped there, while the main body of the Confederates lay at Tupelo and Guntown, fifteen miles or more to the southward.

The sluggish advance of Halleck's army left Sheridan's force isolated. Though nominally in command of the Second Brigade of the cavalry division, his force at Booneville consisted of but eleven companies of the Second Michigan and eleven of the Second Iowa — in all, about seven hundred and forty men. With the main army under Halleck twenty miles in the rear, and Beauregard about the same distance in front, Sheridan operated in a hostile country, watching and reporting every

movement of the enemy, and making his map of the country as he marched.

Booneville is a small town on the Mobile and Ohio railway. Situated at the conjunction of three or four converging highways, it was a natural vantage point, the value of which the enemy promptly acknowleged by the effort he made to dislodge Sheridan and his handful of cavalry. None but the most audacious would, under the circumstances, have dreamed of holding the place unless assured of a large command. There were deep woods which covered the rolling hills on the immediate outskirts of the place, while beyond, cleared plantations gave the enemy admirable ground for deploying lines of battle and surrounding the town.

Beauregard was not slow in discerning the poverty of the force intrusted with such important functions as holding forty miles of debatable territory. So long as Sheridan held Booneville, many miles of country with abundant supplies and many needed railway facilities were cut off from his control. Sheridan's forces, his resources, to the minutest detail, were known to the southern commander, for every man in the country was an emissary of his cause. Taking prompt advantage of the situation, General Chalmers a man destined to be well known in war and politics afterwards—was placed at the head of eight regiments of cavalry, with orders to clear the country of Sheridan's meagre force.

He made an energetic attempt to execute these orders. The dispatches above quoted show the spirit with which that attempt was resisted.

Telegrams like these were something new at headquarters at the time, and though momentous movements under Rosecrans, Grant, and Sherman were going on, the outcome of Sheridan's first fight was watched with eager interest by Halleck, and the result thought important enough to be telegraphed to President Lincoln. But no soldiers ever better deserved commendation than did this little band for the heroic work of that day.

Unable to retreat and almost hopeless of success, Sheridan when attacked, made his dispositions with almost preternatural foresight. The enemy was at least four thousand strong. To strike this large force en masse would have been certain defeat. That was not the new colonel's plan. He strengthened the picket posts on the several roads leading into Booneville and then held the main body in hand to await Chalmers' attack. This fell early in the day upon Lieutenant Scranton, of the

Second Michigan, who commanded the outpost on the Blackland road, three miles and a half from the town. Although set upon by ten times their number, the pickets fought for every inch of the ground, falling back so slowly that the enemy supposed they had come upon a much larger force than they had expected.

Scranton's men had retreated a mile or more to a point where the road the enemy were advancing on intersected another. Here Sheridan had reinforcements at hand, and, under cover of a natural barricade, the attacking force was brought to a halt. The contest became stubborn and the fighting superb, but finding the Confederates gaining ground, three more companies were sent to the point, under command of Captain Campbell, also of the Second Michigan. Confident now that the Union force was at bay, Chalmers deployed two regiments on the right of the road. This imposing line overlapped the Union front so far that by merely curving the wings inward, the whole force would have been surrounded. Sheridan saw the danger. He quickly sent word to Captain Campbell to hold the ground at all hazards until he could be reinforced, but if pushed beyond endurance to fall back slowly. Colonel Hatch, of the Second Iowa, was then sent quickly to Campbell's support and was ordered to charge the enemy wherever he could strike him best. Meanwhile the Michigan men were engaged in a terrible and uncertain combat. In the open field the gray-coated horsemen in well-closed ranks, waited until the skirmishers had driven the Union troops well together, then, with shouts, they swept down, each man eager to be first in at the capture.

The sorely pressed Federals were ordered to reserve their fire until the enemy was within twenty-five or thirty yards' range, and well did they obey this command. On came the solid Confederate battalions, certain of victory, and the order to surrender was ringing out. A storm of bullets which withered the first line, was the reply. Another and another followed, for the smallness of the Union force was, to some extent, made up by their efficient Colt's revolving rifles, which carried five shots without reloading, and in the hands of good marksmen were full of death.

In this onset they were so well used that the charge was stayed. But the columns were soon re-formed, and the Confederate commander closed up his lines and brought them on the flank of the struggling Wolverenes. Still fighting, inch by inch, they fell slowly back, keeping at bay the overwhelming enemy. Again Chalmers threw his regiments in line and charged with wild yells as of assured victory. But