The Guns of Raymond 
by Parker Hills

     There were cannon aplenty at the Battle of Raymond; at one time 25 cannon dotted the small battleground ON May 12, 1863.  Yet the modern accounts of the battle do not give the “long arm” much credit in the outcome of the fight.  Still, the big guns seemed to make an impression upon the soldiers in the field.  In his “After Action Report” of the Battle of Raymond, Union Major General James B. McPherson wrote, “About 11 a.m., and when within 2 miles of Raymond, we came upon the enemy, under the command of General Gregg, and 4,000 or 5,000 strong, judiciously posted, with two batteries of artillery so placed as to sweep the road and a bridge over which it was necessary to pass.”  The Confederate artillerymen must have been really working hard to gain the attention of the young Yankee general, for he over-estimated the three Rebel cannon to be “two batteries,” or six guns.
     Up closer to the front, Union Major General John Logan recorded the artillery action with a bit more detail, writing that,  “DeGolyer’s battery [8^TH MI] was placed in a position in the road near the bridge, and the whole line ordered to advance into a piece of the timber . . . DeGolyer’s battery, which at first was in position on the road, having been moved into an open field on their left, played on their flanks during the retreat with terrible effect.  One attempt of the enemy to charge and capture the battery was met by such a terrific fire of grape and canister that they broke and fled from the field.”
     Finally, on the front line, Henry Dwight of the 20^th Ohio saw the action as only a foot soldier could, saying, “DeGolyer’s battery was watering its horses so near to the skirmish line that if the infantry was driven back an inch, it would be captured by the swarming rebels long before help could be got from our other brigades . . . DeGolyer’s battery of artillery, which always marched with us, stopped in the road near the skirmish line, and two of the guns were pointed down the road, in case any inquisitive chap should be coming from the other direction to see what we were about . . .”
     The Confederates certainly noticed the artillery, as Confederate Colonel Hiram Granbury, commanding the 7^th Texas Infantry, vividly remembered, “In the mean time, the enemy had a battery in position about 600 yards in advance of our position, and opened fire on Captain [H. M.] Bledsoe’s battery, then being planted in the field, on the right of the road and little to the rear of my position.  Private [D.] Kennedy, of Company H, was wounded in the leg by a shrapnel from the enemy’s battery.”
     Just as the soldiers of both sides remembered the artillery at the Battle of Raymond, the Friends of Raymond intend to honor those soldiers and their accounts.  Fortuitously, in 2003 the Vicksburg National Military Park replaced 40 of their almost 100-year-old cast iron replica cannon carriages (the original Civil War carriages were made mostly of wood) in the military park with new aluminum carriages.  Of course, the irreplaceable original cannon barrels remained in Vicksburg, but the Friends of Raymond was invited to take the old carriages and wheels to Raymond for use on that battlefield.  Consequently, President Dick Kilby, vice-president Parker Hills and board member Alan Polk traveled to Vicksburg on October 17 and again on November 21 to pick up the tons of cast iron carriages and wheels that will be the basis for the future artillery display at the Raymond battlefield.  Board member John Barber lent a hand, and the work was completed just at dusk on a chilly Friday afternoon in November.
     The cannon carriages and wheels need work, and the Friends are in search of a member who can weld cast iron and can donate some time.  The carriages will then be sanded, painted, and reassembled on the battlefield.  Meanwhile, the Friends will search for cannon barrels and methods to fund these barrels.  In the end, however, the Raymond Battlefield will honor its artillery heritage.  The guns may not boom as they did on that spring day in 1863, but they will stand as silent sentinels of the action there.   Visitors to the future Raymond Battlefield will then remember, as did the soldiers who fought at Fourteenmile Creek.

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