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Battlefield Detectives:
The Cannon at Raymond
by
Parker Hills
The battlefield at Raymond, Mississippi, is being
preserved by Friends of Raymond one acre at a time, beginning with a 40-acre
purchase in the mid-1990s. Thus, interpretation of this battlefield, unlike that
of many of our nation’s national parks established at the turn of the 19th and
20th Centuries, is without benefit of the living testimony of veterans. Unit
locations and maneuvers must be gleaned from written accounts, which are rarely
detailed to the degree desired by a battlefield historian. The same applies to
the long arm—the artillery on the field. Where were the guns, and what type were
they?
On the 12th day of May, 1863, twenty-two Union and
three Confederate cannon blasted their iron missiles across the Southern
cornfields during the Battle of Raymond. Surprisingly, little has been written
on the type and location of these artillery pieces. Until recently, a commanding
ridge approximately 1,350 yards [.76 mile] from the Fourteenmile Creek Bridge
was known as “Artillery Ridge” and was interpreted as the position of the
twenty-two U.S. cannon. Today, this ridge has been more appropriately named
“McPherson Ridge.” This ridge is 1,250 yards (.7 mile) south of Fourteenmile
Creek, a meandering stream which crosses the battlefield from northwest to
southeast, and 4,400 yards (2.5 miles, straight line distance) from the City of
Raymond’s town square. From this ridge, Union Major General James Birdseye
McPherson observed the Battle of Raymond, but, despite former interpretation, no
cannon were fired from this dominant but distant position. The ranges were just
too great.
So, if the Union cannon were not on McPherson Ridge,
where were they? There is another, almost imperceptible, ridge approximately 400
yards (.2 mile) south of Fourteenmile Creek at Hwy 18. Today, this slight rise
over the floodplain of the creek is known as “Artillery Ridge,” and is 3,600
yards (2 miles) from Raymond. It was here that the Union artillery finally went
into battery. How was this determined? The written records had to be carefully
analyzed.
Major General John A. Logan, Commanding the 3rd
Division, McPherson’s XVII Corps, reported:
At the commencement of the engagement, DeGolyer’s (Eighth Michigan) battery was
placed in position on each side of the main road and near a bridge across a
ravine in which the infantry of the enemy was posted, and immediately engaged
the enemy’s artillery, which was posted on rising ground about 800 yards
distant. After remaining in this position about an hour, this battery was
removed, and placed in a new position on the left of the Second Brigade or
extreme left of the division.”
Division commander John Logan’s corps commander,
Major General James McPherson, reported:
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. DeGolyer’s battery [8TH 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 . . .
General Logan’s account agrees with General McPherson’s in the placement of
DeGolyer’s 8th Michigan battery near the wooden Fourteenmile Creek bridge, which
stood on the site of the circa 1910 concrete bridge on property now belonging to
the Friends of Raymond. To further pinpoint the initial position of DeGolyer’s
guns, one must measure 800 yards to the north, where the Confederate artillery
was posted, at least according to General Logan. So, did John Logan have a good
eye for distance?
Thee is no mystery as to the location of the
Southern guns, because Confederate General John Gregg’s description of the
emplacement of the three Confederate artillery pieces on the Raymond battlefield
is clear, based upon a recognizable landmark (a road junction, which still
exists today), and these artillery pieces remained stationary throughout the
fight. Gregg wrote:
I placed Captain [H. M.] Bledsoe, with his three
pieces of artillery, on the road leading to Utica and Port Gibson, near their
junction, directing him to select the most commanding position. The Confederate
artillery position is almost exactly 800 yards north of the old Fourteenmile
Creek bridge. Thus, DeGolyer must have placed his guns close to the bridge, as
attested to by General Logan, who apparently gauged range with accuracy. The
close proximity of DeGolyer’s Union cannon to the creek is attested to by the
account of Henry Dwight of the 20th Ohio Infantry: 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.
Remarkably, we have the good fortune to have a
visual record of DeGolyer’s position, because Theodore R. Davis, a New York
newspaper reporter and artist, made at least one sketch and two finished
drawings of DeGolyer’s position. The first drawing depicts the left of
DeGolyer’s Battery at the Fourteenmile Creek bridge, and the wooden bridge can
be clearly seen in the center of the picture.
The
second drawing was based upon Davis’ sketch above it, and depicts the right of
DeGolyer’s Battery. If the finished drawings of DeGolyer’s left and right are
placed side by side, the viewer is provided a crude panoramic view of the
initial artillery action on the Union side. |
DeGolyer’s Union battery did not stay near the
Fourteenmile Creek bridge for long. General McPherson continued his description
of the position of the young captain’s guns:
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.
Henry Dwight of the 20th Ohio described DeGolyer’s
retrograde:
The Johnnies sent in another regiment on
our left to pick up DeGolyer’s battery, as a kind of past time like. But the
battery had given back a little for the sake of a better ground and when the
Johnnies tried to go there they got the fire of the 78th and 68th [Ohio]
besides as much canister as they could digest for one while. So, they
concluded they would not take DeGolyer just then.
DeGolyer’s Battery fell “back a little” according to
Dwight, into “an open field on their left,” according to McPherson.
As the Union troops moved northward up the road
toward Fourteenmile Creek, Colonel Samuel Holmes, Commander of the 2nd Brigade
of Marcellus Crocker’s 7th Division, McPherson’s XVII Corps, described the
position of the Federal artillery.
May 12, we advance 7 miles toward Raymond,
near which place we found Major-General Logan’s division severely engaged
with the enemy. The brigade, by direction of Brigadier-General Crocker, was
at once formed in support of several batteries found in position on the left
of the road, but not engaged.
George Woodruff, Battery D, 1st Illinois Light
Artillery, recalled:
…on the morning of the 12th our forces
came up with the enemy, three miles south west of Raymond, and 19 miles from
Jackson. Gen. Logan’s division was in the advance. Battery D was in 2nd
brigade and center division, DeGolyer’s being in the 1st, and in the lead.
In the early part of the day DeGolyer got into a sharp duel with a battery
of the enemy . . . Now came the time for the old McAllister Battery to take
a hand. It was brought to the front into position with our old 20th
[Illinois Infantry], and the 45th [Illinois Infantry] for its support. The
enemy’s position was on the brow of the hill, across an open field 1300 or
1400 yards distant, where they had a battery with infantry support. The
range was a long one for the guns of Battery D, and the enemy’s guns being
rifled, the odds were against our boys, but they pitched in with a will, and
soon managed to dismount one of the enemy’s pieces, and set the infantry
flying . . . Battery D fired 72 rounds, and all the boys acted nobly.
Woodruff, an artilleryman who gave the range at
1,300 or 1,400 yards, was quite accurate at estimating yardage. He mentions the
range as “a long one for the guns of Battery D,” which were 24-pound howitzers.
Considering that the maximum effective range of a 24-pounder howitzer was 1,322
yards, this, too, was an accurate statement. The distance from the known
Confederate artillery position to “Artillery Ridge” is 1,350 yards. Woodruff’s
ranges place the 1st Illinois on “Artillery Ridge,” either on the Utica road or
near it, for the range increases from the Confederate artillery position as one
travels to the west along “Artillery Ridge.”
Major Francis Deimling, Commander of the 10th
Missouri Regiment, 2d Brigade, Crocker’s 7th Division, McPherson’s XVII Corps,
reported:
May 12, at 7 a.m., marched about 7 miles
toward Raymond. When within 2 miles of the town went into position on the
left side of the road, in support of the Eleventh Ohio Battery, which was
posted on a ridge about 50 yards to the front.
Major Deimling places the 11th Ohio battery to
the left of the road on a ridge within two miles of Raymond. “Artillery Ridge”
is almost exactly two miles from Raymond.
General John A. Logan continued to describe the
action in his report, and places the Third Ohio battery on the left flank:
Captain Williams’ (Third Ohio) battery was
ordered to a position on the left flank, but was only slightly engaged. He
was placed in that position to prevent any flank movement which the enemy
might contemplate in that direction.
So, from the above accounts the Union artillery
batteries (DeGolyer’s 8th Battery, Michigan Light Artillery; Company D, 1st
Illinois Light Artillery; 3rd Battery, Ohio Light Artillery; and 11th Battery,
Ohio Light Artillery) can be positioned, after DeGolyer’s retrograde to the open
field at the left, at Artillery Ridge, a slight ridge to the left (west) of the
Utica Road (modern Hwy 18) and 400 yards south of Fourteenmile Creek.
But what types of guns were on the field at Raymond
on 12 May 1863? The Confederate guns are listed by historian Edwin C. Bearss as
two 12-pound smoothbores and one Whitworth rifle. Whether the Whitworth was a
breech-loading or muzzle-loading rifled cannon is unknown, but, it was most
probably a 12-pound (2.75 inch) breech-loader.
Union artillery records state the following:
8th Battery, Michigan Light Artillery: two
12-pounder howitzers, four 12-
pounder James rifles
Company D, 1st Illinois Light Artillery: four
24-pounder howitzers
3rd Battery, Ohio Light Artillery: four
12-pounder James rifles, two 6-pounder
guns
11th Battery, Ohio Light Artillery: two 12-pounder howitzers, two 6-pounder
guns, two 12-pounder James rifles
While the 12-pound howitzers, 24-pound howitzers,
and 6-pound guns are self-explanatory, the 12-pound James rifles are confusing.
A true James rifle is a 14-pounder (3.8 inch) with the sleek, unadorned profile
of the Ordnance Rifle. However, shortly before and during the Civil War a number
of Model 1841 6-pounder bronze barrels were rifled using the James rifling
system, devised by General Charles T. James. By rifling the 6-pounder,
theoretically the gun could fire an elongated James projectile about double the
weight of the 6-pound ball, hence a “James 12-pounder,” more correctly called a
“rifled 6-pounder.” Thus, the 12-pounder James rifles of the 8th Michigan
Battery, the 3rd Ohio Battery, and the 11th Ohio Battery would actually be Model
1841 6-pounders, albeit rifled to accept a James shell. However, the profile of
a Model 1841 6-pound gun is very distinctive with muzzle moldings, a muzzle
swell, decorative fillets and astragals, reinforcing rings and ogees, and a
breech ring. So, to place a true, sleek, James rifle barrel on the Raymond
battlefield would be in error.
Corroboration of the rifled 6-pounders at Raymond
recently came from an unexpected source: the reporter-artist Theodore R. Davis,
whose sketches appear in this article. A friend, James Drake of Applied Research
Associates, Inc., steered this writer to an obscure but illuminating magazine
article written by Mr. Davis, entitled “How a Battle is Sketched,” and published
in a children’s magazine, St. Nicholas, in July 1889. Davis, an experienced
combat artist, could easily identify various caliber cannon, and in his article
identified the gun calibers in some of his sketches. A close examination of the
cannon in the drawing of DeGolyer’s right flank at Raymond reveals a muzzle
swell on the barrel, which, of course, would not have existed on a true James
rifle. But, even more revealing is Davis’ statement in his article: “By
comparing the note with the drawing, a something may be discovered which stands
for one of Captain DeGolyer’s six-pounder cannon.” DeGolyer’s Battery consisted
of two 12-pounder howitzers, a gun with a very distinctive barrel (both 12-pound
howitzers were emplaced on the left) and four “12-pound James rifles” (which
were placed on the right and which were actually four “6-pound rifles”). The
very recognizable profile of the barrel of the Model 1841 6-pounder is what
Davis saw and sketched in his right flank drawing, and it was irrelevant to him
if the gun had been rifled or not—the appearance was that of a 6-pounder and he
correctly called it that.
Davis’ sketch was, by his own admission, very
hasty due to the fierce combat. He wrote:
My horse had been shot a few moments
before the sketch was made, and there is still a reminder of the incident in
the form of a scar on my left knee as large as a half-dollar, made by the
bullet that killed my horse—or some other bullet. The Raymond fight was not
a great battle, but one of those compact and vigorous engagements at close
quarters, without any protecting earthworks.
To honor the memory of this vigorous close quarter
engagement, Friends of Raymond is working hard to accurately interpret the
Raymond battlefield. This interpretation will include the correct placement on
the battlefield of cannon by caliber. To assist in this project the Vicksburg
National Military Park recently donated some of its old cast iron reproduction
cannon carriages to Friends of Raymond. Of course, the irreplaceable original
Civil War cannon barrels remained in Vicksburg to be placed on new carriages,
but the carriages donated to Friends of Raymond will be carefully restored and
the proper caliber reproduction barrels will be obtained—one gun at a time—until
Raymond’s battlefield faithfully interprets the artillery action on that fateful
day.
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