A Fighting Regiment: The 22nd Illinois Infantry

It has been several weeks since I last featured one of the 300 Fighting Regiments from William F. Fox’s Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865. As I wrote at the beginning of the series, thirty-seven of these regiments saw service at some point in the trans-Mississippi. Like many of these regiments, the 22^nd Illinois Infantry served for a relatively brief time in the trans-Mississippi. The time that they spent in the trans-Mississippi, though, was quite memorable as they saw combat at Charleston and Belmont, Missouri.

For further information about the regiment see the following:

Illinois in the Civil War: includes a roster and short histories

Hughes, Nathaniel Cheairs, Jr. The Battle of Belmont: Grant Strikes South. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

“Harker’s Brigade — Sheridan’s Division--Fourth Corps.

（1) Colonel Henry Dougherty

（2) Colonel Francis Swanwick.

Companies.		killed and died of wounds.			died of disease, accidents, in Prison, &c.			Total Enrollment.
		Officers.	Men.	Total.	Officers.	Men.	Total.
Field and Staff			1	1	1		1	16
Company	A		11	11	1	9	10	109
	B		12	12		8	8	103
	C		12	12		8	8	105
	D	1	13	14		13	13	118
	E		19	19		10	10	131
	F		17	17		10	10	103
	G		12	12		6	6	98
	H		12	12		17	17	126
	I	1	11	12		10	10	94
	K		25	25		10	10	120
Totals		2	145	147	2	101	103	1,123

147 killed == 13.0 per cent.

Total of killed and wounded, 424; total of missing and captured, 124; died in Confederate prisons (previously included), 16.

battles.	K. & M. W.	battles.	K. & M. W.
Charleston, Mo. (5 Cos.)	3	Missionary Ridge, Tenn.	8
Belmont, Mo. (7 Cos.)	37	Resaca, Ga.	4
Farmington, Miss.	5	New Hope Church, Ga.	3
Stone's River, Tenn.	43	Place unknown	2
Chickamauga, Ga.	42

Present, also, at the Siege of Corinth; New Madrid; Island No.10; Tiptonville; Rocky Face Ridge; Adairsville.

Notes.--Organized at Belleville, May 11, 1861; mustered in June 25th, and left the State July 11, proceeding to Bird's Point, Mo. On the 19th of August following, five companies made a successful night attack on the enemy at Charleston, Mo., capturing many prisoners and horses. It was actively engaged at the battle of Belmont, Mo., Nov. 7, 1861, losing there 23 killed, 74 wounded, and 37 missing, out of seven companies engaged,--three companies having been left to guard the transports. After participating in the Siege of Corinth, the regiment performed guard duty along the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, until September, 1862, when it fell back to Nashville. At the battle of Stone's River it lost 21 killed, 116 wounded, and 56 missing, out of 312 present in that action; the regiment was then in Roberts's (3d) Brigade, Sheridan's (3d) Division, McCook's Corps. At Chickamauga it lost 23 killed, 76 wounded, and 31 missing, out of less than 300 engaged. Upon the re-organization of the Army of the Cumberland, in October, 1863, the Twenty-second was placed in Harker's (3d) Brigade, Sheridan's (2nd) Division, Fourth Corps, and with that division was engaged in the storming of Missionary Ridge. After that battle the remnant of the regiment marched to the relief of Knoxville, and then passed the winter of 1863-4 in the mountains of East Tennessee. In May, 1864, it marched with Sheridan on the Atlanta campaign, the little regiment sharing in all the fighting of the Fourth Corps until June 10th, when it received the welcome order to return home for muster-out, its term having expired. The reenlisted men and recruits with unexpired terms were transferred to the Forty-second Illinois Infantry. Colonel Dougherty lost a leg at Belmont, after which the regiment was commanded by Colonel Swanwick in its various battles” (Fox, p. 359).

Mutiny!

Harriet Perry opened a letter written by her husband, Theophilus, on 9 March 1864 and read: “Our Regiment has been much corrupted with a spirit of Mutiny” (p. 224). Captain Perry's regiment, the 28^th Texas Cavalry (dismounted), served in Walker’s Texas division and had several complaints. The men were still disgruntled over being dismounted nearly two years previously, but the ongoing cotton trade with the enemy infuriated them. What? Trading with the enemy? For several months Confederate officials had actively traded cotton to the enemy in exchange for various supplies including medicine and clothing. Soldiers were suspicious that this trade was nothing more than a way for high-ranking officers to get luxury items such as coffee and other desirable items. At least three units (the 28^th Texas, Gould’s Battalion, and the 14^th Texas Infantry) in Colonel Horace Randal’s brigade of Walker’s Texas division were roiled by turmoil.

Captain Perry described the situation:

“Expecting to have their grievances redressed satisfacterly [sic] by a bold show of resistance a large number of them on last Friday and Saturday refused to do any duty whatever. My Company [F] was badly misled in this disgraceful affair. I have had to arrest four of them and prefer charges against them to be tried before a general Court Martial” (p. 225). The next scene in the drama occurred when Lieutenant Colonel Eli H. Baxter, the commanding officer of the 28^th Texas, arrested all five commanders of the companies involved in the mutiny—Captain Perry was part of the group. He explained to his wife that higher ranking officers pressured Baxter to arrest the company commanders. Perry observed that “Col. Baxter is alarmed. He is in the greatest trouble of mind. He knows, he feels that we will be able to show ourselves clean, and he already fears that we will fix the blame on him if any officer is to blame, for what they knew nothing at all about before hand. Col. Baxter says, he prays for a fight. Then all things will be dropped…He turns white when he thinks of what he has done” (p. 227-228).

Somehow, these soldiers put the controversy and turmoil behind them and performed effectively during the Red River campaign. Captain Perry fell mortally wounded at the battle of Pleasant Hill on 9 April 1864, just a month after he first mentioned the mutiny to his wife.

Note: all quotes are from Johansson, M. Jane, ed. Widows by the Thousand: The Civil War Letters of Theophilus and Harriet Perry, 1862-1864 (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000).

Cotton and a Disastrous Campaign

Not the type to mince words, Union Major General David Hunter assessed the aftermath of the Red River campaign in a telegram dated 2 May 1864 to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant:

“GENERAL: You told me to write you fully with regard to affairs in this department. I may write too freely, but where great and vital interests are at stake you must excuse me if I am very free. Knowing that your time is very precious, I shall briefly state the conclusions to which I have arrived:

First. The Department of the Gulf is one great mass of corruption. Cotton and politics, instead of the war, appear to have engrossed the army. The vital interests of the contest are laid aside, and we are amused with sham State governments, which are a complete laughing-stock to the people, and the lives of our men are sacrificed to the interests of cotton speculators.

Second. The vicious trade regulations, or the vicious administration of them, have filled the enemy’s country with all kinds of goods except military supplies, and these they have been smart enough to capture. If this course is continued we cannot look for a speedy termination of the war.

Third. The best interests of the service require that General McPherson, or some other competent commander, should be sent immediately here. Port Hudson and Natchez are both threatened, and unless prompt action is immediately taken we shall lose the navigation of the Mississippi. General Banks has treated me with great politeness and kindness, and I regret greatly to say anything prejudicial to him as a soldier or a gentleman, but a strong sense of an important duty compels me to speak. The most intelligent of the officers of the army and navy will, I think, fully concur in all I have said. General Banks has not certainly the confidence of his army…” (Official Records, vol. 34, pt. 3, p. 390).

Several books have been written about the Red River campaign, but the one that does the best job of discussing how a military campaign evolved from a mix of political goals, economic concerns, and the desire to make a quick buck is Ludwell H. Johnson’s Red River Campaign: Politics & Cotton in the Civil War published in 1958. Johnson recounts how the desire and need for cotton fueled a campaign that ended in a Union disaster in the piney woods of northwestern Louisiana in the spring of 1864.

Next time: how the cotton trade led to a mutiny in the spring of 1864.

The Trans-Mississippi Theater Virtual Museum

The Trans-Mississippi Theater Virtual Museum is a new website that you should check out. It is a joint venture of the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Foundation, the National Park Service, and the Springfield-Greene County Library District. Featuring document collections (that are also on the Community and Conflict website), photographs of Trans-Mississippians, and artifacts this is a nicely done and valuable website. There is also much information about various campaigns as well as ethnic groups that were important in the region. Take some time and learn more about the war in the most fascinating of theaters.

Unsung Heroes

Have you wondered about the men who supplied Confederate soldiers in the trans-Mississippi? It seems that so often we focus on the combat leaders, but weren't the men who worked behind the scenes to get weapons, ammunition, clothing, and food to the soldiers just as important? Have you ever heard of Major William Haynes, Marshall McDonald, Major Joseph H. Minter, or Henry F. Springer? All of these men played an important role in securing or transporting supplies to trans-Mississippi Confederates. These men and many others (including a few rogues) are discussed in C. L. Webster III's book, Entrepôt: Government Imports into the Confederate States (Roseville, MN: Edinborough Press, 2010) which has a lengthy section devoted to the trans-Mississippi. Webster's focus is on imports rather than on home manufacturing, but he points out that in spite of incomplete records, enough evidence survives to show that the trans-Mississippi Confederacy was the fortunate recipient of Enfield rifles, knapsacks, cloth, ready made uniforms and other items from Great Britain. Points of entry included Matamoros, Mexico; Galveston; Sabine Pass; and even some shipments from the cis-Mississippi after the fall of Vicksburg. One of his most fascinating accounts involves a huge shipment of cloth from England that was supposed to be sent to the eastern Confederacy; instead it was landed near Matamoros in June 1862. The cloth made its way by wagon train through Texas and Louisiana, where it was distributed to various depots, and then a large portion of this valuable shipment made its way to Thomas C. Hindman's army in Arkansas. The timing of the shipment was fortunate as Hindman was in the process of rebuilding the Confederate army and needed all of the cloth and other supplies that he could get his hands on.

Webster is careful to note that "It is difficult to draw any resounding conclusions with respect to imports into the Trans-Mississippi. There were simply too many points of entry and too few comprehensive surviving records to provide anything approaching a complete picture" (p. 232). However, he demonstrates through primary documents and artifact discoveries that the Confederate army that smashed into Major General Nathaniel P. Banks' army at Mansfield, Louisiana, on 8 April 1864, was well armed and probably well clothed--mostly as a result of British imports. Remnants of hardware from English manufactured knapsacks have been unearthed near the Mansfield battlefield and on the road between Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. Webster concludes "Whatever the source or date of issue, the presence of so large a number of British knapsacks on two late-war battlefields [Mansfield and Pleasant Hill] in the Trans-Mississippi is reflective of the convoluted and occasionally mysterious manner in which the Department's supply system worked. Buried in the Louisiana soil, these humble pieces of foreign-made hardware bear mute testament to the perseverance of government agents who overcame incredible obstacles in the effort to clothe and equip the armies of the Confederacy's most remote Department" (p. 236).