Brice’s Cross Roads: The Fight at Log Cabin Knoll, Protecting the Union Extreme Left and Rear
By James F. Garrett
Major Abial Pierce
4th Iowa Cavalry
Major Abial Pierce sat astride a horse at the front of his 4th Iowa cavalrymen and watched with dismay as Union troops flowed off the plateau of Brice’s Cross Roads late in the afternoon of June 10, 1864. Pierce had been elevated to command of the regiment for this expedition into Mississippi since the regular commander, Colonel Edward Winslow, had taken command of the cavalry division’s 2d Brigade. (1) Pierce had performed well. Now something pressing caught Pierce’s attention to his left across the Ripley Road. The 72d Ohio Infantry, occupying a small knoll beside the road, had been engaged with Confederate forces for a while and had been joined by two companies of the 55th United States Colored Troops (USCT).
The sound of the battle grew louder as Confederate artillery now occupying the Cross Roads fired toward his position. Then Pierce saw more Confederate troops advancing toward the knoll. The Union infantry’s line at the Cross Roads had collapsed, and Confederates from Colonel William Johnson’s and Colonel Hylan Lyon’s Brigades were streaming down the hill behind the Brice house. Disregarding orders to follow the 3d Iowa Cavalry across Tishomingo Creek to safety, Pierce ordered his troops to dismount. Directing his adjutant to get the regiment’s horses across the creek, Pierce led his men on a run across Ripley Road, up the knoll and took a position between the 72d Ohio’s right and the road.
Why were Pierce’s decisive actions and initiative important to the Union effort at Brice’s
Cross Roads when all seemed lost?
The Battle of Brice’s Cross Roads was essentially a two-phased engagement for Major General Samuel Sturgis’ Union Expedition into Mississippi. The combined cavalry-infantry expedition set out from the Memphis area on the first of June 1864 and moved southeast past Ripley, Mississippi. (2) The Union troops camped on June 9th in the vicinity of the Stubbs Plantation, some nine miles north of Brice’s Crossroads. The cavalry division, led by Brigadier General Benjamin Grierson, awoke early on the 10th and began their movement towards Brice’s around 5:00 a.m. with the infantry following about two hours later. (3) The cavalry encountered a Confederate patrol sent forward by Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest about two miles north of the Cross Roads near Dry Creek. (4) The Union cavalry pushed forward to the Cross Roads and beyond, taking up defensive positions around 10:00 a.m. astride the Baldwyn Road. When fully deployed, Grierson’s two brigades of cavalrymen would stretch from north of the Baldwyn Road in a south-southwesterly direction across to the Guntown Road. Grierson’s orders were to hold the Cross Roads until the Union infantry could arrive on the field and relieve them. (5)
Forrest’s cavalry was spread between Rienzi and Baldwyn on June 9th and thus, would not close on the Cross Roads at the same time. In fact, Bedford Forrest only had about 800 troops of Lyon’s Brigade on the field when he decided to attack Grierson’s initial position along the Baldwyn Road. (6) The remainder of the Confederate brigades would arrive between 10:30 a.m. and approximately 1:00 p.m. Forrest knew if he could seize the initiative and keep Grierson on his heels, Sturgis would hurry his infantrymen on a mud-trodden, narrow road. The June Mississippi heat and humidity would mean the Union soldiers would arrive on the field worn-out and exhausted. (7) This would give the outmanned Forrest his best opportunity to defeat the Union cavalry and infantry in detail.
Grierson initially held the 4th Iowa Cavalry and the rest of his 2d Brigade in the Tishomingo Creek bottom land north of the Cross Roads as the engagement developed. (8) Once he realized the size of the Confederate forces was larger than expected he directed Winslow to move forward and tie into Colonel George Waring’s right flank. The first and second battalions of the 4th Iowa took a position approximately 600 yards southeast of the Cross Roads. (9) The third battalion had been detailed to stay in the Tishomingo Creek bottom to guard the Cavalry Division’s wagon train. (10) The two battalions were soon engaged with men of both Colonel Edmund Rucker’s Brigade followed by Colonel Tyree Bell’s brigade. The Iowans defended their position against two assaults before Waring’s men on their left broke, leaving their flank uncovered and causing the 4th Iowa to withdraw about 200 yards. (11)
Fortunately for Waring’s cavalrymen, the Union infantry had forced marched and/or double-timed 3 to 5 miles after Grierson sent multiple urgent requests that the infantry be hurried to the Cross Roads to meet the growing Confederate threat. As the infantrymen arrived at the Cross Roads, they were deployed forward of the intersection in relief of the cavalrymen. The 114th Illinois and the 81st Illinois occupied the secondary position held by the troops of the 4th Iowa Cavalry. (12) The cavalrymen were ordered to withdraw off the Cross Roads and reform on their horses in a field west of the Ripley Road and just short of Tishomingo Creek. (13)
The infantry movement from the Stubb’s Plantation on June 10th found the 1st Brigade behind the 2d Brigade in the line of march. (14) When the first regiments of the 2d Brigade arrived at the Cross Roads they were directed down the Baldwyn Road to plug the most serious threat resulting from Waring’s Brigade’s collapse. The 72d Ohio arrived at the Cross Roads with the 1st Brigade but the Infantry Division commander, Colonel William McMillen, directed the Ohioans back down the hill to a small knoll that sat on the eastern side of the Ripley Road and commanded a view of Tishomingo Creek and the distant woods to the east. (15) McMillen wanted to protect Ripley Road in the rear of his infantry forces. The regiment countermarched to the knoll and arrived most likely around 2:30 p.m. The infantrymen took positions facing east with their right anchored near a log cabin and a two-gun section of the 6th Indiana Battery (Mueller’s) that unlimbered in an orchard. (16) The left of the 72d extended down the knoll into an open field near Tishomingo Creek. The 72d’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles G. Eaton, immediately threw out a heavy skirmish line toward the wood line in his front. (17)
72nd Ohio Infantry Monument, Vicksburg NMP
The 72d Ohio was a battle-hardened unit. Organized in 1861 at Fremont, Ohio, the volunteers from Erie, Medina, Sandusky, and Wood Counties were veterans of Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg and Jackson. (18) Three hundred and twenty men comprised the regiment when it left Stubb’s in the morning hours of June 10th, but not all 320 defended the knoll in the afternoon. (19) According to Lieutenant Colonel Eaton, once word reached them that the cavalry was in trouble “quite a number fell out” during the three-mile forced march in the heat and humidity. (20)
Almost immediately after going into positionon the high ground, the 72d skirmishers began to trade shots with Confederates along the woods in their front. Eaton was approached by his brigade commander, Colonel Alexander Wilkin, who directed him to move the 72d across Ripley Road and take a position facing the Cross Roads in front of the cavalry troops staged in the open field. (21) Eaton initially questioned the wisdom of the move but complied although he left his skirmishers in place between the knoll and woods. As soon as the 72d crossed the road, heavy fire from the skirmishers broke out. Eaton convinced Wilkin that a Confederate force could flank the entire Federal force if he remained west of the road. Wilkin agreed and Eaton hurried the Ohioans back to their original positions. (22) However, to Eaton’s shock, Mueller’s artillery section had withdrawn – most likely since the 72d’s move left his guns unprotected. (23) About this time two companies from the 55th United States Colored Troops arrived on the knoll. Wilkin placed them in position on the 72d’s right flank behind the log cabin’s out buildings and orchard. (24) The defensive position was now held solely by infantrymen and occupied about three-quarters of the knoll. The position left a gap in the front of the knoll between the high ground and Ripley Road.
The increased rate of fire Eaton heard resulted from the arrival of Colonel Clark R. Barteau’s 2d Tennessee Cavalry. Earlier in the morning while on his way to the Cross Roads, Forrest sent word back for his Division Commander, Brigadier General Abraham Buford, to have a force take a farm road that ran north of the Baldwyn Road from the Carrollville area that met the Ripley Road near the Tishomingo Creek bridge. (25) Forrest intended this force to gain the rear of the Union forces while the Confederate brigades attacked along the front of the Cross Roads. Buford complied, sending Barteau’s understrength Tennessee regiment of Bell’s Brigade westward along the farm road. Two of the 2d Tennessee’s companies had been patrolling as far north as Rienzi and didn’t make the farm road march while other companies of the regiment had been “heavily detailed” to guard supply wagons. (26) Thus, Barteau arrived at approximately between 2:30 and 3 p.m. in the woods just east of the knoll with approximately 250 men. (27) The thick undergrowth in the woods provided the then dismounted Tennessee cavalrymen with cover and confused Eaton’s men as to how large of a force they faced.
Colonel Clark R. Barteau
Barteau’s ingenuity further added to the confusion when he spread out his men just inside the wood line and had his bugler ride the length of the line, stopping in several places to sound the bugle. (28) The increasing roar of the battle in the direction of the Cross Roads signaled to Barteau it was time to launch his assault on the knoll.
Barteau’s men emerged from the woods and immediately faced the fire from the Ohioans and USCT troops. The attack stalled because of the fierce resistance. The Union soldiers defending the knoll outnumbered the Tennesseans and were able to pour a sustained rate of fire into the Confederate ranks. The Tennesseans regrouped and pushed forward again. The time was close to 4 p.m., a critical stage for the Union forces because Forrest’s dismounted cavalrymen had broken the Union defensive arc protecting the Cross Roads.
View from position of 72d Ohio Infantry on Log Cabin Knoll looking at the wood line Barteau’s 2d Tennessee Cavalry would emerge from.
Union infantrymen, artillery caissons and horses were flowing down the hill toward Tishomingo Creek. A few regimental commanders were able to maintain unit integrity and retreat in an orderly fashion; most commanders, however, lost control and their soldiers bolted to the perceived safety across the creek. The 72d Ohio and USCT companies spread across the knoll stiffened their resolve to hold the high ground. If they failed, the Confederate forces would sweep across Ripley Road and block the only escape route for Union soldiers not yet across Tishomingo Creek. Moreover, just across the road in an open field behind the Ohioans sat the logistical wagons of the expedition along with Major Pierce and his 4th Iowa cavalrymen who were waiting their turn to cross to the western side of the creek. (29)
The increased rate of fire on the knoll drew Major Pierce’s attention. What he saw beyond the stream of Union soldiers convinced him of the urgency of the situation and that something had to be done – and quickly. Since the Union line around the Cross Roads had collapsed, there was nothing in front of Forrest’s troops attacking along and north of the Baldwyn Road axis. These men from Johnson’s Brigade on the Confederate right and Lyon’s Brigade in the center were moving down the hill through
the woods behind the Brice House. If not checked, these Confederates would slam into the 72d Ohio’s right while Barteau’s 2d Tennessee was attacking the Ohioans across their front. Pierce turned to his adjutant and ordered him to form a detail of horse holders and move the horses across the creek. He then shouted an order for his cavalrymen to dismount. With an order to “follow me,” Pierce led his men across Ripley Road and up the knoll. He anchored his Iowans on the right of the 72d Ohio and among
the USCT troops occupying the area around the Log Cabin outbuildings then extended his line across the knoll toward Ripley Road. (30) His front faced toward the hill extending behind the Brice House.
3rd & 4th Iowa Cavalry Monument, Vicksburg NMP
Like the 72d Ohio, the troops of the 4th Iowa Cavalry were combat veterans, having seen significant service during the Vicksburg Campaign as well as numerous raids across the State of Mississippi. (31) The Iowa cavalrymen were armed with .52 caliber Sharp and Cosmopolitan rifles and most likely replenished their ammunition in the time between their fight earlier and forming up to move across the creek. (32) Aided by their enhanced rate of fire, the Iowans tenaciously held the line for approximately thirty minutes against Johnson’s and Lyon’s men. (33) The stand allowed Union regiments
which had formed a hasty defense along Ripley Road below the Brice House to retreat as best they could across the creek. (34) Pierce’s move across the road and defense on the knoll also allowed the 72d Ohio and two USCT companies to conduct orderly withdrawals across the creek. The 4th Iowa held their position until the last artillery piece withdrew from the Cross Roads and then the cavalrymen moved across Tishomingo Creek above the bridge, being the last Union regiment off the main portion of the Brice’s Cross Roads battlefield. (35)
The 72d Ohio joined the retreat to Ripley, stopping momentarily at the Agnew House while the two USCT companies rejoined the 55th USCT and stood to fight two rear guard actions during the evening. (36) Proving “no good deed goes unpunished,” the 4th Iowa Cavalry became the rear guard for the Expedition’s retreat. (37)
As stated earlier, the 72d Ohio began June 10 th with 320 men. Only 143 arrived at Collierville, Tennessee a day and one-half later. (38) The vast majority of these losses were those taken prisoner during the relentless pursuit by Forrest’s men. In contrast, having a horse for transportation off the battlefield paid huge dividends – the 4th Iowa Cavalry’s strength on June 10th was 706 troopers. They suffered 7 killed and 29 wounded and had only 13 of their ranks captured. (39)
The Sturgis Expedition of June 1864 was a disaster for Union forces in the Western Theater. Afterwards, more interest abounded in assigning blame rather than highlighting courageous leadership. Thus, Major Pierce’s decisive actions and initiative were swept into the shadows of defeat. He and his Iowans deserve better. Granted,
the 4 th Iowa’s stand on Log Cabin Knoll would not and did not save Union forces from being routed and later captured along the retreat but a strong argument may be made that Sturgis’ reported losses of 1,917 from his infantry division would have been much
greater had it not been for Pierce’s reaction to a crisis on the battlefield. (40)
By holding off Confederates from Johnson’s and Lyon’s Brigades, along with Barteau’s Tennesseans, Pierce bought time for elements of the 95th Ohio, 93d Indiana, 9th Minnesota regiments as well as the 10 th Missouri and 7th Illinois Cavalry to withdraw across the creek. Otherwise, it is highly likely many of these men would have been killed or swept up as Forrest’s cavalrymen cut-off and blocked the only avenue of retreat. Further, Pierce’s Iowans held their position long enough for the 72d Ohio and USCT companies to disengage from the Confederates and then covered those units as they moved across the creek. In the face of certain defeat, Major Pierce could have easily followed his existing orders and moved his cavalry regiment across Tishomingo Creek, joining the rest of Grierson’s cavalry division. Instead, Pierce stepped up and courageously filled the leadership vacuum left by the senior Union leadership that day, saving scores of Union soldiers. (41)
Colonel Hylan B. Lyon
Colonel William A. Johnson
References
(1) The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128
vols. (Washington, D.C. 1880-1901), Series 1, vol. 39, pt 1, p. 86; cited hereinafter as O.R.
(2) O.R., p. 91, 92.
(3) Id., p. 92.
(4) Edwin C. Bearss, Forrest at Brice’s Cross Roads and in North Mississippi in 1864 (Dayton, Ohio 1979),p. 67; hereinafter cited as Bearss.
(5) O.R., p. 92.
(6) Bearss, p. 71.
(7) Id., p. 64.
(8) Bearss, pp. 67, 68.
(9) William F. Scott, The Story of a Cavalry Regiment: The Career of the Fourth Iowa Veteran Volunteers from Kansas to Georgia, 1861-65 (New York, 1893), p. 240; hereinafter cited as Scott.
(10) Id.
(11) Id., p.p. 243, 244.
(12) Bearss, p. 86.
(13) Scott, p. 245.
(14) O.R., p. 107
(15) Id.
(16) Id.
(17) Id., p. 114.
(18) https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UOH0072RI, last accessed
May 3, 2024.
(19) O.R., p. 116.
(20) Id., p. 114.
(21) Id.
(22) Id.
(23) Id., p. 107.
(24) Id., p.p. 107, 108.
(25) Bearss, p. 68. Forrest’s cavalry was divided into two divisions. One under Brigadier General Buford and the other under Brigadier James R. Chalmers. Chalmers’ Division was deployed to Alabama to meet threats of Union raids there and thus was not present for operations against Sturgis’ Expedition. For anexcellent modern recounting of Forrest’s campaigns see John R. Scales, The Battles and Campaigns of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest 1861-1865, (El Dorado Hills, California 2017).
(26) H.L. Hanna, ed., Voices from Tishomingo: Eyewitness Accounts of the Battle of Brice’s Cross-Roads (Widener, Arkansas, 2014), p. 407 citing Hancock, R.R. “Operations of Forrest’s Cavalry in Mississippi (May 12 th to September 16 th 1864): Battle of Brice’s Cross-Roads.” Hancock’s Diary: or A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry. Nashville, 1887.
(27) General Thomas Jordan and J.P. Pryor, The Campaigns of General Nathan Bedford Forrest and of
Forrest’s Cavalry (Da Capo Press New York, 1996) p. 476. Bearss, p. 77.
(28) Bearss, p. 93.
(29) O.R., p. 145.
(30) Scott, p. 248.
(31) Id., p. ixix.
(32) Bearss, p.p. 55, 56.
(33) Lyon’s Kentucky Brigade was the first of Forrest’s troops to engage Union forces at Brice’s Cross
Roads and had been engaged in heavy fighting against both the Union cavalry and infantry since
approximately 10:30 a.m. See Bearss, at 68.
(34) The Union Infantry Division Commander, Colonel McMillen, had used elements of the 7 th Illinois
Cavalry, 10 th Missouri Cavalry, 9 th Minnesota Infantry, 93d Indiana Infantry, and 95 th Ohio Infantry toestablish a defensive position along the Ripley Road approximately half-way between the CrossRoads
and Log Cabin Knoll. See Bearss, p. 102.
(35) Scott, p. 249.
(36) Bearss, p. 108-111
(37) Scott, p. 255.
(38) O.R., p. 116.
(39) Id., p. 140.
(40) O.R. p. 106.
(41) Major Pierce survived the war and served two terms in the Iowa legislature. He died in 1880 and is
buried in Lockridge, Iowa. See https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13973794/abial-richmond-pierce last accessed on May 3, 2024 and https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislators/legislator?ga=9&personID=5084
last accessed on May 3, 2024.
Author Bio
Colonel (Ret) Jim Garrett served on active duty as a Judge Advocate in the US Army for just over 28 years, with the majority of his service in the operational Army. He is a graduate of the Army War College and his last assignment was as the Dean of The Judge Advocate General’s School in Charlottesville, Virginia. Jim is from Mississippi and is a graduate from Delta State and the University of Mississippi School of Law.