Along the Mississippi

The Battery left Benton Barracks on February 16, 1862 assigned to the Flotilla Brigade under the command of General Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, half-brother to cavalry General John Buford.[1]  The men boarded a steamer for the trip to Cairo, Illinois and passed the recently vacated Rebel fortifications at Commerce, Missouri.  While at Cairo, the cannoneers saw Commodore Foote's ironclad fleet, which showed the effects of the recent fight at Ft. Henry, steaming north with several boatloads of captured Secesh who had recently defended Ft. Donelson.

The Battery's cannon and men were unloaded February 21 at Ft. Holt on the Kentucky shore.  The following day the Battery, along with all the artillery situated near Cairo and Bird’s Point, Missouri, fired a salute in honor of President George Washington's birthday.[2] 

The Battery then proceeded overland to a position near New Madrid, Missouri, bypassing the strong Confederate fortifications at Belmont and Columbus, Tennessee. In an entry made in Sergeant Hempstead's diary while near New Madrid, he notes:  



March 7th, Our Battalion was on the extream [sic] right & took a position in a wood back of town, on the left & above town a strong force of Artillery, with their support was posted behind another piece of timber. . .  Soon our light Battery's opened a rapid fire, which in the course of 1/2 hour was answered by the heavy guns of their upper fort and gunboats  For a couple hours this shot & shell screeched & howled through the air incessantly, when the firing ceased on both sides. . .  Gen. Pope says that he will not attempt to take the town without some heavy artillery, unless the gunboats should leave, a requisition has been sent for Siege guns. . .[3] 

Dees' Battery was attached to the Artillery Division, Army of the Mississippi, under the command of Major General John Pope.  The mood of the men in the Battery was one of determination to serve their country and engage the enemy.  In a letter to his brother, dated March 21, 1862, Sergeant George Robinson writes:

I share the same wish as you with regard to our Battery, I shall be glad when we get right down to our work, we have got plenty of cast iron to through at the rebels. . . I have made up my mind to obey orders under all circumstances and in all places so long as life remains, and I am in the Army. . . A number of men came into camp today from Michigan.  A battery of artillery, some say, with-out guns or horses, perhaps we may get some of the men in our company, we need them badly, just one-fifth of our men are absent sick, we left them on the road, in hospitals.  This country and weather is hard on men, we never had our full compliment of men yet. . . You have seen by Ruth's letter that I hurt my shoulder [near Birds Point, Missouri] it is most well.  I can get my jacket on myself now.  It was awlful painfull at first, how would you like to ride 20 miles horseback with your right arm in a sling, not knowing how soon you would get into a fight, when it gets well so I can use my Saber, then hurrah for the field. . .[4] 

The Battery then moved to a position near Island No. 10 in the Mississippi River and helped in the siege and capture of that strategic fortification.  Again Sergeant Robinson writes to his brother on April 6, from camp near New Madrid:  

I think it will not be many days before we are in Tenn.  We are close to a fight sure enough, there has been considerable firing today and it was very rapid at sunset, but has almost ceased now.  They have sent for heavier guns today for earth-work defences, I know this because one of our Lieutenants have gone after them and ammunition.  When we move, it will be for the field of battle. . . I can do duty, but cannot handle my Saber very good yet.  I do not depend upon that altogether as I have borrowed a six-shooter until we get some for the company.  I carry one saber, one revolver, and one dirk knife, and God help the man that comes in my way in the shape of a rebel, for shoot I will while my ammunition lasts, then I can't use my saber, my knife will come very convienient. . . I am better fit for duty then some of our other sergeants who are well, you will not see me again until this war is honorably closed, or I am sent home wounded in action, for I am bound to see this thing through at all hazzards. . .[5] 

All day, General Pope ordered the artillery to shell the enemy's fortifications; the Rebels, finding the Union fire too much to bear, decamped during the night.  In their haste, they left all the baggage of the officers and the knapsacks of the soldiers behind, and their dead unburied.[6]

In a report made by Colonel Joseph L. Kirby Smith of the 43rd Ohio Infantry, and in command of the Second Brigade, First Division, dated April 17th, the Colonel notes: 

The Brigade, consisting of the 43rd Ohio, Lieut. Col. Wagner Swayne; and the 63rd Ohio Infantry, Col. John W. Sprague, crossed the [Mississippi] river on the Morning of the 7th instant, embarking at the upper fort at New Madrid, and landing at the site of the three gun rebel battery, just captured by our gun-boats, and having been formed in line of battle, moved forward a half mile from the landing. . .  A Company was sent back to the landing to render assistance and support the rifle battery of Captain Dees, which had crossed with us. . .[7] 

The Battery's cannon were again loaded onto steamers April 15th and headed back up river (Columbus and Belmont having been vacated) to Cairo, then on the Ohio River to Paducah, Kentucky, where a large Union supply depot was located.  After a brief stop, the Battery continued south on the Tennessee River.  In an entry dated April 21st, Sergeant Hempstead wrote:

Occasionally the dead body of a soldier floats past us, relics I suppose of the terrible battle Shiloh, which has passed about long enough for the bodies of the drowned to float.  We passed Ft. Henry today.[8]

[1]  Dyer, Frederick H.  A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion.  New York:  Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.  v. 1, p. 478. 
[2]  Hempstead Diary
[3]  Ibid.
[4]  Letter from Sergeant George Robinson, Dees' Michigan Battery.  March 21, 1862, near New Madrid, Missouri.  Pension Records, Veterans Administration, Detroit, Michigan.
[5]  Letter from Sergeant George Robinson, Dees' Michigan Battery.  April 6, 1862, near New Madrid, Missouri.  Pension Records, Veterans Administration, Detroit, Michigan.
[6]  Headley, J. T.  The Great Rebellion.  v. 1.
[7]  U.S. War Department.  War of the Rebellion: A Compiliation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.  128 v.  Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880-1901 (Hereinafter OR).  8(1):  100.
[8]  Hempstead Diary