BATTERY B, FIRST ARTILLERY.

157 Old Battery B was organized in April, 1861, and left in June for Cairo, where it lay three weeks, and then went to Bird's Point, across the river into Missouri. One section went to Fredericktown, Mo., and participated in the fight there on the 26th of October. The battery then went with Grant to Belmont on the 7th of November, going into action with six guns and coming out with eight, completely demolishing the rebel battery. Then at Donelson, in W. H. L. Wallace's brigade, the battery occupied the extreme right, fighting with scarce an intermission for three days. The day before the battle of Shiloh it was transferred to Sherman's division and was in that fight; it was also with him on the right and at the siege of Corinth, then was found at Lagrange, and at Holly Springs, and brought up in Memphis, with Sherman, on the 22d of July, 1862. Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, the siege of Vicksburg, Champion Hills and Mechanicsburg all attested its valor, and at Richmond, La., it left its mark. Then we find it moving to Memphis, thence to Chattanooga, and afterward to Knoxville, to the relief of Burnside, then speeding to Tellicoe Plains and again to Chattanooga, sending its guns down the river to Bridgeport, and moving to Larkinsville, where it stayed through the winter; after which it started out again with Sherman on his Atlanta campaign, leaving about the 1st of May. The battery was all through those fights, doing bravely at Resaca and Dallas, being highly complimented by Gen. Logan for its action at the latter place. It was afterwards at Kenesaw, and besides took part in many other minor engagements. On the 12th of July, 1864, it was ordered back to Springfield, that the men might be mustered out of service. The battery had 219 men altogether on its muster rolls, and lost about sixteen by deaths. At Belmont the loss was five wounded, of whom one was permanently disabled and one died. At Donelson one killed and five wounded. At Shiloh, two men killed and eight wounded. At Chickasaw Bayou, two men wounded. At Vicksburg, three men killed and four wounded. At Dallas, two men wounded, and at Kenesaw Mountain one. There have been twenty-four promotions in the battery, two into the artillery of the regular army.

The consolidated battery was commanded temporarily by Captain Samuel S. Smythe, Lieutenant of Battery I, who was taken prisoner in front of Atlanta, where Lieut. Robb, assisting him, was killed.

Afterward E. P. Wilcox, of Battery B, was appointed Senior First Lieutenant, and Henry Roberts, of Battery A, Enoch Colly and James Dutch as the other Lieutenants; Lieut. Wilcox was soon after made Captain, and Spencer S. Kimball appointed Junior First Lieutenant. The battery participated in the balance of the Atlanta campaign and the chase of Hood back toward Nashville; and when Sherman left Atlanta the battery remained with General Thomas, taking part in no fight except at Nashville with Hood. It arrived in Chicago July 2, 1865, where it was mustered out and discharged. General Ezra Taylor, who recruited batteries A and B in April, 1861, was born in Genesee County, New York, in October, 1819, and came to Chicago in September, 1839, where he engaged in the provision packing business with G. S. Hubbard, Esq., in 1840, which business he followed up to the 18th of April, 1861. He had been for many years connected with the local military organization of our city, at one time holding the office of Colonel of the 60th regiment Illinois militia, which was composed of the various uniformed organizations of the city; but being ardently attached to the artillery arm of the service, he resigned the Colonelcy of the regiment and accepted the Captaincy of the Chicago Light Artillery, which position he occupied in April, 1861. He served a term of ten years in the volunteer fire department, and has been dignified as Alderman from the 7th ward. After organizing Batteries A and B, he was sent to St. Louis to obtain arms for the artillery organization of the state, and spent considerable time in perfecting such organizations, after which he took command of Battery B at Cairo; after a few days at Cairo, was sent to Bird's Point, Missouri, where, in addition to his duties with his own battery, he was placed in charge of the field works, and was active in mounting the heavy guns at that point. He commanded Battery "B" at Belmont, Missouri, November 7, 1861, where a rebel bullet carried away a button from his cap, near the left temple, another struck his saddle, and another his horse, all of which did no serious damage. He was in command of his battery at the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson. After the fall of Fort Donelson, by invitation of General Grant, he made one of the party to go to Nashville, immediately after it fell into the hands of our troops. Landing on the 1st of April, 1862, he turned over the battery to

Captain Samuel E. Barrett, (he Taylor) having been promoted to Senior Major of the 1st Illinois Volunteer Light Artillery, with orders to report to General W. T. Sherman at Shiloh, which he did on the 4th of April, 1862, whereupon General Sherman gave him the appointment of Chief-of-Artillery, and in which capacity he served two years, or until April, 1864, participating in all the skirmishes, marches and fights of his gallant and noble commander. At Chickasaw Bayou he was complimented in orders by General Sherman for his cfficiency in posting and serving the artillery, and after Sherman had decided to withdraw from the frowning hills of Vicksburg, he succeeded in bringing off his artillery through an almost impenetrable swamp and over the worst kind of corduroy road, during a terrible dark night, without the loss of a man, horse, or single implement, and without giving the alarm to the enemy's pickets, and had all safe on board the transports before daylight in the morning. From thence he accompanied the troops to Arkansas Post, thence to Young's Point, in front of Vicksburg. During the siege of Vicksburg the artillery took no step backward, but advanced its guns at every favorable point until the stronghold surrendered. General Taylor was always at the front and superintended the posting of every gun in person. No sooner had the surrender taken place than he was ordered to join General Sherman in the pursuit of Joe Johnston, and rode some fifteen miles the same afternoon to the head-quarters of General Sherman. After relieving Knoxville, the troops returned to Chattanooga, thence to Bridgeport, and were posted along the railroad from that point to Huntsville, Alabama, and Colonel Taylor went north to Cairo, St. Louis and Chicago for the purpose of hurrying up the new guns and equipments for his artillery, and afterward took part in the Atlanta campaign. General McPherson took command of the Army of the Tennessee with Colonel Taylor as Chief-of-Artillery. While with McPherson he fought at Snake Creek Gap, Resaca, Calhoun and Dallas, where he received a wound through the body which was at the time considered mortal, but a naturally strong constitution, together with the best surgical aid, after a long time enabled him to move about again, but the effects of the wound are permanent, and he never expects to be as he was before. In March, 1865, he was brevetted Brigadier-General "for gallant and meritorious services."

CHAPTER IX.

THE MERIDIAN RAID.

SHERMAN'S DEPARTMENT-GRANT'S ORDER-SHERMAN'S PLAN-GENERAL W. S. SMITH'S MOVEMENTS SHERMAN-MCPHERSON-HURLBUT-CHAMPION HILLS-JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI-BURNT BRIDGE-REBELS EVACUATE-WHERE IS SMITH ?-DESTRUCTION— KINGLAKE-PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE-BACKWARD MARCH-RESULTS-SCHOFIELD.

A

FTER the eventful victory of Mission Ridge, and the relief of Burnside, General Sherman turned his attention to his own department, McPherson in command of the 17th Army Corps at Vicksburg, while part of Hurlbut's 16th, with Smith's and Grierson's cavalry divisions were at Memphis. The rebel Bishop-General Polk, in command of a large army, was at Meridian, with Forest, Loring and other leaders within supporting distance.

General Grant ordered the army of the Tennessee to keep open the Mississippi River, and maintain our control of its east bank. "General Sherman decided to do this by occupying prominent points in the interior with small corps of observations, threatening a considerable radius, and to operate against any strong force of the enemy seeking to take a position on the river, by a movable column menacing its rear. To destroy the enemy's means of approaching the River with artillery and trains, he determined to organize a large column of infantry and move with it to Meridian, effectually breaking up the Southern Mississippi Railway, while a cavalry force should move from Memphis to meet him, and perform the same work with respect to the Mobile & Ohio Railway.

"Brigadier-General William Sovy Smith, chief of cavalry on General Grant's staff, was placed in command of all the cavalry of the department, and instructed to move with it from Memphis on or before the 1st of February, by way of Pontotoc and Okolona and

Columbus to Meridian, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, so as to reach that place by the 10th. General Smith was specially instructed to disregard all small detachments of the enemy and all minor operations, and, striking rapidly and effectually any large body of the enemy, to be at his destination precisely at the appointed time. Simultaneously, the 11th Illinois and a colored regiment under Colonel Coates of the former regiment, with five tin-clad gunboats under Lieutenant Commander Owen, were sent up the Yazoo, to ascend that stream and its tributaries as far as possible, so as to create a diversion and protect the plantations on the River, and Brigadier-General Hawkins was directed to patrol the country in the rear of Vicksburg toward the Big Black, and to collect some fifty skiffs, by means of which detachments of two or three hundred men might be moved at pleasure through the labyrinth of bayous between the Yazoo and the Mississippi, for the purpose of suppressing the depredations of the horde of guerrillas then infesting that region."—[Colonel Bowman.]

Sherman moved from Vicksburg on the 3d of February. With him were two divisions of Hurlbut's 16th Army Corps, under that gallant commander, two divisions of the 17th under McPherson, and a cavalry brigade under Colonel Winslow. Hurlbut's command moved by Messenger's, while McPherson's column marched by therailroad. Little opposition was experienced until the 5th, when Hurlbut met the enemy at Joe. Davis' plantation, and McPherson at Champion Hills, and kept up an incessant skirmish for eighteen miles, but did not arrest the march, and entered Jackson that evening, thus preventing a contemplated rebel concentration. At Champion Hills, however, the lines deployed for battle, and again when near Jackson, but the rebel force withdrew so rapidly as to leave his Pearl River pontoons in good condition.

At Jackson the columns were united, and McPherson in the lead crossed Pearl River on the captured pontoon bridge, on the 7th entered Brandon, on the 8th reached Live Creek near Morton, which was entered the next day. McPherson's force stopped to "operate" on the surrounding railroads, and Hurlbut went forward almost without the show of resistance through Hillsboro and Decatur, to the Tallahatchie River, twenty-five miles west from Meridian. Here