Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, 1863–1865 153
his own Missourians, for attacks on unarmed Confederates. “For a time matters
seemed serious. Attempts were made to use bayonets, and shots were fired. Two
officers of the 68th Capt. [Frederick W.] Norwood and [2d Lt. Clark] Gleason were
severely wounded there while endeavoring to save the prisoners.” No one counted
the dead prisoners. 76
All witnesses agreed that the attack of the Colored Troops Division
thoroughly broke the Confederates’ will to resist. General Hawkins did not
mention any killing of prisoners, reporting instead that his division captured
two hundred thirty Confederate officers and men. “There would have been
more,” he explained; “but when the rebels saw it was all up with them many ran
over to where the white troops were entering their works.” Colonel Scofield,
whose brigade was in the center of the division’s line and included Lieutenant
Chapman’s 51st USCI, described a somewhat different scene when he recalled
the day’s events a year afterward. “When we entered the works the rebels
that could not run over & surrender to the white troops crowded together in a
little space & lay down upon the ground . . . with the utmost terror depicted in
their countenances & many of them begged piteously for their lives,” Scofield
wrote:
They were treated as prisoners of war with kindness & courtesy. . . . A happier
set of men than the colored soldiers were never seen. They fired their guns in
the air & shouted & embraced one another. . . . A few whose joy took a religious
turn engaged in prayer. Soon as order could be brought out of disorder
the prisoners were conducted to the rear under guard of colored soldiers. 77
After the surrender, rounding up the prisoners and restoring some order
among the victors took time, probably longer than the final assault itself, which
lasted only some twenty minutes. Colonel Densmore remembered that it took
“less than ten” minutes, while Colonel Merriam wondered “how we whipped
them so quickly.” With witnesses describing events in different parts of the
line, and three of them writing a year and more after the event, it is no wonder
that their accounts differ on other points beside the duration of the charge. In
the 73d USCI, Captain Crydenwise’s soldiers “rushed around me some with
their arms around my neck some [took] hold of my hands & it seemed almost
that they would shake me in pieces.” By 7:00 p.m., with the field entirely dark,
Col. Charles A. Gilchrist was able to lead the 50th USCI out of Fort Blakely
to find the regiment’s wounded and bury the dead. With the 68th USCI on the
right flank, Colonel Densmore mused that night:
the bright burning of fires where a short time before none were permitted, the
free & unconcerned going to & fro where for a week we had dodged from
cover to cover & so short a time ago the air was thick with death, the deep
76 OR, ser. 1, vol. 49, pt. 1, pp. 289–90; Densmore to Andrews, 30 Aug 1866. Lieutenant Gleason
died of his wounds nine days later. ORVF, 8: 241.
77 OR, ser. 1, vol. 49, pt. 2, p. 306; Scofield to Andrews, 1 Apr 1866.