Polk's Battery

mt155

First Sergeant
Annual Winner
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Location
Clear Lake, Texas
This is my best image I captured last weekend at Shiloh. Polk's Tennessee Battery in Rhea Field.

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This is my best image I captured last weekend at Shiloh. Polk's Tennessee Battery in Rhea Field.

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Congratulations mt155 on having your wonderful photo of the Railroad Redoubt chosen by the Vicksburg NHP as the "cover " on their Facebook page! Certainly well deserving. I also have that photo as my "background" on my homepage of my computer. I just love looking at it.
 
Congratulations mt155 on having your wonderful photo of the Railroad Redoubt chosen by the Vicksburg NHP as the "cover " on their Facebook page! Certainly well deserving. I also have that photo as my "background" on my homepage of my computer. I just love looking at it.
Thanks for noticing that.
 
You know what happened at Rhea Field was much worse than the fight over Duncan Field, the Peach Orchard and the Hornet's Nest combined. For hours, Waterhouse's battery and supported by three brigades literally poured shot into one brigade after another crossing through the jungle surrounding Shiloh Branch. It was not until Colonel Robert M Russell's brigade broke through the lines that Rhea Field was taken. Grant said the bodies were like carpet and that he could walk the field without stepping on grass.
 
I literally spent yrs researching Rhea Field and what occurred there. Even those who work at Shiloh admit it was the hardest fighting that happened in the two day battle. There are two burial trenches to verify that. When you go there today, its hard to imagine the US encampment which covered the field. Its even more difficult to imagine a field carpeted in dead and wounded afterwards as Grant witnessed. It was total chaos from the moment Cleburne entered the field until Russell broke the Union lines.
 
They (the Park Service) cleared all of the undergrowth, including trees with a diameter of 4" or so, around the area between the 53rd Ohio's camp and Shiloh Church. You could really see and understand the terrain better. I'd like to go back during the winter and see the area again with no foliage. It gives you a better view of the field of fire Waterhouse had looking over Shiloh Branch ravine.
 
That area was like "hell's half acre." Friends that worked at the park said that John Rhea originally lived there but there was not a home there during the battle. (Correct me if Im wrong) I do know the actions of Sherman in Rhea Field are near hilarious as well as descriptions of Cleburne coming from Shiloh Branch covered in mud. However, the results of the fighting of Rhea, to me, are the most fierce in the two day battle. Its strange to think of Russell's Brigade driving the Yanks back only to be retreating across the same field a little over 24 hrs later. His brigade was broken the first day due to such high casualties however he was placed first in line of battle on the second day. If Beauregard wasn't such a pompous man, they would have won that battle completely.
 
I have copied below the Shiloh National Military Park's Face Book entry for Captain Marshall T. Polk’s Tennessee Battery.
Regards
Davids

In May of 1861, Tennessee Governor Isham Harris, who was with Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston when he died at Shiloh, began organizing state troops before the state voted to secede from the Union on Jun 8, 1861. In Bolivar, Tennessee, Marshall T. Polk began recruiting young men from Hardeman County and surrounding areas to form an artillery battery. Young men joined the new unit including young Thomas Peter who had just graduated from the University of Mississippi and his friend John Marsh, who was appointed second lieutenant. (Thomas’ father Dr. George Peters would become famous after he murdered Gen. Earl Van Dorn for committing adultery with his wife.)

Capt. Marshall T. Polk had been born in 1830 in Charlotte North Carolina, the son of Marshall Polk, Sr., brother to President James K. Polk. When his father died the next year, young Marshall had become a ward of his Uncle James K. Polk and his wife Sarah. When Polk was President he paid for Marshall to attend Georgetown College in Washington D.C. Young Marshall entered the Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1852 and was assigned to the 2nd U.S. Infantry. In 1855 Lt. Polk served as an aide to Gen. William Harney and saw action during the Sioux Expedition, 1855 at the Battle of Blue Water Creek also known as the Harney Massacre. In 1856, Lt. Polk resigned and took up farming near Bolivar, Tennessee where he married Evelina McNeal Bills and had ten children.

The newly organized battery received four six-pounder cannons and two twelve-pounder howitzers made at the Quinby & Robinson Foundry in Memphis. They were mustered into Confederate service at Camp Brown, Union City, on August 7, 1861 and sent to Columbus, Kentucky, which was occupied by Confederates under Gen. Leonidas Polk on September 3, 1861. During the Battle of Belmont on November 7. 1861, Polk’s Battery was sent by steamboat to reinforce Confederate forces attacked by Gen. U.S. Grant across the Mississippi River. Unfortunately as they tried to disembark the gang plank fell off and they were forced to go back to Columbus to obtain a new one. By the time they returned the battle had ended with Grant retreating back to Cairo, Illinois.

After the Confederates withdrew from Columbus, Polk’s Battery was among the units gathered at Corinth, Mississippi for Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston’s attack on Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee. The battery was attached to Gen. Bushrod Johnson’s Brigade, but at 9:00 AM was directed by Gen. Braxton Bragg to move to the right into Rhea Field and engage Capt. Allen Waterhouse’s Illinois Battery on high ground across a branch of Shiloh Creek. Bragg had commanded an artillery battery during the Mexican War and was following Napoleonic tactics of placing the artillery near the front as an offensive force. What had worked in the Mexican War failed at Shiloh. When Marshall’s Battery came under fire from infantry and the rifled cannons of Waterhouse, Capt. Marshall was wounded in the leg and five of the cannon were knocked out. As Union forces fell back, Col. Preston Smith, of the 154th Tennessee Infantry ordered the remaining gun of the battery under Sgt. J. J. Pirtle forward on the hill to fire at the retreating enemy. As the single cannon fired canister into the woods, Union infantry concentrated their fire on it, killing and wounding some of the men and all of the horses. Sergeant Pirtle and Corporal John Kenney could hardly be persuaded to leave their gun and although Col. Smith sent infantry to assist them, it too was lost in the battle.

Having lost all of their guns and with their commander wounded, Polk’s Battery was dissolved after Shiloh, their one and only battle. The remaining artillerists were assigned to Capt. William Carnes’ Tennessee Battery. Marshall Polk would lose his leg at Shiloh but would continue serving with the Confederate army as a chief of artillery rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After the war he farmed near Bolivar and served as Tennessee State Treasurer. He was eventually arrested for embezzling state funds, but died of a heart attack before serving any time for his actions. He is buried in the Polk Cemetery in Bolivar, Tennessee.
https://www.facebook.com/ShilohNMP/...first-and-last-battlein-may/1373324399424209/
 
As neither Captain Polk or anyone in his unit, made an Official Report of the action taken by his battery, I have taken excerpts from other Reports to present information about the battery’s service.*
Regards
David

Excerpts from the Official Report of Report of Maj. Gen. B. F. Cheatham, C. S. Army, commanding Second Division.
Headquarters Second Division, First Corps, Camp Blythe, Miss., April 30, 1862.
(Page 442)

As has been stated, my First Brigade was detached from my personal supervision early on Sunday morning, and became speedily afterward engaged. Their constant advance, however, which would not yield to the destructive fire which thinned their ranks, and could not be checked by thefall of such leaders as Brigadier-General Johnson, Colonel Blythe, Lieutenant-Colonel Herron, Lieutenant-Colonel Tyler, and Captain Polk, strongly attests the determination of the command.
(Page 443)

Brigadier-General Johnson, Lieutenant-Colonel Tyler, of the Fifteenth Tennessee, and Captain Polk, of the artillery, were all painfully, and the last-named dangerously, wounded while discharging their duties with heroic valor.
It is a serious misfortune for the country that the serious nature of Captain Polk’s wound rendered it impossible to remove him from the field.

Excerpts from the Official Report of Report of Brig. Bushrod R. Johnson, G. 8. Army, commanding First Brigade.
Columbus, Miss., April 12, 862.
(Page 445)

Captain Polk’s battery was now suffering severely (about 11 am just east of the Shiloh Meeting House) from the fire of the enemy’s musketry and artillery. The Second Regiment Tennessee Volunteers seemed to be reduced to one-half its number, its lines broken and driven back, and my attention was called to the necessity of moving it forward, to support in a better manner the battery of artillery. I twice formed it into line for the purpose of moving it up to the battery, and each time, at the very commencement of the movement, the lines were broken from the unsteadiness of the men under fire.
At this time it was reported to me that Captain Polk had his leg broken, more than half the battery was disabled, and but one gun was being discharged. I ordered the battery withdrawn, and again forming the Second Regiment Tennessee Volunteers I attempted to lead them past the battery, but only succeeded in advancing them to the position they had previously occupied, when I was disabled by a wound from further duty on the field.
Briefly, I am able to say that Colonel Blythe’s Regiment Mississippi Volunteers, the Fifteenth Regiment Tennessee Volunteers, and a part of the Second Regiment Tennessee Volunteers, with Polk’s battery, made a desperate stand and fought heroically

Excerpt from the Official Report of Col. Preston Smith, One hundred and fifty fourth Tennessee Infantry.
Hdqrs. First Brigade, Second Division,
First Grand Division, Army" of the Mississippi,
April 19, 1862.
(Page 446)

At this point the gallant Capt. Marshall Polk, with a section of his battery, advanced to ray immediate front, and poured into the enemy’s works and on his battery a heavy and well-directed fire of grape and canister. After he had fired seven or eight rounds I directed him to cease firing and ordered my regiment forward.


(Page 447)
At this point I ordered Sergt. J. J. Pirtle, of Polk’s battery, Company G, to move his gun forward on the hill, to open on the enemy retiring over a neighboring field and hill. This order was executed in gallant style and with great execution, causing destruction and consternation among the already broken ranks of the enemy.


I therefore commanded the men to take cover by a hill and a line of fence hard by, while the piece in charge of Sergeant Pirtle, which had been ordered up, threw grape and canister into the wood, to dislodge the enemy and drive him from his position. On this gun the enemy concentrated his fire, killing and wounding in a short time some of the men and all of the horses attached to the piece.
I cannot speak in terms of too high commendation of Sergeant Pirtle and Corp. John Kenney on this occasion, both of whom exhibited great coolness and intrepidity, and abandoned their gun at last with many regrets at their inability to move it from the field. I regret to say that a detail, which I had ordered from the infantry to their assistance, failed to reach those gallant men in time to enable them to save their piece.

*https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924077730160;view=1up;seq=418
 
Monument and Marker for Polk's Tennessee Battery on Sunday morning
Regards
David

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C. S.
POLK'S TENNESSEE BATTERY,
Johnson's (1st) Brig., Cheatham's (2d) Div., Polk's Corps,
ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.


This battery became engaged here at about 9 a.m.,
April 6, 1862. Capt. Polk was wounded and five of his
guns disabled. One gun, under Sergt. Pirtle, went for-
ward to the Cross Roads where it was lost.




 
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