HeroPrentiss
Cadet
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2020
Andrew Hickenlooper’s reminiscences about Shiloh and General Prentiss show his admiration for Prentiss and he was there. The fight for Hickenlooper and Prentiss started around 6 a. m. and lasted for sure ten hours and maybe a little longer before Prentiss released Hickenlooper to save the last four guns of his battery. They were together just that one memorable day.
But Prentiss never forgot Hickenlooper as evident by Hickenlooper’s inclusion of the following: Pages 422-423.
It was then General Prentiss informed me that he feared it was too late for him to make the attempt to withdraw his infantry, but that I must pull out, and, if possible, reach the reserves, or forces forming in the rear. I bade the General — as brave a little man as ever lived — good by, and, under whip and spur, the remnant of our battery dashed down the road, barely escaping capture. He remained with his devoted followers, and with them accepted captivity rather than abandon the position he had been ordered to hold to the last.
He remained a prisoner of war for nearly a year, and, though our personal acquaintance was limited to that one day's association, he evidently retained a kindly remembrance of that experience, for in his official report, written after his return from captivity, he said:
"Captain A. Hickenlooper, of the Fifth Ohio Battery, by his gallant conduct commended himself to general praise."
And, sixteen years later, during the political canvass of 1879, he wrote as follows:
"Kirkville, Mo., July 21, 1879.
"General A. Hickenlooper, Cincinnati, Ohio:
"Dear Sir: — I address this letter to you for information, you being a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio.
"Please inform me at once if you are the same Hickenlooper that commanded a battery at Shiloh, and rendered such efficient aid to me in holding the rebels in check in Sunday's fight. My reason for seeking this information is that if you are the same man, I shall take great pleasure in doing what I can to help you; and if it were not for being in ill health, I would at once proceed to Ohio and give at least one month's services in behalf of one I have always remembered since the 6th of April, 1862, as a most gallant, brave and efficient officer, all of which applies to the Hickenlooper whom I knew so well on that eventful day.
"Yours truly,
"B. M. Prentiss,
"Late Major General Volunteers."
Andrew Hickenlooper ran for Lt. Governor of Ohio as the Republican candidate in 1879. (Unlike his great grandson, John, who is the Democratic candidate for senator in Colorado this year) Although Prentiss did not go to Ohio to campaign for Hickenlooper his letter was used by Hickenlooper to dispel charges made by campaign materials put out by the Democratic opposition that Hickenlooper showed the white feather at Shiloh. Hickenlooper printed a seven-page brochure titled “General Hickenlooper at the Battle of Shiloh.” Hickenlooper started with segments from Prentiss’s official report and followed it with the letter from Prentiss. After escaping the Hornets’ Nest, Hickenlooper went into Sherman’s line and earned a mention in Sherman’s official report.
Hickenlooper included letters from some members of the battery who refuted the absurd claim that Hickenlooper was a coward. Three sentences written by J. F. Blackburn are worthy to note. Blackburn was a Lt. and commanded the two-gun section of Hickenlooper’s battery at Spain Field that met the initial onslaught and might have been the guns that killed General Gladden. With most of the horses dead and men wounded Prentiss ordered the two guns abandoned.
Blackburn wrote “You know, I know, and a hundred other living witnesses know, that Captain Hickenlooper was with the battery every minute of that bloody Sunday’s fight at Shiloh. A soldier’s reputation is his dearest possession, and we owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to contradict this lie, as promptly as we know that H. (Hickenlooper) would silence any slanderer who might anonymously make a similar charge against us. No phase that our personal relations ever assumed will justify us in being silent when our names are used to bolster up so foul a slander.”
Hickenlooper closed the brochure with the following paragraph:
“I regret exceedingly that the Democratic party finds it necessary to resort to the official circulation of this class of literature: but for every such unmanly thrust, or assassin-like stab, hundreds of old soldiers, and conservative thinking Democrats, will spring from their ranks to defend the honor and reputation of their country’s soldiery.”
Hickenlooper won the election and served a two-year term. The brochure was found at the Newbarry Library in Chicago.
As noted Hickenlooper was an accomplished man and his opinion of General Prentiss is reflected in his Shiloh history. Some details are incorrect but he was there.
Thanks to @OleMiss for the posts showing Hickenlooper’s praise for Prentiss - as brave a little man as ever lived.
Prentiss has other fans who were at Shiloh. Here are a few.
In September 1846, during the Mexican War, a company from La Salle County of the 2nd Illinois regiment lost its captain when T. Lyle Dickey resigned due to poor health. William Hervey Lamme Wallace was the lieutenant. The company selected Benjamin Prentiss from the 1st Illinois to be their new captain and Wallace became the regiment’s adjutant. Wallace wrote to some friends “Our Company is now commanded by Captain Prentiss, the late Adjutant, and the best officer in the two regiments.” Almost sixteen years later these two men fought side-by-side as division commanders in the Sunken Road at Shiloh. (Isabel Wallace, Life and Letters of General W. H. L. Wallace, page 20)
Brigadier General Stephen Hurlbut, 4th division commander, official report – April 12, 1862 – “As we drew near the rear and left of General Prentiss’ line his regiments, in broken masses, drifted through my advance, that gallant officer making every effort to rally them.
Colonel Francis Quinn, 12th Michigan, official report – April 9, 1862 – “At this time General Prentiss must have been taken prisoner. He was a brave man, and cheered his men to duty during the whole day. Where the fight was thickest and danger the greatest there was he found, and his presence gave renewed confidence.”
Capt J. J. Geer was captured by rebels during the skirmish on April 4, 1862. He wrote a book, Beyond the Lines: A Yankee Prisoner Loose in Dixie, published in 1863. He wrote about meeting General Prentiss.
“I soon formed an agreeable acquaintance with General Prentiss, who was taken prisoner on Sunday, April 6, 1862 at Shiloh. It had generally been reported that the General had surrendered early in the morning; but this was false, for I now learned that he did not give up until five o’clock in the afternoon, thus holding at least five or six times his own number in check the whole of that dreadful day. Without doubt, history will do the gallant hero justice; for on that bloody field he displayed coolness and heroism seldom equaled, and never excelled.”
“I found General Prentiss not one of your half-hearted war men, who fight conditionally, but a whole-souled patriot, who would destroy the institution that is the root of the war. He would not see the glorious banner trailed in the dust to uphold a few Southern aristocrats in perpetuating their horrid system of human bondage.”
Geer had been a minister for 10 years and I think we are seeing that in his language. He was also a member of a Temperance movement but we won’t hold that against him. He continued:
“General Prentiss was kind and affable to all around him, and among fifteen hundred men of his command with whom I freely conversed, there was not one who did not love and respect him.”
Lieut. S. D. Thompson wrote Recollections with the Third Iowa Infantry published in 1864. Thompson had a front-row seat as the rebels assailed Prentiss’s last stand line west of Wicker Field after Prentiss had repositioned his men from the Sunken Road.
At the time of interest the 3rd Iowa was commanded by Major Stone, Prentiss’s line had been refused and ran pretty much north to south and the left flank was held by the 23rd Missouri. Thompson wrote:
“General Prentiss was now to our right with five regiments of Smith’s division, endeavoring to hold the enemy in check. He rode up to the Major and explained to him what he was trying to do—to hold the enemy in check, if possible, till the army could again form in the rear, or till night should put an end to the battle. He asked the Major to assist him, and that our regiment should become his left. The Major readily assented, and agreed to obey his orders.” (May Major Stone forever be remembered for this show of duty. As a result Major Stone was captured. Note that Thompson said that Prentiss gained Stone’s assistance by asking him, not ordering him)
“Here, then, if the spectacle of the field was appalling, it was sublime. Six regiments disputing the field with the enemy’s army, and delaying his expected triumph. He crowded furiously on, assailing us in front and flank, his soldiers howling with mingled exultation and rage, their voices rising even above the din of battle. He no longer came in lines nor in columns, but in confused masses, broken in pursuit as our army had been in retreat. His missiles swept the field in all directions. Our dead fell thickly. Our wounded streamed to the rear. We no longer had lines of battle, but fought in squads and clusters. The settling smoke obscured the vision. Comrades knew not who stood or fell. All was confusion and chaos around us.”
“A mass of the enemy broke the regiment on our right and separated us from Prentiss. We were again compelled to retreat.”
“Soon after, General Prentiss retreating with the remainder of his troops, came upon our camp ground, and looking forward, saw the gap closed through which he had hoped to escape. Exposed to a concentrated fire from all sides, his regiments completely broken, there was no alternative but to surrender…”
“The capture of General Prentiss affords a most striking example of the reward the most meritorious conduct may sometimes receive at the hands of public opinion. Because he held the field with a handful of troops, regardless of the number against him, and finally retreated, not to escape danger, but, when he saw the enemy surrounding him, to escape capture;--because he was thus willing to sacrifice himself, if necessary, to hold the enemy in check and save the army, the imputation of cowardice was cast upon him and the brave men who were captured with him. His fault consisted alone in not knowing when to retreat; theirs in obeying their general too well.”
Joseph Rich in The Battle of Shiloh, 1911 on pages 71 and 72 described the surrender:
And for some time before the surrender took place, a few minutes before six o’clock, rifle-fire poured in from three directions, as the beleaguered faced about and attempted to fight their way out. The number to surrender was about 2,000 men. The importance of this prolonged contest, from a little before ten forenoon to nearly six afternoon, upon the destinies of the day can hardly be estimated. It secured to General Grant’s army the thing most needed – time form the new line; time for Lew Wallace, for Buell, and for Night to come. The Hornets’ Nest was distinctly an altar of sacrifice.
Joseph Rich fought in the Hornets’ Nest with the 12th Iowa.
Manning Force published in 1881 From Fort Henry to Corinth. On page 146 he wrote the following:
Groups and squads of Prentiss’ men succeeded in making their way out before the circle wholly closed. Prentiss, with the remaining fragments of the two divisions, facing the fire that surrounded them, made a desperate struggle. But further resistance was hopeless and was useless. Prentiss, having never swerved from the position he was ordered to hold, having lost everything but honor, surrendered the little band.
It was Andrew Hickenlooper who persuaded Benjamin Prentiss to finally break his twenty year silence and speak about Shiloh. Pages 471-473.
It is a commendable fact that, though undoubtedly greatly distressed by the maliciously false statements of the conduct of his division circulated by the newspapers of the country, coupled with unjust criticisms of fellow officers, who thus endeavored to find excuses for their own delinquencies, not a single harsh or unkind retort is to be found in his
whole report. Further than this, though appealed to time and again, he absolutely refused to "talk for publication," until twenty years later he was invited by the Cincinnati Society of Ex-Army and Navy Officers to be its guest of honor at a banquet given at the Burnet House, on the evening of January 12th, 1882, at which over one hundred of the most prominent military men of the country were seated.
The welcome address was delivered by Colonel George Ward Nichols, in substance as follows:
"As soldiers and sailors we welcome you, and our hearts beat strong with greetings to him who, on the fateful field of Shiloh, might have said, as did the Scottish chieftain —
"Come one, come all! This rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I."
Those who best serve must stand and wait until the passing years bring justice and recognition.
Let us then, here to-night as best we may, lay the laurel wreath of honorable fame at the feet of General B. M. Prentiss."
Prentiss was then given an introduction by Manning Force.
In responding to this earnestly expressed and heartfelt welcome, General Prentiss said:
Hickenlooper did not include the following paragraph from Prentiss’s speech so I inserted it.
My friends, I say to you frankly to-night, Cincinnati is the only locality that I have ever met that seems to understand and seems to have caught the true history of Shiloh. (Applause.) Why so, I can not tell. Nevertheless, it is true. We have learned that history would be corrected. I have waited until this time, and this occasion has come. I am a happy man to-night, feeling that I am with friends. I shall never forget my trip to Cincinnati, and, sir (to Gen. Hickenlooper) when you notified me, I say in the presence of your immediate friends, no other living man could have got me here than Gen. Hickenlooper. (Tremendous cheering and applause.) I knew you there (on the battle field) and I know you here.
"In response to the still general inquiry, ' Was our army surprised at Shiloh?' I can only reply for myself that I had not the slightest idea that a general engagement was to be fought on that day.
We were not prepared on the morning of the 6th of April, but admonished by the actions of the enemy on Friday evening, I had advanced and strengthened my picket line in my front, and placed it under command of the gallant Colonel Moore, from whom I received the message that the enemy was advancing.
The entire division was at once prepared for action, and lines established in front of our camps; and it was here, upon this trying
occasion, I became intimately acquainted with your fellow townsman, General Hickenlooper, as gallant a soldier as ever fought on any field.
After two and one-half hours of terrible fighting we were com pelled to give way and retire to another position about a quarter of a mile in the rear, where nature seemed to have prepared an excel lent defensive line in an old roadway, where, about 9 o'clock, General Grant congratulated me upon the position, and in a pleasant, cheerful way, commanded me ' to hold it.'
I did hold it from that hour until 5 =30 p. m. against the most fearful cannonading and repeated assaults to which any troops have ever been subjected, so stinging in its effects that the Confederates named it the ' Hornets' Nest.' It was the only place in which I have ever witnessed a hand to hand struggle, and it was here, General Hickenlooper, you so gallantly sustained your position and elicited my admiration and respect, which have outlived the lapse of time, some twenty years, since then until now.
Let it not be said again that General Prentiss' division was captured early in the morning; but I have now no harsh words to utter, and have forgotten those that were applied to me."
As noted the audience was over one hundred of the most prominent military men of the country and they were all Prentiss fans.
One final fan:
In 1890 James Price, Capt. of Company K, 18th Missouri applied for a pension and requested an affidavit from Jesse Abel as a witness to Price’s service. The two men fought with Prentiss in the Hornets’ Nest at Shiloh. It was that experience Abel wrote about in the affidavit dated July 3, 1890.
“I was a corporal in Company K, 18 Mo. Volunteer Infantry at the time of the battle of Shiloh. Jas. A. Price was the Captain of that company. Toward evening of the 6th of April 1862, the day of the battle I was with Capt. Price when hero (emphasis by me) Genl Prentiss rode by and told Capt. Price that if he ever expected to get out of his position he must get out within five minutes, as the enemy were then on both flanks and in our rear. Genl Prentiss rode on and in less than five minutes was made a prisoner. After considerable persuasion Capt. Price was induced to leave his position and attempt to escape through the rebel forces which were fast closing around us. The Captain and myself and fifteen others were all of our company together at this time. 12 of us ??? that escaped capture, and in fact nearly all of Gen. Prentiss command that escaped. No braver man ever looked into the muzzles of Rebel muskets than Capt. James A. Price. I was with him in the times that tried mens souls and I know whereof I speak.”
Jesse A. Abel
(Found in the James A. Price papers, State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri)
Twenty-eight years after the battle and Abel was still a fan of @HeroPrentiss.
But Prentiss never forgot Hickenlooper as evident by Hickenlooper’s inclusion of the following: Pages 422-423.
It was then General Prentiss informed me that he feared it was too late for him to make the attempt to withdraw his infantry, but that I must pull out, and, if possible, reach the reserves, or forces forming in the rear. I bade the General — as brave a little man as ever lived — good by, and, under whip and spur, the remnant of our battery dashed down the road, barely escaping capture. He remained with his devoted followers, and with them accepted captivity rather than abandon the position he had been ordered to hold to the last.
He remained a prisoner of war for nearly a year, and, though our personal acquaintance was limited to that one day's association, he evidently retained a kindly remembrance of that experience, for in his official report, written after his return from captivity, he said:
"Captain A. Hickenlooper, of the Fifth Ohio Battery, by his gallant conduct commended himself to general praise."
And, sixteen years later, during the political canvass of 1879, he wrote as follows:
"Kirkville, Mo., July 21, 1879.
"General A. Hickenlooper, Cincinnati, Ohio:
"Dear Sir: — I address this letter to you for information, you being a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio.
"Please inform me at once if you are the same Hickenlooper that commanded a battery at Shiloh, and rendered such efficient aid to me in holding the rebels in check in Sunday's fight. My reason for seeking this information is that if you are the same man, I shall take great pleasure in doing what I can to help you; and if it were not for being in ill health, I would at once proceed to Ohio and give at least one month's services in behalf of one I have always remembered since the 6th of April, 1862, as a most gallant, brave and efficient officer, all of which applies to the Hickenlooper whom I knew so well on that eventful day.
"Yours truly,
"B. M. Prentiss,
"Late Major General Volunteers."
Andrew Hickenlooper ran for Lt. Governor of Ohio as the Republican candidate in 1879. (Unlike his great grandson, John, who is the Democratic candidate for senator in Colorado this year) Although Prentiss did not go to Ohio to campaign for Hickenlooper his letter was used by Hickenlooper to dispel charges made by campaign materials put out by the Democratic opposition that Hickenlooper showed the white feather at Shiloh. Hickenlooper printed a seven-page brochure titled “General Hickenlooper at the Battle of Shiloh.” Hickenlooper started with segments from Prentiss’s official report and followed it with the letter from Prentiss. After escaping the Hornets’ Nest, Hickenlooper went into Sherman’s line and earned a mention in Sherman’s official report.
Hickenlooper included letters from some members of the battery who refuted the absurd claim that Hickenlooper was a coward. Three sentences written by J. F. Blackburn are worthy to note. Blackburn was a Lt. and commanded the two-gun section of Hickenlooper’s battery at Spain Field that met the initial onslaught and might have been the guns that killed General Gladden. With most of the horses dead and men wounded Prentiss ordered the two guns abandoned.
Blackburn wrote “You know, I know, and a hundred other living witnesses know, that Captain Hickenlooper was with the battery every minute of that bloody Sunday’s fight at Shiloh. A soldier’s reputation is his dearest possession, and we owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to contradict this lie, as promptly as we know that H. (Hickenlooper) would silence any slanderer who might anonymously make a similar charge against us. No phase that our personal relations ever assumed will justify us in being silent when our names are used to bolster up so foul a slander.”
Hickenlooper closed the brochure with the following paragraph:
“I regret exceedingly that the Democratic party finds it necessary to resort to the official circulation of this class of literature: but for every such unmanly thrust, or assassin-like stab, hundreds of old soldiers, and conservative thinking Democrats, will spring from their ranks to defend the honor and reputation of their country’s soldiery.”
Hickenlooper won the election and served a two-year term. The brochure was found at the Newbarry Library in Chicago.
As noted Hickenlooper was an accomplished man and his opinion of General Prentiss is reflected in his Shiloh history. Some details are incorrect but he was there.
Thanks to @OleMiss for the posts showing Hickenlooper’s praise for Prentiss - as brave a little man as ever lived.
Prentiss has other fans who were at Shiloh. Here are a few.
In September 1846, during the Mexican War, a company from La Salle County of the 2nd Illinois regiment lost its captain when T. Lyle Dickey resigned due to poor health. William Hervey Lamme Wallace was the lieutenant. The company selected Benjamin Prentiss from the 1st Illinois to be their new captain and Wallace became the regiment’s adjutant. Wallace wrote to some friends “Our Company is now commanded by Captain Prentiss, the late Adjutant, and the best officer in the two regiments.” Almost sixteen years later these two men fought side-by-side as division commanders in the Sunken Road at Shiloh. (Isabel Wallace, Life and Letters of General W. H. L. Wallace, page 20)
Brigadier General Stephen Hurlbut, 4th division commander, official report – April 12, 1862 – “As we drew near the rear and left of General Prentiss’ line his regiments, in broken masses, drifted through my advance, that gallant officer making every effort to rally them.
Colonel Francis Quinn, 12th Michigan, official report – April 9, 1862 – “At this time General Prentiss must have been taken prisoner. He was a brave man, and cheered his men to duty during the whole day. Where the fight was thickest and danger the greatest there was he found, and his presence gave renewed confidence.”
Capt J. J. Geer was captured by rebels during the skirmish on April 4, 1862. He wrote a book, Beyond the Lines: A Yankee Prisoner Loose in Dixie, published in 1863. He wrote about meeting General Prentiss.
“I soon formed an agreeable acquaintance with General Prentiss, who was taken prisoner on Sunday, April 6, 1862 at Shiloh. It had generally been reported that the General had surrendered early in the morning; but this was false, for I now learned that he did not give up until five o’clock in the afternoon, thus holding at least five or six times his own number in check the whole of that dreadful day. Without doubt, history will do the gallant hero justice; for on that bloody field he displayed coolness and heroism seldom equaled, and never excelled.”
“I found General Prentiss not one of your half-hearted war men, who fight conditionally, but a whole-souled patriot, who would destroy the institution that is the root of the war. He would not see the glorious banner trailed in the dust to uphold a few Southern aristocrats in perpetuating their horrid system of human bondage.”
Geer had been a minister for 10 years and I think we are seeing that in his language. He was also a member of a Temperance movement but we won’t hold that against him. He continued:
“General Prentiss was kind and affable to all around him, and among fifteen hundred men of his command with whom I freely conversed, there was not one who did not love and respect him.”
Lieut. S. D. Thompson wrote Recollections with the Third Iowa Infantry published in 1864. Thompson had a front-row seat as the rebels assailed Prentiss’s last stand line west of Wicker Field after Prentiss had repositioned his men from the Sunken Road.
At the time of interest the 3rd Iowa was commanded by Major Stone, Prentiss’s line had been refused and ran pretty much north to south and the left flank was held by the 23rd Missouri. Thompson wrote:
“General Prentiss was now to our right with five regiments of Smith’s division, endeavoring to hold the enemy in check. He rode up to the Major and explained to him what he was trying to do—to hold the enemy in check, if possible, till the army could again form in the rear, or till night should put an end to the battle. He asked the Major to assist him, and that our regiment should become his left. The Major readily assented, and agreed to obey his orders.” (May Major Stone forever be remembered for this show of duty. As a result Major Stone was captured. Note that Thompson said that Prentiss gained Stone’s assistance by asking him, not ordering him)
“Here, then, if the spectacle of the field was appalling, it was sublime. Six regiments disputing the field with the enemy’s army, and delaying his expected triumph. He crowded furiously on, assailing us in front and flank, his soldiers howling with mingled exultation and rage, their voices rising even above the din of battle. He no longer came in lines nor in columns, but in confused masses, broken in pursuit as our army had been in retreat. His missiles swept the field in all directions. Our dead fell thickly. Our wounded streamed to the rear. We no longer had lines of battle, but fought in squads and clusters. The settling smoke obscured the vision. Comrades knew not who stood or fell. All was confusion and chaos around us.”
“A mass of the enemy broke the regiment on our right and separated us from Prentiss. We were again compelled to retreat.”
“Soon after, General Prentiss retreating with the remainder of his troops, came upon our camp ground, and looking forward, saw the gap closed through which he had hoped to escape. Exposed to a concentrated fire from all sides, his regiments completely broken, there was no alternative but to surrender…”
“The capture of General Prentiss affords a most striking example of the reward the most meritorious conduct may sometimes receive at the hands of public opinion. Because he held the field with a handful of troops, regardless of the number against him, and finally retreated, not to escape danger, but, when he saw the enemy surrounding him, to escape capture;--because he was thus willing to sacrifice himself, if necessary, to hold the enemy in check and save the army, the imputation of cowardice was cast upon him and the brave men who were captured with him. His fault consisted alone in not knowing when to retreat; theirs in obeying their general too well.”
Joseph Rich in The Battle of Shiloh, 1911 on pages 71 and 72 described the surrender:
And for some time before the surrender took place, a few minutes before six o’clock, rifle-fire poured in from three directions, as the beleaguered faced about and attempted to fight their way out. The number to surrender was about 2,000 men. The importance of this prolonged contest, from a little before ten forenoon to nearly six afternoon, upon the destinies of the day can hardly be estimated. It secured to General Grant’s army the thing most needed – time form the new line; time for Lew Wallace, for Buell, and for Night to come. The Hornets’ Nest was distinctly an altar of sacrifice.
Joseph Rich fought in the Hornets’ Nest with the 12th Iowa.
Manning Force published in 1881 From Fort Henry to Corinth. On page 146 he wrote the following:
Groups and squads of Prentiss’ men succeeded in making their way out before the circle wholly closed. Prentiss, with the remaining fragments of the two divisions, facing the fire that surrounded them, made a desperate struggle. But further resistance was hopeless and was useless. Prentiss, having never swerved from the position he was ordered to hold, having lost everything but honor, surrendered the little band.
It was Andrew Hickenlooper who persuaded Benjamin Prentiss to finally break his twenty year silence and speak about Shiloh. Pages 471-473.
It is a commendable fact that, though undoubtedly greatly distressed by the maliciously false statements of the conduct of his division circulated by the newspapers of the country, coupled with unjust criticisms of fellow officers, who thus endeavored to find excuses for their own delinquencies, not a single harsh or unkind retort is to be found in his
whole report. Further than this, though appealed to time and again, he absolutely refused to "talk for publication," until twenty years later he was invited by the Cincinnati Society of Ex-Army and Navy Officers to be its guest of honor at a banquet given at the Burnet House, on the evening of January 12th, 1882, at which over one hundred of the most prominent military men of the country were seated.
The welcome address was delivered by Colonel George Ward Nichols, in substance as follows:
"As soldiers and sailors we welcome you, and our hearts beat strong with greetings to him who, on the fateful field of Shiloh, might have said, as did the Scottish chieftain —
"Come one, come all! This rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I."
Those who best serve must stand and wait until the passing years bring justice and recognition.
Let us then, here to-night as best we may, lay the laurel wreath of honorable fame at the feet of General B. M. Prentiss."
Prentiss was then given an introduction by Manning Force.
In responding to this earnestly expressed and heartfelt welcome, General Prentiss said:
Hickenlooper did not include the following paragraph from Prentiss’s speech so I inserted it.
My friends, I say to you frankly to-night, Cincinnati is the only locality that I have ever met that seems to understand and seems to have caught the true history of Shiloh. (Applause.) Why so, I can not tell. Nevertheless, it is true. We have learned that history would be corrected. I have waited until this time, and this occasion has come. I am a happy man to-night, feeling that I am with friends. I shall never forget my trip to Cincinnati, and, sir (to Gen. Hickenlooper) when you notified me, I say in the presence of your immediate friends, no other living man could have got me here than Gen. Hickenlooper. (Tremendous cheering and applause.) I knew you there (on the battle field) and I know you here.
"In response to the still general inquiry, ' Was our army surprised at Shiloh?' I can only reply for myself that I had not the slightest idea that a general engagement was to be fought on that day.
We were not prepared on the morning of the 6th of April, but admonished by the actions of the enemy on Friday evening, I had advanced and strengthened my picket line in my front, and placed it under command of the gallant Colonel Moore, from whom I received the message that the enemy was advancing.
The entire division was at once prepared for action, and lines established in front of our camps; and it was here, upon this trying
occasion, I became intimately acquainted with your fellow townsman, General Hickenlooper, as gallant a soldier as ever fought on any field.
After two and one-half hours of terrible fighting we were com pelled to give way and retire to another position about a quarter of a mile in the rear, where nature seemed to have prepared an excel lent defensive line in an old roadway, where, about 9 o'clock, General Grant congratulated me upon the position, and in a pleasant, cheerful way, commanded me ' to hold it.'
I did hold it from that hour until 5 =30 p. m. against the most fearful cannonading and repeated assaults to which any troops have ever been subjected, so stinging in its effects that the Confederates named it the ' Hornets' Nest.' It was the only place in which I have ever witnessed a hand to hand struggle, and it was here, General Hickenlooper, you so gallantly sustained your position and elicited my admiration and respect, which have outlived the lapse of time, some twenty years, since then until now.
Let it not be said again that General Prentiss' division was captured early in the morning; but I have now no harsh words to utter, and have forgotten those that were applied to me."
As noted the audience was over one hundred of the most prominent military men of the country and they were all Prentiss fans.
One final fan:
In 1890 James Price, Capt. of Company K, 18th Missouri applied for a pension and requested an affidavit from Jesse Abel as a witness to Price’s service. The two men fought with Prentiss in the Hornets’ Nest at Shiloh. It was that experience Abel wrote about in the affidavit dated July 3, 1890.
“I was a corporal in Company K, 18 Mo. Volunteer Infantry at the time of the battle of Shiloh. Jas. A. Price was the Captain of that company. Toward evening of the 6th of April 1862, the day of the battle I was with Capt. Price when hero (emphasis by me) Genl Prentiss rode by and told Capt. Price that if he ever expected to get out of his position he must get out within five minutes, as the enemy were then on both flanks and in our rear. Genl Prentiss rode on and in less than five minutes was made a prisoner. After considerable persuasion Capt. Price was induced to leave his position and attempt to escape through the rebel forces which were fast closing around us. The Captain and myself and fifteen others were all of our company together at this time. 12 of us ??? that escaped capture, and in fact nearly all of Gen. Prentiss command that escaped. No braver man ever looked into the muzzles of Rebel muskets than Capt. James A. Price. I was with him in the times that tried mens souls and I know whereof I speak.”
Jesse A. Abel
(Found in the James A. Price papers, State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri)
Twenty-eight years after the battle and Abel was still a fan of @HeroPrentiss.