Freeland Tribune, Freeland, Pennsylvania, July 27, 1863.
Flying Artillery: The Battery that Rode with General Joe Shelby’s Troopers
Led by Captains Joe Bledsoe and Dick Collins,
A Band of Picked Missourians
Eclipsed the Fighting Record of the Crack Cannoneers of Both Sides
George L. Kilmer
Cavalrymen, if they get well into the hard work of soldiering, taste to the full the excitement and romance of war, and if it comes to real fighting with them there is no child’s play about it. When cavalry is called into a fight between mixed arms, it is because the situation is desperate, and if cavalry meet cavalry, either party standing at bay, they must have it out then and there. In the same way a battery of horse artillery comes in for hard knocks if it gets any at all. Long range cavalry fighting may be done without cannon, and nobody suffers much in the encounter, but in a close set to between troopers the brunt of it falls on the artillery. That is what horse batteries are for – to keep pace with their swift moving cavalry companies and interpose a fiery breastwork against the onrushing hosts of the enemy when they come too strong. To play that role in the company of a raiding and fighting band like General Joe Shelby’s was no trifling task, as may be easily imagined.
Shelby was the John Morgan of the trans-Mississippi region. Daring work was cut out for him, or he could cut it out for himself rather than be second fiddle in the piece, and his battery was his strong right arm in raid and battle and skirmish. His favorite battery leader was Captain Richard Collins, and the tradition comes down from Shelby’s followers that whenever the command was afield and word was brought to the general that the enemy was advancing he invariable exclaimed: “We’ll fight them, by heaven! Order the brigade into line and Collins to prepare for action front.” “Charge when I charge!” was another stereotyped order to his cannoneers. Collins was a young soldier who stuck with Shelby throughout his thrilling career. Shelby won his spurs as captain of a company of troopers that served in General Sterling Price’s Missouri army the first year of the war – that is, until after Shiloh. He then went home to Missouri to recruit and drummed up a stalwart thousand in two days. Collins was one of the original band, and in company with Captain Joseph Bledsoe raised a battery of artillery to go with Shelby’s troopers. Bledsoe was the brother of that famous Missouri artillerist, Captain Hi Bledsoe, who brought fame away from Mexico and kept it bright on a score of western battlefields. Possibly Joseph fought to maintain the soldier reputation of the family, and perhaps the martial spirit was born in him. Anyway he taught Shelby’s artillery some good lessons, then gave way to Collins, who stamped his name on the battery for all time.
Bledsoe’s first exploit with the new machine was a splendid bid for fame. As soon as Shelby got his young brigade in fighting trim he pitched his camp in southern Missouri around Newtonia. There he became the advance guard of a Confederate army of invasion, led by General Hindman, which crossed the border from Arkansas in September, 1862. A Union army under General Frederick Salomon, lying in southern Missouri, attempted to drive Hindman back to Arkansas. Shelby’s advance posts were called in at all points except Newtonia, and in order to hold that place he sent Bledsoe with two guns to stiffen the cavalry detachment stationed there. The Ninth Wisconsin infantry attacked the town on the morning of Sept.30 and pushed Shelby’s horsemen back onto Bledsoe’s guns. Bledsoe dosed the charging ranks of Wisconsin boys with canister until he had used the last cartridge. He then slowly retired the pieces 150 yards to a ridge and placed them in battery as if ready to repeat the bloody fusillade if the Yankees were foolhardy enough to give him a chance. They were not. They took it for granted that his bold front meant that the artillery chests were packed with canister. By hesitation all was lost. Shelby hurried reinforcements to the spot, the tables were turned, and Salomon’s army was routed.
Collins handled the battery in its next fight, which was at Prairie Grove, Ark., in December, 1862. General Marmaduke’s Confederate cavalry, 2,000 strong, including Shelby’s brigade, was massed on Cane Hill to resist 6,000 Union soldiers under General Herron. Herron had 45 cannon, Marmaduke but 10, six of these in Collins’ battery. The fight began with an artillery duel, and Collins moved his guns from point to point in reckless exposure to keep up a show of strength. Finally his companion battery of four guns was left between the lines disabled by the loss of all its horses and cannoneers, and that just at the moment when one of Herron’s brigades headed by the Twentieth Wisconsin dashed toward the hill on a bayonet charge. Shelby’s line must meet the assault. Pointing to the exposed guns in front, he said to Collins, “When you see their hands upon those wheels, Dick, fire – not before.”
Shelby’s troopers lay hid in the brush, and the daring assailants bounded on, expecting an easy victory over the helpless battery and its slender backing. At the base of the slope the men stopped and drank heartily from their canteens, laughing at the prospect before them. Collins Waited – waited until the charging line passed the silent cannon even – the let loose double charges of stringing canister. Then the masked riflemen arose to finish the stunning blow by the bayonet charge. Herron’s men rallied and were reinforced to be again repulsed and driven down the hill to the shelter of their own guns, leaving the helpless Confederate battery untouched. The Twentieth Wisconsin was nearly annihilated. It had 51 killed on the spot and over 150 wounded.
Collins’ next exploit was more in keeping with dashing cavalry tactics. Shelby’s brigade was sent to attack the Union communications around Springfield, Mo., in January, 1863, and with accustomed recklessness attempted to ride down the garrison of the town. Collins dashed in with the advance along the main street, and seizing a good position opened his guns on everything in sight. A regiment of Union cavalry swept down upon the battery, but Collins deluged the line with grape. Shelby’s troopers rallied upon the guns, and although the assault failed miserably at all other points Collins held his ground until midnight. After dark a regiment of infantry stormed the battery, but was repulsed with one deadly volley.
In the attack on Cape Girardeau, Mo., after Shelby’s advance had driven the Union cavalry back to the fortifications, Collins rushed his pieces to the front and opened on the works at close range. His cannoneers were thinned out under the galling fire hurled upon them, but troopers volunteered and manned the pieces until the bugle sounded retreat.
As a matter of course the battery became the especial pet of the whole brigade. Soldiers always love the artillery, but too often they cry that it is never on hand when wanted. Collins’ guns were always on hand. In the attack on Helena, Ark., July 4, 1863, Collins, as usual, joined the assaulting column. The brigade advanced too far without support, and the guns of a field battery, an ironclad and a fort concentrated their fire upon it. Then followed a countercharge. The slaughter around Collins’ guns was awful. General officers and aids helped work the pieces. Finally the horses were all shot down, and the line was compelled to retreat under the withering fire. Shelby, reeling in his saddle from loss of blood, called for volunteers to save the battery. Collins and his lieutenants were still fighting bravely, but hopelessly, and cutting the harness to extricate the carriages from the dead animals. At the cry “The battery is in danger!” hundreds of troopers turned back, but Shelby said: “Fifty, only fifty! Bring the battery with you or remain yourselves!” The dead horses were cleared away, ropes attached and the guns dragged back safe to the lines. Fifteen only of the volunteers got out unscathed and 20 “remained” where they fell.
In Shelby’s Missouri raid of 1863, when he rode into the heart of the enemy’s country 500 miles and fought almost hourly for every day for 20 consecutive days, the artillery was up with the flying column. One morning the raiders numbering 800 were marshaled on a naked prairie in front of an equal number of enemies. The meeting was sudden, Shelby’s men having looked up from their work of destroying railroads to find a fight on hand. Telling off a couple of squadrons for reserve, the Morgan of the border shouted to his artillery chieftain, “Charge with your battery as I charge and unlimber when you see their line waver, for I’ll ride it down like the prairie grass under foot.” The bugle sounded “Charge!” a shout ran along the line as spurs struck home, but the enemy didn’t wait to be ridden down. They turned, and Collins’ cannoneers, with long range shells, were the only ones to get a shot at the flying horsemen.
Collins’ hottest fight, as told by his battery losses, was at Prairie d’Ann, Ark., soon after he returned from the great raid. Shelby was outpost for Price’s army, which lay entrenched at Camden. The Union army, under Steele, marched on Camden, and Shelby offered battle on the prairie, with the battery in the center and the troops, mounted, on either side. First two 6-gun Union batteries opened on Collins, then a third and a fourth, until 24 guns were trained upon the group of six that were firing rapidly and with precision. The contest lasted four hours, and three separate attacks were repulsed. All of the battery horses were cut down, and 17 cannoneers fell among the guns, which were hauled off by hand at nightfall.
The carnage was greater in Collins’ ranks than in any other battery in the war. The number killed was 21. Cooper’s Pennsylvania battery, Union, lost 21 killed, but the loss fell on probably 200 men. Collins’ battery mustered all told but 87 men. Including the wounded, which were 29, the casualties numbered 50, almost 60 per cent of the fighting men. The proportion of killed to wounded, 21 to 29, tells a story of bloody work. It is almost three times as great as the average. The Confederates had a battery which lost more in numbers than Collins’ – Slocomb’s Fifth Company of Washington Artillery. It lost 43 killed. But the loss fell upon 388 men and amounts to but about 11 per cent, while the loss among Collins’ men was 24 per cent.
The figures are all the more astounding because they represent losses incurred in cavalry combats, and in struggling border warfare at that. The crack regiments of the Union cavalry belonged to the army of the Potomac and fought in those desperate battles with Stuart, Hampton, the Lees and Rosser in the Gettysburg, Wilderness and Shenandoah campaigns of 1863-64. Their losses in killed ranged between 5 and 10 per cent of the number borne on the rolls. So the record of Collins’ horse battery is without parallel in the annals of bold and desperate cavalry fighting.