752

THE BATTLE OF CORINTH.

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GRAVE OF COLONEL WILLIAM P. ROGERS, LOOKING TOWARD CORINTH FROM TI1E EMBANKMENTOF FORT ROBINIiTT. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1884.

“ Whose troops are you ? ” He replied, “ Cabell’s.” I said, “ It was pretty hotfighting here.” He answered, “Yes, General, you licked us good, but we gavegou the best ive had in the ranch.”

Before the enemy’s first assault on Bobinett, I inspected the woods toward ourleft where I knew Lovell’s division to be. I said to Colonel Joseph A. Mower,afterward commander of the Seventeenth Army Corps, and familiarly knownas “ Fighting Joe Mower ”: “ Colonel, take the men now on the skirmish line,and find out what Lovell is doing.” He replied, “ Very well, General.” As hewas turning away I added, “ Feel them, but don’t get into their fingers.” Heanswered significantly: “ I'll feel them ! ” Before I left my position Mower hadentered the woods, and soon I heard a tremendous crash of musketry in thatdirection. His skirmishers fell back into the fallen timber, and the adjutantreported to me : “ General, I think the enemy have captured Colonel Mower;I think he is killed.” Five hours later when we captured the enemy’s field-hospitals, we found that Colonel Mower had been shot in the back of theneck and taken prisoner. Expressing my joy at his safety, he showed thathe knew he had been unjustly reported to me the day before as intoxicated,by saying: “Yes, General, but if they had reported me for being ‘ shot inthe neck ’ to-day instead of yesterday, it would have been correct.”

About 2 o’clock we found that the enemy did not intend to make anotherattack. Faint from exhaustion I sought the shade of a tree, from whichpoint I saw three bursts of smoke and said to my staff, “ They have blown upsome ammunition wagons, and are going to retreat. We must push them.”I was all the more certain of this, because, having failed, a good commanderlike Van Dorn would use the utmost dispatch in putting the forests betweenhim and his pursuing foe, as well as to escape the dangers to him which mightarise from troops coming from Bolivar.