July 9, 1863

July 9, 1863

---Siege of Port Hudson, Day 43

---Port Hudson, Louisiana -- On this date, Gen. Franklin Gardner sends word through the lines that he is prepared to surrender Port Hudson.  The Confederates stack arms, and the Union troops march in to the sound of Yankee bands playing.  This is a Union Victory, but at great cost.  Gardner surrenders 6,300 troops, but Banks has lost 5,000 men in combat attempting to storm the fort, and 5,000 to disease during the siege.  This was not a model operation.

---Battle of Corydon, Indiana – In what is the only military action in Indiana during the war, about 450 men from several state militia (Legion) units decide to hold their ground just south this town against Gen. Morgan’s 2,500 troopers.  The Legion troops, commanded by Col. Lewis Jordan (a veteran of the War of 1812), build barricades and fortify as best they can.  The 2^nd Kentucky Cavalry arrives and begins attacks on the Legion’s works, and even attempt a flank attack, which fails.  Later, the 9^th Tennessee Cavalry and more of the Morgan’s brigade arrives, along with artillery, and the attacks are resumed.  A pincer movement, flanking on both flanks, succeeds, and some of the Legion troops are captured, and the rest withdraw into town, where they are eventually captured, and Col. Jordan surrenders the town and the rest of his troops.  Only 100 of the Indian Legion escape.  Confederate Victory.

Losses:  

U.S.     4 killed,     10-12 wounded,     and 355 captured

C.S.      11 killed,     40 wounded

---Luman Harris Tenney, a young officer in the 2^nd Ohio Cavalry, writes in his journal of their chase after Morgan and his raiders, who have crossed the river into Indiana:

9th. On at daylight. Advance reached Brandenburg on south bank of Ohio River, just as the last boat of rebels crossed the river. He set the Alice Dean on fire. Burned to the water’s edge. One propeller came down at 1 P. M. and commenced ferrying. Fed corn and looked about town. Before dark, 12 to 14 boats, steam, gun and packets. ‘Twas a fine sight. Got over in the evening and camped on the hill—all over. Several boats ferried us. Two mills burned near river.*

---Gen. Meade’s troops concentrate around Boonsboro and Rohrersville, but supply trains have not kept up with his army’s march.  Additional troops from Washington are moving into the Harper’s Ferry area to assist in trapping Lee.

---Lt. Col. Arthur Fremantle, of the British Army, passes through the Federal lines as he leaves the Confederate army.  As an observer on duty from England, he is allowed as a neutral citizen.  He finds the Union army camps and the way the Yankees wear their uniforms to be much different from the Rebel style:

The hills near Hancock were white with Yankee tents, and there were, I believe, from 8000 to 10,000 Federals there. I did not think much of the appearance of the Northern troops; they are certainly dressed in proper uniform, but their clothes are badly fitted, and they are often round-shouldered, dirty, and slovenly in appearance; in fact, bad imitations of soldiers. Now, the Confederate has no ambition to imitate the regular soldier at all; he looks the genuine rebel; but in spite of his bare feet, his ragged clothes, his old rug, and tooth-brush stuck like a rose in his button-hole,[1] he has a sort of devil-may-care, reckless, self-confident look, which is decidedly taking.*

*from Daily Observations of the Civil War at www.dotcw.com