Automaton Artillery

Lore & Background

Battery E was mustered into service at Camp Douglas, in Chicago, Illinois, on December 19, 1861. Its members came primarily from Cook County. On February 13, 1862, they moved to Cairo, where they were issued with horses, artillery and other necessary equipment. On March 27, 1862, Battery E travelled by boat to Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, arriving on the 30th. Joining Brig. General William T. Sherman's Fifth Division in Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee (together with its sister unit, Battery "B"), the battery was not assigned to a specific brigade for the upcoming Battle of Shiloh, on April 6–7, 1862. During this engagement, Battery E fielded four James Rifles, a rifled bronze artillery piece that proved popular during the early stages of the war, but later fell out of favor due to the excessive wear that combat service imposed upon rifled bronze cannon. According to one history of this engagement, Battery E was entirely inexperienced, having received its horses only ten days before the battle, and having drilled with them only three times.

In Their Own Story

According to General Sherman's After-action report, he placed Battery E on a ridge to the left of Shiloh Church, covering a section of open ground between the 57th Ohio Infantry and the 53rd Ohio, near a house called the Rea Cabin. It was the 53rd Ohio's colonel, Jesse J. Appler, who had earlier tried to warn Sherman of large Confederate forces to his front, only to be told: "Take your damned regiment back to Ohio. There is no enemy nearer than Corinth!" The next morning would prove Sherman fatally wrong, as he and the rest of the Union Army were attacked during breakfast by a large Confederate force under General Albert Sidney Johnston. During the coming battle, Battery E would be engaged in turn by elements of Patrick Cleburne's Second Brigade of Johnston's Third Corps, which was under the command of General William Hardee. It would also be engaged by elements of S.A.M. Wood's Third Brigade of the same corps, and later by elements of Patton Anderson's Second Brigade of the First Division of Braxton Bragg's Second Corps. Later, still, the battery would be engaged by two brigades from Leonidas Polk's First Corps, commanded by Bushrod Johnson and Robert M. Russell. Thus, Battery E would face units from all three of Johnston's main Army Corps during the course of the engagement.

Reader's Guide

When the battle began, one section (two guns) of Battery E deployed just to the right of the 53rd, which had abandoned its camp and moved into the edge of a treeline facing an open field. The other section remained to the left of the 53rd, as originally deployed. Across this field, Confederates of the 6th Mississippi Infantry and the 23rd Tennessee advanced rapidly toward them. Twelve Confederate guns from Shoup's Arkansas Battery opened up on the Federals, and after firing two rounds in reply, the section that had originally moved to the right was ordered by Sherman's chief of artillery, Major Ezra Taylor, to rejoin the rest of Battery E, on high ground to the left of the 53rd on the other side of Rea Springs and the east fork of Shiloh Branch. Sherman, who was on the scene as this attack unfolded, ordered Appler to hold his portion of the line, telling him that he had "a good battery" (E Battery) to protect him. He also sent for three additional regiments to protect "Waterhouse's Battery" (Battery E) and the left flank of his line. Sherman later reported that Battery E and a companion battery further to the right opened up "promptly" on the advancing Confederates along with the assembled infantry. In Sherman's words: "the battle became general". Battery E, together with Battery B of the 1st Illinois, fired into the Confederates advancing up the ridge toward Sherman's line, together with reinforcements crossing Rea Field onto aid in the assault.

Did You Know?

• Battery E was entirely inexperienced at Shiloh, having received its horses only ten days before the battle and drilled with them only three times.
• During the battle, Battery E lost three of its four guns when the 13th Tennessee flanked it and attacked from the rear.
• Colonel Alfred Vaughan of the 13th Tennessee reported finding a dead Union officer near Battery E's captured guns, with a pointer dog that refused to allow Confederates to approach the body.
• Battery E was re-equipped after Shiloh with seven captured guns Sherman's division had taken from the Confederates.
• Private James Bolton Rice, who joined the battery after Shiloh, wrote letters describing a typical day during the Oxford expedition and the devastation at Holly Springs after Earl van Dorn's raid.