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By the summer of 1864, Vicksburg was a backwater of the war, with all eyes turned to Georgia and Virginia where the main Union and
Confederate armies were engaged in the twin campaigns that would spell the doom of the Confederacy. One very interested observer in Vicksburg who was following these battles very closely was Ira A. Batterton, editor of the Vicksburg Daily Herald. A former soldier himself, Batterton had fought in the Vicksburg campaign with the 8th Illinois Infantry, and after his enlistment expired in 1863, he remained in the Hill City to make his fortune. An outspoken supporter of the Union cause in a Southern town occupied by the United States army, in his prospectus for the Vicksburg Daily Herald Batterton made it crystal clear where his loyalties lay:
"Recognizing the duties of a public journal under circumstances that surround a community in the present civil commotion, the Herald will endeavor to be just in its views, devoting its attention to the support of the peculiar views of no particular political party; but to act the part of a true patriot, advocating the great principles of liberty, justice, humanity and law...Thus it will be understood that the cause to which we are committed is that of our country - a country from which our allegiance knows no possible alienation, and the cause of which we sincerely hope will prosper...Communications from all parts of the army and surrounding country respectfully solicited." (Vicksburg Daily Herald, June 10, 1864)
In almost every issue of the Herald, Batterton printed news of the main Union armies, and on June 8 he wrote:
'All's well' is the word that comes to us from Grant's army, the din of whose battle may be heard by the pallid citizens in the streets of Richmond, ONLY SEVEN MILES DISTANT! The grand army of the Potomac is pressing to the very mouth of the cannon around the defenses of Richmond, and the coming collision and grapple of forces will be fierce and terrible. While we wait with hearts that almost cease to beat in the intensity of anxiety, we hope that all will yet be well, and Richmond ours when the smoke of the next battle rises from the field. (Vicksburg Daily Herald, June 8, 1864)
On August 9,the Herald published the latest news from the Virginia front: "The explosion of an extensive mine under the rebel earthworks before Petersburg and the accompanying cannonading enabled our forces to carry the outer works of the city." This brief article did little to convey to it's readers the bloody struggle that had taken place at Petersburg on July 30th when the Union forces besieging the city detonated a mine under the Confederate earthworks and then followed up with a massive assault into the resulting breach in the defenses.Readers of the Herald got a much better idea of the severity of the battle when the newspaper published the following eyewitness account on August 16:
From Before Petersburg, Va.
A LETTER FROM A SOLDIER
HE DESCRIBES THE EXPLOSION
A REBEL LIEUTENANT THROWN UP
HIS EXPERIENCE IN THE AIR
CASUALTIES IN THE 100TH PA.
A STREAM OF WATER TURNED INTO A REBEL MINE
Capt. Joseph Morehead in this city has favored us with the following letter from his brother, who was in the engagement he describes, being
in the 100th Pa. (Roundhead) Vet. Vol. Infantry, 1st division, 9th corps.
In Front of Petersburg, Va.,
August 4th, 1864
Dear Brother: I have done but one day's duty since I wrote last to you, and that was on the 30th day of July. I never will forget that day, nor will any of the regiment, as long as any of us live. At two o'clock on the morning of that day our division was waked up out of a quiet slumber and ordered to pack up and move immediately. We went down on the left of the corps and awaited orders.
At 4 a.m. we were ordered to form a line of battle, and then all knew what had to be done. The 48th Pa., had undermined one of the largest of the enemy's forts, and at daybreak the fort was to be blown up and our corps was to make a charge. At ten minutes before 5 o'clock three guns were fired, and at that moment the rebel fort was blown into the air something like two hundred feet. We were about five hundred yards from it when the mine exploded. The ground for half a mile around shook as though moved by an earthquake.
There were two regiments in the fort and hardly a man escaped. A rebel general went into the fort about five minutes before the explosion, but did not go out again alive. I heard a rebel lieutenant say that he was on the ground that night, but all at once he was flying away towards heaven but the d—d Yankees clipped his wings and he had to come back. It was a mean trick, he said, to stop a fellow when he was going so fast towards the good place.
Five minutes after the explosion the division made a charge under a most terrific fire from both flanks of the enemy, but we carried the works without much loss of life; but after we got into them, a battery on our left opened on us a severe fire with shrapnel. We held our position until the negro troops came up, passed us, and made a second charge, but the enemy proved too strong for them, and they broke and run. However, we checked and rallied them, and held the position till three o'clock in the evening, all the time under a murderous fire from the battery last spoken of.
Then the enemy made two different charges, but we held him at bay until he made the third when they proved too much for us, and we had to give way. They took a good many prisoners. They got about eighty-seven of our regiment.
My first Lieut., Richard Craven, was blown all to pieces! Poor fellow, he never knew what hurt him. Adjt. Gen. Leasure, Major Hamilton and
Lieutenant Johnson, of “D” company are prisoners. The two former wounded. Brig. Gen. Bartlett, was wounded twice, but he had a cork leg and it so happened that it was struck both times.
The enemy now held the same ground they did before the assault. We captured ten stand of colors from the enemy but we lost our dear old State flag, which had inscribed on it the name of every battle the regiment had ever been in. But I think the enemy did not get it, for I know I saw a part of the staff shot away and the color bearer was slightly wounded. I think some other division carried our flag off. We have only one hundred and eighty men for duty in the regiment.
There were about two hours that day when I would have given very little for my chance of life, but as God would have it, I came off safe. We took 1000 prisoners. The enemy had been undermining a fort of ours for a week past, but our fellows found it out, night before last. Everything was moved out of the fort and a shaft sunk, when the discovery was made that the rebs had things nearly fixed for blowing it up. Our boys just dug a small trench from a brook near by and spoiled all their calculations. They need not try, we think, to get ahead of the “Yanks.”
Your affectionate brother,
E.S. Morehead
(The Vicksburg Herald, August 16, 1864, page 2)
This letter was written by Ethan S. Morehead, who served in the 100th Pennsylvania Infantry. He sent the letter to his older brother Joseph Morehead, who was a captain in the Union army and apparently serving in the Union occupation forces at Vicksburg.
Ethan was born November 10, 1844, and his father probably died when he was very young, as his mother Harriet shows up as head of the household on the 1850 United States Census. The family was living in North Beaver, Pennsylvania, and in addition to Ethan and Joseph there were sisters Seville, Samantha, and Ellen. (1850 United States Census, North Beaver, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, page 70A)
Ethan enlisted in the 100th Pennsylvania Infantry on August 31, 1861, as a private in Company K of the regiment. (Civilwardata.com) The
regiment was organized on August 28, 1861, at Camp Wilkins in Pittsburgh. The 100th was raised by Daniel Leasure, a resident of New Castle, Pennsylvania, who had been serving in the state militia since 1832, and had already gone to war in 1861 with the 12th Pennsylvania Infantry. It was also at this time that the regiment picked up the nickname they would proudly bear throughout the conflict; "Roundheads." As Samuel P. Bates explained it in his history of the 100th Pennsylvania, the name came from the fact that Colonel Leasure had been given authorization from the Secretary of War to "recruit a regiment of infantry from among the descendants of the Covenanters and of the men who had followed Cromwell, whose leading characteristics had been a devotion to the principles of liberty of person and of conscience." (A Brief History of the One Hundredth Regiment by Samuel P. Bates, New Castle, PA: 1884, page 5)
Unfortunately the service records of Pennsylvania soldiers during the Civil War have not been digitized yet by Fold3.com, so I am unable to say with any certainty which battles Ethan Morehead participated in. I can say, however, that his regiment was to see plenty of action during the first two years of the war. They fought in battles such as Secessionville, James Island, South Carolina, on June 16, 1862; Second Bull Run on August 30, 1862; South Mountain on September 14, 1862; Antietam on September 17, 1862; and Fredericksburg on December 12 - 15, 1862. ("100th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment." accessed at: https://civilwarintheeast.com/us-regiments-batteries/pennsylvania/100th-pennsylvania-infantry/)
In the spring of 1863 the 100th Pennsylvania was sent west when a detachment of the IX Corps under the command of Major General John G. Parke was ordered to Vicksburg to aid in the reduction of the Confederate fortress on the Mississippi River. The IX Corps arrived in June, and were assigned to the "Second Front," guarding the approaches to the Big Black River against a Confederate attack from General Joseph E. Johnston's Army of Relief.
The 100th Pennsylvania spent the remainder of the siege of Vicksburg out at the Big Black River, waiting for an attack by Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston that never happened. When Vicksburg surrendered on the 4th of July, Sherman immediately took his forces on the Big Black and marched to Jackson. They placed the Mississippi capital under siege from July 10 -17, 1863, and the 100th Pennsylvania found itself engaged in heavy combat for the first time during the campaign. In his history of the Roundheads, Samuel P. Bates wrote of the siege of Jackson:
Bridging the Big Black, the First Division crossed at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 4th. On the 10th, the advance entered the enemy's picket lines near the Insane Asylum, just out of the city. Line of battle was formed, and advanced to within three hundred yards of the enemy's works. The brigade held the extreme left, its left resting on the Pearl River, where it was exposed to an enfilading fire from the enemy's batteries. This position was held until the night of the 13th, when the brigade was relieved by the Fourth Brigade. The loss in the command during this time was considerable, the men being obliged to remain prostrate upon the ground, many a poor fellow being struck dead where he lay. On the morning of the 17th, it was discovered that the enemy had evacuated, when the city was quickly occupied by the Union troops. ((A Brief History of the One Hundredth Regiment by Samuel P. Bates, New Castle, PA: 1884, pages 18-19)
By early 1864 the IX Corps had been sent back to Virginia in time to take part in the spring overland campaign that pushed Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back into the defenses of Petersburg. All that remained was for General Grant's forces to pry the rebels out of their earthworks and crush them once and for all. But the Confederate defenses of Petersburg proved formidable, and the southern soldiers fought the Union army to a standstill. This led the Union army to detonate a mine under the Confederate works and follow up with an assault to end the stalemate. What followed was some of the bloodiest fighting of the war that ended with the Union attack being decisively repulsed. The 100th Pennsylvania's acting brigade commander, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph E. Barnes, wrote the following account in his official report of the battle:
The brigade remained in this position until the explosion of the mine, when it moved forward, following rapidly the Second Brigade and charging directly toward the ruins of the fort. As will be seen by the reports of the regimental commanders,the command upon entering the fort was somewhat disorganized and crowded, but effective measures were adopted to place the regiments in position, and the brigade was posted in the traverses and covered ways connected with the fort, and a portion of the brigade commenced protecting themselves from a very severe enfilading fire. shortly after the Fourth Division of the corps entered the fort and formed their lines for an advance, but before they had accomplished anything the enemy made a decided attack, causing the Fourth Division to retire precipitately, and owing to the crowded condition of the works many of our brigade were absolutely pressed to the rear by the retreating lines, and subsequently it became necessary for other portions of the brigade to retire to prevent capture. A portion of the officers and men were in the fort and were there captured. From this time until the afternoon the regiments were separated. They were then formed near division headquarters under my command as senior officer, and I went into camp. (The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 1, Volume XL, Part 1, pages 538-539)
The Roundheads fought in the crater like the veterans they were, and their lengthy casualty list illustrates this fact. The regiment had 3 officers and 7 enlisted men killed, 3 officers and 25 enlisted men wounded, and 1 officer and 29 enlisted men captured or missing. (The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 1, Volume XL, Part 1, page 246)
Ethan Morehead survived the crater, but he would not live to see the fall of Petersburg. Shot on February 14, 1865, he died of his wound at the regimental hospital two days later. (https://www.pa-roots.com/pacw/infantry/100th/100thcok.html; U.S. Registers of Deaths 1861-1865, PA, L-O,accessed on Ancestry.com) At some point his body was returned home to Pennsylvania, and he was buried in Wolf Creek United Presbyterian Cemetery in Slippery Rock. (Findagrave.com listing for Ethan S. Morehead)
For this Memorial Day 2020, I want to remember Ethan S. Morehead, and all of his comrades in the 100th Pennsylvania Infantry. We owe this men a tremendous debt which we can only pay by remembering the sacrifices they made so that our country might live.