nothing to eat. They were unattended and no one could find an officer. A lieutenant discovered them at about ten or eleven at night by happenstance.
Van Dorn was acquitted in the court-martial, but it was obvious from testimony that he had treated his troops as if they were toy soldiers and that his slipshod logistical work had caused needless suffering. One of those who testified against him was Colonel Robert Lowry of the 6th Mississippi, the veteran of Shiloh, who described his efforts to feed his famished men. The rations were “insufficient,” Lowry snapped. By the close of the first day’s fight, “our commissary stores were exhausted,” he said. As they fell back, they weregiven nothing except a single mangy live cow, without any salt with which to cure it. After consultation with his men, Lowry drove the poor beast away. His men went two more days without rations of any kind, his pleas to superiors ignored, before Lowry finally sent men out with wagons to purchase forty bushels of potatoes, which he and his officers paid for with their own money.
Hunger only deepened the acrimony. The 7th Mississippi Battalion had done some of the heaviest fighting and suffered fifty-nine casualties. Company F lost a quarter of its men, among them some of Newton’s relatives, neighbors, and close friends. His favorite cousins Alpheus Knight, Ben Knight, and Dickie Knight were all hospitalized. His friend John H. Harper had almost lost both his feet, and Harper’s brother was dead. Jimmie Reddoch, whose family owned land adjoining the Knights’, had a hole in his jaw. It seemed like everyone he knew was in the hospital: Jim Ates, Tom Ates, Maddie Bush, Tapley Bynum, Jeff Collins, James Morgan Valentine, all of whom he had grown up with. When Company F mustered after the battle, Newton was the only noncommissioned officer who reported for duty.
Newton apparently behaved well at Corinth, because shortly afterward he was promoted to second sergeant and assigned as a provost guard, a kind of policing role. But his rank may have resulted from the fact that so few able-bodied men remained.
Once again, Newton nursed the sick; Major Joel E. Welborn recalled seeing him in the hospital at about this time. But in the days after Corinth, Newton and his friends in Company F became increasingly disaffected. It’s possible that he and his comrades associated their battle ordeal with the ancient siege of Corinth: classical stories often circulated among the troops, and the tale of the Athenian general Iphicrates, a deserter and a traitor to his country who achieved fame in liberating the city, was an unmistakable connection. Perhaps they recited from Lord Byron’s “Siege of Corinth”:
He stood a foe, with all the zeal
Which young and fiery converts feel,
Within whose heated bosom throngs
The memory of a thousand wrongs.
Newton felt a thousand wrongs. But perhaps the most galling wrong of all came a week after the battle. On October 11, 1862, the Confederate legislature passed its infamous Twenty Negro Law. The edict exempted the richest men from military service: “One white man on every plantation with twenty or more slaves” was permitted to stay at home.
Wealthy planters had pressured the Confederacy to pass the Twenty Negro Law in response to anxiety about maintaining discipline on the plantation. Slaves constituted half the population in the Deep South, and fears of revolt ran deep. The law would discourage slaves from running off to Union troops and prevent wives and daughters from being left alone with a lot of Negroes. Also, if planters and overseers remained at home, they argued, they could better see to the crops that fed the Confederacy.
When word of the decree reached Company F, anger boiled over. Jasper Collins was in camp with Knight when he heard about it. “This law,” he said, “makes it a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” The phrase would reverberate through the South for the rest of the
Van Dorn was acquitted in the court-martial, but it was obvious from testimony that he had treated his troops as if they were toy soldiers and that his slipshod logistical work had caused needless suffering. One of those who testified against him was Colonel Robert Lowry of the 6th Mississippi, the veteran of Shiloh, who described his efforts to feed his famished men. The rations were “insufficient,” Lowry snapped. By the close of the first day’s fight, “our commissary stores were exhausted,” he said. As they fell back, they weregiven nothing except a single mangy live cow, without any salt with which to cure it. After consultation with his men, Lowry drove the poor beast away. His men went two more days without rations of any kind, his pleas to superiors ignored, before Lowry finally sent men out with wagons to purchase forty bushels of potatoes, which he and his officers paid for with their own money.
Hunger only deepened the acrimony. The 7th Mississippi Battalion had done some of the heaviest fighting and suffered fifty-nine casualties. Company F lost a quarter of its men, among them some of Newton’s relatives, neighbors, and close friends. His favorite cousins Alpheus Knight, Ben Knight, and Dickie Knight were all hospitalized. His friend John H. Harper had almost lost both his feet, and Harper’s brother was dead. Jimmie Reddoch, whose family owned land adjoining the Knights’, had a hole in his jaw. It seemed like everyone he knew was in the hospital: Jim Ates, Tom Ates, Maddie Bush, Tapley Bynum, Jeff Collins, James Morgan Valentine, all of whom he had grown up with. When Company F mustered after the battle, Newton was the only noncommissioned officer who reported for duty.
Newton apparently behaved well at Corinth, because shortly afterward he was promoted to second sergeant and assigned as a provost guard, a kind of policing role. But his rank may have resulted from the fact that so few able-bodied men remained.
Once again, Newton nursed the sick; Major Joel E. Welborn recalled seeing him in the hospital at about this time. But in the days after Corinth, Newton and his friends in Company F became increasingly disaffected. It’s possible that he and his comrades associated their battle ordeal with the ancient siege of Corinth: classical stories often circulated among the troops, and the tale of the Athenian general Iphicrates, a deserter and a traitor to his country who achieved fame in liberating the city, was an unmistakable connection. Perhaps they recited from Lord Byron’s “Siege of Corinth”:
He stood a foe, with all the zeal
Which young and fiery converts feel,
Within whose heated bosom throngs
The memory of a thousand wrongs.
Newton felt a thousand wrongs. But perhaps the most galling wrong of all came a week after the battle. On October 11, 1862, the Confederate legislature passed its infamous Twenty Negro Law. The edict exempted the richest men from military service: “One white man on every plantation with twenty or more slaves” was permitted to stay at home.
Wealthy planters had pressured the Confederacy to pass the Twenty Negro Law in response to anxiety about maintaining discipline on the plantation. Slaves constituted half the population in the Deep South, and fears of revolt ran deep. The law would discourage slaves from running off to Union troops and prevent wives and daughters from being left alone with a lot of Negroes. Also, if planters and overseers remained at home, they argued, they could better see to the crops that fed the Confederacy.
When word of the decree reached Company F, anger boiled over. Jasper Collins was in camp with Knight when he heard about it. “This law,” he said, “makes it a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” The phrase would reverberate through the South for the rest of the
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