TWO RIVERS & THREE BRIDGES: THE BATTLE OF DAVIS BRIDGE

Shawn Pitts

War in the West

By October 1862 McNairy County was war weary.

However abstract or distant war may have seemed when hostilities first erupted at Fort Sumter in April 1861, by April 1862 armed conflict was a concrete reality in southwest Tennessee and north Mississippi The Battle of Shiloh shocked the nation with its industrial scale carnage and left locals reeling as massive armies moved through the area by river, road and rail. Even the most remote hamlets and isolated farmsteads saw heavy concentrations of troops as Union and Confederate forces vied for control of the vital railroad junction at Corinth, Mississippi

The Confederate retreat after Shiloh was followed by a monthlong siege of Corinth By the end of May, beleaguered Confederate troops were forced to withdraw under constant pressure from a superior Union force. Partisan guerrilla fighting and small heated exchanges between military regulars wore on through the summer months as the Union army attempted to reinforce and hold territory in West Tennessee Meanwhile, U S Grant, commanding from Jackson, Tennessee, was eagerly supplying occupied Corinth as a base of operations to divide the western Confederacy and smoke out Rebel strongholds; Vicksburg was an especially enticing target.

Confederate Generals Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price meant to confound Grant’s ambitions.

Though it’s variously known as the Battle of Davis Bridge, Hatchie’s Bridge, or more graphically, “Hell on the Hatchie,” the brief, but furious, engagement near current day Big Hill Pond State Park is actually the story of three bridges and a fortunate turn of fate for the Army of West Tennessee The story only makes sense against the backdrop of Van Dorn and Price’s IukaCorinth Campaign of 1862 Their epic military misadventure came to a violent close on the boggy ground of southwestern McNairy and southeastern Hardeman counties, ending all Confederate hopes of maintaining control of the Mississippi Valley. Though its history is largely unknown to many locals, Davis Bridge marked a significant turning point in the American Civl War Of all West Tennessee’s battles, only Shiloh produced more casualties

The Iuka-Corinth Campaign of 1862

In mid September 1862, Van Dorn and Price’s armies rendezvoused after inconsequential sparring with Union Brigadier General William Rosecrans at the Battle of Iuka. Van Dorn assumed command of the combined force Price, the more prudent of the two, would probably have been the stronger choice to command The Army of West Tennessee, but Van Dorn was the ranking officer. By late September twenty two thousand men were gearing up at Ripley, Mississippi for an attempt to retake Corinth

On October 1, Van Dorn marched his men north into Tennessee and camped near Pocahontas. Davis Bridge, the nearest Hatchie River crossing, had to be rebuilt before Van Dorn’s men could advance toward Corinth on October 2 Young’s Bridge, just a few miles east on the Tuscumbia River, wasn’t in much better shape. Rather than move his whole army across the rickety structure, Van Dorn assigned a detail of a thousand men to stay behind and guard his lengthy supply train. The plan was to march a lightened force quickly to Chewalla and attack Corinth from the north the next morning

The Battle of Corinth raged from sunup to sundown on October 3. The Confederates made modest gains the first day, driving Union troops back inside their inner defenses, but by noon on October 4 Union General Rosecrans had struck the decisive blow Van Dorn miscalculated the size and tenacity of the Union army and failed to capitalize on several opportunities, losing almost twenty percent of his command in just a few hours of bloody combat

The defeated Army of West Tennessee limped back to Chewalla where Price was mortified to learn Van Dorn had ordered a halt to regroup and circle back to Rienzi, Mississippi in order to mount a fresh offensive on Corinth from the south. Price and his officers feared losing the men, supplies and munitions left behind at the Tuscumbia River crossing and had no reliable intelligence on Rosecrans movements at the rear of the retreating Confederate column To his credit, Van Dorn relented when confronted by Price, reluctantly agreeing to rejoin the vulnerable supply train. The impending Battle of Davis Bridge would be catastrophic, but the divided and weakened Confederate army would likely have been routed had Sterling Price’s judgement not prevailed.

The Battle of Davis Bridge

Unbeknownst to the Van Dorn and Price, Union armies were on the move. Grant had ordered reinforcements to move from Jackson and Bethel Station to Corinth by rail Arriving October 5 to find Rosecrans had repulsed the attack, fresh Union troops pursued the fleeing Confederates They caught up to the enemy’s rearguard just west of Chewalla. In front of Van Dorn’s sluggish column, Union troops under Major General Stephen Hurlbut had marched out of Bolivar with orders to reinforce Rosencrans, or else meet and finish off the Confederates if they were in retreat. Commanding Union officer General Edward Ord, who had been away on an inspection tour, rode through the night to catch up to his 4th Division and assumed command He found Hurlbut already deploying his men into a line of battle along Metamora Ridge, a strategic high point west of the Hatchie, in sight of Davis Bridge.

It doesn’t take a military mind to understand Van Dorn’s predicament. He anticipated the Federal pursuit out of Corinth, but intelligence of Ord and Hurlbut’s movements in his front came too late to mount an effective counteroffensive The Confederate rearguard performed admirably, enabling most of the army to cross the Tuscumbia and rejoin the supply train, but before Van Dorn’s men could secure Davis Bridge, guaranteeing a safe escape route, Ord had seized the advantage Van Dorn was trapped on the swampy terrain between two rivers, while fresh, well supplied Union troops performed a deadly pincer movement from the east and west To make matters worse, in his desperation to retake Corinth, Van Dorn had ordered the bridge at Crum’s Mill, Mississippi the only other Hatchie River crossing for miles destroyed.

The few Confederates who made it across Davis Bridge ran into the teeth of murderous Union artillery and infantry fire from the western heights. Hundreds we captured or killed in short order and the rest were driven back across the bridge or forced to swim the Hatchie as Ord’s men swept down the eastern slope of Metamora Ridge

East of the bridge, the pursuing Union men encountered a densely wooded upslope that hid waiting Confederate infantry Hundreds of men were mowed down in four hours of heavy fighting as they attempted to funnel across the narrow bridge into the lowlands around the river. Ord was injured in the exchange, but Hurlbut took command and performed a flanking action that finally drove the Confederates from their roost.

As night fell, Hurlbut was in possession of Davis Bridge, and Van Dorn was in deep trouble He was saved only by the intuition of the savvy cavalry officer he had ordered to destroy Crum’s Bridge. Hearing cannon fire upriver in the vicinity of Pocahontas, General Frank Armstrong suspicioned that a contest for Davis Bridge might be underway He suspended operations at Crum’s and immediately dispatched an aide to find Van Dorn. News that the bridge was intact set Price in motion evacuating troops southward down a rough track that barely classified as a road The Army of West Tennessee crossed the Hatchie at Crum’s Mill, narrowly avoiding complete annihilation.

The Aftermath

Though Davis Bridge was technically a Union victory, it was a hollow one The short engagement produced almost a thousand casualties, fairly evenly distributed between Union and Confederate troops Rosecrans was eager to pursue Van Dorn’s depleted and demoralized army, but in a rare moment of indecision, Grant waffled He’d lost faith in Rosecrans, blaming him for the Confederate escapes at Iuka and Davis Bridge Nine more months of bloody warfare raged in the Mississippi Valley before Vicksburg finally surrendered to Grant

The Army of West Tennessee spent over a month at Holly Springs, Mississippi reinforcing its depleted ranks, but would never again go on the offensive. A reorganized command was given to Price in December, and Van Dorn was reassigned to a cavalry corp The following May, Van Dorn was shot and killed at Spring Hill, Tennessee. No one, including the amorous general, blamed the jealous husband.

Bitter, partisan skirmishing continued in McNairy County long after the last shots were fired at Davis Bridge In the fall of 1863, Camp Sheldon was built on Van Dorn’s old campsite at Chewalla to house a Union garrison which remained there until the end of the war When it was all over, Hardin, McNairy and Hardeman Counties had the dubious distinction of witnessing some the most horrific scenes of war in the western theater.