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morning
Beltzhoover's artillery had been sent across to
Belmont, and there for some time his destructive fire prevented
Grant from surrounding the
Confederate line, He was finally compelled to withdraw for lack of ammunition, and the
Confederates were soon crowded down to the river bank.
It was a moment of peril, but the Eleventh Louisiana now arrived, with ‘the gallant old veteran,
Colonel Marks, at the head of the column,’
Lieutenant-Colonel Barrow in immediate command of the regiment, and began the aggressive movement which resulted in driving
Grant to his boats.
The regiment lost 12 killed and 42 wounded, among them the gallant
Major Butler and
Lieutenant Alexander.
Beltzhoover's loss was 2 killed and 8 wounded, 45 horses killed, 2 guns missing.
His modest report was, ‘we stood doing our best until the whole line retreated to the river.
At the river I formed battery again, though without ammunition, and so remained until carried down to the bank by force of the retreating troops.’
Polk telegraphed, ‘
Watson's battery, under
Beltzhoover, immortalized!’
At a later date all of these Louisiana commands, except Beltzhoover's battery, were at Island No.10 and New Madrid, gallantly resisting the attacks of the Federal fleet.
During the early part of February, 1862, Fort Donelson fell, and Grant's forces pushed on down the Tennessee river to Pittsburg Landing, where, on March 1st, Colonel Mouton's Eighteenth Louisiana regiment had its first fight, with the gunboats for antagonists.
Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, falling back from Nashville, selected Corinth as his new base of campaign.
He arrived at that town in advance of his troops on March 22, 1862, and found there an army of some 25,000 men. This force had been brought together through General Beauregard's feverish energy.
In its composition it bore the features of a few States, one of the Confederate North and two of the Gulf.
It had been drawn
