Showing posts with label Columbus N Udell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Columbus N Udell. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Sigel At Pea Ridge

Columbus N. Udell, son of Dr. Udell of the Senate, is a member of Col. Bussey’s Cavalry Regiment, and was in the late battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas.  Writing to his mother he says that the Federal army was largely indebted to Franz Sigel for the victory which they won.  For nearly two days they had been surrounded by the superior numbers of the enemy, when Sigel planned and executed a ruse, the result of which really settled the fortunes of the battle.  He commanded his artillerymen to load their guns with blank cartridges.  As the enemy approached, the guns were fired, but not a single man was seen to fall.  A half a dozen times was this repeated, until the rebels concluded that the federals had exhausted their ammunition, and they therefore made an indiscriminate rush upon the federal battery.  Sigel withheld his fire until the enemy had got into the right position, and then hurled such a storm of grape and canister among them that mowed them down like grass.  No body of men could face such a murderous fire, and the rebels in that portion of the field were put to utter rout.

No wonder such a man has been made a Major General. – {Des Moines Register.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 1