Memphis Battery Light Artillery (African Descent)

Memphis Battery Light Artillery (African Descent)
Active	October 31, 1863 to March 11, 1864
Country	United States
Allegiance	Union
Branch	artillery
Engagements	Battle of Fort Pillow (one section); Battle of Brice's Crossroads (one section)

Last updated October 10, 2019

The Memphis Battery Light Artillery (African Descent) was an artillery battery that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The unit was also called 1st Tennessee Battery (African Descent).

In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of artillery, mortars, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface to surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems. The term is also used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships.

During the American Civil War, the Union Army referred to the United States Army, the land force that fought to preserve the Union of the collective states. Also known as the Federal Army, it proved essential to the preservation of the United States as a working, viable republic.

American Civil War Internal war in the U.S. over slavery

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North, which also included some geographically western and southern states, proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights in order to uphold slavery.

Service

The Memphis Battery Light Artillery (African Descent) was organized at Memphis, Tennessee and mustered in for three years on October 31, 1863 under the command of Captain Carl A. Lamberg. As was custom at the time, the battery was designated the Memphis Battery (Colored) Light Artillery. It was initially attached to the 1st Tennessee Heavy Artillery Regiment (African Descent) as Battery M.

Memphis is a city located along the Mississippi River in southwestern Shelby County, Tennessee, United States. The 2017 city population was 652,236, making Memphis the largest city on the Mississippi River, the second most populous city in Tennessee, as well as the 26th largest city in the United States. Greater Memphis is the 42nd largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a population of 1,348,260 in 2017. The city is the anchor of West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas and Mississippi. Memphis is the seat of Shelby County, the most populous county in Tennessee. As one of the most historic and cultural cities of the southern United States, the city features a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods.

In the United States uniformed services, captain is a commissioned-officer rank. In keeping with the traditions of the militaries of most nations, the rank varies between the services, being a senior rank in the naval services and a junior rank in the ground and air forces.

The battery was attached to the garrison of Fort Pickering, District of Memphis, 5th Division, XVI Corps, Department of the Tennessee, to January 1864. 1st Colored Brigade, District of Memphis, Tennessee, XVI Corps, to April 1864.

The XVI Army Corps was a corps of the Union Army during the American Civil War. The corps rarely fought as one unified unit, as its divisions were often scattered across the country.

The Memphis Battery Light Artillery (African Descent) ceased to exist on March 11, 1864 when its designation was changed to Battery D, 2nd United States Light Artillery Regiment (Colored). This designation was changed again on April 26, 1864 to Battery F, 2nd United States Colored Light Artillery.

Detailed service

During its brief existence, the regiment performed post and garrison duty at Memphis, Tennessee, until April 1864. One section under the command of Lieutenant A. M. Hunter was sent to Fort Pillow, Tennessee, on February 15, 1864. During the final assault on the fort, the section of 2nd U.S. Light Artillery (colored) manned two 6-pound James Rifles cannon in the center two embrasures of the fort. All Union artillery was largely ineffective because the guns could not be depressed enough to fire upon the Confederates on the steep terrain below. Nearly every man in this detachment was killed or missing in action when Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest captured the fort on April 12, 1864 and Union troops were subsequently massacred.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War. Although scholars generally respect Forrest as a military strategist, he has remained a controversial figure in Southern racial history, especially for his role in the massacre of black soldiers at Fort Pillow, and his 1867–1869 leadership of the white-supremacist and terrorist organization known as the Ku Klux Klan.

The Battle of Fort Pillow, also known as the Fort Pillow massacre, was fought on April 12, 1864, at Fort Pillow on the Mississippi River in Henning, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. The battle ended with a massacre of African-American Union troops and their white officers attempting to surrender, by soldiers under the command of Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Military historian David J. Eicher concluded: "Fort Pillow marked one of the bleakest, saddest events of American military history."

In his report of April 27, 1864, Captain Lamberg, who was not present at the battle, stated that the section had one officer and 34 enlisted men. Of these, six were killed, four wounded, five taken prisoner, and Lieutenant Hunter and 18 other men were listed as missing in action. Private John Kennedy, who was wounded and captured (but escaped to report to Captain Lamberg), stated that he saw Lieutenant Hunter and several men of the section in the Mississippi River, but that he was captured before seeing what became of them.

The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system on the North American continent, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. Its source is Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota and it flows generally south for 2,320 miles (3,730 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km²), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth-longest and fifteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Captain Lamberg commanded one section in June 1864 under Brig. Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis on his expedition into Mississippi. The expedition ended in defeat Maj. Gen. Forrest at the battle of Brice's Cross Roads. The section was attached to the brigade of Colonel W. L. McMillen and consisted of two officers and 37 enlisted men. The section's guns were spiked and abandoned on the field.

Samuel Davis Sturgis was an American military officer who served in the Mexican–American War, as a Union general in the American Civil War, and later in the Indian Wars.

In the United States Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force, colonel is the most senior field grade military officer rank, immediately above the rank of lieutenant colonel and just below the rank of brigadier general. It is equivalent to the naval rank of captain in the other uniformed services. By law, a colonel must have at least 22 years of cumulative service and a minimum of three years as a lieutenant colonel before being promoted. The pay grade for colonel is O-6.

Casualties

Records are incomplete, but the battery lost at least 6 men killed or mortally wounded during service.

The official report on the Battle of Fort Pillow identified only one soldier of the section of 40 men as a survivor. However, a review of individual service records identifies 8 survivors who were considered missing in action and 5 survivors who were released or paroled from prison camps. One reason for this oversight is that many soldiers of the 2nd US Colored Light Artillery were reported to be members of the 6th US Colored Heavy Artillery.

Many eyewitnesses stated that the officer in command of the section, Lieutenant Alexander M. Hunter, was killed. However, Lt. Hunter survived the battle and the war. (Source: "River Run Red")

One example of a survivor is Daniel Tyler who was shot in the eye and right shoulder. The Confederates threw him into the ditch and buried him in a mass grave. By dawn of the 13th, he managed to dig himself out. Tyler's story was told in many newspaper accounts. Though badly wounded and almost blind, he returned to his unit in May 1864. Then he left to recuperate from his wounds. When he returned in March 1865, he was accused of being absent without leave and was imprisoned in Irving Block Prison in Memphis. Amid the filth and deplorable conditions, he died in prison 4 months later on July 12, 1865. (Source: "River Run Red")

Commanders

Captain Carl A. Lamberg
Captain Francis N. Marion

References

Dyer, Frederick H. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (Des Moines, IA: Dyer Pub. Co.), 1908.
Ward, Andrew. River Run Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War. New York: Viking Adult, 2005. ISBN 0-670-03440-1.

Attribution

This article contains text from a text now in the public domain : Dyer, Frederick H. (1908). A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Des Moines, IA: Dyer Publishing Co.

External links

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.