DARING ACT AT COWAN’S BATTERY ON
SNYDER'S BLUFF DURING THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG
My
Grandmother, Mrs. Rosie Read Stowe, was the Granddaughter of Col. James F. Dowdell,
commander of the 37th Alabama during the siege of Vicksburg. This account, sent to Mrs. Stowe on January 23
1903, was either typed on Flatau Manufacturing Company letterhead. It was in a box of her papers she left me in
the 1950s. This account by Louis Spencer
Flatau was read by my Grandmother at a meeting of the Robert E. Lee Chapter No.
192, Opelika, Alabama, United Daughters of the Confederacy. She was historian
of the Chapter and at the end of the letter there is a handwritten note that
specifies that the letter was “written for and read by Mrs. I. N. Stowe”. Since Flatau’s version did not copy well I
have provided a transcription of the account.
Cpl.
Louis Spencer Flatau, known to his friends as “Spence”, was with Cowan’s
Battery, Featherston’s Brigade, Loring’s Division at the battle of Snyder’s
Bluff which was on the Yazoo River just north of Vicksburg. Cowan’s was part of the confederate works.
Gen.
Grant had ordered Gen. Sherman to engage in a feint on the Yazoo River which
entered the Mississippi immediately north of the bluffs at Vicksburg. This was intended to distract Confederate
troops and keep them from reinforcing those at Grand Gulf and Bruinsburg where
he was actually planning on crossing the river south of Vicksburg. The
bluff was a very defensible position for the confederate forces and they were
well entrenched with plenty of artillery.
Mr.
Flatau, while serving as a Cpl. at Snyder’s Bluff was later known as Captain
Flatau. He was born in San Augustine,
Texas and later served as a steamboat pilot on the Red and Mississippi
Rivers. However, he is best known as an
inventor, holding patents and at the time of communication with my Grandmother he
was an officer with Flatau’s Weather Roofing and Fire Proof paint. Mr. Flatau was living in St. Louis when he died
in 1920.
The
use of this letter caused me some concern.
I did not want to rehash a historical account that was widespread. I did a diligent search including the late 19th
and early 20th Century Confederate
Veteran magazine, the Internet and period histories. A similar account was discovered in the February
25, 1903 copy of the Yonker’s Statement.
While the facts were the same, the version contained there is either paraphrased
or placed in quotation marks. Also, a
short blurb concerning activities at Cowan’s Battery appeared in “Reminisces of the Boys in Blue and Gray,
8601-1865”, edited by Mamie Young 1912.
"One of the bravest and most daring acts that was done during
the war, as told by L. S. Flatau of Texas, a member of Cowan’s Battery of
Vicksburg, Miss., and who is now Chief of Ordinance on General W. L. Cobell’s
Staff, United Confederate Veterans of Texas.
This act
was performed by a Federal soldier whose name was Allen. Flatau with many friends in his battery and
the infantry support was an eye witness.
As related by him, the Confederate forces were massed at Snyder’s Bluff
above Vicksburg on the Yazoo River, this being the best way for General Grant
to land his forces so as to invest Vicksburg.
His transports were loaded with soldiers and came up the Yazoo River
accompanied by their gun boats so as to make the landing and fight their way
around the city. He made a feint at the
same time at Bruinsburg. We anticipated
the attack by the way of Snyder’s Bluff, some miles above the city on the
Yazoo. We were well entrenched and
arrayed and anxious for the attack, hoping that it would be made by this
route. My Battery was in a fine
position, supported by Wall’s Legion and part of Hebert’s Louisiana Brigade, is
my best recollection. The Yankee transports, accompanied by the gun boats, were
in full view of us across an old but beautiful farm in the bottom, we being in
line of battle in our works at the foot of the hills, about a mile from the
river with nothing in the way between us and the enemy whatever, except right
near the banks of the river was a considerable growth of heavy timber. They landed between seven and ten thousand
men from the transports, formed in line as though they were preparing to
advance and charge our works. When we
were just expecting them to make this move, there was a horseman moved out from
their line and rode direct to out center down an old turn-road in the field in
plain view of every one in our line of battle. This old turn-road was straight
and level with no obstruction whatever, as he left the Yankee line they fired
volley after volley, as it were, at the rider, but he rode direct to us at
break-neck speed, and when within 150 yards of us he pulled his hat from his
head and whipped the beautiful animal he rode with his hat, and at the top of
his voice cried “Hurray for Kentucky!” The
animal he was riding, coming at this fearful speed, jumped the breastworks
within ten feet of my gun and never left her tracks. She was the very perfection of horse flesh, a
dark roan color, and as she stood breathing in her tracks with her nostrils expanding
and contracting so that thin that the Sun shone through them like silk, I
thought the rider and the horse was the most beautiful picture I ever beheld,
and he was one man in the world I envied at the time. He wore a blue Kentucky Jeans suit and had
buckled about him a beautiful pair of ivory handled Remington pistols. His name was engraved on the pistols, is how
I knew his name was Allen. When he
landed, as it were, he exclaimed in a loud voice: “Helloo, Boys, how are
you? I have longed to join you, this was
rather a desperate feat, but I took the opportunity, and I am with you. God bless all of you, how are you
anyhow?” Our boys began to crowd around
him, and in a few minutes there were more than one hundred of us looking and
talking with this newcomer. One of the
officers came up and ordered us to disperse or we would draw the fire of the
enemy, and of course a shot from the gun boats fired at us might have been
effective.
In the meantime,
one of my company, Joe Willis, asked to look at one of the pistols. Willis had the pistol in his hand and many of
us were admiring it when we saw the patrol guard coming to take this deserter,
as it appeared to be, to headquarters so that he might be interrogated by our
officers, but he with an eye like an eagle saw them approaching and began to
get very uneasy and restless, as he appeared to me. His bridle and saddle were of the Mexican
make, made of the very bet I ever saw. He
wore a beautiful pair of spurs, and as this guard approached and came within 30
or 40 feet of the crowd, we being attracted by the guard to some extent, did
not pay as close attention to him as might have been and not in the least did
we think what his next movement would be, but quicker than a flash, he pulled
his left bridle rein and spurred his right foot into the flanks of this
beautiful animal, and she leaped the works like the flight of a bird and hit
the ground on the other side running, and after he had made some 60 or 80 yards
distance from our line, he threw himself over quarterly on his saddle and swung
back over the quarters of the animal whipping her with his broad-brimmed hat
and cried at the top of his voice “Hurray for Kentucky! By God!” and repeated
this as far as we could hear.
None of
the men thought of a gun or firing at this dashing, bold rider until he was
some 250 yards back towards the Yankee line.
Then there were two men just on our right who opened fire on him with
Springfield rifles, but I shouted to them at the top of my voice to not shoot
that man. He rode without any danger
from our side whatsoever, save three shots that were fired, and as he neared the
Yankee lines, they rent the very heavens with their yells and every gun boat opened
on our line and our crowded position, broadside after broadside until they
shook the very earth around us with bursting shell, and our friend was back in
the lines and had performed the dangerous feat under the direction of General
Grant. He rode into our works to satisfy
this great officer that we were in our stronghold and anticipated his landing
and attack by the way as it was the best for him in every respect and so we
thought beyond a doubt that he would make his way around Vicksburg. It would have been easy going with us to have
repulsed him and driven him back had he advanced this field against our
splendid position, but after the return of this rider, I suppose it was about
40 or 50 minutes at least, we thought it gave him time so that the Grapevine
telegraph or signal corps could send the message to Bruinsburg below Vicksburg
to make the attack or advance from that point; in fact it was only a short
while until we heard the guns thundering in that direction, and so Grant
instead of making the attack and surrounding Vicksburg by the way of Snyder’s
Bluff made his landing and advance by the way of Bruinsburg, and the next
morning early many of us were ordered to meet him. We met him and fought him all the way to
Bakers Creek or Champions Hill, where we made the greatest fight and we were
repulsed and driven into Vicksburg and stood the long and fearful siege.
Jow Willis,
my comrade who kept the pistol of the dashing rider as he rode off, owned and
had this pistol some few years ago at a meeting of our old Battery at the
Piazza Hotel, in that city.
This
shows you what a fearless man can do in any country, where he has the nerve,
the judgment and rides the right kind of stock.
I have often wished to meet this man since the war, for this is
certainly a piece of unwritten history that should be written. The very name of
Kentucky or Missouri was music in our ears because we loved them. That grand old Orphan Brigade of Kentucky and
the Missourians who cast their lot with us were part of us, and they were all
most dear to us, and I know they were all thoroughbred stock and of the best
blood, and this daring, dashing rider and representative of the Federal Army
must have had the same kind of blood pulsate through his veins".
Sources:
1) Between the Lines", The Yonkers Statesmen (newspaper), February 25, 1903
2) Pioneer Texan Dies After Long Illness in St. Louis Hospital. Mortuary Records. Galveston Daily News, July 15, 1920.
3) Letter to Mrs. I. N. Stowe written for and read at a meeting of the Robert E. Lee Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, January 23, 1903.
4) Internet Search
5) The Campaign for Vicksburg Vols. I, II and III. Edwin Cole Bearss 1986. Morningside House, Inc.
This is a view of Snyder's Bluff from the other side of the Yazoo River
