“A young (Union) officer came out of the port and made a run for the smoke stack, when our infantry spectators shot him down,” Barlow said. “Then a fine looking old jacktar (sailor) came deliberately out, gathered the youngster in his arms and passed the body below. The infantry, old veterans, were regretting the death of the brave youngster and yelling, ‘It’s a damned shame to shoot that boy,’ and this caused the others to hold their fire when the old man appeared on his errand of mercy. But he, poor fellow, not understanding this old-soldier admiration of bravery, after passing his burthren below, turned around and shook his fist at the Confederates. This at once drew their fire and down he went, a victim of his own bravado.” The next day, Guibor’s Battery was ordered to hold a position along the Big Black River as Grant pushed the collapsing Confederates toward Vicksburg. When Grant’s men broke through the line, Guibor’s gunners were forced to abandon some of their artillery, but they carried with them rammers and spongestaffs to keep their own guns from being turned against them. Guibor’s battery swung its last two guns into action near the bridge over the Big Black River, driving back Union soldiers long enough for the bridge to be burned, according to historian Phillip Thomas Tucker. Guibor’s men had to swim the river to cross to the other side. Tucker, the historian, has written that at one point Union soldiers moved into a gorge along a spur of Little Kennesaw that gave them a vantage point to fire on the same Missouri brigade that Guibor’s soldiers had protected during the Vicksburg campaign. At that point, Guibor’s southernmost gun was pushed by hand toward the gorge. It’s crew, including Wharton, lowered it by rope until they had the Union soldiers in their sights. With that, they opened fire with double loads of canister — similar to a shotgun shell but made for a cannon — and blew holes in the Union ranks. The gun became so hot from the constant firing that the men cooled the barrel with wet blankets. Source notes: This narrative was reconstructed from a number of sources, including accounts that many of Guibor’s Battery left in St. Louis newspapers after the war, as well as articles by Philip Tucker Thomas and numerous books, including “Guide to Missouri Confederate Units,” by James McGhee; “Fishing on Deep River,” the diary of Samuel Dunlap, edited by Suzanne Staker Lehr; “In Deadly Earnest,” by Phil Gottschalk; “Cannoneers in Gray,” by Larry
Daniel; “Triumph and Defeat,” by Terry Winschel; “Grant Wins the War,” by James Arnold; the diary of Johnnie Wharton and the memoirs of W.L Truman, in the collection of the State Historical Society of Missouri; and interviews with a number of historians and Civil War experts, including Ed Bearss.
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