Honor Without a Stain: The 34th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, 1862-1865

By David B. Boone Jr..

"The 34th was a large regiment, probably the largest in (its) brigade. It was not so large as some of the others at the first but the great numbers of additions to its ranks, and their zeal in keeping up a large average, always gave them a massive appearance. In their rank and file were some of the foremost men in North Mississippi and many sons of such men. This gave them pride of character, an essential limit of true bravery. In the grand shock of battle... this regiment gave good measure."
Reverend E. A. Smith, 1904

Honor Without a Stain: The 34th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, 1862-1865 walks in the footstep of the average North Mississippian from his first engagement at Farmington, Mississippi across the battlefields of Perryville, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, and into the grand coronation of death at Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee.

Included are never before published wartime diary and letter excerpts. Invaluable to genealogists will be the complete roster of the regiment including last known residences for survivors, circa 1907.

"Honor Without a Stain is required reading for every serious student of the War Between the States. The author´s best work yet, Honor Without a Stain is not only a great read, it´s brimming with facts and personal anecdotes available in no other generally accessible publication anywhere. The true story of the Civil War is here. Read it and you will understand."
Lt. Cmdr. R. J. Skinner, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

"Mr. Boone, I am the great grandson of Thomas Franklin Rutherford mentioned in your book about the 34th of Miss. I have done some research about my kin and the 34th. You have done an excellent job on the material. I, and all three of my brothers, recommend your book highly. Thanks for doing this book for so many people."
B. Rutherford Mesquite, TX

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 25, 2002
• ISBN: 9781465322784

David B. Boone Jr..

David Boone is a native of Memphis, Tennessee. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Memphis and a Master of Science from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is active in the Missouri Civil War Reenactor’s Association and Sons of Confederate Veterans. He currently resides in Overland Park, Kansas with his wife Catherine, four cats and a dog named Dixie.

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Copyright © 2001 by David B. Boone Jr..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

Credits

Cover : Mississippi Confederates of the 9th Infantry. Many of these men re-enlisted

with the 34th Infantry. Seated is Thomas Falconer, later major of the 34th Regiment.

All maps and images are public domain, coming from the Library of Congress and/

or the U.S. Government Printing Office with the exception of the final image of

Survivors of Rucker’s Company B which is used courtesy of Fred Cox of Mississippi

and cemetery image courtesy of author.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

ENDNOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This work is dedicated to the brave men of Mississippi who have been willing to sacrifice all for what they believed.

For Catherine Grey

The author would like to thank Gordon Cotton at the Old Courthouse Museum, Vicksburg, Mississippi and Dr. Bobs Tusa at the University of Southern Mississippi, McCain Library and Archives for their assistance in providing materials vital to the completion of this work.

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CHAPTER 1

April is perhaps the finest month in north Mississippi. It is a time winter has ended, spring is arrived and the oppressive heat of late summer a reality yet to assert itself. The days in April are fair and warming, the evenings pleasant and cool and the occasional rain only serves to further nourish the green and bountiful countryside. For any agrarian society, the time surrounding planting is a time of new life and growth. It is a time of hope when faith is shown by the placing of seed in the ground with the expectation that, in the fullness of time, the land will bear the fruit of one’s labors.

In this way, April of 1862 was like countless Aprils before. Farmers and merchants, slaves and free persons of color living in North Mississippi all had a vested interest in seeing food crops such as corn, as well as cash crops like that old king, cotton, brought to market. The time and the place were both such that one’s very existence depended on the ability to bring in what had been sown. Poor weather, insects or illness could lead to the ruin of the largest plantation or the smallest garden patch, as everyone knew. Every factor that was beyond his control, man placed in the hands of Almighty God, while all that could be done by the sweat of his brow, man did to see to his end of the harvest.

The war of secession had been going on for a year, longer and at far greater cost than most had expected. The troops first mustered in for one year’s service were coming home and the pomp and glory associated with war during times of peace had faded. The grim reality of war was now painful reality to families throughout the south. Every day seemed to bring news of more ferocious battles and ever-higher numbers of dead on both sides. Families that had sent their first born off to war in the spring of 1861 were now sending their second and third born to war. In a society where it is a man’s duty to see a planting through to its harvest, it did not matter if the seeds were sown by someone else, there was honor enough in completing the labor that their father, brother, cousin or neighbor, had begun. The North Mississippians of Marshall, Tippah, Lafayette and surrounding counties were no different in wanting to see the task before them to completion.

Groups of men had shown their eagerness to fight for Mississippi and the Southern Cause in small towns, such as Abbeville Mississippi, during the winter months by enrolling in companies formed by captains, usually prominent citizens in the area. The enlisted men, upon enrollment, would elect their own sergeants and junior officers among their kinsfolk and neighbors and wait for the chance to join nine other companies that would form a regiment to be sent to war. Often the captains of these companies would petition to join a particular regiment they knew would be led by a battle tested and respected colonel. An example of such a petition predates the formation of 34th regiment by one month. It reads, ABBEVILLE, Mississippi, March 19, 1862.

To His EXCELLENCY [JOHN JONES] PETTUS OR J. S. HAMILTON, ADJUTANT MAJOR-GENERAL: Enclosed you will please find Certificate of Election of officers of company now known as the Smith Rifles, which I reported to you a few days ago as the Abbeville Tigers. We changed the name from Abbeville Tigers to that of Smith Rifles. You will please change accordingly on your register. You will also find a list of the names of said company.

We are still desirous to join Benton’s Regiment and rendezvous at Holly Springs. Please inform me when you will be ready for us to march, etc. We have sixty-four men mustered in and I think very certain that we will have eighty men when we leave. We have eighty-eight names on the list. You will much oblige me to inform me whether or not a man is bound to stick where he puts his name down as a volunteer and takes part in electing officers. If so, I wish to hold such bound, etc.

Very respectfully,

E.W.SMITH,

Captain,

Smith Rifles ¹

Colonel Samuel Benton arrived in the small town of Holly Springs, in north central Mississippi in April of 1862 already a celebrity. Born in 1820 in Williamson City, Tennessee, Benton came to Mississippi as a young man and schoolteacher. As his star continued to rise, Benton became an attorney and the people of Marshall County, Mississippi elected him to the state legislature and at the state convention in 1861, Benton cast his vote for secession. Since the start of the war, Benton had served with distinction as a Captain in the 9th Mississippi Infantry² and his military experience combined with his popular appeal amongst North Mississippians, aided him in the task of recruiting volunteers for the Confederate cause. Such was Benton’s appeal that when their one year enlistment was over, many of his comrades in the 9th Mississippi reenlisted in the new regiment for the chance to again serve with Benton, among these being Thomas Falconer, Clifton Dancy, M. F. Wilkins, James Rodgers along with others.³

Benton’s first charge as a new colonel was the organization of a Volunteer Infantry Regiment from the men of the countryside surrounding Holly Springs, a unit later to be known as the 34th. Being a volunteer unit, the men who had previously served with the colonel were now being joined by fresh recruits reporting to Holly Springs for service in the Confederate Army. Arriving in town about this time and reporting for duty was Thomas Franklin Rutherford who had enlisted in February. Thomas was twenty-four years old, the child of Thomas and Margaret Rutherford and the third of six sons who fought for the Confederacy. Four of these six brothers would come to fight beside each other in Company A, the Tippah Rangers of the regiment Benton was assembling. Thomas was born October 27, 1837 in Georgia and came to Tippah County with his family in 1848 to settle in the town of Falkner.⁴

Also in Holly Springs was James Brewer, who had enlisted in March and one of three brothers who would fight for the Confederacy, two of which would serve in Company K, the Dixie Guards. It had been almost a year since James had said farewell to his brother Sam Brewer who had joined the 11th Mississippi Regiment, Company A, the famous University Greys, one of the first regiments to go east and fight the war. Like the Rutherfords, the Brewers had also moved to Mississippi during the 1840’s, leaving their home in Virginia to settle in the town of Aberdeen.

These families are just two examples of a pattern that would repeat itself throughout the creation of the regiment and the Confederate Armies to come. These were the sons of hard working men, men who had come west with their family at a time when westward travel was marked by hazards, in order to create a new and better life for themselves and their families. When these young men sensed that the opportunities their fathers had struggled to provide them with were threatened by Northern invasion, they enlisted-brother after brother after brother to fight for home and family.

With the bitter taste of defeat at nearby Shiloh fresh in the mouths of North Mississippians, the organization of the company began with haste and proceeded without any difficulties being noted. The records noted the official date of organization as April 19, 1862 and the complement as 779 officers and enlisted men.⁵ Originally called Benton’s 37th Volunteer Infantry, the regiment (hereafter referred to as the 34th for simplicity) was organized as part of Walker’s Brigade, Ruggles Division, 2nd Corps, Army of the Mississippi, Department # 2.⁶ It was at this time, immediately following the Union victory at Shiloh, that Union armies under Major General Henry Halleck began a slow and studied movement toward the rail center of Corinth, Mississippi. Records note the Corinth Campaign as beginning upon April 29, 1862, the same date that the newly formed regiment received their first order: Proceed to Corinth.

Arriving at Corinth, the fresh recruits were reassigned to Patton Anderson’s Brigade along with the 30th and 41st Mississippi all of which remained in Ruggles Division, 2nd Corps, Army of the Mississippi, Department # 2.⁷ With no delay at Corinth, the recruits were marched north out of town towards Pittsburgh Landing, in Tennessee-a stones throw from the battlefield at Shiloh. The landing was a secured port along the major supply artery of the Tennessee River in south central Tennessee capable of handling steamboats that carried fresh men and materiel from the north to the doorstep of the south. It was from this landing area that Federal troops emboldened by their recent success, now advanced in a southerly direction toward the rail junction at Corinth.

To the west, at Holly Springs, recruitment for the 34th Mississippi continued. Swelling the ranks at this time were James McCullough and John Lemon, the second and fourth born of the Rutherford brothers. James had married to his first wife Harriett Reed (1838-1891) before the war in 1856. His leaving wife and children was seen as serious commitment to the Southern Cause by his family. Making as great a commitment was younger brother John who joined the regiment on May 1. John was a determined and dedicated soldier for the Confederacy who had first enlisted at the age of 21 in Company A, 23rd Mississippi Infantry Regiment in late 1861. John had seen combat and was wounded at the battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862 and sent home. Despite his wound and medical discharge from his previous unit, John chose to fight on, re-enlisting in the 34th .⁸

Skirmishing with advancing Federal troops was almost constant as May began, but the Union push southward became especially heated on May 3. Despite the escalation to near battle conditions, Confederate General Earl Van Dorn chose not to engage the advancing troops, instead falling back, offering minimal resistance. It was to be less than a week later that Benton’s newly formed regiment would receive their baptism of fire.

Drawn up into battle order for the first time on May 9, General Van Dorn and a number of men including the 34th advanced behind a line of skirmishers in an attempt to halt the Federals’ continued overland advance from the Pittsburgh landing area. The Confederate force engaged the Union forces near the town of Farmington, Tennessee, just north of Corinth. After an attack and extremely vigorous pursuit of the enemy through swampy terrain, taking at least one prisoner, the regiment found itself in an advanced position by late afternoon and was ordered to withdraw before being cut off.

In his report on the regiment’s first battle, Benton would end with the following:

I ought not to close this report without more special notice of those under my command. A new regiment recently mustered into service, employed in outpost duty the whole of the preceding night and scantily provided with canteens, they bore this with patience and fortitude, [and] the heat and fatigue of the day’s march, often through thick woods, over fences, ditches, and other obstructions. When advancing under fire their eagerness was such as to require restraint instead of urging forward. Lieutenant-Colonel Wright rendered efficient service throughout the day, and putting himself in front of the lines, aided me with fearless coolness in leading the charge when the order for it was given.

The captains and other company officers were at their posts and promptly did their duty, leaving little ground for commending one above the other. I may, however, appropriately particularize the gallantry of First Lieut. John H. Morgan, coming as it did immediately under my own eye. An officer of the second company on the right, he was in the most exposed position, both as commander of a skirmishing party and in aiding in the directing of the company after the former had joined it. Although he received a painful wound he halted not, but kept in advance, cheering on his men, more eager than before to meet the enemy and return their fire. Neither ought I to omit mentioning Privates Clifton Domey and Howard Folmer, of Company F, and forming part of the platoon of skirmishers, both of whom pushed forward when shots left them barely untouched.⁹

General Patton Anderson, also commended the behavior of the newly formed 34th at this fight and praised Colonel Benton as having served with distinction at the battle