Medill’s Wild-West Chase
25 OCTOBER 1862
MEDILL’S WILD-WEST CHASE
Acting RADM David Dixon Porter decried enemy guerrilla actions along the Mississippi during the Civil War. From Mississippi Squadron headquarters in Cairo, Illinois, he wrote Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that commercial river traffic was taking fire and steamboats risked being forced ashore. Worse, Porter wrote, “…I am convinced that large quantities of goods were intentionally landed for the use of the rebels…” To Porter’s way of thinking, “The war would never end this way…”
Earlier, when Confederate sympathizers were noted plundering the steamer Hazel Dell, Porter sent LCDR LeRoy Fitch with four light-draft gunboats to Caseyville, Kentucky, on the Ohio River, to intervene. Fitch’s men discovered the lightering operation and captured 33 guerrillas. Porter ordered their personal property garnished at ten times the value of Hazel Dell’s cargo. On October 19th, guerrillas fired on the mail steamer Gladiator. In reprisal, Porter sent LCDR Richard W. Meade in USS LOUISVILLE and the transport Meteor with 300 soldiers of the 11th Indiana to Bledsoe’s Landing and Hamblin’s Landing, Arkansas. Both towns were razed to the ground when it was learned they had sheltered the offenders.
On this date, Porter sent the gunboat BARON DE KALB to Hopefield, Arkansas, where a band of rebels was harassing Union sympathizers of that town. CAPT John A. Winslow sent a party of 25 to investigate, under the command of Carpenter Robert H. Medill. No roughnecks appeared, but ten Confederate Army scouts were spotted. Medill’s men gave chase on foot, but the mounted rebels sped off into the countryside. Undaunted, Medill ran to the local livery and impressed horses into immediate service. All of his party who could be mounted galloped off in pursuit. Across the Arkansas flood plain the horses raced. The dust of the escaping Confederates could be seen ahead, with the Yankees slowly gaining. Soon they closed within rifle range, and shots erupted in both directions. A running gun battle reminiscent of the wild west ranged over the next miles. Horses well lathered, Medill closed further. After a nine-mile race, a few “shots across the bow” brought the rebels to heel. Confederate Army Captain Russell and a LT Brown in company with eight soldiers were taken prisoner. The otherwise thrilling episode was only marred by two accidental casualties. While embarking his prisoners aboard the Union tugboat Spiteful, a musket discharged, killing the tug’s engineer, Joseph Chaplain, and wounding the engineer’s mate Archy Palmer.
Porter’s ruthless campaign was, “…the only way of putting a stop to guerrilla warfare, and though the method is stringent, officers are instructed to put it down at all hazards.”
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 31 OCT 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865. Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. II-103, II-104.
Goodspeed, M. Hill. U.S. Navy: A Complete History. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Foundation, 2003, p. 199.
letter of RADM D.D. Porter to Gideon Welles, dtd. 27 October 1862. IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters from April 12 to December 31, 1862. Washington, DC: GPO, 1910, pp. 451-52.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: USS BATON DE KALB was a Cairo-class casemated gunboat, 175 feet in length with an encased stern paddlewheel and 13 guns. She was named for John Baron de Kalb, of Huttendorf, Bavaria, who accompanied Lafayette to America during the Revolutionary War and assisted the Continental Army. John Baron de Kalb was mortally wounded at the battle of Camden, New Jersey, on 16 August 1780. USS BARON DE KALB did not survive the Civil War, falling victim to a Confederate mine in the Yazoo River on 13 July 1863.
John A. Winalow is better remembered for an action later in the war when he commanded USS KEARSARGE in her famous duel with CSS ALABAMA off Cherbourg, France. Winslow survived the war and was advanced to the rank of RADM in 1870. Three US Navy warships remember Mr. Winslow, TB-5, DD-53, and DD-359.
