Battle of Belmont

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By JEFFERSON DAVIS

Among other acts of invasion, the Federal troops had occupied Belmont, a village in Missouri opposite to Columbus, and with artillery threatened that town, inspiring terror in its peaceful inhabitants. After the occupation of Columbus, under these circumstances of full justification, a small Confederate force, Colonel Tappan's Arkansas regiment, and Beltzhoover's battery, were thrown across the Mississippi to occupy and hold the village, in the state of Missouri, then an ally, and soon to become a member, of the Confederacy. On November 6th General Grant left his headquarters at Cairo with a land and naval force, and encamped on the Kentucky shore. This act and a demonstration made by detachments from his force at Paducah were probably intended to induce the belief that he contemplated an attack on Columbus, thus concealing his real purpose to surprise the small garrison at Belmont. General Polk on the morning of the 7th discovered the landing of the Federal forces on the Missouri shore, some seven miles above Columbus, and, divining the real purpose of the enemy, detached General Pillow with four regiments of his division, say two thousand men, to reinforce the garrison at Belmont. Very soon after his arrival the enemy commenced an assault which was sternly resisted, and with varying fortune, for several hours.

The enemy's front so far exceeded the length of our line as to enable him to attack on both flanks, and our troops were finally driven back to the bank of the river with the loss of their battery, which had been gallantly and efficiently served until nearly all its horses had been killed, and its ammunition had been expended. The enemy advanced to the bank of the river below the point to which our men had retreated, and opened an artillery fire upon the town of Columbus, to which our guns from the commanding height responded with such effect as to drive him from the river bank. In the meantime General Polk had at intervals sent three regiments to reinforce General Pillow. Upon the arrival of the first of these, General Pillow led it to a favorable position, where it for some time steadily resisted and checked the advance of the enemy. General Pillow, with great energy and gallantry, rallied his repulsed troops and brought them again into action. General Polk now proceeded in person with two other regiments. 'Whether from this or some other cause, the enemy commenced a retreat. General Pillow whose activity and daring on the occasion were worthy of all praise, led the first and second detachments, by which he had been reinforced, to attack the enemy in the rear, and General Polk, landing further up the river, moved to cut off the enemy's retreat; some embarrassment and consequent delay which occurred in landing his troops caused him to be too late for the purpose for which he crossed, and to become only a part of the pursuing force.

One would naturally suppose that the question about which there would be the greatest certainty would be the number of troops engaged in a battle, yet there is nothing in regard to which we have such conflicting accounts. It is fairly concluded, from the concurrent reports, that the enemy attacked us on both flanks, and that in the beginning of the action we were outnumbered; the obstinacy with which the conflict was maintained and the successive advances and retreats which occurred in the action indicate, however, that the disparity could not have been very great, and therefore that after the arrival of our reinforcements our troops must have become numerically superior. The dead and wounded left by the enemy upon the field, the arms, ammunition, and military stores abandoned in his flight, so incontestably prove his defeat, that his claim to have achieved a victory is too preposterous for discussion.

Though the forces engaged were comparatively small to those in subsequent battles of the war, six hours of incessant combat, with repeated bayonet charges, must place this in the rank of the most stubborn engagements, and the victors must accord to the vanquished the need of having fought like Americans. One of the results of the battle, which is at least significant, is the fact that General Grant, who had superciliously refused to recognize General Polk as one which' whom he could exchange prisoners, did after the battle, send a flag of truce to get such privileges as are recognized between armies acknowledging each other to be "foremen worthy of their steel."

General Polk reported as follows: "'We pursued them to their boats, seven miles, and then drove their boats before us. The road was strewed with their dead and wounded, guns, ammunition, and equipment's. The number of prisoners taken by the enemy, as shown by their list furnished, was one hundred and six, all of whom have been returned by exchange. After making a liberal allowance to the enemy, a hundred of their prisoners still remain in my hands, one stand of colors, and a fraction over one thousand stand of arms, with knapsacks, ammunition, and other military stores. Our loss in killed, wounded, and missing, was six hundred and forty-one; that of the enemy was probably not less than twelve hundred."