Skirmish at Bridge Creek

The Tenth Brigade of Nelson's Division, including the Seventeenth Kentucky, remains engaged in the Skirmish at Bridge Creek on this day in 1862, the 30th day of  Halleck's Advance on Corinth.  The creek currently separates the two foes, and it is so thickly wooded on either side that only skirmish lines are effective.  There is no space for maneuvering cavalry or artillery.

Their push up the middle toward Corinth is accompanied by similar efforts on either side.  Only Pope's army on the left flank is successful in exposing an artillery battery.


HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF MISSISSIPPI,
Camp on Corinth Road, May 28, 1862.

Three strong reconnoitering columns advanced this morning on the right center and left, to feel the enemy and unmask his batteries. Enemy hotly contested his ground at each point, but was driven back with considerable loss. The column on the left encountered the strongest opposition. Our loss there 25 killed and wounded. The enemy left 30 dead on the field. Losses at other points not yet ascertained. Some 5 or 6 officers and a number of privates captured. The fighting will probably be renewed tomorrow morning at daybreak. The whole country is so thickly wooded that we are compelled to fell our way.

H. W. HALLECK,
Major-General.*


At the end of the day, as they had for the previous 30 days of this campaign, the men spread their bed rolls on the ground and slept the sleep of the weary.  At least they again felt like soldiers, not prisoners on some God-forsaken chain gang.  The volunteers thought they had done enough chopping and digging for one lifetime.  They had joined the army to traverse roads and bridges, not build them.


*ORE correspondence courtesy of my Favorite Link, Ohio State's eHistory