Driving in the Skirmishers - Early Morning Phase - June 2nd

BAIRD - 6:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. - June 2nd

At 6:00 a.m, the skirmishers from the 28^th and 34^th Texas who spent the night in the woods between the Baird Farm advanced and engaged Federal skirmishers to their front.  The 28^th Texas was north of the Greenville-Midway Road and engaged the 246^th Ohio. In the woods south of the road, the 34^th entered a lively exchange with the 201^st Indiana. The 163^rd Indiana was across the road and was not immediately engaged by enemy infantry, but Oliphant’s Louisiana Battery was advanced to the western end of the Baird Farm, positioned across the road and opened fire on the Indiana Infantrymen.

 As skirmishing started in the woods, Captain Sides’ Battery D, 3^rd Illinois Light Artillery opened fire on Otis’ Kentucky Battery. Sides was firing from a fortified position prepared on the night of June 1^st on the far left of the Union line. Otis’ men had not prepared their position in the fields north of the Baird house, but he was quickly joined by the St. Petersburg Battery under Capt. Wickson and Gage’s Arkansas Battery of twenty-pound parrott rifles. Wickson and Sides had engaged each other before at close range across Tulip Creek on May 10^th, but this morning they began firing at a range of about 650 yards.

 

As the skirmishing picked in the woods and the artillery duel on the Federal left / Confederate right started, firing was also heard in the vicinity of Betheny Church. Martin’s and Marple’s Brigades had skirmished there the previous afternoon and parted with the church and its cemetery in no man’s land between them evening set in. Marple seemed intent on cause a distraction in the Confederate rear, while Martin was clearly under orders to keep Marple contained.

The Federal skirmishers in the Baird Woods put up a strong fight against the Confederate line and gave no ground through the first hour of the morning. By 8:00 a.m., however, it was clear that there was a larger force moving up behind the Texans. The 246^th Ohio was suddenly faced with a brigade of Missourians passing through the 28^th Texas and driving them back towards the Federal main line. On the road, a Kentucky Brigade came out of the woods and engaged the 163^rd Indiana, as the 201^st Indiana was attacked by a brigade of Georgians. Oliphant's Battery moved down the road and repositioned behind the Kentuckians,  about half way between Baird and White Fox Tavern. The skirmishers, all from Bryan’s Brigade of the 3^rd Division, XXVI Corps were eventually forced back, out of the woods and behind the safety of the Federal main line.

 

 

The advancing Confederates had to negotiate the woods and a hill that led upward towards White Fox Tavern and the Federal line. As the infantry advanced, the artillery fire across the fields to the north began to decrease. Two of Wickson’s guns had been forced back and all but one of Capt. Sides’ guns were also retreating from their position after heavy loss from enemy shrapnel.  On the Federal right, Capt. Diehl’s 29^th Ohio Independent Battery was able to fire a few rounds into the left of a Confederate Brigade as it appeared briefly at the edge of the southern edge of the woods, but the Confederates moved back into the woods and out of Diehl’s line of sight. Just before 10:00 a.m., however, artillery opened up near White Fox Tavern as Richardson’s Battery (Battery F, Kentucky Light Artillery) opened up with canister on a Confederate Kentucky regiment that appeared from the woods in skirmish formation and opened fire on 2^nd Division regiments in earthworks on the west side of the road near the tavern.

 

 

As Capt. Richardson’s guns opened fire across a small road leading west from the tavern, Capt. Mead’s Battery (Battery C, 3^rd Illinois) was across the Greenville – Midway Road south of the tavern and was engaged by a Louisiana Regiment that appeared suddenly in the woods to their front. Capt. Mead’s right section retreated as his center section poured fire into the enemy and drove them back.  A Georgia regiment advanced in skirmish formation into a road junction near the Tavern and engaged, while a Missouri regiment engaged the far left of the Federal line. 

At 10:00 a.m. the Federals had driven back two of the regiments that had struck their main line and were pouring heavy fire into two more. There was, however, the gleam of bayonets and sound of advancing men coming up the hill behind the skirmishers…..

 

And so June 2^nd will continue during the 1^st week of December….