Second Brigade - Fifth
Division - Army of the Tennessee
Colonel David Stuart
This brigade, of three regiments, was encamped at the junction of Hamburg and Purdy road with the Hamburg and Savannah road in the following order from left to right: Fifty-fifth Illinois, Fifty-fourth Ohio, Seventy-first Ohio; a company from each regiment on picket, one at Lick Creek Ford, two on Bark road. These pickets gave warning, about 8 a.m. April 6, 1862, of the approach of the enemy. Stuart formed his brigade on regimental color lines, but finding that he was exposed to artillery fire from batteries on bluff south of Locust Grove Creek, and obeying orders to guard Lick Creek Ford, he moved, at 10 a.m. to his left, placing the Fifty-fifth Illinois next to right, and the Seventy-first Ohio with its right behind the left of the Fifty-fifth Illinois camp. Chalmers placed his brigade in line on the bluff south of Locust Grove Creek, and, after clearing Stuart's camps with his artillery, moved across the creek and attacked the Fifty-fourth Ohio and Fifty-fifth Illinois in position. After a short conflict Stuart withdrew to a ridge running due east from his headquarters. The right, Seventy-first Ohio, occupying the building used as Stuart's headquarters, was here attacked by the right of Jackson's brigade and very soon retired, leaving a captain and 50 men prisoners. One part of the regiment under the major passed down a ravine to the Tennessee River, where they were picked up by a gunboat; another part retired to the Landing where they joined the brigade at night. The Fifty-fourth Ohio and Fifty-fifth Illinois, with Stuart in command, successfully was exhausted and they were obliged to fall back to the Landing, where they reformed at the Log House, the Fifty-fourth Ohio in what is now the cemetery, the Fifty-fifth Illinois to its right supporting Silfversparre's battery, where they were engaged in resisting Chalmers' Sunday evening attack. Stuart was wounded on Sunday, and was succeeded on Monday by Col. T. Kilby Smith, who, with the Fifty-fourth Ohio and Fifty-fifth Illinois, joined Sherman's command and fought on right next to Lew. Wallace all day.
55th Illinois - Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Malmborg
