Ft. Warren Prisoners

BOSTON, May 3.

Col. Davison, of the 3d Miss. Regiment captured at Ft. Donelson, died at Ft. Warren, on Tuesday.  His body has been sent to his friends.

Austin Smith, late navy agent at San Francisco, has been released from Ft. Warren, in exchanged for Wm. Ayers, of Philadelphia, who was captured while rambling over the battle field of Bull Run after the evacuation of Manassas.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, May 5, 1862, p. 1

3rd Mississippi Infantry Battalion Position Marker: Fraley Field, Shiloh National Military Park

C. S.

3^D MISSISSIPPI INFANTRY BATTALION

WOOD’S 3^D BRIGADE, HARDEE’S CORPS,

ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI

This battalion, on picket at this place, was attacked at 4.55 A.M. April 6, 1862 by reconnoitering party sent out by General Prentiss.  It held its ground until relived by brigade about 6 A. M.

The Battle Begins: Fraley Field, Shiloh National Military Park

Here in Fraley Field, advance units of the opposing armies met for the first time just before dawn.  Confederate pickets on the high ground ahead opened fire on a union reconnaissance patrol which entered the field just behind you.  Here fell the first victims of Shiloh.  In the following 34 hours 3,400 more men would die or be fatally wounded.

Maj. Gen. William J.
Hardee, CSA

The fighting in Fraley Field and the surrounding woods lasted about an hour.  The Union Patrol was forced to retreat, as the first three waves of the Confederate assault swept forward.  Though not decisive in itself, this initial engagement gave the Union camps to the northeast warning that a Confederate attack was on the way.

The battle of Shiloh opened in Fraley field when Maj. James E. Powell’s reconnaissance patrol encountered Maj. Aaron B. Hardcastle’s pickets of the 3^rd Mississippi Infantry Battalion.

Maj. Gen. William J. Hardee, commander of the Third Army Corps directed the confederate attack which followed the skirmishing in Fraley Field.