Battery Robinett
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HistoryBattery Robinett was triangular lunette (three-sided field fort) with a double level of gabions topped with fascines. The approach to the battery was blocked by an obstructive Abattis and finally a ditch. A line of earthenworks extended to the south of the battery to the railroad. Battery Robinett was armed with three 20-pounder cannon and manned by Company “C” of the 1st U.S. Infantry led by Lieutenant Henry C. Robinett. During the Battle of Corinth on 4 Oct 1862 three brigades of Confederate Brigadier General Dabney H. Maury’s division attacked Battery Robinett in four columns. The Confederate attackers stormed the battery under heavy fire and when they had penetrated half-way through the abattis the battery gunners changed to grape and canister shot increasing the carnage but the attackers still reached open ground in front of the battery. At this point the battery gunners double charged the guns and the redoubt became enveloped in smoke and flame. Confederates seized the parapet at great cost and drove the defenders from their guns. Lt. Robinett and 13 of his 26 men were casualties in the battery. In desperation, Union Captain George Williams fired two shells from nearby Battery Williams into the Confederates overrunning Battery Robinett, stalling their attack long enough to allow Union reinforcements to make their way to the battery. Confederate Colonel William P. Rogers, commanding the 2nd Texas Infantry, and a small group of some sixteen men including Captain Foster survived the initial assault and briefly occupied the battery just as some 1500 Union reinforcements came into view. Colonel Rogers and Captain Foster attempted to signal their surrender with white handkerchiefs but the firing had begun and it was too late. Of that small group only one survived, J.A. McKinstry, who was a private in Company D, Forty-second Alabama regiment and it is from his account that the above was gleaned. Photographs of the small Confederate group were made the following morning where they fell and in the background can be seen the colonel's dead battle charger on which he led the charge on the battery. After the battle it was said that the Confederate dead lay piled from three to seven deep in front of the battery and that for a hundred feet the bodies lay so close it was almost impossible to walk between them. Some elements of the Confederate attack penetrated into the town of Corinth but became disorganized and the attack ultimately failed. The battery commander Lt. Robinett survived the battle and the war and remained in the Army after the war as a Brevet Major. He and his men were widely acclaimed for their actions at Corinth. He had sustained a serious head wound during the war that gave him much pain and after his fiance died he committed suicide in 1868. Current Status
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Visited: 14 Sep 2020
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