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#18 - Hell's Hollow | Union Surrender Site

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Quotes from Actual Battlefield Participants

Notes from the Field . . .

About 5:00 p.m. Union resistance in the Hornets' Nest sector finally collapsed. Prentiss surrendered the remnant of his division as well as some of Wallace's troops that had become attached to it. Other elements of Wallace's division were trying to move to the rear through this area as Confederate troops clamped down on them from both sides and began to move directly into the path of their retreat, blocking their escape. Here, about 600 yards from the Sunken Road, many of the Union troops came to the end of their day's fighting.

Some of the Union regiments briefly maintained their formations, trying to cut their way out. A few succeeded, but as the escaped route became more and more constricted, units were pushed into each other, became intermixed, and lost their organization. John Bell of the 2nd Iowa described the scene vividly: "There is a shock as the men crowd on each other, a waver, then all discipline is lost, the union forces break . . . and a mad race for the landing and shelter of the gunboats is made, while the confederates with cheers and yells 'follow fast and follow faster.' I soon find myself entirely cut off from my company and hurry along, the rebel bullets doing great execution in the surging mass."

Most of the 2nd and 7th Iowa regiments got through the Rebel encirclement and made it to the landing. The 8th, 12th, and 14th Iowa, 58th Illinois and the various regiments of Prentiss's division didn't fare so well. Cornered, they had to surrender, doing so in various parts of this bowel-shaped depression that the Rebels called Hell's Hollow.

After surrendering the Union soldiers continued to be the targets of Confederate gunfire, and a number were killed and wounded. Some of the Confederates were firing at long range and did not realize that the Federals had surrendered. Others were quite close and knew exactly what they were doing. Still other Rebels celebrated their victory by seizing the flags of the captured regiments. Sgt. B. F. Thomas of the 14th Iowa wrote, "Two of the rebel cavalry got the flag and banner belonging to the Twelfth Iowa, . . . beautiful silk standards. They rode back and forth along a path through a puddle of water and mud and dragged these colors through the filth. . . . Our own old cotton flag was torn to pieces and tramped into the mud."

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