The Heart of Dixie
May 24, 1864 3:45pm
The trenches before you were manned by the soldiers of Brigadier General Nathaniel Harris’ brigade of Mississippians, who had deployed just to the right of Sanders’ Alabamians by 1:00 p.m. on the 24th. The small pits behind the trench line served as an area from which the brigade commander, his staff, and his medical and supply personnel could operate in relative safety. From this point, Alabama soldiers ventured out at about 3:45 p.m. on the 24th and captured several men of the 35th Massachusetts during the latter’s foray against these breastworks. Harris and Sanders would occupy these works through the 26th.
These men from the deep South had fought in almost every major action in the Virginia theater and had recently suffered heavily in the fighting in The Wilderness and at Spotsylvania. Harris, a Vicksburg attorney before the war, led his brigade into the worst of the May 12 struggle for the “Bloody Angle” at Spotsylvania Court House, where his men fought for nearly twenty continuous hours.
Sanders was one of the younger generals in the army -- a mere twenty-one years old -- when he left the University of Alabama to join the Confederate army in 1861. He will die a Brigadier General on August 21, 1864, at the Battle of Globe Tavern, also known as Weldon Railroad. “A man of serene courage and unblemished moral character, he won general admiration.” Confederate Military History, Clement Evans, editor.
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Presented to the people of the United States in memory of Stanhope and Jefferson Posey, 16th Mississippi, Harris’ Brigade, by John Murphy Commercial Art & Design of Jackson, Mississippi who drew the maps and did the layout for all the signs in this park.
Marker can be reached from the intersection of Verndon Road and New Market Mill Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
