JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 17 



commanded the Fourth Division of the Seventeenth Corps. One 

 or two regiments of the division were away at the time. Three 

 batteries were under Capt. PowelPs command, and to get these 

 across the peninsula, through the mud and over bayous, was a 

 somewhat difficult task. He had to build many bridges and cordu- 

 roy many miles of road, a work necessary not only for the battery 

 but for the whole division, and for trains that followed in the line 

 of the troops. At last, when the division had reached Grand Gulf 

 and pushed back into the interior of the State of Mississippi to 

 Jackson, Johnson's army having been driven eastward from Jack- 

 son, General Grant turned back toward Vicksburg in order to meet 

 General Pemberton. On the march toward Vicksburg, Captain 

 Powell took part in the battle of Champion Hill and that of Black 

 River Bridge. 



An incident worthy of note occurred at the battle of Champion 

 Hill. When Captain Powell enlisted in Company H of the Twen- 

 tieth Illinois Infantry, he took with him some of the men who had 

 agreed to join his company at Hennepin, to fill out the company 

 organised at Granville. One of these men was a tall Scotchman 

 by the name of Morgrave, brave and trustworthy as a soldier as he 

 had been respected and valued as a private citizen. At the battle 

 of Champion Hill, Morgrave, who was then a non-commissioned 

 officer in the Twentieth Illinois, was sent to the right of the Twen- 

 tieth to reconnoiter.' There was a body of troops on the right, and 

 the colonel of the regiment was uncertain whether they were Union 

 or Confederate soldiers. Morgrave went out and fell into the 

 hands of the enemy. Fighting soon began. The soldier in whose 

 charge Morgrave was placed told him to lie down under a log, and 

 the guard lay down by him. Soon the enemy gave way, and the 

 Union troops passed over the ground, driving the Confederates 

 back. As they lay behind the fallen tree, the movements of the 

 troops were uncertain to the hiding party; but finally Morgrave 

 concluded that he had as much right to the position as his guard. 

 Laying his hand upon the gun, he called upon the guard to sur- 

 render ; and the guard surrendered. Neither party yet knew who 

 were victorious, the Confederates or the Union troops. A few mo- 

 ments after this, Captain Powell chanced to be riding over the 

 ground for the purpose of bringing up the battery that was in the 

 rear, and he saw Morgrave and his man. They called to him, and 

 Morgrave in great earnestness asked which of the two should be 

 considered the prisoner. When informed of the result of the bat- 

 tle, he was much delighted. 



