Three million men fought the War Between the States.  It was a tragedy for the country.  More than 500,000 men died.  This would be the equivalent of losing over 5,000,000 men today.  It is the biggest of American stories.  This is the biggest story of Henry Dunn’s life.  It is a small American story, but that is how the mosaic of the big American story was made.
There is little left of the memory of Henry Dunn, his marriage certificate, tombstone, and his heirs.  Also there is his record in the War.  In the National Archives there are the records of three men named Henry Dunn from Mississippi that fought for the Confederacy.  During the War, people of a community usually fought together.    To find our Henry Dunn, I checked what other Dunns may have fought with him.  Henry’s brother Pleasant Dunn also fought in the war and was in Company B of the 29th Mississippi Volunteer Regiment.  So was one of the Henrys, which leaves little doubt he is our Henry.

The war was ten months old in February of 1862.   The Yankees on February 16 took Forts Henry and Donelson on the Kentucky and Tennessee border and the road to the heartland of the South was open.   The original war hysteria could not get the brothers to join, but now the war was at the Dunn family's doorstep. The south put into place the first conscription law requiring men to join the army.  They did not own any slaves and did not fight for slavery.  They fought the Yankees because they had too.  Capt. Robert Robson was raising a company in north central Mississippi.  He signed Henry at Charleston on February 20, 1862 at the age of 30.  Henry signed for three years or the duration of the war.  Along with Pleasant, they were mustered in the Confederate army on March 24, 1862 at Grenada.

They made Robson’s company, ‘Robson Rifles’, Company "B" of the Mississippi 29th Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the Mississippi Tigers.  It was commissioned on April 11, 1862.  The first regimental commander was Edward C. Walthall. They were first assigned to Chalmers’ Brigade, Withers Division, 1st Corp., Army of the Mississippi and stationed at Corinth in April of 1862.  This was a demoralized army having just fought and lost the battle of Shiloh.  The Yankees soon forced them to Tupelo.  The 29th’s first engagement with the Yankees was as they were giving cover to the army as it retreated from Corinth.  Two soldiers were killed, the first of many.

   Henry was not doing too well either.  His record states that he was sick and in the hospital for the Confederacy June 10, 1862 at Clear Creek, this is an unknown location to me at this time.  In the regimental history of the 29th, Experience and Observation of a Confederate Soldier by J.E. Robuck, he reports that a measles epidemic broke out in their camp killing hundreds in the army. This was not unusual for country boys who were used to a less confined way of living to get very sick when put in the close confinement of camps.  Most of the deaths in the War were due to illnesses such as typhoid, measles, and dysentery, not to actual combat.

   Henry was well enough to return to his regiment by August of 1862. The commander of the Army of the Mississippi, General Braxton Bragg by this time transferred the army to Chattanooga, Tennessee. They traveled a roundabout route of 800 miles through Mobile and back up to Chattanooga to avoid running into the Yankees at Corinth. Henry, with 50 other soldiers who had been sick, met in Jackson and joined up with the Army in Alabama. The 29th detached from the Army and went to Atlanta to impress horses for the artillery before rejoining the Army at Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Bragg’s Army became the main part of an invasion of northern Tennessee and Kentucky.  His plan was to capture Louisville which was the Yankee Army of the Ohio’s supply base.  Its commander was General Don Carlos Buell.  The 29th was on the right wing of the Southern army.  They arrived in Glasgow, Kentucky on September 14, 1862.  Pleasant got sick, probably with the measles, and had to be left there.  The Yankees captured Pleasant during their pursuit of the Confederates when they went through Glasgow.  He was paroled September 19 and rejoined the unit.
Their first battle was at Mundfordville, Kentucky.  It was not much of a battle, as the outnumbered garrison of six thousand gave up readily.  The Army met up with the bulk of Buell’s Army at Perryville, Kentucky.  The Tigers were apparently not a part of this battle.  Bragg, realizing he was now fighting the whole Yankee army, retreated to Harrodsburg, Tennessee.  On the retreat  the army had to march through Barkersville, Kentucky  that was  pro-Union. The women and children  shouted, “Hurrah for the Union!” and threw rocks at them.  Since they were women and children they had to take it.

   In November Bragg under pressure to attack the Yankees at Nashville moved the Army back to Chattanooga, down to Tulahoma, Tennessee, and by Christmas they were in the Stones River valley centered on Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  He could finally stage his Army to attack Nashville.  The Tigers were stationed around Triune, Tennessee on the left wing of the Army under the Corp. Commander Polk.  The Yankees under a new commander, General William Rosecrans and a new name, the Army of the Cumberland, did not sit and wait on the Confederates.  They started toward Murfreesboro the day after Christmas, and soon the Battle of Stones River would commence.

On December 28, Henry, and his regiment, were under orders to have three days cooked rations in their haversacks, and to be ready for action at a moment’s notice.  The Tigers were placed in a line of battle crossing the Nashville Pike 1000 yards from the river in a dense cedar and oak forest.   The ground was too hard to dig rifle pits so they put up breastworks of stones. The 29th and the 30th were ordered to attack the Yankees across a corn field and take a battery of artillery that was there. Robuck said that the middles of the rows in the field were the deepest he had ever seen before the attack.  The regiment got to 30 yards before the Yankees started firing. The fire was so intense that they were ordered to lie down.  Robuck remarked that he changed his mind about the depth of the middles as they were far to shallow for him. They fell back. The Yankees counterattacked and retreated.  The Rebels attacked, and retreated, and so forth until the field was intermingled with dead and wounded from both armies. Finally the whole Brigade was ordered forward and the Rebels  won the battery but not without a terrible cost.  The 29th lost one fourth of its soldiers in that cornfield. The next day the weather was horrible with rain and sleet.  Dead and wounded men were frozen on the field.  The rebels had won the battle.  However, Bragg learned of reserves coming in for the Yankees and retreated to Shelbyville, Tennessee.  Bragg lost 27 per cent of his forces.  This battle was significant in that it stifled the South from ever taking Kentucky.

  At Shelbyville the Confederates set up winter quarters.  In camp the soldiers would drill and march to keep in shape for the Summer campaign. Other diversions such as cock fights, poker, gambling in general, broke the monotony of camp life.  Henry was on detached service as a teamster at divisional headquarters part of this time.

Bragg was ready to commence the war in August 1863.  Unfortunately, Henry was not, and he deserted Camp Cobb near Atlanta on August 23.  There is no evidence why he left when he did but he was not unique.  Many a soldier would leave his unit for various reasons on both sides.  There is no more information until January 26, 1864 where a court martial record is found.  He was ordered freed from arrest and given his back pay at a reduced rate.  The 29th fought at Chickamauga and Chattanooga during this time and there is no information whether he fought at those battles or not.
Henry was with the Tigers as Sherman began his march on Atlanta.  By this time Bragg was replaced by Joe Johnston.  The 29th had been bled dry by this time and combined forces with the  30th as there were not enough men in the south to make up for the losses.  Sherman started his march to Atlanta through Dalton, Georgia.  This area is very hilly and provided the Rebel army with plenty of opportunity to stall the Yankee advance.   The 29th now was in Hood’s Corps, Liddel’s Division, Walthall’s Brigade, commanded by William F. Brantley.
On May 7, 1864, the Tigers were on a ridge to the left of Alt’s Gap, and to the right of Potato Hill, facing east near Dalton.  The Yankees started their movement.  The 29th was placed in many places including their original starting point in reaction to the enemy’s movements for the next few days.  Sherman’s actions around Dalton were, however, a mere feint.  He had sent McPherson’s Corps south through Snake Creek Gap toward Resaca, and was going to try and surround and crush Johnston’s army from the north and the south. Johnston realized what was happening and started retreating his army to Resaca.

  The 29th started toward Resaca about one o’clock in the morning of the 13th, marched 9 miles, and then formed a battle line facing west.  On the 14th they moved south another mile, and to the west a mile, to a new position to replace a brigade of Bates Division at eight A.M.  The Tigers were on the left flank of the brigade.  They were a part of an arc of Confederate defenses around Resaca.  They immediately started to improve their position by cutting the undergrowth to their front and improve the breastworks that consisted of rails and earth.  Here the Yankees had 24 artillery pieces pointed at them, some as close as 1000 yards.  They were constantly being torn into by the Yankee batteries  and rebuilt by the Rebs.  They caught on fire and were nearly destroyed on the right wing of the regiment.
At eleven A. M. Yankee skirmishers were seen approaching their lines followed by three lines of the main body of troops.  When they got close enough they started to charge the rebels position.  Colonel Brantley ordered the Tigers to counter charge and forced the Yankees to retreat with great losses.  The Northerners tried this three more times and were repulsed each time.  They ended up setting a line of skirmishers and kept up a fire till night.  The regiment lost 12 men killed and 50 men wounded.

During the night the Yankees moved up to a closer position and opened up on the Tigers the next morning.  The Yankees did not attempt to advance, but poured in a heavy artillery and rifle fire all day. Brantley said that the artillery firing during the day was the heaviest he knew during the war.  The  regiment lost another four killed and eight wounded.  That night they moved to another position.  However, Henry did not go with his fellow Confederates, as he was slightly wounded sometime during those two days.  Pictures show Henry missing a finger, so there is speculation that was his war injury.  For Henry the war was finally over.  Pleasant continued fighting to the end, but Henry’s service records ends at Resaca.  He returned to Mississippi and his family and continued to farm until his death in June1900.