02/22/2022
21st Missouri Infantry Regiment
The 21st Missouri Infantry Regiment was organized February 1, 1862, from Col. Moore’s 1st Missouri Home Guards and Col. Woodyard’s 2nd Missouri Home Guards of the Missouri Infantry. Col. David Moore would command the 21st at Shiloh until he was wounded and removed from the field, Col. Woodyard would assume command for the remainder of the fighting.
At Shiloh, the 21st Missouri (Col. David Moore) was attached to the 1st Brigade under the Command of Col. Everett Peabody (25th MO Inf) (KIA), 6th Division of Brig. General Benjamin M. Prentiss, Army of Tennessee, Major General Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding.
On March 18, 1862, the 21st Missouri boarded the steamer Die Vernon and sailed to St. Louis, where they arrived on March 19 and were billeted at Benton Barracks. Their stay was short. The next day, Moore was ordered to "proceed forthwith and report to Maj. Gen. U.S. Grant, touching at Ft. Henry for orders."
The regiment boarded the steamer T.C. Swan on the afternoon of March 21 and proceeded to Fort Henry in northwestern Tennessee. From Fort Henry the regiment sailed downriver to Pittsburg Landing, arriving on Tuesday, March 25. At Pittsburg Landing, the regiment joined Brig. Gen. Benjamin Prentiss's 6th Division, attached to the 1st Brigade of Colonel Everett Peabody. The regiment established its camp along the East Corinth Road, between the 16th Wisconsin and 12th Michigan regiments, in an area "covered with woods," a soldier wrote years later, "with large cleared spaces between, and which was intersected by deep ravines."
Saturday, April 5, 1862, passed quietly. Later that day, Prentiss ordered Moore to send out a reconnaissance patrol and strengthen the outpost pickets. Moore led three companies of the 21st Missouri south on a well-beaten trail leading t the East Corinth Road a half mile from the camp, then proceeded west beyond the Western Corinth Road. In the heavy timber and deep ravines beyond Prentiss' front, Moore did not pe*****te deeply into the woods and found no trace of a Rebel presence other than fresh hoofprints. If Moore had pressed his patrol farther, he might have discovered evidence that an entire Confederate army was close by. Instead, he returned to camp and reported merely that enemy calvary might be near.
Early the next morning, the Confederate Army of Tennessee, led by General Albert Sidney Johnston, attacked Grant's smaller army, hoping to destroy it before Union reinforcements arrived. Receiving word of the fighting, Prentiss ordered Moore to take five companies from his regiment, half the 21st Missouri's strength, and assist the hard-pressed pickets.
Assembling Companies A, C, D, H and I, Moore rode off toward the fighting, leaving Woodyard in command of the 21st's remaining five companies. Farther up the road, the officer commanding the pickets, Major James E. Powell, warned Moore of trouble ahead. Moore downplayed the danger but sent a lieutenant back to camp to urge Woodyard and the rest of regiment forward on the "double quick."
A few minutes before 7 a.m., Woodyard appeared with the remaining five companies and joined Moore's column in the woods. The regiment marched on until it came to a fence along the roadside.
A volley of musketry came from behind the fence. Some of the Missourians dropped to the ground and opened fire, causing the Confederates to fall back. Moore quickly ordered the 21st to form ranks in a nearby cotton field to flank the enemy position.
The men broke down the fence and found themselves facing the 8th and 9th Arkansas regiments forming at the south end of the field. As the regiment exchanged volleys with the Arkansas regiments, Moore remembered, "it appeared like a volcano at full blast. The enemy's lines presented the appearance of a line of fire; the air was filled with lead and iron." The commander of the 9th Arkansas was impressed with the sharp firing from the Missourians. "The almost incessant roar of musketry, " wrote the officer, "told the desperate character of the contest being waged between the rebels and the 21st Missouri." Members of the 21st began falling. Moore, standing in front of the regiment, was struck by a bullet in his right leg below the knee.
Moore was carried off the field, and Woodyard took command and pulled the regiment out of effective musket range. Woodyard then re-formed the men along a knoll at the eastern end of the field. The Confederates, wary of attempting a frontal attack, tried to pass around Woodyard's right, but he countered by pulling back to the northeast corner of the field.
The 21st, along with four companies of the 16th Wisconsin, held the new line until Confederate troops outflanked it. With too small a force to contain them, Woodyard pulled back to a new position less than a mile from the 1st Brigade's camps. The men were hardly in their new position when their thin line was struck by skirmishers from Brig. Gen. R.G. Shaver's brigade. Firing from behind an incline, the Missourians were able to halt the onrushing Confederates for a short time, but with fresh Confederate troops attacking, the regiment, along with the rest of Peabody's brigade, began to fall back beyond their camps.
Two hundred men of the 21st, surviving the rout through their camp, joined Prentiss and elements of the 18th Missouri, 12th Michigan and 18th Wisconsin regiments in what became known as the Hornet's Nest. These units delayed the Confederate attacks on the rest of Grant's army until 5:30 p.m., when Prentiss surrendered. Fifty-eight members of the 21st Missouri were among the 2,200 prisoners captured.
The remainder of the regiment regrouped in a camp located near Dell's Branch Creek. The next day, the 21st took part in Grant's counterattack, which drove the Confederates, now under General P.G.T. Beauregard, from the field at Shiloh. In its first battle as a Union regiment, the 21st Missouri lost 18 killed, 46 wounded, and 58 missing. Moore, one of the wounded, lost his right leg.
Source: https://mo21infantry.tripod.com/21inf.html
Col. David Moore 1817-1893 Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General. Apprenticed to a carpenter until the age of eighteen, with the advent of the Mexican War, he formed the Wooster Guards and became their captain. He served in that unit for the duration of the war. In 1850, he left Ohio and came to Missouri to take up farming. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he organized the First Northeast Missouri Home Guards and became its colonel. In February of 1862, he organized the 21st Missouri Infantry. He was elected its colonel, and served through February of 1865. While in command of the 21st Missouri, he was wounded three times at the Battle of Shiloh. Although he lost his right leg, he resumed command after a three month absence. He continued to command the 21st through the battles of Corinth, Vicksburg, Tupelo, Nashville, and Mobile. On February 21, 1865 he received the rank of brevet brigadier general for his distinguished service during the war. In the following spring, he organized the 51st Missouri Infantry regiment. He commanded this unit until the conclusion of the war. After the war, he returned to farming and mercantile pursuits.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10723947/david-moore
Lt. Col Humphrey M. Woodyard was a 49 year old lawyer in Canton, Lewis County, Missouri where he owned 4,000 acres, had been a real estate developer and member of the general assembly 1849-50. Woodyard resigned on January 27, 1864, died on Thursday April 14, 1864 at Memphis, Missouri and was buried in the family burial ground north of Canton, MO. He left three daughters, two sons and his wife Amelia.
No memorial available
Members of the 21st Missouri Infantry Regiment buried at Shiloh
Black, George W.
• First Name: George W.
• Last Name: Black
• War: Civil War
• Rank: Private
• Company: E
• Unit: 21st Missouri Infantry
• Section: F
Burton, Burrell
• First Name: Burrell
• Last Name: Burton
• War: Civil War
• Rank: Private
• Company: B
• Unit: 21st Missouri Infantry
• Section: G
Hasty, W. C.
• First Name: W. C.
• Last Name: Hasty
• War: Civil War
• Rank: Private
• Company: I
• Unit: 21st Missouri Infantry
• Section: D
Siebert, John
• First Name: John
• Last Name: Siebert
• War: Civil War
• Rank: Private
• Company: K
• Unit: 21st Missouri Infantry
• Section: H
Spencer, Wallis C.
• First Name: Wallis C.
• Last Name: Spencer
• War: Civil War
• Company: D
• Unit: 21st Missouri Infantry
• Section: J
Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General. Apprenticed to a carpenter until the age of eighteen, with the advent of the Mexican War, he formed the Wooster Guards and became their captain. He served in that unit for the duration of the war. In 1850, he left Ohio and came to Missouri to take up farming...
