Gov. George W. Johnson

About this time, the 3rd Kentucky Infantry, the Alabama and Tennessee battalions, and Byrne's Battery were detached and moved to the right by order of Gen. Beauregard. Cobb's Battery was also moved (without Trabue's knowledge), so the Kentucky Brigade went into action with only the 4th, 6th, and 5th/9th Kentucky in line, with the 31st Alabama in reserve. Trabue's reconnaissance showed the enemy in the woods to his left front, and he moved to attack them.

Trabue advanced the Brigade across a small clearing and into a woodline, where he observed the Federals forming line on the other side of a stream bed. This was McDowell's Brigade of Sherman's Division, which had been in action earlier and was returning to the field. As Trabue maneuvered his Kentuckians against the enemy, the 4th Kentucky found itself opposite the 46th Ohio Infantry, but at an angle. Calmly sitting his horse as if on the parade field, Maj. Thomas B. Monroe skillfully changed the front of his regiment to meet the enemy squarely. The Ohioans fired first, a volley which in their haste flew mostly over the Kentuckians' heads. Now the long hours of drill paid off as the Fourth completed its maneuver and took careful aim at the Federals, only a hundred yards away. 

Plaque marking the location where the Orphan Brigade went into action against McDowell's US Brigade, 12 Noon, April 6, 1862

Maj. Monroe kept his men steady, and gave the commands to aim and fire without hurry. The 4th Kentucky's precision fire from their new Enfields crashed home into the Buckeye line. The repeated volleys from the 4th Kentucky devastated the Ohioans, who suffered half their number as casualties during this part of the battle (you can read about this action today on the monument of the 46th Ohio, erected on this spot on the battlefield, near Tour Stop 2). The 6th and 5th/9th regiments were also fighting McDowell's Brigade, inflicting heavy casualties on the 6th Iowa and 13th Missouri Infantry, and after fighting for about an hour and a half, Trabue sensed the enemy's impending collapse. He ordered a bayonet charge down the slope, and with the shrill Rebel Yell streaming from their throats, the Kentuckians charged across the ravine. The Federals broke and ran for their camps in the rear, but failed to make a stand, and retreated toward Pittsburg Landing. Elated with their victory, the Orphans moved forward and through the abandoned Yankee camps. They had indeed "seen the elephant" (Civil War slang for going into combat for the first time), and had come out on top.

Cobb's Battery, meanwhile, did not enjoy the same level of success as the Kentucky infantry. Detached from the Kentucky Brigade, they were moved a couple hundred yards to the east, where they unlimbered in a captured Federal camp and prepared to meet the advance of two brigades in Blue. Lacking proper support, the battery lost most of its horses and nearly forty men in a matter of minutes. A determined rush by the Federals succeeded in overrunning the guns, but they were retaken, and four were successfully removed to the rear. Cobb's Battery had been decimated, and saw no further action that day.

Cobb's Battery Position at Shiloh

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