Editor’s note: Following is the first part of a story series by contributing writer Brent Engel.

He holds a prominent and venerable place on the site of a major Civil War battle.

A bronze plaque commemorates Pembroke Somerset Senteny, a Louisiana man who was killed during the Siege of Vicksburg.

It happened just three days before the Confederates surrendered to the Union after weeks of defending the important Mississippi River port.

Author Phillip Thomas Tucker called the 28-year-old lieutenant colonel “a model soldier and officer” who was “brave, cool and generous,” and “one of the best officers in the Missouri army.”

The dashing commander was born to Andrew Jackson and Hannah McKay Senteny on Jan. 17, 1835.

There are differences about location. Some sources say Kentucky and others say Missouri. One story even says Senteny came into the world on an Ohio farm that bordered one owned by Ulysses S. Grant’s father, Jesse.

In any event, Senteny was a smart, hard-working and good-looking kid who early on had the qualities of an earnest leader. He arrived in Pike County to teach school and run a store.

On Sept. 27, 1858, Senteny married 18-year-old Louisiana native Mary Frances “Fannie” McQuie, a former seminary student and daughter of a highly successful businessman. The nuptials took place at the still-standing McQuie home on North Third Street.

A month after the war broke out, Senteny was serving with a Union militia and was involved in the capture of secessionists at Fort Jackson near St. Louis. The incident prompted Senteny and other Southern sympathizers to join the rebels.

Senteny became an officer with the 2nd Missouri Confederate Infantry. He was “a brave soldier and an accomplished gentleman” whose men “loved him as their friend, and honored and esteemed him as their commander,” according to an 1868 memoir by Ephraim McDowell Anderson.

Missing her husband as the fighting dragged on, Fannie began the dangerous practice of crossing Union lines. She would later become a Confederate spy.

In an April 1863 letter, Louisiana businessman Edwin Draper says she and other relatives of Pike County Southern sympathizers had “kept up a constant communication with their friends in the rebel army” and that “by these means they greatly aid and comfort” the enemy.

The siege at Vicksburg began a few days later, with the Union Army under Grant pushing toward the city. The 2nd Missouri was battle-tested and already had clashed twice with Grant’s troops at other places in Mississippi.

On May 19 and 22, Senteny’s unit helped repel assaults that included hand-to-hand combat and both sides rolling munitions or throwing grenades at each other.

On June 25, the Union exploded a huge mine underneath a v-shaped rebel fortification. A second was detonated on July 1, with one account saying some Confederates were “blown high up into the air and buried in the wreck.” The 2nd Missouri was called in as reinforcements at 2:30 that afternoon.

“The Missourians moved for a mile along the inside of the Confederate line from left to right, exposed to (Union) skirmish fire wherever the works were low and losing several men along the way,” wrote author Earl J. Hess.

If only the usually-cautious colonel had kept his head down.

 

Next time: Birth of a tribute.

CUTLINE FOR PHOTO:

The bronze tribute to Lt. Col. Pembroke Senteny of Louisiana at the Vicksburg National Military Park. (National Park Service photo).