Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2: November 1863-June 1865
by Jacob D. Cox · English · Gutenberg #6962 · 1,283,530 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, Volume 2: November 1863-June 1865
Author: Jacob D. Cox
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6962]
Most recently updated: October 12, 2014
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILITARY REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR, VOLUME 2: NOVEMBER 1863-JUNE 1865 ***
Produced by Steve Schulze, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
MILITARY REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR
BY JACOB DOLSON COX, A.M., LL.D.
_Formerly Major-General commanding Twenty-Third Army Corps_
VOLUME II.
NOVEMBER 1863-JUNE 1865
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXVII
GRANT IN COMMAND--ROSECRANS RELIEVED
Importance of unity in command--Inevitable difficulties in a double
organization--Burnside's problem different from that of
Rosecrans--Co-operation necessarily imperfect--Growth of Grant's
reputation--Solid grounds of it--Special orders sent him--Voyage to
Cairo--Meets Stanton at Louisville--Division of the Mississippi
created--It included Burnside's and Rosecrans's
departments--Alternate forms in regard to Rosecrans--He is
relieved--Thomas succeeds him--Grant's relations to the change--His
intellectual methods--Taciturnity--Patience--Discussions in his
presence--Clear judgments--His "good anecdote"--Rosecrans sends
Garfield to Washington--Congressman or General--Duplication of
offices--Interview between Garfield and Stanton--Dana's
dispatches--Garfield's visit to me--Description of the rout of
Rosecrans's right wing--Effect on the general--Retreat to
Chattanooga--Lookout Mountain abandoned--The President's
problem--Dana's light upon it--Stanton's use of it--Grant's
acquiescence--Subsequent relations of Garfield and
Rosecrans--Improving the "cracker line"--Opening the
Tennessee--Combat at Wauhatchie.
CHAPTER XXVIII
SIEGE OF KNOXVILLE--END OF BURNSIDE'S CAMPAIGN
Departments not changed by Grant--Sherman assigned to that of the
Tennessee--Burnside's situation and supplies--His
communications--Building a railroad--Threatened from Virginia--His
plans--Bragg sends Longstreet into East Tennessee--Their
cross-purposes--Correspondence of Grant and Burnside--Dana and
Wilson sent to consult--Grant approves Burnside's course--Latter
slowly retires on Knoxville--The place prepared for a siege--Combat
at Campbell's station--Within the lines at Knoxville--Topography of
the place--Defences--Assignment of positions--The forts--General
Sanders killed--His self-sacrifice--Longstreet's lines of
investment--His assault of Fort Sanders--The combat--The
repulse--The victory at Missionary Ridge and results--Division of
Confederate forces a mistake--Grant sends Sherman to raise the siege
of Knoxville--East Tennessee a "horror"--Longstreet retreats toward
Virginia--Sherman rejoins Grant--Granger's unwillingness to
remain--General Foster sent to relieve Burnside--Criticism of this
act--Halleck's misunderstanding of the real situation--Grant's easy
comprehension of it--His conduct in enlarged responsibility--General
Hunter's inspection report.
CHAPTER XXIX
AFFAIRS IN DISTRICT OF OHIO--PLOT TO LIBERATE PRISONERS AT JOHNSON'S
ISLAND
Administrative duties--Major McLean adjutant-general--His loyalty
questioned--Ordered away--Succeeded by Captain Anderson--Robert
Anderson's family--Vallandigham canvass--Bounty-jumping--Action of
U. S. Courts--of the local Probate Court--Efforts to provoke
collision--Interview with the sheriff--Letter to Governor
Tod--Shooting soldiers in Dayton--The October election--Great
majority against Vallandigham--The soldier vote--Wish for field
service--Kinglake's Crimean War--Its lessons--Confederate plots in
Canada--Attempt on military prison at Johnson's Island--Assembling
militia there--Fortifying Sandusky Bay--Inspection of the
prison--Condition and treatment of the prisoners.
CHAPTER XXX
A WINTER RIDE ON THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS
Ordered to East Tennessee--Preparation for a long ride--A small
party of officers--Rendezvous at Lexington, Ky.--Changes in my
staff--The escort--A small train--A gay cavalcade--The blue-grass
country--War-time roads--Valley of the Rockcastle--Quarters for the
night--London--Choice of routes-Longstreet in the way--A turn
southward--Williamsburg--Meeting Burnside--Fording the
Cumberland--Pine Mountain--A hard pull--Teamsters' chorus--Big Creek
Gap--First view of East Tennessee--Jacksboro--A forty-mile
trot--Escape from unwelcome duty--In command of Twenty-third
Corps--The army-supply problem--Siege bread--Starved
beef--Burnside's dinner to Sherman.
CHAPTER XXXI
WINTER BIVOUACS IN EAST TENNESSEE
Blain's Cross-roads--Hanson's headquarters--A hearty
welcome--Establishing field quarters--Tents and houses--A good
quartermaster--Headquarters' business--Soldiers' camps--Want of
clothing and shoes--The rations--Running the country
mills--Condition of horses and mules--Visit to Opdycke's camp--A
Christmas dinner--Veteran enlistments--Patriotic spirit--Detachment
at Strawberry Plains--Concentration of corps there--Camp on a
knoll--A night scene--Climate of the valley--Affair at Mossy
Creek--New Year's blizzard--Pitiful condition of the
troops--Patience and courage--Zero weather.
CHAPTER XXXII
GRANT'S VISIT--THE DANDRIDGE AFFAIR
Grant at Knoxville--Comes to Strawberry Plains--A gathering at
Parke's quarters--Grant's quiet manner--No conversational
discussion--Contrast with Sherman--Talk of cadet days--Grant's
riding-school story--No council of war--Qualities of his
dispatches--Returns by Cumberland Gap--Longstreet's
situation--Destitution of both armies--Railroad repairs and improved
service--Light-draught steamboats--Bridges--Cattle herds on the
way--Results of Grant's inspection tour--Foster's movement to
Dandridge on the French Broad--Sheridan--His qualities--August
Willich--Hazen--His disagreement with Sheridan--Its causes and
consequences--Combat at Dandridge--A mutual surprise--Sheridan's
bridge--An amusing blunder--A consultation in Dandridge--Sturgis's
toddy--Retreat to Strawberry Plains--A hard night march--A rough
day--An uncomfortable bivouac--Concentration toward
Knoxville--Rumors of reinforcement of Longstreet--Expectation of
another siege--The rumors untrue.
CHAPTER XXXIII
WINTER QUARTERS IN EAST TENNESSEE--PREPARATIONS FOR a NEW CAMPAIGN
Sending our animals to Kentucky--Consultations--Affair with enemy's
cavalry--Roughing it--Distribution of troops--Cavalry engagement at
Sevierville--Quarters in Knoxville--Leading Loyalists--Social and
domestic conditions--Discussion of the spring campaign--Of Foster's
successor--Organization of Grant's armies--Embarrassments in
assignment of officers to duty--Discussion of the system-Cipher
telegraphing--Control of the key--Grant's collision with
Stanton--Absurdity of the War Department's method--General Stoneman
assigned to Twenty-third Corps--His career and character--General
Schofield succeeds to the command of the Department of the Ohio.
CHAPTER XXXIV
SCHOFIELD IN EAST TENNESSEE---DUTIES AS CHIEF OF STAFF--FINAL
OPERATIONS IN THE VALLEY
Fresh reports of Longstreet's advance--They are unfounded--Grant's
wish to rid the valley of the enemy--Conference with
Foster--Necessity for further recuperation of the army--Continuance
of the quiet policy--Longstreet's view of the situation--His
suggestions to his government--He makes an advance again-Various
demonstrations--Schofield moves against Longstreet--My appointment
as chief of staff in the field--Organization of the active
column--Schofield's purposes--March to Morristown--Going the Grand
Rounds--Cavalry outpost--A sleepy sentinel--Return to New
Market--Once more at Morristown--Ninth Corps sent East--Grant
Lieutenant-General--Sherman commands in the West--Study of plans of
campaign--My assignment to Third Division, Twenty-third
Corps--Importance of staff duties--Colonel Wherry and Major
Campbell--General Wood--Schofield and the politicians--Post at
Bull's Gap--Grapevine telegraph--Families going through the
lines--Local vendetta--The Sanitary Commission--Rendezvous assigned
by Sherman--Preliminary movements--Marching to Georgia--A spring
camp on the Hiwassee--The Atlanta campaign begun.
CHAPTER XXXV
GRANT, HALLECK, AND SHERMAN--JOHNSTON AND MR. DAVIS
Grant's desire for activity in the winter--Scattering to
live--Subordinate movements--The Meridian expedition--Use of the
Mississippi--Sherman's estimate of it--Concentration to be made in
the spring--Grant joins the Potomac Army--Motives in doing so--Meade
as an army commander--Halleck on concentration--North Carolina
expedition given up--Burnside to join Grant--Old relations of
Sherman and Halleck--Present cordial friendship--Frank
correspondence--The supply question--Railway administration--Bridge
defences--Reduction of baggage--Tents--Sherman on spies and
deserters--Changes in Confederate army--Bragg
relieved--Hardee--Beauregard--Johnston--Davis's suggestion of
plans--Correspondence with Johnston--Polk's
mediation--Characteristics--Bragg's letters--Lee writes
Longstreet--Johnston's dilatory discussion--No results--Longstreet
joins Lee--Grant and Sherman have the initiative--Prices in the
Confederacy.
CHAPTER XXXVI
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: DALTON AND RESACA
The opposing forces--North Georgia
triangle--Topography--Dalton--Army of the Ohio enters
Georgia--Positions of the other armies--Turning Tunnel Hill--First
meeting with Sherman--Thomas--Sherman's plan as to
Dalton--McPherson's orders and movement--Those of Thomas and
Schofield--Hopes of a decisive engagement--Thomas attacks north end
of Rocky Face--Opdycke on the ridge--Developing Johnston's
lines--Schofield's advance on 9th May--The flanking march through
Snake Creek Gap--Retiring movement of my division--Passing
lines--Johnston's view of the situation--Use of temporary
intrenchments and barricades--Passing the Snake Creek defile-Camp
Creek line--A wheel in line--Rough march of left flank--Battle of
Resaca--Crossing Camp Creek--Storming Confederate line--My division
relieved by Newton's--Incidents--Further advance of left
flank--Progress of right flank--Johnston retreats.
CHAPTER XXXVII
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: ADVANCE TO THE ETOWAH
Tactics modified by character of the country--Use of the
spade--Johnston's cautious defensive--Methods of Grant and
Sherman--Open country between Oostanaula and Etowah--Movement in
several columns--Sherman's eagerness--Route of left wing--Of
McPherson on the right--Necessity of exact system in such
marches--Route of Twenty-third Corps--Hooker gets in the way--Delays
occasioned--Closing in on Cassville--Our commanding
position--Johnston's march to Cassville--His order to fight
there--Protest of Hood and Polk--Retreat over the Etowah--Sherman
crosses near Kingston--My reconnoissance to the Allatoona
crossing--Destruction of iron works and mills--Marching without
baggage--Barbarism of war--Desolation it causes--Changes in our
corps organization--Hascall takes Judah's division--Our place of
crossing the Etowah--Interference again--Kingston the new
base--Rations--Camp coffee.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: NEW HOPE CHURCH AND THE KENNESAW LINES
Sherman's plan for June--Movements of 24th May-Johnston's position
at Dallas and New Hope Church--We concentrate to attack--Pickett's
Mill--Dallas--Flanking movements--Method developed by the character
of the country--Closer personal relations to Sherman--Turning
Johnston's right--Crossroads at Burnt Church-A tangled
forest--Fighting in a thunderstorm--Sudden freshet--Bivouac in a
thicket---Johnston retires to a new line--Formidable character of
the old one--Sherman extends to the railroad on our left--Blair's
corps joins the army--General Hovey's retirement--The principles
involved--Politics and promotions.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN: MARIETTA LINES--CROSSING THE CHATTAHOOCHEE
Continuous rains in June--Allatoona made a field depot on the
railway and fortified--Johnston in the Marietta lines--That from
Pine Mountain to Lost Mountain abandoned--Swinging our right
flank--Affair at Kolb's farm--Preparing for a general attack--Battle
of Kennesaw-The tactical problem--Work of my division--Topography
about Cheney's--Our advance on the 27th--Nickajack valley
reached--The army moves behind us--Johnston retreats to the
Chattahoochee--Twenty-third Corps at Smyrna Camp-ground--Crossing
the Chattahoochee at Soap Creek--At Roswell--Johnston again
retreats--Correspondence with Davis--Mission of B. H. Hill--Visit of
Bragg to Johnston--Johnston's unfortunate reticence--He is relieved
and Hood placed in command--Significance of the change to the
Confederacy and to us.
CHAPTER XL
HOOD'S DEFENCE OF ATLANTA--RESULTS OF ITS CAPTURE
Lines of supply by field trains--Canvas pontoons--Why replaced by
bridges--Wheeling toward Atlanta--Battle of Peachtree Creek--Battle
of Atlanta--Battle of Ezra Church--Aggressive spirit of Confederates
exhausted--Sherman turns Atlanta by the south--Pivot position of
Twenty-third Corps--Hood's illusions--Rapidity of our troops in
intrenching--Movements of 31st August--Affair at Jonesboro--Atlanta
won--Morale of Hood's army--Exaggerating difference in
numbers--Examination of returns--Efforts to bring back
absentees--The sweeping conscription--Sherman's candid
estimates--Unwise use of cavalry--Forrest's work--Confederate
estimate of Sherman's campaign.
CHAPTER XLI
THE REST AT ATLANTA--STAFF ORGANIZATION AND CHANGES
Position of the Army of the Ohio at Decatur--Refitting for a new
campaign--Depression of Hood's army--Sherman's reasons for a
temporary halt--Fortifying Atlanta as a new base--Officers detailed
for the political campaign-Schofield makes inspection tour of his
department--My temporary command of the Army of the Ohio--Furloughs
and leaves of absence--Promotions of several colonels--General
Hascall resigns--Staff changes--My military family--Anecdote of
Lieutenant Tracy--Discipline of the army--Sensitiveness to approval
or blame--Illustration--Example of skirmishing advance--Sufferings
of non-combatants within our lines--A case in point--Pillaging and
its results--Citizens passing through the lines--"The rigors of the
climate"--Visit of Messrs. Hill and Foster--McPherson's death--The
loss to Sherman and to the army--His personal traits--Appointment of
his successor.
CHAPTER XLII
CAMPAIGN OF OCTOBER--HOOD MOVES UPON OUR COMMUNICATIONS
Hood's plan to transfer the campaign to northern Georgia--Made
partly subordinate to Beauregard--Forrest on a raid--Sherman makes
large detachments--Sends Thomas to Tennessee--Hood across the
Chattahoochee--Sherman follows--Affair at Allatoona--Planning the
March to the Sea--Sherman at Rome--Reconnoissance down the
Coosa--Hood at Resaca--Sherman in pursuit--Hood retreats down the
Chattooga valley--We follow in two columns--Concentrate at
Gaylesville--Beauregard and Hood at Gadsden--Studying the
situation--Thomas's advice--Schofield rejoins--Conference regarding
the Twenty-third Corps--Hood marches on Decatur--His explanation of
change of plan--Sherman marches back to Rome--We are ordered to join
Thomas--Hood repulsed at Decatur marches to Tuscumbia--Our own march
begun--Parting with Sherman--Dalton--Chattanooga--Presidential
election--Voting by steam--Retrospect of October camp-life--Camp
sports--Soldiers' pets--Story of a lizard.
CHAPTER XLIII
NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN--HOOD'S ADVANCE FROM THE TENNESSEE
Schofield to command the army assembled at Pulaski--Forrest's
Tennessee River raid--Schofield at Johnsonville--My division at
Thompson's--Hastening reinforcements to Thomas--Columbia--The
barrens--Pulaski--Hood delays--Suggests Purdy as a base--He advances
from Florence--Our march to Columbia--Thomas's distribution of the
forces--Decatur evacuated--Pontoon bridge there--Withdrawing from
Columbia--Posts between Nashville and Chattanooga--The cavalry on
29th November--Their loss of touch with the army.
CHAPTER XLIV
NASHVILLE-HOOD'S ARMY ROUTED
Defensive works of Nashville--Hood's lines--The ice
blockade--Halleck on remounts for cavalry--Pressing horses and its
abuse--The cavalry problem--Changes in organization--Assignment of
General Couch--Confederate cavalry at Nashville--Counter-movements
of our own--Detailed movements of our right--Difference of
recollection between Schofield and Wilson--The field
dispatches--Carrying Hood's works--Confederate rout.
CHAPTER XLV
PURSUIT OF HOOD--END OF THE CAMPAIGN
Night after the battle--Unusual exposure--Hardships of company
officers--Bad roads--Halt at Franklin--Visiting the
battlefield--Continued pursuit--Decatur reoccupied--Hood at Tupelo,
Miss.--Summary of captures--Thomas suggests winter-quarters--Grant
orders continued activity--Schofield's proposal to move the corps to
the East--Grant's correspondence with Sherman--Schofield's
suggestion adopted--Illness--I ask for "sick-leave"--Do not use
it--Promotion--Reinforcements--March from Columbia to
Clifton--Columns on different roads--Western part of the
barrens--Fording Buffalo River--An illumined camp--Dismay of the
farmer--Clifton on the Tennessee--Admiral Lee--Methods of
transport--Weary waiting--Private grumbling--Ordered East--Revulsion
of spirits--On the transport fleet--Thomas's frame of mind at close
of the campaign.
CHAPTER XLVI
CAMPAIGN IN NORTH CAROLINA--CAPTURE OF WILMINGTON
Rendezvous at Washington--Capture of Fort Fisher--Schofield ordered
to North Carolina--Grant and Schofield visit Terry--Department of
North Carolina--Army of the Ohio in the field--Correspondence of
Grant and Sherman--Sherman conscious of his risks but hopeful of
great results--His plan of march from Savannah--Relation of
Wilmington to New Berne--Our arrival at Washington--The Potomac
frozen--Peace conference at Fort Monroe--Interview with Mr.
Stanton--The thirteenth amendment of the Constitution--Political
excitement at the capital--A little dinner-party--Garfield, H. W.
Davis, and Schenck--Davis on Lincoln--Destination of our
army--Embarkation--Steamship "Atlantic"--Visit to Fort Monroe--The
sea-voyage--Cape Fear Inlet--General Terry's lines--Bragg the
Confederate commander--Reconnoitring his lines--The colored
troops--"Monitor" engaged with Fort Anderson--Alternate
plans--Marching on Wilmington by the west bank of the river--My
column opposite the town--Orders not applicable to the
situation--Difficulty of communication--Use of
discretion--Wilmington evacuated--A happy result.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE CONFEDERACY IN STRAITS--JOHNSTON COMMANDS IN THE CAROLINAS--OUR
OPERATIONS FROM NEW BERNE--BATTLE OF KINSTON
The Confederates lose Charleston and Columbia--Facing a
crisis--Hopeless apathy of Southern people--Mr. Davis's
perplexity--Beauregard startles him--Lee calls Johnston to
command--Personal relations of leading officers--Dwindling
armies--The cavalry--Assignments of generals--The Beaufort and New
Berne line--Am ordered to New Berne--Provisional corps--Advance to
cover railway building--Dover and Gum swamps--Bragg concentrates to
oppose us--Position near Kinston--Bragg's plan of attack--Our own
movements--Condition of railroad and river--Our advance to Wise's
Forks and Southwest Creek--Precautions--Conference with
Schofield--Battle of Kinston--Enemy attack our left front--Rout of
Upham's brigade--Main line firm--Ruger's division reaches the field
Enemy repulsed--End of first day's fight--Extending our trenches on
the left--Sharp skirmishing of the 9th--Bragg's reinforcements--His
attack of the 10th--Final repulse and retreat of the enemy.
CHAPTER XLVIII
JUNCTION WITH SHERMAN AT GOLDSBOROUGH--THE MARCH ON
RALEIGH--CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES
Occupation of Kinston--Opening of Neuse River--Rebel ram
destroyed--Listening to the distant battle at Bentonville--Entering
Goldsborough--Meeting Sherman--Grant's congratulations--His own
plans--Sketch of Sherman's march--Lee and Johnston's
correspondence--Their gloomy outlook--Am made commandant of
Twenty-third Corps--Terry assigned to Tenth--Schofield promoted in
the Regular Army--Stanton's proviso--Ill effects of living on the
country--Stopping it in North Carolina--Camp jubilee over the fall
of Richmond--Changes in Sherman's plans--Our march on
Smithfield--House-burning--News of Lee's surrender--Overtures from
Governor Vance--Entering Raleigh--A mocking-bird's greeting--Further
negotiations as to North Carolina--Johnston proposes an
armistice--Broader scope of negotiations--The Southern people desire
peace--Terrors of non-combatants assuaged--News of Lincoln's
assassination--Precautions to preserve order--The dawn of peace.
CHAPTER XLIX
THE SHERMAN-JOHNSTON CONVENTION
Sherman's earlier views of the slavery question--Opinions in
1864--War rights vs. statesmanship--Correspondence with
Halleck--Conference with Stanton at Savannah--Letter to General
Robert Anderson--Conference with Lincoln at City Point--First effect
of the assassination of the President--Situation on the Confederate
side--Davis at Danville--Cut off from Lee--Goes to
Greensborough--Calls Johnston to conference--Lee's surrender--The
Greensborough meeting--Approach of Stoneman's cavalry raid--Vance's
deputation to Sherman--Davis orders their arrest--Vance asserts his
loyalty--Attempts to concentrate Confederate forces on the
Greensborough-Charlotte line--Cabinet meeting--Overthrow of the
Confederacy acknowledged--Davis still hopeful--Yields to the
cabinet--Dictates Johnston's letter to Sherman--Sherman's
reply--Meeting arranged--Sherman sends preliminary correspondence to
Washington--The Durham meeting--The negotiations--Two points of
difficulty--Second day's session--Johnston's power to promise the
disbanding of the civil government--The terms agreed
upon--Transmittal letters--Assembling the Virginia
legislature--Sherman's wish to make explicit declaration of the end
of slavery--The assassination affecting public sentiment--Sherman's
personal faith in Johnston--He sees the need of modifying the
terms--Grant's arrival.
CHAPTER L
THE SECOND SHERMAN-JOHNSTON CONVENTION--SURRENDER
Davis's last cabinet meeting--Formal opinions approving the
"Basis"--"The Confederacy is conquered"--Grant brings disapproval
from the Johnston administration--Sherman gives notice of the
termination of the truce--No military disadvantage from
it--Sherman's vindication of himself--Grant's admirable
conduct--Johnston advises Davis to yield--Capitulation assented to,
but a volunteer cavalry force to accompany Davis's flight--A new
conference at Durham--Davis's imaginary treasure--Grant's return to
Washington--Terms of the parole given by Johnston's army--The
capitulation complete--Schofield and his army to carry out the
details--The rest of Sherman's army marches north--His farewell to
Johnston--Order announcing the end of the war--Johnston's fine
reply--Stanton's strange dispatch to the newspapers--Its tissue of
errors--Its baseless objections--Sherman's
exasperation--Interference with his military authority over his
subordinates--Garbling Grant's dispatch--Sherman strikes
back--Breach between Sherman and Halleck--It also grew out of the
published matter--Analysis of the facts--My opinion as recorded at
the time.
CHAPTER LI
PAROLING AND DISBANDING JOHNSTON'S ARMY--CLOSING SCENES OF THE WAR
IN NORTH CAROLINA
General Schofield's policy when left in command--Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation in force--Davis's line of flight from
Charlotte, N. C.--Wade Hampton's course of conduct--Fate of the
cabinet officers--Bragg, Wheeler, and Cooper--Issuing paroles to
Johnston and his army--Greensborough in my district--Going there
with Schofield--Hardee meets and accompanies us--Comparing
memories--We reach Johnston's headquarters--Condition of his
army--Our personal interview with him--The numbers of his
troops--His opinion of Sherman's army--Of the murder of
Lincoln--Governor Morehead's home--The men in gray march
homeward--Incident of a flag--The Salisbury prison site--Treatment
of prisoners of war--Local government in the interim--Union
men--Elements of new strife--The negroes--Household service--Wise
dealing with the labor question--No money--Death of
manufactures--Necessity the mother of invention--Uses of
adversity--Peace welcomed--Visit to Greene's battle-field at
Guilford-Old-Court-House.
APPENDIX C
INDEX
MILITARY REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER XXVII
GRANT IN COMMAND--ROSECRANS RELIEVED
Importance of unity in command--Inevitable difficulties in a double
organization--Burnside's problem different from that of
Rosecrans--Cooperation necessarily imperfect--Growth of Grant's
reputation--Solid grounds of it--Special orders sent him--Voyage to
Cairo--Meets Stanton at Louisville--Division of the Mississippi
created--It included Burnside's and Rosecrans's
departments--Alternate forms in regard to Rosecrans--He is
relieved--Thomas succeeds him--Grant's relations to the change--His
intellectual methods--Taciturnity--Patience--Discussions in his
presence--Clear judgments--His "good anecdote"--Rosecrans sends
Garfield to Washington--Congressman or General--Duplication of
offices--Interview between Garfield and Stanton--Dana's
dispatches--Garfield's visit to me--Description of the rout of
Rosecrans's right wing--Effect on the general--Retreat to
Chattanooga--Lookout Mountain abandoned--The President's
problem--Dana's light upon it--Stanton's use of it--Grant's
acquiescence--Subsequent relations of Garfield and
Rosecrans--Improving the "cracker line"--Opening the
Tennessee--Combat at Wauhatchie.
It is very evident that, at the close of September, Mr. Lincoln and
Mr. Stanton had become satisfied that a radical change must be made
in the organization of the Western armies. The plan of sending
separate armies to co-operate, as Rosecrans's and Burnside's had
been expected to do, was in itself vicious. It is, after a fashion,
an attempt of two to ride a horse without one of them riding behind.
Each will form a plan for his own army, as indeed he ought to do,
and when one of them thinks the time has come for help from the
other, that other may be out of reach or committed to operations
which cannot readily be dropped. It is almost axiomatic that in any
one theatre of operations there must be one head to direct.
[Footnote: Napoleon used to ridicule the vicious practice of
subdividing armies in the same theatre of war. He called it putting
them up in small parcels, "_des petits paquets_." Memoirs of Gouvion
St.-Cyr, vol. iv.] In the present case it ought to have been evident
to the authorities at Washington that as soon as Burnside occupied
East Tennessee, both distance and the peculiar conditions of his
problem would forbid any efficient cooperation with Rosecrans. The
latter was the junior in rank, and knew that, whatever might be
Burnside's generosity, there were many possible contingencies in
such a campaign in which the War Department might find it the easy
solution of a difficulty to direct the senior officer to assume the
command of both armies. So long as matters went well, Rosecrans had
little or no communication with Burnside; but as soon as the enemy
began to show a bold front, he became impatient for assistance. The
perplexities of his own situation made him blind to those of
Burnside. This is human nature, and was, no doubt, true of both in
varying degrees. Halleck, at Washington, was in no true sense a
commander of the armies. He had given peremptory orders to advance
in June and again in July, but when asked whether this relieved the
subordinate of responsibility and took away his discretion, could
make no distinct answer. The unpleasant relations thus created
necessarily affected the whole campaign. Halleck hesitated to advise
a halt when he learned that Longstreet had gone to reinforce Bragg,
and Rosecrans dreaded the blame of halting without such suggestion.
So the battle had to be fought, and the ill consequences had to be
repaired afterward as best they could.
The official correspondence of the summer shows a constantly growing
faith in Grant. His great success at Vicksburg gave him fame and
prestige, but there was beside this a specific effect produced on
the President and the War Department by his unceasing activity, his
unflagging zeal, his undismayed courage. He was as little inclined
to stop as they at Washington were inclined to have him. He was as
ready to move as they were to ask it, and anticipated their wish. He
took what was given him and did the best he could with it. The
result was that the tone adopted toward him was very different from
that used with any other commander. It was confidently assumed that
he was doing all that was possible, and there was no disposition to
worry him with suggestions or orders.
When the operations in the Mississippi valley were reduced to
secondary importance by the surrender of Vicksburg, it was certain
that Grant would be called to conduct one of the great armies which
must still make war upon the rebellion. In a visit to New Orleans to
consult with Banks, he had been lamed by a fractious horse and was
disabled for some days. As soon as he was able to ride in an
ambulance he was on duty, and was assured by General Halleck that
plenty of work would be cut out for him as soon as he was fully
recovered. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. iv. p. 274.]
At the beginning of October he was ordered to take steamboat and go
to Cairo, where he would find special instructions. This dispatch
reached him on the 9th, and the same day he sailed for Cairo,
arriving there on the 16th, when he learned that an officer of the
War Department would meet him at Louisville. Hastening to Louisville
by rail, he met Mr. Stanton himself, who had travelled _incognito_
from Washington. The Secretary of War produced the formal orders
which had been drawn at the War Department creating the Division of
the Mississippi, which included Rosecrans's, Burnside's, and his own
departments, and put him in supreme command of all. [Footnote:
_Id_., p. 404.] The order was drawn in two forms, one relieving
Rosecrans and putting Thomas in command of the Department of the
Cumberland, and the other omitting this. After consultation with Mr.
Stanton, the order relieving Rosecrans was issued and Grant
published his own assumption of command. His staff had accompanied
him, on a hint contained in an earlier dispatch, and after a day
spent with the Secretary of War (October 18-19) he immediately
proceeded to Chattanooga. He was hardly able to mount a horse, and
when on foot had to get about on crutches.
It has been commonly assumed that the choice whether he would remove
Rosecrans was submitted to Grant as a personal question affecting
his relations with his subordinates, and that he decided it on the
ground of his dislike of Rosecrans. The records of the official
correspondence seem to me to show the fact rather to be that
Rosecrans's removal was thought best by the Secretary, the doubt
being whether Grant would prefer to retain him instead of meeting
the embarrassments incident to so important a change in the
organization of the beleaguered army. Grant was always disposed to
work with the tools he had, and through his whole military career
showed himself averse to meddling much with the organization of his
army. He had strong likes and dislikes, but was very reticent of his
expression of them. He would quietly take advantage of vacancies or
of circumstances to put men where he wanted them, but very rarely
made sweeping reorganization. If any one crossed him or became
antagonistic without open insubordination, he would bear with it
till an opportunity came to get rid of the offender. He hated verbal
quarrelling, never used violent language, but formed his judgments
and bided his time for acting on them. This sometimes looked like a
lack of frankness, and there were times when a warm but honest
altercation would have cleared the air and removed
misunderstandings. It was really due to a sort of shyness which was
curiously blended with remarkable faith in himself. From behind his
wall of taciturnity he was on the alert to see what was within
sight, and to form opinions of men and things that rooted fast and
became part of his mental constitution. He sometimes unbent and
would talk with apparent freedom and ease; but, so far as I
observed, it was in the way of narrative or anecdote, and almost
never in the form of discussion or comparison of views. It used to
be said that during the Vicksburg campaign he liked to have Sherman
and McPherson meet at his tent, and would manage to set them to
discussing the military situation. Sherman would be brilliant and
trenchant; McPherson would be politely critical and intellectual;
Rawlins would break in occasionally with some blunt and vigorous
opinion of his own: Grant sat impassable and dumb in his camp-chair,
smoking; but the lively discussion stimulated his strong
commonsense, and gave him more assured confidence in the judgments
and conclusions he reached. He sometimes enjoyed with a spice of
real humor the mistaken assumption of fluent men that reticent ones
lack brains. I will venture to illustrate it by an anecdote of a
date subsequent to the war. One day during his presidency, he came
into the room where his cabinet was assembling, quietly laughing to
himself. "I have just read," said he, "one of the best anecdotes I
have ever met. It was that John Adams after he had been President
was one day taking a party out to dinner, at his home in Quincy,
when one of his guests noticed a portrait over the door and said,
'You have a fine portrait of Washington there, Mr. Adams!' 'Yes,'
was the reply, 'and that old wooden head made his fortune by keeping
his mouth shut;'" and Grant laughed again with uncommon enjoyment.
The apocryphal story gained a permanent interest in Grant's mouth,
for though he showed no consciousness that it could have any
application to himself, he evidently thought that keeping the mouth
shut was not enough in itself to ensure fortune, and at any rate was
not displeased at finding such a ground of sympathy with the Father
of his country. Grant's telling the story seemed to me, under the
circumstances, infinitely more amusing than the original.
During the month which followed the battle of Chickamauga, Rosecrans
had elaborated his report of the campaign. On the 15th of October he
ordered General Garfield to proceed to Washington with it and to
explain personally to the Secretary of the War and the
General-in-Chief the details of the actual condition of the army,
its lines of communication, the scarcity of supplies and especially
of forage for horses and mules, with all other matters which would
assist the War Department in fully appreciating the situation.
Garfield's term as member of Congress began with the 4th of March
preceding, but the active session would only commence on the first
Monday of December. There was some doubt as to the status of army
officers who were elected to Congress. General Frank P. Blair had
been elected as well as Garfield, and it was in Blair's case that
the issue was made by those who objected to the legality of what
they called a duplication of offices. Later in the session of
Congress it was settled that the two commissions were incompatible,
and that one must choose between them. Blair resigned his seat at
Washington and returned to Sherman's army. Garfield, who had found
camp life a cause of oft-recurring and severe disease of his
digestive system, resigned his army commission and retained his
place in Congress. When he left Rosecrans, however, he was still
hopeful that the two duties might be found consistent, and looked
forward to further military employment.
On his way to Nashville, Garfield made a careful inspection of the
road to Jasper and Bridgeport, and reported it with recommendations
for the improvement of the transportation service. He arrived at
Nashville on the 19th of October, and was met by the rumor that the
Secretary of War and General Grant were at Louisville, and that
Grant would come down the road by special train next day. He
telegraphed the news to Rosecrans with the significant question,
What does it mean? Rosecrans knew what it meant, for Grant's order
assuming command and relieving him had been earlier telegraphed to
him, and he had already penned his dignified and appropriate
farewell order to the Army of the Cumberland.
Mr. Stanton awaited Garfield's coming at Louisville, and there was a
full and frank interview between them. The order relieving Rosecrans
ended Garfield's official connection with him, and, even if it had
not been so, it would have been his duty to make no concealments in
answering the earnest and eager cross-questioning of the Secretary.
Mr. Stanton had not only had dispatches full of information from
General Meigs, who now also met him at Louisville, but his
assistant, Mr. Charles A. Dana, had gone early to Chattanooga, had
been present at the battle of Chickamauga, and had there some
perilous experiences of his own. Dana was still with Rosecrans, and
had sent to the Secretary a series of cipher dispatches giving a
vivid interior view of affairs and of men. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. pp. 220, etc.; vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp.
69-74, 265; pt. ii. pp. 52-70.] The talented journalist had known
how to give his communications the most lively effect, and they had
great weight with the Secretary. They were not always quite just,
for they were written at speed under the spell of first impressions,
and necessarily under the influence of army acquaintances in whom he
had confidence. There is, however, no evidence that he was
predisposed to judge harshly of Rosecrans, and the unfavorable
conclusions he reached were echoed in Mr. Stanton's words and acts.
[Footnote: Since this was written Mr. Dana has published his
Recollections, based on his dispatches, but the omissions make it
still important to read the originals.] The Secretary of War was
consequently prepared to show such knowledge of the battle of
Chickamauga and the events which followed it, that it would be
impossible for Garfield to avoid mention of incidents which bore
unfavorably upon Rosecrans. He might have been silent if Mr. Stanton
had not known so well how to question him, but when he found how
full the information of the Secretary was, his duty as a military
subordinate coincided with his duty as a responsible member of
Congress, and he discussed without reserve the battle and its
results. Mr. Stanton also questioned General Steedman, who was on
his way home, and wrote to his assistant in Washington for the
information of the President, that his interview with these officers
more than confirmed the worst that had reached him from other
sources as to the conduct of Rosecrans, and the strongest things he
had heard of the credit due to Thomas. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 684.]
Garfield came from Louisville to Cincinnati, where I was on duty at
headquarters of my district, and found me, as may easily be
believed, full of intense interest in the campaign. I had been kept
informed of all that directly affected Burnside, my immediate chief,
but my old acquaintance with Rosecrans and sincere personal regard
for him made me desire much more complete information touching his
campaign than was given the public. Garfield's own relations to it
were hardly less interesting to me, and our intimacy was such that
our thoughts at that time were common property. He spent a day with
me, and we talked far into the night, going over the chief points of
the campaign and his interview with Mr. Stanton. His friendship for
Rosecrans amounted to warm affection and very strong personal
liking. Yet I found he had reached the same judgment of his mental
qualities and his capacity as a commander which I had formed at an
earlier day. Rosecrans's perceptions were acute and often
intuitively clear. His fertility was great. He lacked poise,
however, and the steadiness of will necessary to handle great
affairs successfully. Then there was the fatal defect of the
liability to be swept away by excitement and to lose all efficient
control of himself and of others in the very crisis when complete
self-possession is the essential quality of a great general.
We sat alone in my room, face to face, at midnight, as Garfield
described to me the scene on the 20th of September on the
battlefield, when through the gap in the line made by the withdrawal
of Wood's division the Confederates poured. He pictured the
astonishment of all who witnessed it, the doubt as to the evidence
of their own senses; the effort of Sheridan further to the right to
change front and strike the enemy in flank; the hesitation of the
men; the wavering and then the breaking of the right wing into a
panic-stricken rout, each man running for life to the Dry Valley
road, thinking only how he might reach Chattanooga before the enemy
should overtake him, officers and men swept along in that most
hopeless of mobs, a disorganized army. He described the effort of
Rosecrans and the staff to rally the fugitives and to bring a
battery into action, under a shower of flying bullets and crashing
shells. It failed, for men were as deaf to reason in their mad panic
as would be a drove of stampeded cattle. What was needed was a fresh
and well-organized division to cover the rout, to hold back the
enemy, and to give time for rallying the fugitives. But no such
division was at hand, and the rush to the rear could not be stayed.
The enemy was already between the headquarters group and Brannan's
division which Wood had joined, and these, throwing back the right
flank, were presenting a new front toward the west, where
Longstreet, preventing his men from pursuing too far, turned his
energies to the effort to break the curved line of which Thomas at
the Snodgrass house was the centre.
The staff and orderlies gathered about Rosecrans and tried to make
their way out of the press. With the conviction that nothing more
could be done, mental and physical weakness seemed to overcome the
general. He rode silently along, abstracted, as if he neither saw
nor heard. Garfield went to him and suggested that he be allowed to
try to make his way by Rossville to Thomas, the sound of whose
battle seemed to indicate that he was not yet broken. Rosecrans
assented listlessly and mechanically. As Garfield told it to me, he
leaned forward, bringing his excited face close to mine, and his
hand came heavily down upon my knee as in whispered tones he
described the collapse of nerve and of will that had befallen his
chief. The words burned themselves into my memory.
Garfield called for volunteers to accompany him, but only a single
orderly with his personal aide-de-camp followed him; and he made his
way to the right, passed through the gap at Rossville, saw Granger,
who was preparing to move Steedman's division to the front, and rode
on to join Thomas, running the gantlet of the enemy's fire as he
passed near them on the Kelley farm. He never tired of telling of
the calm and quiet heroism of Thomas, holding his position on the
horse-shoe ridge till night put an end to the fighting, and then
retiring in perfect order to the Rossville Gap, to which he was
ordered. This part of the story has been made familiar to all. An
eyewitness has told how, when Rosecrans reached Chattanooga, he had
to be helped from his horse. His nerves were exhausted by the strain
he had undergone, and only gradually recovered from the shock.
[Footnote: Cist, The Army of the Cumberland, p. 226.] His first
dispatch to Washington was the announcement that his army had met
with a serious disaster, the extent of which he could not himself
tell. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. p. 142.] The
most alarming feature of the news was that he was himself a dozen
miles from the battlefield and had evidently lost all control of
events. The truth turned out to be that two divisions would include
all the troops that were broken,--namely, Sheridan's, two brigades
of Davis's, and one of Van Cleve's,--whilst seven other divisions
stood firm and Thomas assumed command of them. As these retired in
order, and as the enemy had suffered more in killed and wounded than
our army, Bragg was entitled to claim a victory only because the
field was left in his hands with large numbers of wounded and
numerous trophies of cannon. It was then claimed by some of our best
officers, and is still an open question whether, if Rosecrans had
been with Thomas and, calling to him Granger's troops, had resumed
the offensive, the chances were not in our favor, and whether Bragg
might not have been the one to retreat.
Unfortunately there was no doubt that the general was defeated,
whether his army was or not. The most cursory study of the map
showed that the only practicable road by which the army could be
supplied was along the river from Bridgeport. Lookout Mountain
commanded this; and not to hold Lookout was practically to announce
a purpose to retreat into middle Tennessee. Dana informed the
Secretary of War that Garfield and Granger had urged Rosecrans to
hold the mountain, but that he would not listen to it. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. p. 215.] He could much better
afford to intrench a division there than Bragg could, for the
Confederates were tied to Mission Ridge by the necessity of covering
the Atlanta Railroad, which was their line of supply, and any troops
put across the Chattanooga valley were in the air and likely to be
cut off if the long and thin line which connected them were broken.
Had Lookout Mountain been held, Hooker could have come at once into
his place in line when he reached the Tennessee, and the reinforced
army would have been ready, as soon as it was rested and supplied,
to resume an offensive campaign. Instead of this, the country was
for a month tortured with the apprehension that the Army of the
Cumberland must retreat because it could not be fed by means of the
mountain road over Walden's Ridge. After the fortifications at
Chattanooga were strong enough to put the place beyond danger from
direct assault, it would only be adding to the danger of starvation
to send more men there before a better line of supply was opened.
The problem which the President and Secretary of War pondered most
anxiously was the capacity and fitness of Rosecrans to conduct the
new campaign. Would he rise energetically to the height of the great
task, or would he sink into the paralysis of will which so long
followed the battle of Stone's River? Dana's dispatches were studied
for the light they threw on this question more than for all the
other interesting details they contained. For the first three or
four days, they teemed with impressions of the battle itself and the
cause of the disaster to the right wing. Then came the assurance
that Chattanooga was safe and could withstand a regular siege. Next,
in logical order as in time, was the attempt to look into the future
and to estimate the commander by the way he grappled with the
difficulties of the situation. On the 27th of September Dana
discussed at some length the army feeling toward the corps and
division commanders who had been involved in the rout, and the
embarrassment of Rosecrans in dealing with the subject. "The defects
of his character," he wrote, "complicate the difficulty. He abounds
in friendliness and approbativeness, and is greatly lacking in
firmness and steadiness of will. He is a temporizing man, dreads so
heavy an alternative as is now presented." [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxx. pt. i p. 202.] On the 12th of October he returned
to the subject of Rosecrans's characteristics, mentioning his
refusal to listen to the urgent reasons why he should hold Lookout
Mountain to protect his supply line. "Rosecrans," he said, "who is
sometimes as obstinate and inaccessible to reason as at others he is
irresolute, vacillating, and inconclusive, rejected all their
arguments, and the mountain was given up." [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxx. pt. i. p. 215.] Picturing the starvation of the
horses and mules and the danger of it for the soldiers, he added:
"In the midst of this the commanding general devotes that part of
the time which is not employed in pleasant gossip, to the
composition of a long report to prove that the government is to
blame for his failure. It is my duty to declare that while few
persons exhibit more estimable social qualities, I have never seen a
public man possessing talent with less administrative power, less
clearness and steadiness in difficulty, and greater practical
incapacity than General Rosecrans. He has inventive fertility and
knowledge, but he has no strength of will and no concentration of
purpose. His mind scatters. There is no system in the use of his
busy days and restless nights, no courage against individuals in his
composition, and with great love of command he is a feeble
commander." [Footnote: _Ibid_.]
It needs no proof that such a report would have great influence at
Washington, and if it at all harmonized with the drift of
impressions caused by the inaction and the wrangling of the summer,
it would be decisive. It was with it in his pocket that Mr. Stanton
had cross-questioned Garfield, and drew out answers which, as he
said, corroborated it. The same correspondence had set forth the
universal faith in Thomas's imperturbable steadiness and courage,
and the admiring faith in him which had possessed the whole army.
The natural and the almost necessary outcome of it all was that
Thomas should be placed in command of the Department and Army of the
Cumberland, and Grant in supreme control of the active operations in
the whole valley of the Mississippi. As to Rosecrans's removal,
Grant did not bring it about, he only acquiesced in it; willingly,
no doubt, but without initiative or suggestion on his part.
[Footnote: Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 18.]
It may be well here to say a word upon the subsequent relations of
Garfield and Rosecrans. In the next winter a joint resolution was
offered in Congress thanking General Thomas and the officers and men
under his command for their conduct in the battle of Chickamauga.
The established etiquette in such matters is to name the general
commanding the army, whose services are recognized, and not his
subordinates; these are included in the phrase, "officers and men
under his command." To omit Rosecrans's name and to substitute
Thomas's was equivalent to a public condemnation of the former.
Garfield had been promoted to be major-general for his conduct in
the battle, and it was popularly understood that this meant his
special act in volunteering to make his way to Thomas after
Rosecrans and the staff were swept along the Dry Valley road in the
rout. The promotion was recognized as a censure by implication on
his chief. As Garfield was now chairman of the committee of the
House of Representatives on military affairs, he was placed in a
peculiarly embarrassing position. His sincere liking for Rosecrans
made him wish to spare him the humiliation involved in the passage
of such a resolution, and his generosity was the more stimulated by
the knowledge that his own promotion had been used to emphasize the
shortcoming of his friend. He could not argue that on the
battlefield itself there had been no faults committed; but he was
very earnest in insisting that the general strategy of the campaign
had been admirable, and the result in securing Chattanooga as a
fortified base for future operations had been glorious. He therefore
moved to amend the resolution by inserting Rosecrans's name and
modifying the rest so as to make it apply to the campaign and its
results. He supported this in an eloquent speech which dwelt upon
the admirable parts of Rosecrans's generalship and skilfully avoided
the question of personal conduct on the field. He carried the House
with him, but a joint resolution must pass the Senate also, and it
never came to a vote in that body.
When in 1880 Garfield was elected President, and in the midst of a
heated campaign had to run the gantlet of personal attacks
infinitely worse than the picket fire under which he had galloped
across the Kelley farm, a letter was produced which he had written
to Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, in June, 1863, when he was
urging Rosecrans to terminate the inglorious delays at Murfreesboro
by marching on Tullahoma. In his letter to Mr. Chase he had
expressed in warmest terms his personal affection for Rosecrans, but
had also condemned the summer's delays as unnecessary and contrary
to military principles. In the violence of partisan discussion the
letter was seized upon as evidence of a breach of faith toward his
chief, who was now acting with the political party opposed to
Garfield's election. The letter was a personal one, written in
private friendship to Mr. Chase, with whom Garfield had kept up an
occasional correspondence since the beginning of the war. I had done
the like, for Mr. Chase had admitted us both to his intimacy when he
was Governor of Ohio. It cannot for a moment be maintained that
military subordination is inconsistent with temperate and respectful
criticism (for such this was) of a superior, in private
communications to a friend. But it was argued that the relation of
chief of staff involved another kind of confidence. It
unquestionably involved the duty of observing and maintaining
perfectly every confidence actually reposed in him. But the public
acts of the chief were anything but confidential. They were in the
face of all the world, and these only were the subject of his
private and friendly criticism. That criticism he had, moreover,
expressed to Rosecrans himself as distinctly as he wrote it to Mr.
Chase, and had declared it publicly in the written consultation or
council of war to which the corps and division commanders were
called. [Footnote: _Ante_, vol. i. p. 483.]
But Garfield was also at that time a member of Congress, having
duties to the President, the Cabinet, and his colleagues and fellow
members growing out of that relation. Rosecrans not only knew this,
but was supposed by many to have invited Garfield to take the staff
appointment partly by reason of this. Under all the circumstances,
therefore, the ground of complaint becomes shadowy and disappears.
Rosecrans, however, was made to think he had suffered a wrong. He
forgot the generosity with which Garfield had saved him from
humiliation in the session of 1863-64, and said bitter things which
put an end to the friendly relations which had till then been
maintained.
To return to Chattanooga in October, 1863: one thing remained to be
done before a new campaign could begin. A better mode of supplying
the army must be found. Thomas had answered Grant's injunction to
hold Chattanooga at all hazards by saying, "I will hold the town
till we starve." The memorable words have been interpreted as a
dauntless assurance of stubborn defence; but they more truly meant
that the actual peril was not from the enemy, but from hunger.
Rosecrans had begun to feel the necessity of opening a new route to
Bridgeport before he was relieved, and on the very day he laid down
the command, he had directed Brigadier-General W. F. Smith, sent to
him to be chief engineer of his army since the battle, to examine
the river banks in the vicinity of Williams Island, six or seven
miles below the town by the river, and to report upon the
feasibility of laying a pontoon bridge there which could be
protected. The expectation had been that Hooker would concentrate
his two corps at Bridgeport, make his own crossing of the Tennessee,
and push forward to the hills commanding Lookout Valley. By
intrenching himself strongly in the vicinity of Wauhatchie, he would
confine the Confederates to Lookout Mountain on the west, and cover
the roads along the river so as to make them safe for supply trains.
The only interruption in the connected communications would then be
around the base of Lookout itself, where the road could not be used,
of course, so long as Bragg should be able to hold the mountain. If,
however, a bridge could be laid somewhere in rear of such a
fortified position, the road on the north bank of the river could be
used, for this road ran across the neck of Moccasin Point, out of
range of a cannonade from the mountain, and after a short haul of a
mile or two, the wagon trains could recross the river by the bridge
at the town.
Hooker had showed no eagerness to take the laboring oar in this
business, and excused his delay in concentrating at Bridgeport by
the lack of wagons. General Smith's reconnoissance satisfied him
that Brown's Ferry, a little above the island, would admirably serve
the purpose. A roadway to the river on each side already existed. On
the south side was a gorge and a brook, which sheltered the landing
there, and would cover and hide troops moving toward the top of the
ridge commanding Lookout Valley. Smith reported his discovery to
Thomas and suggested that pontoons be built in Chattanooga, and used
to convey a force by night to the ferry, where they might be met by
Hooker coming from below. Thomas approved the plan, and as soon as
Grant arrived, he inspected the ground in company with Thomas and
Smith, and ordered it to be executed. The boats were completed by
the end of a week, and on the night of the 26th of October the
expedition started under the command of General Smith in person.
Brigadier-Generals Hazen and Turchin and Colonel T. R. Stanley of
the Eighteenth Ohio [Footnote: Colonel Stanley had been one of my
associates in the Ohio Senate in the winter of 1860-61. On the
origin and development of the plan and its complete execution, see
Reports of General Smith and others, Official Records, vol. xxxi.
pt. i. pp. 77-137.] were assigned to command the three detachments
of troops and boats assigned to the duty, and reported to Smith.
Covered by the darkness and in absolute silence, they were to float
down the stream which flowed around Moccasin Point in a great curve
under the base of Lookout, on which batteries commanded long reaches
of the river both above and below. Reaching the ferry on the enemy's
side, they would land and carry the picket posts with a rush, Hazen
to move to the left and seize the ridge facing the mountain, and
Turchin to do the like toward the right, facing down stream. Colonel
Stanley's detachment had the charge of the boats, which were fitted
with row-locks and oars, and these were to do the ferrying when the
proper place was reached. Each boat contained a corporal and four
men as a crew, and twenty-five armed soldiers. They were fifty in
number, besides two flatboats to be used as a ferry to cross the
artillery. The whole force consisted of 5000 men and three batteries
of artillery. The boats carried about a third of the whole, and the
principal columns marched by the road on the north bank to the
places assigned and were concealed in the forest. The plan worked
beautifully. Starting at three o'clock in the morning of the 27th,
the darkness of the night and a slight fog hid the boats from the
Confederate pickets. The oars were only used to keep the boats in
proper position in the current, and great care was taken to move
silently. Colonel Stanley took the lead with General Hazen in one of
the flatboats, having a good guide. The landing on the south bank
was found, and the troops landed and drove off the enemy's picket,
which was taken completely by surprise. The boats were swiftly
pulled to the north bank, where the troops which marched by the road
were already in position. The ferrying was hurried with a will, and
before the Confederates had time to bring any considerable force to
oppose, strong positions were taken covering the ferry, these were
covered by an abatis of slashed forest trees and intrenched. The
surprise had been complete, and the success had been perfect.
Hooker crossed the river on the bridge at Bridgeport, and on the
morning of the 28th marched by way of Running Waters and Whitesides
to Wauhatchie. Geary's division reached Wauhatchie about five in the
afternoon, and about midnight was fiercely attacked by Jenkins'
division of Longstreet's corps. The combat continued for some time,
the enemy having some advantage at first as they attacked Geary's
left flank in a direction from which he did not expect them. Other
troops were urged forward to Geary's assistance, but the enemy
retired as they approached the scene of action and only his division
was seriously engaged. He reported a list of 216 casualties, whilst
the Confederates admitted a loss of about 400. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 119, 233.] Hooker's position was made
strongly defensible, so that Bragg did not again venture to disturb
it, and the easy lines of supply for Chattanooga were opened. The
subsistence problem was solved.
CHAPTER XXVIII
SIEGE OF KNOXVILLE--END OF BURNSIDE'S CAMPAIGN
Departments not changed by Grant--Sherman assigned to that of the
Tennessee--Burnside's situation and supplies--His
communications--Building a railroad--Threatened from Virginia--His
plans--Bragg sends Longstreet into East Tennessee--Their
cross-purposes--Correspondence of Grant and Burnside--Dana and
Wilson sent to consult--Grant approves Burnside's course--Latter
slowly retires on Knoxville--The place prepared for a siege--Combat
at Campbell's station--Within the lines at Knoxville--Topography of
the place--Defences--Assignment of positions-The forts--General
Sanders killed--His self-sacrifice--Longstreet's lines of
investment--His assault of Fort Sanders--The combat--The
repulse--The victory at Missionary Ridge and results--Division of
Confederate forces a mistake--Grant sends Sherman to raise the siege
of Knoxville--East Tennessee a "horror"--Longstreet retreats toward
Virginia--Sherman rejoins Grant--Granger's unwillingness to
remain--General Foster sent to relieve Burnside--Criticism of this
act--Halleck's misunderstanding of the real situation--Grant's easy
comprehension of it--His conduct in enlarged responsibility--General
Hunter's inspection report.
One of the first questions which General Grant had to decide was
that of the continuance of the three separate departments of the
Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee. It was very undesirable to
concentrate the ordinary administrative work of these departments at
his own headquarters. It would overburden him with business routine
which need not go beyond a department commander. He needed to be
free to give his strength to the conduct of military affairs in the
field. It was also convenient to have the active army under a triple
division of principal parts. All these reasons led him to a prompt
determination to preserve the department organizations if the War
Department would consent. The very day of his arrival at Chattanooga
(October 23) he recommended Sherman for the Department of the
Tennessee and the continuance of the others. His wish was approved
at Washington, and acted upon, so that from this time to the end of
the war the organization in the West remained what he now made it.
Before reaching Chattanooga, Grant had telegraphed to Burnside and
had received from him a detailed statement of the numbers and
positions of his troops. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt.
i. pp. 680, 681.] Burnside also laid before him the dearth of
supplies and short stock of ammunition, with the great need of
clothing. Unless the railroad to Chattanooga could be fully
reopened, he suggested making a depot at McMinnville, where was the
end of one of the branches of the railway, from which the road to
Knoxville would be considerably shorter than from Kentucky. He also
informed Grant that he had taken steps to repair the wagon road from
Clinton in East Tennessee to the mouth of South Fork of the
Cumberland, the head of steamboat navigation when the stream should
be swollen by the winter rains. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. pp. 33,
34.] The problem of supplies for him was as difficult as for the
Cumberland army, and was not so soon solved. It grew more serious
still when the siege of Knoxville interrupted for a month all
communication with a base in Kentucky, in middle Tennessee, or at
Chattanooga.
In reply to an inquiry from General Grant, Burnside, on the 22d,
[Footnote: _Id_., pt. i. p. 702.] gave his opinion as to the
relative importance of points in East Tennessee, pointing out that
unless communication with Kentucky were to be wholly abandoned, the
valley must be held nearly or quite to the Virginia line; Knoxville
would be the central position, and Loudon would be the intermediate
one between him and Chattanooga. In a dispatch to the President of
the same date, Burnside said that his command had been on half
rations of everything but fresh beef ever since his arrival in the
valley. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 701.] He also explained that he was
improving the wagon road along the line of projected railroad down
the South Fork of the Cumberland, so that sections of it could be
laid with rails and the wagoning gradually shortened. He had been
able to make an arrangement with the railroad company in Kentucky to
assume the cost of the extension of the line from the northward, and
by using his military power to call out negro laborers and to
provide the engineering supervision, was making considerable
progress without any money appropriations from Congress for this
specific purpose. The quartermaster's department had taken issue
with the general as to his authority to do this; but the President
and Secretary of War sanctioned his acts and would not allow him to
be interfered with. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxx. pt iii,
p. 787.] The work stopped when he was relieved of command; but so
long as he was in power, his clear apprehension of the vital
necessity of a railway line to feed and clothe his army kept him
persistent and indomitable in his purpose. The withdrawal of the
enemy southward from Chattanooga, and the conversion of that place
into a great military depot in the spring superseded Burnside's
plan, but he had been right in concluding that East Tennessee could
not be held if the troops depended upon supply by wagon trains.
Grant had hardly reached Chattanooga when Halleck informed him that
it was pretty certain that Ewell's corps of 20,000 or 25,000 men had
gone from Lee's army toward East Tennessee by way of southwestern
Virginia. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 712.] There thus
seemed to be strong confirmation of rumors which Burnside had before
reported. Before the end of the month there were also signs of a
concentration south of Loudon, and the question became a pressing
one, what line of action should be prescribed for Burnside if the
Confederates should thus attack him from both ends of the valley. He
did not credit the rumor as to Ewell's corps, but began to think
that a large detachment from Bragg's army would attack him from the
south. It is curious to find the report rife that Longstreet would
march against Burnside, even before Bragg had issued orders to that
effect. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 718. Oct.
24.] Burnside himself proposed to take up the pontoon bridge at
Loudon, and move it to Knoxville, for both the Holston and the
Little Tennessee were now unfordable and would protect his flank
against small expeditions of the enemy. [Footnote: 2 _Id_., p. 756.]
His plan was to hold all the country he could and to concentrate at
Knoxville and stand a siege whenever the enemy should prove too
strong for him in the open field. Grant was not yet persuaded that
this was best, and wanted the line of the Hiwassee held for the
present, so that Burnside should draw nearer to Thomas rather than
increase the distance before the Cumberland army should be prepared
for active work in the field. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 770.]
Bragg's order to Longstreet to march against Burnside was issued on
the 4th of November. [Footnote: _Id_. pt. iii. p. 634.] Railway
transportation was provided for the first stages of the movement,
but it was not efficiently used. Longstreet had no confidence in the
result of the expedition, as his correspondence with Bragg very
plainly shows. Stevenson's division of Hardee's corps was at
Sweetwater, the end of the railway at that time, and about a day's
march from the crossing of the Holston at Loudon. Ten days had been
wasted in getting Longstreet's corps to Sweetwater, and Bragg and he
each charged the other with the responsibility for it. Longstreet
asserted that he had been given no control over the railway, and
Bragg insisted that the control was ample. Then the former had urged
that Stevenson's division should be attached to his command, saying
this was his understanding at the start. Bragg replied that he never
had any such intention and that Stevenson could not be spared.
Longstreet retorted that with his present force it would be
unreasonable to expect great results. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 635-637, 644, 670, 671, 680, 681, 687:
Longstreet's Report, _Id_., pt. i. pp. 455, etc.]
Meanwhile Sherman was hastening to Chattanooga, and the chances for
making the diversion against Burnside profitable to the Confederate
cause were rapidly diminishing. They soon vanished entirely, and
Grant's great opportunity came instead. Longstreet's corps consisted
of nine brigades of infantry in two strong divisions under
Major-General McLaws and Brigadier-General Jenkins, two battalions
of artillery aggregating nine batteries, and a cavalry corps of
three divisions and three batteries of artillery under Major-General
Wheeler. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 451, 454.] Besides these troops a
force was collected in the upper Holston valley to operate from the
northeast in conjunction with Longstreet and under his command. At
its head was Major-General Ransom, and it consisted of three
brigades of infantry and three of cavalry, with six batteries of
artillery. The column with Longstreet numbered 14,000 infantry and
artillery, and about 6000 cavalry. It was strengthened when before
Knoxville by Buckner's division about 3300 strong. Ransom's forces
numbered 7500. [Footnote: These numbers are taken from the official
returns for October 31st, except Wheeler's cavalry, which was not
then reported and is estimated. Longstreet's corps is given in the
tables, Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. ii. p. 656. Ransom's,
_Id_., pt. iii. p. 644.] On November 22d Bragg wrote to Longstreet
that nearly 11,000 reinforcements were moving to his assistance, but
of what these were made up (except Buckner's division) does not
clearly appear. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 736.]
The information Halleck collected at Washington indicated that
Longstreet's column was a strong one, possibly numbering 40,000, but
he urged that Burnside should not retreat. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
145.] The National forces in East Tennessee consisted, first, of the
troops under General Willcox at Cumberland Gap and the vicinity,
4400; the Ninth Corps, Brigadier-General Potter commanding, 6350;
and part of the Twenty-third Corps, 7800, with two bodies of cavalry
numbering 7400. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p.
811.] Willcox's troops and part of the cavalry were ordered to hold
in check the Confederates under Ransom, one brigade of cavalry under
Colonel Byrd was posted at Kingston to keep up communication with
Chattanooga, and the rest was available to meet Longstreet, either
in the field or behind intrenchments at Knoxville, as Grant should
direct.
Longstreet's army was considerably overrated in the information
received from Washington, but not unnaturally. [Footnote: Halleck to
Grant, _Id_., pt. iii. p. 145.] It was assumed that he had with him
all three divisions of his corps, and it was not known that Walker's
division was detached. It had also been known that Stevenson's
division was at Sweetwater two or three weeks before Longstreet
assembled his forces there, and it seemed certain that it was the
advance-guard of his whole command. Indeed Longstreet himself
supposed so, and complained because it was not allowed to remain
with him. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 635.] Concluding, therefore, that
Burnside could not safely meet Longstreet in the field, Grant
proposed that he should hold the Confederates in check, retreating
slowly. He believed that in a week from the time Longstreet showed
himself at the Holston River, he could assume the aggressive against
Bragg so vigorously as to bring Longstreet back at speed and relieve
Burnside of the pressure. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 143; to Halleck, p.
154.] Bragg also expected this, and had ordered that the railway
connection should be maintained as far as possible, looking for a
crushing blow at Burnside and a quick reassembling of his forces.
The delays between the 4th and 14th of November had been fatal to
this plan, and it would have been the part of wisdom to abandon it
frankly.
Neither the authorities at Washington nor Grant gave Burnside
credit, at first, for the cheerful courage with which he was ready
to take the losing side of the game, if need be, and thus give a
glorious opportunity to the co-operating army. His chivalrous
self-forgetfulness in such matters was perfect, when it was likely
to lead to the success of the larger cause he had at heart. To reach
a more perfect understanding than could be had by correspondence
Grant sent Colonel J. H. Wilson of his staff to Knoxville to consult
personally with Burnside. This officer was accompanied by Mr. Dana,
and their dispatches to Grant and to the Secretary of War give a
clear and vivid picture of the situation. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 258, etc; pt. iii. pp. 146, 154.]
Burnside clearly saw the importance of making his stand at
Knoxville, and proposed to fortify that place so that he could stand
a siege there. [Footnote: Burnside to Willcox, _Id_., p. 177. B.'s
Report, _Id_., pt. i. p. 273.] He proposed to draw back slowly from
the Holston at Loudon, tolling Longstreet on and getting him beyond
supporting distance of Bragg. When Grant should have disposed of the
weakened enemy in his front, he could easily drive Longstreet out of
East Tennessee into Virginia. Grant approved without qualification
the course taken by Burnside. [Footnote: Grant to Burnside, _Id_.,
pt. iii. p. 177.] During the siege which followed, there was a good
deal of solicitude about Burnside, but it should be remembered in
justice to him that his own confidence never faltered and was fully
justified by the result.
Prior to the visit of Wilson and Dana he had sent his engineer,
Captain O. M. Poe, to Loudon to remove the pontoon bridge before the
occupation of the south bank of the Holston by the enemy should make
it impossible to save it. The bridge had been made of unusually
large and heavy boats, and it was a difficult task to haul them out
of the water and drag them half a mile to the railway. The south end
of the bridge was loosened and the whole swung with the current
against the right bank, where the dismantling and removal of the
boats was successfully accomplished under the eyes of a cavalry
force of the enemy which watched the performance from the opposite
bank. The bridge was carried to Knoxville and laid across the
Holston there. Its size and weight proved to be great points in its
favor for the special use there, and it was of inestimable value
during the partial investment of the town. [Footnote: Poe's Report,
Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 294. Century War Book, vol.
iii.]
On the 13th of November Longstreet brought up his own pontoons and
laid a bridge near Loudon, and the next day began a vigorous advance
upon Knoxville. Burnside had matured his plans, and opposed the
advance of Longstreet with one division, Hartranft's of the Ninth
Corps, and another, White's of the Twenty-third Corps. He was weak
in cavalry, however, and could only meet Wheeler's corps with a
single division under Brigadier-General Sanders. Burnside had
secured Sanders's promotion from Mr. Stanton when the Secretary was
at Louisville in October, in recognition of the ability and
gallantry shown in the expedition to East Tennessee in June and his
other services during the campaign. By giving Shackelford charge of
the cavalry operating in the upper valley and putting Sanders in
command of those resisting Wheeler, Burnside was sure of vigor and
courage in the leadership of both divisions. Longstreet kept Wheeler
on the left bank of the Holston, directing him to overwhelm Sanders
and move directly opposite Knoxville, taking the city by a surprise
if possible. But Sanders opposed a stubborn resistance, falling back
deliberately, and held the hills south of Knoxville near the river.
Wheeler was thus baffled, and returned to Longstreet on the 17th of
November. The absence of his cavalry had been a mistake, as it
turned out; for the Confederate infantry, after crossing at Loudon
to the right bank, had not been able to push Burnside back as fast
as Bragg's plans required, nor had they succeeded at all in getting
in the rear of the National forces.
As soon as it was definitely known at Knoxville that Longstreet was
over the Holston, Burnside went to the front at Lenoir's to take
command in person. [Footnote: Burnside's Report, Official Records,
vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 273.] He left General Parke as chief of staff
in general charge of affairs at headquarters, with Captain Poe in
charge of the engineer work of preparing lines of defence connecting
the forts already planned and partly constructed. Wilson and Dana
stayed in Knoxville till the 15th, and then rode rapidly to the
westward, passing around Longstreet's columns and rejoining Grant at
Chattanooga on the night of the 17th, with latest assurances from
Burnside that he would hold Knoxville stubbornly. Longstreet's
tactics were to move one of his infantry divisions directly at
Burnside's position, while with the other he turned its flank and
sought to get to the rear. Burnside met the plan by the analogous
one of alternate withdrawals of a division, one holding the enemy at
bay while the other took post in echelon in the rear and opposed the
flanking column till a concentration could be made.
At Campbell's Station Longstreet attacked with vigor, determined to
finish matters with the force before him. Ferrero's division of the
Ninth Corps had now joined. Hartranft repulsed an attack by McLaws,
whilst the trains and the division of Ferrero passed on, and Ferrero
took a strong position half a mile in rear covering the junction of
roads. White then retired and came into line on Ferrero's left. When
these were solidly in place Hartranft took an opportune moment to
withdraw and came into line on the left of White. The manoeuvres
were perfectly performed, and the fighting of our troops had been
everything that could be desired, meeting and matching Longstreet's
veterans in a way to establish the soldierly reputation of all. The
comparatively new organization of the Twenty-third Corps proved
itself equal to the best, and Burnside declared that he could desire
no better soldiers. The same tactics were continued through the day,
and Burnside followed the hard labor and the fighting of the day
with a night march which brought him to Knoxville on the morning of
the 17th. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 274,
275, 296.] He had personally handled his little army through the day
with coolness and success, and had raised to enthusiasm the
confidence and devotion of his men. Each side had a casualty list of
about 300.
Wheeler had marched back along the left bank of the Holston half-way
to Lenoir's and crossed at Louisville, joining Longstreet again near
Knoxville on the 17th, as has been already stated. He now took the
advance and pressed sharply in upon the town. General Sanders had
been recalled by Burnside from the south, and entering Knoxville by
the pontoon bridge, passed out to the westward on the Loudon road,
meeting the enemy as he advanced, and gradually falling back to a
position a mile beyond the lines, where he made a stubborn stand and
held Wheeler at bay till night closed the combat. From the fortified
points about the city the cavalry engagement had been in full view,
and the heroism of Sanders and his men was in the presence of a
cloud of witnesses. They made little barricades of rail piles, and
though these were frequently sent flying by the cannon balls and
shells with which Alexander's artillery pounded them all day, they
held at nightfall the line Sanders had been directed to hold in the
morning, and had not given back an inch. [Footnote: Colonel O. M.
Poe, in "Century War Book," vol. iii. p. 737.]
Knoxville was so situated that its outline was a sort of
parallelogram of high ground, averaging a hundred and fifty feet or
more above the river which ran along the town on the south. Two
creeks ran through the town in little valleys, and in the northern
suburbs where the land was much lower than the town it had been
practicable, by damming these streams to make inundations which
covered a considerable part of the northern front and added very
materially to the defences. At the four corners of the
parallelogram, enclosed works had been planned for use by a small
garrison, and these had been partly constructed. Captain Poe, the
chief engineer, had staked out infantry lines connecting these
forts, with epaulements for artillery at intervals, and work had
been hastened during the days from the 13th of November, as soon as
Burnside's plan of holding the city had been approved. When the
troops approached the city on the morning of the 17th, the position
for every brigade and every battery had been assigned, and officers
were in waiting to lead each to its place. All the infantry was put
in line except Reilly's brigade of the Twenty-third Corps, which was
placed in reserve in the streets of the town. [Footnote: Poe's
Report, Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 295.]
The most important of the forts was at the northwest angle of the
works, upon a commanding hill. It was afterward called Fort Sanders
in honor of the cavalry commander who lost his life in front of its
western face. This work was planned as approximately a square with
sides of about a hundred yards and bastions at the corners. The
eastern front had not been completed, and was now left entirely
open, as the northern face connected with the infantry trench. The
ditch was twelve feet wide and about eight deep, and the parapet was
about twelve feet high, making its crest about twenty feet above the
bottom of the ditch. The berme usually left between the bottom of
the parapet slope and the ditch was cut away so as to leave no level
standing-place at the top of the scarp. This was the work which
Longstreet afterward assaulted. Its chief defect was due to the
situation and the contour of the ground around, which made its
position so prominent a salient in the lines that the flanking fire
was necessarily imperfect, leaving a considerable sector without
fire beyond the angle of the northwest bastion. The point of the
bastion was truncated, and a single gun put in the _pan coupé_. The
three other forts were less elaborate but of similar profile.
As soon as the infantry took position, the men were set
industriously to work to strengthen the defences. The first infantry
trench between the forts had been a mere rifle-pit two and one half
feet deep with the earth heaped in front as it was thrown out, to
raise a parapet. Every hour made the line stronger, and work on it
was continued till nearly every part of it was a good cover against
artillery fire. The critical time was during the 18th of November,
when as yet there was practically no cover between the forts. The
cavalry was ordered to oppose the most determined resistance to the
establishment of close investing lines by the enemy, and Sanders set
his men a most inspiring example. He was a classmate of Captain Poe
at West Point, and on the night of the 17th he shared Poe's blanket.
Before dawn he went to the front, and passed from one to another of
the little barricades held by his dismounted troopers. The
Confederates increased the vigor of their attacks, and if any of our
men were driven back by the hot fire, Sanders would walk
deliberately up to the rail-pile and stand erect and exposed till
his men rallied to him. For hours he did this, and his life seemed
to be charmed, but about the middle of the afternoon he was mortally
wounded, and the screen he had so resolutely interposed between the
enemy and our infantry digging in the trenches was rolled aside.
[Footnote: Paper by General Poe in "Century War Book," vol. iii. p.
737.] The time thus gained had been precious, though it was bought
at so high a price. The lines were already safe against a _coup de
main_. [Footnote: Poe's Report, Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i.
p. 296.]
Longstreet's principal lines were north of Knoxville beyond the
railway and the station buildings. He also occupied a line of hills,
but pushed forward strong skirmish lines and detachments to cover
the making of intrenchments closer to the town. There were frequent
bickering combats, but no general engagement. The enemy made efforts
to destroy the pontoon bridge by sending down logs and rafts from
above. These were met by an iron cable boom stretched across the
river above the bridge, borne on wooden floats to keep it at the
surface. [Footnote: Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 739.] Several
efforts were made to drive Burnside's men from the hills covering
the town on the south side of the river, but they were defeated, and
communication was kept up with the valley of the French Broad River,
and supplies enough were brought in to make it certain that Burnside
could not be starved out, although the rations were reduced to the
smallest quantity and the fewest elements which would support life.
A week passed thus, Burnside being shut off from all communication
with the outer world. The 25th of November came with the almost
miraculous storming of Missionary Ridge by the army under Grant at
Chattanooga. Bragg retreated southward and Longstreet had no longer
a possibility of rejoining him. Yet Burnside knew nothing of it, and
did not dream of the more than complete justification his slow
defensive campaign was having, in the tout and demoralization of the
Confederate army in Georgia in Longstreet's absence. The latter was
now forced to attack the fortifications or to raise the siege of
Knoxville. He knew, at least by rumor, what Burnside was ignorant
of,--not only the defeat of Bragg, but that a force was already
moving from Grant's army to the relief of Knoxville. Bragg had also
sent to him a staff officer with exhortations to prompt action. For
a day or two Longstreet tried to attract Burnside's attention to the
south of the river and to other parts of the lines, and then on the
28th prepared a desperate assault upon the great salient of Fort
Sanders.
The artillery in the fort was under the command of Lieutenant Samuel
N. Benjamin, Second U. S. Artillery, whose battery of twenty-pounder
Parrotts had done good service at South Mountain and Antietam. The
infantry was of Ferrero's division of the Ninth Corps. There was a
slight abatis in front of the fort, and on the suggestion of Mr.
Hoxie, an officer of the railway, some old telegraph wire left at
the depot was used by Captain Poe to make an entanglement by
fastening it between small stumps of a grove which had been felled
along the slope northwest of the bastion at the salient.
Longstreet's plan of assault was to attack the northwest angle of
the fort with two columns of regiments, consisting of Wofford's and
Humphrey's brigades of McLaws's division. Anderson's brigade was to
attack the infantry trench a little east of the fort. Longstreet's
instructions were to make the assault at break of day on the 29th.
The columns were to move silently and swiftly without firing and
endeavor to carry the parapet by the bayonet. [Footnote:
Longstreet's Report, Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 461.]
The determined advance of the enemy's rifle pits by his skirmishers
in the night of the 28th gave warning of what was to be expected.
The morning of the 29th was damp and foggy, but the watchful pickets
detected the formation of the enemy's columns. About six o'clock the
Confederate batteries opened a heavy fire on the fort, which did not
reply, ammunition being too precious to be wasted. In about twenty
minutes the cannonade ceased and the columns moved to the assault.
The fire of our lines was concentrated upon them, and they lost
heavily; but they kept on, somewhat disordered by the entanglement
as well as by their losses, and came to the ditch. No doubt its
depth and the high face of the parapet surprised them, for they had
no scaling ladders. They jumped into the ditch and tried to scramble
up the slope of the earthwork. Some got to the top, only to be shot
down or captured. The guns flanking the ditch raked it with double
charges of canister. Shells were lighted and thrown as hand-grenades
into the practically helpless crowd below. Those who had not entered
the ditch soon wavered and fell back, at first sullenly and slowly,
then in despair running for life to cover. Those who remained and
could walk surrendered and were marched to the southwest angle of
the fort, where they were brought within the lines.
The remnants of the broken columns were rallied behind their outer
lines, but no effort was made to renew the assault. They had done
all that was possible for flesh and blood. The casualties in the
assault had been about 1000, whilst within the fortifications only
13 killed and wounded were reported. [Footnote: Official Records,
vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 277, 278, 344, 461, 487, 490, 519, 520.]
Buckner's division had joined Longstreet a day or two before the
assault, but took no active part in it. Their absence from
Missionary Ridge still further reduced Bragg's army, whilst it did
not give to Longstreet any practical benefit. The division of the
Confederate forces had thus proved to be a great military mistake.
Its only chance had been in a swift attack upon Burnside and a
prompt return, and this chance had vanished with the delays in the
railroad transportation of Longstreet's men to Sweetwater. Prudence
dictated that the expedition should be abandoned on the 13th of
November; but the fear of seeming vacillating, a weakness of
second-rate minds as great as vacillation itself, had made Bragg
order the column forward. Burnside's well-conducted retreat, on the
other hand, had lured Longstreet forward, and the patient endurance
of a siege had kept the enemy in front of Knoxville, and even led to
the further depletion of Bragg by the detachment of Buckner, giving
to Grant the very opportunity he desired. The good fortune of the
National commander culminated at Missionary Ridge. Soldiers believe
in good luck quite as much as in genius, and follow a leader whose
star is in the ascendant with a confidence which is the guaranty of
victory. Great opportunities, however, come to all. The difference
between a great soldier and an inferior one is that the great man
uses his opportunities to the full, and so fortune seems to be in
league with him. When Grant had driven Bragg back on Dalton, the
latter could realize what he had lost by his errors. It was now
impossible for Longstreet to rejoin him. It was even doubtful if
Wheeler's cavalry could do so. The whole National army was between
the widely separated Confederate wings, and nothing was left to
Longstreet but a humiliating march back to Lee by way of the upper
Holston and the headwaters of the James River. Pride delayed it, and
the depth of winter favored the delay; but it was a foregone
conclusion from the hour that Wood's and Sheridan's divisions
crowned Missionary Ridge.
For two weeks there had been no communication between Burnside and
the outer world. Lincoln had been full of anxiety, but had found
some comfort in the reports from Cumberland Gap that cannonading was
still heard in the direction of Knoxville. It proved that Burnside
held out, and gave additional earnestness to the President's
exhortation to hurry a column to his relief immediately after
Grant's victory. Grant needed no urging. A report had reached him
that Burnside still was confident on the 23d, and had supplies for
ten or twelve days on the scale of short rations he was issuing. On
the very evening of his success he wrote to Sherman, "The next thing
now will be to relieve Burnside." He directed Thomas to detach
Granger's Corps, and this with part of the Army of the Tennessee
would make a column of 20,000 men to march at once for Knoxville
under Granger's command. Three days passed, and Grant, being
dissatisfied that the relieving column was not already far on its
way, directed Sherman on the 29th to take command in person and push
it energetically toward Burnside. [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxxi. pt. ii. pp. 45, 49; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 366, 368.]
Sherman immediately went forward, and on the 1st of December he was
over the Hiwassee River, approaching Loudon. He telegraphed Grant
that he would let Burnside hear his guns on the 3d or 4th at
farthest; but he added what throws much light on the feeling of
military men in regard to campaigning in East Tennessee. In his
frank and familiar style he said, "Recollect that East Tennessee is
my horror. That any military man should send a force into East
Tennessee puzzles me. Burnside is there and must be relieved; but
when relieved, I want to get out and he should come out too."
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 297.] From a
strictly military point of view this was sound; but Burnside had
been sent there more from political than from military reasons, and
it was now too late to think of letting the loyal mountaineers
return under Confederate rule.
Meanwhile at Knoxville Burnside was closely watching the evidences
of Longstreet's purposes and eagerly listening for news from
Chattanooga. On the 1st of December wagon trains began to move
eastward from the besiegers' camp, and on the 3d and 4th more of
them, so that it became probable that Longstreet was about to raise
the siege. In the night of the 3d Captain Audenried, Sherman's
aide-de-camp, came into Knoxville from the south, having made a long
circuit with a small body of cavalry, from Sherman's camp, which on
the night of the 2d was forty miles from the city by the direct
road. Colonel Long, commanding Sherman's cavalry, had selected part
of his best mounted men for the expedition, and Audenried had
accompanied him. The good news of Sherman's approach was thus made
certain, and it was evident that Longstreet's information was
earlier than Burnside's. The Confederate camps were evacuated on the
night of the 4th, and on the 5th Burnside, sending a detachment to
follow up Longstreet's retreat toward the east, sent one of his
staff with an escort in the other direction to meet Sherman. The
messenger from Burnside met the head of the relieving column at
Marysville, a day's march for infantry. Sherman halted his little
army, and wrote Burnside that he felt disposed to stop, "for a stern
chase is a long one," since Longstreet had retreated. He rode in to
Knoxville the next day and consulted with Burnside. He was evidently
dubious of any advantage from a pursuit of Longstreet, and
Burnside's disposition was to avoid urging any comrade to undertake
an unpleasant task for his sake. He therefore cordially assisted
Sherman in solving his doubts in favor of taking back all his troops
except Granger's Fourth Corps, and wrote a letter of warm thanks for
the prompt march to his relief, adding his opinion that the Fourth
Corps would make him strong enough to meet Longstreet, and that it
was advisable for Sherman to rejoin Grant with the rest. [Footnote:
Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. ii. p. 36.] This was accordingly
done, and Sherman was free to give his attention to a winter
campaign toward the Gulf, from which he hoped important results.
Granger did not relish the prospect of a protracted absence from the
Army of the Cumberland, and protested in vigorous and long
dispatches to Thomas, to Grant, to Burnside, to Sherman, and later
to Foster, [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. pp. 358, 365, 391-393;
Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 368.] but with no effect, except that
Grant was displeased with his original reluctance to march to
Burnside's relief as well as with these protests. The result showed
itself in the spring, when Granger was relieved from the command of
the corps, which was conferred upon Howard.
The raising of the siege brought Burnside into communication with
Cumberland Gap, and he learned that Major-General John G. Foster was
at Tazewell, under orders to relieve him of the command of the
department. This was in apparent accord with the wish which Burnside
had expressed, [Footnote: _Ante_, vol. i. pp. 527, 528.] but as
action had been postponed it was reasonable to expect that further
consultation would be had before he should be relieved, and that
Grant's judgment would be asked in regard to it. After the
controversies which followed the battle of Fredericksburg, Halleck
was habitually unfriendly to Burnside, and we have seen how
uniformly a wrong interpretation was given to the events of the
current campaign. Foster's appointment to succeed Burnside was dated
the 16th of November, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt.
iii. p. 166.] and he had been in Kentucky or near Cumberland Gap
during the siege of Knoxville. The day the order was made relieving
Burnside was that on which he was battling with Longstreet at
Campbell's Station, holding him at bay in the slow retreat upon
Knoxville, where he arrived on the 17th. On this morning Grant was
writing him, "So far you are doing exactly what appears to me
right," [Footnote: _Id_., p. 177.] and this was written after the
receipt of Dana and Wilson's full dispatches of the 13th and 14th,
as well as Burnside's of the 13th. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 138.] Yet so
strangely was the same information misread by Halleck, that on the
16th he was telegraphing Grant that Burnside was hesitating whether
to fight or retreat out of East Tennessee. "I fear he will not
fight," he added, "although strongly urged to do so. Unless you can
give him immediate assistance, he will surrender his position to the
enemy." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 163. This dispatch of Halleck seems to
have been called out by one of Dana to Stanton on the 14th in which
he said, "Burnside has determined to retreat toward the Gaps."
(Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. p. 259.) Halleck failed to
interpret this in connection with one of the 13th in which Dana had
stated alternate lines of retreat, "if finally compelled," and
Burnside's judgment in favor of the line of Cumberland Gap in such
last resort rather than toward Kingston. (_Ibid_.) Dana had fully
conveyed, however, Burnside's determination to hold Knoxville "as
long as possible," and his reasons for making a stubborn fight
there. By failing to keep this in mind, the Secretary and
General-in-Chief became unnecessarily agitated, and forgot in their
conduct what was due to Grant almost as much as what was due to
Burnside.] On the next day Burnside entered Knoxville, where
fortifications had been hurriedly built, and the siege began. The
heroic defence of Knoxville lasted three weeks, and when Longstreet
withdrew toward Virginia, the successful general learned that he had
been removed from command at the very moment he was completing, with
Grant's unqualified approval, the preparation for that stubborn
resistance which saved East Tennessee and averted the "terrible
misfortune" which Halleck feared. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p.
145.] The importance of holding East Tennessee, now that it had been
liberated, was urged upon the War Department by Burnside from the
beginning. He had pointed it out when ordered to abandon it and
march to Rosecrans's assistance. [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxx. pt.
iii. p. 904.] So far from hesitating to fight Longstreet, Dana found
him determined to "expose his whole force to capture rather than
withdraw from the country." [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxi. pt. i. p.
260.] It was not till Mr. Dana's later dispatches were received that
the misapprehensions were corrected at Washington. Then the story of
the occupation and defence of East Tennessee was explained, and
justice was done the wisdom of the general's course as well as his
patriotic and unselfish spirit. A part of the trouble had been due
to the fact that after Grant reached Nashville Burnside's
correspondence was with him, and, in accord with military usage, he
dropped direct correspondence with Washington, except when addressed
from there.
It was too late, however, to undo what had been done. Foster was in
Kentucky, carrying forward into East Tennessee such detachments as
could be picked up. He reached Knoxville on the 10th of December,
and the next day Burnside turned over the command to him, and
started for Cincinnati by way of Jacksboro and Williamsburg.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 372, 384.] The
President was most hearty in his approval of Burnside's conduct when
once he understood it, and insisted that after a brief rest he
should again enter into active service. Congress passed strong
resolutions of thanks to him and to his troops, [Footnote: _Id_.,
pt. i. p. 281.] and it began to be understood that the campaign had
been a creditable one.
It was in such a command that Burnside appeared at his best. The
independence of his campaign gave full play to his active energy,
whilst the bodies of troops were not so large as to prevent his
personal leadership in their combats. In a great army he was at a
disadvantage from lack of true system in handling great and
complicated affairs when he was in chief command; and if his
position was a subordinate one he lacked the sort of responsibility
which called out his best qualities, and he was therefore liable to
become the formal intermediary for the transmission of orders. In
such cases, too, he was in danger of suffering from faults of
subordinates whom his kind heart had permitted to retain important
positions for which they were not fit. When acting immediately under
his eye, he could give them energy and courage which they would lack
when left to themselves. The sore spot in his experience in 1864 was
the failure to make full use of the explosion of the mine at
Petersburg, and the Court of Inquiry made it clear that the fault
lay with inefficient subordinates. One of the most prominent of
these was said to have stayed in a bomb-proof instead of leading his
command. But the same officer had done the same thing in Fort
Sanders at Knoxville, as had been officially reported by Captain
Benjamin, the Chief of Artillery; [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxxi. pt. i. p. 344.] and Benjamin was an officer of such military
and personal standing that a court-martial should certainly have
investigated the case. A mistaken leniency brought bitter fruit.
The campaign had been a new test for General Grant also, and it is
instructive to follow him in grasping the details of his enlarged
responsibility. When communication with Burnside became difficult
and infrequent, he gave orders to Willcox at Cumberland Gap and to
subordinates of Burnside in Kentucky and Ohio. He provided for
starting supplies to Knoxville by all practicable routes as soon as
the siege should be raised. He cut trenchantly through pretences
where he thought a lack of vigorous performance was covered up by
verbosity of reports. [Footnote: _Id_., pt. iii. p. 233.] He was
quietly but easily master, and showed no symptom of being
overweighted by his task or flurried by the excitements of a
critical juncture in affairs. He does not impress one as brilliant
in genius, but as eminently sound and sensible. His quality of
greatness was that he handled great affairs as he would little ones,
without betraying any consciousness that this was a great thing to
do. He reminds one of Wellington in the combination of lucid and
practical common-sense with aggressive bull-dog courage. Some
telling lines, developing his traits as he appeared to a critical
observer, are found in a dispatch of General David Hunter to the
Secretary of War, giving a report of his visit to Chattanooga where
he was sent to inspect the army. Hunter was one of the oldest of the
regular officers in service, knew thoroughly Grant's history and
early army reputation, and his words have peculiar significance.
Grant had received him with a sort of filial kindness, making him at
home in his quarters, and opening his mind and his purposes to him
with his characteristic modesty and simplicity of manner. Hunter
says: "I saw him almost every moment, except when sleeping, of the
three weeks I spent in Chattanooga.... He is a hard worker, writes
his own dispatches and orders, and does his own thinking. He is
modest, quiet, never swears, and seldom drinks, as he took only two
drinks during the three weeks I was with him. He listens quietly to
the opinions of others and then judges promptly for himself; and he
is very prompt to avail himself in the field of all the errors of
his enemy. He is certainly a good judge of men, and has called
around him valuable counsellors." He naively adds: "Prominent as
General Grant is before the country, these remarks of mine may
appear trite and uncalled for, but having been ordered to inspect
his command, I thought it not improper for me to add my testimony
with regard to the commander." [Footnote: Official Records, vol.
xxxi. pt. iii. p. 402.]
CHAPTER XXIX
AFFAIRS IN DISTRICT OF OHIO--PLOT TO LIBERATE PRISONERS AT JOHNSON'S
ISLAND.
Administrative duties--Major McLean adjutant-general--His loyalty
questioned--Ordered away--Succeeded by Captain Anderson--Robert
Anderson's family--Vallandigham canvass--Bounty-jumping--Action of
U. S. Courts--of the local Probate Court--Efforts to provoke
collision--Interview with the sheriff--Letter to Governor
Tod--Shooting soldiers in Dayton--The October election--Great
majority against Vallandigham--The soldier vote--Wish for field
service--Kinglake's Crimean War--Its lessons--Confederate plots in
Canada--Attempt on military prison at Johnson's Island--Assembling
militia there--Fortifying Sandusky Bay--Inspection of the
prison--Condition and treatment of the prisoners.
In the sketch I have given of the campaign in East Tennessee, I have
reached the time when I joined the Twenty-third Corps in front of
Knoxville, and became part of the organization with which my
fortunes were to be united till the end of the war. It is necessary,
however, to go back and pick up the threads of personal experience
during this autumn of 1863.
The arrangement of the business of the department which I have
mentioned [Footnote: _Ante_, vol. i. p. 492.] gave me some work in
addition to that which properly belonged to the District of Ohio and
Michigan. I did not appear officially in it, but under Burnside's
instructions to his adjutant-general on leaving Cincinnati, the
questions arising in daily administration were submitted to me, and
on my advice current orders were issued in Burnside's name. This
kept me in close communication with the general personally as well
as officially, and made me aware of the progress of events more
perfectly than I could otherwise have been. The adjutant-general in
charge of the Cincinnati headquarters was Major N. H. McLean, an
experienced officer of the regular army, and most systematic and
able in his administrative duties. He was punctilious in his
performance of duty, and was especially averse to having his
military conduct seem in any way influenced by political motives.
Like many other officers of the army, he made his devotion to his
government as a soldier the basis of all his action, and disclaimed
any interest in politics. But in the summer of 1863 politics in Ohio
became too heated to allow any neutrality or even any hesitation in
open declarations of principle. Vallandigham was a candidate for
governor, although an exile under the judgment of the military
court. Local politicians were not always discreet, and some of them
demanded avowals of Major McLean, which he refused to make, not
because of any sympathy with Vallandigham's partisans, but because
he thought it unbecoming his military character to submit to
catechising. This was enough to condemn him in the eyes of those who
literally enforced the proverb that "he that is not for us is
against us," and they sent to the War Department a highly colored
statement of McLean's conduct, accusing him of disloyalty. Mr.
Stanton, in his characteristic way, condemned him first and tried
him afterward. The first we knew of it, an order came sending McLean
off to the Pacific coast,--to Oregon, I believe. General Burnside
protested, and warmly sustained the major as a loyal man and able
officer; but the mischief was done, and it was months before it
could be undone. Indeed it was years before the injury done him in
his professional career was fully recognized and a serious attempt
was made to recompense him.
When Major McLean was thus removed, the business of his office fell
into the hands of Captain William P. Anderson of the
adjutant-general's department, who issued the orders and conducted
the correspondence in General Burnside's name. The captain was a
nephew of General Robert Anderson, and though the general had no
sons himself, his near kinsmen gave striking evidence of the earnest
and militant patriotism of a loyal Kentucky stock closely allied to
a well-known Ohio family. The roster of the members of the family
who saw military service is an exceptional one. [Footnote: Colonel
Charles Anderson, brother of the general, was in Texas when the
Civil War began, but abandoned his interests there, and coming back
to Ohio was made colonel of the Ninety-third Ohio Infantry, which he
led in the battle of Stone's River, where he was wounded. He was in
1863 made the Union candidate for lieutenant-governor on the ticket
with John Brough, whom he succeeded as governor when Brough died in
1865.
Colonel Latham Anderson, son of Charles, graduated at West Point in
1859 and became a captain in the Fifth U. S. Infantry and colonel of
the Eighth California Volunteers. His war service was mostly in New
Mexico and on the frontier.
Larz Anderson, another brother of the general, was represented in
the War of the Rebellion by five sons who had honorable records: (1)
Nicholas Longworth Anderson was adjutant, lieutenant-colonel, and
colonel of the Sixth Ohio Infantry. He was severely wounded at
Stone's River and Chickamauga. He left the service at the close of
the war as brevet-major-general.
(2) William Pope Anderson enlisted as a private in the Sixth Ohio
Infantry, became sergeant-major and second lieutenant. He was then
appointed assistant-adjutant-general with rank of captain. He was
slightly wounded in the battle of Shiloh.
(3) Edward Lowell Anderson was first lieutenant and captain in the
Fifty-second Ohio Infantry. He was wounded at Jonesboro, but
continued in service to the end of the war.
(4) Frederick Pope Anderson was first lieutenant in the One Hundred
and Eighty-first Ohio Infantry.
(5) Larz Anderson, Jr., was a mere lad, but served without
commission as volunteer aide-de-camp on the staff of
Brigadier-General N. C. McLean.
William Marshall Anderson, of Chillicothe, Ohio, another brother of
the general, had two sons in the war service: (1) Thomas McArthur
Anderson was captain in the Fourteenth U.S. Infantry, and after the
war became its colonel, and later a general officer in the
Philippines.]
Including the general himself, his brother Charles, and the nephews,
ten kinsmen supported the flag of the country in the field. Such a
family record is so remarkable as to be worthy of preservation.
To return to the affairs of our military administration of the
department and district, the situation was complicated by the fact
that Vallandigham had openly declared a purpose to return to Ohio
during his candidacy. I did not hesitate to let it be known that
upon his doing so, the alternative in his sentence would be
enforced, and that he would be sent to Fort Warren for imprisonment.
Mr. Pugh, who had been induced to accept the nomination for
lieutenant-governor with him, made a visit to Windsor, in Canada
(opposite Detroit), where Vallandigham met him. The result of the
conference was that Vallandigham remained quietly in Canada till the
election was over, leaving it to his friends to make as much
political capital out of his exile as they could.
As evidence of the fierceness of the passions roused among his
partisans, a few significant facts may be mentioned. The
conscription law had led, as we have seen, [Footnote: Henry Reuben
Anderson was second lieutenant in the Forty-third Ohio Infantry,
captain in the Sixth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, and after the war was
transferred to the Fourth U.S. Artillery as first lieutenant.] to
wholesale frauds in the form of "bounty-jumping." It was of course
the duty of the military authorities to prevent this by arresting
deserters and holding them to military service and discipline under
their enlistment. A common form of fraud was for a well-grown young
man to offer himself as a recruit, take the oath that he was of
lawful age, receive the hundreds of dollars of bounty, and then
bring forward his parents to claim him as a minor enlisting without
their permission. We always recognized promptly the authority of a
writ of _habeas corpus_ from the Federal courts in such cases, and
the judges examined the recruit and his friends carefully, to detect
a fraudulent conspiracy if there was one. If the case appeared to be
free from collusion and the evidence of minority sufficient, an
order of release was made, conditioned on the repayment to the
government of the bounty received and the expenses of the
proceeding.
The depot of recruits for the army was on the south side of the
river in Kentucky; but in any case that was not palpably fraudulent
I directed the officers in charge to bring the recruit to
Cincinnati, where Judge Leavitt's writ could reach him, and to
submit the case to the United States District Court. The following
letter will illustrate this, being one addressed by me to General
Tillson, who commanded in Covington, which, with the region within a
radius of some fifteen miles, was part of my district:--
"HEADQUARTERS, DISTRICT OF OHIO, CINCINNATI,
9th September, 1863.
GENERAL,--Judge Leavitt of the United States District Court called
this morning with a Mr. Eckmann, who wishes to get his son, a minor,
out of the First Heavy Artillery. The boy is named Summerfield
Eckmann, and is in Company C. As you have stated to me that it is
practicable to fill up the place of minors and invalids as fast as
they can be got rid of, I would like to have the case looked into at
once, and unless some reason unknown to me exists, have him sent to
report to Colonel Boone at Kemper Barracks, where the writ from the
Federal Court may be served. By agreement with the father, if the
judge should discharge him, the bounty will be paid back, and you
will please send a statement of what amount was paid and how his
account with the government stands.
Very respectfully, your obed't serv't,
(Signed) J. D. Cox,
B. G. Commanding.
Brig. Gen. Davis Tillson,
Com'g, etc., Covington, Ky."
All honest and deserving cases could be satisfactorily disposed of
in this way. But the fraudulent "bounty-jumpers" wanted nothing so
little as a full investigation before the United States Courts.
These cases, therefore, if they appeared in court at all, would be
brought before local judges supposed to be prejudiced against the
government and who would not require restitution. To prevent this,
the War Department issued instructions based on the decision of the
United States Supreme Court in Ableman v. Booth, in which Chief
Justice Taney had delivered the opinion. These instructions directed
that in cases arising under the conscription and recruiting laws,
the writ of habeas corpus should be obeyed only when issued by
United States courts. With full knowledge of these instructions and
of the Supreme Court decision which had been a party shibboleth in
the fugitive-slave cases before the war, the Probate judge of the
county seemed bent on provoking a collision with the National
authorities. His court was, among courts of record, that of inferior
jurisdiction in the county, and the higher courts gave us no
trouble. A letter which I wrote to Governor Tod at the close of
August so fully gives the details of the matter and of the view I
then took of it, that I prefer to let it stand as my statement of
it, rather than any paraphrase I could now make. I said:--
"I have the honour to call your attention to a persistent effort on
the part of the Probate Judge of the county to produce a collision
between the sheriff and posse of the vicinity and the United States
government.
"You have probably noticed the newspaper accounts of a habeas corpus
case before Judge ------ some time since, in which the writ was
issued to Lieutenant-Colonel Boone, One Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio
Volunteer Infantry, commanding at Kemper barracks in this city,
directing him to bring before the court one Hicks, held as a
deserter from the army.
"In accordance with instructions from the War Department, based upon
the decision of Chief Justice Taney in the case of Ableman v. Booth,
Lieutenant-Colonel Boone answered in writing, stating that the man
was held by the authority of the United States as a deserter, and
that, without intending any disrespect to the court, it was
impossible for him to deliver the prisoner to the officers of a
State court. Lieutenant-Colonel Boone further attached to his answer
and made part of it the instructions from Washington and the order
of Major-General Burnside promulgating the same, and it was thus
made matter of record in the court that the case was one directly
affecting the government of the United States. The judge was also
notified by counsel that it was the purpose of the Federal officers
to take the case to the courts of last resort should his decision be
in accordance with that which he had rendered in other cases, and
that the matter would thus, without doubt, be ultimately determined
by the judicial decision of the highest courts having cognizance,
and that there could be no occasion for collision between himself
and the military authorities.
"The judge issued an attachment against Lieutenant-Colonel Boone for
contempt, and directed Major-General Burnside to be made party to
the record. General Burnside answered in a similar manner to Colonel
Boone. The court made no personal order in General B.'s case, but
directed the sheriff of the county to arrest Lieutenant-Colonel
Boone and bring him before the court. The sheriff went to Colonel
Boone's quarters and was there informed that the writ could not be
executed, as, under orders received, the military authorities would
not permit it. The sheriff so made return to the court, and has, as
he informs me this morning, been again directed peremptorily by the
judge to execute the writ at every hazard.
"The sheriff came to me to know what would be our course if he
should raise the posse comitatus in obedience to the writ. My answer
was that the United States forces would use no aggression, but that
I wished him and the judge to understand distinctly that the writ
could only be executed by overpowering the United States troops in
open fight, and that it became all concerned to consider well before
they became overt traitors by levying war against the Federal
government; that I should regard them as public enemies at the first
overt act and use the utmost vigor against them; and that after
suppressing any disturbance they might create, my first duty would
be to arrest the judge and himself and hand them over to the United
States courts to be tried for treason. I likewise expressed my
surprise that in a matter which was avowedly an undisguised attempt
to bring the State authorities into open conflict with the National
government, he had not appealed to the governor of the State, its
chief executive (he being himself but a subordinate), for
instructions. As he professed embarrassment as to his duty, I told
him I would state what in my opinion a loyal sheriff should do in
such a case; and that was to make a written return upon the writ
saying that it could not be obeyed without levying open war against
the United States, and was therefore returned unexecuted.... In view
of the circumstances, I have thought best to lay the matter before
you, that you may, if you see proper, direct the sheriff to take no
steps calculated to bring the State and National authorities into
collision, without full communication with and instruction from
yourself as chief executive. I have no concern as to the success of
any forcible attempt upon Colonel Boone, but regard it as very
desirable that no such attempt should be made, and especially that
it should not be precipitated, without your knowledge, by the action
of the Probate Court of this county in overruling a decision of the
Supreme Court of the United States.
"I shall forward a copy of this letter to the Secretary of War for
his information, and have the honor to remain," etc.
There were some amusing incidents connected with the sheriff's
embarrassment which could not properly appear in my letter to the
governor. Both he and the Probate judge were candidates for
re-election, and it seemed certain that the aggressive Vallandigham
faction in the party would control the nominations in the party
convention. In such excited times extreme men are almost sure to
take the lead. The sheriff saw very clearly that there was nothing
profitable to him in a forcible attack upon the United States troops
in barracks, and knew that a call upon the _posse_ would be
responded to by nobody but ruffians of the criminal class who might
like an opportunity to gather as a mob with a pretext of lawful
authority. He complained to me with a comical distress that the
judge had taken advantage of him to gain with the extremists of his
party the credit for bold defiance of the government, whilst he, the
sheriff, was left to bear the brunt of the real danger. I had told
him in an earlier interview that if he called out the _posse_ it
would be his duty to lead it in person, and had intimated that I
should direct the soldiers to save bloodshed by carefully marking
the leaders in an attack. I now suggested that if he should inform
the judge that he should summon him first as one of the _posse_ and
require him to march beside him, he would probably find the zeal for
a collision diminished.
Whatever were the reasons which controlled, there was no _posse_
summoned, and I heard no more of the arrest of Colonel Boone. Both
judge and sheriff lived to look back upon the episode in their lives
with other feelings than those which excited them nearly to
desperation in that singular political campaign. It was not always
easy to draw a satisfactory line in dealing practically with such
powdery elements and social conditions as those of 1863, but the
best results seemed to come from carefulness not to provoke
unnecessary collision with political prejudices and not to interfere
with personal liberty more than was necessary, whilst showing
inexorable firmness in carrying out such measures as we had to
adopt. Two cases which arose in Dayton made it necessary to
distinguish between two possible courses, and though there was a
good deal of difference in judgment among loyal men I thought the
event fully justified us in that which we pursued.
The arrest of Vallandigham had left a certain class of people in
Dayton on the verge of violent outbreak. A mob had wrecked the
publishing office of the Union party paper, and we had kept a small
garrison at the city to preserve the peace, The "roughs" of the
place were insolent to the soldiers and their officers, and it
required firm discipline to keep our men as patient as we wished
them to be. One day a wrangle began, and one of the city "rowdies"
pulled a pistol and fired upon a soldier. We arrested the criminal,
but whilst we held him, an indictment was found against him in the
local court, and he was demanded by the civil authorities for trial.
We knew very well that in any jury of that county enough partisans
of Vallandigham would be found to prevent a conviction, but I
ordered the man to be delivered up. This was pretty sharply
criticised by the more ardent Union men, but I answered that it was
necessary to find out whether justice could be administered by the
civil authorities before applying military rule.
The delivery of the man was no doubt looked upon as an act of
timidity, and it was not long before we had a repetition of the
offence. I had taken pains to have the garrison at Dayton carefully
instructed that they must be patient and cool, avoiding every
provocation, but if attacked, the aggressor must be punished on the
spot. In the second case, the man who drew his weapon was instantly
shot down. There was now a demand for the soldier to be tried by the
local civil court; but I said that the boot was on the other foot.
The charge against the soldier was for an act performed in the line
of his military duty, and of this our military courts had
cognizance. The case was investigated by a military tribunal and the
man justified. The result was every way satisfactory. Assaulting
soldiers lost its attractiveness to town bullies, and the case in
which the civilian had been left to the action of the civil courts
was a standing proof of the inefficiency of those tribunals in
matters where partisan passions entered, and where the unanimity of
a jury was consequently impossible.
The State election occurred in October, and although there had been
great fears of rioting and bloodshed, these fears were happily
disappointed. There had been enough of the preliminary education as
to the relations of the military authorities to the preservation of
the peace, to make it generally understood that disturbances would
be dangerous. The soldiers were, however, kept carefully out of
sight except as they exercised their personal right to vote. They
were under arms at their barracks, and no leaves of absence were
given. These precautions were all that was needed. In Cincinnati the
election was said to be one of the quietest and most orderly ever
known. The people seemed to appreciate the gravity of the situation
and to realize that it must be soberly and thoughtfully met. Hosts
of men who would willingly have been in opposition to the
administration party on questions of economy or of details in the
conduct of the war declined to vote for Vallandigham, whose
utterances had been the great matter of debate during the canvass,
and whose disloyalty being thus brought home to the voters in every
neighborhood, had repelled all but the most passionate of his party
friends. John Brough, the Union party candidate, himself a "war
democrat," was elected governor by an unprecedented majority of over
a hundred thousand. The soldiers' vote had helped to swell this
majority, and as returns had to be made from polling-places opened
for each Ohio regiment in the field, there was considerable delay
before the extent of the political victory was fully known. The home
vote was enough for every practical purpose, and it, of course, was
known at once. The returns from the army vote kept adding to the
majority, and gave, day by day, a new stimulus to political
interest, one party rejoicing over the unanimity of the country's
defenders, and the other affecting to see dangers of military
despotism. For this reason it was fortunate that the soldiers' vote
was not necessary to decide the election, and that without it
Brough's triumph went beyond any ordinary measure of party success.
The remarkable result of the election was felt throughout the
country as an indication of renewed determination of the people that
the war must be fought out to the complete crushing of the Rebellion
and the restoration of the Union. There was a noticeable
crystallization of public opinion after it. Reasonable men in the
defeated party found it easy to accept conclusions which were backed
up by so great majorities. Agitation was quieted, and there was an
evident disposition to acquiesce in what was so evidently the
popular current.
My aversion for the anomalous position of a military commandant out
of the actual field of war had not been lessened by my experiences
of the summer, and both directly and indirectly I renewed my
requests for a field command. I had been told that the Secretary of
War awaited only an opening which would permit him to assign me to
duty with the advanced grade which had been given me after Antietam,
and I had been advised, in a way that seemed authoritative, to wait
patiently for this. It became evident in the autumn that such
waiting was likely to be profitless as well as wearisome. A regular
army officer had a backing in the _esprit de corps_ at the
departments, and Halleck was watchful to give the full weight of his
official influence in favor of such a one. It was, perhaps
naturally, assumed that a volunteer would be assisted by political
friends, and if he did not make use of such influence he would fall
between two stools. After my first appointment I was never aware of
receiving any help from these personal influences, and had gotten
whatever recognition I had from my immediate commanders in the
field. Burnside had intimated that if Hartsuff's ill health should
make that officer retire from the command of the Twenty-third Corps,
he would assign me to it in the expectation that the corresponding
rank would then be conferred by the President. If I have any regret
respecting my own action in seeking active duty, it is that I did
not ask for the command of one of the divisions in the corps on the
movement into East Tennessee. It was Burnside's wish that I should
remain in Cincinnati and I acquiesced; but I have had a lingering
belief that my influence with him would have helped decide him to
remain in the West had I been with him in Knoxville in October and
November. Be that as it may, I was fully determined after the Ohio
election was over to cease looking for anything more than a field
command, according to my present rank, and to be urgent till I
obtained it.
In this year the first volume of Kinglake's "History of the Crimean
War" was published, and reading it in the intervals of other duty in
Cincinnati, I found in it lessons of hope and confidence in our
armies that were to me both stimulating and encouraging. It would
not be strange if an English soldier should feel that Kinglake was
quite too frank in his revelation of the mistakes and
discouragements which attended England's first military operations
after the "forty years' peace." But it was precisely this
photographic realism and unreserve which gave the book its peculiar
value. I found Lord Raglan and his subordinates intelligent men,
feeling their way through doubts and mistakes to a new experimental
knowledge of their task. I compared them and their work with what I
had seen in our own service when a great army had to be organized
and put in the field and everything had to be created anew. I saw
that we had been no worse off than our neighbors, and that our
tuition in the school of experience had gone on quite as rapidly as
theirs. I thanked Kinglake in my heart for telling us that Raglan
tested what he was doing by asking himself how "the Duke" would have
done had he been there. It was only another way of applying the
lessons of past experience to the present duty; but it seemed
peculiarly human that the English general in the perplexities of his
troublesome problem in the Crimea should summon up the shade of
Wellington and ask how the practical soldier of the Spanish
Peninsular War would act were he deciding for his old staff officer
what he must do at the Alma or in front of Sebastopol.
The student of military history sees that the weak points in the
British army on the peace establishment had been that systematic and
continuous preparation for active war had not been insisted on. It
needed the organizing genius of Roon and Moltke in the Prussian army
to make such a mobilization as that of 1866 and that of 1870, and to
show what is possible in preparing an armed host to take the field.
Preparation for war has had a totally different meaning since those
campaigns, and the start of a day or two in reaching the field was
shown to involve the winning and losing a great campaign. As matters
stood in 1854, however, the great military powers of Europe should
be considered as having only the raw material of armies as they had
depots of military stores, and true organization in every department
had to be effected after a declaration of war. Studying it in 1863,
it seemed to me that the only advantage England or France would have
had over us at the outbreak of the Rebellion would have been in the
greater number of men partly drilled and the greater quantities of
arms and ammunition in store. Kinglake taught us that others would
have had to go through most of the discouragements we had
experienced, and that our aptitude in learning had been perhaps
greater than theirs would have been. His unreserved disclosure of
the errors and the miseries of the siege of Sebastopol was
infinitely more instructive than any history which hid the
humiliating facts and covered all with the glamour and glory of the
final success. His faithful dealing was in the line of true
discipline, though the reading of his story must have been a sore
chastisement of spirit for many an English soldier and statesman. It
was more effective than the comments of any "war correspondent,"
however capable; for it was free from every suspicion of
unfriendliness, and was written with the fullest access to official
evidence. I cannot help believing that the book was no small factor
in the general movement in Europe toward a much more scientific
comprehension and a much better practical mastery of the elements of
army organization and administration in times of peace.
But what I am quite sure of is that its perusal was a source of
great comfort and encouragement to me in the midst of our own
struggle; because it assured me, as I compared Raglan's experience
with ours, that we had not gone so far astray in learning our
lesson, and were not so completely on the dunces' bench, as I had
been disposed to fear. We had plenty of blunders to confess, and
there was no room for over-confidence; but the book prompted every
earnest soldier among us to believe that we could make still better
use of our experience, and to feel bolder in relying on his own
judgment and courage in drawing new expedients from our peculiar
circumstances and in developing new adaptations of military science
to our own campaigns. Staff schools cannot turn out great generals
to order, and the man who leads will continue to be more important
than any other element of an army; but no leader can work well with
dull and antiquated tools, and the present generation can hardly see
a great war begun with so little adequate preparation for it as was
common before our great civil strife.
On the 9th of November the humdrum routine at my district
headquarters was interrupted by a dispatch from the officer
commanding at Detroit, Michigan, giving warning of what was more
explicitly reported in one of the 10th, saying that he was
positively informed that within forty-eight hours two armed steamers
would attack Johnson's Island and release the prisoners held there.
[Footnote: Official Records, series ii. vol. vi. pp. 491, 495, 635.]
The military prison at Johnson's Island was built for the
confinement of Confederate officers who had been captured in battle,
and their number was so large that to release them would be an
enterprise of no little importance, if successful. The island lay in
Sandusky Bay, within a few hours' sail of several Canadian ports.
Its garrison consisted of a single regiment which had all the
employment it needed to furnish the ordinary prison guards, and
would be entirely too weak to oppose any considerable force
attacking from without, especially as it would be prudent to assume
that such an attack would be accompanied by an outbreak of the
prisoners within.
I immediately communicated with Governor Tod and with the Commissary
of Prisoners at Washington, Colonel Hoffman, and on the same day
sent a battery of three-inch rifled cannon and 500 newly raised
recruits to Sandusky. I telegraphed the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, our
consul-general at Montreal, asking what he could learn in Canada as
to the threatened expedition. He thought it was the mere "bombast"
of Confederate emissaries and refugees in the Canadian provinces,
and made light of it. On the 12th, however, the Secretary of War
telegraphed me that Lord Lyons, the British ambassador, confirmed
the report, and directed me to take energetic action to defeat the
expected raid. The dispatch reached me at nine o'clock in the
morning, and as it would be necessary to consult with the governor
and get him to call out a force of State militia, I telegraphed him
that I would go to Columbus on the half-past-ten train from
Cincinnati, and asked him to be ready to call out the militia as
soon as I could see him. I then sent messages to the commandants of
militia regiments near the railway line, requesting them to call out
their men at once in anticipation of an order from the governor to
proceed to Sandusky. I also communicated with my subordinates in
command at Detroit, Sandusky, and Columbus, giving a hint of my
purposes. Finding I was likely to be late at the railway station, I
sent a message to Mr. Woodward, the superintendent of the Little
Miami Railroad, asking him to hold the train for me. The train had
gone when the message reached him, but he ordered out an extra
locomotive, and when I reached the station it was under orders to
overtake the regular train. With an aide-de-camp I mounted the
locomotive, and we were off at speed. The train was overtaken at
Xenia, half-way to Columbus, and I was able to keep my appointment
with the governor.
It happened that there was at this time a plot also to take the camp
of military prisoners at Columbus, indicating a wide-spread scheme
among the Confederate prisoners in Ohio, and General Mason, who
commanded there, did not think it would be safe to reduce his
garrison. The governor acted at once upon my suggestion, and ordered
out the militia regiments which I had warned before leaving
Cincinnati. My regular train had gone on, but Mr. Woodward had
provided for a special one from Columbus, and we were soon speeding
on in the hope of making the connection with a train going West on
the Lake Shore Railway. The connection was made, though it became
necessary to make what was then regarded as extraordinary speed to
do it. Over one stretch of the road we ran twenty miles in eighteen
minutes by the watch, and our average rate was high enough to make
it a noteworthy journey. I reached Sandusky at midnight, and found
reports of the militia regiments already on the way, and that the
hostile expedition had not yet left Canada.
There is always a considerable amount of business labor connected
with the sudden assembly of new troops in a city like Sandusky.
Provision must be made for quarters and for their subsistence. The
militia were not like troops accustomed to take the field, and were
not provided with tents. The autumn was well advanced, and severe
winter weather was likely to come at any time. Competent officers
had to be selected to take responsible charge of each of the supply
departments, including arms and ammunition. A battery of
Parrott-rifled cannon was ordered to report to me as well as some
heavy coast artillery. The first organization of means to look after
the coming troops and the artillery being made, the next duty was a
personal reconnoissance of my field of operations. A gentleman put
at my disposal a small sailing yacht of light draught, and with a
good crew and a fresh breeze the principal points of the lower bay
were visited, including Johnson's Island.
Sandusky Bay is the largest land-locked body of water connected with
Lake Erie. It is some twenty miles long by three or four wide, its
length running east and west, and narrow tongues of land separating
it from the lake. The mouth of the bay is about a mile wide, but the
water is quite shallow except in the narrow channel, which is
sinuous and runs very close to Cedar Point, the extremity of the
long, low sandy cape which separates the eastern part of the bay
from the open water. A lighthouse on the point and range lights near
it give direction to vessels approaching, which run from the
northwest, head on, till they seem almost ashore at the foot of the
lighthouse tower, when they turn sharply to the southwest, the
channel being zigzag up to the city, which lies on the southeast
shore. It did not need a second glance to determine that Cedar Point
was the place to fortify, and that batteries there would rake any
vessel approaching the harbor, as well as on its way in, if it
should succeed in passing the point.
Johnson's Island lies a mile or two inside the entrance to the bay
on the western side. A narrow channel separates it from the land on
that side, which is a high rocky peninsula called Marblehead. The
island had been cultivated as a farm, containing a hundred acres or
more, with some pleasant groves amid the fields, and with a gently
undulating surface which gave it an agreeable variety and a
picturesque appearance. The landing at the island was on the bay
side, three or four miles from the city wharves. If a hostile force
should land on the peninsula at Marblehead, it could not reach the
island by reason of the channel which separates it from the land on
the west. The only chance of success for such a raid was to make a
surprise of it before Cedar Point could be fortified, to enter the
bay and land a force sufficient to overpower the prison garrison
before it should be reinforced.
Under the terms of the treaty with Great Britain, our navy was
represented by a single vessel of war on Lake Erie, the steamer
"Michigan," which carried a battery of eight or ten guns. She was
ordered to Sandusky to co-operate with me at the same time that I
was directed to go there. She was commanded by Captain John Carter,
a bluff and hearty seaman of the old school, whom I found cordially
ready to work with me in the most perfect harmony and mutual
understanding. I lost no time in transporting my two rifled
batteries to Cedar Point, and throwing up hasty earthworks to cover
them. From the moment they were in position it was certain that no
unarmed steamboat could enter the harbor. A part of my infantry was
encamped in rear of the batteries, covered by a grove of evergreen
trees, near enough to support the guns if an effort were made to
land there. The rest of the infantry was assigned to increase the
garrison on Johnson's Island itself. The news had spread that there
was a concentration of our forces at Sandusky, and by the time we
were ready for an attack the raiders were well aware that their
plans had failed.
Their project had not been a hopeless one if they could have kept it
secret, but that was almost impossible. The leaders in it were
commonly reported to have been some of Morgan's men who had made
their way to Canada when he was captured. By the aid of Confederate
agents they had procured the means to organize a considerable band
of adventurers, and had chartered two steamboats which were to meet
them at the mouth of the Detroit River. The assembly of such a body
of men attracted the attention of the Canadian authorities, and
information was sent to Lord Lyons at Washington. Our officers at
Detroit also got wind of it, and employed the police and detectives
to ferret out the facts. The raiders had assembled, and the boats
were ready, when, on the 14th of November, they learned that their
plans were exposed and the chance to succeed was lost. The less
eager ones were quick to abandon the enterprise, and the bolder
spirits found themselves reduced to a handful. So they scattered,
threatening to try it again at some more convenient time.
As soon as the work of preparation at Cedar Point was well under
way, I accepted the invitation of Captain Carter to make a
reconnoissance in the "Michigan." We sailed out of the harbor and
made the tour of the beautiful group of islands known as the Bass
Islands, in the midst of which is the little harbor of Put-in-Bay.
We were on the classic ground where Perry had won his naval victory
in the War of 1812, and although we found no trace of the threatened
raid, the circumstances which took us there added to the interest
with which we examined the scene of Perry's glory. On my return I
reported to the Secretary of War that all present danger had passed,
and asked to be allowed to send the militia home. The weather had
become stormy, and the State troops naturally became impatient when
the need of their continued exposure seemed to be at an end. They
were soon allowed to go, but it was wisely determined to put the
heavy guns in a fortification on the island, where they could
command the entrance to the bay and yet be so connected with the
permanent garrison as to avoid the establishment of two camps with
the necessary increase of expense as well as numbers.
This delayed me a fortnight at Sandusky, and the delay was quite as
unwelcome to me as to the militia. I had been away from Cincinnati
but a few days when I received a dispatch from General Burnside,
saying that if I was still minded to accept a field command he
thought he could give me one of his corps. As this was exactly what
I had been wishing for, it will be easily believed that I chafed at
the circumstances which seemed to tie me to the shore of Lake Erie
when I longed to be on my way to East Tennessee. I laid the matter
before the War Department by telegraph, and begged to be allowed to
go. Mr. Stanton answered on the 22d that I could not yet leave
Sandusky. I hurried the work to be done there with all possible
energy, so as to remove the cause of delay, and on the 3d of
December was gratified to learn that the order had been issued
directing me to report in person to the general in command at
Knoxville. I was not informed that I should not find Burnside there
when I should arrive, and assumed that my work at Sandusky was the
only cause of delay in my orders to go; but I was soon to learn of
other changes which I did not anticipate.
My stay at Sandusky gave me the opportunity to make an inspection of
the military prison at Johnson's Island, and I availed myself of it.
As only officers were confined there, the high average intelligence
and character of these would of course show itself in their personal
habits and in their methods of employing the time, which hung heavy
on their hands. In all such situations the energy and hopefulness of
the individual are the best guaranty for continued good health,
whilst ennui, listlessness, and idleness are the pretty sure
forerunners of melancholy and homesickness, which lead to serious
maladies. It would be hard to find a more salubrious site for a camp
than Johnson's Island. Naturally well drained, diversified with
grove and meadow, open to the breeze from every quarter, washed by
the pure waters of Lake Erie, it is to-day, as it was then, a
beautiful and attractive spot. The winter there is not usually
severe. The vast body of water comprising the Great Lakes modifies
the climate and tempers it so that the autumn is generally prolonged
and pleasant. Winter begins late, but is apt to be changeable and
disagreeable, and a raw and backward spring, with chilling winds off
the frozen waters, is the part of the year most to be dreaded.
Native Ohioans insist that there is no climate more wholesome and
pleasant than this lake-shore belt, which is now the land of
continuous vineyards and peach orchards. A native of the Gulf States
would, however, find its winter and spring severe and trying, more
from sudden changes than from any extremely low temperature. Taking
it all in all, it is probable that no place for a prison camp could
be found in the Northern States which would be liable to fewer
objections.
The prison itself was constructed in the manner which seemed
simplest and cheapest. A large square on the sloping hillsides was
surrounded with a high wooden fence. On the outside of this, near
the top, was a gallery or balcony supported on brackets.
This was the walk for the sentinels, and from it they had a
commanding view of the interior of the enclosure. Sentry-boxes,
looking like turrets, were at the corners and at intervals on the
sides. Within, the barracks for the prisoners were on the west or
northwest side, leaving the larger space open in front for exercise.
The buildings were of pine boards, roughly but well constructed, so
that they were dry and tight. Rows of bunks ran along the sides,
filled with beds of straw. The shelter and accommodation was
decidedly better than that which we made for our own troops at Camp
Dennison, our first camp of instruction. Through most of the year
there was no ground for complaint. In winter, and especially on
winter nights, it would be impossible to keep up anything like a
steady temperature, and the thin shell of the building would soon
chill through in a nipping and frosty air. We had to meet this
difficulty in all winter quarters for troops, and there seemed to be
no way to remove it. If one could be heavily clad, it was generally
more healthful to endure a steady low temperature, than to meet the
alternations of heat and cold which came of the replenishing and
dying out of the fires in stoves during the long winter night. As
many men have many minds, it was almost impossible to secure
anything like system in a long shed-like building occupied by a
little democracy of hundreds of persons.
The food was plain but good in quality, similar to the army ration,
and at the time of my visit was abundant. I took occasion to go
through the barracks unattended by the officers of the garrison, and
encouraged the prisoners to make known any complaints. There were
practically none that were not necessarily incident to the position
of a prisoner of war in actual confinement. The loss of liberty, the
weary pacing of the enclosure in front of their barracks, the lack
of interesting occupation, home-sickness, and general
discomfort,--these were the ills of which they spoke. Among the
prisoners was General Jeff. Thompson, of Missouri,--the ranking
officer among them, as I recollect,--and I sought an introduction to
him and talked with him in regard to the prison life. He was
depressed and ailing, though not consenting to go into hospital, and
spoke feelingly of the discouraging monotony and ennui of their
existence, but made no complaint of the administration of the prison
in any way. To be exchanged was the burden of their wishes and
prayers, and in this every one with ordinary human sympathies must
feel with them. Games of chess, draughts, dominoes, and cards were
their indoor amusements, and some of the more energetic kept up an
attempt at regular out-door exercise.
It happened that the chief surgeon of the camp was an old neighbor
of mine, Dr. M. C. Woodworth, and I questioned him closely as to the
medical and sanitary condition. He was a man of the highest
character in his profession and as a citizen. I had absolute
confidence in his uprightness as well as his ability. His statements
fully corroborated the conclusions I drew from my own observation. I
was fully satisfied that the garrison administration was honest and
humane, and that the prisoners suffered only such evils as were
necessarily incident to confinement in a narrow space, and to life
in temporary barracks of the kind used in all military camps.
I learned that those prisoners who had means of their own were
permitted to open private accounts with merchants and bankers in the
city of Sandusky, and had little difficulty in increasing their
physical comforts in many ways. Since the war I have conversed with
business men of that town who personally knew of these arrangements,
and who have given me details of remittances and credits furnished
to prisoners, and of some considerable investments made for them. A
certain surveillance was necessary in such cases to give assurance
that no unlawful advantage was taken of such opportunities, but
there was very little if any reason to believe such leniency was
abused.
CHAPTER XXX
A WINTER RIDE ON THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS
Ordered to East Tennessee--Preparation for a long ride--A small
party of officers--Rendezvous at Lexington, Ky.--Changes in my
staff--The escort-A small train--A gay cavalcade--The blue-grass
country--War-time roads--Valley of the Rockcastle--Quarters for the
night--London--Choice of routes--Longstreet in the way--A turn
southward--Williamsburg--Meeting Burnside--Fording the
Cumberland--Pine Mountain--A hard pull--Teamsters' chorus--Big Creek
Gap--First view of East Tennessee--Jacksboro--A forty-mile
trot--Escape from unwelcome duty--In command of Twenty-third
Corps--The army-supply problem--Siege bread--Starved
beef--Burnside's dinner to Sherman.
The order of the War Department directing me to report in person to
the general commanding in East Tennessee was issued on the 2nd of
December. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 314.]
It was to take effect when I should have completed my duties at
Sandusky, but as I had pressed all my work forward to completion
some days before, in the expectation of the order, I was prepared to
leave at once. A copy of the order was telegraphed to me on the 3rd,
and I left for Cincinnati the same evening. On reaching the district
and department headquarters, I learned that Burnside was relieved,
and that General Foster had passed through the city, going on toward
East Tennessee to assume command of the department. Longstreet
raised the siege of Knoxville the very day I reached Cincinnati, but
this was not yet known, and several days passed before we had
authentic information that the way to Knoxville was open. There was
work to do in closing up the business of the district, packing
papers and books pertaining to my headquarters, and providing for
their safe-keeping. A number of officers belonging to Burnside's
command were waiting an opportunity to rejoin the army, and I
arranged a rendezvous for these at Lexington, Ky., where I would
join them. A small troop of cavalry was detailed to act as our
escort, and the quartermaster's department promised wagons for our
baggage and supplies. On the 8th the news of Longstreet's retreat
indicated that the road through Cumberland Gap to Knoxville was
probably open, and sending our horses and baggage to Lexington by
railroad, I left Cincinnati with my staff on Wednesday, the 9th, for
the same place. Reaching there at evening, the next day was spent in
packing our wagons and organizing our little party, and the
cavalcade marched out of the pretty town of Lexington early on the
11th.
My staff was not altogether the same as it was in my Virginia
campaigns. I had lost my friend, Surgeon Holmes, by death. He had
been assigned to duty with me in Cincinnati, but his lungs had
become diseased through exposure in the field, and he had died of
consumption a few weeks before. My aide Captain Christie was
similarly affected, and resigned to prolong his life. He ultimately
died of the illness thus contracted. My aide Lieutenant Conine was
appointed colonel of one of the new colored regiments, and went with
it to Virginia. Major Bascom, my adjutant-general, Major Treat, my
commissary, and Lieutenant Theodore Cox, my aide-de-camp, were
ordered to accompany me, and were all that remained of my old staff.
In the place of Conine I secured the detail of Captain E. D.
Saunders, assistant-adjutant-general, who had served temporarily on
my staff during the preceding season. He was the son of an old
resident of Cincinnati, an excellent officer in his department as
well as a gallant soldier, and he remained with me in closest
relations till he fell by my side in the Atlanta campaign in the
following year. His assignment as aide-de-camp was out of the usual
course, but it was allowed in view of the contingency that Major
Bascom could not remain with me if I should not continue in command
of an army corps. In this case Saunders would become my
adjutant-general, and this was what in fact occurred a little later.
At Lexington I found a group of ten or a dozen officers who were
eager to join my party in the ride over the mountains. The one of
highest rank was Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Strong of General Foster's
staff, who had been allowed a short leave of absence when his chief
started for the West, and was now hastening back to duty. I found a
ground for pleasant acquaintance with him in his relationship to
Bishop Bedell of Ohio, a venerated friend of mine as long as he
lived. Colonel Strong was a brother of Mrs. Bedell, and was a
refined and cultivated gentleman. Lieutenant-Colonel James T.
Sterling of the One Hundred and Third Ohio Infantry was also on his
way to join his regiment at Knoxville. He had been a captain in the
Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and served with me in my first
campaign in West Virginia, where I had become attached to him for
his military as well as his personal character. He became my
inspector-general in the field. Captain D. W. H. Day, assistant
quartermaster, was also en route to the Twenty-third Corps in the
field, and was directed to take charge of our little train. His
unbounded energy and his power to surmount obstacles so impressed me
that on our reaching Knoxville I had him also assigned to permanent
duty with me in his department. The others passed out of the circle
of permanent acquaintances when the journey was over, but they were
all pleasant travelling companions, and one or two of them would
have been remarkable anywhere for their wit and cheerfulness. It was
as happy and jolly a party as one need wish for in a rough ride of a
couple of hundred miles over the mountains.
Our escort turned out to be only twenty horsemen instead of a full
troop, but these were enough for protection against mere marauders,
and we had to take the chance of meeting organized bodies of the
enemy. Four army wagons were furnished us. One of these was loaded
with oats for our horses, and carried the personal baggage of the
cavalry troop. Another was loaded with ordinary army rations. A
third was devoted to mess supplies of the officers of the party, and
as we were going into a country wasted by war and almost
famine-stricken, we each tried to carry with us a small stock of
choice provisions which might eke out a little comfort to the mess.
The fourth wagon carried our personal baggage. Captain Day had
carefully selected strong and serviceable horses for the teams, and
the wagons were minutely inspected to see that they were fit for the
mountain work in a wilderness where wheelwrights could not be found.
It was our purpose to get both forage and provisions on the road if
we could buy them, and to save the stock in our wagons for a time of
necessity or to carry as much as possible into Knoxville.
I had telegraphed to Burnside as soon as I reached Cincinnati,
formally reporting myself as under his orders for duty in the field
by permission of the Secretary of War. I expressed my regret to hear
of his leaving the command, and urged my assignment to duty before
he laid down his authority. No answer to my dispatch was received,
and the fact was that full communication with Burnside by the
Cumberland Gap route was not opened till the 9th of December, so
that my letter was among the correspondence received by Burnside the
day he turned over the command to Foster. Another cause of
uneasiness to me was the change of department boundaries made in the
order assigning General Foster to command. The States north of the
Ohio were separated from the department, and I was apprehensive that
other changes might occur which would make me fall between two
stools. That there was danger of just such disappointments turned
out to be very true. My anxious determination to get forward to
Knoxville with the least possible delay was justified, and I had
reason to congratulate myself on acting promptly upon it.
Our cavalcade presented a gay appearance as we marched out of
Lexington on Friday morning. There were twelve or fifteen officers,
all well mounted and followed by a group of servants riding and
leading our extra horses. Part of the cavalry troop led the way, the
guidons fluttering in the van. Behind us came an ambulance and the
army wagons with clean white canvas covers and well-groomed teams of
four horses each, driven in army fashion by a driver astride of the
near wheel-horse, a mounted wagon-master superintending the whole.
The little column was closed by a squad of the cavalry acting as
rear-guard. There had not been any severe winter weather as yet, and
though the road was sloppy, the sun was bright overhead, and its
beams flashed from our side-arms and equipments. Our first day's
ride was to take us to Richmond, a thriving town twenty-five miles
away, the county-seat of Madison County, and a good turnpike road
made this an easy day's journey. We were in the rich blue-grass
region, and though all of central Kentucky showed the marks of war's
ravages, this region was comparatively unscathed, and the beautiful
rolling country was neither abandoned nor untilled. Horses and
cattle were noticeably few, for raids like Morgan's had been
frequent enough to teach the peril of having flocks and herds to
tempt the enemy. Farmers gave more attention than before to
agriculture proper and the raising of crops which would directly
support the family. There was nothing dispiriting in the view of the
country on this first day's ride, and though a winter landscape can
hardly be exhilarating when it is leafless and bare, gray, and a
little sombre in color, we found ourselves under no stress of
sympathy with misfortune or want, as is so often the case with the
soldier.
On leaving Richmond our really rough work began. The roads would
have been bad enough at any time, but the hard use by army trains in
bad weather and the entire lack of repair had made them execrable.
All the ordinary methods of keeping highways in order by local
administration were suspended by the war, and the only work done
upon them was what each wagon-master could do with his drivers to
mend the worst places so that his train could get through. As we
could not be sure of finding food for man or beast on the road, it
was necessary to gauge our speed by the distance our wagons could
make, so that we should not be separated from them. About twenty
miles a day was the maximum, and though we sometimes got a little
further, there were days when our journey was much less. South of
Richmond and on the border between Madison and Rockcastle counties,
we crossed Big Hill, the first of the outlying ranges of the
Cumberland Mountains. These great ridges are nearly parallel to each
other, and even the "gaps" in them are so high that there is always
a long and hard pull for wagon teams in surmounting them. Over the
summit we came down into the valleys tributary to the Rockcastle
River. Twenty or twenty-five miles away another summit marks the
boundary between this valley and the principal depression in which
the Cumberland River finds its devious course to the south and west.
The rocks are sandstone through which the Rockcastle River has cut
deep gorges and chasms, and the weathering of the cliffs has left
the strata and crevices exposed with so much of the regularity of
layers of masonry as to tell at once the story of the impression
made on the early explorers of the region, and the suggestion by
Nature herself of a name for the beautiful stream that dashes along
to join the Cumberland many miles below.
Our second day's journey ended far from any village or tavern, in
this romantic valley. A pouring rain had begun about noon, and we
plodded and splashed along till we reached a large log house which
seemed a convenient halting-place as far advanced as our wagons
could be brought. The house belonged to a thrifty widow. Half of it
was simply furnished, and in this part she and her children lived.
The other half was a large unfurnished room with the walls of hewn
logs and a great fireplace of stone in the middle of the long side
of the room. Out of this opened a little bedroom, a mere closet, in
which the spare bed for guests was placed. The widow put these two
rooms at our disposal. A roaring fire was soon burning on the
hearth, our saddles and horse trappings were arranged on the sides
of the room to serve as pillows, and blankets were brought in from
the ambulance. Supper was got, partly from our own stores, cooked
with the help of the family, and we were early ready for bed. The
guest chamber was assigned to me, but it was so small that for the
sake of ventilation the door was kept open, and the ruddy firelight
flashed upon as picturesque and as merry a group as one could wish
to see. A weary day in the saddle made all of us ready for sleep,
and quips and jokes soon died out as one after another seemed to
drop off into forgetfulness. The physical fatigue of the day made
one of the party develop a phenomenal capacity for snoring in his
heavy sleep, and in the quiet his nasal trumpeting grew more
pronounced. It proceeded by phrases, as it were, each effort
stronger than the preceding, till a fortissimo passage came and
ended with a snort which echoed through the room and was followed by
perfect silence. From the corner of the room came a drawling voice
with a sigh as of deep relief, "Thank God _he's_ dead." The shout of
laughter which followed showed that nearly all had roused themselves
for the _finale_, and the badgered performer of the music lost much
of the real comfort of his night's rest by his fear of committing
himself to a complete oblivion which might subject him to another
chaffing bout from his companions.
Another wet and uncomfortable day's ride brought us to London, an
unattractive village at the parting of the ways, the principal road
leading on to Cumberland Gap, and another on the right going to a
ford of the Cumberland River at Williamsburg, where there would be
again a choice of routes up the Elk Fork of the Cumberland between
the ridges known as Jellico Mountain and Pine Mountain. The left
wing of Burnside's column had taken this route in October, and after
crossing the Cumberland had climbed Jellico Mountain on their right
hand, and reached the headwaters of Emory River, a tributary of the
Tennessee which breaks through the mountains at Emory Gap, the
easiest route into East Tennessee. Another road kept in the valley
of Elk Fork till a place was reached where Pine Mountain, on the
left, could be scaled, and once over its summit a hard road led to
Big Creek Gap in the Cumberland Mountains, and thence by way of
Jacksboro to Knoxville.
At London we were met with news from East Tennessee which made me
reconsider the question of our route. We heard from Cumberland Gap
that after General Foster had joined Burnside at Knoxville,
Longstreet had moved in force to Rutledge, where he intercepted this
line of communication, and that Knoxville could not be reached by
that road for some time to come. This seemed to make it necessary to
turn off to the south. As between the road to Emory Gap over Jellico
Mountain and that to Big Creek Gap over Pine Mountain, the best
evidence seemed to indicate the latter as the easier, but with the
qualification which travellers in so wild a region have often to
face, that whichever way you go you will wish you had gone the
other. The name of Williamsburg on the Cumberland sounded as if it
might be a considerable town, but the man who gave us the route
warned us that we should find "it's not much of a 'burg neither when
you git thar." Our ride into London had been on Sunday, and was
surely a work of necessity if not of mercy. Captain B. had found his
horse a little shaky in coming down the steep hills, and at one
little stream the jaded beast came down on his knees in the water.
The captain with affected seriousness argued that it was a
punishment for travelling on the day of rest, but was effectually
silenced by the wag of the party, who humorously remarked, "Ah! if
your horse is so weak on Sunday what would have become of him and
you on a week day?" London did not afford us any lodgings that
tempted us indoors, and we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and
slept on the open veranda of a dilapidated house, building a
camp-fire in the yard in front. The rain had ceased, and we
preferred the frosty air to the narrow and stuffy quarters we should
otherwise have had to take.
The evening of the 14th of December brought us to the Cumberland
River, and as it was rising from the heavy rain of the preceding
week, we should have been glad to get over at once, but the wagons
could not overtake us till night, and we stopped at a country-house
on the north side where we were made quite comfortable. About one
o'clock in the morning, however, I was awakened by voices in the
room below me, and recognized that of Captain French of Burnside's
staff, who was asking the farmer to light a fire and prepare to
receive the general and his party, who were a little behind, wet and
nearly frozen. I got up and dressed myself, went downstairs to greet
the captain, who was soon joined by the rest of the party. The
general had come by the route I was taking, but his wagons had
broken down on the mountain-side, and he had been obliged to abandon
them. The party had picked up somewhere an old-fashioned stage-coach
on thorough braces, and this was drawn by ten mules. They had packed
on the backs of other mules such of their personal effects and
stores as they could, and had left the rest by the roadside. They
had halted for the night on the south side of the river, but at
midnight had been roused by the news that the river was rising, and
that they must pass the ford at once if they expected to get over.
In the darkness of the night it had been both difficult and
perilous, for the ford was diagonal to the course of the stream, and
there was great danger of getting into deep water. They were all
soaking wet and chilled, covered with mud, and as forlorn and
unkempt a set of men as was ever seen. They warmed and partly dried
themselves by the fire, and pushed on as soon as day began to break,
for the general was impatient to get forward. Colonel Goodrich,
Colonel Richmond, Major Van Buren, and the personal staff were with
him, and as my own staff had been well acquainted with them, it was
an interesting rencounter with all the events of the Knoxville
campaign to discuss. The general had sent his proposal to me to join
him, the very day Longstreet reached the Holston River at Loudon,
and when it had become evident that the Confederates were committed
to an active campaign in East Tennessee. General Hartsuff had found
that he could not endure the work, and had decided to leave before
Knoxville should be invested. My regret that I could not start at
once was diminished by the fact that the investment was complete
before I could possibly have reached Knoxville, so that no time had
been lost. But all the circumstances showed that Burnside had
regarded his request to be relieved as indefinitely postponed, and
the appointment of General Foster to succeed him was unexpected. He
had not heard that I was on my way, but after meeting me sent a
dispatch to Foster as soon as he reached the telegraph line. He had
informed Foster at Knoxville of his purpose in having me join him,
and sent this message in a friendly wish to promote my interests.
As soon as the general and his party were off, we began our
preparation to cross the river. Their experience had shown that the
increase of difficulty in keeping the ford at night was more than
would probably come from the rise of the water. I therefore ordered
everything to be ready as soon as it was broad daylight. We had
eaten our breakfast and were in the saddle as soon as we could see
clearly. Captain Day carefully examined the ford with a few of the
cavalrymen, and fixed the landmarks which would guide us to the
shallowest places. With these precautions and by carefully following
directions we got over without mishap. The water did not quite reach
the bodies of the wagons, and by lifting our feet out of our
stirrups we got over dryshod. The stream was swift, and the only way
to keep one's direction safely was to look ahead and not downward.
Had we tried it in the night, we should no doubt have fared as badly
as our friends who had preceded us.
A day's hard journey for the wagon teams brought us to the foot of
Pine Mountain at the point where the road leaves the bed of Elk Fork
to climb the steep ascent. We were now only nineteen miles from
Jacksboro, in the valley of the Clinch, but the distance was
multiplied by the cumulating difficulties of the way. We were not
far from Cross Mountain, a ridge which, as its name indicates,
connects the long parallel ranges of Jellico, Pine, and Cumberland
mountains. We must climb Pine Mountain to its crest, descend along
the shoulders of Cross Mountain near the head of the valley, then
scale the side of Cumberland Mountain to reach Big Creek Gap, from
which the valley of East Tennessee would open before us. We camped
for the night and prepared for an early start in the morning. The
teams were well fed and groomed, and the whole equipment was
carefully inspected to see that everything was ready for the strain
of the rough work of the morrow.
The morning of the 16th was fair and frosty, and we were astir
early. Pine Mountain loomed before us like the steep roof of some
vast gothic cathedral. The ridge seemed as straight as a house
ridge, and we could not see that any natural depression made the
ascent much easier in one place than another. Our road ran up a spur
of the mountain till the regular slope was reached, then turning to
the right it gradually mounted the steep incline by a diagonal
course on a long shelf cut in the hillside, with here and there a
level spot on which the teams could breathe. From where we stood in
the valley the mountain face looked precipitous, and the road a mere
line gradually rising along its front. It would have been bad enough
if it had been a metalled road in good order; but it was only a
rough track alternating in mud and rock, that had never been good
even in mid-summer, and it was now next to impassable. Under the
direction of Captain Day and the wagonmaster the teams were doubled,
two of the wagons being left in the valley till the others should
reach the summit, when the teams were to be brought back. When they
came to the long and hard pull, the drivers gave us a good sample of
army wagoning, their yelling and cracking of whips keeping up a
continual chorus, and at specially hard points the quartermaster and
wagon-master joined in the music like the baying of a pack of
hounds, while the horses seemed to be stimulated to almost frantic
action. This could not be kept up long, and when one of the level
breathing-places was reached all subsided into quiet, while the
steaming and puffing horses regained their wind for another effort.
Five miles of advance was the utmost we could make on that day, but
this was fifteen for the teams, as they had to be brought down the
mountain over the same road and drag up the wagons which had been
left at the foot. Our party of cavaliers waited lazily in the valley
till the first of the wagons were near the summit, and then rode on
to overtake them on the other side of the ridge. It was an easy and
picturesque ride for us who were well mounted, but a wearing labor
and strain for the teamsters and their animals. We congratulated
ourselves on the care with which the "outfit" had been selected at
Lexington, for we came through without accident on a road where
wrecks were plentier than milestones.
We had sweet slumber that night in the keen air of the mountain top,
and were ready for the last day of mountain work. We were fourteen
miles from Jacksboro, and were resolved to reach the little town
before night. The road was unlike the long inclined plane cut in the
side of Pine Mountain. We were in the midst of a mass of irregular
stony hills, all of them part of the highlands between the summits
of the two ranges. It was hard and rough work, but we were not
obliged to double the teams again. The last ascent of the Cumberland
Mountains toward Big Creek Gap was over bare rock much of the way,
the sandstone strata lying horizontal, and the road being a gigantic
staircase in which the steps were sometimes a foot each, but oftener
more, with an occasional rise of fully four feet in the edge of the
rocky outcrop. In the road the sharp edges of these stairs had been
rounded off, partly by wear and a little by mechanical means, but
they distinctly retained the stair-like character and looked
absolutely impracticable. At the worst places the teamsters would
halt and throw together stones or branches of trees to fill the
angle in the rock, then mounting, a whoop and a crack of the whip
was the signal for the team to dash at the obstacle. The horses'
shoes would strike fire from the level rock of the long "treader"
above, the wagon would be bounced up the step, when a little bit of
level would bring them to another rise in the staircase. We
zigzagged along as the road sought the easiest places among the
rocks, and perseverance at last had its reward when we crowned the
summit and looked down into the broad and beautiful valleys of the
Clinch and the Holston, the lovely tributaries which form the
Tennessee River.
Our first look into Big Creek Gap was a startling and pleasurable
surprise which has remained indelibly fixed in memory. Clouds had
been hanging about the top of the mountain, and as we ascended the
last slope and reached the crest, they hung so low over us that we
could almost touch them. It was not like going into a fog, as is
usually the case in climbing mountains, but these seemed smooth as
silk on the under surface and hung over us as well defined as the
covering of a tent. This gave to the prospect an accidental and very
peculiar effect that one might not see again in crossing the pass a
hundred times. As we looked eastward from the depression in the
crest in which our roadway ran, a great circling amphitheatre lay
before us, almost perfect in the symmetry of its curves. The ridge
on right and left which formed its outer margin was higher than the
spot on which we stood, and the silky clouds over our heads rested
on it as on the walls of a natural coliseum, like the _velum_ of
canvas of the ancient gigantic structure in Rome, except that here,
nature outdoing all art, spread the lovely awning over the whole
vast and cavernous auditorium a mile or more across. The gloom of
the interior threw the retreating slopes into a mysterious shadow in
which it were easy to imagine them peopled with ranks of ghostly
auditors gazing upon the stage. It was there, full in our faces,
that the most startling and almost incredible effect was visible.
The circle of the mountains was there broken by an opening flanked
on either side by stupendous perpendicular cliffs, and we looked
through it upon a charming landscape bathed in glorious sunshine. A
blue stream dashed foaming through the great gap and wandered off to
join the river beyond. The broad and undulating valley fifty miles
across was backed by another mountain wall which towered opposite to
that from whose battlements we were gazing, not a long and level
ridge like so many of those in the Alleghanies, but a picturesque
Alpine mountain scene, with peaks snow-clad and dazzling in the
sunlight,--the Great Smokies, the noblest of all the mountain groups
of the Appalachian chain. The gloom and shadow of our vast
amphitheatre held us in awe, while the brilliancy of the scene
beyond the great stage opening seemed to draw us to it as to a
promised land. We sat upon our horses, spellbound, gazing upon what
seemed at once too grand and too beautiful to be real. Had we been
superstitious like soldiers of an ancient time, we might have seen a
miraculous portent in it; and even as it was, such sentiment as may
be permitted in the sceptical spirit of our own day could find a
happy omen in the scene. We were entering upon a new chapter in our
military lives, and it was cheering to us, in entering East
Tennessee, through the great gate that opened before us, to have so
charming a picture to lure us on. We wound down the mountain side,
happy but quiet. There was no one among us so lacking in earnest
character as to be unmoved. We had left the wagons far behind, and
the clinking of our horses' shoes upon the rocks was the only sound
which broke the silence till the roaring and laughing brook that
gives a name to the pass met us and rollicked beside us, as we went
out between the giant cliffs into the broad and cheerful valley.
At Jacksboro we entered the theatre of active warlike operations,
and found ourselves in the usual atmosphere of rumors. It was of
course known that Longstreet had retreated to the northeast after
raising the siege, but some insisted that he was moving down the
valley again, and that Foster was to be shut up in Knoxville as
Burnside had been. It was evident that there was no definite
information on which any of these local opinions were based, and I
was satisfied that our road was open and safe. The only risk was
from some raiding column of cavalry, and we must take our chances as
to that. After a good night's rest, I decided on the morning of the
18th to take with me Colonel Strong of General Foster's staff and
Colonel Sterling, and leaving the wagons behind, to make the forty
miles to Knoxville in a single day's ride. What we had heard of the
destitution in the city made it seem best that most of the party
should remain with the wagons and the supplies, and so avoid the
risk of throwing too many guests upon the hospitality of
headquarters. We took a few of the cavalry as an escort, and both
horses and men were in such good condition and so hardened to the
road that we scarcely broke from a trot in the whole distance,
except to stop for resting and feeding our nags at noon.
We reached Knoxville in the afternoon, and Colonel Strong was warmly
welcomed by those of the staff who were present, but the general was
absent at the front. He was expected back the next night, however,
and comfortable quarters were provided for us meanwhile. My
instinctive fears of complications in regard to my own assignment to
duty proved to be true. The very day I left Lexington General Foster
had issued an order assigning me to command the District of
Kentucky, and it had passed me on the road. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 383, 394.] My determination to obey
literally the order from the War Department to report in person, and
the haste with which I had started, proved my salvation from the
kind of duty at the rear which I was bent on escaping. The District
of Kentucky would have been even worse than that of Ohio, for the
strife between political factions embroiled every one who commanded
there, and the order to me had been issued because the officer in
command was obnoxious to one of these factions.
General Foster returned on the 19th, and on my reporting to him I
found at once the benefit of General Burnside's representations in
regard to me. Colonel Strong was also well aware of my earnest wish
for field service, and the friendship which had grown up on the
road, no doubt, made him an influential advocate with his chief. The
general received me very kindly, and said that his action had been
based on the supposition that I would prefer duty in Kentucky during
the winter rather than make the rough journey over the mountains at
that season. On my assuring him that my coming without waiting to
communicate with him was because of my earnest request to the War
Department for service in the field, he was evidently pleased and
immediately revoked the orders already made, and assigned me to the
Twenty-third Corps, to command it as the senior general officer
present. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii, p. 457.]
I had been eight days on the road from Lexington, and the rest of
the party who remained with the wagons were a day longer in reaching
Knoxville. It had given me a vivid appreciation of the impossibility
of supplying an army in East Tennessee by wagon trains over the
mountains. The roads by Cumberland Gap or by Emory Gap were less
precipitous, but they were more muddy. The forage was exhausted
along all the routes, and till grass should grow large trains of
supplies were not to be thought of. The effort to force trains
through in the autumn had been most destructive to the teams.
Noticing how the way was lined by the carcasses of dead horses and
mules, we kept an accurate count one day of the number of these. In
the twenty miles of that day's journey we counted a hundred and
fifty dead draught animals. The movement of wagon-trains had, of
course, been suspended when Longstreet advanced upon Knoxville, and
bad weather had hardly begun then. Beef cattle could be driven in
herds, but the country was so stripped of forage that the danger of
starvation by the way made this mode of supply nearly as hopeless as
the other.
The only permanent solution of the subsistence problem was to be
found in enlarging the facilities for railway communication at
Chattanooga so that that town might become a great depot from which
the East Tennessee troops could draw as soon as the railroad to
Knoxville should be repaired, or light steamboats be brought to the
upper Tennessee and Holston rivers. They showed us at Knoxville
samples of the bread issued to the garrison during the siege. It was
made of a mixture of all the breadstuffs which were in store or
could be procured, but the chief ingredient was Indian corn ground
up cob and all. It was not an attractive loaf, but it would support
life, though the bulk was out of proportion to the nutriment. The
cattle had been kept in corral till they were too thin and weak to
be fit for food, but there was no other, and the commissaries killed
the weakest and issued them as rations because these would otherwise
die a natural death. Sherman and his staff had expressed their
astonishment that an appetizing dinner had been spread for them at
Burnside's headquarters; [Footnote: Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. p.
368.] but they would have wondered more if they had known of the way
in which the town and vicinity had been ransacked to do honor to the
welcome guests who had relieved the beleaguered army. General Poe
vividly describes the straits they were in, and the heroic sort of
hospitality which had hunted far and wide for something fit to set
before the leader of the column which had raised the siege.
[Footnote: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. iii. p. 745.]
There had been no danger of actual starvation, but only the coarsest
of bread and the poorest of beef could be distributed. Eating, in
such circumstances, was not a pleasure, and the pangs of real hunger
were necessary to make the ration at all palatable. The withdrawal
of the enemy relieved the situation somewhat, for it opened the
country to foraging parties, and every kind of produce which money
could tempt the people to part with was bought and brought into the
camps. It was little enough at best, and three months of pinching
want were to be endured before anything like regular supplies could
be furnished to the army. It was to such a house of destitution we
had come, but we had come voluntarily to share the labors and the
triumphs of our comrades in the field and we had no regrets.
CHAPTER XXXI
WINTER BIVOUACS IN EAST TENNESSEE
Blain's Cross-roads--Hanson's headquarters--A hearty
welcome--Establishing field quarters--Tents and houses--A good
quartermaster--Headquarters' business--Soldiers' camps--Want of
clothing and shoes--The rations--Running the country
mills--Condition of horses and mules--Visit to Opdycke's camp--A
Christmas dinner--Veteran enlistments--Patriotic spirit--Detachment
at Strawberry Plains--Concentration of corps there--Camp on a
knoll-A night scene-Climate of the valley--Affair at Mossy
Creek--New Year's blizzard--Pitiful condition of the
troops--Patience and courage--Zero weather.
The Twenty-third Corps was encamped at Blain's Cross-roads,
seventeen miles northeast of Knoxville, on the road to Rutledge,
where Longstreet was supposed to be. The Fourth Corps, under General
Granger, and the Ninth, under General Parke, were in the same
neighborhood. The cavalry corps covered the front and flanks on both
sides of Holston River. A concentration of the Army of the Ohio and
its reinforcements had been made there to meet a rumored return of
the Confederates toward Knoxville after an affair at Rutledge in
which Longstreet had captured a wagon-train loaded with supplies for
us. I left Knoxville on the morning of the 21st of December,
accompanied by my staff officers, and rode to Blain's Cross-roads. I
found the corps under temporary command of Brigadier-General Mahlon
D. Manson, of Indiana, who had commanded one of the divisions in the
preceding campaign. Manson occupied an old log house too small for
himself and staff. There was but one bed in it, and at night the
general occupied this, whilst his staff slept in their blankets on
the floor. We had travelled leisurely, as I wished to study the
country between Knoxville and the camp, and we reached the corps too
late to make any arrangement for the night, and had to cast
ourselves on our comrades' hospitality. I was most heartily welcomed
by General Manson, who did the best he could for me by offering me
the half of his own bed, whilst the staff took similar lodgings with
his officers in a shed veranda at the back of the house lying snugly
together, wrapped in their blankets. Manson was a burly,
whole-souled man, brave and loyally unselfish, and turned over the
command to me with a sincerity of subordination which won my
confidence at once. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii.
pp. 462, 463.] It was not a comfortable night in the overcrowded log
house for either hosts or guests, but it was made cheery by the
hearty soldiers' welcome we received, and we sat late around the
crackling fire in the stone chimney after we had eaten with a
relish, known only in camp, the best supper which the meagre rations
of the army could furnish.
Our first occupation next day was to establish my own headquarters,
for a military man does not feel at home until his little camp is
set in some decent nook with the regularity and order which shows
good system, and with the sentinel pacing before the entrance. I
have always found it most comfortable and most healthful to live
under canvas, even in winter, in the sparsely settled parts of the
country. It might be different in Europe or in the more densely
peopled States at the East, but in the West and South a house cannot
always be found in proper proximity to the line, and changing from
house to tent and back again is much more dangerous to health than
adherence to what seems the more exposed kind of life. There is also
a question of discipline and _morale_ involved, and the effect of
example at headquarters is felt through the whole command. With no
little difficulty we found four old tents without flies, but these
were carefully pitched in a clean place accessible to all parts of
the corps, and when we were installed in them we had a real
satisfaction in being at home and ready for business. Our difficulty
in procuring four poor tents was simply an index of the scarcity of
all supplies and equipments. The depots at Cincinnati and Nashville
were packed with everything we wanted, but there had been no time to
get them forward when the siege began, and now the impassable
mountain roads cut us off as completely as a circle of hostile
camps. We especially felt the lack of the flies for the tents in
roughing it. This extra roof makes as great a difference in keeping
a tent habitable in wet weather, as an extra cape or a poncho does
in keeping the rain off one's person, or in civil life the
omnipresent umbrella. Our overcoats and ponchos kept out the wet in
the longest march, but without a fly the tent roof and walls would
drip with moisture. In Captain Day, however, I had a quartermaster
whose indomitable energy would not be long baffled, and in his
journeys to and fro in charge of the supply trains of the corps he
kept a sharp eye out for whatever would make our headquarters outfit
more efficient. The warehouses at Knoxville were searched, and a
better tent found in one place and a fly in another gradually
brought our little camp into what soldiers regard as a home-like
condition. The clerical work and the official correspondence of the
command could then go on; for the headquarters of an army corps in
the field is as busy a place as a bank or counting-house in a city.
It is the business centre for a military population of 12,000 or
15,000 men, where local government is carried on, and where their
feeding, clothing, arming, and equipping are organized and directed,
to say nothing of the military conduct in regard to the enemy, or of
the administration of affairs relating to the neighboring
inhabitants.
The troops were in bivouac, generally in the woods about us, where
shelter could be made in ways well known to lumbermen and hunters.
The most common form was a lean-to, made by setting a couple of
crotched posts in the ground with a long pole for a ridge. Against
this were laid other poles and branches of trees sloping to the
ground on the windward side. The roof was roughly thatched with
evergreen branches laid so that rain would be shed outward. A bed of
small evergreen twigs within made a comfortable couch, and unlimited
firewood from the forest made a camp fire in front that kept
everybody toasting warm in ordinary weather. The regimental and
company officers had similar quarters, improved sometimes by a roof
of canvas or tarpaulin beneath the evergreen thatch. There were but
few days in the East Tennessee winters when such shelter was not a
sufficient protection for men young and accustomed to hardship. It
was in fact more comfortable than life in tents at division and
corps headquarters, but with us tents were a necessity on account of
the clerical business which I have mentioned.
The want most felt was that of clothing and shoes. The supply of
these had run very low by the time Burnside had marched through
Kentucky and Tennessee to Knoxville, and almost none had been
received since. Many of the soldiers were literally in rags, and
none were prepared for winter when Longstreet interrupted all
communication with the base of supplies. Their shoes were worn out,
and this, even more than their raggedness, made winter marching out
of the question. The barefooted men had to be left behind, and of
those who started the more poorly shod would straggle, no matter how
good their own will was or how carefully the officers tried to
enforce discipline and keep their men together.
The food question was in a very unsatisfactory way, but had improved
a good deal after the siege of Knoxville was raised. Some herds had
been brought part of the way, and had been kept together, so that
they were driven in as soon as the road was open. Some were captured
and some were lost, but enough arrived so that the meat ration was
pretty regularly issued in full weight. A large amount of pork had
been salted and packed at Knoxville, and was issued as an occasional
change from the ordinary ration of fresh beef. The "small rations"
of coffee, sugar, salt, etc., were almost wholly wanting, and our
soldiers had been so accustomed to a regular issue of these that the
deprivation was a very serious matter. As to breadstuffs, none could
be got from our depots and we were wholly dependent upon the
country. We put all the mills within our lines under military
supervision, and systematized the grinding so that the supply of
meal and flour should be equitably distributed to the army and to
the inhabitants. As the people were loyal, there was no wish on the
part of the military authorities to take corn or other grain without
payment, and the people brought in freely or sold to us on their
farms all that they could spare. Still the supply was short, and was
soon exhausted in the vicinity of the army, so that we had to send
forage trains to great distances and with very unsatisfactory
results. During the whole winter we rarely succeeded in obtaining
half rations of bread, and oftentimes the fraction was so small as
to be hardly worth estimating. In such a situation corn could not be
taken for horse-feed, and as the long forage in our vicinity was
exhausted, the animals were in pitiful condition. In many instances
artillery horses dropped dead of starvation at the picket rope.
The Fourth Corps was no better off than ourselves. Granger had left
the Army of the Cumberland immediately after the battle of
Missionary Ridge, and although the situation at Chattanooga had been
a good deal mitigated, no considerable supplies of clothing had then
arrived. The distress was therefore universal in our East Tennessee
army. Learning that Sheridan's division was encamped not far from us
at Blain's Cross-roads, I rode over to find Colonel Emerson Opdycke
of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Ohio, who was in that division.
He was a townsman of mine, and our families were intimate, and other
neighbors and friends were with him. I could give them later news
from home than any of them had, for until the end of the year the
newspapers I brought from Cincinnati were the latest in camp. I
found Opdycke's camp like our own. He was in the woods, under a
lean-to shelter such as I have described, with a camp-fire of great
logs in front of it. He was just opening the first letters he had
got from home since the battle of Chickamauga in September, and
these had been a long time on the way, for they had gone to
Chattanooga and had come by casual conveyance from there. His
statements fully agreed with the reports I had got from the
Twenty-third Corps officers in regard to the condition of the
troops. It was the same with all. They would not suffer greatly if
they could remain in the forest encampments till shoes and clothing
could come to us, but any active campaigning must produce
intolerable sufferin
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