The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Memoirs of General Ulysses S. Grant,
Part 2., by Ulysses S. Grant
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Title: The Memoirs of General Ulysses S. Grant, Part 2.
Author: Ulysses S. Grant
Release Date: June 1, 2004 [EBook #5861]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF GENERAL GRANT ***
Produced by David Widger
PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF U. S. GRANT, Part 2.
by U. S. Grant
CHAPTER XIV.
RETURN OF THE ARMY--MARRIAGE--ORDERED TO THE PACIFIC COAST--CROSSING THE
ISTHMUS--ARRIVAL AT SAN FRANCISCO.
My experience in the Mexican war was of great advantage to me
afterwards. Besides the many practical lessons it taught, the war
brought nearly all the officers of the regular army together so as to
make them personally acquainted. It also brought them in contact with
volunteers, many of whom served in the war of the rebellion afterwards.
Then, in my particular case, I had been at West Point at about the right
time to meet most of the graduates who were of a suitable age at the
breaking out of the rebellion to be trusted with large commands.
Graduating in 1843, I was at the military academy from one to four years
with all cadets who graduated between 1840 and 1846--seven classes.
These classes embraced more than fifty officers who afterwards became
generals on one side or the other in the rebellion, many of them holding
high commands. All the older officers, who became conspicuous in the
rebellion, I had also served with and known in Mexico: Lee, J. E.
Johnston, A. S. Johnston, Holmes, Hebert and a number of others on the
Confederate side; McCall, Mansfield, Phil. Kearney and others on the
National side. The acquaintance thus formed was of immense service to
me in the war of the rebellion--I mean what I learned of the characters
of those to whom I was afterwards opposed. I do not pretend to say that
all movements, or even many of them, were made with special reference to
the characteristics of the commander against whom they were directed.
But my appreciation of my enemies was certainly affected by this
knowledge. The natural disposition of most people is to clothe a
commander of a large army whom they do not know, with almost superhuman
abilities. A large part of the National army, for instance, and most of
the press of the country, clothed General Lee with just such qualities,
but I had known him personally, and knew that he was mortal; and it was
just as well that I felt this.
The treaty of peace was at last ratified, and the evacuation of Mexico
by United States troops was ordered. Early in June the troops in the
City of Mexico began to move out. Many of them, including the brigade
to which I belonged, were assembled at Jalapa, above the vomito, to
await the arrival of transports at Vera Cruz: but with all this
precaution my regiment and others were in camp on the sand beach in a
July sun, for about a week before embarking, while the fever raged with
great virulence in Vera Cruz, not two miles away. I can call to mind
only one person, an officer, who died of the disease. My regiment was
sent to Pascagoula, Mississippi, to spend the summer. As soon as it was
settled in camp I obtained a leave of absence for four months and
proceeded to St. Louis. On the 22d of August, 1848, I was married to
Miss Julia Dent, the lady of whom I have before spoken. We visited my
parents and relations in Ohio, and, at the end of my leave, proceeded to
my post at Sackett's Harbor, New York. In April following I was ordered
to Detroit, Michigan, where two years were spent with but few important
incidents.
The present constitution of the State of Michigan was ratified during
this time. By the terms of one of its provisions, all citizens of the
United States residing within the State at the time of the ratification
became citizens of Michigan also. During my stay in Detroit there was an
election for city officers. Mr. Zachariah Chandler was the candidate of
the Whigs for the office of Mayor, and was elected, although the city
was then reckoned democratic. All the officers stationed there at the
time who offered their votes were permitted to cast them. I did not
offer mine, however, as I did not wish to consider myself a citizen of
Michigan. This was Mr. Chandler's first entry into politics, a career
he followed ever after with great success, and in which he died enjoying
the friendship, esteem and love of his countrymen.
In the spring of 1851 the garrison at Detroit was transferred to
Sackett's Harbor, and in the following spring the entire 4th infantry
was ordered to the Pacific Coast. It was decided that Mrs. Grant should
visit my parents at first for a few months, and then remain with her own
family at their St. Louis home until an opportunity offered of sending
for her. In the month of April the regiment was assembled at Governor's
Island, New York Harbor, and on the 5th of July eight companies sailed
for Aspinwall. We numbered a little over seven hundred persons,
including the families of officers and soldiers. Passage was secured
for us on the old steamer Ohio, commanded at the time by Captain
Schenck, of the navy. It had not been determined, until a day or two
before starting, that the 4th infantry should go by the Ohio;
consequently, a complement of passengers had already been secured. The
addition of over seven hundred to this list crowded the steamer most
uncomfortably, especially for the tropics in July.
In eight days Aspinwall was reached. At that time the streets of the
town were eight or ten inches under water, and foot passengers passed
from place to place on raised foot-walks. July is at the height of the
wet season, on the Isthmus. At intervals the rain would pour down in
streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's
sun. These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in
the afternoons. I wondered how any person could live many months in
Aspinwall, and wondered still more why any one tried.
In the summer of 1852 the Panama railroad was completed only to the
point where it now crosses the Chagres River. From there passengers
were carried by boats to Gorgona, at which place they took mules for
Panama, some twenty-five miles further. Those who travelled over the
Isthmus in those days will remember that boats on the Chagres River were
propelled by natives not inconveniently burdened with clothing. These
boats carried thirty to forty passengers each. The crews consisted of
six men to a boat, armed with long poles. There were planks wide enough
for a man to walk on conveniently, running along the sides of each boat
from end to end. The men would start from the bow, place one end of
their poles against the river bottom, brace their shoulders against the
other end, and then walk to the stern as rapidly as they could. In this
way from a mile to a mile and a half an hour could be made, against the
current of the river.
I, as regimental quartermaster, had charge of the public property and
had also to look after the transportation. A contract had been entered
into with the steamship company in New York for the transportation of
the regiment to California, including the Isthmus transit. A certain
amount of baggage was allowed per man, and saddle animals were to be
furnished to commissioned officers and to all disabled persons. The
regiment, with the exception of one company left as guards to the public
property--camp and garrison equipage principally--and the soldiers with
families, took boats, propelled as above described, for Gorgona. From
this place they marched to Panama, and were soon comfortably on the
steamer anchored in the bay, some three or four miles from the town. I,
with one company of troops and all the soldiers with families, all the
tents, mess chests and camp kettles, was sent to Cruces, a town a few
miles higher up the Chagres River than Gorgona. There I found an
impecunious American who had taken the contract to furnish
transportation for the regiment at a stipulated price per hundred pounds
for the freight and so much for each saddle animal. But when we reached
Cruces there was not a mule, either for pack or saddle, in the place.
The contractor promised that the animals should be on hand in the
morning. In the morning he said that they were on the way from some
imaginary place, and would arrive in the course of the day. This went
on until I saw that he could not procure the animals at all at the price
he had promised to furnish them for. The unusual number of passengers
that had come over on the steamer, and the large amount of freight to
pack, had created an unprecedented demand for mules. Some of the
passengers paid as high as forty dollars for the use of a mule to ride
twenty-five miles, when the mule would not have sold for ten dollars in
that market at other times. Meanwhile the cholera had broken out, and
men were dying every hour. To diminish the food for the disease, I
permitted the company detailed with me to proceed to Panama. The
captain and the doctors accompanied the men, and I was left alone with
the sick and the soldiers who had families. The regiment at Panama was
also affected with the disease; but there were better accommodations for
the well on the steamer, and a hospital, for those taken with the
disease, on an old hulk anchored a mile off. There were also hospital
tents on shore on the island of Flamingo, which stands in the bay.
I was about a week at Cruces before transportation began to come in.
About one-third of the people with me died, either at Cruces or on the
way to Panama. There was no agent of the transportation company at
Cruces to consult, or to take the responsibility of procuring
transportation at a price which would secure it. I therefore myself
dismissed the contractor and made a new contract with a native, at more
than double the original price. Thus we finally reached Panama. The
steamer, however, could not proceed until the cholera abated, and the
regiment was detained still longer. Altogether, on the Isthmus and on
the Pacific side, we were delayed six weeks. About one-seventh of those
who left New York harbor with the 4th infantry on the 5th of July, now
lie buried on the Isthmus of Panama or on Flamingo island in Panama Bay.
One amusing circumstance occurred while we were lying at anchor in
Panama Bay. In the regiment there was a Lieutenant Slaughter who was
very liable to sea-sickness. It almost made him sick to see the wave of
a table-cloth when the servants were spreading it. Soon after his
graduation, Slaughter was ordered to California and took passage by a
sailing vessel going around Cape Horn. The vessel was seven months
making the voyage, and Slaughter was sick every moment of the time,
never more so than while lying at anchor after reaching his place of
destination. On landing in California he found orders which had come by
the Isthmus, notifying him of a mistake in his assignment; he should
have been ordered to the northern lakes. He started back by the Isthmus
route and was sick all the way. But when he arrived at the East he was
again ordered to California, this time definitely, and at this date was
making his third trip. He was as sick as ever, and had been so for more
than a month while lying at anchor in the bay. I remember him well,
seated with his elbows on the table in front of him, his chin between
his hands, and looking the picture of despair. At last he broke out, "I
wish I had taken my father's advice; he wanted me to go into the navy;
if I had done so, I should not have had to go to sea so much." Poor
Slaughter! it was his last sea voyage. He was killed by Indians in
Oregon.
By the last of August the cholera had so abated that it was deemed safe
to start. The disease did not break out again on the way to California,
and we reached San Francisco early in September.
CHAPTER XV.
SAN FRANCISCO--EARLY CALIFORNIA EXPERIENCES--LIFE ON THE PACIFIC COAST
--PROMOTED CAPTAIN--FLUSH TIMES IN CALIFORNIA.
San Francisco at that day was a lively place. Gold, or placer digging
as it was called, was at its height. Steamers plied daily between San
Francisco and both Stockton and Sacramento. Passengers and gold from the
southern mines came by the Stockton boat; from the northern mines by
Sacramento. In the evening when these boats arrived, Long Wharf--there
was but one wharf in San Francisco in 1852--was alive with people
crowding to meet the miners as they came down to sell their "dust" and
to "have a time." Of these some were runners for hotels, boarding
houses or restaurants; others belonged to a class of impecunious
adventurers, of good manners and good presence, who were ever on the
alert to make the acquaintance of people with some ready means, in the
hope of being asked to take a meal at a restaurant. Many were young men
of good family, good education and gentlemanly instincts. Their parents
had been able to support them during their minority, and to give them
good educations, but not to maintain them afterwards. From 1849 to 1853
there was a rush of people to the Pacific coast, of the class described.
All thought that fortunes were to be picked up, without effort, in the
gold fields on the Pacific. Some realized more than their most sanguine
expectations; but for one such there were hundreds disappointed, many of
whom now fill unknown graves; others died wrecks of their former selves,
and many, without a vicious instinct, became criminals and outcasts.
Many of the real scenes in early California life exceed in strangeness
and interest any of the mere products of the brain of the novelist.
Those early days in California brought out character. It was a long way
off then, and the journey was expensive. The fortunate could go by Cape
Horn or by the Isthmus of Panama; but the mass of pioneers crossed the
plains with their ox-teams. This took an entire summer. They were very
lucky when they got through with a yoke of worn-out cattle. All other
means were exhausted in procuring the outfit on the Missouri River. The
immigrant, on arriving, found himself a stranger, in a strange land, far
from friends. Time pressed, for the little means that could be realized
from the sale of what was left of the outfit would not support a man
long at California prices. Many became discouraged. Others would take
off their coats and look for a job, no matter what it might be. These
succeeded as a rule. There were many young men who had studied
professions before they went to California, and who had never done a
day's manual labor in their lives, who took in the situation at once and
went to work to make a start at anything they could get to do. Some
supplied carpenters and masons with material--carrying plank, brick, or
mortar, as the case might be; others drove stages, drays, or baggage
wagons, until they could do better. More became discouraged early and
spent their time looking up people who would "treat," or lounging about
restaurants and gambling houses where free lunches were furnished daily.
They were welcomed at these places because they often brought in miners
who proved good customers.
My regiment spent a few weeks at Benicia barracks, and then was ordered
to Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, then in Oregon Territory.
During the winter of 1852-3 the territory was divided, all north of the
Columbia River being taken from Oregon to make Washington Territory.
Prices for all kinds of supplies were so high on the Pacific coast from
1849 until at least 1853--that it would have been impossible for
officers of the army to exist upon their pay, if it had not been that
authority was given them to purchase from the commissary such supplies
as he kept, at New Orleans wholesale prices. A cook could not be hired
for the pay of a captain. The cook could do better. At Benicia, in
1852, flour was 25 cents per pound; potatoes were 16 cents; beets,
turnips and cabbage, 6 cents; onions, 37 1/2 cents; meat and other
articles in proportion. In 1853 at Vancouver vegetables were a little
lower. I with three other officers concluded that we would raise a crop
for ourselves, and by selling the surplus realize something handsome. I
bought a pair of horses that had crossed the plains that summer and were
very poor. They recuperated rapidly, however, and proved a good team to
break up the ground with. I performed all the labor of breaking up the
ground while the other officers planted the potatoes. Our crop was
enormous. Luckily for us the Columbia River rose to a great height from
the melting of the snow in the mountains in June, and overflowed and
killed most of our crop. This saved digging it up, for everybody on the
Pacific coast seemed to have come to the conclusion at the same time
that agriculture would be profitable. In 1853 more than three-quarters
of the potatoes raised were permitted to rot in the ground, or had to be
thrown away. The only potatoes we sold were to our own mess.
While I was stationed on the Pacific coast we were free from Indian
wars. There were quite a number of remnants of tribes in the vicinity
of Portland in Oregon, and of Fort Vancouver in Washington Territory.
They had generally acquired some of the vices of civilization, but none
of the virtues, except in individual cases. The Hudson's Bay Company
had held the North-west with their trading posts for many years before
the United States was represented on the Pacific coast. They still
retained posts along the Columbia River and one at Fort Vancouver, when
I was there. Their treatment of the Indians had brought out the better
qualities of the savages. Farming had been undertaken by the company to
supply the Indians with bread and vegetables; they raised some cattle
and horses; and they had now taught the Indians to do the labor of the
farm and herd. They always compensated them for their labor, and always
gave them goods of uniform quality and at uniform price.
Before the advent of the American, the medium of exchange between the
Indian and the white man was pelts. Afterward it was silver coin. If
an Indian received in the sale of a horse a fifty dollar gold piece, not
an infrequent occurrence, the first thing he did was to exchange it for
American half dollars. These he could count. He would then commence his
purchases, paying for each article separately, as he got it. He would
not trust any one to add up the bill and pay it all at once. At that
day fifty dollar gold pieces, not the issue of the government, were
common on the Pacific coast. They were called slugs.
The Indians, along the lower Columbia as far as the Cascades and on the
lower Willamette, died off very fast during the year I spent in that
section; for besides acquiring the vices of the white people they had
acquired also their diseases. The measles and the small-pox were both
amazingly fatal. In their wild state, before the appearance of the
white man among them, the principal complaints they were subject to were
those produced by long involuntary fasting, violent exercise in pursuit
of game, and over-eating. Instinct more than reason had taught them a
remedy for these ills. It was the steam bath. Something like a
bake-oven was built, large enough to admit a man lying down. Bushes were
stuck in the ground in two rows, about six feet long and some two or
three feet apart; other bushes connected the rows at one end. The tops
of the bushes were drawn together to interlace, and confined in that
position; the whole was then plastered over with wet clay until every
opening was filled. Just inside the open end of the oven the floor was
scooped out so as to make a hole that would hold a bucket or two of
water. These ovens were always built on the banks of a stream, a big
spring, or pool of water. When a patient required a bath, a fire was
built near the oven and a pile of stones put upon it. The cavity at the
front was then filled with water. When the stones were sufficiently
heated, the patient would draw himself into the oven; a blanket would be
thrown over the open end, and hot stones put into the water until the
patient could stand it no longer. He was then withdrawn from his steam
bath and doused into the cold stream near by. This treatment may have
answered with the early ailments of the Indians. With the measles or
small-pox it would kill every time.
During my year on the Columbia River, the small-pox exterminated one
small remnant of a band of Indians entirely, and reduced others
materially. I do not think there was a case of recovery among them,
until the doctor with the Hudson Bay Company took the matter in hand and
established a hospital. Nearly every case he treated recovered. I
never, myself, saw the treatment described in the preceding paragraph,
but have heard it described by persons who have witnessed it. The
decimation among the Indians I knew of personally, and the hospital,
established for their benefit, was a Hudson's Bay building not a stone's
throw from my own quarters.
The death of Colonel Bliss, of the Adjutant General's department, which
occurred July 5th, 1853, promoted me to the captaincy of a company then
stationed at Humboldt Bay, California. The notice reached me in
September of the same year, and I very soon started to join my new
command. There was no way of reaching Humboldt at that time except to
take passage on a San Francisco sailing vessel going after lumber. Red
wood, a species of cedar, which on the Pacific coast takes the place
filled by white pine in the East, then abounded on the banks of Humboldt
Bay. There were extensive saw-mills engaged in preparing this lumber
for the San Francisco market, and sailing vessels, used in getting it to
market, furnished the only means of communication between Humboldt and
the balance of the world.
I was obliged to remain in San Francisco for several days before I found
a vessel. This gave me a good opportunity of comparing the San
Francisco of 1852 with that of 1853. As before stated, there had been
but one wharf in front of the city in 1852--Long Wharf. In 1853 the
town had grown out into the bay beyond what was the end of this wharf
when I first saw it. Streets and houses had been built out on piles
where the year before the largest vessels visiting the port lay at
anchor or tied to the wharf. There was no filling under the streets or
houses. San Francisco presented the same general appearance as the year
before; that is, eating, drinking and gambling houses were conspicuous
for their number and publicity. They were on the first floor, with
doors wide open. At all hours of the day and night in walking the
streets, the eye was regaled, on every block near the water front, by
the sight of players at faro. Often broken places were found in the
street, large enough to let a man down into the water below. I have but
little doubt that many of the people who went to the Pacific coast in
the early days of the gold excitement, and have never been heard from
since, or who were heard from for a time and then ceased to write, found
watery graves beneath the houses or streets built over San Francisco
Bay.
Besides the gambling in cards there was gambling on a larger scale in
city lots. These were sold "On Change," much as stocks are now sold on
Wall Street. Cash, at time of purchase, was always paid by the broker;
but the purchaser had only to put up his margin. He was charged at the
rate of two or three per cent. a month on the difference, besides
commissions. The sand hills, some of them almost inaccessible to
foot-passengers, were surveyed off and mapped into fifty vara lots--a
vara being a Spanish yard. These were sold at first at very low prices,
but were sold and resold for higher prices until they went up to many
thousands of dollars. The brokers did a fine business, and so did many
such purchasers as were sharp enough to quit purchasing before the final
crash came. As the city grew, the sand hills back of the town furnished
material for filling up the bay under the houses and streets, and still
further out. The temporary houses, first built over the water in the
harbor, soon gave way to more solid structures. The main business part
of the city now is on solid ground, made where vessels of the largest
class lay at anchor in the early days. I was in San Francisco again in
1854. Gambling houses had disappeared from public view. The city had
become staid and orderly.
CHAPTER XVI.
RESIGNATION--PRIVATE LIFE--LIFE AT GALENA--THE COMING CRISIS.
My family, all this while, was at the East. It consisted now of a wife
and two children. I saw no chance of supporting them on the Pacific
coast out of my pay as an army officer. I concluded, therefore, to
resign, and in March applied for a leave of absence until the end of the
July following, tendering my resignation to take effect at the end of
that time. I left the Pacific coast very much attached to it, and with
the full expectation of making it my future home. That expectation and
that hope remained uppermost in my mind until the Lieutenant-Generalcy
bill was introduced into Congress in the winter of 1863-4. The passage
of that bill, and my promotion, blasted my last hope of ever becoming a
citizen of the further West.
In the late summer of 1854 I rejoined my family, to find in it a son
whom I had never seen, born while I was on the Isthmus of Panama. I was
now to commence, at the age of thirty-two, a new struggle for our
support. My wife had a farm near St. Louis, to which we went, but I had
no means to stock it. A house had to be built also. I worked very
hard, never losing a day because of bad weather, and accomplished the
object in a moderate way. If nothing else could be done I would load a
cord of wood on a wagon and take it to the city for sale. I managed to
keep along very well until 1858, when I was attacked by fever and ague.
I had suffered very severely and for a long time from this disease,
while a boy in Ohio. It lasted now over a year, and, while it did not
keep me in the house, it did interfere greatly with the amount of work I
was able to perform. In the fall of 1858 I sold out my stock, crops and
farming utensils at auction, and gave up farming.
In the winter I established a partnership with Harry Boggs, a cousin of
Mrs. Grant, in the real estate agency business. I spent that winter at
St. Louis myself, but did not take my family into town until the spring.
Our business might have become prosperous if I had been able to wait for
it to grow. As it was, there was no more than one person could attend
to, and not enough to support two families. While a citizen of St.
Louis and engaged in the real estate agency business, I was a candidate
for the office of county engineer, an office of respectability and
emolument which would have been very acceptable to me at that time. The
incumbent was appointed by the county court, which consisted of five
members. My opponent had the advantage of birth over me (he was a
citizen by adoption) and carried off the prize. I now withdrew from the
co-partnership with Boggs, and, in May, 1860, removed to Galena,
Illinois, and took a clerkship in my father's store.
While a citizen of Missouri, my first opportunity for casting a vote at
a Presidential election occurred. I had been in the army from before
attaining my majority and had thought but little about politics,
although I was a Whig by education and a great admirer of Mr. Clay. But
the Whig party had ceased to exist before I had an opportunity of
exercising the privilege of casting a ballot; the Know-Nothing party had
taken its place, but was on the wane; and the Republican party was in a
chaotic state and had not yet received a name. It had no existence in
the Slave States except at points on the borders next to Free States.
In St. Louis City and County, what afterwards became the Republican
party was known as the Free-Soil Democracy, led by the Honorable Frank
P. Blair. Most of my neighbors had known me as an officer of the army
with Whig proclivities. They had been on the same side, and, on the
death of their party, many had become Know-Nothings, or members of the
American party. There was a lodge near my new home, and I was invited to
join it. I accepted the invitation; was initiated; attended a meeting
just one week later, and never went to another afterwards.
I have no apologies to make for having been one week a member of the
American party; for I still think native-born citizens of the United
States should have as much protection, as many privileges in their
native country, as those who voluntarily select it for a home. But all
secret, oath-bound political parties are dangerous to any nation, no
matter how pure or how patriotic the motives and principles which first
bring them together. No political party can or ought to exist when one
of its corner-stones is opposition to freedom of thought and to the
right to worship God "according to the dictate of one's own conscience,"
or according to the creed of any religious denomination whatever.
Nevertheless, if a sect sets up its laws as binding above the State
laws, wherever the two come in conflict this claim must be resisted and
suppressed at whatever cost.
Up to the Mexican war there were a few out and out abolitionists, men
who carried their hostility to slavery into all elections, from those
for a justice of the peace up to the Presidency of the United States.
They were noisy but not numerous. But the great majority of people at
the North, where slavery did not exist, were opposed to the institution,
and looked upon its existence in any part of the country as unfortunate.
They did not hold the States where slavery existed responsible for it;
and believed that protection should be given to the right of property in
slaves until some satisfactory way could be reached to be rid of the
institution. Opposition to slavery was not a creed of either political
party. In some sections more anti-slavery men belonged to the
Democratic party, and in others to the Whigs. But with the inauguration
of the Mexican war, in fact with the annexation of Texas, "the
inevitable conflict" commenced.
As the time for the Presidential election of 1856--the first at which I
had the opportunity of voting--approached, party feeling began to run
high. The Republican party was regarded in the South and the border
States not only as opposed to the extension of slavery, but as favoring
the compulsory abolition of the institution without compensation to the
owners. The most horrible visions seemed to present themselves to the
minds of people who, one would suppose, ought to have known better.
Many educated and, otherwise, sensible persons appeared to believe that
emancipation meant social equality. Treason to the Government was
openly advocated and was not rebuked. It was evident to my mind that
the election of a Republican President in 1856 meant the secession of
all the Slave States, and rebellion. Under these circumstances I
preferred the success of a candidate whose election would prevent or
postpone secession, to seeing the country plunged into a war the end of
which no man could foretell. With a Democrat elected by the unanimous
vote of the Slave States, there could be no pretext for secession for
four years. I very much hoped that the passions of the people would
subside in that time, and the catastrophe be averted altogether; if it
was not, I believed the country would be better prepared to receive the
shock and to resist it. I therefore voted for James Buchanan for
President. Four years later the Republican party was successful in
electing its candidate to the Presidency. The civilized world has
learned the consequence. Four millions of human beings held as chattels
have been liberated; the ballot has been given to them; the free schools
of the country have been opened to their children. The nation still
lives, and the people are just as free to avoid social intimacy with the
blacks as ever they were, or as they are with white people.
While living in Galena I was nominally only a clerk supporting myself
and family on a stipulated salary. In reality my position was
different. My father had never lived in Galena himself, but had
established my two brothers there, the one next younger than myself in
charge of the business, assisted by the youngest. When I went there it
was my father's intention to give up all connection with the business
himself, and to establish his three sons in it: but the brother who had
really built up the business was sinking with consumption, and it was
not thought best to make any change while he was in this condition. He
lived until September, 1861, when he succumbed to that insidious disease
which always flatters its victims into the belief that they are growing
better up to the close of life. A more honorable man never transacted
business. In September, 1861, I was engaged in an employment which
required all my attention elsewhere.
During the eleven months that I lived in Galena prior to the first call
for volunteers, I had been strictly attentive to my business, and had
made but few acquaintances other than customers and people engaged in
the same line with myself. When the election took place in November,
1860, I had not been a resident of Illinois long enough to gain
citizenship and could not, therefore, vote. I was really glad of this
at the time, for my pledges would have compelled me to vote for Stephen
A. Douglas, who had no possible chance of election. The contest was
really between Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Lincoln; between minority rule
and rule by the majority. I wanted, as between these candidates, to see
Mr. Lincoln elected. Excitement ran high during the canvass, and
torch-light processions enlivened the scene in the generally quiet
streets of Galena many nights during the campaign. I did not parade
with either party, but occasionally met with the "wide awakes"
--Republicans--in their rooms, and superintended their drill. It was
evident, from the time of the Chicago nomination to the close of the
canvass, that the election of the Republican candidate would be the
signal for some of the Southern States to secede. I still had hopes
that the four years which had elapsed since the first nomination of a
Presidential candidate by a party distinctly opposed to slavery
extension, had given time for the extreme pro-slavery sentiment to cool
down; for the Southerners to think well before they took the awful leap
which they had so vehemently threatened. But I was mistaken.
The Republican candidate was elected, and solid substantial people of
the North-west, and I presume the same order of people throughout the
entire North, felt very serious, but determined, after this event. It
was very much discussed whether the South would carry out its threat to
secede and set up a separate government, the corner-stone of which
should be, protection to the "Divine" institution of slavery. For there
were people who believed in the "divinity" of human slavery, as there
are now people who believe Mormonism and Polygamy to be ordained by the
Most High. We forgive them for entertaining such notions, but forbid
their practice. It was generally believed that there would be a flurry;
that some of the extreme Southern States would go so far as to pass
ordinances of secession. But the common impression was that this step
was so plainly suicidal for the South, that the movement would not
spread over much of the territory and would not last long.
Doubtless the founders of our government, the majority of them at least,
regarded the confederation of the colonies as an experiment. Each
colony considered itself a separate government; that the confederation
was for mutual protection against a foreign foe, and the prevention of
strife and war among themselves. If there had been a desire on the part
of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the
number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose
there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the
determination might have been regretted. The problem changed on the
ratification of the Constitution by all the colonies; it changed still
more when amendments were added; and if the right of any one State to
withdraw continued to exist at all after the ratification of the
Constitution, it certainly ceased on the formation of new States, at
least so far as the new States themselves were concerned. It was never
possessed at all by Florida or the States west of the Mississippi, all
of which were purchased by the treasury of the entire nation. Texas and
the territory brought into the Union in consequence of annexation, were
purchased with both blood and treasure; and Texas, with a domain greater
than that of any European state except Russia, was permitted to retain
as state property all the public lands within its borders. It would
have been ingratitude and injustice of the most flagrant sort for this
State to withdraw from the Union after all that had been spent and done
to introduce her; yet, if separation had actually occurred, Texas must
necessarily have gone with the South, both on account of her
institutions and her geographical position. Secession was illogical as
well as impracticable; it was revolution.
Now, the right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are
oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to
relieve themselves of the oppression, if they are strong enough, either
by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a
government more acceptable. But any people or part of a people who
resort to this remedy, stake their lives, their property, and every
claim for protection given by citizenship--on the issue. Victory, or
the conditions imposed by the conqueror--must be the result.
In the case of the war between the States it would have been the exact
truth if the South had said,--"We do not want to live with you Northern
people any longer; we know our institution of slavery is obnoxious to
you, and, as you are growing numerically stronger than we, it may at
some time in the future be endangered. So long as you permitted us to
control the government, and with the aid of a few friends at the North
to enact laws constituting your section a guard against the escape of
our property, we were willing to live with you. You have been
submissive to our rule heretofore; but it looks now as if you did not
intend to continue so, and we will remain in the Union no longer."
Instead of this the seceding States cried lustily,--"Let us alone; you
have no constitutional power to interfere with us." Newspapers and
people at the North reiterated the cry. Individuals might ignore the
constitution; but the Nation itself must not only obey it, but must
enforce the strictest construction of that instrument; the construction
put upon it by the Southerners themselves. The fact is the constitution
did not apply to any such contingency as the one existing from 1861 to
1865. Its framers never dreamed of such a contingency occurring. If
they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned
the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should
be war between brothers.
The framers were wise in their generation and wanted to do the very best
possible to secure their own liberty and independence, and that also of
their descendants to the latest days. It is preposterous to suppose
that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules
of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen
contingencies. At the time of the framing of our constitution the only
physical forces that had been subdued and made to serve man and do his
labor, were the currents in the streams and in the air we breathe. Rude
machinery, propelled by water power, had been invented; sails to propel
ships upon the waters had been set to catch the passing breeze--but the
application of stream to propel vessels against both wind and current,
and machinery to do all manner of work had not been thought of. The
instantaneous transmission of messages around the world by means of
electricity would probably at that day have been attributed to
witchcraft or a league with the Devil. Immaterial circumstances had
changed as greatly as material ones. We could not and ought not to be
rigidly bound by the rules laid down under circumstances so different
for emergencies so utterly unanticipated. The fathers themselves would
have been the first to declare that their prerogatives were not
irrevocable. They would surely have resisted secession could they have
lived to see the shape it assumed.
I travelled through the Northwest considerably during the winter of
1860-1. We had customers in all the little towns in south-west
Wisconsin, south-east Minnesota and north-east Iowa. These generally
knew I had been a captain in the regular army and had served through the
Mexican war. Consequently wherever I stopped at night, some of the
people would come to the public-house where I was, and sit till a late
hour discussing the probabilities of the future. My own views at that
time were like those officially expressed by Mr. Seward at a later day,
that "the war would be over in ninety days." I continued to entertain
these views until after the battle of Shiloh. I believe now that there
would have been no more battles at the West after the capture of Fort
Donelson if all the troops in that region had been under a single
commander who would have followed up that victory.
There is little doubt in my mind now that the prevailing sentiment of
the South would have been opposed to secession in 1860 and 1861, if
there had been a fair and calm expression of opinion, unbiased by
threats, and if the ballot of one legal voter had counted for as much as
that of any other. But there was no calm discussion of the question.
Demagogues who were too old to enter the army if there should be a war,
others who entertained so high an opinion of their own ability that they
did not believe they could be spared from the direction of the affairs
of state in such an event, declaimed vehemently and unceasingly against
the North; against its aggressions upon the South; its interference with
Southern rights, etc., etc. They denounced the Northerners as cowards,
poltroons, negro-worshippers; claimed that one Southern man was equal to
five Northern men in battle; that if the South would stand up for its
rights the North would back down. Mr. Jefferson Davis said in a speech,
delivered at La Grange, Mississippi, before the secession of that State,
that he would agree to drink all the blood spilled south of Mason and
Dixon's line if there should be a war. The young men who would have the
fighting to do in case of war, believed all these statements, both in
regard to the aggressiveness of the North and its cowardice. They, too,
cried out for a separation from such people. The great bulk of the
legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were
generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating
their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very
limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre--what there was,
if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too
needed emancipation. Under the old regime they were looked down upon by
those who controlled all the affairs in the interest of slave-owners, as
poor white trash who were allowed the ballot so long as they cast it
according to direction.
I am aware that this last statement may be disputed and individual
testimony perhaps adduced to show that in ante-bellum days the ballot
was as untrammelled in the south as in any section of the country; but
in the face of any such contradiction I reassert the statement. The
shot-gun was not resorted to. Masked men did not ride over the country
at night intimidating voters; but there was a firm feeling that a class
existed in every State with a sort of divine right to control public
affairs. If they could not get this control by one means they must by
another. The end justified the means. The coercion, if mild, was
complete.
There were two political parties, it is true, in all the States, both
strong in numbers and respectability, but both equally loyal to the
institution which stood paramount in Southern eyes to all other
institutions in state or nation. The slave-owners were the minority,
but governed both parties. Had politics ever divided the slave-holders
and the non-slave-holders, the majority would have been obliged to
yield, or internecine war would have been the consequence. I do not
know that the Southern people were to blame for this condition of
affairs. There was a time when slavery was not profitable, and the
discussion of the merits of the institution was confined almost
exclusively to the territory where it existed. The States of Virginia
and Kentucky came near abolishing slavery by their own acts, one State
defeating the measure by a tie vote and the other only lacking one. But
when the institution became profitable, all talk of its abolition ceased
where it existed; and naturally, as human nature is constituted,
arguments were adduced in its support. The cotton-gin probably had much
to do with the justification of slavery.
The winter of 1860-1 will be remembered by middle-aged people of to-day
as one of great excitement. South Carolina promptly seceded after the
result of the Presidential election was known. Other Southern States
proposed to follow. In some of them the Union sentiment was so strong
that it had to be suppressed by force. Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and
Missouri, all Slave States, failed to pass ordinances of secession; but
they were all represented in the so-called congress of the so-called
Confederate States. The Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Missouri,
in 1861, Jackson and Reynolds, were both supporters of the rebellion and
took refuge with the enemy. The governor soon died, and the
lieutenant-governor assumed his office; issued proclamations as governor
of the State; was recognized as such by the Confederate Government, and
continued his pretensions until the collapse of the rebellion. The South
claimed the sovereignty of States, but claimed the right to coerce into
their confederation such States as they wanted, that is, all the States
where slavery existed. They did not seem to think this course
inconsistent. The fact is, the Southern slave-owners believed that, in
some way, the ownership of slaves conferred a sort of patent of
nobility--a right to govern independent of the interest or wishes of
those who did not hold such property. They convinced themselves, first,
of the divine origin of the institution and, next, that that particular
institution was not safe in the hands of any body of legislators but
themselves.
Meanwhile the Administration of President Buchanan looked helplessly on
and proclaimed that the general government had no power to interfere;
that the Nation had no power to save its own life. Mr. Buchanan had in
his cabinet two members at least, who were as earnest--to use a mild
term--in the cause of secession as Mr. Davis or any Southern statesman.
One of them, Floyd, the Secretary of War, scattered the army so that
much of it could be captured when hostilities should commence, and
distributed the cannon and small arms from Northern arsenals throughout
the South so as to be on hand when treason wanted them. The navy was
scattered in like manner. The President did not prevent his cabinet
preparing for war upon their government, either by destroying its
resources or storing them in the South until a de facto government was
established with Jefferson Davis as its President, and Montgomery,
Alabama, as the Capital. The secessionists had then to leave the
cabinet. In their own estimation they were aliens in the country which
had given them birth. Loyal men were put into their places. Treason in
the executive branch of the government was estopped. But the harm had
already been done. The stable door was locked after the horse had been
stolen.
During all of the trying winter of 1860-1, when the Southerners were so
defiant that they would not allow within their borders the expression of
a sentiment hostile to their views, it was a brave man indeed who could
stand up and proclaim his loyalty to the Union. On the other hand men
at the North--prominent men--proclaimed that the government had no power
to coerce the South into submission to the laws of the land; that if the
North undertook to raise armies to go south, these armies would have to
march over the dead bodies of the speakers. A portion of the press of
the North was constantly proclaiming similar views. When the time
arrived for the President-elect to go to the capital of the Nation to be
sworn into office, it was deemed unsafe for him to travel, not only as a
President-elect, but as any private citizen should be allowed to do.
Instead of going in a special car, receiving the good wishes of his
constituents at all the stations along the road, he was obliged to stop
on the way and to be smuggled into the capital. He disappeared from
public view on his journey, and the next the country knew, his arrival
was announced at the capital. There is little doubt that he would have
been assassinated if he had attempted to travel openly throughout his
journey.
CHAPTER XVII.
OUTBREAK OF THE REBELLION--PRESIDING AT A UNION MEETING--MUSTERING
OFFICER OF STATE TROOPS--LYON AT CAMP JACKSON--SERVICES TENDERED TO THE
GOVERNMENT.
The 4th of March, 1861, came, and Abraham Lincoln was sworn to maintain
the Union against all its enemies. The secession of one State after
another followed, until eleven had gone out. On the 11th of April Fort
Sumter, a National fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, was
fired upon by the Southerners and a few days after was captured. The
Confederates proclaimed themselves aliens, and thereby debarred
themselves of all right to claim protection under the Constitution of
the United States. We did not admit the fact that they were aliens, but
all the same, they debarred themselves of the right to expect better
treatment than people of any other foreign state who make war upon an
independent nation. Upon the firing on Sumter President Lincoln issued
his first call for troops and soon after a proclamation convening
Congress in extra session. The call was for 75,000 volunteers for
ninety days' service. If the shot fired at Fort Sumter "was heard
around the world," the call of the President for 75,000 men was heard
throughout the Northern States. There was not a state in the North of a
million of inhabitants that would not have furnished the entire number
faster than arms could have been supplied to them, if it had been
necessary.
As soon as the news of the call for volunteers reached Galena, posters
were stuck up calling for a meeting of the citizens at the court-house
in the evening. Business ceased entirely; all was excitement; for a
time there were no party distinctions; all were Union men, determined to
avenge the insult to the national flag. In the evening the court-house
was packed. Although a comparative stranger I was called upon to
preside; the sole reason, possibly, was that I had been in the army and
had seen service. With much embarrassment and some prompting I made out
to announce the object of the meeting. Speeches were in order, but it
is doubtful whether it would have been safe just then to make other than
patriotic ones. There was probably no one in the house, however, who
felt like making any other. The two principal speeches were by B. B.
Howard, the post-master and a Breckinridge Democrat at the November
election the fall before, and John A. Rawlins, an elector on the Douglas
ticket. E. B. Washburne, with whom I was not acquainted at that time,
came in after the meeting had been organized, and expressed, I
understood afterwards, a little surprise that Galena could not furnish a
presiding officer for such an occasion without taking a stranger. He
came forward and was introduced, and made a speech appealing to the
patriotism of the meeting.
After the speaking was over volunteers were called for to form a
company. The quota of Illinois had been fixed at six regiments; and it
was supposed that one company would be as much as would be accepted from
Galena. The company was raised and the officers and non-commissioned
officers elected before the meeting adjourned. I declined the captaincy
before the balloting, but announced that I would aid the company in
every way I could and would be found in the service in some position if
there should be a war. I never went into our leather store after that
meeting, to put up a package or do other business.
The ladies of Galena were quite as patriotic as the men. They could not
enlist, but they conceived the idea of sending their first company to
the field uniformed. They came to me to get a description of the United
States uniform for infantry; subscribed and bought the material;
procured tailors to cut out the garments, and the ladies made them up.
In a few days the company was in uniform and ready to report at the
State capital for assignment. The men all turned out the morning after
their enlistment, and I took charge, divided them into squads and
superintended their drill. When they were ready to go to Springfield I
went with them and remained there until they were assigned to a
regiment.
There were so many more volunteers than had been called for that the
question whom to accept was quite embarrassing to the governor, Richard
Yates. The legislature was in session at the time, however, and came to
his relief. A law was enacted authorizing the governor to accept the
services of ten additional regiments, one from each congressional
district, for one month, to be paid by the State, but pledged to go into
the service of the United States if there should be a further call
during their term. Even with this relief the governor was still very
much embarrassed. Before the war was over he was like the President
when he was taken with the varioloid: "at last he had something he
could give to all who wanted it."
In time the Galena company was mustered into the United States service,
forming a part of the 11th Illinois volunteer infantry. My duties, I
thought, had ended at Springfield, and I was prepared to start home by
the evening train, leaving at nine o'clock. Up to that time I do not
think I had been introduced to Governor Yates, or had ever spoken to
him. I knew him by sight, however, because he was living at the same
hotel and I often saw him at table. The evening I was to quit the
capital I left the supper room before the governor and was standing at
the front door when he came out. He spoke to me, calling me by my old
army title "Captain," and said he understood that I was about leaving
the city. I answered that I was. He said he would be glad if I would
remain over-night and call at the Executive office the next morning.
I complied with his request, and was asked to go into the
Adjutant-General's office and render such assistance as I could, the
governor saying that my army experience would be of great service there.
I accepted the proposition.
My old army experience I found indeed of very great service. I was no
clerk, nor had I any capacity to become one. The only place I ever
found in my life to put a paper so as to find it again was either a side
coat-pocket or the hands of a clerk or secretary more careful than
myself. But I had been quartermaster, commissary and adjutant in the
field. The army forms were familiar to me and I could direct how they
should be made out. There was a clerk in the office of the
Adjutant-General who supplied my deficiencies. The ease with which the
State of Illinois settled its accounts with the government at the close
of the war is evidence of the efficiency of Mr. Loomis as an accountant
on a large scale. He remained in the office until that time.
As I have stated, the legislature authorized the governor to accept the
services of ten additional regiments. I had charge of mustering these
regiments into the State service. They were assembled at the most
convenient railroad centres in their respective congressional districts.
I detailed officers to muster in a portion of them, but mustered three
in the southern part of the State myself. One of these was to assemble
at Belleville, some eighteen miles south-east of St. Louis. When I got
there I found that only one or two companies had arrived. There was no
probability of the regiment coming together under five days. This gave
me a few idle days which I concluded to spend in St. Louis.
There was a considerable force of State militia at Camp Jackson, on the
outskirts of St. Louis, at the time. There is but little doubt that it
was the design of Governor Claiborn Jackson to have these troops ready
to seize the United States arsenal and the city of St. Louis. Why they
did not do so I do not know. There was but a small garrison, two
companies I think, under Captain N. Lyon at the arsenal, and but for the
timely services of the Hon. F. P. Blair, I have little doubt that St.
Louis would have gone into rebel hands, and with it the arsenal with all
its arms and ammunition.
Blair was a leader among the Union men of St. Louis in 1861. There was
no State government in Missouri at the time that would sanction the
raising of troops or commissioned officers to protect United States
property, but Blair had probably procured some form of authority from
the President to raise troops in Missouri and to muster them into the
service of the United States. At all events, he did raise a regiment
and took command himself as Colonel. With this force he reported to
Captain Lyon and placed himself and regiment under his orders. It was
whispered that Lyon thus reinforced intended to break up Camp Jackson
and capture the militia. I went down to the arsenal in the morning to
see the troops start out. I had known Lyon for two years at West Point
and in the old army afterwards. Blair I knew very well by sight. I had
heard him speak in the canvass of 1858, possibly several times, but I
had never spoken to him. As the troops marched out of the enclosure
around the arsenal, Blair was on his horse outside forming them into
line preparatory to their march. I introduced myself to him and had a
few moments' conversation and expressed my sympathy with his purpose.
This was my first personal acquaintance with the Honorable--afterwards
Major-General F. P. Blair. Camp Jackson surrendered without a fight and
the garrison was marched down to the arsenal as prisoners of war.
Up to this time the enemies of the government in St. Louis had been bold
and defiant, while Union men were quiet but determined. The enemies had
their head-quarters in a central and public position on Pine Street,
near Fifth--from which the rebel flag was flaunted boldly. The Union
men had a place of meeting somewhere in the city, I did not know where,
and I doubt whether they dared to enrage the enemies of the government
by placing the national flag outside their head-quarters. As soon as
the news of the capture of Camp Jackson reached the city the condition
of affairs was changed. Union men became rampant, aggressive, and, if
you will, intolerant. They proclaimed their sentiments boldly, and were
impatient at anything like disrespect for the Union. The secessionists
became quiet but were filled with suppressed rage. They had been
playing the bully. The Union men ordered the rebel flag taken down from
the building on Pine Street. The command was given in tones of
authority and it was taken down, never to be raised again in St. Louis.
I witnessed the scene. I had heard of the surrender of the camp and
that the garrison was on its way to the arsenal. I had seen the troops
start out in the morning and had wished them success. I now determined
to go to the arsenal and await their arrival and congratulate them. I
stepped on a car standing at the corner of 4th and Pine streets, and saw
a crowd of people standing quietly in front of the head-quarters, who
were there for the purpose of hauling down the flag. There were squads
of other people at intervals down the street. They too were quiet but
filled with suppressed rage, and muttered their resentment at the insult
to, what they called, "their" flag. Before the car I was in had
started, a dapper little fellow--he would be called a dude at this day
--stepped in. He was in a great state of excitement and used adjectives
freely to express his contempt for the Union and for those who had just
perpetrated such an outrage upon the rights of a free people. There was
only one other passenger in the car besides myself when this young man
entered. He evidently expected to find nothing but sympathy when he got
away from the "mud sills" engaged in compelling a "free people" to pull
down a flag they adored. He turned to me saying: "Things have come to
a ---- pretty pass when a free people can't choose their own flag.
Where I came from if a man dares to say a word in favor of the Union we
hang him to a limb of the first tree we come to." I replied that "after
all we were not so intolerant in St. Louis as we might be; I had not
seen a single rebel hung yet, nor heard of one; there were plenty of
them who ought to be, however." The young man subsided. He was so
crestfallen that I believe if I had ordered him to leave the car he
would have gone quietly out, saying to himself: "More Yankee
oppression."
By nightfall the late defenders of Camp Jackson were all within the
walls of the St. Louis arsenal, prisoners of war. The next day I left
St. Louis for Mattoon, Illinois, where I was to muster in the regiment
from that congressional district. This was the 21st Illinois infantry,
the regiment of which I subsequently became colonel. I mustered one
regiment afterwards, when my services for the State were about closed.
Brigadier-General John Pope was stationed at Springfield, as United
States mustering officer, all the time I was in the State service. He
was a native of Illinois and well acquainted with most of the prominent
men in the State. I was a carpet-bagger and knew but few of them.
While I was on duty at Springfield the senators, representatives in
Congress, ax-governors and the State legislators were nearly all at the
State capital. The only acquaintance I made among them was with the
governor, whom I was serving, and, by chance, with Senator S. A.
Douglas. The only members of Congress I knew were Washburne and Philip
Foulk. With the former, though he represented my district and we were
citizens of the same town, I only became acquainted at the meeting when
the first company of Galena volunteers was raised. Foulk I had known in
St. Louis when I was a citizen of that city. I had been three years at
West Point with Pope and had served with him a short time during the
Mexican war, under General Taylor. I saw a good deal of him during my
service with the State. On one occasion he said to me that I ought to
go into the United States service. I told him I intended to do so if
there was a war. He spoke of his acquaintance with the public men of
the State, and said he could get them to recommend me for a position and
that he would do all he could for me. I declined to receive endorsement
for permission to fight for my country.
Going home for a day or two soon after this conversation with General
Pope, I wrote from Galena the following letter to the Adjutant-General
of the Army.
GALENA, ILLINOIS, May 24, 1861.
COL. L. THOMAS Adjt. Gen. U. S. A., Washington, D. C.
SIR:--Having served for fifteen years in the regular army, including
four years at West Point, and feeling it the duty of every one who has
been educated at the Government expense to offer their services for the
support of that Government, I have the honor, very respectfully, to
tender my services, until the close of the war, in such capacity as may
be offered. I would say, in view of my present age and length of
service, I feel myself competent to command a regiment, if the
President, in his judgment, should see fit to intrust one to me.
Since the first call of the President I have been serving on the staff
of the Governor of this State, rendering such aid as I could in the
organization of our State militia, and am still engaged in that
capacity. A letter addressed to me at Springfield, Illinois, will reach
me.
I am very respectfully, Your obt. svt., U. S. GRANT.
This letter failed to elicit an answer from the Adjutant-General of the
Army. I presume it was hardly read by him, and certainly it could not
have been submitted to higher authority. Subsequent to the war General
Badeau having heard of this letter applied to the War Department for a
copy of it. The letter could not be found and no one recollected ever
having seen it. I took no copy when it was written. Long after the
application of General Badeau, General Townsend, who had become
Adjutant-General of the Army, while packing up papers preparatory to the
removal of his office, found this letter in some out-of-the-way place.
It had not been destroyed, but it had not been regularly filed away.
I felt some hesitation in suggesting rank as high as the colonelcy of a
regiment, feeling somewhat doubtful whether I would be equal to the
position. But I had seen nearly every colonel who had been mustered in
from the State of Illinois, and some from Indiana, and felt that if they
could command a regiment properly, and with credit, I could also.
Having but little to do after the muster of the last of the regiments
authorized by the State legislature, I asked and obtained of the
governor leave of absence for a week to visit my parents in Covington,
Kentucky, immediately opposite Cincinnati. General McClellan had been
made a major-general and had his headquarters at Cincinnati. In reality
I wanted to see him. I had known him slightly at West Point, where we
served one year together, and in the Mexican war. I was in hopes that
when he saw me he would offer me a position on his staff. I called on
two successive days at his office but failed to see him on either
occasion, and returned to Springfield.
CHAPTER XVIII.
APPOINTED COLONEL OF THE 21ST ILLINOIS--PERSONNEL OF THE REGIMENT
--GENERAL LOGAN--MARCH TO MISSOURI--MOVEMENT AGAINST HARRIS AT FLORIDA,
MO.--GENERAL POPE IN COMMAND--STATIONED AT MEXICO, MO.
While I was absent from the State capital on this occasion the
President's second call for troops was issued. This time it was for
300,000 men, for three years or the war. This brought into the United
States service all the regiments then in the State service. These had
elected their officers from highest to lowest and were accepted with
their organizations as they were, except in two instances. A Chicago
regiment, the 19th infantry, had elected a very young man to the
colonelcy. When it came to taking the field the regiment asked to have
another appointed colonel and the one they had previously chosen made
lieutenant-colonel. The 21st regiment of infantry, mustered in by me at
Mattoon, refused to go into the service with the colonel of their
selection in any position. While I was still absent Governor Yates
appointed me colonel of this latter regiment. A few days after I was in
charge of it and in camp on the fair grounds near Springfield.
My regiment was composed in large part of young men of as good social
position as any in their section of the State. It embraced the sons of
farmers, lawyers, physicians, politicians, merchants, bankers and
ministers, and some men of maturer years who had filled such positions
themselves. There were also men in it who could be led astray; and the
colonel, elected by the votes of the regiment, had proved to be fully
capable of developing all there was in his men of recklessness. It was
said that he even went so far at times as to take the guard from their
posts and go with them to the village near by and make a night of it.
When there came a prospect of battle the regiment wanted to have some
one else to lead them. I found it very hard work for a few days to
bring all the men into anything like subordination; but the great
majority favored discipline, and by the application of a little regular
army punishment all were reduced to as good discipline as one could ask.
The ten regiments which had volunteered in the State service for thirty
days, it will be remembered, had done so with a pledge to go into the
National service if called upon within that time. When they volunteered
the government had only called for ninety days' enlistments. Men were
called now for three years or the war. They felt that this change of
period released them from the obligation of re-volunteering. When I was
appointed colonel, the 21st regiment was still in the State service.
About the time they were to be mustered into the United States service,
such of them as would go, two members of Congress from the State,
McClernand and Logan, appeared at the capital and I was introduced to
them. I had never seen either of them before, but I had read a great
deal about them, and particularly about Logan, in the newspapers. Both
were democratic members of Congress, and Logan had been elected from the
southern district of the State, where he had a majority of eighteen
thousand over his Republican competitor. His district had been settled
originally by people from the Southern States, and at the breaking out
of secession they sympathized with the South. At the first outbreak of
war some of them joined the Southern army; many others were preparing to
do so; others rode over the country at night denouncing the Union, and
made it as necessary to guard railroad bridges over which National
troops had to pass in southern Illinois, as it was in Kentucky or any of
the border slave states. Logan's popularity in this district was
unbounded. He knew almost enough of the people in it by their Christian
names, to form an ordinary congressional district. As he went in
politics, so his district was sure to go. The Republican papers had
been demanding that he should announce where he stood on the questions
which at that time engrossed the whole of public thought. Some were
very bitter in their denunciations of his silence. Logan was not a man
to be coerced into an utterance by threats. He did, however, come out
in a speech before the adjournment of the special session of Congress
which was convened by the President soon after his inauguration, and
announced his undying loyalty and devotion to the Union. But I had not
happened to see that speech, so that when I first met Logan my
impressions were those formed from reading denunciations of him.
McClernand, on the other hand, had early taken strong grounds for the
maintenance of the Union and had been praised accordingly by the
Republican papers. The gentlemen who presented these two members of
Congress asked me if I would have any objections to their addressing my
regiment. I hesitated a little before answering. It was but a few days
before the time set for mustering into the United States service such of
the men as were willing to volunteer for three years or the war. I had
some doubt as to the effect a speech from Logan might have; but as he
was with McClernand, whose sentiments on the all-absorbing questions of
the day were well known, I gave my consent. McClernand spoke first; and
Logan followed in a speech which he has hardly equalled since for force
and eloquence. It breathed a loyalty and devotion to the Union which
inspired my men to such a point that they would have volunteered to
remain in the army as long as an enemy of the country continued to bear
arms against it. They entered the United States service almost to a
man.
General Logan went to his part of the State and gave his attention to
raising troops. The very men who at first made it necessary to guard
the roads in southern Illinois became the defenders of the Union. Logan
entered the service himself as colonel of a regiment and rapidly rose to
the rank of major-general. His district, which had promised at first to
give much trouble to the government, filled every call made upon it for
troops, without resorting to the draft. There was no call made when
there were not more volunteers than were asked for. That congressional
district stands credited at the War Department to-day with furnishing
more men for the army than it was called on to supply.
I remained in Springfield with my regiment until the 3d of July, when I
was ordered to Quincy, Illinois. By that time the regiment was in a
good state of discipline and the officers and men were well up in the
company drill. There was direct railroad communication between
Springfield and Quincy, but I thought it would be good preparation for
the troops to march there. We had no transportation for our camp and
garrison equipage, so wagons were hired for the occasion and on the 3d
of July we started. There was no hurry, but fair marches were made
every day until the Illinois River was crossed. There I was overtaken
by a dispatch saying that the destination of the regiment had been
changed to Ironton, Missouri, and ordering me to halt where I was and
await the arrival of a steamer which had been dispatched up the Illinois
River to take the regiment to St. Louis. The boat, when it did come,
grounded on a sand-bar a few miles below where we were in camp. We
remained there several days waiting to have the boat get off the bar,
but before this occurred news came that an Illinois regiment was
surrounded by rebels at a point on the Hannibal and St. Joe Railroad
some miles west of Palmyra, in Missouri, and I was ordered to proceed
with all dispatch to their relief. We took the cars and reached Quincy
in a few hours.
When I left Galena for the last time to take command of the 21st
regiment I took with me my oldest son, Frederick D. Grant, then a lad of
eleven years of age. On receiving the order to take rail for Quincy I
wrote to Mrs. Grant, to relieve what I supposed would be her great
anxiety for one so young going into danger, that I would send Fred home
from Quincy by river. I received a prompt letter in reply decidedly
disapproving my proposition, and urging that the lad should be allowed
to accompany me. It came too late. Fred was already on his way up the
Mississippi bound for Dubuque, Iowa, from which place there was a
railroad to Galena.
My sensations as we approached what I supposed might be "a field of
battle" were anything but agreeable. I had been in all the engagements
in Mexico that it was possible for one person to be in; but not in
command. If some one else had been colonel and I had been
lieutenant-colonel I do not think I would have felt any trepidation.
Before we were prepared to cross the Mississippi River at Quincy my
anxiety was relieved; for the men of the besieged regiment came
straggling into town. I am inclined to think both sides got frightened
and ran away.
I took my regiment to Palmyra and remained there for a few days, until
relieved by the 19th Illinois infantry. From Palmyra I proceeded to
Salt River, the railroad bridge over which had been destroyed by the
enemy. Colonel John M. Palmer at that time commanded the 13th Illinois,
which was acting as a guard to workmen who were engaged in rebuilding
this bridge. Palmer was my senior and commanded the two regiments as
long as we remained together. The bridge was finished in about two
weeks, and I received orders to move against Colonel Thomas Harris, who
was said to be encamped at the little town of Florida, some twenty-five
miles south of where we then were.
At the time of which I now write we had no transportation and the
country about Salt River was sparsely settled, so that it took some days
to collect teams and drivers enough to move the camp and garrison
equipage of a regiment nearly a thousand strong, together with a week's
supply of provision and some ammunition. While preparations for the
move were going on I felt quite comfortable; but when we got on the road
and found every house deserted I was anything but easy. In the
twenty-five miles we had to march we did not see a person, old or young,
male or female, except two horsemen who were on a road that crossed
ours. As soon as they saw us they decamped as fast as their horses
could carry them. I kept my men in the ranks and forbade their entering
any of the deserted houses or taking anything from them. We halted at
night on the road and proceeded the next morning at an early hour.
Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the sake of being near
water. The hills on either side of the creek extend to a considerable
height, possibly more than a hundred feet. As we approached the brow of
the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris' camp, and
possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting
higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I
would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had
not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on.
When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I
halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was
still there and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible,
but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to
me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of
him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it
was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the
war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I
always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much
reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.
Inquiries at the village of Florida divulged the fact that Colonel
Harris, learning of my intended movement, while my transportation was
being collected took time by the forelock and left Florida before I had
started from Salt River. He had increased the distance between us by
forty miles. The next day I started back to my old camp at Salt River
bridge. The citizens living on the line of our march had returned to
their houses after we passed, and finding everything in good order,
nothing carried away, they were at their front doors ready to greet us
now. They had evidently been led to believe that the National troops
carried death and devastation with them wherever they went.
In a short time after our return to Salt River bridge I was ordered with
my regiment to the town of Mexico. General Pope was then commanding the
district embracing all of the State of Missouri between the Mississippi
and Missouri rivers, with his headquarters in the village of Mexico. I
was assigned to the command of a sub-district embracing the troops in
the immediate neighborhood, some three regiments of infantry and a
section of artillery. There was one regiment encamped by the side of
mine. I assumed command of the whole and the first night sent the
commander of the other regiment the parole and countersign. Not wishing
to be outdone in courtesy, he immediately sent me the countersign for
his regiment for the night. When he was informed that the countersign
sent to him was for use with his regiment as well as mine, it was
difficult to make him understand that this was not an unwarranted
interference of one colonel over another. No doubt he attributed it for
the time to the presumption of a graduate of West Point over a volunteer
pure and simple. But the question was soon settled and we had no
further trouble.
My arrival in Mexico had been preceded by that of two or three regiments
in which proper discipline had not been maintained, and the men had been
in the habit of visiting houses without invitation and helping
themselves to food and drink, or demanding them from the occupants.
They carried their muskets while out of camp and made every man they
found take the oath of allegiance to the government. I at once
published orders prohibiting the soldiers from going into private houses
unless invited by the inhabitants, and from appropriating private
property to their own or to government uses. The people were no longer
molested or made afraid. I received the most marked courtesy from the
citizens of Mexico as long as I remained there.
Up to this time my regiment had not been carried in the school of the
soldier beyond the company drill, except that it had received some
training on the march from Springfield to the Illinois River. There was
now a good opportunity of exercising it in the battalion drill. While I
was at West Point the tactics used in the army had been Scott's and the
musket the flint lock. I had never looked at a copy of tactics from the
time of my graduation. My standing in that branch of studies had been
near the foot of the class. In the Mexican war in the summer of 1846, I
had been appointed regimental quartermaster and commissary and had not
been at a battalion drill since. The arms had been changed since then
and Hardee's tactics had been adopted. I got a copy of tactics and
studied one lesson, intending to confine the exercise of the first day
to the commands I had thus learned. By pursuing this course from day to
day I thought I would soon get through the volume.
We were encamped just outside of town on the common, among scattering
suburban houses with enclosed gardens, and when I got my regiment in
line and rode to the front I soon saw that if I attempted to follow the
lesson I had studied I would have to clear away some of the houses and
garden fences to make room. I perceived at once, however, that Hardee's
tactics--a mere translation from the French with Hardee's name attached
--was nothing more than common sense and the progress of the age applied
to Scott's system. The commands were abbreviated and the movement
expedited. Under the old tactics almost every change in the order of
march was preceded by a "halt," then came the change, and then the
"forward march." With the new tactics all these changes could be made
while in motion. I found no trouble in giving commands that would take
my regiment where I wanted it to go and carry it around all obstacles.
I do not believe that the officers of the regiment ever discovered that
I had never studied the tactics that I used.
CHAPTER XIX.
COMMISSIONED BRIGADIER-GENERAL--COMMAND AT IRONTON, MO.--JEFFERSON CITY
--CAPE GIRARDEAU--GENERAL PRENTISS--SEIZURE OF PADUCAH--HEADQUARTERS AT
CAIRO.
I had not been in Mexico many weeks when, reading a St. Louis paper,
I found the President had asked the Illinois delegation in Congress
to recommend some citizens of the State for the position of
brigadier-general, and that they had unanimously recommended me as first
on a list of seven. I was very much surprised because, as I have said,
my acquaintance with the Congressmen was very limited and I did not know
of anything I had done to inspire such confidence. The papers of the
next day announced that my name, with three others, had been sent to the
Senate, and a few days after our confirmation was announced.
When appointed brigadier-general I at once thought it proper that one of
my aides should come from the regiment I had been commanding, and so
selected Lieutenant C. B. Lagow. While living in St. Louis, I had had a
desk in the law office of McClellan, Moody and Hillyer. Difference in
views between the members of the firm on the questions of the day, and
general hard times in the border cities, had broken up this firm.
Hillyer was quite a young man, then in his twenties, and very brilliant.
I asked him to accept a place on my staff. I also wanted to take one
man from my new home, Galena. The canvass in the Presidential campaign
the fall before had brought out a young lawyer by the name of John A.
Rawlins, who proved himself one of the ablest speakers in the State. He
was also a candidate for elector on the Douglas ticket. When Sumter was
fired upon and the integrity of the Union threatened, there was no man
more ready to serve his country than he. I wrote at once asking him to
accept the position of assistant adjutant-general with the rank of
captain, on my staff. He was about entering the service as major of a
new regiment then organizing in the north-western part of the State; but
he threw this up and accepted my offer.
Neither Hillyer nor Lagow proved to have any particular taste or special
qualifications for the duties of the soldier, and the former resigned
during the Vicksburg campaign; the latter I relieved after the battle of
Chattanooga. Rawlins remained with me as long as he lived, and rose to
the rank of brigadier general and chief-of-staff to the General of the
Army--an office created for him--before the war closed. He was an able
man, possessed of great firmness, and could say "no" so emphatically to
a request which he thought should not be granted that the person he was
addressing would understand at once that there was no use of pressing
the matter. General Rawlins was a very useful officer in other ways
than this. I became very much attached to him.
Shortly after my promotion I was ordered to Ironton, Missouri, to
command a district in that part of the State, and took the 21st
Illinois, my old regiment, with me. Several other regiments were
ordered to the same destination about the same time. Ironton is on the
Iron Mountain railroad, about seventy miles south of St. Louis, and
situated among hills rising almost to the dignity of mountains. When I
reached there, about the 8th of August, Colonel B. Gratz Brown
--afterwards Governor of Missouri and in 1872 Vice-Presidential candidate
--was in command. Some of his troops were ninety days' men and their
time had expired some time before. The men had no clothing but what
they had volunteered in, and much of this was so worn that it would
hardly stay on. General Hardee--the author of the tactics I did not
study--was at Greenville some twenty-five miles further south, it was
said, with five thousand Confederate troops. Under these circumstances
Colonel Brown's command was very much demoralized. A squadron of
cavalry could have ridden into the valley and captured the entire force.
Brown himself was gladder to see me on that occasion than he ever has
been since. I relieved him and sent all his men home within a day or
two, to be mustered out of service.
Within ten days after reading Ironton I was prepared to take the
offensive against the enemy at Greenville. I sent a column east out of
the valley we were in, with orders to swing around to the south and west
and come into the Greenville road ten miles south of Ironton. Another
column marched on the direct road and went into camp at the point
designated for the two columns to meet. I was to ride out the next
morning and take personal command of the movement. My experience
against Harris, in northern Missouri, had inspired me with confidence.
But when the evening train came in, it brought General B. M. Prentiss
with orders to take command of the district. His orders did not relieve
me, but I knew that by law I was senior, and at that time even the
President did not have the authority to assign a junior to command a
senior of the same grade. I therefore gave General Prentiss the
situation of the troops and the general condition of affairs, and
started for St. Louis the same day. The movement against the rebels at
Greenville went no further.
From St. Louis I was ordered to Jefferson City, the capital of the
State, to take command. General Sterling Price, of the Confederate
army, was thought to be threatening the capital, Lexington, Chillicothe
and other comparatively large towns in the central part of Missouri. I
found a good many troops in Jefferson City, but in the greatest
confusion, and no one person knew where they all were. Colonel
Mulligan, a gallant man, was in command, but he had not been educated as
yet to his new profession and did not know how to maintain discipline.
I found that volunteers had obtained permission from the department
commander, or claimed they had, to raise, some of them, regiments; some
battalions; some companies--the officers to be commissioned according to
the number of men they brought into the service. There were recruiting
stations all over town, with notices, rudely lettered on boards over the
doors, announcing the arm of service and length of time for which
recruits at that station would be received. The law required all
volunteers to serve for three years or the war. But in Jefferson City
in August, 1861, they were recruited for different periods and on
different conditions; some were enlisted for six months, some for a
year, some without any condition as to where they were to serve, others
were not to be sent out of the State. The recruits were principally men
from regiments stationed there and already in the service, bound for
three years if the war lasted that long.
The city was filled with Union fugitives who had been driven by guerilla
bands to take refuge with the National troops. They were in a
deplorable condition and must have starved but for the support the
government gave them. They had generally made their escape with a team
or two, sometimes a yoke of oxen with a mule or a horse in the lead. A
little bedding besides their clothing and some food had been thrown into
the wagon. All else of their worldly goods were abandoned and
appropriated by their former neighbors; for the Union man in Missouri
who staid at home during the rebellion, if he was not immediately under
the protection of the National troops, was at perpetual war with his
neighbors. I stopped the recruiting service, and disposed the troops
about the outskirts of the city so as to guard all approaches. Order
was soon restored.
I had been at Jefferson City but a few days when I was directed from
department headquarters to fit out an expedition to Lexington,
Booneville and Chillicothe, in order to take from the banks in those
cities all the funds they had and send them to St. Louis. The western
army had not yet been supplied with transportation. It became necessary
therefore to press into the service teams belonging to sympathizers with
the rebellion or to hire those of Union men. This afforded an
opportunity of giving employment to such of the refugees within our
lines as had teams suitable for our purposes. They accepted the service
with alacrity. As fast as troops could be got off they were moved west
some twenty miles or more. In seven or eight days from my assuming
command at Jefferson City, I had all the troops, except a small
garrison, at an advanced position and expected to join them myself the
next day.
But my campaigns had not yet begun, for while seated at my office door,
with nothing further to do until it was time to start for the front, I
saw an officer of rank approaching, who proved to be Colonel Jefferson
C. Davis. I had never met him before, but he introduced himself by
handing me an order for him to proceed to Jefferson City and relieve me
of the command. The orders directed that I should report at department
headquarters at St. Louis without delay, to receive important special
instructions. It was about an hour before the only regular train of the
day would start. I therefore turned over to Colonel Davis my orders,
and hurriedly stated to him the progress that had been made to carry out
the department instructions already described. I had at that time but
one staff officer, doing myself all the detail work usually performed by
an adjutant-general. In an hour after being relieved from the command I
was on my way to St. Louis, leaving my single staff officer(*6) to
follow the next day with our horses and baggage.
The "important special instructions" which I received the next day,
assigned me to the command of the district of south-east Missouri,
embracing all the territory south of St. Louis, in Missouri, as well as
all southern Illinois. At first I was to take personal command of a
combined expedition that had been ordered for the capture of Colonel
Jeff. Thompson, a sort of independent or partisan commander who was
disputing with us the possession of south-east Missouri. Troops had
been ordered to move from Ironton to Cape Girardeau, sixty or seventy
miles to the south-east, on the Mississippi River; while the forces at
Cape Girardeau had been ordered to move to Jacksonville, ten miles out
towards Ironton; and troops at Cairo and Bird's Point, at the junction
of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, were to hold themselves in readiness
to go down the Mississippi to Belmont, eighteen miles below, to be moved
west from there when an officer should come to command them. I was the
officer who had been selected for this purpose. Cairo was to become my
headquarters when the expedition terminated.
In pursuance of my orders I established my temporary headquarters at
Cape Girardeau and sent instructions to the commanding officer at
Jackson, to inform me of the approach of General Prentiss from Ironton.
Hired wagons were kept moving night and day to take additional rations
to Jackson, to supply the troops when they started from there. Neither
General Prentiss nor Colonel Marsh, who commanded at Jackson, knew their
destination. I drew up all the instructions for the contemplated move,
and kept them in my pocket until I should hear of the junction of our
troops at Jackson. Two or three days after my arrival at Cape
Girardeau, word came that General Prentiss was approaching that place
(Jackson). I started at once to meet him there and to give him his
orders. As I turned the first corner of a street after starting, I saw
a column of cavalry passing the next street in front of me. I turned
and rode around the block the other way, so as to meet the head of the
column. I found there General Prentiss himself, with a large escort.
He had halted his troops at Jackson for the night, and had come on
himself to Cape Girardeau, leaving orders for his command to follow him
in the morning. I gave the General his orders--which stopped him at
Jackson--but he was very much aggrieved at being placed under another
brigadier-general, particularly as he believed himself to be the senior.
He had been a brigadier, in command at Cairo, while I was mustering
officer at Springfield without any rank. But we were nominated at the
same time for the United States service, and both our commissions bore
date May 17th, 1861. By virtue of my former army rank I was, by law,
the senior. General Prentiss failed to get orders to his troops to
remain at Jackson, and the next morning early they were reported as
approaching Cape Girardeau. I then ordered the General very
peremptorily to countermarch his command and take it back to Jackson.
He obeyed the order, but bade his command adieu when he got them to
Jackson, and went to St. Louis and reported himself. This broke up the
expedition. But little harm was done, as Jeff. Thompson moved light and
had no fixed place for even nominal headquarters. He was as much at
home in Arkansas as he was in Missouri and would keep out of the way of
a superior force. Prentiss was sent to another part of the State.
General Prentiss made a great mistake on the above occasion, one that he
would not have committed later in the war. When I came to know him
better, I regretted it much. In consequence of this occurrence he was
off duty in the field when the principal campaign at the West was going
on, and his juniors received promotion while he was where none could be
obtained. He would have been next to myself in rank in the district of
south-east Missouri, by virtue of his services in the Mexican war. He
was a brave and very earnest soldier. No man in the service was more
sincere in his devotion to the cause for which we were battling; none
more ready to make sacrifices or risk life in it.
On the 4th of September I removed my headquarters to Cairo and found
Colonel Richard Oglesby in command of the post. We had never met, at
least not to my knowledge. After my promotion I had ordered my
brigadier-general's uniform from New York, but it had not yet arrived,
so that I was in citizen's dress. The Colonel had his office full of
people, mostly from the neighboring States of Missouri and Kentucky,
making complaints or asking favors. He evidently did not catch my name
when I was presented, for on my taking a piece of paper from the table
where he was seated and writing the order assuming command of the
district of south-east Missouri, Colonel Richard J. Oglesby to command
the post at Bird's Point, and handing it to him, he put on an expression
of surprise that looked a little as if he would like to have some one
identify me. But he surrendered the office without question.
The day after I assumed command at Cairo a man came to me who said he
was a scout of General Fremont. He reported that he had just come from
Columbus, a point on the Mississippi twenty miles below on the Kentucky
side, and that troops had started from there, or were about to start, to
seize Paducah, at the mouth of the Tennessee. There was no time for
delay; I reported by telegraph to the department commander the
information I had received, and added that I was taking steps to get off
that night to be in advance of the enemy in securing that important
point. There was a large number of steamers lying at Cairo and a good
many boatmen were staying in the town. It was the work of only a few
hours to get the boats manned, with coal aboard and steam up. Troops
were also designated to go aboard. The distance from Cairo to Paducah
is about forty-five miles. I did not wish to get there before daylight
of the 6th, and directed therefore that the boats should lie at anchor
out in the stream until the time to start. Not having received an
answer to my first dispatch, I again telegraphed to department
headquarters that I should start for Paducah that night unless I
received further orders. Hearing nothing, we started before midnight
and arrived early the following morning, anticipating the enemy by
probably not over six or eight hours. It proved very fortunate that the
expedition against Jeff. Thompson had been broken up. Had it not been,
the enemy would have seized Paducah and fortified it, to our very great
annoyance.
When the National troops entered the town the citizens were taken by
surprise. I never after saw such consternation depicted on the faces of
the people. Men, women and children came out of their doors looking
pale and frightened at the presence of the invader. They were expecting
rebel troops that day. In fact, nearly four thousand men from Columbus
were at that time within ten or fifteen miles of Paducah on their way to
occupy the place. I had but two regiments and one battery with me, but
the enemy did not know this and returned to Columbus. I stationed my
troops at the best points to guard the roads leading into the city, left
gunboats to guard the river fronts and by noon was ready to start on my
return to Cairo. Before leaving, however, I addressed a short printed
proclamation to the citizens of Paducah assuring them of our peaceful
intentions, that we had come among them to protect them against the
enemies of our country, and that all who chose could continue their
usual avocations with assurance of the protection of the government.
This was evidently a relief to them; but the majority would have much
preferred the presence of the other army. I reinforced Paducah rapidly
from the troops at Cape Girardeau; and a day or two later General C. F.
Smith, a most accomplished soldier, reported at Cairo and was assigned
to the command of the post at the mouth of the Tennessee. In a short
time it was well fortified and a detachment was sent to occupy
Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland.
The State government of Kentucky at that time was rebel in sentiment,
but wanted to preserve an armed neutrality between the North and the
South, and the governor really seemed to think the State had a perfect
right to maintain a neutral position. The rebels already occupied two
towns in the State, Columbus and Hickman, on the Mississippi; and at the
very moment the National troops were entering Paducah from the Ohio
front, General Lloyd Tilghman--a Confederate--with his staff and a small
detachment of men, were getting out in the other direction, while, as I
have already said, nearly four thousand Confederate troops were on
Kentucky soil on their way to take possession of the town. But, in the
estimation of the governor and of those who thought with him, this did
not justify the National authorities in invading the soil of Kentucky.
I informed the legislature of the State of what I was doing, and my
action was approved by the majority of that body. On my return to Cairo
I found authority from department headquarters for me to take Paducah
"if I felt strong enough," but very soon after I was reprimanded from
the same quarters for my correspondence with the legislature and warned
against a repetition of the offence.
Soon after I took command at Cairo, General Fremont entered into
arrangements for the exchange of the prisoners captured at Camp Jackson
in the month of May. I received orders to pass them through my lines to
Columbus as they presented themselves with proper credentials. Quite a
number of these prisoners I had been personally acquainted with before
the war. Such of them as I had so known were received at my
headquarters as old acquaintances, and ordinary routine business was not
disturbed by their presence. On one occasion when several were present
in my office my intention to visit Cape Girardeau the next day, to
inspect the troops at that point, was mentioned. Something transpired
which postponed my trip; but a steamer employed by the government was
passing a point some twenty or more miles above Cairo, the next day,
when a section of rebel artillery with proper escort brought her to. A
major, one of those who had been at my headquarters the day before, came
at once aboard and after some search made a direct demand for my
delivery. It was hard to persuade him that I was not there. This
officer was Major Barrett, of St. Louis. I had been acquainted with his
family before the war.
CHAPTER XX.
GENERAL FREMONT IN COMMAND--MOVEMENT AGAINST BELMONT--BATTLE OF BELMONT
--A NARROW ESCAPE--AFTER THE BATTLE.
From the occupation of Paducah up to the early part of November nothing
important occurred with the troops under my command. I was reinforced
from time to time and the men were drilled and disciplined preparatory
for the service which was sure to come. By the 1st of November I had
not fewer than 20,000 men, most of them under good drill and ready to
meet any equal body of men who, like themselves, had not yet been in an
engagement. They were growing impatient at lying idle so long, almost
in hearing of the guns of the enemy they had volunteered to fight
against. I asked on one or two occasions to be allowed to move against
Columbus. It could have been taken soon after the occupation of
Paducah; but before November it was so strongly fortified that it would
have required a large force and a long siege to capture it.
In the latter part of October General Fremont took the field in person
and moved from Jefferson City against General Sterling Price, who was
then in the State of Missouri with a considerable command. About the
first of November I was directed from department headquarters to make a
demonstration on both sides of the Mississippi River with the view of
detaining the rebels at Columbus within their lines. Before my troops
could be got off, I was notified from the same quarter that there were
some 3,000 of the enemy on the St. Francis River about fifty miles west,
or south-west, from Cairo, and was ordered to send another force against
them. I dispatched Colonel Oglesby at once with troops sufficient to
compete with the reported number of the enemy. On the 5th word came
from the same source that the rebels were about to detach a large force
from Columbus to be moved by boats down the Mississippi and up the White
River, in Arkansas, in order to reinforce Price, and I was directed to
prevent this movement if possible. I accordingly sent a regiment from
Bird's Point under Colonel W. H. L. Wallace to overtake and reinforce
Oglesby, with orders to march to New Madrid, a point some distance below
Columbus, on the Missouri side. At the same time I directed General C.
F. Smith to move all the troops he could spare from Paducah directly
against Columbus, halting them, however, a few miles from the town to
await further orders from me. Then I gathered up all the troops at
Cairo and Fort Holt, except suitable guards, and moved them down the
river on steamers convoyed by two gunboats, accompanying them myself.
My force consisted of a little over 3,000 men and embraced five
regiments of infantry, two guns and two companies of cavalry. We
dropped down the river on the 6th to within about six miles of Columbus,
debarked a few men on the Kentucky side and established pickets to
connect with the troops from Paducah.
I had no orders which contemplated an attack by the National troops, nor
did I intend anything of the kind when I started out from Cairo; but
after we started I saw that the officers and men were elated at the
prospect of at last having the opportunity of doing what they had
volunteered to do--fight the enemies of their country. I did not see
how I could maintain discipline, or retain the confidence of my command,
if we should return to Cairo without an effort to do something.
Columbus, besides being strongly fortified, contained a garrison much
more numerous than the force I had with me. It would not do, therefore,
to attack that point. About two o'clock on the morning of the 7th, I
learned that the enemy was crossing troops from Columbus to the west
bank to be dispatched, presumably, after Oglesby. I knew there was a
small camp of Confederates at Belmont, immediately opposite Columbus,
and I speedily resolved to push down the river, land on the Missouri
side, capture Belmont, break up the camp and return. Accordingly, the
pickets above Columbus were drawn in at once, and about daylight the
boats moved out from shore. In an hour we were debarking on the west
bank of the Mississippi, just out of range of the batteries at Columbus.
The ground on the west shore of the river, opposite Columbus, is low and
in places marshy and cut up with sloughs. The soil is rich and the
timber large and heavy. There were some small clearings between Belmont
and the point where we landed, but most of the country was covered with
the native forests. We landed in front of a cornfield. When the
debarkation commenced, I took a regiment down the river to post it as a
guard against surprise. At that time I had no staff officer who could
be trusted with that duty. In the woods, at a short distance below the
clearing, I found a depression, dry at the time, but which at high water
became a slough or bayou. I placed the men in the hollow, gave them
their instructions and ordered them to remain there until they were
properly relieved. These troops, with the gunboats, were to protect our
transports.
Up to this time the enemy had evidently failed to divine our intentions.
From Columbus they could, of course, see our gunboats and transports
loaded with troops. But the force from Paducah was threatening them
from the land side, and it was hardly to be expected that if Columbus
was our object we would separate our troops by a wide river. They
doubtless thought we meant to draw a large force from the east bank,
then embark ourselves, land on the east bank and make a sudden assault
on Columbus before their divided command could be united.
About eight o'clock we started from the point of debarkation, marching
by the flank. After moving in this way for a mile or a mile and a half,
I halted where there was marshy ground covered with a heavy growth of
timber in our front, and deployed a large part of my force as
skirmishers. By this time the enemy discovered that we were moving upon
Belmont and sent out troops to meet us. Soon after we had started in
line, his skirmishers were encountered and fighting commenced. This
continued, growing fiercer and fiercer, for about four hours, the enemy
being forced back gradually until he was driven into his camp. Early in
this engagement my horse was shot under me, but I got another from one
of my staff and kept well up with the advance until the river was
reached.
The officers and men engaged at Belmont were then under fire for the
first time. Veterans could not have behaved better than they did up to
the moment of reaching the rebel camp. At this point they became
demoralized from their victory and failed to reap its full reward. The
enemy had been followed so closely that when he reached the clear ground
on which his camp was pitched he beat a hasty retreat over the river
bank, which protected him from our shots and from view. This
precipitate retreat at the last moment enabled the National forces to
pick their way without hinderance through the abatis--the only
artificial defence the enemy had. The moment the camp was reached our
men laid down their arms and commenced rummaging the tents to pick up
trophies. Some of the higher officers were little better than the
privates. They galloped about from one cluster of men to another and at
every halt delivered a short eulogy upon the Union cause and the
achievements of the command.
All this time the troops we had been engaged with for four hours, lay
crouched under cover of the river bank, ready to come up and surrender
if summoned to do so; but finding that they were not pursued, they
worked their way up the river and came up on the bank between us and our
transports. I saw at the same time two steamers coming from the
Columbus side towards the west shore, above us, black--or gray--with
soldiers from boiler-deck to roof. Some of my men were engaged in
firing from captured guns at empty steamers down the river, out of
range, cheering at every shot. I tried to get them to turn their guns
upon the loaded steamers above and not so far away. My efforts were in
vain. At last I directed my staff officers to set fire to the camps.
This drew the fire of the enemy's guns located on the heights of
Columbus. They had abstained from firing before, probably because they
were afraid of hitting their own men; or they may have supposed, until
the camp was on fire, that it was still in the possession of their
friends. About this time, too, the men we had driven over the bank were
seen in line up the river between us and our transports. The alarm
"surrounded" was given. The guns of the enemy and the report of being
surrounded, brought officers and men completely under control. At first
some of the officers seemed to think that to be surrounded was to be
placed in a hopeless position, where there was nothing to do but
surrender. But when I announced that we had cut our way in and could
cut our way out just as well, it seemed a new revelation to officers and
soldiers. They formed line rapidly and we started back to our boats,
with the men deployed as skirmishers as they had been on entering camp.
The enemy was soon encountered, but his resistance this time was feeble.
Again the Confederates sought shelter under the river banks. We could
not stop, however, to pick them up, because the troops we had seen
crossing the river had debarked by this time and were nearer our
transports than we were. It would be prudent to get them behind us; but
we were not again molested on our way to the boats.
From the beginning of the fighting our wounded had been carried to the
houses at the rear, near the place of debarkation. I now set the troops
to bringing their wounded to the boats. After this had gone on for some
little time I rode down the road, without even a staff officer, to visit
the guard I had stationed over the approach to our transports. I knew
the enemy had crossed over from Columbus in considerable numbers and
might be expected to attack us as we were embarking. This guard would
be encountered first and, as they were in a natural intrenchment, would
be able to hold the enemy for a considerable time. My surprise was
great to find there was not a single man in the trench. Riding back to
the boat I found the officer who had commanded the guard and learned
that he had withdrawn his force when the main body fell back. At first
I ordered the guard to return, but finding that it would take some time
to get the men together and march them back to their position, I
countermanded the order. Then fearing that the enemy we had seen
crossing the river below might be coming upon us unawares, I rode out in
the field to our front, still entirely alone, to observe whether the
enemy was passing. The field was grown up with corn so tall and thick
as to cut off the view of even a person on horseback, except directly
along the rows. Even in that direction, owing to the overhanging blades
of corn, the view was not extensive. I had not gone more than a few
hundred yards when I saw a body of troops marching past me not fifty
yards away. I looked at them for a moment and then turned my horse
towards the river and started back, first in a walk, and when I thought
myself concealed from the view of the enemy, as fast as my horse could
carry me. When at the river bank I still had to ride a few hundred
yards to the point where the nearest transport lay.
The cornfield in front of our transports terminated at the edge of a
dense forest. Before I got back the enemy had entered this forest and
had opened a brisk fire upon the boats. Our men, with the exception of
details that had gone to the front after the wounded, were now either
aboard the transports or very near them. Those who were not aboard soon
got there, and the boats pushed off. I was the only man of the National
army between the rebels and our transports. The captain of a boat that
had just pushed out but had not started, recognized me and ordered the
engineer not to start the engine; he then had a plank run out for me.
My horse seemed to take in the situation. There was no path down the
bank and every one acquainted with the Mississippi River knows that its
banks, in a natural state, do not vary at any great angle from the
perpendicular. My horse put his fore feet over the bank without
hesitation or urging, and with his hind feet well under him, slid down
the bank and trotted aboard the boat, twelve or fifteen feet away, over
a single gang plank. I dismounted and went at once to the upper deck.
The Mississippi River was low on the 7th of November, 1861, so that the
banks were higher than the heads of men standing on the upper decks of
the steamers. The rebels were some distance back from the river, so
that their fire was high and did us but little harm. Our smoke-stack
was riddled with bullets, but there were only three men wounded on the
boats, two of whom were soldiers. When I first went on deck I entered
the captain's room adjoining the pilot-house, and threw myself on a
sofa. I did not keep that position a moment, but rose to go out on the
deck to observe what was going on. I had scarcely left when a musket
ball entered the room, struck the head of the sofa, passed through it
and lodged in the foot.
When the enemy opened fire on the transports our gunboats returned it
with vigor. They were well out in the stream and some distance down, so
that they had to give but very little elevation to their guns to clear
the banks of the river. Their position very nearly enfiladed the line
of the enemy while he was marching through the cornfield. The execution
was very great, as we could see at the time and as I afterwards learned
more positively. We were very soon out of range and went peacefully on
our way to Cairo, every man feeling that Belmont was a great victory and
that he had contributed his share to it.
Our loss at Belmont was 485 in killed, wounded and missing. About 125 of
our wounded fell into the hands of the enemy. We returned with 175
prisoners and two guns, and spiked four other pieces. The loss of the
enemy, as officially reported, was 642 men, killed, wounded and missing.
We had engaged about 2,500 men, exclusive of the guard left with the
transports. The enemy had about 7,000; but this includes the troops
brought over from Columbus who were not engaged in the first defence of
Belmont.
The two objects for which the battle of Belmont was fought were fully
accomplished. The enemy gave up all idea of detaching troops from
Columbus. His losses were very heavy for that period of the war.
Columbus was beset by people looking for their wounded or dead kin, to
take them home for medical treatment or burial. I learned later, when I
had moved further south, that Belmont had caused more mourning than
almost any other battle up to that time. The National troops acquired a
confidence in themselves at Belmont that did not desert them through the
war.
The day after the battle I met some officers from General Polk's
command, arranged for permission to bury our dead at Belmont and also
commenced negotiations for the exchange of prisoners. When our men went
to bury their dead, before they were allowed to land they were conducted
below the point where the enemy had engaged our transports. Some of the
officers expressed a desire to see the field; but the request was
refused with the statement that we had no dead there.
While on the truce-boat I mentioned to an officer, whom I had known both
at West Point and in the Mexican war, that I was in the cornfield near
their troops when they passed; that I had been on horseback and had worn
a soldier's overcoat at the time. This officer was on General Polk's
staff. He said both he and the general had seen me and that Polk had
said to his men, "There is a Yankee; you may try your marksmanship on
him if you wish," but nobody fired at me.
Belmont was severely criticised in the North as a wholly unnecessary
battle, barren of results, or the possibility of them from the
beginning. If it had not been fought, Colonel Oglesby would probably
have been captured or destroyed with his three thousand men. Then I
should have been culpable indeed.
CHAPTER XXI.
GENERAL HALLECK IN COMMAND--COMMANDING THE DISTRICT OF CAIRO--MOVEMENT
ON FORT HENRY--CAPTURE OF FORT HENRY.
While at Cairo I had frequent opportunities of meeting the rebel
officers of the Columbus garrison. They seemed to be very fond of
coming up on steamers under flags of truce. On two or three occasions I
went down in like manner. When one of their boats was seen coming up
carrying a white flag, a gun would be fired from the lower battery at
Fort Holt, throwing a shot across the bow as a signal to come no
farther. I would then take a steamer and, with my staff and
occasionally a few other officers, go down to receive the party. There
were several officers among them whom I had known before, both at West
Point and in Mexico. Seeing these officers who had been educated for the
profession of arms, both at school and in actual war, which is a far
more efficient training, impressed me with the great advantage the South
possessed over the North at the beginning of the rebellion. They had
from thirty to forty per cent. of the educated soldiers of the Nation.
They had no standing army and, consequently, these trained soldiers had
to find employment with the troops from their own States. In this way
what there was of military education and training was distributed
throughout their whole army. The whole loaf was leavened.
The North had a great number of educated and trained soldiers, but the
bulk of them were still in the army and were retained, generally with
their old commands and rank, until the war had lasted many months. In
the Army of the Potomac there was what was known as the "regular
brigade," in which, from the commanding officer down to the youngest
second lieutenant, every one was educated to his profession. So, too,
with many of the batteries; all the officers, generally four in number
to each, were men educated for their profession. Some of these went
into battle at the beginning under division commanders who were entirely
without military training. This state of affairs gave me an idea which
I expressed while at Cairo; that the government ought to disband the
regular army, with the exception of the staff corps, and notify the
disbanded officers that they would receive no compensation while the war
lasted except as volunteers. The register should be kept up, but the
names of all officers who were not in the volunteer service at the
close, should be stricken from it.
On the 9th of November, two days after the battle of Belmont,
Major-General H. W. Halleck superseded General Fremont in command of the
Department of the Missouri. The limits of his command took in Arkansas
and west Kentucky east to the Cumberland River. From the battle of
Belmont until early in February, 1862, the troops under my command did
little except prepare for the long struggle which proved to be before
them.
The enemy at this time occupied a line running from the Mississippi
River at Columbus to Bowling Green and Mill Springs, Kentucky. Each of
these positions was strongly fortified, as were also points on the
Tennessee and Cumberland rivers near the Tennessee state line. The
works on the Tennessee were called Fort Heiman and Fort Henry, and that
on the Cumberland was Fort Donelson. At these points the two rivers
approached within eleven miles of each other. The lines of rifle pits
at each place extended back from the water at least two miles, so that
the garrisons were in reality only seven miles apart. These positions
were of immense importance to the enemy; and of course correspondingly
important for us to possess ourselves of. With Fort Henry in our hands
we had a navigable stream open to us up to Muscle Shoals, in Alabama.
The Memphis and Charleston Railroad strikes the Tennessee at Eastport,
Mississippi, and follows close to the banks of the river up to the
shoals. This road, of vast importance to the enemy, would cease to be
of use to them for through traffic the moment Fort Henry became ours.
Fort Donelson was the gate to Nashville--a place of great military and
political importance--and to a rich country extending far east in
Kentucky. These two points in our possession the enemy would
necessarily be thrown back to the Memphis and Charleston road, or to the
boundary of the cotton states, and, as before stated, that road would be
lost to them for through communication.
The designation of my command had been changed after Halleck's arrival,
from the District of South-east Missouri to the District of Cairo, and
the small district commanded by General C. F. Smith, embracing the
mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, had been added to my
jurisdiction. Early in January, 1862, I was directed by General
McClellan, through my department commander, to make a reconnoissance in
favor of Brigadier-General Don Carlos Buell, who commanded the
Department of the Ohio, with headquarters at Louisville, and who was
confronting General S. B. Buckner with a larger Confederate force at
Bowling Green. It was supposed that Buell was about to make some move
against the enemy, and my demonstration was intended to prevent the
sending of troops from Columbus, Fort Henry or Donelson to Buckner. I
at once ordered General Smith to send a force up the west bank of the
Tennessee to threaten forts Heiman and Henry; McClernand at the same
time with a force of 6,000 men was sent out into west Kentucky,
threatening Columbus with one column and the Tennessee River with
another. I went with McClernand's command. The weather was very bad;
snow and rain fell; the roads, never good in that section, were
intolerable. We were out more than a week splashing through the mud,
snow and rain, the men suffering very much. The object of the
expedition was accomplished. The enemy did not send reinforcements to
Bowling Green, and General George H. Thomas fought and won the battle of
Mill Springs before we returned.
As a result of this expedition General Smith reported that he thought it
practicable to capture Fort Heiman. This fort stood on high ground,
completely commanding Fort Henry on the opposite side of the river, and
its possession by us, with the aid of our gunboats, would insure the
capture of Fort Henry. This report of Smith's confirmed views I had
previously held, that the true line of operations for us was up the
Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. With us there, the enemy would be
compelled to fall back on the east and west entirely out of the State of
Kentucky. On the 6th of January, before receiving orders for this
expedition, I had asked permission of the general commanding the
department to go to see him at St. Louis. My object was to lay this
plan of campaign before him. Now that my views had been confirmed by so
able a general as Smith, I renewed my request to go to St. Louis on what
I deemed important military business. The leave was granted, but not
graciously. I had known General Halleck but very slightly in the old
army, not having met him either at West Point or during the Mexican war.
I was received with so little cordiality that I perhaps stated the
object of my visit with less clearness than I might have done, and I had
not uttered many sentences before I was cut short as if my plan was
preposterous. I returned to Cairo very much crestfallen.
Flag-officer Foote commanded the little fleet of gunboats then in the
neighborhood of Cairo and, though in another branch of the service, was
subject to the command of General Halleck. He and I consulted freely
upon military matters and he agreed with me perfectly as to the
feasibility of the campaign up the Tennessee. Notwithstanding the
rebuff I had received from my immediate chief, I therefore, on the 28th
of January, renewed the suggestion by telegraph that "if permitted, I
could take and hold Fort Henry on the Tennessee." This time I was
backed by Flag-officer Foote, who sent a similar dispatch. On the 29th
I wrote fully in support of the proposition. On the 1st of February I
received full instructions from department headquarters to move upon
Fort Henry. On the 2d the expedition started.
In February, 1862, there were quite a good many steamers laid up at
Cairo for want of employment, the Mississippi River being closed against
navigation below that point. There were also many men in the town whose
occupation had been following the river in various capacities, from
captain down to deck hand But there were not enough of either boats or
men to move at one time the 17,000 men I proposed to take with me up the
Tennessee. I loaded the boats with more than half the force, however,
and sent General McClernand in command. I followed with one of the
later boats and found McClernand had stopped, very properly, nine miles
below Fort Henry. Seven gunboats under Flag-officer Foote had
accompanied the advance. The transports we had with us had to return to
Paducah to bring up a division from there, with General C. F. Smith in
command.
Before sending the boats back I wanted to get the troops as near to the
enemy as I could without coming within range of their guns. There was a
stream emptying into the Tennessee on the east side, apparently at about
long range distance below the fort. On account of the narrow water-shed
separating the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers at that point, the stream
must be insignificant at ordinary stages, but when we were there, in
February, it was a torrent. It would facilitate the investment of Fort
Henry materially if the troops could be landed south of that stream. To
test whether this could be done I boarded the gunboat Essex and
requested Captain Wm. Porter commanding it, to approach the fort to draw
its fire. After we had gone some distance past the mouth of the stream
we drew the fire of the fort, which fell much short of us. In
consequence I had made up my mind to return and bring the troops to the
upper side of the creek, when the enemy opened upon us with a rifled gun
that sent shot far beyond us and beyond the stream. One shot passed
very near where Captain Porter and I were standing, struck the deck near
the stern, penetrated and passed through the cabin and so out into the
river. We immediately turned back, and the troops were debarked below
the mouth of the creek.
When the landing was completed I returned with the transports to Paducah
to hasten up the balance of the troops. I got back on the 5th with the
advance the remainder following as rapidly as the steamers could carry
them. At ten o'clock at night, on the 5th, the whole command was not
yet up. Being anxious to commence operations as soon as possible before
the enemy could reinforce heavily, I issued my orders for an advance at
11 A.M. on the 6th. I felt sure that all the troops would be up by that
time.
Fort Henry occupies a bend in the river which gave the guns in the water
battery a direct fire down the stream. The camp outside the fort was
intrenched, with rifle pits and outworks two miles back on the road to
Donelson and Dover. The garrison of the fort and camp was about 2,800,
with strong reinforcements from Donelson halted some miles out. There
were seventeen heavy guns in the fort. The river was very high, the
banks being overflowed except where the bluffs come to the water's edge.
A portion of the ground on which Fort Henry stood was two feet deep in
water. Below, the water extended into the woods several hundred yards
back from the bank on the east side. On the west bank Fort Heiman stood
on high ground, completely commanding Fort Henry. The distance from
Fort Henry to Donelson is but eleven miles. The two positions were so
important to the enemy, AS HE SAW HIS INTEREST, that it was natural to
suppose that reinforcements would come from every quarter from which
they could be got. Prompt action on our part was imperative.
The plan was for the troops and gunboats to start at the same moment.
The troops were to invest the garrison and the gunboats to attack the
fort at close quarters. General Smith was to land a brigade of his
division on the west bank during the night of the 5th and get it in rear
of Heiman.
At the hour designated the troops and gunboats started. General Smith
found Fort Heiman had been evacuated before his men arrived. The
gunboats soon engaged the water batteries at very close quarters, but
the troops which were to invest Fort Henry were delayed for want of
roads, as well as by the dense forest and the high water in what would
in dry weather have been unimportant beds of streams. This delay made
no difference in the result. On our first appearance Tilghman had sent
his entire command, with the exception of about one hundred men left to
man the guns in the fort, to the outworks on the road to Dover and
Donelson, so as to have them out of range of the guns of our navy; and
before any attack on the 6th he had ordered them to retreat on Donelson.
He stated in his subsequent report that the defence was intended solely
to give his troops time to make their escape.
Tilghman was captured with his staff and ninety men, as well as the
armament of the fort, the ammunition and whatever stores were there.
Our cavalry pursued the retreating column towards Donelson and picked up
two guns and a few stragglers; but the enemy had so much the start, that
the pursuing force did not get in sight of any except the stragglers.
All the gunboats engaged were hit many times. The damage, however,
beyond what could be repaired by a small expenditure of money, was
slight, except to the Essex. A shell penetrated the boiler of that
vessel and exploded it, killing and wounding forty-eight men, nineteen
of whom were soldiers who had been detailed to act with the navy. On
several occasions during the war such details were made when the
complement of men with the navy was insufficient for the duty before
them. After the fall of Fort Henry Captain Phelps, commanding the
iron-clad Carondelet, at my request ascended the Tennessee River and
thoroughly destroyed the bridge of the Memphis and Ohio Railroad.
CHAPTER XXII.
INVESTMENT OF FORT DONELSON--THE NAVAL OPERATIONS--ATTACK OF THE ENEMY
--ASSAULTING THE WORKS--SURRENDER OF THE FORT.
I informed the department commander of our success at Fort Henry and
that on the 8th I would take Fort Donelson. But the rain continued to
fall so heavily that the roads became impassable for artillery and wagon
trains. Then, too, it would not have been prudent to proceed without
the gunboats. At least it would have been leaving behind a valuable
part of our available force.
On the 7th, the day after the fall of Fort Henry, I took my staff and
the cavalry--a part of one regiment--and made a reconnoissance to within
about a mile of the outer line of works at Donelson. I had known
General Pillow in Mexico, and judged that with any force, no matter how
small, I could march up to within gunshot of any intrenchments he was
given to hold. I said this to the officers of my staff at the time. I
knew that Floyd was in command, but he was no soldier, and I judged that
he would yield to Pillow's pretensions. I met, as I expected, no
opposition in making the reconnoissance and, besides learning the
topography of the country on the way and around Fort Donelson, found
that there were two roads available for marching; one leading to the
village of Dover, the other to Donelson.
Fort Donelson is two miles north, or down the river, from Dover. The
fort, as it stood in 1861, embraced about one hundred acres of land. On
the east it fronted the Cumberland; to the north it faced Hickman's
creek, a small stream which at that time was deep and wide because of
the back-water from the river; on the south was another small stream, or
rather a ravine, opening into the Cumberland. This also was filled with
back-water from the river. The fort stood on high ground, some of it as
much as a hundred feet above the Cumberland. Strong protection to the
heavy guns in the water batteries had been obtained by cutting away
places for them in the bluff. To the west there was a line of rifle
pits some two miles back from the river at the farthest point. This
line ran generally along the crest of high ground, but in one place
crossed a ravine which opens into the river between the village and the
fort. The ground inside and outside of this intrenched line was very
broken and generally wooded. The trees outside of the rifle-pits had
been cut down for a considerable way out, and had been felled so that
their tops lay outwards from the intrenchments. The limbs had been
trimmed and pointed, and thus formed an abatis in front of the greater
part of the line. Outside of this intrenched line, and extending about
half the entire length of it, is a ravine running north and south and
opening into Hickman creek at a point north of the fort. The entire
side of this ravine next to the works was one long abatis.
General Halleck commenced his efforts in all quarters to get
reinforcements to forward to me immediately on my departure from Cairo.
General Hunter sent men freely from Kansas, and a large division under
General Nelson, from Buell's army, was also dispatched. Orders went out
from the War Department to consolidate fragments of companies that were
being recruited in the Western States so as to make full companies, and
to consolidate companies into regiments. General Halleck did not
approve or disapprove of my going to Fort Donelson. He said nothing
whatever to me on the subject. He informed Buell on the 7th that I
would march against Fort Donelson the next day; but on the 10th he
directed me to fortify Fort Henry strongly, particularly to the land
side, saying that he forwarded me intrenching tools for that purpose. I
received this dispatch in front of Fort Donelson.
I was very impatient to get to Fort Donelson because I knew the
importance of the place to the enemy and supposed he would reinforce it
rapidly. I felt that 15,000 men on the 8th would be more effective than
50,000 a month later. I asked Flag-officer Foote, therefore, to order
his gunboats still about Cairo to proceed up the Cumberland River and
not to wait for those gone to Eastport and Florence; but the others got
back in time and we started on the 12th. I had moved McClernand out a
few miles the night before so as to leave the road as free as possible.
Just as we were about to start the first reinforcement reached me on
transports. It was a brigade composed of six full regiments commanded
by Colonel Thayer, of Nebraska. As the gunboats were going around to
Donelson by the Tennessee, Ohio and Cumberland rivers, I directed Thayer
to turn about and go under their convoy.
I started from Fort Henry with 15,000 men, including eight batteries and
part of a regiment of cavalry, and, meeting with no obstruction to
detain us, the advance arrived in front of the enemy by noon. That
afternoon and the next day were spent in taking up ground to make the
investment as complete as possible. General Smith had been directed to
leave a portion of his division behind to guard forts Henry and Heiman.
He left General Lew. Wallace with 2,500 men. With the remainder of his
division he occupied our left, extending to Hickman creek. McClernand
was on the right and covered the roads running south and south-west from
Dover. His right extended to the back-water up the ravine opening into
the Cumberland south of the village. The troops were not intrenched, but
the nature of the ground was such that they were just as well protected
from the fire of the enemy as if rifle-pits had been thrown up. Our
line was generally along the crest of ridges. The artillery was
protected by being sunk in the ground. The men who were not serving the
guns were perfectly covered from fire on taking position a little back
from the crest. The greatest suffering was from want of shelter. It
was midwinter and during the siege we had rain and snow, thawing and
freezing alternately. It would not do to allow camp-fires except far
down the hill out of sight of the enemy, and it would not do to allow
many of the troops to remain there at the same time. In the march over
from Fort Henry numbers of the men had thrown away their blankets and
overcoats. There was therefore much discomfort and absolute suffering.
During the 12th and 13th, and until the arrival of Wallace and Thayer on
the 14th, the National forces, composed of but 15,000 men, without
intrenchments, confronted an intrenched army of 21,000, without conflict
further than what was brought on by ourselves. Only one gunboat had
arrived. There was a little skirmishing each day, brought on by the
movement of our troops in securing commanding positions; but there was
no actual fighting during this time except once, on the 13th, in front
of McClernand's command. That general had undertaken to capture a
battery of the enemy which was annoying his men. Without orders or
authority he sent three regiments to make the assault. The battery was
in the main line of the enemy, which was defended by his whole army
present. Of course the assault was a failure, and of course the loss on
our side was great for the number of men engaged. In this assault
Colonel William Morrison fell badly wounded. Up to this time the
surgeons with the army had no difficulty in finding room in the houses
near our line for all the sick and wounded; but now hospitals were
overcrowded. Owing, however, to the energy and skill of the surgeons the
suffering was not so great as it might have been. The hospital
arrangements at Fort Donelson were as complete as it was possible to
make them, considering the inclemency of the weather and the lack of
tents, in a sparsely settled country where the houses were generally of
but one or two rooms.
On the return of Captain Walke to Fort Henry on the 10th, I had
requested him to take the vessels that had accompanied him on his
expedition up the Tennessee, and get possession of the Cumberland as far
up towards Donelson as possible. He started without delay, taking,
however, only his own gunboat, the Carondelet, towed by the steamer
Alps. Captain Walke arrived a few miles below Donelson on the 12th, a
little after noon. About the time the advance of troops reached a point
within gunshot of the fort on the land side, he engaged the water
batteries at long range. On the 13th I informed him of my arrival the
day before and of the establishment of most of our batteries, requesting
him at the same time to attack again that day so that I might take
advantage of any diversion. The attack was made and many shots fell
within the fort, creating some consternation, as we now know. The
investment on the land side was made as complete as the number of troops
engaged would admit of.
During the night of the 13th Flag-officer Foote arrived with the
iron-clads St. Louis, Louisville and Pittsburg and the wooden gunboats
Tyler and Conestoga, convoying Thayer's brigade. On the morning of the
14th Thayer was landed. Wallace, whom I had ordered over from Fort
Henry, also arrived about the same time. Up to this time he had been
commanding a brigade belonging to the division of General C. F. Smith.
These troops were now restored to the division they belonged to, and
General Lew. Wallace was assigned to the command of a division composed
of the brigade of Colonel Thayer and other reinforcements that arrived
the same day. This new division was assigned to the centre, giving the
two flanking divisions an opportunity to close up and form a stronger
line.
The plan was for the troops to hold the enemy within his lines, while
the gunboats should attack the water batteries at close quarters and
silence his guns if possible. Some of the gunboats were to run the
batteries, get above the fort and above the village of Dover. I had
ordered a reconnoissance made with the view of getting troops to the
river above Dover in case they should be needed there. That position
attained by the gunboats it would have been but a question of time--and
a very short time, too--when the garrison would have been compelled to
surrender.
By three in the afternoon of the 14th Flag-officer Foote was ready, and
advanced upon the water batteries with his entire fleet. After coming
in range of the batteries of the enemy the advance was slow, but a
constant fire was delivered from every gun that could be brought to bear
upon the fort. I occupied a position on shore from which I could see
the advancing navy. The leading boat got within a very short distance of
the water battery, not further off I think than two hundred yards, and I
soon saw one and then another of them dropping down the river, visibly
disabled. Then the whole fleet followed and the engagement closed for
the day. The gunboat which Flag-officer Foote was on, besides having
been hit about sixty times, several of the shots passing through near
the waterline, had a shot enter the pilot-house which killed the pilot,
carried away the wheel and wounded the flag-officer himself. The
tiller-ropes of another vessel were carried away and she, too, dropped
helplessly back. Two others had their pilot-houses so injured that they
scarcely formed a protection to the men at the wheel.
The enemy had evidently been much demoralized by the assault, but they
were jubilant when they saw the disabled vessels dropping down the river
entirely out of the control of the men on board. Of course I only
witnessed the falling back of our gunboats and felt sad enough at the
time over the repulse. Subsequent reports, now published, show that the
enemy telegraphed a great victory to Richmond. The sun went down on the
night of the 14th of February, 1862, leaving the army confronting Fort
Donelson anything but comforted over the prospects. The weather had
turned intensely cold; the men were without tents and could not keep up
fires where most of them had to stay, and, as previously stated, many
had thrown away their overcoats and blankets. Two of the strongest of
our gunboats had been disabled, presumably beyond the possibility of
rendering any present assistance. I retired this night not knowing but
that I would have to intrench my position, and bring up tents for the
men or build huts under the cover of the hills.
On the morning of the 15th, before it was yet broad day, a messenger
from Flag-officer Foote handed me a note, expressing a desire to see me
on the flag-ship and saying that he had been injured the day before so
much that he could not come himself to me. I at once made my
preparations for starting. I directed my adjutant-general to notify
each of the division commanders of my absence and instruct them to do
nothing to bring on an engagement until they received further orders,
but to hold their positions. From the heavy rains that had fallen for
days and weeks preceding and from the constant use of the roads between
the troops and the landing four to seven miles below, these roads had
become cut up so as to be hardly passable. The intense cold of the
night of the 14th-15th had frozen the ground solid. This made travel on
horseback even slower than through the mud; but I went as fast as the
roads would allow.
When I reached the fleet I found the flag-ship was anchored out in the
stream. A small boat, however, awaited my arrival and I was soon on
board with the flag-officer. He explained to me in short the condition
in which he was left by the engagement of the evening before, and
suggested that I should intrench while he returned to Mound City with
his disabled boats, expressing at the time the belief that he could have
the necessary repairs made and be back in ten days. I saw the absolute
necessity of his gunboats going into hospital and did not know but I
should be forced to the alternative of going through a siege. But the
enemy relieved me from this necessity.
When I left the National line to visit Flag-officer Foote I had no idea
that there would be any engagement on land unless I brought it on
myself. The conditions for battle were much more favorable to us than
they had been for the first two days of the investment. From the 12th
to the 14th we had but 15,000 men of all arms and no gunboats. Now we
had been reinforced by a fleet of six naval vessels, a large division of
troops under General L. Wallace and 2,500 men brought over from Fort
Henry belonging to the division of C. F. Smith. The enemy, however, had
taken the initiative. Just as I landed I met Captain Hillyer of my
staff, white with fear, not for his personal safety, but for the safety
of the National troops. He said the enemy had come out of his lines in
full force and attacked and scattered McClernand's division, which was
in full retreat. The roads, as I have said, were unfit for making fast
time, but I got to my command as soon as possible. The attack had been
made on the National right. I was some four or five miles north of our
left. The line was about three miles long. In reaching the point where
the disaster had occurred I had to pass the divisions of Smith and
Wallace. I saw no sign of excitement on the portion of the line held by
Smith; Wallace was nearer the scene of conflict and had taken part in
it. He had, at an opportune time, sent Thayer's brigade to the support
of McClernand and thereby contributed to hold the enemy within his
lines.
I saw everything favorable for us along the line of our left and centre.
When I came to the right appearances were different. The enemy had come
out in full force to cut his way out and make his escape. McClernand's
division had to bear the brunt of the attack from this combined force.
His men had stood up gallantly until the ammunition in their
cartridge-boxes gave out. There was abundance of ammunition near by
lying on the ground in boxes, but at that stage of the war it was not
all of our commanders of regiments, brigades, or even divisions, who had
been educated up to the point of seeing that their men were constantly
supplied with ammunition during an engagement. When the men found
themselves without ammunition they could not stand up against troops who
seemed to have plenty of it. The division broke and a portion fled, but
most of the men, as they were not pursued, only fell back out of range
of the fire of the enemy. It must have been about this time that Thayer
pushed his brigade in between the enemy and those of our troops that
were without ammunition. At all events the enemy fell back within his
intrenchments and was there when I got on the field.
I saw the men standing in knots talking in the most excited manner. No
officer seemed to be giving any directions. The soldiers had their
muskets, but no ammunition, while there were tons of it close at hand.
I heard some of the men say that the enemy had come out with knapsacks,
and haversacks filled with rations. They seemed to think this indicated
a determination on his part to stay out and fight just as long as the
provisions held out. I turned to Colonel J. D. Webster, of my staff,
who was with me, and said: "Some of our men are pretty badly
demoralized, but the enemy must be more so, for he has attempted to
force his way out, but has fallen back: the one who attacks first now
will be victorious and the enemy will have to be in a hurry if he gets
ahead of me." I determined to make the assault at once on our left. It
was clear to my mind that the enemy had started to march out with his
entire force, except a few pickets, and if our attack could be made on
the left before the enemy could redistribute his forces along the line,
we would find but little opposition except from the intervening abatis.
I directed Colonel Webster to ride with me and call out to the men as we
passed: "Fill your cartridge-boxes, quick, and get into line; the enemy
is trying to escape and he must not be permitted to do so." This acted
like a charm. The men only wanted some one to give them a command. We
rode rapidly to Smith's quarters, when I explained the situation to him
and directed him to charge the enemy's works in his front with his whole
division, saying at the same time that he would find nothing but a very
thin line to contend with. The general was off in an incredibly short
time, going in advance himself to keep his men from firing while they
were working their way through the abatis intervening between them and
the enemy. The outer line of rifle-pits was passed, and the night of
the 15th General Smith, with much of his division, bivouacked within the
lines of the enemy. There was now no doubt but that the Confederates
must surrender or be captured the next day.
There seems from subsequent accounts to have been much consternation,
particularly among the officers of high rank, in Dover during the night
of the 15th. General Floyd, the commanding officer, who was a man of
talent enough for any civil position, was no soldier and, possibly, did
not possess the elements of one. He was further unfitted for command,
for the reason that his conscience must have troubled him and made him
afraid. As Secretary of War he had taken a solemn oath to maintain the
Constitution of the United States and to uphold the same against all its
enemies. He had betrayed that trust. As Secretary of War he was
reported through the northern press to have scattered the little army
the country had so that the most of it could be picked up in detail when
secession occurred. About a year before leaving the Cabinet he had
removed arms from northern to southern arsenals. He continued in the
Cabinet of President Buchanan until about the 1st of January, 1861,
while he was working vigilantly for the establishment of a confederacy
made out of United States territory. Well may he have been afraid to
fall into the hands of National troops. He would no doubt have been
tried for misappropriating public property, if not for treason, had he
been captured. General Pillow, next in command, was conceited, and
prided himself much on his services in the Mexican war. He telegraphed
to General Johnston, at Nashville, after our men were within the rebel
rifle-pits, and almost on the eve of his making his escape, that the
Southern troops had had great success all day. Johnston forwarded the
dispatch to Richmond. While the authorities at the capital were reading
it Floyd and Pillow were fugitives.
A council of war was held by the enemy at which all agreed that it would
be impossible to hold out longer. General Buckner, who was third in
rank in the garrison but much the most capable soldier, seems to have
regarded it a duty to hold the fort until the general commanding the
department, A. S. Johnston, should get back to his headquarters at
Nashville. Buckner's report shows, however, that he considered Donelson
lost and that any attempt to hold the place longer would be at the
sacrifice of the command. Being assured that Johnston was already in
Nashville, Buckner too agreed that surrender was the proper thing.
Floyd turned over the command to Pillow, who declined it. It then
devolved upon Buckner, who accepted the responsibility of the position.
Floyd and Pillow took possession of all the river transports at Dover
and before morning both were on their way to Nashville, with the brigade
formerly commanded by Floyd and some other troops, in all about 3,000.
Some marched up the east bank of the Cumberland; others went on the
steamers. During the night Forrest also, with his cavalry and some
other troops about a thousand in all, made their way out, passing
between our right and the river. They had to ford or swim over the
back-water in the little creek just south of Dover.
Before daylight General Smith brought to me the following letter from
General Buckner:
HEADQUARTERS, FORT DONELSON, February 16, 1862.
SIR:--In consideration of all the circumstances governing the present
situation of affairs at this station, I propose to the Commanding
Officer of the Federal forces the appointment of Commissioners to agree
upon terms of capitulation of the forces and fort under my command, and
in that view suggest an armistice until 12 o'clock to-day.
I am, sir, very respectfully, Your ob't se'v't, S. B. BUCKNER, Brig.
Gen. C. S. A.
To Brigadier-General U. S. Grant, Com'ding U. S. Forces, Near Fort
Donelson.
To this I responded as follows:
HEADQUARTERS ARMY IN THE FIELD, Camp near Donelson, February 16, 1862.
General S. B. BUCKNER, Confederate Army.
SIR:--Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of
Commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No
terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.
I propose to move immediately upon your works.
I am, sir, very respectfully, Your ob't se'v't, U. S. GRANT, Brig. Gen.
To this I received the following reply:
HEADQUARTERS, DOVER, TENNESSEE, February 16, 1862.
To Brig. Gen'l U. S. GRANT, U. S. Army.
SIR:--The distribution of the forces under my command, incident to an
unexpected change of commanders, and the overwhelming force under your
command, compel me, notwithstanding the brilliant success of the
Confederate arms yesterday, to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous
terms which you propose.
I am, sir, Your very ob't se'v't, S. B. BUCKNER, Brig. Gen. C. S. A.
General Buckner, as soon as he had dispatched the first of the above
letters, sent word to his different commanders on the line of
rifle-pits, notifying them that he had made a proposition looking to the
surrender of the garrison, and directing them to notify National troops
in their front so that all fighting might be prevented. White flags
were stuck at intervals along the line of rifle-pits, but none over the
fort. As soon as the last letter from Buckner was received I mounted my
horse and rode to Dover. General Wallace, I found, had preceded me an
hour or more. I presume that, seeing white flags exposed in his front,
he rode up to see what they meant and, not being fired upon or halted,
he kept on until he found himself at the headquarters of General
Buckner.
I had been at West Point three years with Buckner and afterwards served
with him in the army, so that we were quite well acquainted. In the
course of our conversation, which was very friendly, he said to me that
if he had been in command I would not have got up to Donelson as easily
as I did. I told him that if he had been in command I should not have
tried in the way I did: I had invested their lines with a smaller force
than they had to defend them, and at the same time had sent a brigade
full 5,000 strong, around by water; I had relied very much upon their
commander to allow me to come safely up to the outside of their works.
I asked General Buckner about what force he had to surrender. He
replied that he could not tell with any degree of accuracy; that all the
sick and weak had been sent to Nashville while we were about Fort Henry;
that Floyd and Pillow had left during the night, taking many men with
them; and that Forrest, and probably others, had also escaped during the
preceding night: the number of casualties he could not tell; but he
said I would not find fewer than 12,000, nor more than 15,000.
He asked permission to send parties outside of the lines to bury his
dead, who had fallen on the 15th when they tried to get out. I gave
directions that his permit to pass our limits should be recognized. I
have no reason to believe that this privilege was abused, but it
familiarized our guards so much with the sight of Confederates passing
to and fro that I have no doubt many got beyond our pickets unobserved
and went on. The most of the men who went in that way no doubt thought
they had had war enough, and left with the intention of remaining out of
the army. Some came to me and asked permission to go, saying that they
were tired of the war and would not be caught in the ranks again, and I
bade them go.
The actual number of Confederates at Fort Donelson can never be given
with entire accuracy. The largest number admitted by any writer on the
Southern side, is by Colonel Preston Johnston. He gives the number at
17,000. But this must be an underestimate. The commissary general of
prisoners reported having issued rations to 14,623 Fort Donelson
prisoners at Cairo, as they passed that point. General Pillow reported
the killed and wounded at 2,000; but he had less opportunity of knowing
the actual numbers than the officers of McClernand's division, for most
of the killed and wounded fell outside their works, in front of that
division, and were buried or cared for by Buckner after the surrender
and when Pillow was a fugitive. It is known that Floyd and Pillow
escaped during the night of the 15th, taking with them not less than
3,000 men. Forrest escaped with about 1,000 and others were leaving
singly and in squads all night. It is probable that the Confederate
force at Donelson, on the 15th of February, 1862, was 21,000 in round
numbers.
On the day Fort Donelson fell I had 27,000 men to confront the
Confederate lines and guard the road four or five miles to the left,
over which all our supplies had to be drawn on wagons. During the 16th,
after the surrender, additional reinforcements arrived.
During the siege General Sherman had been sent to Smithland, at the
mouth of the Cumberland River, to forward reinforcements and supplies to
me. At that time he was my senior in rank and there was no authority of
law to assign a junior to command a senior of the same grade. But every
boat that came up with supplies or reinforcements brought a note of
encouragement from Sherman, asking me to call upon him for any
assistance he could render and saying that if he could be of service at
the front I might send for him and he would waive rank.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PROMOTED MAJOR-GENERAL OF VOLUNTEERS--UNOCCUPIED TERRITORY--ADVANCE UPON
NASHVILLE--SITUATION OF THE TROOPS--CONFEDERATE RETREAT--RELIEVED OF THE
COMMAND--RESTORED TO THE COMMAND--GENERAL SMITH.
The news of the fall of Fort Donelson caused great delight all over the
North. At the South, particularly in Richmond, the effect was
correspondingly depressing. I was promptly promoted to the grade of
Major-General of Volunteers, and confirmed by the Senate. All three of
my division commanders were promoted to the same grade and the colonels
who commanded brigades were made brigadier-generals in the volunteer
service. My chief, who was in St. Louis, telegraphed his
congratulations to General Hunter in Kansas for the services he had
rendered in securing the fall of Fort Donelson by sending reinforcements
so rapidly. To Washington he telegraphed that the victory was due to
General C. F. Smith; "promote him," he said, "and the whole country will
applaud." On the 19th there was published at St. Louis a formal order
thanking Flag-officer Foote and myself, and the forces under our
command, for the victories on the Tennessee and the Cumberland. I
received no other recognition whatever from General Halleck. But
General Cullum, his chief of staff, who was at Cairo, wrote me a warm
congratulatory letter on his own behalf. I approved of General Smith's
promotion highly, as I did all the promotions that were made.
My opinion was and still is that immediately after the fall of Fort
Donelson the way was opened to the National forces all over the
South-west without much resistance. If one general who would have taken
the responsibility had been in command of all the troops west of the
Alleghanies, he could have marched to Chattanooga, Corinth, Memphis and
Vicksburg with the troops we then had, and as volunteering was going on
rapidly over the North there would soon have been force enough at all
these centres to operate offensively against any body of the enemy that
might be found near them. Rapid movements and the acquisition of
rebellious territory would have promoted volunteering, so that
reinforcements could have been had as fast as transportation could have
been obtained to carry them to their destination. On the other hand
there were tens of thousands of strong able-bodied young men still at
their homes in the South-western States, who had not gone into the
Confederate army in February, 1862, and who had no particular desire to
go. If our lines had been extended to protect their homes, many of them
never would have gone. Providence ruled differently. Time was given
the enemy to collect armies and fortify his new positions; and twice
afterwards he came near forcing his north-western front up to the Ohio
River.
I promptly informed the department commander of our success at Fort
Donelson and that the way was open now to Clarksville and Nashville; and
that unless I received orders to the contrary I should take Clarksville
on the 21st and Nashville about the 1st of March. Both these places are
on the Cumberland River above Fort Donelson. As I heard nothing from
headquarters on the subject, General C. F. Smith was sent to Clarksville
at the time designated and found the place evacuated. The capture of
forts Henry and Donelson had broken the line the enemy had taken from
Columbus to Bowling Green, and it was known that he was falling back
from the eastern point of this line and that Buell was following, or at
least advancing. I should have sent troops to Nashville at the time I
sent to Clarksville, but my transportation was limited and there were
many prisoners to be forwarded north.
None of the reinforcements from Buell's army arrived until the 24th of
February. Then General Nelson came up, with orders to report to me with
two brigades, he having sent one brigade to Cairo. I knew General Buell
was advancing on Nashville from the north, and I was advised by scouts
that the rebels were leaving that place, and trying to get out all the
supplies they could. Nashville was, at that time, one of the best
provisioned posts in the South. I had no use for reinforcements now,
and thinking Buell would like to have his troops again, I ordered Nelson
to proceed to Nashville without debarking at Fort Donelson. I sent a
gunboat also as a convoy. The Cumberland River was very high at the
time; the railroad bridge at Nashville had been burned, and all river
craft had been destroyed, or would be before the enemy left. Nashville
is on the west bank of the Cumberland, and Buell was approaching from
the east. I thought the steamers carrying Nelson's division would be
useful in ferrying the balance of Buell's forces across. I ordered
Nelson to put himself in communication with Buell as soon as possible,
and if he found him more than two days off from Nashville to return
below the city and await orders. Buell, however, had already arrived in
person at Edgefield, opposite Nashville, and Mitchell's division of his
command reached there the same day. Nelson immediately took possession
of the city.
After Nelson had gone and before I had learned of Buell's arrival, I
sent word to department headquarters that I should go to Nashville
myself on the 28th if I received no orders to the contrary. Hearing
nothing, I went as I had informed my superior officer I would do. On
arriving at Clarksville I saw a fleet of steamers at the shore--the same
that had taken Nelson's division--and troops going aboard. I landed and
called on the commanding officer, General C. F. Smith. As soon as he
saw me he showed an order he had just received from Buell in these
words:
NASHVILLE, February 25, 1862.
GENERAL C. F. SMITH, Commanding U. S. Forces, Clarksville.
GENERAL:--The landing of a portion of our troops, contrary to my
intentions, on the south side of the river has compelled me to hold this
side at every hazard. If the enemy should assume the offensive, and I
am assured by reliable persons that in view of my position such is his
intention, my force present is altogether inadequate, consisting of only
15,000 men. I have to request you, therefore, to come forward with all
the available force under your command. So important do I consider the
occasion that I think it necessary to give this communication all the
force of orders, and I send four boats, the Diana, Woodford, John Rain,
and Autocrat, to bring you up. In five or six days my force will
probably be sufficient to relieve you.
Very respectfully, your ob't srv't, D. C. BUELL, Brigadier-General
Comd'g.
P. S.--The steamers will leave here at 12 o'clock to-night.
General Smith said this order was nonsense. But I told him it was
better to obey it. The General replied, "of course I must obey," and
said his men were embarking as fast as they could. I went on up to
Nashville and inspected the position taken by Nelson's troops. I did
not see Buell during the day, and wrote him a note saying that I had
been in Nashville since early morning and had hoped to meet him. On my
return to the boat we met. His troops were still east of the river, and
the steamers that had carried Nelson's division up were mostly at
Clarksville to bring Smith's division. I said to General Buell my
information was that the enemy was retreating as fast as possible.
General Buell said there was fighting going on then only ten or twelve
miles away. I said: "Quite probably; Nashville contained valuable
stores of arms, ammunition and provisions, and the enemy is probably
trying to carry away all he can. The fighting is doubtless with the
rear-guard who are trying to protect the trains they are getting away
with." Buell spoke very positively of the danger Nashville was in of an
attack from the enemy. I said, in the absence of positive information,
I believed my information was correct. He responded that he "knew."
"Well," I said, "I do not know; but as I came by Clarksville General
Smith's troops were embarking to join you."
Smith's troops were returned the same day. The enemy were trying to get
away from Nashville and not to return to it.
At this time General Albert Sidney Johnston commanded all the
Confederate troops west of the Alleghany Mountains, with the exception
of those in the extreme south. On the National side the forces
confronting him were divided into, at first three, then four separate
departments. Johnston had greatly the advantage in having supreme
command over all troops that could possibly be brought to bear upon one
point, while the forces similarly situated on the National side, divided
into independent commands, could not be brought into harmonious action
except by orders from Washington.
At the beginning of 1862 Johnston's troops east of the Mississippi
occupied a line extending from Columbus, on his left, to Mill Springs,
on his right. As we have seen, Columbus, both banks of the Tennessee
River, the west bank of the Cumberland and Bowling Green, all were
strongly fortified. Mill Springs was intrenched. The National troops
occupied no territory south of the Ohio, except three small garrisons
along its bank and a force thrown out from Louisville to confront that
at Bowling Green. Johnston's strength was no doubt numerically inferior
to that of the National troops; but this was compensated for by the
advantage of being sole commander of all the Confederate forces at the
West, and of operating in a country where his friends would take care of
his rear without any detail of soldiers. But when General George H.
Thomas moved upon the enemy at Mill Springs and totally routed him,
inflicting a loss of some 300 killed and wounded, and forts Henry and
Heiman fell into the hands of the National forces, with their armaments
and about 100 prisoners, those losses seemed to dishearten the
Confederate commander so much that he immediately commenced a retreat
from Bowling Green on Nashville. He reached this latter place on the
14th of February, while Donelson was still besieged. Buell followed
with a portion of the Army of the Ohio, but he had to march and did not
reach the east bank of the Cumberland opposite Nashville until the 24th
of the month, and then with only one division of his army.
The bridge at Nashville had been destroyed and all boats removed or
disabled, so that a small garrison could have held the place against any
National troops that could have been brought against it within ten days
after the arrival of the force from Bowling Green. Johnston seemed to
lie quietly at Nashville to await the result at Fort Donelson, on which
he had staked the possession of most of the territory embraced in the
States of Kentucky and Tennessee. It is true, the two generals senior
in rank at Fort Donelson were sending him encouraging dispatches, even
claiming great Confederate victories up to the night of the 16th when
they must have been preparing for their individual escape. Johnston made
a fatal mistake in intrusting so important a command to Floyd, who he
must have known was no soldier even if he possessed the elements of one.
Pillow's presence as second was also a mistake. If these officers had
been forced upon him and designated for that particular command, then he
should have left Nashville with a small garrison under a trusty officer,
and with the remainder of his force gone to Donelson himself. If he had
been captured the result could not have been worse than it was.
Johnston's heart failed him upon the first advance of National troops.
He wrote to Richmond on the 8th of February, "I think the gunboats of
the enemy will probably take Fort Donelson without the necessity of
employing their land force in cooperation." After the fall of that
place he abandoned Nashville and Chattanooga without an effort to save
either, and fell back into northern Mississippi, where, six weeks later,
he was destined to end his career.
From the time of leaving Cairo I was singularly unfortunate in not
receiving dispatches from General Halleck. The order of the 10th of
February directing me to fortify Fort Henry strongly, particularly to
the land side, and saying that intrenching tools had been sent for that
purpose, reached me after Donelson was invested. I received nothing
direct which indicated that the department commander knew we were in
possession of Donelson. I was reporting regularly to the chief of
staff, who had been sent to Cairo, soon after the troops left there, to
receive all reports from the front and to telegraph the substance to the
St. Louis headquarters. Cairo was at the southern end of the telegraph
wire. Another line was started at once from Cairo to Paducah and
Smithland, at the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland respectively.
My dispatches were all sent to Cairo by boat, but many of those
addressed to me were sent to the operator at the end of the advancing
wire and he failed to forward them. This operator afterwards proved to
be a rebel; he deserted his post after a short time and went south
taking his dispatches with him. A telegram from General McClellan to me
of February 16th, the day of the surrender, directing me to report in
full the situation, was not received at my headquarters until the 3d of
March.
On the 2d of March I received orders dated March 1st to move my command
back to Fort Henry, leaving only a small garrison at Donelson. From
Fort Henry expeditions were to be sent against Eastport, Mississippi,
and Paris, Tennessee. We started from Donelson on the 4th, and the same
day I was back on the Tennessee River. On March 4th I also received the
following dispatch from General Halleck:
MAJ.-GEN. U. S. GRANT, Fort Henry:
You will place Maj.-Gen. C. F. Smith in command of expedition, and
remain yourself at Fort Henry. Why do you not obey my orders to report
strength and positions of your command?
H. W. HALLECK, Major-General.
I was surprised. This was the first intimation I had received that
General Halleck had called for information as to the strength of my
command. On the 6th he wrote to me again. "Your going to Nashville
without authority, and when your presence with your troops was of the
utmost importance, was a matter of very serious complaint at Washington,
so much so that I was advised to arrest you on your return." This was
the first I knew of his objecting to my going to Nashville. That place
was not beyond the limits of my command, which, it had been expressly
declared in orders, were "not defined." Nashville is west of the
Cumberland River, and I had sent troops that had reported to me for duty
to occupy the place. I turned over the command as directed and then
replied to General Halleck courteously, but asked to be relieved from
further duty under him.
Later I learned that General Halleck had been calling lustily for more
troops, promising that he would do something important if he could only
be sufficiently reinforced. McClellan asked him what force he then had.
Halleck telegraphed me to supply the information so far as my command
was concerned, but I received none of his dispatches. At last Halleck
reported to Washington that he had repeatedly ordered me to give the
strength of my force, but could get nothing out of me; that I had gone
to Nashville, beyond the limits of my command, without his authority,
and that my army was more demoralized by victory than the army at Bull
Run had been by defeat. General McClellan, on this information, ordered
that I should be relieved from duty and that an investigation should be
made into any charges against me. He even authorized my arrest. Thus
in less than two weeks after the victory at Donelson, the two leading
generals in the army were in correspondence as to what disposition
should be made of me, and in less than three weeks I was virtually in
arrest and without a command.
On the 13th of March I was restored to command, and on the 17th Halleck
sent me a copy of an order from the War Department which stated that
accounts of my misbehavior had reached Washington and directed him to
investigate and report the facts. He forwarded also a copy of a
detailed dispatch from himself to Washington entirely exonerating me;
but he did not inform me that it was his own reports that had created
all the trouble. On the contrary, he wrote to me, "Instead of relieving
you, I wish you, as soon as your new army is in the field, to assume
immediate command, and lead it to new victories." In consequence I felt
very grateful to him, and supposed it was his interposition that had set
me right with the government. I never knew the truth until General
Badeau unearthed the facts in his researches for his history of my
campaigns.
General Halleck unquestionably deemed General C. F. Smith a much fitter
officer for the command of all the forces in the military district than
I was, and, to render him available for such command, desired his
promotion to antedate mine and those of the other division commanders.
It is probable that the general opinion was that Smith's long services
in the army and distinguished deeds rendered him the more proper person
for such command. Indeed I was rather inclined to this opinion myself
at that time, and would have served as faithfully under Smith as he had
done under me. But this did not justify the dispatches which General
Halleck sent to Washington, or his subsequent concealment of them from
me when pretending to explain the action of my superiors.
On receipt of the order restoring me to command I proceeded to Savannah
on the Tennessee, to which point my troops had advanced. General Smith
was delighted to see me and was unhesitating in his denunciation of the
treatment I had received. He was on a sick bed at the time, from which
he never came away alive. His death was a severe loss to our western
army. His personal courage was unquestioned, his judgment and
professional acquirements were unsurpassed, and he had the confidence
of those he commanded as well as of those over him.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ARMY AT PITTSBURG LANDING--INJURED BY A FALL--THE CONFEDERATE ATTACK
AT SHILOH--THE FIRST DAY'S FIGHT AT SHILOH--GENERAL SHERMAN--CONDITION
OF THE ARMY--CLOSE OF THE FIRST DAY'S FIGHT--THE SECOND DAY'S FIGHT
--RETREAT AND DEFEAT OF THE CONFEDERATES.
When I reassumed command on the 17th of March I found the army divided,
about half being on the east bank of the Tennessee at Savannah, while
one division was at Crump's landing on the west bank about four miles
higher up, and the remainder at Pittsburg landing, five miles above
Crump's. The enemy was in force at Corinth, the junction of the two
most important railroads in the Mississippi valley--one connecting
Memphis and the Mississippi River with the East, and the other leading
south to all the cotton states. Still another railroad connects Corinth
with Jackson, in west Tennessee. If we obtained possession of Corinth
the enemy would have no railroad for the transportation of armies or
supplies until that running east from Vicksburg was reached. It was the
great strategic position at the West between the Tennessee and the
Mississippi rivers and between Nashville and Vicksburg.
I at once put all the troops at Savannah in motion for Pittsburg
landing, knowing that the enemy was fortifying at Corinth and collecting
an army there under Johnston. It was my expectation to march against
that army as soon as Buell, who had been ordered to reinforce me with
the Army of the Ohio, should arrive; and the west bank of the river was
the place to start from. Pittsburg is only about twenty miles from
Corinth, and Hamburg landing, four miles further up the river, is a mile
or two nearer. I had not been in command long before I selected Hamburg
as the place to put the Army of the Ohio when it arrived. The roads
from Pittsburg and Hamburg to Corinth converge some eight miles out.
This disposition of the troops would have given additional roads to
march over when the advance commenced, within supporting distance of
each other.
Before I arrived at Savannah, Sherman, who had joined the Army of the
Tennessee and been placed in command of a division, had made an
expedition on steamers convoyed by gunboats to the neighborhood of
Eastport, thirty miles south, for the purpose of destroying the railroad
east of Corinth. The rains had been so heavy for some time before that
the low-lands had become impassable swamps. Sherman debarked his troops
and started out to accomplish the object of the expedition; but the
river was rising so rapidly that the back-water up the small tributaries
threatened to cut off the possibility of getting back to the boats, and
the expedition had to return without reaching the railroad. The guns
had to be hauled by hand through the water to get back to the boats.
On the 17th of March the army on the Tennessee River consisted of five
divisions, commanded respectively by Generals C. F. Smith, McClernand,
L. Wallace, Hurlbut and Sherman. General W. H. L. Wallace was
temporarily in command of Smith's division, General Smith, as I have
said, being confined to his bed. Reinforcements were arriving daily and
as they came up they were organized, first into brigades, then into a
division, and the command given to General Prentiss, who had been
ordered to report to me. General Buell was on his way from Nashville
with 40,000 veterans. On the 19th of March he was at Columbia,
Tennessee, eighty-five miles from Pittsburg. When all reinforcements
should have arrived I expected to take the initiative by marching on
Corinth, and had no expectation of needing fortifications, though this
subject was taken into consideration. McPherson, my only military
engineer, was directed to lay out a line to intrench. He did so, but
reported that it would have to be made in rear of the line of encampment
as it then ran. The new line, while it would be nearer the river, was
yet too far away from the Tennessee, or even from the creeks, to be
easily supplied with water, and in case of attack these creeks would be
in the hands of the enemy. The fact is, I regarded the campaign we were
engaged in as an offensive one and had no idea that the enemy would
leave strong intrenchments to take the initiative when he knew he would
be attacked where he was if he remained. This view, however, did not
prevent every precaution being taken and every effort made to keep
advised of all movements of the enemy.
Johnston's cavalry meanwhile had been well out towards our front, and
occasional encounters occurred between it and our outposts. On the 1st
of April this cavalry became bold and approached our lines, showing that
an advance of some kind was contemplated. On the 2d Johnston left
Corinth in force to attack my army. On the 4th his cavalry dashed down
and captured a small picket guard of six or seven men, stationed some
five miles out from Pittsburg on the Corinth road. Colonel Buckland
sent relief to the guard at once and soon followed in person with an
entire regiment, and General Sherman followed Buckland taking the
remainder of a brigade. The pursuit was kept up for some three miles
beyond the point where the picket guard had been captured, and after
nightfall Sherman returned to camp and reported to me by letter what had
occurred.
At this time a large body of the enemy was hovering to the west of us,
along the line of the Mobile and Ohio railroad. My apprehension was
much greater for the safety of Crump's landing than it was for
Pittsburg. I had no apprehension that the enemy could really capture
either place. But I feared it was possible that he might make a rapid
dash upon Crump's and destroy our transports and stores, most of which
were kept at that point, and then retreat before Wallace could be
reinforced. Lew. Wallace's position I regarded as so well chosen that
he was not removed.
At this time I generally spent the day at Pittsburg and returned to
Savannah in the evening. I was intending to remove my headquarters to
Pittsburg, but Buell was expected daily and would come in at Savannah.
I remained at this point, therefore, a few days longer than I otherwise
should have done, in order to meet him on his arrival. The skirmishing
in our front, however, had been so continuous from about the 3d of April
that I did not leave Pittsburg each night until an hour when I felt
there would be no further danger before the morning.
On Friday the 4th, the day of Buckland's advance, I was very much
injured by my horse falling with me, and on me, while I was trying to
get to the front where firing had been heard. The night was one of
impenetrable darkness, with rain pouring down in torrents; nothing was
visible to the eye except as revealed by the frequent flashes of
lightning. Under these circumstances I had to trust to the horse,
without guidance, to keep the road. I had not gone far, however, when I
met General W. H. L. Wallace and Colonel (afterwards General) McPherson
coming from the direction of the front. They said all was quiet so far
as the enemy was concerned. On the way back to the boat my horse's feet
slipped from under him, and he fell with my leg under his body. The
extreme softness of the ground, from the excessive rains of the few
preceding days, no doubt saved me from a severe injury and protracted
lameness. As it was, my ankle was very much injured, so much so that my
boot had to be cut off. For two or three days after I was unable to
walk except with crutches.
On the 5th General Nelson, with a division of Buell's army, arrived at
Savannah and I ordered him to move up the east bank of the river, to be
in a position where he could be ferried over to Crump's landing or
Pittsburg as occasion required. I had learned that General Buell
himself would be at Savannah the next day, and desired to meet me on his
arrival. Affairs at Pittsburg landing had been such for several days
that I did not want to be away during the day. I determined, therefore,
to take a very early breakfast and ride out to meet Buell, and thus save
time. He had arrived on the evening of the 5th, but had not advised me
of the fact and I was not aware of it until some time after. While I
was at breakfast, however, heavy firing was heard in the direction of
Pittsburg landing, and I hastened there, sending a hurried note to Buell
informing him of the reason why I could not meet him at Savannah. On
the way up the river I directed the dispatch-boat to run in close to
Crump's landing, so that I could communicate with General Lew. Wallace.
I found him waiting on a boat apparently expecting to see me, and I
directed him to get his troops in line ready to execute any orders he
might receive. He replied that his troops were already under arms and
prepared to move.
Up to that time I had felt by no means certain that Crump's landing
might not be the point of attack. On reaching the front, however, about
eight A.M., I found that the attack on Pittsburg was unmistakable, and
that nothing more than a small guard, to protect our transports and
stores, was needed at Crump's. Captain Baxter, a quartermaster on my
staff, was accordingly directed to go back and order General Wallace to
march immediately to Pittsburg by the road nearest the river. Captain
Baxter made a memorandum of this order. About one P.M., not hearing
from Wallace and being much in need of reinforcements, I sent two more
of my staff, Colonel McPherson and Captain Rowley, to bring him up with
his division. They reported finding him marching towards Purdy, Bethel,
or some point west from the river, and farther from Pittsburg by several
miles than when he started. The road from his first position to
Pittsburg landing was direct and near the river. Between the two points
a bridge had been built across Snake Creek by our troops, at which
Wallace's command had assisted, expressly to enable the troops at the
two places to support each other in case of need. Wallace did not
arrive in time to take part in the first day's fight. General Wallace
has since claimed that the order delivered to him by Captain Baxter was
simply to join the right of the army, and that the road over which he
marched would have taken him to the road from Pittsburg to Purdy where
it crosses Owl Creek on the right of Sherman; but this is not where I
had ordered him nor where I wanted him to go.
I never could see and do not now see why any order was necessary further
than to direct him to come to Pittsburg landing, without specifying by
what route. His was one of three veteran divisions that had been in
battle, and its absence was severely felt. Later in the war General
Wallace would not have made the mistake that he committed on the 6th of
April, 1862. I presume his idea was that by taking the route he did he
would be able to come around on the flank or rear of the enemy, and thus
perform an act of heroism that would redound to the credit of his
command, as well as to the benefit of his country.
Some two or three miles from Pittsburg landing was a log meeting-house
called Shiloh. It stood on the ridge which divides the waters of Snake
and Lick creeks, the former emptying into the Tennessee just north of
Pittsburg landing, and the latter south. This point was the key to our
position and was held by Sherman. His division was at that time wholly
raw, no part of it ever having been in an engagement; but I thought this
deficiency was more than made up by the superiority of the commander.
McClernand was on Sherman's left, with troops that had been engaged at
forts Henry and Donelson and were therefore veterans so far as western
troops had become such at that stage of the war. Next to McClernand
came Prentiss with a raw division, and on the extreme left, Stuart with
one brigade of Sherman's division. Hurlbut was in rear of Prentiss,
massed, and in reserve at the time of the onset. The division of
General C. F. Smith was on the right, also in reserve. General Smith
was still sick in bed at Savannah, but within hearing of our guns. His
services would no doubt have been of inestimable value had his health
permitted his presence. The command of his division devolved upon
Brigadier-General W. H. L. Wallace, a most estimable and able officer; a
veteran too, for he had served a year in the Mexican war and had been
with his command at Henry and Donelson. Wallace was mortally wounded in
the first day's engagement, and with the change of commanders thus
necessarily effected in the heat of battle the efficiency of his
division was much weakened.
The position of our troops made a continuous line from Lick Creek on the
left to Owl Creek, a branch of Snake Creek, on the right, facing nearly
south and possibly a little west. The water in all these streams was
very high at the time and contributed to protect our flanks. The enemy
was compelled, therefore, to attack directly in front. This he did with
great vigor, inflicting heavy losses on the National side, but suffering
much heavier on his own.
The Confederate assaults were made with such a disregard of losses on
their own side that our line of tents soon fell into their hands. The
ground on which the battle was fought was undulating, heavily timbered
with scattered clearings, the woods giving some protection to the troops
on both sides. There was also considerable underbrush. A number of
attempts were made by the enemy to turn our right flank, where Sherman
was posted, but every effort was repulsed with heavy loss. But the
front attack was kept up so vigorously that, to prevent the success of
these attempts to get on our flanks, the National troops were compelled,
several times, to take positions to the rear nearer Pittsburg landing.
When the firing ceased at night the National line was all of a mile in
rear of the position it had occupied in the morning.
In one of the backward moves, on the 6th, the division commanded by
General Prentiss did not fall back with the others. This left his
flanks exposed and enabled the enemy to capture him with about 2,200 of
his officers and men. General Badeau gives four o'clock of the 6th as
about the time this capture took place. He may be right as to the time,
but my recollection is that the hour was later. General Prentiss
himself gave the hour as half-past five. I was with him, as I was with
each of the division commanders that day, several times, and my
recollection is that the last time I was with him was about half-past
four, when his division was standing up firmly and the General was as
cool as if expecting victory. But no matter whether it was four or
later, the story that he and his command were surprised and captured in
their camps is without any foundation whatever. If it had been true, as
currently reported at the time and yet believed by thousands of people,
that Prentiss and his division had been captured in their beds, there
would not have been an all-day struggle, with the loss of thousands
killed and wounded on the Confederate side.
With the single exception of a few minutes after the capture of
Prentiss, a continuous and unbroken line was maintained all day from
Snake Creek or its tributaries on the right to Lick Creek or the
Tennessee on the left above Pittsburg.
There was no hour during the day when there was not heavy firing and
generally hard fighting at some point on the line, but seldom at all
points at the same time. It was a case of Southern dash against
Northern pluck and endurance. Three of the five divisions engaged on
Sunday were entirely raw, and many of the men had only received their
arms on the way from their States to the field. Many of them had
arrived but a day or two before and were hardly able to load their
muskets according to the manual. Their officers were equally ignorant
of their duties. Under these circumstances it is not astonishing that
many of the regiments broke at the first fire. In two cases, as I now
remember, colonels led their regiments from the field on first hearing
the whistle of the enemy's bullets. In these cases the colonels were
constitutional cowards, unfit for any military position; but not so the
officers and men led out of danger by them. Better troops never went
upon a battle-field than many of these, officers and men, afterwards
proved themselves to be, who fled panic stricken at the first whistle of
bullets and shell at Shiloh.
During the whole of Sunday I was continuously engaged in passing from
one part of the field to another, giving directions to division
commanders. In thus moving along the line, however, I never deemed it
important to stay long with Sherman. Although his troops were then
under fire for the first time, their commander, by his constant presence
with them, inspired a confidence in officers and men that enabled them
to render services on that bloody battle-field worthy of the best of
veterans. McClernand was next to Sherman, and the hardest fighting was
in front of these two divisions. McClernand told me on that day, the
6th, that he profited much by having so able a commander supporting him.
A casualty to Sherman that would have taken him from the field that day
would have been a sad one for the troops engaged at Shiloh. And how
near we came to this! On the 6th Sherman was shot twice, once in the
hand, once in the shoulder, the ball cutting his coat and making a
slight wound, and a third ball passed through his hat. In addition to
this he had several horses shot during the day.
The nature of this battle was such that cavalry could not be used in
front; I therefore formed ours into line in rear, to stop stragglers--of
whom there were many. When there would be enough of them to make a
show, and after they had recovered from their fright, they would be sent
to reinforce some part of the line which needed support, without regard
to their companies, regiments or brigades.
On one occasion during the day I rode back as far as the river and met
General Buell, who had just arrived; I do not remember the hour, but at
that time there probably were as many as four or five thousand
stragglers lying under cover of the river bluff, panic-stricken, most of
whom would have been shot where they lay, without resistance, before
they would have taken muskets and marched to the front to protect
themselves. This meeting between General Buell and myself was on the
dispatch-boat used to run between the landing and Savannah. It was
brief, and related specially to his getting his troops over the river.
As we left the boat together, Buell's attention was attracted by the men
lying under cover of the river bank. I saw him berating them and trying
to shame them into joining their regiments. He even threatened them
with shells from the gunboats near by. But it was all to no effect.
Most of these men afterward proved themselves as gallant as any of those
who saved the battle from which they had deserted. I have no doubt that
this sight impressed General Buell with the idea that a line of retreat
would be a good thing just then. If he had come in by the front instead
of through the stragglers in the rear, he would have thought and felt
differently. Could he have come through the Confederate rear, he would
have witnessed there a scene similar to that at our own. The distant
rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place from which to
judge correctly what is going on in front. Later in the war, while
occupying the country between the Tennessee and the Mississippi, I
learned that the panic in the Confederate lines had not differed much
from that within our own. Some of the country people estimated the
stragglers from Johnston's army as high as 20,000. Of course this was
an exaggeration.
The situation at the close of Sunday was as follows: along the top of
the bluff just south of the log-house which stood at Pittsburg landing,
Colonel J. D. Webster, of my staff, had arranged twenty or more pieces
of artillery facing south or up the river. This line of artillery was
on the crest of a hill overlooking a deep ravine opening into the
Tennessee. Hurlbut with his division intact was on the right of this
artillery, extending west and possibly a little north. McClernand came
next in the general line, looking more to the west. His division was
complete in its organization and ready for any duty. Sherman came next,
his right extending to Snake Creek. His command, like the other two, was
complete in its organization and ready, like its chief, for any service
it might be called upon to render. All three divisions were, as a
matter of course, more or less shattered and depleted in numbers from
the terrible battle of the day. The division of W. H. L. Wallace, as
much from the disorder arising from changes of division and brigade
commanders, under heavy fire, as from any other cause, had lost its
organization and did not occupy a place in the line as a division.
Prentiss' command was gone as a division, many of its members having
been killed, wounded or captured, but it had rendered valiant services
before its final dispersal, and had contributed a good share to the
defence of Shiloh.
The right of my line rested near the bank of Snake Creek, a short
distance above the bridge which had been built by the troops for the
purpose of connecting Crump's landing and Pittsburg landing. Sherman
had posted some troops in a log-house and out-buildings which overlooked
both the bridge over which Wallace was expected and the creek above that
point. In this last position Sherman was frequently attacked before
night, but held the point until he voluntarily abandoned it to advance
in order to make room for Lew. Wallace, who came up after dark.
There was, as I have said, a deep ravine in front of our left. The
Tennessee River was very high and there was water to a considerable
depth in the ravine. Here the enemy made a last desperate effort to
turn our flank, but was repelled. The gunboats Tyler and Lexington,
Gwin and Shirk commanding, with the artillery under Webster, aided the
army and effectually checked their further progress. Before any of
Buell's troops had reached the west bank of the Tennessee, firing had
almost entirely ceased; anything like an attempt on the part of the
enemy to advance had absolutely ceased. There was some artillery firing
from an unseen enemy, some of his shells passing beyond us; but I do not
remember that there was the whistle of a single musket-ball heard. As
his troops arrived in the dusk General Buell marched several of his
regiments part way down the face of the hill where they fired briskly
for some minutes, but I do not think a single man engaged in this firing
received an injury. The attack had spent its force.
General Lew. Wallace, with 5,000 effective men, arrived after firing had
ceased for the day, and was placed on the right. Thus night came,
Wallace came, and the advance of Nelson's division came; but none
--unless night--in time to be of material service to the gallant men who
saved Shiloh on that first day against large odds. Buell's loss on the
6th of April was two men killed and one wounded, all members of the 36th
Indiana infantry. The Army of the Tennessee lost on that day at least
7,000 men. The presence of two or three regiments of Buell's army on
the west bank before firing ceased had not the slightest effect in
preventing the capture of Pittsburg landing.
So confident was I before firing had ceased on the 6th that the next day
would bring victory to our arms if we could only take the initiative,
that I visited each division commander in person before any
reinforcements had reached the field. I directed them to throw out
heavy lines of skirmishers in the morning as soon as they could see, and
push them forward until they found the enemy, following with their
entire divisions in supporting distance, and to engage the enemy as soon
as found. To Sherman I told the story of the assault at Fort Donelson,
and said that the same tactics would win at Shiloh. Victory was assured
when Wallace arrived, even if there had been no other support. I was
glad, however, to see the reinforcements of Buell and credit them with
doing all there was for them to do.
During the night of the 6th the remainder of Nelson's division, Buell's
army crossed the river and were ready to advance in the morning, forming
the left wing. Two other divisions, Crittenden's and McCook's, came up
the river from Savannah in the transports and were on the west bank
early on the 7th. Buell commanded them in person. My command was thus
nearly doubled in numbers and efficiency.
During the night rain fell in torrents and our troops were exposed to
the storm without shelter. I made my headquarters under a tree a few
hundred yards back from the river bank. My ankle was so much swollen
from the fall of my horse the Friday night preceding, and the bruise was
so painful, that I could get no rest.
The drenching rain would have precluded the possibility of sleep without
this additional cause. Some time after midnight, growing restive under
the storm and the continuous pain, I moved back to the log-house under
the bank. This had been taken as a hospital, and all night wounded men
were being brought in, their wounds dressed, a leg or an arm amputated
as the case might require, and everything being done to save life or
alleviate suffering. The sight was more unendurable than encountering
the enemy's fire, and I returned to my tree in the rain.
The advance on the morning of the 7th developed the enemy in the camps
occupied by our troops before the battle began, more than a mile back
from the most advanced position of the Confederates on the day before.
It is known now that they had not yet learned of the arrival of Buell's
command. Possibly they fell back so far to get the shelter of our tents
during the rain, and also to get away from the shells that were dropped
upon them by the gunboats every fifteen minutes during the night.
The position of the Union troops on the morning of the 7th was as
follows: General Lew. Wallace on the right; Sherman on his left; then
McClernand and then Hurlbut. Nelson, of Buell's army, was on our
extreme left, next to the river.
Crittenden was next in line after Nelson and on his right, McCook
followed and formed the extreme right of Buell's command. My old
command thus formed the right wing, while the troops directly under
Buell constituted the left wing of the army. These relative positions
were retained during the entire day, or until the enemy was driven from
the field.
In a very short time the battle became general all along the line. This
day everything was favorable to the Union side. We had now become the
attacking party. The enemy was driven back all day, as we had been the
day before, until finally he beat a precipitate retreat. The last point
held by him was near the road leading from the landing to Corinth, on
the left of Sherman and right of McClernand. About three o'clock, being
near that point and seeing that the enemy was giving way everywhere
else, I gathered up a couple of regiments, or parts of regiments, from
troops near by, formed them in line of battle and marched them forward,
going in front myself to prevent premature or long-range firing. At
this point there was a clearing between us and the enemy favorable for
charging, although exposed. I knew the enemy were ready to break and
only wanted a little encouragement from us to go quickly and join their
friends who had started earlier. After marching to within musket-range
I stopped and let the troops pass. The command, CHARGE, was given, and
was executed with loud cheers and with a run; when the last of the enemy
broke. (*7)
CHAPTER XXV.
STRUCK BY A BULLET--PRECIPITATE RETREAT OF THE CONFEDERATES
--INTRENCHMENTS AT SHILOH--GENERAL BUELL--GENERAL JOHNSTON--REMARKS ON
SHILOH.
During this second day of the battle I had been moving from right to
left and back, to see for myself the progress made. In the early part
of the afternoon, while riding with Colonel McPherson and Major Hawkins,
then my chief commissary, we got beyond the left of our troops. We were
moving along the northern edge of a clearing, very leisurely, toward the
river above the landing. There did not appear to be an enemy to our
right, until suddenly a battery with musketry opened upon us from the
edge of the woods on the other side of the clearing. The shells and
balls whistled about our ears very fast for about a minute. I do not
think it took us longer than that to get out of range and out of sight.
In the sudden start we made, Major Hawkins lost his hat. He did not
stop to pick it up. When we arrived at a perfectly safe position we
halted to take an account of damages. McPherson's horse was panting as
if ready to drop. On examination it was found that a ball had struck
him forward of the flank just back of the saddle, and had gone entirely
through. In a few minutes the poor beast dropped dead; he had given no
sign of injury until we came to a stop. A ball had struck the metal
scabbard of my sword, just below the hilt, and broken it nearly off;
before the battle was over it had broken off entirely. There were
three of us: one had lost a horse, killed; one a hat and one a
sword-scabbard. All were thankful that it was no worse.
After the rain of the night before and the frequent and heavy rains for
some days previous, the roads were almost impassable. The enemy
carrying his artillery and supply trains over them in his retreat, made
them still worse for troops following. I wanted to pursue, but had not
the heart to order the men who had fought desperately for two days,
lying in the mud and rain whenever not fighting, and I did (*8) not feel
disposed to positively order Buell, or any part of his command, to
pursue. Although the senior in rank at the time I had been so only a
few weeks. Buell was, and had been for some time past, a department
commander, while I commanded only a district. I did not meet Buell in
person until too late to get troops ready and pursue with effect; but
had I seen him at the moment of the last charge I should have at least
requested him to follow.
I rode forward several miles the day after the battle, and found that
the enemy had dropped much, if not all, of their provisions, some
ammunition and the extra wheels of their caissons, lightening their
loads to enable them to get off their guns. About five miles out we
found their field hospital abandoned. An immediate pursuit must have
resulted in the capture of a considerable number of prisoners and
probably some guns.
Shiloh was the severest battle fought at the West during the war, and
but few in the East equalled it for hard, determined fighting. I saw an
open field, in our possession on the second day, over which the
Confederates had made repeated charges the day before, so covered with
dead that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing, in
any direction, stepping on dead bodies, without a foot touching the
ground. On our side National and Confederate troops were mingled
together in about equal proportions; but on the remainder of the field
nearly all were Confederates. On one part, which had evidently not been
ploughed for several years, probably because the land was poor, bushes
had grown up, some to the height of eight or ten feet. There was not one
of these left standing unpierced by bullets. The smaller ones were all
cut down.
Contrary to all my experience up to that time, and to the experience of
the army I was then commanding, we were on the defensive. We were
without intrenchments or defensive advantages of any sort, and more than
half the army engaged the first day was without experience or even drill
as soldiers. The officers with them, except the division commanders and
possibly two or three of the brigade commanders, were equally
inexperienced in war. The result was a Union victory that gave the men
who achieved it great confidence in themselves ever after.
The enemy fought bravely, but they had started out to defeat and destroy
an army and capture a position. They failed in both, with very heavy
loss in killed and wounded, and must have gone back discouraged and
convinced that the "Yankee" was not an enemy to be despised.
After the battle I gave verbal instructions to division commanders to
let the regiments send out parties to bury their own dead, and to detail
parties, under commissioned officers from each division, to bury the
Confederate dead in their respective fronts and to report the numbers so
buried. The latter part of these instructions was not carried out by
all; but they were by those sent from Sherman's division, and by some of
the parties sent out by McClernand. The heaviest loss sustained by the
enemy was in front of these two divisions.
The criticism has often been made that the Union troops should have been
intrenched at Shiloh. Up to that time the pick and spade had been but
little resorted to at the West. I had, however, taken this subject
under consideration soon after re-assuming command in the field, and, as
already stated, my only military engineer reported unfavorably. Besides
this, the troops with me, officers and men, needed discipline and drill
more than they did experience with the pick, shovel and axe.
Reinforcements were arriving almost daily, composed of troops that had
been hastily thrown together into companies and regiments--fragments of
incomplete organizations, the men and officers strangers to each other.
Under all these circumstances I concluded that drill and discipline were
worth more to our men than fortifications.
General Buell was a brave, intelligent officer, with as much
professional pride and ambition of a commendable sort as I ever knew. I
had been two years at West Point with him, and had served with him
afterwards, in garrison and in the Mexican war, several years more. He
was not given in early life or in mature years to forming intimate
acquaintances. He was studious by habit, and commanded the confidence
and respect of all who knew him. He was a strict disciplinarian, and
perhaps did not distinguish sufficiently between the volunteer who
"enlisted for the war" and the soldier who serves in time of peace. One
system embraced men who risked life for a principle, and often men of
social standing, competence, or wealth and independence of character.
The other includes, as a rule, only men who could not do as well in any
other occupation. General Buell became an object of harsh criticism
later, some going so far as to challenge his loyalty. No one who knew
him ever believed him capable of a dishonorable act, and nothing could
be more dishonorable than to accept high rank and command in war and
then betray the trust. When I came into command of the army in 1864, I
requested the Secretary of War to restore General Buell to duty.
After the war, during the summer of 1865, I travelled considerably
through the North, and was everywhere met by large numbers of people.
Every one had his opinion about the manner in which the war had been
conducted: who among the generals had failed, how, and why.
Correspondents of the press were ever on hand to hear every word
dropped, and were not always disposed to report correctly what did not
confirm their preconceived notions, either about the conduct of the war
or the individuals concerned in it. The opportunity frequently occurred
for me to defend General Buell against what I believed to be most unjust
charges. On one occasion a correspondent put in my mouth the very
charge I had so often refuted--of disloyalty. This brought from General
Buell a very severe retort, which I saw in the New York World some time
before I received the letter itself. I could very well understand his
grievance at seeing untrue and disgraceful charges apparently sustained
by an officer who, at the time, was at the head of the army. I replied
to him, but not through the press. I kept no copy of my letter, nor did
I ever see it in print; neither did I receive an answer.
General Albert Sidney Johnston, who commanded the Confederate forces at
the beginning of the battle, was disabled by a wound on the afternoon of
the first day. This wound, as I understood afterwards, was not
necessarily fatal, or even dangerous. But he was a man who would not
abandon what he deemed an important trust in the face of danger and
consequently continued in the saddle, commanding, until so exhausted by
the loss of blood that he had to be taken from his horse, and soon after
died. The news was not long in reaching our side and I suppose was
quite an encouragement to the National soldiers.
I had known Johnston slightly in the Mexican war and later as an officer
in the regular army. He was a man of high character and ability. His
contemporaries at West Point, and officers generally who came to know
him personally later and who remained on our side, expected him to prove
the most formidable man to meet that the Confederacy would produce.
I once wrote that nothing occurred in his brief command of an army to
prove or disprove the high estimate that had been placed upon his
military ability; but after studying the orders and dispatches of
Johnston I am compelled to materially modify my views of that officer's
qualifications as a soldier. My judgment now is that he was vacillating
and undecided in his actions.
All the disasters in Kentucky and Tennessee were so discouraging to the
authorities in Richmond that Jefferson Davis wrote an unofficial letter
to Johnston expressing his own anxiety and that of the public, and
saying that he had made such defence as was dictated by long friendship,
but that in the absence of a report he needed facts. The letter was not
a reprimand in direct terms, but it was evidently as much felt as though
it had been one. General Johnston raised another army as rapidly as he
could, and fortified or strongly intrenched at Corinth. He knew the
National troops were preparing to attack him in his chosen position.
But he had evidently become so disturbed at the results of his
operations that he resolved to strike out in an offensive campaign which
would restore all that was lost, and if successful accomplish still
more. We have the authority of his son and biographer for saying that
his plan was to attack the forces at Shiloh and crush them; then to
cross the Tennessee and destroy the army of Buell, and push the war
across the Ohio River. The design was a bold one; but we have the same
authority for saying that in the execution Johnston showed vacillation
and indecision. He left Corinth on the 2d of April and was not ready to
attack until the 6th. The distance his army had to march was less than
twenty miles. Beauregard, his second in command, was opposed to the
attack for two reasons: first, he thought, if let alone the National
troops would attack the Confederates in their intrenchments; second, we
were in ground of our own choosing and would necessarily be intrenched.
Johnston not only listened to the objection of Beauregard to an attack,
but held a council of war on the subject on the morning of the 5th. On
the evening of the same day he was in consultation with some of his
generals on the same subject, and still again on the morning of the 6th.
During this last consultation, and before a decision had been reached,
the battle began by the National troops opening fire on the enemy. This
seemed to settle the question as to whether there was to be any battle
of Shiloh. It also seems to me to settle the question as to whether
there was a surprise.
I do not question the personal courage of General Johnston, or his
ability. But he did not win the distinction predicted for him by many
of his friends. He did prove that as a general he was over-estimated.
General Beauregard was next in rank to Johnston and succeeded to the
command, which he retained to the close of the battle and during the
subsequent retreat on Corinth, as well as in the siege of that place.
His tactics have been severely criticised by Confederate writers, but I
do not believe his fallen chief could have done any better under the
circumstances. Some of these critics claim that Shiloh was won when
Johnston fell, and that if he had not fallen the army under me would
have been annihilated or captured. IFS defeated the Confederates at
Shiloh. There is little doubt that we would have been disgracefully
beaten IF all the shells and bullets fired by us had passed harmlessly
over the enemy and IF all of theirs had taken effect. Commanding
generals are liable to be killed during engagements; and the fact that
when he was shot Johnston was leading a brigade to induce it to make a
charge which had been repeatedly ordered, is evidence that there was
neither the universal demoralization on our side nor the unbounded
confidence on theirs which has been claimed. There was, in fact, no
hour during the day when I doubted the eventual defeat of the enemy,
although I was disappointed that reinforcements so near at hand did not
arrive at an earlier hour.
The description of the battle of Shiloh given by Colonel Wm. Preston
Johnston is very graphic and well told. The reader will imagine that he
can see each blow struck, a demoralized and broken mob of Union
soldiers, each blow sending the enemy more demoralized than ever towards
the Tennessee River, which was a little more than two miles away at the
beginning of the onset. If the reader does not stop to inquire why, with
such Confederate success for more than twelve hours of hard fighting,
the National troops were not all killed, captured or driven into the
river, he will regard the pen picture as perfect. But I witnessed the
fight from the National side from eight o'clock in the morning until
night closed the contest. I see but little in the description that I
can recognize. The Confederate troops fought well and deserve
commendation enough for their bravery and endurance on the 6th of April,
without detracting from their antagonists or claiming anything more than
their just dues.
The reports of the enemy show that their condition at the end of the
first day was deplorable; their losses in killed and wounded had been
very heavy, and their stragglers had been quite as numerous as on the
National side, with the difference that those of the enemy left the
field entirely and were not brought back to their respective commands
for many days. On the Union side but few of the stragglers fell back
further than the landing on the river, and many of these were in line
for duty on the second day. The admissions of the highest Confederate
officers engaged at Shiloh make the claim of a victory for them absurd.
The victory was not to either party until the battle was over. It was
then a Union victory, in which the Armies of the Tennessee and the Ohio
both participated. But the Army of the Tennessee fought the entire
rebel army on the 6th and held it at bay until near night; and night
alone closed the conflict and not the three regiments of Nelson's
division.
The Confederates fought with courage at Shiloh, but the particular skill
claimed I could not and still cannot see; though there is nothing to
criticise except the claims put forward for it since. But the
Confederate claimants for superiority in strategy, superiority in
generalship and superiority in dash and prowess are not so unjust to the
Union troops engaged at Shiloh as are many Northern writers. The troops
on both sides were American, and united they need not fear any foreign
foe. It is possible that the Southern man started in with a little more
dash than his Northern brother; but he was correspondingly less
enduring.
The endeavor of the enemy on the first day was simply to hurl their men
against ours--first at one point, then at another, sometimes at several
points at once. This they did with daring and energy, until at night
the rebel troops were worn out. Our effort during the same time was to
be prepared to resist assaults wherever made. The object of the
Confederates on the second day was to get away with as much of their
army and material as possible. Ours then was to drive them from our
front, and to capture or destroy as great a part as possible of their
men and material. We were successful in driving them back, but not so
successful in captures as if farther pursuit could have been made. As
it was, we captured or recaptured on the second day about as much
artillery as we lost on the first; and, leaving out the one great
capture of Prentiss, we took more prisoners on Monday than the enemy
gained from us on Sunday. On the 6th Sherman lost seven pieces of
artillery, McClernand six, Prentiss eight, and Hurlbut two batteries.
On the 7th Sherman captured seven guns, McClernand three and the Army of
the Ohio twenty.
At Shiloh the effective strength of the Union forces on the morning of
the 6th was 33,000 men. Lew. Wallace brought 5,000 more after
nightfall. Beauregard reported the enemy's strength at 40,955.
According to the custom of enumeration in the South, this number
probably excluded every man enlisted as musician or detailed as guard or
nurse, and all commissioned officers--everybody who did not carry a
musket or serve a cannon. With us everybody in the field receiving pay
from the government is counted. Excluding the troops who fled,
panic-stricken, before they had fired a shot, there was not a time
during the 6th when we had more than 25,000 men in line. On the 7th
Buell brought 20,000 more. Of his remaining two divisions, Thomas's did
not reach the field during the engagement; Wood's arrived before firing
had ceased, but not in time to be of much service.
Our loss in the two days' fight was 1,754 killed, 8,408 wounded and
2,885 missing. Of these, 2,103 were in the Army of the Ohio.
Beauregard reported a total loss of 10,699, of whom 1,728 were killed,
8,012 wounded and 957 missing. This estimate must be incorrect. We
buried, by actual count, more of the enemy's dead in front of the
divisions of McClernand and Sherman alone than here reported, and 4,000
was the estimate of the burial parties of the whole field. Beauregard
reports the Confederate force on the 6th at over 40,000, and their total
loss during the two days at 10,699; and at the same time declares that
he could put only 20,000 men in battle on the morning of the 7th.
The navy gave a hearty support to the army at Shiloh, as indeed it
always did both before and subsequently when I was in command. The
nature of the ground was such, however, that on this occasion it could
do nothing in aid of the troops until sundown on the first day. The
country was broken and heavily timbered, cutting off all view of the
battle from the river, so that friends would be as much in danger from
fire from the gunboats as the foe. But about sundown, when the National
troops were back in their last position, the right of the enemy was near
the river and exposed to the fire of the two gun-boats, which was
delivered with vigor and effect. After nightfall, when firing had
entirely ceased on land, the commander of the fleet informed himself,
approximately, of the position of our troops and suggested the idea of
dropping a shell within the lines of the enemy every fifteen minutes
during the night. This was done with effect, as is proved by the
Confederate reports.
Up to the battle of Shiloh I, as well as thousands of other citizens,
believed that the rebellion against the Government would collapse
suddenly and soon, if a decisive victory could be gained over any of its
armies. Donelson and Henry were such victories. An army of more than
21,000 men was captured or destroyed. Bowling Green, Columbus and
Hickman, Kentucky, fell in consequence, and Clarksville and Nashville,
Tennessee, the last two with an immense amount of stores, also fell into
our hands. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, from their mouths to
the head of navigation, were secured. But when Confederate armies were
collected which not only attempted to hold a line farther south, from
Memphis to Chattanooga, Knoxville and on to the Atlantic, but assumed
the offensive and made such a gallant effort to regain what had been
lost, then, indeed, I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by
complete conquest. Up to that time it had been the policy of our army,
certainly of that portion commanded by me, to protect the property of
the citizens whose territory was invaded, without regard to their
sentiments, whether Union or Secession. After this, however, I regarded
it as humane to both sides to protect the persons of those found at
their homes, but to consume everything that could be used to support or
supply armies. Protection was still continued over such supplies as
were within lines held by us and which we expected to continue to hold;
but such supplies within the reach of Confederate armies I regarded as
much contraband as arms or ordnance stores. Their destruction was
accomplished without bloodshed and tended to the same result as the
destruction of armies. I continued this policy to the close of the war.
Promiscuous pillaging, however, was discouraged and punished.
Instructions were always given to take provisions and forage under the
direction of commissioned officers who should give receipts to owners,
if at home, and turn the property over to officers of the quartermaster
or commissary departments to be issued as if furnished from our Northern
depots. But much was destroyed without receipts to owners, when it
could not be brought within our lines and would otherwise have gone to
the support of secession and rebellion.
This policy I believe exercised a material influence in hastening the
end.
The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg landing, has been perhaps less
understood, or, to state the case more accurately, more persistently
misunderstood, than any other engagement between National and
Confederate troops during the entire rebellion. Correct reports of the
battle have been published, notably by Sherman, Badeau and, in a speech
before a meeting of veterans, by General Prentiss; but all of these
appeared long subsequent to the close of the rebellion and after public
opinion had been most erroneously formed.
I myself made no report to General Halleck, further than was contained
in a letter, written immediately after the battle informing him that an
engagement had been fought and announcing the result. A few days
afterwards General Halleck moved his headquarters to Pittsburg landing
and assumed command of the troops in the field. Although next to him in
rank, and nominally in command of my old district and army, I was
ignored as much as if I had been at the most distant point of territory
within my jurisdiction; and although I was in command of all the troops
engaged at Shiloh I was not permitted to see one of the reports of
General Buell or his subordinates in that battle, until they were
published by the War Department long after the event. For this reason I
never made a full official report of this engagement.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HALLECK ASSUMES COMMAND IN THE FIELD--THE ADVANCE UPON CORINTH
--OCCUPATION OF CORINTH--THE ARMY SEPARATED.
General Halleck arrived at Pittsburg landing on the 11th of April and
immediately assumed command in the field. On the 21st General Pope
arrived with an army 30,000 strong, fresh from the capture of Island
Number Ten in the Mississippi River. He went into camp at Hamburg
landing five miles above Pittsburg. Halleck had now three armies: the
Army of the Ohio, Buell commanding; the Army of the Mississippi, Pope
commanding; and the Army of the Tennessee. His orders divided the
combined force into the right wing, reserve, centre and left wing.
Major-General George H. Thomas, who had been in Buell's army, was
transferred with his division to the Army of the Tennessee and given
command of the right wing, composed of all of that army except
McClernand's and Lew. Wallace's divisions. McClernand was assigned to
the command of the reserve, composed of his own and Lew. Wallace's
divisions. Buell commanded the centre, the Army of the Ohio; and Pope
the left wing, the Army of the Mississippi. I was named second in
command of the whole, and was also supposed to be in command of the
right wing and reserve.
Orders were given to all the commanders engaged at Shiloh to send in
their reports without delay to department headquarters. Those from
officers of the Army of the Tennessee were sent through me; but from the
Army of the Ohio they were sent by General Buell without passing through
my hands. General Halleck ordered me, verbally, to send in my report,
but I positively declined on the ground that he had received the reports
of a part of the army engaged at Shiloh without their coming through me.
He admitted that my refusal was justifiable under the circumstances, but
explained that he had wanted to get the reports off before moving the
command, and as fast as a report had come to him he had forwarded it to
Washington.
Preparations were at once made upon the arrival of the new commander for
an advance on Corinth. Owl Creek, on our right, was bridged, and
expeditions were sent to the north-west and west to ascertain if our
position was being threatened from those quarters; the roads towards
Corinth were corduroyed and new ones made; lateral roads were also
constructed, so that in case of necessity troops marching by different
routes could reinforce each other. All commanders were cautioned
against bringing on an engagement and informed in so many words that it
would be better to retreat than to fight. By the 30th of April all
preparations were complete; the country west to the Mobile and Ohio
railroad had been reconnoitred, as well as the road to Corinth as far as
Monterey twelve miles from Pittsburg. Everywhere small bodies of the
enemy had been encountered, but they were observers and not in force to
fight battles.
Corinth, Mississippi, lies in a south-westerly direction from Pittsburg
landing and about nineteen miles away as the bird would fly, but
probably twenty-two by the nearest wagon-road. It is about four miles
south of the line dividing the States of Tennessee and Mississippi, and
at the junction of the Mississippi and Chattanooga railroad with the
Mobile and Ohio road which runs from Columbus to Mobile. From Pittsburg
to Corinth the land is rolling, but at no point reaching an elevation
that makes high hills to pass over. In 1862 the greater part of the
country was covered with forest with intervening clearings and houses.
Underbrush was dense in the low grounds along the creeks and ravines,
but generally not so thick on the high land as to prevent men passing
through with ease. There are two small creeks running from north of the
town and connecting some four miles south, where they form Bridge Creek
which empties into the Tuscumbia River. Corinth is on the ridge between
these streams and is a naturally strong defensive position. The creeks
are insignificant in volume of water, but the stream to the east widens
out in front of the town into a swamp impassable in the presence of an
enemy. On the crest of the west bank of this stream the enemy was
strongly intrenched.
Corinth was a valuable strategic point for the enemy to hold, and
consequently a valuable one for us to possess ourselves of. We ought to
have seized it immediately after the fall of Donelson and Nashville,
when it could have been taken without a battle, but failing then it
should have been taken, without delay on the concentration of troops at
Pittsburg landing after the battle of Shiloh. In fact the arrival of
Pope should not have been awaited. There was no time from the battle of
Shiloh up to the evacuation of Corinth when the enemy would not have
left if pushed. The demoralization among the Confederates from their
defeats at Henry and Donelson; their long marches from Bowling Green,
Columbus, and Nashville, and their failure at Shiloh; in fact from
having been driven out of Kentucky and Tennessee, was so great that a
stand for the time would have been impossible. Beauregard made
strenuous efforts to reinforce himself and partially succeeded. He
appealed to the people of the South-west for new regiments, and received
a few. A. S. Johnston had made efforts to reinforce in the same
quarter, before the battle of Shiloh, but in a different way. He had
negroes sent out to him to take the place of teamsters, company cooks
and laborers in every capacity, so as to put all his white men into the
ranks. The people, while willing to send their sons to the field, were
not willing to part with their negroes. It is only fair to state that
they probably wanted their blacks to raise supplies for the army and for
the families left at home.
Beauregard, however, was reinforced by Van Dorn immediately after Shiloh
with 17,000 men. Interior points, less exposed, were also depleted to
add to the strength at Corinth. With these reinforcements and the new
regiments, Beauregard had, during the month of May, 1862, a large force
on paper, but probably not much over 50,000 effective men. We estimated
his strength at 70,000. Our own was, in round numbers, 120,000. The
defensible nature of the ground at Corinth, and the fortifications, made
50,000 then enough to maintain their position against double that number
for an indefinite time but for the demoralization spoken of.
On the 30th of April the grand army commenced its advance from Shiloh
upon Corinth. The movement was a siege from the start to the close.
The National troops were always behind intrenchments, except of course
the small reconnoitring parties sent to the front to clear the way for
an advance. Even the commanders of these parties were cautioned, "not
to bring on an engagement." "It is better to retreat than to fight."
The enemy were constantly watching our advance, but as they were simply
observers there were but few engagements that even threatened to become
battles. All the engagements fought ought to have served to encourage
the enemy. Roads were again made in our front, and again corduroyed; a
line was intrenched, and the troops were advanced to the new position.
Cross roads were constructed to these new positions to enable the troops
to concentrate in case of attack. The National armies were thoroughly
intrenched all the way from the Tennessee River to Corinth.
For myself I was little more than an observer. Orders were sent direct
to the right wing or reserve, ignoring me, and advances were made from
one line of intrenchments to another without notifying me. My position
was so embarrassing in fact that I made several applications during the
siege to be relieved.
General Halleck kept his headquarters generally, if not all the time,
with the right wing. Pope being on the extreme left did not see so much
of his chief, and consequently got loose as it were at times. On the 3d
of May he was at Seven Mile Creek with the main body of his command, but
threw forward a division to Farmington, within four miles of Corinth.
His troops had quite a little engagement at Farmington on that day, but
carried the place with considerable loss to the enemy. There would then
have been no difficulty in advancing the centre and right so as to form
a new line well up to the enemy, but Pope was ordered back to conform
with the general line. On the 8th of May he moved again, taking his
whole force to Farmington, and pushed out two divisions close to the
rebel line. Again he was ordered back. By the 4th of May the centre
and right wing reached Monterey, twelve miles out. Their advance was
slow from there, for they intrenched with every forward movement. The
left wing moved up again on the 25th of May and intrenched itself close
to the enemy. The creek with the marsh before described, separated the
two lines. Skirmishers thirty feet apart could have maintained either
line at this point.
Our centre and right were, at this time, extended so that the right of
the right wing was probably five miles from Corinth and four from the
works in their front. The creek, which was a formidable obstacle for
either side to pass on our left, became a very slight obstacle on our
right. Here the enemy occupied two positions. One of them, as much as
two miles out from his main line, was on a commanding elevation and
defended by an intrenched battery with infantry supports. A heavy wood
intervened between this work and the National forces. In rear to the
south there was a clearing extending a mile or more, and south of this
clearing a log-house which had been loop-holed and was occupied by
infantry. Sherman's division carried these two positions with some loss
to himself, but with probably greater to the enemy, on the 28th of May,
and on that day the investment of Corinth was complete, or as complete
as it was ever made. Thomas' right now rested west of the Mobile and
Ohio railroad. Pope's left commanded the Memphis and Charleston railroad
east of Corinth.
Some days before I had suggested to the commanding general that I
thought if he would move the Army of the Mississippi at night, by the
rear of the centre and right, ready to advance at daylight, Pope would
find no natural obstacle in his front and, I believed, no serious
artificial one. The ground, or works, occupied by our left could be
held by a thin picket line, owing to the stream and swamp in front. To
the right the troops would have a dry ridge to march over. I was
silenced so quickly that I felt that possibly I had suggested an
unmilitary movement.
Later, probably on the 28th of May, General Logan, whose command was
then on the Mobile and Ohio railroad, said to me that the enemy had been
evacuating for several days and that if allowed he could go into Corinth
with his brigade. Trains of cars were heard coming in and going out of
Corinth constantly. Some of the men who had been engaged in various
capacities on railroads before the war claimed that they could tell, by
putting their ears to the rail, not only which way the trains were
moving but which trains were loaded and which were empty. They said
loaded trains had been going out for several days and empty ones coming
in. Subsequent events proved the correctness of their judgment.
Beauregard published his orders for the evacuation of Corinth on the
26th of May and fixed the 29th for the departure of his troops, and on
the 30th of May General Halleck had his whole army drawn up prepared for
battle and announced in orders that there was every indication that our
left was to be attacked that morning. Corinth had already been
evacuated and the National troops marched on and took possession without
opposition. Everything had been destroyed or carried away. The
Confederate commander had instructed his soldiers to cheer on the
arrival of every train to create the impression among the Yankees that
reinforcements were arriving. There was not a sick or wounded man left
by the Confederates, nor stores of any kind. Some ammunition had been
blown up--not removed--but the trophies of war were a few Quaker guns,
logs of about the diameter of ordinary cannon, mounted on wheels of
wagons and pointed in the most threatening manner towards us.
The possession of Corinth by the National troops was of strategic
importance, but the victory was barren in every other particular. It
was nearly bloodless. It is a question whether the MORALE of the
Confederate troops engaged at Corinth was not improved by the immunity
with which they were permitted to remove all public property and then
withdraw themselves. On our side I know officers and men of the Army of
the Tennessee--and I presume the same is true of those of the other
commands--were disappointed at the result. They could not see how the
mere occupation of places was to close the war while large and effective
rebel armies existed. They believed that a well-directed attack would
at least have partially destroyed the army defending Corinth. For
myself I am satisfied that Corinth could have been captured in a two
days' campaign commenced promptly on the arrival of reinforcements after
the battle of Shiloh.
General Halleck at once commenced erecting fortifications around Corinth
on a scale to indicate that this one point must be held if it took the
whole National army to do it. All commanding points two or three miles
to the south, south-east and south-west were strongly fortified. It was
expected in case of necessity to connect these forts by rifle-pits.
They were laid out on a scale that would have required 100,000 men to
fully man them. It was probably thought that a final battle of the war
would be fought at that point. These fortifications were never used.
Immediately after the occupation of Corinth by the National troops,
General Pope was sent in pursuit of the retreating garrison and General
Buell soon followed. Buell was the senior of the two generals and
commanded the entire column. The pursuit was kept up for some thirty
miles, but did not result in the capture of any material of war or
prisoners, unless a few stragglers who had fallen behind and were
willing captives. On the 10th of June the pursuing column was all back
at Corinth. The Army of the Tennessee was not engaged in any of these
movements.
The Confederates were now driven out of West Tennessee, and on the 6th
of June, after a well-contested naval battle, the National forces took
possession of Memphis and held the Mississippi river from its source to
that point. The railroad from Columbus to Corinth was at once put in
good condition and held by us. We had garrisons at Donelson,
Clarksville and Nashville, on the Cumberland River, and held the
Tennessee River from its mouth to Eastport. New Orleans and Baton Rouge
had fallen into the possession of the National forces, so that now the
Confederates at the west were narrowed down for all communication with
Richmond to the single line of road running east from Vicksburg. To
dispossess them of this, therefore, became a matter of the first
importance. The possession of the Mississippi by us from Memphis to
Baton Rouge was also a most important object. It would be equal to the
amputation of a limb in its weakening effects upon the enemy.
After the capture of Corinth a movable force of 80,000 men, besides
enough to hold all the territory acquired, could have been set in motion
for the accomplishment of any great campaign for the suppression of the
rebellion. In addition to this fresh troops were being raised to swell
the effective force. But the work of depletion commenced. Buell with
the Army of the Ohio was sent east, following the line of the Memphis
and Charleston railroad. This he was ordered to repair as he advanced
--only to have it destroyed by small guerilla bands or other troops as
soon as he was out of the way. If he had been sent directly to
Chattanooga as rapidly as he could march, leaving two or three divisions
along the line of the railroad from Nashville forward, he could have
arrived with but little fighting, and would have saved much of the loss
of life which was afterwards incurred in gaining Chattanooga. Bragg
would then not have had time to raise an army to contest the possession
of middle and east Tennessee and Kentucky; the battles of Stone River
and Chickamauga would not necessarily have been fought; Burnside would
not have been besieged in Knoxville without the power of helping himself
or escaping; the battle of Chattanooga would not have been fought.
These are the negative advantages, if the term negative is applicable,
which would probably have resulted from prompt movements after Corinth
fell into the possession of the National forces. The positive results
might have been: a bloodless advance to Atlanta, to Vicksburg, or to
any other desired point south of Corinth in the interior of Mississippi.
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