Gornell University Library
Dthara, New York

 

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

HENRY W. SAGE

1891
‘oiiiiinn
 

 

CIVIL WAR TIMES

1861-1865

BY

DANIEL WAIT HOWE

Author of The Puritan Repnblic

‘« The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sate by his fire and talk’d the night away,
Wept o’er his wounds or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder’d his crutch and show’d how fields were won.”’
—Goldsmith.

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

 

 
CopyricHT 1902

Tue Bowen-MerRILL ComPaNny
TO
THE SOLDIERS
FEDERAL AND CONFEDERATE
OF THE CIVIL WAR
THIS VOLUME IS
INSCRIBED
PREFACE

In an address to the New England Society of New
York, Oliver Wendell Holmes said: ‘The story of
the Pilgrims may be told for a thousand anniversaries
and the next year it will be fresh again.” So it is
with the story of the Civil War. Notwithstanding
the passing years, it retains all its interest, especially
for those who bore arms on either side. The surviving
veterans never tire of telling the story or of hearing it
told, and its fascination is such as to lend a charm to
even the most unpretentious narrative of the conflict in
which they took part.

Macaulay said that he intended to write a history of
England that would make the lady in her drawing-
room lay down the latest novel and take up his book,
and he accomplished his purpose. The time has not
yet come; nor has the historian appeared, for writing
a history of the Civil War. No man now living can
write it with the impartiality that should characterize
the historian, and no historian could now write such
a history without rekindling the embers of passion and
prejudice still smoldering beneath the ashes of the
_ conflict that once glowed with such fierce heat.

When the time comes for writing the history of the

(v)
vi PREFACE

Civil War -the historian will find a wealth of materials
from which to construct a history far more fascinating
than Macaulay’s and infinitely more interesting than
the distorted history conveyed in diluted doses through
the pages of so-called historical novels. It will be suf-
ficient honor for the author of a volume like this if
he has contributed even a little to the history that is
to be written.

The general scope of this volume is indicated by
the table of contents and a very full index. The state-
ments in the text are supported by a liberal citation of
authorities, a table of which precedes the general index.
The military operations described are chiefly those of
the Army of the Cumberland, and in describing them
I have avoided, as far as possible, the use of technical
military. terms not generally understood by civilians.
In the appendix will be found tables showing the
organization of that army during the most important
battles and campaigns in which it participated.

I claim no credit for discovering such facts relating
to the Civil War as any one may find by an industrious
examination of official records and histories open to
all. Nor do I pretend to knowledge of facts, outside
the official records, such as officers of high rank and
those intimately associated with them may have ac-
quired. The highest rank I attained was that of cap-
tain, and my associates in the army were chiefly among
the line officers and enlisted men. My relations to
these, however, were stich as gave me greater famil-
iarity than that generally possessed by officers of
PREFACE Vil

higher rank with the daily life and thoughts of a pri-
vate soldier and with his views of military life and
events. Moreover, the knowledge that I acquired of
the battles and campaigns in which I participated,
limited as were my means of knowing anything about
them at the time beyond what I saw and heard, has
given me clearer ideas of many matters in connection
with them than I could have acquired by any amount of
reading. I fully realize, however, that I am quite as
liable as others to make mistakes in attempting to
record personal observations of events that occurred
so long ago, and I claim such indulgence on this ac-
count as I would freely accord to those whose recollec-
tion of the same events may not coincide with mine.

The political conditions and the military movements
of the Civil War period were intimately connected,
and the questions growing out of them have given rise
to great diversity of opinion—some of them to acri-
monious controversy. A colorless narrative of that
period, ignoring these questions, would be of little
value or interest. On the other hand, a mere partisan
discussion of them would be equally unprofitable and
uninteresting. Therefore, when expressing my opin-
ion on any of these controverted questions, I have done
so without reserve, endeavoring, however, to write as
fairly and impartially as is possible for one who took
an active part in either war or politics during the Civil
War times, and who has intelligence enough to ripen
into a conviction.

We wish to forget the animosities of the Civil War
Vili PREFACE

period, but not the heroism of those who bore arms
on either side of the bloody conflict. That is now the
common inheritance of all Americans. The soldiers,
Federal and Confederate, to whom I have inscribed
this volume, first learned on the field of battle to re-
spect their adversaries. No eulogy can do justice to
those of either side which ignores the heroic achieve-
ments of those who fought against them. I trust that
the soldiers of the South who may chance to see this
book will read it with the same generous feelings that
inspired a soldier of the North in writing it.

In the preparation of this volume I have been great-
ly aided by General Henry V. Boynton, Colonel Wil-
liam F. Fox, Colonel Thomas L. Livermore, and Mr.
Jacob Piatt Dunn of the Indianapolis Sentinel, and
especially by Mr. Charles R. Williams of the Indian-
apolis News} who has already placed me under great
obligatiorts by assisting me in preparing The Puritan
Republic. All these well-known writers hold decided
views that probably do not coincide throughout with
mine, and, therefore, I deem it justice to exonerate
them from any responsibility for my own conclusions.
My daughter, Lucy Howe, has helped me very much
in revising the manuscript for publication.

DanieL Watt Howe.

Indianapolis, Ind., October, 1902.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Pace

The Three Months’ Picnic, I-14
CHAPTER II

Further Development of the Great Conflict, 15-55
CHAPTER III

Camp, March and Battle, 56-96

CHAPTER IV

Seeing Real War; the March from Louisville to Nashville, 97-105

CHAPTER V

The Battle of Stone’s River, 106-122
CHAPTER VI

Six Months in Camp at Murfreesboro, 123-155

CHAPTER VII

The Chattanooga Campaign and the Battle of Chicka-
mauga, 156-209

(ix)
x CONTENTS

CHAPTER VIII
‘The Siege and the Battles of Chattanooga,

CHAPTER IX
The East Tennessee Campaign,

CHAPTER X
Negro Soldiers in the Civil War,

CHAPTER XI
The Atlanta Campaign,

CHAPTER XII
Hood’s Invasion of Tennessee,

CHAPTER XIII
The End of me Unimportant Military Career,

CHAPTER XIV

The Story Told by the Statistics,

CHAPTER XV

Revisiting Chattanooga and Chickamauga,

Appendix,
Index to Citations,
General Index,

PAGE
210-241

242-267

268-282

283-304

305-329

330-334

335-355

350-367

369-390
391-303
395-421
CIVIL WAR TIMES

CHAPTER ONE
THE THREE MONTHS’ PICNIC

I come of a family always loyal to country. One of
my ancestors, Colonel Thomas Howe, of Marlborough,
Mass., was prominent in King Philip’s War; two oth-
ers, Captain Eliakim Howe and his son Otis were in
the New Hampshire militia in the Revolutionary War,
and my grandfather, Captain Nathan Howe, served in
a New York regiment in the War of 1812. When the
Mexican War broke out my father was dead and I,
his only child, was about five years old.

From the time it was known that Lincoln had been
elected President, the nation was in a ferment of ex-
citement. The papers were full of rumors of the seces-
sion of the southern states and of the warlike prepara-
tions already begun. Among the citizens of Indiana
were many whose ancestors had come from Kentucky,
Virginia, and other southern states, and who were
bitterly hostile to Lincoln. Nor was there entire
unanimity among those who had supported him as to
the proper course to be pursued in the event of the

(1)
2 CIVIL WAR TIMES

secession of the southern states, and many, influenced
by the early opinions of Horace Greeley, were in favor
of letting them go in peace. A great many others
thought that the talk of war was but the vainglorious
boasting of southern fire-eaters. Few suspected. that
such a bloody contest as that which followed was so
near at hand.

In the early months of 1861 I was in Indianapolis
attending a course of law lectures given to a small
class by Judge Samuel E. Perkins, then one of the
judges of the Indiana Supreme Court. It was during
this time that Lincoln passed through that city on
his way to Washington to be inaugurated. A great
crowd assembled and listened to him as he spoke from
the balcony of the Bates House. I remember, as if it
were yesterday, his tall, lank form towering above
those about him while he delivered his brief address.
It was but little more than four years until the funeral
train passed through the city bearing his body back to
his old home.

After the conclusion of the lecture course, I returned
to my home in Franklin, the county seat of Johnson
county, and I had been there only a few days when the
whole country was startled, as if by the shock of an
earthquake at midnight, by the news of the firing on
Fort Sumter. This was followed at once by the procla-
mation of the President calling for 75,000 volunteers.
Those who do not remember the situation can form
some idea of it from the contemporaneous accounts in
the newspapers. Lincoln had received a majority of
THREE MONTHS’ PICNIC 3

the electoral, but not of the popular, vote, and would
not have been elected at all but-for the split between
the Breckinridge and Douglas wings of the Democ-
racy. If the bombardment of Fort Sumter “fired the
southern heart,” it- fired the northern heart as well.
There was at once a shifting of position and a new
alignment of political parties. There were few left
among the Republicans of the North who advocated
letting the southern states go their way. Conspicuous
among the great papers that helped to mold public
opinion in the North was Harper's Weekly, which had
not favored the election of Lincoln. Its issue of April
27, 1861, contained President Lincoln’s proclamation
and an editorial in which it said:

“War is declared. President Lincoln’s proclama-
tion, which we publish above, is an absolute proclama-
tion of war against the Gulf states. The die is now
cast, and men must take their sidés, and hold to them.
No one who knows anything of the southern people
supposes for a moment that, having gone so far as to
bombard a United States fort and capture it, they
will now succumb without a fight. No one who has
seen the recent manifestations of popular sentiment
in the North can doubt that the northern blood is up,
and that they will listen no more to talk of compro-
mise, truce, or treaty, until they are fairly beaten.

“Let us then forbear puling, and look the situation
in the face. There are some among us still who whine
about the evils of civil war. These are they who, with
a burglar in their house, his hand on the throat of
their wife or daughter, would quote texts on the love-
liness of Christian forbearance and charity. Nobody
4 CIVIL WAR TIMES

—outside of lunatic asylums—doubts that civil war is
an enormous calamity. On this point all are agreed.
But as it has actually begun, and exists, what is the
use of deprecating it? What should we think of a doc-
tor who, summoned to visit a half-dying patient,
should wring his hands hopelessly and bewail the ma-
lignancy of disease?”

Its next issue of May 4, 1861, contained another
editorial in which it said:

“Tt is not now a question of slavery or anti-slavery.
It is not even a question of Union or disunion. The
question simply is whether northern men will fight.
Southerners have rebelled and dragged our flag in the
dirt, in the belief that, because we won’t fight duels or
engage in street brawls, therefore we are cowards.
The question now is whether or no they are right.”

These utterances exactly sounded the keynote of
northern sentiment. No paper was more loyal to the
Federal government or more zealous for a vigorous
prosecution of the war, and its able editorials and the
striking illustrations of Thomas Nast exercised a pow-
erful influence in shaping northern sentiment.

At the outbreak of the war the attitude of Kentucky
was uncertain. The sympathies of the governor,
Beriah Magoffin, were wholly with the seceding states,
and to President Lincoln’s call for troops he had an-
swered that “Kentucky will furnish no troops for the
wicked purpose of subduing her sister southern states.”
It was Magoffin’s purpose to force Kentucky to secede,
THREE MONTHS’ PICNIC 5

or, failing in that, to assume the position of “armed
neutrality.” The farce planned by Magoffin was not
successful in the land of Henry Clay and soon ran its.
course, but, while it lasted, Indiana was practically a
border state. It was fortunate for the state and for
the Union cause that at this time there was in the office
of governor a man of unquestioned loyalty, of tre-
mendous energy, and of indomitable will. In the four
years that followed, the name of Oliver P. Morton
became a household word throughout the United
States. No governor in any northern state met with
more bitter opposition; none worked for the success
of the Union cause with more untiring energy, or
looked after the welfare of the soldiers of his own
state with more watchful and careful solicitude.
Morton was then in the prime of vigorous manhood
—a man of far-seeing sagacity, of great endurance, of
dauntless courage; a man who could have taken Crom-
well’s place in England, and who needed all of Crom-
well’s force of character to fill the place of governor
of Indiana. Clearly foreseeing from the beginning
the magnitude of the Rebellion and the tremendous
efforts that must be made to suppress it, he often
chafed under what he thought to be the puny and tardy
measures of the Federal government. When the Fed-
eral authorities were too slow in supplying arms for
the Indiana troops, he bought them on his own respon-
sibility. When the government became short of am-
munition, he established at Indianapolis an arsenal for
its manufacture, soon having 600 men employed,
6 CIVIL WAR TIMES

and ammunition enough for the Indiana troops and
some to spare to the government. When the legisla-
ture in 1863 adjourned, after refusing to make any
appropriation to carry on the state government, he
borrowed money sufficient for two years without clos-
ing a single state institution and without stopping the
organization of a single regiment.

The President’s proclamation calling for 75,000 vol-
unteers was issued April 15 and six three-months’
regiments with 4,683 men were required of the state
of Indiana. Within a week 12,000 men had responded
—twice as many as could then be armed. The four
three-year regiments required under the President’s
call of May 3 were raised at once, and ten more besides
in advance of the call in July, and before January 1,
1862, Indiana had 60,000 troops in the field.

The Morgan raid found Indiana almost destitute of
armed soldiers, but within twenty-four hours after
Morgan had touched her borders 15,000 men were has-
tening to Indianapolis; and before two days had
passed Morton had 30,000 assembled to repel the in-
vaders.

No orator ever lived in Indiana whose speeches had
such weight as those of Morton. He never attempted
to be funny; he never indulged in the “‘spread-eagle”
style of oratory; he never resorted to the tricks prac-
tised by the modern professional “‘spell-binder.” But
under his sledge-hammer logic all opposition went
down as the gates of Torquilstone went down under
the blows of Richard the Lion-hearted. Probably no
THREE MONTHS’ PICNIC 7

one speech ever delivered in America left such a deep
impress upon the public mind as Morton’s Masonic
Hall speech in 1866. I once heard a prominent Dem-
ocrat say that this one speech determined the election
in the state for that year. No Republican could add
strength to it; no Democrat could answer it.

Morton’s care for the Indiana troops in the field
was proverbial throughout all the armies. Surgeons
and nurses were sent by him to every battle-field.
Often he went himself to give his personal attention to
the care of the wounded. His strong hand was the
chief support of the Indiana Sanitary Commission,
whose special business it was to care for the sick and
wounded soldiers in the hospitals. No regiment passed
through Indianapolis, either going to or returning
from the front, that did not enjoy the fruits of his
provident hospitality. His kind and sympathetic feel-
ing for his suffering fellow men was not limited to
soldiers of the Union armies. It extended to the Con-
federate prisoners confined at Indianapolis, and no-
where in the North were they more humanely treated.

His vigilance was marvelous. Nothing escaped his
keen watchfulness. Not a plot against the government
was concocted in Indiana that he did not ferret out;
hardly a meeting of the Knights of the Golden Circle
or Sons of Liberty was held of whose proceedings he
did not know. On one occasion a prominent citizen
of Indianapolis called on him to assure him that the
reports of an alleged treasonable meeting held the
night before were exaggerated, and that he, the visitor,
8 CIVIL WAR TIMES

would certainly have heard of the proceedings if they
were such as had been reported; whereupon Morton
almost paralyzed him by at once pulling out of a
pigeon-hole a stenographic account of the proceedings,
including a full report of the visitor’s own treasonable
speech.

He was omnipresent; now buried in the details of
the work of carrying on the state government, or pre-
paring troops for the field; now going about the state
making speeches and infusing into the people some of
his own enthusiasm; now visiting battle-fields and
camps at the front—wherever he was most needed dur-
ing the war he was always to be found. It was chiefly
to his untiring efforts that Indiana enjoys the distinc-
tion of having furnished to the Federal armies over
seventy-four per cent. of the entire fighting population
of the state. No obstacles stopped him; his tremen-
dous energy overcame them all; no disasters dismayed
him—they only strengthened his courage and inspired
him with renewed determination. He will live in his-
tory as the greatest war governor of his time.

Morton’s response to the President’s proclamation
was instantaneous, and the call to arms was heard in
every town and village in Indiana. At once old party
affiliations were broken and the question no longer
was whether a man were-a Republican or a Democrat,
but whether he stood for or against the Union. A
great meeting was called at Franklin, patriotic ad-
dresses were made, and preparations were at once
begun to enlist a company of volunteers. I was then
THREE MONTHS’ PICNIC 9

living at home with my mother and my stepfather,
Samuel P. Oyler. There were only three of us. It
was felt that either my stepfather or I should enlist;
my mother would not decide between us, so we both
enlisted.

The quota of the company was filled almost as fast
as the men could write their names. We did not wait
for uniforms, but were all rigged out in red shirts.
The loyal ladies of the town presented us with a beau-
tiful silk banner and we were ready to march. My
stepfather was elected captain and I was elected pri-
vate, a rank which I retained throughout the three-
months’ service. Another little fellow and I, being
the two smallest men in the company, were assigned
‘to the position of rear guard—which I think we filled
with due regard to the responsibility and the honor
attached to it. The fashion was then to dignify each
local company with some distinctive appellation indi-
cating the warlike character of its members, and I have
an indistinct recollection that we were known as “The
Franklin Tigers.”

When the day arrived for us to take the train to
‘Indianapolis, our company was marshaled in the pub-
lic square, and, preceded by fife and drum, we marched
through the streets to the railroad station. It was a
great day for the staid old town. All the people were
out, and thousands gathered from the country round-
about. In the crowds that thronged the sidewalks
along the line of march were some tender-hearted
women who wept, but most of the spectators and the
Io CIVIL WAR TIMES

volunteers wore smiling faces. It was generally
thought that the flurry would soon blow over. Sew-
ard, in whose sagacity we had unbounded confidence,
predicted that the war would end in sixty days.

Arriving at Indianapolis we went into camp, and
the Franklin company became Co. H of the 7th
Ind. Vols., of which Ebenezer Dumont was commis-
sioned colonel and Captain Oyler, major. We re-
mained in Indianapolis only long enough to receive
arms and uniforms, diligently employing the interval
before our departure in drilling; and then the regiment
was sent to what is now West Virginia, crossing the
Ohio at Bellaire and going into camp near Webster.
From there we marched in a few days to Philippi,
which was captured with a great flourish. The “Bat-
tle of Philippi” was described in bombastic style by the
northern press, and Lander’s ride down the hill was
supposed to rank next to the mad plunge of General
Israel Putnam in Revolutionary times. The truth is
that, to quote from the old nursery rhyme, describing
the fierce assault of the youthful soldiers upon a flock
of geese, “we routed them, we scouted them, nor lost a
single man.” Not a man was killed on either side.
Colonel Kelly of the Federal forces was wounded; one
unfortunate Confederate had his leg taken off by a
stray cannon-ball; two or three others were slightly
wounded and all the rest precipitately fled—in army
phrase they “skedaddled”—and probably lived to fight
another day.

There were many incidents of the three-months’
THREE MONTHS’ PICNIC II

campaign that, at the time, made a deep impression
upon my mind, but most of them have been obliter-
ated by the more significant events of the three-years’
service. My first experience on picket was at Webster.
I was stationed in a dense wood, and it poured down
rain all night. It was so dark that I could scarcely
see my hand before me. About midnight a vivid flash
of lightning suddenly revealed a man approaching
within ten feet of me. This was a trying ordeal for a
boy who had not been in service a month, and who
had not been in the enemy’s country more than a week,
and I am not ashamed to say now that I was nearly
frightened out of my wits. But I had enough courage
left to call out “Halt! who goes there?’ and’I do not
recall anything in my life that was such a relief to me
as the quick response, “A friend with the countersign.”
It was at Philippi that I first heard the “long roll,”
a peculiar rolling beat of the drum betokening immi-
nent danger, and calling instantly to arms every sol-
dier that hears it. Its effect upon an army is more
startling than the cry of “fire” at midnight. In this
instance it turned out to be a false alarm.

While at Philippi another incident occurred which
I have never forgotten. Co. H had been totally
stripped one night of all its cooking utensils by ma-
rauders from another company. There was not a
skillet nor a frying-pan nor a coffee-pot left in the
whole company. The next day the captain’s son and
I obtained a pass permitting us to visit Philippi.
There was not much to be seen—the most prominent
I2 CIVIL WAR TIMES

public buildings being the court-house and the county
jail which had been used by the Confederates as a
guard-house while they occupied the town. Nearly
all the inhabitants, most of whom were known to be
violent “‘secesh,” had fled. Passing a deserted house
it occurred to us that here was a good chance to re-
pair the losses of Co. H; so we entered the house
and filled an empty sack with cooking utensils. But
we had no sooner passed through the gate than we
were seized by a provost guard, stripped of our booty
and hurried off to jail where we were kept in durance
vile until night, and then dismissed with a severe repri-
mand and an admonition that if ever detected commit-
ting a similar offense we were liable to be instantly
shot. This was during the period when McClellan
and other Union generals seemed to be far more solicit-
ous to protect the property of Confederates than they
were to protect the property of those loyal to the gov-
ernment. It is but justice to them to add that this
policy seemed for a time to meet the approval of the
authorities at Washington, who still clung to the hope
that some compromise could be patched up by which
their erring southern brethren might be coaxed back
into the Union.

The summer was spent chiefly in camp on a hill
overlooking Philippi. The weather was hot, and when
not drilling we sought the friendly shade of the great
chestnut trees that were so abundant in that locality.
The regiment was engaged in a few insignificant skir-
mishes, then dignified by the press in grandiloquent
THREE MONTHS’ PICNIC 13

descriptions as “battles”; but the only real battle of
any consequence in which it was engaged was that at
Carrick’s Ford. That was my first battle. Before
reaching the ford we had repeatedly crossed Cheat
river, a mountain stream with a very swift current
and about waist deep, the bottom of which was cov-
ered with slimy boulders. I had twice slipped and
fallen, and I had gone clean under and rolled over on
the bottom, gun and all. On getting to shore I had
tried in vain, by putting dry powder in the tube, to
make my musket go off. I also tried to pull the load,
but the attempt was equally vain. Probably it made
little difference, for my gun was an old Harper’s Ferry
musket that nearly dislocated my shoulder every time
I fired it, and was almost as dangerous to the man be-
hind as to the man in front of it. But I remained in
the ranks and went through the battle, feeling as proud
as anybody when it was over. General Garnett, the
Confederate commander, was killed there. I passed
by the place where he lay dead and thought he was
one of the finest looking officers I had ever seen.

Our term of enlistment expired the latter part of
July and we started home. On our return we stopped
for a night at Bellaire, Ohio, and there I first heard
the dismal tidings of the disaster that had overtaken
the Union army at the first battle of Bull Run. Young
and inexperienced as I was, I understood its sig-
nificance. It meant that going to war was no longer
like going to a picnic, as we thought when we volun-
teered, but that a mighty effort must be made by the
14 CIVIL WAR TIMES

North or the Union would be shattered and broken
forever. I had not yet learned, nor had the nation yet
learned, the truth of the saying of General Sherman,
that “War is hell.”

The three-months’ service, though somewhat of a
picnic when compared with the three-years’ service,
nevertheless produced very important results not at
once apparent. One of the most important was that
the three-months’ men gained a fair knowledge of the
manual of arms and of company and regimental evo-
lutions, and learned some of the rudiments of a sol-
dier’s education. A great many again enlisted for
three years; many who did so became officers, and the
military experience, limited as it was, acquired in the
three-months’ service, was of great value in enabling
them to drill and discipline the troops over whom they
were placed in command.
CHAPTER TWO

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF THE GREAT CONFLICT

The disaster of Bull Run occurred on July 21, 1861.
Its effect was to throw the North into a panic. The
venerable General Scott, then seventy-five years of age,
was general-in-chief. The next day General George
B. McClellan was called to Washington to take charge
of the defense of the city and he arrived there July
26. The Confederates, as much elated as the people
of the North were depressed, at once moved up to the
Potomac, stopped navigation, and virtually blockaded
the national capital.

At Washington the authorities, civil and military,
were in constant dread of an attack that might result in
the capture of the capital and an invasion of the coun-
try north of it. Still the mass of people of the North
did not yet fully appreciate the magnitude of the prep-
arations necessary to suppress the Rebellion. Even
the Secretary of War, as late as October, 1861, had no
conception of the stupendous proportions into which
the conflict, then scarce six months old, was destined
to expand.

“About this time,” says Mr. Foulke,* “Secretary
+ Life of Morton, vol. 1, p. 147.

(15)
16 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Cameron stopped at Indianapolis, on his way from
St. Louis to Washington, and in company with Sena-
tor Chandler, took supper with Morton at the govern-
or’s mansion. He was quite talkative and laughed
heartily at Sherman’s idea that it would take two hun-
dred thousand men to recover the Mississippi states.
He made no secret of his belief that Sherman was
crazy, and unfit for any military command. He de-
rided Sherman’s notions of the need of cavalry and
artillery as old-fashioned and silly, and was boyish in
his fun over the ‘Minie rifle,’ and over improved arms
generally. The old smooth-bore musket, in the hands
of well-disciplined infantry, he regarded as the best
kind of arms. Morton listened to this talk in silence.”

We can well understand why Morton listened in
silence, and no doubt in amazement, to such twaddle
at such a time from the Secretary of War.

Moreover the slavery question continued to be a
disturbing element, and military operations were in-
terfered with by political considerations and by the
jealousies of generals. The senseless clamor expressed
in the cry of “On to Richmond,” which led to the dis-
astrous defeat at Bull Run, again urged an advance
of the Union armies and led to another defeat on
October 21st at Ball’s Bluff, and soon after, on Novem-
ber 1, 1861, General Scott was succeeded as general-
in-chief by General McClellan.

The disasters at Bull Run and Ball’s Bluff only
deepened the conviction, long before entertained by
Morton and others of far-seeing sagacity, that the
Rebellion would not blow over in sixty days as Seward
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 17

had predicted. It also became apparent that it was
not wise policy to enlist men for a term so short that
their period of service would expire before they had
acquired more than the rudiments of a military edu-
cation, and that the regular army could not be de-
pended upon, as General Scott had supposed, to sup-
press the Rebellion. Many of its officers sympathized
with the South, and those who resided there, with a
few notable exceptions, accepted commissions in the
Confederate army. There were not enough left of
. those loyal to the Federal government to officer the new
regiments. It was useless to expect to fill the regi-
ments necessary to be raised by recruiting for the reg-
ular army. The men of the North were eager to enlist
but they preferred to serve with their neighbors and
under officers whom they knew. I doubt whether ten
men in my company in the three-years’ service could
have been induced to enlist in the regular army.
It was upon the volunteers that the Federal govern-
ment was forced to rely for the material with which
to make up the rank and file.

Therefore on May 3, 1861, President Lincoln issued
another call for volunteers, and under this call, and the
acts of Congress confirming and supplementing it,
500,000 men were required. There was not much diffi-
culty in getting the men. Indeed, under this call and
the acts of Congress supplementing it, over 700,000
volunteered, of whom over 657,000 enlisted for three

years. The first serious trouble arose in equipping
2
18 CIVIL WAR TIMES

them for active service. It had been difficult to arm
and equip the 75,000 three-months’ troops, and it was
only by almost superhuman exertions that Governor
Morton had been able to send to the front the six
three-months’ regiments contributed by Indiana. No
preparations had been made by the Federal govern-
ment or by any state for such a war as had now
burst forth. Long before the outbreak of the war the
militia organizations in most of the northern states had
been practically abandoned. Governor Chase of
Ohio had made vigorous efforts to reorganize the mi-
litia system of that state. Whitelaw Reid says:

“Tn this, as in his political views, he was in advance
of his times. In every state west of the Alleghanies
the militia had fallen into undisguised contempt. The
old-fashioned militia musters had been given up; the
subject had been abandoned as fit only to be the fertile
theme for the ridicule of rising writers and witty
stump orators. The cannon issued by the government
were left for the uses of political parties on the occa-
sion of mass meetings or victories at the polls. The
small arms were scattered, rusty, and become worth-
less. In Chicago a novel drill had been an inducement
for the organization of the Ellsworth Zouaves; and
here and there through the West the young men of a
city kept up a military company; but these were the
exceptions. Popular prejudice against doing military
duty was insurmountable, and no name for these ex-
ceptional organizations so struck the popular fancy
as that of “the Cornstalk Militia.”

* Ohio in the War, vol. 1, p. 10.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT IQ

An effort was made by Chase’s successor to continue
the policy inaugurated by the former, but with little
success. “And yet,” quoting again from Reid, “the
organization of Ohio militia was far superior to that
existing in any of the states to the westward. All of
them combined did not possess so large a militia force
as the First Ohio Regiment, then under the command
of Colonel King, of Dayton.”

General Cox*® has given a graphic account of the
military condition of the great state of Ohio at the
outbreak of the Rebellion. Governor Dennison on the
first call for troops summoned to his aid Captain
George B. McClellan, then a railway superintendent.
General Cox says:

“The next morning McClellan requested me to ac-
company him to the state arsenal, to see what arms
and material might be there. We found a few boxes
of smooth-bore muskets which had once been issued
to militia companies and had been returned rusted
and damaged. No belts, cartridge-boxes, or other ac-
coutrements were with them. There were two or
three smooth-bore brass field-pieces, 6-pounders, which
had been honey-combed by firing salutes, and of which
the vents had been worn out, bushed and worn out
again. Ina heap in one corner lay a confused pile of
mildewed harness which had been once used for artil-
lery horses, but was now not worth carrying away.
There had for many years been no money appropriated
to buy military material or even to protect the little

® Article on War Preparations in the North; Battles and Lead-
ers of the Civil War, vol. 1, p. 84.
20 CIVIL WAR TIMES

the state had. The Federal government had occasion-
ally distributed some arms which were in the hands
of the independent uniformed militia, and the arsenal
was simply an empty store-house. It did not take
long to complete our inspection. At the door, as we
were leaving the building, McClellan turned, and,
looking back into its emptiness, remarked, half hu-
morously and half sadly, ‘A fine stock of munitions
on which to begin a great war!”

Scanty as were Ohio’s military supplies they far sur-
passed those of Indiana and of most of the northern
states. In Indiana there was not the semblance of a
state militia organization. Even the “‘cornstalk’’ mus-
ters had almost passed out of mind. There were not
muskets enough in the whole state to arm a single regi-
ment, to say nothing of uniforms, tents, knapsacks and
the other equipments essential to actual military serv-
ice. Now 500,000 men were not only to be raised
but equipped. Not only were they to be equipped but
they were to be drilled and disciplined, to be organized
in regiments, brigades, divisions, corps, and armies,
and officers were to be found competent to command
all these military organizations. The work to be done
was of stupendous magnitude. The first of the great
armies organized in the North was that for the defense
of Washington, and, whatever may be said of General
McClellan, it must be conceded that the country owes
to him a great debt for his untiring labor in fashioning
from the crude material with which he was supplied
that great army afterward known as the Army of the
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 21

Potomac. Looking back over the history of the Civil
War, nothing in it is so wonderful as the transforma-
tion in so short a time of the men taken from the
fields, the shops and other civil pursuits, wholly inex-
perienced in war, into trained soldiers, and the crea-
tion in both North and South of armies such as were
never before known in the history of the world.

The most difficult task of all was not, as had been
expected, to find the men and the arms and equipments
for them, but to find the generals able to lead these
great armies to victory. Asin many professions, other
than that of arms, the education acquired in the
_ schools, indispensable as it may be to success, must be
supplemented by the experience acquired in actual
practice, and not infrequently it turns out that the
bright man at recitations utterly fails to fulfil the ex-
pectations raised by his success as a scholar. And so
it was with many of the West Point generals. More-
over, the best of the generals developed by the war
had much to learn in the field. It is no discredit to
them that all made some mistakes. Marshal Turenne
once said: “When a man boasts that he has never
made mistakes in war, he convinces me that he has not
been long at it.” The weeding out of political gener-
als, the failure of one after another of those appointed
to command the great armies, went on during four
years and cost the North heavily in money and in
lives; in the end, however, generals were found “‘fit
to stand by the side of Cesar and give direction.”

Shortly after the Ball’s Bluff disaster another
22 CIVIL WAR TIMES

event of great importance occurred. Captain Wilkes,
commander of the San Jacinto of the United States
Navy, had seized the Trent, a British mail steamer,
in the Bahama channel, and forcibly taken from her
Mason and Slidell, Confederate commissioners on their
way to Europe. They were brought to the United
States and imprisoned in Fort Warren, near Boston.
There were some mitigating circumstances, but it is
now generally conceded that the seizure was a plain
violation of international law. It immediately stirred
up a great ferment both in England and in America.
It very nearly caused Great Britain to declare war
against the Federal government, or at least to recog-
nize the Southern Confederacy. Either course at that
time would have been fatal to the Union cause. There
was nothing to do but promptly return the Confeder-
ate commissioners. This was done, and upon Secre-
tary Seward devolved the delicate task of pacifying
the English government and at the same time mollify-
ing the wrath of those in the North who have never
got beyond the idea that twisting the tail of the British
lion is the acme of American statesmanship. It is
needless to say that Seward accomplished his task with
consummate diplomatic skill.

When Congress met in December, 1861, one of its
first acts was the appointment of a joint committee
consisting of three members of the Senate and four of
the House, thereafter known as the Committee on the
Conduct of the War, of which Senator Wade of Ohio
was made chairman. He continued to serve as such
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 23

during the war. We are told by eminent historians‘
that this committee

“was for four years one of the most important agen-
cies in the country. It assumed, and was sustained
by Congress in assuming, a great range of prerogative.
It became a stern and zealous censor of both the army
and the government; it called soldiers and statesmen
before it, and questioned them like refractory school-
boys. It claimed to speak for the loyal people of the
United States, and this claim generally met with the
sympathy and support of a majority of the people’s
representatives in Congress assembled. It was often
hasty and unjust in its judgments, but always earnest,
patriotic and honest; it was assailed with furious de-
nunciation and defended with headlong and indiscrim-
inating eulogy; and on the whole it must be said to
have merited more praise than blame.”

One of the first matters investigated by the commit-
tee was the humiliating affair at Ball’s Bluff. The in-
vestigation is a fair illustration of the difficulties un-
der which the Federal generals labored in the early
part of the war. The country was smarting under the
disaster and, as is usual in such cases, a scapegoat was
demanded and General Stone was the unfortunate vic-
tim selected. He was suspected of having held trea-
sonable correspondence with the enemy and, by an
order issued from the office of the Secretary of War,
he was arrested and imprisoned for six months in
Fort Lafayette. No formal charges were filed, but a

* Nicolay and Hay: Abraham Lincoln, vol. 5, pp. 150-T.

4
24 CIVIL WAR TIMES

secret investigation was held by the Committee on the
Conduct of the War. He was not permitted to con-
front the witnesses against him, nor was he informed
what testimony they had given; in vain he demanded
a hearing; in vain he demanded a copy of the charges
against him. At last such a commotion was raised
over the arbitrary proceedings by which he was de-
prived of his liberty that the authorities were compelled
to release him. No one now doubts his loyalty and it
has since been shown that the evidence upon which he
was imprisoned was totally unworthy of credit. The
case stands as a striking illustration of the necessity,
even in time of war, of jealously guarding the individ-
ual liberty of the citizen.°

Before the meeting of Congress in December, 1861,
General McClellan had gathered together the greatest
army ever known in America. It is true that it was
not made up of veteran soldiers, but neither was the
Confederate army under the command of General
Joseph E. Johnston confronting Washington. Mc-
Clellan’s troops were as well disciplined and as well
equipped as Johnston’s, and numbered twice as many.
But McClellan’s army had been in camp for five months
and had made no advance nor any sign of an advance.
The whole country was impatient at this delay and the
demand in the North was loud and emphatic for a

° A full account of this remarkable case will be found in Blaine’s
Twenty Years of Congress, vol. 1, pp. 381-395. See also Lt.-Col.
Richard B. Irwin, article on Ball’s Bluff, etc., in Battles and Lead-
ers of the Civil War, vol. 2, p. 123.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 25

more vigorous prosecution of the war. One of the
first changes made in response to this demand was the
resignation of Simon Cameron as Secretary of War
and the appointment of Edwin M. Stanton as his suc-
cessor. All efforts to induce McClellan to move had
so far proved unavailing. Even Lincoln’s patience had
been exhausted, and in an interview with Generals
McDowell and Franklin, January 10, 1862, he said
in his homely way that “if something was not soon
done the bottom would be out of the whole affair; and
if General McClellan did not want to use the army he
would like to borrow it, provided he could see how it
could be made to do something.”’®

Under the constitution Lincoln, by virtue of his
office, was commander-in-chief of the armies and na~-
vies of the United States. He was, however, totally
destitute of military education. Appreciating his de-
ficiencies in this respect he diligently studied books of
strategy, pored over the reports of the department com-
manders, familiarized himself with maps, and in every
way sought to understand the military situation.
The generals with whom he consulted were surprised,
or pretended to be surprised, at his familiarity with
technical military learning and with the acuteness of
his suggestions. He discussed with McClellan and
other generals not only their own plans for the advance
to Richmond, but some which he himself had con-
ceived. Ata later date he undertook to unfold a fa-

® Swinton: Campaigns of Army of Potomac, p. 80.
26 CIVIL WAR TIMES

vorite plan to Grant. Grant tells us that he “listened
respectfully.” He did not tell Lincoln, but he tells
the readers of his Memoirs," why Lincoln’s scheme
was impracticable, and adds this brief and character-
istic sentence: “I did not communicate my plans to
the President, nor did I to the Secretary of War or to
General Halleck.”

The chief need now of the Union cause was the want
of a competent, responsible head with intelligence to
direct, and power to enforce the conduct of mili-
tary operations comformably to some general sys-
tematic plan. After the appointment of the Commit-
tee on the Conduct of the War and of Stanton as Sec-
retary of War, McClellan was general-in-chief in name
only. All his plans were subjected to the scrutiny not
only of the President but of the Committee on the
Conduct of the War and of Stanton, whose influence
in military operations was now more powerful than
that of President, committee, and general-in-chief
combined. The difficulties incident to such divided
responsibility and conflicting counsels were intensified
when, on March 12, 1862, McClellan was deprived of
authority as general-in-chief and his command was
limited to that of the Army of the Potomac. For
four months after that date there was no general-in-
chief of the Federal armies and each department .com-
mander was left to work out his own plans without ref-
erence to those of other commanders, modified only

‘Vol. 2, p. 123.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 27

by such orders as came from Washington. It was
not until July 11, 1862, when General Henry W. Hal-
leck was appointed general-in-chief, that there was a
responsible head of the Federal armies.

Three of the men already mentioned became very
prominent in the Civil War—Stanton, Halleck, and
McClellan. Stanton, the new Secretary of War, was
a man of great intellectual strength, of sterling hon-
esty, of boundless energy, and of vast executive
ability. Though of Quaker descent he was a man of
the type of Oliver Cromwell. Men of this type are
necessary in great emergencies, but the very qualities
that make them valuable are also apt to make them
at times arbitrary and tyrannical. Stanton had
been Attorney-general under President Buchanan and,
according to McClellan, was wont, before he became
Secretary of War, to speak of Lincoln as the “original
gorilla,” shocking McClellan by the virulence with
which he abused the President, his administration,
and the Republican party. But, after becoming Sec-
retary of War, he speedily developed into the most
radical of the Radicals. He favored the policy of
emancipation long before the proclamation was issued
and was one of the earliest advocates of the arming of
the negroes. He was a man who brooked no oppo-
sition and whose dislikes were relentless and enduring.
He assumed toward Lincoln the attitude of a self-con-
stituted guardian rather than that of a subordinate
officer, and there is no doubt that he was often exas-
28 CIVIL WAR TIMES

perated by Lincoln’s seeming irresolution and disgust-
ed with his jests.®

It is probable that Halleck while general-in-chief
was little more than Stanton’s scribe. The latter soon
became hostile to McClellan and to Rosecrans. His
injustice to Thomas before the battle of Nashville
has never been satisfactorily explained, nor has it ever
been forgotten by the friends of that illustrious com-
mander. In Grant Stanton at last found a general
whose iron will and stubborn tenacity of purpose were
superior to his own. Grant’s opinion of Stanton is
expressed without any circumlocution. He says:°

“Owing to his natural disposition to assume all
power and control in all matters that he had anything
whatever to do with, he boldly took command of the
armies, and, while issuing no orders on the subject,
prohibited any order from me going out of the ad-
jutant-general’s office until he had approved it. This
was done by directing the adjutant-general to hold any
orders that came from me to be issued from the ad-
jutant-general’s office until he had exarhined them and

*Stanton’s virulent hostility to Lincoln before entering the
cabinet and his subsequent relations to him are clearly shown by
McClure in his chapter on Lincoln and Stanton in Lincoln and
Men of War Times. In his Ohio in the War, vol. 1, p. 1029,
Whitelaw Reid says of Stanton: “He was, throughout Mr. Lin-
coln’s administration, all-powerful. It was with reference to
some strong-willed action of Mr. Stanton’s, in opposition to his
own wishes, that Mr. Lincoln, in reply to a personal appeal for
aid, made the jocose remark, so often quoted, that he (Lincoln)
had very little influence with this administration.”

® Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 105.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 29

given his approval. He never disturbed himself,
either, in examining my orders until it was entirely
convenient for him; so that orders which I had pre-
pared would often lie there three or four days before
he would sanction them. I remonstrated against this
in writing, and the Secretary apologetically restored
me to my rightful position of general-in-chief of the
army. But he soon lapsed again and took control
much as before.”

And again, comparing Stanton with Lincoln, Grant
says of the former :*°

“Mr. Stanton never questioned his own authority
to command, unless resisted. He cared nothing for
the feeling of others. In fact it seemed to be pleas-
anter to him to disappoint than to gratify. He felt no
hesitation in assuming the functions of the executive,
or in acting without advising with him. If his act was
not sustained, he would change it—if he saw the mat-
ter would be followed up until he did so.”

Throughout Grant’s Memoirs it is easy to perceive
the trouble he experienced with both Stanton and Hal-
leck. Probably no enemy in front ever caused him so
much annoyance as did these two Federal officials in
the rear. During the four months, from March 12
to July 11, 1862, when the Union armies were without
a general-in-chief, Stanton was virtually military dic-
tator, for his imperious will was too strong to be
curbed by Lincoln. Whatever his abilities in other di-

© Thid., p. 536.
30 CIVIL WAR TIMES

rections, he did not have the military education quali-
fying him to direct the operations of the armies in the
field, and McClellan maintains, and with some rea-
son, that the disasters following the Peninsular cam-
paign were in no small part due to Stanton’s ignorant
and arbitrary interference.

Censistently with the policy of inconsistency, which
seemed at the time to govern the military plans of the
Federal authorities at Washington, Halleck, who had
demonstrated his utter incompetence to accomplish
anything with an army of 100,000 men in his own de-
partment, had been appointed general-in-chief of all
the Federal armies. Only two excuses have ever been
offered for his appointment: That General Scott fa-
vored him as his successor, and that it was desired to
give General Grant full command of Halleck’s depart-
ment where it was thought the latter’s jealousy
of Grant’s rising fame was keeping him in the back-
ground. Whatever were the motives for Halleck’s
appointment as general-in-chief, there is now almost
entire unanimity respecting his unfitness for the
place. McClellan says of him :**

“Of all men whom I have encountered in high posi-
tion, Halleck was the most hopelessly stupid. It was
more difficult to get an idea through his head than can
be conceived by any who never made the attempt. I
do not think he ever had a correct military idea from
beginning to end.”

™ McClellan’s Own Story, p. 137.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 31

Swinton,” a less prejudiced witness than McClellan,
speaks of Halleck as “the incalculable obstruction of
the conduct of the war, and the intolerable annoyance
of every general commanding the Army of the Po-
tomac.” Halleck’s jealousy of Grant became apparent
at an early period. Soon after the surrender of Fort
Donelson, Grant went to Nashville to consult with
General Buell, whereupon Halleck sent to McClellan,
then general-in-chief, a dispatch containing this out-
rageous charge:

“T have had no communication with General Grant
for more than a week. He left his command without
my authority and went to Nashville. His army seems
to be as much demoralized by the victory of Fort Don-
elson as was that of the Potomac by the defeat of Bull
Run. It is hard to censure a successful general im-
mediately after a victory, but I think he richly deserves
it. I cam get no returns, no reports, no information of
any kind from him. Satisfied with his victory, he sits
down and enjoys it without any regard to the future.
I am worn out and tired with this neglect and ineffi-
ciency. C. F. Smith is almost the only officer equal to
the emergency.”

Afterward, Halleck wrote Grant that his conduct
had occasioned “very serious complaint at Washing-
ton,” and tried to make him believe that it was his own
interference in his behalf that saved him from the dis-
grace of an arrest. Halleck’s downright duplicity in

” Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, p. 170.
32 CIVIL WAR TIMES

this affair is very clearly exposed by both Grant and
McClellan.

Sherman was even more incensed than Grant
against both Stanton and Halleck. His preliminary
negotiations with General Joseph E. Johnston just at
the end of the war have since been fully explained, but
at the time, largely through the distorted construc-
tion of them by Stanton, they excited great indignation
in the North against Sherman, causing that great sol-
dier much mortification. Shortly before that time
Halleck had been appointed to the command of the De-
partment of Virginia with headquarters at Richmond,
and he took it on himself to send a dispatch to Stanton
containing this extraordinary suggestion :

“The bankers here have information to-day that Jeff
Davis’ specie is moving South from Goldsborough in
wagons as fast as possible. I suggest that orders be
telegraphed through General Thomas that Wilson
obey no orders from Sherman,” etc.

Thereupon Stanton sent a dispatch to Thomas, April
27, 1865, reciting Halleck’s dispatch and adding this:

“You were some days ago notified that the President
disapproved Sherman’s proceedings and were directed
to disregard them. If you have not already done so,
you will issue immediate orders to all officers in your
command, directing them to pay no attention to any
orders but your own or from General Grant,” etc.**

*® Reb. Rec., ser. No. 104, pp. 483-4.
DEVELOPMENT ‘OF CONFLICT 33

The insulting character of this order conveying, as
it did, a scandalous insinuation against Sherman’s loy-
alty, will be better understood when it is remembered
that Generals Thomas and Wilson were at that time
subordinate officers under General Sherman, and that
he and his victorious army, after the conspicuous ser-
vices they had rendered the Union cause, were then
on their way to Washington. Grant tells how Sher-
man resented Halleck’s insult :"*

“It was during this trip that the last outrage was
committed upon him. Halleck had been sent to Rich-
mond to command Virginia, and had issued orders
prohibiting even Sherman’s own troops from obeying
his, Sherman’s, orders. Sherman met the papers on
his return, containing this order of Halleck, and very
justly felt indignant at the outrage. On his arrival
at Fortress Monroe returning from Savannah, Sher-
man received an invitation from Halleck to come to
Richmond and be his guest. This he indignantly re-
fused, and informed Halleck, furthermore, that he had
seen his order. He also stated that he was coming up
to take command of his troops, and as he marched
through it would probably be as well for Halleck not to
show himself, because he (Sherman) would not be re-
sponsible for what some rash person might do through
indignation for the treatment he had received.”

Grant also says?® that at the grand review in Wash-
ington after the close of the war, Sherman “showed

4 Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 520.
* Tbid., p. 534.

3
34 CIVIL WAR TIMES

his resentment for the cruel and harsh treatment that
had unnecessarily been inflicted upon him by the Secre-
tary of War, by refusing to take his extended hand.”
At that time Halleck, at least, who had just emerged
from a year’s obscurity at Washington, had become a
very insignificant figure in comparison with the illus-
trious soldier who had completed a triumphant march
through the heart of the Confederacy, and Stanton was
no longer the military dictator that he had been for
over three years.

As general-in-chief Halleck conducted military op-
erations at long range from Washington—never ap-
pearing on a field of battle, but sending telegraph dis-
patches and voluminous letters, planning on paper vast
campaigns utterly impossible of execution in the field,
and so hampering all the generals in front as to make
it impossible for them to execute any plans of their
own.

Of McClellan it is safe to say that there are few at
this day that question his loyalty, of which there was,
during the war, a widespread suspicion. Of his mil-
itary abilities and operations it is perhaps not possible,
even at this day, to form a just and impartial estimate.
There is no doubt, however, that he was constantly
embarrassed and thwarted by the orders that he re-
ceived from Washington and by the relentless hos-
tility of Stanton. This is clear from the evidence
that he himself has furnished.1* In view of the con-

* See McClellan’s Own Story.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 35

stant interference with his plans, the wonder now is
that he accomplished as much as he did. That he
himself felt stung to desperation by what he believed
to be the persecution of Stanton is indicated by his
remarkable dispatch to the latter June 28, 1862, in
which he said:

“If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I
owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Wash-
ington. You have done your best to sacrifice this
army.”

When McClellan took command of the troops at
Washington immediately after the first battle of Bull
Run, he found the city full of stragglers and round
about it regiments camped indiscriminately here and
there without even a brigade organization, or general
organization of any kind; without any systematic
fortifications or defenses, and even without pickets on
some of the roads leading to the capital. McClellan
took these unorganized troops, together with the raw
recruits that were afterward added, organized, trained,
and disciplined them, and out of them fashioned the
magnificent Army of the Potomac. He took that
army again and with it won a great victory at Antie-
tam; he had never shown so much vigor and general-
ship as he exhibited immediately before and during
this battle, and at the time when he was finally re-
moved from the command of the Army of the Potomac
he had the unbounded confidence of all the officers and
men under his command.
36 CIVIL WAR TIMES

But McClellan’s great faults as a general were that,
he never ceased preparing for a forward movement,
and that he was perpetually exaggerating the strength
of the enemy in his front. The chief drawback, how-
ever, to his success as a general was a delusion of
which he was possessed that he had been predestined
from all eternity to be a Moses and Washington com-
bined and to go down to posterity as the savior of his
country, his memory surrounded with a halo of glory
and his fame forever growing more resplendent.
Therefore he undertook not only to conduct the mili-
tary operations entrusted to him, but to advise Lincoln
how to discharge his duties as President. In a long
letter to the latter, dated July 7, 1862, he said:

“Neither confistation of property, political execu-
tion of persons, territorial organization of states, or
forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated
for a moment..... Military arrests should not be
tolerated except in places where active hostilities exist,
and oaths not required by enactments constitutionally
made should be neither demanded nor received... . .
Military power should not be allowed to interfere with
the relations of servitude, either by supporting or im-
pairing the authority of the master, except for repress-
ing disorder, as in other cases.’’**

In the same letter he assured Lincoln: “A decla-
ration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will
rapidly disintegrate our present armies.”

* McClellan’s Own Story, p. 497.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 37

Such sentiments ill suited the radical element then
in control of the Republican party, but greatly elated
those in the North who were denouncing the prosecu-
tion of the war as an Abolition crusade and who were
loudly complaining of arbitrary arrests. The radical
leaders of the Republican party could not believe that
a man with such sentiments as those advocated by Mc-
Clellan was fit to lead the armies of the Union to vic-
tory, and their conviction of his unfitness was strength-
ened by his acceptance in 1864 of the nomination for
President on a “Peace at any price” platform.

It is probable, however, that future generations, un-
influenced by the intense political prejudices that
swayed McClellan’s contemporaries, will judge him
more leniently. The spirit of justice that, after many
years, brought about the vindication of General Fitz-
John Porter may be depended upon to correct, as far as
it is possible to correct the errors of the past, whatever
injustice may have been done to McClellan. In
McClellan’s Own Story he has made a strong defense
against many of the aspersions that at an early period
were accepted by his political opponents as undoubted
facts. His admirers, however, will probably never
succeed in convincing the American people that if he
had been given all the men and all the opportunities
that Grant had, he would ever have accomplished what
Grant accomplished.

The wonder is that under such conflicting and in-
competent management the Union cause did not speed-
38 CIVIL WAR TIMES

ily fall to pieces. It did not, because military opera-
tions in the South were conducted under still greater
difficulties. The South, from the beginning, was in-
ferior to the North in men, in munitions of war, and
in material resources. It excelled the North, however,
in its abundant yield of political generals, but this
proved to be a constant source of weakness. More-
over, if the generals of the North were perplexed with
the interference of Stanton and the Committee on the
Conduct of the War, the southern generals were still
more harassed by the perpetual interference of Jeffer-
son Davis, who affords a striking illustration of the
truth of the saying that “a little learning is a danger-
ous thing.” Priding himself on being a West Point
graduate and puffed up with exaggerated notions of
his military acquirements, he imagined himself pro-
foundly versed in the art of war. Acting on this as-
sumption, he constantly thwarted the plans of all the
Confederate generals, addling the weaker and confus-
ing the stronger, by suggestions and advice springing
from his conceited superiority as a military strategist.

With the extraordinary vanity of Davis was com-
bined an uncontrollable propensity to boast of the an-
ticipated results of his military schemes, thus betray-
ing to the enemy in advance plans which a careful gen-
eral would have taken all pains to conceal. On several
occasions the Federal generals gained the first and most
reliable information of proposed movements of the
Confederate armies from the boastful speeches of
Davis as reported in the southern newspapers. It was
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 39

in this way that Grant was advised of the purpose of
Longstreet’s advance against Burnside, and Sherman
of Hood’s proposed invasion of Tennessee. A south-
ern historian, speaking of the withdrawal of Long-
street’s corps during the siege of Chattanooga, says:

“This extraordinary military movement was the
work of President Davis, who seems, indeed, to have
had a singular fondness for erratic campaigns. His
visits to every battle-field of the Confederacy were om-
inous. He disturbed the plans of his generals; his mil-
itary conceit led him into the wildest schemes; and so
much did he fear that the public would not ascribe to
him the hoped-for results of the visionary project, that
his vanity invariably divulged it, and successes were
foretold in public speeches with such boastful plain-
ness, as to put the enemy on his guard and inform him
of the general nature of the enterprise.’’*®

The same author, in speaking of Davis’s visit to
Hood’s army after the capture of Atlanta, says:

“The catastrophe moved President Davis in Rich-
mond, and mortified the vanity that had so recently
proclaimed the security of Atlanta under the command
of Hood. He determined to visit Hood’s new lines,
to plan with him a new campaign, to compensate for
the loss of Atlanta, and to take every possible occasion
to raise the hopes and confidence of the people. It is
remarkable that the visits of the Confederate President
to the armies were always the occasions of some far-
fetched and eimpirical plan of operations, and were al-

* Pollard: The Lost Cause, p. 456.
40 CIVIL WAR TIMES

ways accompanied with vapors and boasts that
unduly exalted the public mind. Mr. Davis never
spoke of military matters without a certain ludicrous
boastfulness, which he maintained to the last event of
the war. It was not swagger or affectation ; it was the
sincere vagary of a mind intoxicated with conceit when
occupied with a subject where it imagined it found its

forte, but where in fact it had least aptitude. Mr.
Davis, as a military commander or adviser, was weak,
fanciful to excess, and much too vain to keep his own
counsels. As he traveled toward Hood’s lines, he
made excited speeches in South Carolina and Georgia.
At Macon he declared that Atlanta would be recov-
ered; that Sherman would be brought to grief; and
that this Federal commander ‘would meet the fate that
befell Napoleon in the retreat from Moscow.’ These
swollen assertions, so out of character, were open ad-
vertisements to the enemy of a new plan of opera-
tions.”’*°

If Davis had ever heard it, he evidently did not ap-
preciate the pith of the witty saying attributed to John
Adams who is reported to have added, after comment-
ing on a portrait of George Washington: ‘And that
old wooden-head made his fortune by keeping his
mouth shut.”

Notwithstanding the unfavorable conditions, great
success attended the Union cause during the first four
months of the year 1862. At the beginning of the
year the national capital was deemed secure. Ken-
tucky, Missouri, Maryland, and West Virginia had:

” Thid., p. 581.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 41

been kept in the Union. On January 19 General
Thomas defeated the Confederates in an engage-
ment at Mill Spring, in which the Confederate Gen-
eral Zollicoffer was killed. General Grant, aided by
flag officer Foote and his gunboats, captured Fort
Henry February 7 and Fort Donelson February 16,
with over 10,000 prisoners, forty cannon, and im-
mense stores. The day after the surrender of Fort
Henry a permanent footing on the coast of North Car-
olina was gained at the battle of Roanoke Island by
General Burnside and the navy under Commodore
Goldsborough. On March 8 General Curtis defeated
General Price at Pea Ridge, and the next day the
Monitor practically destroyed the Merrimac in Hamp-
ton Roads. In the month of April a great battle, re-
sulting in a Union victory, had been fought at Shiloh,
in which General Albert Sidney Johnston, regarded as
the greatest of Confederate generals, had lost his life,
and in the same month Farragut captured New Or-
leans. In some portions of nearly all the Confederate
states the Federal land or naval forces had gained a
foothold.

The importance of these victories, coming at this
time, can hardly be overestimated. For nearly its en-
tire length above and below Vicksburg the Mississippi
was now open to Federal gunboats, and the territory
west of that river was practically cut off from the Con-
federacy, while the possession of New Orleans was of
vast importance in many ways to the Union cause.
The drooping spirits of the North revived, President
42 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Lincoln issued a proclamation for a special Thanks-
giving, and so clearly did events point to a speedy
termination of the war, that, for a time, further re-
cruiting was stopped by order of the Federal govern-
ment, and Governor Morton was requested to cease
purchasing arms.*°

Before the year was half gone the northern skies
were again overcast with the shadow of disasters that
came thick and fast. While the western armies and
the navy were achieving splendid victories, the great
Army of the Potomac was resting idly in camp. The
fall and winter of 1861 had passed and the spring of
1862 was far advanced, and still that magnificent army
had done nothing. The daily dispatch “All quiet on
the Potomac,” at first conveying a cheering assurance
of the safety of the national capital, now excited only
derision, and was accepted as further proof of the in-
efficiency of McClellan and his army.

McClellan should have moved on February 22—in-
deed long before that time. The northern press, the
leading members of Congress, and Stanton and Chase,

” This order for the discontinuance of recruiting is given in full
in McClellan’s Own Story, p. 258. It was issued from the Adju-
tant-General’s office April 3, 1862, and directed that “The recruit-
ing service for volunteers will be discontinued in every state from
this date,” and that “The superintendents of the Volunteer Re-
cruiting Service will disband their parties and close their offices,
after having taken the necessary steps to carry out these orders.”
The extraordinary character of the order will be more fully ap-
parent when it is considered that it was issued just after Mc-
Clellan had started on his Peninsular campaign and only three
days before the beginning of the battle of Shiloh.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 43

the two most influential members of the cabinet, were
urgently, almost furiously demanding that McClellan
be forced to advance or be removed from command.
Stanton was already bitterly hostile to McClellan.
Chase was equally so, and at one of the cabinet meet-
ings, to which McClellan had been invited for a dis-
cussion of his plans, bluntly asked him whether he in-
tended to move at all and, if so, when. Lincoln still
clung to McClellan, but was continually urging him to
advance. To all his appeals McClellan pleaded for
more reenforcements, though it was then generally be-
lieved, and is now known to be the fact, that McClellan
had twice as many men as the Confederate General
Joseph E. Johnston, who was in his front. Finally,
after many cabinet meetings and councils of war, in-
terviews, and consultations, the Army of the Potomac
started March 17 on what is known as the Peninsular
campaign. ‘The story of it is sorrowful reading. It
lasted about three months. In that time the Federal
army had been in sight of Richmond. At the end of it,
after seven days of battle, it had retreated to the river
James, arriving at Harrison’s Landing July 3 with a
loss of over 15,000 men. McClellan laid the blame
for his failure upon Stanton and Halleck, while they
charged it to him. On August 3 Halleck ordered Mc-
‘Clellan to abandon the Peninsula altogether and to
withdraw his army to Acquia Creek. Against this or-
der McClellan earnestly protested, but his protest was
not heeded. The change of base by the Army of the
Potomac exposed Washington to an attack by the Con-
44 CIVIL WAR TIMES

federate armies, and, to avert this danger, the troops
scattered over northern Virginia, under the commands
of Fremont, McDowell, and Banks, about 50,000 in
all, were hastily patched together and called the Army
of Virginia, over which General Pope, suddenly called
from the West, was placed in command. McClellan
was ordered to Washington and the Army of the Po-
tomac was for a time virtually without a commander.
Pope, the young Lochinvar who had so unexpectedly
come out of the West, signalized his assumption of
command by an address characterized by Ropes as one
of the most “extraordinary in military annals,’’?* ex-
traordinary alike for its bombast and for its tone of
insult to the eastern soldiers over whom he had taken
command. In this address, together with much like
stuff, Pope said:

“Let us understand each other. I have come to you
from the West where we have always seen .the backs
of our enemies; from an army whose business it has
been to seek the adversary and to beat him when he
was found; whose policy has been attack and not de-
fense..... Meantime I desire you to dismiss from
your minds certain phrases which I am sorry to find in
vogue amongst you. I hear constantly of taking
strong positions and holding them—of lines of retreat
and bases of supplies. Let us discard such ideas.”

The woeful outcome of Pope’s boasts made them all
the more ridiculous. The Army of Virginia lasted

* The address in full will be found in The Army Under Pope,
p. 173.
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 45

only about two months, long enough, however, to be
demolished at the second battle of Bull Run. Pope
afterward complained that the remnants of his army
had been so scattered by McClellan that he (Pope)
could not tell what had become of them. The Army
of Virginia had vanished forever, and never again ap-
peared in the list of Union armies. The fragments of
it which escaped, together with the portions of the
Army of the Potomac that had been sent to reenforce
it, found their way back to Washington September 2.
Again the Army of the Potomac was in the trenches
about Washington, confronted by the army of Lee;
the cabinet was in a panic; the North was in dread of
invasion; Halleck was helpless; and Lincoln, in utter
despair, was obliged to appeal to McClellan to save
the national capital.

On March 11, 1862, the departments formerly com-
manded by Generals Halleck, Hunter and Buell were
merged into the Department of the Mississippi in order
to give Halleck control of all the armies that took part
in the battle of Shiloh, and after the battle these armies
were all consolidated into one, divided into the right
wing, left wing, center, reserve, and cavalry, under the
respective commands of Generals George H. Thomas,
Don Carlos Buell, John Pope, John A. McClernand,
and Andrew J. Smith. Halleck assumed chief com-
mand and Grant was announced as second. By this
contrivance Grant was made a fifth wheel and was tem-
porarily shelved.

No other Federal general in the Civil War ever had
46 CIVIL WAR TIMES

such an opportunity as that now afforded Halleck.
Had Grant been in his place it is possible that the war
might have been brought to a speedy termination; it
is at least highly probable that its duration would have
been greatly shortened. But, unfortunately for the
country, Halleck was unequal to the opportunity. Al-
though he had a great army of over 100,000 men,
more than twice that of the Confederate army under
Beauregard confronting him, he avoided bringing on
a general engagement, proceeded to advance against
Corinth, about twenty miles distant, after the old fash-
ion of gradual approaches by parallels, and going
along at a snail’s pace arrived there May 30 to find
that the Confederate army had safely retreated.

For a few days the North was fed on bombastic dis-
patches from Halleck to the effect that “General Pope
with 40,000 men is thirty miles south of Corinth push-
ing the enemy hard,” and that “he already reports
10,000 prisoners and deserters from the enemy and
15,000 stand of arms captured.” The country was
chagrined to find a few days later that the pleasing
story told in Halleck’s dispatches was a hoax. All
the blame, however, was laid on Pope. We know
now, moreover, that Halleck’s orders to Pope were not
to press the Confederates so hard as to bring on a
battle.

Halleck next proceeded to break up his army and to
scatter over the country the various parts of which
it had been composed, Buell being ordered to advance
into east Tennessee. The movement which Buell was
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 47

ordered to make, a very important one if pushed with
energy and celerity, was neutralized by the condition
imposed upon him that, as he marched, he should re-
pair the Memphis and Charleston railroad. Buell
‘strongly protested against frittering away precious
time by repairing a railroad that ran parallel to the
enemy’s lines, which, when repaired, could not be de-
pended upon as-a safe line of communication, but his
protests were overruled by Halleck.

The Confederates had now determined to make an-
other effort to regain Tennessee and Kentucky, and,
while it was yet uncertain what would be the line of
advance, it soon became apparent that the Confederate
Army of the Tennessee intended to take the offensive.
The forerunners of the projected Confederate advance
were the forces under General John Morgan and Gen-
eral Forrest, which soon began to play havoc with
Buell’s communications, destroying railroad bridges,
capturing garrisons and creating widespread conster-
nation in Kentucky. Before the middle of August it
became apparent that Kentucky was to be invaded by
General Kirby Smith through Cumberland Gap and
by General Bragg, who had succeeded to the command
of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee, marching
north toward Louisville.

Long before the removal of either McClellan or
Buell, the commanders of the two great armies in the
East and in the West, the people of the North had be-
gun to distrust both. It was suspected that they were
lacking in the earnest devotion to the Union essential
48 CIVIL WAR TIMES

to the general who would lead its armies to victory.
The great commanders who were to do this were yet
in the background. After the surrender of Fort Don-
elson the people of the North had begun to talk of
“Unconditional Surrender’? Grant, who was beginning
to be famous; but Halleck was jealous of him as were
other generals ; he was assailed in Congress and in por-
tions of the northern press for his conduct of the bat-
tle of Shiloh, and his former victories had already been
overshadowed by his repeated failures to take Vicks-
burg. The newspapers of the North were ridiculing
his attempts to dig a channel that would allow the pas-
sage of vessels around Vicksburg and were bitterly
complaining of his retention in command of his army.

Referring to these failures of Grant, and to Sher-
man, his most trusted subordinate, one of the coarsest
and most reckless of the newspapers said that “the
army was being ruined in mud-turtle expeditions un-
der the leadership of a drunkard, whose confidential
adviser was a lunatic.””?

Senator Ben Wade, the bluff, honest, but impulsive
chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the
War, a man of powerful influence in Congress and in
the national councils, vehemently urged the removal
of Grant, at the same time giving the President the
cheerful assurance that he was leading the government
to hell, which at that minute was not a mile off.*®

” Reid: Ohio in the War, vol. 1, p. 385.
* Lincoln is said to have retorted: “That is just about the dis-
tance between the Capitol and the White House.”
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 49

But for the strong support of Representative Elihu B.
Washburne and the steadfast friendship of Lincoln,
Grant probably would have been relegated during the
remainder of the war to some obscure position in
which it would have been impossible for him to display
the soldierly qualities that afterward placed him in the
front rank of the world’s great commanders.

Alexander K. McClure, an active and influential Re-
publican politician of Pennsylvania, was one of those
who urged upon Lincoln the removal of Grant and he
has given us an interesting account of it.2* He
labored with Lincoln from 11 o’clock one night until
1 o'clock the next morning. He says:

“T pressed upon him, with all the earnestness I could
command, the immediate removal of Grant as an im-
perious necessity to sustain himself. As was his cus-
tom, he said but little, only enough to make me con-
tinue the discussion until it was exhausted. He sat
before the open fire in the old Cabinet room, most of
the time with his feet up on the high marble mantel,
and exhibited unusual distress at the complicated con-
dition of military affairs. Nearly every day brought
some new and perplexing military complication. He
had gone through a long winter of terrible strain with
McClellan and the Army of the Potomac; and from
the day that Grant started on his southern expedition
until the battle of Shiloh he had had little else than
jarring and confusion among his generals in the West.
He knew that I had no ends to serve in urging Grant’s

* Lincoln and Men of War Times, pp. 179-80.
4
50 CIVIL WAR TIMES

removal, beyond the single desire to make him be just
to himself, and he listened patiently.

“T appealed to Lincoln for his own sake to remove
Grant at once, and in giving my reasons for it I sim-
ply voiced the admittedly overwhelming protest from
the loyal people of the land against Grant’s continuance
in command. I could form no judgment during the
conversation as to what effect my arguments had upon
him beyond the fact that he was greatly distressed at
this new complication. When I had said everything
that could be said from my standpoint, we lapsed into
silence. Lincoln remained silent for what seemed a
very long time. He then gathered himself up in his
chair and said in a tone of earnestness that I shall
never forget: ‘I can’t spare this man; he fights’
That was all he said, but I knew that it was enough,
and that Grant was safe in Lincoln’s hands against his
countless host of enemies.”’

Sherman had ventured to predict that it would re-
quire an army of 200,000 to put down the Rebellion
in the Mississippi Valley, but people thought he was
crazy.

The situation in Kentucky was alarming and boded
ill for Indiana. Beriah Magoffin was still governor of
that state and it was well known that he would gladly
throw open the gates of Kentucky to the Confederate
armies, and that he would rejoice to see them cross the
Ohio and carry war and desolation into the states north
of it. In Indiana the situation was critical. Lincoln
had received of the total vote cast by the state 139,033,
Douglas 115,509, Breckinridge 12,295, and Bell 5,306.
Many had voted for Douglas because he was regarded
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 51

as the regular nominee of the party, but their sympa-
thies were with Breckinridge and his political doc-
trines. The great. body of Douglas Democrats, how-
ever, following the example of their distinguished and
patriotic leader, remained loyal to the Union cause
and were thereafter known as War Democrats. Many
of them enlisted in the Union armies and in 1862 were
at the front. But of the Democrats that remained at
home, a number of influential leaders were bitterly hos-
tile to the administration and to the further prosecu-
tion of the war, and they had a large following. At
a great mass meeting held at Indianapolis January 8,
1862, Thomas A. Hendricks openly advocated the idea
of a northwestern Confederacy which should cut loose
from New England and ally itself with the South.
He said:

“The first and highest interest of the Northwest is
in the restoration and preservation of the Union upon
the basis of the constitution, and the deep devotion of
her Democracy to the cause of the Union is shown by
its fidelity in the past; but if the failure and folly and
wickedness of the party in power render a Union
impossible, then the mighty Northwest must take
care of herself and her own interests. She must
not allow the arts and finesse of New England to
despoil her of her richest commerce and trade by a
sectional and selfish policy—eastern lust of power,
commerce and gain.”””°

* Foulke’s Life of Morton, vol. 1, p. 176.
52 CIVIL WAR TIMES

It is pleasant to contrast with this the report of the
proceedings of the Union convention held at Indiana-
polis June 18, 1862. One of the speakers was Martin
M. Ray, a well-known Democrat. In the course of a
patriotic address, he said:

“Yes, war could have been avoided by a cowardly
surrender of the government to rebel arms. What
difference does it make whether it costs one or four
millions per day to save the government, since it must
be saved at any price? . . . We will prosecute
the war to re-establish the supremacy of the Federal
constitution under Mr. Crittenden’s resolution at the
extra session of Congress, and, if slavery must perish
in the conflict, let it perish.”

The Confederate plan was that General Bragg
should invade Kentucky, march on Louisville, destroy
Buell’s communications, and force his army back to
the Ohio river. This meant that the invasion of Ken-
tucky, if successful, would be speedily followed by the
invasion of Indiana and Ohio. Indiana had gained
some idea of what was involved in an invasion by a
hostile army, when in July a band of Confederates
crossed the Ohio and sacked the town of Newburg,
situated on the river a few miles below Evansville.

The loyal citizens of Kentucky were appealing to
Governor Morton for aid. The people of Indiana were
apprehensive for their own homes. Not a moment was
to be lost. The President had called for 300,000 more
volunteers. The emergency was pressing. The diffi-
culty of raising the troops required, and the greater
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 53

difficulty of equipping them, were apparently insur-
mountable. But nothing daunted Morton. He at
once began the work. On July 12th he addressed a
great war meeting at Indianapolis, and all over the
state similar meetings were held. Volunteers came
forward faster than they could be mustered into serv-
ice; a new mustering officer was called and all the en-
ergies of the state government were taxed to the ut-
most. The result is briefly told in some of Morton’s
telegrams as given by Foulke:?°

“Aug. 26. The Seventy-ninth leaves Tuesday; will
hurry others. Indiana has put 14,480 men in Ken-
tucky up to Friday last; this will make it 19,296 by
Thursday this week. This includes two batteries.”

“Aug. 27. Another regiment can leave to-morrow,
one leaves this evening.”

“Aug. 30. The Eighty-ninth leaves this afternoon.
The Eighty-first and Eighty-second will be armed to-
day. Two regiments will start to-morrow, and five
more will be ready next week.”

“Aug. 31. The Eighty-eighth is at the depot. The
Eighty-seventh will be in Louisville to-morrow morn-
ing. Two regiments leave to-day and two more to-
night.”

Since my return from the three-months’ service I
had been in the law office of my stepfather. But there
was little law business and my heart was not in it.
Inter arma leges silent. On August 14 my stepfather
and I closed our law office and again enlisted, this time

* Life of Morton, vol. 1, p. 187.
54 CIVIL WAR TIMES

“for three years or during the war, unless sooner dis-
charged.” The company in which we enlisted started
in a few days for Indianapolis, where it became Co.
I of the 79th Indiana. I was commissioned first
lieutenant of the company, my stepfather, lieut.-colonel
of the regiment, and Frederick Knefler, colonel.

My company was recruited chiefly from Johnson
county and the adjoining county of Brown and was
composed in large part of men who had come from
the farm; probably twenty-five were from Franklin
and smaller towns; a few were college students, school
teachers, and professional men. Most of the company
were twenty-one years old or younger and only a few
of them were married. We were mustered into service
August 26, and on the 27th six companies, under com-
mand of Lieut.-Colonel Oyler, left for Louisville, fol-
lowed September 2 by Colonel Knefler and the remain- |
ing four companies.

The 7oth Indiana, though its losses were not so
great as those of many other regiments in the Civil
War, nevertheless gained an honorable record. It
was in reserve at the battles of Perryville and Frank-
lin and took an active part in the battles of Stone’s
River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge and Nashville,
and participated in the various battles of the Atlanta
campaign and in numerous skirmishes in east Tennes-
see in the winter of 1863. Its total losses, as given in
Fox’s Regimental Losses, were 53 killed and died of
wounds, and 149 died of disease, in prison, etc. It
went into the battle of Stone’s River with only 341
DEVELOPMENT OF CONFLICT 55

men and lost 121 killed, wounded, and captured. At
Chickamauga it participated in the charge and capture
of a Confederate battery, and it was in the first line
of Wood’s division in the storming of Missionary
Ridge.

I commanded the company in all the battles in which
the regiment was engaged until June 23, 1864, when
I was severely wounded at Kenesaw Mountain, on ac-
count of which I was honorably discharged November
10, 1864. While in the three-years’ service I never
had a furlough, never was absent from duty, and never
was in a hospital until after I was wounded.
CHAPTER THREE
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE

In the general histories of the Civil War, and in the
histories of great campaigns and battles, we get much
information about noted generals, mjlitary strategy,
and tactical maneuvers, but we gain a very imperfect
idea of a soldier’s daily life. Some phases of it, as
seen in camp, on the march, and in battle, deserve fuller
attention before going further in this narrative.

When it was expected that a regiment would remain
in one locality for a considerable period, camp was reg-
ularly laid out according to prescribed military regula-
tions, with narrow lanes, on each side of which were
the tents of the enlisted men. At the head of each
lane were the tents of the line officers, the captains and
lieutenants, and in rear of them were those of the regi-
mental officers. In the first year of the war, tents in
the shape of a letter A were furnished for the enlisted

‘men, and wall tents for the line officers. The former
were secured by ropes fastened to pegs driven into the
ground. Small trenches were dug around them to keep
out the water in rainy weather. If boards could be
found they were floored ; otherwise beds were made on
the ground. There was no way of heating them and in

(56)
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 57

cold weather the fire was made in front, the men sleep-
ing with their feet to the fire. The tents of the officers
were provided with flies which were erected in the rear
and were generally used as a sort of kitchen in which
the officers ate their meals. The tents of the regi-
mental officers were similar to those of the line officers
but were larger and better.

The enlisted men’s tents were found to require too
many'wagons to haul them and, in 1862, what were
familiarly known in the western army as “dog-tents”
were introduced, the 79th getting its first supply while
in camp at Murfreesboro. Each man was furnished
with a piece of canvas about five and one-half feet
square with buttons and button-holes so placed that
three pieces could be buttoned together, two of them
making the sides and one the back of the tent. They
were held in place by being stretched over a ridge pole
laid on top of two forked stakes, and fastened at the
bottom with wooden pins. In an emergency two mus-
kets with fixed bayonets, stuck in the ground, served
for temporary stakes. When so put together these
pieces of canvas made what were at once nicknamed
“dog-tents.” As they were not more than four feet
high, a man could not stand in them nor could he sit
in them with much comfort. But when lumber suff-
cient could be found, and the regiment was in camp
long enough, sides and rear walls were constructed
of boards or logs and the dog-tent was used as a roof.
Then the structure was dignified by the title “shebang,”
and bunks were made similar in size and shape to
58 CIVIL WAR TIMES

those in the state-rooms of vessels. Regiments which
were fortunate enough to remain in winter quarters
and to have access to timber, constructed miniature
log houses, eight or ten feet square, in shape much
like those of the early western pioneers, having stick
chimneys—the interstices between the logs being
filled with clay. These were palatial structures com-
pared with the dog-tents. The 79th built them several
times while in east Tennessee, but invariably, as soon as
completed, the regiment was ordered to march and was
obliged to abandon them. Into these contracted quar-
ters five or six men could manage to stow themselves
and all their baggage, arms, and cooking utensils and
to live in them with a reasonable degree of comfort,
incredible as this may seem to people in good circum-
stances who now want houses of eight or ten or more
rooms, and think they can not live comfortably with
less.

The daily routine of camp life began with the sound-
ing of the reveille. Then the men rose, dressed, and
responded to company roll-call, at which the names of
those assigned from the company for police, camp
guard, picket, or other special duty were announced.
Next came the drawing of rations, which were obtained
from the regimental commissary sergeant by the
company orderly sergeants and distributed by them to
the men. When it was possible to furnish full sup-
plies, they were generally abundant and good, consist-
ing usually of side-meat, always in the army called
“sow-belly,” crackers, always called “hardtack,” coffee,
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 59

and sugar. To these were sometimes added beans,
potatoes, and a vile compound known as “desiccated
vegetables.”’ But such princely provisions were rarely
distributed unless the regiment remained in camp for
a considerable time and there was easy communication
with the base of supplies.

Cooking in camp was sometimes done by a company
cook, but usually the men were divided into messes of
six or eight, and the labor of getting wood and water
and preparing the meals was apportioned among them
as they might agree. Occasionally a company officer
messed with some of the men, but usually, when in
camp, two or three officers united and employed a
colored man to do the cooking. Those who could af-
ford to pay the prices, which were usually very high,
could at times buy of regimental sutlers canned
peaches, jellies, and a few other delicacies. Boxes of
dainties vere sometimes sent from home and were gen-
erously shared by the recipients. with their comrades.
When the country people were allowed to approach
the picket stations, these became trading posts for the
purchase or exchange of pies, cakes, and other eata-
bles. One day while on picket duty near McMinnville,
Tennessee, I purchased of a very long and gaunt coun-
try woman a mince pie. I had not tasted one since I
left home and could hardly await my return to camp
in anticipation of the feast to which I had invited some
of my comrades. I was not more amazed when a boy,
reading for the first time in the old nursery rhyme the
wonderful story of the “four and twenty blackbirds
60 ‘CIVIL WAR TIMES

baked in a pie” which, when the pie was opened, at
once began to sing, than I was when I opened the pie
I had bought and discovered that its sole contents were
two pieces of fat pork from which the woman had not
even removed the bristles. My disgust at finding my-
self such a victim of misplaced confidence was not
relieved by the merriment and the sallies of my com-
rades, who seemed to relish the joke more than they
would have enjoyed a good mince pie.

It is needless to say that cooking in the army was
not done according to the rules prescribed in approved
cook books. Cooking utensils were scarce; the mess
that had a camp kettle, a coffee-pot, a frying-pan, and
a few tin plates and cups, was well provided. Occa-
sionally we procured at some country house an old-
fashioned “Dutch oven’”—a large iron skillet with a
lid—and the services of a “contraband” who knew
how to bake beans and corn pone, and then we enjoyed
a feast that could not be surpassed.

We fared best in summer when young corn and
berries were in season. No soldier that was in the
vicinity of Pikeville, Tennessee, in the summer of
1863, will ever forget the delicious roasting ears and
blackberry cobblers with which the memory of the
place will always be associated. The recipe for making
a blackberry cobbler was very simple. The six or
eight men in a mess put all their blackberries, all their
crackers, and all their sugar into a camp kettle, filled
it with water, and let it come to a boil, then stirred
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 61

the contents with a bayonet or stick, and it was ready
to serve. I do not recall that any of it was ever left.
Drills and inspections occurred with more or less
frequency, as the necessity for them required. Usually
there was a company drill in the forenoon and a regi-
mental drill in the afternoon. In the intervals between
drills and inspections the men were required to put
their arms and quarters in good condition. The chief
military display during the day was the dress parade.
This took place a little before sundown. The whole
regiment was formed in line; the buglers, or the regi-
mental band, if there was one, marched up and down
in front of the regiment playing a lively tune, generally
“The girl I left behind me.” Then the adjutant gave
the order, “Present arms’’; the colonel or command-
ing officer of the regiment acknowledged the salute
and perhaps put the regiment through a brief exercise
in the manual of arms; orders intended for the regi-
ment, if there were any, were read; and then the regi-
ment was dismissed and the companies marched back
to their respective quarters.
After supper the men spent the time as they pleased,
writing letters, playing cards, or telling stories, until
tattoo was sounded, when they were required to go to
their quarters and attend evening roll-call. The last
bugle call was taps or “lights-out,” after which every
one, unless assigned to some special night duty, was
expected to be in bed. Then the soldier lay down to
sleep—‘“to sleep! perchance to dream” of his home in
the far distant North; to dream that he was again
62 CIVIL WAR TIMES

one of the cheery circle gathered about the family fire-
side, or that he was again clasping in his arms the
fond wife and the prattling children he had left; to
awake in the morning and find that it was all a dream
and that he was far away from the home and the loved
ones that he might never see again.

All did not sleep. The camp guards, under the com-
mand of an officer detailed as officer of the day, were
stationed near the camp and divided into three reliefs,
serving alternately four hours at a time, and these
walked the beats assigned them and allowed none to
pass without halting and giving the countersign over
the point of a bayonet.

It was on the vigilance of the pickets, however, that
the security of the army at night depended, especially
when the enemy was in the near vicinity. They were
posted far enough from camp to give timely warning
in case of a sudden attack. They also were divided
into three reliefs, each relief serving four hours at a
time. Sometimes the picket walked over a beat vary-
ing in length, but if in close proximity to the enemy
he was usually stationed by a tree or in some spot
which would serve at once to conceal him from the
view, and to shelter him from the bullets, of the enemy.
However tired, he was not permitted to sleep. Next
to desertion, the greatest offense of which a soldier
could be guilty was that of sleeping on his post. No
matter how cold it might be, no matter how pitiless the
blast, no matter if the rain came down in torrents, he
must stand at his post until relieved. To stand alone
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 63

anywhere for four hours on a dark night, in a lonely
spot, would try the nerves of most men, but to stand
there in momentary expectation of being fired on by an
enemy known to be near by is an experience the full
meaning of which none but soldiers can appreciate.
On one occasion in the three-years’ service, when I
‘was acting as officer of the day and had command of
a picket station, I narrowly escaped being shot. I did
not hear the first challenge and a frightened picket
aimed at me, but his gun snapped. Fortunately, before
he could aim again, I succeeded in making. myself
known to him.

Pay-day was of course an important day in the army.
In anticipation of it the muster-rolls were prepared,
showing the amount due to each man, and when the
paymaster arrived the money was speedily distributed.
Most of it was sent home by the men for the use of
their families, or to be invested or kept until their re-
turn. It was usually sent by some one going North
on furlough, or by some visitor or sutler; but after
the first year’s service much of it was sent by what
was known as the “allotment roll” plan. During the
last year that I was in the service there was little op-
portunity to.spend money, if I had had ever so much,
for we were on the march most of the time, sutlers
were scarce, and there was little to buy in the country
through which we passed; so I invested most of my
pay in government 5-20 bonds, which proved to be a
very good investment, for with the proceeds of them
64, CIVIL WAR TIMES

I paid my way through the Albany Law School and
had enough left to buy a very good law library.

The first pay I received in the three-years’ service
was in government paper money. I do not remember
ever having seen a piece of gold or silver after leaving
Louisville in the fall of 1862. The small scrip, the
ten and twenty-five and fifty cent bills issued by the
government, were looked on with suspicion, and it
was difficult to pass them among the people of the
South with whom I came in contact. Long before the
close of the war they refused to receive Confederate
bills at almost any discount, but I never knew a “‘green-
back” to be refused. This was a silent but significant
proof of the belief of the great mass of the southern
people, at least in the regions through which I trav-
eled, that the North, if it did not succeed in the contest
of arms, would at least redeem its financial obligations.
The great medium of exchange was coffee. A grain
of coffee was next in value to a grain of gold, and the
soldiers could exchange coffee for almost everything
that the people of the South had to sell.

Next to the arrival of the paymaster, the event most
eagerly anticipated was the arrival of the mail. When
in camp for a considerable time the mails came with
something like regularity. Occasionally some one who
had been home on furlough returned, bringing letters
and papers. The letters were, of course, read with the
most eager interest, for they brought news directly
from home and from those nearest and dearest to the
soldier. After the letters the papers were read and
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 65

passed around. The local papers were of greatest in-
terest to those from the town or county where they
were published, and usually contained letters from sol-
diers in the various regiments having representatives
from the place. Of the newspapers most highly appre-
ciated in the Army of the Cumberland, composed
largely of troops from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the
Cincinnati Gazette and the Cincinnati Commercial
were the most popular. Whitelaw Reid, now editor
of the New York Tribune, was one of the war corre-
spondents of the Gazette. He wrote under the nom de
plume “Agate.” I had seen him in the three-months’
campaign in West Virginia, a young, handsome, dar-
ing-looking man. He was one of the best, if not the
best, of the war correspondents during the Civil War.
“Mack” (J. B. McCullagh), the correspondent of the
Commercial, was also a popular writer.

This leads me to say something of reading in the
army. I do not recall that Hamerton in his delightful
book on Intellectual Life says anything of the cultiva-
tion of literary tastes in the army. Certainly the facili-
ties for literary studies were not numerous; still, some
books, generally novels, were obtainable. I read the
Wandering Jew -while in the hospital on Lookout
Mountain, and I account for the deep impression it
made on the theory that I was so thirsty for something
to read that I absorbed every word of it. I have often
thought of Lowell’s remark about books “‘suitable to
a desolate island,” in connection with a copy of Blair’s

5
66 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Rhetoric which I picked up in the road. It had prob-
ably been pillaged from some farm house and thrown
away. A great many people nowadays have never
heard of Blair’s Rhetoric. A few old and wrinkled
pedagogues may remember it, but it is safe to say
that no one at this day could be coaxed into reading»
it for amusement. I had not seen a book or even a
newspaper for weeks, and I positively affirm that I
took the book with me on picket and read it entirely
through with absorbing interest, just as a starving man
would devour a dry crust.

One of the prominent characters of camp life was
the army sutler. He took a great many risks and was
obliged to charge high prices. I doubt if many sut-
lers in the Army of the Cumberland made a fortune.
The sutler carried in stock some clothing, combs and
brushes, playing cards, some canned goods, and a gen-
eral but small assortment of such articles as the soldiers
would be likely to need most. Sometimes he kept
wines and liquors, but the regulations were generally
such as made it difficult for the enlisted men to pur-
chase intoxicants.

It must not be supposed that the soldier’s life in
camp was an endless monotony of work and drill.
When not on duty the men amused themselves in pitch-
ing quoits, playing ball or cards, in reading, in visit-
ing their friends and acquaintances in other regiments,
and in various other ways. There was considerable
gambling in the army, but not a great deal in the regi-
ment to which I belonged. There was also considera-
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 67

ble drunkenness, but it prevailed to a greater extent,
in proportion to the numbers, among the officers than
among the men, because it was much more difficult for
the latter to procure liquor. The “canteen,” so much
discussed in connection with the Spanish and Philip-
pine wars, was unknown in the Civil War.

The hospital service in the army was as good as
could have been expected under the circumstances, es-
pecially in the general hospitals such as those at Nash-
ville, Louisville, and Washington. But even in these
the accommodations for the sick and wounded would
have been totally inadequate without the aid of the
loyal people, and especially the loyal women, in the
North. In nearly every town and village in the North
there were local organizations of the Sanitary Commis-
sion or the Christian Commission, in which noble
women met and prepared bedclothing and bandages
for the sick and wounded and such delicacies as would
tempt their appetites and forwarded them to the hos-
pitals. Moreover, great numbers of patriotic women
volunteered their services as nurses, soothing with
woman’s gentle touch and cheering with woman’s gen-
tle presence the suffering soldier lying helpless on his
cot. I have before me a little pamphlet written by one
of these nurses, Mrs. Francena Howe Brock, of Low-
ell, Mass., recounting her three-months’ experience in
the Campbell Hospital at Washington. She says:

“The heroic attempts of women to supplement the
supplies of the government and afford kindly help to
the sick and wounded, through the Christian and Sani-
68 CIVIL WAR TIMES

tary Commissions, will ever stand out in history as
one of the brightest pages of our Civil War.

“Their gifts were poured out with lavish generosity,
and their services in the front were given with un-
selfish heroism.

“On many a hospital bed, the fever-scorched patient
had on the clean, white garment, made by the loyal
women of the North, while on the beds of the conva-
lescents, quilts covered with mottoes and texts of Scrip-
ture gave comfort and words of cheer.”

Every soldier will endorse the truth of this state-
ment. Nor should we forget the noble work of the
Catholic Sisters of Mercy. In nearly every hospital
their sweet faces were seen as they moved quietly
about, ministering with equal fidelity to those of their
own or of another faith. But in the field hospitals
the facilities for taking care of the sick were limited,
and a rugged constitution was the main dependence
upon which the patients could rely for recovery.

Two diseases that at home rarely leave permanent
bad results were, from the impossibility of proper
diet and treatment, productive of dangerous conse-
quences in the army. One was diarrhea which, when
it assumed a chronic form, as it frequently did, was
almost as fatal and became as much dreaded as con-
sumption. The other was measles, a simple disease
under proper medical treatment, but one which in the
army often left the victim with impaired eyesight or
other permanent disability. Another disease, common
in the army, was nostalgia or home-sickness. There
it assumed a well-defined form and undoubtedly caused
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 69

or greatly aggravated other diseases. Malingering, or
the feigning of disease in order to shirk duty or to
avoid danger, is common in all armies, and in the
British army is severely punished. It was undoubtedly
largely practised in the Federal and Confederate
armies. .

In noting the features of life in camp, the “contra-
bands” must not be forgotten. This was the term al-
ways applied to the negroes. Some came from the
North but most of them were picked up in the South.
They were generally employed as cooks and servants
for the officers. In a subsequent chapter,’ the employ-
ment of negroes as soldiers will be considered.

Life in camp and life on the march were quite dif-
ferent. Generally the order to break camp and prepare
to march came very unexpectedly to the line officers
and enlisted men and there was not much time for
preparation. If it came in the night it was usually to
prepare to march the next morning at daybreak.
Sometimes the order came to break camp and prepare
to march at once, and it was astonishing how soon a
regiment could pack up and get into line ready to
move.

If it was expected merely to go on some short expe-
dition and to return to the same camp the tents were
left standing in charge of a guard, and the men carried
with them only such baggage as was indispensable.
But when it was not expected to return to the same

*Chap. X.
79 CIVIL WAR TIMES

camp the preparations. involved the abandonment of
everything that could not be taken. The officers’ va-
lises, company kettles, extra ammunition, and what-
ever could be so disposed of were put into wagons.
When the 7oth started on its first march each company
had a wagon; as the war progressed only one wagon
was allotted to a regiment and into this was put every-
thing that was to be hauled. Those who were too
sick to march were sent to the hospital or put into
ambulances.

The soldier on the march carried his arms and am-
munition. These consisted of musket and bayonet, a
belt to which was attached a leather ammunition-box,
containing generally forty-two rounds of cartridges,
and a leather scabbard holding his bayonet. His pro-
visions were carried in a canvas or oil-cloth haversack
suspended over his shoulder by straps; in like manner
he carried a canteen holding about three pints of water.
Each soldier was provided with a piece of oil-cloth, a
blanket, and, later on, a piece of dog-tent. Generally
these were all rolled together and the ends tied, mak-
ing a roll in the shape of a horse collar, and this was
thrown over the neck in such a way as to be carried
on one side. Into their knapsacks the men crowded
all they felt able or inclined to carry. Those of new
recruits were always stuffed with enough to start a
small store, but soldiers speedily learned, that they
could do without much which, at first, had been
thought indispensable, and the contents of a veteran’s
knapsack were usually very scanty—a change of un-
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 71

derclothing, a house-wife with some pins, needles, and
buttons, a small supply of writing-paper and a photo-
graph or two, being about all that he carried.

In the last two years of the three-years’ service, the
line officers on the march fared little better than the
men. Every captain was obliged to carry his own oil-
cloth, blanket, piece of dog-tent; haversack, and can-
teen, and also his own knapsack if he wished to take
any extras.

When everything was in readiness to move the bugle
sounded the assembly and the regiment took its place
in the column. In a long column consisting of several
divisions, it was very much easier to march in front,
and for this reason, on a march of several days’ dura-
tion, the regiment at the head of the column dropped
the next day to the rear. There are few more pictur-
esque sights than a considerable body of troops—a
corps or a division—on the march over a good road
on a clear day. Stretched along the road you see a
moving column, with waving banners and gleaming
guns, the general and regimental officers in brilliant
uniforms mounted on spirited steeds, the artillery roll-
ing along, cavalrymen occasionally dashing by—all
indicative of the strength and grandeur of the death-
dealing powers of an army when loosed in battle.

The men always marched in columns of fours and
no attempt was made to step in unison, but all speedily
adopted what was known as the route step. The dis-
tance traveled was usually fifteen to twenty miles a
day, according to the weather and the roads, but much
72 CIVIL WAR TIMES

longer distances were covered on forced marches. The
weather and the condition of the roads determined the
character of the march, not only as to distance traveled,
but as to the comfort of the men. When the weather
was fine and the roads were good the men enjoyed
the march. But nearly all our marching in east Ten-
nessee in the winter of 1863 was done in cold, rainy
weather and over miserable roads. To march all day
in the rain over a muddy road and then to pass the
night on the damp ground was not a pleasant experi-
ence. More than once I laid two rails together so as
to make a sort of trough, elevating one end of the
trough in order to keep it off the ground, and slept
in it all night with my oil-cloth over me and my hat
over my face to protect me from a drizzling rain.

One of the most common incidents of a march over
a muddy road was the stalling of a baggage or an am-
munition wagon. On such occasions the drivers were
apt to indulge in profanity. Indeed, it was commonly
believed that in a very bad case an expert swearer was
absolutely indispensable to start an obstinate team of
mules. There was one man in the 79th who was sent
for by all the drivers in the brigade when all other
attempts to get a wagon out of a mud-hole had failed.
This man would at once take the lines, crack his whip,
and fire off a volley of profane expletives sufficient to
make one’s hair stand on end and to scare any mule
ever hitched to an army wagon. I advance no scien-
tific theory on the subject, but simply record the fact
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 73

that he always succeeded in starting the mules and get-
ting the wagon out of the hole.

The monotony of a long march was relieved in vari-
ous ways. New scenery was opening at every step.
No house was passed that did not excite some com-
ment; no rustic appeared by the roadside that was not
plied with questions or jocularly, though not unkindly,
bantered. Often a song was started and taken up,
company by company, until the whole regiment joined
in it. The 79th picked up near Louisville a ven-
erable contraband familiarly known as “Uncle John.”
If he had any other name I have forgotten it. He re-
mained with the regiment until its return, was elected
“an honorary member of the reunion organization, and
died in Indianapolis. He had a great repertory of old
plantation songs, one of them ending with this refrain:

“God’y he delivered Daniel, Daniel, Daniel,
God’y he delivered Daniel,
Why not deliver me.”

I do not remember the rest of the song, but I recall
that often when we were on the march, and so fagged
that we could hardly drag one foot after the other,
some one would start the song and it would be taken
up by companies and regiments until the whole brigade
was singing it, and we would forget that we were tired.

Foraging by individual soldiers on the march was
strictly prohibited, but the prohibition was construed
with more or less leniency, according to the disposi-
tion of the commanding officers, and there were usually
74 CIVIL WAR TIMES

some opportunities on the march for the men to replen-
ish their scanty supply of provisions. Guards were
generally stationed at the farmhouses along the line
of march, but a friendly guard over a smoke-house
rarely observed his comrades in the rear of it dexter-
ously poking the shoulders and jowls off the hooks
with their bayonets. The temptation to pick up a stray
turkey or chicken was one too strong to be resisted
by the most conscientious soldier. Moreover, the law
of self-defense received a very liberal construction in
the army; it was universally allowed to be lawful to
kill a hog or a sheep that manifested a disposition to
bite, and, strange to say, all the hogs and sheep in the
South exhibited such a belligerent disposition. ‘

The cavalrymen and the artillerymen always had
the advantage of the infantrymen in foraging. When,
as often happened, nothing to eat could be picked up
on the line of march, the soldier was reduced to the
supplies in his haversack. It did not take long for
him to cook a meal. There were no tedious courses.
A pot of coffee was soon boiled, and a piece of side-
meat, stuck on the end of a ramrod and held over the
coals, was soon broiled. I never relished the most
sumptuous banquet as I did the cup of coffee, the slice
of side-meat and the piece of cracker that I used to
eat on the march.

The stragglers were familiar figures on the march.
Some were not strong enough to keep up, especially
on a hard march, but most of them were men that pur-
posely lagged behind to do a little foraging on their
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 75

own account or for plunder. They were not all skulk-
ers, but the skulkers were always among the stragglers
if a battle was imminent. Straggling prevailed in all
the armies, Federal and Confederate, but more in some
regiments than in others. There was comparatively
little in regiments whose officers enforced attendance
at roll-call and other regulations designed to prevent it.
Care was usually taken to stop the day’s march at
some spot convenient to water and wood. Sometimes
the, commanding officers were so considerate as to halt
the troops near a rail fence and then the command to
stack arms and break ranks was hardly repeated be-
fore the entire fence around a twenty-acre field had
disappeared as if by magic and almost in an instant
thousands of camp-fires were brightly burning. Then
was heard the sound, so familiar to all old soldiers, of
pounding coffee. The coffee issued to the soldiers in
the Army of the Cumberland was browned but not
ground, and coffee-mills were unknown. So the coffee
was put into tin cups, placed on a smooth stump or
stone, and beaten with the butt end of a bayonet, as a
druggist pulverizes drugs in a mortar. Supper being
ready it was speedily dispatched and then the soldiers
gathered about the camp-fires. These were the real
camp-fires. The incidents of the day were recalled;
former battles and skirmishes were discussed; story
‘after story went round; sometimes a song was started
in which all joined; and thus the tired soldiers tried
to forget the hardships of the past and the dangers of
the future. Is it cause for wonder that the friendships
76 CIVIL WAR TIMES

formed about these camp-fires knit together more
strongly than iron bands those who have survived?

The 79th Ind. was many times under fire and took
an active part in several memorable battles, and it so
happened that I participated in three of the most noted
—Stone’s River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge.
I have attempted a general description of them in the
following pages and many such descriptions have al-
ready been written, but I doubt whether, from these,
a reader that never saw a battle would get a very dis-
tinct idea of how it appeared to those engaged. It
may not be amiss, therefore, to attempt a more specific
description.

No two battles of the Civil War were alike, yet there
were many features common to all. Various circum-
stances combined to determine just when and where a
general engagement should be brought on by one or
the other of the opposing forces, and which should
take the initiative.

In nearly all the battles that I witnessed it was im-
possible to see the greater part of either of the oppos-
ing armies from one point. At Stone’s River the
greatest number of the Confederates that I could see
at any time were those in Breckinridge’s division on
Friday afternoon; at Chickamauga the greatest num-
ber I saw together were the forces of Longstreet as
they came up toward Snodgrass Hill; at the storming
of Missionary Ridge, however, I could see all the Fed-
eral troops that participated in the assault. During
the Atlanta campaign, the whole country in which it
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE er

was conducted was covered with such a heavy growth
of timber and underbrush that, from any particular
point in the lines, only a small portion of either army
could be seen.

Usually for some days before a great battle there
was considerable maneuvering for position, always
conducted in such a way as to secure the most available
positions for attack or defense, and, on the part of the
attacking army, to deceive the enemy concerning the
point where it was intended to strike the hardest blow.
The duty of “developing the enemy,” as it was called,
fell chiefly upon the cavalry, but sometimes a recon-
naissance in force was made by advancing considerable
bodies of infantry until the position of the main body
of the enemy could be ascertained. The character of
the ground, and the disposition of troops during the
night often made it difficult or impossible to ascertain
the exact position of the enemy, or to determine when
and where the first attack would be made. A striking
illustration of this was seen in the battle of Chicka-
matiga, each army on Friday night having been ig-
norant of the precise location of the other.

It would seem hardly possible for an army to be
surprised by an attack from an enemy known to be in
the vicinity, yet such surprises sometimes occurred,
as at Shiloh and at Stone’s River. In each case the
surprise very nearly resulted in the total rout of the
Federal-army. Night attacks were rare because in the
dark there was so much danger that the attacking
78 CIVIL WAR TIMES

party would fire on troops of its own side or be fired
on by them.

No troops will stand a flanking fire and, when ex-
posed thereto, they must retreat or speedily change
front. This is very apt to throw them into confusion,
as it is difficult to make new formations under the gall-
ing fire of an advancing enemy; therefore it is the ob-
ject of every general to post and maneuver his troops
in such a way, if possible, as to turn the right or the
left flank of the enemy.

When neither a surprise nor a flank movement is
practicable, another device is to mass a heavy body of
troops, make a sudden dash and break through some
weak point in the enemy’s lines, thus throwing them
into confusion, at the same time concealing, as far as
possible, the strength of the assaulting force and di-
verting attention from the point where the attack is
‘to be made by feint movements in other quarters.

The private soldier had little to do to prepare for
battle. He stripped himself of his knapsack and all
superfluous baggage, saw that his gun was in order
and that his ammunition-box was filled. The main
attacking columns were generally preceded by a line
of skirmishers posted a short distance in front. The
skirmishers advanced, followed by the men in the main
columns, until they were checked by a superior force
of the enemy, when they fell back or halted until their
own main lines came up and then took their places in
them.

The army anticipating an attack generally fortified
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 79

its position as much as possible. The value of breast-
works was speedily recognized. Those constructed by
General Joseph E. Johnston to oppose the advance
of General Sherman were so strong that the forces
behind them would have been able to resist suc-
cessfully a direct assault by four or five times their own
number. Even temporary breastworks, such as could
be erected in a night, composed of logs and rails two
or three feet high, with a trench behind them one or
two feet ‘deep, or even without a trench, gave the
troops behind them a great advantage, especially
against a column compelled to travel’a considerable
distance over an open field in front in order to reach
them. Behind such breastworks a line of men, armed
with modern Mauser rifles, could probably resist a
direct attack in front by an army ten times their own
in number.

When breastworks were to be charged, the charge
was usually preceded by a brisk cannonading, followed
by a rapid advance of the attacking force in such num-
bers as to exhaust the fire of those behind the works,
before reenforcements could reach them. Such charges
were usually very destructive to the attacking party,
especially when exposed to the fire, at short range, of
the men behind the breastworks and also to the fire of
cannon loaded with grape-shot and canister.

Next to charging breastworks, the duty requiring
the greatest bravery was that of charging a battery.
If infantry could advance within musket range of the
artillerymen and horses, the charge, especially if
80 CIVIL WAR TIMES

against a single battery, was usually successful in either
capturing the battery or compelling it to retreat, be-
cause, unless well supported by infantry, the men and
horses were soon killed or disabled. But dreadful loss
of life usually resulted when a charging column was
forced to advance over a considerable space before com-
ing within musket range of the enemy’s artillery. The
general reader who sees accounts of men “marching
up to the cannon’s mouth” is apt to believe that this
is a poetic stretch of imagination. But it is not. Such
scenes were often witnessed during the Civil War.
Time and again there were charges by both Federal
and Confederate troops in which men marched straight
up to the cannon’s mouth and bayoneted the artillery-
men.
Perhaps the most trying position in which a soldier
can be placed is to be exposed to artillery fire when so
situated that he can neither advance nor fire in return.
In a charge he is carried forward by the very mo-
mentum of the column and is inspired by the enthusi-
asm kindled by the charge itself; when he is firing in
return he has at least something to divert his mind
from dwelling solely on his own personal danger; but
when he is compelled to stand or lie still and can do
nothing but await the coming of a cannon ball, he is
in a situation requiring the courage of the bravest
man. General Sheridan in his Memoirs,’ describing
his division in such a position at Stone’s River, says

? Vol. 1, p. 234.
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE ‘ 81

that the “torments of this trying situation were almost
unbearable.” In a reconnaissance made on Sunday,
September 13, 1863, preceding the battle of Chicka-
mauga, the 79th Ind. was for a few minutes posted on
the top of a ridge in a field, exposed to the fire of a Con-
federate battery about half a mile distant on the oppo-
site side of the field. The battery almost at once got
the range of our colors, and one ball passed under the
horse of the lieutenant-colonel who happened to be im-
‘mediately behind the colors. We could see the smoke of
the cannon an instant or so before we could hear the
sound of the discharge and then another instant elapsed
before the ball came along. We were all lying flat
on the ground with our heads toward the cannon and I
distinctly remember that every time I saw the smoke
I thought of the possibility that the ball might hit my
head. It is hardly necessary to say that when the or-
der was given to fall back behind the brow of the ridge
it was obeyed with the utmost alacrity.

Bayonet charges were not uncommon nor were hand
to hand contests, but I think there were comparatively
few instances in which opposing forces fought each
other solely with bayonets. The statistics collected by
Colonel Fox show a very small percentage of bayonet
wounds. What generally happened when a bayonet
charge was ordered is illustrated in a dialogue given
by Piatt :°

® General George H. Thomas, p. 14.
6
82 CIVIL WAR TIMES

“Do you mean to say,’ asked a civilian of a veteran
officer who had seen many fierce fights in Europe, ‘that
bayonets are never crossed in battle?’

““Oh, no! I don’t say that. What I asserted was
that I had heard of such but never saw it, and I have
my doubts whether it ever occurred.’

“Well, when a charge of bayonets is ordered, what
happens, how does it end?’

“Why, if the other fellows don’t run away, we
do.’ ”

In the pictures of battles the officers are usually de-
picted in full uniform, generally on prancing steeds,
and always far in advance waving their swords aloft
and beckoning their men forward. Now this would
be a very ridiculous position for an officer to take, be-
cause it would expose him not only to the fire of the
enemy but to the fire of his own men. The army reg-
ulations required the officers, on the formation of a line
of battle, to take their places in the rear of the line.
An officer whose bravery or vanity induced him to ex-
pose his rank to the enemy was certain to be made a
special target.

The men particularly aimed at in battle were the of-
ficers, especially those of high rank, if they could be
distinguished, the artillerymen, and those bearing the
regimental colors; but most of the firing was at ranks
or masses of men, just as one would shoot into a flock
of blackbirds. The old soldier, however, generally
aimed at some particular person and with a view of
hitting him. The difference in this respect between
a veteran and a raw recruit is illustrated in the story
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 83

told by General Schofield* the substance of it being as
follows: A new recruit after a battle was proudly ex-
hibiting to a veteran his empty cartridge-box and boast-
ing of how many rounds he had fired, but he could not
tell how many he had hit. “And how many rounds
did you fire?” asked the recruit. ‘About nineteen”
was the reply. “And how many did you hit?” “I
think,” said the veteran, “that I hit about nineteen.”

In my company was a man who used to hunt squir-
rels in the woods of Brown county, and who could hit
one in the top of the tallest tree. He was the most
quiet and best-natured man in the company, and the
coolest J ever saw under fire. Just after the storming
of Missionary Ridge he showed me a bent sapling upon
which he had rested his gun to take deliberate aim, and
he assured me that he hit his man every time. I have
not the least doubt of the truth of his statement.

The sensation of being under fire, under any cir-
cumstances, is not particularly agreeable, but when you
know that the bullets are not aimed especially at you,
you feel that the danger is being divided in some way
between yourself and your comrades; that it is a sort of
lottery in which you may draw a bullet or you may es-
cape and others may be hit. But it is altogether dif-
ferent when you know that some one is taking aim at
you individually. A Frenchman in describing a tiger
hunt said: “It is great fun to hunt ze tigaire, but
when ze tigaire hunt you it is fun for ze tigaire.”

* Forty-Six Vears in the Army, p. 142.
84. CIVIL WAR TIMES

There is nothing very funny in the situation when some
one is aiming at another, but if there is any fun it is
not relished by the man who is being shot at. I do
not know how many times I may have been aimed at,
but I am sure of having been on one occasion. This
was in front of Rocky Face Ridge in the Atlanta cam-
paign. I was on the skirmish line, picking my way
over the rough ground and through the underbrush,
when a bullet whizzed past and cut a bush near my
head. There was no volley and it happened that no
one was within fifty feet of me. So I knew that some
Confederate sharpshooter was directing his attention
to me individually. He would probably have hit me
if I had not been moving.

The last year of the war witnessed some radical
changes in the method of fighting. The advance of
Grant to Richmond as well as that of Sherman to At-
lanta was through a thickly wooded country in which
there was a dense growth of underbrush. This made
it difficult to use in battle all the men on both sides, and
also made it difficult for the artillery to do its most ef-
fective work. The result was the development of a
style of warfare similar in some respects to that prac-
tised in the early Indian wars. It became part of the
education of every soldier, officer as well as private, to
take advantage of every tree, log, rock, or other natu-
ral barrier, in order to protect himself as much as possi-
ble in an advance against the enemy.

But the most radical changes were those occasioned
by the fact that the armies of both Lee and Johnston
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 85

were almost continuously on the defensive, this making
it necessary for them to construct formidable fortified
lines. When driven from one line they fell back to an-
other. The fortifications encountered by the Federal
troops in the Atlanta campaign were of far more elab-
orate character than any which they had previously
met. They were constructed of earth, four or five feet
high and thick enough to withstand a six pound cannon
ball. Over the top of these was a head-log, so placed
as to leave an open space of about six inches between
the lower side of the log and the top of the ridge. Be-
hind was a trench about a foot deep in which the men
stood while loading, entirely concealed from view.
When ready to fire they stepped out of the trench and
fired through the opening under the log, thus exposing
only a small portion of their persons. Often in front
of these breastworks were driven stakes with sharp-
ened ends, pointing outward, and sometimes trees were
felled in front of them for the purpose of embarrassing
the progress of a charging column.

Even with such weapons as were in use during the
Civil War, one man behind such breastworks equaled
at least five in a charging column. Experience proved»
that it was a useless sacrifice of life, in fact little short
of butchery, to attempt to take such breastworks by di-
rect assault. No troops in the world could hold out in
a charge against them, if they were defended by troops
one-fifth in number and of equal valor, especially if the
assaulting columns were compelled, in order to reach
the works, to advance over a considerable open space
86 CIVIL WAR TIMES

in front, exposed to both a direct and enfilading fire of
musketry and artillery. Generally men would charge
even against such works, when ordered to do so, for
such was the high state of discipline in the last year of
the war that soldiers. would usually go whenever and
wherever ordered, refusing only when it became evi-
dent that, if such assaults were persisted in, every man
in the assaulting columns would be killed.

The futility of attempting to take strongly fortified
lines by direct assault was clearly shown during the
Virginia campaign in the assault at Cold Harbor. In
his Memoirs Grant expresses regret that it was made.
The uselessness of direct assault against such fortified
lines was also shown, time and again, in the Atlanta
campaign, as at Pickett’s Mill, and especially in the
bloody assault at Kenesaw Mountain, June 27, 1864,
which was disapproved by Sherman’s subordinate gen-
erals and afterward admitted by him to have been a
mistake. In his account of the assault at Pickett’s
Mill, General Cox says:

“The attack of Hooker at New Hope Church and
this of Howard at Pickett’s Mill were both made in
column of brigades or demi-brigades. The result in
both cases demonstrated that in a difficult and wooded
country, and especially against intrenched lines, the
column had little if any advantage over a single line
of equal front. It could not charge with the en-
semble which could give it momentum, and its depth
was therefore a disadvantage, since it exposed masses
of men to fire who were wholly unable to fire in return.
Since the office of breastworks is to give the defense
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 87

, an advantage by holding the assailant under fire from
which the defenders are covered, the relative strength
of the two is so changed that it is within bounds to say
that such works as were constantly built by the con-
tending forces in Georgia made one man in the trench
fully equal to three or four in the assault. Each party
learned to act upon this, and in all the later operations
of the campaign the commanders held their troops re-
sponsible for making it practically good. The boasts,
on either side, that a brigade or division repulsed three
or four that attacked it, must always be read with this
understanding. The troops in the works would be
proved to be inferior to the assailants if they did not
repulse a force several times greater than their own.”®

General Schofield also gives very decided testimony
on this point. He says:

“In the days of bayonet successful tactics consisted
in massing a superior force upon some vital point and
breaking the enemy’s line. Now it is the fire of the
musket, not the bayonet, that decides the battle. To
mass troops against the fire of a covered line is simply
to devote them to destruction. The greater the mass
the greater the loss—that is all. A large mass has no
more chance of success than a small one. That this is
absolutely true since the introduction of breech-loaders
is probably not doubted by any one; and it was very
nearly true with the muzzle-loading rifles used during
our late war, as was abundantly demonstrated on many
occasions.’’®

5 Atlanta, p. 80.
® Forty-Six Years in the Army, pp. 145-6.
88 CIVIL WAR TIMES

There was only one way to take such works, and that »
was by flanking them. This required an attacking
army largely superior in numbers to the enemy, so
large that the attacking party could maintain its posi-
tion in front of the works and still have enough to
threaten the enemy’s communication and thus force an
evacuation. This was Grant’s plan in the Virginia
campaign, and Sherman’s in the Atlanta campaign.
This plan, however, while it largely avoided the inevi-
table and useless sacrifice of life in direct assaults, nev-
ertheless required obstinate and bloody fighting for it
was necessary continually to push the lines of the at-
tacking army as near as possible up to those of the
enemy. When, therefore, an advance was made
against fortified lines, either for the purpose of carry-
ing them, if a weak place could be found in them, or
for the purpose of advancing the lines of the attacking
army, it was necessary to provide for holding the
ground gained, even if the attempt to take the enemy’s
works should fail.

Charging columns were often followed by men with
entrenching tools with which defensive works could be
speedily constructed, and it was not an unusual sight
to see some of the men in a charging column carrying
rails. These were thrown down as soon as a halt was
made and then, if there were no picks and spades, the
men would scoop out a trench behind the rail pile with
their bayonets and their tin dinner plates, and thus
construct rude breastworks even under a galling fire.
I saw this done at New Hope Church and it was not
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 89

an uncommon occurrence in the Atlanta and Virginia
campaigns.

Of course there was grave danger that those en-
gaged in battle might be either killed or wounded, and
some regiments, as shown by Colonel Fox, suffered an
appalling Idss of life. The artillery in battle made the
greatest noise, but comparatively few men were killed
by cannon-balls. A single cannon-ball rarely hit more
than one man; most of them hit no one. The most
deadly work of artillery was when it fired grape and
canister at short range, especially at dense columns of
men, or at a line exposed to an enfilading fire. The
greatest danger in battle was that of being killed or
wounded by a musket-ball. Considering the number
of musket-balls fired in a great battle, the wonder, at
first thought, is, not how many were killed or wounded
by them, but how many escaped unhurt. It has been
said, however, that it takes a man’s weight in lead to
kill him in battle, and, though this is a rough guess, I
suppose that it is near the truth. Generally speaking,
most of the bullets fired in battle overshoot the mark;
many just miss; some go through the clothing only;
of those which hit the person, many inflict only flesh
wounds and do not touch a vital spot.*. The explosion
of a mine, like that at Petersburg, causes great loss of
life, but there were few such catastrophes in the Civil
War.

In reading of battles and in considering the inspir-

"See Colonel Fox, The Chance of Being Hit in Battle, Century
Mag., vol. 36, p. 93.
go CIVIL WAR TIMES

ing motives of those who fought them, there are many
things to be taken into account. The personal brav-
ery of the combatants is of course an important ele-
ment. This has always been a distinguishing quality
of the American soldier, and no troops in the world
ever exhibited it in a higher degree than did the sol-
diers on both sides in the Civil War. I do not mean
by this the dare-devil courage that apparently made
many men reckless of life. Of this there were many
instances also, but most men in the army did not expose
themselves to danger from mere indifference to it. I
am quite sure that on many occasions, if I had had
nothing to stay me but my courage, I should have run
away at once without standing upon the order of my
going. But there were motives and feelings other
.than mere personal courage that inspired the soldier.
An honorable pride nerved many men to face death
rather than to seek safety in dishonorable flight.
Moreover, there was something in the highest degree
inspiring in a great battle. Probably some of the in-
spiration was artificially created, or at least stimulated,
as we see it created and stimulated in an exciting polit-
ical campaign by great processions, fire-works, huzzas,
and other artifices well known to politicians. The ex-
ample of a general rallying his troops, as General Sher-
idan rallied his at Winchester, seemed to impart to all
who saw him an enthusiasm that spread like wild-fire.
There were hundreds of such instances, less noted but
equally heroic and equally inspiring, in the Civil War.

It was characteristic of the Confederates that they
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE gI

charged with what came to be well known as the Con-
federate “yell.”” It was apt to strike terror to the new
recruit who heard it for the first time, but his veteran
comrade waited until the advancing hosts came within
range af his musket, well knowing that a musket-ball
was far more effective than a yell.

In my opinion, the most inspiring motive was a con-
scientious sense of duty—the same feeling that in all
ages has inspired martyrs at the stake or on the scaf-
fold. We call it patriotism, but patriotism is only
another name for that sense of duty to country which,
next to the sense of duty to God, is the highest motive
that can excite men to heroic deeds. On a great bat-
tle-field everything is calculated to arouse heroic im-
pulses in even the ordinary man. The most philo-
sophic person catches some of the excitement created
by a fire-engine tearing along the street. But such a
sight is of trifling significance compared with that of a
battery ploughing along a rough road, or through
fields and woods, bouncing over rocks, logs and
ditches, wheeling into position, and in the twinkling of
an eye opening fire with deafening roar and sheets of
flame mowing great swaths through the columns of an
advancing enemy.

‘We see a great political procession go by with wav-
ing banners and loud huzzas and we can not help catch-
ing some of the enthusiasm. We see a regiment of
militia marching with gleaming guns and martial step;
we hear the bugle notes; and the sight inspires the or-

‘dinary spectator with something of military ardor.
92 CIVIL WAR TIMES

An audience is sometimes stirred to its depths by the
mere waving of a flag. An old soldier at a regimental
reunion, even after a third of a century has passed, can
hardly repress the tears that come unbidden at the un-
folding of a battle-rent flag, typical to him of so many
hard-fought battles and desperate contests. Is it cause
for wonder that, when it waves over him in battle, it
makes him almost delirious with enthusiasm?

But it is impossible to impart to one who never par-
ticipated in a battle the feelings of the soldiers them-
selves, when, amidst the roar of cannon, the bursting
of shells, and the flash of musketry, opposing hosts
madly rush against each other in charge and counter-
charge, ‘where men become iron with nerves of steel,”
and those who at home were esteemed the most quiet
and orderly citizens, become, for the time, animated
with almost supernatural courage that makes them ut-
terly fearless of death.

In every battle were seen those known as “skulkers.”
Despite the utmost vigilance of the officers, they would
succeed in getting to the rear, and to all who passed
they would tell how their regiments had been cut to
pieces and that they were the only survivors left to tell
the doleful tale. They generally had a sneaking look
and were easily recognized by the veteran soldier, who
soon came to know them by sight and who paid little
attention to their extravagant stories of carnage in
front. These were the men who, after the war, were
usually found on street-corners loudly boasting of their
prodigies of valor.
CAMP, MARCH AND BATTLE 93

Besides the ordinary skulkers there were the consti-
tutional cowards. It is as difficult to define the psycho-
logical distinction between an ordinary skulker and a
constitutional coward as it is to define that between
an ordinary thief and a kleptomaniac, for between the
skulker and the constitutional coward there were in-
numerable gradations. But a well-defined type of the
latter was easily recognized. He did not boast. His
face in time of battle’ took on a look of abject terror
pitiable to behold, betokening an inward unspeakable
agony. Men of this type could be found in almost
every regiment. No appeal to their sense of duty,
their patriotism or pride could overcome the terror
inspired by the sound of battle. I have seen men who,
the moment the firing commenced, began to tremble like
an aspen leaf, with the perspiration dripping from them
in great drops. An officer in the Army of the Potomac
told me of a man of this type who, when situated so
that he could not run away, would mechanically load
his gun, shut his eyes, and fire into the air. The poor
fellow was killed after all. The wise and humane
officer soon acquired the experience enabling him to
‘differentiate the constitutional coward from the or-
dinary skulker, and he endeavored, if possible, to as-
sign the timid soldier to some duty where he could do

_ better service than he was able to do on the firing line,
and where his terror would not demoralize his com-
rades.

To speak of the “amenities of war” would seem to
most persons like using a misnomer, and yet during the
94 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Civil War there were many illustrations of a fraternal
feeling between the combatants such as probably never
existed between the soldiers of opposing armies in any
other war in the history of the world. Those who
have heard the eloquent lecture of the Confederate
General John B. Gordon, recounting some of his war
reminiscences, will remember hearing him relate how
the Confederate and Union soldiers fraternized in the
eastern armies, and how on one occasion the Confed-
erate soldiers in his command indignantly insisted that
the laws of hospitality required the safe return of the
Union soldier who had been surprised while making
them a friendly visit. Substantially the same fraternal
feeling existed between the opposing pickets during
the siege of Chattanooga. It was a frequent occur-
rence for them to meet and exchange. papers and have
a friendly chat, and I never heard that the laws of hos-
pitality were abused by the soldiers of either side.
There were similar courtesies during the Atlanta
campaign. A striking exhibition of them was given
at Rocky Face Ridge. The 79th was posted about
half way up the ridge, and at one time the pickets had
orders to keep up a steady fire all night against the
Confederates on the summit. One of the 79th pickets
learned in some way that a Kentucky Confederate reg-
iment, in which he had a brother or a brother-in-law,
was near by. He communicated the fact to the near-
est Confederate picket who kindly volunteered to find
his relative and bring him to the Confederate picket
line; this he did, and the 79th man and his Confederate
CAMP, MARCH AND. BATTLE 95

relative talked together for several hours from be-
hind their respective trees, while each was keeping up
a steady fire, according to orders, against the enemy’s
lines. It is to be presumed, however, that they took
care not to aim at each other.

With the exception of the assault at Kenesaw Moun-
tain, the bloodiest engagement of the Atlanta cam-
paign, in proportion to the numbers engaged, was that
at Pickett’s Mill, May 27, 1864, in which an unsuc-
cessful assault was made on the Confederate fortified
lines. In this assault Wood’s division of the 4th
corps suffered a very heavy loss. The 86th Ind., one
of the regiments in Wood’s division, participated, and
its colonel, George Dick, was severely wounded. It
would naturally be supposed that these circumstances
were not such as to inspire the most amicable feelings
in the combatants, and yet in the History of the 86th
Indiana® is recorded this singular incident which oc-
curred the next day between a Confederate picket and
one of the 86th Indiana:

“On the next day, the 28th, the boys of the Eighty-
sixth and the Confederates formed a ‘Board of Trade’
on a small scale for the purpose of disposing of surplus
coffee on the one hand and tobacco upon the other.
An offer to ‘dicker’ coffee for tobacco always caught
the ‘Johnnies’ arid put them in good humor, if there
were no officers around. On the other hand tobacco
was in brisk demand in the Union ranks. When there
was an official about they would signal not to come,

® Pp. 397-8.
96 CIVIL WAR TIMES

but as soon as he was gone, traffic would be resumed.
They seemed to be in excellent humor over their great
success in repelling the assault of the previous day.
They were quite willing to talk of the campaign, ex-
pressing themselves freely in regard to the probable
success of it on the Union part, and “lowed they had
enough for another killing yet in ranks.’

“At one of these meetings an interesting discussion
arose between Wat Baker, of Company H, and a Con-
federate. Snugly ensconced behind two logs hid from
view of the rebel line, the discussion began. Baker
was an oddity, over six feet in height, of a nervous dis-
position, jerky in manner and emphatic in speech.
The discussion, as related by Baker afterwards, ranged
over the whole subject of contention between the North
and the South—slavery pro and con was argued, se-
cession and coercion, and the probable success of the
northern armies finally. For nearly two hours these
men chatted and argued every phase of the contest
which suggested itself to their minds.”
CHAPTER FOUR

SEEING REAL WAR; THE MARCH FROM LOUISVILLE TO
NASHVILLE

As already stated, six companies of the 79th, un-
der command of Lieut.-Colonel Oyler, left Indianapo-
lis, August 27, 1862, arriving at Louisville and going
into camp the same day, followed on September 2 by
Colonel Knefler with the four other companies. The
regiment remained in the vicinity of Louisville until
the first of October, moving from one camp to another
but not remaining very long in any of them.

Most of the time was employed in drilling, with a
“grand review” once or twice a week, when the men,
in woolen uniforms and carrying, in addition to their
arms and accoutrements, heavy knapsacks, marched
twelve or fifteen miles through the streets of Louis-
ville. The weather was intensely hot, the streets were
very dusty, and many, not yet inured to such discipline,
were broken down before leaving Louisville. These
reviews were especially hard upon the raw recruits of
the 7th because, while their comrades in other
regiments were armed with Enfield or Springfield
rifles, the 79th was armed with Vincennes rifles—guns
nearly twice as heavy as the Enfields and having

(97)
98 CIVIL WAR TIMES

weighty sword bayonets with metal scabbards. On
a very hot day during one of these idiotic parades more
than fifty men of the 79th were prostrated by the heat,
from the effects of which some never fully recovered.
While at Louisville we learned something of camp
life and something of picket duty, but very little of real
war. Only the Ohio river separated most of the reg-
iment from their homes in Indiana and nearly every
day they were visited by some of their relatives and
friends. Nevertheless important military operations
were taking place in Kentucky during our stay in
Louisville. General Kirby Smith had entered eastern
Kentucky and was threatening Cincinnati, and Gen-
erals Bragg and Buell were on a race to Louisville. On
August 30, 1862, the battle of Richmond, Kentucky,
was fought and the Federal troops under General Nel-
son, chiefly raw recruits, were defeated and routed.
Nelson came on to Louisville and began the organiza-
tion of the new troops. He was killed there by General
Jeff. C. Davis for an unprovoked and flagrant insult.
For a time there were rumors that Louisville was
about to be attacked. Breastworks were hastily
thrown up and the indications were that we might have
a battle at once; but Bragg, after halting a few days
at Munfordsville, turned aside and went to Bardstown
and Buell continued his march to Louisville. I was on
picket duty and talked with many of Buell’s men as
they passed. Buell and Bragg had been marching for
several days toward Louisville, and at Munfordsville
the two armies were in close proximity, but each
MARCH THROUGH KENTUCKY 99

seemed careful to avoid bringing on a battle. I
thought at the time, in common with many others in
and out of the army, that this was very mysterious
strategy, but since then it has been satisfactorily shown
that it would not have been good generalship on Gen-
eral Buell’s part to risk a battle before reaching Louis-
ville.» The last of Buell’s army arrived September 29.
The next day an order came relieving him and appoint-
ing General Thomas as his successor. General
Thomas, with that loyalty to his superiors and total
absence of selfishness which at all times characterized
his conduct, earnestly protested, and so, for the time,
Buell was retained, with Thomas as second in com-
mand, and on October 1 he marched in pursuit of
Bragg.

The new troops already in Louisville, and those that
came soon afterward, about 22,000 in all, were incor-
porated into the army as rapidly as possible, new regi-
ments being brigaded with those that had seen actual
service; and the army was divided into first, second,
and third corps under the commands respectively of
Generals Alexander McD. McCook, Thomas L. Crit-
tenden, and Charles C. Gilbert. The 79th Indiana was
assigned to General Samuel Beatty's brigade in Van
Cleve’s division of Crittenden’s corps. The other reg-
iments of the brigade were the 19th Ohio, the 9th and
11th Ky. The 19th Ohio and the oth Ky., both splen-

*See General Cist’s explanation in Army of the Cumberland,
Dp. 73.
100 CIVIL WAR TIMES

did regiments that had fought at Shiloh, were brigaded
with the 79th Ind. throughout the service.

As already stated, Buell’s army left Louisville Octo-
ber 1. Contrary to the plans of Bragg, who now in-
tended to avoid giving battle in Kentucky and who, at
the time, was absent in Frankfort assisting in the in-
stallation of a Confederate “provisional governor,” a
general engagement was precipitated at Perryville,
Kentucky, October 8, 1862. On account of a misun-
derstanding of existing conditions, the battle on the
Federal side was fought chiefly by McCook’s corps. It
resulted in nothing of importance except great loss of
life to the troops engaged. At this battle Beatty’s
brigade was in reserve, the men had been ordered to.
divest themselves of their knapsacks and were in
momentary expectation of going into action, when it
was learned that Bragg had withdrawn and was again
in retreat. The next day I went over the battle-field,
seeing many of the dead who had not yet been buried
and many mangled bodies. One poor man was almost
cut in two by a.cannon-ball which had gone through
his body near his waist. I observed large saplings and
limbs that had been cut off by cannon-balls and great
furrows which these had ploughed in the ground.

After the battle we marched to Crab Orchard, then
to the Wild Cat battle-ground, and from there through
Mt. Vernon, Somerset, and Glasgow, reaching Scotts-
ville, Kentucky, November 6. On the 7th we passed
over the Tennessee line, and reached Gallatin on the8th.
On the roth we crossed the Cumberland river, camping ©
MARCH THROUGH KENTUCKY IOI

that night at Silver Spring, about eighteen miles from
Nashville. We continued in camp there until the 18th,
when we marched toward Nashville and remained in
that vicinity, changing the location of our camp sev-
eral times, until we started, December 26th, on the
march to Murfreesboro. As we passed the Hermitage
on our way to Nashville the men gave three cheers for
“Old Hickory.” He had said—and nobody doubted
that he meant what he said—that “The Union must
and shall be preserved.” If he, instead of James
Buchanan, had been President in the early part of
1861, the “irrepressible conflict” might have been post-
poned, but it could not have been avoided. The con-
test between freedom and slavery was inevitable.

On October 24, 1862, while on the march through
Kentucky, General William S. Rosecrans had been ap-
pointed to the command of the Department of the
Cumberland and the troops in his department were now
designated as the Fourteenth Army Corps, but the
name by which the army was popularly known was
that later confirmed by general orders of the War De-
partment, viz.: The Army of the Cumberland. Soon
afterward the army was divided into the right wing,
center, and left wing, under the commands respectively
of Generals McCook, Thomas, and Crittenden.

' General Buell was singularly unfortunate. Like
McClellan he was unpopular with the people and with
the authorities at Washington, but, unlike him, he was
also unpopular with a large part of his own army, es-
I02 CIVIL WAR TIMES

pecially with the new troops, who were unaccustomed
to the rigid restraints of military life and had not yet
learned the value of military training. The soldiers
who at first chafed under Buell’s discipline came in
time to realize that it was largely by reason of it that,
out of the raw materials he found, he was able to lay
the foundation of the splendid Army of the Cumber-
land. His unpopularity with the people of the North
was due to a wide-spread distrust of his loyalty, but
the injustice of this is now generally conceded. Like
every other prominent Federal general, he had incurred
the hostility of Halleck, and the immediate cause of his
removal was probably his refusal to acquiesce in a
ridiculous scheme of the latter which contemplated
Buell’s advance into east Tennessee through Cumber-
land Gap, a plan that would have compelled him to re-
ly upon wagon transportation for a distance of 240
miles, would have exposed him to constant danger of
having his communications destroyed and the different
detachments of his army defeated in detail, and would
likewise have left both Nashville and Louisville open
to attack. General Cist, a military critic not unfa-
vorable to Buell, thus sums up his weakness as a mili-
tary commander :?

“Then, again, Buell’s earlier military training in the
bureau office he held so many years unfitted him for
the handling, on the battle-field, of the large number of
troops which composed his command. But very few

* Army of the Cumberland, p. 76.
MARCH THROUGH KENTUCKY 103

generals during the rebellion were able to successfully
handle on the battle-field as large an army as was un-
der Buell. In fact, the general who has sufficient tal-
ent as a good organizer and drill master to enter into
the details necessary to bring an army out of raw
troops, has not the military genius required to handle
a large army in fighting and winning great battles.”

One of the very qualities, however, that made
Thomas a great general was his familiarity with “all
the details necessary to bring an army out of raw
troops.” Moreover, Buell was constantly hampered
by Halleck and it is impossible at this day to determine
what he might have accomplished if he had been given
the men and the opportunities that were afterward so
lavishly bestowed upon more favored generals. This
much is certain: that it was'his prompt movement, of
his own accord, that ensured the Federal victory at
Shiloh,* and that many of his suggestions were after-
ward adopted by the War Department and carried
into successful execution.

Of General Rosecrans, the new commander, we had
heard but little, but that little was favorable, and he
soon won the affections of his army.

®Van Horne in Hist. Army of the Cumberland, vol. 1, pp. 103-
105, shows conclusively that Halleck, Grant and Sherman were
all surprised by the Confederate attack, and that, but for the
timely arrival of the Army of the Ohio under Buell, the battle of
Shiloh would have resulted in the overwhelming defeat of the
Federal army. To the same effect see Ropes’ Story of the Civil
War, vol. 2, pp. 67-69.
104 CIVIL WAR TIMES

I do not find in my diary a great deal pertaining to
our march through Kentucky that would be of general
interest. Much of the country through which we
passed, after the battle of Perryville, was rough and
broken and the inhabitants were poor. In the poorest
portions, however, there was the greatest loyalty to the
Federal cause. When going through Somerset, the
county seat of Pulaski county, I was told that, of about
3,000 voters some 2,300 had enlisted in the Federal
armies. We passed the battle-fields of Wild Cat and
Mill Spring, but we saw little on our route that was of
special interest. During a considerable portion of our
march through Kentucky there was continual skir-
mishing between the rear guard of the Confederate and
the advance guard of the Federal army, and the 79th
was several times under fire, losing a few men killed
and wounded, but there was no battle after that of
Perryville. Nevertheless the march was very trying
to raw recruits. The roads were rough and, on ac-
count of a long drought, water was scarce. Much of
that found in the ponds along the roads was unfit to
drink and caused a great deal of diarrhea.: We had
already learned something—we learned a great deal
more afterward—about a soldier’s life on the march.

While in the vicinity of Nashville we learned more
also of camp life than we had learned at Louisville. We
were now in the enemy’s country, Bragg’s army was
not far distant, and detachments of Confederate cav-
alry hovered about Nashville, disputing the way with
every forage and supply train, so that a whole brigade
MARCH THROUGH KENTUCKY I05

of infantry was sometimes required to guard a forage
train. The closest vigilance was demanded of the
Federal pickets and there was heavy skirmishing al-
most every day. In addition to these troubles many of
the regiment sickened and died. They had been worn
out by the “grand reviews” in Louisville and by the
hardships of the march through Kentucky. Several of
our camps near Nashville were in unhealthy localities.
Many contracted camp fever (a species of typhoid),
pneumonia, and chronic diarrhea. Ten men of my
company, most of whom had left home apparently
strong, robust, and in perfect health, died in the month
of December, 1862.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE BATTLE OF STONE'S RIVER

While at Nashville the army was again reorganized,
pursuant to an order of General Rosecrans issued No-
vember 7, 1862—Major-General George H. Thomas
commanding the center, Major-General A. McD. Mc-
Cook the right wing; and Major-General Thomas L.
Crittenden the left wing. Beatty’s brigade became the
st brigade of Van Cleve’s division, which was the 3d
division of Crittenden’s corps.

The march from Nashville to Murfreesboro was be-
gun December 26, 1862, Crittenden’s corps moving by
the Murfreesboro pike and bivouacking that night near
Lavergne. Heavy rains and a dense fog retarded the
advance on the next day and none was made on the
28th, which was Sunday. By the night of the 29th
Crittenden’s corps was within two or three miles of
Murfreesboro. It was now evident that Bragg, con-
trary to the expectations of Rosecrans, intended to
make a stand north of Murfreesboro, and that a battle
was to be fought. On December 30 the time was em-
ployed by both armies in getting the troops into the
various positions to which they were assigned.

Murfreesboro is a town on the Nashville and Chat-

(106)
BATTLE OF STONE’S RIVER 107

tanooga railroad, about thirty miles southeast of Nash-
ville. Stone’s river, after passing the town, flows in
a northwesterly course and separates the main portion
of the battle-field from the town, the south end of the
battle-field being about two miles west of the town.
The Nashville and Chattanooga railroad and the Nash-
ville and Murfreesboro turnpike run in a northwest di-
rection and nearly parallel with the river, crossing it a
short distance west of the town and intersecting about
500 yards beyond the river. The intersection, which
makes two acute angles, is about one-half mile west of
the river. The Wilkinson turnpike runs westerly
through the southern portion of the battle-field; about
one and one-half miles south of this pike, and nearly
parallel with it, is the Franklin road. When the bat-
tle was fought a considerable portion of the ground
in the vicinity of the Federal right was covered with a
dense growth of cedar thickets.

General Bragg, supposing the Federal army to be
largely superior to his own in numbers, and expecting
to be attacked, had formed his lines originally for de-
fense, but by December 30 he determined that he would
himself take the initiative and deliver battle the next
day. General Polk commanded the right wing and
General Hardee the left wing of the Confederate army,
all of it being on the west side of Stone’s river ex-
cept Breckinridge’s division which was the extreme
right and was on the east side of the river. Mc-
Cown’s division was on the extreme left, with Cle-
burne’s division in rear of it; next was Withers’s divis-
108 CIVIL WAR TIMES

ion, with Cheatham’s in rear of it, and next, and across
the river, was Breckinridge’s division.

All the Federal army on the night of December 30
was west of Stone’s river, the final formation that
night, counting by divisions from right to left, being '
as follows: Johnson’s, Davis’s and Sheridan’s of the
right wing, then Negley’s division of the center with
Rousseau’s in reserve, and then Palmer’s and Wood’s
divisions of the left wing. It was intended-to put
Van Cleve’s division on the extreme left the next morn-
ing. The extreme right brigade of the Federal army
was Willich’s of Johnson’s division, extending to the
Franklin road; the extreme left was Hascall’s brigade
of Wood’s division, extending to Stone’s river; Sher-
idan’s left connected with Negley’s right on the Wil-
kinson pike; Palmer’s left and Wood’s right connected
at the Nashville pike; Hascall’s brigade of Wood’s
division, the extreme left, was next to the river.

The general direction of the Federal line conformed
to that of the Confederates, except that there was a
considerable distance between the north ends of the
two battle-fronts, while the lines of Johnson’s division
were only a few hundred yards distant from the Con-
federate lines, and that the Confederate left extended
a considerable distance beyond the Federal right. Mc-
Cook’s lines, in conforming to those of the Confeder-
ates in his front, were considerably broken.

The plans of both Rosecrans and Bragg were identi-
cal in this, that each had arranged to begin battle early
on the morning of the 31st by an advance of his left,
BATTLE OF STONE'S RIVER I0Q

wheeling to the right—Rosecrans with the expectation
of advancing on Murfreesboro and getting into the
rear of Bragg’s army, and Bragg with the intention
of doubling back the Federal right across the Nash-
ville turnpike and cutting off retreat to Nashville.

General Rosecrans, on the night of the 30th, observ-
ing the position of McCook’s lines, had suggested a
reformation of them, but no change was made. The
urgent necessity of a change was disclosed when it was
discovered during the afternoon that the Confederate
left extended considerably beyond Johnson’s division,
thus exposing the Federal right to great danger of be-
ing flanked. In his report of the battle, McCook states
that this information was conveyed to Rosecrans.
Nothing was done, however, except to order fires built
still farther to the right ‘“‘to deceive the enemy, making
them believe we were massing troops there.” It does
not appear that the enemy was deceived, certainly not
after daylight the next morning. McCook, however,
called a conference of his division commanders and the
brigades of Willich and Kirk were ordered to the right
of his line “to protect the right flank and guard against
surprise there.” As the dangerous situation of the
Federal right was known, it is clear that “some one
chad blundered.”

Early on the morning of December 31st, Van Cleve’s
division was ordered to cross Stone’s river and to be-
gin the attack on Breckinridge, with the expectation
of carrying out Rosecrans’s original plan, which was
for “Crittenden to cross Van Cleve’s division at the
IIo CIVIL WAR TIMES

lower ford, covered and supported by the pioneer brig-
ade and to advance on Breckinridge; Wood’s division
to follow by brigades, crossing at the upper ford, and,
moving on Van Cleve’s right, to carry everything be-
fore them into Murfreesboro.” We waded Stone’s
river in water over waist deep, but before Van Cleve’s
and Wood’s divisions had time to “carry everything
before them,” according to order, or even to fire a gun,
ominous tidings came from the right where the “‘carry-
ing all before them” at this stage of the battle was
being done exclusively by the Confederates under Gen-
eral Hardee.

Bragg had himself opened the battle on our right at
6:30 Aa. M. To the blunder of not reforming Mc-
Cook’s lines were added still greater blunders. Al
though the dangerous situation of the Federal right
was known, General Johnson’s headquarters were a
mile or more in rear of his division. Willich, discov-
ering the imminent peril confronting him, instead of
sending an orderly, had himself gone to the division
headquarters to make a report and had ordered his
brigade to breakfast. Some of the artillery horses
were unhitched from the cannon and had been taken to
water. McCook, it is said, was shaving when the at-
tack began. .

This was the situation when Cleburne’s and Mc-
Cown’s divisions under General Hardee, rapidly ad-
vancing a little after daylight, fell upon Johnson’s di-
vision. It has been asserted that this division was not
surprised. If there was no surprise there was some-
BATTLE OF STONE’S RIVER III

thing worse. Willich’s and Kirk’s brigades were at
once enveloped by the overlapping Confederate lines.
Willich himself was captured while trying to join his
brigade and before he could give a single order, and
Kirk was mortally wounded. So sudden and fierce
was the Confederate advance that three hundred and
fifty of Kirk’s brigade and over seven hundred of Wil-
lich’s were taken prisoners. Both brigades were
thrown into utter confusion and were swept from the
field with a loss of eleven guns. Colonel Baldwin,
commanding the remaining and reserve brigade of
Johnson’s division, had barely time to form it in line of
battle when it was enveloped by the Confederate lines,
extending far beyond the right flank, and was also
driven back just in time to avoid being surrounded and
captured, when it took position on the right of Davis’s
division.

The exulting troops of Cleburne’s and McCown’s di-
visions, now reenforced by those of Withers’s, and
later by those of Cheatham’s, fell in turn upon Davis’s
and Sheridan’s divisions and for several hours these
two made a heroic effort to maintain their position, re-
peatedly repelling the assaults of the Confederate col-
umns. ‘At last, howéver, Davis was also forced back,
and then Sheridan, the latter reforming on the right of
Negley. Four Confederate divisions were now massed
and hurled against the divisions of Negley and Sheri-
dan, and in making and repelling these assaults oc-
curred the fiercest fighting of the day. After four
hours of fighting, and after his troops had exhausted
II2 CIVIL WAR TIMES

their ammunition, Sheridan’s division was again com-
pelled to fall back.

The Federal army was now in a most desperate
situation and it was evident that it could be saved only
by establishing a new line of battle. The position se-
lected for this purpose was on the high ground west of
and near to the Nashville pike. But it was necessary
first to establish a temporary line strong enough to
hold the enemy in check until the artillery could be
saved and the troops posted on the new line. The tem-
porary line selected was a depression in the open
ground in rear of the cedar thickets, and to this line
General Thomas now ordered Negley’s and Rousseau’s
divisions to retire.

The formation of a new line of battle in face of the
enemy is always a dangerous maneuver. The move-
ment ordered by General Thomas was especially haz-
ardous. Each of the three divisions on the right of
Negley had been overlapped and enveloped by the Con-
federate lines, compelled to change front, and then to
fall back, and two of them had been, for a time,
almost completely disorganized. Flushed with victory
and confident of success, the Confederate hosts were
now swarming about Negley’s and Rousseau’s divi-
sions in front and in rear, so that neither could fall
back to the temporary line except by cutting its way
through the Confederate lines. The movement or-
dered by Thomas was a desperate one, but on its suc-
cessful execution depended the safety of the Federal
BATTLE OF STONE’S RIVER 113

army, while its failure involved obvious defeat and
probable annihilation of the Army of the Cumberland.

Rousseau’s division cut its way through the Confed-
erate lines to the position designated for the temporary
line, but, in doing this, it was compelled to fight the
enemy in front and in rear at the same time. Negley’s
division was now left in a very precarious situation,
with swarms of Confederates in front and rear and on
its right flank, and it, too, was compelled to cut its
way through with a loss of six guns. So closely was
it pressed on all sides that at one time, two of the
brigades, Miller’s and Stanley’s, were compelled to
face to the rear and charge the pursuing enemy, thus
holding them in check until the new line was reached.
Palmer’s division, hotly engaged at the time of Neg-
ley’s withdrawal, was now still more severely pressed,
but by niost heroic fighting repulsed the Confederates,
preserved its organization, and established itself on
the new line.

The offensive movement planned by Rosecrans as
the ruling one was now out of the question. His su-
preme object now was to save his army from annihila-
tion. It was plain that its salvation depended on main-
taining the temporary line until the permanent one
was securely established. It was equally plain to the
Confederates that if they could break the temporary
line their success was certain, and victory seemed to
be almost within their grasp. Against the temporary
line, therefore, the most desperate assaults were made

8
II4 CIVIL WAR TIMES

by the Confederates, which were resisted with equal
desperation by those who realized that it must be held
at all hazards.

As already stated, Van Cleve’s division had crossed
the river early in the morning for the purpose of par-
ticipating in the attack on Breckinridge’s division, but
had scarcely completed the crossing when the news
came of the disaster to the right. Price’s brigade was
left to guard the ford, Fyffe’s was sent to fight off the
Confederate cavalry which had attacked our trains, and
Beatty’s was ordered to hasten to the Federal right.
The distance to be traveled was two or three miles but
the brigade went on double quick, arriving at the
moment Rousseau was being most sorely pressed, and
took position on his right, where for a short time it be-
came the extreme right of the Federal army and so con-
tinued until Fyffe’s and Harker’s brigades came up and
took position on Beatty’s right.

I could see, as we marched to position, that a.great
disaster had befallen our army. Artillery, ammunition
wagons, ambulances, and men, apparently in a con-
fused mass, were hurrying to the rear, while tremen-
dous volleys of musketry were heard in the cedar thick-
ets in front of us. Shells were bursting on every hand,
cannon-balls were cutting their way through the thicket
and ploughing up the ground, and dead men and
horses in great numbers were scattered over the open
fields near the pike. All this plainly indicated how
sorely our army was being pressed, and the desperate
character of the conflict in which we were about to
BATTLE OF STONE'S RIVER It»

take part. The captain of my company was absent
on sick leave, the second lieutenant had resigned, and
I, a mere boy, was the only commissioned officer pres-
ent. Not aman in the company had ever been in battle,
if I except the little affair in which I took part at Car-
rick’s Ford. But not a single man flinched.

., There was no time to be lost and Beatty’s brigade
was at once thrown into a cedar thicket on the right
of Rousseau’s division, the 19th Ohio and the gth
Ky. forming the front line and the 79th Ind. and
the 11th Ky. the rear line. As already stated, the two
regiments in front had fought at Shiloh. There were
no better in the service, and the bravery and coolness
with which they held their ground furnished an in-
spiring example to the men of the 79th.

While in this position General Rosecrans rode up,
remaining on horseback while he gave some directions
to Colonel Knefler, inspiring us with confidence by
the coolness with which he sat on his horse while
the bullets were flying all about him. I was not ten
feet distant and watched the commanding general with
eager interest. After a few minutes he rode away to
another part of the field and not long after a cannon-
ball took off the head of Garesche, his chief of staff,
who was by his side.

Presently the men in the front line, who’ had begun
firing as soon as they took their position, exhausted
their ammunition ; and then the 79th Ind. and the 11th
Ky. passed through their ranks, while the men of the
front line took our former position in the rear. Nearly
116 CIVIL WAR TIMES

all day the battle raged in that cedar thicket. The
awful roar of cannon and musketry almost paralyzed
with fright the wild denizens of the forest. The birds
twittered and flitted about in dumb terror and the
rabbits ran aimlessly hither and thither. In his
Memoirs General Sheridan makes note of a frightened
rabbit that skipped from back to back of his men as
they lay on the ground, running in this way over the
backs of a whole regimerit. I did not see anything
that day however that excited my pity more than a
poor old horse between the lines, shot through and
through and unable to move, though still able to stand,
and exposed to every volley. Sometimes we would
advance a few hundred yards and then would be driven
back; again we would advance and again be driven
back, but at the close of the day we held substantially
the same position that we had taken in the morning,
and that night we lay on our arms near the place
where we had first gone into battle.

During the afternoon the permanent line of battle
had been firmly established on the high ground near the
railroad, extending from the railroad on the right to
Stone’s river on the left, formed by divisions from
right to left in the order following: Davis’s, Sheri-
dan’s, Van Cleve’s, Rousseau’s, and Palmer’s, with
Wood’s division in reserve on the right and Negley’s »
on the left. Against this new line charge after charge
was made, the most bloody fighting in the afternoon
being for the possession of Round Forest, the key to
the left. But Palmer continued to hold it against every
BATTLE OF STONE’S RIVER II7

assault. The last assault on the right and center of
the new Federal line was repulsed chiefly by Van
Cleve’s division and Harker’s brigade of Wood’s divi-
sion and by Stanley’s cavalry.

The night was very cold, we had twice waded
Stone’s river in water waist deep; our clothes were
still wet, and we had no fires. During the night I be-
came so nearly frozen that I was forced to get up and
walk about. At almost every step I stumbled against
adead man. It caused a strange sensation, but did not
prevent me from lying down again in the midst of the
dead and sleeping soundly for a few hours.

The result of the first day’s fighting was not en-
couraging to the Federal soldiers. Twenty-eight
pieces of artillery had been captured by the Confeder-
ates; General Sill had been killed, General Kirk had
been mortally wounded, and General Wiillich was a
prisoner. Many other officers had been killed or
wounded. Sheridan had lost seventy-two officers, and
the brigade of regulars, twenty-two. Seven thousand
men had been lost from the ranks. The Federal line
on the right had been driven back fully a mile from the
‘position it occupied when the battle began. The supply
trains sent back to Nashville had been attacked at La-
vergne and part of them burned. The Confederate
cavalry had gone entirely around the Federal army
during the day, attacking trains, and the roads be-
tween Murfreesboro and Nashville were filled with
frightened teamsters, skulkers, and stragglers. The
Army of the Cumberland had been saved from destruc-
118 CIVIL WAR TIMES

tion chiefly by the wonderful generalship of General
Thomas.

That night a council of war was held in a little
dimly-lighted log cabin. It was a weird New Year’s
eve party. The question of retreat to Nashville was
discussed and urged by some. When it was submitted
to General Thomas his laconic reply was “This army
can’t retreat,’ and it did not. Rosecrans, having as-
certained that there was enough ammunition for an-
other day, determined, contrary to the expectations of
Bragg, to remain on the field and continue the battle.

Bragg felt confident on the night of the 31st that
Rosecrans would not risk another battle, but would
retreat to Nashville, and little was done by the former
on January Ist beyond a few demonstrations made to
ascertain whether Rosecrans was preparing to retreat
and some attacks upon the Federal trains. The com-
manders of both armies occupied the day chiefly in
reforming their lines, both preparing to resume the
offensive the following day if the other did not.

By this time the Federal lines had been entirely
reformed and preparations were made on January 2d
to repel an anticipated Confederate attack on the Fed-
eral left. During the afternoon Van Cleve’s division,
now under command of General Samuel Beatty, Van
Cleve having been wounded, had again been ordered
to the left, and again had waded Stone’s river and
taken position in an open field between the river and
the woods where lay Breckinridge’s division, the right
of the Confederate army. Price’s brigade was on the
BATTLE OF STONE’S RIVER IIg

right next to the river ; Fyffe’s on the left, and Beatty’s,
now commanded by Colonel Grider, in reserve. Next
on the left of Van Cleve’s division was Grose’s brigade
of Palmer’s division. These were the only Federal
troops on the east side of the river. Negley’s division
was posted in reserve, in rear of them, on the west side
of the river.

About 4 p. M., after an ominous stillness of an hour
or more, Breckinridge’s division suddenly emerged
from the woods on the other side of the field, advanc-
ing in five or six columns. Halting a moment, the
lines were formed as if for dress parade. On the right
could be seen some general officer on a white horse
and we could distinctly hear the command, ‘Forward,
double-quick, guide center, march!’ With the excep-
tion of the charge at Missionary Ridge it was the most
magnificent spectacle that I saw during my entire serv-
ice. Onward came the advancing columns, cheering
as they came. When within two or three hundred
yards of Van Cleve’s division, the men of that division,
who had been lying flat on the ground just behind the
crest of a little knoll, rose and fired a tremendous vol-
ley. It did not seem to make the slightest impres-
sion. Instantly the fire was returned, and almost at
the same moment the front line of Breckinridge’s divi-
sion fell back behind the second, disclosing four pieces
of artillery, dragged by hand and hitherto concealed
between the two front lines. The artillery at once
opened fire, and Van Cleve’s division was forced back
across the river. A little while before, by order of
120 CIVIL WAR TIMES

General Rosecrans, in anticipation of this attack, fifty-
eight cannon had been massed near the river on a small
hill which commanded the entire open field. As soon
as Van Cleve’s division was out of range, these fifty-
eight cannon, loaded with grape and canister, opened
their dreadful fire. The cannonading was the most
terrific that I heard during the war and the destruction
was dreadful, as shown by the official reports of the
losses of the regiments in Breckinridge’s division.

Three times the Confederates recoiled under the ter-
rible fire, but rallied and again advanced. Some
reached the brink of the river and a few crossed it,
falling almost in front of the Federal artillery. No
braver charge was made during the war. I do not ex-
cept even the celebrated charge of Pickett’s division
at Gettysburg. But no troops could long stand such
a death-dealing fire as that to which Breckinridge’s
division was now exposed.

By this time Miller’s brigade of Negley’s division
and a part of Stanley’s of the same division, under
command of Colonel John F. Miller, crossed the river
and poured volley after volley into the retreating Con-
federates, pursuing them and capturing four pieces of
the New Orleans Washington Light Artillery. Other
Federal troops rapidly followed and the Confederates
abandoned the field, leaving it covered with dead and
wounded. That was virtually the end of the battle.
There was a little skirmishing the next day, but on the
night of January 3 Bragg retreated. The dead were
BATTLE OF STONE’S RIVER I2]I

buried on the 4th and on the 5th the Federal army
occupied Murfreesboro.

The battle of Stone’s River is one of the most strik-
ing illustrations given during the war of snatching
victory out of defeat. The surprise at Shiloh well-
nigh caused the annihilation of the Federal army on
the first day of the battle, but the reenforcements
brought by Buell turned the scale the next day. At
Stone’s River, however, the victory on the last day
was won without reenforcements'and after the army
had lost twenty-eight pieces of artillery. But the most
remarkable feature of the battle was one that had no
parallel in any other of the Civil War: the successful
formation of a new line in the face of the enemy, after
half the army had been driven from position and when,
in order to form it, the troops had to fight their way
through the lines of the enemy enveloping them in
front and rear. The losses were enormous, consid-
ering that nearly all of them occurred in one day and
in about one hour of another.*

*General Cist, Army of the Cumberland, p. 127, states the total
numbers engaged as follows:

3 Infantry. Artillery. Cavalry. Total.
Federal ............ 37,977 2,223 3,200 43,400
Confederate ........ 39,304 1,662 5,638 46,604

Cist also states the losses as follows: ‘

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total.
Federal ............ 1,553 7,245 2,800 11,598
Confederate........ (K. and W.) 9,000 1,125 10,125
122 CIVIL WAR TIMES

The figures above vary slightly from those given by Colonel
Fox and Colonel Livermore—the latter stating the numbers en-
gaged as follows:

Federal. viesdaceieeevienesids sueiaales 41,400
Confederate ............ eae aasaa een 34,732

and the losses as follows:

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total.
Federal ............ 1,667 7,543 2,626 11,846
Confederate ........ 1,294 7,945 2,500 11,739

It is entirely safe to say that each army lost out of the total
engaged at least 25 per cent. in killed, wounded and missing, and
at least 20 per cent. in killed and wounded. Shepherd’s regular
brigade of Rousseau’s division, of 1,566 engaged, lost, chiefly on
Dec. 31 in killed and wounded, 26 officers: and 611 enlisted men,
or a total of 637, making its percentage of loss nearly 40 per cent.
Donelson’s (Confederate) brigade of Cheatham’s division lost,
chiefly on Dec. 31, of 1,529 engaged, 108 killed, 575 wounded and
17 missing, a total of 700, or more than 45 per cent. In the attack
at Round Forest one regiment of this brigade, the 16th Tenn.,
lost 207 of 402 engaged, and another, the 8th Tenn., lost 306 of 424
engaged.

In Breckinridge’s report of the Friday engagement he states
that it occupied only an hour and twenty minutes, and that he lost
about 1,700 men of 4,500 taken into action. There was a bitter
controversy between him and Bragg, in which the latter main-
tained that Breckinridge had as many as 6,000 in action and that
he lost only 1,338. The loss was very heavy even if based on
Bragg’s statement; it was frightful if based on that of Breckin-
ridge.

The 79th went into action Dec. 31 with 341, rank and file, and in
the two days, Dec. 31 and Jan. 2, it lost 11 killed, 74 wounded and
36 missing. Few of the missing were captured in the battle.
Some of those reported as missing were afterward found to have.
been killed or wounded, and a considerable number, including two
of my company, were sick men captured by the Confederate cav-
alry in ambulances or in the field hospitals near Lavergne.
CHAPTER SIX
SIX MONTHS IN CAMP AT MURFREESBORO

Probably the darkest period in the North during
the Civil War was the first half of the year 1863.
In every quarter the Union cause appeared to be drag-
ging. Nowhere were there visible any preparations
for an advance of the Federal armies.

Harper's Weekly of January 17, 1863, contained an
editorial entitled, “Have We a General Among Us?”
beginning with this sentence: “They say at Washing-
ton that we have some thirty-eight to forty major-gen-
erals and nearly three hundred brigadiers, and now the
question is have we one man who can fairly be called a
first-class general in the proper meaning of the term?”
The article discusses the merits and prospects of vari-
ous generals. Prophesying is always a risky business,
but prophecy concerning the coming general in a great
war is particularly hazardous. Sheridan and Thomas
are not mentioned in the list as even among the possi-
bilities. Concerning Sherman it was briefly said:
“General W. T. Sherman is making his record at
Vicksburg; hitherto he has been known as a capable
officer and a far-seeing man.” Of Grant the editor
spoke somewhat doubtingly, as follows:

“Ulysses Grant has given evidence of enterprise,
(123)
124 CIVIL WAR TIMES

determination and personal gallantry which have stood
him in good stead. He was very fortunate at Fort
Donelson. Whether his record at Shiloh—where he
would have been destroyed but for accidents beyond
his control—will bear the test of inquiry, is a question
yet undetermined.”

The writer of the editorial concluded that “At the
present moment, however, the most promising of our
soldiers is William S. Rosecrans.” All this goes to
confirm Livy’s statement concerning the uncertainty
of. war, “Nusquam minus, quam in bello, eventus re-
spondent,’’

From the beginning of the war continued disaster
had attended the Union armies-in the East. General
McClellan had been superseded, November 7, 1862,
in the command of the Army of the Potomac, by Gen-
eral Burnside, who on December 13, 1862, had led
the Army of the Potomac into a trap at Fredericksburg
from which it barely escaped annihilation by reason
of the unaccountable forbearance of General Lee.
Soon after that Burnside was superseded by Hooker,
who, in May following, succeeded in getting the army
across the Rappahannock again; but, at a moment
when he supposed the Confederate army to be in full
retreat, it suddenly emerged from the dense forests,
fell upon the right of the Federal army and threw it
into a stampede, from which it was rescued only by the
most heroic fighting of the remainder, and again that

* Events less correspond to men’s expectations in war than in
any other case whatever.
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 125

great army was withdrawn with immense loss to the
north side of the Rappahannock.

Early in June the victorious Lee had begun to move
for the invasion of Pennsylvania and a great battle
was imminent, involving the fate of Washington and
fraught with the greatest danger to the Union cause.
At this critical time, most inopportune for changing
commanders, Hooker was superseded by Meade.’

Since the battle of Stone’s River the Army of the
Cumberland had been inactive at Murfreesboro. Gen-
eral Banks with a small army was besieging Port Hud-
son but the garrison on July 1, after having success-
fully repelled two assaults, was still defiantly refusing
to surrender and Banks was in imminent danger of an
attack by the Confederate General Richard Taylor.
Grant had Pemberton penned up in Vicksburg, but
the first of July found the Confederate army still in
its works and no one in the North knew how long
it would continue to hold out.

Halleck was still posing as general-in-chief, concoct-
ing vast strategic movements and disapproving the
plans of all the Union generals. Grant, indeed, had
outwitted him, defeated the Confederate forces con-
fronting him and invested Vicksburg, but he had ac-
complished this only by cutting loose from his former
base and getting entirely:out of reach of Halleck’s
letters and dispatches. It was characteristic of Hal-

2 Soon afterward, by Halleck’s order, Hooker was further hu-
miliated by being placed under arrest for visiting Washington
without leave.
126 CIVIL WAR TIMES

leck to keep all the generals in the field in hot water,
but after Rosecrans took command of the Army of the
Cumberland an incident occurred that made him the
special object of Halleck’s displeasure. One of the lat-
ter’s novel military conceptions was the offer of a
major-general’s commission in the regular army to
the general who should first achieve an important mil-
itary success. When the offer was submitted to Grant
he made no answer, discreetly refraining from express-
ing any opinion. Rosecrans, however, whether cor-
rectly or not, interpreted the offer as grossly improper
and wrote Halleck a long letter, indignantly denoun-
cing “such an auctioneering of honors’ as_ insulting
and degrading. This letter undoubtedly sealed the fate
of the writer, for he had already incurred the bitter
hostility of Stanton and now had apparently gone out
of his way, not merely to confirm the prior dislike of
the general-in-chief, but to court his lasting resentment.
Grant, however, after the surrender of Vicksburg, rose
too rapidly in public esteem to be suppressed by either
Stanton or Halleck.

During this period the soldiers themselves became
restless and discontented, not because their-loyalty was
waning, but because so little progress had been made
after nearly two years of war. The disastrous de-
feats of the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville cast a gloom over the spirits of
the soldiers of the West as well as those of the East.
Moreover, there was much dissatisfaction in the army
with the slow progress of the war and with the policy
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 127

of the Federal administration. Many of the officers
and men in the Army of the Cumberland were Demo-
crats when they enlisted. A considerable number in
my company were Democrats. I was a Republican,
but not an Abolitionist, when I entered the service.
There was at first considerable hostility, even in the
army, to the emancipation proclamation. Most of the
men in the Army of the Cumberland were from Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois and at this time affairs in these
states were by no means encouraging to the soldiers at
the front. Moreover, thousands of letters were received
daily from disloyal writers at home, written for the
express purpose of creating dissatisfaction among the
soldiers and of encouraging desertions. The conse-
quence was that during the early part of 1863 there
were many desertions from all the Federal armies.°

*The morning report of the Army of the Potomac for Jan. 31,
1863, showed:

 

Aggregate present and absent........... 326,750

Aggregate present.........-.s esse ggeeee 239,420
a

Aggregate absent............ 0. cee ees 87,330

Reb. Rec., ser. No. 40, p. 15. Among Hooker’s first orders on
assuming command was one forbidding the sending of citizens’
clothing through the mails, by which means many had previously
been enabled to desert. There were also many desertions during
this period from the Army of the Cumberland. A return of that
army in December, 1862, showed 76,725 present and 46,677 absent.
From the official returns in January, 1863, it was estimated that
the absentees from all the Federal armies numbered 8,987 officers
and 280,073 non-commissioned officers and privates. This ex-
traordinary number included thousands absent without leave, and
of these undoubtedly a great many were actual deserters.
128 CIVIL WAR TIMES

In the North all classes were chafing under the enor-
mous expenses of the war, the great increase in taxes,
both national and state, and the enforcement of the
draft. Those who had from the beginning opposed
the war grew more and more outspoken and defiant.
The emancipation proclamation, foreshadowed in Sep-
tember, 1862, but not issued until January 1, 1863,
intensified the bitterness of those who denounced the
war as an abolition crusade, and the enforcement of
the draft drove them to frenzy. Even Republicans
were not united. A radical element, which was con-
stantly gaining strength, was becoming more and more
impatient with what it denounced as the halting and
vacillating policy of President Lincoln.

The grave question uppermost in men’s minds was
whether the Union could be saved at all; but, slowly
evolving out of the doubts and perplexities of the situ-
ation, and beginning to assume definite shape, was an-
other, destined to overshadow all other questions,
whether it were best to try to save the Union with
slavery or to try to save it without. The Radicals de-
clared that it must be saved without slavery, but Lin-
coln hesitated and seemed to be groping his way. In
a letter to Horace Greeley August 22, 1862, he said :*

“My paramount object is to save the Union, and
not either to save or destroy slavery.

“Tf I could save the Union without freeing any
slave, I would do it—if I could save it by freeing all

*Greeley: American Conflict, vol. 2, p. 250.
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 129

the slaves, I would do it—and if I could do it by free-
ing some and leaving others alone, I would also do
that.

“What I do about slavery and the colored race, I
do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and
what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it
would help to save this Union.”

By September 22, 1862, he had made up his mind to
cross the Rubicon, and on that day he issued a proc-
lamation announcing his intention of declaring the
freedom of all slaves in every portion of the United
States in rebellion January 1, 1863. The great mass
of voters in the North, however, were not yet abreast
of this advanced idea. The fall elections in 1862 went
heavily against the administration, and large opposi-
tion majorities were piled up in the great states of New
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. Even IIli-
nois, the President’s own state, gave an enormous
majority against him, while in almost all the other
northern states the Republican majorities were cut
down.

In New York Horatio Seymour was elected gov-
ernor—a pronounced opponent of every measure of the
administration essential to a vigorous prosecution of
the war. His influence was seen some months later
when the opponents of the draft, taking advantage
of the absence from the state of the troops that had
gone to repel Lee’s invasion of the North, raised a
howling mob which roamed through the city of New

9
130 CIVIL WAR TIMES

York for three days, burning colored orphan asylums
and recruiting offices, hanging negroes, dragging
through the gutters the mangled corpses of murdered
Union soldiers, and winding up its carnival of lawless-
ness by assembling to listen to an address of the gov-
ernor. In his speech, while counseling moderation,
he addressed the members of the mob as his “friends,”’
assuring them that he was their friend. It is needless
to add that these utterances of the distinguished
speaker were received by his bloodthirsty hearers with
uproarious applause.

No governor was elected in Indiana, but a legis-
lature was chosen which, in every possible way, mani-
fested its hostility to the further prosecution of the war.

Throughout the North there were secret political
organizations, under various names, inimical to the
Federal administration. Some of them had existed
prior to 1863, the members afterward adopting suc-
cessively the names of Knights of the Golden Circle,
American Knights, and Sons of Liberty. In the rural
regions many of them dyed their homespun clothes
in the juice of the butternut, and hence became gener-
ally known as “Butternuts,”’ a name which came to be
well understood as indicative of hostility to the prose-
cution of the war. These treasonable organizations
were most numerous and active in Ohio, Indiana, Illi-
nois, Kentucky, and Missouri, but nowhere were they
more lawless and rampant than in Indiana.® All were

° Their names, objects, and purposes are elaborately set forth in
the report of Judge Advocate General Holt, submitted to the
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO I31

designed to aid the cause of the Rebellion. In all the
states named, lodges were organized with elaborate
rituals, signs, grips, and pass-words. Early in the year
1863 the members began to arm and to practise in
military drills. There is now no means of ascertain-
ing their exact numerical strength, but it has been esti-
mated that by March 1, 1864, they had 340,000 men
capable of being mobilized into an effective military
force.

The general purpose of these organizations was to
aid the Rebellion by every practicable means and to
embarrass the Federal government by the circulation
of treasonable publications, by furnishing such intelli-
gence as might be serviceable to the Confederates, by
supplying them with arms and ammunition, by de-
stroying the property of the government and of loyal
citizens, by co-operating with the Confederates in raids
and invasions, but more especially by encouraging de-
sertions from the Federal armies, protecting deserters
from arrest, discouraging enlistments, and resisting
the draft.

Secret emissaries were sent to the armies at the
front, and thousands of letters were written to incite
discontent among the soldiers and to induce them to
desert. When a deserter was arrested after his arrival
at home, he was released on writ of habeas corpus if
a disloyal judge could be found to issue the writ. In

Secretary of War Oct. 8, 1864. No soldier who reads the report
even at this late day can repress his indignation. See also Benn
Pitman’s Indiana Treason Cases.
132 CIVIL WAR TIMES

some localities in Indiana the Federal officers making
arrests were openly attacked and fired on, and a num-
ber of enrolling officers were shot. In Blackford
county the court-house was attacked and all the records
pertaining to the draft were destroyed. Nowhere were
the “Knights” more defiant than in the counties of
Johnson and Brown, from which my company was
chiefly recruited. Eight hundred of them rode through
the streets of Franklin one night, shouting hurrahs
for Jeff Davis, and at one time 1,500 armed men
camped near Edinburg for the avowed purpose of
seizing some men who were in the custody of military
officers.

The Indiana legislature which met on the 8th day
of January, 1863, was wholly controlled by these op-
ponents of the Federal government. It refused to re-
ceive Governor Morton’s message and one branch
passed a resolution thanking Governor Seymour of
New York for the “exalted and patriotic sentiments”
contained in his message to the New York legislature,
in which the chief measures of the Federal administra-
tion in the prosecution of the war were denounced as
unconstitutional, tyrannical and despotic, but which
was prolific of suggestions between the lines far more
inimical to the Union cause than those openly ex-
pressed.® It was only because the Republican mem-

°A resolution was first introduced in the Indiana House of
Representatives, Jan. 13, 1863, by Bayless W. Hanna, as follows:
“Resolved, That this House adopt the exalted and patriotic
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 133

bers left in a body, thus breaking a quorum, that the
legislature was prevented from passing a bill designed

sentiments contained in the message lately delivered to the Legis-
lature of New York by his Excellency, Horatio Seymour.”

No action was taken on this resolution, but on Jan. 15 Marcus
A. O. Packard introduced another, passed the same day by a vote
of 52 to 35, as follows: ;

“Resolved, by the House, the Senate concurring, That the
thanks of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana are due
and are hereby tendered to the Hon. Horatio Seymour, Governor
of New York, for the able and patriotic defense of the Constitu-
tion, the laws, and liberties of the American citizen, contained in
his late message to the Legislature of that State, and particularly
for his just and high appreciation of the interests, position, and
patriotism of the great Northwest; and that we assure him that
the conservative people of our own beloved State are looking
with deep solicitude and confidence to his executive action, be-
lieving that they will find in it a firm and determined resistance
to the encroachments of a despotic administration upon the lib-
erties of the American people, as well as a bold defense of the
independent sovereignty of the several States of this Union, and
that such action will receive the warm sympathies and hearty co-
operation of all the conservative citizens of this State.

“Resolved, That the Speaker of the House be directed to for-
ward copies of these concurrent resolutions to his Excellency,
Governor Seymour, and the Legislature of that State.”

When the resolution reached the Senate it was referred to the
Committee on Federal Relations, but it seems that no further
action upon it was taken. See House Journal for 1863, pp. 68,
02-3; Senate Journal for 1863, pp. 112-113; Brevier Legislative
Reports, vol. 6, p. 49. The message of Governor Seymour, con-
taining the-‘‘exalted and patriotic sentiments” so highly extolled,
was delivered to the New York Legislature Jan. 7, 1863, and is
found in Assembly Documents for 1863, ‘No. 2. It censured the
Federal administration for authorizing martial law, suppression
of newspapers, and arbitrary arrests, denounced the emancipation

proclamation as “impolitic, unjust and unconstitutional,” and
134 CIVIL WAR TIMES

to strip Governor Morton of all military power and to
transfer it to a board of state officers, three of whom
were members of the Sons of Liberty, a measure that,
if passed, would probably have precipitated civil war
at once in Indiana.

The Indiana soldiers were watchful spectators of
all these proceedings and deluged the legislature with
their protests. Those from the Army of the Cumber-
land were numerous and emphatic.” The soldiers re-

charged that the Federal War Department had set aside the
authority of the judiciary and overridden the laws of the state,
had treated its laws, courts and officers “with marked and public
contempt,” and had “insulted its people and invaded its rights.”
It contained an elaborate argument in support of “State Rights,”
and affirmed that “the North can not hold the southern states in
subjection without destroying the principles of our government.”
It also urged “immediate attention to the inequality and injustice
of the laws under which it is proposed to draft soldiers for the
service of the general government” and condemned the exemp-
tions allowed to the “favored classes” while “the only son of the
widow, or the sole support of a family, may be forced into a dis-
tant and dangerous service.” It also elaborated at great length
the intimate natural relations between “the great central and
western states,” showing that “the people of the West must have
the markets of the southwestern states to bring back their pros-
perity” and that “they must be reunited, politically, socially and
commercially to the valley of the lower. Mississippi.” The mes-
sage was undoubtedly the chief incentive to the bloody draft
riots, which a few months later disgraced the city of New York,
and probably furnished the chief arguments used at a later period
in the western states by those who advocated the project of a
northwestern confederacy.

7 They were printed in pamphlet form, entitled “Proceedings of
the Officers and Soldiers of the Indiana Regiments in the Army
of the Cumberland on the Memorial and Resolutions to the In-
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 135

spected the brave foemen who stood in their front, but
they never quite forgave their enemies in the rear who
were trying to stab them in the back.

As if to cap the climax of misfortune to the Union
cause in Indiana and Ohio, the Confederate General
John Morgan planned a raid into these states in the
latter part of June. Gathering a mounted force of
about 2,400 men, he crossed the Cumberland July 2,
and the Ohio July 8, invading Indiana first and then
Ohio. The raid, as originally planned and as approved
by General Bragg, was intended as a diversion to arrest
or embarrass the threatened advance of Burnside into
east Tennessee and of Rosecrans against Bragg, and
was to be confined to the state of Kentucky. The blun-
der of crossing the Ohio was that of Morgan himself.

Had the invasion been made with a great army, able
to hold its own, the result might have been vastly dif-
ferent; but it was made with a comparatively insig-
nificant force, constantly in danger of capture. The
appearance of a foe on their own soil and threatening
their own homes and firesides instantly inspired with
new zeal and determination the loyal citizens of the
invaded states, strengthened the patriotism of those

diana Legislature, with the votes and signatures of the officers
of the 6th, 15th, 17th, 22d, 29th, 34th, 32d, 37th, 38th, 30th, 4oth,
42d, 44th, sist, 57th, 58th, 72d, 73d, 75th, 7oth, 82d, 86th, and rorst
Regiments.” When the memorial was presented to the Senate it
was laid upon the table, with an order to print 5,000 copies,
Senate Journal for 1863, p. 302. Copies were printed, but none
were included in any of the bound volumes of the legislative pro-
ceedings. Some, however, have been preserved.
136 CIVIL WAR TIMES

who had been wavering, and everywhere solidified the
Union sentiment. It did not, however, as Morgan had
probably been led to expect from the loud boasts of
the Sons of Liberty, arouse any warlike ardor in the
Butternuts of Indiana and Ohio, who shrank with hor-
ror from the idea of exposing themselves to the bullets
of either side. They would not fight and Morgan’s
raid ended in ignominious failure and in his own cap-
‘ture. The patriotism inspired by the invasion, the
ease with which it was repelled, and the inglorious
ending of it, all combined to elate those friendly to the
Union cause and to chagrin and dishearten those who
were unfriendly to it. It did more than any victory
that had been won in the field to strengthen the Union
cause in Indiana and Ohio. Nevertheless the raid,
while it lasted, created wide-spread consternation
among the people and the soldiers of the invaded
states and throughout the North.

For nearly six months after the battle of Stone’s
River, the Army of the Cumberland remained in camp,
Van Cleve’s division being stationed near Murfrees-
boro. During the months of January, February, and
March the weather was generally very cold and dis-
agreeable. Afterward there was warmer weather but
the rains continued. About every other night the 79th
was on picket and on these nights it nearly always
rained. This made it hard for the men, especially as
no fires were allowed at the picket stations and there
was little or no shelter. Probably for the double pur-
pose of guarding against surprise and to discipline the
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 137

troops, they were required every morning to stand at
arms for an hour before daylight and this was not a
pleasant duty when they stood in the rain and mud.
During the first three months of our stay at Murfrees-
boro there was a great deal of sickness; thousands died
of disease and the hospitals were full. At one time
during this period the 79th, which left Louisville Octo-
ber 1, 1862, with 920 men, had only 175 present for
duty. So frequent were desertions during this period
that it became necessary to resort to the extreme pen-
alty of military law. I witnessed the execution of a
deserter while at Murfreesboro, and it left an impres-
sion which is as vivid now as if made only yesterday.
The man was a member of a Kentucky regiment; he
had been tried by court-martial and condemned to
death. On the day fixed for the execution the whole
division was ordered out and was so formed as to make
three sides of a square. In the open side of the square
a grave had been dug. At the time set the funeral pro-
cession entered the square, preceded by a band playing
a dead march; following the band came the coffin, and
behind it marched the condemned man in his shirt
sleeves with his hands tied behind him and a guard
on each side; then came the detail of twelve men se-
lected to shoot him. Half the guns were loaded with
ball and-half with blank cartridges, but none of the
detail knew how his own was loaded. As the pro-
cession passed the grave the coffin was deposited over
it and the deserter was seated on the lid. The twelve
men who were to do the shooting were then drawn up
138 CIVIL WAR TIMES

about thirty feet in front of him; at the word of com-
mand they fired, and the man, shot through with sev-
eral bullets, instantly fell over dead on the coffin. It
was the most dreadful sight I ever saw, far more dread-
ful than anything I ever witnessed in battle.

By the first of April the weather had become warm
but the rains continued, the rainy season being extraor-
dinary even in that region, making the roads almost
impassable and rendering a forward movement im-
practicable. With warmer weather sickness decreased
and the men improved both in health and in spirits.
Work on the fortifications was pushed with unremit-
ting zeal, great forts were constructed, mounted with
heavy siege guns, and immense supplies of ammuni-
tion and provisions were collected. We felt confident
of our ability to hold our works if Bragg should at-
tempt to attack us. Bragg probably never had such
anidea. Indeed it was much easier to go around Mur-
freesboro, as Hood did when he marched to Nashville.

Our life while in camp at Murfreesboro became mo-
notonous and irksome. There were drills, inspections,
picket duty and working on fortifications. Occasion-
ally we escorted a supply-train or were detailed to go
on a foraging expedition and now and then we were
stirred by rumors of intended attacks by the enemy
which never resulted in anything more than slight
skirmishes between our pickets and the Confederate
cavalry. When not on actual duty we whiled away the
time as best we could in reading, writing letters and
in such amusements as camp life permitted. Long be-
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 139

fore we left Murfreesboro we learned enough of the
war to understand that the Rebellion would never be
suppressed by armies inside of fortifications and that
we must meet the Confederate armies in the field.

While there I was for a time appointed to the com-
mand of Co. E of the 79th whose officers were all
wounded or ‘sick, and was offered the captaincy of it
but declined, preferring to remain with the men of my
own company, many of whom I had induced to enlist.

I can not describe the incidents of our stay at Mur-
freesboro better than by giving some extracts from my
army diary. These are given just as they were writ-
ten forty years ago, and, I believe, convey a fair idea
of our life in camip in the enemy’s country, and of our
daily thoughts at that time. It is hardly necessary to
add that my opinions of men and events, as expressed
or implied in what I wrote then, underwent many
changes even before the close of the war.

JANUARY, 1863.

10.—Wrote to mother to-day. Also one to Jeff.
[The Franklin Jeffersonian.] Received a letter from
home. Felt quite unwell this night. Weather pleas-
ant and men occupied in writing or in boiling their
clothes. Found myself reenforced by a number of
“gray backs.” For the first time in two weeks had an
opportunity of changing clothes.

12.—Visited Louisville Legion and 6th Ind.
Friends all safe and well. They confirm the reports
140 CIVIL WAR TIMES

of the complete surprise of Johnson’s division. There
seems to be a general feeling of discontent among of-
ficers and men. They are discouraged at the slowness
of the war. , ,

14.—Detailed officer of guard. Guard taken off in
consequence of a very heavy rain at 3 Pp. M. It rained
harder than I have witnessed it since I have been in
Tennessee. A dismal sleet followed in the morning.
Lieut.-Colonel Oyler and Walter Hunter arrived to-
day. Also several ladies from Indianapolis as volun-
teer nurses.

15.—Very cold to-day; so cold that it is almost im-
possible to keep warm. Ladies must think soldiering
a horrid business, taking this weather for a specimen.

16.—Went out on picket. My Co. [E] being sta-
tioned at the house formerly occupied by a
Spence, now in the rebel army, I had an opportunity of
seeing what havoc war makes upon wealth and refine-
ment. I saw before me a house once elegantly, even
luxuriously, furnished, now stripped of books, pictures,
furniture, and nothing left but bare walls. Got myself
a volume of Cicero’s orations. :

21.—Ordinary routine of camp resumed. Policing
and company drill as in former times. Haven’t enough
men for battalion and the men don’t take any interest
in company drill, so we usually stack arms, sit down
and amuse ourselves in any way except drill. Pleas-
ant but muddy.

25.—Relieved at 2 p. M. Weather damp and dis-
agreeable. There is, I find, a general anxiety among

 
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO I41I

,the men to go home. They can not fail to see that we
are wanting in a vigorous policy and vigorous generals
to carry it out. Desertions are frequent and affairs
in Indiana are anything but encouraging.

26.—Strolled around camp busily employed in doing
nothing. The sad diminution of our regiment does
not tend to create cheerfulness. We started from
Louisville with 920 men. We have now in camp
about 250, of whom about 175 only are fit for duty.
Where are they?

31.—Relieved at 1 Pp. mM. Weather mild. A block-
ade of mud stops up all avenues to camp. The rain
and mud in the South (I speak of what I have seen)
are far more disagreeable than the snow and cold of the
North. There is much sickness now in the army. Men
are dying off by thousands. Disease kills far more
than the sword. Few men who go to the hospital are
ever fit for duty. So well known is this fact that there
is a great aversion to hospitals, and many refuse to
go until their disease gets a firm hold on them. The
men, too, many of them, become despondent and give
up too easily. I am convinced that much sickness in
the army begins with pining for home and continually
thinking of home until the patient loses his appetite,
and his system becomes so reduced as to invite disease.

Fepruary, 1863.

1.—Regt. detailed to work on the fortifications.
They are very formidable—consisting of heavy breast-
142 CIVIL WAR TIMES

works with numerous forts, so situated as to sweep
with an enfilading fire almost every assailable point.
Whisky was issued to the men after their day’s work
was over, and it had the “‘desired effect.”

4.—Picket. The night was particularly severe.
The rain began in the afternoon and during the night
turned into a driving sleet. An attack seems to be ap-
prehended, as a new order forbids any fires at night
and demands of the pickets the utmost vigilance gen-
erally. It is reported that we received twenty-four
pieces from Nashville.

6.—To-day our brigade started at 6 A. M. on a
forage expedition and returned at 3 Pp. M., having se-
cured our forage without molestation. Marched alto-
gether some twelve miles. Day clear and pleasant.
Boys brought in a number of white deer. [Sheep.]

7,.—Remained in camp. Orders to make prepara-
tions to go to Nashville as an escort for provision train
with two days’ rations and forty rounds of cartridges.
Ours the only regiment detailed.

8.—Started at 6 a. M. Train consisted of about
seventy wagons. The effective force of the escort about
175 men, the men riding in the wagons. Roads pretty
good to Lavergne, but desperate after that. Saw re-
mains of the train burned there a few weeks ago and
was thankful it wasn’t ours. The road is strongly
guarded. Reached N. at 4 P. M.

g.—Spent the day in looking around. Visited the
convalescent camps, hospitals, state capitol, boat-land-
ing, and other places of interest. About thirty boats
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 143

are at the landing, among them the Jacob Strader, on
which I went aboard. Regiment quartered at court-
house and got full of “gray backs.”

I1.—Started at daylight and moved about two

miles when we halted and waited for the pontoons
which didn’t come up; so we camped for the night and
I. got a nice rest. I haven’t heard of the pontoons
since, and I reckon they are there yet waiting for the
mud to dry. Jo. Applegate accompanied us in search
of McKane.
‘ 12.—Got under way at daylight and made camp at
3p.mM. The men were very tired as the road was very
muddy and slippery. The trip cost me some two dol-
lars in sole leather. A good supper, however, put all
tight. Found Lieut. Robinson in camp.

14.—Picket. Nothing occurred of interest except a
slight skirmish between one of our forage trains on the
Lebanon pike and a squad of rebel cavalry. It didn’t
amount to anything, however. It rained to-night as
usual.

15.—Relieved at 10 a.m. After getting into camp,
whisky rations were issued, which of course were very
acceptable. By the way, teetotalers are scarce in the
army, especially in wet weather. An alarm was raised
at 9 P. M. or near and the regiment called out under
arms, after which the men went to bed.

18.—Picket. Line has been advanced a mile and
a half from camp. The orders are that there shall be
neither fires nor sleep on out-post. Picket is now re-
144 CIVIL WAR TIMES

duced to a high state of efficiency. Cleared off to-
night.

21.—Picket. Rained furiously and the water
caused me to speedily evacuate my first shanty. Rain
ceased after dark. Sometime after dark Colclaser
[quartermaster] brought out whisky rations. If ever
whisky was acceptable, it was to us drowned rats.
Nothing unusual during night. Letter from H. C. B.

23.—Did not do anything to-day. Weather prom-
ises rain. Wrote to-day to mother and to W—. No
news to-day relative to our future movements. Get
mails and papers now quite regularly. The late Fed-
eral conscription act pleases me very much. Prospects
now look brighter.

Marcu, 1863.

1.—By a new order men are required to stand to

arms about an hour before daylight until further or-
‘ders. “Everything quiet on Stone’s river.”

5.—To-day we were paid up to the 31st of October,
1862. Are in hopes to be paid up to the Ist of Febru-
ary, 1863, in a few days. Payment occasioned great
rejoicing among the men.

6.—Picket. I had command of stations 3 and 4.
Rained incessantly all night. I got drenched from
head to foot. Felt unwell and did not eat a bite while
on picket. :

22.—Very unpleasant weather. Don’t get any let-
ters except from mother. We drill now four hours per
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 145

day. The duties of the men have been somewhat
lighter for a few days. They are on [picket] once in
four or five days. Get mails and papers regularly.

25.—Officer of guard to-day; noticed elm trees in
leaf for the first time this season. Although the season
is so far advanced I don’t see any signs of cultivation.
This whole country will probably remain a waste till
the end of the war. We are now continually excited
by rumors of our intended attack by the enemy.

26.—Didn’t do anything to-day out of ordinary
camp routine. We drill four hours per day and have
three roll calls. Rumors of an attack are still plenty.
For several days we have been throwing up rifle-pits
near the picket line. We hear of skirmishes along the
line daily. The men are in good spirits and confident
of the issue.

28.—Nothing of importance except that our brigade
got dog-tents.

29.—The great topic to-day is the dog-tents. Each
tent is designed for three men and consists of three
pieces of cotton, each about six feet square which are
joined by means of buttons and holes. There are no
poles or pins. They must be made. There are ropes,
however, to stretch with.

31.—Relieved [from picket duty] at 10 a. M.
Nothing of importance to-day. Last night very rainy,
turning off cold. The rumors continue of the near
presence of the enemy. The indications now are that
we shall remain here until the reduction of Vicksburg

10
146 CIVIL WAR TIMES

or repulse of the rebels in [illegible] will allow Grant
or Burnside or both to co-operate with Rosecrans.
The great amount of provisions accumulating here, the
elaborate fortifications, mounting on them of heavy
siege guns, the activity in operations of other depart-
ments, go to prove that we shall not move soon. Mean-
while the army is daily and wonderfully improving its
discipline and acquiring an abiding faith in Rosecrans.
The men do not seem much affected by political excite-
ment at home. It is true that the majority would will-
ingly see slavery go by the board if it stood in the way
of peace. But at the same time many, if not a ma-
jority would be perfectly willing for the slaves to re-
main in slavery if that would end the war. The fact
is— [remainder of sentence illegible. ]

APRIL, 1863.

1.—I believe an effort is making to abolitionize the
army. The chaplain has in the past week distributed
a great number, of abolition pamphlets published by the
American Reform [Society. ]

5.—Nothing out of way in camp. Rumors of at-
tack have subsided. Everything now indicates that we
shall stay here for several weeks, if not months. The
impression seems to be gaining ground that the rebel-
lion will be subdued by fall or Christmas.

8.—Men in camp seem in better health and spirits
than ever before. Their time, when not on duty, is oc-
cupied in healthful amusements such as ball, pitching
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 147

quoits, tossing cannon-balls, &c. A great change is
visible every way in the last six weeks. Got a letter
from Ben Williams.

9.—Got up this morning stiff from the violent exer-
cise I took yesterday in playing ball. Adorned our
company street to-day with cedars. Gives it a very
tasty appearance. Everything very quiet in camp
nowadays. Weather warm.

10.—Everything has assumed a kind of monoto-
nous domestic way ; that is, there is no more excitement
about attacks, advances, moving, etc. Still the men
are enjoying themselves better than ever and there is
a great deal less sickness. Weather pleasant with
indications of an approaching warm spell.

13.—Picket. Had command of post I, station I.
From 20 to 30 women and children (negroes) have
congregated at a house just outside our lines on the
pike, who are in a starving condition. They have run
away from their masters or their masters have run
away from them and they all refused to come in our
lines. This is only an example of worse to follow a
protracted war.

15.—Very disagreeable, rainy day. Several offi-
cers to-day put under temporary arrest. Four offi-
cers besides are now under arrest. Lieut.
for neglect of duty on picket; Lieut. for drunk-
enness on guard, etc.; Capt. and Lieut. for
singing and laughing in a low tone after taps.

16.—About midnight last night camp was aroused
and orders issued to march with three days’ rations and

 

 

 

 

 
148 CIVIL WAR TIMES

100 rounds to the man. Started at about 3 this morn-
ing and went to old camp on Stone’s river on Lebanon
pike. Our brigade and part of another with a battery
of eight guns composed the force. We brought noth-
ing along but knapsacks and purp tents. Don’t know
object in coming.

17.—This is our first experience with our dog-tents.
They are very convenient and are growing in favor.
This place has improved since we left. The trees are
out and the prospect from the hill delightful. The hill
has been strengthened by a sort of a fort and rifle-pits,
Weather very warm.

18.—The commander of the post here has impressed
a number of contrabands to work on fortifications.
They take hold quite readily and say they belong to the
1st Tennessee. They have a great desire to be consid-
ered soldiers. Nothing remarkable. Days hot and
mornings very cold.

19.—Were paid yesterday up to March. I received
$208.65. Have more money than I know what to do
with. From some cause the paymasters decline adopt-
ing Goodwin’s allotment roll plan. A good many of
the boys will, I think, send money home by Moore.
But a good many of the regiment have already begun
to gamble.

22.—Nothing of importance occurred to-day. The
weather is now quite warm, disagreeably so along the
middle of the day. The men go on duty about every
other day. They have plenty to do in the way of po-
licing, cleaning guns and clothes, etc. They appear,
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 149

nevertheless, to be in fine spirits. Homesiclness is not
nearly so prevalent as it was some time back.

23.—Picket. In command of station 2. Instruc-
tions on picket more stringent than ever. Was visited
ten different times while on. This station has two
commissioned and seven non-commissioned officers
and sixty privates. My detachment composed of men
from 79th Ind. and roth Ohio. All quiet. Elected
company cooks to-day by general order.

24.—Relieved at 10 a. M. Had battalion drill this
afternoon for the first time since leaving Nashville.

John Eaton [sutler] arrived with a stock of goods.
Also Frank Jelleff from Franklin. Weather quite

warm.

25.—Had officers’ school to-day. Capt. put
under arrest to-day. Erected a clapboard kitchen and
an awning over our company table. It adds much to
appearance of company quarters. Every company
now has to have company cooks who cook according
to furnished recipes. To-day for the first time a com-
pany fund was distributed. Co. I got $15.25.

26.—Visited to-day by Capt. Herriot and Ord.
Brown. Very quiet and stillin camp. Sunday is now
in the army as at home; a day of rest as far as practica-
ble. By a general order no work not absolutely neces-
sary is to be done on Sunday.

27.—Everything quiet in camp. Everybody ap-
pears to be settling down into the belief that we shall
stay here some time and we are making preparations
accordingly. Boxes of good things from home come

 
150 CIVIL WAR TIMES

to the regiment daily to enliven and cheer the hearts
of the soldiers. Batchelor started home.

29.—To-day turned over our old tents and put up
the “purps.” They are put up three together and all
on one side of the street. The cedars were also set out
to-day. We have a nice camp now. Great pains are
taken to preserve cleanliness. Policing is done very
thoroughly and large and commodious covered sinks
dug.

May, 1863.

5.—On picket in command of. station 1. Was
complimented by corps officer of day. Occasional rain
during the day. An improvement has been lately
adopted in the picket system. A mounted courier is
now kept at an important station. The whole picket
system is now reduced almost to a state of perfection.
Had a severe headache all day and night.

7.—There was great cheering and rejoicing last
night over Hooker’s supposed victory. All day the
most exaggerated reports of Hooker’s success have
been floating through camp. All eyes are now turned
toward the Potomac army. To-day was as disagree-
able as I almost ever experienced. Cold, rainy, and
discomforting. Enough to give Mark Tapley the
blues.

8.—To-day it is said that Hooker has completely cut
the rebel communications and is only waiting for the
30,000 reenforcements that are coming up to fall upon
and annihilate the rebels. Of course we are all on our
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO I51

heads with excitement. Cleared up this afternoon and
there is a promise of fine weather. Regimental trou-
bles pretty near a boil.

9.—There are rumors to-day, which seem to be of a
credible character, that Hooker has retired to the north
bank of the Rappahannock and is again in his old camp
at Falmouth. It is said the whole affair was a mere
cavalry raid by Stoneman. I am almost prompted to
say fizzle! fizzle! fizzle!

10.—Sunday. Had company inspection. Men
looked remarkably neat and clean. A very perceptible
change has come over them, inducing them to manifest
a good deal of pride in personal cleanliness. The or-
der excusing five men from picket and camp guard
most distinguished for soldierly appearance has, so far,
been highly beneficial. Day beautiful. Nothing defi-
nite from Hooker. Wrote to :

11.—Nothing of importance to-day. The weather
is becoming very uncomfortably warm and the men go
out into the woods in front of camp to sleep during the
heat of the day. After sundown they amuse them-
selves in playing cards, marbles, boxing, dancing, etc.
Everybody is in good spirits and seems disposed to be
as merry as possible.

12.—Officer of guard. Was very busy all day.
Our camp now presents a beautiful appearance but does
not equal the 19th Ohio which excels in everything.
We're improving fast though. The first brigade drill
for our brigade took place to-day. I could not attend.

13.—Had regimental inspection to-day. After that

 
152 CIVIL WAR TIMES

we had brigade drill, the first I was ever on. I was
much pleased. The news from the Rappahannock is
beautifully dubious and magnificently vague. I am
prepared for a grand “let down.” After Hooker,
who? A brigade camp guard was organized to-day.

14.—Company was occupied all day in raising tents,
building an arbor for the company table and improv-
ing quarters generally. Our company quarters look
actually enticing. The tents are only made for three
but are large enough for five when raised with boards.
The streets are neatly graded and ornamented with
cedars. Commodious slops and wash sinks, kitchen,
etc.

16.—Hooker seems to have very quietly subsided.
The Army of the Potomac has now resumed its proper
function, awaiting a forward move. But somehow it
doesn’t get along very fast. For two years that army
has been on the eve of going somewhere and doing
something but never doing it. We of the West will
have to whip the rebels after all.

17.—Usual Sunday inspection. Men remarkably
neat and clean. Batchelor returned to-day. Brings
very favorable news from home. Very hot and noth-
ing stirring. The flies are growing exceedingly trou-
blesome. The pertinacity with which they dispute
possession of the victuals is truly remarkable.

18.—I don’t know what to fill out this journal with.
There is a dearth of news here. The weather is hot,
the flies terrible, and everybody in his hole during the
heat of the day. Soldiering has become a systema-
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 153

tized business now and is pretty much the same thing
every day.

19.—What will be done next? Hooker in Fal-
mouth, Rosecrans taking it easy and making much ado
about nothing, Grant bobbing around, nobody knows
what at. It looks to me as if nobody is in any hurry
about closing up the war, but that the North, confident
of its power, is preparing to eat up the rebels by piece-
meal. I hardly look for a great battle soon.

22.—Completed and sent off ordnance reports this
morning. This has been a tedious job. I now have
a prospect of a little ease. For the last three or four
days we have had no brigade drill, but instead two
battalion drills—one in the morning before breakfast
and one after dress parade. Fact is we have had an
easy time for a week.

26.—Picket to-day in command of station 4. Lost
my way twice in trying to find out-post 1. The senti-
nels of out-post I are stationed on the side of the field
from which the rebels emerged on Friday of the battle.
Everything looks as natural as life, or rather death, for
such was that field to many a poor soldier. Was vis-
ited only once during the night. Lizards and ticks
abound in the woods.

27.—Nothing unusual occurred last night. The re-
lief this morning was nearly an hour behind time, hav-
ing missed the way and traveled about four miles be-
fore they found us. Didn’t get a letter to-day, which
disappointed me much; I don’t think Pll write to any-
body for six months.
154 CIVIL WAR TIMES

29.—Had squad drill this afternoon and battalion
after supper. That was about all of importance.
There was some talk of our going to Knoxville, but
that has played out. The General has recommended
the drawing of two months’ supplies of clothing, etc.,
which I suppose indicates something, though it’s
“mighty onsartain.” Rained like blazes last night.

30.—Rained nearly all day. A partial inspection of
the guns was made to-day with the object of exchang-
ing our present for Springfield rifles. Very quiet in
camp and not much prospect of a move. Grant has
not taken Vicksburg yet. It begins to look like the
Fredericksburg humbug. What if he don’t take it?
Good for three years I am afraid.

31.—Day opens cloudy but cool and pleasant. Had
regimental inspection at 5 p. M. Our company looked
particularly fine. Lieut. Taylor of the 21st Ills., Gen.
Grant’s old regiment, was over to-day. He used to be
a student at Franklin [College, Ind.]—is now adju-
tant of a convalescent regiment. He vindicates Grant
from all aspersions but didn’t convince me of his abili-
ties as a general.

JUNE, 1863.

8.—Wrote to — and —. Gave them both particu-
lar fits for not writing more promptly. The forward
move seems to have played out. It is high time the
Army of the Cumberland was doing something. Six
months in one place won’t do. The science of “how
SIX MONTHS AT MURFREESBORO 155

not to do it” seems to have been again inaugurated
with improvements. Weather clear.

13.—Drill this morning. Put in the day as usual
in cleaning up. Eaton brought some cherries and
raspberries which a person could luxuriate on at 25
cents per pint. Went to river this evening and had a
good, nice bath. We go to the railroad bridge about
three-fourths mile distant from camp. Awfully hot
to-day. Wm. Jacobs, Co. C, was killed yesterday by.
an accidental shot.

16.—Ordered to march out to witness the execution
of a deserter, Wm. Minix, private, Co. , oth Ky.,
for desertion. The whole division turned out. We
were on the ground by 8. The troops formed three
sides of a square. The prisoner was brought in at
about 9. The procession was as follows: Ist the
band, 2d the guard, 3d the coffin and bearers, 4th the
prisoner, 5th the detail to shoot him. The sentence
was executed between 9 and 10. The whole affair was
very impressive and solemn.

23.—Officer of guard. Pleasant day. Rumors that
the army marches to-morrow. Impression that our
division remains. Wagons coming in all night from
the Lebanon pike. The movement has begun.

24.—Day opens with a drizzling rain. This morn-
ing discovers all the troops gone but our division. At
3 P. M. struck tents and moved over near the fortifica-
tions southwest of town about a mile from our old
camp. Rained all day.

 
CHAPTER SEVEN

THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN AND THE BATTLE OF
CHICKAMAUGA

The country was becoming impatient because of the
long stay at Murfreesboro; the soldiers there were also
becoming restive. It was plain to all that we must go
outside our camp to meet the enemy. Naturally the
next objective point for the Army of the Cumberland
was Chattanooga. There was, however, but one line
of railroad between Nashville and Chattanooga; great
mountain ranges were to be crossed before getting to
the latter point ; and it was a most difficult problem how
to procure supplies for the army on its way to Chatta-
nooga and after it should get there. It was, there-
fore, deemed advisable to defer the forward movement
until the roads should become better, and until the rip-
ening corn should afford the necessary forage; so it
was not begun until the latter part of June, 1863.

Bragg’s army was then posted north of Duck river,
the infantry in a strongly fortified position between
Shelbyville and Wartrace, with cavalry flanks at Mc-
Minnville on the right and Spring Hill and Columbia
on the left, his chief depot of supplies being at Tulla-
homa.

The forward movement from Murfreesboro, known

(156)
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 157

as the “Tullahoma campaign,” began June 23, and in
the brief period of nine days resulted in the evacuation
by Bragg of Tullahoma without a great battle and with
slight loss to the Federal army. But Bragg’s army
was still in the field and the stronghold of Chattanooga
was yet to be won. To capture it would require long
and arduous marches over a barren and broken coun-
try destitute of necessary supplies, the constant deple-
tion of the advancing army, already 113 miles from
Nashville, its secondary base, by the withdrawal of
troops to guard its communications in the rear, and un-
doubtedly the fighting of a great battle against all the
troops that could be assembled to defend a point of
such vital importance to the Confederacy.

The authorities at Washington knew very little
about the character of the country over which such a
march must be made,* but they were clamorous for an
immediate advance of the Army of the Cumberland
and preparations for it were now pushed with all possi-
ble celerity.

Bragg had established his headquarters at Chatta-
nooga and the main. body of his army was there or
in the near vicinity. Detachments guarded all the
available crossings of the Tennessee for considerable
distances above and below that point, and Forrest’s
cavalry kept watch on the north side of the river. Rose-
crans had his headquarters at Winchester, Tennessee,
where were also those of the 20th Army Corps; the

1See Cox’s Military Reminiscences, vol. 1, p. 541.
158 CIVIL WAR TIMES

14th and 21st corps were posted at different points be-
tween Winchester and McMinnville and west of the
Cumberland Mountains; while the reserve corps was
disposed in the rear at various points north of Duck
river. The primary base of supplies was Louisville,
connected by only a single railroad with Nashville, the
secondary base.

To take Chattanooga either by direct assault or by
siege was plainly impracticable. The only practicable
plan was to force the evacuation of it by Bragg’s army,
and to accomplish this it was necessary to get in the
rear of the army and threaten its communications.
There were two ways of doing this: To cross the Ten-
nessee river above Chattanooga or to cross it below.
Rosecrans’s plan was to cross below but to divert
Bragg’s attention by making a feint of crossing above.
To execute this plan required sending a considerable
force across the Cumberland Mountains and Walden
Ridge and making demonstrations indicating an in-
tent to cross the river above Chattanooga while the
main body of the army was crossing below.

The Tennessee is a deep and wide river, and at
Bridgeport, where it was intended to construct a
bridge, it is over a half mile wide. Crossing the river
in the face of the enemy was not an easy undertaking,
but far more serious obstacles would confront the army
after a crossing had been effected ; for it would then be
necessary, in order to get in rear of Chattanooga, to
cross Raccoon Mountain. and Lookout Mountain, two
precipitous ranges, having few passes with wide inter-
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 159

vals between, and next Missionary Ridge, a lower
range. It also involved cutting loose from Stevenson,
Alabama, the proposed new base of supplies, and
marching with at least twenty-five days’ rations and
enough ammunition for two battles.

Rosecrans had an army of about 60,000 men with
which to start on such a stupendous undertaking. He
pleaded with the Washington authorities for reenforce-
ments and especially for more cavalry. When Sher-
man, in May, 1864, started on his Atlanta campaign
through the already exhausted Confederacy, begin-
ning, moreover, at Chattanooga where Rosecrans left
off, he was supplied with a magnificent army of more
than 100,000 men. Rosecrans also urged that he
should be supported by such forward movements of
other Federal armies as would protect his flanks and
prevent Confederate concentration against the Army
of the Cumberland. When Sherman began his At-
lanta campaign Grant also began his campaign against
Richmond, leaving Lee no men to spare to reenforce
the army confronting Sherman. Indeed, it seems now
that a movement so important as that contemplated by
Rosecrans should have been made only in connection
with a simultaneous movement of the Army of the Po-
tomac, that of Burnside in east Tennessee, and that of
Grant at Vicksburg. But the Army of the Potomac
was then inactive and had been since the battle of Get-
tysburg. Grant, soon after the surrender of Vicks-
burg, had suggested to the authorities at Washington
that a portion of the force under his command be sent
160 (CIVIL WAR TIMES

against Mobile, a movement which would have aided
Rosecrans by compelling the withdrawal of detach-
ments from Bragg’s army, while, as it was, reenforce-
ments were sent to Bragg. But Grant’s suggestions
were unheeded. Burnside had been busy in looking
after General John Morgan and did not reach the vi-
cinity of Knoxville until August 26. He never was
near enough to Rosecrans to render him any assistance
and as soon as he appeared in east Tennessee Buckner’s
corps was withdrawn and sent to reenforce Bragg.”

A deaf ear was turned to all the appeals of Rose-
crans. He had sent General Rousseau to Washing-
ton with letters to President Lincoln, to Halleck, and
to Stanton, urging the necessity of giving him the aid
essential for a movement so important as that designed
to take and hold Chattanooga. Rosecrans was some-
what given to making complaints, but in this instance
his appeals seem to have been well grounded. Lin-
coln sent him a kind letter; Stanton did not answer
and is reported to have said that he would be damned

? Halleck, as usual, sought to shift the blame for his own fail-
ures on some other person, and on Sept. 22, 1863, he sent a dis-
patch to General Burnside, saying: “I fear your delay has
‘already permitted Bragg to prevent your junction.” To this
Burnside sent a caustic answer emphatically denying that he had
been guilty of any delay and showing that he had obeyed all
orders to the letter, and that from the time when his troops first
entered east Tennessee it had been impracticable to effect a junc-
tion with Rosecrans. See Reb. Rec., ser. No. 52, pp. 785, 904;
Cox: Military Reminiscences, vol. 1, pp. 530-541.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 161

if he gave Rosecrans another man.? Halleck sent the
following dispatch August 5, 1863: “The orders for
the advance of your army, and that its progress be re-
ported daily, are peremptory.” Not a man was sent
to Rosecrans, nor was his movement supported by that
of any other Federal army.

The advance to Chattanooga began August 16th.
The 21st Army Corps crossed the Cumberland Moun-
tains into the Sequatchie Valley; two brigades of that
corps then crossed Walden Ridge into the Tennessee
Valley, and these, with Wilder’s brigade and Minty’s
cavalry, at once proceeded to stir up a lively commo-
tion in front of and above Chattanooga. Camp-fires
were lighted on the ridge, bugles were blown at numer-
ous fords, Chattanooga was shelled from across the
river, and various demonstrations were made indicat-
ing a purpose to cross the Federal army at some point
above Chattanooga.*

So successful was the feint that Bragg was complete-
ly deceived and withdrew from Bridgeport the only

8 See Rosecrans’s testimony before Committee on Conduct of
the War; Report of Committee on Rosecrans’s Campaign, p. 28.

*The official report of General Daniel H. Hill, in command of
the place, fairly illustrates the manner in which the Yankee in-
vaders were regarded in the South. He says: “On fast day
(August), while religious services were being held in Chatta-
nooga, the Yankees appeared on the opposite side of the river and
commenced shelling the town without giving any notice. Our
pickets and scouts, if any were out, had given no warning of the

Yankees’ approach. Some women and children were killed and
wounded by this not unusual act of atrocity of our savage foe.”

II
162 CIVIL WAR TIMES

brigade that had been guarding against the crossing of
the Federal army at:that point. Meanwhile the main
body of the Army of the Cumberland was concentrated
with as much secrecy as possible, near Bridgeport, and
by September 4 all the army had crossed the Tennessee
at that point and others near by, and by the 6th was in
the vicinity of Chattanooga. Bragg began the evacu-
ation of the place September 7 and had completed the
withdrawal of the main body of his army by the even-
ing of the 8th. On that day there were rumors of the
evacuation and on the day following Beatty’s brigade
of Van Cleve’s division ascended Lookout Mountain
at Nickajack Trace and advanced to the point, about
twelve miles distant, in order to ascertain the truth of
the rumor. It was found that the Confederates had
abandoned both Lookout Mountain and Chattanooga,
and on the same day the Federal troops entered Chat-
tanooga as the rear guard of Bragg’s army was leav-
ing. Thus by skilful strategy Chattanooga had been
gained without a battle, or even a considerable skir-
mish, after the evacuation of Tullahoma. The 7oth
Ind. had made another long march, crossing the Cum-
berland Mountains and passing down the beautiful
Sequatchie Valley, seeing on the way magnificent
mountain scenery whose grandeur often evoked the en-
thusiastic cheers of the passing troops. We were now
in Chattanooga, but the great battle for its permanent
occupation was yet to be fought.

Much has been written about the battle of Chicka-
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 163

mauga, containing a vast deal of misinformation.®
No battle in the Civil War was more stubbornly fought
on both sides than was that of Chickamauga. Con-
sidering the number of men engaged, it was by far the
bloodiest, and was characterized from first to last by
exhibitions of bravery on both sides not surpassed in
any battle in history. No writer of fiction ever por-
trayed anything equal to the reality. No orator could
ever find language adequate to describe the heroic
achievements on that bloody field. The monuments,
the tablets, the dumb batteries that stand there now,
remind those who participated in the conflict of the
dreadful carnage, but can not convey to one that did
not witness it the faintest conception of the battle.
The field marks a contest between the highest types of
American soldiery.

Moreover, no battle of the Civil War more clearly il-
lustrates upon what slender chances victory depends.
Looking back at the mistakes of both sides, one can
now easily see how the absence of some of them might
have turned the scale, and caused either the defeat
of the Confederate, or the total annihilation of the
Federal army. To understand fully that memorable

*The most intelligible accounts of the battle, valuable chiefly
because written by eye-witnesses, and accompanied by maps essen-
tial to an understanding of it, will be found in Van Horne’s
History of the Army of the Cumberland, Cist’s Army of the Cum-
-berland, Turchin’s Battle of Chickamauga, Piatt’s George A.
Thomas, and Boynton’s Chickamauga National Military Park.
The official reports of the battle are contained in Rebellion Rec-
ords, ser. Nos. 50, 51-
164. CIVIL WAR TIMES

battle it is necessary to have in mind the operations
of the ten days or more preceding it.

Complete success had attended the movement
against Chattanooga and, as already stated, the town
had been occupied by General Rosecrans’s army Sep-
tember 9, 1863, without serious resistance and with
little loss of life. Thus far it seemed that the strategy
by which the gateway to the South had been secured
was beyond criticism, and so it was regarded by the
military authorities at Washington.

. Bragg was apparently in full retreat. Rosecrans,
thinking that he did not intend to stop north of Dalton
or Rome in Georgia, and elated by his own easy tri-
umph, instead of concentrating his already widely sep-
arated corps, as Thomas urgently advised,’ ordered
them to continue in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. On
the morning of the 9th Rosecrans dispatched to Crit-
tenden, and on the evening of the same day, to McCook,
that Bragg had evacuated Chattanooga and was in
full retreat, directing the former to push forward with
five days’ rations in vigorous pursuit, and the latter
to move rapidly upon Alpine and Summerville, inter-
cept Bragg’s retreat, and attack on his flank. The di-
visions of Thomas’s corps were already far south of
Chattanooga, but as late as 9:45 P. M. on September
10, Rosecrans, in a dispatch to Thomas, expressed his
impatience that his advance had not been more rapid,
and, in entire ignorance of the fact that Bragg’s army

*See Van Horne: Life of George H. Thomas, p. 104.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 165

was even then concentrated at Lafayette, gave Thomas
peremptory orders that his movement on Lafayette
“should be made with the utmost promptness.”
Ffalleck, as general-in-chief, was still conducting
military operations by telegraph from Washington.
He, too, seems to have been somewhat dazed by the
success of his own strategy, and to have been revolv-
ing in his mind some stupendous plan for an “ad-
vance into Georgia or Alabama or into the valley of
Virginia and North Carolina,” as indicated in his dis-
patches of September 11 to Burnside and Rosecrans.
Until Halleck’s plan could be more fully matured,
Burnside was to “hold the gaps of the North Carolina
mountains” and Rosecrans “the mountain passes on
the west and Dalton or some other point -on the rail-
road, to prevent the return of Bragg’s army.” From
such dreams there was a sudden and rude awakening.
It came first to Rosecrans. McCook on his way to
Alpine had entirely missed the Confederate army. He
had sent out several detachments on the 8th and oth
to scour the country in search of the whereabouts of
Bragg’s army, but no traces of it had been found.
On the roth, however, he discovered that if he had
gone to Summerville he would probably have been
surrounded by it. When Crittenden reached Ringgold
he found that there had been some grievous misunder-
standing of Bragg’s whereabouts. Negley’s division
of Thomas’s corps, in its hot chase, almost tumbled
headlong into the midst of Bragg’s army at Mc-
166 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Lemore’s Cove, but fortunately discovered its peril
in time to escape.

Halleck’s air-castles were undermined more slowly,
by gradual approaches, to use a military phrase. From
the tales related to him by deserters, who were probably
sent expressly to tell them, he was induced to believe
that Bragg, instead of making preparations to give
battle himself, was sending reenforcements to Lee.
On September 13 Halleck learned that a portion of
Lee’s army had gone somewhere; the next day it was
reported that it was Longstreet’s corps that had gone.
But where had Longstreet gone? There were various
suppositions. He might have gone to Petersburg;
he might have gone to Norfolk. At any rate, Halleck
wisely conjectured that he would “soon strike a blow
somewhere.” By and by it occurred to him that possi-
bly Longstreet had gone to reenforce Bragg, and then
the telegraph was put to work again and frantic dis-
patches were sent at once in every direction to Grant,
to Sherman, to Hurlbut, to Burnside, to hurry to
Rosecrans the réenforcements that should have been
sent months before—as if armies hundreds of miles
away could be put in motion in an instant.

It was indeed true that a grave mistake had been
made concerning Bragg’s movements. He had re-
treated only a short distance. Taking advantage of
the broken and mountainous character of the country,
well adapted to concealing his movements, he had re-
tired into the rocky fastnesses of northern Georgia and
was secretly massing his troops in the vicinity of La-
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 167

fayette, hiding behind Pigeon Mountain and await-
ing the opportunity to strike and crush in detail the
widely separated columns of Rosecrans’s army as they
debouched from the mountain passes, and to cut off
retreat by the Lafayette road, the only available route
from that region back to Chattanooga.

General Rosecrans, as late as September 11, seems
to have doubted the truth of the reports that Bragg
was concealing his army withjn striking distance. By
that time the true condition of affairs had been ascer-
tained. The situation of the Federal army was very
critical. Bragg had been reenforced by General John-
ston with 15,000 men and by Buckner’s corps, which
had been withdrawn from east Tennessee, and his
army was massed nearly opposite the center of the
Federal army whose right and left flanks were forty
miles apart and separated by mountain ranges permit-
ting the passage of troops only through passes or de-
files few and far between. McCook’s corps was at
Alpine, fifty miles south of Chattanooga, and could
effect a junction with the other corps only by long
and difficult marches. The intervening country was
rough and broken and covered with a dense growth
of trees and underbrush. The Federal commanders
were imperfectly acquainted with the mountainous re-
gion into which Rosecrans had been inveigled, but
with every road and path and mountain pass the Con-
federates were familiar.

Moreover, in his hot pursuit of the Confederates
Rosecrans had left Chattanooga uncovered, thus ex-
168 CIVIL WAR TIMES.

tending an invitation to Bragg, which he was not slow
to accept, to intervene between that place and the Fed-
eral army and so cut off its retreat. Besides this Rose-
crans had so scattered his corps that they were no
longer in supporting distance and were nearer to
Bragg’s army than they were to each other. The divi-
sions of the different corps were also disunited. Crit-
tenden’s corps, to use a military phrase, was “in air.”
There wds no hope of reenforcements for the Army
of the Cumberland. The only hope was that it might
unite in time to meet the forces gathering for its de-
struction. :

This was Brageg’s great opportunity. Had he been
a Grant or a Lee he would have seized it promptly and
inflicted a crushing blow on the Federal army. But
he was neither a Grant nor a Lee. If the Confederate
commander was unequal to the occasion, his subordi-
nates were still more so and delayed carrying out his
orders until the golden opportunity had slipped past.
For this, after the battle, Generals Polk, D. H. Hill,
and Hindman were, at General Bragg’s request, re-
lieved of their commands.

Negley’s division was in an exceedingly critical sit-
uation. It had crossed Lookout Mountain through
Stevens’s Gap, twenty-six miles south of Chattanooga,
and.on September 8 was opposite Dug Gap on the
west side of Pigeon Mountain, Negley not then know-
ing that Bragg’s whole army was on the east side.
There was another gap—Catlett’s—a little north of
Dug Gap, and another—Blue Bird Gap—a little south
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 169

of it, and Negley’s division was in imminent danger
of an attack in front, on both flanks, and in the rear.
The situation was quickly perceived by Bragg and on
the evening of the 8th he ordered General Hindman
to attack Negley’s division at once and Hill to support
Hindman. Hill failed to obey the order and reported
a flimsy excuse, but Hindman marched ten miles
and halted within three miles of Negley, where,
according to Bragg’s order, he was joined by Buck-
ner on the roth. When these three Confederate
generals came together they held a council of war,
determined that Bragg’s order was impracticable,
and deliberately waited for further orders. Addi-
tional troops were then sent to support Hindman
until 30,000 troops were massed for the contem-
plated attack, but there was one hitch after another
until Negley had safely got away and had fallen back
to Stevens’s Gap.

Having thus failed to crush Thomas’s corps, Bragg
next attempted to concentrate against that of Critten-
den, and on the evening of the 11th he ordered General
Polk to begin the attack at Lee and Gordon’s Mill.
In order to inspire Polk with enthusiasm he said to
him: “This presents a fine opportunity of striking
Crittenden in detail, and I hope you will avail your-
self of it at daylight to-morrow. This division crushed
and the others are yours; we can then turn on the force
in the Cove. Wheeler’s cavalry will move on Wilder
so as to cover your right. I shall be delighted to hear
of your success.” Notwithstanding these alluring as-
170 CIVIL WAR TIMES

surances of future glory, Polk that night reported
that he had taken a strong position for defense and
asked for reenforcements. Bragg sent a peremptory
order to Polk not to defer the attack, and the next
morning went himself with Buckner’s corps to see
that it was made, when he found that Polk’s troops
had not budged and that Crittenden had got his divi-
sions together and had recrossed the Chickamauga. If
there is still surviving a Confederate that sincerely
mourns the failure of the “lost cause,’’ he must writhe
in agony when he reads, even at this late day, of the
blunders of Bragg and his subordinates, and thinks
of what “might have been.”’

Owing partly to the celerity and skill of the Federal
generals and in part to the failure of his subordinates
to carry out his plans, Bragg’s attempts to destroy
Thomas’s and Crittenden’s corps had been foiled, as
already stated, but there was still left the opportunity
to turn Rosecrans’s left flank, get possession of the
Lafayette road, and thereby cut off the retreat of the
Federal army to Chattanooga, and to this object all
Bragg’s operations were now directed.

Every day the situation of the Army of the Cum-
berland became more critical. Immense reenforce-
ments were being hurried to Bragg. In addition to
those of Johnston and Buckner, two divisions of Long-
street’s corps were sent from the east and every militia-
man of northern Georgia that could carry a gun was
pressed into service. By the time the battle opened
Bragg had an army conservatively estimated at 67,000
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA I7I

arrayed against the Army of the Cumberland, 10,000
less in numbers.

It was now, as Rosecrans expressed it in his report,
“a matter of life and death to effect the concentration
of the army.” Crittenden’s corps had been pulled to-
gether and brought within supporting distance of
Thomas’s. But McCook was still afar off. To form
a junction with Thomas and Crittenden he would
have been obliged to travel, by the most direct route,
about forty miles; he took a wrong road and traveled
a distance of fifty-seven miles, marching day and night
over roads almost impassable, crossing mountains and
overcoming obstacles apparently insurmountable.
With Wellington it was “Oh for'night or Blticher!”
With Rosecrans it was “Oh for night or McCook!”
Every day, every night, every hour, was precious.
By September 17 McCook had joined Thomas and
the three Federal army corps were in supporting dis-
tance but they were not yet in position to avert the im-
pending danger. Bragg had his army in readiness for
a general advance, and, had it been made on the 17th,
it would undoubtedly have been successful, as the Fed-
eral army was not then in a position to prevent the
Confederate army from getting possession of the La-
fayette road. Various delays occurred, but finally, on
the evening of September 17, Bragg ordered a gen-
eral attack to be made the following day.

Delays again intervened and it was late in the after-
noon when the Confederate heads of columns appeared
at Reed’s and Alexander’s bridges. Generals Wilder
172 CIVIL WAR TIMES

and Minty made a heroic resistance, fighting off the
advancing Confederates and yielding inch by inch and
so retarding Bragg’s advance that another day was
gained. But the Federal army, though now united,
was not yet in the position that it must occupy to be
able to defeat Bragg’s purpose. To accomplish this
it was necessary to make still further dispositions
which could not safely be made in the daytime. All
night long Thomas’s corps was marching to the left;
but the Federal lines had not been formed, nor had
Thomas’s troops reached the positions designated for
them, when the battle opened on the morning of the
19th. Indeed, the situation was such that Rosecrans
was unable to present a continuous battle-front until
the close of the day. Thomas’s and McCook’s corps
had been marching all the night of the 18th from Mc-
Lemore’s Cove. Of Thomas’s four divisions Baird’s
and Brannan’s had reached the Kelly field about sun-
rise on the 19th and the former had been posted on the
extreme left with the latter on the right of it; Negley’s
was at Glass’s Mill, about two miles southeast of
Crawfish Spring. Of Reynolds’s division, Wilder’s
brigade was west of the Lafayette road and near the
widow Glenn’s house, and the two other brigades were
marching to reach the positions designated for them.
The three divisions of Crittenden’s corps were at Lee
and Gordon’s Mill, Wood on the right, Van Cleve
next, and Palmer on the left; the left of the latter
extending about a mile north of the mill. Davis’s,
Johnson’s, and Sheridan’s divisions of McCook’s corps
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 173

had reached Crawfish Spring and were there awaiting
further directions. Granger’s reserve corps was con-
centrated early in the morning at McAfee’s Church,
about two miles east of Rossville.

On the morning of the 19th Bragg’s army was
formed for battle, which had been ordered to begin
at 7 A. M. by an attack on Crittenden’s corps, supposed
by Bragg to be the Federal left. The Confederate
army was composed of the infantry corps of Polk,
Hill, Buckner, Walker, and part of Longstreet’s (com-
manded by Hood), with Forrest’s and Wheeler’s cav-
alry corps. Polk’s corps included the divisions of
Cheatham and Hindman; Hill’s those of Cleburne and
Breckinridge; Buckner’s those of Stewart and Preston;
Walker’s those of Walker (commanded by Gist) and
Liddell; Longstreet’s (commanded by Hood) those of
Hood (commanded by Law) and Bushrod Johnson;
Forrest’s those of Armstrong and Pegram, and Wheel-
er’s those of Wharton and Martin. At the opening
of the battle these divisions were east of and facing
the Lafayette road, ranged from right to left as fol-
lows: Forrest’s cavalry on the right near Jay’s Mill;
McLaws, Bushrod Johnson, Stewart, and Preston
with Cheatham in reserve. Walker’s division was
marching to take position on the right of McLaws’s;
Wheeler’s cavalry was posted along the upper fords
of the Chickamauga. Forrest’s cavalry was in close
proximity to Brannan’s division.

On the morning of the 19th Rosecrans and Bragg
were each ignorant of the exact position of the army
174 CIVIL WAR TIMES

of the other. Bragg supposed Crittenden’s corps to
be the Federal left, but during the night of the 18th
Rosecrans had inverted his army, still leaving Critten-
den’s corps at Lee and Gordon’s Mill but now making
it the extreme right, whereas before it had been the
extreme left, and making Thomas’s corps the extreme
left by moving it from McLemore’s Cove, where it
had been the extreme right, to a position where it was
nearer Chattanooga and where it could better hold
possession of the Lafayette road. On the other hand,
Rosecrans supposed that the extreme right of the Con-
federate army was on the east side of Chickamauga
creek and opposite Lee and Gordon’s Mill. In fact
during the night Bragg had thrown a large force on
the west side of the Chickamauga with the intention
of turning Crittenden’s left flank. Bragg had intended
attacking in the vicinity of Lee and Gordon’s Mill
what he supposed to be the Federal left, but by one
of the chances of war the battle opened in a quarter
not anticipated by any one.

Early on the morning of the 19th it was reported
to Thomas that a Confederate brigade had been left
on the west side of the river after the burning of a
bridge the night before, and Brannan’s division was
sent out to make a reconnaissance, and, if possible, to
capture the brigade supposed to have thus been sepa-
rated from the Confederate army. Brannan’s recon-
naissance unexpectedly disclosed the presence of a por-
tion of Forrest’s cavalry, which was encountered by
Brannan’s right brigade, that of Croxton, about 7:30
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA - 175

A. M., and the battle at once opened there with great
fury, resulting in such fierce fighting that Bragg was
compelled, for a time, to give his entire attention to
that part of the field. Reenforcements were hurried
by Bragg to his right and assault after assault was
made on Thomas’s lines, but the Confederates were
repulsed at every point with heavy loss. By I P. M.
there was a lull in the fighting in that quarter, the wave
of battle having passed down the line.

It was now taken up by the divisions of Cheatham,
Walker, and Stewart, who were suddenly precipitated
against the Federal center, the weight of the blow fall-
ing upon the division of Johnson and then on those
of Palmer and Reynolds which had been sent to reen-
force that part of the line. About 1 Pp. mM. Beatty’s
and Dick’s brigades of Van Cleve’s division were also
marched to the left, taking position on the right of the
brigade of Reynolds next on Palmer’s right. Beatty’s
brigade had scarcely taken position when a Confeder-
ate battery was discovered directly in front of it, the
guns spread out in fan shape, at a point southeast of
the Brotherton house, now marked by a monument to
the 79th Ind. It proved to be Carnes’s battery belong-
ing to Wright’s brigade of Cheatham’s division. The
guns were loaded with canister and a single discharge
would have inflicted immense loss of life. Instantly
a volley of musketry was fired by the 79th, disabling
both the gunners and the horses of the battery,
and, before reenforcements could arrive, a rush was
made, the battery was captured, and the guns were
176 CIVIL WAR TIMES

dragged to the rear. This was one of the few Confed-
erate batteries captured. It was retaken after the dis-
aster to the Federal right the next day.

The auspicious beginning of Van Cleve’s division
was not long sustained. Following closely Van Cleve’s
division came Carlin’s and Heg’s brigades of Davis’s
division, which took position on Van Cleve’s right.
At about the same time the Confederate divisions of
Law and Bushrod Johnson, under command of Hood,
were preparing to turn the Federal right and at once
fell on the divisions of Van Cleve and Davis. Wild-
er’s brigade, then Wood’s division and Barnes’s
brigade of Van Cleve, and finally Sheridan’s division,
were sent to reenforce this part of the line, and, even
then, it required the most heroic efforts to maintain the
Federal right. On no part of the field was the contest
more stubborn. For over three hours there was a des-
perate stand-up fight between the combatants without
breastworks or protection of any kind, until the
Viniard fields were literally piled with dead and
wounded. The tide of battle ebbed and flowed, each
side alternately advancing and retreating as victory
seemed to incline first to one and then to the other,
hesitating with which to abide.

During all this time the Confederates were persist-
ing in their attacks on the divisions of Johnson,
Palmer, and Reynolds, and all, together with that
of Van Cleve, were forced back toward the Lafayette
road. Finally the retreat was stayed, the Federal lines
were hastily reformed, all the artillery that could be
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 177

collected was brought to that part of the field, and
a determined stand was made. But the Federal right
center had been broken and the Confederate troops,
pouring through the opening made by the falling back
of Van Cleve’s division, had crossed the Lafayette
road, and with loud cheers were now rapidly advancing
into the fields west of it. As the tide of battle neared
Rosecrans’s headquarters at the widow Glenn’s house,
it seemed like a repetition of the disaster at Stone’s
River, and that the Federal right was doomed to de-
struction. But in the nick of time Brannan’s division
coming from the left and Negley’s from the right ap-
peared, the Confederates were repulsed, and the Fed-
eral lines on the right were restored.

During the day the sound of musketry was appall-
ing. At times no interval between the volleys could
be distinguished, but there was a continuous roar like
that of Niagara Falls. The fighting did not cease
with the close of the day, for long after the going down
of the sun the stillness of the night was suddenly
broken by tremendous firing in front of the divisions
of Johnson and Baird, now fiercely assailed by Cle-
burne and Cheatham. In the dense and dark woods,
lighted only by the flashing of the guns, the weird con-
test, bordering on the supernatural, was waged for an
hour or more. Again, however, the Confederates were
repulsed with frightful slaughter and the Federal lines
remained unbroken.

The day closed with the Army of the Cumberland

12
178 CIVIL WAR TIMES

still intact and holding its own. It had been a hard
day on the troops, many of whom had been marching
all the night before and fighting all day. Nearly the
entire army had been engaged and, with the exception
of Granger’s reserve corps, there were no fresh Fed-
eral troops with whom to renew the battle on the fol-
lowing day. On the other hand, Breckinridge’s and
Hindman’s divisions and two brigades of Preston’s
division had not been in the battle, and two fresh
brigades of McLaws’s division of Longstreet’s corps
arrived on the evening of the 19th. Nevertheless, there
was much to encourage the Federal army and to in-
spire it with confidence at the close of the day. The
Confederates had suffered enormous losses. Bragg
had been completely foiled in every attempt to get
possession of the Lafayette road, the Federal lines were
unbroken, and Bragg’s right had been defeated at
every point. But he had no thought of giving up the
contest and laid his plans to renew battle the next
morning.

Various changes in the formation of the Federal
lines had been made during the day and night of the
19th. The next morning Thomas still held the left,
the order of formation by divisions from left to right
being as follows: Baird on the extreme left near the
Kelly house; Johnson, Palmer and Reynolds, all on
the east side of the Lafayette road, Brannan on the
west side of the Poe field, Negley west of the Broth-
erton field, Sheridan in front of the widow Glenn’s
house, Wilder’s brigade on the right and in rear of
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 179

Sheridan. Early in the morning the divisions of
Wood, Van Cleve and Davis were in rear of the cen-
ter, but Davis soon took position on the left of Sheri-
dan and Wood took the place of Negley who had been
ordered to the left. Granger’s reserve corps was still
at McAfee’s Church. The cavalry was mostly on the
right guarding the upper fords of the Chickamauga.
Various changes had also been made in the Confed-
erate lines. Longstreet reached the battle-field at 11
p. M. and was assigned to the command of the Confed-
erate left wing, while General Polk was placed in com-
mand of the right wing. The formation of the Con-
federate right wing in the order of divisions from right
to left was as follows: Forrest’s cavalry east of
Cloud’s; Breckinridge’s and Cleburne’s divisions on
the east and south of the Kelly field and the east side
of the Poe field; Walker’s (Gist’s) and Liddell’s divi-
sions in reserve in rear of Breckinridge’s and Cheat-
ham’s in rear of Cleburne’s. The left wing was posted
as follows from right to left: Stewart’s, Bushrod John-
son’s, Hindman’s and Preston’s with Law’s in rear of
Johnson’s and Kershaw’s (McLaw’s) in rear of Law’s.
Bragg’s order to Polk was to begin an attack on the
Federal left at daylight on the 2oth, the battle to be
taken up by divisions along the line from right to left.
During the day and night of the 19th the movement
of the Federal army had been continually to the left,
the point of danger. Division after division, brigade
after brigade, had been sent from the corps of McCook
and Crittenden to reenforce Thomas. Before the dis-
180 CIVIL WAR TIMES

aster on Sunday in which the Federal right was
broken, Crittenden’s corps organization had been com-
pletely broken up by taking from it the troops sent to
the support of Thomas. Palmer’s division had gone
on the 19th. Wood’s was taken out to reenforce
Thomas on the 2oth, just before the break, and with
it Barnes’s brigade of Van Cleve’s division, and at the
same time the two remaining brigades of Van Cleve’s
division, Beatty’s and Dick’s, were also on their way
under orders to march to the support of Thomas.

Had the right wing of the Federal army been posted
on the ridge where the lines were finally established
during the afternoon of the 20th as Thomas had ad-
vised,’ there is little doubt that the result of the battle
would have been altogether different. It was, however,
posted in such position as to give it little, if any, ad-
vantage over a superior force of the Confederates,
and to make any change in the face of the enemy
extremely hazardous. So hasty was the formation
that there was no time to construct rifle-pits, and the
light barricades of rails, logs, and stones afforded
but slight protection.

What added to the danger of the right, and espe-
cially to the danger of making any change in its forma-
tion on the morning of the 2oth, was the fact, of which
Rosecrans seems to have been entirely unconscious,
that a large Confederate force had been massed oppo-
site the Federal right. Concealed in the dense woods

™Van Horne: Life of George H. Thomas, p. 121.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 181

east of the Lafayette road were the heavy Confeder-
ate columns under the command of General Longstreet,
momentarily expecting the order to advance. Imme-
diately in front of Wood’s division, and but a short
distance away, lay the division of the Confederate Gen-
eral Bushrod Johnson, and behind this, in supporting
distance, were the divisions of Law and Kershaw,
while to the left of Johnson was the division of Gen-
eral Hindman. :

The battle opened on the morning of the 2oth with
another desperate attack on the Federal left. Had it
been made earlier it might have been most disastrous
to the Union army, but the disaster was averted by
another Confederate blunder. Bragg had ordered
General Polk, in command of the Confederate right
wing, to attack the Federal left at daylight and secure
possession of the Lafayette road which was not suffi-
ciently guarded. Had the attack been made as ordered
it would probably have been successful, as Thomas had
not then enough troops to defend it. But Polk on the
night of the 19th slept outside the lines and was not
on the field at the time when he should have opened
the battle. Bragg sent Major Lee to ascertain the
cause of the delay and to urge a prompt movement.
He found Polk at the breakfast-table, surrounded by
a brilliantly dressed staff. With pompous politeness,
Polk replied to the message: “Do tell General Bragg
that my heart is overflowing with anxiety for the at-

‘tack—overflowing with anxiety, sir.” When this was
reported to the Confederate commander-in-chief it is
182 CIVIL WAR TIMES

said that it called forth a volley of sulphurous impre-
cations upon Polk and all his corps commanders, and
that Bragg in the fury of his disappointment at once
gave orders to Major Lee to “ride along the line and
order every captain to take his men instantly into
action.”®

By the time the attack was made Thomas was pre-
pared for it and, though sorely pressed, he succeeded
in maintaining his position. Against his lines the Con-
federate billows surged and beat in vain. Once in-
deed, only a little before the fatal break on the right,
the columns of Breckinridge, under the supervision of
Bragg himself, had completely enveloped the Federal
left, and for a few moments it seemed that nothing
could avert the impending ruin, when a single brigade
—Van Derveer’s of Brannan’s division—rushed for-
ward in one of the most brilliant charges of the battle
and turned back the Confederate tide.

The roar of musketry that morning clearly indicated
the frightful carnage on the left. I never heard any-
thing so appalling. Requests still came from Thomas
for reenforcements. Just before the disaster to the
right, General Rosecrans rode up in front of the 79th
Ind. and exchanged a few words with Colonel Knefler.
Though not near enough to hear what was said, I
could plainly see Rosecrans’s face. The intense strain
under which he had been laboring for days had told
upon him. He was pale as a corpse and, as he rode

® Pollard: The Lost Cause, p. 450.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 183

away, his looks too plainly disclosed the apprehensions
he could not conceal.

By a strange misunderstanding of the actual situa-
tion, General Rosecrans, in order to prevent a supposed
gap between the divisions of Wood and Reynolds, at
about I1 A. M. ordered General Wood to close up on
Reynolds’s right. There was in fact no gap, Reynolds
needed no support, and the order could be executed
only by taking Wood’s division entirely out of line
and marching it in the rear of Brannan’s, which Gen-
eral Wood at once proceeded to do, taking with him
Barnes’s brigade of Van Cleve’s division.® At the

° The facts relating to this order, as nearly as I can gather them
from the official reports and all other available sources of infor-
mation, seem to be as follows: Thomas had sent to Rosecrans
an urgent request for reenforcements and the latter had sent a
staff officer to Brannan directing him to go immediately to
Thomas’s support. On the supposition that Brannan would go at
once, thus leaving a gap between Reynolds and Wood, Rosecrans
sent another staff officer directing Wood to close up on Reynolds.
At the time Brannan received the order directed to him, the
enemy was already advancing against him, and he could not with-
draw without exposing the army to great danger. He therefore
sent word of the situation to Rosecrans and delayed moving until
the receipt of further directions. When the order to Wood was
received by the latter, he had not yet been attacked, though he
expected to be soon. But the order was imperative and he pro-
ceeded at once to obey it. Before doing so he informed General
McCook, who was present, and advised him to make such dis-
positions as would be necessary to fill the gap that would be
caused by the withdrawal of his division. By McCook’s direction
the two brigades of Davis’s division were on their way, at the
time the catastrophe of Sunday occurred, to take the position
vacated by Wood. In view of the facts above detailed, it would
184 CIVIL WAR TIMES

same time the two remaining brigades, Beatty’s and
Dick’s of Van Cleve’s division, were ordered to the
left to support Thomas and were in motion by the left
flank and on double quick. Sheridan’s division was
also ordered to the left to support Thomas and was
likewise in motion by the left flank and on double
quick.

Just at this juncture, while all these movements
were being executed, the Confederate advance upon
the Federal right began, and almost instantly the wide
gap made by the withdrawal of Wood’s division was
filled with the advancing troops of General Bushrod
Johnson, followed by those of Law and Kershaw.
Striking Brannan’s division, then on the west side of
the Poe field, the brigade on the right of it was thrown
into confusion, and artillery and men rushed through
the moving columns of the brigades of Beatty and
Dick, which happened at that particular moment to
be passing in Brannan’s rear, throwing them also into
confusion. At nearly the same time Davis’s division,
now left without support on either flank or in the rear,
was enveloped by the troops of General Hindman and
was forced to fall back. As it was falling back it
came into collision, at an angle, with Sheridan’s divi-
sion, rapidly moving to the left, and both these divi-
sions were instantly broken in fragments.

seem unjust to censure severely either Rosecrans or Wood for the
disaster that followed. It was one of those unforeseen and un-
fortunate calamities of battle which it seems impossible for human
wisdom to anticipate or guard against.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 185

Thus almost at the same moment portions of Bran-
nan’s, Van Cleve’s, Davis’s, and Sheridan’s divisions,
together with part of Negley’s, which had also been
ordered to the left but had not yet gone, became inex-
tricably mingled in a confused mass which, even if
no enemy had been in sight, it would have taken sev-
eral minutes to disentangle. But there was not even
a single minute to spare, for the rapidly advancing
Confederate columns were now only a short distance
away and were pouring volley after volley into the
disorganized mass of troops before them. Division,
brigade, and regimental organizations went to pieces
in an instant.

It was impossible, under such circumstances, to make
any new formations or to conduct an orderly retreat.
Even Sheridan, whose influence was so magical at
Winchester and whose subsequent career so clearly
demonstrated his dash and his soldierly qualities, was
powerless to stem the overwhelming tide of disaster.
So sudden and irresistible was the onset that General
Rosecrans and staff, who were immediately behind
Sheridan’s division, narrowly escaped capture. A
portion of the 79th Ind. went with Colonel Knefler in
one direction and a portion with Lieut.-Colonel Oyler
in another. Continuing their advance westward,
Hindman’s forces swept Davis’s and Sheridan’s di-
visions and part of Van Cleve’s from the Dyer field
and over the ridge on the west side of it. Hindman
then returned and reformed his lines on the left of
Bushrod Johnson, and the Confederate columns started
186 CIVIL WAR TIMES

north through the Dyer field in the direction of the
ridge of which Snodgrass Hill forms a part.

Rosecrans, supposing that all was lost, hastened to
Chattanooga to prepare for the retreat of the army
to that place, and not long afterward sent word to
Thomas to take command of all the forces remaining
on the battle-field. Rosecrans was soon followed to
Chattanooga by McCook and Crittenden.

A large part of the Federal artillery on the right was
captured; about fifty pieces were saved and hauled
off the field by order of General Negley in order, as
he said, to avoid capture, but they were never fired
during the remainder of the battle. Five or six thou-
sand men or more, who had escaped over the ridge
west of the Dyer field, got into the valley beyond it.
General Davis gathered together a few of them and
started to join General Thomas but was unable to do
so before the close of the battle. General Sheridan
collected others and tried to effect a junction with
Thomas by way of Rossville, but he also arrived too
late to be of service. General Negley kept a large part
of them under his command for the purpose, as he as-
serted, of protecting the retreat of the artillery and
ammunition trains. He was accused of taking with
him, in addition, part of Connell’s brigade of Bran-
nan’s division.*° As if to insure the destruction of
the Army of the Cumberland, “some unauthorized
person,” whose name, if known, has been considerately

* See the report of Col. John M. Connell, Reb. Rec., ser. No. 50,
p. 407.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 187

suppressed in the official reports, ordered Thomas’s
ammunition trains back to Chattanooga.

Charles A. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War,
who was with General Rosecrans and with him had
been swept from the field, sent Stanton a dispatch at 4
P. M. in which he said: “My report to-day is of de-
plorable importance. Chickamauga is as fatal a name
in our history as Bull Run.” Affairs were bad enough
but not quite so bad as Dana pictured, and at 8 P. M.
he was “happy to report that my dispatch of 4 P. M.
to-day proves to have given too dark a view of our
disaster.”** In face of such an appalling train of dis-
asters, it seems miraculous that the Army of the Cum-
berland escaped annihilation. Had the movement by
which General Hindman, later in the afternoon, gained
the top of the ridge north of Snodgrass Hill, been
made before the arrival of Whitaker’s and Mitchell’s
brigades, it is probable that the Federal army would
have been totally defeated. The movement was not
made solely for the reason that the Confederate gen-
erals supposed that the troops that had been driven
over the ridge west of the Dyer field were still in fight-
ing condition and liable to fall on the Confederate
flanks. Indeed, Hindman supposed the troops of
Whitaker and Mitchell, that later in the afternoon
drove his own from the hill west of the Snodgrass
house, to be the same that he had before driven from
the Dyer field. “At 3 Pp. M.,” he reports,*® “a force

™ Reb. Rec., ser. No. 50, pp. 192, 193.
” Reb, Rec., ser. No. 51, p. 304.
188 CIVIL WAR TIMES

of the enemy, probably that which I had recently con-
fronted west of the Crawfish Spring road, appeared
on my left, capturing several-men of my infirmary
corps and others who had fallen out from fatigue or
wounds. I was apprehensive of an attack in rear, and
sent to General Longstreet and General Buckner for
reenforcements.”

I return now to the time when Generals Bushrod
Johnson and Hindman, after advancing to the west
side of the Dyer field, reformed their lines and started
north. When the Confederate troops broke through
the gap caused by the withdrawal of Wood’s division,
I was near the left of the regiment. A portion of the
regiment fell back a short distance and joined some
fragments of other commands that were endeavoring
to make a stand behind a slight barricade of rails.
The bullets were still coming fast and thick from the
east, and, so intent was I in looking in that direction,
expecting every moment to see emerging from the
woods an advancing Confederate line, that I did not
observe the columns of Bushrod Johnson and Hind-
man, which had then reformed and had begun their ad-
vance northward through the Dyer field, until Lindsay
Stinnett, one of my company, touched my arm and
said: “Captain, they are all gone.” Hastily looking
I saw that what he said was true and the next instant
I observed the Confederate columns advancing north
and within two hundred yards of us. They wore
dark-colored uniforms and for a second I mistook them
for Federal troops, but a glance at the stars and bars
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 189

dispelled all doubt. We were in very close and dan-
gerous quarters. Escape either to the east, west or
south was then out of the question, and the only way
out was in the direction of Snodgrass Hill. In going
we passed through a portion of the field where there
must have been at least twenty or thirty pieces of Fed-
eral artillery. Not an artilleryman nor horse was
near; the cannon had evidently been abandoned and
were undoubtedly soon captured by the enemy. My
heart sank as I threaded my way through and past
them, for the abandonment of our artillery signified to
me with more emphasis than anything I saw the ex-
tent of the disaster which had overtaken us.

Reaching Snodgrass Hill I took my position near
the east end, fifteen or twenty yards northeast of the
place where the government observation-tower now
stands, and there I remained until after dark, leaving
only for a few minutes to assist one of my company
who was wounded. About the time I reached the hill,
General Brannan had posted his division near the
place where the observation-tower now stands, and
Wood’s division took position on the left of Brannan’s.

Besides these, there were gathered there fragments of
the divisions of Negley and Van Cleve. The latter
included representatives of the 19th Ohio, the 9th and
17th Ky., and the 79th Ind.; all of Beatty’s brigade,
and the 44th and 86th Ind. of Dick’s brigade. There
were colonels without regiments, captains without
companies, and men without officers, all gathered pro-
miscuously together. Van Horne estimates that there
190 CIVIL WAR TIMES

were at that time on Snodgrass Hill, all told, about
4,000 men. General Turchin**® makes the number
6,500. With the exception of Brannan’s and Wood’s
divisions there was little semblance of brigade, regi-
mental, or company organization. —

It was at this critical time that I witnessed what I
have always thought to be the most striking illustra-
tion in the whole war of the coolness and intrepidity
of the American private soldier when left to his own
resources and compelled to fight ‘on his own hook.”
The men on Snodgrass Hill were smarting under the
mortification of having been driven there because of a
disaster for which they knew they were not responsible
and which was not caused by any lack of bravery or
discipline on their part. They were resolved to be
driven no farther and, facing the advancing foe, they
savagely stood at bay. Taking in the situation at
once, and acting as if by instinct, they immediately be-
gan the construction of rude breastworks on the brow
of the hill from such logs, rails, and stones as could
be hastily raked together, and then awaited the coming
Confederate hosts. Every man seemed to realize that
it was now a life and death struggle for the preserva-
tion of the Army of the Cumberland. They had not
long to wait, for the Confederate columns were ad-
vancing rapidly, cheering as they came. Exalted to
the highest pitch of enthusiasm by their previous suc-
cess, it seemed that nothing could stay them in their

* Battle of Chickamauga, p. 124.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA IQL

victorious advance. But the men on the hill fought
with a desperate courage that I never saw surpassed
on any other field. At every point on the line the
charge was repulsed, and the hosts that had charged
so exultingly were forced to fall back. Again and
again they rallied and again and again were repulsed.
For more than four hours the sanguinary contest last-
ed, waged with a valor on the part of the Confederates
only equaled by the grim steadfastness of the Spartan
band on Snodgrass Hill.

Some time between 3 and 4 P. M., during. a lull in
the assaults, a solitary cannon was heard and then be-
gan a cheer on the Confederate right which seemed to
be taken up, regiment by regiment, until it extended
apparently to the extreme left. It seemed to me, judg-
ing the position of the Confederate lines by the course
of the cheering, that we were almost surrounded. I
did not then understand the situation but I know now
that I was correct in my conjecture.

About this time, despairing of success in their at-
tempt to drive from the hill by direct assault the troops
who were so bravely holding it, a portion of the Con-
federate troops had passed round the north end of the
hill and, establishing themselves on one of the ridges,
were about to attack Brannan in the rear. The troops
on the hill were now subjected to a fire not only in
front, but in the rear. Soon after this Wesley Shep-
pard, one of my company, while in the act of firing at
the Confederates in front, was struck by a bullet from
the rear. The ball struck him near his shoulder and
192 CIVIL WAR TIMES

went clear through his body. There were no ambu-
lances nor stretcher-bearers near and, as I saw his gun
drop from his hands, I hastened to his assistance. He
was still able to walk with my aid and I took him first
to the Snodgrass House. As the ground for several
rods about the house was covered with dead and
wounded, we passed on to a straw-stack near the Snod-
grass stable where I thought to leave him, but fearing
that some exploding shell might set the straw on fire,
I took him a little farther, leaving him in a fence cor-
ner with some straw under his head and bade him
good-bye.** After leaving Sheppard I hastened back
to the little squad of the 79th that I had left, having
been absent, I presume, not more than fifteen or twenty
minutes. I did not fail to observe that in the field
where I left Sheppard a line of Federal troops was on
one side facing one way, and on the other side was a
line facing another way, confirming my supposition
that we were at that time nearly surrounded.

The position of the troops on the hill was indeed
most critical, but help was coming from an unexpected
quarter. General Gordon Granger, of the Reserve
Corps, four miles away at McAfee’s Church, had heard
the tremendous firing and had rapidly “marched to the
sound of the cannon,” brushing aside the Confederate

* When I left Sheppard the blood was gushing from his mouth
in torrents, and I did not suppose that he would live ten minutes,
but after having been captured by the Confederates that night, he
recovered, was exchanged, rejoined his company in east Ten-
nessee, and remained with it to the end of the war.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 193

cavalry that attempted to impede his march. He
reached the hill with two brigades of Steedman’s and
one of Morgan’s divisions about the time I left Shep-
pard. Van Derveer’s brigade was also approaching.
Whitaker’s and Mitchell’s brigades of Steedman’s di-
vision were at once deployed, Van Derveer joining
them on the left, and advanced against the Confeder-
ates who had now gained the north end of the ridge in
rear of Brannan. I saw the brilliant charge of
Whitaker’s and Mitchell’s brigades, led by General
Steedman waving a regimental flag. It was the turn-
‘ing-point in the battle. Fearlessly confronting the
advancing Confederate columns, Steedman’s troops
drove the enemy from the hill and again established
the Federal right. But for this timely reenforcement
there is little doubt that the Army of the Cumberland
would have been utterly defeated and probably
annihilated, for Granger had brought 4,000 fresh
troops to the field and, what was needed as much as
men, a supply of ammunition of which we were now
almost destitute.

But the end was not yet. With eleven brigades
Longstreet again sought to dislodge the little band on
Snodgrass Hill and assault after assault was made.
Times of greatest danger develop the highest courage,
often making heroes of men who are themselves un-
conscious of the transformation. On one side were
men flushed with victory and fighting to expel from
their soil those whom they regarded as invaders of
their homes; on the other were men making a last

13
194 CIVIL WAR TIMES

stand for an army.of which they were proud and for a
Union they loved; both sides fought with a desperate
valor never surpassed in the annals of war. Confed-
erate soldiers were killed in front of the breastworks,
some after they had crossed, and some were thrust
back with the bayonet or with clubbed musket. When
the ammunition of those on the hill ran low they re-
plenished their scanty store from the cartridge-boxes
of their dead and wounded comrades and renewed their
fire, and those who had no ammunition still held fast
to their guns, resolved to use their bayonets as a last
resort. Thus the conflict was maintained until night-
fall.

No higher tribute has ever been paid to the valor of
both the Federal and the Confederate troops who
fought that afternoon at Snodgrass Hill than that of
General Hindman in his official report of the battle.
Describing the assaults, he says :*°

“The movement began at 3:30. Skirmishing ex-
tended along the whole line as Deas,’ at the extreme
left, commenced swinging. In a few minutes a ter-
rific contest ensued, which continued at close quarters,
without any intermission, over four hours. Our
troops attacked again and again with a courage worthy
of their past achievements. The enemy fought with
determined obstinacy and repeatedly repulsed us, but
only to be again assailed. As showing the fierceness
of the fight, the fact is mentioned that on our extreme
left the bayonet was used, and men also killed and

*® Reb. Rec., ser. No. 51, p. 305.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 195

wounded with clubbed muskets. A little after 4 the
enemy was reenforced and advanced with loud shouts
upon our right, but was repulsed by Anderson and
Kershaw. At this time it became necessary to retire
Garrity’s battery, of Anderson’s brigade, which had
been doing effective service. It was subsequently held
in reserve. Dent’s battery of Deas’s brigade was en-
gaged throughout the struggle. Notwithstanding the
repulses of our infantry, the officers and men of this
battery stood to their guns undaunted and continued
firing, inflicting severe loss on the enemy and contrib-
uting largely to the success of my operations.

“At 4:20 Brigadier-General Preston, of Buckner’s
corps, in answer to my application for help, brought
me the timely and valuable reenforcement of Kelly’s
brigade, and within an hour afterward the remaining
brigades of his division—Gracie’s and Trigg’s. These
brave troops as they arrived were conducted by officers
of my staff to the right of my line, and promptly ad-
vanced, in conjunction with the rest, upon the enemy.
From this time we gained ground; but, though now
commanding nine brigades, with Kershaw co-operat-
ing, and all in action, I found the gain both slow and
costly. ‘I have never known Federal troops to fight so
well. It is just to say, also, that I never saw Confed-
erate soldiers fight better.”

Some time after dark, probably about 7 P. M., an or-
der came to those on the hill to retire, and that every
man should hold his cartridge-box to prevent its rat-
tling, step lightly, and make no noise. The little squad
with which I left the hill was under the command of
Lieut.-Colonel Oyler of the 7oth Ind. It numbered
. from one hundred and fifty to two hundred men, in-
196 CIVIL WAR TIMES

cluding some of the 79th and some of other regiments.
We left none too soon, for a few minutes later three
regiments posted to our right, the 21st and 89th Ohio,
and the 22d Mich., which had not received the order in
time, were quietly surrounded and captured by the
Confederates. ;

Stepping on tip-toe the little band left the hill, no
man speaking above a whisper. The deserted camp-
fires by which we marched told us that a great part of
the army had already retreated. We expected every
moment to be halted or fired on by the Confederates.
Our way was over a rough road through McFarland’s
Gap, a narrow mountain pass bordered by precipitous
and densely wooded hills, of wild and forbidding ap-
pearance in the day-time, and transformed by the som-
ber shadows of the night into a region of almost super-
natural gloom. To us, traveling at such a time and
under such circumstances, everything assumed a weird
look, suggestive rather of the infernal regions than of
mother Earth. Now and then from some flickering
camp-fire by the roadside a fitful flame shot up, for a
moment illumining the dark ravine and showing the
haggard and powder-begrimed faces of the passing’
marchers; but most of the way was traveled in silence
and in darkness, with barely light enough to enable us
to discern the dim outlines of the file in front. We
reached Rossville some time after 10 o’clock that night,
and foot-sore and heart-sore, lay down for a few hours’
sleep. The great battle was over and the Army of the
Cumberland had been defeated.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA IQ7

One need read but little of the literature relating to
the battle of Chickamauga to discover that it has given
rise to infinite speculation and controversy concerning
the causes of the defeat of the Federal army and the
errors of both Rosecrans and Bragg. It is, however,
generally conceded now that the initial blunder of
Rosecrans was in allowing his troops to get so far away
from Chattanooga and to become so widely separated
without first ascertaining the whereabouts of Bragg’s
army. So great an army could not long have re-
mained hidden, and, had Rosecrans used proper dili-
gence, he might have ascertained its location in time
to concentrate his own forces and so have avoided the
disasters that followed.

Before Rosecrans had obtained definite and reliable
information of the location of the Confederate army,
his own army was in imminent danger of being
crushed in detail and, even after the junction of the
Federal corps had been accomplished, there was still
great danger that Bragg’s army would intervene be-
tween Rosecrans and Chattanooga, cut off his com-
munications, and block retreat. To avoid these perils
required long and hard marching, and for several days
before and during the battle the movement of the Fed-
eral army was steadily to the left. Day and night,
over mountains and hills, through forests and fields, it
was moving to the left. When the battle could no
longer be postponed, the Federal forces, worn out by
hard marching, were pitted against fresh troops on
ground of the enemy’s choosing.
198 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Moreover, the exigencies of the situation were such
that, to supply Thomas with the reenforcements neces-
sary to enable him to prevent Bragg from turning the
left of the Federal army and getting between it and
Chattanooga, it was necessary to weaken the right con-
tinually in order to strengthen the left. In doing this
the unity of the organizations of the 20th and aist
corps was broken, divisions were separated from corps
and brigades from divisions, so that the troops were
placed under strange commanders and subjected to
conflicting orders, and all the strength coming from
long association of officers and men was lost at a time
when it was most needed. As already stated, immedi-
ately before the break on Sunday McCook was bereft
of all but two brigades of Davis’s division, and when
the order was given for the remaining two brigades
of Van Cleve’s division to go to the support of
Thomas, Crittenden was left without a single brigade
and Van Cleve without a single regiment. The new
formations and changes of front in face of the enemy,
made necessary by unexpected emergencies, were
especially dangerous to the weakened right of the Fed-
eral army, exposed to the overwhelming forces massed
against it on Sunday.

These facts should be emphasized in refutation of
the impression which prevailed generally for some
time after the battle, and may perhaps still exist in the
minds of those who have not carefully studied the of-
ficial reports, that the battle on the Federal side was
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 199

fought chiefly by the 14th corps and that nearly all of
the 2oth and 21st corps ran away.

Notwithstanding all the previous mistakes, the re-
sult would undoubtedly have been vastly different had
it not been for the disaster on Sunday ; but for this pos-
sibly “Flodden had been Bannockburn.” No human
being could have anticipated the combination of cir-
cumstances which caused it. Mere chances seemed to
have developed the actual existing conditions. If
these had been prearranged for the express purpose of
producing the result which followed, they could not
“have been made to follow in more exact sequence or to
fit together more nicely.

Even after the confusion and partial demoralization
following the break on Sunday afternoon, it was possi-
ble that the result might have been different if it had
occurred to some other general, as it did to Granger,
“to march to the sound of the cannon” with even half
of the five or six thousand men huddled together in
Dry Creek Valley and about Rossville, and to make a
stand on Snodgrass Hill with their comrades who were
there making such a heroic fight.

Colonel Thruston, McCook’s chief of staff, states
that he saw Sheridan soon after the disaster to the Fed-
eral right and informed him of a short route by which
he could effect a junction with General Thomas by
marching only about two and a half miles. Had Sher-
idan taken this route with such soldiers as he could
gather together he might have fallen upon Longstreet’s
flanks, just as the latter was expecting, or might have
200 CIVIL WAR TIMES

taken some other position that would have turned the
tide of battle. Instead of doing so he marched seven
or eight miles over a circuitous route and did not reach
Thomas until 6 p. m.*° No one doubts the bravery or'
the soldierly abilities of General Sheridan and we must
accept the explanation given by him in his Memoirs
and by General Davies, his biographer, that, at the
time, he thought himself in imminent danger of being
cut off from the remainder of the army and believed
the route which he took to reach General Thomas to
be the only one practicable.

Courts of inquiry were held to investigate the con-
duct of some of the Federal generals but all were ex-
onerated in flattering terms. The court which sat in
Genéral Negley’s case went out of its way to censure
a general who remained on the field and was conspicu-
ous for gallant fighting at Chickamauga and in sub-
sequent battles. One reading the proceedings of these
courts is, indeed, likely to be somewhat bewildered in
trying to ascertain the object of the inquiry—whether
it was to vindicate those who left the field or to call
for an explanation of the conduct of those who re-
mained and fought out the battle to the end.

*TIn fact Forrest’s cavalry and a Confederate corps of infantry
‘(Walker’s) had by that time intervened between Sheridan and
Thomas. At dark Sheridan’s heads of columns had advanced
only as far as the Cloud House. A staff officer, sent by him to
report his position to Thomas, reached the latter only by riding
around the enemy. Thomas at that time was preparing to retire
and sent word to Sheridan to remain where he was until Thomas’s
troops were withdrawn and then to return to Rossville.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 201

One general was never called to explain his conduct.
No hostile criticism was ever made of the conduct of
General Thomas, “the Rock of Chickamauga.’’ Justice
to the men of the 20th and 21st army corps, however,
requires that something should be said in addition to
what has already been stated, concerning the stripping
of these corps of troops to reenforce Thomas. Pal-
mer’s and Wood’s divisions of the 21st corps and John-
son’s of the 2oth preserved their organization through-
out the battle, and no better fighting was done by any
troops on the field than was done by these divisions.
Barnes’s brigade of Van Cleve’s division of the 21st
corps also retained its organization. Of the two re-
maining brigades, Beatty’s and Dick’s, part only left
the field, and a very considerable number were with
those who made the memorable stand on Snodgrass
Hill. Five brigades of the 2oth corps left. These
were the three of Sheridan’s and two of Davis’s. The
men of Thomas’s corps who left the field exceeded in
number all who left of the 21st corps. Van Horne
states the facts very clearly:

“As the statement appears in many histories of the
war, and even in some of recent publication, that Gen-
eral Thomas with his single corps saved the army at
Chickamauga, it is imperative to refute this error, as
it does great injustice to the officers and men of the
other corps. The preceding narrative gives an indi-
rect refutation, but this prevalent mistake should be
explicitly corrected. Generals Crittenden and Mc-
Cook had each eight brigades on the field, and General
Granger had three. And of these nineteen brigades,
202 CIVIL WAR TIMES

twelve were with General Thomas in the final conflict.
Five brigades of McCook’s corps were cut off on the
right, but not more than two from Crittenden’s, count-
ing fragments. Palmer’s division of Crittenden’s
corps and Johnson’s from McCook’s were with Gen-
eral Thomas throughout the battle, and General Wood
of the former corps, with two brigades of his own di-
vision and one from Van Cleve’s, went to him on the
second day. Granger’s three large brigades consti-
tuted nearly one-fourth of the entire force on the final
line. More men left the field from General Thomas’s
own corps, the Fourteenth, than from General Critten-
den’s. Four regiments of Wilder’s brigade of Rey-
nolds’s division were on the right of the breach; a large
portion, more than a moiety, of Negley’s division was
led or driven from the field (Beatty’s brigade, through
the emergencies of battle and orders of General Neg-
ley’s adjutant-general, joined the divisions on the
right, and at night were found by General Beatty, at
Rossville), and Brannan lost a portion of one of his
brigades through orders of a general who left the field
before the final crisis of the battle. The glory of the
final conflict is then the common inheritance of the
army, as it was won by the valor of troops represent-
ing the four grand units.”*"

I have laid particular stress, even at the risk of be-
ing tiresome, upon the facts relating to the part taken
by the 20th and 21st corps, because of the injustice
done them in the early reports of the battle. For this
injustice Halleck is largely to blame. In the official re-
port of the battle made by him as commander-in-chief,

" Hist. Army of the Cumberland, vol. 1, pp. 361-2.
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 203

November 15, 1863, he said: “Our right and part of
center had been completely broken and fled in confusion
from the field, carrying with them to Chattanooga
their commanders, Generals McCook and Crittenden,
and also General Rosecrans. who was on that part of
the line.’ In the same report, in order to emphasize
the matter, he says, ““As most of the corps of McCook
and Crittenden had retreated to Chattanooga, it was
deemed advisable to withdraw the left wing to that
place.’’*®

This report was made nearly two months after the
battle and it would seem reasonable to suppose that in
that time some glimmering idea of the greatest battle
fought in the West, and, with the exception of Gettys-
burg, the greatest of the Civil War, would have pene-
trated even the brain of Halleck; but we have his own
word for it in a dispatch to General Thomas, as late
as January 12, 1864, that he had never read nor seen
the latter’s report of the battle. It is doubtful whether
Halleck ever obtained a more accurate conception of
the battle than he had of the military operations pre-
ceding it, and of these it is certain that his ignorance
was impenetrable. If any further vindication of the
men of the 20th and 21st corps is needed, it will be
found in the statistics of their losses given in the fol-
lowing tables.

The victory, such as it was, had been won by Bragg,
but it had been dearly bought. A few more like it

* Reb. Rec., ser. No. 50, pp. 38, 39.
204 CIVIL WAR TIMES

would have annihilated his army. It was too much
broken and shattered to strike another blow, and Chat-
tanooga, the prize for which the great battle was
fought, had eluded the grasp of the victor.

It is difficult to obtain from the official reports accurate sta-
tistics of the numbers and losses of the Federal army in the
battle of Chickamauga, and still more difficult to ascertain the
Confederate numbers and losses. The following tables are com-
piled chiefly from the official reports found in the Rebellion Rec-
ords, ser. Nos. 50 and 51, and from the tables given in Turchin’s
Battle of Chickamauga:

NUMBERS AND LOSSES OF THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND IN THE
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 z a
bo od z a = 8
Organization. &e 8 2 g s o
a i S = a os
General Headquarters. |......|...... 2 4 Gheciecss
14th Corps.
talk: dsacet tana aya) atigiaic | Seetve glare age maoee I Tae
tst D. Baird............ 5.541] 181] 794] 1,202] 2,177] 39.28
2d D.Negley........... 2,755 66} 430] 295) 791) 28.71
3d D. Brannan. ........ 5,400] 325] 1,652] 214] 2,191] 40.57
4th D. Reynolds ........ 6,461 93} 685] 176} 954] 14.76
nee egete sbaveila dna ine 20,157} 665] 3,563| 1,892| 6,120] 30.61
20th Corps.
ist D. Davis............ 3,900] 124] 820] 405] 1,349] 34.58
-2d D.Johnson.......... 4,200] 148] 940] 554) 1,642] 39.09
3d D. Sheridan......... 4,200] I51] 939| 276] 1,366] 32.52
Aggregate.......... 12,300] 423] 2,699] 1,235) 4,357] 35-42
21st Corps. ‘
ha bfi cs ornare migtae (Gum taspar cate) St abana Bl seeders
ist D. Wood.. 194 | 1,070] 36.08
2d D. Palmer : 203 | 1,368] 27.33
3d D. Van Cleve 6 302 | 962] 24.05
Aggregate 699 | 3,403| 28.43

 
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 205

 

 

 

 

 

5 Bg #

os ne ae ee ee

Organization. & & 3 a £ a

mf | ee ee

Reserve Corps. Granger. i

= Dr recat ee Thouars: |eevenn I alecstaee’s
ist D. Steedman........ 3,913} 212] 962| 613] 1,787] 45.66
2d D. Morgan.......... 1,500 2 14 18 34| .226

Aggregate.......... »41 21 976| 631| 1,822] 33.6
Cav. Corps. Mitchel. ae ; ; oe
Ist D. McCook..........]...... 6 24| 254] 284]......
2d. Di: Crook... .csscawes|ecssie 26| 4112 46| 184] .23
Aggregate.......... 8,000 32] 136] 300] 468}......
Wotal sec esawes snes 57,840 | 1,657} 9,756| 4,757 |16,170 | 27.95

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The character of the ground and the nature of the battle were
not favorable to operations of the cavalry, and calculations based
on the numbers and losses of the infantry only show a percentage
of loss of 31.50. Of the 4,757 reported “missing,” doubtless many
were killed and many more wounded. The general hospital at
Crawfish Spring was captured, and it is estimated by Surgeon
Glover Perin, the Federal Medical Director of the Department
of the Cumberland, that 2,500 of the Federal wounded were left
on the field.

The brigade reports show still larger percentages of loss.
Baldwin’s and Willich’s brigades lost heavily, but no official re-
ports were made of the numbers who went into action, and hence
the percentages of their losses can not be given. The same is true
of the brigades of Sheridan’s division, none of which made any
return of the numbers engaged. The following tables show that
several brigades lost over 40 and some over 50 per cent.:
206 CIVIL WAR TIMES

FEDERAL BRIGADE NUMBERS AND LOSSES.

 

 

J 3 : a

Oo ts = oo - §

Brigade. 3 5 3 ‘s 2

a | & s |e} a] a
OG ioc aes ceeeaes 1,218 70| Sig] 107] 696} 57.14
King fos canau neces oon 1,513 61} 255] 523] 839] 55.45
Carlin gern seleseilarsu cession 1,215 54} 299] 298) 651] 53.58
Dod geici.saseccracees is 1,130 27| 200] 309] 536! 47.43
Whitaker's seussiene vex 2,922| 154] 654] 518] 1,326] 45.37
Van Derveer............ 1,788| 145| 600 65] 810] 45.30
Buell cvinccncadccaeacuc 1,445 79! 443] 129] 651] 45.05

 

 

 

 

Whitaker’s brigade suffered much the heaviest loss for the
time engaged, nearly all having occurred between 2 P. mM. and
nightfall on the second day of the battle. Of the seven brigades
cut off on the right and driven from the field on Sunday, Carlin’s
and Heg’s belonged to Davis’s division, Lytle’s, Laiboldt’s, and
Bradley’s to Sheridan’s, Beatty’s and Dick’s to Van Cleve’s.
That they did not leave the field until they had done some hard
fighting is shown by their losses. From those of Carlin’s and
Heg’s brigades, given above, it appears that Heg’s brigade lost a
greater per cent. than any other brigade in the battle, and that
Carlin’s was third in the list. The losses of the other five
brigades are shown in the following table:

 

 

J 3 =

be 3g 3 2 a &

Brigade. & & 3 g g is

S = ° = ° o

Q M 3 a H Ay

Lytle, Laiboldt, Bradley,

—Aggregate.......... 4,200] I51] 938) 276] 1,365] 32.52
Ds Beatty cicaaes sede ees 1,384 16] 254 61] 331) 23.91
DICE ex ceccsatayest oreasgenn a iots 1,122 16] 180 83] 279] 24.86

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following table of Confederate numbers and losses is taken
from Turchin’s Battle of Chickamauga, p. 240:
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 207

NUMBERS AND LOSSES OF THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE IN THE
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.

 

Command.

En gaged.
Killed.
Wounded.
Missing.
Total.
Per Cent.

 

Right wing—Polk.
Hill’s Corps :
En 3,769| 166] 909] 165] 1,450] 38.47

Cleburne’s ««| 5,115] 204} 1, 6] 1, wl
Walker and 539 749 | 34.19
Liddell’s  ....1 6,534] 341! 1,949] 733! 3,023] 46.26
Polk’s Corps:
Cheatham’s «  1...| 6,454] 218] 1,624 118] 1,973| 30.57

 

Total right wing ....|21,872| 929] 6,021] 1,022] 8,195| 37.46

 

Left wing—Longstreet.

 

Stewart’s Div.......... 4,358; 205) 1,499 29] 1,707; 39.16
Hood’s fo phase deal esi ai F500 lec n saa lawcndel gees oe 2,919| 53.07
McLaws’s “ .......... 2,500 |e 2 ea.) erynalte seas 640 |° 25.06
Johnson’s “ .......... 3,428 188 | 1,081 180] 1,449] 42.26
Hindman’s “ .......... 6,122] 272] 1,480 98| 1,850] 30.21
Preston's: f assauedaas 4,809 | 198] 1,077 61] 1,336] 27.78

Total left wing...... 26,717} 861] 5,137] 368] 9,901] 37.05

Cavalry, Wheeler, about.|12,000|....../......]..... Je... efeee eee
Total Army of Penni 160,580 1,790 |11,158| 1,380|18,096| 29.86

It will be noted that the foregoing calculations are based on the
statements placing the numbers engaged as:

Wederal sci cccaccuduace ieee Pauey 57,840

 

 

 

 

 

 

Van Horne (vol. 1, pp. 360-361) says that there is no reason to
doubt that “General Bragg’s army was the larger.” He estimates
that General Rosecrans had in action 30 brigades of infantry, 5 of
cavalry, and 1 of mounted infantry; in all, 135 regiments of in-
fantry, 21 of cavalry, and 5 of mounted infantry, together with 33
batteries, amounting in all to 56,160. He estimates that General
Bragg had in the field 35 brigades of infantry and Io or 12 of
cavalry, and that he had in all 70,000, thus making his army su-
208 CIVIL WAR TIMES

perior in numbers to that of General Rosecrans by 12,000 to
15,000.

In Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (vol. 3, pp. 673, 676)
are tables compiled from statistics furnished by Adj.-Gen. Richard
C. Drum, stating the numbers engaged as:

Colonel Livermore’s tables (2d ed., pp. 105, 106) state the num-
bers engaged as:

The latest computation of the Confederate losses which I have
seen is the following, furnished me by Colonel William F. Fox:

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total.

 

Right wing............... 950 6,257 943 8,150
elt Win? 3 .iscngeasewsics 1,137 6,952 452 8,541
Scott’s Cavalry............ 10 BO. wallets 49
Other Cavalry (estimated). 30 120 15 165

2,127 13,368 1,410 16,905,

To this Colonel Fox adds the following:

“The provost marshal of the Union Army reported that 2,005
Confederate prisoners were captured at Chickamauga. This
would indicate a total loss of 17,500 instead of 16,905, as shown
in the Confederate returns, some of which make no mention of
their missing.”

It will be seen that in the tables given above there is not a
great difference in the statements of the numbers of the Federal
army engaged, the average being about 57,675, but that there is a
considerable variation in the figures given for the Confederate
numbers engaged, the general average being about 66,155, which
very nearly agrees with the figures of Colonel Livermore. The
percentages of losses, computed on Colonel Livermore’s tables,
are about the same as those above given for the Federal, but
somewhat less for the Confederate.

General Boynton (Chickamauga National Military Park, pp.
227-8), basing his calculations upon estimates of numbers and
losses somewhat different from those of the foregoing tables,
states the percentages of losses as follows:
BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA 209

“A reference to the losses on each side will show that there has
been no exaggeration in the description of the fighting. Rose-
crans’s loss was 16,179. This included 4,774 missing, of which a
large number were killed or wounded. Bragg’s losses, as com-
piled and estimated at the War Records office, were 17,804. Thus
the total loss for each army was over 25 per cent. of the entire
force of each, and it will be found to average about 33 per cent.
on each side for the troops actually engaged.

“Longstreet’s wing of the Confederate army lost 44 per cent.,
nearly all of this on the second day, and the largest part of that
in an hour and a half on Sunday afternoon.

“Steedman’s and Brannan’s divisions, which confronted a por-
tion of Longstreet’s assault, lost, the first, 49 per cent. in four
hours, and all these were killed or wounded but one, and the
second, an average of 38 per cent., while one brigade, Van Der-
veer’s, of Brannan, lost only a small fraction less than 50 per cent.

“For the entire Union army the losses ranged from these
maximum figures down to 33 per cent., a terrible minimum of one
in three.

“Bushrod Johnson’s division lost 44 per cent., Patton Ander-
son’s brigade, of Hindman’s, 30 per cent., and most of this on
Sunday afternoon. Bate’s brigade, of Stewart’s division, lost 52
per cent. Preston’s division, in an hour and a half before sunset
on Sunday, lost 33 per cent., and Gracie’s brigade nearly 35 per
cent. in a single hour while assaulting Brannan’s position on the
Horseshoe. The brigade losses in Cheatham’s division ranged
from 35 to 50 per cent. The aggregate loss in Breckinridge’s
division was 33 per cent. Cleburne’s loss was 43 per cent.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SIEGE AND BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA?

By midnight on September 20 nearly all the survi-
vors of the Army of the Cumberland, able for duty,
were collected by General Thomas at or near Rossville
and were posted across the Lafayette road, at McFar-
land’s Gap, and on Missionary Ridge to the right and
left of it. They maintained substantially this position
on the 21st. Bragg followed and that night the Fed-
eral army occupied Chattanooga; by morning of the
2ad its lines were established and fortifications begun.
The same day Brageg’s army took possession of Look-
out Mountain and Missionary Ridge, but the attack
ordered by him for the 23d and fully expected by the
Federal troops, was indefinitely postponed. By this
time the Union troops had learned that the great battle
had been as disastrous in loss of life to the victors as to
the vanquished, and that their defeat was due to acci-
dent, not to any lack of courage or discipline. There

1For descriptions of the battle-fields about Chattanooga, the
troops engaged and many valuable statistics, I am largely indebted
to General Boynton’s The Chickamauga National Military Park.
See also Van Horne: Hist. Army of the Cumberland; Cist: Army
of the Cumberland, and the official reports contained in Rebellion
Records, ser. No. 55.

(210)
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 2II

remained an army that would have been formidable
on any field, and no one in its ranks doubted its ability
to hold Chattanooga. Bragg was evidently of the same
opinion for his army quietly settled down about the
town with the expectation, not of fighting out the
Union troops, but of starving them out. The danger
of starving them out grew greater every day.

Bragg’s army, stretching from the Tennessee river
along Missionary Ridge and across the valley to Look-
out Mountain, almost encompassed the town. The
Confederate batteries on Lookout Mountain command-
ed the river as well as the road and the railroad on the
south bank of the Tennessee. To procure supplies
from the North the supply trains were obliged to
travel from Bridgeport, Alabama, to Chattanooga, a
distance of sixty miles, by way of the Sequatchie Val-
ley and over the mountains. When the rains set in the
roads became very bad and the exhausted mules died
by thousands until the route, strewn with their skele-
tons, looked, as I once heard it described, like a long
extended back-bone. Moreover, this slender line of
communication was continually threatened by the ene-
my’s cavalry. Wheeler’s troops captured and burned
one supply train and every day increased the danger
that the Union army would be compelled either to
surrender or to attempt a retreat to Nashville, which
would expose it to the hazard of utter demoralization
and possible destruction. From lack of forage great
numbers of the artillery horses died, and the little corn
for the few remaining horses and mules was guarded
212 CIVIL WAR TIMES

with the utmost vigilance from hungry soldiers, who
were first put on half and then on quarter rations. I
sometimes saw men pick up the few grains of corn left
where horses had been fed and parch them for food.
During the whole of October, while I was never off
duty, I was so sick that I had little appetite, and lived
chiefly on one meal a day—a scanty dinner procured
at the house of a colored man near the camp. During
the time of our sorest distress, Jefferson Davis vis-
ited Bragg’s army and, looking down from Pulpit
Rock, on Lookout Mountain, upon the starving garri-
son in Chattanooga, he gloatingly predicted its speedy
extermination.

The situation is thus concisely stated in the report
of General Grant :?

“Up to this period [October 28] our forces at Chat-
tanooga were practically invested, the enemy’s line
extending from the Tennessee river above Chattanooga
to the river at and below the point of Lookout Moun-
tain below Chattanooga, with the south bank of the
river picketed to near Bridgeport, his main force being
fortified in Chattanooga Valley, at the foot of and on
Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, and a
brigade in Lookout Valley. True, we held possession
of the country north of the river, but it was from sixty
to seventy miles over the most impracticable of roads
to any supplies. The artillery horses and mules had
become so reduced by starvation that they could not
have been relied on for moving anything. An attempt
at retreat must have been with men alone, and with

? Reb. Rec., ser. No. 55, p. 29.
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 213

only such supplies as they could carry. A retreat
would have been almost certain annihilation, for the
enemy, occupying positions within gunshot of and
overlooking our very fortifications, would unquestion-
ably have pursued our retreating forces. Already more
than 10,000 animals had perished in supplying half
rations to the troops by the long and tedious route
from Stevenson and Bridgeport to Chattanooga, over
Walden Ridge. They could not have been supplied
another week.”

It was during this stress that General Thomas, in
response to a message from General Grant, telling him
to “hold Chattanooga at all hazards” and inquiring the
prospects for holding out, returned the historic an-
swer, “We will hold the town till we starve.”

The timber near the fortifications had been cut down
and the proximity of the Confederate pickets made it
difficult to procure enough wood with which to cook
the few provisions we had. The Confederate batter-
ies on Lookout Mountain were continually harassing
us, and so near was the enemy to our lines that the mo-
ment the Federal pickets left their works to go to the
picket stations they were exposed to the fire of the
Confederate sharpshooters. Evidently the Confeder-
ates expected that the Union army would soon be com-
pelled to evacuate.

On a clear night the band at Bragg’s headquarters
on Missionary Ridge could be distinctly heard in our
camp. We had no army tune so melodious as “Dixie,”
but when wafted through the still night air from Mis-
214 CIVIL WAR TIMES

sionary Ridge it seemed to have a weird sound, creat-
ing in me a strange foreboding.

As the days passed the situation of the beleaguered
army became more critical. But relief was coming.
Early in October, “fighting Jo. Hooker” arrived from
the East with the 11th and 12th corps, and so disposed
his troops between Nashville and Bridgeport as to pro-
tect a portion at least of Rosecrans’s communications.

About this time important military changes were
made. Parts of the 11th and 12th corps had been
transferred from the Army of the Potomac to the
Army of the Cumberland, and, as already stated, they
had arrived early in October. Generals McCook and
Crittenden were relieved October 9, and the 2oth and
2Ist corps were consolidated into the 4th, under com-
mand of General Gordon Granger. The new corps
comprised three divisions, General John M. Palmer
commanding the first, General Philip H. Sheridan
the second, and General Thomas J. Wood the third,
which included the brigade of General Samuel Beatty.
On October 18th the Military Division of the Missis-
sippi was created, including the three departments of
the Tennessee, the Cumberland and the Ohio, with
General Grant in command, and at the same time
General Rosecrans was superseded by General Thomas.

The soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland always
entertained kindly feeling for Rosecrans, believing that
he had been made to suffer for disasters for which he
was not wholly responsible, and that if he had been
sustained with the powerful backing at Washington
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 215

extended to some other generals, he might have
achieved higher distinction among the military heroes
of the war. But with all this kindly feeling, unmixed
with the slightest doubt of either his bravery or his
loyalty, there was also a conviction that he possessed
some faults which seriously impaired his usefulness
as a commander. He had an unfortunate tendency to
set up his own judgment against that of his superiors,
and this continually involved him in trouble with them.
Moreover, it was thought that he lacked the far-seeing
sagacity and careful attention to details which charac-
terized Thomas; that he also lacked the latter’s equi-
poise, self-possession, presence of mind, or some other
quality, whatever it was, that in time of disaster, seem-
ingly irretrievable, made Thomas as clear-headed, as
imperturbable, as immovable as he would have been if
witnessing nothing more exciting than a grand review.
Rosecrans had neither the foresight which enabled
Thomas to avoid disaster nor that extraordinary qual-
ity, characteristic of Thomas but possessed by so few
men, which, when disaster comes, however great, de-
velops in them a latent power enabling them to tri-
umph over it. Had Rosecrans possessed the qualities
for which Thomas was so conspicuous, the misfortunes
at Stone’s River and Chickamauga might never have
occurred, at least their consequences would probably
have been far less serious.

General Grant arrived at Chattanooga October 23,
and at once began preparations for raising the siege.
Toward the end of October Hooker advanced from
216 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Bridgeport, and, after a sharp encounter with the Con-
federates at Wauhatchie, took possession of Lookout
Valley, and the way was speedily opened for getting
supplies. General Sherman was on the way with the
15th and part of the 17th corps, advancing as rapidly
as the roads would permit; all available troops in the
rear were hurried forward to Chattanooga; great
siege-guns were mounted in the forts; and on every
hand were visible preparations indicative of some
momentous movement.

About this time Bragg committed the blunder of
diminishing his army by sending Longstreet to attack
Burnside in east Tennessee, and Longstreet started
November 4 with 20,000 men. On November 7 Gen-
eral Grant issued peremptory orders to Thomas to
attack the north end of Missionary Ridge on the fol-
lowing morning. A careful examination showed that
such an attack under the existing circumstances would
almost certainly fail. Thomas so reported and the or-
der was revoked. This seems to have been the begin-
ning of the ill opinion which Grant ever afterward
appears to have entertained for Thomas. The subse-
quent failure of Sherman, under much more favorable
circumstances and after two days’ fighting, to make
a successful assault at the identical place mentioned in
the order to Thomas, justifies the opinion of military
critics that, in this instance, Thomas was right and
Grant was wrong.®

* See General William F. Smith’s article, Comments on General
Grant’s “Chattanooga,’ in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 217

It was found that the contemplated attack on Mis-
sionary Ridge would be impracticable until the arrival
of Sherman. He reached Bridgeport, Alabama, No-
vember 15, and, in anticipation of his arrival in time,
it was decided to begin the attack on Missionary Ridge
Saturday, November 21. The general plan was out-
lined in an order issued to General Thomas on the
18th, in which it was stated:

“However, the general plan, you understand, is for
Sherman, with his force brought with him, strength-
ened by a division from your command, to effect a
crossing of the Tennessee river just below the mouth
of the Chickamauga; his crossing to be protected by
artillery from the ‘heights on the north bank of the
river (to be located by your chief of artillery), and to
secure the heights from the northern extremity to
about the railroad tunnel, before the enemy can con-
centrate against him.

“You will co-operate with Sherman. The troops in
Chattanooga Valley should be well concentrated on
your left flank, leaving only the necessary force to
defend fortifications on the right and center, and a
movable column of one division in readiness to move
whenever ordered. This division should show itself
as threateningly as possible, on the most practicable
line for making an attack up the valley. Your effort
will then be to form a junction with Sherman, making
your advance well toward the north end of Missionary
Ridge, and moving as nearly simultaneously with him
as possible. The juncture once formed and the ridge

vol. 3, p. 715; Van Horne: Life of George H. Thomas, pp. 160-
166; Nicolay and Hay: Abraham Lincoln, vol. 8, p. 131.
218 CIVIL WAR TIMES

carried, communications will be at once established
between the two armies, by roads on the south bank
of the river. Further movements will then depend on
those of the enemy.’’*

In this general plan it will be observed that Sherman
was to take the leading part and that to his movements
those of the troops under Thomas were to be entirely
subordinate. The former was delayed, however, by
the bad condition of the roads and the attack designed
to be begun on the 2Ist was postponed to the 23d. In
the meantime Grant, fearing that Bragg was prepar-
ing to retreat before a decisive blow could be struck,
ordered Thomas to make a reconnaissance to ascertain
whether the Confederates were still maintaining their
position. This was done by the troops of the Army of
the Cumberland under the immediate command of
Thomas, beginning about noon on Monday the 234d,
Wood’s and Sheridan’s divisions being in the lead, the
former advancing in the direction of Orchard Knob
with Sheridan’s division on the right. So secretly had
all the arrangements been made that when the troops
leading the advance were formed in front of Fort
Wood, many supposed they were preparing for a grand
review on the open space in front. They were not
long in doubt, however, for about 2 p. M. the advance
began. So rapidly was it made that Orchard Knob
and the high ground in its vicinity were speedily taken

* Reb. Rec., vol. 55, p. 31.
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 219

and fortified and that night a battery was planted upon
the knob.

Tuesday, the 24th, was an exciting day. Wood’s
and Sheridan’s divisions of the 4th corps and Baird’s
and Johnson’s of the 14th remained in line of battle
near Orchard Knob. At intervals the siege-guns in
Fort Wood fired at the Confederates on Missionary
Ridge, the shells going over our heads and making
a most unearthly screeching noise, such as we imagined
might be made by some invisible saw-mill swiftly trans-
ported through the air and in operation by Satan with
a full set of hands.

Other and far more exciting movements occupied
our attention during the day. Sherman’s troops had
arrived on the 23d and he had three of his divisions in
position behind the hills opposite the mouth of Chicka-
mauga creek. By daylight of the 24th these had
crossed to the east side of the Tennessee river where
they were joined by General Jeff C. Davis’s division of
the 14th corps. One of Sherman’s divisions, Oster-
haus’s, not being able to cross in time to co-operate
with the others, joined the command of General
Hooker. At 1p. M. Sherman’s troops were formed to
begin the attack on the north end of the ridge, with the
expectation of carrying it as far south as the tunnel,
and at 3:30 they had gained the foot-hills and two
high points, separated by a deep depression from the
portion of the ridge over the tunnel; but they failed
to reach the tunnel, which was Sherman’s chief ob-
jective point, and at night the Confederates still main-
220 ‘ CIVIL WAR TIMES

tained their position. We could not see, but could
plainly hear, the battle on our left. All that afternoon
the volleys of musketry indicated to the veteran soldier
the fierceness of the conflict.

A still more exciting contest was being waged on
our right. General Hooker with Geary’s division of
the 12th corps, Osterhaus’s division of the 15th, and
two brigades (Whitaker’s and Grose’s) of Cruft’s di-
vision of the 4th, had crossed Lookout creek early in
the morning of the 24th and had begun the attack on
the Confederate forces at the base and sides of Lookout
Mountain. This was wholly unexpected, for it had
never occurred to us that an attempt would be made
to scale its precipitous and rocky steeps. One would
almost as soon think of storming Gibraltar. But surely
the attempt was being made to carry Lookout Moun-
tain. During a considerable part of the day it was so
foggy that we could see only the flashing of the guns,
but at intervals the fog lifted, revealing the Federal
line in the distance looking like a dark thread, slowly
advancing from rock to rock. Then cheer after cheer
went up from our own lines, for it was obvious that the
Federal troops were steadily but surely gaining ground.
Far into the night the flashes of musketry indicated
that the weird “battle among the clouds” had not
ceased.

A grander sight greeted us next morning, for, as
soon as it was clear enough to see, we beheld, floating
from the summit of the mountain, the stars and stripes.
The mountain itself is grand. Lifting its bold and
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 221

frowning front 1,600 feet above the valley below,
it affords from its summit one of the most magnifi-
cent views in America. But it never looked grander
than on the morning of November 25, 1863.

Neither the advance on Orchard Knob nor the
storming of Lookout Mountain was contemplated in
Grant’s original plan. The first was intended merely
as a reconnaissance to develop the enemy’s position
and to determine whether Bragg had begun to retreat;
the second was undertaken at the suggestion of
Thomas. Both had resulted in surprising and un-
looked-for success. On the other hand, Sherman had
failed to capture the north end of Missionary Ridge
and thus carry out what was designed as the leading
movement, to which, as already stated, the movements
of all the other troops were intended to be subordinate.

On the night of the 24th General Grant, as shown
in his dispatch to Halleck of that date, and also in his
order to Thomas of the same date, erroneously sup-
posed that Sherman had gained the north end of Mis-
sionary Ridge as far as the tunnel. On this supposi-
tion, at midnight on the 24th, he issued an order to
Sherman directing him “to attack the enemy at the
point most advantageous for his position at early
dawn to-morrow morning.” At the same time the
following order was issued to General Thomas:

“General: General Sherman carried Missionary
Ridge as far as the tunnel, with only slight skirmish-
ing. His right now rests at the tunnel and on top of
the hill; his left at Chickamauga creek.
222 CIVIL WAR TIMES

“T have instructed General Sherman to advance as
soon as it is light in the morning, and your attack,
which will be simultaneous, will be in co-operation.

“Your command will either carry the rifle-pits and
ridge directly in front of them or move to the left, as
the presence of the enemy may require. If Hooker’s
present position on the mountain can be maintained
with a small force, and it is found impracticable to
carry the top from where he is, it would be advisable
for him to move up the valley with all the force he can
spare and ascend by the first practicable road.

“Very respectiully,
“U, S. GRANT,
“Major-General, Commanding.”

When this order was issued it was expected that
Sherman on the morning of the 25th would sweep
down the ridge from the north end, that Hooker would
reach the south end of the ridge near Rossville and
advance northward; and it was intended that the ap-
pearance of his column, moving north on Missionary
Ridge, should be the signal for the advance of the
troops under the immediate command of Thomas, who
were then to storm the enemy’s center on Missionary
Ridge. But the next morning it was discovered that
the Confederates, though they had evacuated Lookout
Mountain, had concentrated their entire army on Mis-
sionary Ridge and that, instead of retreating, they
were prepared to make a stubborn defense. They had
successfully resisted all Sherman’s assaults, had forti-
fied the north end of the ridge, and had reenforced the
troops at that point. Hooker started from Lookout
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 223

Mountain about Io a. . to fulfil his part of Grant’s
plan, but was detained three or four hours at Chatta-
nooga creek, on account of the burning of a bridge
by the retreating Confederates, and could not cross
until about 2 p. mM. Though “anxiously looked for
and momentarily expected,” by General Grant, Hooker
was not in sight at the point where he was expected
to be on the morning of the 25th.

The day wore on until noon and still the Confeder-
ates were successfully resisting every assault on the
north end of the ridge by the troops under Sherman,
who now had under his command three of the divi-
sions that he had brought with him, Morgan L. Smith’s
and Ewing’s divisions of the 15th corps and John E.
Smith’s of the 17th, and, besides these, Steinwehr’s
and Schurz’s divisions of the 11th corps, Davis’s divi-
sion and Starkweather’s brigade of Baird’s division of
the 14th corps—six divisions and one brigade of the
thirteen divisions of the whole army at Chattanooga.
Confronting Sherman were ‘three brigades—Smith’s,
Govan’s and Lowrey’s—of Cleburne’s division ; two—
Brown’s and Cummings’s—of Stevenson’s division,
and one—Maney’s—of Walker’s division.

Of the remaining divisions, three and part of another
were in the vicinity of Orchard Knob under the im-
mediate command of Thomas. These were Sheridan’s
and Wood’s divisions of the 4th corps, Baird’s divi-
sion, and two brigades—Carlin’s and Moore’s—of
Johnson’s division of the 14th corps. When the assault
began, these four divisions were ranged from right to
224 CIVIL WAR TIMES

left in the following order: Johnson’s, Sheridan’s,
Wood’s and Baird’s. Confronting them were the Con-
federate divisions of Stewart, Bate, Anderson, and
Cheatham, ranged from left to right in the order
named. ;

As expressed by brigades, the comparative strength
of Sherman and Thomas and the Confederate troops
confronting them was as follows: Sherman had thir-
teen brigades, and opposed to these the Confederates
had six; Thomas had eleven, and opposed to these the
Confederates had thirteen.

Hooker had under his immediate command Whita-
ker’s and Grose’s brigades of Cruft’s division of the
4th corps, Geary’s division of the 12th and Osterhaus’s
division of the 15th. A considerable interval separated
the right of Sherman’s troops from the left of Thomas,
and there was a still greater interval between the right
of Thomas and the left of Hooker.

In the forenoon of the 25th Baird’s division had been
sent to reenforce Sherman, in pursuance of Grant’s
purpose to make Sherman’s movement the cardinal
one of the battle, but, as there was no place in Sher-
man’s line for this division, it was sent back, and about
2 p. M. took position on the left of Wood.

All the Confederate army was now on Missionary
Ridge, and on its summit were planted fifteen batter-
ies, comprising about fifty guns. There were also
two siege-pieces near Bragg’s headquarters. The dis-
tance from the Federal lines to the top of the ridge
was about one mile, and the slope of the ridge, which
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 225

was steep and rough, was about.six hundred yards in
width, its average height being about four hundred
feet. There was a line of rifle-pits at the base, a line
of breastworks on the crest, and at various intermedi-
ate places there were breastworks on the slope of the
ridge. :

During the forenoon the movements of the Confed-
erates seemed to indicate that they were massing
against Sherman, and Grant supposed that, in order
to do this, they were weakening their center. This
was not true, however, for the Confederate troops seen
during the forenoon marching north along the ridge
were those that had been withdrawn from Lookout
Mountain and the valley. In his Memoirs’ Grant
says: “Sherman’s condition was getting so critical
that the assault for his relief could not be delayed any
longer.” In his official report® he says:

“Being satisfied from the latest information from
him [Hooker] that he must by this time be on his way
from Rossville, though not yet in sight, and discover-
ing that the enemy in his desperation to defeat or resist
the progress of Sherman was weakening his center on
Missionary Ridge, determined me to order the advance
at once. Thomas was accordingly directed to move
forward his troops, constituting our center, Baird’s di-
vision (Fourteenth corps), Wood’s and Sheridan’s
divisions (Fourth corps), and Johnson’s division

°Vol. 2, p. 78.
* Reb. Rec., ser. No. 55, p. 34-

15
226 CIVIL WAR TIMES

(Fourteenth corps), with a double line of skirmishers
thrown out, followed in easy supporting distance by
the whole force, and carry the rifle-pits at the foot of
Missionary Ridge, and when carried to reform his lines
on the rifle-pits with a view to. carrying the top of the
ridge.”

It is not probable that Grant at this time intended
that Thomas with four divisions, isolated from both
Sherman’s and Hooker’s forces, the latter not yet in
sight, and with the entire Confederate army on the
ridge, should make an independent assault with any
reasonable expectation of breaking the enemy’s center
posted on the steep and well-fortified heights in front.
It. is evident that only a demonstration for the relief
of Sherman was intended, with the expectation that,
after taking the rifle-pits at the foot of the ridge, the
further movements of the assaulting columns would be
governed by further orders, dependent’ on subsequent
developments, and especially upon the success of Hook-
er’s movement.

Soon after the return of Baird, Grant ordered an
advance of Thomas’s four divisions. Six cannon
planted on Orchard Knob were to be fired in quick suc-
cession, the firing to be the signal for the advance.
On the knob stood Generals Grant, Thomas, and
Granger. Near by were Generals Sheridan, Wood,
and others whose names are now historic. In front of
them was a long line of men in blue, upon whom all
eyes were fixed—battle-scarred veterans of many
bloody conflicts—standing motionless in the trenches,
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 227

eagerly waiting for the signal to advance. It was
given between 3 and 4 Pp. m. and at once began the
charge, characterized by Dana in his dispatch to
Stanton as “one of the greatest miracles in military
history.” It was a sight never to be forgotten by those
who witnessed it. No sooner had the signal been
given than the men of the four divisions of the Army
of the Cumberland leaped from their places, eighty-
eight battle-flags waved in line, and 18,000 men,
making a battle-front two miles long, rushed forward
with loud cheers, heard above all the din of battle,
and drove the Confederates from their works at the
foot of the ridge. At the same instant all the batteries
on the ridge concentrated their fire upon the rifle-
pits at the base and the bursting of shells made the
very sky look as if filled with falling meteors.

Then occurred the grandest spectacle I ever saw,
affording another striking illustration of the intelli-
gence and intrepidity of the American soldier acting
on his own instincts. The orders given contemplated
carrying the rifle-pits at the foot of the ridge and then
reforming and waiting for further orders; at least
they were so understood by all or nearly all the troops
engaged in the assault, and certainly by those of
Wood’s and Sheridan’s divisions. But, after the rifle-
pits at the foot of the ridge had been taken, it was at
once apparent that they were completely commanded
by the Confederate artillery on the top of the ridge
and could not be held, and that the Federal troops
must either advance or retreat. This is evident from
228 CIVIL WAR TIMES

the official report of General Sheridan, and it was as
obvious to the men as it was to the generals. With-
out waiting for further orders the advancing troops
at once began the ascent of the ridge, the men going
‘first, the officers following, and the orders following
the officers.

To one who stands now on the summit of Mission-
ary Ridge, looking down its steep sides, the wonder
is that an attempt to carry the works on the crest
could have been contemplated, and still greater wonder
that such an attempt could have been successful. Cer-
tainly, until the last moment, Bragg never entertained
a thought that such an assault would be made. But
there were the Federal troops in long lines rushing up
the steep ascent.

All the batteries on the ridge to the right and left of
Brageg’s headquarters opened a terrific cannonade, fir-
ing in front and across the sides of the ridge at the as-
cending columns, while sheets of flame shot forth from
the Confederate troops behind the breastworks on the
crest.

The 79th Ind. and the 86th Ind. regiments had been
consolidated for the day under the command of Colonel
Knefler, the 79th forming the right wing and the 86th
the left, and the two being in the front line of Wood’s
division. When within fifty or seventy-five feet of
the crest, at a point a little north of Bragg’s head-
quarters, a halt was made in order to reform the lines.
At this moment I looked and saw that Wood’s divi-
sion was considerably in advance of the divisions on
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 229)

its right and left, and I spoke to Colonel Knefler, near
whom I was standing, calling his attention to the fact
that we were alone. I am confirmed in my recollection
of this incident by the mention of it in Colonel Knef-
ler’s official report of the battle.

We were now so near the Confederate breastworks
that they afforded almost as much protection to us as
to the troops behind them, but our only safety lay in
keeping up a steady fire. If a retreat had been at-
tempted every Confederate behind the breastworks
would have risen and fired and we knew that such a
fire meant certain death to all of us. But no one
thought of retreating, though our position for a few
moments was very critical. It seemed an age, but it
could not have been more than a few minutes, perhaps
not more than two or three, before the divisions on
our right and left were in line with that of Wood.
During the interval I was nearly opposite a gigantic
Confederate who stood for a time in one position fir-
ing guns handed him by those in the trenches. He
looked to me like a demon. Once I thought he was
aiming at Colonel Knefler or me and we both lay
down. As I lay down a bullet rattled the leaves under
me and I noticed from the peeling of a small sapling
near by that another had passed just where my head
had been the instant before.

We waited only a few minutes, perhaps only a few
seconds, for no man can accurately measure the pass-
ing time when seconds seem ages, and then the whole
Federal line made an almost simultaneous rush and
230 CIVIL WAR TIMES

at six different points, in almost the same instant, the
Federal soldiers leaped over the breastworks. General
Bragg, after vainly endeavoring to rally his men,
barely escaped by galloping at full speed down the
other side of the ridge. We found the giant Confed-
erate, whom I had observed a few moments before,
lying dead in the trenches, riddled with bullets. Hun-
dreds of Confederates threw down their arms and sur-
rendered. Thirty or forty pieces of artillery stood
near the place where we crossed, abandoned by their
gunners. It was an inspiring sight. I was myself,
for the moment, utterly delirious with excitement. We
had recovered not only the guns but the prestige lost at
Chickamauga, and I knew then that no higher tribute

could ever be paid a soldier than to say of him that he
was in the charge at Missionary Ridge. Shortly after
this General Grant and all his staff came riding up the
ridge, crossing the Confederate lines a little south of
Bragg’s headquarters. That was the first and last
time I saw Grant on a battle-field.

Some further resistance was made by the Confed-
erates on the north end of the ridge, but the battles
about Chattanooga were virtually over. Bragg’s army
was completely broken and in full retreat, and the
siege of Chattanooga was ended. So rapid was the
advance of the Federal. lines that only fifty-five min-
utes elapsed from the time they started until they
gained the crest.

That night we heard floating through the still frosty
air the notes of a band playing a familiar tune near
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 231

the place where Bragg’s headquarters had been. It
was not “Dixie” that we had so often heard there but
the “Star-spangled Banner.” Regiment after regi-
ment took up the cheer until it was heard ringing all
round the line to Lookout Mountain.

The battles that ended the siege of Chattanooga
will ever be memorable in the history of the Civil War.
The glory of the final triumph was shared by the heroes
of three great northern armies—the Army of the Po-
tomac, the Army of the Tennessee, and the Army of
the Cumberland. On the field were four Federal gen-
erals whose names stand highest on the roll of famous
Union commanders—Grant, Sherman, Thomas, and
Sheridan. No other battle of the war exhibited any-
thing more sublimely picturesque than the “battle
among the clouds” and the storming of Misstonary
Ridge.

Some surprise has been expressed that such an as-
sault as that of Missionary Ridge was successfully
made with so little loss of life. In some of the official
reports this is explained as due to the conformation of
the ground and to the fact that the Confederate artil-
lerymen could not, or did not, sufficiently depress their
guns and so overshot the assaulting columns. Grant’s
explanation’ is that: “In fact on that occasion the
Union soldier nearest the enemy was in the safest
position.”” This explanation is all the more singular
because it overlooks the fact that the Union soldier

™ Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 79.
232 CIVIL WAR TIMES

“nearest the enemy,” in order to get there, was obliged
to travel a mile, going up a steep ascent and exposed
at every step to a galling fire in front and on each side.
All these “explanations” tend to belittle the achieve-
ment of the four divisions of the Army of the Cumber-
land by creating the impression that, as the losses were
so slight, there could not have been very hard fighting
nor very much danger, and that, in fact, the brilliant
victory won by the Army of the Cumberland was
merely a lucky accident. Considering its actual losses
and that they were sustained within less than one hour,
it does not seem that these explanations are called for.

The tables in the note appended to this chapter show
that, in the space of one hour, the four divisions of the
Army of the Cumberland which made the assault on
Missionary Ridge lost over sixteen per cent., and that
two of them lost over twenty per cent., nearly twice
as many as all the troops under Sherman in two days’
fighting. Such losses in so short a period indicate
that the great victory gained by the Army of the Cum-
berland was far from being bloodless and that it was
won by as desperate and heroic fighting as was ex-
hibited on any battle-field of the Civil War.

The battle of Missionary Ridge illustrates very
clearly how the plans of the wisest generals may be
modified by circumstances that no man can foresee.
Grant clung with characteristic tenacity to his original
plan. There is nothing in the official reports tending
to show that, at the time he issued the order to Thomas
to take the rifle-pits at the foot of the ridge, he intended
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 233

by it anything more than a movement for the relief
of Sherman in order to enable the latter to carry out
the movement intrusted to him. Neither Grant nor
any one at that time supposed that the subordinate
movement which Thomas was ordered to make would
prove to be the decisive one, the turning-point of the
battle. But so it proved. It is in regard to this unex-
pected turn of affairs that General Thomas in his offi-
cial report says with characteristic modesty :

“It will be perceived from the above report that the
original plan of operations was somewhat modified to
meet and take the best advantage of emergencies,
which necessitated material modifications of that plan.
It is believed, however, that the original plan, had it
been carried out, could not possibly have led to more
successful results.”’®

Grant underrated the ability of General Thomas.
He was equally mistaken in underrating the soldierly
qualities of the men of the Army of the Cumberland.
Sherman tells us in his Memoirs® that when Grant first
informed him of his plans for taking Missionary Ridge,
he said “that the men of Thomas’s army had been so
demoralized by the battle of Chickamauga that he
feared they could not be got out of their trenches to
assume the offensive,” and that for this reason he
wanted Sherman’s troops “to hurry up, to take the

®Reb. Rec., ser. No. 55, p. 96. See also Cist: Army of the
Cumberland, pp. 259-262.
°Vol. I, p. 390.
234 CIVIL WAR TIMES

offensive first; after which he had no doubt the Cum-
berland army would fight well.” The result is'a suffi-
cient vindication of the Army of the Cumberland.

I have one memento of the battle of Missionary
Ridge that I greatly prize. It is the sword of a Con-
federate captain, surrendered to one of my company
and given by him to me. I would gladly return it to its
owner if there were anything about it by which I could
determine his name. But there is not, and so, during all
the long years, I have preserved it with tender care.
This sword and my own, crossed in friendly touch,
hang over the mantel in my library, mute but eloquent
reminders of days that tried men’s souls, recalling no
feeling of resentment, but inspiring the wish that if
they are ever drawn again in war by Americans, it may
be in defense of a common country against a common
foe.

It is difficult to state accurately the numbers engaged or the
losses in the battles of Chattanooga. The official reports do not
show the numbers engaged in each battle, and the revised “Return
of Casualties in the Union Forces,” given in ser. No. 55, p. 80, of
the Rebellion Records, includes in one table the losses at Orchard
Knob, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and the minor en-
gagements in the vicinity of Chattanooga on Nov. 26 and 27.
There is no complete report of the Confederate losses. Van
Horne estimates that General Grant had 60,000 and General Bragg
40,000 men in action, and that the aggregate losses of the armies
of the Cumberland and the Tennessee were:
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 235

 

Kalled) can sameuteuhes ia at eniin eats neg 757
Wounded sich nc ene dean weetk 4,529
MISSING: Siaweuecewaecs iis ae eedays 330

ROtak dou Fon Rew atvlantenaaheetere ee orkagale 5,616

Colonel Fox makes the total loss 5,382.

General Bragg’s loss in killed and wounded is not known, but
Van Horne states that “he lost by capture six thousand one hun-
dred and forty-two men, forty-two guns, sixty-nine gun carriages
and seven thousand stands of small arms. His loss in material
was immense, part of which he destroyed in his flight, but a large
fraction, which was uninjured, fell to the national army.”

The latest, and I presume the most accurate, list of Union losses
is that given by General Boynton in The Chickamauga National
Military Park (pp. 137-8), from which I have condensed the
following tables:

 

Battle. Killed. Wounded. Total.
Orchard Knob................0- 36 197 233
Lookout Mountain............... I 390 471
Missionary Ridge................ 612 3,948 4,560

Total siecwsaviagednvaxd sare 729 45535 5,264

The losses in the attack on Missionary Ridge, as apportioned
between the troops commanded by General Sherman and those
under the immediate command of General Thomas, were as fol-
lows:

Killed. Wounded. Total.

 

 

Sherman, Jessy Asi aincviae ene 209 1,141 1,350
ThOMAS 66:64 s esniers handed eeke vee 403 2,807 3,210
Total evicgide acc esa es sonnets 612 3,948 4,560

The two divisions of the Army of the Cumberland which led
the advance and bore the brunt of the losses in the assault of
Missionary Ridge on Nov. 25 were those of Sheridan and Wood.
236 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Sheridan went into action with about 6,000 men and Wood with
about 5,200. Their losses were as follows:

 

 

7 Killed. Wounded. Total.
Sheridaiteccsctaccccatiietsangee: 130 1,213 1,343
WO0d iiicawiotnarese ten vie tend easis 148 875 1,023,

"Total vic cweauslats ie attig v4 seeiaee 278 2,088 2,306

It will be noted from the foregoing tables that each of these
divisions lost, in about one hour, over 20 per cent., and that to-
gether they lost nearly twice as many as were lost by all the
troops under Sherman in two days’ fighting.

There has been considerable discussion of the question whether
Grant’s order for taking the rifle-pits at the base of Missionary
Ridge contemplated an advance afterward, and without further
orders, against the works on the crest. There has also been much
newspaper comment upon a supposed “lost order” to that effect,
alleged to have been issued by General Grant to General Granger,
commanding the 4th corps. As to the supposed “lost order,” it
suffices to say that it is not probable that Grant would have issued
a written order of any kind directly to Granger, inasmuch as,
according to the regular course, Grant would have issued his
orders to Thomas and he to Granger. There is no mention in
Grant’s Memoirs of any “lost order” to Granger, and the official
reports make it clear that Grant’s order for taking the rifle-pits at
the foot of the ridge did not contemplate the assault of the works
on the crest, and that, when the orders for this assault were
issued, by whomsoever given, the men who had taken the rifle-pits
were already far on their way up the ridge.

General Grant in his official report states that the order to
Thomas on Nov. 25 was to “carry the rifle-pits at the foot of
Missionary Ridge and, when carried, to reform his lines on the
rifle-pits with a view to carrying the top of the ridge.” The in-
ference from this is that, after carrying the rifle-pits, the further
movements ‘of the assaulting columns would depend on subse-
quent developments, and especially upon the progress of Hooker ;
and we should not infer from it that, after taking the rifle-pits,
the troops were to advance without further orders. Other official
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 237

reports clearly show that, whatever Grant may have intended, his
order was understood by most of the corps and division com-
manders as not directing an advance beyond the rifle-pits without
further orders; that the ascent of the ridge was made by the men
themselves without orders, and that the one issued afterward was
not given until the men were on their way.

General Granger reports that he was “ordered to make a dem-
onstration upon the works of the enemy directly in his front at
the base of Mission Ridge.’ After describing the taking of the
rifle-pits, he says further:

“My orders had now been fully and successfully carried out,
but not enough had been done to satisfy the brave troops who had
accomplished so much. Although the batteries on the ridge, at
short range, by direct and enfilading fire, were still pouring down
upon them a shower of iron and the musketry from the hill-side
was thinning their ranks, they dashed over the breastworks,
through the rifle-pits, and started up the ridge. They started
without orders along the whole line of both divisions from right
to left and from left to right, simultaneously and with one accord,
animated with one spirit and with heroic courage. Eagerly they
rushed forward to a danger before which the bravest, marching
under orders, might tremble. Officers caught the enthusiasm of
the men, and the men in turn were cheered by the officers. Each
regiment tried to surpass the other in fighting its way up a hill
that would try those of stout limb and strong lungs to climb, and
each tried first to plant its flag on the summit. Above these men
was an additional line of rifle-pits filled with troops. What was
on the summit of the ridge they knew not, and did not stop to
inquire. The enemy was before them; to know that was to know
sufficient. At several points along the line my troops were as-
cending the hill and gaining positions less exposed to the enemy's
artillery fire, though more exposed to the fire of his musketry.
Seeing this, I sent my assistant adjutant-general to inquire, first
of General Wood and then of General Sheridan, whether the
troops had been ordered up the ridge by them, and to instruct
them to take the ridge if possible. In reply to this, General
Wood told him that the men had started up without orders, and
that he could take it if he could be supported. In the meantime
an aide-de-camp from General Sheridan had reported to me that
238 CIVIL WAR TIMES

the general wished to know whether the order that had been
given to take the rifle-pits ‘meant those at the base of the ridge or
those on top.’ My reply was that the order had been to take
those at the base.”

General Sheridan states in his report that the original order to
him was “to carry the enemy’s rifle-pits at the base of Mission
Ridge,’ but that after they had been carried, being in doubt as to
what was meant by the order, he sent Captain Ransom of his staff
to General Granger to ascertain “whether it was the first line that
was to be carried or the ridge’; that Captain Ransom had
brought back word “that it was the first line which was to be
carried,” but that soon after “Captain Avery of General Granger’s
staff came up and informed him that the original order was to
carry the first line of pits, but that if, in his judgment, the ridge
could be taken, to do so.”

General Wood reports that he was “ordered to advance and
carry the enemy’s entrenchments at the base of Mission Ridge
and hold them.” After describing the taking of the rifle-pits, he
continues :

“When the first line of entrenchments was carried, the goal for
which we had started was won. Our orders carried us no farther.
We had been instructed to carry the line of entrenchments at the
base of the ridge and there halt. But the enthusiasm and im-
petuosity of the troops were such that those who first reached the
entrenchments at the base of the ridge bounded over them, and
pressed on up the ascent after the flying enemy. Moreover, the
entrenchments were no protection against the enemy’s artillery on
the ridge. To remain would be destruction—to return would be
both expensive in life and disgraceful. Officers and men all
seemed impressed with this truth. In addition, the example of
those who commenced to ascend the ridge so soon as the en-
trenchments were carried was contagious. Without waiting for
an order the vast mass pressed forward in the race of glory, each
man anxious to be the first on the summit. The enemy’s artillery
and musketry could not check the impetuous assault. The troops
did not halt to fire. To have done so would have been ruinous.
Little was left to the commanders of the troops than to cheer on
the foremost—to encourage the weaker of limb, and to sustain the
very few who seemed to be faint-hearted.”
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 239

General Baird reports that the order to him was to take the
pits at the base of the ridge, “as preparatory to a general assault
on the mountain”; that after taking the pits General Turchin
pushed on with his brigade; that, when in the act of starting the
other two brigades to his support, he received orders “not to per-
mit his men to go farther and not to permit them to become
engaged”; but that “another order came in less than three minutes
for the whole line to charge to the top.”

Charles A. Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, who was on the
ground, says in his report to the Secretary of War:

“The storming of the ridge by our troops was one of the great-
est miracles in military history. No man who climbs the ascent
by any of the roads that wind along its front can believe that
18,000 men were moved up its broken and crumbling face unless

“it was his fortune to witness the deed. It seems as awful as a
visible interposition of God. Neither Grant nor Thomas in-
tended it. Their orders were to carry the rifle-pits along the
base of the ridge and capture their occupants, but when this was
accomplished the unaccountable spirit of the troops bore them
bodily up these impracticable steeps, over the bristling rifle-pits
on the crest and the thirty cannon enfilading every gully. The
order to storm appears to have been given simultaneously by
Generals Sheridan and Wood, because the men were not to be
held back, dangerous as the attempt appeared to military pru-
dence. Besides, the generals had caught the inspiration of the
men, and were ready themselves to undertake impossibilities.”

Finally, General Grant in his Memoirs (vol. 2, p. 80) says:
“Without awaiting further orders or stopping to reform, on our
troops went to the second line of works, over that, and on for the
crest.” Other witnesses of the battle assert, not only that General
Grant did not order the advance beyond the rifle-pits at the foot
of the ridge, but that he manifested some irritation at the sup-
posed presumption of the unknown officer who had given such an
order. General Cist, a member of General Thomas’s staff, says:

“No wonder that General Grant failed to appreciate this move-
ment at the time, not understanding the troops who had it in
charge. When he found these commands ascending the ridge to
capture it when he ordered a ‘demonstration’ to be made to the
foot of the hill and there to wait, he turned sharply to General
240 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Thomas and asked, ‘By whose orders are those troops going up
the hill?’ General Thomas, taking in the situation at once, sug-
gested that it was probably by their own. General Grant re-
marked that ‘it was all right if it turned out all right,’ and added,
4f not, some one would suffer.” (Army of the Cumberland,
p. 262. See also Piatt: George H. Thomas, p. 481; General
Joseph S. Fullerton: The Army of the Cumberland at Chatta-
nooga, in Battles and Leaders, vol. 3, p. 725.)

From all this accumulation of testimony, it seems to be very
clear that the original order for taking the rifle-pits at the foot
of the ridge did not include the storming of the ridge itself;
that, after they had been taken, it was found that they were un-
tenable and that the assaulting columns must either retreat or
advance; that this was as evident to the men as to the generals;
and that the men preferred to advance rather than to retreat. It
is also clear that, before the orders finally given to go on to the
summit were received, the men of Wood’s and Sheridan’s di-
visions were already far on their way up the ridge. To the
private soldiers belongs the chief glory of the successful assault
of Missionary Ridge.

I trust that I may not be considered vainglorious or as intend-
ing to detract in the least from the credit due the other troops
engaged in the assault of Missionary Ridge, if I refer in this
note to the part taken by my own division and regiment. Van
Horne (Hist. Army of the Cumberland, vol. 1, p. 43) says:

“To this general result, each of the four central divisions and
those with General Hooker contributed, in coordination and har-
mony unprecedented in an improvised attack. Each one was
successful, though each was not equally prominent in success.
From General Bragg’s declaration that his line was first pierced
on the right—that is, to the north of the house which he occupied
as his headquarters—and from the observation of those occupying
elevated positions, there is no room to doubt that General Wood’s
division first reached the summit.”

In his official report General Sheridan describes the temporary
halt of his division after carrying the rifle-pits at the base of the
ridge, and then says: “Looking to the left, I saw a single regi-
ment far over in Wood’s line dash up the hill and lie down below
the crest.” The regiment to which he refers was the consoli-
BATTLES OF CHATTANOOGA 241

dated 7oth and 86th Indiana. This is indicated in a letter of Mr.
Theodore R. Davis, the illustrator of Harper's Weekly, who wit-
nessed the battle and who, in a letter to that journal published
Dec. 19, 1863, says: “The color sergeant of the Seventy-ninth
Indiana, Henry C. Lawrence, carried his colors far in advance of
his regiment, which was the first to commence the ascent. The
whole army are admiring him.”

16
CHAPTER NINE
THE EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN

Wood’s division had little opportunity to rest after
the battle of Missionary Ridge. General Burnside was
penned up at Knoxville, besieged by General Long-
street, and it was certain that he could not hold out
much longer unless relief were sent. Immediately after
the battle of Missionary Ridge orders were given to
prepare for a forced march to Knoxville. General
Howard started on the 29th, followed on the same day
by three divisions of Sherman’s army and Davis’s di-
vision of the 14th corps, and on the next day by Gen-
eral Granger with Wood’s and Sheridan’s divisions of
the 4th corps. But on December 5 it was learned
that Longstreet had retreated after an assault on Fort
Sanders on November 29, in which he had been re-
pulsed with great loss. Sherman’s and Howard’s divi-
sions and that of Davis returned, leaving the 4th corps
to continue its march and keep on the lookout for
Longstreet.

This was by far the hardest campaign in which the
79th Ind. was engaged during the service, for, after
leaving Chattanooga, it was almost continually march-
ing up and down east Tennessee until it started on the

(242)
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 243

Atlanta campaign. It was especially severe on the men
of the 79th because, when they left Chattanooga,
they were told that they were going on a foraging ex-
pedition and would return in three or four days, and,
under that impression, they prepared themselves with
only a light marching outfit, leaving everything that
could not conveniently be carried. Most of them had
no tents and the only shelter they had was such as
could be improvised. Supplies of clothing were slow
in coming. Nearly all left their overcoats in Chatta-
nooga. I left mine and did not get another until the
middle of February. The one pair of stockings with
which I started soon wore out and before I got others
only the legs and part of the heels remained. Many of
the men were almost barefoot before shoes arrived.

Several times, deluded with the expectation that we
should remain at least a few weeks, we built comforta-
ble log huts, but invariably the order came to march
as soon as they were completed and we were compelled
to abandon them.

The difficulty of getting supplies made it necessary
to depend largely for provisions upon what could be
picked up in the country through which we passed. It
Was very poor picking. Most of east Tennessee
through which we marched was a mountainous, barren
‘region, with only here and there a fertile valley, and
‘Longstreet’s army, wherever it had preceded us, had
stripped the country. Some cattle, probably driven,
‘from Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap, fur-
nished our supply of meat. There was not enough corn
244 CIVIL WAR TIMES

for the artillery and cavalry horses, so the cattle got lit-
tle or none. It was current rumor that they were in-
spected every morning and that those were killed first
that seemed to be most nearly dead of starvation. It
was also said, though I can not affirm this to be any-
thing more than an army joke, that, in order to deter-
mine the amount of vitality left in a herd of starving
cattle, they were made to jump a ditch and that those
found to be too weak to leap across were at once dis-
patched. The beef from this source was commonly
known as “blue beef.””. There was not a particle of fat
in it, we had no salt with which to season it, and it was
utterly unfit to eat. So near were the men to the verge
of starvation that they often went miles to get a little
corn to parch. :

There were a few pleasant days after leaving Chat-
tanooga but cold and rainy weather soon set in, caus-
ing great suffering. We often marched in drizzling
rain or sleet and over roads almost impassable, camp-
ing at night with nothing to shelter us but cedar
branches. Many in the North will recall the cold first
day of January, 1864. That night the 79th was on
picket duty near Strawberry Plains and was stationed
about half way up the side of House Mountain, which
was so steep that unless hung up to the trees one was
in danger of sliding down. I had been trying to sleep
with my feet next to a log fire, but getting up to re-
plenish it I accidentally poked out the stones placed
behind the enormous back-log to prevent it from roll-
ing down and away it went, bouncing twenty feet in
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 245

air over the stumps and rocks in its course until it
reached the valley below, and from that time until
morning it was with difficulty that I avoided freezing.
During a considerable part of the winter our base of
operations, if in our ramblings we had anything like
a base, was the little village of Strawberry Plains,
about twelve or fifteen miles east of Knoxville. Our
regular exercise was to march from Strawberry Plains
to New Market, ten miles farther east; sometimes we
went on the same day or the next to Morristown,
eight or ten miles farther east, and then we would
return to Strawberry Plains. Sometimes we went as
far east as Rutledge and once to Bean’s Station. At
another time we went within a few miles of Cumber-
land Gap. We also explored Flat Creek Valley and
Poor Man’s Valley and Rich Man’s Valley and ever
so many little valleys lying between mountain spurs,
some of them not more than two or three hundred
yards wide, where the few inhabitants lived in small
log-houses, knowing little and caring little about the
great world outside.

This was the most primitive region in east Tennes-
see. It is, I presume, the locality from which came the
hogs known in the early history of Indiana as “Ten-
nessee sharpshooters,” long-snouted hogs, that lived
on mast, ran like deer, and never could be fattened,
and so thin that the only way, it was said, to prevent
them from going through a fence was to knot their
tails.

During all this winter our army in east Tennessee
246 CIVIL WAR TIMES

was what, in military parlance, was known as an
“army of observation.” We were observing the move-
ments of General Longstreet and he was observing
ours—we to see that he did not get back into east Ten-
nessee or reenforce the Confederate army in the East
or West, and he to see that the Federal army did not
invade Virginia from the west. There was constant
skirmishing between the Federal and the Confederate
cavalry but little fighting of any consequence, the near-
est approach to a battle being a small engagement at
Dandridge. It was not the intention, it seems, of the
generals on either side to bring about a battle in that
region.

I have few pleasant recollections of our campaign
in east Tennessee. The most pleasant are those con-
nected with a foraging party ordered to go from Mary-
ville to McGee’s Ford on the Little Tennessee, about
eighteen or twenty miles distant, and gather some corn
which had hitherto escaped the notice of both armies.
The detachment consisted of my own company and
Company C, and the command of it was intrusted
to me. It was the highest that I ever attained in the
army and I felt highly honored by it. I was ordered
to report to General Willich, then temporarily in com-
mand of the division, for instructions. I found him in
his tent, a fatherly, benevolent-looking man who at
once made me feel quite at ease. After giving me my
instructions he informed me that I should be provided
with a small steer which would furnish enough meat
for two weeks. I have probably inherited from my
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 247

Yankee ancestors the trait, for which they were pro-
verbial, of “looking ahead”; so I ventured to ask:
“What shall I do after the two weeks are out?” The
good old general almost went into convulsions of
laughter and, patting me on the head, replied: “Tut,
tut, my boy, two weeks in ze army is an eternitee.” I
never forgot the interview nor the truth of what he
said.

Starting with my little force we arrived at our desti-
nation that night. The Little Tennessee is a beautiful
stream and the rocks and fish can be seen through its
clear waters at a depth of more than.twenty feet. The
valley is extremely fertile, yielding fine crops of corn.
Along the river were great plantations, not common
elsewhere in east Tennessee, well stocked with slaves.
On some of them were as many as two or three hun-
dred.

I was now practically monarch of all I surveyed, and
I immediately assumed the prerogatives as well as the
honors of a military commander of high rank. I es-
tablished my headquarters in the best negro cabin on
the plantation and my men in others near. The little
steer had already been traded by the men to a farmer
for a barrel of sorghum molasses. They had been sur-
feited with “blue beef.” But we could not live on
sorghum molasses alone. We had no money and but
little coffee for exchange, and we were strictly forbid-
den to pillage. It was not to be thought of, however,
that I should let my men starve in the midst of plenty.
In this dilemma I resorted to the plan of providing my
248 CIVIL WAR TIMES

foraging parties with blank receipts, signed “Daniel
Wait Howe, Captain Commanding Detachment 4th
Army Corps U.S. A.” The issue was limited only by
our supply of paper. The “U.S. A.” gave the receipts
an official appearance, and nobody to whom they were
tendered ever refused them. My impression is that
the adjacent region was pretty well plastered over with
them, and I fear that they speedily depreciated in value
after our departure, but they were good as long as we
remained.

When the foraging parties returned they brought
great stores. Hams and shoulders were piled in one
corner of my headquarters reaching from floor to ceil-
ing. Butter, milk, eggs, honey, and other luxuries
were soon added to our larder. The “contrabands”
were only too glad to see us and they brought fish and
corn pones in great abundance.

I soon ascertained about how much corn a given
number of men could gather in a day and established
it as a day’s work, but the men usually did it in half
the time, and I allowed them the remainder of the day
in which to rest and recuperate. They soon found a
still some distance from camp, and I was informed, but
never instituted an official investigation of the rumor,
that some of the corn gathered was converted into
whisky through the connivance of the “moonshiner”
who owned the still.

“There was a sound of revelry by night,” for every
night there was in some cabin a “stag dance’’ to music
furnished by a venerable contraband with a banjo. If
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 249.

he could not be procured, some darky who was an adept
in the art was engaged to “pat Juba” and keep the
dance going. Though I was careful to keep pickets
posted, it is strange that we were not all captured by
the Confederate cavalry, and I look upon it now as a
piece of extraordinary good luck that we were not.

But this luxurious life soon came to an end. At the
expiration of two weeks we had gathered all the corn,
the division was again ordered to march, and we were
ordered to rejoin our regiment. About no other spot
in the South do such pleasant memories cluster as those
that are recalled by the name of McGee’s Ford on the
Little Tennessee.

Preparations had begun for the Atlanta campaign
and Wood’s division left Strawberry Plains April 6,
arriving April 16 at Cleveland, Tennessee, where it re-
mained until May 3 when it started on the Atlanta
campaign.

The following extracts from my diary given just
as they were written thirty-nine years ago, portray
better than any language I could now substitute, some
of the incidents of the campaign in east Tennessee as
I saw them. They illustrate also some of the hard-
ships, the pleasures, the daily thoughts of a soldier in
such a campaign, typical, for the most part, of the life
of thousands of others in the Civil War.
250 CIVIL WAR TIMES

NovEMBER 28, 1863.

Rained a little. Turned cool and chilly toward af-
ternoon; moved at 4 Pp. M. in the direction of Cleveland.
Bivouacked at night about five miles from Chatta-
nooga. Our whole corps is in the expedition.

DECEMBER.

3.—Rumored that we are going to Knoxville by the
shortest route, living on the country, and that we will
draw no rations till we get there. Camped at night a
mile beyond Sweet Water, having made about twenty
miles.

4.—Marched at 6 a. mM. Two men detailed from
each company to forage. Marched about twelve miles
and camped at 3 p. M. four or five miles from Morgan-
town. Weather pleasant.

5.—Cloudy. Marched at6 a.m. The fruits of the
forage party were a spoonful of flour and a potato to
the man. They “went for’ eatables to-day with a
vengeance. Passed through Morgantown, a smart
little village. Crossed the Little Tennessee about 12
mM. Were delayed about two hours by the breaking of
the bridge. Marched some eighteen miles. Got into
camp at 8 p.m. The question is, What shall we eat?
This living on the country is a wretched plan.

6.—Sunday. Moved at 5 a.m. Marched till 12
and camped on Little river. Our regiment was the
advance regiment of the column and was, by the new
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 251

rule, detailed for picket. Nothing unusual. Rations
were issued to-night—the fruits of the forage party.
Three-fourths of a cup of meal for four men and a
potato toaman. This is living on the country.

10.—Got an old copy of Brownlow’s Kuosville
Whig, giving an account of the bombardment of Fort
Sumter, of the members of Lincoln’s cabinet, and sev-
eral interesting articles relating to secession in its then
incipient state. This is the only paper I have seen for
along time. The surest way of learning to appreciate
the importance of railroads and telegraphs is to be cut
off from them as we have been for three or. four weeks.
Nothing unusual.

13.—Went on picket at 8 a. M., relieving the 19th
Ohio. Quite a shower blew up during the night and
rendered it very disagreeable. A chance was offered
to-day for the first time since we left Chattanooga to
send off letters. The brigade postmaster goes to Chat-
tanooga to-morrow for mail-matter and is to take let-
ters. We have received no mail or papers since we
crossed the Hiawassee.

16.—Reveille at 4. Marched at 6 a. mM. Passed
through Knoxville and took the road to Strawberry
Plains. Bivouacked at night twelve or fourteen miles
from Knoxville. Hear that there is some skirmish-
ing in our front. I do not see how we can go much
longer. The men are sadly in need of rations. The
fact is, we are not, and have not since we left Chatta-
nooga, been getting even quarter rations. It is grow-
252- CIVIL WAR TIMES

ing worse every day. They all want overcoats also,
and shoes worst of all.

17.—Very disagreeable and wet last night. Got
up in the morning to find myself in a bundle of wet
blankets. Got hold of a paper—the Cin. Comm. of
December 2, the latest I have seen. It contains a par-
tial account of the action at Chattanooga. Did not
move to-day. No news from the front.

19.—Picket at 3 p.m. Visited by—T[illegible]—of
the 4th Cav., also by Loomis, sutler in same. Con-
versed a long time with an old lady named Fitz-Jer-
rold. Her husband died about the time Tennessee se-
ceded. His last vote was for the Union and he was
hauled to the polls to give it. Her only son of any size
is in our army in ist Tenn. Batt. The rebs took nearly
everything and our men the rest. But she is true yet.

25.—Another Christmas dawns upon me in the ser-
vice. I hardly expected it last Christmas at Nashville.
But things look much brighter now than then. Nearly
all of the r9th Ohio re-enlisted yesterday and day be-
fore in the veteran service. They are making great
preparations to go home ina day or two. How differ-
ent is this from Christmas at home. But I must not let
my mind dwell on the unpleasant contrast.

JANUARY, 1864.

1.—Picket at 3 Pp. M. Extremely cold all day. In
fact the coldest day we have experienced this year and
here we are destitute of everything in midwinter. The
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 253

men are ragged, hungry, and with no shelter except a
few miserable worn-out dog-tents. We have one con-
solation at least—they are thinking and caring for us
at home this day. May the good people who are get-
ting up fairs and subscriptions for ‘the benefit of those
who are in the field meet with the greatest success.

9.—Spent the day reading old newspapers and a
novel, Louisa Elton, a southern concern remarkable
for the bombast and egotism of its author. It is writ-
ten by a lady and is dedicated to Jeff Davis as a de-
fender of the “Union of these states.”

11.—Accepted the invitation of Sergt. to visit
a cousin (female) who resides about two miles from
camp. Started on foot about g a. M. Very cold.
Noticed boys sliding on mill-pond as we passed.
Reached our destination about 10 a. M. Found the
young lady, Miss Lizzie, to be a miss of some eighteen
summers, of average good looks and intelligence, an
ex-schoolmarm, and very communicative. Showed
me her album and set me to reading poetry for her.
Spread myself in the latter business. Ate a passable
dinner. Played cards and conversed a while and start-
ed back about 3 P. M.

18.—Marched at 3 A. M., taking the back track. Of
course a drizzling rain set in. The roads were in a
most wretched condition. In many places it was al-
most all the teams could do to pull an empty wagon,
and men had to be detailed to help them along. We
took a roundabout road and reached the Plains about
dark without any special incidents. It was a day long

 
254 CIVIL WAR TIMES

to be remembered as severe in the extreme upon the
troops. Turned off very cold and snowed to the depth
of about two inches during the night.
21.—Ammunition sufficient to supply each man
with sixty rounds was issued this morning. Marched
at 8 a.m. Reached Knoxville at noon. Halted just
before entering town for the column to close up. En-
tered the city at 1 P. M. with banners flying. Saw
Fred Fout and Columbus Hancock [of Co. I]. Passed
through the city without stopping and went into camp
two miles from town across the river on the Sevierville
road, which we supposed to be our destination.
Mounted a horse and went out into a Union settlement
a mile or so from camp. Ate supper with a Mr. Bare-
ford, a true blue Union man. He and his wife put me
more in mind of genuine home sympathy than any peo-
ple I have met for a long time. Afterward I visited a
Mr. Anderson who is a member of the 3d East Tenn.
Cav., at home on furlough. He is a brother-in-law of
Bareford and I found them the same kind of people.
Although his wife had been cooking three days for
soldiers, she said she could not turn me away, and so
baked me a dozen ginger-cakes, for which I was glad
to be able to pay her. His sister, who lives near and
whose husband is in our army, had also been cooking
all day for soldiers, and yet one graceless scamp had
tried to steal her husband’s drawers. Such vagabonds
should be shot.
23.—Moved at 8 a. M.—7oth in advance. Took the
Maryville road. Rumored that our brigade and Wil-
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 255

lich’s, under command of Willich, go to Maryville to
rest a spell. Bivouacked twelve miles from Knoxville.

FEBRUARY.

16.—Started at 2 a. M. A train being ahead of us
we moved very slowly, marching a few yards and then
stopping five or ten minutes. Any soldier who has ever
marched behind a train over a bad road realizes how
fatiguing it is. To make matters worse, it was rain-
ing, the roads were wretchedly miry, and it grew con-
stantly colder. A little before daylight we halted and
threw ourselves down right in the mud, just as we
were, and slept for perhaps an hour. By 7 in the
morning we were just about two miles from camp.
We had not time to get breakfast before the column
started. We moved on without much stoppage, reach-
ing the hills in the vicinity of Knoxville just before
dark. We camped on a high, bleak hill. Hardly a
splinter of wood could be found and it seemed as
though the wind would cut usin two. The night was
intensely cold. It is this kind of soldiering that kills
men. It is nothing more nor less than wholesale
butchery.

17.—Remained on the hill all day. It was very
cold and snowed during the day to the depth of several
inches. The scanty fires emitted little heat and many
had to stay in their tents, wrapped in their blankets,
and even then could not keep warm. Stiff and sore,
too, from yesterday’s march, we were miserable in the
256 CIVIL WAR TIMES

extreme. If ever a man thinks of “Home, sweet
home,” it is during such experiences as we have had
the last three days.

19.—Relieved about dark. When I reached camp
I felt a strange itching and, upon examination, found
-I was alive with “graybacks,’’ which I had probably
got by sleeping in straw that we procured for beds
from some huts in an abandoned camp near by. There
was no alternative but to burn my shirt after which I
felt considerably relieved.

22.—Spent to-day putting a floor and bunks in my
tent. If I can only get it finished it will be the snug-
gest arrangement I ever had. The men have pretty
much quit making winter quarters. They have put
them up only four times since we left Chattanooga and
never were permitted to stay in any except those at
Maryville, over three days. If campaigning is as
active in the coming summer as it has been this winter,
this department will afford a fine field for gymnastics
and we shall all retire from the service finished acro-
bats. Opened my desk to-day and examined my books
and papers. Sad spectacle. Not a report or return
since we left Chattanooga! I am nearly six months
behind in my ordnance and clothing returns. Mus-
tered up courage to make out three monthly returns
and do some official correspondence this evening.
- 23.—Orders this morning to clean up the quarters.
Ordinarily this would signify that we were to remain
here for a few days at any rate. But by the rule of
contraries which obtains in this department, it fore-
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 257

shadows an immediate movement. It has been said
that this division is running an express train to all the
little by-places around Knoxville, and it is about time
for us to make another trip. Got my marque up to
my notion to-day. Am prepared now to go to work at
my books and papers and enjoy myself in comfortable
quarters. Finisat8. Gotobed. Grand sequel. At
9, orders to put everything in readiness to march, with
three days’ rations for the men and complement of
eighty rounds of cartridges. Oh! for our old depart-
ment and our old commander! But I presume this is
strategy. It’s no use to swear, for like the profane
man on a certain occasion, “I can’t do justice to the
subject.”

29.—Reveille at 4. Marched at 5. Passed Mossy
Creek Station about 8 a. m. It began to rain last
night and continued all day. The roads were very
slippery and there was a great deal of straggling.
General Schofield passed us again to-day and the boys
lustily yelled “hard-tack” and “sow-belly.” He took
it in good humor and remarked that they “would get
harder tack than they had.”

Marcu.

2.—Reveille at 4.a.M. Moved at 5. Supposed we
were going toward Bull Gap until we reached the rail-
road when we abruptly turned toward New Market.

The 79th was in advance of the division. Am entirely
17
258 CIVIL WAR TIMES

at a loss to know why we made either the movement
here or the movement back. Suppose it’s “strategy.”
Anticipate seeing something like the following in the
papers in a few days: “Brilliant movement in east
Tennessee.” “General Schofield drives the enemy out
of the state.” “No rebels this side of Virginia.”
“Longstreet’s forces demoralized and deserting by
scores.” “Whole expedition returned without the loss
of a man.” About two miles from Morristown we
passed the camps of a portion of the 23d Army Corps.
Think about half the corps were straggling along the
road. The advance of the corps and the stragglers
probably formed a junction somewhere between Mor-
ristown and New Market. Reached latter place at 2
p. M. and camped. The day has been beautiful. ,
3.—Listened intently for the “general” this morn-
ing, but nobody “blowed the bazoo.” Last night the
orders were for the men to be kept in camp in readiness
to move at a moment’s notice. Probably somebody is
scared. Or it may be that the express line is to be
again opened up to Dandridge. Wrote a letter to-day
to Also took a bath, giving myself a good
scouring. Luckily I brought a few clean underclothes
with me in a knapsack. I have cause to congratulate
myself on so doing for not another officer in the regi-
ment has a stitch of clothing except what he has on and
no very flattering prospect that his condition will be
bettered for weeks. A report of the number of rounds
of ammunition on hand was called for to-day, which
may portend something and may not. Passed my time

 
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 259

to-day principally in loafing. Think I shall become an
adept in it. Weather warm and pleasant.

4.—No orders to move. We shall probably go
somewhere soon. I hear it rumored to-day that within
three weeks our division will go back to the Depart-
ment of the Cumberland. I shouldn’t be surprised at
anything now. Heard to-day from Major Parker the
only lucid explanation of our late movements. Gen-
eral Schofield is making a topographical map of east
Tennessee and is taking the soldiers along just to show
them the country. In absolute despair of something
to read or do, I spent to-day in reading a horrid Mer-
curvy novel—Catholina or the Niche in the Wall, by
“Dr. J. S. Robinson.” I am ashamed to make even
this private confession, but ’tis done. I excuse my-
self in this way: aman hungry for something to read
will do as a man hungry for something to eat; if he
can not get good he will take bad. Just after I had
gone to bed companies I and C were detailed to guard
a supply-train which arrived to-day. Received a mail
to-night.

5.—It rained last night and I climbed into a wagon
for shelter. Got out a little before daylight to warm.
When I returned, found the mules had pulled my
blankets out of the wagon and had well-nigh devoured
one. The train pulled out early in the morning and as
there was no further need of my services I returned to
camp about 8 a. mM. Cloudy and prospect of rain this
morning, but it finally cleared and the day was pleas-
ant. Drew five days’ rations to-day—full of meat,
260 CIVIL WAR TIMES

sugar, coffee, and half of bread. Also drew clothing,
consisting of blouses, shirts, stockings, and shoes.
The men are now pretty well supplied with clothing,
except shoes, of which there is still a great deficiency,
many being nearly barefoot. Hear that slight skir-
mishing is going on in our front, which is supposed to
be at Mossy creek. My impression is that no very
heavy engagements will take place.

6.—The day opened gloriously. The sun shone
with a warmth and splendor seldom seen in Indiana be-
fore May. The songsters made the woods fairly ring
with their joyous melodies. The trees have not yet
put forth their buds but the meadows are growing
green and the unmistakable signs of spring begin to
manifest themselves. It being Sunday, divine ser-
vice was held in the several churches of New Market.
I have not seen nor heard anything since I have been in
Tennessee which so much reminded me of home as the
pealing of the bells. It sounded so sweet and yet so
sad, for while it brought pleasant memories it created
sad longings. But let us “learn to labor and to wait.”
O. M. Colclazer [quarter-master] came up to-day,
bringing a bundle of clothing for Colonel [Oyler] and
me, sent from home.’ Never was clothing more ac-
ceptable. Orders issued to be ready to move at any
moment. Wrote to to-day.

g.—Spent to-day as yesterday—reading and writ-
ing. We have at least one consolation now—a daily
mail. We get the Nashville, Louisville, and Cincin-
nati papers regularly by newsdealers, besides the papers

 
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 261

which come by mail. A newspaper is a great thing in
camp. Men who scarcely ever read, much less buy, a
paper at home, are eager to see one in camp. There
seems to be a general desire to keep posted. This may
be attributed to the great interest felt by all in every-
thing which affects the conduct or prospects of the war.
To the same cause may be traced the interest in poli-
tics. People at home have no idea how well posted
and how interested the soldier is in the political ques-
tions of the day. My impression is that the majority
of soldiers are now much better qualified to decide po-
litical questions than they were at home; therefore I
think they should be allowed to vote.

24.—Relieved at 10. Reached camp about 11.
Shoes and rations were to be issued. The shoes were
in the nick of time. Four of my company were almost
literally barefoot and three others were nearly as bad.
. Had not finished issuing when orders were received to
be ready to march at 1 p.m. Noticed as we marched
out that the men had left nearly all their beef un-
touched, preferring to do without rather than eat it.

29.—Rained all day or nearly all day. Somebody
once reproved Dr. Johnson for his malignant hatred of
Scotland and threw in, as a kind of sedative, the re-
mark that “God made Scotland.” “Yes,” retorted
the Doctor ferociously, “God made hell, too.” I am
inclined to feel the same way toward this woebegone
waste. It looks like the refuse of creation. It might
look romantic in summer-time with the land under cul-
tivation, but it doesn’t now by a long shot. The
262 CIVIL WAR TIMES

weather of the last three weeks has been highly favora-
ble to in-door amusements, viz.: rolling one’s self
up in his dog-tent like a dog in his kennel or a hedge-
hog in his hole. I should say Diogenes might have
made equally as philosophical reflections in one of these
as in his tub. (By the way, my opinion of Diogenes
is that he was a hoax.)

30.—It has been raw and blustery all day. I have
passed much of the time in talking over home affairs
with Captain Ellis. What a great pleasure it is to see
one who has just come from the scenes to which our
memory is constantly going back and where are all that
are near and dear to us. It is like seeing them by
proxy. How many inquiries we press upon the vis-
itor that attest the eagerness of our interest even by
their very simplicity.

“How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view;

The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew.”

Capt. Ellis confirms the report I have often heard
of the reckless extravagance which is fast pervading
all classes at the North. Parties, balls, festivities of
every kind—there is no end to them. “On with the
dance” is the cry. God forbid that in the midst of all
these gaieties the widow and orphan be forgotten.

31.—Picket at 10. Companies D, E, I and C. I
had command of outpost No. 2 on the Rutledge road
about a mile from camp. Had eight reliefs and seven
EAST TRNNESSEE CAMPAIGN 263

men over for stack guards. The day was very pleas-
ant. Being close by a house occupied by an old lady I
made a little visit and found her to be one of the most
intelligent women I ever conversed with. I believe
she had been teaching several years before the war be-
gan. On examining the library (for she had a scant
one) I noticed D’Aubigne’s Reformation, Plutarch’s
Lives, Josephus, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Ever-
ett’s Washington, and several other works by eminent
authors. A Latin reader, well thumbed on the page
beginning with “Antiquisimis temporibus,’ she in-
formed me belonged to her son, now in the rebel army
in Texas. She also told me that the whole family,
consisting of nine whites and six blacks, had been liv-
ing for more than ten days on nothing but boiled corn.
I believe her story for in all my travels I have not seen
a family in apparently more destitute circumstances.

APRIL.

3.—Troops drew three days’ rations. We still get,
‘for a part of our meat rations, the lean, miserable, and
unhealthy beef that we have had all winter. Perhaps
we are kept in this barren country that we may be
starved into eating it and so take it off the Q. M.’s
hands. “Hold on there, butcher,” yelled a soldier the
other day as that amiable individual was about to end
the miseries of a very attenuated bovine, “wait for sick
call.”

4.—Picket at 10. D, E, I and C at the same out-
264 CIVIL WAR TIMES

posts as before. It began to rain shortly after we
reached the picket-line and continued all day and night
at intervals. Borrowed Everett’s Life of Washington
from the family living near the outpost. It is written
with great beauty of diction and in the purest style.
Still I do not look upon it as remarkable either for great
originality of thought or for presenting any very new
or uncommon theories. Being intended as an encyclo-
pedic article, however, it is all that could be expected.
I marked one passage which impressed me with its
beauty. It is the author’s illustration of genius in the
closing chapter. I also finished reading Oliver Twist.
Chapters 1, 5 and 14, Book 2, finely exhibit Dickens’s
humorous powers. The narrative of the murder of
Nancy and of the remorse and pursuit and final end
of the career of Sykes are striking displays of strong
and powerful writing.

5.—Relieved at 10. The creek had risen so rapidly
last night that this morning it could not be crossed un-
til trees were felled across it. Companies D and E
were not relieved till afternoon. It looked like
clearing off to-day. The rain has been warm and the
grass and buds seem ready to leap right up. I sat
down to-day to the best dinner I have eaten in camp
for two months. It consisted of coffee, ‘“‘slap-jacks,”
baked beans, and a pot of boiled beef and desiccated
vegetables. The molasses for the slap-jacks was made
by boiling common sugar. The meal was far better
than any I have had since I left Pikeville. The great
desideratum all the time has been to get enough of
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 205

anything. Started a furlough to-day for Mat. Chand-
ler [of Co. I]. Orders received this evening to march
at 6 to-morrow. Great glee and rejoicing prevailed
all over the whole division until late at night, it being
understood that we were going to Knoxville.
6.—This evening an order from Schofield was read,
expressing his thanks to Wood’s division. So it seems
certain we are at last to leave this one-horse depart-
ment. We all go without regret. There was great
cheering and rejoicing to-night.
. 7—Reveille at 4. Marched at 6. Stopped an hour
for dinner at noon. Traveled very leisurely, the 2d
brigade in advance and Willich’s in the rear. At 4
P. M. passed through Knoxville in style with fixed bay-
onets. Saw nobody that I knew. Camped about three
miles on Loudon side of Knoxville. John Israel, Co-
lumbus Hancock, and Matthew Chandler joined the
company to-day. All our wagons—six—reported to
regiment last night and, after unloading, went back to
Knoxville for the baggage stored there. The impres-
sion is that our destination is Cleveland. It is re-
ported that Major-General Howard has been assigned
to the command of the 4th corps and Hooker to the
command of the 11th and 12th corps, consolidated and.
called the 2oth. Did not observe anything noticeable
at Knoxville except a couple of negro soldiers in full
uniform, the first I ever saw. A great many specta-
tors were out to see us pass. All the “nigs’”’ must have
been out too, judging by the multitude I saw. We
marched about twenty miles to-day. Rained to-night.
266 CIVIL WAR TIMES

g.—Reveille at 5. Column in motion at 7. The
rain was drizzling with no prospect of slacking, when
we started, but finally, about 10, the skies cleared and
the sun came out. The roads, however, were very
muddy and marching very tedious. Passed Camp-
bell’s Station at 10. The traces of the skirmish there
where Burnside fell back before Longstreet are very
plenty. Most of the houses and trees about there ex-
hibit the mark of a cannon-ball or bullet. The coun-
try through which we passed can not be surpassed for
beautiful landscapes. It needs only a river to make it
perfectly charming. The land is rolling, the farms are
well cleared, and the farm-houses indicate, wealth and
taste. From the number of orchards, I should judge
it a great peach country, indeed a good country for all
kinds of fruits. Camped at 3:30 Pp. mM. near Lenoir
Station, six miles from Loudon and twenty-two from
Knoxville. A portion of Sheridan’s division is here.

15.—Reveille at 4. Marched at 6. Athens is a neat
little place, said to be a strong Union town. Noticed
several handsome buildings, both public and private.
It is reputed to have many pretty girls but they didn’t
make themselves visible. Perhaps the southern beau-
ties were in bed. The country not so good as that
passed yesterday. Reached Calhoun about 12. Con-
_ sumed about an hour in crossing the Hiawassee and
getting into camp. Charlestown is opposite Calhoun
and is somewhat noted as the place where the “con-
valesce” whipped Wheeler last winter. Camped on
the battle-ground. A meaner place could not have
EAST TENNESSEE CAMPAIGN 267

been selected for our brigade. A couple of regiments
are stationed at this point and a fort on a high hill com-
mands a wide scope. The troops stationed along the
road seem to be living “old folks at home.’ Paper
collars and blackened boots abound, to which our
rough boys call the attention of the owners in no flat-
tering terms. Marched about fifteen miles.

16.—Reveille at 4. Marched at 6, our brigade in
advance. The country not as good as that heretofore
passed though I noticed a great many very fine farm-
houses. Reached Cleveland, twelve miles from Charles-
town, at 12. It was doubtless the intention for us to
stop here but for some reason wewere ordered forward.
Went through town in style in column of companies.
A portion of Stanley’s division is here. This is called
the prettiest place between Chattanooga and Knoxville.
Did not stop in the town but marched six or seven miles
beyond and camped. This turn of affairs surprises all
of us and where we will go next is the question. We
are only twenty-two or twenty-three miles from Chat-
tanooga. Met General Beatty and staff at Cleveland,
also all the recruiting officers except Dick [Gosney],
who sent word that he was sorry he couldn’t come,
wherein I think he slightly prevaricated.
CHAPTER TEN
NEGRO SOLDIERS IN THE CIVIL WAR

The two negro soldiers I observed at Knoxville in
April, 1864, were the first I saw, although black men
had been enrolled in the Federal armies long before
that time. During the progress of the war a marked
change was brought about in the attitude of the people
of both North and South, not only as to the question
of freeing the negroes, but also of arming them. It
was, however, a change caused by the exigencies of the
war, rather than by any change of sentiment in regard
to the moral aspects of slavery. At the beginning of
the war the radical element in the North would have
preferred to let the seceding states go rather than that
they should remain in the Union with slavery; before
the war closed the radical leaders in the South would
have preferred to let slavery go if by so doing they
could have remained out of the Union. The evidence
is abundant and convincing that, before the close of the
war, many of the radical leaders of the South would
willingly have consented to universal emancipation if
by so doing they could have saved the Confederacy.
The study of the causes operating to produce such a
revolution of ideas is both curious and interesting.

(268)
NEGRO SOLDIERS 269

The value of the services of the slaves to the Con-
federate cause was manifest from the beginning.
Jefferson Davis says :*

“Much of our success was due to the much-abused
institution of African servitude, for it enabled the
white men to go into the army, and leave the cultiva-
tion of their fields and the care of their flocks, as well
as of their wives and children, to those who, in the
language of the Constitution, were ‘held to service or
labor.’ ”

This fact was soon perceived in the North. At an
early stage of the war the slaves were also employed
in building forts and breastworks and in various places
at first filled by white men, thus relieving an equal num-
ber of white soldiers for service in the Confederate
ranks. This also was seen and its significance was ap-
preciated in the North and especially in the northern
armies. It was obvious that whatever would weaken
the allegiance of the slaves to their masters and induce
them to favor the Federal cause would weaken the Con-
federate armies and the Confederate cause. The
emancipation proclamation was, therefore, a logical
war measure, and it was on this ground that many in
the North and in the northern armies, at first hostile
to emancipation, were at a later period induced to
favor it.

If the first step in severing the allegiance of the slave
to his master was to declare his freedom, then obvious-

*Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. I, p. 303.
270 CIVIL WAR TIMES

ly the next step was to arm him so that he might fight
for it; because, in fighting for his freedom, he was not
only directly aiding the Federal armies, but was in-
spiring his fellow-slaves to do likewise. Thus a dan-
gerous enemy of the South and a zealous ally of the
North was developed in the very heart of the Confed-
eracy.

But, when it was first suggested, the idea of arming
negroes and enrolling them as soldiers in the Federal
armies aroused violent opposition in the North and
furnished new arguments to those who denounced the
prosecution of the war as an Abolition crusade.

The first act of Congress authorizing the enlistment
of colored soldiers was passed July 17, 1862, after very
bitter opposition, particularly from the members repre-
senting the border states, but this act discriminated be-
tween the slaves of loyal and those of disloyal citizens,
Few colored men enlisted, and the first order for rais-
ing colored troops was issued by the War Department
August 25, 1862, to General Saxton, in command at
Hilton Head, South Carolina, authorizing him to en-
list and equip “such number of volunteers of African
descent as he might deem expedient, not exceeding five:
thousand.” When the order was issued it was ac-
companied with the remark, “This must never see
daylight, because it is so much in advance of public
sentiment.” It was not until 1863 that the work of
enrolling colored troops in the Federal armies was
begun in earnest. The first order for raising colored
troops in the free states was issued from the War
NEGRO SOLDIERS 271

Department January 20, 1863, to Governor Andrew
of Massachusetts. It was not until March 3, 1864,
that Congress passed an act making free the families
of colored soldiers, and not until later in that year
that colored soldiers were allowed the same pay and
emoluments as white soldiers.

The first colored regiment mustered into the United
States service was the First Louisiana Native Guard,
raised by General Butler in New Orleans and re-
cruited chiefly among the free blacks. It was mustered
in September 27, 1862. Another, organized in Kan-
sas but recruited chiefly from Missouri slaves, was
mustered in January 13, 1863, as the First Kansas
Colored Volunteers, but the name was afterward
changed to that of 79th U. S. Colored Infantry. The
first colored regiment raised in a seceding state from
former slaves was recruited in South Carolina, of
which T. W. Higginson was commissioned colonel.
Its organization was begun by order of General Hun-
ter in May, 1862, but not completed until January 31,
1863. It was at first called the First South Carolina
but afterward the 33d U. S. Colored Infantry. The
first colored regiment raised in a northern state and
recruited from free blacks was the 54th Massachu-
setts, organized in Massachusetts, but recruited from
several northern states. Its organization was begun
in February and completed in May, 1863. The total
number of colored troops enrolled in the Federal
272 CIVIL WAR TIMES

armies during the war was 178,975, of whom 99,337
were recruited in the southern states.”

The idea of enlisting negro soldiers was not at first
favorably received in the northern armies. The oppo-
sition was plainly manifest in the Army of the Poto-
mac during McClellan’s command of that army. Nor
was the idea generally favored in the Army of the
Cumberland. There were never many colored soldiers
in that army. They were at first viewed with curios-
ity by the white troops, but all finally came to the con-
clusion that the black man might quite as well help
the Union cause by fighting for his freedom and that,
in so doing, he was far better employed than he was
when helping to construct Confederate forts and
breastworks.

So vindictive was the feeling inspired in the South
by the enrollment of negroes in the northern armies,
that, in 1863, the Confederate Congress passed an act
providing that “every white commissioned officer
commanding negroes or mulattoes in arms against the
Confederate states shall be deemed as inciting servile
insurrection and shall, if captured, be put to death or
be otherwise punished at the discretion of the court,”
and also providing that the negro and mulatto soldiers
so captured should be delivered to the authorities of

? For a history of the Federal legislation on the subject and the
organization and enrollment of colored soldiers in the Federal
armies, see Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, vol. 3,
PP. 357-379, 403-414; Fox, Regimental Losses, pp. 52-56; Apple-
ton’s Annual Cyclopedia, 1863, pp. 25-29.
NEGRO SOLDIERS 273

the states wherein captured, “to be dealt with accord-
ing to the present or future laws of such state or
states.” 2

During the first two years of the war few could have
been found in the South bold enough to advocate the
dangerous experiment of arming the slaves and put-
ting them into the Confederate armies. In the North,
even at this day, many would probably be surprised
to learn of the gradual change of sentiment in the
South on this proposition. It affords most striking
proof that, long before the close of the war, the des-
perate nature of the contest was appreciated by the
southern leaders; for, in their eagerness to save the
Confederacy, they were ready to throw overboard
slavery itself.

The first significant evidence of this change of sen-
timent is found in the proceedings of a meeting of the
officers of the Confederate Army of the Tennessee at
Dalton, Georgia, January 2, 1864. The meeting was
attended by Joseph E. Johnston, the general com-
manding, Generals Hardee, Walker, Stewart, and oth-
ers. Patrick Cleburne, one of the most noted generals
of the army, read an elaborate paper prepared for the
evident purpose of being circulated in the army if
approved by the meeting.

The paper set forth the depletion of the Confederate
armies, the constantly increasing number of desertions,
and the discouragement of the Confederate soldiers,

who were “growing weary of hardships and slaugh-
18
274 CIVIL WAR TIMES

ters” which promised no results, and portrayed in
strong language the impending danger of “subjuga-
tion.” One of the three great causes “operating to
destroy” them was alleged to be slavery, which from
being one of their “chief sources of strength at the
commencement of the war,’’ had now become, “in a
military point of view, one of their chief sources of
weakness.” The paper emphasized the reasons for
regarding slavery as a source of weakness to the Con-
federacy:

“Wherever slavery is once seriously disturbed,
whether by the actual presence or the approach of the
enemy, or even by a cavalry raid, the whites can no
longer, with safety to their property, openly sympa-
thize with our cause. . The fear of their slaves is con-
tinually haunting them, and from silence and appre-
hension many of these soon learn to wish the war
stopped on any terms. The next stage is to take the
oath to save property, and they become dead to us,
if not open enemies. To prevent raids we are forced
to scatter our forces, and are not free to move and
strike like the enemy; his vulnerable points are care-
fully selected and fortified depots. Ours are found
in every point where there is a slave to set free. All
along the lines slavery is comparatively valueless to
us for labor, but of great and increasing worth to the
enemy for ‘information. It is an omnipresent spy
system, pointing out our valuable men to the enemy,
revealing our positions, purposes, and resources, and
yet acting so safely and secretly that there is no means
to guard against it. Even in the heart of our country,
where our hold upon this secret espionage is firmest,
it waits but the opening fire of the enemy’s battle line
NEGRO SOLDIERS 275

to wake it, like a torpid serpent, into venomous
activity.”

In order, therefore, to fill the ranks of the Confed-
erate armies, to insure the sympathy of foreign na-
tions, and to infuse new life into the decaying Confed-
eracy it was proposed “that we retain in service for the
war all troops now in service and that we immediately
commence training a large reserve of the most cour-
ageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee
freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in
the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in
this war.”

General Cleburne recognized, not only the absurdity,
but the danger, of arming the slaves without freeing
them. It would be preposterous, he argued, to ex-
pect the negro to fight against the hope of freedom
with any degree of enthusiasm:

“Therefore,” he adds, “we must bind him to our
cause by no doubtful bonds; we must leave no possi-
ble loophole for treachery to creep in. The slaves
are dangerous now, but armed, trained, and collected
in an army, they would be a thousandfold more dan-
gerous; therefore when we make soldiers of them we
must make free men of them beyond all question, and
thus enlist their sympathies also.”

General Patton Anderson, who attended the confer-
ence, felt moved to write General Leonidas Polk a
confidential letter on the subject of Cleburne’s “mon-
strous proposition” and his own feelings “on being
276 CIVIL WAR TIMES

confronted by a project so startling in its character—
may I say, so revolting to southern sentiment, south-
ern pride, and southern honor.” He adds: “Not the
least painful of the emotions awakened by it was the
consciousness which forced itself upon me that it met
with favor by others, besides the author, in high sta-
tion then present.”

Somehow the matter reached the ears of Jefferson
Davis and thereupon his Secretary of War, James A.
Seddon, wrote a letter to General Johnston expressing
the earnest convictions of the President that “the dis-
semination or even promulgation of such opinions
under the present. circumstances of the Confederacy,
whether in the army or among the people, can be pro-
ductive only of discouragement, distraction, and dis-
sension,” and General Johnston was requested to
communicate the President’s views to the officers pres-
ent at the meeting “and urge on them the suppression,
not only of the memorial itself, but likewise of all
discussion and controversy respecting or growing out
opal

The question of arming the slaves continued to be
agitated in the South, and was favorably considered,
though public sentiment never quite reached the point
of universal emancipation. The Richmond Enquirer,
in an editorial, October 6, 1864,* said:

“Whenever the subjugation of Virginia or the em-

* The memorial itself and the correspondence relating to it will
be found in Reb. Rec., ser. 1, vol. 52, pt. 2, pp. 586, 598, 606, 608.
“McPherson: Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 428.
NEGRO SOLDIERS 277

ployment of her slaves as soldiers are alternative
positions, then certainly we are for making them sol-
diers and giving freedom to those negroes that escape
the casualties of battle.”

Jefferson Davis foreshadowed his own views in a
message to the Confederate Congress, November 7,
1864, in which he said:

“Should the alternative ever be presented of subju-
gation or of the employment of the slave as a soldier,
there seems to be no reason to doubt what should then
be our decision.”

General Lee also became a convert to the proposi-
tion for arming the slaves, and, in a letter written
January 11, 1865, to Andrew Hunter, expressing his
views on the subject, he said:

“I think, therefore, we must decide whether slavery
shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves
be used against us, or use them ourselves at the risk
of the effects which may be produced upon our social
institutions. My own opinion is that we should em-
ploy them without delay. I believe that, with proper
regulations, they can be made effective soldiers. They
possess the physical qualifications in an eminent degree.
Long habits of obedience and subordination, coupled
with that moral influence which in our country the
white man possesses over the black, furnish the best
foundation for that discipline which is the surest guar-
antee of military efficiency. Our chief aim should be
to secure their fidelity. There have been formidable
armies composed of men having no interests in the
'

278 CIVIL WAR TIMES

country for which they fought beyond their pay or
the hope of plunder. But it is certain that the best
foundation upon which the fidelity of an army can
rest, especially in a service which imposes peculiar
hardships and privations, is the personal interest of
the soldier in the issue of the contest. Such an inter-
est we can give our negroes by granting immediate
freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of
the war to the families of those who discharge their
duties faithfully, whether they survive or not, together
with the privilege of residing at the South.”

On February 7, 1865, a letter from General Lee
to General Wise was published, thanking the latter’s
brigade for resolutions adopted declaring that they
would consent to gradual emancipation for the sake
of peace. Jefferson Davis, explaining his own change
of mind, says:> “Subsequent events advanced my
views from a prospective to a present need for the en-
rollment.of negroes to take their place in the ranks.”
On February 8, 1865, Senator Brown of Mississippi
introduced a resolution in the Confederate Senate
that, if adopted, would have freed 200,000 negroes
and put them into the army, but this was defeated the
next day in secret session. On February 11 a bill
was introduced in the Confederate House of Repre-
sentatives, authorizing the enrollment of 200,000
slaves with the consent of their masters. While it was
pending, General Lee wrote a letter to E. Barksdale
of the House, urging its passage. On the subject of

° Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. 1, pp. 5157
519.
NEGRO SOLDIERS 279

emancipation he said, “I think those who are employed
should be freed. It would be neither just nor justice,
in my opinion, to require them to serve as slaves.”
The proposed bill was defeated February 23 by the
vote of Senator Hunter of Virginia, who, while it
was under discussion, made a bitter speech opposing
it, in which he said:

“When we leit the old government we thought we
had got rid forever of the slavery agitation; but, to
my surprise, I find that this [the Confederate] gov-
ernment assumes power to arm the slaves, which in-
volves also the power of emancipation. This proposi-
tion would be regarded as a confession of despair.
If we are right in passing this measure, we are wrong
in denying to the old government the right to interfere
with slavery and to emancipate slaves. If we offer
the slaves their freedom as a boon, we confess that
we were insincere and hypocritical in saying slavery
was the best state for the negroes themselves. I believe
that the arming and emancipating the slaves will be
an abandonment of the contest. To arm the negroes
is to give them freedom. When they come out scarred
from the conflict they must be free.”

On March 4 the bill was again taken up and passed,
Senator Hunter voting for it under instructions from
the Virginia legislature.

The negro soldier bill passed by the Confederate
Congress March 9, 1865, authorized the President of
the Confederacy “to ask for and accept from the own-
ers of slaves the services of such number of able-
bodied negro men as he may deem expedient for and
280 CIVIL WAR TIMES

during the war, to perform military services in what-
ever capacity he may direct.’”’ It also provided for the
organization of such troops into companies, battal-
‘ions, regiments, and brigades, and that while in the
service they should “receive the same rations, clothing,
and compensation as allowed troops in the same branch
of service.”

A proviso was added to the bill before its final pas-
sage, providing that “not more than 25 per cent.
of the male slaves between the ages of 18 and 45
in any state should be called for under the provision
of this act.” Section 5 of the act expressly provided
“that nothing in this act shall be construed to author-
ize a change in the relation of said slaves.”

On February 25, 1865, the legislature of Virginia
also passed an act authorizing the governor of the
state “to call for volunteers from among the slaves
and free negroes of the state.to aid in the defense of
the capital and such other points as may be threat-
ened by the public enemy.’’®

It will be observed that there was nothing in either
the act of the Confederate Congress or in that of the
Virginia legislature providing for emancipation, im-
mediate or gradual. But, as had been pointed out
by Generals Cleburne and Lee, it was futile to arm

*For the history of Confederate legislation on the subject of
negro soldiers, see McPherson: Hist. of the Rebellion, pp. 282,
283, 427, 420, 611, 612; Davis: Rise and Fall of the Confederate
Government, vol. 1, pp. 514-519; Pollard: The Lost Cause, pp.
659-660; Jones’s Diary, vol. 2, pp. 413-444.
NEGRO SOLDIERS 281

the slaves without giving them their freedom; it was
worse than futile—it was suicidal. Nevertheless, the
negro soldiers’ bill held out some hope, and Mr. Jones
records in his Diary under date of March 17:

“We shall have a negro army. Letters are pouring
into the department from men of military skill and
character, asking authority to raise companies, battal-
ions, and regiments of negro troops. It is the desper-
ate remedy for the very desperate case—and may be
successful. If 300,000 efficient soldiers can be made
of this material, there is no conjecturing where the
next campaign may end.”

It was then too late to raise an army of Confeder-
ate negroes, with or without emancipation. There
were not arms enough for them; there was not time
sufficient to organize and drill them. The Confed-
eracy was in the throes of dissolution. Pollard
speaks with bitterness of this last puerile attempt of
the southern leaders to galvanize into life the dying
Confederacy :”

“Such paltry legislation, indeed, may be taken as
an indication of that vague desperation in the Confed-
eracy which grasped at shadows; which conceived
great measures, the actual results of which were yet
insignificant; which showed its sense of insecurity—
and yet, after all, had not nerve enough to make a
practical and persistent effort at safety.”

Calling on the negroes at this stage of the war to
enlist in the Confederate armies was like calling spir-

*The Lost Cause, p. 660.
282 CIVIL WAR TIMES

its from the vasty deep. They did not come. A few
were gathered together in ‘Richmond, about twenty
all told, including three slaves of Benjamin, the Con-
federate Secretary. of State, and these were paraded
through the streets as an illustration of the loyalty
of the southern negroes to the cause of their masters
and as an inspiring example to their fellows. The
loyalty of the slaves or that of their masters had
waned, and a draft was ordered. The 3d day of
April, 1865, was appointed to begin the conscription
of negroes for the Confederate armies.

_ But there were to be no more drafts in the South
for either black or white men. Before the 3d day
of April arrived, Lee had evacuated Richmond, Jef-
ferson Davis and his cabinet had fled; the members
of the Confederate Congress were fugitives, the Con-
federate government had disappeared, and the city of
Richmond was on fire. On the day set for the draft,
amidst the smoke and flames of the burning city,
10,000 black soldiers were marching through the
streets singing ‘‘John Brown” and scattering broadcast
the emancipation proclamation, and thousands upon
thousands of the resident Richmond negroes were
joining in the joyful chorus:

“Glory, glory hallelujah,
Glory, glory hallelujah,

Glory, glory hallelujah,
We is free to-day.”

The black soldiers who marched were not Confed-
erate conscripts; they wore the blue and carried the
stars and stripes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN

The future historian who looks for a date from
which to trace the decline and fall of the Confederacy,
will probably fix upon July 4, 1863. On that day the
news of two great Federal victories, one at Gettys-
burg, the other at Vicksburg, thrilled the northern
heart and cast a gloom over the South which never
lifted. Lee’s defeat ended all hope of successful in-
vasion of the North, and the surrender of Vicksburg
opened the Mississippi and practically cut off all the
country west of it from the Confederacy.

Public sentiment in the North underwent a rapid
and radical change. The fall elections of 1863 un-
mistakably showed the turning tide. In Ohio, Indiana,
and other western states large numbers of the Demo-
cratic party were loyal to the Federal government
and, while those known as “copperheads” became more
and more venomous, their power to harm the Federal
cause diminished and they came to be universally de-
spised by all decent citizens, both in the North and in
the South. In fact, after the Morgan raid, the “Peace
at any Price” platform at Chicago, and the exposures
in the treason trials at Indianapolis of the infamous

(283)
284 CIVIL, WAR TIMES

schemes of the Sons of Liberty, public sentiment un-
derwent a change so marked that nothing more was
needed to solidify the whole North.

The resources of the Federal government seemed
to be inexhaustible and, notwithstanding the enormous
expenses of the war and the steady drain of men, there
was no abatement of the martial spirit that pervaded
the North, now thoroughly aroused, determined, and
confident of ultimate success. The three-years’ troops
who had entered the service in 1861 and 1862 were
now veteran soldiers. Many of them, on the expira-
tion of their terms of enlistment, reenlisted. On Jan-
uary I, 1864, there were on the Union army rolls
860,737 men—nearly twice the number on the Confed-
erate rolls. To insure enough soldiers, drafts for
three-years’ men were ordered February 1, 1864, for
500,000, and March 14, for 200,000 more. On April
23, the Federal government accepted a tender from the
governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wis-
consin of 85,000 hundred-day men. Between that
date and July 18, 83,612 men were mustered into the
United States’ service for 100 days. There was’ no
lack of men.

On the other hand the Confederacy was now on
the defensive. It had been shorn of a large part of
its territory by the opening of the Mississippi; it was
hard pushed for means to carry on the government
and to maintain its armies in the field; and by the be-
ginning of the year 1864, it was evident that it was
in process of rapid disintegration. All hope of for-
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 285

eign intervention had vanished and Jefferson Davis
is reported to have replied to some one who inquired
about the prospect of it, “We have no friends abroad.”

The Federal blockade was now so stringent that all
foreign trade was cut off and nothing could be taken
into or out of the Confederacy except in occasional
blockade runners and at great risks. The Confederacy
had no credit abroad or at home. Its financial system,
if it can be called a system, violated every cardinal
principle of national finance, and, in the issue of paper
money, the wildest dreams of “fiaters” were realized.
As the volume of irredeemable currency expanded,
prices went up and the result, inevitable in such cases,
was that those receiving fixed salaries, especially sala-
ries fixed by law, were the first and greatest sufferers.
The railroads were largely used for military purposes,
and in Richmond and other cities, dependent chiefly on
the ‘railroads for supplies, provisions commanded ex-
orbitant prices.

The fallacy of the fascinating idea’ that government
can, by mere paper decrees, create value out of noth-
ing was never more clearly illustrated than it was in
the financial measures of the Confederate government.

“The consequences of this ignorant and wild finan-
cial policy,” says Mr. Pollard,* “were, that, by the next
meeting of Congress, the volume of currency was at
least four times what were the wants of the commu-
nity for a circulating medium; that prices were in-

1 Southern History of the War, vol. 2, pp. 233-4.
286 CIVIL WAR TIMES

flated more than an equal degree, for want of confi-
dence in the paper of the government had kindled the
fever of speculation; that the public credit, abused by
culpable ignorance and obstinate empiricism, had
fallen to an ebb that alarmed the country more than
any reverse in the military fortunes of the war; and
that the government was forced to the doubtful and
not very honorable expedient of attempting to restore
its currency by a system of demonetizing its own
issues.

“The redundancy of the currency was the chief
cause of its depreciation. The amount of money in
circulation in the South, in time of peace, was $8o,-
000,000. In January, 1863, it was $300,000,000. In
September, 1861, Confederate notes were about equal
to specie; before December, specie was at 20 per cent.
premium; before April, 1862, it was at 50 per cent.;
before last of September, at 100; before December, at
225; before February, at 280; and in the spring of
1863, at the frightful premium of 400 per cent., while
bank bills were worth 190 cents on the dollar.

“Since the foundation of the Confederate govern-
ment, its finances had been grossly mismanaged. The
treasury note was a naked promise to pay; there was
no fund pledged for its redemption; and the prospect
of the rigid liquidation of the enormous debt that this .
class of paper represented six months after the restora-
tion of peace, depended solely on the speculative pros-
pect of a foreign loan to the amount of many hundred
millions of dollars. At the commencement of the war
the South had the elements for the structure of one
of the most successful and elastic schemes of finance
that the world had seen. The planters were anxious
to effect the sales of their cotton and tobacco to the
Confederate States; these would have supplied the
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 287

government with a basis of credit which would have
been extended as the prices of these staples advanced,
and therefore kept progress with the war; but this
scheme was opposed by the Secretary of the Treasury,
Mr. Memminger, and defeated by his influence. He
was unfortunately sustained by an executive grossly
incompetent on subjects of finance; which was ig-
norant of the principle of political economy that there
are no royal ways of making money out of nothing,
that governments must raise money in the legitimate
way of taxation, loans, etc.; which relied upon the
manufacture of a revenue out of naked paper obliga-
tions ; and which actually went to the foolish extremity
of recommending that the creditors of the government
should take their payment in currency rather than in
the public stocks. It appears, indeed, that our govern-
ment was ignorant of the most primitive truths of
‘finance, and that it had not read in history or in reason
the lesson of the fatal connection between currency
and revenue.”

A southern writer? has given some Richmond prices
during the first three months of the year 1864. Flour
sold at $200 per barrel; meal at $50 per bushel; beans
at $75 per bushel; bacon at $7.75 per pound; butter
at $8 per pound; sugar at $10 to $12 per pound; and
$40 was asked. for “an old, tough turkey gobbler.”
- Fabulous prices were also demanded for clothing and
all other necessaries of life.

Various financial expedients had been tried. On
February 17, 1864, a new funding law was passed,
and also an act largely increasing taxation and author-

?Jones: A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, vol. 2, pp. 122-179.
288 CIVIL WAR TIMES

izing the collection of taxes in kind. The purpose of
the funding act, as expressed in the title, was “to re-
duce the currency and to authorize a new issue of notes
and bonds.” It was “hoped that as money got scarcer
food and raiment would get cheaper.” But the fund-
ing of old notes did not keep pace with the issue of
new ones. Eight hundred or 1,000 millions of the old
notes had been issued; 200 to 250 millions were fund-
ed, leaving over 600 millions outstanding. The Con-
federate Secretary of the Treasury is reported to have
said that he could make “2,000,000 to 3,000,000 of
the new currency per day.” How much he did issue,
there is no way of ascertaining, but he made all that
was called for; prices continued to advance and there
were renewed complaints against the “extortioners”
who charged such enormous sums for everything that
people were obliged to buy.

Before the opening of the great campaign of 1864,
the Confederate currency had so depreciated that it
had practically ceased to afford any certain measure
of values and, consequently, had ceased:to be a medium
of exchange. The result was that the people in their
commercial transactions returned to the primitive sys-
tem of barter.* In the agricultural regions, likely to
be traversed by either the Federal or the Confederate
armies, there was little encouragement for the farmer

Prof. Schwab in The Confederate States of America has
given an exhaustive financial history of the Confederacy and has
clearly shown to what desperate straits the Confederate govern-
ment had been reduced prior to the last year of the war.
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 289

to raise more than was absolutely necessary for his
own use. He was in danger of foe and friend alike.
If Federal troops came by they took what he had and
paid him nothing; if Confederate troops visited him
they took what they wanted and paid him in depreci-
ated currency; if he chanced to escape both and took
his surplus to market, he could get nothing but a wad
of worthless paper. Under such conditions commerce
was paralyzed, manufactures and agriculture lan-
guished, and all business suffered.

Dire distress was on every hand and destitution in
many homes. A southern writer* has given a graphic
description of Hard Times in the Confederacy; of
the fabulous prices of all the necessaries of life; of
the substitutes people were compelled to use in place
of luxuries formerly enjoyed. Those who liked coffee
were obliged to content themselves with a decoction
of dried sweet potatoes; old ladies who loved their
tea “drowned their happy memories of hyson in a
solution of raspberry leaves’; the children ate ginger-
cakes sweetened with sorghum; all kinds of make-
shifts were resorted to in desperate attempts to pre-
serve an appearance of gentility by bringing forth
from old closets and garrets the antiquated and bat-
tered hats and bonnets that had been worn “before the
war’; even the insignia of rank of a distinguished
Confederate general were made of some yellow flan-

*A.C. Gordon, Century Mag., vol. 36, p. 761.
19
290 CIVIL WAR TIMES

nel procured from children’s petticoats that his wife
had resurrected. We may smile when reading all
this, but there are few that will not agree with the
writer that “though there is something ludicrous in
it all, the humor of it touches so nearly the outer edge
of the heroic as to seem strangely like pathos.”

The Confederacy was driven to the severest straits
in maintaining its armies. Its military strength had
been largely spent. Sweeping conscription acts that
seemed to rob the cradle and the grave for recruits had
been passed by the Confederate Congress and were
unsparingly enforced. The first of these had aroused
violent opposition, but one still more sweeping was
passed February 11, 1864, subjecting to conscription
all white men between the ages of seventeen and fifty,
and providing that all then in service between the ages
of eighteen and forty-five should be retained during
the war. The opposition to these acts continued, and
large numbers of those so forced into the southern
armies deserted. It has been stated that few con-
scripts were found in the Army of Northern Virginia
or in any other southern army at the final surrender.°
The additions to the Confederate armies hardly sup-
plied the vacancies caused by deaths, disease, and de-
sertions, and, long before the close of the war, Lee
was urgently calling the attention of the Confederate
government to this alarming fact.

But to obtain men for the armies was not more diffi-

° See Stephens: The War Between the States, p. $73.
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 2QI

cult than it was to procure supplies for them. In Jan-
uary, 1864, General Lee wrote the President of the
Confederacy that he had “but one day’s meat rations
and feared that he should not be able to retain the army
in the field,” and on February 29 his commissary re-
ported that he had bread enough to last only until the
next day. On March 14 Lee dispatched that “the
army was out of meat and had but one day’s rations
of bread.” Mr. Jones, recording this in his diary,
adds: “No wonder that generals are in consultation,
for all the armies are in the same lamentable predica-
ment.” The Confederate soldiers were as poorly
clothed as they were fed and their pay was still more
scanty. Indeed, they were practically serving without
pay. Death stared them in front and starvation of
their families lurked in the rear. Whatever we may
think of their “cause,” we must admit their devotion
to it and admire the heroism with which they fought
for it. No soldiers ever made greater sacrifices.
Moreover, the very idea which constituted the
corner-stone of secession was now developing its de-
structive tendency and bearing fruit in renewed and
determined opposition to the measures which the gov-
ernment had been forced to adopt. The conscription

°*The pay of the private Confederate soldier was fixed at $11 a
month until June 9, 1864, when the Confederate Congress raised
the amount to $18. In January, 1864, $1 in gold was worth $21 in
Confederate currency, so that at that time the pay of the Con-
federate private soldier, measured in gold, was about fifty-two
cents a month.
292 CIVIL WAR TIMES

laws had aroused violent hostility from the beginning.
The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the
declaration of martial law created great dissatisfaction.
When people refused to sell supplies for the army at
the prices fixed by the government, often far below the
market prices, and to take their pay in Confederate
currency, impressment was resorted to. This caused
universal complaints of favoritism, corruption, and op-
pression on the part of the impressing officers. In
many places impressment by roving bands, claiming to
be acting under authority of the government, degen-
erated into what was denounced as no better than pil-
lage. The collection of taxes in kind, a measure
forced upon the government as one of the results of
the depreciation of its currency, was necessarily
accompanied with great waste and occasioned loud
complaints of corruption and oppression of the tax-
gatherers, especially in North Carolina, Georgia, and
Alabama where the greater part of such taxes was
collected.

General Bragg, chief military adviser of the Presi-
dent, was extremely unpopular with the Confederate
generals and with the people. Not only were his own
official actions criticized, but he was often compelled
to bear hostile criticism intended to cover an attack
upon Jefferson Davis himself, for the people had al-
ready begun to denounce what was now openly styled
a military despotism. Both in North Carolina and in
Georgia there were loud protests against the conscrip-
tion and impressment laws and arbitrary arrests, and
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 293

it was said that “seizures of persons and property had
become as common as they were in France and Rus-
sia.” Public meetings denouncing these proceedings
were held in various counties in North Carolina, and
eight of the ten persons chosen in 1863 to represent
the state in the Confederate Congress were reported to
be secretly in favor of peace.”

Judge Pearson of North Carolina assumed the right
to discharge, on writs of habeas corpus, conscripts who
had substitutes in the army, on the ground that the law
authorizing their conscription was unconstitutional.
Governor Vance of that state wrote President Davis
a letter saying that he should be obliged to sustain
Judge Pearson “even to the summoning the military
‘force of the state to resist the Confederate States au-
thorities.” Governor Brown of Georgia was equally
outspoken in denying the constitutional power of the
Confederacy to enforce its conscription laws in a “‘sov-
ereign state.” Even the Confederate Vice-President,
Alexander Stephens, is quoted as saying in a public
speech that “Independence without liberty was of no
value to him, and if he must have a master he cared
not whether he were northern or southern.”

On every hand were signs of revolt against the Con-
federate administration. So loud were the complaints
of illegal impressments in east Louisiana and southern
Mississippi, that the Confederate President directed
George B. Hodge, the Assistant Inspector-General, to

*See Appleton’s Annual Cyclopedia for 1863, under North Caro-
lina and Georgia.
294 CIVIL WAR TIMES

make an official investigation of them. This officer
interviewed “the most prominent and respectable citi-
zens,” and on July 14, 1864, submitted a report.
Some complaints were ascertained not to be well
founded, but, the report stated, “The proofs, however,
are overwhelming that the people of this district have
for months and years undergone exactions and op-
pressions at once illegal, vexatious, and unjust.” The
military officers “imagined themselves invested with
plenary powers” and “supplies of forage and subsist-
ence were impressed by officers of all grades, and even
by privates,” for which certificates were given. There
was no money in circulation, but the people were
“laden with these worthless certificates,” which the
Confederate disbursing officers would not honor and
the tax-collectors would not receive in payment of
taxes. A few examples were given in order to con-
vey “an idea of the chaotic condition of affairs,” but,
says the report, “to enumerate all would swell the list
of claims to thousands, the amount claimed to mil-
lions.”’®

No northern writer ever penned so bitter an arraign-
ment of the Confederate authorities as did Governor
Brown of Georgia. His voluminous correspondence
with the Confederate authorities amply proves that in
his hands the pen was mightier than the sword. Ina
letter written by him November 14, 1864, to the Con-
federate Secretary of War, denying the right of the

® See report in Reb. Rec., ser. No. 110, pp. 695-700.
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 295

Confederate government to control the militia of Geor-
gia, the usurpations of the Confederate authorities are
set forth in forceful language. There is no doubt that
the Richmond military despotism grew more and more
intolerable, but, if so obnoxious in November, 1864, as
Governor Brown’s letter indicates, it must have been
very bad at the beginning of the year. In his letter
Brown says :°

“It is not only my right, but my duty, to uphold the
constitutional rights and liberties of the people of
Georgia by force, if necessary, against usurpations and
abuses of power by the central government. The
militia is, under the constitution, one of the proper in-
strumentalities for that purpose. There is scarcely a
single provision in the constitution for the protection
of life, liberty, or property in Georgia that has not been
and is not now constantly violated by the Confederate
government through its officers and agents.

“It has been but a short time since one of the stores
of the state of Georgia, containing property in the
peaceable possession of the state, was forcibly entered
by a Confederate officer, and the property taken there-
from by force. I had no militia present at the time to
repel this invasion of the rights of the sovereign state,
but should have had them there soon if the property
had not been restored. A single Confederate provost-
marshal in Georgia admits that thirty citizens and sol-
diers have been shot by his guard without his right to
shoot citizens being questioned till within the last few
days, when he was greatly enraged that a true bill for
murder should have been found by a grand jury

° Reb. Rec., ser. No. 110, pp. 789-790.
296 CIVIL WAR TIMES

against one of them for shooting down a citizen in the
streets, who offended him by questioning his authority
over him. Every citizen in the state, both man and
woman, is arrested in the cars, streets, and highways,
who presumes to travel without a pass. They are ar-
rested without law and imprisoned at pleasure of gov-
ernment officials. The houses, lands, and effects of
the people of Georgia are daily seized and appropriated
to the use of the government or its agents without the
shadow of law, without just compensation, and in de-
fiance of the decision of the supreme tribunal of the
state, and her officers of justice are openly resisted by
the officers of the Confederate States. The property
of the families of soldiers now under arms to sustain
the Confederacy is forcibly taken from them without
hesitation, and appropriated, in many cases, without
compensation.”

The wonder is that, under the conditions prevailing
in the southern states, the Confederacy was able to
keep in the field such armies as it had in the beginning
of the year 1864. Nevertheless, a great Confederate
army, commanded by a great general, stood between
Washington and Richmond, and one as formidable,
commanded by another great general, still barred the
advance of the Union armies south of Chattanooga.
Halleck continued to pose at Washington as general-
in-chief. For nearly two years he had been confound-
ing the Federal generals and amusing the Confederates
with his stupid strategy, but the Union cause had sur-
vived all his blunders. It was impossible, however, to
foretell what might happen if he were retained in chief
command, and so in February, 1864, Congress revived
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 297

the grade of lieutenant-general. Grant’s nomination
to fill the place was confirmed March 2; on the oth he
received his commission and on the 12th was appointed
general-in-chief of all the Federal armies. President
Lincoln, after so long and painful and hitherto fruitless
search, had at last found the general who was destined
to lead to: victory the armies of the East as he had led
the armies of the West.

About the same time Sherman was appointed to the
command of the Military Division of the Mississippi.
The two generals held a conference in March and
planned an early and simultaneous movement against
the Confederate armies. Grant was to move on Lee’s
army, with Richmond as the objective point; Sher-
man was to attack General Joseph E. Johnston, who,
after the battle of Missionary Ridge, had superseded
Bragg; and General Banks was to move against Mo-
bile.

Pursuant to this general plan, a mighty army was
gathered at Chattanooga, in every respect the greatest
ever assembled in the West; great in numbers, great in
commanders, and great in respect to the troops that
composed it. It drew from the Northwest the flower
of its youth; in its ranks were representatives of all
the leading Federal armies of the East and of the
West, veterans of Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettys-
burg, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Stone’s River, Chickamauga,
Missionary Ridge, and other famous fields.

Three armies were combined to make up the splen-
did host led by Sherman—the Army of the Cumber-
298 CIVIL WAR TIMES

land, the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the
Ohio. General Thomas commanded the Army of the
Cumberland, composed of the 4th corps under General
O. O. Howard, the 14th corps under General Palmer,
and the 2oth corps (formed by consolidation of the
tith and 12th) under General Hooker, with a cavalry
corps under General Elliott. General James B. Mc-
Pherson commanded the Army of the Tennessee,
composed of the 15th corps, under General John A.
Logan, the 2d and 4th divisions of the 16th corps
under General Granville M. Dodge, and two divisions
of the 17th corps under General Frank P. Blair.
General Schofield commanded the Army of the Ohio,
composed of the 23d corps and General George Stone-
man’s cavalry division.

During the entire month of April, troops, ammuni-
tion, provisions, and military stores of all kinds were
hurried to Chattanooga. Everything was in readiness
for the forward move which began May 5, 1864.
When General Sherman’s army started it numbered
over 100,000 men.

General Johnston’s army, variously estimated at
from 55,000 to 65,000 on May 5, was increased in a
few days to about 75,000. As it was too weak to take
the aggressive, Johnston was obliged, from the begin-
ning, to act on the defensive, keeping his army intact
and waiting for an opportunity to take advantage of
any false move that might be made by Sherman. It
was also necessary for Johnston to rely very largely
upon fortifications and to prepare for the contingency
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 299

of being driven out of one line of works by having an-
other in rear of it behind which he could fall back when
compelled to retreat.

Sherman’s tactics were to move his army as near the
Confederate works as practicable and to make such
demonstrations in front as would fully occupy the at-
tention of the occupants while he was sending a flank-
ing force to the right or left. In this way the campaign
was conducted from the beginning to thecapture of At-
lanta—Sherman continually flanking and Johnston
continually falling back from one fortified line to an-
other.

A marked peculiarity of the campaign was that the
two armies fought no great battle, such as that of
Chickamauga or even that of Stone’s River. There
was none in which all the troops of both armies were
engaged. The greatest number engaged at one time
was in the battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864, where the
Federal troops numbered 30,477 and the Confederates,
36,934. In the bloody assault on Kenesaw Moun-
tain, June 27, 1864, the Federal troops numbered
16,225 and the Confederate, 17,733. The greatest
Federal loss in any battle of this campaign was 4,200,
at Atlanta, July 21 and 22, the next largest being 3,000
- in the assault on Kenesaw Mountain, June 27.

There was, however, a succession of battles such as
those of Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, New Hope
Church, Pickett’s Mill, Kenesaw Mountain, and those
in the vicinity of Atlanta, in which large losses were
sustained. These do not, by any means, represent all
300 CIVIL WAR TIMES

the fighting. In fact there was almost continual fight-
ing in the Atlanta campaign from May 5 to September
1. Besides the battles there was heavy skirmishing
nearly every day at various points along the lines, re-
sulting in severe losses to the troops that participated.
From May 3, when the 79th left’'Catoosa Springs, un-
til June 23, there were only three days when the reg-
iment was not under fire. I was wounded on the 23d
and can not state from personal observation what oc-
curred after that date, but my information is that the
regiment was almost continuously under fire until the
capture of Atlanta. As already stated, Sherman’s
plan was to push his lines as near those of the Confed-
erates as practicable, so that often the main lines of the
two armies were not more than two or three hundred
yards apart. From their works or in trees near by,
Confederate sharpshooters kept up a constant fire into
our lines. Men were liable to be struck by a bullet
at any time while walking about behind their own
works. Frequently some one was killed in his sleep
by a stray ball of a Confederate sharpshooter. Some-
times in the night a furious cannonading was begun
at some point in the front, and then a whole brigade or
division was hastily awakened and compelled to re-
main for hours in line of battle expecting an attack.

The sanguinary character of the fighting may be in-
ferred from the statistics given by Colonel Fox, who
states that the total losses in the Atlanta campaign
from May 5 to September I were:
 

ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 301
Walled, 55 Scireartied saw dade ne Gawvawasaeeee 4423
Wounded: ieincasee atcinucy nanan neecee 22,822
MUSSINGS oi. Jy cuss ane wuss soteae Sv aarcsees 4,442
otal cess tans Aa ale uanatiave Soe kant Merete 31,687

The Confederate losses during the same period, as
estimated by Colonel Fox, were:

 

Killed: situs tees cai quaiiaaa. eae ch sa ahukee. 3,044.
Wounded. uceh2 cess vepnsaa es cae ie vanes 18,952
Capttired| cic vetedicraaie Sekiansaelics veeretens 12,983

MOE Al  aiccathcareys eaoreeinait wauieleiaas aioe 34,979

The Army of the Cumberland began the campaign
with 60,773 men. Between May 5 and September 6,
it lost in

 

Killed | swesiseacece sees vies aasauces va ees 3,041
Wotitided: jis sn 2 poe cc aadabaciiha cana thes 15,783
Total saecaeevterdan diieniseseewegeauke 18,824

The Atlanta campaign illustrates very clearly the
folly, to call it by no harsher name, of attempting to
take, by direct assault, strongly fortified positions.
This was demonstrated in the assault on Kenesaw
Mountain, June 27, 1864. It has never been satis-
factorily explained why it was ordered but it is known
to have been made without the approval of Sherman’s
subordinate generals and over the vigorous protests of
McPherson and Logan. The assault was made with
the 2d and part of the 1st division of the 4th corps,
302 CIVIL WAR TIMES

the 2d division of the 15th corps, and part of the 2d
division of the 14th corps. The Federal forces num-
bered 16,225 and the Confederate 17,733. The losses
in killed and wounded, not including the missing, most
of whom were probably killed, were as follows:

It will be observed that, the numbers being about
equal, the Federal army lost eight men killed and
wounded for every killed or wounded Confederate.
At such a rate it would not take long to fritter away
an army of a million. We can well understand the in-
dignation of General Thomas expressed in a note to
General Sherman on that day, when, after two unsuc-
cessful assaults, a third was suggested.

“The Army of the Cumberland has already made
two desperate, bloody, and unsuccessful assaults on this
mountain. If a third is ordered, it will, in my opin-
ion, result in demoralizing this army, and will, if made,
be against my best judgment and most earnest pro-
test.” ,

In a later dispatch on the same day, when asked by
General Sherman his opinion concerning a proposed
movement, General Thomas said:

“What force do you think of moving with? If
with the greater part of the army, I think it decidedly
better than butting against breastworks twelve feet
thick and strongly abatised.”
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN 303

The campaign very rapidly exhausted the vitality of
the men. Hard marches, intense heat, loss of sleep,
bad water, constant exposure to miasma, told heavily
on the strongest constitutions. Hardest of all was the
intense mental strain of being continually under fire,
with the possibility of being killed or wounded at any
moment in the day or night. No man ventured to
undress ; every soldier sleeping in his clothes and with
his musket and accoutrements by his side, ready to
spring into line of battle at a moment’s notice. For a
week before I was wounded, though I was never re-
lieved from duty, I had been taking medicine and was
scarcely able to march. I probably could not have kept
up another week even if I had not been wounded.

Van Horne states that, in the Army of the Cumber-
land alone, “during the campaign forty-three thousand
one hundred and fifty-three were reported sick to
Major George E. Cooper, Surgeon United States
army, medical director of the department. Of these,
twenty-six thousand one hundred and eighty-four
were sent to the rear; two hundred and seven died
from disease, and one thousand and sixty-seven died
from wounds.”’?°

The campaign closed with the surrender of Atlanta,
September 1, 1864, leaving the Confederate army near
by. Notwithstanding its heavy losses it was still in-
tact and formidable though it had been greatly shorn
of its power by the removal of its commander, General

” Hist. Army of the Cumberland, vol. 2, p. 150.
304 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Johnston, who, after Lee, was the ablest general in the
Confederacy. He had done all that could reasonably
have been expected. Though unable to resist success-
fully the advance of an army greatly superior in num-
bers, he had contested its advance with signal ability.
Because he had not accomplished more, Jefferson
Davis, yielding to senseless clamor, had removed him
and in his place had appointed General Hood, who was
understood to be a “fighting general.”

General Humphreys closes his Virgima Campaign
with this modest sentence: “It has not seemed to me
necessary to attempt a eulogy upon the Army of the
Potomac or the Army of Northern Virginia.” The
same may be said of Sherman’s army and of the Con-
federate army confronting it in the Atlanta campaign.
No eulogy could add to the admiration inspired by the
bare recital of their deeds.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE

For more than a month after the capture of Atlanta,
. Sherman and Hood were each ignorant of the other’s

plans. Jefferson Davis had visited Hood and had dis-
cussed the latter’s project of marching north in order.
to draw Sherman’s army after him and thereby avert
its threatened march through the heart of the Con-
federacy. Hood crossed the Chattahoochee Septem-
ber 29; on October 4th he captured the Federal garri-
sons at Big Shanty and Ackworth; on the 13th that
at Dalton, and on the 15th, halted his army near La-
fayette where he remained a few days and then moved
to Gadsden. There he had a conference with Beaure-
gard who had been appointed to the command of the
Confederate department to which Hood’s army was
assigned. From Gadsden Hood marched to Tuscum-
bia, Alabama, where he arrived. October 31. Sher-
man, leaving the 2oth corps at Atlanta, had followed.
Hood as far as Gaylesville and there had abandoned
the pursuit.

Meanwhile Sherman had been revolving in his mind
the plan of marching through the South. There was
nothing very wonderful in the mere idea of pushing

(305)

20
306 CIVIL WAR TIMES

on past Atlanta. It was not to be expected that, hav-
ing taken Atlanta, his army would sit down there and
do no more. Nor was it to be expected that it would
march back north. This would have been imitating
the King of France who “went up the hill with twenty
thousand men” and then—came down.

Manifestly it was advisable to push farther south,
which would compel Sherman to abandon’ Atlanta as
a base of supplies and seek a new one. To have re-
tained a base so far south of the Ohio would have re-
quired a vast army to keep open his line of communi-
cations extending, for a long distance, through the
enemy’s country. The successful execution of Sher-
man’s plan obviously required the selection of a new
base at some point on the gulf coast. All this is clear
even to one not versed in military strategy. It is
equally clear that it was a very hazardous undertaking
to cut loose from Atlanta before Hood’s army, which
was still intact, with the possibility of being largely
augmented, had been destroyed, or until it was cer-
tain that there was a Federal army north of Atlanta
sufficient to prevent Hood’s advance in that direction.
If, as Sherman maintained, the divisions of the 16th
corps under General A. J. Smith, then in Missouri,
could be brought to Nashville in ten days to reenforce
Thomas, who was to be left to look after Hood, it
would seem to have been the prudent course for Sher-
man to delay his proposed march until they came, or
at least until it was certain that they were on the way.

That Sherman was sincere in his prediction that
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 307

Thomas would be able to hold Hood in check, there
can be no doubt. His enthusiastic belief in the success
of his plan led him to underestimate its dangers. He
dispatched Grant October 9 that he could “make the
march and make Georgia howl,” and the day follow-
ing, assured him that Thomas ‘‘would have an ample
force when the reenforcements ordered reached Nash-
ville.’ On the 17th he said to Thomas: ‘Hood
won't dare to go into Tennessee. I hope he will.”
On the 19th in a dispatch to Halleck, Sherman was
confident that “the enemy would not venture toward
Tennessee except around by Decatur.”

As late as November 1, Grant does not seem to have
been convinced of the wisdom of cutting loose from
Atlanta and leaving Hood’s army to roam about at
will in the rear. His own idea of an “objective” was
well known—it was the army of the enemy in his
front. The three dispatches that follow show clearly
his objections and the assurances by which they were
overcome :

City Pornt, Nov. 1, 1864—6 P. M.
Major-General Sherman:

Do you not think it advisable, now that Hood has
gone so far north, to entirely ruin him before starting
on your proposed campaign? With Hood’s army de-
stroyed, you can go where you please with impunity.
I believed, and still believe, if you had started south
while Hood was in the neighborhood of you, he would
have been forced to go after you. Now that he is so
far away, he might look upon the chase as useless, and
he will go in one direction while you are pushing the
308 CIVIL WAR TIMES

other. If you can see the chance for destroying
Hood’s army, attend to that first, and make your other
move secondary.

U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MuissIs-
SIPPI. IN THE FieLp, Kincston, Ga.,'Nov. 2, 1864.

Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant, City Point, Va.:

If I turn back, the whole effect of my campaign will
be lost. By my movements, I have thrown Beaure-
gard well to the west, and Thomas will have ample
time and sufficient troops to hold him until reenforce-
ments meet him from Missouri and recruits. We
have now ample supplies at Chattanooga and Atlanta
to stand a month’s interruption to our communica-
tions, and I don’t believe the Confederate army can
reach our lines, save by cavalry raids, and Wilson will
have cavalry enough to checkmate that. I am clearly
of opinion that the best results will follow me in my
contemplated movement through Georgia.

W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.

City Pont, Va., Nov. 2, 1864—1II:30 A. M.

Major-General Sherman:

Your dispatch of g a. M. yesterday is just received.
I dispatched you the same date advising that Hood’s
army, now that it had worked so far north, ought to be
looked upon more as the object. With the force, how-
ever, you have left with General Thomas, he must be
able to take care of Hood, and destroy him. I really
do not see that you can withdraw from where you are,
to follow Hood, without giving up all we have gained
in territory. I say, then, go on as you propose.

U.S. Grant, Lieutenant-General.
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 309

Grant’s permission having at last been obtained,
Sherman did not long delay. Thomas had already
been sent to Nashville and, in view of the proposed
movement south, Sherman had authorized him “in the
event of military movements or the accidents of war
separating the general in command from his military
division,’ to assume command over all troops and gar-
risons not absolutely, in the presence of the command-
ing general.

In a dispatch to Thomas November 10, Sherman
made the prediction: “I think you will find Hood
marching off and you should be ready to follow him,”
and in another on the 11th he gave Thomas this cheer-
ful assurance: “You can safely invite Beauregard
across the Tennessee and prevent his ever returning. I
still believe, however, that public clamor will force
him to turn and follow me; in which event you should
cross at Decatur and move directly toward Selma as
far as you can transport supplies.” Sherman started
November 15 on his poetic and erratic “march to the
sea,” carrying out his threat to “make Georgia howl.”

Hood, meanwhile, had been cogitating a plan of his
own which he tells us he had evolved during his stay at
Lafayette, October 15 and 16,* and to which he had
finally won the consent of General Beauregard and
Jefferson Davis. This was to march rapidly north,
cutting off the 4th and 23d corps, then to Nashville,
and thence to the Ohio. In order to accomplish this,

* Battles and Leaders, vol. 4, p. 427.
310 CIVIL WAR TIMES

he expected to be reenforced by Forrest’s cavalry,
12,000 strong, and by 18,000 or 20,000 Confederate
troops west of the Mississippi. He also expected the
advance of his army to be greeted by a great uprising
of the people in Tennessee and Kentucky. His plan
has been denounced by both Federal and Confederate
critics as chimerical, but, from his standpoint, and tak-
ing into account the unforeseen accidents which pre-
vented its accomplishment, it does not seem to merit
so severe a criticism.

It was evident that Hood could not make a success-
ful stand against Sherman’s strong and well-equipped
veteran army, and, desperate as was the venture made,
the condition of the Confederacy was such that noth-
ing remained for Hood but to take desperate chances.
No critic has yet suggested any plan which offered
greater promise of success than the one which he
adopted. Even if he had reached the Ohio it is not
probable that he could have gone beyond it, or that his
march would have saved the dying Confederacy; but
it is probable that, but for the unforeseen delay in
crossing the Tennessee at Florence and the blunder by
reason of which Schofield’s army was permitted to es-
cape at Spring Hill, Hood might have reached the
Ohio. It is also probable that if he had done so the
war would have been indefinitely prolonged, that he
would have been the hero of the “march to the Ohio,”
and that Sherman’s ‘‘march to the sea” would have
been condemned as the colossal blunder of the war.

On November 13 Hood moved to Florence, Ala-
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 311

bama, where he was joined the next day by Forrest,
one of the boldest and best cavalry commanders in the
war, with 12,000 cavalry fully equipped. The vigi-
lance of Canby and the gunboats prevented his re-
ceiving the trans-Mississippi reenforcements which he
had expected, but, with Forrest, he had an army of
nearly 50,000 veteran soldiers. He had ordered the
railroads and bridges to be repaired, so that he could
cross the Tennessee at once and begin his march to
Nashville, but this had not been done. The weather
was bad, the roads were in wretched condition, and he
was obliged to wait another week before starting. By
November 21 all his army had crossed the Tennessee
near Florence and he began his march, intending first
to cut off the Federal troops between him and Nash-
ville.

Sherman, before starting south from Atlanta, had
sent to Nashville all superfluous baggage, arms, and
stores, and also all sick and disabled soldiers. Two
divisions of cavalry were dismounted in order to sup-
ply horses and equipments for General Kilpatrick’s
cavalry which was selected to accompany Sherman and
the dismounted cavalry and scraps of accoutrements
were also sent to Nashville.

It was originally intended to leave Thomas only the
4th corps, but to this was afterwards added the 23d.
These were the two smallest corps of Sherman’s army
and they were still further depleted before the battle
of Nashville by the return home of large numbers
whose terms of enlistment had expired.
312 CIVIL WAR TIMES

By this division of the army which had accom-
panied Sherman to Atlanta he retained a force of about
62,000 veteran soldiers, with nothing to impede their
march that could be dispensed with, while Thomas was
given the 4th and 23d corps, together with the divi-
sions of A. J. Smith, then in Missouri, and the “odds
and ends.”

We turn now to the man who thenceforward, until
after the battle of Nashville, becomes the chief figure
in the exciting military drama that followed. Upon
Thomas the eyes of all the North were riveted; it was
he whose success was to make the ‘“‘march to the sea”
the theme of poets’ songs for all ages, or whose failure
was to stamp it as a stupendous blunder. It was with
great reluctance that he had assumed the vast responsi-
bility placed upon him by Sherman, but having accept-
ed it he discharged it, as he could always be depended
upon to do, faithfully and loyally.

When Hood began his advance on Nashville, Sher-
man’s army was so far away that, for all the aid it
could render Thomas, it might as well have been in
South America. The divisions of Gen. A. J. Smith
had not.arrived. Thomas had telegraphed to Rose-
crans for them but could get no response. As was
afterward learned, the river was too low to transport
them by boats and they were obliged to march across
the state of Missouri in order to reach St. Louis. They
did not arrive until November 30, the day on which
the battle of Franklin was fought and one day before
the advance of Hood’s army was encamped before
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 313

Nashville. Troops were stationed at various garri-
sons throughout Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama,
but it was necessary that a large portion of them
should remain to save the immense stores collected at
Chattanooga, Bridgeport, Murfreesboro, and other
points, and to guard the railroads, unless all the terri-
tory, acquired after two years’ hard fighting, was to be
abandoned.

All the troops that could possibly be spared were
hurried to Nashville. Raw recruits, belated soldiers
who had been home on furloughs, conscripts, and con-
valescents, about 12,000 in all, had been gathered to-
gether by Thomas. These were put into provisional
organizations, but they made a motley gathering. “In
some of the companies,” it has been said,? “every sol-
dier was a stranger to every other. No man knew
his file leader and the officers did not know a single
member of their command.” Such an organization
was ill fitted to take the place of the 15,000 veterans
who had been sent north from Nashville on furlough
or by reason of expiration of enlistment within a few
days after Hood’s movement began.

No better cavalry commander could have been se-
lected than General Wilson, a general of great energy
and recognized ability, whom Grant had recom-
mended to Thomas with the assurance that he “would
add fifty per cent. to the effectiveness of his cavalry.”

2 Captain John E. Cleland: The Second March to the Ohio, a
paper read before the Indiana Loyal Legion, War Papers, vol. 1,
P. 233.
314 CIVIL WAR TIMES

But notwithstanding the most extraordinary exertions
of General Wilson, he had been able, from the dis-
mounted cavalry sent to Thomas, to send to the front
only about 5,000 and of these only about 4,300 were
fully mounted and equipped and able for duty. With
these he was to oppose Forrest’s 12,000.

The only available forces to resist the advance of
Hood were the troops about Pulaski, Tennessee, com-
prising the three divisions of the 4th corps, numbering
about 12,000, the second and third of the 23d number-
ing about 10,000, and Wilson’s cavalry. Immediate
command of the troops at the front was given to Gen-
eral Schofield. It would have been madness to risk a
pitched battle, if it could be avoided, with Hood’s
army, numbering twice as many, and, therefore, the
instructions to Schofield were to fall back, contesting
the Confederate advance as stubbornly and as long as
practicable, until Thomas could gather troops enough
to make a stand or to take the offensive.

Hood’s first move was to cut off Schofield’s retreat
to Nashville, and this compelled the quick withdrawal
of the troops at Pulaski. It was thought that a stand
might be made at Columbia on Duck river, and prepa-
rations were made accordingly. But Schofield stood
longer than was safe, and during the night of Novem-
ber 28 General Wilson found that Hood’s infantry was
crossing the river with the purpose of getting in Scho-
field’s rear and cutting off retreat by the pike, leading
from Columbia to Spring Hill and Franklin, by which
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 315

the army must pass to reach Nashville. Forrest’s cav-
alry was already between Wilson and Schofield, so that
the messenger who was to carry this most important
and alarming news was obliged to travel by a long and
circuitous route and did not reach Schofield until day-
light on the morning of the 29th. There was now a
race to Spring Hill between the Federal and the Con-
federate troops. Forrest’s cavalry arrived first, but
as his men were entering the town, General Stanley,
with Wagner’s division of the 4th corps, appeared,
drove Forrest’s troops out of town, and began to pre-
pare works to hold Hood’s army in check until the re-
maining four divisions of Schofield should arrive.

In the meantime Hood, with Cheatham’s and Stew-
art’s corps and Johnson’s division of Lee’s corps, had
come up, going into camp about 3 P. M., two miles and
a half from Spring Hill and not more than half a mile
from the pike by which Schofield’s troops and trains
must pass to reach Franklin. Schofield’s little army
was now ina very perilous situation. Of the three di-
visions of the 4th corps Wagner’s had preceded
Hood’s army and was at Spring Hill, but Kimball’s
was at Rutherford creek, seven miles south, and
Wood’s was still at Duck river, where were also Cox’s
and Ruger’s divisions of the 23d corps, and all of them
with their trains, in order to reach Spring Hill, were
obliged to march over the pike near which Hood’s
army had halted. The danger greatly increased when
316 CIVIL WAR TIMES

darkness came on. Colonel Stone, of Thomas’s staff,*
thus describes the situation:

“When night came the danger increased rather than
diminished. A single Confederate brigade, like
Adams’s or Cockrill’s or Maney’s—veterans since
Shiloh—planted squarely across the pike, either south
or north of Spring Hill, would have effectually pre-
vented Schofield’s retreat and daylight would have
found his whole force cut off from every avenue of es-
cape by more than twice its numbers, to assault whom
would have been madness and to avoid whom would
have been impossible.”

And now occurred one of the most extraordinary in-
cidents of the war, betokening something like a mirac-
ulous intervention of Providence. .Nearly all that
night the four divisions mentioned, with their trains,
were passing along the pike on the road to Spring Hill.
Hood states* that he called Generals Cheatham and
Cleburne to the spot “where sitting upon his horse he
had in sight the enemy’s wagons and men passing at
double quick along the Franklin pike,’ and, pointing
out to them the moving columns, urged them to attack
at once, but that they failed to do so. Cleburne was
killed the following day and we do not have his ver-
sion of the matter, but Cheatham indignantly denies
that anything of the kind occurred, and says that, on
the contrary, Hood told him he had concluded to defer

“Article on Repelling Hood’s Invasion of Tennessee, Battles
and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. 4, p. 446.
*Ibid., vol. 4, p. 420.
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 317

the attack until the next morning and that the only
thing in the semblance of an order was the suggestion
received about midnight that it would be well for him
to order his pickets to fire on the stragglers of the Fed-
eral army that Hood understood to be passing along
the road.°

Why Hood did not place his army across the pike
as soon as he reached the place where it halted, and
why he allowed the troops and trains to march by dur-
ing the entire night without molestation, has never
been satisfactorily explained. I have often talked about
it with the men of the 79th Ind. They speak of it as a
“close call,” but they are at a loss to explain this, to
them, the most inexplicable circumstance of their en-
tire military experience. I have in my possession
the diary of Lieut. William H. Huntzinger of Co. I,
which states that the regiment started at 8 o’clock on
the evening of the 29th. He records: “At midnight
we were ordered to be very still and march very quiet-
ly, as we must pass near a rebel camp-fire not more than
half a mile from the pike. Soon we came to the light
from the rebel camp-fires; the rebel pickets heard us
and began firing.” He adds that they marched safely
by, passitig through Spring Hill and halting at 3 a. M.

The whole army, with all its trains of ammunition
and supplies, reached Franklin the next day, November
30, but here another trouble arose. The Confederate
advance at Columbia had been so rapid that Schofield

* Tbid., vol. 4, pp. 429, 439.
318 CIVIL WAR TIMES

was unable to save his pontoons and, without them,
it was impossible to get the army across the Harpeth
river at Franklin before the arrival of Hood. To make
a stand was not a matter of choice but of necessity.
Such works were thrown up and such preparations
made as were practicable in the short time allowed
and one of the bloodiest battles ot the war, in propor-
tion to the numbers engaged, was now fought. Again
it seemed that the little Federal army was doomed.
This time, however, it was saved, not by the blunder
of Hood, but by the desperate valor of the Federal
troops.

By some misunderstanding of orders, two brigades
of Wagner’s division stood too long in an exposed
position and were driven back by an overwhelming
force of the Confederates which followed so closely
that the Federal guns could not fire on the pursuers
without subjecting the pursued to equal danger, and
so all entered together the Federal works at the strong-
est point in them. At once the Federal guns at that
point were captured and turned on the Federal troops,
and for a few minutes it seemed that all was lost. At
this critical juncture General Stanley, commanding
the 4th corps, hastened to order forward the remain-
ing brigade of the division, but Colonel Opdycke, the
brigade commander, without waiting for orders, had
already started, and Stanley himself marched with
the men of the brigade. The charge was one of the
most brilliant in the war and resulted in recapturing
the guns, driving back the Confederates, and firmly
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 319

establishing the Federal lines. From that time until
the end of the battle every assault was repulsed with
frightful loss to the Confederates. The bloody char-
acter of the contest may be inferred from the fact
that in this single engagement more general officers
were killed and wounded than in any other battle of
the war. The Confederate loss in general officers was
five killed, including General Cleburne, one of the most
noted of the Confederate fighters, six wounded, and
one taken prisoner.

That night the Federal army with all its trains
crossed the Harpeth and the next night reached Nash-
ville. Hood was not far behind, and by December 3
his entire army was in front of the Federal lines, just
where it had been two years before. General A. J.
Smith had arrived on the day the battle at Franklin
was fought. Not until then, since Hood: had started
on his march to Nashville, had Thomas troops suff-
cient to justify him in risking a battle.

By this time the whole North was alarmed, the au-
thorities at Washington were in a panic, and Grant
himself exhibited more uneasiness than ever before
or after. The danger now was not that Hood would
attack Nashville—it was almost certain that he would
not—but the danger was that he would go around it
and continue his march through Kentucky to the Ohio,

leaving both Sherman’s and Thomas’s armies behind
him. He had not even waited for the “invitation,”
which Sherman thought Thomas might safely extend,
320 CIVIL WAR TIMES

to invade Tefnessee, and here he was in front of
Nashville.

Grant, foreseeing the danger, had sent General Raw-
lins, his chief of staff, to St. Louis to hasten the divi-
sions of General A. J. Smith. Every day he became
more pressing in his demand that Thomas should take
the offensive and attack Hood. Thomas was ready
to move December 9, but a great storm of sleet fell
upon the country about Nashville, making the ground
so slippery that, until the 14th, it would have been
difficult for infantry to march on level ground and
impossible for them to ascend the hills upon which
Hood’s army was entrenched, and the cavalry horses
would have been liable to fall and maim both them-
selves and their riders. Under such circumstances an
assault on the Confederate entrenchments would have
savored of madness, as Thomas’s subordinate generals
in council of war agreed.

Grant’s demands on Thomas for an immediate ad-
vance became more urgent every day. Halleck also
prodded him with messages, and Stanton sent insult-
ing dispatches. The cruelest of all was a dispatch. sent
by the latter to Grant December 7, in which he said:
“Thomas seems to be unwilling to attack because it is
hazardous. If he waits for Wilson to get ready,
Gabriel will be blowing his horn.” And this was said
of the man by whose heroic stand, more than all else,
the Union army had been saved from annihilation at
Chickamauga !

Indeed, for a few days, the fault-finders at Wash-
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 321

ington made Thomas’s life more miserable than all
the Confederates that had ever confronted him in bat-
tle. Notwithstanding his explanation of the situation,
the carping at his alleged “slowness” continued.
Grant every day became more importunate and plainly
indicated to him that unless he made an immediate
advance, sleet or no sleet, cavalry or no cavalry, he
was likely to be removed from command. But Thomas
comprehended, more clearly than Grant or any one
in Washington, the gravity of the situation; he under-
stood his duty and he had the moral heroism that
nerves a man to discharge it, fearless of all personal
consequences. He knew that, by refusing to advance,
he was incurring the displeasure of his superiors, and
that he might bring upon himself the disgrace of being
removed from command, but knowing that to advance
at that time would, in all probability, result in a dis-
astrous defeat and in incalculable injury to the Union
cause, he remained as immovable in his purpose as he
had been at Chickamauga. The high quality of moral
heroism which he exhibited in this trying situation is
admirably expressed by Prof. Coppee:*

“A weaker man than Thomas would have yielded
to the importunity and attacked before he was ready.
Indeed, there seemed little discretion in the matter.
He was ordered to attack at once. If he obeyed, the
best interests of the country were endangered. If he

*General Thomas, p. 262
21
322 CIVIL WAR TIMES

did not, he was liable to the charge of ‘disobedience
of orders.’ The firmness of General Thomas, there-
fore, assumes the proportions of a martyr’s faith; he
would die for the cause, for the honor of the profession
of arms, and for his own spotless character, rather
than obey the orders.”’

Thomas had explained the situation to Grant and the
Washington authorities. With modest dignity he said
in a dispatch to Grant December 9: “I can only say
that I have done all in my power to prepare, and if you
should deem it necessary to relieve me, I shall submit
without a murmur.” He did not know that on the
very day he penned this dispatch, an order, dictated
by Grant, had been prepared, relieving him and turn-
ing over his command to General Schofield. The or-
der was withheld at the instance of Halleck, who re-
deemed many of his own mistakes by this one exhibi-
tion of ability to comprehend the situation, superior
to that of both Stanton and Grant.

But Grant would brook no delay, and another order,
prepared December 13, was given to General Logan,
directing him to proceed at once to Nashville and to
take the command if Thomas had not moved before his
arrival. Grant finally started to Nashville to take
command in person. Fortunately for Thomas and for-
tunately for the country, the battle of Nashville had
begun before the arrival of either Logan or Grant.
On the 14th a thaw set in which broke the sleet block-
ade and orders were given for opening the battle on
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 223

the following day. It could not safely have been be-
gun a day sooner.

It is not necessary to tell again in detail the story
of the battle of Nashville. Military critics unite in
saying that the generalship of Thomas was unsur-
passed by that of any other general in any other battle
of the Civil War. His plan of battle is studied in mili-
tary schools and will be for ages, as a marvelous mas-
terpiece of battle tactics. It was far-reaching, compre-
hending the minutest details, and was executed with
unerring skill. The battle was like a game of chess
in which a skilful player so disposes his pieces and so
makes his moves that the defeat of his adversary is
inevitable. The fighting lasted two days. When it
ended Hood’s army was utterly broken and practically
destroyed. The victory at Nashville, quoting again
from Prof. Coppee,” “stands alone as a unique, thor-
ough, magnificent and far-reaching victory, achieved
by the skill and firmness of one man, who had acquired
the confidence of his officers and men, so that they
fought for him as well as for the cause.”

It was the last great battle fought by General
Thomas and by the 4th corps or by any part of the
Army of the Cumberland. It was a fitting climax to
the military career of that great general, and added
fresh laurels to the brilliant record of the 4th corps
and the Army of the Cumberland. For the Confeder-
ates it was the most crushing defeat inflicted during

"Ibid., p. 276.
324 CIVIL WAR TIMES

the war upon an army in the field. In the battle and in
the rout which followed Hood lost over 13,000 men,
seventy-two guns, and seventy flags. In the retreat
thousands of Confederates, especially those whose
homes were in Kentucky and Tennessee, left the ranks
never to return. They were not cowardly deserters.
Far from it. Among them were doubtless great num-
bers whose bravery and whose loyalty to the Confeder-
ate cause had been amply proved on many bloody
fields. They were men who now saw plainly the hand-
writing on the wall and who were determined to be
led no longer to useless slaughter in a vain attempt
to prolong a hopeless struggle.

The Confederate Army of the Tennessee never
fought another battle under that name. Hood himself,
on January 23, 1865, was relieved of its command at
his own request. Between the Ohio and the Gulf of
Mexico there was no Confederate organization left
which deserved the name of army. The only Confed-
erate army worth considering was that of Lee, now
hemmed in between the great host of Grant in front
and that of Sherman in the rear. The final blow to
the dying Confederacy was given at Five Forks, but
the mortal wound was inflicted at the battle of Nash-
ville.

Mr. Ropes,*® while awarding the credit due to Gen-

* Article on General Sherman in the Atlantic Monthly, Aug.,
1891, reprinted in a volume entitled Some Federal and Confed-
erate Commanders, pp. 125, 144, 152, published by the Military
Historical Society of Massachusetts.
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 325

eral Sherman’s great military ability, thus clearly
states the risks that attended the march to the sea and
the importance of Thomas’s victory at Nashville:

“Yet the propriety of the withdrawal of this army
from the seat of war in the west can be defended only
by the event. To have imperiled the hold of the Union
government on the states of Tennessee and Kentucky;
to have exposed all the posts from Chattanooga to
Nashville, to say nothing of Louisville, to assault and
capture by the Confederate army under Hood; in short,
to have left so much to chance when everything might
so easily have been made secure, was to count unwar-
rantably upon the favors of fortune. No margin was
left for accidents. It is not easy to see why 50,000
men would not have served Sherman’s purpose as well
as 62,000 men; and assuredly 12,000 good troops
would have added greatly to Thomas’s scanty re-
sources, and contributed largely to insure the destruc-
tion of Hood’s army, which alone could give to the
strategy which sanctioned the withdrawal of so many
troops to the Atlantic coast the possibility of leading
to useful results. It is true that Thomas’s victory
practically attained this end. In the march of his
army through the Carolinas, Sherman had to encoun-
ter only the remnants of Hood’s defeated and discour-
aged troops added to the insignificant garrisons of the
Atlantic cities; and with these forces he was abun-
dantly able to cope. But Thomas’s success was really
unprecedented. It could not fairly have been antici-
pated. And it would have been an entirely different
matter for Sherman if Hood’s whole army, or the
greater part of it, had confronted him at the marshes
and rivers over which his toilsome and difficult route
lay.
326 CIVIL WAR TIMES

“Thomas, however, was equal to the occasion. He
scored a magnificent success at Nashville. Sherman
at the same time captured Savannah. Everything
turned out marvelously well. Both officers showed
themselves at their best. The risk having passed by,
the North reaped the full advantage of the daring
march. The task then before Sherman was one to
which he was by nature wonderfully adapted, and
which he soon brought to a triumphant end.”

The victory at Nashville was fortunate for the
Union cause. It was fortunate for Thomas because
it saved a noble soldier the mortification of a shameful
requital for four years of conspicuous services and un-
flinching loyalty to the Union cause. It was fortunate
for Sherman, because defeat would have stripped all
the glory from the march to the sea; it was fortunate
for Grant, because, if his ill-advised order to Logan
had been carried out, he would have been adjudged
guilty of the most stupendous blunder of the war.

General Thomas, above all other generals who ever
commanded them, is the idol of the survivors of the
Army of the Cumberland. A born Virginian, he re-
mained steadfast to the Union cause. His ability as
a general was demonstrated on many fields. There
was nothing of the martinet in his military character.
He disciplined his troops in all that was required to
make soldiers of them, but avoided wearing them out
in useless drills and pompous displays. He never use-
lessly sacrificed them in battle. His fatherly care of
them was so proverbial that he was familiarly known
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 327

as “Pap Thomas.” He was equally distinguished for
his generosity and his sense of justice. After Halleck
had shelved Grant in the reorganization of his army
‘for the advance on’ Corinth, Thomas voluntarily re-
signed his command of the right wing, the Army
of the Tennessee, in order that Grant might take it,
and he himself resumed the command of a single di-
vision in the Army of the Ohio under General Buell.
He was as loyal to his superiors in command as he was
to the government. He refused to take Buell’s place
when it was offered, because of his belief that the latter
had been unjustly criticized. He stood by Rosecrans
long after the hostility of Stanton and Halleck had be-
come apparent, and after it had become equally appar-
ent that they were seeking some excuse to remove him
from command, and when Thomas must have known
that in the event of the removal of Rosecrans he would
become his successor.

It is painful, even at this late day, to read of the
jealousy and envy of generals in the early years of
the war, of the political “pulls,” the intrigues by which
promotion was sought, of the disasters that came be-
cause some risked defeat of the Union arms rather
than help achieve victory under the leadership of an-
other. Thomas’s rugged honesty would have made
him recoil from the mere suggestion of his own ad-
vancement by such means. Modest and retiring, he
never thrust himself forward to grasp for honors;
those that came were almost thrust upon him. When
juniors in rank were appointed over him, when his
328 CIVIL WAR TIMES

own plans or suggestions were ignored by his su-
periors, he never, like Achilles, sulked in his tent, but
manfully and faithfully persevered in doing all in his
power to aid the cause he had espoused.

The affection of the soldiers of the Army of the
Cumberland for their loved commander has been in-
tensified by the conviction that he was unjustly treated
by his superiors and was deprived, during his lifetime,
of the recognition that he had so fairly earned. As
the years go by General Thomas’s fame grows. In
the estimation of those who served under him no man
ranks higher on the splendid roll of famous Union
generals. But.there is something more than admiration
and respect for his military abilities. There is added
a feeling such as one entertains for a kind father.
Other great Union generals may be admired and re-
spected for their shining soldierly qualities and their
great achievements—the memory of none is cherished
with such deep and lasting aEeeion as that of General
Thomas.®

°Adam Badeau in his Military Life of U. S. Grant has prob-
ably done more than any other writer to cast discredit upon the
well-earned fame of General Thomas. In all his allusions to
Thomas we perceive a covert attempt to damn him with faint
praise. That he merited some commendation for his great
achievements and that he had earned the love of his soldiers and
the respect of his country, Badeau could not well deny, and so
there is a studied effort to show that Thomas’s “slowness” per-
petually exasperated the general-in-chief and thwarted his plans,
and was, in fact, one of the chief drawbacks to the Federal cause
in the last year of the war. This slowness, which Badeau vari-
ously characterizes as “torpor,” “inertia,” or “a provoking, ob-
HOOD’S INVASION OF TENNESSEE 329

stinate delay before battle,” he would have us believe was a con-
stitutional defect in Thomas’s character, so deep-seated and
inveterate that it rendered him invulnerable to any amount of
prodding and goading by his superior officers. To prove that he
“was always heavy and slow,” Badeau has raked up an alleged
nickname of “Slow Trot Thomas,” a sobriquet which he says
Thomas acquired as a West Point cadet at the very outset of his
military career. We are assured that his failure to carry out
Grant’s order of Nov. 7, 1863, to attack Missionary Ridge the
next morning “was a great disappointment” to Grant; that there
was no necessity for Thomas falling back to Nashville “except
what Thomas imposed on himself by not concentrating earlier.”
For his alleged procrastination in giving battle at Nashville,
Badeau finds no excuse, and he asserts that Thomas’s delays con-
tinued to embarrass Grant in 1865 and “now compelled Grant to
change his plans.” Indeed, according to Badeau, the “torpor of
Thomas in the Nashville campaign had determined the general-
in-chief to entrust to that commander no more operations in
which prompt aggressive action was necessary.” Finally we are
told, notwithstanding the admission that Thomas’s signal victory
at Nashville vindicated the soundness of his judgment and his
splendid generalship, that “if Grant’s other subordinates had
taken it upon themselves at critical moments to defy his judg-
ments and disregard his orders, the strategy which gave Thomas
the opportunity to strike that blow would have come to naught.”

At this day little weight is accorded Badeau’s opinion of any
Federal general. Van Horne, in his Life of Thomas, has con-
clusively shown that Badeau’s aspersions on his character are
made with a reckless, if not malicious, disregard of facts which
are amply established by the official records.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE END OF AN UNIMPORTANT MILITARY CAREER

I did not see the close of the Atlanta campaign. My
military career was abruptly cut short June 23, 1864.
My experience on the last day of service in the field
affords a fair illustration of much of the fighting dur-
ing the campaign.

The Confederates had made a stand at Kenesaw
Mountain. On June 23 Wood’s division occupied a
position in the line six or eight miles southeast of
Big Shanty, a small station on the railroad. At that
point the main lines of the two armies were. hardly
more than three hundred yards apart. The Confed-
erate breastworks were so formidable that to take them
by direct assault was plainly a hopeless undertaking.
In front of them, probably seventy-five or one hundred
yards, were the rifle-pits of the Confederate skirmish-
ers. About seventy-five yards in front of these were
the Federal rifle-pits, merely a slight barricade of rails,
two or three feet high, with a shallow excavation be-
hind them. To reach these from the main line, the
pickets were obliged to run from the brow of a little
elevation, exposed at every step to the bullets of the
Confederate skirmishers and sharpshooters, jump into

(330)
END OF MILITARY CAREER 331

the rifle-pits, and lie flat on the ground all day. So
close was the watch that the exposure by a man in the
rifle-pits of his head, his arm, or any part of his per-
son, instantly drew the fire of the enemy’s sharp-
shooters.

Six companies of the 79th were on skirmish duty
that day and I was in command of the right of the line.
About 4 o’clock in the afternoon orders came for the
skirmishers to advance at the sound of the bugle and
to charge the Confederate rifle-pits. I do not know
whether the purpose was to develop the actual strength
of the Confederates at that point, or to ascertain if
they had evacuated their main works, or whether the
charge was designed as a mere feint to cover an attack
in some other quarter. When the bugle sounded there
was a momentary hesitation, for every one felt that
those who first exposed themselves were doomed to cer-
tain death. A second time the bugle sounded the ad-
vance, and then the whole line of Federal skirmishers
leaped from the rifle-pits, every man rushing forward,
sheltering himself as much as possible behind trees
and stumps. This advance drew the fire of the Confed-
erates, and before they could reload, the Federal skir-
mishers were upon them, driving ‘them out of their
rifle-pits and back into their main works. For a few
seconds not a Confederate could be seen. Then came
a volley and I felt a sharp, stinging sensation and
knew that I had been hit. As far as I could see, the
space directly beneath the head-log of the Confederate
breastworks was filled with human faces. That was
432 CIVIL WAR TIMES

a

all we could see of those behind the works but the pro-
truding guns and the flash of their discharge told very
plainly that the works had not been evacuated. Al-
most immediately after the first volley the Confederates
made a counter-charge ; reenforcements were sent from
our lines, and, for a few minutes, there was an almost
hand to hand struggle. So closely were the combat-
ants intermingled that a Confederate captain, with
drawn revolver, chased the color-bearer of the 79th
around a tree demanding his surrender. It is almost
needless to say that the demand was emphatically re-
jected. Sergeant Matthew Chandler of my company
assisted me to the rear. As we were leaving the field
we were pursued by two Confederates. They were
about to overtake us when Chandler turned and shot
one of them. He fell dead and the other stopped.

This engagement was never specially mentioned in
the official reports. It was only a skirmish, and yet
two men of my company, which numbered about
twenty-five on the skirmish line, and five Federal
commissioned officers standing within twenty-five
yards of me, were killed within less than ten minutes.
Similar skirmishing occurred almost every day at va-
rious points along the lines.

The rest of the story of my military career can be
briefly told. I was taken to one of the general field
hospital tents in the rear. There I rested for three
days on a cot laid on the ground. All was done for me
that could be done there. The surroundings were not:
very cheerful, and now and then I involuntarily shud-
END OF MILITARY CAREER 333

dered as I looked through the opening of the tent and
spied a hospital attendant carrying an armful of am-
putated legs and arms with as much indifference as
if they had been so many sticks of stovewood.

On June 27, the day of the general assault on Ken-
esaw Mountain, the ambulances having been sent to
the front, I was put in a government wagon and
hauled eight miles over a new corduroy road to Big
Shanty, the nearest railroad station, where I was put
on board a freight train with three or four hundred
wounded soldiers. There were various delays, occa-
sioned by the passing of other trains and anticipated
attacks of guerrillas, and our train did not reach Chat-
tanooga until nearly noon on the 29th.

On my arrival there I was put into an ambulance
and driven to the officers’ hospital on Lookout Moun-
tain. As the ambulance neared the hospital I observed
several female nurses moving about and instantly it
occurred to me that I was appareled in a style scarcely
befitting my return to civilized society. One leg of
my trousers had been cut off to facilitate the dressing
of my wound, and, as the weather was very hot, I had
not paid much attention to the remnant which entirely
disappeared on the way to Chattanooga, so that when
I arrived at the hospital I found myself bereft of every
stitch of clothing except a very short blouse and a
very short undershirt. However, the driver lent me
a long-tailed rubber overcoat, in which I was smug-
gled into the hospital without attracting special atten-
tion.
334 .CIVIL WAR TIMES

It was found that I had a very bad wound, but I
received every possible attention, from the kind hos-
pital surgeon in charge, Dr. J. G. McPheeters, and
his attentive assistants. In about five weeks I was
pronounced strong enough to be sent home on fur-
lough. I reached Franklin August 4. At that stage
in the war the return of dead and wounded soldiers
had long ceased to be an unusual spectacle. Four old
friends of the family met me at the railroad station.
Any of them could easily have carried me on one arm,
so poor and thin had I grown, but they put me on a
stretcher and tenderly bore me home. My mother
was waiting at the gate to clasp in her arms once more
her boy, the mere shadow of his former self, but still
alive. She had discharged her duty to her country
and I had discharged mine.

My wound healed slowly. It was several months
before I could sit in a chair and many months after
that before I could walk without crutches. On No-
vember 10, 1864, I was honorably discharged from the
service. The day that I received notice of it I hob-
bled on crutches to my stepfather’s law office and
resumed the study of law. I had laid aside forever
the duties of an American soldier, thenceforth to re-
sume the less dangerous, but not less important duties
of an American citizen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE STORY TOLD BY THE STATISTICS

The United States government has published a
great mass of records, both Federal and Confederate,
relating to the Civil War, including reports of battles,
military reports, correspondence, and documents of
all kinds. The volumes, popularly known as the “Re-
bellion Records,” are bulky and now number 130.
These are the great storehouse of information relating
to the war.*

A large amount of information is to be gathered
from the muster-out rolls on file in the United States

*There is much diversity in the methods of citing these vol-
umes. The official title printed on the back of each is: War of
the Rebellion. Official Records of the Union and Confederate
Armies. They are variously cited as Official Records, War Rec-
ords, or Rebellion Records. 1 have referred to them by their
popular title, or by the abbreviation Reb. Rec. To one not fa-
miliar with the method of citation there may also be difficulty in
following references to volumes prior to the one now designated
as “Serial Number 36” which, according to the original and
cumbrous method of citation adopted by the government, was
“Series 1, Vol. XXIV, Part 1.” This and following volumes
now have double labels, one designating the series, volumes and
parts, and the other the serial number. The volumes subsequent
to vol. 35 are usually referred to by the serial numbers; those
prior to that volume by series, etc.

(335)
336 CIVIL WAR TIMES

war department and in the archives of the different
states. Indiana has published eight large volumes,
compiled by Adjutant-General Wm. H. H. Terrell,
containing not only the muster-out rolls of the various
military organizations contributed by the state during
the Civil War, but also a brief history of each. Other
northern states have issued similar publications, but
few are so complete as those of Indiana. North Caro-
lina has published a roster of the Confederate organi-
zations contributed by that state. But many states are
still much behind in such work; some have not even
printed their muster-out rolls and the information
contained in them can be found only in the unpublished
records.

To make all this mass of facts available to the gen-
eral reader requires long and laborious investigation
and study. No single volume yet published gives
such an exhaustive compilation of statistics as that of
Colonel Fox, entitled Regimental Losses in the Amer-
ican Civil War, published in 1898. A smaller book,
by Colonel Thomas L. Livermore, entitled Numbers
and Losses in the Civil War in America, has recently
passed to a second edition. It contains in a condensed
form a great deal of information compiled from official
records, the portion relating to the numbers and losses
of the Confederates being especially valuable and in-
teresting. Many statistics are also to be found in the
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, published by
the Century Company, and in Phisterer’s Statistical
Records of the Armies of the United States. Besides
STORY OF THE STATISTICS 337

these, there are multitudes of histories of the war, of
particular campaigns and battles, regimental histories,
etc., in which statistics of various kinds may be found.

It is difficult to determine the exact number of men
enlisted on each side. Some of the records have been
lost; others were imperfectly kept; the enlistments cov-
ered various periods, and some men enlisted more than
once. Reducing the whole number to a three-years’
basis, Colonel Fox’s estimate of the total number of
men enlisted in the northern armies is 2,326,168 while
that of Colonel Livermore is 1,556,678.”

It has been much more difficult to ascertain the total
number of enlistments in the Confederate armies. For
a long time those speaking from the Confederate stand-
point assumed that it did not exceed 600,000, but Col-
onel Livermore has shown that it was much larger—
nearer I,000,000.

Mere figures do not convey a tangible idea. We ob-
tain a clearer conception of the great armies in the last
year of the war, of their composition and dimensions,
from General Webb’s statement of the organization
and strength of the army with which General Grant
entered upon the Virginia campaign in April, 1864.
He says :*

? The variance is chiefly the result of differences in the method
of computing the term of service of those who enlisted for three
years, but who were discharged before the expiration of that
period by reason of the close of the war. See Numbers and
Losses, 2d ed., p. 49.

® Article on Through the Wilderness, Battles and Leaders of the
Civil War, vol. 4, p. 152.

% 22
338 CIVIL WAR TIMES

“The total force under General Grant, including
Burnside, was 4,409 officers and 114,360 enlisted men.
For the artillery he had 9,945 enlisted men and 285
officers; in the cavalry 11,839 enlisted men and 585
officers ; in the provost guards and engineers 120 offi-
cers and 3,274 enlisted men. His 118,000 men, prop-
erly disposed for battle, would have covered a front
of twenty-one miles, two ranks deep, with one-third of
them held in reserve; while Lee, with his 62,000 men,
similarly disposed, would cover only twelve miles.
Grant had a train which he states in his ‘Memoirs’
would have reached from the Rapidan to Richmond,
or sixty-five miles.”

What became of the vast host enrolled in the Fed-
eral and Confederate armies? Of those in the Federal
armies Colonel Fox estimates that there were

Killed in battle (including those who died of wounds)...... 110,070
Died) of disease .c4.cus43 seeds tea ees ses See eon wedek sa eelee 199,720
Deaths from all causes............. 000 e ee eee neces settee 359,528

It is impossible to make an accurate statement of
the Confederate losses. The number of those killed
in battle or died of wounds has been variously esti-
mated ; it is stated by Colonel Fox as at least 94,000.
The lowest estimate of the number of those who died
of disease is 59,297.

It is difficult to form an adequate idea, from these
figures, of the enormous number killed -and died of
wounds. The number in fact was much larger than

_that given by the statistics, for these include only
those who died in service, while many died of wounds
after their discharge from the army. Instances are
STORY OF THE STATISTICS 339

not rare of men who died many years after the close
of the war from wounds received in the service.

Persons not familiar with the statistics usually im-
agine that most of those who died in the service died
on the battle-field or as the result of wounds received
in battle. In fact the number of those who died from
disease was nearly twice as large as the number killed
in battle, or, exactly stated, 199,720. Colonel Fox
states that of those who died from disease, one-fourth
died from fevers, principally typhoid; one-fourth from
diarrhea or other bowel trouble; nearly one-fourth
from consumption or other pulmonary disease, and
‘the remainder from various other diseases.

The statement of the number of deaths from disease
is remarkable when considered in connection with the
fact that, before being mustered in, a physical exami-
nation was made of the enlisted men, and that most
of them were young, strong, and robust; but it is not
surprising when we consider the exposures to which
‘they were subjected, the unhealthy camps, the poor
diet, the bad water, and the great physical and mental
strain to which they were subjected. My company
on December 1, 1862, numbered ninety, rank and file.
Of these ten died of disease in that month. We can
form some idea of this per cent. of mortality if we im-
agine a village of nine hundred in which one hundred
are carried off by cholera or other epidemic in one
month,

But appalling as are these statistics of the loss of
life, they do not by any means tell the whole story of
340 CIVIL WAR TIMES

those who died from disease; for many of those dis:
charged for disability died after reaching home, anc
of these the army records give no account. The mer
who died either in or out of the army, from disease
contracted in the service, as truly gave their lives for
their country as did those who died on the field of bat:
tle. Nor do the statistics tell of all who lived, some
of whom still live, with broken health and shatterec
constitutions.

Notwithstanding the drafts ordered during the wai
there were very few drafted men in the Federal armie:
in proportion to the total enrollment. The total num
ber held to service, as given by. Colonel Fox, wa:
52,068.

There was also a very small percentage of regulars
in proportion to the volunteers. ‘At no time,” Col.
onel Fox states,* “during the period of active hostili-
ties, did the regular army number, present and ab-
sent, over 26,000, officers and men.”

There are some curious statistics concerning the
number of deserters. In the regular army the los:
by desertions was 24 per cent., while in the volun.
teer service it was only 6 per cent. But, according
to the provost marshal general, 25 per cent. 0!
those reported as deserters were wrongly reported
I have no doubt of the truth of this statement
There was but one real deserter from my company
though several men who had been sent home ot

“Reg. Losses, p. 528.
STORY OF THE STATISTICS 341

sick furloughs from various hospitals were reported
by the hospital authorities as deserters and were so
entered on the muster-rolls. All of them afterward
rejoined the company, when it was ascertained that
they had been unable from sickness, inability to get
transportation, or other meritorious excuse, to return
to the hospitals at the expiration of their furloughs.

The most interesting statistics, on the compilation
of which the greatest labor has been expended, are
those relating to the battles in which the armies were
engaged. These give the number engaged, the num-
ber killed, wounded and captured, the number hit in
every 1,000, the proportion of the number killed and
wounded to the number engaged, and various other
curious facts.

The magnitude of the Civil War will most clearly
be perceived by comparing it with prior wars of this
country. The statistics given in Spofford’s American
Almanac for 1886° of the Mexican War and the War
of 1812, are as follows:

Mexican War 1846-1848:

Total American troops enrolled......... 101,282
otal: Killed isos Ss icde ees eee ea oe ss 4 1,049
Total died of wounds.................- 508
Total wounded......... etna ts Saee ct f 3,420
4,977

 

*P, 23.
342 CIVIL WAR TIMES

War 1812-1815:

The whole number of regulars during the entire
service can not be accurately given, but there were in
service in February 1815, 33,424. The whole number
of militia enrolled during the war was 471,622 and the
losses were:

Killed) vecsesscae veces aGeee te sene ace ee 1,877
Wounded) 2203 eateaadensanee ees te 3,737

The battles of the Revolution deservedly occupy a
prominent place in history, but they seem insignificant
when compared with those of the Civil War. The
official records of the Revolutionary battles, especially
those relating to the militia, are very imperfect and it
is impossible to reconcile the discrepancies in the un-
official accounts given of the numbers and losses.

The report of the Secretary of War May 10, 1790,°
gives the number of troops from each of the thirteen
states during the years 1775-1783, including conti-
nental soldiers and militia. The largest number in
service at any time was in the year 1776, when it
amounted to 89,651. In the last year, 1783, it was
13,476. The following table is probably sufficiently
accurate for the purpose of making a comparison be-
tween the battles of the Revolution and those of the
Civil War :”

° American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. 1, pp. 14-19. An
abstract of this report will be found in Spofford’s American

Almanac for 1886, p. 23.
* This table does not include the naval engagements and omits
STORY OF THE STATISTICS 343

NUMBERS AND LOSSES IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J s od
fb i 3 P Se :
Battle—Date. ® | 2 3 a |Ee¢| 3
a |] 2 |e | & |éss] é
Lexington, April 19, ( A. 17
1775. . Bil) 1; 700i |'.i%.06 laviente v | osawoallios dcadlaceee %
Concord, April 19, A. 85
1775. 272
Noddles Island, May Fal tec y Seated eal Ges callaalas Waal
27, 1775. B. 4
Bunker Hill, June 17, § A. 449
1775. B. 1,054
Montreal, Sept. 25, A. 28
1775. Bil) 240i) verte cdl seasaaiell cine as keiacuss ebieties
Quebec, Dec. 31, A. 626
1775. . B. 18
Moore’s Cr’k Bridge, § A. 2
N.C., Feb. 27, 1776. ? B. 30
Sullivan's Island or (
Ft. Moultrie, S. C., } 37
June 28, 1776. a5

 

 

some insignificant skirmishes and “affairs,” and also various en-
gagements between the Patriots or Whigs on one side and the
Tories on the other, but it includes all the principal land battles
of the Revolution and most of the minor engagements. In com-
piling the table I have taken the numbers of those engaged from
Townsend’s U. S. Curious Facts, pp. 338-9. This author does
not cite his authorities and I have been unable to verify his fig-
ures.

Statements of the numbers of killed, wounded and missing in
some of the battles are given in Bancroft’s Hist. of the U. States,
but, in the main, I have adopted the figures kindly furnished me
by Colonel William F. Fox, author of Regimental Losses. These
correspond substantially with those given in Dawson’s Battles of
the United States, Lossing’s Field Book of the Revolution, and
Carrington’s Battles of the Revolution. In a few instances the
numbers given are only estimates and these are indicated by
asterisks.
344

CIVIL WAR TIMES

 

 

3 z » | BE
bp J z eos Bo] oo
Battle—Date, fo 2 5 a BA ® g
a a ° = tO °
fea) M S a OSs a
Long Island, N. Y., (A.j10,000] *4o|] *160]...... *1,097 | *1,297
August 27, 1776. B./20,000 64| 282 BT. aces 367
Harlem Plains, N.Y.,( A.|...... 17 AO 2s dae na Pacyoeur's 57
Sept. 16, 1776. Balle 2 aya 14 FON casa a.) raver sisal 92
White Plains, N. Y., ('A.! 1,600 59 65 30 Ve sctiec 163
Oct. 28, 1776. B.| 2,000 48| 163 BO tes cveveie 231
Ft. Washington, ip 3,000 54 93| 214] 2,600} 2,961
N.Y., Nov. 16, 1776. | B.| 5,000 79| 375| #O6}...... 460
Trenton, N. J., Dec. A.} 2,400 2 Ail 93.44 Fares 6
26, 1776. B.| 5,000 30 5O|esaace 918} 998
Princeton, N. J., Jan. § A.| 3,000 20 AO! Seen! aepeastoas 60
3, 1777. B.| 1,800 18 58} 200]...... 276
Danbury, Conn., All sucess 20 AO pd wcad | Savarese 60-
‘April 25-27, 1777. 7 B./...... *50| *130) *20/...... 200
Hubbardton, Vt., A.| 700 30 66| 228]...... 324
aay, 4-7, 1777. B.| 1,200 Ge, TAO aint a] wactees 203
riskany or * *

Ft. Schuyler, N.Y., a sissies Ai Re sawed sebalas es
Aug. 2-22, 1777. lls Saree BOO Le via ewes entre sy 4
Bennington, Vt., A.] 2,000 30 MOY ec ah8k heehee 70

ug. 16, 1777. B.} 1,200] 207]......]...... 744 951
Brandywine, Pa., A.|I1,000] 200] 800] 200}],..... 1,200
B espatts 1777. B.|18,000 go] 488 | elevate 584

us ele Or A.} 2,500] 65| 218] 38}...... 321
nid eee Y. 98. 3,000| *200} *4oo]....../...... 600
Paoli, Pa., Sept. 20, ( A.} 1,500] *100] *200]...... 80} 380
1777. Bisleceste ted 4 Aliveeaae| oie 8
Germantown, Pa., A.jt1,000] 152] 521] 4o0]...... 1,073
Oct. 4, 1777. B.|15,000} 100] 400 35. aaa 535
Ft. Clinton, N. Y., PAN ig haa a *50| *180] *20]...... 250
Oct. 6, 1777. B. #40) MISO scan fs vcnierss 190
Saratoga, N. Y., = 4o| IIo]......]...... 150
Oct. 17,1777. . ; *50] *300) *150| 5,791| 6,291
Ft. Mercer, N. J., A, 14 23 e eee 38
Oct. 22; 1777. B. 78| I50]......,....-- 228
Ft. Mifflin, Pa., Nov. { A.|. #501) F200 eee c'aalege ie 250
10-15, 1777. B.}. 13 QA av svacs|vaswe® 37
Whitemarsh, Pa., A. 10 BO Vis ative lle aie 3 44
Dec. 5-8, 1777. B. 8 ZO 4 decease ssa gacs 34
Monmouth, N. J., A. 69} 161 132 Jicnava 362
June 28, 1778. B. 65| 160 O1}...... 286

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STORY OF THE STATISTICS 345
J J - Ue
be ; 3 wo oyee. :
Battle—Date., 8 = 5 3 £a3 a
|e | 42 | eB | & [dos] 4
Wyoming, Pa., A. 400 227
July 1-4, 1778. 7 B. & I.} 1,000 50
Ft. Boone, Ky., Aug. ( A.]...... 6
8-20, 1778. Bilswsaws 137
Quaker Hill, R. I, A.] 5,000 211
Aug. 29, 1778. B.; 5,000 260
Tappan, N. Y., Sept.§ A.J...... 60
27, 1778. Biliscesca I
Cherry Valley, N.Y.,§ A.j...... D2 ces srstallaaietaes 30 62
Nov. 11, 1778. Bil Cede vous fell seaso lliiy nalts | reas
Savannah, Ga., Dec. § A.| goo 80} 200]...... 453| 733
29, 1778. B.| 2,000] . 3 TO cece tus [iow acces 13
Sunbury, Ga., Jan. A.| 200 4 TN eisitis cx 189] 200
9, 1779. B.| 2,000 I Bele cate ct lfaantgours 4
Beaufort or PortRoy-{§ A.l...... 8 22. lis aetealhicncraters 30
al, S. C., Feb. 3,’79, | B.|...... 15 52 8B fiscieccaie 75
Kettle Creek, Ga., Al. 9 QO oh vaialdte fase was 32
Feb. 14, 1779. Ba eseies 40| 120 7 lacs das 235
Brier Creek, Ga., A.| 2,000 20 BOW ss vie xy 189 259
March 3, 1779. B.| 1,800 5 TL Wives sia|eecaxs 16
Stono Ferry,S.C., §A.) 800] *30] *116] 155]...... 301
June 20, 1779. B.| 2,000 26} 103 Te lfesctsenacs 130
New Haven, Conn., §A...... 22 EF. | svedvaalllarasaisane 39
July 5, 1779. Balsa 9 40 25 Ihaw alee 74
Stony Point, N. Y., A] 1,200 15 OF. |avrsesveleatsiien 98
July 16, 1779. B.| 600 20 74 58| 472 624
Paulus Hook, N.J., § A.| 400 RA, PRTG std scvelfieis aes: 20
Aug. Ig, 1779. B.| 208] *10] *40]...... 158 208
Newtown or Che- (A. | 4,500 7 BO! wsvatalal woes 37
mung, N. Y., B.
gee 1779. CCT.) TiGO0 lekessen'|s aese.e| haaadavava|eewsds
lege ol wavan- \ A.&F.| 4,500] 228] 610]......|....-. 838
nah, Ga., Sept. BS oc we
23-0i, 18, sa B. 2,000] 4o| 63] 52\...... 155
Young’s House, N. Adley 14 37} 68]...... 1Ig
a A 3, Pali Bilev esas 5 TO [ioe pesca 23
iegeof Charleston, ( q 8 2,000! 2,240
.  §.C., March 2 -| 3,990 92) AS ae eete - oe
* May 'tg, 1780. 9- BJ) 9,000] 76] 189]......]...-.- 265
Waxhaws,S.C.,May{§A.} 400} 113] 203]......|....-- 316
29, 1780. Biles 16 12. | scincsia| eeeees 28
Springfield, N. J., A.] 3,000 13 61 Olascce 83
June 23, 1780. Bil $000.43 dus heteos sletsan lin eeacleeiege
346

CIVIL WAR TIMES

 

Capticed
or Surren:
dered.

Total.

 

3 3
o . ~
bo a ag
Battle--Date. & 2 5
a ry 5
Rocky Mount, S.C., (A.
July 30, 1780. B.
Green Spring, S.C., { A.
Aug. 1, 1780. B.
Hanging Rock, 5.C., ( A.
Aug. 6, 1780. B.
Camden, S.C,, Aug. § A.
16, 1780. B.
Musgrove’ s Mill, A.
S.C., Aug. 18, 1780. B.
Fishing Creek, S.C. (A.
Aug. 18, 1780. B.
Charlotte, N.C, A,
Sept. 26, 1780. B.
King’s Mountain, A.
S.C., Oct. 7, 1780. | B.
Blackstocks, S.C; A.
Nov. 20, 1780. B.
Cowpens, S. in A.
Jan. 17, 1781. B.
Guilford Ct.H.,S.C.,§ A.
March I , 1781, B.
Hobkirks Till, S.C,, A.
April 25, 1781. B.
Siege of Augusta, A.
Ga., eeu 16-June  p’
1781
Fe Ninety- “Six, S.C., i
June I9, 1791.
Jamestown Ford,Va., z
July 6, 1781. B.
Ft. Griswold, Conn., § A.
Sept. 6, 1781, B.
Eutaw Springs, S.C, (A
Sept. 8, 1781. B.
Yorktown, Va., Sept.f A
28-Oct. 19, 1781. B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STORY OF THE STATISTICS 347
SUMMARY.
Captured
Killed. | Wounded.| Missing. Sarrea® Total.
dered.
Americans..... 3,112 7,518 3,415 8,064 22,109
British......... 3,212 8,314 1,237 16,880 29,643
Total...... 6,324 15,832 4,652 24,944 51,752
Killed, wounded, missing, captured or surrendered:
AMOTICANS avis Gainectiacg. 25.04 G8 kaneeas 22,109
IBTItISH 3 2,3ch05 5 sur aeaesd bam rea ne a 29,643
i aa 51,752
Killed, wounded and missing:
AMELiCan Sita ik cesdecisc Aes Geko eS 14,045
IBEIISH ccciraiaicslsiastisiene xy sissies are auraldele 12,763
26,808
Killed and wounded:
AMECFICANS sos. fivianinciee hides Lacs 10,630
British ss csacdavis occa ddccaangaats 11,526
—— 22,156

It would require too much space to give the numbers
and losses in each of the battles of the Civil War.
Those stated in the following table, compiled mainly
from Livermore’s Numbers and Losses, are for bat-
tles in which the total engaged was 50,000 or more.
In preceding chapters are given fuller statistics of the
battles of Stone’s River, Chickamauga, and Missionary

Ridge.
348 CIVIL WAR TIMES

NUMBERS AND LOSSES IN THE CIVIL WAR.

 

Battle.

Engaged.
Missing.
Total loss.

 

Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862.

eee May
4-5, 1

Fair i "May 3I-
June 1, 1862.

Gaines’s Mill, June 27,
1862.

Seven Days’, June 25
to July 1, 1862.

Manassas & Chantilly,

Aug.27-Sept. 2, 1862.

Antietam, Sept. 16-17,
1862.

Perryville, Oct. 8, 1862.

Fredericksburg, Dec.
13, 1862.

Stone’s River, Dec. 31,
1862, to Jan. 1, 1863.

ae May

3

Champion Hill, May
16, 1863.

Assault on Vicksburg,
May 22, 1863.

Gettysburg, July 1-3,

a

Chickamauga, Sept.
19-20, 1863.

Chattanooga, Nov. 23-
25, 1863.

Mine Run, Nov. 27-
Dec. 1, 1863.

ve nee May 5-7,

1864.
Spottsylvania, May 12,

1864,
Cold Harbor, June 1-3,
1864.

CeO eed ah eS Sa ated ae ah Sa I SE RNP eg NO NN RS Pee

62,682| 1,754| 8,408] 2,885 | 13,047
40,335] 1,723] 8,012] — 959/| 10,694
40,768] 456} 1,410] 373) 2,239
31,823 |K.&W.| 1,570 133 | 1,703
41,797; 790] 3,504] 647) 5,031
41,816| 980} 4,749 405] 6,134
34,214] 894] 3,107] 2,836] 6,837
57,018 |K., W.| & M.]....... 8,751
91,169] 1,734] 8,062] 6,053] 15,849
95,481 | 3,478] 16,261 875 | 20,614
75,096| 1,724] 8,372] 5,958} 16,054
48,527| 1,481] 7,627 89} 9,197
75,316] 2,108) 9,549 753 | 12,410
51,844] 2,700] 9,024| 2,000] 13,724
36,940] 845] 2,851 515) 4,211
16,000 510] 2,635 251| 3,396
106,007| 1,284] 9,600] 1,769 | 12,653
72,497! 595] 4,061] 653] 5,309
41,400] 1,677] 7,543] 3,686] 12,906
34,732| 1,294] 7,945] 2,500] 11,739
97,382 | 1,575] 9,594] 5,676 | 16,845
57,352) 1,065] 9,081] 2,018] 12,764
29,373 410] 1,844 187 | 2,441
20,000 381] 1,800] 1,670] 3,851
45,556 502] 2,550 147] 3,199
D2 BOTA 205, Soicell Biles alfesyeiees ans ha areestora
88,289} 3,155 | 14,529) 5,365 | 23,049
75,000| 3,903} 18,735] 5,425 | 28,063
58,222] 1,657| 9,750] 4,757 | 16,170
66,326] 2,312] 14,674| 1,468) 18,454
56, 359| 753] 45722) 349) 5,824
46,165 361 | 2,160) 4,146] 6,667
69,643 173| 1,099 381 | 1,653
44,426 110 570 65 745
101,895 | 2,246] 12,037] 3,383 | 17,666
ON O25 esr sed | enseslats allie pace 5 |e dale
65,785 |K.&W.| 6,020 800] 6,820

 

 

 

 

 

AAO SAA SAO CaO AOAC Oa NO OOO es
STORY OF THE STATISTICS 349

 

 

3 : 3 és é
Battle. a 3 g 5 =
bo = iB
C = ° ae S
ca M4 s = a
Petersburg, June 15-18, 63,797 |K., W.| & M. |....... 8,150
1864. GUjAOG! exces wi tcallin Gece so well ase wre ectrsl iene as

30,477 430) 1,559) 15733] 3.722
36,934 |K.&W.]| 7,000] 1,000} 8,000
37,711 697| 3,983] 338] 5,018
16,377 276| 1,827] 1,818] 3,921
30,829 644| 3,430] 1,591] 5,665
18,410 320] 1,540] 1,050] 2,910
42,823 166] 1,028 564] 1,758
2O;3 2A" | Savetaiyas| Wate tacas lesional oud c.g
27,939 189] 1,033] 1,104] 2,326
26,897 | 1,750] 3,800 702} 6,252
49,773| 387] 2,562] 12) 3,061

Atlanta, July 22, 1864.
Winchester Sept. I9,
1864. ,
Cedar Creek, Oct. 19,

1864.

Boydton Plank Road,
ct. 27, 28, 1864.

Franklin, Nov. 30, 1864.
Nashville, Dec. 15, 16,

I a en en et ae

AFOAAMOAOAOMOMOM

 

 

 

 

 

Pens s . 23.207 [cra cue | siaru savas [evar neeaal|s ewes
ssault at Petersburg, 63,299 62 ,18 26} 4,140
April 2, 1865. 18,576]...... : oe Joe ee

 

The greatest loss of general officers in any single
engagement was that of the Confederates in the battle
of Franklin, in which one major-general and four
brigadier-generals were killed, one major-general and
five brigadier-generals were wounded, and one briga-
dier-general was captured. This was most remarka-
ble, considering that the total number of Confederates
engaged was only 26,897.

Neither the number of men lost in a particular bat-
tle nor the number lost by a particular regiment gives
us an accurate idea of the dangers to which the partici-
pants were exposed, unless we know the proportion
of the killed and wounded to the number engaged.
Many regiments lost a greater per cent. of killed and
350 CIVIL WAR TIMES

wounded in some small battle or skirmish than others
lost in greater ones.

The charge of the Light Brigade has been celebrated
in prose and verse as the most striking exhibition in
history of men marching into the very jaws of death.
The Light Brigade lost 36.7 per cent. in killed and
wounded. Colonel Fox gives a list of 63 Federal
regiments and 52 Confederate regiments, each of
which in a single engagement lost over 50 per cent. in
killed, wounded, and missing; 24 of the Federal regi-
ments lost over 60 per cent. Two Federal regiments,
the 1st Minn. and the 141st Penn., and two Confeder-
ate regiments, the 1st Texas and the 21st Ga., each
lost at Gettysburg over 75 percent. Ina single charge
at Gettysburg, the 1st Minn. took into action 262 offi-
cers and men and lost 50 killed and 174 wounded;
seventeen officers, including the colonel, lieutenant-
colonel, major, and adjutant, being among the num-
ber. In the same battle the 26th North Carolina of the
Confederate army went into the first day’s fight with
800 men, losing 86 killed and 502 wounded; it par-
ticipated on the third day in the charge of Pickett’s
division with 216 men; of these only 80 were left for
duty the next day. The 5th New Hampshire, during
its four-years’ service, lost 295 men killed in action or
died of wounds, the killed including 18 officers and
277 enlisted men. The Federal regiment that lost
the greatest number, though not the greatest per cent.,
of killed and died of wounds, was the 1st Maine Heavy
Artillery, recruited for artillery service but serving as
STORY OF THE STATISTICS 351

an infantry regiment. Of its total enrollment of
2,202, it lost 423 in killed and died of wounds, or 19.2
per cent., all these losses occurring during a period
of about ten months.

Undoubtedly there were other regiments, Federal
and Confederate, the statistics of which are imperfect,
whose losses were fully fifty per cent., or perhaps
more; but the average per cent. of killed and died of
wounds was far below that of the regiments above
mentioned. It was about 4.7 per cent. of Colonel
Fox’s total of 2,326,168, and about 7 per cent. of
Colonel Livermore’s total of 1,556,698.

The figures given in the foregoing tables do not fully
represent the fighting in campaigns such as those of
Grant and Sherman in the spring and summer of 1864.
The battles beginning with the first day’s fight in the
Wilderness, May 3, 1864, and ending with that of
Spottsylvania, May 12, were really parts of one con-
tinuous battle in which the Federal loss, according to
Colonel Livermore, was 26,815 in killed and wounded,
and 4,183 missing. So the battles of the Atlanta cam-
paign in the month of May, 1864, were really parts
of one continuous battle in which the Federals, with
an effective force of 110,123, lost in killed and
wounded 10,528 and in missing, 1,240, and the Con-
federates, with an effective force of 66,089, lost in
killed and wounded 9,187. Even these figures do not
convey an accurate idea of the desperate fighting and
the enormous losses in the last year of the war.

.
352 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Charles A. Dana® has compiled from the official re-
ports a table showing the losses in the Army of the
Potomac and the Army of the James in Grant’s Rich-
mond campaign, from the beginning, May 3, 1864,
to the surrender at Appomattox, April 9, 1865. It
shows the following totals:

Captured and
Killed. W ounded. Missing. Total.
15,139 77,748 31,503 124,390

Some idea may be formed of these enormous losses
if we consider that they far exceed the great army with
which Sherman began his Atlanta campaign, and that
they more than twice outnumbér the army with which
Rosecrans started on his Chattanooga campaign.
They also outnumber all the American troops engaged
in the whole of the Mexican War. And yet these
figures represent only the Federal losses and do not
take into account those of the Confederates.

The magnitude of the battles of the Civil War,
compared with those of the Revolution, will be seen
by comparing the following summary of the losses at
Chickamauga and Gettysburg with the summary given
of the Revolutionary losses.

LOSSES AT CHICKAMAUGA,
Killed. W ounded. Missing. Total.

 

Federals ........... 1,657 9,756 4,757 16,170
Confederates ....... 2,312 14,674 1,468 18,454
otal seesasees 3,969 24,430 6,225 34,624

* Recollections of the Civil War, p. 211.
STORY OF THE STATISTICS 353

Killed, wounded and missing:

Fedeétals~ @ vevssaxcvewavencalpenes 16,170
Confederates .......... cece ee eeae 18,454
34,624
Killed and wounded:
Hederals' ss J.ausuiiearetaeasars 11,413
Confederates .............000000 16,986
28,309

LOSSES AT GETTYSBURG.
Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total.

 

 

Federals sasiaae vs ane 3,155 14,529 5,365 23,049
Confederates ....... 3,903 18,735 5,425 28,063
otal: -.sawencan 7,058 33,204 10,790 51,112
Killed, wounded and missing:
Federals -cusadwee av acaeci genie 23,049
- Confederates ........... 0. ce eee ee 28,063
51,112
Killed and wounded:
Federals: .jcheaccnae Gesu acwdaeers 17,684
Confederates airs exc ca dese oh 22,638
40,322

The following statistics of my company probably do
not vary materially from those of other companies in
active service, in the showing made of the men who
entered the service and what became of them.

Mustered into service:

Captain. si05 cn aeeokasae Howes da weUns Meda new eanlewe I
Ist’ Lietitenants: <.0:..cacusas: cacieseadeniaws meaiienewee I
od: Lieutenants se seca oyenes olka cake Weve ck nbos sau vee I
Sergeants: svsiccicsaccseuiaeeadavastewveeeese eee ax eug aun 5
Corpotals:—cselcascdaswasunaaes chose See eects ohe eas eT SNS 8
Wagoner: sacnciss ncdedaciwaee baeinaltelie hace siees Dar dacciess I
Privates: eo sscnaciecastduiar een ct av aoe ots ise aemeniotenaniens’s 79

23
354 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Gained by assignment............. ces cee eee e eee eee eene I
Gained by recruit....... AGWe netted OES cee eet abe onaes siete eee ees I
otal! soiawecaeaecuu Gees wtatenaaeen tsi ahel 98
Resignations: 3 22sdecaeee caw ved aue satan ae nee ee 3
Transferred by promotion...........000 see eeeee ee eeeeee I
Transferred to Engineer Corps, Veteran Reserve Corps,
and other army organizations.............2eseeeeeeee 10
Released by civil authority........... 00... c cece e ee eee I
Deserted: (3 iviatelis caus saaee naw eeetatcale eee nage I
Killed 1n-aChions woscaua vedi ss a Saleteielay eases eeaaees 5
Died of disease. <ccaiis cages coe ee eneeca dc ces bu nade ocawen 22
Discharged for wounds or disability...............0.05 15
Mustered out at expiration of enlistment............ 40

The number killed and wounded during the service
were:

Killed, enlisted men. ...... 0.0... cece cece eee ne eeeee 5
Wounded, officers..............0.000 00 irk tae and cents 2
Wounded, enlisted men........-.. see cece eee ee eee ee ene Io

— 2

Tt eceuasiseel eae debe ite Motes Sluice dca: Neve ack ed Sorsadiw gacaenoe Sie 17

All these were killed or wounded after December 30,
1862, at which time the total rank and file of the com-
pany numbered only eighty, so that about 20 per cent.
of those remaining after that date were killed or
wounded. But there were never eighty men in any
engagement. At Stone’s River, the first battle, the
total number engaged was only thirty-four, and there
was never a greater number in action at one time.

The statistics give us only a hint of the development
STORY OF THE STATISTICS 355

of a citizen into a soldier, and, to understand this fully,
we must read such books as General Humphreys’s Vir-
ginia Campaign and General Cox’s Atlanta Campaign.
These are not mere eulogies, such as are found in regi-
mental histories and memorial day addresses. They
are careful statements of facts by men fully conver-
sant with them. They tell of such heroic fighting on
both sides as was never surpassed in any war in the
world. The men of the North and the South that
fought in 1864 in the Richmond and Atlanta cam-
paigns were veteran soldiers, whose training and ex-
perience had raised them to the highest grade of ef-
ficiency. We read of repulses but of few panics. The
men on both sides went where they were ordered, stood
as long as they were commanded to stand, and retreat-
ed only when it was apparent to their officers that to
stand longer would result in useless slaughter.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
REVISITING CHATTANOOGA AND CHICKAMAUGA

Since the close of the Civil War the United States
government has established the Chickamauga and
Chattanooga National Military Park, including not
only the battle-ground of Chickamauga, but consider-
able portions of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Moun-
tain and the approaches to the battle-fields. Part of
the ground has been acquired by purchase and part by
donation.

The plan of this great work originated with General
Henry V. Boynton, then the Washington correspond-
ent of the Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette, and now
President of the Park Commission. As Lieut.-Colonel
of the 35th Ohio Vols., he participated in the battle of
Chickamauga and in the assault of Missionary Ridge,
and he has been actively identified with the park: since
its inception. He began by advocating the project in
a series of letters to the Commercial-Gazette. .It was
favorably considered at a meeting of the Society of the
Army of the Cumberland, and a committee was ap-
pointed by the society which met in Washington in
February, 1889, and secured the cooperation of a
number of those, formerly in the Confederate army,

(356)
REVISITING CHATTANOOGA 357

who ‘had taken a prominent part in the battle. Out
of this grew the Chickamauga Memorial Associa-
tion. The original plan was to include in the pro-
posed park only the Chickamauga battle-ground, but
its scope was enlarged to include the approaches and
portions of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Moun-
tain. Later the aid of Congress was invoked. This
resulted in the passage in 1890 of a bill, prepared by
General Boynton, for the purchase of the necessary
ground and the establishment of a national park to
be known as the “Chickamauga and Chattanooga Na-
tional Military Park.” The purchase of the ground
and the establishment of the park were placed under
the direction of the Secretary of War, and the manage-
ment, subject to his supervision, was given to three
commissioners, each of whom must have actively par-
ticipated in the battle of Chickamauga or in one of the
battles about Chattanooga. Two of the commis-
sioners were to be appointed from civil life by the
Secretary of War and a third was to be detailed by the
Secretary from among ihe officers of the army best
acquainted with the details of those battles, who was to
act as sgeretary of the commission.

Since then the government has acquired 5,000 acres
of the ground on which the battle of Chickamauga was
fought, about fifty acres of the north end of Mission-
ary Ridge, five acres where the north observation tower
stands, and three acres where Bragg had his head-
quarters, also Orchard Knob, about eight acres, and
about ninety-eight acres at the point of Lookout Moun-
358 CIVIL WAR TIMES

tain, besides about 330 acres for the various ap-
proaches. About seventy-five miles of the approaches
have been improved and converted into magnificent
boulevards. The ground which it is proposed to ac-
quire, in addition to that already obtained, will make a
total of nearly 7,600 acres.*

The appearance of Missionary Ridge has been much
changed since the war. Several houses have been
erected on it and a considerable portion of the ground
between Fort Wood and the base of the ridge has been
platted into lots upon which houses have been built.
The government has constructed a road on the crest,
following the line occupied by Bragg’s army, and has
erectéd two observation towers, one at the point where
Bragg’s headquarters were located, the other some dis-
tance north of that point and opposite the place where
the left of the assaulting line reached the summit.
Along the crest of the ridge are various monuments
and markers commemorating the positions of some of
the troops engaged, but when I was last there the mark-
ing was not so complete as that on the battle-field of
Chickamauga.

Greater changes are seen on Lookout Mountain and

*General Boynton published a volume in 1895 entitled The
Chickamauga National Military Park, containing a full history of
the preliminary steps and the legislation leading to the establish-
ment of the park, its boundaries, the approaches, and the method
of marking the various points of interest, with much valuable in-
formation concerning the battles intended to be commemorated.
To this volume I am largely indebted for statistics not easily
obtainable elsewhere.
REVISITING CHATTANOOGA 359

in its vicinity. A railroad now reaches the summit
by winding around the mountain. There is also an
inclined railroad on which cable cars, drawn by pow-
erful machinery, are hauled up a very steep incline.
A dummy railroad on the top extends back several
miles from the point. There is a large hotel not far
from the place where the old wagon road reaches the
summit and another on the side of the mountain a little
below the point. The old officers’ hospital burned
down and on its site another building has been erected.
Various other changes are manifest but the point itself
looks precisely as it looked during the war.

The greatest effort made by the government is seen
in the work which has been done to restore the battle-
field of Chickamauga, so that it may present, as nearly
as possible, its appearance when the battle was fought.
The timber which afterward grew in the open fields
has been cut down, and in places where, after the bat-
tle, timber was cut down, trees are now being allowed
to grow. Nearly all the old roads and bridges are
there just as they were during the battle, but the roads
have been improved by the government and converted
into splendid driveways. Roads opened since the bat-
tle have been closed, except a few, constructed by the
government to afford greater facilities for viewing
the battle-field. The most noticeable change in the
natural surface of the ground itself is seen in the clear-
ing away of the underbrush, which was necessary in
order to give an unobstructed view of the lines of bat-
tle, and access to them. A few structures appear that
360 CIVIL WAR TIMES

were not there at the time of the battle, particularly
the buildings erected by the government for the use of
the troops quartered in the park during the Spanish
War, and a hotel near Crawfish Spring. But nearly
all the old houses, chiefly log structures, remain, nota-
bly Lee and Gordon’s Mill, the Widow Glenn, the
Brotherton, the Poe, the Kelly, and the Snodgrass
houses, and they show few changes.

Three iron and steel observation towers, each sev-
enty feet high, have been erected by the government,
one on Snodgrass Hill, one near Hall’s Ford and one
near Jay’s saw mill. The positions occupied by the
Federal and Confederate lines during each day of the
battle are designated by small stone markers, indicat-
ing each regiment engaged. The position of each bat-
tery is indicated by cannon, of the kind used by it in
the battle, mounted on carriages but without caissons.
Iron markers, three by four feet, indicate the head-
quarters of the armies and the positions of the corps,
divisions and brigades. A tablet designating the posi-
tion of a corps is inscribed with the name of the com-
mander, the divisions, and the division commanders.
The division tablets represent the brigade organiza-
tions, and the brigade tablets, the regimental organiza-
tions. On each tablet is also inscribed the position or
event which it commemorates. Smaller tablets com-
memorate some notable event of the battle. The place
where any general officer was killed is indicated by a
pyramid of cannon-balls. Monuments have also been
erected by the government and by the states whose
REVISITING CHATTANOOGA 361

troops were represented in the battle, in honor of the
various organizations engaged. These are generally
located at some point where the organization desig-
nated especially distinguished itself, or where, for some
other reason, the site was deemed most appropriate.
The monument erected by the state of Georgia, the
Wilder brigade monument, and some others, are beau-
tiful and imposing.

I did not see Chattanooga or the Chickamauga bat-
tle-field after the year 1864 until the fall of 1899, when
Captain Eli F. Ritter, of the 79th Ind., and I accom-
panied a small party going to participate in the dedica-
tion of the monument erected to Wilder’s brigade. In
the forenoon of the first day after our arrival we vis-
ited the National Cemetery. To me it did not seem
right that only Union soldiers should be buried there.
I hope to see the day when the Confederate dead also
shall be buried in this ground which now belongs to a
common Union.

We next visited Missionary Ridge, ascending at the
north end where Sherman fought, and driving along
the magnificent boulevard on the crest to a considera-
ble distance south of the point where Bragg had his
headquarters. From the summit one has a full view
of the valley below, of Orchard Knob, Chattanooga,
and Lookout Mountain. The distance from Orchard
Knob to the top of the ridge in front is a mile or more,
the slope of the ridge is about six hundred yards, and
its height about four hundred feet. It would require
considerable physical exertion to walk from Orchard
362 CIVIL WAR TIMES

Knob to the top of the ridge, and not many would at-
tempt it without a good stout pair of legs. Looking
at the long distance traveled by the assaulting forces
and at the steepness of. the ascent, it seems incredible
that the Union troops should have carried the works
on the summit. But Captain Ritter and I can each
vouch that the other, on November 25, 1863, ran at a
pretty brisk gait from Orchard Knob to the foot of
the ridge and then climbed the hill without stopping to
take breath until near the top.

In the afternoon we ascended Lookout Mountain in
a cable car which, at times, seemed to be going almost
straight up. Notwithstanding the changes since the
war, the essential features of the mountain, and es-
pecially of Lookout Point, remain as they were during
the war. From the point, which rises almost perpen-
dicularly about 1,600 feet above the valley of the Ten-
nessee, the view is one of the most beautiful in Amer-
ica. It is said that one standing there on a clear day
can see portions of seven states—Tennessee, Georgia,
Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky,
and Virginia. When in the hospital there I could
view from my window the thunder-storms raging in
the clouds below. It was below and about Lookout
Point that Hooker’s men fought the memorable “battle
among the clouds.” After going on the dummy rail-
road to its terminus, we returned and spent some time
walking about in the vicinity of the point.

The next day we drove from Chattanooga to the
Chickamauga battle-ground, passing through Ross-
REVISITING CHATTANOOGA 363

ville, of which I had a very vivid recollection as it ap-
peared on the morning of September 21, 1863. Leav-
ing Rossville we drove first to the Wilder monument
near Lytle’s station. All along the road from Chatta-
nooga we passed the tablets commemorating some im-
portant event that occurred during or shortly before
the battle. :

To one who participated in the battle of Chicka-
mauga, it is a weird sight which the field now presents
to his view. Looking through the trees at the monu-
ments and markers which indicate the lines of battle
and at the batteries which now stand as mute as the
monuments themselves, one can almost imagine the
dead rising out of the ground and taking their places
in mortal conflict.

Some points on the field were especially interesting
to us. We first visited the place now marked by a
monument to the 79th Ind., a little southeast of the
Brotherton House, where Beatty’s brigade charged and
captured a Confederate battery. As we stood silently
looking at the monument I felt the tears trickling down
my cheeks. I looked at Captain Ritter and the tears
were running down his cheeks also. Neither of us
spoke, but each understood that memory had recalled
the scenes of long ago and had touched some hidden
spring in the human heart that causes it to overflow.

Lee and Gordon’s Mill appears almost precisely as
it did at the time of the battle, but there has been a

_change in the road’ crossing Chickamauga creek.
Crawfish Spring is unchanged, but the surroundings
364 CIVIL WAR TIMES

have been somewhat altered by the erection of a dam:
just below it and a hotel near by. The flow is of suf-
ficient volume to make a large stream. We camped
near it a few days before the battle, after a hot and
dusty march, and I recall the ecstasy with which men
and beasts quenched their thirst in the cold clear water
that gushed out of the rocks.

The point that interested me more than any other
was Snodgrass Hill. I easily found the spot, a few
yards east of the observation-tower, where I stood
Sunday afternoon until after 7 o’clock and witnessed
the repeated assaults of Longstreet’s forces and the
magnificent charge of Whitaker’s and Mitchell’s bri-
gades.

The day after visiting the battle-field of Chicka-
mauga I happened to meet in the hotel at Chattanooga
a Confederate officer of the brigade to which Carnes’s
battery was attached. This was the battery in the cap-
ture of which I had participated. We had a brief but
social talk about it and, with a cordial grasp at part-
ing, he said: “Well, Captain Howe, the war is over.”
I replied: ‘Thank God, we can at last clasp hands
over the bloody chasm.”

That evening all the visiting Union soldiers were
cordially invited to attend a camp-fire at one of the
Confederate camps in the city. Much to my regret, on
account of engagements at home, I could not stay.
Nothing would have pleased me better than to accept
the hospitality of the battle-scarred veterans who were
once my foes. I felt that I had been thoroughly “re-
REVISITING CHATTANOOGA 365

constructed.” “Old age,” it is said, “ne’er cools the
Douglas blood.” Perhaps it has not cooled my own
patriotic ardor, but the lapse of years has wrought a
wonderful change in my feelings toward my ancient
‘foemen.

No one who took part in the bloody contest at Chick-
amauga can ever forget it. But the field on which
that memorable battle was fought has since taken on
anew glory. We recall that it was the camp-ground
of the soldiers of the Spanish-American War. We
see marching from that field to the defense of a com-
mon country men of Massachusetts and South Caro-
lina, of Georgia and Indiana, marching side by side,
men whose fathers a third of a century before had met
there in mortal combat. Whether they step to the
tune of “Dixie” or the “Red, White and Blue,” they
are marching under one flag and keeping time to the
music of the Union. Is there a soldier, Federal or
Confederate, in whom this scene inspires no generous
thoughts, no new devotion to his country?

We of the North recall with honest pride the splen-
did achievements of the Army of the Potomac, the
wonderful victories won by Grant, Sheridan’s brilliant
climax at Five Forks. But as I read the glowing ac-
counts of the final Federal triumph, I can not help
thinking of the last stand made by the gallant band un-
der General Lee at Appomattox Court House, of the
little handful left of the once great Army of Northern
Virginia, men whose valor had been proved in many
desperate conflicts, heroes who had fought at Freder-
366 CIVIL WAR TIMES

icksburg and Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg and on
many famous fields, tired, hungry, worn with days
and nights of fighting and marching, brought to bay at
last, hemmed in by overwhelming numbers, knowing
that the cause so dear to them had been forever lost,
and yet ready at the word of command to rush against
their exulting foes and cut their way out or perish in
the attempt.

When I reflect on all this I respect more than ever
the brave men against whom I fought. I no longer
think of them as foemen, but as Americans whose an-
cestors and my own were comrades in the Revolution;
and I rejoice, as I believe most of them in their hearts
rejoice, that the war ended as it did, not as a mere
triumph of the soldiers of the North over those of the
South, but as the close of a struggle which, without
casting any shadow on the motives or the valor of the
soldiers of either section, makes this the common
country of us all, and enables us all to say, whether we
stand at the base of Bunker Hill monument or beside
Georgia’s shaft at Chickamauga, “This is my own, my
native land.” The “Lost Cause’ has been forever lost,
but the heroism it developed will bear fruit for ages yet
to come.

It was the soldiers of the North and of the South
who first learned to respect their adversaries and who
were the soonest reconciled. In the last volume of
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War’? is a picture of a

Vol. 4, D. 745.
REVISITING CHATTANOOGA 367

scene at Appomattox after Lee’s surrender. Though
a mere wood-cut it tells a touching, an impressive
story. The picture is entitled: ‘Union soldiers shar-
ing their rations with the Confederates. From a
sketch made at the time.” The restoration of broth-
erly feeling between the North and the South, slow as
it may have been in coming, began with the men who
for four years had confronted each other in mortal
combat ; it began as soon as the last gun had been fired ;
it began with the sharing of rations.

I grasp with greatest ardor the hand of the comrade
who stood side by side with me in deadly conflict ; but,
strange as it may seem, next to the pleasure of grasp-
ing the hand of one who fought with me is the pleas-
ure of grasping the hand of the man who fought
against me. All are Americans now; all are com-
rades. Why should we not clasp hands? It is true
that in the bloody contest many went down, but in both
North and South widows and orphans still weep for
the “touch of a vanished hand, the sound of a voice
that is still.” It is true that we may not agree in our
views of the causes of the strife long past, but when
we talk of long and weary marches, of standing on
picket, exposed to howling storms and wintry Dlasts,
of battles in which Federals and Confederates marched
into the very jaws of death, we speak in words that
all understand and of experiences in which, as Amer-
ican soldiers, all bore an honorable part.

“LET US HAVE PEACE.”
APPENDIX

When General Buell arrived at Louisville in September, 1862,
he combined the old regiments of the Army of the Ohio and the
new ones which he found there, and which subsequently came
there, into brigades, and the brigades into divisions. The
brigades and divisions were consecutively numbered from first to
last; the army was designated as the Army of the Ohio, and was
divided into the First, Second, and Third Corps.

Pursuant to general order No. 168 of the War Department,
issued Oct. 24, 1862, General Buell was superseded by General
William S. Rosecrans, a new department was created, called the
Department of the Cumberland, and the army was designated as
the Fourteenth Corps. It was, however, from that time popu-
larly known as the Army of the Cumberland.

On Nov. 7, 1862, by order of General Rosecrans, the army was
divided into the Center, Right Wing, and Left Wing, under
the commands respectively of Generals George H. Thomas, Alex-
ander McD. McCook, and Thomas L. Crittenden, the brigades and
divisions retaining their former numbers. The roster of the
army under this order is given in Cist’s Army of the Cumberland
(pp. 263-5).

By a subsequent order of General Rosecrans, issued Dec. 109,
1862, the Center was given five divisions and the Right Wing and
Left Wing three each. Most of the divisions comprised three
brigades, the brigades being numbered as parts of the division to
which they were assigned, and the divisions as parts of the Center,
Right Wing, and Left Wing. The organization so effected con-
tinued without substantial change until after the battle of Stone’s
River. -

Pursuant to general order No. 9 of the War Department, issued
Jan. 9, 1863, the Center, Right Wing and Left Wing were re-
spectively designated as the 14th Army Corps, the 2oth Army

24 (369)
370 APPENDIX

Corps, and the 21st Army Corps, but the commanders were not
changed and the army was now formally called the Army of the
Cumberland.

The corps and division organizations remained substantially
the same until after the battle of Chickamauga, Sept. 19 and 20,
1863, the roster at that date being given in one of the tables fol-
lowing.

Soon after the battle of Chickamauga the second and third di-
visions of the 11th corps and the first and second of the 12th were
transferred from the Army of the Potomac to the Army of the
Cumberland, the 11th under General Oliver O. Howard and the
12th under General Henry W. Slocum, both under general com-
mand of General Joseph Hooker.

Generals McCook and Crittenden were relieved Oct. 9, 1863,
and the 20th and 21st corps were consolidated into the 4th under
command of General Gordon Granger. The new corps comprised
three divisions, General John M. Palmer commanding the first,
General Philip H. Sheridan the second, and General Thomas J.
Wood the third. General Rosecrans was superseded Oct. 16 by
General Thomas. General John M. Palmer afterward succeeded
Thomas in command of the 14th corps, General David S. Stanley
succeeding Palmer in command of the first division of the 4th
corps, this division, during the battles at Chattanooga, having
been under the temporary command of the senior brigadier,
General Charles Cruft.

The roster of the Army of the Cumberland at the battles of
Chattanooga, Nov. 23-25, 1863, is given in one of the tables fol-
lowing.

Pursuant to general order No. 144 of the War Department,
issued April 4, 1864 (Reb. Rec., ser. No. 59, p. 258), the 11th and
12th corps were consolidated into the 20th under command of
General Hooker; General Granger was superseded in command
of the 4th corps by General Howard, and General Sheridan was
transferred to the Army of the Potomac. -Subsequently General
John Newton was assigned to the command of Sheridan’s division
of the 4th corps.

The roster of the Army of the Cumberland at the beginning of
the Atlanta campaign, May 5, 1864, is given in one of the tables
following.
APPENDIX 371

The Army of the Cumberland practically ceased to be known by
that name after Sherman began his march to the sea. The 14th
and 20th corps made part of the army which accompanied him,
being thereafter designated as the. Army of Georgia, under com-
mand of General Slocum. The 4th corps returned to Nashville
and remained under the command of General Thomas.

The roster of the troops which took part in the battle of Nash-
ville, including the 4th corps, is given in one of the following
tables.

The following rosters contain only the corps, division, and
brigade organizations. The regimental lists and lists of depart-
ment, headquarter, unassigned, garrison, and other detached
troops will be found in the volumes cited.

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY OF THE
CUMBERLAND AT THE BATTLE
OF STONE’S RIVER.

Deé¢. 31,,1862—Jan. 1 and 2, 1863.

(Reb. Rec., ser. 1, vol. 20, pt. 1, pp. 174-182; Van Horne: Army
of the Cumberland, vol. 1, pp. 281-286.)

Mayj.-GEN. WittaM S. Rosecrans, Commanding.

CENTER.

May.-Gen. Grorce H. Tuomas.

FIRST DIVISION.
May.-Gen. Lovett H. Rousseau.
Brigades. 1st, Col. Benj. F. Scribner.
2d, Col. John Beatty.
3d, Col. John C. Starkweather.
4th, Lt.-Col. Oliver L. Shepherd (Regulars).
372 APPENDIX

Artillery. Capt. Cyrus O. Loomis.
Kentucky Battery A.
1st Mich. Battery A.
sth U. S. Battery H.

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. JAMES S. NEGLEY.

Brigades. 1st, Brig.-Gen. James S. Spears.
2d, Col. Timothy R. Stanley.
3d, Col. John F. Miller.

Artillery. Kentucky Battery B.
roth Wis. (2 sections).

Ist Ohio Batteries G and M.

THIRD DIVISION.
Bric.-GeN. Speep S. Fry.

(The first brigade and Church’s Battery were the only troops
of this division engaged.) ,
Brigades. 1st, Col. Moses B. Walker.
2d, Col. John M. Harlan.
3d, Brig.-Gen. James B. Stéedman.
Artillery. 1st Mich. Battery B.
ist Ohio Battery C.
4th U. S. Battery IL.

FOURTH DIVISION.
Mayj.-GEn. Ropert B. MITCHELL.

(Only a portion of the division engaged. See Reb. Rec., ser. I,
vol. 20, pt. I, p. 179.)
Brigades. 1st, Brig.-Gen. James D. Morgan.
2d, Col. Daniel McCook.
Artillery. 2d Ill. Battery I.
10th Wis.

Artillery Reserve. 11th Ind. Battery.
12th Ind. Battery.
ist Mich. Battery E.
APPENDIX Seg

FIFTH DIVISION.
Bric.-GEN. JosepH J. REYNOLps.
(The division was not engaged.)

Brigades. 1st, Col. Albert S. Hall.
2d, Col. Abram O. Miller.

Artillery. 18th Ind. Battery.
19th Ind. Battery.

RIGHT WING.
Mayj.-Gen. ALEXANDER McD. McCoox.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-GeNn. JEFFERSON C. Davis.

Brigades. 1st, Col. P. Sidney Post.

2d, Col. William P. Carlin.

3d, Col. William E. Woodruff.
Artillery. 2d Minn. Battery.

sth Wis. Battery.

8th Wis. Battery.

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-GEN. RicHarp W. JOHNSON.
Brigades. Ist, Brig.-Gen. August Willich.
2d, Brig.-Gen. Edward N. Kirk.
3d, Col. Philemon P. Baldwin.

Artillery. 5th Ind. Battery.
1st Ohio Batteries A and E.

THIRD DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. Puitip H. SHERIDAN,

Brigades. ist, Brig.-Gen. Joshua W. Sill.
2d, Col. Frederick Schaeffer.
3d, Col. George W. Roberts.

Artillery. Capt. Henry Hescock.

Ist Ill. Battery C.
4th Ind. Battery.
Ist Mo. Battery C.
374

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

APPENDIX

LEFT WING.

Mayj.-Gen. THomas L. CrittENDEN.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. THomas J. Woop.

Ist, Brig.-Gen. Milo S. Hascall.
2d, Col. George D. Wagner.
3d, Col. Charles G. Harker.

Maj. Seymour Race.
8th Ind. Battery.
roth Ind. Battery.
6th Ohio Battery.

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. Joun M. PALMER.

Ist, Brig.-Gen. Charles Cruft.
2d, Col. William B. Hazen.
3d, Col. William Grose.

Capt. William E. Standart.
1st Ohio Batteries B and F.
4th U. S. Batteries H and M.

THIRD DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. Horatio P. VAN CLEVE.

ist, Col. Samuel Beatty.
ad, Col. James P. Fyffe.
3d, Col. Samuel W. Price.

Capt. George R. Swallow.
7th Ind. Battery.

26th Penn. Battery B.

3d Wis. Battery.
APPENDIX

CAVALRY.
Bric.-Gen. Davip S. STANLEY.
DIVISION.

Cot. Joun KENNETT.

Brigades. ist, Col. Robert H. G. Minty.
2d, Col. Lewis Zahm.

Reserve. Gen. David S. Stanley.

Artillery. Ist Ohio Battery D.

1 PIONEER BRIGADE.

Capt. JAMES St. CLarr Morton.

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY OF THE
CUMBERLAND AT THE BATTLE
OF CHICKAMAUGA.

Sept. 19 and 20, 1863.

(Reb. Rec., ser. 1, vol. 30, pt. I, pp. 40-47; Van Horne: Army
of the Cumberland, pp. 378-385; Turchin: Battle of Chickamauga,

pp. 215, 223.)
Mayj.-Gen. WiLL1Am S. Rosecrans, Commanding.

FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS.
Mayj.-Gen. Georce H. THomas.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. ABSALom Balrp.

Brigades. 1st, Col. Benj. F. Scribner.

2d, Brig.-Gen. John C. Starkweather.

3d, Brig.-Gen. John H. King (Regulars).
Artillery. 1st Mich. Battery A. ;

4th Ind. Battery.

sth U. S. Battery H.
376

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

APPENDIX

SECOND DIVISION.
Mayj.-Gen. JAMEs S. NEGLEY.
ist, Brig.-Gen. John Beatty.
2d, Col. Timothy R. Stanley.
3d, Col. William Sirwell.
Ist Ohio Batteries G and M.
Ill. Light Art., Bridge’s Battery.

THIRD DIVISION.

Bric.-Gen. Joun M. BRANNAN.
st, Col. John M. Connell.
2d, Col. John T. Croxton.
3d, Col. Ferdinand Van Derveer.
ist Mich. Battery D.
Ist Ohio Battery C.
4th U. S. Battery I.

FOURTH DIVISION.

Mayj.-GEN. JosEpH J. REYNOLDS.
Ist, Col. John T. Wilder (Mounted Infantry).
2d, Col. Edward A. King.
3d, Brig.-Gen. John B. Turchin.
18th Ind. Battery.

19th Ind. Battery.
2ist Ind. Battery.

TWENTIETH ARMY CORPS.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Maj.-Gen. ALEXANDER McD. McCook.

FIRST DIVISION.

Bric.-GEN. JEFFERSON C. JAvIs.
Ist, Col. P. Sidney Post.
2d, Brig.-Gen. William P. Carlin.
3d, Col. Hans C. Heg.
sth Wis. Battery.
2d Minn. Battery.
8th Wis. Battery.
APPENDIX 377

SECOND DIVISION.

Bric.-Gen. RicHarp W. JoHNson.
Brigades. ist, Brig.-Gen. August Willich.

ad, Col. Joseph B. Dodge.

3d, Col. Philemon P. Baldwin.
Artillery. 1st Ohio Battery A.

20th Ohio Battery.

5th Ind. Battery.

THIRD DIVISION.

Mayj.-Gen. Puitip H. SHeripan.
Brigades. 1st, Brig.-Gen. William H. Lytle.

2d, Col. Bernard Laiboldt.

3d, Col. Luther P. Bradley.
Artillery. 2d Ind. Battery “11.” ;

Ist Mo. Battery G.

ist Ill. Battery C.

TWENTY-FIRST ARMY CORPS.
May.-Gen. THomas L. CRITTENDEN.
FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. THomas J. Woop.

Brigades. 1st, Col. George P. Buell.
2d, Brig.-Gen. George D. Wagner. (Not engaged. )
3d, Col. Charles G. Harker.

Artillery. 8th Ind. Battery.
toth Ind. Battery. (Not engaged.)
6th Ohio Battery.

SECOND DIVISION.
Mayj.-Gen. Joun M. Patmer.

Brigades. ist, Brig.-Gen. Charles Cruft.

2d, Brig.-Gen. William B. Hazen.

3d, Col. William Grose.
Artillery. Capt. William E. Standart.

Ist Ohio Batteries B and F.

4th U. S. Batteries H and M.
378

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

APPENDIX

THIRD DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. Horatio P. Van CLEVE.
1st, Brig.-Gen. Samuel Beatty.
2d, Col. George F. Dick.
3d, Col. Sidney M. Barnes.
7th Ind. Battery.
26th Penn. Battery.
3d Wis. Battery.

RESERVE CORPS.

Mayj.-Gen. GorDoN GRANGER.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-GeNn. JAMES B. STEEDMAN.
Ist, Brig.-Gen. Walter C. Whitaker.
2d, Col. John G. Mitchell.
3d, Col. John Coburn. (On detail service; not en-
gaged at Chickamauga.)
18th Ohio Battery.
ist Ill. Battery M.
oth Ohio Battery. (Not engaged.)

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. James D. Morcan.

Ist, Col. Robert F. Smith. (Not engaged.)
2d, Col. Daniel M. McCook.

3d, Col. Charles C. Doolittle. (Not engaged.)
roth Wis. Battery. (Not engaged.)

2d Ill. Battery I.

Ist Ohio Battery E.

THIRD DIVISION.
(Not engaged.)
Bric.-GEN. Ropert S. GRANGER.

st, Col. S. D. Bruce.
2d, Brig.-Gen. T. D. Ward.
3d, Brig.-Gen. James G. Spears.

‘
APPENDIX 379

Artillery. 2d Ill. Battery H.
5th Mich. Battery.
ist Tenn. Battery.

CAVALRY.

Maj.-Gen. Davin S. STANLEY (Absent).
Bric.-Gen. Rozert B. MitcHert (Commanding).

FIRST DIVISION.
Cot. Epwarp M. McCook.

Brigades. 1st, Col. Archibald P. Campbell.
2d, Col. Daniel M. Ray.
3d, Col. Louis D. Watkins.

Artillery. ist Ohio Battery D (Section).

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-GEN. GEORGE CROOK.

Brigades. rst, Col. Robert H. G. Minty.
2d, Col. Eli Long.
3d, Col. William W. Lowe. (Not engaged.)

Artillery. Chicago Board of Trade Battery.

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY OF THE
CUMBERLAND AT THE BATTLES
OF CHATTANOOGA.

Nov. 23-25, 1863.

(Reb. Rec., ser. No. 55, pp. 14-21.)
Mayj.-Gen. Grorce H. Toomas, Commanding.
380

Brigades.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

APPENDIX

FOURTH ARMY CORPS.

Mayj.-Gen. GorDON GRANGER.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. CHARLES CRUFT.

ist, Brig.-Gen. Charles Cruft. (The brigade not
engaged; stationed at Bridgeport, Ala.; the
brigade commander temporarily in command of
division.)

2d, Brig.-Gen. Walter C. Whitaker. (The 115th
Tl., 84th Ind. and sth Ind. Battery not engaged;
stationed at Shellmound, Tenn.)

3d, Col. William Grose. (The 30th Ind. 77th
Penn., and Battery H 4th U. S. Art. not en-
gaged; stationed at Whitesides, Tenn.)

SECOND DIVISION.
Maj.-Gen. Puitie H. SHERIDAN.

1st, Col. Francis T. Sherman.

2d, Brig.-Gen. George D. Wagner. (The sist Ind.
not engaged; between Nashville and Chatta-
nooga.) / j

3d, Col. Charles G. Harker.

Capt. Warren P. Edgarton.

ist Ill. Battery M.

1oth Ind. Battery.

ist Mo. Battery G.

1st Ohio Battery I.

4th U. S. Battery G.

sth U. S. Battery H.

THIRD DIVISION.

Bric.-Gen. THomas J. Woop.

Ist, Brig.-Gen. August Willich.
2d, Brig.-Gen. William B. Hazen.
3d, Brig.-Gen. Samuel Beatty.
APPENDIX 381

Artillery. Capt. Cullen Bradley.
Bridge’s (Ill.) Battery.
6th Ohio.
2oth Ind.

Penn. Light Battery B.

ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH ARMY CORPS.

Mayj.-Gen. JosePH Hooxer.

ELEVENTH ARMY CORPS.

Mayj.-Gen. OLiver O. Howarp.

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. ADOLPH STEINWEHR.
Brigades. 1st, Col. Adolphus Buschbeck.
2d, Col. Charles Smith.

THIRD DIVISION.
May.-Gen. Cart Scuurz.
Brigades. Ist, Brig.-Gen. Hector Tyndale.
ad, Col. Wladimir Krzyzanowski.
3d, Col. Frederick Hecker,
Artillery. Maj. Thomas W. Osborn.
1st N. Y. Light Batteries 1 and 13.
Ist Ohio Batteries I and K.
4th U. S. Battery G.
(Batteries I, 1st Ohio, and G, 4th U. S., tempo-
rarily attached to 2d div. 4th corps.)

TWELFTH ARMY CORPS.

Mayg.-Gen. Henry W. Stocum.
(The corps commander and the first division on detached duty
and not in battle.)
SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. JoHNn W. GEARY.
Brigades. ist, Col. Charles Candy.
2d, Col. George A. Cobham.
3d, Col. David Ireland.
382

Artillery.

APPENDIX

Maj. John A. Reynolds.
Penn. Light.
5th U. S. Battery K.

FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Mayj.-Gen. Joun M. PALMER.

FIRST DIVISION.

Bric.-Gen. RicHarp W. JOHNSON.

Ist, Brig.-Gen. William P. Carlin.

2d, Col. Marshall F. Moore. :

3d, Brig.-Gen. John C. Starkweather. (During
the battles was holding fort and breastworks at
Chattanooga.)

Ist Ill. Battery C.

Ist Mich. Battery A.

sth U. S. Battery H. (Temporarily Seadiel to
2d div. 4th corps.)

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. JeEFrerson C. Davis.
Ist, Brig.-Gen. James D. Morgan.
2d, Brig.-Gen. John Beatty.
3d, Col. Daniel McCook.
Capt. William A. Hotchkiss.
2d Ill. Battery I.
2d Minn.
5th Wis.

THIRD DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. ABSALOM Balrrb.

1st, Brig.-Gen. John B. Turchin.
2d, Col. Ferdinand Van Derveer.
3d, Col. Edward H. Phelps.
Capt. George R. Swallow.
7th Ind.
toth Ind.
4th U. S. Battery I.
APPENDIX 383

ENGINEER TROOPS.

Bric.-Gen. WILLIAM F. SMITH.

ARTILLERY RESERVE.

Bric.-Gen. Joun M. BRANNAN.

CAVALRY.
SECOND BRIGADE, SECOND DIVISION.
Cot. Ett Lone.

(The other brigades of first and second divisions on detached
duty at various points.)

POST OF CHATTANOOGA.
Cor. Joun G. PARKHURST.

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY OF THE
CUMBERLAND AT BEGINNING OF
ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.

May 5, 1864.

(Reb. Rec., ser. No. 59, pp. 551-560; Van Horne: Army of the
Cumberland, vol. 2, pp. 31-39.)

Mayj.-Gen. Georce H. THomas, Commanding.

FOURTH ARMY CORPS.
Magj.-GEN. OLiver O. Howarp.
FIRST DIVISION.
May.-Gen. Davin S. STANLEY.

Brigades. 1st, Brig.-Gen. Charles Cruft.
2d, Brig.-Gen. Walter C. Whitaker.
3d, Col. William Grose.
384

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

APPENDIX

Capt. Peter Simonson.
5th Ind. Battery.
Penn. Battery B.

SECOND DIVISION.
Mayj.-Gen. Joun Newton.
1st, Col. Francis T. Sherman.
2d, Brig.-Gen. George D. Wagner.
3d, Col. Charles G. Harker.

Ist Mo. Battery G.
ist Ill. Battery M.

THIRD DIVISION.

Bric.-Gen. THomas J. Woop.
ist, Brig.-Gen. August Willich.
2d, Brig.-Gen. William B. Hazen.
3d, Brig.-Gen. Samuel Beatty.
Capt. Cullen Bradley.
6th Ohio Battery.
Bridge’s (Ill.) Battery.

FOURTEENTH ARMY CORPS.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Mayj.-Gen. Joun M. Patmer.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. RicHarp W. JOHNSON.
ist, Brig.-Gen. William P. Carlin.
2d, Brig.-Gen. John H. King.
3d, Col. James M. Neibling.

Capt. Lucius H. Drury.
ist Mich. Battery A.
1st Ill. Battery C.
SECOND DIVISION.

Bric.-GEN. JEFFERSon C. Davis.
1st, Brig.-Gen. James D. Morgan.
2d, Col. John G. Mitchell.
3d, Col. Daniel McCook.
APPENDIX 385

Artillery. Capt. Charles M. Barnett.

2d Minn. Battery.

2d Ill. Battery I.

5th Wis. Battery.

THIRD DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. ABSALOM BaIrpD.

Brigades. 1st, Brig.-Gen. John B. Turchin.

ad, Col. Ferdinand Van Derveer.

3d, Col. George P. Este.
Artillery. Capt. George R. Swallow.

7th Ind. Battery.

19th Ind. Battery.

TWENTIETH ARMY CORPS.

Maj.-GEen. JosepH Hooker.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. ALPHEUS S. WILLIAMS.

Brigades. Ist, Brig.-Gen. Joseph F. Knipe.
2d, Brig.-Gen. Thomas H. Ruger.
3d, Brig.-Gen. Hector Tyndale.

Artillery. Capt. John D. Woodbury.
tst N. Y. Batteries M and I.

SECOND DIVISION. ~
Bric.-GEN. JoHN W. GEARY.

Brigades. 1st, Col. Charles Candy.
2d, Col. Adolphus Buschbeck.
3d, Col. David Ireland.

Artillery. Capt. William Wheeler.
Independent Penn. Battery E.
13th N. Y. Battery.

THIRD DIVISION.
Mayj.-GEN. DANIEL BUTTERFIELD.

Brigades. 1st, Brig.-Gen. William T. Ward.
2d, Col. John Coburn.
3d, Col. James Wood.

25
386 APPENDIX

Artillery. Capt. Marco B. Gary.
Ist Ohio Battery C.
ist Mich. Battery I.

FOURTH DIVISION.
Mayj.-Gen. Lovett H: Rousseau.

(The organization of this division was incomplete and it never
joined the corps; portions of it were on detached or garrison
duty. See Fox: Reg. Losses, p. 104.)

Brigades. ist, Brig.-Gen. Robert S. Granger.
Various regiments not brigaded.

Artillery. oth Ohio Battery.
2oth Ind. Battery.

CAVALRY.

Bric.-Gen. WasHINGTON L. ELLIoTT.

FIRST DIVISION.
Cot. Epwarp M. McCook.

Brigades. ist, Col. Archibald P. Campbell.
2d, Col. Oscar H. LaGrange.
3d, Col. Louis D. Watkins.

Artillery. 18th Ind. Battery.

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-GeEn. KENNER GARRARD.

Brigades. 1st, Col. William B. Sipes.
2d, Col. Robert H. G. Minty.
3d, Col. Abram O. Miller.

Artillery. Chicago Board of Trade Battery.

THIRD DIVISION,
Bric.-Gen. Jupson KILPATRICK.
Brigades. ist, Col. William W. Lowe.
2d, Col. Charles C. Smith.
3d, Col. Eli H. Murray.
. APPENDIX 387

FOURTH DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. ALvANn C. GILLEN.

Brigades. 1st, Lt.-Col. Duff G. Thornburgh.
2d, Lt.-Col. George Spalding.
3d, Col. John K. Miller.

ARTILLERY.

Bric.-GEn. Joun M. BRANNAN.

ORGANIZATION AT THE BATTLE OF
NASHVILLE.

Dec. 15 and 16, 1864.

(Cox: March to the Sea, pp. 223-227.)

Mayj.-Gen. GeorcE H. Tuomas, Commanding.

FOURTH ARMY CORPS.

Bric.-Gen. THomas J. Woop.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. NATHAN KIMBALL.
Brigades. 1st, Col. Isaac M. Kirby.
2d, Brig.-Gen. Walter C. Whitaker.
3d, Brig.-Gen. William Grose.
SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-GEN. WASHINGTON L. ELLIotT.

Brigades. 1st, Col. Emerson Opdycke.
2d, Col. John Q. Lane.
3d, Col. Joseph Conrad.
388 APPENDIX .

THIRD DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen, SAMUEL BEaTTy.

Brigades. 1st, Col. Abel D. Streight.
2d, Col. P. Sidney Post.
3d, Col. Fred Knefler.

ARTILLERY BRIGADE.
May. Witzur F. GoopsreaD.

TWENTY-THIRD ARMY CORPS.

Mayj.-Gen. Joun M. ScHOFIELD.

SECOND DIVISION.
Maj.-Gen. Darius N. Coucu.

Brigades. ist, Brig.-Gen. Joseph A. Cooper.
2d, Col. Orlando H. Moore.
3d, Col. John Mehringer.

Artillery. 15th Ind. Battery.
toth Ohio Battery.
THIRD DIVISION.
Bric.-GEN. JAcoz D. Cox.

Brigades. 1st, Col. Charles C. Doolittle.
2d, Col. John S. Casement.
3d, Col. Isaac N. Stiles.

Artillery. 23d Ind. Battery.
Ist Ohio Battery D.

DETACHMENT OF ARMY OF TENNESSEE.

Mayj.-Gen. ANDREW J. SMITH.

FIRST DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. JoHn McArtHur.
Brigades. 1st, Col’ William L. McMillen.
2d, Col. Lucius F. Hubbard.
3d, Col. S. G. Hill.
APPENDIX 389

SECOND DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. Kenner GARRARD.
Brigades. 1st, Col. David Moore.
2d, Col. James I. Gilbert.
3d, Col. Edward H. Wolfe.
THIRD DIVISION.
Cor. JonatHan B. Moore.

Brigades. ist, Col. Lyman M. Ward.
2d, Col. Leander Blanden.

Artillery. 14th Ind. Battery.
2d Mo. Battery A.

PROVISIONAL DETACHMENT (District of the
Etowah).
May.-GEn. James B. STEEDMAN.

PROVISIONAL DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. CHARLES CRUFT.

Brigades. 1st, Col. Benjamin Harrison.
2d, Col. John G. Mitchell.
3d, Lt.-Col. Charles H. Grosvenor.

Second Brigade (Army of Tenn.), Col. Adam G. Malloy.
First Colored Brigade, Col. Thomas J. Morgan.
_ Second Colored Brigade, Col. Charles R. Thompson.

POST OF NASHVILLE.

Bric.-Grn. Joun F. MiItier.

Second Brigade, 4th Div., 2oth Army Corps, Col. Edwin G.
Mason.
Garrison Artillery, Maj. John J. Ely.

QUARTERMASTER’S DIVISION.

(Composed of Quartermaster’s employes.)
Cot. James L. Donapson.
390

Brigades.
Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

Brigades.

Artillery.

APPENDIX

CAVALRY CORPS.
Brevet Maj.-Gen. James H. WILson.
FIRST DIVISION.
ist, Brig.-Gen. John T. Croxton.

Ill. Board of Trade Battery.
FIFTH DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen, Epwarp HatcH.

ist, Col. Robert R. Stewart.
2d, Col. Datus E. Coon.

Ist Ill. Battery I.

SIXTH DIVISION.
Bric.-Gen. RicHarpD W. JOHNSON.

1st, Col. Thomas J. Harrison.
2d, Col. James Biddle.

4th U. S. Battery I.

SEVENTH DIVISION.
Bric.-GEN. JosepH F. Knipe.
1st, Col. J. H. Hammond.
2d, Col. G. M. L. Johnson.
14th Ohio Battery.
o

INDEX TO CITATIONS

NOTE: I have consulted and drawn very liberally from Van
Horne’s Army of the Cumberland, Cist’s Army of the Cumber-
land, Cox’s Atlanta Campaign and Fox’s Regimental Losses. I
make this general acknowledgment in lieu of a multitude of cita-
tions from them.

American State Papers. Military Affairs, 342
Appleton. Annual Cyclopedia for 1863, 272, 293
Atlantic Monthly, 324
Badeau, Adam. Military Life of U. S. Grant, 328
Bancroft, George. Hist. U. States, 343

Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,
19, 24, 208, 216, 240, 309, 316, 317, 336, 337, 306
Blaine, James G. Twenty Years of Congress, 24
Boynton, Gen. Henry V. Chickamauga National Military
Park, 163, 208, 210, 235, 358
Boynton, Gen. Henry V. Continuation of Piatt’s George
H. Thomas. See Piatt.

Brock, Francena Howe. Campbell Hospital, 67
Carrington, Gen. Henry B. Battles of the American Revo-
lution, 343
Century Magazine, 89, 280
Cheatham, Gen. Benj. F. Article on General Cheatham at
Spring Hill (Battles and Leaders), 317

Cist, Gen. Henry M. Army of the Cumberland,
99, 102, 121, 163, 210, 233, 240
Cleland, John E. The Second March to the Ohio (Indiana

Loyal Legion; War Papers), 313
Committee on Conduct of the War. Report on Rose-

crans’s Campaign, 161
Coppee, Henry. General Thomas, 321, 323
Cox, Gen. Jacob D. Afélanta, 87, 355
Cox, Gen. Jacob D. Military Reminiscences, 157, 160
Cox, Gen. Jacob D. War Preparations in the North

(Battles and Leaders), 19
Dana, Charles A. Recollections of the Civil War, 352
Davie, Gen. Henry E. Biography of Gen. Sheridan, 200

(391)
392 INDEX TO CITATIONS

Davis, Jefferson. Rise and Fall of the Confederate States,
269, 278, 280
Dawson, Henry B. Baile of U. States, 343
Foulke, William Dudley. Life of Oliver P. Morton, 15, 51, 53
Fox, Lt. ioe Wm. F. Regimental Losses,
4, 81, oo. 122, 235, 272, 300, 301, 336, 337, 338, 340, 350
Fox, Lt. Cob ie. F. The Chance of Being Hit in Bat-
tle (Century Magazine),
Fullerton, Gen. Joseph S. The Army of the Cumberland
at Chickamauga (Battles and Leaders, vol. 3, p. 725), 240
Gordon, A. C. Hard Times in the C fais (Century
Magazine), 9
Grant, Gen. Ulysses S. Memoirs, 26, 28, 29, 33, 225, 231, 230
Greeley, Horace. American Conflict, 128
Harper’s Weekly, 3, 123, 241
History of 86th Indiana,
Holt, Joseph (Judge Adv. Gen.). Report to Secy. of War
on the Order of American Knights or Sons of Liberty,

etc., 130
Hood, Gen. John B. Article on The Invasion of Tennessee

(Battles and Leaders), 309, 316
Humphreys, Gen. Andrew J. Virginia Campaign, 304, 355
Indiana Adjutant General’s Reporis, 330 |
Indiana Brevier Legislative Reports, , 133
Indiana Commandery Loyal Legion. War Papers, 313
Indiana House Journal, 133
Indiana Senate Journal, 133, 135

Irwin, Lt.-Col. Richard B. Ball’s Bluff, etc. (Battles and

Leaders), 24
Jones, J. B. A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, 280, 281, 287
Livermore, Col. Thomas L. Numbers and Losses in the

Civil War, 122, 208, 336, 337, 341, 343, 347, 351
Lossing, Benson J. Field Book of the Revolution, 343
Military Historical Society of Mass. Some Federal and

Confederate Commanders, 324

McClellan, Gen. George B. McClellan’s Own Story,

. 30, 34, 36, 37, 42
McClure, Alexander K. Lincoln and Men of War Times, 28, 49

McPherson, Edward. History of the Rebellion, 276, 280
New York. Assembly Documents, 133
Nicolay and Hay. Abraham Lincoln, 23, 217
Phisterer, Capt. Frederick. Statistical Record of the Ar-

mies of the U. States, 336
Piatt, Donn. General George H. Thomas (with a continu-

ation by Gen. Henry V. Boynton), 81, 163, 240
Pitman, Benn. Indiana Treason Cases, 131
Pollard, E. A. The Lost Cause, 39, 40, 182, 280, 281

Pollard, E. A. Southern History of the War, 285
INDEX TO CITATIONS 393

Proceedings of the Officers and Soldiers of the Indiana
Regiments, 134
Rebellion Records,
32, 48, 127, 160, 163, 186, 187, 194, 203, 204, 210, 212, 218, 225,
233, 234, 276, 204, 205, 335.

Reid, Whitelaw. Ohio in the War, 18, 19, 28
Richmond Enquirer. Editorial on "Arming the Slaves, 276
Ropes, John C. The Army under Pope, 44
Ropes, John C. Story of the Civil War, 103

Ropes, John-C. Article on General Sherman (Atlantic
Monthly, and Some Federal and Confederate Commanders) , 324

Schofield, Gen. John M. Forty-Six Years in the Army, 83, 87

Schwab, Prof. John C. The Confederate States of America, 288

Sheridan, Gen. Phil H. Memoirs, 80, 200
Sherman, Gen. Wm. T. Memoirs, 233
Smith, Gen. Wm. F. Comments on General Grant’s “Chat-
tanooga” (Battles and Leaders), 216
Spofford, Ainsworth R. American Almanac, 341, 342
Stephens, Alexander. The War between the States, 290

Stone, Col. Henry. Repelling Hood’s Invasion of Ten-
nessee (Battles and Leaders),
Swinton, William. Campaigns of the Army of the Poto-

mac, 25, 31
Terrell, Adj.-Gen. Wm. H. H. Reports, i
Townsend, Malcom. U. S. Curious Facts, etc., 343

Turchin, Gen. John H. Battle of C. hickamauga, 163, I90, 204, 206
Van Horne, Thomas B. Army of the Cumberland,
103, 163, 190, 202, 207, 210, 234, 240, 303
Van Horne, Thomas B. Life of George H. Thomas,
164, 180, 217, 329
Webb, Gen. Alex. S. Through the Wilderness (Battles
and Leaders), 337
Wilson, Henry. The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, 272
GENERAL INDEX

Ackworth (Ga.): 305.

Acquia Creek (Va.): 43.

Adams, John: 40.

Alabama, state: 165, 313, 362.

Alexander's bridge (Chicka-
mauga): I71.

Allotment rolls: 63, 148.

Alpine (Ga.): 164, 165, 167.

Amenities ot war: 93-06.

American Knights: 130-132.

American Reform Society: 146.

Amusements in Army: 66.

Anderson, Gen. Patton: 275.

Anderson, Mr. : 254.

Andrew, Gov. John A.: 271.

Antietam, battle of: 35, 207;
numbers and losses, 348.

Appomattox Court House:
surrender at, 367.

Armed neutrality: of Ken-
tucky, 5.

Army of the Cumberland: or-
ganization in 1862, 101; Gen.
Rosecrans appointed to com-
mand of, 101; organized into
Center, Right Wing, and
Left Wing, 101; in camp at
Nashville, Tenn., 104-5; re-
organization Nov. 7, 1862,
106; in camp at Murfrees-
boro, Tenn., 123-155; com-
posed mainly of men from
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois,
127; Democrats in, 127; de-
sertions from in 1863, 127,
137; protests of Indiana
regiments in to Indiana leg-
islature, in 1863, 134; con-

 

solidation of 20th and aist
corps into 4th, 214; Thomas
succeeds Rosecrans in com-
mand of, 214; kindly feeling
of soldiers for Rosecrans,
214; Grant underestimates
soldierly qualities of men,
233; reorganization prior to
Atlanta campaign, 208; af-
fection of soldiers for Gen.
Thomas, 326, 328; see also
titles of battfes and cam-
paigns in which the army
participated.

Army of the James: losses in
Richmond campaign, 352.
Army of Northern Virginia

(Confederate): 24, 45, 304,
305; its last stand, 365.
Army of the Ohio: 99, 103,

2098.

Army of the Potomac: 24, 26,
31, 35, 42, 43, 44, 45, 93, 124,
126, 150, 152, 159, 272, 304,
305; organization, 20, 353
Gen. McClellan appointed to
command of, 35; Burnside
supersedes McClellan in
command of, 124; Hooker
supersedes Burnside, 124;
desertions from in 1863, 127;
Meade supersedes Hooker,
125; losses in Richmond
campaign, 352.

Army of the Tennessee (Fed-
eral): 2098.

Army of the Tennessee (Con-
federate): Gen. Bragg ap-

(395)
396

pointed to command of, 47;
Gen. Johnston supersedes
Bragg, 297; Gen. Hood su-
persedes Johnston, 304; vir-
tually destroyed at battle of
Nashville, 324; Hood relin-
quishes command of, 324.
See the titles of the various
battles and campaigns in
which it participated.

Army of Virginia: organiza-
tion, 44; demolition of, 45.
Army Organizations (Fed-
eral):

Corps (Infantry) :

Crittenden, Thomas L.: 99,
106. See a2ist Army
Corps.

Gilbert, Charles C.: 99.

McCook, Alexander McD.:
99, 100, 106, 109. See
20th Army Corps.

Thomas, George H.: 106.
See 14th Army Corps.

Fourth: 214, 219, 220, 223,
226, 242, 265, 2098, 309,
312, 314, 315, 318.

Eleventh: 214, 223, 265,
298. See 20th Army
Corps.

Twelfth: 214, 224, 265,
298. See 20th Army
Corps.

Fourteenth (old): rot.

Fourteenth (new): 158,
164, 169, 170, 171, 172,
174, 175, 178, 179, 199,
201, 202, 204, 219, 223,
226, 242, 208.

Fifteenth: 216, 223, 224,
242, 208.

Sixteenth: 298, 306, 312,
320.

Seventeenth: 216, 223, 208.

Twentieth (old): 109, 157,
167, 171, 172, 179, 199,
201, 202, 204, 214. See
4th Army Corps.

GENERAL INDEX

Twentieth (new): 265,
298. See 11th and 12th
Army Corps.

Twenty-first: 106, 158,
161, 168, 169, 170, I71,
172, 173, 174, 179, 199,
201, 202, 204, 214. See
4th Army Corps.

Twenty-third: 258, 2098,
309, 312, 314, 315.

Corps (Cavalry) :
Elliott, Washington L.:

208.
Kilpatrick, Judson: 311.
Mitchell, Robert B.: 205.
Wilson, James H.: 313,

314, 315.

Corps (Reserve) :

Granger, Gordon: 158, 173,
178, 179, 192, 193, 201,
202, 205.

Divisions :

Baird, Absalom: 172, 177,
178, 204, 219, 223, 224,
225, 2206.

Brannan, John M.: 172,
173, 174, 177, 178, 182,
183, 184, 185, 186, 189,
IQI, 193, 202, 204, 209.

Cox, Jacob D.: 315.

Crook, George (Cav.):
205.

Cruft, Charles: 220, 224.

Davis, Jefferson C.: 108,
III, 116, :172, 176, 179,
183, 184, 185, 198, 201,
204, 206, 219. 242.

Ewing, Hugh: 223.

Geary, John W.: 220, 224.

Johnson, Richard W.:
108, II0, III, 172, 175,
176, 177, 178, 201, 202,
204, 219, 223, 224, 225.

Kimball, Nathan: 315.

Mitchell, Robert B.:
(Cav.) 205.

Morgan, James: 193, 205.
GENERAL INDEX

McCook, Edward
(Cav.): 205.

Neglev. James H.:
III, I12, 113, 116,
120, 165, 168, 169,
177, 179, 188, 180,
204.

Newton, John: 301.

Osterhaus, Peter J.:
220, 224.

Palmer, John M.:
113, 116, I19Q, 172,
176, 178, 201, 202,
214.

Reynolds, Joseph J.:

175, 176, 178, 183,
204.

Rousseau, Lovell H.:
112, 113, 114, 115,
122.

M.

108,

119,
172,
202,

219,

108,

175,
204,

I 72,
202,

108,
116,

Ruger, Thomas H.: 315

Schurz, Carl: 223.
Sheridan, Phil. H.:

III, 112, 116, 117,
176, 178, 179, 184,
201, 204, 206, 214,
219, 223, 224, 226,
236, 242, 2

Smith, John E.: 223.

Smith, Morgan L.:
302.

Stanley, David S.:
267, 302.

eee James B.:
205, 2

Stcinweh, Adolph

Ra "Cleve, Horatio
106, 108, 109, I10,

116, 117, I19, 120,
155, 162, 172, 175,
177, 179, 180, 183,
185, 189, 198, 201,
204, 206.

Wagner, George D.:
318.

108,
172,
185,
218,
235,
223,
120,

193,

114,
136,
176,
202,

315,

397

Wood, Thomas J.: 55, 95,
108, I10, 116, I17, 172,
176, 179, 180, 183, 184,
189, 201, 204, 214, 218,
219, 223, 224, 226, 228,
229, 235, 230, 240, 242,
240, 257, 250, 205, 315,

_ 330.

Brigades:

Barnes, Sidney M.:
180, 183, 201, 202.

Beatty, Samuel: 100, 106,
114, II5, 119, 162, 175,
180, 184, 189, 201, 202,
206, 214, 254, 267.

Bradley, Luther P.: 206.

Buell, George P.: 206.

Carlin, William P.:
206, 223.

Connell, John M.: -186.

Croxton, John T.: 174.

Dick, George F.: 175,
180, 184, 189, 201, 206.

Dodge, Joseph B.: 206.

Fyffe, James P.: 114, 119.

Grose, William: 119, 220,

224.
Harker, Charles G.:

117,
Hascall, Milo S.: 108.
- Hazen, Wm. B.: 265.
-Heg, Hans C.: 176, 206.
King, Edward A.: 206.
Kirk, Edward N.: 109,
III.
Laiboldt, Bernard: 206.
Lytle, Wm. F.: 206.
Miller, John F.: 113, 120.
Minty, Robert H. G.: 161,

172.
oe eo G.:
193,
Moore, 5 Marshall F.: 223.
Opdycke, Emerson: 318.
Price, James P.: 114, 118.
Shepherd, Oliver L.: 117,
122,

I 76,

176,

114,

187,
398

Stanley, Timothy R.: 113,
120.
Starkweather, John C.:

223.
Van Derveer, Ferdinand:
182, 193, 206, 209.
Whitaker, Walter C.: 187,
193, 206, 220, 224, 364.
Wilder, John T.: 161, 169,
172, 176, 178, 202, 361.
Willich, August: 108, 109,
110, III, 254, 265.
Pioneer Brigade: 110.
~ Regimental and other organ-

izations:
United States: 33d U. S.
Col. Inf., 271; 7oth U. S.

Col. Inf., 271.

Illinois: 21st Inf., 154.

Indiana: 4th Cav., 252; 6th
Inf., 135, 139; 7th Inf., 10
15th Inf., 135; 17th Inf.,
135; 22d Inf., 135; 20th
Inf., 135; 32d Inf., 135;
34th Inf., 135; 37th Inf.,
1353 38th Inf., 135; 39th
Inf.,- 135 goth Inf., 1353
42d ‘Inf, 135; 44th Inf, , 135,
189; sist Inf, 1353 s7th
Inf., 135; 58th Inf., 1353
zad Inf., 135; 73d Inf., 1353
75th Inf., 135; 7zoth Inf.,
53, 545 57, 58, 73, 76, 81, 94,
97, 99, 104, 105, 115, 122,
135, 136, 137, 149, 162, 175,
182, 185, 189, 192, 195, 228,
240, 242, 244, 250, 254, 257,
300, 317, 331, 361, 363; 7oth
Inf., Co. E, 139, 140; 7oth
Inf., Co. I, 54, 55, 105, 115,
149, 339, 353-4; 81st Inf.,
53; 82d Inf., 53, 135; 86th
Inf., 95, 135, 180, 228; 87th
Inf., 53; 88th Inf., 53; Soth
Inf., 53; rorst Inf., 135.

Kansas: Ist Kans. Col. Inf.,

271.
Kentucky: 5th Inf., 139; oth

GENERAL INDEX

Inf., 99, 115, 189; 11th Inf.

oo, 115; 17th Inf. 189;
Louisville Legion, 130.
Louisiana: 1st Louis. Na-

tive Guard (Col.), 271.
Maine: 1st Me. Heavy Art.,

350.
Massachusetts :

(Col.), 271.
Michigan: 22d Inf., 196.
Minnesota: 1st Inf., 350.
New Hampshire: 5th Int,

350.

Ohio: 19th Inf., 99, 115, 149,
189, 251, 252; 21st Int,
196; 35th Inf. 356; 80th
Inf., 196.

Pennsylvania : Inf.,

s4th Inf.

I4ist

350.

South Carolina: ast Inf.
(Col.), 271.

Tennessee: 1st Tenn. Bat-
talion, 252; 3d East Tenn.
Cav., 254.

Army Organizations (Confed-
erate) :

Corps (Infantry) :
Buckner, Simon B

167, 170, 173, 195.
Cheatham, Benj. F.:

315.
Hardee, Wm. J.:
Hill, Daniel H.: 173, 207.
Hood, John B.: 173, 176.
Lee, Stephen D.: 315.
Longstreet, James: 39,
166, 170, 173, 178, 179,

207.
Polk, Leonidas: 173, 179,
207. Pe ak

Stewart, Alexander P.:
315.
Walker, William H. T.:

160,
207,

107, II0.

173.
Corps (Cavalry) :
Forrest, Nathan B.: 47,
157, 173, 174, 179, 200,
310, 314, 315.
GENERAL INDEX 399

Morgan, John: 47.
Wheeler, Joseph: 169, 173,
207, 211, 266.

Divisions:

Anderson, Patton: 195,
209, 224.

Armstrong, Frank C.
“(Cav.) : 173.

Bate, William B.: 224.

Breckinridge, John C.:
76, I07, I09, II0, I14,
IIg, 120, 122, 173, 178,
179, 182, 207, 209.

Cheatham, Benj. F.: 108

III, 122, 173, 175, 17,

179, 207, 209, 224.
Cleburne, Patrick R.: 107,
110, III, 173, 177, 179,
207, 209, 223.
Gist, S. R.: 173, 179.
Hindman, Thomas C.:
173, 178, 179, 181, 184,
185, 187, 188, 194, 207.
Hood, John B.: 173, 207.
Johnson, Bushrod R.: 173,
176, 179, 181, 184, 185,
188, 207, 209.
Johnson, Edward: 315.
Kershaw, Joseph B.: 179,
181, 184, 195.
Law, Evander Mclver:
173, 176, 179, 181, 184.
Liddell, St. John R.. 173,
179, 207.
Martin, William T. (Cav.) :

173.

McCown, John P.: 107,
IIO, III.

McLaws, Lafayette: 173,
178, 179, 207.

Pegram, John (Cav.) : 173.

Pickett, George E.: 120,

173, 175, 179, 207, 209,

224.

Walker, William H. T.:
173, 175, 179, 207, 223.

Wharton, John A. (Cav.) :

173.
Withers, Jones M.: 107,
Il.
Brigades:
Adams, Daniel W.: 316.
Anderson, James: 195.
Anderson, Patton: 209.
Bate, William B.: 209.
Brown, John C.: 223.
Cockrell, Francis M.: 316.
Cumming, Alfred: 223.
Deas, Zach C.: 194, 195.
Donelson, Daniel S.: 122.
Govan, Daniel C.: 223.
Gracie, Archibald: 195,

209.
Kelly, John H.: 195.
Lowrey, Mark P.: 223.
Maney, George: 223, 316.
Scott, John S. (Cav.):
208.
Smith, J. A.: 223.
Trigg, Robert C.: 195.
Wise, Henry A.: 278.
Wright, Marcus J.: 175.
Regiments, Artillery, Cav-
alry, etc.:
Georgia: 21st Inf., 350.
North Carolina: 26th Inf.,

50.
Tennessee: 8th Inf., 122;
16th Inf., 122.
Texas: ist Inf., 350.
Carnes’s Battery: 175, 364.
Dent’s Battery: 195.
Garrity’s Battery: 195.
Washington Light Artil-
lery: 120.

350. Athens (Tenn.): 266.
Preston, William: 173, Atlanta (Ga.): 39, 40, 84, 200,
178, 179, 195, 207, 209. 300, 303, 305, 306, 307, 308
Stevenson, Carter L.: 223. Allanta: battles of, 300; num-

Stewart, Alexander P.: bers and losses, 349.
400

Atlanta Campaign, The: Chap.
XI, pp. 283-304; character of
country traversed, 77, 84;
breastworks and _fortifica-
tions encountered, 70, 85;
courtesies shown each other
by combatants, 94-6; con-

dition of Confederacy at be-:

ginning of, 284-296; Sher-
man appointed to command
of Military Division of Mis-
sissippi, 297; gathering of
troops and supplies at Chat-
tanooga, 297-8; strength of
Sherman’s army, 208 ;
strength of Johnston’s army,
298; Johnston’s tactics, 298;
Sherman’s tactics, 299; no
one great battle fought, 209;
but many smaller ones, 299;
troops constantly under fire,
300; Federal losses in cam-
paign, 301, 351; Confederate
losses, 301; losses of Army
of the Cumberland, 301;
campaign showed futility of
assaulting fortified lines, 301 ;
assault of Kenesaw Moun-
tain, 301-2; campaign ex-
hausting to vitality of
troops, 303; illustration of
severity of fighting on the
skirmish line, 331-2.
Augusta, siege of:
and losses, 346.
Avery, Capt. William L.: 238.

numbers

Badeau, Gen. Adam: injustice
to Gen. Thomas, 328-9.

Baird, Gen. Absalom: 239.

Baker, Wat: 96.

Balaklava: charge at, 350.

Baldwin, Col. Philemon P.:

III,
Ball’s Bluff: battle of, 16, 21,

23.
Banks, Gen. Nathaniel P.: 44,
125, 207.

GENERAL INDEX

 

Bareford, Mr.

Barksdale, E.: 278.

Battle: how it appeared to a
soldier, 76; difficulty of see-
ing all the combatants, 76;
maneuvering for position, 77;
developing the enemy, 77;
surprises, 77; night attacks,
77; flanking, 78; private sol-
dier’s preparation for battle,
78; the skirmishers, 78;
charging a battery, 79; lying
charging a battery. 79; lying
still under artillery fire, 80;
bayonet charges, 81-2; posi-
tion of officers, 82; those
specially aimed at, 82; dif-
ference between shooting of
veteran and recruit, 83; sen-
sation of being specially
aimed at, 83-4; radical
changes in methods of fight-
ing in last year of war, 84;
the fortifications encountered
in last year of war, 85; fu-
tility of attacking by direct
assault, 86; how advance on
fortifications made, 88; in-
trenching under fire, 88;
danger in battle of being hit
by cannon balls, 89; danger
from musket balls, 89; mine
explosions, 89; the inspiring
motives in battle, 89-92; a
battery in action, 91; skulk-
ers and cowards, 92-3;
amenities of war, 93-06.

Battles of Civil War: numbers
-and losses, 348-9.

Battles of Mexican War:
numbers and losses, 341.

Battles of Revolutionary War:
numbers and losses, 343-7.

Battles of War of 1812: num-
bers and losses, 342.

Bayonet charges: 81.

Bean’s Station (Tenn.): 245.

254.
GENERAL INDEX

’

Beatty, Gen. Samuel: 118, 202,

267.

Beaufort, battle of: numbers
and losses, 345.

Beauregard, Gen. P. G. T.:
46, 305, 308, 309.

Bell, John: 50.

Bellaire (Oh.): I0, 13.

Bemis Heights, battle of:
numbers and losses, 344.

Benjamin, Judah P.: 282.

Bennington, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 344.
Big Shanty (Ga.): 305, 330,

333

Blackford Co. (Ind.): 132.

Blackstocks,, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 346.

Blair, Gen. Frank P.: 298.

Blicher, Gen.: 171.

Blue Bird Gap (Ga.): 168.

Boston (Mass.): 22.

Boydton Plank Road, battle
of: numbers and losses, 349.

Boynton, Gen. Henry V.: 356,
357; 358.

Bragg, Gen. Braxton: ap-
pointed to command of Con-
federate Army of the Ten-
nessee, 47; his invasion of
and retreat from Kentucky,
52, 98, 100; his controversy
with Gen. Breckinridge, 122;
superseded by Gen. Johns-
ton, 297; his subsequent un-
popularity in the South, 292.
See Army of Tennessee and
its Battles and Campaigns.

Brandywine, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 344.

Brannan, Gen. John M.: 183.

Breastworks:
Fortified Lines.

Breckinridge, Gen. John C.:
50, SI, 122.

Bridgeport (Ala.): 158, 161,
162, 211, 212, 214, 216, 217,
313.

26

79, 85-6. See’

401

Brier Creek, battle of:
bers and losses, 345.

Brock, Francena Howe: 67.

Brotherton field (Chickamau-
ga): 178.

Brotherton house (Chickamau-
ga): 175, 360, 363.

Brown, Albert G.: 278.

Brown, Gov. Joseph: 293.

Brown, Orderly : 149.

Brown Co. (Ind:): 54, 132.

Buchanan, Pres. James: 27,
101.

Buckner, Gen. Simon B.: 169,
188.

Buell, Gen. Don Carlos: his de-
partment merged into De-
partment of the Mississippi,
453; appointed to command of
left wing of Halleck’s army,
45; his advance to east Ten-
nessee, 46; distrust of in the
North, 47; reorganizes army
at Louisville, 99; marches in
pursuit of Bragg, 100; su-
perseded by Rosecrans, 101;
value of his discipline, 102;
hostility of Halleck to, 102;
criticisms of his military
abilities, 102-3; his timely
arrival at Shiloh, 103. See
Army of the Cumberland;
Battles of Perryville and
Shiloh.

Bull Gap (Tenn.): 257.

Bull Run: first battle of, 13,
15, 16, 31, 35.

Bull Run: second battle of, 45.

Bunker Hill, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 343.

Burnside, Gen. Ambrose E.:
supersedes McClellan in com-
mand of Army of the Poto-
mac, 124; is superseded by
Hooker, 124; his contro-
versy with Halleck, 160. See
Battles of Fredericksburg,

num-

 
402

Roanoke Island; Knoxville,
siege of.

Butler, Gen. Benjamin F.: 271.

“Butternuts” of Indiana and
Ohio: 130, 136.

Calhoun (Tenn.): 266.

Camden, battle of: numbers
and losses, 346.

Cameron, Simon: 15, 16, 25.

Camp fires: 75.

Camp guards: 62.

Camp, life in: laying out
camp, 56; tents, 56-7; dog-
tents, 57; shebangs, 57;
daily routine of camp life,
58; roll-call, 58; rations, 58;
cooking, 59, 60; exchanges
at picket stations, 59; drills
and inspections, 61; dress
parade, 61; close of day du-
ties, 61; camp guard, 62;
picket, 62; pay day, 63; mail,
64; newspapers in the army,
65; literature in the army,
65; the sutler, 66; amuse-
ments, 66; gambling, 66;
drunkenness, 67; hospitals,
67; contrabands, 69.

Camp, March and _ Battle:
Chap. III, pp. 56-96.

Campbell Hospital: 67.

Campbell’s Station (Tenn.):
200.

Canby, Gen. Edward R.: 311.

Cannon balls: danger of being
hit by, 80.

Carrick’s Ford: battle of, 13.

Catholic Sisters of Mercy: 68.

Catlett’s Gap (Ga.): 168.

Catoosa Springs (Ga.): 300.

Cedar Creek, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 349.
Champion Hill, battle of:

numbers and losses, 348.
Chancellorsville, battle of: 126,

366; numbers and losses, 348.
Chandler, Matthew: 265, 332.

GENERAL INDEX

Chandler, Senator Zachariah:
16.

Chantilly, battle of: numbers
and losses, 348.

Charging a battery: 70.

Charging breastworks: 70.

Charleston, siege of (in Rev.):
numbers and losses, 345.

Charlestown (Tenn.) : 266, 267.

Charlotte, battle of: numbers
and losses, 346.

Chase, Salmon P.: 18, 42, 43.

_Chattahoochee river: 305.

Chattanooga (Tenn.): 156,
157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162,
164, 167, 168, 170, 174, 186,
197, 198, 203, 204, 212, 213,
242, 243, 244, 250, 251, 256,
267, 296, 297, 208, 308, 313,
333, 364; revisited in 1890,

301.

Chattanooga, Campaign and the
Battle of Chickamauga:
Chap. VII, pp. 156-209. See
Chattanooga, Siege and Bat-
tles of.

Chattanooga, battles of: num-
bers and losses, 348. See
Chattanooga, Siege and Bat-
tles of.

Chattanooga creek (Tenn.):
223.

Chattanooga, Siege and Battles

~ of: Chap. VIII, pp. 210-241;
establishment of Federal
lines and fortifications after
battle of Chickamauga, 210;
surrounding of town by
Bragg’s army, 211; difficulty
of getting supplies, 211;

_ short rations, 212; visit of
Jetterson Davis, 212; critical
situation of Federal army,
212; Gen. Thomas’s reply to
Grant’s message, 213; Fed-
eral garrison harassed by
Confederate batteries and
sharpshooters, 213; playing
GENERAL INDEX

of “Dixie,” 213; coming of
Gen. Hooker, 214; Gen.
Rosecrans superseded by
Gen. Thomas, 214; arrival of
Gen. Grant, 215; prepara-
tions for Federal advance,
215-16; Bragg sends Long-
street to East Tennessee,
216; Grant’s order to Thom-
as to attack Missionary
Ridge issued and recalled,
216; arrival of Gen. Sher-
man, 217; Grant’s proposed
plan of battle, 217; capture
of Orchard Knob, 218; Sher-
man’s attack on north end of
Missionary Ridge, 219;
Hooker’s attack on Lookout
Mountain, 220; repulse of
Sherman, 221; Grant’s or-
ders for simultaneous ad-
vance on Nov. 25 of troops
of Sherman, Thomas and
Hooker, 221-2; Federal and
Confederate movements dur-
ing forenoon of Nov. 25,
222; comparative strength of
opposing armies, 223-43
character of Missionary
Ridge and its defenses, 224;
critical situation of Gen.
Sherman, 225; Grant orders
assault of ridge by Thomas’s
troops, 225; only a demon-
stration to relieve Sherman
intended, 226; assault by the
troops of Army of the Cum-
berland begun, 227; rifle pits
at base of ridge taken, 227;
without further orders troops
begin ascent of the ridge,
228; the crest of the ridge
taken, 230; Bragg’s retreat,
230; erroneous explanations
of supposed small Federal
losses, 231-2; desperate and
heroic fighting of assaulting
troops, 232; modifications of

403

Grant’s original plan of bat-
tle, 233; Grant underesti-
mated Thomas and Army of
the Cumberland, 233; num-
bers and losses, 234-6; con-
troversy as to whether
Grant’s order for the assault
contemplated the storming of
the ridge or only the taking
of the rifle pits at the base,
236-240; the part taken by
Wood’s division and the 7oth
Ind., 240; present appear-
ance of battle-fields about
Chattanooga, 358-9, 361-3.

Chattanooga National Ceme-
tery: 301.

Chattanooga Valley (Tenn.):
217.

Cheat river (W. Va.): 13.

Cea, Gen. Benjamin F.:
316.

Chemung (N. Y.), battle of:
numbers and losses, 345.

Cherry Valley massacre: num-
bers and losses, 345.

Chicago CIlls.) : 283.

Chickamauga, battle of: diffi-
culties preceding, 156, 157,
158; the advance to Tullaho-
ma, 157: movements preced-
ing occupation of Chattanoo-
ga, 158-159; vain appeals of
Rosecrans to Washington au-
thorities for aid, 159-161 ; ad-
vance from Tullahoma to
Chattanooga, 161; evacuation
of Chattanooga by Bragg,
162; historical accounts of
the battle, 163; movements of
Federal army after evacua-
tion of Chattanooga, 164;
Halleck’s plans, 165; the dan-
ger discovered by , Halleck
and Rosecrans, 165-6;
Bragg’s situation and plans,
166-7; critical situation of
Army of the Cumberland,
404

167-8; how Bragg and his
subordinates neglected their
opportunity, 168-170; Bragg’s
attempt to cut off Rosecrans
from retreat to Chattanooga,
170-1; Bragg’s_ re-enforce-
ments, 170; efforts of Rose-
crans to concentrate his
army, 171-2; position of Fed-
eral and Confederate troops
on morning of Sept. 19,
172-4; each commander ig-
norant of position of the
other, 173-4; opening of the
battle, 174-5; the fighting on
the 19th, 175-7; the position
of the Federal and Confed-
erate troops on morning of
the 20th, 178-9; stripping the
right of the Federal army to
reenforce the left, 179-80;
position and danger of Fed-
eral right, 180-1; opening of
battle on morning of 2oth,
181; attack on Federal left,
181-2; the break in the Fed-
eral right and how it was
caused, 183-6; - Rosecrans
narrowly escapes capture,
goes to Chattanooga and or-
ders Thomas to assume com-
mand, 185-6; narrow escape
of Federal army from an-
nihilation, 186-7; the Con-
federate attack on Snodgrass
Hill and its repulse, 188-91;
Confederates gain position in
rear of the hill, 191; the
coming of Gen. Granger,
192; charge of Whitaker and
Mitchell’s brigades, 193; con-
tinued Confederate assaults
on Snodgrass Hill and their
repulse, 193-5; Federal army
retires to Rossville, 196;
causes of the disaster to the
Federal army, 197-200; vin-
dication of men of 20th and

GENERAL INDEX

2Ist corps, 201-2; numbers
and losses, 204-9, 348, 352;
present appearance of battle-
field, 359-361; 36374.

Chickamauga creek (Ga.) :
174, 179, 217, 221.

Chickamauga Memorial Asso-
ciation: 357.

Chickamauga and Chattanooga
National Military — Park:
origin of plan of, 356; Fed-
eral legislation for, 357; di-
mensions of park, 357-8;
present appearance of old
battle-fields, 358-9; monu-
ments and markers, 360-1.

Christian Commission: 67.

Christmas in the army: 252.

Cincinnati (O.): 98.

Cincinnati Commercial: 65,
252.

173,

‘Cincinnati Gazette: 65.

Clay, Henry: 5.

Cleburne, Gen. Patrick R.: 273,
2755. 316, 319; memorial on
arming negroes, 273, 280; his
death, 316.

Cleveland (Tenn.): 249, 250,
265, 267.

Cloud house (Chickamauga) :
179, 200.

Coffee: as medium of ex-
change, ,64.

Colclazer, O. M.: 260.

Cold Harbor, battle of: 86;
numbers and losses, 348.

Columbia (Tenn.): 156, 314,
317.

Committee on Conduct of the
War: 22, 23, 26.
Concord, battle of:
and losses, 343.
Confederacy, southern:

South, The.
Confederate money: 64.
Confederate “yell”: 91.
Contrabands: 69.
Cooking in the army: 59, 60.

numbers

See
GENERAL INDEX

Cooper, Maj. George E.: 303.

Cue CRE: capture of,
4

Cowards, Soauastoneté 93.

Cowpens, battle of: numbers
and losses, 346.

Crab Orchard (Ky.): 100.

Crawfsh Spring (Chickamau-
ga): 172, 173, 360, 363.

Crawfish Spring road (Chicka-
mauga): 188.

Crittenden, John J.: 52.

Crittenden, Gen. Thomas L.:
99, IOI, I09, 164, 165, 186,
198, 214.

Cromwell, Oliver: 27.
Cumberland, Army of: See
Army of the Cumberland.
Cumberland, Department of:

214, 259.

Cumberland Gap (Tenn.): 47,
102, 243, 245.

Cumberland mountains: 158,
161, 162.

Cumberland river: 100, 135.

Curtis, Gen. S. R.: 41.
Dalton (Ga.): 164, 165, 273,

305.

Dang, Charles A.: 187, 239.

Danbury, battle of: numbers
and losses, 344.

Dandridge (Tenn.):

Dangers in battle: 80.

Davis, Jefferson: 32, 132, 212,
253, 276, 304, 305, 309; his
egotism, 38; his propensity
to boast, 38; divulging Con-
federate plans in his speeches,
38-9; visit to Gen. Hood, 39;
visit_to Bragg during siege
of Chattanooga, 212; views
on question of arming ne-
groes, 277; flees from Rich-
mond, 282; his financial the-
ories, 286-7; becomes un-
popular in the South, 292.

246, 258.

405
Davis, Gen. Jefferson C.: 98,
186.

Davis, Theodore R.: 241.

Decatur (Ala.): 307, 309.

Democrats in army: 51, 127;
Douglas Democrats, 51.

Dennison, Gov. William: 19.

Deserters: frequency of deser-
tions in 1863, 127, 131, 132,
137, 141; how protected in
North, 131-2; letters to sol-
diers encouraging, I3I; ex-
ecution. of a deserter, 137;
Proportion of regulars and
volunteers, 340; many wrong-
fully so reported, 340.

Developing the enemy: 77.

Diary: extracts from, 139-1553
250-2067.

Dick, Col. George: 95.

Diogenes: 262.

Disease in army: 68, 105, 137,
141; what diseases most
prevalent, 339; total deaths
from, 339; deaths from in
Co. I, zoth Ind., 339.

Dodge, Gen. Granville M.: 208.

Dog-tents: 57, 145, 148.

Douglas, Stephen A.: 50; loy-
alty of him and his follow-
ers, SI.

Draft: opposition to in North,
131; number of drafted men
in actual service, 340.

Dress parade: 61.

Drills: 61.

Drunkenness in army: 67.

Dry Creek valley (Ga.): 199.

Duck river: 1 158, 314, 315.

Dug Gap (Ga.): 168.

Dumont, Col. Theneres 10.

Dyer field (Chickamauga) :
185, 186, 187, 188..

East Tennessee: 54, 58, 72,
102, 159, 167, 192, 243, 2455
246, 247, 249, 258, 259; char-
acter of country, 243, 266;
406

primitive character of peo-

ple, 245.

East Tennessee Campaign,
The: Chap. IX, pp. 242-267;
beginning, 242; hardships,

242-4; scarcity of clothing,
243; difficulty of getting pro-
visions, 243; continual march-
ing, 245; a little side cam-
paign, 246-9.

Eaton, John: 149.

Edinburg (Ind.): 132.

Elliott, Gen. Washington L.:
298.

Ellis, Capt. William B.: 262.

Emancipation proclamation:
foreshadowed in September,
1862, 128; issued January I,
1862. 128; hostility to in
North, 127; hostility to of
soldiers in Federal armies,
127: change of attitude in
North and South, 268; proc-
lamation for logical ‘ war
méasure, 260.

End of an Unimportant Mili-
tary Career: Chap. XIII, pp.
330-334.

England: excitement
Trent affair, 22.

Eutaw Springs, battle of : num-
bers and losses, 346.

Evansville (Ind.): 52

over

Fair Oaks, battle of: numbers
and losses, 348.

Falmouth (Va.): 151.

Farragut, Admiral David G.:

4I.
Fishing Creek, battle of; num-
bers and losses, 346.
Fitz-Jerrold, Mrs.: 252.
Five Forks, battle of: 365.
Flanking: 78, 88.
oe Creek valley (Tenn.):

Fee (Ala.) : 310, 311.

GENERAL INDEX

Foote, Commodore Andrew
H.: 41.

Foraging: 74.

Forrest, Gen. Nathan B.: 47,
310, 311, 314.

Fort Boone, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 345.

Fort Clinton, battle of: num-

bers and losses, 344.

Fort Donelson, capture of: 31,
41, 48.

Fort Griswold, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 346.

Fort Henry, capture of: 41.

Fort Lafayette: 23.

Fort Mercer, battle of:
bers and losses, 344.

Fort Mifflin, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 344.

Fort Ninety-Six, battle of:
numbers and losses, 346.

Fort Schuyler, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 344.

Fort Sumter: firing on, 2, 3,
251.

Fort Warren: 22.

Fort Washington, battle of:
numbers and losses, 344.

Fort Wood: 218, 219, 358.

Fortified lines: advancing
against, 88; futility of* at-
tacking by direct assault, 86,
301. See Breastworks.

Fortress Monroe: 33.

Fout, Fred: 254.

Fox, Lt.-Col. William F.:
343, 351.

Frankfort (Ky.): t00.

Franklin, Gen. William B.: 25

Franklin (Ind.): 2, 8, 54, 132,
334; raising first company in,
“9.

Franklin (Tenn.):

num-

208,

314, 315,
317.

Franklin, battle of: 54, 312,
318-19; numbers and losses,
349.
GENERAL INDEX

Franklin road (Stone’s River) :
107.

“Franklin Tigers”: 9.

Fredericksburg, battle of: 124,
126, 154, 305; numbers and
losses, 348.

Fremont, Gen. John C.: 44.

Further Development of the
Great Conflict: Chap. II, pp.
15-55-

Gadsden (Ala.): 305.

Gaines’s Mill, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 348.

Gallatin (Tenn.): 100.

Gambling in army: 66.

Garesche, Lt. Col. Julius P.:
115.

Garnett, Gen. Robert S.: 13.

Gaylesville (Ala.): 305.

Georgia, state: 40, 87, 165, 166,
170, 292, 307, 308, 309, 313,
301, 362.

Germantown, battle of:
bers and losses, 344.

Gettysburg, battle of: charge of
Pickett’s division, 120, 3503
effect of in North and South,
283; numbers and losses, 348,
350, 353.

Gilbert, Gen. Charles C.: 99.

Glasgow (Ky.): 100.

Glass’s Mill (Chickamauga) :
172.

Glenn, widow, house (Chicka-
matiga) : 172, 177, 178, 360.

Gordon, Gen. John B.: 94.

Gosney, Richard M.: 267.

Goldsborough (N. C.): 32.

Goldsborough, Commodore
Louis M.: 4r.

Grand reviews at Louisville:
97, 105.

Granger, Gen. Gordon: 199,
226, 236, 237, 238, 242; at bat-
tles of Chickamauga, 192-3;
appointed to command of 4th
corps, formed -by consolida-

num-

407

tion of 2oth and a2tst corps,
214; superseded by Gen.
Howard, 208.

Grant, Gen. Ulysses S.: listens
to Lincoln’s military plans,
26; his opinion of Stanton,
28-9; ill treatment by Hal-:
leck, 31; capture of Fort
Henry, 41; of Fort Donelson,
41; temporarily shelved by
Halleck, 45; dissatisfaction
with in North after battle of
Shiloh, 48; begins to be fa-
mous, 48; Lincoln’s friend-
ship for, 49; regret for as-
sault at Cold Harbor, 86; in-
curs displeasure of Halleck,
126; appointed to command
of Military Division of the
Mississippi, 214; underesti-
mates Thomas and Army of
the Cumberland, 233; ap-
pointed Lieut.-General, 297;
appointed _— general-in-chief,
2097; first views of Sherman’s
proposed march to the sea,
307-8; dissatisfaction with
Thomas at Nashville, 321-2;
strength of his army in Rich-
mond campaign, 337-8. See
Army of the Potomac; Rich-
mond Campaign; Shiloh;
Siege and Battles of Chatta-
nooga,

Greeley, Horace: at first fa-
vored peaceable secession, 2;
correspondence with Lincoln
on emancipation proclama-
tion, 128.

Greenbacks:
64.

Green Spring, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 346.

Grider, Col. Benjamin C.: 119.

Guilford, Ct. H., battle of:
numbers and losses, 346.

Gulf of Mexico: 306.

during the war,
408 GENERAL INDEX

Halleck, Gen. Henry W.: ap-
pointed general-in-chief, 27;
estimate of his character, 30-
34; McClellan’s opinion of,
30; his ill treatment of
Grant, 31; of Sherman, 32;
appointed to command of De-
partment of Virginia, 32; of
Department of the Mississip-
pi, 45; his advance on Cor-
inth, 46; his orders to Pope,
46; hostility to Buell, 102;
outwitted by Grant, 125;
hostility to Rosecrans, 126;
seeks to shift blame for
Rosecrans’s defeat at Chicka-
mauga on Burnside, 160; an-
swer to Rosecrans’s appeal
tor aid in Chattanooga cam-
paign, 160-1; his plans prior
to battle of Chickamauga,
165; discovers perilous situa-
tion of Army of the Cumber-
land, 166; his ignorance of
the battle of Chickamauga,
203; is instrumental in with-
holding Grant’s order for re-
moval of Thomas, 322.

nas Ford (Chickamauga) :
360.

Hampton Roads: 41.

Hancock, Columbus: 254, 265.

Hanging Rock (S. C.), battle
of: numbers and losses, 346.

Hanna, Bayless W.: 132.

Hardee, Gen. Wm. J.: 107, 110,
273.

Harlem Plains, battle of : num-
bers and losses, 344.

Harper's Weekly: 241; its in-
fluence in the war, 3-4; pre-
dictions as to coming gen-
erals, 123.

Harpeth river: 318, 310.

Harrison’s Landing: 43.

Hendricks, Thomas A.: 51.

Hermitage (Tenn.): to.

Herriot, Capt. George: 149.

Hiawassee river: 251, 266.
Higginson, Col. T. W.: 271.
Hill, Gen. Daniel H.: 161, 168,

169.
Hilton Head (S. C.): 270.
Hindman, Gen. Thomas C.:

168, 169, 187, 188, 194.

Hobkirk’s Hill, battle of : num-

bers and losses, 346.

Holt, Joseph (Judge Adv.

Gen.) : 130.

Homesickness in army: 68.
Hood, Gen. John B.: super-

sedes Johnston in command
of Army of the Tennessee,
304; relieved of command of
that army, 324. See Hood’s
Invasion of Tennessee; At-
lanta Campaign.

Hood’s Invasion of Tennessee:

Chap. XII, pp. 305-329. Jef-
ferson Davis visits Hood,
305; Hood’s movements after
surrender of Atlanta, 305;
Sherman’s plan of marching
to the sea, 305-6; Grant’s
view of it, 307-8; Thomas
left to take care of Hood,
309; Hood’s plans, 309-10;
the troops left for Thomas,
311-13; Schofield given com-
mand of troops in front, 314;'
Hood’s attempt to cut off
Schofield’s retreat to Nash-
ville, 314; narrow escape of
Schofield’s troops at Spring
Hill, 315-17; battle of Frank-
lin, 318-19; Schofield’s army
arrives at Nashville, 310;
Hood’s army also arrives,
319; authorities at Washing-
ton alarmed, 319; Grant
urges Thomas to give battle
at once, 320; impossibility of
doing so, 320; the pressure
brought to bear on Thomas,
321-2; his firmness of pur-
pose, 321; orders given to re-
GENERAL INDEX

lieve Thomas of command,
322; the battle of Nashville,
323-4; fortunate results of
victory, 326; estimate of
Thomas’s character, 326-8;
Badeau’s aspersions on
Thomas, 328.

Hooker, Gen. Joseph: 86, 127,
150, I51, 152, 153, 215, 2109,
222, 224, 226, 236, 265; su-
persedes Burnside in com-
mand of Army of the Poto-
mac, 124; -is superseded by
Meade, 125; joins Army of
the Cumberland in command
of 11th and 12th army corps,
214; the “battle among the
clouds,” 220; takes command
of 2oth corps formed by con-
solidation of 11th and 12th
corps, 208 See battles” of
Chattanooga and Chancel-
lorsville.

Hospitals: general, 67, 68;
field, 68, 332.

House Mountain (Tenn.) : 244.

Howard, Gen. Oliver O.: 86,
242; supersedes Granger in
command of 4th army corps,
265, 2098.

Howe, Capt. Eliakim: 1.

Howe, Capt. Nathan: 1.

Howe, Otis: 1.

Howe, Col. Thomas: 1.
Hubbardton, battle of:
bers and losses, 344.

Hunter, Andrew: 277, 279.

Hunter, Gen. David: 45, 271.

Hunter, Walter: 140.

Huntzinger, Lieut. Wm. H.:

317.
Hurlbut, Gen. Stephen A.:
166.

num-

Illinois, state: 65, 127, 120;
treasonable political orders
there in 1863, 130; condition

409

in 1862. 130; 100-day men
tendered by, 284.
Indiana Sanitary Commission:

7,

Indiana, state: 5, 6, 50, 53, 65,
98, 127, 129, 136, 260, 336;
early opposition in to Lin-
coln, 1; troops furnished in
Civil War, 6; effect of Lin-
coln’s first call for troops, 8;
per cent. of fighting popula-
tion in Federal armies, 8;
lack of preparation for war,
20; situation there in 1862,
50; vote of Presidential elec-
tion in 1860, 50; early hos-
tility there to prosecution of
war, 51; Confederate inva-
sion of in 1862, 52; disloyal
political orders there, 130-2;
legislature of refuses to re-
ceive Gov. Morton’s message
and t..anks Gov. Seymour for
his, 132; protests of Indiana
soldiers in the field to legis-
lature in 1863, 134; raided
by Gen. John Morgan, 135;
Indiana “Butternuts,” 136;
condition in 1863, 141; pub-
lic sentiment there in 1864,
283; 100-day troops tendered
by, 284; muster rolls pub-
lished by, 336.

Indianapolis (Ind.): 2, 6, 7, 9,
I0, 16, 51, 52, 53, 54, 97, 283.

Iowa, state: tender of 100-day
men by, 284.

Israel, John: 265.

Jackson, President Andrew:
IOr.

Jacobs, William: 155.

James river: 43.

Jamestown Ford, battle of:
numbers and losses, 346.

Jays Mill (Chickamauga) : 173,

360.
Jeleff, Frank: 149.
410

Johnson, Gen. Richard W.:
IIo.

Johnson, Dr. Samuel: 261.

Johnson Co. (Ind.): 2, 54, 132.

Johnston, Gen. Albert Sidney:
41.

Johnston, Gen. Joseph E.: 24,
32, 43, 79, 84, 167, 170, 273,
276, 207, 208; supersedes
Bragg in command of Army
of Tennessee, 297; is super-
seded by Hood, 304. See
Atlanta Campaign.

Kansas, state: 271.

Kelly, Col. Benjamin F.: 10.

Kelly a (Chickamauga) :
172, 17

Kelly fe (Chickamauga) :
178, 360.

Kenesaw Mountain (Ga.): 55,
330.

Kenesaw Mountain, battle of:
86, 95, 290, 301, 333; num-
bers and losses, 302.

Kentucky, state: 4, 40, 47, 50,
53, 100, IOI, 104, 105, 243,
310, 319, 362; invasion of by
Bragg, 52; situation there in

1862, 52; military operations.
1862, 98; march

there in
through in 1862, 104; dis-
loyal political orders there in
1863, 130.

Kettle Creek, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 345.

Kilpatrick, Gen. Judson: 311.

King, Col.: to.

Kings Mountain, battle of:
numbers and losses, 346.

Kirk, Gen. Edward N.:
117.

Knefler, Col. Frederick: 54,
97, 115, 182, 185, 228, 220.
Knights of the Golden Circle:

130, 132.
Rnewale (Tenn.) :

III,

160, 242,

GENERAL INDEX

245, 250, 251, 254, 255, 257)
265, 206, 267.
Knoxville, siege of: 242.
Knoxville Whig: 251.

ee aa 165, 166, 178,

305, 3
ie road (Chickamau-
ga): 167, 170, 171, 172, 173,

174, 176, 177, 178, 181.
Lander, Col. Frederick W.: 10

Lavergne (Tenn.): 106, 117,
122, 142.

Lawrence, Henry'C.: 241.

Lee, Maj. Pollok B.: 181, 182.

Lee, Gen. Robert E.: 84, 124,

125, 129, 150, 166, 168, 283,
304, 365, 367; views on ques-
tion of arming negroes, 277,
278, 280.

Legand Gordon’s Mill (Chick-
amauga): 169, 172, 174, 360,

363.
Lenoir Station (Tenn.): 266.
Leximgton, battle of: numbers

and losses, 343.

Light Brigade: percentage of
losses in charge at Balaklava,
350.

Lincoln, President Abraham:
election as President, 1;
passes through Indianapolis,
2; calls for troops, 2, 52;
Gov. Magoffin’s response to
call on Kentucky, 4; efforts
to familiarize himself with
military movements, 25;
Stanton’s early opinions of
and subsequent relations to,
27, 29; McClellan’s letter to,
306; issues proclamation for
special Thanksgiving in 1862,
42; clings to McClellan, 43;
his friendship for Grant, 493
his letter to Horace Greeley,
128;. issue of emancipation
proclamation, 128, 129; op-
position to of radical ele-
GENERAL INDEX

ment in Republican party,
128; opposition majorities
against in fall of 1862, 120;
writes Rosecrans a kind let-
ter, 160.

Literature in the army: 65,
253, 259, 263, 264.

Little river: 250.

Little Tennessee river:
247, 249, 250.

re st John A.:
322, :

Long island, battle of:
bers and losses, 344.
Long roll: effect of on army,

I

298, 301,

num-

IL.

Longstreet, Gen. James: 39,
76, 179, 181, 188, 193, 199,
200, 216, 242, 243, 246, 258,
266, 364.

Lookout Creek (Tenn.) : 220.

Lookout Mountain (Tenn.):
158, 162, 168, 210, 211, 212,
213, 220, 221, 222, 225, 333,
350, 357; appearance in 1899,
358, 361, 362.

Lookout Mountain, battle of:
See Chattanooga, Siege and
Battles of.

Lookout Valley (Tenn.): 212
216.
Loomis,

Loudon (Tenn) : on 266.

Louisville (Ky.): 47, 52, 53,
64, 67, 97, 98, 100, 102, 105,
137, I4I, 158.

Tying still under artillery fire:

 

Leite station (Chickamauga) :
363.

Macon (Ga.): 40.

Magoffin, Gov. Beriah: 4, 50.

Malingering in army:

Manassas, battle of:
and losses, 348.

Marlborough (Mass.) :

Mail, receiving in army: bai

numbers

246,

4II

March, the: breaking camp,
69; baggage, 70; what the
soldiers carried, 70; the
start, 71; picturesque ap-
pearance of marching col-
umn, 71; distance traveled
per day, 71; discomforts on,
72; swearing mule-drivers,
72; how monotony of march
relieved, 73; foraging, 73-4;
going into camp at night, 75;
camp-fires, 75; camping in
enemy’s country, 104.

Maryland, state: 40.

Maryville (Tenn.): 246, 254,
255, 250.

Mason, James M.: seizure of,
22,

Massachusetts, state: 271.

Meade, Gen. George: 125.

Memminger, Christopher G.:
287.

Memphis and Charleston rail-
road: 47.

Merrimac: destruction of by
Monitor, 41.
Mexican War:
losses, 241.
Militia: in the North prior to

war, 18.

Mill Spring: battle of, 41, 104.

Miller, Col. John F.: 120.

Mine explosions: 809.

Mine Run, battle of; numbers
and losses, 348.

Minix, William: 155.

Minty, Gen. Robert H. G:
172.

Missionary Ridge: 159, 210,
211, 212, 213, 217, 219, 221,
222, 226, 227, 228, 233, 234,
356, 357,. 358, 361.

Missionary Ridge: battle of.
See Chattanooga, Siege and
Battles of.

Mississippi, Department of:
creation of, 45. -

numbers and
412

Mississippi, Military Division
of: 214, 297.

Mississippi river: 41, 310.

Mississippi Valley: 50.

Missouri river: 312.

Missouri, state: 40, 271, 306,
308, 312; disloyal political
orders there in 1863, 130.

Mobile (Ala.): 160, 297.

Money during the war:
greenbacks, 64; Confederate,
64; coffee as medium of ex-
change, 64.

Monitor: destruction by of the

Merrimac, 41.

Monmouth: battle of, 344.

Montreal, battle of: numbers
and losses, 343.

Moores Creek, battle of; num-
bers and losses, 343.

Morgan, Gen. John: 6, 47, 135,
136, 160. See Morgan Raid.

Morgan Raid in Indiana and
Ohio: 6, 135, 283.

Morgantown (Tenn.): 250.

Morristown (Tenn.): 245, 258.

Morton, Gov. Oliver P.: 16,
18, 42; governor of Indiana
at outbreak of war, his sa-
gacity and energy, 5; power
as a political speaker, 6; care
for Indiana soldiers, 7; kind-
ness to Confederate prison-
ers, 7; his vigilance, 7; re-
sponse to first call for troops,
8; raising‘ and forwarding
troops in 1862, 53; legisla-
ture of 1863 refuses to re-
ceive his message, 132; passes
bill to strip Morton of mili-
tary power, 134.

Mossy Creek Station (Tenn.) :
257, 260.

Mount Vernon (Ky.): 100.

Munfordsville (Ky.): 98.

Murfreesboro (Tenn.): tot,
106, 107, 109, II0, II7, 121,
125, 136, 137. 138, 130, 156,

GENERAL INDEX

313; camp life there in 1863,
123-155.
Musgroves Mills, battle of:
numbers and losses, 340.
Musket balls: danger of being
hit by in battle, Bo.
McAfee Church (Chickamau-
ga): 173, 179, 192.
McClellan,. Gen. George B.:
succeeds Gen. Scott as gen-
eral-in-chief, 16; takes charge
of defenses at Washington,
15; his inspection of Ohio
state arsenal, 19; work of or-
ganizing the Army of the
Potomac, 20, 35; deprived of
authority as general-in-chief,
26; his despatch to Stanton,
35; his letter to Lincoln, 36;
estimate of his character, 34-
7; hostility of Stanton and
Chase, 43; Lincoln clings to,
43; the Peninsular cam-
paign, 43-4; again takes
charge of defenses at Wash-
ington, 45; distrusted by the
North, 47; superseded in
command of Army of the
Potomac by Burnside, 124.
McClernand, Gen. John A.: 45.
McClure, Alexander K.: 49.
McCook, Gen. Alexander
McD.: 99, 109, 110, 164, 165,
171, 183, 186, 198.
McCullagh, J. B.: 65.
McDowell, Gen. Irvin: 25, 44.
McFarland’s Gap  (Tenn.):
196, 210.
McGee’s Ford (Tenn.): 246;
foraging expedition to, 246-9.
oe Cove (Ga.): 166,
172 =
Medinet (Tenn.): 59, 156,
ae cPheeters, Surgeon J. G::
Me oF a: Gen. James B.:
298, 301.
GENERAL INDEX

Nashville (Tenn.) : 31, 67, 101,
102, 104, 105, 106, 107, II7,
118, 142, 156, 157, 158, 211,
214, 252, 307, 309, 311, 312,
313, 314, 319, 320, 322; camp
life there, 104, 105; mortal-
ity there, 105.

Nashville, battle of: 322-4;
importance of victory, 326;
numbers and losses, 324, 349.

Nashville turnpike (Stone’s
River) : 107, 108, 109, 112.

Negley, Gen. James S.: 186,
200.

Negro Soldiers in the Civil
War: Chap. X, pp. 268-282;
changes of sentiment in
North and South on ques-
tions of emancipation and
arming of slaves, 268; value
of slave labor to Confeder-
acy, 269; emancipation proc-
lamation, 269; opposition in
North to- enrolling negroes
in Federal armies, 270; en-
rollment of negro soldiers in
northern armies, 270-1; Fed-
eral legislation on subject,
272; early opposition in Fed-
eral armies to arming the ne-
groes, 272; vindictive feel-
ing in South against Federal
enlistment of negro troops,
272; change of sentiment in
the South on question of
arming negroes, 273; pro-
ceedings of Confederate
Army of Tennessee in 1864
on Cleburne’s memorial, 273;
objects set forth.in the me-
morial, 274-5; the memorial

suppressed by Confederate
authorities, 276; continued
agitation in the South of

auestion of arming the ne-
groes, 276; Jefferson Davis
and Gen. Lee finally become
converted to the idea, 277;

413

Confederate legislation on
subject, 278-280; defects in
legislation, 280-1; legislation
too late, 281; failure to get
negro volunteers and draft
ordered, 282; collapse of
Confederacy stops the draft,
282.

Negroes: in camp, 69; as sol-
diers, 265. See Contrabands;
Negro Soldiers.

Nelson, Gen. William: 98.

New England: 51.

New Haven, battle of:
bers and losses, 345.

New Hope Church: battle of,
86, 88, 2009.

New York City: draft riots
there in 1863, 129. ©

New York, state: 129.

New York Tribune: 65.

New Orleans (La.): 41, 271;
capture of, 4I.

Newburg (Ind.): sacking of
by Confederates, 52.

Newmarket (Tenn.): 245, 257,
258, 260.

Newtown, battle of: numbers
and losses, 345.

Newspapers in the army: 65,
260.

Nickajack Trace (Tenn.) : 162.

Night attacks: 77.

Noddles Island, battle of:
numbers and losses, 343.

Norfolk (Va.): 166.

North, The: election of Lin-
coln, 1; effect of firing on
Fort Sumter, 2; public sen-
timent in at beginning of
war, 3-4; effect of Bull Run
defeat, 15;.the cry of “On
to Richmond,” 16; apparent
that war would not blow
over in sixty days, 16; Fed-
eral government forced to
rely on volunteer armies, 17;
call for 500,000 volunteers,

num-
414

17; difficulty of equipping
men, 18; lack of munitions
of war, 18, 20; magnitude of
work of organizing armies,
20; value of McClellan’s
services in organizing, 20;
finding generals for the ar-
mies, 21; West Point offi-
cers, 21; seizure of Mason
and Slidell, 22; Seward’s
diplomacy, 22; investigation
of Ball’s Bluff disaster, 23,
24; inactivity of Army of
the Potomac, 24; resignation
of Cameron and appointment
of Stanton as Secretary of
War, 25; Lincoln as com-
mander-in-chief, 25; want of
competent head of armies,
260; character and influence
of Stanton, Halleck and Mc-
Clellan, 27-36; great success
of northern armies in early
part of 1862, 40-1; order dis-
continuing recruiting, 42;
subsequent disasters in that
year, 43-45; North becomes
distrustful of McClellan and
Buell, 47; hostility in North
to Grant, 48; Sherman
thought to be_crazy, 48, 50;

North Carolina, state:

Northwestern

GENERAL INDEX

North on question of eman-
cipation and arming negroes,
268-9; the emancipation
proclamation, 269; early op-
position in North to enroll-
ing negroes in Federal ar-
mies, 270; Federal legisla-
tion on subject, 271-2; or-
ganization of Federal negro
regiments, 271-2; number of
men in northern armies in
1864, 284; tender of 100-day
men by governors of north-
ern states, 284; public senti-
ment and resources of the
North at beginning of 1864,
284.

41, 165,
202, 293, 330, 362; Confed-
erate muster rolls published
by, 336.

Confederacy:
scheme for, SI.

Numbers and Losses: in Revo-

lutionary War, 343-7; in
War of 1812, 342; in Mexi-
can War, 341; in Civil War,
348-9. See Statistics. For
losses in particular battles,
see these titles.

Officers in battle: 82.

Ohio, army of. See Army, etc.
Ohio, Department of: 214.
Ohio river: 50, 52, 98, 135, 306,

situation in Kentucky, 50;
situation in Indiana, 50-1;

President Lincoln’s ‘call in
1862 for 300,000 volunteers,

52; Gov. Morton’s efforts to

raise Indiana’s quota, 533°

darkest period in the war,
123; dissatisfaction in 1863,
126-7; opposition to eman-
cipation and draft, 128; dis-
satisfaction of radical element
in Republican party, 128;
slavery question in, 128; op-

Ohio, state:

309, 310, 319.

52, 65, 127, 120,
136; lack of preparation for
war, 18-20; organization of
disloyal political orders, 130;
raided by Gen. John Morgan,
135; public sentiment in 1864,
283; 100-day men tendered
Y, 2

84.
position majorities in fall of Gee. Col. Emerson: 318.
1862, 129; organization of Orchard Knob (Chattanooga):
disloyal political orders, 130- 218, 210, 221, 223, 226, 357,
I; change of attitude of 361, 362.
GENERAL INDEX

Oriskany, battle of:
and losses, 344.
Oyler, Lt- Col. Samuel P.: 9,

10, 53, 54, 81, 97, 140, 195,
260.

Packard, Marcus A. O.: 133.
Pane Gen. John M.: 214,

numbers

Paoli, battle of: numbers and

losses, 344.
Parker, Maj. George W.:

Paulus Hook (N. J.), he

of: numbers and losses, 345.

Pay Day in army: 63.

Pea Ridge, battle of: 4t.

Peace at any price platform at
Chicago in 1864: 37, 283.

Pearson, Judge Richard M.:
293.

Pemberton, Gen. John C.: 125.

Peninsular Campaign: 30, 43.

Pennsylvania, state: 49, 129;
invasion of by Gen. y hese 125.

Perkins, Samucl E.:

Perryville: battle of, are num-
bers and losses, 348.

Petersburg (Va.): 166.

Petersburg: battles of, 89;
numbers and losses, 349.

Philippi (Va.): 10, 11, 12.

Philippi, battle of: 10.

Picket duty: 13, 150; ex-
changes at pickct stations, 50;
responsibility and dangers of,
62-3; courtesies between
Federal and Confederate
pickets, 94-5.

eed Mill, battle of: 86,
95, 2

Poe Meautain (Ga.) :
168.

Pikeville (Tenn.):

Pittsburg Landing. Q. Shiloh.

ee (Chickamauga) : 178,

Poe
360.

167,

“house (Chickamauga) :

415

Polk, Gen. Leonidas: 107, 1609,
170, 179, 181, 182, 275.

Pope, Gen. John: appointed to
command of Army of Vir-
ginia, 44; his extraordinary
address to, 44; appointed to
command of center of Hal-
leck’s army, 45; his pursuit
of Beauregard, 46. See Army
of Virginia; Bull Run, sec-
ond battle.

Poor Man’s Valley (Tenn.):

245.
Port Hudson: 125.
Port Royal, battle of; numbers
and losses, 345.
Porter, Gen. Fitz-John: 37.
Potomac, Army of: See Army,
etc.
Potomac river: 15, 42.
Price, Gen. Sterling: 41.
Prices in Confederacy: 287.
Princeton, battle of; numbers
and losses, 344.
Pulaski (Tenn.): 314.
Pulaski Co. (Ky.): t04.
Putnam, Gen. Israel: 10.

Quaker Hill, battle of:
bers and losses, 345.
Quebec, battle of; numbers and

losses, 343.

num-

Raccoon Mountain (Ga.): -158.

Ransom, Capt. J. S.: 238.
Rapidan river: 338.
Rappahannock river: 124, 125,

ISI.
Rations in the army: 58.
Rawlins, Gen. John A.:
Ray, Martin M.: 52.
Rebellion: first outbreak. See

Further Development of the

Great Conflict.
Rebellion records:

citation, 335.

320.

method of
416

Reconnaissance in force: 77.

Recruiting, order discontinu-
ing in 1862: 42.

Reeds bridge (Chickamauga) :

Reid, Whitelaw: 65.
Republican party: distrust of
McClellan, 37; opposition of

radical element to Lincoln, -

128.
Resaca, battle of: 299.
Revisiting Chattanooga and
Chickamauga, Chap. XV, pp.
356-367.
Revolutionary War: numbers
and losses in battles of, 343-7.
dich Man's Valley (Tenn.):

245.

Richmond (Ky.): battle of, 98.

Richmond (Va.): 16, 32, 33,
39, 43, 84, 159, 282, 295, 207,
338; evacuation of, 282;
prices there during the war,
287.

Richmond Campaign: charac-
ter of country traversed, 84;
losses in, 352. See Virginia
campaign.

Ringgold (Ga.): 165.

ne Capt. Eli F.: 361, 362,
303.

Roanoke Island: battle of, 41.

Robinson, Lieut. James I.: 143.

Rocky Face Ridge, battle of:
84, 94, 299.

Rocky Mount (S. C.), battle
of: numbers and losses, 346.

Rome (Ga.): 164.

Rosecrans, Gen. William S.:

appointed to command of.

Department of the Cumber-
' land, 101; popularity with his
soldiers, 103; incurs displeas-
ure of Halleck, 126; vain
appeals to Washington au-
thorities for aid in Chatta-
nooga campaign, 159; an-
swers of Lincoln, Stanton

GENERAL INDEX

and Halleck, 160; superseded
by Gen. Thomas, 214; kindly
feeling of soldiers of Army
of the Cumberland, 214; es-
timate of his character, 215.
See battles and campaigns of
Army of the Cumberland.
Rossville (Ga.): 173, 196, 199,
200, 202, 210, 222, 225, 362.
Rousseau, Gen. Lovell H.:

160.
Rutherford Creek (Tenn.):

315.

Rutledge (Tenn.): 245, 262.

Sanitary Commission: 67.

San Jacinto (war vessel) :

Saratoga, battle of: aa
and losses, 344. i

Savannah (Ga.): 33

Savannah, battle of: numbers
and losses, 345.

Savannah, siege of (in Rev.):
345.

Saxton, Gen. Rufus: 270.

Schofield, Gen. John M.: 257,
258, 259, 265, 298, 310, 314,
315, 317, 322.

Scotland: 261.

Scott, Gen. Winfield:

30.

Scottsville (Ky.): 100.

Secret disloyal orders in the
North: 130-1.

Seddon, James A.: 276.

15, 16,

Seeing Real War: Chap. IV,
Pp. 97-105.

Selma (Ala.) : 309.

Sequatchie Valley (Tenn.):

161, 162, 211.
Seven Days’ Battles: 43; num-
bers. and losses, 348.
Sevierville (Tenn.): 254.
Seward, William H.: 10, 22.
Seymour, Gov. Horatio: 129,
130, 133.
Shebangs: 57.
Shelbyville (Tenn.): 156.
GENERAL INDEX 417

Sheppard, Wesley T.: 191, 192,

193.

Sheridan, Gen., Phil. H.: 90,
116, 117, 185, 186, 199, 200,
214, 228, 236, 237, 238, 239,
240, 365.

Sherman, Gen. William T.:
definition of war, 14; Hal-
leck’s insulting treatment of,
32-3; early prediction of
number of soldiers required,
50; his tactics in Atlanta
campaign, 88, 300; appointed
to command of Military Di-
vision of the Mississippi,
297; plan for march to the
sea, 305-6; correspondence
on subject with Grant, 307-
8; starts on the march, 309.
See Atlanta Campaign; Bat-
tles of Chattanooga; Hood’s
oe of Tennessee; Shi-
oh.

eral and Confederate  sol-
diers during the war, 94-6,
366; dissatisfaction of north-
ern with slow prosecution of
war, 126, 156; sacrifices of
southern, 291; development
of efficiency of both Federal
and Confederate, 355; brav-
ery of those on both sides,
365, 366; early reconciliation
between those of North and
South, 366.

Somerset (Ky.) : 100, 104.
Sons of Liberty: 130, 136, 284.
South, The:

inferiority to
North in men and resources,
38; great yield of political
generals, 38; meddlesome in-
terference of Jefferson Davis
with Confederate generals,
38; change of attitude of
South on question of eman-
cipation and arming the ne-

Shiloh, battle of: 41, 103; num-
bers and losses, 348.

Sill, Gen. Joshua W.: 117.

Silver Springs (Tenn.): rot.

Six months in Camp at Mur-
freesboro: Chap. VI, pp.
123-158.

Skirmishers in battle: 78.

Skulkers: 75, 92.

Slavery question: in the North,
16, 128: views of soldiers on,

146.
Slidell, John: seizure of, 22.
Smith, Gen. Andrew J.: 45,
306, 310, 320.

groes, 268, 273; vindictive
feeling inspired by enrolling
negroes in Federal armies,
272; agitation and legislation
on enrolling negroes in Con-
federate armies, 272-282; be-
ginning of decline of Con-
federacy, 283; condition at
beginning of 1864, 284; Con-
federate financial system,
284-8; prices in the South in
1864, 287; the funding act,
288; Confederate currency,
288; condition of agricultural
regions, 288-9; destitution in
Smith, Gen. Charles F.: 31. South in 1864, 289; difficulty
Smith, Gen. Kirby: 47, 98. of raising recruits for armies,
Snodgrass Hill (Chickamau- 290; sweeping conscription

ga): 76, 186, 187, 189, 190, acts, 290, 292; difficulty of

IQI, 193, 194, 199, 201, 364. providing supplies for ar-
Snodgrass house (Chickamau- mies, 291; destructive tend-

ga)’: 187, 192, 360. ency of doctrine of seces-
Soldiers: private soldier’s prep- sion, 291; opposition in

aration for battle, 78; fra- South to martial law and im-

ternal feeling between Fed- pressment laws, 292-3; com-

27
418

plaints of military despotism,
293-4; Confederate armies in

 

1864, 296.

South Carolina, state: 40, 270,
362.

Spence, : 140.

Spottsylvania, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 348, 351.

Springfield, battle of: numbers
and losses, 345.

Spring Hill (Tenn.): 156, 310,
314, 315, 316; narrow escape
of Schofield’s army at, 310,

317.
St. Louis (Mo.): 16, 312, 320.
Standing in line of battle: 137.
See Gen. David S.: 315,

318.
Stanton, Edwin M.: succeeds
Cameron as Secretary of
War, 25; his influence in
conduct of the war, 26; es-
timate of his character, 27-
30; Grant’s opinion of, 28-9;
his treatment of Sherman,
32-3; his hostility to Mc-
Clellan, 35, 43; hostility to
Rosecrans, 126; answer to
Rosecrans’s appeal for aid,
160; his dispatch to Grant
concerning Gen. Thomas, 320.
Statistics: The Story Told by
The, Chap. XIV, pp. 335-

355-

Statistics of War: sources of
information, 335-6; number
enlisted in Federal armies,
337; number enlisted in Con-
federate armies, 337; dimen-
sions of an army of 100,000,
337; numbers killed in battle
in Federal and Confederate
armies, 338; numbers died of
disease in Federal and Con-
federate armies, 339; num-
bers of drafted men in serv-
ice, 340; proportion of regu-
lars to volunteers, 340; de-

GENERAL INDEX

sertions, 340; losses in Revo-
lutionary War, 343-7; losses
in Mexican War, 341; great-'
est loss of general officers at
battle of Franklin, 349; re-
markable percentage of losses
in Civil War, 350-1; average
percentage of losses in killed
and died of wounds, 351;
statistics of Co. I, 7oth Ind.,
35374.
Steedman, Gen. James B.: 193.
Stephens, Alexander: 293.
Stevens’s Gap (Ga.): 168, 169.
Stevenson (Ala.): 150, 213.
Stewart, Gen. Alexander P.:

273.

Stillwater, battle of: numbers
and losses, 344.

Stinnett, Lindsay: 188.

Stone, Gen. Charles P.: 23, 24,

Stone’s river: 107, 108, 109,
IIo, 116, 118, 148.

Stone’s River, Battle of: Chap.
V, pp. 106-122; 76, 77, 80;
the advance from Nashville,
106; Bragg makes stand at
Murfreesboro, 106; descrip-
tion of the battle-field, 106-7;
position of opposing lines,
107-8; Rosecrans’s and
Bragg’s plans of battle, 108-
9; faulty position of Mc-
Cook’s lines, 109; movements
of Federal army on morning
of Dec. 31, 109-10; Bragg
opens battle, 110; Johnson’s
division surprised and rout-
ed, 110; Confederate attack
on Davis’s, Sheridan’s and
Negley’s divisions, 111; new
Federal line of battle formed,
112-13; desperate fighting of
Rousseau’s,: Negley’s and
Palmer’s divisions, 113; Con-
federate assaults on the tem-
porary new line, 113-14;
Beatty’s brigade becomes
GENERAL INDEX 419

Federal right, 114; Rose-
crans’s coolness in battle,
115; the battle in the cedar
thickets, 116; formation of
permanent new line, and
Confederate assaults upon it,
116-17; results of first day’s
‘fighting, 117; the New
Year’s eve council of war
and Gen. Thomas’s ae
118; movements on Jan. 1,
118: formation of Federal
lines on Jan. 2, 118-19;
Breckinridge’s assault and
repulse on that day, 119-120;
retreat of Bragg and Fed-
eral occupation of Murfrees-
boro, 120; striking features
of battle, 121; numbers and
losses, 121-2, 348.

=r Gen. George D.:
I5I,

Stono Tae battle of: num-
bers and losses, 345.

Stony Point, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 345.
Stragglers in army: 7475.
Strawberry Plains (Tenn.):
244, 245, 249, 251, 253.
Sullivan’s Island, battle of:
numbers and losses, 343.
Summerville (Ga.): 164, 165.
Sunbury (Ga.), battle of:
numbers and losses, 345.
Surprises by hostile army: 77.
Sutlers in army: 59, 66
Sweetwater (Tenn.): 250.

Tappan, battle of: numbers

and losses, 345.

Taylor, Gen. Richard: 125.

Taylor, Lieut. 154.

Tennessee, Army of. See
Army, etc.

Tennessee, Department of: 214.

 

Tennessee river: 157, 158, 162, °

2II, 212, 217, 309, 310, 311.
Tennessee, state: 39, 47, 100,

252, 260, 307, 310, 313, 362.
See East Tennessee.
Tennessee Valley: 161, 362.
Tents: shape and = construc-
tion, 56-7.
Terrell, Adj.-Gen. William H.
H.: 336.

33

Thomas, Gen. George H.: ap-
pointed to command of right
wing of Halleck’s army, 45;
declines appointment as suc-
cessor to Buell, 99; appoint-
ed to command of center of
Army of the Cumberland,
to1; his familiarity with de-
tails, 103; succeeds Rose-
crans in command of Army
of the Cumberland, 214;
takes command of troops in
Military Division of the
Mississippi in Sherman’s ab-
sence, 309; how harassed by
Grant and Washington au-
thorities prior to battle of
Nashville, 320-2; orders di-
recting Generals Schofield
and Logan to relieve him of
command, 322; his generosity
to Grant, 327; estimate of his
character, 327-8; affection
for him of soldiers of Army
of the Cumberland, 328;
Badeau’s aspersions on his
character, 328. See Battles
and Campaigns of Army of
the Cumberland; Battles of
Mill Spring and Nashville;
Hood’s Invasion of Tennes-
see.

Three Months’ Picnic, The:
Chap. I, pp. 1-14.

Three Months’ Service: ex-
citement consequent on elec-
tion of Lincoln, 1; rumors of
secession, I; feeling in In-
diana, 1; Lincoln stops at
Indianapolis on his way to
Washington, 2; firing on
420

Fort Sumter and its effect on
the North, 2; Gov. Morton
of Indiana, 5; his efforts in
behalf of the Union cause,
5-8; the call to arms in In-
diana, 8; ratsing of the first
company in Franklin, Ind.,
Q-10; organization of 7th
Ind. Inf., 10; regiment goes
to West Virginia, 10; the
battle of Philippi, 10; inci-
dents of three months’ serv-
ice, II-12; battle of Car-
rick’s Ford, 13; the disaster
at Bull Run and its effect on
the North, 13; benefit of ex-
perience gained in the three
months’ service, 14.

Thruston, Col. Gates P.: 199.

Treason trials at Indianapolis,
Ind.: 283.

Trent affair: 22.

Trenton, battle of: numbers
and losses, 344.
Tullahoma (Tenn.): 156, 157,

162.
Tullahoma campaign: 157.
Turchin, Gen. John B.: 239.
Turenne, Marshal: 21.
Tuscumbia (Ala.): 305.

“Uncle John”: 73.
Under fire: sensation of being,

83.

Vance, Gov. Zebulon B.: 293.
Van Cleve, Gen. Horatio P.:
118, 108.
Vicksburg (Miss.) : 41, 48, 123,
125, 126, 145, 154, 150, 283.
Vicksburg, assault on: num-
bers and losses, 348.

Tire field (Chickamauga) :
176.

Virginia, Army of: 44, 45.

Virginia Campaign: 88, 8o.
See Richmond Campaign.

GENERAL INDEX

Virginia, Department of: 32.

Virginia, state: 1, 44, 165, 246,
258, 276, 279, 280, 362.

Volunteer armies: govern-
ment forced to depend on, 17.

Wade, Senator Benjamin: ap-
pointed chairman of Com-
mittee on Conduct of the
War, 22; early opposition to
Grant, 48.

Walden Ridge: 158, 161, 213.

Walker, Gen. William H. T.:
273.

War of 1812:
losses, 342.

Wartrace (Tenn.): 156. ;

Washburne, Elihu B.: friend-
ship for Grant, 40.

Washington, D. C.: 2, 12, 15,
20, 24, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 43,
45, 67, 101, 125, 157, 159, 164,
165, 214, 296, 319, 320, 322.

Washington, George: 40.

Wauhatchie (Tenn.): 216.

Waxhaws, battle of: numbers
and losses, 345.

Webster (Va.): 10, I1.

Wellington, Duke of: 171.

Ws Virginia, state: 10, 40,

5.

White Plains, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 344.

Whitemarsh, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 344.

Wildcat (Ky.): 100, 104.

Wilder, Gen. John T.: 171.

Wilderness, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 348.

Wilkes, Capt. Charles: 22.

Wilkinson turnpike (Stone’s
river) : 107, 108.

Williamsburg, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 348.

Willich, Gen. August: 110, 111,
117, 246.

numbers and
GENERAL INDEX

Wilson, Gen. James F.: 32, 33,
308, 313, 314, 315, 320.
Winchester (Tenn.): 187, 158.
Winchester, battle of: 90, 185;
numbers and losses, 349.
Wisconsin, state: tender of
100-day men by, 284.
Wise, Gen. Henry A.: 278.
Wood, Gen. Thomas J.: 183,
184, 214, 226, 237, 238, 239.

421

Wyoming Massacre: numbers
and losses, 345.

Yorktown, battle of: numbers
and losses, 346.

Youngs House, battle of: num-
bers and losses, 345.

Zollicoffer, Gen. Felix K.: 41.